Kise wandered towards a window seat at the café he had happened upon by accident while he was hungry, something like 'Serious Burger*' or whatever, and sat down. He couldn't get the shorter model out of his head. There was nothing really noteworthy about the boy except that he could fool the entire Japanese populace – except Akashi but he didn't really count as part of the population since the boy was a demon come to earth to terrorize Kise – plus probably most of the world into thinking that he was a girl. Even he had been fooled; the boy was a really good actor. Now if only he would stop being so dang adora- "Hello Kise-kun." The scream that erupted from the blonde model caused everyone to look at the fallen Kise, who had been leaning back in the metal-plastic chair that he was sitting in, to see that he looked as white as if he had seen a ghost and staring in the space above his table with absolute fear shining in his gold eyes. If only he would not do that! Kise thought as he stared into the shaded eyes of Kuroko Tetsuya, who was sitting across from where he was previously sitting before he fell. Kuroko calmly took a sip of the vanilla milkshake as attendants came to see if the blonde was alright – it wouldn't do for their business if the Kise Ryouta was injured while in their establishment. The only thing that would be worse than Kise being injured in the café would be if Kuro Te said an indifferent statement about their food.
"Are you alright, sir?" The girl that was holding Kise's arm and helping him up was obviously a fan as she was blushing and avoiding eye contact. Kise nodded shakily and hesitantly, not trusting his voice to speak, before righting his chair and sitting back down, his eyes not leaving Kuroko's. "If you're sure, sir." She looked at where Kise was staring, not noticing anything irregular aside from the milkshake cup across the table, before silently vowing to never wash the hand that she had touched Kise on the arm with.
"Are you done overreacting, Kise-kun?" Kise didn't want to admit it but he could see the dark amusement in Kuroko's blue eyes that were hiding behind the baseball cap that he wore. It was interesting to see Kuroko like this. A baggy brown unflattering sweater over gothic pants, his hair all tied up underneath the cap to where it looked short and shaggy, like a guy's hair should be. Kise was used to seeing Kuroko either in fashionable clothing or the school uniform. But the clothing choice he had used was so horrible, Kise was absolutely sure his manager would kill him if he even was near the person in those clothes.
Kise blinked as he recovered from his shock, shaking his head slightly to get rid of the thoughts in his mind, and focused on Kuroko's question. "What did you expect me to do when you suddenly appear out of nowhere like a ghost?!" Kise hissed in a whisper, suddenly annoyed with both the boy in front of him and himself. Kuroko blinked before smiling slightly.
"I was sitting here for a whole half hour before you sat down in front of me." Kuroko stated simply, twirling his milkshake around. "Then I decided to greet you and you act like I'm Jason, ready to kill you at any moment." Kise blinked in confusion.
"Jason?" He asked, of course he had to ask. As Kuroko went into a full explanation of the movie Jason had appeared in, Kise could feel himself lose whatever appetite he may have had before entering 'Serious Burger', then he interrupted. "Oh, look, Kurokocchi, this song has played a lot in the last ten minutes. Let's make a bet, please?!" Kuroko paused in his lengthy description of one of the murders that had happened in the American made movie. He tilted his head and listened to the last few lyrics of the song. Winter Blossom by Aoi Shota*. It seemed as though that song was rather popular at the moment.
"What type of bet, Kise-kun?"
"If this song plays again in the next twenty minutes, you have to do what I want you to for the rest of the school year. If it doesn't, I'll do whatever you want me to do." Kuroko glanced at the clock on the wall before hiding his smile behind his milkshake.
"Alright Kise-kun. Be ready to buy me a milkshake every day." Kise blinked at the confidence he heard in his voice.
Twenty minutes later, Kise hit his head against the table with a groan.
…
It's been a week since that incident, and Kise was keeping up with his part of the bet – with many complaints – but Kuroko couldn't be more troubled. It bothered him, now more than ever. Why did his manager make him do it?
"Ah! Kurokocchi!" Kuroko looked up to see the blonde waving at him from in front of Aomine, obviously in the middle of a one-on-one match with him, before freezing. Kuroko saw the blonde's lips twitching in that smile before he abruptly turned away from both Kuroko and Aomine. It annoyed him but at least Kise had a bit of respect for him to not outright laugh in his face. Aomine turned around to see was Kise was shaking so much for and his eyes rested on the shorter cross-dressing male before he straight out laughed at the boy.
"Aomine-kun, I would appreciate it if you didn't laugh." Indeed, Kuroko had done something due to his manager's orders. He had destroyed the image he had made in the modelling business, he really did. His long hair… it had been butchered completely. It was done the night before and Kuroko didn't think it would mess with anything so he went to sleep without a care in the world. Oh how stupid that was. Now his used to be perfectly flat layered hair is sticking up in every which way, causing him to look like he just got out of a tornado. Nothing he could do to it would actually fix it either! Kuroko turned away in frustration, heading to the library. He had come to school early so he could return the books he had gotten with Midorima and Murasakibara about two weeks ago. With the way his morning was going already, he was ready for the after school session that had become routine for him with Midorima and Murasakibara. Kise had tried barging in once but it didn't quite work, considering Midorima insulted the blonde then kicked him out as he cried.
"Sorry, Tetsu. I couldn't help it." Aomine stepped in front of him, wiping away the tears that were in his eyes, the smile in both his words and on his face very obvious. Aomine reached up and started messing with his hair. "What's with the short mess, anyways?"
"My manager told me to cut it all off since I was going to be in a drama as a girl who is cross-dressing to meet up with her idol." Kuroko kept it short but Aomine paused, raising his eyebrow.
"You're playing a girl who cross dresses?" Aomine found this amusing but kept himself from laughing again. He didn't want Kuroko getting upset again. Plus, his sides hurt already.
"Yes, why?" Kuroko obviously didn't understand why he saw so much amusement in Aomine's eyes. Aomine shook his head a bit before going back to fixing Kuroko's hair to look normal – hopefully it didn't look too much like a guy's for Kuroko to get pissed off at him since he had no clue what Kuroko's hairstyle was supposed to be. Kuroko picked up a piece of his hair and tugged on it with a frown. He wasn't used to short hair – hell, the last time he had short hair was when he was a kid – and kind of almost missed his long hair that reached mid-back. But his manager had assured him that after the drama was over, he could grow his hair back out. He had grown attached to the long silkiness, suddenly realizing why he didn't keep his hair in a shorter girl hairstyle.
"There, all fixed." Kise had joined the two at that time, finally over his laughter, staring at the short blue hair.
"Are you sure, Aominecchi? It still looks like a mess." Kise looked at the layered hair that was still somewhat sticking up in places. "By the way, why is it short?"
"Manager told him to cut it off so he could play a cross-dressing girl." Aomine stated as he started messing with the short hair again. He didn't want to admit it but he was going to – the hair felt nice and soft and he really wanted to run his hand through it and mess it up even more so he could continue touching it.
"A… cross-dressing girl?" Kise went back into his hysterics and Kuroko frowned at him in confusion. Why was this so amusing to them?
"Well, I've got to go return this to the library." Kuroko held up the two books and walked towards the school. When he got to the library, he went immediately to the desk. As soon as he had set the two books on the desk in front of the librarian, ready to make conversation with the friendly lady, his wrist was grabbed and he was dragged away from the desk and the surprised woman. He was dragged behind a bookcase before he was able to process that someone had grabbed him.
"M'lady, I'm gonna need you to answer a question for me." It was Shige. The boy from before. Why did the boy's eyes look familiar? And where had he heard that name before? Kuroko blinked up at Shige, tilting his head to the side in curiosity.
"Yes? What is it, Shige-kun?"
"Is your real name Kuroko Tetsuya?" Shige's eyes were staring into Kuroko's eyes intensely. Kuroko blinked a few times, not answering but not denying it either. "I know I told you to call me Shige, but my full name is Ogiwara Shigehiro. I used to have a friend back in elementary that went by the name Kuroko Tetsuya. I want to make sure my memories of him are correct. I lost contact with him back in middle school." More like I stopped talking to him out of guilt. But I'm ready to ignore that now. If this is indeed him, that is.
"Oh, it's you Ogiwara-kun." Kuroko may have sounded indifferent but his eyes displayed that he was happy to have met his best friend from elementary and middle school. Shige sighed in relief.
"Man, I thought I was gonna die of embarrassment if I didn't remember that correctly!" Shige backed away with a grin, folding his hands behind his head.
"I didn't know you were here Ogiwara-kun. There's a good café called Maji-ba down the street, let's go there after school soon." Kuroko said as he looked at his phone's time. "At the moment though, I need to go get the work for the last few classes of the day that I'll be missing." Kuroko waved to Shige with a smile on his face as he walked away, leaving the shocked Shige. It was almost as if they had never been apart. While Kuroko did still call him Ogiwara-kun, he was a lot more relaxed with the way he spoke to Shige. He didn't use overly polite words with him as he did with everyone else. And he had reverted back to speaking like he did when he was back in elementary.* Shige couldn't help but be surprised but extremely relieved that he had his friend back without ever actually having to go through the awkward apology session. It was peaceful now, in his mind.
…
Serious Burger – Just a joke between my friend and I… Since maji means 'serious', as I realized after listening to many many Japanese songs… Actually, I had been listening to one of those songs and I had a sudden thought… 'Wait, maji means serious… does that mean that Maji-ba is actually Serious Burger?!' and I shared it with my friend and she started laughing with me… Then it went off on to who would name that café that… We came to the conclusion that it was Hidan from Naruto, since he says serious a lot… Then it went to how Hidan would actually say it and it ended at "These are some serious fucking burgers!" then we split up to go to our first hour class… Yep, nice story isn't it?
Winter Blossom by Aoi Shota – Aoi Shota is the voice actor for Mikaze Ai-chan in Uta no Prince-sama! and it just so happens that Ai-chan is my favorite character in all anime (not including Kuroko no Basuke)… Plus I was listening to my playlist on my phone (full of over a hundred Japanese songs, only about ten maybe fifteen English songs (most of those are English dubbed songs)) and Winter Blossom was just starting when I got to that part…
The last part is talking about how the Japanese refer to themselves… Since Kuroko is supposed to be acting like a girl, he uses the 'watashi' version of referring to one's self… But when he was back in elementary, he referred to himself as 'boku' which is the male version (also the tomboy but whatever) like he does in the anime… Not much else to explain there…
…
Ah! I feel so much more relaxed after typing over two thousand words within an hour… Don't try to tell me that it wasn't within an hour because I got home a tiny bit over an hour ago and I didn't get on the computer until about thirty minutes after I had taken my shoes off…
As always, I love you all but at the moment I don't have anything to randomly ramble about at the moment… so…
See ya!
Nightmare
