sounds like rain

-1-

Saturday

12:01 a.m.: shooting stars from his bum

It wasn't often that Aomine ran into people from his high school days, but when he did, he often didn't think much of it.

That was mainly because they weren't the people who really mattered. He could take that slimy glasses-wearing bastard any day and talk to him like a normal person; he could tolerate the deceiving bastard who acted as if he was sorry for even breathing the same air as everyone else. He ran into them, conversed a little, then left without feeling much. It was like stepping on dead leaves. They occupied your thoughts for a little while, but then when you were done with them, they fled your mind.

Kicking a puppy, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter. Depending on what type of person you were, you might feel extraordinarily vindicated. Or, like Aomine, you would be plagued by guilt and by the wailing face of the offended puppy for the rest of your days and by the knowledge that you were not very good at making metaphors.

What Aomine was really trying to say was that although he didn't care much for the lower life forms from high school, if he ever ran into people of colorful hairstyles, he was bound to carry a very oscillatory mood for the rest of the day. And more often than not, his two choice moods were anger and depression. Those people brought back things that clung to him tighter than the face of an abject dog whose legs had just been kicked out from under it.

So, it was perfectly explanatory that Aomine found himself to be in a wonderfully foul mood as Officer Yu drove him and that blond brat to—

To…

"So, where are we going?" Aomine said after a moment of mental face-punching when he realized that he was so caught up in being angry at the blond brat that Officer Yu could have been taking them both to a serial killer's den and he wouldn't have cared at all.

"An old friend's house," Officer Yu said. He offered Aomine a stick of gum, which was refused. "Since this 'Kise Ryouta' seems to be a friend—"

"He's not my friend," Aomine muttered. "And I don't need friends."

With a grumble, Aomine slouched in his seat, tucked his mouth under the collar of his jacket, and lowered the window.

"It reeks," he said to no one in particular. A few moments later, he found himself shivering and begrudgingly closed the window.

"Or maybe you just don't want friends?" Officer Yu said belatedly, casting Aomine a sidelong glance.

"Shut up, old man."

"Sounds like rain," Officer Yu commented vaguely as he pulled into a driveway belonging to an average-sized house settled in a large plot of land. "I'll go ring the doorbell, so you carry this 'Kise Ryouta.'"

"Shoving the grunt work off on me," Aomine grumbled, but he grudgingly got out of the car. "But it's three in the morning… I'd be mad as hell if someone came by to drop a drunk kid off at this time."

Kise smelled awful, and that was a kind way of putting it. Aomine grimaced and dragged him out of the car, smirking when Kise fell to the ground with a satisfying thunk. He pulled him by the arm until he hit the steps leading to the door, at which point he had the good grace to pick Kise up by the armpits and deposit him on the welcome mat.

"Your old man friend not answering the door?" Aomine said.

"He'll answer," Officer Yu said. He swung his arms around and then assumed a boxing stance. "You think I could punch the door down?"

"No," the door said, and it opened. The porch light flooded the patio and illuminated their to-be-host, a man who looked to be in his early thirties. A healthy crop of black hair flopped over black, sleep-ridden eyes. At Aomine's height, he would have stood about two inches taller than his policeman friend had he not been slouching.

"Oh, you again," he said, making to close the door. As if rehearsed, Officer Yu immediately wedged his foot against the door.

"Sup."

"Lol, I'm J-K. Come in," the man said, opening the door wide. Aomine blinked a little because, if his ears were not deceiving him, the man had just pronounced 'lol' as if it were a word and spelled out 'jk,' the abbreviation for 'just kidding.'

"Jesus," Aomine muttered, hauling Kise into the house.

"You can set the kid on the couch over there," the man said. "I'll bring some clean clothes. I'm Shiroko Toru, by the way. You are?"

"Aomine Daiki," Aomine mumbled, trudging to the couch, which was, thank god, only a few feet away. He thought that smelling any more of Kise than he already had would drive him insane.

When he came back with the clothes, Toru nudged Aomine with a sly grin. "What do you think about my youthful ways, huh?"

"What?" Aomine said, pulling a face. "You mean saying 'lol' and 'jk' like an idiot?"

"Is that any way to speak to your elder—no, I cannot say it," Toru said, touching his forehead as if afflicted. Aomine was horrified to find that he was suddenly reminded of a certain Konoha's Green Beast. "I am a man in the springtime of his youth. To admit to being an elder would be a great fallacy…"

"What…"

"I," Toru said dramatically, "have a son."

He looked at Aomine as if that explained everything and sighed when Aomine returned a flat stare.

Waving fingers in the air, Toru elaborated, "He's going to be five soon, and I'm already thirty. I have to keep up with the youth of today if I want to be able converse with the youth of tomorrow—namely, my son. Ah," Toru lamented with the voice of a flowery man too burdened by life, "F-M-L, I am aging too quickly."

"Talking like an idiot isn't going to stop yourself from aging," Aomine said under his breath before busying himself with removing Kise's vomit-slathered shirt.

"Although I guess FML isn't an appropriate thing to say around children?" Toru was muttering. "Tetsuya is only four…"

Aomine's heart skipped a beat. His fingers froze on the last button of Kise's shirt.

"Who?" His voice cracked.

"Tetsuya?"

"His son," Officer Yu filled in as he came from another room of the house, presumably the kitchen, as he had a cup of water in one hand. "Sorry, Toru, Aomine's friend… the one from five years ago, the boy who was hit in the intersection…"

With a small smile, Toru reached out a hand; Aomine flinched, but all Toru did was ruffle Aomine's hair.

His somber mood diffused spontaneously. "I'll get some sheets…. So, BRB!"

The way Toru exited made Aomine swear he could have seen stars erupting from Toru's bum. His eye twitched violently, and he started convincing himself that he would wake up the next morning and remember nothing.

"You just saw stars shooting out of his backside, didn't you," Officer Yu commented casually. "He does that a lot."

Aomine growled exasperatedly and shook his head as if trying to physically rid himself of the image.

"Never mind that," he said with great distaste. "Did you tell him about me?"

Officer Yu shrugged. "I did."

"Why? I don't even know that man. Not to mention…" I'd rather not have a man who has the ability to make people hallucinate stars shooting from butts know anything about me.

"Despite how he seems, he's a good man," Officer Yu said breezily. "Sometimes I see things I don't like seeing, and Toru often finds himself in my company when I am drunk off duty."

Aomine scoffed. "You get drunk?"

Officer Yu shrugged. "When it sounds like rain."

Aomine grumbled under his breath, "I hate your stupid metaphors…"

"Your metaphors aren't any better," Officer Yu pointed out.

"I'm done," Aomine said, tossing Kise's dirty shirt over the blond brat's face. "Let's get out of here."

Officer Yu clapped a hand on Aomine's shoulder and cleared his throat.

"Hm… This… how should I say it. You're staying here for the night."

"What."

Against two adults, one with a fearsome power and the other with fearsome martial arts abilities, Aomine stood no chance. He raged (quietly, as Toru insisted, because his son was sleeping) to no avail.

"You need sleep," Officer Yu said as their argument wound down, herding Aomine towards the smelly blond brat.

"ASAP," Toru agreed. "Now, look, there's a nice couch right next to your friend—"

"He's not my friend," Aomine snarled.

In the silence, they could hear the first of the raindrops beginning to land on the rooftop.

"Sounds like rain," Officer Yu commented quietly. Aomine saw his eyes travel to the window, where the water was beginning to come down in rivulets.

"Oh," Officer Yu said, as if something had just hit him.

Aomine's fists tightened at his sides.

"It's him. One of the boys who were with you on that day. So this is what became of him," Officer Yu said even more softly than before. He reached out a hand to the blond who was—

crumbling . . .

—repeating over and over:"It's my fault. I was standing right behind him. I was standing right behind him. It's my fault."

"Stop, Ryouta. Speculating—"

"I was standing right behind him."

"Shut up already!"

"But I pushed him."

. . . to pieces . . .

"Here's a pillow, and here's a blanket. If you're cold, just holler and I'll be right down. The wife called and said there was an emergency in the hospital, so she'd be staying later, so if someone comes in when you're sleeping, don't freak out, just the wife."

"I don't know why I'm doing this…"

"Because you care about your friend!" Toru said brightly. "I think you and Tetsuya would be great friends."

Aomine winced. Toru smiled and ruffled his hair. Officer Yu tucked a hand into his pocket and checked his watch.

"I should get back to patrolling. Thanks for letting them stay."

"NP, man."

"Officer Yu," Aomine tried. "Can't you just take me with you?"

Officer Yu took the few steps to stand in front of Aomine and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"I know it's raining now," he said quietly. "But you can't let it rain forever. Let the sun shine every once in a while."

"You sound like a sentimental freak," Aomine grumbled. "Don't you get embarrassed saying that sort of crap?"

He let his head turn enough so he could glance at Kise, who had since been changed into a clean t-shirt and shorts. Let the sun shine…

"I don't know what you think, Aomine," Officer Yu said. "It might be raining for you, but for that kid, Kise Ryouta…"

"I know," Aomine said with a sigh.

For that kid, Kise Ryouta, it's a downpour.

. . . but starlight laughs . . .

"Why couldn't you do anything? You're a policeman aren't you? Your job is to save people! So why didn't you save him!?"

"Daiki, calm yourself—"

Fist slamming against the wall. The shuffle of feet. The sound of desperation and despair.

"Officer Yu, correct? Please give us a few moments."

. . . and the world spins on.

"Bastard," Aomine huffed, tugging the blankets up to his chin. He sent a death glare at the motionless lump on the other couch. Toru had retreated upstairs to the master bedroom to sleep—or maybe to gaze creepily upon his sleeping son; Aomine wouldn't put it past him—so it was just him and Kise downstairs. Raindrops were splattering against the windows, and there was just enough light from the street lamp outside to make them glow orange.

He took a deep breath, and then he told Kise, who probably wasn't even listening, what he'd been telling himself for the past four years:

"Tetsu might be gone, but that doesn't mean we should go following after him."

He guessed Kise must have woken up at some point during his sappy speech, because he heard one deep breath before the rain took over and washed the sound away.

-2-
10:54 a.m.: the brat with blue eyes

Some demon was prodding the side of his face, and Aomine Daiki was not happy about it.

He tried to swat at away as if it were but a fly, but somehow (maybe because his eyes were closed) it evaded him. Pesky insect. He groaned and rolled over, prepared to wait it out, but then a jab so hard that it felt like skin had broken arrived, and he shot up straight—

"God…"

It seemed he had sprained his neck.

While one hand massaged his neck, the other reached out for the nuisance with only one goal: kill.

He grabbed something oddly soft. His eyes popped open, and he was almost bowled over by the power of a star-shooting grin full of missing and growing teeth.

"Hi! Hi, hi, hi, hi!"

"Good god—" Aomine said.

"Hands off my son!" cried out an indignant voice, and poor Aomine found himself subject to a great clobbering by a cast-iron pan.

To his utter irritation, throughout the entire ordeal, he was forced to listen to a high-pitched, excited serenade of "Daddy's using violence! Daddy's using violence!"

As if he couldn't tell.

A few minutes later, Toru was apologizing unapologetically while holding his son protectively in a suffocating embrace. The brat seemed to be used to it, for all he was doing was sticking his tongue out at Aomine. And that's when Aomine noticed—

That he was incredibly hungry.

As his stomach gurgled in agony, the brat gurgled in joy. Toru winked at Aomine and whipped from thin air a platter of sandwiches.

"I got your back, yo," Toru said and Aomine swore he saw a star shoot out from the wink Toru sent his way. "And before you TY (thank you) me, I gotta say it was NP (no problem)."

"I'll thank you when you stop talking like a moron," Aomine grumbled, swiping a couple of sandwiches off the plate. He looked to his side and smiled grimly when he saw Kise still knocked out cold.

"Lazy son of a bi—" was all he got out before he was elegantly silenced by a sandwich to the face.

"Not around the kid."

Aomine glowered at the brat, still stinging from the recent beating from both father and son. And that's when he finally noticed—

"I have no pants on," he said abruptly. "Old man, I can barely condone your pedophilic tendencies towards your son—"

"Daddy, what's 'pee-doe-fill-ick' mean?"

"But I really can't stand perverts pervert-ing over me."

"NONSENSE!" Toru all but bellowed, and the sandwich platter was thrown to the air as he flung his arms into a great X. "My poor Tetsuya, erase all the words this vile creature has spouted in the past five minutes from your pure mind!"

Aomine snorted and left the father-son duo to their own devices while he polished off the rest of the sandwiches.

"Hungry," he grunted, and that's all it took for Toru to whisk him away to the kitchen and set about to cooking up an omelet.

Which left Aomine alone with the brat. Something with which he was not very comfortable. Because no matter how much he directed his attention elsewhere, he could not dispute the fact that this boy, Shiroko Tetsuya, had the exact same pair of eyes as the friend he'd lost almost five years ago.

So identical that it made him sick to his stomach. It had taken all of his willpower to not jump out the window right then and there.

"I should leave," he muttered.

"Your friend isn't awake yet."

"Tell him I said—never mind," Aomine muttered. "I need to—I can't stay here."

"Won't he be sad?"

It pierced right through him, every word.

"I'd be sad," the kid said. "Really really really really really—"

"I—" Aomine said helplessly, unwittingly casting a glance at the kid. His stomach flipped. The kid was making puppy dog eyes. With Kuroko's eyes.

Aomine crumbled.

"…I'll stay…" he mumbled. As the kid cheered, he resigned himself to a fate of misery.

Aomine tried to keep himself sane by entertaining himself with anything that was not the kid. The spoons. So shiny. The countertop. Nice granite. The cabinets—

"Much polish, right?"

Aomine groaned.

"Anything but doge…"

"Ojii-san doesn't like doggy?"

"Uh… doggy and doge aren't the same…" he said flouderingly, realizing that the way he pronounced it, doggy and doge sounded exactly the same. Oh god. The kid was staring at him again. Eyes wide, sparkling with mischief.

"Tetsuya, can you go try and wake up the blond kid on the couch?" Toru said. "Breakfast—should I say lunch? Brunch? Is ready. Pls."

Aomine choked on his water—did he really just say 'pliss' instead of please—and launched himself out of his seat. "I-I'll wake him up."

"Oh? Sudden change of heart?"

"Something like that," Aomine mumbled. The truth was that Kise would probably die from shock if he combined the sight of Kuroko's eyes with his probable hangover. Aomine kicked Kise in the stomach. The blond groaned and began moving.

"Wake up," Aomine said ruthlessly. "Breakfast is ready."

In the background, he could hear the brat making zoom zoom noises as he ran from wall to wall with a cape flying from his shoulders. Sooooper hero! Sidekick!

"Who…?"

Kise's eyes finally opened. Their eyes locked. Still the same gold Aomine remembered. But the fear—and was that shame?—that flickered across them was new.

Hope you enjoyed. Was planning to add something else, but wanted to get it out sooner rather than later. Thanks for the feedback so far and, as always, leave a review if it's not too much trouble!

Happy new year, all! I hope it's full of luck and love.