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“Kise, I knew you were lacking in intelligence, but this truly leads me to believe that it’s a severe deficiency.”
“Shh, Midorimacchi! You’re going to wake him up!”
“Mhmm, Kiiiise-chin, Mine-chin’s gonna eat you if he finds out…”
“Shut up and go back to sleep, you giant purple gorilla.”
“Mido-chiiin...gimme snacks…”
“You have popcorn right there!”
Alright, look. Kise knows that this is probably the most dangerous stupid idea he’s ever had, but hear him out. If he actually manages to pull it off...man, the whole basketball world is going to have a field day.
He sighs dreamily, permanent marker in hand, staring at the smooth tan skin of Aomine’s forehead. A blank canvas positively asking for a work of art.
“It’s his fault for napping.” Kise drawls, with the lowest volume and least force possible. One breath is enough to wake the sleeping beast, after all. “This is like, the second time we’ve all been able to get together, and the jerk is napping!”
Midorima just heaves a heavy sigh and rolls his eyes, returning his gaze to the big screen in front of him. The movie that’s playing is in the middle of a romantic confession between the two main characters, and Midorima squints his eyes in distaste.
“Just hurry up already.” He bites out quietly. Even he, for all his prim and proper ways, can’t help but feel tempted by the idea of seeing the oh-so cocky and sure-footed Aomine walking around with an embarrassing confession on his forehead.
Murisakibara, sitting next to Midorima and also on the verge of sleep, merely snacks more viciously on his popcorn.
“But what should I write?” Kise asks, uncapping the marker with relish.
Midorima fumes. “Seriously? You went all this way without even a plan?”
“Stop lecturing me and just give me an idea already, Midorimacchi!”
After leveling one last disgusted glare at the blonde model/athlete, Midorima sighs and gestures half-heartedly at the screen, where the characters are now passionately making out. “Matters of the heart are most embarrassing, no?”
Kise glances at the screen and freezes, cogs in his mind turning. Something clicks in those golden pupils. Slowly, he turns back to Midorima and offers him a half sinister, half mischievous grin.
“I’ve got it.”
Kise can picture it already.
Bold, black words:
“kuroko simp,” with a matching downward arrow.
Akashi speaks up for the first time, from Aomine’s left. “I’ll make certain that nobody breathes a word to him.”
~
Aomine lets out a massive burp, leaning backwards until his spine cracks satisfactorily and stretching his arms up above his head.
“Man, that was a good nap.” He murmurs to himself.
Once he’d woken up, he’d gotten an earful from the others, reprimanding him about sleeping on their rare outings together, but he didn’t have the heart to, well, take it to heart. Besides, who are they to admonish him? It’s not like it was a true gathering- both Satsuki and Tetsu, the two people he actually gives half a shit about, weren’t there.
In fact, he wouldn’t have even agreed to go to the movie theater if it wasn’t for that cotton-candy haired, blue-puppy-eyed bastard. “You have to go, for me, Aomine.” Aomine mocks in a high pitched tone that sounds nothing like Tetsu.
So he came. But nobody can fault him for sleeping. Sleeping is what he does best.
Aomine yawns and walks away, starting off on the familiar path back to his house. As he goes, the recent memory of parting after the movie replays in his mind. He frowns. The other guys were nice enough, but something felt off...he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
Maybe they were just butthurt because he slept through the movie.
...no, that wasn’t it. God knows that crybaby Kise would have shown how he felt. So...why did it feel like they all knew something that he didn’t?
“Daiki!” A cheerful, bubbly voice calls out.
Aomine lets himself smile just a fraction of a millimeter, and looks up to spot a pink ball rapidly speeding towards him. He moves his feet a little wider apart and steels himself just in time for impact.
“Oomph. Yo, Satsuki.”
She beams up at him. “How was the-” Her face rapidly morphs into one of confusion, then blatant shock.
“What?” Thinking there must be something strange on his face, Aomine instinctively moves a hand up to rub at his face. But it comes away clean, and he feels no bumps.
“U-uh. Uhm, it’s nothing.” Satsuki stammers. She blinks, hard, as if shaking something off, and schools her expression into one of neutral happiness once again.
“What the fuck, Satsuki?”
“Don’t worry about it. For a second uh, I thought you looked like somebody else!” She laughs sheepishly and steps backwards. Her smile fades a little too quickly for Aomine’s liking and something despairing flashes through her gaze.
Aomine narrows his eyes at her, but lets the subject drop. He doesn’t feel ready to approach that sadness in Satsuki’s eyes. Knowing her, it’s probably about what happened in middle school. But he’s already said everything he could to her in words, so all that’s left is to make good on his promise to be more of a team player and less...isolated.
“You’re so weird.” He settles on saying, reaching an arm out to ruffle her hair.
“Hey!” She pouts at him. Normal. Looks away. Not normal. “Just answer my question about the movie, already!”
And with another grin, she returns to her bright demeanor, so Aomine shrugs the weird moment off his shoulders. Better not to overthink every little detail, after all.
~
The coach’s voice gets louder and louder as Aomine approaches the door. “...morrow we have a practice match against Seirin, so-”
Aomine saunters in casually.
“Aomine! You’re late aga-” The coach trails off, staring somewhere above Aomine’s eyes. Again? He recovers a second too late for Aomine not to notice, but fast enough to cut off any questioning Aomine had opened his mouth to answer. “-in. Hurry up and get in position. We have a practice match tomorrow, so-”
He’s interrupted by a loud, uncontrolled snort that erupts from among his teammates. Aomine whips his head over, irritation rising.
“What? Who was that?” He snarls, getting defensive. What was so shocking, or funny, about him? These punks didn’t have the nerve to laugh at him before.
With that one snort, though, the whole team seems to crumble, erupting into mixtures of muffled cough-laughs and straight-up wheezing.
Momoi stands to the side, worrying her lip with her teeth. “Guys! Don’t!” Aomine doesn’t like the amused glint in her eyes behind those drooping eyebrows, though.
“Don’t what?” Aomine snarls again, louder. Tension builds in his shoulders. He hates the prickly feeling like the only one left out of a joke, being isolated and picked on on top of that. Granted, it doesn’t happen to him often, but… he inhales, bulking up his body instinctively. Ready to throw down. “If one of you doesn’t speak up…”
His captain steps out, clearing his throat and pushing his glasses up his nose. “Calm down, Aomine. It’s not about you, okay?” Imayoshi smiles, calm and pacifying, but Aomine has known his slimy, albeit respectable senpai too long to believe in that smile.
Aomine raises a menacing eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Doesn’t seem that way to me.”
Imayoshi nods imploringly. “Really. It’s just a joke we were talking about before. Right, guys?”
The rest of the team nods, schooling their faces back into something resembling neutrality. “Sorry!” Sakurai inevitably squeaks.
He finds it hard to believe them, but the excuse is reasonable and as far as Aomine knows, there’s nothing to laugh at about him anyways.
Sighing and very much done with everyone’s shit, Aomine relaxes and turns away with a scoff. “Whatever. Let’s just get to practice. Seirin’s going down tomorrow.”
Not a peep is heard.
Everything goes smoothly from there...until it doesn’t. It happens in the middle of a practice game. Aomine is finally getting into the groove, feeling his agility spike and his muscles awaken as he dashes down the court, dodging his teammates as easily as if they were mere rocks instead of breathing players. As he twists and ducks around Kasamatsu, smirking, about to make a snide comment, the lowest, quietest of comments pierces him.
“Simp.”
Aomine screeches to a halt. The squeak of his basketball shoes against the polished floor reverberates around the gym.
“...”
“Aomin-” Imayoshi starts questioningly, standing up a little from his defensive position.
“ What did you just say?”
Wakamatsu grins, a reckless, all-knowing grin that Aomine instantly wants to punch off his smug face. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Don’t lie to me, you little-”
From the sidelines, Momoi screams, a desperate attempt at diversion. “Guys! The other team’s gonna score one on you!”
Truthfully, the other team had been standing stock-still in confusion, but at Momoi’s reminder, they sprung into motion, darting out and picking up the ball from where Aomine had carelessly let it drop.
“Damn!” Aomine cussed. He shot one last murderous glare at Wakamatsu and sped away. He wasn’t going to let anyone score one on him for his own distraction.
But what the hell did he mean by that?
~
From there, a series of strange events happens to Aomine.
The one time he bothers to show up to class, late, everyone turns to stare at him like he’s grown a third eye. Though, they usually turn to stare at him, so this is no anomaly. The staring just lasts a bit longer than Aomine’s used to and has a little less disapproval and more shock. Fucking weird. I’m always late. This ain’t no surprise.
The teacher even stammers as he tells Aomine the regular, “you’re late,” and “sit down in the back.”
Aomine reaches up to touch his face again. He didn’t actually grow a third eye, right?
But class drones on and aside from some weird whispers around him (he swears he hears Kuroko’s name but dubs himself as hallucinating because that’s just not possible ), it’s completely normal. Aomine tires of listening, and resorts to stare out the window instead…
Class alone wouldn’t have been enough to really rub Aomine the wrong way, but lunch is where it becomes glaringly obvious that something is wrong.
Everyone . stares at him. Even stranger, they all stare at the same place: somewhere above his eyes. Aomine has half a mind to march into the bathroom and figure out what exactly everyone is staring at, but...priorities. He really wants his fucking onigiri and he’s going to get it.
“Outta my way,” Aomine growls at a particular first year who had frozen in his spot as he stared.
He marches up to the front of the lunch line, taking advantage of the heightened attention he’s receiving and everyone’s looks of combined fear and intrigue, and reaches out roughly for a few of the delicious rice balls. He pays for them deftly and sweeps out of the cafeteria, unable to shake the lingering gazes.
Okay. Whilst unwrapping his lunch, Aomine decides that he’ll pay a visit to the mirror. It’s not that he’s insecure or anything, alright, or gives any fucks about other people’s opinions. He’s sure he looks fine, but if he’s been walking around all day with some giant smear on his head or something, he wants to know.
He pushes on the bathroom door. It doesn’t open. Huh? He pushes harder. Locked. Firmly. He looks around for a sign that the bathroom might be out of order. Nothing.
Huffing with annoyance, Aomine heads to the next closest bathroom. Also locked. So is the next. And the next. Until he realizes that every single place he could possibly find a mirror...is locked.
He could just use the selfie function on his phone, but he just lent it to Satsuki. The girl had claimed she needed it for...what was the reason again? Aomine scratches at his neck. Shit, he already forgot. He’d been half asleep at the time.
Flabbergasted by his own bad luck, Aomine has no choice but to go to his next class none the wiser.
~
All is well till the next day.
Now, Aomine doesn’t believe all that superstitious crap like that stuffy-ass Midorima, but he admits that he wakes up on the wrong side of the bed that morning and, as he’s getting out, feels the worst, ominous chill. That can’t be a good sign.
Then, he gets a cryptic, suspicious message from Kise: “good luck today Aominecchi !! Can’t wait to see kurokocchi’s reaction to you !! ;)) ”
Reaction to him? What the fuck did that mean? Kise better mean Kuroko’s look of utter defeat when Aomine crushes him in the upcoming practice game.
But why would Kise add that winky face at the end of his message?
Aomine isn’t tactical enough to deal with Kise on a good day, much less today. He turns his phone off, groans, and starts to get ready for the day. It’s too early for this shit.
~
“Are you going out there like that, Aomine?” Imayoshi drawls from behind the navy-headed ace, twirling a basketball on the tip of his shoulder.
Tensing up, Aomine looks down at his attire. He’s just clad in the usual Touou uniform, and one of his many pairs of basketball shoes. “Whaddya mean?”
Imayoshi’s eyes widen imperceptibly. “Oh.” He clears his throat. “Nothing. I must have seen wrong.”
Seen what wrong, though?
Aomine scowls at his captain and pushes past him, towards the door. “Whatever. Hurry up so we can crush Seirin, already.” He’s not about to let the weird past few days and his shady captain ruin how pumped he is for this game. As he leaves, he only has one thing on his mind: I’m going to get my revenge today. Tetsu is going down.
Seirin is already here.
Aomine lets the locker room door swing shut behind him and makes a beeline towards the group of red and white clad players, zeroing in on a certain, near-invisible bluehead.
Well, near-invisible to everyone else. Never to Aomine.
“Kur-” He’s stopped in his tracks when a much bigger presence steps in front of him. Taiga Kagami.
Kagami has an aura of urgency around him (he usually does, but today it’s even more intense) that only fuels the fire in Aomine. But Kagami doesn’t offer Aomine the usual challenging smirk, and instead takes one glance at him and bursts out laughing.
Okay, what the fuck.
“Wanna explain what’s so funny about me kicking your ass today, Kagami?”
Kagami manages to squeeze out a reply in between breaths of laughter. “Oh man, he wasn’t kidding! Oh god, this is the best day of my fucking life.”
Aomine scowls. “What the hell are you talking about? Who? Me?”
To his rising ire, though, Kagami ignores him and continues to wheeze. Aomine’s fingers twitch and curl into a fist. He respects Kagami (though he’d never admit it out loud), but he’s not afraid to punch him…
“Oi Kagami, stop messing around and get back to drills! Are you really so confident that you think you can beat Touou without pra-” Hyuuga, ticked off, jogs up to the duo but quickly goes silent as he catches sight of Aomine.
His lips twitch and Hyuuga presses them together. One hand comes up to readjust his glasses.
“Oh. Wow.”
Aomine’s about had it for the day. “Alright, if somebody doesn’t tell me why the fuck everyone’s been looking at me weird for the past two days, everyone here’s going to regret it.” The ace grins threateningly, swinging his burning gaze between Kagami and Hyuuga, who quickly lose their smiles and straighten up.
Hyuuga clears his throat. “Can’t help you out. Sorry.”
Aomine’s about to give him a piece of his mind (and maybe fist) when he feels a sharp, hard jab in his side. He doubles over, choking over his words. “OW! What the-”
“Aomine-kun, please calm down.”
Kuroko.
Still clutching his side, Aomine straightens and turns to face his old teammate and best friend, indignation written all over his face. “Tetsu, ow. ”
“Stop scaring my teammates,” Kuroko replies half-heartedly as he watches Kagami with concern.
“Then they should tell me whatever the fuck they’re hiding.”
Kuroko sighs and finally, finally looks at Aomine, clearly with an answer on his tongue...that dies as soon as his eyes land on that mysterious spot, somewhere above Aomine’s eyes. Aomine waits for him to say something, but Kuroko only lets his jaw drop a little, eyes dilating in shock.
It shocks Aomine too, because he’s never seen Kuroko like this before.
“What is it? What?” He grows impatient. He watches Kuroko even more attentively, and catches sight of the slight pink that’s arising in Kuroko’s cheeks. Why is he blushing? What the hell?
“Oi!” This time, Aomine reaches out to poke the phantom’s side, and he reacts just in time to slap the hand away.
Kuroko takes a deep, calming breath. When he’s done, the calm look in his eyes has returned and the pink is gone. Did I imagine that? “I’ll tell you, if you win.”
Aomine reels back, gaping. “What the-? Why? Tetsu, just tell me now.”
Kuroko shakes his head, smiling his tiny smile. “Nope. So you better play us hard, Aomine.”
“Tetsu! Hey!”
But just like that, Kuroko is gone, Kagami and Hyuuga with him. Aomine grits his teeth.
Fine. He’d show them. He’ll crush them.
True to his word, Aomine dominates the match, leading Touou to victory with a 5 point lead.
~
Aomine finds Kuroko after the match, standing quietly a little ways off from the Seirin bus, waiting.
“Tetsu!” Aomine can’t help but grin, high on endorphins from the match (that’s what he tells himself, anyways, it’s definitely not because Tetsu makes him smile). He hasn’t forgotten about his previous irritation, though.
Kuroko watches him approach. “Aomine-kun.”
“So. Spill.” Aomine halts in front of Kuroko.
Kuroko nods, as if he’s accepting defeat. He cranes his head down and rummages through his shoulder pack, looking for something.
Aomine’s impatience builds.
Finally, Kuroko removes something from his pack and straightens back up to look Aomine directly in the eye. Eye contact with Kuroko is always an overwhelming experience for the ace, so he manages to hold it for a whole 3 seconds before needing to glance away. Otherwise, he’ll drown.
Kuroko uncurls his fingers from around the object. A hand mirror.
“So there is something on my face!” Aomine mutters, beyond annoyed. “Why didn’t someone just say something earlier? God.”
Kuroko presses his lips together. Aomine watches the action helplessly. “You’ll see, Aomine-kun.”
Flipping the hand mirror open, Kuroko holds it up to Aomine. The ace bends down a little to get a good look at himself.
When he does, his eyes go wide. Holy. Fuck. What the fuck is this. “I…why- when- how- what the fuck?”
There, on his forehead, unsmudged and looking as if they’d been drawn on seconds ago, were two completely unmissable marks. Words. Kuroko. Simp.
Aomine processes.
When could this have happened? So that’s why he was getting all those weird looks. Why did nobody say anything? How could he have not noticed?
Kuroko flips the mirror shut. “Now you know, Aomine-kun.”
Aomine barely registers him. Why specifically “kuroko simp”? Who the hell knew that he had feelings for Kuroko anyways? Wait, he has feelings for Kuroko?
Oh fuck.
His body finally catches up to his mind, and Aomine feels his cheeks heat. What am I supposed to do with this information? How do I face him now? Not for the first time, he’s glad he’s so tan and doesn’t have to deal with red cheeks giving his internal turmoil away. “I…”
“Aomine-kun, you look like you’re about to die.”
This at least gets a grateful snort out of Aomine. “Shut up.”
“Are you okay?” Kuroko asks, simply.
“Uh…” Is he okay? “Yeah, I’m fine. It was probably just a joke, anyways.” Aomine pushes away thoughts of his newfound feelings and falls back on familiar anger. His eye twitches. “When I found out who did this…” He pounds one fist into his other hand for emphasis.
Kuroko sighs a little, shaking his head. “Okay.”
Aomine glances at him. “Okay”? What does that mean? His heart squeezes. “...what ‘bout you? Are you okay?”
Surprised, Kuroko’s lips part for a small gasp. Aomine finds himself unable to look away, again. Well, I’m officially the world’s biggest idiot. How didn’t he notice this before? “Um...I’m fine, Aomine-kun.”
The stutter leads Aomine to think differently.
“Does this,” Aomine points to the words on his head, “bother you?”
Hyper-aware of every single one of Tetsu’s movements and expressions, Aomine watches shadows cross Kuroko’s eyes. “I don’t know, is it true?”
Well, Aomine certainly wasn’t expecting that question. He blinks, stammering slightly. “Uh, I- uh. Do you want it to be true?”
The coward’s answer. Aomine curses himself. He should have just said it. He’s almost certain Tetsu wouldn’t have responded that negatively.
Kuroko doesn’t seem to mind that the tables have been turned, however, as he merely glances down, tightens his grip on the strap of his shoulder bag, looks back up, directly into Aomine’s eyes, and says, “Yes.”
And fuck, Aomine knew Tetsu was the bravest person he’s ever met in his life but he still expected anything but that answer.
“Oh.”
Come on, Daiki, you have more words than that, his internal Satsuki voice chides.
“In that case, yeah. It’s true, I guess.”
Tetsu’s eyes warm up and he starts to smile that smile of his that seems innocently subtle but is in fact completely disarming, and Aomine definitely can’t handle that, so he looks off to the side and tries to ignore how fast his heart is beating in his chest.
“In that case,” Tetsu says, and Aomine turns to look at him again, curious as Tetsu rummages through his bag for something else. “I understand why Akashi-kun gave me this.” His hand emerges, gripping a black sharpie.
Aomine’s eyes widen. “Tetsu…”
To Aomine’s surprise, Kuroko extends his arm and presents the marker to Aomine. “Go on. Take it.”
So Aomine does. “Why did you-”
Kuroko starts brushing his hair back from his forehead, and it all clicks at once.
“O-oi, Tetsu, you don’t have to do tha-”
“Write it.” Kuroko responds calmly, mirth dancing in his eyes.
Aomine attempts one last time to dissuade him. “Hey, seriously, I’m probably just going to wash mine off anyways so-”
“Aom- Daiki-kun, just write it.”
Daiki? At a loss for words and not trusting himself to properly speak even if he did have words, Aomine uncaps the marker obediently.
He clears his throat. “What do you want me to write?”
Kuroko levels a bored look at him. “I gave the marker to you so we could match, not for you to draw boobs on my forehead.”
“I wasn’t going to-!”
“Just hurry up.”
“Fine!” Huffing indignantly, Aomine steps a little closer to the blue-haired phantom player, very aware of the decreasing distance between them.
“Last chance, Tets-”
“Daiki.”
A shiver runs up Aomine’s spine, and that’s all he needs to lift the marker’s tip up to Kuroko’s forehead. Which, by the way, is incredibly smooth and perfect. And pale. So pale. Then, as carefully as his giant basketball player hands can handle, Aomine writes the words, ‘Daiki Simp’ on Kuroko’s forehead, feeling like the world’s biggest embarrassment as he does.
“This is ridiculous, Tetsu.”
Kuroko snorts, a small, quiet sound that makes Aomine’s heart do a backflip. “I know.”
Daiki caps the marker, leans back, and slips it back into Kuroko’s pack. When he straightens, it’s painfully obvious that he’s still much closer to Kuroko than before, and he doesn’t exactly know what to do with that.
Just step back. Give him space.
But he just...can’t.
Kuroko looks up at him, slightly perplexed. He’s so cute. I just wanna...
Aomine sighs, gives in, and reaches out, pulling the smaller boy into a bone-crushing hug.
“Mmph. Daiki-kun, you’re squishing me.”
“Deal with it. I’ve been waiting to do this for a while.”
“...Not as long as me.”
Aomine tightens his grip around the other, familiar pang of regret stabbing him low in the gut. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. We’re here now.” Kuroko sighs into Aomine’s chest. “Even though Kise had to spell it out for you on your own forehead.”
Aomine’s grip loosens abruptly and he steps back just a little, giving Kuroko room to breathe as his fingers start to twitch with the urge to smack a certain blonde. “Kise? Kise. Kise, that little shit, he’s going to pay for th- mmph.”
He’s cut off by a pair of cool lips, stealing the air from his lungs and leaving his head spinning. Once he’s registered what’s happening -- holy shit, am I getting kissed right now, fuck fuck fuck-- he closes his eyes and leans into the kiss, increasing the warm pressure between them.
On second thought, maybe the yellow bastard deserves his thanks.
~
“Oh my god. Oh my GOD, Kurokocchi you DIDN’T!!! I LOVE it! You guys match now!!!”
“I swear to Oha Asa, Kise, what have you done. Kuroko, I thought you had more common sense than to commit such an inane crime to your forehead.”
“Kuro-chinnnn, gimme snacks.”
“I’m glad the marker I gave you was put to good use, Tetsuya.”
“Tetsu!! Congrats on getting with Dai-chan! You two are so CUTE!”
“...”
“...Wait, they’re DATING!??”
“Of course. Do not be ridiculous, Kise. Why else would they purposely keep those god-awful eyesores on their foreheads?”
“Yayyyy.”
“I predicted this would happen ever since I first saw them in the Teiko gym together.”
“I wish I knew before I fell for Tetsu-chan, but oh well!!”
“Momoicchi, that’s so sad…”
“Today’s luck for Aries is at its lowest.”
“Thank you for that, Midorimacchi, she really needed to hear that right now.”
“I am merely speaking the truth.”
“Guys, I’ll be fine…”
“I’m hungry…”
“Not now, Murisakibaracchi!”
“Let’s just go and wish them well.”
“Splendid idea, Akashi.”