Published: October 17, 2012 (first draft - carabarks at tumblr)

Disclaimer: The miragen's take on Kuroko. Well, half of them anyway. Fk Tumblr for crashing before I could save - I lost almost four really long paragraphs. I had to rewrite it and it's definitely not as good as the first. As usual, this hasn't been proofread.

o3.

Aomine does not attend Kuroko's wake or funeral. Momoi worries and thinks he's a grief-stricken girl that refuses to believe what happened, and it pisses him off. He knows full well what's happened: Kuroko's dead. He's dead, and he's never going to come back.

A petty gathering of people who barely even know Kuroko to mourn for what they think is his life just wasn't his scene. Why can't Satsuki understand that? He might accidentally end up punching some asshole who thinks he's worthy enough to even be joining Kuroko's final farewell in the face. He especially won't be able to hold himself back if any of those idiots even think of mentioning basketball. More than half of them probably never even saw or noticedKuroko play, much less ever really played with him.

What's the point of having idiots gather around for a fucked up party anyway? It's not going to bring Kuroko back. He was hit by a car and died rather painfully according to the doctor, and those facts aren't going to change no matter how many people come together to pray.

Don't even get him started on the mourning. It's not going to do anyone any favors by feeling sorry. How could they lose something they never even had in the first place?

Kuroko, too, would rather just forego his own funeral just as he had avoided the wake. There was something incredibly unsettling about watching the whole thing unfold. However, he felt that he owed it to his friends and family to listen to their last words. He needed the reminder anyway; some days he's come to wish and pretend and even believe that this was all just a sick dream.

It was deathly depressing (Izuki-senpai would be proud of that pun). Hearing them recall his life to each other was so strange. They didn't say anything he didn't already know, but it's incredibly eerie hearing others spill their thoughts and stories about him with so much unbridled honesty. At least this time he didn't have to worry about responding to compliments this time.

It hurt to see his parents burn the incense, holding back tears. They'd put so much faith into him.

"Who cares if some kids don't notice you? Now it's easy for you to tell who your real friends are. These are the people that will see you," they told cheered him on, believed in him even before Aomine did, and he let them down. These are the kind of thoughts that now haunt him, propelled by Aomine's voice in his head that echoes of broken promises and failed obligations.

His former team sat close behind his family, in a place where other relatives would have occupied. He's sure Akashi had something to do with that. Kise is banned from saying anything to anyone during the whole ceremony and compensates by wearing a bunch of prayer beads and a thick envelope of condolence money. He only looks slightly less ridiculous than Midorima who brings a large yellow rubber duck and a badminton racket and a broom (Cancer and Aquarius' lucky items respectively) as well as prayer beads. Murasakibara, oddly enough, is not holding anything. Akashi had banned him from bringing food.

Seirin's team was there as well. Apparently, Kagami heard Aomine's ramblings before and made it a point to announce to the world at large when it was his turn to offer incense that he did not blame Kuroko for dying — as if Kuroko had a choice in the matter — magnanimously forgave Kuroko for breaking his promise. "I'm even more motivated to be the best now. I'll work twice as hard because you're no longer there to back me up. I'll beat them — for you and for me."

Hyuuga's palm meets his face as the Kagami drew disapproving looks from the monks. Aida whacks Kagami when he gets back to his seat.

The cremation ceremony goes just as well. Kuroko avoided it like the plague, and waited for everyone at the waiting area where food would be served. Conversation was as short and stilted as anyone would expect, at least until Momoi cleared her throat and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper.

"I'm not very good with words, never had the command for it unlike Tetsu. Most people didn't know that about him, because he was just... just so easy to overlook," she says softly, at first to the Generation of Miracles gathered around her, but then to the Seirin team and odd classmate and relative who were drawn to her.

"Not a lot of people knew him at all, and it's their loss. They never got to meet the great person I knew him to be. Call me selfish, but I'm kind of glad he wasn't popular. It felt nice being one of the few people who knew him. Made me feel special, y'know? Barely anyone could recall him in their memories, but he was a permanent fixture mine.

"People falsely assume Tetsu to be silent, passive and — oh this one cracks me up — innocent. Technically, he is pretty silent. But that's mostly because no one ever strikes a conversation with him. If they ever had, they would've realized he had a whole lot of opinions and ideas going around that little head of his. They would've eventually realize that quite a lot of ideas involved mischief. Tetsu's practically Akashi's spawn."

A couple of people chuckle, and by then she's talking to the room at large. Her voice never gets louder, but conversation around her trickles into nothing.

"When I first met him, I thought he was a ghost. There was a rumor going around that the fourth gym was haunted at night. Turns out, it was only Tetsu practicing late into the evening, long after everyone left. Moved by his passion and dedication to getting better, I began to join him for late-night practice. That's how Akashi and the rest eventually found us. He became a regular with our help, and it was the biggest mistake of my life. If I had just left the rumors well enough alone, I wouldn't have met him, wouldn't have introduced him to Akashi, and I would've never become the light to his shadow."

Kagami's mouth is pressed into a thin line, and Kise has disappeared.

"My middle school years wouldn't have been as crappy as it was, because I wouldn't have known what it feels like to be abandoned by my best friend. The things that were routine to us became an ever grating reminder that he gave up on me. This is the second time he's left without saying goodbye. Who does he think he is? He doesn't have the right to just remove himself from our lives after he already insinuated himself there. He's not actually some phantom that can appear and disappear whenever he feels like it."

Something is stuck in Kuroko's throat. He wants to vomit. He wants to shut his ears and disappear as Kise had done, but his feet stayed firmly in place.

"You know what? I'm glad he's gone. Now I don't have to worry about being hurt anymore. Alive, all this resentment and bitterness would only keep growing, and who knows what shit I'd do with this ticking bomb in me. There's only so much of his bullshit I can take. Make basketball fun again? What a load of crap.

"For such an underwhelming person, Kuroko Tetsuya leaves craters behind." Momoi releases the shaky breath she didn't realize she was holding, lets her tears flow and leaves the crowd staring after her.

-:-

Outside, she joins Kise where he's leaning against one of the temple gates. "Is that okay?" Kise says to her when she settles against the opposite pillar.

Momoi wipes the tears off her face with her sleeve and says, "He wouldn't come to the wake. Doesn't want anything to do with the ceremonies, so I had to make him do something. I'm surprised he took me seriously and actually wrote his feelings down. I found it in his bag. He probably doesn't know I did this. Even if he doesn't forgive me for this, he'll hate himself later for not saying anything."

"I meant, not getting to say your own words," he amends.

"Some last words are bigger, more important, and more deserving than others," she says. Kise could feel the melancholy in her voice and does not bother to hide his disbelief.

"He said all the things I could have said, and more, with more feelings and love put to it than I could have ever managed," she explains, smiling. "Tetsu-kun needed to hear what he had to say and he needed Tetsu-kun to hear what he had to say."

Kise scoffs and walks over to her to pat her head. "He should have come here and said it himself, then."

Momoi's smile turns rueful. "Yeah, he should have. But we both know he's a coward, especially when it comes to Tetsu-kun." She lets Kise pull her closer and rests her head on his shoulder. "Besides, Tetsu-kun would've known right away whose words those were."

"You shouldn't still be encouraging their stupid love-affair," he says. "He's... he's gone now, Momoicchi. Aominecchi... he needs to move on."

"I know that," she replies. She says it again, more softly this time. "I know that, but he needs to get over him first. He needs to mourn, and he won't do that because being the idiot that he is, he doesn't think it's his place. To him, he had nothing to lose in the first place because Tetsu-kun stopped being his a long time ago."

Kise lets out a mirthless chuckle. "Yeah, they really are idiots, the pair of them. Kurokocchi for leaving him hanging like that, mostly."

A/N: No, I don't ship Momoi x Kise. I ship Momoi x Kagami and Momoi x Touou coach and once he gets name, I'm going to write them a fic. :| Anyways, basically, I'm stuck now. This was where I stopped when I decided to chop the one shot down to chapters. Whatever I write next will be based on the reviews.

Edit: (10/28/18) I know nothing of Japanese funeral arrangements, but I tried my best this time around. Also, scratch the above, I ship Momoi with Kise, Kagami, Harasawa and generally everyone now except Aomine, but Kise and Momoi are strictly platonic here. They're just the two people who are close to both Aomine and Kuroko.