Falling in love with Kise had been a quiet, slow and often exhausting process. Like someone sneaking up on a good friend from behind, covering his eyes with both hands and prompting him to guess who it was. As weird as it may sound - this is exactly what falling in love with Kise felt like. The weird sense that something was coming closer slowly, the moment of surprise when there were suddenly hands on your face, the confusion and the inability to pinpoint the hands and the voice and it is so close but you just cannot put a name on it. It had been all of that. Slowly coming up. A surprise attack. A lot of confusion. A name for it burning on your lips. Oh and the annoyance and anger afterwards. Aomine always hated that little prank.
Thinking back on it, it started earlier than Aomine would have ever thought. That is the part where you have the weird sense that someone was coming closer from behind. Maybe it started back in middle school. Or no - it definitely did. Maybe it started with a carelessly thrown basketball and him seeing a boy that was so weirdly void of any passion that Aomine could not comprehend how someone could go through their life without something as important to them as basketball. Shouldn't pretty people like that have figured it all out?
Or maybe he should give it still a little bit more time. Maybe it started when they were already friends and playing in a team, when ›that model dude‹ already became Kise and when Kise started to bother him after every training for another one-on-one and they started to spend so much time together that it became almost like second nature that the blond would be always somewhere in his hemisphere. Just not as easily overlooked as Tetsu. Just not quite a comfortable shadow but someone who always demanded attention in some way.
It could have started in those lazy early summer afternoons where they lay with the balcony doors drawn wide open in Kise's room. Sun flooding every last corner of the already too bright room full of yellows and whites and pastel colours that nobody could get away with but Kise. The breeze made the curtains dance and no one bothered to shut the door. They would try to learn together for their exams because no matter how talented they may be at basketball, if they failed classes they could say goodbye to the team for now. Of course it was as effective as an elephant teaching a donkey how to fly but they had their best intentions (and Tetsu couldn't be bothered with them anymore and lost his patience somewhere along the way).
Maybe that was the sneaking up part - Aomine lying in Kise's bed with the book on his face, peaking out under the rim of the cover, watching Kise sitting in the open balcony door, dressed in a pale blue pair of shorts and a mint far too big tank top. The sun was shining so bright Kise's hair reflected it like gold. There was a frown on his face, and a pencil between his lips. Even back then, for someone who doesn't usually notice such stuff, he was slightly annoyed by how damn beautiful Kise looked in summer. (And every other season really but summer suited him particularly well).
»Aominecchi!« Kise would whine after some time and get up from his position. The nickname still sounded completely ridiculous to him. Aomine would pretend to be asleep. »Aominecchi! I think we did enough, let's go and play basketball.« He would say and lift the book off of Aomine's face. And he wouldn't say anything about how lazy Aomine was or that he had been sleeping instead of learning and he would look down on him, and there was light and the breeze playing with Kise's hair and shirt and there was no way he would have been ever able to say no to anything Kise would ask in those moments. But he would never ask anything Aomine could not give him.
This is a slow process and it had been long coming - a ball against the head, popsicles after school, one-on-one matches after practice, Aominecchi here and there and everywhere, basketball being for a few precious moment as much fun as it never had been before until it turned dark, going out for teriyaki burgers, Kise standing in his classroom door and ignoring all the girls while talking to Aomine, Kise declaring that he liked to wear his uniform like Aominecchi did. The sneaking up part might have been their friendship. As simple as that and the bad feeling might have been Aomine not appreciating it more.
But where was the surprise, where to pinpoint that moment exactly. Where were hands suddenly covering your eyes and someone intruding out of nowhere where you have been before completely content just by yourself. When did that start?
- Kise had asked him and Satsuki to come with him because he wanted to get his ear pierced and he was too scared to do it alone. Satsuki was of course delighted and she was the obvious choice to make when it came to picking up the nicest accessories. With Aomine Kise insisted that he had such a calm, laid back nature that it soothed Kise's nerves - while Kuroko was too calm, Midorima couldn't be bothered and Murasakibara was too careless and Akashi just too serious and he wouldn't approve anyway - and that he needed to be with him here or Kise would chicken out. So they all went to the studio and Kise brought the right amount of drama with him and probably made the owner of the studio's day because his daughter was such a big fan (otherwise they would have been most certainly thrown out). But those are all not the important details, they are not, because there was this moment the jewellery options were put on display and Satsuki immediately opted for a classic silver ring but Kise kept on looking at him with expectation. Aomine didn't really care and he had his basketball with him and just waited for them to be done with this, but Kise pleaded and Satsuki started to glare at him.
»I like the blue one.«, Kise blurted out, pointing at the blue ring. Dark shade. Not at all what Aomine would have expected. »I think it is the best.«, he continued. There was a moment there, where Aomine stared at the piercing and didn't even need to look at his shirt to know it has the exact same colour. He looked back at Kise and at big amber eyes. He didn't recognise it back then, that Kise probably tried to tell him something there. He had been so bored and hungry. So he just waved it of. »How the hell should I know. Looks fine to me.« For a few seconds more Kise looked like he wanted Aomine to say something more on that topic, but when he realised he wouldn't, he turned his gaze away in a weird, embarrassed way. But he chose the blue one and for the first days after it healed he wouldn't stop playing with it and Aomine wouldn't stop looking at the weird contrast between blond hair and the dark blue of the ring.
- »We will come too late to Kurokocchi's birthday, Aominecchi!«, Kise whined as they ran through the ice cold rain of a surprisingly mild and snowless late January. Currently they were making another stop under a bus station. The sky was nothing but grey and they both forgot to take an umbrella with them. Aomine hadn't been paying all that much mind to the weather, but Kise had been blabbering about snow coming soon and he knew because he was so thirsty and his grandma had always told him that when one feels thirsty, then snow would be arriving. Aomine called bullshit on that one, and bullshit it was because this pissing rain was nothing like snow, but just a wet misery that drenched them mercilessly. To be honest he didn't feel too bad in his coat, but Kise was shivering miserably beside him in his nice looking, but completely impractical jacket.
»Not my fault.«, Aomine grumbled and tried to get his hands warm again. Maybe he should have just stayed in bed, but after all it was Tetsu's birthday.
»Well, it isn't my fault!«
»Why do you need it to be anybody's fault?«
Kise didn't answer that and simply pouted. Aomine gave him five seconds to get it together again but then only rolled his eyes when Kise wouldn't stop. »Let's keep going, idiot.«
»But I am so cold.«
Aomine groaned, but then didn't hesitate to shrug out off his coat. - »What- what are you doing?!« - and as soon as he was finished he forced Kise out of his already wet jacket - »We swap and you stop complaining. Why are you always so annoying?« - Kise's half-assed reluctance was overcome all too easily by him and just a little later he was standing in Aomine's warm coat there, while Aomine just held onto Kise's jacket without putting it on. Maybe it was the cold, but most likely it was something else that made Kise's cheeks turn scarlet. »Better?«, Aomine asked and even pulled the zipper closed when Kise made no attempts to do it himself. The blond looked even good in his coat, with his hair sticking to his face and he could probably hardly see anymore - so Aomine took it in his hands now as well and brushed the errands strands out of his eyes. His fingers lingered a little bit in the other's hair. It was really soft, what shit does he put in there? Aomine started hesitating, looking at Kise. The other mumbled his name, question mark behind it - and Aomine stared a little. Something was different. His chest felt weird. How could Kise be cold, when he felt so hot and warm to the touch? - The moment was interrupted when Kise's phone started going off in the pocket of his jacket with some obnoxious pop tune and Aomine groaned, fumbling for the damn thing, hands weirdly bumping into Kise's as he reached out for it at the same time. They both apologised like idiots for it.
For some reason Aomine couldn't stop thinking about that moment all through the party and even a few days afterwards and even months later it still popped up at the weirdest moments.
- »How are you doing this? I don't even understand!«, Kise moaned. In one hand he held his popsicle, with the other he was still dribbling the basketball.
»Shouldn't you know, copy cat?«, Aomine replied disinterestedly, too occupied to keep his own popsicle from melting all over his hands and making his fingers sticky. Without even looking he caught the ball Kise threw at his head, lazily picking up where the other left off. The sound of the ball on the pavements echoed back in the street they were walking.
»No matter how often I look, I just cannot seem to figure Aominecchi out.«
»Hm?«, Aomine raised and eyebrow and looked to the right, he was not very perceptive, but even he had heard that this was sounding like Kise meant something else than Aomine's style of basketball. »I just do it. There is no technique. I play like I play.« That was just the simple truth and he kept the rest of his life just as simple. He played like he played and he was like he was. There was no bigger explanation behind that.
»You are just the best.«, Kise answered easily, laughter back in his voice and it didn't even sound like the other is teasing him. Aomine blinked. Kise hadn't been admitting this so freely anymore, while at the beginning it had been nothing but endless annoying gushing over Aomine's basketball skills. But it had turned very quickly into just desperately wanting to beat Aomine. That probably would never happen but still.
Sudden cursing maade him stop in his tracks and turn back. Kise had been apparently so preoccupied with his recaption of their last four matches, that he completely forgot about his popsicle. The syrup was dripping down over his arm and onto the pavement. Tinted red lips from the popsicle tried to lick and suck the melting mess away, but he was only half successful. There was only one thing he was being pretty damn successful with and that was looking totally obscene as he wrapped his lips around the popsicle, making soft moaning noises that probably were supposed to be frustration but could be something completely different as well. Aomine could feel his cheeks burn. Three days ago he got a girl to suck him off and it had been spectacular and very eye opening to a whole new world of realities. He had watched with fascination all the time. Fuck, he thought, what the fuck-
- Maybe it had been many little sparks of surprises, a cluster of surprises scattered all through. It was one thing to realise that you actually enjoyed the company of Kise, that you kinda liked his stupid jokes and antics and it was never boring when he was around and that playing basketball with him was mostly fun and in general that the moments where Kise got on his nerves were not so bad, at least not compared to the queer notion to have Kise not around at all. But it was a complete different thing to suddenly have those flashes were you wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch and make those touches linger- what was that - what to call that -
He knows exactly where the guess who games starts, all the different moments when he threw out names but none, not a single one was right but with every mistake he had been working himself towards the truth-
They all separated ways after middle school, after Aomine's world refocused and he learned what it was like to feel so passionate about something that it turns dark, and toxic, and allows you no joy anymore - the only one who can beat me is me - what a mantra. The only one I have is me, might have been the truer words. What had he called Kise then? Ex- team member or something like that. That had been wrong.
But everyone were just ex-team members or people he didn't care about, trapped in a dark place where he didn't care about much anymore and most certainly not about basketball and even more certain than that was that he didn't care about Kise. Not in particular. But that might be even worse.
Then he called them strangers to each other but that didn't feel right, too, that wasn't right at all.
They played against each other and he called Kise his rival. And when Kise sat on the floor, unable to get up, something had stirred in his heart, something that wanted him to go to Kise and reach out to him, get his pathetic ass back up and not see him cry because Kise's crying face was the worst for him. But he didn't and that was wrong and then he wasn't even a rival for Aomine anymore, nothing but a looser. Aomine didn't recognise himself anymore back then. After that game he lay for a long time awake, balling his right to a fist and letting go again. Nothing changed really but other things changed. He made the wrong choice again and he was forced to stay blind.
But he was getting closer again after he lost the game against Seirin. When he snapped out of it, when things changed.
He met Kise in the park by chance. The other just finished a shooting and he had still his hair done and make up on and wore the clothes he got as a present now that everything was wrapped. He looked ridiculous and too fancy and handsome at the same time.
And it had been Kise giving him a hint then, when he saw Aomine and screamed through half the park his name, jogging after him, loosing his brown fedora on the run. They spent the next ten minutes trying to fish it out of the pond and it felt in that moment like nothing had changed. That there weren't months, nearly a year where they barely talked. There was Kise, laughing and drenched to the bones in designer clothes and Aomine complaining besides him, just as wet and with green stains all over his white shirt and the sun was shining that day, too. »Baka.«, Aomine grumbled and Kise laughed, way too loud and way too bright, in that stupid trained model way where he looked like those faces on the ads who are simply overjoyed about instant noodles or something. But it was good and there was still a blue ring gleaming in Kise's ear.
They let themselves dry and talked, or more like Kise talked and Aomine gave just enough commentary to make this a conversation. They didn't so much else that day but Kise asked him if he wanted to meet up sometime soon, just like old days - play one-on-one and the looser treats the winner to some food (always Kise paying but he had that little extra cash thanks to his modelling job). - and to his own surprise Aomine found himself agreeing. He really wanted to.
Friend is what comes into mind.
-But then there was the match against Fukuda Sōgō Academy and he punched Haizaki in the face and couldn't believe he could hold so much rage inside of him that could translate so violently. But that ass planned to hurt Kise and no one, no one ever was allowed to do that. No one was allowed to hurt Kise. Is this really what friends do?
And then there is the thing that you probably just don't do and swap the anonymous face of some babe with nice big tits with the face of your - very male - friend while you jerk off. And you shouldn't come so hard when you jerk off to the very flat chest of your friend and the very male face no matter how pretty and the voice and the hands and the ass and this is not what you call friend.
- Then there is playing street basketball with Kise in spring, just when it starts being warm enough to go out in shorts and a hoodie. Kise wasn't holding back and Aomine wasn't holding back and still they have never laughed so much and there was just so much fun in it - Kise copied him effortlessly, but he did it with an ease and an elegance that it became his own personal style and Aomine actually needed to put some effort in it to keep up. But that was good, and it wasn't so much about loosing or winning then, it was simply about playing again. There were times when Kise teased him, mischief in his eyes as he forced body contact, playfully trying to sneak his way past Aomine, but Aomine would still be always one step ahead. And that didn't matter as well, because Kise laughed when he lost the ball and next time try some ridiculous move that would fail spectacularly. They both had changed again.
The game would turn less and less serious - they both still knew the outcome anyway at this point - until they were both just jostling for the ball - »C'mon, you idiot, it's my turn!« »I don't want to, Aominecchi!« - and Aomine doesn't remember how it happened that he had the other more in his arms, back pressed to his chest. Kise was the only one who could still manage to smell like a fresh day even after playing for nearly two hours and Kise grinned over his shoulder, cheeks tinted red with exertion - and Aomine wanted to kiss him - and -
He maybe did. And it may have been the best thing he did in a long time and it may have felt like the best decision he has ever made - but it didn't last long and he jerked back, gasping »Fuck.« and when Kise just stared at him, shock on his face and stammered out his name, Aomine said again »Fuck.«
This was an answer and it seemed kind of right, but that didn't mean he liked it at all.