insouciant || ON HIATUS

ℂℍ𝔸ℙ𝕋𝔼ℝ 𝟞𝟘

 Mamoru towel dried Maiko's long hair, having borrowed one from Kuroko. They were all huddled underneath the train station's ticket gate, toweling themselves off from the downpour.

"I got a text from the coach," Taiga piped up. Since the outburst, he'd been awkward around Mamoru. He knew he wanted to apologize, but he didn't know how to get around it. In a surprising streak of pettiness, Mamoru let him flounder. "She wants us to come to school now."

There was a chorus of disbelief, though they never complained. Mamoru made a move to go through the ticket gate, but Taiga caught him by the arm.

"I-Can you-I'm-"

"Okay." Taiga's look of disbelief (with his mismatched eyebrows, courtesy of Murasakibara) made him huff, a smile twitching at the corner of his lips. "I'll talk with you after your coach does."

So that was how he found himself on the train. After Claire came to pick them up, Maiko went with her and he told her of his whereabouts.

He sat between Kiyoshi and Kuroko, delicately wedged between the two boys, when Taiga spoke up. "That was a pretty threatening greeting. Do you three not get along?"

Mamoru shuffled his weight around in his seat. He glanced at Kuroko, who pursed his lips. Mamoru spoke up for them both, "It's not exactly like that. If anything, we like Murasakibara-kun."

He was inherently selfish and entirely motivated by snacks. However, Murasakibara's likes and dislikes stemmed more from himself and not from change, which was why Mamoru tolerated him more than the other five (excluding Kuroko, of course).

"We do not get along as athletes," Kuroko added, elaborating on that. "He doesn't like basketball, but he was good at it."

"He can play basketball, but he doesn't really care for it." Mamoru blew out a quiet sigh. "He was an overwhelming center."

"But why does he play?" Furihata asked. He'd learned the name of the strangely jumpy boy who stuttered more than Maiko.

"Murasakibara believes it doesn't matter if he likes it as long as he's talented," Mamoru answered when Kuroko fell silent. "As such, he hates players who like the game, but aren't good at it. He said so when we were in Teiko."

They got off the train and opened their umbrellas as they started to walk. Kuroko shared this with Mamoru as he held Nigou in his arms.

"It's true you can't win a game just because you love it," Kuroko said suddenly, just as they passed the nature park by their school. "But you can work hard because you do, and when you win a game, you feel incredibly happy from your achievements. Mamoru-kun taught me that."

Mamoru felt a flush rise to his cheeks and he ducked his head when everyone turned around to look at him.

"That's why I like basketball, and I like everyone at Seirin because they like basketball," Kuroko continued, a small smile playing on his mouth. Out of the corner of his eyes, Mamoru saw Kiyoshi's face grow proud.

When they entered Seirin's gym, there was the immediate sound of footsteps.

"Tetsu-kun!"

And then-

"Mamoru!"

Having stood together, it gave Satsuki the chance to wrap her arms around both. Even with the two boys who tried their best to stand their ground, Satsuki's momentum sent them both tumbling to the ground.

Satsuki, wearing a shirt two sizes small for her...chest, cried into his shirt, sobbing incoherently. Kuroko extracted himself from the mess of limbs while Mamoru awkwardly soothed Satsuki the best he could.