Chapter Summary:

Contrary to the winning streak the Generation of Miracles draws on the games records, Tetsuya's third year in Teikou is a series of losses and grief. And it feels like the gods, whichever exists, giving him the biggest fuck you imaginable.

It feels like an endless fall.

And then someone catches him

"Grief is a familiar word to me. I have spent most of my life basking in it, I have caused it, and I have ignored it. Ghosts are something similar, in a sense. It's not only the living themselves who grief, after all.

Unfortunately, ghosts are robbed of life, and with that the ability to change. And for the grieving ghosts, what awaits them can only be madness.

There were times I wished, I could succumb to that madness too."

By unknown, in an old notebook in XXXXX, the private library.

Tetsuya's third year in Teikou felt like the gods, whichever exists, giving him the biggest fuck you ever imaginable.

He lost his friends, watched the passion they used to have in their eyes die one by one and the team scatter to the winds, unable to to a single thing. He lost Ogiwara-kun, the haunting chain of 1 on the score board still burnt into his mind like a brand. Then he lost basketball, to the point where hearing the squeaking of the shoes, the scent of rubber and leather and sweat would twist his insides to the point of nausea, and the familiar rough surface of the ball would make his skin crawl, the sight of its colour was almost unbarable.

Finally, he lost his parents.

It was an unusually warm day for late January, where spring was already edging in, when Tetsuya finishes school and walks to the entrence to find his uncle leaning against a car by the gate, catching his eyes as he motions for him to come.

The sky wasn't particularly bright, nor was it particularly dull. It was just a normal day, the floor wet with passing rain the last couple of days, blues and dashes of grays arching over their heads as he got into the sleek black vehicle that'd obviously costed a fortune, and listened with a growing numbness in his chest as his uncle gently broke the news.

A car crash. No one was drunk driving, it was raining, someone was distracted, neither reacted in time and the tires slipped. The truck tipped over and the cargo crushed them.

"Tetsuyo was declared dead on site, but Haruka is currently in emergency care," his uncle, Nanakasa Mafuyu's expression was tight as he drove. "Theyr'e doing everything they can right now. I-" He took a deep breath, stopped, then grumbled something under his breath, "Sorry. I'm not good at this. You probably want space, I'll wait till after we get to the hospital. Do you want to stop by your home?"

They stopped by his home to drop off his school stuff. Then they got to the hospital. On the way there, his uncle got a call that Tetsuya couldn't hear, and with his expression darkening, he drove even faster.

It was raining, at the hospital, which was a good ways away from the city. Tetsuya felt numb as he was gently ushered into the building. His uncle did most of the talking to the doctors and nurses, where they were instructed to a floor with hallways lined with plastic chairs which reeked of disinfectant.

They around the corner to a pair of open double doors, the 'operation in progress' sign above it turned off, and someone, Aunt Hotaru, emerges from a side door- the washroom, looking like a wreak.

"My blood didn't take." Her voice was hoarse and so wreaked with grief that even though she was speaking nonsense, Tetsuya could tell it was important, somehow, "they called in Anthea, but even under status they couldn't salvage enough to get anything to take."

Tetsuya vaguely remembers his mother joking that his uncle's face has the emotional range of a teaspoon. But that day, his uncle looked devastated.

(What Tetsuya doesn't know is that his aunt cries herself into his uncle's arms that night, sobbing and apologising inconsolably as he holds her like one would glass that is breaking on its own because her blood didn't take, it didn't work and for the first time in 17 years she once again fails to save someone who mattered. And it feels like her fault again because who cares being one of the strongest known sorceress when she couldn't even save her sister.

And his uncle cries too, because Haruka is gone, the only sibling he has left in this world is gone as well, and it makes the past 20 years feel like stolen happiness again. He dreads the visit he will surely have to make to his brother's jail cell to break the news, because Nanakasa Haruka who managed to leave and live as Kuroko Haruka is gone, because she have always been the best of them, and this is the last thing she deserves.)

Everything afterwards was a blur. Hours, days, events. Time seemed to mush into a concept Tetsuya couldn't quite place right anymore. He remembers family drama, regarding 'inheritance' and 'propriety' and who gets to take who and what to do with his grandmother. He remembers sitting right by Aunt Hotaru's side, who is so small she's shorter than him, but keeps a firm, warm hand on his shoulder as she fends off people that tries to pry, fierce eyes blazing with protectiveness, even in grief.

He remembers lawyers, old and important looking people who looks down on him getting chased away. He remembers his grandfather's visit, something about foster parents, 'wasted potential' and 'unfit heirs' and a lot of yelling. He remember sobbing into his blankets alone at night in his now too empty home, loneliness clinging to his being like a curse. He wakes up in the morning and walks out into the small, empty kitchen, and he feels like crying all over again.

The funeral was just as bad. Someone managed to get him on a stage, and he stared back down into a crowd of people he never even knew existed, dressed in expensive black silks, pearls and kimonos. He wanted to scream, remembering how hard his parents worked to make a living, remembering the lonely nights of his childhood when it was just him, his parents, and his grandmother. Why do people only care when a person is dead? Do they even care? What do they want from him?

But his throat wouldn't work, and his face was blank as he stared at them, and they all stared back like vultures until suddenly there's an hand on his shoulder and then he's being tugged off the stage, a comforting presence he's came to label as aunt Hotaru close by his side.

He met his other grandmother for the first time, and she smiles so brokenly as she apologises again and again for something Tetsuya didn't care to listen nor remember. Before he walks away to talk to his uncle, her son, his mother's Mafuyu-nii.

His father's side of the grave is empty but for himself and his grandmother. They're the only family left in the world who would grieve for Kuroko Tetsuyo.

His mother's will settles most of everything. In the end. He didn't know why his mother would have a will- his father didn't have one, and his mother was still young, but no one seemed surprised to know she had a will written. There was a lot of protests at the reading, when it is announced that he's going with aunt Hotaru and uncle Mafuyu murmurs of indignation, complaints and more. Tetsuya wished desperately for his natural lack of presence to please, make them ignore him. Just leave him be, but the pinpricks of stares on his back refused to leave.

(Everyone in their world knows living isn't a given, but a luxury. Hotaru Lysandra, herself had had her will written the moment she turned 16. Mafuyu, being a Nanakasa, started writing his even earlier.

How does one not comprehend death, when confronted with the existence of ghosts everyday?)

In the end, he moves out.

Tetsuya doesn't know how to feel when he watches the movers clear out the small apartment. Aunt Hotaru and Uncle Mafuyu were kind to him, but there are some decisions even they can't make or control. They help him pick out the things he'd like to keep or leave, and let him chip in when they choose a new apartment in the area.

He unconsciously picked one with a court nearby. He's not even sure if he should change it or not.

He cried another time when his other relatives put his grandmother, his only family from his father's side in a nursing home. She wasn't fit to care of him, they said. And even though Tetsuya knew it was true, it had still hurt. Uncle Mafuyu sponsored and made sure it is the best in the area, and close enough that Kuroko can visit her every day if he wanted to, but it still isn't the same. She wasn't the same either, grief seemed to have aged her by several decades, she grew sickly, and the death of her son seemed to had robbed her of the youthfulness and liveliness that she used to wear so proudly.

He broke his perfect attendance in Teikou for the first time in 3 years. No one seemed to notice.

"He's a good kid, Mafuyu, but this is... very sudden."

Tetsuya overheard his aunt one evening, when he couldn't sleep. The voices are coming from the kitchen of the hotel suite they're temporarily staying in, before move in day. Lamp light draws a streak across the floor of the hallway where he stands, like a line that keeps them apart.

"It's not that I don't like him," his aunt starts, and she sounds tired. Tetsuya feels his heart seize, "or that I don't want him, he's a good kid, I might not 've watched him grow but Haruka was family- and Tetsuya-kun meant the world to her. I just don't know if I can give him what he needs."

Tetsuya relaxes a little, but what comes after is guilt. He knows they're sacrificing a lot to house him and keep him away from the rest of the family, who he honestly doesn't have all that well of an impression of. They call his mother a fool and says that she was 'marrying below her', setting him under their scrutinising gazes that makes him feel more like an animal in a cage than a person.

Aunt Hotaru and uncle Mafuyu were the only ones who stuck firmly by his side and kept them away, he still remembers the way his grandfather sneered at him untill his aunt dragged him away. The man had left that day with a bruise on his face and a noticeable limp. He didn't even spare a glance at uncle Mafuyu.

Inside the kitchen, murmurs can be heard. Tetsuya couldn't quite make out the words, but the tone and timbre were that of comfort. There was chuckling, shuffling, and then silence again.

"What are we going to tell him about us?" Aunt Hotaru breaks the quiet with a crack in her voice, and Tetsuya frowns, "He's a normal kid. He doesn't know about that, Haruka made sure of it, and Anthea gave us the time off. But our work and the stuff we're going have to bring home eventually-"

"He'll have to know." This was Uncle Mafuyu's voice, sounding resigned. Low and hoarse like he's slightly too tired but couldn't sleep. What are they talking about?

"I know, I know , Mafu," Aunt Hotaru almost sounded scared, "but gods if that means we've just dragged him into our world by taking him in-"

"Knowing doesn't mean being a part of it. The boy isn't a Nanakasa. He doesn't have to be, and we're hardly as high profile as your Aniki. Last I heard, Tetsuya is a basketball player. That's the furthest thing from what we are."

There's silence.

"He's a kid ." Something broke in Aunt Hotaru's voice. "He's just a kid. Gods was I that small when I-"

Tetsuya slinked away into the dark then, certain he'd overstayed his welcome.

("Was I that small when I got out of that place ?" Her voice cracks like glass on pavement. She can feel Mafuyu going still from within his arms, that is a scar that just always seemed too fresh for everyone, even though its been over two decades since.

"I don't know," Her husband's voice is low when he murmured his reply. "Lysandra, I don't know."

"I think I understood how they felt when they were looking at me then, now." She laid her head on his chest, and closes her eyes, trying her best to fend away memories of blood, lab coats, the scent of rot, and goodbyes. Too many goodbyes.)

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.)

A/N

This is mostly a fic where Kuroko deals with bad stuff then gets smothered with affections and gets better, with a side dish of GoM meeting Kuroko again, and realises he now has more to his life than they realised, and that they've been blind to his suffering when he needed the support. And only after he's gotten better do they realise their friend went through something horrible, and now he has secrets.

Edit:

On the other side there's plot now so we now have a paranormal drama/mystery going on where the GoM are unknowingly victims and key witnesses without even knowing it. So there's that.

...And yes, I did selfishly want to write my OCs as a married couple.

A small introduction for Kuroko's new guardians.

Lysandra and Mafuyu Nanakasa.

They're sweethearts who will take very good care of Kuroko.

In the context of this fic, the fact that they're magical secret agents is just the cherry on top.

Edit: okay in the wake of plot the fact that they're magical secret agents is now more than a cherry on top that's a cake.

FFN notes

I almost forgot about this being cross-posted here, oops.