Fly

It was a normal day for Akemi so far, granted she had only just gotten to her school gates but normally she would have been bombarded with questions and ultimately just be annoyed by the volleyball team’s fangirls. If Akemi didn’t love volleyball so much she wouldn’t have even thought to have applied to have been the manager, she wanted to avoid the annoying screams full stop, but alas she has always had a deep love for the game and applied to be the manager in her first year at Itachiyama and straight away got in when the coaches saw her passion for volleyball.

People often ask her why she didn’t apply for the female team if she was that passionate about it. And she is ashamed to admit it but even with all of her knowledge she isn’t actually that good at it. Yeah she can do the basics but it would not be good enough to make it onto the team. It makes her laugh in her head every time someone asks her that because they have their expectations of her and she just doesn’t follow them. But obviously she doesn’t say that to them so her excuse is that she just purely doesn’t want to, which is a good reason if she was honest with you.

So she thought that the fangirls would give her a break today but just as she walked through the gate she heard a faint shriek in the distance. Looking over she spotted a couple of the girls running in her direction with excited faces staring directly at her. Not having enough time to get away she becomes encircled by them and they all look at her with expectant faces. A sigh was the only thing that came out of Akemi’s mouth before she walked into the school building and away from all the expectant fangirls and towards her first class of the day.

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

When the bell rang for lunch everyone tried to get out of the classroom as quick as possible, all besides Akemi who was slowly arranging all of her stationary so that she didn’t get trampled in the mass of people. So when everyone had left she got her lunch out of her bag and walked out of the classroom and down the hallways, missing the cafeteria.

She walked outside to the edge of the gym to see one of her team-mates already sitting there eating, a bottle of hand sanitizer next to him. She sat down next to him, making sure to keep her distance from him, and put on some of the hand sanitizer before starting to silently tuck into her food. They sat there in silence before there was no food left and there was a wet wipe in front of her face, courtesy of the male sitting next to her.

A smile took over her face at the common action and took it with a quick thank you before wiping everything down. They stood up and started to walk into the gym. The doors squeaked open as she pushed it aside and they walked in already placing their stuff onto the floor near the door and heading straight to the back room to grab the volleyballs.

They started practicing as they still have thirty minutes left of their lunch, and what’s wrong with trying to get a bit of extra practice in. The snack of the ball as it hit his hand was the only thing that could be heard before the squeak of his shoes landing followed. The hits were all on point and the tosses she gave to him were perfectly aligned with his hand, a sign of working together for a year already, so much so that they didn’t even say a word when they were packing things away. The only words that were spoken was when they had to separate to go back to their classes for the day.

“Bye.”

“See you later, Sakusa.”

⚝──⭒─⭑─⭒──⚝

The rest of the day was a drag for her as she was struggling to pay attention to what was being taught. Her mind was only full with one thing, volleyball. So as the bell went she shoved everything into her bag and dashed towards the gymnasium. On her way she saw some of the other Volleyball team members doing the same as her and they all greeted each other with waves and smiles while running together.

The gym doors already happened to be open so when they all slowed down and calmly walked into the gym Komori and Sakusa were there, Komori setting everything up while Sakusa was cleaning his hands. Everyone but Akemi went into the changing rooms to put on their gym gear while she headed towards Sakusa who had already pulled out a wet wipe for her.

As one of the only people Sakusa let near him she tried to respect his boundaries by whenever she is near him she makes sure that everything she has is clean and also whenever she is in public places, like shopping centers, she always wears a mask so that it gives Sakusa some peace in his mind.

Their practice got underway as soon as the rest of the team got out of the changing room. The coach turned around and decided that they were going to be doing spikes that day. As the boys got on and practiced their spikes Akemi decided that she was going to try and help them by trying to convince the teacher in charge to get a team from the local area to play against them.

So she headed out of the gym and headed straight towards the staff room.

“Sensei, I would like to request that if possible you could set up a practice game with a nearby team, I think it will really help the team”, was what she used to try and convince the teacher, little did she know that they were already going to do that for them

“Of course I have, there is one prepared for next week, go and tell the boys so they can prepare for it”, was what the teacher said before Akemi beamed and ran back to the gym.

The first practice game of the year.