A/N: Starting off, I want to say sorry, I'm so sorry for this late and very short update! I really meant to update this but I got caught up with a lot of school stuff (our class were assigned to do the school programs) and exams for the past (2?)months and I got little free time. And also, I've also been busy taking care of my nephew (my sister-in-law went to labor last week, and most adorable piece of sunshine! XD). But worry not, I have not abandoned this story! I will update this again when I can.
And wow! I'd like to thank those of you who followed, favorite, and reviewed! Favs: 100 Follows: 127?! OMG, this is the first time I've received this much! Thank you! I won't let you guys down! .
And as usual, this is self-edited, there may be grammatical errors/misspelled words because English is not my first language and I'm doing the best I can to improve. So if there is anything bad please tell, I'll edit it out!
Chapter 6: The Prince and 'Dad?'
0o0o0o0o0o0
The first year trio could not stop themselves from snickering as they waited for the continuation of Hiroto's story.
"—And then, he reached out and grasped our teacher's head like it was a ball!" Furihata, Fukuda and Kawahara burst out laughing together with Hiroto as he shamefully told them about Kagami's actions earlier that day.
Kagami flushed in both anger and embarrassment as Hiroto shamelessly narrated what to the others about what he did in class earlier.
He was sleeping at that time and he dreamt about their match against Kaijou the other day and out of reflex, his hand snapped out and grasped the teacher's head, jolting awake. He got scolded by their teacher just for that and got called to the faculty's office.
"Hiroto...! Bastard…" Kagami growled. Hiroto glanced in the poor redhead's direction and winked. Kuroko watched in amusement as the two continued to bicker, he heard the redhead blurt something about how Kuroko was not noticed by the teacher when he was snoring away as well from behind him at that time.
"Ichinose and Kagami are really close, right?" Furihata muttered and the other two first years nodded. Hiroto, clearing hearing what they said, turned to them and smiled, for a moment the three were blinded.
"That's right! Little tiger and I are extremely close, right, Taiga?" Hiroto ruffled the grumbling redhead's head who slapped his hand in indignation.
"Stop treating me like a kid! Just because you are older than me you can get to be—ou—ouch! Stop that, you bastard!" Kagami whined in pain as the Prince grinded his fist on his head.
"Taiga, you really should learn how to respect those older than you, it seems like you need some disciplining." Hiroto grinned manically and moved to pinch both his cheeks despite the redhead's cry.
"Ouch! Stop it! Stop it! I give!"
"Haha, you gave up way to easily, little tiger."
"Shut up! I'll beat you up next time!"
"Haha!" Hiroto patted Kagami's back, slowly shaking his head.
"Ichinose, you are older than Kagami?" Hiroto turned to Furihata and the others; even Kuroko was staring at him with a strange look on his face. He tilted his head a bit in confusion.
"Uh, yeah. I'm older than you guys for a year. I didn't tell you?" Hiroto got even more worried when the trio dropped their jaw on the ground.
"Eeeeeeh? Then, Ichi—Ichinose-san-senpai?" Hiroto raised a brow at the strange way they were acting then it slowly dawned on him that they were worried that they were being rude to someone older than them. Hiroto then laughed at the look on their faces and heartily ruffled their hairs which earned him surprised squeaks and a bit of flinching.
"You don't have to call me with '-san' or 'senpai', it makes me feel old. Hiroto's just fine; we are all friends here, right?" Hiroto smiled charmingly, Kagami felt a sweat drop on his temple as he watched his teammate's expressions.
He already has them wrapped around his fingers. He thought knowingly as he watched his fellow teammates nod dazedly.
"Then, does that mean that Ichinose-kun's a repeater?" Kuroko's question stopped everyone from walking in the upperclassman's hallway. The others turned towards him in curiosity, it seemed they were thinking the same thing too.
"Ah, yes." Hiroto nodded.
"What? Why is that, Hi-Hiroto-kun?" It was Furihata who stuttered. Hiroto merely grasped his chin with his hand.
"Well, I once stopped school for a year." He explained.
"Huh? Why did you stop?" All turned to Kagami who also had a confused look on his face, like he also didn't know anything about it. Hiroto then, smiled elusively.
"Well, that's a secret." Hiroto turned, ignoring everyone's raised brows as he started walking again, completely evading the hanging question. The rest shared confused looks but let it go, if he doesn't like talking about it…
Kagami's expression remained that of a confused one until he felt someone nudge his side. His red eyes turned upon Kuroko's blue ones.
"What? I don't really know what happened to him. All I know was that he was sharing the class with us but he never said anything about why he was still the same year as us." Kagami explained, as if sensing the question on his shadow's eyes. Kuroko merely nodded, staring unto the retreating back of the Prince. Could he be hiding something…?
0o0o0o0o0o0
"Go buy some bread." Riko chirped with a smile. Hiroto raised a brow at the demand. He and his fellow teammates were gathered in the hallway. Some students were giving them strange looks, well; everyone else received it but Hiroto. The girls who passed by waved at him shyly and he waved back with a little smile.
"Huh?"
"Bread?" Oh, did he just get distracted?
"On the 27th of every month, the Seirin High Cafeteria sells a limited quantity of very special bread." Riko explained.
"Huh, really?" Hiroto smiled at Kagami's unimpressed expression.
"Supposedly, eating this bread will bring you great success in love, clubs, or anything else. The triple delicacy Iberian pork cutlet sandwich with caviar, foie gras, and truffles! It's 2800 yen!"
"Isn't it a bit too expensive?" the first year trio asked.
"We beat Kaijou, and practice is coming along well. We're asking you to get this fantastic bread so you can continue building momentum." Hyuuga said.
"But we're not the only ones with our eyes on it. It always gets a little busier than usual." Riko sighed a bit and Hiroto took notice of the way their captain glanced to the side with a grimace.
"We just have to go buy some bread, right?" Kagami smirked haughtily. "That's easy as pie…"
"Here." Hiroto blinked at the envelope handed to him.
"The second years will pay for this. Buy lunch for everyone else while you're there too." Hiroto nodded.
"But if you fail…" The others shivered at the sudden change in the tone of voice of their captain. "I don't need any change. Instead, you'll be doing three times as much strength training and footwork."
'Sc-Scary! Lunch time clutch time!'
"We got it, senpai!" Hiroto nodded, completely unaffected of their captain's threat when he turned to the others.
"Shall we go? I'm sure the senpai-tachi had done this before, I couldn't see how we can't do the same, right?" Hiroto smiled, earning brightened looks from his teammates.
"Then we'll get going…" the rest followed the orange-haired player as they walked off towards the cafeteria. Meanwhile, the upperclassmen stared into their retreating backs.
"You always worry too much, Mitobe. What are you their Mom?" Koganei watched as Mitobe worriedly reached out his hands. "They are going to be fine…I think…?"
"Geez, what did you mean, a little busier?" Hyuuga said, brows furrowing as he turned towards the coach.
"What?" Riko smiled innocently. "I'm making this an annual event for the first years."
"Seriously?" Hyuuga sweat dropped.
'Well, good luck to you, dear first years.'
Meanwhile, at the cafeteria, the poor dear first years were staring, gaping disbelievingly at the war going on at the cafeteria.
"Seriously?!" Students of different levels swarmed, pushing and demanding to be given the said bread that they were ordered to buy. They were screaming for the bread and Hiroto was blankly staring at the total chaos happening.
'So that's what she meant about things getting a bit busier.' Hiroto sighed, he really should've known, as he recalled Riko's innocent smile and tone of voice. He really need to get used to their coach's sadistic nature.
"Thi—This is total chaos!" Fukuda commented.
"We have to go!" Kagami said, eyes full of determination and a will that refused to back down. "Three times the strength training and footwork will kill us! We must do this!" The first year trio nodded in understanding. They had no choice. They must do this!
"Okay, I'll do it first!" Kawahara proposed, readying himself. "I may not be as strong as Kagami, but I'm pretty confident in my power!" Kawahara dashed on towards the crowd.
"Don't die!" Just a few moments, Kawahara was sent flying comically at his first try.
"You're unbelievably useless!" Furihata commented.
"Now that I take a better look, this is going to take more than a little power."
"Huh?" Kagami turned to him as Fukuda pointed towards the group of students.
"The rugby team's forwards. The American football team's linemen. Sumo and weight lifting. We're supposed to get past these guys?" Fukuda and Furihata shivered at the mere thought of going against them.
"Eh, that sounds interesting." The two turned to Kagami as he clenched his fists, eyes burning.
"Let's do this then!" the redhead dashed to the crowd, struggling to even get past the first layer of students before unceremoniously fell into his butt.
"This — This is Japanese lunch time rush!" Kagami blurted out in English.
"Kagami…"
"You're acting American now?"
"I think we've got to go together!"
"Seirin! FIGHT!" Hiroto watched in unhidden amusement as the trio dashed towards the crowd, only to be sent flying at their first try. They did it again, the fire in their eyes burning, but sadly they were sent flying again. For the third time, Hiroto was seriously close to laughing hard for they were sent flying again and they already all looked so beaten and defeated.
"This isn't easy!" the three shouted.
"Well, we gotta take our chances," Kagami grabbed the collar of Fukuda's uniform, saying sorry before he flung the first year over to the crowd.
"My basketball's not the only American thing about me!" Kagami balanced himself as he stood above Fukuda's poor beaten body.
"Crowd surfing!" Kawahara's eyes brightened at the redhead's idea.
"It's crazy, but I just might work." Furihata said, nodding as if they will really be able to do it.
"That's it, ride those waves."
Kagami seemed to be surfing over the crowd expertly as he grinned as Fukuda's body was pushed closer towards their goal. But sadly, of course, the crowd got annoyed at the body above them and sent the two flying for the fourth time. Kagami fell on his butt again and stared at the crowd in shock.
"This is Japanese lunch time rush!"
"Please stop that already!"
"Excuse me." Furihata and Fukuda turned towards Kuroko behind them.
"I bought one." Kuroko showed off the bread in his hand as the others stared at it unblinkingly.
"What? You? How?" Kagami immediately dashed towards his shadow, grabbing his collar.
"Um…The flow of the crowd pushed me to the front," Kuroko started to explain "…so I got the bread and left some money." Kagami gaped at the simple thing Kuroko did and he just stood there as the blue-haired shadow handed over the bread he bought.
"Here you go." Kagami twitched before a thought came over him. Oh, that's right, he never saw Hiroto try to—
"Ah, is this for me? Are you sure?" Kuroko, Kagami, Furihata, Fukuda and Kawahara turned upon the squealing crowd of girls surrounding their infamous Prince. Hiroto was leaning against the wall, smiling at the girls that swarmed around him as he was receiving…is that…bread?!
"Yes! You can have them, Ichinose-kun!" one girl gushed, blushing up to the tip of her ears.
"Yes! Ichinose-kun can have as many as you want!" Hiroto's brow furrowed a bit and with a tilt of the head.
"Really? Oh, thank you so much." He moved to grab the money from his pocket, with the clear intention of paying the girls' good grace.
"Then, should I pay for this—"
"Oh! No need! Ichinose-kun doesn't need to pay for it!"
"Yeah! We got it covered!"
"Just think of it as our gift to you, Ichinose-kun!" Hiroto looked a bit startled at their goodness before he repaid them all with the gentlest and sincerest smile they have ever seen him show.
"Thank you, I will never forget this." The squealing overpowered those of the noise on the other side of the cafeteria and the other first years, twitched as if they had been watching a scene from a host club and also a bit jealous at their Prince's popularity.
"Geez, really, Hiroto-kun is really on a league of his own."
"Well, Kuroko is too."
"That's right…ha..ha..hahaha…" the first year trio, as well as Kagami felt, as if they just lost.
0o0o0o0o0o0
"We bought them." In the rooftop, their meeting place with the upperclassmen. Kawahara handed out the plastic filled with bread at the senpai.
"Good work. Thanks." Riko smiled, now handing over a box of juice out.
"Is…Is this…" Kawahara trailed off.
"It's fine. You guys eat it." Izuki said.
"Huh? Are you sure?" Fukuda asked, unsure.
"Of course. Don't hold back" Hyuuga smiled.
"I guess we'll take turns. Who's first?"
"It's gotta be Kuroko." Fukuda handed over a piece of bread to him. Kuroko gladly received the food and said his thanks. They watched as he took a bite.
"…This is…" Kuroko started before sparkles glowed all over. The trio blinked at the look on his face.
"I've never seen Kuroko so happy before!" Kawahara exclaimed, and the other two nodded in agreement.
"I'm next." Fukuda got his turn next, taking a bite at the bread before his face brightened in delight. "It's delicious! Is this what you call harmony of flavors?"
"Let's see!" Furihata took his first bite at the bread, and at the taste of it, a tint of red emerge at his cheeks. "The juiciness of the pork and the sweetness of the foie gras and the acidity of the caviar…!"
"I don't care what it is, as long as it's big." Furihata and the others are stopped as they turned towards Kagami as he took another bite of his Super Long BLT.
"What are you saying, Kagami!?"
"Ah, Taiga, here, your juice."
"Ah, thanks."
The rest of the upperclassman watched as their kouhai* enjoyed their meal, giving each other knowing looks.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0
It was in the afternoon practice that they all went back to business. The basketball club gathered in the gym.
"Captain, I copied the preliminary tournament bracket!"
"The Inter-High preliminaries start as a tournament. If we lose, we're out." Hyuuga explained, turning from left to right.
"We can't let our guard down for a single game. Tokyo has blocks A through D. The winner of each block goes on to play in the championship league. The top three teams from the championship league participate in the Inter-High. Only three schools are chosen out of 300 participating schools. Only the chosen 1% will stand on the court of their dreams. That's the Inter-High."
Hiroto took a spare glance at the paper on his hands, scanning for familiar schools.
"I sort of get the picture," Hiroto looked up when he heared Kagami talk. "but you're wrong about one thing. They are not chosen. They win it…sir." Hiroto smirked.
"We've got three weeks until the Inter-High preliminaries. We fell one step short last year, but we'll definitely go this year. We'll be facing a lot of strong schools, but our biggest and strongest opponent is Shutoku High." Hiroto's brow rose.
"Last year, they were in the nation's top eight. On top of that, just like Kaijou, they had one of the Generation of Miracles join their team. If we can't beat them, we won't make it to the nationals."
Hiroto watched the expression of Kagami's face as he glared hard at the paper in his hands.
"Kuroko, you know who he is, don't you?" Kagami asked, earning the attention of Hiroto as he turned towards him and the blue-haired teen.
"I doubt you would believe me even if I told you. However, as Kise-kun said, the other four are on another level. If they've gotten even better, I cannot imagine how good they are."
"Before we can play Shutoku, we have to play our first game!" Let's make sure we're on the ball!"
"Yeah!"
"By the way, where's the coach?" Tsuchida asked as he looked around, the others did so too and realized she was missing too.
"She went to observe our first opponent's practice game." On incredible coincidence, the gym door opened and the person they were talking about appeared.
"I'm back." Riko greeted tiredly.
"Well, speak of the devil."
"She was skipping after the Kaijou game, but she's not skipping today."
"Coach, are you gonna skip today?" Furihata asked loudly, earning a deadly glare in response to it.
"Like hell I will!" Kawahara and Furihata both flinched at the look on her face.
"Idiots. She wouldn't act like an idiot over an official game." Hyuuga said, before turning to her, taking on her rather unhappy disposition.
"Are they good?"
"We shouldn't be worrying about Shutoku, when our first match doesn't look good."
"What do you mean?"
"One of their players might give us trouble." Riko rested her chin on her hand, looking troubled. "You can watch the video later." She handed her phone over to Hyuuga. "Take a look at this picture." Hyuuga and the rest crowded to take a look at her phone.
"Huh? This — This is…?" He blinked as he stared at the cute wallpaper of a cat . "It's cute, but…"
"Oh, sorry, it's the next one." Riko sighed.
"The next one?" Hyuuga pressed a key on her phone to go over the next photo and what they see gave them a bit of a shock.
"His name is Papa Mbaye Siki. Two meters tall, weighs 87 kilograms. He's a foreign student from Senegal."
"Senegal? He's huge. Two meters?" Hyuuga asked disbelievingly.
"Can they do this?"
"He's studying abroad? Sorry, but where's Senegal?"
"He's just big though." Kagami commented nonchalantly.
"This Papa Mbaye…What was it again?" Hyuuga raised a brow, struggling to say his name.
"Papanpa?" Tsuchida added.
"It's Papa Try-Hard?"
"Papa…Papaya Ito…" Izuki, as if a brilliant idea came to him, wrote his pun on his mini notebook while the others started snickering at the names they came up for this Papa.
"We're not getting anywhere. Kuroko-kun, give him a nickname." Riko suggested. Kuroko contemplated, thinking…
"Hmm, then…how about "Otou-san"?"
"Where the hell's your name sense Kuroko?" the others snickered again, totally not taking things seriously.
"Hey, listen!" the others straightened out as Riko raised her voice.
"He's not just tall. His arms and legs are long too. Everything about him is big. More and more schools are inviting students from abroad to increase their power. Our next opponent, Shinkyo High, was only a middle tier school until last year, but with the addition of a single foreign player, they've become a completely different team. They can't reach high enough. Because of this one simple reason, no one can stop him."
"But we can't just do nothing." Kagami said.
"Who said we would? So, Kagami-kun, Kuroko-kun, starting tomorrow, the two of you will have your own training regimen." Both nodded at her before Riko turned to another player. "Also, Hiroto-kun, there is something I'd like to talk with you."
Hiroto blinked but nodded nonetheless.
"The preliminaries start on May 16th. Until then, you won't even have time to complain!"
"Yeah!"
For the rest of the days, practice went on for the team. Everything was going smoothly and nicely before they know it; it was finally the 16th as time seemed to pass by. It was the day of the match and Seirin started warming up for their game.
Hyuuga glanced on the other side of the court where the enemy team is doing warm-ups but he couldn't locate the person he was looking for.a
"Dad doesn't seem to be here." He said.
"Now that you mention it." Hiroto turned towards the source of the pained voice at the entrance door.
"Everything is so short in Japan." He watched as the two meter tall, Otou-san make his way inside.
"He's huge! And kind of…long." The rest of Hiroto's teammates gaped at his appearance. Hiroto watched the exchange between the foreign student, their coach and another player. The ball rolled against a brown-haired player and Hyuuga made his way to apologize, picking up the ball from the ground.
"By the way, did you guys really beat Kaijou?" asked the brunette.
"Ah, it was just a practice game." For some reason, Hiroto instantly disliked the haughty look upon the brunette's face.
"I see. I guess the Generation of Miracles isn't as strong as we thought." Hiroto felt a brow twitch. What was that?
"The Generation of Miracles lost?" 'Dad' frowned. "They brought me here to beat them. I'm disappointed they're so weak." Dad shrugged his shoulders and walked while sparing a quick glance at Kagami as the redhead glared at him before stopped as he bumped into someone.
He turned from left to right to look what he bumped into before he looked down to see Kuroko staring blankly up at him. He picked the blue-haired teen up.
"No, little boy. Children shouldn't be on the court." Dad glanced down as Kuroko shirt fluttered, seeing the black uniform under it, his brows raised. "You're a player?"
He disbelievingly put him down before he snorted and walked away.
"They lost to a child like him? Are all the Generation of Miracles children?" Hiroto spared a glance at his teammates only to see them hunched over with their shoulders shaking. He felt a bead of sweat on the side of his temple. Are they laughing?
"Honestly, I'm starting to get annoyed." Kuroko said which straightened his teammates out. Kagami looked out of breath as he turned towards his shadow.
"You don't like to lose, do you?"
"I could say the same to you, Taiga." Hiroto shook his head.
"Then, I guess we'd better show Dad why he shouldn't piss off kids." Kagami smirked, glaring hard into the other teams' members.
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.to be continued.
Review? Candi needs it! :p
