Chapter Text
Snitches get stitches, Sawamura. Remember that.
She knew she could have taken them on— that she could have knocked all of them out and emerged victorious in their distasteful show of power, but she couldn’t… wouldn’t. She didn’t want to let them win by giving in to her fight instinct; yet, in the end, they still won.
They had the school officials throw her out like she hadn’t put their name on the goddamn map; like she hadn’t worked so hard to bring glory not only to herself, but to that gods-forsaken school as well. She had given them everything they wanted from her, and they repaid her by letting a few paltry rumors, which were started by people that she had no intention of ever coming into contact with, had spread to bring her down.
She was simply at the wrong place, at the wrong time; it wasn’t even her who had told the police about the things she had seen transpire that night. She couldn’t care less about their stupid drug deals, yet she was still pinned with all the blame— fucking delinquents didn’t even know that they had a snitch within their midst.
That was the ‘big, bad city’, as they all say— and she was the unfortunate one to have been chewed up and spit out by the trepid system.
(Y/n) had no other option but to let it all go, though; her life would go on, just not in Tokyo anymore, but back to Miyagi— the place that she had called home ever since her mother died.
“Okaa-san, I’m going out now.” (Y/n) called aloud as she stood by the front door. “I left Yua in the backyard.”
Sawamura Chie poked her head around the corner that led to the kitchen and smiled at her daughter; (Y/n) wasn’t completely hers, but the result from her husband’s brief affair— yet, she still loved the girl as her own and wholeheartedly took her in. Chie’s reasoning was that it wasn’t (Y/n)’s fault that she came from another woman in the first place; besides, she needed a mother to guide her. “Okay, I’ll let her in later. Do you have enough money for the bus?”
Smiling back at the only woman that she’d come to know as her mother, (Y/n) answered, “Yes. I better get going now so I can surprise nii-chan.”
“Don’t nettle your brother too much, you know how he gets,” Chie winked at her daughter, and both of them laughed at that. It wasn’t a secret how scary Daichi could get when he was in a bad mood— even at home.
“I won’t. I’ll be back later, okaa-san.” With that, (Y/n) sent Chie a wave before exiting the house— stumbling a bit with the geta on her feet. She didn’t really like wearing dresses, let alone kimonos or yukata, but to see the shock on her brother’s face she was willing to endure wearing it. She loved pulling his strings, and made a hobby of it whenever she went home during winter breaks— since she used to live with their father in Tokyo before she got expelled from school.
She had never commented about her parents’ weird marriage, but it didn’t mean that she never thought about it. It was just weird to her that her surrogate mother still stayed with her father even though he had an affair— hell, she was the evidence of his discrepancy— and that she had accepted her into her small family.
Not once had Chie ever made her feel like she didn’t belong or that she was the bastard child that she truly was, yet there was still a part of her that knew that she could never truly belong so, even though she loved Chie like a real mother, she moved to Tokyo with her father when he got promoted at his job five years ago. She told them that it would broaden her horizons because there would be more schools in Tokyo that were open to accepting a female Muay Thai fighter to represent them.
And so, she had spent the past five years of her life—since middle school— being trained under some of the best coaches in Japan, and even flying out to Thailand to attend month-long training camps. It was a violent sport that tended to raise eyebrows whenever she mentioned it— even to her own family who was against it at first when she told them she wanted to try it out at a nearby gym when she was ten.
They still didn’t agree with her choice to continue pursuing the sport, yet they never failed to support her.
A small smile tugged at her lips when she passed by the old boxing gym that was a few blocks away from her house, and mentally made plans to drop by later so that she could arrange for someone to train her— since she doubted that there was someone at Karasuno that was willing to be her coach.
She had so many things to do to get acclimated into her old life, yet so little time to do them all. It really was troublesome to have been expelled.
***
A very uncomfortable bus ride later— not only because she wanted to pull the yukata off of her body, but also because everyone kept sending her weird looks on the bus. She knew that it was inappropriate to sit with her legs parted but, in her defense, she was wearing shorts as well as a t-shirt beneath her yukata. Besides, she didn’t care what they thought— she wasn’t going to make herself uncomfortable by forcing her legs closed and sitting upright for ten minutes.
“Ah, all this effort for the shock value,” she muttered under her breath as she got off at the stop for Karasuno. She had to memorize this path to school, because she was going to be using it incessantly by Monday.
The trail in front of her made her shake her head. It wasn’t the uphill trek itself that she found distasteful, but the fact that she had to do it with the geta. Half of her brain was telling her to just take the sandals off, but the other half couldn’t be bothered to get her feet dirty— so she sucked it up and started her uphill battle.
Various students looked at her as she practically power-walked up the sidewalk, yet she paid them no mind. They didn’t know her, she didn’t know them, so their opinions didn’t matter.
Once she made it to the school gates, though, she was ready to whip off the sandals and chuck it at the next person to give her a funny look. Did these people not regularly see girls wearing yukatas during festivals? Jeez.
Feeling eyes on the back of her head, her gaze snapped towards the direction that it was coming from, and she narrowed her eyes at a gangly-looking boy— probably a first year. “What’cha looking at, ha?”
Almost immediately, the boy shook his head and dashed away in fear— which made her click her tongue in irritation as she smoothed down her clothes as best as she could. She also took the time to readjust the matching bag holding her phone, that was dangling from her right wrist, before making her way towards where Daichi had shown her the second gym was.
It had been almost two years since he gave her a tour of his high school, but it still looked the same. Thankfully.
Not even ten minutes later, she found where the second gym was and heard people inside— shoes squeaking against the hardwood floors, faint yells of ‘nice kill’ and ‘left’ reaching her ears. Plastering the sweetest smile she could muster on to her face, she held her head high and walked towards the metal sliding doors.
A few people looked at her before doing a double take. Instantaneously, the gym had become so silent that one could hear a pin drop to the floor. All eyes were on her as she looked for her brother. Once she found him, the sweet smile on her face morphed into a triumphant grin because he looked like she had sprouted seven more heads while she was away.
To say that Daichi was shocked to see his sister was an understatement— but to see her wearing a pink yukata and looking all graceful and extremely feminine threw him further into a loop. “(Y/n)? What… exactly?” He muttered under his breath as he stared at his normally crass sister.
“Ossu.” She raised her left hand in a semi-wave, which had Daichi face-palming. She was so carefree to the point that she didn’t care about decorum anymore. “I came here for Daichi nii-chan.”
All eyes zeroed in on him and he chuckled as he lowered his hand from his face. “You didn’t even tell me that you were coming here today.”
(Y/n) shrugged as she grinned at her brother, who was making his way towards her. When he reached her, he slung an arm around her shoulder and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. She shook her head at the familiar show of affection before swatting his chest with the back of her hand. Daichi flinched at the force of it, but didn’t get mad because he knew that his sister was stronger than most girls— most guys even. “What fun would that be, right? Aren’t you going to introduce me to your team?”
“Everyone, this is my sister (Y/n). She’ll be starting school here on Monday-”
She rolled her eyes at Daichi’s too formal introduction before cutting him off— which made everyone’s eyes widen as they anticipated their captain’s notorious wrath. “Sawamura (Y/n), third year from Tokyo. I’m his half-sister. So, hello, I’m the basta-”
Everyone in the gym seemed to take a collective breath when Daichi removed his arm from around the raven-haired girl next to him, in lieu of pinching her ear— which made her howl with pain. “(Y/n)."
“Fine, I was just trying to be funny.” She pouted before turning back to their audience. “I’ll be in your care.”
The captain could tell that everyone had so many questions— it was all so obvious with the way their eyes studied his sister a little too intently— so he clapped his hands together to get their attention, before telling them to resume training. Reluctantly, everyone followed his order, while he turned back to (Y/n).
“Not even a text, (Y/n)? Seriously? What if you got lost?” He fussed over her, making her reach a hand out and pat his shoulder reassuringly. “What if you got mugged?”
“I think you’re forgetting something, nii-chan.” She grinned. “I can mug the mugger.”
“Not funny. Get in here and sit down by the stage.”
(Y/n) pouted once more but heeded her brother’s order; taking off the sandals on her feet and following her brother towards the stage. “Can you help me untie my obi?”
“What?!”
“I’m wearing clothes underneath, nii-chan. Relax.” She waved his initial reaction off, and turned around so that he could do as she had asked. With a shake of his head, Daichi undid his sister’s obiand folded it neatly before handing it to her. She accepted it gratefully before facing her brother again. “I’ll just be here until it’s time to go, so go and train with your team— I’m sure they’re dying to ask questions.”
“Alright, if you need anything, just call me over.” After receiving a nod from (Y/n), Daichi jogged back towards his team mates and joined in the foray once more.
Without a care in the world, (Y/n) slipped the yukataoff her shoulders and ignored all the curious eyes that were trained on her, before hoisting herself up on the raised platform and folding the garment neatly. She took the bag tied around her wrist and set it down on top of her other things, then focused on watching her brother’s team play.
She didn’t know much about volleyball, but she could see that they were good— especially their first year duo. Maybe this was the year that Daichi’s dream to take the team to nationals would come into fruition; she was excited for him.
***
Throughout their practice, (Y/n) had kept receiving curious glances from everyone on the team, and she would return those with a smile and a wave— but all of them would hurriedly avert their gaze from her like skittish little creatures. It was funny in an adorable way.
She felt eyes on her again, and she followed her gut feeling to where she assumed the source was. Lo and behold, someone was looking at her again— this time, it was the grey-haired fellow that had been giving pep talks left and right to everyone on the team. Instead of smiling and waving, she playfully made a silly face at him— which had him bursting out into laughter.
Seeming to take that as an invitation to go over to her, he crossed the short distance between them and stood a few feet away from her. “Sorry, I guess you’re getting tired of all the stares. Everyone’s just so curious about Daichi’s sister.”
“It’s no problem. I get that everyone wants to know who I am— why wouldn’t they? I’m me,” she joked, before hopping down from her seat so that she stood before him. “That was a joke, in case you start thinking that I’m conceited.”
“You’re funny,” the grey-haired boy chuckled, then put a hand on his hip as he adopted a more casual stance. “I’m Sugawara Kōshi. Nice to meet you.”
“Sawamura (Y/n), but you can just call me (Y/n), since having two Sawamura-sans will be confusing.” She held a hand out and Sugawara accepted it with a firm grip. He noticed that her hand was soft but still had a few rough spots— and he wanted to ask her about it, but didn’t want to be rude.
Until she answered it by herself after seeing the curiosity flickering on his face. “I do Muay Thai, that’s why my hand’s like this.” She pulled her right hand away and raised it up before wiggling her fingers.
“Really? How long have you been doing the sport?” Sugawara asked, clearly impressed at meeting someone who did a sport that wasn’t exactly for everyone.
“A few years now, I started when I was ten— nii-chan was so against it at first, it’s funny when I remember his face when I told him that I wanted to train for it.” (Y/n) chuckled at the memory and placed her hands in her shorts’ pockets. She was about to say more, but her brother had called his team mates for a huddle— which had Sugawara looking over to where everyone was gathering.
“I better go. Let’s talk more later,” he bid with a smile before jogging towards his team.
She had to admit that he was cute with that hair, those hazel brown eyes, and that beauty mark beneath his left eye… but he really wasn’t her type.