"Hey, are you okay?"
The bedsprings creak as Taiga rolls to his other side and let his eyes stay on the figure beneath the blankets.
Kuroko looks up at his partner from where he's lying on a spare futon on the floor, face the same as always except for the sunburns. "We have been running in the sand all day, but I'll be fine by tomorrow."
"Ah, yeah. Good." Taiga nods awkwardly and turns over to lie on his stomach. That hadn't been what he was going for but whatever.
"Goodnight, Kagami-kun. I have set the alarm for 6."
Taiga groans into his pillow and mutters angrily as he shifts on his bed.
"If Kagami-kun is late again, Coach said she will triple your weight training."
"Don't remind me, damn it. Coach is the devil, I tell you."
Kuroko has nothing to say to that because in all honesty, their Coach's training regimes switch between exhausting and deadly. And she always makes sure her threats are carried out if her rules are broken.
"Really though, are you okay? I mean, you've been kind of..." Taiga pauses to search for the right word because distant makes him sound like a whiny girlfriend. He quickly decides screw it because Taiga is a failure with words, and Kuroko is cool enough for him to say weird shit. "... distant."
"I've just been tired. I have to take care of Number Two and keep up with practice." Taiga's face twitches at the mention of the furry beast. "But thank you for noticing."
It's one of the things about Kuroko that Taiga doesn't know how to deal with. The occasional thing Kuroko'll just spew out like it's whatever, and it makes Taiga wonder if Kuroko does it because he enjoys watching other people struggle to find an answer, or because he's never had people who cared much if he said those things. It wouldn't surprise Taiga. His memories of the Generation of Miracle players often make him look at Kuroko and wonder how it must've been at Teiko.
"Your thinking is very loud, Kagami-kun. You need your sleep." What the...?
"Sorry. 'Night."
"Goodnight, Kagami-kun."
The feeling that something is off with Kuroko stays with Taiga for the rest of the team's training camp, and it doesn't go away when they're back at their own gym.
"Kagami-kun."
Taiga finishes tying his shoelace and turns to see Kiyoshi walking towards him.
"Yeah?"
Kiyoshi glances to his right where Koganei is talking to (himself) Mitobe and Kuroko, then back at Taiga. "Do you know if there's anything wrong with Kuroko? It's not that his play has been worse, if anything it's gotten better, but there's just something..."
Taiga knows what Kiyoshi is getting at. Taiga still depends on Kuroko to be there when he passes a ball just as the rest of the guys do and Kuroko's passes are the same. Still there was something... but Taiga has no idea what. Only now he knows there's something, if Kiyoshi also has noticed.
"Nothing I know of," Taiga vaguely replies. "But you know he doesn't like to talk about personal stuff."
"I know. I guess I'd hoped you'd know since you're best friends."
"We're not girls, senpai. We don't meet up and talk about feelings." Taiga can't help but feel as if he has to defend himself, even if he knows his senpai doesn't mean it as a jab against Taiga's friendship with Kuroko.
"That wasn't what I meant, Kagami-kun," Kiyoshi smiles briefly before he looks serious again. "Even if I haven' known him for that long, I still feel he's changed."
Taiga gives a grunt of agreement and stands up. "It started after the game against Touou. I just thought, you know, it was because we lost to that Aomine guy. Guess it wasn't that after all..."
"Ah." Kiyoshi purses his lips thoughtfully and looks over at Kuroko. Taiga sees Kuroko staring back at them, and he instantly feels as if he's been caught talking trash.
"Well, if Kuroko wants our help, he knows he only has to ask for it." There the guy goes, smiling like an idiot again, and it irritates Taiga because everyone and their grandmother knows bad things follow that smile.
Taiga doesn't respond and gets back to training. He can feel Kuroko watching him for the rest of the day.
Yet another practice ends with Coach looking like a cat with a bird in its mouth and the Seirin players barely able to stand on their feet. Well, most of them anyway.
"Oi, Kuroko," Taiga catches the attention of Kuroko when they're on their way home. "Let's meet up at noon at the court tomorrow."
"Sorry, Kagami-kun, but I already have plans this weekend."
"How 'bout tonight, then? I wanna try out something cool." Taiga tries again because damn it, Kuroko isn't getting out of this one.
"I can't. I have to pack and catch my train."
"Huh? You're going somewhere?"
"Kyoto. Just for the weekend, though."
"Uh, yeah, sure, that's cool."
"I'll see you on Monday, Kagami-kun."
"Yeah, bye," Taiga calls after Kuroko but he's already well on his way down the left path. Taiga stares at Kuroko's back walking away. He feels as if there's something off but it can't be that bad. It's not like Kuroko is becoming depressed or anything... is it? Damn, he Taiga didn't join the Seirin team to be a freaking shrink. Kuroko can handle himself just fine.
Taiga comes home and dumps his bags on the floor and hits the shower because no matter how nice it would be, he doesn't smell like flowers when he's been running around a gym all day. Taiga wonders who Kuroko is going to visit. Not to sound like a douchebag – even if he honestly did - but Kuroko doesn't seem to have friends outside of basketball. And they always play on weekends. It's their thing. But hey, Taiga has family on another continent. It's not strange that Kuroko has family in another region. Besides, Taiga could really go for some burgers about now.