Tutor (Ushijima Wakatoshi x Reader)

Chapter 09

At the start of the next week you made your way to the college gymnasium after classes. Your college had a few sports teams and luckily, volleyball was one of them.

You steeled your nerves and pushed open the entrance door to the large gymnasium. A few different sports were being played on the various fields the building held.

The basketball team as well as the hockey team were having a practice match, while the volleyball team was busy with their regular practice. The last field, one in the middle, was currently unused.

You sat down in the stands near to where both the male and female volleyball teams were practicing, hoping to spot someone who seemed like a person you would be able to approach.

Aside from Marie, you had not made any other new friends and still felt anxious to approach strangers.

As you looked around you noticed there were a few other people sitting in the stands. Most likely friends and relatives.

After closer inspection, you also noticed two people who were most likely injured players. One had a brace on his elbow and the other had a cast on his foot.

Subtly observing the two, you learned that the one with the brace was part of the basketball team and the one with the cast, who sat closest to you, belonged to the volleyball team.

After a little while, the teams took a break and one of the female members spotted you. Before you could do anything about it, she was making her way over to you.

"Hey, I've never seen you here before! Do you know someone on the team?" She asked, but before you could even begin to formulate an answer she continued. "Or are you interested in joining the team? Because if you are, you're in! We're short on members."

Finally, she gave you the chance to get a word in.

"Neither actually." You replied. "I just want to learn more about volleyball."

The girl blinked. "You want to learn about it, but you don't want to play? Why's that?"

The girl had a little bit too much energy for your liking, but you did not see any way out of this situation.

"I have a... Friend who's into volleyball. I would like to be able to talk with him better." You tried to explain as well as you could, without going into any details.

The girl wiggled her eyebrows. "A 'friend' huh?"

Before you could begin to explain that it wasn't like that, she had already turned around and approached the guy with the cast.

"Michael! Can you do me a favor?" She did not wait for him to reply before motioning to you.

"Hey... You!" She called to you a bit awkwardly and you quickly made your way over and introduced yourself. You learned that the girl's name was Katie and that Michael was a regular on the boys team but he was currently out of commission due to his broken foot.

"You can watch our practice game and Michael will explain everything as it happens." Katie said and with that, as quickly as she appeared, she left.

"Explaining everything may be a bit much, but I'll try to point out as many things as I can." Michael said as he sheepishly scratched the back of his head.

When the practice match between the boys and the girls ended, you had learned quite a bit of new vocabulary. You sort of knew what a 'libero' was and still didn't really understand how the rotation system worked.

"I hope that was useful to you." Michael said as you started gathering your bag and you nodded.

"It was, thank you." You replied as you got up and you noticed that Michael tried to get up quickly as well, not bothering with his crutches.

"If you want, you can come to watch our practice again soon." He started. "I'll be in this cast for the next month still, so it would be nice to have something to do during practice."

"I don't always have time because of my classes, but I'll consider it. What days are you guys here?" You replied, feeling way more comfortable around Michael than you had felt around Katie.

"We have practice on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and we have a match once a month in the weekend."

"I'll keep that in mind, although I have a part time job in the weekend, so I won't be able to catch any matches." You said, not willing to make any commitments.

"When my foot heals you should take a day off and watch one anyway!" He proposed and you chuckled.

"Maybe I will." You conceided and told him goodbye. You also waved at Katie when she saw you leaving and she waved back enthusiastically.

"Until next time!" She called out as if it was a given that you would be coming back.

You just smiled at her and waved again, not sure if you would ever return or not.

The day after, you had another call with Ushijima and after you did some of your regular exercises you tried talking about your 'volleyball experience' of the day before.

You told him that you went to see your 'friend' who is in the volleyball team and had to sit out because of a broken leg. It was an alteration of the truth but you really didn't want to admit that you had gone to study volleyball just to be able to talk to him, and you also did not like to admit that in truth, you only had one friend, that you made very recently, because of him.

However, you quickly noticed that whatever knowledge you had gathered yesterday was far from enough to hold a serious conversation with Ushijima when he asked you: "What position does your friend play?" and you had no answer.

It seems you would be seeing Michael, and Katie, again after all.

After your short conversation, you crawled into bed tired of the day's activities. You had nearly drifted off when an unfamiliar Line notification sounded from your smartphone.

User Guess Monster would like to add you as a friend.

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A/N:

This week's chapter is longer again, yay! (ノ^o^)ノ
I hope you enjoyed it and look forward to seeing more of the characters that have joined the cast!
(≧∇≦)/