Karasuno's Queen of the School [Kageyama Tobio]

[8] Bad Receives

Not too long after, Tooru was pulled back to the other side of the net by his teammates and Kageyama continued to speak about him, exaggerating him as though he was the antagonist in a movie.

"He's a force to be reckoned with."

Oikawa Tooru --or better known to me as Toto since he yapped like the dog-- was, in fact, a force to be reckoned with. As he was an amazing volleyball player and the blatantly obvious ace setter, I began to bite my thumb in worry.

Tooru's entire life was dedicated to volleyball, day in and day out, without any time for distractions in between. He had matches every weekend, and although I would never go to them despite his constant invitations, his practices were scheduled regularly, leaving him with little time for school, family, and friends.

Which explained why his previous girlfriend left him. His passion for volleyball could never be won over by anything, that I was sure of.

However, now that my own school was going against him, I couldn't help but get angry with myself for not paying more attention to him whenever he had tried to explain the game to me. Or maybe, just maybe, whatever he had explained in the past had stuck to the back of my mind, and that's what was aiding me currently. It would certainly explain why I was particularly clever at pinpointing certain strategies and plays.

His perceptiveness on volleyball had rubbed off on me, and I hadn't noticed until the situation called for it.

"You baka..." I mumbled, crossing my arms and shaking my head at him from the bench. "I never asked for your help..."

Continuing to flash smiles at the girls on the stands, Toto nodded at his coach several times before going over to the sidelines and beginning to stretch, evidently warming up to be switched into the game.

"We're definitely going to win the final set," Kageyama assured Hinata, pushing him back onto the court with Ennoshita besides him.

Tanaka was standing with his back hunched over a few feet behind me, and when I turned, he was again flashing the awful intimidating look that he had used when we had arrived, staring dead on at Tooru.

"Tanaka-San, stop with that look!" I snapped, and he begrudgingly walked back to his spot, knuckles cracking and eyes narrowing.

"Oikawa-San, good luuuuck~!"

I cringed and rolled my eyes, glancing over to Tooru and seeing him flash another smile towards the fangirls. However, there was a fault in his actions that made me smirk.

Even though I hadn't seen him in a little over a year, I could still tell when he truly smiled. And in this case, he wasn't.

Turning to sit back down, I managed to catch a small glimpse of Kageyama and Tooru locking eyes, and what I saw surprised me.

Kageyama was looking at him with brows furrowed and lips pursed, perplexed and annoyed, but Tooru was smiling smugly, only glancing at him from the corner of his eye before beginning to adjust his shoes and bicolor kneecaps.

I'd never seen him flash a smile like that before.

The game continued once again seconds later, and the score began to steadily rise in our favor, leaving me in a bit of relief. I supposed Tooru didn't really leave much of an intimidating impact as I thought he might have, especially because of how Kageyama had spoken about him.

"In front!"

"Nice cover!"

The boys made quick and easy points, beginning to commit less of the larger errors and more of the little errors here and there, so in all actuality counted as nothing at all. Even Tanaka was starting to ignore the cheers of the girls up in the stands, which was quite impressive.