Teiko's basketball II: Second miracle

34: End

Chapter 34:

End

"Right! Who was it?" demanded Akira.

"What is it, kouhai?" said Chihaya.

"Someone drank all the water in my bottle!"

Sora raised her hand. "Umm..... Sorry. It was me. I lost mine."

Akira sighed. "Jeez. Whatever."

"Umm.... Shall I go fill it?"

"Obviously........"

*****************

Sora skipped to the sink. To her surprise, she found Kise there. He had turned on the tap in full force. If it wasn't physically impossible to drown oneself by using a tap, Sora would have thought he was trying to do just that.

"Kise-kun....."

Kise was startled. He hadn't noticed her. He quickly turned off the tap. Sora could see that he had been crying and was presumably trying to hide that with the water.

"Anything wrong....." said Sora a bit lamely.

Kise shook his head.

"Do you want to talk? Sit down. It's better that way...."

"She came to practice today....."

"Oh." Sora could only assume that 'she' meant his girlfriend. Or former girlfriend.

"It's true." he said clenching his fists. "She's going out with him."

This was a bit new. Kise's usual deredere side seemed to be in complete mute. Sora could say he was angry, sad, hurt and probably with another bunch of emotions to accompany that.

"Oh."

"People....... they're always like this. One minute, they're there. The next...."

"Not everyone." said Sora, sitting down next to him.

"Soracchi, do you seriously think I should trust anyone? After this? She went off with Shogo-kun.... Of all people on earth...."

"Oh. I dunno. Next time, pick someone with better taste though."

Kise smiled. "So you still believe that there's hope for me...."

"God knows. At any rate, you won't find out like this."

"Soracchi.... Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Have you ever been in love with someone?"

"Eh? No. Not exactly.... Why?"

"Then are you qualified to be giving out love advice?"

Sora looked at him in disbelief. "Kise Ryouta! Are you trying to make me sorry for helping you?"

"Ah....no. It's nothing like that." he said. "But anyway, it's nothing big really."

"Eh?"

"Nanasecchi.... Well, she was more concerned about her status than me. More like, she was dating me only for bragging rights. No harm done really. It's lot like I 'like' liked her anyway."

Sora shook her head. Boys would always insist on being 'fox and sour grapes' over things like this.

"Whatever." she said. "Anyway, since apparently you have better things to do than mope, I'll get going too."

"'Kay. Thank you, Soracchi."

"Oh and Kise. One more thing." said Sora turning back. "You wanted to become part of the gom, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, there's no better time for that than now."

"Oh. Got it....."