They're playing some loser school that Makoto has never even heard of but apparently has a win streak going for the season. It's only a practice game, and he thinks that'll make it even more embarrassing when they utterly destroy the competition. Sitting on the bench while Hiroshi pretends to practice and Kazuya balances empty water bottles on Kentarou's motionless form to see how many it takes until he wakes up, Makoto glances around the stands.
He looks for Kinaka first, trying to see if Fuji's actually going to keep her word, and he doesn't find her, but that doesn't mean much; she might slink in at half-time when he's not paying attention. Fuji, however, is sitting up close in the student section, wearing what he assumes she believes normal people wear outside of school, which means it's painfully formal; a turtleneck blouse and pencil skirt, the same dark tights she wears habitually. When she meets his eyes, she doesn't wave or even smile, just stares back unblinkingly. He thinks she's trying to be intimidating.
You'd better win, she must be thinking. Makoto isn't scared.
"What's the plan, captain?" Kazuya drawls, "Your girlfriend's sitting front and center. How're we playing this game?"
"The way we always do," Makoto scoffs, "Don't change on her account." He's given it some thought, and he doesn't see any reason to change what he does just because she's watching or even recording, especially since he's going to be deleting it all later anyway.
Kentarou stirs and all of the bottles fall off of him and roll around the floor, and Kazuya just laughs when his teammate glares in his direction. Makoto glances across the court at the other team, watching them practice, and quickly picks out the ace, but he finds his gaze wandering back to the stands. The corner of his mouth twitches in irritation at Fuji's dead-eyed stare, and he can still feel her eyes on him when he looks away.
"Not getting distracted, are you?" he hears Kentarou ask.
He doesn't deny it right away. "I'll be fine," he grunts, and goes to line up with his team at the half court line as the game begins.
He really isn't distracted. If anything, he's hyperaware of his every move, conscious of the referee's location at all times as his teammates spread out across the court, weaving the Spider's Web. He sees Koujirou in position behind their ace, and he hesitates an extra second before giving the signal, glancing up into the stands and looking for Fuji's piercing stare, just so he knows she's watching.
But she's not there.
He almost trips over his own feet and recovers at the last second, but he knows the others saw him stumble by the way they all seem to hold their breath. He tries not to dwell on it, tries not to wonder where she is or what she's doing to screw him over now, because he's got Koujirou positioned right where the referee can't see and the rest of the game planned out in his head.
Makoto pushes Fuji Kuroda out of his head for the next hour and, with the snap of his fingers, destroys a small school's pride.
"What the hell was that back there?"
Makoto doesn't look at Kentarou when it's over. They win in the end, 120 to 39, but he's still feeling on edge. He wipes his forehead with a towel, sitting on a bench in the locker room, and has a hard time coming up with an answer. It's just the two of them there—the others could feel the irritation coming off of him in waves and knew better than to stick around. Kentarou isn't stupid—if anything, he's the smartest one on the team next to Makoto himself, since he knows how to avoid stepping on his toes.
"You froze up all of the sudden, right before giving the signal."
"Kuroda," Makoto says simply, but then feels he has to add something, as if he's admitting weakness by leaving it at that, "I know she's planning something."
"I've never seen you get thrown off like that before."
"Well, don't worry about it," he snaps, "Because it won't be happening again." He changes in a hurry and throws his gym bag over his shoulder, still seething, still unsure of what happened. He hesitated, he knows he hesitated, but he doesn't know why. Why would it matter if Fuji saw it or not? He doesn't have anything to prove to her, he doesn't owe her anything. He doesn't know why he did it, why he even looked up to find her in the first place, and it makes him angrier the more he thinks about it.
The rest of the team is waiting right outside, and he nearly hits Kazuya with the door when he throws it open. Koujirou and Hiroshi are nowhere to be found, but he notices someone extra. Kinaka Daicho is frowning up at him from Kazuya's side, ignoring the arm around her shoulder and the stupid smile on his teammate's face.
"What are you doing here?" he asks, and he really does mean for it to be a neutral question, but it comes out dark and dripping with poison, and the way Kinaka flinches gives him just a bit of satisfaction.
"What, am I not allowed to come to games anymore?" she asks, rolling her eyes, "And before you ask, no, I'm not here doing Kuroda's dirty work."
"Then what do you want?"
"Come on, captain, isn't it obvious?" Kazuya asks, grinning, "We're going on a romantic dinner date."
Romantic is not a description Makoto would apply to either of them. He looks at Kazuya obliviously blowing a bubble with his gum, an arm lazily draped over Kinaka's shoulder, and then he looks at Kinaka, whose expression says she'd rather be doing Disciplinary Committee paperwork right now, and romantic is not the word that comes to mind.
Makoto frowns disapprovingly at Kinaka, who stares back, daring him to do something about it. "She's just trying to get a free meal out of you, Hara."
She glares at him. "You're such a dick."
"You didn't disagree."
"It's fine," Kazuya shrugs, "Kuroda's been hitting her up for money for weeks, so she doesn't have much right now."
"What?" Makoto glances up at Kazuya, brows furrowing. "And how do you know?"
"Well, she's been confiding in me." Kazuya pulls her a little closer, and to Makoto's surprise, she doesn't pull away or look completely disgusted. She doesn't look all that interested, either, though. He's not convinced.
"Oh, really?" Makoto asks, "And you couldn't come to me about this, Daicho?"
"I've given up on your slow ass," she sneers, "You took your sweet time, and now Kuroda's got you so stuck you don't know what to do, right?" Makoto has a few choice words about her impatience on the tip of his tongue but she cuts him off, saying, "Face it, Hanamiya. You've lost, you just don't want to admit it yet. I don't even want to see what you look like when she's through with you." It's then that he notices she's actually shaking, leaning into Hara and not quite looking at Makoto, avoiding holding his gaze.
It reminds him a bit of running into teams he's played in the past sometime after a game, on the street or in a store, and the anger on the poor loser's face always turns into fear when Makoto laughs at their threats and stares them down, and they know there's nothing they can do.
Seeing his own handiwork from somebody else makes him uneasy for some reason.
"I thought you were smart," Kinaka mutters, "You were supposed to take care of her, make her stop running my life so I don't have to look over my shoulder and make sure she's not back there."
He isn't sure what's more ridiculous; that Kinaka's been putting on a brave front to cover for the fact that she needs him to save her from Fuji, or that the Fuji he's gotten to know isn't half the monster Kinaka seems to think she is.
"I don't lose, Daicho, I just let people think they've won," Makoto says, "Now shut up and go away. Leave Kuroda to me." Kinaka looks insulted but Hara grins, apparently under the impression that he has Makoto's blessing. "And don't make a habit out of this," he adds, "I don't care if Kuroda's left you broke, you should just eat at home if you don't have money. If you keep taking advantage of Hara's momentary lapse in judgment, I will break your fucking arms."
"Come on, that's a little harsh," Hara says with a laugh, though he still takes a few steps back to pull Kinaka a safe distance away.
Of course, Kinaka has to have the last word, so even as they're leaving, she calls back over her shoulder, "Go worry about your own girlfriend, Hanamiya. Last I saw, she was talking to some other guy."
Some other guy? Makoto wonders if one of the other Disciplinary Committee members came along, if Fuji invited them—if he's played into her hands again, especially since he was sloppier than usual. He slips back into the gym and scans over the thinning crowd. Fuji sticks out immediately when everyone else who's left are students who wouldn't dress up for a basketball game. She's standing all the way in the back of the student section, and he wonders when she moved, but he loses this train of thought when he sees that it's neither of the remaining members of the Disciplinary Committee who are beside her.
It's Shouichi Imayoshi.
Makoto isn't afraid of Touou's point guard, but he's definitely his least favorite person on the face of the earth, and under ordinary circumstances, he isn't above slinking away before he's engaged in conversation. He knows Shouichi isn't particularly fond of him either, and he's almost certain he only does it because he knows Makoto hates it.
But these are not ordinary circumstances, and carried by something burning, white hot and irrational in the pit of his stomach, Makoto storms up the stands and heads straight for him.
Shouichi sees him coming when he's about halfway there and his attention shifts over Fuji's shoulder, an infuriatingly pleased smile slowly spreading across his face. "It's been a while, Hanamiya," Shouichi says. Fuji turns to face him, too, looking far too calm. Makoto notices that they're standing awfully close together, close enough that Shouichi's hand hovers for a moment at her waist before he changes his mind, pointedly holding Makoto's gaze the entire time. "You seem to be doing well, still playing basketball your usual way. And I hear you're dating Fuji."
Her first name leaving Shouichi's mouth grates on his nerves. "You came to watch a practice game?"
"The game served as pleasant background noise," Shouichi says with a chuckle, "I came for Fuji, actually. She invited me."
"And then you had the audacity to come late," Fuji says sharply, but she doesn't look tense or standoffish when she says it.
Shouichi chuckles. "That was awful of me, wasn't it? I'm really sorry," he says, sounding far more amused than he does sincere.
His eyes meet Fuji's, and she's still staring at him without even a hint of anxiety, as though he hasn't caught her red-handed. She looks patient, like she's waiting for something.
"Why?" he asks, struggling to keep his temper in check. Fuji has caused him more than a few problems tonight, and she doesn't have the decency to look as scared as she should with Makoto right in front of her. "What the hell did you invite him for?"
But Fuji holds his gaze and doesn't speak, letting Shouichi answer for her. "Oh, you didn't know?" he asks, feigning surprise, "I'm sorry, Hanamiya, maybe I should have told you. I just assumed you were already aware, since you two are dating and all. I'm sure Fuji confides in you about everything." His smile widens. "At least, she did when we were dating."
Makoto can't take it anymore. He doesn't trust himself to avoid assaulting Shouichi if this goes on—which is probably exactly what the smug bastard wants—so he takes Fuji by the forearm and pulls her away. He faintly hears Shouichi call after him to "have a nice night," and he doesn't even dignify that with a response.
The other spectators are gone, and it's just the two of them behind the gym. He corners her against the brick wall, resting a forearm beside her head and leans in, trying not to let on just how angry he is. "So you come to a game to watch your boyfriend play," he says evenly, "But you invite your ex? That seems pretty tactless, don't you think?"
"I didn't think you would mind," Fuji says.
"You didn't think I would mind?" he repeats harshly, "You're not very good at this whole 'dating' thing, are you, Kuroda? You're supposed to take the other person's feelings into account. What if I'm the jealous type, and seeing you with him makes me want to push him down the stairs?"
Still, she doesn't react the way he'd hoped, looking cool and composed like nothing's wrong. "Are you the jealous type, Makoto?" she asks quietly, and she says his name like it's a dare.
Makoto leans in, inches away from her lips. "What if I am?" he murmurs. He's bluffing, really, just trying to see how far Fuji is going to take this little game.
To his shock, she calls him on it.
Suddenly, her hands are reaching up, grasping fistfuls of the front of his jacket, pulling him down to her height and pressing their lips together. Makoto is frozen for a moment, having expected her to back down, but he recovers quickly, pulling her hands off of him and pushing them against the wall on either side of her, pulling at her lips with his teeth none too gently, and he relishes the breathless gasp she lets out. He pulls away with a few observations—that her face is only a little flushed, that she tastes distinctly of chocolate and mint, and that her breathing has already evened out and she's curling her fingers to join their hands in an affectionate gesture.
She planned this. That's not really the surprising part, though, because Makoto has learned by now that Fuji is like him, always thinking two steps ahead. But he realizes that she purposefully dressed up, ate something sweet, invited Shouichi and let him see them together, knowing what he would do. It isn't blackmail, exactly, but he's fallen right into another trap. She's succeeded in riling him up, throwing him off his game, and making him jealous.
He lets go of her, backing out of arm's reach. Fuji steps away from the wall and smoothes her hair out in the back, brushing the dirt from the back of her clothes.
"My sincerest apologies, Hanamiya," she says, "I had no idea you felt so strongly about this. I'll be certain to consider your feelings in the future." And then she smirks at him, and he has to leave before he does something he won't be able to cover up later.
He goes home feeling all kinds of humiliated but more determined than ever, knowing he has to do something about Fuji Kuroda or he's going to lose his mind.
This is not the last we'll see of Imayoshi, uncrowned king of trash.