So, I'm back with a new installment to this story, and because I was gone, it's a bit longer than normal, which I'm sure will be a nice thing, yeah?
Happy reading!
Disclaimer: {I do not own anything Kuroko no Basuke related, unfortunately. I do own my OCs, Ayako, Akako, and Yuki. Quote belongs to Edvard Munch and the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu also does not belong to me, nor does any psychology mentioning of Synesthesia.}
Chapter III: Of Glasses, Fire and Bubbly Pinkettes
The colors live a remarkable life of their own after they have been applied to the canvas. – Edvard Munch
A certain raven-haired girl sat in a dull classroom surrounded by school uniforms, blackboards filled with a menagerie of words and numbers, and windows featuring the outside world known to all schoolchildren as freedom.
With the gossiping mouths of girls and the boisterous sounds of boys goofing around, everything slowly dwindled into the endless doldrums of white noise. Nothing was as important as the book entitled Basketball 101 that the girl was completely engrossed in.
Well, that was, until a rather high-pitched voice broke through all the other noises.
"So, how does the infamous Ice Queen go from corny poetry and outlandishly bizarre fantasy novels to Basketball rules, guidelines and other boredom that most boys would find entertaining?"
There, berating her in her peripheral line of sight was none other than her sardonic childhood friend whom she'd much rather consider a close acquaintance, Shibata Akako, a fiery, red-headed matrix of energy and sarcastic wit. Akako was someone Yuki could admire for her exuberance and demean for her negligence in obeying the beauty of silence and tranquility. She was truly a spark waiting to ignite.
Knowing that postponing a response any longer would only truly end in disaster, Yuki found a way to admonish her eccentric friend.
"You do realize basketball can be played equally by both genders, yes?"
Akako scoffed. "That didn't even answer my question, Yuki! Stop reading for once in your life, you bookworm!" Putting her hands on her hips, Akako bent so that she was just above eye-level with Yuki. It was time to finally encounter the giant.
Yuki looked up in the purest form of nonchalance. She'd gotten enough badgering from her sister and teachers in school to know that for some reason, people enjoyed her company more when her head was not in a book. This type of attack barely even bothered her. However, such a fact did not change the belief that books were far more entertaining than any reality Yuki could be a part of, an idea so strange that not even her parents could understand why she felt the need to hide behind the pages written by a plethora of authors.
Sighing impolitely, Yuki mumbles out an unsettled, "I've stopped reading. Are you pleased now?"
Akako clicked her tongue, annoyed. Apparently her sarcasm would go underappreciated today.
Continuing far unhappier than she would have been if she'd had the pleasure of including some snark into the conversation, Yuki continues, "I've grown . . . mildly attached to basketball. It's interesting."
"'Attached.' You've grown attached to something. Well isn't this idea just fascinating!" With such an expected sarcastic remark, Yuki cringed.
"Wait, Akako! Don't you dare say –"
Entirely ignoring Yuki, Akako raised her voice several decibels higher than it already was. "Did you hear that everyone? Our dearest Ice Queen actually likes something!"
Garnering the attention of many, several of her peers felt the need to glance over at Yuki and her boisterous friend with interest – enough so to make Yuki feel ill.
"What is with you and Ayako always bringing unwanted attention to me?! Would you sit down and actually look like you go to school and want to get a sufficient education!" She whispered out heatedly, almost losing her breath towards the end of her sentence.
Yuki looked down at her desk while her face grew several unfortunate shades redder than her friend's hair.
Laughing at Yuki, she sat down rather flamboyantly. "I'm happy for you, don't you get it? You haven't voluntarily liked anything for as long as I've known you. I just wish you'd – oh! I don't know – explain yourself! There's a reason why I consider you my friend, and yet you always find ways to be as secretive as ever."
"Did you have to share with the rest of the class? And then say that ridiculous nickname as well?" Yuki hated that monster of a title that she'd been ungraciously given.
"I remember the days when you used to love it~"
Glaring over at Akako, Yuki saw a different gaze watching her from the corner of the room. An entirely different red.
A passionate red. The red that made her think of the Ogura Hyakunin Isshu, specifically the seventeenth poem, Ariwara no Narihira. His eyes were that very same rich, autumn red.
Watching Yuki's gaze, Akako looked over to see what caught her eye. "Oh my! Did I actually manage to get the attention of the one and only Akashi Seijūrō?! He's usually reading all the time, too! What a glorious day!"
"Who can read with you yelling the entire time?!" Yuki lightly slammed her notebook on Akako's head.
It was the dawn of their math class – the worst class of the day in a certain raven-haired girl's opinion. Math was a trying task on a frequent basis but coupled with an overly strict teacher and her unbelievably talkative friend, Yuki was at a loss. The numbers always seemed to blur into a cobweb of dysfunction. Only certain aspects of math were enjoyable, and those moments were always cherished in Yuki's heart. Unfortunately, it seemed to her that the math teachers always knew which sections were better than others, so naturally, those were almost always the shortest.
Math was not only difficult based on her teacher and certain inability to retain the specific amount of formulas that piled up on each other every year. No, Yuki had noticed an increasingly weird trend whenever she looked at numbers: she saw colors associated with certain numbers. When she attempted to explain to Akako once how disconcerting it was to see colors with numbers, she gave her a startled look as though she'd lost it, and practically blurted to the entire class that she'd connected specific colors with numbers, which most certainly would have landed her somewhere far less receptive of her abilities.
Yuki just as soon realized that most people shouldn't overhear her "talent" of sorts. Knowing her parents wouldn't like to hear that their daughter was experiencing a strange phenomenon, Yuki privately looked to books to answer her growing concerns.
She had Synesthesia, a concept in which a union of senses is made in the brain. One sense stimulates a second one. Yuki self-diagnosed herself as having 'grapheme', a color synesthesia in which numbers may appear colored in a certain fashion.
Learning in school was always like painting a picture when numbers appeared. Everyone else was faced with the revered black, white and gray. However, Yuki experienced a color palate broader than even a painter's greatest dream of mixed and blended hues.
Either way, Yuki would certainly never be a math person in any sense. Which was why, when her teacher called on her at this very moment, she had no answer to give him.
"It's a simplistic equation, Yuki. All you have to do is solve for both 'x' and 'y' respectively."
Yuki froze. Solving for more than one variable was lways a challenge to her, and Akako was of no use today – apparently doodles were very "in" at the moment. An inner cold began to sweep through her body, rattling her bones as she realized that the number of eyes on her began to drastically increase after each second combined into an even slower minute.
A sigh broke through the growing silence. "'X' is five, and 'y' is two."
She looked over to the speaker, a green-haired bespectacled boy with a rather bizarre attachment to tape from what she could see; it was wrapped rather precisely around the fingers on his left hand.
Akako whispered to her rather conspiratorially, "Wow, Yuki, saved by Midorima-san at exactly the most opportune moment." She smiled because she knew Yuki couldn't stand to have him help her yet again. This occurrence was slowly evolving into a bad habit.
Midorima turned around at exactly the instance that Akako opened her mouth and gave Yuki a glare. It would make sense that he could answer the question so quickly; he was one of the highest-ranking members in the class.
"So annoying. I'm in one of the smartest classes in the school and I can't even answer a 'simplistic' equation properly."
"Ne, Yuki?"
She looked over at Akako who was still entirely immersed in her doodle, which was slowly becoming a full-out drawing of . . . a flower. "Hmm?"
"You do realize basketball has some math involved, right? As does any sport?"
Yuki slowly sunk further into her chair in embarrassment. It was going to be a long day.
The final bell had rung for the day, signifying after-school clean-up and club-activities. Yuki quickly shuffled all of her notebooks and pencils into a disheveled heap and threw them in the bag completely unfazed by the organized disarray that probably made sense only to her.
It was time to escape to her humble abode – the library. However, her optimistic escapade was cut short for the first time in a long while.
"You do realize that that's the fifth time I've already had to answer a math problem you couldn't solve."
It wasn't a question. It was a pointed statement.
Yuki didn't even have to look to know who was speaking to her. She sighed. "Your point, Midorima-san?"
"I continued to wonder why – math-wise – the grade average has been relatively low since the beginning of the quarter, and now I see that all reasons point to you."
"Are you here to continue to make me feel bad or are we on the verge to a solution?"
Gliding over the question, Midorima continued, "So, I've been – unfortunately – tasked to help you with developing what could be your nonexistent math skills. However, I have basketball practice for a good portion of the afternoon on most weekdays."
Yuki sighed again, contemplating whether the number of wrinkles appearing on her forehead would one day become permanent. There's no way she was getting a tutor for math. He'd eventually find out about the numbers and the colors, and she didn't need another reason to have him be annoyed with her. Why was everything going horribly wrong today?
She tried to shrug away his offer. "You really don't have – "
Cutting her off, Midorima made sure to throw a final curveball at her. "So, after discussing it with the captain and the coach, I've decided that you'll help Momoi-san."
At this point, Yuki was beyond bewildered. Who was this 'Momoi' he spoke of and why did they need help? Wasn't she the ignoramus who couldn't solve math problems and needed a tutor? Wasn't she the one who needed the most help?
Appearing to have acknowledged the increasingly pale features on Yuki's face, Midorima carried on, "She's the manager for the basketball team and somehow continues to complain on a continual and habitual basis about how she'd love to have another person help her out in handling the lot of us on the team. So, during practices, you'll help Momoi-san, and afterwards, I'll . . . enlighten you on how most people actually accomplish rudimentary math problems."
Yuki's jaw dropped. You read a basketball manual for a day and suddenly you find yourself assisting in managing a team.
Midorima began to walk away while Yuki inwardly questioned the meaning behind her entire existence until she noted a rather green presence come near her yet again.
Clearing his throat to get her attention, Midorima said, "Practice starts now," as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Yuki nodded.
Midorima sighed, understanding that she most certainly was not understanding. "Meaning: You start now."
Stepping into the gymnasium with a purpose entirely different from typical gym class was completely new and daunting to Yuki. Teikō took sports a little too seriously in her opinion; practices were rigorous, the games, radical, and the coaches . . . far from friendly.
Perhaps those three ingredients were the ones that created perfection, seeing as Teikō never lost. Their reputation seemed spotless, revered and honored by all middle schools, another reason as to why Yuki's poor math score was probably becoming a glaring misdemeanor in the gradebook.
A different issue was becoming more noticeable: Midorima was tall; Yuki was not as tall. Each of his strides took up at least two of hers. By the time they had reached the gym, Yuki felt like she'd been running to catch the train. She put her hands on her knees to calm her breathing.
While she attempted to regain homeostasis, Midorima went to open the doors, and then seemed to realize he forgot something. So, he paused and slowly turned to her.
"Yes?" Yuki said, still rather breathlessly.
"Do you follow the zodiac signs?" He gave her an intense gaze as though her very existence depended on her response to the question.
"Like that, um, one second, what's the title of it? The uh, Oha Asa Horoscopes?"
Midorima gave a curt nod. Apparently she was doing rather well. Maybe her existence was worth the trials and tribulations she went through.
"Well, occasionally then, I suppose. Mine never seem to truly work out as well as I hope." Yuki reflected on her past encounters with horoscopes: they never really fit her personality type.
"Because you don't strictly follow them on a daily basis."
"Oh, okay! Sure. I'm not going to get into a lifelong contract with Oha Asa horoscopes. Come on!" Like she needed to her a devoted follower of these nonsensical horoscopes preach to her about how she had to live her life.
And then it hit her. "Wait, aren't you late to practice?"
Midorima sighs. "You missed the point."
"How on earth did I miss a point that was never there?"
He glared at her, clearly not enjoying her sarcastic attitude. "Your astrological sign, what is it?" The look he gave her spoke volumes for how intense of an inquiry this concept was to him.
Yuki rolled her eyes, realizing the longer she was around this great green giant, the deeper she'd fall into his insanity pool of star signs. "None of your business."
He gave her a hard look before fishing around in his bag for something. With the intensity he was scoping his bag, Yuki assumed it was an object of vital importance. "So, uh, what are you aggressively trying to discover in that bag of yours?"
"The lucky item."
"The lucky item? What about it?" Yuki pauses. "No way. You don't honestly carry one with you –"
"Every day, yes. So, here's your first assignment, Assistant Manager." And with that, the bizarre bespectacled boy left Yuki in the company of an . . . orange.
Momoi was a bundle of pink wrapped in chaotically positive energy negated by her boisterous undertones and unbelievably well-gifted bosom. Meaning: Momoi was the antithesis to everything and anything that Yuki was.
Momoi was the Yuki she never could be, and it was a strangely entertaining feeling to be near someone so unlike yourself.
Of course, their meeting was anything but normal. Yuki was subjected to jumping into the gym rather timidly, witnessing a great multitude of already sweating and tall boys with ages ranging from beneath her to above her. After walking around the gym with a few intrigued glances her way, Yuki came close to the . . . coaches, she assumed. As she approached, she bowed in respect, only to have the main coach look away.
Apparently, she wasn't the most important thing to cover in the gymnasium today – not that she minded. Yuki was almost entirely positive that she looked like a mess: hair windblown from attempting to catch up with Midorima, her school bag slightly open with homework and notes practically asking to fly away and a random orange in her hand; Yuki was far from assistant manager material, that much was certain.
Well, to all besides a certain bubbly pinkette. The minute the coach walked away, the girl all but tackled Yuki in her excitement.
"You came! You came!" She repeated needlessly for a couple of seconds. "I am so, so excited! There's never enough girls on this bench and personally, I was getting a bit lonely!" A small pout emerged from her lips.
Yuki actually cracked a small smile after her loud and extravagant display of desire for femininity in a room that positively screamed masculinity.
"And you are?"
"Oh! Satsuki Momoi! I totally forgot. I had a feeling Midorin wouldn't tell you everything!"
"Midorin? She gave that grumpy green-haired boy a nickname?"
After Momoi revealed her name, it finally clicked. "Does the kanji for 'Momo' in your name mean 'pink?'"
Momoi looked at Yuki mildly surprised, and then laughed. "How'd you know?" Yuki subtly pointed to her hair and smiled.
Yuki was about to introduce herself out of politeness, but Momoi eagerly continued, "That being said, please call me Momoi!" Yuki made a confused face, not entirely following as to why she was already allowed to call a literal stranger by their given name. "Also, you certainly don't need to introduce yourself, Morine Yuki, because I already looked into everything about you, which is why I thought you'd make an excellent candidate for this position!"
Yuki looked over at Momoi with great concern. "You . . . you did what?"
"Oh, yes, of course! I should explain. I love analyzing things, especially about people and players I come into contact with. So, I assessed everything in great deal regarding you and your abilities!"
"So, there's a file about me on your computer."
"Multiple files, actually. Why? I don't always share what I find unless it's really, really important. Don't worry. I just wanted to verify that grade-wise and extracurricular-wise, you'd be able to help out without damaging your education." Momoi smiled. "Well, save for your math grade, but that's why Midorin is going to help you, Yuki!"
"Great. Thanks for reminding me."
Yuki decided to move the subject from herself to her new "position" on this basketball team, knowing fully well that no matter what she said, the status of her existence wouldn't change. "So, uh, thanks, yeah. How does this whole 'assistant manager' thing work exactly?"
"Hmm, well, you'll see. Maybe you'll get drinks or help with towels, or things of that nature. I mean, you've already helped a lot by carrying Midorin's lucky item. It's really precious, so don't drop it!"
With that, Momoi began to slowly walk away to the coach.
"B-but it's an orange! An orange can't be that precious! Vitamin C isn't that great!"
Staring deeply into the orange, Yuki realized that her fears of today being rather long were becoming truer and truer.
"Maybe I should have looked at my stupid horoscope today. It must've said I had really, really bad luck."
"And you are?"
Yuki looked into the dark pools of the coach's eyes and shrunk back in mild fear. "Morine Yuki."
Kouzou Shirogane seemed to look kind and sincere, but in reality, any one could see there was a passion for victory and a ruthlessness to achieve it at any cost.
The coach seemed to scold her with his eyes. "This sport isn't one for the meek. Even though some members seem to believe you'll be a strong addition to the team," he glances at Momoi and Midorima, "I have yet to be convinced. Do your best."
Yuki nods. Multiple times. "Who knew older men could be so frightening?"
"Everyone is expendable unless made permanent."
Yuki nods again. "And threating."
"And why was I put into this sport again? All because I read a manual on basketball? Why am I so bad at math?!"
Momoi bounced into Yuki. "Yuki-chan! Isn't this going to be so much fun! I can't wait for the whole season now! Unfortunately, your name is too simple, so I'll have to come up with a nickname later!"
"Chan?! We just met and she's already changing my honorific. And a nickname? Please don't; save yourself the trouble."
Yuki just nods in defeat – a common motion in the management position apparently.
"Bye, Yuki! Good luck at your math lesson with Midorin! You'll do very well!"
And with that last remark and an unbelievably vivacious wave, the pink-haired bundle of energy bounced away with a tall and tan boy whose name was easily forgotten to her, as many names were thrown at her in a tizzy today.
Looking away, a voice broke her reverie. Someone really wanted something back.
"Do you still have it?"
Yuki looked up in disbelief. "The . . . orange?"
"My lucky item, yes. Do you have it?"
"Yeah, you realize you just acknowledged that an orange can be lucky, yes? And that apparently it's rather precious?"
Midorima stuck out his hand rather pompously. "Give it."
Yuki reached into her bag and placed the orange into his hand questioning why this entire interaction was even taking place. Who knew oranges were really that great? Yuki didn't even like oranges – they were far too citrusy in the first place.
"So, your lesson then?"
Yuki begrudgingly nods and then practically runs to catch up with the green-haired boy.
A/N: I noticed a lot of silly spelling and grammatical errors (as well as some questionably awkward phrasing) throughout portions of this chapter. So, hopefully, I've righted a few of the wrongs present.
And of course, feel free to leave a review if need be!