how to go

by twoif

Summary:

Don't put your heart in the hands of a rock and roll band (or, the live band karaoke AU that no one needed).

On the whole, the best thing about SLICED was that Kagami got paid every month for the gig. Second was the pizza. But a close third would be Kuroko, who was immature despite his serious expressions and grown-up job, petty despite his impeccable politeness to the other members of Seirin, and who despite his general tone-deafness and inability to carry "Sugar" for more than two lines of the chorus frequently surprised Kagami with his carefully worded assessments of Seirin's demos. Kagami found that he was spending more weekends than not with Kuroko at his apartment, Kuroko editing proofs on his couch while Kagami puttered around, trying to endear himself to Kuroko with tea and food. He liked it, and wanted to continue, and annoyed everyone around him, even himself, hovering over Kuroko whenever they were together. "Whipped," Izuki whispered again as they left SLICED at the end of the night, Kuroko with Kagami's jacket spread over his shoulders. Kagami just scowled, trying his hardest not to grin as Kuroko, slightly tipsy, rested his head on Kagami.

Notes:

happy kakuro day (10/11) 2019!

there is a detailed and spoilerly content warning (tl;dr emotional abuse) that you can find in the end notes.

The second-best thing about SLICED, in Kagami's opinion, was the pizza.

"Is it because it's authentic?" Izuki had asked when they first started playing their regular gig there, and Kagami had painstakingly tried to explain that the thing with pizza in the United States was that there were a lot of styles, and none of them were particularly authentic, because there was no one authentic American pizza. SLICED was started by an expat from Connecticut, so it was New England style, and there was the weird white sauce and clam one that the owner kept saying was a long inside joke that Kagami would understand if he were from New Haven. Kagami had spent much of his childhood in L.A., where no one ate clams on their pizza, and also no one did karaoke with a live backing band.

"Ah," the owner had said, handing Kagami a shot of tequila, "that's not a New Haven thing either. It's just a me thing."

Seirin played at SLICED the third Thursday of every month, when the restaurant offered live band karaoke. It wasn't Seirin's only gig—they had a handful of lives each month and even moved some merch at those shows—but it was Seirin's most regular gig for sure. The band had played at SLICED even before Kagami joined as lead guitarist six months ago, following Koganei's departure. Not because of any particular skill on Seirin's part, Kiyoshi had explained, but because of the bands SLICED had interviewed, Seirin was the only one that knew more than the obvious "Hey Jude." When he joined, Kagami had brought in some 90s alt-rock with him, "which isn't the reason we took you in or anything," Hyuuga had told him, maybe a little too insistently, but it did mean they added "All the Small Things" to the rotation. When you were a craft beer and thin-crust New England style pizza place, your clientele tended to be the kind of people who wanted to sing "Sweet Caroline" or "Say It Ain't So"— slightly more back catalog than, say, "Yesterday Once More." Occasionally, of course, a customer would ask for "Linda Linda" or "Sukiyaki," and there had been the one time someone asked them to do "Cruel Angel's Thesis" ("No," Riko had said sweetly, "we've never practiced a full band arrangement for that, that's what the song list is for," a vein throbbing on her forehead). They did have a full band arrangement for "I Want It That Way," though, and it was surprisingly one of the most popular with both Japanese and expat customers.

Today, the owner plied them with slices of sausage pizza, none of the clam stuff, which Kagami stuck in his mouth while he helped Riko set up the amps for the guitars. "Oh hey, your boyfriend is here again," Riko muttered, unspooling a coil of cables from their ties.

Kagami turned suddenly, almost knocking the mic stand to the ground. "Where?"

"Boy, does he have you whipped," Izuki said, shaking his head.

"It's not like that, ok? We just sometimes hang out," Kagami insisted, but still squinted into the half-lit restaurant.

Riko laughed. "I saw him a minute ago. I guess he slipped into the crowd like always."

"No, I'm right here," said a voice by her shoulder, and this time Kagami did knock over the mic.

"Hey," Kagami croaked.

"Hello, Kagami-kun," Kuroko said, handing Izuki a beer and throwing a smile over his shoulder as he picked the mic stand off the ground, and yeah, Kagami thought, feeling himself helplessly smile back at Kuroko, he was definitely whipped.

 

 

 

 

 

Kuroko Tetsuya worked at a publishing company translating technical guides and self-help books, and he liked the Rolling Stones and Maroon 5 and absolutely did not have the voice to pull off either. No matter how loud Riko turned up the volume on the mic or turned down the volume on everyone else, his voice was always drowned out by the instrumentals. From the few snatches of Kuroko's voice Kagami had managed to catch, he'd noted the precise pronunciation and a good sense of rhythm, but also that Kuroko had no projection and was tragically tone-deaf. Still, karaoke night at SLICED was open to anyone, as long as you had your name down on the list, and anyway, Kuroko was a repeat customer, always stayed the whole set and always bought the band a round of beer after they were done. The third time Kagami had played there, Kuroko bought Kagami beer, and then another one, and then ended up staying out past the last train, listening while Kagami, nervous and a little drunk, rambled about the pressures of being a returnee and the baito life and who in Seirin had what kind of ambitions about going pro.

"I suspect Kiyoshi-san and Riko-san are the ones who think Seirin has a chance," Kuroko had said meditatively when they'd moved out of SLICED and into an old-school 24-hour izakaya a few blocks away. "Hyuuga-san seems to be the risk-averse type, and Izuki-san most likely isn't convinced of the lifestyle."

Kagami stared, a skewer of grilled beef halfway to his mouth. "Whoa. That's it, exactly. I didn't realize you were friends with the others."

"I'm not," Kuroko said, glancing over the menu, a faint smile on his lips. "Human observation is a hobby of mine."

"You're a lot better at it than you are at singing," Kagami said through a mouth full of potato salad.

Kuroko laughed, turning to wave down a waitress and order more food. "I suppose I am," he said, and then, "Tell me more about L.A."

He'd woken up the morning after to find that Kuroko had programmed his number into Kagami's phone. See you next month, he'd texted, by the way, this is Kuroko, and a picture of himself with terrible bedhead knotting a tie. Kagami had thought it over for a full day before asking Kuroko to come to a gig Seirin was playing that weekend, at a live house in Shibuya with three other bands. I'll put you on the guest list, he'd said, you can get in for free, come backstage after the show. Kuroko had shown up after Seirin's slot was over, three bottles of water in hand, and tossed one each to Riko and Hyuuga without looking. "Good show," he said, pressing the third to his face. He was sweating, despite being in jeans and a light blue and white striped polo, and watching the condensation from the bottle slide down the tendons of Kuroko's neck, Kagami had felt overheated, claustrophobic with the rest of his band there. "The crowd seemed to like it," Kuroko finished.

"What about me," Kagami had blurted out.

"What about you," Hyuuga demanded.

"Are you pouting that no one threw their bra at you?" Kiyoshi grinned, stealing sips from Riko's bottle.

"What, no! I meant, I was the one put him on the guest list, so why do you guys get the water?"

"Language," Hyuuga snapped, and Kagami shrank back, muttering, "I mean, why does senpai get the water instead of me."

"Well, I don't have a bra, but I suppose Kagami-kun can have my water," Kuroko said, offering his already opened bottle with a small smile, and Izuki had made a joke about indirect kisses, and Kagami had snatched the bottle from Kuroko's hand, face red as he pretended not to hear.

Kuroko had gone home with Kagami that night. He didn't throw a bra, but Kagami did throw Kuroko's underwear across his bedroom, which made Kuroko laugh when it beaned a floor lamp, knocking it to the ground. And he'd stayed until the morning, a shockingly hot weight pressed down on Kagami's arm, which he used as a pillow because Kagami only had one. That had been three months ago, and they'd hung out on and off since, at live shows where Kagami could never find Kuroko no matter how hard he squinted into the crowd, after karaoke wrapped up at SLICED while Kagami ate cold pizza and Kuroko chatted amicably with Kiyoshi and Hyuuga about bands they liked ("Utada Hikaru," Kiyoshi said decisively, while Hyuuga was lost in some neverending debate with himself about Haruomi Hosono versus Miyavi, and Riko hit them both on the back of the head, hissing, "Neither of those are bands!"), sometimes at Kagami's apartment with Kagami laughing at Kuroko as he, in one of Kagami's enormous t-shirts, boiled eggs, the only food he could make without burning down the kitchen.

So, on the whole, the best thing about SLICED was that Kagami got paid every month for the gig. Second was the pizza. But a close third would be Kuroko, who was immature despite his serious expressions and grown-up job, petty despite his impeccable politeness to the other members of Seirin, and who despite his general tone-deafness and inability to carry "Sugar" for more than two lines of the chorus frequently surprised Kagami with his carefully worded assessments of Seirin's demos. Kagami found that he was spending more weekends than not with Kuroko at his apartment, Kuroko editing proofs on his couch while Kagami puttered around, trying to endear himself to Kuroko with tea and food. He liked it, and wanted to continue, and annoyed everyone around him, even himself, hovering over Kuroko whenever they were together. "Whipped," Izuki whispered again as they left SLICED at the end of the night, Kuroko with Kagami's jacket spread over his shoulders. Kagami just scowled, trying his hardest not to grin as Kuroko, slightly tipsy, rested his head on Kagami and went to sleep as they waited for the train.

 

 

 

 

 

At the next karaoke night, Kagami waited for Kuroko to come up and request "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," as usual. He didn't see Kuroko sign up, as usual, but they went through the whole sign-up list and Kuroko never materialized, which was not usual. As they played the last song, Kagami turned towards Izuki, who raised an eyebrow and gestured with the neck of his bass towards a corner of SLICED. When Riko was done telling the audience to come back next month and, maybe, come to Seirin's live show next weekend, Kagami handed his guitar to Hyuuga.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Hyuuga grumbled.

"Just for a minute. I'll come back to help with clean-up. I need to—" Kagami gestured blindly towards the corner that Izuki had indicated.

Hyuuga squinted, and then, shocked, turned to Kagami, eyebrows raised. "You know him?"

"Who, Kuroko?" Kagami opened his mouth, for once the one with a scathing comment about Hyuuga's mental functions, but Hyuuga jerked the guitar out of Kagami's hand, cutting him off.

"No, you moron," Hyuuga snapped, slamming Kagami's guitar case shut with a little more force than necessary. "The one in the leather jacket that Kuroko's talking to."

"He's talking to someone?" Kagami said dumbly.

The crowd in front of the stage had shifted, and Kagami saw now that Kuroko was sitting at a table by the wall, facing the stage. He was seated across a man who was, indeed, wearing a leather jacket. Kagami couldn't see his face, but he could see a small, guarded smile on Kuroko's. Kagami had seen that smile once or twice when they had first started hanging out, but certainly not recently. Seeing it now on Kuroko made him look older and like the stranger he used to be. It was unnerving, and Kagami bit the inside of his mouth.

"Gonna take a look," he muttered, ignoring Hyuuga's "Wait!", and stepped off the stage.

He sidled up to the bar, gesturing for a beer. From his new vantage point, Kagami could see the dark profile of the man Kuroko was talking to. He had his legs kicked out under the table, almost touching Kuroko's feet, his chin and shoulders awkwardly hunkered so that his neck rested against the back of his chair. One hand was splayed on the table, fingers tapping along with the Beatles playlist that SLICED always put on when no band was playing. Neither of them seemed to be talking, but Kuroko's expression was serene as he rotated his beer methodically. Kagami had never seen the man before, which was not terribly surprising. Outside of the places where they met, Kagami knew very little about Kuroko's life. He'd never been to Kuroko's apartment, or met Kuroko's friends, or seen Kuroko by chance across the street with co-workers. He knew vaguely where Kuroko worked, but only because he had Kuroko's business card. For all he knew, this was one of Kuroko's co-workers, though it seemed unlikely.

"Yo, your beer," the bartender said, slapping Kagami on the shoulder. "Did your set blow your eardrums out?"

When he returned to the stage, Hyuuga grimaced at him, snatching Kagami's beer out of his hand and taking a long pull of it as if in retribution for some slight. "Well?"

"What?"

Hyuuga narrowed his eyes over the top of the beer bottle, then smashed it against Kagami's cheek. "You know who that is, don't you."

"Who cares," Kagami growled, swatting Hyuuga away.

"You moron," Hyuuga said for the second time that night. "It's Aomine Daiki, the guitarist of KISEKI."

Kagami looked at him blankly. Having put away his drums for the night, Kiyoshi wandered over, curious, and slung his heavy elbow against the back of Hyuuga's neck. Hyuuga, protesting, almost lost his balance. Kagami looked at the two of them, one eyebrow raised.

"You know who that is, don't you?" Hyuuga demanded. When Kagami still didn't respond, he threw up his hands in disgust and dug into his back pocket for his phone. "I get that you're a returnee, but you've been here for a year already. And you play in a band." After a few moments of furious swiping, Hyuuga made a small noise of triump, and his phone started faintly playing music. He looked up from his phone to frown at Kagami. "Would it kill you to keep up?"

"Why are we watching KISEKI videos?" Kiyoshi peered over Hyuuga's shoulder, his thumb moving proprietarily over the screen, causing Hyuuga to yelp at him again. "You like them?"

Hyuuga slapped Kiyoshi's hands away and handed the phone to Kagami, pausing the video at the image of a someone holding a guitar. "That," he said, jabbing at the slightly pixelated face. "That's him."

"That's, wow, that's a lot of views," Kagami said. He hit the play button, but in the noise of the bar he could barely hear the sound of a guitar riff, some nondescript backing vocals. "They're famous?"

"Listen to him," Hyuuga barked at Kiyoshi, who laughed. "They're not top of the Oricon charts, but that's only because they're not Kya-Kya Pamu-Pamu or whatever."

"Kyary Pamyu Pamyu," Kiyoshi filled in.

"Like I said, whatever," Hyuuga said, trying in vain to disconnect Kiyoshi from the back of his neck. "They sell a lot of records. Their lead vocalist used to be a Johnny's trainee. They must have come out with their first album around the same time you graduated high school. You don't know them?"

Kagami shook his head and brought the phone closer to his ear, straining to hear the song. Someone sang something about glory days, and the video shifted to a good-looking blond man mugging for the camera as he leaned a mic stand to the far left of the screen. There was no synchronized dancing, everyone had different outfits, and at one point there was a scene with instruments fully visible, which was how Kagami knew they were not a pop act or an idol band. Hyuuga reached for his phone, and Kagami absentmindedly held it out in Hyuuga's direction, all the while glancing over at Kuroko's table. A line of people moved past, blocking his view, so he jumped when he heard Kuroko's voice at his elbow saying, "You're listening to KISEKI? I didn't know you were fans."

"I can't believe you weren't going to tell us that you're friends with Aomine Daiki," Hyuuga hissed. "How do you know him?"

"We attended the same high school," Kuroko said. He intercepted Hyuuga's phone and watched a few seconds of the music video, smiling when the image changed from the blond frontman back to Aomine Daiki's sulky profile and guitar. "It wasn't a big school."

"Is he still here?" asked Kiyoshi.

"He left just now, I'm afraid," Kuroko said. "Does Kiyoshi-san want an autograph? I'll ask him next time." Hyuuga grabbed for his phone, scowling again, while Kiyoshi looked to be seriously considering the offer.

"Hyuuga, do you think I should ask him to sign it 'To Teppei-chan'?"

"Why, would that reduce the resale value?" Hyuuga snickered.

"I think Kise-kun's signature would probably fetch a better value," Kuroko offered.

"You're right," Kiyoshi mused. "Lead singers always have the biggest fanbase."

Under the brighter lights of the stage, Kuroko's face was serene again, no give in the line of his body or the line of his mouth, and for a second Kagami thought, he looks brittle, but he couldn't figure out why. He tsked at himself, annoyed — he was hovering again for no reason. He bumped his shoulder against Kuroko's, harder than he meant to, trying to shake himself loose. "What did he want?" he murmured.

Kuroko cocked his head to one side, steadily watching Kagami for a moment. "Nothing," he said, and took Kagami's beer from him with a careful sip. "Just wanted to catch up on old times, that's all."

It didn't seem like a lie, but then again, Kagami realized, he'd never seen Kuroko lie and had nothing to compare it to.

 

 

 

 

 

"Now I see that damn band everywhere I go," Kagami growled as he dumped his backpack in a corner of the studio two weeks later. "That lead singer's face is on some ad that's plastered all over the station closest to my apartment, and in the train cars too. I have to look at his mug for an hour every day."

"You're late," Hyuuga snapped at Kagami through the thick recording room glass.

"Which band?" Riko asked absently. She was sitting on one of the amps with one earbud in, listening to what looked like the most recent mix of their demo, and didn't bother looking up when Kagami stormed into the recording room, jamming in his guitar.

"That one with Kuroko's friend," Kagami said. "KISEKI or whatever."

"It's funny you should mention that," Kiyoshi said. He'd been balancing a drumstick above his upper lip and took it off now to twirl it absently in one hand as he spoke. "Someone from their management called me up the other day and asked if we were free later this month."

Izuki cocked an eyebrow. "What for? They want to give us tickets?"

"Not so cool as that." Kiyoshi paused. "They've invited us to open for them at a release party later this month."

Kagami's hand slipped on the strings of his guitar, and for a moment the room was filled with a loud, jarring chord. Riko jumped, almost knocking over a part of Kiyoshi's drum kit, and when she righted herself, rounded on Kagami, gesturing to let him know that if he ever did that it again, she'd rip off his ears and stuff them down his throat.

Kagami swallowed, flustered. "Open for KISEKI? Where?"

"Zepp in Odaiba."

"But that's huge," Izuki said, openly gawking.

The last time Kagami had been at Zepp, it was to see Tame Impala on a bad date that hadn't gone anywhere, way before he'd started playing with Seirin and met Kuroko. It hadn't occurred to him that he'd ever play there as an act, name on the posters and everything, and not part of some local band showcase.

"You guys are free, right?" Kiyoshi peered up at each of their faces in turn, apologetic. "I already told them yes."

"Do we even have a set we could play? We should probably learn some of their songs," Hyuuga said doubtfully.

"We're only openers," Kiyoshi reminded him. "We probably don't need a full set list."

"Doesn't hurt to be prepared," Riko said, and when she turned briefly to put her headphones away, Hyuuga made a rude gesture at Kiyoshi, a triumphant look on his face. "Still, I wonder how it happened," Riko fretted. "We've never interacted with their label before."

Kiyoshi nodded, adding a trilling drum flourish before stilling the hi-hat with a casual touch. "I know, right? I guess Kuroko-kun must have put in a good word for us."

"Not at all," Kuroko said later as he sat across from Kagami in an izakaya, carefully taking bites of grilled shiitake. "Certainly not to Aomine-kun. I'm surprised, but this is a good thing, isn't it, for Seirin?"

Kagami narrowed his eyes over his beer. "So you think this is just a coincidence?"

Kuroko hummed, taking a sip of his lemon sour. He offered Kagami the last chicken meatball and smiled when Kagami leaned over to eat it off his chopsticks. "Do you guys share an agent?" he asked as Kagami pulled away.

"We don't have an agent," Kagami said.

"Maybe Momoi-san found you at a live somewhere else." When he registered Kagami's blank look, he added, "Momoi-san is their agent."

"You certainly know a lot about them," Kagami groused.

"Kagami-kun is the odd one for not knowing anything about them," Kuroko pointed out. "You're in a band, and they're one of the most popular. Anyway, like I said last time, we all went to the same high school, Momoi-san as well."

"So you're close? You still keep in touch with them, even though they're famous?"

There was that look again, the one he had seen at SLICED, Kuroko the serene stranger sitting across the table from a man everyone around Kagami knew to be a celebrity. Kuroko was looking through him, past Kagami's shoulder and into the street, like he wanted to be anywhere but here but was too polite to say so. Maybe it was common for people to use him, Kagami thought, for his connection to KISEKI. It was the kind of thing Kagami didn't have much experience with, high school connections, but it sounded annoying enough.

Kagami waved his hand, and, when the gesture accidentally brought over a waitress, pulled the menu from the table to order more food. "Never mind," he muttered. "It's not important."

"No, it's fine," Kuroko said. "It was a small school. We all knew each other. I've never given much thought to how it must look to outsiders."

Outsiders, Kagami thought with annoyance, biting down a little too hard on his teeth, and changed the subject.

 

 

 

 

 

The release party was at the end of the month. Seirin arrived that afternoon too early for their soundcheck and spent an hour mulling around, getting in the way of the staff, who couldn't figure out if there was a practice room backstage that they could use in the meantime. Riko, used to venues where she had to help set up the sound equipment, was flustered by the way they politely waved her off. Izuki disappeared for over an hour and reappeared with some girl's number just in time for their soundcheck, much to Hyuuga's annoyance. "So this is what it's like in the big leagues," Kiyoshi joked, and Riko threw him a deadly look, which caused Hyuuga to instinctively shrink back even though he hadn't been involved in either crime.

Kagami, meanwhile, was having a terrible time. He was off-rhythm and wooden, barging into solos too early and coming into choruses too late, blanking even when someone was shouting at him, is your sound too hot? Hyuuga, frustrated by the lack of easily throwable things, kicked Kagami so hard fifteen minutes into their soundcheck that Kagami almost fell off the stage. "Earth to Kagami," Riko hissed into the mic, forgetting it was live and broadcasting to everyone, which made Kiyoshi laugh and Kagami feel approximately one foot tall and just as useful.

"Nerves?" Izuki asked, when it was almost over save for the sound engineers gesturing at Hyuuga to sing one last time to adjust the faders.

"Something like that," Kagami muttered. It wasn't the live that worried him, though; it'd be a big crowd, of course, but they were still one of a number of openers and no one was particularly coming for them. It was something else in the air, a strain of irritation that felt like a low-grade fever. He hadn't slept well the night before, had been feeling uncomfortable in his own skin every time someone had mentioned KISEKI during the last month. Kuroko had called him out on it the week before, when a text wishing Kagami good luck had resulted in Kagami calling him and ranting for half an hour. Don't think too much of them, Kuroko had said, hopefully after this you'll never see them again. Kuroko had meant well, Kagami was sure, but it ended up sounding like an insult and an admonishment both, like of course a band like Seirin could never normally share a stage with KISEKI, it had to have been a freak accident, undeserved and not to be expected again.

"Are they still here?" Kagami asked.

"Who?" Izuki furrowed his brow.

"KISEKI."

Izuki gestured somewhere backstage. "Probably," he said. "I haven't seen them, but I thought I heard some high-pitched wailing a little while ago, so I assumed Kise Ryouta is around."

Kagami swallowed and nodded. "We done here?" he asked Hyuuga, already starting to unstrap his guitar.

"Wait," someone called out from the mosh pit.

Kagami, surprised, turned to face the front, where Aomine and Kise stood, apparently listening to their soundcheck. Kise, eye-catching in a plain white t-shirt and blond hair, waved at them, but a little nervously, darting looks at Aomine, who was leaning against a half-erected metal divider, a snapback pulled low over his face. They looked like themselves, but without music video styling and photoshoot makeup, they seemed younger, much closer to someone Kagami might pull a shift with at the convenience store than see on the cover of a magazine. "Sorry we haven't introduced ourselves yet," Kise said, climbing onto the stage. He threw a wink in Riko's direction, so practiced it felt like a reflex. "I didn't realize you were friends of Kurokocchi's until recently."

"Ah, no, we should have introduced ourselves first," Kiyoshi said, getting up. "Thanks for giving us this opportunity."

Kise grinned. He had the look of a catalog model, a small diamond stud in one ear, bright open face and a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Any friend of Kurokocchi's is a friend of ours," Kise said. "Isn't that right, Aominecchi?"

Aomine, who had skulked after Kise to the stage but hadn't bothered to actually get on it, was standing at the edge closest to Kagami. He rolled his neck, as if working out a kink, but otherwise didn't say anything. Hyuuga, who hated being ignored, glowered down at the brim of Aomine's snapback. As if purposely to flaunt his disinterest in meeting the rest of Seirin, Aomine turned his back on them.

Kise laughed, one short not-genuine chuckle that didn't fit with the situation. He turned to Hyuuga. "When are you guys on?" he asked.

"I think we're second," Hyuuga said.

"Oh really?" Kise rested his hand on the mic stand closest to Kagami, the one Kagami assumed he'd be singing into when it was KISEKI's turn. Kise smiled too much, Kagami decided. It made him seem untrustworthy. "For some reason I thought you guys would be the one right before us. I guess I must have read the schedule wrong. I wonder why." He frowned, allowing the statement to trail off, and made another one of his little half-turns, checking in with Aomine and getting nothing. After a beat, he prompted, "Aominecchi?"

"Yeah?" Aomine grunted.

Kise jerked a thumb towards Kagami. "You did talk this over with him, right?"

Hyuuga threw Kagami a confused look, and Kagami shrugged, completely lost. Aomine took that moment to vault one-handed, like a gymnast, onto the stage. With Kise on his right and Aomine in front of him, Kagami was cornered. It didn't help matters when Aomine advanced, almost close enough to press his body against Kagami's guitar. When he gave Kagami the once-over, Kagami bristled, gripping his guitar closer to him.

"You the guitarist?" Aomine asked.

"No, I'm just standing here holding a guitar for fun," Kagami snapped.

Aomine raised an eyebrow. "You know this song?" He started humming. He was still too close, and Kagami contemplated very seriously telling him to fuck off, that this was his personal space. A few bars into the song, though, Kagami realized with a shock that it was "Victory," one of two KISEKI songs Hyuuga had forced them to practice in the last month. He played one of the chords, then cautiously strummed the chorus, and Aomine clicked his tongue, a small smile on his face as he finally backed away.

"Here, give me this," Aomine barked. Startled, Kagami fumbled a chord, hands scrambling to keep his guitar, sure for whatever reason that Aomine had been talking to him and was going to rip his guitar out of his hands. But Aomine had turned to Hyuuga, clicking his tongue again when Hyuuga remained stone-still, guitar slung around his shoulder. "You," Aomine said, poking Hyuuga in the chest. "Rhythm guitarist. Lend me this for a second."

"Aominecchi," Kise whined. "Don't be rude."

"And you," Aomine called out, slinging Hyuuga's guitar over his shoulder, "you sing."

The sound technicians, done with checking Hyuuga's volume, had shut off the mics. Kise's voice, well-trained despite his looks for pitch and projection, was strong enough to give Kagami a general sense of where they were going, but it was shitty rendition regardless; no drums or bass from Kiyoshi and Izuki, who were busy keeping Hyuuga from executing the painful murder he clearly wanted to commit on Aomine's person, just two guitars racing along with only Kise to guide them. Kagami knew the song well enough, or at least as well enough as he could after a month's worth of haphazard practice learning the song by ear, but mostly he knew the guitar solo in the studio recording, which was his favorite part and the half a minute or so of the song that he'd always skip to whenever he played it on his phone during commutes. It didn't occur to him until Kise finished the second chorus that the solo was Aomine's part. They both struck the first chord, over-loud and messy, the sound of two guitars having an argument. At the mic, not looking at either of them, Kise winced, mouth still set in a stage smile. Kagami made an aborted movement with his shoulder to stop, but Aomine, scowling, mouthed at him, keep going. Still, Kagami hesitated, their guitars whining as the song crawled to a halt.

"What are you doing? Keep playing," Aomine demanded.

"Look, you fu—" Hyuuga hissed from one side, and was promptly jabbed in the side by Kiyoshi.

"No, uh, I think I'm good," Kagami said. He felt the annoyance in him from this morning crest like a wave, finally breaking open on Aomine's scowling face, the haughty way Aomine was considering him, like he was some raw recruit on a sports team on his first day. He wasn't Aomine's bandmate, had never wanted to be, and this had been their soundcheck that Aomine had barged in on. He had nothing to prove, but Aomine was making him feel like he had failed. He thought churlishly of shoving Aomine off the stage, back into the pit where he had been standing, maybe all the way out of the venue and into next week, when this whole thing would be over and Kagami could call up Kuroko and complain. It wasn't a polite thought, and instead he bit his lip, taking his hands slowly off the strings of his guitar, like backing away from a wild animal.

"What's wrong, shy all of a sudden?" Aomine taunted.

"Okay, this has gone on long enough," Riko cut in swiftly from where she was surveying the scene, arms crossed. "Aomine-san, I don't think—"

"Daiki," another voice called out from backstage. "Enough."

"I'm just—" Aomine growled.

"Enough," the voice said again, firm and with an edge.

Kagami turned, but whoever had spoken had already disappeared in a quick flash of red hair. Kise laughed again, insincere and nervous, and began apologizing to Riko, who set her face in a maniacal smile, the look of a person with an iron grip on their manners. Aomine was silent, standing at Kagami's side, his expression inscrutable as he continued to glare at Kagami. Finally, he cursed and shoved the guitar at Hyuuga, not bothering to make sure it had connected with Hyuuga's hands before storming off. Kise, cut off mid-sentence, bowed apologetically as he hurried after Aomine. He gave Kagami an extra tap on the shoulder as he passed by. "Sorry for all this," he called out, and then both of them disappeared backstage.

The deafening silence that followed was unpleasant. Now that Aomine was no longer in striking distance, Izuki let go of Hyuuga, and Hyuuga jerked away, causing Izuki to put an elbow into the hi-hat. "What the hell," Hyuuga hissed. His fingers were white on his guitar, and he glared at Kagami as if this whole afternoon was Kagami's idea.

Izuki whistled. "What was this, a dress rehearsal for a drama?"

"What do you think that was about?" Riko asked.

She was looking pointedly at Kagami, who sagged. "Beats me," he said. All three of the other Seirin band members were looking at him now. Deeply uncomfortable, he pulled blindly at the wires plugging him into the amp and, for the second time that day, almost tripped off the stage. "We done now?" he said again to no one in particular.

"Excuse me," a cheery staff member sang out from backstage, "the next band is here for their soundcheck."

"Thank god," Kagami muttered, and banged his guitar case shut.

 

 

 

 

 

When Kagami went outside for a breather to calm his nerves before the live, he found Aomine waiting for him in the smoking area. Aomine was no longer in a hoodie and snapback. He had slicked back his hair and changed into skinny jeans and a leather jacket, a cigarette in hand, but on closer inspection, Kagami realized it wasn't lit. Typical, he thought, gritting his teeth. Aomine would be a poser, a delinquent by looks only, the kind of person who would joke about stealing a kid's lunch money but then, too afraid of breaking a nail, claim it wasn't worth it to try.

They glared at each other, shifting their feet as they sized each other up, this time without their bandmates around. Kagami had meant to take a stroll around, clear his head and get some air, but Aomine looked like he had something to say and would ambush Kagami from behind if he didn't get it out. Kagami could just ask him what his problem was, but that felt like letting Aomine win, and the idea of letting Aomine get any more over him felt unbearable. Two could play this game, mouths shut and waiting in silence. Kagami was particularly good at it, returnee language barrier and all.

Aomine broke first, his head held at a slanted, arrogant angle as he said, "You don't deserve Tetsu, you know."

For a second, Kagami considered the possibility that he had fallen off the stage and that this was a concussion dream. Then he thought that Aomine was fucking with him and this was some complicated four-word idiom that meant, you are an idiot. But even though Aomine was glaring at him, he didn't look like he was joking. He looked mad, but earnestly so.

"What's a tetsu?" Kagami asked, cautiously.

At this, Aomine drew in his breath between his teeth, his head thrown back as if asking the sky, can you believe this. Kagami, bristling, snapped at him, "Look, you jackass, Japanese isn't my strong point, okay—"

"Oh my god, no one cares," Aomine moaned.

When he refocused his attention on Kagami, some of the vulnerability and the earnestness was wiped off of his face, replaced by a mean, adult look, a surveyor appraising a piece of property and finding it untenable. "Kuroko Tetsuya," he said very slowly, as if Kagami was a fractious dog refusing to heel. "You know, my friend. You've met him before, surely."

Kagami stood, shifting his weight from one foot to another. When Aomine said nothing more, he asked, "What about Kuroko?"

"Jesus fuck." Aomine shook his head. "You know, I thought it'd be interesting to look you up, see what Tetsu is up to these days. I didn't think I'd find this. Your music is awful, your guitar playing is shit, and now you're stupid to boot?"

"First of all, fuck you, none of that is true, you're the one—" Kagami caught himself. He took a breath, let his mind catch up though the haze of irritation. So it wasn't Momoi, he realized. It had been Aomine who had called up Seirin, after all. "You looked us up because of Kuroko? What does any of this have to do with him?"

"'What'? He's your songwriter, isn't he?" Aomine jabbed the cigarette in Kagami's direction. "I thought he'd come with you but I guess he doesn't do this kind of scene anymore."

It was all in the right language, and grammatically correct, but none of the words made sense to Kagami. "Riko writes our songs," Kagami said. "The girl in the band," he added unnecessarily, when he realized Aomine probably didn't know any of them by name.

"Yeah, sure," Aomine said with a mocking smile.

Kagami shifted again, fisting his hands in his jeans pockets so he wouldn't punch Aomine in the face. "No, she does. I've never—Kuroko's never—Why would you think he was our songwriter?"

Aomine looked him over, long and hard. After a while, he laughed. It was an ugly sound, choked halfway between relief and disgust. "No, of course not. Fuck, and here I was thinking—Yeah. Yeah, that makes more sense now." He touched his knuckles to his eyelids, then hunched his shoulders. He looked like someone had punched him in the stomach, like Kagami had actually made good on his wishes and he was nursing the bruise. "No wonder."

The annoyance from the morning was back, a set of ghost teeth gnawing at Kagami's gut. The wrongness magnified, then focused, knife-sharp, on Aomine saying Kuroko's name, saying Tetsu, familiar and, maybe, precious in Aomine's mouth. Tetsu sounded like a different man, a person only Aomine knew, a piece of Kuroko that Aomine owned. Kagami narrowed his eyes.

"Why did you think Kuroko was our songwriter?"

"You're seriously—Tetsu never told you?" Aomine furrowed his brow, like he was the one speaking a second language. "No, I guess he wouldn't. And you clearly don't have the brains to look it up yourself." Aomine flicked his cigarette on the ground and, even though it wasn't lit, rubbed it out with a foot until it was fine dust against the asphalt. He didn't look up as he said, finally, "He was the songwriter for KISEKI."

Kagami stared. "What?" The word came out like a gasp. It was his turn to suck in a breath, his turn to feel like he had been kicked in the stomach. The bruise felt localized in his chest, dull disbelief turning into a kind of nausea as he tried to process.

"He wrote our first two albums. You really didn't know?" Aomine raised his head, not quite meeting Kagami's eyes as he sneered. "You poor fucking fool. You got him and you don't even know what you have."

"Hey, asshole, what is your problem?" Kagami snarled.

"Well," Aomine drawled, "it was you, but now I realize I was just wasting my time." He brushed at his jacket sleeves, as if dusting off the conversation and Kagami both. When he straightened his collar, his shoulders fluid under the leather, Kagami could almost see him shrugging off the past few minutes, shrugging on his stage persona: Aomine the lead guitarist of KISEKI, and not some over-invested, overprotective bully come to scare Kagami off his childhood friend. "Tell Tetsu he has better taste than this," he called out as he headed back inside to the stage. "Tell him that if he wants to hang out with a band so badly, we're always happy to take him back."

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, Seirin's opening act went fine. Kagami didn't fuck up. KISEKI didn't call Kagami up to perform "Glory Days" or any other song with them. Kagami tried to leave right after Seirin's set was over, but Hyuuga, distressed by Kagami's violent insistence that he wanted to miss the opportunity to see KISEKI from the front row, made Kagami sit backstage while the rest of Seirin watched from a VIP standing section. From backstage, the sound of the music was muffled. Aomine's guitar was a distant song, musical cotton shoved into Kagami's ears, just like the first time Kagami had heard it at SLICED. The distance softened its edges, and Kagami could almost appreciate, as he had that first time, Aomine's prowess, his idiosyncratic rhythms and lightning-quick fingering.

The feeling lasted only as long as the first half of the set. Kise finished their latest single and, in the pause between songs, announced that as a special treat they'd play a track off KISEKI's debut album. "It's my favorite," he insisted, with the easy fervor of a person used to sharing pretend secrets, "because it was very important to a friend of mine. We would play it for him all the time when we first started. So it's very dear to me."

Aomine's guitar sang out, jagged and metal-bright, as if in call-and-response with Kise. Kagami closed his eyes. He had no proof but he thought, Kise was talking about Kuroko. This was Kuroko's favorite song. As the crowd roared, almost masking the sound of Aomine's guitar bringing the song into the first stanza, he tried to picture Kuroko the high school student. A small frame in a uniform, rapturously watching a young Aomine pick at his guitar strings. But nothing came. He'd never seen pictures, had no idea what Kuroko looked like. He'd never cared what Kuroko had done before they had met each other, until now.

He pulled out his phone and stared at Kuroko's name in his contacts, waiting for something to make sense. Finally, he texted Kuroko, u free?

Of course, Kuroko replied almost immediately. Is something going on?

wher do u live, Kagami texted back.

There was a long pause, almost fifteen minutes, before Kuroko replied with his address. Kagami tried not to read into the silence, and failed, and thought of texting back never mind, meet me at my apartment. When the text came, Kagami was irritated enough to text back simply, wait for me, without an ETA. Kuroko wrote back, See you soon, polite like always, as if Kagami hadn't just demanded a Saturday evening without the slightest warning.

He picked up his guitar and left. In the distance, as if crossing a great sea to Kagami, he heard Kise sing, I can do it, you can do it, we can do it.

 

 

 

 

 

Kuroko lived in a nondescript apartment building in Nakano. It was perfectly respectful and perfectly bland, and not at all the place one would expect to find the songwriter of Japan's hottest rock band. Then again, Kagami thought as he rang the doorbell, Kuroko was a translator by day, and it was exactly the kind of place you'd find a person like that.

When Kuroko opened the door, Kagami said immediately, "Aomine calls you Tetsu." Then, drawing a breath, "You were KISEKI's songwriter."

Kuroko looked up at him, one hand balanced on the door, the other against the frame. A long moment passed. He was in a slightly ratty grey sweater that came past his wrists, the kind of thing you might wear when you didn't expect to leave the house. It made him look small, younger, almost vulnerable. But if his thoughts were racing at all, Kagami couldn't tell. His face was immobile, as if carved from marble. "You'd better come in," he said after a while, and turned around.

The inside of Kuroko's apartment matched the outside. The place was neither neat or messy, just lived-in and unremarkable. There was a messenger bag in one corner, a kitchen where Kagami could see a cup overturned, drying in the sink, and a closed door into what Kagami assumed was a bedroom. The living room mostly consisted of a small gray couch and a coffee table that seemed to be completely upholstered by loose leaf paper, each sheet covered in a neat, even scrawl. He had clearly interrupted an afternoon Kuroko had intended to dedicate to work. For a wild minute, Kagami thought about asking if he could help clean up, but Kuroko was already shuffling the paper around, stacking them in haphazard piles on the coffee table in what appeared to be no particular order.

"Sit." Kuroko gestured with a sheaf of papers. "Coffee?"

"No thanks," Kagami said, but before he was even done speaking, Kuroko was already in the kitchen. A counter and a half-wall interrupted Kagami's view, and he could only see snatches of Kuroko as he boiled water and pulled down spare mugs from the cupboard.

Kagami licked his lips nervously. It occurred to him that he'd already bungled the conversation, putting the least important thing first. Now that it was out, he couldn't take it back. He replayed his own words in his head, Aomine calls you Tetsu, and winced at how stupid it sounded, the way it stank of petty jealousy.

As if reading his mind, Kuroko called out from the kitchen, "It sounds like Kagami-kun met Aomine-kun."

"Were you?" Kagami blurted out instead. His voice was too loud, and he over-compensated, almost whispering as he added, "KISEKI's songwriter, I mean."

There was a pause. Kuroko reappeared with two steaming mugs. Kagami could smell instant coffee and, oddly, vanilla. Kuroko put one of the mugs down at the edge of the coffee table closest to Kagami and took a seat opposite from Kagami on the couch. It was already a small couch for a person of Kagami's size, and it was obvious to Kagami that Kuroko was taking great care to hold himself, legs folded under him, so that they wouldn't touch.

"To be precise," Kuroko said, "I was Teikou's."

"What?"

"It's what the band was called when they were in high school." Kuroko blew at his coffee, the steam parting for a second before clouding his features again. "The Teikou High School Band. Aomine-kun was not exactly good with names. By the time they started getting really big and changed their name to KISEKI, I wasn't their songwriter anymore. For," and here he paused again, taking a sip of his coffee, "various reasons, I decided to do something else."

"And you didn't think to mention this to me?"

"Why would I?"

It was beginning to be a pattern with Kuroko and his friends, to render Kagami speechless and make him feel like he'd been hit over the head. He groped blindly for the mug in front of him and burned his mouth on the first sip, trying to scour away the air of unreality the whole evening was beginning to take on.

"What about the part where I'm in a band?" Kagami said. When Kuroko didn't respond, he couldn't help but add, "You knew we wanted to go pro and it just never occurred to you to tell me that you were in one of the most popular rock bands in Japan? You don't think it'd be relevant to me?"

Kuroko turned, finally, to look at Kagami. He was frowning, but not like a person who felt bad or was guilty, but like he honestly couldn't understand what Kagami was saying, like the words weren't Japanese. "And what does that have to do with me?" Kuroko asked slowly.

It was like being slapped. Kagami reared back and felt a doubling back to that first live he had invited Kuroko to, Hyuuga demanding, what about you, as Kuroko then and now looked at him with cool, indifferent appraisal. He'd thought at the time that it was only Kuroko's weird way of flirting, playing hard to get. But now he wondered if he was wrong after all, wrong all along. Aomine's parting words rang in his ears, like he had been clocked in the head and these were the aftershocks, Tetsu has better taste than this. Was that what it was? Had all of this just been a monumental joke for Kuroko, a little bit of fun as he slummed around with a less talented band because he missed being part of the music scene? He thought back to Kuroko watching them silently through their lives, or the way Kuroko would smile as he approached the stage at the end of karaoke night, or Kuroko's head bent over Kagami's phone as Kagami shyly played him a new demo. No wonder Kuroko was so good at it — he'd been around for KISEKI's success, was probably laughing at them, so naive to think they could make it—

"Kagami-kun," Kuroko said. He had put his coffee down and was carefully pulling Kagami's mug away from him. Kagami looked down, dazed. His hands were shaking, he registered numbly, hard enough to spill the coffee from the cup. The nausea was back now, bubbling in his throat. When Kuroko's fingers touched the back of his hands, it felt like two sharp jabs, drawing blood and bile, and he jerked his hands away, clenching them automatically into fists.

"Kagami-kun," Kuroko breathed again, his face shuttered, and he still looked good, still looked like someone Kagami wanted, still looked calm and composed and unmoved, like he could go at this all night, like Kagami was a teenager throwing a tantrum and he just had to wait it out, like all this meant nothing to him, and why should it? What did it matter to him? Hadn't Kuroko said it himself? What does this have to do with me?

Before he could throw up or punch Kuroko in the face, Kagami got up and left.

 

 

 

 

 

Kagami had not had a steady girlfriend or, for that matter, boyfriend, since coming to Japan, and truth be told, his overall experience amounted to two girls that he had dated, an aborted start to a relationship with another, and one guy he had hung out with and on occasion hooked up with whenever they were both drunk. He had no experience with fighting; up until now, whenever something went wrong in a relationship with a girl, they had just broken up, which sounded heartless but did make things a lot simpler. The guy he had simply stopped seeing after he moved to Japan.

Kagami didn't think Kuroko was a boyfriend, at least not officially, but they had been seeing each other regularly. After the visit to Kuroko's apartment, Kuroko stopped seeing Kagami regularly. Which seemed like a pretty good indication that they were doing the equivalent of fighting.

It was hard to have a fight with Kuroko, because it didn't feel any different from not fighting with Kuroko. Kuroko didn't call, didn't text, didn't visit Kagami at his part-time jobs, but after a while Kagami realized that Kuroko had never integrated into Kagami's life, had clearly never met his friends, or his family. Kuroko had only really met the part of Kagami's life that was himself alone or with Seirin, not the Kagami that did delivery jobs or the odd night shift at a convenience store, or called his dad on Skype every week to talk about the NBA. They hadn't gotten to that stage in the relationship where Kagami could take his presence on a weekend for granted or expect to see him a certain number of times throughout the week. It hadn't felt like an official relationship, it hadn't felt like anything in his life had changed at all. But then it was karaoke night at SLICED and Kuroko wasn't there, and Kagami felt hollowed, like a hole had been blown through his stomach and it wasn't until that very moment that he had looked down and realized a part of him was missing.

It was a novelty, being upset about a relationship. Kagami let himself wallow in it for a few days, but when it still lingered after a week, and then two, it stopped being fun and started becoming depressing, less a cold he couldn't get rid of and more a prognosis of something chronically wrong. It wasn't that the memory of the last conversation with Kuroko hurt him more than before, or that the desire to see Kuroko had increased unbearably. The truth was that he had desperately been wanting to see Kuroko since the minute he walked out of Kuroko's apartment, the anger draining from him and leaving only embarrassment. But he realized now that every minute he let pass without calling or texting Kuroko was another minute of him acting like his departure was a referendum on their relationship. Which it wasn't, or at least he hadn't meant it to be. He just had never been good about talking about his feelings, and his feelings were complicated, tied up in not wanting to sink to Aomine's level and feeling like he was chasing the silhouette of someone's—Aomine's, probably—back, constantly ahead of him.

And what does that have to do with me? Kuroko asked him again in his head.

"Oh for god's sake," Hyuuga barked one afternoon after band practice, throwing his guitar pick at the back of Kagami's head. "Would you just finish your freak-out or get over it? Pick one or the other, don't do both."

"What would you know about break-ups," Riko hissed, and turned red when Hyuuga hissed back, "Plenty," while Kiyoshi beamed at them like he was enjoying a particularly good episode of television.

In the end, Kagami wasn't sure if he was doing both or neither. One Friday he found himself the next day at a record store buying KISEKI's entire discography and spent that weekend holed up in his apartment, playing all of the CDs on repeat. It was obvious even on the first listen that the first album was the most different, nothing like the KISEKI that now dominated the charts and CMs. By the second album, they'd settled into something more radio-friendly, and by the third album they were poised on the edge of the band they were now: self-assured, predictably dramatic, clean and clear, the steel gray and white of skyscraper glass reflecting the sun.

Still, the first album was Kagami's favorite, the only album that seemed human and not the work of a team of producers. It was the melodies, though, that Kagami liked the most, the way they meandered, weaving their way somewhere between rock, pop, and shoegaze, sometimes for seven or eight minutes at a time. He liked the way the older songs sounded unfiltered, covered in the grime and lo-fi production that defined indie bands. Kise's voice, raw and unfinished, moved through the first album in ways it never would now, sometimes darting out from under a haze of instrumentals like light reflecting off fish scales in murky water, sometimes husky and low, boosted by a deep voice that took Kagami two full listens to identify as Aomine's.

When he looked, he found Kuroko listed in the liner notes as the songwriter for the first two albums and as "K.T." in the b-side of KISEKI's first single, his only vocal part. It was a six minute acoustic track, Aomine noodling on the guitar for almost a full minute before being joined by the bass and the drums and, slowly, Kise's voice creeping up, in a falsetto. It was the fade-out Kagami kept returning to: a lo-fi recording of Aomine talking to someone off-mic and laughing. Come over here and say something, he said. No, not like that, come on. A long scratchy pause, the guitar strumming on a distortion, Murasakibara's drums tentative in the background. Then, Kuroko's voice, soft, did you get that? Aomine, then, do it again, Akashi is saying no, come on, why are you like this. Kuroko grumbling now, you do it, it's better when you sing it, and Aomine protesting, no, it's your turn now. A high wavering voice, ghost-like, in English, I've walked for miles, my feet are hurting, and all I want— and then his laughter, mixed with Aomine's, before the track cut out.

Kagami played that last minute over and over.

 

 

 

 

 

When it had been a month and a half of not talking to Kuroko, Kise Ryouta, lead singer of KISEKI, occasional magazine model, and all around mid-tier celebrity, called Kagami out of the blue and asked if he'd be interested in having dinner.

"With me?" Kagami asked, dumbfounded.

"I don't call up just anyone, you know," Kise teased. "Consider yourself lucky. Where should we meet?"

It was not karaoke night, but Kagami, caught unprepared, suggested SLICED anyway. It was neutral ground, he reasoned, he knew where all the escape routes were, and it was far enough away from what Kagami imagined to be Kise's normal run of places that it was unlikely their dinner date would end up as an unofficial fanmeet. Aomine had made it out to SLICED without being mobbed, he reasoned as he waited nervously for Kise. Aomine, of course, wasn't the face of KISEKI, but it was still a data point.

"Is the pizza at this place any good?" Kise said in lieu of a greeting, sliding into the seat across from Kagami.

Kagami shrugged, and then nodded when Kise watched him with a faint smile on his face. "It's pretty good," he grunted, and handed Kise a menu.

They ordered two pizzas, one pepperoni and one ham, jalapeno, and pineapple, over Kise's objections. "I really shouldn't eat greasy foods," Kise said, sounding apologetic, for what, Kagami couldn't figure out. "I have a photoshoot for a magazine spread next week and I'm prone to breakouts."

"Both pizzas are for me," Kagami told him defensively. "If you want to share, you should order another."

Kise shook his head. "You're lucky you get to eat whatever you want," he said, but with the air of a man who clearly wanted to say something else and had thought better of it. "I'll take a slice of mushroom, then."

When the waiter went away, they slumped back into awkward silence. It wasn't unexpected that he'd be awkward around Kise, but Kagami was surprised to find that Kise, too, was fidgeting with his silverware, stirring the ice in his soda over and over and not quite meeting Kagami's eyes when he looked up to smile at regular intervals.

The fact was that Aomine was a known quantity. If Kagami were to be perfectly honest, his reactions weren't far from what Kagami himself would have done if their positions had been swapped. There was a straightforwardness to it that Kagami would appreciate—face the unknown head-on and raze the opponent to the ground at the slightest hint of weakness. Kise, on the other hand, was not like Kagami at all. Kagami had no idea what Kise was here for, if it was about Kuroko or Aomine or neither, and most of all, why he had to be involved.

"Kurokocchi know we're here?" asked Kise.

Tetsu and Kurokocchi, Kagami thought irritably. None of them sounded like names for the Kuroko he knew and, he supposed, they weren't, not really. They were names for a Kuroko he'd never met and didn't even know existed until a month or so ago. "No," he said, "was I supposed to tell him?"

"Ah, that's not what I meant." Kise flicked his straw up, and a little bubble of carbonation landed against the back of Kagami's hand. Kise didn't notice and did it again. "I was wondering if you already knew what I came to say, that's all."

Kagami shook his head. Kise mirrored it, but with the same expression on his face as when they ordered pizza, like there was something he was keeping himself from saying with great effort. "Okay," he said, propping his elbows on the table, business-like. "Well, in that case, I guess I'll start at the beginning." He looked at Kagami for confirmation, and Kagami nodded mutely, unsure if there was any other option.

Kise continued, "I met Kurokocchi on the basketball team my second year of high school."

"The basketball team?" Kagami asked, incredulous.

Kise chortled. "You really don't know anything, huh?" Kagami bit his tongue, but kept quiet, glaring at his drink instead of at Kise. "Kurokocchi played basketball all through middle school. When I showed up, he was my senpai on the team. But we didn't see each other much. I got promoted to first string about two months into it, and he mostly stayed on the third string."

"If he played since middle school, why was he—"

"On third string?" Kise grinned, mostly to himself, like he was remembering a very funny inside joke. "Stamina. Also his body was, well, look at him now. Not much different. But when he was on the court," Kise added hastily, "he was great. It's just he couldn't play more than a few minutes. Anyway, in the second semester of our sophomore year, Kurokocchi approached me out of nowhere and asked if it was true that I had been a Johnny's Junior, because he'd heard some rumors from people who'd gone to school with me and his band was looking for a singer."

Kagami raised an eyebrow. "His band? Him and Aomine?"

Kise nodded. "Aominecchi was on guitar, of course, and back then Kurokocchi played drums. Not very well, mind, it was only an amateur light music band. They had this third guy, Haizaki, who was on vocals, but shortly afterwards he'd been suspended from school for a month." Kise waved with his straw. "Picked a fight with someone or knocked a girl up, I wasn't too clear on the details."

"Your school is really something," Kagami said. "Rock band, knocking up girls. My high school wasn't half as exciting."

"Aren't you a returnee? That's what Momocchi said."

"So?"

"So," Kise drawled, "it's America. Isn't this kind of stuff middle school for you?"

"Not me," Kagami said, irritated. "We're not like what you see on TV."

"Boring," Kise sighed. "Anyway, yeah, Haizaki-kun had quit the band, so they needed a new singer. Which is where I came in." Kise perked up, as if he had finally got to the part of the story that interested him, which, Kagami suspected, was accurate—the part of the story that involved him. "To be honest, Haizaki-kun had no range, so it wasn't until I joined that we started sounding like a proper rock band. That's how we got the others, Midorimacchi on bass and Murasakibaracchi on drums."

"I thought Kuroko was on drums," Kagami said. The pizza was here by now, and he lifted a generous slice, still hot, to his mouth.

Kise grinned as he fussily dabbed grease off a slice of pepperoni, and Kagami took another bite to keep himself from telling Kise that that wasn't his pizza. "By then Kuroko had already evolved into his final form."

"Songwriting," Kagami said through a mouthful of cheese.

"Songwriting," Kise agreed. "When third year came around, we had most of the songs that would eventually be our first album, and changed our name to KISEKI. Kurokocchi was never good with lives, you know? No stage presence. I mean, you've seen him up on a stage, right?" Kagami nodded and didn't tell Kise, only from behind. "He's like a ghost. You don't notice him until he passes by and then you feel a chill. But he and Aominecchi, it was really something." Kise speared a slice of pepperoni with a fork, then with surprising messiness took a large bite out of his slice, letting the cheese stretch from his teeth like he was filming a commercial. "You know what happened between Kurokocchi and Aominecchi, right?"

"Yeah," Kagami mumbled. "They were—together. And then Kuroko left."

Kise drew in a breath, his teeth clenched to make a hissing sound around the hot cheese. "Is that what Aominecchi told you?"

Kagami took a breath, but then paused, trying to remember what Aomine had actually said the night of the live. It was murky now, and mostly he just remembered Aomine's hunched shoulders, the way he acted like hearing about Kuroko was like getting punched in the face. The pizza tasted like cardboard in Kagami's mouth, and he swallowed hard, took a swig of beer to wash it out. "Basically," he said.

Kise pursed his lips. "Interesting. Well, I guess that's not wrong. They weren't together the way you're thinking. Actually," Kise said, a dreamy tone to his voice now, "they didn't get along most of the time, and Kurokocchi was always nagging Aominecchi about one thing or another when they were together. But when it came to the music, they were on the same page. We were just playing around, you know? We weren't trying to go pro then. I mean, when we found him, Midorimacchi had been playing guitar for two years and bass guitar exactly zero, but we managed to convince him we really needed a bassist, so it's not like he had any particular experience. And Murasakibaracchi was a complete amateur. Still, Kurokocchi was so good at building a song around a solo from Aomine, or a great bridge."

"I liked your first album," Kagami said. He put down the pizza for a second and wiped at the grease on his fingers so he didn't have to meet Kise's eyes. "I think it's your best album," he added reluctantly.

"Kagamicchi, I knew you were a man of taste," Kise crowed. "It's my favorite album too. Didn't I say at the last live? 'Can Do' is still my favorite song. It's the first one Kurokocchi wrote for my voice after all. When we played it at the Kichichouji Music Festival, that's when we really got big. Sometimes I wonder—" but then Kise halted, his hand reaching for his beer. "Ah, nevermind, Kagamicchi probably wouldn't understand."

"What?" Kagami narrowed his eyes.

"Hm? Oh, nothing." Kise leaned one cheek on a fist, the other hand fiddling with his drink glass.

He had put on a self-deprecating smile, the kind of thing Kagami imagined a director might call for in a break-up scene in a TV drama. It took every ounce of Kagami's self-control not to look behind him for a camera. "Just, sometimes I wonder if that's going to be the best thing we ever make." He raised his eyes now, staring straight at Kagami. The smile dropped from his face. Now, we'll be honest, Kagami thought wildly. "Because that was the last full album Kurokocchi wrote for us."

The waiter came by to refill their waters and ask, with a look of awe, whether Kagami wanted another pizza. Kagami, embarrassed, ordered another beer along with Kise, and then added an order of buffalo wings. "They're not going to taste like the ones from back home," the waiter, a transplant from New Jersey who made music videos for his day job, joked in English, and Kagami nodded, ignoring Kise's curious look.

The beer came, and shortly thereafter, four chicken wing segments, only lightly peppered and a little sour. Kagami pulled one apart with his fingers, carefully sucking at the tips. "Kuroko told me he decided to stop after KISEKI got big," he said.

Kise nodded. "It's true. Around the time we were working on our second album."

Kagami eyed the bones of his first wing critically. The problem, he thought, was that everyone — Aomine, Kuroko, and now Kise — seemed committed to telling him only the truthful, bare minimum. Added together, it wasn't much, less informative than a pile of bones or Kuroko's initials on a b-side. A record of what happened, like a monument after the fact, sanitized to hurt no one's feelings.

He took a deep breath. "What, he wasn't good enough, so you kicked him out?" When he looked up, Kise's face was stormy, knitted together and scrunched like he was about to cry. Kagami plunged on, "You traded up for someone who would get you famous? "

"Don't talk about Kurokocchi like that," Kise hissed. "It wasn't like that at all. I never wanted him to leave. No one wanted him to leave."

"Then what?"

Kise took another long gulp of his beer, as if gearing up for something. "After our first album, we met Akashicchi, whose dad was in the industry, and we were in talks to release under an actual label. Kurokocchi had already written most of it, but just knowing there was this chance, this opportunity to really make it big, it changed something. Suddenly it felt like pressure coming in from all sides. It fucked up Aomine most of all. He stopped coming to jam sessions and would go on these wild benders after a live, getting drunk and mean." Kise brushed his one cheek with the back of his hand, absently, like he was recalling a touch. "But for a while it was fine, because Kurokocchi was there. They were old friends, and Kurokocchi could always calm him down when Aominecchi threatened to go off the deep end."

"You were just out of high school," Kagami interrupted. "How much of a deep end could you get into?"

Kise scoffed. "You want to know? One day I roll into the studio and find Momocchi and Midorimacchi there. No Aominecchi, no Kurokocchi. Momocchi is there freaking out, saying she hasn't heard from either of them in the last week. I tell her, maybe they went on vacation with their parents somewhere, and Momocchi says no way, she would know, she knows both their families. Whatever, we all get a lecture from Akashicchi about taking practice seriously, we go home. We don't hear from them for two weeks."

Kagami stared at Kise, one chicken wing tip hanging out of his mouth. Kise was still smiling, but grimly now, as if taking solace that this, at least, could shock Kagami. "Two weeks, Kagamicchi," he said, emphasizing each syllable. "That's how long they fell off the grid. No calls, no texts, no credit cards, even. Akashicchi tried to track that, but Aominecchi had been using cash the whole time. It got to the point where we were going to call the police, and then, as if nothing had ever happened, they showed up at a band practice and Kuroko says he's quitting. Doesn't ask us what we think, doesn't tell us why, just that he's decided to do something else and he hopes that everything goes well for us. Bows, turns on his heel, walks out. Aomine didn't say a word. Not a single word."

"What—" Kagami started.

"I've asked," Kise cut in. "I've asked Kurokocchi ever since to tell me what happened, but he won't. He says Aominecchi didn't do anything and that he just had differences." He slumped in his chair, staring at some point off to one side of Kagami's shoulder. "Aominecchi on the other hand won't even talk about it. The last time I heard him say Kurokocchi's name—" Kise stopped, then shook his head. "Momocchi got him really drunk once and she said he told her they stayed in a hotel room for the whole two weeks. Locked up in a hotel room.."

"That's insane," Kagami blurted out. "That's kidnapping. That'd be illegal."

"Look, don't get me wrong, Aominecchi would never hurt Kurokocchi. Whatever happened, it was probably—psychological." Kise drained his beer, put down his glass, and leaned his face on his folded hands again, looking up at Kagami. "Still, whatever went down, he made Kurokocchi quit the band, before we even finished the second album. Of course, Kurokocchi handed over all his drafts to Akashicchi, which is why his name is still on the second album. Akashicchi took over being our songwriter, we got the record deal, we put out our second album, and the rest," Kise waved at the restaurant expansively, "is history."

A long pause followed. Kise didn't gesture for another beer, just continued to watch Kagami, who finished his wings even though he couldn't taste a thing. As he chewed, Kagami considered the sinking feel that had been growing in his stomach through the meal, and, warily meeting Kise's eyes as Kise smiled at him, finally put his finger on the reason: he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being played. He felt sure, somehow, that every twist of this evening—the confessional tone, Kise's unhappy expression, the casual way Kise had brought Kagami into his supposed confidence—was carefully planned to get a reaction from him. This too was a test, no less a challenge than Aomine making him play guitar during their soundcheck, but craftier, meaner—testing Kagami without letting him know he was on trial.

Kagami shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. "Okay," he said. "But where do I come in with all this?" He gestured between them. "Music, or KISEKI, or whatever. Kuroko isn't our songwriter and I don't think he'll ever be. So, what do you want from me?"

The change in Kise's demeanor was instantaneous, almost visceral, like the person he'd been seconds before was an invisible wall Kagami had broken, and now he was letting a winter snap rush in. Kise was still smiling, but there was nothing friendly or human about it, just a way to arrange his mouth as his gaze bore down on Kagami. "You misunderstand," Kise said, his tone flat. "I don't want anything from you. But Aominecchi is determined to get Kurokocchi back, and I like seeing Aominecchi get pissed off when someone doesn't give him what he wants. Telling you seemed like a good place to even the playing ground, Kagami-kun."

It was Kuroko's intonation, though the voice wasn't. Maybe, Kagami thought with growing despair, that night when Kuroko had asked him, what does this have to do with me, hadn't been about arrogance, or reserve, or distancing himself from Kagami at all. It was just that Kuroko had been surrounded for so long with people like Kise and Aomine, overpowering forces of nature who liked to bulldoze over everything around them to get what they wanted, never mind the consequences, who would look back on their path of destruction and have the gall to say it was for you, too. But that had never been Kagami—he'd never been good at getting what he wanted, always better at making the best of what he had.

What he had, he thought, was just one thought: that he believed in Kuroko, even if he wasn't sure that Kuroko believed in him, and that Kuroko must have left KISEKI and Aomine for a reason.

Kagami licked his lips, trying to sound confident as he stared Kise down. "I don't think Kuroko needs me to fight for him," he managed finally and, immediately blushing, downed the rest of his beer in one go.

Like a switch flipping, Kise once again became the sunny face of the face cream ads and magazine spreads. It had to be something about the corner of his eyes, Kagami decided, or the angle of his neck, but before Kagami could figure out exactly what it was, Kise got up, whipping the bill off the table without even bothering to ask if Kagami wanted to split. "Thanks for the pizza, Kagamicchi," he said, winking. "Tell Kurokocchi hi for me. Or maybe I'll tell him hi for you."

"Wait—"

"It's fine if you fuck this up, you know," Kise said, looking over his shoulder. He was smiling that fake, friendly smile again, but this time there was an edge to his voice that Kagami didn't want to touch. "Especially if it means we get Kurokocchi back."

"Fuck you," Kagami hissed, and Kise waved.

 

 

 

 

 

A week later, Kagami was just washing up to go to bed when he heard a polite rapping on his door. It was too late for solicitors, but Kagami opened it without looking through the peephole, expecting a neighbor who had gotten locked out or maybe a drunk visitor who had gotten the wrong apartment.

Instead, it was Kuroko.

"I don't write songs for anyone anymore," Kuroko said, as if this was a conversation they had been having and he was merely picking back up the thread. "You're not special."

Kagami stared. Kuroko swayed a little, distributing his weight from one foot to the other. His face was as placid as ever, not even a hint of pink, but when the moment stretched into a full minute, Kuroko pitched forward, and Kagami had to catch him by the shoulder. His skin was hot, even through his coat.

"You're drunk," Kagami said, shocked.

"What? Oh. Yes, how very observant of Kagami-kun."

"Hey," Kagami said, stung.

"It's Kise-kun's fault. Both the drinking and telling you. He doesn't know everything, even if he acts he does. In either case, he shouldn't have told you. I should have told you, but I didn't." Kuroko jerked his shoulder away from Kagami's grasp and stumbled slightly as he straightened up. His eyes looked wet, but sharper than Kagami had remembered, clear despite the alcohol. "Are you going to make me do this in the hallway?" he demanded.

"No," Kagami said, mouth dry. "Come in."

Kuroko made a bee-line for Kagami's couch, stretching himself out on it, head on one arm rest, his toes barely reaching the other. Despite how forward it seemed, he looked vulnerable, a hand thrown over one eye. "Your ceiling spins, Kagami-kun," he said very seriously. "You should have that fan looked at."

The fan wasn't turned on, but Kagami didn't mention it. "You're just a little drunk," Kagami told him, handing Kuroko a glass of water, which Kuroko balanced precariously on his chest.

"I'm much drunker than a little," Kuroko said. He was taking care with his words now, each one articulated perfectly. "I said yes to Kise-kun's dinner invitation because that would give me an excuse to get drunk with someone else and then come here to tell you what happened between me and Aomine-kun."

Kagami took a seat on the floor next to the couch. Kuroko looked small in Kagami's basement apartment, dwarfed by his overlarge couch, and Kagami awkwardly folded his knees against his chest, tucking his chin to make himself smaller, like Kuroko was some prey animal that would be spooked by Kagami's size. "We can do this tomovrrow," he muttered.

"No, tomorrow I will not be drunk."

"Okay," Kagami said. He opened his mouth, realized he had nothing else to say, and then closed it. For a minute, he regretted not pouring himself a glass of water, to give himself something to fiddle with as he waited for Kuroko to continue. When he raised his head, he realized Kuroko was watching him ball his hands in fists over and over again, a faint smile on his face. Embarrassed, he coughed, placing his palms flat on the ground, rubbing them across the cool surface of the floor. "What, uh, did you want to talk about?"

Kuroko got up on one elbow, and immediately Kagami reached out to grab the glass of water on his chest before it spilled over both of them. "I was KISEKI's songwriter," Kuroko said, strangely insistent. "But then I quit."

"Yeah, you told me."

"Don't interrupt," Kuroko snapped, snatching the water from Kagami's hand and taking a sip. "When we first started the band, I made Aomine-kun a promise. I told him that as long as he played guitar, he'd have someone who would write music that he cared about."

He eyed Kagami sharply, and Kagami nodded, lips glued shut. "You don't know Aomine-kun," Kuroko continued, as if Kagami had interrupted. "He's very simple. He only cares about guitar. He only cares about his guitar. I liked his guitar."

The sentences were like playing cards that Kuroko dealt, one after another. Now he seemed to have run out, and, despite all protestations to the contrary, was waiting for Kagami to say something. "Yeah," Kagami said, and Kuroko, satisfied, settled back into the couch, throwing a hand across his eyes.

"So I promised to write for his guitar. Everyday, I was there, listening to Aomine-kun play guitar, listening to the music that Aomine-kun liked, trying to write music that Aomine-kun would want to play." He peeked out at Kagami, his head lolling to one side. "Can I tell Kagami-kun a secret?" he asked abruptly.

It was hard to like someone this much, Kagami thought, grabbing at his knee. It hurt to know that Kuroko had gotten drunk, much drunker than he'd ever been before with Kagami, just so he could tell this story, and that there was nothing Kagami could do but listen. And it sucked extra hard to realize he still wanted Kuroko, a lot, that he could be distracted by the shift of the tendons of Kuroko's neck, or the slide of his sweater against his collarbones, by how much he wanted to kiss Kuroko instead of letting him continue to talk.

"Anything," Kagami croaked.

"I didn't care about the rest of the band in the beginning," Kuroko confessed. "Back then, all I wanted was to write music that Aomine-kun would play. For a long time, I thought, it'd be fine, if it was just Aomine-kun's guitar and my bad drumming forever." He frowned, biting his lip. "I told Kise-kun that once and he thought I was teasing him. But I wasn't."

"Yeah," Kagami said. He placed a hand on the couch cushion next to Kuroko's head.

Kuroko either ignored him or didn't notice. "That was the problem," he said. "The more we played as a band, the more I wanted to write songs for all of us. I wanted to be successful, for people to like us. But the more I wrote for them, the more unhappy Aomine-kun became. Once he told me—" and Kuroko's breath caught, an audible hitch in his throat. Kagami involuntarily jerked forward, his finger brushing through Kuroko's hair along his temple, but even though Kuroko closed his eyes and leaned into his touch, he didn't finish his sentence. Instead, it hung there, and eventually Kuroko turned his head towards Kagami, trapping Kagami's hand against the couch.

"He didn't kidnap me," Kuroko said, each word slow and measured. "I suggested it at first. I thought, we'd go somewhere just the two of us, and it'd be like when we first started. We were both trying our best, that's all. That's the only way Aomine-kun knew how to handle problems. Just one song, and then I could go. If I picked up the pen he'd get me food. If I asked him to play chords, he'd get me something to drink, or maybe ice cream. Every note I gave him, he'd give me something. Like the music was a death and he was bargaining."

Kagami inhaled sharply through his mouth, trying not to vomit. "Kuroko—" he breathed.

"But in the end I didn't have anything," Kuroko cut in, urgent. "I was completely empty. I couldn't write a single thing. Even though I was the one who made the promise, I abandoned him. I drove him to that point, and then I made everyone think he was a monster, when it was my fault. When we were in that hotel room together, he just sat there in the corner, looking at me, waiting." Kuroko bared his teeth, an awful, vicious flash of white. "He didn't touch me. Because I had betrayed him. Do you get it?"

Kagami swallowed, his mouth impossible dry. He wormed his hand out from underneath Kuroko's cheek and reached for Kuroko's glass, but it was empty. He wanted to get up and pour them both more water, but Kuroko held onto his glass like a lifeline. His eyes were bright, more dangerous even than Kise's with his mask dropped, and Kagami couldn't meet them for long.

"No," Kagami said.

It was the wrong thing to say. Kuroko closed his eyes briefly, then twisted his mouth into an ugly sneer. "No, of course not," Kuroko echoed, dull. "Kagami-kun wouldn't. But thank you for hearing me out."

"No, that's not what I meant," Kagami hissed. Kuroko had sat up, trembling slightly as he looked for a place to put his water glass. Panicked, Kagami wrapped both of his hands around Kuroko's wrists, trapping them together and holding Kuroko there, seated, on the couch. "I do get it. I get what happened and I think I get how you feel. I just don't understand why."

"Which part?"

Kuroko was wrenching against Kagami's grasp now, and Kagami let go, so quickly it was like he had been burnt. He was ashamed when he saw the friction marks on Kuroko's wrist, bright red smudges against Kuroko's white skin. Kuroko seemed to notice and, after a moment, carefully reached for Kagami, both palms extended until Kagami met him in the middle, like he was an infant Kuroko was leading into water, his fingertips three hot points of contact grounding Kagami.

"If it were me," Kagami said slowly, "I'd never make someone promise me all or nothing. It's not anyone's responsibility to make sure I still love playing guitar."

Kuroko blinked back at Kagami owlishly, his mouth still in a tight little line. Desperate, Kagami laced his fingers through Kuroko's, trying to pull him close. Kuroko didn't budge. "It was his fault," Kagami told him. "He shouldn't have made you his crutch."

"He didn't," Kuroko insisted. "I told him to. I promised."

Kuroko's eyes were bright, the eyes of someone hunted. Any minute now, Kagami thought, he'd bolt from this place, and Kagami would never see him again. Or if he did, it'd never be this vulnerable, this close—he'd be the well-composed and adult Kuroko he'd known up until now. For the hundredth time since it had happened, Kagami thought about the last time he'd seen Kuroko, his shuttered face and closed-off voice. Maybe it was just self-defense, the actions of someone who held everything at a distance, too afraid to get involved, like he thought everything he touched might turn to stone.

"I would never do that to you," Kagami said, pressing his thumbs fitfully into Kuroko's hands.

Kuroko's mouth curved into a crooked smile, as if he were torn between great happiness and great sadness. "I know," he said. "It's what I like, about you."

"You don't have to write me anything," Kagami continued, mind spinning. "I wouldn't ask that of you. I wouldn't ask anything of you. You can do what you like."

"I know," Kuroko said again. He slid down from the couch until they were almost eye to eye. This close, Kuroko a few centimeters from straddling atop Kagami's lap, Kagami could smell the alcohol leaving Kuroko in a haze. Kuroko drew one of Kagami's hands close to him. For a second Kagami thought he'd put it on his shoulder, maybe, or or wrap it around his waist, but instead Kuroko placed it against his cheek and rested it against it, a burning, precious weight. Kagami, his thumb stroking Kuroko's mouth, held his breath, the air in his chest heavy and hot just like Kuroko.

"That's the awful thing," Kuroko whispered, his eyes fluttering closed. "Asking everything from me, that was what I had liked the most about him, back then."

 

 

 

 

 

When the third Tuesday of the month came around, Seirin—and Kuroko—were at SLICED, as usual. But this time, Kagami realized as he squinted at the list, Kuroko hadn't requested any of his usual songs. Instead, in his neat all caps English handwriting that could only be produced by someone which had learned to write it abroad, he'd asked for "Beast of Burden."

Kagami had never been good at coming up with things on the spot. Pushed into a corner, he usually defaulted to the obvious or the truth. "You know we don't really play this song," Kagami said, shifting uncomfortably. "It's not one of the options on our song list."

Kuroko cocked his head to one side, a small smile on his face. "I apologize if I'm asking for something Seirin doesn't know—"

Kagami bristled. "Who says we don't know it?"

It was the first time Kagami had seen Kuroko during sign-ups. Kuroko could hide when he wanted to, but the corollary, Kagami was learning, was that he could make himself very obvious when he wanted to be. This was one of those moments. He had waited until it was Kagami taking the requests, and he had picked a song that he knew would make Kagami, more than any other member of the band, sit up. All of this was on purpose, an act that Kuroko was putting on, but Kagami wasn't sure if it was wholly for Kagami's benefit, or if there was another shoe to drop. So instead, he handled it the best way he knew how, which was straightforwardly. He picked his guitar back up to check that the rest of Seirin still knew how to play the song, and then he waited, on tenterhooks, for Kuroko's turn.

When Kagami had been eight and utterly friendless in America, he'd met a boy on the basketball court who could jump higher and shoot better than any of the other kids, even the older ones. He'd decided then and there that he'd never met and would never meet another person who could possibly be cooler. That boy introduced himself as Himuro Tatsuya, and Kagami went on to spend the rest of his young adulthood copying everything Himuro did, whether or not Kagami was any good at it. In basketball, they were evenly matched; in everything else, Himuro far exceeded, but that was okay. That was the natural order of things in Kagami's mind. It was a classic case of imprinting, which Kagami knew and recognized and wasn't ashamed of. Even now, if asked, Kagami would still say that Himuro was the coolest, and most naturally talented, and best-looking, person that Kagami had ever met.

Or rather, Kagami assumed that was still true. The last time Kagami had seen Himuro, Kagami was a freshmen in high school, and Himuro was on the cusp of graduation. It was not that Himuro, who was three substantial years older than Kagami, went off to college, or that his family moved out of the state, although both of those things happened. Rather, Himuro proceeded to surgically, precisely, and purposefully cut Kagami and only Kagami out of his life. He hadn't told Kagami his moving date, stopped replying to Kagami's text messages, locked down his Facebook profile. After weeks of not getting any response, and assuming he had done something wrong or just missed a sign somewhere, Kagami had asked around, only to find he was the only one in Himuro's life getting this treatment. "Oh, so you're the one he always called his little brother," one of the guys on Himuro's streetball team had said when Kagami had sought them out, in a way that meant he didn't intend for it to be a compliment. "He didn't give you his new number? Huh. Weird."

When Kagami had known him, Himuro had been a bassist, the kind that fulfilled every band stereotype: distant, level-headed, unnecessarily good-looking and popular with girls. Kagami had tried it out, but it turned out he was better suited to guitar, which in retrospect Kagami saw as a kind of relief, one less thing they competed over. For a while, junior high Kagami had dreamed of playing in a band with Himuro, but Himuro's band had two guitarists, both older, who had no intention of incorporating a total beginner. So instead, Kagami had started his own garage band. That summer after his freshmen year, they'd ended up at a local battle of the bands contest. Their last song was a terrible cover of "Against All Odds," with the opening chords played on a synthesizer, which Kagami had hated fiercely up until that very moment, when all of a sudden it was perfect, the only song Kagami could imagine singing. "You're the only one who really knew me at all," he had wailed into the mic. He hadn't even been drunk, only overly emotional and freshly abandoned by Himuro with no way of venting those feelings, and later he was embarrassed, but at the time, it had seemed like Phil Collins wrote this song just for him.

Which was all to say, Kagami knew what it was like, when someone sang a song that meant they were projecting. The second after Kuroko took the mic, he could tell that Kuroko was doing the same thing. Kuroko kept his eyes closed to everyone, both hands around the mic stand, delivering each word with deadly, too clear precision, for once perfectly audible and on key. He was singing to someone that needed to hear every word, that he could only reach through this song that was, for a moment, written just for him. And even from behind, even if he were launched hundreds of miles into the air, into the moon, Kagami could tell it wasn't him.

Take a look at me now, Kagami thought, feeling sixteen and desperate again. You coming back to me is against the odds. I wish I could just make you turn around.

"I walked for miles, my feet are hurting," Kuroko sang. "And all I want," and Kagami mouthed with him, mute as they finished those lines together, is for you to make love to me.

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, predictably, Kuroko disappeared into the crowd.

Kagami wanted to chase after him, but only Riko was allowed to call for breaks, and anyway they were almost at the end of their allotted stage time for the evening. So instead he had to wait. There was a polite round of applause, and then a blond office lady type who wanted to sing Journey, and a slightly drunk Japanese man accompanying his friends who wanted mysteriously to sing a Christmas carol, and did, to rousing success. When they were finally done, Kagami rushed off the stage, throwing his guitar at Riko, who yelped angrily at him. "Bathroom!" he yelled. "I'll be right back!"

The problem was that he was trying to find Kuroko, when Kuroko wasn't asking to be found. Kagami circled the restaurant twice before he finally spotted Kuroko, who was leaning carefully against the counter of the bar at the center of the restaurant and possibly chatting with the stranger next to him as they waited for their drink. Kagami felt himself helplessly break into a grin, and he rushed over, but stopped short, almost causing a server to crash into him with an armful of dirty dishes, when he deciphered the particulars of the person next to Kuroko.

It was, of all people, Aomine. He was in his leather jacket again, sweatpants, that same black snapback pulled low over his face, but Kagami could tell from his profile and height, and the way Kuroko had arranged his face into a neutral smile, both cold and friendly at the same time, when he spoke. Kagami watched as the bartender handed Aomine two beers, one of which Aomine slid over to Kuroko, and cursed under his breath. Of course it was Aomine, Kagami thought bitterly. The pieces snapped into place. It hadn't been with Kagami, after all, Kuroko had first sung the chorus of "Beast of Burden." Aomine's presence explained everything.

By the time Kagami made his way over, a small crowd had gathered by the bar, and there was no space to stand next to Aomine or Kuroko. He squeezed into a small space a person away from Aomine, accidentally elbowing the man who stood between them. From this distance, he could hear Aomine say, "—as bad as ever."

"Thanks," Kuroko said very seriously. He had his head down and was fastidiously removing the label from his beer bottle. Kagami had never seen Kuroko do that before, or fidget in general really, and it worried him, like a bad omen.

Aomine leaned his elbows into the bar. His hands were folded together, and he rested the rim of his cap against his thumbs, eyes half open. From a distance, he might have looked like he was impatiently waiting for a drink after a long day, but up close, Kagami thought he looked curiously like he was praying. "You know I've always hated that song," Aomine said.

"I have always liked it. Especially when you sing it."

"We don't sing it anymore."

"Yes, I know. Momoi-san gives me your concert recordings." Kuroko was done removing the bottom label and was now working on the one on the neck. The man in between Aomine and Kagami had finally gotten his drinks, but before Kagami could scoot over, another customer slid into the same space, throwing an apologetic smile in Kagami's direction. Kagami sighed.

"You know the reason too, don't you?" Aomine was saying. He had lowered his voice, and Kagami strained the best he could to hear over the noise without invading the personal space of the woman beside him. "After you left, it felt too much like a confession."

Even from this distance, Kagami could see the small frown on Kuroko's face as he glanced up at Aomine. Kagami ducked down to avoid being recognized, but was interrupted by the bartender finally turning to him and asking if he needed anything. "An Asahi," Kagami told him gruffly.

He had lost the thread of the conversation. When he could next catch Kuroko's quiet voice, it was saying, "—not why I liked it. It's a memory of playing music with you and the others, that's all."

"Fuck, I know, I know," Aomine said. "I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm just trying to be—fuck, be honest with my feelings for once."

"Aomine-kun—"

"You know, I never told you, but what I said at that time—it wasn't—I shouldn't have said what I did back then." Aomine turned fully towards Kuroko this time, and Kagami could tell out of the corner of his eye that Kuroko was also facing Aomine, an unhappy line between his eyebrows. He tried not to turn and stare too. He was aware of how silly he was being, but he was paralyzed between shame and curiosity, unable to march over but too invested to stop listening.

"I was wrong. It's not like that song at all," Aomine said. A ripple went through Aomine's body. "You were enough. Hell, you're still enough. You'll always be, at least for me."

But this was his limit, Kagami decided. Without waiting for his beer to come, he strode over to where Kuroko was standing, shouldering in between some customers who threw him dirty looks until they realized they'd just seem him play with the band. "Hey, I was looking for you," he said, as casually as he could. He couldn't resist pressing his hand into the small of Kuroko's back, and was grateful to feel Kuroko jump. He hadn't noticed that Kagami had been eavesdropping after all.

"Kagami-kun," Kuroko said, voice surprisingly even. "Have you been listening?"

Kagami shrugged. "Just the tailend," he lied. "Long time no see, Aomine," he added, and winced when he registered how menacingly it came out.

Aomine jerked his head, but said nothing. Kagami could feel Kuroko turn his body slightly towards Kagami, as if he wanted to admonish Kagami but then thought better of it. When it was clear that no one else was going to say anything, Kuroko said, "Aomine-kun and I are chatting about the old days, when we were both in high school."

Kagami snorted, unable to help himself. "Yeah?"

He wanted to bend down, tilt Kuroko's face up to see what expression he was wearing. But Kuroko had always been hard to read, and Kagami didn't think it would be any different at this moment. Aomine was easier, more like himself, the kind to wear everything on his face. At the moment, Aomine's stormy face under the rim of his snapback read like he'd just taken a particularly bad shot of alcohol and no one had offered him a chaser. He had set his mouth into a tight, twisted line, like he was trying to hold in words or vomit, or maybe both, it was hard to tell.

Suddenly, Kagami was overwhelmed, not by jealousy or anger like he'd expected, but with a curious sympathy for Aomine. Aomine hadn't come to SLICED to rub anything in Kagami's face. He probably hadn't expected Kuroko to ambush him with a song. Who knows what he wanted, other than to see Kuroko again? Even that time when he'd invited Seirin to come up for KISEKI probably hadn't been about fucking with Kagami or his band. It'd been some desperate way at clawing back Kuroko, at trying to convey a feeling he didn't have the words for. It was obvious now that he'd screwed things up with Kuroko, and regretted it badly, and here it was, laid bare for all three of them to gawk at.

Maybe everything Aomine had done up until now was just his "Against All Odds" moment. That was something Kagami could understand and even forgive.

"Yeah," Aomine croaked. He cleared his throat and, like he suddenly remembered its presence, grabbed for the beer he had abandoned next to him on the counter. "Tying up some loose ends. You know how it is."

Kagami watched as something passed between Kuroko and Aomine, so strongly felt it was like a physical thing they held between them before cutting and dropping to the floor. Whatever it was, he couldn't understand it, and he hoped he never would. When the moment was over, Aomine frowned and made an abrupt motion in the air, as if to touch Kuroko. But after a while, he looked up at Kagami, gave him another strained, uncomfortable nod, and stormed off with his own drink without saying another word.

Kuroko exhaled, hard enough that Kagami could hear it. "Sorry," Kagami muttered. He curled the fingers of the hand he still rested in the small of Kuroko's back, embarrassed now that Aomine had gone.

"What for?"

"Interrupting, I guess."

"Never apologize for interrupting Aomine-kun," Kuroko said, only a little ironically.

For a moment or two they stood there in silence, Kuroko contemplating the crowd and Kagami contemplating how best to say the words itching in his throat without making himself out to be a pouting, controlling boyfriend. What loose ends, he thought, and is it over now and you know Aomine was telling you that he loved you and still loves you now? He'd rather let the ground swallow him up than say the last one out loud, though.

"I just want you to know that, uh—" He floundered, too afraid to look down in case Kuroko was staring up at him. Instead he glared resolutely at a patch of wall farthest away from them and continued, "What that guy said about you being enough. Ditto, I guess. Except that what he should have said was, you're good enough for anyone. It's not like he's some great fucking catch."

He felt Kuroko shuddering against him and, mortified, looked down to see what was wrong. He had never seen Kuroko cry, and wasn't quite sure what he could have possibly said to make Kuroko cry now, but what he saw blindsided him: Kuroko was laughing, a smile so wide it was almost radiant in the dark. It took every ounce of Kagami's control not to wrap Kuroko up in both arms and carry him off, maybe kiss him so hard he'd draw blood and tell everyone, Aomine included, that he'd fight anyone who wanted to so much as go near Kuroko. It was so hard, he despaired to himself again, to like someone this much.

"Thank you, Kagami-kun. I'll be sure to tell Aomine-kun your evaluation of his worth as a partner," Kuroko said. But after a while, he sobered up and moved Kagami's hand from his back to his waist, wrapping it tightly in his own fingers. "I hope you know I feel the same," he murmured, as he settled into the weight. "That having Kagami-kun with me is more than enough."

Then, gently butting the underside of Kagami's chin with the top of his head, "What does 'ditto' mean?"

 

 

 

 

 

The following month, Kuroko went back to Bruno Mars, with a barely audible rendition of "Marry You" that was mostly carried by the strength of Kiyoshi's drumming.

In the intermission, Kagami went over to Kuroko's table and stole a slice of pizza. Folding it in half for a large bite, he eyed Kuroko warily and asked through a mouth of tepid cheese, "Were you telling me something with that last song?"

"Not everything is about you, idiot," Kuroko told him, trying to keep a straight face and failing. "Sometimes a song is just a song. Stop projecting."

And, when no one was looking, he tugged Kagami down for a kiss.

Notes:

content warning: both kise and kuroko recount an incident in the past where aomine kidnapped and imprisoned kuroko in a hotel room. kuroko describes conduct that rises to the level of emotional abuse, including threats to withhold food. while it is acknowledged by all parties that this conduct was unhealthy, kuroko both expresses responsibility for the incident (despite being a victim) and attachment to the behavior as an expression, possibly, of love.

 

rest of the notes!

 

- in 2012 i went to a very real pizza parlor that also specializes in new haven-style and experienced live-band karaoke for the first time. "i was bored the whole night but then i thought about an au where [redacted] goes to his local bar and does live band karaoke rock music every week," i wrote to some friends. two cities, two fandoms, and too many years later, here is the fic, finally.
- this is not betaed and all mistakes are my own (as always). sorry editor-unni. i had a deadline. you can yell at me later.
- title is a reference to the quruli song of the same name. summary is modified from "don't look back in anger" by oasis. thank you to aosa, guardian angel of kakuro and very specific japanese bands that were cool during a very specific time in our lives.
- in my head, current kiseki sounds a lot like one ok rock/school food punishment, while high school/early kiseki sounded a lot more like the pillows circa the early 90s (or, for continuity's sake, like quruli). the one b-side mentioned by kagami that features kuroko singing a snippet of the rolling stones' "beast of burden" is modeled after "self-righteous" by third eye blind. seirin, by the way, sounds like the ost of beck mongolian chop squad when they play their own songs, down to riko singing "full moon sway" with hyuuga and kiyoshi, which is a story for another day (no it isn't, there's no story, that's the whole story).
- how many times can i just retell the plot of kuroko no basuke but in a different au setting and with different professions? that's for me to know and you to get bored with eventually.