Chapter 1
"Okay, let's try again."
"He...uh...hearu?"
"No no, listen," Kagami said patiently, enunciating with exaggerated motions of his lips, "Hello."
"Herao?"
Kagami sighed, running a hand through his hair, "We've been at this for days, Aomine, you're going to have to be able to say at least some things."
Aomine snorted with frustration and crossed one of his legs over the other, having difficulty with the cramped space, "Well sorry if I'm not living up to your expectation; I'm not gonna learn the whole goddamn language in just a couple of days."
"I know, and I'd say A for effort if...I saw any evidence that you were making one." Kagami muttered.
"Why do I have to learn it, anyway?" Aomine scowled impatiently, looking out the window at the ground passing by, thousands of feet below, "We're only going to be in America for like a week."
"Exactly," Kagami said, "You want to be silent, unable to communicate, for a whole week?"
"I can communicate with you and Tetsu; that's all I need."
Kagami swallowed another exasperated sigh, glancing briefly at Kuroko, seated across the aisle from them, "If you say so."
He must have sounded dejected, because Aomine blinked and looked at him, and then one of his hands reached over and nudged Kagami's. Smiling slightly to himself, Kagami laced their fingers together, smoothing his thumb over the plain gold band on Aomine's ring finger. The promise; the enormous, terrifying, wonderful promise of the future they were hurtling towards together, at a speed neither of them could stop or even slow, any more than they could stop or slow the plane they were currently aboard.
When he'd proposed, he hadn't been thinking of anything except that he was glad he was kneeling, because he doubted his wobbly legs would support him, and he was glad he'd rehearsed what he was going to say, agonized over it, over and over for about a week beforehand. He'd still tripped over his words like an idiot, but he'd managed to get the question out in the end, albeit in a desperate, stuttering rush. For a long, nerve-wracking moment, Aomine had just stared at him, shocked into silence, and then...even more unnervingly, he'd started laughing, but held out his hand towards the ring clenched in Kagami's fist.
"Um...is that...a yes…?" Kagami had stammered uncertainly. They had been dating for about five years; it had taken two for their one-on-ones and casual hang-outs to morph into something more, something deeper. And though they'd shared thousands of heated kisses and touches, spent every waking hour - and most sleeping ones - together, and even lived in the same house, Kagami had still been extremely nervous about this whole ordeal. And it was an ordeal. He hadn't slept a wink for days before working up the nerve to get down on one knee, and when the moment of truth finally arrived, he was sweating bullets and felt nauseous enough to wonder if he'd puke right on Aomine's shoes.
"Hell yes, dumbass." The fervent tone of voice alone had automatically ebbed a lot of Kagami's stress. He'd always enjoyed Aomine's voice - the rough, rich, low quality of it - it had been one of the first things to draw him in, hook line and sinker. He'd let out a low exhale, tension pouring out of him, and smiled up at his beautiful boyfriend, now his fiancée, before slipping the ring - the devastating promise that would change and shape the rest of both of their lives - onto his finger. And there it had stayed.
The new problem had then become their inability to have the ceremony in Japan, and after almost two months, and a lot of half-hearted suggestions and plans that never ended up taking off, Kagami had called up Alex and asked if she would help them arrange a trip to Los Angeles for the occasion. Much tearful squealing of "I can't believe my little Taiga's getting married!" and "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" later, she'd cheerily agreed to lend a hand, and the three plane tickets she'd solicited for them arrived in the mail a few weeks after. Aomine had insisted the third ticket go to Kuroko, whom Kagami had to admit was a good choice for a best man, and once everything was in order, they'd set off for America, and the future, neither having any idea what they were getting themselves into.
The feminine voice over the intercom informing the passengers that the plane would be starting its descent brought Kagami back to the present, and he blinked to realize Aomine was resting his cheek in the crook of his shoulder, and he wondered if he was falling asleep. He was surprised he hadn't noticed him leaning against him sooner, but he supposed he had just grown accustomed to being physically close to him, touching innocently and not-so-innocently almost constantly.
He was more surprised that Aomine was okay with being seen this way in public, but then...he supposed those barriers and inhibitions had been slowly loosening the stronger their bond grew and the fewer fucks they gave about what other people thought. He did catch Kuroko looking over at them, with the usual mild, impartial stare, and he thought he saw a hint of affection enter those winter blue eyes, a tiny smile lift his otherwise level expression. Kuroko had been immediately supporting of their relationship, right from the beginning, which was more than he could say for most people who knew about it. Kagami suspected he was just glad to see Aomine happy, but he showed he cared about both of them a great deal, often. He gave comfort or tough love, whichever was needed, when their inevitable fights got really bad, before convincing them to forgive and forget, no matter how they sulked and dragged their feet. He gave Kagami his blessing when he came to him, telling him he was going to ask Aomine to marry him, and then agreed to be their best man when Aomine asked later on. He'd been a pillar and a true friend, and Kagami didn't know if he would even be sitting where he was now without him. For that, he was grateful. Feeling his way blindly through his relationship with Aomine had been a challenge and an adventure, and he wouldn't have taken back one moment of it.
"We're almost there," he murmured, brushing his chin against Aomine's coarse sable hair.
He felt the vibration of Aomine's chuckle against his neck, and slowly he sat up straight, "...We've still got a long way to go."
.
.
"Taiga! Over here!"
Kagami looked up at the call, to find the familiar form of Alex waiting for them at the baggage carousel, and - a grumbling Aomine in tow, Kuroko trailing behind - he jogged over to meet her, a grin already crossing his face despite himself.
"It's good to see you," Unconsciously matching her English and coming to a stop, he barely had time to brace himself before she'd slung an arm around his shoulders and her lips were inbound, rapidly coming towards his own. Quickly holding up a hand, he prevented the kiss and took an evading step back, uncomfortably aware of Aomine's "what-the-fuck" glare burning holes in his neck.
"Sorry Alex, but I'd have to have a death wish to let you kiss me in front of -"
Alex, however, was not listening, and had laid eyes on his company, a gleeful smile exploding across the lips that had almost crashed into his a moment ago.
"Is this the guy, Taiga? Man, I take back what I said about your taste; he's almost hot enough to make me jealous. If only I were ten years younger..."
"Alex!" Kagami reprimanded harshly, not that Aomine could understand what she was jabbering about...hopefully.
Switching gears and languages rapidly, Alex turned her beaming expression on a very confused and very wary Aomine, "You're Taiga's fiancée, Aomine Daiki, right? I'm Alexandra Garcia; nice to meet you!"
Aomine seemed relieved by the return to Japanese, probably not about to leap at the chance to demonstrate what he'd learned - or hadn't learned - about the English language in the last few weeks, "Uh...right," he said slowly, "You're Kagami's old master; I didn't expect…" he trailed off, and Kagami saw his eyes flit over Alex's ample chest; perhaps a force of habit of his when confronted with someone of the female species. In any case, it made the hair on the back of Kagami's neck prickle possessively.
Dragging Kuroko over by the arm, Kagami attempted to change the subject, "You've met Kuroko already, of course," he said quickly, "My best man."
"Our best man," Aomine objected, crossing his arms, "I'm not the bride of this popsicle stand, dumbass."
"Well, I proposed to you so…"
"That doesn't make a difference! Besides, I asked Tetsu to be my best man, if anything - !"
They both broke off at a sudden, loud eruption of Alex's laughter, the beginnings of an argument dissolving as they turned to stare at her in unison.
"You two are too funny!" she giggled, "I'm sure there's never a dull moment if you're in each other's faces like that all the time."
Feeling rather foolish for bickering over nothing in particular in front of his childhood teacher, Kagami rubbed a hand against the back of his neck and cleared his throat, "Anyway, we should get our bags and head to the hotel."
"...So when you get hitched in three days, who's taking whose surname?" Alex chatted amiably as they scanned the metal conveyor belt for their luggage, ignoring Kagami's attempt to divert her attention from all things matrimony-related.
"They argued about that too," Kuroko chipped in quietly, giving Alex a serene half-smile and bending over to retrieve his small, pale blue suitcase, "For almost two weeks."
Kagami sighed dramatically, resisting the urge to hit Kuroko over the head. And of course the little bastard had kept track of just how long they'd stubbornly disagreed on the whole name business. For some time, just to maintain some semblance of peace, they'd maintained they would both keep their original names, but eventually, Kagami had bent to his unfairly persuasive fiancée.
"I'm taking Aomine's," he mumbled, shuffling his feet because he was kind of proving Aomine's point by admitting that.
"Hmm...Aomine Taiga," Alex pondered, then she grinned, "It has a nice ring to it."
Kagami dropped his gaze, before glancing at Aomine out of the corner of his eye. He remembered the idiot snickering and ruffling his hair when he'd eventually agreed to his wheedling and not-so-subtle suggesting (and bribing...the idea sounded much nicer when Aomine whispered it in his ear amid lingering kisses with their bodies intertwined, after all) and said that he would adopt his surname.
"Whatever your signatures end up saying, you'll always be my little Kagami,"he'd teased, but from the satisfaction and downright smugness he was radiating in waves, amplifying his already humongous ego, Kagami got the feeling that he was pretty happy. And with one petty argument settled, Kagami had immediately started another, over Aomine calling him "little". ("Two centimeters doesn't give you the right to call someone little! Besides, I'm older than you by almost a month!")
Alex was right; they really were in each other's faces all the time. But for some reason, that just reinforced their relationship, and brought them closer together, even after it tore them apart, however briefly. None of their fights - none of their tactless retorts, or slips of the tongue that were crueler than intended - were enough to divide them for long. And now nothing would ever be again.
TBC
((So this was supposed to be just a cute, fluffy one-shot, but apparently I got too into it so I have to divide it into chapters and make it a full-on fic with actual plot. As if I don't have enough stories already in progress. Sorry I haven't updated in awhile...there was the con and a dead laptop preventing me from writing and such.
-Shinsun))