Haikyuu Various! X Male! Reader

26. The Brain

(K so this is two manga chapters in one cuz they were both super short by themselves)

Your eyes widen as Inuoka's fingertips skim across the ball.

"Nyarrrrrr!! Dang it!!" He yells.

The score was currently 14 to 11 for Karasuno. You glanced at Hinata. Inuoka seemed to be catching up to Hinata pretty quickly.

"After their time out, Nekoma has kept their blockers all bunched on one side." Takanoue says.

"Yeah," Shimada replies. "Are they trying a stack block?"

Inuoka thought back to what Kenma said.

"When Shoyo is in the front row, everyone blocking should try clustering over to the right. From what I can see, it looks like he's just running straight to a spot where there isn't a blocker. Their other hitters adjust their run ups to avoid where he goes. So if we shift everybody over to one side, Shoyo should start running straight to the other side. After that, it's just a matter of our middle blocker chasing him down one on one. That's gonna be you more often than not, Inuoka. Good luck."

"Yessir!"

"Everybody else can probably just ignore Shoyo and concentrate on their other hitters."

"Got it!"

Coach Nekomata laughs. "That's a sound plan, thought I doubt there are that many players who could keep up with number ten even if they tried."

"Inuoka-kun is really quick for a guy his size though!" Shibayama says.

"But he is utterly useless in any play that requires thought. However, give him one simple task he can concentrate on..."

Hinata ran up to the net, jumping sideways. Inuoka quickly moves, jumping up into the air.

"...and then he will shine."

The ball skims his fingers again. Yaku bumps the ball up into the air. Kenma stares at the ball blankly, jumping and raising his arms for a set, only to do a setter dump.

The game continued on. Kageyama called for the ball, getting Noya to bump it up for him. He spikes a line shot, yelling at Hinata to do different spikes when he hits the ball. While this was happening, you had walked over to the Nekoma side just for a change of view. In a regular game this would probably be against the rules, but it was only a practice game.

"Wow! Karasuno has an amazing setter!" Shibayama says.

"Yep, Kageyama's pretty talented," you say.

"Yeah," Nekomata chuckles.

"Our Kozume-san isn't very flashy, but he's good to!" Shibayama defends, grinning up at your tall form.

Your heart twinged. This was adorable... he was standing up and he was only a little bit taller than Nekomata, who was sitting down. (I kid you not the whole time I was reading the chapter I was squealing because of how cute Shibayama is like ksjfjdbfjdjfhdnd I'm deceased)

"Cute," you mumble, patting his head.

"Yep," Nekomata says, confusing you for a second. "Poor at handling other people and very aware of their eyes on him... he has developed observational skills. He is exceptionally good at anticipating others. He can quickly figure out what sort of person someone is and from there deduce how they'll act. However," he grins darkly. "He isn't our team's true strength.