"I'm scared of vampires," Kuroko said one day.

He stated this, in rather nonchalant tones, when Aida asked the team about their greatest fears. It was some kind of motivational exercise or other, like screaming one's goals from the school rooftop. One's deepest fear could motivate you; it could push you to your very limits. At least, that was what Kuroko was led to believe.

"Are you serious?" said Koganei incredulously. "Vampires, you say?"

"Yes," said Kuroko.

There was, for a moment, utter silence on the basketball court. Even the sound of shoes squeaking against the floor totally ceased.

Then Kagami started laughing.

It sounded halfway between a roar and a guffaw. Kagami was not usually given to excessive laughter but today he could not hold himself back. It was rather rude of him, really. He even had to clutch his stomach because he was doubled over, and he would not stop pointing his finger at Kuroko while he was at it.

"You… scared of vampires…! Who's scared of vampires? They don't even exist!"

"They might," Kuroko pointed out mildly. "You just never know."

"But what's so scary about them anyway?" Kagami demanded. This was, by the way, the same person who was deathly afraid of dogs.

"They bite you," Kuroko responded with utmost gravity. "They suck your blood." He paused. "I could get AIDs."

"That is rather frightening, I agree," said Hyuuga, while pushing up his glasses.

"Shut up, you're all idiots," Aida interjected tartly. She was not quite sure how to respond to this situation and not knowing how to respond to things always made her grumpy by default. "Just… get back to training, you louts. I need a coffee."

After that, the conversation was more or less forgotten amid a good, solid training session of blood, sweat and tears. But Kagami could not restrain a chuckle the entire time, and was soundly beaten by Hyuuga as a result.

Frog-kun presents:

Kuroko and the Vampire of Shinjuku
Chapter One: The Vampire of Shinjuku

It is an urban legend among high school students in Tokyo.

Perhaps you have heard of something like it, dear reader. These sorts of stories come and go when they please, blending against a tessellation of gossip and rumour. This is one of those tales that Tokyo students tell each other when there is not that much else to talk about. Yet whenever the story is told, it has the same chilling effect as that very first telling, so many years ago.

The story of the Vampire of Shinjuku goes a little something like this: every month, on the night of the new moon, a vampire haunts the Shinjuku area. It can go after anyone, but it usually picks high school boys; the scrawnier and more inconspicuous they are, the better.

Kuroko, therefore, had a legitimate reason to be wary of the Vampire of Shinjuku, what with his entire play in basketball revolving around misdirection. When practice ended late and Kuroko walked home in the dark, he was cautious, although he expressed this emotion in the same way he expressed joy and sadness and euphoria, so it was kind of hard to tell.

There was one occasion he remembered, which happened when he was about eight or nine. He had been walking home through Shinjuku at night. He was with his parents at the time, so he had nothing to really fear. Even at that age, his eyes and ears were remarkably sharp and he thought he detected movement behind him. Yet when he turned around curiously to look, there was nothing to see. There were plenty of cars and people around and Shinjuku was always illuminated by the tint of neon lights, but the movement Kuroko caught that day was none of these things. He had never been good with words, so he could not describe it. If he could hazard a guess, he thought it was the shadows moving – to places they did not belong. He only experienced that sensation once after that.

Kuroko was not a paranoid child. He was not afraid of the dark, though after that incident, something in him had shifted. He became conscious of shadows, of how easy it was to slip into them and enjoy their protection. It wasn't magic, but it suited Kuroko well enough.

The second time Kuroko experienced the strange sensation of the shadows moving was when he went home after practice that day. This time, he was with Kagami, and the red-haired boy failed to notice anything out of the ordinary. Kuroko did not look around either. He knew there would be nothing there. He listened to Kagami talk blithely about some play he had made in training and he waited.

Eventually, the moment passed, and the night was lonely.

Kuroko tilted his chin up slightly in contemplation, brought it back down with a barely indiscernible movement and blinked. Then he said goodbye to Kagami and finished his journey home.

After a nice long bath, an ample dinner with his family and a good night's rest, Kuroko woke up and there was a naked girl lying beside him in his bed. She was using his arm as a pillow rest.

How peculiar, thought Kuroko.

He had never seen the girl before. If he had, he would probably have remembered her, if only because the shade of her hair was exactly the same as his. Her skin was pale to the degree that it could be classified as white, and her lips were as red as blood. Her mouth was slightly open, revealing two rather sharp-looking fangs. Casting his gaze towards his window, Kuroko noticed that the curtains swayed gently in the wind and that the window itself was slightly ajar. There was enough room between the shutters for a small animal to crawl through – a rat, perhaps, or even a bat.

No doubt about it: a vampire had invaded Kuroko's bed and was now pressing her decidedly nubile body against his in her sleep. He was equally dismayed to find that his clothes had seemingly evaporated into thin air overnight.

Perhaps you, dear reader, can relate to this situation a little. You've had a rather eventful night, probably with more than a little alcohol involved, and you wake up and there's this person you don't remember meeting committing a gross violation of your personal space. You've given up sleeping with your parents or your siblings or whoever years ago. Your bed is for you alone. Kuroko was certainly of this frame of mind; he found himself a little miffed that this was happening to him, vampire or not. It was just plain impolite. He did not have a hangover, but he was in a bad mood all the same.

He was just deciding to himself whether to wake up the girl or not or whether to slip out of his bed without her noticing, when the girl made a sort of mewling noise and opened her eyes drowsily. They were a striking shade of amber.

"Morning," she said, rather sleepily.

"Good morning," Kuroko said in response. Even when he was in a bad mood, he never forgot his manners.

The girl made another noise; this one sounded like a groan. "Close the blinds," she said.

Vampires didn't like the light, Kuroko remembered. "I'd rather not, if you don't mind," he told her. "Otherwise, I can't see."

"Fine," said the vampire with a mutinous grumble. She started hogging the blanket and wrapped it over herself so that she resembled a cocoon. This left Kuroko in the light but also disconcertingly naked.

"I have a question," he said mildly. "Where did my clothes go?"

"Hm," grunted the vampire.

"I was wearing my pyjamas last night," Kuroko explained patiently. "And now they're not on me. My mother paid a lot for them."

The cocoon of blankets beside him twitched. A muffled voice projected from beneath the folds.

"Just collateral damage."

"I see," said Kuroko blandly.

"If you must know," the vampire went on, "think back to the throes of our passion last night-"

Kuroko yawned.

"I am not a morning person," he explained. "I'm sorry."

"That's okay," said the vampire agreeably. She was evidently not a morning person either, but she was starting to warm up to Kuroko somewhat. "Last night, you know, you were like another person. Part man, part phantom, part unstoppable sex machine…!"

Kuroko thought about this and promptly decided that the image did not compute. So he got up, dressed himself in his uniform and brushed his teeth thoroughly. He returned to his room, hoping to find that the vampire had decided to leave him alone or that she was just a hallucination. Alas, she was still there when he returned. She had closed the blinds and was now sitting on his bed in his shadowy room, humming to herself pleasantly. Mercifully, she was clothed now. She had put on his jersey and a pair of his tracksuit pants. Kuroko had never possessed the biggest of builds, so his clothes seemed to fit the girl well enough.

"I was just pulling your leg, you know," she said. "We didn't really – you know…"

At that moment, Kuroko noticed that the sleeve of his pyjamas was poking out from under his bed. The sight of it relieved him somewhat; he really did like those pyjamas.

But first, there was the matter at hand.

"Why are you here?" Kuroko asked, deciding that the time for pleasantries had more or less come to an end. He thought about serving tea to the vampire, but then realised that this totally contradicted his previous thought.

"I want your body," said the vampire.

"The door's that way," Kuroko said simply.

She snorted. "I didn't mean I want your body like that! Well, I do, but that's not… well, it is, but what I mean to say is that I mean that I want you to form a contract with me."

She uttered the second part of this sentence at breakneck speed. Kuroko wondered why she did not mention all that in the beginning. He waited in bland silence for her to continue speaking.

"It's complicated, you see," said the vampire delicately, flicking her blue hair to the side. "For a long time, we vampires have been observing you, Tetsuya Kuroko. Your body would make a prime vessel for a vampire."

"So you want to suck my blood?"

"More than that. I want to occupy your body."

Kuroko blinked.

"Well, see, normally, we vampires are bound by law so we're not allowed to bite people in this form," the girl explained. "But if I occupy your body, that would be great. You have a strong affinity for shadows. I could bite anyone I like. Just form the contract with me and we're good to go."

"How…?" Yet Kuroko already had a feeling…

"By mating," said the vampire with a grin. Her voice dropped to a husky whisper. "So if you're ready-"

"The door's that way," Kuroko repeated himself, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

The vampire pouted. "You're no fun at all!"

The last thing Kuroko wanted was to turn into a blood-sucking monster, especially when there was a national basketball tournament just around the corner.

"Well, anyway, think about it, okay?" said the girl at length. She sat up and stretched. "My name's Katou, by the way."

"Okay," said Kuroko. "Well, I'm off now."

Even for Kuroko standards, he slunk off into the shadows pretty fast.

Next chapter: Tetsuya Kuroko! Make a contract with me and become a magical girl – er, boy!