Aisaka Hiroto spends the rest of his elementary years home-schooled.

"Going for a jog, Hiroto?" his father asks from his spot on the dining table, nursing his mug of coffee.

Hiroto, dressed in a light tank top and sweatpants, nods with a hum. Crouching down to tie his shoelaces, the boy bids a quick bye to his father before setting a steady pace out the door.

Over the months of daily exercise, the boy began to sport a peachy tan over his skin. He was beginning to look more fit than his father himself was, and sometimes the man wondered where his son inherited that sporty discipline.

Hiroto rounds the route toward a shopping mall, and takes a detour on his route to pass through the streetball court. It's a little before classes begin, so Hiroto isn't surprised to find it in use.

He's surprised to see hair that shade of blue.

A boy that couldn't be much older than himself (though yeah he's pretty short) was dribbling a basketball across the court. Another boy, brown-haired, grins widely as he shifts his limbs broad across the field, stopping his opponent in his tracks.

Hiroto's caught staring before he really realizes he was doing it himself.

"Can we help you?"

The boy's speaking to him. The boy's speaking to him! Hiroto flinches away from the fence with a little squeak, and the words are caught in his throat.

"Sorry for startling you!" the brown-haired one panics, then slings an arm around the blue-haired boy's shoulders, "c'mon, Kuroko, don't do that."

"I wasn't doing anything."

"Yes you were."

Hiroto shys away hesitantly, standing still as he tries to remember how conversations went.

"I," this was his first attempt at speaking to another human that wasn't his father (or mother) for years , both this life and past lives. Even referring to himself with a personal pronoun felt weird.

"I, I just saw you two... playing. Basketball, I uh, was just passing by-- and, and yeah, I was a little... uh, uhm, a little interested," he admits weakly, unable to even meet people in the eye, the discomfort too great in that gesture, "...sorry to interrupt."

That was pathetic. What was that ridiculous excuse of a conversation? Has your famed eloquence really fallen this far, Hiroto? You weren't like this with your dad! Get a grip, you weakling!

Okay I'm sorry you're not a weakling why are you crying excuse me you can't possibly be hurt by your own train of thought--

"Look what you did, Kuroko, you freaked him out."

"It's my fault?"

The lighter-haired boy, called Kuroko apparently, pouts, unaccepting, but maybe a little guilty nonetheless. He palms the basketball in his hand, then turns to the indigo-haired boy.

"Hey, do you play too?"

Hiroto nods quickly, "can I-" he falters, stopping his thought. Maybe he wanted to join their game, but would that be intruding? Even back then, joining a stranger's basketball game was a strange thing to do. Would they think he was weird?

"Wanna play together?" the brown-haired boy cuts in his thought with a grin, "the more the merrier, right? C'mon, we've got about ten before we'll have to run for class."

Hiroto barely realizes he hadn't agreed to the game before he's bracing for a pass, and the other two run toward the goal post.

A grin crawls up his face, and with a vigor he misses, he launches.

"Hey, what's your name?" the boy asks, arms spread out to stop his advance.

Hiroto stops cleanly, swerves back, and bounced the ball to his other hand.

"Me?" he's surprised to get a conversation in this situation, but he entertains it anyways.

He's not sure about Japanese just yet, but he remembers the Japanese Basketball players he's met before, and they'd always prefer to go by their last name.

So, "Aisaka," he says, "nice to meet you."

Half step right, one step left-- spin back, and leap. He brings his hands up and shoots from the three-point line, leaving the two in awe.

It bounces at the rim, bumps into the backboard, and sinks into the hoop.

"My name's Ogiwara," the brown-haired boy looks at the goal in muted amazement before turning back to Aisaka, "you're pretty good at this, huh?"

"You can shoot three-pointers?" Kuroko approaches, and although his eyes are wide and blank, there's a sparkle of admiration gleaming through them.

Yeah, three-pointers are a big deal for elementary school kids. Chuckling sheepishly, Aisaka picks up the basketball and pushes it into Kuroko's hands.

"Teach me," Kuroko says, voice brimming impossibly with anticipation.

Ogiwara excitedly echoes.

-

"Which school do you go to?" Ogiwara asks, tearing off his sweaty shirt to strap on his school uniform. Kuroko did the same, buttoning his shirt on quickly.

"Me?" Aisaka asks rhetorically, "oh, I don't go to school, not yet at least."

Both heads perk up, alarmed.

"Then, are you planning on going to Junior High?" Kuroko asks, brushing a towel over his face, "must be nice to not have to go to school..."

"Junior High, well, maybe," Aisaka mumbles, "but for now, we're tight on cash..."

There's barely a second for the two to hear the mumbling before a distant chime was heard. Ogiwara flips, "Kuroko, isn't that your bell?"

"Huh? Ah," Kuroko blanks out.

"Don't 'ah' me, get going! Run!" Ogiwara splutters, grasping for one of the bags on the bench and right about tossing it in the direction of the boy before shoving him on his way.

Aisaka bursts into laughter, and Kuroko is reluctantly scrambling off, his oddly deadpan expression stuck on his face the entire time.

Once he was out of sight, Ogiwara sighs longsufferingly.

"I'll see you around, then?" the boy asks, and Aisaka smiles back when a hand is offered to him. A handshake, and that's a familiar gesture.

"Next time," Aisaka responds, and he takes the hand in for a firm shake.

-

"You were certainly gone for a while," Jousuke points out grumpily, his arms folded before him and lips pursed into a scowl, "I was worried."

In his past life, Hiroto lived alone for the most part. It wasn't until the incident that he moved home to the country, back to his mother, to live out the rest of his life in bed or on a chair.

So coming home to another face, and hearing a father scold him for staying out a little longer without reporting back-- as irritating as it felt, Hiroto was happy for it.

"Sorry, dad," he manages a sheepish chortle, "I found some guys playing basketball and decided to join them."

Jousuke pops on his shoes and leaves for work. Hiroto watches the house, and another simple afternoon begins in the quiet and peaceful Aisaka household.

Hiroto understands that this, although boring, is nothing compared to the horrors of boredom in his past life.

This new life, this new setting and all those new meetings-- they were a new beginning all set up for him to try something so much greater than he'd ever managed.

Hell if he was going to spend this time rotting in the house!

"I'll go to a public school," he begins, "then if I perform well, I can get a sports scholarship and get scouted, so I won't be a financial burden."

Because, as he's already tested the waters, his sports capabilities have not been lost through his second life. His muscles are deteriorated and his body is still young, but that is a tiny setback. His finesse can be trained again, and this time, he has movements and plays and experience that is worth so much more.

This time, he can become so much better at basketball than he ever could before.

And the thought excites him.

"So, those two, their names were... " he mutters, dropping to the yoga mat laid out in the living room floor and trying to lower his posture into a split. He was about a centimetre away from finally succeeding, "uh, how do you write it? Is there kanji, wait, of course there is."

Both of them were meager at best, not the greatest but they were passionate and that was all that mattered at this age.

"But that Kuroko kinda sucked," he folds his arms and begins talking to himself, (a perk of being stuck at home alone) "he's like that one kid, uh, Zachary? Their muscles and bones aren't built for stuff like this, so no matter how much he trains, he can't get much better."

The kind that have to give up on ever being able to catch up with their peers. The ones that will work harder and harder, but ultimately lose because fate just wasn't on their side.

"But Kuroko definitely loves basketball," Hiroto wonders if there's a way to convince that kid to only ever play on the street. If he went to competitions he'd get crushed to bits.

Suddenly Hiroto jerks frozen.

"Wait," something's off, something was strange about that sentence. Kuroko definitely loves basketball. Kuroko... there shouldn't be anything odd about it, "I mean, no way... where have I... heard that name before?"

In those stricken moments of confusion, the only thing he was sure of was that this was a name he's heard of in his past life . Was it from one of his games overseas? No, it wasn't that. It was from TV. Was it a popular athlete? No, not that either. He'd stopped watching sports shows after the incident because it physically hurt him to look at them.

"Holy fuck, " he swears, posture crumbling as he clambers to his feet, rushing to the computer. His first searches turn up null, but that confirmed it enough.

He'd tried to search for the Generation of Miracles , and apparently they didn't exist either. That meant, at the very least, that manga doesn't exist in this world .

Because he's in it .

"I'm... in a bloody anime world?"