Title: The Stress from Being Kaijou's Captain
Pairing: none
Word Count: 2630
A/N: First fic under this account. Also first KnB fic, so a little intimidated right now, haha. For some reason, I could't get this idea out of my head, and even though Kasamatsu isn't my favorite character, I still adore him, so I just had to write this. For some reason the title sounds awkward to me though...Hopefully it's alright. As always, thank you for reading!

Because taking care of immature brats has to be the most stressful thing ever.

"Tell me about your members."

The boy, well, technically he was a man now, looked at the woman across from him warily. He still wasn't sure about this whole 'therapy' thing. Why did he need to go tell a stranger about his problems and tell her why he was stressed? At the end of the session, she won't care and nothing will have been changed. He didn't know why he agreed to this.

"You mean my teammates?" the Kaijou captain asked, tilting his head to the side a little.

This wasn't what he was expecting. His parents (along with everyone else) had forced him to make an appointment long ago, and he had more than enough time to come up with a scenario in his head about how things were going to happen and what the end result will be. He was more than surprised when he walked into the therapist's office and not only was she not a man, like he had been expecting, she also didn't have a big comfortable looking chair he had always seen in the movies.

Needless to say, he was disappointed.

The fact that the first thing out of her mouth aside from a greeting was, "It's because of basketball, isn't? Is that why you're stressed?" also wasn't a very good sign. And aside from the split second shock of 'how did she know that?!', Kasamatsu wasn't very impressed. Anyone who knew him, even if only a little, would know that all he ever thought about was basketball, and so it would be obvious that the reason for his stress level being so high was the sport itself.

He didn't know what good would come from talking about it. In his past experiences, just talking about the sport he committed himself to was enough to send his stress levels skyrocketing.

But because he had promised his parents (he wouldn't give a shit, otherwise), he complied and told her about his teammates.

Sort of.

"Well," he started, already his eyebrows creasing in annoyance at just the thought of his rowdy and uncontrollable basketball teammates. "Since our school is pretty big, we have a lot of members. So it really wouldn't help much if I spent all of our time naming them off. Even the first years alone are enough names to take up half the time."

Sassy Kasamatsu struck again.

However, the therapist just smiled at him, and urged him to name some off anyway. "How about we start with the teammates you're around most often?"

Kasamatsu sighed, but started to rattle off the names of the members he was constantly with. Coincidentally, or maybe not, these were also the members that gave him the most headaches.

"There's Kise Ryouta," he said, and the name alone was enough for him to ball his fist and ready his foot, as if he was preparing to kick or hit someone, as he often did with the small forward.

Before he could say anything else, he was interrupted by an unprofessional gasp, and he looked up, annoyed. Was she one of Kise's fans too? Because if she was, he was going to walk right out of there. The therapist composed herself, though a hint of pink was spread across her cheeks. Kasamatsu rolled his eyes. All women were the same, apparently, regardless of their age. Name a pretty boy and they all go weak at the knees.

"I noticed your body language change when you named him," she said, clearing her throat and taking down some notes. "Is there an unresolved issue between the two of you?"

And that was all it took for everything to come spilling out.

"Yeah, there's an unresolved issue. It's called his entire existence. He is literally one of the most annoying people I know, always pining after me and trying to get close with me. 'Senpai this, Senpai that'. I swear to god if I hear his stupid annoying voice call out for me one more time I will break him in half."

The lady in front of him had a small smirk on her face.

Kasamatsu unclenched his hands and groaned.

She had won. He had cracked first, though oddly, he did feel better.

Without even being asked to, he continued to rant about the annoying blonde. "I don't even care that he's part of the stupid 'Generation of Miracles', he's an immature brat and I can't even hit him when I want. Whenever I try, his manager comes out of nowhere screaming at me not to damage the pretty boy's face or 'I'll seriously regret it'." From the way the basketball captain said this, the doctor knew that this must've happened before.

The next ten minutes were spent explaining how Kise's fangirls were the bane of his existence and how they show up everywhere the tall blonde model is and how they are so loud and bothersome and interrupt practice and-

The therapist in front of him raised an eyebrow, successfully stopping him mid rant. "Is there any possibility that you might be jealous of this attention?"

Kasamatsu laughed loudly, acting like the woman had just told the funniest joke in the world. When he calmed down, he looked her right in the eye and said, "The only thing I will ever be jealous of Kise for is his talent."

She just nodded and didn't push the matter. After taking down some notes, she asked, "Do you feel better?"

Kasamatsu shrugged gruffly. He didn't want admit defeat.

"Is there anyone else you want to tell me about?"

Moriyama Yoshitaka was definitely next. The flirty third year was always on the look out for some cute girl, which diverted his attention from what was really important. "He's always telling me I should find myself a girlfriend because it will make me a happier person or something like that." Kasamatsu rolled his eyes. "But he's one to talk. In the three years we've played at Kaijou, the brat hasn't had a girlfriend either. He's always spouting off all this romantic crap, as if he knows what he's talking about." The basketball player scoffed.

"He's better than Kise, though, since he's not annoying all the time, but he's definitely still a pest. He never focuses during our games and will go find some girl out of his league that he'll never be able to get. Moriyama is lucky he can shoot well, if it weren't for that unusual shooting style of his, he'd be off the team in an instant. Instead of girls, what he really needs is to get his head in the game," Kasamatsu muttered in a low, irritated tone. He was starting to get fired up just talking about his idiotic team members.

When asked if he was jealous of Moriyama, he replied with a snort and another roll of his eyes. "I'm jealous of him even less than I am of Kise."

The therapist takes this down with a secretive smile, as if she knew something he didn't. And if there was anything Kasamatsu hated more than Kise's fangirls or Moriyama's lame romanticism, it was not knowing something.

A frown appeared on his face, deepening his worry lines and making him seem even older than he was.

"Anyone else?" She looked at him with genuine interest. He was an interesting person, she thought. The way he spoke about his teammates, no matter how badly, the tone in which he spoke of them was peculiar.

Kasamatsu then spoke about Hayakawa and his odd obsession with getting rebounds. He talked about how the younger boy was always overly excited about playing, even if they only went to watch. Next came Kobori, who doesn't cause too much trouble for him, but is still a little too quiet. Kasamatsu feared that one day Kobori might just snap and become even worse than him.

Then it was onto the first years, who seemed to listen to Kise more than they listened to him. They were arrogant and much too cocky for their skills. He'd admit that they were good, but never to their face. If they could prove to him that they were good enough to deserve being cocky, only then would he tell them he recognized their skills.

The second years still didn't respect him as a captain, and that only made him angry, he admitted. Kasamatsu knew that some of them still remembered the match at last year's Inter High that he foolishly messed up and he knew that some of them, if not all, still held it against him. He didn't blame them, because he knew he'd feel the same if he was in their shoes. He was just glad that he had the opportunity to regain their trust, even though it hasn't exactly been working out as he had planned. It has been nearly the whole year and yet still nearly half of the second years still refused to even acknowledge him as captain.

He liked the third years better because they understood him and were less likely to disobey him. That didn't mean that there weren't moments where he wished he could smash their heads in. It just meant that those moments were less of a regular occurrence when it came to the seniors. But of course, with people like Moriyama a part of the soon to be graduating group, the third years never stayed quiet for long.

"Is there anyone in particular that you are jealous of?" Kasamatsu gave her a sour look, wondering why she kept asking the same question over and over again.

Before he could tell her that no, he wasn't really jealous of anyone on his team, he suddenly realized that that was a lie.

With a big sigh, he looked down at the ground and admitted to her, "Actually, I think I am. I'm jealous of all of them, to be perfectly honest."

His answer seemed to surprise her. "Why is that?"

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, his demeanor suddenly changing back again. "Because none of them have to take care of immature brats like I do."

And just here the woman had thought that they finally reached a breakthrough.

Apparently not.

The woman closed the notebook she had been taking notes in and leaned forward towards Kasamatsu. She crossed her legs and clasped her hands together as she got into what she called her 'professional stance'. To Kasamatsu, it just looked dumb. "I'm curious about something," she said, leaning even closer towards the boy. She looked at him closely without saying anything, which only made him grow uncomfortable. After a few minutes of awkwardness, the lady leaned back, much to Kasamatsu's relief. "Why don't you just quit?"

Kasamatsu looked at her strangely before blurting out a dumb, "Huh?" Embarrassed at his own stupid response, he scratched the back of his neck, not knowing what else to say.

Was someone who was supposedly trying to help really telling him to quit? He thought all adults were supposed to tell you to never give up and follow your dreams, or something cliched like that. So why was she asking why he didn't just quit? She acted like that was so simple!

She saw his confused look and just smiled. "Well, you did admit that your teammates were the cause of most of your stress, no?" He couldn't deny that because it was true, so he opted not to say anything at all. That didn't stop her from continuing on. "If basketball is so hard and since you don't enjoy being a captain, isn't it the most obvious choice to just quit?" She gave him a sweet smile, as if she had just solved all of his problems.

His forehead creased again, and he looked more troubled than ever. "Wait, I said I didn't enjoy being a captain?"

The doctor looked dumbfounded for a second before quickly recovering. "Well, I mean, you did just give me an entire list of all the reasons why you don't like your teammates and-"

It was now his turn to interrupt her. The fire in his eyes that had subdued momentarily came back, brighter than ever. "That doesn't mean I don't like basketball. Sure, my teammates can be annoying, but that doesn't really matter as long as we play together. They're all significantly less annoying on the court than they are off it. Sometimes they can be fun to hang around," he said, slowly admitting the truth. "I'd miss basketball, not to mention all of the dumb idiots, too much to ever be able to quit." He gave her another look, this one full of passion for his sport and his friends. "My teammates can be a bother and more often than not I want to kick their asses, but that doesn't mean they're bad teammates. I wouldn't trade them for the world."

Well, except for maybe Moriyama, but he decided to leave that part out.

The therapist just gave him a knowing look, as if she had expected this from the very beginning. Kasamatsu made a face, knowing he had fallen directly into her trap. Maybe Moriyama was right. Women did know everything.

Before either of them could say anything, Kasamatsu's phone rang. He looked up at the lady and when she gave him the go ahead to answer his phone, he flipped it open without looking at who was calling.

"Hello?"

"Senpai! Senpai!"

Without even looking, he knew it was Kise. Kasamatsu resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he heard the model whine. "What is it, Kise? I'm in the middle of something." He looked at the woman sitting across from him, and he did roll his eyes this time when he saw that she had straightened up as the sound of Kise's name.

"I know you have your appointment today, but I think you should really come back to practice soon. Kobori-senpai has a fever so he couldn't come and so Moriyama-senpai declared himself captain for the day." Kasamatsu tried his best not to curse when he heard that Moriyama of all people was in charge of his already troubled team. "We haven't even done our warm ups yet and he's just sitting here lecturing us about girls."

"Of course that idiot is!" Kasamatsu really shouldn't have expected anything less. He felt himself heating up again. "Tell him to stop talking and practice or I will personally come back there and shove his foot in his mouth so he can't talk even if he wanted to!"

Kasamatsu rubbed his temples, feeling his stress level rising to maximum once again. He didn't even hear what Kise said next as he was too busy coming up with different ways in which to kill Moriyama. "Fine, I'm on my way now. Just try not revolt against your senpai before I get there, though I wouldn't blame you if you did." With that, he hung up.

He looked at the clock and noticed that his session was almost over anyway. "You don't mind if I leave a little early, right? There's a problem at practice that I have to deal with."

She just smiled knowingly and waved him off, assuring him that it was fine.

"Thank you," he said. As he got up to walk out the door, he started to explain, "One of the brats is causing trouble again, and who knows what the others will do without their captain there."

As Kasamatsu walked, no, ran, to the school, cursing Moriyama in his head, he realized that being a captain was stressful, but if it meant being able to play basketball everyday, he didn't mind much anymore.