𝐀 𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭

𝙲𝚑𝚊𝚙𝚝𝚎𝚛 𝟸𝟷

"You are confident I'll be joining, Momoi-san."

The girl hummed as she flipped open her file and pulled out a few papers.

"There's nothing wrong with that, Tetsu-kun. It would be a problem if I didn't have at least a little confidence in my choices."

Pink and blue eyes focused on each other, but the brief flexing and pull back of Momoi's arms didn't escape the Phantom's notice. Kuroko had long ago categorized the ticks and tells of his old social circle and recognized the minuscule movement as Momoi trying to keep from crossing her arms behind her back. She would do that whenever there was something serious on her mind but wanted to keep the group from worrying about whatever could be bothering her.

She quickly recovered, though. Just barely fast enough to keep Kuroko from fully interpreting her body language the way he normally did. If he didn't have the time to parse through her reactions, then he wouldn't bring the topic up.

She handed off a team picture to Kuroko and pointed at a tall brunette with a caring grin and an arm wrapped around a couple of Seirin members.

"His name is Kiyoshi Teppei. I feel like it's pretty safe to say you remember him?"

"No way! That's one of those Uncrowned Kings, right?! The one who Murasakibaracchi crushed?"

"Yes, I do remember the Iron Heart. He was a very difficult player to forget."

Especially because he was one of the few who managed to avoid giving up. Murasakibara had been especially harsh in that match against Shoei and Kuroko and the giant had been at each other's throats the rest of the week as a result.

The older player's spirit was strong, though. Strong enough to keep from quitting and then he worked to encourage others not to give up. Kiyoshi's addictive spirit was enough to keep at least half of his team from quitting and pulled together multiple teams that were also on the brink.

If it weren't for him, they might have fallen apart earlier from the sheer lack of willing opponents. Kuroko wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. They fell apart anyway, and they still took half a league with them.

"Yes, well, he wound up joining Seirin, surprisingly. According to his middle school friends, he enrolled because it was closest to his home. He's known for founding the club because he didn't seem to realize that there wasn't a basketball team at a newly founded school."

That checked out. The Iron Heart was incredibly spacy, even two years ago. It made his demeanor change on the court impressive to the ever-impassive Phantom.

"Unfortunately, Kiyoshi was injured during the Interhigh last year. The team made it to the four-way qualifiers, but his knee was severely damaged in a rebound battle. It's not my place to give you specifics, but he's still in the hospital for now. Riko said he should be released toward the main matches of the Interhigh.

He's really the center of Seirin's team in more ways than one. You'd remember him playing as the point guard, but he shifted his play style to leading plays from the center position thanks to his build and strength. That skill in addition to his attitude and encouragement made him the focus of their attacks."

"So you're trying to say Seirin's playing at a handicap?"

"A little bit. It won't change how they play today, but they'll need to do some serious fine-tuning to their current plays when he comes back.

No, the point of saying this is that they won all of their games up until those final matches with only first years. The three kings crushed them after Kiyoshi's injury, with scores that tripled theirs. I can't say I understand how they must have felt but we've seen enough people quit to know that it must have been difficult afterwards.