Eh? Ah, Sou. [Kise R.] ✓

「 二十五 」

「 二十五 」 The title of Miracle

" Thank you for your time, Nijimura-san. "

" It wasn't an inconvenience. " Yohime replied with a dismissive wave of her hand but the slight tilt of her lips upwards in the most minuscule of smiles in an attempt to be somewhat friendly/polite. " Say, why did you interview me instead of Coach or the Captain? " That, had been the source of her preoccupation for the past half an hour; the manageress having been found and cornered into an interview by a reporter for Basketball Youth magazine. (She lamented the time she could have used to study for her final exams.)

" Ah.. " the reporter hesitated, looks exchanging between the reporter and cameraman present, " Coach Takeuchi asked us to interview you instead. " Of course. Yohime didn't even pretend that she was surprised at the revelation, simply thanking the reporter and turning to leave.

" Say, " she was halted in her departure, " have you perhaps appeared on TV before? You seem awfully familiar, Nijimura-san. " Yohime bristled in the slightest.

" Nope. Bye, Shimizu-san. " And then she was gone in the crowd.

So far, Kaijou had ascended up the ranks with ease. The first three matches had gone by without Yohime even needing to pay much attention to the player stats. The Blue Elites had crushed them and moved on.

However, Fukuda Sogo was an interesting case.

Yohime had watched Kise stiffen when he had stumbled upon her watching one of the Fukuda Sogo matches. His eyes never even left the screen. Rather, never left a certain player on the screen. She had made sure to keep that observation to herself and quite close to her heart, though she didn't read too far into it then.

It was remarkable how much she knew Kise. Seeing that Seirin had just won their match against Yosen and would thus be entered into the quarter-finals, she knew that the first people Kise would go after at the conclusion of the match were Kagami and his shadow. Unfortunately, she had been swept away for an interview with some basketball channel regarding Kaijou's progress thus far.

Hence, she had to search for him after; grumbling about kicking his ass for ditching her the entire time. Though her thoughts of that left her mind when she had found him with Kagami, Himuro, a blonde foreigner, and Haizaki Sogo in a rather tense situation. It was only at that time that she truly came to grasp the depth of the bad blood that ran between Haizaki Shogo and Kise Ryouta.

" Yo, Kise. " She decided to make her presence known in order to hopefully diffuse the tensions a little. " It's getting late. The team will worry. "

Unfortunately, her appearance had only served to darken the mood.

The attention that Haizaki had been showering upon Kise and the others turned on herself. Licking his thumb, he looked her from the crown of her head to the soles of her feet then back up; a wide smirk pulling his lips once he was done. " Well hello, hot legs. " Haizaki wolf-whistled. Kise, Yohime noticed from her peripheral vision, had stiffened very considerably. His fists balled by his sides and his jaw set. A far cry from the carefree and flippant Kise she had first met many months back.

She frowned, scanning the tall ass tree of a basketball player who smirked at her in a fashion that made her skin crawl. " Excuse you? " She spat. Lip curling in an uncharacteristically obvious form of great dislike.