Disclaimer: He's out of the in-between world. For this. pen. is. red (without the space) because her review killed me. This wasn't supposed to be up until next week, but damnit, she killed me.
o2.
He wakes to a crowd of people hovering over him. Someone's tapping his face, and he wants to tell the stranger he can stop now, that he's awake, but his body doesn't listen to him and words won't form.
He sees a mop of pink hair at the corner of his eye. She's pushing through the crowd, asking them to move, she thinks that's her friend on the ground. When she finally gets to him, her knees give away and her breathing gets more labored.
"Tetsu-kun!" she croaks out. Kuroko wants to wipe her tears, because they were unnecessary and he was fine. If only his body would do as it's told.
Predictably, Aomine comes rushing into the fray after her, knocking people down in his haste. He stops short before her, turning his head away from the sight before him, at the unnatural ways the body bent. His hands shake and he has to will his lungs to take in air.
Momoi frantically looks around at the crowd. "Does anyone know first aid?!"
"I've called an ambulance already," someone announces from the crowd. Aomine latches on to this, the first thing that registers in his mind past the image of... that. "Well, where the fuck are they?!" he shouts back.
Their audience backs away a significant distance, instinct kicking in at the palpable anger in his voice. His tall and intimidating frame was radiating frustration and adrenaline ready to burst. Aomine paces back and forth, looks at the body and then away. No one tries to break him from the pattern he builds. Momoi is slumped over, crying, clutching a blue and broken hand.
It's a blur of of activity when the ambulance arrives, and Kuroko can not keep up with everything that's happening. Numbness takes over his frustration and confusion, he feels like he's underwater. He can't hear anything beyond muddled voices and the muted sound of the sirens.
He's vaguely aware Aomine tries to pick a fight with the medic who doesn't allow them to come aboard. It is Momoi who has finally collected herself that restrains Aomine before things could escalate.
When they get to the ER and he's hit with more jolts of electricity than he bothered to count, Kuroko learns something. He could see his own self, eyes closed, stained bloody and coated with grime and oil.
He learns something else from when the steady monotone beep of the electrocardiogram persists: he was dead.
He is proven right when he — his soul? — follows the doctor out of the room and into the waiting lobby where his friends are. It's a strange collection of people he didn't think he would see together in a room like this.
Aomine stops pacing when he sees the doctor approach and hits the wall with his clenched fists at the expression on the doctor's face. Kise breaks down sobbing on Midorima's shoulder, and Midorima does not protest when his shirt gets ruined.
In the calm, assertive way that doctors use, he says, "We tried everything we could—"
"Bullshit!" Kagami and Aomine say in unison. Why on earth do those doctors still use that tone of voice? It's like a big neon sign for bad news.
Admirably, the doctor is not fazed in the least. He sighs and says, "I'm sorry. He's gone."
"No. I'm right here. I've been here the whole time," Kuroko wants to say in the usual fashion. That's how it goes, isn't it? Only, his voice isn't reaching them. Even Aomine, who has long been immune to his misdirection, looks through him today.
When the silence stretches out long enough for his comfort, Aomine snarls at everyone's grief and stalks out. Momoi is curled up in pain; no one can muster up the energy to chase after him. That's why Kuroko does.
He follows Aomine in a daze. He's accustomed to being ignored. He's lived his whole life with his misdirection. It was silly to fret over it now.
They exit the hospital and enter the back garden area where Aomine finally slumps over on a bench. He knows it is futile, but he can't help but call out anyway. It's stupid how hurt he still feels when no reply comes.
He may have lived disregarded by the passing world, but he'd become accustomed to having at least one person who is always aware of his presence. For as long as he's known him, Aomine was the one person who Kuroko could not go by unnoticed. It isn't fair that his chest still hurts like this when he no longer has a body to feel, that he still struggles to breathe when he doesn't need to anymore.
"I'm sorry," he whispers, fully aware that Aomine could not hear him.
"Fuck you…" Aomine mutters, shaking. For a moment, Kuroko stares at him and hopes; he lets himself believe that Aomine heard him. "Fuck you so much, Tetsu."
Aomine looks up at the sky, tears cascading down, unbidden. They fell too unreservedly to be tears shed for a friendship that was long over. His sobs are filled with too much regret, longing, and desperation.
Kuroko finds that he is crying too. Crying for all the things he never apologized for, for all the promises he never got to keep, and most of all, for putting that pitiful look that should never have marred Aomine's face.
After that, Aomine does not cry anymore. Looking back, he couldn't even understand why he ever did. Kuroko hadn't been his friend — not since Teikou, at least. It was pathetic to cry over someone who cut all ties with him, who clearly wanted nothing to do with him.
He had no right. No right at all to feel the almost overwhelming grief that took him then. (That takes him, even now.)
A/N: Plot's starting to show up! Whoot. I said this in the previous 'chapter' but I'll say it again: I intended for this to be a one-shot so the chapters are and will be short. Maybe. The next one looks decently long for me.
Edit: (10/28/18) Removed unnecessary bits and fixed up the ER scene.