Come along, come along with me…
"Why the long face, Sacchan?"
A pout. A petulant glare.
"Go away, Dai-chan!"
A sigh.
"Are you still angry because I got away from that uncle and you didn't?"
The boy's tone betrayed his pride in his speedy escape. It made the little girl glare at him heatedly, the corners of her eyes prickling with tears of childish indignation.
"I'm angry because you left me behind, you traitor!" she shouted at her friend. Her volume and the shakiness of her voice drew the attention of some of the children and parents leaving from the kindergarten with them.
Daiki cringed.
"Come on! The plan was to get out of there as fast as we can if we see the uncle coming. I even told you he's on the way," he tried to reason with her, hoping to dissuade her from the tantrum she was about to throw.
The little girl sniffled loudly. Overreacting, as always, her friend thought with exasperation.
"We both know that you're the faster runner, Dai-chan! It was unfair to just leave me behind like you did! Cruel! Cruel!" She sniffled again, tears streaming down her face unchecked now. "I got scolded so much! And I didn't even want to do it—I was just doing as you told me! And then you left me behind to get yelled at when you ran away on your own—Dai-chan, you idiot!"
She was crying so heart-wrenchingly and earnestly now that she made several moms turn around to look at what the commotion was all about.
The sudden attention to the two of them made Daiki feel anxious and more than a little guilty.
"All right, all right, already! I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry, so stop crying, Sacchan!" he tried to placate her. All it achieved was make the girl cry louder.
"No, you're not! You're not sorry at all! You just want to shut me up!" she wailed. Her friend cringed. If she already knew, then why wasn't she doing just that?
"I'll take you to my secret hideout if you stop crying, okay?" he blurted out when he had already tried all other options of trying to get his best friend to calm down.
His offer achieved its purpose when the little girl shut up and peered at him with swollen but shining with intrigue eyes. Her crying ceased and she focused on him with unusual intensity. The boy swallowed dryly, mentally preparing himself for another fit coming when she deemed his proposition not worthy of her attention.
The fit never came.
"You will?" she asked in a slightly blubbering tone. Her voice was still shaky from her earlier bout.
"Of course! I would never lie about such a thing, right?" the navy-haired boy said with an easy grin. The relief of having successfully quelled his friend's distress was immense.
When the little girl gave him an unconvinced glare, he laughed nervously and put a hand behind his head.
"I said I was sorry about that yesterday. I really mean it!" He gave her his most convincing apologetic smile.
She just stared levelly at him, not completely persuaded.
"Just forget about that stuff, and come with me! I promised I'll show you my secret hideout, so that's where we'll go! When you see it, all your worries will fly away!"
He grabbed her by the hand then and pulled her off in direction of an unknown destination.
However, one thing Satsuki knew for sure—wherever he was taking her, it was bound to be somewhere fun.
Dai-chan was the best at finding the most awesome places to have fun!
Come along, come along and you'll see…
More than ten years later, Satsuki's string of fate was still tightly bound to Aomine Daiki's. If anything, they had been wound tighter together by the years past.
They were no longer children and their worries were no longer about who got a larger share from his mom's cake or whose sundae is bigger. They were seniors in high school now. The world stood, staring at them, expectant. Egging them on to take the step that would bring them closer to becoming part of society. Urging them to start taking important decisions about their lives.
They were no longer kids and even though she still called him Dai-chan, he wasn't just her friend anymore. Their bond was changing, morphing into something, something she couldn't quite name, couldn't quite place. For the way he sometimes let his gaze linger on her, a twinkle in his eye, or the way his touch on her hand and shoulder was much gentler than she remembered—those are not the ways a friend acts toward another friend. The kisses they have sometimes shared were not kisses between friends.
He was still her Dai-chan, but he was so much more than what he used to be.
He was someone she took care of, relied on and dreamt of.
He was also someone she horribly envied.
She envied him because it took him no more than five minutes to scribble in his response when they were given the career choice sheets. She envied the clarity of his path, and his self-assuredness in his capabilities.
She wished she had those. She knew she was talented as well—of course—but she had no idea how to use that talent.
She didn't know what she wanted to do with her life.
And it ate at her for days and days, making her incapable of turning in the simple enough questionnaire back to the teacher.
She didn't know when, but he must've noticed her moroseness despite her attempts to keep it from him.
That's just it about them. He always noticed, regardless what she tried to hide.
And he always knew the best way to bring her out of the holes she dug herself into.
It was a rainy Wednesday, and she was staring vacantly out of the nearby window. She wasn't really looking at anything in particular, half-mesmerized by the trickle of the droplets on the pane. Her mind barely registered the ring of the bell, signalling the end of class.
She noticed him standing in front of her only when his hand slammed on her desk top. The sound gave her a small fright, making her head whip in his direction.
He gave her a smooth grin. Without saying a word, he took her by the hand and dragged her out of class, his ears deaf to her protests as he hauled her out of the premise.
She tried to tell him that they weren't even supposed to be there when he took her to the door leading to the roof of the school building. He ignored her voice of reason as he took out a key from his pocket, setting off a chain of alarming questions popping into Satsuki's mind. He put the key in the lock, turning until the soft click indicated that their path was no longer barred.
He opened the door to the rooftop with a flourish, walking out into the rain with a couple of wide strides.
She attempted to reason with him that it's cold and raining out and that he'll catch a cold, so come back in, Dai-chan! He ignored her, an amused chuckle leaving his lips this time.
"Are you made of sugar, Satsuki?" She gave him an odd look at the question, not sure what he was trying to say. "The rain won't melt you. Come out—it's awesome here!"
She raised her fine brows sceptically at him, refusing to take a step further from her spot. However, she was given no say in the matter when he grabbed her by the wrist, pulling her out into the downpour outside.
Her clothes were drenched within a minute, and a colourful string of profanities left her lips. She cursed her best friend who only laughed at her discomfort. His face was turned upward, toward the heavy clouds above. His eyes were closed but his mouth was set in a handsome smirk which made her protests die in her throat.
Instead, she focused on looking at him, marvelling at the perfection that was Aomine Daiki. As much as she envied him, she admired him. She admired his ability to be free in anything and everything. His basketball play style was the most free-spirited she had ever seen (and that was saying something, after so many matches played for six years against so many people). There wasn't yet a lock invented that could keep him out. There was no amount of threats and warnings that could stop him from doing what he wanted.
Dai-chan was as selfish and self-serving as they came.
And she admired that about him.
Because he was always free.
Although she had considered herself an individual unbound by anything, she only now realized—as they stood, drenched in the rain on the rooftop of their school where entry of students was strictly prohibited—that she had never known what it was like to be as free as he was.
She was always conscious of someone else's interests, always worried she might infringe on someone's personal space, always caring about what others wanted her to do.
She always lost sight of the things that were important when the matters she was considering were overly complicated.
"It's really awesome here, right?" He spread his arms wide, turning around on his heels in full circle with his face still tilted upward. "Makes you forget all your worries, doesn't it?"
Her eyes widened as she looked at him. She really ought not to be surprised. He was Dai-chan and he always noticed. He always knew and he always had the best solution.
Because, unlike her, he was free.
Free of influence, free of chains, free to be himself.
She didn't answer him for a while, her hands clenching together in front of her chest. He gave her time, sighing and running a hand through his navy spikes of hair. His head tilted back from the force he put into the action, and the movement exposed the long column of his neck to the droplets of rain falling from the sky.
She watched almost hypnotized as the water ran down from his soaked hair towards his drenched hand and clothes.
"Dai-chan."
"Hmm?"
She took a moment to formulate her next words. He didn't rush her, savouring the feel of the September rain on his skin.
"Where do you see us, in five years?"
If her question caught him off-guard, he gave no visible indication of it. The smooth smile was still on his face as he turned to look at her, that intense look still in his eyes, as he articulated his response evenly.
"Anywhere. It doesn't really matter where." She opened her mouth to contend him when he added, "All that matters is that we'll figure it out together." He gave her a pointed look, daring her to disagree with him. "Right?"
He had taken a few strides and was now standing right in front of her, back bent to gaze into her eyes from almost the same level. She swallowed slowly as the words registered in her mind.
The pink-haired girl's face blossomed steadily into a beaming smile.
"Right," she agreed easily while Daiki placed his forehead against hers.
His arms were wrapped around her shoulders and she could feel the heat of his skin emanating through their drenched clothes. The cold rain felt like it was cleansing her very soul from the wearisome thoughts and anxieties for the future.
His words were a promise. And she knew that he was a person who always kept his promises.
Instead of feeling bound by that promise, it made her feel lighter and freer than ever.
It was then that he kissed her, there, in the middle of the rooftop in the pouring rain, when she felt what he must have felt his entire life—absolutely free.
She wondered how she'd never noticed before that his kisses were her liberation.
… What it's like to be free.
A/N: What is this, I don't even—I honestly have no clue what the hell was up with me when I got this idea. I just heard Titiyo's "Come Along" and I felt like "Oh, gosh, this sounds like something Aomine could say to Momoi" and… This is the result. O.o
I hope you enjoyed the slight fluff. xD I had a lot of fun writing it! The end was a bit tricky but, oh well!
Getting back to writing Solace! It's my master project, after all! ^.^
100 Situations, Table One; 069: Come.
14th February, 2013.