She could remember standing at the assembly, not but a couple of days into the new school year.

Everything was ordinary, or rather, orderly: just as it should have been. Everyone took their places to prepare for the next steps of the day, they were greeted with the loud and ridiculous shouts of some strange students on the rooftop; apparently, they were the basketball team - not that anyone really even recognized that Seirin had one to begin with.

Something about a girlfriend, two somethings about being the best, and if she remembered correctly, there was even a 'something' about one guy's whole life story.

To think... one of them had the nerve to leap up on the roof's perimeter fencing.

Now just what was he thinking?

What would have happened to him if he had slipped or suddenly become clumsy, lost balance, and fallen from there and down all that way to the ground?

If she were being honest, recalling that moment came more so with an unparalleled level of stress and rush that washed over. She was just a first year, so she couldn't tell the returning students what they could or couldn't do, but taking over the role that she had begun to assume for her studies, she could at least make her personal preferences known.

That was exactly what she intended.

At that very moment the girl leaned against the door frame leading to the gym, spinning a pen through her fingers whilst observing a small notebook she had put together. Her initial demeanor possibly off-put some students passing by, the purposeful straightening of her body and angle of her face giving a strong vibe of no-nonsense. If that weren't enough, the way her dark, faded raspberry-pink colored eyes focused solely on the pages before her, admittedly with a concentrating glare, was probably the kicker.

Now she was no hostile type, despite how her natural countenance said otherwise, and she didn't want to cause any trouble, but she wanted to make some things known. All she needed to do that was to see one person...

"Hm?"

At the curious hum, the girl's eyes rose, her intimidatingly cold eyes seeming to somewhat startle the bespectacled male before her.

"Ah, sorry," He quickly began by clarifying. The way his expression softened came off more of a precaution, an assumed attempt at trying to likewise assure the girl that he meant no harm by approaching her; judging by his plain casual clothes, she could likewise assume that was one of the players. "Did you need something?"

To the hospitality, the girl's expression unexpectedly warmed. The corners of her lips slowly raised into a sweet -but faint-, smile, "Yes, sorry if I'm interrupting." She took a quick glance to her notebook before easing it into her bag, "I was wondering if Aida Riko was here yet?"

He stared for a moment, clearly trying to make sense of the request, but with nothing else to go on, he nodded, "Mm. Give me a second, and I'll get her for you."

Smiling once more, the girl adjusted her bag strap, nodding firmly, "Thank you." She stayed in place, staying idle as she waited. In the meantime, curiosity getting the best of her, she took a gander at the inside of the gym, seeing some of the other members mingling pre-practice and getting some stretches in. Very few of them she recognized from the roof, so she assumed the lot of them were first years encouraged to do that as some sort of initiation for the club.

'That one...' She decided after some pondering, her eyes fixating on a very familiarly reckless redheaded. That was the one that leaped haphazardly onto the railing. Her brows furrowed disdainfully, even if she tried to mask it for the most part.

"Riko," The messenger approached, thumbing back over to the door, "there's a girl here to see you?" Even with all the thinking it over while on the way over, he still couldn't really place what the reasoning could be, but he figured that if he didn't know that he simply wasn't meant to. It could have very easily been a personal situation, or... something - though he hadn't recalled seeing the girl before, which was what was the thing really interesting him.

"Hm?" Riko perked up, "who is it?" She wasn't expecting anyone, or at least she didn't think so.

"She didn't say," He folded his arms, "and I didn't recognize her." He tipped his head whilst watching the young coach leaning carefully over to try catching a glimpse of the figure in the doorway. Needless to say her response wasn't what he was expecting.

"Shit." A groan escaped her lips as she set her hand upon her hip.

"Eh?" As the dark haired player opened his mouth to ask, Riko merely rubbed stressfully at her temples and continued around the corner. "Don't worry about it." Regardless of what her mouth said, her face gave a completely different message.

Either way, she approached the girl in the door way, forcing a smile on as she approached and feigned ignorance, "Hi." She hooked her clipboard under her arm, other hand locked habitually over the whistle that dangled around her neck. "I was told that you needed me for something?" She kept her tone soft and borderline sugary.

The girl against the door frame stepped away from it to stand up properly and straight, tearing her gaze away from the redhead to look at the approaching team coach. "Yes, thank you for letting me take your time." She lifted her hand, settling her hand gently against her upper chest. "I'm Esashi Fuyuko, and you're Aida Riko, aren't you?" Her gaze was betrayingly tender at this moment, her gesture from her chest to motion to Riko at the mention of her name likewise inviting.

"Yeah," Riko quickly yet hesitantly responded. In truth, she already knew a few tidbits about this Esashi girl; it wasn't much, but she was well-informed that this girl would be working very closely with the nurse for the school year. What this meant for the team, she had no idea, but the few times she had seen her, she was carrying a pretty harsh air, so it couldn't have been good.

Esashi nodded firmly, raising her hand to brush the long locks of her brown, face-framing bangs from her face and behind her ear. "I'm going to be doing a lot of assisting in the school infirmary this year. I believe that reaching out to many of the physical or athletic clubs in the school would be a good step."

"Right," Riko swiftly replied once more, nodding in agreement, "just in case anything happens. I can see that." That's all that she wanted? 'This isn't nearly as bad as I expected it would be...'

"Exactly right," Esashi added. "That being said, I think there are ways we can make this partnership much more fruitful."

"E-eh?"

Sparing not a moment within Riko's apparent confusion, the girl offered another sentiment directly after the first, "I've seen this club's record, Aida-san. I'm only a first year, of course, so I don't mean to step on any toes, but I think it is more than fair for me to ask you to be particularly watchful of injuries on the court."

Riko's look quickly altered, from the initial spell of anger, to a softer expression to mask the first. Despite the smile that she forced onto her lips, it was easy to see the way her brow twitched from sheer aggravation. Was it wrong of her to get offended by that? In any case, spouting off of the mouth wouldn't be beneficial to anyone. "I'm always careful," She offered kindly through the underlying tones of bitterness, "but some circumstances are, for lack of a better word... hard to control."

'Hard to control...' Esashi thought aloud, her eyes shifting to a less enthused mood to match the changing tone of the conversation. It appeared she no longer cared for keeping up appearances. Her face became more slated and bemused. 'It sounds like an excuse to me.' She brushed away her own opinion on the matter. "Well, if that's the case, then I think it's good that I'm reminding you and your players that you don't have to avoid the nurse for care if those circumstances happen to show themselves, hm?"

Even if the attempts at staying civil were strong amidst the two, it was undeniable that tension was playing just as heavy a role.

The edge in Riko's eyes was no longer able to be smothered by the artificial charm she poured into it. Even her smile, which had been struggling to be upheld through this most mixed bag encounter had fallen, near-baring her teeth that she clenched roughly together. "Exactly right," She inadvertently growled out, mimicking Esashi's own previous response.

"Good." The deep-pink eyed girl smiled warmly once more, at this point a display that came off more like adding insult to injury. She gripped the strap of her brown shoulder-bag, stepping back and away, "I'm glad we can look forward to working together this year. Have a great season."

"Thanks." Riko watched on as the girl strode on, growling momentarily under her breath. Clenching her fists, she turned briskly away, heaving a disgruntled sigh. "No good," She huffed, "just like I thought."

"It's always a pain having to be the bad guy," Esashi murmured to herself under her breath. She stared ahead to the edge of the hallway, only diverting her attention away to peer out of one of the many windows lining it. "But I guess someone has to speak on this. They'll thank me in the long run, when they aren't complaining about bad knees as college students."

A/N: I see this more as a prologue than an actual first chapter, just to give a bit of background to the story. All important information is going to be explained regarding Esashi, so no worries, but I think this was a neat little first look into things.

*In case you haven't read any of my other stories (i really need to add this info to my profile), I add all of the OCs from my other canon x oc challenge stories to the same continuity, so you may see some OCs floating around this that will have development in their own stories.

I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! I kind of liked writing it, and I didn't initially expect for Riko and Esashi to have this kind of inadvertent problem with each other, but I think it's pretty good. It felt very natural to write. They both have very strong personalities, but one of them has the mind of an athlete, and the other has the mind of a logical medic. The clash was pretty inevitable from that standpoint, but I think it'll be alright LOL.

Thank you for reading!