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Fundamentally, the problem is Kagami's size.
"Gross," Kise says, pretending to gag on his coffee. "I can't bear to listen to this, not even for you, Kurokocchi."
Kuroko glares, sucking on his vanilla milkshake through the straw, mostly because he knows that Kise considers the sound obnoxious. "Not like that, Kise-kun. I meant his total muscle mass."
"I don't think that makes it better," Kise complains, but leans back in his seat, mollified.
"Since there's absolutely no one else I can ask—"
"Even I can tell this is an insult!"
"—I wondered if Kise-kun might not have some experience on the matter."
Kise puts his coffee cup down with a loud click, ignoring Aomine's yelp when the coffee splashes out of the cup and onto Aomine's shirt sleeve. "This still sounds like an insult." He and Kuroko look at each other for a minute, eyebrows twitching. Finally, Kise coughs. "Definitely not, and especially not with someone of Kagamicchi's build." He considers the cup, then Kuroko, then squints. "What if you trip him?"
Kuroko smiles around his straw. Like a Pavlovian reflex, Kise tenses, waiting for the cutting response, but relaxes when Kuroko says simply, "I'm not going to trip him."
"Why not?
"Because that's cheating."
"You're never going to bring him down the conventional way," Kise points out.
"Is this still about Kagami?" Aomine grumbles, looking up from where he's been arranging sugar packets in a grid. "Whatever, I'll trip him for you."
Kise laughs, and Aomine, annoyed, kicks Kise's injured leg under the table. "Aominecchi is a moron," Kise hisses, rubbing his shin.
"You're not allowed to trip Kagami-kun," Kuroko says, faintly amused. "Only I'm allowed to trip him."
Kise wolf-whistles, and Aomine visibly resists the urge to kick him again. "A possessive Kurokocchi is so cool," Kise drawls, sing-song and only a little resentfully.
"Of course," Kuroko says with a straight face. "He's my most important partner, after all."
"So?" Aomine grumbles. "You can still let someone trip him once in a while." This makes Kise laugh so hard that he spills more coffee on Aomine's sleeve.
"What's so funny?" Aomine demands and, when no one responds, turns so he can peer over the back of his seat to the next booth over, where Takao is trying very hard to pretend he's not eavesdropping. "What are they even talking about? What did I say?"
"Your stupidity is so astounding that I feel myself getting stupider every time I'm surprised by its depths," Midorima sneers around a delicate bite of mont blanc.
"He means they're talking about sex," Takao offers helpfully. Then, when Aomine spits out his drink, "Here, have a napkin."
Afterwards, when he's walking with Kagami to the grocery store, he gets a text from Takao: y didnt u just ask aomine tho?????
I'm quite sure he doesn't have the relevant experience, Kuroko types.
im jus sayin have u considered jumpin him in a locker room bc it worked for u n aomine lololololol, Takao texts back almost immediately, complete with an animated LINE sticker of a carrot giving an exaggerated wink.
Contrary to what Kise-kun insists, Kuroko tells him for the fourth time, that wasn't why Aomine-kun and I had a falling out in junior high, and blocks Takao's number.
"What's going on?" Kagami peers over from across the aisle.
"Exchanging practice tips with Takao-kun," Kuroko says blandly, snapping his phone shut.
"You guys are getting along, huh?"
It really is a problem of mass, Kuroko thinks crossly, watching the slide of Kagami's shoulder under his shirt as he dumps a stack of curry roux into his cart. If only Kuroko hadn't picked someone who was needlessly large. "Not really," he says, and resists the urge to ask Kagami if he'd buy one of the brands on the shelves further down, just so he'd be at the right height for a kiss.
"Well, I don't think you're going to get anywhere with squats," Momoi frets as she takes the first bite of the chocolate and cherry jam crepe Kuroko hands her. "You might try focusing on your upper body. Arms, pecs, chest, that kind of thing."
"What for?" Kuroko asks, curious.
"Oh, it'll throw off his center of gravity, if you're lucky," she says, gesturing with her crepe. "I'll draw up an exercise regimen if you want."
He thinks about it very seriously. "How long do you think it'll take?"
Momoi grins. With one hand full of hot jam and another of paper napkins, she can't throw her arms around Kuroko's shoulders like she wants to. Instead, she sidles closer to him, putting her head on his shoulder. "Tetsu-kun is a hard case, but I'd give you only the best guidance. I'm the one who knows your body the best."
"A week?"
Her smile falters. "I don't think even I could do that." Kuroko nods, unsurprised, and Momoi presses her cheek even closer, getting a little smear of jam by the side of his mouth. "But I've seen you physically overpower him before. What did you do then?"
"I jabbed him in the back of the knee," Kuroko admits.
Momoi stares. Kuroko stares back, daring her to respond. "Well," she says, unruffled. "Try that, then."
"It's cheating," he says, and because he's known her for a long time, and because if he ever had or ever would love a woman, it would be her, it almost comes out as a whine.
She wolfs down the rest of her crepe in two bites, a bad habit she probably picked up from Aomine. One hand free, she fishes out a clipboard and a blank sheaf of paper from her book bag and starts jotting down notes. Exercises and the right weight or reps for each, Kuroko realizes when he leans in, all in a surprisingly severe handwriting. "I'm sure you've thought of this, since you're not an idiot like Daiki," she says, chewing on the back of her pencil as she reconsiders the training schedule in an unconvincing show of casualness, "but have you considered just asking?"
"Yes," Kuroko says and bites down on his own crepe, earning himself a mouthful of vanilla ice cream and cake.
"And?"
"And it was considered," Kuroko says drily.
Momoi looks up. She takes the eraser out of her mouth and takes a breath, as if about to say something else, but then changes her mind, throwing him a doubtful smile instead. "You could always call up Himuro-san."
"Thank you, Momoi-san," Kuroko says, brushing crumbs off his hands and taking the training schedule she hands over. "I'll consider that too."
When the topic first came up, Kagami had turned bright red and refused to talk about it in any more depth. But the second or third or fifth time Kuroko had hounded him, Kagami had stammered that of course it wouldn't be his first time, was Kuroko looking down on him or something, he knew how this was supposed to go, or at least some of it, but then clammed up when Kuroko had asked him who with and when and what, exactly. I-if you have to know, he'd said the seventh time, after Kuroko had called Nigou over to sit on his lap and stare at Kagami as a warning, it was when I was in America and Tatsuya—why are you making that face? Nigou peed on you again, didn't he?
Kuroko doesn't call up Himuro. Kise isn't the most astute observer, but his delusions about how close they were in junior high aside, he'd always pegged Kuroko pretty well. Possessive, like Kise had said.
Akashi calls Kuroko a few days later. They don't talk about anything in particular, but chat aimlessly, or at least along some path only Akashi can see, about their upcoming exams, the correct repotting and watering schedule for a sprig of camellias that grew near the Rakuzan dorms and to which Akashi had developed an unconventional interest, a novel Kuroko had read recently about ghosts.
After a while, Akashi pauses, then says, "Tetsuya."
Kuroko starts, straightening up even though there's no way Akashi can see him over the phone. "Yes, Akashi-kun."
"You are prone to believing things can only be achieved if you accomplish them with your own two hands." Akashi pauses again. Kuroko, wary, says nothing, only narrows his eyes, imagining Akashi before him, descending an endless flight of stairs. Akashi continues, "I admire the thirst, but sometimes, you might consider just asking. It's the sign of a stronger will, after all, to demand that others bend to your whims."
"This is what I don't like about you," Kuroko tells him hotly, unable to control himself.
"Bending you to my will?" Akashi asks, actually sounding surprised for once.
Kuroko frowns. "No, fishing for information about me from Momoi-san."
"Ah." Akashi hums in amusement. "Well, in this case, you're wrong. It was Midorima-kun."
Akashi doesn't laugh when Kuroko hangs up. Then again, Kuroko thinks, Akashi never does.
In the end, Kuroko just asks.
"Oh, I-I, uh," Kagami says.
Kuroko waits.
"I've been, uh, practicing," Kagami says. "That."
"Which part?" Kuroko asks, each word careful and slow.
"The part where. Uh. Beingacat," Kagami blurts out, so flustered it comes out in a rush of polite speech.
Kuroko considers his options. In the end, the temptation is too much. "Meow," he says, bringing a curved hand, paw-like, to his cheek, and tilts his head to look at Kagami.
"Not like that, you idiot," Kagami snaps, swatting at the top of Kuroko's head.
They are alone in Kagami's bedroom, Kagami awkwardly and incomprehensibly sitting seiza on top of his bed. The door is open, and for a moment Kuroko considers getting up to close it for a little more privacy. Which would be ridiculous, because Alex is in Akita with Himuro, and there's no one around in Kagami's apartment to interrupt them.
"That's," Kuroko begins. He touches his tongue to his bottom lip, stalling. Of all the things he didn't consider, he thinks, annoyed. That's what came of asking his old teammates for help, even if it turns out Akashi and Momoi were right. "Kagami-kun was unexpectedly diligent about this."
"Well," Kagami says, turning even redder, "I asked manager for advice and she said I should be ready. For uh. For all the plays. T-that the other team could come up with."
Kuroko stares, mouth suddenly dry. "Manager is a very intelligent person."
"And then Kiyoshi gave me a tube of lotion a-and told me it was fun."
It was starting to get very difficult keeping his hands to himself and on Kagami's bedspread. "I didn't realize Kiyoshi-senpai was so knowledgeable," Kuroko says dumbly.
"So I tried it out on my own. It wasn't—well, I'm not sure I—anyway it wasn't that much fun on my own." Kagami coughs, still not looking at Kuroko, squeezing his hands fitfully on top of his knees. "Without you, I mean."
"Oh," Kuroko says and, unable to think of a single other word to say, pushes Kagami down.
The chest presses were the most useful, he texts Momoi afterwards, and then shuts off his phone, scooting closer to Kagami's very warm, very large back with a smile.