Chapter Two

"Reluctant Neighbors."

From Jo's Playlist: Nicholas Sparks by Kinda Collective

Jo stayed at Coach Nekomata's side for the rest of the practice. The conversation they shared was polite and to the point. He asked the basic questions she had grown all too accustomed to as the foreigner:

Any siblings?

One older brother and his wife. They have a little girl.

What does your mother do?

She's a physical therapist lecturing at one of the local colleges and sees patients at the hospital on her off days.

What class are you in?

The college preparatory one, with the other seniors.

What do you plan to study in university?

Jo paused at this one. In the beginning, when she was just a freshman, she would confidently say that she wanted to be a nurse practitioner. But now she wasn't so sure. "Something in health care. Maybe nursing." She said, though uncertain. Since moving so much in the past few years, college had been put on the backburner. She kept her eyes on what was in front of her, not on the horizon. Just make it through today and let tomorrow worry itself out. The future was far too unpredictable in Jo's constantly moving life.

Kuroo jumped for a spike, his knees bent back and arm pulled like a bowstring. He struck the ball hard and fell awkwardly, stumbling to the side before rightening himself.

Jo straightened her slouched shoulders, snapping her attention to his sheepish face as he waved off concerned comments of his teammates.

"Do you know first-aid?" Nekomata asked, taking notice of her narrowed eyes.

Kuroo shifted his weight back and forth, as if testing his ankles. "I do." She had been certified as soon as she had been old enough.

Nekomata hummed in approval. "We might use you as a medic. This group is rather injured prone," he sounded irritated, like a parent talking about their clumsy child.

Evening sun began to pool across the court's wood, making it reflect painfully into the player's eyes. It was growing late, Jo realized.

Worried, she crouched and rummaged through her bag. Pulling out her cellphone, her heart leapt into her throat at the various messages her dad had sent half an hour ago. Shooting him an apology, she straightened and turned to the coach.

"I apologize, but I'm afraid I have to go," she bowed hastily, turning to leave.

Nekomata glanced at his watch. His white brows lowered and he muttered softly. "It is late. I'll see you tomorrow, Jo," he said then blew sharply on his whistle, signaling the end of practice.

Jo paused, an argument rising in her throat. She pushed it down and strode for the door. She could just try it out, she told herself as she slipped on her shoes. She could back out at any time school got to be too much or she was tired of it. She wasn't the manager, just an observer.

Jo's father was waiting for her at the concrete entrance to the school. He raised a brow at her and she rushed a quick apology. She was rarely late when it came to meeting her parents. They walked to the train station in idle chatter and she soaked in the area around her.

He was pleased when he heard she will be helping with the volleyball club, saying with a wink, that if any boy gave her trouble he would gladly bury their body.

She laughed, but knew his joke held truth in it.

Jo's father was a big man. He was much taller than the average American male, standing at a firm 6'3 and with biceps the size of her head. His brown hair, a trait he passed to Jo, was trimmed short and neat. His eyes were a startling pale blue that would narrow when he was thinking. Everything about him screamed military. From the crisp perfection of his black slacks to the shine of his shoes to the way he held his back perfectly straight.

The two stopped at the grocery store near their new home. The paper list was small in Jo's father's hand and she laughed quietly to herself. She idly complained about the difficulty of her classes and how she was going to struggle through the Japanese literature class.

"You're an intelligent girl," her dad said as he inspected a bundle of deep green parsley. "I'm sure you can figure it out,"

Irritation spiked in Jo's chest. "Someone from the highschool back in America said he would help,"

Her dad turned to her in question, bagging the head of lettuce he found and approved.

Jo scanned the isle for the nuts that were scrawled on the list in her mother's neat handwriting. "Titus Williams," she clarified. "His mom works for the embassy too."

"I remember now," her dad said, heading for the next aisle.

"What department does she work for?"

"Something in FSS, I'm not quite sure. I don't think they have horseradish here," he said, brow crinkling. "I'm going to go ask, keep looking for what's left on the list." He disappeared to the front of the little store, asking the worker in broken Japanese if they had any horseradish.

They did not, in fact, carry horseradish. But they did get the rest of the items on the list, much to Jo's relief. Her mother would not be happy without the radish, but would be content with what they could find.

Louis Armstrong floated through the open windows of the home as Jo and her father walked up the narrow pathway to the equally narrow house. Dusk had fallen half an hour ago and Jo shivered against the chill. Pinpricks made her thighs bumpy. She was eager to hop in a warm shower and change into sweatpants.

Jo's mom was bustling in the kitchen in a hurry to get food on the table, singing along to the raspy voice of Louis Armstrong. She still wore her work uniform: black slacks and a white button down. She must have taught today. The hems of the slacks pooled around her feet as she slid around the kitchen in her socks.

Jo's father grabbed the plastic bag in Jo's hand. "I'll help your mom, you go get changed." It was as if he could read just how uncomfortable she was in her school uniform- which he could. From the slightest change in vocal tone or slump of the shoulders, John Olsen knew when something was off.

It made lying impossible. Jo had learned that at a very young age.

Slipping up the stairs in her socked feet, she flung her bag on her made bed and dug in her drawers in search of sweats. She found them a moment later and turned to close her window shade she left open and froze.

Just a stone throw's away, so close that if she leaned out of the window her fingers could brush the other house, was Kuroo.

Of course they were neighbors.

The window was open to allow the cool April evening air in. He was sitting at a desk with black rimmed glasses perched on his nose, chin in one hand and pencil in the other. As if feeling Jo's stare, he glanced over his glasses. His eyes widened in recognition and he looked up fully. They stayed frozen for a long moment, Jo clutching her sweatpants to her chest and Kuroo with his palm still open for his chin.

Then, Kuroo's lips pulled back in a grin. But it was different than this morning. Softer. Not as harsh.

Jo sat on foot of the bed, pulling her feet under her and she pushed up her own window. A chill rushed over her cheeks and nose. The soft thrum of music playing in his room danced to her ears. "Fancy seeing you here," she said, trying not to sound as panicked as she felt.

It wasn't as if she didn't like the boy, she had no feelings of anything toward him. But she had planned her home to be her chance to be away from the new-ness of being in Japan. For it to be her haven. To escape the different feel of it all.

As much as Jo wanted to be alone, she wasn't going to be rude.

"I saw that someone had moved into the house," Kuroo said, pushing a button on his speaker. The music quieted, leaving the brassy trumpet of Louis Armstrong to fill the space. "But I didn't think it would be you,"

Her finger tips played with a string on the hem of her pants. "Don't worry, I'll only bother you about literature class." She offered a timid grin. Even though she would rather not have anyone from school be her window neighbor, she was glad it was someone she knew. And someone intelligent.

He rested his chin back in his palm. His fingers curled around the narrow lines of his face. "And what's in it for me?"

"I can help you with chemistry," she said hopefully. In truth, she didn't have anything to offer.

He flashed her that cheeky smile, all softness gone. "I'm afraid chemistry is my strongest subject,"

She rested her temple on the edge of the window frame. "I'm afraid I don't have much to offer then."

He tapped the pencil eraser against his lips, eyes studying the ceiling. Jo took his moment of thought to look at him, really looked at him. She noticed his eyes were a soft shade of brown, almost honey like, and were rounder under the lenses of the glasses. His hair, which was unbearably messy (her father would have a heart attack) appeared as though it had been slept on and poorly brushed before being given up on. Faint lines crossed down on either side of his mouth - presumably from smiling so much.

He was a smudge of black and browns with precise, thin lines carving his features and hands. Even the curve of his shoulders were narrow, despite his chest being broad.

Ah, now she understood why some of the girls in class were giving her looks when they walked to practice together. He was handsome.

He pointed his pencil at her forehead and Jo snapped out of her thoughts. "Be our team manager," he said.

Jo rolled her eyes skyward. This again.

"I agreed to help out," she said, studying the shingles of the roof. "Might not want to push me too hard. You don't want to scare me off," she finished in a light tone.

He shrugged his shoulders. There was a stray thread on the collar of his black shirt, she noticed, before looking away again, studying the overgrown garden below. "You have to at least strongly consider it," he said, "or else you'll have to find someone else help you with literature and calculous,"

Jo snapped her eyes to him, thinning her lips and a line creasing between her brows. "How did you know I needed help in calc?"

He tilted his head, tapping his pencil to his temple. "I'm team captain for a reason." When she frowned he laughed sharply, making her flinch again. "You looked absolutely shocked when the teacher began lecturing this afternoon. As though someone had offended you," his ever present grin krept on his face.

Jo pulled at the string on her sweatpant pants, not surprised he noticed but still curious he had. "Well, I'll be at practice tomorrow, so you guys will have that going for you. Your coach didn't exactly give me much of a choice. But, I'm going to have to leave early on Wednesday," she didn't know why she was telling him this but it slipped from her lips regardless.

He raised a thin brow. "Surely it can't be for homework, the semester has only begun,"

Her restless fingers moved to her brown hair, playing with the split ends. "Wednesday's the beginning of Passover. Mom will kill me if I'm not home on time for Seder,"

Kuroo's brows lowered and his lips pressed together in thought. He flapped his pencil side to side in the air and Jo let him muse. Her friends in Rome were able to piece it together after a few moments and she was curious if he could do the same. To her, it was almost like a little game to see what was considered normal for other people.

When a minute passed with nothing but Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong singing about dancing cheek to cheek, she gently filled in the gaps.

"My mom's Jewish," she said softly.

A light sparked behind Kuroo's eyes and he scratched the back of his neck with his pencil eraser. "Ah, that makes sense,"

An awkward silence fell between the two. Jo began to split a few healthy strands of hair with her thumb nail and Kuroo looked down at his homework, suddenly interested in the problem.

Jo had prepared herself for the usual bombardment of questions that came with the knowledge of her mother being Jewish but Kuroo didn't press. She could tell by the odd slump of his shoulders and the constant tap tap tap of his pencil against his left cheekbone that he was curious, but he didn't ask.

And she was both grateful and disappointed. Her heritage was something that was complicated but one she was proud of nonetheless. She longed to share it with someone who might understand, or at least be interested.

Matteo had been somewhat intrigued when she first told him. He would ask questions over coffee occasionally and respected her limitations to certain foods (though she broke the rule many times, she prayed her mother won't ever find out). However, he didn't participate in any of the holidays her family would celebrate, saying that his Catholic parents were not comfortable with it and that he wanted to respect them.

It had cut Jo deeper than she let on. He would be guilty about it, though, or at least appeared to be. She tried to take comfort in that.

"Josephine!" Her mother called.

Jo's eyes widened in horror at the sound of her mother climbing the stairs and calling her by her complete first name.

That impish grin spread across Kuroo's face slowly. It melted into a far more polite and endearing one as Jo's mother walked into her room.

Now Jo was panicking for a different reason other than Kuroo knowing her first name. She was talking to her neighbor through her window. A neighbor that was a boy.

She had to tread carefully now, for she was on choppy waters.

"Mom," she tried to smile and not appear guilty, even though she had done nothing wrong.

Her mother's deep brown eyes flicked from Kuroo to Jo. Her hands lifted to rest on her narrow hips and she shifted her weight onto one foot. Her brow arched in a silent who is this?

Jo waved her hand in Kuroo's direction. "This is Tetsuro Kuroo. We're in the same class. He's going to help me with Japanese literature." She waited for her mother's response.

To his advantage, Kuroo inclined his head and gave her mother an award winning smile. "Your daughter said she would help me in chemistry and has agreed to help out with the volleyball team,"

Pride overtook her mother's face in a knowing smile.

Smart, capable, invincible Josaphine Olsen. The wonder girl of this family who will make up for the mistakes of her older brother.

The weight of family pride on her shoulders, just like the sky on Atlas's.

Her mother bit her bottom lip and almost said something, but seemingly changed her mind. "Dinner's ready. Get changed and come down. Goodnight, Tetsuro," she nodded to him through the open window. She gave Jo a look that read, Get ready now, and shut the door behind her.

Jo released the breath she didn't realize she was holding. Her fingers had already resumed their picking. This time digging around the flesh of her thumbnail. "Thank you," she said, not fully facing Kuroo.

Kuroo's easygoing smile shifted down. "Well, what I said was true." She tilted her head to the side in question, finally meeting his steady gaze. "Chemistry isn't going to be easy this semester, I'll still need help. And you are helping out with the volleyball team. See?"

Jo allowed a small quirk of her lips. "I suppose you're right. I'll see you in the morning, Tetsuro." She enjoyed the irritation that crossed his face.

"Tomorrow, Josephine." He said ruefully.

And with that, Jo pulled her window down and shut the blinds, effectively hiding herself from the bright city outside.

AN: I hope you enjoyed another look. Please let me know what you think! :)