Chapter Text
The only color Kagami could see was orange, but he didn’t care.
After all, like most people, he was used to seeing the world in grayscale—it was really a bonus that he’d met Himuro when he was so young, so that he had one color already. And even more fortunate that he’d realized who, exactly, his soulmate was. Kagami couldn’t imagine how awful it would be to make eye contact with someone in a crowd and suddenly be able to see in color and never know who your soulmate was.
Or soulmates. Not everyone got the whole rainbow all at once, or at all—Kagami’s grandfather had only ever been able to see reds and yellows, and he’d been happily married to Kagami’s grandmother (who saw blues and greens) until the day he died.
So really, only seeing the world in grays and orange was fine. Especially since it meant he could always focus on the ball.
Like now. The whole school campus was a wash of greys and pale orange tones except for the bright sphere he shouldered his way towards. At the table were two figures, a tall boy in glasses and a shorter girl, probably the manager. Kagami signed up for the basketball club and moved on—there’d be time to get to know his teammates later.
Time slipped by until practice, which was fine… Not as good as streetball had been, but that was okay. He could still see the ball, bright and inviting.
He went over to Maji Burger afterward, passing under the bright orange awning absentmindedly. Man, I wish there were real American burgers around here, Kagami thought wistfully, taking a bite out of his fifth burger. There was less than half of the burger left… pathetic.
Then the person sitting across from him cleared his throat, Kagami jumped and definitely not not yelp before refocusing on the table, and—
The world shifted again, just like it had eight years ago. Suddenly, shadows seemed so much deeper, his own clothing much darker—he’d thought he’d picked out a nice neutral gray but apparently, this is what black looked like. He looked from the player’s short hair—still colorless, probably blond?—at the other people in the restaurant. Sure enough, their hair was now this new dark color too.
He looked back at Kuroko. “You just gave me a color,” he said wonderingly. “Now I can see blacks. Shadows.”
Kagami looked down at the basketball on the floor next to him, and to his amazement it had changed too. The lines on it were now a stark black outline around the bright orange, the shadow making the bright orange even more noticeable. It looked… complete.