Round 4

Teppei was panting heavily and his lungs felt like burning. His vision started to get blurry by tiredness and the incredible pain from his hurting knee. He looked at the score board, they were leading with only 1 and there was only less than 30 seconds of the game.

He looked around at his following teammates and they all were not in better shape than him. The whistle once blew again, and before Teppei could react the ball already flew past him toward the basketball net. Teppei turned around at once and forced his tired and shaky body to return his guarding position. They had to guard this ball with their life or they would lose! An unbearable sharp pain suddenly came from his knee that made him tripped over and fell on the floor. Teppei looked horrified at how the opponent succeeded to dunk through Kagami, Izumi and Hyuga's defenses.

Only less than 20 seconds left, Kuroko and Kagami might create another miracle so he couldn't give up until the end. He must help and protect his following teammate in order to make them the number one team in Japan, even if it will destroy himself. Teppei tried to ignore the unbearable pain from his leg, but once he tried to move the pain got worse to the point he couldn't take it anymore and he started to cry out in pain.

Teppei woke up in horror and gasped for air with sweat and tears covering his face. Another nightmare… like every night… He decided to take a bath to wash away his sweats and tension, but when he tried to stand up a sudden pain from his knee almost made him lose his balance and he fell onto the bed.

"It doesn't hurt, it doesn't hurt, I must keep protecting them until the end, it doesn't hurt, I can do this…" Teppei kept hypnotizing himself until his vision once started to darken and he once fell asleep.

#

"Here, eat this" Murasakibara shoved a cupcake in front of Teppei.

Before Teppei reacted the familiar giant hand was once patting his head, which he was quite used to by now.

"You look like crap, are you low on sugar? This will help you…"

Teppei smiled gently to the worried looking tall man in front of him and his heart felt warm by his kind words. Two months has passed since their first encounter in the café and since then Murasakibara has become a regular in the café. Teppei was glad that he chose to work part time in this café, if not he would never knew learned about the other side of this man in front of him. Murasakibara was no longer the devil that made him tremble in fear on the court, but a sweet puppy that worries about him. Teppei almost giggled about the thought describing Murasakibara as a puppy.

"Thank you Murasakibara-kun, I am sure this will help" for temporary…

Murasakibara started at Teppei with expectancy written on his whole face. Teppei smiled at the puppy a like man in front of him and started to eat the cup cake.

"Feeling better?"

"Yes, this should help me for keeping me going for the rest of the day! By the way, how is your team doing? I heard that your team has been winning all the games till now"

Murasakibara only nodded lazily instead of replying.

"I see, we have played 3 games and won all of them. I am sure we will reach the top this year too so I guess that we will be facing each other again during the winter cup, which I'm not sure to be look forward or not…" said Teppei and smiled shyly. Yes, even if they had become friends but Murasakibara might turn into his devil mode when facing him on the court and it frightens him. But the fear was kind of different compared to the fear he had toward Murasakibara before … the fear was mixed with sadness which he didn't felt before.

"… how's your knee?" Murasakibara pointed at his leg.

"Well, it still hasn't broken down yet" Teppei tried his best to laugh naturally, but he completely failed in front of Murasakibara who heard the sadness in his voice. Since the Inter high started Teppei hasn't been playing any games until now because considering about his condition they all decided to save him until their toughest matches. Though he didn't like the decision which mas made by Riko, but protesting against their coach were like asking for their own death penalty, so with no choice he could only obey.

Murasakibara looked annoyed at the smaller man in front of him who was still trying to pretend smiling happily like an idiot. He was annoyed by the attitude of Teppei who always seems to be carrying all the burdens by himself with a huge gentle smile, and he was also annoyed at himself for being one of the reasons why his knee has gotten worse… Maybe I shouldn't have been so rough on him in our last game…

"Your shift is over soon right?"

Teppei nodded questioning by his sudden change of topic.

"Are you returning home for dinner with your family?" Murasakibara continued.

"I live alone…"

"I see, then join med after work. I heard from my classmate that there's a restaurant near here with free dessert buffet, let's eat there"

Is he asking or demanding me..? "Sure, give me a sec." Teppei went into the storage room and changed back to his own clothes. When he came out he greeted his coworker who came to take over his shift. Teppei walked toward the exit were Murasakibara was waiting for him.

"Let's go!" Teppei smiled happily and started to walk with Murasakiabara.

To be more precisely, he was trying to catch up with Murasakibara because of his super long steps. The street was getting more crowdie which made Teppei having more trouble keeping up with Murasakibara. Suddenly, a familiar giant hand suddenly grabbed his hand and dragged Teppei along him.

"Wait… what are you doing?" Teppei looked unbelievable embarrassed at him and the people around them while he tried to shake of his hand from the giant's grip, which he didn't succeeded.

"Holding your hand so that you won't get lost obviously…" Murasakibara looked at Teppei with an 'are-you-an-idiot' look.

"Of course I know you are holding my hand! But holding another man's hand is weird! And this is a public place!" And people around us are in shock! Teppei protested embarrassed, and once again this naïve man in front of him made him blush like an idiot.

"Why is it weird..?" Murasakibara tilted his head and looked questioning at him.

Teppei stared unbelievable at the innocent face in front of him.

Is he an alien from another planet? What has his parents been teaching him all these years? Dear God or Buddah,if any of you exist please save me from this embarrassing situation once more!

#

Meanwhile at the same time somewhere….

"Captain, I have interesting news for you!" a hooligan a like man rushed to his boss excited.

"Fuck… you just woke me up from my nap. You better have something interesting for me or I will kill you, asshole…" The black hair snake a like man barked angrily at his underling.

"Yes! Yesterday I was on a date with my new chick, and guess who I met in the café? It's Teppei Kiyoshi, the asshole from Seirin, who we are going to play against next week!"

"That's indeed a VERY interesting news… tell me the location and let's pay him a visit to make sure that he won't be able to jump around as he wants like last year…"

Hanamiya smiled evilly and he was already looking very forward to meet the man he hated and wanted most to destroy in the whole world.

TBC.

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