DISCLAIMER: Kuroko no Basuke i.e. The Basketball Which Kuroko Plays is produced by Production I.G. and based on the manga of the same name written and illustrated by Tadatoshi Fujimaki.
A/N: In contrast to the title, none of the people depicted in this fic, with possibly the sole exception of Kise, would consider themselves to be lucky, and probably blame it on their acquaintanceship with the aforementioned sole exception.
Even so I hope you enjoy~!
Midorima Shintarou never texted anyone. The same Midorima Shintarou also never texted anyone back but Kise. Mostly due to the fact that no one else was so incredibly dense as to not take a not-very-subtle hint and just die.
What Kise did instead, was to text him, with no real sense of time or purpose, but with plenty of variations of 'MIDORIMACHI' along with emoticons that gets more and more complicated by each message, and the message itself getting lost in ALL CAPS transit.
It had been that way since Teiko, and it had become so normal, so familiar to see a message littered with blatant overuse of symbols by lunch every day, that it was rather…mildly disconcerting for it to be otherwise.
Midorima frowned at the last message, dated 2 days ago. In Kise's case, it may as well have been 2 decades.
"Sorry, didn't mean to be late Shin-chan-oh, no message from Kise-chan today either? Maybe he's forgotten all about you…"
"Tch" Midorima whipped his head away from Takao's overdramatic flailing.
"If you're so worried, you should just call him, you know like a normal human being who cares about his friends' wellbeing. But today's your lucky day, since I'm at your service!" And before Midorima could relate the exact extent to which he did not care, Takao had already stolen his phone and pressed the bright green icon of a phone next to Kise's name. (Midorima couldn't for the life of him imagine why the designers made that one icon so very unnecessarily accessible)
Midorima Shintarou never called anyone either.
In a flair of undignified physical premise, he tackled Takao to the ground, if it still counts as the ground if they're on the roof, and wrestled the phone with little difficulty out of Takao's grip, slack with surprise.
"Shin…Shin-chan, did you just-"
Midorima ignored his teammate grappling for words beneath him and ended the call with a decisive click. And the only thing that went through his mind was Oha Asa saying 'Cancers have the opportunity to enjoy spontaneity and act unlike their normal selves'.
'Enjoy'? He scoffed, standing and turning away from Takao and straightening his uniform, flicking invisible specks of dirt away.
"Today's not my lucky day" He informed Takao, who was still on his back, brusquely. "Cancer's rank 6"
As if to prove his point, his phone chirped to signal a text.
'( ^^)σ)~O~) MIIIIDORIIIIMACHIIII! SORRY I COULDN'T TEXT U TODAY (ﾉヮ)ﾉ*:･ﾟOR YESTERDAY~ OR THE DAY B4 THAT (ω) ACTUALLY I MAY HAVE TEXTED U THE DAY B4 YESTERDAY! DID I TEXT U THE DAY B4 YESTERDAY?'
Midorima slapped his phone against his forehead in an act of spontaneity that he most certainly did not enjoy and could do without in his life. Takao had picked himself up by now and was trying to bend his head at angles human heads were not made to be bent at, just to read the text.
His phone alerted him to another text message, vibrating against his forehead.
'DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME MIIIDOORIIIMAAAACHI! (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ EVERYTHING'S OK (ノ゜ω)ノ I'll TEXT U MORE FROM NOW ON!'
Midorima sighed. He had asked for it, however indirectly. No use wasting time and energy mourning the peace he had just given up on.
While Takao tried to grab at his phone again to no avail, even resorting to jumps that would have even impressed Kagami, Midorima considered ignoring the text or sending one of his usual responses of 'Idiot', 'Die' or 'Stop texting me' or 'I told you to stop texting me already' or 'I'm blocking you'.. In fact his fingers were already midway forming the message, but…
'Cancers have the opportunity to enjoy spontaneity and act unlike their normal selves', Oha Asa had proposed. No that was not quite right; Man proposes and God disposes.
Midorima did not enjoy spontaneity. He did not enjoy anything that goes outside the normal laws of the universe. Laws that deemed he tie his left shoelaces first, that he puts his right foot forward when he leaves his house, that made him know each and every lucky item regardless of what sign it may be many days in advance.
And then there were the laws that decided that he would never text and never call, never text anyone back unless it was Kise. He'd already made far too many exceptions in his orderly universe for the annoying, airheaded idiot… well in terms of statistics, what's one more?
Oha Asa practically demanded it after all.
So he typed;
'According to Oha Asa, Gemini's rank 10. To counteract the bad luck, Gemini's lucky item is a rabbit keychain, lucky person is a Leo. Use this information wisely nanodayo'
And clicked send to the longest message he had written since he could remember, before he could change his mind, and stuffed his phone into his trouser pocket, hopefully away from Takao's reach, his fingers brushing the ceramic duck by his side; Cancer's lucky item for today.
"So, feel better now, Shiiin-chaaan?" Takao sing-songed the bastardization of his name, smiling too brightly and hanging too close to his face for his comfort. Like a certain blonde used to do in middle school, with the same annoyingly persistent familiarity.
"Shut up, idiot" Midorima muttered, finally giving attention to his bento, glaring at it for a good measure. He had just about picked up his chopsticks when his phone gave one last chirp.
'MIDORIMACHI IS SO SWEET TO THINK OF ME (‿ ) MIDORIMACHI IS SO SWEET AND AND NICE AND KIND AND CUTE AND…'
Midorima pinched the bridge of his nose, pressing his glasses down, as Takao burst into giggles beside him after peeking over his shoulder at the absolute train wreck of a text.
'DIE KISE' he sent in return.
Spontaneity didn't suit him anyway.
"Hey, does anyone have a cute bunny keychain!? Gemini's rank 10 and Midorimachi told me-!" A well-aimed kick cut short Kise's public service announcement to the Kaijo high basketball team gathered around the school infirmary, or more specifically gathered around their ace lying on the bed, with bandages covering most of his arms.
"Idiot! What you need is food and rest, not a fucking keychain!"
"But-but Midorimachi…"
"One of you should've told me what was going on" Kasamatsu ranted at the rest of them, ignoring Kise, used to his tendency to ramble on about his old teammates "Or better yet, given him a good kick to the head"
"Does that mean we all have permission to kick Kise now?" Kobori ventured to ask as Kise whined a very betrayed and high pitched soprano of "Senpai!"
"HE SAID HE HAD EVERYTHING UNDER CONTROL!" Hayakawa bellowed, pointing dramatically at Kise, as if they didn't already know just who he was talking about.
"DON'T YELL INSIDE THE INFIRMARY!" Kasamatsu bellowed right back, twice as loudly. "AND HE'S YOUR KOUHAI! YOU DON"T LISTEN TO WHAT HE SAYS, YOU JUST TELL HIM WHAT TO DO"
"That's rather unfair, senpai" Kise pouted, which had the desired effect, if the desired effect was to make him look woefully pathetic. The bandaged arms and the infirmary bed he was all but strapped to helped to his cause as well.
"Shut up! You're old enough to take care of yourself and I should hope you know what your limits are by now-"
"But, senpai-"
"SHUT UP! You have a responsibility to this team, to your captain, to not pull stupid, dangerous ridiculous, stupid stunts like that!"
"You said stupid twice" Moriyama was the only was brave or lacking in self-preservation to point that out, and got a glare that promised many weeks of cleanup with the first years for his trouble. "Ah, the passion of young-"
"Shut up!"
"I don't understand what senpai's mad at me for-suu" Kise sighed, since apparently the lack of self-preservation was catching. "I can't do a perfect copy of Midorimachi's shooting if I'm not in the same condition as him, so I obviously needed to practice until-"
"UNTIL YOU PULL ALL YOUR MUSCLES IN YOUR ARM!?" Kasamatsu was shaking with rage and some other emotion that his teammates wouldn't name out of respect for him.
"Well, not all per se-"
"AND PASSING OUT ON MY COURT ON MY WATCH BECAUSE YOU FORGOT TO EAT OR SLEEP-BECAUSE WHY?"
"Oh that was because I was practicing the same way Midori-"
"THAT WAS A RHETORICAL QUESTION YOU MORON!"
The other first liners looked away politely as Kasamatsu tried to catch his breath back.
"He could've told you how to do it without injuring yourself" Kobori interjected suddenly "The Miracles' shooter you were trying to copy; he would know himself better than you"
"I already know how he practices, and I didn't make a mistake, that's just how he does it" Kise shrugged carelessly in a way that notoriously infuriated Kasamatsu "Besides, we're rivals now…"
His current teammates winced at the semi-nostalgic statement that trailed away into forboding silence as they knew from experience what would surely follow.
Sure enough, Kise got a well-aimed kick for the second time this day. And well-aimed in this particular context means aimed well and far away from his taped arms.
"Owww…that hurt, senpai" He informed Kasamatsu who didn't look even remotely contrite. "I did say I'll be more careful in the future, didn't I? I promise you senpai, I wouldn't risk our chances at the Winter Cup-please don't hit me again senpai!"
Kasamatsu who had been flexing his muscles not too subtly, sighed in defeat.
"What Kasamatsu is saying through his loving shows of physical violence is that…" Moriyama gestured at Kobori to follow up on him, but the team center calmly looked to his own left at Hayakawa, who found himself lost for words for once in his all too loud existence. And all three of them ended up staring at their captain, who had predicted this turn of events and had used the time to prepare an outline of a short speech.
"Winning is important to the team. Training is important in order to win. You're our ace, you're carrying our hopes and dreams, because none of us are delusional enough to think we can face a Miracle head on in a match. And if you think training yourself to not only face them, but to actually beat them, means over-practicing, injuring yourself and leaving your team behind, you're wrong. We won what we won as a team, but we also lost what we lost as a team! You may be carrying all our hopes and dreams, but we're carrying you, all the way to the end of the line, ace!"
A beat of silence. And Kise burrowed his blond head into his sheets, alternating between sobbing out apologies and blabbering his gratitude in a less than comprehensible form, but the gist of it was clear enough.
Kasamatsu sighed in exasperation, he hadn't meant to sound that passionate, but the calm and collected speech he had semi-prepared had got away from him. For now all he could do was ruffle his ace's hair as gently as he could manage all while death-glaring any ideas of following Kise's lead out of his other teammates head. Hayakawa was already looking rather teary, and Moriyama even had a tissue to his eye, dabbing it lightly.
"S-s-senpai…you're a L-Leo"
"What about it?" Kasamatsu twirled his fingers around vanilla scented blonde strands absentmindedly.
"M-Midorimachi said a Leo is my lucky person for the day, so could you-?" Kise's voice diminished to another wet hiccup.
Kasamatsu instinctively pulled on the strands he had been grasping, ignoring Kise's squeal of pain, and glared at his sniffling kouhai. Because no matter how skilled he was or how many modeling job offers he was assailed with, Kise was still just a little kid, a first year baby. And it was scarily easy to forget that at times (namely basketball matches) but he was so, so very, very young.
"You idiot! What does being a 'lucky person' have to do with anything!? What the hell is a 'lucky person' anyway? I'd stay with you regardless-! That is, I mean, to make sure you're not overexerting yourself and eating properly and-"
But it was too late, Kise had succumbed to another bout of happy tears.
"Did you make Kise cry." It was not a question.
Especially not when it was coming from a 6' 5 ,green fringed, glasses donned Miracle in a winter uniform. The intimidating image should be rightfully ruined by the 20 pound ceramic duck (neck scarfed in red to complete the image) the Shuutoku shooting guard (and coincidentally, one of Kise's rainbow friends, imagine that!); Midorima Shun-something-or-other was carrying, but Kasamatsu found himself recoiling at the duck's accusing beady eyes anyway.
"It's not like it's exactly hard" he muttered, realizing that probably wasn't the ideal answer to give in this situation in his defense, but Midorima nodded once like Kasamatsu had passed some kind of weird Miracle induction test.
That thought was disturbing enough to snap him back to normal. Miracle or not, he was still a first year, just like Kise was, and Kasamatsu was a third year captain.
"Can I help you, Midorima?" He didn't waste time pretending he didn't know the notorious shooter. He had known at first glance; green hair wasn't exactly known for its subtlety.
Once Kise had cried himself to sleep, (although Kobori had shared his suspicions that the nurse had drugged him, Kasamatsu made a reminder to send her a fruit basket before graduation) Kasamatsu had gone to get himself excused from the rest of his lessons for the day, and on his way back, he had been intercepted by the monster of high school basketball shooting.
"You're Kasamatsu-san, Kise's captain, are you not?"
"How'd you know about me?" Midorima didn't seem like the type to read basketball monthly like a certain other, more hyperactive, Shuutoku teammate of his.
"Roughly half the texts I receive from Kise are about you" Midorima intoned dryly, pushing his glasses back with taped fingers.
"You read all that?" He couldn't help the disbelief that coloured his tone. Because he'd seen how much Kise texts his old teammates (almost as much as he replies to his fans), and even if he hadn't, Kise did a good job of announcing when and what he texted to each member of the rainbow squad.
Midorima clutched his duck closer to his chest.
"I simply skim over the contents. I do not waste my precious time reading his garbage" Midorima fiddled with his glasses again with the hand that wasn't holding his ceramic toy, as if he didn't reply to each and every single text, though mostly with wishing Kise's death plainly and clearly (Kise announced the replies as well).
Kasamatsu has witnessed firsthand Kise's texting abilities and he would give it a perfect 0 in terms of legibility. There was no possible way to 'skim' over them. But Kasamatsu let it go in the face of the shooter's obvious discomfort, when he pushed up his glasses for the third time in a row.
"What do you want?" A small part of him was wondering if it had anything to basketball, but the larger more realistic part was screaming at him that this was certainly, without a doubt about Kise.
"It's about Kise"
Well, there's a surprise.
"It has come to my attention that he attempted to imitate my offensive movements" So it was about basketball as well.
"How did it come to your att-I mean how'd you know Kise tried-?"
"Simple. Copying Aomine's motion was done out of necessity, but if that didn't make him even think about copying the rest of ours; he is indeed a greater fool than I imagined him to be." Before Kasamatsu had time to to figure out whether that was a compliment or an insult, Midorima plunged on "If it were Aomine he was copying, it'd be his feet that were taped, Kuroko's, his hands. If it were Murasakibara's his legs would be in the same condition as his arms. Needless to say, he will have to wait before he attempts that level of copying again."
Kasamatsu, who had been spending most of the lengthy explanation trying to place hair colours for each name provided, blinked.
"Huh?"
Midorima repeated the last sentence, using the same words, with the same tone, and wearing the same expression of disinterested dislike he had been wearing since he had stepped foot inside Kaijo.
"AGAIN? He will not be doing it again! He'll die before he figures out how to do it right!"
Midorima frowned.
"He is doing it right, it is merely that his body cannot keep up with the strain. He has only been playing basketball for two years, after all."
Kasamatsu balked. This was news to him. Never once in Kise rantingly long and loud autobiographies has he heard that.
"And more importantly, Oha Asa says that Gemini will venture into new territories and get lost in the woods, and may need a guiding light. Cancer on the other hand, while still a moderately low rank, is said to be generous in sharing knowledge" His eyes narrowed in the face of Kasamatsu's impatient confusion. "May I ask as to what yours would be?
"Huh?" It was proving to be very difficult to treat Midorima like any other first year. Quite possibly because they weren't all insane.
"Your astrological sign." Midorima specified.
"Leo" Kasamatsu could already see where this was going, and didn't have the slightest idea how to stop it, even as a flicker of interest came into Midorima's previously indifferent eyes.
"And yes, I know I'm his 'lucky person' for the day" Kasamatsu continued, trying to get back control of this one bizarre train wreck of a conversation.
"A person of your zodiac sign is his lucky person for the day" Midorima corrected, as if he had a stash of Leos in the corner and Kasamatsu can easily be replaced for a more competent model of luck.
"Do you want me to wake him up for you?" Kasamatsu has gotten rather tired of attempting to follow by this point. At least the things Kise said, while mind-numbingly irritating, mostly made sense.
To say that the Shuutoku shooter looked downright horrified at the idea was putting it mildly.
"That will not be necessary as I'll be taking my leave now nanodayo, I only came here to bring Kise this" He held up key chain of a rabbit in a light blue dress with a tiny bell attached to the end of it "It's my little sister's so he'd be wise to return it within the week."
Why are you telling me this, Kasamatsu wanted to ask, but the lucky duck was glaring at him with an amazing intensity for an inanimate object, so he grabbed the key chain offered, ignoring the ringing chime it made, and pocketed it.
"I'll tell him you dropped by" Kasamatsu offered, but Midorima shook his head rather violently.
"I'd appreciate if you keep this information to yourself, Kasamatsu-san."
"And just why would I do that?" Kasamatsu had had just about enough of this. It was energy-sapping just to interact with one Miracle a day, and the captain had never been gladder Kaijo hadn't struck the lottery twice with Teiko starters.
Midorima contemplated this for a minute, brows furrowing underneath his fringe.
"In return, I suppose I could advise you on your future according to Oha-A-"
"Alright, alright, ALRIGHT ALREADY! I won't tell anyone anything!" Kasamatsu bellowed, and Midorima took a step back, accidentally knocking over the sky high stack of laundry boxes by the infirmary door, and the rest of the team who had been spying on them all this time did their best to look as if they hadn't been spying on them this whole time from their position behind the fallen laundry.
"Um…" said Kobori intelligently.
"OH!" Hayakawa exclaimed.
"LOVE!" Moriyama.
20 minutes later, after Kasamatsu had screamed himself hoarse at his team, the tall green basketball player and his pet ceramic duck were nowhere in sight. He would've been compelled to believe it had all been a rather vivid and somewhat disturbing daydream if he couldn't hear the bell of the keychain chime with every second step he took.
At least he'd only have to bear with it for the rest of the day, Kasamatsu took relief in small comforts, but forgot that Kise was not as obliging to following the laws of Oha Asa as his weird friend was.
"I'LL KEEP IT WITH ME AT ALL TIMES, FOREVER AND EVER, TO REMEMBER SENPAI BY~suu!" Kise had declared in a fit of passion awakened by receiving the piece of plastic, and Kasamatsu didn't have the heart (or the mental strength to deal with the aftermath) to tell him it was not actually from him.
And when Midorima came a few days later, this time holding a massive misshapen (what looked like a) dog made out of multicoloured balloons, (Kasamatsu wondered idly if each body part stood for a different Miracle) to collect his sister's key chain, Kasamatsu shrugged helplessly towards the blindingly bright energy ball of a golden retriever his ace had suddenly turned into.
Midorima heaved a sigh, as heavy and wearied as Kasamatsu had the urge to heave himself, but couldn't actually let himself because he was the goddamn captain, pushed back his glasses and turned to leave. But he had just about turned his head away when he was jumped by Kise, whose current happiness eclipsed his brightened personality of the rest of the week.
"MIIIDORIMACHHHHIIIIII~"
And Kasamatsu sympathized. He truly, truly did.
"Did you come to see me~? Did you? Did you? Did you!?"
"The idea alone would be repulsive if it wasn't so far out of the realm of my comprehension-nanodayo" Midorima was far too concerned with keeping his precious lucky item out of the reach of Kise's flailing limbs.
"So meeaaan~suu Then why are you here, Midorimachi?"
"Oha Asa specifically stated that Cancer's lucky person for the day is a Gemini, and it is an unfortunate coincidence that you are the only Gemini bearer I am acquainted with"
Kasamatsu just gave up, deciding that there were some things in the universe he was just not meant to comprehend.
~fini
A/N: I had hoped to publish this in 3 chapters, but the view from the preview box was woefully pathetic, so here we are at the start of my era of fanfiction of the anime/manga variety. May it be a long era!
Follows & Favorites are appreciated and actively encouraged by the author. Reviews even more so, as they make the author very happy indeed~
:P