Archive of Our Own ^beta

The call distracts him from the opened mail he is perusing, mentally calculating why his phone bill has all these added charges of services he does not use (or even knew he had), and then scowling in the general direction of the noise. He drops the papers from his hands to the dining table, allowing it to scatter aimless, while the phone goes on ringing. He is almost certain that this was the network company laughing at him for deceiving him so cleverly. No matter, there were other services he could take his business to, he thinks. Towering over the innocently laid out phone, he imagines chucking it at the face of the employee he will meet tomorrow. For now he lifts the phone closer to his face and reads the unknown and unsaved number, wondering. “From Japan,” he mumbles out loud to himself.

The ringing stops before he can answer it.

Already aggravated by the phone service, he thinks if the caller deems it important, they will call again; he is not wasting another dime on those fools. He does wait, though, a second longer before replacing the phone on the small coffee table where he left the device to charge. Turning back to the dining area, the phone began its shrilling again.

“Taiga, aren’t you getting that?”

Taiga turns to face the towel clad body of Omar, his five-month lover (coincidently his neighbour as well), using an extra towel to rub dry his short dark hair. Lissom muscles clad in gleaming sun-kissed skin stretched taunt as the man ambled his way further into the common room, a delicate frown on his face. Taiga was distracted by his appearance before realising that the man was smirking as he asked, “Not getting that?”

“Ah, right,” he walked over again, but this time, the call cut before he even reached the table, making him slow in his pace. Coming to an abrupt stop he glanced above his shoulder to glare at Omar. “You, go put on some clothes. I feel like an idiot running after that call.”

Omar laughed, a rich and sensual sound that filled Taiga’s chest. It was slightly uncomfortable, but he ignored it like he ignored most things in his life. Like the fact that the man was tugging at the knot on his towel, threatening to flash him for being mean. Not that Taiga was complaining, turning to help the item off, when the phone rang once again. “Oh for the love of—” he grabbed the phone and answered it in one fluid motion, beyond caring at this point. “Yes?”

“Kagami-kun?”

Taiga frowned, quickly glancing at his phone’s screen and then getting back to the caller. “Kuroko? Did you change your number?” He seamlessly switched to Japanese causing Omar to frown since he definitely did not understand the language. He smirked almost childishly.

A short huff came first. “Did you lose your contacts again?” His voice sounded harried. “Is that why you didn’t answer the first two times?”

“Nah,” he responded, disconnecting the charger so that he was freer to move, especially when the towel sailed in a short arc before his vision. He smirked, again, “I was preoccupied.”

“Oh?” Kuroko sounded slightly off, but it faded with the next question. “Is it a bad time to talk to you?”

“No, no; what’s it about? Must be important if you’re calling rather than sending me an email.” Taiga pulled at the bare naked Arab man so that they were flush against each other. He knew he might lose concentration of what his old friend would say in the next few minutes, but Kuroko did not sound hassled, harried or hunted; it would be fine to continue playing with his very handsome and very agile partner.

Omar grinned as he lowered himself down to his knees, eyes sparkling with mirth as nimble fingers tugged at the waistband of his jeans, biting the tip of an exposed tongue as he impishly trailed a finger down the zip in phantom motions of unzipping, teasing. Not listening to Kuroko, Taiga watched as dark coffee eyes hooded, and Omar, looking up through extremely thick lashes, used his teeth to clasp onto the zipper. Linked tooth by tooth, Omar slipped down further, delicate hands palming his thigh muscles, feeling hot and heavy before even starting. When the zip reached its end, Omar took back his hands to rim his underwear, tickling the heated flesh that was rising slowly before their eyes to meet the attention bestowed upon it like a slow standing King on his throne. Taiga, grinning so large with the knowledge of what was to come, almost had a conniption when Kuroko’s words finally hit him.

“-went into labour yesterday. They have twins.”

“What?” he croaked. Omar, unbeknownst to what was happening, was merrily trying to get Taiga out of his pants only to look on confused as the member deflated on its own accord. He looked up, worried.

“Which part didn’t you hear?” Kuroko asked patiently.

“All of it.” With a gentle, quivering hand, he moved Omar away from him. The man understood, frowning in worry, settling down on his calves as he watched from below. Taiga ignored everything around him; the low hum from the air conditioner, the soft clicking noises as the seconds counted down, the pounding of his heart echoing in his ribcage, sounding impossibly loud to his ears. Mouth dry he asked, slowly, as if the words were difficult to pronounce, “What…did you call for?”

Kuroko held his voice on the other end. If it were not for the light breathing, Taiga would have thought it was dead silent on his side. “Aomine-kun’s wife gave birth to twins this evening. She went into labour early in the afternoon. It was earlier than they predicted and it was a long labour.”

His head felt heavy, just like his tongue, filling his mouth. Air was struggling to enter his lungs even with his mouth open and panting. There was a thought circling but he was afraid to voice it out, here in front of Omar and here to Kuroko. But Taiga wanted to know despite it making him feel like the worse person alive, a monster of epic proportions. Regardless of his drying orifice he called a mouth, his palms sweated and it made holding the phone difficult. He could not concentrate, and was jarred by the grip around his elbow, settling him, and bringing him to sit at the sofa near him. Omar held onto him without question, eyes moist and blinking—staring for a second, wondering who the man helping him was. His mind a blank canvas, his ears filled with noise of a single pitch, his muscles leaden. He stilled.

“…Kagami-kun?” Kuroko was whispering.

As if muted to his surroundings, Taiga blinked.

Eyes blurry, heart fluttering, throat constricting, he tried to ask, “Is she okay?”

“Who, Natsumi-san?” Kuroko queried, a slight inflection in his voice. Taiga did not understand that, and wished he could see his face instead. “Yes she is, Kagami-kun. Probably just exhausted. Childbirth does that to you, especially having two children. For Aomine-kun, that too,” he was trying to lighten the mood, but the fierce clenching of his abdominal muscles reacted differently. Not wanting to sound insincere, Taiga chuckled, albeit weakly.

“That’s good,” he said, forcing himself to breathe through his nose rather gustily, to calm both listening to him. Omar, watching him, eased his shoulders a bit, but still hovered near him, waiting. Realising that this might take a while for him to completely calm down, he signalled with his hand near his mouth, and Omar immediately moved to get him something to drink. With an eye on the receding naked back, Taiga asked quietly, keeping his tone lighter than he felt, “And? Did you call to tell me about the birth?”

“Yea,” Kuroko agreed, “Aomine-kun tried calling you earlier, but you didn’t pick up, so he asked me to. He’s here, calling the others.” A pause. “Shall I pass the line to him?”

Scrambling in his seat, not daring to get onto his shaky feet, Taiga used his free hand to clench the sofa armrest, his fingers soon losing their feeling. The tingling sensation ran up his arm and into his shoulder, trailing ever so slightly to his neck. “No, that’s okay. Give him my congratulations and tell him to be with his family, that idiot.” Taiga took a breath in. “Then, I won’t waste your money. We’ll chat la—”

“Kagami-kun,” tone sharp, Kuroko raised his voice. Taiga held the line and the phone a little tighter than necessary, and Omar returned with a glass of water with slight condensation on its surface. He looked grateful for the service, sending a quick smile to the other, then ignored everything again as he greedily gulped down the flavourless liquid; he needed to distract his body from breathing since it was doing such a poor job of it around now. “I actually called to inform you: Aomine-kun wanted you to be a godparent to his children.”

And Taiga choked.

***

“This one is Chinatsu,” she was saying, bumping her lightly up and down her chest. She was slightly bigger than he had imagined, but apparently babies grew a lot after the first few weeks. On to the fourth week and the two looked miles different than the pictures he was sent by Kuroko. And they were less wrinkly. And they did not smell like…babies and powder and whatever that…weird stench was. “Oh, she needs to be changed,” she said, patting the baby girl, Chinatsu’s bottom, walking away to a weird little table set at the side of the room. It was pretty small, and all Taiga wondered was how their father managed to sit at it to change their diapers.

Suppressing the thought fluidly, a skill he was getting quite used to, Taiga hesitated at the door jamb, finding himself at a loss of what to do.

This was the first time he had been left alone with the wife of one Aomine Daiki, and she, Aomine Natsumi, was radiantly treating him like a precious friend of her husband that she ‘has heard a lot about’. Taiga could not offer the same sentiment, so he nervously blushed at the demure smile he received and ducked his head.

That was four days ago.

Today, arriving a little earlier than planned, Taiga was fretting internally over how he was to interact with this unknowing woman. He had dealt with annoying managers, snobbish teammates, stark-crazy fans—the works—but looking at this woman who was a foot shorter than him, one-fifth of his width, holding a baby that was probably one-sixteenth of that, Taiga felt like a fish out of water.

A small chuckle filled the space. Taiga glanced at the other two, searching, just to lock onto dark hazel eyes tinted more green than amber. “You don’t have to be so nervous, Taiga-san,” the woman said, standing up before bending to pick up the bundled child. “Even the other day you were looking so lost, like a big teddy bear, having a nervous breakdown when you were holding my son.” He cringed, another horrible reminder. “But it was also the first time he took to someone besides his parents.”

Taiga stopped his muscle spasms. “Really?”

She nodded. “Yes,” coming closer, she craned her neck to look up at him. “Taichi is so fussy with others. Well, except for Tetsuya-san. Taichi probably knew you were his namesake.” Heart pounding, he kept his eyes on her face, searching for any little giveaway that said she was lying. She giggled then, hiding her mouth, and slyly looked up to part with, “Don’t let Daiki know I said this, but he was really adamant about the name and waiting for you to come down so that we all could be there for their Omiya-mairi.”

She moved past him, as if sharing such a secret with him was supposed to leave him feeling good about himself and his ‘friendship’ with her husband. Little did the poor woman know exactly why it took Taiga so long to come down, that he was not even present for their naming ceremony. In fact, he had arrived past the thirty-three day mark for the baby girl to be taken for her first shrine visit, forget the boy who was to visit on the thirtieth or thirty-first day. Now, almost forty days, and everyone was coordinating to leave the house to visit the local shrine in the paternal grandparents’ place since they could not travel so far, making everyone—even the supposedly exhausted new mother—travel to Saitama for the shrine visit.

Taiga followed, distractedly, concentrating to put one foot in front of the other, observing how his socked feet moved on the tatami and the slight hollow thuds that followed. The screens along the corridor were opened up facing the plush and well-kept garden, overlooking a small hand-made koi pond, but big enough to allow for a small bridge to arc across it. When he had arrived, two hours back, the grandmother was feeding the fish from there.

They take to the outside porch The three cross the midpoint of the garden by the time they entered the living room. A zataku (low table) with dark blue zabutan (floor mats) sat dead centre of the place, housing the freshly minted great-grandfather. The man, like earlier, only stared at him, apprehensive.

There was a Shinto alter in the living room that, when he stepped in, Daiki’s grandfather gave him a glare and pointedly darted his eyes between him and the alter. Confused, Taiga had glanced at it. With a smile, the grandmother patted him, motioning him to pray, and embarrassed, Taiga did, bowing and clapping his hands reverently; he was not one for prayers since he felt largely disconnected to the effect, but followed through with what was expected of him. It was here that Daiki entered and saw his bent posture, immediately laughing. Unlike his petite grandmother (everyone looked petite compared to him), he smacked his back a couple of times, shaking his frame.

Taiga glowered but did not open his mouth to curse like he wanted to. He had the distinct feeling that if he opened his mouth, he would receive much worse than a glare.

“So a returnee like you knows how to pray, Kagami?” Taiga felt a tug at his insides.

“Being a returnee has nothing to do with it,” he said instead.

“Well said,” came Daiki’s grandfather’s voice, deep and solemn. For a thin spindly man like him, Taiga was surprised at the smooth pitch. He can tell where Daiki gets it from, since his father had a more mellow voice.

The shoji doors rattled then, opening up to allow the familiar silhouette of Satsuki. On seeing him, she grinned, but turned to greet the elders of the house first. “Jii-chan! Baa-chan!” Hugging them both and making small talk, she rounded up to him with hands akimbo. “Kagamin!” she snapped, eyebrows drawn together in a furrow, lips pouting. “You’re so late! What took you so long?”

It had been ages since he had last seen her, he felt; the wedding was probably the time he had figured he would not be able to see much of anyone, but he remembered enough that Satsuki looked radiant and stunning, saving a quip about how Kuroko was missing out on a lot. A tired grin settled on his face as he began to defend himself. However, even that was short-lived.

“Ara? But he was the first one here,” the grandmother interrupted, calm and sweet, and Taiga was grateful. He smiled over Satsuki’s head at her, receiving an inconspicuous wink. He blushed, but the emotion behind his grin turned lighter.

“That’s not what I meant, baa-chan, and you know it!”

“Momoi-san, you’re being too loud.” Kuroko entered, holding onto the other baby to his chest, a mild frown on his face. “Taichi just quietened down.” As if to disprove it, the tightly bound bundle squirmed for a few seconds, and instantly everyone stilled, waiting to see if he would settle down again. Unfortunately, his tiny mouth opened as wide as it would go and bellowed. Groans filled the area, and Taiga, confused by this, watched as the occupants either went to try and shush the baby or scold Satsuki for her loudness.

Suddenly, Taiga found himself desperately juggling the crying baby in his arms, and panicked, he glanced down into the reddened face of Taichi. His first instinct was to shush him with sounds, one of his large hands reaching from under the little one’s head to support it, but his long thick fingers flared up over the head so he could almost tap the boy’s forehead. Which he did. Taichi, feeling the tap, opened his tightly screwed eyes to stare upwards first, still crying, before his eyes darted quickly to Taiga’s. As if someone pressed mute, the crying stopped.

Silence encompassed the living room.

“My god, you were right,” the great-grandfather said, leaning forward to better see past Satsuki and Kuroko who had deposited the infant in Taiga’s arms.

Worried, Taiga patted and did the little bounce he saw the infant’s mother do for his sister, but finding he need not; Taichi was happy enough to just stare at him. He frowned.

“I think it’s the eyebrows,” was Daiki’s input and everybody laughed.

Over laughing heads, Taiga met amused dark blues.

*

The shrine visit was an ordeal. Both children cried and fussed and threw their little fists in great shows of discomfort dressed the way they were, carried by their grandmothers. Taichi would not even let his maternal mother soothe him, to the point where, trying to lessen the mother’s burden, Taiga was pushed forward to take her place since he had missed out on their naming ceremony (and the panicked look Daiki gave when it looked like he was to stand-in).

Awkward and fully embarrassed for not knowing what he was to do (that bastard Kuroko promised he did not need to know anything prior the event), and the visit was prolonged only because the priest had to guide and correct Taiga in each step he was to participate in.

Back at the house, where they waited for more of their friends to drop by before they sat down for lunch, Taiga assembled with his legs folded in front of him, extremely drained. Kuroko had been with him in the guest room, feeling like the other was sitting across indecorously from the alcove with a hanging scroll, before being called by Satsuki for help; Taiga could not believe the two were still playing this game. He knew he did not have to wait alone for long as according to the text he received in the middle of the ceremony, Kise and Midorima would drop by in time for lunch, stay the night whereby everyone would leave the next morning.

Taiga was not waiting for that. He was sure he could concoct some excuse to leave after lunch while it was still bright.

“Kagami-kun,” Kuroko reappeared, but this time from the outside corridor, holding one child to his small chest. “Please take care of Taichi-kun. We’re bound to wake him up when we set the place for lunch.”

“No, don’t leave him with me,” he objected, waving his hands. Kuroko neared him either way, so he backtracked away from the oncoming man. “Kuroko-!!”

As suddenly as he appeared, Kuroko left. He wondered if the man knew how much it hurt to be stuck with a child whose name was so like his. A child coming from the same stock as his father.

Taiga looked at the sleeping face, taking in the soft folds of every orifice the child had, little lips slightly parted as he breathed. His nose was tiny and looked flat, and going higher up, Taiga watched as eyelids fluttered, hiding eyes so like his father…it was painful. Bringing a lone finger, Taiga traced the plump red cheeks, trailed the ends of thick lashes with his fingertip, lightly brushed the wisps of dark brown hair off his wide forehead. His skin, unlike his father’s, was light, but maybe as he grew older and aspired to be like his dad, a nice flushed tan would go well with his features. Thinking of the little boy’s future, Taiga blinked heavy eyelids, his nose following with one tell-tale sign by burning.

The shoji door opened up again, and fully preparing to scowl at Kuroko, Taiga was surprised to see the soft pull of lips on the child’s father’s lips. Daiki sauntered in, closing the door partially, and plopped himself onto one of the floor mats, and grinned. Taiga took in a deep breath at the same time Daiki started to speak, tone of voice fond. “He’s really taken up with his uncle, huh?”

“Who’s an uncle?” Taiga snapped at a low decibel, not loud and angry as it would have been.

Daiki laughed, unperturbed, laying on the table between them. “Taichi’s such a meanie, though. Always crying when my parents pick him up. Gotta hand it to my granddad, though,” there it was again, that tone, “Always knows how to take care of punks.”

“Yea?” he responded, looking back at the safer choice. Taichi was still sleeping but a little curled hand poked out of his wrappings to grasp his wandering finger. Taiga smiled, besides himself.

“Yea, mum says Taichi’s just like how I was. Still am,” he scowled at the partition, “and only granddad knew how to curb me. So!” he sat up straight, eager eyes looking over. Taiga glanced at him. “As a dutiful (Taiga scoffed) filial son, I named my own after his great granddad!”

The admission froze Taiga. “What?”

“Yea,” Daiki grinned. “Granddad’s name is Taisei, dad’s name is Daichi, so I guess it was only right to name him Taichi. Taiki was too weird,” he mumbled, completely blind to how Taiga was sitting frozen on his side as he kept talking, one hand supporting his lazing head as the other gestured circles in the air before him. “We could have named him Daiya, but I don’t really like that name. Sumi wanted to call Chinatsu ‘Yoi’, but then all the old men in my family started harping,” here Daiki made a face he probably thought looked like an old man, lips sucked in, “What about Choyo? What about Sayoko?” He drew out a long sigh. “So what if she was born in the evening?”

Taiga did not process those words anyway, still looking at Taichi in his arms, sleeping innocently in his arms, not realising that he was feeling heavier to the man holding him with each breath he took.

Then Daiki said, “And I can’t really call my son Daiga, right?” Blue eyes bored straight into the side of his face. “That’s practically your name read differently.”

Breathe in. breathe out.

It felt like his thought process slowed to a halt. He wonders if his lungs stopped to accommodate the fact that his brain did not need any more oxygen.

“That’d be so weird.”

He does not know where he gets the strength from, but Taiga chuckles. Tiny eyelids stopped fluttering to peek open, blinking, then flapped open wide. Blue eyes so different but still so the same stared up at him, wondering; they were deep pools and they screamed at him to look only at him. Taichi’s already becoming very like his father, more so that his grandparents and great-grandparents think he is. Taiga keeps this to himself as he says, lightly, “Soon they’ll be calling you that; o-ya-ji.”

Daiki’s moan of abject horror covers the squeaking sound of his heart.

***

It is Satsuki who starts the video call, interrupting the long winding down he did whenever he was frustrated with his practices or when he does not get sleep. This time, it was when he spent more minutes tossing and turning, until finally, he gets off the heated surface to cool down.

The call beeps long and loud in the living room, kept there so that he does not get bothered by the overly taken godparents and new parents and all those things his friends are getting into in Japan. The only one who he usually sees here in California are Daiki and Kise, for games.

“Hey what’s up?” he asks in a tone that means ‘Hurry it up, I was trying to do something before you interrupted me’. Either Satsuki has lost the ability to read people (and their murderous auras) or she is preoccupied with what was on her lap. Two dark eyes are staring straight at him with a full pout forming on small lips.

“Listen to this!” Enraptured it was, he thought, watching the slightly blurred screen. Then, with tiny fists hitting his thighs, Taichi at the grand age of one, blurts out “Taih”.

Taiga frowns.

“He’s saying his name?”

Satsuki wails. “No, Bakagami!” She coaxes the child again.

“Taih-dah.” He points at the screen while babbling the word a few more times.

Sometimes, Taiga forgets his name, watching as Taichi does not look happy being jostled on the over-ecstatic, big bosomed woman.

“Maybe you should teach him how to say ‘da-da’. Daiki would be happy.” He does not know why he is not happy to hear (a bastardised version of) his name, and Satsuki returns the sentiment with one look over Taichi’s head where she is bent.

“Kagamin,” she starts, but her tone is less friendly, “You should be gushing for joy to hear Taichi’s first word, not telling us what we should teach him to say. He’s still young.”

Taiga does not respond. His eyes are fixed on the still pouting face.

“Taih-ghi,” the boy says, waving his fist, then points at him, “Taih-dah.”

Taiga laughs, loud and long, sleep a distant memory now. He wipes at the tears forming at the corner of his eyes. Satsuki does not say anything at his reaction.

Satsuki, also, does not call him anymore.

***

When the children are three, Taiga is in Japan, doing an endorsement for the new Nike line, and as busy as he was, Daiki calls to beg a few hours of his time. “That brat won’t shut up,” he is moaning over the line. “All he says is, ‘Call Taiga, call Taiga, call Taiga’ or ‘Taiga coming today? Or tomorrow?’ geez, the next one will be ‘Taiga not coming?’ and he’ll fucking cry.” There is a hint of a threat there. “And I hate when he cries.”

Taiga sighs into the palm of one hand, tilting his head to rest it on the wall he was leaning on. He has just finished one section of the advertisement, where he is running to do a lane-up; he was requested to do it so many times he was feeling the novelty of the move dying. Tomorrow he was to do a few moves before the aforementioned lane-up, and all that was going through his head was: “Why can’t we just finish it all today?”

Apparently that was not how filming a commercial video worked.

“I’ll see about dropping by before I leave.” He rubbed soothing circles on his brow, “How does that sound?”

“Fucking awesome,” Daiki crows in relief. “Thank you my man; you don’t know what this means to me.” Daiki continues laughing, and Taiga thinks he probably is grateful so much that he does not remember to end the call. Relief almost palatable, he hears Daiki say, “God I missed you oh so fucking much.”

Before he can confirm the same, the other ends, “You’re like a Taichi-pacifier!” Taiga does not join in the raucous laughter.

Taiga, also, does not go back to the hotel and is almost late to the setting the next morning, eyes rimmed the same colour as his hair.

***

He drops the boxes tiredly near the empty kitchen, wondering if he should start unloading its burden before he has a bath, or to cook, sweat it out some more, grab a quick shower before he relaxes with his food. He does not get a choice when his phone starts ringing. Too tired to really care—his manager already bit his head off earlier in the day—Taiga answers it absent-mindedly. “Hello?”

“…moshi-moshi?”

Taiga’s lips frowned for a second as he tried to keep his voice silvery, “Taichi?”

“Taiga-kyōfu?”

“Yes, Taichi, how are you doing?” He switched to Japanese, despite the child knowing English but still not being too comfortable speaking it. He always had a little frown on his face as he pronounced the words only his English tutor made him speak since everyone else spoke to him in Japanese. Taiga had tried, but was quickly pleaded to not do so, because it was confusing.

“I’m fine, kyōfu, and you?” Taichi’s voice was soft and small on the phone. Not that Taiga thought he should be aggressive like those who knew Daiki growing up, but Taichi had his own brand of mischievousness and noise; hearing him now could only mean one thing.

“Have you come down already?” He asked the young boy instead, moving to jam the phone between his ear and shoulder, starting to remove his kitchenware from the cardboard box and into its new rightful places. He hated moving, but after his last breakup, his manager thought it would be better. The next time Taiga moves, he thinks, listening to his godchild confirm what he thought, would be to a house he bought on the shore with a little private beach out back and a security fence that had no way of letting people enter out front. Or maybe on Malibu beach strip.

“Just a few hours ago,” Taichi paused, allowing shuffling noises to be heard, and a soft voice said something he could not hear, but understood the tone, “Um, are you busy? Kyōfu?”

Taiga paused in his work.

“It’s fine if you are!” the child hurried to add. The same voice from before came closer, maybe to placate the child, but Taiga cannot recognise who was beside him, almost coaching the child’s words. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

“Taichi,” he said, sighing, “What did I tell you about this?” He holds the phone as he cranks his neck upwards, looking at the plain white ceiling. It looked too new. “You can always call and bother me, haven’t I said that before?”

Taichi probably nods into the phone then realises his godfather cannot see him so he mumbles, “Uh huh.”

“Uh huh,” Taiga echoes. “Well, where’s your responsible parent?” he asks, and Taichi chuckles and says he will fetch his mother. “Yea, I’ll talk to her, okay?”

“Yes, kyōfu,” and the phone switches hands. “Taiga-san?”

“Ah, Natsumi-san, hope the flight treated you well,” he greets politely, a phrase he has beaten into his system ever since officially becoming Taichi’s godparent. They had papers and wills drawn up and all, and honestly, it seemed like Taiga was binding his soul to the Earth with no perchance of reincarnation.

“Oh yes, this time we decided to stop in Hawaii, and the kids loved the ocean!” She sounded amused and happy, no doubt they had partaken in some hilarious incidents that have probably burned itself into their memories, and Taiga wishes he was in that beachside house he dreams of owning. “But forget all that, Taiga-san,” she draws his attention back to the matter at hand, “Taichi’s been a little moody these past few days since grandfather’s passing, and you know how it is.”

Taiga shut his eyes. “Yea, I know how it is.” Bringing his other hand to his face, he tiredly rubs his eye sockets before dragging his fingers down his face. Holding his jaw, he said, “Drop him off.”

*

He goes downstairs to pick Taichi rather than make his family come up when they are obviously tired. Chinatsu does not particularly like him, more so because he makes them actually listen to him rather than going off by themselves, destroying his things in the process. At four, she had even cried after being caught surrounded by a broken figurine as he towered over, unable to really express the thoughts in his head. Daiki had given him hell for making his poor daughter hysterically scared of him, but Taiga refused to speak about what it was that broke, not that Daiki cared to even ask, patting and consoling his child in his arms.

Taichi had remained at the doorway, though, watching and taking in how he had, with quivering fingers, collected the pieces off the floor. Taiga had one look at the scattered pieces and all he could do was deposit them on the shelf it had previously been on, and retreated into his room, shutting his door silently after him. When he did decide to exit, ignoring the heated glare he was subjugated to by Daiki and the renewed snivelling of Chinatsu, he stops dead at the image of Taichi pouring all his childish attention over the scattered pieces that he had taken to the kitchen counter, superglue stick beside him on the surface. Tiny hands, firm and steady, carefully reassembled the figurine to its (albeit disjointed) full glory.

Large blue eyes, deeper than he has ever seen on Daiki, look at him when they are done, shoulders drawn to his ears as he says, “Is it okay if I put it back?”

And all Taiga managed was to ruffle his dark brown hair fondly, nodding, then watched the boy struggle to keep the figurine safe as he placed it back on its rightful place. “Thank you,” he remembers saying and the boy had blushed, happy and shy, but it did not matter to Taiga.

He remembers this now, as he sees Taichi exit the taxi cab that his mother has halted, and the two adults watch how the boy excitedly runs across the distance from the road to the entrance, a grin seen only by the receiver. The boy’s mother with his younger twin sits in the car, waiting, and finally after hugging Taiga’s legs, does he turn to wave them off. They wave back, spare some of those gestures at Taiga, and then the door closes and they are off. Both males watch the tail lights for a second.

“Is this your new place?”

Taiga glances down, patting brown hair that has grown since he has last seen him. “Yea, still moving in.” His eyes narrow, with a smirk on his lips, evilly says, “And you’ve chosen a perfect time to come around! Ha ha!”

Taichi groans in a mock affected noise, scrunching his nose for a brief second before a full blown smile takes over his features. “Anything for you, kyōfu!”

Taiga laughs and musses his hair, knowing how true that is.

“After that, I’ll cut that mop you call hair, you cheeky brat.” Unlike other children, Taichi does not stick his tongue out; instead he grins and nods and excitedly surges forward with descriptions of how he wants his hair to look this time.

When they reach upstairs, Taiga parts towards the kitchen, hearing Taichi browse the new place like an excited puppy behind him, as he pulls out items from the cardboard boxes in order to make a cup (or five) of chocolate milk. He sadly does not have any marshmellows, but it probably was the first time Taichi would be drinking one of his versions, so he inspected what he had without needing to drop by the market.

There was white chocolate sitting in the fridge, something he had gotten for the trainer who was to come by tomorrow, but he can always go out later and get another; a few oranges curtesy of his visiting manager; and a six-pack of beer. He knows there are spices that have remained, so he decides on his spiced, orange flavoured white hot chocolate recipe, a favourite that had been a recurring menu item when he was young. Grinning, he immerses himself in the preparation.

Taichi makes his way back, a small grin on his baby face, clambering on the barstool at the kitchen island. He is just in time as Taiga places a steaming mug before him, warning him of its heat.

Taichi sniffs it. The grin turns bigger and his eyes are globules of sparkles. Taiga jerks his head back, surprised, laughing at the reaction. “It smells the same as the one father makes!” he cheers.

Taiga’s laugh catches in his throat. “It…does?”

“Yup!” Taichi agrees. “In winter, when mother gets a lot of oranges, father will complain a lot before he goes and makes a white hot chocolate. It takes awesome.” The boy then frowns cutely, and in a conspiratorial whisper, adds, “I think it’s the only thing he knows how to make.”

Despite the conflicting emotions, Taiga choses to laugh at the assumption. “That must be true,” he agrees. He watches Taichi bring the mug slowly closer to him, blowing softly on the top before taking a sip. Eyes narrowed shut, cheeks bright, the child hums.

“Almost the same!”

“Yea?” Taiga asks, leaning over the island to share the same space. Taichi nods.

“Yup! But yours is better.” Cringing, shoulders up to his ears, he says, “Don’t tell father, please, kyōfu.”

Taiga laughs. “Nah, it’ll be our secret, yea?” He reaches over to show his pinky finger, but the boy reacts weirdly. “Taichi?”

Taichi sniffs, voice small, looking at his large hand. “I miss hiijiji,” he says. Taiga takes in a breath, wondering why he is the one dealing with this when his parents should be explaining to him that his great-grandfather lived way past his prime, that Taichi should be lucky he even got to see the man, and that said man was probably having an awesome time wherever he was, and…

Taiga decides to do just that. “Taichi, come here, and listen well, okay?” The boy looks up at him, large innocent dark blue eyes gazing straight at him. “Your great-grandfather was really lucky to have met you when he did, you know…”

***

At age seven, Taichi comes over with his backpack, and Taiga groans.

“How much summer homework do they give you kids?”

“A lot,” is mumbled back, disconcerted, even as the bag is opened and all the books requiring to be looked over is place on the low coffee table taking over his living room. Taichi dutifully leaves to start the kettle in which he makes tea enough for both of them.

“And where’s Chinatsu?” he calls, seating himself on the floor to overlook what counts as utter gibberish and the last bit of math people actually use in day-to-day life, he kids you not.

Taichi looks over his shoulder, pouting--his go-to expression whenever he asks about Chinatsu—and says, “She’s at Uncle Ryōta’s.”

“Careful with the kettle, Taichi.” Absent-mindedly he warns, thumbing through the math book. He wonders if he can actually look over the work when it was completed. “And how come you didn’t want to stay with Uncle Ryōta?” His question, though sounding innocent, it was partially loaded. Sometimes he wondered what Taichi saw in hanging around with him.

“Because I wanted to play with you,” is the quick and firm reply. For a seven year old, Taichi is aggressive.

Taiga does not fall for the answer, though. “But we don’t play anything.”

Taichi returns quickly at this, but careful enough at trotting the tea-laden tray, before he kneels adjacent to Taiga. “Then, you can play basketball with me.”

And then Taiga grows cold. “No.”

“Huh?” Taichi looks flabbergasted, like he did not catch what Taiga said. “But-”

“No, Taichi,” he repeats, firmer than he knows he should, “I will not play basketball with you.”

Taichi looks broken then. His eyes rim heavy with unshed tears and his face goes pale. Taiga does not realise that he has a frown so large that he could be the baby Grand Canyon. Even though he was kneeling, he was still a foot taller than the boy who looked up at him, lips trembling and body shaking. “But why, kyōfu?!” he implores, tray now impossibly heavy in his hands, that he almost lets it fall to the floor.

Taiga catches it, glad for a chance to not be looking at those soulful eyes. “taichi I will play anything else with you, anything, but not basketball.”

Taichi shakes his head, inconsolable. “Why-” he cries, brokenly.

“Taichi…”

Taiga knows he should be placating at the moment, but he does not know how. In fact, being here beside the boy made him want to be placated, and if he stares into those eyes any longer, he is going to give in and ruin what little place he had for the boy forever.

“Is it because I’m a child? Because I’m not father? Kyōfu?!”

And Taiga looks at him. “Yes,” he tells him, raw honesty that almost breaks the child beyond repair. And Taichi, looking beyond consoling now, breaks away from him and runs further inside the house, probably into his designated room that Taiga keeps.

Taiga drops his head in his hands, body shuddering. The tea turns cold, untouched.

***

It is not before Taichi turns nine that Taiga sees the boy again.

Granted, they had calls every other week—compulsory—or else Daiki bitches every time the adults meet that Taichi is becoming withdrawn and ‘Why aren’t you letting that intensity of yours rub off on him, you bastard? So stingy!’ So Taiga makes sure that at least one hour of his week goes into calling Taichi and asking the boy how are you, what are you doing, are you listening to your parents?

Taichi’s replies are solemn and monosyllabic. Most of the hour goes into periods of silences that Taiga takes up reading during this time. Currently, he is reading ‘Dear Lupin…: Letters to a Wayward Son’ as someone recommended to him. He finds it amusing, but he does not see Taichi in this role at all, so the humour is dampened when he reads it while waiting for conversation to kick-start.

On one such occasion, he is stunned by the response he gets to his ‘are you listening to your parents?’ question. “What’s it to you?”

First, because it was more than one word, and second, because of the tone. Taichi, for the first time in his life, was giving him lip.

Placing his finger on the page as he shut his book, Taiga hunts for the bookmark he discarded somewhere else. He walks to his study, mind whirling on how to answer back (because he was not prepared for this), he finds the piece of letterpress paper he uses, sliding fingers on the worn writing that it has stopped being pressed. He eyes the names on the top half, and the venue, the dates and the RSVP, even the personal note at the bottom written in katakana ‘Remember the dates, Bakagami! I won’t forgive you!’, and the pain that should come from the sight is dull compared to the pain he feels now at Taichi’s attitude.

So he starts with that.

“I don’t appreciate that attitude of yours,” he says, placing the book down. “When you’re older than me, I’ll let it pass.”

“I’ll never be older than you,” he quips, monotone.

Taiga chuckles. “Yea, which means you shouldn’t talk like you know it all.” he hears a soft growl. “I asked because I care enough to bother about you, even if you certainly don’t care enough to respect me.”

Taichi challenges him with, “You’re the one who doesn’t respect me! You’re the one who’s only nice to me because I’m Daiki’s son!”

Blood starting its slow boil under his skin, Taiga quietly warns him, “You don’t know what you are talking about, so I’d keep quiet if I were you.”

“But you aren’t me!” Taichi snapped, and he sounded so angry but so sad, like he was a second away from bursting into tears. “You care enough to bother but you don’t care about me.” With all the shouting, Taiga is surprised one of his parents are not running to find out what he is getting agitated about. “I bet dad told you to keep in touch even if you really don’t want to.” He was sneering now, into the phone, “I know I’m supposed to keep my 10 o’clock free so that you can call on Fridays.”

“Yea, he did,” Taiga agrees, turning to sit on something since it looks like the conversation is going to get a little more heated than he wanted it to go. If he starts pacing, he is going to get angry. “I wake up at 5 to have this conversation with you at 6 every Friday morning instead of going out for my roadwork.”

Taichi breathes heavily, listening.

“Your father told me to teach you some life lessons, lessons he hasn’t learnt the way I have. That’s why I’m your godfather, Taichi, even if you don’t like me.” He chuckles, closing his eyes as he pushes his head further in the armrest of the chaise longue he draped himself into. “See? This is another lesson—to tolerate grownups even when you really can’t stand them.”

He waits for Taichi to comment now, because surely, he has something to say. He does. “And is this a life lesson for you to? Force conversation with someone, a child, you don’t like.”

Taiga considered it. “No, not really.” He thinks of all the days he has to deal with an adult who acts worse than his nine-year-old son. “I’ve had more practice than I needed, to be honest.” He does not know if Taichi gets the connotation, but he is a smart boy.

“…I don’t want to keep talking anymore,” he replies with, and his voice sounds far away, making Taiga frown as he stares at the morning rays draping across his ceiling in the study.

“But I’m not done talking,” he says simply. The line does not drop off—he was half-hoping it would so that he could feel the vindictiveness of calling back just to aggravate the kid—so Taiga continues on. “Taichi, I really didn’t ask to be your godfather. Heck I really didn’t want to be a part of your life.” There, his brutal honesty reared its ugly head again, to a child no less.

Taichi gasps, as if stabbed.

“Even if it was your father who literally forced you onto my lap, drew up papers to legally bind me as your guardian so that if anything happens to your family, God forbid, you’d have someone who could take care of you.” His fingers start fidgeting with the buttons on his shirt that he threw on in the morning, only to find that two of its buttons were missing in the middle. He plays with the loose string. “But, Taichi… even if I didn’t want you in my life, you’re already part of it.”

Taiga draws in a large breath as he explains the thoughts that have been suppressed in his head since Taichi had run away from him, two years ago, “So what if I don’t play basketball with you? That’s something that I have with your father, your uncles. It shouldn’t be something you and I have together.”

“Why?” the boy asked in such a tiny voice, that Taiga choked. “Why can’t it be something we have together?”

“Because sooner or later,” the blinds that were left down fluttered, a soft sea breeze entering the closed room, quiet and soothing, “I’ll start comparing the two of you and think you’re Daiki’s son.”

He can almost picture Taichi frowning, then stating the obvious, “But I am his son.”

“Yea, you are. But you’re also Taichi, and you have your own basketball, right?” He grins. “The two of us should have something your father and I don’t have together, yea?” He straightens up to look through the blinds, at the large expanse of shimmering blue with crashing white waves. “Maybe like surfing.”

Taichi is quiet for a very long time. Taiga almost believes he has been left hanging until the same small voice informs him, “I’d like that.”

***

“Taiga! You insufferable asshole!” is the first thing he hears when he picks up the call from Ushijima Azami, a woman who deceived him to think she was unobtrusive, soft and respectful and did he mention soft? The brunette was short, like all others he had met so far—except for that Frenchwoman at the recent US Open who met him eye-to-eye with a smirk—and she had smiled and spoke only when spoken to. That was twelve years ago, and as each year made its final turn, she was seeing her for what it was worth. Loud. Annoying. And definitely the mother of a sailor returning from sea. “He won’t listen to me at all!!”

Placing the phone on speaker rather than putting it to his ear, lest he join the miming troupe on Broadway, Taiga asked who, what and when, as he also learnt with Azami.

“That boy of yours!” she snapped, sounding less and less like a woman, a wife and a mother of three.

“Why is it that every time he does something you don’t like, he’s my child?” Taiga asks a question he already knows the answer of. Taichi was ending his preteen years and starting with the real teens. And with a father like Daiki and a spitfire like Chinatsu, there was only so much a decorous boy like Taichi could take before he snapped and told them where to shove it. Things were made worse when the family could not travel so freely back and forth during basketball season so Taichi was performing what the adults called his brooding phase when he did not get what he wanted. Taiga is waiting for the rebellious stage so that he could watch how the Aomines would really deal with it. Oh, and Azami.

“I told that brat he was staying with me on the farm and he ignored me, Taiga,” her words were heavy. “Ignored me,” she repeated, like it would mean anything more to him. He scoffed, unfortunately, loudly. “Oh, you think this is funny?! I’ll show you funny! He’s staying with me for Winter break as well!” Azami threatened like it meant anything to Taiga. He thinks the woman really does not know who is worse to deal with—Taiga who would only shrug and waste a few more hundred dollars making long distance calls on the regular, or Taichi who would snub her on her face and declare in all his childish glory that he ‘hates that woman’.

“Sure, you tell him that though,” he acquiesces because he can be mean like that. He yawns, clearing up the last of the plates from his dishwasher and replaces them back where they belong, switching off the lights as he goes, picking up the phone but keeping it arm’s length from his face. “And then you can call me to bitch some more.”

Taiga makes his rounds around the house, checking each lock before switching on the alarm, heading back to his bedroom for some much needed sleep; training was wearing him out, and he could not help but spend less hours functional when done, and more hours doing various relaxation regimes, the most common one being dead asleep. Azami spends the next few minutes bitching at him and calling names before she goes quiet. He frowns, wondering if the line disconnected or he was sleepwalking and dreaming the woman had shut her wide mouth to leave him in peace. “Taiga.”

Still awake it seems.

“What is it?” he starts the ascend to his room, threading heavy with one hand trailing on the railing.

“When are you going to get married?”

His foot almost misses the next step, thankful that his good reflexes stopped the near death-inducing flattening of his face in time. “What?”

“When are you getting married, you imbecile?” she asks again, less pleasant. Taiga is sure Azami knows he is as gay as one can get without sprinkling gay bacon on all his dishes, pin the rainbow on his shirts, and participate in Gay Rights Movements across the country. And wear heels, because those look terrible with his calf muscles no matter which style he tries. “Unless…unless you broke up with that stud muffin?” He does not need to see her face to know she was frowning, prettily despite the years on her features, and that is one thing Taiga will not complain about—Azami was pretty.

“No, that stud-muffin’s still around. In fact,” he says, walking up the rest of the way and into the lit bedroom. He walks through the doorway and shuts the door with his foot, smiling at the man lying on the deep maroon sheets reading some novel or the other, a pair of glasses perched on his once-broken (courtesy of meeting Taiga) nose, who looked up at his entrance. A booming smile came his way, and childishly theoretical, Taiga brought his hands up to his eyes and mocked being blinded. The smile turned to a rocking laugh that filled his chest and stomach. “In fact, he’s waiting for me to go to bed.” He paused long enough for her to get the message, adding more daggers with, “Got the hint, Azami?”

Azami made a noise that was a cross between a growl and a hiss. She had amazing vocal cords, he thought. “He’s there?! Bastian!! Come to the phone!” she demanded.

Successfully distracted, Taiga chucked the phone to his brunette lover of eight years, and settled into the bed beside him. Long limbs left exposed to be kissed by the beach breeze entering through the open balcony windows, Bastian grabbed the phone and started a conversation that Taiga had no idea how it ended as he slept soundly through it all.

In the morning, Bastian leaves a note on the kitchen counter with his cheery hand-writing, which read: “Have a great match! Azami said that Taichi’s scheduled to arrive on Friday morning and needs to leave Sunday morning. Check with his folks, O.K.? I’ll pack enough clothes for the weekend. Love you!”

Taiga frowns, hand automatically going to scratch his abs, as he re-reads the note. He hates that he has to keep Bastian a secret from Taichi but Daiki had warned him to not expose his children to that side of him. It had hurt, for his preferences to be disregarded entirely, especially when Daiki himself had once ‘been like that’ too. He respected the father’s wishes, though, not saying a word to the reproach, and politely requested his lovers, both past and present, to please pretend they were just close friends when the children were around.

He had many breakups because of this one request—really, the only other thing Taiga asks of his partners—and while sometimes they agree in the beginning, it becomes difficult later on. Bastian was the only fool who had cheerily parted during those days and said it was understandable; there would always be people who were uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality and/or thought it was contagious. Taiga wished he could man up and tell him exactly why he was left with this demand, but he had not found the spring-release latch for his balls to drop down at his request.

Trailing the edge of the note, he smiles wryly and picks it up, then heads to his study to deposit it among the multitudes of its ancestors, where it will remain in wait for its descendants to join, hidden in the dark of the deepest drawer he has in that room he keeps under lock and key. Even Taichi never broaches the subject to ask why he is not allowed in that room, respecting his privacy, and knowing he is otherwise allowed a lot more things than just what his godfather keeps him away from.

Taiga has at least got that drilled into the young male.

***

The twins’ middle school days brought upon a long list of complaints from anyone who interacted with them. Taiga was surprised by the cantankerous nature Kuroko developed as he listened to the stories involving Chinatsu, who by then had inherited her mother’s outward beauty and her father’s inward charm. Satsuki, having thought she would not deal with the second generation of Daiki, cried and bemoaned her fate that was looked upon sourly by the gods above, and Taiga heard all this through Kuroko since Satsuki still did not call him of her own volition, forget to complain. Sometimes he wishes that it was only theatrics with them, but then he saw it for himself.

“You are not wearing that outside,” was the simple command, and the waterworks started. She cried, and whined, and threw a tantrum so great, Daiki was three steps away from committing seppuku to rid himself of the guilt and shame (and maybe even the noise, Taiga cannot decide). The mother is not in the house at the moment, and thinks maybe she had a better way of dealing with the hassle, so patiently hopes that the woman arrives, preferably, in the next few minutes.

Taichi, as always when Taiga drops by, is kneeling at his side, face scrunched up as he tried valiantly to ignore the screeching banshee that is near the genkan.

“Is she always—?” He need not finish the question as the youth nods already, exasperated. Taiga sighs, clenching his fists in order to reign in his headache. They start up, though, when the door opens, and a voice says, “Why is there so much noise? You’re disturbi— Daiki, what are you doing?”

Frowning, Taiga gets up to see what the dark skinned man is doing. Then slaps his hand on his face to block the ridiculous sight. “Man up, you loser. She’s your child,” he tells the other, bringing his hands on his thick hips. “She has no other choice but to listen to you.”

All three of them at the genkan look at him, as if he was sprouting gold from his mouth. He wishes, sometimes, but disregards the thought. “What?”

“Oh, let him deal with it,” the mother says. “Maybe you can learn something from him, dear,” she looks straight at Daiki.

Daiki furrows his eyebrows in confusion. “From Taiga?”

Taiga learned, like Azami, Natsumi-san is just as cruel and vicious and sly.

She smiles at him now, pleasantly, “Daiki has to learn the ropes some time, right?” as she leaves, he catches the twinkle in her eyes, as if she had successfully washed her hands off something that would cause future headaches.

Daiki moves away, still on his knees, giving him enough room before Chinatsu. The girl, despite being feisty, is surprisingly waiting to see what he would do or say.

Taiga tries for diplomacy first.

“You’re too young to wear that outside, is all your father is saying, Chinatsu.” He does not call her with the nickname they all revert to when trying to sweet-talk her. “Maybe when you are older, sure.” He shrugs.

She frowns, glossed lips pouting out. “Yea, and how old is that supposed to be?” She places her hands on her exposed hips since the short skirt lies even below that. The long sweater she wears, striped black and gold, is the only thing really worth commending, otherwise the article does not cover anything in front that the adults wanted her to cover. Like her really low neckline and the high edge of the blouse she wore, practically covering nothing she has as a thirteen year old.

“Old enough to defend yourself.”

Another furrow is added to her forehead. “I’m old enough to defend myself now,” she says in that ‘big girl’ tone. Taiga does not buy it. Taichi never used that sentence on him after the first time, and he knows it affects him when the boy at his elbow freezes. Taiga figures it would be a repeat lesson for him as the play follows the script the same way it was written years ago with Taichi.

“Yea?” he asks, tone lazy. Daiki is watching him carefully, the blank face now settling into the apprehensive frown he recognises very well. Indeed, as Taiga spreads his arms wide before him, stepping closer, Daiki’s mouth dips at the edges, muscles becoming taunt. They both know what that posture means, and Daiki is trying very hard not to already jump the gun. Taiga appreciates it, continuing the play. “Try to take me on.”

Chinatsu glowers in confusion, as if she cannot believe he is wasting her time for some bullshit or the other. He does not stop moving closer, and she does not move, but somehow, an involuntary message passes through her body, and he watches how her limbs freeze. He is but three feet away when Chinatsu all but breaks down into a quivering mess.

Taiga’s eyebrows shoot up, not expecting the girl to still be afraid of him, enough to cry, and watches as Daiki straightens slowly beside him to take his daughter into his arms, snot and tears and all. Daiki does not face him, but his back is rigid. Chinatsu’s face is hidden in her father’s chest, away from his sight. But Taiga does not apologise.

“You can’t even look me in the eye for more than a few seconds,” he said, sotto voce. “Will this be the same reaction when someone comes to you with force? Holding a weapon?”

“Enough,” Daiki says, softly over the girl’s cries.

“I care about you and I have never once laid a finger on you, but you still burst into tears,” Taiga continued on, eyes never leaving the strained neck muscles on Daiki, trailing from the edge of dark blue hair.

“I said, enough.”

The muscles twitched, once, twice. “You’re mistaken if you think anyone besides your father will stop from hurting you if you shed those tea—“

“Kagami!!”

Taiga stopped mid-word at Daiki’s roar. The house was engulfed with silence, even the electronics in the vicinity dared not make sound. Chinatsu, too, held her breath and cries, only to let it out silently in shock.

“…I’ll leave now. I might have over stayed my welcome.” Taiga glances to the side at Taichi, who remained quiet, wondering if the boy would flinch if he tries to ruffle his hair. He does. Not expecting anything else, Taiga smiles sadly and moves past the father-daughter complex, slides on his shoes without really trying, and slips out the door.

The burn at the back of his head tells him that Daiki is beyond furious with him.

***

Chinatsu calms down by the end of middle school. She joins a martial art afterschool club, attends extra classes at a dōjō nearby, surprising those around her, and makes it to shodan by the time she has to start High School. The training mellows her rambunctious character and Kuroko stops calling him with only Chinatsu to complain about; he starts complaining about all the weird things Satsuki is doing instead. Taiga regrets telling him that she probably needs to get laid, by Kuroko, and now he is down the third friend for his ‘uncouth ramblings of a buffoon’.

It took Taiga a while to realise what dōkeshi was until he needed to call Kise a clown and was told, by said clown, that he was not a dōkeshi.

By then, Taiga could not deny it.

In the meantime, Taiga watches as Bastian withdraws from him and spends more time fighting with his lover of eleven years, watches as the very long honeymoon period erodes to nothing, and finds himself heartbroken and a mess by the time Taichi informs him (via text message filled with large unknown kanji) that he was put on the bench for his basketball team in High School. It is something to celebrate, but no thought of such can pass his mind as Taiga throws back the one-too-many drink of the evening.

His manager comes by the morning to push him out of bed, informs him that he needs to straighten up his act by the time playoffs start or else he is kicked off the team. There are younger guys coming fresh out of college and they will eventually take over, jumping higher, dunking more furiously than Taiga ever will in the state he has put himself in.

“You’ve been pulled off the starting line-up,” his manager finally informs him over the phone, too despondent to even make a house call.

Taiga wonders when he will get a break, eyeing the balmy beach weather and the rolling waves in front of his private section of beach shore. Like a broken, drunken man (which he is), he trots to the bank, pulling a surfboard behind him, haggard. In his other hand, unbeknownst to him, he clutches his phone tightly. Just as he steps ankle deep into the water, the phone rings.

“Kyōfu?” is Taichi’s first words instead of the four-year old hesitant voice wondering if he got the wrong number calling him all those years ago. His voice, now so close to how his father sounded at his age, though less of a drawl, wakens him up a bit. “Kyōfu?” He asks again.

“Yea, Taichi, I’m here,” he says, because really, does that not mean more than anything else at the moment? Was not Taiga still here on Earth, alive and breathing, if not a little drunk and worse for wear. Suddenly exhausted, he drops down to his knees in the water, watching his khaki shorts soak up the ocean water, staining it darker and darker. “What happened?”

Taichi takes a while to answer, and Taiga does not know why he does, since he cannot hear anything in his background. The silence, however, makes him worry. All he can hear is the echo of the beach from his side.

“Taichi, is everything okay?” he calls out louder than he needs to, head snapping up and eyes darting all over the horizon, knowing some thousands of miles his godson is there, calling him and possibly hurt. His heart is racing and worrying, but all he can do is remain kneeling.

“Kyōfu, you worry too much,” the boy says instead, chuckling lightly. Then, gravelly, he speaks, “You didn’t tell me if you were coming to Tokyo this summer or not, kyōfu. I, I don’t know,” he stops, hedging, like he is scared to say the rest, then decides to forge on despite his earlier hesitance. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to see you if you don’t.”

Taiga winced at the implication, not dumb enough to miss what the boy was not saying. Regardless of the fact that Daiki—and now Kuroko—has not really spoken or spent time with him since that day of correcting Chinatsu, Taiga was not kicked off the godparent roster. Azami was usually the one who transferred details of the Aomines’ lives, if Taichi did not get to him first, and then ended her report with “How’s your stud muffin?” He still had no heart to tell her they were done after spending what seemed like a lifetime together. He knows what her reaction will be, and despite their grievances, Azami and him were really close; close enough to utterly bad mouth each other, at least.

“I don’t know,” he answers as truthfully as he can.

If there was one thing he did not want to part with, it is this sorrowful image he is now sporting to Taichi. It seemed, as the years added on, the baby whose life he had not wanted to be part of became the one he wanted to be straight with for as long as he was able. It saddens him, thoughts of all his dreams and hopes as a twenty year old, spending his days beside Daiki, thinking about a future where they surrogate a child or two or even ten, were all being fulfilled in such a roundabout way.

 Holding his head, he tries not to dry sob into the line. “I don’t know. Soon maybe,” he manages to say through heavy breathing.

“…” Taichi shuffles on the other side, but Taiga is more concerned that he still cannot hear any noise from there. “Kyōfu?” he asks, voice suddenly small like a child’s. Taiga wants to so badly hold the boy to his chest to assure him everything in the world is alright and that he has nothing to worry about, least of all for a man who cannot even keep his head straight after a breakup.

“Yea?” he asks, voice thick.

“Why are you kneeling over there?”

Taiga’s heart freezes and slowly, bringing the phone away from his ear, he turns to see a boy who looks so like Daiki with a lighter tan, and different hair, but those eyes and that stance, the way he holds himself, and the way he walks forward through the back screen door, dropping his hand holding the device and letting it slip through long nimble fingers into the soft white sand, smooth and fluid, and no mistake in each step he takes to reach Taiga, miserable man that he is, wet with salt water from the beach and from his tears, and Taiga just—

He sobs because he has lost the one thing he wanted to hold on to, all these years, since the day Daiki promised all his days, all his future for someone else not him, and now, standing before him was the proof of what he had promised, a product so beautiful the envy he had hidden deep into his heart springing forth unbidden.

All Taiga can do is sob and apologise, even if the one listening and receiving his apologies does not understand for what, only that the man he looks up to is in shambles at his feet when he nears him, and takes him to his narrow boy’s chest in confusion and open worry and jumbled thoughts.

“Kyōfu…” is an endearment that Taichi sticks to as Taiga continuously mumbles out all forms of apologies, never once lifting his heavy, aching head from a thin, underdeveloped chest. A hand reaches us around his head, patting wild red locks down. “Kyōfu.”

The cold breeze from the sea howls into his open empty house.

*

Taiga calms down sometime, he does not know when, but soon enough to push away silently from his godson. Taichi does not speak, knowing the look on his godfather’s face as the man stands on his own feet, rather wobbly, but still manages to walk, with a bowed head, back to his home. Taiga leaves the door open, wondering if the boy will follow, and heads to the bathroom to change. He guesses, somewhere in his head, that maybe taking a shower would help clear his befuddled mind.

When he returns, shower fresh and warm, Taichi has started cooking, making meals he has seen his godfather make countless times while growing up, that it seems like second nature as he performs the same movements to feed both their appetite, albeit more for the elder male than he has ever dreamed of eating himself. Taiga sits at the kitchen counter and watches, not saying a word.

The first to speak is Taichi, unsurprising, as he brings out a set of plates and glasses and utensils on the counter, guileless that he may have to stand if he wants to have this conversation face to face. “Where is Bastian?”

Taiga coughs while drinking the water the boy filled his glass with, eyes watering. As if his body did not get enough water. “At his place? Why?”

Taichi frowns. “You know…you don’t have to push him away every time I come around, kyōfu. I’m old enough to know better than to discriminate against homosexuals.” Then flustered, he waves his hands before them, “I don’t mean—”

“It’s okay,” he cuts off quickly, sparing both of them from the humiliation this conversation is sure to bring about. “But it’s too late now.” Taichi pouts, a look that was very endearing and most denied as well by the younger male.

“You can still call him back here,” he says, serving himself since Taiga ends up eating straight from the dishes as it’s a hassle to really serve himself. He guesses that is the only bad thing he has engrained in the boy.

“No, I mean, we broke up.” Taiga eats the meal and appreciates the flavours, eyes taking in the boy’s neat presentation even if it was still in the cooking pot. He is clean and tidy, and Taiga values that aspect as well.

“What? I thought you were married?!” the stunned exclamation might have matched his own because Taiga could see the way the boy was folding himself in a grimace. “I mean, you live in California, for crying out loud. Is that why he left you?”

With a droll smile, Taiga asks, “Why couldn’t it have been me?”

Taichi frowns, looking down at his plate, then placing his chopsticks on the surface, forgoing eating. “Because it seemed like you were really invested in him.”

Taiga jerks uncomfortably at the admission. He knows he has been very careful about showing Bastian affection at the times he was around when Taichi was visiting, so he is surprised by what the boy confirms.

As if prompted, he mumbles something that makes Taiga snap at him for the bad habit. “Speak up or no one will listen to you,” he reminds him, mouth taunt in rebuke. So Taichi opens his mouth and Taiga wishes he just let the boy be. “He acts like father.”

Taiga mouth dries up and there is no more water in his glass.

“When father and mother think no one is watching them,” he affirms, looking him straight in the eye despite the blush blossoming on his face. “When you don’t think anyone is watching you when you are looking at father.”

*

Taiga watches Taichi’s back as it recedes, walking guiltily up to his waiting father. Daiki, for once, is standing on the curb, out of his SUV, hands in his pockets as he remains blank faced to his son. They do not look at each other even when Taichi crosses his field of vision, and enters the vehicle silently, closing the door behind him. It is then that Daiki’s expression changes.

“You missed his birthday,” he starts with.

Taiga nods, chastened. “I know, I’m sorry.”

Daiki is unforgiving. “You never miss his birthday. Get your act together, Kagami, or you’ll lose another precious person.” Taiga glances at him. “Yea, don’t think I didn’t get the memo,” he sneers, eyes hard. “I know Tetsu is not contacting you anymore.” Daiki sighs, bringing his hands out of his pockets, one reaching for his door. “Don’t mess up anymore, Kagami. Taichi doesn’t need a loser in his life.” With the door open and partially in it, he pauses to add, “Otherwise wash your hands off now while you still can.”

Taiga wonders if that is even possible, for both him and Taichi.

***

Taiga does not forget to call Taichi the next year.

As the boy gets busier playing club basketball, Taiga gets busier training and studying, and teaching, that everybody gets a surprise when, before the season starts, Taiga announces his retirement.

He gets questions from the press and his fans, and even people he had stopped contacting years ago as he falls out of touch. They all ask him if he is injured or suffering, or if there was something he was not telling them.

He agrees; there is something he is not telling them.

He pays the last mortgage he will hopefully ever see in this life, standing on the sandy beach of his back yard. His phone, thrown somewhere in his house, is left to vibrate to kingdom come, as he breathes in deeply the salt air, filling his lungs with a huge grin on his face. Taiga has never felt so free in his life before, and can only guess how much surfing is going to take up his time.

Or at least until he can find something else to do with it.

Retreating inside, curious to know who and what people were asking, the only one he does not receive missed calls or messages from is Taichi. If there was one person—besides the club and his manager—he had informed the boy that he was going to do something shocking, so please wait for me to explain why.

Like the dutiful son he will never have, Taichi has not bombarded his devices like the rest of the world was doing. If he did not know before, seeing the numbers now, he knows how popular he is.

Taiga heads to his room to sleep, hoping that waking up groggy will calm his wildly beating heart.

*

He does not even get the chance to blink before he feels as if he is being submerged in the sea, cold and wet and surrounded, and he struggles to get up, get to the surface, so that he can breathe again. He does not need to, as when he opens his eyes, he is in his comfy large wet bed, too large (and wet) for him alone, surrounded by the rainbow (and being wet).

He thinks it must have rained inside as opposed to outside, and this was some sick joke for the rainbow to impersonate people he knows in life.

Taiga blinks again, and the faces and heads focus into perception, and he almost groans at the implication of their presence.

“I just announced it yesterday. You guys are freaks,” he mumbles, lifting a hand to wipe off the excess water from his face, realising it is useless. He glances at each and every face, then asks, suspicious, “Where’s Taichi?” If there was one sure-fire way to get him to talk, all they had to do was send the boy in, alone, and Taiga would undoubtedly spill the beans.

He wonders how long he has to make his escape.

Akashi is the first to speak, as usual, orotund in the crowded bedroom. “He’s the backup plan. But before that, Taiga, isn’t there something you need to tell us?”

Taiga will never understand why the man feels he should be informed of all their decisions when clearly, playing basketball or not playing basketball is his life and not the other redhead’s.

Calm and steady eyes made his voice tremulous; “Um, no?”

Kuroko is next, pushing Kise’s face away easily to get in front of him. Seeing the blond allows for Taiga to connect the dots as he is the only one who has a freaking jet that he flies himself all over the place, and a backup pilot when he is exhausted; who does that? Taiga always thinks to himself.

“Have you hurt yourself?”

“No!” he snaps. Why does everyone think he would only stop playing basketball if he was hurt? Was basketball the only thing defining him as a character, a person? Back tracking on his thoughts, taiga sheepishly agreed with himself. “I’m not,” he decided to add on a softer note, but still with a heated inflection.

It was then that he noticed his sheets were off his body and nimble fingers prodding and palpitating his legs by one Midorima Shintarō caused him to sputter in shock. “What are you doing?!”

“What does it look like?” Midorima questioned, no quip behind his words, making Taiga realise that he was in full doctor mode.

Taiga groaned and, boneless, dropped back into his bed. He can already tell it was going to be a long day and he was not even off his bed yet!

*

Taichi was sitting on the beachfront when Taiga managed to dislodge himself of the unwanted people. The boy’s back is ramrod straight and he is staring straight at the risen sun, so Taiga drops his hand over his eyes, amused when the boy jerks in surprise.

“Kyōfu!” Hands that were getting as big as his, gripped onto the one covering his sight, tugging it off. Blue eyes that looked lighter than the night sky bore into his. “You scared me.”

Taiga scoffed, plopping down beside him. “Who else would do that to you at this age?” Taichi blushes in response.

The two remain quiet for a while before Taiga decides it is time to confess. “I am free now.”

“Free?” Taichi repeats, head tilted to one side, brown bangs swaying in the wind on his forehead. He has grown his hair again. Taiga wonders if the boy grows out his hair on purpose so that he forces him to get it cut.

“Yea, free,” glancing discreetly at him, he adds, “from your father.”

Taichi draws in a deep breath and holds it.

Taiga amuses himself by playing with the sand encased in the hole of his cross legs. He grabs a handful and spills it out, digging deeper. He waits for Taichi to react.

“Is…Does…” the boy does not know how to ask his question, and not pushing him, Taiga patiently waits for the boy to gather his wits. “Do you still love him?”

Taiga smiles, more pained than he thought was possible at such an innocent, but loaded, question. “Yea, I guess.” He pauses in his digging, brings a knee up to drape an arm around it, resting his chin. “I think that I never stopped loving him.” Taiga is one part afraid that the admission will scare Taichi away.

Another, is wondering if he wants to push the boy himself.

“Do you love me?” the words are so quiet, Taiga is surprised he heard it at all.

“Of course I do!” he snaps at the younger boy, scurrying to get onto his (perfectly fine, thank you very much, Midorima) knees, gathering the meek looking frame of his godchild. “You stupid idiot,” he pronounces, using the word Kuroko calls him, because what the hell, it encompasses what he wants to pass on to the boy with such an inferiority complex, it is absurd. “Why would you think differently?!”

Taichi raises sorrowful eyes up at him. “Because I’m from the reason you and dad are not together?”

Overcoming the near heart attack with will alone, Taiga pulls apart to look Taichi in the eye. “Who,” he licks his lips, feeling dried up all at once, “Who told you that?”

Taichi does not answer.

Noises of people talking and moving around in his house makes Taiga tense, but he wants the boy to answer the question (so that he could kill the person responsible).

“Taichi!” he shakes his shoulders for effect, eyes definitely going wide with panic. “Who told you? Who all know?!”

The boy frowns. “I broke into your study.”

And Taiga sees white.

*

The study was mostly bare for being called such a room.

It had a huge rosewood desk that used to belong to his father from his childhood home, scratched and chipped beyond worth. He remembers a time when he used to hide under the foreboding piece of furniture as Tatsuya tried to get him to do his math homework before they played streetball. Nothing was kept on the desk for fear of the weight bearing down on the old wood.

The chair, though, was new, sitting proudly like a freshly minted college student, wanting to do his best at his new work place, still shiny and sparkly. When Taiga did use it, it creaked and squeaked, and it made him not want to sit in it for too long. So he usually kept it covered with a big white sheet. A burnt orange coloured chaise lounge sat directly opposite it, under the wide bay window, from where the swivel looked like a looming ghost in the dark.

In between the two pieces of furniture, there was a towering case of shelves that held various knickknacks that Taiga had collected over the years.

His first basketball, polished and kept sitting on a plastic pedestal, the side that Tatsuya and him had scribbled their names on displayed. The next basketball in the row of displayed basketballs was the one Alex had signed for him. This he keeps in an airtight case, too afraid to ruin it by mistake. In front of both balls are the symbol of a brotherhood; the ring and chain being something he regularly plays with when talking on the phone with the older man.

There were some books and files, important to him in a different way than the basketballs. There are a few shot glasses he has collected from the different places he has been—either in games or for travelling.

Taiga traces the jagged edge of one broken glass as he remembers the epic fight Daiki and he had when Taiga returned from one such travel with Tatsuya, only to be subjugated to Daiki’s heckling on what they really did on the trip. It had ended in make-up sex, and post-make-up sex, and post-post-make-up sex, wherein both were three days late to their new semester.

There is a series of pictures that Taiga keeps framed: his first streetball team in Los Angeles; he and his father, taking a picture before he departs to Japan himself; his basketball team in High School; more pictures with said basketball team.

Pictures with the Generation of Miracles, some with and without their upperclassmen; a few with teachers and coaches that made a difference; some with rival basketball members.

There were just so many memories, but Taiga sees all past that and focuses on the ones where Taiga and Daiki are laughing their asses off, making fools of themselves in front of the Grill & Bar they patronise when they turn twenty; there are a few taken secretly by their friends, who, if Taiga remembers correctly, bribed them for the pictures.

Taiga chuckles at all the memories only he and the pictures are privy to, because it seems like the other in the same pictures, has forgotten everything.

“When did you come here?” Taiga asks the boy finally, who is hovering just inside of the closed doorway.

Taichi takes his time to word “When I visited you the last time; when you missed my birthday.” Taiga dubs that day as ‘Taichi probably thinks I’m a Creep’. He guesses it should be relabelled to ‘Taichi knows The Secret’.

“Why?”

Taichi shrugs and Taiga sees this from the corner of his eye; he does not have the self-control to look him in the eye. He already feels exposed and emasculated, so he wants to protect at least a little part of himself. Another annoying voice in his head reminds him that he has already shown the boy his most depressing side; ‘what’s one more?’ it impresses.

“No one spoke about you in the house. Then when Chi asked me if I had received your greeting…I said no.”

Taiga nods; Taichi had begged to visit his place, he later told him, because his father would not allow for him to actually call otherwise. In the end, Chinatsu had said something along the lines of ‘missing that scowling face’ and Daiki had appeared to frown largely at the room before he relented. Daiki’s reaction, and then Taiga’s subsequent depression, spurred him to find out what his godfather hid away from him.

“I thought maybe it would help me figure you out.” Taichi shrugs again.

Taiga heaves a sigh. He travels down memory lane alone, moving across the shelves with a dazed eye. He stops then, at a long forgotten figure. “Do you remember this?”

Taichi looks over, curious. He nods fiercely. “The one Chinatsu broke.”

“The one you fixed,” he corrects automatically. Taiga does not touch the piece at all. a soft laugh erupts from his throat. “You know, she’s not the one who really broke it.” He looks over his shoulder at Taichi. The boy frowns.

“But—”

“Your father was the first one.” Dark blue eyes widen. “Yea, he’s the one who bought it for me, you know?” turning to face the near impossible to recognise figurine, the crystal form of a parent tiger curled around its cub. “He said, ‘It suits you, you big oaf’ when he gave it to me.” He trails a continuous circle around the structure, watching as he draws in the dust. “I asked him how that was possible; I don’t have a child, unless I counted him.” They both share a laugh at that.

“He said he would make it so,” and turning to Taichi he grins, watery, “I just didn’t expect it this way, you know?”

Taichi reaches out for him, but Taiga draws back, almost knowing what the boy will say to his shared memory. “But I can’t be that; you have two perfectly fine parents, and honestly, living so far away is more a bane than a boon.”

Taichi does not let it off, though. “But you are like a father to me,” the boy protests, eagerly. Taiga shakes his head to deny it; he has hardly done much for the kid. “You are! You’re like…Tai…chichi. Tai’s chichi, so like, Taichichi!” He is rambling, and for a second, Taiga’s heart soars higher than Daiki has ever made it go.

Taiga barks a laugh. “That just sounds like your name with an effeminate honorific.” He dismisses it, straightening up with a sigh. “C’mon, we’ve been in here long enough. Let’s go back or they’ll think I’ve murder you or something.”

Taichi continues to protest, wants to be heard, but Taiga hears none of it. He is scared what the boy will do, or say, and he is scared that being so exposed has made him fragile; hearing anything more will boost his hope up so much, and like the deflated ego he had buried years ago, it will burst with a pop and flutter like a dead leaf onto the floor, to be trampled all over.

Narrowed dark blue eyes watch him when he exits, but he does not blink away like he wants to. They hold for a few seconds before their owner shifts their stare behind him. Taiga can still feel the nervous energy drifting off Taichi, but he does not speak of it, in the presence of the others, ignoring the insistent tugging on his arm.

“Maybe you guys should leave now,” he says to the room at large. “I’m sorry you had to come all the way here, but I still have things to do with my retirement processing.” He tries not to show the wobbly smile that is taking over his face. “If you are here tomorrow, I’ll see you then.”

They agree half-heartedly, confused faces marching out one after the other. Taichi hovers at the doorway, not wholly willing to leave.

“I’m not lying,” he says in the end. “I’ll keep proving it to you.”

***

When Taichi is scouted for a junior league team at nineteen, an uncharacteristically large grin eating his face narrowing his eyes to mere slits, he asks his manager to take a picture of him on their home court, spreading arms wide and showing off his team jersey.

“O-chichiware?” Taiga looks on, confused at the words, not really taking in the image as the background noise of his team warming up by doing suicides squeaked and filled the gym at his command.

It takes him a few seconds, reading kanji that he rarely sees spilt the way the boy has written, almost pissed that Taichi got his name wrong. “What’s with this?” he wonders, tapping the photo which boasts a character that looks like crossed swords, eyes glossing over the picture, separating the two characters of ‘Taiga’.

That is when Taiga sees it.

Catching the attention of his assistant managers, he has a near heart attack at the dye job his godson is sporting on his head.

Bright red interlaced with his dark brown hair, dark blue peeking through squinted eyelids, and a grin that was so familiar all nestled in lightly tanned skin, Taichi was a beautiful representation.

Hand clenching against his aching heart, breathing in short huffs, Taiga laughs. “That boy is going to be the death of me.”

Signed largely at the bottom of the photo that flutters to the ground after slipping from surprised fingers, a neat row of kanji reads: “Finally here, Tai-chichi-ga”.