AN: Next chapter is the last! And in case you're wondering-- yes, it is the timeskip/reunion chapter :) 

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TAIGA:

The streets all look
Shady as hell, Hiro.

HIROTO:

Says the American.

Kagami Taiga scowls at his phone. He'd spent the whole day travelling over to Tokyo, so it goes without saying that he was exhausted already.

He was supposed to meet his father here for dinner-- and then they were going to spend a night at the hotel as they talked and caught up and finally got their living plans sorted out.

He decided to take the scenic route from the train station and now... he's lost. And he's going to be late.

Damn it, Tokyo. How complicated can your roads be?

HIROTO:

Careful dude, remember
The manga I told you about?

Don't go into the alleys!

TAIGA:

STOP SCARING ME

"God damn it Hiro, stop screwing with me and help!" he snaps at the phone in English, frustrated at this point. He's too tired for this crap.

People are giving him suspicious glances, and Kagami mirthfully sighs as he realizes they all think he's a suspicious hooligan looking for a target.

Man, this is a pain. It'll be awkward to ask for directions now.

Maybe he should just call up his dad and--

"Uhm."

Taiga freezes.

"You dropped your train pass."

He turns to the side. Then he looks down.

And he leaps back in surprise, not so sure when this guy walked up to him, or when he got so close, or why the heck he has light blue damn hair that's bright as heck--

"Ah, sorry for startling you."

He speaks in a monotonous voice, like a stoical answering machine.

And Taiga's mind begins to run through all the psychological horror manga that Hiroto has lovingly decided to talk about at 2am every day.

Externally, he's confused. Internally he is absolutely freaking out.

"Geez, Tetsu, back off a little. You're freaking him out."

"Oh, Aomine-kun."

Taiga gets a moment to come back to reality. There's another one now-- a tanned guy that stood around his own height. Which is pretty tall.

Aomine tugs the smaller boy a little away, and Taiga recomposes himself enough to stutter out a thanks while retrieving his train pass.

"Ah, thanks very much."

When did he drop it anyways?

"It's no problem," the shorter one says. "Excuse me, then."

And his eyes drift off-- Kagami follows it to find a group of teens, definitely around his age. He first notices the colourful hair colours, then he zeroes in on the tallest one of the pack in awe.

The two blue-haired teens excuse themselves--

--and Kagami jumps, the urgency of the situation coming back to him.

"Uhm, wait!" he says, face heating up as he realizes he'd called out a little too loudly. When they turn around, he straightens almost nervously. "My bad... but uh-- I'm kinda lost."

-

Kagami's honestly embarrassed.

But in a second, the group comes over, they find his scrawled out map, and the brunet all but blanches when he realizes it's three stations over.

"Sounds like one hell of a classy restaurant," Aomine mutters.

"It is. I only know it because it's near my new place," the brunet clarifies, looking at the map. "Ah, I see the problem. You're in Hana-ichi street, written in katakana. Hana-ichi street written in kanji is a different place."

"Excuse me, what?" Kagami gapes.

"Yeah. There are dumb street roads everywhere, right?" the brunet laughs. "Wait till you see the ones in Kyoto. You'll be tearing your hair out."

They huddle around the walkway, the girl with her laptop out (why does she have a laptop? Why?) and the shorter blue-haired teen producing a notebook from his bag.

Then the redhead reports on the time, and the green-haired one starts a lecture at Kagami's lack of preparation because he is definitely not going to make it.

The blondie somehow has his hands on Kagami's phone ("hey, you should put a lock on your screen--" "--WHEN THE FUCK") and Kagami spends a while chasing him up and down the road to get it back.

And when he does, there's a new number on it. He's going to delete it once he figures out how to do that.

The only girl of the group has his fastest routes charted out instantly. Light-blue haired boy writes it down at a speed that's absolutely unseen of, and all that's left is for Aomine to run him to the train station.

And by 'run him there', it pertains to Aomine grabbing him by the wrist and yelling "I knew there was a point to all our basketball running laps!" and shooting off with Kagami screaming in fear.

Through the entire thing, the purple giant munched on his armful of snacks. He even gave Kagami a stick of pocky as a "here, good luck" gift right before he got whisked away.

Now, he's in the right place, in front of the right restaurant, and his dad is waving at him from inside.

MYSTERIOUS HOTTIE ❤:

Hey-ho! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

Momocchi says you
ought to be there by now.

Txt us if ur alive ( ˙꒳​˙ )/
We don't trust aominecchi

KAGAMI:

Yes, I made it.

Thanks for the help,
Please extend my thanks
To the others as well.

Btw, what's your name?

MYSTERIOUS HOTTIE ❤:

Kise Ryouta! ヽ(・∀・)ﾉ

Why tho
OOOOH don't tell me
I've gained a new fan? (¬‿¬ )

KAGAMI:

Nah.

I just want to change
this dumb contact name.

Kagami finds himself smiling as he heads into the restaurant.

-

-

-

"Stop texting him, Kise, he's gonna think you've got a crush on him," Aomine bonks him over the head. "And we're supposed to be studying."

"You're the least focused of us all," Haizaki hisses at him. "And what's got everyone so excited since yesterday?"

It's the next day and they're in the Akashi estate, in Akashi's abnormally huge study room, gathered around the comfortable kotatsu with workbooks, tangerines, tea and pastries.

"We helped a fire god," Kuroko answers.

Ogiwara laughs at the cryptic answer, reaching for his fifth cupcake. "And fire god blessed us with all this sugary goodness we're seeing now."

Haizaki drops his pencil dramatically, "dude tell me that before I eat it. I don't wanna get cursed!"

"It's fine, he specifically wrote here," Kise lifts a card, "[I don't know how much you guys can eat, so give whatever's left to your neighbours or something,] and he sent us enough to give Murasakibaracchi a sugar high. I'm horrified."

"He's enjoying himself, just look," Aomine jabs a thumb in the direction of the very, very pleased giant, who's gorging on cupcakes straight from one of the five bags they've gotten.

Midorima responds snappily, "get back here, we're still working on question twenty-three!"

"I'm already on question thirty."

"Then help me Akashi, rein in the children!"

"I'm only obliged to do that on the court."

"Akashi-kun~" Momoi comes into the room with a fresh mug of tea, closing the door with the heel of her foot, "the butler told me to tell you dinner's at eight today."

"Got it, thank you very much, Momoi," Akashi says.

Kuroko helps Momoi pass the tea around for everyone, and Aomine gets Haizaki caught up on their latest adventure with Mister Directionless Fire God.

"Are you guys going to focus?" Midorima asks again, his patience grating.

"It's fine, isn't it? We got scouted, so this test is just a formality," Aomine says, stretching tiredly. "Doesn't matter if we flunk it."

"Yes it does!" Momoi brains him with the tray. "Touou specifically told you they're only tolerating your academic misconduct if you pass your subjects! Do you want to go back to the interviews?"

"Same thing to you, Ryouta. Don't think Kaijou will tolerate your grades just because of your popularity, they're famous for being no-nonsense," Haizaki says, "put your phone down before I break it to pieces."

"And when did you get to boss me around about grades, mister my-specialty-is-Cheating-on-tests?"

"Ever since I scored higher than you in finals."

"We all know that didn't count!"

Kuroko and Akashi meet eyes-- and they both sigh, almost in resignation. A contented smile on their faces, they turn to look at the bickering group-- and a feeling bloms in their chest.

It's probably happiness.

"Hey, by the way. You think Fire God plays basketball?"

-

AOMINE:

We're disowning u Aisaka

AISAKA:

Excuse u

U can't disown me
I am ur mother

KUROKO:

He said it himself this time.

AOMINE:

Oh ok then Mommy

We found a new mom
So adopt him for us pls

AISAKA:

Unfortunately sweetie that is
Not how adoption works

MOMOI:

Camera078.jpg View Image.

Played streetball with
Fire God-chan today!
\(≧▽≦)/

He's rly good!! ヽ(>∀<☆)ノ
Stats are at Zaki-kun lvl
With a Dai-chan physique

AOMINE:

Wtf is that

HAIZAKI:

Wheres Ryouta on
That scale lol

AISAKA:

Fire God-chan?

KUROKO:

It's 火 and 神 so,
It's Fire God-kun.

AOMINE:

Crazy name, right?

MURASAKIBARA:

He makes good cakes

MIDORIMA:

The cakes were good,
But he made too much.

MOMOI:

I miss the cakes
I want more
(ಥ﹏ಥ)

MURASAKIBARA:

Sorry Sacchin I ate them all

AISAKA:

Wait shit
That's Taiga

How did u guys find Taiga

MIDORIMA:

What

AOMINE:

What

KUROKO:

What

HAIZAKI:

What

NIJIMURA:

What

AKASHI:

Are we adopting him or not?
I need to add him to the chat

MOMOI:

Don't forget to add Ki-chan
And Ogiwara-kun inside too!
( ' ▽ ' ).｡ｏ♡

-

"What're you smiling about over there, Taiga?"

Kagami jumps when his father smirks at him-- and his face heats up. He knows how the slight strain in his cheeks that he'd been smiling at his phone like an idiot.

He's in his father's rented Airbnb hotel room. He was going to spend the night here, and head back to Aomori the next morning.

"Nothing!" he denies quickly, "just. I told you about the guys that helped me when I was lost? They uh. Keep texting me, so yeah."

And his dad grins at him, knowing better.

"Well, good thing you're moving here, then. You can go hang out with them whenever you want now," he says. "I'm relieved. You won't be stuck with your computer as your only friend."

Kagami flushes, "I was video-chatting with Tatsuya!"

"My point stands."

Kagami proceeds to not sulk.

Mugs of hot chocolate before them and a new house key in his hand, they spend a moment in comfortable silence, listening to the distant thrum of music from outside.

"I'm really sorry I can't immediately come to live with you."

Kagami gives his father a side glance, blowing carefully on his hot drink. "I've said it tons, dad. I don't mind all that much."

"Still--"

"And plus, I get a whole house to myself this time," Kagami insists, sighing contentedly as he spun the key around his finger, "I'm actually kinda excited."

His dad gives him a lopsided smirk. "Think about inviting your friends over?"

Kagami blushes, "enough about that!"

"You can, y'know. I don't mind."

"I'm gonna get mad if you keep this up"

Tomorrow, Kagami will begin to move his things over to his new house. In two weeks, his dad will fly out of the country again for his new business project.

It's a family relationship that's barely there, but somehow still solid as it is.

And there's nothing really wrong with it. It could be better, but Kagami knows it can't quite be helped. He's starting to really like it, too.

"Should I cook something? For supper."

"Oh, yes please."

-

-

-

"Tatsuya, you'll love to hear this. Taiga made friends over in Japan!"

"You're kidding, is it Christmas already?"

Tatsuya leans over his back to take a gander at Hiroto's screen. His jaw drops at the sight of Kagami in the center of the miracles, his hand pulling at Aomine's cheek and Kuroko and Momoi near the bottom with high Vs.

"Seems like they helped him with directions and they clicked."

"What a small world...."

There's even a video of Kagami and Aomine's entrancing one-on-one exchange, where they go back and forth twice and Aomine dunks.

Hiroto can't tear his eyes away from the wide smiles on their faces.

(And though he doesn't notice, the same smile is on his own face.)

"Now this isn't fair," Nijimura enters the conversation, a grin on his face, "they look like they're having so much fun without us."

To Tatsuya's surprise, Hiroto smirks back almost mischievously.

"Can't let our kids beat us in the fun department, can we?" Hiroto says, in an almost competitive tone.

Tatsuya ponders on the 'our' part of the sentence, but he decides to ignore it and smile, picking up a basketball and spinning it on his finger.

"If you need a cameraman, I'm right here," he says. "And we've got all day."

-

It became fun to exchange basketball videos of each other's progress after that.

These short clips would range from 'Kagami headbutted the rim lololol' to 'Midorima made a 3/4 court shot! Look how happy he is ew' to 'Hiroto accidentally somersaulted in the air and still scored. Pretty sure it's a foul but it's cool'.

With the addition of Ogiwara 'hey hey have you heard' Shigehiro, Kise 'gossip king' Ryouta, Kagami 'I don't want to be here' Taiga, and Himuro 'I know everything' Tatsuya, conversation never quite died out forever.

That group chat they shared-- it was a treasure.

AISAKA:

Aaaa almost here.
I'm fucking nervous.

Can I run pls

KUROKO:

Don't worry, Hiroto-kun,
Be positive.

Maybe he'll get a
Heart attack suddenly
And cancel on u.

NIJIMURA:

Don't curse people!

KISE:

Breathe, Aisaka!
If they know you're nervous
They're gotta exploit it!

✧٩(•́⌄•́๑)و ✧
Go into it like you
Do this every day!

AOMINE:

Translator's note:
> Just wing it dude

KISE:

Don't translate me!
I'm speaking Japanese!
(,,#ﾟДﾟ)

OGIWARA:

I believe in u saka
ೕ(˃̵ᴗ˂̵ ๑)

Head right on in
And crash like you
Always do!

AISAKA:

Ogiwara-san, you have
lost your Saka pass.

Pls hand it over to Mine.

AOMINE:

Oh hell yeah

OGIWARA:

*gasp* ヘ（。□°）ヘ

Ogi-kun has sustained
900pts Of damage!

He may never recover!

AISAKA:

Perish.

AOMINE:

F

HAIZAKI:

F

KUROKO:

F

HIMURO:

F

NIJIMURA:

F

KISE:

F

KAGAMI:

???

What is f

I thought yall don't
Censor swear words?

HIMURO:

> @KAGAMI >
I'll tell you when you're older.

MOMOI:

⤴︎ ε=ε=(ง ˃̶͈̀ᗨ˂̶͈́)۶ ⤴︎
YOU CAN DO IT AI-KUN

You're perfectly prepared!
This Satsuki here declares ur in
The safest hands in the world!

KISE:

Here's a trick! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

Pretend to be the most
Confident person you know!

MIDORIMA:

Do yu hab
DO u have yois

DO yo hac yiur

Do you have your

Lucky item with you

HAIZAKI:

Holy shit Midorima
Calm down.

MIDORIMA:

Your lucky item

Aisaka do you

AISAKA:

Shit do I

HIMURO:

It's in your left bag's pocket,
As I've mentioned to you
Six times this morning.

AISAKA:

FOUND IT THANKS

AKASHI:

I don't understand the
Amount of stress
Currently occurring in
This chatroom.

NIJMURA:

That's because you're Satan
And don't know the fear of
A fucking interview, Akashi-sama.

Now sit down.

AKASHI:

Interviews are a mind game.
Just assert your dominance
In the field and you'll be fine.

KUROKO:

"Just be the seme."
-Akashi-kun, 2k20.

AKASHI:

That is not what I said

HAIZAKI:

> @AISAKA > u gotta awaken
Your seme powers, apparently.

AOMINE:

Being power bottom
works too I guess.

AISAKA:

Remind me never to
Talk to you guys again.

KAGAMI:

?????????

HIMURO:

> @KAGAMI >
I'll tell you when you're older.

AISAKA:

SHIT HE HERE

BYE

HAIZAKI:

See ya if u live

-

The cafe was pleasant. Dainty and just out of the way of the city, it's a nice little hole in the wall. It's the first time Hiroto's come here, and he's liking it thus far, even if he was dreading the conversation itself.

The man he's meeting is just a little older.

He's gotten the business card in the mail, so he knows the man's name. And occupation. And meaning for visit.

"I'm grateful you took the time to meet today, Hiroto," the man says, "so, if we could skip the formalities--"

("Be careful. It may seem like a golden ticket, but there's a chance it's just coal wrapped in gold leaf," Alex had told him.)

(And then there was Akashi. "It's a mind game. So just assert your dominance in the field and you'll be fine.")

("Here's a trick! Pretend to be the most confident person you know!" was it Kise that said that?)

"Before we get into that, actually," Hiroto leans back on his chair, smiling slightly and tapping casually at the edge of his coffee cup. "I haven't actually been in Los Angeles for very long," a subtle glance upward, "I was wondering where you've heard of me."

The man seems to tense a little, clearly hesitating at the tone.

"I have heard word from the Nova Glare Stadium--"

"Oh," Hiroto interrupts, "I suppose you caught word of Alexandra Garcia's nephew, and clung to the rumours until you found me?"

This makes the man falter.

Hiroto smiles. "I guessed as much," he stands up. "It pains me to deny this offer, but I don't want to ride on her coattails. If this conversation is over--"

"--wait wait wait!" the man panics. He's clearly flustered, and Hiroto smirks in victory. The man struggles with his suitcase for a moment before he picks out a brochure. "Please take this!"

Hiroto receives it curiously.

It's a brochure for a Sports University.

The man clears his throat. "We can offer you a recommendation," he clarifies. "Alright- we won't market you as Alexandra's nephew-- but the offer is true. We want to offer you a scholarship opportunity, Hiroto."

Hiroto sits back down, opening it.

"And what's the catch?" he asks.

The man sighs in relief, retrieving another business card from his pocket and sliding it toward Hiroto on the table.

"When you graduate-- we will extend you a professional scouting offer for the American National Team."

And Hiroto stops breathing.

"Holy shit."

"Language."

-

-

-

Hiroto curls up on the sofa, fiddling with the little pocket watch in his hands. His hair still wet from the shower he took a moment ago, he inspects the signature carved into its side.

"You ever wonder what your dad did for a living before he quit for you?"

He looks over to find Alex considering him.

Hiroto can't help but feel-- empty.

He finds pictures of his dad-- finds antiques with his name carved in them-- and he realizes that he may not have known his father at all.

Even though his father's done so much for so little of him.

Even though his father's done so much for him, who isn't even the real Hiroto.

(The real Hiroto, huh?)

(Who even was he?)

(Does anyone... does anyone remember who the real Hiroto was?)

It's ironic, really. In his past life, he dreaded to be remembered. He wanted people to forget about him, because the truth was that he had fallen and ended up crippled.

Now... Now he's become someone that struggles to be retained in memories, and he's feeling so bitter about it. Because he's a fake. Hiroto was never meant to shine in the spotlight, and that's how it stays.

Maybe that's a little confusing.

"You'd be impressed," Alex says, smiling almost solemnly. "Jyo-- you search the name on the internet, you won't find a thing. But if you ask the most influential people in the world, they will tell you stories, and stories, and stories-- all of a great man."

And that surprises him.

"You're kidding," Hiroto guesses. His dad had always been a great man-- he'd thrown his day job aside just to gather Hiroto in his arms and spend every moment ith him after he'd woken up in this new world.

But to that exaggerated-sounding degree?

Alex gestures at the pocket watch, and Hiroto hands it to her.

"Let's start with this one then," she says, "you'll love to know how he got it. It all began thirty years ago..."

Hiroto basks in the story.

His father lived however he wanted, picked up after his failures, and never went back. But it was still enough to show the world who he was, and for the people who remembered, he mattered.

Sitting beside Alex, hearing her laughter and joining in the incredulous memories, he feels warm. He feels family.

And it's an amazing thing to feel.

Maybe it's fine that Hiroto isn't remembered by a big audience, by the world, by society. Because all that matters is the little things, that will no doubt make people churn out tale upon tale upon which you used to be.

And little by little, these memories can make one great story on its own.

One day, surely, someone will write his.

(He wonders if it's a great story.)