Lemon Tea

Melting

After you got back from your short time at the training camp, things were pretty boring. You didn't have much work to do before summer break ended, but every day you would go into school for a few hours to plan lessons or attend a faculty meeting or so, then go home and try to stay cool as the heat reached its peak of the day. 

However, one thing you'd been looking forward to were updates on the training camp from Ukai. For the remainder of the camp, he had started sending you texts every evening about how the team was doing or a picture he snapped of a drunk Takeda. 

They started short, but by the end of the training camp the two of you started texting back and forth late into the night until you would finally chide him about getting to sleep. You talked about random things; the camp, movies, whatever. You hoped things would stay this way once school started again.

~

Ukai pulled his phone out of his locker to see a new text. It was from Y/n, a photo of her friend's dog that seemed to be smiling up at her. Ukai smiled, letting out a chuckle.

"Hm? What's up?" Makoto asked, grabbing his bag.

"Ah- nothing."

Makoto eyed Yusuke with a smirk. The neighborhood association's volleyball practice had just finished and they were now off to have dinner and drinks like usual.

"By the way, how was the training camp? You were gone for a full week, I'm sure it was eventful." Makoto asked as the group sat down in the restaurant. 

"Oh yeah it was good, but a little rough. The team hardly only won a few sets to those Tokyo schools, but they've got a lot of new techniques in the works that they were able to start fine tuning. And Nekomata is the same as ever." 

"Did Y/n have a good time?" 

"....Did I already tell you she was there?" 

"Hehe, Yamaguchi happened to mention it," Makoto replied. 

"You can't get anything past us," Yusuke added cockily.

 "Uh- well, yeah, she was there too. She was doing a favor for Takeda I guess. And- oh God, get this. Remember Naoi?" 

"Manabu Naoi?" 

"Yeah. Well he asked her out. AND she turned him down, isn't that crazy?" Ukai said, unable to hold back his laughter. 

"Probably the first time he's ever been rejected," Yusuke laughed. 

"Well what did he expect, they just met and he expected her to date long distance?" 

"That's pretty much the reason she gave him," Ukai added, plopping a gyoza into his mouth. 

"So where are you at with that anyways?" Makoto prodded. 

"Fwhat do you meanfh?" he asked, his mouth still full.

 "Like- are you two friends now or what." 

"..Yeah I think so. We've been texting a bit." 

"Ohh," Yusuke said, connecting the dots. 

"You happy with that or..." 

"Oh.. I mean yeah, I'm happy we got closer but- agh this is so weird talking to you guys about this since you know her. I guess before the training camp I was trying to ignore everything but now I can't." 

"Ignore.. Like ignore that you like her?" Makoto confirmed. 

"I knew it," Yusuke cheered. 

"Well he wasn't great at hiding it,"