The photo texted from Murasakibara only confirmed what Akashi already knew. What he had suspected, anyway. Strongly suspected. So strongly suspected that it was tantamount to knowing. He couldn't tell the future, not really, but he would be an idiot indeed if he couldn't divine the past. Not when he had been given so many clues.

It didn't matter that the photo was blurry and poorly framed and low-resolution. Murasakibara had taken a picture of a computer screen with his phone, and white glare drowned out half of it. But not the half that mattered. That part was all too clear.

Also clear was the text message that accompanied the photo. It was riddled with spelling errors, as if it had been typed in a rage. No, not as if. Akashi knew that that was exactly what had happened. Murasakibara's hand must have been shaking badly, just as it was when he took that damning photo.

From: Murasakibara
Aka-chin, who did this to Kuro-chin? You know, don't you?
Tell me who it is so I can crush them.

Yes, Akashi knew. At least, he strongly suspected. It didn't take a genius to figure it out.

To: Murasakibara
Kuroko is safe now. I can promise you that.
There is no need for you to crush anyone.

From: Murasakibara
But I want to crush them.
Me and Muro-chin are coming to Tokyo this weekend. I will crush whoever did this then.

To: Murasakibara
You will only make things worse if you interfere. Kuroko is safe now.
That is, Kagami Tetsuya is safe. He is the safest he has ever been.

From: Murasakibara
I don't like that name. I won't use it.

To: Murasakibara
But that is his wish. You will sadden him if you refuse to abide by it.
We have caused Kagami Tetsuya enough sadness. We must not do it anymore.

The phone was silent for a long moment. Then:

From: Murasakibara
All right, Aka-chin. You must be right. You always are.

Not always, Akashi thought. Not when it matters the most.

To: Murasakibara
I'll see you this weekend. Don't give Himuro too much trouble.

From: Murasakibara
I'll be good. See you soon, Aka-chin.

Akashi closed the text program and went back to the photo. And he stared at it. It wasn't like him to obsess over things. He preferred to assess a situation, ascertain the correct action, take it, and move on without looking back. But this seemed to be an exception.

It was a three-quarters view of Kuroko, of Tetsuya, sitting curled up on the floor with his back to the camera. His head was down so his face was not visible, but he was immediately recognizable by his hair and by his physique. There was no way that Akashi could dismiss it as being someone else, could pass it off as a trick of the light or anything so simple. It didn't matter how grainy the shot was, how blurred and washed out and small. He knew who it was.

He knew what those marks were. The stripes on Tetsuya's back, red and inflamed, shading to purplish-black on the edges. The yellow-brown oblong smudges on his arms. The signs of weary defeat in his posture, the bow of his back. Akashi knew what they meant.

Akashi finally closed the phone and went about his tasks. He had a few preparations to make for the morrow.

The next day, he arrived at the Kagami apartment precisely on time. He was wearing casual street clothes, and he'd ditched every retainer who had attempted to keep up with him. He knocked on the door, once, gently, with the knuckles of one hand. Then he stood staring at the door, suddenly at a loss. He didn't know what to expect.

For a moment, he didn't even know why he had come. He wanted to run. Why did he want to run? Akashi had never run from anything in his life. A blank feeling he didn't recognize swept over him, paralyzing his limbs and freezing even his lungs, his breath lost for one awful, aching moment.

Fear. How ridiculous. There was absolutely nothing to fear here.

Then the door opened, and it all washed away. A man stood there holding the door open, his face broad and open and friendly. He was tall and well-built, though he had the bearing of a businessman. Akashi knew him well, though he had only met him once in passing.

"Kagami-san." Akashi bowed in greeting. It was the lowest bow he was capable of giving. This man was not just his equal—he was Akashi's superior.

He had succeeded where Akashi had failed. No...where Akashi had not even made an attempt. Kagami Hiroshi was worthy of the highest respect.

"Ah, Akashi-kun." Kagami-san bowed back and gave him a kind, warm grin. He stepped back and held the door wider, sweeping his arm out in invitation. "Please come in. Tetsu-chan is waiting for you."

"Thank you very much."

Akashi gave him the host gift he had brought, an excellent bottle of wine from his family's cellar. Kagami-san accepted it with raised eyebrows, but didn't comment. He ushered Akashi down the short hallway into the main part of the house. "Tetsu-chan is on the sofa in the main room. I'll leave you two to talk."

Akashi nodded in acknowledgment and padded over to the sofa in the corner of the room. There he stood for a moment, taking it in. Kuroko was sleeping, curled up in a loose ball and covered with a handmade blanket decorated with American folk art patterns. Akashi could not imagine a better metaphor for what had happened in this young man's life.

As if he could feel the weight of Akashi's gaze on him, Kuroko began to stir. He opened his eyes, blinking slowly, and stretched out under the blanket. So the defensive ball was only a posture he used when asleep, then. Awake, he was much more at ease.

"Hello, Akashi-kun." His voice was soft, but not fearful. He pulled himself up to recline in a corner of the sofa, dragging the blanket with him. His bedhead was astonishing. "Would you like to sit down?"

Akashi nodded and sat cross-legged in the opposite corner of the sofa, facing him. "Hello, Kagami-kun... Or perhaps you should tell me: What name do you prefer now? I admit that I am having trouble thinking of you by any name but Kuroko."

He smiled. It lit up his entire face. "I like being called Tetsu."

Akashi nodded thoughtfully. It made sense. He had obviously been so traumatized by his father that he could no longer bear to carry his name, and the only people who had called him Tetsuya had hurt him deeply. "All right, Tetsu-kun." Akashi would not presume to sully the -chan that was used so tenderly by Tetsu's new family, and he did not feel that he deserved to drop the honorific altogether. "How are you feeling?"

Tetsu blinked. "Much better, thank you. I'm sure I'll be able to return to school next week."

"Ah. Good."

An awkward silence fell. Akashi didn't understand it. He was an excellent conversationalist, just as he was excellent at everything else he put his hand to. It didn't make sense that this should be so difficult. But it was.

Tetsu lowered his eyes and rubbed his hand over the blanket in his lap. "I thought... Correct me if I'm wrong, it might have been a dream... But did you visit me while I was sick?"

"Yes, I did."

It had been a strange visit. Kise had sent him a frantic text message informing him that Kuroko was in the hospital with a bad infection and they needed to go see him before he died. Akashi had managed to calm him down (mostly by dint of sternly worded orders) and had convinced Kise to visit with him when Kuroko was home from the hospital. In the end, most of the old Teiko team had gone together.

Akashi had skipped school to make the trip (twice in one week; his father would murder him if he knew), but once he arrived, he hadn't been able to stay. Kuroko was asleep when they arrived, his face flushed, eyelids twitching in uneasy slumber. Kagami knelt by the futon, talking gently to him and wiping his face with a damp cloth. And Akashi heard Kuroko murmur in his sleep, fighting whatever feverish dreams possessed him.

They were just generic words. "No, please don't. Please stop." Others in a similar vein. They could have been responses to any number of nightmarish figments: monsters, enemies, even the darkness. But Akashi knew immediately who Kuroko was speaking to, and his heart turned to stone in his chest.

Then Kuroko's eyes slid open, clouded with fever and pain. He stared sightlessly into the distance, but his gaze seemed to fall directly on Akashi. And Akashi backed away.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd backed away. From anything.

He had made some excuse. Something about how Kuroko wouldn't be able to remember him being there, so there was no point in staying. And he had left.

But he had returned, now. He had made his determination to do anything he could to atone for past mistakes. Akashi needed to face forward and do what he came to do.

He leaned against the back of the sofa and watched Tetsu's face, so soft and peaceful, still fuzzy with recent sleep. "Did I ever tell you about my father?"

Tetsu's eyes widened marginally, though he didn't otherwise move. "No. Never."

Akashi never talked about his personal life. This must be quite a shock.

"My father never wounded me," Akashi said. "He never laid a hand on me, neither to injure nor to soothe. We didn't have that kind of relationship. It was always very distant. And yet I felt the pressure of his presence as a constant in my life. Like the weight of the atmosphere, something you don't notice because it's always there, yet it affects every aspect of your being. You think you can't survive without it, until it's suddenly lifted and you find that the sky is broader than you assumed."

Tetsu watched him without blinking. He must have learned how to stare from Kagami. He'd never been so shameless before.

Akashi's mouth twisted in something like a smile. "If you are the person in my life who has the least presence, my father has always been the person with the most. And the pressure of that presence... As I said, it was overwhelming. He always made it perfectly clear that an Akashi could not be allowed to lose. At anything. Ever. I did all I could to live up to those expectations. And I succeeded until very recently. Combine that pressure with the attitude at Teiko, where everything was permissible as long as it led to victory, and... Well, you know what happened. You were there."

"You broke," Tetsu said gently.

Akashi nodded. "I broke. Into two. They are both me. They are both Akashi. But..."

"You don't have to explain to me," Tetsu said. "I know something about hiding."

Akashi paused. Yes. Yes, that was true. He drew a breath and went on. "I don't say this as an excuse. I have no excuse for my actions. I was myself the entire time, though I was not, perhaps, an ideal version of myself. I only wanted to offer something of an explanation, because I know that understanding the reasons of things is important. I'm sorry I did not try to do this earlier. I realize now that I was afraid."

Tetsu all but melted at that. He leaned hard into the back of the sofa, his eyes large and liquid. "You have nothing to fear from me, Akashi-kun. I was not presenting my true self to the world, either. I can see that you are looking for condemnation, but you will not find it here."

Akashi barely blinked. "But I haven't finished telling you what I came to tell you."

Tetsu went still and silent, listening.

Akashi opened his mouth. Then he closed it again. He stared at the blanket, at Tetsu's fingers running repetitively over the ridge of a pattern. He couldn't remember Tetsu indulging in such self-soothing behaviors before.

He couldn't blame him, though. At all.

Akashi met Tetsu's eyes again and opened his mouth. "I knew."

Tetsu said nothing. But his fingers stilled on the blanket.

"I saw a bruise on your stomach one day when your shirt rode up. I knew it was not a normal bruise. You didn't get it from falling down or running into something. I knew something was wrong.

"I knew it wasn't anyone at school. If it had been, I would have found them out and stopped it immediately. I knew you lived alone with your father. He was the only logical suspect. I knew it was abuse. I knew you were suffering.

"And I did nothing."

Tetsu continued to watch him, silent and still. Akashi didn't know if it was a defense mechanism, if he had decided to repress his emotions to avoid showing anything, or if he was simply still processing the words. It saddened Akashi to know that Tetsu felt the need to repress himself in his presence, but it didn't surprise him. He had encouraged it, after all.

It was Akashi who broke eye contact, looking away to the floor. "As I said, I have no excuse. And the explanation is...tawdry. Small. Pitiful and filthy and ridiculous, worthy only of contempt. But it's all I have to offer, so here it is.

"It was not affecting your basketball. No matter what you were going through at home, it never showed on the court. You were yourself, the phantom man, and you were effective. You were important for victory. You were a tool, and you were not broken. So I let it be."

Akashi risked a look. Tetsu was balled up in the corner of the sofa, his knees drawn up to his chest and his blanket wrapped around his body. He looked small and scared and...and injured. And Akashi had done that. He had done that with his words, and with his inaction two years ago.

"I let it be," he repeated, helplessly. He had nothing else to offer. "I knew that if I did anything, it would be a disruption to the team. Everyone was already horribly on edge at the time, and of course later it all spiraled apart anyway. But I let it be. I left you alone, knowing that your father was abusing you, knowing that you were being hurt when no one saw, knowing that you would never reach out for help on your own because you weren't even aware that it was a problem that should be dealt with...

"I did all that, knowingly, as myself. As Akashi Seijurou. For the simple reason that victory on a basketball court was more precious to me than your well-being."

"Akashi-kun..." Tetsu's voice was as small as his body. Small and hurt and lost.

Akashi shook his head. "I can never atone for that. I can never... If I thought it would make a difference, I would prostrate myself before you. But I will not. I will not ask you to forgive me. No forgiveness is possible.

"I let it be. I left you alone. I was your captain, and I did not protect you in any of the ways that matter. My justifications are meaningless. You were not broken when I needed you to work, so I let this happen instead. I let your father tear you to pieces after it was out of my hands, as if that somehow left them clean. But that's not true at all. I didn't..."

"Akashi-kun."

Hands closed around his, clasped tight in his lap. Akashi closed his mouth and stared at them. Tetsu's hands were small and pale, but they were calloused with long hours of work. Akashi could feel the roughness of Tetsu's palms against the backs of his hands. Tetsu had left the shelter of his corner and his blanket and crept forward just so he could put his hands there. On his.

"Akashi-kun, you were fourteen years old."

Akashi lost his breath. "That's no excuse." He looked up. Tetsu was far too close, looking at him with those enormous eyes. His face was thinner than it should be, pale from illness and from winter living, and his eyes were much, much too big. "I have no excuse."

"You were not yourself."

"I was. I absolutely was."

"But you were not your full self. You were broken in two."

Tetsu sat back, lifting Akashi's hands between them as he went. Akashi stared at their clasped hands. Such a simple gesture, and it had blown everything apart. He had no resistance left. Nothing at all.

"Even if I had been fully myself, unbroken, it wouldn't have made a difference."

"You don't know that. If the same thing were to happen now, if we were teammates, if you were my captain and you knew I was hurt, what would you do?"

"I wouldn't stand for it."

"See?" A bright, sunny smile. As if that fixed it. As if that answered everything.

"But, Tetsu-kun..."

"Stop that." Tetsu squeezed his hands. He was astonishingly confident. Akashi didn't know how to deal with it. "You were fourteen years old, and you were broken. You will forgive me if I do not agree with you that your father never wounded you."

Akashi was silent.

As if he suddenly realized the discomfort he was causing, Tetsu gently released Akashi's hands and scooted back into his corner, drawing the blanket around himself again. "A hypothetical, Akashi-kun. What if my home life had been affecting my basketball? Would you have stood by?"

Akashi trembled. His hands clenched into fists. "I don't know. I don't know what I would have done. I probably would have had your father killed."

"Then let's be glad that didn't happen."

Akashi stared at him helplessly. "Tetsu-kun... How can you not hate me? I let this happen to you."

Tetsu shook his head. "You could not have predicted this. I know what they say. 'Akashi-kun can see the future.' I know it's not true. You saw a bruise on my stomach. That was not enough information to extrapolate into this result."

"But I did nothing."

"I would not have thanked you if you did do something." Tetsu yawned and settled down into his nook, pulling the blanket around his shoulders. "I loved my father. I still do. If you had taken me away from him... Well. I don't know what would have happened. Perhaps I would not have gone through the hell that this past month has been for me. But my life might have changed in other ways, too. And I like my life, Akashi-kun. It's currently very, very good. The best it's ever been."

Akashi shook his head. "You can't truly be passing this off as fate or something like that, can you? I thought that was Midorima's character flaw. Not everything happens for a reason. Especially not terrible things inflicted on children by abusive fathers."

"No." Tetsu's face went solemn, leaning comfortably against the sofa again. "Not everything happens for a reason. Sometimes bad people do bad things, and we have to deal with the consequences. But even in the darkness, light can be found. Good things can come out of bad situations."

Akashi watched him quietly for a long moment. "You really like your new family, don't you?"

"Yes." And Tetsu smiled, broad and bright and beautiful. Akashi had never seen him smile like that.

He'd been wrong. Tetsu wasn't repressing his emotions in Akashi's presence. He was displaying more than he ever had before. The Kagami name...the Kagami family...really was very good for him.

Tetsu's smile faded as he watched Akashi with a searching gaze. "What did your father do when you lost the Winter Cup?"

The question startled Akashi into a hiccuping laugh. "Nothing. He did nothing. All that time I spent forcing myself to earn his approval in every single way, and he did nothing. He just frowned and told me to win next time."

Tetsu frowned. "He didn't encourage you? He didn't tell you that you did your best and did well to make it to the finals?"

"Of course not. Losing is never acceptable for an Akashi."

Tetsu continued to frown.

Akashi sighed. "I know what it is. I know it's called emotional neglect, and I know it's a form of abuse. I am quite aware of what my father has done to me. But I don't care about him anymore. He doesn't matter. I am my own person now, and he can never change that."

He remembered very clearly what that felt like: to disappoint his father and not die. The sun still shone, the sky remained blue. The weight of the atmosphere disappeared, and he could still breathe. In fact, he breathed better.

Tetsu gave him another smile, soft and sweet. "Then we're both free."

"Yes," Akashi murmured. "I suppose we are."

Tetsu yawned again and wriggled into the sofa. "I regret to inform you that I'm going to take a nap now. I would apologize, but I have been informed several times that sleeping a lot after a serious illness is normal, and I should not apologize for normal things."

"That's all right," Akashi said gently. "Perhaps I will too."

True to his word, Tetsu fell asleep not long afterward, slumping against the sofa with his mouth slightly parted. He looked utterly defenseless in sleep. And also utterly safe.

Akashi couldn't stop the rush of fondness that swept through him, and he didn't try to. Tetsu looked so completely safe and at ease that Akashi felt it, too. It wasn't like him to relax in the house of a stranger, but he felt himself relaxing now, almost against his will. He leaned into the sofa opposite Tetsu and watched him sleep, his eyes slowly growing heavier and heavier. He drifted off to the sensation of a large hand passing over his forehead and a blanket being draped over his shoulders.