I Can't Say "I Love You" | Kuroo Tetsurō

Chapter 19: Bitter Rivals

Yamaguchi and Mirai spent most of their breaks together - something that Yamamoto strongly disapproved of and Kuroo had to scold him for scaring the poor freckled first year the first time. It was fun just talking to her old friend again, like they hadn't been separated this whole time.

Mirai loved the way Yamaguchi spoke about his volleyball practices, he definitely changed a lot since middle school. She noticed that he had gotten considerably taller as well. It was a little frustrating since they were nearly the same height back then.

"So what's up with you and your captain, Mirai-san?"

Yamaguchi's random question caused her to choke on her drink. He panicked and apologized about a dozen times before she had to calm him down and tell him that it was okay.

Besides, she had nothing to hide, right?

"Kuroo-senpai told me that he was going to make me fall in love with him in three months," Mirai sighed. "His attempts are honestly making me feel embarrassed since it's usually PDA..."

Yamaguchi laughed at her defeated expression.

"You were never the PDA type of girl as I remember it." He said, smiling at her. "Didn't one guy in our class try to hold your hand and you ended up punching him on the nose?"

Her cheeks flushed bright pink at the embarrassing memory. Yamaguchi's smile grew wider, knowing that she could still recall that day.

"OH GOSH, YOU STILL REMEMBER THAT!?" She wailed, covering her face in shame.

"It's a little hard to forget when one of my best friends gave someone a bloody nose," he told her.

"I thought for sure that day you all saw me as some kind of vicious gorilla!" She forced out a laugh, still a little embarrassed.

Yamaguchi shook his head. "Not at all. I thought you were pretty strong to be able to punch that hard." He said, blushing a bit. "I kind of wished that I was just as strong."

Mirai looked up, surprised. She had always thought that Yamaguchi was strong in his own way.

For one, he was probably the only person who could stand Tsukishima's personality and cold attitude. That took a lot of strength of heart.

She grasped his hands and looked into his eyes. Her face was too close to his and Yamaguchi definitely felt his cheeks burning at the close proximity.

"Tadashi-kun, you are stronger than you think you are." She told him earnestly.

Her kind and honest words reassured him and his smile came back almost instantly.

Ah, he really was an angel in disguise.

"Thank you, Mirai-san. That means a lot coming from you." He said, nodding to himself.

Meanwhile on the Fukurodani team, Akaashi was observing Mirai and Yamaguchi holding hands. His stare caught the curiosity of their ace and Bokuto turned his head to look.

When he saw the two first years sitting by the stairs outside and holding hands, he mentally freaked out and his poor brain probably shut down afterwards. Konoha noticed their captain's brain dead expression and waved a hand in front of his face.

No response.

"Guys?" He turned to his teammates and pointed at Bokuto. "I think our captain stopped breathing."

Everyone looked at each other confused. Then, they looked at Bokuto who was unusually silent for about five minutes. They panicked.

"O-Oi, Bokuto, are you okay?" Sarukui asked while shaking his shoulders to try and get him to snap out of it.

"Bokuto, don't go into the light!" Komi yelled.

The commotion was loud enough to reach Kuroo's ears and he glanced over curiously to see what was happening. Bokuto stood there like he was being hypnotized, his eyes wide and his jaw hanging open.

"What's going on over there?" Yaku asked him, also watching the scene.

"It's Bokuto. So who knows." Kuroo shrugged.

Kenma pointed over to the door on the other side of the court. "Mirai and one of the Karasuno blockers are holding hands," he bluntly stated.

Everyone in Nekoma turned their heads to where their setter was pointing and their jaws dropped to the floor. Mirai was smiling and blushing and  h o l d i n g  h a n d s  with Tsukishima's best friend.

Kuroo felt the corner of his lip twitch and a tick mark forming on his forehead. He smiled but not the sweet angelic kind that Yamaguchi did. His teammates backed away slowly as the fires of jealousy burned in their captain's eyes.

Kuroo clapped loudly, gaining the attention of the female, then turned around to face his team. Even their gentle vice captain looked worried about him.

"Okay, everyone. How about we get back to practice?" Kuroo calmly announced, although the strain on his voice didn't go unnoticed by the others. "Can someone get our precious manager back so we can start?"

Yaku sweatdropped. "Kuroo... Are you okay?" He asked, though he kind of wished he hadn't.

"I'm completely f i n e, Yakkun. Let's just get back to practice~" he began clapping and walking away.

Lev blinked, watching their captain leave. He looked back at Yaku with a blank expression.

"He didn't look fine at all," Lev told him.

"Really? What makes you say that?" Yaku replied sarcastically and rolled his eyes. "Can you please just go get Mirai-san? I'm going to go talk to Kuroo and make sure he's not completely brain dead like that guy."

Lev looked to where the libero pointed and saw Bokuto sitting on the ground while being shaken and fanned by his teammates. It looked like only Akaashi was the one who wasn't very concerned about their ace.

He called Mirai back to the group and she said goodbye to Yamaguchi, promising to talk with him again during dinner. Unsurprisingly, Kuroo didn't look at their manager throughout the rest of the day and Mirai had no idea why.

Kenma was a little amused that she didn't understand why Kuroo became so depressed the entire afternoon. Well, at least it drove his best friend to start blocking Karasuno more.