Reflection In Your Eyes

Chapter 2: Practice

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Tsukishima walked into school looking like death. He used concealer from his mom's makeup kit to hide the bags under his eyes and hoped his glasses would hide any spots that he had missed. He also ran his head under the sink to wake himself up more and was running on 5 cups of coffee.

Yamaguchi met him at the gate. "Tsukki why'd you leave without me today? I know you hate waiting but you usually wait for me... s-sorry if I'm being annoying!"

Tsukishima sighed. "I was just out the house fast today...I wanted to talk to the captain about something before school started." He made up some random excuse for why he left without his friend without seeming mean. It may not have seemed like it but he did care about his friend's feelings.

"Really? I'll come with you then! I wanted to see if I could practice my serves anyways." Tsukishima mentally groaned, he didn't want Yamaguchi to know he lied but he also didn't want to have to think of a random question to ask Daichi.

"Okay..." Tsukishima stuffed his hands in his pockets and led the shorter boy to the gym. Yamaguchi just basically talked to himself the whole time, not expecting an answer from his stoic friend.

When they made it to the gym, Tsukishima had already thought of a question to ask. He hoped the question wouldn't rouse too much suspicion from his captain since he never really cared about what the club was doing. "Hello Daichi-senpai. I'm wondering if we have anything new going on, well actually my mom and brother just want to know since they are too invested in my life."

Daichi and Suga seemed surprised when Tsukishima approached them but hid it pretty well "Tsukishima! It's rare to see you here early when we don't have practice. I don't think anything interesting is happening but apparently Takeda sensei has some sort of announcement for us during our after school practice."

"Really? I hope they aren't going to make us train harder."

"Aw come on Tsukki! Think positive! We might have another practice match, like last time when we got to practice with Nekoma!" Yamaguchi seemed to be fine despite his curiosity about Nekoma the day before. Tsukishima was mad that he was the only one suffering because of it.

He sighed and began walking to his first class, he didn't want to waste time with those guys anymore.

"Sorry senpais, we'll get out of your hair now." Yamaguchi seemed to forget why he even went to the gym just so he could follow his friend to their class. "Tsukki wait for me!"

Class was boring and uneventful as always, listen to the teacher, take notes, answer questions, listen to Yamaguchi talk on and on in between classes. It was like a ritual. The only interesting thing to happen that day came when school ended and volleyball club began. The announcement was something that would bother him for the days that followed thanks to Yamaguchi and his big mouth.

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Takeda had decided to wait until the end of practice before making his grand entrance and announcement. They were going to Tokyo to play against Nekoma, Fukurodani, and other schools in the Kanto region thanks to Coach Nekomata. Tsukishima wasn't excited in the slightest, his teammates however were a different story.

Hinata and Kageyama were practically ready to fly to the moon while the rest of the team were happy to be able to get into a practice group like that. He bowed anyways, mostly just because everyone else was bowing and thanking Takeda.

He couldn't help but laugh when Tanaka said 'City Boys'. He could hear Yamaguchi laughing next to him as well. Hinata and Kageyama were way to hyped as usual and Coach Ukai was probably not paid enough to deal with them. Luckily club had ended so Takeda left and the club disbanded for the day.

Tsukishima wished he could say the day was peaceful but he couldn't get Takeda's announcement out of his head, they were going to practice against Nekoma again. Maybe he could figure out what made Yamaguchi think he was acting strange.

Hopefully he'd get the answers soon, he wouldn't survive much longer without being able to sleep. He also didn't want to deal with stealing his mother's makeup to hide the bags under his eyes, at least it didn't come off when he was practicing, he was sure his sweat would wear it off but it stayed on the whole day.

He praised makeup companies and the women who dealt with doing their makeup every day. He felt more respect towards his mother for her talent with makeup and even praised Oikawa for wearing makeup without seeming like he did (Tsukishima came to the conclusion that the Seijou setter definitely wore at least concealer).

Makeup aside, Tsukishima needed to get at least two hours of sleep if he wanted to be able to function without his teammates suspecting anything. Yamaguchi would definitely be able to tell that something was off if he continued to not sleep. He looked up ways to fall asleep when you're restless and tried every trick he could find, sadly none of them worked.

His sleep lasted for half an hour before he was rudely awoken by his alarm clock. He hit the snooze button or at least he thought he did, he opened his eyes and tried to find his glasses, only to be cut by broken glass. He cursed and tried to find his way to the lightswitch. He turned on the light and looked around the blurry room, he broke his glasses instead of hitting the snooze button.

He went to his drawer and pulled out his spare glasses, when he was finally able to see again he cleaned up his broken pair of glasses and went to bandage his hand. He hoped nobody would question the new glasses or the bandages on his hand but he doubted his wishes would be answered.

Today was going to be a bad day, he could tell.

-Sky