Episode 15 was just… sad. The anime seems to be speeding up the storyline a bit. Oh well, in my own little opinion it seems to do a nice job with the condensing. I just hope there aren't any drastic changes.

Edit: OH crap! Discrepancies, discrepancies! I seriously have never been this scatter-brained before… Of course, Auntie~!

Despite Kagami's loud entrance, after the dust had settled they both turned silent again. Kuroko disinfected the scrape on his leg and put a bandage on it. Kagami's hand was a bit more complicated. He had cleaned the cuts and now needed to tape up the injured fingers. He wasn't used to taping up his own fingers. As he slowly wrapped the bandage around the knuckles, his blood pressure rose by a few numbers as he wondered how a certain Midorima managed this every single freaking day.

"Kagami, let me do it. Hold your hand still."

Kuroko scooted over by Kagami and took the tape from Kagami. It was almost hypnotizing, watching the tape wind and twist over and over around his fingers.

"Kuroko."

"Yes?"

"Your mom, why did she…"

"Are you asking why I am even here in the first place?"

"NO! I-I mean, your mom could've have given you away or-"

"My mother, contrary to how she looks, is quite sensible. Do you want to hear everything?"

Kagami's hand twitched and he looked away.

"Nevermind. I should shut up."

He shouldn't pry too much. It was unreasonable asking Kuroko about a touchy subject like this. It was also amazing how fast this whole thing had gone downhill. They were teammates. That was it.

"Kagami, it's done."

Kagami looked at his fingers and flexed them experimentally. The bandages were snug and stayed in place, but they didn't restrict his movements either. It looked almost like something the coach had done herself.

"This is good," he said, surprised.

"I have some experience."

Kagami blinked.

"Like how?"

"Small accidents. People do not notice me until it is too late. Things like that."

"I could get clipped by a bike or small things like that."

"'Clipped by a bike'? Won't that leave a deep cut or something?"

"Most people tend to exaggerate bike accidents."

Kagami sighed.

"You seriously need to be more careful."

"I know. Kagami, may I ask you something?"

"Yeah, what is it?"

"Now that you know about my father, what will you do?"

Kagami felt like he had been struck dead for a few seconds. That was just like Kuroko to blatantly fire off such a scary question to answer. He reached out with his bandaged hand and roughly grabbed Kuroko's head, ruffling the hair.

"Are you stupid? I'm gonna keep on playing basketball with you! I'm your Light," he said brusquely, "and I'm not going to leave you over something stupid like this."

Kuroko smiled peacefully and reached up to pull Kagami's hand off his head.

"I like that answer," he replied. It was a good thing to say.

Kagami saw Kuroko's smile and the first thing he thought was that it looked like the smile of someone who was usually in a coffin. That was either a very good sign, or a very bad one.

"Kagami, we are… friends, right?"

"What do you mean?"

Kuroko flopped back onto the futon.

"I think that we are friends. Am I right or wrong?"

Kagami scratched his head.

"I- I dunno. We only play basketball together. Other than that, we don't do much."

"I trust Kagami… most of the time."

"HEY!"

"Does Kagami trust me?"

"Yes!"

"If you were in trouble would you trust me to get you out of that situation?"

"Yes!"

"I was in trouble and you got me out of that situation, correct?"

"Yes!"

"I am your Shadow and partner, right?"

"Yes!"

"You want to keep on playing basketball with me, correct?"

"Yes!"

"Did we suffer together through training camp?"

"Definitely…"

"Did I promise to make you number one in Japan?"

"Yes! What's with the questions?"

He still didn't think they were friends after all of this?

Kagami noticed the somewhat disappointed expression.

"Did I say something?"

"No."

Aw crap, I said something, Kagami thought uneasily. This was bad. He had no idea how he'd screwed up. He was sure he had answered all those questions correctly, so why was Kuroko still pissed off at him? He was clueless.

It was probably for reasons like this that the coach called him stupid along with the other members of the team. According to them, he was also "hopelessly dense".

Those things never really bothered him except during times like these. Tatsuya himself said he was going to regret filling his head with basketball instead of subtlety one day.

"Kagami? In my opinion, I think we are friends."

Kuroko couldn't be possibly serious.

Like he said before, they only ate together and played basketball together. Sure he borrowed Kuroko's notes sometimes but lending notes hardly characterized people as friends. Friends were supposed to hang out together and do things that they both liked together. They both loved basketball, but they played as partners.

He ran different scenarios through his mind and realized that he never expected Kuroko to see him as anything but a Light. He stared dumbly at a corner of the room processing all the info his poor brain could handle. He was freaking stupid! Why did people always expect him to pick those random social cues or things like that?

Kuroko wondered if he had underestimated Kagami's stupidity. Was it really that bad that he had to say it straight to his face?

Then again, this was the person who couldn't score a decent score in English after living in America for years.

Kagami's thinking processes fizzled pathetically as his mental state went into a melt-down. That was it. He was going into a coma ASAP. His mind couldn't take all the conflict. Without thinking, he opened his mouth and spoke.

"If you think so; I don't think I'm much of a friend outside of basketball. If we're friends I'll take your word for it."

He snapped out of his daze to process exactly what he had just said. His face began trying to contort into an expression of horror, joy, and disbelief all at the same time. With his mouth all puckered up in some sort of frown and smile crushed together and his eyebrows scrunched up, he looked absolutely ridiculous.

Kuroko rolled onto his side and laughed.

"Kagami is so stupid sometimes!" he exclaimed happily. Kagami yelled and tried to grab him, but he ducked and rolled away.

"You can't just call me stupid to my face like that!" Kagami screamed and got up to chase Kuroko around the room.

"No fair! Kagami is stronger than me!"

Kagami paid no heed and sprinted around after Kuroko before pulling off a beautiful tackle and knocking the smaller boy down. He might've had a chance in football if he wasn't so devoted to basketball.

"That hurt. Kagami, get off."

"Oh, sorry about that," Kagami apologized sheepishly as he helped Kuroko up, "I lost my temper."

"You are too short tempered."

Kuroko huffed and straightened out his clothes.

"We are friends," he repeated quietly. He kept repeating the words to himself until he could feel himself beginning to cry again, this time in happiness. Why was it that after you cried once, for the rest of the day you kept feeling like you would burst into tears at any moment?

"I guess, then, you can tell me about what your mom did."

Kuroko kicked him in the shin.

"Do not ask me a question like that all of a sudden."

"W-What the hell? You were going to tell me before weren't you!"

"I changed my mind."

"Hey! Tell me!"

"So you were curious."

"Dammit Kuroko!"

Kuroko pretended to rub his eyes as if from sleepiness and laid down on the futon again. The rooms were warm from the summer heat and he didn't feel like crawling under the blankets.

"Wait, are you gonna tell me or not?"

"I am waiting for you to also sit down."

Kagami sighed and sat down on the futon besides Kuroko.

"So, start."

"Like I said before, my mother is a very sensible person. Or perhaps too kind for her own good. Either way, she stoutly believed that it was not my fault that I had been conceived. It was the man who raped her that was responsible. To abort me would be a pointless punishment that would not even get her justice. She was about to graduate from college and was fairly certain that she could raise me. I was even going to be born after graduation. The problem was that my grandparents were determined to have me gone. They did not want the social stigma of an illegitimate child."

"Lemme guess; they hate you. What does stigma mean anyway?"

"They hate me a lot, and a stigma is a sign of disgrace I believe. My mother anyway pretended to get an abortion and by the time they found out I was too far along to get offed without some serious controversy."

"But your grandparents could've forced her to give you away."

"I am about to get there. Right after I was born, she retracted the decision to give me away. Her child, her decision. Grandpa and Grandma were this close to disowning her. Aunt Fumiko actually blackmailed them though. She said if they disowned Mother she would spread the word that her parents had cruelly disowned their daughter for being raped."

Kagami couldn't believe how crazy Kuroko's mom was. His Aunt Fumiko had a sort of craziness to her that you could kind of feel, but his mom's crazy was hidden and flat out insane.

That brought something else into question. Where was Kuroko's little bit of insanity? The answer came to him almost immediately and he felt like hitting himself in the head. In basketball of course.

"Your family is not normal."

"I am normal."

"You seriously can't mean that."

Kuroko sat up and rested his back comfortably on Kagami's side. Kagami, in response, shifted a bit to even up the extra weight. It was funny sometimes how short Kuroko was compared to other players. He was only about as tall as a girl his age. Maybe he'd go through some kind of last minute growth spurt if he was lucky.

"I have been worried about this wedding for the past two weeks. I was not been able to sleep properly," he began.

"WHAT? That's why you kept sleeping in class you…"

"But, when Kagami is around, I can sleep, because I trust him to keep me safe and stand up for me. I believe and doubt this at the same time. I wonder if you can understand that."

Kagami was at a loss for words. Was he seriously only Kuroko's second friend or something? The amount of trust-no faith that Kuroko had in him was exorbitant. These matters were things that went beyond the court, and they both already had a good portion of probably their souls invested in basketball. Besides, how could Kuroko both doubt and believe in him at the same time? That was too strange.

"Don't say such embarrassing things!"

His vehement remark fell on deaf ears. Kuroko was fast asleep and already lightly snoring.

This was a problem. He really wanted to get up or lay down on his own futon, but Kuroko was leaning on him. To wake him up would be too cruel as well. That meant that he'd probably have to wait until Kuroko was in a deep enough sleep to be moved.

How was he going to go to the bathroom?

I got completely stuck at the middle of the fic. So now Kagami has a spontaneous breakthrough instead of a slow one. I'm kind of annoyed about that. It's just too unnatural. Well, this is Kagami, so let's assume it's possible for him. He's also way a bit too perceptive during this chapter. Ah I hate OOC.

Sorry this chap took a while.