That Manager - Kuroko no Basuke (Book 3)

第67Q

"So what?" asked Kagami, who was looking unamused after hearing Kuroko's story. "You're totally in the wrong."

The story continued to where Kuroko began to see the unpromising changes of the Generation of Miracles in his third-year of middle-school, and couldn't do anything but bear with it. In the finals, when he was unable to play, he lost the chance to play against Ogiwara, his childhood friend. Not wanting his friend to be looked down by Teiko, he told Akashi, who was not acting like himself after awakening his Emperor Eye during his one-on-one with Murasakibara, to not go easy which the captain replied that they would show Teiko's true strength. However, this was proven too much as he realised that his friend was mercilessly toyed by the Generation of Miracles, and he lost his will to play basketball and even started hating it.

When he went to see Ogiwara in his school, Mochida, the captain of the Meiko team told him that Ogiwara had transferred. Kuroko heard that Ogiwara was frightened by the cold eyes of each of the Generation of Miracles, and realised that even though Kuroko also had those eyes, there was still warmth in it. After that, Mochida gave Kuroko Ogiwara's black wristband and motivated him to not give up on basketball. Kuroko was refueled by Ogiwara's faith in him and decided to continue playing basketball. His objective was to make the Generation of Miracles recognise his basketball by defeating them one by one. And that was why he entered Seirin, after watching their match with Kirisaki Dai Ichi at the Inter-High preliminary finals.

"It was a waste of time to get worried." continued Kagami while Kuroko blinked owlishly at him. "The only thing that was surprising was that there were two Akashis." He then looked at him with seriousness and added, "If you thought they were wrong, you should've just punched them or something. Logic can come later. At any rate, you have to take action. Yet you turn into a hesitant worry-wort."

Kuroko looked down sadly. "You're right." he admitted. "I couldn't do anything like Yasu-san. Ogiwara-kun quit basketball because of me."

"And I'm telling you to stop being a worry-wort!" scolded Kagami with a vein throbbing on his cheek before giving Kuroko a knifehand strike on his head, causing the latter to exclaim out of pain from the impact. "You got his wristband memento. Why'd that happen?"

"He's not dead yet." corrected Kuroko. "And even if I received it, it's still my fault."

"There's no way this Shige guy is thinking that." said Kagami otherwise. "You're just hell-bent on not wanting to be forgiven. And so what now?" Kuroko then looked up at Kagami when he asked him that question. ""This is the type of person that I really am. Even then, will you still accept me as a teammate?" Are you gonna say that?" Kagami then got on his feet, continuing, "If you are, I'll seriously punch you right now, dumbass. We've already long since been teammates! You never thought that way about us?"

"Let's see..." trailed off Hyuga before getting up as well. Kuroko looked up at Kagami with surprise while the others were smiling. "Well said, Kagami. However..." Suddenly, the upperclassman began to give Kagami knifehand strikes on his head as well, though it was harder, and he repeated it multiple times as a vein throbbed on his temple. "You're the only one talking for a while now! We got a ton of things we want to say too!" He gave Kagami a final struck, and the latter was sent to the floor with a giant swell on his head.

"Why me?" he asked in pain.

"Kuroko, get your ass over here!" growled the captain with a shadow cast over his forehead, causing the said boy to turn around and look at him with fear. "You need to get some discipline too!" Koganei trapped Kuroko from behind so that Hyuga could roughly ruffle the underclassman's hair and smacked his head now and then, while Fukuda, Izuki and Tsuchida watched with sweat drops on their cheeks. Kiyoshi was also watching as Mitobe tried to get the captain off Kuroko, who was smiling the entire time despite the rough treatment, causing Yasu to smile at the scene as well. On the other hand, Furihata and Kawahara were looking at Kagami with worry and Riko turned away from everyone, letting them have their moment.