Work Text:
The Miyajou school newsletter, modestly titled Miyajou Daily, is run by a team of three students and is released once a week. Miyajou Weekly should have been its name, but as per the president, who is also the head photographer and typesetter and publicity chair, it was met with a much more lukewarm response and “didn’t really go as hard” as its daily counterpart. The club was founded only a few years ago and has spent the majority of its lifespan as yet another partially-funded, moderately-successful club running after school for only a few hours every week.
That was until a month ago: February 15th. A perfectly mediocre Wednesday, the perfect kind of day for an amateur newspaper to be released; and, more importantly, the day after Valentine’s Day. So You Missed Your Chance To Confess To Her Again? became an overnight hit. Written as a half-satirical article on questionable advice on romance, the piece was meant to replace the student shoutout column, which had received exactly zero submissions that week, and following its introduction, became the star of the entire paper and shot the club into stardom.
They’ve been going through a variety of revamps since then: the Achieving Students shoutout page was switched out for an anonymous gossip form, the Heartwarming Stories page was replaced by club sponsorships, and the word from the principal was slowly taken over by Words of Wisdom from Hinomori Shizuku.
The next change was going to be implemented soon: the introduction of a sports section, featuring a different team each week. It happened to be Minori behind the change, working overtime to adjust her schedules and polish her camera and run from one location to another.
Poor, hardworking Minori. Being the newest member of the club, she was doing everything she could to solidify her position and make a name for herself, sorting through submission after submission on their website. It’s why, when she shuffles up to Kohane with tears in her eyes, Kohane is more than ready to give her a big, warm hug and pat her head and tell her it’ll be okay. It’s why, when she sobs and buries her face in Kohane’s shirt, Kohane offers her a tissue and the cookie she’d been saving for later.
It’s why, when she shakes Kohane around by her shoulders and asks her if she’d be willing to go to the Kamikou basketball game and take “just a few pictures, it won’t be too many, and also if you could write the entire column that’d be so awesome, Kohane-chan,” Kohane says–
“Minori-chan,” she smiles through Minori swinging her back and forth like a teddy bear, “I think I’m going to faint.”
“Oh!” Minori snaps back to her senses and pulls her hands away, covering her mouth as she watches Kohane stumble backwards. “I’m sorry, Kohane-chan– I’m just really stressed right now. You know why. It’s great that our paper is so popular now, but I’m getting a lot of requests these days. A lot of them are about– you know.” She leans in to whisper. “Crushes. Lovey-dovey things, even though it’s March. And I feel like I have to give the people what they want. Like the government.”
The government’s involvement in the daily affairs of citizens is globally contested, but Kohane is only in high school and isn’t quite ready to delve into the complexities of political sciences. She’s also not ready to have herself forcefully hired into the newsletter, which is slowly becoming less of a newsletter and more of a gossip magazine. They’re a couple? This girl likes that girl? Who broke the washroom door?
As gently as possible, Kohane takes Minori’s shaking hands in her own and clasps them tightly, bringing them up closer to her chest. “You’ll do fine,” she reassures, offering her a much-needed smile. “You’re in the club for a reason, Minori-chan. It’s because you’re one of the only people that can pull it off.”
“You’re too nice to me,” Minori sniffles. She wiggles one hand away to dab her fingers at the corners of her eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, honestly. I feel like I’m always asking you for help, and I never help in return.”
Kohane frowns, eyebrows furrowed. “That’s not true! You help plenty– I’ve told you before you have a spot on the committee if you want it–”
“But here I am asking you for something again.” Looking down at her shoes, Minori’s gaze is that of pure misery, encompassing the spirit of a kicked puppy and orphaned kitten all in one. It’s a dangerous talent. “I’m sorry, Kohane-chan. I’m just so busy and I don’t know what to do… what kind of a friend am I?”
That’s how, one week later, Kohane ends up on the second row of the bleachers of the Kamiyama gymnasium with her camera on her lap, trapped by the promise of Minori’s never ending friendship and also the fact that the doors are locked.
The sound of basketballs– however many are needed in one game, which Kohane doesn’t know because she doesn’t know a single thing about this sport– is loud. Very loud and rubberish, resounding as they bounce off of the tiled floor, all brown and orange and other colours that are at risk of coming out ugly without the right lighting. The Kamikou uniforms are much brighter than Miyajou’s, and Kohane’s having a hard time telling one player from another.
I’m going to have to write about this, she realises, hands frozen to the sides of her camera as she sits completely, wholly still. I’m going to write about this and the whole school is going to read it and it’s going to be so, so terrible.
She’d tried to get out of it. Minori, I don’t know a single thing about basketball. Minori, I’m going to be sick with the flu that day. Minori, you’re the one whose girlfriend is on the basketball team, I feel like maybe you should just let me take over the advice column. But, as always, her pleas had nothing on Minori’s overwhelmingly powerful puppy eyes, and so here she is anyways. The fluorescence of the overhead lights is bothersome, and the chattering of the audience around her even more so. She could be doing anything else right now. Knitting. Sitting thoughtlessly on the floor of her bedroom. Educating herself on political science.
And then the thought of any potential activity she would rather be wasting her time doing is thrown out the window as a sharp, high-pitched whistle blows throughout the space. The chatter around her fades into a harsh whisper, in such careful synchronisation that Kohane is convinced it was practised– she wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what basketball fanatics did for fun outside of games themselves. The speakers buzz to life and are followed by the first announcement of the afternoon: ‘The game will be starting in five minutes.’
It’s her cue to maybe stop fearing for her life at the prospect of crazed basketball professionals slandering her poor article-writing skills and finding a way to ruin her future career as a well-liked neighbourhood veterinarian and maybe start, you know, writing the actual article. She was going to bring her laptop, but Minori warned her against it– quoting safety reasons, because “what if a basketball hits you and your laptop is destroyed?” – and while Kohane wishes Minori would care more about her tangible human wellbeing over that of an inanimate object, Minori is also very, very right. She’s opted for a classic pen and notebook and slides it into her lap, stowing her camera away safely in the knapsack beside her. She’s ready for the war. The apocalypse. The first Miyajou-Kamikou round of the season.
A whistle blows. The basketballs stop basketballing. Sneakers squeak against the floor as the players from both teams line up to face each other, forming two wings around their respective captains. On the left is Miyajou’s representative and Minori’s girlfriend, Kiritani Haruka. And on the right is–
Kohane drops her pen. And her jaw. She is not ready for the war at all.
All of a sudden, there’s another problem involved in this whole fiasco that has, pointedly, nothing to do with Kohane’s experience in fine literature at all. This problem is a rapidly growing distraction. This problem is five foot eight and has sharply-cut bangs framing their face. This problem is Kamikou’s Number Four and captain, shaking Haruka’s hand with a toothy grin.
This problem– Shiraishi , her jersey says– is nothing compared to the problem of the redhot flush on Kohane’s cheeks.
Her hands fly up to cover her mouth, but otherwise, she can’t move at all– muscles locked up and feet glued to the floor. She can see her pen rolling away from her into the shadows of the benches, almost as if embarrassed to be seen in her possession– god, if she were a pen, she’d be embarrassed too. If her ancestors from a million years ago saw what she was doing with their generously gifted survival instincts they’d be rolling in their graves. Or just rotting away like they’ve been doing for a while now. She didn’t even know she had a type– she knew she liked girls and that’s about it– but given her reaction, it’s clear her type is basketball junkies with deep blue hair. And strong, defined jawlines. And piercing golden eyes that wandering across the bleachers, closer and closer until they reach her–
Shiraishi’s gaze lingers on Kohane’s face. She blinks once, twice, and then she smiles. Bright and bold like the rest of her.
The whistle blows again. The two teams separate and position themselves across the court in a flash– it feels like barely a second has passed before the buzzer sounds, bringing the game into play.
So Kohane, like, lowkey doesn’t know anything about basketball. At all. But being the good, studious, slightly-above-average achiever she is, she did her research beforehand. What’s a forward? What’s a backward? Why aren’t they called backwards? Best sushi restaurant near me. She combed through Google search results, looked through the Wikipedia page for a solid thirty seconds, and stared at pictures of basketballs until she could see them when she closed her eyes.
Alas, all of that is thrown out the window because all she can see is Kamikou’s Number Four, Shiraishi.
This is a feat in itself because Kohane also, like, lowkey can’t really see anything at all, even with her glasses. But Shiraishi is so unfairly, unnecessarily captivating that her eyesight miraculously clears up on its own and she’s suddenly privy to each and every one of Shiraishi’s slightest moves. Her arms flex as she passes the ball to her teammate. Her ponytail bounces on the back of her jersey when she runs. Her eyes are just as sharp when she plays– maybe even more so, fixated on the movements of the ball and her surroundings, flickering left and right as she dribbles her way to another basket.
Kohane’s sure basketball must be a very interesting sport. The shouting and cheering from either side of her is compelling evidence. But Kohane isn’t the strongest with words– she’s always relied on what she knows won’t change, and more often than not, that’s photography.
She doesn’t even bother with the pen, or the notebook, which she promptly puts back in her bag to take her camera out once again instead. The texture of the paper is replaced by the much more familiar weight of her camera, and with her fingers fitting into place around its body, she lifts the viewfinder to her eyes.
Shiraishi blocks a pass. Snap.
Time flies by in a way Kohane’s never experienced before; they’re on quartertime or a timeout or whatever it is, and then more dribbling and passes and both successful and failed shots, and then another break– halftime? – where Haruka runs up to Shiraishi and pats her on the back. She leans in to whisper something, cupping her hand to Shiriashi’s ear.
Shiraishi glances up at Kohane again, for the slightest fraction of a second, and returns her gaze to the court so quickly that it may have never happened in the first place. Kohane is quick to point her camera at the two of them. She just barely misses the smile on Shiraishi’s lips.
Dribbling, and basketball sounds, and Shiraishi retying her hair at the side of the court, and more dribbling and basketball sounds. The numbers go up (or so Kohane guesses, because to be honest, she can’t really see). The whistles blow a few times. She only knows the game is over when the students around her stand up and cheer louder than they had before, which she can only assume is code for Wow, We’ve Won! Squinting, Kohane tries to make out the score– it’s only a nine point lead, so not a crushing loss on their part. She bends down to grab her pen from the dusty confines of the floor and, for the first time during the entire game, writes it down in her otherwise-blank notebook.
Thus, with about two hundred photos taken and no proper words written, the game is over her first unpaid pseudo-gig in Miyajou Daily is finished.
Huh, Kohane thinks to herself, staring down at the blank page in her lap as the bleachers begin to clear. She keeps thinking and sitting until, eventually, she comes to the realisation: I’m done for.
It’s alright. She has a plan: she’ll go home, sort through her best photos, and write at least some semblance of a proper article based on the pictures. Except now that she’s looking through her camera, a concerning amount of them are of Shiraishi. Actually, most of them are Shiraishi. All of them are Shiraishi. She has a blurry basketball in this one, and the hardwood floor in the next, and then Shiraishi, and then–
“Kohane!”
Kohane looks up at Shiraishi. She’s standing at the bottom of the empty bleachers with a water bottle in one hand and a towel in the other. Also, she’s breathing and real and very, very pretty up close. She has a mole under her eye and a scar just shy of her cheek. She has stars in her hair and long, thick lashes.
Her eyes crinkle when she smiles, Kohane notices. “Make sure I look good in those,” she says, nodding her head towards Kohane’s camera with a cheeky grin on her lips.
Kohane nods. “Okay,” she squeaks.
“And, uh,” Shiraishi exhales, airy with the slightest hint of uncertainty, “you should come again.” She scratches the back of her head and looks down at her shoes. “To the next game.”
“Okay,” Kohane says again.
Shiraishi’s face is turning a little pink. “My name is An,” she says.
One final time, Kohane repeats, “Okay.”
That’s the end of their conversation. Shiraishi An, Kamikou’s Number Four, opens her mouth to speak but she’s interrupted by her coach calling her back, and so with a sheepish wave goodbye instead, she turns on her heel and runs back. Kohane packs her things up robotically and slings her bag over her shoulder to leave.
She only begins to function like a normal human being once she’s out of the gymnasium and in the presence of much-needed fresh air, and as soon as she takes in that first breath, she’s hit with a billion different thoughts at once. Shiraishi An from Kamiyama High School. The Miyajou newsletter. What is she going to write? Can she finish the article on time? Can she finish it at all? And most importantly, when is the next game and how can she get there?
As she’s lamenting her misfortune and kicking at leaves on her way home, Azusawa Kohane realises two things:
- She potentially might definitely absolutely have a crush on Shiraishi An, and
- She never told Shiraishi An her name.
Miyajou Daily
March 22nd
Sports – Miyamasuzaka vs Kamiyama Start the Basketball Season Strong!
On March 21st, the Miyamasuzaka Basketball Team faced off against Kamiyama in the first round of the season! The game featured many players, all of whom were on either one team or the other. Basketball was played throughout the entire game at varying levels of proficiency.
Much of the game consisted of dribbling, which is an action undertaken by players wherein the ball is bounced against the floor. Additionally, parts of the game were taken up by a variety of baskets made, consisting of two-pointers and three-pointers, which are actions undertaken by players that can be defined on the Internet if you take the time to look it up. Although both teams worked hard to touchdown and make a bunch of baskets and stuff, Kamiyama pulled ahead with a nine point lead, bringing them to victory. Even so, it was a hard battle fought. Well done, Miyajou!
Written by
– Guest writer, Azusawa Kohane
Photographs included:
A) Kamiyama #4, Shiraishi An
B) Miyamasuzaka #4 Kiritani Haruka speaking to Kamiyama #4, Shiraishi An
C) Kamiyama #4, Shiraishi An
D) Water bottles on the bench
E) Kamiyama #4, Shiraishi An