105 Chapter 105 : Tokyo Basketball Association

Three days later, Furihata found himself back in Seirin's court, his suspension is already over. However, he didn't join the training immediately, being held together with Kagami by Riko and Alex.

"Let's just say it is your punishment," Riko spoke to them. "I know that you know I cannot bench you both in the next game. But that doesn't mean you are off the hook that easy. Kagami-kun, I want you to watch how hard your teammates that you looked down on before work to improve themselves. I want you to know, while you are talented, you can be replaced by the other. Just think about it."

The red-haired boy scowled disdainfully, yet keep his mouth shut to stay away from trouble. Furihata still sat there silently, but not without feeling confused and irritated. He had been suspended in the last three days, what is the use of this additional punishment?

"As for you, Furihata-kun…" She took a glance at the first-year point guard. "Just remember, we still have Izuki here. Just because you played better in the last couple of games, that doesn't mean anything to us. Remember, you are just a bench member here."

'Ouch.'

Furihata winced inwardly. By saying that, Riko basically states that his value is lower than Kagami, and she didn't have a problem giving him worse punishment than Kagami if necessary.

That was harsh, yet a reminder for Furihata that he is indeed still a bench player. No matter how good he is for Seirin, his minutes' play is still limited and he has never been on the main roster even once and probably will be like that until Izuki graduates. Yeah, just show how much the team valued him.

'Got punched straight in the face and being told my value is not that much, if it is a professional basketball, I could demand a trade after this shit. Well, let's see how Red and the others handle Yosen in the next game.'

His mood worsened as he saw the other didn't even take a glance at him. This is another common punishment, insinuated by the other players to isolate the troublemaker from the team. Furihata didn't have a problem with that, if he didn't see Kagami still interacted with the others without any problem.

'Red is the one who insulted them, got angry and throw the punch first, yet I was the only one who got isolated? Tch.'

Furihata stood up from his seat and leaves silently without anyone but one person noticing his presence, leaving all the Seirin players who trained hard for their next game.

'Well, what should I do next?'

He walked aimlessly, not knowing what to do. Usually, in a bad mood like this, he would go to the court where he usually went and trained alone to calm himself down. However, he is not in the right mood to do that now.

However, five minutes after getting out of the school ground, a voice suddenly snapped him from his thought.

"Hey, you are the annoying guy from Seirin!"

When Furihata turned around, he was a bit surprised to see Oda from Senshinkan and Tsugawa from Seiho walked together with the outfit as if they are going to play basketball.

"What are you doing here, walking around aimlessly instead of preparing for your next game?"

Furihata shook his head before he replied to Tsugawa's question. "Got a fight with Red and got isolated from the team." Receiving the pity gazes from those two, Furihata decided to change the topic. "What about you two? Why are the aces of two Tokyo Kings walking together? Is there any special occasion?"

"Oh, we are about to gather with everyone else on the court nearby!" Tsugawa replied brightly, ignoring the fact Furihata didn't know who is 'everyone' that he just talked about. "How about you come with us? You will find it interesting!"

Furihata looked puzzled as he turned around to Oda. "What is he talking about?"

"Remember our first conversations when we played against each other the last time?" (read again chapter 93)

After digging into his memory for a second, Furihata widened his eyes slightly. "So, is this the 'we' that you talked about that time?"

"Yeah." Oda nodded, smiling slightly at how fast Furihata could remember that thing a week ago. "We thought about inviting you to our gathering, but everyone said we should wait until your tournament is over. But seeing you not doing anything right now….."

Furihata raised his eyebrows slightly. "You want to invite me?"

"Yeah! How about it? Want to challenge yourself with a bunch of strangers?"

Seeing the smirk on both Tsugawa and Oda's faces, Furihata couldn't help but be curious.

"Sure, let's see what is it you are talking about."

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It only took five minutes, to walk through the rural side of Tokyo, when the three of them arrived in a small abandoned basketball court. However, right after they arrived there, Furihata couldn't help but be stunned after seeing who else are on there.

Takao and Otsubo from Shutoku, Iwamura from Seiho, Tsugawa and Uchida from Meisei, and two other people he has never seen yet. But the most surprising thing is the presence of a girl that he is quite familiar with for the last few weeks, the pink-haired girl that seems to always appear out of nowhere.

"Kouki-kun!" Yeah, as you could guess, the girl is Satsuki Momoi. "What are you doing here? Didn't you have a practice for the national? Are you still at odds with Kagami-kun? I have heard about your conflict from Tetsu-kun and Ryota-kun. Are you okay? Do you-"

"Woah, girl, calm down!" Furihata raised his hand, stopping Momoi's rambling. "I am fine! Even though my suspension is over, my coach still not allowed me to join the training, just forcing me to watch from outside of the court. I came here because Oda-san and Tsugawa-san invited me. How about you? I didn't know you know all of the brutes here."

"Hey, what do you mean!" Takao chimed in, a bit annoyed to be called a brute. "I am an elegant guy, you know? Just because I didn't do a lot of fancy tricks like you doesn't mean I am a brute!"

"Yeah." Furihata nodded, agreed with what he said. "But you cannot deny that half of the people here are brutes, right? I mean, three of them are the big men who do the muscle works for the team, and two of them are guards that only know how to trash-talk. Not people I would think you would mingle around."

Several players snorted when they heard that, not offended by his remark. However, two people that Furihata didn't know about suddenly burst into laughter,

"HAHAHA! I like you, kid!" One of them suddenly offered a handshake. "I have heard a lot about you! Nice to meet you, kid. I am Yoshiharu, the former shooting guard of Senshinkan and a college student at Waseda University. And this one!" He grabbed his friend's arm forcefully. "He is Tadaharu, the Seiho's former small forward and a college student at Tohoku University. Nice to meet you, kid!"

"Hello…" The second one, an older boy with glasses on his face bowed his head politely, then turned around as if Furihata didn't exist in the first place.

"Don't worry about him." Yoshiharu waved his hand. "Even though he is not a party person, once you know him, you will find out how much fun he is to hang out with."

"Shut up, Yoshi!"

Yoshiharu chuckled, ignoring the snark remark from the glasses boy. As for Furihata, he just looked around curiously, wondering how all of them know each other. As if reading his mind, Yoshiharu asked him a question, catching him off guard.

"You must be wondering, how on earth players from different teams gathered together like this, right?" Furihata nodded, not trusting his ability to speak clearly. "Well, you can say it is Tokyo Basketball Players Association. To put it simply, it is our idea, me and Tadaharu, to gather all the formidable players in Tokyo to train together and help the team who were still on the national team to be in the first place."

Furihata just looked at him as if he was an alien, eliciting chuckles from the others.

"I know what you are thinking. Why the hell is idiot enough to help the rivals get the title, right?" Otsubo asked rhetorically. "Well, it is because we are tired of Rakuzan and Yosen winning the championship. Do you know those two schools won all the tournaments available in the last decade?"

Furihata raised his eyebrows slightly, a bit surprised. "That long?"

"Yeah." Yoshiharu nodded solemnly. "Rakuzan, a traditional powerhouse school from Kyoto, won 7 inter-high tournaments and 5 winter tournaments, while Yosen High, a new rising school from Akita, won the rest 3 inter-high and 5 winter tournaments. You can see why we are frustrated about it."

Furihata hummed slightly, thinking about the information he just got. In Japan, Tokyo is basically the holy grail land of almost all sports in Japan, where all the traditional powerhouse schools would always gather in the national.

Maybe there would be one or two traditional powerhouses from outside of Tokyo like Rakuzan from Kyoto in basketball or Komadai Fujimaki from Hokkaido in baseball, but Tokyo would always be able to fight them equally.

To hear Tokyo hasn't won anything in the last decade, Furihata had no doubt all the basketball teams there have become a mockery in everyone's eyes. So, to see them all gathering together and helping the team who advanced to the national, if he thinks about it carefully, while it is a bit strange, he could see where they come from.

"So, what help did you provide? As far as I can remember, Riko-senpai never mentioned anything about you all. And are these all the people who joined your little 'club'?" He smirked when mentioning the last part with a hint of mockery, resulting in a growl coming from the hot-head players there.

"Why, you!"

"Don't make trouble here, Tsugawa!" Iwamura scolded the bald-head boy before turning around at Furihata. "And I would appreciate it if you don't aggravate him. His temper became quite uncontrollable after our loss against Seirin."

Furihata's smirk widened. "Sure."

"As for your other question, we have a few more guys who couldn't come today, such as Midorima-kun from Shutoku, your captain Hyuga, and Imayoshi from Too."

Furihata raised his eyebrows slightly, didn't expect the first name to come. "I could see how my captain ended up in your little club. But Midorima? I thought his pride wouldn't allow him to mingle with us pleasant."

Takao and Otsubo chuckled as they know what he meant.

"Yeah, to be honest, if we didn't lose to your team, I could see that happened." Then, Shutoku's captain turned somber. "Even though we lost that day, we have to thank you for knocking some sense into his head. It brings him down to the earth. Since then, he has been practicing the most out of all the players on the team, so you will see the transformation of a monster the next time we meet."

Receiving the meaningful gaze from the two Shutoku players, Furihata could only rub his hair awkwardly, not knowing what to say.

"As for your first question!" Yoshiharu interfered. "We offered a lot here, starting from personal one-on-one training with all the members of the team, even including the bench unit, being a sparing team to keep your competitiveness high, and even exchanging information about all the team in the national tournament.

As for why you haven't heard about it, well… Your coach rejected our offer suddenly four days ago, catching us off guard. At first, we didn't know why. But after hearing Momoi-san's explanation, we could understand why she rejected us. I mean, when your team is not stable enough, inviting guests is definitely not a good option."

Furihata nodded, could understand Riko's choice. Then, he turned around to the pink-haired girl who seems to be in a jovial mood, surrounded by a bunch of basketball players from different teams.

"What about you, Momoi-san? What are you doing here? I bet you already have the information about Too's next opponent, right?"

Momoi sends him her best radiant smile, blinding all the single dogs here.

"Uuurgh! Too bright, Momoi-chan!"

"Damn it! I am so jealous of Too!"

"Me too!"

"And don't forget about Seirin! You have to see their new coach! That guitar body…."

Furihata rolled his eyes slightly before slapping Oda's back who is the closest to him. "Stop leering on Momoi-san and my coach, all of you! That's disgusting!"

Even though he only knows Momoi and Alex for about a month or so, he still feels obliged to beat all those idiot guys who fantasized about all the dirty things about them.

Momoi's face lightened up when she heard Furihata defending him.

"Well, thank you, Kouki-kun! If I only were not Tetsu's lover, I would fall in love with you!" Furihata rolled his eyes playfully as she giggled silly like a little girl, not taking what she said seriously. "As for your answer, yup! I have done my job before! I am just here because Shin-chan said it would be interesting! And so far, I could see why Shin-chan would say that!"

Furihata wondered how Midorima would react if he heard the silly nickname Momoi gave to him. Considering they are an old friend, it shouldn't be a big problem for both of them. He kinda forgot Takao also called Midorima that nickname.

"Enough with the useless chit-chat!" Oda suddenly interrupted. "We are here to play, right? Let's do it! Furihata, are you in?"

Furihata wanted to make a sarcastic remark on how overly friendly Oda seemed to be out of a sudden. But seeing the expectant gazes from the other players, he held back, thinking for a second before a grin cracked on his face.

"Sure, this would be interesting!"

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Author note :

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You can also read this fanfiction up to chapter 125 on that page. Thank you! :)

-Zeta Faes-