Chapter 2

Himuro Tatsuya rolled over and yawned while stretching his lean body. The morning sun fell through the half closed blinds and tickled his nose. He wrinkled it a bit and blinked into the bright light. His slitted olive-green-eyes followed the sunbeam until it broke on purple hair, sprawled out on the pillow next to his, and let it glow up beautifully. "Hmm … -ushi", he murmured and rolled to his side, to press his naked body against the broad back of his partner. Curling his hand over the giant's stomach, he placed a kiss on his strong shoulder blade. "Time to wake up.", he ushered with his sleep hoarse voice and kissed a trail up to the purplenette's ear. "Mhnm nm nm … Muro-chin … yummy." Murasakibara smacked his lips in a lazy motion but didn't wake up. Chuckling to himself, Himuro decided to give his lover ten more minutes and got up to take a shower.

Swinging his legs over the rim of the bed, he slowly stood up, carefully considering, to not move too fast. His spine ached with a throb as he finally got to his feet and sticky liquid tipped down his inner thigh. "You worked me good yesterday.", he mused, not a tad fazed, that cum was dripping down from his ass and limped to the bathroom door. Looking back to the bed, his lips curled up into a warm smile, before he finally took his well-deserved shower.

Making breakfast for the giant wasn't the easiest task but Himuro had gotten used to it over the past year, since he lived together with the guy. Humming his favourite song, he turned the pancakes and put some stripes of bacon beside them. The gurgling sound of the coffeemaker filled the air as well as the aromatic smell of freshly grinded coffee beans. Pouring orange juice into two glasses, he put them on the light-brown table beside the plates and turned on the radio as he walked back to their shared bedroom.

"Atsushi, breakfast is ready. Wake up and come before it gets cold." Himuro said from the doorway and walked back to the stove. Removing the pancakes and bacon, he broke a few eggs on the rim of the pan and let them slip into the sizzling oil. He tapped on the faucet, washed his hands and put the ready, sunny side up, eggs on another plate. Moving with two plates in one hand to the table, he snatched the coffee pot from the machine and placed everything decorative between the freshly baked up buns and the strawberry jam. He was a perfectionist with some things and a cozy breakfast was one of them.

Emerging from the bedroom door, sweatpants riding low on his hips, parading the well defined muscles of his abdomen together with his slightly purple treasure trail, which disappeared into his waistband, Atsushi rubbed his sleepy eyes and sniffed the air. "That smells yummy, Muro-chin." He scratched his belly while yawning with a wide open mouth and tousled his bedhair as he walked up to the set breakfast table. He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on the smaller man's cheek before he walked around the table and sat down.

Himuro smiled slightly at his handsome lover and cut one of the delicious smelling buns open. "We got a voicemail from Akashi. They still haven't found or heard from Aomine. We got permission to start a search troop later. He sounded pretty upset." Coating is bun with strawberry jam, Himuro bit relished into it and chewed while watching how Atsushi gobbled down his first serve of pancakes. "Hmmn~ …", Murasakibara droned and swallowed. "Beside his looks, Aka-chin is always worried about his teammates. It goes against his pride, that he wasn't allowed to search for Mine-chin yesterday." He gobbled down another serving of pancakes plus ten stripes of bacon and and washed everything with a big gulp of milk coffee down. "I wouldn't have thought that he cares. He is always so cold and the glares I get sent a shiver down my spine." He broke the egg yolk with his fork and dipped the other half of his bun into it. "Aww~ Muro-chin, that is only because you are together with me. He is concerned, that I will break you." Himuro chuckled at Atsushi's words. "It doesn't seems like that. Anyway, I'm not so frail. You know that very well." He slightly kicked Murasakibara's leg beneath the table and showed his teeth with a warm smile.

The morning calm was disrupted, however, as Atsushi's wristwatch blared up. "Hai?" The giant growled irritated into the device but sat up straight when Akashi's voice emerged from it. "Atsushi we have news from Daiki. He is currently at a friends of Kazunari. Get ready to fetch him, I will sent you the coordinates." Akashi hung up without waiting for an answer and shortly after that a popping sound announced the incoming of a new mail. "10/5 Maracon Street. Upper floor. Isn't that next to the building where we accidentally walked in on the Raznaf?" The tall man looked up from his device but Himuro was already on his way back to the bedroom. "Yes it is. Lets get ready. I'm curious why he hasn't contacted us earlier." Sighing, the giant stood up and scratched once more his belly while yawning. "Moah~ Muro-chin you're too energetic in the morning. Thought I worked you pretty well yesterday." A gleeful chuckle was heard from their dressing room. "Maybe that is why I'm in such a good mood." Himuro tipped up on his toes and placed a kiss beneath the purplenette's chin. "Lets hurry and get it over. The faster we are the earlier we can repeat that." He mused against the bobbing adam's apple of his lover and let his hand ghost over the front of Murasakibara's sweatpants while he walked around him and out of the room. The giant gulped audibly and was never faster inside his clothes and out the door, catching up to Himuro, who already waited inside the silver-purple hover car, as after those promising words.


The evening before …

Never again would Midorima drive with Akashi, Takao and Kise in one car, when the magenta-haired man's fiancée was in danger to get minced or something along those lines. Once the car stopped in front of headquaters, he tumbled out of the passengers seat, his face almost as green as his hair, and had to deal with the issue of not throwing up his latest meal. His ears still rang from the gleeful and loud yelling of Takao and Kise, who had taken turns in stretching their heads out through the sliding roof. His own voice was hoarse, since he shouted every time in fear, when Akashi, without even the slightest deceleration, chased through the nocturnal downtown. Flashes of lights had flickered over Midorima's glasses, behind it were scary dilated eyes and he had his fist so tightly gripped around the bar, which was beside the left side of his head, that he still had nail imprints on his palm. Takao also hadn't contributed to his well-being, when he asked him repeatedly to sometimes stretch his head through the sunroof. He coughed anguished, when the still insane laughing pair of blonde and raven hair emerged from the back seat. "Bwhahaha, Shin-chan. You're such a scaredy cat. Man, that was fun." Midorima got a hearty clap to his back and glared at the backs of the two idiots, who climbed the stairs to the headquarters frontdoor while ruffling each others already disheveled hair.

"Shintarou, you are getting too old for this job." Akashi slammed the door shut, pressed the button on his car keys to lock it up and walked around the stylish red hover car, which had yellow flames licking from the front to the back over its doors. "Tch, your deadly driving style doesn't contribute to keep my youth. I think, I grew some white hair." Midorima scoffed, straightened up and looked anxiously over the edge of his black-rimmed glasses up to his still dark-green hair. "I don't think that you will grow white hair only from that.", Akashi said while throwing his jacket casually over his right shoulder and walked by the greenette. "There are cases in which people got white hair after meeting with an extreme fearsome incident, nanodayo.", Midorima explained while climbing the stairs in a hurry, to catch up to his captain.

He pulled the door open for Akashi to let him walk in first but suddenly stopped in his tracks and quizzically looked around. "Where is Kuroko?" Akashi only shot him a merciful look over his shoulder but didn't falter in his walk. "I'm right by your side, Midorima-kun." The voice emerged from shortly behind him and the tall green-haired man leaped to the side, heart thundering wildly in his chest. "Kuroko!", he growled annoyed and shoved his toppled spectacles back on the bridge of his nose. "Your attention leaves something to be desired. You are really too old for this job.", Kuroko said parenthetically with a deadpan face and let Midorima stand in the entrance hall. Just like that. Gritting his teeth, the greenette cursed, "Every. Single. One. Of. Them ...", he let open, what he would like to do to the impudent bunch of guys, only grumbled, "I'm not too old for this." and followed them to their superiors office.

Once they had grouped around the door -Murasakibara and Himuro had arrived before them with their own car- which read 'Aida Kagetora, Chief, Special Forces' in big, black letters, they already heard the booming voice of the man in question through the closed door. The blinds on the dual windows on each side of the door were closed and one didn't need to guess, what was happening behind them. It was heard loud and clear and even the employed, who sat in their phone boxes further down the corridor, drew in their heads.

"HOW COULD YOU MAKE SUCH AN SHITTY ERROR? RAZNAF, GIRL, RAZNAF! Should I spell it out to you? R.A.Z.N.A.F.! We could have lost our whole team and you come and only say you got the wrong information. What's up in your shitty head, girl? When you get information, you verify them. Twice if not thrice, you hear me?", he blared and raised his voice again at the end of his sentence, when he got no response from the pink-haired woman, who sat in front of his desk, her head lowered with red rimmed eyes. His flat hand smacked, for the up most time, the papers which laid on the dark wooden table and his breath faltered in his lungs when he sharply drew in air through his bloated nostrils. "I can't let you have this position furthermore, if you make such grave errors." Chief Aida's voice was now quieter but the threat still swung in his sentence.

That was the moment, Akashi threw the door open and walked assertive up to the chief's desk, put his hands down on it and leaned over to come face to face with is superior. "That is enough, Aida-san!" He used the honorific and his words were, as always, spoken in a noble language but the wrath, which burned in his dual-colored eyes, wasn't to be underestimated. Akashi's personality was something, what could make crying children fall silent in an instant and make the proudest man wail in despair. And his superior only knew that all too well. Otherwise, he wouldn't have promoted him to be a team leader. Pulling slightly back from the anger-spitting man, Aida cleared his throat and remembered that the woman, he had just run down, was Akashi's betrothed. It had slipped his mind for a moment in his anger and now he had to deal with the aftermath. But either way, even if the woman was the beloved of the most dangerous guy he knew, didn't mean she could make severe mistakes in her job. Too many lives depended on her accuracy and he had to make that clear to them.

Gulping, he stood up from his chair and raised to his full high, which outmatched the magenta-haired man's to some lengths, and pulled a cigarette and a lighter out of his breast pocket. Litting the butt, he inhaled deeply while rounding his table to sit on the edge. "Listen up guys! This isn't a topic, which I can take lightly. You all need to understand, that your very own lives depend on the accuracy of her information net. I know, this was the first time that something got wrong but anyway it shouldn't happen again. If another team would've been out there, I would now count body parts, at what I have no desire at all. And as you can see, it has probably caught one of you, which reminds me; I still haven't got any new information over Aomine's whereabouts. However, our last information says that he is still alive, which is roughly from four hours ago. He isn't stupid, even if you've heard otherwise, and knows what to do in emergencies. I will have two guys up all night checking the GPS and the calls and if any new information comes in, I will contact you. That's all. Get a good night rest and Momoi, I expect you tomorrow morning in new freshness, understood?" He was glad that no one had interrupted his long speech -he wasn't known to ever talk a lot, actually only yelled instructions into his headset- and glanced over at the young woman.

"Yes, chief Aida!", Momoi answered and stood up with new determination riding in her pink-colored eyes. Chief Aida nodded to her and then shooed everyone out of his office. He had had enough for one day and just wanted to go home to his small daughter Riko, although 'small' wasn't really the correct description for a teenager of sixteen years.

Outside the building, Akashi pulled Momoi into a tight hug and soothingly rubbed over her back. "I will contact you tomorrow morning as soon as I have new information about Daiki's whereabouts. Get some rest.", he announced to the others and guided his pink-haired girlfriend to his hover. The others bid goodbye likewise and descended the stairs to go to their own cars.


Earlier that morning …

A painful punch to his jaw, sent Aomine Daiki flying through the room and crashing into a wall at his back, from which he literally slithered down and plummeted to his precious ass. Groaning, he rubbed his abused chin and murdered the tall, buff guy with the red-black hair, with his gaze, who hovered over him and did much the same with his reddish glowing eyes. "Also a good morning to you. Would you please refrain from killing my neighbor first thing in the morning? Thank you!" The guy snarled sarcastically and cracked the knuckles of his hand. Baffled, Aomine blinked and blinked again while his midnight-blue eyes skittered back and forth between the tall guy and the huge octopus-lookalike alien, which had secluded itself in the farthest corner possible, and stared fearful back at him with huge, unblinking eyes.

The cause which led to this tricky situation had been, his body reacting faster than his brain -what was quite often the case, as he had to admit to himself. But then again, anyone with his education would've reacted the same way, seeing an enormous, non-human being swinging a sharp object at the back of a guy, who had just leaned down to fetch something from the ground. Aomine had only done as he had learned; taken the first weapon-like object he could find in his hurry and swung it with full force at, what he believed, was the head of that thing. The sharp pain which shot through his jaw, hit him completely off guard and before he could register what just had happened, he found himself already lying on the floor, with a wrath spitting man glaring daggers at him.

The whole situation became laughable when the tall red-haired guy suddenly switched gears, pivoted on his heels and walked with soothing gestures of his large hands up to the frightened extraterrestrial. "Mah mah, Mrs. Barixta. It certainly was only a misunderstanding here. Why don't you sit and calm yourself down, while I make you a good, hot chocolate milk with the marshmallows you like so much?" He guided the still shocked alien by one of her tentacles, which she had given him in her daze, to one of his intact chairs and patted, what seems to be her shoulder before he shot another angry glare at the blue-haired man and walked to his kitchen.

Aomine could only watch in astonishment, with his mouth hanging open. Whether, it was the one hundred eighty the guy's personality did or the fact, that he obviously had no problem to touch the slimy looking tentacle or that he doesn't seemed to care at all, that in fact an alien, with an ridiculous huge pink hair bow attached to its harpoon shaped head, was in his apartment, Aomine didn't know. He could only stare as the tall man came back with a tray, loaded with three huge cups and a bowl of chocolate cookies. "How long do you want to sit there? Come here and apologies. After all you were the one, who frightened her almost to death." There it was again, the personality switch, and it snapped Aomine out of his daze. Cursing under his breath, he stood up and brushed invisible dust from his anyway tattered, black jeans and strolled to the table. He wasn't exactly green with the situation but found that he could accept it for now, more curious about the whereabouts of his injuries, what concerned him since he had woken up in a foreign bed.

Descending on one of the left over chairs, he warily eyed the octopus alien and tapped his forefinger on the wood. He wanted answers, better now than never and was just about to ask the still standing rude guy, when the alien suddenly produced a blood curdling sound. His chair skidded over the ground and made an almost identical, ear-deafening noise, as Aomine flinched startled back. The householder just raised a mocking eyebrow at his action. "No, he isn't a friend of mine.", he said and took a stepladder, which was leaning next to him against the back of the cream colored couch, opened it and sat down at the head of the table, to his right side the octopus alien to his left Aomine.

It was fucking awkward and they made a pretty funny picture. Aomine half naked with disheveled hair, blood sprinkles all over his well-trained chest and a very prominent scowl on his tanned face, then the big, red-haired man who now had a gleeful expression on his face and popped a marshmallow in his mouth to appreciatively munch at it and last but not least the alien, what, in Aomine's eyes, on weirdness was hardly beat. Aomine moved his chair back into place and cleared his throat, to once again being disrupted by another horrible sound from the extraterrestrial. "Ah, yeah. Sorry, I forgot that for a moment." The guy to his right answered and looked apologising from the octopus back to Aomine. "This is Mrs. Barixta. She lives down stairs. And my name is Kagami Taiga, inhabitant of this condo. And you are?"

"Aomine Daiki, Special Forces … wait!" Aomine paused for a second. "You understand what this thing says?", he asked puzzled, not realizing that he just had insulted the creature opposite him. The howling sound and lashed out tentacles in his direction, made that much pretty clear and he once again saw himself in need to skid back with his chair to not get bitch slapped. "What the flying fuck?"

Kagami, annoyed to no end, had lowered his head. His body trembled with anger and a vein almost popped at his temple. If blue-haired man would've worn a shirt, he would've grabbed him and shaken vigorously. Maybe it would have helped to beat some sense into his empty skull. But so, he only could emit a growling sound and smack his hands on the table. "Enough!" His voice boomed through the room, followed by an ear-deafening silence. "Can you both, please calm down? You stop to offend her! And you, I would ask to take the situation a little more relaxed." He said with a stern voice.

"Fine! Whatever." Aomine was even applied. He wasn't often rebuked like that and it got against his pride, that this was already the second time the guy lashed out at him. Nevertheless, he didn't even think to apologize. Not in his wildest dreams. Instead, he casually took a cookie from the bowl and bit provocative into it.

Sighing heavily at the uncooperative display of the bluenette and seeing that they wouldn't go anywhere like that, Kagami stood up and apologized in his stead. "I'm very sorry Mrs. Barixta. This guy here seems to know no manners. I would ask you to leave for today and thank you for your help."

Walking the alien to his front door, he glared over his shoulder and once again apologized. Shortly before he shut the door, a tentacle shot in and made a very obvious vulgar gesture into the bluenette's direction. Kagami could only shake his head at such childish behavior.

"Did she just flick me off?" Aomine growled offended and glared at the closed door. "Yeah and she had every right to do so. What the fuck is up with you? First you make my apartment into a bloody hell and then you go and attack my neighbor, who was only here to help to clean up your mess. And if that wasn't already enough, you insult her afterwards. Is this how you thank people who helped you recover? Then I say, no thank you!" Kagami snorted and trudged over to the phone. "Call your headquarters. I don't want to have you near me any longer", he said and threw the receiver at him.

Catching it, Aomine scowled and hovered his thumb over the touch screen. "I still have questions."

"Is that my problem? Just get out of here!", Kagami snarled and disappeared into his kitchen.

"What the hell?" Aomine murmured and dialed the number for headquarters. After confirming his identity and wellbeing, he hung up and strolled over to the kitchen counter. "They will fetch me in a while.", he said to the back of the redhead, who currently was writing something down on a notepad, while peering into his fridge once and again. A curt nod was all what Aomine got in response.

"Okay, let's do this again. I know, that we hadn't the best start but I really want to know why I'm all healthy again. As much as I remember, I had a severe wound at my side but now its gone." He walked around the counter and peered over Kagami's shoulder at what he was writing.

Milk

Eggs

Meat

...

It was a shopping list and Aomine raised one eyebrow in a mocking manner. "You still do that? Why not simply order it online?" Kagami elbowed him slightly in his gut, a vein ticking at his jaw. "First, it's none of your business. Second, move your ass, you're in the way. Third, do you really believe that the delivery express will come out here, only to get robbed off? Really, how stupid are you?"

Offended, Aomine grunted and took a step to the side. "I prefer that you stop insulting my intelligence. I don't live in a high-end-condo in a run down building in the middle of the suburbs. Don't act so high and mighty."

"Yeah, whatever. Really, can't you just sit there and wait for your drive? You're in the way again." Kagami had moved around, opening his closets and was now standing before the bluenette with an annoyed expression creeping into his face. "Ha? Oh! Yeah ..." Taking another step to the side, he suddenly realized that not one of his more urgent questions had been answered. "Oi, you haven't told me yet about the sudden vanishing of my injury."

"Who said I will?" Scribbling on his paper, Kagami ignored the guy and walked past him to get to his bathroom. He was running out of cleaning utensils and given the looks of his apartment he needed many of them. Suddenly he was grabbed by his shoulder and pulled around. "Just wait a moment! Why not?" Aomine was beginning to feel upset. He only wanted to know what happened and this guy refused to give him the slightest hint.

"Does it matter? It's gone, you are fine, end of story. Now let me go, I've better things to do than playing your babysitter." Kagami slapped his hand away and ignored him again. Aomine growled. What was up with this guy? Sweet to his alien neighbor but crude to his own species. He was just about to comment on that, when Kagami's inter come made noise.

Aomine heard a relieved sigh and a murmured, "Finally." and Kagami was already at the door and opened, after a quick glance at the display. "Takao. It's high time you come! Is this guy always this annoying?" Stepping to the side, Kagami let Takao and Midorima in and guided them to the still horrible looking living room. "What the fuck happened here?" Takao gaped flabbergasted with an open hanging mouth and let his eyes roam over the wrecked furnishings, which laid in a pile beneath the broken window, and the large, dark blood stain on the once walnut brown wooden floor. "As if I would know. Ask this idiot here." Kagami rudely snapped his thumb at Aomine and nodded a greeting to Midorima, who had pulled his glasses down his nose to look astonished over the rim at the mess.

"Stop calling me an idiot. As if I could've prevented that when I crashed into your window." Aomine puffed out his chest but his ranting got intercepted by the anew buzzing of Kagami's inter come. Raising an eyebrow, Kagami looked quizzically at Takao. "There are coming more?"

"Ah, well … I guess the whole team will shortly crash here. Akashi was pretty worried about this guy." Takao shrugged apologizing while dangling, what once was the seat of one of Kagami's chairs, from his finger. "Tch, what is he? The crown prince, that he needs a guard parade only to get his ass out of here?", he scoffed and opened the door again.

And with one sweep, his living room was full of different colors. Magenta, purple, pink, green, two different kinds of blue, blonde and two black-haired guys. They simply had walked in, one after another, greeting him, and now made themselves at home. Kagami sighed exasperated for the up most time today and found himself suddenly stared at by everyone in the group.

"So you are Kagami Taiga?" A small magenta-haired man stepped forward and looked him up and down. "It's nice to finally meet you. I only have heard good things about you. My name is Akashi Seijuurou. I'm the captain of this team." Kagami nodded when he was asked about his name but cracked his eyebrows quizzically for a moment, until he saw Takao wave and smirk at him. Sure this guy wouldn't hold his mouth shut and had told his captain about him. "Yeah, nice to meet you, too."

What happened after that, made Kagami's head swirl and he kinda couldn't suppress a chuckle every time he saw Aomine's sour, scrolling face. After everyone had introduced themselves, which alone made Kagami's head nearly explode by all the different names, Akashi apologised for the mess his newest teammate left, mumbling something about a mission who got wrong. Then they moved almost in unison, asked where the broom, the vacuum cleaner and other utensils were and completely ignored the demands of the dark-blue-haired man. "You left the mess, you clean it." Akashi had shut him up and pressed a wet towel into the bluenette's hand, giving him an evil glare, which indicated that he was going to get minced later.

After one and a half hours, Kagami's apartment sparkled almost anew and he waved, still amused after the moving out group, with the promise, that all his destroyed furniture would be replaced. But as he closed his door, his only hope was, that he never needed to see the bluenette ever again and that the bond, what he had forged that night, would vanish soon.

Three weeks later, Kagami was at his wits end. Normally, a bond formed by a healing process should've been erased by now but to his dismay, much the contrary had happened. He could feel the guy's emotions even stronger than ever and it greatly interrupted his daily life by now and got him weird looks by his staff and customers.

The last time he had used that technique to heal someone was a long time ago. In the beginning the emotions were always strong but faded gradually which every passing day and were completely gone after one and a half week. This time, however, it was completely different. The more time past by, the more he felt Aomine's emotions. It got meanwhile so far, that he even felt his bodily needs, demands and also when the guy got hurt.

First week. He had been in the middle of handling sizzling oil, as a sudden pain had shot through his guts and sent the wok flying as he toppled with a groaned down to the floor. It was only his good luck, that he didn't get burned. But the mess what the hot oil left wasn't to be over seen.

And that wasn't the only thing, which annoyed the hell out of him. More than once in the past weeks, he had found himself jerking off in his bed or bathroom and it even caught him off guard, when he served food to his customers. He had spilled his seed on the toilet facility wall, while trying to bite back a wanton moan. What kind of libido had that guy? Kagami cursed while washing his hands clean from his cum, red eyes staring heated back at him as he looked into the mirror. This had to end. He even had started to have wet dreams about the guy in the past two days, which added to his already exhausted body and mind.

After another almost incident at the marketplace, where sudden anger bundled up in his gut and he almost lashed out at one of his prefered grocery salesman, because the guy wouldn't budge even a fraction from his price, he finally had enough.

Dialing Takao's number, Kagami tapped impatiently his fingers on the table surface. Finally, the line cracked and Takao's cheerful voice boomed into his ear. "Yahoo~ Taiga. What's up?" Holding the receiver at arms length, Kagami rolled his eyes and took it back to his ear. "Yo, Takao. Say, can you tell me the adress of this Aomine guy? I have urgent business with him." There was a bit of shuffling and a, "Wait a moment.", heard on the other end of the line and suddenly a rude voice filled his ear. "What do you want?" Aomine in person was on the speaker, sounding not amused in the slightest.

Cursing under his breath, that Takao had, without warning him first, given the receiver to the guy, Kagami clenched his teeth and stumbled over what he wanted to say. "Ah … yeah. Uhm … I need to see you again." As soon as those words left his lips, he knew that they sounded fucking wrong but he somehow couldn't phrase them otherwise. "Ha? Why? I don't want to see you." Kagami paused baffled, that someone really could be that rude without even knowing what was up.

"Well, I would also prefer to never see you again but I have a little problem here and it could be, that you will also be affected by it in the future." He didn't know how much of this conversation was recorded, and he sure as hell knew that every word the special forces ever had spoken into their devices was recorded somewhere. So, he tried to speak around the issue, like a cat who sneaks around the hot mash. "What do you mean?", came the now cautious question form the other side. It seemed as if Kagami got the guys attention now. "I would like to speak to you in person about this. If you don't mind, can you come to my apartment at ten tonight?"

Kagami heard the guy speak to someone in the background and waited. "Yeah, ok. I will have time then. But, only to make one thing clear, this isn't you asking me out, is it?" Kagami gaped. What was this guy getting at? He asking him out? Why should he? "Ha? No! What makes you think that?", Kagami snapped but at the same time felt heat rising to his cheeks, when certain images from his latest doing in his bed flashed through his mind.

"Because … no, forget it. I will see you at ten." The line disconnected and Kagami stared at the receiver, wondering what this was about. It couldn't be that Aomine already was affected by it … could it? If so, this was a more serious matter than he had thought it would be. Standing up, he put his phone back, walked to his fridge and opened a small flap at the side.

Typing a code into the key lock, he heard a metallic click and moved to the side as the fridge began to roll forward. Stepping into the small gap between it and the wall, he pressed the close button and proceeded to descend the translucent stairs, who appeared right under his feet. The diffused light, coming from below, was enough for him to find his way. The almost completely black environment was permeated with small points of light, who gave way when he moved up close to them. Only sometimes on of them was brave enough to come close to him but not today. They felt that he was upset and stayed away, much to his dismay, since he liked to play with the small creatures. They always soothed his mind.

Further and further down led his journey, until suddenly almost out of nowhere, the first green plants appeared and his naked feet hit the small pads of soft moss. The dark haze thinned out, until Kagami was standing in the middle of a meadow, which was covered with exotic flowers. He smiled a bit as a colorful dragonfly, of the size of a hand, hissed by his head and flew a large circle to land on the reed on the edge of a small lake. But today Kagami had no time a swim a round in the lake. Instead, he walked up the small high hill, which represented the center of this oasis, in order to reach the whitish glowing tree in its center. When he reached it, he raised a finger and drew entwined, strange ornaments onto the bark. The symbols flashed in a red light and vanished. Suddenly the surface melted and formed out a pad, on which a shining white book laid. Carefully, to not damage the wafer-thin pages, Kagami began to leaf through it until he found the page he was looking for.

He furrowed his brow, and read the section again and again. Found, however, no indication why his healing method had such a strange side effect. Turning the page, he paused, read and then nodded to himself. The dispelling of the band should be easy enough, if it wasn't done too late. But again no indication, why it got that strong in the first place. He closed the book, not smarter than before, and once again drew a few ornaments on the bark to let the book merge with the tree.

Before he got back to his apartment, he made a beeline and plucked a few bluish shimmering berries, who grew on a shrub next to his vegetable garden. Leaving the small oasis, he got back to his apartment. It was almost time for the appointment with Aomine. Time moved differently down there and he had to hurry to be ready when his guest arrived.


TBC