Adjusting back to reality is hard.
The most difficult part, Daiki found, was that his body was so weak. Two years lying unmoving in bed had left it unrecognisable; the sight of himself, barely skin and bones, barely alive, sickened him. He had very little energy, and couldn't eat very much. Being stuck in bed is frustrating, even if he's sleeping half the time. He doesn't get to move too much – the doctors have stressed that it is inadvisable to over-strain his recovering body. Once he gains a bit of weight, and he gains a little more muscle, they'll start him on some proper physical therapy.
Kagami and Tetsu drop by when they can, and it's strange, because they're so much the same as they always have been, and different at the same time. Their faces and bodies have grown to adult fullness and proportions, and they're both at university playing basketball there and it all makes Daiki hopelessly jealous.
Satsuki is there every afternoon, quietly working on whatever work she has to do, and talking to him. Some afternoons he convinces her to abandon her schoolwork and curl up with him in his bed, and they talk in hushed tones about the years they missed together, always playing catch up.
"I confessed to Tetsu-kun in third year," Satsuki whispered during one of these confessional times. "After the last Winter Cup, while we were organising the fundraiser game," she added. "Did we tell you about that yet?"
Daiki nodded. She had explained to him that mainly using Akashi's alarming number of connections, they had organised a fundraiser basketball game, where, somehow, some professional basketball players had played, and the profits from ticket sales all went towards the continuing care of SAO victims. She'd also mentioned that a short Miracles vs Professionals game had been played, which had made Daiki wildly envious of Kagami and his former teammates.
"How did that go down?" Daiki asked.
Satsuki laughed. "Well, he was all Tetsu-kun about it," she said. "Polite and apologetic about not returning my feelings. I was really upset for a while, and it was really hard because it felt like I had no one to talk to, because you were... there and Ki-chan was there, and Tetsu-kun had rejected me and Midorin and Kagamin and Muk-kun are really hopeless... but then I remembered that Sei-chan had offered to listen whenever, so, I called him."
"So that's how you two got so close," Daiki muttered. He still wasn't sure how he felt about the connection between the two of them. They'd gotten along well enough in junior high, but they had always just been the captain and the manager, more than friends. They'd worked well together, but had no deeper affiliations. Daiki had been sure that he was hallucinating when Satsuki had told him they were now dating.
"But you know, I wish Tetsu-kun and Kagamin would get their act together. With Sei-chan and I are together, I really want to see Tetsu-kun be happy, you know?"
Daiki laughed quietly. "Tetsu won't sit around and wait for what he wants forever, Satsuki," he replied. "He goes after the things he wants. They'll get there when it's right. He always does his best to win the game."
She smiled in response. "I suppose so."
Kise is an elephant in the room a lot. It's not that they don't talk about him – Daiki feels like he's almost all he talks about sometimes. He knows Satsuki has figured out there are things that he's not telling her, that sometimes he gives away hints when he talks about things they got up to on different floors and she's starting to piece together that there's a whole bunch of floors of nothing, and he hasn't told her about the way they fell asleep together after Godfree was murdered and Kise was given some of the forward command responsibilities, they haven't spoken about the way that Daiki has expressed that the first thing he wants to do when he's allowed to leave the hospital is to visit Kise, and they haven't talked about how Daiki won't cut his hair and how he keeps stealing Satsuki's hair ties to keep it off his face because it annoys him.
They haven't talked about how missing Kise is a constant pressure on his chest begging to be released, and knowing it can't be even if he sees him.
It's just so hard, even just thinking about talking about Kise, remembering that Kise isn't awake, remembering the promises that they made and how capriciously they have been stolen from him. It's an ache for someone who understands, who will sit there and look at how much the world has moved and their friends have changed while they, too, changed, but also felt that they stayed so much the same as they were.
It would also be nice to have someone to spend time with when he's stuck in the empty hospital room between appointments and visits and sleeping. He's pretty sure if Kise had been awake that he'd have requested that they be together.
All in all, being landed back in reality has just as many difficulties to overcome as being in the game did. Daiki's still not sure what the plans are for him and all the kids who were trapped in the game, for finishing their education, and he doesn't know if he'll be able to play professional basketball like he'd dreamed, if his body will ever get to the point where it can perform the way it did before. He doesn't know what he wants to do if he can't play basketball, either. The days feel endless and almost monotonous.
It's a relief when he's finally given the okay for physical therapy. He's blunt with the therapist when she asks about whether he has any goals in mind.
"I was the ace of a nationally ranked basketball club," he informed her. "I'm going to play again."
She seemed incredulous, but Satsuki had brought his old laptop in last time she came and there are a few recordings on there of a few of his games, and he showed her the game with Kise from first year, which is simultaneously his favourite and least favourite game.
"Well, I can get you started," she admitted, "but I'm not going to be able to get you all the way."
"That's fine," he told her in response. "I don't need you for that anyway. Just get me to the point where I can train."
He knows Satsuki has been shopping around, knows that this therapist will get him to 'normal' as quickly and healthily as possible, and he knows that she's going to find him the best trainer he can.
He's still surprised when Aida Riko shows up at his hospital room the day he's discharged from the hospital.
"You're not ready for training yet," she said bluntly. "But I'll get you where you want when you are. You're going to know why Seirin won the Winter Cup."
Daiki can't help but feel that that was a threat.
"Will you come with me to visit Kise today?" Daiki asked Satsuki the first morning he was home. He'd called her from their household phone when he'd woken that morning –he was a disgustingly early riser lately, and he was pretty sure it was mostly because he spent so much time sleeping.
"Okay, Dai-chan," she answered. Her voice was light, although she had to know that this was quite serious. Honestly, Daiki wasn't even sure if he wanted her to be there for the first time he laid eyes on Kise's body again, but he wasn't allowed to wander around on his own yet, and he wanted her to be there in case he needed help getting home. It was far less humiliating getting help from Satsuki, who had seen him through pretty much all his worst moments, than it was getting help from anyone else.
"When do you finish class?" he asked her.
"I finish around three today," she told him. "I'll get home around three thirty and then we can go visit Ki-chan."
"Okay. Thanks."
He ended the call abruptly, and then went and collapsed into the couch. Honestly, with everyone else off at university, he didn't really have anything to do these days, and he knew he really wasn't ready to go and play basketball. His days seemed empty, somehow, since they weren't filled every waking moment with Kise's presence and battle.
"Fuck this," he grumbled. "I'm bored."
He didn't have his own phone; his parents had cancelled it, and had yet to organise a new one. So he couldn't annoy anyone by texting them.
He ended up lying on the couch watching TV most of the day, absently flicking through channels. At one point, he'd watched a basketball game on the sports channel, which was cool, but then it ended and it was just terrible daytime TV again.
It was a relief when Satsuki finally arrived.
"I'm so bored," Daiki complained at her. "Save me."
She laughed. "What did you do when you were in the hospital, Dai-chan?" she asked, smiling as they set off towards the train station.
"Slept," he admitted. "When I wasn't in a physical therapy session. But it's weird, you know. My room is all clean and stuff, it's like it's not even mine. I think my parents cleaned the walls, Satsuki; there aren't any scuff marks from my basketballs. Which are all flat, by the way. I mean, I could pump them up, but what's the point? My body probably can't handle playing basketball again yet, not if I don't want to fuck it all up."
Satsuki patted his arm. "I'm sure you'll be ready to start training with Aida-san soon," she said cheerfully. "Just don't hurt yourself before you're ready, and you'll be playing again in no time. Kagamin's excited, you know."
Daiki grumbled. "The only way he'd ever beat me one on one is when I'm handicapped anyway, so he can enjoy it while it lasts."
Satsuki didn't laugh, but her smile did take on a decidedly knowing slant. "Sure, Dai-chan," she said.
Shit, he didn't want her to know how excited that made him feel. He shrugged, trying to make it look careless.
The train trip was quiet, and Satsuki leaned against his shoulder, and it made Daiki feel more at ease. On a day like today, confronted with the undeniable truths of how much his life had changed and how much he had to adjust to now, just as he had had to adjust to life back then, he felt strangely unsettled. It didn't help that Kise, who had been a touchstone whether he was in proximity to Daiki or not, was all of a sudden not there anymore.
The hospital staff were all acquainted with Satsuki; Daiki discovered that there was an old list of people who were allowed to be admitted into Kise's room, and the people on it have been okayed for a key card to his room.
"We had a lot of difficulties with fangirls who tried to gain access to Ki-chan's room," Satsuki told him. Daiki wanted to smile at her over it, but his stomach was twisted in knots now that he was finally here at the hospital where Kise is lying.
The trip in the elevator is silent, and Daiki followed Satsuki's lead as she stepped familiarly out of the elevator and turns to the right. It was a little bit of a walk to Kise's room, but finally they arrived and Satsuki took her key card out of her wallet and let them in.
There are fresh flowers on the bedside table – sunflowers – and a little charm next to it. Daiki focused on them, because all of a sudden he felt as if he couldn't breathe.
"Oh, Midorin's been by," Satsuki commented. "That must be Gemini's lucky item for today."
Daiki felt thrown off by how normal this was for Satsuki. But of course it was; this is what she'd been doing every afternoon for two years, after school and after her university classes, coming to sit in a quiet hospital with an unresponsive boy. He swallowed hard, and finally looked at Kise.
There wasn't all that much to see, to be fair. Most of him was underneath the hospital blanket, and his head was mostly covered by the NerveGear helmet. What could be seen of Kise's face was thin, and Daiki half-stumbled towards his bedside.
"Did we walk too much, Dai-chan?" Satsuki asked, looking concerned. "Here, there's a chair, sit down."
He didn't correct her – couldn't correct her, as she fussed and pushed him gently down into the visitor's chair. He leaned his head on the bed, closed his eyes, attempted to block out the sound of the heart monitor's steady beep, and listened to Kise's breath, steady as it had ever been any time they'd shared a room, whether at training camp, or at an Inn or in their home in Algade.
Satsuki pulled Kise's bony hand out from under the blankets and held it gently. The sight of it horrified Daiki, just as his own hand had horrified him when he'd woken. Kise wasn't meant to look like this.
This... was horrible. This was unbearable. How had Satsuki done this, day in and day out for the better part of two years?
"Do you want something to drink, Dai-chan?" Satsuki asked, putting Kise's hand gently down on top of the blanket. "I'll go get something."
She hadn't waited for his answer, but that was okay. They both knew that it was simply her excuse to leave, and give him a little bit of time alone with Kise without asking for it. If it wasn't Satsuki, Daiki would probably have asked how she knew, how she always knew, but it was Satsuki, even after all this time; so of course she knew.
Daiki reached out slowly, and curled his fingers under Kise's bony hand. Just like his had been, it was nothing but skin stretched taut over bones. His arm and wrist were skinny too, and his skin wasn't very warm.
He swallowed hard, and lifted Kise's hand gently, his arm deadweight in his hands, and pressed Kise's curled knuckles against his cheek. Why wasn't he awake yet?
Why did it have to be Kise?
He put his hand down, and then pulled the blankets back over his arm before slumping over on the bed, crossing his arms and resting his head on top of them. From this angle, he could sort of see Kise's face; thin, sunken cheeks, and his hair looked like it was probably long under the NerveGear helmet too.
"Come back, Kise," Daiki mumbled. "You have something important to tell me, don't you? You have a promise to keep to me, too. Why are you still sleeping here, idiot?"
Satsuki came back with water for both of them.
"You know," she started, and paused for a moment. "You know that I'm here to listen if you want to talk, right, Dai-chan?"
He nodded, but didn't say anything.
Daiki got his own key card for Kise's room a few days later, and visited Kise on most mornings. The trips are usually uneventful, and he never stayed very long – Satsuki had picked up her habit of studying in the quiet hospital room, so he was never there after three. But visiting Kise felt like something he needed to do, like seeing Kise re-grounded him.
When Aida finally looked him over and told him that he was ready to start training one afternoon when he passed by her father's gym after visiting Kise, its mid-December, and he's been out of SAO for a bit over a month.
He's begun to get used to the looks Aida gives him when he visits every week, which are appraising rather than ogling, though they're still uncomfortable. He knows that she knows what he looked like before he was trapped, and somehow he feels the comparison all the way down to his bones.
He wishes Kise was here with him.
True to her word, they start training the next day, and Aida is brutal, and enormously strict about the amount of time he can spend training. She informs him that if she gets even the faintest idea he's been working on his own, she'll cut their sessions short.
"You're still recovering," she snapped at him one afternoon, when he complained about how her strict regimen didn't allow for him to play any basketball. "I've devised an optimal training schedule that will have you recover properly and as quickly as possible while working towards the end goal. If you're going to throw out my hard work, then I'm going to throw you out."
Less than half the time they work on a basketball court, which is his main gripe. His ball-handling skills are rusty, he's horrified to discover, but she just shrugs and says it'll come back faster than he thinks. She's more worried about getting his body up to speed.
One afternoon, after a particularly nasty session that had him running some truly horrifying suicide laps and agility courses, he accidentally slipped up.
"I wish Kise was here suffering with me," he muttered, and immediately regretted it when he quite literally watched her face soften in sympathy.
"You know," she said, "if you want to talk about anything, that there's a lot of people who really care about you. But if you think it'd be easier to talk to a stranger, you can talk to me too."
Daiki could argue that Aida is not a stranger – she's not – but he knows what she's getting at. She's not really connected in the same sense that everyone else is.
"Thanks," he answered, but didn't elaborate. He didn't mean to let Kise slip from where he's nestled himself in Daiki's brain, sleeping as quietly there as he does in his hospital room.
He knew it was kind of illogical, but he was still annoyed when, after showering and changing, he leaves the gym and found Satsuki waiting, a worried look on her face.
"Hey," he greeted her. He started walking, knowing that she would catch up.
"How was your session today, Dai-chan?"
"Fine. She makes me work," he admitted.
Satsuki smiled, but Daiki knew that Aida had spoken to her before he'd gotten out of the change room. She'd probably messaged her after his slip, even.
He wasn't sure how to talk about Kise, not in the way that they wanted him to. (He wasn't sure if he was ready, if he would ever be ready. How long were the last three hundred players going to sleep for? How long could Kise's body hold out on that hospital bed? Satsuki probably knew the answer to that. She'd probably had a countdown going in the back of her head since the two of them were trapped; only now the countdown has stopped for Daiki, but it's still ticking interminably towards the point at which Kise's body will give out, the point at which Kise's body would fail him for the final time)
I miss Kise, he wants to say, but he's choking on the words somewhere between his throat and his mouth, and his lips can't even form the words, and they're the mildest way he can think of expressing the feeling he has when he lies in bed before falling asleep noticeably alone and to the sound of silence, wondering how it's harder to do this time than last time, and the way he feels so strangely and uncomfortably lonely again when Satsuki's not around, the way he did when he and Kise parted in the death game.
"Dai-chan?"
Daiki was ripped from his thoughts, and he looked around, and realised that it must have been at least ten minutes since he'd said anything, and Satsuki must have asked him something.
"Sorry, what?"
She smiled gently. "Ki-chan will wake up," she said. "I'm sure of it."
Daiki wasn't sure how she could be so sure – it was a miracle that he was out already, and he knew it even if she didn't – because he couldn't bring himself to believe it.
"Hey, Kise, it's kinda sad, me spending Christmas like this with you, right?"
Kise's room had been busy today. Usually, Daiki wouldn't have bothered to stay, especially with it being his first holiday event back in reality, but Satsuki had plans with Akashi, and he wasn't about to fuck with that because Akashi still scared the hell out of him on a few levels, and the little shit had kind of covered his hospitalisation expenses. In addition to that, Daiki had also figured his parents deserved a break from his almost constant presence in the house.
Kise's very pretty sisters and parents had been by, as well as Satsuki and Akashi, and Kagami, Tetsu and Midorima had all come past, though none had stayed too long. The lucky item for Geminis sat on Kise's bedside table. It was a toy frog, and Daiki had the feeling this was Midorima's own one, rather than one bought for Kise.
"But you know, it made me kind of sad, thinking about you being all alone for Christmas," he muttered.
Daiki didn't really like spending too much time in Kise's room. It just made him feel grumpy and lethargic, a lot like that first year of high school. Most of the time when he visited, he stayed no longer than an hour, even though he came most days before or after training with Aida. But today his feet didn't want to take the steps to move away from Kise's sleeping body and the comfortingly constant sound of the heart monitor beeping out Kise's heartbeat and, when he concentrated, the sound of Kise's breathing.
He didn't know when visiting hours would end, but he didn't really care, either. There's not really anyone else that will come to visit Kise now.
"I wonder what it was like, here in this room last Christmas," Daiki said aloud. What he had begun to call his chair was pulled up close to Kise's bed, and his arms were crossed on the bed next to Kise. "If it was just like this, except without me in it. That's pretty sad, Kise. I mean, your room is pretty sad most days anyway, except when Satsuki comes and studies in here I guess. You're so lively, I feel like your room should have more life in it."
Shit, where is this all coming from?
"If this was some kind of story, you'd wake up tonight," he added. "But you're an annoying shit, so you won't, and you won't appreciate the fact I've spent the entire goddamn day in this room with you."
Ah, the lethargy is back again. Daiki wished there was a couch in here he could sleep on. This chair's too small, and he was pretty sure he'd fall off if he attempted to sleep on it.
"I should probably play some basketball for you," Daiki said. "I bet you'd ask me for one on one for Christmas, just like for your birthday. If you'd woken up when you were supposed to, we'd be playing together by now. Aida would be mad at us all the time for doing shit when we're not supervised, but we'd keep doing it anyway, because when have we ever been smart enough to stop when we've been told? If you were smart enough for that, you'd have never fucked up your leg so bad. And you know, I really missed basketball, I just want to play all the time, and I can't, it's so annoying."
Daiki dropped his head onto the bed. "It's so strange, you not being around," he mumbled into the sheets. "You need to wake up soon so I can remember how annoying you are and not miss you anymore."
He closed his eyes. Really, this was probably terrible for his back, but there's no room to sleep on the bed with Kise (and wouldn't that be comforting, feeling as if Kise was somehow protected from whatever it was that kept him in its grip, the way Daiki had felt that he sheltered him from his fear that one night in Algade after the murder of Godfree), and he's not too keen on the idea of sleeping on the floor, even though he's slept in far more uncomfortable places.
He doesn't realise what's happened until he's shaken awake later that evening, and he opened his eyes to Satsuki's sad smile and Akashi's hand on his shoulder.
"Visiting hours have been over for hours, Dai-chan," Satsuki said, voice soft.
"I fell asleep," he answered. "Kise's room makes me lethargic."
Satsuki's gaze flicked up to Akashi, then back down to his face. Daiki sighed, sat up, and stretched.
"You didn't have to come get me," he adds, looking at them. Satsuki's all prettied up, and he suspects that his parents contacted her when he didn't come home, so they dropped their date to find him.
She stroked his hair gently – it's tied back with one of her hair ties he's permanently taken possession of. "You think I don't get it," she said, slowly, "but I do. Of course I had to come get you."
Akashi shifted, almost as if he feels uncomfortable witnessing the intimacy of their friendship, and he let go of Daiki's shoulder.
Daiki wants to drop his head back on Kise's bed, with the way everything feels so overwhelming all at once.
"It's okay if you don't want to say it," Satsuki whispered. "But I know. How can I not know, when I've seen your expression on my own face so many times over the last years, and when I've known you so well for so long? You've never said it in so many words, but I know how deeply you feel the absence of Ki-chan."
Do you know why, Daiki wants to ask her, but she'll know the answer to that too, and Daiki doesn't know if he's ready to face the answer to that question, the answer that sits on his chest forebodingly, that he refuses to think about except to sometimes wonder when, exactly, it happened. (Was it all the way back on that day in middle school? Or was it that moment when he watched, shocked, as Kise dropped into Daiki's own basketball stance? When? It didn't start the day that he saved Kise's life, it didn't start the day he pulled Kise against him to try and fight back the haunted look on Kise's face. They were just moments when it was made obvious that he felt something special for and about Kise.)
"Come, Daiki," Akashi ordered, when he doesn't respond. "It's late, and Satsuki should be getting home."
Daiki nodded numbly, and brushed his fingers over the lump he knows is Kise's hand under the blankets as he stood and followed them out the door.
"I hear they're talking about a school for the SAO survivors. Are you thinking about going?" Satsuki asked one afternoon in early January.
"I've been contacted about it," Daiki admitted. "They're supposed to be doing some kind of thing for high school students, to get them ready for university if they want to go. But everything feels so up in the air at the moment, because I keep wondering about basketball, and if I'll be able to go pro. And I want to finish high school, and there's like, a full year left of study to do for that, but this school won't have a basketball team because it's a temporary school, and I'm too old to play in high school leagues anyway. I was on a basketball scholarship at Touou, right? They'd probably let me finish school but it's not something my parents have really brought up."
Their conversation lulls into silence as Satsuki considers what he's said. "You should go to the SAO school," Satsuki said, finally. "It'll be good for you to be surrounded by people who understand the experience that you all went through, and you'll have a full year for your body to respond to your training. It's a shame you won't be able to play tournaments, because that would be the easiest way to get scouted, but with your reputation we could probably sort something out. It would be easiest if we got you into university, so you could play for a university team and get scouted from there, but I know you weren't too keen on further study."
"I might not have a choice," Daiki pointed out. "If I can't go pro, then I'll probably need to get a degree."
Satsuki hummed. "That's true."
Daiki sighed. "I can't believe they're talking about what to do with us when Kise and the others are still asleep," he mumbled.
"Well, most of you have been out for two months now," Satsuki answered, although she sounded apologetic. "Something needs to be sorted out for those of you who were still in school, especially the youngest ones."
Daiki grumbled, but had to concede the point. It wasn't that he was opposed to the school, or that he didn't understand the necessity for it, it was just, Kise wasn't awake yet. The idea of continuing on with life without Kise beside him was...
Ah, fuck.
"I think I'm in love with Kise," came tumbling out of his mouth before he could think about it too much, or stop it from happening.
"I know," Satsuki replied. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No." He doesn't. Now that he's said it, it doesn't feel quite as heavy, and all the things he hasn't shared with her even though he thought he wanted to, he doesn't want to share anymore because he wants to guard them jealously. They're his and Kise's, and no one else's.
"Okay." Satsuki lets it go, still smiling, like she's proud of him for admitting it, and he wants to be mad at her, because it wasn't as if he hadn't figured it out, but he can't.
"It sucks," he does tell her, and she laughs.
It's nine thirty-ish at night on January the twenty second when he gets what is known as 'the call'.
He'd dozed off on the couch, because Aida had upped his training regimen and his body was sore, but thrumming in the good way it did after a hard workout, and his parents had let him be. He was woken by the insistent, annoying buzz of his new phone.
"What?" he asked, answering with a yawn.
"Dai-chan," Satsuki says, "they didn't know how to get in contact, but they said he asked to see you-"
Daiki sat bolt upright, the soreness and fatigue chased away by the realisation of what, exactly, this phone call was.
He was running almost before he realised, his feet carrying him along the well-known path towards the hospital, and he was going to regret this tomorrow, Aida was going to kill him, but it didn't matter because Kise was awake, Kise had asked for him and probably one of his parents would have driven him, but whatever, it would be worth all of the little demon woman's anger and painful therapy when she discovered he'd run on top of the new training when he got there.
(How could he not, how was he supposed to wait for a train or expect his parents to understand, when Kise was finally, finally awake again?)
His entire body burned with the effort, but he couldn't bring himself to slow down, and god, he couldn't remember the last time he pushed his limits this far and this hard.
He was like ninety nine percent sure that visiting hours were beyond over, but even as he reached the hospital, there didn't seem to be anyone willing to stop him. One of the nurses – he didn't know her, though he imagined Satsuki might – smiled at him as he walked determinedly past her towards the elevator, and he tried to pretend that he wasn't pathetically gasping for breath.
The time seemed to stretch into infinity as the elevator crawled up the floors towards the room Kise had been sleeping in, and all of a sudden Daiki felt nervous.
It wasn't as if he knew for sure what it was that Kise had wanted to say to him that day. He'd only ever assumed, from the way that Kise had held himself and the context of the potentially life-ending battle in front of them. He didn't even know if Kise might like men; it wasn't as if he'd ever given the idea very much thought.
But he'd always kind of just rolled with his instincts anyway, so thinking about it was almost pointless. And it was Kise, and it just kind of made sense in hindsight; from that moment he'd seen Kise watching him and fallen just a little bit in love with him the way that most people did when Kise turned on the charm, so much so that they had had a name for that moment (and then, the way Kise had never needed, never really tried, to charm him but had managed to do so anyway).
As the elevator arrived on Kise's floor, Daiki ran a hand over his face and sighed, before he walked the familiar path to Kise's door. His hair was starting to slip from the hair tie and into his face, which was annoying, but he didn't bother to re-tie it. It was useless to worry.
Kise's sisters were smiling outside his room. They waved at him as he walked up, and Daiki had a rare self-conscious moment, realising that he was covered in sweat and probably smelled, and his hair was still kind of long because he hadn't gotten it cut yet and Kise's sisters were really pretty.
"Hi," he said lamely.
"Aomine-kun, hi," one of them answered. "Our parents are inside with him at the moment, but we're going home soon. You can go in, if you want."
"Ah, I'll wait," Daiki mumbled, reaching to rub the back of his neck. "Satsuki said..."
"Oh, Momoi-chan? She's always been so wonderful, through this whole ordeal," the other sister answered. "She spent most of her time in your room, of course, but she always brought a lovely bouquet of flowers to bring some life to Ryouta's room when she did come to visit him."
Daiki smiled awkwardly, and leaned against the wall next to the door. "That sounds like something she would do."
A few uncomfortable minutes passed, and Daiki buried his hands in his pockets and kicked at the linoleum floor. Kise's sisters were quiet too, though their happiness and relief was easy to see when Daiki took the moments to look at them. It was strange, how similar they were to Kise, and yet how different, too.
Finally, Kise's parents came out of Kise's room, Kise's doctor with them.
"Ah, thank you for coming, Aomine-kun," Kise's mother said. She had the same relieved, happy smile Kise's sisters were wearing. "Ryouta wouldn't settle down until we reassured him that you were coming."
Daiki felt himself flush. "It's not a problem," he replied.
"Don't keep him awake too long," the doctor told him. "You were one of the victims too, from what I've gathered? We're still not sure why the three hundred remained trapped until today, but I'm sure you remember the aftermath of your waking up."
Daiki nodded. "I remember."
"Then, we'll be off, Aomine-kun. Be safe on your way home, okay?" Kise's mother said. Daiki nodded again, and took a deep breath before he pushed away from the wall and stared at Kise's door for a moment before letting himself inside.
Kise was sitting up, although he was nestled back into some pillows, and he'd been looking out the window. Daiki felt like his stomach had decided to start living in his throat, because Kise is so thin, and he could pass as one of his sisters, with all that long blonde hair down his back, and he doesn't look like the Kise that lives in Daiki's memories, doesn't look like the Kise that he lived with in Algade, but it's undeniably him sitting there all the same.
Kise saw his reflection in the window, turned to look at Daiki, and smiled. "Aominecchi. I didn't hear you come in."
His voice was scratchy and rough, and Daiki tried to swallow his stomach back to where it belonged as he stepped towards him.
"Can't hear properly?" he asked.
"Mmm, it's still a little fuzzy," Kise admitted, and Daiki pulled his chair up to Kise's bed, and collapsed into it. "Your hair's long."
"So's yours," Daiki answered. "You look like a girl."
Kise laughed. "At least I have an excuse," he pointed out. "They tell me you were up and about two months ago."
Ahh, Daiki really didn't want to talk about this. It was uncomfortably close to a discussion about feelings.
"You kept me waiting," he said instead.
"Sorry, Aominecchi." They both knew it wasn't Kise's fault, but the fact that he said it anyway... well, Kise had always been the more understanding of the two of them.
Daiki reached out to mess with Kise's hair, but found his hand caught by Kise's bony fingers. He didn't dare pull away, afraid of accidentally hurting him.
"Aominecchi."
It was that tone, just like in those heavy hours before the battle on the 75th floor. Daiki's wrist was caught, just like all those times Kise had pulled him along, even though his hand now was cold and thin.
"Kise, you..." should be keeping warm, he wanted to finish, but Kise didn't let him.
"Aominecchi, you're so important to me." Kise didn't look at his face as he spoke, instead dropping his hand and Daiki's wrist to his lap, then enveloping Daiki's hand with both of his. "Ever since that day when that basketball hit my head, you have been an incredibly important person to and for me, and I..."
Daiki's heart was thudding fast and hard, almost painful, in his chest. Kise refused to look him in the face, instead running his creepy, bony fingers along the back and palm of Daiki's hand. Kise took a deep breath, but he couldn't... seem to get the words out, and his face crumbled a little.
"You're supposed to rest," Daiki forced out. "I can't be bothered going home. So make a little room, will you?"
Kise's cheeks flushed pink. "I... might need some help." He looked like it cost him something to admit that.
"Oops." Daiki scratched his cheek. "I forgot. It's hard to move around much, right? Body's all sluggish and heavy, right? That's okay, hang on."
He gently extricated his hand from Kise's and stood. "I should stretch," he muttered. "Aida's gonna murder me tomorrow." Instead of stretching, he flattened out the bed and started shifting the pillows that Kise was resting on.
"Aominecchi?"
"Be quiet, idiot."
Finally, he kicked his shoes off and slid under the blankets, trying to be aware of the tubes and wires Kise was connected to. He got his arm beneath Kise's neck and manoeuvred him onto his side, so Kise was curled against him.
"You're not allowed to scare me like this again," he grumbled. "Do you know how scary it was when Satsuki told me you didn't wake up with the rest of us? Fuck, but you're annoying. You've hit your lifetime limit on near death experiences, do you hear me? I don't think my heart can take another one."
Kise shifted, letting his hand rest on Daiki's chest. "Okay, Aominecchi," he agreed. Daiki tried to pretend he hadn't noticed Kise smiling. Well, that was okay. Maybe neither one of them could say it yet, but when they were like this, it didn't really matter anyway.
"Aominecchi."
Daiki turned his head to look at Kise. "What?"
Kise curled his hand to grip Daiki's shirt, and pushed himself up to kiss him.
"I hope you're not too stupid to figure out what that means," Kise said.
Daiki would have shoved Kise away in embarrassment if he wasn't sure he'd accidentally hurt him in the process. Instead, he felt his cheeks burn, and he looked away even as he pulled Kise a little closer.
"Idiot."
"Mmm, but Aominecchi likes me that way," Kise said as he closed his eyes. "Because he's an idiot too."
Daiki snorted, but a warm feeling soaked through him, originating from where Kise's bony fingers were clutching his shirt right over his heart, and it made his mouth tilt to a smile.
I'd just like to take a moment to thank everyone who's taken the time to read this gratuitously self-indulgent AU fic, and especially thank those of you who have commented and reviewed.
And also mention that at some point in time I'm going to post a collection of side-pieces/my headcanons for this AU.
Thank you for sticking to the end of this monstrosity! I'm really very proud of this, so it means a lot to me that you did. :)