Ohmygod, thank you guise for all the reviews! They made my day and I've been grinning like an idiot all day. Please, keep them coming! They helped me kick into high gear, and I've made a bit more progress where I had earlier thought I was stuck, so thanks again! And for everyone else who favourited and followed this, thank you too! I appreciate all of you, huuuuugs

Notice: I will be returning to my hometown tomorrow, and we've no idea how long the trip will take, it depends completely on the traffic. If I make it on schedule and I'm not completely exhausted, I'll probably upload the next chapter, but no promises!

So if you don't see the next chapter, I'm not slacking, just borderline dead hahaha.

Anyway, here's chapter 2! Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroko no Basuke or any of its characters. Only the following story is my own.

Aomine spent the rest of the week lost in daydreams about a pair of mesmerizing blue eyes.

He couldn't remember the last time he had been turned down. It was rather refreshing in a way, this game of cat and mouse. It got boring when the women just fell at his feet. The thrill wasn't there anymore.

But he only began to realize how distracted he was when his friends brought it up.

"I'm surprised, Dai-kun," Momoi Satsuki, whom he had known since they were in the cradle, was over at his house for a movie night. She was the only female whom he shared a platonic relationship with, though it couldn't be said that they hadn't been attracted to each other at some point in their lives. Satsuki definitely had her plus points.

He hummed noncommittally as he rummaged through a pile of DVDs for the latest show he had bought.

"This is the first movie night you haven't rescheduled." That made him pause, and he turned around, refusal on the tip of his tongue to see sharp eyes boring into his. He blew out a sigh. Then she went and did that and all her charm went out the window. Instead of the outright lie, he returned to his search and mumbled something in response.

"What was that?"

"I haven't been seeing anyone lately." He said, louder this time.

"Quantify 'lately'." She said drily.

He shrugged. Where the hell was that DVD? "Five days, a week? I don't know."

The dark haired man paused again, this time because of the unusual silence that accompanied his words. He turned around slowly. Satsuki was staring at him, mouth agape.

"What?"

"A week." She said, her voice shocked.

"What about it?" He asked irritably. It wasn't really that abnormal.

"Dai-kun, you've never slept alone in a bed for more than three days at a go since middle school!" Aomine frowned. What the hell? That was definitely an exaggeration.

"Yes I have."

"No you haven't."

"Have so."

"Have not."

"Have!"

"Not!" Aomine glared at his pink-haired friend, movie momentarily forgotten.

"When was the last time, then?" He narrowed his eyes as he delved into his memory and tried to pull up a time when he would spend his nights alone. His mind flashed him a huge blank wall.

Her smug smile made him want to throw a pillow at her.

"Oh my~ Is Dai-kun in looooove?" She grinned wickedly at him. "I must meet this phenomenal woman. Who is she? Does she realize what a milestone she's accomplished?"

Aomine averted his eyes as he said, "He."

The pink-haired girl stared at him blankly for several minutes, and then finally, "Eh?"

"It's a guy. And I'm not in love," he declared, almost as an afterthought. Satsuki, like most women, could spread gossip faster than he could snap his fingers. She burst out laughing.

"It sounds like you're in love, Dai-kun. A guy? Really? Though –" she shot him a contemplative look, " – I'm honestly not surprised. I figured it would only be a matter of time before you got bored of women."

Aomine eyed his friend suspiciously. "You're taking this much too calmly."

She waved a hand nonchalantly. "I come across plenty of gays in my line of work."

Satsuki was a popular model who had recently been making a name for herself as a photographer. He knew what she said was true, he had been to one of her parties, and the plethora of people he had encountered there made up about half of the world's crazy. Still, her easy acceptance of his possible change in sexual orientation disconcerted him.

Wait, did she just call him gay?

"So, how was it?" he looked up at her expectant smile and blinked slowly.

"How was what?" She tsked at him, and rolled her eyes.

"Sex with a guy, dummy."

Once again, Aomine found a spot on his wall decidedly interesting. "We haven't done it. Actually, I've only ever spoken to him once. And he shot me down."

Again, that blank look. He was starting to wonder if Satsuki was really blonde underneath that pink hair. Suddenly, she started giggling, and that turned into a full-blown belly laugh in which she rolled about on his sofa clutching her stomach for a good five minutes while he stared at her, stuck between bemused and embarrassed.

Finally, her laughter died down, and he caught the shine of tears in her eyes. She wiped them away. "Oh. My. God. He turned you down. Dai-kun got turned down. Miracles do happen!"

xx

"Why am I here again?"

Aomine looked across the table at his partner. His glasses hid emerald eyes that Aomine knew right now where sharp with annoyance. Midorima was an attractive man, and one of the few people he knew who could hold his own in a crowd next to Aomine. However, the man's disposition left a lot to be desired, and he had a strange fascination with horoscopes that was very disconcerting.

"How's Takao doing?" Aomine asked, avoiding the question. Midorima was also probably the only gay person he knew well enough to be able to talk comfortably about these sorts of things with. The latter narrowed his eyes.

"He's fine. But you're avoiding." They had been partners for years now, and knew how to read each other like open books. Though, if he were honest, Midorima could read him a lot better than he could read Midorima.

With a sigh, Aomine cast his eyes around the bar. It was the same one where he had run into the mystery that was Kuroko nearly a week ago, and he had come today in the hopes of catching him again. As his eyes scanned the crowd, he said, "You're here so I can throw you to the sharks that come in case I need to bolt suddenly."

"What, you're avoiding women now? Aren't we in the wrong place?" Aomine could hear the sarcasm. The green-eyed man was a master at it.

"I'm looking for someone." He replied, taking a sip of his drink.

"Did you lose your phone?" Midorima asked suddenly.

"No," Aomine turned to him with a confused frown. "What does that have to do with looking for someone?"

The other man shrugged. "That would be the only conceivable reason you would be here stalking someone instead of calling them up. Unless you never got her number."

"I didn't," Aomine said flatly. Lately he was finding his promiscuous reputation to be somewhat of an annoyance. It wasn't like he had the number of every female in town. Just most of them. Midorima cocked an eyebrow and was silent for a while.

"I don't get it."

Aomine had gone back to looking through the crowd for a shock of blue hair. Still no luck.

"Don't get what?"

"Well," Midorima began slowly as though he was arranging his thoughts. "You don't keep the numbers of people who you didn't enjoy doing it with, but here you are, stalking a woman whose number you don't have…" He trailed off, looking thoughtful. "The only conclusions I can draw are that you've either lost your phone, her number, or –" his eyes widened suddenly. "—is this that mystery girl that Momoi-san said turned you down?"

"Girl?" Aomine asked, and immediately wished he hadn't. He watched with no little amount of dread as his partner's face slowly split into a devastatingly handsome grin. Shit, he thought. Midorima wasn't the type to grin. When he did, someone either got shot, or wished that they had. That damned Satsuki.

"You got turned down by a guy," the obvious glee in his features made him want to punch him. "No, wait, you tried to pick up a guy." The way he was emphasizing the word was making Aomine uncomfortable.

"Shut up, frog. It's not that big a deal." Man, he really hated Midorima right now.

"Oh, but it is. Takao will love to hear about this." Aomine looked at him, panicked. It was one thing if Satsuki knew, but if both Satsuki and Takao knew, the gossip would spread so fast, it would smack him hard in the face before he even saw it coming. Midorima laughed, the sound distinctively evil. "You should see the look on your face right now. If I didn't know you better, I'd say that you're desperate."

Aomine tossed the green-eyed goblin a pained look. When he found out something this juicy, Midorima never gave up the opportunity to milk every last bit of embarrassment out of his victim.

"Takao doesn't need to know about this."

"Why not? You know I don't keep secrets from him. Especially not something so amazing. Who knew that the womanizing, skirt-chasing douchebag would turn out to be g—" his teasing was cut off with Aomine's hand clamped over his mouth.

"No one needs to know about this," Aomine hissed. "Especially not Takao."

Midorima pried his hand away and wiped his mouth primly with a napkin. "So, do you see your mystery man?"

The abrupt change in topic set off alarms in his head, but Aomine knew better than to pursue that thread of conversation. He shook his head. He'd kept an eye on the area around the bartender, but he hadn't recognized any of them.

"Does this man at least have a name?" Midorima was back to his default expression of mild annoyance. Even Aomine was starting to find the bar stifling.

"I only got his last name from the bartender. Kuroko."

"He didn't give you any information at all? Why are you even trying so hard?"

Aomine pursed his lips. He knew why he was so obsessed, but as honest as he was with himself, he wasn't a very honest person with anyone else. "Because I've never lost before. And I don't intend on losing any time soon."

Midorima stared at him in silence for a while. "It's obvious that he isn't interested."

Aomine had to admit that he didn't have any experience dating men. Contrary to what Satsuki believed, he had tried having sex with a guy a couple of times, and hadn't found anything to complain about. But he hadn't tried the dating game with one of them. It was always a one night stand. But he knew how to read the signals, he'd been picking up girls for long enough. Kuroko may have seemed like he wasn't interested, but Aomine remembered the way he smiled, almost as an invitation.

His lips curved up into a handsome smirk. "Oh, I wouldn't say that."

xx

Two weeks later, Aomine was beginning to question his confidence. He'd gone to the bar almost every other night for the past fortnight, but even when he questioned the bartender, he'd only gotten a shrug.

Satsuki had taken to dropping by unannounced in the hopes that he was lying when he said that he couldn't find the man and was in fact, hiding him in his closet. Midorima teased him about it daily, and Takao spammed his inbox at least twice a day asking for new development. That bastard lizard had told him anyway.

God, if he could just shoot all his nosy friends.

He was on the verge of giving up, something he'd never admit out loud. He'd gone three weeks without even a peep from the blue-eyed man, and he'd been so distracted by his image in his head that he found it difficult to look at women and actually notice them. Aomine had tried having sex with one of his 'girlfriends', but somehow he found it lacking. Satsuki had had a field day when he told her.

He sat at a booth in the back of the bar, hidden from view but with a clear line of sight to the door. He found the chattering of the women he had been surrounded with before annoying now, and was grateful that he had found the spot in the back where no one would be able to see him unless they were walking to the back of the building.

Aomine stared into the drink that he was nursing. His friends weren't wrong. He knew nothing more than the man's last name, and yet he was going out of his way to meet him again. And as Midorima pointed out, there was no guarantee that he'd be any luckier even if he ran into the bluenette again. But he was stuck on how their last (only) encounter had gone, and kept replaying it over in his mind, editing it and imagining situations in which he was much more in control. He wasn't a control freak, not by a long shot, but it made him uncomfortable thinking about how thrown off balance he had been. Sure, that had been his first reject in a long time, but the more he dwelled on it, the more he realized that what irked him the most about the event was not that he had lost a catch, it was more because he had lost his cool. If he ran into Kuroko again, he would definitely play it cool.

Definitely.

He sighed dejectedly. Maybe he should quit it. There was a limit to how long he could wait. This couldn't be good for his health. He took a gulp of his drink and decided that he would call up one of his girlfriends and set up a date. He needed to go back to normal.

He had just pulled out his phone and was scrolling through the list of names when out of his peripherals he saw a person slide into the seat opposite him. He frowned. He didn't want company right now.

"That seat's taken," he said without looking up.

"I've been looking for a while now, and I haven't seen anyone else here." Aomine froze, and glanced up, almost afraid to hope when he recognized the softly lilting voice and those words.

He locked eyes with soft blue ones and felt his heart skip a beat as Kuroko's lips curled up slowly into that all too familiar teasing smile.