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At the end of all their twenty-five lives, Kuroo finds him again.
Kuroo knows that he is in this life with him. He has seen him in flashes on the street or on the train, never quite able to make contact with him, but he knows that he is here and that is all that matters. It takes Kuroo a while to track him down, watching the same streets and trains for a glimpse of him, following his shadows and after-images, stretching them out into something more than a glimpse.
Then, one day, he looks back at Kuroo.
It is nothing more than a casual glance out of the window but he sees Kuroo and his eyes widen just a bit, every bit as brown and expressive as the him in his past lives. Kuroo's breath stops in his throat because he knows, he recognises, he remembers who Kuroo is. The connection is still there as always, pulled taut, stretched and tangled over the mess of all the lives they have lived, together or apart. Kuroo feels it wrapped around his fingers, sewn into his very being, throbbing with the returning question and answer of "Are you there?" and "I'm here."
From there, it gets easier. Kuroo stops seeing him entirely on the streets or trains but the traces of him grow stronger everywhere else. He thinks he sees him in the supermarket once, then the coffee shop down the street, the park near his apartment, steadily getting closer to Kuroo with a certainty that Kuroo feels thrumming along the bond connecting them. He is reeling Kuroo in as much as Kuroo has been searching for him, pulling in the connection between them hand over hand, shortening the distance separating them with a single-minded determination.
Kuroo stays out of his apartment twice as much now, wandering the streets, ducking into shops, hoping for another glimpse of him. They only have one chance at this, they always do, because their lives are always so uncertain and sometimes they can end without either of them ever running into each other. Kuroo doesn't want to wait until the next life. This is the closest he has ever gotten in forever and he can't let him slip out of his reach again.
He goes home late, the path back to his apartment block lit by nothing more than the streetlights lining the road. Some days, he is more elusive than ever and Kuroo can go an entire day without seeing even a hint of him. Today was one of those days and Kuroo feels the frustration bubbling up under his skin.
He kicks at the pavement moodily and something clicks under his shoe, skittering a few steps ahead of him before coming to a stop. It looks like a coin and Kuroo bends over to pick it up, frowning when he sees its face. It looks nothing like the coins they use and he turns it over in his palm.
The man passing him in the street flips him a denarii and Kuroo lunges for it, his hand closing over the silver coin.
Kuroo's breath stops in his throat and he whips his head around, looking at his surroundings wildly. A bit of pink catches his eye, fluttering in the wind against the railings of his fire escape. Kuroo finds a ribbon there, tied neatly around the railings like a calling card.
Kuroo had seen a delicate pink ribbon floating in the wind, an odd thing to be seeing in the sky, and she had reached out and seized it between her fingers instead of letting it float along its way.
The steps of the fire escape shake under his weight, his shoes clanging loudly against the metal in his frantic run to the top. There is another flash of silver on the next landing and he barely pauses to scoop a broken spearhead up.
Kuroo never meant to kill it. He hates taking lives but the lion had come out of nowhere and it had been either him or it. There is blood on his hands and tears running down his face and only when he sees the light fading from those brown eyes does he realise.
His lungs are on fire now but he is finally at the top of the fire escape, his pockets full of mementoes and his head swimming with old memories.
There is a man on the rooftop with his back to Kuroo, gazing out at the night sky above him. In this life, he is perfect again, his back wide and his hair cropped short and practical. When Kuroo steps foot on the rooftop, he turns and Kuroo sees the sum of all their lives reflected back at him in those eyes.
Kuroo smiles. "Have you been waiting long?"
Daichi grins back at him. "That's just a matter of definition, isn't it?"