Saturday
-1-
11:30 a.m.: a toast to you(th)
"Aomine?"
Aomine's head tilted involuntarily at the way Kise called his name. But recovery was quick to come. Why should he be surprised at something like that? Years had gone by. Expecting people to be the same and to carry the same habits was more unreasonable than believing them to have changed. And had Kise Ryouta changed.
He had changed so much.
What happened to the boy with the golden smile?
"You're finally awake?" Aomine said derisively. Kise blinked bleary eyes, no doubt trying to ward off a pounding headache. And to no avail, it seemed. He held one hand against the side of his temple and the other hand a ways from his eyes to shield them from the grey light seeping through the window.
It was a pathetic sight that made Aomine somewhat angry. But as quickly as the anger came, it was replaced by a sensation of defeat that was becoming more and more familiar to him these days.
It became familiar the day Kuroko died, whispered a snide voice in the back of his head. He shooed it away. That name wasn't said anymore. That name meant bad things.
"Where am I?" Kise had the mind to ask.
Aomine snorted and rolled his head on his neck, feeling the joints pop. "I found you while on patrol last night. The officer I was with brought you here since you were clearly—" he said this with a pointed look in Kise's direction. "Too incapacitated to take care of yourself. Be grateful, you sack of shit."
"Whatever," Kise mumbled. He clambered out of the sheets, not even realizing that all he had on was an oversized t-shirt as he made his way towards the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" Aomine said, grabbing Kise's arm. With a roughness Aomine had never known from Kise, his grip was thrown.
"Fuck off," Kise said. Anger Aomine hadn't felt in such a long time reared inside his chest, and he took Kise by the shoulder and slammed him against the wall.
"Listen, I don't know what you have stuck up your ass," Aomine snarled, face inches away from Kise's. "But I'm not taking that shit from you. I see you for the first time in over a year, and this is what you present yourself as?"
Unadulterated frustration.
But not directed only towards Kise.
Somehow, Aomine felt partly responsible for this. After all, he'd been no better than Kise. Sure, he might have his life patched together with staples and tape, but he'd made no effort—nobody had made any effort to string their relationships together and check up on each other. And somehow, he got the feeling that if they had all just stopped wallowing in the wake of Kuroko's—don't say that name—death and paid attention to each other, maybe Kise wouldn't be like—like this—
This cold figure of frozen gold with muddy eyes that could barely focus.
"Present myself as what?" Kise all but spat. "Who am I presenting myself to? You? Quit joking yourself, Aomine. Do you even care? Did you care the past four years?"
Aomine gritted his teeth because he had nothing to say to that.
"There's nothing to care about," Kise snarled. "I'm doing perfectly fine. So fuck off."
"If you're fine, then are you happy?" Aomine asked brusquely.
He wanted Kise to flinch or maybe to dissolve into tears, do anything reminiscent of his younger years. But the blond turned on him with one of the blankest stares Aomine had ever received and said, "Do you think I deserve to be happy? I've said it already," Kise said, finally breaking Aomine's grip. "I am fine."
Aomine opened his mouth—for what, he didn't know; he didn't have any retorts or wise words of wisdom or cajoling words; he had nothing. But as he waited for something to come out, another voice spoke:
"Are you fighting?"
Aomine's blood froze.
Not now. Not now of all times.
Because as much as Kise Ryouta was pissing the hell out of Aomine, Aomine didn't want him to—if he hadn't already—break.
"Daddy said that when you're hungry, you get really, really, really cranky. But I got food, see?"
Aomine could barely bring himself to breathe as he watched Kise's eyes move slowly, so slowly, as if time had almost stopped, to the small boy he knew was standing right behind him. The golden eyes blinked disbelievingly, and, like a bug drawn towards light, Aomine's head turned to look at the blue-eyed boy, who was holding a steaming plate of omelet.
Shiroko Tetsuya gave them a toothy smile with the front teeth missing and held the plate up even higher.
"So let's eat breakfast!"
It was like torture to bring his eyes back to Kise's face, to watch his mouth open in confusion, to listen to his cracked voice breathe out a word that hadn't been said in years:
"Kurokocchi…?"
And when the boy responded to him, Aomine could tell that Kise felt like he'd been punched in the gut just by watching his eyes.
He knew it too well, because when he'd heard the name and seen the face associated with it, he'd felt exactly the same.
Because it was all so, so wrong, and so, so twisted, and it felt like something beyond all of them was jeering at them from afar.
But despite it all, the world would spin on.
"What's a Kurokocchi? I'm Tetsuya."
And it hurt all over again to hear the name that shouldn't have been coming from the mouth of the boy with Kuroko Tetsuya's eyes:
"Shiroko Tetsuya!"
But despite this revelation, Kise was shrinking away from those blue eyes of Tetsuya's, the same way Aomine wanted to hide from them himself the first time he'd seen them. Perhaps a few years ago, when he was less tired and more angry, he might have reacted the same way as Kise—face pale, eyes shocked, frozen—but now, today, these days, he was so incredibly tired…
So all he could do was stare dumbly along with Kise.
Because this was his punishment. Living with the knowledge that in this world lived a boy called Shiroko Tetsuya wish Kuroko Tetsuya's eyes was his punishment.
His punishment for being helpless on that day.
"Tetsuya?" A woman's voice.
Somebody was lumbering down the stairs like a bear wakened from hibernation. Thankful for the diversion, Aomine turned his gaze up to see a woman in a long black dress stumbling down the stairs.
"Did you bring that for me, Tetsuya? God, you're the best."
"No!" Tetsuya said, sticking his tongue out at the woman. "Not for mommy! For Potato-man and his friend!"
"Potato-man?" the woman echoed.
"Potato-man?" Aomine spluttered.
"But I'm hungry," the woman said. "And Potato-man here doesn't seem to have any manners…"
She pierced Aomine with a glare that made him sorry to have even been born. He released Kise immediately, which evidently was a bad idea. Kise slid to the floor as if his knees had turned to jelly.
"Mom's very hungry, Tetsuya," she said imploringly. "If you don't feed mom this instant, she'll keel right over and hate you forever."
"No she won't!" Tetsuya said with the utmost confidence. "Mom will love me forever and ever!"
And with that, Tetsuya hopped over to Kise and shoved the plate into his hands.
"Cute brat," his mother snorted, scooping him up into her arms. She held a hand out to Aomine, who blinked at it stupidly.
"I assume you have a name other than what my son christened you with," she prompted. "Unless you prefer to be called 'Potato-man' for the rest of your visit here…"
"Aomine," he grumbled, grasping her hand. "Aomine Daiki."
"And your friend?"
Aomine's eye twitched; he wanted nothing more than to deny all association with the blond zombie at his feet. "Kise Ryouta."
"Does he have a fetish for small, cute children?" she said. "He's staring an awful lot at Tetsuya."
"Mom, what's a fetish?"
"It's the worst flavor of ice cream," she responded absently. "I'm Rin, by the way. Shiroko Rin. And I assume you've met Toru?"
Aomine shivered. Rin smirked knowingly before turning to Kise.
"Ryouta-kun, it's good to meet you," she said in a sweet voice. She held out her hand and smiled encouragingly at Kise, making Aomine wonder if she'd had a lot of experience with these types of people. "Let's go eat breakfast before Toru comes here and drags us with ropes of rainbows and stars."
"I-I should leave," Kise muttered, clambering to his feet. Rin's smile widened, and she all but thrust her hand into Kise's free one and crushed it in her grip.
"You are more than welcome to stay for lunch," she said. "I insist."
Aomine took a rather large gulp at the smile on her face and wrote down in his mental notebook to never get on Shiroko Rin's bad side.
She shoved him lightly in the direction of the kitchen and set Tetsuya on the ground. He clung to her legs, babbling happily.
"He looks lost," she said. Aomine looked confused, and she indicated with her chin the blond boy who was currently being assaulted by a large dosage of youth. "That Kise Ryouta."
Aomine cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. "I guess."
Being looked at by Shiroko Rin was like being scrutinized under a microscope. Suddenly, she grabbed Aomine by the arm and flung him into the kitchen. With an ungainly squawk, Aomine stumbled, arms pinwheeling, and landed next to Kise.
"Food!" Rin cried, sweeping immediately after him. "Food!"
"Love!" Toru replied, trying to plant a kiss on his wife's cheek. "Youth!"
Rin drew barstools up for all of them to use at the counter, and Toru passed out omelets like Frisbees. He held up a glass of orange juice in a mock toast, and smiled warmly at Aomine, who was glaring moodily at his own cup.
Rin, who had Aomine and Kise sitting on either side of her, grabbed both their arms to participate in the toast.
"To youth," Toru said, a twinkle in his eye.
Rin was the only one to echo it. Tetsuya was already guzzling his juice, and Aomine and Kise were far too gone to even humor the idea of playing along.
But before Toru had even lowered his glass, Kise was up and out of his seat. Aomine's chair clattered to the floor as he followed suit, and he managed to catch Kise by the wrist at the front door and turned him around harshly.
Kise's eyes were almost unbearable; they told Aomine he wanted to scream and cry all at the same time.
"So you still think that you're fine?" Aomine said quietly.
The look in the golden gaze was all it took for Aomine to know that right then and there, Kise wanted to die.
He was gone in a flash. Aomine didn't try to follow him. Out of courtesy, he returned to the kitchen and mumbled an apology.
Nobody asked him any questions.
But at the end of their meal, Toru laid a hand on Aomine's shoulder and said, "Ah, youth… the way it makes us boil over so with great spirit!"
Aomine groaned.
"And yet, how elusive it is to some," Toru continued, completely oblivious to—more like ignoring—Aomine's exasperation with his prattles of youth. "TBH, when I was your age, I also was bellicose and wont towards destruction. And nothing would set me straight! I had lost all hope in myself, but then I met I realized the central dogma of life: If you believe in youth, youth will believe in you!"
"You're making me feel grossed out and you're not making any sense at all," Aomine grumbled, brushing off Toru's hand. "Thanks for the meal."
"It'll make sense to you one day," Rin said with a light laugh. As she took up his empty plate, she leaned forward and said softly, "Although, I expect it already does."
With a wink, but not before he got Aomine's number (which he would regret sorely in the coming days when his inbox was overwhelmed with picture texts of Tetsuya and gross fawning), Toru sent Aomine away.
It was late at night when Toru's extremely mushy words came back to mind. Aomine rolled over on his creaky bed, phone inches away from his hand.
If you believe in youth, youth will believe in you!
He rolled over again onto his back and stared up at the darkness above him. If he stared hard enough, he imagined he could see the purest color of gold staring right back at him. Something inside him ached. It was like missing something you knew you could never have again.
"If I believe in him, he'll believe in me… Peh, that sounds so retarded."
Aomine felt very grateful that he lived alone, because he wasn't sure he would be able to live with himself if he knew someone else had heard him say something so… a grumble, Aomine groped for his phone and squinted in the sudden light.
"But that isn't enough," Aomine mumbled. "It's no good if he believes in me. What about believing in himself? You old, useless, youth-obsessed fart. Just go get botox and shut up already."
His contact page stared at him.
"If I believe in him, he'll believe in me…"
Aomine's finger hovered over Kise's name.
"But if I believe in him, and he believes in me, then he'll believe in himself…"
Thinking was too damn hard. Aomine sneezed from brain exertion.
And his finger hit Kise's number.
By the time his mistake registered in his brain, the call was already in progress.
"…Fuck!"
Short chapter this week, but next week's is already pretty much done. Really, this should have been in last weeks' chapter, bleh. Trying to get as much written as possible before school starts (ARGHSKDFJIWOEIRU) so that I don't leave people hanging for too long between each chapter.
Judging from reviews, seems like people want more ~feels~. That's actually the opposite of why I wanted to rewrite this; I felt like I spent too much time lingering on how they were feeling and was making everything too dramatic and that that was slowing down the plot. Aomine: I purposely pared down the volatile reaction he had in the previous version because my plans for him involved him mellowing out after Kuroko's death, losing the fire he'd once had.
But the readers asked, and the author will answer... hoo hoo hoo.
As always, if you have time or have any comment/question/concern, please leave a review! Especially now since I must drag myself out of bed now and do Real Work, reviews are greatly appreciated.
