Prologue

The clock read 3.25, almost half an hour after the scheduled time slot. The seat across the coffee table, however, remained resolutely empty. Harasawa leaned back, rubbed his chin and sighed. Ah well.

Aomine Daiki was a figure of legend and renown by this point, a lot of it promising, some of it less so. But he'd been prepared to overlook a great deal for a player from the Generation of Miracles. Arguably, Touou's strategy for surviving the next 3 years depended on it.

But if Aomine hadn't bothered to show up for his interview, then he wasn't interested. Perhaps someone else had moved faster, made the boy an offer he couldn't refuse.

Harasawa sighed again and stood. Time to look into other possibilities, then.

"You what?!"

Aomine grimaced and held his phone an arm's length away from his ear. "Oi, not so loud, that hurt," he complained and yawned. "I didn't mean to, okay, I just woke up and it's already 4 so it's not like I could make it down in time even if I wanted."

"Do you know how serious this is?" Satsuki wailed on the other end of the line. "Touou was the last school that asked to interview you! You already turned all the others down! Or theyturned you down! Where are you going to go now?"

Satsuki worried way too much about everything. Lots of people went to high school, plenty of them bigger morons than him. It wasn't like it was that hard.

"It's just another school," he said. "Who cares?"

"But you need a sports school! One with a good basketball team! Or else what are you going to do?!"

Aomine snorted. "It doesn't matter. It's not like I'll lose either way."

Satsuki's silence was long and so frustrated even he could tell.

"Just pick somewhere, it'll be fine," he said, and sprawled back down, head pillowed on the magazine of the week. Yawned

In the end, she sighed. "Fine. You'll have to sit for entrance exams though, don't say I didn't warn you."

"Yeah yeah, just lend me your notes."

It'd be fine. It wasn't like it was going to make a difference.

Riko spread the sign up forms across the table and stared, the better to make sure she wasn't hallucinating.

"I'm not imagining this, right?" she said.

"Teikou?" Hyuuga said, disbelieving. "Two of them?"

"If they're first years, doesn't that mean they're from the Generation of Miracles? What are they doing in Seirin?!"

"Maybe they weren't regulars," Hyuuga said, expression dubious. "There's no way..."

"But what if they are? Can you imagine what we could do with two of them? And I don't remember anyone like that passing by the booth at all, how did I miss them?"

"It could be someone's idea of a joke," Hyuuga said and frowned. "Some very stupid first year's idea of a joke."

They looked at each other. It was probably some kind of stupid prank; what were the odds, after all? But what if it wasn't?

"Practice starts tomorrow. I... I guess we'll know then," Riko said.