MiRACLE (KnB Fanfic)

3.

Aisaka Hiroto spends the rest of his elementary years home-schooled.

"Going for a jog, Hiroto?" his father asks from his spot on the dining table, nursing his mug of coffee.

Hiroto, dressed in a light tank top and sweatpants, nods with a hum. Crouching down to tie his shoelaces, the boy bids a quick bye to his father before setting a steady pace out the door.

Over the months of daily exercise, the boy began to sport a peachy tan over his skin. He was beginning to look more fit than his father himself was, and sometimes the man wondered where his son inherited that sporty discipline.

Hiroto rounds the route toward a shopping mall, and takes a detour on his route to pass through the streetball court. It's a little before classes begin, so Hiroto isn't surprised to find it in use.

He's surprised to see hair that shade of blue.

A boy that couldn't be much older than himself (though yeah he's pretty short) was dribbling a basketball across the court. Another boy, brown-haired, grins widely as he shifts his limbs broad across the field, stopping his opponent in his tracks.

Hiroto's caught staring before he really realizes he was doing it himself.

"Can we help you?"

The boy's speaking to him. The boy's speaking to him! Hiroto flinches away from the fence with a little squeak, and the words are caught in his throat.

"Sorry for startling you!" the brown-haired one panics, then slings an arm around the blue-haired boy's shoulders, "c'mon, Kuroko, don't do that."

"I wasn't doing anything."

"Yes you were."

Hiroto shys away hesitantly, standing still as he tries to remember how conversations went.

"I," this was his first attempt at speaking to another human that wasn't his father (or mother) for years , both this life and past lives. Even referring to himself with a personal pronoun felt weird.

"I, I just saw you two... playing. Basketball, I uh, was just passing by-- and, and yeah, I was a little... uh, uhm, a little interested," he admits weakly, unable to even meet people in the eye, the discomfort too great in that gesture, "...sorry to interrupt."

That was pathetic. What was that ridiculous excuse of a conversation? Has your famed eloquence really fallen this far, Hiroto? You weren't like this with your dad! Get a grip, you weakling!

Okay I'm sorry you're not a weakling why are you crying excuse me you can't possibly be hurt by your own train of thought--

"Look what you did, Kuroko, you freaked him out."

"It's my fault?"

The lighter-haired boy, called Kuroko apparently, pouts, unaccepting, but maybe a little guilty nonetheless. He palms the basketball in his hand, then turns to the indigo-haired boy.

"Hey, do you play too?"

Hiroto nods quickly, "can I-" he falters, stopping his thought. Maybe he wanted to join their game, but would that be intruding? Even back then, joining a stranger's basketball game was a strange thing to do. Would they think he was weird?

"Wanna play together?" the brown-haired boy cuts in his thought with a grin, "the more the merrier, right? C'mon, we've got about ten before we'll have to run for class."