May i know how you came to ship hayama and izuki? Cos i have never seen the ship before, apart from your work. Personally, i ship hayama with miyaji (for shuutoku) and am in favour of izuki and moriyama (kaijo) . But i do find the way you write them quite endearing even though i’m a mono shipper

umisabaku:

Thank you for your question,
anon-friend, I am glad you can enjoy the my stories even if it’s not your ship!
(I am a mono-shipper myself when it comes to KNB, so I know how that goes).

As a disclaimer, I would say that
since Izuki is a minor character, pretty much any ship that involves him is
going to be a rarepair. And I somewhat feel like anyone who intensely loves a
rarepair at least has to be up front about the fact that there’s not going to
be much of a canonical reason as to why you ship them, and there’s
not even so much of a “reason” beyond the fact that you really like the ship and it
brings you joy. So I primarily ship HayaIzu because I really like those two for
each other, and I’m willing to admit there’s not much reason beyond that, although
I am happy to provide a few aspects of the ship as to why it brings me joy for
you, anon-friend.

I am pretty sure the first thing
that planted the ship in my brain was reading this short series, and I
probably stumbled over it on AO3 one day and vaguely had the reaction of
“wait, someone ships those two?” but then immediately was followed
by, “actually, you know what? I totally see it.” (It is, by the by, also a very lovely series of fic and I totally recommend these stories). Up until then, I
didn’t have a ship for either Izuki or Hayama (or know that there were any
other ships involving those guys).

(Incidentally, that author is also
the reason I ship Nebuya/Reo, which is not something that has ever appeared in
any of my stories, but I always like to think it could be, there in the
background, lurking.)

Upon rewatching KNB, and the Rakuzan
game in particular, repeatedly and with great devotion, I fell even more in
love with the ship and here’s just a few of the reasons, in no particular
order: 

• I love the fact that in the entire
  series, Hayama is the only one who laughs at one of Izuki’s puns. It is second
  only to my absolute favorite reaction to Izuki’s puns, which was Kasamatsu not
  even realizing that Izuki was making a joke. 
• I love that Izuki’s reaction to
  Hayama laughing was complete and utter shock because this has never happened to
  him before and he doesn’t know what to do with it.
• I am super weak to ships where the
  genius athlete completely underestimates a minor character’s (ie, not the
  protagonist of the show) only to be completely blown away by how they play.
  (This is a very specific weakness, and it’s only happened one other time as far
  as I can recall, but I’m weak to it nonetheless.)
• I really, really love the moment
  when Izuki remarks that he’s glad he got Hayama to take him seriously. Because
  I think it reflected a lot about Izuki’s character—he knows he’s not the best
  player, he’s not a genius player, he really only had the one skill and everyone
  agrees Takao does it better. But he still got one of the Uncrowned Kings to
  notice him and that’s amazing.
• “I’m just glad you weren’t
  smarter than me.”
• Hayama having to use his special
  5-finger dribble on an “ordinary” player.
• I mean honestly, I think the main
  reason is the tension between Hayama as an extraordinarily gifted athlete and
  Izuki as an athlete who works hard. (Which, let’s face it, is the reason behind
  a lot of my ships in KNB)

So hmm, yeah, that’s about it. I
don’t have super intense feelings about the ship like I do for my other ships
in KNB, but it is by far my favorite rarepair ship and it is the rarepair ship
that gets “Most Likely To Get Longer Fic” if I ever write a longer
fic about one of my rarepairs. 

Thanks again for your question,
anon-friend! I’m always happy to talk ships =D