Chapter Text
Seijuurou bent down to tie his loose shoelaces before straightening up and continuing down the narrow and quiet suburban street, a few blocks away from Taiga’s apartment. The sun was starting to go down, and with summer ending, the evenings were still quite warm. The street he was on was nearly empty save for a mother seemingly walking home with two children and a jogger with their dog.
“Seijuurou!”
The boy in question turned around quickly in surprise, only to be engulfed by arms and a mop of brown hair. Strong, slightly muscular arms wrapped around his frame as Seijuurou felt a nose being buried into his hair and lips spread apart in a wide grin against his forehead. His eyes widened at the familiar voice, hair and smile as he took a second to recover from the shock of being essentially sprung upon. Suddenly, the realization came crashing down on him and he wrapped his arms tightly around the body, a rush of emotions flowing through him, fighting hard to keep them in check.
As he loosened his clutch on the figure’s back, the couple slowly parted to get a better look at each other. Kouki stood in front of him, after nearly three months of no contact, probably about 2 or 3 inches taller, with a much stronger and fuller build. His summer with his grandparents really paid off, Seijuurou thought as his eyes roamed appreciatively up and down his boyfriend’s frame.
“How’s the weather down there?” Kouki grinned cheekily.
Seijuurou pinched his side quickly as his eyebrows furrowed in mock rage, before settling back as Kouki gave him a quick apologetic peck on the cheek.
“I missed you.”
“How did you get so much taller? What did they do?!” Seijuurou couldn’t help a tiny bit of jealousy spurting out in his sentiment.
Kouki had been away the entire summer, to go stay with his grandparents on their farm a few hours away, at least that is what Seijuurou was told. He had to leave all his electronics back home, including his phone and only packed a couple clothes. Apparently, it was a rite of passage in his family, something Kouki’s parents had done, as well as his older siblings.
Kouki let out a light, airy chuckle and said, “I guess my last growth spurt kicked in. You should have seen my mom, she started crying when she saw me walk in through the door, haha.”
Seijuurou couldn’t stop the small smile that made its own onto his face as he tried to imagine the scene. Kouki’s mother was quite affectionate even to him, so he could picture her pain at missing out on his growth, Seijuurou might be feeling a little of that too.
He stepped back to look at Kouki head to toe, Kouki’s arms slipping back to his sides. He was wearing one of his older hoodies that used to be quite loose and baggy on him, now looking like a normal sized hoodie, well fitted to his frame. His sweats seemed slightly shorter on him though, capping off mid-calf.
“I’m surprised you still have clothes that somewhat fit you.”
“Yeah well, these are kind of the only pair that still look presentable, I actually do need to buy new clothes. I was thinking of just letting my mom go buy whatever, but my sister said maybe I should ask for your input too…” Kouki ended shyly, pushing a hand into his hoodie pocket and using the other to run through his hair, looking slightly to the side of Seijuurou, at a random bush in someone’s yard.
Seijuurou had been on his way to drop by Taiga’s apartment, before being ambushed by Kouki. Testuya had invited him over to watch a movie with them since he was in Tokyo, letting him know a few other Seirin players were over as well as Aomine. Apparently, they all ran into each other and decided to play a few rounds of basketball in a nearby park. Seijuurou had been looking into various universities around Tokyo and collecting a bunch of information so was unable to participate in their spontaneous street basketball day but wanted to wind down his day relaxing in the company of familiar faces, missing a certain brunette quite dearly.
His eyes widened as he digested what Kouki just said, before his ears started to slightly burn as he glanced awkwardly to the side too. Choosing his boyfriend’s clothes? That felt way too domestic.
“I can definitely go shopping with you, or we could even order some stuff online, whatever works really. But yeah, I would like to choose with you… I’ll probably be the one seeing those clothes the most anyway,” Seijuurou joked as he brushed his hand against Kouki’s and gave a quick squeeze before retracting his hand and looking around subtly.
Kouki gave him a wide grin before saying, “No one’s around dummy!” And quickly engulfed him in another hug, with Seijuurou squirming his way out and smacking him across the head.
“You’re way too open Kouki!”
“Alright, alright, I’m just so happy to see you. I really want to touch you.” Kouki admitted honestly, with his eyebrows furrowed slightly.
Seijuurou had no clue how Kouki could say something like that so earnestly but be shy when asking him if he would like to choose his clothes. He sighed fondly and asked, “When did you get back anyways? And how did you know where I was?”
Kouki smiled and dug his hands into his pockets, “Actually, I got back sometime yesterday and - ow!”
Seijuurou wacked Kouki on the shoulder with his backpack, “And you didn’t think to call me first?!”
“Hey, hey, I had to handle my mom first. Plus, I wanted to surprise you, so I just texted Kuroko to see if you would be in Tokyo anytime soon. He told me a while ago that he invited you over to Kagami’s so I was walking around to see if I could catch you off guard!”
Seijuurou kept an annoyed look on his face as Kouki looked at him sheepishly but couldn’t keep it on for long. He was just glad Kouki was back, and maybe, just maybe, he also wanted to touch him too.
“Well… should we go over to Taiga’s apartment?” Seijuurou suggested.
“Um, well actually, I was gonna ask this before I was rudely hit,” Kouki tilted his head and pursed his lips at Seijuurou who pursed his lips back and jutted his chin out, “but my mom said I could bring you over for dinner if you want. All my siblings are going to be over, plus she says she’s missed you.”
Seijuurou shifted slightly awkwardly as he swung his backpack around both arms, as he felt his ears go warm again. He would regularly talk with Kouki’s mother ever since his visits to his house become a lot more frequent, but he did not have much reason to over the past few months due to Kouki’s absence. He had reached out once out of politeness, with Kouki’s mother calling him two or three separate times over the past three months, checking in on him and making sure he was sleeping and eating well, before getting Kousuke (one of Kouki’s older brothers) to bike over to where he was staying if he mentioned he was in Tokyo, (usually Kuroko’s house nowadays) with enough food for the both of them. He always insisted that it was fine, but apparently, she would do the same for Taiga too, even though in his case he could actually cook for himself. He would not admit it out loud of course, but he had missed Kouki’s mother too. It still was not so easy for him to talk about his feelings aloud yet, or to even think about them, but Kouki seemed to be able to have a talent at understanding what he could not say without him having to say it out loud. Most of the time. Or at least sometimes. Alright, they were trying and he appreciated Kouki’s efforts.
“That would be great. I don’t think I’ve met all your siblings yet though.” Seijuurou met Kouki’s eyes as a wave of nerves washed over him. Stepping on the court filled him with adrenaline, exciting him for the game, while seeing a bounding dog without a lease triggered an adrenaline rush fit to run a couple kilometers easily, but this situation filled him with adrenaline rooting him to the spot.
Kouki gave him a small smile, causing his eyes to crinkle slightly at the edges, giving him a very kind look and putting Seijuurou at ease. He slipped his arm loosely around Seijuurou and started to direct him in the direction of his house.
“They’ll love you, don’t worry. Although, my sister and eldest brother can be sort of… weird… They are good people who do want the best for me. Just… they’re a little intense but like, you have a good head on your shoulders so I’m sure you’ll charm their pants off,” Kouki reassured him as he slightly ruffled Seijuurou’s hair.
Seijuurou narrowed his eyes at Kouki’s statement.
“Intense?”
Kouki scratched his hard and looked up, “Well, like, I don’t know how to explain it but… let’s just say if there’s an intimidation scale, then I would be on one end, while they would be on the completely opposite end. That is – when you first meet them!” Kouki hastily added that last part at the slightly alarmed look on Seijuurou’s face.
“Where would I be on that scale?”
Kouki hummed in consideration, “I think between the end they’re at and the middle.”
“Interesting. I kind of want to meet them now.”
Kouki laughed as they turned a corner, “Awesome, I’m sure you guys will hit it off real well!”
“Oh, let me just let Testuya know I won’t be coming over,” Seijuurou remembered as he dug in his pockets to take his phone out.
They walked in a comfortable silence before another thought occurred to Seijuurou.
“Do they… do they know about us?”
Kouki looked down into his eyes with raised eyebrows.
“Uh, I don’t think so… I mean I haven’t even mentioned it to my mom, but I get the vibes she may know. But I feel like she treats you and Kagami the same, so I don’t know. My sister is really good at reading between the lines though, so she might figure it out without me telling her, but I know she wouldn’t just out me, or you, to my entire family.”
“Well, she probably has some inkling if she suggested to get my input on your clothes.” Seijuurou sighed as he felt some stress start to build up within him. He gave a slight shake of his head and said, “Whatever, you know, I’ll just handle it as it comes up.” He just wanted to spend some time with his boyfriend before summer officially ended and it was time to go back to his hectic school schedule.
Seijuurou turned his head to face forward as he contemplated on the matter. No one really knew about them being together just yet. They had developed a pretty close friendship after their first year Winter Cup, budding from the time Seijuurou missed his train because they bumped into each other at the train station and he got so caught up in Kouki’s ramblings about the incoming and outgoing trains in the station, amazed at how the shy and nervous boy from the court and Tetsuya’s birthday was so talkative and expressive about trains.
From there on, (after a very intense apology session on both their parts, with Seijuurou apologizing for his behavior during basketball matches and Kouki for making him miss his train), Seijuurou had a sudden urge and asked for his number, to keep in contact. He figured if he could make someone like Kouki feel so comfortable around him to talk about the engineering going into the shinkansen he was supposed to board, in just one session, then he could probably reach out to his old teammates and issue them each a personal apology too. He had talked about this a little through text with Kouki, who had continued to encourage him as well, with Seijuurou encouraging more train talk as he found it quite entertaining, making Seijuurou very comfortable around the boy. They started to go back and forth from Tokyo and Kyoto, visiting each other’s houses and spending the night, making plans to hang out and go to museums or cafes, talking about books and playing various boardgames, mainly with Seijuurou teaching Kouki how to play shogi. Kouki still sucked but was great at snakes and ladders, a fact he would keep reminding Seijuurou whenever he lost at shogi.
Somewhere along the line, Seijuurou noticed he was spending a lot more time with Kouki than with his old teammates whenever he visited Tokyo, sometimes forgetting to let them know at all, and was wondering how to feel about that. Around that time, him and Kouki had started having deep discussions about their feelings; how Kouki would find it difficult to articulate himself as well as he would like during emotional periods and how annoying that would be, while Seijuurou hesitantly admitted he had a hard time thinking through and rationalizing his own feelings when it came to those close to him, let alone articulate them. They had bonded quite deeply over this, and Seijuurou realized he quite enjoyed all of his conversations with Kouki. He always wanted to impress Kouki. When he learned Kouki had started to get into this one anime, he binge-watched the entire season, even paying to have early access to upcoming episodes, all to start intriguing conversations about them with him. When he learned Kouki would sometimes post things to his snapchat story, he went and downloaded snapchat, to his Rakuzan teammates surprise. He did not have any social media, so this was out of the blue for them.
Once his teammate Reo had learned why, he started asking about Kouki more often, with Seijuurou realizing he was spending most of his time with the brunette on his mind, wondering when the next time he would talk to him or meet him would be. A bunch of confusing emotions started to well up in Seijuurou when just thinking of the brunette, with the distance between them sometimes leading to crying sessions in his dorm room. Reo walked into one of these crying sessions, initially shocked but responded quickly to Seijuurou, spending the night walking him through his feelings, being open and vulnerable together. This brought Seijuurou and Reo much closer, talking about their sexuality and their environment, how to handle certain things and what Seijuurou could do about Kouki. Seijuurou knew Kouki may not feel the same, and if he did then pursuing this relationship could cause an even bigger rift between himself and his father, but the depression he felt when Kouki and him had stopped talking for a week because of a small argument was enough to secure the goal in his mind of staying close to Kouki. Kouki had ended up being the one to confess, surprising Seijuurou but also taking a massive weight off of his chest.
So far, they had officially been together for about five months, if you included the three months Kouki was away at his grandparents. So basically, two months. The only person who knew about them was Reo, who was very good at keeping things under wraps. To Seijuurou’s other teammates, old and current, Kouki and he were just a pair of very unlikely best friends. He believed they appeared that way to Kouki’s parents and his father’s house staff too. Seijuurou himself was not yet comfortable with other people knowing, for fear it could get back to his father. Sport’s magazines enjoyed writing about the members from the Generation of Miracles as well as their respective teams, so he had to be careful about the image him and Kouki put out there, as well as to ensure their safety from anyone who may wish them harm, since same-sex couples was still a debated matter in Japan. While it would be easier if Kouki’s family knew about them, since they would be able to be more comfortable in his house, he was still paranoid about even the littlest detail getting back to his father.
Kouki sensed this nervousness from his silence and removed his arm around his shoulders to squeeze his hand as they came to a stop just outside the gate leading to his front door. Seijuurou turned his head slightly upwards to look Kouki in the eyes, he still had to get used to this new reality, and found bright eyes gazing at him, Kouki leaning forward until his forehead touched Seijuurou’s hair and rested there. He was in the perfect position to kiss Seijuurou’s nose, which he did, and muttered, “I want my family to provide a safe space for you. And they will. I’m the youngest, they have to cater to my whims. I’ll throw a tantrum if they don’t.”
This made Seijuurou chuckle, but his nerves were still there. He trusted Kouki, but his paranoia for his father was still winning out. He gave another squeeze to Kouki’s hand before Kouki led him into the house.