Looking at the Shoyo on the opposing side, Miya Atsumu was devastated: "Shoyo—am I still your favorite Atsumu-senpai!"
Coach Kurosu barked sternly, "Atsumu! Fifty laps, go now!"
Miya Atsumu stood up grumpily and began his fifty laps around the gym.
Hinata shrugged his shoulders; he was just about to get up to run with Miya Atsumu when Coach Kurosu called out to him.
Shoyo, if there's anything you don't understand or don't know when the time comes, just call Utsunomiya. If anyone from Central Physical Education University bullies you, find Utsunomiya too.
At this, Coach Kurosu's face darkened. "If Utsunomiya bullies you.. you call me immediately, do you understand?"
Hinata nodded heavily: "I completely understand."
He immediately raised his hand. "Also, Coach, I want to learn how to do a finger tip roll properly. Can I ask Coach Himegomiya?"
Coach Kurosu thought about it for a moment, then shook his head slightly. "Her legs aren't up to it, but you can try asking. If that doesn't work.. Utsunomiya can also help you find a coach from the Central Physical Education University Women's Volleyball team."
The Beach Volleyball coach most likely wouldn't know this, after all, many of the rules and judgments in Beach Volleyball are different from indoor volleyball, some techniques are not universal.
Miya Atsumu ran back in a circle, complaining resentfully, "I want to go too.."
Kurosu gave a cold and heartless refusal to Miya Atsumu: "No. Firstly, you are the Captain, secondly, we need to use that time to organize materials on our potential opponents."
The tournament format this time is quite troublesome; there's no way to look ahead at the progression of the matches.
Based on previous experience, the matches in Tokyo would be nearly finished by this time, the overall tournament schedule would be finalized in another two weeks, allowing them to predict their opponents for each stage in advance based on the regional divisions.
If there were no dark horses, there would only be seven to eight teams worth studying.
But with the modified tournament format, they won't know which teams they'll have to face until the Round of 32 to the Round of 16 matches.
Although they would only need to play at most four matches, the uncertainty meant they had to do much more preparation before their games, one could even say their workload had more than doubled.
Miya Atsumu gave in: "Fine.."
Under Coach Kurosu's expectations, everyone in the First String of the Volleyball Club passed this final exam with passing grades across the board, on the following morning, they officially set off for Shirabu High School.
Actually, compared to the people from Kaifang, the Inarizaki members didn't wake up very early, because the bus came from Osaka, whereas the Kaifang group had already woken up to prepare for their departure around four in the morning.
Even so, the Inarizaki members, who had been exhausted from finals for over a week, still quickly fell into a deep sleep on the bus.
Glancing back at Hinata, who was sleeping on Miya Atsumu's lap in the very last row, Coach Fujimine was filled with confusion.
Is this.. normal?
Noticing Coach Fujimine looking back repeatedly, Coach Omimi scratched his head and whispered to him about Miya Atsumu and Hinata.
This kind of thing certainly couldn't be kept secret. After all, neither Miya Atsumu nor Hinata were the types to hide anything; both of their loves were so passionate and direct that he was almost becoming numb to it.
By the way, I'll have to remind them later not to do anything out of line because they get too excited during the IH matches.
Coach Fujimine took ten minutes to process this matter, finally sighing silently, "Every family has its own troubles.."
No, this is actually fine," Omimi said, waving his hand. "In fact, the number of times Atsumu and Osamu have fought lately has even decreased. Overall, the pros outweigh the cons.
Coach Fujimine's brain short-circuited for a moment, then he turned his head to look at his Ace and Setter, who were ten thousand miles away.
Finally, he shook his head vigorously, shaking those unrealistic thoughts out of his mind.
As the bus was about to arrive in Oita, the Nagano Prefecture Interhigh tournament held far away in Nagano City officially came to an end. Karasuno successfully defended their title, winning the regional championship and securing their ticket to the nationals.
While waiting for the post-match interview, Hoshiumi Hikari pressed his phone with a somewhat irritable expression.
Bessho Chigen asked in a low voice, "What's wrong with Hoshiumi-senpai? He seems to be in a really bad mood lately, unusually irritable."
Hirugami Yukio laughed heartily. "His disciple was snatched away by a bad person he dislikes, so it's only natural that he's unhappy."
Hakuma also scratched his head. "Isn't his disciple that Little One from Inarizaki?"
Recently, Hoshiumi has been in a bad mood and has a very short temper. I didn't even dare to pick a fight with him; after all, Hoshiumi's aggressiveness in this state is exceptionally strong.
Hirugami nodded. "Yeah, it's Shoyo."
Hakuma was even more bewildered: "Kidnapped? That can't be right.."
But when that time comes, won't we be facing one less troublesome opponent when we play against Inarizaki?
Hirugami was a bit helpless. "How is that possible? Shoyo is still at Inarizaki."
Without continuing to pay attention to Hakuma's wandering thoughts, Hirugami walked over to Hoshiumi's side and watched him poking around a webpage on his phone, appearing to be looking at match footage. "What are you doing?"
Hoshiumi didn't even look up. "Posting videos on You Tube and Twitter."
Hirugami narrowed his eyes, looking closely at the interface on Hoshiumi's phone: "What video?"
However, the webpage was displayed very small on the mobile phone, so he could only clearly see the name of the file.
Called.. "Haruko Setter High-Energy Highlights"?
Hirugami was even more confused. Didn't Hoshiumi-senpai find Miya Atsumu unpleasant, so why was he editing a video of him?
Hoshiumi's expression turned extremely dark: "I'm going to show the whole world the video of Miya Atsumu getting hit by a volleyball and Oikawa-senpai almost getting hit by a volleyball."
Hirugami fell silent.
After a long silence, he gave Hoshiumi a thumbs up. "Well done."
This was their first step in the IH campaign—a psychological tactic against the Inarizaki supporters!
Hmm.. although it might be completely useless.
Author's Note:
【!! Tanabata Special Chapter!!】
After the meeting, Miya Atsumu rushed to the Inarizaki No. 2 Gymnasium and quickly changed into his volleyball shoes, humming a little tune as he pushed open the gymnasium doors.
Perhaps it was because the Third Year students hadn't arrived yet, or perhaps the Coach had announced self-training, so everyone in the gymnasium was busy doing their own thing.
Seeing Miya Atsumu enter, everyone stopped what they were doing and shouted to him, "Good evening, Yu Team!"
Miya Atsumu also greeted everyone, "Good evening, good evening. Keep at it, I'm going to warm up first."
He stretched his shoulders and arms as he walked toward Hinata, who was for some reason constantly tugging at his shirt by the side of the Inarizaki No. 2 Gymnasium.
Something was wrong, something was very wrong.
Although the two of them usually came together most of the time, there were times when he and the coach would go to organize materials, Hinata would proactively rush over to greet him when they returned.
Why is he.. so cold today?
He and Hinata had met this noon, he shouldn't have done anything to make Hinata angry; besides, if Hinata was unhappy, he would have brought it up himself.
Walking up to Hinata, Miya Atsumu leaned down slightly and asked him, "Shoyo, what's wrong?"
Hearing his voice, Hinata looked up at him with a pitiful expression. "It.. it hurts a lot."
“Pain?” Miya Atsumu froze for a moment, then leaned closer to Hinata with some nervousness, “Are you injured somewhere? Your hand? Or your foot?”
Hinata shifted his gaze away uncomfortably: "It's neither.."
But Miya Atsumu had already reached out nervously to grab his wrist to check on him, so Hinata quickly pulled his hand away and pressed his hand against Miya Atsumu's head as he tried to lean in.
He stammered for a long time before finally spitting out a few words in an extremely low voice, ".. My chest hurts, it's very uncomfortable."
Miya Atsumu blinked upon hearing that, becoming even more nervous: "Does it hurt inside? Is it pain when you breathe, or is it in the middle, or on the left side near your heart?"
He didn't injure his internal organs while rolling to dissipate the impact, did he..
"It's neither of those, it's just.." Hinata steeled himself and lifted his shirt up to his chest.
There were bruises from collisions on both sides of his chest, something Miya Atsumu was very familiar with; they were injuries caused by high-intensity practice and diving.
Even an experienced Libero like Unabara Uta couldn't avoid them; one could only say that as their proficiency increased, the frequency of injuries would gradually decrease.
But Hinata himself was a bit thin, his muscles hadn't fully developed yet.
Moreover, he could tell that Hinata must have just finished practicing one-handed defensive digs with his right hand.
Compared to the left nipple, which was merely swollen, the right nipple seemed to have undergone training even after swelling, it was bleeding slightly from the friction against the clothing.
Miya Atsumu froze for a moment: "Ah.."
He slowly stood up straight, but he couldn't look away; he could only raise his hand to touch his nose.
Hinata put down the clothes, his face full of distress. "So what should I do.. My serves felt even weirder just now, it's going to rub against it."
Unabara hasn't been doing specialized diving practice lately, so he's out of bandages. I thought once I became proficient, it wouldn't be an issue..
At this level of intensity, it has nothing to do with how proficient you are; if you get significant friction, it's definitely going to swell.
Miya Atsumu tilted his head slightly and coughed twice before suggesting, "There should be more in Coach's first aid kit. I'll go get some hydrogen peroxide to wipe it for you first."
Miya Atsumu went to the sidelines to pick up the first aid kit used daily in the gymnasium, then gestured toward the entrance and asked, "To the locker room?"
Hinata nodded: "Okay."
Kumagai glanced curiously at Miya Atsumu's retreating figure. "Why did Atsumu-senpai leave right after arriving?"
Unabara waved his hands repeatedly. "It's best if we stay out of the business of little couples."
Rishia Heisuke let out a deep sigh. In fact, having witnessed the entire scene just now, he chose to pretend he hadn't seen anything and turned his head to continue his serve practice.
In the adjacent locker room, Hinata sat on a stool in the middle, while Miya Atsumu squatted on the floor, taking out cotton swabs, hydrogen peroxide, things like bandages.
Miya Atsumu walked up to Hinata with cotton swabs and hydrogen peroxide, then knelt down gently in front of him. "Alright, lift up your shirt."
Hinata spread his legs slightly to make some room for Miya Atsumu, then used his hands to lift his shirt, exposing his bruised chest.
Atsumu reached out and poked the pectoral muscle on Hinata's side, avoiding the bruised area: "Does it hurt? Do you need to spray some medicine on it?"
Hinata shook his head. "It's okay, it doesn't hurt that much. It's just.. once it swells up, it rubs against things during other exercises, it feels really strange.."
Miya Atsumu curled his lips into a smirk: "Ah.. I think I understand."
Looking up at the slightly flushed Hinata, his hand moved slightly downward, using his thumb to press against Hinata's left nipple and rub it. "So hard."
Hinata was startled, the sensation of being touched on the already swollen area became even more pronounced. "Atsumu-senpai?"
Miya Atsumu had a layer of calluses on the pads of the fingers he used year-round to control the ball, so the sensation of contact was quite rough.
It was precisely because of this that he actually found Miya Atsumu's touch a bit unbearable.
On the day of the confession, Miya Atsumu had used his fingers to caress his body, a sensation that made him feel very uncomfortable and even a little bit afraid of his own body's reaction.
Atsumu narrowed his eyes, unable to suppress the curve at the corners of his mouth, laughing like a cunning fox.
Sorry, you look quite cute.