"What the fuck are those?" Aomine didn't even bother trying to comprehend the numbers in front of him. He barely even glanced at them.
"Basketball scores." One look at Kuroko's face was enough to provide the extra information.
"Oh my god. You're serious."
"I usually am."
"You seriously want me to text you in code."
"Only for important things." As if that made the request any less ridiculous.
It was too much trouble. Aomine was definitely going to refuse. Even if it was Tetsu.
So why was Satsuki already accepting?! "Tetsu-kun's just concerned!" And of course she'd defend him. Sometimes, he really had to wonder just who was working for who. Oh, that's right. "Tetsu-kun trumps all!" ...was it?
"Your office was broken into recently, wasn't it?" As if Kuroko needed to ask. He was the one who had waltzed into the room (right past the receptionist) to return Momoi's flash drive directly to her hands.
At the reminder, Aomine practically growled. "Kagami, that bastard. Never thought he'd go so far..."
Surprisingly, it was Kuroko who defended the redhead. "That person should have gotten the flash drive, as well as my address from someone else."
"It was probably Hanamiya. His agency's known for that kind of thing." And since Satsuki's info backed it up, it was most likely true. At least there was that.
Eventually Kuroko returned the phone he'd appropriated from Aomine, newly programmed to include a coding option for his text messages. All he needed to know were the right basketball scores.
Good. Aomine seriously wouldn't have bothered if it had been any more troublesome, Satsuki, Tetsu, or no.
"Speaking of Kagami," Kuroko, finished with Momoi's phone, set it back down. "Will you be seeing him soon?"
Aomine scratched his head and waited for Momoi to answer. She was the one who was supposed to be keeping track of these things. Eventually she dug out the planner of Official Business. Seirin had a meeting with them next week. But, "If Kagami is smart, he'll be here by the day after tomorrow."
"I see..." He didn't have to ask to be kept informed. That was already natural. As a hacker, Kuroko kept to himself. Chatting between friends was another thing altogether.
Kuroko reached over to steal a sip of the coffee on Aomine's desk; the bitter taste had him wrinkling his nose. Aomine sighed and tossed him money for a shake on the way back. When he stood to leave, Momoi also got up to see him out. Aomine remained behind, reclined in his chair, feet messing up the nonexistent work on his desk.
Before they reached the door, "Hey, Tetsu! You planning something again?"
"Honestly?" Kuroko gave them a small smile, the one he only revealed to these two. And they could tell that things were just beginning. But all Kuroko said was, "I don't know yet. For now, I suppose I'll call up Kise-kun."
Kagami really did drop by two days later.
Avoiding Momoi's eyes as he passed, he went straight up to Aomine's desk. As expected, the lazy ass wasn't doing any work at all, just playing around on his phone. At least he wasn't on that one model's website like last time...
Stashing his phone, Aomine turned to look at him. Kagami was here to investigate. More accurately, to verify a few things. That was probably obvious to everyone in the room, but appearances needed to be kept up. First, what had Koganei said? Start a conversation? Hah, as if he could talk civilly with Aomine.
"...is it true your place got broken into?" Kagami could win awards for subtlety.
"Does it look that way?"
Now that Aomine had pointed it out, Kagami noticed that the signs were pretty minor. There was no broken glass or furniture - if anything, the office looked neater than before. (Was that a potted plant on the windowsill?) From what he could remember, even if the lock had been picked, the thieves had been patient; the door showed no signs of frustration at all.
The only visible suggestion of a crime were the new windows and upgraded locks.
Kagami continued to glance around. All information possible - that was what he was used to looking for and that was what he was taking in now.
There was a file open on Momoi's desk, her boss's messy signature already scrawled at the bottom. Aomine had been looking something up on his computer - the keyboard was out and between browsing and surfing, the former was more likely.
Momoi looked like she didn't care, so it probably wasn't porn.
Aomine was looking at him and it was only then that Kagami remembered that they were attempting polite conversation. "Sucks for you." As much as was possible for them, anyway. "Was anything valuable stolen?"
And there it was.
He hadn't looked through the flash drive so Kagami honestly had no way of knowing. What was in it? Junk? Or...
Were Aomine and Momoi really connected to Kuro?
The paper had been a mislead, but he could only blame it on Kirisaki Daiichi either not knowing it was irrelevant or just trying to screw him over. Really, with Hanamiya's personality Kagami thought it was an even chance either way.
The sharp note in Aomine's voice brought him back. "Nothing our insurance would cover."
Nothing valuable huh? Well, that didn't say a damn thing. But if there was one thing Kagami had, it was instinct. And right now, it was telling him to keep digging. What did Aomine mean? And what was he going to do now? Would he do anything? If it came to information, Seirin could...
"We can handle it," Aomine snapped. "Geez, aren't we quite famous already? What exactly do you take us for...?" The corner of his mouth twitched up into a predatory smirk. "For a business that specializes in "recovery of property", isn't it obvious we'd handle this ourselves?"
Before Kagami could answer, Aomine pulled his phone out again. "Important message?" Kagami had never known him to pay so much attention to a phone. If Momoi's complaints were to be believed, you'd be lucky if he picked up on the third try...on a good day. His curiosity was stirring up again.
But Aomine blew it all away with a wave of his hand, flashing his phone's screen at the same time. "Nah. Just sending a friend the basketball scores."