A/N:
Hi!
Thank you for the follows! ;A; I honestly didn't expect to get a single one T-T (ugh sorry for being dramatic lol)
I know the romance could be a bit slow, sorry :(
Please understand that I'm also trying to build her relationships with the others and to show her growth as a coach.
Anyway, here it is~
A certain girl woke up in her room
Yes!
She woke up just in time for the morning practice. Since the morning practice was for first-string members, she will be their manager. After classes, she will be the coach for the third string.
Yesterday was tiring, not to mention her mother kept bugging her to invite 'Seijuurou-kun' to dinner after learning that the she had already met the boy and that he was even in the same class and club as her. Tsumiko just kept on saying 'we aren't even that close yet.' The older woman was still not contented with her teasing, but since her daughter looked so tired, she decided to let it go for now.
Thanks to a good night sleep, she felt refreshed and energized.
When she arrived at the gymnasium, almost everyone was present already. She even saw some of the new managers, including Momoi. Being the sole first-string manager with experience, she approached them and taught them.
She was leading the managers, and on the other hand, the second-year captain was leading the practice.
Not forgetting Coach Shirogane's orders to observe the first-string players, especially the four first-years, she noted that Akashi was really good at handling and passing the ball. Midorima's shooting form was noteworthy. He almost always shoots once he has the ball, and rarely misses, but when he did miss one shot, he started being hesitant. Murasakibara, thanks to his height, could block shots. However, he was moving lazily and was having trouble against very agile players, like a certain blue-haired first-year.
Ah, Aomine.
Aomine was the most skilled among the four. He probably carries the most potential among them.
She was amazed on how freely he moves and how much fun he seems to be having. She couldn't help but smile as she watched the tan boy naturally move around the court, with both a relaxed and a predatory expression on his face, as if it the court was his home to belong in and his territory to protect.
"How long has Aomine-san been playing?" Tsumiko turned to the pink-haired girl, who lit up to the white-haired girl's question.
"I'm not so sure when exactly. All I know is that he has always been holding a basketball ever since we were little" Momoi smiled softly, as she reminisced her childhood mostly spent with the tan boy.
"He just looks so happy" Tsumiko remarked, as she tracked the boy at the court.
"Yeah. All he cares about is basketball. He's such a basketball idiot"
The two girls chuckled at this.
When morning practice ended, they all changed into their school uniforms.
"Oi Satsuki, why aren't we going yet?" Aomine impatiently asked.
His friend was being weird, usually she was the one bugging him to hurry up and go to class. Well, not that he cared about being late, but he just didn't understand why they were just dumbly standing in front of the changing rooms. Heck – the other first-years had already left for their classrooms.
"Dai-chan, let's just wait for a little while" Momoi replied while looking expectantly at the changing rooms. She just couldn't let this opportunity pass. She didn't have much female friends before and she thought that their white-haired manager seemed to be nice. A minute later, she saw the said manager exit the changing rooms.
"Irosuzuka-san!" Momoi exclaimed at her, to which Tsumiko reacted with a confused look.
The tan boy seemed to catch on his childhood friend's plans, so he grinned at the white-haired manager "Yo, Irosuzuka!"
"Momoi-san, Aomine-san." She gave them both a warm smile, not really expecting them to wait for her. But she also recalled that they were also kind enough to help her find her class yesterday.
Blue, pink and white walked together.
"Oh oh, do you wanna know what I told Dai- Aomine-kun to convince him to find your name on the board?" Tsumiko noticed that the pink-haired girl still struggled in changing the way she called her childhood friend. Earlier, Tsumiko said she didn't mind Momoi calling him 'Dai-chan' but Momoi insisted, reasoning out that she needs to get used in calling him 'Aomine-kun' or else people will talk.
"Oi Satsuki!"
On the other hand, 'Dai-chan' doesn't seem to mind letting people know about their closeness.
"Well, if you guys don't mind" Tsumiko replied with a shrug.
"You see, I promised to accompany him this Saturday to look for basketball shoes. He's been talking about it for days now. I told you, he's such a basketball idiot" the pinkette said, ignoring the protests of her bluenette friend, such as 'Hey! I do mind!' and 'What ya talking 'bout? Don't make it look like I didn't want to help her.'
In the end, he simply groaned in defeat. At the sight of the two childhood friends, the shorter girl let out a giggle.
During lunch break, some of her friends from elementary invited her to join them. Thinking that this would be an opportunity to get closer to them –especially since her closest friend from elementary, Igarashi Sena, had migrated to London due to her father's job – she agreed.
"Irosuzuka-chan, I heard from a friend, who applied for the basketball team, that four first-years made it to the first-string. Is that true?" The girl across her with a ribbon on top of her long black hair, Mizuki Kyoko, asked, after the white-haired girl informed them of her position in the basketball team.
"Yes, everyone was surprised. The two of them are actually from our class, Akashi-san and Midorima-san." Tsumiko answered, before biting into an egg roll.
"Akashi? The top of our batch? Wow, so he seems to be great at everything. Well, Midorima is actually tall." The other girl with a brown bob, Chitose Nao, considered with a shrug.
Tsumiko slowly nodded, trying to hide her shame for not knowing who the top of their batch. She couldn't let them know that she wasn't paying attention during the opening ceremony.
It didn't really help that that person is the very person who sits in front of her.
She heard that the Akashi heir was smart, based from the times that the name 'Seijuurou-kun' was brought up in some of her family's conversations, but she didn't expect him to be that smart and that talented in basketball. When she had met the head of the Akashi group, she did deem him to be the perfectionist type, so maybe his son was the same.
"Hey, but isn't it funny that you three are in the same class and club? When I told my mom about my classmates yesterday, she said that both the Akashi group and Irosuzuka group have large shares in Kenko Medical Center wherein Midorima's dad is the hospital director. It must be fate." Mizuki prattled.
The Irosuzuka daughter stopped chewing her food for a while, at another new information. The girl across her noticed this, so she also stopped eating and asked, "You didn't know?"
Yes, she didn't know.
Why, it's only normal for a middle-schooler, specifically a 12-year-old, not to know things like that.
Except, of course, for one Mizuki Kyoko.
Tsumiko gulped down her food before saying "I didn't know about Midorima-san's dad"
The black-haired girl simply nodded and continued eating her food. The silver-haired girl did the same while remembering that Mizuki's mom works under the Chief Finance Officer or CFO of the corporation that owns the medical center, so it was no wonder she knew such things –which were confidential things, by the way, but oh well, they're just middle-schoolers.
Mizuki seemed to have inherited her mom's interest in finance and business, so it was also not surprising that she joined the entrepreneurship club. On the other hand, the brown-haired girl with them was good at designing and building props, so she became part of the drama club –much to the surprise of others, not really expecting anything from the girl who was sometimes stoic.
It was just last year, when she became classmates with the two other girls. Her fellow 6th grader, Mizuki, approached her and her first question was if she is the daughter of the Irosuzuka chairman. Naturally, the question caught her off guard, but thankfully, another 6th grader called Chitose clarified things. Although they were all friendly among each other, they didn't really become that close since Mizuki already had her own group of friends, which includes Chitose, while Tsumiko mostly hung out with her closest friend, Igarashi.
After eating her lunch, Tsumiko excused herself to go back to her seat, saying that she needs to fix her notes from their previous class. A few minutes later, her green-haired neighbor came back to the classroom, sat down next to her, and read a book.
He saw in his peripheral view that the white-haired girl stopped writing on her notebook and was looking at his direction, but he simply ignored this. However, when he noticed that the girl was still looking at him, he sighed and asked "What?", without removing his eyes from the book, of course.
Embarrassed at being caught staring, she started saying "Uh. Um I-", hesitating a bit before continuing, "I learned from a friend that your father is the director at Kenko Medical Center..and uh, my dad's company has some..um ", voice getting quieter with every word.
Tsumiko really didn't know what she was getting to. Normally, she wouldn't talk about her dad and the company, so what was she even doing now?
Of course, what the 12-year-old wanted to do was to be friendly and to start a conversation with a potential friend.
Still pretending to read his book he replied "So? What about it?"
He already knew from yesterday that she was the daughter of the Irosuzuka group head and the red-haired boy was the son of the Akashi group head. It wasn't like he was particularly interested in business to know about these details. He just happened to see a document, containing a list of shareholders, on his father's study, when he was once snooping –no – looking over his father's medical books.
A bit disheartened at the display of his disinterest, she was about to say 'nothing' and 'nevermind' when she thought about something.
"My friend just thought that it must be fate" she said, putting full emphasis on the word 'fate'.
Hearing the word 'fate', the green-haired boy turned towards her.
Yes!
Tsumiko gave herself a mental high-five when the boy matter-of-factly replied "Well, fate is indeed interesting. I believe in it. Therefore, I always bring my lucky item for the day, which, by the way, is a hair brush.", pointing to the hair brush neatly placed on his desk.
To keep the conversation going, she was about to ask about her lucky item for the day when the bell rang, signaling the end of the lunch break. The bespectacled boy looked back to his book before placing it inside his bag. The girl then faced front and she was greeted with a sight of red.
Ah, because of her conversation with the boy on her right, she didn't even notice that Akashi was back.
"Kuroko Tetsuya"
The manager/coach-in-training called out, as she was currently in the middle of checking the attendance of the third-string members. When she received no response, she finally realized that it was that boy from yesterday. Thus, she repeated the name and looked very hard everywhere, like a hawk hunting its prey, until she saw a pale hand raised, and that's when she heard his soft voice saying "Here."
Yes!
Feeling satisfied with this achievement of hers, she nodded at him, and in return, he gave her a slight smile.
To observe and assess their individual skills, she let them have practice matches, with the approval of the third-string coach, Matsuoka Daigo. She then asked all of them to do the basic training exercises, thinking about the possible training regimens for each of them, especially for a certain teal-haired guy. After assessing Kuroko's skills, she planned to give him a strict training regimen, but after seeing him throw up sparkly rainbow things at one point, she decided that maybe she could take it a bit easier on the poor boy's training regimen.
'Besides, he seems to be really passionate about basketball.' She mentally noted.
Noticing that several members were exhausted, she was given permission by Coach Matsuoka to end the practice a bit earlier.
It took some time of arguing herself before the voice of friendships-and-something-more won, causing her to decide to pass by the first-string gym to say goodbye to Nijimura and the others.
After learning that she would be walking alone, the said captain asked her if she wanted to wait for a bit, so he can walk her home. They were about to end the practice anyway.
The white-haired girl felt warm and actually considered the suggestion, but the voice of conscience toppled over others, as she didn't want to bother him since her house was out of his way home. Despite assuring him that she'll be fine, the older boy still threatened her to go home straight away and to make sure to arrive home safely, without forgetting to tell her to text him when she got home.
She then gave a one last 'bye' before rushing towards the gym's entrance, ignoring the snickers of some second and third years, who were eavesdropping on their conversation. As soon as she got out of the gym, she heard some curses and threats from a certain captain, followed by whines and cries for help, probably from those second and third years.
The voice of friendships-and-something-more giggled at this.
"Coach" a voice that was certainly not the voice of friendships-and-something-more nor the voice of conscience was heard.
The said coach yelped and jumped to her side and saw a slightly taller boy beside her.
"Kuroko-san! Since when?" she asked, trying to calm herself.
"I followed you to the first-string gym because I wanted to ask you something" he nonchalantly said, as if the situation was just so normal.
Well, it was normal for him.
He then began walking towards the gate. The girl, who was still recovering from the shock, followed behind him, tracing back on his words.
'Wait. Gym?' Tsumiko panicked at this thought
"Kuroko-san, were you also inside the first-string gym?"
With his usual stoic expression, he answered, "Yes. You seem to be really close with the captain.", but Tsumiko sensed something that was like teasing tone coming from the monotone guy. She was now tempted to forget about her decision about taking it easy on his training regimen –much to the panic of the voice of conscience.
Her own voice squeaked a little–just a little –as she spoke,"We're not that close" emphasizing on the word 'that' to deny whatever he was trying to imply. Wanting to close the topic, she further said "By the way, what were you supposed to ask me?"
Fortunately, Kuroko had his own priorities.
"I would just like to ask about your assessment on my skills, if that would be okay?"
The girl beside him was about to turn right, but due to his question, she paused in walking and looked at him. He also paused and met her eyes.
His teal eyes were still blank, but they held a hint of determination, encouraging the girl to be truthful.
"Well, to be honest, I think you'll need to work on your endurance and skills first. I'm still not sure where you're good at specifically"
Sensing that the boy was feeling a bit down, she added "but I see your passion and I believe that this will lead you somewhere. Let's both work on it, okay?"
Kuroko saw light in her dark eyes and sincerity in her smile, so he also gave her a genuine smile, "Thank you, coach. We shall. I promise to do my best."
"Y-you don't need to call me coach. I mean I'm not yet officially one, I guess." She said, tucking a silver strand of hair to her ears, feeling a bit of both excitement and awkwardness with being addressed to as 'coach'.
Remembering that the white-haired girl was about to turn right earlier, he said, while pointing to his left, "Well then, Irosuzuka-san. I'll be heading this way. See you tomorrow." He then gave her a slight bow. She returned the gesture, before heading to the road on her right.
She then thought about stopping over by the bakery on the way to her house to buy some bread, completely forgetting about Nijimura's threats of her going home straight away. Though, she doesn't forget to text him when she got home.
She simply got an 'Okay' in response, but she still wore a dumb smile while reading his message.
The voice of reason face-palmed at this.
Akashi was sitting inside a car on his way home.
Earlier, he was surprised to see a very familiar black Mercedes-Benz near the school gates after practice. Good thing, no one was around since he was probably the first one who finished changing.
The Akashi heir did remember telling his chauffeur, Yamamura-san, yesterday to stop the car at a spot near the school, and that as much as possible, he won't be needing him to drive him to school and to drive him back home anymore. He even specifically notified him that he would be going home by himself today.
He had given his instructions very clearly. He was certain.
After questioning Yamamura-san, he learned that his father was unexpectedly back from his business trip and would like to meet him as soon as possible.
The red-head was too deep in his thoughts, that he didn't notice passing by a certain silver-haired girl walking on the sidewalk while swinging a plastic bag of pastry on her hand.
A/N:
Yes!
To Tsumiko's new friends, Momoi and Aomine (i love them both)
To Tsumiko's lunchmates, Mizuki and Chitose
To our favorite Tsunderima (i really enjoy writing from his POV)
To the voices inside Tsumiko's head (lol)
To Niji's 'Okay' T-T
To Kuroko (everyone's bby)
To Akashi (just gotta say that he is one of the main characters in this story, along with Niji and Tsumiko)
Finally,
Yes!
To my lovely followers ;A; and to everyone who's reading this.
Please let me know what you think~
