Kageyama's Queen of the School [Kageyama Tobio]

[28] The King Returns

"Does this Oikawa boy look familiar to you, Tomo-Chan?"

I spun to look at Ukai, eyebrows raised and quite frankly a little blown away by the question. "You mean... Oikawa Toorū?"

"Yes, obviously," he snapped back, waving a finger in my direction, "don't sass me, Tomo, I have your dad on speed dial."

I rolled my eyes and pushed his finger away from my nose. Did he really not know? Did he not remember? Tooru 'Toto' Oikawa, my dad's adopted son? I know even though Oikawa was only in my life for about a year or so, Ukai certainly had to have seen him... or at the very least, heard about him from my dad. This was peculiar. I tried to recall a time where the four of us had been together at the same time, but was coming up blank. I scrunched my nose and stared off into the court in thought. A few seconds later, Tanaka didn't receive a ball well and we lost a point.

"I swear... I've seen him before..." Ukai continued on, mumbling as he scratched his chin.

"On a magazine, probably," Takeda Sensei piped in, showing us a picture on his phone of Tooru smiling wide. I held back a look of disgust, though neither of them noticed. "he's a well-known setter."

I continued to search my brain for a time where they'd all played volleyball together, but there was nothing. Truly, nothing. Blinking, I made a mental note to not judge Hinata so hard when he tells me his mind is blank after asking him something. Coach wasn't looking at me anymore at this point so I figured he wasn't interested in an answer anymore, and I dropped it.

Tooru stepped up to serve, serving again way too hard for Tanaka to pick up, and Ukai cursed under his breath, standing up to ask for our last time out as Aoba Johsai gained another point.

I pursed my lips as several things began to pull themselves together, the ideas like magnets. I stayed still for a moment, wanting to have a somewhat solid theory before I hurried to scribble my thoughts down, forgetting about neatness and structure on the paper. I knew what the cause of our downfall was, and I'd be damned if I gave any credit to Oikawa Toorū. This was something that could be fixed and worked on. This was not because one player could break down Karasuno's entire volleyball team, no. Oikawa was an obstacle, but he wasn't a god, he wasn't an unbreakable wall that stood in our way. We would beat him.

Just... not... today.

TWEET!

I glanced up as the boys came back in, making sure to close and throw my notebook to the side. Tanaka was tense, clearly angry that he was being targeted now by Oikawa. His last serves were directed right at him, and by Tooru doing that, one by one, was wearing all of our receivers down. Like the villain he was, his method of destruction was to just keep adding salt to the wound.

Besides him, Hinata tentatively opened his mouth, finger in the air. "Um, Tanak—"

Tanaka suddenly, violently, slapped his own face with one hand on each cheek, scaring the crap out of myself and Hinata. He left rather bright red handprints, and for a moment I really thought he was going to cry. Instead, Tanaka bowed deeply, his stance directed at all of us.

"I'm so sorry!" he shouted. The disappointment he felt was loud. I felt myself frown, not ever liking when the boys kicked themselves. "I didn't call for the ball! I freaked out for a second, goddammit!"

His second shout had Hinata and I synchronously side-step out of the way, just to be safe from any sudden violent movements. Tanaka continued on.

"I'll be kicking myself like hell when the game is over!" he shouted, tears forming and starting to spill, "I won't drag you guys down and I won't have you wasting your time, crying for my stupid mistakes! I'll make it count next time!"