Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
☆
The ride back home the next morning was filled with much less talk than the ride to Shizuoka City. Everyone was preoccupied with their phones or too tired to interact. Of course, you stuck to your earbuds routine and listening to music.
Into the car ride, since you spent most of your time awake, you realized maybe a 2-hour train ride would be better than a 4-hour car ride. Even though there would be more people it would've likely been a bullet train.
However, this was also the free option.
The only problem was that Himari had no problem tapping your shoulder while you were at the best part of your favorite song. All to show you a video on her phone.
"Look they posted the video yesterday and look at the number of likes!" she exclaims while shoving her phone into your face. You had just taken your earbuds out and turned to face her phone.
Still confused at what it was she was showing you, your eyes narrowed at the screen which displayed a video of two kittens. "Cute but what am I supposed to be looking at?" you question sending a confused glance her way.
Himari mirrored your confusion looked at her phone screen and sighed out loud. "Wrong video," she tells you while pulling the correct video back up.
This time you see members of the MSBY volleyball team in the interview video. Everything seemed to be just like you remembered it so you looked at the like count and your eyes widened. "2.2 Million likes on an interview video!?" you gasp out loud not taking your eyes off of the number.
That was until Himari pulled her phone back to herself. "Yeah but let me show you why," now she's smiling from ear to ear and scrolling fast.
She quickly hands you the phone and the comment section is pulled up. "Read them," she encourages you as you grab the phone from her. So you do, and wow.
chatnoirpleasesaveus WOAH WHO IS NUMBER 15????? SMASH [1,839 replies] 5,003 likes teyana 🔥 yoooo if he doesn't look at me the way number 15 looked at whoever the hell was behind the screen?? i don't want him [20.5k replies] 124k likes user63916490 NOOOOO msby is going mainstream and western bc of this😭😭😭 TAKE THIS DOWN [63 replies] 21k likes m___young13 please just one chance sakusa kiyoomi. ONE!! [425 replies] 32.1k likes selina.jones oomf reposted this on twitter and I can't get enough of number 15🤗 msbyvfx NEW FANS INCOMING NOOOOOO msbyvfx THE SAKUSA EDIT was right above this!! ijbol😭 —————————————————————————— You had read enough comments and handed the phone back to Himari. "People love Sakusa, that's not a shocker," you say casually preparing to put your earbuds back in. "Sure, but I'd bet you a million dollars right now that he was staring at you," she cooed while waving an accusing finger at you.
You stay silent but your eyes dart around the car to see if anyone else was tuned into the conversation. Luckily the rest of the people in the car—men. Were too invested in their phones "Y/n come on, did you even see the way he was staring at you in this?"
The woman holds the phone back up to you and it's a different video. The way it starts reminds you of that one you saw that schoolgirl watch on the train. That felt like it was so long ago but you remembered vividly.
There was music over the video too and it just slowed down clips of the way Sakusa stared at you. The clips were on best and it was an interesting watch but what was even more interesting was the like count. 1.5 Million likes.
"How....why?" you mumble under your breath. The clip plays again and you actually do notice it.
The way Sakusa started at you—from this perspective if you hadn't known he was speaking to you. You'd think he was in love with whoever he was speaking to. He was focused on you as his eyes didn't shift away once. It was weird how in the moment his gaze didn't seem as intense as it did in the video.
But you knew he wasn't in love with you so you and everyone else had to be overreacting. You could come up with a million excuses for that state to defend Sakusa. Yet you stayed silent and handed the phone back to Himari one last time.
"It's not that serious," you dismissed finally putting your earbuds back in. However, instead of unpausing your music, you opened Twitter. Which you hadn't touched in ages but still had on your phone.
You didn't even have to tap the search button to pull up the trending page. The first tweet to grace the top of your timeline was one posted by 'JapanCrave' a pop culture page.
The tweet had read something along the lines of, "MSBY's own Sakusa Kiyoomi (also played for the National Team) has a rumored girlfriend. So many signs are pointing to the same mystery girl from previous articles. Read more on our site." with a link to their website.
That was it. You had enough at this point.
You closed the app and removed it from your phone along with Instagram. You had no red for social media anyways but seeing so much of this stuff was irking you. Even though it was about you, that honestly made it worse.
You wanted to avoid the public eye because the spotlight was never for you. That was the exact reason you didn't want anyone to know you worked for Ayaka. Even when the NDA you'd signed expired. There would be attention on you even more if they found out you inherited her belongings and money.
