WILDFLOWER [Ryunosuke Tanaka x OC]

Chapter 2 - The Messenger

❀

After the club meeting, Kano Abe didn't have time to rest.

Drenched in sweat, she whipped her water bottle into her bag with her court shoes and waved to the girls, racing from the gym and into the melting afternoon twilight. Karasuno seemed deserted, but the squeak of shoes as she bolted past Gym 2 reminded her that the boys were still practicing.

In her street shoes, the black rubber rain boots from that morning, Kano ran the handful of miles from Karasuno to Chidoriyama Junior High - hardly noticing the untamed rural scenery or the elongating evening shadows or the neighborly passers-by - where Kano's personal troop of hormonal teenage idiots waited outside on a bench.

"Kanooo," Yasuo (the middle) sang, brightening up at the sight of his big sister rounding the border wall. He stood first, with his brothers distractedly following suit. Yukio and Yoshi bent their heads over Yoshi's gray Nintendo Switch, which he'd somehow snuck to school in his backpack, but they both waved to Kano without looking. The glow of some game lit their identical faces, colors flickering in the mirror of their eyes.

Rolling his eyes at his preoccupied brothers, Yasuo turned his attention on Kano. "Onii-san, I'm hungryyy," he complained, leaning on Kano as she stumbled close and caught her breath.

She ruffled his dark, spiked-up hair and chuckled dryly, sending herself into a coughing fit. Gripping her knees for stability, she tried to find air that agreed with her again. Shouldn't have sprinted the whole way, huh?

Her choking drew attention from the two distracted siblings. "You okay, sis?" Yukio (the youngest) asked, glancing up from the video game with concern in his dark eyes.

Finally, her lungs stopped bitching, and she straightened up a bit. "Peachy," Kano gasped, glancing up to jerk her head toward home. "What's for dinner, nerds?"

At the mention of food, the triplets swarmed her and launched into a tornado of conversation, arguing about whether pizza rolls or taquitos were superior, microwave mochi or instant rice, even melon pan or red bean buns. They were nearly home when Kano put a stop to the nonsense. "Listen, you'll be eating from the trash if you don't settle on something," she said, fishing her keys from the side pocket of her backpack, "And I made eggs this morning, so it'll be a tremendously stinky boy."

"Ewww," they groaned in unison, gaping and frowning at their prospects.

Yoshi, the quietest of the bunch and the eldest, finally cut in with a tentative suggestion. "Pizza?"

Kano had to admit, pizza sounded low maintenance and delicious. "Boys? Thoughts?"

"Don't forget the black olives!" Yasuo screeched, racing past to charge up the apartment complex steps toward the house.

Yukio sprinted after him, his shoulder-length black hair whipping away from his face in the breeze. "And jalapenos!"

Alone in the parking lot, Yoshi and Kano continued toward the house with a communal sigh. "They can have their own pizza," she decided with a lazy wave of her hand. Peeking down at her most introverted brother, she looped an arm around his shoulders and leaned her head on his. "Pineapple and pepperoni for us?"

He nodded. "You know me so well, onii-san."

❀

"Did you guys hear the news?"

Early the next morning during a water break, the entirety of the Karasuno boys' volleyball club sat around on the laminate wood floor of the gym, waiting for the other shoe to drop.