THE LOSER'S PART
The soft and muffled, lightly audible, sound of the basket net which moved, gently embracing the ball, spread slowly around the empty gym, but just for a moment before the rebounds noise covered it cruelly.
Midorima Shintarou adjusted the glasses on his nose and sighed, then he turned his head toward the exit door of the first gym, in the East zone of Teiko Middle School.
It was already twenty minutes since when Kuroko Tetsuya had lost his temper and, after grabbing Akashi Seijuro by an arm, had dragged him out of the building. The screams of that fight were clear at the beginning, so Midorima, for a kind of respect, had moved to shot in the half of the court which was opposite to the direction in which the other two players had gone and he had posed himself to practice only on the three-point line instead of the half court line as he usually did.
But now he was starting feeling uncomfortable. Not Kise nor Murasakibara had shown to practice and Aomine…there was no need to say. To be precise, it was exactly because of the three players' absences and the captain's indifference to the problem that the sixth phantom player had raged out. Even the green guy had found himself irritated by that story and the fact that Akashi, despite his role, didn't seem to care, but Kuroko's reaction really surprised him. Yes, it had already happened to see the little phantom fighting for ideas reasons with the gigantic Murasakibara, but even then his irritation was revealed just by a note in his voice and by a light shadow on his forehead. That day, the number fifteen really lost his control and his face had reddened for rage while his fists were tightening and his whole body was starting trembling. Midorima had been really shocked and for this too he was hesitant in stepping into a fight which probably had already waited for week to be consumed. Again, twenty minutes…
He thought he had heard the Akashi's voice, really altered, some time before and that more unique than rare event had worried him. Since a bit, however, there was silence, at least to his ears, so maybe he could dare to take a look outside…
Generation of Miracle shooter was still wondering about what to do, while he slowly reached for the ball he had thrown a little before, when the coach, who from the stands was calling in a loud voice for Akashi, decided in his place.
"I'll go searching him." he offered himself, turning and reaching for the door with a soft running. Not that there were any other candidates for the task, truly.
He exited the gym with a strange mixture of relief and anxiety in his chest. On one hand, he felt better after deciding to do something; but, on the other, the situation which was waiting for him was all but usual for him since no Akashi nor Kuroko were used to fight with others and so he was not really sure about how to behave in front of a feud between the two.
Akashi, in the end, was the captain and he was his second, but Shintarou had to admit with himself that, that time, it was Kuroko who was right. If the Generation of Miracles could still speak about 'right', to that point.
Out of the gym it seemed a completely different world. To the cold was replaced the afternoon sun warmness which warned for the spring arrival, to the rebounds echo the sound of the cars on the street over the garden walls. There was nobody around, it was already three in the afternoon and all the other students were probably at home.
Midorima slowly walked to his left. He had heard the two's fighting coming from there, a little before, but now there was a really heavy silence and it confused him: maybe they moved away to not be heard?
Turning his head from side to side to find the comrades, the guy almost screamed when Akashi appeared all of a sudden from the alley between the left side of the first gym and the second one building, the one used by the guys from Second and Third String.
"Shintarou." the red one commented coldly, raising an eyebrow to his right hand's nervousness.
"The coach is looking for you…" this one muttered snorting and adjusting the glass on his nose to hide with the had his own shocked expression.
"I know. I heard."
Midorima lowered his hand to meet Akashi's eyes. Half gold and half ruby, since when captain's irises colour had changed even his behaviour had become completely different. Yes, Seijuro had always had a predisposition to leadership, an attitude and a voice like a dressed in soft velvet tyrant, and a good inclination for sadism, but since then it was as if each one of these traits – which more or less made him unique and that the others members of Generation of Miracles had learn to accept and like – was corrupted, magnified and decomposed, almost coloured in black. Akashi had become a completely different person, careless of others and indifferent toward whoever was not useful to his plans, and Midorima had to admit that, in some cases, something in his face had scared him. And that something, which the shooter still hadn't identified, was there again, nested on the bottom of the yellow eye, threateningly shining.
Shintarou felt an unpleasant shiver running down his spine.
"Where is Kuroko?" he asked, in a low voice.
The light in Akashi's golden eye intensified for a second before calming down, a dog coming back to his bed, but the captain didn't change his expression.
"He decided to go home." he answered, as if it was nothing, overcoming his teammate to head to the gym, "At this point you can go too, Shintarou."
Midorima green eyes widened so much that they began tremble while he stood there, motionless and harmless while Akashi went away, staring to an empty which was threatening to swallow him.
Kuroko…too? Even he gave up? Really?
His fists tightened against his own will.
No, it wasn't something like him. He'd never surrendered in his whole life for whatever was connected with basket and he wouldn't have started doing it now, he was sure of that! Then, what…?
Midorima turned. His left shoulder, like the good left-handed he was, moved first, making his body rotate on itself to face the alley from which Akashi jumped out. His idea was to turn, chase after the red one, stop him and force out of his throat what had happened between him and the phantom guy, but his eyes, through the lenses, captured something which froze him in the middle of the gesture.
As only his left covered-in-bandages hand stood hanging toward Seijuro, quite of its own will, the rest of his body paralyzed a bit stretched forward while green irises fossilized on a white shoe without strings and on a slender pale ankle which stood out behind the big garbage cans for 'the green rubbish', with grass and branches which came out of the cover making it harder to guess what they were hiding behind.
Midorima would have bet his lucky item of the day that no one, no one, of the basket club had such thin ankles and such a pale skin, except for one. Only one.
"Kuroko!" he exclaimed jumping forward.
/\/\/\/\/\
"Kuroko!"
The Emperor turned his head, an hand already on the gym door handle, to follow with his gaze his second's figure running into the alley.
What a pity. He had really hoped Shintarou went away so that he could finish his speech with Tetsuya as soon as he had finished with the coach, but…patience.
There would have been another occasion, certainly.
The Akashi Emperor smiled to himself and entered the gym without deigning to care for his teammates anymore.
/\/\/\/\/\
"Kuroko!"
Midorima ran those seven steps between him and the garbage can, then he moved rudely the branches which emerged from the cover, but he stopped suddenly in front of the show which welcomed him.
Tetsuya was trembling and it was something that Midorima wasn't used to see, such as his face distorted in any emotion. The fact that the expression which broke his mask was a fear one worsened it all.
Curled on himself with the knees – which continued slipping to the ground because of the trembling – to his chest, the little phantom had the azure hair ruffled and the cheek as red as the eyes, bright and staring at nothing. There was a big crimson sign on his face left side, so dark that it let guess the promise of a bruise after it, and the usually thin lips were swollen, but not in the natural way which follows kisses, they were…tumefied. There was even a little cut on the right corner and a slight scarlet line filtered from it to the white chin. The hidden-in-womb arms didn't stop shaking.
Midorima couldn't believe his own eyes.
Akashi…?!
Kuroko noticed him in that moment and raised his gaze on his figure in the same way of someone awakened in the right middle of a nightmare. The azure irises stood out against the reddened sclera and were full of terror, a pure and thick one, like pitch.
"Kuroko!" Midorima repeated his name because it was the only thing his brain was able to elaborate in that moment and meanwhile his body threw itself knelt on the ground at the teammate's side and straightened his hands toward him to be an help.
Before he could reach him, the other guy curled himself even more, suddenly, and brought the arms over his face as to protect himself. He didn't say anything, but fear was permeating each one of his gestures.
It was then that Shintarou discovered where his friend's shoes strings had ended up: they were wrapped tightly and roughly around his wrists, tying them together.
For a moment, only one, even Midorima's hands trembled.
But then he shook his head and his gaze, now still, fixed again on Tetsuya.
"Kuroko, wait!" he tried to stretch more the hands toward him, but the phantom shrank back.
The azure one began shaking his head. The hands moved as if trying to cover his ears but the tied wrists prevented him from it. He closed his eyes and hid the face by bending it even more, sticking it to the knees putting the arms between tights and belly. He was like a hedgehog, but he didn't have stings to defend himself and Midorima knew it.
Except for Kise, Tetsuya was the frailer among them.
"Kuroko!" he repeated, the anxiety in his voice was growing, "Kuroko!"
His hands ran to the littler one's shoulders. This one started wriggling, restless and scared, but Midorima didn't let him escape, wrapped his arms around that thin body and pulled it against his chest then he blocked him there and waited.
Tetsuya waggled again and again and again, unable to stop, for seconds which seemed hours, but then…he blocked. It was so sudden that even Midorima was taken by surprise.
The azure one stood motionless, tense, for a moment, then he cowered against the green one's chest and burst out crying sobs full of fright and pain, of suffering and betrayal.
Midorima was the only one in the Generation of Miracles who knew there was a relationship between Akashi and Kuroko: he didn't dare to imagine what the guy was feeling by being treated in that way by the person who should have loved and respected him more than everyone else.
He pretended with himself to forget the strings which were still wrapping Kuroko's wrists and he limited to move an hand to the covered in azure hair nape, to sigh and to stood still letting his shirt to be wet by other's tears instead of his own training sweat.
/\/\/\/\/\
It asked for more than predicted to remove the strings from Kuroko's wrists and it was a pitiful operation which deeply upset Midorima.
After a bit knelt on the ground with his friend crying on his chest, the green one had decided that letting Akashi find them (and Kuroko meeting the red one again so soon) was the worst thing he could have done, so he had taken the phantom in his arms and had brought him almost running, but discretionally, into the other gym locker room, which he knew was empty and where he was sure to find a first aid kit.
Kuroko's wrists had been tied so tightly that there were already bruises more black than purple, and plus the strings fabric had scraped off whole inches of skin while the guy was trying to get free. There were cuts and scratches, even burns from rubbing, and so Midorima had to roll out slowly the lace from his friend's body, and even with the highest attention he ended up taking away big epidermis flaps.
When he finished, finally, blood gutters as thin as sewing thread were slipping along Kuroko's arms and the green one's brain was not able yet to elaborate something which wasn't his teammate's name.
He wrapped some gauze around the wounds, paying attention to not tightening it too much and peeking the younger's face to be sure of not scaring him. He felt like walking on eggs: he absolutely didn't want Kuroko to come back to the state he was in when he had found him and he was scared of terrifying him with each gesture so he moved slowly, looked for his eyes before moving his fingers closer to the other's skin, kept his hands away from the littler one's face despite the bruise because Tetsuya didn't seem to be able to accept any physical contact on his visage.
Inside himself, truth to be said, Midorima was shocked: did really Akashi come to that?!, with Kuroko, moreover?! Was the situation that serious?!
"Maybe it's the case…" Midorima hesitated. He passed an hand through his hair trying to put an order into his ideas, but the gesture made Tetsuya jerked, as if he was fearing to be slapped by the green one. "…I accompany you home." It should have been a question, but came out as a sentence from Shintarou's mouth after he saw that reaction in the phantom. He couldn't let him go around all alone in that state!
But Kuroko wasn't of the same opinion.
He jumped on his feet and passed over Midorima then draw back of a couple of steps, coming near the door but keeping the green one in front of himself. He staggered and for a moment his legs threatened not to hold him, but Tetsuya found who-knows-where the strength to stay on his feet. He wrapped his arms around his own waist and shook his head.
"Thanks for all, Midorima-kun…" he said, the voice too much low for the other to catch the emotion inside it, "Now I…need…to go, I think."
"Kuroko…!" Shintarou tried to stop him, but made the mistake to divert his gaze from the teammate for a moment, just the time to lift on his feet, and when he looked for him, Tetsuya had already vanished.
Midorima thought himself a composed and polite guy, with a cold blood, but the same in that moment he soundly and vulgarly cursed again the Generation of Miracles sixth man's Misdirection.
/\/\/\/\/\
Just a few knew it, because he was used to make everything at his first attempt, but Midorima was stubborn. A lot.
Because of that, even without seeing his friend, he made the route to Kuroko's house and stood still watching its door since when he saw it opening and he was able to catch, barely, a little figure with azure hair entering the chink before vanishing and closing the door after him.
Only then he resolved to turning and heading to his own house.
/\/\/\/\/\
He waited for Kuroko at the school entrance, but the boy escaped him. He went to the other's class door, but he managed to sneak off passing under his arm when a girl asked the green one who he was looking for. He hunted him on the roof, near the snack food distributors, in the library, but with no results.
When he went to the gym, he felt something breaking in his chest at the sight of the coach pulling the number fifteen shirt out from a team bag and throwing it into the box of the still-to-be-assigned uniforms.
A part of him didn't want to give up, and it was the one who pushed him to turn his back to the building to run toward the exit, but another one was painfully aware that, if Tetsuya had reached the point of leaving the team, then it was really too late.
Maybe it was the anxiety, maybe the fact that there was nobody else who could diverted his attention, maybe it was just a case, but Midorima managed to see Tetsuya through the Maji Burger windows, empty because it was four o' clock in the afternoon.
He put up the most indignant expression he managed to find and entered the restaurant ignoring the surprised looks his training dressing and his dangerous aura were catching.
He arrived in front of the phantom and watched him tossing a vanilla milk-shake glass in his hands. It was peculiar that he hadn't already drink not even a drop, as it could be guessed by looking through the transparent cover of the glass: usually, it was rare for Kuroko's milk-shake to last more than a minute. They were a drug for the phantom and the mere fact that he didn't show interest in one of them was a proof of how much shocked he was.
"Kuroko." Midorima had entered with the idea of seeming threatening and shaking a bit his comrade, but the sight of him had deleted his attempts making his voice a worried whisper and melting his irritated expression in one of aware defeat.
Tetsuya didn't answer but shook his shoulders as if the green had effectively said something meaningful, so Shintarou couldn't help but sigh and sit in front of the friend.
"You know leaving the basketball club won't solve Akashi's problem, don't you?" he slowly asked, "You'll avoid it, but won't help him."
Kuroko didn't raise his eyes from the glass.
"Akashi's problem…" he repeated in a low voice, "Not the problem with Akashi." He swallowed and his grip on the glass strengthened a bit. "Did…" his voice was a whisper barely audible, "Did you notice too?"
Midorima swallowed too, but nodded. As much as he wanted to continue keeping silent and pretending nothing was happening, the situation was already degenerated and they couldn't ignore the problem anymore.
"Do you think it's…an emotions disturb or something similar?" he asked. In the end, Tetsuya was the closest to Akashi, the one with more possibility to guess the problem nature.
"Dual personality." the phantom murmured.
Shintarou sighed. He raised an hand and ordered a milk-shake for him too, then he crossed his hands and posed his chin on them.
He did think about it too, since when he heard Tetsuya asking Akashi "Who are you?", but hearing it said straight to his face made everything sound even more absurd.
"How is it…" he hesitated, looking for the correct word, "…healed?"
Kuroko shook his shoulders again. It seemed that was the only answer he knew to express his confusion and Shintarou was starting hating it.
Well!, he said, thinking something completely different, Since we have no idea of how to stop him, we need at least to find a way to limit the damages…
"Stay away from him."
Kuroko raised his eyes on Midorima. He seemed to be surprised but it was difficult to say it since he had retrieved his mask: there was only a glimmer on the bottom of his gaze which gave an idea of the emotion he was feeling, but even that was really vague.
"Stay away from him." the green one repeated, become him the one who lowered his eyes on the glass in his hands, "I know you two have…a bound, but this…this is not Akashi. Not the one we used to know, at least."
Kuroko scanned Midorima's face since when this one raised his eyes on his. Tetsuya's face barely showed the cut on his lip, the guy seemed in his full health and the shooter needed a moment to realize the visage was covered by a really light foundation cream and to notice that he was wearing his cuffs even if he had quitted basket.
He never contradict himself., he bitterly thought checking every trait of the phantom's uncovered skin, He almost managed to trick even me.
The azure one nodded, awakening Midorima from his thoughts, then he lowered his eyes.
Shintarou couldn't bear seeing him in that way, submitted and bended like he'd never been in his whole life.
"Kuroko."
The guy looked at him.
"Tomorrow we'll have lunch together." the green one established, striving to not blush.
Tetsuya stared at him. When Senshirou's cheeks reached the Bordeaux tonality, the phantom lowered his eyes again.
But this time, finally, he raised his glass and brought the straw to his lips.
/\/\/\/\/\
That only lunch became two, then three than four. It became that Midorima couldn't stop anymore from lurking out of Kuroko's class to stop and drag him to eat by force. He told himself he was doing that because the few times he didn't, Tetsuya hadn't touch food, lost in the limbo which seemed to be his only hideout now that his whole life was falling apart.
Sat on the bench under the library windows, in the school rear where nobody went, Shintarou observed Kuroko near him and thought he could guess, if not really understand, how bad he was feeling: his friend of a life who taught him basket was forever lost, moved who knows where after Kuroko's own teammates had humiliated him with a match whose result had already been decided a lot before the beginning; the team for which he had sacrificed himself up to capacity had broken in pieces and each one of the components had left on his own path; his light refused to play and to speak with him; his boyfriend had fallen under the strength of a second personality which had revealed itself as violent and dangerous, so much that it arrived to hurt Tetsuya himself. Midorima had checked Kuroko's sign, Aquarius, just one time right after the fight with Akashi: Oha Asa told that for him was opening a long dark period and after that the green guy had refused to check his friend's disgraces.
"Nothing is good, for you, lately, isn't it?" he asked, absentmindedly, staring at the sandwich in his fingers.
Kuroko raised his gaze on his friend. He stood still for a moment, thinking, then he lowered his eyes on his vanilla milk-shake. Midorima had taken the habit of buying him one before entering school, since he came from that direction, and to brought it to him inside a thermos which kept it fresh. He tried to told him he was stupid losing all that time each day, but Shintarou simply answered him to keep silent and that he did it because, after the first time, his valuations in Japanese had grown better and so that rite was his new lucky charm. He never truly believed it, but pretended to do it.
"Midorima-kun is still here." he replied in a low voice.
The called one jerked before turning his head all of a sudden toward the phantom. This one didn't raise his gaze from the glass, but his lips bent a bit in the idea of a smile. It was not a full one which reached his eyes, but the same a good sign.
"As long as Midorima-kun stays," Tetsuya continued, "I'll have something good still."
It was the end. Shintarou couldn't wait anymore.
"Kuroko."
The phantom raised his gaze on the comrade hearing that a little abrupt calling, but when he turned his head Midorima was fast to put the free from his lunch hand behind the other's nape and pressing the lips on his half-opened mouth.
Tetsuya stiffened. But didn't flinched.
Midorima felt the tension abandoning his own shoulders and loosened a bit his grip on the azure's nape. He passed lightly the only tongue tip on the partner lower lip, his mouth became full of a vague vanilla and milk flavour, and then he stood back and opened his eyes to observe Kuroko, who had not even closed his.
Midorima read an whole speech in those light blue irises, a speech which hurt him, but when Tetsuya parted his lips, a lot of seconds after, the words he said were really different by the ones he was expecting him to say.
"I promise nothing, Midorima-kun." he was whispering, "I can try, but I can't promise."
Shintarou nodded before bending and kissing Kuroko a second time, with more slowness and sweetness, dedicating with his tongue a particularly gentle caress to the little crust of the wound in the corner of his mouth.
A try was more than what he had expected to receive and he could do it. He could lead Kuroko to fall in love with him, he could undermine Akashi from his throne in Tetsuya's mind and he could be, just once, the winner.
/\/\/\/\/\
The kisses became deeper, the hands bolder, the moan louder, the temperature hotter, but Tetsuya's shoulders stood stiff.
/\/\/\/\/\
Midorima stood still even when Aomine, Kise and Murasakibara were gone from the gym. Each one in a different direction.
It was done. Midorima didn't come to the meeting called by the captain to take part to his foolishness, but in the end he was in the same. He hadn't been able to restrain his own pride and now he was part of the Oath as much as the others and his high school first year Winter Cup would have been stained by the guilt for having not been able to keep himself out of that mud like, instead, Tetsuya managed to do by not even appearing to the meeting.
Akashi waited in front of him while continuing staring with that vaguely satisfied expression, with that smile on his lips which made others lose control, with that gaze of a champion challenged by a capricious child.
"Do you want something, Shintarou?"
"This time, you're wrong, Akashi. Kuroko won't take part to this idiocy, he's not interested in proving who's the strongest." Midorima didn't want to seem arrogant, but he couldn't help himself. He was Akashi's friend, but this one wasn't Akashi: he was simply the bastard who hurt Tetsuya.
The red one smiled closing his eyes and crossing his arms in front of his chest.
"I find ironical that you define this promise an idiocy, since you're part of it," Midorima gritted his teeth because of that cheap blow, but Akashi didn't allow him to reply, "but, whatever it is, let me disagree. Tetsuya, as I already told, will step forward as much as the others. I know it."
The green one gave a contemptuous smile to the one he almost considered his ex-captain.
"He won't do it."
Akashi half-closed his eye-lids.
"Let me remind you I know Tetsuya…more intimately than you." his voice was calm and gentle, deeply in contrast with the poison inside the words. Shintarou wished to punch him straight in his face.
"Ho won't do it" he repeated the same, "and I already told you once, Akashi: it will be me the one who will teach you what defeat is, so you'd better worry more about me than about him."
Akashi raised his head and stared at Midorima straight in the eyes, his irises were no more full of irony and his expression was serious and cold.
"And I already answered you: did I ever lost to you in anything, Shintarou?"
Midorima kept silent and Akashi's lips opened in a grin. The green one began seeing red for the rage.
"In one thing you lost, Akashi." he let slip, before being able to stop himself. He hesitated when he realized what he had done: how would have reacted the red one once he had known about him and the phantom?, would Tetsuya have been in danger again? The captain's bichromatic eyes challenged the green ones of his second to continue and seemed to shouting there was nothing they didn't know. Midorima decided there was nothing left to do but following the path he had already taken. "Kuroko…is mine, now."
Surprisingly, Akashi burst out laughing, in a cruel and shrill way, and shook his head. The green one clenched his fist, furious for that reaction which seemed to be repeating the indifference of the red one, maybe to his second or maybe to his ex. The shooter turned and tried to leave, but his ex-captain's voice stopped him.
"Oh, Shintarou…" it was saying, amazed and happy, but in some way threatening, "Not even you believe in it."
/\/\/\/\/\
Shintarou waited patiently, sat on the bench behind the library, for Tetsuya to reach him. The meeting with the other Miracles, the challenge, the discussion with Akashi had upset him and he needed to meet the azure irises of the comrade to calm down at least a bit.
"Midorima-kun."
He turned, a bit surprised and a bit no, in time to see the phantom sitting near him. He was parting his lips to say something, when he noticed the brochure of an high school in his boyfriend's hands. An high school which wasn't his one.
"I'll go to Shuutoku." he said. He knew his sentence had no sense, said so suddenly, and the he had already told Tetsuya, but the other seemed to understand what was hiding behind that speech.
"I know." he answered. Midorima waited, he hoped that it wasn't as he thought it was, but in the end Kuroko added only the last blow to his delusions.
"I tried." he began murmuring, tears in his voice but not in his eyes, "I really tried, Midorima-kun. I didn't managed to."
Shintarou sighed.
He bent over Tetsuya and kissed him, with strength but paying attention to not hurt him. He made his tongue swirl into his mouth, tried to impress with fire the other's flavour in his mind, inhaled his scent without detaching their lips. And then he stood back.
"You can't fall in love just because you want to." he whispered.
If it would have been so, he knew Kuroko would have chose him: the phantom really strived to love him, to accept their relationship as if it was natural and simple, as if there wasn't in the background the discordant note of the jerking because of the sudden movements and of the nightmares and of the arms brought to cover the face when only Shintarou made the gesture to raised an hand to adjust his glasses, the shadow of the fear in Tetsuya who was no more able to love without hourly expecting a slap.
But this didn't make it less painful.
Shintarou needed a distraction, something to chang the pityful topic, and his eyes fell on the brochure in the phantom's hands, so he straightened an arm and took it to give it a look.
Seirin High School. He'd never heard it before.
He turned the brochure looking for the club section and then he searched for the basket one. And stiffened.
"It exists since only one year?! And its coach is a student girl who's just an year older than us?!" he hissed, raising a shocked gaze on the phantom, "It's a team of greenhorns without experience! The Nationals...they had never seen them neither with a telescope!"
Tetsuya shrugged.
"They were pretty good during the Inter High, last year." he said, as if that fact would have mattered something, "It was a team of only first year guys, but now I'm sure they're stronger."
Shintarou crushed the brochure in his fist, continuing staring at the azure one. A suspect was taking path in his mind, but he didn't want to believe it.
"How did they finish in the classification?" he asked, rigid.
"I don't know."
"Did they reach the final?"
Tetsuya's silence was more than exhaustive.
Midorima couldn't believe his own ears. Kuroko Tetsuya, the sixth man of the Generation of Miracles, the group of the strongest basket geniuses in Japan, wanted to become part of a third-rated school, with an awful team made of brats without experience nor talent who would have never been able even just to imagine the honour for them to have such a prodigy in their team?!, a mass of hicks who would have never even understood how to pronounce the word 'Misdirection' and who would have certainly never been able to be an adequate light for Tetsuya nor even if they put themselves all together to make a single player?!
"Is it for Akashi?!" Midorima growled, unable to restrain himself, jumping on his feet to face the friend, still sat.
Kuroko jerked, as if he'd been hit, and raised on the green one an hallucinated gaze.
"What are you saying?" he asked, his voice without inflexions, as always.
It started raining all of a sudden over the two, a thin rain which in a second became a storm. Both of them were soon soaked, but no one of the two moved or gave a sing of trying to cover himself.
Midorima had clenched his teeth on his tongue to restrain himself, but in the end it wasn't enough and he spitted out with poison what he really thought.
"It's for Akashi, isn't it?!" he repeated, with even more evilness, "Because you well know that a team like this Seirin would never reach a whatsoever final and so you'll be able to play basket as much as you want without risking to meet him?! Is this the reason?!"
Kuroko lowered his gaze on the covered by water brochure where a postage-stamp-sized photo of the team playmaker calling an action was standing out. The guy's face was deformed because of a drop which had hit him and was melting the paper.
"Those guys…fight." Tetsuya murmured, but he seemed to be lost in a memory only he had.
"All the guys fight, it's part of the game!" Midorima retorted, clenching his fists and ignoring the voice in his head saying him it wasn't true, that not all of them needed to fight to store victories and victories and victories which made them being cheered by the world as prodigies when truly they were only a group of arrogant and spoiled brats.
"They…more." Kuroko answered, he too ignoring the idea of the Generation of Miracles as if them were something different not comparable to the rest of the world, "I can't explain it differently. And they do it all together, as a team."
Midorima stiffened for a moment, but then it was all too much. He turned his back to the azure one and started leaving.
"Rubbish." was all that escaped from his lips before he turned the corner of the building.
He stopped there for minutes which reminded him of an eternity.
If Tetsuya had followed him, if he had said looking him in the eyes that he was not doing it because of Akashi, he would have accepted it, with the fact that they would have gone to different schools. He could do it, he could bear it. He almost had expected it to finish in that way.
But Kuroko had given him no other explanations, without deigning to look him straight in his face. And he had never, nor even once, answered to his question if he was doing it because of Akashi.
That was what hurt the most. That and Seijuro's voice in his head throwing in his face the truth he had so hardly worked to hide from himself.
"Oh, Shintarou… Not even you believe in it."
Midorima clenched his fists and bit his lip to blood when he heard Tetsuya's light steps leaving in the opposite direction.
For the umpteenth damned time, Akashi had beaten him, had won and taken everything.
And he was playing the loser's part with tears on his face and rain above his head.
Hi!
Yes, again... I'm here once more because my pc broke and I only had this story in my USB, waiting for me to finish it... I couldn't restrain myself!
This chapter, I need to warn you, has no beta, so there is probably a lot of mistakes: I ask for your forgiveness for them :/
Nothing more to say, this story could be seen as a Missing Moment from my other One-Shot "Breath" (which is an AkaKuro) but there's no need for you to read even that. MidoKuro is not my OTP (I totally love AkaKuro) but this was a request made by a girl who read Breath and so... In fact, I wasn't able to let the two of them end up togheter, even if I'm really sorry for Midorima :(
That was all, thank you very much for readng!
Bye bye,
Agapanto Blu