Emiko's grandmama and grandpa had recently taken a liking to her waltzing into the living room and putting on a dramatic show. Still, as her Uncle chased her away with a shoe or coat hanger, she realized that not many people appreciated her talent.

When she hit the Woah during one of Karasuno's practice games earlier in the year she was surprised to see Takita watching her curiously. Ever since then, she declared that she would teach him all she knew about Tik Tok dances.

"No."

"Takita please."

"No."

"How cool would it be if you hit the whoa after spiking?"

He frowned. "I'm not dancing in the middle of the court."

"So you'll dance in another situation?"

He scowled in response.

"It's not like you're doing anything else!"

"We just finished an intense day of training. I'm going to rest."

"You only played in 6 of the games though."

"You really going to expose me like that?" He didn't wait for a reply and instead broke out into a sprint.

"Stop running away from me, you know I can't keep up!" He laughed at her pain. "Wait, were you trying to tire me out this entire time?"

He was quick on his feet and jumped into an open window, into the school. Emiko huffed, knowing he'd go into the gym and took the shortcut.

She nearly cut him off as he entered the gymnasium, but he jumped out of her reach and grabbed the closest person to use as a shield.

"Make Emiko do chores, she won't leave me alone."

Ennoshita's eyes widened. "Wait-"

"Make her scrub the toilets."

Emiko tried to reach over his head to pinch Takita. "I'm not making you anymore cookies," she snapped.

"Mirae will."

"Such treachery! You'd replace me for her?"

"She's not harassing me- ouch!"

Ennoshita sighed heavily. He grabbed Emiko's arms and spun her around so she was hugging herself. Now facing away from Takita, Emiko stared at three new faces, one of them looked like a hardened criminal and she flinched.

"Uncle Keishin!" she screamed, "there are intruders in the school. Lock down now. Stranger danger, I'm telling ya."

"Those aren't strangers, idiot," Kageyama rolled his eyes.

Hinata laughed as he approached them. "No, those are our senpais. They graduated last year."

"Oh," she blinked. "False alarm everyone! No need to go into lockdown!"

"We weren't going into lockdown anyways." Tsukishima rolled his eyes.

The second and third years ran to Daichi, Asahi, and Sugawara and embraced in a group hug. They hadn't seen them for a few months now, but it seemed like years.

Emiko turned around and scowled at Shoji, Takita, and 'Tome. "You three better hug me like that when I graduate. If you don't, then I've wasted my time as manager."

"You better cry like that when you come to visit us," Takita gestured to Asahi who had tears streaming down his face.

Sugawara had Tsukishima in a headlock, ignoring Daichi's protests. He was striking up a conversation with Noya, laughing loudly, and everyone was surprised to see that Tsukishima wasn't putting up much of a fight to free himself.

Daichi rolled his eyes. He grabbed the bag from Suga and began to hand out candy bars to their Kohais.

Just as Emiko prepared to properly introduce herself, intent on snagging a chocolate bar as well, Mirae ran into the gym.

"I did it!" she exclaimed, struggling with a binder that looked like it weighed a ton. "It took so long but I finally did it!"

"You got a reality check?" Emiko offered.

Mirae rolled her eyes. "You're the one who needs a reality check. No, I finally comprised the perfect document. I call it, Karasuno's Bible. I've included nutritional logs, player profiles, snack recipes and training exercises. Its not generalized, I'd never be that lazy. Each Karasuno player has an entire chapter dedicated to them; how they can gain muscle, what exercises are best suited to the position they play on the court, the types of foods they should be eating, everything!"

Yachi was stunned. She was under the impression that Mirae had stayed up all night again because of the one cockroach she may or may not have seen in the corner of their room.

"When did she have the time to get that information?" she asked Coach Ukai. With a face of pure astonishment, he shrugged.

"Obviously we'll have to update it next year when we have new players, and I'll have to teach new managers how to calculate everything but it's so worth it! Everything is so organized and- wait, who are they?"

"These are our upperclassmen." Sugawara, Daichi, and Asahi timidly waved. "Guys, this is Mirae. She and Emiko joined us as managers this year."

Emiko held up a peace sign, "'Sup?"

Mirae bowed and said hello.

"Okay boys, our next game is starting against Ubugawa. Your upperclassmen are here to support you so make sure you play well and win!" Ukai clapped his hands and then turned to his niece. "If you annoy them, I'll send you back to your parents in a box."

"Quick question, dead or alive?"

Ukai didn't bother with a reply. He walked away.

Mirae had already started up a conversation with Daichi and Asahi, showing them Karasuno's Bible. Emiko clicked her tongue, wondering if they were being nice or if they were genuinely interested.

"So, you three are Karasuno alumni?" she asked Sugawara. She dropped down on the bleacher beside him.

His dark eyes glanced at her and he smiled. "Sure are!"

"Awesome. Mind if we take a picture later? For marketing purposes."

"Marketing?'

Emiko nodded eagerly. "I manage the Karasuno Instagram page, do you follow us?"

Suga watched with wide eyes as Emiko showed him her phone. She had uploaded a dozen pictures, but had a following of over a thousand.

"We didn't have an Instagram page."

"Well, we do now! I'd love to post a picture of the volleyball alumni. Oh, and we can do crazy poses too! Ennoshita's no fun, he won't listen to me when I ask him to do fun stuff for the page. But you look pretty cool."

Suga grinned, "Thanks."

"So what position did you play?"

"Setter."

Emiko frowned. "You're like Tobio, aren't you? Tobio and Mirae."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Suga laughed. He glanced down at the court where Tanaka landed a service ace and cheered loudly.

"That's the beast of a man, Tanaka!" Emiko screamed, waving her hands. On the court, everyone watched her with mild annoyance, but Tanaka cheered her name back. "Oh, and I'm also the cheer squad. Reserved mainly for Nishinoya, Tanaka, and Hinata but if the others make a good enough play, I'll cheer for them too."

"You're quite outgoing, aren't you? I wonder how Ennoshita's dealing with everyone."

"Oh, he's great. He loves me the most."

Suga refrained from saying he didn't believe her. Instead he smiled. "What made you choose to manage the team?"

A dark look overcame Emiko's face and she mumbled, "I didn't want to be tree number 2. They mate on tree number two."

"Right," he shifted a seat over. "So, I guess you're getting along with the team?"

"For sure," Emiko grinned, shifting closer to him. "I like Ennoshita the best because he's so funny. Then, it's Hinata because he always compliments my baking. Noya and Tanaka are crazy and they make me laugh all the time. Narita, Kinoshita and Tadashi are chill. The first years are babies so I have to like them. But I hate the other two."

"What?"

"Tobio and Tsukki. They won't admit it but I know Mirae is their favourite manager. Plus, they're so mean to me."

Suga looked behind him to where Daichi and Asahi looked like they were engaging in a more normal conversation. He patted Emiko's head to console her.

"Well being the coach's niece must have some perks, right?"

"No," she growled, "he's the most useless person in the entire world."

"That's not nice," Suga chuckled.

"What's not nice is him screaming each morning that he loves his twelve boys more than he loves me."

"Well, at first he didn't like us either. He didn't even want to coach us. Maybe he'll grow to like you."

Emiko shook her head. "He can't get sentimental. He and my mother share the same genes."

A couple seats away, Daichi and Asahi were leaning over Mirae's shoulder, reading the articles and other notes from her binder.

"You're a God send," Daichi muttered. He looked at Mirae with wonder. "Where have you been this entire time? Why couldn't we have had you last year?"

Her cheeks turned red. "I only moved to Miyagi this school year."

"I should make one of these for myself," Asahi muttered. "I feel like I've been letting myself go now that I'm not playing volleyball anymore."

"You look great!"

"I do?"

Daichi rolled his eyes. "You don't need confirmation from a second year, Asahi. Be more comfortable with yourself."

The three of them jumped in surprise when Emiko and Suga screamed Tanaka's name. He had just scored a service ace.

"It's good to see how much stronger they've gotten."

"Yeah," Asahi murmured, "especially Hinata. I was a little worried after what happened at Nationals last year."

At the mention of such an ominous thing, Mirae snapped her attention to him. "What happened to Hinata last year?"

"He overworked himself. We played a really tough game and after, he didn't change out from his sweaty clothes or rest or eat. By the third day, during our second game, he caught a fever and had to be taken out of the game. We lost that round and it hit him pretty hard."

Mirae immediately thought back to the other instances where Hinata pushed himself physically harder than the rest of the team. Sure, he was lucky enough to suffer mild sprains but now that she thought about it, Hinata often didn't know when to let his body rest.

"He's not giving you a hard time is he?" Daichi asked. "Ennoshita's pretty hard on the rules so I know he's managing well but Hinata is, well, Hinata."

"Oh, no," Mirae smiled. "He's fine. I've been keeping an eye on him, on the entire team actually, and I promise there won't be a repeat of last year. When Karasuno goes to nationals this time, they're going for the win."

Mirae's phone vibrated against her pocket. She turned it on to see a text from Miyanoshita. She leaned forward and waved.

"Hey Emiko, we have to go help prepare lunch."

The clash of personalities from the first day continued.

Emiko was cracking jokes and making sarcastic comments. She was trying to alleviate some of the stress the older managers were experiencing. Haru could not stand how aloof she was acting.

"She should leave."

"What?"

Emiko and Akari were playing catch over Miyanoshita's head with a ball of dough when Haru dropped a metal bowl and snapped.

She glared at Emiko. "You're just fooling around and getting in the way of everyone. We don't need your help, so go away."

The other girls watched with wide eyes.

Mirae set down her pen and notebook. She placed her hands on her hips. "No one else has a problem with them, Haru."

"They do, they just won't say anything out loud."

Emiko turned around. "Are you guys getting annoyed?"

Mako blushed and looked away. "Of course not, you two are just having fun."

"You do get carried away sometimes but it's all in good faith."

"There's no need to get upset over this."

Emiko smirked. Haru clenched her fists.

Miyanoshita began to panic. It was becoming apparent that a fight could break out. "I think everyone's getting a little stressed. I have an idea, we girls should all go on a walk later today. You know, get to know each other more."

Haru frowned. "We don't need to get to know each other."

"Don't say that. We're all here as friends helping our teams, right?"

"No. We're here as managers to help our own teams individually."

"It doesn't have to be like that," Akari added, "we can have fun and do our work at the same time."

"Walking around aimlessly doesn't help the team."

"You do know that the Fukurodani Academy Training camp is held because of connections, right?" Mirae snapped. She walked up to Haru, and standing five inches taller she made sure to put all her emotion into intimidating her. "What kind of a message are we going to send if we all don't get along. There's more to being a manager than filling up water bottles and washing jerseys. But if you are content with that, then by all means go and babysit them."

The managers watched wide-eyed as the two glared. Haru was the first to look away and she walked out.

|Note|

Genuinely curious to know whether readers like Haru or not? The drama with her hasn't even started ;)

Anywho! Daichi, Asahi, and Suga made their appearance! They might have graduated but they'll always hold a special place in our hearts <3

|End Note|