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“Yamaguchi!” Kei called out after his datemate, watching them storm out of the gym.
“Is everything okay?” Suga asked, coming over to where the first years had just been practicing together.
Kei opened his mouth to answer, but the other three beat him to it.
“I don’t know, they just ran off!”
“They kept messing up their serve, of course they’re upset, dumbass.”
“But everyone has off-days and besides, their serve was still really good! You’re just really good at receives!”
“I don’t know,” Yachi cut in. “I think they were having a hard time gender-wise today too, I mean there were those guys that were harassing them that you stopped, right, Tsukishima? Maybe it was just everything all built up.”
Kei looked down at his friend and frowned. “Yeah, you’re right. I’ll go after them; they probably forgot their umbrella anyway,” he said and looked up to Suga for permission.
“Yes, yes, of course you can go.”
“Okay, Mother,” Nishinoya called from across the gym.
“Hey, Yamaguchi,” Kei said softly, trying not to startle the figure crouched in front of him. “I think you forgot something.”
Yamaguchi looked up in confusion to see Kei standing over them, holding their umbrella out. They looked up, as if just now noticing the clouds that were dumping rain on them. “Oh, thanks, Tsukki. You didn’t have to skip practice to come bring it to me, though.”
“Well, I couldn’t just go on and let our server get themself sick, now could I?”
“But that’s just it! Why am I even the pinch server if I can’t even make a successful serve?”
“What do you mean? You scored four points with that serve last practice match.”
“Yeah, but everyone else scores way more and you’re all regulars.”
“Yamaguchi, you scored four points in a row. Even Oikawa Tooru hasn’t done that to us.”
“I guess you’re right,” they agreed.
The sky, after taking a brief pause, opened back up again, a light rain that turned into a downpour. Yamaguchi took the umbrella from Kei’s hand and opened it, shuffling closer to him so they could both be covered.
After another minute of silence, Kei realized there must be something more on their mind. “You know those third-years are just assholes, right? Dumb assholes too. I think they even tried making fun of Nishinoya once.”
“Tsukki, you make fun of Noya. On a regular basis, even.”
“Yeah, but they tried to make fun of him for his volleyball skills. They assumed just because he’s short that he must be bad at everything, like Hinata.”
“Tsukki! Be nice!”
“Hey, I got you to laugh, didn’t I? Besides, if they’re dumber than the idiots we have on our team, you can’t actually trust everything they say, can you? And they’re bigots, so their opinions don’t even matter.”
“I know, but you can’t just go around beating everyone up when they try to say something to me. Or getting someone else to do it,” they added, noting the look in Kei’s eyes. “They said you’ll get suspended if you do it again!”
“Fine, then we can report them if they try to do it again, get them suspended.”
“No, I don’t want to cause trouble for anyone!”
“Yamaguchi—”
“Besides, it’s not like the school will actually do anything about it or—”
“Tadashi.”
They looked up. “What?”
“The rule book literally says that if there’s harassment going on, for any reason including gender- or sexuality-based, that the people responsible will be suspended and then expelled if they do it again. You have every right to report this.”
“Wait, you read the entire rulebook?”
“…Shut up, Yamaguchi.”
With one last rumble, the clouds started to clear away, leaving sunlight and rainbows in their wake.
“Sorry, Tsukki!”