The Desperate Tales of Oikawa and The Bus

| ix |

Interhigh's eve

"You know, you've been so caught up with your bus buddy you've been talking less about the Interhigh." Iwaizumi pointed out as he walked Oikawa to the bus stop.

"Hey, I've been practicing over time every day!" Oikawa pouted, though he knew deep down his best friend was right.

Oikawa had been unusually paying less attention to volleyball. It wasn't that he didn't play, no, not at all, after all he needed to stay over time every day if he wanted to see the green-eyed beauty and challenge her to chess games.

But unlike normally, volleyball wasn't his constant thought. This somewhat preoccupied Oikawa. He'd flirted with a lot of girls during his teen years, but it'd never been so important to him.

But the setter brushed it off as it being very challenging, and avoided thinking about the warm feeling he got every time he saw the girl.

Besides, he didn't even know her name, so it was obvious he was a tad curious.

"I know, and your serve's actually gotten better." Iwaizumi quickly added.

"Yeah, and you know, chess has also helped a little." The ace raised his eyebrows as Oikawa quipped. "Don't look at me like that! I'm not saying bullshit, I'm serious. Chess is a strategic game after all, so I've been able to apply some plays to volleyball."

Oikawa looked up to the dark sky, exhaling sharply. Though Chess was still a rather new thing to him, he was sure one day he'd master it and beat the beautiful girl. And then, he'd finally get her name.

"Hey, isn't that your bus?" Iwaizumi suddenly asked.

"What? Oh no, it is! See you tomorrow morning Iwa-chan!" The setter screamed making a run for it and barely making it in time.

Iwaizumi watched, amused, as Oikawa sat besides the clearly uninterested girl and took the board out of his bag. The girl's face slightly lit up, and Iwaizumi decided that maybe Oikawa wasn't as hopeless as he thought

The bus rolled away, the setter and the girl already in the middle of a heated game.

-----------------
The next day

"So, no bus buddy today?" Fudo asked as his best friend stirred on his bed and glared at him.

"It's Saturday, Fudo." She growled, scribbling some complex math formula on her notebook.

They sometimes got together to study together on Saturdays. Usually it was at her home, because her brother was often on his police shifts, but this time Fudo had insisted it'd be at his house.

Fudo was laying on the floor of his room, books and papers of endless homework sprawled around him.

"Besides, he has his volleyball tournament today. I think it's called the Interhigh or something." She shrugged as Fudo shot a confused look at her.

Lately, something had been different. She wouldn't scowl about the boy's presence anymore but simply shrug and give no comment. Was he possibly growing on her?

"So, did you take my advice and start teaching him a thing or two about chess?" Fudo asked causing the girl to freeze.

"...No." she let out after a small pause.

Truthfully, it'd been on her mind lately. She and Oikawa had been playing for two weeks and he'd considerably gotten better. He was actually able to attack while defending himself, and was starting to plan some of his next moves.

She'd never taught anyone chess though: she only every played and discussed with experts, so she wasn't sure whether this was a normal pace of growth or not.

She knew teaching him wasn't a good idea, but a teeny tiny part of her felt like it'd be fun, and that maybe deep deep deeeeep down she wanted to.

She'd tried to push out of her mind and not fret over it, but Fudo just kept mentioning the elephant in the room.

"How come?" Fudo asked shrugging, going back to his math problem.

"I just... don't know if it's a good idea." She replied, quickly finishing her physics booklets.

"What, are you scared you're going to get too close to him?" Fudo asked nonchalantly, as the girl scowled and threw a pillow at him.

"I hate when you do that." She hissed as the big shrugged.

"You hate it because you know I'm right."

And he's was right yet again. Fudo had known her long enough to be able to read her like an open book, and he was never scared to tell her the truth and put her in her place.

"Hey, don't they put some of the matches on the local news? Why don't we turn it on?" Fudo suddenly remembered, opening his laptop and looking for the new channel's website.

Though the girl didn't want to admit it, she was actually curious as to how Oikawa's team was doing during the tournament. From what he'd mentioned, his school was considered a powerhouse and he really wanted to go to Nationals.

"Ah there we go." Fudo said as the reporter's voice started resonating through the room.

"- as expected, Aoba Johsai has already cleared the first round of the tournament, winning two straight sets, and will be advancing to the second."

While she spoke, images of the team flashed on the screen.

"Which one is he?" Fudo asked.

"He's the captain, so number 1 I believe." The girl quickly looked at the players, immediately spotting Oikawa's sly grin.

Fudo paused on a picture of the team huddled together, where you could clearly see Oikawa flash a flirty smirk at the camera.

The boy raised his eyebrows.

"Well, he's quite the catch isn't he?" He said after awhile, which earned him another pillow thrown in his direction.

As the girl stared at the screen some more, she realised she'd never seen Oikawa like that before. He was usually either pouty, flirty or concentrated when she was with her - but when he played, he looked perfectly at peace in his element.

"Come on, let's get back to work, I have a feeling your bus buddy will be just fine." Fudo added, getting a third and final pillow thrown right at his head.