❝Your struggles don't define you, but they shape the person you become when you face them and overcome them.❞
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
OCHO:
PUSHING THROUGH
Walking into her office after practice to organize her notes and prepare the final steps before the Spring Cup, Kaiya felt the weight of the world crash over her as the door shut behind her. Her eyes closed as she breathed in the feeling of being alone, away from the commotion that was by now familiar to her. Footsteps rushed outside her igloo; the excitement and relief of the students made the walls rumble and the floor shake.
With a sigh, Kaiya stepped away from the wooden door and sat at her desk. Placing her notes on the clean surface, she picked up a pen and threw herself into the wondrous world of paperwork.
The Spring Cup, a basketball competition that put everything on the line. And a challenge her team may not be ready for, as much as she had acknowledged their improvement over the past hours. She hadn't been lying; their synchronization was better, their game slowly developing. But their determination and will were conspicuous by their absence.
There was no hunger, no ambition. It made her want to pull at her hair and wonder why they had chosen basketball of all things, if they had no passion to surpass their own limits and aim for an ambitious goal. Kaiya had already reached a conclusion while watching them dance around the court like headless chicken, but that realization only fuelled her anger.
"It's just a game," one of her students had dared to comment.
The pen broke in half as the memory flashed before her narrowed eyes. How insulting it was; basketball was her dream, the thing she had dedicated her life to because she couldn't imagine herself doing anything non-basketball related. And there she was now, coaching a team of teenagers that mocked it and called it a game.
Kaiya had met people who referred to it as such before, and she had accepted it because they weren't the same hypocrites wasting her time day after day. Never in her life had she loathed something as much as she did her job now; but what was she supposed to do? As depressing as it was, it was the only job that linked her to her dream and kept it alive somewhere in the back of her mind.
A knock on the door put an abrupt end to her train of thoughts, and she frowned before voicing, "Come in."
A man dressed in red clothes stepped inside, and her confusion grew as he placed a box on her table.
"Fujiwara Kaiya?" he asked.
Blinking, she nodded and watched as the man turned around and left without uttering another word.
Well, aren't you a ray of sunshine?
Mildly annoyed by the lack of manners of the delivery man, Kaiya clicked her tongue and looked at the box with suspicious eyes. After turning it around and finding no note attached to it, she proceeded to open it and paused when a familiar sight greeted her.
Annoyance faded into excitement as her hand wrapped around the chocolate bar, only for her lips to spread into a delighted grin as more bars came into sight. Kaiya only became aware of the situation when her phone started buzzing, and she absently picked it up.
"Am I forgiven yet?" came the high-pitched voice of her stepbrother through the device.
Biting her lower lip, she opened a chocolate bar before taking a bite of the delicacy.
"Almost," she replied while chewing, caring little about manners. "You guys need to grow a pair and stop sending people to deliver your messages."
She heard Kise scoff. "That's easy for you to say. You don't have a scary sister who will smash your handsome face in if you piss her off."
Unable to stop herself, she let out a short laugh.
"I'm sorry for not telling you, Kaiya," he added after they sobered up.
Sitting down and running a hand through her long hair, she sighed and shook her head.
"You know I hate fighting with you, but it's true that you can be such a brainless idiot," she muttered, ignoring his whining as he complained about her rude words. "What did he do to convince you to bring him to my house?"
"I can't tell you what we talked about. There's a code," Kise commented before adding, "Plus, something tells me you have an idea."
Her body stilled as she was taken back to the night before.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she lied.
Kise chuckled at her stubbornness. "You met him, didn't you?"
"How do you know that?" she asked back, refusing to reveal the truth just yet.
"When he arrived, Aomine told me he wasn't sure about how long his stance would be so he's staying at my apartment for now," Kise revealed. "But he's now looking for a place for himself. Says there's no way he's leaving now."
His revelation took her back to her meeting with Aomine, to his dangerous yet thrilling promise; to his, "There's no fucking way I'm leaving now. Not when I know you want this as much as I do."
Snapping out of it, Kaiya made a frustrated noise and took a glance outside the window. The sky was fading into an orange curtain, the sun slowly disappearing on the distant horizon behind high buildings and wide fields.
"Don't you think you have enough on your plate to be worrying about my messed-up life?" she fired in an attempt to change the topic and breathe.
Kise didn't respond for some seconds, and it was enough for her to know she was right. Having not heard from Aria all day, her heart told her she wasn't ready to face reality and was basking in the comfort her close friend, Kagami Taiga, never failed to provide her with whenever he was around.
"I don't know what to do, Kaiya. I don't want to lose her," he whispered in a broken voice that drew a sad expression on her face. "What should I do?"
"Start valuing what you have instead of hurting the people around you by chasing an illusion. Be honest with yourself and see beyond that pink cloud you live in; you may get surprised by what you'll find and realize."
The conversation came to a quiet end some seconds after those words, after that moment of reflection. Humming as her advice wrapped around her mind, Kaiya pushed her concerns away and stood up. A couple of minutes later, she was calling it a day and walking out of her office.
Exhaustion crawled in her veins like a chronic disease, threatening to throw her off course as she dragged her feet along the empty corridor. So much had happened; so many emotions kept making the world spin as they danced out of her control. Kaiya was tired of fighting, of watching her friends suffer, of letting the waves of life push her down in an attempt to drown her in her contradictions.
Shaking her head, she pulled out her phone and sent a message to her best friend.
I may need your help. — Kaiya
Putting her phone away, she bit her lip and prayed to get a positive answer soon. Being so open about her economical struggles wasn't easy, but Aria was the only one who wouldn't have a go at her for having a shitty job which didn't pay enough and would help instead. While modelling wasn't her dream job, it was something that gave her enough to dodge any bullet that could come from the strict motto her school followed — you get as much as you give.
In other words: her salary would depend on how much she succeeded.
Needless to say, she hadn't accomplished much with her new team so far. After most of the players she coached last year graduated, the few left either switched colleges or started focusing on following careers away from the court. This had forced Kaiya to form a new team; one not as talented in basketball as she had hoped, thus why it was taking her blood and tears to show them the way to success.
If asked, Kaiya would admit she hated her current job. But she couldn't afford to quit it, because there was nothing else for her out there. Until a new light appeared on the horizon, she would have to suck it up and do her best to take her team to the top of the Spring Cup.
Her train of thought came to a stop when her phone buzzed with a new message, and relief flooded within her the moment she read it.
I got you. — Aria
"Kaiya."
The phone flew from her hand as she jumped ten feet in the air, but fortunately for her, the owner of the voice had the reflexes of a cat and caught it effortlessly. With a hand placed over her frenetic heart, Kaiya looked up into the amused eyes of someone she would've never expected to meet at her school.
Crocking a smile and huffing in feigned exasperation, she thanked him and took back her phone.
"It's been a while," she commented in a light tone. "How was your trip to Europe?"
Akashi Seijūrō returned her smile and replied, "Successful, as expected."
Unable to stop herself, Kaiya rolled her eyes and shook her head, which seemed to amuse the man as he chuckled softly. His dark-pink hair reflected the pure touch of the moon as they conversed under the stare of a cloudless night.
"What brings you here, Akashi?" she asked while adjusting her bag on her shoulder.
His intense gaze flickered behind her to the closed door of the building. "Business. Although there's something I'd like to discuss with you, too."
"Regarding...?"
Akashi smiled cryptically. "Something that you may be interested in. That's all I can say for now, Kaiya."
Clicking her tongue in irritation, she sighed in resignation.
"If things go as planned, I'll call you in a few days to talk about it," he added as he walked past her to push the doors open. Before disappearing inside, he tilted his head towards her. "Oh, did you know? Daiki is back."
Albeit irked by his taunting voice, Kaiya felt her heart respond to the name. Mustering an apathetic expression, she shrugged in a failed attempt to escape his calculating attention. "Why would I care about that?"
He lifted his hands in mock innocence.
"I wonder what could've made him throw everything away. As far as I know, Daiki was close to becoming a superstar in street basketball in America. Wasn't that his dream?" His pink eyes fell upon her then, and she knew he was seeing right through her by the way his lips twitched into a barely-noticeable smirk. "Good luck in the Spring Cup, Kaiya."
And with that, he walked inside and left Kaiya alone with her thoughts. Her phone felt heavy with another unread message from Hayama, with another desperate call. A sudden wave of anxiety flooded within her, and she knew she had to put an end to whatever game she had been playing with him; no longer did she feel the need to find a distraction in him, no longer did she want to avoid the crushing reality.
Starting her way back home, Kaiya replied to his message with a simple, "Meet me at the club tonight." With a shake of her head and a breathless chuckle, she put her phone away and averted her thoughts to Aria.
"I bet she'll be thrilled."
After all, it was no secret that she had always hated his guts.