Written on 7/9/2014 for tormalyne on tumblr, for the AU ficlet meme:

18. waking up with amnesia au

This one is really angsty ;~;

He hasn't seen Kise since the day he woke up in the hospital.

"He misses you," Tetsu tells him one afternoon.

"He doesn't remember me to miss me."

The silence on the other end of the line is enough to know that it's still true

.

"I'm sorry - where am I? Where are my parents? Who are you?"

.

Kise's started playing basketball again because the doctors think the familiar environment will help him recover his memories, but when Daiki goes to watch the practice games, even though Kise's body remembers what it's doing, Kise himself never does, and there's definitely something missing. Daiki tries to tell himself the missing thing is the memories, but deep inside he's pretty sure he knows what's gone.

Daiki has come to dread the thought of all of this year's tournaments.

.

Adjusting to a life without Kise in it had been difficult in strange ways.

Daiki had gotten alarmingly used to checking his phone, so even though it never went off, he frequently opened it up, and found himself staring at the background Kise had set of the two of them, the one that he'd never quite been able to bring himself to delete or change, and the uneasy sense of loneliness that came from feeling disconnected from someone important felt almost like it would overwhelm him.

He noticed he played less basketball, because Kise wasn't there firing off a hundred texts a minute asking to play on his free days, and that he avoided washing the few clothes he had left that Kise had worn until there was nothing left of him there at all.

All these things came with a sense of longing and desperation that he couldn't quite shake.

.

Satsuki found him on the roof.

Sometimes he'd come back here, especially on the days where his body feels heavy and he doesn't want to do anything. These days had been more frequent lately, and they both know it, but they haven't really spoken about why.

At least, they haven't yet.

She kicked him in the side.

"You're not the only one who's sad they've been forgotten," she said, and she probably meant it to come out shriek-y and angry, but she just sounds like she's going to cry instead.

.

The fire's gone out.

.

Satsuki and Tetsu dragged him to Kise's house one weekend just after the Inter High preliminaries finish.

(Kaijou made it through, but Kise's full potential didn't spark even once)

Satsuki shoved a box and some flowers into his hands as Tetsu rung the bell, and he doesn't want to know how she knows where he buys the cakes Kise likes but always says he shouldn't eat because he'll put on weight, and what flowers he gets Kise on special days, because he swears he's never shown or told her about— fucking Kise.

And then he opened the door.

He's as beautiful as he always is, and Daiki had to close his eyes to get the air back in his lungs. He smiled cheerfully at both Tetsu and Satsuki, but it's obvious the recognition isn't one from before.

This is why he didn't want to come.

"We finally brought Dai-chan along!" Satsuki chirped as Kise stepped aside to let them in. "He's being grumpy today, so don't pay too much mind to his mood! He's really missed you a lot!"

Kise looked at him curiously, and from the corner of his eye, Daiki could see Tetsu slip inside too - he always was very aware of when it was appropriate to make himself scarce - and Daiki looked away as he passed his offerings to Kise.

"It's nice to meet you," Kise said. "I've heard a lot about you."

"I… yeah," he muttered, feeling awkward. How do you respond to that, coming from someone you love so much, but to whom you are pretty much a stranger?

The desire to touch him was almost overpowering - instead of succumbing to the urge, Daiki followed Satsuki and Tetsu's path into the house.

Kise followed him in, and seemed about to tell him where to go.

"It's fine," Daiki said as he saw Kise opening his mouth to speak, and he's probably being a little short with him, but this hurts, this hurts a lot. "I know where to go."

"…Right," Kise laughed, a little awkwardly. "Of course. I'm going to put the flowers in a vase."

Daiki let himself fall onto the couch next to Sasuki with a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. If he did that, he could pretend Kise was doing what he always did, that things were the same - the sounds in the kitchen were painfully familiar.

When Kise returned with the flowers in his favourite vase, Daiki felt like this was an exercise in emotional torture, and cursed both Satsuki and Tetsu for doing this to him. He wanted to leave. He wanted to leave right now. He wasn't ready for this, he couldn't do this, sit here and pretend everything was okay and normal, like he wasn't sitting here raw and aching—

"Momocchi and Kurokocchi tell me you play basketball, Aominecchi?"

When Daiki looked at him, even Kise seemed confused by his use of the -cchi suffix, blinking almost bemusedly. His mouth and tongue know the shapes of his name said that way better than any other.

"Yeah," Daiki answered.

"We should play some time!" Kise said. "Everyone's told me all these stories about you, you know? I've been really curious to meet you again."

"Maybe," Daiki muttered. "We'll see. You've got my number, so use it."

.

Satsuki looked kind of guilty as they walked home.

"Dai-chan…"

"I don't want to talk about it."

He heard her stop walking, and turned to look at her. She was crying again. Damn it.

"Dai-chan," she whispered. "I really hoped he'd remember."

"…Yeah," he mumbled. "Me too."

.

"There's something missing," he says. "And I can't find it."

He doesn't really remember his senior, but it doesn't matter.

Kasamatsu sighs. "You're missing a lot of things, Kise," he says, and he looks sad, too.

Everyone always looks sad when they talk to him.

.

Daiki wasn't not sure whether or not to be relieved or disappointed that Kise was on the other side of the Inter High bracket.

For one horribly hopeful moment, when Kise bounds up to him after his first match, Daiki let himself believe that Kise remembered.

"Oh man," Kise said, "they really weren't exaggerating when they said you were amazing!"

Stupid, he told himself, looking away and biting the inside of his cheek because the disappointment crashing through him is all his own fault, not Kise's. Why did you let yourself hope?

"Thanks," he muttered.

.

He rocked up to the park they always played in reluctantly, because Kise was still Kise, and he was still hard to ignore and deny, and after he'd seen him play at the Inter High, he'd been begging desperately for Daiki to play against him.

(Kaijou got knocked out in the quarter finals against Yosen, and everyone only wished that they were surprised by the outcome.)

His heart feels like it's been shredded and mangled into pieces, but it's still so, so weak to Kise Ryouta.

He let himself indulge in throwing his basketball at Kise's head when he saw him sitting and kicking his legs on the bench near the basketball court. Maybe it's childish, but he's still hurting, and, well. Surely the others have all told him that Daiki used to pick on him something shocking.

Kise grabbed at the back of his head, and that predictable, signature whine began to start at the back of his throat when, abruptly, it was cut off.

Daiki's heart caught in his throat and his breathing stopped as Kise turned slowly to look at him, eyes widened.

"…Aominecchi?"

"…Idiot," he choked out around the thickness that was making it hard to breathe, "has no one seriously given your stupid ass a good knock on the head?"

Kise laughed, but it was a strangely wet noise. "That's Aominecchi's job, isn't it? Ah, don't cry! You'll make me start crying too!"

"Too late," Daiki muttered, but whether he was talking about himself or about Kise couldn't be clear, because when Kise descended on him and Daiki latched onto him harder than he could ever remember doing before, he was pretty sure they were both crying.