Tsukishima kept looking at his classroom door during lunchtime, wondering if Yachi would come again. She hadn't come for a few days but he still kept expecting that she would come to see him. Disappointment came every time lunch break ended and class resumed. He couldn't blame her for ending her visits. It's not like he made things easy for her when she came.

Remembering that he actually asked her on a date, he felt like he made a fool of himself. He only asked because he thought that she liked him and figured that he wouldn't mind trying to date her. Yachi didn't annoy him and he didn't mind being around her. But when she told him that it wasn't her that liked him but another girl, everything he did felt stupid.

He always thought that guys who pursued unrequited loves like Nishinoya and Tanaka were stupid. If the girl didn't like him back, why keep trying?

"So are you just going to give up?" asked Yamaguchi. Tsukishima only sighed in response. "Are you afraid you'll be disappointment again?"

Well, he didn't want to try only find out that everything was in vain in the end.

"Pft, don't tell me you're scared, Tsukki," snickered Yamaguchi.

"Ha?" Tsukishima glared back at him.

Yamaguchi flinched a bit and gave him a nervous smile. "You should at least start talking to Yachi," encouraged Yamaguchi. "I'm sure she's sad that you're giving her the cold shoulder."

Not knowing what else to do, Tsukishima decided to take his advice. So the next day, Tsukishima waited outside of Yachi's classroom. If he needed to do something about Yachi, he might as well face her at some point. He watched as most of her classmates walked out of the classroom. He started to wonder why she was taking so long. When Yachi did appear, it was obvious that she was surprised but happy to see him. When he saw her smile, he couldn't help but think that she was waiting for him to respond all this time. She didn't care that he hadn't really been talking to her. She just wanted to be around him again. Realizing this, he decided to try to make things normal again. "I could walk you home if you'd like."

"Okay," she replied with a shy smile.

The two walked side by side; Tsukishima went at his normal pace while Yachi skipped beside him with a grin. He guessed that it was a good thing that he chose to approach her after school. She was smiling again.

"Sorry about the whole misunderstanding, Tsukishima," she told him. "I shouldn't have put the card in your bag in the first place."

"No, that was fine," replied Tsukishima. "I don't care that the card wasn't from you."

Yachi smiled, probably thinking that he was forgiving her for the whole situation, but he meant something else. At that moment, he decided he didn't care that Yachi didn't like him.

******

Over the next week or so, the first years studied together. Yachi was happy that things between her and Tsukishima were going well again. She guessed that her effort to mend their friendship wasn't useless after all.

Yamaguchi seemed to be at ease now since he was worried about the two of them. But lately, Yachi noticed that Yamaguchi often nudged Tsukishima and left the seat beside her for him. She found it strange but she didn't think much of it.

As the three of them continued to help Hinata and Kageyama, the two were steadily improving with their studies. Tsukishima and Yamaguchi were surprised while Yachi was ecstatic, but of course they still had a lot of work to do. When Hinata got stuck on one math problem, he kept trying it repeatedly, writing and erasing his work for over thirty minutes on the same question.

"Ughhh! Why won't this work?" Hinata complained.

"Did you want me to take a look?" offered Yachi. She left Tsukishima's side to get up and sit beside Hinata to look at his paper.

Slightly annoyed, Tsukishima told Hinata with a sigh, "Just stop trying. You won't get it at this rate."

Hinata growled back at him, "What? You do think I can't do this?"

"Not right now at least. Yachi can't baby you during the exam," stated Tsukishima. He handed Hinata some papers. "Here. Just memorize this first and do the questions on it."

Hinata and Yachi examined the paper. Tsukishima had written out all the topics and formulas Hinata would need to know along with selected questions that corresponded to each topic. Yachi looked in awe as Hinata gleefully accepted the paper. "You're the best Tsukishima!" said Hinata. "Do you need anything? A drink? A meat bun? A chocolate bar?"

Yachi looked at the study sheet and felt her stomach drop. She knew that Tsukishima was actually pretty nice even if he didn't really like to show it. She wondered if he had always been the type of person who would help anyone who tried their best, which would explain why he took the time to teach her more about volleyball.

"I need you to shut up and to stop bothering us with questions," Tsukishima snapped back at Hinata.

Kageyama snickered, "With his personality, you should have asked him if he needed help getting a girlfriend."

Yamaguchi coughed to stifle a laugh and Tsukishima glared at him. Yachi felt the heat rising in her cheeks. She couldn't believe she first thought of herself when the word 'girlfriend' was mentioned. It had been about a month since the misunderstanding, but she still felt guilty about it, even though Tsukishima said that he didn't care.

Kageyama looked at the three of them confused. "What's with that reaction?" he asked. "I was obviously joking-"

"Why don't we go get some food?" interrupted Yamaguchi before Kageyama could question any further. "It's almost dinner time."

As they got ready to leave, Yachi sighed. She and Tsukishima finally started talking to each other, but Kageyama had made it awkward again.

"Was there anything in particular that you wanted to eat?" Tsukishima asked Yachi, trying to change the subject.

"Not really," Yachi shyly replied. "I kind of wished I just packed dinner. Then I could have eaten while studying without having to go out to buy something."

"Are you good at cooking, Yachi?" wondered Hinata.

"Uhh... I don't know," she nervously answered. "I do cook regularly at home though."

"Really?" exclaimed Hinata. "I want to try your cooking!"

"What?" panicked Yachi. "I'm really not that good!" She felt a bit self-conscious with the thought of others trying her food.

"Well, you might get the opportunity to try Yachi's cooking at the team training camp," mentioned Kageyama.

"Yeah, Kiyoko-senpai's cooking was really good," recalled Yamaguchi.

"What?" Yachi's eyes started to spin. She started to imagine that Kiyoko was the daughter of some master chef, and that she could serve five star quality food. Yachi began to mumble to herself, "Do I need to learn how to cook steak? Sushi? Couldn't they die from eating raw food though? What if I didn't prepare it well? What if they die from my cooking? Then their families will come after me and I'll die from starvation while on the run. What do I do?"

As the others talked excitedly about another potential training camp, Tsukishima told her, "Stop freaking out. You don't need to make anything complicated. They'll eat anything." She nodded in response after she took a deep breath to calm down. "Don't worry. I've tried your cooking. Your cookies taste good," he added.

Yachi blushed, "Thanks, Tsukishima."

*****

After their exams were done and the school year ended, the four of them hung out with Yachi at the convenience store during their spring break. They were a little sad because the store felt empty without the third years there anymore. Yamaguchi tried to cheer them up by reminding them that their senpais had told them they would visit. Yachi also had Kiyoko's number so she could keep her informed on their practice matches and tournaments.

They decided to watch some online videos about volleyball and bothered their coach with some of the other things they wanted to try out. While they did that, Yachi worked on the new poster to advertise their club to the first years.

She drew some drafts but struggled with what kind of message she wanted to communicate. When she thought of an idea, she made the boys pose for a picture that she might be able to use. But when she went back to her sketch, it still felt like it wasn't good enough.

"What are you trying to do?" Tsukishima asked her while looking over her shoulder.

"I'm trying to go for a look that shows something between teamwork and champions," she answered. "But maybe I should just try something else."

When Yachi still couldn't get any inspiration, she decided to take a step back and try again later. The boys had started practising outside of the store. "They sure love volleyball," she thought to herself as she giggled.

She started to take pictures of them practising. It was only after a while that they noticed that they were being watched. She found out that Yamaguchi was camera shy and got flustered when he saw the camera pointed at him. Hinata was the opposite as he excitedly asked Yachi to take a picture of him doing various volleyball moves. Kageyama and Tsukishima didn't really care and just kept practising.

At the end of the day, Yachi reviewed the photos in hopes of pulling herself out of her artist's block. A lot of the photos were blurry. Some were funny with the boys bickering with each other. Yachi then stopped at another picture that made her heart skipped a beat. In the photo, Tsukishima had a sweet smile while looking at the camera. That was definitely something that she didn't see every day and it caught her off guard. It didn't occur to her that he was smiling at the person behind the camera.