Note: i'm so very tired and sad and i cannot concentrate in writing which is why i took so long "orz. ;w; im sowwee.
Edit 23/07/2013; 2:45 AM [whispers] guys. guys. did you know that the last three (including this) chapters were edited and beta'd my someone awesome with the pennane of Blank Angel? Go on her page to find more awesome aokise :3 (link on my profile ohonhonhon) ~
anyway, here it is, enjoy~
chapter. iv
It takes Kise less than an hour to return from his apartment. When he does, he has a small backpack and one plastic bag in hand.
"What are those for?" Aomine asks, with Sai on his left shoulder (who, thankfully, had her arms wrapped securely around his head), pointing at the plain white plastic bag dangling off his left hand and then to the bag on Kise's shoulders.
The said man peers down at the bag, opening it slightly enough for Aomine to see what's inside. "There's a really nice couple right next door from mine and they have a 5 year old son, so I just passed by to ask if they still had smaller clothes and luckily they did. Saicchi doesn't really have much with her so I guess we have to go shopping soon, ne?"
"Yeah." He nods, walking back to the couch and placing Sai on his tummy before laying his head down on the soft armrest of the sofa. "The other bag?"
"Er.. extra clothes, just in case I might need it, so I don't have to go back and forth between my apartment and here."
Aomine simply hums in return, raising his legs when Sai tries to climb it, making it impossible for the toddler to do so since she ends up falling back down on his belly. "Hm, you can put it down if you want. You could've just borrowed my clothes, our sizes aren't really that far."
"But Aominecchi doesn't have a sense of style,"
"Shut up." He grunts, shooting him a glare from his position, and Kise just laughs and sticks his tongue out at him. Aomine rips of a sock off his foot and throws it into the direction Kise's standing at, and unfortunately for the blond, it lands square of his face. In the end, Kise whines about how Aomine's sock ruins the charms of his model face, and Aomine retorts with a snort and a comment on how it was already ruined ever since he was born.
For now, they're just glad everything's far from awkward between them.
"Aominecchi..."
There's a grunt—
"Ahominecchiiii,"
—soon followed by a huge sigh and a face-palm.
"AHOMINECCHIII! Come on!"
If there only is a desk in front of Aomine right this moment, he would gladly take it and slump on it in defeat. "Hell, Kise, would you kindly shut up and stop making that stupid nickname into a god-awful song before I personally walk over to where you are and stitch up that horrible sounding mouth of yours?"
"Meanie!" Cheeks puffes out and eyebrows almost touching each other, Kise shoots a childish glare at Aomine. "Don't insult my singing abilities, Idiotminecchi! I win full scores in karaoke's, you know!"
The larger man scoffs. "Karaoke scores are lies."
"Hmph, it's not like you could sing any better than me," Kise pouts and Aomine just smirks at him, this time stretching out an arm instead of his legs to keep Sai from falling off both him and the couch. "As I was saying... let's go shopping!"
"Shahpng?"
Kise chuckles, reaching out to pinch the toddler's cheeks as she squeals whilst flailing her hands mid-air. "Yep, shopping!"
"Nope."
"Please, Aominecchi? It would be fun!"
"Nope."
"And Saicchi needs clothes and stuff anyway, you wouldn't want her to go commando now, would you? Come on~"
"No."
He pouts - those types of pouts where he actually succeeds in getting what he wants; consisting of puffed out cheeks, furrowed eyebrows and, of course, puppy eyes, and the taller man finds himself trying to avoid his puppy eyes by focusing on the television. What they don't realize is that little Sai is, like Kise, a fast learner (...and that she had been watching Kise closely ever since they've started bickering.)
And so she sucks in air and puffs out her cheeks, looking at the former ace with similar but larger, puppy honey-brown eyes. Aomine had always had weak spots for animals, mainly dogs, and when you add Kise and Sai into the mix...
These two could definitely pass as scheming parent-and-daughter, is what Aomine thinks as he slumps his shoulders and sighs out a defeated-sounding "Fine."
"Cabs or the subway?"
Aomine frowns, lifting Sai off the bathtub after changing her into another diaper. He struggles to put her in her borrowed clothes, which had been hand-washed and dried by Kise, whereas the said model was preparing stuff for their little shopping trip. "How should I know, I've only been here for 2 weeks."
"Ah, cab it is then." The blond hums pleasantly, zipping up the bag and throwing it over his shoulders. They both had taken a bath before giving Sai one, and now all they have to do is put on shoes, lock the door, and then catch a cab.
Aomine decides not to bring the car seat since it seems much of a hassle while Kise agrees, and the both of them decide to switch between carrying Sai. It's Aomine who gets to carry the toddler first while Kise handles the backpack and the locking of the door.
It's only all three are in the elevator when the taller man realizes that this will be indeed a long day, since there's Sai, money, the mall, and of course... Kise.
There are many things that people assume about Kise, and one of those, with him being a model, is that he likes to carelessly spend his money on useless clothes. Only a part of it is true, though. The blond does like to spend his money - just not carelessly and on useless stuff.
So when Aomine's dragged along with Sai and Kise, he finds himself confused that he's only carrying one shopping bag in his arm and the cart not even halfway full. He stares at the said blond, who's looking through the parenting section of Wal-Mart (that store with the obnoxious 'Save money, live better' banner in every corner), carrying Sai on one arm while holding the side part of the cart in another. "Oi, oi, isn't this unusual? Did you eat something bad?"
"Unusual? Something bad? Aominecchi, don't tell me you made us eat your cooking this morning?!"
The taller man offers him a glare. "Hey, my cooking isn't that bad. Satsuki's is worse," He pauses, scoffing. "And yes, unusual, since you haven't placed the whole mall into the shopping cart and my arms are still intact."
"What..? I don't spend that much!" Kise argues, and Aomine finds it amusing that he's glaring at a can of mashed peaches in his hand, instead of at him.
"Oi, the bathroom in your apartment back in Japan was flooded with stupid girly face and body and hair products, and you had to have three closets in your room to fit all your clothes. An average guy needs one."
"Aominecchi, I'm a model and we actually have to change clothes everyday rather than use the same shorts in a week straight."
He hums at the retort, hands gripping lightly on the cart to push it into a u-turn, entering another aisle. He watches as both pairs of honey brown eyes scan the shelf of baby bottles, parenting books, and stuff toys. Aomine halts pushing his cart to grab a book, eyes on the pages, and stops flipping through the book when he finds something useful. "Oi, Kise,"
"Hm?"
"Look at this book." He mutters, and doesn't notice when Kise glances at him from over his shoulder with an amused expression etched on his million-dollar face. "It actually has steps on how to make a bottle of milk and what to buy for toddlers."
Kise throws his head back and laughs. "You don't know how to make a bottle of milk, Ahominecchi?"
Aomine throws him a glare, one of a mixture of playfulness and irritation, but no malice. "Are you trying to pick a fight?"
"No," The model says, lips quirking into a small grin, taking the book from the taller man and placing it in the cart before placing Sai down on the seat (and at the same time trying to ignore her pouts.) "Don't worry, I don't know how to, either."
He almost snorts at the opening and closing of Aomine's lips - that similar to one of a gaping fish - and then flashes him a cheeky grin when the other offers him a deadpan (more like Kuroko's version of the wtf) expression.
"You cheeky bastard."
"Ne, Aominecchi, should I choose this,"—Kise raises 3 shirts, one with a daddy's little girl print on it, the two with little cutesy designs, and Aomine wants to snort at the first choice—"Or this?" In which this time he holds up two frilly dresses, which looked like it would fit quite nicely on Sai.
Aomine raises a brow. "Why me? You're the one who wants to shop, choose it yourself."
Kise huffs, muttering a small 'fine' before facing the small bluenette. "So, which one does cute little Saicchi prefer?"
Sai only stares at him with large eyes, eyeing both the dresses and the shirts, before diverting her attention back to the small ball Aomine had handed her when she started crying. The blond finds himself sulking about how both of them plainly ignored his enthusiasm, whereas Aomine just sighed and helped him pick out the clothes, consisting of plain pants, some skirts, shirts, and hoodies, which Kise argues about it being too plain; ("Aominecchi, I swear if Saicchi inherits your lack in sense of style—" which, of course, earned him an annoyed hit on the back of his head.)
In the end, they ended up buying everything of what both the ace and the copycat had picked.
"Ne, Aominecchi,"
It's a busy place in the food court, really, and Aomine feels like he can never get used to the noise and the chaos in one single building. It's New York, he reminds himself, but comparing this to the capital of Japan, Tokyo is nothing. The place seems to be filled with different kinds of people, ones with blond hair (nothing like Kise's, though. His hair seems to be much... what was the word? Livelier? Sunnier? Yes.), other with tanned skin as his - though his' seems to be a lighter shade than most tans, some from the Asian heritage like both of them. New York seems to be a place filled with different kinds of people, both by appearance and personality.
"Hm?" he asks, still disappointed at the lack of different types of burgers - mainly the teriyaki burger - in McDonald's™.
Kise's sitting across the table, munching on his own fries and handing some to Sai, who's quietly sitting on her new stroller. (Speaking of the stroller, the two basketball idiots had a quite eventful bickering back at the store from choosing whoever was going to pay. Aomine won in the end.) His attention is mainly on the taller man on the other side of the table, absent-mindedly chewing on the straw to his coke. "Why'd you come here to New York?"
It was a straightforward question, and Aomine likes it that way, being used to it coughkurokocough, but sometimes he just finds himself completely taken aback - like right now. He's silent for a moment, carefully contemplating on his answer - since he would rather not be blurting out the legit reason as to why he's come to NYC to the one who is, at the moment, sitting in front of him and asking a question with himself as the answer.
"Aominecchi?"
But then again, he is Ahomine -
"To start anew, you know, from us and everyone else." - and Ahomine gives straightforward answers to everything, especially to straightforward questions.
It's now Kise who's completely taken aback from his answer, being the one practically frozen in his seat with Aomine in front of him looking like he's eating lemon while being forced to keep on a blank face (Aomine feels like returning the question. He doesn't, because he knows that Kise won't answer it.)
"Wait, what?"
"Don't worry, that's only partially the reason," it's true, but the way Aomine had said it with hastiness makes him feel like he's saying something that sounds like a lie. "My aunt thought it would be a good idea for me to move here, you know, so I could study at a good university."
"Eeh? What university are you gonna go to?"
"Cornell."
Kise's eyes becomes a fraction wider than normal, before his expression switches from surprised to doubtful. "No way."
"Yes way." Aomine says, both eyebrows shooting up. "Why, you going there too?"
He nods, a little bit too slowly this time. "Mhm. I'm going to be in my second year though... I thought idiots shouldn't be getting in high universities?"
The former ace's eyes narrow, shooting Kise a glare who chuckled humorously, handing another fry to Sai. The toddler took it with both hands, munching on it while she quietly stayed sitting on her stroller.
"Shut up," he mumbles, taking a sip from his coke. "What major course, by the way?"
"Aeronautical engineering." Kise says simply, eyes subconsciously roaming around the part of the court in front of him and beside Aomine.
But before he could ask the same question back at the other, he's interrupted with another question. "Engineering? I thought you'd be more of a... I don't know, showbiz industry or piloting type of guy, you know? Not those math-related courses crap."
"Hey!" The blond defends, "Engineering is interesting, okay. Maybe not with cars or other kinds of engineering but aero-planes certainly do interest me," he smiles, sticking his tongue at the bluenet when Aomine comments with a 'for once you sounded smart there..'. "And I still work as a model, just from time to time. Plus, I also wanted to be a pilot, but—" this time he points at his glasses. "—yeah. Bad eyesight."
Aomine nods, somewhat understanding.
"How about you, 'minecchi?"
The taller man hums, looking like he's in some kind of deep thought as he leans his head onto his curled up right hand. "A cop."
The sides of Kise's lips twitch up into a small smile, two french-fries still shoved into his mouth. He watches as Aomine's eyebrow raises up in confusion - which looks more like (and most likely is) the 'why-the-fuck-are-you-smiling-creepily-at-me' look. "I figured, since your face and your personality and attit— never mind."
"Am I supposed to be offended?" Aomine asks incredulously, now with both eyebrows raised, and Kise takes note of how he looks more matured than how he's seen him two years ago. Firmer jaw, broader muscle, his hair longer kept; maybe about an inch shorter than his', which only went past his ears. Small details, apparently, do matter, and the model finds it amazing at how how much has changed over the years he hasn't seen him. It's only been two... not like he's complaining.
"I don't know, should you?" he asks, just to poke fun at Aomine, which apparently works since the guy just started randomly muttering something that sounded like: "Don't you go sarcastic on me, you little shit."
Kise throws his head back and barks out a laugh, only irritating Aomine further.
The said blue-haired man leans over the table, and Kise only escapes from the tanned man's wrath when he offers him ice creams and cicadas (...more like screams at him for the whole food court to hear.)
It's around a few hours after sunset when the makeshift family had finally gotten home, since Kise had insisted they'd buy more healthy food to stuff into Aomine's fridge. By the time they enter the empty and dark apartment, Aomine practically drops into a coma on the couch whereas Sai had already been snoring in her little stroller. It's Kise who's the only one left with a tad bit energy (taking the fact that he's a model, and also had an experience in horrendously plentiful shopping, into consideration.)
Since the crib still has yet to arrive to their apartment in three days time, the bed is where Kise places Sai after he's changed her diaper.
When he's done tucking the small bluenette in for bed, he brushes her bangs to a side and places a parental kiss on her forehead, whispering ever so lightly, "Goodnight, my little Saicchi."
Kise heads back out into the barely illuminated living room with both a thin blanket and a pillow in his arms, to find Aomine peacefully sprawled on the couch. He sits on the armrest, placing the pillow under the sleeping male's head, watching intently; observing the way his face scrunches up and his lips twitch whenever he snores. Kise bites on his lower lip, feeling more or less like a creep, but is all too amused of Aomine's sleeping face to even give a damn.
He sits for a bit, resting his legs, before standing back up and finally draping the blanket over Aomine. Kise finds himself reluctant, though, since sleeping Aomine looks so peaceful that it's contagious and it makes Kise feel like he just wants to cuddle up the dude and feel comforted and whatnot.
(He knows it's not forever, and that it may be the last time he sees this kind of face because – a. watching a person sleep is totally not creepy, and if Aomine, by any chance, just wakes up, seeing Kise watching him intently certainly would not make him feel uneasy, right? & b. any time could Kise tell Aomine everything, and if by the spur of the moment it just happens to spill out of his mouth, he'll have to go into hiding away from him.)
The blond releases a heavy sigh, walking back into the kitchen to prepare dinner since the shorter hand has yet to point dead on the number 8 and the night is still young. It's just the basketball idiot and the all-day-every-day hyperactive toddler that has fallen asleep like they've been playing basketball for a week non-stop. Earlier he's watched chefs on television stir up something casual that he thinks both Aomine and Sai would enjoy, and him still being the famous Teikou's copycat player, has already mastered it in his mind.
And so he took the ingredients from the plastic bags on the floor, and began stirring and frying and cooking.
Aomine finds himself waking up to the sound of clanking of the plates, humming, and the smell of heaven. He's wondering if by any chance he's fallen asleep in some restaurant - although he kind of rather hopes not. (...restaurants aren't exactly one of those places where you could simply fall asleep and no one would think you're out of your mind.)
But then when he forces his eyes open it's the familiar ceiling of his house that greets him, and the bluenet thinks it can't be coming from his house because his house contains two adults that are absolutely shitty in cooking and a toddler that cannot possibly cook. But then again, this is the apartment that houses two former members of the generation of miracles.
Generation of fucking miracles.
And they hadn't just magically earned that name out of the whim (though basketball is a different story, but whatever.) Slowly, he sits up on the couch, sparing a glance at the pillow and the blanket that just fell off his shoulder and is now on his torso. He's sure as hell he had aimed right for the couch as soon as he stepped a foot into his small home, not gone to their room and pick up a blanket and pillow and then go head to the sofa.
He shrugs, mostly to himself, eyeing Kise as the blond flawlessly trots around the kitchen. Although being close friends in high school, before and after realizing his sexuality and his growing fondness of the model, Aomine has never seen this side of Kise. It's almost funny, he muses, that Kise seems more suitable to be a housewife rather than a working husband.
His housewife. Or house-husband. Or whatever—as long as he stays his'.
"Aominecchi, you're awake~" Kise hums, smiling swiftly while setting the plates down on the small dinner table, breaking into Aomine's daydreaming.
The latter doesn't mind not stifling a large yawn. He rubs on his eyes when water clouds his vision, and then lazily getting his foot off the seat and onto the floor, shaking his head at his earlier thoughts. Damn, it hasn't even been a week ever since he's found Kise, and yet here they were, acting like nothing has ever happened. If not, more attached and fucking romantic like it's all straight out of a book.
Somehow, at the back of his mind, he knows it wasn't supposed to turn out so seemingly perfect. That, or either he knows that somewhere in the middle, it doubtlessly wouldn't be turning out to be the best.
"Hm. What are you cooking?" he asks absentmindedly, hand scratching the whole back of his head.
Kise nibbles on his bottom lip, and cocks his head to a side as if thinking (and Aomine watches intently on the single action. Lately he's been carefully watching every single action that Kise makes, seductive and unintentional or not, he notes, and he finds it quite terrifying of himself to be acting… well, like this.) "Err, what did they call this? I think it was something like Misa Soup."
"Miso Soup?"
"Yeah, that." He grins sheepishly, placing the pot directly onto the table. Somehow at this action, Aomine feels like he should be horrified, but simply shrugs it off. The taller of the two glances at the food in the pan. It looks edible... delicious, even.
"Then what was all that frying for? I thought you didn't have to fry the soup?" He mutters, staring at the pot on the table, and then blanches when smoke rises up from the wooden furniture.
In all hastiness, he jumps over the leather couch and onto the table, grabbing the heated pot from the table with a perfect OMG–WTF face. Kise's mouth stops letting any word flow out and stares at him questioningly from his place in the kitchen, before turning white as humanly as possible. He grabs the basin of water under the running faucet and throws its contents at the charred furniture, effectively drenching Aomine along with it.
Said drenched man shoots him a glare after looking at his now-wet attire. "...the fuck was that for?!"
"Oops," the model mutters lamely. "Um, it means that you need to take a bath now? Ehehe..."
Aomine snorts at him, looking shortly at Kise's nervous smile before letting out a humored sigh, before complying.
When he's done taking a shower, he trots out of the bathroom, almost naked, with a towel wrapped around his waist. The floor and the partially charred table were now free from earliers' waterworks, and the pot now stayed on the stove while two normal plates and one small plastic bowl were laid on the table, with a huge bowl of Miso soup laid on the centre.
And when Kise looks up from his seat on the couch the ex-ace watches in mild amusement as his face morphs from a normal colour to an unhealthy shade of pinkish red. Aomine stares back with a huge question mark written all over him. The blond splutters and throws a pillow to his direction, "Aominecchi! Would you mind putting some clothes on?!"
—which, of course, hits the towel wrapped around his hips which eventually loosens its grip, falling on the ground and on Aomine's feet with a barely audible thud.
The bluenette hardly had time to register what had happened when Kise starts screeching, face turning so red that steam threatens to blow out from his ears, and, well… jumping to the other end of the couch in an attempt to hide his head in the tiny space under the armrest.
"Ah, I guess I should put on some clothes."
A good five minutes of that day—those five minutes Aomine spent in the washroom putting on some clothes, Kise spends his time worrying about how to act around Aomine now that he's seen... that, and also how the lad would act around him. What if he starts acting awkward?
He flinches when the door to the washroom creaks open, and freezes when the said lad sits on the chair across from where he's sitting. Kise could feel sweat starting to drip down his forehead at the intense gaze Aomine's giving him. The blond can't help but gape when Aomine starts cackling like a madman. Soon, he's laughing too.
The only time they stop is when Sai wails from their bedroom.
"...oops."
After finally getting the toddler back to bed, they return to the table, eating and chatting about stuff. Discussing about their times back in Teikou, how they should try to play one-on-one sometime soon when they find time in between taking care of Sai, how Kuroko and Kagami and the rest of the Mira-Gen are... never the reason to why Kise left in the first place.
Surprisingly, the meal is relatively normal; except that Aomine finds it strange that the noodle is burnt crisp black. Last time he remembered, Kagami used white noodles to cook this... but oh well.
The clock flashes the numbers 11:53 in dark red, and Kise simply stares at it, waiting for sleep to take over him. Aomine has taken the couch in the living room (which took them about an hour to fight over; Aomine winning when he had mentioned ghosts) and his Saicchi (finally asleep) under the covers, centimeters away from himself.
He rolls over, closes his eyes, and tries again.
Just before he could completely fall into deep sleep, the phone rings, sending him jolting to at least a foot in the air with a colourful vocabulary of curses. Kise takes deep breaths to calm his heart from the shock, calmly sitting up and reaching for the phone right next to where the clock is.
"Mm… hello? Managercchi, I'm guessing this is you, ne? Goddamnit, you've got to stop calling before midnight or I'll—"
A rough voice at the end of the line chuckles, and Kise blanches, almost dropping the phone. "My, my, Ryouta. That isn't how you talk to me now, hm?"
"How did—fuck, how, y-you..."
"It's a pleasant evening, don't you think?"
If this person wasn't who he was and how he acted and whatnot, calling him at midnight, Kise would have scoffed and retorted with something snappy and ridiculing. But no matter how much of a stupid air headed blond Kise seems, he knows he shouldn't. "Y-Yeah. Why... why're you calling at 12 in the morning?"
"Oh, nothing, just checking up on my sweet tea."
The model holds in the bile rising up from his stomach. Disgusting.
"...right. Uh, I have to catch up on my sleep," he reasons, in haste to end the conversation with the man, chuckling nervously to hide his horror. "So, yeah, if that's all, have a good night."
"Hold up, Ryouta." The man says, and Kise could almost feel the small smile on the other's face while he says this. "You don't want to talk to me? It's fine, but babe,"—the model grimaces at the pet-name "don't tire yourself out too much because of the baby and your little boy toy, alright? Make sure you get some proper rest. Goodnight."
The man hangs up, and Kise drops the phone with shaking hands.
Instead of picking it up, he runs to the bathroom and purges his dinner out, hands shaking as he grips the faucet. He knows he should've been more careful.
Notes: -inserts suspenseful soundtrack here-
um. so. we have a plot advance here, people (monotone yay clap clap woo hoo). oh & i'll be posting another aokise & kagakuro story soon. it's about them being heir's of a company, and... the story's pretty damn clichéd but i do enjoy writing them so stay tuned ;w;
does anyone read the authors notes? no? whatever, but i still love you guys for sticking with my sorry ass. i read your reviews, and get giddy, and roll over the floor, and die — ...maybe that was exaggerated to much, though i do take a pillow and scream in it because holy shit you guys are adorable. do review, follow, and favourite. you know how authors love them. owo
[EDIT] it's already been posteeed~ called matrimonial hitch, i think. somewhere in my profile if you'd like to see it ^^. Anyway, this is on hiatus until season two begins (or at least when i get my motivation back...)
