Set in the hypothetical rookie camp post-white day.

Taiga crossed her legs as she attacked her tray. Group A were all crammed into the tiny canteen tables eating their nutritionally-sound dinners with a maximum of noise, sweat, and grunting, but even six to a table (canteen boundaries enforced with the threat of scissors and death) Taiga still found herself sitting alone, an island of citrus body spray in a cloud of- her nose wrinkled- something with steel in the name dispensed from a black-painted can.

Well, mostly alone.

"You gonna eat that?" said Aomine. Taiga held up her chopsticks threateningly. Kuroko had taught her to go for Aomine's eyes. He couldn't aim, he couldn't steal. She chomped even more furiously.

Aomine had only asked out of sarcasm. Already his gaze was slipping along the other tables and their loads of other first-year players, sizing them up for weakness. They lowered their eyes and bent over their trays, flinching away. That was weird, even for Aomine.

Taiga washed down a baseball-sized mouthful with energy drink, the one thing Momoi was allowed to touch regarding food. "Do they not like you because you're an asshole," she said, something she had been mulling over since she was put into the group with Aomine, "or are you an asshole because they don't like you?" She looked at the empty seats next to them. Taiga hadn't expected be to mobbed or anything, but the other players had seemed to be actively avoiding her. Except the jerks, in all their annoying, arrogant glory. But the Generation of Miracles were all in different groups from her, except for Aomine. Even someone like Takao would have been welcome- at least he was always friendly. If she could only talk to him-

Aomine's eyes snapped back to her. "Middle school stuff," he said, shortly.

"So all of you hate everyone, not just each other?" she said. The tension was pretty high, even for the tangled web of high school basketball. She poked at her empty bowls. Aomine was terrible company, but he was all she had during practice, when Momoi was busy elsewhere.

"I like… Tetsu," said Aomine. "Sometimes."

"Yeah," said Taiga, who had been witness to the carnage of- this whole year, the way Aomine and Kuroko raged against each other without relenting. "Sure you do."

Aomine shrugged, and that was the end of that conversation, again. Momoi was so much better at getting along with Aomine than Taiga was, and Kuroko never made her this uncomfortable to have to be staring at his face without saying anything. Taiga opened her pudding cup and a balled-up napkin sailed in to bounce off Aomine's drink cup and it skidded to a sad stop on the expanse of table.

"Is it so hard to aim?" said Aomine with disgust, demonstrating the sunny personality for which he was reviled by apparently everybody. "Is it so fucking hard?"

"Wow," said Taiga, unable to summon up any further emotion. "Now they're throwing trash at us? That's- wow." She noticed writing on it and unballed it.

"Oh, it's to me," she said, then stopped. Her throat felt dry and tight, suddenly all the food she'd just eaten threatened to come back up. (Suddenly she was fourteen again, and new, and alone, and unwanted.) It wasn't Aomine, it was her, he was the one standing by her and being excluded for it. Again. She couldn't read the characters, and Taiga couldn't tell if this was because of the handwriting or their complexity; she couldn't focus on the words. Aomine had gone still and silent, his jaw tight and clenched. Taiga tried to think of words to distract him, because there was that core to him, ferocious when roused and furious, and he looked very dangerous now.

Aomine took the napkin out of her numb hands with his stupid reflexes and looked at it. The storm cleared off his face, but only a little bit.

"You… basketball…. play…. good," said Aomine. "Kagami, this is a love napkin. Some idiot threw you a love napkin."

("I should have thought of that!" someone cursed behind Taiga. Aomine glared and whoever it was instantly shut up.)

""You barely looked at it!" she said. The world was coming back into colour, and she breathed.

"That's what it says," he said. He pointed at the paper. "That's all it says."

Taiga squinted at it. "Really?" she said.

"It's really shitty handwriting," said Aomine, hypocritically if accurately. "But yeah, I'm sure." He crumpled it up again and threw it into the bin, two tables away and behind the tea canisters. "Ignore it. Don't encourage them." He pointed a finger at Taiga. "Haven't you learned anything from Satsuki? They're animals. Don't talk to them. Don't look at them. They are lower than scum to you. Do you understand this?"

"What is wrong with you," said Taiga, beginning to blush. She'd thought it was- how stupid of her. She jumped up and lifted her tray to bring it to the wash area. "They're not- you're imagining things, and you are deranged."

Aomine closed his eyes expressively. Everyone was listening, and the news would rocket around the camp in seconds, Kagami Taiga flushing delicately over someone's daring love note, adorable in her innocence and suddenly approachable for all these idiots. Three days of covert looming, vague threats, and having to actually pay attention to the idiots around him, completely in the trash. See if he ever agreed to do Tetsu the favour of looking out for Kagami again.

See if this (and the new, awkward silence between Midorima and Kagami, the stutter of mutual stares) finally managed to get Tetsu off his ass.

(The war of all against all.)

"I… should not have picked water resistance training," said Taiga.

"Wow," said Aomine, whose slow simmer was reaching dangerous boil. "You think?"

Taiga pulled her Seirin jacket a little further down her thighs. A dozen pairs of eyes watched her longingly, but furtively, because Akashi was swimming laps with Midorima, and Aomine had planted himself next to Taiga on the bench with a Look on his face.

Akashi had ushered her to the bench himself and left Aomine- there was no other way to put it- guarding her. If it was possible to swim menacingly, he was doing it. Akashi surfaced from his tenth lap, Midorima just a hair of a second behind him. If they had stopped competing even once during the camp, Taiga didn't know about it. Taiga watched Midorima's shoulders flexing wistfully. He hadn't even looked at her all camp. She'd thought picking to go with Group C for water training would have given them time to talk, or even break this silence, but he'd ignored her… even when he fell into the pool and almost lost his glasses because he wasn't watching where he was going.

Taiga put her head into her hands and sighed. It wasn't too late to change out of her swimsuit and go- jogging, or something. The supervisor for this activity hadn't turned up yet: they were waiting around for him because they technically weren't allowed in the water without one present.

The door swung open and Momoi stepped through, wielding her ever-present clipboard and-

"Oh my god," said Taiga, in english. Aomine turned his head and went absolutely still.

Momoi waved frantically at Taiga and gave her a thumbs-up. Bikini solidarity! Several boys slipped into the pool discreetly but urgently.

"I'm going to kill her," said Aomine, in a voice barely more than a growl.

"I'd rather look at her than me," offered Taiga.

"You shut up," said Aomine.

Taiga bristled. "What did you say to me?"

"Hey, Kagami," said Takao, picking this moment to sidle over. His appreciative gaze rested on the pale expanse of Momoi's legs. "No string bikini for you this time around?"

"Goddamnit I am going to punch someone today and it might as well be you, Shuutoku," said Aomine, turning on him.

"Do you ever have small emotions?" said Taiga. "Ones that don't involve boobs or violence? Hi Takao."

"This is the best camp ever," said Takao with deep conviction, sitting a careful distance away from Taiga, so that she would be between them if Aomine lunged for his throat. "Not going to ask Shin-chan to tie you up again?"

Aomine stared at Taiga, judging her. She flushed. "It was a beach camp! We got wet a lot!"

Takao snorted.

"Any way it's not a string," said Taiga, since she wasn't about to open her jacket and flash Takao. "It's a sports one that Coach recommended."

"You Seirin girls are wild, baby," murmured Takao.

"What?" said Taiga.

"What," said Aomine, more ominously.

"Nothing," said Takao. "Isn't Momoi cute?"

"What," said Aomine, again.

"She's so cute," said Taiga.

"Her hair's cute," said Takao.

"It's really cute," said Taiga.

"Can you both just shut up?" Aomine wanted to know.

"It's just cute," said Taiga, and pulled at her own ponytail. "When is the sub supposed to get here, anyway?"

"Who the fuck knows," Aomine muttered, and drew up his leg to prop up his chin. Momoi was crouched at the edge of the pool speaking to Akashi, her hair was braided tightly against her head and her blue bikini covered by her jacket.

"I'm bored," said Takao. "Shin-chan's too busy for me now."

"Lotta that going around," muttered Taiga, looking at Midorima who had paused swimming and was readjusting his swim cap. He pointedly faced away from them, ostensibly listening to Momoi. She didn't care if he didn't speak to her. She didn't care if he never spoke to her again, when all he did was act like someone had shoved the stick up his ass extra high, spending all his spare time competing with Akashi instead of being civil or playing after-hours basketball when they asked him to. When she asked him to. Not looking at her or talking to her-

While Taiga contemplated how little she had wanted Midorima to see her in a bikini again, as a last resort, not that he seemed to care at all.

Takao nudged her in the ribs. "Hey," he whispered. "Cannonball."

Taiga's eyes went very wide and she shot a glance at Aomine, who didn't seem to have heard. Then she looked at Akashi and Midorima, the only two full enough of themselves that they'd started swimming before anyone else. There were other people in the pool now, but they were standing peaceably near the opposite side, not daring to swim out.

"They'll kill us," she whispered back. "Let's do it."

Takao grinned. "Act casual," he said, and he stood and stretched and walked a little back from the pool, making sure he had a clear path. Taiga followed his lead, and when Aomine shot yet another scowl at her, Taiga acted like she wanted to check her hair in the reflection from the dark glass doors. He returned to glaring at the fickle horde, who had transferred their worshipful gazes upon Momoi.

Taiga let her jacket drop. Takao turned casually and dug in his foot for a running start. No one was paying attention to them.

Taiga didn't bother to wait for Takao, who had his own landing site staked out anyway, she turned and ran for the pool like going for a lane up and launched herself into the air. Taiga had the vague impression of people being surprised and Aomine yelling, but too little, too late- she crashed into the water and sent a massive wash of water exploding out of the pool.

Because life was only vaguely unfair, when Taiga kicked to the surface she found herself confronted by a sputtering Midorima blinking pool water out of his eyes as well as an Akashi who was- well, fine, he'd been wet before, but now he looked- absolutely nothing like a drowned rat. He did look somewhat torn between incandescent irritation and bored resignation, but this was his default expression all the time anyway, regardless of anything Taiga did.

Momoi, dripping wet, squealed and laughed, pulling back her soaked jacket. "Tai-chan!" she said, protesting, and peeled it off, "Takao-kun, that could have been very dangerous."

"Never!" said Takao, struggling a little to keep his whole head out of the water. Midorima reached out with one long hand- no trouble touching the floor with him- and pushed Takao under. Taiga couldn't let that stand, so she jumped until her hands were on his shoulders and then shifted all her weight to them and he was down, until she had her knees under her and could use them to make sure he didn't come up.

"Midorin!" cried Momoi.

Someone was whooping, Taiga could barely hear, through her own shouting and Midorima's inexplicable reluctance to actually claw her off his back but he got his feet under him and he grabbed at her arms so that she couldn't escape, and she thought that she had better try to not hurt him either.

"Kagami-san," said Akashi.

"Taiga," said someone else, and Taiga went limp and let Midorima stand up.

Himuro Tatsuya stood on the lip of the pool above them, smiling gently, with the whistle of sports camp authority around his neck, and Taiga tightened her arms around Midorima's neck for a second before she remembered herself and pushed away from him.

Midorima didn't get the hint, because instead of letting go of her he held onto one arm, so that she sort of floated around to in front of him, instead of away. He coughed and choked and said, in a furious voice, "Kagami, what in the world were you-"

"Midorima-kun?" said Tatsuya, letting the ice seep in now.

Midorima squinted up at him. "Who are you?" he said, abruptly.

"I believe Himuro-san to be our supervisor for this activity," said Akashi, in a bored voice. Naturally, he had gotten out of the water entirely and didn't even appear to have ever been wet. He looked at Tatsuya, assessing him. "Did you have trouble locating the facilities?"

Tatsuya smiled.

Taiga winced and looked at several other guilty faces in the pool, where they must have piled in to splash around like you were supposed to when there was a pool right there and no pseudo-adult supervision. Takao was clinging to the side of the pool apologising to Momoi, but laughing while he did it. Aomine was lying on his back on the benches Taiga had abandoned, staring at the ceiling in a posture of utter defeat and indifference. He was such a drama queen.

"I've lost my swimming cap," said Midorima, miffed. He squinted at her. "And my goggles," he said. "They have a prescription."

"You're so weird," Taiga said. She put out the hand that wasn't caught by him to push some of his hair out of his face, and that was weird too, the way he was usually so neat and now looked bedraggled. He let go of her arm, pointedly. "I'll get them for you," she said, because it had after all been her fault.

When she surfaced again, it was to restored order and an Aomine who had come around to their side of the pool to drop his Touou jacket on Momoi's shoulders in a clear statement of no ulterior motive at all. Aomine listened with half an ear to Midorima's muttering complaints and frowned at the water lapping his toes, fastidious as cat.

"Here," she said shortly, and gave his lame cap and goggles back to Midorima. Tatsuya and Akashi had finished whatever skirmish they had wished to enact, and emerged apparently satisfied on both sides. Akashi, by doing absolutely nothing, was herding the rest of the boys into orderly lines in the pool.

"Taiga, that looks nice," said Tatsuya, smiling down at her. "I haven't seen that one before."

Taiga felt everyone looking at her while she blushed. "It's been two years," she said. Two productive years. "I definitely had to get new ones. How- how long are you helping?"

"I'm spending the rest of the week," said Tatsuya. "I would have come down sooner, but they had to get approval for me."

Taiga eyed him dubiously, but couldn't help smiling. It would be nice to have Tatsuya around, even if they hadn't yet worked out all the new ways they were not brothers, even if Aomine and Midorima and Momoi all three were looking between them with wariness, even if, where she had touched Midorima, she felt a crazy itching to go back and rough him up some more.

"Won't this be fun," said Tatsuya, smiling lazily at them. "We should do some practices now, though. Playtime is over."