Kuroko sits up in bed as [Y/N] plays video games beside him. He stares absent mindedly at her, reaching out and brushing her hair behind her ear. [Y/N] immediately looks up and looks at Kuroko as if he’s grown three heads.
“Is… there anything wrong, Kuroko?” she asks him warily, taking her eyes off her video game momentarily.
“Do you like me, [L/N]?” Kuroko asks, straightforward as ever. [Y/N] is taken aback by his bluntness and almost chokes on air, but instead, she gulps it down and she rubs her neck bashfully.
“W-what kind of question is that?” she asks, but, in reality, she’s wondering why Kuroko’s asking that question when he already knows the answer.
She has confessed approximately one hundred and three times since the first time she confessed to Kuroko. That doesn’t include the large amount of love letters she wrote him whenever she had free time. That also doesn’t include all of the times she’s asked him out on dates only to be shot down. She also didn’t count all of the times she gave him chocolates and books and even basketball shoes. Of all the things she’d done to get her feelings across to Kuroko, he still had to ask that question?
“Of course, I do,” she tells him, a forced grin on her lips. “You’re my friend.”
She looks back to her video game and starts pushing at the buttons again but is interrupted by Kuroko grabbing the console out of her hands and placing it on his other side. She looks at him, bewildered at his actions, and he stares at her with an unreadable expression.
“Do you like me?” he asks seriously.
She looks down at her hands, flexing them and memorizing every detail in her short-term memory. “I don’t want to,” she confesses. She looks up at Kuroko with tears forming in her eyes but she looks up and wills her tears to go back where they came from. She wipes her eyes a bit and looks back down at Kuroko.
Kuroko looks as if he’s been told he can’t play basketball anymore. He looks hurt, and he doesn’t bother hiding it.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, clearly baffled by Kuroko’s change in expression. It wasn’t like she said anything to hurt him, right? She was just telling the truth. And, after all, it wasn’t like he cared about that stuff, anyway. She’d confessed to him plenty of times and he was never fazed. How would this be any different?
“Why not? Have I wronged you in any way?” Kuroko asks with an almost desperate tone to his voice, and she’s alarmed by his sincerity. She thinks to herself if this would be a good time to tell him. She thinks to herself that it wouldn’t matter whether she told him or not, anyway, because she wouldn’t be involving herself with Kuroko any longer, so what did it matter when she told him?
“It’s stupid,” she attempts to laugh off, but Kuroko stays serious, and she’s prompted to continue. “It’s just, you know, that one time when you walked Momoi home, I was really hurt. So, I decided I would no longer like you, if it meant not getting hurt anymore.
“It’s really nothing, though. It’s just my problem. I mean, I was in no position to get jealous. We’re not even going out, and I was just overreacting. Still, I thought putting distance between myself and you would be best, if not for me, then for you.”
“Why is that?” Kuroko asks, hurt still shining in his eyes.
“Because I don’t want to bother you anymore, Kuroko.”
