Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The first time Seijuurou has a nosebleed in front of his team, their reactions were exactly as he foresaw them to be.

Ryouta fumbled to dial 119*. Shintarou listed a flurry of increasingly deadly medical conditions, which only fueled Ryouta’s panicked blabberings to the paramedics at his ear. Daiki laughs and makes an offhand remark about short skirts and Akashi’s emperor eye. Atsushi offers him a half-eaten Umaibo** and Tetsuya’s conveniently invisible.

Seijuurou handles it as he handles everything; gracefully, with dignity and all on his own. There hadn’t been a single drop of blood in sight when the rest of the first string panted their way in.

--

Shintarou brings it up that same afternoon, as they play shogi, in perfect accordance to Seijuurou’s forecast. It was rather disappointing how predictable Shintarou had become lately.

“Have you heard of Acute Myeloid Leukemia?”

“As fascinating as it may be, Shintarou, I’m not sure I want to, given the current context” Seijuuro murmured, seeing 7, 38, 96 moves into the future with each blink.

Shintarou struggled to compose a believable expression of misunderstanding, fiddling with the tape around his fingers with unusual vigour.

 “Did you know that nosebleeds are also a common symptom of blood cancer?”

“Fever, chills persistent fatigue, weakness, frequent severe infections, weight loss, swollen lymph nodes, enlarged liver or spleen…” Seijuurou lifts his king to capture Shintarou’s lance in the wooden battlefield “…are also common symptoms of blood cancer, and all that I lack, in case I’m not making my point clear”

“Leukemia symptoms vary, depending on the type of leukemia” Shintarou grumbled out the text off his father’s medical journals.

“Shintarou” Seijuurou brought the captured lance back into the battle and turned it against his shooting guard, his words and actions final. “I do not have cancer. Now shall we begin round two?”

It wasn’t a question, and Seijuurou started arranging the board before Shintarou nodded his affirmation. Akashi tried to hold back shivering through willpower alone since his pride wouldn’t let him admit that his nosebleeds usually had longer lasting effects. The chill, while uncomfortable, wasn’t exactly life threatening.

Silence descended while they got the game ready. Towards the end the sides of their palms slid over each other and Shintarou froze, as if he was the one freezing and not Seijuurou.

“It’s cold” Shintarou says, in the same tone of voice he used when he politely declined to call Seijuurou by his given name. “Your hand” He specified unnecessarily.

“I’m aware” Really, it was impossible for him not to be.

They silently return the shogi board to its starting point. Seijuurou has just decided to change his strategy just to make things interesting, when Shintarou cut through his precious thought process again.

“As a Sagittarius, you should have your lucky item for today, a carrot, with you. Your lucky number is 6, your lucky colour is….”

Seijuurou pinches the bridge of his nose and silently curses Oha Asa.

--

Daiki simply asked him to share.

“I beg your pardon?” Seijuurou decided feigning ignorance was the best choice for this particular route. He often turned a blind eyes to certain traits his ideal teammates would not have, case in point, Daiki’s pervertions.

“Look Akashi, I’m the last person to judge you for whatever you’re into” he waggled his eyebrows suggestively and if Seijuurou was not at the peak of self-control he would have gagged in disgust of what Daiki was implying.

“Daiki, please go back to undermining my authority and sulking on the odd rooftop ledge. I sincerely hope your chances of falling off increase significantly; it would save everyone a lot of future grief”

--

When it happened again, it was in front of Ryouta, and no one else was there to stop him from calling emergency services. Which made it all the more disconcerting for Seijuurou when he woke up, his head cushioned by Ryouta’s legs, both their uniforms and the gym floor splattered with blood and Ryouta’s face so very, very pale.

“Ryouta, calm….down”

“Akashichi! You’re alive!!”

“Was there ever any doubt about that?” Seijuurou mentally calculated the percentage possibility of him making it to his feet within the next 10 minutes. It was in the low 90s.

“Well, they called time of death 3 minutes ago” Ryouta looked over his shoulder, and Seijuurou had to take a moment to make sure he was not suffering from the effects of a concussion. To say the first string gym was about the size of Atsushi’s appetite was a near exaggeration (Atsushi’s sweet tooth far outmatched any gym in the country. Said gym was filled to the brim of with EMTs from at least 6 different hospitals (2 of them being nowhere near the Tokyo region) and that would’ve been enough for him to question his vision, but there were also firemen, policemen and even a couple of hazmats dragging along bomb disposal equipment.

“Exactly how many emergency services did you call?” Seijuurou murmured, wondering at the surprising lack of chills at his blood loss, until he realize it was Ryouta’s jacket draped was over his form, morbidly reminiscent to the treatment a corpse might receive, but still warm.

“All…of them?

Seijuurou closed his eyes and reminded himself of Ryouta’s potential unbridled talent for the hundredth time since he had been made a regular, and resisted wasting his dwindling strength to strangle him. Instead, he braced his palms and willed himself to push his upper body up.

“Wait just a-wait Akashichi! You shouldn’t be getting up in your condition--!”

“What condition?” Seijuurou casually flicked dried blood off his upper lip.

“What condi--THAT! That right there! How can you--!?”

“Are you questioning me, Ryouta?” Seijuurou turned his heterochromatic glare momentarily away from the emergency service crew frozen in various states of terror, and on to the blonde.

Ryouta froze too, is arms flopping by his sides uselessly as Seijuurou stood up draping Ryouta’s jersey over his shoulders for dramatic, and dare he say; emperor-like, effect.

“There’s only so much blood the floor can handle” Ryouta ended up muttering, and Seijuurou considered not psychologically terrorizing the emergency service into bloody submission, but Ryouta’s pale and drawn face would no doubt haunt his conscience for a long time to come.

Someone had to pay for the waste of valuable space in his memory banks better spent on shogi tactics after all.

--

 “This…is an intervention!” Kise announced dramatically.

 “Yeah!” Aomine seconded enthusiastically, even though he seemed to be still more than a little confused about what exactly the intervention was for.

Seijuurou would’ve been touched if he hadn’t given up on sentiment a good 9 years ago, and if Kise and Aomine hadn’t been otherwise engaged in the middle of a very vicious (and very one-sided) basketball match in the middle of their passionate declarations.

Shintarou stood at the other end of the court, seemingly practicing his shooting, but Seijuurou could tell by his form that he was paying attention. Public interventions were not Shintarou’s style. He preferred to privately ambush his victims with his vast medical and horoscopic knowledge, as was proven.

“There’s a second string practice match that I wish to be present at in 5 minutes, so please use your words as efficiently as your competence allows” Seijuurou’s tone made it clear just how low of an opinion he had of their individual competence levels.

This was proven without any lingering doubt when they took a minute to explain what Seijuurou already knew, and another minute to explain their equally if not more unnecessary reasoning for their level of care and a full three minutes on the one on one.

Shintarou had started aiming his three pointers at their heads by the end of it. Somehow or other, it turned into a two on two basketball game.

So, in short, Seijuurou found himself late for the meeting anyway.

--

Atsushi was certainly an odd one, a different kind of odd from Shintarou’s eccentrics and Ryouta’s hyperactivity, Daiki’s depression, and whatever it is that Kuroko had that cannot even be defined under normal levels of abnormality.

But Atsushi was a loyal comrade, at least loyal enough under the bribery of sweets, and too lazy to argue back over orders he didn’t like. His height was a minor cause of irritation, but not really that much of an issue since he (along with the rest of the Teiko basketball club) knew better than to loom over Seijuurou.  Mostly through trial and error, of course.

“Aka-chin you’re all red”

Seijuurou wondered if Atsushi had been referring to his hair or name, before feeling liquid drip down his nose and onto his collar, which upon further inspection had already been ruined for a while now. This explains why the peasants in his path had scattered unusually quickly today.

“Does it taste good?” And before Seijuurou could react, Atsushi had leaned forward, tongue stretched out and licked at the tip of Seijuurou’s nose.

“Mmm…salty” He pouted at Seijuurou, as if he should be in control of what his bodily fluids should taste like “I thought it’d taste of cherries”

Seijuurou considered many things, and finally decided on what to say.

“Atsushi, please don’t lick me again”

“Okay, Aka-chin” He agreed readily enough for a socially incompetent titan, and sauntered away, sticking his tongue out in the sun as if to burn the taste away.

Seijuurou only wished it was that simple to chase away the coppery scent that has followed him his entire life.

--

TBC~

Chapter Text

Seijuurou led a relatively blood-free life for a straight month, at least where his nose was concerned, so he made the greatest mistake in dropping his guard and resuming his normal activities.

His normal activities which consisted mostly of basketball practice.

He thanks whatever higher power Shintarou believes in that he didn’t do anything as utterly self-degrading as passing out in front of the entire first string. Said higher power didn’t however stop practice coming to a screechingly abrupt halt as all 53 members stared with equal degrees of horror and disbelief at the blood falling in ominous drips, actually audible in the pin drop silence.

Just when Seijuurou started contemplating homicide as a possible option to cover up witnesses to his tragic humiliation, Tetsuya decided to save their worthless lives.

“Everyone, please resume practice”

Seijuurou escaped, that is to say, strategically retreated as the incomprehensible shouts of confusion and usual remarks ‘how does he do that?’ ‘was he always there?’  reached fever pitch. He could’ve sworn he even heard a few far from manly screams in the midst.

“Akashi?” Shintarou had followed him in his strategic retreat and was awkwardly holding out his handkerchief. “Tip your head forward and pinch in the middle”

Seijuurou considered dismissing his advice along with his handkerchief and his very presence, but Tetsuya lifted his invisibility shield to make another timely interruption.

“Akashi-kun, I believe it would be wise to do as the son of the respected medical practitioner says”

Said esteemed son flashed his glasses in approval. And Tetsuya looked pleased with himself, as much as someone with less facial expression than an artist’s model doll could.

Seijuurou, albeit less than pleased at this sudden usurpation, did as they said.

“This is…” Shintarou cleared his throat and aimed a significant glance at Kuroko which went loftily ignored. “This, that is to say…this is…”

“…Your intervention, Akashi-kun, if you please”

“I do not…” Seijuurou had enough self-awareness to know he sounded like a stuffed up kid, and it annoyed him greatly “…please”

Shintarou cleared his throat, again, making it twice as unnecessary, before reciting an entire textbook on the less than interesting topic of nosebleeds, that Seijuurou was sure Tetsuya slept through while standing. And then had the audacity to ask Seijuurou, would he mind answering a few questions? He wanted to refuse, just on principle, but he was not letting his self-proclaimed title of being the absolute of everything be undermined by a nosebleed of all things.

 “Have you had a cold, or any allergies recently?”

“I’m sure if I had, you’d have noticed, Shintarou” Seijuurou reminded him patiently enough.

 “Are you on any medication that could’ve cause these…incidents?”

“No, I despise doctors” And even more so, doctors-in-self-training…

“Have you had nasal surgery recently? Or perhaps you have vascular malformations in your nose or nasal tumors”

“No, no” Seijuurou was already getting rather tired of this game. “And no”

 “Have you used narcotics recently, or more specifically…” He pressed his glasses up meaningfully, though how he managed to accomplish expressing meaning through his glasses was one of the 6 mysteries of the Teiko basketball club. “…cocaine?”

 “What kind of bloody peasant do you take me for?” To be fair, it was a rather trying day.

Tetsuya, whose mere existence is one of said mysteries, is quiet for a while, and Seijuurou wonders if he finally managed to offend him as one of many peasants, but…

“Was that a pun, Akashi-kun?”

--

“Oi Akashi, who the hell punched you?”

Seijuurou pressed his knuckles harder under his nose, and smiled through gritted teeth at Daiki, which is always enough for most idiots to back off the planet, but Daiki’s supreme levels of idiocy surpassed the rest, so he remained unaffected.

“You say that assuming someone has a large enough death wish to defy me” Maybe he could hint it through his no less menacing words.

 “Didn’t say he was alive” Daiki shrugs, seemingly unconcerned about his own lifespan.

“You assume that a blow would actually land on me”

Daiki’s retort would be entertaining if not amusing, but a sudden bout of coughing tore through him and leaving him gasping for breath and dribbling blood.  Daiki spared an arm to steady him. Satsuki keeps track of his good Samaritan quota, so he’s occasionally forced to do things like this.

“Oi Akashi, you alive?” Daiki peered uncomfortably close into his face. “You…you’re bleeding out of your mouth now…that’s not good, is it? Just wait here, I’ll go get Midorima”

“Daiki” Seijuurou didn't bother swiping the blood off his chin. He let go of a tiny inconsequential part of his pride and strained up on his tip toes to grab Daiki by the corner of his collar. “Care to tell me what you think I look like right now?”

“….Slightly more scary than usual?” He seemed to have a little self-preservation left to not actually say ‘demon man-child half-breed’ to Seijuurou’s face.

“So you think I’m scary?” Maybe there’s hope for him yet.

“…Yeah, kinda, I guess” Seijuurou recalls distantly Ryouta prattling theatrically into his phone with his agent, and upon being asked if he fancies a particular job for the weekend, his answer being the same halfhearted ‘yeah, kinda, I guess’ that Daiki just gave him.

It was mildly irritating.

“So…you want me to get Tetsu instead?” As if he could even begin to find him. Tetsuya always finds you, never the other way around.

Daiki was biting his lip, Seijuurou observes and a part of him approves this as a sign of nervousness until he sees that Daiki is clearly suppressing a yawn. It’s more frustrating still that he can only be glad that Daiki isn’t so far gone he would yawn right at his captain’s face.

Seijuurou sighed. He’s been making far too many excuses, exceptions, for his immediate team members lately.

“Bring me Shintarou” He ordered, and Daiki, thankfully wordlessly, obeyed.

--

By some twisted coincidence or, as Shintarou might pronounce, 1095 days of fate-granted luck (whether bad or good is up for debate), he had shared the same classroom with Tetsuya for the last 2 years. Of course, he hadn’t been aware of that fact until just recently, but nevertheless, Tetsuya, for better or worse, was his classmate.

As dramatic as the proposition sounds, most of the time, he forgot Tetsuya was there at all. And then Tetsuya does something like this, walking over from his table at literally the opposite end of the classroom up to Seijuurou’s front row seat, conveniently invisible against their fellow students and the sensei, who was notoriously famous for his disciplined silence regime.

“Akashi-kun, please raise your hand and ask to see the nurse” Tetsuya requested, just as if he were requesting opponent match data.

“And, pray, tell me, why I would do that?” Surely irritation was beneath him. The lack of blood may be causing him to feel undue emotions. How entrancingly disturbing.

“Akashi-kun, I cannot lip-read, and even if I could, the hand over your face is not helping”

“Tetsuya!” Seijuurou hissed as much authority as he could under the circumstances, while trying to contain the blood in his hand, lest it drip on to his uniform. “Go back to your seat! This is an order!”

And his orders were absolute. Emotionally driven, or otherwise.

Tetsuya gave a resigned nod, and Seijuurou was temporarily fooled enough to relax.

“SENSEI!” Certainly, Tetsuya’s voice was outstandingly loud, albeit plain, when he put in all his effort.

“Akashi-kun, you understand I demand silence while I’m--Is that…blood!? So much blood! For God’s sake, someone take him to the nurse!”

Tetsuya was already in his seat, as per Seijuurou orders. And Seijuurou was, truth be told, frankly appalled at himself for not foreseeing that act of utter insubordination. His Emperor Eye’s power seemed to undergo a drastic decrease in power with each drop of blood he loses.

He feels faint shortly after he makes it to the infirmary, and to thank Tetsuya he decides not to eviscerate him and the entirety of his family tree from Japanese soil. It’ll be more trouble than it’s worth to train another pass specialist up to Tetsuya’s level, and even if that was possible by itself, it would be too much to hope that they’d find one with as weak a presence it takes to make a successful misdirection user.

Yes, Tetsuya was indeed one of a kind. And that was his last thought before he succumbed to the ever present darkness.

--

Shintarou’s there when he wakes up, back taut and erect against air, somehow balancing an empty jar, today’s lucky item no doubt, reading, if Seijuurou wasn’t mistaken one of the shonen manga Satsuki was ever so fond of.

“Is practice over yet?” Shintarou flinched as if he were a ghost, or Tetsuya, neither admittedly very appealing at the moment.

“The second and third string practices are long over, first stringers should be breaking up any second now” He pushes the manga away in what Seijuurou sincerely hopes was not his idea of any form of subtlety.

Seijuurou would’ve narrowed his eyes, if he had seen it fit to express anything. He had found out that vacant, blank stares made people far more uneasy than expressing direct disapproval. Another lesson from Tetsuya.

“You skipped practice?” For me, resounding silently between the both of them. Sentiment was a cruel kindness, to both the receiver and giver. And Shintarou never, ever misses practice.

“I practiced my shooting during free period” It was certainly not a lie, Seijuurou had his regular teammates’ schedules memorized, if only to make them all sweat, bleed and tear on the court until the last possible second before letting them leave his sight.

“Shintarou…” He let the other’s name hang in the air a tad ominously “Your concern is touching, but nevertheless, unnecessary” Much like your continued existence if you dare show any semblance of concern for me, even if that particular non-verbal command didn’t get through their telepathic circuits, Shintarou would surely explode out of sheer embarrassment before admitting feelings of any kind.

“I was not concerned” Shintarou bit out, taped fingers clenching possessively around his jar, and went on to say in direct contradiction “Liver disease, chronic alcohol abuse, kidney disease, platelet disorders, and inherited blood clotting disorders can interfere with blood clotting and predispose to nosebleeds.”

 “Isn’t a jar rather tame for a lucky item?” Seijuurou asks suddenly, more to prevent Shintarou on another well-meaning medical rant than actual curiosity. Maybe just a smidge of curiosity since Cancer’s lucky items tended to range from hunting rifles to women’s lingerie to live frogs when the plain porcelain toys just weren’t effective enough.

Shintarou blinked at the sudden change of subject, but answered readily enough. He was always ready to talk, passionately, excitedly, verging on manically, about his horoscopes.

“Cancer’s lucky item today is sea breeze”

“…You bottled sea breeze?” Seijuurou didn’t think it worked that way, but he was hardly the expert in the field now, was he?

Shintarou huffed, as if said expertise was questioned indiscriminately.

“I had no choice! It was either this or spend the entire day at the beach. Also, Cancer’s rank 5 today” He glared at Seijuurou as if it were his fault, and not that of a bipolar omnipresent deity whose existence is questionable at best.

“My condolences” Seijuurou had already made up his mind threaten the producers of Oha Asa in the near future if Shintarou’s shooting ever suffered, but he always seemed to manage to find every single one of the most ridiculous of lucky items in time. All Seijuurou could really do was commend him for his efforts.

“It’s better than Sagittarius’”

“Oh?” Seijuurou intoned in exaggerated politeness, the kind he used often in his dealings with his vice-captain. There were plenty of second and third years who would’ve made a far more assistive and far less neurotic companion than Shintarou, but Seijuurou wouldn’t even have given them the courtesy of consideration, let alone answering back, urging continuation in a subject he had absolutely no interest in.

“Yes, I’m afraid, your luck has been dropping at a worryingly consistent rate over the last few weeks”

“I see” Seijuurou muttered noncommittally, while looking for a possible escape route before Shintarou launched into another long winded Oha Asa-inspired lecture on luck as he was prone to do.

But today he merely gestured at Seijuurou’s hands, that he realized now, upon the slow rebooting of his mental facilities, were thick woolly mittens.

“So I’ve decided to provide you with your lucky items in a regular basis as part of a mutually beneficial proposition”

Seijuurou couldn’t for the life of him imagine how that could be beneficial for either one of them, but it was pointless to discuss such things with Shintarou. He moved his fingers experimentally in the, for some reason, Christmas themed gloves. It did reverse wonders for his motor skills, but at least it was warm.

“My lucky item today is a pair of gloves?” This was the only subject Seijuurou ever deferred to Shintarou on. No wonder it was Shintarou’s favorite.

“Wool!” Shintarou hissed, colour rising up his face at an alarming rate. Seijuurou wants to taunt and tease him some more. Ask him, why gloves? Why not a wooly hat? Or surely it would’ve been easier and cheaper to just drop a ball of wool on his lap? Why care if he was warm or not when he woke up? Why…care?

“Very well, I agree to your proposition” Seijuurou decided finally. “You will undergo double training for the rest of the week to make up for the practice time you missed”

Shintarou nodded wordlessly. He could easily out-practice Tetsuya solely on his determination alone, and that was saying something.

“I shall be joining you to make up for my absence as well, of course” Seijurou continued evenly.

“I appreciate the company” Shintarou said in the tone of someone who appreciated nothing but the vast oblivion of the void.

“We must play shogi after we are done. A few rounds, just to get us warmed up”

“Perhaps” Shintarou mumbles. Perhaps when hell freezes over, his tone suggested.

“To have such a reliable vice-captain, truly I am lucky” Seijuurou smirks with less malice  than he expected, he felt more amusement than anything, and something warm curdling in his chest, frighteningly close to sentiment…

And he was rewarded with Shintarou’s half smile, not really there, but almost, just for Seijuurou.

--

Coach asks him if he needs to be worried. About finding a new captain on such short notice, his tone conveys more warning than worry.

Seijuurou hasn’t been captain for that long, and he knew the only reason their seniors hadn’t yet voiced their outrage at him, his position and his allies, because of his unquestionable strength and talent on the court. Basketball was all he had. And Nijimura-san had trusted him with the captaincy, against anyone else's better judgement. So, for what it's worth, Seijuurou will protect his captain's legacy to his dying breath.

A series of random if vaguely related accidents, while not life threatening but certainly not comfortable, keeps Coach out of the way for the next few months. And it’s a coincidence.

~TBC

Chapter Text

If there was a higher power who, as Shintarou so eloquently claims, ‘disposes as man proposes’, he needs to ‘get his shit together’, as Daiki claims, eloquence so far removed that it was on another plane of existence altogether.

Seijuurou agrees. This is the seventh time he’s tried to return Shintarou’s handkerchief, the tiny piece of fabric painstakingly washed, ironed and pressed by the courtesy of his private army of butlers.

“Akashi…er…I, you--you need this more than I do right now”

And this is the seventh time he’s failed.

“I failed” he confided in Shintarou as he held the handkerchief to his bleeding nose, soon to render all his butlers' tireless efforts to waste. His confidant looked rather discomfited in said position.

“I don’t think--”

“Seven times” he clarified further.

“Akashi--”

“No, don’t interrupt me, Shintarou. I’m just getting started. I, who have never tasted the bittersweet despair of defeat, have been served it afresh, day after day after--”

“AKASHI!” Seijuurou looks up from his elegant, impassioned speech, to Shintarou holding out another handkerchief and sighing “You’re supposed to keep your head down”

It was only then he realized all his butlers’ hard work was stained, no dripping in red, and he felt the absurd need to apologize. He accepted the second handkerchief somewhat mutinously, making peace with the fact that he’ll all but have a tiny collection by the end of the month.

Shintarou politely fiddled with today’s lucky item (a 7’0” fishing pole), eyes averted from Seijuurou’s disgrace.

The disgraced one tilts his head down, pinches the soft cotton over his nose, breathes through his mouth and makes detailed plans to invest a reasonable percentage of his father’s assets in the tissue production industry.

--

It was only when he started bleeding in the last quarter of an official game, that Seijuurou was forced to reevaluate his selective acceptance and admit that his nosebleeds were becoming a rather serious issue. It was not against a seeded powerhouse of a school, and even if it was, they would have crushed the team’s basketball to its very core by the second quarter, but he felt the starting prickles of frustration as he clapped Kise’s open palm with one hand, the other cupped around his nose.

“Akashichi, you’re--are you--should I call--?” Hesitation was unbecoming on Ryouta.

“That’s enough, Ryouta” Seijuurou’s voice was sharper than he’d like it to be, but luckily the severity was muffled behind his hand. “Make sure the point gap continues to grow”

“Yes, captain!” He saluted, completely seriously, (which surprisingly made Seijuurou feel more reassurance than irritation) and pranced on to the court.

Seijuurou ignored the bench, and headed for the thankfully empty temporarily Teiko locker room. The blood loss wasn’t as bad this time, so the shower spray took care of the remnants of his humiliation.

He had failed his team, their opponents had seen his weakness and, if their wide, hopeful eyes had been any hint, heartened their spirits. They may even think the intensity of the game had been the cause of his condition. What a laughable concept, he was barely perspiring. Nevertheless he had failed, and failure was not forgiven.

15 minutes later, the match was over (quite one-sidedly) and the team; bench warmers and all, trudged in and Seijuurou was still under the freezing needle pricking spray.

There was a light tapping on the plastic shower cubicle door. It seems Shintarou had retaped his fingers already.

“The score’s 97-39” ‘We won’, went unsaid. Victory was not an option.

Failure was not forgiven. Weakness was not allowed.

“Akashi?” Shintarou hesitated, just as Ryouta had done before. It was his fault, his weakness had made his team weak. “Have you been in there this whole time?”

Seijuurou didn’t have enough confidence for his teeth to not shake if he so much as twitched his mouth, so replying was out of the question.

“Akashi…” Shintarou’s voice trailed away, and so did he after a few more moments of indecision.

The shower rain drowned out any footsteps that entered or exited the room. Timeless moments later, someone who was decidedly not Shintarou knocked on the plastic again. In fact he seemed to be having been knocking at a consistent rate for quite a while now.

“Akashi-kun, the bus is leaving, please come out”

Tetsuya.

“If not, I’m afraid I’ll have to ask Murasakibara-kun to break the door down”

Undoubtedly Tetsuya.

“Akashi-kun, I’m going to count to 3, and Murasakibara-kun will break the door down”

“Don’t wanna… too much effort. Kuro-chin, do it yourself”

“…Very well. One”

“Wait--wait just a--who exactly is going to explain this to the management, nanodayo~!?”

“Shirogane-san will, as the coach. Two”

“AND WHO’LL EXPLAIN IT TO THE COACH!?”

“Midorima-kun will, as the vice-captain” Tetsuya must be avidly ignoring the death glares Shintarou must surely be sending his way. Death glares that, according to Daiki, stops short of causing actual death only because of his glasses. “Three. Please prepare yourself, Akashi-kun”

Seijuurou would later apologize for not exactly fearing for his life at this declaration.

“IGNITE PASS!”

The cubical door didn’t exactly smash inward as it would’ve if Atsushi had been the one delivering the strike, but it broke nevertheless. Tetsuya’s strong point was his passes, after all. Well, his only point. That and his uniquely calm decision making skills in the face of unimaginable pressure.

“Akashi!” Shintarou paused in his tirade about property damage to inspect Seijuurou with some degree of alarm “You’ll get hypothermia!”

Atsushi picked him up out of his freezing wet self-proclaimed dungeon without any further prodding and Shintarou wrapped towel over towel around his shivering frame.

“Aka-chin, what were you doing in the shower for so long?” Atsushi mumbled between handfuls of crushed candy that Ryouta and Daiki had promised him after the match.

 “I was atoning for my sins” Seijuurou answered evenly, or at least tried to, but his seizing teeth got in the way, making his word stutter. He, who had never stuttered in front of anyone in the entirety of his life. Perhaps he should’ve chosen a less inconvenient punishment system. But that, Seijuurou reasoned, went against the entire point of it being a punishment.

Shintarou dropped the pieces of Seijuurou’s uniform on the bench next to him, and stared pointedly at them. But when Seijuurou made no move to even acknowledge them, he took the task upon himself with as much enthusiasm as Atsushi had for doing just about anything.

“Akashi-kun” Tetsuya’s face and tone did little to convey any worry “I believe we must hold another meeting”

“An intervention?” Shintarou questioned absentmindedly, thoroughly focused pointedly on his task of clothing Seijuurou, which was made unnecessarily harder by the fact that he refused to look at even the slightest patch of skin Seijuurou may be showing. “That is, a meeting, yes, a meeting. Of course.”

“I’m glad you agreed to hold it, Midorima-kun, as vice-captain”

“KUROKO! I NEVER--“

“I agree” Seijuurou, now fully clothed, but still half-wrapped in towels, declared clearly, and the rest of them succumbed to silence. Even Murasakibara stopped chomping down on the post-victory candy mid-grind. “We shall discuss the issue, and you shall lend me your assistance in finding solutions”

That will be as close as Seijuurou can come to asking for help.

After a significant pause to let it sink in, he stood up, in full towel regalia, cotton fluttering behind him like a cape.

“Let’s go then, shall we?”

To his mild annoyance, silence met his decree for a dramatic exit.

“Akashi-kun, I’m afraid the bus has already left” Tetsuya was nibbling on some of Atsushi’s candy.

Shintarou glanced at the dragon embroidered wall clock (today’s lucky item for Cancer) he had picked up from the corner.

“We can make the next train if we leave now” he declared, pushing his glasses back up his nose, as if that somehow made his declaration that much more valid.

“Aka-chin, what do you think?” Atsushi offered him candy, which he seemed to believe fixed everything.

Vanilla, Seijuurou realized upon tasting. That explains Tetsuya’s sudden craving. Well, there was nothing wrong with indulging in commoner pleasures every now and then.

“Very well, we shall take the commoner public transport. It will be an enlightening experience, I’m sure”

“For you maybe” Shintarou muttered under his breath. A commoner, Seijuurou reminded himself, despite his impeccable mannerisms, perfect posture, proper formalities, Shintarou was, they all were, commoners.

Seijuurou was certainly enlightened on many things that evening, that there was nothing remotely ‘pleasurable’ about commoner public transport, that it is not normal to demand the elderly passengers clear their seats for the comfort of the more worthy (namely, himself, Shintarou, Tetsuya and debatably Atsushi), and that sharing responsibility for personal defects were oddly…relieving.

--

Seijuurou woke up with yesterday evening’s feelings in full flair, including the back cramps that were in no way related to basketball. Who knew commoner transport was that tiring (deadly, he refrained from correcting himself). Maybe he should add it to the regular stamina menu.

But mostly his leftover feelings that perhaps, possibly, just maybe, depending on the most loyal of subordinates wasn’t exactly an unhealthy idea.

Seijuurou should’ve appreciated the sentiment while it lasted, because be it meeting or intervention, his team was the filled with the same childish, immature, noisy (but so very, very talented) fools it always had.

“Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura”

Shintarou pronounced with near perfect enunciation, clinking back his glasses up the bridge of his nose with pride of having completed such a task.

“Oi Midorima, you do know the whole pushing back the glasses thing doesn’t make you look smart, it makes you look like a know-it-all”

“Aomine-kun, please try to serious for once”

“But isn’t Akashichi the know-it-all?” Silence, chilling enough to make dry ice colder, met Ryouta’s careless words “I mean, literally! If you take it literally”

Seijuurou wonders how Ryouta, how any of them really, managed to make it so far without dying under his homicidal tendencies.

“That’s different” Daiki concluded after another bout of, this time, contemplative silence. “He knows it all, but he’s not a know-it-all, you know?”

Had they all simply forgotten he was in the room?

“Mine-chin’s not making any sense” Atsushi concluded in the course of shoveling chips into his mouth in a way that resonated strongly with a garbage disposal system.

“Shut up!” Daiki growled half out of annoyance, half embarrassment. “Your face doesn’t make any sense”

“I’d suggest rather than his face, Murasakibara-kun’s physical proportions do not make any sense”

“Uwaa! Kurokochi, how mean! Look, you made Murasakichi all sad”

“…I’m out of chips” Well Atsushi certainly sounded sad.

“Moving back to the topic of discussion” Midorima gritted out between bouts of grinding his teeth. “There is no doubt, Akashi is equally likely to have Bernard-Soulier Disease”

“Ambulance! I’m calling an ambulance!” Ryouta screeched, and began an unfruitful searching for his trusty cellphone that Seijuurou had secretly confiscated at the beginning of the meeting/intervention.

“My chiiips…” Atsushi whined.

“Don’t just take over the meeting I called!”

“Wait, wait, wait, what are we talking about again?” It never failed to surprise him, Daiki’s utter…

“Stupidity incarnate” Tetsuya muttered subversively by his side. Seijuurou tilted his head to look at him and felt a dribble of liquid drip down his chin, and calmly panicked. He didn’t need his emperor eye to predict the next line of events.

“Tetsuya” He murmured, too low for anyone else to hear, even without the current chaos. In fact, it would’ve been surprised if Tetsuya himself could hear it over all the ruckus. Help. “He--I…require some assistance”

To his credit, Tetsuya’s face didn’t show any hint of surprise.

“I’m sorry, Akashi-kun, I can’t” And something inside Seijuurou inexplicably pulled, twisted and wrenched itself around. How curious. “I know next to nothing about treating nosebleeds, Midorima-kun will without doubt be a better option”

Shintarou looked up from the chaos at the sound of his name, and immediately blanched. Seijuurou suspects he looks worse than he feels, mostly since he no longer bothered to cover it up.

He is usually reserved with physical contact, so easily embarrassed Shintarou is, but he leads Seijuurou into the coachless coach’s office with a firm hand on his back, like he’s afraid he will fall over any second. Seijuurou’s not quite sure himself.

Somehow he makes it to the room without stumbling (he outright refuses to express any gratitude to Shintaoru’s steadiness), and immediately collapses onto a bench, vision having far too much in common with a kaleidoscope.

He could almost hear his mother’s voice in his ear telling him to apply pressure, not too much pressure, hold it there, just hold it.

Only it was Shintarou who was holding it and applying pressure and getting blood on taped fingers, and Seijuurou was so, so very tired that before he knew it he was leaning on Shintarou, into him, and it would’ve been beyond embarrassing for the both of them if Shintarou hadn’t been quick in his reflexes.

“Akashi?” Shintarou sounded concerned, and Seijuurou wanted to be angry, he was not weak, but Shintarou was warm and his voice was softer than it had ever been for him.

If this was one of Satsuki’s shounen mangas, Seijuurou would confess his doubts and show his vulnerabilities (regardless of his actual lack thereof of course) and Shintarou would swear a blood oath to never leave his side, but end up being tortured to death in a slow, gruesome--wait, that didn’t sound quite right, he was quite possibly thinking of the historical war novel he read last week. The point being, that this was neither a happy go lucky manga, nor a fictitious tragedy, and Shintarou would leave as soon as  he handed over his handkerchief.

“I have tissues” Seijuurou intones clearly and decisively, in the same tone he ends practice every day, in direct contrast to his fingers tapping out a rhythm of SOS in a frazzled act of passive aggression.

There’s a beat, and many more beats, before Shintarou moves. To Seijuurou’s mild surprise, he seemed to decide that primly taking a seat beside Seijuurou rather than sprinting through the doorway was his destiny of the day.

Seijuurou half expects a full court worthy debate on handkerchiefs vs tissues, or, god forbid, be informed that Sagittarius’ lucky item of the day was green hair, of all things, but Shintarou doesn’t say or do anything other than doing his best reproduction of a constipated statue, and Seijuurou doesn’t exactly...mind.

--

“Stress” Was Shintarou’s solemn verdict. Two days later. At the post-intervention intervention.

“Stress?” “Stress!” Were Daiki’s doubtful mutter and Ryouta’s equally disbelieving screech.

“I want Umaibo” Was Atsushi’s woeful plea. “Momo-chin promised me Umaibo”

Tetsuya is the only one who nods as if he expected it.

“Then of course, we must do our best, as a team, to lift the burden off our captain’s shoulders”

And before Seijuurou could express any form of authority, they were already squabbling away on how best to ‘treat’ him. Sometimes, no, very many times, possibly all of the time, Seijuurou finds himself yearning for Nijimura-san.

Shintarou clears his throat significantly, and nods him away from the bickering. They make it 2 and a half steps before Shintarou comes to an abrupt halt and takes in a dramatically deep breath.

“As your vice-captain, please rely on me more” He mutters quietly, beet red, and not seeming very reliable at the moment.

“You have a deep, abiding dislike for any form of interaction, and you only just about manage the bare minimum of conversations with your regular teammates without horoscopes as the subject line” Seijuurou pointed out, quite reasonably, he thought.

Shintarou steels himself visibly against the imagined horrors of his possible future responsibilities. 

“I made a commitment by taking the vice-captain position, and I will dedicate myself to the role, to stand beside you and support you” he looked as if he’d prefer digging himself a hole rather than uttering these suspiciously manga-like sentiments, but somehow managed to force the syllables out despite all his verbal physiology rebelling.

And Seijuurou honestly didn’t have it in his frozen heart to tell him he entered Shintarou’s name simply because he would interfere with Akashi’s regimen the least.

“You are certainly the best suited for it” He says instead, which is arguably not saying much looking at Daiki having a squeaking Ryouta in a vicious headlock and Atsushi in a slumped heap of tangled limbs on the court probably dreaming of his beloved snacks. “Tetsuya is unfortunately too invisible to be considered a possible candidate”

“How cruel, Akashi-kun” Tetsuya blinked into his vision, making Shintarou drop his lucky item in conditioned shock. “You think so little of us, but expect so much”

And Seijuurou realized, he was already relying on them, quite heavily in fact. He relied on their light, their basketball, and everything that made them who they were, down to their ridiculous idiosyncrasies.

He trusted them to stay by his side forever.