i. noticed
disclaimer: i don't own knb
"He was everything but mostly nothing, and he trod on through life with a weightless foot. He was like water, water who was shapeless and formless and anything and everything. He was Kuroko Tetsuya and he wasn't."
No one knew Kuroko Tetsuya. Throughout his whole life he'd passed through all his classes at school as if he were a ghost, as if he wasn't exactly human but instead some otherworldly figure that no one bothered to notice. It should have been easy to pick out the bright blue hair among the sea of black, but apparently, Kuroko Tetsuya was the type to defy all laws of nature. Freak, his mind supplied.
He supposed it bothered him in the very beginning, when he was a toddler who was standing right in front of his mother. She couldn't even see him. At the time he thought it was funny, but something about it was a bit unnerving. Of course, a three-year-old couldn't understand the gravity of the situation, so he giggled to let his mother know that he was right there. She'd screamed. He'd laughed.
There was probably something very wrong with him, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. Years of going unnoticed by others had hardened him, had made him detached and apathetic to the point where he couldn't actively care for anything at all. If no one made the effort to take notice of him he wouldn't reciprocate. If no one bothered to remember his name then he wouldn't either. He accepted the fact that no one knew Kuroko Tetsuya and no one ever would.
Kindergarten, first grade, second, it all didn't matter, not in the long run. He entertained the foolish thought that the slowest runners would eventually outrun the fastest runners in long distance. He sang and danced without purpose and learned to write in different styles of handwriting just for the fun of it. Ku-ro-ko, he printed neatly, and then promptly scribbled Tet-su-ya in an undignified scrawl he had copied from the boy that sat next to him in class. He was everything but mostly nothing, and he trod on through life with a weightless foot. He was like water, water who was shapeless and formless and anything and everything. He was Kuroko Tetsuya and he wasn't.
Until he discovered basketball.
He'd been ten-years-old and skinny and short. He was everything a basketball player was not, and yet, when he'd watched a local basketball competition on the TV at school he couldn't help but wish he was out there playing too. He'd watched the winning team cheer and jump up—and it suddenly struck Kuroko Tetsuya that he was inexplicably, truthfully, lonely. He'd hurried home shortly after, but not before stopping by a local sports equipment store and purchasing the cheapest ball there was. It still cost him several hundred yen.
That afternoon he tried hard to mimic the moves he'd seen that day. The dribble, the fake to the left, then right, then jump. He was disappointed that he could barely dribble without the ball bouncing off his feet, that he lost the grip on the ball during the fake, and that his jumps weren't high enough. But he wasn't discouraged. He decided to put away the basketball for now and try again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after.
He worked hard. He was of the optimistic belief that if one tried hard enough, ran fast enough, jumped high enough, one could achieve anything. He was no longer a boy without goals—he had dreams, and he worked towards them diligently. It didn't matter that he missed all the shots he tried to make or that he could barely dribble past ten feet without falling. He still remained hopeful that maybe tomorrow would show improvement. And maybe, just maybe, one day he'd have a team to call his own. Kuroko Tetsuya the basketball player sounded like a nice name.
When asked in the future about his early efforts he would remark that time had really passed them much too quickly and abruptly change the subject. When pressed he would say that he didn't remember. The truth is that he did remember, quite clearly, in fact. Kuroko was just of the belief that private topics should stay private and that his naive and endearing idealism as a child hit too close to the heart.
And then he met Ogiwara.
Was it autumn? Looking back it seemed as if they'd always known each other. Ogiwara had moved from some faraway district, maybe even from up north from Hokkaido. Either way he'd ended up sitting diagonally in front of Kuroko in fifth grade.
Ogiwara was the kid who always laughed and smiled and joked around with everybody, and Kuroko was a little jealous. But not really. Kuroko didn't get jealous, ever.
(Kuroko knew he was quite blatantly lying to himself, but frankly, he didn't care. No, he was not jealous of Ogiwara. How could he be? Kuroko had an apartment, half of a family, and a hobby—he was satisfied.)
And one day. (Kuroko would always pause when telling this story in the future.) One day at lunch Ogiwara walked up to him and asked him if he liked basketball. And Kuroko said he did. And he smiled, and Ku-ro-ko Tet-su-ya became more than water, more than the ugly scrawl of that boy who sat next to him two years ago. He was Kuroko, that boy who liked basketball. That boy who hung out with the new kid.
That boy who was noticed.
Two years later and elementary school was behind them. Even though Ogiwara and Kuroko were going to different middle schools, Kuroko still felt overwhelmingly optimistic. Of what?
He would later say he couldn't remember that either.
when you ditch all your other fics after rewatching knb for the 1908240723th time and get inspired by how the ball emits light because it moves too fast and how when a player gets especially fired up electricity is produced through the eyes. #shameless
but really let's admit it knb is cool because everyone is cute and happy and hot and we're basic af and because kuroko is a meme.
idk what this fic is gonna be or if there's gonna be any ships, like im 64% sure this is going to be a char study but. but i have no self control.
ok so expect v inconsistent updates cos i gotta figure out wut im doin with this and like. my life. oh yes.
rEVIEWS give me lIFE. pls. thanks for reading.