The whole affair was rather plain Jane all-in-all. Under the pretense of assisting Riko in gathering data Teppei attended every match at the winter cup, the results of which varied. When Aomine's team played the coach would find herself gifted an unusually detailed summary of the match and the flow of the game and when he did not the share of data was more or less even. Not that there was much marked detail from one game to the next save the initial, most obvious jump in ability from the previous tournament. He'd watched videos of that, unable to attend in person. It was during his time in the hospital that a budding interest had bloomed in the tanned ace. It wasn't love, he knew quite firmly that he was straight and that he may or may not have an interest in a certain fatality-chef brunette but it all took a backseat to his concerns about the wellbeing of their team.
The first time the word obsession bubbled into his head had been following the match in which Kagami and Aomine had so spectacularly clashed, not to leave Kuroko out of the equation of course. He'd noted when leaving to go to their changing rooms that a towel and bottle had been left on the bench. Volunteering to bring it over to them despite the fact he'd been quite visibly exhausted too he'd only returned the towel.
Was it weird? That is, refilling it so he could agonise for half an hour as to whether this would count as an indirect kiss?
Why would he want that to begin with? There was no sexual interest in his— Would role-model be a good word? The new aomine, the way he would change in lieu of his victory fascinated the good-natured brunette whose bitterness hid behind more than often genuine smiles. He took his small happinesses one at a time and it took more effort then he should have been able to muster to resist drinking from the bottle.
No, he'd simply keep it instead as a reminder of the match. One-sided fascination. It wasn't as if he thought this was a bad thing at all, considering he was causing harm to no-one.
