(A/N: Kise does not appear much in this chapter but I hope I was able to move the plot at least a little... I also really wanted to portray the proximity between Momoi and Aomine because it is something I truly love. I like how comfortably close they are with each other, like flesh and blood siblings, perhaps even more. It is very endearing and important to me. Please do comment on the chapter, it is always great hearing from you.)
"Why are you slouching like an old man?"
"I am not slouching..."
"You are slouching. You know it really is bad for your posture. I've been telling this to you for years but you never listen to me..."
"Will you please, please shut up Satsuki?"
A perfect jump shot it was with only one single yet very important imperfection: the ball actually missed the hoop.
"Huh?!"
"Wow Aomine-kun, that was a perfect miss."
"Shut up Tetsu."
"He is saying the truth..." Kagami noted, an abashed amusement in his voice right as he himself made a jump shot, his form less perfect but the ball actually made it to the hoop this time.
Aomine looked unfazed,
"It was just a fluke... You know I can pretty much score in any posture or form anyway."
And he shot, this time without a proper posture... And unlike the normal case where the ball would somehow defy the laws of physics and almost consciously throw itself through the hoop, this time it actually decided to obey the laws of physics and bounced on a completely odd direction.
Aomine looked at the ball, puzzled.
Whereas Kagami looked surprised, Kuroko looked piqued, and Satsuki looked disappointed.
It was just... not something any of them had expected.
"Okay... Perhaps my horoscope has the worst luck or something, if Midorima was here he would find an explanation surely. But this is stupid, it is not like I forgot how to score..."
And he grabbed the ball from the floor and threw it again, not in a perfect form, not in an absence of form, somewhere in the middle – perhaps that was the key? Well, perhaps not because the ball missed again and Aomine himself did not only lose his composure quite a bit but also his footing right at the moment of the shot.
Kagami looked worried now, Kuroko looked suspicious, and Satsuki looked furious.
"What is wrong with you?!"
"I – I don't know!"
"Dude, seriously, maybe we have to take you to a doctor... Is Midorima working at the clinic today?"
Kuroko carefully approached his confused friend and meticulously observed him, his gaze travelling and taking in every minuscule detail of the tall man. He leaned in a little, then furrowed his eyebrows, sniffed a few times and a disappointed little frown appeared on his face.
"What?"
"You know 'what' very well Aomine-kun..."
"No I don't..."
"You are hung over."
"He is what?!"
The scream belonged to Satsuki who hopped from her place on the benches and stomped near them,
"Dai-chan!"
"I am not really hung over. Sure I have a headache and I did drink a bit last night with friends... But it is nothing really. I don't even smell."
"It is because you took a shower."
"Huh? How do you...?"
"Because you smell like shampoo, idiot. What were you doing drinking alone?" Satsuki scolded the tall man, pinching his arm rather forcefully.
"Aw! Satsuki damn it, don't pinch me! Stop acting like a child. So what if I went to drink? And I was not alone."
"You went drinking and got drunk the night before we had a match. That's not cool man."
"Oh I am sorry if I hurt your feelings Kagami..." Aomine increased the pitch of his voice in mock politesse and repentance, which only flared Kagami,
"I will punch you! I will so-"
Kuroko held his hand to Kagami's chest and it was enough to stop the man from further threateningly leaning towards Aomine.
"Kagami-kun please stay calm. Aomine-kun, we all know you are not well mannered but even you normally would not do this. Plus, if you were not alone, who did you go drinking with?"
"Hey, drinking on a Friday night is perfectly normal okay? What is weird is that we are having these matches too early on Saturdays. I mean can't we do it in the afternoon or something?"
"You did not answer his question." Satsuki said, her tone clearly threatening. Aomine sighed,
"I already told you guys, with 'friends'."
"With which friends exactly? If you had gone with any of us, the photographs of your drunken follies would have already made it to us on Twitter or Facebook..."
"Well, except if he went out with Midorima. I don't think Midorima would post stuff like that."
Kagami chimed in and Kuroko sighed,
"Midorima-kun would not go out drinking with him in the first place."
"So if it was not with any of us, with whom? You have no other friends."
"Huh?! I can't believe you are saying that. That is hurts man. Insulting too. I have friends... Tons of friends."
"Like whom?"
"I have friends from... Touou?"
"Like that Sakurai guy who goes terrified the moment he sees you and starts saying he is sorry for existing?"
"Uh, he does that with everyone..."
"Well true but..." As Kagami was lost in the thought Kuroko followed up,
"So whom from Touou? Imayoshi-san?"
"Oh hell no, who would be friends with that guy! Even the idea is horrifying."
"So you don't have any friends from Touou with whom you would go out drinking. Admit it. You don't have many friends and we know it."
"I do have friends!"
"Like whom?"
"I have friends from the Academy! And from the Station!"
"Dude, like half the guys in the Academy did not even know you because you skipped way too many classes and the other half hated you for being so lazy yet still graduating with honours. And the Station? Half our colleagues are pretty much scared shitless of you and the other half just avoid you because you are a lazy-ass jerk who always pushes his paperwork to others."
"That is actually sad. So there are no colleagues who would actually go out drinking with him?"
"Well, if he paid..."
"Hell no, why would I pay for those idiots?"
"See. I rest my case."
"So who were you with?" Satsuki intervened to repeat again,
"God! Does it matter? I am an adult, I went out and had fun on a Friday night. I am not going to explain myself to you people."
"What a drama queen..."
"Oi! Tetsu!" and Aomine leaned in probably to throw a threatening look simply to shut the matter up but he staggered and almost fell on Kuroko which completely took away any impact from any threat he could give.
"My God, are you okay?" Satsuki was a little worried now as Kagami held Aomine up ensuring he stood straight.
"Yeah... I am fine, I just lost my balance for a second."
"Good now-"
"I think I need to go."
"Oh please, why are you running away? You are always like this Dai-chan!"
"Because I think... I'll vomit."
"Oh My... Damn Dai-chan! Come on, I'll take you home. Wait, don't puke in my car. Damn it go puke in the trash can there before getting in... It is parked right in the front."
"Can you walk?" Kagami asked honestly, a little worried as well but Aomine brushed off,
"Yeah yeah, whatever."
The journey back to Aomine's home was very silent as the sulked for the first half and simply dozed off in the latter. It took some Herculean effort to get Aomine into his apartment from the car but thanks to her rather unfortunately long history of dragging Aomine around she was a true star at this. Once in bed, he dozed off so quickly that Momoi wondered how the man had been even able to come to the court for the match in the morning. The house was a disaster but Momoi was both too angry at Aomine and too tired to care so instead she made herself a quick breakfast of cereal and milk that were always readily available at Aomine's house since he was simply too lazy to cook in general (and not that Momoi would even attempt to cook, she had stopped trying a long time ago). After her modest meal she thought of leaving but decided against it in case Aomine needed her help; while he looked the brash and carefree type, Aomine did not drink often and his tolerance of alcohol was not great. Who knew what would be his state when he finally woke up? So she set up camp in the living room with her electronic tablet in hand, opting to catch up at least a little with the huge amount of reading she still had to do for her PhD thesis...
It was late in the afternoon, around her third cup of green tea and second packet of Pocky (thank God for the various sweet snacks Aomine's friends brought but that he never finished all) she heard the buzzing sound of a vibration. It was not her phone so it was likely to be Aomine's and it took quite a bit of a search in the living room to find the dark blue coloured device... under the couch. It meant that he had not even taken it with him in the morning, which only made Momoi even angrier; she could not believe how carefree Aomine could sometimes be. What piqued her interest and swallowed her temper though was the name that flashed on the screen:
"Model-kun?"
She mumbled... Aha!
Perhaps the mystery woman they had hypothesised of occupying Aomine's mind and life was a model? Though he would be more likely to call her "Model-chan" in that case; not that he was fond of sweeter ways of calling one but because he was simply too impolite and informal to use "kun" for a female. Instead of thinking about it, better receiving it – she thought and picked the call just a few rings before it would be too late to anyway:
"Um hello?"
She was surprised to find that the voice belonged to a man. Definitely a man. Not too young or too old, probably around the same age as they were. He sounded tired and insecure but it was warm... Higher in pitch than Aomine's voice, definitely, but not irritating at all.
"Hello"
"Oh... I... I wanted to speak to Aominecch- I mean with Aomine-san?"
"Ah he is... not available right now. Could I get your name? I'll tell that you called?"
"No, no problem. Not needed. Have a nice day."
There was an awkward ring to his tone as he uttered the last words and almost hung up in a hurry that only further piqued Momoi's interest.
Could it be that Tetsu-kun is right? She could not help but wonder. It was very much possible for Aomine to date a man, he had played around with men before... Or rather with boys, though he himself was a boy then. The main problem in any case was Aomine dating anybody, regardless of gender, she knew just how clueless, inexperienced, and disinterested he was about dating so the whole thing only confused her.
Model-kun... If the man who just called was a model, there was no way for him to date Aomine anyway. Right?
In any case, she thought that putting too much emphasis on incidents that did not require so was not a good methodology so she opted to free her mind of these suspicions for now, till further evidence would be attained.
By the time Aomine woke, surely all the suspicions that were going through her mind were already gone for she had rather uncomfortably fell asleep on the couch... It was not very late yet but spending a whole day reading and drinking too much green tea did that. Aomine was not alien to this sight in his living room either, those times he would get ill or was depressed Momoi would come over to look after him. Having grown up without much attention or care by his parents, Momoi had almost taken up that role... looking after him, taking care of him. Not that he minded, honestly, if there was one person on earth he did not mind taking care of him – or taking care of as well – it was Momoi. He even smiled at the weird position she was in and then grabbed a blanket from his room. Unfortunately, he had never been a subtle person or one talented in sneaky movements, so as soon as he tried to put the blanket over her, she cracked an eye open and a small yawn escaped her lips,
"I fell asleep... huh?"
"Yeah, whatever, go to back to sleep..."
"Nah, if I sleep now I won't be able to sleep at night... Wait, it is not that late is it?"
"Nope, it is still only 8 pm..."
She sat up and a tiny smile settled on her face as she realised the blanket that was very clumsily draped over her and her surrogate of a brother slightly blushed as he sat at the edge of the couch,
"Says the man who slept the whole day... Wow I mean. Wow. You slept till now?"
"Yeah so what... I didn't sleep at all last night you know."
"You did not?!"
"No... I drank a lot... Then it was very late when I came back and I realised if I slept I would never make it to meeting with you guys this morning so I opted for taking a shower instead..."
"That explains the missed shots."
He nodded thoughtfully though Momoi was not sure what he was thinking... Interrogating him forcefully or teasing him were all fun but she knew very well that he was a very tough nut to crack and a heartfelt talk was needed, however even then he would not let anything inside to spill unless he felt it was the right time to and he felt comfortable enough... He had always been like that. Ready to help others, sometimes even behind the doors, but never open about his own needs, never requesting help from others... Her smile turned a little bittersweet and when she talked her voice was very compassionate,
"Is anything wrong?"
"Huh? No..."
"Good... Are you dating anyone?"
He looked at her for a moment, she could see a thought flicker in his eyes but she could not define it, then he shook his shoulders,
"Nope."
"No lovers?"
"No lovers."
"Anything you want to talk about then?"
Another pause and shook of shoulders,
"Well, I am really hungry..."
She sighed inside but just smirked on the outside,
"Oh is that so? Want me to cook for you?"
"God forbid!"
She threw the small cushion she was leaning on to his face then,
"Jerk. One day you'll beg me to cook but I won't. Now get up and order pizza. And you are paying."
"Oh anything... Anything as long as you are not the one cooking!" Aomine said chuckling as he got up and Momoi in an obviously mock fit of anger grabbed and threw the cushion at him again.