"Never underestimate the pain of a person. Because in all honesty, everyone hurts. Some people just hide it better than others."

Aomine tapped his foot impatiently as he leaned against the wall in Kagami's apartment. Said ace was busy treating Akashi's head wound in the bathroom at the moment. A sigh left the tanned player as he recalled the events of earlier today, not even ten minutes ago.

After promptly picking up his former captain and barking orders at his 'partner-in-crime,' Aomine briskly walked down the street and waited for Kagami to catch up. Akashi (weakly) struggled in the other's hold.

"I command you to put me down, Aomine!" he snapped, legs flailing as he tried to kick the power forward.

"Not until we get to Bakagami's house," he grunted back. "If he would hurry up."

"Oi, oi, I heard that Ahomine!" Kagami growled, walking up to them whilst putting his phone away in his pocket.

"Did you text the others?"

"I texted Kuroko." as if that was all that needed to be said, which it was really. They both trusted that Kuroko could get the others under control (plus he was the only one who knew where Kagami's house was anyway).

Akashi still struggled futilely in an attempt to escape, "S-stop! Put me down; otou-san will be angry if I leave without his permission..."

"Who cares what that psychopath thinks?" Kagami snarled, making Akashi shrink back instinctively. "...sorry."

"Look, now you've scared him," Aomine hissed, beginning to walk again. "Come on. Let's clean him up; I don't know where you live ya know."

Kagami grumbled but begrudgingly led Aomine to his apartment.

A doorbell sounding snapped Aomine out of his flashback as he hurriedly went for the door. He yanked it open without even checking who it was and was relieved to find his former shadow, as well as Midorima, Kise, and Murasakibara there too.

"Glad you all could make it." he forced out slightly, putting on a fake smirk.

"Tell us what happened now, Aomine," Midorima said, not in the mood for any games.

The smirk dropped as Aomine sighed, letting the others in and closed the door behind them.

"Kuro-chin said he got a text from Kaga-chin about Aka-chin," Murasakibara said, surprisingly not munching on anything this time around. "What happened to him? Is he alright?"

Kise fidgeted and had a troubled look on his face, as he, too, was worried about his former captain. He knew something had been going on, especially now since the phone call with his father. Thanks to his keen observation skills (he would need them in order to perform Perfect Copy) he could tell whatever Aomine had to tell them, it wasn't going to be good.

Another long sigh left Aomine's throat, "Well, first things first. After Akashi had the phone call with his father me and Bakagami decided to follow him. When we got to where his father was he..."

"He what, Aomine-kun?" Kuroko inquired after being silent this whole time.

"He...was having a fight with his father. Then his father got mad and...slapped him, hard."

Multiple pairs of eyes widened and even Midorima and Kuroko couldn't hide the shock they felt.

"He...he hit Akashicchi?" Kise whispered in shock.

"He did something else, didn't he?" Midorima questioned after about a minute of silence. "You wouldn't call us here just for that."

Aomine bit his lip as he recalled the loud banging of Akashi's head meeting solid wood, "His psychopath father then started to shout about how Akashi wasn't following his orders and started to...bang his head against the wall. We could hear it throughout the whole house and he seemed pretty delirious..."

There was silence until Murasakibara stood up, walking towards the door.

Midorima grabbed his arm, "Where are you going?"

"To crush Aka-chin's father." he said darkly, advancing towards the door once more with Midorima struggling to hold the giant back.

"...don't, Murasakibara."

Everyone froze as they turned towards the new voice and saw Akashi standing there, his head bandaged up as he swayed slightly from dizziness.

Kise gasped, "Akashicchi!" and fortunately caught him before he could tip over. "What are you doing?! You're hurt!"

"He most likely has a concussion," Midorima said, having let go of Murasakibara who had obediently followed Akashi's command. "With how hard you said the banging was I wouldn't doubt it."

"Why are you all here...?" the redhead asked, eyes blinking in and out of focus.

"Because we were worried about you, Akashi-kun," Kuroko replied, laying down his former captain on the couch. "Kagami-kun suddenly texted me saying that we needed to discuss something about Akashi-kun."

"Ah, so he did..."

"Yo," a gruff voice said. "I hope I bandaged his head up pretty well..."

"No, you did fine," Midorima said, inspecting Akashi's head. "Though I am slightly angered that you would let him out of your sight with a concussion, not that I care nanodayo."

"Oi! Well, it's not my fault that he's as silent as a ghost! One minute he's on the counter and the next he's gone!"

The two continued to bicker about the subject as Kuroko sighed, turning back to his former captain who had been unusually silent, "Akashi-kun...?"

Kise turned towards his mentor to see what worried him and found his eyes set on Akashi, who had wide eyes and was staring into nothing.

"Akashicchi...?"

The two bickering heard the small conversation and turned towards the redhead, who had started breathing heavily.

Midorima's eyes widened, "He's having another panic attack!" and moved hurriedly towards the motionless redhead.

"Akashi, Akashi look at me," the shooting guard shook the other's shoulders in a desperate attempt to get the redhead back to reality.

Don't care

Don't care

"Akashi!"

Don't care

Never did

"Aka-chin!"

Why would they ever care?

"Akashicchi!"

Why...

His lips parted to let out a single question.

"Why?"

A little insight to Akashi's panic attacks :P

(also, updates will be speedy from now on cuz I got up to chapter 7 finished and am almost finished up to chapter 10. dunno how long this story is gonna be but it's definitely gonna be the longest story I've written thus far)