That Manager - Kuroko no Basuke (Book 3)

第59Q

'From the first time I met him, I had a vague idea.' thought Kise with his gaze fixated on Kagami. 'Going against him, that hunch took material shape. And now, I'm absolutely sure of it. He's like us, the Generation of Miracles. You could say he's someone in the Generation of Miracles who took a completely different path. That's why I put so much into this. This is my instinct. He's the one I absolutely don't want to lose to!'

"Change gears." said Kasamatsu while walking by Kise. "We're on the offensive now. We'll score right back at them!"

"I know that!" he said. 'That's right.' he thought seriously. 'We'll score right back. I'm just not going to lose!'

The game resumed with Kasamatsu having the ball. When Izuki marked him, he glanced over Kise where Hayakawa secretly settled a screen on Kagami, allowing the ace to break away from him. Kasamatsu passed the ball to him, and he made a shot but Kagami blocked it after getting away from Hayakawa.

"Nice, Kagami!" shouted Kiyoshi as he caught the ball and threw it across the court.

"Fast break!" yelled Hyuga as both teams ran after the ball.

"That just now..." said Murasakibara. "Wasn't Kise-chin a lot lower than usual?"

"Yeah." was Giichi's reply before his brow furrowed when he had found the problem. The Yukimura siblings weren't the only ones who noticed it, both of the coaches saw as well, and Takeuchi stood from the bench.

'Dammit!' cussed Kise while running after the ball, and got in front of Kagami when the latter caught it. Kagami glanced to his right before driving in the left side, and shot the ball. 'Not yet! I can still fight! Ending it like this is way uncool. He's the one guy I definitely don't want to lose to.'

Suddenly, the buzzer went off. "Member change, black!" announced the panel, snapping him out of his thoughts.

"Kise, I'm swapping you out." said Takeuchi.

The said boy stared at his coach with shock. "Wait." he said. "Why me? If I leave now..."

"Kise." called Kasamatsu as he went up to him. "Follow the coach's orders."

"A substitution?" questioned Kiyoshi.

"Can it be?" gasped Hyuga when he realised what was happening.

"Kise-kun." muttered Kuroko concernedly.

"Kise..." trailed off Kagami. 'So it really is...' he thought.

"Your foot, right?" said Kasamatsu, causing Kise's eyes widened. "Must be from that time, right?"

"Oh." muttered Kise while looking at the floor. "So you found me out." His head snapped up and looked at his captain with plea. "But... let me play! I can fight through this! I can't let us lose like this-"

"If that's so, then you lost back when you ended up this way." said Kasamatsu sharply. "I know all the overworking shows how much you wanted to win. It's hard for me to accept that Haizaki got your injured leg too. But you can't use that as an excuse. A game involves everything, including stuff like that. It has nothing to do with the outcome."

Kise clenched his teeth and his hands balled into tight fists, frustrated that he couldn't play on the court. "Dammit!" he cussed. A player with the jersey number 9 stepped up and gave Kise a pat on the shoulder as he went to the bench. The player had short ash-blond hair, olive-coloured eyes, wore black rectangle-shaped glasses.

"You said some harsh words to make him bow out." said Moriyama.

"Not really." said Kasamatsu as the others gathered around them. "If it was so bad he'd never play again, the coach wouldn't have put him out from the start. I'm positive he'll be back. But it's nothing but a joke if we can't do a thing as soon as we lose him." He then looked at his teammates. "All of you, show me what you've got."