"So," said Kise, batting her gold-tipped eyelashes at Midorima and Takao. "Which game are you going to watch, Midorimachi?"
"Whichever one you are not," Midorima replied.
"Smart, divvy up the labour," said Kise, unfazed. She dropped an arm around Takao's shoulders. "I'll just take this one, and you can go watch Akashichi! Come on, the games are starting!"
Takao, faced with an arm like an iron bar around his shoulders, waved helplessly to Shin-chan as he was dragged away. Midorima looked like she would have liked to go after him, but the whistle blew from the Rakuzan-Seirin side for the players warming up to clear the court, and she abandoned him to Kise's tender mercies.
"Boo Shin-chan," said Takao, which he felt just about summed it up.
"Midorimachi is so mean," agreed Kise, tossing her head with a sigh. "Did she blow a gasket when she heard about the rumor?"
"You've forgotten to account for that little thing where you Generation of Miracles can't be beaten by anyone else," said Takao. "Except for that one time you were, but there was Kuroko there so it doesn't count anyway."
"True," said Kise thoughtfully. She sat down, releasing Takao into the seat next to her. "You probably don't count for me either, I never played in that game."
"Curses," said Takao, rubbing his collarbone. "We could settle it now, if you like. In those shoes I could probably win."
"But not against Midorimachi," said Kise smugly. She looked down at her high-heeled boots.
"No, she's too good on those stilts," agreed Takao. "Why is that, anyway? I don't know how girl's shoes work."
"It's the posture," said Kise, who had learned how to walk like Midorima once, and never again. "Ballet."
"Serious?" said Takao.
"I've been in that house," said Kise. "I've seen the photo albums. She dropped it to focus on piano in elementary school."
"How would she fit all that hair into a bun," said Takao, awed.
"How else does she bend that way?" said Kise. She smirked at his deer-in-the-headlights face, laughing. "Wait, they're starting, they're starting! Go either of you two!" She raised her arms and whooped.
.0.
On the court, neither Murasakibara nor Aomine were paying attention to the stands.
"Really, Mine-chin," said Murasakibara, who had taken one look at Kagami snuggling with Aomine as they came in from the cold and felt all her dislike of him return in one fell swoosh. She felt irritated, itchy in her own skin. Muro-chin had left messages, possibly many of them. She blamed Kagami. She blamed Aomine. She blamed everyone. "Really? Him?"
Aomine shrugged. "He's better than yours." she said.
"Muro-chin is not mine," said Murasakibara. She glared at Aomine. The Liu Quads, arrayed behind her, snickered. Sakurai shivered a little and focused on the one he had been told thought he could make three-pointers. Momoi was on the bench muttering to himself as he tried to parse the jersey numbers.
Aomine pointed at Murasakibara and smirked. "I didn't even say which one! Guess we know who you like." Though she still wasn't sure she liked Taiga's brother, with his eyes and his smile, how he talked in circles around Taiga and how he sometimes looked at Murasakibara when he thought that only she was watching, like he was going to take his time consuming her.
Murasakibara clenched her fist. "One more word, Mine-chin," she said. "One more word-"
"You girls break it up ," said the referee standing between them holding the basketball. They blinked and looked at him. "If I have to throw this thing more than once, I'm not going to like you two."
"Fine," they answered in unison. Aomine grinned a long sharp slash across her face as she bent to leap, and Murasakibara lifted her lip in a sneer.
.0.
Furihata sat very quietly on the bench and endured the glares of the entire Rakuzan first-year Rookie Cup team. There were only five of Seirin, the bare minimum to compete in the tournament, and Rakzuan's fifteen first-years were all tall and fit, to say nothing of their cheering squad, who had congregated on the benches and were also, unsurprisingly, glaring at Seirin.
Well, maybe a little surprised.
"Why are they all so angry," Fukuda whispered to him.
"I don't know," he whispered back.
"Why are you whispering," said Kagami. They both flinched.
Furihata tried to point at the Rakuzan team without actually pointing at the Rakuzan team. He failed, and their stares of loathing deepened.
"Oh yeah," said Kagami, who predictably had only been looking at Akashi-san as she briefed her team. "They're kind of worked up."
"They must believe that there is some truth to the rumor about the Generation of Miracles and being defeated," said Kuroko.
"What rumor," said Furihata, startled.
In a few succinct sentences, Kuroko filled the rest of the first-years in. They were shocked, shocked and appalled. When Furihata found himself shaking hands with Akashi-san in the line-up, he looked into her serene face (Kagami grimaced as his opponent tried to crush his hand, and Kuroko's hand was delicately shaken in a terrified someone's giant hairy paw) and felt an apology welling out of him.
"I-I-I'm so sorry!" he said. "I definitely don't mean- I mean, it's not like that I think that- not that you're not very- but I would never- I mean if you didn't, I would never- I'm sorry! I'm very sorry," he finished, miserably.
Akashi-san was silent for a few moments. "Please excuse me," she said. It sounded perfectly polite and gracious. She still had a grip on his clammy hand. "What are you referring to?"
Furihata digested this. "Um," he said. "Uh. I don't think I-"
Akashi-san raised an eyebrow.
"The... rumor... about... dating..." he said.
"Oh, that," said Akashi-san. Furihata stared at her. He wouldn't have expected her to oh, that, anything of the kind. "Of course, it is unfounded and ridiculous." She raised her voice just a little, causing her teammates to go pink. "But I do think," she continued, thoughtfully, "that that would be the absolute basic, wouldn't you? The ability to match someone on their own terms."
Furihata stared at her, mouth open. He was reminded irresistibly of someone- who for some reason at this point totally escaped him- saying be the best at something. Become number one.
Akashi-san's eyes glinted at him, her right eye, then her left. "Let's have a good game," she said. She smiled, and Furihata felt his heart sink.
.0.
Midorima sat in the stands and fumed. She touched her compact lucky item, again and again. She had no doubt that every single boy she saw who did a double-take at her was aware of the rumor- she knew that rumors about them always spread like wildfire, the more outlandish the better. As though they'd just been biding their time to turn this into an elaborate mate-seeking Olympic event. As though!
But it was more than that, of course. Kise and Aomine and Akashi had all laughed it off, but they could, they were the ones who could. Murasakibara, as usual, only cared about her snacks and the next game. Kuroko- well, who even knew with Kuroko. Even though Midorima had created an opportunity for her and Takao to talk, he had clearly capitalized poorly on it. She bitterly knew that she had done all she could and yet, not enough to encourage that. If only Midorima did not know that everyone thought that Takao liked her- worse, that they all knew she liked him, and were doing their best to communicate it to him at every possible juncture. It had to be awkward for him. It was so awkward for her.
She flipped open the compact and studied her complexion, trying vainly not to think about what Kise would be saying to him, Kise who modeled part-time, who was so surrounded with fawning admirers that a few more made no impression at all. Kise thought that you could just crook your finger and have men fall panting at your feet. That no one could have any choice but to love you. It wasn't like that for everyone. It wasn't like that for Midorima.
Midorima looked at herself in her compact. She had not put on any makeup but tinted lip balm for the dry air. She had left her hair in its everyday braids. She had dressed practically for the weather. There was nothing about Midorima which was alluring.
That figured, didn't it? She wasn't Kise, with all her immaculate golden loveliness. She wasn't even Aomine, who could drop her eyes and put her lip between her teeth and instantly concentrate the attention of a room. She certainly wasn't Akashi, who managed to combine the appearance of being a delicate fairy among the boys on the Rakuzan bench with the distinct impression that she was dying to punch someone in the face. Somehow many admired that, boys and girls.
Midorima was just an old-fashioned, frumpy, overlarge girl who liked (again) a boy who was only being kind to her. One of the kindest people she knew. She wouldn't mistake it for something else. She wasn't in the basketball club for as frivolous a reason as that.
.0.
"Well," said Kuroko, lying over two benches in the hallway. "That was disappointing."
"Yes," said Kagami, lying on the floor.
"Come on," said Furihata, who had managed to prop himself up against the wall. "We did... we did sort of good!"
"We shouldn't've let it go into overtime," said Kagami. "Sorry, guys."
"You did pretty good," said Kawahara.
Kagami, exhausted by the effort of speech, put his head back down and looked up into Aomine's face.
"You're backwards," he said.
"Why are you on the floor," said Aomine, looking down at Kagami. She nudged him with her foot. "Taiga, get up or I'll step on you."
With some groaning and muttering, Kuroko and Kagami were both restored to upright positions.
"There, there," said Aomine, smoothing Kagami's collar. Then sitting on his lap. "That bad?"
"Pretty bad," said Kagami.
"Aw, baby," she said.
Kuroko abruptly stood up. "I see Kise-san over there with Murasakibara-san, excuse me," she said.
"You're not going to wait around for Akashi?" said Aomine. "They were all waiting outside for her to change when we got out, it was kind of sweet." She squinted. Kagami stared besotted at her squint. "If kind of stupid. What, they think she's never seen boxers?"
"I will not," said Kuroko with a shudder, and walked away.
.0.
Kise greeted her with a smile and a wink, doing a little dance as she pointed at Aomine and Kagami sitting together talking softly. "So cute!" she said. "So cute!"
Murasakibara pantomimed throwing up.
"They are cute," said Kuroko, allowing a momentary inward struggle.
"Takao left me to go trotting after Midorimachi," said Kise, smugly. "Kurokochi, we should get working on that. He looks so lost when he's not with her."
Murasakibara's face twisted even further. "So gross," she mumbled, digging in her chip bag.
"She likes him too," Kise protested.
"So?" retorted Murasakibara. She scowled at them, and at the stadium, impartially.
"So don't you want her to be happy?" said Kise. "She could have gone for that months ago!"
"She thinks he'll laugh," said Kuroko quietly. "She's worked so hard to be one of them, and she won't destroy what they have."
"He won't laugh," said Kise. "She'd kill him for it." Even as she said it, Kise seemed to realise that this was not the good end either, and she sucked her lip into her mouth, heedless of her shiny gloss.
"It would be worse," said Murasakibara. She hated the sound of her voice. She would say this or the words would die in her throat and stick in her forever. "If he didn't laugh. If he was just sorry."
.0.
True to Aomine's vague hint, Akashi had emerged from the bowels of the stadium to wait for her team, and now occupied her time to spare by staring at him and Aomine. The other Seirin first-years scrambled out of her way, but she did not seem to notice them.
"It's not like we're slobbering all over each other," said Aomine indignantly. "This is cuddling. We have clothes on. It's cute."
"You're sitting on his lap," Akashi pointed out.
"I'm comforting him," said Aomine. "He just lost terribly. Look at him. It hurts so bad."
"Hey," said Kagami, his brows drawing together in a frown, and apparently forgetting his time as a human rug.
"Shhh," said Aomine. She pulled his head to her shoulder and stroked his hair. "There there. There there."
His mouth full of jacket, Kagami was unable to protest, instead closing his eyes in resignation and relaxing as she touched him, letting out a sigh. He met Akashi's eyes over Aomine's shoulder. They were cold, very cold: cold enough to burn.
Akashi's eyes transferred to Aomine's head and lit, ever so slightly. Aomine had complained about not being on the roster for Nationals: they had waited a long time for it to come to this.
Kagami wasn't going to miss it for anything.
"Stop fondling Kagami Taiga before he explodes," said Akashi, dry.
Aomine pouted and gathered Kagami closer. Which only made it worse.
"Do you have any idea how times I got called a dyke before my breasts came in," she said. "And probably after that too, just not to my face. Let me have this. I've earned it. This is my time." She put her chin on top of Kagami's head and glared at Akashi.
Akashi's eyes flicked upwards for a single fleeting millisecond. It took Kagami twice that to realise that the ice queen was rolling her eyes at Aomine. That, almost as much as the warm weight of Aomine in his arms, her hand still absently crumpling his hair, made him smile at her. Both of them.
"Next time," he said, his voice cracking.
Aomine smiled, shifting on his lap. "Next time," she said. Her voice was soft and warm, a promise and a threat.