[A/N]: In this chapter there’ll be less fluff now and more character developments.

Thank you
for reviewing and please do continue to review!

Misaki heaved a sigh as she got out of bed, heavy with sleep and mind swimming with mixed
emotions all at once. Then realisation sank in, and she blushed heavily, putting her palms on
her cheeks with her mind racing.

Things would be very different now with Akashi. Would he think last night was a mistake?

Why on earth did he kiss her?

Her head was starting to hurt, and Misaki groaned as she thought of Mayuzumi returning to
Akashi's room. Thankfully the third year senpai hadn't been there yet when she left, but
things were going to be awkward if Akashi mentioned anything…

Now she was getting distracted...

Trying to focus on getting up on time instead of staying sleepily on the bed, Misaki took her
phone and glanced at the time. 5.15am. The match with Shuutoku was scheduled at around
7.30, so she would have to face them in about two hours. The thought of strategising made
her feel sick.

She really didn't have that kind of energy anymore, and all she wanted to do was to curl up
in bed and start sleeping again. Last night she had tossed and turned, thinking of the
Rakuzan captain, and only slept after a long time.

Why on earth did he react that way to her simple question?

She got up, and prepared to go and meet Akashi for an early morning of planning, before
deciding against it. The thought of meeting that redhead made her feel strange and
awkward suddenly.

Misaki, being Misaki, was always comfortable with practically everyone and anyone. But
after what had happened the previous night…
Does he have feelings for me?

Frantically she shook her head. No.

No, no and no.

She had feelings for Akashi, but that didn’t mean he liked her back.

Then why did he kiss you, then?

Her head was going to explode with the question thudding and thudding on and on in her
brain as she walked down to have breakfast with the Rakuzan boys, bracing herself for the
loudness that would await her.

The only one whom she imagined remaining the same, calm and cool, was Akashi
Seijuurou...

Misaki flushed as she sat down at a table, her seat next to him as usual. Why did all her
thoughts always revolve around that darn redhead?

She sensed a small little sincere smile directed at her, before he turned away and started
eating with that calm aura of his, standing out among the ruckus surrounding the both of
them. Misaki almost couldn't stop herself from smiling goofily at the thought that she was
the one who made him smile.

Last night slipped back into her mind and her smile grew bigger. Since that had happened,
things were different between her and the captain. The entire night was filled with
confusion, and she had unmixed feelings about it until she remembered a certain old friend
who used to love playing basketball.

Misaki was just utterly confused about her own thoughts.

How can I like two guys at the same time?

But Akashi was in Rakuzan, away from her distorted past and in the beautiful present, while
Daiki was right inside her middle school life, and much closer to her than Akashi had ever
been. Aomine Daiki truly understood everything about her, right down to the depths of her
soul.

But he hurt you.

Though still, as usual, it was hard to completely stop her old feelings for a particular Touou
basketball player. Especially since the two of them had just made up.

Never mind. She had enough on her mind already without worrying about Daiki.

"Misaki, may I see the training programme for today? And perhaps we can..."

She nodded in relief at the casual conversation between them. What happened last night
was too... awkward to be a topic.

But still Misaki relished Akashi's arm brushing against hers, and his gentle smile, directed at
her. That cute way of brushing back his hair, leaning towards her gracefully...

Everything about Akashi was just so perfect.

TIME SKIP

She handed him his little bottle of ocha, and he looked at her gratefully before drinking it
thirstily. For some odd reason he always preferred to drink tea after training, though she
always argued that sports drinks would help him regain his energy faster. Well, if ocha
helped him as much as Pocari would...

"Misaki."

She snapped back into reality, and felt his hand brush a lock of loose hair of hers behind her
ear, with a strange expression on his face. Looking at him, she felt an odd sensation bloom
in her heart.
"Akashi-kun..."

"Yes?"

“Ah… Do you… Want any extra exercises for the boys today?”

Misaki cringed. She was too embarrassed and confused to ask him about what had
happened last night.

She blushed and looked up at his beautiful crimson orbs.

"I suppose so. By the way, Nebuya has been acting rather irritating lately, so I promised him
triple practice. I have to fulfill my promises, don’t I?”

Misaki laughed despite her awkwardness. Akashi was always the type to insert dark humour
into those words of his.

His hand touched hers, and they continued looking at each other slightly awkwardly. Misaki
thought that her heart was going to burst with tension.

"Well, just warning you, Nebuya might be rather annoyed by the extra practice, so just make
him exercise more if he complains. He needs to burn that large amount of food he
consumes via exercise."

"I'll be fine, Akashi. I know how to deal with Eikichi-kun.”

“I am sure of that, but if he tries anything funny, I will most definitely punish him further.
Just make him regret messing around.”

She smiled at the mention of that. No wonder Akashi Seijuurou was always intimidating his
senpais. A suitable captain.

Akashi looked at his manager’s face and sighed internally. After last night he was confused
by his own emotions and actions.
Just why did I kiss her again?

And what emotions do I have for her?

But for now he was going to appreciate her and not let her slip through his fingers, like he
did with another woman almost a decade ago.

Hopefully his twisted personality wouldn’t intervene and break her heart once again.

Misaki’s heart had been broken too many times already to be broken once more.

TIME SKIP

Mibuchi Reo, still heavy with sleep, got revived by the sight of some hideous neon orange
uniforms as he warmed up, getting ready for the practice matches that lay ahead.

Shuutoku was one of the few schools that was almost on the same level as Rakuzan, and
they had an unspoken rivalry between them. Though, needless to say Rakuzan was always in
better condition. And Shuutoku was a powerhouse basketball school like them, so having
practice matches with them during camp would turn out to be very interesting indeed.

For once the team would actually have an interesting opponent instead of the usual teams
that gave up easily after seeing the skill of Rakuzan. Shuutoku was quite strong, and Hayama
had been talking excitedly about it at 2am that morning while Mibuchi was trying to sleep.

For once, he actually understood the blonde’s boundless enthusiasm. He just expressed it in
a different way – a more civilised and socially accepted way.

Looking around, he eyed the captain, Ootsubo Taisuke with some distaste. His hair, to
Mibuchi, looked slightly ugly and Ootsubo’s hairstyle wasn’t exactly to Mibuchi’s taste. That
day it was quite obvious that he hadn’t combed it through nicely, unlike Mibuchi’s own
perfect hair.
Mibuchi’s eyes flickered from player to player, remembering what his manager had said to
the team just the day before and added new information to his list. Misaki always helped
the team to get to know their opponents better.

But he could analyse them on his own pretty well. In Mibuchi’s experience there would
always be a particular personality and style of playing for each kind of “look” among
basketball players, and he made use of that to his own advantage. Sometimes his
assumptions could be wrong, though, but not that often…

Most of the time there would be one player with a distinct kind of unappealing look which
Mibuchi disliked, and that he could interpret easily. Now Shuutoku had a slightly tall, carrot-
like rigid straight player, that looked like a Shooting Guard, and was casting disapproving
looks around him, like Mibuchi himself.

And Midorima Shintarou was staring at Mibuchi Reo himself, frowning a little more strongly
than usual.

What a sissy-looking Shooting Guard that he would be marking.

Takao had the nerve to say that Mibuchi Reo had “nice” floppy hair – just like his own
annoying slick hair – and even thought it was cool, which Midorima absolutely did not
understand at all. Both of their hairstyles just looked unpresentable and irritated them,
Mibuchi’s the more so.

He looked around him, even more irked by the looks on the Rakuzan players’ faces. One was
like a leaping monkey going around everywhere, a hungry expression on his face as he
looked at all the Shuutoku players interestedly, commenting on them extremely loudly to
Mibuchi Reo. Did he have any courtesy?!

Then there was a big sized player that looked like a big ape flexing his ugly and definitely
oversized muscles and glancing over at a particular girl often, and Midorima decided he was
getting murdered slowly and tortuously by the look in Akashi’s Seijuurou’s piercing eyes
directed at him.

Midorima cleared his nose and stared at Imayoshi Misaki, hard. He already knew there was
something special about that girl, being able to get Akashi’s attention in a good way – which
was always a miracle, but his concern? Now that was odd.
With a familiar tug at his shoulder, the megane sighed and resigned himself to continue
shooting baskets. Now wasn’t the time to think about those useless things that wouldn’t
help him in the match that lay ahead.

Then a whistle blew, and all the players assembled on their respective sides of the
basketball court and there stood a high school girl and a grim-faced Kantoku.

“Let’s have a good game!”

Slipping on their number tags and going off to their respective positions, Midorima eyed
Misaki, who was already using her sharp eyes to scan all his teammates, with her pen
scribbling down notes hurriedly at top speed.

That girl was just too formidable. Her brother from Touou too, he heard from his captain,
was a little different from the usual stoic and stiff captains that Midorima was used to.

A memory flashed in his mind, a third year prefect walking down the corridor booking
students for poor attire or late attendance and smiling. Most people would think that smile
was genuine, but it bothered the first year middle schooler with green hair walking around
nearby.

To Midorima Shintarou, it looked sadistic. As if Imayoshi Shouichi enjoyed booking his fellow
students.

“Run faster! Dai – Aomine, you’re lagging behind as usual! Sakurai-kun, stop making that
expression! You don’t have to apologise for knocking into Imayoshi-san! Everyone run
faster! Don’t drag your feet! Remember the Winter Cup is coming soon!”

Momoi almost screamed into the mini microphone that she had specially brought to school
just to use for shouting at the players, to make an effort to convince the players to work
harder, making everyone almost-deaf with her screeches.

But the Touou team only focused on one of her lines: the Winter Cup was coming soon. That
was their main motivation, and especially for Imayoshi Shouichi, winning against Rakuzan
was key.
So far the ace – if you could call a player who didn’t come for 90% of the practices – Aomine
hadn’t said anything about his damned ex-captain Akashi forbidding him to do anything like
playing, but Imayoshi wanted to be sure.

If Aomine would be allowed to play, so would Akashi Seijuurou. So would Murasakibara

Atsushi, and so would the other players from the powerhouse schools. In his eyes, the odds
would be stacked against him the same way whether he played or not.

Although it would be nice to have to reassurance from the powerful leopard-like first year.

What worried him mostly about Rakuzan wasn’t their starting line-up. Sure, those monsters
were powerful, but Touou had Aomine as their ace. It would simply be a battle between
who was the strongest.

Humans made mistakes sometimes. However, in Imayoshi Shouichi’s experience, humans

erred frequently, and their psychology played a big part in that. In basketball, half the battle
was won as long as you knew how to unnerve your opponent.

That was how he played as a captain; that was how he successfully intimidated a lot of
teams with his supposed “mind games”. He preferred to call them tricks of the mind.

Monsters were no trouble. Fine. He would deal with them shortly.

Like how he had dealt with that Aomine Daiki.

The real problem was those annoying first year students. One of them became captain the
moment he stepped into the team with those eyes of his that seemed to pierce deep into
Imayoshi’s soul. He instantly disliked that creature.

The other had been surprisingly a dark horse. Imayoshi always thought his sister would be
too soft to make any damage on her opponents everywhere, and too honest; too rigid. He
reasoned that that was why Misaki was made captain.

He couldn’t think of anything else, honestly.

But the moment he glanced into her eyes as hard as steel and as soft as feathers at the
starting whistle of the Interhigh Finals, Imayoshi thought different.

Had he paid too little attention to Misaki when he started high school?

She seemed unexpectedly scary.

Urgh. Women could change too quickly. He had that experience for both Mother and
Misaki.

It was strange how Imayoshi always called Mother by her full formal title, Mother; and
Misaki by Misaki. Never by imouto or even imouto-san, though Misaki used to call him
“Shounii” affectionately.

Why was it that females always drifted away from him so easily?

Something inside him stirred as he thought of his old days with Misaki. She was always
laughing, and he was doing everything he could just to let her keep smiling.

But those days were over and the both of them had hardened to a degree that they couldn’t
even remain as siblings any more. To him Misaki was like a distant cousin; to her he was
sure he was the same.

Glancing over at a tanned first year jogging slowly somewhere behind him, Imayoshi gritted
his teeth with mixed feelings. Aomine Daiki was the main cause of the big gap between him
and Misaki that had developed two years ago.

Then again, Aomine was a decent player and was playing with more effort – with help from
Momoi, obviously – during practice and actually coming to train. In Imayoshi’s experience
gifted players ought to be excused from lots of things due to their exceptional talent.

Ah, he couldn’t help getting so big-headed in second year.

But he felt a prick of brotherly concern as images of his sister crying flashed through his
mind, and once again he directed an annoyed look towards Aomine.
Why exactly did my sister fall for you, of all people?

Love was strange, indeed.

Then he got a sudden phone call, his phone vibrating in his enormous pocket. Momoi
scowled at him. Imayoshi’s long-time habit of putting his phone in his shorts pocket irritated
Kantoku and his manager, since he had to pick it up.

Imayoshi, to avoid further annoyance, only picked his phone up and glanced at the screen
before his eyes widened with surprise.

Why on earth did she of all people call him?

Takao Kazunari huffed with complete irritation as he dragged his tsundere friend along to an
indigo-haired girl’s table. Midorima obviously wanted to talk to her, from his not-so-subtle
glances and weird twitching.

Not that Shin-chan liked Mi-chan. Takao knew he didn’t, since he always spoke about her
with an air of slight displeasure and grudging interest or admiration for her “ability to take
charge of Akashi Seijuurou”. As if Misaki was without that ability she became a disgusting
creature.

He was glad he managed to find out her phone number from Shin-chan by figuring out his
password – super easy, just 0907, the day and month of the first official release of Oha-Asa
Horoscope – and checking out his contacts.

The two of them talked quite often and when Misaki popped by Tokyo over the weekend,
she occasionally met up with him. Takao would rant about Shin-chan that tsun-tsun; Misaki
laughing and talking about her eccentric Rakuzan team.

Ignoring the blatant glares from the Rakuzan players across them, Takao slid into the seat
beside Misaki on her left and practically forced Shin-chan to sit beside him. Unluckily, there
was that vampire-like Small Forward sitting on Misaki’s right, and talking to her loudly like
lightning.

The moment Hayama noticed Takao sitting beside his manager, he frowned and continued
speaking to Misaki at top speed, and made an effort to make himself sound more interesting
to direct her attention towards him.

Hayama appreciated his manager’s relationships with players outside of Rakuzan and her
extensive social circle, but sometimes he was worried she could be in danger, or could be
taken advantage of for information.

After all, Imayoshi Misaki was a girl. Hayama always reckoned that she needed to be taken
care of properly and couldn’t just plan everything on her own. Now, people like him could
help her.

Kind of, at least… Better than those others sitting nearby glaring at him.

With people like that cold Akashi Seijuurou, the elusive Mayuzumi Chihiro, the big bear with
a gas releaser in his mouth and the ladylike Shooting Guard in the team, Hayama felt he had
to be the one to take care of Misaki.

Not that she needed that help a lot…

However, he only agreed to Coach not coming because it would be super fun, and he wasn’t
going to let a mischievous-looking Shuutoku player do anything harmful.

“Ne, Mi-chan, I haven’t seen you in so long, I miss you~”

Misaki turned her head to find Takao Kazunari looking at her with a derp expression on his
face, and she smiled with familiarity. The last time they met was about a month ago, and
texting was not the same as meeting him face-to-face.

His hair had grown a bit longer, his face slightly sharper, his legs…
Her memory kept track of everything she had to know, and she thanked her lucky stars once
again that she had attended Teikou and managed to know so many people from practically
everywhere in Japan.

Turning to Midorima, Misaki felt a little pang. Whenever she saw one of the Generation of
Miracles she always remembered some things from those days back in Teikou, when she
was happy and had absolutely nothing to worry about.

Even though Midorima was slightly foreign to her, still…

Hearing Hayama’s voice, she smiled again weakly and turned around back to the hyper
Number Seven. His face, for once, didn’t have a smiley expression on it; he was in fact
frowning heavily.

Misaki could read his thoughts instantly, and nodded to him. He didn’t need to worry.
Rather, the Shuutoku players were the ones who needed to watch out.

Going back to face Takao, she nodded and grinned appropriately when Takao talked about
Midorima, amused by the hilarious recounts of breaking out of character while the latter
was just silently fuming, too stiff to correct or stop his friend.

One portion of Misaki’s mind was always detached, and that was how almost no one could
actually tell what she was really thinking about. She multitasked a lot, and often thought of
other things during lessons.

But a particular redhead could understand her emotions and read her body language in a
way. Akashi Seijuurou didn’t fully know what Misaki was thinking, but at least he sensed she
was sort of communicating with both Hayama and Takao at the same time.

That was what made her such an efficient manager, besides her playing experience. Her
ability to not only see information about players, but to formulate plans and strategies
according to each player’s physique.

Akashi suspected the only reason why Kantoku had agreed to let the team go off on their
own, without him for the first time ever according to his senpais, was because of her
responsible attitude and her ability.
Usually managers were only in charge of logistics, but she could act as his assistant in
coaching the team and also gather useful information. Multitasking, indeed.

His partner was quite something. To Akashi, she seemed perfect.

Misaki was becoming quite an obsession with him. Instead of focusing on family matters and
business meetings together with Father, he spent hours thinking about her.

He just wanted to see her smile when she was with him. Not that empty-looking usual smile
that she gave to everyone – that honest happy smile of hers mixed together with a bit of
sadness.

But it wouldn’t be sad anymore. He wouldn’t let Misaki be hurt ever again.

His thoughts wandered, and they came to her once again.

Misaki…

He wondered if she had feelings for him. Sure, her face reddened a little when he made
bodily contact, but she did that with practically all the boys. She was just not used to
contact.

Frowning and sighing, Akashi put his palms on his cheeks and groaned. Why was Misaki
occupying all his energy?

And was he… in love with her?

The moment he saw her he knew she was different. And he liked that difference.

Love at… first sight?

That sounded ridiculously cheesy and romantic.

Akashi Seijuurou never imagined the day that he would actually be contemplating issues like
these. In the past he would have mocked them as worthless and utterly stupid, even.

Urgh.

There was more to be done than expected.

Finishing up his food quietly, Akashi went to his room and picked up his clothes and towel to
prepare to shower. Respecting the senpais, he let them shower at an earlier time, but they
were always late, so he typically showered first as fast as possible.

Except one senior who was always there showering elusively, before slipping off silently,
going off elsewhere before someone noticed him. For all Mayuzumi wanted, he could run
away from camp during practice and no one would realise for a whole day.

Even the sharp-eyed Misaki didn’t notice his presence most of the time, and only called him
out specifically when he was lagging behind a bit, which was extremely rare. Mayuzumi was
average at everything, thus he was almost invisible.

Watching his kouhai slip off his clothes and enter the shower room right beside him,
Mayuzumi frowned with disapproval. Akashi was getting a bit distracted lately. That piercing
gaze had been replaced by a slight glimmer in his eyes.

Sometimes during mealtimes he could see the captain was distracted by something else,
and his practice wasn’t as concentrated as usual.

Even that baka Hayama could see something was off. Though those three Uncrowned Kings
weren’t actually doing anything and continuing to play hard for their captain.

Mayuzumi shared those feelings as well, in a way. With Misaki on the basketball team, there
probably wouldn’t be any harm done to their efficient captain. It was rather amusing to see
the cold Akashi Seijuurou to actually have such feelings for a girl.

He was rather surprised that the carefree Misaki managed to grab his attention. Akashi
mostly disliked high-spirited people like Hayama, and the manager was anything but quiet.
Though, Mayuzumi had to admit to himself, Misaki was an Imayoshi, and that family had a
history of being different from others. That was a characteristic he had observed from
Imayoshi Shouichi.

The Imayoshis were just. Different.

And he was rather glad to have a manager who actually noticed him at times, and give him
useful feedback, paying attention to his progress instead of ignoring his playing, only making
use of him.

I have no comments but thank you so much for the support readers and keep reading this
story. Sorry if my writing seems to have deteriorated a little .