The sky grew brighter and brighter as time fled by. Leaning on the old wooden fence of a bridge was Seijurō Akashi, the young and promising captain of Rakuzan High School basketball team, who—beyond his wildest imagination—accidentally turned into half-cat half-human. The boy's beautiful heterochromatic orbs shone like a marble under the morning sun.

Akashi sighed to himself, trying to let his stress out, as he watched the golden sun that was peeking shyly from beneath the river, its light reflected on the river. Despite being wrapped in a few layers of clothes, he still felt cold sipping in, so he crossed his arms on the fence and placed his head on comfortably. …

'If I didn't have these ears and tail, by this time I would have been on the way to the stadium with my teammates…' Akashi whispered inwardly to himself as he closed his eyes tight. 'By this time, I…'

"Ngh," Akashi sniffed as he hid his face beneath his arms, forcing himself to hold back the tears. He was so at loss. For the first time in his life, he was forced to depend on someone else to solve an obstacle.


"So, you. Yes, you, the red-haired boy. You have to find someone you love with all of your heart. Your true love. When you find it, the curse will be lifted."


Falling in love with someone? He just didn't find it in him, the will to become attached to someone else. He had been living in solitude, all by himself, as long as he could remember, overcoming every obstacle that came in his way without falter.

Why now, of all times?

Akashi turned his head unwillingly when he heard loud footsteps coming toward him. His eyes found a group of kids, possibly elementary school students, who were laughing together as they made their way to their school.

"Y'know, coach said we're going to have a joint practice with the neighboring school tomorrow!" said one of the boys as he turned his back gleefully.

"Joint practice!? Cool!" replied the others.

As Akashi watched a sight he hadn't seen for a long time, a baritone voice of someone he would face in the final match in the next few hours called his name repeatedly.

Taiga Kagami, the ace of Seirin High School basketball team, waved his arms high between the short elementary school students who could barely reach his waist. "Hey, Akashi! Don't wanna miss the bus, now! C'mere! Ouch! Hey, watch it!"

Kagami flinched as the kids kept pushing him from all directions. He could've just pushed them away, but his conscience knew better than to act like a barbarian toward mere kids.

'But, damn brats! Don't fucking rush!' Kagami could feel his veins popping out in anger.

Akashi ignored Kagami completely and instead decided to watch the huge tiger being surrounded by a group of kids without being able to fight back. As much as he hated to admit this, he could feel his mouth curving upward into a thin smile. It was always a pleasure to see this arrogant boy in trouble.

'Geez, why should I be the one to get this snobby brat back!?' Kagami groaned loathingly. How wonderful it would be if he could just swing his leg and get rid of these little punks!

"Because you were the one who laughed the loudest," answered Kuroko and Midorima harmoniously when Kagami complained.

"Hey, can you guys just… make way!?" Kagami finally lost his patience. He pushed the shoulder of a kid as gently as he could, and just before he could breathe in relief as Akashi finally was just a meter away, he stumbled on the cracks of the bridge's wooden surface, and fell dramatically.

No, not onto the ground, not onto the kids before him, either, but onto the redhead half-cat half-human, who could only watch as the size of his comical face grew bigger and bigger each millisecond.

Even his infamous Emperor's Eyes couldn't foresee this at all.

"OUCH!"

"NYAAA!"

They fell together onto the ground with a loud thud, with Akashi feeling like a piece of paper after Kagami's heavy body fell right onto him. It was like his Meteor Jam… only he was throwing himself instead of the basketball.

That wasn't all, though. The smaller boy also felt a painfully gross wet sensation on his lips, and when he slowly opened his eyes—swallowing the reality that he should accept whatever sight he would see later—the first thing he saw were Kagami's big, round eyes, that were looking straight into him.

The space between his eyes and Kagami's couldn't be more than 10 cm, as it was so close he could see Kagami's pupils dilated.

If this was a romantic, sugar-sweet story of a pauper and her prince finally sealed their love toward each other with a passionate kiss, then this moment would be perfect, but…

"Look, they're kissing!"

"Ewww, so gay!"

"How lewd!"

Instead of heart-fluttering music playing in the background, though, they had elementary school students watched through the whole thing and jeered at them mercilessly.

"Mmmn—Get off of me, Taiga!" Akashi yelled angrily as he pushed Kagami away. He wiped his wet lips feverishly as if Kagami had infected him with some incurable illness.

On the other hand, Kagami looked neither angry nor happy of his first kiss with a guy; instead his eyes doubled its size before his hands involuntarily grabbed the sides of Akashi's head.

"Stop. Touching. Me." Akashi glared at Kagami furiously, his heterochromatic eyes glinting with killing intent.

"YOU HAVE HUMAN EARS!" Kagami gasped loudly. "A—And did you just talk!?"

Akashi rubbed his head in response and sure enough, there wasn't any furry, pointy ear. With his mouth slightly agape, he looked back at Kagami who was also watching the redhead captain intently like he would to a prehistoric fossils came to life.

"…Why?" Akashi whispered so faintly, as if to himself. 'Was it because… I kissed this guy?'

The heterochromatic-eyed boy remained silent as he stood up and took the hat Kagami gave to him that had fallen to the ground and wore it again.

'Wait, there's nothing to hide anymore, isn't there?' Akashi blinked. He put off the hat and looked at it in disdain, before throwing it away ungratefully toward Kagami who was still sitting on the ground, dumb-founded.

"Hurry up, we have the final match to attend," said Akashi coldly as he fixed his clothes. He went on ahead, leaving Kagami alone, before the latter finally came to his senses.

"HEY! Don't you think you need to thank someone!?" Kagami walked briskly to catch up with Akashi. How dare he left him like a used wrapping paper despite his being so kind to buy him a hat and followed him here! Well, that hat was so cheap from a bargain store, but still!

"What, you can't possibly believe a kiss would cure me now, can you?" Akashi exhaled condescendingly, not even turning his back to look at the angry tiger.

"Never would've anyone thought that cat ears and tail could appear in reality either, eh?" Kagami sneered, making faces to the redhead's slender back.

"…Don't get too full of yourself," Akashi ended the argument abruptly.


They soon met Kuroko and Midorima at the bus stop. At first Midorima complained that they were so late and said that should they came five minutes later, he would leave them and go on ahead to the stadium, but the more they paid attention to Akashi, they both finally realized and were shocked that Akashi had returned to normal, and when they asked why…

"N—Nothing!" Kagami wasn't fast enough to come up with a smarter reply. No one would proudly tell the world that they just kissed Seijurō Akashi on the lips anyway, right!?

"Maybe because I only drank a drop of the potion, the effect has worn off," Akashi answered calmly, completely dishing out the kissing part.

"It's good that we're still on schedule, albeit a little bit rushed. This way, we both can have our matches as planned," Akashi smiled.


The heterochromatic-eyed captain of Rakuzan High School basketball team might have regained back his composure and sighed in relief.

Little did he know, that the obstacle he just overcame was just a tip of an iceberg…


Author's Note - I'm extremely happy that things turned out okay so I don't need to alter the timeline of this story! Chapter 5 will contain parts from the final match onwards, so I'm afraid the next update will have to wait until the manga timing is right.

Thank you for reading, please leave a review and tell me what you think of this chapter!