Of Cats and Crows (Sugawara Koushi)

Death Week

It was freezing cold out. The forecast had been predicting snow for the last week, but none had fallen yet. Mitsumi pinned the front sections of her hair back as she sat in the warmth of Dr. Tanaguchi's office. Her hands had finally defrosted and were in a workable state. She had been camping out in the office until the green room was unlocked.

"Mitsumi, treat this like you do one of your volleyball games. You know what you are doing, and you are amazing at it." Dr. Tanaguchi encouraged her anxious student. She always did a final listening of her students' pieces the day of the recital to clean up any last-minute details. Although, she used the time to praise them for their hard work. "You performed insanely well at the midterm jury. So, you'll do even more amazing things tonight."

Mitsumi nodded and pried a bobby pin open with her teeth. She took a deep breath in. "Thanks for everything this semester." She smiled gently, "It really means a lot."

"Hey, you're stuck with me for the next four years. There's more to come." She winked playfully, "Here." The professor reached behind her and tossed her student a can of her favorite soda. "You deserve it."

The can of Dr. Pepper made Mitsumi's eyes glow in excitement. It was her holy grail to pull through the day. "You are the best!" She beamed, "I was going to go pick one up after this." She chuckled with an embarrassed expression.

"Well, you just saved yourself 200 yen." The professor smiled in return. She looked out the window and sighed. "Where are you off to? It'd be bad for your hands to get too cold walking around."

Mitsumi let out a bit of a laugh. "Geez, Mom, I'm just going home so I can get ready for the recital. I was excused from afternoon practice. So, I actually have time to rest properly and steam my dress for tonight." She pulled her coat on and readjusted her scarf. She then pulled her black wool and fleece-lined gloves out of her coat pocket and yanked them over her hands.

"Let's get some coffee and I'll take you home." Dr. Tanaguchi snorted a bit. "I have some footage for you from last night." She had a bit of a glint in her eyes.

...

So there she was, held "hostage" by her sporadic professor. Mitsumi was grateful to finally have a hot beverage in her system. Her piano mother had paid for her massive cup of hot chocolate. There were apparently a lot of things they had to chat about.

"So, National Training Camp AND the National Tournament?" Dr. Tanaguchi broke a piece off of her chocolate chip cookie. "You're really all over the place."

Mitsumi sighed heavily. "Dr. Ito told you." She stirred her drink with a spoon. "But yeah, I'll be traveling a lot. But, I swear it's all been approved already!" She was suddenly getting defensive.

"I just wanted to say congrats." Tanaguchi shrugged, "If I was worried about your academics, then I would have mentioned it a long time ago. Dr. Ito included. I wanted to show you this." She pulled her phone out and pulled up a video.

It was the usual Thursday night games. But, Mitsumi didn't go last night so she could attend her dress rehearsal. The video looked like everyone had played a full match. Kimi had called for a set and started running for the ball. She jumped and hit it over Takuma and Kuroo who were blocking. Mei had gone sliding across the floor to make the dig but barely missed it.

"Nice kill, Kimi!" Mitsumi had a proud grin on her face. "Look at how much she improved! She made it over our two best blockers!"

"She's been learning how to spike from Shimura and Bokuto. Kimi is trying to become as well-rounded as possible before her tryouts." Dr. Tanaguchi's eyes sparkled like the proud mom she was. "And look at her grow so much!"