This chapter's idea was given to me by moonietoonz !! I couldn't have thought of this myself, so thank you Moonie 💕

~•~

You slept through your alarm and missed your first two classes, and with all the overthinking you had done the night before, you weren't energised enough to go to school. You had a throbbing headache and you felt a little dizzy.

You emailed the school to let them know you weren't well and called coach Washijo to tell him that you couldn't make it to the quarter finals match today.

The demon couch wasn't ever harsh on you, in fact he'd even cut you some slack. When you seemed even the least bit tired, he tended to make the volleyball team do your work for you. This time was no exception and he only told you to rest and get better soon, but of course his tone sounded angrier.

For your breakfast, you snacked on the mini cupcakes Tendo's mom had packed for you and gasped. "Damn, these are so good! I can't believe I didn't have these last night."

You spent the next few hours doing self care, with face and hair masks, waxing your legs and threading your brows. You didn't get many days like this, ones where you could spoil yourself rotten since most days you were working to save up money.

You decided it was time for some extreme cleaning too and fixed your wardrobe, folding your clothes properly and sweeper and mopped the floor and even changed the sheets for the bed.

You had music playing in the background as you did all this and you treated yourself to an extra long bubble bath and wore fluffy pyjamas and climbed into your fresh bedsheets afterwards. You smiled contently, feeling much better than you did when you first woke up.

Curious as to how the match was going, you texted Tendo to fill you in when it was over. To your annoyance, he left you on 'seen'.

You scoffed to yourself. "The audacity of this kid. I'm the one who seen zones people."

You spent the next half hour chilling on your phone, catching up on celebrity gossip from months ago since you never got the chance to do it before.

Somewhere along the way, you heard music in the distance and since the song was familiar, you began humming along.

'I love you baby' by Frank Sinatra was playing, and the longer you hummed along to it, the closer it seemed to get to you. You mouthed the words with the song moved your head along with the music slightly until the song seemed to be coming from right outside your apartment.

Your curiosity got the best of you and you headed to your window to see where the music was playing from. The moment you laid your eyes on the sight ahead, you dropped your phone in shock and didn't even bother to pick it back up. You pushed open the window hurriedly and called out to the two boys. "What the hell are you doing?"

Ushijima held a radio above his head, blasting the song you'd been humming at top volume while Tendo stood next to him, hyping him up.

The moment Ushijima saw you, he tended up and dropped the radio on his foot.

The music playing machine broke into pieces and the song stopped playing, but all you could do was laugh, since Tendo stopped moving mid-fortnite dance. And of course, the sour expression on Ushijima's face was priceless too.

Despite grumbling about how his foot hurt only moments ago, when Ushijima heard you laugh he couldn't help pause to look at you. You didn't look carefree all that often, so seeing you laugh and be at ease was a rare sight to him.

You managed to pull yourself together and look up at Ushijima only to catch him staring at you already, a small smile evident on his lips. "What?" You questioned, wondering if there was something wrong with your hair.

"Nothing." Ushijima replied, still smiling warmly at you.

"(F/n)-chan, he hurt his foot, shouldn't you check that for him?" Tendo cut in.

"Huh? Oh right. Yeah I'll do that." You left your window and scurried to the door to let them inside. "Both of you can come in." You said, holding the door open.

"Nah, I'll clean this up and go home. Moms waiting for me. Take care of Walatoshi-kun for me." Tendo responded while ushering the two of your inside.

He waited for the door to close before to huffing to himself. "The things I do to uphold my part time match making job." He sighed and picked up the broken parts of the radio to dump in a bin.

~•~

"How's your foot?"

"It's okay."

"How was the match?"

"We won."

You grinned. "Of course we did."

Silence fell between the two of you, and you slumped your shoulders taking in a deep breath before speaking again. "Wakatoshi, I'm so sorry."

"For what?"

"Existing, mostly." You joked but cleared your throat when you saw him looking worried. "What I meant was, for being confusing and hard to deal with. Actually, I don't know why you even put up with me, but besides that. I'm really really sorry for hurting you. I keep doing it and I don't mean to but I—"

"Then don't do it anymore."

"What?"

"Don't do anything to hurt me. It's simple, right?"

"It's not that easy Wakatoshi." You sighed.

"Why not?"

"Because if I don't hurt you, my father will."

"I can protect myself."

"Can you? Against a volleyball, yes. Against a weapon? You might not be so lucky." You pointed out. "My father is dangerous and so am I, you should really leave while you get the chance."

"You seem to be in danger, rather than dangerous."

"Wakatoshi, please."

"I will protect myself, and I will protect you too." He said firmly, holding his hand out to you. "So please, let me stay next to you."

You felt your eyes brimming with tears that threatened to spill but you bit the inside of your cheek to stop them from falling and placed your hand in his, nodding since you couldn't bring yourself to speak.

"I need you, (f/n)." He whispered, pulling you into a hug. "You have no idea how much."

"Fucking hell, Wakatoshi. Don't do this to my heart." You complained but you smiled even though your cheeks were now tear stained. "I need you too. More than you could imagine."

~•~

Moonie thought of the idea to make Ushi blast a song from a radio outside the readers house and I thought it was hella cute

But my signature writing style is dumbassery so ofc i had to make Ushi drop the radio and make Tendo do fortnite dances 😔✌🏼

Im updating this book so much it's unreal lmao I'll try update my other books too now oop—

***not edited because your author is lazy and sleep deprived***