Disclaimer: Do not own, I don't even know how to play basketball. Pathetic, right?
THE MISSING PIECE
When the first week of her first year as a Middle School student passed and Satsuki found herself following Dai-chan around to make sure he would not miss his classes, entering his house to wake him up, fixing his uniform before he decided to dress like a delinquent and pretty much still acting like his caretaker as she was doing since age two and a half, she had an epiphany. Nothing groundbreaking or life-changing, because she had her whole life to come to terms with it, and had seen it coming. Here is the thing: she would never be able to find a boyfriend.
It was not for the lack of opportunity or interest, unfortunately. She knew her own charm, had been using it to gather information and to bail Dai-chan of his problems for a long time now. Her face was symmetrical, her hair was long and smooth and her curves had made a nice debut inside Teikou's uniform. All that brought eyes to follow as she walked down corridors, and she had been confessed thrice in the first six days of school. Most of her suitors were confident boys, successful in sports, looks, grades or all of them simultaneously. It would be easy to discover how to make a relationship work with them, to try the romance that had her female friends and classmates squealing and gushing with excitement.
But it would never, ever work, because there was Dai-chan.
He was impulsive, single-minded and very, very bad at following orders and rules. His world consisted of basketball and food; all the rest was secondary. If Satsuki dropped him to fend for himself, it would be a catastrophe. He would do what he wanted to do and basically self-destruct in the process. A normal boyfriend would never accept the situation, of course. Maybe the intimacy of the friendship born from their cribs could be overlooked and tolerated – they were neighbors and their parents were childhood friends themselves, it would be impossible to remove Dai-chan from her life even if she wanted to – but she was fully aware of what it looked like to outsiders, the way her life revolved around Dai-chan's. Everybody assumed they were a couple, or would be.
It wasn't that simple.
She loved him. Of course she loved him, what other reason would she have for ironing his shirts when he forgot to store his clothes inside the wardrobe once again? However, their relationship was nothing like the many childhood-lovers type of shoujo manga she liked to read. Satsuki was not pining for her oblivious good friend or unaware her feelings for him changed to romantic love over the course of the years or something along those lines. Her girlfriends liked to point out she was a walking cliché of all the things that made a chick flick heroine and should cross the line already, but.
It was just. Complicated.
She could see the appeal, analyzing the situation from outside. Dai-chan was tall, lean and strong. He was good looking and his genius in basketball was unparalleled. His careless demeanor was absurdly charming for some reason. Girls liked guys who were like Dai-chan. Even so, Satsuki had seen him in all the stages of his life until then: without his front tooth, with buzzed hair, wearing animal costumes for school plays, the brief time he had been shorter than she was, that time he had cried because she had scared him with ghost stories, that time she had used her mother's make up on him… Surely, Dai-chan had the same volume of blackmail arsenal stored in his brain and inside family albums.
They were part of each other, way beyond any kind of school romance people insisted to impose over their closeness. Satsuki would follow Dai-chan, and Dai-chan would bring Satsuki with him, and that was that.
Which did not change the fact that Satsuki would never find a boyfriend who met her standards and Dai-chan's standards and was capable of accepting that her childhood friend was untouchable and eternal. She would miss the thrill of young love and would probably marry Dai-chan when they reach their forties because neither of them will have a partner meaningful enough. She could predict it, just like she could predict that the Teikou basketball team she had just become manager to was going to be the best Middle School team of Japan in a matter of months.
Then, Tetsu-kun appeared.
Satsuki berated herself for not noticing him in those first weeks. He was in her class, and sat a couple of desks behind Dai-chan, but she never heard him answering class roll, nor had she seen when he entered the basketball club. She only found him when she looked for him, the day after Dai-chan, on their way back home at the end of club practice, talked animatedly about this weird pale kid that was practicing basketball all alone in the empty gym.
"He's third string and he's so bad", Dai-chan had said, eyes bright looking ahead, "but he loves it."
The next day, she entered the classroom behind Dai-chan and finally saw Tetsu-kun when he answered Dai-chan's surprised "good morning". She introduced herself, since Dai-chan wouldn't know what good manners were even if said good manners punched him on the face. Tetsu-kun bowed his head politely and introduced himself back with a quiet voice and an expressionless face. A second after, Dai-chan took over and monopolized Tetsu-kun's attention for the rest of the day. (For the rest of the time.)
She watched this new boy cautiously because she always watched Dai-chan's acquaintances, measuring their interests and their influence over her charge and deciding if they were worth keeping or not. Her worry was wasted, as was all the quickly gathered data she acquired convincing the school nurse she had to see Kuroko-kun's documents for an official evaluation of the basketball team. No allergies or psychological problems; no trouble inside or outside school. Medium academic evaluation, part of the library club. Only child.
What you could see and hear was who Tetsu-kun was. He talked quietly, but never lied, always direct and honest. If someone asked, he answered. His unwavering gaze was a clear message to go on and trust him. Satsuki's mind, ever the planner, also noticed one more thing: this boy was the exception to her new discovered rule. He loved basketball, and Dai-chan was beginning to love him for it. If Tetsu-kun entered their lives, he would not be an outsider or an intruder, he would simply… Fall in place. Like the final piece of the puzzle.
When Akashi-kun found Tetsu-kun and saw his worth for the Teikou team, it was like fate had decided she was right. She could see he was happy, feeling useful, finally reaching, finally finding a place where he was not a ghost.
Her previous dramatic assumption of the mortal wound on her normal middle school life was destroyed because here was her chance. He loved Dai-chan – that meant she could love him, too.
And it was so easy to love him. He was a gentleman that treated her with utmost care and respect. He never gave any trouble and never judged her relationship with Dai-chan in any way. He looked at her and did not see her curves or her boobs; he saw her mind, her intelligence, her effort and her sensibility. He was also eerily beautiful when you finally looked and saw the clearness of his eyes, the uninterested charm of his messy hair, his elegant fingers and face.
Kuroko Tetsuya was exactly what she wanted, and she wanted fiercely.
Cue for the sucker punch of destiny, because obviously Satsuki would never have an uncomplicated life as long as Dai-chan was in it, which meant never, ever. Three years passed quickly, and she saw her happiness dilute in the tension of Dai-chan's shoulders with each tasteless victory. Tetsu-kun's presence diminished more and more when he was demoted from his place as a shadow to become a ghost again.
She watched from the sidelines, helpless. What could she possibly do? Dai-chan's crazy brand of logic was logic nonetheless, and he was right: nobody was challenging him, and if he kept training as he loved to – pushing as far as possible – he would be light-years ahead of any competition. At the same time, she understood why Tetsu-kun was hurt. He wasn't having fun because Dai-chan wasn't having fun. They were not playing together anymore; they were just going through the motions.
Dai-chan skipped almost every practice. Tetsu-kun never missed one. They were not in the same classrooms anymore and saw each other less and less. The lazy walks back home after club activities, the frequent visits to fast food restaurants for hamburgers and shakes the three of them had made a habit of stopped happening, since they never left the school at the same time. The study groups Satsuki organized in the weekends to make Dai-chan read her and Tetsu-kun's notes and learn something started to lack one of them, until one day Tetsu-kun sent her a cellphone message saying he couldn't go.
Dai-chan spent his lunches and skipped classes and team practices at the rooftop of the school, and Tetsu-kun simply vanished.
The last time she saw him before high school was in the last game of Teikou's miraculous basketball team. He had run across the court, dutiful as always, but she had learnt to see him and his eyes were weary and old. The ball reached his hands five times, none of them from Dai-chan's hands.
Tetsu-kun was not present at the celebrations and she couldn't find him in the last school ceremony. That was the day she noticed her heart was being squished inside of her chest for some time now. The realization didn't stop the pain.
There was a piece missing in the puzzle again. She didn't know if she wanted to look for it. Maybe she had lost it forever.
But Tetsu-kun was in Seirin, and he was playing basketball. She went looking for him despite her fear, and what she saw should not be a surprise. To analyze data and project the future was her special talent, and she knew him almost as much as she knew Dai-chan. Tetsu-kun was always straightforward, and nothing had changed. He loved basketball, and loved Dai-chan, and that was why he left – to find a missing piece, too, and make his basketball and his Dai-chan whole again.
When all was said and done, when the Winter Cup passed and the future became once again a thing to hope for - instead of just wait - Satsuki was so relieved she had to cry when she saw the two boys of her life bumping fists one more time.