Yukinoshita can only gawk in silence as she watches his club mate talk with one of the Lebanese guys, who just shown up in their side. "I never thought I would see you here, Hachiman!" The man, who has a balanced body build as well as a goatee, exclaimed in a rather cheerful way. "And I never thought I would hear of you again. How's life?"
"Same old shit, Ahmad." Hikigaya replied in heavily-accented English as he faces the man Ahmad with his usual facial expression. "By the way, can you just go back to your team now? I don't want them to see that we're some sort of friends…"
"Eeeeh?! But you're so mean, Hachiman!" Ahmad had waterfall tears streaming in his eyes. "Basically, we're like brothers when it comes to basketball!"
"O-Oi…stop phrasing things that may lead to a misunderstanding!" Hikigaya was considering strangling the taller Lebanese guard, who merely laughed at his reaction.
"Don't wanna, Hachiman. Say, who are those two girls?" Ahmad looks past the shoulders of Hikigaya then eyes Yukinoshita and Yuigahama with curiosity. "Are they two friends of yours?"
"W-Well…" Hikigaya wasn't sure how to respond to that very complicated question but before he can even complete, his Service Club president beat him to it.
"Hikifroggy-kun, we have mouths so we can introduce ourselves." Hikigaya's heart was chipped very hard at Yukinoshita's harsh response to him. Ignoring the pained male, the pale beauty turned to face Ahmad and said. "Hello. I'm Yukino Yukinoshita, this twisted criminal's president at his own Service Club and this is Yui Yuigahama, our other club mate!"
"Yahallo! Nice to meet you…Ahmad, was it?" Yuigahama, as usual, was in her bubbly self.
Instead of introducing himself, Ahmad only looked at the two with a strange expression before suddenly bursting into laughter. "Pfffft! Hachiman, you serious? Service Club? The hell! I thought you're supposed to continue your career in high school! Hahahaha!"
As Ahmad continued to laugh, Yukinoshita just maintained a poker face but inwardly, it looks like she wanted to kill the laughing Lebanese on the spot. Hikigaya just retained his expression as he actually expected this character from Ahmad. But Yuigahama, for some reason, felt bad. Uhm…what's wrong about joining the Service Club? It's not bad, right?
"There are a lot of things that happened so I had to stop playing for a while." Finally, Hikigaya offered some explanation. "It's not that I don't want to play anymore; it's just that I can't due to some circumstances. For some reason, Akashi here was able to convince me to play again in the national team so here I am…"
"Ah…I see…I see…" Ahmad finally stopped laughing as his chest was already in pain. "I just didn't expect you would do something so flimsy and lame. Well, we'll play a game later, right? We'll come out with guns blazing, Hachiman!" With that, he waved his hand and left the three.
Hikigaya, Yukinoshita, and Yuigahama just stood there for eternities. While the words of Ahmad didn't affect them directly, they were quite disturbed at how he worded his sentences. It isn't lame! Yuigahama mentally shouted.
"Don't hold it against him. It's just him being him." Hikigaya broke the silence as he then motioned to walk back to the bench where the rest of the Teiko crew was preparing for the practice match. "Ahmad just speaks his mind without thinking so I was expecting that kind of behaviour. Besides, he's someone you can call a basketball idiot—to him, as long as you have a ring and a Spalding to play with, it would be always rainbows and sunshine."
"Quite the impression that I had with him." Yukinoshita had to agree with Hikigaya. "By the way, aren't you supposed to be warming up like them? As expected of you, Hikilazy-kun."
"Ah…it's not my fault if we had a little talk." Hikigaya sighed then broke off from the group as he rejoins the newly-formed Japanese squad, which will be featuring Haizaki as well—for now.
"Haizaki, that's my ball!" Kise shouts angrily as he shoves the silverette out of his way to retrieve what he believes is his rightful possession of the leather basketball.
"Ryouta, you dickhead! I can do whatever want!" Haizaki growled angrily and from there again, the two were seen squabbling with each other. Since this was already a common sight back in their Teiko days, everyone, even Akashi, decided to just let them be since it would be a waste of time and energy to even try and separate the two of them—as long as they're not actually killing each other literally. But even so…
"Tsk…I can't concentrate in my shots because of these two monkeys that are on our team." Midorima clicked his tongue as his shot rattled in the ring and almost ended up being a missed shot.
"I supposed you're referring to Haizaki, not the blonde idiot?" Aomine answered him as he casually cleans his ear with his pinky finger. "Not that I mind Kise's whiny voice since my ears got immune from it but I would prefer to see Haizaki get kicked off here."
"Neh, Zaki-chin is so irritating. Makes me want to crush him." Murasakibara drawled from the sidelines as he was finishing his pack of potato chips. "Can someone shut up Kise-chin as well? They're both annoying that it's grating my nerves."
"You're asking for a tall order, Musarakibara." Aomine sighed as he accepts a past from Kuroko and dunks the ball gracefully. "Akashi, won't you do something about this?"
Curiously, their captain remained silent throughout this ordeal. Nor did he even reply to Aomine's question. Hikigaya merely shook his head at this kind of scene that was unfolding in their warm-up. Is this what they call 'the good ol' days?' Though I must admit that I got used to this kind of barbarism, here is anything barely good in this kind of behaviour back then.
Any outsider with a keen sense of perception can probably say that the Generation of Miracles are the type of friends that are very close to one another. Well…screw that shit. Hikigaya knew that in the first place, they were just former teammates who happened to be prodigies lumped in one team. It's not like I had any right to complain at that time.
Unfortunately, Kise and Haizaki's arguments continued to go on and it came to the point where it started to scrape off whatever patience Akashi had and when it did reached the bottom, he glared at both small forwards. Immediately, the two stopped their fighting and quickly sweat dropped at the dark aura that is leaking from Akashi. "Haizaki. Kise. Behave." He only dropped three words but it was more than enough to put the two squabbling players under his leash as they stopped their fighting and quickly resumed their warm-ups properly.
After a few minutes, Japan and Lebanon were finally lined up in the center circle to complete the traditional thanksgiving ceremony before Murasakibara and Lebanon's Mohammed Khalil, a burly big man almost having the same height as the Yosen center, were in the center circle. Hikigaya, Kuroko, and Haizaki were riding on the bench and this was the reason why the Sobu student wasn't comfortable at all since he was sitting beside the silverette. On the other side, Ahmad was benched as well though this was understandable since unlike Japan's young team, Lebanon is composed of veteran players and Ahmad happened to be the youngest Lebanese and the only teenager in their line-up.
"Well…do you think Japan can win this, Hikki?" Yuigahama, who is sitting behind the bench with Yukinoshita, asked.
"Probably though just by looking at Lebanon's Khalil, it would be a close game." Hikigaya replied. "Not surprised though. Their center with the number 7 jersey is a strong shot blocker in the Euroleague..."
"Euroleague...?" Yukinoshita blinked her eyes. "Don't tell me you know him as well, Hikigaya-kun. I just can't imagine it."
Oi, that seriously hurts! Hikigaya's heart got chipped once more as he then replies. "Nah, I don't know him personally but I watched him play on television. The Euroleague's not as large as the NBA but it's equally famous and had their share of talents…"
"Wow I never knew you know those stuff, Hikki!" Yuigahama was genuinely amazed.
"I felt the same thing, considering it's coming from this insectoid of a human."
Do you really need to insult me everytime, woman?! Hikigaya scowled mentally as he continues. "Yuigahama, of course I know it. Yukinoshita, I'm going to pretend I didn't hear what you said."
As he game was tipped in between Murasakibara and Khalil, Kuroko suddenly asked Hikigaya. "By any chance, do you have someone in the Euroleague whom you look up to?"
"Like I look up to Wade? Hmmmph…" Hikigaya scratched his head. "Well, I do admit that there are a lot of players there that caught my attention like Vassilis Spanoulis, Nando de Colo, Nick Calathes, Ioannis Bourousis, Theodoros Papaloukas, Juan Carlos Navarro, etc. etc. But so far, none of them had the style that I can actually learn and adapt to my current style…"
"Fair enough, Hikigaya-kun. They do say that "monkeys do, monkeys copy." The resident Ice Queen of Sobu had a snarky smile which Hikigaya noticed immediately.
What are you trying to imply, Yukinoshita? Hikigaya mentally groaned while choosing to just keep quiet.
Fast forward, the game has ended rather fast despite only minimal substitution for both teams and that it's four quarters with 12 minutes each (NBA standard). Yet, for the group that was dubbed the Kiseki no Sedai, they were all panting heavily as they didn't expect to have a tough time putting away Khalil and their number 11 shooting guard in Imad Aoun as the score is at 99 to 96 in Japan's favour.
This was because Lebanon is actually a three-point shooting team that is as deadly, if not dealier, that Midorima, who is sitting in the bench right now because this was the first time since that match against Jabberwocks that he experienced a high-level game.
"Still had that effective air-walk and double-clutch Hachiman…" Ahmad, who was sweating from the game, shook hands with the equally exhausted Hikigaya. "As always, it's very hard to block those. But don't worry, we'll have our revenge this coming Olympics."
"I'll be waiting for you, then." Hikigaya lamely finished as Ahmad and the rest of the Lebanese squad all bade their farewell before heading out towards the door and leaving. As the rest of the Generation of Miracles were also busy packing up to go home, Yukinoshita then asked something to her club mate.
"I'm curious, Hikigaya-kun. How did you and Ahmad-san came to know each other, by the way?" The Service Club president asked.
"Ah, it's kinda lame to even know it but whatever. Basically, Teiko's so rich that at one point, the school announced that we would have our training overseas and it just happened to be in Lebanon." The man with rotten eyes recounts. "Then, we had a practice match with a school that happened to be Ahmad's school. Then one day, he bumped into me when we were warming up, asked for my name, and the rest of history." He finished lamely.
"So that's how you got to meet him? I didn't know you could socialize despite your rotten aura, Hikki!" It's not clear if she was being sarcastic or not.
"You could say we began to know each other because of basketball…" Hikigaya offered a more plausible explanation. "I do admit that we had the same attitude towards the sport at that time…"
After thirty more minutes, everyone had already been out of the gymnasium and by this time, the three Sobu students were walking with the rest of the Generation of Miracles since Akashi offered to take them to a nearby restaurant. As everyone was talking, though Aomine and Kise's voice are the ones that are over-the-top, Hikigaya and his two female club mates were walking silently in peace. Thank the heavens that it's peaceful for now on my part.
"Oh…Yukino-chan? Gahama-chan? Hikigaya-kun?"
"Ne-Nee-san?!"
Or not.
Sneak Peak: For a simple restaurant dinner, it somewhat became a bit awkward (and tense) as a certain elder Yukinoshita appeared too "conveniently" and commented about Akashi, who just let it slide for now. As the days past, more and more opponents from the past began to hear about Hikigaya's return to the basketball world as the national team began to slowly from and one day, the Service Club receives another request coming from…
Oh? Kiyoshi Teppei?
Hikigaya's not going to feel good about this.