Hidden Beauty

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Basket Forty: Shocking News

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Kuroi was in her room, staring at the ceiling, by the time her mother had entered.

"Kuroi, dinner is re-... Why is your face so red? Are you sick? Catching a cold? Maybe y-"

"I'm fine, mom. I'll be there in a second." Kuroi replied quietly, pushing herself off her bed. Kayate gave her daughter a hesitant look, before nodding.

"Just remember to wash up." She said, before departing back towards the kitchen.

Kuroi stood and looked around her room, before making her way to the bathroom. She stared at her reflection, for the third time that day, and noticed that her cheeks were indeed still very red.

She reached up slowly and touched her pinkish-pale lips, face heating up at the memory of what she had done only a couple hours earlier...

"Sempai, close your eyes for a second." She asked.

Kasamatsu raised his eyebrow questioningly, but obeyed her strange request. Kuroi flushed, and leaned in close to the older boy, before connecting her lips to his in a slow, but soft, kiss.

She felt him jolt out of surprise, but then slowly relax, as the heat practically pooled off his cheeks. Kuroi pulled away, touching her lips shyly. "S- Sorry..."

"I- It's okay..." He stuttered back, taking a random interest at the very speck on the picnic table he was glaring at earlier. "We... We should go, it's getting late."

"Yea- uwaah! I- I'm supposed to be home before dinner time!" Kuroi stood, staring up at the sun that slowly started to set.

"E- Eh? Oh, then, let's go."

"Okay."

Kuroi smiled at the memory and dried her hands on the purple towel that hung from the silver rack. It sort of reminded her of their 'first kiss', if you could call it that. It was a more 'heat-of-the-moment' kind of kiss, anyways.

Kuroi fixed the towel and turned on her heel, leaving her bathroom to go downstairs.

Once she was at the table, her mother turned to stare at her. "Huh?" Kuroi finally noticed the stare after a few moments of smiling at her peas.

"Kuroi... How was your day?" Kayate asked.

"Oh, f- fine..." Kuroi paled a tad, looking over to her father. Her mother also turned, giving her husband a look.

Hearing her mom sigh made Kuroi huff quietly, "Kuroi, really?" Kayate spoke as she placed her fork down on the table. "Where could you possibly go? To that school to play basketball?"

"No! I just went for a walk!"

"You let her?" Kayate's frown turned to Kuroi's father, who raised his hands in the air. "It was just a walk, hun." He informed quietly.

"Yeah, I just went to the park... I only wanted some air." Kuroi muttered, glaring at her peas.

"Don't use that tone with me." Kayate warned, picking her fork back up.

Kuroi fell silent as she too began to eat her food. "..."

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Kuroi woke up from a mixture of someone knocking on her door and her alarm blaring loudly. "The hell.." She mumbled tiredly, rubbing her eyes as she sat up. She reached over and silenced her alarm, before looking lazily at the door. "What?" She called, stifling a yawn. "It's only Sunday..."

"No, yesterday was Sunday. Today is Monday, you have school." Kuroi glanced at her father, eyes blurry from sleep still. She groaned, realizing that her father was indeed telling the truth. "Can I stay home?"

"Being grounded doesn't work like that."

"Dad, you only learned that after being scolded by mom."

"... Yeah. Well, you don't want to be late, do you?" Mikoto said, tapping against the door frame, pulling Kuroi away from her sleepy state.

Kuroi yawned again, tossing the covers off of herself. "Guess not." She spoke softly, staring blankly at the sock that was half-off of her foot. The black haired girl took it off and threw it at her laundry basket, pouting when it missed.

Mikoto, her father, nodded. He turned to leave, but stopped and turned back to look at his daughter, "Kuroi, I'll be gone for about a week, alright?"

That made Kuroi wake up almost instantly, "Work?" She asked, looking at her dad.

"Yes. I'm leaving around lunch, so come say goodbye downstairs before you head for school."

"'Kay." Kuroi nodded, watching her father shut the door behind him so she could get changed and ready for school.

Once she was dressed and ready, she went down the stairs, fixing her bangs as she did so. Kuroi spotted her dad at the table, forking some eggs into his mouth. She stopped at the entrance to the kitchen, searching the area. "Where's mom?"

"Interview."

"Eh... For what?"

"Dance instructor."

Kuroi made a noise of surprise, "I thought she quit?" She asked, finally entering the kitchen to take a seat and eye the plate of scrambled eggs cautiously.

"She quit so she could have and raise you." Mikoto answered, smiling. "And what a wonderful job she did."

"Sarcastic flattery doesn't work on me, dad." Kuroi sighed, taking the ketchup to pour a small blob on her plate, beside the golden yellow eggs.

"I wasn't being sarcastic."

"Yeah, well, look at how wonderful I truly turned out." She motioned to her short hair, smearing some of the scrambled eggs around on her plate in with the ketchup. After a moment, she pushed the plate away. "I'm not hungry."

"Ehhh, is my cooking that bad?" Her father said in a whiny-tone, making Kuroi crack a smile.

"No, but it isn't the same as mom's. Anyway, I'm going to school now. Love you." Kuroi kissed her father's cheek, smiling as he ruffled her short hair.

"I'll see you next week." Her father replied, waving as she turned to made her exit.

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As Kuroi got off the train, she glanced down at her phone, which buzzed for the third time in the last hour. She read the text, and rolled her eyes. Hitting the reply button, she formed her response.

"Kise, Kasamatsu-sempai still hasn't changed his mind about hurting you at practice. And I'm sure he's even more angry that you skipped out on morning practice."

She put the phone back in her pocket and raised her head, looking at her surroundings as she made her way towards the school. Another buzz and she sighed.

"Yasuhirocchi! Can't you just like, I dunno, make a lie for me or something!? DO YOU WANT ME DEAD!?"

"Maybe just a little." Kuroi replied, hitting the send button. Not even two seconds later, her phone buzzed loudly.

"HOW COLD!" She chuckled, and turned her phone off, as she was nearing the school.

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It was during lunch that Kise came and dragged her away. Kuroi half expected him to drag her to the gym, but instead they went to the rooftop.

"This is a change of pace." Kuroi hummed, blinking at the ariel view of the school. It was actually quite beautiful; she wondered why she didn't come up here more often...

"Ah, Yasuhirocchi-"

"Oh, Kise. I wanted to ask you something."

"Eh, what?"

"What's the- uh, the current situation on the Interhigh?" She felt awkward asking. With not being in the club, it wasn't exactly any of her business anymore.

Kise blinked, offering a smile as he shrugged. "About that..." His smile faded, golden amber eyes fixated on the ground. "Coach said that in the quarter-finals, we'd be going up against Touou Academy."

Kuroi blinked, "Eh?" She squeaked dumbly, wondering why Kise looked so down about it.

"Aominecchi's school."

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Ah, if anyone likes to RP (Role Play) and like Kuroko no Basket (if you didn't like KnB, then why would you read this story in the first place...?) then you should come join this RP site I made! I actually made it a while ago, but then I just got back to it... So if you wanna come check it out, the link is on my profile! :'D

~WinterAssassin~