Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroko no Basuke or any of its characters.

"Hey dad, I'm back."

A man with brown hair and a gentle smile looked up from his newspaper. "Hey Taiga. How was your practice with Tatsuya?" He folded the newspaper and placed it aside, giving his son his undivided attention.

Kagami wiped some sweat from his forehead, giving the man sitting at the table a bright grin. "It was great! You wouldn't believe what moves we were pulling, dad! With Alex teaching us, we'll be pros in no time!"

The man chuckled and stood up. He went up to his son and fondly ruffled those red locks. "I'm sure you will Taiga. If you keep at it like this, there's no way you won't become a pro." He pulled his hand away and inspected it. He grimaced and wiped the sweat he had accidentally drenched his hand in on Kagami's shirt. Kagami gave an indignant squawk.

"Go shower, you stink."

Kagami stuck his tongue out before speeding out of there. "If you hurry, we can catch the game! I'l order some pizza!" The man yelled after him.

He heard a loud 'whoop!' before a door slammed closed and a shower started running. He shook his head in amusement and went ahead and ordered three large pizzas. He vaguely wondered when his son started being capable of eating two whole pizzas. 'At least Taiga keeps active,' he thought.

Almost two hours later, they found themselves turning in after watching an intense basketball match and splurging on pizza. Father and son went their separate ways, bidding each other goodnight.

Kagami yawned, tears appearing on the corners of his eyes, as he settled under his comforter. He shifted around until he was comfortable and finally settled in a few minutes later. He let his thoughts drift, absently thinking of basketball and how much he enjoyed it. A small smile appeared on his face when he thought back to the people who taught him the sport.

He wondered if he was going to see them soon, or if he had to wait until he grew up so that he could meet them in the future. It didn't really matter when, as long as he gets to see them again.

He gave one last yawn before finally drifting to sleep.

Kagami slowly came to awareness. He grunted, feeling uncomfortable. His clothing felt restrictive, his bed too small, and his room smelled like a mix of bleach and medicine for some reason. He contemplated ignoring all of this and simply going back to sleep again, but that thought was thrown out the window when he heard a voice he hadn't heard in ages.

"Kagami-kun?"

Kagami forcibly pulled himself out of the dredges of sleep. He snapped his eyes open and then they widened considerably once he caught sight of who had spoken to him. 'No way am I back here...'

"Kuroko?!" he exclaimed disbelievingly.

The person in question gave him a small smile, which, if he remembered correctly, was Kuroko's way of beaming. Looking around, he saw many familiar faces. Still a bit numb with shock, he didn't really register when every person at once started talking.

"Kagamin! Oh my god, are you okay?!"

"Stupid Bakagami, this is the second time you scare us like this! Do you wanna die? Huh?!"

"Coach please…"

"Mitobe look at him! He grew a bit more!"

"..."

"Kagamicchi you're alive!"

"Of course he's alive, idiot. We knew he would be coming back. Don't be so dramatic, nanodayo."

"Mou, you're so mean Midorimacchi…"

"Mido-chin isn't mean. He's saying the truth."

"You too Murasakibaracchi?!"

"Now now, let's hold off on the mean comments, okay?"

"Tch, Kiyoshi…"

"Enough. We're overwhelming Taiga." After Akashi spoke, everyone seemed to take notice of the uncharacteristic silence emanating from the usually fiery redhead.

Kagami finally snapped out of it after he felt the pressure of every pair of eyes focused on him. He shifted a bit, feeling uncomfortable with all the attention. He nervously scratched the back of his head before finally speaking again. "...hi?"

There was complete silence for a beat before some started chuckling quietly and others saying hi back to him. Momoi, Kise, Kiyoshi, and Coach greeted him with tight hugs. Kagami blushed a bit, embarrassed for saying something so brainless and for having all these people hug him. He felt a finger poke his cheek, right where you could see the reddening, and turned towards the owner of said finger.

He met Kuroko's light blue eyes. "Kagami-kun, I'm glad you're back."

Kagami grinned, finally feeling himself relax. "Yeah. It's nice to be back." The redhead kept on smiling at Kuroko until he felt a brooding presence to his left. Having not looked in that direction yet, Kagami finally turned to look at who was giving off such an unpleasant vibe.

Midnight blue hair is the first thing he noticed. Then came the darkly tanned skin, and from there glaring dark blue eyes. Kagami quirked an eyebrow at Aomine's intense stare. Feeling a bit devious, he smirked at him before cheekily saying, "What? You're not gonna hug me, are you?" Aomine's eyes widened before he scoffed, turning his head away from him.

"As if. I'll probably catch something. Who knows where you've been."

Kagami barked out laughter, feeling slightly offended but also kind of relieved. Everything was the way it used to be. Even Aomine and his horrid personality.

After a while, everyone seemed to calm down a bit. It wasn't long after that when the questions started.

"Kagami, how old are you?"

"I'm thirteen now."

"Wow Kagami, you've grown up so fast!"

"Yeah! It's almost like you were nine not even a day ago!"

"...shut up Koga."

"Wait, I remember where we're at now. This is the hospital I woke up in after getting beat up, right?"

The atmosphere seemed to sour right after Kagami said that. Kagami guiltily looked around, feeling bad for killing the mood. He forgot that for them, this had just happened. They weren't almost over it like Kagami was, who had years to look back to this day and somehow be okay with bringing it up.

Kagami readied himself to apologize. "Guys I'm-"

There was a knock on the door. "Hello?" Knock Knock. "This is nurse Yumi. I'm here to take a look at the patient."

There was a second where everyone seemed to panic. They couldn't let her in here, what would they say when she saw Kagami definitely wasn't the five year old that was put in here? No one could come up with an answer fast enough, leaving some people (most of Seirin and Kise) literally flailing around in a panic and running in circles.

"Hello? I'm coming in." Everyone froze their flailing, watching the door open as if in slow motion. The door opened agonizingly slow, almost making Kise faint from the suspense of it all. Finally, the door opened fully and everyone resigned themselves to the inevitable. They were doomed, there was no way out of this one.

"Um, excuse me? Where is the patient at?"

That got everyone's attention. Looking at the bed, they noticed a certain redhead was missing. When no one answered right away, the nurse turned to the person nearest to her and asked, "Well? Where is he?" That person happened to be Furihata, who tried stuttering out a believable lie.

"W-Well you s-see what happened i-is t-that, t-that umm, w-well…"

Thankfully, Akashi stepped in to save the day. "Excuse me, Yumi-san? Taiga went to the restroom."

The nurse looked at him suspiciously. "Oh yeah? You mean the restroom right here?" She pointed to an opened door adjacent to the bed, which showed an empty restroom. Akashi simply smiled benevolently, "Taiga didn't want to go to this restroom. He said he felt awkward going when there were so many people in this room that could hear him. He went to the one on the other side of this floor."

The nurse gave him one last suspicious look before seeming appeased. "Okay then, I'll be back in a few minutes." She turned on her heel and exited the room. When the door closed behind her, the room seemed to give a collective sigh of relief.

"Nice save there Akashicchi! I thought we were going to get caught for sure."

"It's no problem Ryouta. Now," he turned to the bed, "where's Taiga at?"

No one knew the answer to that question. "Maybe he's under the bed?" Fukuda suggested. Kuroko, who was next to the bed, checked under but found nothing.

"Where else could he have gone?" Riko asked.

Looking around the room, everyone's gazes seemed inexplicably drawn to the lone window in the room.

"Hey Hyuga, I could've sworn that window wasn't open before…"

Hyuga looked incredulous. "No way, he wouldn't…"

Everyone who was present for the second age transformation flashed back to Kagami ruthlessly punching his teammates in the gut. Aomine in particular flashed back to Kagami leading away three grown ass men from a ramen stand, to him launching himself off a stupid swing, and to the redhead readying himself to stupidly fight a group of older kids by himself.

"...he would." Aomine finished off.

Kuroko rushed to the window's edge and stuck his whole head out of it. Everyone else followed as well, trying to bunch up as much as possible in order to get a good look. What they saw made most of them pale in concern.

"Kagami you idiot! What do you think you're doing?!" yelled a scandalized Hyuga.

Kagami looked up at them. "Uh...hey guys."

"Don't you 'hey guys' us, Bakagami! Get up here right now! You could fall, you moron!"

Kagami looked down at the ground. It wasn't that high up. They were only on the second floor. Besides, it wasn't like he was going to slip. He had this under control.

Unfortunately, to the rest it looked like he was barely holding onto the ledge between the second and first floor. Kagami's legs were hanging uselessly while his arms were the only thing keeping him up. "Kagami-kun, please come back up here. You're going to get hurt."

Kagami looked up at Kuroko's concerned eyes. "But I'm fine! Look, let me just adjust my hold real quick…" Kagami then proceeded to recklessly twist around, no doubt increasing his chances of letting go of the ledge. "Kagamicchi! Please stop moving around so much! Just stay still and Murasakibaracchi will reach you!"

The girls, plus Kise, gave a small shriek when Kagami, heedless of their requests, let go of the ledge and safely landed on bush. He rolled out of it and shook off any leaves and twigs stuck to his clothes. Once done, he looked up at his friends and waved. "See? I told you guys I had it under control. Now come on down here, I think the nurse should be going to the room soon. Besides…"

Kagami turned to a small crowd of spectators that had gathered across the street. They were pointing at the window and their camera flashes were directed at Kagami himself.

"...I think we really need to get out of here."

Kuroko composed himself quickly. He'd lecture Kagami-kun later, right now they all needed to get out of here. "Let's go everyone, we need to leave as soon as possible." He started pushing people away from the window and leading them out the door.

He turned to look out the window. "Kagami-kun, please hide somewhere. We'll meet you down there soon." Kagami-kun gave him a thumbs up and scampered up a nearby by tree.

Turning away, he quickly ushered everyone else out the room and followed after them. Despite feeling like he almost passed out from having seen Kagami-kun drop like that, Kuroko couldn't help but feel just the slightest bit fond of his best friend's antics.

'I'm glad you're back Kagami-kun. It looks like you became a happier person.'

A/N: *peeks*...hey guys. Um, it's been awhile, huh? I am so sorry about that. I kinda lost motivation for this story a while ago. Then I got a job and life kinda took over so...yeah. I know these are all excuses but, well, yeah that's all I can offer. And this chapter. I can offer this chapter. Which, I know, is not long. Heck, it's way too short. But I feel like if I'm going to get back into this, I need to take it nice and easy.

So yeah, there's probably going to be two or three more short chapters before I'm back to my usual length of writing. Again, I'm really sorry for the extremely long wait. You guys had to wait so long for this piece of crap chapter. I know it isn't good, but I had to get this out of my system so that I could go back to easily writing this stuff out.

Thanks for waiting so long, I really appreciate you guys.