[Volleyball] Mizuno-san next door

The discussion among the three members of the volleyball club lasted for a long time, until the sky outside the house was getting dark, and the lights on the side of the road were turned on, casting a flickering white light on the road.

Aki finished her work in silence, went back to the back room, took off the apron with "Sakashita Store" printed on the chest, put on a black and white baseball jacket, arranged her hair in front of the mirror, and finally into her little satchel.

"I'm going back, boss!" Putting his left hand in the pocket of his coat, he opened the door curtain with his right and walked out. Yaji said goodbye to Wu Yang who was sitting behind the cashier and reading the newspaper energetically.

"Thanks for your hard work, see you next week." Wu Yang raised his head and said with a smile to her, sighing in his heart how good it is to be young, and then loudly reminded the three teenagers sitting together over there: "The volleyball club is about to close! "

"I'm very sorry, we'll be leaving right away!" Sawamura immediately stood up and bowed in response, and Sugawara and Kageyama also stood up after him.

The discussion on the practice match is almost done. They have already decided on the team's starting lineup and tactical arrangements-the rest is to step up and explain these to the teammates in the training tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. A lot of practice is still needed to achieve an initial run-in .

Yaji stood in front of the store, glanced at the three people who were busy cleaning up there, and walked out.She bent down in front of her bicycle, and by the light of the street lamp, she took out the key and opened the lock with a "click".

She planned to ride a bicycle to a nearby shopping street before it was dark—first go to Shimada Supermarket to replenish the ingredients for next week, and then go to Uezawa Laundry to pick up the washed clothes.

In this way, there is a whole day on Sunday that can be freely arranged, either staying at home and resting, or going out to meet with friends.

When Kageyama left the store, he saw Aki easily pedaling, riding a lady's car and disappearing at the end of the night at an extremely fast speed, even her afterimage could not be caught.

He stared blankly at her disappearing direction for a while, and suddenly felt his left and right shoulders sink.

"Come on." Sawamura and Sugawara encouraged him at the same time with clear smiles.

"Yes, let's go for the training match! See you, seniors!" Kageyama quickly turned around and bowed, then walked away alone.

"...Huh?" Sawamura and Sugawara's hands froze in the air, they looked at each other, and the smiles on their faces froze.

"Dadi, what you and I wanted to express just now mean the same thing, right?"

"of course!"

"But he doesn't seem to understand, alas."

As far as the result is concerned, this is indeed the case - Kageyama completely failed to comprehend what the two seniors wanted to convey, and what he kept thinking about was the training match.

Aoba Josai agreed to play a training match with Karasuno, but the condition he put forward was that he must play the whole game as a setter, so he replaced Sugawara-senpai as the starting player in this unexpected way, which made him not very reconciled, and he also speculated Qingcheng's intention to make this request.

With these things in his mind, Tobio Kageyama stepped into the shopping street.

However, when a person and a car in front of him occupied his line of sight, his messy thoughts stopped in an instant.

With the light from the still-closed shop, he saw Aki Mizuno slowly pushing her bicycle ahead, the basket was full, and there was a big bag in the hand without the cart. It was quite difficult to move forward.

After a hesitant pause, he finally ran after him quickly.

"Mizuno?" Kageyama trotted to her side, walking side by side with her, staring down at the heavy laundry bag in her hand, "Well, do you need...help?"

"Oh, Mr. Setter!" Yaji turned his head and shouted in surprise, "Why are you here?"

"I'm going to go home through here, it's just in the front block."

"It's the same as me ~ thank you!" She smiled happily and handed him the laundry bag.

Where does she live too?Not impressed at all...

Doubts arose in Kageyama's mind, and he took the heavy package with the fragrance of detergent, and was dazed by Aki's bright smile: "Oh."

"By the way, what are you discussing with the seniors today? I seem to have heard something like a 'training match'..." Yaji took the initiative to open the chatter box. She knew that she would always be weird if she didn't chat with Yingshan during this journey. The cold scene went down, so I picked a topic related to him.

"We're going to play a training match against Qingye Chengxi next Tuesday, and what we're discussing just now is the lineup and tactics for the game." He answered briefly and forcefully.

"Qingye City West?!" Yaji exclaimed, his face blushed with excitement, his eyes became bright, "I went to their game with my friends! Everyone is a fan of that setter-san!"

"Setter-san?" Hearing her description, Kageyama immediately recognized who it was, and his face became a little ugly, "You mean Senior Oikawa, right?"

As soon as he finished speaking, he found helplessly that he had done nothing—even if he said the person's name, Ya Ji couldn't match him.

But...she also used "setter" to address Oikawa-senpai?

Thinking of this, Kageyama felt even more upset.Driven by a single-minded competitive spirit, he wanted to be the only setter in her mouth.

"Probably?" As he expected, Yaji tilted his head blankly and recalled, "Actually, they all went to his face. Everyone doesn't know much about volleyball, but you can see that he is very good, especially serving , can score many points in a row! They all say he is the 'ACE' of the team..."

"Ace generally refers to the attacker, and that should be Iwaizumi-senpai." Kageyama interrupted her coldly and corrected her.

"Is that so? But... what is an attacker?" This word is beyond Yaji's only knowledge of volleyball. She turned her head and asked curiously, but flinched in fear when his face came into view. .

Mr. Setter doesn't look very happy... Did I say the wrong thing again?

At this time, the two had already walked out of the shopping street, and came to a quiet intersection, with many flying bugs beside the overhead lights.

Yingshan didn't answer her, but stopped in his tracks: "I'm going to turn right from here."

"Oh, I'm turning left." Yaji said clearly, and reached out to him, "Give me back the bag~ The rest of the road is not far away, I can walk by myself!"

"OK, bye."

Aki picked up the laundry bag again and looked at Kageyama who turned to leave.The white lettering of "Karino High School Volleyball Club" on his back stands out against the black background of the sportswear.

—By the way, he is that person's junior, right?

In the blink of an eye, it was as if she had been hit in the heart by some kind of premonition—she looked serious and stopped him: "Mr. Setter!"

"Ah?" He turned his back to her, biting his lower lip impatiently, not understanding what else she wanted to say.

The conversation just now made Kageyama feel that Aki was nothing more than an outsider in his world - he couldn't understand his love and obsession with volleyball, just like most people, they all focused on Oikawa-senpai Beautiful appearance and technically.

A surge of anger hit him, not to anyone else, but to himself.

——Damn it, what am I expecting blindly!He is not as strong as Oikawa-senpai, so this kind of thing should be taken for granted!

Yaji parked his bicycle in the middle of the road and ran towards Yingshan with a "da da da".

"Mizuno...?" Seeing her face seriously blocking him, he frowned in surprise.

"I just want to say that you don't need to feel that you are inferior to Setter-san - you are already very good, you train hard every day, and now you have new teammates, and they are so gentle to you!" She said more The more excited he was, he pulled up the corner of his sports jacket and held it up, "And the important thing is——your team uniform is super cool!"

"No, your focus is completely wrong, right?!" Originally, Kageyama felt a little touched by her previous sentence, but the last sentence led the good praise to a strange place, and couldn't help complaining loudly, "Team uniform What's the use of being handsome!"

"Huh?" Yaji froze in place after being yelled at, and still didn't let go of the hand that was holding the hem of his clothes.

"Really, I'm going back." Kageyama decided that she must be a stupider existence than Hinata, "let go."

"But, you look handsome in this outfit..." She lowered her head, and whispered softly like a mosquito's voice, "Although it has nothing to do with the outcome of the competition, at least in terms of handsomeness, you guys don't care about it." will lose."

Kageyama felt his face heat up when the girl bluntly praised him as "handsome", but he still relentlessly complained: "You also know that this has nothing to do with winning or losing!"

"Nonsense, of course I know that!" Yaji let go, raised his head and swept his reddish cheeks, and chuckled, "But, that's what girls like to pay attention to."

"...Oh." He couldn't refute this point.

"But—because of you, I'm interested in volleyball!" Aki announced excitedly, pointing at Kageyama, and then ran to her bicycle, "Goodbye, next time I'll tell you what a 'striker' is Oh! And something else!"

Kageyama turned around abruptly, waved goodbye to Aki under the street lamp, and smiled warmly and sincerely, which made him realize that what she just said was not a scene.

——Because I...?

For some reason, it makes me happy.

"Okay." Kageyama also responded with a sincere smile.

His back is getting further and further away.

Yaji withdrew his arm, only to realize that he, who always had a bitter face, turned out to be so pretty when he smiled.

The beating heartbeat became louder and louder.

She turned around in a panic, put one hand on the handlebars, and hurried away in the opposite direction.

The crossroads were silent again.