Hide & Seek
chapter one: am I missing something?

The sun was peeking in through the blinds, casting it rays over the man—apparently, already awake. Yet the room was still dark. Aomine was seated on his bed, bent over his shoes as he untied them, having just arrived back from his morning jog. His alarm clock sounded as it hit 6:30AM and he reached over hitting the button on top to quiet it down. He stood up, walking to the bathroom as he drew his shirt over his head, throwing it in the laundry basket when he got inside. Likewise, he threw the rest of his sweaty attire into the bin and stepped into the shower, fingers quick to find the right knobs to turn to get the water running. He hummed lightly as he washed, shampooed, and rinsed.

When he got out, he had a towel around his waist and a smaller one around his shoulders. A pair of black pants and a light blue cotton shirt were waiting on the couch for him. He took a glance at the time on the clock as he dressed, already slipping on a black jacket by now. When he saw that it was 7:00AM he made the quick motion of grabbing his wristwatch from on top of the bedside table, snapping it on and shaking down lower on his wrist. He grabbed his keys, jammed it into his pocket, ready to head out into the streets.

Aomine was out the door, rushing down the stairs when he suddenly stopped in his tracks, cursing under his breath. He ran back up the stairs, to the door of his apartment, unsure of what to make of the situation today as he unlocked it. This was differently from the daily routine, by now he should have been completely away from the building. He stepped back into his room, scanning the space before him. There wasn't much for a one bedroom apartment. His kitchen was in the same room, only closed off by the counters. When his eyes found the bedside table again, there it was.

"Wallet." He murmured under his breath, stuffing it in his back pocket.

He gave the room another once over in case he had forgotten something else, when he was able to confirm that everything was in check, he set out again.

By 7:25AM he was at the usual coffee shop he stopped by every morning on his way. At least he'd made good time getting there and was back on track. Yet something still felt off as he stepped in, the bell on top of the ringing. The place was oddly empty today, except for one occupied table with a lone customer. His back was to the door so all Aomine could see was that, but nothing else was of note so he made his way to the counter to order the usual.

"One large brewed coffee, and a medium vanilla latte to go."

The lady behind the counter gave him a sweet, but tired smile. He figured her shift had been extended and was just about to end (since the usual barista who took his orders wasn't around) and he'd come in at a bad time. He returned it as he punched in the orders, repeating it back to him. He nodded, paying the amount. Pocketing his change, he shifted over to wait by the claiming area instead of sitting down.

The orders came and he thanked the lady (who'd dropped a lot of things in the process of making them). Though he'd initially been on time, this setback caused by the small disaster at the coffee shop made him 10 minutes later than usual. It never really took long to get to the building, but the walk would take 20 minutes, and he usually got there right in time for work. He decided to take a taxi to save time.

Aomine sighed upon reaching the building. His wristwatch read 8:05.

Oh well, it's just five minutes. He thought, as he pushed one of the glass double doors open with his shoulder. He nodded at lady behind the front desk and made a beeline for the elevator. It was at his stop that Aomine started to feel uneasy. Something was definitely strange about the atmosphere here. He balanced the drinks with one hand as he timed his card in. The floor was bustling about as per usual. Nothing was weird about that, it happened everyday.

But when Aomine made his way to his own cubicle, something start to feel really off.

He set the drinks down and then emptied his pockets of their contents atop the table as well.

He opened his steaming cup of coffee, pouring in three packets of sugar and two packets of creamer. He mixed it, quietly contemplating the strangeness of the day when he suddenly remembered that he'd bought another drink. He stirred his beverage, as he grabbed the other, lazily lifting it toward the cubicle right in front of his own.

"Oi, Tetsu! He's your—"

His eyes widened.

His drink spilled, but whatever heat was searing through his pants to his legs, was forgotten at the sight of an empty cubicle. That didn't last very long though. Aomine shook his head and cursed. The heat had subsided by now and his thigh and knee were starting to grow numb from it.

"Little shit didn't even tell me to call in sick for him." He absentmindedly groped for his phone on his table when it hit him, finally. It wasn't there.

"What the—" seriously, what is wrong with today?

Just as the questioned was posed in his head, his thoughts were interrupted by a man, nearly the same height as Kuroko standing beside his cubicle.

"Daiki, Chief is giving an assignment briefing right now and you're late."

"Huh?" He turned to the speaker, Akashi who was eyeing him with a slightly passive but admonishing look. "I wasn't informed. When did they announce it? And why is Chief giving the briefing. Aren't you supposed to do it?"

"…These are rather high profile assignments and we aren't the only ones investigating these issues. So if you please." Akashi completed ignored his comment on being uninformed, Aomine thought it was most likely because the shorter man was deadset on the idea that Aomine had been negligent with communication. Which wasn't the case, of course. He also concluded that the message came early this morning, which would explain why he wouldn't have seen it.

Ah! He thought, as he followed Akashi into the briefing room, with both drinks in his hands, maybe Tetsu's there already. He made sure to charge him for the drink this time around, which, though relatively unreasonable, made much more sense to him than the day's events.

Akashi opened the door for him. All eyes were on Aomine as he entered, no pair belonging to the light blue haired boy usually seated across from his cubicle, he locked on an unfamiliar set of hazel eyes, who seemed to be rather stunned at his arrival.

He ignored them, saving formalities and interjections for later and turned to Midorima who was seated beside the person.

"Midorima, where's Tetsu?"

But before the bespectacled man could reply, somebody else cut in. The door shut with a soft click behind him and Akashi took his place near the head of the table.

"Aomine, take a seat first before I wrap this up." Chief Nijimura spoke, leaning against the empty white board behind him, which was strange, briefings usually had approach ideas on them by now. Except today, everybody was just holding a file folder.

"Oi, oi. Finish? I just got here, Chief. This is an assignment briefing isn't it? And where in god's name is Tetsu?"

Unusually tense and clipped (then again assignments really took a toll on a person sometimes, especially something as heavy as this, given that it wasn't Akashi doing the informing), Chief Nijimura narrowed his eyes at him, a small, but unkindly smile playing on his lips. "Daiki, you will sit down and you will listen to the rest of the mission briefing. Are we clear?"

Aomine swallowed the lump in his throat that had formed in between the look he had gotten and his response, "crystal." He set the drinks down on the table, sitting in front of the unfamiliar person across from him.

"Alright, now that we're all here." Chief Nijimura made eye contact with Aomine and the newcomer. This ruffled his feathers a bit, and made him feel even more uncomfortable than the coffee on his pants did, but he didn't say anything.

"Kise, hand him the other folder with you."

The man—Kise, as was mentioned—handed the brown folder under his own to Aomine, flashing him a slightly awkward smile.

Kise, huh.

Aomine opened the folder, there was a picture of a man with red hair and a rather angry looking expression on his face. The name on the left hand side of the paper behind the photo read 'Kagami Taiga' –the name didn't ring any bells, but somehow, Aomine could really feel the weight of today's strange string of events heavy on his shoulders.

"Kise, fill him in on the details. I've already explained to you what you need to know aside from what's in the file. There isn't much—" he addressed Aomine this time, with a look, "and the mission looks simple enough, but this entails much patience if we want any feasible information. That said, Aomine. This is Kise."

Kise smiled again, this time different, not anything special, but not awkward either. It was almost friendly, but Aomine couldn't really be bothered. Kise stretched his hand out for him to shake as he spoke, "Kise Ryouta—" Aomine was about to reach out to do the polite thing and return the gesture, but something about all this still felt off and it came in an instant, at Kise's next words, "your new partner. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

Aomine stood up abruptly, pushing the chair back against the wall. There was a loud thud at that, and whatever was left of his coffee spilled again, over the contents of his folder. The expression on Chief Nijimura's face was unreadable, as was Akashi's; Midorima looked highly displeased, and Kise's mouth was slightly open, as if he wanted to say something to quell Aomine's outburst somehow, but nothing came out and Aomine was the only one to speak.

"Where the hell is Tetsu? And who the fuck is this dipshit?" He glared pointedly at Kise, as if it were his fault, which seemed to be the case right now.

Chief Nijimura just shook his head and took a calm stride to the door, where Akashi was ready to push open to leave. Midorima stood up as well, speaking on the Chief and Akashi's behalf.

"Akashi and I will be handling that assignment." He said, and all three exited.

At those words, Aomine's gaze unfocused and then when had regained some sense of self, he focused them again on the blond in front of him.

"You." He ground out. "What the fuck happened to Tetsu?"

Aomine felt his anger was justified, especially since nobody was really answering his questions and he believed them to be rather important questions.

"He's been my partner for three years." He explained, but more to himself than Kise, "if he'd been fired, I would've known first. If he quit, he would've told me. But clearly, that isn't the case here since apparently, Midorima and that heterochromatic pipsqueak is on his case, which apparently, I'm not entitled to know."

At this, Kise closed his folder and stood up, which was an unexpected move, which surprised them both; both because Kise had been deeply intimidated by Aomine's actions and words, but he did what he felt was right anyway. There was (what looked like) a soft smile on the blond's face as he moved to the other side of the room. He took Aomine by the wrist, pushing the chair the dark haired man had sat on, back under the table.

"I'll tell you. But not here, okay?"

Perplexed by now, more than he was annoyed, Aomine could do nothing but follow the blond's lead out the door, out of the building (stopping first to gather his keys and his wallet), and down the street into a quaint looking bar. The sign hanging on the door from the inside read 'closed' but Kise circled around back and entered through the door that was apparently unlocked.

Only half the chairs were down from being on top of the tables.

"Kasamatsu! I'm back. We'll be taking a table at the far end, please don't mind us until later." Kise called out as they headed toward the aforementioned table. Aomine, still puzzled, sat down, watching as Kise took a seat opposite him.

"I'm sorry I had to drag you all the way here, but it was best to acquaint you to this place anyway." Everything that was coming out of his mouth sounded cryptic to Aomine, who still couldn't grasped the situation completely, not that there was a lot of information to go by.

"Ahh. Right, uhm. So for this assignment, we need to bug the place. The entire place, somehow. I hear they've already made the devices for it, we'll pick those up later." He cracked the file open again and slid it across the table to Aomine.

"This is Kagami Taiga. We're 'spose to tail him and find out as much information as we can about him without him realizing that he's being watched. The bigger picture isn't clear yet, but apparently, we aren't the only ones in on this investigation."

This still wasn't making any sense and Aomine was starting to get impatient.

"Wait a minute. This Kagami person…we have a whole profile on him here, what else do we need to know?"

Kise leaned back against his seat, looking almost as impatient as Aomine.

"Recent behavioral patterns. That's something that isn't on this file. And there's some information about an organized crime group he might be part of. He does odd jobs at night, he's a bouncer for this bar on certain days. That's why we're here. There's a rumor that transactions take place here too, sometimes, at least." Kise looked pensive, as if he was considering the information he had divulged himself. Aomine too, who was staring blankly at the file. He snapped back into attention as he realized something. He glared at Kise again, who, this time, returned it with a look of displeasure.

"What does this all have to do with Tetsu though?"

Kise sighed, closing the file as he heard Kasamatsu emerge from the backroom. He slipped it into a manila envelope for good measure.

"Tetsu? Ah, right! Kuroko? Well…" he trailed off, biting his lip. He was unsure of whether or not to continue but the look on Aomine's face made him want to, there was something hidden underneath, different from complete anger. Almost protective.

"Well, nothing." Aomine's face held a dumbfounded expression. Kise hesitated to continue before Aomine's eyes cast down in what seemed like defeat, irritation, and helplessness. Strange of him, Kise thought, but I wouldn't really know.

"That…that's what they said. Back at the office. Chief Nijimura was briefing Midorima and Akashi and I happened to be there, I was a bit late myself, in fact. But if I remember correctly, nobody was really looking for you until they finally decided to acknowledge my presence in the room. Until then I didn't know I'd be working at Teikou with a partner. Even then, it was a little strained. There was only the file which the two read from. All we know is that he's missing."

It took a while for the information to sink in and still, Aomine couldn't believe it.

"Tetsu's…missing?"

Kise nodded. "Yup. That's what I heard. Abducted, actually. He didn't suddenly up and leave. Any clues to that or claims as to that being a possibility are kept hush-hush. Ahh…but…from what I know, personally, er—from where I used to work, I have a feeling there's a link somewhere. And maybe that's why we're tailing this guy right here." He gestured to the envelope on the table. Eyebrows knotting, Aomine's lips formed a straight line. There was a long pause as the conversation came to a halt, but Aomine broke the silence eventually, somewhat resolute in his inner conclusions.

"Can you give me a new copy of the file?"

Kise smiled, somehow sensing where this was going.

"We can go back later when we get the bugging material and ask Intel to reprint a copy for you." His expression changed when he remembered something, digging into his pocket, Kise pulled out an old, black model of a touch phone, handing it to Aomine.

"Before anything else, you might need this."

Aomine stared at it, until it finally registered in his head that it was indeed his.

"Ah! That's my phone. Where'd you get that?" He glared a little.

Kise chuckled lightly, "you were at the café this morning, right? You dropped it while you were taking your wallet out. I picked it up and tried to run after you but then you took a taxi instead so I couldn't give it to you."

"The…oh. That was you in there?"

Kise nodded. "It was close to where I'd have to be later on, so I hung out there for a while." He shrugged. Aomine pressed a button on its side to turn it on and slid his thumb to unlock the screen. Nothing seemed to be out of place. There was even one unread message.

At 6:30AM,

From: Midorima Shintarou
Re: Assignment Briefing

'Your attendance is required. 20:00 hours.'

He exited the messaging system and locked his phone again. That, at least, confirmed this morning's thoughts on the matter of being informed about the meeting. He pocketed his phone.

There was another moment of awkward silence between them, but Kise was busy watching Kasamatsu bustle about behind the bar counter. He spoke as if he remembered something from seeing the man.

"That's Kasamatsu Yukio. He owns the place. I used to work with him, he was even my partner before, but he quit just recently." This wasn't really vital information, in fact, his name was enough. But Kise felt that if Aomine was going to be his partner, if Aomine was going to bother with him later on—maybe if he shared some information from the get-go, he could manage at least an ounce of the other man's trust.

"I see. Anything else I should know?" Aomine wasn't at all welcome to the knew idea of having a new partner, but as the circumstance presented itself, there really was no choice in the matter. That, and if Kise didn't say everything he had to say, he really wouldn't have known what to do and he might've done something rash that could cost him his badge and his post.

"Not really. Apart from what's in the file. There's the shift schedule at this place, and this bartending job in particular. But nothing pressing that needs to be discussed now."

Aomine mulled over the response, and stood up from his seat. Kise watched him, until Aomine stared him long enough for him to realize that he had to stand up too.

"Well then, we should grab some lunch before heading back." The suggestion came from the blue haired man as he cast a look at the door.

"Mhmm. And we'll set up here before it opens at 6:30 later." Kise supplied with a slight grin. Aomine confirmed that with a nod and had turned around already to head out, when Kise grabbed him by the arm to stop him.

"One more thing though, before we go."

Looking impatient, but still indulgent, as this might be vital information that the blond suddenly remembered, Aomine crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow at him.

Kise's grin softened into a smile as he held his hand out, "let's start off on a good note this time. I'm Kise Ryouta, your partner—for the, er…time being." He struggled a bit to come up with the right words, but before Aomine could comment on his behavior, Kise suddenly spoke again, "I mean, your partner. Until we find Kuroko. How's that?"

Aomine caught himself in time, but couldn't help the split second break of expression on his face. With a smile, almost a smirk, he took the hand and shook it saying,

"Aomine Daiki. I'm alright with that."

With that, he turned around, but stopped in his tracks himself, Kise bumped into his shoulder, holding his hands out. Aomine didn't say anything about that, but instead muttered,

"and thanks…Kise. I'll owe you one if we find him."

The blond couldn't see the expression on the other's face but it really didn't matter to him right now. He was scared shitless this morning by how Aomine had reacted that whatever this was, in front of him, came as a pleasant surprise.

He hesitated, but spoke anyway, "don't worry, Aominecchi, you'll owe me one for sure."

Back at the office, the vanilla latte had lost its heat completely by now. Somebody on clean-up duty came in and threw it in the bin.

notes: FAKE BARTENDERS, YEAH. IDK guys. This is unbeta'd. It's multi-chaptered, fyi. And I'll be focusing on developing this over Old Habits. But I'll try to keep tabs on that. Anyway, this whole new partner old partner thing was influenced by my watching Miss Congeniality for the nth time in my entire life. That and my mom just loves watching NCIS and the like. Usually, missing person cases would go the police first (I think), but this is special. Ish. Ish cause, you know, it's p normal that Kuroko suddenly vanishes. =w= uhrg well, thanks for reading! Stay tuned!