If I could love you just once more (Akashi x OC)}Kuroko no Basket fanfiction

Chapter 13

And just like that another day at school passed. I sat at my desk, packing my notebooks into my bag as I glaced over to the desk beside me.
Akashi stood up from his desk and was about to leave the room.
"Akashi!"

He turned around as I called out to him. In all honesty I didn't have anything in particular to say. But the fact that he didn't straight up ignore me made me feel a bit relieved for some reason.
Though the long pause probably annoyed him a bit.

He turned back around. "If you have nothing important to say then don't say anything at all." He was about to leave the room. I raised my voice once again. "Are you headed to basketball practice?"
I grabbed my bag and walked up to his side. We were both leaving the classroom.

He didn't even look at me when answering. "There is no practice today." I tried to keep up with his pace. "Oh... I see." We walked down the stairs to the shoe lockers and eventually left the school grounds, entering a quiet neighborhood all while in awkward silence.

"Akashi, I--" But just as I opened my mouth I was cut off. "Mashiro." I turned towards the red haired boy beside me who now stopped walking. As our eyes met I felt a small shiver running down my spine. "Whatever you are trying to do right now isn't working."

Whatever I was trying to do? Yeah, come to think of what was I trying to accomplish just now? It was a question I couldn't even answer myself. And yet...

"I am not trying to do anything right now, Akashi, it's just that--"

And once again almost instantly he cut me off mid sentence. "Do not call me like that." He didn't even flinch when saying that. But I saw how he clenched his fists. "Don't act like we are strangers. Because we definitely are not." He continued walking.

What he said shook me off. So much that I could barely hold myself together. "You say that we aren't strangers... And yet I feel like I don't know you anymore." I walked up to him, grabbing his shirt to stop him from walking.

"You're Akashi Seijuro.... Right? That's what you told me. And even though I've known you for so long, it's as if I do not know you at all anymore." He turned around to reveal his heterochromatic eyes staring into mine. Eyes of a person I've never seen before. "Do I even know you?" Tears welled up in my eyes as I started to raise my voice some more.

"Tell me. Who the hell are you?!"

As Akashi turned around he grabbed my wrist that was holding onto his shirt. And for a second it really felt as if I reached him.

It felt as if I was able to reach the boy that I once knew so well.

"God, you're persistent."

It felt like that...

I brushed off the hand that held me.

"I am persistent because that's the way I needed to be. Or else the boy I was friends with would have not taken me seriously when I told him I'd never leave him." My gaze shifted from Akashi's gaze to the side. "I am persistent because he needed me."

Almost instantly one of Akashi's hands grabbed my face, making me face him and look him directly into his eyes. "Well this boy doesn't need you anymore." His grip was firm, as if he was trying to burrow his fingers beneath the skin of my face. "He never did."

He finally let go of my face. I rubbed my cheek. "So we are strangers after all then." Seemingly a bit shaken, Akashi flinched.

"If that's so then I can tell you stuff like 'I couldn't care less whether you live or die'?" Akashi's eyes widened a bit. My vision was becoming hazy from the tears in my eyes. "Things like 'I don't want you in my life anymore' and 'I wish you'd disappear'." I grabbed Akashi by the collar of his shirt. "Don't tell me to treat you like a friend while you treat me as if you don't even know me!"

Yelling that into his face made tears roll down my face. "I told you I will endure the pain of you hurting me because I broke our promise. I told you that I will do anything for you as long as it makes you happy again."

I looked Akashi deep into his eyes. "But at least let me know if it even makes sense to endure all of this. If I even have a chance to go back to how things were before, between us."

I let go of his collar and pushed away. "Just tell me whether the person I am doing this for even still exists."

Akashi stared at the ground.
I clenched my fists.
"Just tell me already whether you hate me or not!"

If it weren't for the quiet street we were walking along, I am sure that many people would've been staring at us already.

I was having trouble breathing. My whole face was a mess. My body was trembling. And yet, when looking at Akashi it was as almost as if he was completely unfazed by it all. As if he didn't care.

As he looked up I honestly was expecting the eyes of a boy with whom I was once friends with. I expected red eyes that, to me, were once the most beautiful color I ever saw.
But instead of a pair of red eyes, I just saw one. One red eye and another piercing yellow eye that seemed as if it belonged to a complete stranger. It probably did, after all.

"I hate you."

The words I heard escaping from the red haired boy in front of me cut right into my heart.

I didn't even try to wipe away my tears, as there only were many new ones rolling down my face, as I remembered what Akashi told me in our childhood.

"...I could never hate you, Mashiro..."

I gulped.
"I see." I barely managed to speak.

I picked up my bag which was now on the ground. I walked ahead, leaving Akashi behind me. My heart was beating like crazy and my eyes were burning like hell. But I would still manage to get home like this.

"Mashiro." I tried to ignore the voice of the boy behind me.

"I'm sorry..." I bit on my lip and stopped walking. "Yeah... Me too."

The voice that apologized to me seemed so much different from the voice before. It was the same voice. But it seemed softer... It seemed gentle. It was the voice of a person I've known for a long time.

"Please don't leave me."

It was as if I was talking to a completely different person. As if I was talking to the Seijuro that I know. Not the stranger who just told me that he hates me.

I closed my eyes, almost stumbling on my own words, as I responded to him.
God... I really was persistent.
Unfortunately in a way in which I was deemed to hurt myself in the future.

Hey...

"I never could."

Just who are you?