The afternoon sun filtered through the gaps in the leaves, casting dappled shadows and laying a warm golden glow over the road home from school. Ken Kaneki and Daiki Aomine walked side by side with the others on their way to the basketball gym, their faces alight with carefree smiles as their conversation rang with laughter. Before long, they began talking about the two big guys' embarrassing moment that afternoon.
"Kaneki, I heard you got caught reading manga in class this afternoon?" Satsuki Momoi asked first, her voice clear and sweet, with a hint of playfulness.
Ken shot Atsushi Murasakibara an exasperated glance and shook his head with a helpless laugh. "You even heard about that? Don't listen to what people are saying. I was trying to pay attention in class. Murasakibara was the one who dragged me into reading." His eyes brimmed with helplessness.
Daiki chimed in, "Kaneki, you're always such a schemer. Murasakibara looks like such an honest guy. How could he do something like that? You must've led him astray." He patted Ken on the shoulder with a mischievous grin, teasing him.
Atsushi walked along the outer edge of the group, his tall frame moving at a steady pace. Every now and then he glanced at the path beneath his feet, but most of the time he listened to his friends talking. When the conversation turned to what had happened that afternoon, he couldn't help joining in. "Yeah, yeah, Aomine's right. Aomine's a good guy." His voice was full of resentment toward Ken.
"So he's a good guy just for that? What about me? I even bought you chips! And you still threw me under the bus!" Ken said indignantly.
"W-well, I was kind of scared at the time..." Atsushi admitted, suddenly losing his nerve. His voice grew much quieter. "But you still shouldn't have handed my manga to the teacher..."
"Are you freaking kidding me? You were scared, but you think I wasn't?" Ken was stunned by Atsushi's outrageous logic.
As the group's mood-maker, Satsuki stepped in with a timely joke. "All right, forget about it. It's not like the manga got confiscated. Murasakibara, just think of Kaneki as a coward. Though, to be fair, what you did was even more cowardly than what Kaneki did." She smiled at Atsushi, a mischievous glint in her eyes. He blushed and lowered his head.
The four of them chatted and laughed all the way to the gym before they even realized they had arrived. They exchanged glances, their eyes full of anticipation and excitement about their first group practice with the Basketball Club.
As soon as they pushed open the door, the familiar scent of a basketball court and its distinctive echoes greeted them. Only a few upperclassmen were warming up inside. Ken and the others were the first of the new Basketball Club members to arrive.
"Hey, you're here?" Shuzo called from behind them. "Why aren't you going in to practice? What are you standing around outside for?"
"Captain, we..." Ken started to explain that they had only just arrived, but an amiable, elderly voice sounded beside him.
"Shuzo, don't scare the new kids. As captain, you should be a little friendlier." Who else could it be but Kōzō Shirogane?
"Good afternoon, Coach!" The upperclassmen and Shuzo immediately bowed.
"Good afternoon, Coach!" Ken and the others quickly bowed to the man in front of them as well.
"All right, all right. Don't mind an old man like me. Warm up if you're supposed to warm up, practice if you're supposed to practice. Just do what you usually do." Kōzō smiled as he came over to the sidelines.
"This coach seems like a really nice guy... He should be easy to get along with, right?" Satsuki murmured as she watched Kōzō standing by the court.
But her words seemed like a demon's whisper. Shuzo's face turned deathly pale, his expression twisting as if he'd seen Cthulhu. "Don't even think that. You'll regret it!"
"Huh?" Everyone except Ken was baffled by Shuzo's warning.
"Heh. You'll find out for yourselves." Shuzo gave a bitter smile, his fourteen-year-old face somehow wearing the weary expression of a forty-year-old.
Sure enough, before long, the Basketball Club members had gradually gathered. Kōzō looked over the fresh crop of recruits, and a strange gleam flashed in his eyes.
"Ha ha ha! Hello, everyone. I'm Kōzō Shirogane, the Basketball Club coach! Looks like we're all here now. Let's not waste time—first, we'll warm up. Run thirty laps around the gym!" Kōzō said, still smiling with his eyes half-closed.
"Th-thirty laps?" The newcomers were stunned. How could a seemingly kind, squinty-eyed old man say such cold-blooded things with a mouth that was supposed to be thirty-seven degrees? Were all squinty-eyed people monsters?
As the newcomers whispered to one another in disbelief, an even more terrifying voice rang out, like the whisper of an evil god. "If I don't see someone running in ten seconds, everyone gets ten extra laps. Then, if another five seconds pass, you'll get ten more. Talking counts as time, too."
That settled it. Under Kōzō's smiling, terrifying influence, the new recruits had no choice but to break into a run.
On the sidelines, Kōzō watched the recruits running laps with Shuzo beside him, looking delighted. He resembled a farmer watching over a cotton field.
"Ha ha ha! Look at those boys go. They're running so well. Young people should run more. It's good for them." Kōzō teased Shuzo. "By the way, which ones were those newcomers you said were unprecedented and would never be surpassed?"
"Coach, they're the ones at the front of the group right now... those particularly colorful characters." Shuzo wasn't sure how to describe those naturally flamboyant kids.
"Oh, those little guys?" Kōzō watched the eye-catching figures with interest and teased, "They've already run ten laps, and they're still holding the lead. Very good. They've got plenty of spirit. This kind of vigorous, vibrant energy—keep it up."
"They're doomed," Shuzo muttered.
"What was that? You're speaking so quietly. Is that how you expect to play basketball? Why don't you say it a little louder?" Kōzō seemed not to have heard him and asked Shuzo to repeat himself.
"I said, 'The coach is so wise.'" Shuzo sensibly offered a compliment, but it still didn't save him from a miserable fate.
"Why are you always following me around? Your players are all running, so what are you doing standing here? Go on, run laps. And remember, you have to run all thirty, just like them." Kōzō waved his hand, and Shuzo was added to the ranks of the unfortunate.
As the laps mounted, Kōzō focused his attention on Ken, who was leading the pack.
By this point, most of the newcomers, having had little formal training, were already losing form and struggling to breathe. Some even had to walk for a while after only running a few steps. Even the talented few at the front had slowed down—all except Ken.
Ken, however, seemed tireless. He maintained a steady pace, his face neither red nor winded, holding on to the lead with ease as if he'd only just started running. He looked completely different from everyone else.
"Looks like the assessment was right. Just where did this monster, Ken Kaneki, come from?" Kōzō wondered to himself.
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