Title: Art Appeal

Story: Set in an AU where there's no GoM and Kagami and Aomine go to university in America. Both of them unexpectedly get stuck taking an art course where they meet someone interesting and learn more than just art. (BL to come).

Please read and review, thank you :D

Disclaimer: *I DO NOT OWN KUROKO NO BASKET OR ANY OF ITS CHARACTERS* Although I wish I did :'(

~Lovely story pic from

*Thank you for the follows and favs! I hope you all enjoy this chapter ~

Chapter 1: Be the Tree

"Hurry up we're gonna be late." Kagami yelled.

"Well whose fault would that be." Aomine growled back.

Both boys were making their way out of the gym locker room, and hurrying up the stone steps to the art building.

It had taken them forever to locate the building on their school maps, not even realizing their school had such a thing. Once known of the general direction, both boys rushed to ensure they weren't late on the first day.

So many thoughts were swirling though their heads as they dashed through various doors and hallways in order to get to their designated class.

When they reached their destination, they both slumped in the entry way trying to catch their breaths.

"Ah, just in time you two, please take a seat in the front row." Said the busty blonde, who was their art teacher, as she then proceeded to ask them their names to check it off on her attendance sheet.

Aomine grumbled his name in reply and was about to protest about sitting in the front, hating anything located within a teacher's direct line of sight which would hinder his sleeping time, but once setting eyes on his new professor, he eagerly accepted one of the two available seats in the front of the class.

Kagami took his seat next to Aomine and looked around. The class room was pretty large, almost the same size as a lecture room, but there were probably only 15 students or so in the class.

There was an elevated platform in the front of the room almost like a stage, along with a whiteboard to the left side.

The back of the room was filled with multiple storage cabinets, probably containing various art supplies, he thought, with a stack of extra chairs and a pile of art easels lined against the wall.

The lighting was good thanks to the multiple windows adorning the sides, and the view was of the large field near the back of the school, providing a pleasant view of scenery compared to most other classrooms.

It was kind of nice and intimate, and he thought he liked that.

"Now class my name is Professor Alexandra Garcia, but you can call me Alex." She smiled and adjusted her thick glasses, before continuing with her introduction.

"This is Drawing 101, where you will learn the basic skills needed to draw simple works of art."

Here everyone nodded, while Aomine, finally registering what the attractive blonde had said, realized that he was truly in an art class and slumped in his seat with a scowl.

"Now today we are going to start off with something simple." And here Alex removed the red sheet that had been covering an odd figure in the front of the room.

Much to Aomine's chargin, it was a small pine tree.

"Wait I thought we were going to be drawing naked women!" The blunette snapped, which urked the teacher in front of him.

"Well I'm sorry Mr. Aomine if this class has yet to meet your standards, but how about you take a page from your cute friend there and behave yourself." Alex looked over to Kagami and gave a small nod in approval, followed by a subtle wink.

Cute ? And was that a wink? Kagami thought, and in order to keep his cheeks from turning as red as his hair, he concentrated on the presence of the small pine in front of him.

Aomine, who was oblivious to the motion, continued to scowl and gave the baby pine the darkest glare he could muster, hoping his pure hatred towards the class alone would set it on fire right where it stood.

"Now in order to begin drawing the pine, you need to be the pine. See what it sees, and feel how it feels."

Kagami and Aomine were both whipped out of their trances, and stared at the teacher each with their own incredulous look.

"You want us to be a damn tree?" Aomine questioned.

"Yes, so you'll be able to draw a proper rendition of its true form." Alex answered.

Both boys looked at each other; She has got to be kidding.

~~XxXxX~~

Despite their apprehension, and a bit of Aomine's rebellion, they stood up with the rest of the class and tried their best to be the tree.

Not really having an idea how a tree would act, Kagami raised both arms above his head and placed both hands together in a prayer position, insinuating a point.

Alex was making her way through the few rows of seats when she stopped in front of Kagami and Aomine.

"Nice work Taiga. I see you're attempting to model your tall structure after the pine's distinct triangular figure, and I give you props for trying."

Kagami slightly blushed, but was able to conjure up a muffled 'thanks' before returning back to his staring contest with the pine.

"And just what part of the tree are you supposed to be, Mr. Aomine?" Alex glared at the tanned man on the ground.

"I'm the frigin stump alright!" Aomine replied, which earned him a swift bump on the head along with an F for the day.

"What that's not fair, I was being the stump! That's a part of the damn tree right!?"

"You receive a B in regards to your original thinking and persistence, but an F in effort and overall production."

Kagami, still trying to stay in touch with his 'inner tree,' began to chuckle.

Aomine stood up from the floor and slammed his fist into Kagami's side.

"What the hell man!"

"Sorry, it must have been one of my branches." The bluenette smirked, and went back to his seat to count down the minutes till this Hell was over.

"Great job everyone! Now that you all know what it's like to be the tree, you will all draw the tree. Just think of it as a self-portrait from your new-found tree point-of-view." She beamed and clapped her hands together, directing the students to each grab an easel from the back of the room and begin their lesson.

When Aomine remained seated, Kagami sighed and went to retrieve the easels, and placed one in front of his friend.

"You have till class is over."

Great no pressure, Kagami thought, but then again he was used to pressure.

Pressure from his coach, from his captain, heck sometimes even from his fellow teammates.

Thinking of teammates; the red head turned to see how the other power forward was making out.

To his surprise, he was actually drawing?

What the heck?

To the left of Kagami, Aomine was drawing with such force and intensity, as if he were in one of his matches. The grip on his pencil was so tight, his knuckles were white, and…was he actually smiling?

No, that wasn't a smile displayed on his lips. That was simply Aomine's sneer, the one he saved when he was serving up special cases of revenge.

Kagami was curious as to what creation was putting Aomine into such a state, and when he leaned over to take a peak, he either wanted to laugh or deadpan.

Due to the quietness of the room, he decided on the latter, and figured he would save the other for after class when they could laugh out loud together.

Moments like this reminded him why he and Aomine were friends.

~~XxXxX~~

When class was over, Aomine and Kagami proceeded to the front of the room to hand in their drawings.

"So how did you boys enjoy your first day of class?" Alex asked, directing the question to both of them, yet only looking at Kagami.

Noticing her full attention on him, the red head scratched the back of his head with a small relpy of 'all right'.

"Well I thought it was stupid." Aomine bluntly stated which knocked Kagami out of his shy stupor.

"I'm sorry to hear that Mr. Aomine." Alex cooly replied, "I hope you'll decide to stick it out, if not for your degree than at least for the artistic experience."

"Whatever." Was the grunt response she received along with their two drawings.

"Just think we'll have our first human model tomorrow." She beamed at them while adding their drawings on top of the pile on her desk.

That thought only made Aomine smirk wider, as they both exited the classroom.

Upon their departure, Alex heard their boisterous laughter echo throughout the hallway, and decided to look down at their drawings.

After examining Kagami's third grade rendition of a Christmas tree, she shifted the papers to come across Aomine's…was that…was that a stump!?

She replaced their papers back on top of the pile and rubbed the temples on the sides of her head.

"Oh that boy is in for a rude awakening."

A/N: Yay Alex is here! You don't see her very often in most fics so I thought it'd be fun to throw her in there! I also don't believe we know too much about her character's personality considering she was only in a handful of chapter so far, so I tried to work with what I had and I'm sorry if it's to anyone's dislike.

There are still more friends to come, so please review and tell me what you think :D

Thanks for reading ~