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A pale figure walks alone, traveling on the fine line between light and shadow. The darkness creeps into him, pulling him to one side. There is no longer any light to maintain the balance. (They all slipped the other way, into the cruel blinding light). The figure slips, and he is pulled into the warm embrace of a shadow. (Darkness isn’t always as bad as the movies make it out to be). A night spent awake, trembling on the edge. A tear slips down a pale white cheek. (But sometimes it is). There is no light left, but with what the light turned the others into, the figure can’t find it in himself to mind.
A light blue head of hair slips through the crowds of stifling noise that was Seirin High. He goes unnoticed. (He’s slipped too far for that). A hand slips a form off a booth, letting slender fingers fill it out. It is returned unnoticed, unseen until later when the hair is long gone.
Seirin is bright, but in a different way than the Miracles were. This new school is warm and gentle, like stretching out in the sun on a summer’s day. (The Miracles weren’t stretching out. They were Icarus, flying too close to the sun and getting burnt).
Kuroko finds himself overwhelmed. After an eternity of night, now the sun hits and he is blinded. The Seirin team is strong, and kind, and sees the good in Kuroko’s dark. (Near the end, none of the Miracles could see past the initial shade of black).
Kagami Taiga is bright like the Miracles used to be. He is the arms to reach and pull Kuroko out of the depths of the ocean, onto the sand between water and earth. Kuroko once again finds an anchor to keep himself in the middle. It’s a nice feeling, Kuroko thinks, to not constantly be falling. (It always seemed like the only two choices were to fall or to constantly have to lift oneself up. No one ever said that sometimes you could take a break and let someone else keep you afloat).
Kuroko faces Kise, and is blinded worse than he ever was with Seirin. The blonde boy is so close to getting burnt Kuroko can already see the scars. So Kuroko wins, and gives his old friend a tug in the other direction. Kise’s new teammates can do the rest after that.
Midorima is next, and that hurts that much more. He somehow keeps himself shining in the light, while having one foot in the shadow. It’s not like Kuroko’s balance. It’s a defiance of nature. It’s sickening and horrible to look at, so Kuroko does his best to make sure he never has to again. (Kuroko tried not to smile when he next saw Midorima balanced between the light and dark. He smiled anyway).
Where the others just got too close, Aomine had gone one step farther and become a sun himself. (Kuroko despaired on how to pull his old best friend away from his own light). Then Seirin beat him and the light became a bit more bearable. (You don’t have to change completely to heal. Aomine was still bright, would always be bright, but he just had to go a few shades cooler).
Murasakibara is the hardest to pull back. He’d been burning for so long--too long. All Kuroko could so was douse him with a bath of forceful dark, and hope this Himuro Tatsuya could do the rest. (Kuroko ignores that Himuro is balanced like him, and that what one could do, could pull, the other could too. He ignores this and sets his sights on Akashi).
Akashi didn’t get too close to the sun. The sun got too close to him. That had always been how it worked with him. The universe melded around him, twisting to his whims. (How do you go against the very universe?). It was hard, and so so close--too close for comfort. But it worked. Seirin beat Akashi. (You set it free).
Kuroko went through so much on that fine line between light and shadow. But he didn’t mind at all. It was where he belonged after all.