Rigid Crow

Put Some Work Into It

"These are great!" Yachi shrieks with delight as she, Nishinoya-senpai, Ennoshita-senpai, Kinoshita-senpai, Narita-senpai, Yamaguchi, Tsukishima, and I sift through the newly developed pictures of Hinata's birthday party.
Kinoshita snorts. "You look funny in this one, Kazuhito!" He points to a picture of Narita, mid-bite of eating cake, his eyes big.
     Narita turns a shade of red and snatches the picture up. "Hey! Who took this?"
     "At least it's not as bad as Hisashi in this one." Ennoshita holds up a picture to his face.
"What?" Kinoshita makes a frantic grab for the picture, but Ennoshita pulls it just out of his reach.
     "Chikara! Give it to me!" Kinoshita yelps. Ennoshita smirks and complies.
     Kinoshita scans the photo with a frown. "Hey, I'm not even in this one!"
     Ennoshita laughs playfully. "Gotcha. Stop messing with Kazuhito," he adds with a smile.
     Kinoshita cracks a grin of his own. He looks down at the stacks of photographs. "Soooo, what are we doing with all of these again?"
     "We're making a scrapbook, of course!" Yachi explains matter-of-factly.
"And we're here because...?" Nishinoya questions.
Yachi gives an expression of mock hurt. "Because you're all helping!"
We give a collective groan, just to mess with her.
"You guys are no fun!" Yachi complains. She slaps photos and scrapbook paper in front of me. "You're all gonna help me and you're all gonna like it! Ready, set, go!"
     None of us go. She huffs and puts her hands on her hips. "What are you waiting for?" We give hopeless glances to one another as we pathetically begin.
     Yachi stops us as soon as Nishinoya begins pasting the front sides of two pictures together. "What are you doing, Noya-san?"
     Nishinoya frowns as he rapidly shakes his hand, which is already covered in glitter. Where did he even get that? "Scrapbooking."
     "No, no, this is all wrong!" Yachi shrieks in horror as she watches me accidentally tear the corner of my paper. Honestly, I didn't mean to, but I seriously don't think I could be of any help in this project, nor do I want to be.
     "Yachi-chan," Narita-san interrupts, "I think this a bit too girly for us. I, for one, am neither organized, not crafty."
     "It doesn't have to be a girl thing!" Yachi protests. "Look! Ennoshita-san's kinda got the hang of it!"
     "What? N-no I don't," Ennoshita stammers. In front of him lays a perfectly organized photo sheet, ready to be pasted.
"Woah!" Nishinoya leans over the table to get a better look at Ennoshita's work, mixing up the other organized pictures in the process. "How'd you do that?"
     "I- I didn't!" Ennoshita-san protests, tripping up on his words again. "It's nothing." He discreetly tries to shift the photos into a messier order.
I reluctantly sigh and try to tape my paper back together. The other third years and Yamaguchi also try to messily put together their projects. Tsukishima, however, keeps his arms crossed and snickers as Yamaguchi carefully arranges his crafts.
Yachi sees this and barks, "You too, Tsukishima-kun!"
     Tsukishima shakes his head. "No way," he says, certain of his answer as he leans back in his chair, headphones on.
     Yachi snatches the headphones off of his head. He yells in frustration, but Yachi proceeds to slip them onto her own head. Her brow scrunches as she listens to the music. She turns to Tsukishima, who is now standing in front of her. "You listen to this? This is pretty trashy, Tsukishima-kun."
"Give those back," he grunts, pulling his headphones away from Yachi's grasp.
     "I'm finished!" Noya-senpai triumphantly cries out, sliding his scrapbook page forward so we all can see.
     As I observe the monstrosity in front of us, all the positive feedback I can even think of mustering is simply, "It's, uh... sparkly."
     "Ding, ding, ding!" Tsukishima calls out, his abnoxious nature practically radiating off of him. "The award goes to Kageyama for understatement of the century!"
     "Nishinoya-senpai..." Yachi pauses, also at a loss for nice words. "Was there even that much glitter in the box of stuff I provided?"
     Noya nods his head proudly. "And do you also like the design I made with the glue?"
     I look at his project again, and I believe that there's actually more glue in his project than paper. "Um, where are the photographs?" I ask, gesturing to his crazy craft.
     "They're there!" he claims. "You just have to squint! See?"
I do not see.
Yachi-chan sighs. "It's a good thing I printed doubles of every photo." She shuffles through her stack of them and then stops. "Maybe it would be better if I did this myself..."
     Ennoshita shakes his head in disagreement. "I'm not just saying this because my page actually turned out," he sighs, "actually pretty decent," he admits with a smile, "but it would mean a lot more to Hinata-kun if we all put some work into it."
Murmurs of agreement pass throughout the group. And one by one, everyone, including Tsukishima even, begins to responsibly and carefully assemble their part of the scrapbook.
I finally take a look at what photos I've been given. My first one pictures Suga and Daichi lifting Nishinoya onto their shoulders, a wide smile splitting Noya's face. The second photo shows Natsu blowing out Hinata's candles for him, her cheeks puffed out. And the third... the third pictures the moment right after I made that embarrassing announcement, when Suga and everyone else raises their plastic cups in a sort of toast to Hinata. I wonder who even took that picture.
     I don't even realize Yachi's looking over my shoulder until she remarks, pointing to the third picture. "He's going to love hearing about that."
     "He'd better not be hearing about that," I retort, though the corners of my mouth twitch with a smile. "If he does, he'll never let me hear the end of that one time I did something nice for him."
     "Well, I would give just about anything for him to never let you hear the end of it," Yachi remarks, this time quieter, wistfully.
     And the truth is, I would, too.