FanFiction | unleash your imagination
Browse
Stories
Anime
Books
Cartoons
Comics
Games
Misc
Plays
Movies
TV
Crossovers
Anime
Books
Cartoons
Comics
Games
Misc
Plays
Movies
TV
Just In
All
Stories: New
Stories: Updated
Crossovers: New
Crossovers: Updated
Community
General
Anime
Books
Cartoons
Comics
Games
Misc
Movies
Plays
TV
Forum
General
Anime
Books
Cartoons
Comics
Games
Misc
Movies
Plays
TV
Betas
All
Anime
Books
Cartoons
Comics
Games
Misc
Plays
Movies
TV
Specific
Anime
Books
Cartoons
Comics
Games
Misc
Plays
Movies
TV
Story
Story
Writer
Forum
Community
Anime/MangaKuroko no Basuke/黒子のバスケ
Follow/FavIridescent
By: thefictionfreak
We've met before, every once in a rare while. I sail in the cluster of the night, you outshine in the daybreak. The cataclysm that is our union made your splendour known to me, but never once have I considered looking at your face. I should've known you were lovely. Izuki x OC.
Rated: Fiction T - English - Romance/Spiritual - Izuki S., OC - Chapters: 5 - Words: 19,237 - Reviews: 17 - Favs: 35 - Follows: 49 - Updated: 5/8 - Published: 4/3 - id: 10240114
+ - Full 3/4 1/2 Expand Tighten
Prev 1. Chapter 12. Chapter 23. Chapter 34. Chapter 45. Chapter 5
Iridescent Chapter V
From: Coach
Subject: Meeting
Date: 11/3 9:34 AM
Kuroko-kun, Izuki-kun, let's meet at the rooftop this lunch break.
Izuki stared at his phone, trying to think of a reason why Riko would request to meet up with only him and Kuroko. Usually, she demands the whole team's presence when she has something to say. Now it's a meeting between just the three of them.
He came up with one possible reason, something that has to do with a certain maroon headed classmate (who was currently seated desks away from him, scribbling something) taking it from the conversation they had about her the first time they shared the same gym for practice. But that wasn't quite plausible, considering how that certain classmate wasn't very much related to basketball, or to their team for that matter.
He stood up from his seat, joining the crowd of students filing to go outside for lunch. Before he stepped out of the classroom, Izuki spared another glance at Hikari and wondered why she just sat there and scribbled. It seemed like the setter doesn't plan on leaving the class to hang out with her teammates like she usually did.
"Did you manage to talk to Hikari-san?"
That was the first thing Riko said the moment the three were gathered. It turned out Izuki was right.
"We did," said Izuki, leaning his elbows on the railings. "She offered some really interesting but vaguely uncanny insights if I must say,"
"Agreed," said Kuroko.
"Really? Like what?" asked their Coach, leaning on the railings in between the two.
"Well, with everything that she'd said, she made it clear that she didn't play for the sake of winning at all; she played for the enjoyment, because she loved the sport, which for me is a nice thing," Izuki explained. "The not-so-nice things, however, is that one; she's taking the idea of victory like it's an entirely negative thing, and two; she tries to play with the intention of winning only because her team needs to, but she still loses because her fighting spirit is only a pretence, and she doesn't deserve it anyway. The problem is still there; they still might get terminated if this continues."
"Agreed," Kuroko spoke again, gazing down at the students passing by on the Seirin high grounds. "And since she's aware that she's the one who's holding her team back, it's a probable idea that she's blaming herself for the threat of termination."
Riko looked troubled at the prospects being shown by the two boys.
"So it's a real complicated problem on pride and ideologies?" she sighed. "Well, that could be a real pain on her part if she comes to realize that she has led her team to no good because of her inability to believe in victory. Just thinking of that makes me want to be sick, jeez."
The young coach plopped her forearms on the railings and leaned her head on them in a gesture that showed how the dilemma exhausted her.
"I'm sorry to have to put you two in charge of this. I should be the one dealing with their team problems, not you guys," she told them self-dejectedly.
The two boys blinked at their coach.
"Coach, you've already been doing your best helping their team while training us," said Kuroko thoughtfully.
"Hikari-san's case is different," Riko clarified. "It's something I can't solve by just physically conditioning her. I am not an athlete, I don't know how it feels like to handle the pressure of having to win inside the hardcourt, especially in a case in which the athlete refused to fight, much less win. She does fight, but that's hypocritical as much as she's kidding herself."
It was odd to see their coach having trouble in something not related to the basketball club, Izuki and Kuroko figured.
"So I tried to think of other options and came up with people who can deal with her in my stead," she continued. "Teppei is still adjusting in his return to the team, Hyuuga-kun doesn't know how to handle girls, Papa doesn't have time, and the others don't have much experience, so you guys are my best bet."
"You don't have to worry," said Izuki reassuringly. "I think Hikari-san is going to be ok—the volleyball club is going to be ok. She knows what she has to forego to get a chance to keep her team, and I think she's working hard on it. They'll be fine."
"I hope you're right about that, Izuki-kun. They have a practice match today and they need to show improvement by winning, or else I'd have to confront Hikari-san myself," said Riko, irritation evident in her tone of voice.
Izuki's attention focused at the mention of a practice match for the volleyball club.
"She's got the skills and everything, just not the volition," Riko continued. "A good soldier never survives a war if he's unwilling, so Hikari-san has to be willing. She can't just let her team lose easily, that's a huge waste."
"But she lacked objectives in winning before," said Kuroko.
"Yeah, because she only wanted to have fun with her team before, never feeling the need to go for a win," Izuki supplied. "Now it's different, now she's obliged."
"Fuyu-senpai will probably have it in her to fight seriously this time."
Riko sighed despondently despite what they were saying. "You guys are telling me not to fret too much on them, but I don't know, I'm still not too sure about that team. Sometimes, they feel like a bunch of kids to me. I don't know if that's because they're girls, or maybe I've just been stuck around you basketball freaks a lot."
Then the young coach stretched her arms with a stifled yawn and turned for the exit, Izuki and Kuroko watched her start to walk away.
"I'll see you later in practice," said Riko before heading out.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Izuki pushed the sliding door of their classroom and was glad to see his target still on her seat.
Hikari was looking out the window, a hand of her chin, her dark-blood hair side-swept on one shoulder with its tips sprawled on top of her desk. There was a look in her eyes that can simply be interpreted as boredom, but Izuki's sharp eyes saw it as something akin to despondency. If he were to put it figuratively, she almost appeared to be looking at an apology somewhere.
And somehow, it made her look even more beautiful. . .
Izuki dispelled the silly thought and walked towards her, holding a plastic bag with food on one hand.
"Hikari-san, did you get lunch already?" he asked.
The setter turned to look up at the point guard. "Yeah, thanks," she replied casually.
"But I didn't see you out with your team. I saw them on the canteen, you weren't around."
"Maybe I went alone?" she impishly told him, smiling a humorless smile.
Izuki sat on the chair in front of her desk, turning sideward to face the setter.
"You weren't there, I didn't see you."
"Don't tell me you can see everyone wherever you go?" she chuckled humorlessly.
"Well you just have this long dark red hair and you're wearing a beige sweater and you're taller than a lot of girls. It would be ill-eagle for my Eagle Eye to not notice you." PING!
His attempt on cheering her up proved successful when Hikari made an expression that can only be described as a cross between wanting to strangle him and wanting to take him home and squish the fluffins out of him.
Izuki just had to smile seeing this, completely forgetting what he came here for.
"Heh~ should I give a laugh for that? How many?" she teased, still wearing the same expression.
"No need. You're already laughing inside your head."
"Yes, while beating you to a bloody pulp."
Sigh. "You're not gonna admit that you think I'm funny, orange you?" PING!
Izuki chuckled his squinty-eyed chuckle while frantically trying to restrain his classmate who have reached out and tried to tackle him, pinching his cheeks sore and chortling like a helpless goof.
"Why are you like that, why?!" she screeched.
Andhe thought, God, her reactions are always the best.
Some of their classmates who didn't leave for lunch were starting to give them odd looks.
"Since when did those two started acting all buddy-buddy?" one of them whispered.
"I don't know, I heard their teams practice together on the gym. I've been noticing them talk like bffs every once in a while now," whispered another.
"That explains a lot. I wonder what they do in 'practice' for them to suddenly be this close?"
By the end of their little skirmish, Izuki's cheeks were already very pink from all the pinching.
After a moment of recovery, he pulled out a sandwich from the plastic bag he brought.
"You must be hungry, I haven't had lunch too so I'll share with you," he handed it to her, still grinning happily. He took one for himself and started eating.
"My teammates went here, they bought me food," she said after recovering.
As a proof, she showed him some empty packs bunched on the compartment under her desk.
"But don't worry I'm still hungry." And she took the sandwich and ate.
"Why didn't you go with them?" the point guard asked.
"Cuz I'm busy, simple as that."
"Busy with what? I don't think we have a quiz or something."
"I wonder why students here are always ready to kill each other just to buy that super special black iberian pig sandwich when there's a tuna sandwich this aweso‒"
"Were you busy with this?" Izuki cut her random rambling, picking a piece of paper on her table.
"Uh well, you can say that," she admitted. "You won't even make anything out of it anyway."
He looked at the bunch of messed up lines and numbers and scribbles on it.
"No, I think this looks like a game plan. For the practice game later, I presume?"
Hikari narrowed her eyes.
"Who told you about that?"
"Coach. Anyway, where would it be held? Who are the opponents?"
She huffed. "I don't know about the opponents but it'll be here in school, on the gym."
"Really? I hope Coach allows us to watch," he bit another mouthful.
A sneer appeared on Hikari's lips. "You wouldn't want to watch us play, dorky. In fact, I don't think you'd be able to. It starts two hours before class ends so we'll be leaving earlier."
Izuki's pupils suddenly dilated, eyebrows knitting together‒ a look of utter shock in his face.
Hikari braced herself for what's coming next.
"Then we will be missing the match because the schedule is a mismatch!" PING!
And she turned into a sniggering mess again and gave the adorable black-haired boy another pinch on the cheek, making an amused sound in her throat.
"You're so freaking raaandooom~!"
The punster wrote down the pun when she let go of his cheek, smiling at his success.
They continued emptying the plastic bag at a leisurely pace. When they finished and put away all the trash, Izuki didn't go back to his own desk. Instead, he resumed his seat in front of Hikari. This time, he went down to business and told her what he'd been meaning to the entire time.
"Hikari-san, promise me you'll do your best to win the game today."
Too bad it really just had to ruin the mood.
The sincerity in his tone made the setter cringe. It almost instantly wiped away the liveliness in her aura.
"That's exactly what my teammates told me when they came here, no need to repeat," she told him impassively.
"I just wanna make sure you will, without any excuses."
Hikari sighed deeply, rolling her eyes. "I won't make a promise or anything cuz I'm not good at keeping them, but I will play like my life depends on it, you ok with that? I told you I still try to do what I can for my team, even if It meant having to try to win. Not that I'm the kind of person for that stuff."
The setter looked away uninterestedly and refused to answer any more of his questions like an enthusiastic person does.
-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Two hours before the class gets dismissed, Hikari stood up from her seat, took her bag and her stuff, walked towards the Sensei in front of them, gave a note which Izuki assumed to be an excuse letter, and left.
But before she stepped out to meet her teammates for the practice match, she gave Izuki a millisecond of a glance that said something he couldn't decipher. He held up a thumb and gave her a quick smile that says 'Good luck!' in return.
Two hours later, the sharp-eyed point guard almost broke into a grin while walking towards the gym for practice when he heard the squeaks of shoes and the occasional yells of female volleyball players.
This could only mean one thing. The practice match still hasn't finished yet.
"Hear that? That's the volleyball club, they're having a practice match against another school. Come on let's go watch!" he told Hyuuga who was walking with him.
"I didn't know you stink of hypocrisy like this, Izuki. I should've known you like spying on girls. That's an abuse of special ability!" the clutch shooter said.
"What? No! I wanna see how they play! What are you talking about Hyuuga?"
But the practice match has already ended when they arrived, to Izuki's further disappointment. The two teams were already shaking hands in the center of the court, saying thanks and congratulating the winners as they go.
But the underlying question was: who won the game?
Izuki immediately looked at the scoreboard and his onyx eyes widened at the sight of the results.
5th set, Hayashi – 12, Seirin – 15.
It's a victory for Hikari's team.
And it was a tight match which lasted for 2 hours extending until the 5th set.
It must have been a thrilling game, she must have given her best, she must be feeling really good about winning finally—
Izuki watched Hikari, who was clad in Seirin's volleyball uniform which he realized was a sight he haven't seen until then, looking for a reaction, hoping she would somehow show any kind of delight about winning such a tight match.
But she just remained silent, nonchalant, passive, as if winning didn't affect her in any kind of way.
Watching her now reminded him of the many basketball players with the same expression after winning a game.
Then she met his gaze, icy and suspecting and blank all the same. It puzzled him more when she decided to not acknowledge his presence and just casually ignored him.
"Looks like someone gets snobby when they snag a win."
It was Hyuuga who said that. He also noticed.
Izuki wondered what was wrong, why they weren't looking happy about finally winning, finally getting a chance to be acknowledged as a team capable of victory and giving honor to the school, finally redeeming their reputation. Instead, they looked the opposite.
His questions were immediately answered when the opposing team walked in front of him and Hyuuga, heading towards the changing rooms.
He noticed it when they started whispering at each other at the sight of him, ogling and blushing and smiling shyly like middle school students…
It dawned to him right then.
This team was from a school named Hayashi. Once, he heard his little sister, Mai, talking about wanting to go this school next year because the dismissal time is two hours earlier than most schools, and it's just around their prefecture so there won't be a problem.
But his little sister was just in 6th grade in elementary, and she wants to go to Hayashi next year.
. . . to Hayashi Middle School.
Seirin High School volleyball club just had a practice match against Hayashi Middle School volleyball club, and the high school girls even had a hard time trying to win against the middle schoolers.
Now there's no way he wouldn't understand how awful it must have felt.
So when Hikari's team started heading towards the changing rooms as well, he strode towards them, called out to his classmate, and grasped her arm when she chose to ignore him again.
He was met by a pair of hollow, dark-blood colored eyes gazing lifelessly and at the same time infuriatingly at him.
"Can we talk?"
She cocked her eyebrows, chirping an oddly high-pitched "Sure."
She glanced at her team and gave them a signal to go ahead without her.
He released her arm, she stared at him boringly again.
"Who decided about this? Why did you allow a practice match against a middle school team?"
"The Sports Department did. Why? Because it's unfair for the little brats? Or is it unfair for us?"
Izuki felt his usually kept and leveled temper unexpectedly rising up at her lack of retribution. His pupils dilated, making his eyes gleam a furious shade of silver.
"Either way, it's just wrong, Hikari-san. You should be going against fellow high school teams, not middle schoolers. You and your team deserves better than this."
She scoffed.
"Alright, so we go against another funny-assed high school team and then what? We get crushed like always?"
"Then at least you should've crushed them!" he stifled a yell. "Show everyone you can do so much more!"
He knew it shouldn't feel better to yell, but it did.
"Oh?" she scoffed again. "You didn't see how much we tried, how much I tried."
"Don't give me that." Izuki found it funny that he sounded like Hyuuga now, but never thought about laughing about it. "You were holding back, weren't you?"
"What!?"
"You were holding back because for some ridiculous reason, you don't really wanna win," he said accusingly.
She didn't scoff this time, she chuckled. And it lacked the humor it used to have. Izuki honest-to-God hated it.
"So you're still going on about that, about me trying to lose on purpose," she snapped. "You really think I'm that much of an insufferable idiot, huh?"
"What—"
"Don't get me wrong here, Izuki-kun. I know you think that I don't care about my team just as long as I'm having fun getting my pride up since you know what I believe in, but you're wrong. You're misjudging me, and I've misjudged you too. I shouldn't have trusted you."
Izuki's hands curled into fists, not only because he didn't know how to respond to that, but also because he was taken aback hearing her say that she shouldn't have trusted him.
"Look, this is the only way we win, Izuki-kun," she continued. "Playing against weak and hopeless teams just like what I've managed to make out of this team of mine."
The point guard's scowl deepened, finding his voice again. "But your team is not weak, Hikari-san, you're not hopeless. Everyone knows that. You're more than capable to fight and win."
"Well surprise. I'm sorry to say that we're not the great and mighty team that you've been seeing here in this gym ever since we started crashing your practice. Haven't you heard? We're getting wiped out real soon! This gym will be all yours again."
"Stop saying that! A team becomes amazing because of a great support, and you're a great support of them. Weren't you the one who told me that? You're a strong athlete, Hikari-san, I don't believe the only thing you can do is to drag your team down like what you're trying to tell me now."
He hoped she was able to pick up that the last sentence was meant to emphasize how much he believes in her, but what she told him next proved otherwise.
"Well here's what I'm telling you," the setter stepped close enough it's impossible to ignore the tiny liquid crystals forming on her eyes. "There are many things you can do to strengthen an athlete's mind and physique, Izuki-kun, but you can do nothing to strengthen a person's heart. If the heart is weak, physical and mental strengths becomes just as useless as a piece of shit."
Then she turned and walked away, without sparing another glance.
And that was the moment Izuki came to realize why pursuit of victory has never been an option for Fuyu Hikari.
Author's Notes:
Fact Fujimaki-san made up: Izuki having a little sister named Mai is canon. It's on the Replace II omake.
Fact I just made up: The volleyball club's jersey has the same design and colors as the basketball club's, just a whole lotta tighter and styled for volleyball of course. One day, I'll try to draw that. I don't know.
Chapter 6 is coming real soon. Still busy doing thesis.
Prev 1. Chapter 12. Chapter 23. Chapter 34. Chapter 45. Chapter 5
The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.
Favorite : Story Author Follow : Story Author
Post Review As
FanFiction
FictionPress
Amazon
Actions
Add to Community
Report Abuse
Share
Google+
Tumblr
Follow/Favorite
+ Follow
style="width: 0.14in; height: 0.14in"> Story style="width: 0.14in; height: 0.14in"> Writer
+ Favorite
style="width: 0.14in; height: 0.14in"> Story style="width: 0.14in; height: 0.14in"> Writer
Close Working... Save
Help . Privacy . Terms of Service . Top