Lemon Tea

Are you looking for something?

Over a month had passed since your spontaneous trip to the convenience store and you hadn't seen Ukai since. Well technically you had seen him, catching short glimpses of him with Takeda in the stairwell or outside the gym while you were walking past a window, but you doubted he'd seen you.

When you first met him, you wanted to become a regular customer of the store, be either some sort of mysterious stranger to him or a customer he could shoot the breeze with, but if you did so now it would..feel so forced. Like you were trying to corner him at his place of work. Maybe you could muster the courage after his time as temporary coach, so if things went south you had no chance of running into him again.

It wasn't that you liked him, it was more curiosity. Sure he was more attractive than you cared to admit, but more than that you found his blunt, casual attitude to be intriguing and wanted to get to know him better, maybe even be friends. You could use some more of those. The problem was you had no reason to interact with him, no excuse to fall back on to make up for your lack of confidence.

A couple days later and you were sitting at your desk, fine tuning your lesson plan for the following week.

Out of the corner of your eye you saw motion, assuming someone had walked by, but after it happened again you looked over to see Ukai in his red track suit peeking his head into the room, obviously feeling out of place. You felt a rush of excitement to see your new colleague again. You got up but it seems that he'd given up and walked away, but you peeked your head out of the room just in case.

Ukai's POV~

"Damn work has been boring lately," Ukai thought to himself, lighting a cigarette.

He was used to the long hours and sparse flow of customers, but the days seemed to be dragging on more than usual. Especially compared to his new fast paced work as the Karasuno volleyball coach.

He exhaled, expelling a puff of smoke, trying to focus on his magazine. No luck. It wasn't just that it was boring. He felt restless, expectant even, that someone would walk in to buy a drink or something.

That teacher from before briefly popped into his mind, and he chuckled at the thought of their previous conversation. He caught himself, rolling his eyes at his own behavior. "Heh. Yeah right." he said out loud. He'd seen her once or twice in the halls but he knew she hadn't seen him, her eyes never once strayed from what was in front of her. He stood up from the counter, stretchinng with a tired grunt, then changed his clothes for practice.

"Hm, no Takeda yet," he thought upon entering the gym, the team was already there and antsy to start playing.

"Maybe he has a meeting today? I need to get the address of the inter high tournament for Makoto and Yusuke before I forget." he thought to himself.

"Hey! I'm going to look for Takeda real quick, do your usual warm up routine!" he yelled to the team. "Ok!" they yelled back in unison.

He felt weird being in the school alone, without Takeda he stuck out like a sore thumb. He'd b-lined it for the teacher prep room, but when he peeked in he didn't spot him at all.

"Guess I'll just ask him later," he thought, leaning against the wall outside the room when someone whipped their head out.

"Are you looking for something?" a familiar voice said, startling him away from his thoughts.

"Uh-" he was surprised to see the teacher from before peeking her head out of the doorway, wide eyed.

"Oh, L/n. I was just looking for Takeda."

"When saw him 15 minutes ago, he was heading to drop something off to the principal's office, he said he'd be heading to the gym after that."

"Must've just missed him. Thanks," he said, turning to look at y/n again who had a warm grin on her face. "No problem."

Ukai stared at her a beat too long, causing Y/n to cock her head to the side.

"Ah- Well, see you later," he said recovering, turning and waving goodbye.

"Yeah! See you.. later!"

Y/n returned to her desk but not before seeing Ukai walk away, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.