KAIJOU'S SHIRO
Chapter III (RE-DONE)
The next week seemed to whizz by like a breeze to one white-haired author. Besides sneaking in some quality chapter-writing time in between classes, Shiro had already filled in nicely to her role of basketball manager, much to the satisfaction of their Coach. She'd initially regretted not joining earlier, as by the time she'd applied, Kaijou had already earned itself the title of Champions of the Kanagawa Block and would be playing for the Quarter Finals of the Interhigh Final League in two weeks time. Shiro would be lying if she wasn't trembling with excitement to the point where she had half the members of the Basketball Club coming up to her and asking whether she was feeling under the weather.
(She wasn't. Though she admitted she was excited to the point where she'd caught a really shitty fever the next morning.)
Fortunately, she didn't have to wait that long to watch her team play, as her chance came by this very weekend where Kaijou would be having a 'friendly' practice match against the runner-up of their block, Kamakura High School.
They were a strong school, she admitted. She'd spent a good hour watching some of their match tapes, and with her eyes that she often used to read people's characters, personalities and habits, she had finally come to a startling conclusion.
Her everyday ability to read people was rendered completely useless when it came down to reading a player's movements and thoughts. This was mainly because of her lack of actual experience in the field and overall knowledge of the game and basketball plays. This had resulted in a fifteen minute time period of her depressingly sulking, which sparked off another round of basketball players coming over and asking her whether she needed to take early leave.
(Ryouta bought her nikuman afterwards. She felt thoroughly better after eating it.)
However, her one hour of tape-watching was not entirely vain. She did manage to roughly estimate their opponent's characters. For example, Kamakura High's captain and center – who she was going to call 'Sleazebag-kun' – had a somewhat perverted aura around him, and whenever Shiro saw him playing, it made her feel somewhat violated. Their point guard – 'Violently Handsome-kun' – was very violent and easily provoked to the point of recklessness on court. However, Shiro found them both exceptional players whose aggressiveness and power when playing basketball easily made her overlook those less than desirable traits.
And with that, she went home feeling a little better (especially after the nikuman) and had quickly settled into her routine of finishing the third chapter of Remember Me From the Dead's sequel before falling into a peaceful sleep next to Ryouta.
She was definitely going to give it her all for tomorrow's practice match, she thought to herself.
(And with that, the regulars – and mainly the starters – of the Kaijou High Basketball Team all felt sudden chills ricochet down their spines. Because tomorrow's match against Kamakura High was no doubt going to be the realization point for the entire team that Ichijou Shiro may have attracted more trouble than they'd bargained for.)
(...And may actually be a bit more fragile than they'd initially expected.)
Shiro woke up to the sound of her apartment door opening and the heavenly aroma of fresh breads and coffee hitting her senses.
"Ryouta," she breathed dreamily, eyes still shut in fatigue as she rolled her shoulders, wincing slightly at the tiny 'crack' of her bones as she did so, "you are a godsend."
Shiro felt tiny, unexpected goosebumps appearing on her skin upon hearing the blonde's light, cheerful laughter at her praise, and almost gave an unladylike yelp when she felt herself getting picked up like a rag doll and thrust into the other model's puppy-like embrace. She felt her cheeks redden uncharacteristically when she looked up at Ryouta – who still looked as stupidly handsome and attractive as ever, all smiles and twinkles and shit.
"Shirocchi~ you're always more emotional in the morning ~suu," Ryouta smiled into her messy bedhead. Shiro nodded sleepily, returning the hug and smiling a little herself as she felt skilled fingers pressing onto her head and fixing her hair.
"Mm…good morning Ryouta…what did you buy for breakfast?"
"I got your favorite black coffee and red perilla tea, some croissants, and cheese and onion bread," Ryouta said happily, satisfied by the state of his friend's hair before removing himself from the smaller girl to place a very light kiss on the top of her head, "and good morning to you too, Shirocchi. Excited for today?"
Shiro nodded with a bit more enthusiasm at that, not questioning why Ryouta just kissed her. She thought it was something friends did, after all.
"I'll go check whether the honey-soaked lemons are ready for consumption…you can set the table then…" Shiro gave a final yawn as she slowly walked towards the kitchen, Ryouta following curiously behind her.
"L-Lemons?" Ryouta gave a nervous gulp, a rather worrying memory concerning a certain pinkette friend and whole, fucking lemons in honey entering his mind.
"Coach recommended that I try make some before games," Shiro explained, opening the fridge and smiling blearily as she retrieved a large container filled with a gooey, orangey-yellowish liquid.
Before the girl could even blink, the blonde model had already taken the container away from her hands and was hurriedly taking off the top, breathing hard.
And lo and behold, what lay in front of him was a container filled three-quarters to the brim with luscious honey, and two dozen pieces of finely cut lemon slices sitting inside the glistening liquid, like ambers in crystalized water.
Suddenly nightmarish experiences of female managers/coaches of athletic teams with no sense of cooking ability were forever cleansed from Ryouta's mind.
"Ryouta…are you crying?"
"…No…~suu…."
Somewhere across Tokyo, Momoi Satsuki sneezed loudly. So did one Aida Riko, who suddenly felt the need to give tripled training to the already-suffering members of the Seirin Basketball Team.
The two friends ended up having a somewhat peaceful breakfast together – emphasis on somewhat –, with Shiro almost cringing at the beautiful, bitter taste of black coffee invading her taste buds while Ryouta rambled on relentlessly on the latest incident with an undeniably irritating-sounding female model. Apparently Ryouta had almost dropped his friendly façade that he normally reserved for girls after what had transpired during the day before yesterday's photoshoot.
"She kept coming onto me and kept annoying me by trying to get my number –"
"Pass the strawberry jam, Ryouta."
"– And kept saying mean things about you, Shirocchi…" Ryouta continued on, gently pushing the jar of strawberry jam towards the author, "Kyoukacchi almost wanted to snap at her! It was lucky that Kanacchi wasn't there ~suu…"
Shiro shrugged and accepted the homemade jar of jam from the blonde. "It doesn't matter to me, Ryouta."
"But it should ~suu!" Ryouta said, something akin to annoyance and offense reaching his honey-gold eyes. The white-haired girl should've been there during the photoshoot. The blonde copycat was about half an insult away from just going 'fuck it' and ripping a new one into that redheaded bimbo. And his manager, Kyouka, was even closer to buying a rope and wringing her neck with it.
Shiro sent a small smile his way and started spreading some jam over her croissant.
"It's fine. Unless physical assault is involved, I won't care, and you shouldn't care on my behalf, Ryouta."
Ryouta gave an indignant pout and nodded. "Fine ~suu."
And with that, Ryouta and Shiro resumed eating their breakfast, with the former grudgingly introducing slightly more light-hearted conversation along the way.
(Neither of them knew how true Shiro's words were going to be during the practice match later that day.)
"Kasamatsu, calm down."
"Just ignore them, Kasamatsu, we'll beat them in the match later."
"Yeah! [We'll] make them s[orry] they said that about Mana[ger]-san!"
Kasamatsu roughly nudged Hayakawa away, a hot, fiery anger flaming in the captain's eyes as he almost ripped his shirt from over his head and shoved it angrily into his designated locker.
"I'm amazed that the three of you are telling me to calm down," Kasamatsu muttered coldly, rummaging through his bag and trying his best not to rip out his basketball jersey, "they're talking crap about Shiro, you know. Not rushing in to defend her?"
Kobori gave a similarly angry grunt and started taking his shirt off with much less grace than usual, "Trust me, we are."
"And [we'll] definit[ely] make them pay, Captain –!"
"But Hime would be disappointed if our match gets cancelled because we couldn't control our temper and started sending some trash to the ICU," Moriyama continued with a rather terrifying glint in his eyes, his tone going completely frigid.
"Indeed. I think they need an in-court lesson on how to keep their mouths shut," Nakamura added with a biting sneer, slamming his locker shut to accentuate his point.
When they had let the Kamakura High players into their gym earlier that morning, their captain and point guard had immediately went up to the practicing Kaijou High players and asked where their manager was.
When Kasamatsu calmly asked why, their point guard had all but smirked at him before proceeding to loudly proclaim that he wanted to use this practice match as a competition with Shiro as the prize. When a good majority of the club angrily shouted out their refusal of the competition, with many voicing out that 'Shiro-chan'/'Ichijou-san/'Manager-san' was her own person and could do whatever she wanted – Kamakura High's captain said something that made every single one of them want to physically spit fire.
"C'mon, let's all be honest 'ere, shall we? We all know she don't know jack shit 'bout bask'tball. You're all just keepin' her around for her body, aint'cha? I bet she's one helluva whore for cock. So why don'cha we share her then, eh? I bet her mouth's as good as 'er books –"
Kobori had to yank Hayakawa away from beating the living shit out of the Kamakura High captain, though Kobori seemed to be internally conflicted himself between letting the pissed off rebounder go and going over to kick some ass instead. Moriyama was visibly seething, and even the level-headed Nakamura's eyes were flashing with deadly intent. The rest of the club responded very similarly, with many going as far as promises for bloody murder before being held back by the remaining barely-rational members of the team. Though they had to admit – out of all of them, Kasamatsu definitely looked the angriest, his fists clenching until his skin bled and an angry vein pulsing visibly on his neck.
It was no lie that Kasamatsu froze up whenever a girl was concerned – especially if it was someone like Shiro (well he was getting better) – but he was not going to lie down on his stomach while these douchebags talked shit about his team and manager in front of him!
In the end, their respective coaches, Coach Takeuchi and Kamakura High's Coach Heishi had to step in to calm both teams down from going into an all-out basketball war. While Kaijou's Coach was reasonably furious at the scandalous accusations directed towards his team and manager, Coach Heishi seemed to act like it was perfectly normal to have some 'pre-game banter' and didn't even berate his team for their degrading comments. It made the chubby Kaijou coach angrily liken the Kamakura High Coach and Captain to the older versions of Imayoshi Shoichi and wonder why the fuck did he even accept their invitation for a practice match.
Kasamatsu would disagree. He'd played with the Touou captain before, and even though he'd come under the brunt of the other captain's psychological warfare tactics and 'shitty personality' more than enough times to count, he knew that Imayoshi respected women as much as the next self-respecting person did. Imayoshi Shoichi would never say or do anything derogatory to a girl if said teen's younger sister had anything to say about it.
They ended up deciding to 'settle it on court', with the Kamakura High point guard's parting words igniting even more hatred into the retreating Kaijou Team's backs.
"Make sure to watch out for that pretty little chick of yours. You don't want her to get her wings burnt off so early, do you?"
Eventually, the Kaijou High Basketball Team did calm down by a considerable amount – if not feeling a bigger need to treat this practice match like the equivalent of the Winter Cup finals and crush their opponent team to dust.
"We can't let this affect us," Kobori said, sighing, "The only reason why they're doing this now is because Shiro-sensei is here."
"I don't get it. Why wo[uld] they be doing it because of Mana[ger]-san?" Hayakawa asked.
Kasamatsu pinched the bridge of his nose, hoping the blood rushing to his head would reside quicker. "I doubt Shiro is aware of it yet, but Kamakura High has a dirty reputation of using a specific off-court psychological warfare tactic. It's something that Imayoshi occasionally practices, to say the least."
"Kamakura High specializes in using this one particular tactic called 'Besiege Wèi to rescue Zhào'. It's a win tactic that goes like this: 'When the enemy is too strong to be attacked directly, then attack something that they hold close to them or value dearly. Take the indirect approach and find their Achilles heel," Nakamura explained coolly, "in a way, it's very similar to Kirisaki Daichi's MO of physically crippling the opponent team's ace, except in this case Kamakura attacks their weakest link – and the one who holds the most emotional and psychological power over the team."
"Last time we didn't have a 'weakest link'," Kobori said.
"And now we do," Kasamatsu spat, "their point guard's parting words should not be taken lightly. Kamakura High has a penchant for harassing, threatening and assaulting the opponent team's managers, especially if they are female. And we just walked right into their fucking trap."
Hayakawa's eyes grew wide, the two red spots on his cheeks signifying a mix of confusion and anger.
"With our reactions just now, Kamakura High is now aware that Shiro-san is more valuable than they'd expected," Nakamura said lowly, gritting his teeth, "we just showed them her importance to us. And if that disgusting captain's reputation is being put into question, they're going to do the third thing Kasamatsu-senpai mentioned that they're very well-known for doing."
The air went completely cold, the other members of the team not at all uncomfortable with the frigidity of the atmosphere as the feeling is mutual – they are not happy that they just walked into an opponent team's trap and stupidly risked their manager's life as a result.
"They are lucky that Kise did not hear what they said," Kobori murmured a bit morbidly, "if he did, he might –" his words were cut off when the doors to the Kaijou gym's locker room slammed open with two familiar figures quickly rushing in like their lives depended on it.
"WAAAAHHH! I'M SORRY ~SUU! ME AND SHIROCCHI GOT HELD BACK BY SOME REPORTERS –" Kise wailed against the door.
"We actually did, so please don't blame Ryouta. He was the one who personally dragged me out of that cramped situation, after all – " Shiro stopped talking the second she noticed that almost everyone was staring at her with deeply blushing faces.
"O-Oi, S-S-Shiro! W-We're cha-changing here!" Kasamatsu stuttered in embarrassment, now hurriedly pulling his shirt on.
"H-Hime! S-So bold!" a half-naked Moriyama exclaimed, showing off his bare torso like a proud mother.
"S-Sensei…I would like if you didn't watch us changing…" Kobori said with a light flush dusting his cheeks.
"M-MANA[GER]-SAN! I AP[OLO]GIZE [FOR] BEING NAKED –"
OH MY GOD JUST TELL HER TO GET OUT! Many of Kaijou's members inwardly yelled in unison, all hastily covering the respective naked parts of their bodies.
"Wahhh! Shirocchi don't look ~suu!" Kise shrieked, after realizing that he had just dragged the smaller girl into the locker room while his teammates were still changing and immediately covered the smaller girl's eyes with his hand.
"But Ryouta, I've seen you half-dressed before, I don't think this is anything –" Shiro gave an indignant shout when she felt her mouth being covered by the other model's hand.
Kise whipped his head around the room and gulped after seeing the murder and jealousy in everyone's eyes at the implications of her sentence.
"S-SHE MEANT DURING PHOTOSHOOTS! Y-YOU SEE W-WE'VE HAD SOME SWIMSUIT PHOTOSHOOTS BEFORE –"
"Nnngmmmfffaahhdiiinn!" Shiro spoke through the muffled hand, which sounded suspiciously like 'No we didn't!'
"I-I'll see her out, okay ~suu?" Kise laughed nervously as he proceeded to push the other girl outside before Kasamatsu stopped him.
"Escort her to the benches," the captain ordered, with a hand gripping tightly onto the copycat's shoulder. Before Kise could ask why, many of the regulars and members of the team had already shot him the same looks as their captain.
"Ooh...Um...O-Okay ~suu…I'll be quick!" Kise promised with an odd-looking smile on his face as they made their way out of the locker room.
The other members gave huge sighs of relief as they retreated back to changing.
"I'm just glad that Kise didn't seem to hear us," Kobori muttered.
Everyone murmured in assent, despite a part of their hearts wishing that he did.
(For the record, Kise didn't. But he's not stupid. He knows when something is up, and he hopes that it doesn't have anything to do with him or Shirocchi.)
(As usual, he's wrong on that part.)
Author's Note:
I DON'T OWN KNB IF NOT I'D HAVE MADE IT R21.
Oh yeah, there IS a reason why I sometimes use 'Ryouta' or 'Yukio' instead of 'Kise' and 'Kasamatsu'. If I'm showing a certain character's POV, I will be using their first name and using the names they refer other people in their POV. Like if it's Moriyama's POV, I'd be calling him 'Yoshitaka' so it'd be easier for readers to know who exactly I'm putting in focus, and then since he calls Shiro 'Hime', I'd be using 'Hime' for when I'm writing his POV. Unless I'm writing a general POV I will use everyone's last names except for Shiro.
Also, I redid this chapter because it pissed me off somehow that I could write something as repetetive as that. And I'm not too sure whether I was accurately writing an Osakan/Kansai dialect for the captain of Kamakura High (which is ACTUALLY a school that participated in the KnB Winter Cup which I only found out later on). And FML WHY AM I WRITING SHITTY VERSIONS OF IMAYOSHI AND HANAMIYA.
Also mb this chapter was pretty…dark?
