Summary:
Things are starting to look up.
The magical secret agents are stressing about how to break it to their newly acquired child that they are magical secret agents. Hotaru thinks that if they don't tell him soon, he's going to start thinking they're something weird like the Yakuza.
And Tetsuya is starting to notice strange things about his guardians, and suspects they're Yakuza.
Tetsuya moves into his new apartment in spring, and it is spacious, bright, and everything Tetsuya ever dreamt of before his parents died. Not too sleek and modern and cold, but warm in browns and soft creams and open like the view from the balcony, broken up by greens of hanging pots and plants. Everything is like everything he is not, warm and open and bright, and Tetsuya almost hates that it bares the budding murmur of home.
And things are getting better. He eats better now, though Hotaru-san's cooking might have something to do with that. Mafuyu-san is less awkward with him as well. They're finally starting to relax around eachother, and their daily lives begin to click and slot together, slowly but surely.
He goes picking furniture with aunt Hotaru and her sister, who is bubbly like Momoi-san, but with green eyes like Midorima-kun's. They listen to his advice and let him pick some stuff, but doesn't indulge him. Except for everything in his own room, those are entirely up to him. He is mortified when he stares at a kitchen island for a little too long and Hotaru-san actually goes up to check the price, because it is expensive, but Hotaru-san just laughs.
"Hotaru-san please do not joke about this, your smile is scary."
"Tetsu-kun, you have good tastes. If tell me you want this, I will buy it."
"Hotaru-san that is a one and a half million yen kitchen island." (A/N: roughly over 10k usd)
"As I have said to your grandfather's face and will say it again," Hotaru-san is entirely unfazed by the number, "your happiness is worth the entire Nanakasa fortune and I will not blink when I shove his life's work down the drain- its not like he's head of clan anymore, that's my husband. In fact I will do it intentionally to see the look on his stuck up traditionalist face when he finds out. Mafuyu will approve."
"I'm starting to think that Uncle Mafuyu just approves of anything you do." Tetsuya deadpans, "And I am not happy, Hotaru-san, right now I am positively mortified."
Hotaru-san's sister, who she calls Hanabi, laughs at his misery. "He's so cute," the redhead coos, ruffling his hair, she's a foreigner like Hotaru-san, but its more obvious and she's also a bit too touchy. Tetsuya shuffles out of her reach, "also, you let him call you Hotaru! That's so sweet of you."
That's strange, "is that not her name?"
"No?" Hanabi-san tilts her head. "Kinda like how Hanabi isn't actually my name either, it's Daisy. Her name is Lysandra," just as Tetsuya is reconsidering his own existence for first remembering his own aunt by the wrong name then calling her by it for 2 consecutive months, (and no one has bothered to correct him) she continues, "we're both mixed and didn't grow up in Japan, but since Kaa-san is Japanese she gave us Japanese nicknames. But they're only for family." A pause. "Sorry, but it's aunt Daisy for you right now."
(26 years ago, it was Hanabi, Akari and Hotaru. Fireworks and lanterns and fireflies. 25 years ago, only two of them remained.)
Before his parents died, Tetsuya doesn't meet the couple he now lives with often. They're too busy, and lived outside the country, but they both called regularly enough that Tetsuya grew up with an impression of them in his life. His mother have always called her 'Hotaru-chan'. And now she lets him call her that as well.
Tetsuya did not start tearing up in the middle of a furniture store that day, but it was a close thing.
The rest of the trip was fairly unremarkable. They browse through the aisles as they discussed colour palettes and humidity and things Tetsuya never thought one has to consider while furniture shopping, and when she finds out, Aunt Daisy tries to start conversations with him by talking about her time in school when she played basketball, but changes the topic after aunt Hotaru stops her. While he's grateful, against all odds, he doesn't hate it.
They bought the kitchen island.
A week later, without encouragement from anyone, Tetsuya picks up basketball again, and heads to the court near by. He doesn't quite manage to play, and ends up just standing in the court with a ball in hand, overwhelmed with memories and accusatory emotions that call him a traitor for trying.
He cries again that night, quietly sobbing into aunt Hotaru's shoulder as she pats his back, two mugs of chocolate milk sitting on the table, all while she murmurs inconsequential little things about life to calm him down.
"I miss them." He doesn't specify who. He doesn't know who he's talking about either. But Hotaru-san doesn't know about Teikou anyways, so naturally, she assumes.
"I know." She murmurs, and speaks like skin stretched over healed, faded scars. And Tetsuya hugs her a little tighter.
Aunt Hotaru talks about grief like an old friend, or like Aomine-kun now about basketball. With familiarity but no enthusiasm, a tone that is tired or resigned. Like something she has practised one too many time, going through the motions until there is nothing but the motions remaining of the action itself.
But despite all that, she still has empathy. She still has a deep respect. And she handles his grief not like glass but like something to be respected and treated with kindness, sometimes hesitant in trying to do the right thing. Even though her eyes betray a bone deep exhaustion.
"Does it ever end?" He asks. Both for himself, and a little because he's curious about her.
"Not entirely, but eventually you learn to live with it, and it gets better."
"It doesn't feel like it would."
She falls quiet, after that, and the silence stretches over them like a blanket.
"Tetsu-kun," her voice is gentle as she speaks, "how do you feel about getting professional help?"
They get him a therapist.
(Lysandra does, in fact, know grief.
She's known grief since she was 10, and life had never let her unknow it since.)
Teikou's graduation was anticlimactic and unmemorable, compared to the months he went through beforehand. His parents' death was kept a closed topic amongst teachers, and none of his classmates ever notice him anyways. So Kuroko Tetsuya graduates from the place like one wakes from a fleeting dream, or a nightmare.
He goes through several therapists before he finds the right one, and Hotaru-san is right that it helps. He plays basketball again, not feeling as guilty as he used to, and grief fades into a part of his daily life. He doesn't stop missing his parents, nor does he stop loving them. But it feels easier to breathe with it now than it used to be.
The holidays hit, and both his aunt and uncle returns to their regular work schedules. Suddenly Tetsuya has more time on his hands than he knows what to do with, and almost desperate to keep his mind away from the grief and overthinking that happens with the lack of distractions, naturally, he distracts himself by picking up the magic tricks he used to do.
He does small handicrafts, too, Hotaru-san, who turns out to have one of the craftiest fingers he's ever known, joins him sometimes. His aunt and uncle also indulges him by letting him buy just about anything he would need for his projects without worrying about budget. He knows that his sudden appearance into their lives have been stressful and a heavy responsibility they're not ready for, so he's grateful that at the very least, he doesn't seem to be a financial strain.
Their apartment slowly fills up with his little handicrafts, as well as stuff from his new guardians. Aunt Hotaru's plants have taken over the edge of the balcony, flourishing with spring and growing so wildly it looks like an invasion of nature. Uncle Mafuyu's books in various languages fill the shelves, Tetsuya recognise some really old literature classics, as well as something in French or German which he can't read. Several shinais finds their way onto the walls, as well as some anime figurines and old gaming discs that belongs to aunt Hotaru. He couldn't really believe it when he first saw them, but after seeing her get so heated over a discussion of the newest resident evil over the phone, Tetsuya picks up the pieces of his impression of his aunt off the floor and learns to live with it.
He observes his new guardians, as well. They don't seem to be working desk jobs, with how they dress and and the strange schedules. Sometimes when Tetsuya couldn't sleep he could hear aunt Hotaru stumbling in through the front door at 4 am, or leaving the house at 8pm for work. The schedule seems to be mostly fixed, but sometimes they get a call and then either one or both would be gone for the rest of the day, and the next morning Tetsuya would find them looking a strange kind of wreaked- like tired, but not stressed.
(The new neighbourhood is nowhere near as paranormally active as the area they used to patrol, so most nights left both of them itching for a fight. It feels like a guilty pleasure to request for more special missions to be thrown their way when they're supposed to be taking care of a kid, but when the adrenaline hits, no one complains.
They really should talk to Tetsuya before he stumbles upon them back from patrol and decked out in full gear and assumes they're like the yakuza or something. But how exactly does one tell their hastily acquired ward that they're magical secret agents?)
Aunt Hotaru, having grew up in a foreign country, sometimes instinctively speaks in English And uncle Mafuyu would do the same in turn. His English have passively improved as a result, to the point where sometimes he'd be able to chip in their conversations naturally.
He also learns that Uncle Mafuyu is no where near as stoic as he appears. His mother was right. His face has the emotional range of a teaspoon and it ranges from blank-faced, to various kinds of frowns, to some kind of weird twisty thing he does with his face. When in fact, inside, the man is just so awkward it pains him to watch. Aunt Hotaru takes joy in teasing reactions out of him, and imagine the shock that Tetsuya feels when she manages to wrangle not only a blush, but a full blown splutter from her husband. Even though by then Tetsuya has long since learned that (very reluctantly) the stoic man is helplessly, unsalvageably whipped for his wife. It's still hard to watch.
Sometimes being with them reminds him of his mother, the time he spent with her and the time he never got to spend with her, and Tetsuya feels like crying all over again.
Aunt Hotaru also have tattoos, appearantly. He'd stumbled upon her in a sleeveless top sometime late at night and saw the scrawl of foreign letters, patterns and a pair of wings on her back, neon blue eyes blinking owlishly back at him as she was taping her ankle up with bandages. He offered to help, but she'd refused, saying that procedures with her is a little different from regular sports. Tetsuya'd shrugged, and afterwards she'd made them both a nice mug of herbal tea before shooing him off to sleep.
(Lysandra breaths a sigh of relief as he leaves, and drops the glamour over the gun she'd just taken apart to clean. The boy has zero presence, that was too close.
She moves her fingers like they have strings on them, and a washcloth flies across the room and into her hand. Of all things she misses from before, it's the convenience of not needing to get off the couch to fetch anything. Sometimes, magic is amazing.)
He briefly wonders if his mother's side of the family are actually yakuza, with the amount of kimonos he recall seeing at the funeral as well as the frivolous spending they allow him, but dismisses the idea as it seemed a little... far fetched.
He keeps playing basketball, mostly alone, sometimes on their day offs, with his aunt and uncle. Both Tetsuya and Hotaru sort of suck at one on one, but uncle Mafuyu, who is built like a martini glass and has hands like Murasakibara, picks it up easily enough. Neither of them takes it as seriously as him, they both have work and other interests, but they treat it with a careful sort of fascination and respect.
And its fun.
To understand how much of a midget Aunt Hotaru/Lysandra is, you first have to understand that she's 37 turning 38 (Mafuyu just turned 43), and is around 150. That's 4'11 for you Americans. She's tiny.
I have drawn a sketch of aunt Hotaru, uncle Mafuyu and Kuroko in this AU. It's over in Ao3 in a fic under the same name. The discord link is also there.
