This will be a story this is updated as each new episode comes out. This first chapter begins with episode 10. It will be loosely based on the timeline of the anime, and not the manga. I have not gotten around to reading the manga yet, and so please ignore any tidbits that might contradict the storyline of the books. I'd love reviews, and any requests people would like!
It probably happened during the god-awful time Taiga had been forced on the bench. He could remember sitting there, trying to get his breath under control, listening to Seiho's shouts from the other side of the court. His fingers were gripping his seat and he could feel his right foot tapping in annoyance. He was frustrated, angry, pissed even-
For awhile he couldn't understand what he was thinking. He sat there, watching the seniors sweat it out, grabbing a scatter plot of single point shots here and there, and he knew he was still angry, regardless of Seirin winning. He didn't get it.
Aida was sitting next to him. He could feel her weariness as she watched the teams tackle back and forth. Her anxiety was a sharp smell he was sure would be perceptible on the other side of the room. For a moment, he thought of chewing her out for grabbing him out of the game, for giving him that 'no-arguments' evil eye she was so fond of. But he'd lost the energy to do such a thing and, frankly, wasn't up for the consequences.
He remembered looking out to the court then, the third quarter coming to a hairsplitting end, and his eyes caught site of Kuroko dashing across. The shock of blue hair was matted down with sweat, and the boy seemed to be looking around the court for an opening.
Then the boy was gone.
Taiga nearly stood up in surprise and frantically looked for him, not believing he could have zipped away that fast.
Impossible… I can always see where he is on the court-
But he was nowhere. It unsettled Taiga for reasons he couldn't explain.
"Amazing…"
He could feel Aida's eyes on him.
"He's always like this. You didn't know?"
Taiga shook his head quickly in defiance. He huffed out his frustrations and leaned back onto the bench. He was still pissed at her.
"He's quick but I can see him when I'm on the court." He tried to sound as if it didn't faze him.
Nevertheless he made sure to follow the boy more closely.
Aida scooted a little closer to Taiga, not paying attention to the weird looks she was getting. Her voice dropped down a pitch or two, and she sounded nearly pitying.
"You can see him on the court because he's always behind you, and to the right. You've gotten used to him, I think. But with you off the court, he's got no one to assist directly, and so he's trying different things. He's really good, don't you think?"
He ignored her and watched as Kuroko reversed the ball back onto the court in a perfect, complete pass, and for a moment his stomach clenched.
He wasn't like this when I took him one on one. But…
For a moment he felt like Aida was staring at him, waiting for some sort of response. He didn't know what for. Her eyes seemed to be trying to pick thoughts straight out of his head. But all he could think of was Kuroko silently watching him during games, at Maji Burger, at practice. He could remember the first time he ate with Kuroko at Maji's, the way the boy hadn't cowered from him and had instead announced his plans to make him stronger. He was hard to keep track of, but Taiga had gotten so used to it that he silently prided himself on being able to spot Kuroko in a crowd. The boy was invisible but Taiga always seemed to remember him.
Shit.
The ball was nearly out of bounds and Kuroko artfully looped it back in. Taiga finally noticed that his Shadow favored his left side, just a bit. And that he was probably wearing new sweatbands.
And that's about when it happened. When Taiga thought that maybe he'd fallen a little bit in love with Kuroko.
When Taiga was in middle school, he had kissed three girls. One had been on Valentine's, which had been slightly different in the States than in Japan, but basically the same thing. The girl hadn't made him chocolates like White Day required, but she'd kissed him on the cheek and told him that she liked him.
The other was someone he knew from after school sports; she had played lacrosse and had grabbed him by the face when she'd made the team. He tried kissing her back, and when he found that her lips were nice, with a hint of maybe too much makeup on her cheeks, he decided that anything of the sort would just be a distraction from basketball.
The third one, he had kissed himself. The girl had been in his math class. He had developed somewhat of a crush on her, after she had helped him pass algebra. He could remember stuttering a bit around her, and thinking about things he really shouldn't have. He was thirteen then, and his imagination was unusually rampant. But nothing ever came of it, and when he kissed her during a study session, she called him her friend, and said she wasn't interested.
Those were nothing like what he was putting himself through now.
He sat in his usual spot at Maji Burger, the sun sitting low on the horizon. He would have stared at it for a distraction if it didn't burn his eyes so much. He felt guilty, knowing that he had told all those girls that maybe he liked them when, sitting across from him, was the only incarnation of those possible crushes.
"I had a teammate that called me Tetsu once."
Kuroko went back to drinking his milkshake once he had made the announcement. Taiga paused for a moment, the burger halfway to his mouth, and looked questioningly at his dining partner. The mere mention of the nickname irked him.
What kind of conversation starter is that, anyway?
"That's different. I've never heard anyone call you anything but Kuroko. Even Kise does."
For a fleeting moment he thought of himself saying Tetsuya instead of Kuroko. It made his mouth itch.
Kuroko cocked his head to the side before putting his milkshake down. There was a strange look to his face; one of interest, though his eyes were squinting from the sun through Maji Burger's window.
"I was going to say that I don't like the name Tetsu. It sounds childish."
He went back to drinking his milkshake and Taiga looked incredulously at him.
"Childish? No it doesn't. Kagami-chii does. I mean, who does that? I barely know him."
Taiga went back to shamelessly stuffing his face. He could feel the burn from Kuroko's gaze, the way the younger man never seemed to look away from his partner. It had been getting worse since the Seiho match; the way Kuroko didn't look away from anything if he was talking to Taiga. Or it's just my imagination. Or deprivation. When's the last time-? I don't wanna know.Trying his best not to think of Kise, Taiga took the wrappers of every single one of his burgers and began balling them up into little wads of trash. He started throwing each of them into the nearby trash can. Kuroko didn't bother to look and see if they made it in.
"Kise likes you, is all. Even if he prefers that you not be around me."
Taiga nearly choked.
"What does he care? It's not like you're on his team. Besides, doesn't he know that you- that you're-"
He stopped for a moment, his arm halfway to tossing another trash ball. Doesn't he know you're my Shadow? MY shadow? That sounds creepy.How would you even ask something like that? Maybe before Seiho he could have said something like it, but Taiga couldn't speak with the boy without making a fool of himself anymore, let alone look at him. He was breaking a sweat just being around him. Practices had become unbearable, and he had a feeling that Aida knew what was happening; instead of strengthening play between all her players, she had not failed to pair Taiga with Kuroko for three weeks straight. And though Aida had no influence in the locker room, it was a place where things were ten times worse. Kuroko would naturally follow Taiga in after practice, the sounds of the team talking doing little to drown out Taiga's not so kid friendly thoughts. Kise preferring he not be around him? At this point, Taiga was considering the idea himself. But throwing the idea of Kise on top of it was worse. That guy was annoying, that was all. He had nothing to do with Taiga's irritation. Always screaming Kuroko-chi, Kuroko-chi… Christ.
"That I'm what?"
Taiga frowned. He'd forgotten how scatterbrained he'd been recently.
"That you're- on Seirin... you know. It's not like you'd actually go play with him instead."
He prayed that that last sentence had no semblance of a question in it.
"Of course not." Kuroko had never answered a question so quickly before.
In that instant, Taiga took the way Kuroko had looked answering that question and applied it to something ridiculous. He saw himself asking the boy out, after practice on the school grounds in the afternoon, and all he could hear in response was, "Of course not. Of course not. Of course not."Taiga sighed and leaned on one hand, the day's practice finally kicking in. His mind could barely keep up with the fatigue, and these ridiculous notions he kept playing out in his mind weren't helping either. His gaze strayed from Kuroko's frown, his empty milkshake, and landed on the entry way to Maji. At this point, more people were streaming into the joint, and he felt a bit awkward for a moment. Two guys eating burgers this late; it had to appear normal. Two guys eating burgers this late every day? He took a moment to entertain the idea of him and Kuroko going on a date.
He wondered if Kuroko had ever been on a date.
"The person who called you Tetsu; was it a girlfriend?"
He cursed himself for asking it, but he was glad he didn't look away in embarrassment. If he had, he would have missed the fleeting look of fear in Kuroko's eyes, the dash of surprise written on his features. That's new. The boy's expression teetered on something indefinable, but in moments it was gone. Taiga filed the look away in his mind for later inspection.
"I've never had a girlfriend. It was an old teammate."
Taiga's heart leaped ridiculously at the news. It was a pointless piece of information, but at least the answer hadn't been, "I'm unable to keep girls off of me." If Kuroko ever did have a girlfriend, Taiga imagined she'd be perhaps not as quiet, and maybe have a weird obsession or two. Kuroko wasn't tall, so she'd have to be at least a few inches shorter than him, which would be relatively easy to find, and-
His own six foot two inches was probably a bit scary to Kuroko.
Kuroko eyed him weirdly for a second, a small smile on his features. Taiga didn't look away for quite a bit, until it finally unnerved him. He threw the last trash ball across the way and settled down to stare back.
"What?"
"Nothing. I was just thinking that the way you say Tetsu is a bit better."
What?Taiga quickly rewound the entire last few minutes in his head. In a terrifying echo, he heard himself say "The person who called you Tetsu-" Tetsu. Tetsu. Tetsu.
"But… you don't like the name. I won't use it then."
"So Tetsuya is fine."
Taiga quickly shut his mouth. He was most likely making it worse.
It wasn't that he didn't like the name. In fact, he liked the name. He really liked the name. And it was only fair that he was the one to be given permission to call him Tetsuya instead. But it brought up images that he really didn't like to think about. And it would give the seniors even more of a chance to poke fun at him; they always seemed to like pointing out that he was around Kuroko at any moment in time, and if he started calling him a nickname now, it would just get worse.
Yet when he looked back at him across the table, he had to admit he'd already been using the name in his head for awhile.
Kuroko sat there, seemingly transfixed with something on Taiga's face. It irritated him even more. Taiga swallowed his own stomach and nerves back down and glared. The only course of action now was to change the subject.
"Well, it's late Kurok-"
"Tetsuya."
Taiga's anger pinched at the back of his neck.
"Tetsuya. Fine. It's Tetsuya."
He would never get used to the name.
At one point in his life, Taiga decided he would never give up on anything. Especially basketball. But somewhere in the back of his mind, the promise he made to himself about his favorite sport also translated to a full fledged attack on anything he attempted; he would always finish it, regardless of the circumstances.
His brain decided somewhere along the line that Kuroko was the same as anything he ever started. Kuroko was certainly no task to be conquered or person to best; he was his Shadow, a friend, a best friend, and Taiga understood that. But in his mind, Kuroko slowly became incorporated into a larger plan, one that Taiga wasn't sure he had consciously made.
He wanted Kuroko there, around him, whether he was playing basketball or not.
He had become such a natural occurrence that Taiga ceased to question it. He became used to Kuroko handing him things out of the blue at the exact time he needed it. There was never a time that he needed to speak to Kuroko and he wasn't already behind him. When people went searching for the smaller boy, they came to Taiga, and he was almost always next to him. And when it came to the point that they started to embarrassingly share some of their lunches, Taiga was so far gone that he couldn't bring himself to care. He hadn't been joking when he labeled himself a shadow.
The boy walked next to him, milkshake free for once in his life, heading home after the night out at Maji's. His casual clothes were deviously attractive compared to the usual school uniform. Over his shoulder was the plain messenger bag he carried, and in one outstretched hand, he was giving Taiga some change.
"For the burger," he said.
Taiga shook his head and pushed his hand slightly away.
"I hardly noticed I was missing one. Besides, you could use the calories." He hoped his smirk came across as teasing. He didn't have the heart to tell Kuroko he was still hungry.
It sounded as if Kuroko had chuckled, but the sound was so slight it was impossible to tell. But Taiga liked it. The sounds he could make were more varied than he would have guessed.
The familiarity between the two of them caused him to open his mouth before he could think better of it.
"You could stay over again, if you want. It's Friday anyway."
WhatamIdoingWhatamIdoing.It's not like Kuroko was going to say yes. He had to have noticed how strange Taiga had been acting, how bizarre his recent conversations were, how he managed to hang around Kuroko just a little bit longer than necessary. If he was smart he'd say no and head home-
"Sure, I'd like to-"
"-That's okay, I'll just..." He stopped when he realized the answer hadn't been what he was expecting. "Oh. Sure."
He sat there for a moment, not knowing what to do. He hadn't really thought about actually having Kuroko follow him home. But if he was being honest, he was getting lonely. Spending time at practice and school was really the only way he spoke to anyone. It was comforting to have Kuroko at his house, even if he had to sleep in the same room as him. He'd lose sleep over it, but it'd be worth it.
If he had been trying to rid himself of Kuroko recently, he thought one night couldn't hurt. It must have been the Japanese heat getting to him. There had been nothing like it back in the States.
"But I did promise Kise that I'd get coffee with him. He doesn't like being out on his own."
Taiga made an annoyed sound and forced himself to look away.
"I can't get away from that guy."
Kuroko nodded a bit. "He can be annoying." Just as he finished speaking, he paused and made to go in the other direction.
"You don't have to come if you don't want to. I can come over after."
"I want to."
Taiga nearly flinched. He sounded like a schoolgirl. How much longer did he have to make a fool of himself before the whole Kuroko thing wore off? His body had even naturally turned to watch Kuroko when the other boy had made to leave.
Kuroko wore a ghost of a smile before he nodded a bit, leading Taiga to the coffee shop. The last of the sun dipped down for the night.
(A/N): Thank you for reading! I hope you all enjoyed. We need more KagamixKuroko! As you can tell, my stories are going to follow the whole "ex-aomine" set up, but with slightly darker tones.
I am going to update this story soon, and sort of pick up from here, and travel on through whatever plot bunnies the next episode gives me.
Thanks again! :)