An Embarassing Way to Meet (Haikyuu!! Ennotana Fan Fiction)

Chapter 4

•Chikara Ennoshita•

Class was pretty average.  At lunch, I sat with Kinoshita and Narita on the roof.  It turned out that I forgot my lunch in the morning, so they let me have some of theirs.  For the rest of the school day, it was hard not to get bored easily. 

Finally, it was time for volleyball practice.  I went into the club room to change, then headed to the gym. 

"For team one," the captain started, "Nishinoya, Kinoshita, and Tanaka are grouped together.  The rest of the first years are on the second team."

I headed to Narita, giving him a high five, and headed to the court with both of my teammates.

The other side started the rally with a serve that went to Narita, to my other teammate that set it to me, then to me, who spiked it with all my force.  Only for the libero to receive it.  Kinoshita set it to Tanaka, who spiked it over right along the line.  I yelled, "Out!" as he was in the motion, only to be fooled by the sound of the ball slamming inside of the boundary.
"Nice kill!" Nishinoya yelled while Narita told me, "Don't mind, we'll get the next one."
The other side served again, and I got it up so that one of my teammates could set the ball for the other to spike it, and that's what they did.  It slammed down on the other side of the net, and I yelled, "Nice kill!" 

To start off the next rally, I served the ball straight to Tanaka.  He messed up the receive a little, so it was a bit harder for Nishinoya to set the ball.  Still, Kinoshita was able to spike it.  My other teammate received the ball, getting to to Narita.  Narita set it to me, and I spiked it down, getting a satisfying sound out of it as it hits the floor.

///

The ball hit the floor, making my team lose with a score of 24 to 26.  And with that, practice ended.  We all cleaned up and started to head to the club room.

On the way there, Tanaka asked me, "Do you want to grab pork buns again?" 

I nodded and said, "Sure."

I got changed pretty fast, but Tanaka was taking longer for some reason.  I turned around with the intention of asking, "Are you done yet?" but was interrupted by him in the middle of taking his shirt off.  I could feel the heat creeping up to my face and a liquid dripping down my nose, so I rushed to the nearest tissue box.

"Are you okay?" Tanaka asked, now with a new shirt on.

"Yeah, I think I'm just dehydrated from the match," I lied.

By the time the nosebleed stopped, Tanaka was ready to go, so we left the school.

There was silence for the first couple of minutes of the walk before I heard Tanaka mumble something.

"Hmm?" I asked.

"Oh, nothing," he replied.

I decided to let it go, and we were walking into Sakanoshita after a couple of minutes.  The setting was pretty much the same as yesterday.
"Two pork buns, please," Tanaka said as we approached the counter.

The cashier got up, put two pork buns into a paper bag, and put it on the counter.  He said, "500 yen," as he rung it up.

Tanaka put the yen onto the counter and we left.  He handed me a bun once we were outside, and I took it, sneaking the cost of mine into his pocket so that he couldn't refuse it.

"Hey," I started, "I just realized that I don't have your number.  Want to exchange them?"

"Sure," he said, "Mine is **********."

"Okay, I'll text you once I get home, mine is **********."

As we walked past the Sakura trees, he started the conversation again with, "You have something in your hair, umm... Do you want me to get it out?"

"Oh, sure!" I said.

It took him a little bit, but he finally got it out and flicked it away.  It was weird, though, because I didn't see it.  Eh, it was probably pretty small.

"Thanks."

I felt something rub against my shoulder, and I realized how close we were.

I looked away, and I could feel my heartbeat thudding through my ears, begging to be acknowledged.  It was strangling me, and I didn't like it, but I also loved it at the same time, if that makes sense.  I moved a little bit closer to him to feel that feeling again, glancing at him through the side of my eye.

Then he looked at me.  Oh, shoot.  Did I make it too noticeable?  I mean, of course the person would notice it, but usually they wouldn't pay too much attention to it.

I looked straight ahead, realizing that we were almost in front of my house.  Thank goodness.  After a few minutes of awkward silence with a lot of tension, we made it to the front of my house.

"I'll text you when I get home?" Tanaka asked as I was about to walk through my door.

"Sure," I replied, "Bye!"

"Bye!" he said, and resumed his walk home.

As I walked through the living room and into the kitchen to see my parents look at me with smirks glued to their faces.  "Who was that?" my mom asked, leaning forward slightly.

"Nobody," I said, shifting my weight from one foot to the other.  I'm sure the fact that I was slightly red didn't help my situation.  I walked to the fridge and grabbed some leftovers for dinner.

"If that was nobody, why are you red?" my dad asked, leaning back and adjusting his feet. Of course he noticed.

"It's still a bit cold outside," I said, hoping that they wouldn't see through my lies.

"Sure," my mom stretched out the word as I stuck my food into the microwave and pressed the one minute option.

We stood in silence for a minute before the microwave beeped.  I opened it and took my food out then to the dining table.

I finished my food within a couple of minutes and headed back to the kitchen to put my plate in the sink.  My parents had moved to the living room.  I decided that I should make my lunch for the next day since I wouldn't be home too long in the morning.  I whipped up something and stuck it in the fridge then grabbed my backpack and headed up the stairs.

Once I put my bag away, I checked my phone to see that somebody had texted me a couple of minutes ago.

???: Hey Ennoshita
Me: Hey!  This is Tanaka, right?
???: Yup
Me: Okay, I added you
Tanaka: Cool
Me: What are you doing?
Tanaka: About to go to sleep, how about you?
Me: Doing homework
Tanaka: Okay, I'll stop texting so you can focus.  See you tomorrow
Me: Same here, bye
Tanaka: Bye

There it was again, that feeling.  I think I know what it is, but I don't want to give myself false hope on the topic.

I decided to get started on my homework since I was supposed to be working on it already.

///

I got about done with about half of my assignments before calling it a day.  I looked at the clock and saw that I was supposed to be sleeping already.  I went to the bathroom to shower and brush my teeth, then went back to my room to throw on some clothes. 

I flopped onto my bed and dozed of with surprising ease.