WARNING: Or lack thereof, since there's no actual gory blood scenes, but brief mentions of blood loss, and its aftereffects.

DISCLAIMER: Kuroko no Basuke i.e. The Basketball Which Kuroko Plays is produced by Production I.G. and based on the manga of the same name written and illustrated by Tadatoshi Fujimaki.

A/N: Slight AU because it goes against some aspects of the Teiko era storyline because I'm stubborn about my headcanons. :3 I started this fic before I read the manga, so I'll be continuing to follow characterizations and plot lines I've already formed.

~Flowers and fruit baskets to C & A for emergency beta-ing as friendly friends who friend, since I lack an actual beta :'(

The first time Seijuurou has a nosebleed in front of his team, their reactions were exactly as he foresaw them to be.

Ryouta fumbled to dial 119*. Shintarou listed a flurry of increasingly deadly medical conditions, which only fueled Ryouta's panicked blabberings to the paramedics at his ear. Daiki laughs and makes an offhand remark about short skirts and Akashi's emperor eye. Atsushi offers him a half-eaten Umaibo** and Tetsuya's conveniently invisible.

Seijuurou handles it as he handles everything; gracefully, with dignity and all on his own. There hadn't been a single drop of blood in sight when the rest of the first string panted their way in.

Shintarou brings it up that same afternoon, as they play shogi, in perfect accordance to Seijuurou's forecast. It was rather disappointing how predictable Shintarou had become lately.

"Have you heard of Acute Myeloid Leukemia?"

"As fascinating as it may be, Shintarou, I'm not sure I want to, given the current context" Seijuuro murmured, seeing 7, 38, 96 moves into the future with each blink.

Shintarou struggled to compose a believable expression of misunderstanding, fiddling with the tape around his fingers with unusual vigour.

"Did you know that nosebleeds are also a common symptom of blood cancer?"

"Fever, chills persistent fatigue, weakness, frequent severe infections, weight loss, swollen lymph nodes, enlarged liver or spleen…" Seijuurou lifts his king to capture Shintarou's lance in the wooden battlefield "…are also common symptoms of blood cancer, and all that I lack, in case I'm not making my point clear"

"Leukemia symptoms vary, depending on the type of leukemia" Shintarou grumbled out the text off his father's medical journals.

"Shintarou" Seijuurou brought the captured lance back into the battle and turned it against his shooting guard, his words and actions final. "I do not have cancer. Now shall we begin round two?"

It wasn't a question, and Seijuurou started arranging the board before Shintarou nodded his affirmation. Akashi tried to hold back shivering through willpower alone since his pride wouldn't let him admit that his nosebleeds usually had longer lasting effects. The chill, while uncomfortable, wasn't exactly life threatening.

Silence descended while they got the game ready. Towards the end the sides of their palms slid over each other and Shintarou froze, as if he was the one freezing and not Seijuurou.

"It's cold" Shintarou says, in the same tone of voice he used when he politely declined to call Seijuurou by his given name. "Your hand" He specified unnecessarily.

"I'm aware" Really, it was impossible for him not to be.

They silently return the shogi board to its starting point. Seijuurou has just decided to change his strategy just to make things interesting, when Shintarou cut through his precious thought process again.

"As a Sagittarius, you should have your lucky item for today, a carrot, with you. Your lucky number is 6, your lucky colour is…."

Seijuurou pinches the bridge of his nose and silently curses Oha Asa.

Daiki simply asked him to share.

"I beg your pardon?" Seijuurou decided feigning ignorance was the best choice for this particular route. He often turned a blind eyes to certain traits his ideal teammates would not have, case in point, Daiki's pervertions.

"Look Akashi, I'm the last person to judge you for whatever you're into" he waggled his eyebrows suggestively and if Seijuurou was not at the peak of self-control he would have gagged in disgust of what Daiki was implying.

"Daiki, please go back to undermining my authority and sulking on the odd rooftop ledge. I sincerely hope your chances of falling off increase significantly; it would save everyone a lot of future grief"

When it happened again, it was in front of Ryouta, and no one else was there to stop him from calling emergency services. Which made it all the more disconcerting for Seijuurou when he woke up, his head cushioned by Ryouta's legs, both their uniforms and the gym floor splattered with blood and Ryouta's face so very, very pale.

"Ryouta, calm….down"

"Akashichi! You're alive!"

"Was there ever any doubt about that?" Seijuurou mentally calculated the percentage possibility of him making it to his feet within the next 10 minutes. It was in the low 90s.

"Well, they called time of death 3 minutes ago" Ryouta looked over his shoulder, and Seijuurou had to take a moment to make sure he was not suffering from the effects of a concussion. To say the first string gym was about the size of Atsushi's appetite was a near exaggeration (Atsushi's sweet tooth far outmatched any gym in the country. Said gym was filled to the brim of with EMTs from at least 6 different hospitals (2 of them being nowhere near the Tokyo region) and that would've been enough for him to question his vision, but there were also firemen, policemen and even a couple of hazmats dragging along bomb disposal equipment.

"Exactly how many emergency services did you call?" Seijuurou murmured, wondering at the surprising lack of chills at his blood loss, until he realize it was Ryouta's jacket draped was over his form, morbidly reminiscent to the treatment a corpse might receive, but still warm.

"All…of them?

Seijuurou closed his eyes and reminded himself of Ryouta's potential unbridled talent for the hundredth time since he had been made a regular, and resisted wasting his dwindling strength to strangle him. Instead, he braced his palms and willed himself to push his upper body up.

"Wait just a-wait Akashichi! You shouldn't be getting up in your condition-!"

"What condition?" Seijuurou casually flicked dried blood off his upper lip.

"What condi-THAT! That right there! How can you-!?"

"Are you questioning me, Ryouta?" Seijuurou turned his heterochromatic glare momentarily away from the emergency service crew frozen in various states of terror, and on to the blonde.

Ryouta froze too, is arms flopping by his sides uselessly as Seijuurou stood up draping Ryouta's jersey over his shoulders for dramatic, and dare he say; emperor-like, effect.

"There's only so much blood the floor can handle" Ryouta ended up muttering, and Seijuurou considered not psychologically terrorizing the emergency service into bloody submission, but Ryouta's pale and drawn face would no doubt haunt his conscience for a long time to come.

Someone had to pay for the waste of valuable space in his memory banks better spent on shogi tactics after all.

"This…is an intervention!" Kise announced dramatically.

"Yeah!" Aomine seconded enthusiastically, even though he seemed to be still more than a little confused about what exactly the intervention was for.

Seijuurou would've been touched if he hadn't given up on sentiment a good 9 years ago, and if Kise and Aomine hadn't been otherwise engaged in the middle of a very vicious (and very one-sided) basketball match in the middle of their passionate declarations.

Shintarou stood at the other end of the court, seemingly practicing his shooting, but Seijuurou could tell by his form that he was paying attention. Public interventions were not Shintarou's style. He preferred to privately ambush his victims with his vast medical and horoscopic knowledge, as was proven.

"There's a second string practice match that I wish to be present at in 5 minutes, so please use your words as efficiently as your competence allows" Seijuurou's tone made it clear just how low of an opinion he had of their individual competence levels.

This was proven without any lingering doubt when they took a minute to explain what Seijuurou already knew, and another minute to explain their equally if not more unnecessary reasoning for their level of care and a full three minutes on the one on one.

Shintarou had started aiming his three pointers at their heads by the end of it. Somehow or other, it turned into a two on two basketball game.

So, in short, Seijuurou found himself late for the meeting anyway.

Atsushi was certainly an odd one, a different kind of odd from Shintarou's eccentrics and Ryouta's hyperactivity, Daiki's depression, and whatever it is that Kuroko had that cannot even be defined under normal levels of abnormality.

But Atsushi was a loyal comrade, at least loyal enough under the bribery of sweets, and too lazy to argue back over orders he didn't like. His height was a minor cause of irritation, but not really that much of an issue since he (along with the rest of the Teiko basketball club) knew better than to loom over Seijuurou. Mostly through trial and error, of course.

"Aka-chin you're all red"

Seijuurou wondered if Atsushi had been referring to his hair or name, before feeling liquid drip down his nose and onto his collar, which upon further inspection had already been ruined for a while now. This explains why the peasants in his path had scattered unusually quickly today.

"Does it taste good?" And before Seijuurou could react, Atsushi had leaned forward, tongue stretched out and licked at the tip of Seijuurou's nose.

"Mmm…salty" He pouted at Seijuurou, as if he should be in control of what his bodily fluids should taste like "I thought it'd taste of cherries"

Seijuurou considered many things, and finally decided on what to say.

"Atsushi, please don't lick me again"

"Okay, Aka-chin" He agreed readily enough for a socially incompetent titan, and sauntered away, sticking his tongue out in the sun as if to burn the taste away.

Seijuurou only wished it was that simple to chase away the coppery scent that has followed him his entire life.

TBC~

*119 is the Japanese vesion of 911

**Umaibo is Mukkun's favorite snack!

A/N: This fic is in 3 parts for absolutely no reason other than it seemed too messy as one large one. I'll post the second part as soon as I get the kinks worked out.

ps: if you're wondering where Kuroko is in this chapter, don't worry, he has quite the leading role in the next two

And reviews are desperately needed-*coughs* I mean, truly appreciated, so please feel free to leave a word or two (preferably more!) telling me what you think~! :D