14 and 11 don't go

By Nicotine Gum

Note: Also known as 'Experimenting with Mitsui Hisashi and Rukawa Kaede.'

A little something I came up with on the spur of the moment, while thinking of how to reply to a message. For Hagane, just to shut you up hopefully. –squirms. You know this really isn't my forte, so I beg your pardon if the story's a little out of context and totally out of order.

You've already won me over, in spite of me

Don't be alarmed if I fall head over feet

And don't be surprised if I love you, for all that you are

I couldn't help it- it's all your fault.

-Alanis Morisette

He didn't know what hit him. No, really, he didn't. One moment he was swaggering down the street, the next he was sprawled in an ungraceful heap on the hard concrete ground. Oh fuck, he cursed mentally, moving his body experimentally to check that his limbs were intact, what the hell was that? Certain that he was not suffering from severe paralysis, he got up stiffly, his body sore and aching from the impact with the ground. Maaaaan, he'd hit the ground hard.

"Itai!" he winced as he straightened up, looking around for the culprit as much as looking for his bag. It lay ten feet away from the scene of accident, and there, to the east of it, was a shiny something. Mitsui limped closer. And blanched; in horror, anger or disgust, he didn't know.

It was a pink something that rightly belonged to a bicycle. And he had a pretty good idea whose bicycle it was.

I will kill him. No, I will castrate him first, then skin him alive, so he bleeds slowly to death and then I'll spoon out his eyeballs and yank out all his teeth. Murderous thoughts entered his mind as he walked the rest of the way to school. It was an uncomfortable journey, made all the more troublesome by that aching pain the shot up his spine every time he took a step. It hurt, god it fucking hurt.

That'll teach him, he thought viciously, acutely unaware that people were staring at him as he walked past- no, make it hobbled- he certainly was not walking, curiously frightened by all the snarling and growling that he was doing. Oh I will pound his face in the moment I see him. Stupid brat. Running me over like that and not even stopping to apologise! He thought, feeling extremely aggravated all of a sudden. Oh, Mitsui Hisashi did not like it when people hit him and ran. It proved their cowardice to face up to consequences. Well, it was up to him to run after them so that the (Hotta's) iron fist of justice could deal out what those shit deserved. God dammit, he's gonna pay!

So, armed with numerous homicidal thoughts of maiming a certain super rookie, Mitsui Hisashi gathered himself enough to manage to saunter haughtily into school, the only indication of his injury a slight twitch in the eye. And there he bid his time till school was over and training began.

"RUKAWA!" he stormed up to the other who was already on the court, shooting some hoops before practice. "RUKAWA YOU FUCK!"

The taller brunette paused for a moment in his throwing, before calmly resuming his methodical pattern of aiming, shooting and scoring. He didn't look the least bit guilty. Heck, he was acting as if nothing had happened- that he hadn't run him over this morning and taken off without a backward glance! The nerve! Stupid bastard! With his pride on the line, Mitsui hollered once more, pointedly ignoring the fact that said bastard was only a couple of feet away and could hear him pretty damn well.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR!"

The boy didn't react in the least, just threw a cool glance in his direction, before shrugging it off as one of his senpai's raging tempers that desperately needed to be kept in check, only this time he was on the receiving end, and receiving the full brunt of it at that.

"Rukawa," Mitsui's voice was suddenly strangely calm as he realised not too late, that it would make more sense for him to yell at the wall than at the retard standing in front of him, "look, I'm talking to you here? And basic courtesy demands that you acknowledge me at least."

Rukawa grunted.

Mitsui's right eye twitched, but he managed to restrain himself from launching at the boy and tackling him to the ground so he could strangle the life out of him and then maybe hang him out to dry. "Why, why, why did you knock me down this morning?" Even to his ears, he sounded quite the prude.

The mild look of surprise that crossed his junior's face vexed him even more than he already was.

"You did. Don't look like you don't know what I'm talking about."

The rookie shrugged nonchalantly. "Sorry."

Mitsui knew he should accept the apology gracefully and back off. After all, Rukawa Kaede hardly ever apologised to anyone, much less so directly, but something just rattled at him and told him the kid shouldn't be let off the hook so easily, and that he deserved just a little bit more shit than what he'd already dished out. It was time to act.

"That's all you can say? Sorry? You fucking knocked me over this morning and you didn't even stop to see if I was okay!"

"You look okay."

"What?" he echoed loudly. The few members who had arrived threw curious glances in their direction but neither paid them any mind. Who cared what idiots thought anyway.

"You look okay," Rukawa repeated.

"You didn't know that when you ran me over and headed off to school like nothing happened!" he protested angrily.

Rukawa shrugged. "Took a chance."

"Yeah, and if I was crippled?" Mitsui challenged. "Would you just say sorry then?"

A cross expression surfaced on the blank face before it quickly disappeared. "You're not crippled senpai," he said flatly.

"I know I'm not! But what if?"

"But you're not."

"Damn it Rukawa! Will you just answer the question?"

"What question, Mitchy?"

Both aces froze at the familiar, and dreaded voice. Oh fuck, Mitsui cursed mentally, this shit's got bad timing.

Rukawa's eyes narrowed into slits and he turned away. "None of your business d'aho."

Sakuragi, predictably, bristled. "I wasn't talking to you stupid fox! I was talking to Mitchy here. Oi Mitchy, what question did you ask the stupid fox?" he stabbed his thumb rudely in the other freshman's direction, scowling darkly as he did.

"Nothing you should be concerned about carrot-top."

The redhead fumed. "What the hell's up with you? I was just asking!"

"Yeah, and I don't bloody want to answer!" Mitsui shot back, visibly miffed. He almost had Rukawa…had him doing what, he didn't know, but he had him. And this stupid idiot moron of a redhead just had to ruin it all. Damn the obnoxious piece of shit.

"Why the hell not? Do you just have to be so damn difficult all the time?"

"The fuck you care! It's my goddamn problem if I want to act like I've got a stick up my arse!" he wasn't usually as crude and coarse with his language as he was now, but his back hurt, his head hurt, and goddamn it if Sakuragi wasn't getting on his last nerve!

"You don't have to act it stupid, you have a right pole up your stinking ass! And fuck you I was just asking a goddamn question out of fucking concern!" the other's language was notably none the finer, and the other members present winced at the exchange of profanities, wishing that maybe someone (preferably Akagi) would mercifully intercede and put an end to the horrible verbal abuse that was unravelling before them. Kogure, who had just stepped into the court, hurried over, planting himself right smack between the two feuding parties, hoping to restore some semblance of order, at least till someone more capable (Akagi or Ayako, either one) arrived on the scene.

"Mitsui! Sakuragi!" He tried to make himself heard above the uproar, "What's going on?"

"He started it!" Sakuragi pointed rudely in Mitsui's face, his finger mere inches from the other's nose. Cross-eyed as he glared down at the offending finger, Mitsui swatted it away, not being the least bit gentle and yelled back.

"Don't be a dolt Sakuragi! I was talking to Rukawa before you stepped in and interrupted!"

Kogure turned to the younger boy. "Is that true, Sakuragi-kun?"

The boy looked guilty for the span of two seconds before he recovered and muttered an annoyed, "so what?"

Mitsui snorted and received a withering look from the vice-captain. He wisely kept his mouth shut and shoved whatever retort he was about to say back in his throat.

"Anyway, he was yelling way before that. It wasn't my fault there was a racket going on," chocolate brown eyes met deep blue in an unspoken challenge. The latter narrowed as he realised.

Asshole, he thought furiously, it would do him good if he'd stop nosing in for once. He opened his mouth to vocalise his thoughts, but was beaten to it by another voice.

"D'aho. It's none of your business."

All eyes present turned as one to the speaker. In the chaos and confusion, they had all but forgotten about Rukawa. The one Mitsui had been yelling at in the first place.

"What did you say?" Sakuragi's voice was barely above a growl, and his muscles were all tensed as he readied himself for a fight with his nemesis.

"I said it's none of your business d'aho. Go mind your own."

Right before Sakuragi lunged at the other and sent them both crashing to the ground in a mess of clawing, punching and kicking, Mitsui caught sight of cold blue eyes that flashed with some unknown expression as they met his own.

He shivered, even if the weather was awfully fine that day.

Mitsui Hisashi was not one to hold grudges. No, he certainly was not the sort. Instead, he would act on it and twist it around so that it was always the other party that held the grudge in the end. Broken bones, shattered joints, chipped teeth…those were the usual fares that came with his motto of 'forgive and forget'. Sure, he could do that. Once the other guy was crippled enough to not be able to stand on his own two feet for the next couple of months of course. And so, it made perfect sense that he followed his doctrine and went about to set things straight with the offending rookie.

Yep, that very same one who knocked him over.

end chapter 1