Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroko no Basket or any of its characters. Everything belongs to Tadatoshi Fujimaki and I only own the OCs. This goes the same for every chapter i will be uploading (including this chapter).

The sunlight seeped through her closed window. It radiated inside her room, clearing out the emptiness and filling it up with warmth. However, the light failed to awaken the lazy sleeper no matter how much it tingled and waited. Then the sweet aroma of food leaked down the closed door and swished around the bed.

Unconsciously, Rei's nose began to sniff in the smell, naturally waking the brain up. Then her brain, readily waking up other cells in her body just like how it has been functioning 11 years, started to send signals to her eyelids. But alas, the brain could not manage to open them. It swished and stomped, but the owner of the body simply refused to listen to the logical side of the brain, so the girl was still falling asleep.

Few minutes have passed. Ears awake, they twitched as they delivered the sound of her mum screaming at her, telling her to get up and do some jogging before breakfast. Lazily she got up and went to her wardrobe, picking a comfortable wear that she always wore, mumbling a complaint under her breath. It was her daily work-out time. She had always been jogging ever since she started primary school, having no excuse to not listen to her mother, who had been a professional marathon runner before she got pregnant with her child.

It was starting to get chilly outside. Fog came out of her mouth like a dragon breath, and Rei continued to blow breath out of thin air, mindlessly repeating the same process, thinking it looked fascinating. And because the fog had given her some entertainment, she felt much better already. Her eyes were no longer droopy, and her slightly slouched form became a bit straighter. It was really easy to make herself happy, just try something new and if she enjoyed it, she felt much better about life.

She decided that she will do something different today. Jogging to the same path for seven months was enough for her. She was the type of person who easily got bored, and since she didn't like repeating same routine for a long time, and Rei decided that it was time for a change.

'But I don't feel like jogging and sweating off. I need to do something interesting today' she thought.

'Hmm what if I just take a nice long walk alongside the river? The cloud looks good today…'

Simply changing her daily routine with just a change of quick thought, she decided to bring out her earphone, listen to some calm classical music and enjoy the walk. The cloud looked very nice. The wind was blowing softly, there was little noise and most importantly, it felt peaceful. This lovely weather, added with the little fun she had just now, had made her day much brighter and she was enjoying it already.

Rei had never been to this side of the town before, and for her, she thought it was worth waking up early in the morning if she was to witness such lovely nature, just beginning to rise up and shine. She didn't bother worrying about getting lost, since who cared about that when you have the nice looking river just wavering at you to come by?

As she was walking in her usual abnormally slow pace, she caught something in the back of her eye. It was a small black dot, coming closer and closer at her until she realised it was actually a ball flying straight to her face. Without thinking, she tilted her head backwards to avoid getting hit and the ball kept flying until it landed on the river, continuing to roll endlessly.

'Poor ball', she thoughts. As she expected, the orange ball kept rolling until it reached the other end.

"Oh shit", came the mumbled sound. Curious, Rei moved her head sideways to find the person who spoke. It was a boy looking similar to her age. She realised he looked pretty decent, but the thing that seemed to stand out the most to her was the colour of much tanned skin.

She wondered if he was American, but since she heard him just speaking Japanese, she quickly came up with the fact that he was probably half Japanese, or he was a good Japanese speaker. Rei didn't really get scared either. She used to live in New Zealand when she was young and English was her strong subject.

The boy ran to the riverside, looking in horror as he saw the ball on the other side of the river bay.

"Hey you"

Rei looked up at the boy again, knowing he was talking to her as she was the only person standing near the ball.

"If you could catch the ball, it wouldn't have happened in the first place! This is all your fault. What are you going to do now huh?" threatened the boy.

'Why do all decent looking boys have to be dickheads…' she thought. She didn't feel like she had to argue her point of view, the boy didn't look like he cared much about it anyway. She didn't want to start an argument either, so instead of starting a fight, she politely pointed him the direction of the bridge. It wasn't that far away, but not that close either.

The boy scratched his head. He obviously didn't know that there was a bridge nearby. He turned to her again, and asked if she played any sport.

"Do ya play any sport? I have no one to play with; I woke up too early."

I do marathon. I jog every day and today I felt like something new."

"Play basketball with me" answered the boy. Rei didn't really like the way he just demanded to make her play.

"I don't want to"

"Why not? C'mon, basketball is a lot better than whatever sport you are playing!"

Rei felt something click inside her. There were 3 things she absolutely loathed and hearing someone talk down on her was something she really didn't like.

"I don't think I want to play any game with the person who could've hit me on the face but refuses to apologise about it"

There was a short silence and she could see a slight blush on his already darkened skin.

"Really? Hey man, I'm really sorry I didn't realise it was heading to your face, I thought-I thought it was aimed at your chest, not that I was looking at it, but-but a ball flying to your chest is pretty easy to catch, and I-I-I… I'm sorry"

Sensing a serious apology in his embarrassed speech, she realised she was overreacting quite a bit and that this innocent boy didn't mean to sound like a dickhead. Feeling slightly better by hearing a sincere apology, she decided to take a walk to the bridge on the other side and get the ball for him. When she reached the other side, she fetched the ball and tried to throw back to him, only making the ball end up in the middle of the river.

There was another long silence between the boy and the girl.

"Hey man! What the hell did you just do? That was my birthday gift from my father! I know it's my fault that you nearly got hit on the face, but you don't do that to someone who already apologised!" screamed the boy who was now jumping up and down with anger, thinking she did it as a payback.

Rei didn't like things complicated. There was nothing around them that she could use to push the ball towards the boy. There was not much wind so she couldn't rely on the wave to carry it back. With a deep breath she told him, "I didn't mean to make this happen; I know that it is my fault that you lost your ball so I will just buy you another one".

Few minutes later, Rei and the boy was walking together to the sports shop to buy basketball. Already forgotten about why he was pissed off, the boy just looked happy about the fact that he was getting a new basketball. When Rei apologised again, he had told her not to worry about it since he was getting a new one anyway. The boy was so simple-minded, Rei realised. She was a type of person who liked things simple, and she at least liked that part of him. Thinking a bit highly of him, she decided to enjoy the time together without a worry.

The walk to and back from the sports shop was filled with the boy talking about how great basketball is when Rei told him she never played it before. Feeling good about getting a new ball, he offered to teach her basketball as a payment, and Rei, knowing that he was a good person to hang around with, accepted.

It was first time she ever played basketball and what surprised her mind the most was how this sport was much more interesting than marathon. She loved how the game was very fast-paced; just like how she preferred to solve things fast, and how she got to run around a lot. She was full of energy, as her daily exercise of jogging built up a strong stamina and persistence in her, and even though she was losing on her game with one on one with the guy whom she didn't bother asking for name since she figured wouldn't meet again, she managed to score one out of pure luck when he got tired and slowed down.

Because he had said that he would buy ice-cream for her if she could score at least one goal in the game, (she had to buy him ice-cream if she had lost) Rei cried out in joy when the ball hit the backboard and got in.

On their short walk to the supermarket, the boy complained about the game not being fair. He argued that it wasn't fair that the game lasted that long and she was cheating because she was a marathon runner, thus having a good stamina. Rei quickly argued back, saying stamina is one of the essential skills a basketball player should have. While bickering, they entered a supermarket.

"Fine, since I lost the bet I'll shout you one. But this will be the last time, you hear? I'm gonna start jogging from tomorrow so you can't win against me when this happens again!"

"Sure, sure. I will just get better than you then"

"Heyy! That's not fair!"

Rei decided that she liked this guy. He was fun to be around with, simple-minded so she didn't have to worry about hidden meanings or watch out and most of all, he had introduced to her the sport she immediately got interested in. She reminded herself that she will ask for a basketball lesson as soon as she gets him and beat him next time.

The guy looked surprised when all she wanted was a chupa chup.

"Are you sure you don't want any ice-cream? I've got enough money to buy you one?" asked the guy.

"It's okay. I don't like eating ice-cream in the morning, plus I like chupa chups" assured Rei as she carefully peeled the wrapping and happily popped it inside her mouth. The boy looked at her strangely, but didn't comment.

Both of them thought this would be the first and the last time they will ever see each other. However, they didn't know what their future held. They didn't know that they will be seeing each other in middle school; but for now, it was a goodbye.

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I know this is pretty bad. And I am sorry for writing such bad-quality story :( but heyy, i will be improving as I write! So please forgive me until i become an expert writer.

I also welcome criticisms, so please notify me if I have any spelling/grammatical/weird errors :)