Disclaimer: Kuroko no Basuke does not belong to me.
Rating: T, to be safe.
A/N: In honor of Sakurai's birthday (Sept. 9th), let's see our favorite apologetic mushroom wreak just a teeny bit of havoc. Also, I've lowered Japan's legal drinking age to 16 for purposes of the story but this is fictional and not meant to accurately depict either the legal or cultural standards of Japan.
I hope you like the story :-)
#SorryNotSorry
Sakurai Ryo surveyed the impressive mess that his teammate, Aomine Daiki, had managed to create in the span of the five minutes he had been gone to get more snacks for his teammate. If Aomine had been the least bit more observant, he might have noted the stiffening of Sakurai's shoulders and the tense nature of his smile. But the power forward was so rarely challenged on anything he did and certainly not by someone like Ryo, that he saw no reason to be wary.
They were sharing a room at the hot springs while the Too Academy basketball team was carrying out their mission to tell Seirin that they were playing each other in the first round of the Winter Cup. Since Aomine was so difficult to handle, Sakurai was the only other person sharing the room with him and many of their teammates had sent him consoling looks when the assignments had been announced. In truth, Sakurai hadn't really been that worried about it, but it would seem he had been far too optimistic about the whole thing.
"Aomine-san, what happened here?" Sakurai placed the food he'd acquired on the small table as he looked helplessly around. They'd arrived a few hours ago and while Aomine had not joined them in the sauna, the room had been relatively intact when Sakurai had been dispatched to the kitchen.
"Eh?" The taller teen glanced around, not seeing anything particularly amiss. "I unpacked."
Sakurai pursed his lips as he took in the resulting damage that something as innocuous as unpacking had become in the hands of the careless power forward. Aomine's clothes were strewn all over the place, along with a few copies of gravure magazines. Trash from his earlier round of snacks had been lazily tossed in the direction of the receptacle; apparently someone that could make impossible shots with a basketball had terrible aim if it concerned tidying up. He'd already displaced the blankets on both beds – he was occupying one while flipping through a photo book featuring his precious idol, and the other, Sakurai's, had held Aomine's bag while he'd settled in. Sakurai's own bag had obviously been riffled through; he saw his drawing materials carelessly flung to the side and other assorted damage that clearly revealed the other teen had gone through his things.
"Why did you open my bag, Aomine-san?"
"I was looking for something. Didn't realize it was your bag at first. Sorry."
Sakurai could have forgiven much of this, he understood Aomine was thoughtless and selfish, but when he saw that not only had Aomine wrinkled a page from the manga he was working on, but he'd damaged some of his drawing supplies…well, there was no helping it, was there? He was going to have to get revenge. And the normally timid shooting guard had a plan, thanks to their obligation to pay for Seirin's drinks after losing the contest in the sauna. But first he needed to find the other Teiko alum, he was reasonably sure that if anyone else in the whole world would understand, it would be Aomine's former teammate.
-A Few Hours Later-
Most of the players from Seirin and Too stared at each other across the table in uncomfortable silence. In hindsight, this might not have been the best idea they'd ever had, but a bet was a bet and the pride of both teams required them to stick this out. Mitobe had won the sauna battle, which meant the tab would be paid by Too, but it seemed another contest was already in the works as Aomine and Kagami were seated across from one another, apparently prepared to drown themselves in alcohol if necessary to prove who had the higher tolerance.
Imayoshi first noted something was off when Sakurai, who usually at least tried to stop Aomine from doing something stupid, didn't mention to their ace player that he might want to pace himself. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the conspiratorial smile exchanged between Kuroko and Sakurai – he knew good and well there was not much love between those two, so it seemed to him there was definitely a plot afoot. He wanted to know more, and most likely, he wanted to participate.
So, naturally, when the two first years conspicuously excused themselves within moments of each other, Imayoshi followed. His eyes opened wide in surprise at the deviousness they were hatching; if he had to name the emotion in his heart right then he'd have gone with pride. Weren't these little kouhai just adorable with their innocent little plotting? Surely he needed to encourage this, in the name of inter-team relations?
"Sakurai-kun, did you finish your preparations? Kagami-kun is more than happy to do his part; we'll switch his drink to water shortly once Aomine-kun won't be able to tell."
"Yes, I've queued the karaoke machine and my phone is fully charged, Kuroko-kun."
As he listened in and evaluated their plans, Imayoshi took this opportunity to reveal his presence. "Well now, isn't this a surprise? What has Aomine done to finally irk you, Sakurai? And you, Kuroko? Surely this isn't a grudge from the Inter High game?"
Kuroko's head immediately shook in denial. "No, Imayoshi-san. Basketball is only avenged on the court. Sakurai-kun was upset because Aomine-kun damaged some of his belongings though."
Sakurai offered a nervous laugh before he spoke. "I'm sorry, Imayoshi-san. We shouldn't be plotting against Aomine-san!"
Imayoshi quirked an eyebrow. "Really? Why not? If anything I think you're being quite delicate about the whole thing. Just planning to have him drunkenly make an ass of himself and record it? Well he does that enough while sober, so that's hardly newsworthy. Now if you'd like to take it up a notch...?"
There was a brief pause before, "Imayoshi-san's advice would be most appreciated." Kuroko's voice was mischievously polite, a tone Imayoshi was sure he didn't use too often.
And so the conspiracy against Aomine grew, with Kuroko quietly relaying the modifications to Kagami after he returned to the table. The redhead whipped his head around to look at Imayoshi in surprise, who merely smiled and shrugged. But the whole exchange went unnoticed by Aomine, who was getting progressively deeper into his cups but refusing to stop because his assurance that 'the only one that can beat me, is me' apparently applied to all manner of contests.
-The Next Morning-
Aomine woke up feeling quite the worse for wear from the effects of his evening. He blearily took in there was a glass of water and two pills waiting for him on the bedside table. Beyond that, he could see a tray with a light breakfast and a note addressed to him but he couldn't read it yet. He quickly and thankfully downed the medicine and took a long drink of the water. But before he could face the food he needed a shower, and went about accomplishing that unusually arduous task. He registered that Ryo wasn't there but didn't really think too much of it.
When he came back from the bathroom having managed to shower and other such necessities, he began attacking the food that had been left for him. He gradually felt better but there was a slight echo of a headache and he felt tired. Finally, starting to suspect something was amiss as nobody had tried to wake him up yet, he reached for the waiting note. There were only a few lines written, but he felt an uncommon sense of dread upon reading them:
"Dear Aomine-kun, your team has already returned to the training camp but Imayoshi-san said you were excused for the day given the events of last night. Momoi-san has arranged transportation for you, just go to the front desk when you're ready to leave. You would be wise to not be so careless with other people's things; as you'll soon see, it's not so fun when it's your belongings that get disturbed. Sakurai-kun has a temper and Imayoshi-san is a bad influence, something you should keep in mind for the future. As a hint, because I'm sure your head hurts, check your phone when you're up to it. –Kuroko"
Aomine reached for his phone and his notifications were through the roof. His eyebrows shot up and he began scrolling through, noting that the source seemed to be that he'd been tagged in a video by Sakurai and it was getting a lot of attention. When he went to the post to see what the big deal was, he was astonished.
There was a video of him singing – at first it started with a standard karaoke selection, but after a small skip, the video turned to lyrics that had been contributed by the audience. There were helpful subtitles along the bottom of the video for the portions when he was just a little incoherent, but the gist of the song was a series of strategically selected excerpts from his autobiography; he recognized both the content and style. Out of context, it looked bad, particularly that line about being afraid of bees and having a hobby of catching small animals. He was intimidating but not a freaking psychopath!
As Aomine looked at the video in his newsfeed with astonishment, he took in the small line of text underneath. Apart from mentioning his name, with a line about how it indeed took Aomine to beat Aomine, it was tagged simply, "#SorryNotSorry" and he knew that Ryo had a vindictive streak after all. Well shit, it didn't surprise him that Tetsu and Imayoshi had participated; both of them had twisted personalities. But getting access to his autobiography? That had to have been Ryo's doing. Looks like this year had just gotten a lot more interesting, because now it was time for revenge. He'd get Tetsu at the Winter Cup, but as for Imayoshi and Ryo…well, they might regret it when he showed up to practice next time.
