𝗔 𝗚𝗨𝗜𝗗𝗘 𝗢𝗡 𝗛𝗢𝗪 𝗧𝗢 𝗕𝗘 𝗔𝗡 𝗔𝗥𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗜𝗦𝗧 [ ᴀɴᴅ ɴᴏᴛ ɢᴇᴛ ᴄᴀᴜɢʜᴛ ]

darling ໒( ᓀ ‸ ᓂ )७

"Who the hell cuts their hair like that?" was Tsukumo Alina's initial impression of Shirabu Kenjiro.

Unfortunately for her, the guy with the horribly-cut bangs overheard her.

"Who allowed such a short person be a middle blocker?" he retaliated right back.

"What the hell did I just walk into?" Taichi wondered as he found himself being dragged in the middle of all this. Quite literally, too. He was standing dead centre between the two. Front row seats, right?

"Tsukumo!" their coach called over to the middle blocker. "Come over here, please!"

Alina nodded, running over to where her team was meeting without questioning the morals of that strange hair style choice of that boy, 'How did that even happen...? I don't get it.'

Tsukumo Alina, a first-year that was guaranteed her spot on the starting order even as a first-year, came from the Shiratorizawa Junior Academy... and her first thought of her future boyfriend was that he was 100% a jerk.

And she was not wrong.

As for Shirabu Kenjiro, he was... well, doubtful at first. How did she get an athletic scholarship at her height? Did she even reach 160cm? Okay, maybe that was a bit rude, now that he went over that, but still... Basically, he was very untrusting of her at first.

"Tsukumo, Shirabu, the two of you will be working on the project together," their teacher reported, not looking up from his paper.

"Who?" they both thought at the same time until they realized they said it out loud... and then stared at each other for a bit.

When the classmates separated themselves into their groups, Alina was the first to walk over to his desk that sat across of the classroom.

"Oh, it's Mr. Terrible Bangs," Alina's greeting came off... strange.

"You seem like the slacker." Shirabu deadpanned.

"Excuse me?"

"It's the feeling I'm getting about you." He elaborated. "Just because you're on an athletic scholarship, that doesn't mean the rest of us in this class are."

Alina tsked, crossing her arms, "Just for your information, I've worked very hard and nor am a slacker. I have decent grades, thank you very much."

"That so?" Shirabu took out his notebook to get started. "Let's work."

"Right," Alina pulled up a chair to his desk, sitting directly in front of him.

That was the first record of Alina and Shirabu's interaction. No volleyball was present during the conversation as the two of them worked together for the next week. One of those working sessions, they were in the library. At this point, they finished almost everything except for putting everything together on a PowerPoint.

While they were doing that at the library, Alina decided to... interrupt their silence for a bit.

"So... you play setter for the boys' volleyball team, huh?" Alina decided to start up a conversation.

"Why are we making small talk?" he questioned.

"You're in my year, we're in the same class, and we're both friends with that Kawanishi," Alina listed. "Might as well."

Shirabu nodded, "Yeah, I am. You're the middle blocker, despite your height."

"Hey, I think you can stop mentioning my height, thanks," Alina rolled her eyes. "Care to tell me about the history of your bangs?"