Companion piece to Constancy/the second part of my Permanence series, the gratuitous childhood friends AU no one asked for but apparently people want now that I've written it. limitlessmonster and cimberelly you are both enablers and I hate you. (no i don't. cries forever i'd probably write anything for you if you asked me to)

Ryouta doesn't know exactly when he fell in love with the boy next door; sometime between moving in when he was three years old and when he was seven and Daiki chased off some bullies who were picking on him because he looked like a girl (and it's not his fault that his parents figured that his sister's t-shirts would be fine to hand down to him, and it does not make him feel better that he matches with Satsuki).

He doesn't know when he fell in love with Aomine Daiki, but he does know when he realised he was in love with him.

He remembers it vividly because they were eleven and on Satsuki's couch and Daiki kissed Satsuki out of the blue and Ryouta remembers thinking that he wanted Daiki's first kiss to be him, and then getting embarrassed for wanting it and sad because now he couldn't have it.

(He also remembers it vividly because Satsuki stole his first kiss right after, and he wanted to cry because he'd wanted to give it to Daiki.)

The realisation changed everything and nothing; Daiki was oblivious and Ryouta wasn't the type to be shy around his crush, though his heart would flutter and he was giddy every time Daiki touched him. And Daiki was always very tactile – he liked to hit and tackle and wrestle, because he was impulsive and never stopped to think before he acted. In that way, being in love with Daiki was the best, because he'd known Daiki forever, so he already knew Daiki liked to tease and pick on him, but that Daiki would protect him from anyone who really wanted to hurt him; he knew that the only thing he needed to do to make Daiki happy was play basketball with him, which he always wanted to do anyway because it made him happy too. It was easy because he got everything he thought he could ever want from him.

It was just... Ryouta forgot that normally you're not supposed to like boys.

Daiki developed a rather keen interest in certain assets that girls had the year they turned thirteen and went to junior high, and it had been kind of distressing, the first time Daiki had come home with an idol's magazine and shamelessly told him about how awesome her giant boobs were.

(Ryouta cried when he got home because there was a heaviness in his stomach and chest that wouldn't go away and pressed harder when he thought about Daiki, Daiki and that magazine, Daiki and girls, Daiki and anyone other than him.)

That year was just kind of hard in general; he was in a different class from Satsuki and Daiki, and it was really upsetting, actually, though he tried not to let it show. He was pretty sure Satsuki knew, but Daiki was as oblivious as he ever was. His main motivation towards joining the basketball club had ended up being to be with Daiki and Satsuki more, because he missed being with them all the time like they had been in elementary.

That's not to say that Ryouta didn't love basketball too. The three of them loved basketball together, because they did everything together; Daiki's love for basketball infected Satsuki and Ryouta, and it was a disease that seeped into their very cores. Though Ryouta would never claim to love basketball to the depth and degree that Daiki did, he did love it. Trial and error throughout elementary had told him that there weren't a lot of sports which could keep his attention, someone whose talent could have them be a match him. And why should he keep looking around, when Daiki was right there, more of a match for him anyone had ever proven to be? Playing on a team with Daiki, though, he'd had reservations about that. He never played with Daiki. He was Daiki's favourite opponent.

(He got addicted to the way the ball felt coming from Daiki's hands; it always felt different, more alive, on those occasions that Daiki sent it his way.)

It was when he turned fourteen that Ryouta started to think about how he didn't really have anything of his own.

It wasn't that he was particularly worried about his place in Daiki's world. Much like Satsuki, Ryouta was embedded in Daiki's world, a constant that he... probably took for granted.

Things were just hard this year; Daiki had a new playmate, and yes, Kurokocchi was awesome, but...

Well, this was what happened when you fell in love with your best friend, Ryouta guessed. It was what happened when you loved a boy who didn't like boys, and tried to keep yourself from misery by treasuring the way that he messes up your hair and throws things at you and plays basketball with you like there's no one and nothing else in the world that matters.

(He's jealous. He knows its jealousy rearing its ugly head, but he can't help the way bitterness crawls up his throat and burns it and makes him feel like he's choking when he sees Daiki play with Kuroko when he used to play with him.)

It's petty, but he wants something of his own, something that Daiki can't touch, and it can't be a sport because he already knows that there's no one else out there like Daiki to aspire towards, and it'll only hurt him in the end.

His opportunity comes from his sister.

They're sitting at the dinner table one night, and he's been a little quieter than usual, picking at his food because he can't get out of his head the way that Daiki told him to take Satsuki home because he was going to play a little longer with Tetsu, okay? Satsuki had looked at him with an understanding smile, and Ryouta had wondered when she'd gotten him all figured out.

So he doesn't have much of an appetite, because he's feeling kind of miserable and rejected and heartbroken, and then his oldest sister snapped her fingers in front of his face, making him jump.

"Earth to Ryouta," she said. "Are you in there? Were you listening?"

"Sorry," he answered. "I wasn't. Can you repeat that?"

"I said, that my agency is looking for some up and coming talent, and I think you should do it! I know you've got basketball but—"

"I'll do it," he interrupted. She glowed at him.

"You're going to be a star, Ryouta," she squealed. "I'm sure of it!"

His parents looked on indulgently at them, and Ryouta smiled at them half-heartedly.

He actually likes the modelling.

By the time third year hit, and Daiki was barely talking to him and Satsuki, and the only ones who were consistently at practice were Kurokocchi and Midorimacchi and Akashicchi, it was a welcome respite from the misery and boredom that basketball had become.

One afternoon as he walked Satsuki home because Daiki ditched early and he doesn't have a shoot, he confesses the secret she already knows.

"I'm in love with Daiki."

She glanced up at him. "I know."

He smiled at her and slung an arm around her shoulders. It was an awkward angle – Satsuki was a lot shorter than he was these days. They walked past a bus shelter with his face on it.

"I don't know what to do," he said.

"Aomine-kun's a bit dumb," she answered, and hearing her call him that tore Ryouta's insides apart even more. "So you'll have to tell him."

Ryouta looked at the ground and kicked at the pavement. "It's not the right time anyway. Daicchi's already got a broken heart. Anyway, it's not what I meant."

"I know," she said again. She bit her lip, and took a deep breath before she asked her next question.

"Have you gotten any scouting offers yet?"

She knew, of course, what he'd been thinking.

"Don't be mad," he whispered.

She laughed, and rubbed at her eyes. "You're not coming with us, are you, Ryou-chan?"

Ryouta shrugged, feeling helpless. "You already know," he said slowly, "that it'll be best for both of us. Daicchi... won't get any happier if we're both in the same place."

We'll be unstoppable together is left unspoken, because they both already know it. I won't be a rival for him if we're together also hangs between them, because Ryouta already knew that Satsuki had projected his growth, knew that she'd been frowning at his data for months now, because she'd always been better and smarter than the rest of them, and she knew him and Daiki better than anyone.

She knew all his secrets, even the ones he tried to hide.

"He's going to be angry," she said instead.

"I know."

(Daiki punches him and yells at him, hurls bitter, angry accusations of how Ryouta doesn't care about him and Satsuki anymore, how he's betrayed them, how he's walking away from them like they don't mean anything, and Ryouta knows that it's just Daiki's frustration and anger and his fierce hatred of change but it doesn't make either his heart or cheek hurt any less.

He won't believe Ryouta's doing it for both of their sakes, so he doesn't say anything at all, just hangs his head and bites the inside of his cheek until it bleeds to keep himself from crying in front of Daiki.

This was the hardest decision he's ever made in his life, and he regrets it already, but it's too late to turn back now.)

The thing was, Ryouta never really had a lot of friends.

It hadn't mattered, really, because he'd always had Daiki and Satsuki. When they were younger, he'd had trouble fitting in with the boys because he'd looked too much like a girl, and his ability at sports had alienated him further, and honestly, he hadn't really wanted to be friends with girls, because he had never had a lot in common with girls.

But he'd had Daiki, and Satsuki, and basketball, so it hadn't mattered, and then at Teikou... well, for a while, he'd gotten a taste of what it was like to have a group of friends, before everything had gone to hell.

One of the things he'd felt a lot of trepidation about with his decision to go to Kaijou, and not go with Daiki and Satsuki to Touou, was the fact that he would be alone. He had a little more in common with girls than he had when he was younger, but it wasn't really ideal; he had a feeling they would only want to be friends with him because he was a model or something like that.

He didn't have particularly high hopes for becoming friends with the people on the team, either. After all, his talent had never done anything but alienate those who couldn't reach him. Teikou had been special. They'd all been the same. Even if it'd been boring... well. They'd still belonged.

(He missed Satsuki. He missed Daiki even more, Daiki who didn't answer his messages until the message he sent to tell him to stop sending them and leave him alone, Daiki who he reached for and loved and missed so much he felt his insides were going to collapse.

The thing they don't tell you about having childhood friends is that when you can't be with them, it's like a part of you is missing.)

Kaijou was good, though. It was better than he thought it would be, and though he suspected his captain needed some anger management classes, they were all...

Friendly.

(This is why, he screams in his head, desperate, as he throws away everything to be what Daiki wants. He'll throw away everything; afternoons in the park, the feeling of the ball coming from Daiki's hands, the way Daiki had laughed when he escaped from his sisters who'd dressed him up in their old clothes, and how he'd never refuse to let Ryouta borrow his to change into. The way Daiki's fingers feel in his hair when he's messing it up and waking up next to Daiki who is always impossibly warm.

The way Daiki had looked at him when they played, as if there was nothing in the world that mattered except what they were doing right then and there.

I'll give up everything if it'll make you smile again.

It's not enough, and Daiki walks away anyway, and Ryouta feels like his heart has been shattered beyond repair)

Of course, if giving up on someone you love was so easy, there would never be any songs about heartbreak and hopeless feelings.

"Satsucchi," he whined from the foot of her bed. He's home for the rest of the summer, and he wasn't even allowed on training camp because of his injury; but they haven't told Daiki. "I want him so bad."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Ryou-chan."

He flopped on his back the floor and buried his face in his hands. "You don't understand," he wailed. "I miss him so much, it's driving me crazy."

"I can't wait until your injury heals," Satsuki muttered. "You get too worked up when you can't work off all that energy."

They've already had an argument about his pushing himself too hard. They didn't really get anywhere, because Satsuki is right, but Ryouta is nothing if not stubborn.

"I keep having dreams about him," Ryouta continued. "Sex dreams, I mean."

"Stop," she yelled, and threw her pillow at him. It landed on his face, but didn't deter him in the slightest.

"Satsucchi," he sighed, and curled his arms around the pillow. "I don't even care if he's no good. I just want him inside me."

"Gross, Ryou-chan, I did not want to know that!"

"But I have to tell someone!" he whined. "I can't do this on my own anymore."

"But I don't want these mental images!" She closed her eyes and shook her head; as if that would erase the thoughts Ryouta was putting in her head. "You're like my brothers, I don't want to think about you guys having sex."

"I don't think I ever stop thinking about it," Ryouta said, and buried his face in her pillow. "I'm horny all the time."

Satsuki leaned off her bed to hit him. "Do something about it before you come over, then," she complained.

"You think I didn't?"

"Ew, Ryou-chan, I didn't want to know that!"

He laughed on the floor, and she hit him again. "You have no shame," she muttered.

"There's no point with you anyway, Satsucchi," he said. "You already know everything."

She sighed. "Is it cooler on the floor?"

Ryouta chucked her pillow at the head of her bed, and it landed perfectly. "Probably."

She slid down to lie next to him. "It's not comfortable, though."

"I'll start thinking about Daicchi if I'm on the bed."

She sat up, reached for her pillow, and started to beat him with it as he laughed.

When he's cleared for training again, it's a little easier to try not to think about Daiki.

(It's impossible not to do it at all, of course; Daiki and Satsuki are practically extra limbs, and returning to school after spending most of his summer modelling and lying on Satsuki's floor and telling her about the dreams he has about Daiki while she sits on his stomach and attempts to beat him to shut him up because you're so gross I don't want to hear about the things you want to do to Dai-chan – well, it left him feeling lonely and disconnected.)

Ryouta trained hard, even though he'd only been cleared for light training; his goal is so close, he was so close last time and he's going to meet Daiki in the Winter Cup and he's going to win this time, because he can't afford not to.

(This is how he loves a boy who is his earth and his skies and everything in them and has been since he was old enough to understand that there was something special about the boy who lived next door.)

But then stupid Daiki gets himself knocked out in the first round and Ryouta can only barely contain the hysterical laughter that threatens to escape him because of course someone else got there first, of course he wasn't... he was... never what Daiki wanted.

He'd been home for like an hour when Satsuki stopped by his window.

"What," she said slowly and furiously as she leaned in his window, "exactly did I say to you over summer about overtraining."

He laughed nervously. "Um..."

She hauled herself inside and stalked over to where he'd been lying listlessly on his bed a moment before. "I believe I said something about not doing it."

"Satsucchi," he started, sitting up and pulling his best attempt at innocence, but she would have none of it.

"Kise Ryouta," she rumbled, and she could be surprisingly terrifying when she approached and loomed over him like that, "you are an idiot. What if you'd done permanent damage, huh?" She shoved his pant leg up, and he yelped and tried to wriggle away from her cold fingers.

"Stop it," she snapped. "I want to have a look."

"It's taped."

"I don't care."

He fell back against the bed and let her have her way. She was more unstoppable than the rest of them anyway, and if he didn't let her have a look, she'd probably go talk to his parents to hunt out the details of his physiotherapy requirements. It was just easier to let her have her way.

"How long are you home for?" she asked as she pressed her fingers into his calf muscles. Ryouta pulled a face.

"I'm here until Christmas break's over," he said. "I have a few jobs, but not many."

Satsuki nodded, and satisfied, she pulled his pant leg down again. "You should make up with Dai-chan."

Ryouta bit the inside of his cheek. "Daicchi is the one who got angry," he said. "I have nothing I need to apologise for."

She frowned. "But he's been a grouchy bear this whole time. He got in a terrible mood whenever he saw your face on an advertisement for a while. I knew he was angry you went to Kaijou, but I thought there was more to it than that."
"Daicchi never told you, did he?" Ryouta mused. "I guess I should have expected that."

"He changed the subject every time I asked," she muttered. "Will you tell me what happened when you told him you were going to Kaijou?"

He hesitated.

"What did he do?"

"How do you know he did something?!"

She sighed and crossed her arms. "You'd have already told me if he didn't do something."

Ryouta slung an arm over his eyes. "Daicchi will say I tattled."

"Ryou-chan," she whined and pulled on his arm. "Tell me what Dai-chan did."

"I don't remember what he said anymore," he lied, "but he was kinda mean. And he might have hit me. He was really mad."

She frowned. "Why'd you let him hit you, Ryou-chan? We both know Dai-chan would never land a hit on you unless you let him."

Ryouta sighed. "I thought it'd help his frustration a little," he admitted. "He was really mad about the Kaijou decision. He took it a little personally, I think. Like a betrayal. After that year we had, it must have seemed like everything was over, I guess."

"You're too nice to Dai-chan," she informed him. "You should be meaner to him. He certainly never pulls his punches."

She hopped off the bed. "Anyway, I'm glad you're home, Ryou-chan, and that despite your best efforts to the contrary, you didn't manage to completely ruin your leg."

He stuck his tongue out at her.

(Later, Daiki comes and climbs in his window, and even though he doesn't offer an apology for anything, he drags Ryouta out of his room and slings his arm over his shoulder to keep his weight off his bad leg, and he can't help the tears of relief and happiness because he hadn't been sure that they'd ever be okay again.)

"I thought it'd be better when we were friends again," he whined.

"Ryou-chan," Satsuki said, "if you tell me one more dirty thing you want Dai-chan to do to you, I swear I'm never going to talk to you again."

"It's just gotten worse," he continued. "Because I can actually see him now and he's so hot I'm going to die."

Satsuki pulled her pillow over her head and started singing to herself.

"Satsucchiiiiiiiiiii."

He sat down beside her on the bed and pulled the pillow away.

"Help?"

She sighed at looked at him. "You know what your options are already, Ryou-chan."

"Ugh." He threw himself on the bed next to her. "But I tried giving up and moving on already."

She shrugged. "Well, maybe it's because there's no closure to it if you never confess to Dai-chan."

Ryouta pouted and rolled onto his side. "I don't want to wreck everything. Do you know how much it sucked fighting with Daicchi? It sucked a lot. I don't want to do that again."

Satsuki laughed and patted his cheek. "You should have more faith in Dai-chan."

"He's an idiot. What's there to have faith in?"

She smiled. "Your place in Dai-chan's world, of course."

Oh god oh god oh god.

This was the worst. Well, it was the best, but it was the worst. Daiki had his hands all over him, and it was amazing and his hands are amazing but this was neither the time nor the place for inappropriate boners. What if someone recognised him and took a picture? The agency would have a field day.

They were at the beach.

It had seemed like a good idea when Satsuki had brought up the idea, so he'd been all on board for dragging Daiki out for a day to go out and play in the water. He'd definitely like it better than their other excursions this summer, which had mostly consisted of shopping.

He had made a dangerous miscalculation.

Ryouta had forgotten about sunscreen, and the necessity of having it on his fair skin.

He hadn't thought Daiki would volunteer to do it. He'd actually been pretty sure Satsuki would do it, but then Daiki had started without even being asked, and now he knew what it was like to have Daiki's hands on him and his mind and dick were swerving right towards significantly less innocent situations in which those hands would be on him.

Fuck.

Ryouta fidgeted uncomfortably. He could see Satsuki looking at him, and watched as her mind picked apart a moment that should have had him pretty excited (but not this kind of excited) and his lack of reaction, and watched as that evil little smile spread across her face and she ducked her head to try and stifle her giggles at his... situation.

'I hate you' he mouthed at her, and it only made her laugh harder.

Daiki's hands came off his skin, and he didn't even think before he bolted towards the water.

"Oi!" Daiki yelled, and was he chasing after him? Damn it. He hit the freezing water first by some miracle, but Daiki was pretty close on his heels, and he was scowling something shocking. "You're not supposed to get in yet! You're going to wash it all off, stupid!"

Ryouta sat down in the water and puffed out his cheeks and hoped to god that Daiki hadn't noticed anything.

"You're such a little shit," Daiki muttered, and then he grabbed him. Ryouta squawked and struggled, but Daiki was still stronger than he was and managed to bodily drag him up and out of the water. "I'm going to have to do it again now. Why do you have to be so much work?"

Satsuki was still laughing at him when Daiki shoved him down on the towel and started drying him off to re-apply the sunscreen.

He really didn't think through this whole beach day thing.

It was a good day though, once he managed to stop thinking about Daiki being shirtless every five seconds. He was feeling good as they walked home, and Satsuki nudged him in the side and sent him a text message that said 'you should do it' and made an excuse to leave them alone.

He could barely concentrate on the game when they sat down. The fact that he didn't play badly enough to tip Daiki off that his mind was elsewhere was something of a miracle.

Finally, he took a deep breath and put the controller down before turning to face him.

"Daiki."

He looked away from the screen, and right at him. Ryouta's heart immediately jumped into his throat. He was going to be sick. Or something.

"Daiki, I love you."

For the longest moment in Ryouta's life, Daiki doesn't say anything, just blinked at him somewhat bemusedly.

"Well, yeah," he said.

It felt like his whole body turned to ice. He reacted more or less on instinct as fear and pain and misery ripped through him, and he punched Daiki's arm as hard as he could. He knew? And he'd still done all that stuff today, touching him all the time and... was he teasing him? That was cruel. If he'd known, he should have done something. Discouraged him. Something to prevent this.

"You're horrible," he wailed, and he was pretty sure he was about to cry, so he got up as fast as he could and ran.

I'll be back at school before I know it, he thought, and didn't even announce his return as he let himself into the house and ran to his room. I just need to avoid him until the end of summer. Satsucchi will understand.

He reached blindly for his phone so he could tell her that there wouldn't be anymore group outings this summer. He couldn't face Daiki after that, not until he'd gotten over him properly and he could laugh about how stupidly and horribly in love with him he'd been.

...that could take a while.

He must have seemed so stupid, the way Daiki had just stared at him.

Ryouta pressed his face into the pillow. Damn it. He'd fucked everything up.

(He wasn't sure how long it was until Daiki had come and opened his window, but he looks up when he hears it scrape open, and he thinks it's going to be Satsuki, but it's not, and then Daiki's leaning in the window and he says, and he sounds so fucking smug about it, "I hear you want to do gross dirty things with me."

And well, he throws his pillow at him, but he can't help but laugh because that's such a terrible line, and then Daiki's climbing into Ryouta's room and taking his face in his hands, those hands that touched him today and he's being kissed and he feels like his heart is about to burst.

Daiki's not really very good at this kissing thing, but Ryouta's pretty sure he's not all that great at it either, and it's okay because they'll muddle their way through learning this together.)

"We need to make sure he's good enough."

Ryouta looked up from his magazine to his window, where Daiki was perched half inside, half out. "Satsucchi will actually kill us dead."

Daiki scoffed and pulled himself the rest of the way into his room. Ryouta tried not to admire the way his arms looked as he did so.

"What kind of best friends would we be if we didn't check this guy out before she goes on a date with him?" Daiki asked, crossing his arms. "We owe it to her."

"Satsucchi will definitely murder us." Ryouta looked back down at his magazine. This was not going to end well for either of them. He already knew he was going to end up going along with whatever dumb idea Daiki had thought up to put Satsuki's poor date through.

"Come on," Daiki said, and stole his magazine. "We're going to Satsuki's."

"Why?"

"We're gonna test her date. Get up."

Ryouta crossed his arms and settled his weight. "No. I want to live."

Unfortunately, his boyfriend was more than strong enough to haul him up. "Come on. I'll let you try out one of those weird kinky things you want to do."

"You'll let me do it anyway," Ryouta complained, but he was still following Daiki out his window. "What's your plan? You better have a plan."

"We're going to hit on him."

Ryouta stopped dead. "We're going to what?"

Daiki grabbed his arm and pulled on him. "You heard me. We're going to hit on him."

"This is such a bad idea," Ryouta whined but he still started moving again.

"Come on, it's a good test! If he's grossed out he's not going to last anyway, because there's no way Satsuki will date someone who's weird about us, and if he goes for it he's no good because he's a cheater."

"If she kills us, I'm going to blame you forever. Just so you know, I will definitely throw you under the bus if it'll save me from certain death."

Daiki shrugged. "As long as you help. I need your pretty face for this to work properly."

"I knew you only liked me for my looks."

Daiki smacked the back of his head.