What the Shuutoku Boys Think

(of having a girl on the team)

(I meant to write Kise crashing Seirin, but ended up writing this instead. I might do similar chapters for Seirin and Rakuzan if people like the concept of this one.)

Ootsubo wasn't thrilled by the idea of a girl on the team at first. Don't get him wrong, he was no sexist. He didn't think that the basketball court was no place for a girl. He just knew that having one in an otherwise all boy team would bring headaches and problems.

Takao, however, despite her mischievous nature, actually didn't cause a lot of problems. Especially not compared to the other freshman starter, who united the rest of the team in annoyance against him. Come to think of it, Takao seemed to be the one person who got along with him. Overlooking that awkward moment in which Midorima had somehow missed the fact that Takao was a girl until he walked in on her changing, those two seemed to know each other best. And yes, sometimes Ootsubo knew Takao deliberately winded Midorima up, but he was of the opinion that was good for Midorima. It was better than him being ignored by everyone for his stubbornness and arrogance, which was what would have often happened without Takao.

There were the inevitable complaints about her from the less talented players. Boys on the bench who were resentful that a girl got to be on the court, as a regular and starter no less. Idiots who thought that complaining to Ootsubo about it would do them any good. Ootsubo sent them away with a curt invitation to come back and complain to him again if they could find something valid about Takao to complain about, and no, her anatomy didn't count.

So she was a girl. So what? If she had the strength and skill to stand beside the other regulars on the court then she belonged there as much as any of them. That was Ootsubo's stance on Takao, and she never gave him a reason to change it.

Miyaji's initial reaction was to be annoyed. He'd spent the past two years working his ass off to get from second string, to the first string bench, and had now finally managed to become a regular. Where the hell did some chick get off just prancing in and making first string her first year, without investing any time into the team?

His initial reaction didn't last long, because something quickly became apparent. Takao had bucketfuls of natural talent, yes, but that alone wasn't what let her keep up with the guys. She worked as hard as any of them, harder than most. She didn't shirk at all. Not once did she shy from a drill or exercise, or shorten her reps on account of being a girl. In fact, it was easy to forget she was a girl during practice, she kept up with them so well and blended in with them seamlessly.

During every break, Miyaji saw her stretching, using her flexibility to lengthen her short stride. At school he saw her with wearable weights around her wrists and ankles as she flitted from class to class.

How could he be annoyed with someone who worked that hard for what she had? It made him feel like a giant hypocrite.

And once he got past his initial reaction, he started to like Takao a lot. Not like like. He just whole-heartedly considered her a teammate. She was fun, and she was funny, particularly in the way she drove Midorima up the wall with her antics. She had a smart aleck comment for everything, it seemed, and always had a smile and a laugh for her teammates. And she always had a plan to make them laugh when they needed it.

One month into the season, Miyaji couldn't imagine the team without her, nor did he want to.

Unlike some of the others, it never bugged Kimura that Takao was a girl. It was a little weird having one on the team, yes, but he knew perfectly well that Coach Nakatani wouldn't have let her onto the team unless she was damn good. No one got a free ride on their team, and no one stood on the court unless they had what it took to be a king. Or he guessed, in Takao's case, a queen.

After Miyaji warmed up to the idea of a chick among them, Kimura got along well with Takao. Not that he hadn't before, it was just he always hung out with Miyaji, so when Miyaji had been avoiding her, Kimura kind of had too by default. But once Miyaji saw reason, they both gained an indispensible friend.

And yes, it helped that she was the one who dealt with Midorima so they didn't have to. That might have been what Kimura liked the most about her. Her dependability on the court followed closely after that.

No, if Kimura was honest with himself, the fact that she was such a genuine friend was what he liked best about Takao. She was just the kind of person who was genuinely a good friend, always laughing and raising spirits. Not to mention she had a lot of female friends at Shuutoku who by some weird default suddenly became Kimura's friends too. It was like he became popular overnight, because suddenly he was being greeted by girls every time he walked through the halls. He was the envy of all the other guys in his class. Miyaji and Ootsubo too.

In the end, Kimura couldn't think of a single way that Takao being a girl brought down their team. He could, however, think of several dozen ways she improved their team, some because she was a girl, but most just because she was an awesome person.

Midorima didn't know Takao was a girl at first, so unlike the others he didn't form his initial impression of her with that at its basis.

He still didn't like her in the beginning. He thought she was annoying and insufferable. She was always competing with him and hanging around him. She constantly talked to him and teased him, flitting around him like a hyperactive humming bird, getting in his way and annoying him, chattering about how absurd his lucky items were, and how green his hair was, and every other irrelevant thing under the sun.

But when she was around he wasn't alone. Midorima was well aware that without her he would have been alone most of the time, at school and practice. Not that he cared or anything. He didn't need anyone else. His basketball spoke for itself. He was strong and he needed no one. But that didn't mean it wasn't nice to have someone around once in awhile.

Once in awhile. Not all the damn time, though! And Takao was around him in practice all the damn time!

He was a little curious that he never saw Takao in school the first month at Shuutoku. Not that he looked for his fellow freshman during the school day. Much. But he thought they would have crossed paths a couple times, and Takao was hard to miss.

After he found out she was a girl, he realized that he had seen her plenty, he just hadn't recognized the short skirted, impish girl with her hair pulled in two very tiny twin tails as the sharp eyed point guard from his team's starting lineup.

After he found out she was a girl he was annoyed as hell. Girls had no place on a boy's team. Or at least that was what he wanted to think. But when she matched her play to his perfectly, getting the ball to him without fail, Midorima realized he couldn't make himself believe that. He couldn't even lie to himself and pretend he believed it.

He liked to be honest with himself at least, and the truth was that Takao was always right where he needed her to be. Always.

(Coach Nakatani imagined that if he ever had a daughter, she'd have turned out very much like Takao.)

(That was why he never had children.)