Work Text:
"Hey, do you believe in fate?"
Satsuki reached over to feel Aomine's forehead, aghast, but he fought her off. "Stop it! I know it's a weird thing to say, but think about it. What were the chances that the Generation of Miracles and Tetsu would all end up on the same team? Was it coincidence? Then we all ended up as rivals at this competition. I have no clue if there's some special meaning behind it, but I have, I dunno, call it a feeling."
Satsuki still wore a stunned expression. Aomine pressed on. "So if something like fate exists, isn't that why Kagami showed up too? He could've been one of us -- he has the same gift. But he didn't become one of us until he met Tetsu. If it was fate for us to be on the same team, wasn't it fate that Tetsu met Kagami? And if Tetsu is Kagami's fated shadow, that makes Kagami the true light."
Now that he'd said it, it sounded ridiculous. Like something out of Midorima's mouth, for fuck's sake.
Satsuki sipped her iced tea. "How unexpectedly mature of you, Dai-chan. You've been doing and saying strange things all day. Are you sure your good twin didn't take your place while you slept last night?"
Aomine scowled. "I wish I had a twin. What do you mean, strange things?" At least she wasn't laughing at him. Why was he sitting around talking about fate and shit?
"I thought you were jealous of Kagamin, but here you are praising him. You even gave him your shoes before."
"Jealous? Why the hell would I be jealous? I'm still the better player," Aomine snapped. "I wiped the floor with him one-on-one this morning, did you forget? Just because he beat me in one official game doesn't mean he's better than--"
"I meant jealous because of Tetsu-kun," Satsuki interrupted. "You kept saying stuff like Kagamin didn't deserve Tetsu-kun, that his light was dim. I didn't expect you to change your mind so easily."
"So what, maybe I jumped the gun a little when it comes to his basketball ability," Aomine said. "Doesn't mean I was ever jealous. And would you stop calling him Kagamin? It's creepy. Don't tell me you're gonna fall for him, because I won't allow it."
"As if I need your permission," Satsuki replied with an eyeroll. "You had your chance, Dai-chan."
"I don't mean it like that, dummy," Aomine said. "That guy's not smart enough for you. Besides, I thought you liked Tetsu."
Satsuki twirled a lock of hair between her fingers with that damn sparkly look she always got whenever Tetsu came up. "What's wrong with liking both? Tetsu-kun is very handsome and gentle, and so is Kagamin. So what if he's a tad simple-minded? That's also charming. Besides, I'm clever enough for two. I'm also told he can cook."
"Gentle?" Aomine snorted. "What part of that muscle-bound lunkhead is gentle?"
"The part that Tetsu-kun likes the best, I think," Satsuki said with a sigh. "Losing to a boy is so frustrating."
Aomine glared at her. "Are you even being serious right now?"
Satsuki tapped her index finger against her chin and pursed her lips. "Who knows?"
It was a weird conclusion to an even weirder conversation. Aomine breathed a little easier when Satsuki moved on to telling him about last night's episode of CSI: Miami.
::
Aomine stretched out on the narrow hotel bed, wishing he could sleep, but even with the tranquil sound of early autumn rain pelting the window, it was useless: he'd already slept through the three-hour bus ride here.
The rain had gotten the first annual Seirin-Tōō training camp off to an inauspicious start. They had planned a friendly practice game for this afternoon -- some college was still using the nearby sports hall -- but outdoor basketball was dangerous when wet, so both teams got the rest of the day off. What a waste. They only had the weekend, and the two scheduled practice games were all he had come for. Besides, this was Aomine's last training camp as a high school student.
The last camp, the last Winter Cup, maybe even the last time fighting some of his favorite enemies. After almost three years of watching Tōō basketball club upperclassmen move on, he was about to join them. An asshole Basketball Monthly reporter had once written that Aomine was but a big fish in a small pond, his play style supposedly incompatible with real-world basketball. Whatever that was supposed to mean. If you got the ball through the hoop more times than the other guy, you won -- that was basketball.
Big fish in a small pond, huh? More sharks circled in the water these days than ever, thanks to a certain red-headed jerk. When a complete nobody defeated one of the best, lots of underdogs found their wings, and though most were delusional weaklings who thought effort could match talent, some were strong. The reign of the Generation of Miracles was ending.
Why had he been thinking about that long-ago conversation with Satsuki?
The answer sprawled, shirtless, on the other bed, probably dreaming of all-you-can-eat burgers. The former complete nobody who had become a complete monster. Even Aomine only had a ninety-five percent chance of beating him now. Eighty-five percent with Tetsu around.
Kagami Taiga.
It had been Satsuki's idea to make every Seirin player room with a Tōō player, since all they could get was a Western-style hotel. She had insisted it was to foster the bonds of friendship, but Aomine knew she'd only wanted an excuse to share a room with Aida Riko -- who, despite a full college course load, continued to coach Seirin. For two years, Satsuki wouldn't shut up about how flat Aida's chest was, and then they were best friends texting each other into the night.
People were confusing. Aomine was glad he didn't like most of them.
He glared at Kagami. They'd used amidakuji to match roommates, but he suspected Satsuki had rigged it. She considered their rivalry the most adorable thing in the world and was always trying to get on Aomine's nerves about this guy. Kagamin this, Kagamin that, as if she knew about his irritating crush that wouldn't quit.
Why couldn't he have ended up with one of the other Seirin seniors? Except Tetsu, since Aomine's crush on him also showed no signs of quitting. But even Tetsu was across the hall with Sakurai, and Aomine had no choice but stare at Kagami's stupid face. Stupid attractive face.
Not that he had to look at Kagami's face, but the room was pretty bleak. Aomine hadn't even brought any of his idol magazines, thinking he wouldn't have time for them. Besides, Kagami might try to peek at them too, and that would piss Aomine off. No matter what he did, he couldn't relax with Kagami around. Or with Tetsu, but Tetsu wasn't sleeping four feet away.
Even asleep, Kagami was annoying -- the way he took up as much space as Aomine, the way his face relaxed into whatever dreams he dreamt, the way he slept with his arms spread and hands tucked beneath the lumpy pillow, the way he had the nerve to sleep right when Aomine was all in a tizzy. It made Aomine want to mess him up.
Last year, the Tōō seniors had sprinkled rainbow glitter all over a sleeping Wakamatsu's armpits before their practice game against Kaijou at a different training camp. It had been an immature but satisfying send-off for a loud-mouthed captain. Aomine had no glitter, but he could draw on Kagami's face with toothpaste or write obscene things on his chest.
And then Tetsu would yell at him. Well, mutter. Tetsu had ways of muttering that felt a lot like being yelled at. And if Tetsu were here, he'd probably lie down next to Kagami and make Aomine implode with jealousy. It was a running joke at Seirin that Kagami and Tetsu were a couple, and the way Tetsu never did anything to discourage it made Aomine pretty sure he wished it were true. Kagami didn't seem to think anything of it, either. For all Aomine knew, they were a couple, though no matter how many times he showed up at Kagami's place unannounced he never caught them doing anything.
He watched Kagami's chest rise and fall, wondering if he'd developed this weird fixation because he'd never tried to make a move. Maybe if he slept with each of them once, it would go away. One time, as a kid, he'd spent a summer waiting to eat a special flavor of cotton candy sold once a year at a shrine festival near his house. He'd heard a lot about it from his parents, and his expectations had been so high. Then he'd ripped that bag open for a taste and had a quick but brutal fall back down to earth: it was regular old cotton candy with a faint hint of caramel. Not bad, but nothing special.
"What are you looking at?"
Aomine's eyes cut to Kagami's face. Confused, sleepy, calm. No acknowledgment of Aomine as anything but background scenery. "Not much," he said. "You were snoring." It wasn't true, but he didn't know what else to say.
Kagami scratched his belly and yawned, clearly unimpressed.
Aomine bristled. "And you shouldn't sleep with your stomach exposed, you'll catch a cold."
"That's just a superstition," Kagami said, sitting up and yawning again as he pulled on his shirt. "You get colds from viruses."
"What are you, a doctor? Are you going to med school after we graduate or something, a Bakagami like you? Obviously you won't catch a cold easily, since you're such an idiot."
Kagami's eyes finally flashed. He turned to Aomine with the kind of focus Aomine craved from him, on the court or off.
Someone knocked on the door.
"Kagami-kun, Aomine-kun, are you in there?"
"Yeah, come in," Kagami called. "Door's open." The hotel was a throwback with regular metal keys and locks, not magnetic ones.
Tetsu stepped inside and peered around with interest. "Your room is the same as ours, but everything is on the opposite side. Why do you look so agitated, Aomine-kun?"
"He's in a nasty mood," Kagami said. "I just woke up and he's already on my case."
"Oh, maybe we should go to the festival without him."
Aomine folded his arms. "Stop acting like I'm not here. What festival?"
Tetsu shrugged. "Something to do with the harvest, I guess?"
Kagami stretched. "They'll probably have more fun food than the family restaurant." He glanced at the window. "It's still raining, though."
"There are guest umbrellas downstairs," Tetsu said.
By the time they got downstairs, one umbrella remained -- the rest of the Seirin and Tōō people checking out the festival must have gone ahead. Tetsu got between Aomine and Kagami, holding the umbrella high above his head so it would cover all three of them, and they set off for the festival grounds. Dusk crept in; reflections of street lamps shimmered on wet pavement.
"Nobody's wearing a yukata," Kagami observed as they neared the sound of drums and flutes.
"Who would wear a yukata in this weather?" Aomine asked with a snort and zipped up his Tōō jacket for emphasis. He'd never seen either Tetsu or Kagami in a yukata. It would look cute on Tetsu, but Kagami would carry it off as well as Aomine did, so not well at all: most yukata were not designed for tall people.
"Kagami-kun, if you're still here next summer, we could wear yukata and see the Sumida river fireworks together."
"It's a date," Kagami said with a grin at the top of Tetsu's disheveled head.
Aomine was still working out what if you're still here was supposed to mean, but Kagami's reply distracted him. "Oh, so the rumor is true? You really are dating," he said. "You should hold hands or something."
"Mind your own business," Kagami said. He sounded distracted, which annoyed Aomine to no end. At least try to deny it!
"If you want to come with us, just say so, Aomine-kun," Tetsu said, angling the umbrella to poke the back of Aomine's head with one of the tips.
"Hey, that's dangerous!" Aomine protested, dodging. "As if I want to watch fireworks with a couple of guys."
"Kuroko, I'm getting rained on," Kagami complained.
"Sorry." Tetsu returned the umbrella to hover above their heads. He held it with both hands clasped at the crook handle and raised to eye-level, as though performing some weird prayer.
"Why wouldn't you be here next summer, anyway?" Aomine asked Kagami.
"I might go to college in LA," Kagami said. "I think I smell food. Let's go left here."
Sure, yeah, it makes sense, Aomine thought as they turned the corner into a noisy alley full of food stalls. If it's for basketball, then it's better for Kagami to go to America. The NBA picks most people up from American colleges, doesn't it?
But the thought of never seeing Kagami again wedged into his brain like a fish bone in the throat. It was funny -- he'd just been thinking about how weird it would be to move on from high school, but he hadn't even considered that Kagami or Tetsu wouldn't be wherever he went.
"Aomine?"
"What?"
"I asked if you wanted some grilled corn," Kagami said. "What are you spacing out for?"
"I wasn't spacing out," Aomine snapped. "And I don't want any."
"You should say no, thank you," Tetsu scolded him as they sheltered beneath an empty stall's canopy while Kagami took the umbrella and went to buy the corn. "Kagami-kun was being nice."
"For once in his life, maybe." Aomine watched Kagami pick his way through the crowd. He felt kind of bad, but only a little. "Are you okay with him leaving? For America, I mean. Not to get corn."
"Of course I'm not okay with it," Tetsu said. "But it's not my business."
"Aren't you friends?"
"If Kagami-kun wants to play basketball in America, what sort of friend would hold him back?"
"If I cared, I would ask him to stay," Aomine said. "What's so great about American basketball, anyway? Weren't you the one saying the other day that the Generation of Miracles should work to raise the basketball level in Japan?"
Tetsu gazed up at him with reproach. "That's us. This is Kagami-kun."
"Whatever, it's your funeral," Aomine said. Kagami was on his way back with two ears of corn on sticks.
"You really don't care if he leaves?"
"Of course not. Why would I care? If he wants to fuck off to America or Antarctica or wherever, good riddance."
Tetsu muttered something indistinct, but before Aomine could ask him what he'd said -- it had sounded like liar to him -- Kagami returned. He handed Tetsu one of the corn sticks and made Aomine take the umbrella while they ate. Aomine folded it -- no point keeping an umbrella open under a canopy -- and waited for them to finish.
"Here," Tetsu said, holding out a coin to Kagami. "For the corn."
Kagami waved him off. "Don't worry about it. What should we eat next?"
"I want to eat fried squid," Aomine said. He didn't like it that much, but the vendor was right there. Plus, everything tasted better on a stick.
Tetsu put his hand out into the street, palm up. "Oh, the rain's stopped."
As usual, Kagami wanted to eat everything he saw, so for the next hour, they hit nearly every food stall in the place. Tetsu bought a packet of cotton candy and was the lucky winner of an Anpanman mask, which he wore on top of his head as a hat. That and the folded umbrella, used as a walking stick, made him look like a parody of the fairy-tale old men always stumbling across fell beasts in the mountains or finding soybeans that turned into grateful children.
"You've had enough," Tetsu said when Kagami tried to sneak off for a third helping of takoyaki. "Did you forget what the coach told you about a balanced diet?"
"But I'm still hungry," Kagami protested. Even Aomine could tell he was lying: his eyes were those of an overfed cat sunning himself on a sidewalk.
"Let's do something else for a while, then we can come back for more food later," Tetsu said. "If you still want it."
"There are supposed to be some cool tunnels in the mountains around here," Kagami said, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. Aomine was surprised he hadn't slipped into a food coma already. A nasty part of him wished Kagami would: he hated it when these two started their married-couple routine.
"Kagami-kun, did you look that up before coming here or did you just happen to know it?" Tetsu asked, snapping the mask's rubber band against his chin with a thoughtful expression as they walked past a lively ring-toss stall.
"Shut up," Kagami said, his cheeks pink. "What's wrong with wanting to see more of Japan? Hey, isn't that Sakurai and Furihata?"
They found a large group of Seirin and Tōō members gathered around a basketball game booth, sinking ball after ball and winning useless crap they'd only leave behind in their hotel rooms. Aida shouted at the Seirin chuckleheads whenever they missed.
"Not gonna elbow everyone aside so you can have a go?" Kagami asked, stepping up next to Aomine.
"Dumbass. These things are rigged to favor the merchant. There's no point in playing against cheaters."
"Quit acting all smart when I'm the one who explained this to you," Satsuki said.
"Don't pop up out of nowhere!" Aomine hissed, startled. "Are you taking lessons from Tetsu or something?"
"I don't know what you mean," she said. "I've been here all along." She looked up at Kagami. "Dai-chan cleaned out a basketball stall at our shrine festival and was feeling all proud of himself with his bag full of stuffed owls and things until I told him the facts of life."
"What facts, Momoi-san?" Tetsu asked. "If you win all the prizes, isn't that good?"
She shook her head. "It's set up so the total value of prizes is always less than what the player pays to make the throws, even if he never misses."
"In other words, cheating," Aomine said.
"That's just business," Kagami said.
"Just because it's business doesn't mean it's not also cheating," Aomine insisted. "Anyway, this is boring. Let's get out of here."
"A puppet show is supposed to start at seven on the main stage," Tetsu said with a glance at Kagami.
"Good, great," Aomine said. "Let's go see that."
"I didn't know you were into puppets," Satsuki said.
"I'm not really," Aomine said. "But I'd rather stare at puppets than the assclowns over there."
Ever since Kagami had mentioned America, he'd been restless in that vague, irritating way where you wanted to do something but didn't know what it was, so anything you ended up doing felt like a fucking waste of time. The feeling had intensified as soon as they came here, so he was damned sure of what he didn't want: to hang out with the rest of them. Only Tetsu and Kagami.
::
HAUNTED HALL OF MIRRORS
Face Creatures from Your Scariest Nightmares - IN THE MIRROR
Turn Left at the Zombie Pig
Tetsu halted next to the sign, leaned on the umbrella, and gazed at Aomine and Kagami. "I want to go to this place."
Kagami stuck his hands in his pockets and gave the sign a long, considering stare. It resembled an old-timey wooden crossroads marker, with the letters dripping blood-red paint. "I dunno," he said. "I'm not good with stuff like ghosts and such."
"If you're scared, I'll hold your hand, Kagami-kun." Tetsu's monotone held faint amusement.
"I'm not scared," Kagami scoffed. "Fine, let's go."
Aomine didn't care about haunted houses, but this sounded less boring than puppetry, so they continued towards an olive green papier-mâché pig with disfigured buck teeth bared in a predatory grin. To its left stood a circus tent with heavy black drapes over the entrance and gruesome monster drawings on the sides.
The proprietor -- face painted the same shade as the zombie pig and a screw through his neck, like Frankenstein's monster -- favored them with a fake-gap-toothed grin. "Welcome, welcome! You're the first customers in an hour so I'll give you a discount. How about it?"
They paid the admission fee and entered the tent, both Kagami and Aomine having to duck down to avoid facefuls of drapery.
"Damn rain's been slowing business down," the man confided as they looked around the entryway lit by a single naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling on a thick wire. It was a narrow, musty-smelling place with a plywood wall stretching from one end to the other. Four numbered entrances with uneven edges were hewn into the wall.
The proprietor handed them each a faded printout of a crude map depicting four short corridors leading to a large oval room. From that room branched six narrower corridors connected to a circular room, plus three dead ends. The far end of the second room had five dead ends and one exit.
"What do we need a map for?" Aomine asked. "Isn't the point of a hall of mirrors that you don't know where to go?"
Frankendude giggled. "That is certainly true of regular halls of mirrors, but this one is haunted. You'll get turned around more often than you can scream in terror!"
"We don't need this many," Tetsu said. "Since we're going in together."
The man pointed to a sign on the left wall, hard to see in the scant light. You Must Face the Mirror On Your Own. "House rules," he said.
Tetsu glanced at Kagami, who sighed. "Let's get it over with," he said, striding towards door number three with a face as determined as before any big game. "I'll w-wait for you guys in the first room."
Did Kagami just stutter?
"Is that against the rules?" Tetsu asked as Kagami disappeared. "Meeting up inside."
"Whether or not you can find each other again is up to fate," Frankendude said with a beatific smile.
Aomine rolled his eyes and headed for door number one. "For once I agree with Kagami. Tetsu, I'll see you in there." He wondered if the proprietor's smug self-assurance had any basis. How scary could a bunch of mirrors be?
The corridor he entered seemed longer than drawn on the map, whether because the map was bad or because the mirrors lining the walls made it look so much wider. The floor was dirt, strewn with rocks. The tent must've been pitched right over an empty lot of some sort. Smaller towns had lots of room to set up festivals and such.
Aomine stepped on a soft patch in the ground, and one of the mirrors ahead of him swung outward, startling him. A pair of large hairy insect legs emerged into the corridor, followed by a mechanical spider the size of a human child. It shambled across the dirt, beady black eyes rotating to and fro. It reached the other edge, tapped a leg on the mirror there, and it slid aside. The spider crawled into the opening, which closed behind it.
That was kind of scary, Aomine thought. Hope Kagami isn't afraid of spiders. He gave the mirror where the spider had vanished a wide berth. Just in case. He considered texting Satsuki to tell her not to take door number one if she ended up here -- she had a thing about spiders -- but telling her where they were would bring her right over, and Aomine didn't want that.
Mirrored partitions filled the oval room. No wonder the Frankendude had been so amused: on the map, the room looked empty. How was he going to find Tetsu and Kagami in here? He glanced back at his corridor and consulted the map. The first pathway from the right edge of the room should be a dead end, but the one next to it would lead to the circular room. If he felt his way along the mirrors on his right, he'd find the exit. But not the guys.
The mirror in front of him turned dark, and then a skeleton dangled in it, replacing Aomine's reflection. The crackled recording of a high-pitched shriek followed. Aomine ignored his intensifying heartbeat and continued to look around. All he saw was his black Tōō track suit, but the spaces between the partitions were random -- if he kept watching for a glimpse of Seirin white, he'd spot either Kagami or Tetsu eventually.
Another recorded scream came from the skeleton mirror.
"Tetsu?" Aomine yelled. "Kagami?"
No response. Weird -- the room wasn't that large. Though judging by the spider, whoever built this thing knew their mechanical stuff, so maybe the place even had noise reduction.
Aomine checked the map again. He had taken the first door on the right, so he was near the rightmost edge of the first room, which would put Kagami's third door somewhere near the middle. Even if he had been held up by some creepy-crawly, he had to be here by now. Aomine dug into his pockets and found an old game center receipt, which he rolled into a ball and placed on the floor near the corridor entrance. As long as he stayed near the edge, he could find his way back.
He set off to the left, touching the partitions as he made his way around them. Once or twice he walked smack into mirrors because they seemed farther than they were. Even without the occasional ghostie popping up in random mirrors, it was spooky just to be surrounded by so many of his own reflections. Too bad those couldn't play basketball.
He saw Kagami standing in a semicircle of partitions ahead and hurried towards him, keeping one hand in front to avoid smacking into any more mirrors. When he got there, his palm hit a solid surface with a dull thump. Kagami turned towards the sound but didn't seem to notice Aomine. Could it be a one-way mirror?
Kagami stood frozen right outside his corridor exit, staring straight ahead at something with huge eyes and a faint twist to his mouth.
Without the bustle of the festival around them, without Tetsu to talk to, the thought of never seeing that face again woke a terrible loneliness in Aomine. Together, Kagami and Tetsu had dragged Aomine's love of basketball back out of him. More to the point, they had become his friends. They didn't hang out often, not even when school was out, and when they did get together, they bickered about pointless stuff when not playing basketball. But friendship didn't mean being in each other's face every damn day, nor did it mean blowing smoke up each other's asses all the damn time. It meant having each other's back when it counted and honesty even when it hurt. Never seeing Kagami again? Fuck that.
He moved around the one-way partition and saw what held Kagami's attention -- the dull green face of a drowned spirit hovering inside dark mirror-glass emitted a low howl. Aomine clapped a hand down on Kagami's shoulder. "Hey--"
Kagami shrieked and jumped higher than Aomine had ever seen him do on the court. He stumbled as he landed, almost toppling them both as Aomine fought to steady him with both arms.
"For fuck's sake, don't creep up on people!" Kagami groused, extricating himself.
"So you're scared of ghosts after all," Aomine said with a smirk. "That was some scream."
"I told you, it's not like I'm scared," Kagami muttered, glaring. "I just hate this kind of stuff, it's gross."
"It's okay," Aomine said, putting an arm around Kagami's shoulders. "I'll protect you from the mean ghosts, Mr. Scaredy-Cat."
"Shut up," Kagami said. "Who the hell would want your protection?"
But he wasn't throwing Aomine's arm off as usual. As Aomine tried to think of a reply, the whole thing was becoming a half-hug. If you didn't let go, it was a hug, right? Yet he had kept his arm there for too long already -- if he removed it now, he had to time it right. Too slow, and it might come off as reluctance. Too quick, and it might seem like he only moved to pretend he wasn't enjoying it. Who knew what Kagami would make of either of those scenarios? Was Aomine overthinking it?
He overthought everything around Kagami -- they were natural rivals, so he defaulted to strategy whether they were playing basketball or not. The same way he overthought everything around Tetsu because his perfect sync with Kagami made him a rival too.
Natural rivals.
Kagami was staring at his face. A flush had crept high across his cheeks, slight but obvious from this close. Aomine needed to make a joke out of this and put some distance between them, but when would he ever get to see Kagami like this again?
"Your pupils are dilated," he said, hyper-aware of how quiet it was now that the spirit in the mirror had stopped howling.
"Maybe I like what I see," Kagami replied in a half-whisper without taking his eyes off Aomine. What the hell was that supposed to mean?
Standing near enough to Kagami to smell the fabric softener on his clothes made Aomine feel like they'd made a secret, private space between them. Like he could say anything and it wouldn't be weird later.
Don't go to America, Aomine wanted to say.
"Don't leave us behind," he said instead.
Kagami's eyes widened. The dead thing in the mirror began to keen again. Kagami leaned over and kissed Aomine's mouth. The kiss was a childlike, innocent thing, lips against lips, but it made Aomine's heart pound and his stomach sink to somewhere around his ankles.
Kagami pulled back, red-faced, and took a step backwards. "Sorry," he said. "Um. Forget that happened."
"Like I could forget, you ass," Aomine snapped, grabbing the front of Kagami's jacket. He tugged, making Kagami face him, and kissed him the way he'd imagined, warm and slick and deep, his other hand clamping down on Kagami's shoulder.
Kagami relaxed into the kiss, put his hands on Aomine's ass and pulled him in. Aomine stole a glance into the nearest mirror, and the sight of the two of them entwined made him want to rip the jacket right off Kagami's back and get rid of the rest of their clothes too.
Their heavy breathing muffled the howl recording, and Aomine tried to recall the map -- where was the nearest dead end? If they hid in one of those, they could do more than this. Closer, he wanted Kagami closer; he wanted Kagami now. A distant voice in his head yammered that they were in a public place, that Tetsu could show up at any moment, but both ideas made him get even hotter.
He sought their image in the mirror again but found Tetsu instead, still with the Anpanman mask on his head, his eyes stormy. Aomine's most selfish core demanded he keep going and let Tetsu watch, but his better nature won. He broke the kiss and pulled back. Kagami looked confused until he followed Aomine's gaze and turned crimson.
How long had Tetsu been there? How much had he seen? Worst of all, kissing Kagami hadn't stopped Aomine from wanting to do the same with Tetsu. Even now he could picture himself walking over and lifting Tetsu up to kiss him too. Am I just a terrible person?
"I'm sorry, Tetsu," he said.
Tetsu began to approach them, swinging the umbrella by its crook handle. At least he wasn't pointing it at Aomine. "Why are you apologizing, Aomine-kun?"
How the hell was he supposed to answer that? Tetsu was clearly into Kagami, but it wasn't Aomine's place to talk about that. Besides, Aomine had been certain Kagami returned Tetsu's feelings, but now he wasn't so sure. If he'd failed to notice that Kagami wanted to do this with him, he was worse at reading people than he'd thought: Kagami was the most uncomplicated person he'd ever known.
"We're not a couple," Kagami said. "If that's what you were thinking."
"We could have been," Tetsu added. "But something's missing. Someone, to be precise." He stuck the scary end of the umbrella in the dirt and leaned the handle against a mirror.
"What the hell are you talking about? What's missing?"
"You," Kagami said.
Oh. Aomine turned to Tetsu. "Oh." They also -- about me? About each other?
"We just didn't know if you thought of either of us that way," Tetsu said.
Aomine took a deep breath and slid to the dirt floor, drawing his knees up and apart. "Both of you."
"Both of us what?" Tetsu asked, plopping down next to him.
"I think of both of you that way." If Aomine had had a habit of imagining things he would say, that wouldn't have even made the list of contenders, but there it was. "Don't sit on the ground in white pants, stupid." Typical. When flustered, he turned into his neat freak dad.
"Aomine-kun."
Aomine raised an eyebrow at Tetsu. "What?"
"This." Tetsu put a hand on the back of his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. Aomine took Tetsu's face in his hands and slid his fingers underneath the silly mask's rubber band, easing it back. The last trace of his earlier vague restlessness vanished: this was what he'd wanted to do.
The wailing resumed, and they broke apart to find Kagami sitting cross-legged in front of them, looking a little pointy around the edges. "I wish we'd do this somewhere a bit less sca-- uh, weird," he said.
"What are we doing?" Aomine asked.
"Kissing," Tetsu offered.
"What's the matter with both of you? We all like each other so we should go out," Kagami said. "All three of us. It'll be like before, except we'll have sex too."
Aomine snorted. "Isn't that the kind of deviancy you read about in the pink press?"
"Isn't it nobody's business but ours?" Kagami asked. "Things we do in private."
A series of things he wanted to do in private with these two flashed through Aomine's mind. As usual, it sent his heart rate spiking and heated up his face as though he'd done twenty laps around the Olympic stadium at full speed.
"Aomine-kun is thinking about naughty things," Tetsu said.
"Shut up! How would you know?"
"Well, it could also be that you're raising a small animal in there," Tetsu said, nodding at Aomine's crotch. Aomine slammed his thighs together to cover himself and bit his lip. He acted so much cooler in these situations when he imagined them. It wasn't fair.
"So are we going out?" Kagami asked, looking from Aomine to Tetsu and back.
"Obviously," Aomine said. He still felt like someone had busted a sake bottle over his head, but it would pass. He hoped.
"Let's start by getting out of here," Tetsu said.
::
None of them wanted to return to the hotel after they got out of the haunted house. Going back would mean they'd have to split up. Tetsu found a flight of steps hewn into a low hill overlooking the festival grounds -- a prime location for watching fireworks in the summer, no doubt. But summer had ended, and they were alone here tonight.
They sat on a bench nestled against a wild-growing hedge and watched the commotion below. Now that darkness had come, the grounds glowed with lanterns, red and yellow and orange. Snatches of song from the puppet theater, shouts from the carnival game booths, the cries of food vendors all drifted up through the night air. It was like being in another world.
"I won't go to LA, by the way," Kagami said.
Aomine's stomach flipped. "When did you decide that?"
"A little while ago."
"Did it have anything to do with the kissing?" Tetsu asked.
"It had everything to do with the kissing."
"What if we break up?" Aomine asked.
Tetsu clicked his tongue. "What a pessimist."
"We'll get back together," Kagami said with supreme confidence.
Aomine remembered that afternoon with Satsuki again. Do you believe in fate?
What were the chances that the three of them would meet? That out of all the schools in Tokyo, Kagami would go to Seirin and meet Tetsu, that they'd be good enough to become Aomine's rivals? Was their mutual attraction a coincidence?
Aomine had no clue if there was some special meaning behind it.
No clue, but a feeling.
A definite feeling.
The End
おまけ
The driver of their bus back to Tokyo was running late.
"Why do you keep staring at the Seirin team, Dai-chan?"
"I'm not staring at Seirin," Aomine said. It wasn't a lie: he had been staring at Tetsu and Kagami.
Satsuki poked him in the side. "Losing is frustrating, isn't it?"
Aomine peered at her. "What're you getting at?" Losing definitely sucked, but his frustration had nothing to do with basketball, for a change.
"I'm saying you shouldn't skip practice," Satsuki said. "If you had joined our practice sessions instead of hanging out on the Seirin half of the gym the whole time, we wouldn't have lost."
"If you had put me in play, we wouldn't have lost," Aomine pointed out. "You're the one who told the coach to bench me."
"If you don't practice, you don't play," Satsuki said. "That was the deal for this camp."
"It's kind of sad that Tōō can't win against Seirin even with Kagami and Tetsu on the bench," Aomine said, pretending to ignore her pointed look. He'd had every intention of coming to practice, but that had been before Friday's festival. "Unless they pick up a promising middle schooler, it's goodbye Inter-High for next year."
"I'm not so sure about that," Satsuki said. "I'll be honest: we were going to bench you anyway, for the team's sake. Ricchan took Kagamin and Tetsu-kun out of the game for the same reason -- it was a good opportunity to see how the teams measure up without their aces."
Aomine gave her an irritated look. "Then why were you lecturing me about practice?" I bet she made the deal on purpose, figuring I wasn't going to attend practice. It's not my fault they still train like a bunch of wimps.
Satsuki flipped her hair over one shoulder. "Because practice is important whether you get to play or not! It's not like you ever listen to me, anyway, so I can lecture you all I like."
"That doesn't make any sense," Aomine objected. "If you didn't get on my case so much, maybe I'd listen to you."
"Don't fall for it, Momoi-san," Tetsu advised, materializing at Satsuki's side. "Aomine-kun would never listen to anybody."
Aomine's hands itched to pull Tetsu to him, but though he wasn't planning to hide the change in their relationship from Satsuki, this wasn't a good time or place to tell her. "Where the hell did you come from?" he asked.
"Don't startle me like that, Tetsu-kun," Satsuki scolded. "Was there something you wanted?"
"Yes, I'd like to borrow Aomine-kun, please," Tetsu said. "Just for a short time."
"What's so urgent you couldn't wait until we got on the bus?" Aomine asked after they had walked aside a bit.
"It's about the bus. You're going to sit with us, right?"
"I've thought about it."
"There are only two seats on each side, though."
"So one of us can sit across the -- oh." There was no inconspicuous way to reach across a bus aisle. "Janken for the seat next to Kagami?"
"I won't lose."
::
"Come on, everyone else already got off and the driver's waiting. Just wake them up!"
"I can't, Ricchan, aren't they too cute? Let me take a picture quickly."
"Yes, please hurry, Momoi-san."
A phone camera went off with a whisper-click.
Aomine became aware of a weight on his shoulder, of his cheek resting against bristly short hair. Right. Tetsu. Janken. The bus. Kagami. "Don't just take people's pictures, assholes," he muttered without opening his eyes.
"Please send me a copy, Momoi-san," Tetsu said.
"You two have surprisingly similar evil streaks," Aida Riko said.
"Like you should talk," Kagami grumbled.
"Careful with that mouth or I'll triple your training menu."
Kagami sat up straight. "Are we there yet?"
"Yes, this is the Tokyo Station bus terminal."
After they disembarked and retrieved their duffel bags from the luggage compartment, Satsuki tugged on Aomine's sleeve. "Let's go home, Dai-chan. Ricchan's going too. She's just coming over to borrow a skirt."
"Aomine-kun, weren't you coming with us to Kagami-kun's place?" Tetsu asked.
"Yeah," Aomine said. "I gotta borrow his, um, toaster."
For some reason, Satsuki blushed.