A/N: Kise appears! My possibly favorite chapter will be next chapter.

I used to have no idea what bokushi and oreshi is. Now I do, but I think the personality change will happen later. Or Kindergarten (3 years) can be pseudo-Teikō years, with elementary being next...

That's a bit...stupid, in my opinion. Like the good movies with bad sequels kind of thing.


キセキの幼稚園

Chapter 4, The Bully Threat

It is Free Time again, and Kuroko is about to go to the playground to meet Aomine when he sees a boy staring at his desk in the empty classroom.

Kise Ryōta? Kuroko hasn't talked with him before, but he knows that Kise has smiled at him once or twice. That was enough to make him well-liked by Kuroko. So of course, Kuroko's curious as to why Kise is all alone. He has a lot of friends, doesn't he?

Kise's the extremely popular child model in their class, perhaps even more so in the other classes. Everybody seems to be his friend, and he attracts a lot of girls too. It's almost expected for him to walk around every day with a bright smile on his face.

The Kise now though. He's not looking very happy. In fact, he looks quite forlorn and sad as he picks up a piece of paper and continues to stare at it.

"Um...Are you okay?" Kuroko tried to approach less discreetly, but Kise still jumps, looking around before spotting Kuroko.

"Whoa? You are..." He doesn't seem angry or mean about Kuroko's sudden appearance. That is promising.

"Kuroko Tetsuya. May I ask why you are unhappy?"

Kise gives him a doubtful look, but later nods, handing him the paper and pointing at the other markings on his desk that Kuroko had not noticed.

"Loser. Coward." That was what the note said.

A further look to the desk shows even more hurtful words, all written in black marker. It's probably new, or else Mihara-sensei would've noticed. She's in the teachers' office right now, Kuroko guesses.

"How mean...Who wrote these?" He already has in mind a couple of suspects, but he can't be too sure...

Kise seems about to reply, but a familiar voice cuts into the conversation, malice practically leaking from the tone.

"I did, ghost."

And Kuroko whips around to see Haizaki, the spiky-haired boy who came up with that cruel nickname that one day. He is smiling in a malicious way, and Kise glances at him defiantly.

Haizaki smirked again, looking at Kise. "That's what you get for talking to Rina-chan. She wouldn't like a freak like you anyway."

What? Kuroko does not have any idea what they are talking about. Rina-chan?

Oh...He can kind of guess though...

Kise looks furious as he glares at Haizaki, and he's about to jump forward, presumably to hit the spiky-haired boy, when Kuroko steps between the two of them.

He can't let them fight! They'd all get in trouble.

"What? Your jump scares won't frighten me." Haizaki is still talking viciously, and Kuroko wonders why he has to be so mean. Did they do anything to him?

"Y-You're helping me?" Kise gives Kuroko a confused look, and Kuroko understands, since they don't really know each other after all.

But he just wants to help. Kuroko remembers what being bullied was like.

"Fighting isn't good, and I've experienced this kind of thing before." Kuroko chuckles sadly, looking down at the floor for a while before giving Kise a small smile.

"You should tell the teacher. Or classmates. It won't help to bottle things up." He's not a psychologist or anything, but Kuroko knows. He hadn't told anyone, and the bullies only worsened their treatment of him.

It didn't get better until Ogiwara-kun found out and helped. He was the one who told Kuroko that they should tell other people and stop it. Kuroko had been too afraid back then.

The incident also caused Kuroko's mother to be quite overprotective.

Kise still looks stupefied, not understanding. But he tries to pull Kuroko back, only to be too late, since Haizaki is already running forwards with his fist out.

Kuroko shuts his eyes, preparing for a punch. Anything.

The pain he expects does not come.

Something had narrowly missed Haizaki's neck, and Kuroko opens his eyes to see a pair of red safety scissors and familiar red hair and eyes.

His heart thuds in his chest, not resting even when he knows that he's safe.

"Wha—" The scissors move closer to his neck, and Haizaki stops talking, staring angrily at the boy in front of him, who in turn betrays no emotion with his blank look.

Akashi Seijūrō.

"I advise you to refrain from anymore harmful actions towards these two." The scissors stay close to Haizaki, and Kuroko, grateful albeit frightened, stares at Akashi, who seems...a bit different. At least, different from his normal attitude.

"You're the stuck-up shorty..." Haizaki does not say anymore, and Akashi frowns, opening and closing the pair of scissors with a slow click click.

The comment seems to have touched a nerve. Kuroko inwardly notes to avoid saying anything like that in the future.

"What did you say?"

Kuroko is very much relieved that Akashi came to the rescue, but again, the boy looks a little bit different as he stands there.

(Was there a flicker in his eye?)

Kise is hiding behind Kuroko, clutching his shirt, and Kuroko looks at the blond boy haplessly. Is it really that scary? Well...admittedly, Akashi does look a bit psycho with the scissors.

"Fine. I'll leave you alone for now. Ghost. Freak. Shorty." Haizaki gives them all an angry look before running out the door muttering, leaving the three of them in the silent room, awkwardly looking at each other before Kise speaks.

"Thank you, Kurokocchi! Akashicchi!" Kise pulls them all into a hug, which surprises Kuroko immensely. Akashi is wriggling uncomfortably, trying to escape from the hug.

"-cchi?" Kuroko notices the interesting way Kise just addressed them. A pet name or something?

"You two are nice people, and I add -cchi to the names of people I respect." Kise smiles brightly, already back to his usual cheerful self.

"Oh, okay," Kuroko says. He doesn't mind, so it's fine.

"Hey, Tetsu. Why are you still here—" Aomine comes into the room with his basketball in hand, looking at them with confusion.

"Did something happen? And who're you?" The last question is directed towards Kise, and Aomine walks towards him, looking at him curiously.

"I'm Kise Ryōta. Don't you know?" Kise talks in a slightly condescending way, and Aomine frowns. The two of them look about ready to start an argument. Or a fight.

"Aomine-kun, why don't we go play some basketball?" Add emphasis on the last word.

Basketball always gets Aomine's mind off of things easily. Kuroko hoped that Kise and Aomine would become friends, even though their first meeting doesn't seem that ideal.

"You guys play basketball? I do too. It's the only sport that wasn't boring," Kise says, eyes lighting up at the word. He really is a nice person, Kuroko thinks. Cheerful and happy.

Kuroko smiles as they all head towards the playground. He has a feeling that all of them will get along really well.


The basketball games between them ended, and Kise is now quite impressed by Aomine and Akashi.

They really are good at basketball, better than any other kids he's played with before. Aomine's kind of annoying sometimes, but he's decent enough. And his skill is just...incredible.

"So how did you guys meet Kurokocchi? He's nice, but you know...the whole sudden appearances thing." Kise asks the question out of genuine curiosity to Akashi and Aomine. Kuroko is currently talking to the teacher about something, so he wouldn't be here to listen.

"He looked really scared of the new place, so I talked to him and found out that he's a pretty cool guy. The disappearing act works well with basketball too," Aomine says as he practices twirling the basketball on one finger.

Kuroko seems more at ease now though, if he was afraid when he first came. That's nice to see, Kise thinks.

"What about you, Akashicchi?" The red-haired boy is staring at something in the sky, or maybe he's just staring at nothing in particular.

"I was reading, and he came up to me. An...incident occurred, and he kept following me, wanting to make friends. I eventually accepted."

Kise wonders how Akashi always manages to look so mature and calm. And he speaks with an aristocratic air too. Very refined.

"But even though Tetsu is weird sometimes, he's a good friend," Aomine concludes, waving at Kuroko, who is coming their way.

"…Yeah." Just as they said, Kuroko always manages to brighten their moods up, no matter how down they were feeling before. He helped Kise from the bullying, which distressed him greatly, actually.

Kuroko may not seem special when you first look at him, but he's somewhat like an invisible pillar, always there for them.


A/N 2: Next chapter... Lunchtime Disaster.