Chapter 10

Aomine had barely had time to sit down and take his shoes off before the door opened and Tetsu and Kagami stepped through. They didn't seem to be in the middle of a conversation, but from the way they glanced at each other, then him, and then quickly looked away, he suspected that they had, at some point, been talking about him behind his back. He wasn't even surprised.

Everyone else is gossiping about me, what's two more to add to the mix?

"Hello, Aomine-kun," Tetsu greeted him, inclining his head politely, "Did you enjoy the time to yourself this evening?"

Aomine decided not to dignify that with a response.

"Hm," Kagami added, with a mild hint of ribbing, leaning a hand against the wall to toe his basketball shoes off, "Well the roof hasn't caved in, so I'd say he behaved himself at least."

"Oh fuck you," Aomine growled under his breath.

Kagami blinked, seeming honestly surprised by that; then stood away from the wall and crossed his arms, his odd eyebrows snapping together with annoyance, "What's your problem, asshole?"

Tetsu laid a placating hand on Kagami's arm, fixing Aomine with his lucid, imperceptible gaze, "Aomine-kun, you do appear to be...rather tense, is something the matter?"

Getting to his feet jerkily for the sake of his height advantage, even if he only had two centimeters on Kagami, Aomine glowered at the both of them, "Nothing. Mind your own damn business."

"Then stop being such a prick," Kagami grumbled, before turning back to Tetsu, paying him no more mind, "You sure you'll be alright taking the train in the dark?"

A tiny smile tilted up the corners of Tetsu's mouth, "Of course...I'll be fine, thank you Kagami-kun."

"Then I'll see you later," Kagami smiled back, "Maybe next time all three of us can play a game."

"I…" Tetsu began, seeming to falter a moment with uncertainty, his smile becoming rather strained, "...would like that." Straightening, he raised a hand in a soft, passive wave, "Good night, Kagami-kun, Aomine-kun."

A moment of silence fell, after the door clicked closed behind him. Kagami barely graced Aomine with a glance before turning his back, yanking off his sweat-dampened T-shirt before balling it up and pitching it into the laundry basket across the room.

"That was rude, you know," he said after a moment, addressing the thick, tense air hanging in the room as much as Aomine, "Kuroko hasn't seen you in almost a year, you could have at least tried not to be an insensitive jackass in front of him."

"Insensitive -?" Aomine snarled, before breaking off with a fed-up sigh, "Whatever. He probably didn't even notice."

Kagami turned to look at him then, narrow chestnut eyes accusing, "You're wrong about that. You know how Kuroko is, how he picks up every little detail...and you should also know by now that that kind of shit hurts his feelings."

"But I didn't do anyth -" Aomine started to protest, but he was quickly interrupted.

"You insulted his intelligence and brushed him off when he was just trying to help you. Trying to help us…"

Realization crashed over Aomine's head like freezing water, and his mouth dropped open. "Shit...holy shit, does Tetsu know?"

Kagami didn't react, save for squaring his shoulders stubbornly, "Yeah. He knows."

"You told him?" Aomine practically shouted, teeth and fists alike clenched to the point of pain, holding back a strong urge to punch his roommate right in the face. "You idiot, we don't even know if -!"

"Shut up!" Kagami cut him off hotly, flushing dark with anger and possibly mortification, "What was I supposed to do? I trust him with it, and it's not like you're ever going to -"

"Yeah?" Aomine sneered, his very skin tight and itchy, feverish with rage and frustration, about to detonate, "I'm never going to fucking measure up to how much you trust Tetsu? Fine! Then you can go to him with this bullshit from now on and leave me the fuck out of it!"

Kagami opened his mouth, then closed it again, visibly simmering, but beneath the anger flaring in his eyes there was also a clear stab of hurt. "Fine," he grit out, all the defiance bleeding out of him to be replaced by obvious physical and emotional exhaustion. "Who needs you, anyway?"

Without another word, he turned his back and claimed the bed, lying down with a huff and hauling the blanket over himself, leaving Aomine standing in the middle of the room, fuming and resigning himself to sleeping on the floor, as far away from him as possible.

.

.

Kagami tripping over him woke him up, at what felt like the ass-crack of dawn. Sitting up with a muffled curse and rubbing his offended and probably bruised back, he was about to start railing at the dumbass to watch where he was going, but the clink of the toilet seat being raised and the sound of bare knees hitting the tile caused the caustic words to die in his throat. Instead, forfeiting the chance for any more sleep, he got up stiffly and started to get dressed, dragging his clothes over his aching skin with short, jerking motions. Any other day, if he had stuck around, Kagami might have made breakfast for both of them, but - hardly able to bear staying in the same room as him - today Aomine left in a hurry, without saying a word to him. He didn't slam the door behind him when he fled the room, but it was a near thing.

Throughout the entire day, he could feel anger and tension and no small amount of guilt hanging over him like a thunderhead, gnawing and burning in the pit of his stomach like corrosive acid, crawling repeatedly up his throat and inciting him to cover his mouth with a fist, more than once, suspecting he might throw up on his desk and his papers and anyone who happened to be seated lower than him in the lecture hall. Overriding these disturbing sensations was a claustrophobic, caged feeling, even in the bright, open rooms he spent his morning classes in, like he needed to get away, needed to be somewhere else, or he would explode.

After two hours of this, he bailed, not even showing up to the gym for practice, where he would be most likely to run into Kagami. At first he just loitered in the hallways, aimlessly traveling the campus with no destination, then he lounged outside beneath the shade of a tree, but he didn't fall asleep, despite how he could have used the nap after the rough night he had weathered on the floor. Instead he stared up at the trembling branches and the clouds scudding by overhead, containing his thoughts within boundaries of simplicity; safe thoughts, though the rest of the doubts and regrets and worries loomed in the corners of his mind, waiting to strike the moment he let down his guard.

Unable to stand the silence, he reflexively yanked his phone out of his pocket, dislodging a slip of paper along with it, which fluttered to the grass at his side. Absently, he picked it up and unfolded it, glimpsing a cluster of numbers scrawled in loopy, pink pen, next to a series of tiny cartoon hearts. He remembered it being handed to him several days ago - definitely not the first or the last of such things he had received - by a blushing, giggling classmate, surrounded by a gaggle of her peers, and he also remembered that at the time he'd only taken the phone number to be polite. Or...less of an ass than he could have been, as he had admittedly been rather curt and impatient with her as it was.

No matter. He crumpled up the paper and lifted his hand to discard it, and then hesitated. Slowly, he brought it back into his lap and carefully unfolded it again, smoothing the wrinkles out and setting his fingers to the keypad on his phone. Again, he paused, and shoved hand through his hair indecisively before letting the phone fall onto his stomach with a heavy sigh, accusing himself of being stupid. He could vividly imagine Kagami scowling and calling him a dumbass.

But, as soon as Kagami flashed across his mind, he felt something tug viciously in his gut; some mixture of anger and shame that pulled out a frustrated growl and had him flipping the phone back open, punching in the scribbled number and raising the device to his ear before his mind could change again.

On the third ring, there came a click, and then an airy, cheerfully curious greeting of "Hello~?"

Scrambling to sit up against the trunk of the tree, Aomine mentally fumbled for the girl's name he couldn't seem to remember, scarcely avoiding cursing out loud when it continued to elude him despite his efforts.

After a moment of complete, frustrated silence, heard a breathy, nervous laugh from the other side of the call, "Hello? Who is this?"

Snapping his fingers as it came to him, Aomine answered with a miniature rush of victory, "Aiko-chan," when he wasn't immediately corrected, he pressed on, "It's Aomine Daiki...I was just gonna ask if -"

"Aomine-kun?" He hadn't thought it was possible for her to sound any more cheery, but she was practically squealing with delight, and he might have imagined it, but he thought he heard other voices whispering and giggling in the background. He swallowed. "Hi! I wasn't expecting you to actually call! What's on your mind~?"

Resisting an urge to sigh, he forged ahead, though he did think his voice was touched with a little more impatience when he spoke. "I dunno, you just...you said you might want to go out sometime, and well...I'm not doing anything…" Which was exactly the point. This cycle of inaction and stewing in his own uncertainty and misery was unbearable. He needed to be doing something. Anything to get him out of his own head and divert him from self-destructing for even a moment.

"Omigosh," Aiko squeaked, but then seemed to attempt to regain her composure, clearing her throat, "I'd...love to go out with you, Aomine-kun, how's Friday sound?"

"Actually," Aomine said quickly, with a hint of urgence, "Are you free tonight?"

There was a moment's pause, "Ooh…" Aiko said with a hushed, possibly flirtatious laugh, "Someone's a little eager…Bad boy."

Aomine tried not to verbally show how much that phrasing made him feel sick to his stomach when he answered, covering his eyes with a hand, "Is that a yes?"

He didn't know why, but he could picture her skipping for some reason, "Yes! I'll meet you at the Maji by campus at seven. Sound good~?"

Aomine barely had time to mutter "Perfect," before he snapped his phone closed and let it drop in his lap.

He did recognize that the only reason he had called Aiko up was as a distraction...a means to release tension, to try and force himself to relax, even briefly. He resolutely pushed Kagami out of his mind and tried to keep him there. They weren't even together, they'd both said so; there was no reason he couldn't go out with someone else, for just the night, to try and take a load off when it was so aggravatingly stressful to be in each others' presence.

Still, no matter how many times he thought it, and said it aloud to himself, he couldn't seem to get it to ring true.

.

.

He picked at his food more than he ate it. Aiko seemed perfectly happy to talk enough for both of them, babbling about cheerleading and which games of his she'd seen and the math final she had coming up, and other such trivial nonsense. He would chip in with a noncommital grunt or nod or monosyllabic response whenever there was a pause, but while she seemed oblivious to it, it probably would have been obvious to anyone else that he was barely listening. He had covered the cost of their meal entirely, picked a secluded booth in the back of the restaurant, allowed her to cozy up in the beside him, and been an all-around gentleman, but even he could admit to himself that he was just going through the motions.

And he couldn't stop thinking about Kagami. Fragmented, suppressed spurts of thought though they were; he tried to tamp them down and shove them away, but something always resurfaced, wondering where he was right now, what he was doing, if he'd gone and sought out Tetsu like Aomine had told him to in his outrage. He didn't feel angry now, he didn't think. Certainly not as furious and fed-up as he had been. No, right now, he thought he just felt...empty.

His mood didn't improve when Aiko took him to the park near the Maji - the same park Satsuki had called him to the day before - and they sat on the swings under the moonlight while she continued to chatter away. He did notice that now, she glanced at him frequently, the light reflecting off her rippling dark hair as she turned her head in concern. He did admit that his posture must have been less than encouraging; he sat on the swing like he was barely hanging on, tracing shapes in the woodchips with the toe of his shoe and keeping his head bowed.

"Aomine-kun, is everything alright?" she asked tentatively at last.

"Yeah. Why?" Aomine muttered without looking up.

"It's just...you don't seem like you're having any fun. You did ask me to go on a date with you, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Aomine repeated dully.

He heard the swing's chains jingle as she got up from it, and lifted his head as she moved in front of him, looking down at him expectantly.

"Is there anything I can do to cheer you up?" she murmured, and, distracted, Aomine couldn't help glancing at her cleavage right in front of his nose, more out of habit than particular interest. For perhaps the first time in his life, even the prospect of boobs was doing nothing for him, and the very notion scared him out of his wits.

Compulsively, in a desperate, throwaway gesture rather like calling her in the first place, he reached up and guided her head down, bringing their lips together. They were plush and delicately smooth, feeling strange and almost foreign against his own, and even as a sweet, quivering breath puffed against his cheeks and she welcomed the kiss, he was withdrawing. Not physically; he only pressed their lips together harder and more fully, only pulled his last-ditch, futile distraction closer, but mentally he was shying away. He didn't feel bored or empty anymore, he felt disgusted. Not with Aiko, who had done nothing to deserve his contempt, but with himself. And when a shy tongue lapped at his lips; soft, slender hands covering his own and bringing them up to Aiko's lucious chest in invitation, he did physically pull back. What am I doing?

"Stop," he gasped against her mouth, jerking his hands away from her breasts as if they'd been burned, turning his head away from hers to disconnect the kiss, trying to catch his breath.

"Aomine-kun?" Aiko asked quietly, watching him with bright, worried eyes.

He breathed out, long and slow, steadying himself. "I'm sorry…" he said flatly, bracing his hands on his knees, "You didn't do anything, I don't….know what I'm doing."

"But! You -"

"I have to go." He stood, suddenly towering over her, "I shouldn't have…. This was a mistake."

"Aomine-kun - !"

"Can you get home okay?" he interrupted without looking at her, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"I...yeah, but -"

He did look at her then, feeling a stab of regret break his indifference; regret for wasting her time, and his own. "I really am sorry…but I can't...I can't be with you."

She lowered her head, fingers squeezing each other self-consciously, "There's someone else, isn't there?"

Hunching his shoulders against another flash of guilt, juxtaposing with an unexpected flicker of conviction and a need to go and find Kagami this instant, he nodded absently.

"Yeah. There is."

TBC