Kuroko looks up at the looming figure of Aomine Daiki and can't help but feel crushed underneath a weight that is not all too unfamiliar. He feels the guilt, self-loathing and sadness move underneath his skin, following his veins, flowing in them - looking for a way out, escape, absolution - and staggers into another figure whose presence surrounds him and lifts a little of the pressure from his shoulders. He feels Kagami looking down at him, but he can't look away from dark - so dark, he was drowning, help - eyes of his - friend, partner, light- opposition and can feel his nails bite into skin, drops of blood forming.

He looks away, stubbornness setting in and resolution forming.

Kuroko doesn't have many friends, doesn't have anyone who actually sees him and he is used to it - thick skin, transparent, ghostly - and only some days would feel like he was knocking on a door that no one else could see. Then one day a person knocked back and opened that door, even if it was only centimeters and his world seemed so much more aware of him from there and Ogiwara passed him a ball and said - meet me there, the place where we belong - and all seemed good when he had that ball in his hand. He is terrible at it, Kuroko realizes not too soon, but the sore muscles and ringing laughter makes him - he wasn't a window, he existed - feel alive.

He starts middle school soon after that, more comfortable in his skin - still pale, but not transparent, strong - than he had been in a long time. Ogiwara promises to meet him often enough and that is enough for the boy who has never had anyone. That ball still fit so well into his hand and he joined the club as soon as possible.

But he tries hard - so hard, he could feel the blood and and tears and it hurt - and it still isn't enough. He can feel the cracks forming on his skin - small, so incredibly thin, but there - and ignores them the best he can and tries harder. He sets his eyes - so blue, as blue as the never ending sky - against the horizon, to see what lays ahead.

That's when he meets Aomine Daiki.

Of course he had seen the boy before, just never expected the - raging tornado, furious wind - ace player to take an interest in him. Kuroko doesn't know what attracts the boy to him, but he was thankful, thankful for a friendship that brought him to the forefront, brought him before the emperor's eyes, brought him even a little bit more into the sun. Aomine is the glue fixing the little hairline cracks in his pale transparent armor. Kuroko looks at his hands, imagining pale shimmering marks where he had started to lose pieces of himself. And then he knows that when he looks up, he would see the boy with the sun in eyes and the wind in his hair and the world in his smile. And he knows that he would be happy as long as he has that boy beside him. He looks forward, confident with the presence beside him.

They become older rapidly though and it shows in their games, their relationship, their friendship. Kuroko knows that when Aomine looks at him with that small languid smirk - god he wanted those lips against his, feel those hands against his scarred skin - and teasingly runs a hand through his hair - dangerous, predator, run - that he would freeze with even one touch. His icy skins seems clammy to him and the dark skin against him freezes him to the core, wanting to remain in that moment of eternity.

He feels his skin crumbling, he feels his wall breaking away.

He feels himself become fragile.

It shouldn't have surprised him then, when one action, one sentence, one person takes it all away.

I can't remember what it feels like to receive your passes anymore. The look of despair in his eyes as he said it.

They were letting us score...? The look of despair in his eyes as he said it.

Kuroko feels his skin crack.

He sits at home, counting them, seeing them fill up with tears. He sees what lies beneath and tries to catch whatever dreams and hopes fall out. He desperately tries to fix himself and fails, he remains broken.

After that, Kuroko disappears.

He doesn't come to class, doesn't play basketball. The ball that once fit into his hand so naturally, doesn't fit anymore. I don't want it.

A shadow enters Seirin High and in the spur of the moment, signs up for the same club that had shattered him before. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't stay away and wasn't sure if he wanted to - he remembers what they were before victory became everything, the feeling of the ball thudding against his hand - and sees - a tiger, a thunderstorm - a man heading towards him. He passes by with not even a look towards the shadow and he doesn't know if he is happy about it or not.

The shadow soon meets wildness personified and can finally set his middle school behind him. And so the shadow becomes Kuroko Tetsuya once again.

Everything is so different from Teikou, Kuroko could laugh and cry at the same time.

This is what it is supposed to be like?

This is what a game should look like?

I can be myself?

Blue eyes - crying, made of steel, determined - set themselves forward once again. So what if he is broken, so what if his skin crumbles at the smallest touch, so what if he is made of glass? Kuroko puts himself together piece by piece, hard work and patience filling the gaps. He looks down at his skin and clearly sees all his faults laid down before him and he smiles.

He smiles because he knows what happened in the past has made him what he is now, influenced what he will be. He smiles because he knows his skin is made of memories and because he has remade himself.

But the moment he sees the Aomine Daiki of old reflected in Kagami Taiga's eyes, his world shudders for a moment. Kuroko sees red eyes following him intently - sees the passion, sees the fire - and stumbles.

He stumbles every time he notices Kagami tracking his movements.

He stumbles every time he catches himself leaning in towards Kagami.

He stumbles for the last time when Kagami takes him in one night and falls into a dance - skin on skin, blue and red clash so beautifully - of passion and intimacy and everything feels right again when Kagami tracks those silvery trails crawling over his skin like creeping vines. Kuroko marvels at the wild tiger lying next to him, marvels at how red hair glides through his fingers. He marvels and feels, but a flash of dark blue eyes - blue compliments blue, cold hands tangled in his hair - makes him tighten his eyes and his heart for a moment. His mind and heart clash, forming a crescendo of feelings that rushes through his head, hearing the pounding of a heart too sore to properly let go but too hopeful to not.

The next morning, Kagami looks to the pale blizzard made human and finds him gazing through the window, at the far off distance, wishing for something that was and can never be again. Kuroko takes one last deep breath and looks down unto the tame tiger and smiles.

Kuroko knows when to leave the past behind, treasure the present and remake the future. He knows it's the one place everything can still change.

And it's definitely not a shadow that leaves Seirin High.