JULY  2016, TOKYO

Yuki was stressed out. She knew that much. Lately, her professors had been piling up a lot of work. In all her classes, she was doing at least one assignment every week, which was not fun. And currently, she had three assignments to submit in the next two days; so it would safe to say she was right on the verge of crying. 

And she was beginning to hate herself for procrastinating, but the prospect of looming deadlines was even scarier. So, she refused to delay things further. 

Finding motivation was hard. It was really hard and Yuki just knew she was slowly inching towards being burnt out. She had been sitting at her desk for the past two hours; two hours in which, she had only managed to write one paragraph for an essay. Then, there was the problem that she had a set of math problems to solve. That majorly added to her stress. 

But Yuki was Yuki and she was no slacker (though she was a procrastinator). She took a deep breath, stretched her hands and let her complete attention fall to her laptop screen. 'Time to get to work.'

Hours later, her hands and her back ached as she shut her laptop and hopped off her chair, climbing into her bed. It was late at night when she finally looked at her phone. Without even thinking, she started typing a text to the one person she really enjoyed talking with.

Iwaizumi replied almost instantly. 

'Isn't it like 7:30 in the morning there?'  Yuki thought, doing a quick mental calculation. 'He's rather quick to reply.'

Yuki let out a soft laugh, before she sent in a quick goodnight text. 'I really needed that. And now, I need to sleep.' 

She tossed her phone somewhere on the bed before pulling the blanket on top of her. Within seconds, she was soundly asleep

"Oh by the way, did I tell you? I was watching one of Oikawa-senpai's matches yesterday."

Sunday morning of that week (well, Saturday night in California) Yuki and Iwaizumi were on their routine facetime call. Finally, she had been free and finally she had the time to watch some good old volleyball. And Misaki had randomly sent her a link to one of Oikawa's matches yesterday; a victory for his team and multiple service aces by Oikawa which she was bragging about proudly.

Yuki had smiled at that. Those two were cute. And of course, she had watched the match the minute she had gotten. It sounded odd to say, but a game of high-intensity volleyball was rather relaxing to watch. The perfect thing to bring down your tension and stress (or for some, add to it).

"You did?" 

"He played pretty damn good. Did you see how many service aces he hit?"

"I saw. The match was good." Iwaizumi had seen the match. He didn't miss any of Oikawa's matches at all. But, this was a fact that he would never admit it out loud. 

"And Oikawa-san...?"

"He played well," Iwaizumi grudgingly admitted. 

"Why don't you tell him that?" Yuki asked. "Doesn't he pester about this?"

"Oikawa already has a huge ego from all the praise Misaki gives him," Iwaizumi answered with an annoyed groan. "I'm not going to add to that."

"I have a slight feeling that Misaki-senpai sent that link to everybody she knows, just bragging about him."

"You know, she probably did. The two of them are just idiots in love."

"You sound like you're a little jealous," Yuki said, in a light, teasing tone. "Are you? Do you want a relationship too?"

"Shut up, you," Iwaizumi just glared at her. "Besides, Oikawa doesn't need to me praise him. He's a good player and he knows it. And I'm just looking forward to beating him in a match again."

"Well, when you two compete, you'll have me on your side," Yuki said with a laugh. "Ooh! I could totally be your good luck charm."

"Yeah, I guess," Iwaizumi answered awkwardly, pretending to shift the camera so that she wouldn't see the blush on his face. It would probably be a bad thing to admit that he already thought of Yuki like that; just her smile was enough to make his day. 

"Well then!" She spoke with a bright smile. "Sorry to Oikawa-senpai, but he's definitely gonna lose now. I'm the perfect charm, aren't I?"

"Yeah, you definitely are," He replied. In his thoughts, he added, 'Perfect'

"Is that an honest compliment I hear from you?"

"Shut up. I'll take it back."

"Nuh-uh, no taking it back now. You said it. It's true."

"You know, you sound just like Oikawa," Iwaizumi spoke plainly, but still he had a smile on his face. "No wonder the two of you get along well."

Yuki gasped dramatically. "Iwaizumi-san, that's outrageous. Do not compare me to Oikawa-senpai! He's so...frivolous. And I am not like him! And I'm obviously prettier than him. Admit it, Iwaizumi-san."

"Admit what?" Iwaizumi pretended to not know as light chuckles escaped him. It was fun teasing Yuki.

Yuki stuck out her tongue, glaring at him through the camera. "Admit that I'm prettier than Oikawa-san."

"And if I don't?"

"If you don't, then...then...I'll tickle you, okay?

"That's not a threat, Yuki."

"Oh, Iwaizumi-san, you should know that I can make tickling feel very painful. You are lucky you haven't gotten on my bad side yet."

"I'm feeling so threatened right now. Wow."

"Haha, your sarcasm doesn't go past me. So, just admit it."

"Okay, okay, fine. Yuki Nohara, you are prettier than a certain idiot we both know. Does that satisfy you?" 

Even as he said it, Iwaizumi could feel his cheeks grow warm. It was so silly how much he liked talking to her. Quite frankly, he enjoyed talking to Yuki a lot more than he enjoyed talking to Oikawa (though he would never admit it out loud). At least, Yuki had more bearable jokes. But really, it was a problem. How had they not been close before? He was slowly beginning to look forward to the day they would be meeting again. 

"Iwaizumi-san?" Yuki's voice broke him out of his thoughts. "You there? You just froze for a second and..."

"No, I'm here," Iwaizumi interrupted her, awkwardly smiling into the camera. "Must be the connection or something."

"Yeah, I guess so. So, should we carry on our conversation where you keep on praising me and insulting Oikawa?"

"Yeah, why not? Making fun of Oikawa is a great activity."

"And the first part?"

"What first part?"

"Oh, you..."

yuki-iwa meet up is happening soon 😉🤭👀

i know this wasn't a description heavy chapter; it was more dialogue-heavy but I really enjoyed writing this. Especially the part with them bantering with each other. That was really so much fun to write.

I now have about 80% of the story planned; and it will probably have 15-20 chapters in total. It could be anything; I haven't decided yet. But I promise it will all be fluff (with very minimal angst).

Till then, I hope you all enjoyed reading this chapter. Let me know your thoughts in the comments <3