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When Ogiwara called out of the blue, Kagami had just left a few days ago, suddenly called back to California because of "some administrative mixup," he'd said, scowling. "You'll be okay by yourself, won't you?" he'd asked as he threw clothes and his medicine bag of toiletries into a suitcase.
Kuroko had nodded, sure, sure, which was a lie, but an ordinary one. Whenever Kagami was gone, he was fine, he always was, but he did find himself eating a lot of convenience store food and sleeping at weird hours on the weekend and sometimes when he was really lonely, he got urges to text Kise.
So when Ogiwara called, he said yes. He really had nothing better to do.
*
When they got on the train, Ogiwara immediately opened his bento. It wasn't quite lunchtime yet, but some things, Kuroko thought with a smile, never changed. "When was the last time we went somewhere together?" Ogiwara asked, poking excitedly at the rice.
"We've never been on a trip together," Kuroko reminded him.
"That can't be true," Ogiwara said through a mouth full of egg.
To the great surprise of everyone, Kuroko and Ogiwara hadn't become friends again after reuniting in high school. But they ended up at the same college, and Ogiwara had made Kuroko sign up for the same street ball team, even though Kuroko rarely saw play—it tended to put a bad taste in everyone's mouth when you bust out misdirection in more casual, scrappy situations. Since then Ogiwara had developed a charming but unexpected coping mechanism of assuming they'd been closer friends in junior high than they really had been. Aomine thought it meant Ogiwara had been dropped on his head when he was younger; Kuroko thought it was kind of nice, actually. It soothed over the awkward bits of their real lives together, two mostly parallel lines that crossed only once, and traumatically.
"It's true." Kuroko handed Ogiwara a napkin. "But I am glad to have a chance now."
*
The onsen they were staying at was just ordinary, nothing fancy, but Ogiwara had won some sort of raffle at his workplace and was just newly single, which, he explained almost apologetically, was why he'd called up Kuroko instead of going with a girl.
"Kagami isn't jealous, is he?" he asked. His tone was off-hand, casual, but Kuroko wasn't blind to the way Ogiwara was fidgeting with the strap of his overnight bag.
"What would he be jealous of?"
"You know," Ogiwara said, gesturing. They had only one room. It was still afternoon so there were no futons, but the meaning was clear.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Kuroko said. He zipped up his own bag with a little more vehemence than he meant to. "Ogiwara-kun always likes to make this joke."
"It isn't a joke," Ogiwara muttered, but they both let it drop.
It was early, but after unpacking, they both agreed there was no point in coming to an onsen, at their age and in present company, and pretending they were there for anything but a nice soak. They stripped efficiently into yukatas and headed together to the outdoor bath, where they were almost entirely alone, save for two older men soaking in companionable but slightly distant silence.
Ogiwara sunk into the water with an exaggerated sigh. After a few minutes of floating contentedly at Kuroko's side, he turned over, slapping a towel over his head. "You ever think about having kids?" he asked.
Kuroko stilled, but then nodded. "You?"
Ogiwara crossed his arms on the rocky ledge of the bath, peering over elbow at Kuroko. "Sure. Two of them, preferably. Apparently only children are freaks."
"Then shouldn't Ogiwara-kun have tried harder not to get dumped?"
Ogiwara splashed water at Kuroko's face, and Kuroko laughed, but sobered up when Ogiwara asked hesitatingly, "What about Kagami?"
"I assume so. I've never asked," Kuroko said carefully.
Ogiwara nodded, and, before Kuroko had a chance to look at whatever expression he might have been wearing, pressed his face into his folded arms. "He seems like the type," he said, slightly muffled. "You know, to be a good dad."
Kuroko considered the statement, then decided, what the hell. It couldn't hurt to be honest sometimes with Ogiwara. "The kind that you'd want to help raise your kids with you," he said, then winced.
But Ogiwara laughed at that, a kind of sniggering chortle that exploded out of him. He rested his cheek against the crook of his elbow now, observing Kuroko. "Tetsuya, you're a weirdo, you know that?" he said. He made a move as if to slap water into Kuroko's face again, but this time, strangely gentle, he raised a palmful of water above Kuroko's head. It trickled down through Kuroko's hair, and Kuroko closed his eyes, let it slake over his eyelids, down his cheeks, holding his breath. Once, when they were still in high school and Akashi had gone through a self-improvement phase, he'd read some light psychology books and come away with the conclusion that he over-romanticized intimacy. But some days, like now, he thought maybe it wasn't his fault. Maybe he sought that out in other people, surrounded himself with men who liked to make tender gestures: fist bumps, ring bearing, water blessing. Maybe that had always been his type.
"What are you thinking about?" Ogiwara asked, bumping their shoulders together.
Telling Kagami-kun I want to raise a child with him, Kuroko thought. "How bad Ogiwara-kun will be with a baby," Kuroko said out loud, and let himself get dunked into the water.