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Laree's Slam Dunk Fanfiction
The Matchmaker
Part Five

A roar of approval went through the crowd gathered around the tableful of Shohuku basketball players as Hanamichi emptied the last packet of ketchup into his mouth.  Letting out a loud exclamation of triumph, he jumped to his feet and struck ' The Tensai ' pose, causing several of his newly acquired fan girls to swoon.  " Nobody beats the great Tensai, Missy-kun!" He crowed as the senior finally got his last sachet of ketchup open and proceeded to pour it into his mouth, causing a watching Kogure to turn slightly green with disgust.  " I can eat anything and everything faster than anybody here!"

" Must have something to do with your amazingly big mouth..." Mitsui commented thoughtfully as he fussily began to wipe away the ketchup that had dripped onto the front of his school shirt.  " Dammit!  Now I have to go around school the whole day with this stain on my shirt!"

" You can just wear your jacket over it, Sashi-kun." Kogure advised, coming closer to examine the stain.  He and Akagi had watched the ' Ketchup Eating Speed Challenge ' between Hanamichi and Mitsui with morbid fascination, even though Kogure had been close to heaving at one point.  He wouldn't be giving Mitsui any kisses for a while, he thought dryly to himself, not with the image of him pouring twenty-five packets of ketchup into his mouth still in his mind...

" You always come up with smartest ideas, Min-kun." Mitsui complimented him as Kogure busied himself with wiping stray streaks of the ketchup from the shooting guard's face.  The two of them had always been open with their relationship and nobody really minded.  Anyways, the ones that did never said anything for fear of incurring Mitsui, Hanamichi and Akagi's wrath.

" Thank you, Sashi-kun."

" I think I'm gonna puke." Hanamichi declared, bringing his hand up to his mouth.  Miyagi, who was sitting beside the redhead, scooted away upon hearing this.

Akagi shook his head, still rather unable to believe the display of intense stupidity that he had just witnessed.  " That's understandable after you've been stupid enough to down twenty-five packets of ketchup."  He pointed out.

" No, not from that..." Hanamichi protested.  " I'm perfectly okay!  The Tensai has a very strong stomach!"

Miyagi snorted.  " Obviously."

" I'm gonna puke 'cos of Missy-kun and Megane-kun there!  Have you ever seen anything as sweet as those two are with each other?" Hanamichi made gagging noises.  " It's unbelievable!" Actually, Hanamichi sort of thought the way they were when they were together was sort of cute.  Kogure's wholesomeness setting off Mitsui's recklessness beautifully.

" You're just jealous."

" The Tensai?  Jealous?  You really are very stupid Missy-kun!  What could you have that could possibly make me jealous?  Anyways, the Tensai is in a good mood 'cos now I have money to go out with the Sakuragi Gang later." Hanamichi extended his hand towards the grumbling Mitsui.  " Pay up now, Missy."

Mitsui took a few crumpled bills from his trouser's pockets and threw them at Hanamichi.  " There.  Happy now?  I hope you're pleased with the knowledge that I won't be able to take Min-kun out for a whole week because of you!"

A lewd grin formed on Miyagi's face.  " That's okay!  I'm sure there'll be plenty of things for the two of you to do at home...Especially with Kogure-kun's parents away in Tokyo, yeah?"

" Oh, yeah..." A grin identical to Miyagi's formed on Mitsui's own face.  " I forgot about that!  Hmm...Turns out that you're doing me a favor after all, Hanamichi-kun!" He watched, amused as Kogure's face reddened.

" That's nothing, Missy-kun.  The Great Tensai is always glad to help out!"  He joined into the laughter of the two seniors.  Kogure's face was getting progressively redder and redder as the jokes became lewder and more explicit.  Akagi was concentrating on his lunch, choosing to ignore the immature cretins that he was sharing the table with.  He would have preferred to have a quiet lunch with just him and Kogure but it had become customary for the basketball team to eat together ever since Akagi had enforced it when he had insisted on everyone following a special athletes diet.  That hadn't worked, of course.  Not with these idiots.

Hanamichi's hearty laughter trailed off, though, when he caught sight of Rukawa sitting on a table at one corner of the crowded cafeteria.  Alone, of course.  " Hey!  What's Rukawa doing there by himself?"  He muttered, unaware that he was actually speaking out loud.  His heart clenched painfully at this sight.  The guy shouldn't have to be alone.  Not with all the things that he had to deal with.  God, how could he have been stupid enough not to notice that Rukawa wasn't with them?

" Rukawa?" Mitsui, now munching on one of the cookies that Kogure had brought for him that day, followed his gaze and shrugged, not seeming to care at all.  Of course, this was probably because he didn't know the truth about the Kitsune, Hanamichi reminded himself.  " Why all this sudden concern about the ' Kitsune ', Hanamichi?  What the hell is going with you?"

" Maybe Hanamichi is putting all his childish grudges behind him and finally maturing." Akagi said.  Thinking back on the ' Ketchup Eating Time Challenge ' , though he didn't think his maturity theory was the reason.  It had to be something else.  " Maybe somebody else should seriously think about maturing too..." His gaze fell meaningfully on Mitsui.

" You trying to say something to me, Akagi?" Mitsui demanded, just barely being restrained from jumping to his feet by Kogure.

Akagi shrugged.  " Take it any way you want to, Mitsui.  It may be all right for freshmen to get up to all sorts of stupidity, like Hanamichi, but you're a senior now.  Have been for the past year.  Maybe you should remind yourself that."

" He's just trying to help you, Sashi-kun." Kogure told his boyfriend quietly, seeing how tense he had gotten.  Mitsui nodded almost imperceptibly, silently telling Kogure that he could let go of him now.

" How come nobody even bothered to call Rukawa here?" Hanamichi demanded, still frowning and seemingly oblivious of the tension between Akagi and Mitsui.  " I mean, after all, he is part of the team and It's been a tradition of the team for months now to eat together!

" He never wanted to join us, remember?" Miyagi pointed out, also puzzled by Hanamichi's sudden change of attitude towards his former worst enemy.  " We tried to get him to join us before but he always just said no.  You even bashed him up for that because you thought that he thought he was too good to be eating lunch with us!"

" Well, I'll go over there and ask him to join him right now." Hanamichi declared, pushing his chair back and getting to his feet.

" Err...Hanamichi-kun, are you really sure that that's a good idea?"

" Megane-kun!"  Hanamichi let out an outraged gasp.  " I  would have thought that you, of all people, would want to maybe reach out to poor Rukawa!  Just because you might not think that he is as nice and charming as your friend, the Tensai, doesn't mean that you should just leave him all alone like that!  Especially not when-" Hanamichi caught himself just in time before he managed to blurt out the Kitsune's closely guarded secret.

" Especially not when...?" Mitsui prodded.

" Especially not when...Well, especially not when you're his team mate!"

Kogure looked up at the glowering self proclaimed Tensai meekly.  " All I meant was that he's sleeping and it might not be a good idea to wake him up, knowing Rukawa..."

" Oh." Hanamichi muttered, cooling down.  " Oh, well.  The Tensai can handle a sleeping Rukawa!" So, having made up his mind, Hanamichi made his way towards Rukawa's table, stopping once in a while to talk to some people.  When he finally got there, he found that Rukawa hadn't been sleeping at all, as they had all originally thought he was.

" Hey Kitsune!"

" Do'aho.  Nice show." Rukawa's face remained as outwardly smooth and unconcerned as always.  Inwardly, he was wondering what the hell the redhead was up to.  Sendo had sworn that he had had nothing to do with Hanamichi's sudden change but Rukawa didn't trust him.  He just knew that something was going on.  He would have like to know what that was but right now, he guessed that he should just enjoy the tentative truce that had sprung between him and the do'aho.

" Show?" Hanamichi repeated, puzzled.  " What show?"

" Your competition with Mitsui."

" Oh, that!"  Hanamichi flung his head back and let out his trademark laugh.  " It wasn't even a fair competition!  After all, how could that Missy-kun ever have a chance against the greatness of the Tensai!"

Rukawa allowed this to pass without comment, seeing as to how Hanamichi seemed to ignore the fact that he was still calling him the do'aho.

" You feeling okay today, Rukawa?"

Rukawa raised an eyebrow at this question.  " Yes.  Why?"

Hanamichi shrugged, once again thinking about how strong Rukawa was, keeping his sickness to himself like this.  He wanted to help.  " You know that...Well..." Hanamichi cleared his throat uncomfortably.  " You know that I'm always around if you wanna play a game of one on one or something...If you want to talk, you know."

" Oh." Rukawa had no idea what else to say to this.  If anyone had told him a few days before that he would be hearing all these things coming out of Hanamichi's mouth, then he probably would have laughed his head off.  Well, inwardly, anyways.  But this was for real...Hanamichi Sakuragi was actually standing before him saying all these things and he had no idea what the hell had brought this about.  But he had to admit that if felt sort of good, being told that he could depend on somebody.  Not that he was planning on taking the guy up on his offer or anything.  Of course not.  It just...Felt good to hear these things from Hanamichi.

" So...Anyways..." Hanamichi eventually broke the silence.  " I only came here to ask you to join me and the rest of the guys over there." He gestured vaguely towards the general direction of their table.

" I like it here."

" Oh."  Hanamichi bit on his bottom lip, thinking this refusal over.  But then it hadn't really sounded like a refusal.  It seemed to him as though Rukawa really wanted some company..." Would you mind if I sat with you then?" He finally asked after a while.

It took Rukawa a moment to answer.  " No." He continued, realizing how abrupt he had sounded.  " That would be...Okay."

" Good.  I'll just get my tray, okay?"

Rukawa nodded silently, his cold blue eyes following Hanamichi's back as he wove his way back to his table.
 
 

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