Aomine's shriek could have rivaled the pitch of a chinchilla's angry war cry.
He leapt out of the bed like it had burst into flame and stood there staring at Kagami. His entire face had a pink hue to it and his mouth kept opening and closing as if he was some sort of stranded fish.
Kagami tried not to laugh, tried being the key word. He ended up doubled over, his stomach hurting from the force of contracting muscles, while two sets of footsteps and concerned voices approached from the kitchen. Aomine, probably hearing them, bolted around Kagami and fled out the door, panic in his eyes. Another door slammed shut down the hall, probably the bathroom door.
Kagami was still laughing when Kuroko and Kise rushed in. He dismissed their questions while wiping the tears of mirth from his eyes.
That had gone even better than he had imagined.
Kagami ushered the other two back into the kitchen and began making dinner, still giggling now and then at the memory of Aomine's reaction.
He wished he had set up a camera to capture the moment.
Kuroko snatched the vanilla shake as soon as Kagami had put the finishing touches on it.
"Oi! Calm down!"
Kuroko didn't respond, his mouth was already full of the delicious blend. Kagami sighed and slid one in Kise's direction as well. Kise attacked his with slightly more restraint, actually waiting until the drink had arrived before pouncing.
As Kagami went back to shaping patties to add to the trays, he heard a door open. It was accompanied by light footsteps padding down the hall to where they sat.
Looks like someone decided to show his face again.
Aomine walked into the room, hands shoved deep into his pockets, and sat down beside the rest of them without a word. As Kise and Kuroko looked at him questioningly, Aomine threw a slightly relieved glance in Kagami's direction, probably thanking him for not spilling the details.
"You would not believe the size of the shit I just took."
Oh nice one.
Way to get the conversation going while preparing food.
Then again, he had been in that room for a while and only God knows what had been happening during all that time. Kagami made a silent resolution to clean the toilet until it sparkled after the others left, just to be safe.
Kagami glanced at the other two, whose expressions of curiosity had turned into annoyance and disgust. Well, it did throw them off the trail for now. Kagami expected that Kuroko would remember and try again after they had eaten.
That might be fun.
Kagami stopped himself quickly at that thought. What was he doing? This newfound urge to exploit Aomine's weak side was surprising to say the least. It's not like he was doing any of this out of spite, he was genuinely enjoying the myriad of reactions he could produce from the other. It was like he had eaten a single french fry, then another, then another and another. He started to want more. He wanted to see how far he could push and how many fries he could eat.
Kagami shoved all of those confusing thoughts in a mental box, sealed it, then focused on finishing dinner preparations as a huge rumble emanated from his body. His stomach was screaming to him that he needed to prioritize the food or risk death by starvation.
He chose to hurry up with the food.
As Kagami let out a burp after devouring his final burger, Kuroko's eyes focused on Aomine like he was prey.
"Aomine-kun, what were you doing earlier?"
Aomine jolted in his seat and evaded looking into Kuroko's eyes. He managed to keep his face slack and expression bored while answering, folding his arms back behind his head to complete the image.
"I was taking a crap. I already told you."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
"What was that yell about?"
Aomine looked slightly uncomfortable and discreetly started to fidget a bit with his hair. Kagami was entertained, but starting to worry at the same time. The fidgeting didn't get past him. He didn't like how stressed Aomine, the master of looking bored, was starting to look.
A small realization hit him.
Aomine never told Kuroko about confessing, so he's most likely still under the impression that the no one else knew. Kuroko had found out from Kagami, but never said anything about their conversation to Aomine.
This could get bad quickly.
The last thing anyone needed was an overly freaked out Aomine Daiki. Just the idea of that was scary.
"It was nothing."
"I've never heard you shriek like that before. How was that nothing? It sounded like some small animal was being torn to pieces."
Aomine looked like he was going to bolt so Kagami made a split second decision and decided to rescue him from Kuroko's interrogation.
"This idiot was searching my room for porn and when I came up behind him to tell him off, he got startled and his foot collided with one of the bedposts. That's why he was yelling like a girl."
Aomine seemed furious, then calmed down slightly as the realization dawned on him that Kagami had just saved his ass.
Kuroko nodded, seeming appeased, and Kise started laughing at the fake scenario.
As Aomine shouted profanities and chased Kise around, Kuroko looked straight at Kagami with questions still in his eyes.
Of course the lie didn't get past him.
Kagami shook his head and stared back, trying to tell Kuroko with his gaze that it was something related to the recent events and that he would handle it.
Kuroko seemed to get the message and engaged himself in the game of 'kill the blonde' taking place by tripping Kise.
That was a mistake.
Aomine had been following so closely behind Kise that he had to frantically jump to the side to avoid tripping over the sprawled out limbs. This landed him right in Kagami's lap, who was just about to get up.
Aomine realized what had just happened and whipped his head around to face Kagami, only to catch his breath.
Their faces were only a couple inches apart.
He could see every detail of Kagami's face. He noticed the slightly red eyelashes, the surprised look in his eyes, the way his bangs reached past his eyebrows, the way his lips slightly parted and their colour, how inviting they looked, how much he wanted to know how they would feel against his own, then froze.
He had been about to close that tiny amount of distance.
His face felt like it had gotten an instantaneous sunburn and his eyes widened as he jumped off Kagami as quickly as he could.
Damn it.
Damn it.
Damn it.
Damn that Bakagami.
As he tried to focus his mind back on catching Kise, who was surprisingly good at evading him, his mind reeled over a detail that he couldn't forget or neglect. It was a detail that gave him hope.
When he had accidentally started to lean closer, Kagami hadn't moved his face away.
"Ah, the fizzy stuff is in the clear jug on the right!"
Kagami called over his shoulder to Aomine while bringing a load of juices to the table. They were all thirsty after running around so Kagami had suggested mixing the juices he had with carbonated water to make them more appealing. Aomine looked into the fridge and saw two containers, both clear and both filled with clear liquid. He grabbed one, mind on other matters and not really paying attention to which one it was, then brought it back to the table.
Kagami set about doing the dishes while the other three happily consumed drink after drink. When he finished, he went over and found something he never expected to see.
Kuroko was flushed and looked dizzy, Kise was happily sipping his drink and Aomine was passed out cold on the table, a goofy smile plastered on his face.
What. The. Hell.
A horrible thought occurred to him so he grabbed the clear container of carbonated water and sniffed.
Vodka.
This had to be a joke.
Aomine had grabbed the wrong container.
Kagami remembered only now that the other container held the vodka. Alex had left it when she visited a month ago and he had forgotten all about getting rid of it, only remembering to avoid it.
He glared at Kise, the only one left that looked sober.
"You knew, didn't you?"
Kise flashed him one of his model smiles before responding.
"Of course Kagamicchi! I've had to learn to recognize and conquer this stuff because of work!"
"And you didn't think to tell me or either of them before they got drunk?"
"But it's more fun this way!"
Kagami sighed. This was going to be more annoyance than he had bargained for when he invited them all over.
"Alright, you take Kuroko home because I don't think he can get there himself and I'll deal with Aomine somehow."
"Roger!"
Kagami wondered whether Kise was actually drunk at that response and the fact that he hadn't been adding that annoying –ssu to whatever he said.
After trying to talk sense into Kuroko, who seemed convinced that there were floating Nigous everywhere and wanted to catch them, dealing with Kise in his model mode, calling a cab, piling a flamboyantly grinning Kise and hallucinating Kuroko in, Kagami went back inside his apartment to deal with a large, unconscious problem with the name Aomine Daiki.
Aomine was exactly where he had been left, slumped on the kitchen table and out cold.
Kagami had already tried everything he knew of to rouse the idiot to no avail. He slung Aomine's arms over his shoulders and stood up to drag him over to the couch. He was about half of the way there when Aomine stirred, muttering something and twitching his fingers.
Kagami paused and tugged on one of the arms he held.
"Oi, if you're awake then walk your own drunk ass over to the couch Ahomine. You're really damn heavy."
Aomine let out a low groan and pushed his face into Kagami's hair, right behind his ear left. His breathing evened out and quickly became deeper.
He had fallen asleep.
Kagami muttered curses as he dragged Aomine the rest of the way to the couch, shivering because of how Aomine's breathing was tickling his ear, turned around and dumped him unceremoniously onto it. He was about to stand up when the arms still over his shoulders tightened and yanked him backwards so that he fell on his butt right next to the couch.
"Shit!"
Kagami yelled as he collided with the ground. That was definitely going to leave a bruise. He twisted to stare angrily at Aomine and was startled.
Aomine had once again buried his face into Kagami's hair and, from what Kagami could see, had an expression of complete bliss on his face.
Kagami sighed when he noticed that he couldn't budge Aomine's arms from their death grip on him.
It was going to be a long night.
Aomine woke up to a pounding headache and reminded himself to kill Kise. That damn model had only explained what they were drinking right before he passed out. He noticed a pleasant aroma wafting around him and cracked open his eyes.
Red.
He opened them a little more and blinked.
Still red.
Opening his eyes fully, Aomine realized that his face was buried in hair, specifically the hair at the nape of Kagami's neck. Not to mention his arms were wrapped around the other's shoulders in an awkward sideways embrace.
He sat up quickly, releasing his hold, which caused Kagami to jolt awake.
He blinked slowly and turned to look directly at Aomine.
Was he going to say good morning?
Or just greet him?
Or maybe ask what he wanted for breakfast?
What happened was not something Aomine had predicted in his happy little fantasy.
Kagami's entire expression became dark and stormy. He stood up and glared down at Aomine.
Holy shit.
What had he done?
"I am never taking care of your drunk ass again Ahomine. Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to sleep sitting up on the floor with your arms wrapped around my neck in a death grip? No? Well then let me explain. It fucking hurts! I have aches and pains everywhere and they're definitely not from playing basketball yesterday. Why the hell did you grab the wrong container? It is so difficult? I had to deal with a really weird Kise and hallucinating Kuroko! Do you have any idea how heavy you are?"
As Kagami vented his anger, Aomine recalled everything from yesterday. Even something that he wished he had forgotten.
He face went red.
"Uh, I'm gonna go shower."
Aomine quickly jumped up and headed to the bathroom, dodging Kagami's frustration for the moment.
After he had situated himself under the hot spray, he sank to his knees and grabbed his head.
What had he been thinking?
Kagami had caught him in the act of being a complete pervert, not to mention how he had almost kissed him.
Thankfully it had seemed like Kagami didn't remember or didn't notice the latter.
He had been a complete wreck yesterday, trying to cancel the game, then going, and then finally screwing up completely at Kagami's house. Still, what really frustrated and confused him about the whole situation was Kagami himself.
Why was he acting the way he was?
Did Kagami notice how tense and nervous everything made him?
Why didn't he react when he caught Aomine on his bed?
Why did he save him from Kuroko's questions?
Was he thinking about the confession?
Why didn't Kagami move his face when he had started leaning in?
Thoughts and questions whirled around in Aomine's mind while sat there in the shower. The biggest one by far was a question that had been nagging at him for days.
What should he do now?
Sorry this was so long! This is half of the material I was originally going to put in the chapter but it was WAAAY too much, so I pushed some stuff into the next one!
I hope you are enjoying this story!
Thank you for all the kind words and good feedback I have been receiving! It always makes me grin like an idiot!
If you have any comments or questions or opinions or anything please go ahead and tell me!
Thank you for reading this!
- Kei