“Finally!” squeaked Murasakibara’s tiny and acute voice as he popped his head out of Kagami’s school bag. “Muro-chin!! Finally!!! Finally!!!!! Muro-chiiiiiiiin!!!”
“Murasakibara, shut up!” roared Kagami, aggressively pushing Murasakibara’s small purple head back inside of the bag. “I know you’re excited about finally seeing Tatsuya, but give me a break, will ya? What will people think if they see two guys talking in the street with an irritant and squeaky voice seemingly coming from nowhere!?”
“I don’t care about you two, I just want my Muro-chin,” said Murasakibara with a soft grudging tone as he once again popped his head out of the school bag. “You two have had loads of opportunities to confess already and blew them up all on your own. I have yet to see Muro-chin! Give me an opportunity to screw up my confession too, okay? ...No offence, Aka-chin.”
“Offence taken,” said Akashi, giving a small upturn to the corner of his lips. “What you just said is absolutely wrong. Though it makes me happy to hear that Daiki has succeeded in his confession. I tried to be a hindrance to him by coming to Tokyo instead of inviting Seirin to Kyoto but it seems my efforts were wasted.”
“Wait, Aomine was able to confess already!?” yelped Kagami, whipping his head sideways to look at Akashi with eyes wide open in surprise. That meant… Aomine had been able to confess to…
“Aka-chin is saying the opposite of what he means, remember?” said Murasakibara, rolling his eyes around. Kagami could be so dense that it was almost nauseating. “It’s more than obvious that Mine-chin hasn’t been able to confess yet. Or more like, someone didn’t listen when he was confessing…”
“Oh, right…” acknowledged Kagami, part of him feeling extremely relieved at hearing such. The other part felt guilty over feeling relieved. He awkwardly cleared his throat. “Anyway, Akashi. Have you managed to figure out where Kuroko is already?”
“I know where he is,” sighed Akashi, the small frown on his brows demonstrating how much he was struggling to now put an end to this matter once and for all. It was fun in the beginning, but he wasn’t counting that the mixture of his feelings with his secondary curse would hurt Kuroko.
He should have just let his original self confess to Kuroko at first and then intervene on it later on. But jealousy was such an ugly thing. Akashi couldn’t tolerate losing against his own self and stepped out without any warning, seemingly at the worst possible moment.
It seems like I just don’t learn, inwardly sighed Akashi once again. He had once deeply hurt Kuroko with his jealousy when he turned Teikou basketball team’s match against Ogiwara’s team into a taunting and crushing game. That wound had led Kuroko into quitting the basketball team. Kuroko might have denied it but Akashi knew that it had been the final push to take that decision. And now he repeated the same mistake all over again - only that the person he crushed and stepped all over had been Kuroko himself.
“Um… If I was Kuroko and had just been cruelly rejected, with threats of rape added to the mixture…” hesitantly started Kagami, softly massaging the back of his neck while he averted looking at Akashi. “I would probably go search for the place that gave me the most comfort possible. I mean, Kuroko totally would not close himself inside of his room and stay there acting all emo or some shit like that.”
“That’s true,” acknowledged Murasakibara with some soft nods of his tiny head. “If it’s Kuro-chin, he’ll probably be playing basketball somewhere to try to forget about things. Ah… On second thought, maybe he isn’t. Aka-chin was the one that helped him discover his basketball style so… Playing basketball would probably make him think about Aka-chin and make him feel even more depressed…”
“Then vanilla milkshakes are the only remaining option,” announced Kagami with a quick shrug of his shoulders. “He’s probably in Maji Burger or some coffee shop getting drunk in sugar by binge drinking vanilla milkshakes.”
“But I don’t have his belongings with me,” pointed out Akashi, gesturing with his hand towards the school bag that Kuroko had left behind in school. “I can imagine Tetsuya stealing milkshakes.”
“If he wanted, he could, with his misdirection,” sneakered Murasakibara, his head entering into fantasy land and creating an ideal world where he could get all the snacks and sweets he wanted by taking stuff from the stores for free through the means of misdirection.
“Kuroko is no Haizaki, okay?” sighed Kagami in slight exasperation. “Oh, we arrived at the train station. Let me call Tatsuya to see where he is.”
“Muro-chiiiiiiiiin!!!”
“I told you to shut up!” roared Kagami, pushing Murasakibara to the inside of his school bag once again as he fished around for his cell phone. Once he found it, he readily pressed one of the buttons of auto call and leaned the ringing device on his ear. A few seconds later, he was saying, “Hey, Tatsuya! We’ve also arrived at the train station. Where are you? ...Yeah. ...Yeah, okay. We’ll go there so don’t move from that spot. I don’t want more accidents happening before you can meet with your lil’ giant.”
“Kagami, don’t jinx me when I’m about to finally meet Muro-chin once again!!!” admonished Murasakibara, jumping out of the school bag. He grabbed onto Kagami’s school uniform and started pulling and yanking the fabric. “You’re a big ass jinx to your own romantic life, don’t you dare screw up my future home-cooked lunch boxes and dinners!!!”
“Atsushi, quiet down and I’ll drown you in that fountain,” warned Akashi as he picked up the small Murasakibara by the back of his doll-sized clothes and lifted him up in front of his face. A ‘smile’ was twisting the corner of his lips upwards. “Understood?”
“Y-Yes…” said Murasakibara, his voice nothing more than a mumble as he pressed his hands against his mouth to fully seal it.
Something tells me you just hit a sore spot with that one, Murasakibara... Even if it was directed at me…, inwardly sighed Kagami, the hair in the back of his head standing up in fright of the demon-like switch in Akashi’s mood. Then again, Akashi had once tried to shove a pair of scissors down his throat - or screw one of his eyeballs, Kagami never fully understood which was the exact target - so what exactly were they expecting out of this persona? Furihata is right, Kuroko should just keep on running away from Akashi for the rest of his life. But if he did, which parts of him would he have to leave behind?
The answer was more than obvious to Kagami. Kuroko would have to abdicate his heart to run away from Akashi. And science classes had at least taught him that humans couldn’t live without one.
Aomine had also taught him the exact same lesson.
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