A/N: paying attention to the times will help you understand the chapter a little better. Nothing too important, just things placed out of chronological order.
the bird drops a seed
-1-
Friday
the bird listened
Kuroko was staring at him.
It wasn't one of those I'm observing you looks or an I'm waiting for you to be interesting stares; it was one of those you're doing something, and I don't like it gazes that made Kise Ryouta want to sink into his seat and wither away.
"Hey, hey, Kurokocchi, I know I'm pretty, but…"
The only response he got was a flat blink and he mumbled ashamedly that he wasn't actually all that handsome and was sorry for trying to brag about something he didn't have. Kuroko huffed through his nose and pushed his vanilla milkshake across the table. Kise goggled at him. Kuroko was sharing his milkshake?!
Kise pinched himself.
Well, it hurt, so it couldn't be a dream. Warily, he took it, speculating that it might explode in his face or otherwise be filled with some nasty goop that would send him flying for a toilet. While Kuroko watched, he took a cautious sip—it tasted like sugary heaven.
"What's the special occasion?" he asked tentatively. Kuroko tilted his head. "I mean, you never share your milkshakes with anyone. So why…?"
Kuroko shrugged and smiled at him. Before Kise could start feeling spurned by Kuroko's recalcitrance, Kuroko rose from the table and made for the door.
"Hey!"
All he got was an enigmatic smile as Kuroko passed through the door. Kise ran after him, throwing a few bills on the table on his way out.
"Kurokocchi! Wait up! Where are you going?"
Kise didn't remember a hill such as this one that drew the breath from his chest like he was climbing a mountain in thin oxygen. But Kuroko kept moving further and further, and Kise, no matter how hard he pumped his legs, just could not catch up. Finally, the hill leveled out. Kuroko stood at one end of a stone pavilion, Kise at the other. They stared at each other before Kuroko walked to him and by the wrist took him to the edge of the pavilion.
He pointed far out across the horizon. Then he covered Kise's eyes and turned him around.
When Kise could see again, he saw the same landscape, only through a mirror. He stood in front of himself, Kuroko beside him with a sad curve to his lips, the city and its forest behind him.
"Kise-kun," Kuroko said, and something trembled in Kise's heart upon finally hearing Kuroko's voice. "You can't walk backwards forever."
An irresistible urge to hug some part of Kuroko seized Kise, but when he turned to grab him, Kuroko was no longer there. He turned back to the mirror, and there Kuroko stood, looking at him with eyes that matched the sky above.
"Kurokocchi!" Kise said, putting his hand against the mirror. "Kurokocchi, can't you come over back to this side?"
But Kuroko shook his head.
"You can't walk backwards forever," he repeated.
Kise closed his eyes, feeling tears slip out. If emptying his chest of all it held could stop the pain, he would do it.
"Can't I?"
When he opened his eyes again, it was night.
Just for kicks, he pinched himself. It didn't hurt.
Ah, he thought. This is reality.
He reached for his phone. It was 11:46. There was a notification for two missed calls from days ago that he hadn't bothered to listen to because they were from someone he didn't have the intention of speaking with again.
Two missed calls and two voicemails.
Aomine Daiki.
Before Kise really realized what he was doing, he'd picked up his phone and dialed voicemail.
"Yo. Don't hang up. Yet. If you even bothered to listen to this. Which you probably didn't. I don't know. Yeah. So. Uh. Damn, why is this so difficult… Look, I know you and I didn't have the… greatest conversation last time I called you… but I called you on accident and didn't really know what to say. So I said stuff. And called you an idiot. I know, I know, I shouldn't have called you an idiot, but you are and—no, I take it back, don't hang up. Uh but—"
Play the next message?
"Damn, I ran out of time. But hey, listen. And I mean listen because this is damn hard, and I never do things like this. But if you want to hang out sometime, then… hit me up. We can talk about whatever or nothing. Or if you feel up to it, the guy whose house you slept in last time wants to have dinner with you. I'd be there of course, so you don't have to worry about being stuck in the same house as a lunatic but. Yeah. Just. I'm sorry about last time. Uh. I guess it'd be nice if you called or something. Even to call me a bastard. Yeah. I don't know. This is making me feel weird. So, later."
The phone dropped back to the bed as Kise flung his arm over his eyes even though it was already pitch black.
"Who do you think you are…" he muttered. "Just leave me alone."
Leave him alone like the rest of his team had when they realized he was beyond saving. Yes, like Moriyama, Hayakawa, and Kasamatsu had when, no matter how much time they spent with him or how much they tried to bring him back to their side of the mirror, they realized he just wouldn't budge. Leave him alone like his sisters had when they did all they could just to make sure he went to college.
Who did Aomine think he was to waltz into Kise's life so suddenly? Where had he been the past four years? What right did he have to try and make him change? Kise recalled their conversation with a bitter taste in his mouth.
"You're an idiot, Kise. What do you think you're doing? You think doing this would make anything better? Get it together already! You know that Tet—he wouldn't want you doing this."
"Just fuck off."
And really, that was how the conversation started and ended.
Kise didn't even know why he bothered to listen to Aomine's voicemails—maybe it was because of what he'd dreamt, which was still etched into his mind like a fire brand—though they were interesting to listen to. He'd never heard Aomine sound like that or even speak like that. It was certainly a different approach to 'fixing' Kise than he'd taken last time. Nevertheless, Kise didn't appreciate the effort. It was weak and pathetic, and it made him uncomfortable to hear Aomine acting that way—the same way Aomine might feel seeing Kise act this way—
Ah…
One day the dull roar in his mind would end.
You can't walk backwards forever.
But what if he didn't want to turn around?
Because turning around would mean finally leaving Kuroko behind…
Just as Thursday rolled over the clock, a muffled knock resounded through his apartment.
-2-
Thursday
3:00 p.m.: the bird whispered
"I don't want to keep you long like last time, Lawyer Shiroko," Akashi said. He closed his files and held out his hand to his lawyer in a formal gesture. "Thank you for coming again so soon."
"Pls, dwbi," Toru said, waving Akashi's hand away and opting for an awkward attempt at a hug that failed at the raise-your-arms-awkwardly-in-an-unreciprocated-fashion stage. "Instead, dinner at my house—"
"My apologies," Akashi said graciously. "As always, I am—"
"Unable to accept. My son misses you," Toru sighed piteously.
"He's never met me."
Toru gave Akashi a look that read can't you play along for once? Akashi lifted his lips in a slight smile and shook his head.
"By the way," Toru said on his way to the door. "I was wondering whether you knew a boy by the name of Kise Ryouta…"
Akashi, despite himself, blinked twice before regaining his composure. That was a name he had not heard in months, perhaps years. The last time he'd heard mention of that name was when he, by chance, flipped through a magazine while waiting for his haircutter. He remembered blinking in much the same stunned fashion upon reading that his former team member had been caught dead drunk at a club and thus fired from his modeling job.
Back then, he hadn't wondered how it had happened; being a person of connections himself, he understood that with fame came opportunities, whether they were actually tempting or not. Chance just offered Kise Ryouta an escape—and escape he did.
Perhaps he should have stopped it, Akashi mulled as he studied Toru's expression. But he had had his own business to deal with at that time—an escape lent to him by chance—and couldn't entirely bring himself to care…
But such things were of the past.
"I knew him once in middle school," Akashi said very mildly. He laid his hand on the doorknob, a motion he hoped would serve as a prompt for Toru's departure. "But we haven't kept in touch."
He didn't like divulging information to Toru, because the man, though he acted juvenile, had a mind that could rival Akashi's and could draw conclusions like no other. He smiled in response to Toru's quirky grin, which told him that Toru had just made a connection Akashi couldn't be sure he would be happy about.
"Have you kept in touch with anyone from your middle school days?"
"Not any in particular," Akashi said lightly.
"I see," Toru said, nodding appraisingly. "Well, the reason I bring this up is… I met a few boys about your age some days ago. They were… strangely intriguing."
"Did you?"
"They all had the same reaction towards my cute Tetsuya as you did the one time you saw him. Now, I know Tetsuya is a very special boy, but to garner such astonishment… I am led to the conclusion that you boys all know each other, or have known each other in the past."
Akashi said nothing.
"I know that it may be that it is none of my business," Toru said, "but people say 'a little bird told me' all the time regarding things they should not butt into, and I thought I would sing the tune of a little bird today."
With all the nonchalance in the world, Toru said, "The boy with the golden hair is going to kill himself."
And with a do-with-that-as-you-will air about him, Toru swept out of the office.
With great care, Akashi closed the door without a sound.
"What a frustrating man," he said, straightening his tie. "If he intends to play the part of a singing bird, he may as well play the part well and say the entire thing."
-3-
3:13 p.m.: the bird wept
"Yo, friend. Would you like to see my beautiful son?!"
"I thought I told you not to call me on duty, Toru."
"Aw, don't be like that, Yu," Toru said, laughing lightly. He swung his bag in the air like a child might, balancing on the side of the sidewalk precariously. "I was just missing you."
"I'll tell on you. I'll tell your son that his father's in love with another man."
Toru only chuckled.
"But what's really on your mind?"
Toru hummed a little.
"I was just thinking about Daiki and his friends," he said. "You said there were a number of them on that day? That they had been coming home from a reunion of some sort when it happened? And that they all claimed it was their fault."
"I told you that years ago. I'm surprised you remember."
"How could I not?" Toru sang teasingly. "You were in such pain when you told me."
"You would have been, too."
Officer Yu sighed on his end of the line.
"Death is indiscriminate, but not everybody sees it that way. Being assaulted by the feelings of injustice belonging to children was one of the worst experiences in my career. Don't make fun of me for that."
"I know, I know," Toru said. "I'm just feeling a little down myself."
"And making me feel awful is making you feel better? Sadist."
Toru laughed. "What else am I supposed to do? I can't help these boys; they're too proud to be helped."
"Helping? Don't tell me you're trying to butt into people's lives again."
"It's what I do," Toru said. "Think of it as a pro-bono case for me."
"You have too many of those already. But you must be feeling really down, judging by the way your speech is lacking the usual idiotic phrases it's usually comprised of."
Upon rounding the corner, Toru saw a small, deserted playground waiting for him with damp sand and dirty puddles. Though his shoes would get dirty, he walked across the sludge to the swing set and set down his briefcase. The chains supporting the seats creaked awfully, so much so that Officer Yu could hear them through the phone.
"Christ, are you torturing giraffes?"
"No. I'm just at the swings."
"Oh."
Toru smiled in the silence. He and Officer Yu had known each other for a long while, and learning each other's habits was inevitable. For instance, Officer Yu would often say, "Sounds like rain" during an oppressive situation. And Toru would visit the swings by himself whenever something was weighing heavily on his mind.
"Hm, how should I put this," Toru said. His bottom was almost too big to fit in the seat, but somehow he made it, feeling his old hips creak in protest as they were stuffed into the tight squeeze.
"I've been drawing connections for the past few days, and there's just one missing link. Daiki said that my son reminded them all of their deceased friend, but to elicit such a profound effect… Yu, did you know? They all look like men walking to the gallows whenever they see my son.
"They're special kids, strangely. There's something in my gut that tells me they are more reliable than anyone I've met to this date—barring you, of course. But they're the sort of people I would like to rely on should anything happen to me."
"What do you mean? Age finally catching up to you? Hitting your midlife crisis?"
"No!" Toru said valiantly. "Youth still lives within me, and will do so for a long time yet! Though it breaks my heart to think that Tetsuya might rely upon another for fatherly advice and affection, Rin and I are both busy and will only get busier deeper into our careers. You recall the feeling we had when we picked the number for our first lottery, right? Our guts were telling us that the most youthful number was 284059—"
"Yeah and so much for that, we won nothing—"
"And similarly, my gut tells me that it would be alright to entrust my son to Daiki and his friends. But I'm not wrong this time! They act as pubescent youths do, and they are clumsy when it comes to caring for each other, but I think that with a push, they will be alright.
"But it doesn't seem like they can gain momentum just amongst themselves. They need an external initiator. And with that, the ball will begin rolling. I've tried to do that without interfering too much, because as I said, they are prideful. But there's one thing I want to know before then…"
"I know. You don't have to say it."
Officer Yu sighed.
"I never told you his name, did I? Kuroko Tetsuya. That was their friend's name. But that's not it. His parents sent me a thank you gift after everything was settled. A note, a few photos, things like that. I think that'll answer your questions. Just wait till I get home."
A few hours later, Toru received a text from Officer Yu containing a few attached image files. He opened them up on his laptop.
He spent a good amount of time just staring at them.
With a deep breath, he turned away.
"So that's how it is," he said. "That's how it is."
-4-
5:25 p.m.: and the bird sang
Recipient: Akashi Seijuuro
Sender: Shiroko Toru
yoyoyoyoyo it was gu 2day. attached is da contact info of a information specialist i no. she can do anything & everything. even stalking. Don't hesitate~ ur heart will lead the way 2 YOUTH. and come home sometime. My home, I mean. You are always welcome here, Akashi. :D less than 3 u.
-5-
Friday
6:54 p.m.: the bird watched
"Daiki-chan!" Toru greeted as he swung open the door. There stood Aomine, looking much like a cat dragged in by the scruff of its neck, with Officer Yu's hand on his shoulder.
Officer Yu prodded him violently.
"Ow! Fine, hi! I'm here! Against my will!" Aomine grumbled. "I have homework to do, you old fart."
"It's a Friday," Officer Yu said, clapping his hand on Aomine's back. "And I brought you your bag. With your spare key."
"…So that's what you were doing when I thought you went to the bathroom constipated," Aomine mumbled. He figured getting worked up about how Officer Yu had, in essence, broken into his apartment would, at this point, just be a waste of energy. With a sigh, he took his bag and ruffled through it morosely. Officer Yu had been thorough in his looting. Every assignment he had due the next week was there.
Without a valid reason to leave, Aomine didn't know whether it was better or worse that he was alone—because of course he had been stupid and naïve thinking that Kise would respond to his message—at the dinner table. Just as he began poking at his peas, a small ball of warmth collided against his legs and clambered into his lap.
"Hey, what the—"
All Tetsuya did was look up at him with the goofiest smile on his face before turning back to his food to eat. At a loss for words, he looked to Toru for guidance—and was struck silent by the expression on the man's face.
Aomine had never spent much time with his family, but he got the feeling that that expression was one of a father watching his beloved children.
It made Aomine's stomach twist strangely—I've never really been looked at that way—and he looked down at his food before Toru met his eyes.
Dinner was good, although Toru claimed to have too much of a stomachache to eat too much. Aomine found himself for the first time in years leaving behind a clean plate—when had he stopped finishing his food in the first place…?
"Hey, you know," Tetsuya said after dinner. Aomine was sitting on the floor at a table in the living room, working on a few papers he didn't really have to start on so early.
"Huh," Aomine grunted. Tetsuya toddled up to him, red blanket tied around his shoulders, and without thinking, Aomine ruffled his hair.
"Where's Goldilocks?"
His hand stopped.
"Uh…"
"I thought maybe he didn't like me or mom or dad since he left right away," Tetsuya said, looking down. "Daddy said you've been trying to get him to come home."
"He said that?" Aomine groaned. It wasn't completely a lie given that Aomine had suggested Kise come here for dinner, but it wasn't anything to bring up. And now Aomine had to explain himself and make up a reason for why Kise probably wasn't going to come around ever again.
"Uh…" Aomine scratched the back of his head. "It's not that he doesn't like you…"
Doesn't like you isn't the way to put it. It's more that he's afraid of you.
"…He just doesn't like me," Aomine said, deciding that there was enough truth to that statement. "And I guess I did try to… make up with him… but it didn't work out. So, I don't think he'll be coming around."
Tetsuya stuck his bottom lip out.
"Then you didn't try hard enough!"
"I-I did," Aomine protested. "I just… think it's time to give up."
"Giving up is no good! You know, the world would be taken over by villains if all the superheroes just gave up."
"Well, not everybody is a superhero…"
"No! Everybody is a superhero! Mommy's a superhero because she does everything in the world and still has time to play with me! My teacher's a superhero because when I fell down and scraped my knee last Friday she put a bandaid on it and made the ouchies go away!"
Tetsuya leaned in close confidentially and giggled nervously. "Don't tell daddy I said this, but he's a superhero, too. He's my superhero. But that's a secret. I'm still gonna call daddy a civilian, because it's my dream to become his superhero one day!"
Tetsuya broke out into a laughing fit as if that was the most hilarious thing in the world. Aomine sighed.
"Look, kid, when you grow up, you'll realize that there are some things that you just can't do. And you'll understand. Not everyone is a superhero, and even superheroes can't be superheroes all the time."
Tetsuya bit Aomine's hand.
Aomine yelled.
"What the—!"
"Everyone's a superhero," he said obstinately with a pout. "You just have to believe. See!"
Tetsuya clambered into Aomine's lap and slapped his forehead.
"Until I become a superhero, too, I'm just gonna be a superhero's sidekick. Hehe," Tetsuya giggled. "And the sidekick's job is to help out a superhero when the superhero doesn't feel like a superhero anymore. And I'm your sidekick. So, see? You ARE a superhero! YOU ARE A SUPERHERO!" Tetsuya yelled into Aomine's ear.
"God, kid!" Aomine yelped, clutching his ears. "I'm right next to you!"
"You're not listening!" Tetsuya said. "I said you're a superhero!"
Aomine grumbled something again, but Tetsuya clapped his hands over Aomine's mouth. Aomine stared at Tetsuya lividly, but the boy just giggled. A streak of red consumed Aomine's vision for a split second; confused, he blinked before he realized that Tetsuya had taken the red blanket formerly tied around his tiny shoulders and had flung it over his head. Aomine pushed the fabric out of his face and was assaulted with the full power of Tetsuya's blinding grin.
"Now you even have the cape. You don't believe you're a superhero. But I believe in you," Tetsuya said. He bopped Aomine on the nose. "So believe in me! And that way, you'll believe that I believe that you… wait…"
Tetsuya tilted his head, looking bamboozled.
"I'll believe… no… You believe? Uhhhh…"
Aomine couldn't help it; he burst out laughing. It shocked him as much as it shocked Tetsuya, who looked like the sun had finally come out after a year of darkness. Aomine was suddenly struck by guily; he realized that ever since setting foot into this house, he hadn't smiled once—not that he was one for smiling in the first place—in front of the kid. He didn't know whether Tetsuya had noticed this, but maybe he had—blue eyes like those had a knack for observing the smallest details…
"You make no sense, kid," Aomine laughed. Tetsuya beamed up at him and hugged him tight around the middle.
"Alright, I get it," Aomine said. He scooped Tetsuya up into the air and twirled around. "I'll believe in you. Cheap kid. Making me believe in myself by forcing me to believe in you."
Tetsuya squealed as Aomine tossed him high up into the air.
In the midst of playing with Tetsuya, he forgot about those blue eyes of his. It was the first time since middle school that he'd felt such unbounded joy. It was a foreign feeling, but a good one.
His phone began to ring, and Tetsuya hit the ground running to the bathtub when Aomine put him down to answer. A sort of chill climbed up around his heart like ivy chains on a wall as he read the text.
"Oh? Daiki-chan, what are you doing?"
"I—" Aomine hesitated, suddenly unsure of himself. He swayed on his feet, stranded between the door and his place to stay. He could feel Toru's eyes on him, and for Christ's sake, he didn't know why or how, but he somehow knew the man was smiling.
It took all the strength in him to keep his chest from constricting and suffocating him from the inside. Abruptly, he became aware of the red blanket still tied around his shoulders. He could have laughed, or vomited; he didn't know which he wanted to do more. But he clutched the fabric at his throat and looked at Toru with the most contorted smile—don't cry—on his face and said:
"I'm gonna be a goddamn superhero."
-6-
Saturday
12:00 a.m.: the bird smiled
When Kise went to open the door, he didn't know what he was expecting, but he certainly wasn't expecting to be greeted by a man who seemed to not know whether he should smile or scowl at the sight of him.
Kise made to shut the door in the tanned youth's face, but a foot darted out and jammed itself against the door.
Aomine Daiki.
"How did you…"
He saw pink hair framing a face peering out from behind Aomine, and his question fell flat on his tongue.
"Momoi," he said flatly. She smiled at him, half apologetic, half challenging.
"It was a job request," she said coyly. "And I can't say that I wasn't curious to see how you and everyone else were doing. It's been a long time since I've been in touch with anybody. It's good to see you again, Kise-kun."
He couldn't say the same.
Not when he couldn't even meet their eyes.
Momoi hummed a little, like she was mulling something over in her mind. She took two quick glances between Aomine and Kise.
"I think this isn't quite the place for me yet," she said softly. "I'll leave you two alone."
"Thanks," Aomine grunted as she left, and he couldn't quite tell whether he wanted her back. At least that way, he wouldn't be alone with some grown-ass man who couldn't meet his eyes. But as he watched Kise, he knew instinctively that it was going to take a lot to get words through that stubborn blonde's head, and that more people would only exacerbate the situation.
Aomine knew he couldn't save Kise on his own. It was a strange sensation to admit that to himself when for the latter part of his life, he had believed just the opposite. But it was more than a gut feeling or instinct that told him he wasn't capable of saving Kise; he wasn't the type—not like Kuroko—who knew how to save someone without even thinking.
Aomine took two steps into the room and shut the door, and in a split second, Aomine passed from his world into Kise's…
It was a depressing world where you could only walk backwards, moving reluctantly into the future realm while keeping your eyes on the past. It was so easy to maintain equilibrium, to fall into pace with this world; its simplicity and false serenity belied the darkness that seeped into the blood like a parasite. It was so easy to walk on the ice of this world that couldn't be melted no matter how many springs passed by.
This was Kise's world, and for all Aomine knew, it could also be his own.
Toru's odd dances and Tetsuya's bright laugh burst into his mind like sunlight from behind black clouds; no, Kise's world was not his own; his own might have been like that once, but it had tasted the sun. Aomine looked at Kise, and for all his golden hair and eyes, his world had not a single speck of light.
Aomine reached out his hand. He couldn't save Kise on his own. But as he looked into those lackluster eyes, he swore to bring Kise to that place because if there was one thing that could take the sun into Kise's barren world, it was there—the house of the sun.
"Yo, Kise," he said with a strained grin. "It's been a while."
Tetsuya called him a superhero, but he was no superhero.
At least, not without his sidekick.
His support.
His shadow.
I want to make these chapters shorter so that I can cheat and put in less work for a chapter a week, but then if I do, there's pretty much no plot development, and it will feel very short and unsatisfying…
Sorry again to the disappointment caused by my plans to not have Tetsuya inherit Kuroko's memories; I personally would feel very strange writing Kuroko through Tetsuya, who is a good fifteen-sixteen years younger than Kuroko. To each their own. I actually have a lot of reasons why I wouldn't want Tetsuya to 'become' Kuroko, just don't know quite how to verbalize them.
Anyways, thanks, as always, for reading (and sorry for failing to reply to reviews TAT)!
