Yet another short piece of shameless fluff.
Kabe-don conversation was inspired from the twitter comic by nakashima723.
Chapter 15: MusaKuro – Teikōmon! – Part 2
Tetsuna had underestimated the potency of free food as a motivator. During orientation week, the student body had gone into an absolute frenzy in search of the mysterious Teikōmon; some students banded together, others chose to go solo; the mischievous ones tried to hack the university's database, and the desperate ones camped on campus in an attempt to ambush Teikōmon.
Despite their determination though, Teikōmon continued to evade their efforts. And, rightly so, because it wasn't as if Teikōmon was particularly hiding from anyone, Teikōmon was simply inconspicuous to an exceptionally outrageous degree.
Yes. Like a Mew which was capable of making itself invisible at will, Kuroko Tetsuna entirely avoided notice even when she approached people. Even if said people were actively looking for a blue-haired, blue-eyed girl.
Yet, even as time went on and everyone's enthusiasm waned, some people were still going hard at the impossible task.
Presenting the Teikō University Basketball Team, Teikō's People for Pokemon, and of course, fangirls.
To the average person, these three subsets of the student body were: the most massive guys on campus; the most intense gamers on campus; and the most petrifying collection of oestrogen-fuelled libidos this side of the Kanto region.
To Tetsuna, however, they were just – entertaining?
It had been amusing to see some of them get so, so close, yet completely miss her presence at the pivotal moment. But, even amongst the throng of diligent seekers, one unlikely hunter stood out.
"Murasakibara Atsushi," Tetsuna said as she noted on her clipboard the progress of Teikō's basketball team.
"He's one of the tallest players we've had in recent years, isn't he?" Next to Tetsuna, Furihata Kouki queried.
Tetsuna and Furihata were the managers of the basketball team. But then again, to everyone else, it was just Furihata.
"Yes, he is, and he smells like Nerunerunerune candy."
"Wait. What?" Furihata was surprised by Tetsuna's offhand remark. "How'd you know?"
"We took the same train once. It was crowded and he ended up trapping me between himself and the doors," Kuroko explained.
"And he didn't notice you were there?" Furihata gulped, her cousins were not going to be happy. A chill crept up Furihata's spine as she recalled the threatening gaze of Tetsuna's most intimidating cousin.
"No."
"Kuroko-kun, you have got to be more careful!" Furihata fretted. "If someone traps you against a wall, punch him in the solar plexus. If the guy's taller, give him an uppercut to the chin!"
"What if he's as tall as Murasakibara-kun?"
"Then give him a jumping head-butt to the chin!" Furihata urged.
"Furihata-kun, that'd injure me more than it would him-," Tetsuna uttered, but was interrupted when a particularly loud-mouthed, shaved-headed player shouted from the court.
"YEAH! Practice is over! Let's go look for Teikōmon! Today's the day I'm gonna trap that little- ahh!"
Murasakibara had backed into his teammate.
"Oh sorry, didn't notice you there," Murasakibara apologised coolly and walked off without a care in the world.
Himuro sighed, restraining the lively freshman from attacking the other freshman on the team. Everyone could tell that it had been deliberate.
Murasakibara was frustrated. He had been hungering for the event prize for 3 weeks. Yet, every lead he had had ended up going nowhere. Teikōmon was a girl. Great, that narrowed it down to ten thousand girls at Teikō. She had baby blue eyes and hair. Awesome, except no one at Teikō had such exotic features.
Did Teikōmon really exist? Or was she some kind of joke the alumni concocted to make fun of everyone? The only other notable thing about Teikōmon was her rumoured love for Maji Burger's vanilla milkshakes.
"So hungry…" Murasakibara muttered as he popped open a maiubo and proceeded to walk towards the locker room.
"Vanilla, vanilla, vanilla, vanilla, vanilla, vanilla…" Murasakibara lazily repeated with every step of his foot and every mouthful of maiubo.
"Atsushi… What are you on about?" Himuro raised a beautifully-shaped eyebrow when he caught up, wondering why his underclassman was chanting the mantra of a tropical climbing orchid, so engrossed that he didn't even acknowledge their manager walking pass them.
But suddenly, as if triggered by some unknown entity, his monotone chanting grew progressively intense.
"… vanilla, vanilla, vanilla – Vanilla..."
Until that moment, Himuro would've never believed that anyone could give such a chilling delivery of a word as vanilla as vanilla.
*The next day*
"Kuroko-kun? What's the hurry?" Furihata asked, slightly out of breath, as she and Tetsuna hurried to Maji Burger. "Majiba's not going to run away."
"There's an exclusive event at the nearby Majiba. Just for today, between 2-3 pm, customers who order a Majiba Vanilla Milkshake will receive a Super-Duper-Special-Time-limited-Surprised Majiba Vanilla Milkshake that will never, ever be available again," Tetsuna steadily explained even as she exerted her less than impressive stamina.
"It's already ten to 3pm," Furihata said.
"I won't give up," Tetsuna responded in her usual, albeit breathy, composure.
Furihata gave a little rueful smile. She had always known Tetsuna to be just a little bit quirky.
Turn her into a mythical pokemon? Sure, why not?
Make her the most wanted thing in Teikō? Okay, fine.
Tell her she might miss a sweet beverage at Maji Burger? Unacceptable!
"Kuroko-kun, you really love Majiba's Vanilla Milkshake huh?" Furihata smiled, knowing fully well that her friend really enjoyed the drink.
But, it didn't matter. Furihata knew Tetsuna was concentrating too hard to even hear her, so much so that when she arrived at the restaurant, she bumped straight into a wall of hard muscle.
"Kuroko-kun! Are you okay?" Furihata knelt down to help a disoriented Tetsuna off the floor. Yet, before she could, a large pair of hands found themselves around Tetsuna and lifted her up.
"Yay! I've finally noticed senpai!" Murasakibara's happy, child-like voice echoed throughout the establishment, shocking everyone, and especially those who were students at Teikō.
There was a collective gasp throughout Maji Burger. Some even started clapping. Not Furihata though, she was too busy holding onto Tetsuna's knees, trying to pull her down. She repeatedly called for Murasakibara to let go of Tetsuna, but the tall man wouldn't budge.
For the first time in her life, Furihata had tasted what it was like to be Tetsuna, of what it was like to be completely unnoticed. Furihata didn't like it, but she could still understand why it was so.
It was the first time people had seen the alleged blue-haired, blue-eyed girl. There was no mistake. There couldn't be. The girl that Murasakibara was currently holding up so high that her feet dangled off the ground was, without a doubt in the world, Teikōmon!
Murasakibara turned to Himura and said with a grin on his face. "See Muro-chin? I told you it'd work. No mythical pokemon can be found under normal conditions. The only way to obtain a mythical pokemon is for the player to participate in an event hosted by Nintendo around the world. Except, in this case, the mythical pokemon is Teikōmon, and Nintendo is me spreading a rumour about this fake event."
But, all of that had been the easy part of Murasakibara's plan. What he hadn't bothered to mention, was him having to spend almost an hour in the zone, completely focused in order to notice the elusive Teikōmon.
"So you made-up a second event within a pre-existing event, just so you could win the first event?" Himuro tried to wrap his mind around Murasakibara's logic. "What goes on in that head of yours Atsushi?"
"What does it matter?! Murasakibara won yo!" A random person cheered and soon the whole restaurant was sharing in the excitement, yet again forgetting to notice the one person that should've been the centre of their attention.
"So," Tetsuna began. "There's no Super-Duper-Special-Time-limited-Surprised Majiba Vanilla Milkshake that will never, ever be available again?" Murasakibara, for a reason only he could understand, was still holding her up in the air.
"Nope!" Murasakibara beamed.
Understandably, seeing that grin on that face irritated even Tetsuna's Buddha-like self-control. "Put me down. Please."
"Are you angry?" Murasakibara cocked his head. "Don't be. You've given me a year's worth of free food, so I'll share my vanilla-flavoured candy with you."
And with no further warning, Murasakibara lowered Tetsuna just enough to deliver an open-mouthed kiss, even if it was just the means to an end to share the vanilla-flavoured candy that had previously been in his mouth.
No words could describe the look of pure, unadulterated, shock on Tetsuna's face as she felt Murasakibara's vanilla-flavoured tongue pass her the similarly-flavoured rock candy in her own mouth.
Furihata fainted, literally so scared of what Tetsuna's cousins were going to do that she lost consciousness, and would've fallen had a strong pair of arms not caught her in time.
"Remove. Yourself. From. Tetsuna."
:S This is the best I could do. *bows in apology*
With the manga ending and all (T_T), I might do a FEM!KurokoxNonGOM series. So, please suggest a husband for Kuroko to have babies with? Lol… I think it's going to be Kagami either way, but still, I wondered if other choices might pop up.