One Way Ticket
Isn't it strange, how my heart can be so heavy
when it's filled with helpless sadness;
and stranger still, maybe worse, that my heart can be so hollow,
when it's a sadness that can be fixed -
and I don't know how to fix it.
The station looks abandoned, old, and seems to be completely made of wood - a contrast to the sleek, modern train that Kuroko exits. The sign - also wooden - that should theoretically announce the station name is boarded up, mushrooms and flowers springing to life atop of it. He studies his other, unused ticket in his hand, meant for the train he is supposed to transfer to next. He needs to wait, he thinks. There's someone coming; they'll take the next train together.
(Not in his mind, but in his heart that seems to send the ground quivering with every palpitation, he knows that the one he's waiting for is Aomine-kun.)
.
.
.
On the day the display board reveals that there are fifteen days left until the train Kuroko has been waiting for arrives, a group of kids wearing the Seirin basketball jackets and track pants gets off at this station. They chatter and laugh, and someone drops a basketball. Fortunately, it rolls towards Kuroko, and he picks it up. He can tell from the texture that it was bought recently, still relatively new. He passes it back.
"Thanks!" One of the taller boys beams at him, kind-faced with brown hair and thick eyebrows. Kiyoshi-senpai, Kuroko realizes belatedly.
Kuroko watches them, silent, until the last person turns the corner, disappearing from sight.
.
.
.
There's another boy who comes just a day later, wearing the same suit as the team from the day before. Kuroko can see his forked eyebrows, his red eyes. He looks somewhat disgruntled as he glances around, taking in his surroundings.
Kuroko stands, and speaks up, out of common courtesy. "Hello, Kagami-kun."
Kagami yelps, and teeters back towards the ledge of the platform. Thankfully, he catches himself before he manages to fall, and sputters, "who the hell are you?" as if they haven't met before.
Kuroko blinks.
The sun behind him glides across the sky, flaming red like Kagami's hair, tracing the contour of his body with faint lines of gold. Kuroko opens his mouth, but he feels deprived of air. He takes a breath, then says, "I'm Kuroko Tetsuya. Nice to meet you."
Kagami stares at him, as if there's something strange about him. He stares back. "...Kagami Taiga," he returns, after a moment, never mind that Kuroko had already acknowledged him by name (because dreams don't work that way), and shuffles his feet uncertainly. Kagami has a basketball tucked under his arm, Kuroko notices. "Look, uh, I got somewhere to go, so I don't have the time right now to waste here."
The words leave behind an ache that presses down on his chest like heavy hands, but Kuroko nods in understanding. "You go do what you need to do, Kagami-kun."
"Yeah." Kagami's mouth thins into a grim line. "You too. Do whatever it is that you need to do."
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.
"Kurokocchi!"
His golden hair is windswept and his face flushed from exertion, panting as he makes his way down the platform.
"Kise-kun," Kuroko acknowledges from where he sits in the waiting area.
Kise stops in front of him, a dark silhouette against the background of the sky, soft oranges and yellows and blues and purples bleeding into brilliant red. There are tears trickling down his cheeks, Kuroko realizes. Kise shifts to the side, to look down the empty platform.
"Are you here by yourself, Kurokocchi?" The wind blows, and Kise's voice trembles. The sun, a crimson circle, slowly moves across the horizon, orbiting around - a constant state of not being quite night, and not being quite day.
"Yes."
They sit quietly, for a while, as several trains pass by, heading on Northwards; none stops. The tracks of the opposite platform, leading to the South, never quiver. No train is going that way.
"Why don't you go back?" Kise's amber eyes glitter in the light - Kuroko knows, somehow, by instinct that it is sunset - reminiscent of river waters at a day's beginning and ending.
Kuroko looks at a weed growing on the side of the railroad tracks, swaying in the breeze. One of its petals flutters away. "I only have a ticket that takes me to the next station."
Kise's face crumples a little, like a sheet of paper. "I can buy extra tickets," he offers, sadness colouring his tone. "We can ride the train back together."
Kuroko shakes his head. "No thank you, I'd rather wait." He wants to point out that there are no trains to go back to the South anyways, but the look in Kise's eyes stops him.
"Who are you waiting for?" Kise's voice is a whisper, feathery light but heavy in the oddest of ways. When Kuroko doesn't reply, because it must be obvious, he presses on, "why are you waiting?"
Kuroko fidgets with his fingers. It's complicated, and he's lost in its complexity, so he says, "I'm not exactly sure myself."
"Do you have a notion?" Kise asks. Then he adds, quickly, "if you want, can you tell me?"
Kuroko turns his gaze to the board that displays the estimated times of arrival. Eleven days. He peers at the side the train would be coming from; there's only a lonely stretch of railway tracks, continuing into a thicket of trees in the far distance.
"I think," he says, "it's so that I can move on."
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When there are six days left, another train halts. Kuroko is pacing to keep his legs from becoming sore after sitting there so long.
A door slides open, and when the train departs, it leaves only one passenger standing on the platform in its wake.
"Hello, Midorima-kun."
Midorima's emerald eyes are piercing. "Kuroko." And then he reaches into the duffel bag slung on his shoulders, and pulls out a basketball. "Your lucky item, until the sun sets today."
He throws the ball towards Kuroko, and Kuroko catches it. He studies it - it's a new ball, its ridges defined, the edges of the logo still sharp and crisp.
Kuroko looks up as Midorima brushes by him, walking briskly towards the exits. "Midorima-kun, do you know when the sun will set?"
Midorima stops, and with his back still to Kuroko, responds, "whenever you want it to set."
Kuroko nods, even though Midorima can't see him.
Midorima twists around, to a certain degree, just enough so that Kuroko can see a ghost of a smirk on his lips.
"Show him your basketball, Kuroko."
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Four days before the due arrival, Kagami shows up at the platform again, though not via train. He runs here, like Kise had, but he really shouldn't have a reason to come unless it's to catch another train - which it's not.
"What are you still doing there sitting like a sack of potatoes?" Kagami retorts, moving to plop himself down on the seat beside Kuroko.
"Waiting," Kuroko replies. His patience is wearing thin, but he is tired enough that all he can do is slump against the back of the bench, through this never-ending day. "Just waiting."
Kagami sighs. "Do you sit here everyday?"
"...technically, yes, if you're talking about the days on the schedule board."
"Were you supposed to meet someone here?"
"...yes."
"And they didn't come?"
Kuroko glances at the board, then sideways at him. "I don't know. My train got here early, and I was supposed to transfer to another train to continue on, and- well, it's just- I don't think I can leave, until he comes, that's all." Kuroko doesn't really know why he can't move on, either.
Kagami stands up, abruptly, visibly irritated. "What if he's already at your destination? What if he's waiting for you?"
The thought hadn't occurred to him. No thoughts had, really - the days had been timeless switches of the digital numbers on the schedule board, whizzing by without him ever seeing a clear outline, where it should start and where it should end.
"Why don't you go to him then, instead of wasting all your time waiting?"
Kuroko feels exasperated (there are invisible fingers plucking at his heart, pulling it apart bit by bit, until his chest feels awfully empty where muscles used to work as one in order to make the organ beat). "I don't know how," he says, voice breaking helplessly, though somewhere inside, he should know, does know. He cringes.
A hand lands on his head, and Kuroko flinches.
"Then I'll help you," Kagami gives a huff. "We'll go find him together."
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They catch the next available train, and get off at the station that Kuroko hopes to be the correct one. It's barren of human life. The board displays the arrival of the next train as eleven more days.
"He's not here," Kuroko whispers, throat tightening. There are strange shadows cast across Kagami's features, but Kuroko thinks that his expression is almost akin to disappointment.
"Yeah."
They stand there, side by side, facing out towards the train tracks.
"What do I do?" Kuroko asks, softly.
Kagami says, "we wait."
What if he never comes? Kuroko wants to say, but doesn't, because he will, someday. Instead, he tells Kagami, "thank you."
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.
Seirin's basketball team arrives the next day by train. They decide to wait with them.
"Why?" Kuroko finds himself asking.
There's no verbal answer, but their smiles are enough.
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Everyone is asleep, when one of the trains arrive eleven minutes ahead of schedule. It stops. Someone steps off.
The sun sinks below the skyline, plummeting the world into darkness. Some stars converge into a plume of white mist, others swinging from place to place as if attached to invisible pendulums. One falls from the sky, trailing stardust in its tracks. The thin slice of moon begins to widen, until it's almost full, and it wanes quickly into a new moon again. The cycle then repeats.
And that's how he knows.
"Aomine-kun."
Aomine looks up in surprise.
"Tetsu?"
Kuroko stands up, and his feet carries him to Aomine as if he automatically gravitates towards him - which in all honesty might not be too far from the truth.
He stops, when he is mere inches from Aomine. He tilts his head up to meet his eyes, dizzying like the night sky behind him. The moment strikes a chord, sending ripples of affection through him, and it surfaces - a smile. Kuroko closes the distance, and Aomine, perhaps by instinct, wraps his arms around him.
The moon is almost full, its pale light spilling into the stillness of the train station. It stays that way - not quite full, but not hidden, either.
"I've been waiting, Aomine-kun."
The train begins to move, blurring into transparency as it increases in speed, and then it travels upwards, until it's navigating a track suspended in the air. The world topples from equilibrium and the stars swing wildly from violent gusts of wind that Kuroko cannot feel upon the surface of his skin. The moon seems to melt, substance dripping from the tips of the glowing crescent, viscous like oil paint.
Aomine buries his nose into his hair amongst the chaos Kuroko feels pounding away in his chest, breath tickling his ears and carrying the whisper: "yeah, me too. Train ride took way too long."
Then, everything is still.
Kuroko glances at the still forms of his teammates' sleeping bodies, and then out of habit, at the schedule board - zero minutes until arrival.
He can see the next train not too far off in the distance.
A/N: birthday fic for jarofclay42 who possesses a copious amount of swag (yeAH this is a reminder that your swag is legit in case you forget but I don't think you would) and her fics are really bad for my heart c: now that I think about it this is like a mixture of influence from "the gingko tree" and "five times aomine and kuroko didn't bump fists" oh how you've ruined my life BUT YES SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETIT GATEAU bYE (btw sorry for that lame attempt at being poetic at the beginning)
also thanks to Infinite Skye for the read over ^^
so the thing is here is that it started out as a metaphor for teikou going onto seirin but then somewhere along the way, I got too into it and it became more self-indulgent than strictly canon so thanks for putting up with it all the way until the end! (also thanks jar for staying up until like 1 am) uvu