Over the next couple weeks, the third years made regular stops at Kitsuna's to study. She had picked up more shifts after nationals, so they were more often there without her. On top of the extra work, she was now in charge of opening and closing up the girls' club room despite being on the boys' team. She was starting to struggle in practice, with tons of bandages on her fingers and hands.

"Yeah, makes sense. So I just need to-oh sorry. Hang on," Kitsuna sat her phone down. She was in the middle of cutting up some surplus crops she had gotten from the Ukais. Most of it was being chopped up to be frozen for later, but some she was tossing into a sort of stew on the stove.

"Oh! I almost forgot, sorry. Gimme a minute," she opened the door to three familiar faces. She shut it and they could hear her footsteps echoing further in. There was a crash, and a loud exclamation to the right, then the footsteps returned to the door and pulled it fully open. Kitsuna was standing there in some shorts and a tank top, with an apron tied loosely over her clothes.

"Sorry, come on," she rushed back before they could even react. She was back on the phone, holding it with her shoulder while she worked on the carrots. The boys glanced at her but she was fully engrossed in her tasks in the kitchen.

"I guess that's where the bandaids are from," Asahi spoke up first about something everyone was wondering for a while. They watched for a few more minutes as she scuttled around the kitchen and chatted on the phone.

"Eh? Yeah, there's people over. 'S fine though. Oh, okay. Yeah, just text me the rest if you have time. Thanks," she put the phone down and finished bagging the cut veggies, which were promptly tossed into the freezer. For whatever she was cooking, she brought it to a boil then lowered the temperature after checking a message. She then plopped down on the sofa, picking at the now dirty bandages and removing them.

"Man, whatever you're making smells really good," Suga blurted out. Kitsuna finished with the bandages and got up to toss them, unwrapping a lollipop as she sat back down.

"Hm? You can try some when it's done if you want," she pulled off the apron next and draped it over the back of the couch.

"Snacks before you finish making dinner?," Daichi pointed out something he picked up as a bad habit of hers lately. She nearly always had a sucker stick hanging out of her mouth, except during practice itself when she was moving around a ton.

"It's a trick to help with quitting sm-uh, other habits," she grumbled. That might have been the most shocking change they had seen so far with her. Aside from her poorly hidden habit and terrible cover ups, she was genuinely trying to shake the habit for good. She got another text and tapped away at her phone with a terse look.

"Who is that, anyway?," Daichi pointed to her phone. She was usually glued to the screen with a game or something, but just now she had been in the middle of what seemed like a long phone call with someone. An extremely casual one as well, from her comfortable tone.

"Miya…Osamu," she started to answer without thinking, then realized her error way too late to correct it. Her face contorted into a strained sort of look, as a range of expressions were directed straight at her just then.

"Hm?," Suga glared at her, and she looked the other way while clenching her jaw.

"He's apparently pretty good at cooking. I've been asking your mom, too, but she's somehow way more harsh in the kitchen. She gets mad when I mess up cutting stuff up, too," Kitsuna pouted as she gave her explanation.

"Doesn't Yachi cook? I bet she could help out," Asahi tried to break up the tension hanging around but chose probably the worst way to do it.

"She has a long way to get home, and I don't really have anywhere for someone to stay the night," Kitsuna came back with an oddly solid argument.

"Jealousy doesn't look good on you," Daichi finally stepped in to get Suga to stop glaring and start focusing on his studies.

They finally got on track, settling in and checking over things with each other. Kitsuna got up a few times to check on the food, and kept leaning over them and peeking at their textbooks or notes. She was getting fidgety and curious. Finally someone surrendered a notebook for her to read through. Suga stole glances to his right, where she had sat down as soon as she received the notes. He saw several cuts, some newer than others, across her fingers and even one or two burns on the sides of her hands. There were little tics in her nails as well, and lines through the chipped polish. She really was working hard, that was obvious. Though there were some drawbacks, like her fumbling passes harder in practice probably from the pain when the ball hit those marks.

"Are you still mad or something?," Kitsuna gave him a dirty look, catching him staring again. Asahi and Daichi snickered at that, also having caught Suga's wandering focus.

"I'm not! I wasn't mad!," he denied it twice, and a little too strongly. Kitsuna's eyes narrowed but she didn't press him on it. An alarm went off on her phone, and she tossed her reading material onto the center of the table and rushed back into the kitchen.

"She's kinda scary sometimes," Daichi said quietly enough that she couldn't hear.

"Huh?," Asahi and Suga both looked at him with blank faces. He chuckled to himself and looked back at his notes.

"She seems wild and carefree to a fault, but she's actually pretty dependable at times too. Yui probably would've made her captain if she was on their team," he stated all that as an obvious fact. He was right, all of that was pretty obvious once they thought about it. She was wild, and kept her appearance that way as well. She was too trusting in a lot of situations, and untrusting in others. Pushy, loud, and always sneaking off to do her own thing. But she never faltered during games, filing in wherever she was needed and while not perfect she definitely had the skills to handle almost any position. She helped out in other ways as well, covering slack when one manager was gone. Watching younger siblings when their own brothers were busy with practice. Then there was everything she did for them while at nationals.

"Here. I was gonna use this for lunches for the week, so I can't let you have a bunch of it," she slid three small bowls onto the table while they were all lost in thought and retreated to the kitchen again. Packing the lunches she mentioned and putting the dishes in the sink with some warm water. The three boys happily ate the food they were given, and were taken by surprise yet again. She cooked for the store, that was well known by now, but this cooking was somehow on a different level than that.

"Wow!"

"That's good!"

"Man, thinking about those stuffed buns after practice is gonna be even more dangerous now," Daichi gave the most praise.

Kitsuna nodded from the kitchen and went deep into thought for a moment. She collected the extra dishes and stacked them in the stew pot before returning to the couch. The boys got right back to it, with renewed energy. They lost track of time for a while, until something thudded on the floor. A phone, from Kitsuna's hand. She had fallen asleep there on the couch, and they decided that was a good time to pack up. Daichi left the other two at the door, disappearing around the corner and returning with a blanket that he pulled over the sleeping girl. He had a soft smile on his face as he rejoined them, one that the other two couldn't help but mirror.

"She really is working hard so we don't worry," he said mostly to himself. The others nodded as they left for the night, glad that the weather would be warming up soon. Glad, and somewhat saddened.