Midnight Chapter 7

"Ah, Tanaka, glad you can join us. I know that you're specifically in-charge of Aomine, but you are the assistant coach of this entire team, understood? Just dump his body somewhere and come here. I need to teach you how to coach this team." says Coach Harasawa as he saw Tanaka dragging Aomine's temporarily lifeless body into the gym.

Tanaka slightly blushed and proceeded to make Aomine lie down on a nearby bench.

"This is your fault!" Tanaka grumpily accused Aomine in her head, tempted to flick his forehead. Tanaka sighed and walked towards the direction of the coach.

"So, tell me Tanaka, have you ever coached somebody or a team before?" coach asked after Tanaka assumed her position by his side.

"No," Tanaka replied honestly, "Why?"

"Listen here, Tanaka. I know you used to play basketball before, but playing and coaching basketball are two almost completely different matters. Being a coach, is to coach and being a player, is to play," Coach Harasawa explains, "Different players have different sets of skills and learning capabilities. As a coach, you need to recognise the players' strength and weaknesses - both individually and as a team. Observe the bunch of players over there." Coach pointed at a couple of having a practice game.

Tanaka observed as she was instructed. The player holding the ball was surrounded by all the other players from the opposing team. There were no good openings for him to pass the ball around.

"Your hands are shaking. Don't tell me he's trying to go for a pass with that amount of strength in his hands..." Tanaka commented in her head.

The player had a lost look in his face, unsure of what to do next. From his point of view, everyone seemed blocked and there were no good moves left to use.

"There's a 50% chance that the centre would try and come to receive the ball..." Tanaka commented some more, observing the guy playing the position centre.

And she was right, the centre moved from his position and tried to receive the ball. Still intimidated but now seeing his team mate being free, the player tried to pass the ball in the centre's direction. Tanaka then closed her eyes for a while, because she knew what was going to happen.

"The pass was too weak. And they are still blocked. The centre's probably desperate to try and score a shot now..."

The centre aimed for a shot and shoot. The ball flew in the air and just as it was about to enter the hoop, it touched the rims and fell out. Tanaka sighed.

"Confidence is key when playing... That could've aimed from the spot for a 3 but he had too little confidence in himself." Tanaka then stopped commenting in her head and stared at Coach Harasawa with a hint of shock in her eyes.

"Ah, looks like you got it," Coach half-smiled at her, "It's not only about skills or body condition score. But about the individuality of the player. So many factors contribute to the outcome of a play. Your job as a coach, is to recognise them and work on it. The best way to know is to get to know your players individually."

Coach passed her a clipboard of statistics sheets.

"These are the Too Academy's basketball players statistics sheets. I'll let you decide what you want to do with them. Get Momoi to run through them with you if you don't get them." Coach waved her off as he walked away.

Tanaka stood at her current position, stunned at what immense responsibility that the coach and the basketball team had placed upon her shoulders. How can she fulfill her role in such a short time before the Winter Cup? Coach had spent years getting to know his players and Tanaka was on day 1 of her new job. She took a deep breath, knowing that freaking out and losing her cool was unlike her. She had faced such times of crisis several times. She can accomplish this, she affirmed herself.

"Tch, that really hurt." A familiar voice came from behind her.

Tanaka turned around and saw Aomine walking up towards her while running his hand through his dark blue hair.

"What is it? I'm busy." Tanaka sighed and busied herself looking through the players statistics sheets.

"Huh? Please, coach. You barely know what you are doing. Stop messing around. Seeing you as assistant coach is as amusing as seeing a monkey playing with cymbals in his hands." Aomine smirked and grabbed the clipboard from her hands.

"Stop it. I would listen to anyone, but you. You barely even practice and you don't even know me. Ace player or not, I can't accept someone who has no passion about the sport," Tanaka said with a slight hint of annoyance and pulled a straight face at Aomine, "I'm worthy of my place here in the team."

"Crap, this was so different from what I was saying to myself earlier," she thought.

"Oh? Getting cocky. So, they say you're my personal coach? Listen here," Aomine's face came closer towards Tanaka, "A coach, should at least have a certain skill or level above the player. And you, have nothing."

Aomine stood up straight and smirked, "Besides, the only one who can beat me, is me."

After saying that line, he walked away from Tanaka.

Tanaka clenched her fists and walked up to Aomine.

"Listen here, Aomine Daiki. You don't know if I'm better or weaker than you." she said coolly, "Let's settle this, like how basketballers do."

She looked at him with steel in her eyes.

Aomine was taken aback for a while and grinned, "Yeah, that's more like it! Oi, Momoi, you be the judge of this. Make it a little easier on the girl."

"Wait, what?" Momoi looked at Tanaka and Aomine back and forth with confusion plastered on her face. She had only been at where they were for the past 5 seconds.

"It's basketball. Easy or hard, I won't go easy against you."

"You know what? It'll be a pleasure seeing your face of defeat on the court. More than any other stupid challenger." He laughed and started to walk away from Momoi and Tanaka.

"Gomen Tanaka-chan. Dai-chan is always like this... Belittling people and always challenging them to games..." Momoi apologised as she approached Tanaka.

"It's fine, Satsuki-san." Tanaka smiled, "I'll make sure that he will break down his walls some day."

A basketball suddenly flew over Momoi's head and bounced for a while before rolling towards Tanaka's feet.

"Sorry about that, can you pass it back?" A player shouted in their direction.

Tanaka picked up the ball and replied back, "Yeah, and how about a game at the same time?"

Momoi suddenly stood aback and stared wide-eyed at Tanaka. Her statistics numbers were coming into play in front of her, noticing drastic change in Tanaka's player's statistics.

"This is impossible... Unless this is... Zone?!" Momoi gasped, shocked at what she had just seen.

A/N: Hi everyone! Sorry for the late update. No kidding, this chapter was the toughest to write among all the other chapters... OAO;; Thank you for the new follows and favourites, and thanks LynnStark for the suggestion! I'm honestly a little relieved that this chapter came out okay because now I can write the other chapters with ease, now that everything will link up. ^_^b Thanks for reading!