disclaimer: I don't own KNB or its characters. The only one that does is my OC.


Chap 1: Introduction

That smooth, tanned skin that covered his tough, strong muscles; his pure and unpredictable movements, by which the orange ball seemed to almost move on its own, made her want to watch him the whole day and night. And the aura of joy and bold love for the game almost hypnotically invited her to join in.

Zatsuki Kana fell in love with Teiko's ace the first moment she laid her eyes on him. Call it love at first sight or something of the sort, but she only saw it as long foreseen fate.

….

Zatsuki..let's say that she wasn't an exceptionally girly middle school student and her almost world-record breaking height wasn't exactly helping her to look girlier. In fact, most people thought of her as a guy. Especially since the girl was a late bloomer and happened to be taller than most guys in her class..school...city(?).

Why was the world unfair? She wondered for the thousandth time, remembering her unrequited love's childhood friend. Zatsuki wanted to be like the pink-haired girl, who every guy was obsessed over. That pink, long hair; those big, round, pink eyes with long, curly eye-lashes; that unnecessarily big chest; her tiny waist and perfect height (not too tall, not too short) and her perfect grades. It was too much for our heroine. How can a girl be so perfect?! There was no way in-

"ZATSUKI!" The teacher yelled right into our heroine's ear, irritation growing noticeably on his face. The ginger girl sprang up instinctively, causing the adult to sweat drop from sudden growth in height difference. Though, having gotten used to it by now, he snapped from the shock and re-asked the question coldly, "What's would be the velocity of the car if it drives 15 km in 30 minutes?"

The girl blinked and stared, she had no idea what in the world velocity or any other physics term meant. In fact, she didn't really know much of anything besides basketball. It's not like she wanted to rebel against school or something of the sort. No, she just found it way too complicated to elaborate. And studying made her want to sleep all the time, because her brain could handle the amount of information that was being pressed into them. It was just way too much.

After a long sigh, the physics teacher went back to the front of the class, commenting that Zatsuki should stop sleeping in class and try to at least listen for once.

"I did try..." she muttered under her breath and sat back down, falling asleep after several minutes.

….

"Ahaha~, you had to see your face, Kana!" Her classmate exclaimed in high delight when the class finished, hitting her on the shoulder. "Yeah, yeah...Kyo-kun...though you're not the one to talk. You've been drawing in your notebook through the whole class, haven't you?" The girl replied with a similar mockery, raising her eye-brows to prove her point.

'Kyo-kun' gave his friend the glare. It, being the glare, usually meant that it was time to quit the subject they were at.

"Alright...don't get upset. I didn't mean any harm. Though I don't see why you're hiding it. They're really prett-" The glare went to level two, "Fine, let's go play then. The girl's team doesn't have any practice today, so I'm free~!" "You're a basketballholic, you know that? Well, it's better than having you talk about my hobbies..." Kyo-kun relaxed his face to a mutual happiness. "Treats on the loser~!" Zatsuki jogged away, inviting her friend to a small running competition.

….

"You-" Kyo-kun huffed several times, "-are-" He couldn't stand straight anymore, "-monstrous." He finished stating his fact before breaking into another fit of deep breathing, "I can't believe a girl can have so much stamina!

"I can't help it." The ginger girl replied in guilt, looking at her exhausted friend. Basketball was her soul and body. The only thing that made her comfortable in her own skin and she didn't mind that...at all.

After shooting another basket in, the girl sat down together with her friend, talking about the last night's basketball game. It was very close to the finals of the year's national game and Zatsuki just couldn't stand still whenever the subject arouse and nothing ever stopped her from talking about it, even if the person she was talking to didn't even try to listen. That is, until a certain you-know-who happened to pass by.

It was as if the whole world stopped and he was only thing moving. "Kana." Kyo-kun whispered. Getting no response, he tried a bit louder, "Kana!" Absolute ignorance. "KANA!" "WHAT?!" Ah, finally.

"You're a lost case." The guy sighed in the pitifulness of his friend.

"Wh-wha?! I..I'm not!" She tried to decline, but her obvious hot-pink cheeks kind of made it obvious that she was.

"Well, forget it. He's not gonna date somebody like you, especially after being together for years with a hot childhood friend...Momoi-chan's so pretty today too..." The teenage boy stared at Teiko's manager. "Yeah, guess what? She ain't either. Not after...especially not after being together with a hot childhood friend like Aomine." Zatsuki gave the devil's smile to her friend.

They were both lost cases and they knew it.

Sulking together, the duo sighed in sync.

"Well...wanna go grab something?" Kyo-kun offered, noticing the bitter sadness that was growing inside his friend's eyes. Unlike the girl, he, though pretty close, wasn't exactly suffering from any deeper feelings. And to add to his troublesome friend's pitiful love, he heard about the tension that has started growing inside their school's basketball team. The rumour were saying something about Aomine Daiki getting stronger and more arrogant.

On the other hand, the guy didn't see the reason for them to get worried, he meant that the whole Generation of Miracle's were all ridiculously strong and arrogant little-big brats to the very core of their souls. What ever worse could happen than them being who they are?

"Yeah..Let's go." the ginger girl stood up clumsily, stretching while doing so.

"Kana..have you been getting fatter lately?" Kyo-kun suddenly asked, looking at his friend. "Wha?! What kind of a question..oh nevermind. No, I haven't." Zatsuki tried to act girlish and make him feel guilty for asking something like that, but couldn't. She didn't care about weight. And even if she did, it would be impossible for her to get the 'perfect size' anyway. Her height just wouldn't allow her to get that perfect princess look. "Why ask?" "No...it's nothing. Just thought that you've been actually playing a bit more human lately...and your shirt isn't just hanging from your shoulders flat any more...It's quite natural to think you've gained a kilo or two.."

Zatsuki just stared blankly at her friend. She couldn't believe that even her closest buddy forgot that she was a girl.

"Alright, don't look at me like that! How am I suppose to remember something so irrelevant?!"

"Yeah, whatever you say...let's go, I'm hungry." The girl just turned, letting her semi-long pony-tail fly a bit in the air, giving her neck a chance to some fresh air.

...

Teikou's team was suffering even more from the tension that was growing inside it due Generation of Miracle's over-whelming strength. Zatsuki's depression wasn't exactly helping much. She was one of the few people that turned the team into a brighter state after several minutes of coming in.

Her depression came from her disappointment. The girl thought that the days she would grow to look more like a girl would be her happiest...yeah, well. It wasn't. In fact, it was probably the worst days in her life. At least she hoped life wouldn't get any worse than that.

Maybe it was slightly her fault. Just a tiny bit. But otherwise!

Who knew that having a chest bounce like two basketballs and attached to the body was sooo uncomfortable?! Why didn't anybody ever tell her about that?! And the fact that it also made her back hurt like hell froze over...twice?!

Though being smart and all, she gulped down her uncomfortable pain in every part of her body, went ahead and used the opportunity to confess.

...

"Whyyyyy?!" Kyo-kun rubbed his temple with his index finger, and giving another tissue to his friend. The girl took it and blew as hard as possible, which probably resulted in some snot falling on her own clothes.

"B-but...he rejected with such a f-forward face-" "Don't tell me what happened. I was there, genius." The boy sighed and stood up and sat next to his crying companion, "Look, you knew that it was impossible from the start. Why did you even try, is my question?" "I -I just wanted for us to become rivals...b-but he said that he doesn't care for playing against girls..." The girl went into another fit of salty tears, "What happened to all the times we played together then?! Doesn't he remember already?!"

"Oh, jesus, you don't know how to act sweet, but you know how to cry like a huge drama queen?! This is ridiculous!" Kyo-kun couldn't handle his temper any longer. He hardly ever saw Zatsuki crying...and this was not something that he looked forward to seeing again, "Just forget about it, it's not like that arrogant brat is the last person on earth."

"B-but..." The girl's soaking caramel eyes looked at him with desperation. She didn't know what to do about all the crazy thoughts that she kept on getting.

And as if a part of her died that day, she felt completely empty without much care about anything around her. Even basketball stopped appealing to her.

...

"Zatsuki-chan/Zatsu-chi!" Her team mates cried after her, as she walked away from the field. "Tch. That damn nuisance, I thought this would happen...alright! Stop whining! We might have lost our ace, but I'm going to break all of your necks if that's going to stop us from winning the Tournament and become champions! You hear me?!" Teiko's girl team's captain yelled in a commanding and threatening manner. She might have been a short 150 cm girl, but everybody feared her, probably even more than her brother, Akashi Seijuro. Although she even had two huge, crimson, soft pony-tails that were suppose to look cute, they were doing everything but that.

"H-hai..." The girls gulped and tried to concentrate more intensely.

...

"Hey, did you hear?"

"Yeah, Zatsuki Kana walked off from the finals."

"Shh...no so loud. I heard she became a delinquent and is hanging out with these dangerous-looking guys now."

"No way! That tomboy?! Well...I guess it's not too weird."

"Suits her right. I never liked that ugly giant to begin with."

Kyo-kun couldn't help but over-hear the rumours that were going around the school. It wasn't like he wanted to go against all these people that were judging his friend. The boy kind of understood why they were talking like that. He, himself, was disappointed in Zatsuki, when he saw what happened on the field. And when he tried to question her, the girl's only response was, "It was boring." But he didn't ask her any longer, since he saw those same soulless eyes that he has been seeing in all of the Generation of Miracles lately.

...

"It's going to be alright, nii-chan." Zatsuki reassured her older brother, "I'm alright now. I won't scare you again, I promise. Bye, worry-wart, try to enjoy your life in Germany... love you too" The girl disconnected her phone from the call, sighing.

"He'll never let me be, will he?" She asked, with a smile. He was the one that pushed her to high school after all. And tomorrow was going to be her first day and the beginning of a new life for her.

"Bring it on!" She punched the air in front of her with a grin and eyes sparkling in excitement.


Hello people! Actually I began writing this story before...but then I didn't know what to do with it and deleted it. But now I wrote it again, since I just couldn't part with Zatsuki Kana~.

This chapter is only a brief introduction to the actual story. I hope it's not too weird and dramatic...I tried to make it mild, but I couldn't obviously do it completely.

The funny thing is, I just noticed that 'Zatsuki' is actually the same thing as 'Satsuki' only with a 'Z'...I swear that was not done on purpose. I made the name up completely randomly. Though 'Kana' is a bit of a different story. In finnish (Finland, yes, us, the northern people) 'kana' means chicken. And since in KNB the characters are sometimes represented as round cute birds, I thought it would be appropriate for Kana to be a little ginger chick. ...It was pretty funny when I thought of it...yeah, please don't judge me.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. And if you want more, it would be very much appreciated if you give a review about what you thought of it, so that I know on what I should lean more on.

Well, see you later... Oh, and I'm a pretty busy person, so the chapters might not be uploaded as fast as I would like them to be sometimes...Just warning. I kind of feel guilty, since I haven't been able to write my other unfinished stories...I'll get to them eventually too.

-your truly,

the lazy author.