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Kuroko Tetsuya’s first love was basketball.
That was the simple explanation, of course. The easy answer. The hard part was elaborating on that further, to keep people from thinking he had some weird fetish or something.
Something about it drew him to the game like nothing else.
He was never a particularly tall or talented kid. Tetsuya was overlooked, more often than not, by his classmates, by his teacher, even by his parents a few times out of the year. His lack of presence was both a blessing and a curse; if he ever needed to sneak into somewhere, if he ever needed to weave through crowds undetected, misdirection was a worthwhile skill to have.
Basketball. It gave him a reason to make people look, make people stop and stare. A reason, a purpose, a chance to make more of himself.
But there were times throughout his life when he wanted more for himself, imagined being taller, stronger, and more noticeable. Imagined being wanted for who he was rather than what he could be. Imagined being wanted, needed, by someone out there who he needed just as much. Selfish as it was, Tetsuya felt that way for a long time after falling in love with basketball - because it still wasn’t enough.
And then, in junior high, while staying behind in the gym to practice alone, long after the other second string players at Teikou had long left for the day, he met Aomine Daiki.
Aomine-kun was an interesting person.
That was Tetsuya’s first thought after they got to talking, after they got into a friendly match at the other boy’s persuasion. He had a certain charm, a certain charisma, that was hard to find the source of, making it impossible to say no to him in good conscience. Aomine-kun laughed when he was happy, laughed when he was annoyed or scared (though Tetsuya was almost sure there were tears in the corners of his eyes when he initially thought Tetsuya was a ghost who haunted the second string’s practice courts, cowered in a corner and burrowing his head in his knees), and laughed like it was the funniest thing in the world when Tetsuya thanked him for the match - even after the brutal loss, a final score of 14 points to 1.
“Why’re you thanking me for, Tetsu,” Aomine-kun chuckled, mussing the shorter teen’s hair and already taking to the affectionate nickname as if they hadn’t just met barely an hour ago. “I should be thanking you. It’s been great getting to meet someone who loves basketball just as much as I do!”
It wasn’t a surprise to Tetsuya when, in the days to follow, he saw more and more of Aomine-kun after practice.
And in the hallways, since their homerooms were three classrooms apart.
And during practice, just before Aomine-kun motioned him over to the coaches and the first string’s captain who also came along with him, moments before they would offer him the best news he would ever hear.
(Falling in love with basketball for Tetsuya was a dream come true. But meeting Aomine Daiki was the culmination of the dream, the realization that he wasn’t destined to be ignored for the remainder of his life - and the first smiling face that Tetsuya would always envision when someone mentioned their first love.)
Aomine-kun fell in love with the world the same way Tetsuya fell in love with him.
It was the little things at first. The little details, the little gestures that meant so much, that brought them closer together, that elicited a shivering and slowly sprouting flower that had yet to blossom. Before he knew it, Tetsuya found himself looking forward to every day at school - specifically the time before, during, and after school when he could see Aomine-kun and the other regulars on the team that he grew closer and closer to with each passing day. It was in the split-second instances that passed by too quickly, the unspoken sentiments behind conversations almost forgotten in due time, the thousands upon thousands of words exchanged over the din of practice drills and laps around the court, through the rush of air blowing past the subway tunnel and shuttle buses on weekdays and weekends spent together and sometimes with another very persistent and beloved new member of the first string.
Kise Ryouta was a friend to Tetsuya in more than just name.
Though he would never admit it (a severe understatement, really, because he could only imagine how Kise-kun would bellow and cheer and throw a metaphorical streetside party if Tetsuya ever admitted how grateful he was to have the excitable younger boy as a friend), Kise-kun was one of the kindest people Tetsuya knew.
He was a model most days he wasn’t on the court, a model student occasionally, and an exceptionally fast learner in nearly all other aspects. The blond was exuberant at his best, reticent at his worst, and he followed Aomine-kun like a faithful puppy.
And Aomine-kun, open-minded and open-hearted as he was, had no idea why.
Tetsuya found it almost ironic. The same reasons Kise-kun admired Aomine-kun so much (because he needed a jump-start to bring a spark to the monotony of his life, because he watched Aomine-kun at his best and discovered the magnetic pull of basketball first-hand, because he found a source of strength and a reason to play the sport, to enjoy it for what it was and what it could help him become) were the same reasons Tetsuya fell even more in love with basketball. So little by little, Tetsuya watched as his two friends formed a friendly rivalry, he began to better understand his own feelings in turn.
He felt no envy or any ill will towards Kise-kun for falling in love with Aomine-kun, either. How could he, when he cared for them both as friends and longed for them both to be happy?
So when he told Aomine-kun about how Kise-kun felt (against his better judgment, really - but at the rate they were going, no one would get anywhere), he wasn’t surprised when Aomine-kun was as easygoing as ever about the suggestion of giving it a shot.
When he lied to Kise-kun and told him that he didn’t have an umbrella that rainy day but Aomine-kun did, he didn’t regret the end result in the least.
And when he thought back on how possible it was that Aomine-kun might have fallen a bit in love with Kise-kun along the way - fell in love with the side of him that was beautiful, fell in love with his brand of passion and warm-hearted adoration for him, as he fell a little bit in love with everyone he gave his time to - he realized too late that what he did was a bit presumptuous of him.
But for however selfless the act might have seemed, it was driven by more than a bit of selfishness on his part as well.
After all, if they were happy together, then that meant he could go back to being the shadow of a child who was better left to his own devices, better left alone. He had already started to believe that himself, seeing Kise-kun walk the rest of the way home with Aomine-kun, hand in hand, side by side.
Seeing them happy- that was good enough.
(Anything to shift the focus away from the dull longing that persisted within a corner of his heart, to forget that someone as selfish as him didn’t deserve to monopolize the light Aomine-kun could shine on others just by being himself. Anything but those dark thoughts to focus on would do.)
Tetsuya imagined falling in love with the others.
Kise-kun, for example. He would be content with whatever Tetsuya wanted from him, taking whatever morsel of affection and attention he could grab - and give back more than enough so he could return the favor. Kise-kun had always been like that.
It would be so easy, once they got off the ground.
Momoi-san, too. She was exceptionally giving - the best manager a team could ever ask for - and her keen observational skills were as attractive as her carefree smiles. Momoi-san doted on him enough where it wasn’t hard to imagine her doing the same thing if they were a couple, worrying about his health as much as his happiness.
It would be undemanding, to be attached to someone like her.
Midorima-kun was a bit tougher, a bit more particular about details and traditions and keeping his guard up around public, but he had a tender soul beneath it all that could be easily won with enough perseverance and patience. Midorima-kun would sit beside him without speaking while leaning in close while they read together.
It would be effortless, once he could break down the walls.
Murasakibara-kun, too. Surprisingly, Tetsuya imagined him to be the most accepting of the bunch - and not just because he could be bribed into almost anything with food. He wouldn’t hide his relationship, secure enough with himself that life together would go at a perfectly ordinary pace.
It would be uncomplicated, to be with someone like that.
Even Akashi-kun would be a less torrid affair, less trying on the heart. Akashi-kun, who already had a soft spot for him, who told him many a time that he admired him as a player and as a person. Akashi-kun, who enlisted him to the first string in the first place, would set him on a pedestal and never let him down.
It would be so simple, to love someone back like that.
But Aomine-kun wasn’t. He was hard to pin down sometimes, and even harder to imagine as a lover. Like a basketball that rebounded off the backboard and just barely grazed the rim. Like coming into contact with an object set aflame; the heat doesn’t register with you at first and the pain, however brief, leaves a mark that stays with you, lingers in the imprinted memory of what happened more than the scar that faded with each second’s passing.
Like fire and ice, they were pure opposites that would eventually consume one another. And like most opposing forces, they would inevitably have to part once the impact of the collision dissolved the magic that brought them together in the first place.
The emotional distance was the first step, Tetsuya told himself, so they both didn’t have to deal with the inescapable fallout.
It was technically his fault.
The musing, the deep contemplation, the epiphany came to him one day while they were at practice, before the trouble even started. He never said it aloud, but fear is the sort of thing you can never quite escape. That’s the thing about misgivings, about anxieties. You might forget about them, ignore them, but they never really leave you. They evade conscious recollection, duck beneath a shroud of delusions and self-justifications, but they never go away.
What if I left, Tetsuya wondered yet again as he scanned the courts at a tournament game in their third year, searching for someone— else to pass the ball to, vanished into thin air and disappeared from Teikou completely, never to return?
He read plenty of stories with the same inherent theme, the same essential problem. Wanting to be noticed, searching for acknowledgement, the protagonist of a story contemplates leaving it all behind for something better - whatever that something better was. The ending wasn’t what mattered, though; it was the principle of it, the importance of being missed if he was gone.
Not because he left this world entirely, no. Nothing so drastic as that.
But what if. What if he turned tail and ran, left little behind except a resignation letter on Akashi-kun’s desk and five teammates (friends, companions, pieces of his heart) who he once knew and loved? What if he chose to take flight, give up his place on the ground for someone else more deserving, let go of what kept him secured for so long and break free?
What if, Tetsuya pondered - again and again, night after night, day into day - the result would be the same, regardless of what he decided?
It seemed more than a possibility now, certainly. With all that they’ve won, all that they’ve gained in experienced and in specialized forms of attack and defense on the court after weeks, months, years of playing together, Tetsuya began to wonder if victory was all there was to basketball. If winning was the only source of joy in basketball anymore.
If this was what happened to everyone following enough successes, even those who claimed that the sport itself was what they loved.
Aomine-kun had been changing.
Slowly but surely, Tetsuya watched him transform from the spirited youth he met years ago into a young man burdened by expectation, discouraged by the considerable lack of challenge he found in every match, becoming disheartened and dispassionate, becoming jaded.
It didn’t affect how he treated his best friend, his basketball partner, his “little shadow” - as Aomine-kun often (in the past) called him - at first.
But lately, Tetsuya sensed the metamorphosis happening more than ever, making him more frustrated with himself and more irritable with others. He smiled less even around Kise-kun, who expressed his concerns to Tetsuya on multiple occasions - thinking that his boyfriend’s best friend, of all people, could offer sound advice.
Tetsuya couldn’t bear to tell him the truth, that Aomine-kun was distant even to him these days. That Aomine-kun admitted he was considering breaking up with Kise-kun, the rationalization for it being that they were both planning on going to different high schools, anyway.
That Tetsuya had thought for awhile now that the end of their relationship was near.
So when Aomine-kun told him in that match, during their last tournament as a team together, not to bother passing the ball to him anymore, he listened.
So after they won their last tournament together, when they all walked back to the locker room together, victory in high spirits was hardly the climate between them when they realized they couldn’t find Tetsuya anywhere, not even back by the van with their manager waiting to show off the trophy they earned to the team.
So when Tetsuya rode the train back home by himself that evening, hands shaking and shoulders trembling with the weight of his mental mantra - don’t cry until you’re home, don’t cry until you’re sure you’re alone, don’t cry don’t cry don’tcry - the revelation that he couldn’t even feel the tears streaming down his face until he was at the front gate of his house hurt more than being missed, after all.
But it was for the best, he told himself once his heart rate was back to normal, once the sobs subsided and the blank mask was fastened and ready for the days to come. It was for the best that he fell out of love with basketball as quickly as he had fallen in love - just as he was sure he could come to fall out of love with the person who helped him love it in the first place.
(All in due time, he told himself that night, gazing out his bedroom window at the night sky dappled with faded stars and head heavy against his pillow as he drifted into an unsteady sleep. All in due time.)
The last words he spoke to Kise-kun were to “have a safe trip” to Nagoya, where his next photoshoot would be. (He would never have told Kise-kun he was leaving, lest the chatty lad would have let the entire team know before he wanted them to.)
The last words he spoke to Momoi-san were to give herself a break every once in awhile and to give Aomine-kun the letter “but don’t let him open it until we’ve graduated, please.” (He thought it better this way, since Momoi-san was always better at looking after her childhood friend. Better than Tetsuya could ever be.)
The last words he spoke to Midorima-kun were to take his own advice and “take care” of himself. (As always, Midorima-kun was good at listening and was as fastidious as ever in the coming weeks. As Tetsuya expected him to be.)
The last words he spoke to Murasakibara-kun were to be sure to brush his teeth after eating all that candy because he didn’t want to “be responsible for giving him cavities.” (It was a silly statement, really, considering how Murasakibara-kun wouldn’t have cared at all if he had - and would still have been grateful for the parting gift from Tetsuya, if nothing else.)
The last words he spoke to Aomine-kun were while his (former) light was asleep, napping on the rooftop again as usual.
He spoke them in a whisper, close to the shell of Aomine-kun’s ear.
Perhaps at the time, Aomine-kun was dreaming about those gravure models he liked so much or imagining himself at the NBA playing a match against the famous players revered worldwide.
Perhaps he might have interrupted a dream of his earlier days, of their earlier days together, and Tetsuya’s face, hands, eyes, and voice might have appeared in the dream in effect.
To this day, he never knew if Aomine-kun had indeed been awake at the time - never knew if he felt the small fingers that gently brushed against his temple, never knew if he felt the gentle press of lips against his own, never knew if the blurring in his vision slipped past his eyelids at the last possible moment before he pulled away, turned on his heel, and ran, ran, ran as fast as he could from the one person he couldn’t say that last goodbye to his face and would probably always care about for long as he lived - and, to be quite honest, he wouldn’t have wanted to know the answer.
(All that mattered now was that he had left.
All that mattered now, thinking back to it a year after he had left, was that he had no regrets about his final decision.
All that mattered then mattered not now - because he was lucky enough to have learned first-hand how to fall in, out, and back in love with basketball again.)
Kuroko Tetsuya’s first loves always would be basketball and Aomine Daiki.
He would tell the world it was the former, of course. No need to elaborate on things that needed no further elaboration. Unlike when he was younger, he didn’t care to explain why he loved basketball the way he did. They didn’t care, most people.
The past was the past, after all. It was a beautiful thing to recall, however bittersweet the memories contained within it were, and Tetsuya had no qualms about letting the world know that he had been happy in Teikou. For the most part, anyway.
If you asked Tetsuya was the best thing about his life now, he would tell you it was playing basketball for Seirin High School.
That was only partially true, though. He did love his new school, no matter how small and restricting the facilities were at times. He loved his new team, his new teammates, and he was glad to have a new coach and a new captain, who maintained and managed a team that was more a family sometimes than the one related to him by blood.
But more than anything, the best thing - the one person - that Tetsuya was most grateful for was Kagami Taiga.
Kagami-kun did have traces of Aomine-kun in him.
That much he knew from the offset, seeing him play, watching him dance circles around players who appeared like ants next to him. While he wasn’t nearly as tall as Murasakibara-kun (no one else could compete with that towering height), his presence was what struck Tetsuya from the moment they were face to face on the courts.
Even in the dark, Kagami-kun illuminated the world around him - made it his own, made himself better for his own sake and for the sake of his teammates, made himself a home in the shadows of Tetsuya’s heart and refused to leave - and Tetsuya couldn’t have been luckier to have found him.
“Look who’s talking,” groused Kagami-kun when Tetsuya said so himself, picking up his fallen burger from his lap - as if he hadn’t dropped it in surprise not even five seconds before and wasn’t trying to distract his shadow from the faint pink coloring his cheeks at the compliment. “You act like I’m not lucky for having you around…it works both ways, y’know.”
“If I didn’t know any better,” Tetsuya smiled - or, really, it was a faint heavenward twitch to small lips; but the other freshman knew him well enough to discern a smile when he saw one, “I’d take that as as a confession, Kagami-kun.”
That remark alone painted Kagami-kun’s entire face scarlet, one hand reaching out to tousle the blue crown of Tetsuya’s hair and a noise less human and more like a strangled animal elicited.
“Shut up and go finish those fries already.” The command would have been a lot more threatening, Tetsuya mused, if Kagami-kun hadn’t stuttered out the words and hadn’t tried to duck and hide his slight smirk with a cough. “—Unless you’re done eating already. I’ll take ‘em, if you’re done.”
The thing about first loves, Tetsuya learned in the past year, was that they were for keeps.
But other things were just as much for keeps.
Other things - like the skidding squeaks of sneaker soles making contact with on the concrete, the skipping beats of one’s pulse as he went cross-court with the back of his team’s uniforms and numbers facing him and his ever-steady presence close behind, being wanted, being needed - were irreplaceable.
Other things - like the thank yous contained in his former teammates’ advice, faces in the crowd, and occasional lunch outings on weekends, oftentimes drawing a crowd and starting quite a ruckus - were hard to explain but just as precious.
Other things - like this moment, where Kagami-kun reached over to steal a fry or two and managed to touch fingers with Tetsuya’s instead but didn’t retract his hand, laced their fingers together briefly with a smile that at first appeared chagrined but quickly faded into a full-out grin that showed his warm resignation to stay a bit longer - were the most difficult of all to imagine a life without.
They were equally as precious, too - as precious as anything Tetsuya could recall from past loves, lost and otherwise.