"Eugh, I'm beat," Jo muttered as she flopped back into the sand. Her body was aching, there was sand all through her hair, down her pants (courtesy of Shira) and she was completely covered in sweat. This was not how she imagined a day at the beach was going to go. As soon as Kazuki had blown the whistle for the end of the mixed team match, Saka had loudly declared that the Seirin versus Iwozuka match was going to have to wait, mostly due to the players being far too tired to play another game to fifteen points.

"Who knew casual beach basketball would be so competitive?" Takami groaned, sinking to her knees beside Jo. Takami had returned to fanning her face, which was now quite rightly flushed from the exercise. When Jo didn't reply, Takami gently lay her hat on her face, helping to protect her friend from the sun. Jo sighed a thank you, well Takami presumed it was a thank you, before letting her arms lay out as if she were being crucified.

"Your centre looks dead," Kagami commented to Shira, looking over his shoulder to Jo. Shira let out a snort, nodding before looking back to the rest of Seirin.

"To be fair, so does your shadow." Kuroko was lying face down in the sand, although his face was resting on Ishimura's towel. His arms were by his sides and if Shira couldn't see his back rising and falling, she would have thought he was dead. Hyuuga was sitting beside Riko as well, chugging down a bottle of water. "Eugh, I can't believe they won as well. Ishimura's not going to let me forget this."

The score between the two mixed teams had ended up being fifteen to twelve, the last goal going to Takami. Kuroko had pased the ball from Saka to her, although it was originally intended for Ishimura. The latter had been caught completely off guard and instead of catching the ball leapt to the side, the ball almost knocking her head from her shoulders. Takami looked just as surprised as Ishimura had but she caught it and immediately shot the winning three pointer.

"Ha, of course we won, we had Mister Invisible," Ishimura cheered, grabbing her skim board from where she had stabbed it in the ground, "now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go boarding." She bolted for the ocean, kicking up sand behind her as she did. Shira watched her friend, finding a grin stretched out by her lips as she watched Ishimura laughing to herself. They should definitely come to the beach more often.

"Hey Kaga-Kun, we should go swimming, bet I'm faster than you," Shira laughed, adding a wink to Kagami. His cheeks flushed the tiniest shade redder and Shira wondered if it was the wink, his nickname or both that made it do so. Shira was serious about swimming though, and even if he said no she was going in the water. Grabbing the bottom of her shirt Shira hiked it over her head, turning and throwing it towards Jo and Takami.

"What are those lines on your back?" Shira turned back to Kagami, seeing his eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. She was confused about what he was talking about for a moment, before remembering the horizontal silver scars that were scattered along her back. Flashing him a grin, she turned around slightly so he could see them again, looking at him over her shoulder.

"Stretch marks. I grew all of a sudden in middle school and my body couldn't keep up."

"We reckon she looks like a tiger," Takami piped up from the ground, her fingers once again working at the keypad of her mobile. Shira laughed before turning to face Kagami.

"Hey, your name's Taiga right? We're both tigers!" she grinned before running towards the water. "Last one in's a dirty rotten egg!"

Kagami stayed where he was for a moment, watching at Shira sprinted towards the water. Koganei and Mitobe seemed to have decided they wanted to go swimming as well, and they trailed after her. He let out a light chuckle, looking back to see if Kuroko was willing to come in as well, but the latter looked like he still needed to catch up with some energy first. Kagami looked to Riko, who was in a deep conversation with Hyuuga, before running after the others.

"Huh," Takami muttered after a few minutes, pulling back from her mobile. Jo opened one eye, pulling the hat from her face and looking to her friend in curiosity. Takami very rarely reacted to whomever she was texting or whatever she recieved as a reply, but now she was staring at her mobile with a very confused look on her face.

"What's wrong?"

"It's just..."

"Ano, Jo-San." The pair looked over their shoulders to see Kuroko crouching behind them. His cheeks were still flushed quite red and there were beads of sweat rolling down his skin. He looked tired, almost as much as Jo. Without hesitation she put Takami's hat on his head before reaching into their bag.

"You look beyond tired Kuroko, here, drink this," Jo pulled out a waterbottle and handed it to him. He looked a bit surprised but opened the lid, gently drinking the cool water inside. When he pulled the bottle away he let out a small, contented sigh before attempting to hand it back. Jo put her hand up, shaking her head and motioning to the bottle. "You look like you need it more than me, besides I can just drink Meyer's."

"Thank you, Jo-San."

"Did you need anything else?"

"You played Aomine-Kun?"

"Yeah, sort of," Jo scratched the back of her head. She wasn't surprised that Kuroko was going to question the match, she had seen him look as surprised as Kagami when Shira mentioned it. The only thing that was surprising Jo was that it had taken Kuroko all this time to ask.

"And you scored against him?"

"Yeah, it was pretty easy actually. Ishimura was furious. He's not a team player." Kuroko was nodding but his eyes suddenly turned hard. Jo knew she had said something that hit home, so she gently hit him on the back, pulling him in to sit in between herself and Takami. "You don't have to sit all the way back there you know. You should be asking Takami about the game, she's the expert. I just throw the balls."

"Aomine was injured and disinterested in the game from the beginning," Takami said as soon as Kuroko looked at her. Which was surprising because she was back at working her mobile and hadn't even glanced Kuroko's way after returning to her phone. She sent whatever message she had been typing, looking to Kuroko with her dark, dark brown eyes. "Though I sincerely doubt if those factors hadn't been there he would have been able to do much more."

"Aomine-Kun is a difficult player."

"But he is only one player. Our team may specialize in a high level of team work, much like Seirin, but our singular specializations working together would make it far too difficult for a player like Aomine, or a team like Touou."

"Don't tell him everything Takami, when we get around to play Seirin he'll know our weakness," Jo laughed, reaching around Kuroko to poke Takami in the shoulder. Kuroko looked between the pair, smiling at their comradery. When Kazuki had first said that Iwozuka was the best, he feared the team would be like Teiko. He thought they were, when Ishimura and Shira almost got into an arguement and Meyer's coldness, but now he had changed his mind.

"Are you looking forward to the Winter Cup, Kuroko?" Takami changed the subject, gently placing her phone in her lap and turning to face the bluenette. Kuroko blinked at her before nodding.

"I am looking very much forward to the Winter Cup, only..."

"Only what?"

"I wish to greatly improve my skill, and there is little time between now and the Winter Cup."

"If you aim to improve your skill you will, you won't notice it at the start. Just pick something you want to do and stay with it until you manage to use it perfectly," Takami smiled, reaching out and ruffling his hair. Kuroko almost pulled back but relented and let her do so. He knew she was trying to comfort him and she pulled her hand away quickly anyway. Kuroko brought the bottle Jo gave him to his lips again, taking a mouthful of water. They trio fell into a silence after that. Jo laid back down onto her back, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths, relaxing into the sand. Kuroko watched his friends in the water, by now most of Seirin had entered to cool of. Takami's fingers were itching for her phone but she left it on her lap, looking out to the water.

"Ano, Jo-San, why does Meyer-San not want to play Seirin?" Kuroko questionned after a while. He didn't recieve a reply straight away, but Jo opened her eyes and looked up with frowning eyebrows. She was mulling over his question, trying to think of a reason why Meyer had left after Shira had suggested a game.

"I don't think it's that she doesn't want to play Seirin, I think she doesn't want to play you yet." Jo sat up, pulling her knee to her chest and looking up the beach. Kiyoshi and Meyer were walking back to the group, Kiyoshi carrying a large cardboard box in his arms. Meyer had known him before today and Jo was certain she hadn't seen him play at all this year. Was this the game change that Meyer had been talking about? "I think, Kuroko, after the Winter Cup, you'll have your game."

...

"Jean, you home?" Meyer called out as she walked in through the door. She was more than happy to be home, her body was begging for her to collapse into bed. She and Kiyoshi, more her though, had bought the two teams iceblocks to eat after the game. There hadn't been another mention of Kirisaki Dai Ichi, nor of Hanimaya Makoto. Not that they had a chance to talk about it afterwards anyway. Shira had all but bolted out of the water and up the sand, snatching up an iceblock and munching happily. Seirin swarmed the pair as well, leaving Meyer cursing her small height as she was enclosed with wet, shirtless boys all standing at least ten centimetres taller than her.

"I'm on the xbox!" Jean called from the loungeroom. Meyer kicked her shoes off at the door and walked into the loungeroom. Jean was lounging on the couch, his eyes not moving from the screen even though he had heard her come in. He was playing some shoot'em'up and looked to be in the middle of a boss battle. Meyer smiled at her brother. Since he had been released from hospital he seemed a lot happier and he, for once in his life, was looking forward to school every day. Unfortunately he was still being difficult for Hotaka Sensei.

"Mum and dad been home?" Meyer questioned as she walked into the kitchen. Jean paused the video game and pulled himself up, looking at her over the back of the couch.

"You just missed them. They're at some dinner or something."

"Mum must be happy."

"She wanted to drag me along. You knew, didn't you?"

"Why do you think I was more than happy to go to the beach with Shira?" Meyer laughed. She and Jean both felt sorry for their mother. She could only speak French and English and whenever she tried to speak Japanese the words rolled around funny in her mouth. Her father didn't always take their mother to his work functions, knowing she would feel lonely and uncomfortable with not being able to understand what people were saying, but he also struggled with not inviting her because she loved to dress up and go out. It was a bit of a vicious cycle really. "You should have come with us, because guess who I ran into today?"

"Am I going to care?" Jean laughed as he fell back onto the couch. He didn't press start on his game though, meaning he was interested in what she was going to stay. Meyer grinned again, running to the couch and looking over the back rest at him.

"Teppei."

"What? No fair! He's my friend first!" Jean groaned, sitting up again and trying to smack her. Meyer laughed, pulling away and skipping back, poking her tongue out at her brother. He was very possessive over Teppei with her and Meyer very rarely teased him about it, but she really felt like irritating him today.

"He was with Seirin, training for the Winter Cup. We hung out with them all day."

"Oh come on, you're bullshitting me!" Jean whined, swinging his leg over the edge of the couch and grabbing his crutches. He stood up, leaning against his crutch as he turned to Meyer. She grinned again, poking her tongue out and waving her hands by her ears. "You're not. Ugh, that's so unfair! You hang out playing basketball and I get a miserable mum!"

"Hey, I offered and you said no."

"Yeah but if I'd known we would have run into Teppei, ugh, no fair!" Jean whined again, walking around the lounge and heading into the kitchen. Meyer followed after him, her hands behind her back as she kept grinning.

"Well, next time come along. The girls love it when you join us."

"Yuki steals all my food."

"It's a sign of love," Meyer laughed. Jean rolled his eyes and reached up to the top cupboard. He pulled down the cookies their mother had tried to hide, passing one back to her. Over the past year he had grown taller than her, just shorter than Takami now. Meyer felt her heart drag a little as she reached up and pushed his head down. Her little brother was now taller than her and still growing. He wasn't meant to ever be bigger than her.

"Stop doing that, I'm not going to shrink," Jean mumbled through the cookie in his mouth, knocking her hand away. Meyer rolled her eyes, attempting to think of a comeback before she turned around to go to her room. She felt Jean wrap his arms around shoulders and she had a moment to brace herself as he jumped on her back.

"Jean what the hell are you doing?"

"I want a piggy back to the couch!"

"Get off, you're too heavy!"

"You can carry Kida-Chan!"

"Kida doesn't need to lay off the cookies like you do!"

"Hey, you eat more than me!"

"I can!"

"My arms are tired." Meyer growled. Jean knew that excuse was the one thing he could say that would make her carry him to the couch. She grunted a fine in response and slowly trudged back into the lounge room, irritated that her brother had her wrapped around his little finger. Though it wasn't just his injury, it was her own guilt that made her do whatever he asked most of the time. At least he didn't abuse it. Much.

"You really are getting too big for this," Meyer muttered as she stopped in front of the couch. Jean fell from her, collapsing on the couch and almost bouncing back off. He flashed her a rather please grin before picking up the controller.

"Maybe I'll carry you around soon." It was a reply he would always give her when Meyer complained about him becoming heavier but as soon as the sentence was finished she could see the fear grow in his eyes. He set the controller back down on his stomach, blinking as his eyes hazed out the world around him. Meyer shook her head, sitting on the couch beside him and ruffling his hair like she always did.

"You know, if you actually did something in rehab, you might be able to."

"I told you," Jean whined again, kicking his right leg up and slamming it back down, "I don't like wearing it!"

"Don't complain to me then. I'm gong to bed anyway, you can't stay up too late."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Jean reached for his controller and immersed himself into the game. Meyer shook her head as she walked to the stairs, glancing at her brother once before going upstairs. Before she reached her room she fished her phone out of her pocket, glancing at the screen for a moment. There were no new messages and she was glad for that. The day hadn't ended particularly well.

Kagami had made some off-handed comment that only Ishimura managed to catch, and whatever it was must have been bad because she ended up chasing him down the water line, swearing like a sailor and trying to hit him with her skim board. Meyer had to chase her down, and when she managed to get Ishimura to come back, she found a severely stuttering and blushing Hyuuga as Shira was, for some ungodly and no real reason, not-so-discretely proposing the pair go home together. To make matters worse, Kazuki and Saka had disappeared off to god knows where and Riko looked like she was going to kill all of them. Well, it hadn't ended bad for everyone. Jo had ended up with Kuroko on her shoulders, helping him dunk the ball into the hoop.

"Not exactly the greatest impression," Meyer muttered as she stuck her phone back into her pocket before opening the door. Her bedroom was the smallest out of all of them and used to belong to Jean the year earlier. Hers had been the second largest down stairs, but it was easier for Jean without the stair so she insisted they switch rooms. Most of her stuff had trouble fitting in the room and it was a lot more cramped than it used to be, but she didn't mind that much. She mostly came into her room to sleep.

Walking over to her bed she sat on the soft mattress, lying back and staring up at the roof. Kiyoshi had asked her what they were planning to do during the holidays in terms of training, and Meyer had to admit she wasn't sure. After all, it wasn't like they needed to push training consistantly like the other teams. They all kept themselves fit without the training and whenever they did train together, they didn't do a whole lot most of the time.

Meyer jumped about a foot in the air when a blood curdling scream errupted from her pocket. Wrenching her phone out of her pocket, she glowered as she realised that Ishimura must have gotten to it at somepoint and turned it off vibrate. At least it wasn't a loud series of rather sexual moans this time, courtesy of Shira of course.

"Hello?"

"Victoria, it's Ai." Meyer almost dropped the phone. Katsumi Ai, the captain of Shutoku's female basketball team and probably the only person who could hold her own against the Queens. She wasn't upset that Katsumi had called her, in fact she was often the one opponent that Meyer looked forward to playing.

"It's been a long time, what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I'm going out on a limb here and assuming you have no plans for training over the break?" Meyer could have laughed. For someone who was her opposition, she was far too knowledgable of her habits. That was probably why Meyer liked her so much, for a team that was so unpredictable Katsumi was pretty good at assuming where the ball's going to go.

"You know me too well Ai."

"Yeah, could you imagine if we played together?" Meyer heard laughter from the other end and she couldn't help but grin herself. There was no way in hell either of them ever considered playing with one another. They had to be against each other, there was no other way to play. "Anyway, that's not why I'm calling."

"I presume it has something to do with training?"

"Every year, the Shutoku teams go to the mountains to train. Some old tradition or some shit, I don't really care."

"That's really interesting Ai, but why are you telling me?"

"Victoria, both Shutoku teams are going. You do remember who's on the boys team right?" Meyer rubbed her temple, trying to think back to Seirin's matches earlier in the year. She had missed the game where they played against Shutoku, so she wasn't entirely sure who was on it. Ishimura would have said something about it though, so she wracked her brains. She remembered Ishimura gushing about Kagami's jumping skills and how he seemed to fly through the air, but who did she say he was jumping against? "You can't be serious right now, you don't know?"

"I missed that match," Meyer tried feebly as she tried to think of the name. She couldn't remember for the life of her. "Who is it?"

"The Shooter from the Generation of Miracles, Midorima Shintarou." Meyer's eyes grew wide for a moment before she settled back down. She had always been interested in Midorima's shots, hell he had inspired the girls to learn how to shoot three pointers from so far back, and she had always wanted the chance to thank him for it.

"Midorima, well it would be interesting to meet him, even if only briefly. You said they were going for training though, I wouldn't want to..."

"I'm friends with one of the guys on his team, I'll talk him into getting Midorima to meet you if you want."

"Appreciated. I'll let the girls know. When are you going?"

"We leave in two days and we're there for two weeks. I think the boys might already be there but I can't be sure honestly. I'll text you through the details. See you there hopefully." With that the line went dead and Meyer pulled the phone from her ear. She probably should let her parents know soon that her plans for summer vacation were going to change, but they wouldn't be too fussed. She would just have to mention basketball training camp and her father would be more than happy to organise it all for her. Her phone buzzed with a message from Katsumi and she laid back on her bed, staring up at her roof. This was going to be a lot of run around just to talk to Midorima.