About one month ago

Takeda-sensei had organized another practice match. Choyaku High was in the quarter finals in their neighbouring region. They were one of the favourites to go to the nationals, but they were matched early with the team that ended up winning the tournament.

Typically, Takada-sensei wouldn't be accepting practice matches after the national tournament in Tokyo. Volleyball activities usually died down around this time of the school year. According to his sources, their team had some interesting spikers, so he wanted to see how Karasuno's first and second years would fair against them. For Coach Ukai, it was an opportunity to regroup a bit before the players started focusing on studying for their finals.

Of course, Choyaku High was delighted to be playing a team that had made it to the nationals. Their coach had always said that playing against stronger teams accelerated a team's growth in both motivation and skill. So when Karasuno accepted the invitation, the practice game was immediately scheduled the following week.

The teams marched over to the court and stood in their assigned places. The referee blew the whistle and the match started.

Kageyama served for the first point. Their opponents were amazed at the speed of the serve, but it didn't faze them. After they finally got the ball up after a few tries, Tsukishima missed the timing of the block.

Tsukishima sighed. "Another team with a different block timing," he thought.

A few points later, the other team started showing more of their cards. Ikaeru was the middle blocker that Tsukishima often faced off with due to their rotation. He and their setter had a knack for messing up Tsukishima's timing. Half of the time, Ikaeru delayed his jump before he hit the ball. Tsukishima would jump too early for those hits and the receivers would have to get it.

Ikaeru smirked at Tsukishima every time the ball got passed him. It was no surprise that Tsukishima wasn't too happy about this. He watched them to see if there was anything different with Ikaeru's approach or in the set. But he couldn't catch on to anything during the first set of their match. Although Karasuno had won that set, Tsukishima wasn't happy with his performance.

Tsukishima walked out of the gym. Although he was annoyed, there was only a slight frown on his face. As he turned the corner, Yachi bumped into him and dropped the water bottles she had just filled.

"I'm sorry!" exclaimed Yachi as she bowed in apology multiple times.

Tsukishima sighed, "It's fine."

Yachi examined his face with a knowing look. She had noticed Tsukishima's discouragement during the game, but she didn't know how to help. As the two of them started picking up the water bottles that had fallen, Yachi struggled with the words to say to encourage Tsukishima.

"It looked like you were trying to guess block during the game," noted Yachi, "as if you were trying to guess if the opponent was going to play rock, paper, or scissors." Yachi thought back to how Tsukishima had looked. Sometimes he jumped way too early and other times it was late. It was so uncharacteristic of him that when she remembered how it looked, a small laugh slipped out of her mouth.

Tsukishima sent a glare at her, which made her swiftly shift ten steps back.

"Sorry, sorry!" she apologized profusely. "I didn't mean to laugh! It just... slipped?" As Tsukishima headed back, Yachi added, "But wait! Umm..."

"What is it?" Tsukishima raised an eyebrow. Yachi wasn't sure if that was out of interest or annoyance.

"I think...," Yachi stumbled over her words, "that volleyball isn't like rock, paper, scissors... I think... Your outcomes aren't weighted equally, right? Like minimizing risk or something like that? I don't know what I'm talking about. Why am I talking even though I can't even play volleyball? You know volleyball a lot better than me. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't think that was helpful at all." She panicked and then laughed nervously.

Within the next minute, Tsukishima's eyes lit up, which didn't get past Yachi's notice. Tsukishima smirked at her, "You're actually pretty smart."

Yachi shyly rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm not that smart," she denied. "But if anything I said helped, I'm glad," she smiled. After Tsukishima helped her carry the water bottles, they walked back to the gym together. Yachi was excited to see how Tsukishima would play after his epiphany.

Before the second set started, Tsukishima discussed his new tactic with the team. He would need their help to cover for him. After the set started, Yachi noticed that Tsukishima was prioritizing the timing of Ikaeru's regular hitting approach over his delayed one. Tsukishima realized that Ikaeru's hits were weaker with the delayed approach because he had to stop his momentum in order to perform it. So Tsukishima trusted his teammates to receive those ones. But he made sure to block the regular hits and put it away. When he did, he glanced at Yachi, only to see her cheering for him. "Way to go, Tsukishima!" she said with a big grin.

Choyaku High started to catch on to their strategy. The setter began to utilize their wing spikers more, which Tsukishima handled well with his read blocking skills. Meanwhile, Ikaeru started getting annoyed that the setter didn't set the ball to him. Between points, he took him aside and told him, "Just do the delayed set more. I'll make sure to put it away." Meanwhile, Tsukishima watched from the net, like a crow waiting to devour.

Ennoshita served the ball and the opponent's libero received it. Ikaeru ran up to spike at first tempo and the ball left the setter's hands. As Ikaeru was about to jump after delaying it, he and the setter were shocked to see that Tsukishima didn't jump yet. He had read their play. Ikaeru hit the ball into Tsukishima's block and their wing spiker was there to follow up and cover the ball from the block.

The setter decided to try and send the ball to Ikaeru again. They used the delayed approach thinking that Tsukishima wouldn't read them a second time, but this time Tsukishima blocked it again and the ball hit the ground.

"How did he guess that we'd do the same thing twice?" yelled out their setter in frustration. But Tsukishima didn't guess. He wasn't going for their delayed approach initially but that didn't mean he had stopped observing. Over the course of these sets, he had been watching their every move to the details. That accomplishment was so satisfying that Tsukishima cheered with his teammates. He looked over at Yachi and then suddenly regretted it.

"Tsukki, Tsukki! He's the best! He will put your spike to rest!" cheered Yachi.

"Ugh... Don't tell me she was expecting that block so she could use that cheer," Tsukishima mentally complained. Apparently, the rest of the bench liked the cheer enough that they joined in until Tsukishima told them to shut up.

Tanaka slapped his back and laughed, "But they're right. That was great Tsukishima."

After this set, they played three more sets to make it a complete five set match. Karasuno had won by the third, but practice matches were meant for practice. As they helped clean up, Tanaka came over to Tsukishima to intentionally bother him.

"Hey... Don't tell me that I didn't notice you checking out Kiyoko-san during the match," he nudged Tsukishima. "Were you trying to impress her?" Hearing Kiyoko's name, Nishinoya came over to join in.

"I wasn't," Tsukishima denied flatly.

Nishinoya completely ignored his denial. "It's fine. It's understandable that you kept glancing at her. But make sure that you don't get too distracted during our games," he grinned.

Knowing that neither Tanaka nor Nishinoya were listening, Tsukishima didn't bother defending his actions and brushed them off

*********

Kageyama had discussed with Coach Ukai on some areas of improvement that he wanted to work on. So he booked another gym for the team to work on individual skills knowing that the rest of the team would like this as well.

"Tsukishima, come practice with me, dammit," stated Kageyama.

Annoyed, Tsukishima asked, "Is that supposed to be a question?"

Kageyama tried again, "I want to see which set you like, dumbass."

"What the heck?" Tsukishima was obviously ticked off by Kageyama like usual, but he went to practice with him anyway.

The two tested out different set heights and tempos. Nishinoya came to join to receive Tsukishima's hits and Yachi also came to help by tossing the ball to Kageyama.

"Your spikes are pretty weak," commented Kageyama. "Nishinoya-senpai got most of your spikes."

Tsukishima shrugged, "He's just good. And it's not like I'm the ace."

"You're still an attacker though, dumbass."

"Whatever."

Yachi sighed. "Why don't they just get along?" she thought to herself.

Hinata joined to practice with Kageyama and Tsukishima switched over to blocking. As Tsukishima and Hinata battled at the net, Hinata tried to hit the ball at the blocks from different angles while Tsukishima tried to counter each one of his attempts. Their sets, spikes and blocks continued until practice has ended.

Tsukishima went to grab his water bottle, but as soon as he grasped it, he winced in pain and let the bottle drop. He examined his fingers and sighed. He must have not realized his injury during their practice. Yachi noticed Tsukishima's tense expression. "Did you hurt your hand again?" she asked.

He blinked a few times before saying, "Yes," and pointed to the knuckle on his ring finger.

Yachi grinned. "Great!"

"Great?" he thought. He always knew that Yachi was a little strange but he never expected her to be happy over someone's injury.

"Yeah! Now I get to practice taping!" she exclaimed. Tsukishima snorted. He thought she was actually concerned for him, but it looked like she was just looking for an opportunity to practice.

"It doesn't need to be taped right now," said Tsukishima. "We're done practice so having my fingers taped now will be only be bothersome." Yachi frowned. Tsukishima noticed that she had already dug out the tape from the medical supplies, as if she was waiting to pounce on the opportunity to tend to one of the players. As she started to put the tape back, he added, "But if you really want to practice, I guess you can just remove the tape afterwards."

Yachi's eyes lit up when she realized her chance wasn't lost after all. Tsukishima and Yachi sat next to each other on the gym floor and she scooped his hand into hers. As she started to gently wrap the tape around his finger, Tsukishima told her, "That hurt."

"What?" Yachi freaked out while letting go of whatever was in her hands. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I know I'm still learning, but I didn't mean to hurt you!" She finally stopped babbling when she saw the glint that Tsukishima had in his eye.

"I was joking," he said flatly with a smirk. Yachi's jaw dropped open. She looked at his hand then decided to firmly grasp Tsukishima's sore knuckle until he wailed just enough to satisfy her. Then she promptly gave his hand back, got up, and stomped away.

"You totally deserved that," stated Hinata.

"I guess not even Yachi is immune to your shitty personality," added Kageyama.

Tsukishima glared at the two of them and they flinched. It was apparent that they had never seen Yachi react with petty revenge, and it was fairly amusing. But the team couldn't blame her for responding the way she did. But a moment later, the three saw Yachi stomp back to them.

"I'm sorry!" Yachi cried as she prostrated herself on the ground and bowed multiple times to Tsukishima. "I have no idea why I did that! Please don't kill me!"

Hinata and Kageyama snickered at Tsukishima as he struggled with how to respond. Slight annoyance grew on Tsukishima's face and he sighed. "I'm not going to kill you, Yachi-san."