Kuroko no basket: sweeter than marshmallows

-05-

Murasakibara Atsushi

How can someone as small as she is be so.. stubborn? She's like a fly, she just keeps following you around. Constantly talking about things or trying to get my attention by calling my name in the weirdest ways, she usually resorts to poking my back if I ignore her.

You can say a lot about her bus she does nerves of steel. 

It was annoying for the first two days, I bumped into her more then a couple times. She fell to the ground every time, but she stood up and continued to follow me around.

She wasn't complaining at all when she had to move those boxes, she even carried two at once. She is strong but stubborn, not a good combination.

"Atsushi!" Muro-chin yells and I barely block the person in front of me, grabbing the ball from him and passing it to Muro-chin. We're almost done with training but the Dwarf hasn't been at school for the whole day. It felt weird to not see her hair when I look over my shoulder when I'm walking.

The coach whistles "practice is over!" She yells "for the people who are helping this Saturday I'll see you then."

Saturday? Oh, Saturday is the festival the coach has been bothering me about. She wanted me to help moving things, I told her no multiple times.

Muro-chin isn't helping either, so I'll probably spend the day at his place.

"Muro-chin" I catch up to him in no time "do you know what happened to Ru-chin?" The words leave my mouth before I can think them trough.

Muro-chin chuckles "Ru-chin? I didn't know you are interested in her." He says, opening the door to the changing room and sitting down on the bench.

"I'm not." I put my sport shirt over my head. "She wasn't in class today." Wait, does this mean that I am interested in her? I put my shirt on and frown a bit.

"I heard that she fell off the stairs yesterday, that's all I know." Muro-chin says, putting on his jacket.

"She didn't fell. Some girls pushed her.." I say, remembering what happened yesterday, she could have been dead if I didn't catch her on time. "She hurt her ankle.."

"She could have been at the hospital today." Muro-chin says, grabbing his bag "anyway, I'll see you tomorrow Atsushi." He exits the room.

It does sound logical that she went to the hospital to check out her ankle... I start walking to my house and smell my mothers cooking skills the second I walk trough the front door "I'm home!" I say while taking off my shoes.

The rest of the day is the same as any other. We eat, talk during dinner and I move to my room to sleep immediately afterwards.

The Dwarf is sitting at her usual seat when I enter the classroom the next morning, she is looking out of the window like she usually does as well.

Nothing changed. 

I sit down at my seat and the teacher starts with class. It's hard to take him serious after what he did to her. He saw that she was limping, he knew that she broke her wrist a couple weeks ago, but he still made her carry those boxes anyway. That's just plain cruel, even Aka-chin wouldn't do something like that. 

 grab two candy bars from my bag and start eating, the teacher never said something about it. He's pretending to be blind or something like that, I don't care. It's not like I'll stop eating even if he tells me to stop.

A weird noise from next to me makes me look up, the Dwarf is sitting in her seat with her arms wrapped around her stomach. The noise appears again and she tightens her grip, is she.. Hungry?

The bell rings and everyone walks out of the classroom, she stays seated and I turn towards her, watching how she grabs her bag and starts looking for something.

I throw a chocolate bar on her desk after she gave up on the search, it should be enough to stop her stomach from making noises.

She looks up to me in surprise, her sky blue eyes widening a bit "thank you" she smiles a bit, showing off her perfect white teeth for a second.

"How is your ankle?" I tilt my head a bit and glance at her ankle, it's wrapped with dark blue tape. 

"It still hurts when I walk, but it's nothing I can't handle" she takes a bite of the candy bar and her eyes widen slightly "this is good.. What is it?" 

A frown appears on my face "you don't know what a chocolate bar is?" What kind of girl is she, doesn't every girl love chocolate?

She shakes her head a bit "I've never had chocolate.. Well, maybe when I was little" She continues eating "I don't really eat candy." She adds after a couple seconds. 

No she eats things like granola bars.. 

"Sweets are justice" I repeat my mothers words. She loves sweets maybe as much as I do. 'Sweets always make people happy' she always say 'therefore sweets are justice.'

It stays silent for a while and she finishes the chocolate bar. 

"Thank you for saving me.. Again." She says with a soft voice "if there's anything I can do to thank you properly just tell me." 

Is there anything I'd like her to do? I can't think of anything. It's the world that's cruel to her, why would she do things for me just because I helped her? It's not fair. 

She needs a shield to protect her from all the bad in the world.