After talking with Momoi, Kuroko hurriedly got out of bed and dressed his outdoor clothes, searching for any bodily change while doing so. He also looked on the mirror of the bathroom and went to greet his family, and everything went about in the same usual and normal way that it went on all weekends.
Everything was absolutely normal and he hadn’t noticed anything weird going around. He was even starting to think if all of this wasn’t only a prank being played on him, but the affliction in the pink-haired girl when she called him at an unusual hour seemed way too realistic to be a lie.
So, even though it was still quite early to go to the meeting spot, a small café that was owned by an acquaintance of Kise (since he, being a model, couldn’t exactly go to any other place when he currently had ears on his head and a tail on his back), Kuroko left home after having taken his breakfast in a leisurely way, considering the current circumstances.
On his way there, he also got absolutely no trouble whatsoever nor did he have to run over any roadblock or accident. So he was really starting to wonder why exactly he was the only one who wasn’t experiencing any side-effects from having eaten the weird-looking jelly beans.
Kuroko not very easily spotted the small café (it was hidden quite well, in a small street in the middle of two tall buildings) and entered inside, noticing right away that both Kise and Kagami were already there, sat down on a table with enough chairs for all of them. The table was more to the small size, so they would have to squeeze in once everyone arrived. Except for them, there were absolutely no other customers.
Kise noticed his arrival right away, seeing as the bell on top of the door announced his presence. “Kurokocchiiiiiiii!! You’re here!”
“Yo, Kuroko,” also greeted Kagami, looking away from the plastic wrap on his hands to peer in the bluenette’s direction.
“Good morning, Kise-kun, Kagami-kun,” greeted back Kuroko, pulling a chair so he could sit down. “Huh? Didn’t Murasakibara-kun supposedly sleep at your house, Kise-kun?”
“Yes, I did,” answered a tiny voice. When Kuroko looked down to the table’s surface, he saw an extremely small version of the purple-haired male sitting down near the coffee cup that Kise had ordered. The bluenette immediately arched an eyebrow at the sight. “You don’t need to be so surprised, Kuro-chin. I’m actually more surprised than you over the fact that I’m able to see you.”
“Oh, that’s right! I would immediately think that your curse or whatever would be turning completely invisible,” agreed the blonde, nodding his head several times. “What’s your curse then?”
“Everything is normal so I’m starting to think I don’t have any,” simply said the smaller male while running his eyes through the menu of the café.
“Or maybe you’re already weird enough to also suffer a curse,” teased Kagami, a smirk tugging his lips upwards. “It seems the gods are being merciful on you, Kuroko.”
“I am not weird. At least, not as weird as Kise-kun,” deadpanned Kuroko while looking up from the small chart. Kise gave a pitched shriek in surprise at his words and the bluenette readily focused his teal eyes on him. Actually, it wasn’t on him but on the large coat with a hood that he was wearing, even inside of the café and with a warm temperature on the outside. “Kise-kun, I’m sorry but I…”
“Eh? What’s wrong, Kurokoc— Gyaaaah!” As soon as Kuroko lunged his hand forward and abruptly pulled down the hood covering his head, Kise screamed and tried to cover the two fluffy dog ears sticking out of his head with his hands. Observing the three males snickering at his appearance and reaction, Kise covered his head with the hood once again and crossed his arms over his chest, pouting. “You’re so mean, Kurokocchi! How can you laugh at me like that? And why are you the only one who isn’t suffering any change!?”
“Maybe since I was the only one who ate the jelly beans without evil intentions in mind, I didn’t get cursed like all of you did,” deadpanned the bluenette, the two currently cursed males grunting with displeasure over it. “Did anyone find anything about it yet?”
“Not really,” answered Kagami, picking up the plastic package where the jelly beans had come in. “I have never heard to these jelly beans or anything related to curses when you eat them. I contacted Tatsuya too, but he said he also didn’t know anything about it. And what’s written in the bag isn’t very helpful either. It only says that they grant wishes through misfortune, basically.”
“Aw, man~ What are we supposed to do now?” complained Kise, sniffing a little bit while clutching at his hood.
“Well, the best thing for us to do is to understand what kind of wish it is that you inadvertently made while eating the jelly beans,” pointed out Kuroko, setting down the menu on the table. “Maybe if you successfully achieve that wish, everything will go back to normal.”
“It’s a possibility,” agreed Kagami, nodding his head as he heard those words. “Kise, what is it that you want?”
“Eh? Ah… Hmm… I don’t know. I have a lot of things that I would like to do or have,” explained Kise while he deeply thought about what the redhead had said. “But I don’t really remember being thinking about it when I ate the jelly beans. I just really wanted to make Kurokocchi pay for the teasing he did on me because of the photos of Kasama— Ah, um… Because of… some things.”
“And what were you thinking about at the time, Murasakibara?” asked once again Kagami, turning his head to the small male sitting on top of the table while munching on a cookie that seemed way too big for his current stomach.
“Nothing really… Just about why would Muro-chin’s family send something so suspicious-looking to him,” leisurely explained the purple-haired male while he gave quick bites to the sweet.
“What about you, Kuroko?” asked the redhead, turning his head around to the bluenette.
“Ah… Nothing in particular,” answered Kuroko, averting slightly the red gaze of the taller male. He couldn’t really say that at the time he was feeling too self-conscious over the fact that a certain someone was looking so intently at him to really think about anything specific.
“Right,” suspiciously acknowledged Kagami, still looking at the bluenette. Was it he or Kuroko had just avoided giving them a straight answer on that one? “Okay, so none of you three was thinking about anything that could be considered a wish. Well, maybe Kise’s thoughts could, in a way. But I don’t really see anything in common. We probably should ask the same thing to the others, just in ca—“
“Hello, everyone! Dai-chan has arrived<3” yelled suddenly an extremely girly male voice as soon as the bell attached to the door started to play once again. When all of them looked over in its direction… they got so shocked they couldn’t formulate any type of reaction whatsoever to Aomine’s new “look” and “personality” except stare at him.
“G-Good morning…” greeted an extremely tired Momoi, entering in the café right behind the tanned male.
“Tetsu-chan~” yelped right away Aomine, running with his flexed arms pressed against his body in the table’s direction. He stopped right beside the bluenette and tightly hugged him. “How’s my sweet little shadow doing? I see you’re as cute as always<3”
“…” Kuroko was so taken aback by the sudden personality switch that all he did was let his body be hugged by the strong arms of the tanned male while his face remained completely blank. He simply didn’t know how he should react at this one.
“Tetsu-chan, Kagami-chan, what do you think of my clothes?” asked Aomine after having released the smaller male. He straightened his body, gave a quick spin and then made a pose, just as if doing such was a completely normal thing for him. “I’m super cute today, aren’t I?”
“Ah… Um…” started Kagami, not entirely sure of what he should say to a male with over 190cm wearing a frilly-on-the-bottom white shirt, black tight pants, a bracelet with different small apparels (like butterflies, stars and hearts) on his right wrist and make-up.
“You’re fantastic, Aomine-kun,” simply said Kuroko, giving him a thumbs-up while his face remained completely blank. The best thing he could do was enter in the game since he had no idea of what he could do otherwise about the tanned male at the moment.
“Really? Yay!” celebrated Aomine, giving a small jump while clapping his hands together. “But stop calling me ‘Aomine-kun’! I want you to call me ‘Dai-chan’, like Sat-chan does!”
“Aomine-kun,” simply said Kuroko, always staring to the taller male.
“No! Dai-chan!” corrected Aomine.
“Aomine-kun.”
“Dai-chan~!”
“Aomine-kun.”
“D-A-I-C-H-A-N~!”
“Aomine-kun.”
“Geez~ Why are you always so stubborn, Tetsu-chan!” pouted Aomine, sitting down on the chair next to Kagami while crossing his arms over his chest. He started sniffing a little bit and looked with puppy-eyes to the bluenette. “I… I want Tetsu-chan to call me ‘Dai-chan’… Please?”
“I’m sorry, Aomine-kun,” comforted Kuroko while softly patting the tanned male’s head. “I won’t call you that because it’s the best for you. If I did, I have a feeling that you would try to throw yourself out of a bridge when the curse is broken.”
“Eh? What curse?” asked Aomine, tilting his head slightly.
“This curse.” Kuroko picked up Murasakibara by the back of his small jacket and put him in front of the tanned male, and pulled down once again the hood of the blonde, revealing his dog ears.
“Kurokocchi, I told you to stop doing that!” complained Kise right away, breaking out of his stupefaction with that sudden action. He once again started to pull up the hood but two tanned hands gripped his wrists before he could.
“Oh my God! Kise-tan, you look so cute~” yelped Aomine in delight. He quickly switched his chair and sat down next to the blonde, grabbing the two ears of his head almost immediately. “Oooh! They are so fluffy and smooth and adorable<3 Ah, I want to keep on petting them for the rest of my life~”
“W-Wait…! Aominecchi, that tickles! S-Stop playing with them!!” complained Kise, trying to fight back against the tanned male’s advances on his dog ears. If it was the normal Aomine, he would have kicked him already but since he was currently with the personality of a girl, he was feeling extremely reticent to hurt him in any way if he could help it.
“Dai-chan, leave poor Ki-chan alone! He’s already feeling extremely down because of them!” admonished Momoi, sitting down next to the tanned male, since it would be the best seat to control and stop his completely crazy antics at the moment.
“Wait…” suddenly said Aomine, releasing the blonde’s dog ears. He scanned his body from head to toes and then his eyes opened in a surprised motion. “If you have dog ears right now, Kise-tan… Doesn’t that also mean you have a tail?”
“Kurokocchi, this café has some sweets with vanilla, let’s go see them right now!” yelped Kise instantly as soon as the tanned male finished his sentence, getting up from his chair in a single jump. He grabbed Kuroko by the arm and started to drag him to the counter where cakes and other pastries were being showcased.
“I see that there are things that will never change, whether Mine-chin considers himself a he or a she,” pointed out Murasakibara while chewing the cookie.
“You’re also suuuuper cute, Murasakibara-tan, so you don’t need to be that jealous~” grinned Aomine while lowering slightly his head to look at the purple-haired male.
“I’m not jealous in the least,” corrected Murasakibara, glaring slightly at the tanned male with his tiny purple eyes. “I want to hurry up and get my real size back.”
“Ah… Um… On that note…” interrupted Kagami, still a little bit lost on how he should act towards the taller male. He softly scratched his face with the nervousness and looked over to the male sitting down in front of him. “What were you think about while you ate the jelly beans yesterday?”
“Jelly beans? You mean those weird looking things from yesterday’s gathering?” asked Aomine, raising slightly an eyebrow. He saw both Kagami and Murasakibara nodding his head and started thinking about it. “Hmm… I think I was wondering about what kind of face Tetsu-chan would make when he ate them and how funny it would be to tell Kagami-chan about it today.”
“Ah… So another inconclusive thought…” sighed Kagami, dropping his head slightly in a demoralized motion.
“Eh? What, what? Did you find out anything about the curse or whatever it is that’s going on?” asked Momoi right away, hope glistening in her eyes. It was almost painful to see Aomine acting in such a way, after all.
“No, not really,” sighed the redhead once again, dropping his arms on top of the table. “We just know that whatever it is that’s happening was driven out of them making some sort of wish while they were eating the weird-looking jelly beans. I read the package they came in but I didn’t find any clues about it.”
“Hm… Let me make a quick search on the Internet about it,” said Momoi right away, taking her cell phone out of her purse. She immediately opened the search engine and started writing several things on it, in hopes that any of them would lead to some sort of explanation on the current events. “Oh, what’s Tetsu-kun’s curse, by the way?”
“We don’t know. Kuro-chin said that there’s nothing particularly abnormal going on around him,” explained Murasakibara, putting down the cookie on the table and rubbing his filled to the brim stomach, even though there was still half of the little sweet left uneaten.
“Eh~ I wanted to see him getting cursed,” complained the pink-haired girl while searching around for data on the matter. “Maybe getting cat ears and tail. Or bunny ones! Whatever it would be I’m sure it would look super cute on him~ But… does that mean that he didn’t make any wish when he ate them?”
“Hm… I wonder…” cryptically answered Kagami, throwing a glance to where the blonde and the bluenette were currently chatting about the pastries they were choosing. “The answer he gave us was the most inconclusive one out of all of—“
Suddenly the door to the café was open with a bang and a green-haired male came stumbling in, panting beyond measure. When all of them looked over in its direction and focused their eyes on him, they noticed that it was Midorima.
The green-haired male slowly picked himself up and walked in their direction, while staggering slightly. As soon as he reached the table, he sat down on one of the chairs and adjusted his glasses, one of the lenses slightly cracked.
“I… Haa… I don’t know what’s going on… right now…” started Midorima, trying to control his hasty breathing. “The only thing I’m sure about is that I’m starting to develop a phobia to step outside of my bed because I was almost killed 17 times since I got out of it.”
“W-What happened, Midorin?” hesitantly asked the pink-haired girl, lifting her eyes from the phone with an eyebrow slightly arched.
“I have my lucky item with me,” explained Midorima, putting on top of the table a key-chain with a small four-leaf clover made out of rubber. “But I’ve been experiencing life-threatening situation since the moment I got out of bed. The bookshelf in my bedroom almost felt on top of me all of a sudden, I was almost run over by cars, trains, motorcycles, bicycles and taxis eight times, chased by dogs and cats, and flowerpots started to rain down on me every now and then!”
“You sure have it hard on you, Mido-chin…” comforted Murasakibara, looking at the green-haired male with eyes full of pity.
“Hmph!” Midorima simply turned his head away from the tiny version of the purple-haired male, sulking slightly.
“What were you thinking about while you were eating the weird-looking jelly bean?” asked Kagami right away, not wanting to talk more than necessary with the other male.
“What does that have anything to do with you?” asked back Midorima, looking at the redhead with a condescending look on his face.
“Just answer, Midorin. It’s important for us to figure out how to get you all out of this mess,” explained Momoi, releasing a soft sigh while getting back to her research on her phone.
“…” Midorima adjusted his glasses once again and averted the gaze of all of those present in the table. “I was simply remembering that I needed to text back Takao because of the message that he had sent me earlier that afternoon.”
“Ugh…” grunted both Kagami and Murasakibara, as they obtained another answer that wasn’t helping them in any way.
“Uwah~ Midorimacchi, what the heck happened to you?” asked Kise, who had returned alone from the other side of the shop. He motioned down to the same seat he was in before and dropped his body there. “You almost look like a hurricane survivor or something along those lines…”
“Shut up, Kise,” hissed the green-haired male while turning his head away from the blonde. “Are we all here already?”
“The only one missing is Akashicchi,” said Kise while playing with the spoon on the saucer of his coffee cup. “You know he’s always the last one to arrive when things get serious. Kurokocchi is in the counter trying to decide which pastry he will buy.”
“Kuroko sure is taking this is a quite half-heartedly way. What kind of curse does he have?” asked Midorima, looking back to the group of people sitting at the table.
“He says he doesn’t have any,” simply answered the blonde, shrugging his shoulders.
“I’m starting to dislike him more and more,” grudgingly said the green-haired male, a vein popping slightly out on his forehead. “Why is he the only one who doesn’t ha—“
“Here it is!” suddenly exclaimed Momoi, getting up from her seat with the excitement. “I’ve found it! I found out about the curse of the jelly beans!!”
“Eh!? Tell us, then!” urged Kise immediately, his eyes opened immensely with the expectation to know how he could solve his current predicament.
Momoi sat down on her chair once again and cleared her throat. “I’m going to read what the website I found says. ‘What is it that people seek the most in the world? It’s simple – happiness. And what makes a person happier than knowing that their love is requited? These magical jelly beans will help anyone achieve the love of their life when eaten. The only downside of these little cupids is that you will have to go through several trials to achieve that happiness. But fear not, Romeos and Juliets, the little curse will be broken as soon as you confess to your other half.’ …Is what the article says…”
“…Eh…?” managed to interject Kise while dropping the spoon on the table. He looked completely flabbergasted to the pink-haired girl, and then looked around to the other males, who looked just as shocked as him. “Wait, what?”
“In other words, it seems that you have to confess to your crushes to break free from the curse,” repeated once again Momoi.
“EEEEEEEEEHHHHHHH!?” yelled all of them in unison, Kagami and Aomine slamming their hands on the table.
“What? It doesn’t sound all that hard,” continued Momoi, tilting her head slightly at the males. “All you have to do is confess to whoever you like, right? It’s not out of this world. I do it all the time to Tetsu-kun<3”
“And that has turned out so well, Sat-chan…” added Aomine while looking at the pink-haired girl with slight pity in his eyes.
“Shut up, Dai-chan! You have to confess to whoever girl you’re in love with so I bet you will experience it too first hand!” yelled the flustered girl.
“’Girl’? Why would I confess to another girl?” simply asked back Aomine, tilting slightly his head with extreme confusion.
“…Eh…?” softly interjected all of them in unison once again.
“H-Holy shit… Aominecchi just came out of the closet in front of all of us…” incredulously stuttered Kise, motioning his hand to his pants’ pocket to take out his cell phone. He pressed a few buttons and then motioned it forward in the tanned male’s direction. “Can you repeat that again? I want to record it and use it against you whenever you start teasing me again after this curse is broken.”
“This is not the time to be kidding around, Ki-chan!” admonished Momoi, shoving the blonde’s cell phone away from Aomine as he continued to look around to all of them, completely lost if he had said something he shouldn’t.
“Ah… Um… O-Okay, so now we understand the situation that all of y-you are under,” interrupted Kagami, clearing his throat as he tried to soften the soft shade of pink that appeared in his cheeks due to this unexpected discovery about the tanned male. “So what now? Each one of you will confess to your crush so you can all return to—“
“Wait, if we have been cursed this means we like someone, right?” interrupted this time Kise, banging his hands against the table. “Which means, since Akashicchi has been cursed, he’s also crushing on someone right now!”
“Oh my God, the devil has fallen in love~” yelped Aomine in an excited and shriek voice. “Isn’t that, like, super romantic?”
“Aominecchi, you’re, like, super creeping me out,” pointed out the blonde, looking at the taller male with a certain aversion to his current personality. It was fun in the beginning to see him acting in such an opposite way to his usual personality… but now it was starting to become plainly disturbing. “Anyways! So I, Aominecchi, Murasakibaracchi, Midorimacchi and Akashicchi have our own crushes, huh… Would you look at that! …Ah! Then… does that mean that the only one without a crush is Kurokocchi? He wasn’t affected by the curse, after all.”
“Eh? Kuroko/Tetsu-chan has someone he likes,” answered in unison Kagami and Aomine, exchanging a quick glance with each other afterwards.
“Eh? H-He has?” hesitantly asked Momoi, her heart speeding up all of a sudden. She slowly lifted her hand and pointed a finger at herself. “D-Does that mean that he… likes me?”
“No way,” answered all of them at the same time, even Midorima and Murasakibara joining in.
“Geez… You sure know how to destroy a girl’s dreams…” sulked Momoi, crossing her arms over her chest and puffing out her cheeks.
“Then if he has someone he… likes… why doesn’t he have any curse?” asked Midorima, adjusting his glasses for the hundredth time, his cheeks slightly pink. The fact that his former teammates and current rivals knew that he had a little crush on someone was displeasing him deeply. “Is it that he confessed to them already or something?”
“I don’t think he has since— Ah, well, I don’t think he confessed to them or anything,” answered Kagami quite hesitantly, scratching his head softly.
“Then let’s ask him if he really has a crush on someone. He must have some sort of curse too, if that is indeed true,” added Kise, getting slightly excited to know about such a privy detail about the bluenette. They once again heard the door being opened and the blonde readily looked over in its direction. “Oh, Akashicchi is here!”
Then I don’t think Kuroko will be answering any of your questions, Kise, inwardly pointed out Kagami as he peered sideways to the smaller redhead who was walking in their direction.
“Good morning,” greeted Akashi, giving a quick upturn to his lips. “Are we all present and correct?”
“Yes, we are,” confirmed Midorima, adjusting his glasses.
“Kuroko?” asked Akashi as he undressed his jacket while skirting his eyes around the table. He had dropped by the bluenette’s house before coming to the café, but he couldn’t exactly take a taxi there due to the way he was currently speaking (or the way others perceived his speaking since all words sounded completely normal in his head), he had to walk and when he got there, Kuroko had apparently already left. So he just resigned himself and came to the meeting spot like they had agreed.
“Kurokocchi is choosing something to eat,” explained the blonde, trying to look over to the counter. “He’s been there for quite a while so he must be back in a few minutes. He must be really having a hard time deciding, since the café received a big variety of cakes today, apparently.”
Akashi softly chuckled and put down his coat in one of the two last free chairs, looking sideways to the other one. Kuroko would probably sit there and that meant he would be the one who could observe more closely whatever curse the bluenette was currently under.
The moment when the redhead was going to sit down, however, the sound of a plate shattering on the floor resounded through the entire shop. All of them immediately looked in the direction where the loud noise had come from and saw Kuroko there, completely motionless there with a bright red face and his mouth opening and closing like he wanted to say something but wasn’t being able to.
“Kuroko?” called Akashi right away, tilting his head slightly as he wondered what was going on.
“…!” The blush in his face intensified by a tenfold and the bluenette readily averted the redhead’s gaze on him, giving a shaky step backwards and bumping into the table behind him.
“Wait, Tetsu-chan! Are you okay!?” yelped Aomine in panic, getting up from his seat immediately and running over in his direction, skirting around the broken plate in the floor so he wouldn’t get cut in the shards. He motioned his hands forward to support the shaken up smaller male but he averted his touch almost immediately. “Come sit down in the table.”
“I’ll go get him a glass of water!” said Kagami also in a slight panic, getting up from his seat and walking with quick steps to the counter.
“I-I’m okay, Aomine-kun. You don’t need to worry, but please don’t touch me right now,” weakly warned Kuroko, walking with unsteady and wobbly steps to the table once again. Akashi pulled out his chair so he could seat more quickly, but he was so flustered right now that he couldn’t nod in acknowledgement, much less look in the redhead’s direction.
“Are you really okay, Kuro-chin?” asked Murasakibara, getting up from the place he had been sitting since he got to the café and walking to peer at the slightly downcast face of the bluenette. “Your face is bright red.”
“Do you have a fever or something?” also asked Midorima, a part of him worried about the smaller male even though they weren’t the closest of friends. Actually, they weren’t even friends, they were former teammates and current rivals.
Kuroko simply shook his head in denial and started to lift his hands to his face, his breathing slightly pitched. However, while he was motioning his hands up, his elbow softly bumped on Akashi’s, who was also sitting down on the chair beside him, and he just quickly clutched his mouth shut with his hands, preventing the extremely embarrassing sound that almost exited his throat. “Ngggh!”
“K-Kurokocchi…?” hesitantly called Kise, an eyebrow slightly perked up as he observed the smaller male holding his mouth tightly closed, his eyes also strongly shut.
“I-I think I need to go to the bathroom,” stuttered Kuroko, immediately getting up from his seat once again and staggeringly running to the counter once again, where the bathroom was situated near.
“What the hell’s gotten over him all of a sudden?” asked the blonde to no one in particular, watching together with all the others as he disappeared on the sharp corner that the shop had.
Kuroko continued to run in the toilet’s direction, passing by Kagami on his way there, who tried to talk with and stop him. But he was currently in a predicament that couldn’t be solved by talking with his teammate. Not with him, and not with anyone. As soon as he reached the bathroom’s door, he opened it ajar and got inside of one of the stalls there, closing it shut and locking it.
“Oh shit…” softly cursed the bluenette while leaning his back on the stall’s door and letting his body slid down through it, crouching down on the floor as soon the motion stopped. He looked down to his crotch and cursed inwardly a few more times, grunting exasperatedly.
“Kuroko?” sounded Kagami’s voice from the other side of the stall, who knocked softly in the door to check if it really was him inside. “Are you okay? What’s the matter? Are you feeling unwell or something like that?”
“K-Kagami-kun?” hesitantly called the bluenette, his breathing still pitched and heavy. However, it hadn’t become like that due to running to the bathroom.
“Yeah, it’s me. What happened? I was fetching you a glass with water and then you passed by me while you were almost running for your life,” added Kagami, his voice full of worry and panic.
“K-Kagami-kun, I-I need a way to go home. Right now!” said Kuroko in a weak and shaky voice. “I-I can’t stay here with all of you at the moment. Actually, I probably won’t be able to exit my house until the curse is broken.”
“What? Why?” asked Kagami once again. He was about to knock on the door of the bathroom stall once again when he heard it being unlocked and slowly getting opened all but a small crack. However, that small gap was more than enough for him to see the bright red features of the smaller male and hear him panting more clearly.
“I’m too turned on at the moment to be allowed to be on a café or walk on the street.”
“…Eh…?”
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