A/N: Hello there! This is indeed an AU, and it's a hitchhiker one that harassed me until I wrote it down (right in the middle of exam block too, tch – so troublesome!). Anyway, let me know what you think, and I take prompts for oneshots if you'd like to see anything in particular. Also, to the reviewer 'kurochin', I'm in the process of writing a 'Tangled' AU!
"Fucking Kagami," grunted the navy haired officer as he sped down the highway, moodily flicking through the channels on the radio. Despite being off duty, he still drove in his assigned undercover work car, fully equipped with its sports mode and weapons packed into the trunk. The red haired officer had neglected to tell him the departure time of their train down south, and so he was forced to drive down to participate in the mission.
He'd only been driving an hour when he felt the familiar grumble in his stomach, and so he pulled over at a gas station and refilled his tank before heading in to the store, gathering armfuls of chips and chocolate and a whole two litre bottle of coke. He had just dumped it on the counter when he heard an exasperated groan from behind him.
"Oh, I am so fucked."
He glanced over his shoulder to see a dainty pink haired woman with a spectacular rack as she face palmed. She was wearing three quarter length cargo pants, worn out converses and a dark blue singlet. A fire engine red bucket hat sat atop her head, and an averaged size pack was on her back.
"Will you be paying card or cash, sir?" asked the cashier, pulling Daiki's attention away from the young woman and back to his purchases.
"Cash," he muttered, handing over a few bills before he gathered all the food back into his arms and headed back to the car. After delivering his stock to the car, he drove to the diner next door and parked neatly at the front, deciding to spoil himself a little. A large plate of pancakes (with extra maple syrup and ice cream) and a large bowl of udon later, he was happily fulfilled and ready to go.
He got back on to the highway, peering up at the sky warily – it was a mottled grey, he guessed it'd be raining soon. He was right – and not half an hour later he saw a flash of lightning in the distance, and it began sprinkling. With a sigh he switched on his windscreen wipers and was reached for a packet of chips.
With the darkening sky and the beginnings of a storm, he almost missed the figure on the side of the road – but luckily a flash of lightning illuminated the area just in time for him to spot the person hopping from foot to foot hurriedly, a thumb thrust out in the universal hitchhiker signal.
Heaving a sigh and wondering why he couldn't just act like he usually did and bypass the stranger, he pulled up alongside the jogging form and beeped his horn rather annoyingly (in about six beeps the hitchhiker seemed to get the memo, and they hurriedly dashed to the passenger side.
Daiki grimaced as the damp person entered his car – and almost cheered immediately after once he realised it was the well-endowed woman from the gas station. She slammed the door behind her and quickly opened the ties on her bag, grabbing out a towel and wiping the water from her as best she could.
"Where're you headed?" asked the officer, lazily stretching as best he could in the confines of his seat.
"S-South," she murmured, teeth chattering as she took off her bucket hat and shakily wrung it into the towel.
"Nagoya?" he questioned, quirking a brow. It'd be quite the coincidence if they were headed to the same place.
"F-Further. Osaka."
He gave a low whistle and waited for her to put on her seatbelt before he pulled back on to the highway and went zooming south once again. He watched her out of the corner of his eye as she pulled out a turquoise tracksuit jumper and tugged it on. For a moment she let her long, wet tresses drip onto her clean, dry shirt – but then she gathered the towel and wove it around her head in a turban-like fashion.
He barely supressed a snort, wishing he had an extra set of hands to take a snapshot of her and send it to Kagami and Kuroko. He reckoned they'd get a good laugh out of it.
"So," he said after a few minutes in silence, "I saw you at the gas station earlier."
He felt her magenta eyes rake the side of his face for a moment before she replied, "Ah. Yes."
"You didn't look too happy," he prompted, clearing his throat.
She flushed a darker pink than her hair, realising he must've heard her, "Yeah… well, the couple that had agreed to take me before realised they wanted to have sex in the backseat, so they kicked me out. Literally."
This time he couldn't supress his snort – much to the woman's disdain.
"I – I didn't expect them to be so forward about it, either!"
He dissolved into laughter, imagining the seemingly proper woman's face when the couple had made their announcement in the car.
"Where're you headed?" she asked, hands fidgeting in her lap.
He took a few calming breaths, and even had a nice yawn before he slurred, "Nagoya."
"Oh." Her voice was small, "Uh… well thank you for picking me up, sir."
"Aomine," he corrected.
"Well, thank you, Aomine-san."
He shot her a meaningful look, waiting for her name – but she remained silent. After a moment or two, she reached out to the stereo – "May I?" she asked, hand hovering over the controls.
He nodded and shrugged as she flicked on the radio – and promptly began to sing, very loudly and very badly along with the tune. His hold on the steering wheel tightened as he struggled to supress his stitch-inducing laughter.
"Sing with me!" she yelled, turning up the music so loud he thought the speakers might burst.
And so he started singing, bellowing the lyrics at the top of his lungs as he turned on his headlights for the dark afternoon. They must've sung for hours – to ballads and rock songs, duets and badly screeched instrumentals – until at last they tired each other out. The rain had stopped.
The woman in the passenger seat buzzed down the window, inhaling the fresh, rain-dampened air with an elated grin. Daiki did the same, enjoying the sensation of the earthy air as it whipped through the windows, clearing out the scent of chips and coke that they'd helped themselves to.
"So," she began the conversation, turning to look at him with wide eyes, "what takes you down to Nagoya?"
He shrugged, shooting her a lopsided grin, "Business. My jackass partner caught the train without me and the next one leaves in three days. I got stuck all by my lonesome."
She giggled and shook her head, "Not by your lonesome any more, Aomine-san!"
"Yes indeed…" he wasn't sure how to address her.
"Momoi. Momoi Satsuki." At the mention of her name she seemed to sober, facing the front once more as her lips fell into a straight line.
"Well, Momoi-san… why are you headed south?"
He knew she could feel his eyes on her, but she didn't indicate that she was uncomfortable with it (as most people he'd interrogated as an officer had).
"I… have to pay a visit down at a shrine," she murmured, clamping shut too quickly for him to catch her expression.
"Oh. And hitch hiking? Why not something safer, like a train?" he knew he was prying, but he really couldn't help himself. Momoi invoked a certain curiosity within him that he hadn't felt in a long time.
"Well," she began, cheeks flushing, "money's a bit tight. My boss told me he'd promote like a year ago, but he still hasn't so I've kind of given up on it. Who knows, maybe I'll ditch Tokyo and live in Osaka permanently? Wait – never mind – moving costs way too much-" she caught herself blabbering and slapped a hand to her mouth, "Sorry! I didn't mean to ramble!"
Daiki grinned and shook his head, "S'okay. Look on the bright side – you don't have an idiot for a partner and his goddamn boyfriend who joins us every mission. Heck, I like the guy, but being the third wheel more often than not sucks!"
Momoi laughed, the tension easing out of her frame once more, "My boss is scary as hell though – his eyes are all mismatched and he carries scissors around in his pocket!"
"Scissors?" Daiki raised a brow.
"Scissors," she nodded, dead serious, "I've seen him try to stab someone in the face with them before. It wasn't pretty."
"Hold up," the officer frowned, "he tried to stab someone? In the face? Why the hell do you still work for him?"
"Relax, relax, the guy was adamant his basketball team was better than the one my boss owns – Akashi really just wanted to scare him, y'know. By potentially blinding him."
"Akashi? As in Akashi Seijuuro, the manager of Basketball Monthly?"
"Yeah."
For a moment they sat in silence, headlights now the only thing illuminating the road ahead.
"So you hate your job, eh?"
"Yeah."
"Is that why you're running down south, then?"
"Partly, yeah."
"Okay. I know how you feel. Sometimes I just want to escape, too."
"I've never stopped wanting to."
"I see."
"Yeah."
Silence.
"Satsuki?"
She hesitated, but blinked up at him curiously, "Yes, Aomine-san?"
"Call me Daiki," he kept his gaze trained solely on the road ahead, "please."