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Yukio hated hospitals. Had hated them as a child, having to sit and watch as his mother wept over the slowly fading form of his grandfather as he passed away. Had hated them as a teenager, having to accompany one of the first year students on his team and hold his hand as false-sympathy washed over the other boy from a doctor who didn’t care that he had delivered the final blow with his ‘I’m sorry, you won’t play again’. Had hated them more a month later, visiting the same former teammate after he tried to take his own life. The room was too bright, too open and sterile in a way that sat heavy on his stomach, made his breakfast threaten to make a reappearance.
It had been threatening to do that since he had received the call at just after midday.
He sat, and waited - because what else could he do? The bustling noise of nurses and doctors and other patients coloured the air, ensuring that absolute silence remained an impossibility even without the constant, jarring beep beep beep that he couldn’t escape from. It should have been a reassurance - that steady pulse of noise indicating that all was not yet lost. That he-
Yukio’s eyes prickled, and he forced them shut. It wasn’t the time for grief, and certainly wasn’t the place.
“Did you know?” Yukio barely startled at the presence to his right, a familiar head of blue hair staring down at the form on the bed, unblinking. He should be used to Kuroko’s unannounced appearances by that point - and it certainly seemed that he was getting there, the amount of time spent around the younger man having increased steadily since he had completed his degree and Kise had graduated.
Kise always did love to surround himself with friends. It took Yukio longer than he would like to admit to realise that Kise’s need for attention was a byproduct of his upbringing, and not - as he had first assumed - due to some sort of shallow desire for popularity. That he held close only those he could trust, that he had been hurt - badly - far too many times to make that mistake again.
Yukio was part of that inner circle, and he had taken it for granted.
“Know what?” The silence had spread on for too long, a thick blanket of discomfort that covered both of them, interspersed with the constant beep of a life support machine that shouldn’t have needed to exist.
Did he know that Kise was in town? That he had taken the night train back, so that he could be there that morning? Did he know that Kise had been on his way over, when it had happened? Did he know why, where, what had triggered the attack?
Or, did he know why he was the one listed as Kise’s emergency contact? Did he know why he would pick someone like Yukio over someone like Kuroko, or his manager, or his own flesh-and blood, even?
Did he know that Kise was going to get hurt, because of him?
“Ah.” Kuroko replied, as though it was an answer at all. The silence between them settled again, Kuroko standing at his side, Yukio half-slumped in a seat that he hadn’t vacated since they had allowed him into the room. A room that, until Kuroko’s appearance, had held only himself and the barely recognisable form on the bed. “It should really have been down to Kise-kun to tell you, but-”
But he might not get the chance, now.
It didn’t need to be spoken aloud, the words that wrapped around Yukio’s chest, squeezed until he was certain he was going to burst. There were tears, and he blinked against them, fighting against a pain that was nearing on irrational.
“He was trying to surprise me, for my birthday.” It didn’t seem to matter what day it was, not any more. Yukio had left his parents at home, had all but fled to the hospital the instant the call came in - he probably shouldn’t have driven himself, but the thought that he might not have been safe behind the wheel hadn’t even occurred to him at the time.
There had been a gift with him, when he had been found. Half-destroyed and near-worthless, but it had been for Yukio and he hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at what it might have once been.
“Yes.” Kuroko agreed, and the soft hand at his shoulder gave him pause. Part of him wanted to shrug it off, to escape from the crushing weight of everything that had happened that day. “He was going to confess.”
Everything stopped. Yukio’s breath stuttered in his chest, lungs no longer functioning as he blinked blurred eyes, trying to comprehend what he had just been told.
“Con-”
“Kise-kun loves you, Kasamatsu-kun. He thought it was about time he told you.” The world shuddered, stalled, then shattered into pieces. Scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his hand, forcing back the tears once more - later - he stared across at the prone form on the bed. Even in that moment, even looking as he did, Kise was so utterly beautiful it took his breath away. He was like the sun; stare at it for too long and you’ll go blind.
Yukio dragged in a shuddering breath, reaching out with trembling fingers to grip Kise’s unresponsive hand in his.
It was impossible. Kise, the annoying first year who had beaten almost every opponent put in front of him. Kise, the internationally-renowned model who had done shoots for Gucci, for Prada, for Armani.
Kise, who loved like he breathed and even in adulthood kept a purity about him that needed to be protected.
Yukio had loved him for so long, he couldn’t truthfully say when it had started. Loved him as the annoying little shit of a kid, loved him as the equally annoying adult - Kise had ruined him for anyone else, and he hadn’t minded for even a moment.
To find out then, in that moment, that those feelings weren’t as one-sided as he had thought - it seemed too cruel. To painful to comprehend. Kise had dropped out of a shoot early, had travelled the length of Japan without warning. Had taken a taxi from the train station.
The cab had been unlicenced. The driver likely knew who he was.
A security guard had found them - still beating the unconscious form at their feet. Four of them, against Kise, and he hadn’t stood a chance.
Yukio didn’t want to know just how badly he had been hurt. Didn’t want to listen, as a doctor listed off every injury, every broken bone. The cracked ribs. The shattered kneecaps. The bleeding on the brain that might well mean he wouldn’t wake up. He didn’t want to hear about the possible brain damage, the scarring, the years of recovery that would be ahead of him if Kise ever managed to open his pretty amber eyes again.
Not weeks. Not months. Years.
“Daiki no, you can’t-” A small scuffle outside the room, a familiar voice that Yukio knew belonged to Kagami, and Kuroko stepped to the side as footsteps slowed to a halt within the private room. A snarl, and Yukio might have been worried if he hadn’t just watched his entire world crumble to nothing at his feet.
A strong, tan hand wrapped in the collar of his shirt, dragging Yukio to his feet and he found himself staring into the furious eyes of Aomine Daiki. They hadn’t known one another all that long, not really - but Yukio had known from the start just how important Kise was to Aomine, whether the other man ever vocalised that or not. In that moment, staring into the curiously blank face of the ace who had beaten their team in high school so many times, seeing those blue eyes blazing with abject hatred, he realised that he had vastly underestimated just how much Aomine cared.
Because that hatred wasn’t directed at him.
“I am going to find the fuckers that did this.” Aomine’s voice was little more than a growl, low and undeniably dangerous. “And I am going to end them.”
It wasn’t a question.
It didn’t need to be.
“Tell me when and where.”