AP Chem is killing me. Because our school is an IB school, we have strange grading that is making me seriously worried about my grades in that class... *dead* Any tips anyone? Does anyone known any good resources/good methods of studying? (x_x)

Thank you Sezu-nii for proofreading this. I really appreciate it. :)

Omake 2: Takeda-sensei's Thoughts on the First Years

Takeda Kenji had seen a lot through his forty years of teaching high school. He'd seen many students through the years: the delinquents, the hard workers, the bullies, the kind, the indifferent and the dreamers.

He had built an intuition, a sixth sense that helped him understand his students and guide them for the better.

But when he was first asked to transfer to the newly built Seirin to teach, he had never expected the whirlwind like the Seirin basketball team to come into his life.

Certainly, they were oddballs, but they were good, kind kids. They were the hardworking ones that gave him the reason to keep on teaching, despite his age.

Takeda-sensei mused on this quietly with a smile on his face. As he walked to the gym, he glanced at the vibrant spring sky as he reminisced the time the 2nd years made their oaths on the rooftop.

"Pledge! The members of the basketball team, with the aim to become No. 1 in Japan, will definitely go to the Nationals!" Kiyoshi shouted on the rooftop. "1-B #7, Kiyoshi Teppei!"

Startled, Takeda-sensei glanced at the source of the sound.

Murmurs began bursting among the students.

"What are they doing!?" A teacher administrator questioned loudly.

"Same as above! 1-C #3!"

"Someone go and stop them!"

Takeda-sensei blinked in surprise.

"Are they serious?" A student muttered.

A few moments later, some of the teachers brought them to a halt. He could barely hear their conversation, but what he heard next was loud and clear.

"DON'T YOU DARE LOOK DOWN ON US! IF WE CAN'T, WE'LL DO ANYTHING - WHETHER IT'S CONFESSING BARE-NAKED OR WHATEVER!"

It had taken a minute for Takeda-sensei to collect himself.

"Youth," he chuckled amiably.

I also remember when they asked me to be their advisor, Takeda-sensei thought with amusement.

The Seirin boys all were in deep thought as they sat in a classroom after-school.

"What should we do?" Izuki sighed. "After our stunt on the rooftop, none of the teachers are willing to be our advisor."

"But don't we have Aida as our coach already? Is it necessary to have an advisor?" Koganei asked.

"Those two are completely different things dumb-ass," Hyuuga growled. "An advisor is needed for sports teams especially because we need permission from the school to arrange for games, trips and training outside of school. A lot of the legal things needs to be done by someone who knows how to arrange it according to the school's rules. It would be too much for Coach to handle all by herself," he paused, then added almost as an after-thought. "—and the administrators don't like us."

"And whose fault was that...watashitachi no inshō-tekina shīn wa watashi no shin o kowashita..."*

The team groaned in annoyance, already knowing where this was going, but unfortunately, someone else had to add their two-cents.

"Watashitachi no inshō-tekina shīn wa watashi no shin o kowashita*... I get it!" Kiyoshi grinned with elation, happy he got the pun.

"Shut up Izuki! You too Kiyoshi!"

"..." Mitobe glanced worriedly at Koganei.

"Mitobe is right," Koganei nodded solemnly. "If we don't get an advisor soon, we won't be able to do anything at all."

"He didn't say anything though!?"

"What are you boys doing?" Riko asked, head tilted to the side in question as she walked through the doors. "I was looking for you guys!"

"..."

"Whoa, you guys are unusually glum."

"We're still worried about the advisor problem," Hyuuga sighed, rubbing his neck wearily. "If we don't have an advisor before the Kanto preliminaries, we're going to have a lot of troubles with funds, aren't we?"

"Well…" Riko pondered. "That is true."

"You don't seem worried at all?!"

"Well I could just use my power as the vice-president of the student council to twist things ethnically enough," Riko gave her infamous starry wink, sticking out her tongue in a pose that was much too natural.

"Yeah, you could always..." Hyuuga paused, what she said catching up with him. "Wait, what!?"

"Don't do that!" Koganei shouted, near panic coloring his voice. "Let's do this normally, please!"

Meanwhile, Takeda-sensei had been watching this scene with a little bemusement and interest, both hidden easily with a wrinkled smile.

"Excuse me, students," Takeda-sensei hobbled into the room. "It's already past 5:00 and everyone needs to hurry home before it's too late in the afternoon. Your parents may worry."

"Eh, Takeda-sensei?" Izuki looked up.

"Ah sorry, sorry," Kiyoshi apologized. "We were just discussing some things about the basketball club."

"Yes, I heard," Takeda-sensei's smile widened. "...Do you kids mind if this old-timer joins the basketball club?"

"...!"

Takeda-sensei chuckled as he recalled their immense thanks that ensued.

The following months had been like a whirlwind as Seirin won game after game in the Inter-high qualifiers.

Youth… it's quite an amazing thing, he had repeatedly thought through each of Kiyoshi's dunks, Hyuuga's three pointers, Izuki's passing, Mitobe's skills that came from hard work, Aida's coaching skills and… yes. It was amazing.

(Koganei and Tsuchida were omitted as usual, but unintentionally. At this moment, both of them gave a large synchronized sneeze).

But then an unexpected obstacle came during the Championship game of the preliminaries. As an advisor... no, as a responsible teacher, he should have known that something was wrong with Seirin's ace before that fateful game began.

It wasn't until the boy from Kirisaki Daiichi broke Kiyoshi's knee that he realized that all things could disappear quickly.

Just like that.

The team's morale was quickly destroyed in the following matches.

And the one that is feeling the worst, is Kiyoshi-kun, Takeda-sensei thought.

Fall flew by, and Seirin got back up again and practiced harder than ever.

During the duration of Seirin's first year, Takeda-sensei visited Kiyoshi as much as possible. Each term he visited his amiable student, he learned something new each time through his observations and their conversations.

It wasn't as easy as Takeda-sensei thought. Despite Kiyoshi's friendly personality, the boy seemed to have an invisible barrier between him and the others that no one seemed to notice. And despite his honesty in what he did and said, he was very good at hiding things.

Yes, he would chat happily to anyone about anything (especially Hanafuda recently), but if anyone would ask him too much about his family, his time as an Uncrowned General in Shoei (why he didn't go to a basketball veteran school) or even his elementary school days, they would get ambiguous responses.

The most that even Takeda-sensei got out of Kiyoshi was that he lived with his grandparents (for some reason, he never elaborated but Takeda could hypothesize a bit), and that he hid some somber reasons why he opted to go to Seirin instead of going to a veteran school such as Shuutoku (Kiyoshi told him that their coach had asked him to come).

The last part puzzled Takeda-sensei a bit and made him wonder a bit more. But he didn't ask more as Kiyoshi never answered and the basketball team members became 2nd years.

Spring was here again, and he was delighted to see new faces and especially the entry forms of the basketball team come in, even if it wasn't a great amount.

As he shuffled through the forms, one of them caught his eye.

"Aida-san, there's an error on the form," Takeda notified Riko, eyeing the paper with doubtful eyes.

"Eh, where?"

"This young girl, shouldn't she have filled out the position as Club Manager?"

"Ah no, she's going to be on the team as a player." Were Riko's tentative words.

"...?" Takeda-sensei was more confused than against the sudden proclamation. "But, this is a boy's basketball club."

The Club Coach looked at him hesitantly, yet with ever-present respect, "Well you see, she had a very strong conviction to join as a player, and she does have the skills to make it on our team."

"But still..."

"Sensei. I must admit that one of the main reasons why I allowed her to join is because she's Teppei's sister."

Once again, Takeda-sensei was stumped, showing as he blinked, "But their last names are...?"

"Ah yes, they have different last names. She told me it's because she has their mother's last name while Teppei has their grandparents'."

Kiyoshi had never mentioned anything about a sister. He had never talked about his parents either. Then again, he didn't really talk about his personal life at all.

"Well..." Takeda-sensei faltered a bit, as he was very fond of Kiyoshi and was even more protective of his student after the Kirisaki Daiichi game.

"How about we give it a trial?" Riko suggested. "I wouldn't think that Seirin has strict protocols yet, you know, regarding clubs..."

With his doubts put to rest, Takeda-sensei nodded.

In the afternoon when their first practice began, he was amused at the tardiness of Fujidana Hazuki, a trait very similar to her brother. He was actually quite surprised that none of the Seirin 2nd years recognized the resemblance of the two siblings. They had a similar appearance and a presence that was amiable, yet somewhat reserved.

Fujidana was also amazingly able to keep up with the high-level sports regime the coach made, something that demonstrated her high level skills and stamina, just like her brother.

The few differences, he observed, was that she seemed to be a bit queasy in the presence of so many people, which was unlike her brother's sunny style of befriending any person he met. Another thing that was even less noticeable was her expressions.

She certainly wasn't expressionless, and definitely didn't possess a impassive nature like Kuroko-kun, but she certainly did not smile as much as her brother, despite their similar personality.

Curious, Takeda-sensei thought. Very curious.

During the practice game between the 2nd years and 1st years, he wasn't able to grasp her skills. It wasn't until the first practice game that he understood why Aida agreed to let her in on the team. He was quite blown away from his expectations.

Fujidana Hazuki was certainly talented in basketball.

After the practice game, back at Seirin, Takeda-sensei began to sift through her school records to see her experience in basketball previously.

'I'm sure she went to a middle school with an excellent basketball team, just like her brother,' Was Takeda-sensei's assumption.

But he didn't expect what he found. It took him several times to read it to comprehend the information, despite it being a short, straight-to-the-point statement.

'I did not go to middle school.'

Takeda-sensei wondered and wondered, and many times the next day, wanted to ask. But as his wise intuition told him, it wasn't the right time to know. From then on, he kept a more careful eye on her.

As the basketball practices came along, and Seirin grew busier, it looked like there wouldn't be any problems. It still surprised him that the other members didn't know of Fujidana-san's kinship with their ace (for some reason, Aida-san had forbade Fujidana-san from telling the others, apparently with a 'devil's' (?) grin), but it didn't look like Fujidana-san wanted to desperately tell anyone either. At least not just yet.

He, at least, understood that part. She doesn't want to be judged anymore than she is.

And although the Seirin members all collapsed after every practice, dead from exhaustion from their 'demon coach', it looked like they were back alive once more. Their missing member would come back soon. And they would be complete.

At the court, all of them are shining brightly. To me, it's dazzling.

*Our striking scene broke my heart.

Sorry. It's a terrible terrible pun since I don't know Japanese.

R/R is very much appreciated. :P If there's any suggestions anyone has, I'm very very happy to hear them.