𝐌𝐫. 𝐄𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐫 || 𝑨𝒌𝒂𝒔𝒉𝒊 𝑺𝒆𝒊𝒋𝒖𝒓𝒐 (discontinued)

𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐩𝐭. 𝐈𝐈

"Wah! That was a great match! Don't you think so, Nao!" Tomiju grins. "Hm? Oh, yeah it's fine, I guess." I shrug. "Fine? What do you mean? That's gotta be one of the best plays!" She lays back in to her seat while the others just sighed at her. "Tomiju, you've never been really interested in volleyball up until now right? You haven't even watched a single video on a volleyball match." I looked at her. "Yeah?" She looks back at me. "If you think this play was awesome, I wonder what you'll think when we get to the finals." I sighed. "Finals? You think we'll make it? Is the match going to be super awesome?" She goes to the edge of her seat with sparkles in her eyes. "Think? Tomiju, the school you go to is one of the best high school volleyball powerhouses in Japan. I know we'll make it to the finals." I firmly reply. "...woah." Was all she said.

-'♥'-

As time pass by, it's already the end of the day. Tomorrow, is the day I'm excited for. Not because it's the day I get to play, but because it's the day we get to see Karasuno High vs Inarizaki High.

"Yo, Nao! I thought about what you said yesterday and I watched the finals from last year, and you're right!" Tomiju smiled. "Sorry? What were you saying?" I took out my earphone. "Nothing." She sighed.

We sat in our seats in the bus and drove to the gymnasium for day 2.

-'♥'-

Today's the day. It's our first match of the day and for nationals. From what I'm seeing beside me, Tomiju is extremely nervous. "Tomiju calm down. If you need to calm your nerves, it's fine. We still have to wait anyways." I tapped on her shoulder. "If you haven't calmed down by then, you can sit on the bench while we warm up. Although if you want to play from the first quarter, I guess I could show off some skill to calm you down." I opened the window as I patted her back. "Thank you, Nao." She smiled at me. "No problem, but if you vomit right now, I won't be comforting you any time soon." I looked at her with a disgusted face. "Don't worry, I may be nervous but I won't vomit." She lays back into her seat and closes her eyes.

-'♥'-

"Tomiju, wake up." I slap the blue haired woman. "Ow! Why'd ya do that?" She says, looking at me offended while holding her cheek. "Oh, sorry. I thought I didn't put much force into that.." I apologized. "Alright you two, stop whatever your doing and get off the damn bus. I don't want us to be late on our first match." Captain shakes her head.

We get off of the bus and went to the locker room that we were assigned to. "Woah, so this is what the locker room here in nationals look like." Wakasa looks around the room. "This is how it always looks like. Nothing special about it." Shizue places her bag into one of the lockers. "Everybody, please gather 'round." Our coach speaks. "Nekoma's girl's volleyball team is our first obstacle, as you all know that Nekoma is known for their exceptional defense." Our coach starts the plan against Nekoma's perfect defense.

-'♥'-

"That's all. If this game ends up exhausting you all, you should be thankful that we only have one game today." Our coach sighs. "Itachiyama Girl's Volleyball Team, please go to area b to start warming up." An announcer spoke into the speaker. "Well? Don't just stand there and stare into the speaker! Get moving!" Coach opened the door.

We walked towards area b and we were overwhelmed by the lights and the amount of people watching. "Nao, could you maybe show off, like, now?" Tomiju and Wakasa held onto my shoulder with shaky hands. "Later, we still need to put down our bags." I said, removing their hands from my shoulders and walking over to the bench.

"Woah! Look! It's Itachiyama's Volleyball Teams!" An audience yells. I glanced to the other courts and saw the boys' warming up. "Itachiyama? You mean the team that has won the nationals since it's founding?" Another spectator said. 'Wow, we sound like the Rakuzan of volleyball.' I thought, stretching my limbs so I could start warming up.

"Nao, could you start showing off now? I'm starting to feel nauseas.." Tomiju hold onto me. "Alright, alright. I'm only doing it because I heard our opponents talking crap about us." I rolled my eyes.

"Emi, could you toss to me? Those two need me to show off now." I walked over to our 2nd year setter. "Huh? Why would they need you to show off?" She asks, looking at me with confusion. "It's like the warm up during finals with Shiratorizawa vs Karasuno. Once their monster duo started showing off their monster combo the rest of their team started to calm down." I said as I walked into place. "Seems reasonable." Emi shrugs. "No it doesn't." I tilted my head. "Ready?" She asked, getting ready to toss the ball. "Yup." I reply.

"Ow.." I hissed. "Your fault, you hut the ball too hard." Emi walks away. "Oi!" I looked at her, annoyed at her reply.

"Thank you, Nao! You really saved us a trip to the bathroom!" Both Wakasa and Tomiju placed a hand on my shoulder and a thumbs up with their other hand. I shoved their hand off and walked away. "You done with warm up?" Coach looks up from his planning board. "Yeah." I reply, taking my phone from my bag to text someone. "You only did a spike though?" He raises a brow. "The games about to start, I can't warm up while the games about to start. Especially since I'm in the starting line-up." I replied, zipping up my bag.

Once the announcer has said that the game has begun, we all focused on our opponents next moved after our server does her serve. 'I hope my muscles won't be sore after this. Well, it probably won't since we'll be doing an after-game warm-up.' I thought whilst focusing on the game.

-'♥'-

It's been an hour since the start of the game. We're on the second quarter and I really want it end. Not because I'm on the verge of dying, but because I might lose some teammates to exhaustion. "How.. do you still have.. stamina?" Wakasa asks in between her breaths. "Runs in the family I guess." I drank my cold drink. "But, I'm still human, you know? Maybe if we get into another quarter, maybe by then I'll be tired. Who know's?" I shrugged at them. "You're a monster." Our captain chuckles. "If you mean that in volleyball, then thank you. If you mean that as an insult, no I'm not." I reply as I crouched down to my teammates' level.

-'♥'-

As the game went on, we unfortunately had a third quarter. Luckily, we ended it early.

"Well, girls, good job on the first day. We officially have our first win of the year!" Our coach clapped for us. "Thank you, coach." We bowed in-front of him. "Alright, line-up." He says, shooing us away from the bench.

-'♥'-

"Good game." A sentence that was repeated over and over again while shaking hands with our opponent.

After that, we went to our locker room to get dressed and go to our seats up in the audience. "That was such an epic game!" Wakasa twirled around while we walked to the entrance for the seats. "Thank goodness we finished the game before the Karasuno vs Inarizaki match starts." Shizue sighed. "I'm also looking forward to the game." I looked around to see if there was any available seats.

"Heh, you can look forward to a video of it because you'll be sitting next to Akashi." Tomiju whispers, teasing my small feelings for the red haired male. "Tomiju." I glared at her, which soon disappeared when I saw Rakuzan sitting next to the seats I had pointed out to. "Oh! Itachiyama girls! Good game back there!" Nebuya complimented. "Thank you." Akamine-san smiled at Rakuzan's center.

"I think you should sit next to Akashi-kun, Nao." Wakasa nudged me. 'I don't have a choice do I?' I internally groaned.

"Are you tired?" He asked me. "Yeah, I'am." I nodded, looking forward instead of looking at his... handsome face. "If you want, you could sleep on my shoulder. I'll give a recording of the match." He offers, still looking at me. 'Crap, I think I will watch the game in a video..' I furrowed my eyebrows. "Thank you, Akashi-kun." I smiled at him. "It's no problem. Call me Akashi, you can drop the honorifics. We're friends now right?" He smiled back. 'His smile..' I looked at his lips for a split second then looked back up. "Yeah." I reply, laying my head on his shoulder. "Thanks, Akashi." I thanked before I dozed off.

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Hi!! Sorry for not updating. I was stuck with school. Anyways, Akashi and Naomi finally has had a interaction!! Congratulations author who made this extremely slow burn ff :)

-Z.