The midday sun played with the steam rising from the griddle, creating small, ephemeral spirals in the air. The sweet smell of crepe batter and the rich aroma of melted chocolate enveloped the stall, a near-cruel contrast to the whirlwind of anxiety consuming Itoshi Sae. He stood paralyzed before the colorful menu, but his eyes weren't registering the flavors. His gray eyes, usually so focused, were fixed on the periphery, capturing every movement, every detail of the girl beside him.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sae watched Momoi. The sunlight made her pink hair shine like cotton candy, and he noticed the way she would slightly wrinkle her nose when she smiled, examining the options with a genuine curiosity he felt was impossible for him to replicate. It was then that he felt the moisture.
A treacherous, cold drop of sweat detached from his temple and began a slow, deliberate journey down the side of his forehead, skirting his eyebrow. It was a minor physical discomfort, but to Sae, it felt like a rushing river, a glaring proof of his own social incompetence.
'It's my first date... What do I do?!' The thought echoed in his mind, not as a whisper, but as a muffled scream. His hand, inside his jacket pocket, was clenched so tightly that his fingernails were almost digging into his palm.
After all, no matter how much he projected an aura of untouchable genius on the basketball court, Itoshi Sae was still a pre-teen, a boy whose life up until then had been a linear, obsessive map traced between the court, home, and school.
Before coming to KnB, his interactions with girls were almost non-existent, reduced to brief, functional conversations about class assignments. The concept of "going on a date" was completely uncharted territory, a manual he had never received.
He sucked air through his teeth, a nearly inaudible sound. Should he talk? And about what? Basketball was the only topic in which he felt truly in his element, but would it be appropriate? Would she think he was a fanatic with no other interests? Should he offer to pay for the crepes? It's what the characters in anime always did.
The sound of Momoi's voice cut through Sae's internal fog like a beacon.
"Ah, Itoshi-san. Can you answer something for me?" she asked, gently pulling him out of the spiral of his own deep thoughts. He blinked, as if readjusting to the real world, and turned his head a few degrees, his gray eyes now meeting her dark pink ones.
"Sure, what is it?" His voice came out a bit rougher than he intended, and he cleared his throat discreetly.
Momoi was quiet for a moment, her fingers tracing the pattern on the bag she was carrying. She seemed to be choosing her words with a care Sae had never seen anyone dedicate to a simple question. He could almost see the thoughts whirling behind those perceptive eyes. She took a deep breath, filling her lungs with the sweet street air, and then released the question into the space between them.
"What does Basketball mean to you?"
The question, seemingly simple, hit Sae with the unexpected force of a physical check against the post. It wasn't a question about tactics, favorite teams, or statistics. It was a question that went straight to the core, digging into territory he had never felt the need to explain in words.
His mind, which just moments ago was a chaos of adolescent insecurities, suddenly grew quiet. All the fog of nervousness dissipated.
And then, the answer came.
"It's my reason for living."
The words weren't spoken with arrogance or empty drama. They were spoken with a clarity so pure and so profound it was almost physical. As he spoke, something shifted in his blue-gray eyes. The usual metallic, distant tone dissolved, replaced by an intense, internal glow, as if someone had lit a furnace at his core.
There was feeling in that gaze, a raw passion that went far beyond mere liking. There was reason, a fierce logic that guided every one of his choices. There was meaning, an unshakable compass. There was, above all, life and emotion pulsating within those few words, a vital force that completely transformed his presence.
A kind of shiver, sudden and uncontrollable, ran up Momoi's spine. It wasn't a chill of fear, but of pure recognition. She knew the prodigies of the Generation of Miracles, she played with them, she analyzed them. They loved basketball, without a doubt; they were natural-born geniuses. But it was a love that coexisted with their lives, sometimes even conflicting with them.
Here, with Sae, it was different. Itoshi Sae didn't just love the sport; he lived for it. It was a commitment on another level, an absolute pact with his very existence. The opinions of others, the difficulty, the sacrifice, or any challenge—none of it mattered.
Watching that gleam in his eyes, Momoi felt a crystalline certainty: he didn't just play basketball. And in that moment, under the sunlight and the scent of crepes, Momoi felt she was witnessing not just a boy, but a legend in his purest, most terrifying essence.
The silence that hung after Sae's declaration was no longer just heavy; it was electric, like the thick air moments before a storm. Momoi was completely immersed in the intensity of that revelation when his voice, once again, cut through the atmosphere—this time with a different tone, no longer one of simple clarity, but of a deep, almost somber conviction.
"I don't know about the other players on your team," Sae began, his words measured and deliberate. "But I remember one thing that gave meaning to my life." He paused for an infinitesimal moment, his gaze, which had until then wandered over the distant horizon, turned and fixed completely on Momoi. He wasn't just looking at her; it was as if he were looking through her, searching for something deep within his own soul to anchor that memory.
"When I played basketball for the first time, I made a bet. And just like the villains in cartoons, I dedicated my life to this obsession." The word "obsession" echoed in Momoi's mind with the impact of a gunshot. And then, she saw. She truly saw.
His eyes, which moments before had glowed with the light of an internal furnace, now seemed to have absorbed all the light around them. Irises of an almost supernatural turquoise floated in a sea of darkness, the pupils dilated to the point of almost swallowing the color. But it wasn't just an impression.
To Momoi's sharp vision, accustomed to analyzing the minutest details on the court, a subtle and disturbing aura seemed to emanate from him. It was an ethereal mist, layered with a deep, absolute black, interwoven with sparks of that same electric, hypnotic turquoise. It was so... destructive. An energy that promised not to build, but to burn everything in its path to achieve its goal.
It was the visual manifestation of his "bet" – a Faustian pact he had made with himself on the court, a vow of total devotion that left no room for anything else.
But the paradox was what took her breath away. Because that aura, as destructive as it seemed, was also undeniably beautiful. It was like observing a black hole in space: a force of nature as terrifying as it was fascinating, capable of distorting the reality around it and sucking in anything that came close. It was an energy radically different from anything she saw in the Generation of Miracles. They were geniuses, artists, tyrants of the court. But Sae was a fanatic.
And yet, at the core of that black and turquoise storm, Momoi could sense one last, unexpected component. It wasn't pride, nor simple ambition. It was something lonely and, in a terribly twisted way, resolute.
It was the solitude of one who bore a burden no one else could or would understand, a determination that, though selfish in its purpose, was born from a place of pure, incredible, and terrifying truth. It was magnetic precisely because it was authentic, a flame that would rather consume itself entirely than fade away timidly.
And Momoi, paralyzed before that vision, felt a chill down her spine and a warmth in her chest at the same time, completely captivated by the living paradox that was Itoshi Sae.
Momoi's question came out in a whisper, laden with a courage she didn't know she possessed. The air around them seemed to vibrate with the intensity of Sae's previous confession. "And what was that bet?"
Sae's eyes, still shrouded in that turquoise and black aura, narrowed slightly, as if he were reliving the exact moment the pact was forged. When his voice emerged, it was smooth as a steel wire, sharp and cold, but with a devastating heat within.
"To set my life ablaze on those courts," he declared, each word a solitary spark in the vacuum that had formed between them, "and then find the courage to die!"
The declaration wasn't a shout, but a quiet, terrifying statement. The obsession within him was so profound, so absolute, that it bordered on disturbing. It was the total surrender of a youth who had decided that a brief, incandescent existence was worth more than a long, mediocre life.
He wasn't speaking of a morbid desire for death, but of the logical consequence of a passion that consumed everything. If basketball was the fire, he would be the kindling, accepting to be reduced to ashes for the greatness of a momentary flame.
Anyone else would have recoiled. They would have seen only the darkness, the distortion. But Momoi, an analyst, an observer of prodigies, remained there. Motionless. Calm. And deeply fascinated. She didn't see a monster; she saw a phenomenon. She saw the brutal purity of a purpose few would dare to embrace.
And then, the warmth she had felt in her chest became an overwhelming wave. A soft blush, like a sunset, began high on her cheeks and spread inexorably across her entire face, coloring her skin with a warm hue of shame and excitement. It was the involuntary physical response to that raw exposure of a heart laid bare. She was standing before a naked and dangerous truth, and her own reaction was one of fascination she could not, and did not want to, control.
The moment, charged with almost unbearable tension, was broken in an abrupt and mundane way.
"Sorry for the wait." The cheerful voice of the crepe stall attendant cut through the ethereal atmosphere like a bucket of cold water. He approached with a professional smile, balancing two golden, filled crepes wrapped in white paper.
The bubble of intensity surrounding Sae and Momoi popped. The outside world, with its sweet smells, street sounds, and normality, returned.
The dark aura emanating from Sae seemed to dissolve into the air, retreating to the depths from whence it came. His eyes, for a moment, blinked rapidly, as if he, too, were returning from a very distant place.
The silence that settled between them was thick, palpable, broken only by the rustle of the crepe wrappers and the distant sounds of the city. Every step they took side-by-side echoed the intensity of the confession hanging in the air. Sae walked with his gaze fixed on the pavement ahead, but his mind was far away, churning in a whirlwind of self-recrimination.
The sweet taste of the crepe was almost metallic in his mouth, a bitter irony against the harshness of his own words. He felt a knot of guilt tightening in his chest. He had shown Momoi not the controlled, imposing figure of the basketball genius, but the dark, dysfunctional core of his obsession. A side not just intense, but frankly cruel in its self-annihilation. He wondered, with a pang of anguish, if he had frightened the only person who seemed to look at him and see beyond the legend.
"Sorry..." The word left his lips quietly, almost swallowed by the ambient noise. He couldn't bring himself to look at her anymore, keeping his eyes fixed on a distant, undefined point. "If I made you uncomfortable."
And then came the touch.
A soft contact, initially hesitant, on the back of his free hand. It was warm, a vivid contrast to the coldness he felt inside. Before he could process it, Momoi's fingers slid between his, intertwining with a firmness that surprised him. His hand, which had so often dominated a basketball with relentless strength, was now enveloped in a delicacy that seemed to completely disarm him.
Sae stood still for a fraction of a second, the world around him blurring. His entire body seemed to concentrate on that single point of contact, where her skin met his. The warmth emanating from Momoi's hand was a strange, unfamiliar sensation, but not an unpleasant one. It was a silent antidote to the guilt consuming him.
"I-it's okay." Momoi's voice was a soft whisper, but laden with an unshakable sincerity. "You didn't make me uncomfortable."
Shame, then, flooded Sae. A hot flush rose up his neck and reached his ears. He averted his gaze with a sharp movement, fixing it on some random storefront, unable to bear the sweetness of that forgiveness, that acceptance. His heart, which had been beating in a rhythm of anxiety before, was now racing for a completely different reason, as confusing as his own existence.
It would be difficult, he thought with a kind of resigned panic, to ever get used to this. To the softness, to the understanding, to the way a simple touch could silence the deafening noise of his own mind. It was territory more frightening than any basketball court, but, for the first time, the fear was accompanied by a tremor of something that felt very much like hope.
"Hey, Satsuki!"
The voice, rough and laden with a casual familiarity, cut through the air like lightning on a clear day. As if pulled by the same string, Sae and Momoi turned simultaneously, their movements still synchronized from the shock of the interruption.
There he was. Standing a few meters away, hands in the pockets of his school jacket and a posture that defied the very idea of formality, was Aomine Daiki. The late afternoon light seemed to settle differently on his broad shoulders, highlighting his dark skin and the deliberate disorder of his blue-black hair.
"Dai-chan?" The name left Momoi's lips as a sigh of surprise, an old habit the current scene made almost comical.
But the main focus wasn't on her. The instant Sae's and Aomine's gazes met, the air between them seemed to solidify. It wasn't just a look; it was a confrontation.
Sae's gray eyes, which had moments before shown a rare vulnerability, sharpened instantly, regaining all their metallic hardness and analytical coldness.
On the other side, Aomine's dark eyes, which usually carried an indolent boredom, narrowed, revealing the spark of a predator who had scented prey on his level.
Invisible, yet tangible sparks seemed to fly from the point where their gazes clashed. It was a silent collision of wills, an earthquake of egos that only they could feel. Sae, with his refined and destructive obsession, a concentrated and controlled fire burning within. Aomine, with his raw, animal talent, a natural and unpredictable hurricane that devastated everything in its path.
It was the meeting between the Obsessive Genius and the Hungry Panther.