Hello, duckies~ Here's the chapter, like I promised.

So this chapter jumps around a bit in terms of timeline, just to be able to progress the story and still explain what happened. A lot of this is centered around Aomine bonding (?) with Kei at first and a bit of something else. Midorima, Takao, and Suzume will have their turn, though, as will the others. And we will return to our main event, KagaKuro with a side of Naoya, soon enough!

At first, when I compared the number of reviews for last chapter (7) to the first two (14 and 12), I panicked, like I was doing something wrong. But then I realized that reviews don't measure how many people like my story, the number of people following does. Reviewers are just readers who want to speak up. But whether you enjoy the story in silence or voice your opinions, keep continuing to enjoy! :3

This one is for all my lovely duckies who follow~ (There are 52 of you and counting!)

Chapter 4

(In)Conveniences

Aomine woke up unnaturally early, rubbing the grogginess from his tired navy eyes. His back ached in strange places and his bones and joints creaked as he stretched them out. The couch was definitely not the most comfortable place to crash for the night. Trying to alleviate the pain in his neck, he kicked off the thin blanket and placed it messily on the nearest armrest; he could take care of it later. Aomine adjusted the loose shirt on his shoulders and fixed the waistband of his boxers. The ace shuffled into the kitchen, checking for the presence of food. He sighed in defeat when he realized there wasn't any meal prepared for him because he was the first one up.

He made his way back to the couch and flopped over on the blanket, checking for the time. Friday, 5:54 AM.

Aomine let out a frustrated grumble; never in his life had he ever woken up this early. His parents weren't even up yet, and that was saying something, it being that his mom had an internal alarm clock forever set to 6:15 and his dad abhorred laziness. Needless to say, it hadn't gone over as well as he'd liked when he made up his spiel for Kei's presence.

Kuroko and Kagami had promised to handle Midorima while Aomine slipped away with his son. Around an hour later, he was leading Kei through the front door of his house, worrying for his son's lodgings. Footsteps resounded in the hallway as someone approached them.

"Daiki, darling, your dinner's—who's that?"

"Uh... a friend. He's... a transfer student from Okinawa, but his host family bailed last minute and he needs a place to crash. So he's staying here." That would work.

His mom glanced over Kei with a critical eye, evaluating the stranger carefully. Nodding her approval slowly, she smiled. "You two look alike, you know. Maybe he's your Okinawa-born doppelganger?" she joked. Kei smirked at this, glad to find that his grandmother was such a humorous person. "I'd let him stay, Daiki, but you'll have to ask your father. You know his rules."

"Alright, thanks, Ma. I will. But I'd rather just let Kei stay here." Inwardly, Aomine cursed. He was hoping she'd take the issue up his dad herself. Sure, the man was nice, quiet and loyal to his family, but he was also strict, so the ace believed. But his father hadn't shown him any acceptance or affection, thinking his son was wasting his youth playing basketball and his money buying equipment and Horikita Mai photobooks. He'd always gotten on Aomine case about his grades—which were decent enough, considering he was on Honor Roll—and tried to ensure that his future was secure. It goes without saying that he'd never even attended a single one of the bluenet's matches. Aomine Toushirou was a no-nonsense man with a plan.

But what would he say about Kei's sudden appearance?

The Touou player led the blond through the house to the study, where his father was reading an old novel from the time of Feudal Japan. He tried to avoid seeming nervous for Kei's sake; after all, he was responsible for him and needed to be reliable. Aomine opened his mouth to ask permission, but his father barely even looked up before giving his answer. Toushirou had hear everything from where he sat and needed no explanations.

"What's his name?"

"Uh..." Aomine panicked. He couldn't say Kei's real last name because it was his name as well. How bad and suspicious would that have looked? He blurted out the first thing he could think of instead: "Kise! It's Kise. Kei. Kise Kei."

Oh, God. What the hell had he just blurted out? He was such an idiot, and now he could feel the bewildered stares Kei shot him. But if Toushirou, thought anything of it, he didn't let on. He simply turned to the next page of his tome and glanced up at the newcomer briefly.

"He can stay."

Aomine almost asked him to repeat his response; never before had his father actually consented to anything he did, so why did he start now? Instead, he went along with it. "Thanks, Pa."

He nudged Kei's shoulder as a signal to follow. Right now, his own son was his first priority. He could mull over the other parts of his family dynamics later. The bluenet sped-walked down the hall, blazing trails as best he could up the stairs and to his room. Kei stumbled along behind him, unfamiliar with the layout of the house, ensuring he didn't trip over any furniture. As soon as they were away in Aomine's room, Kei engaged in conversation.

"'Kise,' Pops?" he mused.

Aomine scowled back at him, frustrated and more than a little embarrassed that that was the first name he'd thought of. "Shut up, Kei." With a victorious grin, the blond spun away to take in the room. It was admittedly more plain than he's have thought, the walls mostly bare, personal belongings squared away, and little furniture with little color.

"Never thought you'd have a room like this, Pops. Back home, you always had pictures hanging up and everything in some place it didn't go, and— Pops?" he asked. Aomine jolted a bit, snapping out of a trance Kei hadn't noticed.

"Sorry, Kei, what?" The boy smiled knowingly.

"You're thinking about Momma, aren't you?" The blush that hung around his dad's cheeks answered him well enough. "Having trouble knowing what to say when you go to apologize?"

"Actually, yeah," the tanned ace confessed. "I started avoiding him with no intentions of ever going back. And I don't even know how to start. I—I want to apologize and be able to see him again, but I've done some really dick things to make sure that never happens. It's complicated. But I want to go back and fix things with Kise, especially it means so much to both you and Mai."

Kei started to say something, but decided against it. He averted his darkened navy blue gaze to the blank calendar hanging on the wall next to him. Aomine sighed, settling down on the bed and beckoned for Kei to sit next to him. It was still strange, to think that he was conversing with his son, but the whole weight of things was bigger than his own dilemmas; that much, at least, Aomine could understand.

"Hey, you can't hide it from me, kid," Aomine scolded. "You might have my eyes, but they're just as expressive as your mom's, as weird as it is to say that out loud. I know something happened over there. I can see it in your eyes, all of you reality-jumpers; it's the same kind of sadness I saw whenever I did something to break things off with Kise. And maybe you can't tell me yet, but you don't have to pretend to be happy. The more you act like nothing's wrong, the worse it gets, and that's speaking from personal experience."

"...thanks, Pops," the blond muttered. "I just... I don't know. It feels like I'm doing what's right, and at the same time it doesn't."

Aomine shrugged. "We'll cross that bridge when we get there. Hopefully, we'll get across with Mai and Kise with us."

Without warning, Kei launched himself from the bed onto the floor, scuttling along with his stomach until he could reach under the bed. "O-oi!" the ace started. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

Kei didn't answer as he attempted to squeeze himself all the way under. Startled, Aomine jumped off the bad and dragged the blond out by his ankles, which was harder than he though it'd be considering the snooping teen managed to drag along whatever was underneath with his arms.

"Kid, put that back!" he yelled. But his demands fell on deaf ears as his son began rifling through the pile he'd scrounged up: Horikita Mai photobook, shoebox, deflated basketball, old report card, Horikita Mai photobook, extra shoelaces, Horikita Mai photobook, Horikita Mai photobook, random manga volume, Horikita Mai photobook...

"Pops, how many of these do you have? Were there that many photobooks printed? I don't remember you having so many back home."

"Er, no, it's just that no one on the team really knew what to get me, but they all ended up buying the same copy for me on my birthday—more importantly, quit going through my stuff!"

"What?" Kei snickered. "Afraid I'll find something personal and totally private?"

"Yes!"

"At least you were honest enough to admit," he commented, pushing the pile away from the bed and diving underneath again. Aomine's gut wrenched with anxiety at what Kei might find. Mind you, it was nothing particularly inappropriate, but—

"FOUND IT!" the blond sang at the top of his lungs. He emerged with another shoebox and immediately set to digging for its contents. The navy-haired teen attempted to rip it away, only to be met by a foot to his face.

"Kei cut it out!" he shouted. Aomine could feel the blood rushing to his face as Kei let out an excited hoot. He pushed himself away from his son; it was pointless to fight after he'd found what he was looking for.

"It's Momma's photobook! Was this part of the birthday photobook thing?" the blond interrogated, excitedly waving the glossy paper in front of his dad's face. Defeatedly, he gave a slight nod, to which Kei responded with an amused catcall. "Aunt Satsuki always knew how to push your buttons! And—oooh, is this an album from your middle school days?"

Aomine watched as his son flipped through the pictures, trying to identify everyone and gawking at how young they looked. It was mortifying to witness his most personal possessions being rifled through, but at the same time it was nice to see Kei enjoying himself. Whatever hardships he was facing with Kise and everyone else was nothing compared to what Kei was fighting against.

"Pops?" he called. "What's this?" Kei held up a small silver band with a clasp on it, an item Aomine didn't recall owning at first.

"That's your mom's."

"What?"

"I don't know about your universe, but Kise has a pierced ear. This is the pair his earring came with when he got it. I forgot I had it..."

Kei smiled softly, giving Aomine a sympathetic look. "Momma's really important to you, isn't she? I... I can tell you about how you made up with her back home. Maybe it'll help you get some ideas on how to approach her."

Aomine looked up in surprise, inquiring, "We had a fight there, too?"

"Like I said, this world is a parallel to ours and vice versa; with a few exceptions, it's the same story until we come along. But yeah, you fought. Momma always told us the story no matter how embarrassed you got because it's how you got together."

Kei moved to put aside the shoebox and shoved everything else back under the bed. He continued with, "It's the same idea there, where you started pushing her away so you could protect her. Momma got a job as a model when you were both in middle school. She was bored with her social life and wandered around campus 'til she met you. She started sitting in on your basketball practices and games, made new friends with the other girls who watched every day, and eventually, she fell in love with you. At first, she kept quiet 'cuz she thought you had a thing going with Aunt Tsuko—"

"Who?"

"Aunt Tsuko. Aunt Tetsuko? Naoya's mom?"

"Oh, Tetsuya."

"Same difference," Kei huffed, "now shut up and listen to the rest of the story. Anyway, Momma didn't say anything, but then Aunt Tsuko asked her if she liked you and then played devil's advocate to get you two together. Well, you had no problems with it, since Momma says you're an exhibitionist an whatnot. You two were pretty happy for the time you were dating, but then Momma started getting popular as a model. Other guys always flocked to her and tried to chat her up, and you noticed she started falling asleep at games because she was too tired from her shoots to stay awake. You knew how important it was for her to keep her job and her public image, so close to the end of the year, you broke up with her and told her to stay away from you.

"You, apparently, were doubting yourself as her boyfriend since she could have had anyone else. You knew some of the tabloids were publishing things about Momma hanging around you despite having so many fanboys. They made you so mad that they would say stuff like that, but it made you feel even worse that it was happening because of you, so you told her to shove it."

Aomine's jaw clenched; that sounded about right.

"It was small stuff at first, like avoiding her during the weeks before spring break, ignoring her when she tried to talk to you, not answering when she called or texted. Then you started with the texts to stay away from you and skipping school so she couldn't find you. She got persistent enough about you that you yelled at her to go away and pushed her.

"Momma didn't take it well. She tried to get in touch, but it got harder since you went to different schools and her modeling career skyrocketed. She didn't give up, though; about a year after you broke up with her, Aunt Satsuki filled her in on why you broke up with her and she asked her agency for a break until she could find you. They gave in and Aunt Satsuki and Aunt Tsuko set you up. When Momma first saw you, the first thing you did was freeze where you were and she slapped you. Then she started crying about how you were the stupidest person on the face of the planet because you thought that her job mattered more to her than you did. She begged you not to leave her again and that she'd cut all her hair off and quit her job if it meant you could be together."

Silence followed. "Is that how it happened?" Aomine asked. Maybe he could have a shot at that happy ending, after all.

"In layman's terms, yeah. It was a bit more complicated than that, but that's the gist of it. And I think we could pull off the same thing here."

"Thanks, Kei. I... I'll think of something." He stared pensively at the shoebox with his Teikou album and Kise's things.

The door opened and Aomine's mom poked her head into the room. "Boys," she called, "dinner's still downstairs, unless you're not hungry. We can set up an extra futon for Kise-san, too, if you want, Daiki." The ace shook his head at the latter, to which Kei responded with a disappointed frown.

"Thanks for dinner, Ma, no thanks to the futon. I'll just take the couch. Less effort."

Kei sighed dejectedly. He couldn't argue with his dad, either way. "Thanks, we'll be right down, Grand—" he caught himself. "Er, g-grand! That sounds grand, Aomine-san!"

She chuckled at how stiff he was, though she though his nervousness was caused by something else. "Please, call me Fuyumi-san."

Inwardly, Aomine facepalmed. Making sure his parents didn't figure out who Kei really was and keeping his ditzy son from slipping was going to be difficult.

Thinking about the family dinner that inevitably followed gave him a headache; not only had Kei almost given himself away on six different occasions, but he also had to come up with an explanation as to why Kei had no personal belongings and no means of contacting his parents.

In the end, the airline from Okinawa misplaced and lost his luggage (how irresponsible!) and Kei's parents were out of range (technically not a lie).

His ears perked when the sound of slippers registered from the stairwell. It was still too early for his Ma to be up and Kei didn't have slippers... his Pa?

"Daiki," his father called. "I need to speak with you." Aomine didn't know if he should have been nervous or indifferent, but he was too preoccupied with thoughts of Kei and Kise and Mai to care. Complying, he pushed himself off the couch and went to meet his father, who motioned in the direction of the kitchen.

"Yeah, Pa?"

"I'm letting you off school today. Go shopping for Kei's replacement belongings. Here," he ordered, holding out a thick wad of cash. "If there's anything left over, keep it and use it for something important. I'm going to start some coffee." Impatiently, he put the money in Aomine's hands and shuffled towards the cabinets.

"Pa, wait," he cut in. "...why? Why do you suddenly care? You've never approved of anything else I've ever done before. So why start now?"

"Because," he replied gruffly, "you're finally doing things without seeking my permission. Coming to see me about letting your friend stay for the time being was something your mother referred you to, but you're beginning to realize that doing the right thing will sometimes mean that you will face opposition. Have fun shopping, Daiki."

Absently, he trekked back to the living room. He'd never thought of it that way.

All he needed to do now was wait for Kei to get up. After all, he think of how to patch things up with Kise on such short notice.

Some three hours later that Friday morning found father and son wandering around downtown Tokyo, looking for a good department store to start with.

"Kei, what do you want to look for first? Clothes, bathroom stuff, cellphone—"

"Mai!"

"Okay, we can start with—Mai?"

Aomine watched in shock as Kei darted forward, not bothering to explain what he meant. And then, he realized, Mai. As in Kei's kid sister as well as his daughter... with Kise. The thought of him and Kise being in such an intimate relationship still made his ears burn. He jogged to catch up with Kei. A shrill "Nicchi (1)!" sounded not too far ahead, bringing a smirk to the Touou player's face.

She was Kise's daughter, all right.

The navy-haired ace only hoped that they had found the middle schooler before someone else did. As he looked up to find Kei and Mai, he stopped where he was, suddenly tense and trepidatious.

Someone else had found Mai first.

And it just had to be Kise Ryouta.

(1) Nicchi: Mai's way of calling Kei "ni-san," which means "older brother." She uses Kise's nicknaming system.

Oh, boy, I'm going to get yelled at for this. Even if it's just Becky yelling.
(Please don't kill me, especially considering next chapter will be MidoTaka based.)

Oh, gosh, it just occurred to me that I left such a horrible cliffhanger on AoKise Day. ...whoops! (?)

Seriously though, Becky, don't hurt me.

~Randomness

Ryuuchi Seijuro: XD I love fluff! I love writing it. Sometimes, I get embarrassed writing it, though. uvu" And pictures, you say? Ohoho~ I actually sketched out how the kids look and am working on the family portraits~ Look forward to it!

Fantita: Oh, thank you! You reviewers seriously make me blush. I can't wait to write about all the kids with their families! And look forward to Saturday's update, since it'll focus on MidoTaka and their quirky daughter, Suzume. :3

LoveGonzo2: YAY! Thank you! And yes, I will get to the reality-jumpers' purpose here, but let's have some family fun first~ And yes, I shall continue to write this story because it's too diabolically fun to not write! And yes, angst~ Thanks for your encouragement! I'll continue to do my best!

hitomi65: Thank you! uvu

Divine Cluster: XD Thank you! Next chapter, we'll see more MidoTaka and another pairing (not saying who). I'm glad that this fic's pairings are valued so highly in your world! And I will update to the best of my abilities!

Reimei-Jennoir: Awww, thanks for liking Kei! He actually turned out to be spazzier than I intended, but then again, he's Kise's son. X3 But I figured a way for y'all to see his initial personality (don't worry, it's not anything dark). And I kinda dropped the bomb with this cliffhanger, huh? Please don't kill me about it! And please do look forward to our MidoTaka babies next chapter~

Little Strawberry RiRin Chan: I hope it turns out as epic as I have it planned to be! And HyuuRiko baby? I'd say "you'll see," but yes! There will be a HyuuRiko baby! Please look forward to Saturday's update! (Hope that's soon enough...) Thank you so much, avid reader-san!