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BANDS OF black AND blue
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o3 : needing no one
The fear manifests itself in their second year of middle school.
It starts off as a little niggling question, in the back of his head: 'why, out of everyone in Teikou's long and prestigious basketball history, would the captain of the Dream Team choose you to be on the team?'. And it is a very good question, and one that he is unable to provide a proper answer to. Yes, he can pass and run and do exercises like the rest of the first string players, but he is - all the same - fundamentally different.
"You can't dunk, you can't do a layup, your dribbling sucks," Aomine tells him bluntly after their first game together. "I have no idea what sorta strings your parents must've pulled to get you into first string, but you're not going to be able to actually play, you know?"
Kuroko flushes deeply in response, fingers fumbling with the pass he was just given.
The next game, Akashi snaps his fingers, and just-like-that, Kuroko is allowed full control over his own passes, making use of his lack of presence to properly misdirect all the other players. Pass after pass after pass - it's not just one or two or three, but all. And while the adrenaline and excitement and coursing love of basketball is a reward in and of itself, the best thing about that particular practice was seeing Aomine's expression after the game was over (a neat and tidy 42-12).
"Sorry," the other mumbles, face painted red with exertion and embarrassment. Kuroko turns his head, because he is not the type of easily forgive.
Aomine buys him an ice cream - 'My treat,' he recalls the other saying, before tossing the wrapped goodie five feet too far - after the next practice, and they sit around and legitimately talk strategy for the remainder of the afternoon. Of course it is Aomine doing most of the talking, but in terms of strategy, Kuroko can confidently say he was the one with most of it.
"Strategy?" he remembers Aomine whining, pinky perpetually stuck in one ear, "Strategy is for wimps. I don't need strategy; I've got my shots and your passes. We make an unbeatable team!"
The bursting confidence that Aomine seemed to so easily exude was quite charming when it was directed right at him, Kuroko thinks.
All the same, he busies himself with strategy guides and sitting in the Teikou basketball room with the captain, watching recordings of their own matches and practices, desperately running over every incessant detail, until he can practically tap out the sound of sneakers squeaking against the well-waxed floor. Sometimes Midorima stops by, although Akashi snidely point out that it's for the sole purpose of preening at his own miraculous three-pointers, but never Aomine.
When Akashi verbally makes note of this to Kuroko - raising an eyebrow and pressing the fast-forward button - the 'shadow' of the Generation of Miracles simply shrugs and replies that the strategizing is simply his share of the partnership.
Akashi shrugs and says no more.
The next time, however, he brings Kise onto the basketball team, implies using only the most silk-laden words in their language that it is very likely that the blonde bombshell (who, Murasakibara snidely remarks, looks more fitted to be trying out swimsuits than playing basketball) will not only quickly ascend the ranks, but that he will be given a spot on the regulars.
Kise reminds him of Aomine: initial anger at Kuroko's position in the basketball team, and then eventual understanding and some degree of overly-enthusiastic friendship. But Kise is different from Aomine in one aspect - one fatal aspect - and that is that he does not believe in the flawless machine of a player Akashi has oiled and greased the five of them to become. His eyes are quite easily the fastest on the team, and true to Akashi's prediction, he is made a regular within two months of being on the basketball team (a record beaten only by... everyone else on the Generation of Miracles, Kuroko dryly informs his fake-sobbing teammate). But he does not stop believing in the 'individual'.
"C'mon, Kurokocchi!" Kise pouts, as Kuroko passes - flawlessly, as per usual - to Aomine. "You're so close to the basket! You could at least try to make it in!"
"Shut up Ryou," Aomine pleasantly retorts.
"Yes," Midorima remarks, as the buzzer sounds and the victory - but of course - goes to their school, "After all, why trifle with the possibility of two points when, with a guaranteed pass you'll be able to make a guaranteed basket?" It's sound logic, except for the fact that he assumes that Aomine's two points are Kuroko's two points as well.
Which, Kuroko knows, they are not.
And so, he is left to worry about being replaced, with each new wave of enthused underclassmen, who seem to appear every couple months or so - what with Teikou's uncontested victory in each of the league tournaments. It is a silly fear, he knows, because it is not as if he is a poor basketball player - it is not as if he is inexperienced, or lazy, or lacking any love of the sport.
Aomine, on the other hand, begins to embody all three characteristics, with each effortless basket made, with the gap between their team and the losing team growing larger and larger with each subsequent game. It is only natural, Midorima remarks, as the three of them - Kise and Kuroko, of course - stroll down towards their homes after a practice match against another school.
This is the turning point in their partnership: where, at the fifteen-second mark (when the cheering of the crowd has all but died down because the winner is so blindingly obvious), instead of passing to Kuroko to pass back to him, Aomine simply charges down the line - and although the defense makes a paltry effort at stopping him, they ultimately do not have a chance in a million of stopping the powerhouse of the Generation of Miracles.
And in the midst of the festivities and celebrations - Momoi has gone all out this time - Kuroko laughs, low and bitter (because this is the natural solution that he had not been expecting), because... 'Irreplaceable,' Akashi had reassured him, and he was, in his own manner, right. Aomine would not need to replace him with anyone else; at this point, Aomine did not need anyone else on the court.