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“We’re going to be late.” Strong arms wrapped around his middle as lips smeared lazy kisses across the back of his neck. Despite his half-hearted protests, Taiga leaned back into the touch, enjoying the way pleasant warmth bloomed within his chest at the private affection they could only afford one another in the confines of his apartment.
“So?” Teeth scraped against the juncture between his neck and shoulder, making him shiver slightly, and Taiga tilted his head to the side to give better access. Lips latched on and sucked gently, not enough to mark beyond a pale red wheel of promise that would be entirely gone within the hour. A vibrant brand of almost-ownership that Taiga wished desperately he could hold onto for days, not minutes - to return in kind.
One day. Not yet.
“So, what d’you think they’ll say if both aces show up late for our game, huh?” He grumbled, though there was no heat behind it. There was a huff against his skin and he caught the flash of teeth out of the corner of his eye as Daiki grinned at him.
“If it’s anything other than some version of ‘lucky bastard’, I can’t legally be held responsible for my actions.” Daiki replied, and Taiga found himself being tugged around on the spot, chest against chest, long arms looping up over his shoulders as he was pulled into a mint-chilled kiss. There was no heat there, only a practiced familiarity. It was slow, needy, and he hated to be the one to pull away when Daiki was like this. “Besides,” he continued, chasing after the retreating warmth as Taiga pulled away. “They’re probably too dense to realise, anyway.”
“Kuroko.” Taiga reminded him, and Daiki winced. With a nod and a sigh that Taiga could do nothing but agree with, he finally let go, mouth twisted into a scowl that looked suspiciously pout-like.
“Satsuki.” He agreed with a huff, and Taiga tossed the clean jerseys in his arms at Daiki’s head to earn the expected squawk of indignation.
“Finish up in here, I’m gonna go use the toilet.” With a laugh at the resulting glare from his boyfriend, Taiga darted from the bedroom before Daiki could retaliate, unable to strip the grin from his face until long after they were already out the door and on their way to the agreed meeting spot for their respective teams.
It wasn’t that they wanted to keep their relationship a secret, not really. Perhaps to start off with, when everything was bright and new and they struggled to keep their hands off one another, but that phase had passed almost a year back. Now, with the end of their second year at Seirin and Tōō respectively fast approaching, it felt as though they had waited for too long to reveal it.
His friends - his team - wouldn’t forgive him for keeping something this big from them for so long. Hell, for all he knew they might turn on him for it. After all, same-sex relationships between men weren’t exactly widely accepted, or openly spoken about for that matter. He had no idea how any of the people he cared for would react to finding out that Taiga preferred the company of other men.
And after what had happened in America...
The thought of losing any of them to this hurt more than he would admit. Yet, the thought of keeping Daiki as his ‘dirty little secret’ was worse, somehow.
Soon, he thought to himself as fingers a touch more slender than his own laced into a gentle hold, their palms scarcely grazing. Crushed into an over-packed train car with Daiki pressed against his side from both necessity and a need to be close, the action went unnoticed by those around them, and Taiga let himself smile.
“You’re late.” Hyuuga was on him as soon as Taiga stepped into the Seirin locker rooms, the rest of the team having retreated there from the agreed meeting spot when it became apparent that their ace wasn’t likely to show any time soon.
“Sorry, sorry.” Taiga raised a placating hand, though the apology was half-hearted at best and that that only seemed to rile his captain up further. “It took longer to get here than I thought it would. Traffic, you know?”
“Chew him out later.” Riko finally cut in, stepping between the two of them when it became apparent that Hyuuga was on the verge of outright exploding. She levelled him with a glare that Taiga tried - and likely failed - not to cower from and he knew she wouldn’t forget this any time soon. “Kagami, get changed, you’ve got less than five minutes.”
Damnit. The rest of the team were sitting around waiting for him, ready to go and wearing expressions varying from irritation to amusement to disappointment. Disappointment towards him, and Taiga felt more than a little guilty at having made them wait.
It wasn’t entirely his fault, of course; there had been an unusual amount of traffic for the time of day, likely an accident or similar causing delays all around the area, though he would have to check on that later to be certain. Still, if he hadn’t dragged his feet, if he had protested to the pre-game make-out session in a public bathroom that Daiki had dragged him into - for luck, he had said - he wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.
This was precisely why they didn’t spend time together immediately before a game. That was his own fault; exams had kept them apart for too long, and he had needed Daiki. He couldn’t blame his boyfriend for that one. Shorts slid over his hips, their elastic snug at his waist as they hung loose over his thighs, and Taiga reached into his bag for his jersey.
Black fabric crumpled within his hand and time seemed to screech to a halt.
Oh.
Oh shit!
Taiga had packed both of their bags ready for their game, left them open on the bed as he retrieved their jerseys from where they were still drying on the balcony. He had been on his way back into the bedroom with both tops in his arms when Daiki had accosted him, had tossed them both at his boyfriend’s head and left Daiki to-
Left him to pack them both in the correct bags.
“Did you pack the wrong-” Kuroko went suddenly, painfully quiet as he spotted the red number five emblazened across the front of the jersey Taiga held clutched tightly within his fist. The kanji for Tōō was crumpled between his fingers yet still clearly recognisable and Taiga could feel himself turning progressively more red as the moment dragged on.
The silence stretched on for a beat too long, and Taiga was certain his heart was going to explode from his chest with how frantically it was beating against the inside of his ribcage. No one spoke, no one moved.
Taiga had absolutely no idea what to do. He could try to gloss over the presence of someone else’s jersey in his bag, to come up with some lame excuse or other that his time may or may not believe, but he had never been overly good at lying. Nor did he want to be, and his silence - along with the blush that near enough matched his hair - was more than enough to attest to his guilt.
“Kaga-” Whatever Kuroko had been about to say was cut off as the locker room door banged viciously open, the off-white plaster of the wall only saved by the rubber stopper which prevented the door handle from leaving a sizeable hole in its wake. All eyes were on Aomine Daiki as he stomped - shirtless and glaring - into the Seirin locker room and proceeded to launch Taiga’s jersey at his head before snatching his own back and storming out again, without saying a word.
“Fuck.” Taiga hissed to himself in English, dragging the clean fabric over his head and catching the vaguest hint of Daiki’s scent as it brushed against his nose. It was just barely there, a couple of hours bundled up with Daiki’s shorts and sneakers just enough to transfer some of the always-present sweat-musk that permeated the inside of his bag. It was comforting, somehow, and Taiga took a deep breath in through his nose, before exhaling slowly through his mouth.
He could do this. His cheeks were still doing their best impression of a ripe tomato, but he could do this.
Everything would be fine.
The game between Seirin and Tōō seemed simultaneously too long and too short. Taiga threw everything he had into the clash against their rivals, against Daiki, and earnt the same in return. By the start of the fourth quarter his hair had flattened into a dark red mess upon the top of his head, drenched with sweat that dripped into his eyes and down his neck. His jersey wasn’t much better, sticking to his chest and back in places as he moved, blocked another shot, scored, lost the ball and gained it back again - all within a smattering of minutes that flew past in a blur.
When the final whistle blew, he had no idea whether they had won or lost. Had lost track of the score some time back, and hadn’t cared enough to refresh his memory, his focus pin-sharp and unwavering.
His blood was still pounding in his ears when the final score was announced to cheers and applause, the sound muffled as Taiga struggled to catch his breath, knees wobbly and limbs chilled from the cool air of the court as his sweat-slick skin slowly returned to a normal temperature. A hand slammed into his shoulder, almost hard enough to send him to his knees, and Hyuuga was saying something to him - something Taiga couldn’t quite make out yet.
It didn’t seem bad though, as his captain was grinning from ear to ear, and the players who remained on the bench were cheering in a muffled cacophony of noise. An arm slung itself around his shoulders and Taiga cast his attention to his left, Daiki’s expression carrying more emotion than he perhaps meant it to. It took everything he had left to return the gesture, his hand reaching up to grip his boyfriend’s opposite shoulder and he couldn’t disguise the tremble in his fingers.
“My bad.” Daiki murmured into his ear, and they were the first words Taiga had registered for a while, sarcastic to those who didn’t know him. Apologetic to those who did. Daiki’s hand at his shoulder squeezed and Taiga squeezed back in kind before the Tōō ace retrieved his arm and retreated back to his own team.
Taiga missed the warmth and familiar weight almost immediately. He wobbled on his feet as the line-up was called, and while he was surprised when Kuroko slid beneath his arm to keep him upright, he was too exhausted to startle at the sudden appearance of his friend.
They had won, apparently. By a small margin, but a win was a win and no one was pressuring him for answers yet. Somehow, by some miracle, Taiga made it back to the locker room and - standing under the hot spray of the communal showers - he knew he wouldn’t be able to put off their questioning for much longer. Only his late arrival, in fact, had saved him from an unpleasant round of ‘twenty questions’ before the game and while he had been thankful enough at the time, he knew it was time to face the music.
The sooner he switched the water off and left the relative sanctity of the showers, the sooner he could get it over with.
A slender finger pressed against his bare hip and this time Taiga did startle, letting out an unmanly yelp at the appearance - yet again - of Kuroko at his side.
“Don’t do that.” He hissed, earning another poke slightly further up at his waist. Looking down, he could see that his shorter friend was mapping out the pattern of near-purple marks that peppered his side.
“These aren’t bruises, are they?” Kuroko finally asked, voice low but not accusing, and something within Taiga relaxed.
“Ah- no, not really.” The admission came with a low blush that spread up his neck and across his chest, yet Taiga made no move to step away. Maybe it should have been strange, standing there entirely naked while his best friend traced across the pattern of hickeys Daiki had painted upon his flesh the previous evening, hidden from sight until then and strangely intimate for that fact.
“How long?” Letting his hand fall back to his side as the water continued to beat down on them, Kuroko turned inquisitive blue eyes up to capture Taiga’s full attention.
“Longer than it should have been.” A sigh, bone-deep and laced with regret, shuddered through him. Kuroko seemed almost surprised at the unhappy dip of his mouth and the hand that reached up to sit itself atop wet blue strands. “I should have told you a long time ago.”
“Why didn’t you?” It wasn’t accusing, Kuroko’s tone level, though Taiga was certain he caught just a twinge of hurt in there.
“I was scared, I guess.” And it was easier to admit than he had thought it would be. “Scared of what you might say, terrified I might lose my best friend over something as stupid as who I’m attracted to.”
“That’s quite offensive, Kagami-kun. I had thought you knew me better than that by now.” He certainly hadn’t imagined it that time, the edge to Kuroko’s voice, the ache that he had caused in his words, in his actions, and the guilt came flooding in all at once.
“I hoped I did, but that didn’t stop the little voice telling me you’d hate me for...well, for who I am.”
“I would never.” Kuroko’s hands tightened into fists and his gaze narrowed to a hurt glare.
“I know that now, but-” Taiga cut himself off, scrubbing at his face and trying to swallow down the guilt at having kept quiet. Guilt that he knew wasn’t really justified - it wasn’t anyone else’s business, after all. Guilt built from caution formed by experience.
But Kuroko was his best friend. Kuroko trusted him. And Taiga couldn’t help but feel that he’d betrayed that trust, just a little.
“I was about fourteen when I figured out I was gay.” He began, and though he hadn’t set out to tell Kuroko what had happened in his past, it didn’t make sense to keep silent on it any longer either. “I’d been more interested in basketball until then anyway, and girls just...didn’t interest me, you know?” Kuroko nodded at him to continue, and Taiga wondered absently whether the venue’s management would notice the amount of hot water they were using up. It tumbled over his head, down his chest as he stared up at the tiled ceiling. “Tatsuya knew. Hell, I think he knew before I did, and it was just - it wasn’t weird, between us. We stayed exactly the same, and I don’t think I got at the time why that was so important.”
“Were you-”
“No! No, definitely not. He’s my brother, you don’t...it never even occurred to me to be attracted to him. No, it was another guy. Mike. My first boyfriend, when I was fifteen. He was a year older than me and we played together on the court sometimes. We dated for a bit, nothing more than kissing really, then his parents found out and-” There Taiga shrugged, lips curling up into a wry smile, the short few years that had passed doing little to numb the ache of memories. “They moved away, cut contact. Outed me to anyone who would listen before they left. I didn’t have many friends left, after that.” There was more, so much more, but Kuroko didn’t need to know. Didn’t need to understand just how bad it had been - bad enough that it had triggered his move back to Japan.
Bad enough that he hadn’t wanted to date again, to open himself up like that, let himself be vulnerable. But then Daiki had wormed his way into Taiga’s heart, with his bad attitude and his endless skills on the court and the sweet, protective side that no one else ever got to see.
“Kagami-”
“Don’t.” Taiga cut him off before Kuroko could say anything, not wanting the pity, the platitudes of someone who couldn’t have helped at the time, even if he had wanted to. “It’s fine, it’s all in the past.”
“It still bothers you. Otherwise you wouldn’t have kept this a secret, wouldn’t have been so afraid of what I would do when I found out.” When, not if, and really wasn’t that the truth? No matter how worried he had been, he wouldn’t have been able to hold onto the secret forever.
Wouldn’t have wanted to.
“I can’t deny that.” He replied, with a shrug and a half-smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “But you took it pretty well, all things considered. I should’ve trusted you to begin with, and I’m sorry I didn’t.”
“I’m just glad you trust me now.” Kuroko replied, tone soft, choosing not to mention how Taiga’s hand had been somewhat forced in the matter. A slender hand wrapped around his bicep as far as it would reach, squeezed in silent reassurance, and Kuroko was gone.
Taiga half expected the locker room to be deserted by the time he stepped from the steam-dense air of the showers, towel slung low on his hips and fingertips wrinkled from too long spent under the hot water. Kuroko might have stuck around, as he did on occasion, but none of the others had any reason to wait for so long - especially considering he was likely still far from their favourite person.
Save for Hyuuga, of course, though if he was in luck his captain might have decided to save his dressing down until their next practice.
So it came as some surprise when the eyes of the entire team swivelled to stare at him. They wore a myriad of expressions, some amused, some curious, some vaguely bored. There was none of the thinly-veiled disgust that he half expected to see, and Taiga could do little more than stare back at them.
The moment seemed to drag on indefinitely, and it was the sound of Hyuuga clearing his throat that finally dispelled it. Taiga was suddenly very aware of the fact that he was very wet and very naked, the small towel around his waist doing little to protect his modesty.
Honestly, he was more than a little glad that Riko had seemingly already left.
“I’d fully intended to chew you out, after the shit you pulled earlier.” He sounded tired, resigned, though Taiga didn’t miss the slight hint of mirth in Hyuuga’s voice. “But I think you’ve learnt your lesson. And besides, that was probably the best you’ve ever played.”
“Aomine-kun is a good influence, it seems.” Taiga yelped as Kuroko appeared at his elbow, almost dropping his towel and coming very close to ending up with said elbow in his best friend’s face.
“Don’t do that!” He snapped, heart hammering in his chest as half the team snorted in amusement. “No offence, but why are you all still here?”
“Full offense, but you’re an idiot.” Hyuuga deadpanned, pushing his glasses up his nose a little too violently in irritation.
“It was the look on your face.” Koganei fixed him with a pointed stare, more serious than Taiga had seen the boy before then. “That look of terror, knowing that you’ve messed up and everything is about to go to hell. We couldn’t leave you like that, feeling like you had to be scared of how we’d react.”
“It’s messed up.” Furihata added, staring at the floor between his feet, hands clenched against his knees. “It’s so stupid, that you - that we have to feel that fear, just because we love someone who’s not-” He broke off, shaking a little, and Kawahara reached over to squeeze at his shoulder.
“You don’t ever have to feel that fear around us.” Izuki smiled over at him, and as much as he wanted to return the gesture, Taiga found that his face had stopped responding to him and his mouth wouldn’t move. “No matter who you love, you’ll always be one of us.”
“I had planned on giving you hell about not letting your relationship affect your performance on the court, but that’s a bit redundant now.” Hyuuga finally sighed, clapping a hand on Taiga’s bare shoulder and squeezing a little too hard. “I will say one thing, though; if he ever hurts you, I will destroy him.” There was a murmur of assent around the room, and Taiga felt something warm bloom in his chest.
“Look who I found loitering in the hallway.” Taiga’s previous relief at Riko’s absence from the room was, apparently, short lived as their coach shoved the locker room door open, cutting Hyuuga off and dragging a protesting and clearly very reluctant Aomine Daiki behind her.
“What the fuck, let go of me you-” Whatever expletives Daiki had intended on spewing at her were silenced the instant his eyes met Taiga’s, and his face twisted into a snarl as he wrenched his arm free. “Alright, which one of you fucking assholes made my boyfriend cry?”
Crying? Was he crying? Taiga ran the back of his hand across his cheek, surprised to find that it came away not only wet, but shining with saltwater. Fat tears dripped from his chin as Daiki crossed the short distance from the door in three strides, face like thunder, and even Hyuuga took a step back so as to not get in the man’s way.
“What did they do?” Daiki demanded, the storm in his blue eyes whipping into a frenzy. He reached up to wipe at Taiga’s cheeks, thumbs calloused and worn and familiar. “What the fuck did they do?”
“They accepted me.” Finally, finally Taiga’s face started to behave, his mouth twisting up into a watery but undeniably happy smile. “They accepted me, for who I am.” It sounded like such a small thing, but that tiny and almost pained admission seemed to punch all of the air from Daiki’s lungs. Strong arms dragged Taiga into a bone-crushing hug, and he let his head drop to Daiki’s shoulder, breathing in the scent of his boyfriend and letting it calm his racing pulse.
Because Daiki knew about America. Knew about what Taiga had gone through over there, knew more than he had told Kuroko, understood the lasting scars that were only just in that moment starting to fade.
One hand buried itself in the back of Daiki’s shirt, the other still holding the towel up - and really, couldn’t they have let him get dressed first? Not that it truly mattered. Not in that moment, with his team behind him and his boyfriend at his side and his whole future spreading out ahead of him. ‘I love you’, he mouthed into the fabric of Daiki’s shirt, earning an amused huff of breath into his hair and an endlessly fond, “Idiot” in response.