"Is Tetsu still seasick?" said Aomine.
"I don't know, go and check," said Kagami.
Aomine shuddered all over. "And run into Satsuki's special porridge?" he said. "Yeah, I got enough of that while we were kids. I never got better, you know," he said, pathetically, when Kagami was pretty sure Aomine had never been ill a day in his life. "The illnesses were just beaten into submission by her idea of cooking and abandoned my body in self-defence."
"Medicine isn't supposed to taste good," said Kise, absently, staring off into the horizon, the sun glinting off his hair. Somewhere, someone sighed.
"Porridge isn't supposed to move when you're not looking at it," said Kagami, who had taken one taste and then promptly escaped to the deck with Aomine and Kise sticking their faces into the sea-spray with every sign of enjoyment. Kuroko had shot him a look so full of abject and utter betrayal that Kagami still felt pangs of guilt. Still, every man for himself.
Aomine hung out over the water and watching the splash of wavelets against the side of the ship. It was a steam-ship, which meant they were making great time, but there wasn't any space at all for sparring and they all slept in one tiny cramped space. This was great for say, Aomine, Kuroko and Momoi, who cuddled up easily and then lay there and blinked innocently at the other two of them while they tried to fit themselves on the floor, but Kise and Kagami were big boys and there was not actually a lot of floor. Kise was all elbows when he slept, too, shifting all over the floor with the motion of the ship. Kagami didn't consider himself a demanding traveler, but staying out on deck all day had become much preferable to being inside, and Aomine basically lived out there, talking to anyone who came and asked him if he was going to jump, and if he wasn't to please come back inside because he was upsetting the crew. They let him, though. Waterbenders and the sea, don't get between them, etc.
There were no shortage of newspapers on the ship, plus a reading shelf with a few extremely bad novels- Kuroko had made a beeline for the latest in the Adventures of Captain Mako, extremely terrible historical detective fiction- and Aomine tended to pick them up with Kise or Kagami around to help him with some of the harder words, mostly in the articles about murders and sports. He would have asked Momoi, but between nursing Kuroko, convincing the crew and captain that Kise and Aomine were absolutely no trouble, and fending off the advances of every man- and some women- on the damn boat, her time was in short supply.
"Pro-bending sounded lame when I first heard about it," said Aomine, squinting at his paper. "But this actually seems kind of cool."
"Matches can get intense," said Kagami. "I mean, it's not- sort of- real bending, but-"
"I know some people who'd disagree with you," said Kise.
"It's too specialised," said Kagami. "And there's no airbending."
"We're pacifists," said Kise. "But there were some great things to learn from the pros."
"Tricks," said Kagami, getting heated. "I've seen pro-benders, they can't fight a damn outside-"
"Shut up, I'm still talking," said Aomine. "I was going to say, THIS," he pointed to the sum of money won in the last championship bout, four hundred thousand yuans, "THIS, sounds cool. Money. We like money, right? And we'll need it."
"My people don't really believe in the accumulation of wealth," said Kise virtuously.
"Fine we'll just split your share among us," said Aomine.
"Pro-benders don't- wait what," said Kagami. "What did you say what?"
"What share?" said Kise.
"Your share of the prize money," said Aomine, as if talking to an idiot, "When we win the pro-bending championship."
Kise stared at him. "And how are you going to do that?" he said.
Aomine snorted. "I guess I'm going to have to spell it out for you," he said. "Waterbender," pointing to himself, "Firebender," pointing to Kagami, "And you can do your earth shit, as the Avatar," pointing to Kise.
"You can't be serious," said Kagami.
"Your share of money will pay you back," said Aomine. "I dunno what I'll do with mine yet. Maybe I'll get a car."
"Aomine," said Kagami. "We can't become pro-benders."
Aomine sighed. "Fine, I see the issue," he said. "Look, don't sweat it. I'll cover for you guys as much as possible, and when we get interviewed I'll totally pretend you guys were as good as me out in the ring. There. Solved."
"That's not fucking solved!" said Kagami. "That's- one, Kise is the Avatar-"
"Avatar Korra was a pro-bender," said Aomine, calmly folding the paper. "There's precedent."
"Stop using words we taught you!" said Kagami. "Two, have you ever even seen a match? have you?"
"We'll stop in, get a brush-up on the rules, it should be easy," said Aomine. "An hour, two, tops-"
"THREE," roared Kagami, "I am a prince of the Fire Nation. Do you want to know what kind of scandal will rocket right across the sea to there if people knew I was pro-bending? Do you?"
"We'll use a fake name," said Aomine. "No one cares about Fire Nation royalty anymore, anyway. You guys aren't even in the papers very often."
"Not in the Earth Kingdom papers, no," said Kise, who was in fact very well acquainted with the Fire Nation court. "But still- Aominechi, you can't think-"
"Look," said Aomine. "We're good at bending, right? Even Kagami."
"I will throw you off the ship," said Kagami.
"So who else is going to be better at pro-bending than we are? Who's going to be better than me?" Aomine's eyes sparkled with excitement, and his voice had gone low and crooning with persuasion, leaning on the railing with the wind blowing his hair into his face, irritating, annoying, irresistable.
Kise and Kagami shared a desperately resigned look.
"It's not just that he knows he's manipulating us," said Kagami.
"It's that we probably weren't going to say no to him anyway, yeah," said Kise.
"Maybe Kuroko or Momoi will think it's a bad idea," said Kagami hopefully.
"I've already told Tetsu," said Aomine. "He thought it was a good idea. A great idea. Something pretty close to the idea that is going to change our lives."
"Did Kurokochi actually say any of this," said Kise, "Because the last time, I was trying to tell him about the ideas I had for finding a place to stay but Asami Sato had just found the hidden weapons cache in her boyfriend's house, and when I checked to make sure he was listening I think the man hissed at me. Like an animal."
"It's a great idea," said Aomine again, and went back to reading the paper.
Kagami threw up his hands and went to find Kuroko, bringing in the big guns. He really didn't want to hear the lectures that would result from 'making a show of himself' for 'commoners' and the thought of it was already giving him a headache.
.0.
Kuroko wasn't in the room when he went there, and though Kagami eventually found Momoi in one of the state rooms deep into a discussion on the merits of bone edges over steel, she hadn't seen him either. His search took him into the bowels of the ship and the very real fear that the porridge had chased Kuroko to the side of the ship and then in his fever he'd thrown himself over to escape it.
He froze suddenly as he heard a noise. It sounded like... a yap.
No, no, no. Not here.
.0.
Aomine and Kise first perked up their ears and then watched with interest as Kagami threw himself up the stairs onto the deck, followed- at a slower but very determined pace- by Kuroko, holding in his hands a puppy.
"Kagamin?" said Momoi, worriedly.
"We have a lion-dog now," said Kuroko, walking over to them with the same slow inevitable shuffle. "The ship's dog had puppies, and I thought we could take it off their hands. Do you mind?"
Aomine and Kise turned to look at Momoi, since clearly Kuroko was not talking to them. She clutched her heart and sighed. "Tetsu-kun," she said. "Tetsu-kun, Tetsu-kun!"
Aomine peered at the dog. "Oh," he said, deciphering Momoi without any trouble. "Hey, it looks like Tetsu."
"Does it?" said Kise. "Hey, it does! It's like... a second Kurokochi!"
"Tetsu number two," said Aomine.
Momoi sagged against Aomine, who propped her up with one arm and a disgusted sigh.
"Tetsu-kun," she said, again.
"That's settled," said Kuroko, and looked pleased.
"NO IT'S NOT," yelled Kagami from the other side of the ship. "KUROKO THAT THING WILL EAT YOUR FACE OFF IN YOUR SLEEP. IT'S UNSAFE! THROW IT OVER THE SIDE BEFORE IT SAVAGES YOU."
"It's a puppy," said Kuroko.
"YOU'RE A WUSS," yelled Aomine.
"KAGAMICHI, IT'S VERY SWEET, LOOK!" Kise bent down to the puppy, where it obligingly licked his face and yapped adorably.
Kagami shuddered and looked away.
Kuroko was across the deck in a flash, still holding the puppy. "Kagami-kun," he said, a touch unsteadily. "Look at him. He needs us."
Kagami screamed, flailed backwards, and fell over the side of the ship. Kuroko looked over the side, owlishly, watching the ripples and bubbles of Kagami's fall.
"KAGAMIN!" cried Momoi, and then ran to the side. Kise and Aomine followed, more sedately, mentally preparing the mocking of a lifetime.
"Where's Kagamichi?" said Kise, looking over the side.
"He... hasn't come up yet," said Momoi. "KAGAMIN!"
"Kagami?" called Aomine. "It's just a dog, moron!"
"...Kagami-kun?" said Kuroko, urgently.
Aomine and Kise looked at each other. "Shit," they said in unison, then leapt over the side, pulling the water aside automatically as they went.
Aomine hit the water gasping. Fuck, it was cold, and the pain of the water hitting his skin was sharp and tingling. He felt Kise hitting the water on the other side of him, and Kagami was- fucker was sinking, they were never going to let him fucking forget this, Aomine was going to kill him and Aomine grabbed for Kagami in huge handfuls of water, but the current fought him, twisting cruelly against him, and it had Kagami, the ocean was dragging him down, down, down.
Kagami was looking up at him, trying to fight it, but Kagami wasn't going to make it, he wasn't going to make it, Aomine wasn't going to make-
Momoi had her hands full grabbing both Tetsu-kun and the dog, trying to keep both of them from going overboard too, and Kichan had surfaced with panic on his face and was preparing to take another go and Dai-chan wasn't up yet, but Kagamin, Kagamin-
Light, bright and blinding, shone up through the water, and then Aomine and Kise rose up on a waterspout, holding Kagamin between them. They tumbled to the deck- people were shouting, somewhere people were shouting, but Momoi could barely hear them over releasing Tetsu-kun and the both of them running to pound on Kagamin's chest, the thing every waterside child was taught from birth, how to pull the water from the lungs of a drowning man, how to breathe the life back into their lungs.
Kagami, gasped, coughed, and came back to the land of the living. Fucking hell, he was getting tired of drowning. He'd been only able to see shadows and lights, and had it been Aomine, who reached for him? Kise, who slid the arm around his back? Or was it the ocean, unwilling to relinquish him?
"Idiot," said Aomine, coughing up his own share of seawater, and pounding Kise on the back a couple of times.
The lion-dog hopped onto Kagami's chest and barked at him, licking his face.
"Get it off," said Kagami, between coughs.
"He's trying to help you breathe," said Kuroko, but his hand slid under Kagami's chin and petted him, apologetically.
"I can't believe you're afraid of a little thing like this," said Aomine. "We're keeping it, by the way. Tetsu and Satsuki overrule you. Get used to it."
"We're naming it after Tetsu-kun," said Momoi, and petted Kise. He leaned against her gratefully and looked at Kagami, and looked at Aomine, and thanked all the spirits he knew.
"The second Kurokochi," said Kise, smiling at the tiny puppy valiantly prancing on Kagami's chest.
"Nigou," said Kuroko, who liked wordplay.
"We could be the Lion-Dogs," said Aomine, running a long finger under its chin as it wiggled shamelessly between them. "Yeah, Lion-dogs. I think that's a good team name."
Momoi and Kuroko turned their heads. "What?"