Genius (Kageyama Tobio)

1

The caramel blonde grinned up at her new school, walking among the crowds of students alongside her new friend, Yachi Hitoka. 

"Hey, Hitoka. What class are you in?" Noriko asked, her hair bouncing as she turned to look at the shy girl.

"U-u-umm, I'm in class 1-5." Hitoka stuttered, her face flushing bright red.

"Ooh, nice! You're smart, then! Unfortunately, since I spent all my free time playing volleyball instead of studying in middle school, I'm only in class 3. Sucks we're not in the same class together." Noriko frowned, having looked forward to having a friend in her class.

"Oh! You play volleyball?" Hitoka asked, her shy shell beginning to fade.

"Yeah, I did. Not anymore, though. It means I'll have more time to study this year, and that way I can get into a good university." Although Noriko was smiling, there was a hint of pain in her expression. After all, her entire life, all of her friendships, had revolved around volleyball, so it was natural to fear her life without it.

"I'm sorry." 

Yachi wanted to ask if it had anything to do with the knee brace and wrist guard the other girl was wearing, but then anxiously fretted that she would offend her and scare away her only friend.

"Don't worry about it."

"You know, maybe you could be the manager of the team if they don't have one yet." Yachi froze, waving her hands in front of her desperately as if to take back her words. "I-I mean, not that you have to, i-it's just, I thought, maybe-"

Noriko interrupted her with a quiet laugh. "That's a good idea, Hitoka. Thanks."

Yachi breathed a sigh of relief, rubbing the back of her neck. "Y-you're welcome."

The two parted ways as they went to their classes and Noriko took a seat at the front of the class, pulling out her notebook and supplies. A novel was open in her lap as she waited for the class to start.

Meanwhile, at the back of the class, a black-haired boy was staring at her through narrowed eyes. Kageyama could've sworn it was Hirose, the girl who had consistently joined the boys practice at Kitagawa first and thrown sleepovers for all the volleyball team members, male and female, when they won a game. But that didn't make sense — Hirose was the top all rounder in the prefecture for women, and he knew for a fact that she had been scouted by Niiyama with a scholarship. There was no way she would have ended up at Karasuno; he wasn't even sure whether they had a girls team or not.

In his analysis, staring a hole in her head, the homeroom teacher started taking attendance and had to call Kageyama's name twice before he answered, but she still didn't look up from her book until her own name was called.

When the girl finally turned to her deskmate to introduce herself during a small group exercise, Kageyama felt the blood leave his face and some type of anger fill his mind. It was her. Somehow, she'd thrown away all her talent to come to a school like this.

Noriko was oblivious to the boy glaring at her from across the room and happily introduced herself to the girl next to her, a brunette named Momo. 

The conversation was pleasant, if forced, and Noriko was grateful for the exercise that gave them a topic of conversation. Though Momo seemed sweet, the two of them just didn't click naturally.

"Don't I know you from somewhere? I swear I've seen your face before." Momo wondered, scrutinizing her desk mate's face with no success.

Noriko smiled awkwardly. "I guess I just have that type of face." That was a blatant lie. Noriko knew how Momo could know her face, and Noriko didn't particularly want any of that to come out.

"I guess." Momo acquiesced, turning back to the exercise. "Do you know how to do this?"

Noriko nodded, explaining what the English sentence translated to.

When the school day was over, Noriko felt a sigh of relief escape her and she immediately left the classroom, hurrying to her locker so she could put her textbooks away and only focus on deciding whether she would take Yachi's advice and join the club as a manager.

After deciding to just head home, she found her feet carrying her towards the gym. I only want to look. I won't go in.

As she looked through the open doors, she saw someone she hadn't expected. Kageyama Tobio was in the middle of a jump serve, and she didn't notice her mouth was open in awe, her eyes wide. He looked like he was flying, and the harsh bang of the ball against the floor made her desperate to try to receive one of them. She subconsciously rotated her wrist gently, wincing at how tense it was after a day of writing.

Kageyama then caught sight of the girl and glared at her, marching over. Noriko hesitantly stepped through the door.

"What are you doing here, Hirose?" Kageyama demanded, his blue eyes flashing.

"I could ask the same of you. How come you're not at a powerhouse?" Noriko asked curiously.

"I'm not the one who got a scholarship. You're supposed to be at Niiyama." Kageyama snapped, his intense gaze making Noriko take a step back.

"Things came up." Noriko offered helplessly, feeling her own eyes tearing up and begging the tears away.

"Things came up? That's no excuse for giving up on volleyball, you idiot!" Kageyama raged.

Noriko's brown eyes flashed angrily. "As if I would ever willingly give up on volleyball! You know I would never do that, you jerk!"

"What excuse do you have then?! I don't see any reason for you to give up!" Kageyama growled.

Noriko steeled her expression. "This type of attitude is why they called you the King."

That ended the conversation and Noriko was the first to walk away, taking a seat on the bench and purposefully avoiding eye contact with the fuming boy, who returned to practicing his jump serve, until he was interrupted by a short, ginger boy he immediately started arguing with.

Noriko shook her head, absent-mindedly massaging her wrist until, finally, members of the actual team showed up, while the two boys were still fighting. She waited still, and the troublemaker boys had somehow knocked the Vice Principal's toupee off his head. Any other day, Noriko would've laughed heartily, but she'd taken Kageyama's words to heart like a knife and was still dwelling on their argument.

The caramel blonde wasn't noticed until the two boys were kicked out of the gym.

"Woah! Who's the pretty girl?"