Chapter 28 - Do You Want To Run That Badly?

"Okay everyone, as I'm sure Yanagi-sensei has already informed you, we will be training with the girl's team until they get a new coach."

""Yeah!!!!!""

When Kei made the announcement to the team, the boys had rejoiced in excitement as they would be training with the girls. The boy's team was well and truly full of boys with raging hormones.

"Let me finish." Kei said with an extremely stern voice which silenced all the boys at once.

"As I was saying, under no circumstances are you boys allowed to interact with the girls at all. We have a tournament to focus on after all. Anyone who gets caught doing so will cost the team 20 suicide runs. Am I clear?"

""…Yes…""

The atmosphere from the boys fell silent the moment Kei had stated the conditions. This was necessary however, as distractions would only send the team into a downward spiral.

"Until training is over at least. Then you are free to get rejected however you wish. I'm only in charge of basketball activities after all."

""Yeah!!!!!""

When Kei made that statement, the boys once again raged in excitement over the prospect of being able to interact with the girls. The girls who were present however, could only look on in disgust.

"Haah… What a hopeless bunch… Are you sure about this Chitose-senpai?"

"Mhm! Thanks Kei-kun. We will be in your care from now on!"

"Only until the tournament ends. Also, you have to pay attention as well since you will be coaching them too."

What Kei had meant was that Chitose and Kanae would be learning and taking pointers from Kei so that they could coach the girl's team on their own while a new coach was being scouted. This would lessen the load on Kei's shoulders and also help the girl's team become more independent. This was actually suggested by Mai.

"Okay, let us get started with training."

They began with light warmups before some layup exercises. This was followed by set-piece practice. During these practices, Kei noticed that the boys seemed to be more enthusiastic than usual today and thought it must have been because they were training with the girls.

'Maybe this has some positive aspects after all.' Kei thought to himself.

At the end of their training, Kei had them running sets of suicide runs as usual but found no complaints from the boys. Instead, they were showing fierce determination to impress the girls and seemed like they were starting to compete with each other. This training went on for almost 20 minutes before Kei ended the session. On another note, Kei had the girls doing the same practices but gave them less sets of suicide runs since they were not accustomed to his methods yet.

"You idiots. What's the point of trying to impress the girls if you get injured in the process? Has that thought ever gone into your heads before you boys started that? And what did I say about not getting distracted by the girls? Do you want to run that badly?"

After the training, Kei called out a few of the boys who were competing with each other during the suicide run practice to the side of the basketball court to lecture them. It seemed that he had caught on to them having picked up muscle injuries and were trying to hide their pain from being noticed by Kei. None of them dared to speak up because Kei was visibly furious at the moment.

"Umm… I just bought some ice packs, please use these to put it over your injuries."

Just then, Kanae and Chihaya appeared with some ice packs that she bought from the school cafeteria. It seemed that the two of them had noticed the boys picking up and proceeded to quickly buy the ice packs. When they arrived, they immediately started helping the injured boys by putting the icepacks over their legs and hands. The other unrelated boys who saw this immediately erupted.

"I'm injured too!"

"I sprained my thighs in training earlier!"

"Ahh I'm fainting! I might need CPR!"

The rest of the boy's team flocked towards Kanae hoping to receive treatment from them too. When they did so however, they came to a complete halt when Kei turned his head around and shot them an intense glare as if he would kill them if they took another step forward.

"If you want treatment that badly, how about you run 20 more suicide runs for me? That's before the punishment I'm going to give you lot."

When he said that, the uninjured boys made a beeline for the court exit as the training was already over.

"As for you few boys, you have the next training off. Take the time to recover as much as you can. Ice your muscles when you get home and no physical activities at all. Am I understood?"

""Y-yes boss…""

"Now take those ice packs and get out of here."

""Yes!""

Kei then proceeded to go to the changing room to change his clothes. When he came out, he found Kanae and Chihaya still standing there, apparently waiting for him.

"Shouldn't you already be heading home? It's getting late."

"Heheh~ We wanted to speak with you before we went home. So, what better way to catch you than waiting right here?"

"Well? What did you need to speak to me about?"

"…Amane-kun… thank you very much for teaching Nee-san and I about coaching the girl's team! We would be very lost without you…"

Kanae proceeded to bow in gratitude towards Kei as she thanked him. Kei was slightly surprised by this.

"Well, it isn't much of a bother to me since it's basically just watching me command the team in training."

"No, you see… Nee-san and I have always found it hard to speak up even though she's the captain and I'm her sister. The other girls are kind but she still gets nervous when commanding the team."

In truth, Chitose had actually been pushed into captaincy of the girl's team since no one had wanted to step up. She was timid and shy in nature and couldn't do much other than playing basketball when push came to shove.

"It's no big deal… Just let me know if I can do anything to help. Now on to the next matter… What was the actual reason that you two waited for me here?" Kei said as if he had caught on to something.

"Eheheh~ I really can't pull anything over your eyes Kei-chin~"

Chihaya finally spoke up and answered Kei.

"Would you like to have dinner with us?"