He bounced the ball in his hands against the ground as he walked down the street. He sighed.
Kuroko's mother had told him to go outside this afternoon, to make friends with some of the kids at the park.
So that's what he did. He took his favorite plastic ball, the rubber one with blue and yellow stars that he got last year for his birthday, and went the short walk down the street to the neighborhood playground.
There was one boy there when he arrived, and he seemed nice and friendly enough to Kuroko. They played a short game of catch with Kuroko's ball before the boy said he had to go home.
And now Kuroko was alone.
He sighed and bounced the ball again. He could go home, tell his mother that no one else was at the park. But she had told him to stay out here until lunch time as there would be repairmen working on the water pipes of their house all morning.
She would probably tell him to just go back to the park until they finished.
So until then, he set the ball on the ground, in a spot where it wouldn't roll away and where he could still keep an eye on it, and then went to the swings. The swings were easy, he finally mastered it while here with his parents last week. They were also something he could play on on his own, at least until someone else showed up.
It wasn't long until he saw someone else come into the park area. Or at least, Kuroko didn't think it was too long, but he didn't have a watch to tell time. He saw a young girl walking along the outside of the fenceline surrounding the playground. What stood out to Kuroko the most was her bright head of long pink hair. She had her head pointed down, Kuroko noticed. The girl almost looked… sad.
Kuroko brought the swing to a stop and hopped off the plastic seat. He slowly walked over to the girl, who was now crouched on the ground. He saw her shoulders shaking, and heard sobs coming from her. She was obviously crying about something, he thought.
"Are… are you okay?" Kuroko softly asked the girl.
Her shoulders jerked up, and Kuroko heard her let out another sob as she turned around. He saw tear tracks running down her face, with tears still falling down them. "Who… who are you?" she asked, her voice muffled by her runny nose.
"My name is Kuroko," the boy introduced himself. Kuroko hesitated for a second, he didn't want to be rude to the girl, who was obviously still upset about something, but at the same time, he wanted to help her, and he could only do that by asking her questions. "Are you hurt? You're crying."
"What?" The girl sobbed again as another wave of tears traveled down her face. "What makes you think I'm not?"
Oh no, Kuroko hadn't meant to make her cry even more. What should he do now?
He gazed around the park frantically. He didn't see anyone around, didn't see someone who could help him, or someone who might have made the girl cry.
Then his eyes landed on his ball, still in the spot he left it in. He quickly ran over to it and picked it up, then ran back to the girl, holding the ball out to her.
"Do you want to play with me?" he asked.
The girl must have been confused by the boy standing in front of her, for Kuroko watched as her eyebrows creased in confusion. "What- What are you talking about?" she asked.
Kuroko saw another set of tears growing on her face, and before they started to fall, he repeated himself. "I brought my ball, but there's no one for me to play with it here. Do you want to play?"
"What makes you think I want to play with you?" the girl asked, wiping off her face with her shirt sleeve. "Just leave me alone."
That was a good question, Kuroko thought. Why would she want to play with him? She obviously had more important things going on.
"It's just that…" Kuroko thought over his words for a second. "You're upset, and when I'm upset, my mom takes me outside and plays catch with me… to make me feel better. So I thought it might make you feel better."
The girl looked him up and down. It still looked like she didn't trust him, but it aso looked like her tears had stopped. She used her other shirt sleeve to wipe the rest of the tears off of her face. "I guess I can play with you," she said. She didn't sound too happy to be playing with Kuroko, but at least she wasn't crying anymore.
Xx?xXx?xXx?xX
"Why were you crying earlier?" Kuroko asked the girl as they were walking back to their houses later. "If you don't mind me asking," he added.
Instead of the girl bursting into tears again, which Kuroko was afraid she might have, her face scrunched up into a scowl. "It's all that idiot's fault," she grumbled.
"Idiot?" Kuroko repeated, confused on her turn of emotions.
She nodded, turning her face to look into his eyes. She didn't look upset anymore, or at least not sad. If he put an emotion to her face, Kuroko would say she looked angry. "Yeah, it's all that idiot Aomine's fault. He broke my toy."
"Broke your toy?" Kuroko asked.
"Yeah, my new doll," she added. "It was my favorite."
Kuroko didn't know what to say about that. Who even was this Aomine person? "I'm sorry he broke it," was all Kuroko could think of to say.
The girl paused. "That's better than what he said," the girl said. "He said he wasn't even sorry." The girl then looked him up and down and nodded to herself. "I like you, Kuroko."
Kuroko could only look at the girl, wide eyed. "Um… thank you?" he said. Then he noticed the house he was standing next to. "Well, this is my house."
"I see," the girl brightened up and smiled at the teal haired boy. "Well then, I better continue home, it was nice playing with you today!" she said as she turned around and continued walking down to her family's place.
It's only as he stood at his house, and the girl continued to walk down the street to hers, that Kuroko realized she never told him her name.
