*mmkay, this work is actually an assignment for my Exploring Prose class, so yeah, this thing sucks, and un-beta-ed. However, I try to avoid grammatical error and typo as much as possible. Kuroko no Basuke is Fujimaki Tadatoshi's, Shiroi Uso is kaggra,'s, I own nothing but this story. Enjoy!*

The promise that dissolved in the wind will someday cross time...

As the planes took off from the earth, the old man stared hopelessly into the open sky, watching every movement of the planes above the earth, as if waiting for a sacred promise that was not fulfilled. Every morning, religiously without failing, the man always come to the airport, sit in the same spot (if the spot's used by someone, he would sit near that place) in front of the airport, his old eyes teary as he watches the plane taking off. When it's getting dark, or he felt like he want to go back, he would go back to his run-down apartment, alone.

Thirty-seven year. That's how long he looped the same act, again, and again. He hardly spoke to anyone in the airport, aside from buying foods or needs he encountered, even then sometimes his low voice and weak appearance made him unnoticeable. Everyone in the airport treated him as if he's not there, just like a shadow. Or a broken statue nobody cares to maintain anymore.

But no matter how everyone treated him, he would always come back there. Because, in that place lies his memory, lies his hope about a certain blonde pilot came back into life, embracing him into a warm tight hug the pilot promised shortly before they parted. He was told to wait there on a fateful day, the day a storm tarnished the plane his lover operated. No news of the whereabouts of the plane, and the peoples who was inside it, was heard ever since.

He never wailed, he never lose his belief. In silence, he hope. In every eyesight, his mind was set into a conclusion: the other part of him would be back, no matter how much time his hope needs to be true. His light blue hair might now be replaced by thin silver lines, but his love for the deceased pilot won't ever change. He still love the pilot wholeheartedly, fulfilling his promise in the altar when they eloped.

Sometimes he whisper, sometimes his mind wander, leaving his bone-and-skin unguarded (hey, it's not like anyone is after him, right?). Sometimes he wishes that he could take his body to the time-trip his mind is doing, but he can't. Curse the writer of Doraemon, they make false hopes about time machine, he hissed one day. Not that he said it out loud, that is, he's a silent guy in nature, but also kinda stubborn.

When his mind time-travels to the short but beautiful time he had with the blonde pilot, sometimes he cried, without any audible trace. Oh, how he regret not spending time that much with half of his heart when they parted ways in high school. They were in the same junior-high, but they choose different high school. Basketball serves as a tie to them, a hobby which they both enjoy and strive to perfect in. They laugh, they cry. The love they have for each other bloomed, but they denied the existence, as distance was unbearable. They're satisfied as being just friend.

They parted ways again when both of them was being sent into universities without basketball clubs. Distance could close the gap between hearts, a proverb said, but it's either all or none. The tall, blonde pilot then confessed to him, throwing the annoyingly cheerful facade that person was known to have. The pilot confessed seriously, with a ring ready as a sign of commitment. "Would you marry me?", the pilot said as the ring is being installed to his ring finger.

The confession, the altar, he still remember it until today. His timid face was filled with a faint and fading smile, all the smile he could do as he's known as the man without expression, a shadow with no trace of existence. Their life as a newlywed is filled with warmth, even though they seldom meet in person. He was a kindergarten teacher, a job he dropped that fateful day. The pilot, being a normal pilot, flew across the world with little to no break. However, with the little time they shared each others warmth, they learn a lot about what love, and faithfulness, are.

The warm summer day marks the fortieth year of their marriage, and the thirty-seventh year of that fateful day. As the news about the plane was ever heard, being a stubborn man as he is, he waited. He still hope that the pilot would come. He instinctively knows that the person he love would fulfill their promise. So, that day, just like usual, he come and waited. The temperature has since raised to the point that anyone outside without any means of cooling themselves would damage themselves, but he still waited without anything prepared. If he died when he's waiting, that's okay to him.

Excruciating seconds turned into minutes and hours, yet he's still there. As long as there's no sign of his lover coming back, he won't bother giving up.

"Kurokocchi!"

Then in the middle of the heat, he heard someone calling his name with the tone only he recognize. He knows that his waiting was not fruitless.

"Come here!"

A sound from across the street was heard, the blonde was there with a lot of luggage.

"I'm sorry, I took too long..."

He ran to the source of that sound. He won't debate whether the sound was his hallucination or not, he just want to make sure. Oblivious to anything there, he crossed the road, where he heard his name called. In a split second, a truck passed, and he didn't bother to avoid it.

Crash.

"We'll meet again..." – a lie whiter than the snow and the clouds

"I'm sorry, Kurokocchi. I took too long. Now, we're destined to meet here. Are you lonely without me?"

The day Kuroko Tetsuya meet Kise Ryota again was the day when his body and soul no longer live in the gravitation called "world" anymore. He descended to another gravitation, the one which would be the end of any living mean's journey.

"Yes, I'm lonely without you, Ryota-kun. However, I kept our promise, right?"