Nineteen: Chapter Two

"Yo, Kagamicchi!"

Kagami almost rolled his eyes at the bubbly greeting he knew could only belong to a stupid, blond boy called Kise Ryouta. As expected, when he turned, he was nearly blinded by the sun gleaming off the blond boy's hair and teeth.

But instead of scowling at the sight, Kagami smiled. It had been a long time since he had seen his old friends—his old rivals—and a long time since he had come back to Japan. Exactly a year.

"Yo," he said, cuffing the back of Kise's head as Kise tried to pounce on him. "It's been a while."

"It sure has been! Midorimacchi's waiting at a café—said something about how Oha-Asa said to avoid crowded places or something…"

"Still being a weirdo then, is he?"

"You got it. Come on! I have a license and just bought myself a car—"

"Just how rich are you?!"

Kise winked. "Details don't matter. You can tell me all about your college life in America! I'm so jealous you know," he added, "it must beat having Midorimacchi as a roomie."

"Just switch roommates if you hate him so much," Kagami snorted.

"Ah, ah, no, it's alright," Kise said. "I don't want to end up with a weirdo…"

"You already have."

Kise chuckled. "True. Look, there's my car!"

Kagami blinked a couple of times in utter disbelief. He could feel his eyebrows disappearing off his face; it was just how surprised andjealous he was of Kise's brand new, shiny red sports car that surely cost at least… a big number!

Kagami wasn't one for big numbers or estimations.

Muttering something about vandalizing the car just to ruin Kise's day, Kagami loaded his luggage into the back before hopping into the shotgun, Kise right beside him.

"Crash, and I'll kill you."

Kise only smiled before he turned the key in the engine and enthusiastically went from 0 miles per hour to 80 in about as many seconds as Kagami had fingers on one hand.

"So how's America? You still playing basketball?" Kise asked casually once Kagami had ceased trying to strangle him.

"Yeah. Made the team."

Kise whistled. "Not bad."

"You?"

"…I quit," Kise admitted. "I couldn't quite… bring myself to join the team after… after well, you know."

Kagami nodded. It had been a difficult decision himself. It was only his promise to Kuroko to continue playing basketball so long as it was his passion that kept him going. As it was, he skipped practice as often as he could, just to escape the unpleasant guilt that surfaced every time he set foot on a court. He couldn't stand the feeling that rose from his stomach and bit at his throat like bile.

"Ah, we're here. Look, it's Midorimacchi. Boy, does he look mad."

Kise parked—badly—and Kagami stepped out of the car, greeting Midorima with a "Yo, weirdo."

Midorima scowled heinously. "Kise!" he barked. "This happened because of you!"

He pointed at the stain running down the entire front of his pants. Kise blinked.

"You pissed yourself because of me?"

"No! Because you dragged me to get Kagami Taiga, I bumped into a child who spilled his entire drink on me! Oha-Asa told me to stay away from crowds; I should have listened…"

"Sorry, sorry," Kise said in a tone that suggested that he was not sorry at all. "But here's Kagamicchi! You could at least say hello."

Midorima gave him a terse nod of acknowledgement.

"You need a change of clothes? I have some in my suitcase," Kagami offered. Midorima blinked, letting an expression of gratefulness cross his face before his eyebrows contorted into a scowl.

"Useful for once."

"Hey! Alright, I guess I won't lend you some extra pants."

"N-No! I-I mean, thank you very much…"

"Well, it's good that you could come, Kagamicchi," Kise said, slapping Kagami on the back as Midorima went to the restroom to change. "I was actually a little worried that you wouldn't be able to—I didn't know when your college ended or let you off for break and all."

"College for me just ended," Kagami said, shrugging. He grabbed a menu and ordered ten of everything. Kise winced.

"So, when are we all meeting up?"

"Today, actually," Kise said, checking his watch. "Since it's—you know, that day. Everyone else should be here soon."

"By everyone, you mean…"

"Just the Generation of Miracles and you. We are… well, we were the closest the Kurokocchi after all. The rest of your old team will meet up with us later."

"I should have let Midorima wear those stained pants instead," Kagami said regretfully. Kise laughed.

"So this is where Kuroko lived, huh."

The Generation of Miracles and Kagami had finally gotten together. Akashi arrived in a sleek limousine from his father's company, into which everyone piled in. They were going to the place Kuroko lived in, to meet his father, to see his room, to see where he had spent 17 years of his life.

It was a small, quiet house on the edge of town at which they arrived, surrounded by trees, hidden from direct view of the house.

"Kind of reminds you of Kuroko, the way you can't really see it right away," Midorima remarked.

"Well, let's get moving," Aomine said gruffly. "I didn't come here just to stand around some house like a stalker."

Akashi naturally took the lead, marching up to the door and ringing a dusty doorbell that looked as if it hadn't been used in a long, long time.

"You think he still lives in here? Tetsu's dad."

Aomine's question was answered when the door swung open, revealing a tired-looking man hiding behind a pair of thick glasses. He looked unsurprised to see them; or maybe it was more that he looked as if nothing else could ever surprise him again. He stared at them expectantly, but those eyes of his rendered them completely frozen, because they were his eyes, Kuroko Tetsuya's blue eyes, just dimmed by the thick glass of the man's spectacles.

Blue eyes that were half open, dull, unseeing, lightless. Blue eyes with red blood running into them. Red on blue; red on bright blue.

"…Can I help you?" the man finally prompted. Akashi snapped out of his momentary shock and bowed his head a little.

"We are friends of Kuroko Tetsuya. I believe Kise Ryouta contacted you earlier this week saying that we would like to visit."

"Ah, right, I should have remembered… Come in, then."

The house inside was in shambles. Books littered the ground; old magazines lay torn up in dark corners. It was like Kuroko's father had just given up on living an organized life entirely and let the house run loose on its own.

"Do you have snacks?"

"O-Oi, Murasakibara!"

Kuroko's father cast the boy towering over him a tired, sidelong glance before moving down the hall. "I might have something… just wait a moment in the living room."

"…he's not a very happy man, is he," Kagami muttered as they turned the corner into what they thought was the living room. Devoid of almost all furniture, it was just as gloomy as the rest of the house. A spider scuttled across Kise's foot; he shrieked and grabbed Midorima, who tripped and squashed the spider under his foot. The look on the bespectacled boy's face was absolutely livid; killing spiders was a no if you wanted to have good luck in life.

Luckily for Kise, Kuroko's father returned with snacks—how old were they?—in his hands, much to Murasakibara's delight.

"My name is Kuroko Taiyou," he introduced himself when they had all opened up their own small bag of pocky and sat down. "What is it that you came for?"

"We wanted to see if we could enter Tetsuya's room and take a look around," Akashi said bluntly.

"Tetsuya…?"

Though they did not think it possible, Taiyou slumped and looked even more defeated than he did at the door. The Generation of Miracles exchanged worried glances with each other, unsure of what to do. But the man let out the longest, most tired sighs they'd ever heard from anyone and got up from the floor.

"I can show you… I haven't touched anything since… well, since the accident."

So it was also an event that Kuroko's father didn't like to talk about. The boys understood, since they did not like to talk about it either. Talking about it brought up unpleasant memories…

"God, no, Kurokocchi! Wake up!"

"Stop, Kise! Stop hitting him! You're only making it worse!"

"How can it be any worse? How can there be something worse than—oh god, are those his bones? Shit, his bones are showing through! Where are the ambulances?!"

"Take your time to look around," Taiyou said heavily. "If you find anything you like, I guess you could take it… I'm sure he wouldn't mind, after all, since he… well…"

"I understand," Akashi said gently but firmly. "Thank you for showing us here."

Taiyou bowed and left, steps quicker than before as if he were eager to leave the spot that was so imbued with Kuroko's essence.

Indeed, the six basketball players in that room felt the urge to leave, scatter, run. Dust layered the surfaces of almost every object in the small room. The bed was neatly made as if waiting for someone to jump in and bundle up in the sheets; the curtains covered the single window of the bedroom, softening the shadows. Kuroko's large bookshelf sat adjacent to the bed; several books lay on top; one was even open, as if somebody had just been reading it…

Kuroko's schoolbag lay in front of the closet door, half open with notebooks and pens peeping out of its depths. The trashcan was empty, as if someone had just emptied it. A half-empty tissue box rested on a small, worn table on which the dust was so thick that you could have traced Kuroko's name into it. In the middle of the dust was a large picture frame.

That was all there was in Kuroko's room. It was small, and had it not been so neatly kept, it would have been shabby and poor-looking, but Kuroko seemed to have kept it well. So well, in fact, that it seemed almost as if at any moment, he could walk in, and all would be normal again.

Aomine let out a shaky breath and threw his head back. "What the heck… this just doesn't seem right at all…"

Akashi broke free of the spell Kuroko's room had cast on them. He moved to the window and whisked the curtains open. The sun hit them all in the eyes, making them wince. The shadows became more pronounced, darker, stronger.

Life began again for the basketball players as they moved slowly, quietly, delicately in Kuroko's room. The dust stirred up, but no one wanted to disrupt the seemingly frozen time by throwing open the window.

"Kuroko… sure reads—read a lot of books, huh," Kagami murmured. All the books in the shelf seemed like second-hand objects; their covers worn and dog-eared, the letters fading.

"He didn't have much other than that, though," Murasakibara said, opening the closet. "Uniform… a few casual clothes, no snacks…"

"Why would you keep snacks in the closet? Idiot," Midorima retorted.

"Now I see why he never invited us over," Aomine said. "He didn't want us to see that he didn't… have much. This is such a joke," he breathed. "It's like time never moved after that time… look at all this junk; it's like he's going to come back any second. Even still has the textbooks from the beginning of our senior year in his bag." He nodded at the bag no one wanted to disturb.

"Hey, what happened to his basketball uniform?" Kise interjected, peering under Murasakibara. "It's not in here. Everything else is—his spare uniform, some extra clothes… but no basketball uniform. Kagami, do you know about this?"

"Huh?" Kagami said, emerging from under the bed. "Oh, that… he never told you guys?"

"Told us what?"

Kagami got to his feet, brushing off the dust in his hair. He turned to the window and pushed it open. The wind blew into the room in a great gust, finally disrupting the stifling stillness of the room, disrupting the air of what was perhaps death that permeated the atmosphere. It brought in the truth which was that time was running, even in that room, despite what it seemed like.

Kagami turned back to the Generation of Miracles and shrugged. "He quit. He quit basketball a few months before his accident."

"What the—"

Aomine darted forward and grabbed the front of Kagami's shirt. "You idiot, why didn't you tell any of us?!"

Kagami averted his eyes.

"Didn't you ask him what was going on? You realize that Tetsu quitting basketball is something that should never have happened, right?! And that if he does, something must be terribly wrong!"

"Shut it!" Kagami burst out, slapping Aomine's grip off. "Don't you think I know that? I asked him! He didn't answer; he just disappeared and never came back!"

"What do you mean he disappeared and never came back?! You just mean to say that you forgot about him, don't you?"

"N-No! Well, that," Kagami squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing hard. "That's not completely false, but—"

"Mine-chin, calm down," Murasakibara said, easily dispatching Aomine's flailing fists with a long arm. "Kuro-chin wouldn't like it if we fought in his room."

Breathing heavily, Aomine slouched, glaring lividly at Kagami.

"I think you should explain what happened fully," Akashi said quietly. "So we can all get a better understanding of what may have happened."

"I—well, it's a long story…"

…that I don't like to tell, was what would have come after that, had Kagami the guts to say it aloud. But he didn't need to. Everyone understood. Because, everyone there in that room had something they did not want to say, did not want to think about, did not want to confess.

"Hey, look at this," Kise interrupted. "I can't believe he actually framed this."

"What?"

Kagami took a breath of relief for having extra time to collect his thoughts; the rest of them crowded around Kise, who was holding the picture frame in his hand.

"Isn't this…"

"This is from our second year, isn't it? When we all sort of worked our differences out with each other after Kurokocchi beat all our sorry asses in basketball," Kise said fondly. The layer of dust on the frame kept the others from really seeing what it was. "It was all because of that that we changed so much. It was all because of him that we got this far, isn't it… We were such asses before, but then Kurokocchi came and showed us his basketball… and we all changed. He made us realize what we really are, what we really want… and yet for him, we did nothing but hurt him…"

Kise wiped tears he didn't know he'd let fall off from the picture frame. The dust cleared. It was a group photo of Seirin's entire team and the Generation of Miracles with a few friends. They were outside a barbeque shop, where they had just thrown a celebratory party of getting into the second year of high school.

After the Winter Cup, somehow, the rest fell together. No longer were the Generation of Miracles cold people who played basketball like machines. It was true, what Kise had said: because of Kuroko, they found themselves again. Going through Teikou had beaten their personalities down to dust; they had emerged as nothing but machines made to crush and to win. But defeat after defeat broke them down, and Kuroko was the one to do that. He was the one to escape mechanization first; he was the one to save them all. He was the one to show them the truth, to change them back into humans—kinder, more humble, more understanding, with dreams—real dreams.

"What's this?" Akashi said, taking the photo from Kise. His sharp eyes flickered across the frame. He noticed a small bump in the center of the photo, which looked as if it were something that had been stuck in between the frame and the photograph…

Without preamble, he took the frame apart. The photo fluttered out, and a heavier, folded paper fell straight to the ground. Akashi took it and, with a single glance around those around him, he unfolded it.

"…What is it?"

"…A note from Tetsuya."

Without preamble, Akashi flipped the paper around and held it up so the rest could see it. On it, in what was unmistakably Kuroko's neat writing, was written:

Thank you. Goodbye.

"Oh, you guys have finished?" Taiyou said as the basketball players came out of Kuroko's room. "Find anything?"

Kise almost spoke, but Akashi stopped him.

"No, not really. But, if you would allow me, could I ask a few questions, Kuroko-san?"

Taiyou shrugged. He pointed at the floor. "I saw this coming. I made some tea, so sit down."

When Taiyou left, Kise turned to Akashi. "What was that all about, Akashicchi?"

"You'll see."

Soon, cups of green tea were steaming in front of each of them, seated around the worn table in the center of the living room.

"First, I want to answer what is probably one of your questions," Taiyou began. "One of you was probably going to ask me if I knew anything about the circumstances of Tetsuya's death. And the only thing I can say is that one of the officers at the scene came by my house later that day and told me that there was a possibility that… that Tetsuya's death was not an accident at all. He said that it was hard to tell from the—the wreckage whether Tetsuya's breaks had really malfunctioned, but he got some eyewitness accounts that Tetsuya got on his bike just at the top of the hill and went straight for the intersection. But everyone's stories were different, because hardly anyone noticed Tetsuya before that moment, so they were unable to conclude whether it was an accident or intentional."

"Thank you for this valuable information," Akashi said quietly, but his eyes did not match his soft tone. Rather, they were sharp, burning, almost angry. "I don't mean to be tactless, but I'd like to move onto another subject."

Taiyou looked mildly surprised, but nodded.

"Now, then, let us assume that the accident was in fact not an accident, but a suicide attempt," Akashi continued on calmly. Taiyou flinched. For a split second that no one else but Akashi noticed, his eyes darted away and then back again. "Let us say that Tetsuya was trying to commit suicide that day one year ago."

Akashi's body leaned forward, his eyes never once leaving the blue eyes so similar to Kuroko's.

"Is there anything that happened before then that could have possibly caused Tetsuya to consider death?"

Kise didn't know what Akashi was expecting, but whatever it was, he didn't get it. Kuroko's father took a deep breath and pushed his falling glasses back onto the bridge of his nose. He shook his head and said:

"…No. I don't know anything."

The glint in Akashi's eyes sharpened, but he didn't press the matter. He nodded his thanks and then motioned for the rest to leave. The tilt to his head relayed the fact that he was not at all pleased with Taiyou's answer, and the goodbye he gave in a coldly polite voice said it all.

"Thank you, Kuroko Taiyou. Please expect to see us again."

The ride to their next destination was spent in complete silence as the new revelation weighed over them. No, it wasn't a revelation. Because instinctively, they had known that it had never been an accident.

For Kuroko, for their dear friend, from the boy who saved them all, they would figure his story out. They would solve every puzzle, undo every riddle presented to them. They would dig and they would search until their fingers bled and their sights turned black.

Because, they knew that this was the only thing they could do to forgive themselves for ever letting Kuroko disappear from their lives.

The car stopped. They got out of Akashi's company limousine and filed into the tall, white building. They knew where to go; they had memorized the directions, the place, the room number, but they were never able to bring themselves to go. They skirted past the wheelchairs, the nurses, the doctors, who gave them polite nods and pointed them down the right hallways. Now, they were there; now, they were staring in silence; now, they were listening to the beeps of the nearby machines hooked up to a heartbeat.

The mechanical noises were almost comforting for the six athletes. The beeps were steady and regular. Even if they were connected to a seemingly lifeless body, they reassured that death had not claimed that boy for its own.

Life remained still in that boy.

"Yo, Tetsu," Aomine greeted quietly. "It's been a while, but you're still sleeping huh?"

Aomine moved to the bedside and rested his hand on the bright blue hair that fell across a pale face. The strands barely moved under the small, shallow breaths Kuroko Tetsuya took as he slept.

Edit 7/23 because of so many embarrassing typos (again) TAT

In case it's not clear (it will be made clear in the next chapter, but nobody would want to wait for clarifications) Kuroko is in the hospital and in a coma.

Thank you for the feedback! Every review, follow, and favorite is much appreciated. If there is anything I can do better, please let me know. This is still a sort of pilot until I get all that I've written out (one more chapter), so if you like it, leave a review/follow/favorite so I know to continue :)

Thanks, and have a nice day! :)

Have a nice day!