At some point, they got used to winning but not to the feeling of it. The opponent that winter day wasn't a tough one by all means, but the adrenaline rush had still been there. So it was normal for Seirin's basketball team to gather in Kagami's large enough apartment, order some take-out to escape Riko's cooking for supper and drowning some sodas while being generally loud and happy.

Kagami sprawled himself on his sofa -muttering threats about not breaking anything or that he'd break something else- with his sixth burger in a row. Kuroko sat quietly on the other corner of the couch with a small drink and an empty plate that hadn't been refilled for what the ace felt were hours. It always appeared unhealthy how little the phantom player ate but, then again, he couldn't judge.

And while Kagami Taiga might have the social skills of a wild animal and known as a general doofus, he still noticed the small glances his partner shot at him that quickly followed with his eyes averting to outside the window. It started to unnerve him a while ago and his grip on his burger tighten a bit before relaxing. He couldn't take it out on his innocent food. So the red head settled for punching his partner out of his, well, whatever he was doing right now. Turning, his right fist clenched, up and ready, he opened his mouth to yell at the boy. At the boy who was no longer there.

Gritting his teeth, he searched the crowd of basketball players challenging one another to food eating contests that they had nicely kicked Kagami out of while the coach yelled at them for trying to do something so stupid. Besides her, he could see his seniors Hyuuga and Teppei engaged into what appeared to be a sort of one sided argument all the while Izuki made puns in order to make Mitobe let out some sort of sound ( "Have you heard about the new band that has all the Mexican girls crazy? It's called Juan Direction!").

After hearing someone tell the pun master to shut up and get out, he stood up, stretched and went out his balcony to enjoy his hamburger in peace under the night sky. Without any bad word plays being sprouted too enthusiastically.

"Ah, Kagami-kun."

And he stumbled on Kuroko there, with his hands on the railing, and his gaze for once not on him but on the moon, and that too bothered him. If he was going to talk to him, his partner should look at him.

The light blue haired boy didn't seem bothered that the only answer he received was a muffled by food grunt nor by the little choking sounds his light let out by replying with a mouth full. Kuroko's face was almost always expressionless; it has forever been his eyes that gave him away. The eyes that were staring away from him and into the night sky.

Kagami leaned onto the railing and continued to eat his supper, he figured that he would be most comfortable here, with his teammate moon or stargazing, whichever, and the cool air. The red head could still watch the events inside his apartment and how Koganei was grabbing his stomach laughing himself to tears because Riko just slapped Hyuuga for whatever reason and how everyone shifted to throw paper napkin ball at Izuki for a particularly bad pun.

He found himself grinning at the childishness of his team and felt like joining in and not at the same time. He was comfortable here.

"The moon is beautiful, isn't it?"

If there was one thing Kagami was certain of, it is that normally Kuroko just talks about basketball or things that have some sort of vague connection to it. He really wasn't expecting this.

So he stopped eating and glanced at the other, the other who was still looking but not really at the moon and beheld how his features seem to light up under the reflected light of the sun. It was almost as if he really could disappear, as if he were a ghost of another time.

The ace didn't know how long they stayed like that but he knew the spell just intensified when Kuroko's neck moved and his face turned to him, eyes truly set on him and seeing him for what the red head was and had always been. It made the wheels in his head clog and his thoughts simply stop. He was frozen and Kuroko passed beside him like the wind, something he could feel but not grasp and never halt.

But Kagami didn't miss the secretive upward quirk of the shadow's lips that could barely be called a smile and how his eyelids were half closed, hiding something but luring him into wanting to find out more.

His call back to reality had been the only female of Seirin smacking him for being outside in the middle of the night and dressed so lightly minutes after his small teammate left.

And just like that, days passed with that event replaying in his head at night. Only when he was walking to Maji Burger with the light haired boy, after one Japanese literature class and a particularly tough training session, did the American raised boy realize what the shadow had said. His eyes widen slightly too much for his companion not to notice, and with wide movements of the head he sought for the moon in the sun lit sky.

Once it was found, the red headed ace slowly said, "Yes, it is."

With that, he grabbed the smaller hand.

Kagami didn't need to look down to know that his partner's lips were stretched in a smile. The way the smaller by comparison hand squeezed back was indication enough.

A/N: "The moon is beautiful, isn't it?" is the translation Soseki Natsume, a Meiji period author, gave to the English sentence "I love you."