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Daiki remained in the tub, naked and cold, drowning in his own demising thoughts. The push of water against his bare chest and the shuffling of warm feet fitting in between his before they were slowly made to draw closer to him. Chill air hit his newly exposed knees but he did not care.
A gusting sigh filled the tiled room. “You know you can’t stay in here forever,” was the rational statement. Daiki glanced up to see Kagami lift his arms to remove the thin t-shirt he had worn. With a few quick twists of his wrists, he folded the item into a makeshift square and dropped it into the basket arm’s length away. Then the other man was glancing at him with those clear red glass eyes, boring into his soul. He was already naked, but whenever the other gave him that look, he felt even more exposed.
Daiki shifted, bringing his knees closer but they stopped when his thighs touched his abdomen; Kagami’s warm toes touched the arches of his feet, without forcing it, keeping them in place. Daiki did not think Kagami even knew what he was doing, as subtle as the touch was, the impression he got from the other was clear.
“I’ll stay here until I’m ready to leave,” he ended up confessing, the words low and soft, unlike his usual forceful arrogance.
Kagami did not look away to scoff; he did not even move past the leaning of elbows onto his jean-clad knees, hands dropping between them. His jeans slowly darkened, soaking up the cold water. Daiki is surprised the other man was not turning cold like the water was forcing him to be.
“You’ll get hypothermia if you continue this,” Kagami warned without inflection, as if reading his thoughts.
Daiki turned his head away, gazing at the point where the wall met the tiled floor. He counted the tiles along the room from that point, but was stopped when the counter hid the rest of the line. He returned his sight on Kagami when those toes started to wriggle against his arches. He curled his feet, pulling away from the sensation, but the toes followed, incessant.
“You let him dump you,” he said as a means of permeable, “So you shouldn’t be sitting here, hiding away.”
Daiki raised his right arm out of the cold water and dropped it out of the tub. He watched it bounce, dangling onto the other side, quick running trails of water dripping off his dark skin. A small puddle formed below his arm and he watched it. It reflected the light coloured ceiling, only then realising it was close to an egg-white shade. A drop from his finger distorted the image once, two times, and he watched dully as the ripples dispersed the image the third time.
The toes trailed his arches again and he frowned, refusing to look at the other man. Kagami’s feet were still oddly warm.
“Don’t make me drag you out of here,” Kagami warned, and it was a wonder the redhead still did not raise his voice. Probably because they were in a tiled room where voices echoed eerily and the neighbours could hear each and every conversation held in these confines; Kagami was peculiar like that. “Hey, Aomine.” Kagami’s right large toe poked his left arch.
Daiki drew his foot away, his scowl deepening at the touch. “You can leave,” he affirmed.
This time Kagami did move, reaching one arm towards his chest, resting two fingertips against the top of his left pectoral. “You know, you’re not very good at this moping thing.” Daiki used his left hand to swat the fingers away, but they returned their soft presence. “First of all, you’re doing it wrong.”
“There’s no wrong or right when people mope, you idiot,” he returned, retracting his left arm again to hit Kagami’s fingers. They were quick this time, withdrawing until Daiki’s hand hit the surface of the water before returning to their newfound perch.
“No, there is; you don’t sit in a brightly lit bathroom, becoming wrinkly and shrivelled in a cold water tub.” Kagami hit the water surface himself, dragging his wet hand back to Daiki’s exposed chest. “You’re shivering, in case you haven’t noticed, and no matter how long,” he was saying, his voice dropping its intent, low, smooth and soothing, “How long you sit here, he’s not coming back.”
Daiki slapped Kagami’s hand again, this time curling his cold dark fingers against slightly warm bright ones. Kagami tugged his hand, and thinking he was finally listening to him, Daiki released it. But Kagami merely intertwined their fingers and let their joined hand drop into the water, his wrist balancing on Daiki’s left knee. He glanced briefly at the contrast of skin colours, admiring the slim curve of the redhead’s thick wrist, equally long thick fingers ending in fingertips tapping the back of Daiki’s palm, softly, slowly.
He hates how Kagami just knows the ways to keep him in the here and now.
Daiki tries to pull away again, pushing against Kagami’s feet, feeling the rough texture of the jeans as he slides further up in the tussle, now almost sitting in the tub, angry face a few inches away from a slack, devoid of irritation, face of one Kagami Taiga.
“Get away from me,” he said, using his right hand to push the man’s face away too. Kagami restrains against the treatment, firm, unmoving.
“No,” he simply says, the other hand coming to grip his right hand. Now Kagami has both his hands captive, and as if giving him one last moment to reject the coming action, Kagami hauls his ass out of the tub, cold water rushing away from their body instantly. As if displeased by the motion, the water lets him suffer a cold whipping being exposed to the chill air of the room.
Kagami does not wait; he is already directing unrestricting limbs to work, as if he does this so regularly that it takes him only a few seconds to get Daiki wrapped up and led like a child to his room. The man proceeds to briskly rub his naked body down. He finds the towel thrown to the side on a chair, and the other is already moving to his drawers and pulling out clothes. Daiki remains unaffected by this undertaking. In the next moment or two, Kagami is gently pushing him back into the bed, tucking him in.
“Sleep for a while. I’ll get you something warm to drink.” As he moves away, Daiki finds the sight chilling, more so than the cold tub he had been soaking for a seemingly umpteenth number of hours, so he reaches out quickly, but Kagami is already out of reach. Frustrated at the failing reflexes he is proud of, he misses Kagami stagger to a halt to turn around, lips parted in question, but stop again to glance at the arm that is still stretched out. Without a word he returns, his own arm extended to grasp his hand tight. “What is it?”
Daiki really hates how Kagami understands what he does not say with words, because he is sighing, an eyebrow raised.
“Let me remove my jeans or I’ll wet the bed,” he waits, expecting, but when nothing happens, his releases Daiki’s hand slowly, trailing his fingers against his palm as he concedes his hold, curling his fingers into his own palm. Kagami quickly removes his soaked jeans—now wet up to his thighs—letting them join the used towel quickly and surely. The redhead hesitates a millisecond in his underwear before he slips into the bed nest to Daiki.
Daiki is flushed now, with warmth from this natural heating source that is Kagami, and instantly his body coils around the heat that he is. His cold body—with no mention of his soul—sucks up the warmth Kagami is willing giving him, and greedy as he is, Daiki takes as much as he can, sighing pleasantly. The thoughts that had been weighing him down are now just skirting the edges of his consciousness, almost being brushed out of the picture.
Sincere fingers stroke his spine, from lower back to mid back. Daiki pushes against the fingers that are just barely touching, wanting more as usual. Kagami chuckles, mostly releasing breath, on his shoulder, and he moves closer, applying more pressure. Kagami had referred to this as petting once, and he had hissed at him. It was also the time when Daiki was still rooming with Tetsu, not in a relationship yet, and Kagami was an interloper that fed them. Cared for them. And if Daiki was being completely honest, mended their hearts in so many ways, he does not know how he would have lived past high school is the redhead had left them all to fend for themselves.
At least Daiki did not know, and he was relatively the most stable compared to their other friends.
Kagami’s petting shifted to the next level where he let his hand grazed his hairline, slightly damp still. Moving a bit, Kagami let Daiki lean his head backwards into his palm while strong fingers patted his head. He was slowly drifting off before Kagami started speaking.
“Why didn’t you stop him?”
Daiki blinked his eyes open. He refused to respond to the question though, and realising this, Kagami continued.
“Why did you tell me?”
Now wry, Daiki’s lips quirked up. “Wouldn’t you be the one who benefitted the most?”
Kagami did not react and Daiki was one part grateful and another part disenchanted.
It had not been a secret—from any of their friends—that Kagami had liked him more than a rival, a friend. If Daiki ever let on that he was as little as bored, Kagami would make time to spend with him, either bringing a basketball along or ingredients to cook, spending a quiet and comfortable time indoors. If anyone mentioned Daiki being hurt, no matter the form, Kagami was a force to be reckoned with. At first, it had tickled Daiki a lot, seeing the male reacting in such ways for him who did not return his affection more than a close friend would. He had even tried telling him once that they would just never be. In response to that, Kagami had scoffed and brushed him off.
“Did I ever ask for anything more?” And Daiki was left to look at the sardonic twist of Kagami’s lips. “You’re not very good boyfriend material,” he had ended, laughing at what could be Daiki’s stunned expression.
Now, facing him on his bed, where Kagami is playing dumb if the crease on his nose bridge said anything, Daiki wants him to be honest.
“Aomine,” Kagami calls him as always, never once venturing to say his given name to the point where Daiki had threatened to retreat calling him ‘Kagami’. The redhead had shrugged then, a whatever floats your boat, aho conveyed in its message. “Aomine,” Kagami calls again.
Daiki blinks, looking again at red eyes. It is not as clear as it was first when he arrived, using the key his previous better half probably returned through him. Instead he tries to recall what they were talking about, eyes drifting shut when Kagami resumed the head patting.
“I messaged because it was you,” he allows, almost feeling the frown build on the other’s face. “You didn’t want me to?”
The fingers twitch but continue working. Daiki does not bat open his eyelids. “Maybe.”
At this, Daiki does flutter his lashes to better read the look taking over the calm look the other had perfected over the years dealing with him. He opens his mouth, maybe to refute, he is not quite sure, but Kagami, for once, darts his eyes away.
Daiki frowns.
“Maybe I didn’t want to know,” he ends up saying, voice dropping even more than what a whisper would entail, but they are so close together that if he so wished, Daiki could lean forward and kiss him. He does not, though. “But maybe I did, too. I don’t know.”
He understands the conflict in the words, in the nay quivering tone, the swirling irises. He reaches one hand to flip away the long fringe that covers Kagami’s forehead, resting his palm against the surface, and feels the heat.
Daiki frowns again, this time for a different reason.
“Are you sick?” Kagami draws back, startled at the question.
“…Not really,” he weakly denies, and Daiki is irritated.
“So you are,” and then snapping, “You’re such a fool!” He tugs Kagami closer, their bare chests near touching now, his now warmed arms bracing a broad back that is starting to feel uncomfortably hot. He is not sure if the heat is because the man is sick or because… he glances to the side where he can see Kagami’s face, and smiles, a slow stretch of his lips, then drops his forehead on one muscled shoulder. “Idiot,” he enunciates. “Such an idiot.”
“Hey,” the tone, sotto voce, but Kagami is still, afraid to breathe.
“I’m calling myself that,” he decided to relay. It takes a while for Kagami to realise what he was confessing to, but the barely there hold he had been in now firms up, and Daiki can safely call it an embrace. He too pulls Kagami the rest of the way, converges the space in between. At the touch, he can feel each and every resounding heartbeat.
Daiki basks in it, unthinking for the few seconds that feel like a million. Then he slowly brings himself off the high he is on and nuzzles against the shoulder he rests upon; he could have had this moments ago. Hours, days, weeks, months, years ago. Daiki could have had it and more, but he takes what he can get now, because—
Kagami breathes in his scent, and tingling, he clutches the bare back even more.
The man always knew how to keep him in the here and now. Light traces to tender touches, to soothing pats and now to full, firm grasps. The gentle brush of lips against his pulse makes a pleasant shiver run down his spine where one of Kagami’s hand is held, bringing him deep into the embrace they hold.
Daiki tries it too, breathing in his scent, ending with a smile he hides even though Kagami cannot see it. He is embarrassed for his slowness, for his words, for his actions when he so easily unwinds with just a few soft touches from him.
Embarrassed, he hates that Kagami knows all this about Daiki, when in reality, Daiki knows next to nothing about Kagami.
Author’s Notes: No comment. OTL
AoKaga Month Prompt: Touch