Chương 118: Did You Know
"So this is what you guys did at your camp?"
"It was just some extra practice during our free time."
"Looks exciting seeing familiar faces in the video~."
Haruto leaned into his chair while he held onto a phone that showed some footage of people playing volleyball.
It had been a few days that they had come back and the winter break was just on the cusp of starting as they just needed to wait for their school's ending ceremony to begin.
Nothing out of the ordinary had happened when they returned back to their teams but a few subtle changes began to sprout which was noticeable to Haruto's eyes.
One instance was Hinata was much more quiet whenever they did their practices as he could be seen staring at other people such as Haruto and Kageyama whenever they played.
Tsukishima was also not an exception as the two had the same positions, making Hinata competitive whenever they were on opposite sides for scrimmages.
Other players also began to gradually show their skills as a few people on the team polished their serves during the time of the camp and results were shown as a few bench players got a few serves in when it was their time to play.
Seeing that Haruto was watching some of the clips he had taken from his training camp, Tsukishima remembered that there were more interesting ones he took during his last day.
"There were also some special guests that came when they found out we were playing."
Tsukishima grabbed ahold of his phone and swiped through his camera roll for a bit before he gave it back to Haruto.
"Ehhh what the heck. Ushijima also played?"
"It looked like Tsutomu tried to convince him to join for the first few days but he only joined when it was the last day."
Tsukishima sat by the window's ledge and recounted what happened.
"By the way."
"Yeah?"
"Why are you in my class right now?"
"It was getting boring just waiting for the ending assembly so the teacher allowed us to go to other classrooms if we didn't cause any troubles."
"Why is your teacher so relaxed… I swear, our teacher almost made us do an extra assignment but thankfully we convinced him not to…"
Haruto rubbed the area between his brows when he remembered he had to use all his energy and tricks to convince his teacher.
'Thankfully I caught on that he got a new wig so complimenting that sure was a bonus…'
Remembering how he asked what kind of shampoo he uses to make his hair so smooth, the teacher went on to ramble for the next few minutes making him waste time so he couldn't give any work.
"Maybe it's because our class has some pretty high averages?"
"Why, does our class not have high averages too?"
"It might be good since you're one of the top scorers but…"
Haruto followed Tsukishima's eyes and saw where it landed.
"Damn it… why can't I get any yellows…"
"Hah!! Must suck to suck~"
Kageyama frowned when he heard Hinata's taunts and picked up a card from the deck laid in front of him.
"Hey do you really need to taunt him like that…"
"Of course!! Can't you see how many cards he gave me?!"
Yamaguchi recoiled back seeing the hand of cards Hinata was waving in front of him and felt like he might have gotten way more compared to when he started.
Haruto shut his mouth when he saw what Tsukishima was implying but he still tried to defend them.
"At least they passed right?"
"It would be a miracle if they didn't after they had me, you, Yachi and Shiina helping them with the subjects they had trouble with."
"Well a pass is a pass so it's fine."
Haruto nodded to himself thinking that his words were true and stood up from his spot.
"Oh yeah, try to increase your stamina when you have the time during your break."
"I'm already planning on doing that."
"Oh? Does Akiteru still have practice with his club team?" Haruto looked slightly surprised when he heard his sure voice.
"Since it's the break there's some practice but I've started to run around my neighborhood when I noticed I began to run out of fumes much sooner when I play."
"Oh my~ You really are working hard."
Haruto gave a sly glance at Tsukishima who was following behind him as the two walked to the table where the other three guys were playing cards.
Tsukishima still had his passive face seemingly immune to his teasing by now and thought about the reason for his actions.
"It was annoying seeing someone else do blocks better than me."
"Hmm~ I see, I see."
Realizing that Tsukishima had really begun to start up his competitive side, Haruto welcomed it greatly seeing how he really went out of his way to improve the things he had noticed with himself.
Inching closer to the three who were playing, Haruto took a seat on one of the desks behind Hinata and looked towards his hand of cards.
Seeing the deep spread of colors, Haruto whistled when he also saw the amount of special cards he had and looked at the number of cards the person beside him had.
"Uno!"
"U-Uno! Damn!! I was late by just a second."
Hinata frowned when he heard Yamaguchi yell out Uno before him and stared deeply at the set of cards he had.
'Should I risk it…'
His hand hesitantly reached for a certain card and took in a deep breath as he finally decided what he wanted to do.
"Reverse!"
Yamaguchi looked at the card in his hand and the card that Hinata placed down. The hand with the card moved and a look of dread appeared on Hinata's face when he saw this.
"I was so close! Too bad I had a different color."
Yamaguchi smiled when he took a card from the deck and a sigh of relief escaped from Hinata.
"You almost gave him a free win, you idiot."
"Well I didn't so you should be thanking me instead."
Kageyama scoffed at his words and placed down a number card that had the same color as the one Hinata placed.
"Now take this!"
"Ohhh! Nice one."
Right as Kageyama placed his card down, Hinata went on the offensive and placed down a special card that had a bold +2 printed on it.
Haruto clapped when he saw this and waited for Yamaguichi's response.
"Uno!" Yamaguchi calmly smiled when he placed down the card and what was added was another card that showed a +2 on it. "I was pretty lucky with the last draw."
Yamaguchi laughed to himself and Kageyama who was next furrowed his eyes when he saw that he potentially had to pick up +4.
"Your turn." Kageyama placed a card down and on it was a different one compared to the +2 they had seen before.
This one was black in color and instead of a +2 it had a +4 on top of it.
"Hey you can't place a +4 on a +2!?"
"What do you mean? They're both cards that make you pick up cards so why can't I stack them."
"I-It says on the rules does it not!"
"I don't know what you mean."
Kageyama turned his head away and ignored any words that were directed at him telling him to pick the card he placed back up.
"I think that's legal right?"
"I don't know. I don't really play any card games."
Haruto rubbed his chin thinking about this while Tsukishima paid attention to his phone tuning out the noise Hinata and Kageyama were making.
–RUSTLE
As Haruto was thinking about this controversial move, the doors to his classroom opened up and the voices of the hallway outside flowed into the room.
Two girls walked into the classroom, each with blonde hair but one had long locks while another had short hair with a part of her hair tied up.
"Your teacher also let you guys come visit?"
"She noticed that the others did the same so she let us go if we wanted."
Mahiru nodded her head softly towards some of Haruto's classmates as they were familiar with her being here since she would always come over to have lunch with Haruto.
They had gained some sort of immunity to the so-called 'Angel Effect' so after greeting Mahiru they returned back to the conversations they had beforehand.
"Look at you so bundled up." Haruto narrowed his eyes when he noticed a familiar looking shirt coming out of Mahiru's sleeve.
"It was a bit cold so I put on some extra layers."
Mahiru showed the black compression shirt coming out of her sleeve and smiled happily when she noticed that Haruto saw what she was wearing.
It was one of his compression shirts he would always wear whenever he played sports such as his volleyball matches or even when he wanted to wear a simple piece of clothing underneath his clothes.
Very convenient and comfortable for him.
"Is the shirt not baggy?" Haruto asked as he didn't mind Mahiru wearing some of his clothes if she wanted.
"Hmm…"
Mahiru hummed as she sat on the same desk as Haruto and tried to remember when she first tried the shirt on.
"Not really. It's actually very comfortable, I can understand now why you wear it so much."
"See! Now you know why I have so many of them."
"Sure but I think the number is still a bit excessive."
Mahiru let out a wry smile seeing Haruto trying to convince her on the amount of shirts he had were at a reasonable size.
She adjusted her sleeves back up to hide the black shirt and in the process shook her hair with her movements.
A subtle floral scent passed by Haruto as her hair ruffled through the air and noticed a hint of something else mixed in with it.
He leaned a bit closer to her to catch the smell one more time and didn't notice that he was a few inches away from her neck.
Leaning in, Mahiru was able to feel his breath quickly brush against her neck which made her flinch.
"Hmm? Did you just get this shirt out of the washing machine?"
"....Why do you think that..?"
A tiny peep came out of Mahiru as she was stunned with his sudden actions and saw how he leaned away from her not thinking too much on what he did.
"I smelled a bit of my detergent so I was just curious."
"I see…"
Mahiru looked at her surroundings and gave out a sigh of relief when she found that no one was looking at them and pinched a portion of Haruto's cheek.
"Whas arw you dwing?"
"Be more aware of your surroundings stupid..."
A hint of redness brushed on her cheeks when she said this in a hushed tone thinking that he was really not shy in showing these types of gestures to her.
Haruto still not getting to what she meant he just nodded and felt his face return to normal seeing that Mahiru let go.
–BZZT BZZT
Rubbing the side of his face, Haruto felt his phone vibrate and quickly checked to see who it was.
'Akane? What does she want…'
Seeing the message from his sister, he opened up the chatbox and after reading a few of the words, his breathing suddenly hitched.
'No way… I'm actually an idiot for forgetting…'
A bit of cold sweat dripped down his back and he quickly put his phone away.
"Is something wrong?" Mahiru looked confused seeing Haruto's awkward movements to which he just shook his head and told her that nothing was wrong.
"Akane just told me that she got some coupons and wanted to give me some."
"That's pretty kind of her."
Mahiru smiled when she thought about Akane and continued to ask him more about it.
Haruto just smiled and tried to continue the conversation but his mind was in a direction completely elsewhere thinking about the message he had just read.
[Emergency!! SOS!! I just found out that Mahiru's birthday is in 4 days!? We need to do something!!!]
***
I hope you enjoyed it. Peacu
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