This was written to cheer myself up, coz life's a drag.

Discaimer: Everything is Fujimaki-sensei's, including the cover pic.

Warnings for bad English, OOCness and failed humour.

Brain versus Stomach

They sat against the large window in the food court, overlooking the streets below. Not that there was much to see, considering it was half past five in the evening – it was darkening outside and the autumn air blew a light fog over the inside of the glass. Kagami's elbow grazed the wet surface as he spasmodically threw food into his mouth.

"Kagami-kun," Kuroko watched his savage motions unblinkingly. "The fries."

Kagami paused. "What?" He spotted the subject under his arm, dangerously close to the edge of the table. "Oh, thanks." He rescued the fries from their imminent doom and resumed stuffing his face.

Kuroko sipped his milkshake slowly and watched crumbs, chicken and salad disappeared inside the gaping hole underneath Kagami's nose. It was quite a sight ten minutes ago, when he first started tearing into his tableful of 'afternoon snacks'. People walking past had the tendency to glance at the assortment of edible material between the two of them. Kuroko was kind of used to it, having sat opposite Kagami for the entirety of the summer.

"You shouldn't eat so fast, Kagami-kun," Kuroko swished his cup lightly, judging the amount of liquid left. "Coach said it's bad for your digestion."

"I'h a really good digeshtih shytem," Kagami squeezed out around a mouthful of bread. He grabbed his coke and vacuumed a third of it before swallowing. "And coach is just paranoid. She's probably scared that I'll go fat."

"You might."

"Are you serious?" kagami stared at him incredulously and flexed his coke arm. "With this much exercise you think I'll get fat? It's a public holiday today and Coach won't even let us off until, like, five minutes ago. Plus she made me run two more laps just 'cause I was hungry. She should've known it'd make me hungrier. Now she's telling me to eat less. It's like she's putting me through a shredder and expecting me to come out as a book." He slurped his drink resentfully. "I'm not made of magical soya sauce, you know."

Kuroko reached for a napkin under one of Kagami's plates and silently mopped up a dot of brown that had somehow made its way onto Kuroko's paper cup during Kagami's mini-rant. Kagami watched him, feeling oddly embarrassed. He reminded himself to not do this if he ever goes on a date.

"Anyway," He picked up the spinach that had dropped out of his quiche and stuffed it into his mouth. "Just sayin', this is for consolation."

Kuroko dropped the napkin on Kagami's tray. "Coach wants you to eat slowly, so your stomach takes less strain during digestion." He eyed Kagami's neglected plastic utensils. "I think it could be done if Kagami-kun uses the cutleries that come with the food."

Kagami picked up the second quiche with his left hand and chomped through it roughly. "Who the heck uses a knife and a fork to eat this thing? Japanese bakeries are too generous." He licked the oil off his other hand and grabbed his straw. "Besides, I've been holding chopsticks with my left hand for so long I've forgotten how to enjoy food by the chunks."

Fair enough, Kuroko thought. To be honest, it was amusing while the initial stages of Kagami's dexterity training lasted, the highlights being documented by Fukuda's phone camera: broccoli head, noodle nose hair, soup face, etc. Regrettably, idiocy aside, Kagami sure learned fast when the material did not involve the mammalian brain. While he would never draw perfect circles with that left hand – not that he could do equilateral triangles right on the other either – Kagami-kun had officially mastered the art of no-dropping, driven by the need to consume non-wind-cooled food.

Kuroko leaned back and put his shake down. Kagami paused in his eating and looked up at him with slight curiosity between his eyes.

"What?" Kagami asked.

Huh? Kuroko felt confusion wafting into his mind.

"Yes?" He countered, looking impassively back at Kagami.

Kagami wilted back in his seat. "Nothing. I mean, I don't know," He took a bite out of his burger and chewed with a frown. "You just looked kinda… happy-smiley, all of a sudden."

Happy?

"I'm not." Kuroko picked up his shake. It was still a bit unnecessarily cold. "I'm not in a good mood."

"Why?" Kagami looked genuinely perplexed.

Kuroko suppressed a smile.

"I'm worried that Kagami-kun will get fat."

There was a pregnant pause, then Kagami snorted.

"If you're hungry then you should have just said so already," He pushed the box of fries towards Kuroko. "Jeez, You should listen to a tall person's advice for once I did say you can't survive on milkshakes alone." He gestured at Kuroko's tray, which was piled high with Kagami's food. "It's why you're so short."

Kuroko stared at the fries with a little displeasure. Kagami really was the dimmest life form ever. Kuroko used to think Kagami's basketball paved one-track mind was a good thing, because it kept him afloat when he could have been dragged under, but in these instances he might just have to agree with Aomine. His annoyance was coupled with the desire to accept the offer of fries; they looked unusually warm and crispy from this angle, and his fingers were quite frozen.

Kuroko grudgingly received the friendship offering.

"Heh," Kagami grinned and dropped his unused plastic knife and fork next to the box. "Here's a bonus for Mister Japanese."

Kuroko picked them up passively.

"So Kagami-kun is scared of putting on weight."

"Hah?" Kagami leaned backwards and slurped his coke defiantly. "Where does that come from?"

Kuroko neatly laid four fries of similar size out, side by side at the bottom of the box. He stabbed each point of the four-pong fork into one starchy potato strip. "Or Kagami-kun would not be so desperate as to compare my height to his own."

Kagami's mouth dropped open in shock. "What the heck?" He scratched his head with a scowl. "I didn't say anything like that. I never said you're…" Then his face fell, like he had suddenly remembered something awful. Kuroko remained pointedly silent.

"I didn't mean anything, I swear!" Kagami cried exasperatedly.

Kuroko sheared off the long ends of his fries with his knife. He held up his fork to present Kagami with four potato cubes sitting in a line on top. Kagami grimaced. For some reason the little white squares seemed to be laughing at him. They disappeared into Kuroko's mouth.

A little creeped out, Kagami gulped down the rest of his coke and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. "You know, it's not like it's the first time someone tells you that. Haven't people been calling you short since Teiko? I'd have thought you've got used to it by–"

"Kagami-kun," Kuroko's voice was muffled by the fork in his mouth. "You have a green moustache."

He flipped open his phone and looked at the time. "It's getting late. My grandma is coming over tonight so I have to go now." He hoisted his bag over his shoulder and slid his phone into his pocket. Before he left the table he paused for a brief moment, because Kagami looked somewhat out of it. Kuroko shrugged off his concern immediately – Kagami's weirdness tends to stem from lack of functioning brain cells. "See you tomorrow, Kagami-kun," He said, lifting a teeny smile. "You can have the rest of the fries."

Kagami didn't respond.

Kuroko left with a nagging disappointment; brain freeze or not, a 'See ya' would've been nice.

Kagami stayed where he was, staring at the space where Kuroko just sat. Then he transferred his gaze to the parting gift of potato stumps, four of which were ridiculously neatly truncated. He dropped his head onto the table with a thud and groaned. Trust him to be an idiot even when he was not hungry.

He genuinely thought Kuroko was annoyed. He thought maybe, he had been a dumbass and accidentally angered Kuroko with his insensitivity (Argh, he tried, dammit!), and that's why he was racking his brain to make up for it, even if everything that came out of his mouth wasn't quite what he wanted to say. Then Kuroko looked up at him with those glassy round eyes and said, "Kagami-kun, you have a green moustache."

Embarrassment burned from the pit of his stomach up to his ears, suffocating his mind.

Kuroko was laughing. Kuroko's eyes were laughing. Kuroko was laughing at him the whole time.

Kagami banged his head down once more. Damn. What did he expect? Kuroko was evil like that. It was kind of sad, how they played so well together on the courts and once they were off, even a simple conversation wouldn't go right.

He straightened and took a breath. Why was he this bothered anyway? It wasn't even the first time Kuroko had teased him in this manner. He dipped a fry in tomato sauce and bit off its end. Suddenly he didn't understand why he was so embarrassed anymore.

It was just that…

Before revelation ruined the moment, just for a split second, he thought Kuroko's childish reaction was, just a bit…

Nausea set in his stomach. He scrunched up his face and chewed blandly.

Hell no, definitely not cute. Not cute at all.

The nausea condensed into a heavy glob. Urgh. Kuroko should have taken all the fries.

I had no clue what I was writing, and still have no idea where to go from here :u

I guess you can tell already, this is meant to be KagaKuro (yay!) with everyone else swimming around like an electron cloud. Do you guys have anything you particularly want to happen? Pairings? And if you don't like the story you can always say so :3 I'll go cry in a corner somewhere and spit out another chapter sometime when I get stressed (likely soon, considering the finals are coming).

Ouch, I think I fell into self-pity again.