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

Chapter 112: Let's Get Down to It

Kei and Nakano were snuggled together in the back seat of Akiteru's car as they headed towards the beach.  The young lady in question was sleeping, her head nestled against Tsukki's shoulder, his arm wrapped around her protectively.  Tsukishima was looking out the window, and thinking.  

The past four months had flown by in a blur.  So much had happened, and Kei felt as though he still had not yet really had the chance to process it all.  It felt good to be getting away for a bit.  The two teens were headed for the beach house vacation week that Nakano's father had gotten her for her birthday the previous year, and Kei was really hoping this would be a great chance for them to just forget about everything and unwind for a while.  He was also well aware, given the guest list for the week, that volleyball would still be front and center, and therefore, this might also be a chance for the girl to work out some things that had been stressing her out for a while.

In the weeks that had followed the girl's team tryouts, Nakano had settled, somewhat reluctantly, into her roles as setter, vice captain, and honestly, de facto coach.  The blonde could tell that his beautiful girlfriend was still uneasy about her multifaceted position, even after all this time.  Even though she excelled in all three of her roles.  At Sudo's insistence, Nakano had gotten to work immediately, establishing a training regimen for the girls nearly identical to the one she had created for the boys the previous year, with regular weekday drills on fundamentals, and weekend time devoted to individual training.  Ennoshita and Sudo had decided that Sunday would be a day off for both teams, which allowed the couple to have some dedicated time together.  It was working out decently well thus far, and that had eased some of the stress that Kei had been feeling, at least.

The lead up to Golden Week had been a bit of a mess.  Naturally, Coach Ukai and Takeda-sensei had assumed that the girls team would be joining them, and Nakano had recommended such to Sudo early on, knowing that the intensive week of training would do a lot to get the girls team up to speed and prepare them for the coming Interhigh Prelims.  There was only one problem.

The faculty advisor for the girls team was an older woman by the name of Nakamura Kenzo.  Her interest in volleyball was basically non-existent.  And she made it abundantly clear that she had absolutely no intention of wasting her entire vacation sleeping at the school so a bunch of stupid girls could run around making eyes at the boys team while pretending to practice.  "Karasuno's Girls' Volleyball is a waste of time, and that's precisely how I like it," the woman had said when Sudo had made her request.  No amount of pleading from Sudo and Nakano seemed to have had any effect at all.  

Sudo had been frustrated.  Nakano had been furious.  The strawberry blonde had come crashing into the boys gym late one Thursday afternoon, agitated and angry and muttering under her breath about idiot teachers who didn't take their club responsibilities seriously.  Takeda took notice immediately, drawing the girl aside and getting the whole story.  And that was how Ennoshita, Tanaka, Sudo and Nakano had ended up in the Vice Principal's office the following week, trying to secure permission for the girls team to do the Golden Week training camp even without the participation of their faculty advisor.

At first, the Vice Principal had seemed exceedingly reluctant to give permission for the Golden Week camp to become a co-ed event.  Ennoshita spoke passionately about the necessity for the teams to have this kind of intensive experience to hone their skills.  Tanaka declared that under no circumstances would anything untoward be allowed to happen to the girls, as both Takeda-sensei and Coach Ukai had agreed to remain on site and keep an eye on everything.  Sudo declared her intention to bring girls volleyball up to the standard of the boys team at a minimum, and that her ultimate goal was to surpass them.  

"And how exactly do you intend to do that, young lady?" the Vice Principal had asked, his skepticism clear in his voice, "especially without the aid of your faculty advisor and no coach..."