Kageyama's Queen of the School [Kageyama Tobio]

[12] Tampered Competition

The bus ride to Tonshin High School really could have been a lot smoother, to say the least. Almost immediately after pulling out of the school lot, we'd hit the hard-to-miss pole out in the front lot. No one really knew about the school's quiz bowl team or that we were even going out to compete, so we left pretty quietly, but as soon as the bus made the sharp turn into the telephone pole, everyone came out to watch and laugh. Kageyama and Hinata were among the crowd (I saw their heads run out first since it would be an excuse to miss some class time), along with a few others from the volleyball club, but I had been too embarrassed to say goodbye and buried myself into the seat furthest away from the window. A few hours later, after promising the principal to pay for property damage, a family of black crows flew past us and a mirror shattered on the sidewalk as we drove by.

Hiruka, of course, was panicking since she was quite the fan of superstition.

"We're going to lose," she swore under her breath, getting off the bus the second it stopped moving. She led us inside the school, making rights and lefts around the unfamiliar halls to find our classroom without bothering to check in. Before the games started, each team had a room designated to them for breaks between games, and ours happened to be the room farthest from the entrance. Thank goodness I'd gotten used to carrying heavy stuff around or I'd be panting on the floor about now.

"Okay... the first round starts in ten minutes, let's get settled before we head over," Kanto-Kun said, unpacking our equipment, captain-mode now on. Every team had their own buzzer system and ours was just a few years old, so it worked well enough.

By reaction, I glanced at my watch. The boys would be starting practice about now.

Sighing, I went back to try and untangle the chords that were in too many knots to leave alone. I felt bad... no, scratch that, I felt awful. Usually, I'd be excited to go to other schools and compete over something that I was well above average at but now, I just wanted to go back and toss in volleyballs that went astray, or at the very least, grade some quizzes. My mentality had really changed ever since I became part of the volleyball club; I actually had a preference on what I wanted to spend my time on, and it involved a sport, out of all things. But, I couldn't afford distractions right now. Everything I studied had to stay fresh in my mind if I wanted to stand a chance against the rivaling schools.

By the window, Shinzo-San and Hiruka we're trying to get the schedule out of the pile of papers that were completely unorganized and undistinguishable, muttering back-and-forth about the time being wasted. Unfortunately, their tiny issue caught my attention just enough to keep me from seeing the flash of orange hair sprint past our classroom door, followed by a head of black and about seven more bodies follow after. I felt uneasy for a weird second as the running came and went, but the clock struck eleven and we all stood in sync. Whatever made my stomach start to turn, I couldn't think about it now-- Shinzo-San would notice if I became distracted and I really didn't want to deal with that annoyance so early on in the competition.

-

It wasn't really such a shocker when we advanced to the finals, not to sound egotistical, although... Shinzo-San was really crossing the boundary. His attempts to impress the females on every other team failed miserably the moment 'we could teach you a thing or two about winning' came out of his mouth.

The final round against Ryuska High was to be held in the auditorium of the school, and as we prepared ourselves in the back behind the thick curtain wall, I realized that the weird sense of dread was still in the pit of my stomach. Hastily, I bit into another granola bar and hoped it was just a growing hunger.

"Y'know, our scores are buried underneath Tomo's," Hiruka-San said, holding up the chart with checkmarks littered across the four rows, our names typed neatly and accordingly on the margin. I flushed as everyone let their jaws drop; my row surpassed second place by at least 20 marks. I hadn't even been keeping track of it.