Thank you so much for reading n to this second chapter. I hope you enjoy what I have typed up for today.

I've decided to make update days Fridays and Saturdays

humor (or at least what I hope is somewhat funny) ahead - Crackish...

Mungo: A dumpster diver, one who extracts valuable things from trash

"Now, everybody, you are each free to look around and buy one thing for Riko that is not too expensive. We'll meet back here at the entrance in an hour." Announced Seirin's captain, Junpei Hyūga. The entire basketball team had gathered at the mall in search of birthday presents for their manager. "We'll be using the buddy system so remember, if you lose your buddy," a dark, sadistic smile spread across his face, "don't bother coming back."

Hyūga held up a clipboard and began flipping through the pages. "And to review, the list of things we will not be getting her includes: dirty magazines, birth control pills, undergarments, subscriptions to bass fisher's monthly, framed pictures of stranger's babies, tampons..."

Koga began to slowly tune out the voice of his captain. They had gone over this list at least six different times today already and he knew it by heart. Mostly because he'd been the one to make half the denied suggestions on the list in the first place... But never mind that. Right now Koga had to focus on thinking up another idea for Riko's gift.

Now, let's see. Riko was a girl and girls liked pretty things. pretty things like... flowers. Yeah, girls liked plants and junk and green things like that. So he could get her something like... Like...
A cactus.

"Hey Hyūga!" Koga cut in loudly while obnoxiously waving his hand. "What about plants? Can we get her a plant?"

Hyūga got over his mild annoyance at being interupted to silently contemplate the question. "Plants... Hm..." He rubbed his chin. "I suppose that's exceptable..."

"Woohoo! Come on Mitobe, let's go find the cactus store!" Mitobe was dragged away by his 'buddy' before anybody could react.

"Well... erm, okay. Back to business. Remember to not cause any unneccesary trouble and to carry a phone on you at all times and-"

"Um, Hyūga-senpai," Interupted a powerful voice again.

"What is it Kagami!" He snapped back, irritated about being interupted a second time.

The uncommonly tall redhead seemed to be looking for somebody as he peered around their group. "I think we lost Kuroko."

Everybody took a moment to peer around the area for their shortest companion. "It appears you are right Kagami. Okay then, everybody go off and look for a present, except Kagami. You go find Kuroko." Hyūga declared.

"Wait, Why me?!"

"Because he is your buddy Kagami, and if you do not find your buddy by the time we meet in an hour, you will be left behind to find your own ride home."

Kagami saw that his tone of voice left no room for protest, so, relucently, he began to walk in a random direction to search for the boy while everybody else windowshopped. He pulled out his cellphone and scrolled through his contacts until he reached the name labeled "kuroko".The phone rang twice before a familiar voice picked up.

"Hello."

"Kuroko!" Kagami yelled into the phone. "Where the hell are you?"

"Well good day to you too, Kagami." Came the emotionless response which somehow managed to carry the tone of sarcasm.

The star player of their team was momentarily shocked at the out of character sassiness of his friend. After a second he had recovered and repeated,"Where are you?"

A yawn was recieved from the the other end before he answered, "The mall's child daycare service."

"...What? Why?"

"While you and the rest of the team were talking, a mall cop came up to me and told me I had to leave Tetsu #2 in the animal care center. I don't think any of you noticed I left." Kuroko explained as Kagami laughed sheepishly for not noticing his shadow's disappearance, once again. "But after I dropped him off, I got lost on my way back to where everybody else was. Another mall cop found me and saw that i was lost then took me to the day care."

Kuroko was currently having a miniature teaparty with two other little girls who had let him borrow one of their purple feather boas with matching tiara and boy did he feel fabulous. Screaming kids ran around the colorful day care, throwing toys and picking their noses. A little, brown haired boy approached the tiny table and began obnoxiously yelling, "excuse me! Excuse me Mr. Bluehaired boy! Escuuuuuusssssse me!" As he tried to get Kuroko's attention away from the phone and at him.

"One second, Kagami." Kuroko said into his phone before covering it with his hand and leaning over towards the annoying kid. He looked at him with bored eyes and slowly whispered in an intimidatingly quiet voice, "I will set you and every toy you've ever loved on fire." A terrified expression crossed the boy's face as he shut up.

"Okay. I'm back." Kagami could hear the distant sound of a crying kid in the background."Anyways, they won't let me leave until I can prove that I'm sixteen."

Kagami had to restrain himself from outright laughing. "What? They don't believe you're actually in highschool?"

"This is not amusing." Kuroko dead panned, silencing his teammate's laughs.

"Okay, okay. I'm coming to pick you up now. I'll be there in a few minutes." He hung up the phone and changed his direction towards the mall's child daycare center.

Kuroko tucked his cellphone back into his pants pocket. "Okay then, Princess Tiffany, Madam Sarah. Where were we?"

One of the 5 year old girls lifted up an empty, pink teapot. "Would you like some more tea, Prince Blueberry Cotton Candy Head?"

"And some more lumps of sugar?" Added the other girl.

"I'd love some."

Kagami had reached the reception desk where a young woman,attractive and most likely in her late twenties, was sitting behind the counter, chewing on her gum(in a rather obnoxious manner actually...).

"Um hello." He waved his hand in front of her face to get her attention off of the magazine she was reading.

"Oh, hey. How can I help you." She asked with a slight hint of annoyance in her voice.

"I'm looking for my teammate. I think he came in as a... Lost kid?"

The lady took out a pen and a notepad. "Name and description please."

"His name's Kuroko Tetsuya. He's about this tall," Kagami indicated the height by lifting his hand to below his shoulder. "Um, his hair's blue, I think his eyes are too..."

"Woah, woah woah," she stopped him, seeming somewhat excited for some reason. "Are you talking about that shorty who came in 20 minutes ago?" Kagami nodded uncertainly. "He's your teammate? You guys are the same age?" Again Kagami nodded uncertainly. "Hey Jerry!" The woman called through a door behind her chair. "Get this, that Bluehaired kid was telling the truth! He really is 16!"

A man appeared through the door. "Oh yeah, we forgot to tell you, April. That kid finally found his I.D. and proved he's actually in highschool. He left about 7 seven minutes ago."

"Man," the receptionist named April cooed. "I thought he was in elementary school when Mickey brought him in. To think he spent all that time in a little kid's day care center..."

"Wait, back up a second." Kagami interupted their conversation and reminded them that he was still there. "Did you just say he already left?"

The man named Jerry spoke up again. "Yeah, it's been like 7, maybe 10 now, minutes."

Kagami said something foul under his breath as he walked away from the desk, ignoring the still laughing April, and pulled out his phone again.

"The hell, Kuroko!" He yelled when he answered.

"Oh, yeah. Hello Kagami. I forgot to call and tell you, I finally found my ID and was able to prove my age." Kuroko said in an annoyingly calm voice.

"How do you even forget that!" Kagmi fumed, but took a deep breath to calm down. "Okay, whatever. Where are you now?"

"I picked up Tetsu #2 and now I'm at the dump behind the mall."

"...what?"

"Yeah, I'm hanging out with some mungos."

It took a bit longer for Kagami to collect himself and process this information. In his head he counted backwards from ten then took to large gulps of air.

"Kuroko..." He started off very slowly. "First of all, what. The hell's. A mungo."

"A dumpster diver. There's like a whole colony of them behind the mall. They invited me to search for treasure with them."

"All right... Second of all-"

"Give me a minute, some more people just showed u- wait a second... Is that?"

"Tetsu! Is that you?"

"Oh, Hello Aomine. What are you doing here? Are you a mungo too?"

"The hell? That damn Aomine's there too?

"Yeah, it's a new hobby I picked up that I do anytime I'm not busy with basketball. Oh, you brought your dog, what's up little buddy?"

"Don't call me that."

"I was talking to the dog."

"Kuroko! What is going on?"

"Oh, hey Kagami. Did you know Aomine's a mungo?"

"You're talking with Kagami? Pass the phone, I wanna talk with that assho-"

"Kuroko, I'm coming right now to pick you up." Without anything more said, he hung up the phone, cutting off the commotion from the other side.

Why did stuff like this always happen whenever Kuroko's involed? One day... Just one normal day would be nice where he didn't have to deal with it...

Kagami checked the time and saw that he had to hurry up. The back exit was on the other side of the mall and he'd have to jog to make it there and back to the meeting point at entrance on time if he wanted a ride home.

A very irritated Hyūga stood alone at the entrance of the mall, tapping his foot irritably with his arms crossed. "They're late" he grumbled to himself as he watched the three figures in the distance weaving their way through the crowd, bumping into and knocking over people.

"H-Hyūga-senpai," Kagami panted as he tried to regain his breath when they finally reached the captain. "I'm sorry we're-"

"Late." Finished the senior, matter-of-factly. "Please be so kind as to explain to me why all three of you are covered in trash, and why, in fact, are there three of you?"

"You see Kuroko, met these Mungos and Aomine was with them, but then he didn't want to leave, so I had to jump in and drag him out then-"

"Mung-what?" He cut in, puzzled. "Never mind that. Did you even bother to get your manager a birthday present?"

Kuroko lifted a jar which held yellow, waxy contents inside. "I found a banana scented candle in the dumpster."

Hyūga just continued to stare disapprovingly at the three. "You know, you could have at least-"

"Captain!" Yelled a sudden voice from behind. "We found the cactus store!"
They all turned to see an excited Koga running towards them with Mitobe in tow, who was carrying a very large, desert-sized cactus. "Sorry we're so late, it's just that the cactus is so heavy and the store was so far..."

Hyūga silenced him with a sudden holding up of his hand. "No need for explanations. Just answer me two questions. How many of you are there?"

"Two, me and Mitobe."

"Did you get Riko a present?"

"Yeah! This cactus!"

"Okay then you may go join the others. They are waiting on the bus."

Kagami butted in "But captain! They were late, too!"

"Yes, they were. But at least they came back in their buddy pair of two, not with an added member from our rival school," Hyūga glared at Aomine, "and with an actual present, not a jar of wax you found in the dump." Hyūga then glared at Kuroko.

"But!"

"No 'buts'. Now, find your own way home." And with that Hyūga walked, along with Koga and Mitobe, towards the bus where the rest of the team was waiting.

"Ah, man. Now how to we get home?" Kagami asked.

"Well, I brought a bike." Started Aomine. We could tie a wagon to it and I could peddle while you too ride in it."

Kuroko nodded. "That sounds like a good idea."

Kagami stared at them for a very long time with a look of disbelief.

"Both of you... Just shut up."