Disclaimer: Kuroko no Basuke belongs to Fujimaki Tadatoshi.

As Sweet As Vanilla Milkshakes

...

2. You're Not Very Sweet, Are You?

Kagami was forced along with the pink haired girl as they weaved through the crowd. He hoped it was worth it, being dragged by her, and hoped that she would know the perfect present for Kuroko. After all, she was the former manager of Teikou, and had a knack for stalki―gathering information.

His sleeve was pulled this way and that, until finally, they ducked into a small, but cozy shop. A bell rang, signalling their arrival.

At a wooden desk with a cash register, a young lady sat, glancing up from a thick book. "Ah. Welcome. Take your time and please find something you'd like."

Kagami took the time as Momoi responded to the cashier's greeting to look around the shop. It was a bookstore, and its dark wooden shelves reached up to the ceiling, reminding him of some ancient library. Despite its exterior, the store was way bigger than it had seemed, containing about six to ten shelves.

He was almost about to compliment Momoi. Why didn't he think of it? Kuroko was always walking around with his nose buried in some book. But the question is, which ones?

The ace went to the nearest shelf, and pulled out a thick book. Harry Potter, translated into Japanese. Although Kagami wasn't that great with literature, he might have even volunteered to read a book, if only it was in English.

He set the book back into place, and spotted Momoi standing on her tippy-toes in another aisle.

"Need help?" he asked as he made his way to where she stood.

Magenta eyes stared at him pleadingly, and she pointed to a green covered book just beyond her reach. Kagami sighed, and plucked the book from its place, handing it to her.

"Tetsu-kun's been looking forward to this book being published for a long time now! He'll definitely like it!" the girl squealed, not even bothering to thank the redhead, as she hugged the book to her chest like it was a treasure that could be stolen away at any second. "And I told him that it wasn't going to be out until next month! He'll be so shocked to see this! Come on! I'm going to go pay for it now."

"Wait! But I need to get Kuroko something too! Help me here!" Kagami panicked, raising his voice. The shop lady looked at him. He felt blood rush to his face. "Please," he added in a whisper.

Momoi pouted. "Tetsu-kun is really confusing! I don't know what other books he wanted. Besides, he might have read them already."

Kagami frowned, all hopes lost. Why did couldn't it have been Ahomine who had gotten stuck with her instead of him? Though on the other hand, the tanned boy was also stuck with that annoying blond, so maybe they were equal. But still, he had the vague feeling (that was probably the truth) that Momoi had pretty much just ditched him, leaving him to his own devices.

'I feel used.'

When they exited the store with Momoi humming out of tune while clutching the wrapped book tightly, Kagami looked across the street and saw a poster that had his hopes flying all over the place.

"Enter the contest to win!" was on the poster, along with a picture of a pair of basketball shoes. It looked like one of the really expensive ones, too. To add to this, Kagami could swear he could see a signature on the side of the shoes.

He hurried to an intersection, waiting impatiently for the lights to turn green. Momoi ran behind him, trying to catch up. "Slow down, Kagamin!"

The tall boy didn't hear her, and crossed the street amongst the swarms of people. It was almost worse than lunch time.

When he finally reached the store, which sold sports equipment, Kagami saw a signature on the poster that he's been longing to have on his own basketball shoes since...well, as long as he had known the player.

"What's this, Kagamin?" Momoi asked, gazing at the poster in admiration. "'First to bring in all the items before January 30th wins the contest. For more details, visit our website .' Wow! Are you going to get this for Tetsu-kun?"

A grin spread across Kagami's face.

Kagami's head lulled forward, slipping from where he rested it against his palm a few moments ago. He caught himself before his face could smash into the desk.

The teacher was writing stuff on the board again. He couldn't even comprehend the words, so he'll probably have to ask Kuroko for notes again after class.

After that whole burning-a-hole-through-Kuroko's-head incident, Kagami had requested the pale boy to switch seats with him. The other had readily agreed, murmuring something about distracting and learning and listening to the teacher. Now, Kagami could stare a hole through the black haired girl's head in front of him.

Luckily, she didn't notice.

He had spent the night before looking through all the required items for the scavenger hunt. They seemed normal enough...but Kagami just didn't know where to get it. With the deadline was just over a week away, Kagami could use some help from the rest of the Seirin basketball team. The only problem was that he had to figure out a way to tell them all without Kuroko finding out.

Mentally, he made a list of all the things that he could gather right away. Lip gloss was easy enough to find, and same with a paper crane. The ones he wasn't so sure about was the porcelain frog, a carrot stuffy with glasses, and a signature from someone famous in the basketball world.

'Seriously! They're asking us to exchange an autograph for something that's autographed?!'

There was a tap on his back, and he bristled, almost yelling out loud, if it wasn't for the fact that class was still going on.

"Kagami-kun, can you please duck down a little? You're blocking the board," Kuroko's voice reached the redhead's ears. It was always Kuroko scaring thr crap out of him, wasn't it?

He didn't know why he complied, but he slumped down, just a little.

"Thank you."

'Despite his appearance, he's actually really evil!'

"What was the website again?" Kise asked as he opened up the browser on Aomine's laptop.

Aomine sighed, and handed him a slip of paper with the address written on it with Kise's weird but neat handwriting. The blond tapped it in quickly, as Aomine flopped himself onto his bed. He really needed to get a new bed, the proof being his feet were almost dangling over the edge.

Kise and Aomine had looked over their basketball schedules, and had decided to meet up on the day they were free. It was a Saturday afternoon, and Kise had come to Tokyo to do a photo shoot in the morning. Aomine was glad he wasn't forced to go over to Kise's house all the way in Kanagawa. He felt even the walk to the bakery across the street was a mile away when he had to go buy breakfast that morning.

The blue haired boy closed his eyes, listening to clicks and taps of the keyboard as Kise read through the website's contents.

"Ah! Aominecchi! It says here all the things we'll need for the scavenger hunt: Popin' Cooking doughnut kit, snow globe, Rilakkuma stuffy, music box..."

Aomine moaned in defeat as the blond listed off the items. Already, he had no idea what half the things were. The hell's a Popin' Cooking doughnut kit?

"How many things do we need to get?" Aomine's voice cracked. 'Tetsu better appreciate what I'm doing for him.'

"A hundred fifty."

Aomine's lids flew open. "Eh?"

"A hundred fifty," Kise repeated, cocking his head sideways as he threw Aomine a look. "What's wrong?"

Dark hands covered his eyes. "Agh!"

'Tetsu, you bastard! This is the last birthday present I'm ever gonna get you!'

"Can't we just buy a random pair of shoes signed by Kobe or something? That's easier to get than that Popping Cooking Mama Doughnut," Aomine insisted.

The power forward could see Kise raising an eyebrow from behind his lids. "It's Popin' Cooking, Aominecchi. Besides, do you have money to buy shoes?"

"Whatever it's called, yeah, I've got money." Not much, but Kise would chip in too, right? He had a part-time modelling job, after all, so he couldn't be broke or anything. Although Aomine knew that Kise's demon of a mother wouldn't let anyone touch that money, since it was going into the blond's university funds. So maybe that was a lie.

"How many days is it until Kurokocchi's birthday?"

"Uh..." Today was the 25th, so, "a week?"

The other 'hmm'-ed. "Buying things from online would probably be late for Kurokocchi's birthday. I think the things on this list would be pretty easy to get, if we all work together."

"Huh? Together? All?" Aomine peeked through his fingers at Kise, who began grinning idiotically at him.

"I messaged Midorimacchi about it, and Akashicchi and Murasakibaracchi too. Midorimacchi would be a great help, right? His lucky items are pretty scavenger hunt-ish, yeah?" Kise nodded, almost as if he was inwardly complimenting himself for his great work. "I was going to text Momocchi too, but I figured that you would have told her about it already."

At that last part, Touou's ace scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "About that..."

[...]

"So what did you two find today?" Momoi looked sideways at her childhood friend, as she cradled a cup of hot tea.

The two sat in a small restaurant, waiting for their orders to come. In the school bag that sat on the chair beside her, Kuroko's present rested snugly, away from the prying eyes of Aomine.

The boy glared at her. "None of your business. What did you get? Did you even get anything?"

She gazed back at him, and said in an equally cold voice, "none of your business."

The tension was still present when a waitress set steaming bowls of yakisoba noodles in front of the two, who were having a staring contest with each other from across the table. To be honest, Aomine really was curious as to what Momoi had bought (or maybe didn't buy) for Kuroko, but he didn't want to reveal what he had wanted to get for his former shadow to her, either. He wanted her to be surprised as much as Kuroko, to let her see how much he could do on his own without her help.

To sum it up, they're just both really stubborn, so they ate their meal in silence.

[...]

"Yeah, I didn't tell her."

Kise made an expression that showed that he had known the exact reason why. "You're so childish, Aominecchi."

"Hah?!"

I have no idea . ahahaha.

I mean, at first I thought it'd be nice to write a happy story, but now it's like...bleh?

idk anymore. AHKHGKLAHGL.

agh, i was really planning to finish this story by now, but my life became clogged up by basketball orz really sorry!

but. thanks for reading / making it to the second chapter, I mean seriously, how. Thank you for the reviews, too, they made me squeal in happiness (: