He'd gotten up just for this, gone all the way just for this. He took a quick peek into the haversack full of choice chocolates- would they be good enough, he wondered, would they be enough, and most importantly, would his own (slightly burnt) chocolate stand out among them?

Hell, maybe he should just dump these in the trashcan now and head back and maybe reach practice on time for once so his birthday celebrations wouldn't be marred by Taoka-sensei berating him again.

Coward, came the inevitable traitorous thought.

He argued back to his conscience, Not my fault I was born on Valentine's Day. Blame 'kaa-chan and 'tou-chan for that. Besides, I didn't even need to make it, or come here. I've never even made chocolates before- that's what girls do.

Then why'd you do it? rebutted his conscience. You could've stopped yourself any time. You could've repackaged one of the girls' chocolates instead of making it. You don't even have to give it in person. Shohoku's practice starts in the afternoon, same as Ryonan. No reason why he would be around at this time of day.

While this internal debate was proceeding, his feet automatically made their way towards the gym doors and opened them. The hall was empty, and dark.

No, he was mistaken. There was a girl over by the light switches, and she looked at him, apparently startled by his appearance. She flipped on the lights, as it seemed she had been about to when he opened the door.

Once the lights had all flickered to life, she tilted her head in a gesture of inquiry. "Sendoh-sa… Sendoh-sempai? Why are you here?"

"Uh…" He fumbled for an answer, and held up his open backpack with the wrapped chocolates showing through. "I got way too many chocolates yesterday- Valentine's day, you know- so I figured Sakuragi might like them- not that I'm taking pity on him or anything but everyone else on my team already got something so I figured why not-" and he went on babbling about chocolate and gifts and Sakuragi (though not the complete reason why he had come here) until he ran out of words, and then he looked at the girl. Now that there was light, he recognized her as Shohoku's other manager, who had only turned up at the winter tournament.

The silence that resounded in the hall was heavy, oppressive, and she spoke first, uncertain. "So… do you want to wait until… until Sakuragi-kun gets here? Because… because our practice is at one, and it's only nine now, and I don't think Sakuragi-kun is going to turn up before then."

"Oh. Huh. Uh… I'm not sure." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I guess I could leave the stuff here- uh, look, are you going to be here until then?"

The girl blushed, an amusing thing to watch, since her face went from a fair yellow to smooth pink and then firetruck red. "Yes," she finally admitted. "I got up early to visit Rukawa-kun, but he was asleep, so I just left his cho- his cho-" She went redder and redder, a Sakuragi's-hair shade of red, just trying to speak the word 'chocolate' in connection with Rukawa, and finally gave in and went on: "-his present on the table and left and came here." She fidgeted, twiddling her fingers together. "I thought I'd get some chocolates for everyone else on the team, but all the shops are closed right now and I only remembered this morning."

He could feel his conscience butting in again. Before he could stop himself, he blurted, "Hey, you might as well have these." Without stopping to think, he pulled the large plastic bag of chocolates out of his bag and pushed them into her arms. He babbled on and on: "-they generally taste okay, some of them have my name and stuff but you can tear that off, if you've got some wrapping paper I guess you can change the wrapping-" until finally he ran out of breath and she was standing there staring at him through glazed eyes, still trying to slowly process his confusingly tumbling words.

He was about to turn tail and run, having assured himself that the chocolates would get to Sakuragi safely (some of them, at least), but again, his conscience prevailed. So he stayed, and helped her (Akagi Haruko, she eventually told him when he asked, an hour later) with the unwrapping and rewrapping (although where she'd gotten the paper from he'd no idea). As they worked, they talked about basketball (it was the nearest subject to mind, and a common ground between them).

When she held up the shabbily wrapped, unlabelled package that was meant for Sakuragi, he practically tackled her to stop her doing anything to it. Yet again, and in the nick of time, his conscience stepped in to metaphorically grab him by the collar. By dint of effort, he managed to work the words out of his mouth before she started unwrapping: "Oh, that one looks okay. I don't think we need to do anything to that one."

"You think so?" she said, frowning slightly, examining it. "Oh, yes, it doesn't have your name. I suppose that's all right."

"You should give that to Sakuragi," he said, attempting to feign a casual tone. "He probably won't mind the wrapping."

"Good idea," she said thoughtfully.

Some time later, near the end of the rewrapping (he really had been given far too many chocolates, he mused), she said suddenly, "Shouldn't Rukawa-kun have some of these?"

"Huh?" came the absent reply. He was concentrating more on getting the scotch tape just right than on her words. After a few minutes, when it had penetrated through: "Oh. Rukawa. Right, yeah, he should get some of these too, huh. I'll drop in on him on the way back with some of 'em."

"Oh, no, why don't I do that," she said, a bit too quickly. "You've got to go for basketball practice at Ryonan, right? I wouldn't want to delay you."

He shot up at the mention of Ryonan. "Oh sh- I mean- man, I gotta go before Taoka-sensei chews me out again!" He grabbed his bag (now empty of any chocolate) and was out the door, tossing over his shoulder the words: "Don't forget, give that package with the red-with-monkeys paper to Sakuragi!"

In retrospect, maybe it had been a bit mean to use that particular wrapping paper, but it would have been so fun to see the infuriated look that was so adorable on Sakuragi's face. Too bad he wouldn't get to see it.

Hmm… I should probably go back and get Haruko-chan to take a picture when he gets it.

-

This chapter has been the hardest to write, since there is zero interaction between these two in both manga and anime.

I hope the reason for the title 'Quadrangle' is obvious now. Naturally, since Haruko's birthday is not known, her chapter can come next, or come after Sakuragi's. I'm still debating on the order, but honestly, it can go either way. Sakuragi's birthday is April 1st, by the way.

Oh, and Happy Valentine's Day.