In Which Aomine Accidentally Confesses His Feelings and Kagami Gets Super Embarrased

Exasperated breath escaped from their lips, which were pulled into smiles. It was hardly an unusual occurrence. The two spent a lot of their off days playing each other. Sometimes, Kuroko and Kise, or even Midorima and his energetic boyfriend, showed up, but usually it was just the two of them. The two were leaned back against the fence that surround the court, taking a break from game after intense game.

"You're not doing too bad today Bakagami. You're only two behind," Aomine remarked as he took a drink of water.

"Screw you. I'm only behind because you distracted me." Both of them laugh a little bit, letting the noise of the street take blend in. Its a nice, comfortable, familiar noise that for some reason puts each of them at ease. They've both grown accustomed to this after months of hanging out. The silence used to be awkward and the background noise used to be distracting. Now its welcome and something they've both grown to appreciate.

"Yeah, I think I'd like that." Aomine had that sly, intimidating look in his eye, but Kagami wasn't looking at him. Instead, the redhead was looking straight ahead, arms folded behind his head. It took him a moment to realize the implication behind his friend's words.

"Of course an idiot like you would..." Kagami's voice faded as his mind processed what had just been said to him. His face turned a shade of red that nearly matched his hair and his eyes went wide. Aomine found the entire spectacle all too adorable.

Truth be told, Aomine hadn't really been thinking when he said what he said. Repressed sexual feelings had been building up for a long time within him, and he figured that today was just the breaking point. A small part of him was worried, but a much larger part was just as lax about this as he was about everything else excluding basketball. So if Kagami didn't return his feelings, he wouldn't really care.

Except that was a complete and total lie and Aomine knew it. He would be absolutely devastated if he lost a friend because of some stupid shit that slipped out of his mouth because he wasn't thinking. And it wasn't just because it would be near impossible to find someone that could play against him as well as Kagami. He valued their stupid half arguments. He valued watching the idiot shoving more burgers than humanly possible down his throat. He valued being able to call him when he didn't want to put up with Tetsu or Satsuki's harsh truths. Maybe he could play it off as no big deal if this ruined something between them, but inside he would be dying.

"Ha, yeah right." Kagami tried his best to sound cool and composed with the usual hint of anger and overconfidence, but it didn't come out that way. His voice carried a tone of uncertainty, like he was second guessing every syllable that left his lips.

Because Aomine had to be messing with him. There was no way he actually meant what he was saying. For some reason though, a very large part of Kagami wanted his friend to not be joking. It was a weird feeling, and he hated that he was thinking that way, but it just wouldn't go away.

"Nah, I'm completely serious. I think it would be nice, ya know, screwing around a little bit." Kagami had to look away. Was he being serious right now? Had his drink been spiked with something? Was he dreaming. It was all slightly too surreal. "Unless you're the type that's into taking things slow, because I would be fine with that too. Its kind of attractive, ya know? The big, scary dude being a pure little angel. It'll make it all the better if we do ever get to screw around."

The two lapsed back into silence, but this time it wasn't the comfortable silence filled with warm, welcoming background noise that they were both used to. No, they'd lapsed into the most awkward silence either had ever experienced. Aomine continued to stare straight ahead. Externally, he looked absolutely calm. Inside, he was borderline freaking out that he'd fucked up way too badly to ever fix this. Hell, he wasn't even good at apologizing.

Kagami, on the other hand, looked away, trying to keep his friend, who apparently wanted to be more than friends, out of his field of vision. He could tell that his face was still an annoyingly embarrassing shade of red. The silence was getting to him to.

When he heard Aomine move and get up, his eyes went wide, realizing that it was now or never and that if he didn't say something their entire friendship would be fucked up permanently. "Wait," he said in a rather harsh and demanding tone for how conflicted he felt. Aomine turned around, giving him a curious stare, hands shoved into his pockets. Kagami stood up so that they were at eye level. "I suppose taking it slow wouldn't be bad." He waited for a moment. "Moron."

In that instant, both of them burst into the cheekiest grins ever.

"Now, how about we stop fucking around with this lovey-dovey shit and get back to playing. I've got three games to win."

"You're on, idiot."

By the time that Kagami and Aomine were done playing, news had already spread to most of Seirin, and was quickly making its way around almost every other school where any member of the Seirin team knew someone. All thanks to Mitobe and Koganei passing by at the perfect time to catch the entire conversation. Aomine immediately received warnings to be extra nice to his new found boyfriend or else he would face a fate worse than death. Kagami, on the other hand, was in for a nice lecture from Hyuuga and Riko about how they would both kick his ass if this made him play with any less ferocity than he usually did.