Looking for a Miracle | Kuroko no Basket

27. Lingering

Looking for a Miracle
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Lingering

All the words on the page in front of me blurred together, so I couldn't make any of them out. Paragraphs I did manage to read went straight over my head, even when I reread them several times. I slapped myself, I blinked to try and make sense of sentences, and rubbed my heavy eyes.

None of it worked.

"I don't get it," I mumbled, and pushed the textbook away from me. I folded my arms in front of me on the table and rested my head on them, my tired eyes closing instantaneously. I'd been fighting the urge to fall asleep for days now.

On the opposite end of the library table, Kuroko glanced at me, worried.

"But this is biology," my friend said quietly. "This is your best subject, you've never not understood anything before."

"I'm finding it hard to even pay attention to one paragraph, let alone an entire three pages at the moment." As though to prove a point, I yawned hugely and rubbed my eyes.

It would be so easy to just fall asleep on this table and escape reality for a few hours...

Then again, my biology homework wasn't going to finish itself... I moaned and, with great effort, pushed myself back into sitting position and dragged my textbook close to me again.

Kuroko watched his, expressionless, as I grabbed my pen once again and tried, for the tenth time, to understand the information needed to answer question six.

"Are you still trying to find Akashi-kun?" my friend asked quietly.

I froze, my pen slipping from my hand.

I had been.

I was no closer to thinking of something strong enough to bring back my Sei, but it wasn't from lack of trying.

Momoi had said it was useless, and I was only doing more damage to myself by trying so hard. But she didn't understand just how much I loved Sei, how burdened he'd been, she hadn't understood him like I had... How I knew that he was still there, waiting for me.

"I have to," I whispered hoarsely. "I have to keep trying. I can't give up on him, not ever, not after all we've been through together..." I wiped at my eyes. With my extreme tiredness, the stress of school, and the emotion that came with having been friends with the Miracles, I was more prone to crying than usual.

Kuroko bit his lip and reached over the table, so he could rest a gentle hand over my own.

"I'm sorry, Akane-san."

I waved a lazy, dismissive hand. "Kuroko, it's okay," I said mid-yawn. "It's nowhere near your fault. Besides, I should be the one asking you if you're okay. You're so brave, being in the thick of it each day... I don't get how you can cope."

While Aomine and Murasakibara might not turn up, tension was still high in the gym. There was so sense of camaraderie anymore, or that we were all on the same team - it was a competition, to prove who was better, stronger. The atmosphere was horrible and strained.

There was no way you could Teiko a team anymore. They played matches as individuals, forgoing all ideas of teamwork, yet they were winning and dominating by impossibly large margins. No one talked, no one passed, and Kuroko was only brought on if there was need to preserve strength.

Everyone had changed to the point that I couldn't say I even knew them anymore.

I could escape the gym as manager but Kuroko, as a player, had to stick it out every day.