Title: Subcontractor
Characters: Kagami, Riko, Kuroko
Summary: In which Riko delegates a certain delicate task to someone whose skillsets are better suited to executing it.
Notes: General audiences. Valentine's Day fluff. 1810 words.

Subcontractor

Taiga didn't think much about it when Riko-san pointed her finger at him towards the end of the evening's practice and said, "Stick around for a minute, Kagami-kun, we need to have a word." She did that to everyone from time to time, holding them back after practice to have a word about their forms or training schedules or to put a bug in their ears about not training to the point of exhaustion and then failing to study enough to pass important exams—okay, maybe that one was just him. The point was that it wasn't anything out of the ordinary, so he finished helping round up the last of the basketballs for the carts and wracked his brain trying to figure out what she might have on her mind this time.

Far as he knew he'd been behaving himself pretty well lately—had managed to pass all his exams, anyway, and hadn't gotten caught sleeping in class or anything, and he'd been careful with his extra training. There didn't seem to be any reason for the coach to want to have a private word with him that Taiga could see, so he hung back as the rest of the guys headed out and tried not to be too worried. Riko-san was a strict coach, sure, but she wasn't an unfair one.

He watched her wave off Hyuuga-san and Kiyoshi-san when they would have stuck around with them, which was a little weird. Usually she kept Hyuuga-san around for captainly reasons whenever she wanted to have a little heart-to-heart with one of the guys, and Kiyoshi-san was kind of like an enthusiastic puppy—he got into everything. Hyuuga-san looked about as puzzled as Taiga felt, but he went anyway, and Kiyoshi-san just gave them both a cheerful grin and followed after him.

Riko-san had them all pretty well trained to come to heel, Taiga reflected, watching her look around the gymnasium carefully after the doors had closed behind them. Inspecting it for Kuroko, probably, since that guy could slip beneath the radar even after a year to get used to him and his lack of presence. Taiga was pretty sure he liked it that way, not that he could get Kuroko to own up to it. But the gym was empty except for the two of them—Taiga checked it for Kuroko, too—and eventually Riko-san came over and planted herself in front of Taiga. She folded her arms across her chest, gave him a steely look, and said, "If you ever tell anyone about this conversation, I will quadruple your training."

Ooookay. So that was weird, even for Riko-san and their team. Taiga rubbed the back of his neck, eyeing her and wondering what the hell was going on. "Okay?"

"I mean that." Riko-san continued to glare up at him; it was alarming when Taiga was really pretty sure—ninety percent sure, at least—that he hadn't done anything to deserve that. "If you talk about this, I will know, and I will make you regret it."

"Talk about what?" Taiga asked, baffled.

If he hadn't known better, he'd have sworn that the way she took a deep breath and released it was nervous. She lifted her chin higher and fixed a glittering, dangerous look on him. "I need you to make me some chocolates."

"What?" She wanted him to make her some chocolates? That didn't make any sense—wait. It was February, and Valentine's Day was next week, wasn't it? If she wanted him to make her some chocolates, was that like a come on? No, wait, girls gave the chocolates on Valentine's Day. Guys gave chocolates on White Day, right? Also, it was Riko-san, pretty much the last person in the world Taiga would expect to issue a come-on to anyone.

Taiga felt his brain attempting to shut down in self-defense on that last thought and had to shake his head vigorously; he nearly missed the exasperated sound Riko made. "I need you to make me some chocolates," she repeated, enunciating each word clearly. "You can do that, right?"

Taiga knew there were a lot of things he didn't get, being a returnee and all, but he'd been in Japan for Valentine's Day a year ago and he was pretty sure he'd come to grips with the whole thing. "Wait, aren't you supposed to make the chocolates yourself?"

He regretted the comment instantly; Riko-san scrunched up her mouth, all tight and unhappy, and looked away. "You are, but you know that that's not a good idea for me."

Aw, man. Taiga rubbed the back of his neck again, remembering some of her attempts at cooking—it wasn't that she wasn't capable, really, so much as she just didn't care about kitchen stuff enough not to try and make shortcuts where they didn't belong. So she was asking him to do it for her, huh? Even though it looked like she was really embarrassed about it. That made it sound like whoever these were for was kind of important.

"So are you going to do it or not?" she demanded while Taiga puzzled his way through all this. "I don't have all night, you know."

"I could help you with them," Taiga said. "If you want."

Riko looked up at him, her mouth still pinched and tight. "What do you mean?"

What did he mean? Taiga thought it about it and shrugged. "I'd probably have to make them on Sunday afternoon." That being pretty much the only free time he had between now and the fourteenth. "You could come over and help, if you wanted. Actually, that'd probably be good. I haven't ever done chocolates before, but I'm pretty sure it'll take all damn day. Another pair of hands would come in handy."

He'd have been offended by the suspicious look she was giving him, but given what they were talking about and how much it seemed to embarrass her that she'd even had to ask, Taiga guessed he couldn't blame her for it if she was worried that he was teasing her. After a moment, her mouth eased a bit. "Would they?"

"Pretty sure, yeah," he said, considering the basic logistics of it all. If nothing else, he could put her to work on washing the dishes. "Around eleven, maybe?" That ought to be enough time to make a pretty basic set of truffles—those were just ganache and maybe another layer of chocolate on top.

Riko-san's expression unbent a little. "I can buy the chocolate—"

"I'll buy it," Taiga told her, firmly. "You can pay me back."

Riko-san actually smiled a little at that. "Fair enough. Eleven on Sunday?"

Taiga rubbed his chin, thinking about it. "Yeah, should be okay. Wait, what kind of chocolate did you want to use?" When she blinked at him, he sighed. "Should they be dark chocolate, or milk chocolate, or flavored...? I need to know what to buy."

Riko-san opened her mouth and stopped, color tingeing her cheeks. "Could we do two kinds?"

Up until that moment, Taiga hadn't really known what the phrase discretion is the better part of valor really meant in practical terms, but staring at his coach's blushing expression and recalling the threat of quadruple training, understanding came upon him in a flash. "Sure," he said, carefully not asking why she wanted two kinds of chocolates or who, exactly, they were for. "We can do two kinds. What do you have in mind?"

Riko-san fidgeted for just a moment. If it had been any other girl standing there, Taiga would have called it a shy sort of thing to do. "I was thinking dark chocolate for the one. Maybe with some coffee flavor? And milk chocolate for the other." She looked up at him, definitely pink around the cheeks. "Could we do that?"

"...yeah," Taiga said. "Yeah, sure, no problem. Though maybe you'll want to come by earlier than eleven." So much for sleeping in, he thought wistfully.

She nodded. "Of course. Would nine be all right?"

"That'll be fine." He looked down at her and bit his tongue until the urge to ask her who the chocolates were for had subsided to bearable levels. "Anything else?"

"No, Kagami-kun, that will be all." She paused. "But remember—quadruple training."

"I won't mention it to anyone," he promised her.

"See that you don't," she said, tart as lemon. "I'll see you Sunday morning."

Taiga went away in a thoughtful frame of mind and stayed up later than he should have, googling for truffle recipes and instructions for tempering chocolate. He was heavy-eyed and still thoughtful the next morning, and couldn't quite help himself when he ran into Kuroko on the way to school. "Hey, Kuroko," he said, "I got a question for you." Kuroko raised his eyebrows just a bit, signaling that he was listening. "Do you think Hyuuga-san is more of a milk chocolate guy, or a dark chocolate one?"

He didn't get to see Kuroko at a complete loss very often, so he let himself enjoy the way Kuroko wrinkled his forehead over the question. "I would probably have to say dark chocolate," he said, approximately half a block later, in very careful tones.

"Yeah, that's kind of what I thought myself. What about Kiyoshi-san? Milk chocolate or dark chocolate?"

Kuroko looked up at him, probably wondering whether Taiga had gone crazy on him if the look on his face was any indication. "Milk chocolate," he said, and yeah, that squared with what Taiga thought, too. "Kagami-kun, is there something that you would like to tell me?"

"Not really," Taiga said. "I was just thinking, that's all."

"Mmhm. I see." Kuroko walked next to him in silence until they turned the corner. Then he said, "I feel like I should warn you that if you try to give either of them chocolate next week, Kantoku will make sure your body is never found."

Taiga threw his head back and laughed. "Yeah," he told Kuroko. "Yeah, so what else is new?"

Kuroko eyed him, probably still wondering whether he'd lost his mind completely. "As long as you know," he said. "It would be annoying to have to break in a new partner, you realize."

"Of course it would," Taiga told him, curiosity satisfied. "So do you think we'll have a quiz in English today or not?"

Kuroko let him change the subject and did not raise it again, which was just as well. He was too good at figuring things out, and Taiga had said more than enough on the subject as it was.

Taiga stuck his hands in his pockets, grinning to himself, and just wished that he'd had the sense to get in on the betting pool about which one of the three of them—Riko-san, Kiyoshi-san, or Hyuuga-san—would move first.

end

Comments are always lovely!