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It was raining when Kuroko ended up on his doorstep.
Aomine knows this because he hates the rain - has always hated the rain. It drenches everything, dulling the world to a quiet, gray thumping that felt like it matched the feeling inside him a little too closely. There’s a dissonance when it feels like your worldview and real-life click into place, into focus, for just a few moments, and it feels like everything you ever believed was right all along, and at that point, it’s hard to convince yourself to keep going.
He lays on the couch, cheek against one arm and ankles resting on the other, his feet unflinching and dangling over the edge. His arm limply hangs off the couch, his fingers the only part of him moving to brush the itchy carpet against his skin so slowly that it almost feels like sandpaper. With the lights dim and the television loudly playing a game show or the news or maybe some American reality TV show he couldn’t understand, his eyes stare hazy and unfocused ahead, his mouth drooping slightly open to breathe softly and steadily, and the rain outside pelts against his house like it has a vendetta.
It’s morning…or maybe evening…it’s definitely afternoon when the doorbell rings. Not expecting any visitors, Aomine reacts the way he has been since the rain started: he does not move.
Then the doorbell rings again.
And again.
And again.
With a very loud huff and a sudden rush of anger painfully gushing through his veins to temporarily thaw the quiet, depressive cold that had settled through him, Aomine picks himself up and drags himself to the door, muttering curses beneath his breath. He swings the door open, every movement of his body feeling fluid and natural, his gift on the court being a curse in a body and brain that felt so foreign any other goddamn time, and God why is anyone even fucking bothering him?
“Satsuki, I swear to God-” But the sight before him cuts his air off in his throat. His face softens. The anger recedes, rushes back to his core, and his veins feel sore at the intrusion when such a face is standing at his door.
“Tetsu.”
Kuroko looks up at him, dripping from the ends of his hair like an abandoned kitten and dripping from his nose like someone who had just been sobbing. He gives a little shake of his head, and Aomine has spent enough time staring at his face to know that he’s biting the inside of his cheeks to quell any lingering emotions.
“I’m not Momoi-san,” He considers for a second, bringing his eyes back down to stare at the ground. “I’m sorry.”
“No, I wasn’t…” Aomine doesn’t know what to say.
They stand there as the rain pours around them, Kuroko barely safe from the heavy drops thanks to the pseudo canopy that hangs over Aomine’s micro porch. Aomine feels frozen, stunned into confusion by the sight before him, one he hasn’t seen in years, Tetsuya Kuroko standing on his doorstep. Finally, Kuroko breaks the ice.
“It’s cold out here, Aomine-kun. May I please come in?”
_____________
“I watched his plane take off out the window at the airport. I don’t know when he lands. Not that it really matters, I suppose.” Kuroko now sits on Aomine’s couch where his head was just lying moments before wrapped in a towel and the largest fluffy blanket Aomine could find. As Kuroko finishes the story, Aomine rounds the corner back from his kitchen into the living room with a glass of water, hands it to Kuroko, and sits on the floor against the TV stand a good few feet away.
“He didn’t tell you he was leaving?”
Kuroko shakes his head, looking worse for wear. “He told me a week ago. He said he didn’t want to ruin our last summer by telling me, but instead, he just forced all of the sad into seven days instead of two months.”
None of this makes sense to Aomine. Bakagami was just in Japan the other day. He just saw the two of them. “Long distance isn’t an option for you two?”
Kuroko sinks deeper into the blanket. “He felt he needed to pick, and I didn’t disagree.”
Aomine scoffs at that, shaking his head and rolling his eyes. “That’s dumb.” The word doesn’t feel strong enough for the way even Aomine’s chest feels empty at the loss. “What’s even in America that he wants so bad.”
“The NBA.”
Touché.
Kuroko shakes his head, seeming to suddenly remember something as he looks around the dark house. “Wait, I’m sorry, are your parents home? Do they mind if I’m here-?”
Aomine holds up a hand to silence him, cutting him off. “They’re away right now. I’ve got the place to myself for a few days.”
“Oh.” Kuroko sinks back into his seat, his towels, his blankets, his water. He looks around a little, nearly glowing in the immense blue light that beams from the TV. “Did I interrupt then?”
“I was just…” He trails off. “No, you didn’t.”
Kuroko squints a little at Aomine, and after a moment, he sticks one of his small hands out of the blankets and pats the couch next to him. “Keep watching TV. I don’t mind. I just didn’t want to be alone.”
The rain is still pouring outside. Everything is still dull, except for the small pocket of light peeking out from deep in the couch, beneath the towel and blanket, behind the glass of water. He wasn’t very dull at all to Aomine.
“Fine.” He drags himself across the floor, lifting himself and repositioning himself to take up less space as he places his cheek against the cool leather arm of the couch.
They sit like this together until the TV turns itself off a few hours later.
______________
“This place looks the same as the last time I was here,” Kuroko observes, looking around the dining room as he politely waits for Aomine to join him at the table. Two bowls of steaming rice and salmon sit on the table, slowly losing heat, as Aomine scours through drawer after drawer in the kitchen for clean utensils.
“You know how my parents are,” Aomine throws the words out mindlessly, checking the same drawer again like a shiny new pair of utensils would show up when they hadn’t been there the last three times. Eventually, Kuroko sighs, standing from his seat and going to one of the drawers by the sink, pulling out two pairs of take-out chopsticks from the very back corner. Aomine stares at him in disbelief as he goes to sit back down. “How did you know those were there?”
Kuroko stares back blankly, breaking the chopsticks apart in his hands. “I know how your parents are.”
There was a time when Kuroko would spend most of his evenings here, would have dinner with his family often enough that his parents saw him as another son (which made things a little weird for a while), and would stay over so often it felt empty when he wouldn’t.
The house hadn’t changed much since then.
Aomine sits down across from Kuroko, the singular light hanging above the table simultaneously too bright and too dim to make the space feel welcoming. They eat in silence, and Aomine can’t quite identify if it’s uncomfortable or too comfortable.
“Would you like me to do the dishes?” Kuroko’s voice is small.
Aomine quickly shakes his head, leaning back in his chair and knocking his knuckles against the table. “Nah, it’s all good.” He nods over to the growing pile of dishes in the sink. “I got a few to do before my parents get back.”
“No, that’s what I meant.”
He flushes in embarrassment. “I’m not going to make you do my chores for me.”
But Kuroko is already up and out of his seat, taking Aomine’s bowl for him and taking it to the sink. It’s so natural for him to be there, to be helping Aomine like this, even though Kuroko was the one needing help. Aomine tells himself that this is helpful for Kuroko. Doting after Aomine will help him forget about the dumbass who left him. Or maybe replace him, but that thought doesn’t make Aomine feel as good as he wants it to.
“What are you thinking about?”
Kuroko’s voice cut through Aomine’s thoughts, and he pulls a face at the question.
“Nothing.”
“You’ve been staring at me for the last five minutes. You must be thinking about something.”
“Nope. No thoughts rolling around up here,” Aomine grunts, and if he could manage a playful tone in anything he said, it would be now.
“Then I’ll say it for you,” Kuroko says plainly, placing another dish on the drying rack. “I missed this.”
“What?”
“I missed being here. Doing things like this. It’s been a while.”
Aomine grimaces, pretending to look vaguely uninterested in the statement. “Yeah, well, that’s how it goes.”
“Thank you for letting me in. It was very kind, Aomine-kun.”
He waves Kuroko off, uncomfortable with the way his body is heating up under the soft gaze of Kuroko. Seeing him stand there, doing the dishes, disheveled but fluffy-haired from the rain, the familiarity of it all is making him feel weird.
Domesticity always made his stomach bubbly.
“Does your room look the same as it did before?”
Aomine knew Kuroko was staying the night. He didn’t even have to ask.
So he outfit him in an oversized shirt and an oversized pair of boxers, he offered Kuroko his bed while he slept on the couch, and when Kuroko insisted that he didn’t want to - honestly he couldn’t - sleep alone, they laid down in the small bed together, backs to each other, awkwardly waiting for the other to fall asleep.
Aomine had been waiting for a while.
He looks out into the darkness of his room, knowing Kuroko lies next to him, curled in his comforter. The rain still falls outside, and his furniture throws long void-like shadows in the dim blue moonlight peeking through the blinds. The pillow is soft against his head, and his sheets caress his bare chest, coaxing him to sleep, but he can’t. His heart is heavy with words he can’t say in the light.
“The world is brighter with you,” He mumbles, staring out into the dark. Aomine convinces himself that Kuroko is asleep in the time it takes him to respond.
“What do you mean?”
He turns in bed to stare at the shadow lying beside him, lying on his side to give him space. He thinks for a moment. “It’s like, you know,” He makes a show of drawing a line up, across, then down with his finger, “A bridge,” He clears his throat uncomfortably, clearing the thickness of exhaustion from his voice, “When you stand under a bridge in the rain. You don’t feel it anymore. It’s…it’s like that, I guess.” Uncomfortable with even this vague amount of vulnerability, he punctuates his thought with a soft shwoooooo sound, pushing air through his teeth and sounding eerily like a car splashing through rain on the road as he waves a hand through the imaginary bridge he built.
Kuroko thinks long about his statement, his face blank of reaction. “Aomine-kun,” He whispers softly, turning his back to Aomine and curling tighter, “You’re the one who left me behind.”
He hums in return, acknowledging because there’s not much else he can do.
“We should go to sleep.” Kuroko’s voice sighed and creaked with a tired weight, one not solved by sleep alone.
“Do we have to?”
“I’m not interested in making mistakes tonight.”
“Neither am I.”
The room is silent, the rain pattering outside the soundtrack behind their rhythmic, cautious breathing. Cars drive by, and at a certain hour in the deep darkness of night, the splashing puddles sound like they are inside Aomine’s mind, and he doesn’t think he’s going to get a wink of sleep with the warmth of Kuroko lying next to him.
His sheets are going to smell like him again, and the thought pierces Aomine’s chest.
It feels like many hours later when Kuroko turns back to face Aomine, meeting the eyes that had been memorizing the back of his head the whole night. Kuroko always seems to find a way to steady his voice, thoughtful, meaningful. Aomine thinks of it as unnerving.
“I give a lot to the people in my life just for them to leave me,” He thinks out loud, eyes flitting past Aomine’s stare, “Light can only leave you so many times before you go insane, Aomine-kun.”
Aomine scoffs, scowls, shifting again to lay on his back now that Kuroko’s attention was turned back towards him and sliding his hands behind his head. “Light shouldn’t leave you. That’s not very good light then.”
Kuroko cocks his head slightly and squints his eyes in confusion. “That’s an interesting thing for you to say.” There’s no judgment in the statement. Simply observation.
He grunts in response, the words he wishes he could say too heavy on his tongue. How could he explain anything in his head, anything he’s done, to the person he’s hurt the most in all of this, especially when he’s hurting from someone doing the exact same thing again? It just feels like Aomine doesn’t get to justify himself.
It’s a surprise when Kuroko slides himself closer to Aomine because Aomine has been lost in his own thoughts all night. He slides just a few centimeters closer, and in the darkness of the room, it would have been barely imperceptible if all of the nerves in Aomine’s skin didn’t light ablaze feeling his warmth crawl just a little bit nearer. He shoots a quick glance down at Kuroko but barely misses meeting his gaze.
“I wish you talked more,” Kuroko whispers so softly it sounds like wind.
“I don’t have much to say.”
“I wish you had things to say to me, then.”
Aomine huffs, annoyed by the tone of Kuroko’s voice. The implication in the words sears at a wound that had healed a long time ago. “I’m not going to be some surrogate for that redheaded dumbass for you.”
Kuroko scrunches up his face at the sudden statement. “I don’t want that from you.”
“Then why are you here?”
He considers, and then Aomine swears that he slides just a little bit closer. He can feel Kuroko’s hair tickling the skin under his upper arm now. “What if he was a surrogate for you?”
That would open a can of worms within Aomine that he simply couldn’t handle. “Don’t say stupid shit.” He knows it sounds harsh as he spits it out into the night. “Don’t…don’t do that. Just-” He huffs, “He was important. Don’t, like, downplay that to me.”
But Kuroko is used to Aomine’s outbursts and harsh words, and he barely even flinches. He barely skips a beat. “Freshman year was so messy. To be honest, memories of you two from then blur together sometimes.”
And that one stings so deeply. It stings so deep that Aomine feels a prickle in his eyes that he hasn’t felt in a long time. Kuroko pretends to be none the wiser to how much that hurt as he scoots even closer, his head now resting on Aomine’s upper arm. Aomine stills, turning his head away from Kuroko with a tight scowl, but he can’t seem to shake Kuroko off when one of his small, gentle hands finds itself resting right on the center of Aomine’s chest.
“Your heart beats so fast.”
“I’m uncomfortable,” Aomine admits, but when Kuroko starts to take his hand away, Aomine grips it in midair, turning back to meet Kuroko’s eyes with a half-lidded gaze and frantic, flirtatious buzzing between his ears. “That’s not what I meant-”
He’s cut off when Kuroko suddenly shifts to straddle his lap, now both of his delicate hands resting on Aomine’s chest to keep him upright. There’s a soft, shaky sigh that melts from Kuroko’s parted lips as he stares down at Aomine, and it zaps at every nerve ending in Aomine’s body like the first hit of a drug for a long-term recovered addict.
It tastes like relapse.
“You said you didn’t want to make a mistake,” Aomine breathes out, shaking with a deep-set desire that is only being controlled by the fact that his hands are still trapped behind his head. It takes everything in his power to keep his hands to himself, especially when Kuroko responds by bending down and placing a small, soft, hesitant, sweet kiss on his lips.
“I don’t,” Kuroko breathes the words against Aomine’s mouth, and the sound causes Aomine to part his lips a little, wanting to drink in every letter he speaks. He kisses Aomine again this time with more vigor. The hesitation between them melts away, their tongues dancing and swirling against each other with familiarity. Kuroko gently draws his tongue against the roof of Aomine’s mouth, Aomine with his head tilted back so far it’s cutting off the blood flow to the hands he refuses to move. Their teeth click together every so often, their mouths getting lost in the time and space separating them from the last time they did this.
Everything looks the same as it always had, but it feels so different; Kuroko’s weight since he shot up and filled out over high school digs into Aomine’s waist in a pleasant, calming way, and the way he bites at Aomine’s lips feels pushy and competitive, taught by someone more aggressive than him. It’s a surprise when Kuroko’s the one to drop his lips to Aomine’s neck, and he pants at the feeling of his lips and his tongue and his teeth on the hot, pulsing skin there. He even winces in pain when Kuroko bites too hard, and the fleeting thought of where the hell did he learn that is chased away by the protective part of him that knew it was better not to ask.
“Sorry,” Kuroko breathes out the word against Aomine’s neck, pulling back a little to meet his eyes.
“It didn’t hurt that bad. I’m not some pussy.”
“I meant…” Kuroko drags off, and it’s now that Aomine frees one of his hands from behind his head, gently caressing his neck and wincing in sore pain. “I didn’t mean to.”
Aomine could already feel where he is going to be bruised and marked, purple and red decorating his tan skin, and his stomach churns in a way that could be excitement or could be shameful tears, but it doesn’t quite matter because he’s freed one of his hands and doesn’t think he can control himself much longer, so he suddenly grips the back of Kuroko’s neck and pulls him back down to a kiss. Kuroko lets out an involuntary moan into Aomine’s mouth that nearly breaks his brain, his body jumping to attention at the sensation rippling down his throat and to his core.
This feeling takes over Aomine’s brain, and suddenly, he’s flipped Kuroko onto his back on the bed, and his fingers are pulling, needily testing, at the clothes that are too big draped over his body. Kuroko can still stop this. He can stop Aomine, grab his hand, pull away, remind him that he doesn’t want to make any mistakes tonight. He can say the word, and Aomine will drag his tired bones to the couch, and he will deal with it in the morning.
But instead, Kuroko’s fingers find the hem of the shirt and help Aomine pull it over his head. He aids in sliding the oversized boxers down his thighs, and he guides Aomine’s hand to where he wants it the most, and by God the sound that Kuroko whimpers into Aomine’s open, panting mouth tastes like an aphrodisiac of memory to Aomine, his brain buzzing into white noise that drowns out every voice in his brain telling him to be better this time.
And for once, it was exactly how it always was. Exactly how he remembered it. Every shiver, every moan, every clench, every rush of pleasure through his body, the taste, the sound, the tingling sensation through all of his extremities, they had all been burned into his brain, and every second he spends immersed and enveloped by Kuroko now after so many years feels like some weird case of deja vu that won’t go away. Kuroko’s body was exactly how Aomine left it. That truth felt so bad that it almost felt good.
There’s no reason to get dressed afterward. There’s no reason to cuddle.
They lay in bed, eyes fluttering closed as sleep threatens but forcing themselves to stay awake to take in the sight before them for as long as they could.
“I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that,” Aomine whispers.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m him.” When Kuroko rolls his eyes, Aomine presses on. “I’m not stupid; I can tell. I know your eyes well. I can see it there.”
“I didn’t say you were stupid.” I didn’t say you were wrong. Kuroko has a brand of sass that stings worse than a punch to the face.
“Why did you come here?”
“What?”
“Why did you come here? To me?” Aomine thinks for a long while, softly gazing at the curves of Kuroko’s face and the way they shift in the light as he also thinks about the question. “I don’t do…comfort. I mean, the guy’s been gone for less than a day, and…here we are.”
This clearly hurts Kuroko, the shadows on his face changing as the pain stings and settles away. “Well, I’m sorry Aomine-kun, would you have preferred I went and had pity sex with Akaashi instead?”
“Tetsu.” Aomine’s voice warns that they both know that’s not what he meant.
“Would you have preferred I followed Taiga to America?”
He sneers at even the suggestion, prickling at the vulnerable familiarity of Bakagami’s first name. “Of course not.”
“Okay, then I’m not sure why you’re complaining,” Kuroko’s voice cracks a little at the end of his sentence. “You benefited the most from this.”
Somehow, Aomine is the bad guy again. He uses, and he throws away, and he wins. In school, in a game, in bed. It’s always the same, and he wishes, God he fucking wishes so bad that he could stop the cycle, but he’s in too deep. He feels like he’s drowning all the time.
He brings a hand to rub down his face, all of the feel-bad emotions bubbling through his chest making his features look tired even if he felt an anxious buzz behind his eyes. “I just don’t think this was best.”
“Maybe I know what’s best for me,” He pauses, “I told you I didn’t want to make a mistake tonight.”
“You only came to me because you didn’t have him.”
“If I wanted someone who wanted me like Taiga, I would’ve turned to Momoi-chan-”
“-You’re not listening to me-”
“-You’re not listening to me!” Kuroko’s voice barely changes inflection, and yet the frustration in his words is clear.
Aomine softens his words. “You’re rebounding. Hard.”
“Is that a basketball pun or an observation of our relationship?”
This one makes Aomine smile a little, and when he looks back at Kuroko, he has a small smirk too. “You’re an asshole sometimes, Tetsu.”
Kuroko stares at Aomine for a long time, the darkness starting to lift in the room even if the clouds haven’t yet parted. The smile on his lips is so soft, so sad. Finally, he speaks. “Aren’t I allowed to be messy too?”
Aomine snorts air out of his nose in response, shaking his head. His following sigh is resigned. “This is all sorts of fucked up.” It’s not judgmental, just observational.
“You got a nice necklace out of it,” Kuroko murmurs softly, his hand reaching up to brush a soft thumb against Aomine’s neck. “I never used to be able to do that to you.”
“I’m getting weak.”
“I got stronger.”
Aomine hums in response. He pauses, letting Kuroko’s thumb continue to press against the tingling bruises covering his skin. “My parents don’t get home for a few days.”
One of Kuroko’s eyebrows arches so far that it gets lost behind his bangs. “What would you like me to do with that information?”
“Ah, Tetsu-”
Kuroko sucks on his teeth, cutting Aomine off. “I prefer it when you use your words.”
Aomine stares at him for a moment. “Stay here? With me?”
Kuroko is about to respond when his phone vibrates softly on the nightstand, and without even thinking about it, he turns and checks it. Immediately, his face twists in pain, unable to hide the emotions quickly enough, and Aomine can guess what’s on the screen. He shakes his head, clicking his phone off, and placing it under his pillow.
“Did he land?”
His eyes flit up to meet Aomine’s, and the pain on his face says it all. Yet, his voice is still steady. “I don’t like when people can just go on with their lives. He didn’t even text me. That was just…I have his notifications on for his social media.”
“Ah, he’s kicking himself right now about leaving you.”
He doesn’t normally get too much of a reaction out of Kuroko’s levelheaded features, but this one makes him scoff loudly. “And how would you know that?”
“Because I did that whole thing before.” The blatant statement is neutral, even if it feels so, so sad between them. “I was kicking myself the minute I left you behind.”
Aomine could swear that he sees Kuroko’s lip tremble slightly before he turns his back to him and slides closer, slotting in perfectly against his chest as the little spoon. Aomine is surprised but still wraps an arm around his waist, pulling him close and breathing in the smell of his shampoo deeply.
“I’ll stay.” His voice is so small, but it feels like it opens up caverns deep inside Aomine.
“And after?”
“One thing at a time, Aomine-kun.”
One thing at a time.