finally finishing a fic after a thousand years and gasps it's mayuaka and it's like written in the world record speed of less than 24 hours. mind you I'm a supe writer and probably will never churn something this long for the rest of the challenge so bye but this theme + prompt combination screams mayuaka canonverse so I just have to do it! I hope this is not cheesy enough for bxb and for mayuaka in general ok bye thank you
i.
Akashi does not mind in the least, having the privilege to select who would play for his new team on a regular basis when it is not even a month yet since he was admitted. He undertakes the responsibility like he does the other things that came with being a captain, only now in the state of being in the first year, even since before his first competition in high school.
Proposing the regimen of training the players to Coach Shirogane, only to receive express approval. Which was a given, since anyone would have faith in the methods which secure streaks of victories across Akashi's second and third year at Teikou. But the middle-aged man holds that much of a trust in Akashi, as the one presenting the idea, and lets him conduct and supervise practice sessions for the most time.
Assessing every single person attending, searching for their expertise and potentials as well as their shortcomings. With each passing session, incapable players are removing themselves from the system and Akashi is crossing names from the list. In a while, both the size of their basketball club and the number of candidates of the first-string decreased in a dramatic rate. Nearing the amount he needed, yet needing something more than just exerting the less motivated people to exhaustion to convince himself.
Yet, he could always start with the most obvious choices.
"Reo. Kotarou. Eikichi."
None of the three Uncrowned Kings was serious competition for his Generation of Miracles, but not when the latter split across other schools and prefectures. Defeating one of his current enemies at a time was a feat Akashi could do alone, at all times. Even when regarding the expansion of their abilities under their respective environments, they will not compare to him. They thrived when he was the captain and there is no saying whether the other cases are possible or not—him evolving the kings, or the miracles evolving under others.
"I appoint the three of you to the first string."
Still, he is being true with his principle of only picking the members that will bring the greatest success, the furthest gaps and scores in between their ability with all the other possible teams in this country. As a few of the most of their renowned players of the year above Akashi, they fulfilled his assumption of performing well beyond other members of the team.
For each side of the court is to be filled by five. Five in the terms of physical body count, of people occupying concrete and set positions. This is a rule, and Akashi is an enforcer. And while he escapes the idealist expectation of team oriented play, emphasizes his own movements and judgements at times, there is never any regulations against teams preferring combined individual strengths as long as they do not disregard their opponents.
However overwhelming the elements of Reo's forms of shoots for their unworthy opponents, however intense the speed and impact of Kotarou's dribbles and reflexes, however massive the nature of Eikichi's brute strength and muscles, each one of them is only one person. Akashi Seijuurou, too, with his exceptional prowess and power and Emperor Eye, is only one person on top of his team, one person for Rakuzan and for the nation. Even taking the role of two is beyond him. Other than it being a breach of order, the whole team can only perform with efficiency if he can obtain another designated forward. Since he is a guard, and the essence of the two roles are different.
"Is there anyone that you would like to recommend to me?" he asks once there are only the four of them left. Not out of reliance upon the players who has had one year among the strongest high school team in Japan, but out of assurance of his own opinions. As certain as Akashi is, it is also a wise move to consult the others, especially when one of them is supposed to serve as his vice-captain.
Based on his own judgement, there is a prime material lies among his own people. A third-year of the third string, a very average member that somehow always shows up when there is a strong lack of energy or spirit and not even an attempt to fabricate them. Akashi notices him and his standard skills, even when there are more advanced and personalized plays among them.
A way to say it is that Akashi has an encounter with love, in a less than ardent form, and while it is applicable, the merit is not something people will acknowledge if it is not coming from Akashi. But if he can obtain an objective proof of any other player with more worth, he will be glad to reconsider his strategies. Refrain from suiting his personal appeal to insure optimal achievements.
"Not as of now, Sei-chan," Mibuchi replies with an overly familiar addressing, the kind of things the second-year would also say when he needs to call Kotarou and Eikichi, "But I will tell you when I find someone."
So he decides upon reinventing the wheel, refurbishing his concept of a shadow to his light. An obscurity which will only shroud the atmosphere with its dark when Akashi himself is the beacon illuminating his faint existence. Tetsuya is too accepting to even the dimmest rays. With his distant reactions to group pep talks and decisions of choosing the first three members of alone, it's safe to presume that Mayuzumi—Chihiro—is not even touched by him.
And it is just one reason, and Mibuchi's views, confirming the utter lack of presence or commonness of that person, was yet just another. But now he is positive with his
"Alright."
To the Uncrowned Kings he dismisses the evening meeting with a last round of running. To Mayuzumi, the furthest thing from impressionable, he starts creating a plan that strives to deliver with every measure, until the message arrived and the member acquired and the success completed.
To himself, he recites an oath that he would reserve the number five, the number closest to his captain's four, for his sixth man.
ii.
Mayuzumi sees the choice of spending the thirty-minute lunch break as a permutation of endless possibilities. He can always go with the common route of buying food in the school cafeteria, butting himself in the middle of hundreds only for a loaf of bread or a bowl of rice. Or he can stay at the class, letting himself isolated when it is not empty, not quite quiet for him to continue his reading.
Even when no one of his class is there, he can no longer say no one will interrupt his moment anymore. Someone took interest in a mere member that had been ticked off with the change of the team and the stagnancy of himself, and that someone is none other than the current leader, coming up with a scheme that would bring him to achieve a substantial level of change in his high school life, at the very least.
("Mayuzumi Chihiro. I want you to become the new phantom sixth man.")
A free life lived no more as it demands him to pass, a price for a spot in the core team he otherwise could not afford in a realistic manner. A praise too high, too superficial it could serve as an insult too, but at the same time truthful.
("I'm all the more pleased with you.")
But Mayuzumi's end result remains the same as the other days. Turn to the corner of the third years' floor, open the door and rise with the stairs until he reach the peak of the building. He does not even focus on the worries of having the first-year captain knowing that they will meet at the same time, in the same place, as their first one. Other than Mayuzumi and Akashi and some other teammates (still under the latter person's orders), no one will make the effort to come here at afternoons. No one will even think that it is even permissible to peruse the rooftop at the first place, maybe, even if their student council president has stepped his feet here.
He picks the spot with the least exposure to sunshine, blinding despite it being only the middle of spring in Kyoto and despite his affinity to read at sunny days. Not as an attempt to subvert from his predictable habits, for this too had happened at other occasions when he felt the light is becoming too bright for his own eyes. And even when the ones above the sky were clouds or rains or thunderstorms, he will never have the willpower to move and give up the urgency of some quality reading alone time.
From the side near the way back down to the main part of the building, Mayuzumi hears footsteps, and it's the point when he starts questioning his own actions. There is always time to turn back and avoid someone else, or even to drown himself in the lines of words telling him a story more absurd, yet more coherent, than his current circumstances, or even to pretend taking a nap…
Even if he is going to face Akashi, over-persistent and will-stop-at-nothing Akashi, Mayuzumi is not every other person the younger face. Every other person cannot say no when he can—at least at the first time. Every other person who says no will not even find themselves spend a ridiculous amount of time thinking about how he is wanted and how he has pleased, in whatever context those words are.
"Chihiro, good afternoon," a greeting too cordial as compared to most times. If it is not just his take on trying to draw Mayuzumi into taking part in his deal, the senior will succumb to the public sentiment of the captain being very polite and nice to everyone. But his mind knows better that this may have been not more than a step closer to getting him into the position they think he deserved.
Still, if only Mayuzumi is willing to walk away, from reading and from further, he would have done it. But he does not close the pages of his book, and he does not close himself from Akashi, having disturbing Mayuzumi from an otherwise good moment with a likable light novel. At a second he stares, shallow and bleak, but he lets himself to be distracted and immersed from the story at the same time. Maybe following something like this series can give him more understanding about what happens here and now, he thinks, but he cannot be sure yet. As it is ongoing, and the writer is no way having him as a base for their protagonist.
"What do you want now?" Mayuzumi makes the effort to ask, just because he is not going to allow Akashi only glaring at him for minutes when the gray-haired youth is trying to finish the climax chapter of this volume; the thing he supposes will be possible with the rest of the time he has before seventh period.
"I want to know more," the first-year expresses, "Than just the book you currently read and every other books you enjoy," as he passes his boundaries of professional and personal matters. Because getting Mayuzumi to open up for him is no longer only a part of team building, it is also a part of inquiring for his own satisfaction.
The problem is, Mayuzumi is not the type to expose things to people, much less when he has nothing to be shared with others about his life or the few things he care about, no idea what is that can be as interesting as light novels are to Akashi. Indeed, they have been leading very different types of lives, and what are small things to him could have meant a lot for the other.
"Like what?" Still he'd rather know what kind of thing he should tell first, before blurting out something strange. "Pretty sure you know my taste's shit."
"Any other thing that has ever caught your interest," Akashi just have to not make it specific and ends with a useless assurance, "I am not judging."
"You're lying." And Mayuzumi ponders about getting to ride the train after school and run away to some random station in the neighboring prefecture. But he does not want an Akashi that runs between multiple lines of trains and passenger cars to run into him, so he just averts the whole conversation with it.
Akashi does not leave him, but leaves the topic untouched for the rest of the recess. For instead he watches Mayuzumi, now idle as the latter was, and wonders why he has not come to realize that this kind of people needs to be punished, or to be given up all together, according to his own high standards.
iii.
The two of them sit in the rooftop after practice.
It has been a while after the team in its current form, with Mayuzumi as the phantom player manifesting Akashi's concept, has played and has won a few times in the prefectural level. After Mayuzumi has come to get used with Akashi and the Uncrowned Kings' pace.
He still shows signs of fatigue—not like at least one of the other players has never done so, Mayuzumi picks up a penchant of observing them beyond and he can confirm each of the uncrowned ones, at least, somehow has done so—but he no longer struggled with going up and not down and back to home. His breathing is more stable, nearing to what the power forward would be when this is just a short break in between quarters and the walk they're taking is only a few meters long around lines with zero or a few turns.
Akashi does wish to initiate an exchange between them, again. However, even just bringing Mayuzumi to his favorite place—which has come to be one the captain's favorites, too—against his own wishes is a feat by himself. So he thinks it's the best to not comment at yet another instance of the upperclassman going to read yet another light novel.
But at this point, he no longer has the patience of a saint for someone that does not center his attention in him.
"Do you have nothing better to do?"
And here is where Akashi will do anything to get what he has aspired for.
"No," Mayuzumi said, abandons the book as he has only started unwrapping it a few moments ago, "What do you want to do?"
The smaller boy inched closer and whispers, "To touch you with the light," as he circles his arm around his shadow's broad shoulder.
And if Mayuzumi has not been so done, from the club activities or the whole ordeal, he would not only pull Akashi into his arms, but also into the field below them. Except that he will have a parachute inside his backpack, and it will only be strong enough to bring down one person. But, for now it, will only become a fantasy to entertain himself with.
After all, he will never be ready to receive the consequences of torturing a young master, at any point of his life. Not when he is the one being tortured with their distances closing, with every second going, with escalating into lips colliding and tongues tangling.