A Thousand Cranes for a Wish (USHIJIMA X OC)

Rice

For the next few days, the routine was the same. Go to class, get dragged to the gym by Tendou, watch the team play, then walk home. Umeko and the coach would share a few scattered words with one another, enough to be considered small talk which was progress. It was a relief if she was being honest. She had gotten considerably closer to the team to the point where if they saw each other in the hallways they would wave and say 'hi'. All except Shirabu that is. Umeko had made an attempt to be on positive terms with the boy but everything she tried failed to work. Granted her attempts were pretty pathetic but there was an attempt made at least.

Umeko walked into the club room and placed her bag down by the entrance. She yawned and made her way to her cubby. Her notebook was a little worse for wear as she placed it in. Umeko was supposed to sleep early last night but instead she decided to carve the entirety of the school gym on a soap bar. It was a damn good miniature, so it was worth every painstaking hour.

Umeko glanced at the empty unnamed cubby. Looks like the unofficial member accepted the gifts. She smiled. I'm glad. Umeko pulled out a handful randomly patterned origami paper and sat down at her desk. Her goal for the day was ten paper cranes. She furrowed her eyebrows as she began to fold.

"G'mornin', Akiyama."

"Good morning, Sakuma" Umeko looked up for a brief second.

Sakuma raised an eyebrow upon seeing her notebook. "Again?"

"Again. Anyway, how is the table tennis club doing?"

Sakuma ruffled his blonde hair and gave a thumbs up. "They should be back on their feet by tomorrow." He went to his cubby and pulled out an individual pack of Oreos and a stack of blue origami paper. "After that it's just a matter of slowly disappearing, the usual."

Umeko nodded as she looked back down to her half-folded paper and continued. "That's good." She finished folding then sighed. She had made a paper duck, not a crane. "I hate this."

Sakuma took his seat adjacent to her at the table and began to fold. "I really don't understand how you still struggle making a crane even with the instructions." He finished his first crane of the day and placed it to the side of his table. "You can make everything else without even thinking about it."

"And that's precisely why I speculated it to be a curse." A slender girl with glasses walked in and shut the door behind her. "Akiyama clearly needs help from the divine." She pushed one of her braids over her shoulder as she pulled out plain gridded paper.

"G'mornin to you too, Hashimoto." Sakuma gave her a lazy wave before he went back to folding.

Umeko mumbled a quiet 'Good morning' but she didn't look up from her third attempt of a crane. Her second attempt of a crane had turned into a walrus.

Hashimoto raised an eyebrow unamused at both her clubmates, granted she knew she should be expecting this kind of response, but after three years she would like an enthusiastic greeting by both of her clubmates. "Am I right to assume that you have already finished the intervention?" Hashimoto switched her glasses then began to fold with practiced precision.

"Who do you think I am? Of course." Sakuma scoffed as he finished his sixth crane.

Hashimoto rolled her eyes. "Their ego stroking has been working at full strength it seems."

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"Wakatoshi! That's really cool, did you make that?" Tendou pointed at the small origami lion lounging on Ushijima's desk. Tendou leaned in close to inspect the item.

"No, I got it from a friend."

Tendou's eyes widened in shock. "Which friend?"

Ushijima waited for a second before he answered. "An important friend." He smiled softly, picked up his bag and began the walk to the main building with Tendou beside him. "Time to go." Ushijima ended the conversation before Tendou could ask anything else. Though at this point Tendou had a pretty good guess on who the 'important friend' was.