Haikyuu!! Tobio's Girl. Timeskip

Timeskip 8

In the first days of December, autumn weather finally caught up with this sunny country. Piercing wind and cold rain made going out a particularly unpleasant affair, but Tobio wasn't bothered the slightest by it. He had a stocked fridge, hours of video materials to go through, and no reason to go outside. A blissful, lazy afternoon. And the best thing was...

"Wow, it's the fourth time he tooled a triple block this set. That guy's insane!" Reina was so impressed by the action on the screen that she lifted up her head from his lap.

"You know that we will need to figure out how to stop him a week from now?"

"I bet you can't wait." She smiled and leaned back on him, submitting to his soft caress.

A perfect, blissful afternoon. Why can't it be a normal, everyday thing? Why can't we just live together? He shrugged internally. It is what it is. It's better to enjoy it than grieve about what it could be. He shifted his focus back to the TV. "How?! Did you see that emergency set? How did he... It went the whole length of the court. Hey, are you watching?" Lacking a comment from Reina, he looked at her. She was checking her phone. "Do you want me to rewind it for you?" He asked through his teeth.

"What?" She looked at him, distracted, then her eyes went back to the phone. "Yeah, sure. But wait a moment. Eri sent me something."

He waited... impatiently... for her to read the message. How come these two, whether they were at arm's length or thousands of kilometers apart, would talk about everything, all the time? A moment, however, didn't make Reina focus back on the match. Instead, she started to laugh like a crazy person. Tobio always thought that the expression "die of laughter" didn't make any sense, but he was actually concerned for Reina now. She was laughing so hard that she fell off the couch and had trouble breathing.

"Reina, what the hell?" At those words, she calmed down a bit, but when she looked at him, another fit of laughter seized her. "What is going on?!"

It took three more minutes and a glass of water to calm her chuckles enough for her to speak. "I need to tell you this... hi, hi, hi, I guess, as you're involved... How to start... mmm... mh... hm... Remember when Eri came to visit me 2 weeks ago? There was that trend then, on social media, that Kuroo-san started... Or was it Alisa? You know, with people randomly taking pics holding a volleyball..."

"Was there something like that?"

"Anyway... Eri wanted to post one as well. But in style. So, when we went to see your match, we got a ball from your manager and I took her picture with your team warming up in the background."

"Ok. So?" He still didn't understand the reason for her life-threatening amusement.

"Apparently... ha, ha, ha... some people on the Internet, your fans or her followers, who knows, started to read more into it. Because they dug up that you both went to Karasuno. And this wild theory was formed, that you two are a couple, and she's the one that was helping you film your content."

"What?" Tobio looked at Reina so dumbstruck that she started cackling again and snapped his photo, probably to send it to her bestie. "That's ridiculously... ridiculous."

He never had heard a dumber idea in his life. He thought of Yoshida the same he thought of Yachi, Shimizu-senpai, his sister, or any other girl, except Reina, that he interacted with. That is a fellow human being. If there was any emotion that Yoshida inspired in him, it was that of slight intimidation. He heard from other guys that he was not the only one intimidated by her. But the reasons they gave seemed so weird to him: that she was a self-aware beauty; fierce; outspoken; doing whatever the hell she wanted and being successful at it; letting no one's, especially no man's, shitty opinion put her down. Both his mom and sister were kind of like that too, so all of that was normal to him. No... he was wary of Eri Yoshida for another reason. She was Reina's best friend for as long as he knew them both. So every time he would mess up badly enough for Reina to seek advice, it was Yoshida she would go to. But because Yoshida, understandably, didn't have the same fondness for him that Reina had, she would judge him more harshly. He couldn't tell how many times he would attempt to greet her with a friendly "hello" only to get an "I know what you did and you suck" glare in return.