Stormy Summer

Chapter 33

I had no idea what to name this Chapter when I first published it... And I still don't tbh.

Anna and I groaned in pain as we tried to push against the huge form that had crushed us against the ground.

"Sal. This is your fault," Anna grumbled out beside me as the giant finally stood back up.

"Are you okay?" Rose asked from beside us as she took a step toward us again. She had moved out of the way along with Charlie before. I nodded as I got up, helping Anna along the way.

I looked up at Lev, who was beaming at us excitedly, he seemed to be about to say something when he got kicked from behind, "What are you doing out here?" the smaller one, Yaku, turned to us and apologized for Lev's behavior. I couldn't help the smile as I nodded at him.

Some things just never change, do they?

"Remind me why we are watching practice today, again," Anna grumbled behind me as we made our way up the stairwell to the tribunes. I sighed internally, "I promised Bokuto I'd watch today. I don't know why you're here," I answered before closing the door after us.

"We're here because we didn't want you to be bored without us," said Rose, though, she was looking at Anna, who sighed, cramming through her bag to get out the book she had brought to school, "Okay," she chimed, suddenly happy again.

If I hadn't known her for so long, I'd probably think of her mood swings as weird.

I looked down toward Bokuto and the others warming up before the practice match. None of us were aware of the match being scheduled before we ran into Lev just outside the gym.

My eyes caught Kuro's and the thumbs-up he sent my way gave me a bad feeling about today. Nonetheless, I waved at him.

'Cheer for me!' he mouthed up toward me and I raised an eyebrow at him.

Is he trying to irk off the team we're supposed to be cheering for? I glanced at Bokuto, who seemed unassuming, talking to Akaashi energetically, when my eyes wandered to Kuro again, he was grinning up at me and he mouthed something else, though, I didn't quite catch that.

'What?' I mouthed back, but Kuro just shook his head mouthing 'later,' before he turned to talk to Kenma.

Kenma sighed before glancing over Bokuto's team and replying to Kuro.

"Summer?" Rose's voice startled me out of my thoughts and my eyes snapped away from Kuro to land on Rose instead.

"Huh?" smart.

"I asked what you were talking about," she motioned her head back to the Nekoma players.

I frowned, "Who?"

"You and Kuro-san," Rose clarified and I nodded, thinking about it for a few seconds before coming up with nothing.

"I have no idea," I told her semi-honestly, "he wants to talk to me after," I shrugged.

"Who's that guy?" Charlie suddenly spoke up, nervously glancing at the court, "He's been staring at us for a while now," she sounded uncomfortable and I followed her gaze to the players, though none of then stuck out at first.

Upon closer inspection, I saw one of them glaring in our direction, more or less nervously. When I looked at him, I wracked my brain for a name, but I don't think Kuro ever introduced us to the whole team. Upon the few we have met, he was never one of them. He had an undercut, with the top dyed blonde. His eyes were staring at us, though, I couldn't quite decipher the emotion behind them. It was somewhere between anger and nervousness.

"Not sure... I've seen him a few times, but I don't know his name," I glanced at Charlie beside me, "He's on Kuro-chan's team, so he can't be a bad person," I shrugged, and Charlie cleared her throat, averting her eyes from the guy for one last time when the practice match finally began.

"When did you promise him, anyway?" Charlie asked out of the blue and I looked at her, trying to gather what she's talking about, "To watch practice, I mean," she clarified.

"Earlier before we went to our classroom," Rose beat me to answering, leaning forward slightly to look around me at Charlie, "though it didn't sound like a question from him," Rose Eyes trailed toward me and I sighed.

"Rose you didn't have to-"

"No, it's fine. We love accompanying you," Rose interrupted me.

"I didn't ask you to. You could've gone home without me," I frowned at her, and she scoffed lightly.

"You really think we'd much rather leave you alone?" her voice lowered, but she didn't sound angry.

"Yes," the answer didn't come from me, but from Anna, who was suddenly paying attention to our conversation. Her answer sounded so matter-of-fact that at first, I didn't know how to react.

"Of course you do. Summer we're your friends, you know?" I turned my head back to Rose, frowning.

"Anna-" I started.

"But you thought it, too," Rose interrupted again and I could hear Anna hum in appreciation.

"I didn't," I mumbled out, feeling pressured to talk, trying to focus on the game instead.

I could hear Rose sigh beside me, but she didn't say anything else, opting to watch the practice match instead.

I felt oddly relieved and panicked at the same time as I watched the practice match.

I don't realize when it happened but now that I was genuinely watching, I realized that Bokuto wasn't getting any tosses anymore. Now, usually, this happened only later on in matches, which is what confused me.

I let my gaze wander over to Kuro's side and saw him smirking triumphantly. When my eyes drifted to the score, I saw that they were already in the second set.

When did that happen?

My eyes went to Bokuto again, just as he was glancing at the tribunes and our eyes met for what must've been less than a second before he quickly looked away again.

Didn't Akaashi say Bokuto liked being watched?