Where one story ends, another begins.
The pain of loss…
The fun of being together…
This is only the beginning of a new world where a light and shadow become anew.
This is the beginning where the lives of many change permanently.
Kuroko Tetsuya had experienced these feelings during his middle school and high school years. It was a time where his way of life and beliefs had changed. Fortunately, those changes were for the greater good in the world of basketball, educational life, and friendship.
That was the story that began and a story that had ended and he had no regrets during that time.
Now he has graduated from college, beginning his new life but not entirely away from a life where school is involved.
Actually, it was quite the contrary. His life would more than likely be revolved around school for the next who-knows-how-many-more years.
Graduating with a degree in Japanese literature, liberal arts (teaching for those of you who might not know), and with a background of playing basketball since middle school up to his college days, he had decided to become a high school teacher.
Kuroko walked along the cracked concrete under the morning sky where the air was pleasantly cool and the birds chirped a twittering, cheerful tune. The sun sparkled between the leaves of a tree as the now 26 year old man walked under the shade of the large plant.
He paused under the tree and looked up at the slight movements of the leaves as they brushed and rustled against each other to the swift and silent breeze.
The man smiled slightly before he returned his attention to arriving at his destination that was only a few blocks away.
He felt nostalgia as he quietly noticed the students chattering on their way to the high school where he would begin his first day of teaching at. It reminded him of his own high school days where he would sometimes meet with his friends and talk with them. Well, he was usually quiet while he intently listened to his friends' conversations from basketball to video games to girls and the other random topics most boys would talk about.
Now he was upon the throngs of students that encircled him but paid no mind to him.
Kuroko was nowhere near surprised as students passed by him as if he was not there. They would soon learn of this… ability of his where he could easily slip in and out of being noticed.
Some of the students were taller than the man while others were his height and very few were surprisingly smaller. Kuroko was proud to say that he had grown a bit during high school making him slightly taller than before but that did not change the fact that his friends during their school days were still taller than him by an unsurprising margin.
Now he entered the school's campus where groups of students stood to the sides of the pathway leading to the entrance to the large building ahead of him.
He observed the different styles of uniforms around him of black blazers and ties or beige sweaters embedded with the school emblem on the left arm. Dark blue, plaid skirts were worn on the females while the same pattern and color were on the slacks for the male population.
As he entered the white building that now towered over him, several stories high, Kuroko had bumped into a student that he did not see coming nor did she see him.
"My apologies," Kuroko said.
"Ah, it's okay," reassured the boy but when he looked up, he did not see the person he had bumped into. He turned his head left and right I confusion and in hope of finding the person but with no luck. Kuroko had also walked passed him right after apologizing so that added to the lesser chance of the boy finding him.
The almost middle-aged man turned a corner and opened the door that led to the teacher's lounge. Right after opening the door, he was greeted by several 'hellos' from teachers he had already met and 'how are you?' from the instructors but only before they actually looked at the door only to not see anyone there at first.
"Huh? Did someone open the door?" a man asked. He was short, shorter than Kuroko to note, was round and expressed a jolly smile even though he was confused.
"It was me, Takeda-sensei," Kuroko said, gaining the attention of all the adults in the room. There was a silence as the teachers stared at him and Kuroko stood at the opening of the door as if he were a statue.
Screams were heard inside the room, causing many students to look to the direction of the teacher's lounge.
"Oh, Kuroko-sensei! When did you arrive?" asked the jovial, round man as he walked to Kuroko with his short, almost stubby legs.
"I just came," explained Kuroko as he entered the room and closed the door behind him. He then looked upon the small crowd of teachers in front of him as they still stared at him in disbelief. "My name is Kuroko Tetsuya. I hope we work well together in the future," he introduced himself and bowed.
He gave a small smile that was noticed by everyone in the room. The sounds of feminine voices were heard quietly swooning over the angelic smile of the man. Kuroko had also noticed that some of the males only sighed at the hysterics the women provided at such a trivial matter.
"We'll be glad to have you on our team, Kuroko-sensei. As the vice principal, I want to warmly welcome out new teacher to his first day at teaching and who has just graduated from college," Takeda greeted as he took one of Kuroko's hands into his own and shook it with a firm grip.
"Thank you very much for the greeting. I will do my best." With that, Kuroko sat at his desk and set down his bag, taking out the books and papers that he needed for the day. He scanned the attendance sheet of the students in his homeroom.
He had 19 students in his class. The number was small but not surprising since the school was small itself compared to other high schools that were more prestigious or was given more effort and income for construction and quality of supplies needed.
Even so, the school Kuroko would work at was known for its academics and was known just within the Tokyo prefecture. The sports program was also decent, making the basketball team enter the Inter High the year before.
The club advisor had retired though from old age. Kuroko saw it as an opportunity to still have some connection to the sport he loved so he volunteered to be the coach and club advisor for the basketball team. Takeda happily agreed, delighted that the sport wouldn't or become unstable without a coach.
The next few minutes were spent walking to his homeroom to take attendance of his new students and then lead them to the gym for the opening ceremony.
Kuroko walked up the stairs and slid the door open, revealing students sitting in and on top of their desks, some sitting by themselves while others sat in groups happily chatting away to their hearts content.
He walked over to the podium where he set his papers down. Kuroko grabbed the edges of the podium and he stared at the class, amused that no one had seen him entered. He decided to have some fun so he stood at the podium, silently observing the class and anticipating their screams when they would finally notice him.
Five minutes passed as the class continued to talk. It wasn't until someone had asked where the teacher might be that all voices came to a halt.
They turned their heads to the podium, seeing nothing at first. After they blinked once, all of the teenagers eyes widened as they saw a person standing there intently staring at the class in return of the class staring at him, the man that appeared out of nowhere.
He had powdered-blue hair in messy locks with equally colored blue eyes that were round and blank. If anyone looked closely enough, they could see the hint of amusement shining in the stoic blue orbs that peered upon the class.
In the end, the normal screams and high-pitched squeaks were heard and Kuroko couldn't help but chuckle to himself.
"Who are you? When did you get there?" asked one of the students in a stunned tone.
"I was here for the past five minutes," Kuroko answered.
"Then please say something to let us know you arrived!" exclaimed another child.
"It is a habit and a regular occurrence for this to happen. I do not often do it intentionally but please be aware that you might not see me at first nor will you not hear me. It is a bit difficult to control." The explanation sounded reasonable yet unreasonable at the same time.
How could a man have very little presence? Especially one who has light blue hair and eyes?
"I am Kuroko Tetsuya and I will be your homeroom teacher as well as be the second years' Japanese Literature teacher. I will also be coaching the basketball club. Please sit in your seats and I will take your attendance before we head towards the gym for the opening ceremony."
The students nervously sat in their seats, still shocked by the incident with their suppose-to-be-homeroom-teacher. Kuroko called out the names of each student and marked on the paper where all their names were listed.
Afterwards he had the students' line up and led them down to the first floor and out the building to the gym.
The gym was large and numerous seats were placed adjacent to each other. A basketball court was seen on the floor of the gym and the baskets that were electronically controlled were set to parallel with the ceiling.
He walked to the seats where his students were supposed to sit in and watched them follow each other into their seats. Once all the students were seated, he walked towards the stage where the other teachers had gathered and sat down in a row of seats, facing the crowd of teenagers in front of them.
They patiently waited until Takeda walked up the podium that was centered on the stage and tapped the microphone. The loud screeching coming from the speakers as the microphone was tapped had easily caught the attention of all the students in the gym.
The students held their hands to their ears, trying to block out the annoyingly loud screech. Once the cacophony ended, they looked up to the stage to watched the vice principal standing there, smiling joyously for whatever reason he had as his closed eyes peered at the crowd before him.
He began his speech, one about welcoming freshmen and transfer students and then telling the history of the school. Takeda added the goals of the school as doing well academically and encouraged joining an extracurricular activity of some sort.
It was after this that the most excitable part of the opening ceremony began.
"Now I would like to introduce some new teachers who will begin working here. First off is Kuroko Tetsuya-sensei."
Kuroko stood up and walked up to the podium yet again, he went unnoticed.
"Kuroko-sensei?" Takeda asked. No one had seen the blue-haired man walk up to the podium nor did they expect to hear a voice coming from the stage when they did not see anyone there.
"Um, I'm right here. I am Kuroko-sensei." Screams were heard throughout the neighborhood that surrounded the school.
Kuroko chuckled and introduced himself to the whole school before sitting back down in his seat, allowing his following colleagues to introduce themselves.
Time passed before Kuroko and his class returned to their classroom. Once he felt that it was appropriate, he began to recount the number of students in his classroom before starting his first period, making sure no one had ditched class.
"Now that I have introduced myself twice, I would like to get to know my students as well. Please give me your name, something that you are interested in and a goal that you have. For your goal, you can list it or you can just provide us with only one. It is your choice."
He smiled at them and pointed to a boy that sat in the front row. "We'll start with you, okay?"
The boy nodded and stood up. He opened his mouth as he began to speak.
"I am Kinjou Natsume. I am in the second year and I like playing the basketball. I am captain of the basketball club and my goal is to make it to the Winter Cup this year." Kuroko watched Kinjou with interest when he said that he liked playing basketball. The teacher had a feeling that when he explained that he was the new club advisor, it must have sparked something in the boy's soul.
"Do you only want to make it to the Winter Cup?" Kuroko asked.
"What do you mean?" the boy answered with his own question.
"It may be a goal, but… Never mind. I'll let it slide for now. We'll have some fun later after school for practice. Maybe later on in the week but we'll be doing something similar to this for the basketball club."
This only made Kinjou shiver in fear. For some reason, he couldn't help but feel helpless under his teacher's stare though he looked rather weak for his stature. Truth be told, Kuroko seemed nowhere near athletic but rather a petite, well-mannered man with a handsomely cute face.
The rest of the class went by smoothly with exceptions with below standard interests such as eating or sleeping. One child said she was interested in putting her hands in a bucket of glue than rubbing her hands together for the glue to roll into a squishy, gooey ball that was able to collect dirt and bacteria off of her hands. She explained that it was her way of keeping herself clean.
Kuroko could only nod in response after hearing that confession.
For the remainder of the day, Kuroko had experienced a number of screams and questions about his presence which he was glad to explain because he never found it tiring to do so or at least with people he had just met.
It was toward the end of the last period did he feel excitement jolting through his bones. Behind his expressionless eyes, he felt the need to change into sweat pants and a t-shirt and begin playing basketball.
He shook the thought off, reminding himself that he was a coach now. He had to teach and guide the team to victory.
Kuroko did not want to achieve the goal of "just getting into the Winter Cup". Kuroko wanted to be the best, to be No. 1 in the country. Of course he also wanted to have fun but to achieve a goal as being No. 1 like he had during his high school days was much more motivational than 'I'll try my best' or 'I think I can do this'.
The bell rang across the campus, repeating itself several times while the class packed up and rushed out of the classroom.
Kuroko smiled to himself and began to leisurely walk out of the classroom towards the gym.
First he would have to introduce himself for the third time of the day as well as start the tryouts for the freshmen and new students that year that wanted to join the club. Once that was decided, he'll figure out what to do next.
A/N: And so I have created another story that has been on my mind but it isn't a good thing because that means that I will have more stories to update. Not that I don't really mind but I have to focus on a lot of stuff.
I shall update Hold Me Close and In Past and Present soon enough. Both chapters are almost done.
I do not have a school name for the school Kuro-chan works at so maybe my dear and sweet readers can help me?
There will be no pairings in this. Just pure friendship and bonding between teacher and students and ex-teammates. In other words, we'll see Kagami and the rest of the GoM and other characters later.
Thank you for reading! Please drop a review and tell me what you think! This is like a prototype chapter. I'm testing it out to see what everyone will say. If even one person says to continue, then I'll continue but otherwise, I give no guarantee that this story will continue.