A/N: written for Challenge 68 (AU) on the basketballpoetssociety on tumblr. um, this will probably be continued eventually, maybe? I don't know yet. but for now, it'll just stay incomplete because I think there will be a continuation when I get time to write it, so yeah. thanks for reading and reviews would be lovely!

It was not often that Kise regretted all of the years he spent studying his butt off in pilot school, but unfortunately for him, this was one of those times. As he stared down at his assignment sheet for the day, he wondered briefly if by ripping it up he could void all of his duties for the rest of his shift. But he was sure that the copy in his hands wasn't the only copy. Kasamatsu wouldn't be that careless and he was sure his assigned copilot would have a copy of it too.

Just as he was about to call one of his coworkers and ask if they would trade flights with him, the one person he was trying to avoid strolled up to him and swung a rather heavy arm around his shoulders.

"Well, Ryouta-kun, looks like I'm your copilot for the day." Haizaki looked over Kise's shoulder down at the paper he didn't have the courage to rip up. The silver haired man raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Looks like we're flying to the States. That's a pretty long flight," Haizaki mused, grinning mockingly at Kise. All Kise could do was bare a thin smile in return.

There weren't that many reasons why Kise regretted his career choice, but Haizaki Shougo was definitely one of them.

Hyuuga looked over at the tall man next to him and wondered how someone could be so cheerful and energetic at three in the morning. Then he wondered whose bright idea it was to assign him the early morning shift (he wouldn't be surprised if the culprit turned out to be Riko, who was most likely getting back at him for volunteering her to help out the flight attendants when they were shorthanded).

Kiyoshi smiled brightly at an elderly woman as he handed her her ticket. As he bowed and thanked her for choosing their airline, Hyuuga noticed that there wasn't the faintest sign on Kiyoshi's face leading to the fact that it was too early in the morning for any reasonable person to be that lively.

But then again, the airport workers he knew weren't exactly the most sane of people.

"Hyuuga, you looked tired," Kiyoshi said once the woman was on her way to her gate. "Couldn't sleep?" A friendly grin was thrown Hyuuga's way and he resisted the urge to slap that stupid grin off of Kiyoshi's face.

Instead, Hyuuga frowned and pushed up his glasses in annoyance. "Considering the fact that you dragged me out for drinks until midnight last night and the fact that it is now only three o' clock in the morning, no Kiyoshi. I could not get any sleep."

"You should have thought about that before volunteering me as a flight attendant last week," Riko suddenly interrupted as she exited the break room behind the two. She was holding a clipboard, and the walkie-talkie clipped onto the waist of her skirt was making all kinds of noises. It looked like she was just about to make her final rounds for the day before going home for a well deserved rest. "I had to serve the flight with Midorima. Do you know how weird that man is?"

Hyuuga spared a glance towards Kiyoshi, who was once again defying the laws of the universe by smiling a thousand mega watt smile despite the fact that the sun wasn't even out yet. "No," he said, sighing, "but I think I have a close idea."

"Bakagami!"

Kagami grimaced once he heard the all too familiar deep voice calling for him. He just knew that the moment he turned around his worst nightmare would be confirmed. But despite his conscience telling him not to, he did so anyway and groaned when he saw the tanned man walking towards him. Once he caught sight of that god awful smirk on the other's face, he was about ready to go complain to whoever the hell it was that thought it was a good idea to assign him the same shift as the devil incarnate.

"I'm glad I get to spend my day with you, Bakagami," Aomine drawled as he popped open his work locker and pulled out his security uniform.

Kagami made a mental note to request a locker change soon too. Whoever decided to place his locker next to Aomine's must've been smoking something really strong to think that the arrangement would work out.

Kagami buttoned up his shirt and slammed his locker closed. Yawning and stretching, he mentally prepared himself for another day of angry, impatient passengers and petty security threats. Just as he was about to walk out of the room, he felt Aomine pat him on the back and he turned around just in time to see Aomine flash him a cocky smile. "Come on, bestie, let's get ready for another fun day at work, why don't we?"

Yup. Aomine was definitely the devil in disguise and unfortunately for Kagami, it seemed as if the devil had his eyes set on the poor, unfortunate rookie.

For the third time in the past five minutes, the food and drink cart was pushed into Midorima's ankles. He turned around to glare at the flight attendant casually leaning against the cart as he flirted with another attractive passenger.

"Moriyama-san, please pay attention," he said, gritting his teeth. "We are getting paid to serve the passengers, not to flirt with them."

Moriyama regretfully tore his eyes away from the busty beauty sitting in the sixteenth row in seat A. He sighed and continued to push the cart down the aisle, this time careful not to run into Midorima again. "You're such a kill joy, Midorima, isn't that right, Satsuki?"

Momoi Satsuki looked up from the little kid she was helping. With a frown, she said, "Don't pull me into another squabble between you two." She obviously had not forgotten what had happened last time she tried to interfere between two coworkers (let's just say she tried to nose her way into a bickering couple's business and was then accused of trying to steal the female worker's boyfriend. A cat fight ensued, much to the delight of all of their male coworkers). "But Midorin is right, Moriyama-san. Stop wasting time and help serve the passengers."

"Right, right," Moriyama muttered, but his forlorn look did not last for long as he saw another pretty lady sitting a few rows ahead.

Once they reached said pretty lady's row, the meal cart was once again jammed into Midorima's ankles. Midorima resisted the urge to snap at his senior. "Momoi," he called instead, "how much longer until we land?"

Momoi looked at her wrist watch with squinted eyes. "Around six Tokyo time, so three more hours?"

Midorima groaned.

"Atsushi, can you please make me a black coffee?" Akashi leaned against the counter of the bakery, his bright red hair a contradiction to his tired and bored face. "I have a flight in an hour so can you hurry?" he added once he saw that Murasakibara was still just lazing around in the back licking a lollipop.

"Yes, yes, Akachin, I'll make one for you right now." He turned around and immediately yelled out, "Hey, Murochin? Can you make Akachin a black coffee?"

Akashi couldn't help but smile slightly as he heard Himuro call out a yes from the back. "I see you're working hard as always, Atsushi."

Murasakibara took the lollipop out of his mouth with a pop and said, "Of course Akachin. I'm not a slacker like Murochin."

"Here's your coffee Akashi-kun," Himuro said, handing Akashi his steaming cup of coffee. With a pointed look at Murasakibara, he added, "And I'm sorry we all can't be the perfect worker like you, Atsushi." He looked back at Akashi. "Where are you flying to today?"

"Hong Kong. A partner of my father's company is requesting my immediate supervision on a project." To be honest, Akashi didn't really like to travel back and forth constantly, especially not at the beck and call of his father's business partners. But it must be done and he had no choice in the matter.

Himuro just nodded. "Well have a safe trip, see you when you come back!"

Akashi waved, suddenly realizing that he had less time than he originally thought before his flight's departure, and walked off. He grabbed a newspaper on the way out for a source of entertainment on the surely to be boring flight.

"Alpha Delta 727, Tokyo Ground, taxi to holding point A1, runway 15."

"Kurokocchi? Is that you? Why are you yelling? Is something wrong with the radio?" Kise's voice filtered through Kuroko's headset.

A few seconds later Kuroko heard a voice he later would find out to belong to Haizaki say, "Maybe it's because you've got the volume turned all the way up, dumbass."

But today that was not the case. Kuroko was indeed yelling at the pilot, as he had been doing for all the other pilots who requested contact with the control tower. If he didn't, he was positive that Hanamiya and Imayoshi's bickering would be heard instead of his directions.

"You blatantly disregarded my instructions and went ahead with your own!" Hanamiya shouted. His eyebrows were knitted together and he looked more than pissed off. And it had only been five minutes since he came into work.

"I am your superior, I am allowed to override your directions," the man with the unnervingly polite Kansai dialect replied. Imayoshi wasn't wrong. He was, undeniably, one of the supervisors, however, the problem was the fact that Hanamiya was also one. Those two have known each other since middle school, but Kuroko was sure that there was never a moment that they were able to peacefully coexist. "Your instructions were totally off the mark anyway. That plane would've crashed had it listened to you."

Hanamiya was fuming at this point. "For god's sake, I have worked here longer than you! I should be your superior, stupid!"

Kuroko looked at the two forgotten seats next to him. He could see on the screens that more and more planes were ready to depart or land and there was no way he could do it all by himself. "Excuse me, Imayoshi-san, Hanamiya-san, I think there are a few planes requesting assistance…" he trailed off when he realized that neither of the two were listening to him.

He sighed and turned the volume to his headset up a bit more, hoping that would work to drown out the noise. "Sorry about that, Kise-kun." He resumed the yelling of his instructions, but he was once again drowned out by the argument happening behind him.

Kuroko sighed again. If only he could ignore his coworkers like they ignored him.