Chapter 5:
Later that evening, Aomine headed out to a local café for dinner with plans to meet Kagami and Whitney. He'd asked Kaylee if she had wanted to join him but she had refused, saying something about watching her figure. In reality, Aomine knew, it was because she'd just bought a new game and wanted to binge it the rest of the night. Guaranteed tomorrow she would spend about three hours telling him about every single aspect of the game, from lighting effects, to voice acting. Honestly, he had no idea what sort of games she played; he only knew that every once in a while, he'd hear some pretty suggestive noises coming from her switch. He never investigated any further.
He reached the café a few minutes after the arranged meeting time and found the two of them already seated at a table. Ordering a coffee and grabbing a menu, he ambled over to their table and slid in across from them. "Where's that one girl?" Kagami asked, disinterested.
"Who knows. She's a freaking otaku, I swear." Aomine shrugged, taking a long drag of his coffee.
"Otaku?" Whitney blinked at him.
"A loser who spends all their time obsessing over something. In her case, video games." Kagami clarified. Aomine couldn't even argue, though the part about being a loser was unnecessary.
"I thought she played sports?"
"She does. She's super into tennis but once she gets hands a new game she was excited about, I won't hear from her again until she finishes it. I'm surprised that she even makes it to class." Aomine rolled his eyes. Whitney laughed. "But whatever. It keeps her out of my hair."
"Like you even want that." Kagami scoffed. "Her boobs are freaking huge. I bet you wish you could spend all day every day buried in them."
"Not if it means I have to listen to her tell me one more time about some ecchi scene in one of her games." Aomine snorted, making a face. He'd heard about a few games he really wished he hadn't. Kagami snorted his drink, caught off guard.
"She plays those type of games." He shuddered. As Whitney turned to ask, he shook his head feverently. "You don't need to know." She shrugged and took a long sip of the milk tea she was working on. "Anyway, how are things going? It seems like the guys from the basketball court are leaving you alone."
He shrugged and leaned back into the seat, draping one long arm over the back of the wicker chair. "I hardly see them at the school and if I do, they leave me alone. I think they've finally learned their lesson." He ran a hand through his hair.
"I told you they're not such bad guys. Just a little… Eccentric."
Aomine snorted. "I don't know if eccentric is the right word for a guy like David, the racist prick."
"Just be thankful you don't have super prominent Asian features." Whitney scowled, biting the tip of her straw until she'd imprinted teeth marks. "I don't know what that guy's problem is, like for real."
"Is that super common here? Just today I ran into some other guys like that. I thought people from California were supposed to be super open minded or some shit?" He broached the subject without even thinking about it.
Kagami stared at him. "What are you talking about? What happened?"
Aomine shrugged, surprised that he'd be interested. "I was going to class when I saw this kid being cornered in a classroom by some group of thugs. They were totally surrounding on him."
"What did you do?" Whitney asked. There was a very subtle shift in her attitude, as if she were expecting a certain answer but she didn't want to let on that she was. Her fingers curled a little tighter around her cup, but neither of the boys noticed.
"I stopped them, what else? I wasn't going to just let them beat the piss out of him. He looked so scared he was about to wet his pants." Aomine took another long drag of his coffee. "There was even a girl in their group. Jordan, I think her name was." Whitney scowled. "What, you know her?"
"And I wish I didn't." She spat, mood souring. She slammed her empty cup on the table. "She just does whatever her boyfriend does. I don't think that she has even two brain cells to rub together. I don't even know how she got into college, let alone the one you guys go to." True enough, their college wasn't exactly prestigious, but its acceptance rate was lower than the average state or community college.
"Wait, don't you go to our school? And is her boyfriend a big, buff looking dude? With super short redish-blond hair?"
"Nah, she goes to a business college a little further away." Kagami replied, biting into a sandwich that had just been dropped off by a waitress. "And that sounds like the guy."
"You've met him?"
Kagami snorted. "Something like that. The dude is trouble, but he's practically a genius." Aomine could easily see that. The guy definitely didn't have the air of a typical meat for brains. There was some intelligence behind his beady little eyes. "So, what were they even ganging up on him for? Just for fun? Was he black? I've heard a lot of rumors around here that there are some seriously racist people here that only target black people."
Aomine shook his head, though hearing Kagami say that it made total sense how they'd reacted to him. He may have been Japanese but his dark skin wasn't exactly something people could ignore. And, like Whitney had said, it's not like he, or Kagami, had particularly defined Asian features. If he kept his mouth shut, he could be mistaken for just about anything. "I dunno. They kept accusin' him of being gay."
Whitney sucked in a sharp breath but said nothing. "And you stepped in? Did you even know the guy?"
"No, at least I don't think so."
"So, what happened?" Whitney spoke again, brushing a piece of fallen hair behind her ear. He sour attitude hadn't lifted. If anything, it seemed to have gotten worse. "He didn't get hurt, did he?"
Aomine shook his head. "They didn't get the chance. I stepped in just as he was about to throw hands."
"How many of them were there?" Kagami asked, eyes flashing.
"Like five of them? Six maybe."
"That's horrible." Whitney gasped; her bagel she'd been slowly picking at totally forgotten. "I can't stand people like that. First they gang up on someone and then they pick on them in numbers? How childish."
"I mean two of them weren't anywhere near him, just sort of watching, but the big guy and the girl were messing with him with two other guys." He chugged the rest of his coffee. "I did end up punching him once because he tried to throw hands directly at me but in the end, nothing happened to either of us. The kid was fine and I went to class. It wasn't anything interesting."
Kagami sat back and wrapped an arm loosely around his girlfriend's shoulders, a thoughtful look on his face. "Was he?"
"Was he what?"
"A homo?" Whitney shoved him hard in the shoulder and glared. "What? I'm just curious."
"He says he wasn't, but who fucking knows. It's none of my business."
"Don't they make you kind of uncomfortable?" He took another large bite of his sandwich and chewed carefully. "I mean, what if they were looking at you in that way."
Whitney gaped at him. "How could you say that? You like women, so do you look at all women in that way?" She asked.
"Of course not." Kagami responded, staring wide eyed back at her. "I only like some types of girls."
Interjecting Aomine said, "I don't know. They've always just kind existed to me. Since I don't like dudes, it's never mattered to me whether they're lookin' at me like that because even if they do it's not like they have a chance." He sighed. "Plus, I don't even know any gay guys."
"Isn't that Kise kid gay?" Whitney eyed him. "One of his old teammates. He was a model."
Aomine shook his head. "Who knows. He's never confirmed nor denied, and honestly, I don't give a fuck. He was a good player and that's all I care about." He contemplated another coffee. "But I guess I kinda get what you mean. I wouldn't want some dude hitting on me. It just feels kind of wrong."
Whitney's bright blue eyes turned sharply on him. "What is it with men?" They stared at her. "It's like you guys forget that you have preferences, too. Just because a guy likes another guy, or a girl likes another girl, doesn't suddenly mean that they want every single person they walk past." She crossed her arms over her chest and moved away from her boyfriend.
"Yeah, but I mean… What if a girl hit on you?"
"Aho, that's totally different. Girls are constantly flirting with each other-"
"How is that any different?" She demanded. "If a hot girl flirted with me, I'd be over the moon. A compliment is a compliment."
The two of them looked at each other, then at her, and then shrugged. "It's just different, okay. I don't want a guy thinking about what he'd do with me in bed. That's just weird." Aomine asserted, rubbing his hair in awkward frustration. "Like, they can be gay if they want to but I don't want to know."
"Yeah, exactly." Kagami nodded in agreement. "They don't need to push it in our faces."
Whitney let out an exasperated sigh and got to her feet. "I just don't understand how people can think like that. Like, thank you for stepping in for that guy, but don't go trying to diminish his existence just because it makes you feel uncomfortable."
"I mean I would've stepped in whether he was or wasn't-" He tried to clarify but she cut him short.
"But I bet if you knew before, whether he really was or wasn't, you probably would've hesitated, or even shared some of those bullies' thoughts." Aomine couldn't really argue. "I'm going home. I've got homework to do. Taiga, I'll talk to you later." She didn't even look at him as she picked up her purse and turned to leave. Watching her leave, they both exhaled in exasperation.
"Man, what was her problem? I don't understand women. Of course, being hit on by a guy would be uncomfortable." Kagami scoffed, shoving the rest of his now cold sandwich in his mouth, swallowing it whole. "Guys and girls are totally different." He licked his fingers one by one. "Anyway, let's go hit the courts. I haven't paid you back for last week yet."
"Shouldn't you go after her?"
"Nah. Once she gets like this it's best to leave her alone until she simmers down. I'll call her before I go to bed tonight." Aomine replied, reaching for the small duffle bag he'd tucked down at his feet. "Let's go before it gets too late. The courts don't have a lot of light." His friend nodded, eagerly and followed shortly after him, a small part of his mind still bothered by the events from earlier that day.
