"And did you know that Tetsuya's favorite fruit is apples?" Ryoute screams into his father's ear as they walk home one evening.
"Really. Last week you told me they were blueberries," Aomine asks.
"Well now it's apples!" Ryouta shouts straight into Aomine ar again. After a couple seconds, he asks, "Hey dad, can you put apples in my lunch tomorrow?"
"Why? So you can feed them to your friend?" Aomine asks. "Am I feeding you or him?"
Over the last two months that Ryouta has been attending the kindergarten, he has talked non stop about his friend, Tetsuya. If it wasn't "Tetsuya can count to twenty," or "Me and Tetsuya played hide-and-seek," it would be "Tetsuya wasn't there today," and Ryouta would be moping around for the rest of the night. Aomine really needs to meet this kid, to see if he's as good as the rumors make him out to be.
The only problem with that is that the kid is always picked up before Aomine can get off work and arrive at the kindergarten. 'Oh well,' Aomine thinks. He'll meet the kid eventually. He's just happy that Ryouta has a good friend for now.
Aomine doesn't want to admit to himself how much he enjoys listening to Ryouta talk about Tetsuya. It's also great to hear all about the kid's day. It's just that the boy's mind moves a mile a second. And listening to his stories is well... tiring and confusing sometimes.
walking up to the apartment door, Aomine sets Ryouta on the ground so he can unlock it. As soon as they're inside, Ryouta rushes past Aomine and down the hall toward his bedroom. Aomine smiles to himself. That kid was always in a rush.
Aomine goes to his bedroom to change out of his work uniform when Ryouta runs back to find him carrying a basketball that's three sizes too big for his small hands. "Dad!" The boys calls, running into his fathers room. "Can we go play basketball?!"
"Wha?!" Aomine turns to face his son as he's lifting his legs out of his pants leg. "You were just telling me you were starving for dinner?"
That question makes the boy pause for a second as he comprehends his fathers words. "Well not anymore!" He says, shaking his head. "I want to go play basketball now!"
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As Kagami comes to pick up his son from school one afternoon, he's greeted with the familiar sight of two young boys playing on the slide. He's about to enter through the gate of the playground area to talk to them when he is stopped by one of his son's kindergarten teachers.
"Excuse me, Kagami-san," she says, approaching the man.
"Yes," Kagami says, turning to the woman. "Is everything okay? I was just about to pick up Tetsuya from school and bring him home for the afternoon." The school teachers rarely come to talk to him when he comes to pick Tetsuya up, so the worst thoughts immediately pop to mind.
"Ah, yes, thank you! It's nothing really, it's just that…'' She pauses, looking around furtively. "I was wondering… we are holding a career day next week and Tetsuya always talks about how cool you are as a firefighter…"
"He does?" Kagami asks. By this point, Tetsuya has caught sight of his father standing near the entrance by his teacher, and he has proceeded to drag his friend with him as he walks over.
"Oh, yes!" The teacher nods, smiling largely . "He has mentioned it many times! And he always talks about how cool you are!"
"He does?!" Kagami asks, scratching the back of his head.
Tetsuya then reaches his father and grabs the man's hand. Pulling it down to grab the man's attention.
"Dad, look at my drawing!" the small boy exclaims, tugging Kagami's hand towards his face, showing him the paper in his hands. "Look at it!"
"Okay, buddy," Kagami says, leaning down to pick the child up and set him on his hip. "You can tell me all about it after I finish talking to your teacher."
"Yes, as I was saying, Tetsuya loves to talk about you being a firefighter, don't you Tetsuya?" She asks the small child, trying to keep him involved in the conversation. The boy nods shyly and then buries his face in his father's neck.
"So I was wondering if you wanted to join us for our Career Day next week," the teacher asks.
Hearing his teacher's question, Tetsuya lifts his head. "Will you do it? Dad, will you?"
Looking into his son's eyes, Kagami knows he won't be able to tell his kid 'no.' At least not without feeling horrible until Christmas. He can try to figure out something for work. They often go and give presentations at elementary schools anyway.
"Okay, okay," Kagami nods, smiling. "I'll do it, don't worry."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Walking up to the entrance of the kindergarten, Aomine sees Ryouta sitting on one of the swings by himself. He's the last one to be picked up again. 'Shit,' Aomine thinks walking up to him.
"You're late again, Dad!" the boy yells out, jumping up from the swing when he sees his father.
"Yeah, yeah. I know," Aomine says, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm sorry about it buddy."
From across the playground, Aomine can feel the teacher's stare bore into him. Yeah, He knows he's the last one to pick his kid up, but he's not late. There's still ten minutes left before the final pickup time.
"Come on Dad! Let's go home!" Ryouta says, grabbing his father's hand and pulling him out of the gates of the playground.
Aomine sighs and just lets himself be dragged home by his son. qThey make it home in good time, and Aomine has to again remind Ryouta to take his shoes off before he goes running off to do who knows what in his room.
Aomine walks into his own bedroom, flopping down on his bed. He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, allowing his body to relax as much as he can in the moment. He has had a long day at work today. With three calls to help random old people making trouble with their neighbors, and another one to a car accident, again running into that annoying red haired firefighter. He swears the dude is stalking him. This has been the what? Ninth times he has run into him on calls in the past six weeks.
Thinking about the firefighter makes Aomine realize something. After six weeks of running into the man constantly, he still doesn't know his name. Aomine thinks he should probably figure it out, it may make it easier to avoid him.
"Dad!" he hears Ryouta yells from across the apartment as the boy runs into his room.
He slowly sits up from where he is lying down on his bed, he needs to take his uniform off still. "What is it?" Aomine says as Ryouta runs through his bedroom door.
"I want dinner!" the boy screams excitedly. He climbs up on top of Aomines bed and tries to patch onto his father as the man tries to change his clothes.
"Oh yeah," Aomine asks. "And what do you want for dinner?"
The boy takes a moment to pause and think over the question. "Um… Takoyaki!"
"Huh?" Aomine asks. "You couldn't pick something we have at home?"
The young boy simply shakes his head no.
Sighing, Aomine gets up and after throwing on a pair of sweats he goes out of the bedroom and towards their kitchen. He's going to see what they have at their place first. He knows he went grocery shopping only a couple days ago, so there's no way they're out of food. Ryouta will just have to eat something other than takoyaki for tonight.
In the opening between the kitchen and living room, Aomine sees Ryouta's schoolbag laying in the middle of the floor.
"I thought I told you not to leave your stuff all over the place," Aomine says, picking the small bag up.
"Sorry, I forgot," the young child mumbles his apology.
The man just sighs as he sets the bag on the table and begins to go through it. The kindergarten teachers often put whatever notices or announcements they want parents to know about in the kids' backpacks. So Aomine has made a habit of going through it each night to see if there is anything important he knows. He knows with Ryouta's attention the boy will never be able to keep track of it by himself.
Aomine opens the bag and pulls out the folder labeled 'For Parents.' The first thing that catches his eye is an announcement asking for volunteers, for a Career Day next week.
"Career Day?" Aomine says to himself.
"Career Day?" Ryouta questions, hearing what his father said. "Oh! Tetsu's dad said he was going to be there! You should do it too, Dad!"
"What?!" Aomine says. "What do you mean, 'I should do it?'"
"Please Dad?" Ryouta says, grabbing onto his father's shirt and looking at him with a pleading expression. "Can you please do it? I really want you to,"
Aomine sighs, knowing his son won't stop begging him. But at the same time, he knows that Ryouta's teachers don't really hold him in high regard, if the looks she sends him everyday say anything. It would also be hard to work out something with his job.
"Please Dad?" Ryouta repeats, now hugging his father's legs with his short arms.
Aomine sighs, knowing he already lost. "I'll try," he says patting his son on the head and proceeding to try and pry the boy's arms off of his legs
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Kagami picks up the carton of eggs and inspects it to make sure none are broken before he hands it to Tetsuya, who is holding their basket of groceries. Kagami had picked Tetsuya up early from the kindergarten today to go to his annual pediatrician's appointment. After the boy was given a clean bill of health the two decided to stop at the grocery store to pick up some things they are running low on before going home to make dinner.
Across the small dairy section of the store, Aomine spots a police officer, a very familiar police officer, who appears to be lost in his search for something specific. Kagami knows that he shouldn't, especially when his young and very impressionable son was with him, but he can't help getting on this man's nerves and riling him up.
"Tetsuya," Kagami says, nudging his son's shoulder to gain his attention. "Do you know who he is?" Kagami says as he points to the man across the store from them.
"He's a police officer," the boy simply replies. "Do you know him?" he asks, his dad has that look on his face, the one that says he wants to mess with someone. He sees it often when he visits the fire station.
"You could say that," Kagami says. "He looks like he's looking for something. Why don't you give me this and go help him while I finish picking up the things we need," Kagami says as he takes the grocery basket from his son.
The boy gives his father a look. "Do I have too?" he asks. Even if the man is one of his dad's friends, he hates talking to new people.
"Yes," Kagami says, nudging the boy's shoulder in the direction of the man. When he sees Tetsuya hesitating he nudges him again. "Go on."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Aomine looks through the dairy section of the store again. This is his third time looking through it, but he still can't find the yogurt that Ryouta likes so much. 'Shit,' he thinks looking down at his watch. He was able to get off work early for once, and had stopped at the store to grab a few quick things. He thought he would have enough time to grab some stuff and pick up Ryouta at a reasonable time, but he didn't plan on getting lost in the aisles here.
"Are you looking for something?" he hears a quiet, barely audible voice ask from beside him. Aomine looks down and sees a small child, about Ryouta's age but even smaller than him, with light blue hair standing next to him.
"Um…" Aomine starts, just where did this kid come from? "Blueberry yogurt," he mumbles out. Don't tell him this kid knows where he will find it. That would just be embarrassing.
"It's right there," the kid says, pointing up at another shelf a couple feet down from him.
'Shit, the kid does know where it is.'
"Oh," Aomine hears someone else chuckle out from behind him. "Don't tell me you need a kid to show you around here."
"Not this guy again," Aomine says to himself as he turns around to see the current bane of his existence. Aomine smirks back at the man. "Can i help you with something, stupid firefighter?"
"Wow~," Kagami draws out. "Way to watch your language around children." Kagami smirks as he crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the glass display case he is leaning against.
"What do you want now?" Aomine says, eyebrow twitching. He really doesn't want to deal with the annoying fireman right now.
Kagami simply smiles back at the police officer. "I was just doing some grocery shopping with my son here," he says with fake cheeriness as he reaches down to pull Tetsuya to his side. "You looked like you were having some trouble finding stuff, so I asked him to help you,"
Aomine looks down at the boy. Who would have thought the annoying fireman had a son. A cute one no less who seems to have inherited nothing from his father.
"Well thank you," he says to the young child as he squats down. "But I think I can find the rest of the things on my list on my own." As he stands back up, Aomine shoots a glare at the firefighter, which seems to do nothing to the man. 'Stupid firefighters,' he thinks as he turns away from the two others and goes back to completing his grocery shopping.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
Kagami watches as Aomine walks away from them. He didn't know why, but he has endless fun messing with the man.
When Aomine turns down another aisle, Kagami moves his attention back down to Tetsuya, who is staring up at him.
"Was that one of your friends, Daddy?" The young boy asks.
"Yeah, you could say that," Kagami says.
"Really," Tetsuya hums. "You gotta stop treating your friends like that," the boys says as he turns around, pulling his father to the check out area of the store.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX
"You're really wearing that, Tetsu?" Kagami asks, looking at the little plastic firefighter helmet the blue haired boy is wearing on his head.
"Yes," the boy says, nodding.
It is the morning of the Kindergarten's Career Day, and Tetsuya had been looking forward to bringing his Dad all week. Enough so that on the morning of the day, he had woken his dad up himself instead of the other way around. He had also grabbed the plastic firefighters helmet his dad's boss, Mr. Hyuga had given him earlier in the year.
"Okay, okay," Kagami said, chuckling to himself. He grabs the young boy's rain jacket and makes sure he puts it on correctly. It has been raining for the past couple days, and it is bound to start again at some point today.
Kagami then stands up and grabs the box sitting next to him on the floor. It contains all the stuff, cool firefighter pictures and a real firefighter helmet he was given to show the kids today. "Let's get going then," he says, opening the door and leading the way to the kindergarten.
Once the two arrive at the Kindergarten like they do everyday, they are shown to a short table in the main classroom for Kagami to set his things up. As he begins pulling things out of the box, Tetsuya helps placing them on the table.
One of the other kids, a young girl with pink hair who Kagami hasn't met yet, comes over and starts talking to Tetsuya. Watching the interaction between the two kids, Kagami notices it seems to be mostly led by the pink haired girl.
"Who's your friend, Tetsu?" Kagami asks the boy. "You haven't introduced me to her yet."
"This is Momoi," Tetsuya replies.
"Oh! Your dad calls you Tetsu~" the girl shouts. "That's so cute! I'm going to start calling you that now!"
Kagami can only laugh silently at the looks on his son's face at that statement. Well, it seems the boy has more friends here than Kagami thought.
It's then that Ryouta, the boy Kagami has met on many occasions while picking Tetsuya up from kindergarten in the afternoon, comes running up to them. As is the boy's custom, he comes in shouting his greetings and launching his body in a hug around the two kids before him.
'Huh,' Kagami thinks, watching the three kids. 'They must form some sort of trio.'
"Guys guess what!" Ryouta shouts. "I got my Dad to come today! He's a cop!"
And at that statement, Kagami looks up to see a police officer he has grown very familiar with over the last few months. Grown familiar with him by annoying and pushing his buttons, of course. 'Oh, todays going to be fun,' Kagami thinks as the man walks up.
As the man goes to the empty table next to Kagami. 'Double fun,' Kagami thinks.
As the three children catch up with each other on what happened in the last fourteen hours since they've seen each other. And apparently a lot happened in that short time, Momoi pulls them away to meet her father, a pastry chef who seems to be bribing kids with chocolate chip cookies.
Kagami turns to face Aomine standing next to him. "So, you're Ryouta's father?" he asks.
"And you're Tetsuya's," Aomine replies.
"I didn't know you met," Kagami says.
"We haven't, other than that time in the grocery store," Aomine explains. "But Ryouta tells me enough that I basically know him."
Kagami hums to himself, crossing his arms. Smirking, he says, "So you must be the parent the teachers always complain about being late?"
Before Aomine can start to form a reply to that, one of the teachers calls everyone in the room to attention. She calls the kids together and then divides them into small groups, sending them to all the tables in a rotation. The rest of the day proceeds smoothly like this, with Kagami showing kids pictures, answering their questions and letting them put on the helmet he brought. Overall, he paid little attention to the man at the next table, until the end when they were packing up.
"You're pretty good with kids, surprisingly," Kagami hears Aomine say.
"What? Are you really that surprised?" Kagami asks in reply.
"Yeah, it seems you're only an asshole to adults," the navy haired man says.
"Watch your language, there's kids around," Kagami says. "And you're wrong, I'm only that way to you."
The extra jab makes Aomine start, and just as he's about to reply, Ryouta comes running into his father.
"Dad!" he says, shouting. "Me and Tetsu want to go to the park!"
"Huh?" Aomine says. "The park?"
"Yeah, " the boy replies, nodding eagerly. "Can we please?"
Aomine looks back up to Kagami, as much as he doesn't want to spend more time with the man, he doesn't think he'll have much of a choice if their sons are going to be friends. Kagami only gives Aomine a look that says, 'it's fine if it's alright with you.'
"Fine," Aomine says, replying to his son. "We can go, but we're not going to be out there all night." This is the start of many weekly playdates the two men arrange for their kids.