Spark | Kuroko no Basuke x OC

Even When All Else Fails

"But—" Wakamatsu furrowed his brows at the captain before the basketball came hurling towards his chest. He grunted at the impact, though catching it without a problem.

The grin on Imayoshi's face resembled a sly fox, "There's nothing to complain about, Wakamatsu. As long as he plays, we're most likely to win."

The locker room grew quiet and the scowl on the blonde's face deepened; however, he knew the third year was right. As aggravating and provoking Aomine's attitude was, he helped Touou become victorious every match.

It was known fact between the players in Touou that they weren't much of a team.

They were only united by their selfishness.

-----

Back at Seirin's locker room, the players were once again grim with concern.

Even before Aomine showed up, they were having trouble keeping up with Touou. They will have to work even harder the second half.

"I hate to say this... But Aomine showed up at the worst possible time," Koganei sighed, seeing how the situation wasn't in their favor and was getting worse since the tanned miracle appeared. His thoughts immediately went to Tomoko and panic struck his eyes, "Not that you did anything wrong, Okuma-chan! We're really glad that you came back!"

"No worries, Koga-kun. We can still catch up next quarter!" Tomoko encouraged with a good-natured smile. She patted his back, "Riko-san said she brought something that'll replenish your energy!"

The team's attention directed to Riko as they watched her rummage through her bag before holding out a container filled with honey-soaked lemons. Apparently, Riko had specifically told the caramel haired manager that she had prepared something for the team, and asked that Tomoko leave the job of making the homemade snack to her today.

The perky manager had agreed without knowing one important detail...

Hyuuga peered into the container of uncut lemons swimming in honey. Riko is absolutely terrible in the kitchen!

"At least slice them!" he cried along with Koganei at the loss of a tasty snack made by their manager. This was like their first year, all over again! "We're always telling you to slice them!"

"W-Well, I washed them this time around, so you can eat the skin! You can eat more with whole lemons than sliced ones, anyway!"

Kagami walked away from the disaster that the coach called 'food' to prevent contaminating his appetite and went over by Tomoko and Kuroko. "You owe us double next time," he told girl with demand.

"...Mitobe, did you bring anything by chance?" Izuki looked at their silent player with pleading eyes, remembering that the male would sometimes make honey lemon slices as well.

Mitobe nodded with a small smile, taking out the lemons that he prepared out of his locker. Living in a household with many siblings, the quiet teen had become quite good in the kitchen in order to help his parents out—so something like this, a task that required no cooking, wasn't challenging at the least. That, plus he had accidentally overheard the coach talking to the manager and decided to save the team. Hyuuga and the rest blinked back tears of happiness as they consumed the properly prepared lemons.

"Mitobe, you're our savior~!"

The whole lemons lie ignored on the bench and Tomoko crouched next to the dejected coach. "I'm sure they're not that bad," she tried reassuring, but a shadow of sadness loomed over the second year. "Um..."

Trying to cheer the coach up, Tomoko suddenly picked up a lemon, "Kuroko-kun, why don't you try one!" she presented one to her blue haired companion, who happened to be the only one aside from herself that wasn't indulging in Mitobe's lemon slices.