ykwim? - yot club
there was only four months months left until preliminaries, and ushijima had been especially jittery and anxious. not too much to garner any worry, but he was often caught spacing out and losing his thoughts. and very few people knew why.
one of the first things that ushijima did after practice that day after kawanishi's confrontation was console tendou in the locker rooms.
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"tendou, i have a problem."
"go ahead."
"kawanishi and i made a deal that whoever confesses to tenma first would have her to himself. it's set for preliminaries. however, i... i don't know if i can exactly tell her yet."
"what's stopping you?"
"she said before that she didn't have feelings for anybody. so i don't think she'll accept my feelings either."
"well, have you been trying to get her to like you more?"
"i believe that i have. i carry her bags when we walk to class, and i wait for her after practices to make sure she's well enough to walk to the library."
tendou scoffed. "anybody could do that. hell, i could do that and she wouldn't notice a difference. you need to be less friendly, and more boyfriendly."
"boyfriendly? that's not a word."
"that's not the point. you need to be more personal. it won't do you any good if all you're doing is pursuing someone that you see as a peer."
ushijima threw his volleyball jacket over his shoulder. "what should i do then?"
tendou hummed. "maybe, instead of waiting to see if she's well to walk home on her own, offer to walk with her. let her call you by your first name, and hopefully she'll let you do the same. and i don't know if she told you, but she really likes the occasional sweet from the canteen. save one of those for her."
"i suppose." ushijima hesitated continuing.
tendou sighed. "has taichi made any progress that you know of?"
as soon as the ginger second year was mentioned, ushijima's expression morphed to a grimace.
"unfortunately. tenma was assigned to be his math tutor last week, so they stay in the library together before practice on thursday."
"when did he get so sneaky?" tendou wondered aloud.
"what do you mean?"
"i've seen taichi do math. he could teach a class if he wanted to."
ushijima grimaced. he hated that. he hated how easily kawanishi snuck his way into her life.
"i didn't know that."
"and he was smart enough to keep that secret from y/n as well."
-
ushijima and y/n sat in their classroom together quietly enjoying each other's presence while they waited for their teacher.
the conversations that happened around them were less than interesting, and both members of the volleyball team found more satisfaction in the fact that the other was there at all, let alone speaking.
their classmates did find them intimidating, however, as they chose curiosity over caution, they turned to speculate the state of the two's very strange relationship.
"last week ando tried to ask her out, but before tenma could even give her answer, ushijima got all defensive and pulled her away."
"maybe he was jealous? like he thought that she would say yes?"
