A/N: well…..hello? It has been quite a moment lol The only thing i can say is that school and life were killing my ass and yeah. college is great lol. but yeah, i got broken up with about two weeks ago and yeah, im over it but i have a lot more free time now lol. but i hope you guys enjoy this chapter and i hope i can start updating both this story and The Perfect Boyfriend (we get to see some of those characters here) more regularly because I really missed writing these characters. I will admit that starting this chapter was a bit awkward because it had been a while since i had written but I like to think that the chapter ended pretty well. But yes! Please enjoy!

It was never fun waking up before dawn. And that was especially true for a group of teenagers. Sugawara thought of his comfortable bed as he yawned and rubbed his eyes. He blinked a couple times to clear his bleary vision up.

"Is everyone here?" He asked Daichi. The captain and vice-captain had been tasked with making sure that everyone was accounted for before the bus left Karasuno.

"Besides Hinata and Kageyama, yes." The captain confirmed. There was a commotion from the gym and the two boys turned in that direction to see what was going on.

Emiko and Yachi seemed to be picking something up as the younger girl apologized profusely.

"I like Yachi," Daichi said. "She's sweet, hardworking, and seems to get along with everyone, especially Hinata and Kageyama."

"Yeah, she seems to be a good fit for the team," Suga agreed, his voice distant. Daichi elbowed him in the ribs and he crumpled. "Agh! What the heck was that for?"

"You and Emiko still haven't made up?"

Suga groaned. "No. And I don't really want to talk about this at this hour right where everyone could hear us."

"Fine, fine," Daichi raised his hands in surrender. "We'll definitely be talking about this later. Besides, Asahi is asleep and we can't have this conversation without him."

"Sure."

The boys finally boarded the bus after Emiko and Yachi. There was truly nothing Suga wanted more in that moment than to sit next to Emiko. To apologize and ask her if things could go back to the way they were before they argued.

At this point, he didn't care if he confessed or not, he just wanted his best friend back. Just wanted to forget about Oikawa and Suzuki. He just wanted to sit next to her and rest his head on her shoulder, letting her soothing presence calm his soul.

But, alas, that was not the way things worked. He sat a couple rows behind her and tried to not focus on staring her down. He wasn't a creep, but he did want to talk to her.

"Stare any harder and you'll burn a hole through the back of her head," Daichi whispered to him about three hours into the car drive. Suga felt his face heat up.

He really hoped that she hadn't felt his staring.

By the time Karasuno arrived to Tokyo, Emiko thought that she was going to pass away. It had taken everything in her to not turn around at look at Suga. He had the advantage of being able to look at her (she had basically felt him staring down the back of her head), but she couldn't turn at look at him. That would be way too obvious.

Kiyoko had given her several meaningful looks throughout the five hour car ride. Emiko could tell that her best friend wanted to say something but didn't because of the close proximity to the subject she no doubt wanted to talk to her. This, luckily, seemed to fly over Yachi's head.

Emiko was grateful. The girl hadn't been there to witness the close friendship and it was just one less person Emiko had to answer to. Besides the third and some of the second years, no one had directly asked her about anything. But the questioning glances from the other students had been bearing down on her.

After they arrived to Tokyo, Emiko went into manager mode, organizing everything and directing different people to take different things. She did a fair amount of scolding, especially to Tanaka and Nishinoya. She heard them gasping and yelling about the sky tree, only to be told that it was a regular steel tower.

Then there was a freakish cackle that made her whip her head up. It was Nekoma's captain, and he and another girl were absolutely losing their shit. The two second-years looked red and Daichi and Suga looked as if they were going to murder them.

Emiko picked up the last bag and started heading in the direction of the gym.

"Hey! Chibi!" Someone called out. Emiko turned to face whoever said that, eyebrow raised and annoyed expression on her face. Nekoma's captain grinned at her and the girl she had saw earlier also looked a bit confused.

"I thought I said not to call me that?" Emiko responded.

He laughed. "Ah, Saito-chan, you remember me."

"Yeah, yeah. Don't go getting a big head though, I only remember because you have exceptionally good blocking skills and you called Hinata chibi-chan."

"And here I thought it was for my exceptionally good looks."

Emiko tsked. "Yeah, no. I think that part was exceptionally unmemorable."

The girl who was standing by Kuroo's side bust out laughing. "Ha! That's a good one! I like her!"

"I feel like I'm going to regret this," he said under his breath. "I wanted to introduce the two of you. Saito Emiko, this is Inoue Akiko. Saito is one of the managers for Karasuno and Akiko is our part-time manager."

The two girls sized each other up. Akiko was tall, had high-cheekbones, shoulder-length black hair, and gorgeous grey eyes. She had a good vibe and Emiko decided immediately that she liked her.

"Please! Both of you can call me Emiko, and it's a pleasure to meet you Inoue-san," she said, smiling brightly.

"Ah," the other girl blushed. "You can call me Akiko."

"The way I see it," Kuroo said, grinning once again. "The three of us are going to be good friends."

"The way I see it, you are going to be roasted, sautéed, and flambéed," Akiko shot back.

"Please don't make me regret this, Akiko."

"Too late, nerd."

Emiko laughed, this was going to be a lot of fun.

If Suga was being completely honest, he thought that he was going to be having a lot more fun. Not that he wasn't thoroughly enjoying playing against such amazing teams, but he just wanted to win at least one set and stop those damn flying laps.

To top it off, he had seen Emiko laughing with Nekoma's captain and manager. He was jealous because he wanted to be right there next to her, basking in her laughter. Was he always such a terrible person?

Focus, Koshi. Now is not the time to get distracted or else you'll be doing another lap.

As the matches continued, everyone on Karasuno could feel what the other teams were thinking of them: They were just, normal. Not bad by any means, just normal.

It was rather a humbling experience.

In between a match, the Karasuno third years huddled up. It was the closest Suga had been to Emiko in a while, but he was too exhausted to think much of it.

"So we are losing every set," Emiko said, consulting her clipboard. "But, the margins seem to be shortening with each set."

Daichi groaned. "Ahh, but we're still losing."

"When are Kageyama and Hinata supposed to get here?" Suga asked, wiping sweat off his forehead.

"I just talked to Tanaka and he said that Saeko-san left the school about an hour and a half ago," Kiyoko replied.

"Ugh, that means they'll be here in another four hours?"

"He made it seem as if they were half-way here."

The four teenagers looked at her, shock written plainly on their faces.

"Well," Daichi said slowly. "She is Tanaka's sister."

"Yep," everyone else agreed without a moment of hesitation. No more questions were asked, because who knows what the answers would have been.

Before their next set started, Suga felt someone tap him on his shoulder. Turning around, he discovered it was Emiko, who had a water bottle outstretched.

"You're playing a lot and I don't think you've been drinking enough water," she said quietly, looking somewhat at the floor. "Make sure you intake enough fluids."

He took the bottle, but before he could say anything she walked away. Suga felt his face heat up as he stared after her. He then accidentally made eye contact with Nekoma's captain, who looked as if he was trying to put a puzzle together and had just been given another hint.

"That vice-captain of yours scares me," Kuroo remarked, leaving against the counter and chewing on something.

"Are you just here to bug us or are you going to help?" Akiko said, exasperated.

"I'm resting ding-dong," he shot back. "Not only did I play all those sets, Bokuto and I practiced after."

Akiko lowered her voice several octaves in an attempt to mimic his voice. "Look at me, I'm Nekoma's captain and I play volleyball."

"Why I-"

"Wait, Suga?" Emiko said suddenly, not really aware of what she was interrupting. She had zoned out while washing dishes and had returned to earth at that moment.

The two other teenagers in the kitchen blinked at her for several beats.

"Yeah, Suga-chan," Kuroo replied.

"Why?"

"Well, he's really an unassuming player, but damn does that make him scary. You don't know how good he is until you're really playing against him."

"Right!" Emiko smiled, eyes gleaming. "What makes him so good is how he observes the other team. He also knows how to utilize the other players on our team and he knows his own weaknesses well enough to use other people to cover his weak points. You, know we won that set against Aoba Johsai largely in thanks to Suga. We swapped Kageyama out for him and he really brought equilibrium back to the team. And then we put Kageyama back in and damn, when we get that switch perfected it will be awesome!"

Emiko suddenly realized how much she had said. Akiko looked slightly confused as to why they were talking about Karasuno's vice-captain and Kuroo was grinning as if he had proven something.

"That's right," he said. "By the way, I really thought that the two of you would be dating by now, how come you aren't even speaking?"

Emiko felt as if someone had set her face on fire. "Ah, well, you see."

Kuroo arched an eyebrow, as if saying 'Please, tell me more' and Akiko looked ever more confused. Emiko knew that cat-like captain wasn't going to let her escape without an explanation so she told them the whole story.

"Why, that jerk!" Akiko raged after she was done.

"He's really not a bad guy!" Emiko protested. "I think we were both wrong in the situation and just haven't found a way to apologize to each other yet."

"Hmm," Kuroo seemed to be thinking about something. "This is quite interesting. Like I told you back during Golden Week, I still think that the two of you would make a great couple. Would you mind if I talked to him about this? We were chatting earlier about something else and I agree, he's really a good dude."

"Go ahead, I'm really willing to try anything to get us back to normal," Emiko sighed, wilting slightly.

Suga dried his hair, yawning. He was so stinking tired. After brushing his teeth and whatnot, he flopped down on his futon, finally ready to go to sleep. He turned to his side and almost died. Daichi was staring at him expectantly, propped up on one elbow.

"Daichi!" Suga gasped. "You scared the living daylights out of me!"

"I told you we were going to talk. It's only us three now."

Asahi, who was on Suga's other side, sat up and leaned forward.

"Please don't ever say that like that again. It's really creepy," Suga shivered. "But what is it that you wanted to talk about so badly that you almost killed me?"

"You still haven't made up with Emiko?"

He groaned. Oh boy, this was his favorite subject of all.

"It's been a while since the fight," Asahi said quietly. "It's kinda concerning how long the two of you have gone on like this."

"Yes, not only do the two of you very obviously have feelings for each other – we're not going to talk about this right now – but you're also like, best friends." Daichi fell on his back.

"I don't know what you guys want me to say," Suga whispered. "I think we both said things we regret, but I will take most of the blame for the fight. And then I wanted to fix things but Suzuki kept getting in the way."

"Suga-" Daichi began.

"I know, I know," he laughed bitterly. "I know that that isn't an excuse for letting it continue this far but I really don't know how to approach her. I mean, does she even still want to be friends with me? Maybe she doesn't care anymore."

"She cares," his two friends said at the same time.

"Emiko-chan was looking at you almost all day," Asahi said. "You couldn't tell if you weren't paying attention, but at least I could tell that she was watching you."

"It's true," Daichi agreed. "But yeah. Suga, you gotta try and fix this or else it might get past the point of no return."

"Yeah, I know."

But that was easier said than done, wasn't it?

A/N: I hope you all enjoyed! Like i said, i felt i had gotten back into my ~groove~ By the time i reached the end of this chapter and i hope to be updating more consistently now (lets just hope life doesn't throw me more curve balls xD). but please leave a comment/review/critique/suggestion/etc.! They always make my day and are really appreciated!