Chapter Text
Disclaimer: I do not own Kuroko no Basket nor do I profit from writing this fanfiction. Please be aware that the story contains spoilers for Kuroko no Basket.
Holding Both Seasons
Chapter I
It was late March in Kyoto. The air still carried winter’s chill, yet here and there the cherry blossoms had begun to bloom, pale petals trembling in the cold breeze. In just a few days, the new school term would begin.
For Akashi Ichirou, however, this spring would be unlike any other.
“So… everything’s packed, then?” Miura Heiji asked, glancing around the room.
Heiji had been Ichirou’s best friend since primary school. They had attended the same primary school, then the same middle school, and had joined the basketball club together on the very first day.
Ichirou didn’t bother looking up. “You can see for yourself.”
Heiji scratched the back of his neck, an old habit of his whenever he felt awkward. The bedroom was nearly bare. The shelves had been cleared, posters taken down, basketball trophies wrapped in newspaper and tucked carefully into cardboard boxes. Only the bed and a few pieces of furniture remained, as though the room had already begun to forget its owner. Heiji walked over to one of the boxes and crouched beside it.
“You even packed your old practice ball,” he said with a faint smile. “The one Coach said you should throw away.”
“It still bounces,” Ichirou replied flatly. “That’s enough.”
Heiji huffed a quiet laugh. “You’re impossible.”
“Mm.”
“Next week, I’ll be going to practice and you won’t be there ordering everyone about.”
“I don’t order people about.” Ichirou retorted.
“You absolutely do. You glare at them until they do what you want.”
Ichirou finally looked up, one brow lifting slightly. “That’s called leadership.”
Heiji grinned, but it faded quickly.
A short silence settled between them, heavier this time. Through the open window, a breeze stirred the curtains. Somewhere in the distance, children were shouting, perhaps playing in the park. The world outside carried on as usual.
Inside the room, everything was changing.
Ichirou sat on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees. “I’d much rather stay here in Kyoto on my own,” he muttered. “Unfortunately, our school doesn’t have dormitories. And apparently I’m not ‘responsible enough’ to live alone.”
“You’re transferring to Teikou Middle School, aren’t you?” Heiji said, striving for a brighter tone. “That’s where your father and his teammates went. The famous Teikou. The Generation of Miracles and all that.”
At the mention of it, something flickered in Ichirou’s eyes, though his expression remained composed. His fingers curled slightly against the fabric of his trousers.
Teikou Middle School. Even now, people spoke of the Generation of Miracles as if they were legends rather than former students.
“And you’ll be back next year,” Heiji hurried on. “We’re both applying to Rakuzan High, aren’t we? Your father went there too. You’ll just be in Tokyo for a year. It’ll fly by. Before you know it, we’ll be wearing Rakuzan jerseys.”
Ichirou did not respond immediately. His gaze remained fixed on the stacked boxes, jaw tightening almost imperceptibly.
“Yes,” he said at last.
He did not wish to discuss his father any further. Nor Teikou. Nor Rakuzan. Both names carried expectations he had never asked for.
“It’s lunchtime,” he said abruptly, rising to his feet. “Let’s eat.”
“Oh—right. Yes.”
They left the bedroom together and walked along the polished wooden corridor. Their footsteps echoed faintly. The house felt too large now, too quiet, as though it were already adjusting to one fewer resident.
In the dining room, lunch had been laid out with meticulous care by the maid: bowls of steaming rice, perfectly grilled fish, slices of tamagoyaki arranged with precision, miso soup still gently simmering. A plate of freshly cut fruit added a splash of colour to the otherwise restrained table.
They ate mostly in silence, the soft clink of chopsticks against porcelain filling the space between them.
Heiji tried, more than once, to steer the conversation towards normality. “Coach says we’ve got a practice match against Higashiyama next month,” he said. “You were supposed to handle their point guard. He’s quick.”
“Switch to a zone defence,” Ichirou replied without hesitation. “Force him to shoot from the outside. He’s inconsistent beyond the arc.”
Heiji blinked. “You’re not even there and you’re still strategising.”
“It’s obvious.”
Heiji’s lips twitched, but the humour faded quickly. “We’ll manage,” he added more quietly. “Still… it won’t be the same without you calling the plays.”
Ichirou lowered his gaze to his bowl. Every sentence, no matter how ordinary, circled back to the same truth: he was leaving.
After the meal, they returned to the entrance hall. Sunlight filtered through the frosted glass of the front door.
Heiji lingered, hands shoved into his pockets. “I’ll message you,” he said. “About practice. And… everything.”
Ichirou nodded once. “Don’t slack off.”
“As if I would.” Heiji forced a grin. “Just don’t go to Tokyo and turn into some kind of basketball monster. I hear Teikou does that to people.”
Ichirou allowed himself the faintest smirk. “That depends on the level of competition.”
Heiji turned and stepped outside. “See you next year, Ichirou.”
“See you.”
The door slid shut with a soft, final click.
Silence swallowed the house whole.
With nothing left to do, Ichirou returned to his bedroom and lay back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. The faint scent of cardboard and dust lingered in the air, mingling with the last traces of his everyday life.
Tomorrow, he would leave Kyoto for Tokyo. For the next year, he would live with his father and his father’s extended family — people he barely knew. After that, he would return to Kyoto for high school.
Everything had changed after the car accident that claimed his mother’s life. The memory still felt unreal, like a scene from someone else’s story. One phone call. One rainy evening. One careless driver. That was all it had taken.
With his mother gone and Ichirou still legally a minor, there had been no discussion. No alternative. The decision had been made swiftly, efficiently — almost clinically. He was to move in with his father. A man who had long since become a stranger.
His parents had separated when he was very young. Ichirou had no real recollection of his father from his early childhood — only the neatly wrapped birthday gifts that arrived every year without fail. Expensive. Thoughtful. Impersonal.
In fact, he had first properly met his father when he was five years old.
He remembered sitting stiffly beside his mother in the formal reception room of Shimizu Villa. The tatami mats had been pristine, the air faintly scented with incense, sunlight filtering softly through the shoji screens. He had been dressed in clothes chosen carefully by his mother — neat, presentable, proper.
The sliding door had opened without a sound.
A tall man with sharp, assessing eyes had stepped into the room. His posture was straight, his presence commanding without any need for raised voices or exaggerated gestures. Even at five years old, Ichirou had felt it — that quiet pressure in the air whenever the man entered a space.
His father. The man had approached them and paused before Ichirou. For a brief moment, those sharp eyes had studied him — not unkindly, but intently, as though evaluating something.
Then he had knelt to Ichirou’s level. “Ichirou,” he had said in a calm, measured voice. “You’ve grown.”
The words were simple. Ordinary, even. Yet Ichirou had frozen. He remembered gripping the hem of his mother’s sleeve, unsure whether he was expected to bow, to speak, or simply to endure the gaze fixed upon him. His mother had given him a gentle nudge.
“Go on,” she had whispered softly. “Greet your father.”
Father. The word had felt unfamiliar in his mouth, heavy and awkward on his tongue.
“H-hello,” he had managed at last, his voice small and careful.
The man regarded him for a moment before speaking again. “You’re in kindergarten now, aren’t you?”
Ichirou nodded quickly, afraid that speaking too loudly might somehow break the stillness of the room.
“I see.” A brief pause. “You must study diligently.”
“Yes," Ichirou had replied automatically. At five years old, Ichirou had not known what else to say. He had only known that the room felt too large, too quiet — and that the man before him was someone important, someone distant. Not someone he could run to.
While Ichirou and his mother had remained in Kyoto, his father had lived in Tokyo — a distance that had always felt far greater emotionally than it was geographically. Visits had been rare, and when they did happen, it was always Ichirou and his mother who travelled to Tokyo to pay their respects to his grandfather, Akashi Masaomi. Never the other way round.
When his father came to Kyoto, they did not meet at the home where Ichirou had grown up. Instead, they met at the Shimizu Villa, a traditional Japanese residence owned by the Akashi family. The villa was immaculate, austere and cold in its perfection — polished wood, stone gardens, sliding doors that muted even the sound of footsteps.
He could still picture those meetings clearly.
His father seated formally across from him.
“How are your studies?”
“Fine.”
“And basketball?”
“We won the district qualifiers.”
“I see. Congratulations. You've done well.”
Their conversations were always polite, measured and impeccably formal — more like discussions between business associates than between father and son. No casual laughter. No easy affection. No warmth.
Ichirou turned his head slightly on the pillow, eyes narrowing at the ceiling. Tomorrow, he would be living under the same roof as that man. Not as a visitor. Not as an obligation scheduled between meetings. As his son.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The day Ichirou had been dreading finally arrived.
Kyoto, the old capital of Japan, had no airport of its own; consequently, they first drove to Itami Airport in Osaka before catching a flight to Haneda in Tokyo. The morning air was cold and clear, the sky an unforgiving blue.
The car ride was long and silent. At first, his father made an effort to converse. However, each reply from Ichirou was clipped and precise—nothing more than was absolutely required.
Ichirou kept his gaze fixed on the scenery beyond the window — familiar Kyoto streets giving way to the motorway, then to the industrial edges of Osaka. He refused to look at the man seated beside him. Eventually, his father fell silent.
Even on the plane, Ichirou pretended to sleep. He leaned his head against the window and closed his eyes, though he felt every shift of turbulence, every announcement over the intercom. He did not have the energy — or the desire — for further conversation.
The distance between them had always been real.
His father had been too occupied with his new life to truly concern himself with him. As Ichirou grew older, he had pieced the truth together on his own: his father had remarried and started a new family.
Once, out of idle curiosity, he had searched for Akashi Seijuurou online. The page had been clinical. Achievements. Education. Business affiliations. Public appearances. Under “Children”, it had simply stated: Three.
Three. The word had lodged itself in his mind. He had stared at it for a long time, counting silently. If there were three, then he was not the only one. He had never asked who the others were. Did they call him Father with ease? He had closed the page without reading further.
His late mother, Akashi Shizuka, had not been much of a parent either. Though she had remained in Kyoto with him, most of his daily care had been entrusted to the household staff. Tutors handled his studies. Maids prepared his meals. Drivers took him to practice. She, meanwhile, filled her days with charity galas, shopping trips in Tokyo, and holidays abroad. They had lived in the same house, yet rarely in the same space.
Once, when he was nine, the question had slipped out before he could stop himself. “Mother… do you even care about me?”
She had looked up from the magazine in her hands, neither shocked nor offended. Merely mildly surprised. “Care?” she had repeated.
“You’re never home,” he had said quietly. “You don’t come to my matches.”
There had been a brief silence. Then she had smiled — not unkindly, but vaguely, as though speaking to a much younger child. “You’re the first grandson of the Akashi family,” she had said. “There’s nothing to worry about.”
Nothing to worry about. At nine years old, he had not understood. Even now, he was not sure he did. What did legacy matter to a child who had wanted warmth? What comfort was there in a family name when the house itself felt empty?
As the plane began its descent into Tokyo, Ichirou opened his eyes. The city stretched endlessly below — vast, unfamiliar, waiting. He wondered, not for the first time, whether this move was meant to bring him closer to his father.
His grandfather, Akashi Masaomi, was no better. A towering figure of authority in every sense, Masaomi never spoke to Ichirou about anything as trivial as feelings. Their conversations revolved solely around results — academic rankings, performance in extracurricular activities, measurable signs of excellence.
“Are you top of your class?”
“Yes.”
“What sport have you committed yourself to?”
“Basketball.”
“What language are you studying now?”
“English.”
“I see. Ensure you remain ahead.”
There was never a “well done” without a condition attached. Never a question asked out of curiosity rather than assessment.
To be honest, Ichirou was afraid of him. As a child, he had dreaded the echo of his grandfather’s cane against the wooden floors of the Tokyo estate. Even now, the memory of that sound made his spine straighten instinctively.
Sometimes, he wondered whether his mother had feared him too. In front of Masaomi, she carried herself with careful, deliberate politeness. She spoke only when spoken to, never contradicted him, and complied without hesitation — whether it involved selecting Ichirou’s courses or attending family functions at the Kyoto villa or the Tokyo estate.
To Ichirou, she had often seemed less like a daughter-in-law and more like a well-trained subordinate — an employee of the Akashi household, expected to fulfil her role flawlessly and never step out of line. He had once overheard a rumour among the staff: that his mother’s family business had been on the brink of bankruptcy years ago, and that it had been Masaomi’s financial intervention that saved it. If that was true, then gratitude may have looked very much like obedience.
As for Ichirou, his days had once been filled with endless lessons. Violin. Piano. Calligraphy. Kendo. English. Mandarin. Mathematics. Etiquette. His schedule had been arranged with ruthless precision. There had been barely any space to breathe, let alone to choose.
He remembered once asking timidly, “May I stop piano?”
Masaomi’s gaze had been cool and steady. “Excelling in multiple disciplines cultivates discipline.”
That had been the end of the discussion. Until, unexpectedly, his father had intervened. For once, Akashi Seijuurou had stepped in and told Masaomi to ease the pressure.
“He will not benefit from being overextended,” his father had said calmly. “Allow him to focus.”
It had not been a heated argument. Voices had not been raised. Yet the atmosphere in the room had been suffocating. In the end, Masaomi had relented.
Ichirou had been permitted to choose the classes he genuinely enjoyed — and to abandon the rest. He had dropped violin. Dropped etiquette. Kept basketball. It had been one of the only times his father had taken his side. And after that brief intervention, the distance between them had resumed its usual shape — formal, measured, unbridgeable.
A gentle shake roused him from his thoughts. Ichirou opened his eyes slowly.
“We’ve arrived at Haneda,” Akashi Seijuurou said.
Outside, light rain fell steadily under a sky the colour of slate. A cold wind swept across the tarmac despite it being mid-spring, and Ichirou shoved both hands deep into his coat pockets, seeking warmth.
A sleek black Rolls-Royce waited near the steps of their private jet. The driver, spotting them, stepped forward with swift precision and opened the rear door.
“Get in,” his father said, his voice calm, measured, carrying that quiet authority Ichirou had always associated with him.
Ichirou stepped into the car first, followed by his father. The door closed with a soft thud, and the vehicle glided away from the runway. Silence reclaimed the space between them, thick and unspoken.
Ichirou stole a sideways glance. Seijuurou sat with perfect posture, his expression composed, every movement controlled. He was the picture of command — charismatic, dignified, intimidating. Perhaps because they had spent so little time together, Ichirou didn’t know how to behave around him. Words failed him. Gestures felt awkward. His emotions were tangled: respect, longing, resentment, and something he could not name all twisted together. They were like strangers who shared the same blood. Yet the resemblance was undeniable.
Ichirou looked away, pressing his face closer to the glass, watching the rain-slicked streets of Tokyo blur past. The weight of a life he was only just stepping into pressed down on him.
The car glided at a measured pace down an avenue lined with ginkgo trees. They were entering Den-en-chōfu, one of Tokyo’s most exclusive residential districts, home to old-money families and quiet, tree-lined streets. Ichirou studied the budding branches. March marked the start of the ginkgo’s growing season. Tiny green buds were beginning to swell, a quiet but undeniable sign that life was returning, regardless of his own hesitations.
“We’ll be there shortly,” his father murmured.
Time seemed to accelerate at the worst possible moments. Ichirou cursed inwardly, his stomach tightening.
Ahead, a grand two-storey European-style mansion came into view. Its wide front yard stretched out like a statement of wealth and control. As they approached, the wrought iron gates swung open automatically, gleaming wet in the rain.
Panic rose in Ichirou’s chest. His heart hammered, palms growing clammy. He wasn’t ready for this. The car slowed beneath the portico. Ichirou froze. Could he just stay inside? Refuse to step out?
“Ichirou,” his father’s voice broke through his thoughts.
He turned.
“We’ve arrived.”
Perhaps his father assumed he was lost in thought. Ichirou simply nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat.
Seijuurou stepped out first, his posture immaculate as always.
Ichirou drew in a deep breath, steeling himself. One year, he reminded himself. Just one year, and then he could return to Kyoto.
He followed.
The front doors opened—and a small child burst out like a bolt of sunshine. Huge, clear eyes, rosy cheeks, and boundless energy. The boy’s excitement was magnetic, almost shocking in its intensity. For a second, Ichirou was frozen, staring. Whose child is this? An odd impulse tugged at him. He wanted to pinch those chubby cheeks.
“Father!” the child called, voice ringing with joy.
The words hit Ichirou like a splash of ice water. Father? It took only a heartbeat for realisation to dawn. This was his father’s child—his half-brother.
Seijuurou bent down and scooped the little boy into his arms effortlessly. The child beamed.
Seijuurou’s expression softened as he looked at his youngest son. “Kazuya, be careful when you run out like that,” he said gently.
Ichirou’s chest tightened. He had never known such a moment of tenderness directed at him.
“I’m very careful,” Kazuya replied cheekily.
“Where’s your mother?” Seijuurou asked.
“He’s behind me!” the boy answered with a grin.
Both father and son turned toward the door.
Ichirou’s stomach twisted into knots as his eyes followed them. The figure that emerged made his heart clench. It was Akashi Tetsuya. His father’s new wife.
Author's Note:
Hello, everyone! Thank you so much for reading; please do leave a review.
This is an old fic of mine. Back then, I wrote tonnes of KnB fanfics on ff.net under a different name, though not in English. As there aren’t many new KnB stories being posted at the moment, I decided to share these now that they have been translated.
In this story, Seijuurou’s father disapproves of his relationship with Tetsuya. He deceives Seijuurou, believing that he will simply accept the situation once the deed is done—marrying the girl his father has chosen and producing an heir. Naturally, Seijuurou refuses to submit. He remains in a state of cold war with his father.
In this universe, being an Omega simply means one can bear children once they reach the age of 21, should they wish to. There are no other tropes or complexities beyond that.