his manager | sakusa kiyoomi

10

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"Good morning!" Komori greets you cheerful, "Oh you look terrible, did you sleep last night?"

"Wow thanks Komori, and no, I couldn't sleep. When I was finally starting to fall asleep, I realized I still had to finish my homework, so I was basically awake for the entire night."

"I'll make sure my notes are extra tidy today so you can borrow them after. Maybe try to get a little rest? Today's practice is going to be a long one, especially since Inter-Highs are starting tomorrow."

"Thank you Komori," you say, resting your head on your desk.

You try your best to pay attention during class, but your teacher's words served as a lullaby for your tired brain. Sometime during the middle of class, you fall asleep.

What happened the night before still stayed prevalent in your mind. You debated whether you should text Sakusa and say sorry that way, but you figure that it's best to apologize in person.

You feel a tap on your shoulder, causing you to walk up. You lift your head and notice your classmates packing up their stuff and getting ready for lunch.

"Class is over, let's go eat lunch," Komori softly smiles.

You get up and start packing your stuff. Once you finish, you and Komori leave the classroom and head to your usual lunch spot.

"Did you and Kiyoomi talk after last night?" Komori asks.

"No, but I want to apologize for what I said, so hopefully he'll come here."

"I don't think he will. He's probably still a bit irritated about it."

"I guess I'll just wait to say sorry then. I want him to be in a calm state of mind and to realize what he said wrong as well."

"He was wrong about your friendship with Fukurōdani's setter, but he was right about Koya. He's really not a good person," Komori mentions.

"Okay, I get you've known him for longer, but he hasn't said anything bad to me. He hasn't done anything to hurt me either. You guys just keep saying he's a bad person, how am I supposed to know what's so bad about him if you don't tell me. Based off of my interactions with him, he's okay."

Komori looks away without saying anything else. You both finish your food in silence and split ways for class. In the hallways, you see a familiar head of curly, black hair in the sea of people waking opposite to you. You notice him walk past, but he brushes past you, without even acknowledging you're there.

•—•—•

Classes end and you finish changing for practice. You walk into the gym and see the nets set up again. Sakusa stands behind the serve line and gets ready to do his jump serve again. Unlike yesterday, his serve had much more force in it. It hit the court with a loud sound, and rebounded off the ground.

"That was a lot more powerful than your usual serves," you state.

He looks over at you with emotionless eyes then looks back the volleyball he grabbed from a cart, and responds, "I could tell."

Neither of you say anything after that. You watch as he does serve after serve, with each one getting more powerful than the rest. Players start to enter the gym and notice Sakusa. They don't say anything and go warm up where they won't be hit.

"Practice hasn't even started yet. If you keep serving like this you're gonna tire yourself out," you lecture him.

He doesn't react to your words at all and gets ready to serve again. Small beads of sweat were starting to form on his forehead, and his breath was becoming more ragged, but he kept serving. Just like that, the anger you felt yesterday returned. You walk far away from him, and immerse yourself into your work to prevent yourself from seeing him again.

"Sakusa, that's enough. We still have practice," Iizuna tells him.

Sakusa puts the ball away after hearing Iizuna and goes to get some water. Practice starts shortly after and is the same as usual, the only difference being the length.

Once practice ends, you help clean up the gym, then go change. Since your fight yesterday, you weren't sure whether you should walk home with Sakusa and Komori. It didn't feel right, especially since you and Sakusa haven't made up yet. With the sun starting to set, you had to make a decision quick so you don't walk home alone in the dark.

"Koya, could we walk home together?" you ask him, when you see him standing outside.

"Oh, you're not walking with Sakusa?" he questions, "Whatever, his loss, let's go."

The two of you start walking home together. Just as you leave the school gates, Sakusa and Komori see your figure slowly getting smaller. Sakusa looks at you, then the fading sun, and sighs. Komori and him walk home normally, with the exception of you.

"Do you know how much farther your house is?" Koya asks you, breaking the silence.

"Um, maybe like 10 minutes. Why?"

"My house is coming up soon too. If it's only like ten minutes or something you can walk by yourself right?  It's starting to get dark, so I want to get home quick."

"Yea of course," you lie, not wanting to seem like a burden, "I'll be fine."

Hearing your lie, Koya leaves, believing you spoke the truth. He walks away to his own house leaving you to walk alone in darkness.

Even though you used to walk home alone, you never walked this late. Even when walking with Sakusa and Komori, only on rare occasions did it get this dark. Even on those black nights, Sakusa never abandoned you. Just having him by your side relieved you. You got used to the sense of security you felt when you were around him. Today you tried replicating that with Koya, but it failed. Now you're all alone.

Filled with dread and fear, you make your way down the street, wishing you had Sakusa by your side. You reach home safely and unpack your things. After settling in, and eating dinner, you head to your room and work on your homework. Ever few seconds, however, you would glance at your phone. Eventually you just unlock it, and mindlessly go to your text conversation with Sakusa.

Your fingers hover over the letters and you think about what to say. In the end, you type something short and press send. Within minutes, you get a reply, agreeing to your request to talk after Inter-High.