The new school year had started and Tsukishima walked to his assigned classroom, 2-5. He sighed knowing that Yamaguchi wouldn't be in his class and wasn't looking forward to meeting new people. But when he entered his classroom, he saw Yachi sitting at one of the desks. "Are you in this class, Yachi?" he asked as he approached her and took the seat beside her.

"Oh! You're here too?" she asked excitedly.

"Yeah, Yamaguchi is in the other class but I'm glad that you're here." Yachi blushed and nodded to show that she was glad too.

The classmate in front of them turned around to greet them. He asked for their names since he hadn't met them before. Tsukishima just ignored him while Yachi introduced herself with a smile. "I'm Yachi Hitoka."

"I'm Nakata Kenichi," he said. He took a longer look at Yachi's face and smiled at her. "You're kind of cute." Yachi got flustered and glanced at Tsukishima to see what his reaction might be. "Are you free after school?" the guy asked.

Irritated, Tsukishima thought, "What kind of guy hits on a girl he just met?" He wasn't looking forward to sitting behind him for potentially the rest of the school year.

"I'm actually busy today," replied Yachi.

Tsukishima smirked at Nakata and turned to Yachi to say, "You'll wait for me after class right?" He told her loud enough for Nakata to hear. Then, he whispered something into Yachi's ear, making sure that the other guy was still watching.

Yachi nodded at Tsukishima with a shy smile. "Yeah, I'll wait."

Nakata got annoyed and glared at Tsukishima. Tsukishima just smirked back at him like he had won. He knew that after school Yachi was actually planning on putting up the posters that she had designed. She wanted them up as soon as possible so that there would be more time for the first years to see them. So Tsukishima had whispered to Yachi that he could help her with the posters, but Nakata didn't need to know that.

Later, as Tsukishima and Yachi walked the hallways with the posters in hand, they talked about how the team would feel fairly different without their senpais.

"We'll probably need another setter," noted Tsukishima. "Having Kageyama as the only setter has some risks. And it's hard to practice spikes with everyone waiting on one setter."

"That makes sense," agreed Yachi. "The current third years will probably fill in for Azumane-senpai and Sawamura-senpai."

"That'll probably happen for now, but Yamaguchi probably won't let them without trying to be a starting player too," he added. "But I wonder what jersey numbers we'll get this time."

Yachi froze in shock. She looked at Tsukishima as if she couldn't believe what he said was true. "You mean you're changing jersey numbers?" Yachi's hands shook in disbelief.

"Yeah, why?" he asked.

"I just got used to all your numbers from when I was recording the team's stats from your matches! Do you mean I have to relearn them again?" wailed Yachi.

As Yachi freaked out, Tsukishima let out a chuckle. "Nishinoya will probably have the same jersey number though so you won't have to worry about that."

"Why is that?" Yachi thought out loud. "Oh, is that the only jersey that's a different colour?"

Tsukishima shrugged and said, "I thought you'd know better because you handle our jerseys."

Yachi smiled, "I guess if we get a second libero, I'll have to check our storage."

*****

About a week later, the team had their first official practice. Three first years had joined them. There was a short one with brown hair and the first thing he did was to examine his senpais. "Who is the ace on this team?" he confidently asked. Some of the team members snickered at his comment because it reminded them of the other short player who used to be obsessed with the ace title.

"I guess that would be Tanaka," Ennoshita pointed him out.

"I declare you to be my rival!" the first year had the audacity to say as he pointed at Tanaka.

"What? What?" Tanaka said while glaring at the haughty first year. "You wanna pick a fight with me?"

Hinata jumped excitedly and asked, "Did you want to be the ace?"

"What? No way!" the first year said. "I'm a libero."

The whole team tilted their head in confusion with what he had just told them while Nishinoya laughed his head off.

"A libero's main enemy in a game is the opponent's ace," the first year elaborated. "The better the ace is, the better I can become. That is what a true rival is."

Hinata was in awe at the first year's philosophy. "That's amazing!" he said.

"Well, I'm happy to have another libero join me," laughed Nishinoya.

The first year's jaw dropped. "You're a libero?" he asked Nishinoya. "Teach me everything you know senpai!" Nishinoya got flustered and downplayed his abilities, but he took him in as his new pupil. The new libero introduced himself as Tobikomi Toji.

"It seems like our team keeps getting some interesting characters," commented Ennoshita.

"You mean more loud mouths," Tsukishima corrected as Yamaguchi snickered.

Following their team's tradition, they setup a 3v3 match with the first years. Tsukishima was placed on the same team as Tobikomi. Tobikomi thought it was great that Tanaka was on the other team so that he could have the opportunity to show off his skills against the ace.

During the game, Tobikomi had already managed to tick off Tsukishima. "I can't get the ball with your stupid blocks in the way!" he complained. Apparently, he wasn't used to the players in front of him being able to reach for the block. His middle school team was short compared to other teams and couldn't block well, so he was used to getting the ball with nobody marking the attackers.

Annoyed, but also wanting to test him, Tsukishima purposely got his block timing wrong a few times to see how he would do. When Tobikomi was able to get the ball, he decided to make things a little harder for him. "Tanaka-senpai, I'm not going to block the ball for the next point."

Tanaka snickered, "I see that he's already pissed you off. Don't worry. I'll make sure to show my 'rival' just how good I am." So when the ball was set to Tanaka again, he spiked at such a sharp angle that the ball hit the attack line. "That set was great!" Tanaka complimented the first year setter, Mitsuichi Yuuta.

After repeatedly missing more of Tanaka's hits, the libero apologized to Tsukishima. "I'm sorry. I was too conceited," he said as he placed his palms together to ask for forgiveness. "High school volleyball is harder than I thought. So please teach me, senpai."

This threw off Tsukishima and he didn't know how to react. They continued the game but this time, Tsukishima went to block Tanaka's straight so that the spike would be directed at the first year libero. After a few of those, Tobikomi realized what he was doing. "Tsukishima-senpai, you're actually really cool," he grinned with a thumbs up.

Tsukishima smirked at him and decided that he was okay for now - until Yachi came into the gym. "Did I miss it?" asked Yachi. "Are you still playing?"

"Who is that?" the first year asked to no one in particular. Before anyone could answer, Tobikomi ran up to Yachi to chat with her. "Can I have your number?" he asked.

Yachi got flustered and a few syllables stuttered out of her mouth. Tsukishima walked up right between them while he held the volleyball in his palm. He glared down at the little first year and told him, "It's your serve." Tobikomi flinched and hastily took the ball to the service line.

From then on, Tsukishima made sure that the libero received as few balls as possible. He blocked the spikes almost every single time. Tobikomi got annoyed and complained, "What the heck? That's not what you were doing earlier!"

"I never said that I was going to do anything for you," the tall blocker replied with a sadistic smirk. "This will happen in a real match, idiot, so get used to it."

******

Yachi stared at the blank pages on her notebook, not knowing where to start. Takeda-sensei and Coach Ukai had planned another training camp for the team during Golden Week, which was coming up in a few weeks. It felt like much too soon for Yachi, who was overwhelmed with the amount of work she had to do.

This was the first training camp that she had to plan for. Not only was it the first, but she would have to do it without Kiyoko-senpai's help. One of the things she took for granted was her meal planning, which was now on Yachi's plate.

During one of the class breaks, Yachi searched for recipes that she could try to use. Using her phone, she browsed through photos of meals that looked fairly tasty. But when she checked the details of various recipes, they would either use all these spices that she had never heard of, or would have way too many steps which made them impractical to use in large quantities. She sighed, not knowing what to do.

"Why don't you check out the grocery store?" suggested Tsukishima. "They have premade spice mixes and packaged sauces there. You might have better luck browsing there than on your phone for recipes that are actually feasible."

Yachi looked at him with her mouth opened. "That's actually a really good idea, Tsukishima!"

He smirked back at her. "If you want, I can come with you and try to help."

"Really? You'd do that?" asked Yachi excitedly.

Tsukishima shrugged as if he had nothing else better to do. "I wouldn't mind."

So after school, the two of them walked to the grocery store. Yachi stood inside the store, unsure as to where to start. Tsukishima suggested that they could aimlessly walk through the various aisles. After all, they only came to help her get some inspiration and not to actually buy some food. But when Yachi still didn't move from the front of the store, Tsukishima said jokingly, "You know, you can just buy a weeks worth of frozen meat buns for them."

"What? No, I can't do that!" exclaimed Yachi. "You guys need to eat better than that! You're all athletes!"

Tsukishima smirked at her. "I was joking. You need to start somewhere though. Why not just build on meals that you already cook for yourself?"

Yachi thought for a moment and then suddenly had an idea. She went to the frozen section to check out some of the prepared foods. "They have tonkatsu here!" she smiled as she looked at the breaded pork cutlet. "But it's kind of pricey. I only have so much to use with the budget that Takeda-sensei gave me."

"You could just use tonkatsu for one meal and cook something cheaper for the rest," he suggested.

"Hmm... okay. Let me write this down," said Yachi. She took off her backpack and pulled out her notebook. After she clicked her pen, she started to write down the cost of the pack of tonkatsu.

"Are you seriously using my back as a desk?" asked Tsukishima with a raised eyebrow.

"Oh! Sorry!" Yachi quickly apologized and removed her notebook from his back. "I didn't even realize- Umm... I'll try to find something else to use."

"It's fine," sighed Tsukishima. "It's not like there's anything else you can use around here."

Yachi shyly nodded as she gently placed the notebook back on his back. It was large and firm, and she blushed as she suddenly became more aware of Tsukishima's presence.

When Yachi felt like she had enough ideas to get her started with meal planning, she checked out a few items that she wanted to buy. She decided to try to cook at least one new recipe and wanted to practice at home.

"I hope these ribs will taste okay," Yachi said anxiously. "I've never tried making some before."

"I'm sure it'll be fine. The other guys like meat so you can't really go wrong with it," said Tsukishima. "And if you're really worried, I could even taste test if you want."

Yachi shyly smiled at him. "Okay. If it turns out well, I can bring it for lunch one day."