ARE YOU READY?
Chapter III
"Are you ready?"
Kuroko didn't need to see his son to know he was rolling his eyes. His exasperated heavy snort was a pretty clear hint.
"For the fifth time, yes." in fact answered the guy, but without turning – again, for the fifth time – to shoot his father a warning glare. He had already learnt how useless it would have been.
Tetsuya smiled a bit, drying his hands with the towel he brought from the kitchen – a little gesture betraying his uneasiness –, and observed the fifteen-year-old boy closing his journey bag and putting it on his shoulder – with an unbelievable grace for an adolescent – and finally turning toward his father who was laying against the door jamb with a side.
Seiji raised his scarlet right eyebrow, making the red iris even brighter, and approached the teal-head who, even if clearly with disappointment, moved from the door to let him pass.
Tetsuya's scepticism was clear even from under his apathetic mask so the guy sighed, almost trotting along his father toward the kitchen.
"You know I'm not going to war, don't you, mom?" he asked, offhandedly using the feminine epithet for the teal-head who on his part, working around the fires, paid it little attention. Seiji had begun using that word since the very day he discovered his father gave him birth and making him stop that habit of his was already impossible. Not that Kuroko felt offended, to be honest.
"Kyoto is a big city." he objected all the same, grabbing the dish with the just finished onigiri and turning to put it on the counter and start putting them into a travel food holder.
"So is Tokyo." Seiji reminded him smartly, stealing a rice ball before his dad could stop him.
"But here there are me, the grannies and all the uncles." Tetsuya retorted, stretching out to hit with a useless little slap his son's nape.
"Last time I asked uncle Taiga for directions I ended up in Kabukichou." was the boy's dare while he pretended to massage his head.
Kuroko shot him an emotionless gaze.
"Nobody asks uncle Taiga for directions, Seiji, and there's a reason for this." He frowned, "And stop nominating that place, please."
Seiji laughed a little, lying against the counter with his crossed arms. He still had his bag on his back, but he didn't seem to mind at all and Kuroko smiled, thinking that luckily his son didn't seem to have inherited his lack of stamina and strength.
"Mom, it isn't a foul word and I ended up there just by mistake." The guy's facial traits softened when he bent forward to kiss his mother's cheek, with all the expansiveness Kagami's and Himuro's presences and their Americanism transmitted him by osmosis. "You're the only woman of my life."
"Baka." Tetsuya sighed, jokingly avoiding him, but in the end he smiled and offered his son the holder with his just assembled packed lunch.
The other laughed, laying the bag on the lunch table over the counter to add the last piece, and Kuroko stopped to observe him.
By then, the 'little baby' was no more little nor a baby. Seiji was taller than Tetsuya himself, even if maybe not yet as Seijuro, and on his thin and slender body he could proudly show subtle muscles darting to each movement under the pale, almost candid, skin. He wore blue-jeans and a short-sleeved t-shirt of the same red of his hair, that he was now wearing short but with a long fringe on his face covering the left iris and its teal colour, leaving instead opened the right one.
"I want it to be my secret." he had told Tetsuya after asking for that cut to his uncle Junpei, "I want to be the one who chooses who can and who can't see it. It's my mother's eye, it's important to me."
His facial traits had turned refined, elegant like Seijuro's, but if his face and the eyes shape were certainly like his father, the lips and the defined frame of the eyebrows were definitely his mother's. To conclude, he was handsome and magnetic like the sin of lust itself and the mere idea of what could have happened to him alone in another city had kept Tetsuya awake for the whole last month, since when his son asked his permission to study in Kyoto. In front of his hesitant gaze and worried – for his reaction – expression, Kuroko couldn't bring himself to refuse, but he regretted his choice already three seconds after giving his answer.
The doorbell ring made them both raised their head toward the entrance, but it was Seiji who, with a huge smile, ran to let the guests in.
Tetsuya sighed, simply cleaning the kitchen because he was already conscious of their identities.
The day before, in the morning Momoi and Riko passed to greet the leaving boy; they had Hyuuga, Teppei, Mitobe and Kagami at lunch – the latter as the real chef – and in the afternoon Aomine and Kise hand in hand took away a couple of hours from their anniversary – ten years as a real couple – the one to give his useless advices and the other to cry crocodile tears on his nephew's neck. Murasakibara and Himuro had just left after bringing as a present a huge box full of cookies - the half of which was already stuffed into the bag as 'journey supplies' – and during their visit had come even the call from Sakura and Haru. This all left little space to imagine who were the last on the list.
Midorima entered the kitchen leaving behind Seiji's and Takao's laughter – and they surely had done, or were up to, something – and put his hands on the counter to observe Kuroko cleaning.
"Long travels are advised against for cervical, nanodayo." he suddenly grumbled, out of thin air, "They're not good for kids. Not that I care, nanodayo."
"If you manage to make him change his mind, Midorima-kun, I'll may consider the idea of following Oha-Asa." Kuroko apathetically answered, keeping on his job, but before the green-head could say anything two exuberant hurricanes entered the room.
"Tecchan, we're ready!" Takao exclaimed, waving his car's keys, "You sure you don't want to come with us?"
Tetsuya smiled seeing the euphoric light in the eyes of his son, currently blocked under the black-head's arm, and nodded.
"I have to be at work in fifteen minutes." he murmured, for the umpteenth time flashing his son a saddened gaze, but the boy answered him with an encouraging smile.
"It doesn't matter, mom." he lovely assured, before opening into an evil smirk that reminded Tetsuya a lot, maybe too much, of Seijuro, "You'd just began crying and begging me not to leave anyway, so maybe it's better like this."
Both Seiji and Takao laughed when Kuroko threw the first thing he had in his hand-reach – luckily just a potholder – to his son's head, proving how his aim hadn't lowered despite the years away from basketball.
"Out of here." he muttered, but it was clear that he didn't mean it minimally, thus Seiji tool the weapon he just received and slipped out of his uncle's grip to return it to his father and, in the meanwhile, stealing a hug from him, knowing that the rigid Japanese etiquette and the need to be a good example were the only things holding the teal-head back from doing the same.
"I love you mom." he whispered and Kuroko couldn't help but holding him tightly repeating to himself that locking his son in his room for his whole life was not that good of idea as it may seem in that moment.
"Be careful, please." he had to at least beg for. He didn't want to keep Seiji closed in the house – as he practically had done during his first year of life – but he was scared endless at the idea of not having him around anymore.
Seiji's laughter sounded crystalline in his ears.
"I won't follow any of uncle Daiki's advices, I'll trust uncle Taiga only for food, I won't tell anybody I know uncle Ryouta, I won't exaggerate with uncle Atsushi's cookies and I'll watch Oha-Asa every morning." the boy joked while pulling back, "Happy?"
"Forget Oha-Asa, please."
"Ohi!"
Takao's laughter was so loud that it filled the whole house.
Seiji waited for his father to watch attentively before tying his seatbelt and he rolled his eyes when he noticed him nodding.
"Tecchan often exaggerated, but we have to be patient with him." Takao commented with fake indifference, bending over him to rapidly wave Tetsuya and Shintarou – on the doorsteps – off through the window, "His main problem is that he loves you a lot."
"I know." the red-head assured, spying on his father while his dad gave gas to the car.
Kuroko smiled to him, one of his rare stars-bright smiles, big and welcoming, only him had the right to see at his own pleasure, and Seiji had to hold back from laying against the car window to keep on seeing it until the very last second before they turned. He was strong and didn't do it, but he let himself fell heavily against the car seat and as soon as the house vanished he allowed his enthusiastic expression to fall into an apathetic one and to his heterochromatic eyes to slip on the background running out of the glass.
Houses, streets and shops that he knew like himself and through which he had grown up trying to impress every single detail in his brain like his father always easily did…everything was vanishing so quickly, leaving place to sceneries always less familiar, but Seiji cared only a little because his mind was fixed on those two sentences exchanged with his uncle Kazunari a few before.
He knew it, from a long time, how much is father loved him. Since when he was eleven and, woken up during night-time, had heard him talking with his uncle Shintarou and thought it would have been funny to play a prank on them, appearing suddenly in the kitchen.
"This is nothing to joke about, Kuroko, nanodayo."
"I have never had any sense of humour, Midorima-kun, you know it. I'm definitely not joking."
"Your check-up results aren't good, Kuroko. Your heart worsened again, not like the other times but only by a few and I've already told you that the possibilities for you to survive another heart-attack are really low. A transplant…"
"A transplant costs, Midorima-kun, and far too much for me to afford it. I've been going on with this heart for twenty-nine years, it will last for some more."
"It's not even thinkable with the shifts you're doing now, nanodayo."
"The shifts I'm doing now pay for Seiji's school, Midorima-kun."
"They'll kill you."
"You can't know."
"…"
"…"
"Kuroko, of only you asked…"
"No. Don't feel offended, Midorima-kun, but I don't want your or anyone of others' charity. I can do it on my own, Seiji needs me."
"Seiji needs you, not your pride, nanodayo."
"Midorima-kun, enough. I'm already a burdend for the all of you, I won't be for my son too."
"…"
"…"
"To…Seijuro…, you weren't a burden."
"That's because I left him on time, before turning into one."
Seiji closed his eyes, chasing that scene out of his mind.
Yes, he definitely knew how much his father loved him. Takao had said a lot, but he was more for too much.
"Alright!" Kazunari exclaimed, smiling on the station quay when the train stopped there and a door opened just two steps from them, "I guess I should give you some recommendation, but I'd bet your father already gave you enough, uh?"
The only answer from Seiji, while he adjusted the travel-bag on his shoulder and pulled out the ticked from his pocket, was an eloquent look and it was enough for Takao to laugh.
"Try to find some time to have fun, too!" the man said, patting his shoulder.
"I'll do my best!" the red-head retorted, with a smile, climbing the steps, "Keep an eye out for dad and uncle Shin-chan in my place."
Kazunari made a military salute while the door were already closing and Seiji smiled, before reaching for his seat. He found out he was into an empty compartment and, place his bag, he sat beside the window and took a deep breath.
Rakuzan High School, I'm coming., he thought, determined.
Kyoto was huge, but Seiji was smart and used to attentively observe, to think, to put things together and find solutions. His natural attitude inherited from his father, the training with a chaotic group of uncles and a QI enough over the average gave him a notable adaptability that allowed him to adequate to the new city with an unbelievable speed, to the point that just two months after the beginning of his first years of high school in the famous Rakuzan school, the young Kuroko had already a letter of recommendation from the school for a job in an important multinational.
It was nothing too complex, in the job description he was mostly asked to make some errands and do photocopies here and there, but he was allowed to assist to the workers job, to learn to organize his time and to have a contact with the world of adulthood. Moreover, it was the most paid part-time job that accepted under-aged guys in the whole city.
The company had asked the school for a good student, Seiji had taken part to the contest and he placed first with full-result leaving behind of some tens the third-year placed second. Thus, he found himself, in that very second, in front of the doors of the huge glass skyscraper that was the administrative centre of various and different branches of the same company.
While reading absentmindedly the plates near the entrance – more to get an idea than for real interest – he spotted the directive base of a publishing house, a bank society, two agricultural companies, an insurance society and two sport articles important marks.
Boasters., he mentally decided, but then shrugged. He wasn't there to judge, just to be used like a little slave or a court pageboy, for the next three years of his life in exchange of a compensation that would have hopefully lightened a bit the pressure on his father's heart.
Like every time that thought touched his mind, he slipped an hand in the jeans pocket and held tightly his cell-phone, tempted of calling to know how was the poor hyper-protective soul of his father without his beloved son, but he forced himself not to. In the two passed months, coming home in the weekends, he had managed to built an equilibrium that allowed his father to calm down a bit, but still calls with no reason and/or at strange times still made Kuroko-san's pulse go wild, threatening his safeness if considered his heart problems, and as such were to be avoided.
Striving not to become as paranoid as Tetsuya, Seiji approached the door, waited for it to open and entered with no hesitation, with his head held high and showing absolutely no emotions, just an empty face.
Don't let anyone watch you from high downward, there's not a single person in this world with the right to do such., was just one of the numerous advices received from his father, but it was one he held very dear, thus he reached the counter of a reception-simile not caring about the curious gazes of the workers staring at his black sneakers, his white shirt with a black gilet and most of all at his trumpery fire red hair. Only one thing, he took care to have his left eye well covered, hiding his cerulean shade, before talking to the secretary sitting at the computer.
"I apologize, I'm Kuroko Seiji, from Rakuzan High School." he greeted, serious, with a polite bow, before declaring in a completely apathetic voice, "I'm the winner of the contest for the stage here at the Akashi Group."
"Oh, Kuroko-kun, maybe have you already di the photocopies…"
"On your desk, Tachibana-san, beside the computer."
"Kuroko-kun, the report…"
"…of the counts for the third group. I already brought it to the economy department. They thank you and Sou-san says he'll pass by within three days to give you the signed and authorized copy, Takahashi-san."
"Kuroko-kun…"
"A macchiato with three sugar cubes. You know I'm not authorized to bring it, Watanabe-san, because of your last medical check-up. I left an energetic drink near the photocopies of the waiver for yesterday interview, I pray you to sign them the sooner possible."
Watanabe Shou blinked a couple of times at that completely apathetic answer and observed open-mouthed the fifteen-year-old guy that, eyes and hair red and emotionless face, slipped like air through the desk of the floor, leaving papers, orders and answers with the same indifference of someone scribbling during a boring phone call.
The scariest thing was that, looking beside his computer, the man really found both the drink and the documents. But when he lifted his eyes to look for the boy, he was already disappeared within the elevator, toward who knows what floor.
"If it wasn't for that hair of his, I think I wouldn't even notice him when he passes." Takahashi Yuuto commented staring at the close doors of the elevator, "He's almost alarming, he never makes mistakes."
"And he does even more than what he should." Tachibana Kaito added, approaching his colleagues, "I wonder how does he study and keep that absurd marks he has, even working more than what originally decided."
"Come on, he's kind at least." Watanabe intervened, interrupting the incredulous conversation of the others.
"Yes, yes, not a complain!" Takahashi hurried up in commenting, "But you have to admit that…he's a bit weird. I've never seen him…smiling or…have any expression! He's completely apathetic!"
"He must be one of those persons who are born old." Tachibana joked, but smiling, "Who knows, maybe he's like this only here and outside from work he's a scapegrace."
"Who's a scapegrace?"
The three men suddenly turned, surprised by the emotionless voice calling out for them, just to meet a tall men, perfect in his blue suit with grey necktie, in the middle of his thirties with white hair tied in a short ponytail to his shoulders and apathetic grey eyes, pale skin and lack of presence.
"Oh, it's you, Mayuzumi-san." Watanabe sighed, "You scared us as always."
"Not my fault you're easily distracted." Chihiro answered back with a snort, reaching them with his folder under an arm, then his irises ran to the elevator object of such interest, "What was the topic of your conversation, this time?"
"Rakuzan's intern." Tachibana explained, making a gesture with his head, "Kuroko Seiji."
For a moment there was silence, absolute and heavy, then Mayuzumi allowed himself to raise an eyebrow, but just a little.
"…Kuroko-kun?" he asked, to confirm, and all the three men, even if confused, nodded.
May he be related to…?, Chihiro frowned but kept silent.
He'd never been one to hasty conjectures and he appreciated complex plots only in books, surely not when they ruined his perfect and organized real life, so, for the first time since when he worked for that agency, he shocked everybody by leaving his folder with the great boss appointment to a secretary passing by there, ordering her to bring it immediately to Mibuchi-san. Then, marching he approached the famous elevator and pushed the button to call it with the same force of an angry man crushing a cockroach.
As the numbers ran above his head, his forehead frowned even more.
If that Kuroko-kun was even just slightly connected with that other Kuroko-kun, he would have had to re-organize completely his plans to avoid facing a depressed, irritated and dangerous boss.
Seiji ignored the confused muttering of the umpteenth group of secretaries and passed, completely unnoticed, in between two workers of the bank busy talking, leaving on the pile of documents in their hands the photocopies they asked for just a while before.
Normally, he avoided doing things like that – his father always told him that it was impolite to scare people, even if uncle Taiga and uncle Daiki were exceptions to the rule – but he was fifteen minutes late because of a fault at the coffee machine – that he had to repair thanking mentally uncle Teppei's ability with mechanic things and the hours spent looking at him repairing that jalopy of their television – and he still had to finish a biochemistry essay for the following day so he really had no time to waste.
Luckily he was already at the first floor, so it was enough for him to reach the end of the corridor and turn left to find the hanger with his school-marked jacket and the bagwith his books, to study during breaks and on the bus. After the first week he had learnt that bringing books with him and giving up in changing his uniform into casual clothes was necessary steps to keep those perfect marks he needed, so he had resigned to walk around the office with the elegant black trousers and shoes, the grey shirt and the black tie. The whole thing made him so similar to a real worker that more than once some clients stopped him to ask for information. Watanabe, Tachibana and Takahashi reacted with surprise at the discovering that he had been able to answer perfectly every time.
Shrugging with himself, he wore his jacket and bent to pick his bag.
Something, a barely visible movement at his back, caught his attention but he didn't stop nor hesitate, pretending he didn't noticed. When he turned and found in front of himself a tall man with long grey hair staring at his as if he wanted to rip his soul out, he didn't even blink.
"Good evening, Mayuzumi-san." he simply greeted, apathetical but with a polite bow.
Chihiro lifted an eyebrow.
"I don't think we've ever meet." he commented, ignoring the etiquette, "Do we know each other?"
Again, Seiji didn't blink.
"Everybody knows the personal assistant of this place's CEO, sir. From this depends half of the contracts within this building." he simply retorted, adjusting the shoulder-belt on, "If there's nothing, I should be at school before the curfew."
Chihiro moved aside with not a single word and let the boy passed over him with a cold greeting before heading for the exit in silence. When he was finally vanisched, the grey-head allowed himself to throw out the breath he had kept until then.
He's…identical!, but it couldn't be. Hair, irises, face traits, height, aura, the way to lift his chin and the voice tone, everything was absolutely identical to Seijuro when he was fifteen! Even the age matched with… Don't be ridiculous!, he scolded himself, shaking his head, It's not possible, Akashi and Kuroko are both males! Stupid, how could something like this happen?!
It was to admit that with Generation of Miracles often everything was possible, but…
Chihiro sighed heavily.
He was not paid to worry about his ex-captain personal problems, he just had to organize appointments and make sure his boss didn't skip them. Stop, he didn't sign for anything else and anything else he would have done. Full stop.
"Where is Kuroko-kun"?
Seiji retained the impulse to roll his eyes when hearing someone calling him while he was still doing the photocopies for others, but instead, emotionless, he turned to look for the voice, not really known but effectively already heard, that had evoked him with a bored-almost-irritated tone.
It wasn't that big of a surprise meeting Mayuzumi Chihiro's grey gaze. The man was flawless in his suit and that inflexion of voice was typical of him, but to be honest it was not normal to see him at the second floor – when he practically lived at the last one – and asking for the intern of the time. Usually, he was the one paid to do photocopies and bring coffee to his boss.
But Tetsuya had taught his son that sometimes you just need to let things go their way, so Seiji simply answered with an "I'm here." while approaching Watanabe to give him his papers.
Mayuzumi stared at him with unreadable expression, but Seiji sustained his gaze with no cracks on his perfect façade. For a moment there was silence, but in the end, surprising everybody, Chihiro gave the boy a big glass of smoking coffee.
Kuroko kept on staring at him even while taking the thing.
"Bring it to the great boss, last floor; I have matters to take care of." the grey head muttered already reaching the elevator, uncaring of the eyes of the boy on his back.
When the doors finally closed, Chihiro banged his forehead against them.
He was sure he was too generous for his own good, with those disgraces of his ex-kohai.
Seiji was not stupid, but even if he were it would have been a little impossible not to realize the strangeness in Mayuzumi's behaviour.
First of all, that man never delegated his precious work to others; in second place, if he had free time he read, he didn't 'take care of matters'; and in the end, what kind of imbecile of a personal assistant gave his duties to a fifteen-year-old intern?! A coffee was just a coffee, but it was about allowing access to the last floor to a kid!
Said kid thought about all those things, but then shrugged and pushed the button in the elevator considering the idea of getting his address there, then patiently waited with the coffee in his hands.
He wasn't anxious; the idea of meeting the great boss didn't bother him in the slightest. He was there merely for the money, he didn't care about learn or ensuring an occupation for when he would be done with his studies. To be honest, he didn't have the littlest intention of staying in Kyoto, after school; nay he would immediately come back to Tokyo, the sooner possible: the only reason he accepted to attend Rakuzan was that the school, to ensure his brain, had offered him a scholarship covering even food, rent, transports and books, over the normal school fees. For as much as Seiji dreamt about attending Seirin school near his home, where his father already had left his mark in the basketball club, the possibility of taking down his dad's shoulder almost all the expenses for his maintenance was too good for him to refuse.
As a matter of fact, however, the red-head was in that city not for his own happiness and felt no need to curry favour with anyone, so the boss behind that black door in front of him at the opening of the elevator made him feel not the slightest restlessness. If anything, the person at the desk in front of the door did it.
Not because of the waist-long black hair or the red nail polish, nor because of the skin-tight dress and the high heels clearly visible under his workstation, not even for the mesmerizing green eyes or for the soft lips, not for the kilometrical legs nor for the grace embodied on the way they were crossed. Honestly, it was not even because of the fact that, over the absolute perfection of the disguise, Seiji's trained eye had already found out that woman so gorgeous that she could make a top-model to shame was, at least, born as a man.
Truly, she being a transsexual or a transvestite didn't bother Seiji, mostly because he was raised with two gay couples – Aomine and Kise as much as Midorima and Takao – and a lesbian one – his uncle Satsuki was dating the older Alexandra Garcia since years – and because his own father was homosexual, but the way that person widened his eyes, opened the mouth and let the pen in his hands fell the very second she saw him made him fella a little uneasy, even if he didn't show it clearly.
In the whole time that took him to walk the corridor, the woman kept on gasping with her emerald irises fixed on him, as if he was a ghost. For a moment he wondered why, but then he decided he didn't care; he just wanted to deliver the coffee and come back to Takahashi-san's photocopies.
"Mayuzumi-san asked me to deliver this to the boss." he then said emotionlessly, without even feeling embarrassed for neither knowing his employer's name, and offered the coffee to the secretary, "Could you please bring it to him?"
The sentence seemed to shock the black-head out of her trance, because she jumped to her feet shaking her head.
"Oh, no, no!" she exclaimed, opening in a far faker smile than her disguise, and before Seiji could open his mouth he found himself pushed toward the door. He wanted to object but he got distracted by the fact that the woman on her heels was probably taller than two metres and, irritated by his own height, he lost the occasion because she resumed her ceaseless talking, "You've come this far, at least let the boss see you!"
I'm not particularly interested and however I took the elevator., he thought to say, but the woman had already opened one of the doors and was pushing him inside. He barely managed to blink and look forward.
The office he was in was big and shiny, with all the walls made of glass and elegant dark blue marble on the floor bringing toward a big lucid desk, black it too, on which stood a pc, a lamp, organized papers and a vase with red, yellow, orange, so coloured and 'exuberant' flowers that they immediately made you think they'd been made by someone else other than the owner of the office, maybe the secretary. But that all, even the flowers, didn't catch the boy's attention as much as the man sitting over the computer, reading attentively the documents on a folder really similar to Mayuzumi's.
Kuroko-chan himself, with his whole indifference toward whoever out of his family, widened his eyes for a second, only one, while laying his gaze on the middle-length hair, in a fiery fire red, and on the scarlet subtle irises, almost feline, at all hidden by the rectangular lens of the glasses with a red structure; on the little nose and the cheeks form, the pale lips and the sharp chin, the large shoulders, the average-height body somewhat slender and muscled under the black jacket and the candid shirt with a pitchy necktie and ivory handkerchief in the chest-pocket.
Somewhere within his apathetical chest, Seiji's heart missed a beat.
It can't be…, he confusedly thought and he almost let the coffee fell on the ground.
The minima slipping of the glass in his hands awakened him from his stupor, putting his amazing brain neurons at motion all together at the same time, focusing each one of them on the single question: What should I do?!
The secretary's voice behind him cut his time short.
"Sei-chan, for you!" she yelled, before quickly shutting the door and vanishing.
"Sei-chan, for you!"
In hearing Reo's honey voice, Akashi Seijuro sighed heavily and wondered for the umpteenth time why he had chosen to assume his ex-teammate as his secretary.
A voice in his head reminded him that he did it because Mibuchi turned out to be the best among all the ones he offered the job to and then that he didn't deserve to have his boss' anger for the bureaucracy vented on, especially when he had already had to suffer for too long the one of a disgusting selfish boyfriend. The bastard even pushed him to have his gender changed into a female. Akashi was sure that it was a good thing that they broke up, but it would have been better if it had happened before the actual surgery. Reo never talked about it and went on with his new body as if it was nothing, always cheerful and exuberant, but the red-head doubted he would have made such a choice if it wasn't for the other.
Be as it was, Seijuro took a deep breath and took of the reading glasses – turned necessary after the Emperor's vanishing –, then he forced himself to keep calm not to contemplate again the idea of hunting down the damn man and finally he raised his eyes on Reo to see what he wanted.
Only, in front of his desk wasn't Reo, but a kid. A kid unbelievably, impossibly, disturbingly similar to him, but apparently immune to their similarity because he was absolutely deadpanned.
"Your coffee, sir." he simply said, his voice completely empty of intonation, while he left softly, hinting a respectful bow, a plastic glass on his desk.
Akashi shook out of his trance and faked indifference like the young.
"Thank you." he nodded, taking the glass and bringing it to the lips but without averting his eyes from the guy, letting him know he still wasn't allowed to leave. After a sip and a moment to cool his head down, he continued. "And who may you be?"
The boy stood impassive, but hesitated a second before answering.
"Kuroko Seiji, sir." he admitted at the end, always emotionless, "I'm working here as an intern."
Akashi drank again, to hide the shock.
Kuroko. How was it even possible? Was it maybe a case of homonymy?, certainly it could have been. But on the other hand, Tetsuya had married a woman, he could even had had a son with her and the apathy, the lip's shape, the pale tone of the skin and the face shape let guess a slight similarity with the teal-head. Maybe his wife had red hair and so…
The boy kept on staring at Seijuro straight in the eyes and he realized he had to answer something.
"Oh, I remember…" he lied in part and in part said honestly. Mayuzumi hinted to him about the Rakuzan intern just the afternoon before and he obviously remembered the contest, but he had never bothered with checking the chosen one's name, due to the too much appointments. "You're almost a mascot here, aren't you?" he asked, striving to sound indifferent despite the turmoil in his thoughts, "They told me a lot about your hard work and your school tells wonders about your smartness."
Seiji didn't seem touched by those words, he kept absolutely unreadable, right like – Akashi was sure – Tetsuya would have done.
"I'm flattered, sir, but there's no really much of an hard work or smartness to praise in bringing things from a floor to another." he indeed replied, defensive but polite, and Akashi found himself lifting a corner of his mouth.
"Wise." he commented satisfied, then nodded, more to his own mind's decision than to the boy in front of his eyes, "Well, I'm letting you go back to your work."
Seiji bowed and turned to leave, maybe too fast, but Akashi stopped him before he could open the door.
"Kuroko-kun" he frowned, "may I know your father's first name?"
For a moment there was silence, absolute and penetrating, while Seiji stared right through Seijuro's eyes and a glint of warning, as if he suddenly was on guard, lightened in his irises.
"I don't deem it relevant for my permanence here, sir." he finally answered, just a bit threatening in his apathetical voice, "Please, refrain from asking again. Have a nice day."
Another bow and in a second the boy was out of the door, leaving Akashi with not a chance to talk back.
Seijuro blinked a couple of times.
That's how it is, uh?, he thought, vaguely satisfied for that challenge, and his hand ran almost of its own volition to the phone at his right, dialing an internal numer.
Reo's voice didn't make him wait.
"Then, Sei-chan?!"
"Discover everything you can about him."
"…Connections with the Kuroko-chan I'm thinking about included?"
"Obviously."
As soon as the elevator doors closed, Seiji threw out the breath he had held for the whole time and for barely a few he didn't fell on his knees, but just because he managed to cling to the wall in front of him. The free hand ran to his chest, grabbing the shirt right above the point where he could feel his heart beating like crazy, rhythm-less and painful. He gritted his teeth ad closed his eyes, as if prey of a physical immense pain.
In a second, as it was born, everything ended. Seiji relaxed his muscles one by one, slowly, and regained a normal breathing, but kept his hand pressed on his chest. He had learnt with time that, differently from Tetsuya, he wasn't able to keep his emotions bottled up constantly, but that he needed to let them out sometime, like a pressure cooker, and when that happened he tried not to let anyone see, especially his father.
Father. But Tetsuya wasn't his father, at least not strictly. Biologically speaking, it was maybe truly more correct to say he was his mother. But then… who was his father?
Seiji confusedly remembered the few conversations he had heard about that mysterious – for him – man, flashes of dialogues stolen from others and an expression, burned in the back of his mind, of Kuroko with eyes suddenly…empty – and not apathetical, but empty, as if they used to bring something before that now had been ripped away from them – and his face shaped by an indescribable sadness.
Seiji had never missed his other parent, he had always been content with the father he had and the endless bunch of uncles and aunts he shared not a single blood-drop with without any of them caring about it. To better say, he had never wanted to know anything about the man who lent his semen for his birth: to him, he was just a synonym of abandonment, sadness and financial issues that almost killed his father with an heart attack, for as much senseless as it may seemed.
His father.
A breath and his body straightened, another and his hand left the grip on his shirt, to his third his face returned apathetical and to the fourth his eyes hid their lights completely. Seiji was again absolutely impossible to read when he turned to see the doors opening on the fourth floor.
With not a single word he exited the elevator and resumed his job.
His father was Kuroko Tetsuya and nobody else. He had no other parents and he didn't need them anyway. He, Kuroko Seiji, had everything he could wish for.
He didn't need anything else and even if that else had shown up on his path, he would have ignored it and kept on walking pretending nothing.
Akashi let his gaze wander a bit on the sharp and cutting line of the city skyline, made of blacks and whites, of dense shadows and bright lights, with no middle grounds. That night sight had always been the only thing able to ease a bit the fatigue of working 'til midnight, but in that occasion the red-head felt no comfort from it, even if he didn't feel the usual tiredness either.
Kuroko had a son. The possibilities of it being just a huge misunderstanding were there, but in his heart Seijuro had already recognized every single trait in common between father and son and felt that bound, it existed, it was not just an homonymy matter.
Kuroko had a son from a woman. That certainty was strong in Seijuro's mind, natural like air and the fact that to make a child are needed both a man and a woman.
Kuroko had a son with someone else. It hurt to think. Almost sixteen years passed since when the two of them broke up, eleven since when Tetsuya had said straight to his face how disgusted he was from the idea of having been with a man and, consequently, from him; and yet that refusal didn't hurt so much. Sure, it hadn't been like walking on a roses carpet, but it didn't even burn like scorching charcoals pushed down his throat, it didn't crushed him like a roadroller, it didn't flay him alive just to make him wear his turned-inside-out skin again and force him to keep on going for long hard hours with nobody noticing his change.
Kuroko's son looks like me, a lot., Seijuro wasn't sure about how to catalogue this last fact. On ne hand, the most probable thing was that the mother was somehow similar to him, but that scenario only increased the red-head's pain: had he been left…for a copy of himself just provided with breasts and vagina?, really? He didn't want to believe it, it was probably the worst thing in tat whole situation, but what other explanation was there to choose? For as much as the idea, the fantasy, made him feel strange in a good way, as if enwrapped in a wool sweater during winter or hidden under a blanket hugging his lover during a storm night, he was aware of the impossibility of his dream of the boy to be his.
Kuroko had a son right after our breaking up. For the times to coincide vaguely didn't mean anything, if not that Tetsuya made a girl pregnant in the period right after or – but Akashi refused that idea completely knowing the phantom's integrity – before their separation. A part of Seijuro wanted to read in those times the explanation to Tetsuya's choice of going away from him, it wanted to believe that the girl was just…a mistake, he was willing to accept it, just to illusion himself that the teal-head chose to back off from their plans together just for a sense of duty toward the conceived child. Another part of him, the one that knew Kuroko would have never cheated on him, felt exhausted, crushed by the thought of the teal-head having a son with the woman he gave up on all his previous dreams for, just a few months after leaving him.
Akashi has headache.
Seijuro sighed, tired from all those difficult thoughts, but he suddenly turned, energetic again, when his office door opened and the soft tingling on heels on marble covered the sound of his brain melting.
Reo gave him a sad comprehensive smile. He was wearing an elegant black dress with three-quarter sleeves and knee-long, and had his long her falling untied on his back. His still a bit masculine traits had been artfully hidden with make-up and the lips were underlined by a dense dark lipstick, in between purple and brown, while on his eyelids was laying a smoky eyeshade that made his green irises stood out. He was mesmerizing, but Akashi kept on feeling a sort of painful spurt in a corner of his soul every time he saw him like that.
If only he had the certainty that the other was happy in that new body, he would have accepted it, but knowing the whole story prevented him from feeling at ease with that transformation.
"Did you find anything?" he asked, turning his armchair to face his friend.
Reo nodded, but kept silent. Surprising Akashi, he sat on a chair on the other side of the desk and sighed adjusting the papers in his hands.
"Do you know, Sei-chan?" he slowly murmured, finally finding the resolution to pass all the documents to the red-head, "The more I red about him and the more he reminded me of you, somehow."
Akashi took the papers, but didn't move his eyes from his friend. He didn't even look at those things, he simply laid them down in front of him almost mechanically, and waited for Mibuchi to choose the words to explain what he had found out and why did he feel like that.
"Is he his son?" he just asked.
Reo kept silent, but nodded.
Akashi's world stopped for a long moment, breaking him, but then he resumed breathing. He was expecting it, so he could move on, even if it hurt far more that what he thought.
The black-head sighed, probably guessing his friend's feeling. He made the effort to straighten up and opened his eyes again, clearly trying to look less melancholic, than clapped his hands once.
"Let's make it short." he declared with seriousness, "Kuroko Seiji, fifteen years. He's attending the first year in Rakuzan thanks to a special scholarship for his amazing smartness, but in truth he came from Tokyo and moved here alone just to study so he's actually living in the school dorm. He had the highest marks of the whole institute, second and third years included, and he's been asked to be the Student Council President, but he turned the offer down to be able to prolong his part-time job shift here, obtained thanks to his scary brain." A little tic of the coloured lips and Akashi let out a little smile, guessing the first similarity his friend had found out, but the other kept on talking. "He's relatively popular in school, but it seems he prefers to keep a low profile and be on his own, to the point it can't be said he has any intimate friend. He has a reputation for his kindness, politeness and hard-work attitude but there have been even some cases in which some classmates tried to take advantage of him or attack him and ended up running away while he proved himself firm and authoritarian. It seemed that even some teachers have difficulties in imposing on him: he never disturbs and is always respectful, but this apathy of his, that nobody ever saw him breaking, intimidates some of the younger ones." A death glare Seijuro pretended he didn't notice and Reo, with a sigh, resumed, "Regarding his past, he attended Teiko Middle School."
Hearing that, Akashi widened his eyes.
"Teiko?" he asked, as for confirmation, but the other nodded.
"It seemed strange to me too," he admitted, "but it's true. Even here, he marched on scholarships for academic merits for all the three years, obviously" Was it sarcasm what Seijuro heard?, "again the best of the whole school, for all the three years. The difference here is that he seemed to be interested even in common adolescents hobbies, he was part of the literature club and he'd been asked to play in some friendly match with the basketball club, obviously" Sarcasm again. "proving himself an amazing player, even if with a, and I'm quoting his teammates, 'particular and almost evanescent, vaguely psychich' style of play, and I'm not sure I want to know what this means."
"Worthy son of Tetsuya." Akashi commented, not able to hold back a smile, but Reo turned serious instead and ignored his words.
"It's from here, the beginning of his first year second semester, that he began changing attitude toward others." he explained, "He began taking part to all the contest possible and imaginable as long as they had a money prize and he stopped signing for all the ones that didn't involve a profit. His reputation among the schoolmates suffered a bit, but he didn't really care so I got suspicious and checked some things."
Akashi frowned, confused by the sudden change in the story and in his friend's attitude.
"Suspects?" he asked, inquisitive.
Reo sustained his gaze with a serious one.
"They have financial issues, Sei-chan. Big ones." he admitted, "Kuroko-chan dropped school in the middle of his third year without graduating, probably right because of Seiji-chan's birth, and he's working, now as much as then, just as a butler…"
"…in a Butler Café." Seijuro remembered, dark, as his mind came back to the only meeting he had had with Tetsuya after breaking up with him.
If the story was true, back then the child was already born and suddenly Tetsuya's embarrass took a new light, as much as his continuous checking the phone, his nervousness and he way he had ran away after that strange calling.
Maybe Seiji was the ill one? Approximately counting, Seijuro realized the boy was barely three years old, so Kuroko surely had panicked knowing his son had a fever. And Shintarou had said, right in that occasion, that he wanted to become a paediatrician…
"Sei-chan, how…?"
"Reo," Akashi interrupted him, "did you find some relation with Midorima, Shuutoku old shooting guard?"
Mibuchi blinked, surprised, but then sighed.
"Can I go on in order?" he asked.
Seijuro made a face, but nodded and gestured him to go on.
"The information on his economical situation were private, so it took me a while to get them." Reo went on darkly, "Practically, the problems increased because Kuroko-chan developed some heart-related problems and he needs specific medicine and regular check-ups that cost a lot. He refused most of them, but risked a lot too: he had had two heart-attacks from his eighteenth to his twenty-first birthday, but then it seems that everything goes back to its place." Akashi widened his eyes, clearly shocked, but Reo interrupted him right before he could ask about Tetsuya. "Point is," he said, "I think Seiji was trying to help his family, earning something with his means."
Seijuro kept silent for a moment, thinking. It took him a bit to metabolize the idea of Tetsuya suffering two heart-failings and that the both of them happened before he saw him at that dinner. Yes, that evening he looked strange and tired, but from there to guess he had a little son at home and was back from two heart-attacks… How many things had changed since when they broke up?
"Sei-chan, it doesn't end here."
Akashi lifted a fire gaze on his friend, even knowing it wasn't his fault.
"No?" he asked, vaguely threatening.
Reo, however, ignored the danger and shook his head.
"You asked me if Midorima-chan could be related with this story. Well, to me, yes." he revealed, stretching on the table to move the highest papers he just gave his boss and free in this way a particular document. He pointed the sign at the bottom of it, with a dark expression on his face, "This is Seiji-chan's birth certificate. The father is marked as 'unknown' and…"
"What are you saying, Reo?" Akashi interrupted, frowning while reading the document, "Right you told me Tetsuya is the father, even their last names match."
"Sei-chan." The other's voice was so dark that the red-head stopped reading to look at his face. There was seriousness, but even confusion, on that soft face. "I was wrong." Mibuchi murmured, but then he shook his head, "Or better saying, it is true that Seiji-chan is Kuroko-chan's son, but Kuroko-chan is not Seiji-chan's father."
"What the heck are you…?!"
"He's his mother, Sei-chan." Reo interrupted, his voice a bit trembling, the hand on the desk too.
Silence. A long, endless silence in with both the men waited for the other to say something, no one daring to.
"Reo."
When Akashi finally talked, Mibuchi raised his eyes on him, surprised by the menacing tone his name was pronounced with.
"What?
"Do you realize Tetsuya is a male, don't you?" the red-head asked, furious in his calmness, laying the paper down on the desk far too slowly.
The other, however, didn't get scared and shrugged.
"This is what doctors say, Sei-chan, not me." he explained, straightening up, "Even if I'm like this, I can still discern on what a male body can or can't do." The blow hit its point and Akashi hesitated for a second at that bitter sentence, almost regretting attacking Reo in such a setting. He was maybe going to apologize, but the other stopped him shaking his hand as if to say it was nothing important. "However, I tried to get some information more in the hospital, but nobody wanted to answer me." The look he sent Seijuro was eloquent. "I guess you'd be interested in knowing it is the one where a certain Midorima Shintarou is acutally working at."
The red-head darkened immediately, a challenging aura around him.
"I'm really interested. " he commented, with a deadly voice promising disgraces for the green traitor.
Reo nodded but then moved all the papers, making a mess on the desk, to slip out the last one.
"Just one thing more: your friend's father signed an hospital admission for Kuroko-chan exactly fifteen years ago. Read the reason."
Seijuro frowned, but took the paper and examined it attentively. It was just a request of check-in for the patient Kuroko Tetsuya, eighteen years old, with the reason of…
Red eyes widened, shocked, and then ran to the green ones in front of them, but Reo simply nodded, darkly.
"Cardiac complications and a severe intern haemorrhage due to an emergency caesarean cut." he quoted by memory, then sighed, "From what I could grasp, the caesarean had already been executed because of some complications. Midorima-sensei cut Kuroko-chan open and pulled our little Sei-chan out; only then they'd been brought to the hospital."
Seijuro hesitated.
"Then…it's true." he whispered, "Tetsuya is…the mother. He carried him in his body."
"And it leaves another unsolvable question open." Reo murmured, calling on himself Akashi's hallucinated eyes, "Who may ever be the father?"
Seijuro's world finally began spinning backward.
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Authoress' notes:
Sorry for any grammar mistake, I'm trying to erase them all but it's still a bit difficult ^^"
I re-edited the previous chapters because htlm had deleted the spaces I used between the different paragraphs -.- I hope it is all easier now :)
