She sits on the floor, staring at the wallpaper-donning wall in front of her. She has nothing to do, having finished her homework at school and not bothering to study for the exams next week, so she resorts to what she does when she doesn’t feel like doing anything: staring at Tetsuya Kuroko.
He’s reading a book, his bangs falling over his glacier eyes and she wonders how he manages to see despite that. Or maybe he can’t see. Maybe he stopped reading long ago. That’s just it with Kuroko, she thinks. Unpredictable and unreadable. Just a speck of the things that make him who he is, although she’s not one to talk. She’s not so sure if she does know who he is, to be honest.
“You’re staring,” he states the obvious as he always does when she stares. She’s not sure what he wants to point out. Is he telling her to stop because it’s rude? Is he telling her it’s bothering him? Or is he simply reiterating the fact that she’s obsessed with him?
She doesn’t react to his statement, opting to avert her gaze and stare at the wall again.
Dare she ask?
Should she?
Is it a good idea?
No, it’s probably not but even the good ideas are bad ideas once you actually do them.
“Kuroko,” she calls, not taking her eyes off the wall. She feels his eyes on her and takes that as a cue to continue. “It’s been a year, hasn’t it?”
“Since what?” he asks and she doesn’t blame him.
“It’s been a year since I confessed.”
His expression darkens a little and flickers back to being the normal unreadable expression only Kuroko can pull. “I don’t know. I don’t keep track.”
She hums in response and pulls her knees to her chest, her socks loose and her words jumbled.
“It’s just… It’s been a while since I told you that, you know, I like you. And I still do, you know that—“
“Please be quiet. I can’t read properly.”
She stops talking and her fingertips trace the stitches on her jeans because she can’t trace the curve of his jaw or the side of his cheek. She apologizes.
