Kagami doesn't precisely avoid Aomine altogether after what the team now calls his 'screaming incident', but he does make a point to pretend he's a nonentity, which is difficult considering they're seated next to each other in class. He still makes him lunch but he just dumps the bento onto Aomine's desk (no words, no eye contact, no nothing) before dragging his chair towards Sakurai's desk.
Inevitably, people start staring and whispering things about them behind their back.
Kagami doesn't really care, but Sakurai seems uncomfortable with the inquisitive looks they're getting. He feels a little guilty about that, but then again, it would have been worse if he just sat alone, because he'd have been glaring at everyone (and would have gotten himself riled up) instead of what he's doing now, which is trying to make causal conversation with Sakurai while pretending that Aomine isn't there.
Aomine on his part just busies himself with the food and napping. In other words, he's pretty much the same as usual and is acting as if nothing happened, which really irrationally pisses Kagami off, but he can't exactly snap at someone he's ignoring. So instead he focuses on Sakurai, who, now that he thinks about it, can help him on a dilemma of his that he's been trying to work on for a while.
"I've been practicing three-pointers lately" Kagami says in between chews "I don't know why but I just can't get them right"
"Uhm…" Sakurai looks like he's contemplating for a moment, before he asks "Are you sure your toes are pointing towards the basket when you shoot?"
Kagami frowns "I think so? I'm not sure, sometimes I don't think about it."
Sakurai opens his mouth to say something, but then visibly hesitates.
"Look," Kagami sighs "don't be afraid of me, if what you've got to say is going to improve the way I play I'm going to listen" and when Sakurai gives him a nervous look in reply he adds "If you don't spit it out, I will get angry"
Sakurai nods still looking a bit uncomfortable "Well, uhm…" he starts, fidgeting a little "If your toes aren'tpointing towards the basket, your form wouldn't even be right so, uhm, it'll be pretty hard to make the shots. Uh, basics, you know?"
Kagami contemplates on that for a moment "Does my form really look that bad?"
"No, but, uhm, from what I've seen it feels like something's missing? Uhm, I could be wrong and it isn't your form, uh, are you sure you're stepping in with your stronger foot first? That helps a lot."
"I—hmm" Kagami pauses "I guess I don't, I mean I usually use my left leg for most of my jumps since I can use my right hand better than my left. Maybe I should do something about that too…." He looks at the chopsticks he's gripping in his right hand, frowns, then transfers them to his left.
"Might as well start now" he thinks, and tries to eat some gyozabut utterly fails at picking one up.
"Pfft—" Kagami looks up at the sound and sees Sakurai desperately trying to stifle a laugh.
"I'm sorry" Sakurai says, voice a little stained.
Kagami frowns at him. He then attempts once again to pick up a gyoza…. and fails.
"Arggghhh" he growls in frustration "I AM GOING TO GET THIS RIGHT"
And as if his determination transferred over to his chopsticks, he successfully brings one to his mouth.
"See!" he smirks at Sakurai "Got it right!"
Sakurai nods, small smile on his face "Uhm, maybe you should talk to coach, if you want to know how to improve your shots, I'm sure he'll have better insight for you…"
"I'm planning to, but coach is kind of…" Kagami taps his desk "I dunno, uh distant? Uh, no, that's not right really, maybe a little unapproachable, to me at least" he grunts "Sometimes I feel as if he doesn't like me much". Then inwardly, Kagami thinks: "Or maybe I'm just bitter about not being a starter".
"He's just very professional" Sakurai assures him "I think he knows you improving would be good for the team so he'd be up to giving you advice, uhm, he's our coach after all so… Ah but if you're really hesitating maybe you should talk to Momoi-san about it first"
Now there was an idea, Kagami was more comfortable with that. "Yeah I think I might do that. Thanks."
Sakurai just smiles and nods in reply, then spends the rest of lunch watching Kagami's attempts to eat his lunch with his much less dextrous hand.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
He approaches Momoi later that day (after afternoon practice) about his problem and she gives him a look.
"Coach Harasawa won't bite you, you know" she says, sounding a little bit amused
"I know that!" Kagami growls "But I—"
"But you're not Aomine-kun?"
"That's not it!"
"Really?" Momoi crosses her arms and looks at him skeptically "You don't think losing to him publicly took you down a few notches? And that your sudden elevated eagerness at being better at the one thing you're not very good at has nothing to do with Aomine-kun?"
"NO and NO" Kagami answers indignantly, glaring at her as he says it
"You just—"Momoi seems to struggle with what to say to him, but then seems to hit a blank. She sighs, then says "Why don't you try to focus on being the best at what you are good at? With what you seem to want to do, being a jack of all trades won't really help".
She looks at him contemplatively, and adds, in a softer voice, "Although, amazing three pointers might be in your future skill set…"
"Huh?"
She waves a hand "Never mind, I think you should focus first on what you're good at. Though that 'make my left hand more dextrous' plan of yours seems reasonable" she pauses "Maybe you should do some lower body training, like the exercises boxers do… hmm…"
She pats him on his shoulder "In any case, you should go see the coach. You weren't subbed in just because you know, I'm sure he'll give you better advice than Sakurai and I have"
"Humph, fine. When's the next game?"
"There's two, this Saturday, the semi-finals and finals for our division." Momoi bites her lip, and then smiles sadly at what seems to be nothing in particular.
Kagami starts thinking about how to ask her what's wrong but she quickly plasters a cheerful look onto her face and beams at Kagami as she says "You'll probably get to play, considering the tight schedule. Isn't that great?"
She pats his shoulder once more and starts walking away "I need to go, tell me how it goes though!"
Kagami grunts, and manages a little wave goodbye. "What was that about?"
-o-o-o-o-o-
They're eating after morning practice when it happens. Kagami's talking with Sakurai asking about whether or not stylizing his bento adds flavour to it (all the while struggling to eat his own bento with his left hand) when suddenly someone puts something on his head.
"What the hell!?" he exclaims, irritated, as he removes the offending piece of whatever-it-is from the top of his head. It turns out to be the bento container he used yesterday (only empty). He turns to look behind him and sees Aomine looming.
He considers just turning back to his lunch and ignoring him, but thinks that that would be awkward since he's been obviously and directly approached. It'd be especially awkward since they're in front of the entire team. So he just narrows his eyes at him, in a way that clearly asks "What the hell do you want?" and says "Get away from me" at the same time.
"The gyoza yesterday was really damn amazing" Aomine says. Which stuns Kagami for a moment because wow is he complimenting him with a superlative? Is this really happening?
Aomine then crouches down at Kagami's left side to peer at his bento "Ohhh, croquettes again, did you make beef this time like I said?"
Kagami considers lying and saying "No, I made potato cause I hate you" but instead says "What do you think asshole?"
Aomine replies by grabbing a croquette from Kagami's bento. And before he can slap the bastard's hand, Aomine's already put the damn croquette in his mouth.
"Mmm, beef…" Aomine says between chews "You did good Taiga"
Kagami grunts and says "Don't call me that" as he turns back to his bento.
"Where's mybento?"
"Where it always is" suddenly an arm seems to fly right in front of Kagami's eyes and he's startled back for a moment before he realizes Aomine's reaching for his bento which had been situated on Kagami's right. "What the fuck you ass? There are ways to get it without giving me a fucking heart attack, geez"
"Pfff—" Aomine snorts as he opens his bento "—you're just a wuss"
"The fuck did you just say?"
"You're a wuss." Aomine repeats, annoyingly nonchalant as he pops a croquette into his mouth "A wuss who has orgasmic cooking, mmm, what the hell do you put into your food?"
"I—" the word orgasmic being used to describe his cooking, and by Aomine of all people unnerves Kagami "—just the normal stuff!"
Aomine doesn't reply with words, instead he makes decidedly indecent sounds as he eats a couple more croquettes.
When Kagami turns away from the sight, looking extremely uncomfortable, he meets the gaze of Sakurai and all his other teammates. He's shocked to find them gawking at him and Aomine in amazement.
"I…what?" he blurts out in his confusion.
Everyone shrugs and turns back to their meals as if to say "Nothing, nothing at all", even though how they're still peering at them from the corner of their eyes tells Kagami otherwise.
Kagami frowns, turns back to berate Aomine for this, and finds that Aomine has eaten half of his lunch already.
"You moron!" He shouts, as he grabs the bento from Aomine "If you eat any more there won't be any left for lunch"
Aomine just takes the bento back and says "Yeah, yeah, I'll just buy some yakisoba bread or something later"
"If you keep eating like that and keep not practicing you're going to lose muscle and gain lots of fat" Kagami snaps at him
"I'm surprised you even know something like that" Aomine snorts
"What is that supposed to mean?" Kagami growls "I'm not stupid!"
"Pff—Tell that to your last math quiz"
"You only got two points more than I did!"
"Still more than you did"
Kagami growls again, raises his hands which are twitching as if they want to strangle Aomine to death "I swear" he mutters through gritted teeth "One of these days your lunch is going to be poisoned and then we'll see who's laughing asshole"
Aomine snorts "Probably me in heaven cause you'd have been kicked out of the team"
Kagami then moves to strangle him for real but Sakurai reaches for his wrist and Imayoshi shouts "Kagami!" before he can really do it.
He hears Wakamatsu say "Why'd you have to stop him?" like a whine, as he takes a deep breath to calm down.
"Don't mind the bastard… he's not there… Time to eat in pea—" his thoughts are interrupted by a cluttering sound and he sees Aomine has stood up and is licking his fingers.
"That was good, could you make more gyoza for tomorrow?"
"Arrrgggghhhhh"
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Later at lunch, Kagami approaches Coach Harasawa about his training in the faculty room. He nervously relays his concerns, while Coach just looks at him silently and emotionlessly. He just can't tell what the Coach is thinking at all. Kagami actually considers that he isn't listening for a moment until he mentions he asked Momoi and Sakurai for advice, and he gets asked to elaborate on it. This is probably the most words he's said to an adult since he'd arrived in Japan.
"So, uhm, what should I do?….sir"
"I think Momoi-san's suggestion might be best" Coach Harasawa says, playing with a lock of his hair, looking deep in thought.
"What do you mean?" Kagami asks "Uhm, sir."
Coach releases the lock of hair to look Kagami squarely in the eyes and then crosses his arms "From now on you should do more roadwork, do you own any ankle weights?"
"No…sir"
"Buy a pair. Or borrow from one of your teammates, then do road work every day with those on. Start with four miles then work up to five or higher when you're confident you can go that far. See me again in two weeks, before the Finals League begin."
"Yes… sir" Kagami nods, taking in the instructions.
When Coach Harasawa nods back but says nothing in reply he adds "Thank you" then bows, and fidgets in place for a while, eyeing Coach who had gone back to his work as if waiting to be formally dismissed, then slowly starts walking to leave the faculty room, bowing in greeting to the teachers he passes on the way out.
He walks back to his classroom, scratching the back of his head "Ankle weights?"
"Ah! Kagamiiinn!" He hears Momoi call for him from behind. He turns back to see her jogging towards him.
"Did you talk to Coach?" she asks as she stops in front of him.
"Yeah"
"Aaaandd?"
"He told me to do roadwork with ankle weights on" Kagami makes a face that clearly says he doesn't know why "And to follow him up on it in two weeks"
"Oh! He's trying to strengthen your leg muscles then, good choice considering the data on you—"
"The what now?"
"—that I gave him, what did he say about your left hand?"
"Uhm, nothing really?" now that she mentions it he had absolutely no comment on that part "I guess I'll just train it on my own for now"
"Oh, well then that's fine I guess. He must have plans for that later. Anyway, I heard Aomine-kun apologized to you this morning."
Kagami snorts "I wouldn't use the word 'apologize' to describe that. He obviously thinks he's done nothing wrong"
"Oh, well, if it was anyone else that screamed at him, he wouldn't be calling them by first name"
"Yeah because I feed him, it's the same reason why he's been calling Sakurai by first name" Kagami grunts "Wouldn't exactly call that being close, wish he'd stop, I don't like being called by my first name"
"Didn't you live in America?" Momoi asks him, an eyebrow raised
"Well…" Kagami trails off, leaves it at that
"If you don't want to tell me right now it's fine"
Notably, Kagami thinks, she uses the words 'right now' as if fully expecting Kagami to tell her eventually. A bit begrudgingly, he thinks that he probably will.
"Anyway, I was just checking in with you. I have to get back, haven't actually finished my lunch" she turns to walk away, her hair swishing as she waves goodbye.
"Right" Kagami sighs "Lunch…"
-o-o-o-o-o-
Kagami buys the ankle weights on his way home and wakes up early next day (at what could only be a godforsaken time) to do the roadwork. One thing he can say for sure: the things were fucking heavy. It's not that he was in pain and had to change the way he moved (which he knows is when he'd have a real problem), it's just that the weights take a toll on his speed.
"It'll take more time to finish this than I thought" he thinks, "And I still need to make those damn bento shit".
Running those four miles doesn't actually feel so bad though, feels doable to him at least. When he's done it's fifteen minutes to six am and he has half an hour at most to take a shower (causedamn does he feel sticky) and finish making the bento and still get to morning practice on time. He showers in five minutes, makes the bento in twenty (he cheats though, and makes sandwiches instead of cooking rice), packs and double checks everything with the remaining five, and then heads for school.
He starts to feel tired during the commute, probably a mixture of getting less sleep than he's used to, and running so far and so hard first thing in the morning. His eyes droop so bad he has to stop walking a little bit from the school gate to shake his head and will himself to muster more energy. It's just too damn early to be this active.
When he gets to the gym, they're already doing basic drills, and Kagami panics a little bit cause he just reallydoesn't have the energy for this. He's pretty sure he'll still perform well on the drills, but he's also pretty sure that if he's going to get punished with extra rounds of drills he's not going to survive this day. (he's also probably going to end up sleeping through all of his classes, probably (actually surely))
He starts nervously walking towards the locker room. Coach doesn't seem to be around, maybe he could—
"Kagami"
"Oh shit, Imayoshi-senpai" he doesn't know if he should look nonchalant (and kind of look like an asshole like Aomine), or look apologetic (and seem a little bit pathetic). He goes with very mildly apologetic (because getting lumped with Aomine? No way inhell).
"Yeah? Uhm, sir…"
Imayoshi doesn't look angry, in fact by the look on his face, Kagami thinks (hopes) he's not actually in trouble like he'd thought.
"Coach said you only need to do half of the basic drills, join in when I call you"
Kagami nods "So I was excused? And no one's complaining?" he wonders, as he walks towards the locker rooms to get changed.
He ends up wondering about it for all of morning practice because the mumbling behind his back he expected from the other freshmen never came; neither did the inquisitive looks from Wakamatsu. Nobody seemed to care, and Kagami finds it really really weird. Considering how competitive everyone is he expected someone to be butthurt over any form of special treatment, kind of like how Wakamatsu is about Aomine. Maybe it's because Aomine was just more of an asshole than him, or maybe it's because all they really care about on this team is winning. When it comes down to it, maybe anything that'd help them win isn't anything to complain about.
Wakamatsu finally breaks the silence on the matter later when they're all eating "So what's your special training?"
"Uhm, roadwork…. Four miles, with some ankle weights"
"Ugh, that sounds tiring" Wakamatsu grimaces "Must feel like eight miles instead of four with those on"
Kagami shrugs "It's not too bad I guess… feel like I'll fall asleep in class though"
"And you're still making lunches for Aomine?"
"Uh… yeah…"
Wakamatsu frowns at that, which is expected, Kagami guesses.
"Isn't it a hassle? You don't need to pamper that bastard you know"
"I guess, but it kind of gives me more motivation to finish my roadwork faster" Kagami shrugs "So it works out, kind of?"
Wakamatsu raises an eyebrow.
"Ok not exactly I guess, but…" Kagami shrugs, then doesn't elaborate any further. He sees Sakurai giving him a reassuring smile, and attempts to smile in return to thank him (he's afraid it looked like a grimace instead though).
Breakfast continues on without incident, but later as they're walking to their classroom, Sakurai asks "Do you really not need help with the bento? I noticed you made sandwiches today and no rice"
Kagami huffs "I wasn't lying when I said it was more motivation you know, it is"
Sakurai looks unsure.
"Look if it gets to be too much I'll ask you for help"
"Alright then…" Sakurai says, still looking unsure "Uhm, make sure you do"
-o-o-o-o-o-o-
As he predicted, Kagami ends up falling asleep in class and he gets into trouble for it which is kind of really annoying considering Aomine rarely gets caught. It's like he'd mastered the art of sleeping in class without getting caught because he does it all the time but somehow he's always awake when he needs to be, but is asleep all the other times Kagami looks. He's gotten caught a few times but never by a particularly strict professor.
Kagami had no such talents. Yet another thing he needs to work on.
It's only lunch time but he still feels beat (better than this morning, but still unusually tired). He wonders if every day is going to be this tiring, but at least it made him feel like he was doing something. This thing with Aomine, it's become… well there was no other way to describe it except as a problem. But the thing is he doesn't know what to do about it. He doesn't want Sakurai to get bullied, but he can't deny that Aomine is a very big asset to the team, and he can't do anything that's actually solution-like about the former if he can't resolve the later. He knows he can do this, but he's kind of stuck, he needs to do something but he doesn't know what.
It's frustrating, and Kagami hates feeling this way. Training hard makes him feel better, productive. He knows Coach must know what he's doing, so he guesses he'll just have to see in two weeks if he really is making progress or not. For now he needs to focus on the games this Saturday, and ok maybe his lunch cause his left hand is still pathetic at handling chopsticks.
"I didn't know you could look so deep in thought Kagamin"
Kagami almost chokes on his food as Momoi's words snaps him out of his musings. "Why are you here?" he manages to say between coughs.
Momoi greets Sakurai hello, ignoring Kagami for a moment, before turning to him and saying "Well, I just told coach I'd finished making the data on the teams we might face for the finals this Saturday, and he wanted it delivered to you guys as soon as possible"
She hands the two of them each a stapled document. Kagami leafs through his copy; it has what seems to be statistics and paragraph form analysis of all the regulars of the teams Seihou and Seirin. (1)
"You're expected to study all the better players and know how to deal with them. Coach says you should focus on Seihou cause they seem more likely to win, but my bet's on Seirin" and then she winks at them.
Kagami makes a face because he knows she means to say "And I'm usually right".
"Don't look at me like that, you know it's true" she tells him, and then addressing them both "Anyway, I haven't eaten lunch yet so I'm going to go back to my classroom".
She looks at Aomine (who immediately started sleeping after finishing his lunch in seven minutes flat) and sighs. With another short goodbye, she moves to leave.
"You and Momoi-san seem close" Sakurai comments when she's gone
"We're not" Kagami huffs
Sakurai doesn't really reply, but he does hum thoughtfully as if he's unsure.
-o-o-o-o-o-
(1) I've changed some things up a little bit, put Touou in the division Shutoku was in in canon
A/N: Trying to transition into more AoKaga interactions, haha. Thank you for all the reviews! I don't have time to reply to all of them right now (probably, next week) but I really appreciate the advice and encouragement! (also I'm really tired right now, if you spotted any mistakes I might have missed in my self-edit, please point them out to me)
