Singleplayer RPG

Chapter 12 - Bad Ending?

A few days had passed. The team had gotten together for a few practices, but everyone acted as though things were normal. Kuroo did his best to seem fine, successfully fooling the team into thinking things were okay. He would walk home with Kenma, but they wouldn’t speak to one another, nor would they sit with one another once they were on the train. It was uncomfortable, but without even discussing it, they’d both reached the conclusion that being obvious about their distancing from each other would only worry the team.

It was now time to head to Shinzen High for the second half of the training camp. When the team arrived, they were directed to the classroom they’d be staying in and were surprised to find Kenma already there, dressed in his jersey and smiling gently at his phone with dark shadows under his eyes. Yaku approached him, asking why he was there before everyone else. He responded by saying that he had arrived early and was led to the classroom to settle in. The smile on his face should have put Yaku‘s concerns to rest, but for some reason it made him feel uneasy. As the team went to leave the classroom after changing, Yaku turned to see Lev stood next to Kenma’s bag for some reason. He called for the tall boy to stop prying, which made Lev awkwardly turn and jog out of the classroom. Something about today felt ominous to Yaku, but he concluded it was just him being paranoid.

As Kenma was talking to the other second years, Yaku chatted to Kuroo and Kai, but something about Kuroo seemed off. He was still cracking jokes, but they seemed forced as if he was trying to hide his true feelings. He had a similar suspicion about Kenma for a while, but he hadn’t noticed until now that Kuroo was now also acting strange. The practice matches started and the team played as normal, but Yaku observed a more serious expression on both Kenma and Kuroo’s faces, and unlike they usually would, neither of them initiated a high five after scoring a point. During one of their time outs for a match against Karasuno, Yaku approached Kenma.

“Hey, is everything between you and Kuroo okay?” His face had concern written all over it, but when Kenma turned to look at him, he couldn’t help but notice Kenma’s seemingly oblivious expression. He looked over at Kuroo, then back to Yaku.

“I think so. Why, did he say something to you?” Seeing Kenma act so relaxed made Yaku anxious. He couldn’t prove it, but he felt as though Kenma was lying to him.

“Well, it’s just…” Yaku tried to gather his thoughts, unsure of what exactly to say. “It just seems like there’s some sort of tension between the two of you. You said you noticed something off about Kuroo a little while ago, right? It just seems that today neither of you are talking to one another. Actually, you’ve both been kind of off for the past few days now that I think about it. Kuroo hasn’t really mentioned you at all in conversation and he normally never shuts up about you. It almost seems like you’re avoiding each other.” He placed his hand on Kenma’s shoulder. “If there’s something you need to talk about, please tell me. I want to help. I hate seeing you two like this.”

Kenma’s face tensed up for a brief moment, but then he smiled at Yaku, trying to hide his true feelings. “I’m fine, don’t worry. Maybe Kuro is just feeling tired, but I don’t notice anything wrong with him.” Kenma’s expression filled Yaku with fear, but before he could insist, the team was called to resume the match.

Kenma watched curiously from the other side of the net as he noticed that Hinata was on edge around Kageyama, missing most of his spikes, which was unusual for him. He didn’t wish to pry since, from personal experience, he figured doing so would add fuel to the flame, so he decided to quietly observe. He looked to his side as the ball drifted up in the air after being saved by Kuroo. He positioned himself under where the ball would fall, then jumped as it got closer. His hands made contact with the ball as he thrusted his hands towards Lev, but was shocked to see that the ball did not go in front of him. He glanced behind himself as the ball dropped to the floor. He turned to look at the team, who stared at him with a bewildered expression.