Last year I wrote a fic called "Let Your Colours Shine Through" for AoKise day - it felt only appropriate to finish and post the companion piece I'd started for this year's day. Haha.
Forgive me - I didn't edit or re-write the first ~3.7k words that I wrote last year, so there may be some obvious style difference. orz I hope you enjoy this fic, despite my laziness. :3
It's an accident of fate that Daiki finds his soulmate.
His fingers graze the pass that had gone way wide, and the ball sails out the gymnasium door. He can't help but laugh, and he follows the ball out.
The ball hit someone, oh god. And it's that model boy, too, Kise Ryouta, that people at school have been talking about. He chucks the ball back. Later, he'll want to smash his head against a wall for not noticing the fact that his sight has changed immediately (Kise Ryouta has fantastic golden eyes), but at that time, he'd taken the ball Ryouta had thrown back to him and returned to the gym.
As he breezes his way by the boys who'd been game to play with him, he almost doesn't notice that the edge of his vision is sinking into colour, and then he does. He finishes his dunk, lands, and turns towards the point of origin.
Kise Ryouta is standing in the door staring at him, wide eyed, and he jolts, realising that the colour is spreading from him.
He looks down at the basketball – it's orange, he thinks, dimly, as he looks back at Kise Ryouta.
Daiki hadn't really ever thought about his soulmate. He's fourteen and basketball is everything in his life. The few times he thought about it, though, he always imagined a tall but curvy girl, pretty and fiery, who maybe even played basketball.
He's walking towards him almost before he knows what he's doing. He waves his hand vaguely in the direction of the voices of the boys he was playing with, and comes to a stop in front of him, frowning as he evaluates him.
"Do you play basketball?" is all he can manage to say.
"I will," his soulmate answers, a confident smile on his face.
He tells Ryouta his name as he pushes him towards the gym he knows Satsuki will be in. He knows for a fact Ryouta's not in their club. He's startled for a moment by his first look at Satsuki in colour – her hair is pink. She must catch his expression, though it was fleeting, and her eyes widen. She looks at Ryouta.
"He's signing up for the basketball club," Daiki tells her. She looks back at him.
As they return to class, Satsuki holding Ryouta's application to give to the coaches later, she asks what he's been waiting for her to ask.
"Is he your soulmate, Dai-chan?"
He can feel his face burning as he swallows and nods, feeling awkward and uncomfortable.
She hums. "Unexpected."
He nods again, feeling somewhat shell-shocked. Ryouta is not what he expected, not at all. (It doesn't bother him – unfortunately, Ryouta is not what his parents will have been expecting either, which is quite another story)
"He's never played basketball before," Daiki comments, frowning. Satsuki looks at him from the corner of her eye.
"No, he hasn't," she answers.
It's weird the way the world has changed so much just by the way he sees everything. He wants to look at everything, examine all the colours. He's going to have to be careful at home, if he doesn't want his parents to figure out what's happened.
He's not sure how he's going to explain this to them. His parents are a little traditional, and he doesn't feel that they're likely to take the news about Ryouta exceptionally well.
He's never understood how people can be so weird about something they have no control over, especially something like a soulmate.
Part of him feels giddy, part of him afraid, but...
The way Ryouta's back felt beneath his hands felt right (just being with Ryouta feels right).
They don't share any classes. Well, that's annoying (not entirely unexpected, though).
He sleeps through his morning classes. Dealing with all the colour in the world is giving him a headache, and pretending that everything is still in black and white makes him feel cranky. He's already becoming accustomed to the new state of the world, though, so hopefully he'll stop feeling so overwhelmed soon.
Satsuki, thankfully, wakes him just before lunch starts, and he thanks her before leaving to go find Ryouta.
He regrets it almost immediately when he realises he has no idea where his classroom is, and he's too embarrassed to go back and ask Satsuki, who without a doubt knows exactly where he is.
Well, he's famous, right? He's heard girls talking about how gorgeous he is (they're not wrong), so surely if he asks one, they'll know. He tugs on the arm of the next girl he sees.
"Do you know which class Kise Ryouta's in?"
She directs him down the hall, so he goes. He's not sure if he should go in and find him, or wait for him, and he's standing there like an idiot for a moment, and then Ryouta's standing there at the door, and he looks surprised.
"How did you find my classroom?" he asks.
"I just asked a girl," Daiki answers, trying to be casual. Just being around Ryouta is making his stomach do weird shit. "You're a bit famous, you know."
Ryouta laughs (holy shit, that is a fantastic noise, Daiki thinks). "I know," he says, without a trace of shame. "You're not playing basketball today?"
Daiki shakes his head, not just at Ryouta's shamelessness. "I'll play at practice. I won't get to spend time with you there anyway; you'll be third-string."
It's a bit sad that Ryouta doesn't play basketball already. If his soulmate was going to be a boy, why wasn't that boy his rival? Still, Ryouta's tall enough, and if he worked hard he could play decently enough, and really, for Daiki, it's just more important that he understands that Daiki loves the game.
Ryouta's reaction to the words was odd, though. He smirked (that's a very attractive look on him), and tilted his head to the side. This boy is going to be the end of him, Daiki thinks almost faintly as his heart speeds up, but what a way to go.
And then he had to go and say, "Second, with my build and what I've been able to pick up so far," as if picking up basketball was just a thing people did. "But I won't stay there very long. I have a knack for sports."
(Later, Daiki will want to beat his head against a wall because how did he not get right then and there what he was on about. Daiki was on a team with Haizaki Shougo, who, while he was a completely insufferable asshole, he also had the ability to recreate the movements of an opponent or ally with only a look, so it wasn't as if he didn't know it was a thing people could do.)
But at the time, all he did was look at Ryouta as if he's spouting nonsense, and then take him up to the roof. Satsuki knows this is his favourite spot, and he's hoping she's run some kind of interference to prevent any other people from setting up there. He wants some time to be alone with Ryouta.
Still, now that they are alone, he doesn't really know what to do with himself. He kind of wants to touch him, to reassure himself that Ryouta is real, because he looks so unrealistically pretty. He also doesn't really know what to say, so he looks up at the sky. That's one thing he likes about this whole thing. The sky is so much nicer to look at when it's in colour, and he can't help but make the comparison with Tetsu's hair, which had been rather startling upon first glance.
What can he say? He's not good at the talking thing. Never has been.
"I didn't think you'd be a boy," he blurts out.
Ryouta is quick to respond, which is almost intimidating, because that means he clearly got all the extra social grace to make up for Daiki's lack of it. "I didn't think you'd be a boy either." It's almost cheeky. "But part of me feels like I should have known. You'll know what I mean when I reach first string."
Ryouta is looking at him now, and he's got a full blown grin on his face, and even as he tries to stop it from happening, Daiki can feel an answering smile pull at his lips.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, pretty boy." That... did not come out as growly as he would have liked it to. Ah well. Ryouta will be seeing through all his posturing anyway, because that's how this thing works, right? Soulmates are born for each other, so they have all the equipment to understand each other best, right?
Ryouta's fingers gently touch his hand, and where he touches tingles, and Daiki realises he'd wanted that touch so badly. He doesn't even think as he catches Ryouta's hand between his own. Ryouta's hands are smooth and soft, and he imagines how they'll feel when they're covered in basketball calluses. The thought sends a thrill through him as he runs his fingers over the lines of Ryouta's palm.
He gets self-conscious then, realising that he was being watched as he stroked the skin of Ryouta's palm, and goes to take his hands away even though he didn't want to; but Ryouta threads his fingers in between Daiki's and his heart felt as if it was lurching in his chest.
"Tell me about yourself," Ryouta asks him, and he sounds as breathless as Daiki feels.
"We'll trade." It's not fair for only Ryouta to get to learn things about Daiki – he wants to know about Ryouta too. "I'll tell you something, you tell me something."
Ryouta is a youngest child, and has two older sisters, who Ryouta informs him are absolutely beautiful; he's older than Daiki, which is... kind of funny – he was born on the 18th of June. Ryouta's grades seem to be pretty on par with his, maybe the tiniest little bit better, but his best subject is English, which Daiki can't help but envy a little.
Ryouta's a little evasive about the sport thing when Daiki asks. He has an athletic build, but his hands had shown no signs of use. "I've played a few. None really caught my interest," Ryouta tells him. He's smiling a little. "I don't think basketball will be like that."
Daiki feels like he's on the verge of figuring out Ryouta's secret – he's clearly hiding something – but the end of lunch arrives, and they stand to return to class, and Daiki misses the warmth of Ryouta's hand as their fingers unlace.
Practice is one of the few times that Daiki finds he can get his mind completely off of Ryouta.
Of course, the lead up to practice is host to a number of grumbled complaints to Satsuki about how he wishes he could spend the time with Ryouta – the before and after of practice is difficult because he can think that they're doing the same thing, but not together, and that... irks him.
It's not fair that Ryouta hasn't been playing basketball, he thinks one afternoon as practice is starting. Ryouta is supposed to be everything he's ever wanted, but how is he supposed to be his rival when he's never played the goddamn game? The only reason Daiki can think of for having a boy as a soulmate is that he's supposed to be that person.
Satsuki's not always at practice, what with her skills usually being more optimally utilised than fetching things by the coaches, so it doesn't strike him as being particularly notable that she's not there that afternoon.
And then she walks in with fucking Ryouta and how is that even possible? Ryouta only started playing a few weeks ago, and he'd known he was on the second string, but seriously?
He tamps down on the surprise, but Ryouta has a satisfied expression on his face, and damn him. He watches Ryouta from the corner of his eye, and he kind of wants to smack himself when he finally understands what it was that Ryouta was on about back then.
He feels a little played, but at the same time, a bubble of elation is beginning to form in his stomach. Ryouta is undeniably talented, and one day...
Well, it wouldn't happen overnight – the day Ryouta might pose a challenge would be years away still, but there was no doubt in Daiki's mind at all, that Ryouta would be exactly what he wanted, and he almost felt ashamed that he could have doubted it, could have doubted him.
Of course, Daiki is fourteen and he's found his soulmate, but he doesn't know anything about... well... anything, except that he knows he wants to kiss Ryouta. He wants to kiss him a lot.
Health classes cover all the basic education (and Daiki wishes he'd paid more attention now, because all he remembers is that sex is different with two boys but not exactly how and – oh god he can't even think about that right now he's sure his face will burn off with the force of the heat in his cheeks) but they don't talk about things like first kisses and how you're supposed to know when it's okay to kiss someone in class. They don't tell you how you're supposed to make sure it's a good kiss when you've never done it before. Honestly, Daiki had thought it would be Ryouta who'd initiate things, since he seemed to be so much more together about interpersonal stuff than Daiki, but... he never tried to kiss him.
Well, they do play a lot of basketball, and Daiki can't really complain about that. Ryouta always begs to play one on one after practice, and wants to keep going even after it gets dark. He improves every day – Daiki sees it – but he's not a challenge at all. It's not really the point though. Daiki loves playing basketball, and he loves being with Ryouta.
Still, after every point, watching Ryouta smile after a loss, and see the determination shine through his eyes, Daiki wants to kiss him, and it's quite frankly getting ridiculous how much he just wants to touch Ryouta all the time. He can't even take advantage of the fact that pretty much everyone else has gone home, because Satsuki always watches them play, always waits for Daiki to be ready to go home with her.
"It's getting dark already. We need to go home." Daiki doesn't really want to go, but he feels responsible for getting Satsuki home safely.
Ryouta sighs, as if he would have won the next game (impossible). "Damn it," he says, but he's smiling. "Okay."
Daiki chucks the ball in with the others before Ryouta can convince him to go one more (he could – he's pretty sure Ryouta could convince him to do anything), and they retreat to the locker room together. It occurs to Daiki then that Satsuki is not here, that the locker room is empty. It's probably not the most romantic site for a first kiss, but Daiki doesn't care, because he just wants to kiss him already.
He doesn't really know what he's doing as he pulls on the hem of Ryouta's shirt to get his attention. Ryouta turns his head to look at him, so Daiki leans over and places his lips on Ryouta's. The kiss is quick, and Daiki's not really sure if he did it right, but Ryouta is going very red in the face and drops his head onto Daiki's shoulder, so it probably could have been a worse first kiss. Daiki isn't really sure what to do with Ryouta on his shoulder, and feels embarrassed enough for having initiated the awkward kiss, but his arms manage to find their way around Ryouta's body, and holding him feels right.
"You're all gross and sweaty," he hears Ryouta mumble into his shoulder.
"So are you," he answers.
A little like opening Pandora's Box, now that Daiki had kissed Ryouta once, he just wanted to kiss and touch him all the time. Now that Ryouta was in first string, Daiki couldn't keep himself from throwing an arm around his shoulders, messing with his hair (which, even when covered in sweat, was as nice to touch as it looked). Casual touches linger longer than necessary, and he's pretty sure some of the others are starting to cotton on, but he doesn't really care. Daiki kind of wants everyone to know Ryouta is his.
One afternoon, as they walk towards the roof, Ryouta tells him he thinks people are figuring them out.
"I definitely think Kurokocchi and Akashicchi know," Ryouta says to him as they walk.
"Probably," Daiki answers. "Akashi's just kind of like that, and Tetsu and I are pretty good friends." They're also both two of the most observant people in the club, and Daiki hasn't exactly been all that subtle lately. He's pretty sure Tetsu's caught him staring at Ryouta a few times.
"You're not worried?" Ryouta asks. Oh, that's cute. He thinks Daiki cares about what other people think. Daiki's only worried about Ryouta, really, of the potential backlash on his career.
"Nah." He grabs Ryouta's hand as they push open the door to the roof. Satsuki's already sitting there with Akashi, and Tetsu's probably there too – ah, there he is.
"I'm very happy for you," Akashi says to them.
"Shut up." This is more embarrassing than Daiki thought it would be, but he doesn't let go of Ryouta's hand.
"I thought so," he hears Tetsu comment in his usual deadpan, and Daiki can't help but dive at him because he's pretty sure that the little shit is going to start talking about all those embarrassing looks Daiki sends Ryouta, and that is just way too much for him to handle.
Things start going to hell right after they win their second Nationals title.
Well, that's a lie, Daiki thinks miserably. Things have been getting shittier and shittier for him; it's just that it seems like right after the Nationals win, all the support structures that were hell-bent on keeping him upright cracked and fell away, and he was falling somewhere dark and lonely.
(Ryouta didn't yet shine bright enough to burst through the black, and Daiki knows it makes Ryouta so miserable, makes him feel so inadequate and ashamed, for playing catch-up still, and Daiki wants to tell him that he has no doubt in his mind that one day Ryouta will shine brighter than any of them, but the day just seems impossibly far away, and he's not sure if he's standing still because it'll make the day Ryouta catches him come closer faster, or if it's just because he can't bear to move at all – and the words he speaks into Ryouta's ear as his weight is settled, warm and comforting on top of him, their legs tangled together, Ryouta's ear pressed against his chest, don't bring either one of them any comfort.)
Attending practice hurts. Playing games with Ryouta hurts. Everything hurts, and it hurts somewhere he can't quite place, and he doesn't know why he doesn't just quit; why he keeps holding on when everything hurts so much.
He's spending less and less time with Ryouta; it's a combination of things, really, not practicing, not playing one-on-ones, not going home together. The world passes in an endless, monotonous haze of blue and grey skies, and the avoidance of any and all basketball he can get away with.
The pinpricks of happiness that Daiki will remember in the future of this time, are the afternoons when they go to Ryouta's house, and they lie together on the couch or on his bed. Daiki's never really thought he'd be into the cuddling thing, since it always seemed kind of boring to lie around even if you were with another person, but everything's kind of boring these days, and having Ryouta lie on his chest, an ear pressed to hear his heartbeat, makes things feel just a little bit closer to okay. Occasionally, he even lies on top of Ryouta instead, and though he doesn't have the same sentimental desire to listen to Ryouta's heartbeat, he really loves the feeling of Ryouta's now-calloused fingers sliding through his hair. It's soothing, and it washes away the miserable thoughts about basketball, because all he can think about is the warmth beneath him and the talented hands that stroke their way over him.
He tries not to notice when Ryouta starts getting bored too, tries to ignore the fearful feeling that settles in his stomach as he wonders whether Ryouta will abandon basketball just as he abandoned every other sport before it, now that Daiki won't play with him. He's seen the myriad of trophies in Ryouta's room; there's never more than one per sport. Ryouta is a miracle, more than any of them, and he could be so much more.
That particular fear is alleviated when Akashi creates the vow. They're all splitting apart, going their separate ways, different schools. At least Daiki will have four interesting matches a year. Maybe they won't beat him – he's fairly sure he'd be able to beat Midorima and Ryouta, and he'd be able to get past Murasakibara even though it'd be a bit of a challenge; the only one he's not entirely sure about is Akashi.
He knows that Ryouta was considering following him. And if he's honest, the idea of being apart from Ryouta sucks on a level that he didn't really think existed. But it's basketball, and Ryouta...
He should understand.
(He's still kind of pissed that Ryouta picks Kaijou. He'd thought Ryouta would at least pick a Tokyo district school, so they wouldn't be so frustratingly far apart. There are three Kings in Tokyo, so he could have picked one of the two that Midorima wasn't attending.
He refuses to think about how neither school would have suited Ryouta at all.)
Graduation is bittersweet in a way that Daiki doesn't really care for, if he's entirely honest, but he goes because he knows Ryouta will want him there, at least, because Ryouta is sentimental like that; he's not wrong about it when he waits for him on the roof and Ryouta's managed to escape his desperate fans, the ones who want what's rightfully his. (Okay, so maybe he wanted Ryouta's button more than he was willing to admit out loud. But that was what Kise was for anyway, the sap.)
Ryouta cries and Daiki doesn't know what to do or say, because he's honestly not sad that this part of their lives is ending.
He does mean to go visit Ryouta more often. He really does.
It's just.
He's just so tired all the time. He doesn't want to do much of anything, except sleep and eat and occasionally chuck basketballs in hoops just to prove that nothing's changed since the last time. He runs sometimes, lifts weights less often – just because he doesn't practice with a ball doesn't mean he really lets himself go. After all, he's not interested in courting an injury.
Ryouta texts him all the time, but he doesn't respond much. Half of it is that he reads them and means to respond later, but can never find the energy; half of it is that he doesn't want to be getting texts from Ryouta in the first place. He wants Ryouta to just be here already, rather than keeping in contact this way.
Words aren't his thing anymore – maybe once upon a time he could say things that encouraged people, but his tongue has felt heavy and sharp in his mouth for so long that nothing comes out right these days.
One particular text, though, rouses him from his lethargy. Ryouta had texted him to tell him he was playing a practice game against Tetsu, that he'd gone to visit him (the bastard – why would he come all the way to Tokyo and not visit him?) and honestly Daiki wasn't expecting much from the game, but the words 'lost to kurokocchi' glare at him dully from the screen.
It's late and he's still on the roof at school, but Daiki is quick to haul himself up and get his ass in gear to go home and change. He's not sure if he'll be able to explain to Ryouta's parents why he's come over, but he figures he'll sweat those small details later.
He thinks about texting back, but everything sounds awkward and stilted and dumb and useless, so in the end he closes his phone and shoves it in his pocket in favour of glaring moodily out the window.
It doesn't make sense for Ryouta to have lost to Tetsu, but he'll puzzle it out later. Or get Satsuki to do it.
It's dark by the time he finally makes it to Ryouta's house and knocks on the door. He's not surprised when Ryouta isn't the one who answers, since he hasn't told him he was coming over.
"Oh, Aomine-kun! Good evening!" Ryouta's eldest sister is the one at the door – Daiki can smell food, but the sounds of cooking are absent. "Come in! We weren't expecting you, were we?"
"No," he says, stepping inside and starting to take of his shoes. Belatedly, he remembers to add, "Please excuse the intrusion," and Ryouta's sister giggles, making his face heat up.
"Did Ryou-chan invite you over? Usually he says something..."
Daiki has his shoes off, and puts on the guest slippers Ryouta had gotten for him, his huge feet not having fit into the other pair of guest slippers. "Nah. He just told me he lost, so..."
"Oh, that's why he's so upset?" Ryouta's sister titters. "He can be so silly sometimes."
Daiki resists the desire to shake his head at her for not understanding, and lets her guide him further inside.
"Mum, Aomine-kun came to visit Ryou-chan," she says, approaching the kitchen. "Should I get him?"
Ryouta's mother is washing up the dishes – there's a plate of food covered in plastic on the bench. She smiles at Daiki, before drying off her hands. "No, I'll go wake him," she says. "You should get a drink for our guest."
"What would you like, Aomine-kun?" he's asked as Ryouta's mother goes upstairs.
"Just water is fine, thank you." He probably wouldn't be down here for very long, after all.
Ryouta's sister fetches a glass, and is in the middle of filling it, when Ryouta makes his appearance. His eyes are a little red, the way they get when he's been rubbing at his eyes after crying, and his hair is sticking up in places, probably from where he had been lying on it as he slept.
"Aominecchi."
He looks worn out, and Daiki's movement to meet him isn't even a conscious decision. Ryouta takes him up to his room, and the moment they're out of anyone's sight, Daiki grabs for him, bringing Ryouta tight and close against him, an arm around his waist and a hand in his hair.
He's shaking.
"It'll be okay," he says, even though he doesn't know if it's true. He'll make it be okay. Somehow.
"I've missed you," Ryouta answers into his shirt, muffled, and a sick guilty feeling sinks into Daiki's stomach. He tightens his hold on Ryouta, but he already knows that it's not enough, that it's not fair on Ryouta for him to be so distant—
If only he could stop.
"Yeah."
"You should come see me more often." There's an audible pout to his tone. "You skip practice most of the time anyway, so it's not like you have anything better you could be doing."
He wants to say of course. He wants to say he'll be here, that he'll come to Ryouta's house at least once a week, wants to say that he'll be better, that he'll try. But he knows already, the power of the lethargy that will catch him when he leaves, knows that he won't come visit Ryouta, and he refuses to lie to him, to make a promise he won't be able to keep.
"I'll think about it," he does say, because he will, even if he never acts.
They both jump when there's a knock on the door to Ryouta's room. "Ryouta, is your friend staying the night? Are you going to tell mum and dad?" Ryouta's other sister.
Daiki lets Ryouta pull his head back from his shoulder to look at him properly.
"Can you stay? Do you want to tell them?" Daiki probably shouldn't stay, but he didn't have the heart to say no, and it was already late.
"Do you want to?"
They hadn't talked about it, but really, it was Ryouta's decision to tell his parents, not his.
"He's staying," Ryouta says through the door to his sister. "And... yeah."
Ryouta tugs Daiki's hand out of his hair, and then holds it, intertwining their fingers slowly. "Don't feel like you have to tell your parents just because we're telling mine," he adds, and Daiki nods in return.
He should probably send a message to one of his parents, but that can wait until later.
There's an itch under his skin as the InterHigh approaches.
Of all of them, he thinks as he looks at the bracket, he has the most mixed feelings about the matchup with Ryouta. The first match up of the Miracles.
Satsuki looks at him with concern, but it's not really any different to normal, so he brushes it off.
On the one hand, Ryouta will make him work. He can never afford to go any less than all out against Ryouta, because how was he supposed to learn and grow if Daiki went easy on him? Ryouta needs the push.
On the other hand, there's no way this is going to end without bitter feelings, because Ryouta's good, but he's not enough to win, yet. And Daiki already knows that it's going to hurt.
He thinks he'll regret leaving Ryouta on the floor for the rest of his life.
Satsuki hits him when she finds him later.
"What are you doing?" she asks. She's like a tiny ball of fury and sharp kicks, and he rubs his calf resentfully. "Why aren't you at Ki-chan's house already?"
"I don't think he wants to see me right now," Daiki mutters. She kicks him again, though not even half as hard as the last time.
"Ki-chan always wants to see you," she reminds him. "Besides, you didn't say anything to him."
"There's nothing for me to say. He did his best. It would only be an insult to tell him on top of everything else."
Satsuki takes a deep breath through her nose. "Aomine-kun. Go."
There's an awkward moment at the door when Ryouta's mother answers, and she looks at him like she knows, and Daiki fidgets awkwardly before she lets him inside. "He's in his room," she says. "Please make up properly." There is something terrifying behind the calm way she says it, and this time Daiki resolves to be around more often.
He knocks on Ryouta's door before he comes in, but even when he says to go away, he just comes inside instead, and Ryouta looks pissed for a moment when he looks to see who decided to ignore him, before he turns back to bury his face in his pillow and say, "I don't want to see you. Go away, Aominecchi."
It hurts, being told to go, that he doesn't want to be seen, and doesn't Ryouta know this is hard for him too? That despite himself, deep down he'd been hoping just as much that this would be it, that this would be the time that Ryouta would steal the win away from him? Okay, maybe it was a dick move not to help him up but.
Surely it wasn't so bad as to be treated this way.
"Kise," he says. Ryouta doesn't move, doesn't acknowledge him, doesn't respond, and Daiki feels like his throat is closing up, feels like crying in a way he hasn't since that day in the rain, why can't Ryouta just look at him?
He sits down on the edge of Ryouta's bed and waits to see if he gets kicked off. There's not a lot of room on the bed the way he's lying, so it'd be pretty easy to do if Ryouta really wanted to do it. But he still doesn't respond, so Daiki takes it a step further, tentatively reaching out to Ryouta's head to entangle his fingers in his hair, sliding them through and dragging his fingers over his scalp.
Ryouta doesn't smack his hand away, so he keeps going, and it's not too long before Ryouta sighs and shifts over on the bed so that Daiki can lie down beside him.
He should say sorry, but he can't manage to get the word out; instead, he tries to fill his touches with all the things he can't bring himself to say.
He doesn't tell Ryouta he's been taken out of play for the rest of the InterHigh.
He visits Ryouta a bit over summer, mostly because he gets sick of hearing about how he's spending all his time inside and all the 'what happened to the happy little boy who always wanted to be outside and catch crayfish and bugs and play basketball's.
I grew up, he thinks, resentful, as he trudges through the miserable humidity to Ryouta's wonderfully air conditioned home.
After summer, though, it's back to routine as usual, lethargy seeping into everything especially as the weather begins to cool. He turns up to most of the games, practice or not, but always late; he goes running more frequently as the Winter Cup approaches.
This time, he's getting to Akashi. Touou and Rakuzan will be on opposing sides of the bracket, as InterHigh winners.
...except then he doesn't make it past the first fucking round.
He'd laugh if he didn't feel like he'd just gotten hit by a truck or something. As it is, every part of him feels like it's electric charged; even though he's just played for forty whole minutes he still feels like he wants to play on, like he's got the energy to spare from all the time spent sleeping even though his legs are shaking from what he's just put them through.
His body is exhausted but his spirit feels alive again, and he searches for Ryouta. He's on the sidelines; Daiki had heard him cheering (and honestly feels somewhat begrudging when he remembers definitely having heard him cheer for Seirin), but he's got his own match to play now.
Daiki can't remember the last time he was knocked out of a tournament this early. He's not sure if he's ever been knocked out of any kind of basketball competition this early. It stings his pride more than just a little bit.
He goes home to shower after Satsuki fetches him from where he was staring at the sky; of course he should be there when things are handed over, and the seniors leave the club, but he already knows who's going to be captain, and he's not sure he can stand to look some of their third years in the eye right now. And he wasn't that close with any of them anyway.
We'll do better next year, he thinks, and he doesn't just mean their placement at this tournament.
He wants to see Ryouta.
There are no messages on his phone, but then, Daiki doesn't expect them tonight. His parents aren't home, and Daiki's not sure where they are, but probably at some kind of company dinner thing - the kinds of ones that were always happening and more important than his basketball games – he leaves a note for his mother before he goes saying he's staying at a friend's house.
It's late when he gets on the train, but it's not like Ryouta's going to be playing much; Kaijou will be reserving his strength for later, not letting him drain his stamina more than he has to. The semi-final will be Seirin or Yosen, and Ryouta would be needed in peak form.
This time, when Daiki knocks on the door to Ryouta's house, Ryouta is the one who answers.
Daiki's not sure who moves first, exactly, or if maybe they move at the same time; but either way, Ryouta is in his arms, and he stumbles back slightly because all of a sudden his body is crashing now that it's found its way home, and Ryouta is holding onto him so tightly that it's almost hard to breathe, and he's holding onto him back with all the strength he has left in arms that are starting to shake. Daiki lets the sound of his name in Ryouta's voice imprint itself in his mind as he presses his face into Ryouta's shoulder and breathes him in, and feels Ryouta do the same.
Eventually, though, his arms start to protest, and he reluctantly loosens his hold. He looks at him, properly, and for once, Ryouta doesn't smile at him. But his hands come around from his back and settle either side of his face, and Daiki's chest aches with the way Ryouta kisses all the different parts of his face, like he's just come back from an extended overseas trip or something. He waits for him to be done, tries not to feel embarrassed by the over-the-top affection, and he thinks Ryouta's finished without a proper kiss when he backs away to look at him again, but there's only a short moment where he's lost in their eye contact before Ryouta leans back in to kiss him properly, and the gentleness of it is so conscious of him somehow, of what has happened to him, or at least, that's the feeling that Daiki gets.
"Sucks," he mumbles, because somehow he needs to say something in response. "Don't know what I was so hung up about."
This time, Ryouta smiles at him, and he tugs Daiki inside.
It's a long night; even with Ryouta curled into his side, Daiki's mind won't settle, won't stop replaying the end of the game. He's glad Ryouta is a sound sleeper; it means he can play with his hair a little and kiss the top of his head, and run his fingers down his side, when he's not just lying there wishing he could sleep. His limbs feel leaden, and his eyes gritty, when he starts hearing birds outside.
Daiki gets a text from Tetsu not long after Ryouta wakes, so he doesn't stick around long, even though Ryouta doesn't need to be anywhere until later. He could stay, probably, but he kind of hopes that maybe in his own bed he'll be able to sleep, and he really wants a nap if he's going to answer Tetsu's request.
He gives up on sleep in the mid afternoon, and almost considers not going to meet Tetsu; but in the end, he kind of figures that maybe it'd help, because it was Tetsu, after all.
It was just as well that Tetsu didn't tell him what his request was in his message though, because if he had, he definitely wouldn't have come, he thinks later when he's trying to focus his brain on what the fuck is wrong with Tetsu's shooting to make it so damn bad. It's hard to do that when you're feeling almost delirious from sleep deprivation, even if you are as good at basketball as Daiki is.
He finally gets some sleep that night, though.
Satsuki drags him to the quarterfinals, mostly so they can watch Seirin and Yosen, the only interesting match of the round – they skip Midorima and Akashi's quarterfinal games, because the outcome is obvious.
They hang around a bit after Seirin's game, and Daiki thinks they're going to leave, because the outcome of Ryouta's game is obvious, but then Satsuki tells him.
Ryouta is playing against Haizaki.
He's a bit pissed that Ryouta didn't tell him himself. Haizaki and Ryouta had always sort of had this animosity between them, a conflict that probably came from how similar their play could be, an instant understanding of their competition as a similar player.
Still...
"Didn't that bastard quit already?"
It isn't a question he expects an answer for, though Satsuki gives it to him anyway. The information definitely explains why he and Satsuki are bothering to watch Ryouta's quarter final match.
Both of them are worried about Haizaki's reputation, and Ryouta.
Watching the game makes him frustrated; Ryouta's running out of moves, but Daiki knows he's still got the copy of him sitting under his skin, but he's noticed it, now that he's watching. The injury Ryouta's been hiding from him, from his parents. Daiki feels sick in his stomach, because he knows exactly where it's come from, how old that injury must be, how much pain Ryouta must have endured over the last six months like an idiot rather than let himself heal.
Satsuki had had him pulled out of training to heal, but there'd been no one who'd done that for Ryouta. And Daiki hadn't been around enough to notice and stop him from being the moron he was overly prone to being.
For an agonising moment, he thinks Ryouta's given up - that his body physically can't pull off the copy and that's why he's still scrabbling for moves in his arsenal, even though he's probably run out – but then it's Tetsu.
He huffs out through his nose, because wasn't that just like him, to shout out in an enormous stadium, when his friends needed him to most?
And Ryouta gets back up, and Daiki's skin prickles even from the back, because he can feel it coming.
But it's not him he sees on the court, when the ball makes it to Kise's hands.
You're shitting me.
Satsuki's staring like she can't quite believe it, somehow, though surely she had to have had an idea; or maybe seeing Midorima's shot fly from Ryouta's hands is just universally difficult to grapple with.
It had been one thing, to see Ryouta copy Daiki, copy the person he'd spent so long watching and admiring and chasing, copy his soulmate – it was another thing to watch him copy other Miracles, somehow.
And it's not just him and Midorima. Murasakibara comes out too; though there's no Akashi. Daiki wants to laugh because he imagines it's just in line with Akashi too, somehow, that Akashi isn't needed to deal with Haizaki.
It's beautiful though. This- this is what he's seen in Ryouta, from the moment he figured him out, saw the difference between him and Haizaki, it's what he's been waiting for, for so long, and. Now he's kind of pissed that Haizaki and Kagami and Tetsu get to try their hand against it first.
Ugh.
Of course, he should have known it would be too simple for Haizaki to just accept Ryouta was superior to him in all the ways that mattered on a basketball court. When the next, and final play starts, and Ryouta's guarding Haizaki to prevent them taking the needed point back to win, he sees the intention on Haizaki's face even before he acts and anger spirals through him when he targets and gets Ryouta's injured foot.
Fuck this. This time, he's not going to listen to Ryouta, he's not going to let him get away with this, because when Ryouta lands the final basket and the buzzer goes, Haizaki looks like he's seething almost as much as Daiki is. And he can already tell that's going to be bad news, because he seriously doubts Haizaki's violent tendencies have settled any since Teikou.
"...go home without me, Satsuki."
She calls out as he turns around, but doesn't follow him, which is just as well. Daiki takes a path through the locker room corridor, mostly so that he can find the exit he thinks Haizaki's most likely to be waiting by, and coincidentally, runs into Ryouta and Kaijou. Ryouta waves the team ahead, and pulls him aside.
"Aominecchi—"
"I've got it."
Ryouta blinked at him, and Daiki looked down at his foot. Ryouta shifted, but yeah. Definitely the same foot, almost definitely the same injury from the summer—idiot.
He nodded to Ryouta, before shoving his hands into his pockets to wander towards the nearest exit. It'd be dumb for Haizaki to start something in front of other people, really, but it wasn't as if the guy was smart in the first place.
He finds him easily enough. He's lurking in the shadows, and honestly, they're right near the exit. Daiki's just kind of hoping no one's going to be able to recognise him in the shadows, that it'll be too dark to make out what's going on, and especially since he's not in uniform...
He does try to use his words. He thinks Satsuki will be proud, even though he makes a few slips. He shouldn't have mentioned losing to Ryouta, he thinks, when Haizaki's cocky smile shrinks.
It's all over faster than he expects. Haizaki's fast, but Daiki's reflexes have always been very good, and usually he only uses that for basketball, but it's not like he's never had a street game go sour before either. When it's all said and done, Haizaki goes down surprisingly easily.
His knuckles hurt as he kneads Ryouta's calf muscles on the injured foot side, and he knows Ryouta's not really listening, but he grumbles at him until he's done anyway.
"It's fine," Ryouta says. "I'm okay."
Daiki glares at him, because he's not fine, and he's not okay, and lying to him is also not okay, especially when he can prove it so easily.
"No you're fucking not," he growls. "When this tournament is over, I'm going to enforce your recovery, so help me god, Ryouta." He doesn't know why no one else stoped this idiot, but he's definitely going to; he has this inkling like the end of the basketball season won't stop him. "Isn't there supposed to be someone watching out for you?"
He's so caught up in being pissed off, that it's not until Ryouta jerks slightly that he realises he just called Ryouta by name. He scowls, and tries to pretend like it didn't mean anything, but he can feel the warmth in his face over it.
"Okay," Ryouta says. His voice is quiet, and then he leans over to kiss him.
"Hey, Satsuki," Daiki says, "Help me take Ryouta back to my place tonight."
She looks at him out of the corner of her eye. "Ki-chan's not going to like that. He'd prefer to look nice to meet your parents."
Daiki shrugs. "I mean, it's probably going to go to shit either way. You know what Dad's like."
Satsuki makes a thoughtful, humming noise. "Shouldn't it wait until later, then? With Ki-chan's foot..."
He just kind of wants to get it over with. Daiki feels like he can deal with it right now, and it's been so long since they met. He wants to be open, he wants people to know that this beautiful, talented boy is his, and that he belongs to Ryouta in turn.
Satsuki seems to see something, because she smiles slightly then, and nods. "Alright then."
It's easy enough to get Ryouta away from his team, and get him to come along. As Satsuki predicted, Kise is quite annoyed with him for springing this on him ("Oh my god, if I'd known I would have brought a change of clothes with me and worn cologne or something, Aominecchi you're awful!"), but he doesn't insist on going home – in fact, he and Satsuki each take one of his arms and he pretends that it doesn't affect him, but feeling them either side of him, still, after everything, being cheerful and getting closer to okay than any of them have been in a while, makes him feel warm all over.
The moment is over too quickly, he thinks, as the three of them stand on the sidewalk outside his and Satsuki's houses.
He'd always kind of avoided talking about his parents, and their opinions on the soulmate system. His own parents weren't in truth, each other's soulmates; his mother's had died, had been sick for most of his life, and they'd met only coincidentally and been together for only a short time before he'd gone. His father...
Well, he didn't actually really know anything about it, but sometimes he thought his father had never actually found his. But the main reason he'd never wanted to talk about it was because it meant discussing his father's particular views on same sex soulmates. He was adamant that they could only be platonic soulmates, because of a whole bunch of fucked up nonsense Daiki didn't really like to think about much. Honestly, he'd probably thought some of the same things, maybe, but it had been undeniable, the connection with Ryouta, the attraction and desire. And he was an only child, an only son, and his father had always had high expectations, and as Satsuki had gotten older, often lamented that she hadn't been his soulmate.
(That had done a lot to make Daiki question his opinions too.)
"Do you want me to come in too?" Satsuki asks.
It would be nice, to have her support in there. But Daiki doesn't want to make her deal with this.
"It's okay," he tells her, finally. He grabs Ryouta's hand and twines their fingers together. "Come on, Kise."
Ryouta squeezes his hand as they watch Satsuki go inside her house. It's only after they've seen her safely inside that they move towards the house. He feels like he's moving in slow motion, somehow; he's already preparing for a battle, and remembers that he needs to warn Ryouta.
"I'm not really sure how well this will go," he says, softly. A white lie, probably, but somehow he doesn't want Ryouta to know this just yet. "But I'm sure Mum will love you, okay? So relax."
Ryouta puts on his model smile, the charming one, and Daiki hopes things won't go the way he expects them to.
Daiki can breathe in the tension that all of a sudden envelops the house when he looks his father in the eyes with Ryouta's hand held fast in his and tells him Ryouta is his soulmate. His mother smiles weakly. His father's expression is stony.
He stares down his father at the table while his mother makes small talk with Ryouta about himself; this is a topic Ryouta's usually pretty good at chatting about too, but no matter the what accomplishments Ryouta has, his father's face doesn't change. Daiki's not even sure if he's listening, if he's even giving Ryouta a chance.
Daiki hasn't let go of Ryouta's hand, and he squeezes it, and Ryouta glances at him, smiles, and squeezes back.
This, it seems, is too much for his father, who dismisses Ryouta as coldly and minimally politely as he possibly can. It makes Daiki's blood boil, but Ryouta smiles readily, thanking him for being 'thoughtful enough' to make sure he leaves before it gets too late and he misses his train. The words sound sweet and polite, but Daiki can feel the scathing quality to Ryouta's words, knows that Ryouta has evaluated Daiki's father at the very least and found him wanting, found him unworthy of Ryouta's respect, and Daiki can't really find it in him to think of any reason why he shouldn't.
"You alright to get to the station on your own?"
Ryouta nods. "My foot isn't that fucked up, Daiki." His gaze flickers behind him, and Daiki knows his parents, probably especially his father, are behind, watching, waiting for Ryouta to be gone so they can start in on the shouting.
"It'll be okay," he whispers to Ryouta, holding onto the doorframe leaning half outside. He smiles at him a little crooked, and Ryouta takes his face in his hands and kisses him hard enough to leave him breathless.
"You're always welcome at my house," he promises, and steps back. Daiki would probably just go to Satsuki's, but it's nice to know if he really had to get away from his father, that there's somewhere to go.
He watches Ryouta leave, half because it's a nice view even in his unflattering track pants, and half so that he can push back this argument that's about to happen as long as possible; but when he's out of sight, he sighs and closes the door.
And then the yelling starts. Daiki's not usually a shouting kind of person, but he's also not the kind of person to back down from a fight, especially not a fight about something that matters, and there aren't a lot of things in the world that matter to him more than Ryouta. There's been more shouting, louder shouting, usually only when he's being scolded, but this time the words are more vicious, and even after he turns around while his father's in the middle of speaking to him because he's got no other way of expressing how completely done and how much he just doesn't care, the house falls into a tense, cold silence.
Daiki stews late into the night, running over the things that were said, the way his mother tried to get between them and guilt settles in his stomach because he definitely owes her an apology, at least. His bad tendency to take his temper out on the people around him definitely needs to be addressed.
Sleep is uneasy when he falls into it, and he doesn't feel rested when he wakes. He still doesn't know what's going to happen; going to school seems like the most ridiculous thing to have to do right now, but Satsuki's at the door smiling around when he has to leave to be on time, and he can't remember the last time they went to school together, so he goes, even if he does sleep on his desk most of the day.
He stops by home to get changed (it's not to see if the locks were changed on him or his things left outside, and it's not relief that he feels when he can still get inside the house), before he heads over to Ryouta's place. Satsuki had said he'd texted when he woke up, and he feels bad that he'd forgotten to send him something, but well, it wasn't as if he was a particularly enthusiastic texter in the first place.
When he gets to Ryouta's house, his sister opens the door.
"Ryou-chan's sleeping on the couch," she says, stepping back to let him inside.
"Idiot," Daiki comments, before coming inside, and Ryouta's sister smiles.
He doesn't even try to step lightly as he approaches the couch, but it doesn't really matter. When he gets a look at Ryouta's face, it's obvious he was already waking, because he's past the moment of just stirring to consciousness, and more at the point of trying to get his eyes open.
"Daiki."
"Hey," he says. Ryouta's got his legs over the end of the couch, and he could lift them to sit under them, but he wants to be closer than that, so instead he sits closer to Ryouta's head on the floor, leaning back against the couch. "Did I wake you up?"
Ryouta makes an affirmative noise. "S'okay though. You alright?"
Daiki tips his head back to look at him. Ryouta's eyes have closed again, and Daiki smiles slightly, because he just feels so much for this boy, so unbearably fond of him. Ryouta's hand slides a hand into his hair. "Yeah. Sorry, I didn't mean to worry you." Usually it's so hard to say these things, but when Ryouta's eyes are closed, his face tired and open and honest, his tongue feels like it can make the words. "Dad's a bit weird about the boy thing." He doesn't want to talk about it.
Ryouta's eyes open again then, and Daiki's caught in his golden gaze. He shifts onto his side, bringing his legs down, and he curls around his head, and a kiss is pressed against Daiki's temple.
"I love you," Ryouta says. Daiki's cheeks feel warm, and his heart skips a beat.
"Of course you do," he answers. They're romantic soulmates, after all – Daiki's always known, and he's pretty sure Ryouta has too.
When Ryouta laughs in response, he closes his eyes and listens.
He wants to hear him make that sound for the rest of his life.