Unpolished Gems

Chapter 54

The following days followed the same routine of school and practice. Nothing interesting happened besides the new addition of short study sessions inside the club room before and after practice.

Tsukishima's voice was soothingly calm and quite smooth, something that would be good if it weren't for the fact that it was making [Name] sleepier than he already was. It's not like he needed to study anyway but his fellow first years were insistent on him paying attention because it'll be "useful" for him too.

"Okay, on to our next question." Tsukishama continued as he held a paper consisting of a previous worksheet they had done for a specific subject. "Hinata, what's the answer to question number 6?" He asked.

Hinata complies by showing him his worksheet and the answers he had for it. It was some sort of fill-in-the-blank type of quiz where you fill in the sentence with an appropriate phrase to create the correct proverb.

Sometimes, even the cold-hearted will shed tears in a show of mercy. What is the proverb for this? The question read for item number six.

Tsukishima squinted his eyes as he read Hinata's answer. 

Even a demon can get... "An iron club in the eyes!"

"My eyes hurt!" Like the empath he was, Yamaguchi couldn't help but screech at the imaginary image of a demon getting hit with a spiked iron club in the eyes.

[Name] couldn't help but startle awake at the loud noise, wondering what the hell happened in the short moment he had fully fallen asleep.

"That's really mean of you to treat a demon like that," Kageyama commented causing [Name] to grow even more confused. Why were they even talking about a demon? How the hell did the topic switch to that in the first place?

"You're thinking of the other proverb. Didn't you read the question?" Tsukishima sighed as he looked up from his paper.

"Shut up!"

[Name] blinked tiredly and rubbed his eyes with a yawn. His gaze then shifted over to the paper Hinata had placed in front of him and suddenly everything made sense. Right, they were still studying.

"You must have just written down whatever when you see the word demon. You are such a simpleton. That's right. Could you just calm down?" The more Tsukishima talked, the more annoyed Hinata grew. It was obvious he was holding back his yell for the sake of not losing their tutor but damn, he was close to breaking. "You're out of control."

That seemed to be the final straw as Hinata couldn't help but yell back after all the insults. "Why do you criticize everything?"

At those words, Tsukishima slammed a hand on top of Hinata's worksheet as he turned his gaze over to Kageyama this time. "YAs for you, you shouldn't be criticizing, Kageyama. You're no better than Hinata."

The sight of the setter being chewed out this time brought a small smirk on Hinata's face.

"You have to figure out a way to memorize some English words." Tsukishima sighed, another addition to the many others he'd done so far during the start of their tutoring.

"We're Japanese, how can we understand English?" Kageyama rebuked quite confidently.

[Name] couldn't help but look tired for Tsukishima when he heard that. He may be a moron sometimes but not that much. Staying quiet, he wondered how the blonde would deal with this as he hugged his folded hoodie closer to his chest.

"So you're giving up on Tokyo?" 

Ah, that's how. It was a pretty smart trump card to pull considering how he was talking to volleyball-obsessed idiots right now. As expected, it got Kageyama to shut up immediately.