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When Daiki is five years old, there is a whole gang of kids around his age in the neighbourhood he lives in.
Not that it matters if there’s ten or thousand people his age around him though – Daiki is a boy who does stuff at his own pace. And no matter how many other kids there are around him, there are none that are nearly as close to him—in a literal and figurative sense—as Satsuki is.
After all, Daiki has been friends with Satsuki since before he knew how to talk, thanks to the fact his family was friends with her family before the two kids were born. The fact they ended up being born at relatively the same time augmented that fact further, as the two families went through similar hardships and challenges together, helping each other out in the process.
Maybe that is the reason neither family went for another child. After all, Daiki was spending half of his time at the Momois, just like Satsuki was spending half of hers at the Aomines. It already was like each of the two households had 2 kids. Just not full time.
Not that any of that mattered to Daiki at all, either.
What did matter to Daiki then, you might wonder? Why, thank you for asking!
What mattered indeed was that he wanted to go out, catch some bugs and go play tag with the rest of the gang. Yet, here he is, jumping up and down on Satsuki’s bed as impatience gets the better of him. All he wants is to go out and his pink-haired best friend claimed to desire the same.
And yet, here she is, not moving an inch from sitting cross legged in front of her mother’s small portable mirror – a rubber band dangling from her mouth as she struggles to braid her hair.
The navy-haired boy gives a long, tired sigh as he finally settles down on the bed, arms and legs crossed, brow set in a twitching line as he waits for her to finish… whatever it is she’s doing.
“Satsuki,” he groans out not even half a minute later, dragging out the syllables of her name in a way he knew annoyed the hell out of her. “Are you done yet? Let’s go play!”
The pink-haired girl turns around before he can react, sending the rubber band flying at him from between her fingers. He dodges the attack with more vigour than he’s willing to admit he has. Having failed to shut him up her way, Satsuki huffs and turns her attention back to her hair and mirror.
“I’m trying, Dai-chan, but it’s hard to do it at the back of my head. Where I can’t see what I’m doing, ok? Just calm down a bit – we’ll go out in a minute, okay?” she tells him while running her little fingers between her over shoulder long pink hair.
Daiki watches her struggle for a while longer—feeling semi-entertained by how bad she seems to be doing—before he decides that his minor entertainment is not worth the loss of precious light hours of play.
He jumps off her bed and sits down next to her with a sigh, eyeing the small braid she’s making on the left side of her face.
“Why do you have to have three? Just make it one and be over with it!” he grumbles without putting his heart in it.
“Because,” Satsuki starts explaining in the know-it-all tone that only a clever five-year-old girl can manage. “The hair on the side is not long enough to go all the way back to a braid. It will look messy.”
“We’re going out to play, not to model, you know?!” Daiki protests but is silenced by the glare his friend sends him over her shoulder. He knows better than to press further once she starts looking at him like this – for a girl, Satsuki sure hits hard.
He watches her struggle with the braid at the back for a bit more before he decides that enough is enough. He has watched her mother and his do this for her more times than he can count, so he has a good clue what’s expected of him. What’s more, it’s not like it’s all that hard when you can actually see what you’re doing with the hair.
“I’ll do it, sheesh! If I left it up to you, we’d spend here all day!” he says and takes her hair brush from the table she’s sitting in front of.
Satsuki’s words of protest die on her lips, only to be replaced with a shriek of pain as her best friend runs the brush a bit too carelessly through her semi-tangled hair.
“Dai-chan, be more careful! You’re pulling my hair!” she screeches, reaching her little hands back to smack the offender away from her head.
“Stop yelling, darn it! What’s wrong with you! Here I am, offering my help, and instead you start going crazy on me!”
Satsuki glares at him through tear-swollen eyes, making her friend pause in his righteous ire.
“If you’re going to do it, you have to be more careful. And not pull my hair like that, okay? It hurts.” She sniffles her tears and irritation away, settling down. “How would you like it if I offered to help but instead did this,” she says as she grabs a fistful of Daiki’s short, spiky hair and pulls hard, earning her an outraged “Ow!” from the offended.
To his credit, instead of turning this into a hair-pulling, who-can-hurt-the-other-more contest, Daiki just rubs his head at the place she had pulled his hair and glares at her.
“Ok, ok, I’ll be more careful,” he says in a grumbling tone.
“Promise?” she asks. She has to be sure he means it and isn’t just making her drop her guard in order to assault her even more mercilessly once she turns her back to him.
“Promise,” he says as he picks up the brush.
He looks at the back of her head for a while before realizing his hair has never been that long—and probably never would be—so he has no clue how to do it without hurting her.
That day they do spend about two of their precious light hours of play in teaching Daiki how to brush someone else’s long hair without hurting them and how that hair can be braided—properly—afterwards. It only takes him three attempts before Satsuki is satisfied with his handiwork.
And although that is a lot of time lost for just one day, this would become a skill that he would use—a lot—throughout his adolescence and life.
Braiding Satsuki’s hair, that is.
The years pass.
Daiki and Satsuki grow up, along with the rest of their friends from the neighbourhood.
Schools are chosen, friendships are dissolving, but one still stands strong.
And as Satsuki starts entering puberty, she seems to start caring about how she looks more than she did in elementary school, Daiki can’t help but notice.
What makes him realize this is when she comes home from a shopping trip with her mother with a bag full of nail polish of various colours, density and glitter amount.
Daiki eyes her warily as she takes a neon pink coloured one from the bag and starts shaking it vigorously.
“What the hell are you doing?” he finally asks her, his voice gruffer than it had been a year ago. A change that he minded a lot when it started happening, but one he is now more or less used to.
Satsuki gives him a puzzled glance as she finishes shaking the nail polish.
“What, you ask me… It says on the bottle to shake before use. I’m shaking it because I’m going to use it, of course.” She explains to him as if he is some retarded child, causing Daiki’s face to fall.
“I am asking you what are you doing using that stuff that only our moms use,” he clarified in a deadpan tone, almost completely losing interest in the basketball magazine he had been reading two minutes ago.
Understanding seems to finally dawn on Satsuki’s face. The urge to grab the magazine and fling it at her dumbstruck face overwhelms him, but he succeeds at suppressing it. The last thing he needs is her telling on him to his mother—that will definitely cost him his precious allowance that he finally managed to ask of his family so he can buy some more comfy basketball shoes.
“Well…” Satsuki starts slowly, a small smile pulling the corners of her lips. “Since we’re starting middle school next month, I might as well learn how to appeal to our new classmates better. I can’t go around acting like a tomboy all my life, you know.”
Daiki gives her a confused look. She shrugs.
“You don’t have to understand, Dai-chan. When we meet the other girls at Teikou, you’ll see.”
Her words don’t grant him any further clarity and she does not elaborate. So Daiki just shrugs and decides that puberty is just affecting Satsuki wrongly – and he leaves it at that.
A few years later, Daiki comes to understand that everyone and their grandma seem to be so completely set on how things lookand how they look to others. It nauseates him, to be honest.
What’s worse, Satsuki seems to be caught up in that insanity as well. What with her starting to call him Aomine-kun once they start attending middle school.
But he doesn’t let that get to him. Bit by bit, he starts understanding that it’s just how most people are. Too caught up with appearances, too fixated to wear some mask that suits them or to avoid being labelled this way or that. Daiki had never been afraid of being labelled. He had never cared about looks. Hell, there were very few things that fazed him, and even fewer that made him want to give any effort – appearances were not among them.
This is why if Satsuki wanted to act a bit more distant so she wasn’t the butt of jokes she didn’t like, suited him fine. If she wanted to paint her nails every week in a different colour, he wasn’t going to stop her.
When she started trying to employ his services while he was watching his basketball matches on her TV, though—that he did mind.
“Satsuki, I’m trying to watch here!” he complains when she pokes him.
“Come on, Dai-chan, don’t be a baby! It only takes a minute or so when you can do it normally!” Satsuki whines, pointing at her right hand nails that are still their normal colour.
“I don’t want to! If you don’t like it, you will complain and make me redo it until you like how it looks!” Daiki counters very accurately.
Satsuki pauses briefly, unable to refute the truth. He gives he a wry look before turning his attention back to the TV. He is just in time to see his favourite player do a spectacular dunk to turn the score around on their opponent.
“If you do my nails right once a week, I won’t complain when you need to copy my homework!”
Her cleverly planned offer makes Daiki reconsider.
Ten minutes later, she is extremely grateful for her shrewdness. It’s not like she ever stops him from copying her homework—she doesn’t have it in her to say no to him when he’s in trouble—so her offer is pretty inane.
But he bites and he bites well. Enough not to complain much—other than the occasional click of his tongue when she tells him to redo this finger or that—until he gets the hang of how she likes her nails done.
And damn his nimbleness. He does it even better than she does.
He’s back to his basketball match on TV a lot faster than when she was teaching him how to straighten her hair.
They are both the outdoorsy type, so it’s not like it happens often.
But it does happen for Satsuki to be sitting in front of the TV, watching some program or another every now and then when he comes to visit her after dinner.
And every now and then, he walks in on her watching some drama-filled sob-story, which makes her even more riveted to the damn television than ever.
Although their last year in Teikou had estranged them some—in ways that are difficult for them or their parents to comprehend—Daiki still comes by every now and then to visit Satsuki during the week. Turning back on his heel now, watching her gasp and chew on her nails as she watches her movie would not be a very nice thing to do. He comes by rarely nowadays as it is, so this is totally out of the question. Especially since Uncle and Autie had already greeted him in the living room on his way here.
So Daiki sighs loudly in defeat and plops down on the floor next to his childhood friend.
“So what are we watching?” he asks disinterestedly, giving her a wry sideways glance as he does.
Satsuki proceeds to give him the story in a nutshell as quickly as she can so she doesn’t miss anything important from the story while she does so.
And, despite himself, Daiki can’t help but get interested in the movie as he watches.
He blames his frustration with basketball and school nowadays for this.
He also blames Satsuki’s ridiculous tears and sobs as she watches the main characters march off the certain death for feeling compelled to stay and finish watching it with her.
Her eyes are red and her nose is running. Yet she doesn’t seem to notice as her gaze is glued to the TV, sniffles getting louder with each subsequent one. Daiki shakes his head in disbelief and reaches over with a long lanky hand to take her tissues from their place next to her bed.
He puts them on the small table in front of them and takes out a couple to hand them to her.
She takes them without looking at him, eyes still fixated on the screen. She blows her nose noisily before thanking him for his considerate gesture.
Daiki doesn’t answer and instead just turns back to the TV as well. He had never really been the type to enjoy watching movies too much – he’s a much too active person to prefer indoor activities like that.
But all things considered, that evening of watching the tear-jerking movie with the softie that Satsuki is – that’s the most enjoyable thing he’d done all week.
And that’s saying something – since they had just finished one of the most important matches of the remainder of their middle school basketball time.
Perhaps this is the reason why Satsuki prefers to watch TV than to look at the data and consider the possibilities. Perhaps this is the reason Satsuki prefers to watch a tear-jerker movie than to spend her time normally with him.
Perhaps this is her excuse to cry next to him all she wants and needs to, without needing to tell him or make him uncomfortable.
Perhaps it is – it is a big perhaps indeed.
That is why Daiki abandons that train of thought at once – it only makes the sinking feeling in his stomach greater and distracts him from the good movie.
When they are eighteen and in their last year of high school, Satsuki’s periods start getting more and more violent. She ends up spending a class or two at the nurse’s office before the painkillers kick in and she is finally able to function properly through the day again.
Thankfully, it’s only during the first day of her monthly cycle, so he doesn’t have to worry about her too much. She likes to pretend that it’s no big deal—to her, maybe it isn’t, but he doesn’t like her being in pain one bit – regardless whether the reason is clear or not.
Still, there’s not much he can do for her at those times.
On the rare occasion when she does ask something of him when she’s not feeling particularly well, he doesn’t bat an eye, nor make a peep of sound before complying.
When he sees her brow crinkled when they leave their houses for school that morning, he knows that something is wrong. When he sees her untypically hunched posture as they ride in the tram, he figures out at once what’s going on.
When she curses loud enough for him to hear during lunch as she ruffles through her bag, he turns his head to look at her.
“What’s going on, Satsuki?”
She shifts her glare to him, and her expression softens just a little before she retorts.
“Nothing, Dai-chan. I’m just an idiot – that’s all.” Her unusually self-deprecating response doesn’t distract him.
“What did you do?” he insists, sitting down normally on his chair, which he had been pushing back on its hind legs.
Satsuki clenches her jaw for a moment. Deliberating if she should answer? How she should answer? Heck if he knows – he just keeps quiet, knowing better than to poke her more than absolutely necessary right now.
“I switched school bags today and I forgot to bring my pads and painkillers with me. Now I have to go to the pharmacy,” she admits grudgingly. Her annoyance is emanating from her in waves.
Daiki wishes she could just calm down. She isn’t doing herself any favours being so on edge when she’s in pain – that much he knows for sure.
“You’re not going anywhere,” he tells her before she can start ruffling her bag for her wallet. “You sit your butt here and eat your lunch. I’ll go to the pharmacy and buy your stuff.”
She gives him a bewildered look, as if she hadn’t even considered asking him. The thought makes him want to flick her forehead.
“Y-you’d do that for me?” she asks in shock, hope creeping in her voice.
He looks at her with a deadpan expression, the urge to smack her ever growing.
“Why wouldn’t I, dumbass?” he says roughly, pushing her back gently until she sits down in her seat. “You never ask, so I never offered.”
Her face seems confused for a while longer as she processes what he told her. Then the truth of the matter seems to sink in and she gives him an exhausted smile.
“Thanks, Dai-chan. I owe you.”
Her comment makes him give her a wide wolfish grin.
“Make sure you remember that when you treat me to ice-cream tomorrow,” he tells her suavely before sauntering out of the half-empty classroom with a small wave over his shoulder.
Daiki is not the least bit perturbed when he goes to the pharmacy and grabs the items Satsuki needs. He is equally nonchalant as he pays for them at the cash desk. He doesn’t understand people who would be bothered by running errands for their girlfriends or female friends.
What does bother him, however, is that Satsuki seemed to believe he’s the type of guy who would mind. He makes a mental note to ask her if that is the case tomorrow, when she buys him the ice-cream.
Pfft. As if a guy who had grown up so closely with a girl throughout his whole life could mind such minor things.
After all, regardless how different her body is and the things she goes through on a regular basis thanks to that, Satsuki is Satsuki. The navy-haired boy would go to a lot greater lengths for her welfare than just buying a few pads and painkillers.
And no amount of bewildered staring from their classmates when he comes back is going to make him change his mind.
(Although it would change Satsuki’s about the ways in which she requests that he did this favour for her in the future.)
When Daiki is thirty years old, his wife is late home from work almost as often as he is. His daughter’s grandparents take turns in looking after her but he can’t really impose on them too much.
Thus, more often than not, he is the one taking baths with her and helping her groom her hair afterwards.
His little girl is still young, but she is very astute.
So when he brushes her hair tenderly with the hairbrush, making sure not to harm her, he is both surprised and not when she notices.
“Daddy, you’re very good at this,” she says in her adorable voice.
Her complement makes him give her a radiant smile in the mirror.
“Thanks, sweetheart. I get that a lot,” he adds with a wink, making her giggle.
“You do it better than mommy does,” his daughter adds, swinging her legs up and down from the edge of the bed while Daiki runs his fingers through her fluffy hair. “How did you learn to be so good at it?”
Her father gives her a grin as he parts her hair and starts braiding it.
“Of course I’m better at it than mommy is. Who do you think was braiding mommy’s hair when she was a little girl too, hmm?”
His daughter’s eyebrows rise high over her cute face, her lips forming a large ‘o’ of surprise and awe. Then she grins back at her father as if she had become privy to some amazing secret, earning her a grin back from her parent.
“What’s got you two smiling like you just won something?” Satsuki asks when she enters the room. She places a light kiss against the cheeks of both her firstborn and her husband before studying their faces in turn, expectant for an answer.
Daiki and his daughter share a knowing look, bursting out in giggles and chortles.
“It’s nothing, mommy,” the little girl tells her mother at length. “Daddy is just really good at braiding my hair.”
“I know, right?” Satsuki agrees as she takes off her suit jacket and throws it at the backrest of a chair. “If you ever feel like starting to use some of my nail polish – let me know. I’ve got just the guy to teach you all the best moves,” Satsuki adds conspiratorially, making her family erupt in laughter once more.
If there was one thing Daiki had never been worried about losing at any point in time, it was his masculinity.
Unlike his peers when he was a child, he had never felt threatened or cornered in any way by the fact his closest friend was not of the same sex. Unlike his peers at the time, he saw nothing wrong with associating very closely with one who was of the opposite gender.
After all, how did spending a lot of his time playing and being around her make him any less of a man? Daiki had never understood the logic of the other boys in that.
She liked what she liked and she was what she was; he liked what he liked and he was what he was. It was very simple.
When he became a teenager, he didn’t exactly agree with Satsuki’s views on how she was supposed to look, for whom and why. But it was a choice she had made, so being a man worth his place, he had merely shrugged and let her get along with it.
If there was one thing that could make Daiki feel like his masculinity was slipping, that would be him being unable to be there for his most important women in life whenever they needed him.
Regardless whether that meant having to braid hair, straighten it, buy tampons, hand over tissues, paint nails or anything in-between.
After all, what kind of a man would he be saying no to a woman in need?