Post Basketball Match Moment

touyaxnakuru,

during and after a game of basketball. Warning: sap.

A/N:

it's...pretty long, but you get a reward for reading to the end because it's got what you readers have wanted for a long time. Yup, they get to kiss! Yay.

btw, this fic is so long that i didn't really bother to beta-read it thoroughly, so pardon any major/minor errors here and there, i didn't mean it! (runs away)

mysterio000

Touya sat at the sidelines, along with his other soccer teammates, who were currently taking a break by gulping down gallons of water and wiping beads of sweat off their forehead with towels. At the mean time, they were watching a friendly between one gifted player versus another five (and those five were on the main team as well), take it out on the court.

"Go Nakuru, Go, Go Nakuru!" The cheerleaders were pumping their fists up in the air, pom-poms thrown high to support the spirit of girl power. Pride shown on their faces. Nakuru Akizuki, representing the female species, had gone solo against five much more athletically-built males to thrash them to a score of 38-20.

He had to remind himself to breathe. She was amazing, out there.

He had never seen anyone would could simply slip in between the defenses of the players like no one's business, memorizing every outline of the game, and escaping the clutches of the men with just playing low, crouched down. Nakuru didn't move, nor run. She glided, and flew.

Touya shook his head. It must be the Ruby Moon genes, just like his friend Tsukishiro Yukito, who could one handedly thrash the basketball team as well. But he couldn't help asking himself, Since when did he become so fatally attracted towards her?

He couldn't answer that.

But he was noticing things he never knew.

Like how her brown hair, disheveled and entangled in crazy, stray locks, matted to her perspiring forehead and drenched back, actually still looked gloriously shining and luscious under the hot, noon sun. And how those brown eyes of hers acquired a glowing tinge when she scored. The brilliance of her quick-thinking mind, as she calculated every move, every action with precise fluency.

And Touya most particularly didn't like the foreign emotion that swirled within him when the basketball men - though inadvertently - had the slightest, briefest physical contact with Nakuru. Even if it was just part of the game, part of their role of defense, he still didn't like it.

Damn, he was feeling possessive already, not good.

"GO, NAKURU!" The cheerleaders were on sugar high by now, proud of their female representative's accomplishment.

He watched, and caught his breath as she pivoted on her heels, to flash a thumbs-up at the cheerleaders.

His heart swelled, with pride...and with affection.

Her gaze swept quick across the court, and eventually reached his.

Touya hadn't realized he was still holding his pent-up breath as she did so.

Her eyes smiled, and the edges of her lips curled.

Vices gripped his heart. His limbs went numb. (Thank Kami-sama he was sitting).

She was beautiful, he realized, even when she was sweaty and stinky, it didn't matter.

She just was beautiful.

"Hey, guys!" He barely heard his teammate nudging him at the ribs. "Look, someone's drooling!"

Damn, he shouldn't have made his ogling that obvious. Now he had attracted the attention of the rest. He glared at them, What? He wanted to shoot his mouth off at them.

"Aren't you proud of your girlfriend, Touya?" Another of his friend teased. "She's amazing, isn't she?"

"I was NOT drooling," he retorted, "and she's not my girlfriend."

"Rrrright." Another answered.

His glare shut them up, and he returned to watching the game, until he felt another nudge on his other side. It was Tsukishiro Yukito. He was smiling through his glasses.

"She is amazing, right?" He asked, rather seriously.

Touya paused, his eyes taking in everything - one Nakuru Akizuki crouching low, gliding across the court with nimble footsteps, catching all the basketball men off-guard with her alacrity, her terrific pace, the way she spun and twisted to distract and confuse all of them, before finally hurling herself up high mid-air, to shoot a perfect one into the hoop.

The whistle blew, promptly signifying that she had won, fair and square.

The cheerleaders cheered like mad.

Even the friends surrounding Touya's side had jumped up and wolf-whistled.

The onlookers were sent into an uproar(mostly the girls, though).

But everything else faded into oblivion, when Nakuru gazed straight at him, and smiled.

He nodded smally, to acknowledge her nod, and also partially to Yukito's question.

"Yeah, she is." He said softly, ignoring Yukito's knowing grin, and the fast pounding of his heart against his ribcage at that smile aimed towards him, and only him.

-----

The basketball court had cleared by now, and up and above, there were stars shining in the purple-lit sky. They had sat by the sidelines for hours, with her head on his shoulders as he had allowed her to take a rest after her tiring game.

He recalled the recent memory:

"I'm tired."

"Go to sleep then."

"But I don't want to go home." She was smiling.

His heart clenched, all over again. Damn, he hated feeling like this all the time. Whenever she was around, it was usually ten times worse. "Fine then, don't."

She poked his shoulder, as if testing it, before asking the one question that froze his mind and body. "How about this?"

He knew what she meant, but pretended not to. "How about what?" He cursed himself for even hoping for something, anticipating for anything. Damn himself.

"Lend me your shoulder?" She giggled, her eyes shining

He adverted his gaze, towards the floor. "...Whatever."

And she had promptly leant against him, and fell asleep within a matter of seconds.

Touya counted the stars. There were alot of them, and funny and ironic, at a moment of peace and serenity like this, when his heart felt like it was undergoing through a process of emotional turmoil and chaos. And pandemonium. Because of her.

Being able to smell her strawberry-scented shampoo didn't do him any good. Especially when the wind would blow occasionally, and blow some of her stray strands to tickle his nose. His fingers would bite down hard against his palm, to prevent himself from the need to touch her. It was getting harder, and harder to not do so.

A chill lifted from the night, and he heard her sneeze.

Instinctively, a hand went around her shoulder, to pull her closer to his side as she continued to sleep. He watched her carefully, at the crescent-shaped eyelids, at the rosy blushes against her cheeks, at her labored breaths, at her ivory skin.

He lifted a finger, to thumb her hair behind her ears. He recoiled a bit, when he felt her snuggle closer to his side. His insides knotted, and his mind reeled.

They really were close now. Too close for his comfort.

He sighed quietly, looking away.

Okay, so practically the whole world knew she liked him, and he knew that fact, too. But did he liked her? Did he? He had denied it for a darn long time, ignoring the teasing, ignoring everything his teammates claimed that was going on between them.

But these days, he was finding it harder to deny, even to his best friend Yukito, that he was falling more and more for this vibrant personality so opposite of him. Beginning to find it harder to resist her attempts to melt his heart, to make him laugh, to make his eyes smile back into hers.

Because she had already ensnared his heart, even when he didn't want her to.

His mind jumped, when she stirred by his side. He looked down, immediately removing his hand from her shoulder, as she stared at him with sleepy, lazy eyes. "Hi, Touya."

"Hey..."

"Oh no!" She looked around in a bit of a panic. "I overslept! I told you to wake me up! Why didn't you?"

"You were asleep." He said simply.

"Oh man, sorry, you must be really hungry. It's past dinner time."

"Doesn't matter."

"Come on! It does matter! My Touya-kun can't go hungry ever! Shall we go?"

My Touya-kun. Funny, how he actually endeared himself to that possessive entitlement only used by her for him. To her, he was hers, and...he didn't hate it. Contrary to popular beliefs circulated around the school, he didn't mind at all.

She was about to get up, when he shook her head. "Doesn't matter." He repeated.

She pouted. "What? Why?" She didn't get it.

Silence.

She then made a face. "Sorry about being so stinky and all. I really need a shower when I get back."

"Doesn't matter."

"Would you quit saying that? It kinda gets annoying."

He had to smile abit, and she laughed. She liked seeing him boyishly content, especially under the peeking moonlight rays now. He looked domineeringly handsome like this.

"Okay." His eyes were locked against hers.

Breathe, Nakuru, breathe. She urged herself to. But she kind of forgot how to, anyway.

"You thrashed them. Again." He said. She stuck out her tongue.

"Come on, I saved their faces by allowing them to score against me a little already!"

"You're really generous, aren't you, Akizuki?"

He still couldn't say her name up till now, no matter what, no matter how many times she urged him - no, insisted in - asking him to call her by Nakuru. He was afraid if he did so, he would only feel...like he couldn't breathe anymore than he already couldn't. And that was bad.

Calling her Nakuru would be a scary thing. He would only feel like he was really close to her, and he didn't want that. It scared him.

"NA-KU-RU." She rolled her eyes. Mou, why wouldn't he ever learn?

"Whatever, Akizuki."

"NAKURU. It's only three syllables! Is it that hard to say my name!"

"...Yes." He wasn't lying, anyway.

Impulsively, playfully, she leant forward, to squeeze his cheeks. He frowned. What the hell was she doing? Apparently, she was forcing him to mouth her name. "Say it! Say it! NAKURU!"

"I refuse." But it came out more like "BWAH BWAFUSE." She got the meaning, anyway.

"Say it or I'll use a basketball to knock your socks off!"

"I'm scared." (or rather BWAH BWARED)

"SAY IT!"

She really was pushy, wasn't she? He sighed, and pushed her hands away. "Fine, fine! Let go of me and I'll say it!"

She let go. Their eyes met under the microscopic beams of the moonlight.

He breathed. Barely, though.

"Nakuru."

Her name rolled from his tongue like soft liquid droplets.

Like how he predicted, he felt scared now. Like he had closed the final distance between them, like he had pulled her closer to his side, like he had endeared her to his heart, and allowed her to stay there forever.

Hoping she would not see the colors against his cheeks, he adverted his gaze to the floor.

She was smiling, though. Honest, plain, and simple. "Now that wasn't too hard, was it, Touya?"

And his name sounded...so right from her lips.

His heart missed a beat, and impulse led him to meet her smiling chocolate eyes again. Big mistake. They looked too beautiful under the luminescent moonlight.

His fingers bit down into his palm again.

The urge was too forceful, too difficult to resist. Harder and harder, he now found himself drawn towards her like moth to a flame, and bee to honey.

Ah, what the heck, he finally thought. He didn't bother about rationality, and egotism anymore. They could all just burn to hell. And his teammates weren't here (he hoped not in all sanity's sake) to bug him or intervene and tease him mercilessly.

He was alone, with her, sidelined against the basketball court.

She was stinky, and sweaty, but he didn't mind.

He wasn't about to give this moment up, not a chance.

"Nakuru?"

She was smiling at him, still, unfalteringly. "What is it?" She asked innocently, cheerfully.

He stopped for a beat, and then asked, one question that only made her smile deepened.

"Can I kiss you?"

owari

A/N:

erh.. hello! YAY i finally got them to kiss..well, not YET, but at least i got Touya to ask the MAJOR question. THE question of the century! of the touyaxnakuru fandom we all wanna hear!

yay. and if you guys would like the..erh..kissing scenario to be up or smth, drop a review to tell me so if you didn't prefer the fic to end like this. (thought it definitely could, right!) (: cheers! and TOUYAxNAKURU FOREVER!

btw, writing this was so fun! even though it took me 2 hours , and it brought back nostalgic memories from old times writing multi-chaptered fics like this! maybe i'll just get back the inspiration to take up multi-chaptering once more, into the fandom of TxN (What else!)..

mysterio000