Down on the court Akashi tells Midorima, "Be less compassionate. I want you to treat me like an enemy."
Tatsuya can feel his heart give a strange thump hearing that. It is the same sound his heart had made when he'd heard from Atsushi that Akashi had once told Kuroko to keep his fighting spirit hidden to better control his misdirection. Tatsuya thinks of Akashi telling him to keep a cool head and a passionate heart while sprawled out on his bed. He glances around to make sure no one is looking, then readjusts his pants. He has never felt attracted to someone because of the possible similarities between them before. It is a novel feeling.
"Stop that, Murochin," Atsushi hisses from beside him. "It's creepy. Like thinking about my parents having sex."
"Atsushi, you have four older siblings. I'm sure your parents had a lot of sex," Tatsuya says, blithely ignoring the dirty glare Atsushi shoots him. "Besides, don't you think that thinking of me and Akashi as your parents is creepier?"
Atsushi looks like he just swallowed a pickled plum. Tatsuya looks back down at the court, satisfied. It will be Seirin playing Rakuzan on the court in just a few days. He wonders if Kagami will win against Akashi too. He wonders if it would be hotter if Akashi wins.
"Murochin is actually an awful person," Atsushi grumbles, staring down at Akashi as if he's trying to drill a hole in him.
"I know," Tatsuya says softly. He smiles.
Atsushi slouches down in the seat. "I didn't mean it like that."
"I know." He takes the Maiubo Atsushi shoves at him in the spirit it is intended. Behind them, by the door, Fukui-sempai shouts at them to hurry up, everyone else has left already.
As they stand up to leave the gym, Tatsuya asks, "Do you want to go find Akashi?"
"No," Atsushi says bitterly, "I don't have the right to face him. I lost."
"Is that how he feels, or how you feel?"
"How I feel," Atsushi spits out, and then widens his stride until he passes the rest of their teammates.
"What did you say to him?" Liu hangs back to ask, eyeing the gigantic back in front of them as it becomes ever small in the distance.
"Something he did not want to think about," Tatsuya says. He wonders whether Akashi would be willing to meet Tatsuya when he loses.
"You're as mad as the rest of them," Liu says, shaking his head. "But you think that's a compliment don't you?"
Tatsuya wonders whether it is mad to want to fuck someone because they both lost to the same person. Even though Akashi hasn't even lost yet.
It is a madness they share, Tatsuya finds out much, much, later.