The next day at school, Yachi was a little nervous to enter the classroom. She couldn't believe that she had spent almost the whole day with Tsukishima. Their trip to the museum was nice. Although Yamaguchi and Mei had left, she had enjoyed her time with him. It all felt a bit surreal now that she was back in school.

"Oh, you're here," noted Tsukishima as Yachi took her seat beside him.

"Mmhmm," she replied. She could feel her cheeks getting warmer and turned away from him to hide her face. She felt so self-conscious around him now and couldn't remember how she was able to talk to him before.

Suddenly, Yumi opened the door of their classroom. When Yachi made eye contact with her, Yumi waved at Yachi with a big grin and started to approach her and Tsukishima. "Oh my goodness! Why is she here? Is she here for Tsukishima? Is she going to tell him the card was from her? What do I do? What do I say? I completely forgot about her!"

Noticing that Yachi was panicking, Tsukishima asked her, "Are you overthinking about something again?"

"Yes!" she blurted out. Tsukishima chuckled at her knowing that she didn't mean to respond like that.

"Hi Yachi!" Yumi said with a smile. "Could you do a favour for me?" Yachi cautiously gave her a nod. "Great! Could you give this card to Nishinoya-senpai? He's on the volleyball team right?"

Yachi's eyes grew wide as she saw that the envelope had Nishinoya's name on it with a little heart. She panicked as she blurted out saying, "I don't want Nishinoya to think I like him!"

Tsukishima snorted as he tried to contain his laughter. Yachi realized what she had said and hid her embarrassed face in her hands.

"I don't get it," said Yumi. "Why is this guy laughing at you?"

As Tsukishima continued to chuckle beside her, Yachi turned to Yumi and stared at her like she grew a horn on her head. She couldn't believe that Yumi didn't remember who Tsukishima was nor her confession to him.

"Anyway, Nishinoya-senpai is so cool," she squealed. "Do you know what he did for me? He caught my camera for me! You know those expensive ones? Well, he actually dove to catch it for me. So of course I fell for him right there!"

As Yachi continued to stare at her, she could almost see floating hearts streaming from Yumi's face.

"It's like other guys don't exist to me anymore," Yumi continued as she squealed. "He's the only guy that I can see." After she finished rambling, Yumi's friend called for her and she exited the classroom, leaving the card at Yachi's desk.

"What just happened?" asked Yachi to nobody in particular, as she blinked a couple of times.

Tsukishima gave her a nudge as he snickered, "I guess you should leave that card in his bag during our next practice." Yachi turned red as he held his stomach and laughed. She looked at the card in her hands and groaned. Tsukishima snickered, "So I'm guessing she was my former secret admirer?"

"Ugh," she said as she slumped in her chair. "Don't remind me about that. I'm glad you're taking this so well."

"I told you that I didn't care that it wasn't from you so stop worrying about it."

"Alright," Yachi sighed. "What am I supposed to do about this one now?" she said as she held up the card in front of her.

"I can give it back to her if you'd like," suggested Tsukishima with a smirk.

*****

Tsukishima walked into class 2-4 and started to look for Yumi. He saw Yamaguchi chatting with Mei and nodded at him to say hi. When he found Yumi in the classroom, he approached her, and to get her attention, he said, "Hey."

As he threw the card on the desk, Yumi looked up at him confused. "What's this?" she asked.

"You know, you shouldn't assume that Yachi will always do things for you," he told her. "You should give the card to Nishinoya-senpai yourself."

Yumi looked back at him stunned and a little embarrassed. "Oh, okay."

As Tsukishima was going to leave, he added with a smirk, "Thanks for giving me your other confession card though. But it seems to me like you complete forgot about that."

When he was gone, Mei told Yumi, "You know that was Tsukishima right?"

"Who?" she asked.

"The guy you confessed to via card a few months ago?"

Yumi stopped functioning. Yamaguchi laughed hysterically, and Mei found the scene hilarious.

*****

At the next practice, coach Ukai told the team to setup on one side of the net to practise receiving serves. The coach wanted to see how Tobikomi would do against Kageyama's serves. So they had the usual starters but with the first year setter and libero. The front row had Kinoshita, Hinata and Ennoshita and the back row had Mitsuichi, Tobikomi and Tanaka. Tsukishima stood at the sidelines with Yachi, Mei, and the rest of the team members.

Tobikomi was able to get Kageyama's serve the first time, but the ball went back over the net instead of going to the setter. "Kageyama has a pretty good serve," he smirked. "But it's nothing I can't handle." Kageyama served the ball to him again, but this time he moved back slightly as he received the ball to absorb its power and was able to direct it to the setter's position. He cheered and said, "That felt so satisfying to receive that."

"I wonder how he'd react to Yamaguchi's serve," Tsukishima commented to Yachi.

"Why do you say that?" asked Yachi.

"This kid is probably like Nishinoya and likes getting powerful serves and spikes because it looks cool. But with a float serve..." Tsukshima then wore a sadistic smile on his face.

Yachi giggled at how Tsukishima was reacting. She almost thought it was cute. "I guess you really don't like that libero. Why are you so mean to him?"

Tsukishima just shrugged and said, "He's just the most annoying."

Mei snickered as she sarcastically told him, "Oh, I wonder why." Tsukishima just ignored her comment.

When it was Yamaguchi's turn to serve, Kageyama went back to the other side of the net to switch with the first year setter. When a float serve was sent over the net, Tobikomi failed to receive it. "What the heck was that serve? That wasn't powerful at all and it kept moving."

Tsukishima snickered at him from the sidelines and said, "So a libero can't even get an easy serve like that?"

"Shut up."

Yachi just sweat-dropped at Tsukishima riling up the poor first year. She knew that it actually wasn't an easy serve to receive and that Tsukishima was just provoking him. She figured that she would have to get used to Tsukishima's personality since she would probably be seeing this a lot more of this from now on.

When Yamaguchi served two more float serves, Tobikomi got frustrated that he missed both. "What the heck is going on?"

Tanaka laughed at the first year libero and explained, "That's Yamaguchi's specialty. A float serve is a serve with no spin so it's more vulnerable to the air flow in the gym. It makes the trajectory unpredictable."

Tobikomi was amazed. "Wow..." He then pointed at Yamaguchi. "I declare you as my rival!" Tanaka laughed at his tendency to pick out rivals while Hinata amazed at his boldness.

As they started to wrap up, Tobikomi asked the coach for permission to receive more of Yamaguchi's serves. After multiple serves, Yamaguchi told Tobikomi that he was tired of practising them, even though the first year was on his knees, begging for more.

Yachi came around to pick up some of the volleyballs and Tobikomi approached her. "Did you want to try serving to me, Yachi-senpai?"

"Oh- Uh... I don't know about that," she said shyly as she rubbed the back of her neck.

"Go ahead Yachi. You can do it!" Hinata gave her a thumbs up.

"It wouldn't hurt to try," added Kageyama.

"Oh. Umm... Okay." She took a volleyball as Tobikomi ran to the opposite side of the net. She swung her arm to hit the ball, but the next thing she knew was that the volleyball had landed on Hinata's face.

Tsukishima smirked, "It wouldn't hurt to try?" referring to Kageyama's comment.

"Hinata, you idiot! You should have been on the other side of the net!" exclaimed Kageyama.

"What? Why?"

"Because you should have known that her serves always hit you in the head, you idiot. Then at least it would have gotten over the net!"

"What? Why are you blaming-?" Hinata paused for a moment and tried to think about what he said. "That actually makes sense."

"That doesn't make any sense at all," Tanaka, Nishinoya and Ennoshita sweat-dropped.

Tsukishima came up beside Yachi with another volleyball and instructed her on how to serve the ball. "Here, hold the ball in your left hand." He pointed to a spot on the volleyball and said, "You need to hit the ball around here. If you hit the ball from the bottom, it'll go up. If you hit it from behind, it'll go forward. So you need to hit it in between the bottom and back of the ball at a roughly 45 degree angle."

"Why is he talking about math during volleyball?" asked Hinata.

"That was math?" said Kageyama.

Yachi tried to follow Tsukishima's instructions, but the ball didn't reach the net because she didn't hit it hard enough. She swung her arm a bit faster the second time and much to her surprise, the ball went over the net. "I did it!" she shouted with joy. She was so happy that she wrapped her arms around Tsukishima.

"Gah! Why is she hugging him?!" complained Tobikomi with a pointed finger at Tsukishima. This made Yachi realize what she did and she apologized to Tsukishima out of embarrassment.

"It's fine," Tsukishima said with a straight face.

Tanaka snickered at him and said, "You probably did that on purpose to get a hug from her."

"I'm not that calculating," Tsukishima rolled his eyes at him.

Nishinoya joined in to tease Tsukishima as well, "I bet he likes Yachi or something."

"I'm surprised you can tell."

"See," said Tanaka. "Look at this guy trying to deny- Wait, what?"

The whole team blinked for a moment before they processed what Tsukishima had said.

"You like Yachi?!" exclaimed Tanaka.

"What's going on?! Is the world coming to an end?!" panicked Hinata.

"So this idiot actually has feelings?!" commented Kageyama.

"What did you do to him, Yachi?!" asked Nishinoya. "Did aliens abduct him and replace him with a clone?!"

"Shut up," said Tsukishima. "You guys are so loud and annoying."

"I set you to up on a date and that's how you decide to confess?!" Mei yelled at Tsukishima out of nowhere. He commented that he didn't expect Mei to join in too.

While Yachi was processing what had just happened, Tobikomi told Tsukishima, "I declare you to be my rival!"

Tsukishima got even more annoyed, saying, "I forgot about the other loud mouth guy. Everyone here is so noisy."

Yamaguchi laughed and said to Tobikomi, "I thought that Tanaka and I were your rivals."

Tobikomi shook his head. "No, no. He's my rival when it comes to Yachi-senpai's love."

The first year setter, Mitsuichi, said, "I can't imagine Tsukishima fighting for love." For some reason, he started to picture the tall and lanky Tsukishima fighting the short Tobikomi in a jousting match, fighting for Princess Yachi's affections. He then shuddered when he tried to imagine Tsukishima valiantly declaring his love for Yachi. Kageyama fixed the mental image by saying that Tsukishima would just flat out refuse a jousting match, saying that it was stupid.

"Oyyyy!" exclaimed the coach as he popped his head into the gym. "Stop messing around and hurry up! I need to be somewhere at 6!"

*****

Yachi couldn't believe what had just happened. Ever since Tsukishima had admitted to liking her, it felt like her eyes were spinning and she shouldn't think straight. She tried to analyze what he had said. "Maybe he didn't mean it," she mumbled to herself. "Maybe everyone's misunderstanding something. But he would have clarified it right?" She was so confused.

"Were you waiting long?" asked Tsukishima as he came up to her.

Yachi realized that she was subconsciously waiting for him out of habit since he usually offered to walk her home. She looked at him and continued to wonder about how he felt about her. She finally decided that she didn't want to misunderstand so she decided to ask him for clarification. "Tsukishima, do you like me?" she asked very straightforwardly.

"Yes," he simply replied.

"But, but, but how?" she asked.

"What do you mean 'How?' you idiot?" he replied as he lightly tapped her head.

She placed her hands on her head where Tsukishima touched. "But... since when?"

"I don't know. It was kind of gradual. I know I probably liked you by the time you 'confessed' to me the first time."

Yachi's eyes opened wide. "Really?" She couldn't believe he liked her for that long. That happened a few months ago.

"Yeah, that's why I was acting like an idiot after you told me the card wasn't from you," he shyly said as he rubbed the back of his neck.

"Oh, sorry about-"

"Yachi," he cut her off and then smiled. "Stop apologizing for that. You don't have to apologize for not liking me then."

"But I-"

"Looks like your rival is chatting with Yachi," Tanaka teased a grouchy Tobikomi after the rest of the team came out.

"Does this mean you two are dating?" asked an excited Hinata.

"Just leave them alone, idiot," said Kageyama.

"I guess they would be kind of cute together if they started dating," commented Ennoshita. "That height difference though..."

Nishinoya jumped onto Tsukishima and said, "Great job, Tsukishima. Now there's nothing else that I need to teach you about love."

"You didn't teach me anything," Tsukishima plainly replied as he pushed him off.

"Did you get a card from anyone Nishinoya-senpai?" snickered Yamaguchi.

"Card? What card?"

"Let's just go," Tsukishima said to Yachi as he gently pushed her forward.

Yachi giggled as she watched the volleyball team continue to banter while they left the school. She loved being around all of them but there was one special one on the team. She decided to let him know another time.