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Kuroko didn't know what he was expecting when he stepped into Seirin on the morning of that first day. Perhaps he didn't expect anything at all. But he's sure that when he first met eyes with the tall boy standing next to him—the tallest by far in that crowded square—there was something about the world that shifted a little. Something that slid, if ever so subtly, out of place.
Granted, he didn't really notice it then, buried as it was under the customary first impressions of “weird accent”, “too tall”, “probably would be great at basketball if he wasn't so stupid”, but he remembered it very clearly once he recognized it for what it was. It was impossible to forget the lapse in reality that it created. It was impossible to forget how it made his world spin again.
He thought it was the basketball at first, the one that put things into motion. The fresh faces of his team, the newness of the environment. What else could it be? He'd forged some good friendships, he'd aced most of his tests, he was paving a beautiful new path for himself in Seirin High. Maybe, if he kept at it long enough, he could forget all about Akashi and Aomine and the lingering nightmares of Teiko. Maybe he wouldn't need victory over his old teammates to move on from them. His world, his own personal Earth, had been jerked into motion, and it spun now in steady rounds on its steady axis, and he had no need of any more than that, did he?
But the days went on. And the number of hours he spent staring at the broad back and glaringly bright hair of Kagami—of his favourite teammate and closest friend—built up. And gradually he came to realize, through flashes of furtive eye contact and words that when exchanged lingered instead of dissolving into the forgotten, that it wasn't really the basketball or the school that got him going again. It was Kagami-kun.
And what had only just shifted at first kept shifting, slipping and sliding and crashing out of control, and Kuroko's world was spinning faster and faster, and suddenly it was changed. It was dappled gold with the spots of feeling that Kagami had set alight in it. Sunshine shone brighter with him by his side. Flowers bloomed broader. Even the rain glistened and winked like stars. Kuroko's spirit blossomed. It melted and flowed and flooded with this new, beautiful world.
Did you know, Kagami-kun, that your hair shines six different shades of red in the sun, and eight in the twilight? I counted. I counted many times.
Kagami-kun, you've opened up a whole new world for me.
Thank you, Kagami-kun. You've made me see beauty in a form like nothing I'd ever seen before. You've made me taste joy like I'd never dreamed it could be.
Did you know, Kagami-kun, that I love you?
Some days he lay in bed staring at the ceiling or sat on the bus looking out the window, mouthing these words silently to himself. Curling his tongue round their consonants. Revelling in their vowels. Dreaming and hoping and praying that someday he would be able to say them out loud.
For he had seen and felt for himself the strength of Kagami's gaze and the fire of his eyes—perhaps more so than most—and he knew that if there had to be only one thing in this world that he could be absolutely, doubtlessly assured of, it was that he wouldn't find eyes like that anywhere else. Not any that could light him up and flood him through with vertigo with a single glance. Not like that.
Because Kagami's eyes were the kind that could make a sixteen-year old boy believe in magic again.