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A new chapter is coming through! Thanks so much for you continuous support. Your reviews made me so happy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroko no Basket for it belongs to Fujimaka Tadatoshi.

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Chapter 3: Labyrinth

The poem of mistakes intertwines with me and binds my chest

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It was dark and cold. An endless labyrinth stretching towards infinity was what Kagami perceived as he continued running in order to find an escape. He desperately passed through many doors, encountered numerous junctions, yet all he found was a never ending darkness of the maze that seemed to take pleasure in seeing him suffer.

It was then that Kagami noticed a faraway indigo door with light leaking from below. Hope rising in his chest, the redhead hurriedly dashed towards that little light and opened the door, thinking that he would see the light soon. Upon closer inspection, he could make out a symbol of an apple carved onto the door surface but he ignored it-all he minded at that time was whether he could see the light once again. There was light, indeed. Kagami felt happy as he ran forward, bathing himself in the dazzling brightness, savoring the feeling of delight after staying in the dark for so long.

However, that moment of joy was short-lived as it was just the beginning of another nightmare. Kagami soon found himself slowly surrounded by the dark; the room previously full of light was now just another labyrinth of darkness he had to struggle to get out. However, unlike before, as soon as the dark began appearing, a wave of fear and anxiety started building up in his chest. No sooner had darkness filled in his vision than Kagami began hearing those sounds- the sounds at which he couldn't help but tremble in pain and agony. And to make the matter worse, Kagami began seeing those scenes.

Mocking laughter reverberated in the dark, accompanied by insults and the fighting noise. He saw them. He could feel the pain surging through his body, paralyzing his muscles and rendering him helpless as he was forced to witness the images that he didn't want to ever see again. Yet, as if fate hadn't had enough fun toying with Kagami, the pain inflicted by the labyrinth didn't simply stop there. Kagami soon heard that deep voice- one that pierced through his chest and slowly killed him like a bullet hitting its target. At that moment, he couldn't understand why but some mysterious force had made him turn around to see what was behind him.

Kagami's eyes widened.

And after that, the redhead submerged himself in complete darkness with the voice still echoing loudly in his mind.

"You disgust me."

This was the price Kagami had to pay for his ignorance of the warning symbol on the door.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-o0o-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Kagami hastily opened his eyes, only to find the dark worn-out ceiling in front of him. Forehead wet with sweat, Kagami grimaced as the realization dawned on him that what he just experienced was just a nightmare. An all-too-familiar nightmare that Kagami had often faced for the last 10 years. However, no matter how much he had acquainted himself with that experience, Kagami still couldn't come to terms with it. Such was the dream's creepy vividness that even after waking up from sleep, the feelings of fear and pain still lingered in his chest, usually leaving him respiring hastily as an assurance for his beating-too-rapidly heart. Kagami closed his eyes and tried to slow down his erratic breathing pace.

Once he had calmed down, the adult used his palm to wipe the sweat off his forehead and adjusted his duvet to get a better cover of his body from the cold winter air. It was then that he felt another weight on his bed. Lying next to him was his son, Daichi, who was contentedly cuddling in the cotton material, his face showing such a peaceful expression, arms hugging tightly his panda plush, which he received from Kagami as his fourth birthday present. The young father wasn't a bit surprised at seeing his son sleeping next to him when the boy was supposed to sleep alone in his own room. Gently touching his son's soft hair, Kagami let his memory lead him back to the days when they were still in America and had just moved into a more spacious apartment with more rooms. At that time, Daichi was 7 years old and despite having his own room with a queen-size bed, the little boy, at night, still carried his plush and sneaked into his father's room to sleep with him without his father noticing until the next morning. At first, Kagami didn't find it strange because the redhead assumed that his son was not used to sleeping alone due to having spent 7 years sleeping next to him in their old house. However, this little thing, throughout the years, had developed into a deep-seated habit that lasted until now, when the boy was at the age that most children would rather rest in their own private bedroom. Nevertheless, there were times that Daichi slept in his own room, such as when the boy stayed up late to study for exams or when Kagami worked overtime and was unable to go home that night.

Kagami didn't mind this little habit of his son at all; in fact, he welcomed it. To the redhead, Daichi's presence always managed to soothe his mind whenever he suddenly woke up in cold sweat from the nightmare at midnight. The young father smiled as he slowly and gently brought his son closer to him, wrapping the boy in the adult's bigger arm, burying his nose in the soft hair that smelled like X-Men shampoo. As the soothing warmth of Kagami enveloped the small figure, Daichi let out a contented whimper and buried his face in his father's chest, mumbling something like teriyaki.

Darting his gaze towards the window, Kagami let his vision be claimed by the overwhelming whiteness of snow decorating the night sky as his consciousness gradually faded into the depth of darkness. The last thing on his mind before he drifted to sleep was the contemplation whether he would encounter that indigo door again in the nightmarish labyrinth.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-o0o-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

As his car came to a halt, Aomine took another quick glance of the address, which was the 20th time ever since he started his road trip, to make sure if he got the right place. 10XX Tomoeda Street. After parking his car in the allotted area, the bluenette wasted no time to get out and start looking for the building where he assumed Kagami was working. Walking down the road occupied by many fancy-looking stores with the address paper on his hand, Aomine eventually arrived at his desired location. Letting a sigh that quickly turned to white puff of smoke due to the freezing air, the bluenette cast his gaze over the property and pulled his muffler up to have a better cover of his neck, eyes absorbing every detail of the bento shop where Kagami was assumed to be working. Truth be told, there existed a great contrast between the shop "Red and Blue" and the others; this shop was simply too plain and shabby compared to the luxurious extravagant surroundings, which somehow made the place seemingly fade away into the glamorous background. With a simple-design signboard telling the name of the place, the bento store was painted in white with two glass windows, behind which were hidden by roller shutter doors. Following the theme of Christmas festival, there were strips made of glittering garland and small ornaments decorated round the house exterior, accompanied by a green wreath at the front door. All in all, the shop, to Aomine's opinion and mild surprise, looked too simple to be a popular shop of lunchbox. According to Akashi, who heard this through the grapevine of his company, "Red and Blue", despite being established recently, had made quite a name among the workers for its reasonably-priced but high-quality lunchboxes.

Aomine chuckled. Of course, its food had to be delicious; after all, Kagami was the one who made it if he assumed correctly. In the past, the bluenette himself had got the privilege of having meals prepared by Kagami every time the redhead and he got back from their intense one-on-one. The ex-Seirin ace always complained about Aomine's hobby of casually crashing into his place; nevertheless, he always prepared for the bluenette meals that would make Aomine drool even when it was still being cooked. When the redhead asked him about his opinion, he would usually feign disinterest, which no doubt earned him a pissed Kagami.

Those were the days when he and Kagami were still young teenagers brimming with youth and passion, when he and Kagami were still together, playing basketball, bantering, bickering and fooling around. Aomine smiled fondly as the memories rushed back.

Feeling the cold slowly getting him, Aomine, in an attempt to warm his body, took out a cigarette, lighted it and inhaled one long breath of the tobacco scent, letting the pleasant bitterness clear his mind, which was currently forwarded back to that night. The young police closed his eyes in pain as flashback took him to the foolishness he committed 10 years ago, which was no doubt the reason for Kagami's disappearance. However, something at the back of his mind kept nagging him for missing something very important- something that he himself had previously found ridiculous yet was the trigger of everything later.

After another 5 minutes of recollection, the young police begrudgingly gritted his teeth and decided to stop his train of thought for fear of a splitting headache. His childhood friend, Momoi, was right; despite him being an adult, his memory storage was no different than that of a 6-year-old. No, no, no, 6-year-old would be too much; 10-year-old would be a more correct term. But still, it was very irritating to forget something that he was supposed to remember.

Time sure flied, Aomine sighed. In a blink of an eye, it had been 10 years since Kagami decided to walk out of his life, leaving no trace behind, only bitterness and regret remaining for the foolish man. 10 years was certainly a long time, long enough for a person to change himself and more or less blur one's memories. Some details of the past had become vague over the course of 10 years; sometimes, Aomine had to stop to recount things in order to keep his memory afresh, which increasingly proved to be a strenuous process due to his nowadays overwhelming workload. Man, he seriously needed a vacation!

He took a look at his watch, which showed 8:00 AM. Aomine found it strange because the last time he checked the watch when he was about to leave the house, he was sure it was 8:30 AM. Realization suddenly dawning on him, the tanned man took out his phone and found, to his annoyance, that the accurate time at the moment was 7:30 AM and his wristwatch was, in fact, had stopped working without him knowing. Angrily shoving his phone into his pocket, the adult took out another cigarette to smoke, feeling rather pissed that if it hadn't been for his god-damned faulty watch, he would still be cuddling in his warm duvet and drifting in his dream world… Or not. Ever since his faithful encounter with Kagami, he had hardly found a single moment he didn't think about the redhead; even in his dream, he couldn't escape from those haunting images of ten years ago: the unmoving form on the ground, the despair etching on his expression, the scarlet eyes whose tears were threatened to spill, and the following painful guilt constricting his chest.

Aomine balled his fist in an attempt to calm himself down but to no avail. People were right when they said that you only knew the value of the thing once you had lost it. The love that was already there from the beginning, he abandoned it to pursue an illusion until he realized it was too late to return to those days. Maybe he should just give up now…

However, hardly had the thought of giving up crossed his mind when he quickly shook it off his head. The word "giving up" never existed in his dictionary; it was never his style to give up half-way through, especially when he was presented another chance to correct things. Now that Kagami had returned, he was more than determined to fix their relationship, or at least, make the redhead understand his feelings.

Soon, the sound of the door open brought him back to reality as his gaze landed on the shop entrance. And there he saw him.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-o0o-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Kagami woke up with a slight headache to the light filtering from the window. Rather than getting out of bed immediately, the redhead chose to stay for a while with his eyes close, waiting for the pain to subside and the senses to come back to him. His ears took in the sound of slight snore and muttering of his son, who must still be sleeping peacefully. He twitched his fingers, feeling the soft downy material of the duvet under his palm. The slightly cold air in the room caressed his skin, having a soothing effect on his aching head as he slowly opened his eyes to take in the surroundings. The sight greeting him first was the stuffed panda's nose being placed very close to his face, which made Kagami assume that his son had, in the middle of the night, unconsciously switched to hugging his pillow. And he was right. Daichi was embracing the pillow on which his head was supposed to be placed on. Kagami chuckled and then, slowly crept out of the bed for fear of waking up his son.

After stretching his arms to warm up his stiff muscles, Kagami proceeded to perform his morning routine: brushing his teeth, washing his face, changing his clothes, and then descended the stair to enter the kitchen to start preparing breakfast and food for his business. Today was Saturday, which meant the shop would serve its guest until afternoon and close at 2:00 PM. By the time Kagami finished making breakfast- a Western-style one with "sunny side up" egg, bacon, toasts and orange juice, it was half past six- the usual time he began making food for the bento. Once checking the menu for the day and the ingredients in the freezer, Kagami wasted no time to prepare for his business. With skills he had honed from working in restaurant in America, Kagami easily maneuvered himself around the room, selecting ingredients, handling cutlery and making basic dishes. Although the redhead greatly enjoyed cooking and didn't mind working hard, preparing a large amount of food for a business in a stuffy hot kitchen never failed to make him drench in sweat and tired, despite it being winter outside and him having done this job many times. By the time the rice cooker switched to "Warm" mode and some dishes were placed into their respective containers, the clock had turned to half past seven and Kagami wiped off the sweat with his towel and replenished himself with water. The shop wouldn't open until 9:00, so he still got more than an hour to have breakfast and finish his tasks.

"Maybe I should go up and wake the others up for breakfast", Kagami pondered but in the end, decided against the idea. They had stayed up very late last night and moreover, today was Saturday, so it was best that he let them oversleep a little bit. He could always reheat their breakfast by the microwave anyways.

Deciding that his breakfast could wait until he had put out the trash and that he should take a break from the stuffy atmosphere in the kitchen, Kagami proceeded to take the garbage bag outside, although his instinct told him that he shouldn't do that. Ignoring his hunch, the adult stepped out of his house, and there, he finally understood the reason behind the protest of his instinct.

Standing outside was none other than Aomine Daiki-the last man Kagami would ever want to meet to begin a new day.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-o0o-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Scarlet and indigo, two colors clashed each other in the gray lifeless background of winter. However, it seemed that scarlet didn't want to be in the presence of the indigo while indigo tried to catch up with scarlet.

Despite having mentally prepared himself for his confrontation with the redhead, now that Kagami was right in front of him, Aomine couldn't help but feel a sense of dread creeping up his mind, forcing him to stay rooted to the ground. As for Kagami, albeit being initially taken aback by Aomine's presence, he quickly returned to his composed state and casually walked past the bluenette to where he always put his trash bags, acting as if Aomine wasn't even standing there. Kagami put the plastic bags into the big trash containers of his area, sorted them into their respective categories and once he finished, the redhead calmly walked past Aomine again back to his house. He was so gonna lock the door after this!

However, the bluenette wouldn't have any of this. Apparently, seeing Kagami about to slam the door in his face had freed his body from its motionless state and the young police took this chance to dash towards the entrance with all his speed and grab Kagami's arm just in time. He had come all the way here and waited in the freezing cold for freaking half an hour (it was not such a long time and winter made it look like a day to him) and there was no way he would return empty-handed.

"Kagami, wait. Please, I need to talk with you", Aomine said pleadingly.

Kagami narrowed his eyes in contempt, his entire facial expression blatantly screaming "Get your hand off me", which made Aomine gulp nervously.

"Aomine-san, would you mind moving away from me a bit? You're invading my personal space."

"No, not until you promise you will have a talk with me". Aomine steeled his resoluation and looked straight into Kagami's eyes.

For a moment, Kagami deliberated whether he should just punch this guy so hard that he got sent to the hospital, but, in the end, chose not to. His brother was right; sooner or later, Aomine would come to him for whatever reason the scoundrel thought justifiable for his action and this time, he had to settle everything, including anything involving with his shameful past, with his own hands once and for all.

Glancing back the door to make sure there was nobody behind, Kagami turned his cold gaze to the bluenette's face and spoke with an equally cold tone.

"Alright. I will talk with you. After all, there are things I need to make clear to you."

Unknown to Kagami, on the first floor, a pair of eyes had been watching two men since the beginning.

TBC

Does anyone see the symbolism I used there ;)?

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