His Warrior Queen: A Haikyuu!! Novel (Tsukishima x OC)

Chapter 103: Try to Remember

Tsukishima Kei was feeling frustrated, on multiple levels.

A week and a half had now passed since the mess that Karasuno's post-Nationals celebration had become.  And while Kei and Nakano were still very firmly a couple, things were not entirely right between them.

At the moment, they were walking to school together, hand in hand.  Anyone looking at the pair would have smiled and thought them a sweet couple.  Kei, however, felt only the frustration of wanting to pull his girl close to him, to wrap his arm around her shoulders and feel her arm snake around his waist - to walk together in their favorite way and feel like everything was normal again.

But everything was most decidedly not normal.  Everything felt - awkward.  Strange.  And it was making the blonde middle blocker irritated, sad and angry by turns.  His frustration with the entire situation was mounting daily, and yet, he had no idea what to do about it.  There were so many things bothering him right now, he hardly knew where to begin dealing with them all.

Volleyball practice was probably the least disturbing of all the things he had on his mind at the moment.  And yet, it was still bothering him.  The team had banded together, and was now focused on two goals: preparing themselves for the departure of the third years, and preparing Nakano to try out for the girls team in April.  Tadashi had done exactly as he said he would, and gotten the whole team involved in helping Nakano get ready for her eventual tryouts.  Even in just the last week and a half, Kei could see the change in his girl, when it came to volleyball.  The setter was definitely seeming more confident on the court, and he could tell her stamina was increasing.  He'd made a point of trying to have more frequent discussions with her about how her legs were progressing, and Nakano herself was feeling fairly confident about her prospects to be out of the braces by April, at least, for most things.  While the girl was still uncertain, Kei was absolutely positive the girls team would take her in.  They'd be insane not to, the boy thought, his eyes lingering on the setter's face as they walked, she's incredible.  Sudo-san's made no secret of the fact that she wants the girls team to surpass the boys this coming year, and she knows that Nakano will be a key part in making that a reality.  Nakano had already had several conversations with Ennoshita and Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei about making a stronger connection between the girls and boys teams - joint practices, practice games, and even co-ed training camps had all been discussed.  Assuming Nakano was accepted into the girls team, she'd be coming with a proposal for the two teams to work together on improving both team's chances of making it to Nationals next season.  With all of that in the works, even though she'll be part of a different team, we'll still get to spend a fair bit of time together playing volleyball, Kei told himself, so it's not like we're suddenly just not going to see each other at all anymore.  Sure, it'll be different, but life is all about change.  You have to try to remember that, idiot.  We have to be able to deal with change if we're going to be together for the long haul.  And not just external change either, but change in our lives and in our relationship, and even in ourselves.  Kei grimaced to himself as he repeated this same litany once again...only to still not feel very much better.  Losing their connection of being on the same team still felt daunting, especially given how the blonde was feeling about so many other aspects of their relationship right now.

Naturally, the drugging incident was still at the forefront of his concerns for Nakano.  Though she'd taken the news reasonably well the morning after, as the days had passed, the girl had become more and more withdrawn.  They'd talked about it, and Nakano had assured him that she was not at all upset with him, and yet, when they were alone, as they were now, the strawberry blonde was frequently distracted, and seemed preoccupied.  He knew she had to be thinking about what had happened.  At first, in the days following the incident, she'd asked him a ton of questions - what exactly had she done or said, how had she reacted to things, prodding him and probing his memory of the incident for minute details.  After several days of this (and Kei snapping at the girl more than once about it, despite his attempts to remember that she was the one who needed support from him), she'd simply stopped asking.  She'd largely stopped talking at all when they were together, unless he forced her into a conversation.  He was less and less willing to do so, trying hard to be understanding and give her the time and space she needed to process what had happened to her.  And so, much of their alone time was now spent in what Kei considered to be awkward silence.  And he hated it.  Silence between them had never been awkward before, and he found it to be absolutely horrid that it was now.  It was wearing on him, and he really didn't know how much more of it he would be able to take.  At the same time, however, he felt like a selfish bastard.  After all, he was not the one who'd been drugged, who'd had his memories robbed from him.  He could only speculate on how the girl was actually feeling inside as she dealt with this.  He'd gotten her to talk about it once or twice, but she had had a great deal of trouble articulating her feelings, and so Kei had simply reassured her that when she was ready to talk about it, he would be there.