Remembering the main task at hand, Hinata pulled out Unai Aman's notebook. "By the way, Hayami, I came here to get your autograph."
You guys left right after your match ended, so I didn't even get a chance to find you..
Hayami suppressed the corner of his mouth that was curling upward and took the notebook from Hinata's hands. "Coach Kosano had to head over to our place before, so he left early."
The notebook wasn't open, but as Hayami flipped through it, he happened to see a signature on one of the pages written in seven-colored ink.. it appeared to be the name "Miya Atsumu."
Turning to the next page, Hayami saw Hinata's slightly cute and rounded Romanized signature again.
He smiled and pointed to the last blank page of the notebook. "Is it okay to sign here?"
Hinata nodded: "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm!"
He had already asked for autographs from Hanae and the others during the Inarizaki Regional Qualifiers and the Semifinals, mainly to prevent Hanae from refusing to give him an autograph once they woke up.
Hayami's signature was also practiced; after all, he was from the National Team, so he still had quite a few fans.
After writing her signature with a flourish, Hayami prepared to return the notebook to Hinata.
Hinata didn't take it, but instead asked in a low voice, "Hayami, are there any other people on your team planning to go professional? Could you help me get their signatures too?"
He felt a bit intimidated, because Sasaki was staring at him right now with a rather fierce expression.
Hinata didn't feel like he had offended any Star First seniors, yet he felt inexplicably guilty.
Hayami thought about it seriously for a moment, then turned her head and shouted, "Captain Arashiyama! Come get an autograph!"
Arashiyama said something to the Coach before walking over. "What kind of autograph?"
Hayami shoved the notebook toward the Captain: "Hinata wants your autograph."
Arashiyama took the notebook and quickly signed his name.
He handed the notebook back to Hinata, reaching out to tap Hayami on the head. "Alright, Coach is waiting, so hurry up and do your stretches."
As he spoke, he glanced out of the corner of his eye at Miya Atsumu, who was standing behind Hinata without saying a word, playing the part of a decorative vase, while making some guesses in his mind.
Has Miya Atsumu had a change of heart? Or was he ordered by the coach not to interfere with Hinata's socializing?
Hayami spoke up to call a halt: "Wait, there is still one most important step."
Arashiyama froze for a moment. "Huh?"
Hayami looked at Hinata and said, "Hinata, you give me an autograph too."
Miya Atsumu raised an eyebrow.
Hinata happily agreed, "Sure! I've practiced my signature to the point where it's actually readable!"
He rubbed his hands together, looking eager to start. "Where should I sign?"
Hayami took a look at the notebook in Hinata's hands.
The one he just signed was already the last page; there were no extra pages left to tear out.
He didn't have a clipboard with him, he certainly couldn't use Coach Kurosu's tactical board.
After thinking about it seriously, Hayami pointed to her own uniform, which was primarily white, yellow, purple: "Just sign on my uniform. It's an away jersey anyway, we're changing it next year."
Miya Atsumu's expression distorted for a moment, his gaze toward Hayami became even sharper.
Hinata happily agreed, pulled out a black marker, left his signature next to the number Hayami had pointed out on his back: "All set!"
Looking at Hayami's beaming smile, Sasaki whispered to Arashiyama, "This guy won't defect during tomorrow's match, will he.."
Although he felt that, given Hayami's character, he wouldn't do something like that, but what if he gets dazed and his reaction is a little slow because he wasn't paying attention?
Arashiyama replied, "It's fine, at most it's just a yellow card."
Sasaki fell silent.
He suddenly felt lucky that the people from Fukuda General didn't make it to Haruko, otherwise Matsuda and Kazama would have insisted on coming over to pick a fight with them.
At this very moment, in the Fukurodani cheering area of the stands, Shiratori let out a heavy sneeze.
Bokuto raised his hand to cover his nose and mouth, asking loudly, "Natsume, you didn't catch a cold, did you! Did you sneak out of your blankets last night?"
Akaashi, who had finished his match and was resting in the stands watching the game, looked as if he wanted to say something but hesitated.
Shiratori smiled: "Please don't judge others by your own standards; I never kick the covers off."
Bokuto looked shocked. "Will my kicking the covers cause you to catch a cold, Natsume?"
He quickly offered a constructive suggestion: "Then I'll tie the quilt to my body later, so I won't kick it out."
Osa Noboru shrugged his shoulders.
Wait, shouldn't the focus be on who kicked the blanket?
Shiratori struggled to maintain a smile on his face: "I don't have a cold."
I bet someone is secretly talking behind his back.
—It's most likely Kuroo.
Shiratori's heart was filled with immense sorrow.
During the Haruko tournament a few days ago, many teams participated, most of the seats were reserved for each team's cheering squad, making it impossible to buy tickets at all.
By the time he went to ask Hinata if there were any empty seats in the Inarizaki cheering area, it was already too late; it was said that the last available seat had already been reserved for Unai Aman, leaving nothing for him.
However, the good news was that once the number of participating teams decreased tomorrow, the Inarizaki cheering area would also expand, there would be a spot for him.
Since Fukurodani is among the competing teams this time, he can leave Bokuto behind with Fukurodani and head to Inarizaki on his own.
—This plan is simply perfect.
Shiratori began to envision the wonderful life that tomorrow would bring.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Hinata, having separated from the Star First group, had also slipped into the Inarizaki cheering area.
Unai had successfully completed the task he was given; although many pages of the notebook had been torn out by Miya Atsumu, overall, he had still met his objectives.
Seeing Hinata jogging up, Unai also greeted him warmly.
“Good job on the match, that was a beautiful victory.”
Of course!" Hinata gave himself a thumbs-up, then pulled out his notebook and handed it to Unai. "Giant-senpai, this notebook is already full of signatures.
The moment he heard those words, Unai Aman felt his brain freeze for a split second, for a moment, he felt as if he were hallucinating.
What? What's full?
His notebook is full of signatures?
What did he ask Hinata to sign again? It seemed like professional player autographs?
It's already full?!
After wondering for a second if Miya Atsumu had signed fifty pages all by himself, Unai opened the small notebook.
Except for one or two pages that only had one massive signature, most had three to four.
He had players from the Azure Rockets, Tachibana Red Falcons, Black Jackals, Shwaiden Adler, among others. The rest were signed by high school players or graduated seniors that Hinata had encountered, who were also expected to be members of the professional leagues in the future.
He had originally felt like it would take him ten or eight years to collect them all, but he hadn't expected that after only a few months, it would already be full of signatures by the time it returned to his hands.
Unai looked up at Hinata, who was looking at him with an expression full of anticipation for praise: "You.."
This is just too amazing!
Getting to know so many talented players, even some from professional teams, must have taken a lot of effort.
The corners of Hinata's mouth simply wouldn't stay down, flying straight to the sky; Unai's praise made his whole body leap with joy.
He acted humble for a moment: "It's nothing really, I just happen to know someone in the team. The one from Adler's was signed by Coach Suzaku upon my request, then it was mailed back to me."
Unai's eyes widened. "You even know Adler's coach? That's incredible."
His networking and social skills are already invincible!
Hinata stood with his hands on his hips, chest puffed out as he accepted the praise: "Hehe."
He reached out and flipped the notebook to his own page to show Unai, "Atsumu-ge helped me design a few of my signatures, then the Kita Team said that if I want to expand my reach later, it would be better to use Romanization, so I ended up with this one."
Unai nodded in praise, "It looks great, it really suits your image and temperament, Hinata."
The members of the side-area cheering squad stirred up: "What? What? Does the Little Radish have an autograph already?"
What little radish? It's the orange flash!
Shoyo-kun—I want an autograph too!
Me too, me too! Sign my hat!
Miya Atsumu was full of questions.
This doesn't seem right. Why have none of these uncles from the cheering squad ever asked him for an autograph?
Is our Shoyo really this popular?
Chapter 488: The 488th Fox
Glancing at the crowd, who had already pulled out their autograph boards or were preparing to contribute hats, clothes, cheering headbands for support, Miya Atsumu's mind went blank. "Are you.. are you really going to get them signed?"
Why are these Hinata fans so efficient, just like him?
No, no, no, the point right now is that if Hinata is going to sign autographs for everyone, their plan to go watch the Karasuno match in a little while will be ruined.
Even though he himself had little interest in watching the Karasuno match live, didn't want to watch that disgusting playstyle up close—at least when watching the video, he could fast-forward.
But his main focus was that he could go watch the match with Hinata and provide commentary for him, adding a bit of his own personal perspective; providing on-site commentary for the match was quite consistent with the culture at Inarizaki.
Having already taken out his pen, Hinata turned his head to look at Miya Atsumu: "Hmm? You're not signing?"
So many of them were his fans! He was actually going to experience the joy of giving out autographs to others!
Hinata expressed his excitement and said he would give everyone ten autographs.
Miya Atsumu's mind worked very fast, even faster than when he was on the court.
He quickly made many assumptions, attempting to find a suitable solution in this situation.
A second later, Miya Atsumu spoke, "Shoyo, you haven't practiced your autograph yet, have you? Are you sure you want to give these fans who like you so much such an ugly autograph?"