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“Well, of course Sakurai-sempai is going to be captain.”
The words echoed in the locker room. Takahashi was misting his shirt with body spray, which seemed to hang in the air and choke in the throat. Several other first-years turned their heads to stare at him.
Touou Gakuen’s regulars were finely-honed basketball machines. Each of them might have been an ace in a normal school, but in Touou Gakuen they accepted the superiority of greater beings than themselves for the sake of victory. The Winter Cup was over and the third-years were retiring. It was obvious who was going to succeed Wakamatsu-san as captain.
“Obviously, it’s Aomine-san!” said his friend, snorting derisively. “After the finals-"
“Why would it be him?” said Takahashi. “He’s not suited to be captain! He was the one who-”
“Why not?” demanded another first-year entirely. “That wasn’t his fault, Aomine-san wasn’t the one who missed-“
“Well-"
By the time the sempais finally arrived to break up the fight, even Aomine had skulked in from wherever he spent his time instead of practice, late for the first time in over a year, yawning as he hauled an eighty-kilo center off the pile and threw him into the door.
“What the hell is this about?” he grumbled, once they’d assembled all the club members out on the court to be yelled at as an example to the other first-years. Third-years were all at a some assembly, or the juniors would already have caught hell.
The guilty first-years muttered.
“You shouldn’t fight your teammates!” said Satsuki, looking upset. They avoided her eyes.
“What w-was it?” said Ryou, almost managing to look fierce.
The original culprit cleared his throat. “We-“ he winced as his friends dug their elbows into his back. “We were disagreeing over which of you two would be made captain now that the third-years are stepping down.”
Aomine and Ryou exchanged looks.
“You what?” said Satsuki. “Why would you fight about that?”
“I said that I thought Sakurai-sempai would be made captain, and we- disagreed,” saying this, the first-year looked down under their combined gazes, and another one piped up.
“That’s right! It should be Aomine-san!”
“You’re an idiot, it should definitely be-“
“Quiet!” squeaked Satsuki, and bopped all the offenders on the head with her clipboard.
“Why not?” said Aomine, deceptively calm.
“Well,” said Ryou unexpectedly. “It’s true.”
“It’s what,” said Aomine, bristling.
“It’s true that you’re not suited to be captain,” said Ryou, voice unnaturally high.
“And you think you are?” said Aomine.
“You could just wait to see how coach decides,” said Satsuki, wielding the clipboard as a shield.
“Yeah…” said Aomine. “Decides… in favor of me. The best- no, the only candidate.”
Ryou’s lip curled.
They slowly turned to face each other.
“I’m better than you,” said Aomine. “If it comes down to shooting-“
Ryou bit his lip. “Three-pointers are better than dunks,” he said, eyes narrow.
Aomine held up a hand. “I’m so not having this fucking argument with you,” he said. “Besides, I can make three-pointers too.”
“I actually come to practice,” said Ryou, abandoning this line of debate.
“I come to practice too!” said Aomine. He stopped, feeling the eyes of everyone upon him. “…Now!”
“I’m a better sempai than you are!” screamed Ryou, pointing to the cowering first-years.
“YOU FUCKING TAKE THAT BACK,” roared Aomine.
“THEY DON”T LIKE YOU!” continued Ryou, straight up into Aomine’s face. “THEY- LIKE YOU LESS THAN THEY DON’T LIKE ME!”
Aomine hauled Ryou up by his collar. “You want to go?” he demanded. “You want to fucking go right now we can do this-“
Ryou seized Aomine by his collar right back and pulled Aomine down, leveraging both his weight and his muscle, his arms like convulsing pythons. He was so angry he could barely speak. When he had Aomine at the right height he just sputtered, “You- you- you-“
“Alright alright BREAK IT UP,” yelled Wakamatsu, arriving suddenly on the scene. He got between them and other outgoing regulars moved to take hold of Ryou, Satsuki running up to press herself against Aomine’s chest, more a symbolic barrier than anything else.
Wakamatsu made them both sit on the bench, and paced in front of them. “EYES FRONT,” he bellowed, when they started side-glaring at each other. “What the hell brought this on?”
Satsuki presented herself. “Dai-chan and Ryou-kun are having disagreements over who’s more suitable to be captain next year,” she said.
Wakamatsu stared at her. “Are you… serious?” he said.
Aomine and Ryou started shouting at the same time.
“I’M MUCH-“
“HE’S NOT-“
“-OUT OF YOUR FUCKING-“
“-DO YOU EVEN THINK-“
“-THIS IDIOT-“
“-THAT WIMP-“
“ENOUGH,” bellowed Wakamatsu. Silence fell, but resentfully. “Look,” said Wakamatsu. “I don’t have much time left as your captain-“
“Shouldn’t you already be gone- owww SATSUKI.”
“Quiet!” she hissed at him, lifting the clipboard. Ryou looked smugly in Aomine’s direction. Aomine glared at him. Ryou stuck out his tongue. Aomine-
“So much for going out with grace,” said Wakamatsu, having separated them for the second time. Now they were out of grabbing distance, seated on the floor. “Is this what you two feel our club deserves? The two most senior regulars fighting like children? Is this what you feel your juniors, this year and next, should see?” He jabbed his finger at the first-years, all of whom had forgotten their initial quarrel and were huddled together for safety.
“You used to fight with Aomine-san all the t-time too,” muttered Ryou. Wakamatsu smacked him upside the head. Aomine smirked.
“We’ll just ask the coach,” said Wakamatsu. “And his word will be final.”
===+===
The coach crossed his arms.
“…Coach?” said Ryou.
“Oi, coach, you can’t-“ said Aomine.
Harasawa put his hand under his chin. “The third-years aren’t retiring yet,” he said. “I believe we’ll leave the question of who inherits the captaincy until… the official retirement.”
“And then?” demanded Aomine. “That’s fu- frigging forever!”
Harasawa uncrossed his arms, stroked his chin, and said, “And by then I have no doubt that our team captain for next year will have presented himself.” He ran his gaze over the faces of the regulars, all of whom were leaving a gap around the two second-years, slowly, slowly backing away.
He nodded. “You’re all dismissed. Good job this year.”
===+===
Ryou didn’t stammer his usual good-morning when they came into class the next day, but Aomine didn’t realise that until… later. At break, Aomine dragged his head from his desk and looked expectantly at Ryou, sitting next to him in the window seat. Ryou did nothing. Aomine extended his leg and nudged Ryou’s ankle. Ryou still did nothing. Slowly, it dawned on Aomine.
“You… didn’t bring my bento?” said Aomine.
Ryou flushed, but stared at his table. By the faraway expression on his face, he’d gone off to his happy place, designing his charabens for the next week. Talking to him while he was like this was next to useless, as Aomine knew. Ryou would just come out of his stupor and apologize, in tears. And get away with it. Get away with not bringing his bento.
Aomine’s mouth worked. “Fine,” he said. “Fine.” He got up, and stomped to the classroom door. Their classmates, fascinated, cleared out of his way.
He yanked it open, and stomped out into the corridor. Just before shutting the door, he turned and yelled “FINE,” one more time, slammed the door shut so hard it jarred out of place, and stomped off down the corridor, only to remember that his wallet was still in his bag in the classroom. Satsuki better have brought extra cash.
===+===
“Got a call from Wakamatsu,” said Susa. “Asking advice about the team.”
“Wakamatsu?” said Imayoshi. “Why would he call you and not me? I thought I was his favourite se- ahaha, just kidding, what’d he say?”
Susa shut his open mouth and said, “Apparently Sakurai and Aomine are arguing over who’s going to be the next captain.” He paused. “It’s gotten… physical.”
“Really?” said Imayoshi, incredulously. “Does he have it wrong? Are they fighting not to be the next captain? That sounds much more likely.”
“No, they both want to be captain…” said Susa. “Or they don’t want the other one to be captain over them... Or something. He wasn’t very clear.”
“He never was,” said Imayoshi reflectively.
“I asked Momoi,” said Susa. “She said it was true, they were fighting over the captaincy at first, and then it escalated. Something about bentos and points. She kept sobbing while she was trying to explain.”
“We-ell, it’s probably not that serious,” said Imayoshi. “Probably.”
“They’re not taking it well,” said Susa. He looked at his friend, his former captain. “You were grooming Sakurai for it, once,” he said.
“He’d do,” agreed Imayoshi. “He hates to lose, after all. And we weren’t getting anything out of Aomine back then.”
“And now Aomine wants to…” said Susa. He tried to imagine an Aomine who gave a damn. It was surprisingly difficult.
“Aomine is the strongest,” said Imayoshi, sounding the note of truth. “They would follow him if he showed he was truly going to lead.” Imayoshi tipped his head back and delicately sipped his drink through the straw.
“I hate it when the children fight,” said Imayoshi.
“Are we going to do anything?” said Susa, more practically.
Imayoshi didn’t even pretend to think about it. “Not at all,” he said, grinning widely. “Momoi knows it’s going to be all right.”
Susa eyed him. “The video she sent, of-“ Susa broke off and shrugged, unable to put into words the final of this year’s Winter Cup, Touou and Yousen.
“I saw it,” said Imayoshi. “That’s how I know it’s going to be all right.”
===+===
The sound of Aomine’s teeth grinding through the next three hours almost managed to drown out the sound of his stomach grumbling.
Satsuki, when he cornered her after school to complain about not finding her in her class during break, fished out the ever-hopeful lemon box and gave it to him.
“Shouldn’t you be going to practice?” she said.
“I’m going down when you are,” grumped Aomine. He pried open the Tupperware. Once again, Satsuki had decided to skip the step of actually slicing the lemons to make them edible, just dumped the lemons in with two to three bottles of honey. Unfortunately, Aomine was desperate.
“Why weren’t you in class at lunch?” demanded Aomine, tipping the box to let straight honey pour into his throat. It was better than nothing, and infinitely better than watching Ryou flinch every time Aomine’s stomach grunked or letting Ryou see him taking gum from the girl in front of them because she was sorry for Aomine-kun that he and Sakurai-kun were fight- asshole! Ryou, not the girl. He was a fucking growing boy, he needed his nutrition every day. His entire career was at stake here. If Aomine was weak from hunger, he’d obviously not play his best and He might even faint and fall down the stairs, breaking his neck. Maybe that had been Ryou’s plan all along, thought Aomine darkly, and began to gnaw on the dimpled yellow rinds.
“I was speaking to Sakurai-kun about procedures for the incoming regulars-“
The lemon that Aomine was licking the honey from slipped out of his fingers.
“You traitor,” he said.
“I was going to tell you too!” she said. “But you weren’t there, and Sakurai-kun didn’t know where you’d gone, and while we were waiting, we talked about it!”
“He didn’t know where I was because he didn’t bring my bento,” said Aomine, outraged.
Satsuki put her head into her hands. “Dai-chan-“ she started.
“I can’t BELIEVE this,” said Aomine.
“Can’t believe what- ahhh,” said Ryou, ‘casually’ entering Satsuki’s classroom, despite it being in the exact opposite direction from practice, where Ryou should have been heading. Unbelievable. UNBELIEVABLE!
Aomine spat pieces of lemon as he shouted this.
Satsuki put her hands over her ears. “I’m neutral!” she said.
“You’re on my side!” said Aomine, rounding on her. “Satsuki, you have to be on my side!”
“I’m on everyone’s side!” said Satsuki.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this to me,” said Aomine.
“I act in the best interests of the team,” said Satsuki, stubbornly shoving her stuff into her bag. “All the time!”
“Momoi-san,” said Ryou, seizing his chance. “Momoi-san, you think that I’m-“
“I’M NEUTRAL,” Satsuki squealed. She feinted right and then dove between them, bouncing off Ryou’s shoulder and running out into the hall. “I’m SORRYYYYY,” she yelled, running down the hall.
They stuck their heads out after her fleeing form. As she ducked and dodged other students, they turned their heads and directed confused expressions at Aomine and Ryou that Aomine found frankly insulting. He wasn’t the weird one here!
“Look what you did,” muttered Ryou, casting a hot look through his eyelashes at Aomine.
“Me?” demanded Aomine.
“If you weren’t so pushy, Momoi-san would have-“
Aomine reached for Ryou’s neck. It wouldn’t take much. Just hold and squeeze-
Harasawa paused in his leisurely stroll down the corridor from his last class of the day, and raised an eyebrow. Aomine let go, and Ryou staggered to the wall to prop himself up as Aomine resisted the urge to rub his shins and check if Ryou had put weights into his shoes or something. “Aren’t you boys late for practice?” the teacher said.
“What practice?” said Aomine unconvincingly.
“Yes practice,” said that suck-up. “We’re going right away, coach. Right-right away.”
“Very good,” said Harasawa placidly.
===+===
They had PE the next day, and Aomine angrily yanked his gym clothes over his head and thought about how he rightfully should be excused from PE on account of being a Nationals-level athlete and fucking dying from yesterday’s extra extra extra practice.
They were on long-distance running in PE class in friggin’ January, on the principle that the governing body completely believed frostbite did their student body good, particularly as the final exams approached. The boys ran the same thing twice every week, a course that wound around the school’s extensive grounds and offered plenty of opportunities to sneak off and nap for twenty minutes, which Aomine did at every opportunity because not freezing to death during a stupid PE class did his future good.
Only the suckers sat around and tried to run the whole thing in class time. Suckers like Ryou.
Ryou loved running, for some absurd reason. Anything that involved going around in circles at varying speeds and he was up for it, eager like a racing greyhound straining for the leash. He was right up by the front of the pack stretching with a determined look on his face, and not even because from up there he’d have a great view of the girls doing their own stretches in the nice warm heated halls.
Ryou took the lead, like always, heading the students easily.
Today, something about the way he eased into his run pissed Aomine off. Aomine usually put on a good show until they ran out of sight and then vanished into the storage rooms with ‘joint trouble’, reappearing later huffing steam and causing his teachers to wonder if Aomine-kun had health issues. Aomine jogged to the front of the pack, until he was level with Ryou, who took no notice.
Aomine put on a bit of speed- not much, not as though he was actually trying- and outpaced Ryou.
Ryou, still not looking to the side, ran faster.
Aomine passed him.
By the time they made the first lap, they were running flat-out, Aomine only just managing to edge out Ryou’s apparently endless sprinting with his longer stride, both steaming in the cold air.
“Great timing, boys!” said the PE teacher, who supervised Touou Gakuen’s excellent volleyball and until now had been extremely puzzled as to why the first-year stars of Touou Gakuen’s similarly excellent basketball team either chronically skipped class (Aomine) or handled baseball bats like cockroaches (Sakurai). “You’re raring to go, aren’t you! Three more laps! You’re ahead of everybody!”
They raced down the courtyard, elbowing each other out of the way. The PE teacher watched them go happily.
“You know,” he said to Harasawa later in the staff room. “You’ve got a couple of good boys there. Really put all they can into it. You must be proud.”
Harasawa blinked at the PE teacher. “I am,” he said, and drifted off to his next class.
===+===
Wakamatsu, predictably, was no help.
“He asked me if I had thoughts on who should take over the team, yeah?” said Wakamatsu.
“AND?” burst out Ryou. “-sorry,” he said, when everyone in the weights room looked at him in shock.
“What about two years with this guy makes you think he ever listens to anything a student says,” said Wakamatsu, then promptly demolished the good sense of this by adding, “And aren’t you two ashamed of yourselves? Do you even think about how your fighting is affecting the team?”
“Coward,” said Aomine.
“You used to fight with Aomine-san all the time!” said Ryou, though safely out of reach this time.
“And I never have to do it again,” said Wakamatsu, sincerely. It had felt so good to talk to Susa-san, and register his complete lack of interest. Wakamatsu put a hand on both their shoulders, squeezing with the force of his emotion. That was him now. This hadn’t been Touou’s year after all, and he was done with it. Done with them. “I’m graduating. I’m leaving you guys. I’m free.”
===+===
Things continued to escalate. Ryou wasn’t lending Aomine his notes. Satsuki had gone from exasperation to despair, travelling from class to practice to home with her hands jammed firmly into her ears, so occupied with not answering Aomine that he had to yank her out of the street more than once.
“You don’t have to die to get away from us, you know,” he told her, flattening her against the street light so that she wouldn’t wander off.
“I just want you two to get along,” she said sadly. “You don’t even want to be captain.”
Aomine started to argue hotly, but bit down on the words.
She peered at him. “Dai-chan?” she said. “Do you- you do want to be captain?”
Aomine stuck his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders around her. The winter cup was barely over, a new year was just begun. He had one more year, they had one more year, and then Aomine’s world would shift forever. It was going to be his third year, it was going to be his last year.
Satsuki looked up into his face. “Tetsu-kun was just made captain,” she said, hopefully. “Midorin and Takao-kun are sharing.”
Aomine jerked his shoulders back. “It can’t be Ryou, anyway,” he said, returning to his original argument. “What’ll he do, stammer us around? Apologize to our opponents?”
“That’s not the only thing a captain does!” said Satsuki.
“Yeah, Ryou’d also cry.”
===+===
Ryou had not been idle. Aomine caught him- Aomine assumed- drawing up posters during class to stick into the locker room as some kind of subliminal advertising, which first made him shake his head over the weird ideas Ryou got from reading manga and then, after he’d wrestled them from Ryou and was kneeling on his chest as Ryou struggled fruitlessly to get free and get them back from Aomine, made his mouth drop. So this was why Ryou wasn’t taking notes, or paying attention in class, bent over his notebooks scribbling away furiously at all hours, except when they purposely and pointedly did their practice in different buildings but LOUDLY so everyone knew they were there late at night. Ryou was sketching the Winter Cup, bodies caught in motion and the ball hanging in white space. Aomine still lived those games, his heart pounding in his skin, his gaze caught by the motion of a player behind him, to the side, on the court. Aomine saw the Winter Cup final spread in front of him, each critical moment sketchy but accurate, unstoppable and unmistakable. Ryou captured Satsuki in some of the plays, the way her mind worked as though every one of her pieces moved at once. Over and over again Aomine threw the ball out of bounds rather than grapple with Murasakibara, not with that smooth-smiled bastard keeping Ryou out of range and their small forward stuck all the way at the wrong damn end of the inside. (And they went into overtime and Aomine made it for them Murasakibara was the only one wrung out by furious destined motion and-) Not once did Aomine turn, and take the chance on Ryou lunging out of Himuro’s screen desperately, did Ryou launch the shot, faster than the quick release had ever been timed in their lives, sailing over Murasakibara’s head and missing, just as the buzzer rang.
Not once, but the only time it had mattered.
Aomine shoved the remains of the book into Ryou’s face, and got off him.
“Why are you even doing this shit, anyway,” he grumbled. Ryou dusted himself off and looked mad, which was a good look for him. Aomine was kneeling on binder clips, but did not care.
“You don’t want to be the captain either,” said Ryou.
“Either?” said Aomine, pouncing. “If you don’t really want it, then drop out.”
“Y-you drop out!” spit Ryou.
“You just said you didn’t want to get it,” pointed out Aomine.
“I don’t not want to get it,” said Ryou. His chin went up. His eyes were clear and very hard. “I don’t-” He ground his teeth, in a passable imitation of Aomine’s bad temper. “I don’t want to lose to you.”
“I won’t lose to you,” said Aomine. Sometimes commentators used that English phrase, the hail mary. And Aomine had known the shot wouldn’t go in even as he sent the ball flying towards Ryou, and shut his eyes and prayed anyway. And it hadn’t gone in. Boo-fucking-hoo.
Ryou looked down at the papers he had in his hands, spilling out of his sketchbook, spread all over the floor. His knuckles whitened. Aomine reached out and, without speaking, picked out all the ones that showed them in Winter Cup Final. He almost hesitated over the ones that were just lines, but it was the trajectory of an impossible shot, inscribing an arc that would never reach its goal. He crumpled them in his fist, then offered them to Ryou.
Ryou, without aiming, without missing, threw the pages into the trash.
===+===
“Oh,” said Harasawa, at the end of the week. “The captaincy. Yes, I did say I’d decide.”
“Wait, wait,” said Aomine. “It isn’t going to be something bullshit like Satsuki is captain or-“
“Of course not,” said Harasawa. “Momoi-kun has more than enough to do as your manager as it is. No, after watching closely this past week-“ bullshit, screamed the expressions of everyone on the court. “-I’ve decided that you two would do best to split the duties of being captain between the two of you.” He paused. “Momoi-kun will be your tie-breaker in the event of conflict.”
Satsuki dropped her clipboard.
Having thus resolved the situation to the satisfaction of no one but himself, Harasawa smiled, tucked his hair up again, and walked out, lost in his own thoughts.
“Noooooo,” wailed Satsuki, dropping to her knees. Ryou collapsed next to her and she fell on his shoulder, weeping as he patted her back blankly.
Aomine heaved a sigh that felt like it took some of his soul out on the way. He didn’t even know why he’d fucking bothered. He looked at Satsuki and Ryou curled together miserably on the floor, then looked away, embarrassed for them both. “Get going,” he snarled to the other guys, all of whom looked as deflated as he felt. “We’ll-“ he searched his mind for the dim memory. “We’ll send the seniors off proper tomorrow,” he said.
Ryou and Satsuki looked up at him. Their lips quivered. “C’mon, get up,” he said, reaching for them. “They like her better than either of us anyway.”
“T-that isn’t helpful,” said Ryou, but took his arm.
Aomine pulled him up, then held him there, feeling the muscle under his hand tense and resist. “Yeah?” he said.
"Yes," said Ryou. "You-" he coloured. "I'm moving into the dorms for third year," he said. "I can pick up making your bentos then."