written for basketballpoetsociety's challenge #41, "Character Battle"
angst.
There was a place in her heart, spaces filled to the brim and overflowing, reserved only for an amalgamation of the existences that were Kuroko Tetsuya and Aomine Daiki.
It would always be there, he knew, lucky that he was to still snag third place.
And yet.
Even sitting right next to and pressed close to his side, their hands laced together - as he watched her laugh at something her first love said and reach across to kick her childhood best friend in the shin beneath their dining-room table -
he has never felt so far away from her as now.
fluff.
"Momoi-san," he said instead, and she smiled because it was enough that he had caught himself this time not to-
But he still winced audibly, shoulders hunching down, and she stifled a sigh, taking his hands into and turning them over in her own. "You don't always have to be sorry," she told him patiently. She ignored his slight jump of surprise, and wondered why he would take her throwaway comment from last practice so seriously-
You don't have to apologize for apologizing either.
Above her head, his answering smile was tumultuous.
first time.
He was a stuttering mess somehow, worse than ever, and completely unable to look her in the eye.
She thought it strange and all of a sudden, so tolerated it for at least three practices before cornering him from just out of the showers. Surprisingly, he did not lose his cool too much, save clutching his towel further to his chest (and baring a small amount of his thighs oh my) and turning an alarming shade of tomato.
Finally, he seemed to gather his courage as he burst out in a shout and bowed at ninety-degree angle (his towel not slipping a little further, of course not-)
"Please go out with me!"
smut.
His hands were large, warm as they smoothed across the bare expanse of her stomach, slipping beneath and creasing up the edge of her shirt. She gasped at the feel of it, the gentility of it all, and arched her back.
He immediately stilled and she could practically feel the beginnings of yet another apology bubbling to his lips in that pause (sometimes, his habit regressed), and quickly silenced it with a kiss.
humor.
"Ryou," she said, and he tried to ignore the way her glossed lips formed his name. "Just breathe."
He nodded and finally, after a long moment, was able to put down the brown paper bag.
And then she took off her shirt.
ust.
"Here you go, Sakurai-kun."
He looked up into kind magenta eyes and was, for a moment, lost. They blinked at him.
"Sa…Sakurai-kun?"
He shook his head a little and quickly accepted the folded towel, almost dropping it in his haste. "A-ah, sorry!" he cried out.
For what, he did not know.
He straightened from his crouch, hands dropping away from his knees and wiping the sweat from his tangled hair, and, for the first time, noticed how small their new manager was. She was still standing there, head now tilted up to him and a small smile gracing her face. He froze, uncertain of what to do.
"-Satsuki!".
And then she was called and gone, her long pink ponytail swaying, to the side of a needy teammate who was probably the reason he didn't know her that well and -
His hand clenched the towel and he stared at it. It was still slightly warm from her touch.
AN: I really wanted to write a Sakumomo and try my hand at a meme/prompt-fic, so this was a bit of a warm-up heheh… ^_^
The first one is a bit of "gen" though really, because I think any relationship Momoi tried to initiate otherwise would always come back to these two, her most important people.