Mayuzumi Chihiro held Kuroko's wrist firmly, staring into his eyes. Mayuzumi had eyes that were naturally set as if he had constipation and therefore made him look mildly displeased at best and murderous at worst. Kuroko could feel the air around his team tense, and didn't need to turn around to know that Kagami is sitting on the edge of the bench ready to jump up and throw fists at any moment.
When Mayuzumi Chihiro opened his mouth, Kuroko expected a scathing remark about his playing style, or a condescending insult, or the like.
What actually came out was-
"You are the most beautiful person I have ever seen."
This was spoken during a coincidental lull in the noise of the crowd, a moment when everyone paused for breath at the exact same time - like the thing happens often inside the classroom and one particular soul would be unfortunate enough to be speaking loudly at that instance and be stuck in the next few minutes explaining that it makes sense in context.
No amount of context would make sense of this situation anyway, Kuroko thinks, even if the context actually existed and had taken a concrete form, like a box, or a film explaining exactly the events that brought upon this misery, or even maybe a flying sentient whale. Yes, a flying sentient whale would make much more sense. Either way, nothing would invalidate the fact that Mayuzumi Chihiro had his wrist gripped above his head and was looking into his eyes passionately and with mild displeasure (which, again, may just be the way his eyes were naturally set), like a villain that has the damsel in distress in his big meaty claws.
There was a lengthy silence. The spectators had expressions that could only be described as a colon followed by the capital O.
Kuroko stared. It was the only logical thing to do.
When no one dared to speak, Mayuzumi slid his grip from Kuroko's wrist to his fingers and slowly brought Kuroko's knuckles to his lips.
There was this one time when Nigou stubbornly refused to be bathed by anyone other than Kuroko, who, as it were, had cleaning duty that afternoon. The wise decision would have been to wait for Kuroko to finish and let him handle it, but the dog stunk to high heaven and no one could stand to practice when the scent of male perspiration and wet dog permeated the entire court. So Hyuuga devised a plan: evacuate the premises, allow Nigou to be lulled into a false sense of security, and, when at his most vulnerable, splash him with a bucketful of water and scrub him with dog shampoo while he was too dazed to run away. Kuroko arrived just in time for the first part of this strategy, and looked on blankly as Nigou blinked as if to say, "...eh?"
Right now, Kuroko thinks he may know what Nigou felt.
His face was most likely an embarrassing shade of red. He wanted to say something, but nothing came to mind. Or at least, nothing intelligent.
Kuroko blinked, and said, "...eh?"
Kagami blinked, and said, "...eeeh?"
Excluding Akashi, everyone blinked, and said "...eeeeeeeeehh?!"
Mibuchi Reo crossed the court in half a second, pulled Mayuzumi away from Kuroko, and apologized profusely.
"He doesn't mean anything serious," Mibuchi laughed, distressed. "He's like that, our Chihiro-chan. Always the joker."
"Uhm," said Kuroko.
"No, I was being completely honest," said Mayuzumi. He turned to Kuroko. "You really are the most beauphfmn hmfhph ffmmph."
Mibuchi laughed in even more distress as he slapped a hand against Mayuzumi's mouth. "Don't mind him. His jokes are always kind of weird. Haha. Isn't that right, Chi-chan?"
Mayuzumi pulled away from Mibuchi's hand. "I love you. Marry me, Kuroko Tetspfmmh."
"Uh, sorry about... I mean, uh. He isn't, uh, he usually isn't like this."
"Phhfmm, mmphffff ffhpnm."
"Really, Chi-chan. You shouldn't joke about things like that, er..."
"Pfffmmmm. Mmmnphf mphfnm."
Behind Kuroko, while Mayuzumi struggled to convey his confusing feelings behind Mibuchi Reo's hand, whose distressed laughter sounded even more nervous as the seconds pass by, the rest of the Seirin team inched away from Kagami, who looked like he could throw a basketball across the court through the sheer force of his glare. Kagami abruptly stood, making the three benched freshmen nearest him yelp in their seats. He half-strode, half-stomped towards Kuroko until he shielded the smaller man from the two Rakuzan players. The entire thing had an air of a tiger cuddling a kitten and from a certain perspective was very adorable.
Mayuzumi stopped struggling.
The crowd watched on silently, half of them rooting for Kagami, one-fourth for Mayuzumi, and most the rest for a threesome. Somewhere at the back, someone was screaming "Kurokocchi!" "Tetsu!" "Kuro-chin!" and "Nanodayo!" in anguish.
"Are you done?" Kagami growled.
Ah, Mayuzumi thought. The jealous boyfriend has arrived.
Mibuchi looked much more embarrassed than frightened. "Er, yes. Come on, Chi-chan."
Mayuzumi was five and a half inches taller than Kuroko, which means he's five inches smaller than Kagami. He's also, unlike Kagami, the lean kind of muscular - built like an endurance athlete, not like a bodybuilder. And even so, there's no doubt in his mind that Seirin's power forward can outlast him in a marathon any day, so grabbing Kuroko bridal-style and running like hell out of the building would surely fail.
Instead, he let himself be dragged by Mibuchi and, when at a safe distance away and after ensuring that the referee wasn't looking, flipped Kagami the bird.
The only thing that stopped Kagami from lashing out was Kuroko jabbing his side harder than usual.
"If you do that any harder you're going to break my ribs!" Kagami said, clutching his side.
"Please calm down, Kagami-kun."
"I am calm! And anyway, how are you okay with that?"
He pointed accusingly at Mayuzumi. Mayuzumi wasn't paying attention to what seemed to be Akashi-kun's reprimands, and made a heart shape with his index fingers and thumbs at Kuroko.
It was decidedly creepy. If Kuroko felt he wanted to defeat him before, now he desired to absolutely crush him.
He suppressed a shiver. "I'm not."
"Then why didn't you do anything when he grabbed you?"
"For one, he was quite stronger than I am. Look at these guns."
"You don't have any."
"Exactly."
"Uhm, guys?" said someone from their team, and was promptly ignored.
Kagami stared intensely - not glared, mind you, but stared intensely - at Kuroko. Then, he huffed. "Whatever. Just stay close to me for the rest of the game."
"Kagami-kun, that's an illogical basketball strategy."
"What, you want to give the bastard a chance to cop a feel?"
"...No."
"Are they dating?" Hyuuga whispered to Riko.
"Then shut up and do what I say."
"I don't understand why you're so angry. Please calm down. You're scaring Nigou."
Nigou gave a cheerful bark.
"Technically?" Riko whispered back.
Hyuuga considered this. "No?"
"Then yes," she replied.
Everyone else thought about it, and then decided that they agreed.
"It's still an illogical strategy, Kagami-kun," Kuroko insisted. Which was true, and their point difference would increase drastically until it would have been impossible for them to recover. Admitting it was painful, but he was still useless, and unless he could figure out how to be able to use his passes, would remain so until the end of the game.
If they lose, Kuroko will blame himself, and no amount of comfort his teammates could provide would stop him from doing so.
He looked at Kagami, who was seething and hissing at Mayuzumi's direction. And then he paused.
"Coach," he said.
Riko looked up, surprised.
"I believe I have an idea."
In the end, the match was a tie.
As it turns out, if one despised a person enough, one's attention will automatically be honed-in, so to say, at that person, no matter how small their presence is. Thus they defeated Mayuzumi's misdirection simply be sending Kagami on the court and suggesting to him once in a while what Mayuzumi would do to Kuroko in bed. It was all very dirty and funny, but it worked like a charm with the added bonus of sending Kagami to a frighteningly calm rage that mimicked the effects of the Zone. And because Kagami's jealousy was an interesting thing and drew everyone's fascination (at one point they not-so-subtly compared... sizes, much to the embarrassment of everyone excluding Akashi), regained Kuroko's own misdirection momentarily.
Despite regaining morale it had only been a momentary victory, since crippling one player is nigh-useless when the other five were still in top shape.
But then, in the last two minutes of the last quarter, Kuroko entered the Zone.
They didn't know it at that time. Kuroko's version of the Zone consisted in even more acute mental analysis than was usual, allowing him to assess his movements to determine the course with which he may take and slip past the attention of the opposing players in the most effective manner, as opposed to Kagami-kun or Aomine-kun or Murasakibara-kun, whose strategies tend to be "plow through mine enemies using muscles, testosterone, and manly cries of glory".
In effect, Kuroko's presence became so nonexistent to the point where even he, himself, almost forgot he was there.
Akashi's expression was quite priceless.
Initially, they had thirty points behind. When the buzzer sounded both teams were tied at 231 points each and, due to certain attenuating circumstances, both were crowned champions.
Kuroko was so exhausted they decided to let him lie on the bench for the awarding ceremony. When they turned back, Mayuzumi Chihiro was leaning over him with a rose between his teeth, doubtlessly playing prince Charming. Seirin's upperclassmen chased him away. Hyuuga, in particular, looked very passionate about it.
Kagami's brain decided that a weak, flushed Kuroko looked absolutely delicious in more ways than one. Kuroko was half-delirious when Kagami kissed him, so he may not have been completely conscious of his actions when he arched up and shoved his tongue into Kagami's mouth, right in front of a thousand-some people in the stadium.
Not that he cared much, anyway, even when he regained consciousness the next day, naked, in Kagami's apartment, ass sore and covered in bruises, next to a naked Kagami, also covered in smaller bruises but no less numerous. No, he was more worried about how Mayuzumi-kun managed to get his cellphone number and send him 200 text messages overnight declaring love and fidelity.
He stared at the screen, shrugged, and flopped back to bed, thinking, ah, well; nothing's perfect.
Murasakibara patted Aomine and Kise's backs gently.
"There, there. It's okay. You two will find someone like Kuro-chin one day. Do you want some candy?"
"I don't think candy will make them feel better, Atsushi," chimed Himuro. "Come on, now. We should congratulate the victors."
Their footprints echoed down the hall. Seconds later, Midorima and Takao walked by, unfazed by the sight of two muscle-headed idiots curled up facing the wall.
"Do you think we should help them?" asked Takao.
"No," said Midorima. And that was that.