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Aomine laid in bed, staring at the ceiling. His alarm was still ringing, and he was due to meet Tetsu and Kagami with Satsuki in an hour, but he couldn’t bring himself to move. His body felt heavy, and he was so tired it was a struggle not to fall back asleep.
He wanted to get up, but just couldn’t make himself. Even the promise of a good round of basketball with the others wasn’t enough to give him energy today, and it burned as he tried to muster the willpower to get up.
Days like this were coming less, after all the drama being carried over from middle school was dealt with, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still around. Just more annoying, now that he actually had things he was looking forward to again.
“Daichan!” Satsuki’s voice came from down the hall, and he knew she was there to make sure he would be ready on time. He didn’t want to disappoint her, but even as he heard her footsteps coming down the hall, he couldn’t muster the energy to turn his head.
The door opened, and he heard the falter in her steps as she heard the alarm going off. She sighed quietly and crossed the room to turn it off. The lack of sound was a relief, and Aomine was glad she’d gotten rid of it.
“Daichan, sleeping through your alarm ag-” she started, breaking off as she saw his eyes open and still looking at the ceiling. Her entire energy softened in an instant at the sight, and she sat down at the edge of his bed. Her voice softer than before, “It’s one of those days, huh? I’ll let the other two know we’ll need a raincheck, then help you get up and eat something easy.”
She pulled out her phone and Aomine heard the tell-tale bloops of messages being written and sent. Then she tucked her phone away and reached out to fold up his covers. The air was cool against the skin of his legs, but it felt nice.
Satsuki then lifted the arm closest to her and wrapped it around her shoulders, standing up with a strength that was usually hidden beneath pretty smiles and cute clothes. For years all her primary friends were boys who were very into sports - of course she was in shape enough to at least keep up with them on the basics. Aomine never understood why anyone didn’t take her seriously - her brain alone was enough for that, and she had more than that to her name.
The first step being taken for him, Aomine was able to make his legs work and take some of the weight off Satsuki as she led him through the house to the table by his kitchen. She deposited him in a chair that he slumped into, blinking blearily after her as she went to the fridge and pulled out some leftovers.
He knew that if he was his usual self, she’d try cooking in his kitchen. But by now, she knew her limitations even if she insisted on continuing to try to get better, and wasn’t going to make him yell at her when he didn’t even have the energy to stand up to help her.
Leftovers didn’t take long to warm up, and a small bowl of food was in front of him before long. The smell had his stomach turning over as it growled, and he stared at it for a long moment before he was able to find the energy to grab the chopsticks. He ate slowly as Satsuki bustled around the kitchen quietly, humming to herself as she tidied up.
Aomine had almost finished the food when there was a knock on the front door. His eyes flicked in the direction of the door as Satsuki made a puzzled sound and went to go open it. At the familiar sight of Kagami - and after a long moment, a familiar flash of Tetsu-blue - Aomine felt a muted sense of surprise, paired with a slight sense of embarrassment at the others seeing this.
“Kagamin and Tetsu-kun?” Satsuki asked, her surprise clear in her voice as she stepped aside to let them in. Kagami was holding a bag in one hand, and Tetsu’s eyes had gone to Aomine almost immediately. He wandered over, leaving Kagami to explain their presence to Satsuki.
“We decided to come to you instead, since it was a bad day,” Tetsu said, voice as calm and quiet as ever. He glanced down at the bowl of food in front of Aomine, and a flash of satisfaction passed across his features before it was as flat as before. “You shouldn’t have to cancel plans just because you aren’t feeling well. We can play basketball any time, so we’ll spend the day with you here instead, even if you need to rest the whole time.”
Aomine let out a shuddering breath, and cleared his throat.
“Thanks, Tetsu,” he said, voice rasping with more than just the effort to talk.
Tetsu’s eyes were fond beneath the flatness of his expression, as he gave a light touch to Aomine’s arm and made his way back to Kagami to take the bag from his arm. The motion drew Satsuki’s attention too, and she followed behind Tetsu curiously as he walked to Aomine’s kitchen.
“What’s in there?”
“Tatsuya used to have days like this too, sometimes,” Kagami said, rubbing the back of his head and looking away from them. “Onigiri and veggie miso soup were some of the foods I’d bring by for him. Nutritious and filling, but requiring very little preparation, so he didn’t have to spend the extra energy to make something himself. The onigiri can just be eaten as is, and the soup just needs heating up - though it can also be eaten cold, I guess.”
“Kagamin made this?” Satsuki asked, sounding impressed and peering at the containers Tetsu was taking out and putting into the fridge. There were a lot of them, and Aomine wondered how long his breakfast had taken, to give the other teen the time to prep all of this. No doubt the amount was due to him and Kagami having similar appetites.
“The onigiri I was planning on bringing to the courts today anyway, so we’d have some lunch,” the teen shrugged, looking a little uncomfortable with the amount of attention the gesture was getting. “The soup didn’t take long to make though. It’s just soup.”
“I’ll make sure Daichan says thank you properly once he’s feeling better,” Satsuki smiled, glancing back towards him. Aomine gave her a tired glare, and she laughed a little, knowing he wasn’t actually upset with her.
“It’s not something I need thanks for, but I wouldn’t say no to a one-on-one,” Kagami shrugged, clearly trying to move the topic of conversation along.
“Basketball idiots, all of you,” Satsuki huffed, but she was smiling. She glanced towards the living room. “Daichan’s family has some good movies, if we want to watch some today. Kagamin, you probably haven’t seen some of them, since you were in America when they came out.”
“Sure, I’ll take a look,” Kagami said, following her over into the other room.
Aomine watched them disappear behind the corner. He wasn’t sure what to make of so many people being in his space on a bad day, much less Kagami, who was technically his rival. Still, the other teen had been kind in his own awkward way about the situation, and it sounded like Murasakibara’s teammate sometimes had days like this himself, so it wasn’t like this was entirely new either.
Satsuki and Tetsu, obviously, had been around since his bad days had started, so he didn’t mind them being around - even if the pink-haired girl was around more often for them, these days.
“You should finish the last of your breakfast,” Tetsu said, making Aomine flinch in surprise, having lost the other’s presence. “Then I can clean up and we can watch whatever movie lineup Kagami-kun and Momoi-san have picked out for us.”
Aomine watched Tetsu for a long moment, before turning his tired gaze to the bowl in front of him. He picked up the chopsticks slowly and ate the last few bites. The moment his chopsticks were put down, Tetsu was swooping in like a particularly helpful ghost to steal the dishes and take them away to the sink. The sound of running water was cut through with the quiet thump of heavy footsteps.
He looked up to see Kagami looking hesitant but sincere, standing nearby. He cleared his throat awkwardly and rubbed the back of his head again. Determinedly, he met Aomine’s gaze.
“I can help you get over to the couch if you want,” he said, voice pitched in a way that somehow held no judgement in either direction. “Or, if you aren’t comfortable with that, you can do it yourself or have Momoi or Kuroko help instead. But, if you are comfortable, I felt like we’re closer to the same size, so it would be easier.”
Aomine considered the offer for a long moment. It felt weird for Kagami to be here at all, much less helping him use less energy to make it to the couch when all he wanted to do was lay down across his table and never move again. Still, if they were all here to help, then it would be more comfortable to lay down forever on the couch instead of the table. He supposed he could overlook it being Kagami that would be helping him.
Kagami waited patiently while Aomine considered his options, and said nothing when he finally nodded.
Within moments, Aomine found himself assisted up in a similar manner as earlier, though he had to admit that it was easier with Kagami helping than Satsuki, who was half his size. A few breaths later, he was deposited in the corner of his couch, with a pillow behind his head, a blanket across his lap, and Satsuki’s thighs under his calves from where she was perched at the other end.
Tetsu had entered the room at some unknown point and was now seated on the floor by Aomine’s head, seemingly having finished with his cleaning tasks. Kagami was seated by him, somewhere near Aomine’s knees.
They settled in for the next few hours, watching a series of movies that spanned from rom-coms to thrillers to account for all of their different tastes. Aomine wasn’t pressed to join any of the conversation happening around him, but he wasn’t excluded from it either. If he felt like it, he could add to it at any time, and he actually did a few times. Short, one to three word comments, but they were accepted like all the other statements.
When lunchtime came around, Kagami went to the kitchen and came back with a plate piled high with onigiri. He put one in Aomine’s hand for him, and gave a selection to the others. Aomine managed to eat it slowly, and when he finished, another was placed in his hand with zero comments from Kagami about it. The cycle repeated as the movie played in the background, until finally Aomine left his hand closed and Kagami changed course from handing him a new riceball to just eating it himself.
The hours passed slowly, but the burning frustration from that morning had eased. Even though Aomine still felt like he could fall asleep and stay that way for years, most of the aggravation at having his mind and body turn against him like this had eased nonetheless. He had Satsuki’s familiar help, Tetsu’s calm presence, and even Kagami’s awkward but sincere care here with him anyway.
He was a little embarrassed to admit even to himself how much that was helping.
Satsuki wasn’t always available on his bad days, so he’d passed them alone before. They were dull. Full of that burning in his gut, the darkness of his room, and the slow rolling grumble of his stomach. Apathy, too, no matter how hard he tried to muster up the energy to care about any of those three things.
So, having his friends around - if a bit reluctantly admitted in the case of Kagami, no matter that it was true - made him… more content than he would have been otherwise.
By the end of the fourth movie, the sun was starting to go down. The others had shifted around a bit throughout the day - taking snack breaks, bathroom breaks, and just regular breaks a few times as the hours passed. Now though, Kagami glanced at the screen of his phone with a sigh.
“Hey, Kuroko,” he said, glancing over at the other. “We should probably get going soon, if we don’t want to miss the train back. I think your grandmother said you needed to be back by dinnertime, and she’s kind of scary, so I don’t want to make her mad at me.”
“My grandmother likes you,” Tetsu said in his characteristic monotone, though Aomine could hear the subtle laughter underlying the words. “Still, you’re probably right.”
“I’ll go ahead and clean up now,” Kagami said, getting to his feet with a grunt and stretching out the stiffness in his muscles. “No sense in leaving a mess behind.”
He wandered out of the room, leaving the three Teikou graduates alone in the room together. There was an easy silence, before Aomine’s eyes flicked up to meet the pale blue of Tetsu’s own. The other teen gazed at him in silence for a long moment, before a single hand lifted up to rest atop Aomine’s head. He closed his eyes beneath the soft touch, letting out a breath.
“I didn’t know Aomine-kun still had days like this,” Tetsu said quietly, and Aomine could hear the subtle frown in his words. “I am… sorry that I haven’t been around more to see it. But, I’m glad that Momoi-san was able to help in the meantime. I will come around more often. I’ll bring Kagami with me more when I do, too. Friends are good, when you don’t feel well.”
Aomine couldn’t let that casual declaration sit, and he opened his eyes to glare a little at his old friend. Tetsu met his gaze evenly, a hint of a twinkle in his expression as he turned to look at Momoi.
“I am sorry the Miragen haven’t been by more too,” he continued softly. “We all helped each other through Teikou - at least until the last year. We should have been helping all along too.”
“It’s Daichan,” Momoi said, shaking her head with a soft smile. “It’s not a burden on me to help him when he has his bad days. Still, I’m sure that having more of Daichan’s friends around more often will help him too.”
Aomine swallowed hard around the tightening of his throat at her words. Tetsu’s too. He didn’t know how he’d found these people, or why they decided to stick around especially when he’d been a complete ass, but he was grateful that they had anyway.
Kagami came back into the room, and Tetsu stood up to grab his coat. Satsuki stood up too and followed after him, still looking at the other teen with those same heart-eyes she’d always used. He huffed a little, not surprised at her.
“Hey,” Kagami said quietly, glancing over his shoulder briefly before stepping forward to press a scrap of paper into Aomine’s hand and close his fingers around it. He then stepped back, and rubbed the back of his head again. “I don’t know if it would do anything, but. When you’re feeling better, maybe you can ask a doctor about this. It helped Tatsuya, and he almost never has bad days anymore, so it might help you. I wrote down the name of someone who specializes in this, so you can either call them or not. It’s not my business unless you want it to be. But. Yeah.”
The awkward finish was characteristic of the ex-American, and Aomine found himself blinking slowly at him as he curled his fingers more tightly around the paper in his hand. He didn’t know if this could be fixed either. But, if there was even a remote chance that this could be fixed, and he could get rid of the bad days, then…
“Thanks, baka,” he rasped out quietly.
Kagami blinked in surprise at the verbal response. A slight smile curled the corner of his lips up, before he scowled.
“Don’t mention it, aho,” he muttered back. Hearing the voices getting louder behind him, he glanced back, sighed, and turned around. He lifted a hand in farewell and looked back over his shoulder briefly. “See you soon for that raincheck. I look forward to kicking your ass again.”
A flare of indignation lit in Aomine’s chest. He wasn’t sure what it did to his expression, but it was enough for Kagami to look satisfied as he disappeared around the corner. There was the quiet murmur of voices, then the sound of the front door opening and closing. Satsuki came back into the room a short moment later, and she knelt down beside Aomine on the floor.
“I’ll heat up some of the soup Kagamin brought,” she said quietly, brushing a hand over his hair briefly. She then smiled. “I’m glad Daichan has such good friends. Tetsu-kun made me promise to text him the next time you had an off day. I’m glad he and Kagamin came today.”
“Yeah,” Aomine murmured, his eyes closing as he let himself sink deep into the cushions of the couch. “Me too. Satsuki too.”
“Anything for Daichan,” she said, smile evident in her voice, after a moment of surprised silence. “Even if you are an idiot sometimes, you’re my best friend too.”