"Kaa-kun."
Monday started like any other.
He arrived at the gym ten minutes early. Unlocked the doors. Took out the balls. Reviewed his notebook while Bokuto loudly narrated his dream from the night before.
And then she walked in. 'Bokuto's sister'.
Still wearing her school uniform, cardigan slipping off one shoulder, tote bag bouncing against her hip like it had no structural integrity whatsoever. There was a frog pin on it this time. Last week it had been a donut.
“Morning, Kaa-kun!” she said brightly, hopping into his field of vision.
He blinked slowly.
“…That’s not my name.” She put her hands on her hips. “It is now.”
“I’d rather it wasn’t.”
“Well, I like it,” she said with a decisive nod. “You’re too cool to not have a nickname. It’s a crime.”
“It’s a nickname that makes me sound like a baby bird.”
Her face lit up. “A baby bird with excellent posture!” He stared at her.
She grinned wider, triumphant, then promptly tripped over her own foot and nearly face-planted into the ball cart.
Akaashi caught her elbow. "Are you made of noodles?" “Nope,” she chirped. “Just joy!”
By Wednesday, she was still calling him “Kaa-kun.”
In front of the team. In the hallway. While handing him a lunchbox she claimed had “too many onigiri” by accident.
He stopped correcting her. But he did find himself waiting for it.
The sing-songy “Kaa-kun!” that always came with a wave too enthusiastic for someone her size. It echoed longer than it should in his head. Even after she left.
Friday
She showed up at the end of practice, breathless and slightly off-balance, holding a small glass jar wrapped in a towel and tied with a purple ribbon.
“For you,” she said, shy for once. “Don’t shake it. It’s fragile and full of… feelings.” He raised an eyebrow but accepted it.
The jar was filled with tiny, folded paper stars. He counted maybe fifty at first glance. Each one soft-colored, a little uneven, like they’d been made with clumsy care.
He opened one.
“You always make Bokuto feel better even when he’s in turbo-slump-mode. That’s cool.”
Another.
“You let me borrow your pen even though I lost the last one. (Sorry again!) You’re very patient.”
A third.
“You helped me believe being quiet doesn’t mean being empty.”
Akaashi stopped.
Stared at the last star, pressed tight between his fingers.
No one had ever written something like that to him before. Not in middle school. Not even here.
Certainly not in pastel.
He closed the lid carefully and set the jar in his bag like it was glass made from something rarer than quartz.
On Sunday, he opened his phone and stared at the new message:
🐸: Hi Kaa-kun!! Did you eat today? Drink water? Breathe evenly? Pet a dog???
He didn’t know when she saved herself into his phone.
He didn’t know when he stopped minding that she had.
He only knew he replied.
Akaashi: Ate. Drank. Breathing. No dog. You?
🐸: All of the above!! (I hugged a stray cat but it ran away. I took it personally.)
Akaashi’s lips twitched. Almost a smile.