Hello! This is my first time writing fanfiction HAHA I hope it's not too bad!
*I don't own any characters from KNB
Why I wrote this one-shot:
I was looking at some of the KuroFes interviews, and I read Akashi's interview (interviewed by Kuroko). One of the questions was "After the Winter Cup was over, were there any comments from your family?" and Akashi's answer was "My father was quite disappointed". This thus inspired me to write this one-shot as I was kind of thinking "Akashi would have to face his father huh..."
I was kind of hesitant about writing fanfiction since I've never written it before, but I really wanted to write something, so I was like "okay shall just do this!"
HERE IT IS :D I would be grateful for any feedback, if you could take the time to leave a review hehe :)
"No Running Away"
"逃げない"
(1,941 words)
In Akashi Seijuro's life, he had never once run away from anything. Running away – that was something losers did, when they had no other option but to escape the problem. And for him, someone who could never be defeated, could never back down, fleeing was never an option. It was something he had never desired to do.
But this time, it was different.
He had been defeated. The fateful Winter Cup finals, which had pronounced his former teammate, his adversary, Kuroko Tetsuya's team, as victors. The same Winter Cup finals which had pronounced his team as losers.
Losers. Defeat fresh in mind, the word still tasted bitter on his tongue, still swirled in his murky, clouded thoughts, refusing to settle. It was a completely new experience for him, and he knew things would never be the same. He was glad – he could change. The team he had led, the much revered Generation of Miracles, which had fallen apart, could change. They could be put together again – he could already see the beginnings of it in his former teammates even as one by one, they fell to their former phantom sixth member. Kuroko, the catalyst for this change. The shadow and light duo of Seirin, which had guided them off the path of darkness and onto the bright one. The right one.
Everything was different.
But before he could start picking up the pieces, before he could start rebuilding himself, there was something he had to face. Something, he could not run away from.
Akashi stepped into the dining hall, and grudgingly realised that he was feeling rather apprehensive. The light coruscating off the chandeliers seemed too bright, too scintillating, hurting his eyes. The eyes on every painting on the wall, each depicting a different ancestor of the Akashi family, seemed to be narrowed, scrutinising him, boring into him, as if they knew his failure. Failure, which was comparable to treason in the Akashi household.
"You're late."
The stern voice, authority evident in its tone, cut through the silence, jolting him out of his momentary trance. Akashi turned his gaze to the dignified man sitting at the head of the table, a heavy frown gracing his features. He seemed to notice the change in Akashi's eye colour, but made no comment. Akashi Masaomi – CEO of the Akashi group, and Akashi Seijuro's father.
"My deepest apologies, Father." The reply rolled off Akashi's tongue smoothly, his composure not in the least affected. Following this, he sat down onto the chair that the butler had pulled out for him. "As I have just returned from the Winter Cup finals, I had to ready myself for dinner, and hence took a little longer than usual."
In truth, he had spent a little more time at the Winter Cup venue than he had originally planned. After the conclusion of the finals and the prize-presentation ceremony, he had apologised to each of his teammates for all he, more accurately his other personality, had done wrong as their captain. To his gratification, his teammates had been quick to forgive him. Normally, following a game he would have held a debrief, but it went unspoken that at that moment, their feelings were still a little too raw to go over it just yet. The debrief would happen the next time they met for practice.
After that, he still had not returned home immediately. He had spent a little while in a rather secluded area outside the venue, reflecting on the game and the loss, and attempting to come to terms with it and what it meant for him. That had taken longer than he had expected.
"Oh, I see. The Winter Cup." Silence then ensued, and Akashi knew that his father was not questioning him, simply because he expected that the former would have won.
The time has come to tell him, Akashi thought, clenching his fists slightly in anticipation.
"Father…" Akashi began, but the words soon died on his tongue. His father looked up, arching an eyebrow, an implicit order to carry on.
"We…" Akashi began yet again, feeling rather tongue-tied. Yet another new, strange feeling. "We lost."
His father stared at him, speechless. The silence that followed Akashi's declaration was uncomfortable, to say in the least, and Akashi found that his hands were balled tightly into fists under the table.
"You…lost?" His father repeated, enunciating each word slowly in a mixture of disbelief and shock.
"Yes," Akashi confirmed. "We lost to Seirin High – my former teammate, Kuroko Tetsuya's team."
The expression on his father's face darkened, and his eyebrows knitted in a deep frown, to no surprise of Akashi. The latter braced himself for the coming storm, swearing that he would not be uprooted in it. No, he would stay firm in his new roots, and would not falter from them.
"How dare you lose? As an Akashi, an heir no less, you know very well your responsibility, to be victorious in everything, and to never fall from those high standards. I let you continue basketball, seeing that you assured me that you could keep the high standards. Now, I see you have failed. You have failed the family name. Failures are not fit to have the Akashi name."
The cold eyes of the paintings of the wall accompanied his father's steely eyes, searing into him, their gazes filled with blame, filled with loathing.
"I'm sorry, Father."
"Sorry? That is hardly adequate. And you lost to Seirin High? Is that not the new school, which has had a basketball club for barely one year? If you had lost to one of the Three Kings of Tokyo, or one of the veteran schools, it might have been more understandable, but how could Rakuzan, how could you have lost to a newcomer?
"Father, they are strong." Akashi attempted to appease his father. "Despite being new, they have a strong team. Besides that, they have the shadow and light duo – Kuroko Tetsuya, my former teammate, as well as Kagami Taiga, who recently returned from the States and is practically on par with the Generation of Miracles."
"Inexcusable. Kuroko Tetsuya – he was the weakest of the lot, wasn't he? I heard that he could not even get past third string in Teikou. How could you have lost to him? Or perhaps…"
"Perhaps what, Father?" Akashi asked, trying his best to keep himself from rebuking his father. Kuroko Tetsuya, he was certainly not weak. Yet, Akashi knew very well that if he contradicted his father now, especially in this mood, he would only receive a harsher punishment.
"Perhaps it's those teammates of yours in Rakuzan. The Uncrowned Kings, was it? Well, they don't seem too impressive. Nebuya, that boy with awful manners. Mibuchi, who calls you "Sei-chan", was it? How could you allow him to address you in such a casual manner? And Hayama – he seems to enjoy playing the fool, and is rather mischievous. And the last one, Mayuzumi, was it? An average player, to say the least. Seijuro, clearly they are of terrible standards and as a Captain, you should have chosen better."
Indignation flared in Akashi as he heard this, despite his best attempts to suppress it. It would have been fine if he had born the brunt of the criticism, but to criticise his team as well. Indeed, it was the last straw.
"Seijuro, you must understand that winning is everything. The Akashi name demands perfection, and until you can prove yourself, you will never be worthy of the name. So, I will not punish you, for now, but you must form a better team, and must devote your team to winning every single match – no tomfoolery, no wastage of time, no playing around permitted."
"No, Father."
Akashi's voice, in his usual way, was quiet, but firm. A new sense of boldness came over him – perhaps it stemmed from the realisation that the principles his father had inculcated in him were wrong, and perhaps it stemmed from the desire to take control of his life and steer it not in his father's direction, but in his direction.
"Seijuro?" His father's voice was even, smooth, dangerous, a warning that if he continued, it would be constituted as disobedience, warranting heavy consequences.
"No," Akashi repeated, more confident. "My teammates are not at fault. It was a collective team effort, and each of us bears equal responsibility. However, if anyone bears the most responsibility, it would be me, as their captain. Furthermore, as I have stated earlier, Seirin is an incredibly strong team, and it is not that my teammates are of terrible standards."
His father's eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets – he could not believe that his son, the son who had obediently followed his word, who had stuck to the principle that winning was everything for sixteen years, was now defying him.
"Kuroko is not weak. I personally spotted his potential early on, and I have learned much from him. In fact, in some areas he is better than us, than us Generation of Miracles. If there is one thing I have learned from him, though, it's that winning is not everything, Father. Because of this principle, I led my former team to fall apart, and would have done the same with Rakuzan had Kuroko, had this loss not stopped me. I have realised that the enjoyment that comes from playing basketball, that comes from playing as a team, and the bonds and camaraderie formed with fellow teammates truly ranks above victory. I believe," Akashi added, his tone softening, "that this is what Mother tried to teach me when she introduced me to basketball."
At the mention of his wife, Akashi Masaomi halted, his glare deepening, his expression turning even darker. "Seijuro, your Mother has no involvement in this. She's gone. Have you become misguided? Have you lost sight of the importance of victory? Have you lost sight of what it means to be an Akashi?"
"No, I have not. I still aim for victory, of course. I simply do not want to lose what comes along with it, to focus on the ends and not the means, and hence achieve pyrrhic victories. Father, with all respect, I believe that full victory would be one achieved with satisfaction in the process, in the team one has played in, in the journey taken towards it. And I believe that losses are not failures, they are opportunities to grow, to improve oneself." A simple answer was all that was required.
As he held his father's gaze, he felt a certainty that he had never felt before. A pregnant pause ensued, before his father spoke again.
"I will be observing you. If you falter, if you slack and stray away from achieving victory, I will intervene."
"Yes, Father."
For the second time that day, Akashi smiled.
His father, in that moment, was still disappointed, furious, hesitant and perhaps a little bewildered. But seeing his father's expression, it seemed that Akashi Masaomi would tolerate it at first - not quite acceptance, but not rebuke either. And maybe someday, he would come to understand - Akashi would show it to him. For that, Akashi had to change.
A sigh of relief emanated involuntarily from Akashi's lips. He was one step closer to what he wished to achieve. He was one step forward in changing himself. He would be able to return to his former and current team as a steady, firm captain, one that would inspire them and not inspire fear in them. His former self would be able to return in full soon.
He was glad that he had not run away.