Chapter 4: Joining Kiyose junior high school...

The Takahashi family lived in Tokyo since Mama Takahashi and Papa Takahashi had based their company in Tokyo. Mainly due to the influx of customers that they would be able to receive in this prosperous prefecture.

The family didn't plan to go anywhere soon, so the Takahashi quintuplets joined a junior high school in Tokyo.

The school which they joined was Kiyose junior high School. It was nothing special apart from the fact that it was generally for people with above-average family background.

So, a not-so-elitist elitist junior high school.

And being in this sort of school mean that one needed to have above-average grades and an above-average amount of wealth to enter and remain in this school.

In Tokyo's 800 plus schools, Kiyose junior high school ranked in the 70th percentile in academic results.

But as for sports...well, it doesn't really have a good reputation. Not every school has every single sports club, but even then, when comparing to other schools, Kiyose junior high school was below-average when spoken nicely, and shit when speaking not-so-nicely.

It had a basketball club, and it was precisely how the quintuplets had anticipated when they entered the basketball club after the orientation/opening ceremony.

"Ano...we want to join the basketball club?" Sora asked as he entered the court.

There was a moment of silence when everyone present just stared at them before one of them broke it.

"We actually have new members?"

"Coach? Didn't you say we wouldn't have any members this year?"

The coach was no coach at all. He was just the PE teacher that was placed in charge of the club. Still, although he didn't know the intricacies of basketball, he did at least know enough to run a basketball club, albeit a weak one.

"Yes. I thought so as well since nobody actually did come to our stand..."

"Wait! The basketball club had a stand?!" Asashi spoke loudly in disbelief, "We didn't see any stand for the basketball club, so we just assumed that you were not present or something."

Everybody just remained silent at the awkward interaction. The rest of the club members didn't know what to say. Their presence, or more accurately, all the sports clubs' presence was relatively weak since everybody joined this school mainly for academics pursue, not for sports.

"Do you know how to play basketball?"

"Of course."

"Then I'll welcome you to this shabby club. I hope we will have a good three years together." The coach warmly greeted them as he extended out his hands and shook the quintuplets' hands vigorously.

"Y-Yes...please take care of us."

The quintuplets looked at each other and saw the look in each other's eyes.

'We should have gone to a more sports orientated school instead of this...'

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The practice at Kiyose wasn't strict at all; the school didn't have any excellent coaching staff nor very motivated players. The present players mostly came to release their stress through basketball, not for the competitive play. Some players were motivated, but just because they joined this school, they couldn't play on the stage for too long since they mostly got eliminated during the first round.

None of the quintuplet's friends from elementary school came to this school, so apart from each other, they didn't recognize a single person at all, though that didn't stop Seiya, Asashi, and Sora from making new friends relatively quickly.

Tsukio became a much quieter boy after their last field trip to Kyoto during their final year of elementary school, while Tsukumo became a lazy bum in anything except for basketball. Sora was the complete opposite of Tsukumo and became hyper from anything, while Seiya didn't change much and remained the most serious out the five boys.

In Kiyose, there was no such thing as third-string or first-string. Those were the privileges reserved only for the best basketball clubs. And coupled with the limited members, they could not afford to split into various strings.

Thus, regardless of their year, all the basketball club members were grouped as one.

"All right. Since we have five new freshmen in this year, let's go through the standard procedure." The coach announced as he flipped through the paper, "Depending on the skills on your five, I might just put you as the starting members of the school team."

"Hm...? I thought that as freshmen, you would definitely not put us as the starting members..." Seiya raised his hand and questioned the coach.

"Do you not want to play?"

"I mean - "

"To be completely honest with you, this school doesn't place much focus on sports. So, you see all your seniors here?"

The quintuplets managed to see ten senpais looking at them with a smile, not bothered by what the coach said.

"Yeah. They're here mainly for stress relief. Of course, it would be a good thing if we can win, but I highly doubt so. Before you, the starting members were these five," The coach pointed at the tallest five and spoke before pointing to the other five, "While the other five were substitutes. None of them is anything special, as rude as I might sound, they are only good among the people who don't play basketball much. But against other basketballers, they are indeed nothing."

"I see."

"So now that you know the situation let's see your skill level before I continued my decision."

"Now, Seiya," He looked at Sora, and before he could speak, Sora interrupted, "I'm Sora."

The coach looked at the quintuplets and smiled wryly.

This was going to be a long three years.

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"Wow...are you truly first-years?" The coach muttered in disbelief as he noted the strangest results he had gotten from the quintuplets.

Saying that he was shocked was an understatement. He was utterly flabbergasted.

"Wait...come to think of it..." The coach looked towards the five identical first-years and realized something, muttering to himself, "How did I miss out on your last names! Takahashi! The biggest sports company in Tokyo! They would obviously be trained from a young age, and it was just out luck that they decided to choose basketball!"

"Um...coach?"

"What is it, Seiya?"

"I'm Asashi, but can I ask about our results?"

"Oh! Yeah. For the results, I've decided to place all five of you as the starting members. I mean, just based on the fact that one of you has wholly annihilated our last school team, there should be no one better than you five in this club. Are there any disagreements?"

The last part was directed more towards the seniors, but none of them had any problem. Even if they did, the fact that they got wiped out by just one person wouldn't change. And it wasn't like they were very motivated, to begin with, so they had no problem.

Seeing no one raise their hand, the coach nodded his head.

"Now that we have some real hope to go past the preliminaries, let's aim for that for now. But as their senpais, you should also shoulder some responsibility on the court and not completely rely on your kouhai! So, I've changed my training regime! From today onwards, you will train according to how the first-years train! Is that understood?!"

"Yes, coach!"

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From then on, the boys who were part of the basketball started some actual training.

Despite the quintuplets making it seem easy, following the quintuplets' workout plan wasn't easy at all, something that the seniors soon realized.

Basketball didn't just rely on skills. It was counted as a semi-contact sport, meaning that physique also played a vital role in basketball. A weak physique means limiting the amount of contact you can have with a much larger person, and it also meant a higher risk of becoming injured.

Papa and Mama Takahashi didn't want their children to be severely injured, so they also constantly reminded them to train their physique.

Yoga, pilates, and calisthenics exercises were just the 'warm-up' of the usual routine that the quintuplets followed. It would then be followed by the standard practice drills that most basketball clubs would follow.

Practicing the various types of passes, shooting, lay-ups, defending, stamina training, strength training was part of the middle section of the routine.

The final part was the intensive personal training in whatever position they were planning to play.

All three sections took three hours to complete altogether.

The seniors, who had to spend most of their lives studying like their lives depended on, had naturally not done such an intensive routine even once. This caused the less motivated players to become even less motivated, causing them to quit the club in one go, leaving behind only those who truly wanted to shine brightly on stage like diamonds, not buried in the dirt.

So now, they only had 9 members left, including the quintuplets and four seniors.

"Sigh, I sort of expected this, but..." The coach sadly sighed as he looked at the deserted basketball courts, "We have two basketball courts for less than ten people, while other schools have two basketball courts for more than fifty people. I don't know whether we should feel lucky or not..."

"Don't worry, coach. If we manage to win the finals, people would definitely join our school." Seiya comforted while Asashi just snorted, "I think we're fine the way we are. At least, we don't have to share."

"But, can the nine of you last a forty-minute game? Even if you're strong, there's no point if you can barely last twenty minutes at a fast-paced game."

"Don't worry, coach, you haven't even seen a fraction of what we can do yet." Sora winked mysteriously.

"If one person destroying our previous school team wasn't your full power, then naturally that would be even better for us." Coach didn't say anything further about this topic and moved on.

"Let's try to keep this up for the next month before the preliminaries start." Coach looked at the seniors, who were all lying down on their backs, panting heavily. They didn't have a single drop of energy left within them anymore. Before they had even reached the final part of the routine, they had already collapsed, showing the current conditions of their bodies.

Fortunately, these seniors were the ones who wanted to play basketball to win. Although they might complain, they would still try their best to finish the routine. Their goal wasn't even related to winning competitions anymore; they just wanted to complete the training plan.

"By the way, coach," Seiya started.

"Yes, Asashi?"

"I'm Seiya, but what about our uniforms?"

"I'm sorry. I really cannot differentiate you apart from each other. And here's your uniform." The coach went to the plastic bag, which the members saw him brought in at the start of practice, and took out five sets to hand out.

It was a horrid green, and the design was...

"How is it? I've designed them myself for this new season!" The coach asked excitedly.

"It's ugly." All nine members replied at the same time without any hesitation.

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A/N: I'm going to focus more on basketball in junior high school and more on relationship and character later on. This is very different from my usual style, so please give some comments on how you think this was.