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Of all middle school scandals that littered the halls of Teikou, about a quarter of it involved the sports teams. Barring the unfortunate incident of food poisoning in senior year that miraculously excluded a select few (1), the rest of the rumors had less to do with the basketball team, and more to do with its starters.
Whatever legends the Generation of Miracles left behind, some things were easily forgotten -- or, if you were Akashi, forcibly squashed and struck from the school records.
Kuroko could only hope to be so lucky. Kise was never one to forget things so easily.
how it started:
It was generally a foregone conclusion that whatever came out of Aomine's mouth outside of basketball season was full of lies and slander, to the detriment of his immediate surroundings. Unfortunately for Kuroko, he found this side of Aomine funny, endearing, even, and if that wasn't a testament to his blindness, his later teammates didn't know what it was.
"Hey Tetsu," said Aomine, waving him over to the side, "come here."
Midorima pretended to be engrossed in paperwork, already knowledgeable of the scenarios that Aomine and Kuroko colluding could only bring about. If he tried hard enough, maybe his entire team would go away.
"What is it?" Kuroko asked.
Aomine looked at the ball in his hand, then at Kuroko's shirt. He pulled up the hem ("DAI-CHAN," Momoi yelled, "DIDN'T WE TALK ABOUT BAD TOUCHING.") and promptly tucked the ball into the waistband of Kuroko's shorts. When he let Kuroko's shirt fall, he started laughing at Kuroko's unimpressed expression.
"You look pregnant like that," said Murasakibara, ever the observant soul.
"What," said Midorima. He made the mistake of looking up, only to see Kuroko waddling around with a ball jammed under his clothes and Aomine egging him on. The image burned his eyes.
If Akashi were here, the situation may have been salvageable. Unless, of course, Akashi was feeling less charitable and more punitive after getting trounced by the shogi club's advisor. Akashi never did take to losses well. As it was, it only got worse when Kise sauntered in, shoes in hand and apologies for his tardiness ready in case he needed to grovel.
Because there was no god, Aomine opened his mouth.
"Hey Kise," said Aomine, looking like he'd just swallowed a tart and ogled at another, too, "Tetsu has some news for you."
Kuroko, ever the one with less survival instincts in favor of a joke, touched his stomach and said, "Kise-kun, I'm pregnant."
No one could explain to Akashi why, exactly, Kise burst into tears after that.
5.
"So you see we can't tell him now," said Aomine, suddenly remembering he had a heart, never mind a conscience, after Kise's panicked phone calls to his parents, his manager, and the rest of the damn world.
"What do you mean we can't," said Murasakibara, "Kise-chin looks serious about it."
"Exactly," said Aomine, "can you imagine how it'd break the guy's heart?"
"If it did, Kise-kun would have to be really dumb," said Kuroko. "I never slept with him."
Aomine looked at the rake behind Kuroko. Secret meetings always happened in the storage rooms. Aomine wished he thought to pull them into a place with less pointy objects. "Remember when we had training camp and you fell asleep early and the next day Kise kept sticking to you like glue."
"What about it," said Kuroko, darkly.
Aomine had the grace to look ashamed of himself. He took a step forward and maneuvered Kuroko away from the rake. "Well, we kind of dumped you into his futon before you guys woke up and stripped you both."
Kuroko reached for a broom.
"We put mayonnaise on your stomachs too," said Murasakibara, eyes glazing over at the thought of food. "Mmm."
"You're not helping," Midorima informed him, breaking his silence in a rare moment of feeling for Aomine.
"OW, TETSU, STOP," said Aomine, as Kuroko hit him with the broom handle for the offense against his person and God. Damn. It. AOMINE.
"Why would you do that?" Kuroko grit out, betrayed.
"I was trying to go for realism," Aomine hedged. Midorima took pity on him and plucked the broom out of Kuroko's vice grip. Murasakibara draped himself over Kuroko's back to reel him in.
Momoi shrieked, dropping her phone. "I can't believe it," she moaned, "even the damn going home club knows about it!"
"ANYWAY," said Midorima, pushing Kuroko back with his foot, "Kise should be knowledgeable enough of human biology to realize that everything is a horrible lie." He paused. "At least, I think he is."
"We, uh, ditch health class a lot," said Aomine.
"There are annual talks on this for morning assembly," said Midorima.
Aomine waved him off. "We skip that one too."
"What about books," said Midorima.
"He uses wiki for cramming, I think," said Aomine.
"How do you people learn," said Midorima, aghast.
"I dunno," said Aomine, "and Kise's so full of it he probably thinks he has mutant sperm or whatever."
Momoi started to sob into her hands from the corner of the storage room and voiced out what everyone else was thinking, "Dai-chan, you're a terrible person and I hope you go to hell."
"I know," said Aomine, sagely, "so no one tell him anything, okay?"
Kuroko lunged for him again.
4.
More things that proved that the Generation of Miracles were a bunch of dirty cowards and not as impervious as they looked, for all their hulking heights:
No one wanted to explain to Akashi exactly why Kise kept parading Kuroko around and showing off what was the worst joke in the world.
No one also wanted Aomine to lose his limbs in a horrific accident involving the ceiling fan either, so they sent Kuroko to do it.
"Interesting," said Akashi, eyeing Kuroko's inflated stomach. "And Ryouta believed all this?"
"He's kind of a dumbass, in case you didn't notice," Aomine piped up.
"He also gets above average test scores," said Akashi, confused.
"Dumbass," Aomine insisted.
"I, for one, would like to tell him the truth," said Midorima, the traitor.
"Kise-chin would cry again," said Murasakibara, barely intelligible through his lollipop, "and then we'd have to explain why we're not really bullying him even if we really are."
The thing about the Generation of Miracles was that they made it unspeakably difficult to pass muster. It was like trying to get into a fraternity minus the brotherhood, perhaps because they were simply sadists. No one but a masochist like Kise would bother to sign up for months of torture.
In retrospect, that said a lot about Kise that Kuroko didn't really want to examine.
"Speak for yourselves," said Momoi, sniffing. She kept making disappointed faces at Kuroko all day. The scathing looks she sent Aomine were par of course, and did little to make Kuroko feel better about himself.
Akashi opened his mouth to speak, only Kise took the timely opportunity to break away from the sophomores he was coaching to sidle over and press closer to Kuroko.
"You guys are leaving me out again," said Kise, disapproving.
"Regulars only," said Aomine, imperiously shooing him away.
Kuroko looked at his feet -- or tried to, through the swell of the ball. Kise seemed strangely attuned to every tiny movement Kuroko made and immediately started to fuss over him.
"I heard about the news," said Akashi, to Kise. Kuroko blanched. The joke was really starting to wear thin.
"There is no news," said Kuroko. "Kise-kun, get off me."
Aomine looked at him and mouthed something crass (2). Kuroko ignored him.
"You shouldn't be ashamed, Kurokocchi," Kise chided. "There's a wonderful sprout of life growing inside you now."
In another scenario, this would have been the most embarrassing, and most heartwarming moment in their lives. In this one, it was mostly the former. Kuroko looked petrified.
"Kise-kun..." Momoi said, at a loss for words, whether out of amazement at Kise's selective density, or at his cheesiness.
"I'm so happy to share this with you, Kurokocchi," said Kise, touching the back of Kuroko's hand with a fondness that made Kuroko's insides clench. "You don't have to do this alone."
Murasakibara and Aomine sobbed, out of sheer hilarity. Midorima bit his lip. Kuroko would kill them all in their sleep.
Akashi clapped his hands, once. "Congratulations, Ryouta," said Akashi, all teeth, "you'll make a fine father someday."
He would kill them dead.
3.
Kuroko would have been fine with everything if the ruse hadn't extended past Monday. Friday after practice, he could deal with. Saturday mornings aboard the train with freshmen pointing and staring and taking notice, fine. Sunday, he could spend in bed sleeping and ignoring Aomine's vigilant reminders to play along for the rest of the week. Never had Kuroko wanted to throw his phone at the wall as much as he did then. He settled for dunking it in the empty fish tank and was met with blessed silence.
Admittedly, it hadn't helped that Akashi was so keen about preserving the delicacy of Kise's pure heart. Aomine insisted the only thing delicate about Kise was his perpetual erection for Kuroko, and even that was questionable. Kuroko only despaired further when Akashi handed him a very convincing body suit before homeroom began.
"My mother knows a few makeup artists," said Akashi, vaguely, as he pulled Kuroko into the third floor bathroom to supervise his further humiliation.
"I hope Ogata-sensei beats you again," said Kuroko.
"Please," Akashi scoffed, "he's not even a shogi professional. He plays go." He made go sound profane. Idly, Kuroko wondered if he sounded as scathing as Akashi did now whenever he had to say Aomine's name.
His classmates were no help whatsoever, clearly cowed into Akashi's will or enjoying the proceedings like vultures searching for easy prey. The last pregnancy story, they fed on for months, and no one ever really knew the junior's name. Adding the basketball team tag lent a lot to its credibility and infamy, which spoke volumes of their school's educational system.
When Kuroko got called in after class for a meeting with Kise's homeroom teacher, he despaired further.
"Kuroko Tetsuya, was it," said Mihara-sensei, clearly not buying the story completely, but too used to histrionics to offer more than a token protest at his students' antics.
"Yes," Kuroko intoned, yanking his hand away from Kise. At every imaginable opportunity, Kise kept reaching out to touch him in very uncomfortable places, more so than usual except this time Kuroko was living a terrible nightmare and couldn't seem to wake up. Somewhere in the next class, Aomine was laughing his ass off.
"Well," said Mihara-sensei. He fiddled with the records in his hand, carefully looking above Kuroko's chest level. "I can tell you that this is the strangest conference I've been in this month, and it isn't even time for parent-teacher ones."
"My mom kinda hates sensei," Kise confided, cheerfully. Kuroko looked hunted at that.
"I imagine that since you've managed to get a gi-- boy in the way, she wouldn't be too pleased with me either," said Mihara-sensei. "Why are you even in my class again?"
"Sensei's kinda like Midorima like that," said Kise. Kuroko tried to sink into his seat further. "Except he, uh, doesn't have a stick up his ass."
Mihara-sensei coughed, like he'd rather not hear anything about asses at the moment. Kuroko kind of didn't, too. From outside the faculty room, Kuroko heard what sounded suspiciously like Aomine and Murasakibara stifling their laughter in the hallway.
"Anyway," said Mihara-sensei, "I assume you've informed your parents of... your decision?"
Mihara-sensei spoke like he was having a difficult time comprehending Kise's train of thought, or his intellect. Kuroko knew that Kise was always somewhere in the 95th percentile, so he was at a loss as to why some aspects of life seemed to elude Kise, much like how Murasakibara was horrible at science and Aomine was just hopeless when it came to arts and crafts. If Kuroko felt his own sense of humiliation less keenly, he would have felt more for Mihara-sensei.
"Yeah," said Kise, shrugging. "They kinda balked at the idea of taking a trip to Europe at this season --"
"With impending exams," Mihara-sensei supplied, helpfully.
"-- so they agreed to wait until summer before we could get maried," Kise finished.
Something large and heavy fell outside the door. Kuroko hoped Aomine hit his head on Murasakibara's knee where the bone was sharp and sure to leave a bruise, if only to laugh at his pain later on. Kuroko never prayed, but he really wanted this to happen more than anything in the world right now, save falling into a pit just to escape.
"Oh my god," said Aomine, his furtive whisper rising in volume, "he's eating this shit up."
"What does he mean married," Momoi said, scratching at the locked door like a forlorn housepet seeking redress for grievances against its person. Mihara-sensei wisely chose to pretend he never heard anything beyond the confines of the room.
"You're fourteen years old," said Mihara-sensei, rubbing his forehead. "You can't get married yet."
"I can if I have parental consent, right," said Kise, hopefully.
"You don't have mine," said Kuroko, as meanly as he could.
Kise seemed to consider this for a moment, then said, with as much gravitas as he could, "Do you think your parents like Demel?"
"He's buttering the in-laws up with expensive things," said Aomine, "nice."
Kuroko was at a loss. On one hand, Kise was insane and shackling up with him was clearly a bad idea. On the other hand, he really liked their chocolates.
"Kise-kun," Mihara-sensei admonished, "you shouldn't make decisions so rashly! I can't believe you never asked Kuroko-kun what he thought about this."
"But we're in love," said Kise, wounded, like that fixed everything that was wrong with the situation. Kuroko didn't want to know what dramas he was watching. "Aren't we, Kurokocchi?"
Kuroko pretended not to hear him.
"Think of the tax deductions, Kise-kun," said Mihara-sensei, the voice of reason in Kuroko's bleak future. "Celebrities have married for less but I'm sure you'd rather be with someone more willing?"
"Sensei," said Kise, aghast at the insinuation that his feelings for Kuroko were more pragmatic in nature and involved his income rather than any parts of his body. Like his heart. Yes.
"Okay, okay," said Mihara-sensei, "fine. Just don't tell me I didn't warn you about the dangers of commitment borne from one night stands --" (Kise looked like he wanted to protest this, but Kuroko wisely shoved a hand over his mouth.) "-- then again, I'll just wish you luck when it comes to the formal meeting with Kuroko-kun's father." Then, to Kuroko, he asked, "Your father doesn't believe in castration, does he?"
"No," said Kuroko. He wished he did, though. He really, really wished he did.
"Don't worry about that, sensei," said Kise, confident in his own abilities as usual. Kuroko marveled at this sometimes, when he wasn't this intimately involved. "I'll be on my best behavior."
"Yes, because clearly your behavior landed you in this mess," Mihara-sensei sighed. "You can go now, you two."
"Thank you for the advice," Kuroko choked out.
"Oh," said Mihara-sensei, just as Kuroko was about to run away to safer waters, damn it, "I should probably tell you guys to practice safe sex, shouldn't I?"
"I don't see how that's possible," said Kuroko, then he shut his mouth as Mihara-sensei raised his gaze higher. Much higher up. "Er."
"For god's sake, Kise-kun, use a condom next time," said Mihara-sensei. He looked like he wanted to claw out his eyes. "Not that I'm encouraging underage sex! Augh."
"If it's any consolation, we were both drunk, I think," said Kise, like the only use for training camps was juvenile recklessness and debauchery.
"Just go," said Mihara-sensei, pained.
Kuroko didn't need to be told twice.
2.
When Kise said he would prostrate himself in front of Kuroko's parents, Kuroko didn't take him too seriously. He really should have, though.
Kuroko had only gone to the convenience store to pick up a much needed jar of ice cream and returned home to seeing his mother fawn over Kise and a stranger sipping tea on the couch. Kuroko calculated the distance between home and the nearest river he could throw himself in. Surely death was preferable by now.
"Kurokocchi," said Kise, brightening up when he caught sight of Kuroko, like his mere presence seemed to make everything better. It really didn't. "You're home!"
Kuroko stared at him.
"Tetsuya," said his mother, "I can't believe you never mentioned you had a handsome fiancé."
"I don't," said Kuroko.
"He's really shy about our relationship," said Kise.
"You have to be patient with him," said his mother. "My husband was like that too."
Kuroko stalked past them, intent on making his way to the freezer. Kise followed with the stranger in tow, introducing her as their wedding planner that came highly recommended from his modeling friends and did Kurokocchi prefer blue or pink as a theme? Did Kurokocchi want to move from last to first name basis given their impending nuptials? Was Kurokocchi alright, because his eyebrow was twitching dangerously...?
"This is getting ridiculous," said Kuroko, uncaring about Kise's bleeding heart. He pulled the ice cream out of his jacket, berating himself for even stuffing it inside automatically as soon as he'd spotted Kise's shoes. God damn it, Aomine. "Kise-kun, I'm not pregnant."
"Lilacs would be lovely, I think," said Kise, to the wedding planner. "It would look good against his complexion."
"Mother," said Kuroko, reeking of desperation. If she had any love for him at all, she'd kick Kise out of the house. If only.
"He's a good catch, Tetsuya," said his mother, dabbing at her eyes. "I'm so proud of you."
Kuroko locked himself in his room, intent on ignoring everyone for the rest of eternity. Nothing was safe anymore, and no one could be trusted. He'd have to move schools next year, if he wanted some semblance of peace. He really hated his life.
1.
It got worse.
"And of course this means you're sitting out matches for the next season," said Akashi.
"What," Kuroko said, strangled.
"You're due in a few months, Tetsuya," said Akashi, sympathetically. The bastard was enjoying this. "We can't possibly endanger your child."
Kuroko's eyes flashed, brightly, promising impending retribution. A joke at his expense, he could take. A joke that hindered the fulfillment of his life, he wouldn't stand for. "I'll endanger you --"
"Akashi-kun," said Kise, fervently, "you are the best captain ever."
Aomine wiped tears from his eyes, even as Kuroko was releasing his frustrations on Aomine's shoulder with his book bag. "More than you know," he said, and promptly fell to the floor in a writhing mess that Kuroko wanted to kick at.
"I could take you not bumping fists with me," Kuroko snarled out, "but you will not keep me benched."
"Kurokocchi," said Kise, frantic, "you shouldn't aggravate yourself, you'll upset the baby --"
"There is no baby," Kuroko yelled pathetically, barely rising above Aomine's own booming laughter. He really needed a loudspeaker, damn it. "I'M NOT PREGNANT."
"Oh no," said Aomine, adamant about protecting his interests -- he hadn't been this entertained since Teikou's last Christmas party, "Tetsu, you really shouldn't deny your feelings."
"This is getting painful to watch," said Midorima, ripping the wedding invitation Kise handed him earlier to shreds, if only to salvage a part of Kuroko's dignity. Sometimes it was hard to believe that Midorima was the nicest asshole in the room.
"Do you think they'll use fondant for the wedding cake," Murasakibara wondered aloud.
"I QUIT THE TEAM," Kuroko yelled, and let the gym doors slam on his way out.
"Poor Tetsuya," said Akashi, always the one that never knew when to give up a battle he couldn't win, "the pregnancy hormones must be getting to him."
"I hope you have a prenup," Aomine said, consoling, like the full blooded asshole that he was. "I can tell you really need it."
how it ended:
"And then Akashi told Kise I miscarried and was too depressed to continue playing, and Kise spent the weekend crying into Aomine's shoulder," Kuroko finished, unfeeling. He'd had a few months to stifle his raging emotions with distance and little contact. The same couldn't be said for Kise. It was easier to be desensitized about some things. "Aomine never forgave me for that, I think."
"You think," Kagami repeated, looking at him like he didn't wonder why Kuroko was so twisted. Now he knew.
"Can I spin the bottle now?" Kuroko asked the captain. Hyuuga just stared at him.
"Okay," said Riko, breaking the terse silence that followed, "we are never playing truth or dare again."
(1) Of this Akashi had nothing more to say; whether it was morally indefensible to allow the circulation of baked goods crafted personally by the basketball team's manager or not, Akashi would forever maintain that Momoi had no intent to kill whatsoever.
The guidance counselor would later recommend that Akashi be barred from jurisprudence forever. Perhaps it was better for the legal profession to have less of him in court.
All Aomine had to say about this was, "Damn it, Satsuki, you couldn't have let Murasakibara handle the damn brownies?"
(2) For the remaining year Aomine would make 'that's what she said' jokes at everyone's expense. Then he met Kagami and learned more about Western entertainment that rotted his vocabulary further. This would count as one of Kagami's many, many regrets concerning Aomine.