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BANDS OF black AND blue

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29 : what hurts the most

When Aomine regains consciousness again, he is surprised to see both Momoi and Kuroko huddled over his bed. Vaguely, he can hear a professional-sounding voice - either a doctor or Midorima - talking about statistics and the probability of a full recovery. He strains his ears to make out more but it's of no use - Momoi clutches desperately onto his white-and-sterilized bedsheets and sobs over his bed and Kuroko's face is as placid as he'll ever remember.

The weeks of intensive physical therapy get him to the point where he can walk and jog without the help of crutches - but it's not enough. The therapist tells him while laying a soothing hand on his shoulder (and though he knows that she only wants for him to recover he cannot stop the swell of anger from her touch) with a face that speaks of facts and numbers: there is a chance that he will be able to legitimately run within three months.

He does not remember exactly what he said in response, only that Momoi had to bodily pull him off her.

'You can't do this to me - ' Aomine remembers thinking. 'You can't take that away from me.' He does not know, in between the hatred and the disbelief and the hallow pain that reverberates from his twitching fingers to his shaking knees, how he manages to shake off both his parents and Momoi, forcing himself to swing over walls and duck under gates until somehow or another, he finds himself in front of the public courts of his childhood.

At this point, he has no hope of catching his breath and his raw palms are bleeding and he has no idea what other meaning there is in the world. He sinks to his knees, pressing his head in a position akin to praying atop the rusted iron links of the fence. There is no point, there is no point in recovery if he's unable to jump, unable to sprint, unable to play.

So close - so damn close; he had met a rival, a person that could match him hit for hit, beat for beat, shot for shot, someone he had been waiting for for only all seventeen years of his life. He had sworn to practice with more fervency than he had ever felt, laughed with an alien giddiness when his hands ached from handling the ball so much.

He had been, more than anything, looking forward to rematch. And now it is likely that he will never play again.

Someone - Akashi, probably - arranges for Kuroko to visit him a couple days later, dressed primly in his Seirin uniform. Aomine barks out a cold laugh, asks the other if he's come here to laugh and point and sneer because oh, how the mighty have fallen; how the tables have turned.

Kuroko raises a hand to calmly backhand him across the face and Aomine - for the first time in his life - flashes his eyes and pulls back his upper lip and socks the other squarely in the jaw. He takes special delight in the satisfying crunch of skin and bone and blood - likes seeing Kuroko angry.

"What the hell do you care?" he screams through a not-at-all-sore throat, muscles ecstatic to be given the opportunity to punch and kick and fight. "You can fucking play!"

It's not so much a battle as it is a flurry of screams and punches and vulgarities from Aomine. In less than a minute, he has Kuroko pinned underneath him on the floor and he wants so much to spit on that frigid expression - just to wipe the ice off his eyes. With a cruel smile, he lifts his old teammate up by his now-wrinkled collar. "Fuck you Tetsu," he grinds out, hating himself for looking away first, for not being able to actually land a decent blow (after the initial punch, that is), for still not truly hating the other. "Fuck you and your shining new Light and your tip-top teammates!"

"If you break my knee I won't be able to play," Kuroko calmly replies, eyes level and breaths even. Aomine, on the other hand, feels his chest heave and his grip give way.

"...what...?" he hoarsely whispers.

"You heard me," he says, gaze never leaving Aomine. "If you think that I can't care about you because I can play basketball, I can just as easily throw away that right as you." It's a bluff, the other is obviously kidding; Aomine snorts and in the second that he relaxes, Kuroko takes a deep breath and flips himself out of Aomine's hold, reversing their positions faster than Aomine's almost-recovered body can process. Kuroko's pale fingers wrap themselves confidently around the dark skin of Aomine's neck - loose, threatening.

"It hurts - " Kuroko gasps out, face contorting with emotions that Aomine cannot recognize, " - to see Aomine-kun like this. You were... you were my dream - that spot on the horizon that I would always be chasing after. And now..." he smiles a sad smile, even as his fingers leave his neck entirely, "To think that you think you'll never play again...!"

"I'm scared," he confesses, mouth moving to form selfish words of his own volition.

"S'awful, isn't it?" Aomine rasps, even as his arms are looping around Kuroko's shoulders. He feels just as useless and pathetic as he did an hour ago - and still, there is a miserable sort of camaraderie in the comforting feel another person's heartbeat.