#miracles hijinks

“Senpai!”

“Nijimura-senpai!”

“Hi senpai, nice seeing you again!”

Nijimura feels ambushed. And a little lost. For one thing, all of the four boys now standing in front of him seem to know him. For another, he doesn’t think he knows them. He does not recognize any of their typically Japanese looks and eager, bright smiles on their faces. 

His confusion, and confoundment, intensifies when one of them brightly orders, “Senpai, we’d like twenty servings of fried rice to go please!”

He stares. “What.” 

Another one of them laughs bashfully, apologetically. “Sorry about the large order, but Kagami-kun eats enough for eight people alone.”

Then it clicks. “Seirin?” Nijimura clarifies. They all nod, as one. 

“Sorry, I don’t remember meeting any of you,” Nijimura says with his characteristic bluntness, although he allows a slight, apologetic curve of his lips.

“It’s alright, senpai!” one of them says. “This happens a lot.” His smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

Nijimura feels a little uncomfortable, so he turns to give their order to an instantly-dismayed chef. They reminded him a little of all the Teikou basketball team hopefuls he had rejected as captain, forgotten and easily overlooked. Rejected in lieu of flashier-skilled players with personalities as bright as their diverse hair colours.

He racks his brains, mentally going through the checklist of people he had met the last time he had played streetball with Seirin. Hyuuga, authoritatively bonking Izuki in the head for yet another one of his ridiculous puns. Kiyoshi, serenely smiling as he breaks yet another of Kagami and Kuroko’s tussles. Riko, diligently preparing energy snacks for their break, which Nijimura, informed through Hyuuga’s frantic whispers, avoids at all costs.

Then he remembers. The benches, of course. While Nijimura had been preoccupied by yet another dazzling display of Kuroko and Kagami’s unstoppable partnership, these four had been by the side, on the benches. It is only now that he places their faces. And they had cheered so loudly and supportively of their teammates, too.

“Your order’ll take a while,” he told them, but they just nod eagerly. And peer at Nijimura curiously, almost adoringly. Nijimura shuffles uncomfortably. They remind him too much of how Teikou’s first string aspirants used to gaze at him and the other starters. 

To snap them out of it, Nijimura demands their names, authoritatively, and sears them into his memory as best as he can. Furihata. Kawahara. Fukuda. And Tsuchida. Nijimura was not in Teikou anymore. He ought to give them the respect they deserved, even if he wasn’t the type to become all buddy-buddy with them.

“How’s training coming along?” he asks. Fukuda launches into a spiel about how Kiyoshi-senpai and Kagami-kun had an epic showdown the other day, and how Kuroko-kun seemed to get better and better at shooting those mysterious, disappearing shots. Nijimura nods, but then asks, “And your own progress?”

Fukuda blinks, startled, while the other three look slightly blindsided. Nijimura wonders if the substitute players on Teikou’s bench had used to feel like them, back when he was Teikou’s captain. Nijimura remembers his own experience on the bench, and how he himself had not even blamed the coach for treating him the way these four were used to being treated. 

“You probably don’t want to know our progress, senpai. It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Furihata says apologetically. “We’re always on the bench, after all. We don’t play in tournaments all that much.” 

Nijimura is struck by the lack of bitterness in his words. Seirin was more inclusive than Teikou ever was, if it could nurture such support from even its substitute players. But he still had a point of pride to make to these brats. 

“I was on the bench too, my third year at Teikou,” Nijimura flicks Furihata on the forehead. “Are you saying I was completely irrelevant then?”

Kawahara and Fukuda gulp as one, while Tsuchida elbows Furihata hard. “Sorry senpai!” Furihata yells. “I never meant — I meant…”

Nijimura rolls his eyes. “Calm down, don’t piss yourself.”

He levelled a gaze at all of them. “You are all shortchanging yourselves as bench players. Part of why Teikou was so strong was not just because of the Miracles, but because it had a bench of reliable substitute players, too.”

Kawahara ventures, timidly, “But senpai, we’re not like you. Or any player at Teikou.”

Nijimura wonders if every bench player felt the enduring throb of insecurity, and thinks back to some of his own darkest times, when he had sat alone in Teikou’s locker room after everyone had left, and questioned, doubted, his decision. The corrosive doubt that had ate away greedily, slowly, at his resolve back then to voluntarily go on the bench, a decision most basketball players would have found unthinkable.

Nijimura gives him a forehead flick, too. “Do you think Seirin’s starters would play as strongly if they weren’t assured you guys were around to support them if anything happened?”

Fukuda’s eyes widen at the new way of thinking about his place on Seirin’s team. But now it was his turn to venture, “Kagami-kun and Kuroko-kun are strong. I think even without us, they could clinch Seirin’s win.” 

Despite what he had said earlier, Nijimura privately agrees. Kagami and Kuroko’s partnership, like the Miracles, was something else entirely. It defied traditional basketball philosophy, that was for sure.

So he switches his tack. “Punch me.” he turns and stares straight at Tsuchida. Fukuda whimpers. Kawahara yelps. Furihata actually squeaks. As for Tsuchida — his mouth just drops open. 

Tsuchida trembles a little before balling a fist, but the punch is so limp Nijimura doesn’t even bother. The punch doesn’t reach his face, anyway — Tsuchida chickens out and pulls it back before it even manages the hit.

“What was that?” Nijimura demands. “Punch me like you mean it.”

Tsuchida looks terrified, but his eyes become a little more determined. This time, the punch is surer. It sails harmlessly beside Nijimura’s head as he dodges.

Nijimura stares straight into each of their eyes. “I used to do karate. But you saw, just now I didn’t use it on Tsuchida. Did you know that it is considered unusual for a karate devotee to use it in a real confrontation no more than once in a lifetime?” They are silent, eyes wide in awe. 

“One of the philosophies of karate is that it is not supposed to be easily drawn in a fight.”

And, because Nijimura has been around too many moronic kohai not to spell it out more clearly, he adds, “The point is, just because you don’t use something often doesn’t mean it’s not important to have. Every person plays his part, especially in a team sport like basketball.”

Identical expressions of understanding dawn on all of their faces. 

Nijimura thinks, and decides, that he shouldn’t tell them about the very definite fact that he had used karate a lot more than once in his lifetime. He couldn’t help his temper, okay? Especially when he came across blockheaded idiots like his kohai.

Furihata, Tsuchida, Kawahara and Fukuda didn’t need to know that. Nijimura needed to keep his whole ‘wise senpai’ image with them, after all.

As they leave, the four of them shoulder the bags containing the steaming packs of fried rice goodnaturedly, and try to force another hefty tip on Nijimura. He whacks them all on the head and refuses until they threaten to tell on him to Riko. So Nijimura resignedly accepts the tip — he has good instincts, and something tells him Riko is not a person to be crossed. 

“Thank you, senpai,” they bow, low. Nijimura watches them leave. He thinks about his third year at Teikou, sitting on the bench, watching, longing for the feel of the basketball’s rough leather on his hands, and the adrenaline rush of driving past an opponent. He thinks about the Miracles, and their sheer, overwhelming strength that rendered Teikou’s entire bench impotent. He thinks about being forgotten, overlooked, and the heavy weight of doubt and insecurity.

Then he thinks about his brothers, and his father, and how he could never be on the bench when it came to his family, because he had always to be the ace, for their sakes. Every person plays his part. He thinks about playing streetball with his kohai, and the joy he still finds in basketball, even when he had tried to leave it behind. Just because you don’t use something often doesn’t mean it’s not important to have.

Nijimura thinks about karate, and basketball, and the love for something that transcends the love of being a star in it.

Nijimura is just walking towards the outdoor courts, heading to where he sees Kuroko and Kagami, when his lips are met by another pair of lips. He staggers back, dumbfounded. A beautiful, blonde, woman is standing in front of him.

“Man, Taiga, all your friends are so cute! You should invite me to your street basketball games more often!” she gushes, in English. Nijimura gets the gist from what little he remembers from school.

Kagami runs over yelling from where he had been tossing a ball idly with Kuroko, and nearly trips flat on his face in his haste. “This is why I can’t take you anywhere!” he grumbles, dragging her safely away from Nijimura.

He turns to Nijimura. “S-sorry, senpai,” he says, rubbing the back of his head. Nijimura is a little surprised that he acts so politely for someone who reminds him a little too much of Aomine. Kuroko must have been telling him stories about Nijimura’s ‘pedagogical style’ when disciplining his kohai.

Nijimura just shrugs. “It’s alright,” he says. But he pointedly can’t look at the woman in the eye, and he feels a flush rise at the back of his neck. Damnit, he was normally at least passably, socially adequate around girls, but this was a woman. A beautiful, foreign, woman.

She smiles at him, brightly, and slings an arm around him. She is tall, and is only a few inches shorter than him. “I’m Alex Garcia, Taiga’s basketball mentor!” she introduces herself.

“You must be Nijimura! Well done, kid,” she said, winking. “Handling a bunch of crazy basketball freaks like the Miracles is no joke. I feel like I go insane just handling Taiga and Tatsuya.”

Nijimura feels unexpectedly bashful from her praise, shuffling uncomfortably. He is generally unaffected by people celebrating his time as Teikou’s captain. After all, his thoughts are now about things in his life beyond basketball. His brothers, his father, keeping up with school and work. But praise about basketball feels different coming from this woman.

The woman who made Kagami’s basketball play-style the way it was, so good it could compete with the Miracles. Ex-WNBA, and yet another basketball player who was at a level thoroughly above Nijimura’s.

“Can we play already?” Kagami asks, jumping about on the spot to warm up. “I’m ready!” Next to him, Kuroko jabs him in the ribs. “Kagami-kun, be quiet and don’t be rude. The adults are talking.”

Alex ruffles Kuroko’s hair. “Listen obediently to your shadow, Taiga. He’s your better half.” Then she steers Nijimura towards the benches by the side of the court, calling towards them, “You guys do some drills first. I want to talk to Nijimura for a bit.”

Kagami starts to protest, but Kuroko throws the ball hard in his gut for him to start the layup drills.

“It sucks doesn’t it?” Alex comments, as they watch Kagami and Kuroko practice their passes, fluid and amazing as always, a partnership so perfect it shut out every other player that could ever hope to get between them. “Watching your mentees rise above and beyond you, knowing you could never reach that level.”

Nijimura stays silent, watching her watch Kagami, as she mused. “Loving basketball as much as them, maybe more. But knowing that just loving it is not enough to be just that good.”

Nijimura smirks. “The Himuro Tatsuya syndrome,” he comments. “Except for us it’s the fact that we become irrelevant, as mentors.”

Alex snaps her fingers delightedly. “That’s perfect! I’ll credit you for the name when I get published in some random-ass basketball psychology journal, if those even exist.” Nijimura suppresses a laugh.

She looks at Kagami, watching but not really seeing him. “It’s a weird cycle — I thought I had become irrelevant when I stopped playing basketball competitively. Then Tatsuya and Taiga made me feel important again.” She sighs. “And now it begins again.”

Nijimura is about to reply, but a ball flies towards him, straight at his face. Reflexively, he catches it. Kagami is stuttering his apologies, ending with “It’s Kuroko’s fault!,” pointing at him.

Kuroko just says, “Kagami-kun is a liar. He needs to work on catching his passes.” 

Nijimura rolls his eyes, and approaches them. “You are both asking for it.” Before he can reach out to flick their foreheads, however, Alex is there before him, whacking both their heads, one after the other.

Then, with a “Let’s play!”, she grabs the ball from Nijimura, winking at him. Playing with Alex against Kagami and Kuroko was an experience, to say the least. As expected, she was at a level Nijimura could never hope to get to. Plus they were playing against one of the strongest basketball partnerships Nijimura had ever seen. 

At one point, Nijimura is driving through Kagami’s defense successfully, but finds Kuroko right there waiting for him. He lobs the ball between Kuroko’s legs to a waiting Alex, who slams the ball into the net, dunking through Kagami’s jump.

“Yeah!” Alex cheers, highfiving Nijimura hard, delighting in their teamwork. Nijimura finds himself feeling a gratification he had never felt playing basketball at Teikou. Alex is great at controlling the flow of a game such that every player gets to actually play basketball.

Amazing basketball at that, and Nijimura plays it the way he had forgotten to play. Nijimura plays basketball the way Teikou never taught him, not caring about who was winning or who was the best in basketball. He plays it relishing in teamplay and partnership, the way he has forgotten from his days at Teikou.

They switch partners when Kuroko suggests it, quietly stating that he wants to try playing with Nijimura. Alex leaps onto Kagami’s arm, swinging off it and enthusiastically jubilating at the opportunity to play with ‘my cute student.’

Playing with Kuroko is a different kind of feeling from playing with Alex. While Alex’s supportive, equal playing style allowed brilliant teamplay, playing with Kuroko reminds Nijimura of how he used to shine in Teikou as one of the best power forwards in the league. It reminds Nijimura of what it felt like to be a basketball star before the domination of the Miracles.

During the game, Kuroko uses his Ignite Pass to him. Nijimura curses out loud as the ball hits his hands. It hurt, damnit. But he successfully converts the pass into a poweful layup, double clutching as Alex attempts to block it. He feels invincible, and it’s all because of Kuroko, so effective at being a shadow, in helping his partner’s light shine all the brighter.   

“That was brilliant, senpai,” Kuroko says, smiling, fist raised, waiting, to Nijimura. He bumps it, then musses Kuroko’s hair.

And he realizes Kuroko has become an amazing basketball player. Kuroko did not have the flashiness or sheer, overwhelming strength of the Miracles or Kagami, but he had a quiet presence, as pervasive as a shadow and all the more powerful because of it.

“I’m proud of you,” Nijimura says, placing a hand on Kuroko’s head. He adds, “Teikou’s first string was never worthy.” The curve upward on Kuroko’s lips was slight, but spoke more about his happiness, and pride, than any exclamation ever could.

Sometime through their games, they stop keeping track of the score, and it doesn’t even matter.

Before Alex leaves with Kagami and Kuroko, she smiles and whacks Nijimura on the back, hard. “I don’t know what you were talking about earlier, about becoming some irrelevant old mentor,” she laughs. “You have nothing to worry about.”

Then she winks at him, cheekily. “I think we did pretty decently, don’t you?”  Nijimura knows exactly what she means.

Even without keeping track of the score, they both knew Kagami and Kuroko’s unstoppable partnership edged them out. There is only so much they could do against natural talent and genius, after all.

But he smiles back at her. “We did give those brats a workout.” He looks over at where Kagami and Kuroko were tussling over whose turn it was to carry the cooler, Kagami slamming his hand on Kuroko’s head while Kuroko jabs him repeatedly in the gut.

Delighted, she leans in and kisses him goodbye. Nijimura stiffens and this time his blush is obvious, red and bright. Kagami makes enough indignant noise on Nijimura’s behalf so he doesn’t even need to say anything, and Kuroko chokes on what suspiciously sounds like a laugh, so Nijimura flicks him on the forehead, hard.   

He watches them leave, Alex in between Kagami and Kuroko, arms slung over the both of them. He feels strangely at peace. 

The sky was dark by the time Nijimura was done for the day. He was bone tired, but the day still wasn’t going to be over for him by the time he got back. He still had to help his brothers with their homework (his mother would be working late again today).

It wasn’t meant to be for him to make it home on time today, though. As Nijimura walked out the restaurant, he gave a cursory glance at the bar next door. And doubled back, almost not believing his eyes, as he recognized someone he never expected to see again.

Walking up to him, Nijimura grabbed the bottle of sake from Haizaki Shougo. “You shouldn’t be drinking, brat — you’re underage,” he commented. He poured a cup for himself, and downed it. Brisk and crisp, and clear — this was not bad sake.

Haizaki’s eyes widened as he recognized him. Then he snorted. “So’re you, bastard,” he said, slightly slurring. He wasn’t yet quite drunk, but he was surely getting there. He poured Nijimura another cup, an uncharacteristically generous gesture. He must be remembering all those times Nijimura had thoroughly beat him up.

“At least you still know how to respect me,” Nijimura said, sipping the sake. “But I don’t think you would be the type to be all sentimental and reminisce, feeling nostalgic for the old days.” The old days of him whacking Haizaki regularly, that is.

“The old days,” Haizaki scoffed. “All of them at Teikou can go screw themselves. That bastard Akashi, Aomine, Kise,” he growled the last name with unexpected venom. Nijimura raised his eyebrows.

“Do you like getting beat up or something, talking like that?” he said, rapping him on the head. “You know, I’ve been playing basketball with some of them recently.”

Haizaki rolled his eyes. “Basketball can rot in hell,” he said, darkly.

Alcohol always made Nijimura a little more violent, a little more honest, a little more brash. Hearing Haizaki diss the game Nijimura tried not to love too much (but still did, to his eternal frustration) reminded him of all those times Haizaki had disrespected him as captain back at Teikou.

Haizaki was actually good at basketball, too — Nijimura sometimes thought if Akashi had not expelled him from the team, Haizaki could have surpassed Nijimura, too, just like the rest of the Miracles. So hearing him talk like that pissed him off more than he anticipated.

Nijimura punched Haizaki, in the face. Haizaki reeled at the unexpected attack, and snarled at him, charging at him.

Nijimura relished the opportunity to release his stress through a good old fashioned fight, brawling with fists. Working at the restaurant every day, making time to study, playing basketball with players like the Miracles (always being reminded of the player he could never be), and taking care of his brothers and sick father got too much.

By the time the izakaya manager broke them apart, Haizaki was bleeding at the lip, with a rapidly forming black eye. Nijimura looked better, although his fists hurt. The brat had a hard head.

They both sat at the curb outside the bar, having been kicked out, half-finished bottle of sake lying at their feet. They took turns taking swigs from it, having abandoned the formalcy of those irritatingly small, dainty sake cups.

“You’re a self-pitying, destructive jackass,” Nijimura glared at the player who had given him the most trouble as captain, back at Teikou. “You should try treating others, and basketball, better. Then maybe you’ll find yourself liking yourself more.”

Haizaki snarled, and lunged towards Nijimura. He was now well and truly drunk, though, so Nijimura didn’t even bother dodging. His punch missed Nijimura, widely. He fell flat on his face on the street.

He lay there, pathetic and broken. “I don’t need basketball. There’s nothing in it for me,” he growled sullenly. Then he raised his head, eyes glazed from the alcohol, and smirked at Nijimura. “Now, girls, however…”

Nijimura reached over and whacked him upside the head. “You wish you didn’t need basketball, you mean.” He could still remember how Haizaki played basketball during the times he did show up to practice, shitty attitude firmly in place. He could still see Haizaki’s ruthless skill with the ball, his merciless decimation of his opponents. But he also remembered Haizaki’s smirk as he did so.

Haizaki may have been cruel and anything but a good sportsman, but he had enjoyed creating chaos on court. He had enjoyed basketball.

“Find a way to actually try to enjoy playing basketball again,” Nijimura said. “Then maybe you’ll stop being such an asshole.”

Haizaki was silent. Then he smirked, and spat derisively at Nijimura’s direction. “Always trying to be the all-knowing, wise captain, huh. That’s what I could never stand about you. You think you know enough to guide your kohai, but you yourself are a washed out has-been.”

Nijimura didn’t even blink. He was used to Haizaki’s attitude, even after those few years. “I know I’m never going to play basketball competitively again,” he said. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to be a whiny jerk about it and take it out on others because of my own issues.”

Then he stood up. “Come on, I’ll call you a taxi to bring you home.” He pulled Haizaki up, none too gently. “If I have to hang out with you any longer I’m not going to be able to stop myself beating you up so badly you won’t even remember you’re supposed to be working on your attitude.”

As he helped Haizaki into the taxi, Nijimura flicked his forehead. “By the way, you look ridiculous, brat. This look doesn’t suit you,” he said. “I’m no fashion expert, but I think you’ll get more girls if you tried not look like a gangster.”

Haizaki just laughed, short and derisive. Then he looked away. “I’ll think about it.” And somehow Nijimura knew he wasn’t just talking about changing his look.

As he headed home, Nijimura was surprised at his own ability to still walk in a straight line. He had held his alcohol better than he thought. He smiled as he checked his phone messages.

Akashi being an overbearing mother-hen as usual, double-confirming Nijimura’s basketball game with the Rakuzan team that weekend. Momoi’s message complaining that Aomine kept pestering her to ask Nijimura-senpai which basketball brand he liked better, Air Jordans or And1. Midorima reminding him that Cancers had to eat cup ramen for supper that night to ensure good luck for the next day.

Kise’s emoticon-filled, too-peppy, too-long message about how fun his karaoke session had been with Kaijou that past weekend, and how he just had to sing a duet with Nijimura-senpai one of these days. Kuroko’s short, meaningful message about the progress he had made in training that week. Murasakibara’s weekly whine for Nijimura to courier Tokyo-exclusive flavours of umaibo to him in Akita.