#i mean its Not midotaka but it is. hes doing it all for midorima.

[tetsucchin]

Of Something Old and Something Blue - Chapter Two

Summary: Kagami doesn’t want to get married. Let alone to a corpse that won’t stay dead. But sometimes weddings don’t go the way people want, and sometimes there are grave misunderstandings.

Rating: T for terrifying creepy crawlies

Chapter: 2/5

Word Count: 3500+

Pairings: KagaKuro (brief mentions of MidoTaka/AoMomo/HyuuRiko later)

A/N: Happy Halloween, everybody!! I was actually going to have a bit more to this, but I thought that might be overload for one chapter. Good news for that though! I should have the next chapter out tomorrow or the next day, since it’s mostly written already. Thank you guys for reading, you’re the best. <3

AO3

“Are you sure he’s alright, Midorima-kun?”

Kagami was swimming. His head was fuzzy, somewhere neither here nor there, and unable to focus. There were so many voices around him, blending together into a cacophony of sound. Except one voice stood out, gentle and soft, and Kagami latched onto it.

“He’s fine. He’ll come around soon.”

“He’s a breather? Why didn’t you say so, Kurokocchi?”

“Leave it to Tetsu to bring a breather. This should be good.”

“Please be quiet, Aomine-kun,” the same gentle voice said. “I think he’s waking up.”

He tried to crack his eyes open, even though his body didn’t want to cooperate. His vision was bleary, just smears of colors and shapeless faces. The first thing he saw was blue hovering over him. So much blue that he felt like he was drowning and resuscitating at the same time.

His gaze shifted away to the other person above him. And all he saw was yellow. Golden eyes that matched blonde hair, framed neatly into a fine suit of pinstripes and silk ties. A sunshine smile sat against the rotting color of his skin.

Kagami’s eyes snapped open as a scream lodged in his throat.

He was blinded by the color that exploded across his irises—neon greens, luminescent purples, startling reds. Later, he’d realize it was a bar, with kaleidoscopic bottles and crooked stools. In the back of his mind, he thought it was incredible compared to his greyscale life.

But at the time, all he could focus on was the patrons.

The very dead patrons.

A rainbow of skeletons and dead bodies surrounded him, missing limbs and eyes and even heads entirely. Their skeletal grins met his terrified stare, greeting him as if he were an old friend visiting. Between the spiders crawling up the walls, the roaches at home on the tables, and the cadavers looking at him, Kagami’s spine was little more than a jelly rod.

“Hello!” the yellow-eyed corpse chimed, all cheerful and decaying daisies. “Welcome to our bar!”

Adrenaline and terror shot down to Kagami’s first, sending it hurtling towards the man’s face. He barely dodged out of the way with a shriek. Grabbing hold of the blue-eyed corpse, he hid behind him with a pout.

“Kurokocchi! You brought a crazy one!”

“He’s not crazy, Kise-kun. He’s in shock.”

“Where the hell am I?!” His voice echoed, but it was still drowned by the chatter and music.

“I told you, you’re in our bar!” His yellow eyes widened in understanding. “Oh! But for you, I guess it’s more like an underworld. We’re all dead!” His voice suddenly wilted, “Even though I used to not be dead.”

Kagami blanched. “I’m dead?!”

The other figure—the corpse from before, his mind unhelpfully supplied—moved to knock the yellow-eyed man in the ribs, producing an unsettling arrangement of xylophone cracks. “Not now, Kise-kun.”

Then those blue eyes were on him again, and his hands started shaking. He wasn’t sure if it was out of fear or fascination. Either way, he was just as trapped in that unblinking gaze as he had been in the forest.

“Please calm down. You’re not dead. I brought you here.” He was calm and composed, his palm held out to Kagami. His voice was light, feathery around the syllables, and soothing, like water to a burn.

But that didn’t stop Kagami from nearly shrieking when he saw the hand held out to him was all bone.

“Why would you bring me here?!” He punctuated each word with a backwards scoot across squeaky floorboards.

“Well,” the corpse said, as if it were obvious. “A corpse certainly can’t carry a body into town. People would talk.”

“I told you he would freak, Tetsu. They always do.”

He snapped around towards the bar, where dark-skinned man with navy eyes scowled at him. The man looked normal enough, or at least his skin was a normal color and he wore some type of officer’s uniform instead of a suit. But when he knocked back his drink of choice, it started to leak out of pinholes on the front of his shirt, like a balloon poked with needles.

It was too much. It was really, really too much.

Quick thinking had never been Kagami’s strong suit, but instinct was. So he scrambled off the ground and reached for the first object that could be used as a weapon. His hand wrapped around what could be the hilt of a sword, ready to bash anybody’s head in.

“Get back! Right now! I have—” He jerked to bring the handle forward, only for it to barely budge.

Confused, he turned to look, and realized it was indeed a sword. A sword that was attached to a person. Through a person.

He almost screamed again. But he had to make do with what he had. Fight or flight.

“I, uh… I have this dwarf! I’ll use him!” Kagami cried, yanking the sword harder so the redhead attached moved with it. He started to consider picking the shorter up and just tossing him at the crowd, when his red hair began to swivel. A heterochromatic set of red and gold eyes craned completely backwards to glare at him, the intent to kill pouring from him.

“You will release me. Now.”

Another strangled screech left his throat as he dropped the sword, backing away as quickly as he could. He tried to back up until he hit a door, then keep backing up until he ended up somewhere that made sense. Unfortunately, all he managed to do was bump into someone—something—else.

He turned, and his gaze went up and up and up, staring at what had to be a giant with purple hair. Purple hair and an incredibly large knife stuck in his head, blade and handle jutting out from his temple. The giant leaned towards Kagami with a plate of what he would say were pastries, if pastries came with centipedes sprinkled on them.

“Kuro-chin,” he drawled, “your husband is trying to leave.”

“H-h-husband?!” Kagami immediately backed the other way.

“He’s not my husband, Murasakibara-kun,” the corpse interjected. “We haven’t gotten to know each other yet.”

Jaw dropping, he barked to the pale blue figure. “What do you mean yet?!”

Suddenly, a clang of piano keys rang out, as if someone slammed their hands down all at once. Kagami thought the music had been coming from a record player, but it was with the sound he realized it came from a grand piano in the corner of the room. It was occupied by a man with skin the color of sickness, as he peered over the top of his music sheet with a scowl.

“Kuroko,” he said, pushing up his cracked glasses with a bandaged hand, “could you silence him? He’s as loud as Kise when he first arrived.”

“I wasn’t that bad!” the yellow man protested.

“You cried for a week about how you were too young to die.”

“I was too young to die!”

“He’s adjusting, Midorima-kun,” the blue corpse bowed in apology. “It’s normal for the living to yell during this, I believe.”

“Forgive me, sir!” someone interrupted from beside Kagami. When he turned to look, he felt all the blood rush from his face, his head reeling.

A head. It was just a head, carried on a platter by a headless body.

“You must be terribly thirsty!” it continued. “Can I get you anything? I am the head waiter around here.”

No. No, no, no. Fuck this.

Kagami had seen enough. He had heard enough. He was ready to leave. Now.

So he ran. His feet took off towards the nearest door, all but ripping it off its hinges as he tore into the street.

The last thing he heard was the gentle voice of blue eyes again, saying, “Izuki-senpai, your bad joke scared him off.”

Once outside, he thought that everything would turn back to normal. He’d step back through whatever hallucinatory portal he’d come through, and wake back up in his bed where his biggest concern was some dumb wedding. That was not going to happen, not after all this.

But nothing was ever that easy.

Instead, he was in the middle of a dilapidated town of dynamic polychrome. Each building was a different color, crooked and slanting in ways that defied physics, and yet had creatures entering and leaving. Everything looked so different, but it all looked the same to him. The decaying signposts covered in spider webs didn’t help either, as they pointed places with creepy names Kagami was sure he didn’t want to visit.

He picked a random cobblestone road and took off, dodging ghost carriages and skeleton horses. He didn’t bother to look back, and didn’t even bother to look where he was running, just so long as it was the opposite direction of the bar.

Which made him bump into someone.

“Sorry!” he yelled out of reflex.

The man looked normal. His eyes were closed shut, but there was no rotting skin, no weapons poking out of his body. Just an average looking guy on his average way like he was in an average town.

Until the man tipped his whole head to the side, a sliver of skin the only thing keeping it attached.

“It’s alright! Are you lost? Can I help you?”

Kagami grit his teeth against another scream, and took off running without saying another word.

He ran and ran, but no matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t escape this upside-down world. He came across three corpses on a street corner—two with brown hair and one bald—playing instruments in a cheerful beat. It took quite a leap for him to make it over their cello made of bones. Then there was a couple, a small girl and a guy with bent glasses on his nose, who were admiring coffins. When he avoided them, he ended up knocking over several caskets and apologized on instinct again.

Eventually, when his breath grew heavy, he came to a set of stairs. If this wasn’t a dream, and he really was in hell, then going up would be the best way out, right? He bounded up the stairs, taking three or four at a time. He was almost there, breaching the top, where home would be another step closer.

When the blue corpse appeared out of nowhere, like he’d been waiting there the whole time.

Kagami tried to do an about-face and run back down, only for his feet to skid on the steps. His arms pin wheeled as he tried to catch himself, but he could already feel himself start plunging. Gravity clawed at him, dragging him back into the depths of hell.

He was going to die. He was going to die, and wake up in the same damn place.

A hand of bones reached out and snatched the lapels of his suit, leaving him parallel to the ground. Another hand as cold as death grabbed his wrist. With a grip stronger than he expected from the dead, he was hauled back up onto solid ground.

As soon as he was on both feet, the corpse huffed out a huge breath, bending over to rest his hands on his knees. “Please be more careful. I’m not very strong and we may both end up at the bottom next time.”

Kagami glanced back and forth between the dead man before him and the stairs of death behind him. Red caught on blue as they stared at each other. For a moment, it felt like they didn’t need words at all, like they could have an entire conversation through gazes and irises.

It was interrupted by a blink. “Are you okay?”

“…You’re a corpse.” Kagami said dumbly.

“I am dead, yes,” blue eyes said, dusting off his suit. “I’d like if you didn’t remind me.”

He was about to ask how he could possibly forget that of all things, with his skin a mystifying blue, metacarpals for a hand, and a hole in his cheek.

But then the worst thing he’d seen in his life, worse than anything he’d seen in this hellish landscape, stepped from around the corpse’s ankle.

It was small, its tiny nails clacking on concrete as it bounced in place. A bandage was wrapped around its middle, tied in a neat bow on its back, matching the one fastened on its left ear. It was all black, white, and wagging tail, with a neat set of stitches around its paws. Most unsettling of all, its eyes were just as blue and unblinking as the corpse beside it.

He stared in horror, nose wrinkled. “What is that? What the hell is that?”

The corpse bent down and actually picked up the little monster, scratching behind its ears as the beast licked his face.

“This is Nigou. He helped me find you.”

“That is a demon.”

A pout crossed undead lips as he looked to Kagami in surprise, wrinkle forming on his forehead. “Please be nicer when addressing Nigou.”

Kagami balked so hard he nearly fell back down the stairs.

“Be nicer?! You want me to be nicer?! After you’ve dragged me to—to whatever the hell this place is! While you’re a corpse, I’m possibly dead, and that’s a dog!”

The corpse blinked. “Do you not like dogs?”

“No, I don’t, but that’s not the point!”

Those blue eyes just stared at him (both sets of them actually) and Kagami felt like he was walking into a thick fog. He had no idea where he was going, no concept of anything outside of those eyes. While it was terrifying, chills racing down his neck, he still found himself creeping closer. Like all those times before, when he looked for too long, he started drowning.

Anyone, whether dead or not, who would risk themselves to help someone else couldn’t be all bad. Kagami felt it in his gut, and he decided to trust that.

“You’re…Kuroko? Tetsu?” He rubbed at his nape. “That’s what they called you back there.”

The corpse made a face. “Please don’t call me Tetsu.” Then he bowed. “I am Kuroko Tetsuya. But I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

“Kagami. Kagami Taiga.”

“Kagami-kun,” Kuroko said, testing the syllables. “What a strange name.”

“Yeah, I don’t wanna be called strange by you.”

Kuroko paused. Then actually laughed. It was such a light and airy sound, chiming around them with quiet mirth. Kagami couldn’t help but smile back it was so infectious.

When his laughter died down, Kuroko glanced at him before walking off in the opposite direction. Kagami stood there, staring after his too graceful steps. He…wasn’t going to just leave him here, was he? He took a few steps after him without thinking, mouth working around words he didn’t know to say.

Nigou still tucked under his arm, Kuroko looked back and gestured with his head. “Come with me for a moment, please.”

He shouldn’t. He had no reason to.

But Kagami followed him.

Tugging at his tie as they walked down streets and up more stairs, Kuroko led him to a clearing with a bench. It was surrounded by coffins and empty urns, but it was simple. Just a plain wooden bench made of jagged planks, so normal that Kagami nearly wept.

Then he saw the view, and his breath left him.

They were on an overhang, looking out over the entire nightmare town. A million stars twinkled over the kaleidoscope landscape, as bright and vibrant a place as Kagami had ever dreamed. The crooked rainbow of buildings glimmered like a smile, the roofs like teeth as people walked into its gaping jaw.

“Wow…”

A thunk sounded out behind him. His focus switched back to the corpse that led him here, who had taken up residence on the bench. His skeleton hand picked up a skull, one of the many random remains that were littered everywhere, tossed it at one of the urns. He missed spectacularly, but it hopped back for him to try again.

Kagami realized he was staring, head tilted and brows furrowed in a confused scowl. Kuroko’s free hand patted the seat beside him, an unspoken invitation left to Kagami’s discretion. He chalked it up to whatever temporary insanity he was suffering, and took his place on the bench as skulls were continuously thrown at urns.

“What the hell are you doing?” he finally asked.

“It’s a game I made up. To pass the time.” Another shot, another miss. “Every time I make it, I get two points.”

Kagami watched him curiously as he missed shot after shot. “You’re not very good, are you?”

“I’m the best player there is.”

“It’s because you’re the only player, isn’t it?”

By the twitch of pale lips, he knew he was right.

He watched until his hand trembled, as if it subconsciously yearned to join in. Like everything else, he knew that he shouldn’t, especially since he still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t a hellish fever dream. But his mouth was moving before he thought any better.

“Hey, lemme try. But maybe with something less dead?”

Kuroko paused and blinked up at him.

He flushed. “Fine! At least something that’s not a skull!”

Kuroko searched around his seat, then handed him some stray sheets of paper with his bony hand. Kagami snatched them before wadding them up, crushing a sheet between his palms. He tossed one towards an urn. It sunk in perfectly.

He really, really liked that.

There was something captivating and fun about it, something that felt right. Enough so that he grabbed another sheet of paper right after. Crumped it, then sunk it again effortlessly. Something sparked to life inside him, somewhere deep. An ember catching fire.

They sat together without saying much of anything. The only sound were the clunk of skulls and the rustle of papers, as they pitched their projectiles one after another after another. Kagami kept a mental tally of how many points they each had. Fourteen for him, two for his dead companion. Eventually, a skull was thrown and it didn’t return.

Turning to him with a smirk, Kagami teased, “I guess I’m the best player now, huh?”

Kagami could see the twitch of Kuroko’s lips through the hole in his cheek. “Maybe it was a terrible idea to bring you here, I’ve lost my title.”

Now that he wasn’t running for his life and could actually stop to breathe, the reality of everything flooded him. He looked between the powder blue skin beside him and his own warm tan, realizing that he’d been talking to someone who had died. He swallowed, needing to double check.

“So…I’m not dead, right?” he managed, voice shaky at the alternative.

“No, you’re not. I told you, you fainted and I brought you here. I wasn’t sure where else to go.” Kuroko tilted his head in thought, glancing up at the starry sky. “Actually, my leg fell off about three times carrying you. You’re heavier than you look, and you already look heavy.”

His eye twitched. “Hey, watch it!”

His lips twitched again. Then Kuroko turned to look at him, his wide stare pinning Kagami to the bench. “Are you okay? Will you go back to The Seven Bones with me?”

“The Seven Bones?”

“Yes, the bar from before.”

A dozen questions ran through Kagami’s head.

Why should he go back there? Why didn’t he demand for this guy to take him home already? And honestly, why would Kuroko even want Kagami to go back with him? After he screamed and yelled and tried to deck someone in the face?

There were so many questions, but all he managed was, “…Why?”

“I said it before, we haven’t gotten to know each other. But…” Kuroko hesitated, averted his eyes and twisted his fingers in the edges of his frayed suit. “I would like to, if that’s okay.”

This place was an absolute nightmare, a cocktail of his worst fears. It even included dogs somehow, a freaking zombie dog. If there was anything he shouldn’t want to do, it was to go back in the thick of it all. Where ghosts and ghouls could tear him apart and leave his remains to litter the street like the skulls Kuroko had been tossing.

But, when he met Kuroko’s crystal clear gaze, Kagami wanted to trust him. After not trusting anyone but Tatsuya and Alex for so long, he wanted to put his faith in a skeleton hand and hope for the best. Kuroko had saved him from a messy end on a flight of stairs, showed him this place, and taught him such a fun game.

Maybe Kuroko really did have some sort of hypnotic spell. Maybe that was why Kagami found himself agreeing.

“Yeah, that’s fine,” he said. “But, why in the world would you want to know me?”

“It’s not every day you meet someone who tries to punch a corpse.”

Kagami grinned, wild and reckless, and he realized it was something he hadn’t done in ages. “Were you a weird guy when you were alive too?”

A smile graced over Kuroko’s face, teeth glinting through his missing cheek. Somehow though, it made him look less like a dead body and more like a normal person.

He looked like he hadn’t smiled in ages either.

“I’ve been told I was.”

#Kuroko no Basuke #kagakuro #my writings #corpse bride au #happy halloween again!! #I hope everyone had a very spooky day~

[chocoboxnow]

hello there!!! im rewatching knb S2 and its seirin vs shuutoku. and like its making me kinda sad to hear takao say things like "he's weird and annoying, we're not friends" about shin chan in a flashback. i know their relationship has changed so much haha but im still upset :( could you remind me of all canon midotaka stuff that'll make me feel better

Anon!! I feel you because I have such mixed feelings about that monologue. On the one hand, it’s super cute that Takao thinks Midorima hasn’t really changed. I mean, it’s clear that he has, but Takao knows his essential Midorimaness hasn’t changed, and I feel like you have to know someone really well to see something like that. On the other hand, jeez, go on long enough about how you don’t like Midorima much? (Is this a case of he “doth protest too much” maybe??)

I will say that at least part of the problem here is Crunchyroll’s translation…for instance, Takao doesn’t say “we’re not friends,” he says—well, first let me say that Japanese often doesn’t include the subject of a sentence. So when Takao goes off on this rant, it’s not entirely clear if this is how he, personally, feels about Midorima, or how he thinks the entire team feels about Midorima. It ends with him clearly saying that “everyone” can’t hate him, so maybe the whole speech is about Midorima’s relationship with the team, not Takao in particular? Anyway, back to “we’re not friends,” the original line is 仲良くなったわけじゃない which I would translate as “it’s not like we’ve become close.” This monologue started with the question of whether Midorima has changed or not, so this could just be read as a lack of change in the relationship. I think this (and Takao’s feeling at the beginning of the speech that Midorima hasn’t really changed) is at least partly because they’re so close and spend so much time together, it’s harder for Takao to see what has been a gradual change. “We’re not that close, really! We just…spend all of our time together, and…argue like an old married couple, and….okay, you have a point.”

By the way, when you ask for canon, are you including drama CDs?? Because the drama CD that goes along with this game is the one where Midorima spends an entire week worrying about Scorpio’s bad luck and getting lucky items for Takao (including one that cost $500(!), not to mention asking Kuroko and Riko for help), and offering to let Takao ride in the rear cart without doing rock paper scissors, AND at the end of this, Takao wants to spend the day with Midorima because Scorpio’s lucky item is a “precious friend”(!!!!). So, you know…that itself directly contradicts the translation of Takao’s line as “we’re not friends.”

OR, strictly canon scenes:

Takao tossing Midorima a roll of tape and Midorima smiling at him (he sometimes smiles “while he’s playing basketball,” hmmmm?)

Takao offering to skip rock paper scissors after they lose to Seirin

taking a bath together during training camp

also during training camp: Midorima knowing Takao is watching him with Kagami and telling him it’s time to go (he can’t just leave on his own??)

if I may use an example from Extra Game: when Takao first arrives to join Vorpal Swords, he says “thanks for taking care of our Shin-chan,” [a rote greeting you say regarding someone in your “in” group, usually family] which I feel is basically reminding everyone there that Midorima belongs to Shuutoku (and Takao), and Vorpal Swords is just borrowing him for a while

Sky Direct Three Point Shot (and basically all of episode 56)

in 75.5, Midorima asking Takao to get his lucky item, and Takao delivering him to practice

I already said episode 56, but: it’s canon that they’re the light and shadow of Shuutoku. The author of this series looked at Midorima and Takao’s relationship and equated it to the partnership that’s the focus of the entire series

I hope this helps, Anon! Don’t ever doubt that these two are inseparable partners. (งロ-ロ)人(`ω´ )ง

#midotaka #kuroko no basuke #asks #my post #translation #long post #if I had more time I would include screencaps for all of these but I have homework I have to do today haha