𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 ༉‧₊˚✧ 𝐰. 𝐮𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐣𝐢𝐦𝐚

t w o

02: the cafe

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　-: ✧ :-゜・．

"why did you want to study here instead of school," ushijima asked. 

tuesday arrived quickly. through text, you agreed to meet at 6:30, which gave him an hour to change, eat, and relax after his practice before having to meet you for your chemistry session. 

it was your choice to meet at your favorite coffee shop to study. though it would have been more practical, you completely hated the silence and seriousness of the library at shiratorizawa academy that was filled with academic overachievers. additionally, getting an iced coffee while you tutored ushijima wouldn't hurt.

he stared intently in your eyes, waiting a response. he was entirely unaware of the intensity of his gaze, but it still made you nervous. despite going to the same schools as him all these years, you had never gotten to know him on a personal level. however, you were well-versed in his reputation as the school's star volleyball player. everyone in the school knew how strong and powerful this guy was, and here you were. seated across from him at a small coffee shop, teaching him the basics of high school chemistry.

you averted his eyes, yet from your peripheral you could see he was still maintaining his strong eye contact. he was leaning forward, his arms crossed atop the wooden table. it was impossible to ignore the way his arm muscles filled out his school uniform, and you felt your cheeks begin to heat up at his body language.

it was all unintentional. ushijima, himself, didn't even realize your nerves. he just assumed you were trying to come up with a response and simply sat patiently. 

"cafes are good places to study. if we were in a library, we'd have to whisper." you pulled out the chemistry textbook, your notebook, and your pencil case from your bag while you responded. "plus, the coffee here is pretty good," which you emphasized by swirling your cup of iced coffee before taking a sip.

ushijima only hummed in response, not feeling the need to say anything else. he followed suit in taking out his materials and placing them on the table across from you. you asked him to bring his last few exams so you could start by going over the problems he got wrong. you had never tutored anyone before, and you weren't sure if you would be good at it. you hoped that from there, you'd be able to figure out which concepts he was struggling with. 

you looked over his exams. you weren't surprised at how even his handwriting seemed to reflect his personality, quietly strong. you also noticed that he never made any major mistakes on any of the questions. there was nothing to suggest he hadn't understood the subject material, rather it seemed like he knew all of the different types of chemical reactions, just not when to use them. 

after a few minutes of you looking over his exams, he spoke up. "you look confused," he observed."

"sorry," you muttered. "but it seems like you understand basically everything from this unit, it's just the long free response questions that seem to trip you up." you rotated the paper so that it was facing him, pointing out his response with the end of your pen. "see, even here. you completely understand how to calculate all these different values for a weak-acid weak-base neutralization, except this is a strong-acid weak-base problem."

you looked up from the paper and back at ushijima. his eyes were darting down the page as he processed what you were saying. "hmm," was the only thing that came out of his mouth. 

"all the calculations and formulas are correct, which is arguably the hardest part for most people. we just need to work on identifying when they need to be used," you grinned, happy that ushijima would be easier to tutor than you thought.

to start, you explained all of the tricks that you had taught yourself to help you distinguish between the different neutralization reactions. he nodded along and listened intently, taking notes occasionally about the mnemonics and abbreviations you had created. it was hard not to notice how little he spoke. you finally got a break from speaking when you had him work on some practice problems by himself after doing several examples with him.

you watched his hands as he worked on the free response question that you found in your textbook. his hands were impossibly large, yet fitting for his body. you especially noticed how comically small his pencil looked in his hand. you then began to imagine how those mini food toys would look in his hands, forcing you to suppress a quiet laugh as you continued to think about what it would look like. 

evidently, you were not successful.

ushijima looked up from his paper towards you. even though he didn't have the most expressive face, you could tell he was waiting for you to say something. 

"sorry," you said between soft laughter. "excuse me," you spoke again, clearing your throat this time. "ignore me, please. sorry, continue."

he looked down at his paper again and continued to solve the problem. you felt your cheeks flush with mild embarrassment, but you could've sworn you saw the corner of his mouth raise.

.・゜-: ✧ :-　　-: ✧ :-゜・．

a/n

i was referencing popin cookin like yk those little food toy things... anyways they are just two awkward teenagers who stare at each other,,, and y/n is so cringe... but what if ushijima is into that!!

and my bad if this is boring LOL im working on it!!! also all of this are being posted unedited so if you see words misspelled or sentences that literally don't make sense feel free to either comment about it or ignore it <3