The next few months seemed to pass by in a blur. Aomine managed to get his schedule figured out, embarrassed to find that he would be taking a few pre-college college courses before he could take the ones needed to complete his degree because he had done poorly on the placement exams. Somehow, he managed to get into highest level English courses, though they focused mostly on writing papers and comprehension, but it meant that he'd only have to take a couple of those classes to graduate rather than a whole smorgasbord of them. While not high school level, he'd been forced to register for basic science courses since they were the lowest level the school offered. After receiving his scores, he had told no one. He'd torn the print out up and thrown it right in the recycling bin, face beet red as he stormed out of the computer lab. The last one he'd had to suffer through was math, though it ended up being his easiest assessment and he'd passed with flying colours. If he hadn't needed at least one four credit course to graduate, he would have tested out of math altogether.
Somehow, maybe due to the influence from the Gods of fate, or just sheer luck, he and Kagami wound up in a few of the same classes. The redhead sheepishly told him the first week of classes that he had basically failed all of his assessments except the English one, so he had actually taken the entry level courses over the summer so that he wouldn't be behind. "I knew you were stupid, Bakagami, but that didn't mean you had to live up to your name!" Aomine gawked at him, stopped dead in his tracks with amazement.
"You don't have to tell me twice, Ahomine-"
"You don't even have the right to be calling me that, you shit fer brains-"
"Shut yer mouth wouldja?" The boy got in his face, baring his teeth. "I already heard enough of it from my parents after they told me they wouldn't pay for remedial classes for such a brain-dead child." Onlookers walked past quickly, suppressing giggles and speaking in hushed tones. A few suspicious looking guys stopped to try and egg them on, chanting fight, fight, fight from a safe distance. Sparks flew between them.
"Aho, I don't even speak English and I did better than you. This is American college we're talking about, here. Are you even fucking trying?" Aomine leaned in until their foreheads nearly touched, jabbing an accusatory finger at his chest.
Kagami defiantly closed the gap, ramming his own forehead hard against the other players. "The hell you don't speak English. Don't give me that shit." They shoved each other back and forth, growling like mad dogs as they attempted to assert dominance. "And the fuck you mean this is an American college? Hard subjects are hard no matter where you are."
"A preschooler could have passed those tests and you managed to fail two out of three areas?"
"Huuuhnnnn?" Their growling intensified as well as their bickering until people half way across campus caught sounds of what could have been rabid wolves on the wind. The boys didn't speak for a week afterwards.
In the meantime, Aomine settled into student life. His classes were dull, but manageable, and he managed to snag a part time student job helping out a professor with some basic secretarial work. He didn't have to interact with people, and it helped kill ten hours a week of his time. The professor was amicable, but often buried himself in so much work that he hardly noticed whether the boy was there or not, and didn't seem to care one way or another about the effort put forth in handling the daily tasks he was given. Aomine liked the guy and most often used this two-hour window to catch up on homework or watching pick-up games on his phone. He couldn't believe how often games were broadcast live, here. It was a never-ending stream of information and players. He drank in the information like he'd otherwise die of thirst.
At night he found himself going for extended runs, sometimes going as far as ten miles or more, before heading out to the courts near campus. The group of men he'd met his first week there played almost every single night, with a few regulars but mostly an ever-rotating cast of… interesting… members. David, to Aomine's dismay, was one of the regulars who showed up and his haughty attitude towards him hadn't changed a bit. Jayron didn't show up for close to a month and even after he managed to come back, he shrank away from him like a kicked puppy. The bruises left by his fingers took months to heal completely. Not only that but he'd managed to assert some dominance, and despite the bad blood built between them, he often found himself at the center of the matches. They spent a lot of time trying to undermine his skill but failed again and again until they gave up.
One evening, about half way through a game, Kagami showed up with an unfamiliar face in tow. "This is my girlfriend, Whitney."
She waved, smiling. "I already know most of you. Who's this newbie?" She looked at Aomine with wide, strikingly blue, eyes. It was a stark contrast to her olive skin, but matched beautifully with the ashy-blonde of her hair.
Wiping sweat off his forehead, Aomine smirked and replied, "Daiki. Aomine Daiki." Kagami's been holding out on me. While not nearly as tall as the redhead, she still would have easily towered over the average woman, standing at nearly six feet tall. He had the feeling that had been in sports for most of her life seeing as she was wearing a crop top that barely covered her small chest and exposed her toned midriff. While she didn't have abs, there was definitely definition there. She probably ran, or did track.
"He's the one I told you about. The one who followed me from Japan."
"Hey!" He barked, scowling. "You're making me sound like a love-sick girlfriend or something. I didn't follow you specifically. I came here to try and get into the NBA."
Kagami grimaced. "Love-sick girlfriend? Blech. I don't even want to think about that. How else am I supposed to say it?"
"Ehh? Use that thick head of yours. We're rivals, you hear me? Rivals."
Whitney laughed, a deep and rich sound that came all the way from her belly. "I can see that you two get along. I've heard a lot about you."
"Get along where?" They asked in union, turning identical flabbergasted gazes on her.
She doubled over in laughter, her long hair falling into her face. "You guys are hilarious. Taiga, I knew you were an idiot but this is too much." He stared at her with a deer-in-headlights look, trying to calculate where she could have drawn that conclusion. "Well, whatever. Daiki, was it?" He nodded. "It's nice to meet you, but I seem to have come at a bad time. Do y'all need any more players?"
"You play?" He asked, dumbfounded. "These guys are pretty rough."
She cocked an eyebrow at him and put her hands on her hips. "Would you say that to another guy? Don't underestimate me."
"Watch what you say to her." Another player from behind him said. "She's violent as fuck."
"You scared of a woman?" David asked, laughing. "She's a pussy just like any other bitch."
"How can you say that after she wiped the floor with you last weekend?"
He sputtered. "I was just off my game-"
"Sure, you were. Just know that if she's playing, I want to be on her team."
Aomine looked at them, dumbfounded. "You guys let her play with you?"
They rubbed the backs of their heads, sour looks on their faces. "Cause Taiga makes us. Says that she wants a real challenge once in a while. If I had my way she wouldn't."
"Dude, she can hear you."
"So what? She knows her place."
"She shouldn't be playing basketball; she should be at home in the kitchen making sandwiches and babies. That's all women are good for, anyway." David growled. "But because y'all are pussies, and are scared of some monkey from the jungle, she gets to play."
Aomine's gaze shifted to the woman and was shocked to see that her expression hadn't changed. She stood her ground as though she hadn't heard them. American woman are a different breed. He thought, admiringly. Maybe that's insulting? The thought crossed his mind. He'd been spending a lot of time with Kaylee and had started thinking about how he spoke about women, though it didn't change much. Turning his gaze back he said to the men, "Oy. Watch what you say."
"Weren't you just saying the same thing? Or are you trying to win her over hoping she'll sleep with you?"
"Watch you mouth." Kagami spoke just then, fury in his eyes.
Whitney sighed, loudly, in exasperation. "Taiga, down boy. Are you guys going to play or not? I don't have time to deal with a bunch of man babies tonight. If we're not playing, I'm heading to the gym." She put a hand on top of guys head and stroked it like he was a dog as he sat there baring his fangs. Slowly he settled, though the anger in his eyes remained.
"She can play." Aomine said, chucking the ball he was holding at her. She caught it easily, hands moving from her hips to her chest in one fluid motion. "Kagami, you're playing too."
"Of course, I am, Ahomine." Finally, he smiled - a dark glint in his eye as they approached the court.
"Hey, what about the game we were playing?"
"I was already dragging you through the mud, just accept it as a loss." Aomine said. "You couldn't have won if we played five more games."
"Since there's three of us, why don't we play three-on-three?" Whitney offered, spinning the ball on the tip of her finger. It balanced as though it had always been there – like it was an extension of her hand. "I'm sure y'all wouldn't mind since having me on their team would be giving these guys a handicap… Right?" Aomine shivered as the air around her shifted. She'd already had a strong prescense, but now that she stood on the court, she reminded him a bit of his former teammates. He was getting excited. What sort of basketball is she going to show me, Kagami?
David sneered. "Fine but don't come crying when you get hurt, bitch." He reached out to snatch the ball from her but she swiftly stepped around him without the ball every losing its spin. When he reached out again, she dropped the ball to dribble, her body hunched forward as passed the ball from hand to hand, every flick of the wrist effortless. As he reached towards her, again and again, she took a step back, raised her arms, and shot. The ball flew through the air, bounced once on the rim, and then tipped into the basket. The sound of it hitting the court echoed in the evenings silence.
"I'll make sure that if I need to cry, I'll do it in Taiga's shoulder." She drove a hand through her hair, grinning. "That's acceptable, right honey?" The sarcasm in her tone oozed like honey, sweet and thick.
Without even noticing the two of them were both grinning; Kagami with pure appreciation, and Aomine excitement and anticipation. He'd never played with a girl of this level before. They'd only just met, but he could easily see what attracted the redhead. He'd found himself a good one. He licked his lips as the tension mounted. "You'd better now hold us back." A shiver ran up his spine. One similar to when he played with Tetsu. What sorts of unknowns was she going to bring to the table?
She snorted and ran to pick up the ball. Passing it to Kagami, she took the hair tie off her wrist and tied her hair up in a knot at the nape of her neck. "Who says it's going to be me holding us back?" Both boys shook with joy at the obvious provocation. The game was on.
And it was over before they knew it. The regular players couldn't hold a candle to Whitney even as they repeatedly checked her, being much more aggressive than they usually wore. With no ref, there was no one to call foul play, but the number of times she got knocked on her ass was uncalled for. Despite this, she scored more points on her own than the entirety of their team together. While not a hundred percent accurate like Midorima, the number of times she swooshed the ball in was unreal. Her footwork was fast, and nimble, and with her small frame even more so. She wove in out and out of players like they weren't even then, often passing the ball between their legs before shooting down the court like a meteorite. After the first quarter she suddenly had two of the three players guarding her but they were like mice against a vulture. Her sharp eyes let her find the smallest opening and she could pass the ball to either of them without hardly a glance. Unfortunately, like Tetsu, her biggest downfall was her stamina, though she outdid everyone on the opposing team by a long shot. By the end of the match, they had three completely different players than they started with, and although she was gasping for air, her hair and clothes matted with sweat to her body, she was still standing. All the others were collapsed at the picnic table, faces green with nausea as the tried their best to not pass out.
When the final point was scored, she fell to the ground and let out a yell, dropping back onto her hands, head drooping back as if too heavy to hold up. "Fuck I'm tired!" She screamed at no on in particular, though she was still smiling. "You two are animals. Did you grow up in a fucking zoo? Did they do experiments on ya as a child? How the fuck are you still standing?"
Aomine wiped his face of sweat with his t-shirt and extended a hand to her which she took a long, long, moment to take hold of. Helping her to his feet he said, "That's what happens you play a lot of strong people. If I'm going to be number one, I can't let a few punks from the streets beat me."
"Let me know what your parents were feeding ya so that I can give it to my future children."
"You're not half bad yourself. What's with that footwork?"
She eyed him, dubious. "I don't want to hear that coming from you. Taiga, I get what you were saying now. You played this monster in high school?"
"And won." He said smugly, coming up and wrapping an arm around her shoulders. She made a face. "Oh, sorry, do I smell?" He teased, rubbing his armpit against her arm.
"Ugh that's disgusting."
Kagami's face went serious for just a moment, though, as he added, "Though it wasn't just me. I had some really awesome upper classmen. Without them I couldn't have done anything." He paused. "Not to mention that demon of a coach." He shuddered as he remembered the beach running he did.
"That shrimp was really something. You guys were so scared of her it was hilarious."
"Her? Your coach was a girl?"
"Oh yeah, I never told you? She was one of our upper classmen. Her dad was a sports therapist or something so she was super smart about like muscles and stuff."
She nodded, knowingly. "That would make a lot of sense then why you didn't brush me off."
"His coach here is a woman, too."
"Alex, right? Didn't she play for the WNBA?"
"Yeah, but now she just coaches street brats like him how to play." Aomine threw a thumb in Kagami's direction. He glared at him, but the boy paid him no mind. "Anyway. It was fun to play, Whitney. Next time I look forward to winning."
Her eyes widened. "We did win, or do you have short term memory loss?"
"I mean against you." He extended his hand, his usual cocky smirk spreading over his face. She paused but then, saying nothing in reply, took his hand and shook, gripping tight.
