Paper Tigers

by Anonymous

Summary:

Apparently, it was a bridge.

That was all everyone kept saying. Whispering the word under their blue masks like a curse. Bridge. There was a bridge. There was a car. There was a cold river running through a Tokyo winter.

After that, nothing else was said to the man in bed.
__________________

Kagami Taiga wakes up after a near fatal car accident only to find an unknown man at his bedside and a world he can no longer remember...save for one person that keeps coming to haunt him in his dreams.

Chapter 1: A Bridge, A Dragon, A Dream

Apparently, it was a bridge. 

That was all everyone kept saying. Whispering the word under their blue masks like a curse. Bridge. There was a bridge. There was a car. There was a cold river running through a Tokyo winter. 

After that, nothing else was said to the man in bed. 

He laid there, listening to the mechanical chorus of white machines sing in his ear. His eyes, still stinging from waking up, traced all along the room. White. The kind of white that could make anyone go insane. Too glossy. Too cold. After a while, his gaze riveted down to the closed door of his private room. Silhouettes moved across the small frosted window with some stopping right in front of the door, lingering. Talking. Whispering. 

The man looked away and down at his body. Alien body. Broken body. Thin plastic tubes had erupted from his black-blemished skin, pumping red and white fluids. His wrists, on the other hand, were wrapped so tightly with bandages that it stung a bit. When he tried to move his arm over his chest, a scorching pain flared violently from his bone and the man gave a hoarse cry. 

“Stop that.”

A voice came beside him. Scolding. Gentle. Familiar. 

He looked over to his left and saw a stranger sitting by his bedside. Soft gray eyes peering down at an open book propped by long slender, white fingers. Raven locks cascading down a serene face, parted meticulously to cover one eye—a pupil of silver, almost like mirrors or a cold, distant ocean. His face was smooth and angular with high cheek bones touched with a sweet paleness. A hauntingly beautiful man. And yet, the feeling of familiarity flooded the man’s senses in a mad rush, jolting his heart rate monitor up noisily. 

The stranger looked up, thin lips curling into a small smile.

“There you go. Now you’re awake. How are you feeling?” 

“Like shit,” the man said hoarsely, his voice burning in his throat. 

The stranger laughed, the sound as gentle as a wind chime in the summer. But it was a sad, far away laugh that almost bordered on resentment than relief. Still, he closed his book and leaned forward in his chair, that gray eye peering down at him softly. 

“At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor. I’ll go fetch the doctor. You stay here.” He paused while standing up before grinning mischievously at the man in bed. “Not like you can run anywhere this time, Taiga.” 

Taiga. So that was his name. 

The man had time to mewl over this sudden reveal of information as the beautiful man disappeared behind the door. Strangely enough, he was not so scared of being unable to recall anything. At the very least, he’s in a warm bed with a pretty stranger—friend—family member—waiting right beside him. He recognized that he was stuck in a hospital somewhere in Japan.

And that there was a bridge. A car. And a cold river in Tokyo.

After a minute, the door opened and in poured a team of white-draped doctors and nurses. Behind them their pale-blue masks and glossy glasses stood the beautiful man who propped himself against the far wall with his arms crossed. 

The head doctor, the tallest of the group, stepped forward and leaned forward until his pale face was right in the man’s. A flashlight flashed and he blinked a few times before opening to a small, harsh light. It traced all over his pupils in a slow, methodical line as though he were some open carcass of an animal. Then, without another word, the flashlight clicked off with the colors of the white room painfully returning to the man’s vision. 

Someone clicked a pen out. 

“How do you feel, Kagami-san?” 

“Like shit,” he repeated, more interested in this new information on his identity. Kagami sounds right for some reason. 

“That’s normal,” said the doctor coldly, writing down Kagami’s response as his equally sterile team behind him nodded to each other in unison. “Do you remember anything that happened?” 

“Uh...I think I overheard someone talking about a bridge and a car in the Tokyo river…”

“Yes. You suffered a car accident by driving off the bridge and into the river. But I’m asking if you remember the incident, not recall someone else’s idle speech. Do you remember anything?” 

“Oh.” Kagami nodded briefly before looking off to the side. After a while where everyone’s pens stopped moving and it was just the slow methodical beep of the machines at his bedside, he finally met their gaze with a shrug. “No, not really.”

“I told you,” uttered the beautiful stranger in the back. 

Through everyone’s white shoulders and still figures, Kagami could see him standing against the far wall. His face, a porcelain mask with its perfect, doll-like features, broke briefly when his singular gray eye met Kagami’s. He smiled, a heaven’s visage. 

“Right. As you told us before several times, Himuro-san. But we just needed to make sure, especially since my team is the only ones certified in medical practice in this room.” 

“Ah, yes of course. That explains why it took your team several hours to even check up on his condition despite my pleas.” 

“He’s not the only one in this hospital that requires aid.”

“Last I remember, he’s the only one in this intensive care unit due to the heavy extent of the accident itself.” 

“And last I remember—”

“Wait.” Kagami sat up, one brow furrowed in confusion. Everyone stopped and stared at him and the sudden attention made him hiccup. He could feel his cheeks burn. 

“Are you saying...that I lost my memory?” 

Someone laughed in the room. Whether it was just an involuntary defense against a highly stressed situation or they really did find the whole thing as humorous as Kagami secretly thought to himself, it did not matter. For the head doctor and the one called as Himuro exchanged a mutual, strained look before the former turned around and said: 

“Why yes. It appears that you have utterly wiped the slate clean in that brain of yours.” A pause; he laughed as if to try to ease the situation. But it was all too cold, too neutral.  “I’m surprised you can even speak now, Kagami-san. You should have died.” 

Himuro’s mask shifted slightly, suddenly lit with rage. Something in Kagami’s heart told him to keep this anger to himself—it seems like he’s all too familiar with such instability. 

XXX

His name was Taiga Kagami. He was 26 years old, worked full-time as a deputy for the Tokyo District 11 Fire station, and liked to play street ball on his time off. 

On a cold winter evening around 2:30 AM, he had driven his car off the bridge and into the Tokyo river at alarming speeds of 200 miles an hour. No one knew why he did it—not even those who claimed to know the injured man intimately were perplexed.

The beautiful man who was by Kagami’s side the entire time was known as Tatsuya Himuro. He was, apparently, his closest friend with a long, intimate past extending into a far away childhood. When Kagami shook his head and softly admitted that he could not even recall a single moment they had together as boys, Himuro could only produce a small smile. 

“That’s okay.” He brushed Kagami’s hair out of his eyes as though the action came naturally to him. His gaze softened, distantly sad and far away. “We have all the time in the world to figure this out.” 

Another man had come to visit him: short, blank-faced, with a peculiar gaze that struck Kagami in a way that reminded him of some cunning ghost hiding in the corner watching him. He arrived just before visiting hours were over and appeared so suddenly by Kagami’s side that the man nearly yelped out of his bed had it not been for Tatsuya catching him at the last second. 

The panic attack felt all too familiar. “You asshole! Announce yourself next time before you enter a room!” Kagami shouted, clutching his heart as the machine beside him beeped rapidly in succession. 

The visitor tilted his head, dull blue eyes suddenly wide and bright with amusement. “I was here the entire time.” He then looked at Tatsuya, mouth curled to a thin frown. “Are you sure he lost his memory?” 

“Yes, I’m quite sure. Only his personality stuck around.”

“Shame.” 

“I know.” 

“Shut up!” 

The visitor finally smiled, exuding a warmness that seemed rare for the man. He sat down right at Kagami’s bedside and gave a longing sigh of exasperation as though he . 

“I’m glad you’re alive, Kagami.” 

This man was Tetsuya Kuroko—his best friend since high school and probably the second most important in Kagami’s life apparently. From what it sounded like, they were able to hang out with each other as frequently as their days of youth with what time has kept the man occupied at their jobs. Kuroko had come right from his kindergarten after the accident and stuck around just as long as Tatsuya apparently. Shame Kagami couldn’t even remember this important friend either. 

“I wouldn’t blame yourself.” Kuroko started, eyeing him wearily. “You always were a little dumb, you know. But driving off the bridge is new for you. Were you drunk?”

“No?” Kagami said hesitantly. “...I don’t think I drink.” 

“You don’t,” Tatsuya answered bluntly.

“Were the roads slippery at all? It is still winter.” 

“Accident report stated that the bridge road was cleared and salted by noon so it’s least likely.” 

“You really are an anomaly, Kagami.” Kuroko sat back, blinking twice at him. “It’s a miracle you’re alive at all. I heard if they had waited a minute more then you would have drowned. What would Aomine—”

Tatsuya suddenly stood up, knocking over his chair with a violent clutter across the floor. His mask was back, perfectly amicable and diplomatic.

“Kuroko-san, can I speak to you in private?”  

The blue-haired man blinked twice again—slower this time. Then, without changing his neutral expression, he nodded carefully and stood up. Kagami watched as the two men left, their shadows wavering in front of the frost mirror before departing for good down the hallway.  

Odd. 

Something curled painfully in his stomach and he laid back down with his eyes to the soft ceiling light; he wondered what their conversation was about—probably about himself no doubt—but the sudden need for secrecy made him nervous. What is it that they’re not telling him? Why did he drive off the bridge and into the river? Who was he? 

Kagami looked down at his hands and saw on his left ring finger a thin silver band paired with the darkest blue sapphire he could ever imagine. 

XXX

Kagami was released by the end of the week once he was given clearance and, unsurprisingly, into Tatsuya’s care. He was not sure if they were living together before (perhaps that was the case in another lifetime) but the dark-haired man seemed overtly insistent to be the main caretaker, insisting that only he knew everything about Kagami’s needs.

Kagami did not question it: he hardly knew anything about himself so the best thing to do was to lean on someone who knew him as long as Tatsuya. 

“Don’t you worry,” he started, offering him a side smile from the driver’s side. “My house isn’t too far from here. Even then, it will just be a temporary living situation anyway.”

They were heading westward from central Tokyo where the neon skyscrapers with its moving images of animals and women slowly melted to small mountainside houses connected by mazes of thin staircases, facing purple horizons surrounded by thick emerald greenery. 

Kagami leaned against the window, his eyes closed, his hand fiddling with the sapphire ring around his left finger. The low hum of Tatsuya’s car lulling the man to a false sleep—barely awake but still conscious, enough to hear his friend hum pleasantly to himself. Without revealing himself, Kagami shifted himself slightly in the seat and carefully opened one eye to peek at Tatsuya.  

It was strange to think that they could ever be friends. Someone liked Tatsuya a bit beyond his expectations in every single way possible. His beauty was soft and refined, and very presence gave off the air of someone remote and untouchable. Kagami watched in silence as Tatsuya’s white fingers drummed along the steering wheel, a song both familiar and unfamiliar humming from his pale, slender neck. A small knowing smile stretched across his face. 

“What is it, Taiga?” 

“How did you know I was awake?” Kagami asked, fully dropping the facade with an irritated grimace.

Tatsuya laughed lightly and shook his head. “I know everything about you. There’s nothing you can pull over me.” 

“Apparently so…”

“What did you want to ask me?” 

Kagami went silent for a bit. The truth was that he did not have a particular question for Tatsuya but a plethora of general ones that he should theoretically know. Where did he live? What did he do for work? What was their relationship beyond just childhood friends (that he greatly suspected to be a mere fabrication to save Kagami any shame). Who gave him the engagement ring on his finger? 

Instead, he laid back, eyes drawn to the whipping green landscape outside, and asked: “How long will I be at your house for? At some point, I have to return to my own home, right?” 

Tatsuya hummed nonchalantly. “For a while, you will stay with me. The doctors are hopeful that perhaps this will allow your memories to return. And even if they don’t, you and I will just return to America.” 

Kagami blinked. “We’re American?”

“No.” The man snickered dryly. “But we grew up in California together. And there’s a specialist there that can look at your head if all else fails.”

“Ah, okay.” 

A pause; Kagami idly played with the sapphire ring on his left hand. 

“What about my work here?” He started quietly. “Shouldn’t I return to the fire station at some point?”

“No use in a firefighter that forgot most of his past. You probably forgot how to even operate a hose if I must be honest,” Tatsuya replied matter-of-fact. He made a turn into a half-overgrown tunnel and the sudden rush of shadows had shielded his expression. 

In the darkness, Kagami could feel the man’s hand pass over his knee before laying there and squeezing reassuringly. He could feel the radiant heat of a smile burn into his skin. 

“Don’t worry, Taiga. I’ll take care of everything.” 

XXX

Kagami had a dream that night. He knew it was a dream because it seemed so far remote and idyllic to be anything but the imagination of a troubled sleeper. 

There was a house. 

Not Tatsuya’s with polished dark wood and paintings of an Americana California and the sweet scent of home cooking but a small house with half-painted walls, old carpet, and used furniture covered in half-tossed clothing and gym equipment lying half-haphazardly against the wall. There was a TV going off in the background—March Madness? And the house bore the smell of homemade smash burgers wafting from the open kitchen. 

Kagami was on the couch, taking up the entire space to rest his head on a smushed pillow with his feet propped on the opposite armrest. His eyes were strained from the old TV playing highlights of last night’s game. Slowly, he brought his gaze down to the coffee table in the middle of the room. 

There were open cans of Red Bull and a greasy paper plate with a half-eaten burger on it. Kagami could not imagine himself being this filthy—someone else had to live with him.

Suddenly, from the foyer, he could hear the front door open. 

Kagami did not get up, however. He laid there, watching the NBA commentators laugh when someone’s golden retriever ran out to court after the ball. He could hear the door close again with a crystal wind chime singing from the porch. Still, he did not move and suddenly felt tired; he closed his eyes, allowing his head to be filled with audience cheers and the sharp squeak of sneakers. 

In the chaos of the TV, there were footsteps. Heavy, present, and growing louder and louder. 

Sleep threatened him in this dream. A drowsiness lulled him close and Kagami was very close to passing out until the footsteps stopped just right behind him. Someone’s looming shadow blanketed his form and a laughing breath kissed the top of his head.

Kagami slowly opened his eyes. 

“Hey sleepyhead.” 

“Hey sleepyhead.”

Tatsuya peered down at him with a radiant soft smile enough to make the morning sun jealous. Kagami blinked before rubbing his eyes together and groaning. He rose up slowly, back cracking from a long rest, and looked all around the room. 

No cans of red bull. No half-eaten burgers. No loose articles of clothing thrown over Facebook marketplace furniture or the sound of the TV singing in the background of NBA late night games. Just a perfectly clean and refined guest room of a bigger house, which smelled perpetually of lavender. 

“Bad night?” Tatsuya asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“I’m not sure. Maybe? I think I had a dream but it made absolutely no sense,” Kagami started, rubbing the back of his neck. Tatsuya’s ultra memory foam pillow was something his body clearly could not adjust to well. 

“Yeah, that’s most dreams. They never make sense. Come downstairs and have breakfast with me, Taiga.” 

“Sure, in a minute.” 

Tatsuya gave a small nod before departing the room, leaving Kagami to sit motionless in bed. The sun flooded through the window on his side of the wall, warming his back. Someone else’s voice greeted his head, echoing from the strange dream he just had. He closed his eyes and buried his forehead against his propped knee. 

It was not Tatsuya’s voice. 

XXX

Tatsuya was a very good chef. 

Breakfast most mornings were a mix of different things depending on his caretaker’s mood. Some mornings were blueberry pancakes with imported maple syrup from Canada, multigrain muesli with freshly cut fruit, and french toast with berries. Other mornings were high protein with eggs, bacon, sausages, and three-cheese omelets. 

By noon, the man prepared for lunch and always doubled the portion size. There were days where he surprised the redhead with some extravagant meal like wagyu steak with garlic butter and special pumpkin puree. And some days where he was considerably more relaxed and did things like a simple burger and fries.  

Dinner was a true testament to his skill, however. Kagami would sit idly in the kitchen and watch as Tatsuya’s slender hands automatically switched from one pan to another—firing a burning wok for chicken lo mein while stirring a pot for wonton soup in the other. 

Kagami claimed that Tatsuya did not need to cook this much every time for every day but surprised himself when he actually cleared the table with a full, satisfied stomach. The dark-haired man would merely chuckle, bemused, and lean forward with his chin propped on his hands. 

“Like I said,” he would always start lightly. “I know everything about you, Taiga. Especially that bottomless stomach of yours. That hasn’t changed since you were a kid at all.” 

Most days were a blur. 

Kagami remembered visiting the doctor’s office quite a bit, remember visiting the CT scan even more, and especially remembered the low hush of the medical team chatting about his condition from the next room over as though he was some kind of rare animal brought in from another country. Tatsuya always accompanied him on these hard trips but Kagami honestly remembered everything being a blur until after they left the parking lot. 

Tatsuya patted his thigh reassuringly as he turned onto the freeway. 

“Sorry Taiga. They’re just being extra cautious considering the accident. That’s all.” 

Kagami lolled his head against the windowsill as per his usual course of action during these long, awkward car rides through the countryside. His mind was elsewhere...then again, so were his memories. 

“The accident was that scary, huh?”  

Silence. Just the sound of the tires rolling smoothly on flat roads. Outside, the sun began to sink beneath the horizon line with just the black outline of house rooftops marring the purple sky. 

“That’s certainly an understatement,” Tatsuya finally said, his voice creeping in a flat, neutral way. “It was all over the news, you know? A helicopter spotlight had to help scuba divers locate your car before breaking you out.” 

Kagami laughed nervously. “That seems a bit much, huh?”

“How else would you rescue a dying man from a sinking car in the middle of a freezing, slow moving river?” 

A pause. 

“I...I don’t know. I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

“Well. I’m not the one who drove off the bridge now, aren’t I?”

Kagami blinked. He turned around and looked at Tatsuya. The man was completely focused on the road, his expression thinly masked with a dangerous sort of serenity. His slender, white fingers seemed to grip the steering wheel a bit tighter than usual. 

“You’re pissed at me,” the red head stated plainly. 

Tatsuya laughed without any humor. The car swerved a bit and Kagami did not realize how he immediately reached for the overhead handle; he looked over and spotted a cold smile painted on his friend’s placid face. 

“I shouldn’t be blaming you, Taiga. I mean, it’s on brand for you to cause me worry with your stupidity. Your recklessness and lack of impulse control. But when I got that call that your car plunged off the bridge and that it had become a search and rescue...well, I never suffered a worse heart attack in years. And all I want to do is slap you around and ask you why. Why did you do that? But you don’t remember. And there’s no point in asking you if you can’t even remember me.” 

Kagami said nothing. Truth be told, there was nothing to say. He couldn’t find himself being exactly crossed at Tatsuya’s frightening show of rage considering how the man was not exactly wrong. He absolutely had no recollection of anything: his childhood, his friends, his work, his hobbies. Hell, he could have been a major asshole in his life and everyone knew it but him.  

He stared at his hands, eyeing all the calluses around his finger tips and palm. He did not even know his own body—a stranger hijacking another man’s life. 

“I’m sorry,” Kagami finally said, the word sounding so unbelievably foreign to him.

Tatsuya’s eerily serene mask did not move even once. Instead, he laughed again as if to mock the apology and shook his head. 

“There’s no point. You’re not even sure what you’re sorry for. Just sit there and let me take care of everything like usual.” 

Suddenly, Tatsuya’s cell rang in his coat pocket. He let it ring for a few seconds before letting out a swift exhale through his nostrils and picking it up to his ear.

“Himuro.”

Whoever was on the other line, it clearly was not someone friendly. Kagami could only watch as the man’s already fragile mask cracked even further, enough for Tatsuya to let out another chilly laugh with a ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ and threw the hung up phone in the back seat. 

After that, the two fell into an uncomfortable silence, allowing the low hum of the car to fill the space between them. Tatsuya let out another prolonged sigh through his nostrils, muttering something under his breath while Kagami rolled his gaze back to the landscape outside. His fingers idly fiddling with the sapphire ring once more, the gem’s sharp edges digging into his flesh. 

He wished it was a bit sharper. Maybe a bit more pain could make him forget. 

XXX

Kuroko came to visit over the weekend, bringing with him a pretty woman who Kagami knew that he knew but, like everyone else, had absolutely no memory of. 

They brought a crate of fresh oranges and some take-out from a local burger chain Kagami seemingly fancied—he and Kuroko made eye contact at the door when the woman excitedly ran over to hug him, and the smaller man nodded knowingly.  

“Kagami, this is Momoi Satsuki. She’s my fiance and a friend of ours from high school.” 

“Oh. Oh! Yes, it’s good to see you...again,” Kagami said nervously, returning the bear-tight hug awkwardly with a forced smile. 

Momoi looked up and pouted as though she were a teenager again, reaching over and pulling his cheek. 

“Look at you! How in the world did you get yourself in this situation?! Have you been eating? Has Himuro-san been feeding you properly?” She started quickly, examining every part of him for a defect while Kuroko quietly placed all their food on the counter top. 

A cold voice pierced through the chaos. 

“Of course, I have been feeding him,” Tatsuya interrupted, coming into the foyer from the living room. 

He was wearing a stained blue apron with a single strap snapped and hanging loose; his white sleeves were pulled up to his elbows, revealing how wet his forearms were. He eyed the couple cautiously before producing a cordial smile. 

“What brings you two to our house?” Tatsuya asked politely, rubbing his hands dry with the kitchen rag he had been holding. 

Momoi moved away from Kagami, latching immediately onto Kuroko with her arms looped around his, and pulled the stoic man close to her side. She smiled at Tatsuya but it did not reach her eyes, which appeared oddly dull. 

“We came to visit you two, of course! Thought you can hide Kagami from us forever, huh?” She said teasingly with a wag of her finger. 

Tatsuya laughed mechanically. “Absolutely, but it seems like I failed to change addresses. You should have called if you two were coming over—I would have made more food.” 

“I did call but you didn’t pick up, Himuro-san.” Kuroko cocked his head before riveting his gaze over at Kagami. “Besides, you always cook more portions anyway for this one’s bottomless stomach. I’m sure there’s enough for everyone.”  

“Yeah, I don’t mind if they stay over for dinner,” Kagami said with a controlled, hopefully nonchalant shrug. 

He did not know if it showed, but desperation leaked from his words—he had not seen another friendly face in a long time, not since he fell into Tatsuya’s care. Besides doctors and nurses whose sterile presence with thin blue masks and steel instruments made him feel oddly fragile, his childhood friend was what dominated his new world. Kagami turned to look at Tatsuya for approval:

The man’s smile twitched a bit but the mask did not break. 

“Why yes, of course. Stay for dinner then. I’ll make a place at the table for two.” Tatsuya extended a friendly hand around the house. “Make yourself at home—I’ll just be in the kitchen.”

They watched as his strong back retreated into the next room over and when the footsteps faded away until neither of them could hear but a sound of the man, Momoi detached herself from Kuroko and jabbed at the air with her fists, her expression livid and red. Kagami watched in an appalled silence. 

“Who does he think he is?!” Momoi hissed beneath his breath, his eyes shifting between the two men. “Keeping you locked up in here like some wild animal. Threatening Kuroko was one thing but this? I could kill him right now.” 

“Threatening? He threatened you, Kuroko?” Kagami asked, whipping his head to the shorter man with his heart pounding in his ears.

“That’s an exaggeration. He simply passed on a warning, that’s all.” 

“A warning?! It was a threat—Gods, you need to read between the lines sometimes!” 

“Wait, wait! What warning—Tatsuya give you a warning?” 

Kuroko looked at Kagami, his expression still noticeably muted. And yet, something had definitely shifted subtly and whether that was fear or apprehension, he never got the answer because the smaller man closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose with an elongated sigh.

“Regardless of what he told me, this isn’t the best place to discuss it. I’m even considering honoring the warning since I do agree with what he’s at least trying to do.” 

Momoi turned cold. “You can’t be serious, Tetsuya. You’re agreeing with this gilded cage.” 

“It’s assisted care due to amnesia.” 

“Oh sure it is and definitely not a way to shape Kagamin to his liking. Or to prevent Daiki—” 

“Food is ready,” Tatsuya called out from the kitchen, his voice casting a veil of silence over the three. They stared at each other, an exchange carrying more words than any of them could physically speak into the space. 

Kagami, however, was unable to really detect what the couple were saying to each other, only confirming a growing level of anxiety that was all directed at him—a future twisted in the unknown and feared by people who knew way more than he ever will. The redhead hooked his thumbs in his pockets and cast his gaze down.

He can’t stand their pity right now. 

“Let’s just go eat and put this all behind us, okay?” Kagami said, slinking by first without meeting anyone’s gaze. 

Hopefully, dinner would be less awkward.

XXX

Tatsuya has prepared Kagami’s favorite tonight, probably an apologetic gesture for their tense fight earlier in the car. The table was surrounded by plates of kobe hamburger steak, vegetable yakisoba, and pork gyoza with special sauce. As Kuroko predicted earlier, the man had prepared enough for a family of five though Kagami naturally could eat that much in one sitting. 

The mood, luckily, was as pleasant as it could be though Kagami owned it all up to Momoi’s excellent diplomacy—the woman knew how to act, especially in the presence as unpredictable and moody as Tatsuya. Kuroko just stayed silent and picked the ingredients he didn’t like, putting them on Kagami’s plate idly. 

The redhead figured this was their thing and just watched him do it with a soft smile. 

The couple were in the process of buying a house somewhere after the wedding due in June, probably somewhere out of the city and in the countryside. Kuroko was still undergoing his education master certification with Tokyo university and was planning on shadowing at one of the district schools until he could find a full time position. Momoi, on the other hand, had pulled some impressive oversea investors into her bath bomb company and was going to travel to Hong Kong to meet with them by next month. 

“It sounds like you’re on your way to be the primary breadwinner for the family, Momoi-san,” Tatsuya teased with a laugh. “Not that I doubted your business when you first started.” 

“Someone has to pay the bills around here...and Tetsu’s tuition,” the woman replied, playfully shoving her fiance who responded with a mild shrug. “Besides, it gives him time to finish his masters while I expand the shop. Tetsu sure likes to take his time, you know.” 

Kuroko hummed and swallowed down a piece of hamburger steak. “I have to consider all the certifications I have to complete to work with children and minors. Though it was not as long as it took for Kagami to exit the fire academy.” 

The redhead raised his head, brow furrowed quizzically. He had forgotten that he actually had a life outside of this house, blocked off by his lack of a past. Right—he was a firefighter for the District 10 Tokyo fire department and, based on what everyone had told him, was pretty darn good at his job too. Not that he remembered anything. 

“Oh, don’t tease Kagamin, Tetsu! He was going to graduate early but then that fire broke out in the lecture hall, remember? It ate half of the facilities.”

“You think for an academy that specializes in urban and wildlife fire safety, they knew how to tackle a common kitchen fire before it destroyed one of their buildings.”   

Tatsuya chuckled slowly. “Oh yeah, I remember that day: you called me at 3AM—standing outside in nothing but your boxers with your other classmates because the fire was threatening to spread to the dorms,” he said, eyeing Kagami warmly.  

The redhead frowned and rubbed the back of his head. “Huh. I guess that does sound like me…” 

“Oh! But Himuro-san, it did partially spread to the dorms, don’t you remember. They had to send all the resident students home for a month or two while they did repairs. Not that Dai-chan complained about Kagamin coming home but—” 

Tatsuya put his fork down rather loudly, the sound startling both Momoi and Kagami who looked at him strangely. Kuroko stared straight ahead, his chewing slowed. And the dark-haired man gave a chilly smile. 

“Would anyone like dessert?” 

“Uh…yeah, I’ll take some,” Kagami said hesitantly, his eyes shifting to Momoi and Kuroko who had gone noticeably stiff in their seats. 

“Count me in as well.” 

“Same here.” 

“Wonderful. There’s some tiramisu I prepared in the fridge downstairs. Just wait here and I’ll grab us that dish.” 

Once again, the three listened carefully until Tatsuya’s footsteps had completely faded in the cellar below. The moment he was out of earshot, Momoi whipped her head around and grabbed Kagami’s arm, pulling the startled man close to her face.  

“Listen, there’s not enough time before he comes back so I’ll just tell you this: Tatsuya isn’t telling you everything about your past life. He’s hiding many things from you. Including the fact that you’re engaged. If you care about finding out the truth, you will need to do your own digging—”

Kuroko reached out, hesitant. “Satsuki—”   

“Even if the truth ends up hurting you even more. You deserve to know,” she concluded, slapping his  hand away. Her bright eyes widened, an intensity strong enough to burn any man staring at them straight on. Her perfectly manicured nails dug into Kagami’s skin; it felt sharper than any bird’s talons and he winced. 

“Remember this name: Daiki Aomine—” 

The cellar door swung wide open and Momoi released Kagami, reclining back into her seat with her arm slithered around Kuroko’s frozen side as though it’s been there this entire time. She graced Tatsuya with a natural smile while the two men exchanged a pale look from across the table, almost in sync with each other’s mutual apprehension. 

Tatsuya raised his head up and grinned with his glass dish of tiramisu on his hands. 

“Anyone hungry?”  

XXX

Kagami had another dream. It was even stranger than the last. 

It was the house again. The same house with the discarded clothes, gym equipment on the floor, the old Facebook Marketplace furniture. The TV was on again, though it was more focused on local news—some segments on some children’s zoo in Yamazaki acquiring a Tanuki habitat. 

Instead of dishes of half-eaten hamburgers on the coffee table with open cans of Redbull, there were two Swedish-white cups of coffee on coasters: one black roasted and the other light with creamer. Next to them was an obviously shared plate of mini breakfast muffins. 

Kagami was on the couch again. The man blinked slowly, taking in the house that was bathed in morning light coming in from the back windows, and felt the pull of last night’s sleep creep against his back. He rubbed his eyes and faintly noticed that he was dressed rather nice today. Work boots, white shirt, a Rolex watch latched around his right wrist: 9:38 AM on a Tuesday. 

This dream was moving based on time, it seemed. The last memory was in the evening; this was the morning. This place, he understood, was intricately sacred to him. A core center of his psychology. 

A shadow moved somewhere on his left where the kitchen was and before Kagami could turn around, someone suddenly caught his lips in a strong, hungry kiss. He then was pulled against a larger, stronger body, someone’s powerful arms wrapped around his middle in a possessive vice. 

Kagami froze; he could feel his cheeks burn with the familiar sensation of both apprehension and affection. Something in his heart bubbled dangerously: he’s been here before, in this person’s arms, kissing them. 

A hot tongue slowly forced its way into his mouth and Kagami gave a shuddering, audible moan. He closed his eyes and found himself lost in the intoxicating heat of his partner. When they finally pulled away, Kagami looked upon the smug, grinning face of a wickedly handsome man holding him tight. 

He knows this man. His heart knows him intimately as did his body. What was his name? What was his name?

“What’s with that look, Bakagami? Don’t wanna go to work today?” The man’s half-arrogant smile curled up wider, his dark eyes shimmering. He leaned in close until Kagami could smell the musk cologne wafting off of his dark, exposed neck. “Unless...you wanna stay home with me in bed allll day.” 

“Shut up,” Kagami said automatically, shoving the man away with his face probably redder than the summer sun.  

He rubbed the side of his neck and looked away; and the man realized very quickly that in this dream, he had no control over his own body and words. Another man was speaking in his place—another Kagami. 

The redhead stood up with an elongated sigh, rubbing the sapphire ring around his finger idly as he peered down at the grinning man on the couch. His stupidly handsome face was marred with the sort of intense pride that could come from someone untouchable, someone who knew what he wanted and chased after it relentlessly, probably to Kagami’s annoyance. 

The man leaned forward and caught Kagami’s retreating wrist with a playful laugh before pulling the reluctant man close. He then buried his face in the redhead’s stomach while Kagami tried not to betray the growing embarrassment on his face. They stayed there, latched onto each other tightly. 

Kagami softly ran his hand through the man’s dark blue hair, his voice low with affectionate irritation. “You’re awfully clingy today. Don’t you have to go to work?” 

“Not on shift or call this week—seems like they’re training some fresh rookies from the Tokyo Police Academy so the schedule is fully booked.” The man slipped his cold hands underneath Kagami’s shirt, running his callused fingers up along the redhead’s slender hips. His eyes narrowed, smile sharped. “I thought I could catch you on a day off. It’s been so long since we spent any time together since the engagement.” 

“I probably have this weekend off. Though they’ll still have me on call just in case.” 

“Then let’s hope everyone stays on their best behavior because I actually will lose my shit.” 

“As you always do.” 

The man suddenly squeezed Kagami’s hips, causing him to nearly jolt with a yelp. He threw his head back and laughed as the redhead’s temper boiled and he futilely attempted to shove his companion’s invading hands away. Instead, the man caught his wrists again and pulled him down onto the couch, flipping him around until Kagami was on his back, facing the looming predator above him. 

“Come on...call in sick or something,” the man whined, leaned in to press biting kisses all along Kagami’s neck; his sharp teeth hot against his flushed skin. “We can fuck all day and play basketball or something.” 

Kagami stifled a laugh, weakly pressing his hands against the man’s chest. “God no. Freaking pervert.” 

“Why not? There’s not been any house fires recently. All they make you do is sit around and play dispatch.”

“You can’t trap me, you clingy bastard.” 

“Oh, I can try.” 

That same strange feeling blossomed once again, making his blood run hot and head swell. And finally, he realized what it was right: he was in love with this man. Devastatingly so. Of course, he figured this once his great love decided it was the best time to slip his hands beneath his shirt once more and tickle his sides. 

Kagami gave a sound that hardly sounded like himself and managed to shove the man off onto the floor. Laughter filled his ears from below, intoxicating and sweet like a wind chime in the summer, and he leaned over the couch to see the bastard hugging his side, bellowing out happily. 

Heat burned harder in Kagami’s cheeks. 

“Oh shut it. You know I’m ticklish and I don’t need you reminding me,” he grumbled, falling back on the couch with his glare burning into the ceiling as the man’s laughter died away to a wheeze. 

“Don’t make it sound like a weakness now, you dumbass. For your information, I like that side of you.” 

“It’s a side you can exploit.” 

“Absolutely. Another reason why I’m better than you in every way.”  

Kagami said nothing to this, knowing that the bastard was just egging him on. He laid trying, quietly trying to calm his heart, which deafened his ears—he could not hear anything else around him, could not feel anything around him save for the pulsing rush of his blood throbbing in his veins. Did he always feel this way—was so easily incited and brought to a fumbling mess by a single, idiotic man?

“Bakagami, look at me.”

“No.”

“Please. I promise to let you go to work after. It’s not a trick, I promise.” 

Kagami sighed out audibly before shifting on his stomach and peered down over the couch. The man was laying on the floor, his face oddly serene with a small smile on his face. His eyes met with Kagami’s and something shifted between them, this soft blisteringly warm sensation that suddenly blocked out every image, sight, and sound around them—white-washing the world until it was just them and them alone. 

The man extended his arm up and cupped Kagami’s cheek, his expression radiating with feverish worship.  

“Hey. Kagami. I love you. You know that?” He said softly with a bit of a quiver, as though he was afraid of any answer less than ‘I know’. As though doubt was his strongest fear despite all the bravado. 

And Kagami reached over and placed his hand over his with a squeeze.  

“I know,” he breathed quietly—assured. “I love you too, Aomine.” 

Kagami woke up. He was back in the bedroom of Tatsuya’s house. The early-morning moon was still attempting to slip away to the lilac softness of morning with the black silhouettes of rooftops jutting up into the pastel horizon. The birds were hardly awake. There were no low hums of cars or the whispers of a waking man. Just the breeze dancing between houses. 

And the redhead touched his chest, feeling the rush of a panicked, broken heart. 

“Aomine…” 

XXX

He never mentioned to the doctor about the recurring dreams for some reason (to him, those dreams were only meant for him and him alone) and those appointments always ended with a futile, frustrated head shake to Tatsuya on his condition. Strangely enough, the handsome man seldom reacted poorly to the bad news of Kagami’s stagnation; he merely nodded with just a ghost of a smile pulling at the corner of his lips, the glimpse of a festering, darker nature beneath a perfect white mask. 

“What a shame,” he sighed out dramatically in the car, rapping his fingers along the steering wheel while eyeing Kagami. “I suppose I shouldn’t be so surprised. It’s only been a month or so since your discharge. These things take time.”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Besides, we’re scheduled to return to America anyway. Tokyo referred to a specialist in San Bernardo to take over your care from then point on.” 

Kagami rolled his head lazily against his seat until he was haphazardly facing Tatsuya’s direction. As usual, the man was not looking at him with his rapt attention on the road as subtle cover for his own true feelings on the matter. Kagami liked the fact that he was able to effectively read him like a book—perhaps a by-product of their old life together, the one he failed to grasp or remember.

“When will we be returning to America?” he asked with feigned causality. 

“Hopefully in a month or two. We just need to wait for the notarization of your Japanese medical records here to be completed. Not to mention, seeing if your American passport is valid at all since it’s been a while.” Tatsuya’s cold gray eye riveted to him, scrutinizing. 

“You look upset.” 

“No, it’s just…if we want my memories to come back, shouldn’t we stay in Japan considering I spent most of my work and social time here? The doctor did say a familiar association can help with head trauma recovery.”

“Yes, but I worry that the fall in the river did more for your head than anyone here thinks. You will recover far better in America anyway with top of the line doctors and medical research.”

Kagami rubbed the back of his neck; his stomach was twisting in on itself. “If you say so…”

“I know so.” Then the dark-haired man reached out and placed his hand on the redhead’s thigh. He smiled warmly. “Just trust me, Taiga. I know what’s best for you anyway. That has never changed.” 

Tatsuya’s phone went off again and when he checked the caller ID, he just made a tsk sound and stuffed the phone back in his coat pocket. Whoever it was, it certainly made the man a bit more irritated than Kagami would like. 

The pair stayed in this short, stalemate of silence; the car hummed beneath them softly with still winds and slow birds. In the distance, Kagami could hear a basketball being thrown into a hoop—the faint swish eerily calmed his nerves and he suddenly could think clearly. 

“Tatsuya? Could I ask you a question?” 

The man sighed softly before producing a weary smile. “Yes?” 

Kagami idly played with the sapphire ring again, the gem’s sharp edges pricking his skin. And he looked the driver straight on, expression brave and tight. 

“Who...is Aomine?” 

The car jolted a bit as though it had struck a pothole on the surprisingly clear asphalt road. The steering wheel leather squeaked a bit under Tatsuya’s white fingers but the smile on his wickedly handsome face had yet to falter. He hummed nonchalantly and gave a light laugh. 

“Where did you hear that name?” 

Kagami sat back, closing his hand over the ring protectively. “I managed to hear it from time to time and was curious about it for a while now,” he said slowly.

“From who?”

“I don’t remember. Does it matter? Who is he?” 

Tatsuya breathed slowly from his nostril and made a strange sound in his throat as though he were sick. “No one important,” he said calmly. 

“Really? It didn’t sound like he was just some nobody.” 

“I never said he was a nobody. I said he wasn’t important. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

“Well, don’t lie to me if I ask you a question.” 

“I’m not lying to you, Taiga.”

“I may have an empty head with no past but that doesn’t mean I can’t tell when you’re hiding something.” Kagami cocked his head to the side, his throat tight and hot with anger. He hoped his tone was even enough but it all came out in a jumble. “I deserve to know.” 

Tatsuya’s fingers on the steering wheel tightened again, the leather cover squeaking and twisting underneath the man’s strength. But his face—the mask, once more, did not break.

“There are many things you deserve to know, Taiga. And you very much deserve not to know him in any capacity. That man is someone we don’t speak about or mention in this house for your own good.”

Everything was spinning. His head was burning, catching on a fever that was making him sweat. Kagami touched his forehead and leaned over, his eyes shut. The dreams were not lying to him, they were not just some strange fantasy twisting his nights into sleepless wants—a hand reaching out from far beyond and he was too clueless to take it. 

“Why?” Kagami asked, voice suddenly wrecked, as he looked back up to see that the man was watching him this time. “Why hide this from me?” 

And Tatsuya’s mask broke—a faint crack in the perfect facade. Just like that, a vicious sneer twisted itself across his face as his gray eye darkened and narrowed to a thin slit. He then reached over and gripped the chain necklace dangling from Kagami’s neck, yanking the redhead over onto his side. 

The car swerved wildly with abandon, threatening to drive off the mountain cliff and into the green-patterned ravine below. He stopped it just off the side of the road where they were hidden from sight by the low hanging curtain of a house’s gigantic weeping willow. 

Someone else’s voice emerged from his childhood friend’s mouth. 

“Aomine is a monster. A bastard. He hurt you dearly and I will not risk his horrid image or name to taint your mind again. I can’t lose you again, Taiga,” Tatsuya hissed between gritted teeth, his nostrils flaring out. 

“Tatsuya…” 

“Please. For your sake. Do not mention him again. Do not ask about him. Do not seek him out. He deserves to die away from anonymity. Please.”

Kagami fell quiet, his eyes dropping down to the necklace that Tatsuya had been gripping tightly in his hands. He never noticed it before, probably since everything seemed so new to him but its cold silver chains bit into the back of his skin and Tatsuya’s white hands. 

And dangling at the end, catching sunbeams from the low afternoon sun, was a silver ring. 

He stared at it, hypnotized. And then he remembered that they’re sworn brothers, a childhood promise fulfilled. 

“Okay Tatsuya.” Kagami closed his eyes and breathed slowly. “I won’t bring him up again.” 

“Promise?”

“Promise.”  

Tatsuya smiled, eerily relishing in the man’s show of submission, and surprised Kagami further when he leaned forward and brought the silver ring to his lips. His single eye was closed, long dark lashes fluttering with the passing of a memory long lost to both men. Slowly, after a minute, he woke up and straight Kagami straight on—his gaze ice-hot—as his other hand reached over and gripped his own chain necklace where an identical silver ring dangled. 

And Tatsuya smiled like a ghost. 

“I have nothing to fear because at the end of the day, we’re forever bonded. And I know deep down, you know this. You have to, Taiga. Because who else will have you?” 

XXX

The house phone kept ringing every night since then. Tatsuya had forbidden Kagami to pick up any calls so the redhead just had to endure the thing going off at all hours of the night. Tatsuya eventually had enough one evening and ripped the thing off the wall, tossing it outside in the backyard where he violently smashed it in with his foot. 

Kagami reminded himself to never try and spam Tatsuya with calls—he clearly hated it. 

XXX

It was a basketball court this time.

Bathed in the sunlight of a summer sun, Kagami felt the pull of sweat tug against the back of his drenched shirt as he leaned over and lazily searched for the half-drunken Gatorade he left under the bench. He felt his fingers brush against the plastic before it tipped over, the red cap rolling out from beneath the bench and in Kagami’s sight. Something gurgled out and wet the ground beneath his shoes. 

“Ugh.” 

Kagami leaned back, hands gripping the back of the bench as he tilted his head to the side to catch the faintest kiss of a breeze passing through the court. 

On the adjacent court, he could hear kids clambering with each other as a ball bounced in between them—and then he remembered those long summer days in LA with Tatsuya. After a long day of ball, they went for In-N-Out with Alex, half-crying from scuffed knees and sunburn decorating their bare shoulders.

His daydream was suddenly and rather violently ripped away from him when a burning cold kissed the back of his neck. Kagami lurched up, trembling wildly with a high-pitched yelp, and spun around with his fists raised. 

That bastard. That blue-haired idiot standing there holding two ice-cold Pocari Sweats with that shit-eating grin on his face, the same one he whipped out when he beat Kagami on the court 51-50 just a few minutes ago. 

Kagami turned his back to Aomine, ignoring the man as he sat down next to him. 

“Oh don’t be a sore loser, man. You’ll maybe get it next time.” A pause then a derisive snicker. “Probably not.” 

Kagami punched the man’s arm, smiling when Aomine actually cried out. 

“Fuck, okay, it was just a joke! Look, I brought you a drink.” He nudged it against the redhead’s face apologetically. “Peace offering.” 

“You just don’t want to sleep on the couch tonight,” Kagami muttered, eyeing the Pocari Sweat in Aomine’s hands.

The man raised a single brow. “You’re house-benching me just because I beat you again?” 

“Because you’re an asshole.” 

“But I brought you Pocari Sweatttt.” Another pause. Then Aomine started to turn away. “Unless you’re not actually that thirsty…” 

“Oh, give it here!” 

Kagami tried his best to ignore Aomine’s obnoxious laugh as he swiped the drink from his hands. Maybe it was the summer sun beating down on them, maybe it was the fact that some of the kids were watching them from the adjacent court through the fence, but Kagami’s face burned up hot even as he downed the drink in one gulp. He could feel Aomine’s sweaty, powerful arm snake around his back in a possessive vice as a laughing breath kissed the side of his neck.

“There are kids watching us,” Kagami reminded quietly, turning his head away. Bastard. Post-basketball games always made him this way every time. And the redhead just had to tolerate it. 

This was their ritual. 

Aomine hummed nonchalantly. “So? They look old enough to know what this is,” he muttered, licking the sweat from the side of Kagami's neck. 

His tongue was fire-hot—sand paper coarse like a cat’s—and Kagami shut his eyes to block out all the violent thoughts of having rough car sex the moment they head back to the parking lot and into the sweltering hot interior of Aomine’s shitty 2002 Nissan Skyline (which he tried to fix up last summer before realizing that he was a pretty shit mechanic and then Kagami tried to fix before he too realized that he knew absolutely nothing about car repair). 

A hand slipped past the slip of his pants, fingers trailing down his pelvis.

“Not here. I know it’s your fantasy to fuck me raw in a basketball court but not with a bunch of high schoolers watching!” Kagami hissed, frantically shoving Aomine’s invasive hand away from his body. 

The man whined and somehow managed to latch their fingers together with a half-grin. “Come on. You know you want to.” 

And then he leaned in, teeth teasing the outer shell of Kagami’s ear where he whispered nothing but sin and yearning: 

“You love me.”

Kagami shut his eyes. 

“Yeah, I do.” He stopped, catching his breath at the pit of his throat. Fear—doubt, ebbed from every labored breath. “...Do you love me?” 

He never got his answer. 

Kagami opened his eyes to the familiar sight of the guest bedroom ceiling where the soft morning sun had poured in through the winter-veiled curtains of his window. Someone sighed slowly beside him and he turned his head to see that Tatsuya was sitting at his bedside. 

There was a dark, hollow ring beneath his gray eye; he smiled like a worn-out puppet. 

“Good morning. Did you sleep well?” Tatsuya asked with a tone that implied that he already knew the answer. 

Kagami sat up slowly. “What did I do?” 

It took him a moment to realize that the dark-haired man had a fleece blanket around his shoulders, the same one from his own bedroom down the hall. A half drunken cup of chamomile tea sat on the nightstand with the tag still left hanging over the side, stuck to the rim. He then touched the edge of the bed only to just notice the crumpled imprint pressed onto the blanket. 

“You had a nightmare,” Tatsuya explained, confirming Kagami’s suspicions. “Or, at least, I think it was a nightmare. You wouldn’t stop moving and talking in your sleep. At some point, you started crying so I stayed the night in here to make sure you were okay.”

“I...Fuck, man. I’m sorry.”

The dark-haired man smiled again, a bit more gentle, and rubbed his eye. “Do you remember what you dreamed about?” 

You love me.

“No,” Kagami lied, looking off to the side towards the window where the world slowly awoke to the sound of mini trucks and birds in the low hanging trees. “I don’t.” 

“Ah. Shame. You sounded so sad, I wonder if it was something you remember.” 

“Maybe.” 

They grew silent again with either man making any sort of eye contact with one another. Tatsuya, for the first time since Kagami woke up in the hospital, seemed oddly reclusive. Detached and distant as though he was not here but somewhere else that the redhead could not possibly reach him. 

He was dreaming, just like him. 

And he wondered if this was what Tatsuya must have left with him—attempting to reach out to someone who was sinking away beneath the ocean slowly without control or will to climb up. 

Then Tatsuya laughed, this far away and bitter sound. 

“You know, being here with you reminds me of our childhood back in LA,” he started wistfully, leaning back in his seat with an absent smile. “This bedroom is oddly like the one back at your dad’s house, you know? Maybe with way more ripped basketball posters from the Shell gas station and night lights and dirty shoes thrown on the ground but the layout is very much identical.” 

Kagami looked idly around the guest bedroom. The walls were bare, the furniture untouched, and the floor was wiped and polished clean. As though no one lived here at all but a phantom.  

“There was this one summer, the summer we met Alex and started taking lessons under her—do you remember Alex? You get to meet her soon enough...anyway, it was the summer we met Alex and our fathers both enrolled us in this youth program at the Oceanside community center. It was kinda stupid besides playing basketball...a lot of summer homework cramming, hot nature hikes where we kept getting bit by mosquito, arm-to-arm camping...Anyway, I remember that there was this girl at the center with us as well. I think her name is Angela—dark long hair and she always wore this blue sundress. We went on a day trip to the Sierra to learn about nature and they split us up into groups. One group was to go down the river to learn about fish and the other group was to climb up to a nearby ledge and look at a 100-year-old tree stump. We were separated and you ended up in the same group as her…”  

Tatsuya trailed off, the memory physically closing around him in an unforeseen vice that only left behind a man now visibly uncomfortable. He was having a hard time breathing and covered his mouth with his hand as though ashamed to show Kagami any other emotion besides his own lucidity.  

“...By the time we regrouped, you seemed strange. A bit flustered and embarrassed. Your skin was red and you kept scratching your neck as though you had a bug bite. And you wouldn’t talk to me all day until you came back to your house. And I remembered how you tried to hide from me by climbing under the covers and pretending I wasn’t in the room. I kept asking you what was wrong and still, you wouldn’t answer me—you just kept looking out that window and ignoring my questions. And then I saw what was on your neck.” 

He slowly lowered his hand, expression hollow and subdued. Tatsuya did eventually look up at Kagami and there was a dull sort of anger in that gray eye of his, dull from age but still ebbing from a pain he was not able to relieve after so many years. And his smile dropped, revealing a ghost of a man hiding beneath the mask. Tired and full of horrible yearning that made the redhead suddenly guilty. 

“I asked you if she had kissed you. And you know what you did, Taiga? You slowly went away towards the window and said ‘no.’ And that was the first time you ever lied to me.” 

The redhead leaned back cautiously. “Tatsuya…” 

“Who did you dream of, Taiga? Who made you cry so bitterly last night that not even I could reach you?” Tatsuya asked, chuckling. 

He then threw his head back, covered his eyes, and laughed until his breath cracked beneath the weight of his own emotions arising from within. Once it all washed away with a sigh, he looked back over at Kagami, expression broken in its desperation. 

The mask was now off; all that sat at his bedside was a sad little boy. 

Kagami had no words. He could not describe the blossoming pain in his chest, only that it was powerful enough to burst through and kill him. 

Then, before he could reply, Tatsuya lurched forward and grabbed both of his wrists. It was such a sudden motion that Kagami immediately went limp without realizing and allowed himself to effectively be pinned to the bed with the other man now straddling his stomach, face looming over him with a ghostly, twisted look. Something wet fell on Kagami’s cheeks and rolled down in hot trails—Tatsuya had started to cry above him. 

“Why?” He started, voice heavy with grief as his long fingers dug into the skin of Kagami’s wrists. “Why him? Even after you lose your memories, you’re still looking for him. Why couldn’t it be me? You were mine first.”

“Tatsuya…” 

“I followed you to Japan all those years ago and stayed when you didn’t want to go back. I even followed you back to LA to look after you when your dad passed away. So why? Why him? What does that bastard have that I don’t? Huh?! Taiga?!!” 

His breath hitched to a whine and Tatsuya tightly shut his eyes, his shoulders practically trembling. Kagami could only watch, mesmerized, as whatever speech he had faded upon a frightened tongue. And the voice that came after was very small. Very weak. And so bitterly insecure. 

“I loved you first,” Tatsuya whispered like a prayer.  

What came next was something both of them had expected—one had held back for so long and the other had long anticipated. Their eyes met, suddenly afraid of looking away and breaking the incredibly fragile connection between them; Kagami did not move, even as Tatsuya’s face closed the distance between them slowly. His shuddering breath lightly kissed his open lips (he smells like aspen mint), and for a moment, Kagami was sure he could feel the other man’s heart beat violently against his own chest—running faster than anything he could ever imagine. 

Tatsuya’s silver ring twirled in the closing space between them from the man’s necklace; it landed on Kagami’s. Their lips met in a soft gasp. 

Kagami had another memory: they were fourteen. It was a rainy winter. Tatsuya’s parents just divorced with his mother returning to Japan to be with her family for good. For an entire week, the boy did not come to school at all with his home school desk completely cold and empty next to Kagami. The redhead eventually mustered enough worry and paranoia to take the long, cold walk to Tatsuya’s house, which was a good twenty minutes away on foot. 

When he arrived at the house, it was dark. The lights were shut off and the curtains were closed together. It seemed like no one was home—Tatsuya’s father was probably at work as his Subaru was not in the driveway. That or at his lawyer to deal with the last of the marriage assets as he had been since the divorce procedures. 

Kagami stood at the porch, staring at the door with its small window completely blacked out. He rang the doorbell. No one responded. Maybe no one was home? 

Then Kagami heard a cough from upstairs. 

“Tatsuya?” he had called out weakly only to be meant with the windy groan of the empty house. 

The boy was ready to turn away and walk back home until he heard what seemed like a crying mew from the upper levels of the house. He spun around, eyes wide and pointed up towards Tatsuya’s window facing the street. That was where the sound was coming from. 

“Tatsuya!” He called out again, running around the house towards the big lurching tree growing on the side. 

It was big enough where its heavy branches stretched over the top level of the house and Kagami often climbed his way up to sneak into the boy’s room during those lonely summer days. He readied himself at the base, light-up sketchers pressed into the open rough edges of the truck, and the boy quickly hoisted himself up as he heard another cough from Tatsuya’s room. He scrambled up and carefully balanced himself on the overarching branch that led to the upper ledge of the house where Tatsuya’s window was. 

Kagami carefully positioned himself against the glass and gave it a heavy knock, calling out his friend’s name once more. He could see just the faintest light inside—Tatsuya’s nightlight in the corner—and a shadow shifted from within. 

A weakened groan answered the redhead and he took it as an invitation to force open the window and slip inside.

The room was dark and heavy with a Vicks humidifier running high on the work desk. Kagami rubbed his eyes to adjust to the low lighting, looking all around for any signs of Tatsuya. There were books thrown all along the floor (he usually keeps everything clean and orderly) and he even spotted some ripped pages, its scraps decorating different spots of the bedroom. Kagami could feel his breath hitch dangerously at the base of his throat when he heard the telltale sound of glass crunching beneath his shoes; he lifted his foot up and looked down. 

Tatsuya’s family photo laid shattered beneath him with its black frame destroyed. His friend’s smiling face is marred by broken glass between his father and mother. 

Something shifted beside him in the darkness of the corner, a painful groan emerging from beneath the blankets until a pale face emerged. 

“There you are!” Kagami hissed and rushed over on the bed, propping himself up on the mattress as Tatsuya slowly revealed himself. 

He almost fell back at the sight of him. Tatsuya looked sick. Sicker than just having a regular flu. There were dark rings beneath his dull yet glassy eyes with his usually well-kept hair disheveled. His sleep shirt was peppered with sweat, and his whole skin had taken on a ghastly paleness as though he were a corpse. 

“What...what happened to you?” Kagami asked in a whisper, almost afraid to touch him. 

Tatsuya blinked slowly. “How did you get in here?” he asked, voice heavy and hoarse.

“Uh the window?” A pause as Kagami looked him up and down. “You look horrible.”

“Thanks.”

“Seriously, where were you man? I missed you.” 

“Did you? I didn’t notice.” 

“Tatsuya.” 

The dark-haired boy closed his eyes and slipped back under the covers. “Leave me alone, Taiga. Go home,” he said. 

Kagami frowned deeply and something ugly erupted in his heart. He was not sure if it was resentment or the sadness of rejection because Tatsuya had never said no to him before. Had never wanted him gone before. Instead of listening, Kagami grabbed the blanket and with all of his might, yanked it away from his friend in one big motion. 

Tatsuya gawked at him once exposed but his expression turned ugly and hateful. 

“Why are you doing this, Taiga? Get out.” 

“No! Not until you tell me what’s wrong! You haven’t been to school in a week, you ignored all of my calls and visits, and I even had Alex come by only for your father to send her away. Why are you avoiding me? Are you sick? Is it because of the divorce—” 

“Don’t you dare.”

“Please talk to me. I hate that we’re not talking.” Kagami looked around the room in mild disgust. “I mean, come on! You look like the dead, your room is a mess, and I don’t know how long it 's been since you've seen sunlight.” 

Tatsuya continued to glare at him, his anger radiating more thick now as though Kagami’s very presence had become hostile and unbearable. Still, the redhead withstood the brunt of his friend’s anger more so understanding that Tatsuya had never been this way before. Something permanent had changed in him, alternating his very being into someone keenly unrecognizable and scary. Someone beyond Kagami’s reach. 

Before he could say more, the dark-haired boy finally spoke and it was with the voice of a stranger. Bitter. Hateful. Desperate. 

“You want to know what’s up, Taiga? Well, my mother is gone. She and my dad have called it quits after fourteen years together. And you wanna know what’s the funny part about this whole mess? She screamed at him, stating she never wanted me to begin with. That…” His breath choked, eyes wide and manic. “I was a mistake…” 

Kagami’s arms dropped. “Oh shit.” 

“My mother never wanted me. My father resents me. No one in my family ever wanted me to begin with. They were only together for my sake and even then, that killed whatever love they had at the start.” He started to laugh-cry, shoulders shaking from the amount of force that exhausted itself from his pale, small body. 

“How the fuck am I supposed to react, Taiga? Pretend that everything is okay? Go to school with you and fool around? Play basketball? What’s the point when no one ever looks my way? No one ever cared.” 

“I...I care.”

Tatsuya looked at him, spitefully bemused and mixed with another emotion that the redhead could not quite pin down but it frightened him nonetheless. 

“Right. You just pity me.”  

“N-No I’m not! I care about you! Why wouldn’t I? You mean the world to me.” 

“...As your brother, you mean?” 

Kagami drew back, blinking slowly. “Uh. Of course. What else would we be?” He asked sincerely, watching Tatsuya’s expression darken. The ring around his neck suddenly felt heavier, especially when his friend reached over and grabbed it, yanking the redhead close. 

“This,” was all Tatsuya said and what happened next caught Kagami in sheer surprise. 

Their lips smashed together awkwardly with their teeth clacking against each other. Kagami went utterly stiff as he left Tatsuya’s cold lips open, a hot tongue slithering in between his astonished mouth. It was wet and sloppy and desperate and very cold. Tatsuya’s frightfully chilly hands grabbed Kagami’s arms, keeping the redhead still—and he did sit there, a statue, eyes wide and trembling as he stared upon the boy he once considered his brother and friend.  

Tatsuya pulled away with a gasp. For the first time, the paleness had receded from the dark-haired boy’s face, replaced by a faint blush that suddenly made his whole body warmer than Kagami’s. Both of his eyes pinned the redhead in place, wild with abandon, before he sat back and wiped his mouth with his arm. 

“Well?” He finally uttered, voice noticeably distraught.

Kagami took a minute. He did not move. He swallowed and tasted some of Tatsuya’s cold medicine in his spit. His heart was screaming in his poor, burning ears. What was happening? What was wrong? Something was wrong. 

Something was broken. 

“...Brothers don’t do that.” 

And Tatsuya responded with a loathsome snicker, finally looking away with the cold, spiteful mask back on again. 

“You’re right. They don’t.”  

Kagami snapped back into reality—thirteen years passed since Tatsuya’s destroyed childhood to the guest house of the man now—and realized that someone’s hot tongue had curled around his. The grip on his wrists were gone, replaced by Tatsuya’s cold hands cupping his face as he nibbled Kagami’s bottom lip with a moan. A tight heat passed between their pressed forms—he could feel his friend’s insistent clothed erection rubbed against his own growing one and Kagami stifled a shuddering groan, slowly surrendering to Tatsuya’s hungry will. 

He had been here before, not just once in their childhood, but the plentiful times young teenagers find themselves in whenever puberty became a vibrant struggle. Pressed against the bed with Tatsuya’s white hands on him, his mouth stealing away his breath, and icy gaze silencing all protests. 

Suddenly, Kagami was afraid. 

Finally, he was released; the dark-haired man slowly pulled away, their breaths intermingling heavily. A thinning web of saliva connected their reddened mouths and Tatsuya licked his lips slowly, his expression blossoming with so much emotion that he looked ready to die in that moment. Both of his eyes were cast down at Kagami, manic gray pupils taking in the probably ruined sight of the man beneath him with such abolished glee. He laughed softly and leaned back down, hot breath kissing Kagami’s exposed neck. 

“I always loved you. And I want you to remember my words, Taiga. Because when you do remember again, I want you to also know who was your first friend, your first teacher, your first kiss. And that I’m not going anywhere.” 

With that, Tatsuya let Kagami go with nothing but a warning smile and slipped out of the room, leaving the poor man with his face blood red and lips marked and glistening. In his head, nothing but a ball was being bounced around from one wall to another. 

For just a moment, Kagami forgot all about last night’s dream. Almost. 

XXX

A door had opened, it seemed, and it was so slow and quiet that Kagami hardly noticed any large changes in the house save for the few noticeable in Tatsuya. 

And even then, they were so minor that the redhead sometimes had to sit and ponder, wondering if they were ever there to begin with or if his friend had decided to become more bolder since that fateful morning. 

At first, it did not seem like anything had changed at all with their domestic arrangement. Tatsuya still accompanied Kagami to and from doctor appointments, still scolded the clumsy man for causing trouble around the house or saying irresponsible remarks here and there, and he still cooked every night and retired to his own room for sleep. 

Really, the routine had not changed at all. And yet, Kagami knew that something central had shifted between them, the dynamic forever transformed in a way that he could not fathom.

Was he insane or did it seem like Tatsuya was touching him more? A faint squeeze at the hips whenever he wanted to move him aside, a brush against the cheek when Kagami said something remotely provoking, a possessive grip of the neck whenever he got close to him on the couch while watching TV? 

Tatsuya’s single gray eye trailed him more closely these days. A hawk observing a scurrying field mouse from afar. No matter what room Kagami occupied or entered, he could feel the icy-hot heat of Tatsuya’s unwavering gaze burn black holes into his backside. 

His presence, chilly; his proximity, suffocating. 

Maybe Kagami was insane. Maybe he has just become overtly paranoid since he struck his head in the water. Maybe Tatsuya was always like this even before and it was just now he was noticing how unsettling he was.  

Kagami was not sure. He was sure that somewhere—somehow, a door had opened and a stranger had stepped through it, bringing about unspoken pain and terror from a time lost to him. 

And he was coming. 

“Will you be okay alone?” Tatsuya had asked idly as he buttoned up his winter coat. He then looked up and over at Kagami standing alone in the dimness of the foyer. “I’ll probably be back tomorrow afternoon or so. Just gotta take care of some things at the office.” 

“Yeah, don’t sweat about me. I’ll probably stay up late in the living room and watch some cooking show,” Kagami said quietly. 

“Don’t stay up too late. You always have trouble waking up the next day if you do.” 

“I know.”

“There’s beef yakiudon leftover in the fridge alongside some iced tea I made. And if you want to just order in, I left a brochure for the nearby Domino’s on the counter top next to the kettle.” 

“Yeah, I saw.” 

Tatsuya stopped halfway from wrapping a scarf around his neck. He eyed Kagami closely, expression teetering on some definite emotion that finally fell to a relaxed sweetness. He then slowly approached the man and reached out, both hands placed gingerly on Kagami’s neck and drew the quiet redhead close to him. 

“...Can I give you a goodbye kiss?” Tatsuya asked. 

Kagami’s cheeks burned faintly and he hoped the darkness shielded his embarrassment. “O-Okay, sure. Whatever. Do whatever you want,” he stuttered. 

The dark-haired man chuckled. “Yeah, I think I will.” 

Unlike their first kiss, this one was gentle and soft and reminiscent of two young lovers. Tatsuya slowly tilted his head and closed his eyes, catching Kagami’s waiting lips with his. A ghost of a fragile gasp passed between them, equally nervous—Tatsuya’s long fingers twitched and rapped along Kagami’s neck, brimming with an unspoken sort of happiness that he often could not express normally and in turn, Kagami felt himself humming into the kiss.  

He did not know what to do with his hands—how does Tatsuya know so well—so he placed them stiffly on both of Tatsuya’s slender hips, keeping the man locked to his figure. Somehow, he could feel the other man growing extremely pleased by the touch, so much so that a half-smile formed in between their soft takes of breath. 

After what felt like an eternity, they finally pulled away from each other, equally flushed and overexerted from their own contact. Tatsuya’s cheeks reddened with the threat of a fever as he gave a rare, genuine laugh—the sound too soft to belong to any human—and smiled sweetly at Kagami with his hands still latched around the man’s neck.

“If I wasn’t going on this business trip, I’d lock myself in this house with you and never leave. Hm. Perhaps when I get back then?” He suggested, arching a brow. 

Kagami’s gaze riveted elsewhere. “Whatever you want. J-Just have a good trip, then.” 

 “I will. Sleep well, Taiga.” 

“Drive safe, Tatsuya.” 

It was not until the lights of his car pulled away from the driveway and sped down the road to barely an inaudible hum that Kagami finally felt comfortable enough to let out an elongated sigh. He wiped the sweat from his brow and buckled against the wall, cursing himself for not having more control. Truth be told, he was not sure how exactly he felt about Tatsuya. He certainly cared very much for the man considering that only he was taking care of him during this confusing time. 

A tenderness that he hoped not to mistake for romantic affection. 

Then again, his body’s reaction to the man’s hungry advances confused Kagami more than anything else. Maybe it was the thought that a 27-year-old man shouldn’t be acting like some horny teenager but that's just his opinion. Clearly his body thought differently. 

Kagami tried not to dwell on it too long and moved to just making himself dinner from Tatsuya’s leftovers and watching local university basketball on TV. He wished he was more active since his release from the hospital but his own mind was a strict warden—it was not just that he had forgotten who he was, his line of work, friends and family. He had forgotten how to move. What routine he used to have. What foods he liked to eat. How he liked to sleep and wake up. How to speak. 

How to play basketball and have fun. 

It was like he was operating a shell of a person who no longer existed. There was a little person in his head that had absolute control but no prior history to how the previous operator handled this body. He was a stranger in Taiga Kagami’s skin and everyone knew it, even him.

He rubbed his eyes as a headache came on. Fuck this. Fuck everything. Why was he still here? He should have died in that river. Instead, he was stumbling around like some newborn infant with no sense of awareness or object permanence. 

Who was Taiga Kagami? 

Who was Tatsuya Himuro? 

Who was Aomine?

A horrible, scorching pain ripped through his head and Kagami doubled over on the couch, pressing his palm against the side of his temple. It was throbbing loudly—too loudly. He could not even hear the roar of the audience on the TV. Something was deeply wrong with him and it wasn’t just the memory loss. Did his doctors see any evidence of an elongated concussion? Maybe there were some marbles loose in there—he wouldn’t be surprised. 

When the ringing died, Kagami raised his head with his tired eyes riveting to the digital clock on the wall. 

11:59 PM.  

Oh. A few hours had passed already and he hardly notice—the TV programming had already switched to late night infomercials with some woman advertising copper pans. Kagami really did just take up space and sit there like some doll, huh? He rubbed his eyes again, gave out a sigh, and stood up slowly listening to his spine softly crack along his sore back. 

Not much to do now but sleep, eat, walk, and wait he supposed. Like a trapped animal. Tatsuya probably preferred him like this anyway. 

Kagami trudged up the stairs and tried to bury himself in pity for the rest of the night. It was only a shame that the man only slept for a few hours before being woken up again. 

He blinked slowly, adjusting to the darkness of the guest bedroom. It was a particularly dark night with no moon in sight—just thick, black clouds that blanketed the sky, shielding the usual white light of stars and the winter moon. The man rose slowly in bed when he heard the telltale chime ding on his phone, suddenly illuminating the room with its notification—Tatsuya’s ring door bell camera was going off. 

“It’s too early for him to be back...maybe he forgot something,” Kagami muttered to himself, sitting up and reaching for his phone vibrating in the darkness. 

The Ring app came on and he had to blink twice before actually looking at the footage, expecting a worn-out Tatsuya in his business suit to be pressed to the camera. Instead, what he was jolting him awake fully with a rapid heart. 

There was a strange figure standing on their porch. Even with the motion sensor light on, it was hard to make out their face as they were wearing a dark hoodie with their hands stuffed in their pockets. Based on their looming height and broad build, Kagami guessed it was a man but he wasn’t too sure. 

The redhead’s thumb lingered over the speaker button, hesitant to reveal himself too quickly to this stranger. When he checked the time, it was 3:34 AM. 

What in the world did someone want at 3:34 AM? 

Instead, Kagami watched the live feed with his heart beating loudly in his ears. The figure swayed with a clear growing impatience, looking back into the darkness of the street before shifting their rapt attention back to the front door. They then took out their hand and gave the door a loud, almost violent sort of knock that shook the whole house’s frame and even reached Kagami’s room with a threat. When no one answered, the figure reached for the door handle and tried to yank it open.

In his other hand, which was still stuffed in his hoodie pocket, Kagami could spot the silver glimpse of a knife in the dimness of the porch light. 

An intruder. 

“Fuck,” he cursed under his breath, kicking back the covers and quietly settling himself on the cold floor of his room. Just what he needed, some burglar so early in the morning.  

Kagami faintly remembered that Tatsuya kept a sanctioned taser in his bedroom in case anything were to happen so the redhead went down on his knees and quietly made his way out into the hallway. Down below the house, the thundering sound of a shoulder ramming itself against the front door echoed between intervals of three and every beat made Kagami dash a bit faster into Tatsuya’s bedroom. 

As expected, the man kept his side of the house spotless with the sort of elegance Kagami expected from him. His clothes were nearly folded up and placed gingerly on his prepared bed, there was not a speck of dust anywhere on the furniture or even the nice ice-blue rug that engulfed most of the floor, and the photos on his nightstand were recently wiped clean it seemed. 

Kagami tried not to think of peeking too hard as he went over the nightstand and idly searched for Tatsuya’s taser. Whether it was the constant knocking of the front door that spooked him or his own adrenaline, he accidentally knocked over the framed photos on the nightstand down to the floor. 

“Shit, not now!” He hissed out, immediately going to grab them.

Then Kagami stopped. 

In the dim glow of a nearby moon-shaped night light, he was able to see one photo laying on top of the others. It was of two boys somewhere sunny and warm and tropical with palm trees in the distance followed by what appeared to be a boardwalk with a neon Ferris wheel facing a lively blue ocean. The boys had their arms around each other, their knees scuffed and covered with bits of sand yet, their faces were positively glowing.

“Is...Is that me?” Kagami muttered, reaching out to touch the little redheaded boy with the basketball in his scrawny arms. 

Before he could do so, a thunderous crash erupted from downstairs followed by silence.

Fuck.

Without another word, he finally located the taser in Tatsuya’s drawer and slipped right into the man’s closet, keeping the netted door shut.  

The man nervously gripped the weapon in his hands, trying to locate where the on button was, as the telltale sounds of heavy footsteps echoed throughout the house. He never wished for his usual boring night to be livened up with a break-in but hey, it’s the hand he’s been dealt. Kagami was more surprised that it was happening now while they were still in Japan and not when they relocated to LA—more surprises in this chaotic lifetime. 

Finally, his thumb found a button on the side and pressed it, sending twisting flares of blue electricity to spark momentarily in his face. So it works. Good. Hopefully, he would not have to use it—whatever the bastard wanted out there, he can take it and leave. 

Kagami pressed himself against the back wall of Tatsuya’s closet, obscured slightly by boxes of his shoes and his hanging coats. Though he still had a good view of the room through the cracks of the door, at the perfect angle of the bedroom’s entrance where the pictures were still laid in a disarray on the floor by the open drawer. 

The footsteps trailed ominously around the house and so far, Kagami has not heard anything being picked up or opened downstairs. He would have suspected that the first thing the guy would do is make a grab at Tatsuya’s plasma TV or all the man’s watches which he leaves by the foyer or even all the expensive plates in the kitchen and cabinets. Anything really. But no, all he could hear were footsteps dragging methodically from room to room, a hunter on the trail of something else bigger. 

Was he not here to rob them? What was he searching for?

A thousand thoughts raced through Kagami’s mind and they all went blank the moment he could hear the intruder climb up the stairs—heavy boots hitting the wood, echoing the intentions of the lone hunter. What he was searching for must be precious if he touched nothing else downstairs and Kagami did not want to find out what it was.  

He lifted the taser up to his chest, ignoring how hot his blood was running as though he were racing at a hundred miles an hour. Something was throbbing at the back of his eyes and he bit his lip to stiffen a groan when those footsteps sounded from down the hall—louder and louder, slowly approaching the mouth of Tatsuya’s bedroom. 

Then Kagami saw it: the hulking form of the hooded shadow crept through the open door. 

He still couldn’t see the man’s face as it was far too dark to make out any features. But what he did see as plain as a summer’s day was the extraordinarily long knife he was wielding. Its silver tongue gleamed dangerously in the glow of the night light and Kagami’s eyes followed it slowly around the room as the man began to kick and poke at Tatsuya’s furniture. 

He then stopped right at the open drawer where all the pictures had fallen to the floor. The man looked down with his back turned to the closet door and eventually bent down to pick up one of the photos. Kagami had to squint through the thin slits of the door to make out that the intruder was looking at that childhood photo of him and Tatsuya. 

Why was he here? What sort of valuables did Tatsuya have for this man to search the house so aimlessly? 

The knife shone in the darkness and Kagami’s heart skipped a beat. 

What if he wasn’t here to rob? 

He could not imagine that Tatsuya has done anything that warrant a hit man coming after him but then again, he wouldn’t know. His friend seldom liked to talk about work in any capacity and grew annoyed when Kagami tried to press him at times. What if his business was seedy and perhaps that was why Tatsuya could afford so much, including a nice house like this in the countryside. 

Kagami covered his mouth when the man ripped the photo out of its broken frame with just the print in his gloved hand. He held it up to his face before ripping it in half. The man then, in a surprise action, pocketed one of the halves and crumbled the other, tossing it to the floor.

The redhead’s stomach groaned.

Suddenly, the intruder spun around and Kagami quickly moved back behind the hanging forest of coats, holding the taser up with his muscles tight and ready to launch out. The footsteps began again this time approaching the closet itself. Angry, dragging, and belonging to someone who definitely sounded heavier and stronger than both Kagami and Tatsuya put together. 

The redhead had to swallow his own breath when the man stood right at the closet door, his figure overshadowing the thin slits and blocking out whatever light was coming through. Kagami could feel his hands go sweaty around the weapon, his thumb frantically trying to locate the button on the side. And the man’s breathing, this eerily stilted and methodical pattern of a predator, gradually became more labored as though he caught some sign that he wasn’t alone in the house. 

Kagami could see a gloved hand reach out, fingers coiling around the closet’s handle. And the redhead held out the taser with one tense thumb ready on the charge button. His heart was racing to explode like a dead star somewhere in space—alone and cold. 

Suddenly, the house was bathed in the flash of red and blue lights as a siren screamed throughout the house. 

The intruder gave a low curse and made a mad dash out the room, his footsteps echoing across the house loudly until Kagami could catch the sound of the back door being forced open and slammed shut. Then, he could hear no more save for the blaring sirens of the police.  

Kagami slowly slipped out of the closet, his eyes stinging from the swinging flash of the red and blue lights from the window. He blinked slowly, looking around the room to stabilize himself—to calm the hot rush of his blood, and how loud his heart had been screaming at him. 

The man staggered about for a moment and readied to go downstairs to greet police before something caught his eye: the other half of the photo the intruder had crumpled up and threw to the floor. He slowly picked it up and straightened it.

It was of young Tatsuya, his arm now linked around no one. 

“Police! Drop your weapons and keep your hands up!” 

Heavy footsteps clamored up the stairs followed by the frantic dance of high industrial flashlights crossing the space between the hallway and Tatsuya’s bedroom. Kagami dropped the photo and obeyed, his head too dizzy to even speak as multiple officers flooded the room with their guns raised and all pointed at the stunned redhead. 

“Move out the way, goddammit! Let me see!”

Like the red sea, they automatically parted, making room for what was clearly their captain stomping into the room. Because of the violent flare of all their flashlights, Kagami could hardly see his face, only that he was a heavily uniformed man standing slightly taller than him with a stronger build. The captain approached him and with a single motion, gestured for his men to lower their lights. 

Kagami blinked, spider webs ebbing painfully at the corner of his eyes until the world returned to him slowly. 

In front of him, an entire envoy of police and their intimidating leader of a man standing over him.

A man who leaped from the depths of Kagami’s dreams and into the world of the living, so unbelievably real and unreal at the same time that the redhead wondered if he was dreaming, having fallen asleep on the couch earlier. Maybe there was no break in. Maybe there was no man with a knife who stole his picture. 

Maybe Aomine Daiki wasn’t standing in front of him as an actual creature of flesh and blood and not of hearsay legend. 

The men stared at each other, the serious rage in Aomine’s face twisting inward to white, unabashed shock as though he were sharing Kagami’s exact surprise and panic.  

Kagami wanted to say something but no words left his mouth; his heart was in his throat, his mind was long shot and laid dead in his skull, and all he could do was stand so utterly still that he could impress a statue. He stood still even when Aomine dropped his flashlight and stepped forward, closing the space between them until the redhead could smell the telltale scent of Aomine’s cologne—just like in the dream, the smell of mountain pine—and reached out to touch Kagami’s cheek with his gloved hand.

This has to be a dream. He was dreaming and Tatsuya was coming home soon and Aomine Daiki did not exist anywhere else but in his head where everything was warm and safe and happy. 

Aomine drew close until their faces were inches apart, his dark blue eyes wide and with elation.

He started to laugh, unhinged and relieved. 

“I knew it,” Aomine hissed to himself, possessed and manic. “I knew this was where that bastard was hiding you. I finally found you, Taiga.” 

Kagami opened his mouth to speak but all that emerged was this night’s dinner all over the floor. Then the world started to spin before falling on its side and going black. 

He slept without a dream this time. 

XXX

Tatsuya, of course, had come back from his trip a day early and reacted exactly as Kagami had expected: 

By becoming more protective and unpredictably hostile in the face of great distress. Which translated to Kagami unable to leave his sight once, his short-term freedom now revoked in place of a constant, paranoid guardian.

The redhead never told Tatsuya about his encounter with Aomine for when he woke up after fainting, a robbery investigator had already been assigned to their case with the chief-of-police already having returned to Tokyo central for a bigger emergency. 

And Tatsuya was none the wiser. 

Kagami figured that fated reunion with Aomine was to be kept a secret, something for him to remember over and over again like tasting a piece of candy in hiding. This was necessary, especially with Tatsuya’s now heightened paranoia who began to trail Kagami’s every movement with an unwavering eye. 

No more nights alone at home, no more sole trips to the grocery store or elsewhere. They needed to stay together at all times and Kagami could feel the bell jar closing around him, the noose now tight and ready. 

Naturally, Tatsuya’s strained nerves did not calm even a week after when Kuroko and Momoi stopped by to visit again.

This time, they had brought a guest. 

“...What is he doing here?’ was all Tatsuya could ask as he leaned against the doorway of the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest with a cold, near-murderous glare aimed right at the tall man standing in the foyer with Kuroko and Momoi. 

Aomine Daiki. So he was real. 

Kagami kept himself quiet but his eyes could not leave the sight of the chief-of-police standing in his house—still in his dark cloaked uniform with the silver badge of Tokyo’s metropolitan police department strapped as a shiny emblem on his arm. 

Aomine stepped forward and took off his hat, a professional’s sharp gaze heightened in his eyes. 

“I did not arrive with these two. We just so happen to come at once,” he explained with Momoi behind him giving out an audible sigh of relief. “Can we speak Himuro-san? It’s concerning the break-in last week.” 

Tatsuya scoffed. “Taiga and I already told your investigator everything. He just told us to call our insurance company. I don’t see why we need a follow-up from higher administration.”  

“You forget yourself.” Aomine gave a dry sort of laugh but Kagami could hear that there was no humor anywhere in his voice. “I’m not an admin despite what my position might imply—I lead the homicide unit, Himuro-san.” 

“Homicide? No one died though.” 

“Yes, no one died here. But we have much reason to suspect that the one who broke into your house is a renowned serial killer we have been searching for months. Before your break-in, your neighbors two houses down were actually mutilated to death.” 

No one spoke. Not even Tatsuya whose face merely turned stony pale at the news. Kuroko and Momoi exchanged a worried look behind Aomine and the police officer shifted his gaze over to Kagami who stood perfectly still against the wall when their eyes met. That smoldering fire again. The intense electricity that seemingly traveled from one body to another across the room. Aomine’s harsh solemn expression softened, almost to a yearning, worshiping look and spoke directly to Kagami this time. 

“I would like to interview you and Tai—I mean Kagami-san. And discuss some plans to ensure that you two stay safe during our investigation,” he stated cordially. 

Tatsuya did not reply right away. His head tilted against the doorway frame, eyes cast down, and it was at least clear to Kagami that the man was now trying to scrutinize the new situation they found themselves in, Kagami himself, and most importantly, Aomine’s intentions. His hand instinctively reached up and grasped the silver ring hanging from his neck. 

Kagami did the same to mimic him and whatever doubts and hesitations plagued Tatsuya’s mind must have washed for he produced a small smile before turning back to Aomine.  

“Fine. We will talk to you, inspector.”

Aomine nodded. “And I hope you find it agreeable that I interview you two...separately.” 

Tatsuya arched a brow. “Any reason? The break-in concerns both of us.” 

“Yes, but you were not together when it happened. You were out of the city and Kagami-san here was at home. We would like your accounts individually. It’s simply a procedure.” 

“Procedure. Fine. Whatever you say.” 

“Great.” 

Aomine then ripped up two pages from his yellow slip and handed it to Tatsuya and Kagami. On it was an appointment notification for a police interview down at the central Tokyo station for Friday morning. Kagami looked up and caught Aomine staring intently at him. 

A feverish, wanting look of a man utterly starved. 

“Please come half an hour early so we can get some witness paperwork done for the homicide unit. Then you two will be called into your individual interview rooms. Do remember to have breakfast and to hydrate as it might take a few hours before you are let go.” He then adjusted his cap back on his head and tilted it down to shield his face, to hide his expression. “I thank you both for your cooperation and we will see you two soon.” 

With that, the man awkwardly gave a departing nod to both Kuroko and Momoi before slipping out the door and into the coldness of the evening night. Everyone watched him go, all motionless, before Momoi turned around and gave a cotish sort of laugh. 

“So...I’m guessing this is a bad time for some late night tea?” 

XXX

Tatsuya was eerily quiet for the rest of the week.

It was the sort of silence that reminded Kagami keenly of death, an unspoken rule in the household to never utter their name lest their ghost begin to haunt their walls and floors. The days leading up to Friday were the most unbearable by far with the veil of silence permeating every room in the house until Kagami was sure that he was slowly suffocating from it. 

Tatsuya, on the other hand, just stood in the darkness of the kitchen, cutting either meats and vegetables for their meal preps with the slow thud of the knife being the only sound echoing in the house. 

It was making Kagami go mad. 

Friday finally rolled around and the dreadful day began with a violent rainstorm. Kagami just stood on the porch, watching the downpour veil the countryside in a thick curtain, hiding Tokyo’s nearby neon skyscrapers. Tatsuya joined him, his expression muted as he stared off at the rolling pours of water rolling down the roof and onto the steps below. 

A cold breeze came through and sprinkled raindrops on Kagami’s bare arm. As icy as the Tokyo river in winter. 

Kagami chuckled. “Think we can reschedule?” 

The man turned to him, lips thin and twisted into a frown. “This is the Tokyo Metropolitan Police department, not a dinner reservation.”

“Sorry,” Kagami muttered sheepishly.

“Let’s just go,” Tatsuya sighed out, propping his coat over his head and preparing to run out into the rain. 

Neither of them spoke to each other as they started the long drive into the central city with the heavy rains beating down on the windshield. Kagami just squeezed the water out of his T-shirt, slightly irritated by how the fabric was clinging to his bare skin—pulling at his back and stomach. He craned his head over and spotted Tatsuya quickly looking away and back on the road with his face awkwardly muddled.  

Was something out of place? 

“...How are you feeling?” Kagami asked quietly, sitting back against his seat and winching at how his shirt tightened wetly around his chest.

Tatsuya scoffed. “I just can’t wait for this meaningless interview to be over. The police have wasted enough of our time on this. They should be out there trying to catch the bastard, not bother us again.” 

“Come on, man. It’s just the one interview and that should be it. Might as well help their investigation a bit further.” 

“I doubt it.” 

“You’re awfully chipper this morning.” 

“I’d rather be inside with you when it’s raining this hard. Besides, knowing that bastard, he’ll come back around again and again to no end…” 

Kagami arched a brow at the man, his heart for the first time, calm and bold. He lolled his head against the seat, eyes lidded, and asked clearly: “What’s your problem with Aomine?” 

“Excuse me?” Tatsuya asked in a low voice of warning. 

“You heard me. What’s your issue with him? Even before he showed up, you were already on edge and now, you’re absolutely stressed as though the world is ending.” 

“Please. The world is not ending because of Aomine Daiki.”

“You certainly act like it—”

“Taiga.” The dark-haired man gripped the leather of the steering wheel, his face pale. “Please.”

Kagami sat up, suddenly provoked. “No, tell me. The whole point of us living together was so I can slowly gain my memories back. What’s the point of withholding a huge part of my past that was supposed to help me, Tatsuya?!” 

“I’m trying to protect you.” 

“Protect me? From what? Some fucking cop?” 

“That ‘cop’ is the reason why you almost died.” Silence followed by a sharp intake of breath. “He is the reason behind so many misfortunes with you for the past ten years or so. Before your accident, you were sleeping over at my place because you couldn’t bear to go back home and see his face again. I never seen you so...broken before. So I thought it was best if you forgot about him for good.” 

Kagami did not speak right away. None of what Tatsuya was saying made any sense. All of his dreams were bathed in the warmth of sunlight and the words of a long lost lover. He started to pick at the sapphire ring around his finger again, suddenly overwhelmed with a cold sort of a dread that seemed familiar to him. 

That he felt this way before and it was finally emerging to remind him of a sin he had forgotten to remember. 

“...What exactly did he do?”

Tatsuya laughed. And then he smiled at Kagami, oddly cruel.

“Oh, why don’t you ask the man yourself?” 

The rest of the drive was done in utter silence with just the calming hum of the rain beating down against the car soothing any fuzzy spikes in Kagami’s already hot blood. He could feel his hands clam together nervously as they eventually rounded into the parking lot of the police department—this steel-cold abstract shaped building that jutted high into the thick fog of the thunderstorm, resembling more like the set of a 1970’s dystopian prison somewhere in Eastern Europe with all those sharp edges and lack of windows than a central police station. 

Then again, Aomine did specify that this was the homicide investigation unit they were speaking to, not normal civilian police, so perhaps this was designed intentionally to make every potential murder suspect confess faster. Kagami stared at it through the veil of rain—yeah, he definitely would confess if he was being interrogated in the Japanese equivalent of a Dr. Caligari setting. 

The pair went inside, blinded by the harsh flash of fluorescent lighting that illuminated all the walls to be this unbearably white color. Of course, Tatsuya managed through it by filling out all the required paperwork at the front desk, muttering to himself the whole time while Kagami watched in silence. 

It was a peculiar thing to find themselves in. He never thought he would become the witness of a potential murder but here he was. And he was nowhere near close to regaining his memories back, it seems. All just scattered dreams with little meaning or context. 

Once all the paperwork was done, the pair were instantly greeted by two officers waiting at two separate doors on each side of the main closed-in desk—official escorts, it seems. Tatsuya could not hide the derisive scoff under his breath and shook his head in disbelief.

“Look at them, treating us like we murdered someone. Aren’t we the victims in this case?” 

“It’ll only be for an hour or two.” Kagami looked to the left door where his escort began to gesture impatiently for him to approach. He forced an awkward smile at Tatsuya. “We can just go home after and put everything behind us.” 

“God, I hope.” 

“Just don’t give them any incriminating information.” 

“You think I do that?” 

“Maybe. You look like you would participate in some seedy underworld stuff,” Kagami joked, tilting his head to the side.

Tatsuya actually laughed in return. “Hm. See you on the other side then, stupid.” 

“See ya.” 

He tried not to show his apprehension as the officer pulled him away by the arm gently, leading him away from Tatsuya and down this solitary dark hallway with just the harsh glow of the overhead light illuminating the cement pathway to a lone door at the very end. 

Perhaps he really was a murder suspect 

XXX

Kagami was not sure how long he was there for. There was no clock on the wall to indicate the flow of time nor were there any windows for him to peer out of. Just a dark square room with cement walls, a single light bulb suspended from the far ceiling and swinging slightly over his head, casting his stilted shadow all along the floor. They gave him a glass of water, which he hardly touched during the three short chats he had with three different men, all of whom just seemed like time filters before the actual detective showed up. 

Kagami looked around the room, eyeing at the water stains that darkened the cement before riveting his gaze at the door. Someone was coming down the hall—he could hear their footsteps echoing, growing louder and louder until it practically boomed against the steel door. 

Whoever it was on the other side was not like the others who came and checked up on him. There was a sort of dominance present that instantly made Kagami tense up—their presence suffocating and heavy even through the door. A large shadow slipped right under the crack, darkening the room, and Kagami watched as the knob gave a sudden jolt before being shoved open, the hinges screeching irritably in his ears.

A man stepped in. Kagami kept his gaze down at his hands but he instantly knew who it was. Only one person managed to make him this nervous and hot. A chair screeched against the floor before someone’s heavy body sat down right across from him—a bare forearm laid over the table, white sleeves rolled up and muscles tight. His eyes caught a hint of a tattoo peeking right just under the fabric: it looked like a panther. 

“Taiga,” a deep voice called out to him, dripped with both adoration and fatigue. “Can you look up? I don’t bite.” 

Kagami reluctantly obeyed, more so out of a sudden flash of irritation at the person’s casual mockery of him. Of course, whatever anger the redhead had instantly flooded when he met face to face with the wickedly handsome face of a predator in wait. 

Aomine Daiki smiled, showing off the white of his canine. 

Fuck. 

“There you go. There’s my cute, slightly air-headed guy.”

Kagami ignored the stinging in his ears. “Aren’t you supposed to be an interrogator?” 

“Calm down. I’m still here to do my job. But you gotta cut me some slack—it’s been so long since I've been alone with you.” Aomine stared at him, his blue eyes wide and radiant. “How have you been? You know...up there?” 

“Uh, no physical permanent damage but my memory is absolutely shot.” 

“Yeah, so I’ve been told. You know, I tried to find you after the accident. Called every hospital in Tokyo.” 

Kagami blinked “Did you?” He asked, his tone controlled to mask his delight. 

Aomine nodded but his smile twisted a bit, revealing just a hint of anger. “Oh yeah. Trouble is that no one was willing to tell me whether or not they had you since we weren’t ‘family’. Even Satsuki and Tetsu were tight-lipped for some reason. By the time I was able to locate you, they had already taken you away.” 

“Oh.” 

“Do you even remember me, Taiga?” 

Kagami stared at the man in front of him—the stranger who wore the face of a man that haunted his evenings. Those fleeting memories belonged to someone else entirely and he wasn’t so sure if he could claim them as his anymore. No doubt, the person everyone remembered fondly was probably good and dead, replaced by this mindless, drooling husk of a man. Aomine waved his hand in front of his eyes, his expression growing impatient with every pass of silence between them, and Kagami shook his head. 

“Bits and pieces here but not enough. Sorry...I really don’t remember you,” he admitted quietly. 

Aomine sat back in his chair, expression suddenly muted. “Ah,” was all he could say.

Disappointment? Grief? Anger? 

Kagami was not sure. He just watched as the man reached for a carton of cigarettes in his leather jacket and lit one to his mouth, the flame briefly illuminating the hollow dark rings under his eyes. When Aomine offered some to Kagami, he shook his head.

“Shame. Makes me feel less of a piece of shit if someone is doing it with me,” the inspector said with a low laugh, pushing the carton pack into his breast pocket. “If you don’t like the smell, let me know. I can put it out.” 

“I don’t mind.” 

“It’s strange hearing you say that. Just last year, you kept a squirt bottle on hand in case you caught me with one of these.” 

“Sounds like you didn’t end up quitting after all then.”

That was meant as a joke but Kagami instantly regretted saying anything when Aomine just stared at him with an almost painted, grieving look. Before the redhead could retract his words, the inspector had quickly turned taciturn and cold with any forthcoming friendliness gone from his shoulders—he produced a legal pad and a tape recorder from his bag and placed it on the table, his posture stiff with the sort of authoritative professionalism one could expect from a high level cop.

“I just want to let you know that I will be recording this session for our investigation. Anything you say can and will be held in a court of law. You have the right to remain silent and request an attorney at your choosing or the state’s at any time,” Aomine recited bluntly with a hardened gaze. 

Kagami clasped his hands together, ignoring the hot, spinning ball in the pit of his stomach. “...Uh, am I in trouble? This makes it sound like I’m in trouble.”

“This is just a procedure. Everyone is read their rights whether they’re a witness or a suspect. Do you comply?” 

“...I guess.” 

“Great.” Aomine turned on the tape recorder and set it down between them. It blinked red between intervals of three. “Don’t be so nervous. I just want to pick your brain a bit about the events of that night. See if anything stood out to help our boys along with the investigation. Does it make sense?” 

“Yeah, sure, go ahead.” 

“Kagami-san, could you describe to me what you were doing Monday night of this week?” 

For the next few minutes or so, Kagami slowly went over in detail on the events leading up and during the break-in itself. Of course, he had some time to sleep on it, to cultivate a real sense of paranoia enough where he was sure he probably skipped a few details here and there. The man finally concluded by stating that the last thing the intruder took was a childhood picture of himself and nothing else in the house save for leaving the front door smashed in with pieces of glass everywhere

When Kagami was finally done, he looked up and caught Aomine staring at him from across the table with a gaze sharp enough to piece cold steel. The inspector slowly took out his cigarette, tapping it on a nearby ash tray, before letting it rest between his long fingers. They stared at each, the silence practically eating the redhead up—did he say something weird? Did he leave something out? 

“Taiga,” Aomine started tonelessly, almost unimpressed. “Let me ask you something.” 

“Shoot.”

“What were you doing at Himuro’s house?” 

Kagami blinked. “Uh. Watching TV?”

“No, why were you at Himuro’s house—let’s put it that way.” 

“Oh. Uh, we’re living together.” 

“I see.” Something shifted in the inspector’s expression but it was too quick for Kagami to catch. “And I suppose this arrangement was made because of your memory loss?” 

“Well, Tatsuya was the only one at the hospital who knew me intimately and I guess he was my emergency contact. I had no one else so they agreed that I would live with him during my recovery,” he explained, growing more and more confused on how any of this mattered to the murder investigation.  

Aomine took a long huff of his cigarette; his movements seemed more eccentric than before he breathed out slowly, allowing the veil to mask his face from sight. He leaned forward until Kagami could smell the bitter smoke from his breath—he actually did dislike it intensely. 

“I see. And you were roommates with Himuro during the break-in, yeah?” 

“That’s right.”

“Roommates. And nothing else?” 

“What? How does this relate to the investigation?” 

The inspector slowly tilted his head. There was something dangerous about the way he was looking at Kagami—a mixture of resentment, longing, and rage mixed up into one twisted abomination that was fighting to release itself. The man’s long, dark fingers rapped erratically on the steel table before they clenched into a tight fist and rested at his side. And Aomine smiled with his teeth. 

“I’ve been in this business for a very long time. Trust me. I know what I am doing. Now, please answer the question.” 

Kagami rubbed the back of his neck, finding it hard to breathe—finding it hard that this was the man that laced his body with soft kisses and promises of lazy afternoons. He even put Himuro’s cold anger to shame. 

“Well...I suppose Tatsuya and I have known each other for a very long time. He is very kind and attentive to my needs and…I guess he had feelings from before my accident that he just never expressed before until now. It’s safe to say that we’re roommates but—” 

“He wants more, right?” 

Where was this going? This was not what he had been expecting from any interrogation. Even just revealing those private moments of his home life was making the man turn fidgety and scarlet at the thought of Himuro cornering him against a wall again with that animalistic look in his cold eye. 

Aomine’s fingers rapped the table loudly. 

“Do you know if Himuro has any enemies?” He asked, changing the subject to Kagami’s relief.

“Not that I’m aware of. He doesn’t really talk about work much.”

“What does he talk about then?”

“Uh, I guess our childhood a lot. Sometimes things I used to do back before the accident. My work at the fire station. Us in school...just recollections. Nothing else really.” 

“Did he ever invite anyone over to the house?”

“Just Kuroko and Momoi-san. We tend to have dinners together often.”

“...I see.” 

The inspector then muttered something dark in his breath and let out another huff of smoke, clearly growing more irritable by the second. He even started to nervously tap his heel against the cement floor, the sound ricocheting off of the walls.

Finally, after a moment, Aomine leaned forward, attention more rapt than ever. “Did he ever mention me?” He asked quietly. 

“Yeah,” Kagami admitted without a beat. “Only when I brought you up and that was to tell me not to ever mention you again.”

“Hah! He hasn’t changed then. You know, he never liked me. Not ever.” 

“Y-Yeah, I figured.”

“Did he tell you why you weren’t allowed to talk about me?”

“No.” The redhead then looked at him straight on, his brows furrowed quizzically. “But he said I should ask you directly.” 

“Ah.”  

The two men did not move or speak for a minute, merely sitting in the shadow of a cold, smoky room without windows or natural light. Kagami kept his hands resting on the table, hoping his growing nervousness did not translate to any twitching and Aomine put out his cigarette, watching as the embers died away in the smushed ashes. Outside in the hallway, they could hear the breeze whistling through—probably from an open door. 

He wondered how Tatsuya was doing. 

Suddenly, something cold touched his fingers and Kagami almost jumped had he not noticed that Aomine had reached over from across the table and grasped his hand. He watched, utterly silenced, as the inspector slowly pushed his dark, cold fingers around his—softly running over the lines of his palm before feeling every single finger, moving methodically as though Aomine were handling something precious and cherished. 

Then, he stopped; his fingers latched around the sapphire band on Kagami’s ring finger. 

Oh, that look. Kagami’s been here before. Not in this room exactly but in this exact scenario with these exact feelings. So terribly harsh and painful and hot. He could feel his head swelling when Aomine’s expression turned bitterly soft. 

“You still kept it,” he murmured as though no one else was with him. “I thought you threw it away.” 

“Who are you to me?” Kagami asked suddenly. Even though he knew the answer. He knew for a long time now. The ring on his finger. The dreams of those lazy days of intimacy. Tatsuya’s hot jealousy. Momoi’s desperation. 

But he needed to hear it from Aomine himself. 

The man did not say a word right away. Instead, he watched Kagami closely, rolling his tongue inside his mouth slowly before letting out a soundless sigh. Resignation and something tasting bitter like dread made apparent on his face. And the inspector hung his head. 

“We are—were engaged,” Aomine admitted quietly, still rubbing the ring around Kagami’s finger. 

“Yeah. I figured. Why did we break up?” 

When the inspector said nothing, the redhead laughed—mostly out of the harsh sting in his chest. If he truly lost himself then how could he feel such intense emotions for a man he literally knows nothing about?

“I guess if you’re not telling me, then it must be bad. That’s fine. I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore since it sounded like we haven’t been together in a while. Besides, I don’t think I’ll be getting my memories back anytime and I’m fine starting anew with Tatsuya in America anyhow.” 

Aomine’s expression hardened. “Excuse me? America?” He repeated as though the redhead just cursed at him.

Kagami nodded absently. “We’re set to return to L.A. probably next month for good. He wants me to see a special doctor for my amnesia but even if I don’t end up remembering anything, I don’t mind trying to start fresh with him.” 

Perhaps the idea did not sit well with him at first, mostly from this invisible attachment he had with Tokyo. But considering everything now, Kagami had come around to this fantasy that sunny California would be a nice step in the direction for him and Tatsuya—where their childhood blossomed and bitterly ended all at once.

There was too much pain here in Japan anyway for both of them.

But the daydream ended when Aomine laughed. This mirthless and spiteful sound that echoed a buried memory deep with Kagami that slipped out and into his heart like poison. 

This was all just a game, idiot. And you got played. 

When Kagami tried to pull his hand away from the inspector, he found it locked tightly in an iron vice—Aomine tugged him harshly across the table until their faces were inches apart. The madness and desperation radiated in his eyes like a dying man in the desert. 

“Oh but you can’t leave, Kagami-san. You forget that you and Himuro are now witnesses in a murder investigation and by law, you must remain in Japan until I say so,” Aomine said, still laughing bitterly. 

You got played. 

“You can’t be fucking serious,” Kagami retorted back harshly, resisting to push the crazy cop back. 

“I am incredibly serious. If you two even think about fleeing in the middle of the night, I drag you back in handcuffs overseas. Take my word on this.” 

“We didn’t kill anyone. Our house was the one that was broken into or did you fucking forget?” 

“Oh, I’m aware. But maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to rule out that maybe it was an inside job.” 

Kagami stood up, practically knocking the entire table over with the sudden force of his body. He slammed his fists on the top and glared down at Aomine who merely sat back, one leg over his knee, with that shit-eating grin on his wicked face. 

Asshole. 

“We didn’t kill anyone,” he declared with his heart beating hot in his ears. 

Aomine shrugged. “I believe maybe you didn’t but we can’t account for your friend there. You weren’t with him those hours between him leaving the house and your neighbor getting gutted two houses down.” 

“Tatsuya is not a killer.”

“Really? Do you even know what the guy does for his job?”

Kagami sat back down, his face red with the rage of defeat. He even had to clench and unclench his hands to calm himself though he was not sure if it was even working really. 

“He never told me,” he admitted with a mumble. 

And Aomine scoffed mockingly. “Wow. Kinda embarrassing for a guy who grew up with Himuro-san his entire life,” he said with a half-laugh.

“I lost my memories.” 

“Then why should I take your word to rule Himuro-san out as potentially not being a killer? You can’t even recall a single detail about the guy’s private life in general.” 

“I’m glad…”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m glad I drove my car into the Tokyo river. So at the very least,” Kagami looked up and into Aomine’s eyes with all the world’s sadness, hatred, and loneliness in them, “I could forget about you in my heart.” 

Aomine did not speak. The arrogance and cruelty of a predator instantly washed away upon Kagami’s words, replaced by a brief passing of raw self-loathing and rippling grief that could only belong to those who lost greatly and could never recover again.

And then, nothing. 

The inspector turned cold and taciturn as he reached for the recorder and clicked it off. 

He stood up and turned away from Kagami. 

“We’re done here. You can go home now, Kagami-san,” Aomine said without looking at him. 

“Will that really be all? You barely interviewed me about the killer.” 

“When we need you, we will call upon you. Go back with your little friend.” 

With that, Kagami departed without so much as a delightful thought of the inspector anymore. 

Tatsuya was truly right to despise him. 

XXX

Against Kagami’s wishes, he had another dream about Aomine Daiki. 

It was at someone else’s house—a warm beige house faintly smelling of lavender and peaches and decorated wall-to-wall in black framed pictures of the New York skyline with those towering skyscrapers alight at night. There were platters of cheese and crackers on every glass table alongside sparkling glasses of pink champagne.  

Other people were here, people Kagami somehow knew because he could feel the friendliness in his own heart. Kuroko and Momoi were there—the latter dressed lavishly as though she were attending some ceremony in a flowing pink dress with her hair pinned up into a stylized bun. Kuroko, on the other hand, just wore a simple suit with the sort of elegance that it was clear his partner had chosen for him. 

A sign was held over the foyer wall: Happy Engagement Day! 

Someone pulled a confetti bomb where it exploded over the adoring couple and everyone burst out into a fit of laughter—glasses clinking and hands clapping as Momoi and Kuroko happily shielded themselves from the onslaught of confetti bombs that followed the first. 

Kagami watched, the smile on his face so wide that it was starting to hurt. He has a blue lapel pin attached to the front of his breast pocket that Kuroko playfully put on him earlier after their usual smoke-talk outside. It said: Best Man. 

Then a strong arm linked around his waist and pulled him into a stronger body—the smell of mountain pine filled his nose and someone buried their face into the side of his exposed neck with a sigh. A smile marked his skin. 

“Hey. Take a look at those two. Pretty sappy huh?” 

“What do you mean? That was us just a few months ago.” 

“I know. I bet Satsuki took some ideas from our crazy old party cause man, this is deja vu.” 

Kagami gave a low chuckle. “What? Are you claiming plagiarism on engagement parties now?” He asked, bringing his hand out and clasping it over his fiancé’s, which was tightly wound around his waist. 

Aomine Daiki laughed against his neck, his vice tightening around Kagami. “Absolutely. She’s jealous.” 

“Well, she and Kuroko are pulling off this party wayy better than ours.” 

“How so?” 

“For one, they don’t have five grown men drunk in the living room. Look, Takao actually isn’t pissing off four eyes for once. They’re pretty civil here.” 

“Pfff.” Aomine looked up, grinning as though he found money in the desert—the sort of happiness that was too infectious for Kagami’s composure. “Our party was fun. This feels too neat.” 

“Shut it. Here they come.” 

As expected, Aomine did not latch himself from Kagami to the redhead’s irritation as the couple approached them from a crowd of ‘congratulations’. Momoi immediately switched from her lovely hostess face to that natural, annoyed pout she got whenever she locked eyes with Aomine. Kuroko merely sighed, clearly relieved to be away from performing and gave Kagami a weary sort of smile that made him seem older than what he really was. 

“Well, well, well, I’m surprised you’re not trying to down the bottle of champagne already, Dai-chan,” she started, rolling her eyes at the man. 

Aomine scoffed as he rested his chin against Kagami’s broad shoulder. “Please. Champagne? That’s not my style. Besides, I promised this one that I would be driving back tonight.” 

“How rarely responsible of you.” 

“Mocking me already, Kuroko-chan?” 

Momoi’s face turned to a shade akin to her hair and she tugged her fiancé close to her, almost as a shield. Kuroko, of course, just gave a funny sort of shrug and allowed himself to be pushed and pulled like a doll—this was always their dynamic and, honestly, Kagami thought it was sweet. 

“I’m not Kuroko yet, Daiki. That said, did you two even talk about whose family names you will take? Knowing how you two operate, it’ll probably be a dragged out fight for dominance,” she retorted with a frown. 

Kagami gave a long winded sigh. “Well, I told this one here that it’s pretty common in America for there to be a combined name with a hyphen if the couple doesn’t want to sacrifice their family names. Makes it pretty equal between both parties,” he explained, ignoring as Aomine’s hands began to playfully roam down his back. 

Bastard.

“Yup. And my name comes first in the order,” the dark-skinned man explained with a grin. 

“Yeah, and—what? When did we agree to that?” 

“Just now. I thought of it.”

“Without asking me? Why does your name come first?” 

“Cause I’m still better than you at everything so it’s just natural that our kid should have my name come first.” 

Kagami arched his brow. “Okay when did we discuss adoption?” 

“Just now.” 

“Ah, we will leave you idiots to argue and bicker,” Momoi said, trying to hide her matter-of-fact smile behind a casual hand wave. “Besides, we have other matters to attend to. Other more important guests to talk to. Come on, Tetsu.” 

The pair watched as Kuroko was unceremoniously dragged away, back into the crowd of Momoi’s many friends and families who wanted to take different group photos with the newly engaged couple. Aomine gave a dry scoff beside him and turned around to grab a glass of champagne on a nearby counter top. 

“I thought you said you were driving tonight,” Kagami said as he watched the man give the glass a cautious sniff. 

“I am. I just don’t want to be completely dry at this party. It’s too...formal for my liking,” Aomine said and downed the drink in a single motion. “Besides, Satsuki will never forgive us if we try to dip early.” 

“Why would we dip early?”  

“Come on man. You really want to sit here and say hi to every person and take a dozen pictures in all four corners of the house with a bunch of Satsuki and Tetsu’s family members? Besides...” Aomine deposited the empty glass back on the counter top, leaning into Kagami with that grin—his hand back around the man’s waist, fingers pressed into his hip teasingly. His breath tingled with a touch of that rose alcohol. “I don’t think we had any proper alone time in a while…” 

Kagami gave an exasperated groan and at least feigned in pushing Aomine away. His eyes darted around and so far, no one seemed to notice the couple acting a bit out—everyone’s attention was all centered on Momoi and Kuroko. 

“Check yourself dummy. This ain’t the place to be grabby,” he warned beneath his breath. 

“Really? Because I don’t remember you saying that Kise’s dumb pool party last weekend—”

 “Aomine.” 

The pair both jolted and turned their heads to the side, meeting the bemused expression of none other than Shoichi Imayoshi—an old school mate of Aomine’s. Immediately, Aomine let Kagami go and gave the smiling bespectacled man a playful shove at his right shoulder. 

“Jesus man, you freaking scared us,” he started, giving off a laugh. “Where the fuck have you been?” 

“Around. There’s lots of interesting characters here tonight, I can’t help myself,” Imayoshi retorted back. He then turned to Kagami and the redhead could not help but feel the deep chill of something deeply unsettling as the man’s smile deepened, wide and catlike. 

He never liked Imayoshi but he was never sure why. Perhaps it was that smile. That mask. Like he was seeing through him.

“Kagami-san. It’s good to see you,” he started pleasantly and gave a slight, respectful nod. “Do you mind if I borrow your special person for a moment? There’s something I wish to share in private with him.” 

“Oh. Yeah sure, go ahead.” 

“Wonderful. Come now, Aomine. The others are waiting for you outside by the smoking parlor.” 

“Don’t you dare smoke now,” was all Kagami could say; Aomine gave a nonchalant hand gesture in agreement and followed the smiling man out through the crowd. 

No doubt he was going to go see his old team—still met up with them most weekends to drink and catch up. They all led different lives now as they slowly started to march towards their 30’s but Aomine very much still adored them enough to form a causal drinking group. 

Perhaps it was a trick of the eye but Kagami was sure he saw a ghost of a wicked smile from the corner of Imayoshi’s mouth directed right at him when Aomine began to follow him—for just a second, however, before both men disappeared behind the crowding bodies of friends and family. 

Maybe Kagami was going crazy. He needed a drink.

The redhead mumbled a few apologies as he moved through the crowd towards an end table pushed against the far wall that held ice-cold sodas floating in an icy water-filled basin. As he dipped his hand in and tried to fish out something with electrolytes, he felt someone’s breath kiss the back of his neck. Kagami chuckled. 

“Christ, that was a fast talk, asshole—” 

He turned around and went still upon the cold gaze of a long abandoned past he desperately tried to run from. But it came chasing him every time.

“Oh. Shit. Tatsuya, sorry, I didn’t see you there,” Kagami recovered quickly, holding a Sierra Mist in his soaked fist.

Tatsuya Himuro smiled, his usual radiant beauty draped in a sharp black-gray suit that made the man appear as some visiting foreign celebrity in a sea of normal, working people. He then delicately took the Sierra Mist from Kagami’s wet hand with just two fingers and opened it for himself. 

“Taiga, how are you enjoying yourself? Besides standing awkwardly in this corner and playing Go Fish,” the man started playfully and took a sip of his stolen soda, single eye twinkling. 

Kagami sighed and reached back into the basin. “Tired. I think Momoi invited too many people at this engagement party.”

“Well, she certainly is popular. Most of the people here are her family and friends anyway.” 

“And then there’s us,” Kagami said, finally fishing out a cherry coke. 

Tatsuya nodded and held his can up. “Indeed.” 

They toasted to each other and drank slowly, watching as Momoi’s mother began to wail against her husband’s chest at the sight of the couple taking a picture beneath a rosy-balloon arch in the foyer. More confetti bombs went off, probably from people who forgot to release them the first time. 

Tatsuya looked at him placidly. “So. Where did your little pet run off to?” 

“My ‘pet’ went out to drink with his old high school friends.” Kagami eyed him with a half smile. “You still aren’t around to it yet?”

“It’s...certainly strange. I just never thought you would be engaged before me…or rather, get engaged to such an interesting man.”

“Come on, Tatsuya. I know you don’t like Aomine but you have to give him a chance eventually.” 

The dark-haired man frowned deeply as the Sierra Mist audibly cracked in his grip. “He thought Chicago was a country, Taiga.” 

“I know but—” 

“He thinks Baja Blast was America’s source of drinking water.” 

“I mean, technically that’s—” 

“He thought it would be a good idea to have sex with you in my childhood race car when you brought him to L.A. And guess what? You actually complied.”

Kagami rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly sheepish. “We did get an offer to get you a new bed…”

“Let’s face it—your groom-to-be really isn’t the most likable person around, Taiga,” Tatsuya concluded, taking another—albeit irritated—sip of his sierra mist with the features on his elegant face hardened considerably. 

“Oh yeah? You constantly hang around with Yao Ming over there, let’s talk about that!” 

“Atsushi can be controlled if you know what to do. How do you reel in Aomine from his usual impulses besides sex?”  

When Kagami grew silent, his companion gave a short bemused laugh. Victory brimming plainly in his gray eye—another one of Tatsuya’s classic ‘I thought so’ moments. He really has not changed since childhood in many ways.

“I’ll come around eventually. You just have to give me time, Taiga,” he said, more or so as an olive branch seeing as how clearly flustered Kagami was getting. 

The redhead sighed. “I know. He’s not the most impersonal guy but...well he’s my guy and you both will be in my life for a very long time so I want things to go well,” he admitted quietly, eyes already scanning for Aomine’s head in the crowd. 

He’s probably still with Imayoshi in the smoking parlor. What in the world could they be chatting about?

“Besides. You’re way more handsome than me. You’ll definitely find someone Tatsuya and I will accept them wholeheartedly.”

“Sure.”

“You know, I never asked you…,” Kagami looked at his old friend with a mischievous smile, one that made him look a decade younger, “what’s your type by the way?” 

And Tatsuya stared at him straight on. “Elegant women.” A pause; his face glowing gently beneath the twinkling light of the house. 

“And redheads.” 

XXX

“You look like shit.” 

The unrecognizable creature in the kitchen with hollow dark eyes and unkempt hair raised his slightly chipped cup—Great Stupid Fucking Day—of black sludge coffee up to Kagami who stood cautiously in the doorway. He knew Tatsuya had not slept well at all since his interview at the police station but he honestly did not expect the man to look like death itself. 

Tatsuya’s usual smooth porcelain face had taken on an eerily pale quality that resembled more of a corpse than snow beauty; his raven locks, silky and fell so gently over his right eye, had taken on a more wild appearance as though the man had been hibernating for a month or so—a bit rugged in different directions and no longer acting as a mysterious curtain for his other eye, fully revealing the heavy fatigue on his face. 

He looked dead. 

Kagami rubbed his arms, suddenly shy, and pressed himself against the doorway’s frame as he watched Tatsuya sway in the silver morning light. No, he had not been sleeping well in the slightest, probably still enraged at the news that neither of them could leave Japan for America. They were stuck here until Aomine Daiki saw it fit to allow them to leave. 

And who knows when that will be. 

“Hey, any plans for today?” Kagami started off as causally as he could, avoiding Tatsuya’s sudden harsh gaze in his direction. 

“Probably just sitting here and rotting,” he replied back and turned away from the redhead to stare out the kitchen window that led to the miniature garden outside. Since it was winter, everything was dead so Tatsuya was effectively looking at a barren wasteland.

“You know, I don’t have any doctor appointments today….”

“Hm.” 

“And the forecast said it would be clear today—cold definitely, but clear all around...” 

“Yeah I saw…”

“Do you...I dunno if you’re down for this...but uh, take me out?” 

“Take you out? Take you out where? There’s no errands you have to run.” 

“No, I mean…” 

Fuck. This was harder than Kagami thought. He rolled his head against the doorway, feeling the burn in his cheeks. And it became even more difficult as the tense silence of the kitchen began to overstimulate his senses considerably. Tatsuya’s cold back was threatening him.

“What I mean to say is...take...me...out. You know?” 

“No. I don’t know.”

“No, you do. Like…” Kagami shut his eyes and wondered how the world he and Aomine got together if he could not even say these few phrases before feeling the need to jump off a cliff and plummet to his death. “...a date.” 

A loud metallic crash sang in the kitchen suddenly and it took Kagami a moment to realize that Tatsuya had dropped his coffee cup into the sink. His open hand was utterly drenched in black coffee. 

“Holy shit!” Kagami dashed over, grabbing Tatsuya’s hand that began to turn utterly warm to the touch. “Are you okay? Fuck! Why did you do that? Where’s the burn cream—” 

“Are you serious?” 

“What?!”

“Are you serious?” Tatsuya repeated with the urgency of a starving man; he grabbed Kagami’s arm and yanked the redhead close, his breath shallow and peppering the air between them with a bit of mad laughter. His eyes reflected a mirror—twenty-seven years of yearning and then some. “About taking you out on a date, I mean. Or are you fucking with me?” 

Kagami visibly cringed upon hearing the handsome man curse but managed to give a restrained nod. 

“I thought, you know, considering how this whole investigation is making us go a bit nuts, we could unwind a bit. Maybe go out for burgers or something…,” he said, slowly remembering that he did not exactly know what a typical date constituted besides eating and hanging out with someone. 

How did he and Aomine get together then? What in the world did they do? Kagami was even surprised he got far enough with getting officially engaged considering that he did not know the first thing about trying to romance someone. Of course, he was not going to blame his amnesia—Kagami was sure he was always like this, memories or no memories. 

It took a while before he realized that Tatsuya had been gawking at him for the last minute or so, his expression finally alight with any signs of corpse-like weariness gone, replaced by his usual unblemished grace. His slightly burnt hand (how was it that he was not feeling any pain?) was slowly crawling up Kagami’s forearm, white fingers caressing the skin almost as a physical reminder for Kagami to float back down and look at him. 

When the redhead did, their eyes locked and a wide smile cut across Tatsuya’s face. 

“I know a place,” was all he said, tilting his head to the side.  

A feeling of nostalgia sang in Kagami’s old heart and he suddenly felt a decade younger. 

XXX

It was sad to say but the real memory that flooded back to him that did not just come in the form of a wistful dream of a muscle-bound old love with a sharp white grin and a deep voice that echoed across the abyss of his head in a twisted swan song was that of a burger joint. 

Maji Burger. He used to come here when he was younger. With Kuroko and the team. 

Those scenes washed over him pleasantly and Kagami was lulled sweetly by the intoxication of it all. He remembered Kuroko, the boy who was never seen but was always there. He remembered many boys who he called his friends; his captain, the ever sharp and always serious Hyuga and the jovial, somewhat brotherly Kiyoshi. He remembered all of their names and he hated the fact that all it took was a cheap Japanese burger chain for him to recall. 

“What are you thinking of?” Tatsuya asked softly, smiling at Kagami from across their booth. They had chosen a more private part of the restaurant to eat, mostly from Tatsuya’s insistence that they did not need that many eyes on them at a time.

Kagami yawned as he began to idly take out the pickles of his burger and drop them onto his companion’s tray. “Nothing much. Maybe trying to force myself to remember stuff, you know,” he lied causally. 

“Don’t try so hard. Doctor says that it is supposed to come naturally.” 

“I don’t like waiting though.”

“I know you don’t, Taiga. That part of you hasn’t changed at all,” Tatsuya remarked, resting his chin on his hands and watching Kagami with absolute adoration. Sometimes, it made the redhead feel a bit naked under such an intense stare, unaware of why he was deserving of such worship. 

He gave a short, nervous laugh. “Man, I wish I could recall. I feel like I’m just borrowing someone else’s skin these days. And I think everyone is just waiting for the day the real Kagami comes back.” 

“You are the real Kagami.” 

“I sure hope I feel like it.” 

A pause; the redhead’s eyes riveted to Tatsuya’s face, intent on studying the man’s expression. As expected, Tatsuya was watching in return and even graced his rapt attention with a smile. There were hearts in those eyes, flushed with an aged kind of yearning that could make fine wine look cheap in comparison. It was so unexpectedly terrifying and weighed that Kagami suddenly felt shy. He tore his gaze away and focused on his oddly untouched cheeseburger.

“W-Why me?” he asked quietly. “Liking me, you know? I’m no one special.” 

“No one is special, I think. Some are luckier than others. More talented than others. But no one in this world is special. But you are to me.”

“Why though?”

“You were my first friend and I was yours. America was scary. L.A. had so many people. People like us and people not like us. And all we had was each other. And it felt...right to be with you. Seeing you smile and laugh and sleep and eat every day felt fulfilling. Like it was meant to be with you.”

Tatsuya’s hand crept across the table and clasped over Kagami's, long fingers curling into his skin as though he wanted to feel for something deeper than skin itself. He leaned in so very close, the light hitting Tatsuya’s eyes in that way which illuminated the swirling silver pigments in the pupil like droplets of ink in a basin. 

“I can still remember the day you came to me after practice...after he confessed to you,” Tatsuya sighed out, his voice taking on a notable edge like the curve of a knife. His eyes narrowed until they were no more than dark slits and he shook his head. “God. I never seen you so damn happy. Like you've been waiting for something to happen between you two since you first played together. And I’m wondering how different our lives could have been if I had confessed to you first.”

“Tatsuya—” 

“But it doesn’t matter now. Better late than never, right? And as far as I can tell, Inspector Aomine is not on this date with you.” He then smiled broadly, the shining victor reviling in his long-awaited kill. “I am.”

A soft whisper upon the lips, Kagami stayed perfectly still, almost afraid that if he moved, he were to spook the man on the other side as he drew close to him. So close, wading like an ocean climbing gradually upon an isolated beach’s lay; Tatsuya leaned across the table and, gingerly with the sort of gentleness Kagami would expect from a middle school virgin, pressed his lips against his. 

It reminded him of their very first kiss, actually. Maybe less forceful and desperate, but it was still the same bottomless hunger that went off starving for years finally sated in a singular act of a man left waiting for too long. Tatsuya latched their fingers together and Kagami could not help himself but gave out a low groan, opening his mouth for the man’s tongue to come though, pressing against his desperately. 

Kagami’s eyes slowly fluttered shut and, for a moment, he had completely forgotten that they were kissing in a dark corner of a Maji Burger, sitting at a sticky table and surrounded by some high school group’s leftovers on the adjacent tables. Almost. 

The redhead managed to gently push Tatsuya away, his cheeks burning; his companion looked more ruined with his raven hair slightly disheveled and silver eyes ravenous, touched with the sort of madness that made Kagami get hot under his threatening gaze. 

He squeezed their hands. 

“N-Not here...maybe after, but not here,” Kagami pleaded, his eyes darting quickly all around for any unsuspecting eyes. There were too many school children here, too many things to kill the mood. 

Tatsuya gave a breathy laugh. “Sure. I can be patient. But not for long, Taiga.”  

“God I need some fresh air. Any body of water around here?”

“That’s not a river you can drive into?” 

Kagami scoffed but was secretly relieved that the man’s anger over his accident had finally transitioned to a sort of playful mockery that only time could give. He sighed out and began to wrap up the rest of his meal, mildly surprised that he wasn’t able to finish his exceedingly large portions this time around. Something in the air was changing him.

“You know. Like a beach or something. A really large lake? I miss water badly,” he explained.

“You always were a water puppy back in L.A. Not that surfing here is any option considering that it’s still cold.” Tatsuya thought for a moment, rolling his tongue in his mouth. He then smiled, those silver eyes bright with a splendid notion. 

“Yeah, I think I know a place.” 

The drive was an hour and a half outside the city, not that Kagami minded. Since his medical release, the man had been feeling rather trapped for a while and whether that was because of Tatsuya’s natural possessiveness or the fact that his schedule consisted of going back and forth from the hospital, staying at home with Tatsuya, or going on errands to their local Don Quixote. Getting away from Tokyo was better than nothing. 

He felt himself blinking slowly towards slumber with the gentle roll of the car humming in his ears and the almost lullaby-like drift of Tatsuya’s driving down the cascading winter road, which stretched miles beyond them towards surrounding cities and low mountains. A pure white blanket with just a few people out and about on the horizon with their dogs.  

Tatsuya idly cranked the heat up and Kagami moved to the side, his head facing the window to the world outside. Suddenly, he felt very sleepy—very lonely as though there was no one else in the car but him and the car was heading to a place far beyond this world and away from his friends. Paranoid, the man looked over his shoulder to make sure Tatsuya was still there. 

“A-Aomine?” 

Kagami jolted up, as if physically shocked, and met with the startled gaze of a certain handsome man who kept moving his frantic attention between the awoken passenger and the road. Suddenly, the landscape had transformed around them: it was the height of summer with the world cascaded in the sweltering heat of Japan’s blistering sun, illuminating the emerald green of the landscapes and yellow of the mountains. 

Aomine was dressed far too casually—just a dark tee and cargo shorts with his blue eyes peeking over a pair of translucent azure sunglasses. Kagami looked down and noticed that he was also wearing his summer fit: just a thin, unbuttoned shirt and loose shorts. 

A hand immediately went on Kagami’s bare thigh, callused fingertips of an expert player rough on the skin.

“Hey. You had a nightmare or something?” Aomine asked, raising a single brow as he kept one strong hand on the steering wheel.

Kagami blinked before rubbing his eyes. How long was he out for? Where were they going again? 

“Yeah, I think so. But I can’t remember it.” 

“Figures. Still, you fucking gave me a heart attack, man.” 

“Oh. Sorry.” 

The redhead peered around him; Aomine’s car. There were stained food wrappers everywhere from Maji Burger, a slightly worn magazine of an idol with her plump breasts pushed up to the viewer’s eye (how many times did Kagami had to remind him to put those away?) right between Kagami’s feet, and an empty can of soda in the holder. The AC was on full blast, not that it helped as it actually needed repairs since last week and Aomine was too lazy to bring it into the shop so the window on Aomine’s side was brought all the way down, letting in a bellowing gust of summer wind that blew threw the man’s dark hair. Kagami could smell an open bear claw in the backseat. 

“Are you just nervous? I told you: Imayoshi ain’t a bad guy. He just likes to fuck around once in a while,” Aomine explained with a roll of his eyes. 

Oh. That’s right. Imayoshi had invited the pair up to his lake house for the weekend. Every one of their friends was going. 

Kagami let out a sigh through his nose and sat back. His head has been swimming since this morning, not that he wanted to tell Aomine—the man had been looking forward to this weekend trip all month; Kagami pressed his fingers against the side of his temple and closed his eyes. 

“Naw, it’s not really him. It’s just a lot of people, you know? Would rather clean up our apartment, maybe meal prep? Or take a nap in the sun,” he said quietly. 

“Man, you can do all of that when we get to the house. Have you seen it? It’s fucking huge. Maybe I should take up law too.” 

“You? In Law? Please. It’s already tough enough with you being a cop, the last thing I want you to do is actually defend someone in court without using your fists.” 

“You calling me dumb?”

“Absol fucking lutely.”

“The pot calling the kettle black.” 

“At least I know that I’m not cut out to be a lawyer.” 

“Looks like someone doesn’t believe in that gold framed poster of Ms. Elle Woods hanging in our living room.” 

Kagami blinked slowly; a funny grin stretching across his face in sheer disbelief. “...You do know Elle Woods doesn’t exist, right? That’s a movie character,” he explained, watching the redness grow very gradually across Aomine’s face. 

To his surprise, the man actually pouted and drew his gaze away and onto the road. His voice came out very low and very sheepish. “I knew that…”  

Laughter burst out unexpectedly, loud enough to shadow that of the window coming through Aomine’s side; Kagami shook his head and had to cover his mouth though this did very little to calm the violent shudder ripping through his chest. He felt Aomine give a harsh jab into his shoulder and when he opened his eyes, the man’s face had blossomed crimson red—almost reminiscent of the time when he first confessed to Kagami on the basketball court when they were still teenagers. 

So he still had some youth in him after all.

“Sorry, sorry,” Kagami started, nearly out of breath as he wiped the corners of his. “No, you can be a lawyer. Probably the best one in the country.” 

“You damn right!” Aomine barked back. His face was still hot but the generous victory the redhead had relinquished seemed to give him some recovery. The man perked up and glared Kagami down. “I’ll show Imayoshi what real law looks like! It takes more than fancy shiny glasses and pathological lying to handle the court.” 

“Exactly! I bet you would make Saul Goodman look like a saint.” 

“Right!” A pause; Aomine eyed Kagami nervously. “You think Mr. Goodman be willing to mentor me if I call him up?” 

The rest of the ride to Imayoshi’s house took around an hour or so, enough time at least for Kagami to get some shut-eye for a bit and for Aomine to relieve himself on the side of the road (even though he was told numerous of times to take a bathroom break at the last gas station when they filled up). By the time they pulled up to the driveway, it was already filled with everyone else’s cars with the very last person before the pair being Kise. 

Aomine laid it down on the horn with a nasty grin and the model pilot, slightly spooked, spun around to give the man a healthy middle finger with his tongue out. 

Old friends; still boys. 

Everyone else was already up on the top deck that overlooked the pier and the grandness of the lake. Based on the way that Takao was dancing with Midorima attempting to chase after him, hands outstretched to wrestle the clear glass of peppermint schnapps from him, Kagami could say it seems like drinks were already being served to guests.

He suddenly felt the touch of a ghost-like presence behind him—a chilly song—and turned around with his heart in his ears. 

“Fuck you.”

“Hm.” Kuroko, dressed in probably a suit Momoi picked out for him, cocked his head and swirled a glass of his mock tail nonchalantly. “Even after a decade, you’re still easy to scare,” he remarked with a noticeable tone of disappointment.

“If you actually announced yourself, I wouldn’t be this tense, asshole,” Kagami grumbled, giving the smaller man a playful shove. 

They stood side-by-side against the railing and looked out to the lake, which gleamed beneath a wading moon, sending dancing highlights of silver upon black waters. Kagami spotted a family of ducks and smiled to himself. 

“So. Where’s your other half?” Kuroko asked, looking around the crowd for Aomine. 

“Kise ‘accidentally’ dropped his beer on him and now they’re probably out fighting on the front lawn with the purple giant watching them with a bowl of popcorn.” Kagami peered over to his old friend before his eyes rose up and scanned the top deck for any sighting of pink hair among the bodies. “And your soon-to-be bride?” 

“Aida-san came with Hyuga-senpai so Momoi is catching up with them. Knowing her, she’s probably looking around the lake house because this is exactly the kind of place she wants to get once we get the money.” 

“Imayoshi is a mega corporation lawyer though. You two think you can afford something this expensive?” 

Kuroko shrugged before taking a sip of his drink. “Maybe. Maybe not I but Momoi could probably make enough if her business takes off,” he said lightly. 

The waters waded against the deck and out yonder, the pair could spot someone canoeing in the distance. Probably from another lake house on the other side. Kagami leaned forward, his arms resting on the railing, and eyes out watching the water. 

This was peaceful; he could imagine himself living here if it was a bit hotter. 

“Have you and Aomine set a date yet?” Kuroko asked, scooting closer beside him. 

Kagami huffed. “I think we will talk about it after your wedding. I told him that gay marriage is allowed in the U.S. so we can easily get it done in L.A. but he’s being weird about it for some time.”

“Weird? How?”  

He stopped, the words dying on a hesitant tongue. Before them, the lake went eerily still with just the pale white moon peering at them, its visage ghost-like and ethereal. Truth was that Kagami did not really tell anyone about his own suspicions with Aomine’s strange behavior. 

They were engaged, this was true, but his lover was noticeably hesitant and tongue-tied to talk about marriage. He remembered Riko mentioning that it was common for couples to be engaged for years before they actually wed, mostly out of cold feet to move into a full time commitment. Yet, Aomine has never once shown any hesitation before—the foolhardy idiot. 

Kagami sighed quietly and peered over to Kuroko who had been watching him with a single brow arched. 

“Maybe it’s just me but every time I ask him about setting a date, he suddenly is busy or doesn’t want to talk about it now or has boy’s night planned with Imayoshi and the others. It’s like he’s dancing around the question,” he admitted between them.

“That...doesn’t sound like Aomine.” 

“No. It doesn’t.”

“Well...marriage is a big step, you know? He just needs some time to toughen up.” Kuroko turned back to peer down at the lake, his eyes soft and distant. “Plus, I must admit: it was strange that he got together with you in the beginning. He never showed himself to be interested in men at all before. So perhaps the idea of being married to one will require some time for him.” 

Kagami felt himself frowning, a rare sort of resentment tugging deep in his stomach. “But we've been dating since we were seventeen. It’s been nearly a decade, Kuroko. Isn’t that enough time to decide your orientation?” 

“You know he’s oddly slow on the draw. Not the sharpest pencil in that case.” 

“I guess…” 

He ran his fingers through his hair as a sudden knot coiled itself deep in his stomach. Maybe he should not have said anything. Tatsuya always said that things had a way to manifest themselves the moment you speak it into the air and Kagami sincerely hoped it was just some superstition. The redhead sighed out into the summer night, looked over to Kuroko, and gave a nod.

“I’m going to take a walk by the water. Clear my head before I rejoin the party.”

Kuroko hummed in agreement. “Do make sure to come back in time for the dessert cart. Apparently there's a dessert cart and Momoi couldn’t be more thrilled.” 

“Hah! I’ll try…” 

The lake was eerily still by the time Kagami walked down the lone grassy path from the overarching house. It stretched far into the black horizon with just the white moon looming over the water in a starless sky. Kagami stood at the edge, facing the mouth of the thick woods that whistled lowly behind him from the passing wind—he could hear the highway in the near distance, cars still humming down from the mountain.

The water receded shyly before rushing forward and gently kissed his legs, almost beckoning him in some way. The redhead just watched the lake for a bit, eyeing all the ducks swimming placidly, cutting across her still surface. The further he went down the path, the more lights began to hum around him—a forest of fireflies glowing around him by the water’s edge. 

He held his hand out, feeling a smile pull at his lips when a single light hovered over his palm; he gently coiled his fingers and watched as it ebb gently between the gaps. 

Suddenly, the slow flicker of lights began to speed up around him, frantic and alarmed, and Kagami’s eyes widened as his own firefly began to wildly fling itself around his hand almost to get away. 

A twig snapped behind him. 

Kagami spun around, hands raised. His breath audibly wheezed out upon the sight of a dark figure slowly emerging out from the woods; the silver gleam of the moon shone harshly into a pair of thin glasses before revealing the cat-like gaze of Imayoshi. 

The redhead dropped his arms.

“Jesus Christ, you scared me man,” Kagami started, rubbing the back of his neck. 

His sudden visitor gave an amused laugh and joined him by the edge of the lake with his hands hooked into his suit pocket. Imayoshi’s wayward grin appeared eerily malevolent against the gentle glow of the moon—all the fireflies had disappeared as though properly spooked. And Kagami wouldn’t blame them: he never liked Imayoshi. Out of all of Aomine’s friends, the former high school captain was the hardest to read. At times he seemed both sympathetic and cruel. And that smile.

Kagami liked to compare to an entity attempting to mask itself as human and just barely convincing everyone yet, there was an energy present that could easily give itself away. 

Imayoshi tilted his head, eyes closed.

“Ah, so sorry Kagami-san. I did not realize you’d be out here. Why aren’t you at the party?” 

“I needed some space.” A pause. “Shouldn't you be up there too? You’re the host.”

“Ah, true. Well, I wanted to smoke but I believe Momoi-san was uncomfortable with me smoking while everyone was gathered up on the deck. Besides, I like coming down here and watching the water.” 

“I see…” 

Kagami looked back towards the lake house on the hill; the music was louder this time and he could hear the flood of laughter erupt from the deck. Sounds like things are getting more chaotic. 

“I saw Aomine as I came down here,” Imayoshi said, pulling out a carton of cigarettes from his breast pocket. He then idly offered one to Kagami who shook his head. “He seems to be having fun.”

“Yeah, he always finds a way to have fun. Was he with Kise?” 

“As usual. And Momoi-san managed to find him so there’s the usual bickering.” 

“Figures.”

The darkness between them was faintly illuminated when Imayoshi lit the cigarette in his mouth; it flared up in his face, revealing the utter smoothness of his features as though there were no worries in the entire world. That he was in complete control. Kagami looked away and thought of an excuse to head back to the lake house.

“I’ll try not to tempt Aomine tonight. I know you’re trying to get him to quit smoking,” Imayoshi said, depositing the carton and lighter back into his suit pocket. 

Kagami blinked slowly. “Oh. T-Thank you…,”

“You know, I’m surprised he’s actually making an effort. Did you know that his mother and Momoi-san have been trying for years to get him to cut the habit? He never did listen.” 

“Oh yeah, I remember that. I think back when we entered university, he made a big fuss when his mom begged him not to smoke anymore,” he recalled lightly, still remembering how the woman tugged at his arm and practically cried for him to stop right in the middle of their dorm room.  

Aomine, as usual, just shoved her away and drove somewhere remote for an hour or two to escape it all. Kagami found him at his usual spot—a cliff overlooking the city where the man had been sleeping on top of his car, probably watching the stars. 

Imayoshi nodded and looked at Kagami, smiling. “He must really love you if he’s actually trying to quit for good this time,” he remarked without any malice. 

“Well I told him that I wouldn’t marry him if he doesn’t stop.” 

“How effective! Never thought that marriage was the thing that motivated him.” He let out a long exhale, the veil of smoke gently masking his face with just the sharp gleam of his glasses penetrating the curtain. And that smile. “You know, Kagami-san, we were all surprised when Aomine told us that you two were dating.” 

Something was turning in his stomach; Kagami tried not to look directly at his companion and settled his gaze on the water’s edge instead. His voice came out but it was not his. 

“Oh really? Why so?” 

“Well, he just did not seem like the type to go after a guy. Never showed any interest beforehand either. And all of a sudden, he confessed to you and the next day, you two were official.” Imayoshi laughed and even though it was clearly meant to be out of amusement, all Kagami could hear was the brittleness of mockery behind it. That he was a joke. 

“He said he had feelings for a while now. Mostly it grew whenever we played against each other but…”  

“Oh, I’m sure. He was utterly obsessed with you. I just didn’t interpret it as romantic in any sense but Aomine can be hard to read at times.”

“You can say that again.” 

Silence; the water crept up to Kagami’s shoes and pulled back quickly. He stared at their surface, wondering what it would be like to take a night dip deep into those shadowy depths where no one could see him again. 

Imayoshi let out another long breath. “Can I ask you a question, Kagami-san?” He asked simply. 

“Yeah, shoot.” 

Maybe he was going crazy but he was sure the other man was resisting to laugh because he caught the faintest guttural sound rumbling from Imayoshi's throat. Instead, the man gave a light cough into his fist, sending smoke out and up into the air, and for a second, he resembled a dragon. 

“What would you do,” he started carefully, “if Aomine told you that he never loved you?” 

Kagami looked at Imayoshi directly this time, eyes wide and bright. The question took him off guard completely and all he could do is react immediately with a surging sense of rage in his heart. The fear that everyone else knew something and he didn’t. The anger of being challenged. 

“What the hell are you talking about?” He asked in a very low voice. 

Imayoshi just shrugged. “Just a hypothetical! I’m just curious how you would react if Aomine ever told you that he didn’t love you. That this was just a big, twisted game that lasted far longer than anyone was ever expecting?”  

“He would never do that—we've been together for nearly ten years.”

“Hence why I said that this might be a game that just outlasted the original challenge time. What would you do if Aomine ever told you that this was all a fake?” 

“I…I…” 

No one has ever asked him this question before, more so because it never occurred to Kagami in any capacity that Aomine’s love was disingenuous in any way. He was not the trickery type; he approached everything with his feelings worn so plainly on his sleeve, an honesty that Kagami fell in love with because that would mean everything they have been building towards was built on a foundation of truth. Imayoshi suddenly throwing a wrench into things made Kagami nervous and flighty—why did he ask such a ridiculous thing? 

For a moment, Kagami did not answer. He riveted his eyes down by the water, watching the moon’s reflection gently twist and dance upon the disturbed surface when a mother duck decided to dive under for food, leaving her chicks confused and swimming around frantically. The water reached up and struck his ankles—it was bitterly cold. 

“I think...if Aomine should ever tell me that he does not love me and that our time together these past ten years has all been one fucking game to him...God. Honestly? I’d drown myself.” 

“Oh.” Another exhale of smoke—deeper this time. Imayoshi suddenly looked tired. “That’s...unfortunate then.”

“Why would that be unfortunate?”  

“Just the idea that you would actually kill yourself. You always seem to be the type of guy that could endure anything...given the time.”  

“If the person you love had told you that they been fucking with you after all this time—nearly a decade of your life—and that nothing ever mattered between you two, wouldn’t you just end it all? For fuck’s sake, I actually do want to marry the blue-haired idiot, you know.” 

He nodded slowly. “Oh, I know. I am sorry, Kagami-san, for disturbing you so greatly. You see, it’s sorta in my humor to play these dark hypotheticals. We do it all the time with our group. I should not have tried it with you. I mean nothing against you or Aomine.” 

“He loves me. I know he does.” 

“He does.” 

Kagami was not willing to stick around this time to humor the man any longer. His words were unfortunately already bouncing around in his head, fogging up his senses in that way that Kagami could not tell the difference between whether he was angry or sad—definitely upset but he could hardly fathom that feeling as well.

“I’m going back,” Kagami declared, turning his back to Imayoshi with his hands stuffed in his pockets. 

“Please don’t be so cross with me, Kagami-san! I truly meant nothing by it!” 

“Sure.”  

He did not hear the rest of what Imayoshi had to say, simply trudging back up to the house where most of his friends were already inside, crowding around the dessert cart that finally made its appearance. The only ones still standing on the deck by the time he climbed up was Kuroko who was trying to help support Kise against the railing—the man’s upper half was completely drenched, peppered with bits of grass and dirt, and he had a sleepy, drunken look to the eyes as he giggled something incomprehensible.  

And then there was Aomine swaying awkwardly in the far corner where the drinks table was—intoxicated as he sluggishly attempted to open up an Ichiban can with a stupid grin plastered on his face. 

Kagami walked over and took it out of his hands.  

“Oh. Damn Bakagami, where the fuck were you? Been looking everywhere for you,” the man remarked when he finally met the redhead’s wayward gaze with a cloudy one of his own; he grinned but it did not reach those far away eyes—like Kagami was never here to begin with and all that stood in his place was shadows. 

“Have you?” He asked quietly. 

“...No, not really. But I was going to!” 

“Right. I think you had enough to drink tonight.”  

“Oh.”

Aomine blinked twice as Kagami deposited the beer back into the icy-water basin on the table without once looking in his direction. As the redhead expected, his drunken fiancé took his exposed back as an invitation to be intimate and waddled over, slipping his strong arms around Kagami’s waist and pulling him in tightly to his chest. Aomine buried his face into the side of the man’s neck, taking a deep inhale as his smile practically burned against skin. He felt warm. So warm. So real.

And Kagami stayed perfectly still, his hands still wading in the basin until he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore.  

“Maybe we should get out of here. Go somewhere where no one can find us,” Aomine mumbled against his neck, sighing out far too loudly.  “Take the car and disappear somewhere.” 

“Where would we disappear to?” 

“Anywhere! Anywhere you want. Think on it.” 

So Kagami did. He stood there, feeling Aomine’s slow heartbeat rap against his back as the man’s strong arms tightened around his middle. He thought about all the places he wanted to go, all the places he planned on exploring after the wedding with their honeymoon money. All the places he dreamed about as a child that slowly washed itself of color as an adult. 

Then the redhead leaned back, warm cheek pressed against Aomine’s who had been resting his chin on his shoulder. Their breaths synchronized. 

“No where else but here with you,” was all Kagami said with his chest burning as they were the only ones left on the dark deck—everyone had already gone inside. Just them, alone. 

Aomine laughed in his ear. “That’s gay.” 

“You’re the one who asked me out first, idiot.”

“Oh yeah...that was a long time ago.” 

The wind blew between them, this low whistling from the lake that kissed against the pair and made Aomine hug Kagami tighter as though he were scared of the cold itself. The redhead hated the cold too—the day Aomine confessed to him, it was raining hard on the basketball court. And yet, he stood out there, drenched in Tokyo’s autumn showers, waiting for Kagami’s response. They both caught a cold the following day. 

“Daiki.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Why did you confess to me back in high school?” 

The drunk man made a noncommittal hum—he was thinking but it was clear that he was having trouble remembering. Having trouble going back. The details to him were as washed as the rain itself. But he nuzzled against Kagami’s neck again and sighed out, smelling of beer. 

“I thought you were kinda hot. And you played basketball real good. You’re not boring,” Aomine finally stated, giving off a playful laugh as he swayed back and forth, forcing Kagami to sway with him. “I hate boring people and you were the first person in a long time I had fun with.” 

“I see…” Kagami breathed slowly; his head was swimming somewhere deep underwater. “But you never dated a guy before then.” 

“Naw.”

“Why?”

“I like big tits and dicks aren’t really my thing.” 

“Yet you asked me out first.” 

“Yup.” 

“Do you...even like me the way you like women?” A pause—clarity. Boldness. “Do you love me?” 

Aomine yawned loudly, his movements were becoming more sluggish now. “Of course I love you, dummy. I have to love you,” he mumbled, resting his head against Kagami’s shoulder; his grip was loosening. 

“And why do you ‘have’ to love me?” 

“Because all this will end the moment I don’t have to anymore.”

“What does that mean?” 

But Kagami never got a response because the man had fallen asleep against his back, still holding him. He gently turned around, holding Aomine up to him with the man’s head rolled against his flushed chest. A gentle, light kind of snoring rose from his groom-to-be and Kagami could not help but smile sweetly. He then carefully shook Aomine. 

“Hey. Wake up.” 

“Wake up, dummy.” 

“Wake up.” 

“Wake up.” 

Kagami jolted up, his face flushed hotly from a bitterly deep sleep. The world had changed back to the warm interior of Tatsuya’s car, the heating cranked up enough to combat the fog of the winter winds outside. Blinking slowly, he looked over and saw that Tatsuya’s hand was on his shoulder with the man leaning over the control panel, peering at Kagami closely with a bemused expression. 

“Hey Taiga,” he started gently, unbuckling the man’s seat belt. “We’re here.” 

Kagami looked out the window: it was a lake house. 

XXX

It was meant to be a surprise a while ago—only delayed due to the robbery—but Tatsuya had rented out a lake house for the pair to share a weekend together. 

He even surprised the red head by bringing all of their essentials, including clothing, which Kagami was a bit surprised that the man knew exactly what he needed or even wanted to wear for something like this. 

Tatsuya only laughed when Kagami passed along the comment, hauling their luggage up the stairs one trip at a time. 

“Of course I would know, Taiga. I know everything about you,” he reminded the redhead yet again, his single silver eye gleaming mischievously. “Besides, we’re only here until Monday. Better make the most of it, hm?” 

The lake house was nothing like Imayoshi’s extravagant modern structure that occupied an entire top of a hill overlooking the grandness of the lake’s bay and pier—this house was much smaller, definitely meant for a party of four people at most with only two master bedrooms and a single bathroom. It was situated at the ground level with the lake just down the slope where a small boardwalk rested alongside a single canoe tied to the post. 

There was herbal tea and instant coffee stocked at the drinks cabinet alongside trail snacks, and complementary hot dogs with packaged bungs in the fridge—an elevated airbnb as Tatsuya claimed when Kagami peered all around, rather startled. 

“Do you like it?” He asked, standing by the doorway and watching the redhead move around. Kagami looked over and noticed that Tatsuya was playing his hands idly. 

“Oh yeah, it’s terrific! Didn’t think you would go through these lengths just for a weekend getaway.”

Tatsuya offered a serene almost relieved smile. “It wasn’t me—I just made the reservation but the hosts did everything else.” 

“I mean, we have everything here. We can go swimming, maybe roast hot dogs—I did see the fire pit in the back; there’s canoeing clearly or maybe we could go on a hike…” 

“You always liked camping. Smores, watering holes, fishing, hiking...it was hard to keep up with you. I think even Alex was worn out at times every time she took us to Sierra or Yellowstone for those long weekend stunts.” 

“Clearly. This place is wonderful.” Kagami stretched out, bringing his head up to take in the fresh forest air. 

He could feel his muscles relaxing with the flooding of memories rushing through his nose—those doggone days lost to him of he and Tatsuya running by the lake’s edge, heels sore from the bedrock, as a blonde woman watched on the shore with a funny smile on her face. 

Tatsuya came over and clutched his shoulder with  a squeeze. His expression was suddenly young and boyish. 

“So. Shall we take a nice hike, Taiga?” 

XXX

The days, which were once a crawl to Kagami, started to pass him by with every rise of the sun over the rarely blue horizon. 

It was still winter so the water was far too cold to swim in but the redhead did enjoy nice runs on the edge with Tatsuya in the morning and slower walks in the afternoon. Since it did not snow in these parts for a while, the fire pit was dry enough to start a nice, low fire enough for the pair to roast hot dogs and even sit around and chat for a few hours in the evening. 

By the time the nights rolled around, Kagami would just sit by the dying flames and stare up at the endless black ocean of white constellations—they were so far from Tokyo here that all the harsh synthetic lighting of their neon towers could not veil the natural sky. Tatsuya always made a hot cup of hot chocolate for them during these calm nights.

Memories slowly crawled back as though a hole had opened up at the back of Kagami’s head, allowing everything to trickle back in. He recalled the woman named Alex—the former WBA champion who filled in the role as the boys’ mother and looked after them as though they were her own. 

He remembered L.A.: the sun, the busy streets filled with a mixture of red sport cars, black Nissan Altimas, and silver F-150s from the visiting Texans; the heat waves wafting off the broken asphalt of side streets, the bullet holes impaired in the windows of their Inn-N-Out, and the homeless camps under the overpasses. But he also remembered the golden beaches, the surfers cruising along monster waves, the groups of neon-green cyclists that raced all around Santa Monica port; the looming palm trees, and the great neon Ferris wheel that illuminated the L.A. skies at night. And those deep, bleeding lilac sunsets that shadowed the City of Angels every evening. 

He remembered his father for a bit. He was always distant, always somewhere else when Kagami was home. He loved his job. He loved work. Maybe he loved his son. Maybe. But Kagami wasn’t sure based on what he remembered. He just saw a shadow of a man who was home for perhaps a day at a time. And then none at all. Dinners were always alone. 

His mother was long dead. 

By the end of it, Kagami was too tired to recall anymore. He felt himself naturally lean against Tatsuya’s shoulder, his gaze pinned at the dying embers of their camp. The night was growing colder and somehow, it just made the man all the more sleeper. 

“Wanna retire early again tonight?” Tatsuya asked, his voice barely above a whisper. Kagami did not notice it until now but the man had latched their fingers together, squeezing gently. 

“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, especially since we have to pack tomorrow.” 

“Don’t remind me—I got to work early Tuesday morning.”  

“Sucks to be you, I guess.” 

Tatsuya laughed as the pair stomped their fire out and headed inside for the night. It still smelled of burgers that they grilled earlier, bringing a rare sort of comfort that made Kagami oddly happy and young, as though he were walking through time when he was far less numb with more energy. He walked back into his bedroom, which faced Tatsuya’s and rifled through the clothes on his bed, aiming to take a hot shower tonight.

Someone’s arms wrapped around his middle. 

“Taiga.” 

Kagami stiffened, feeling Tatsuya bury his face into the side of his neck, breathing deeply. His hardness pressed against the redhead’s ass, rubbing against the fabric. And he wondered if the other man could hear how fast his heart was racing, practically beating against his ribs at a hundred miles an hour. 

Everything was too hot.

“It’s torture,” Tatsuya started, breathing heavy. “Living with you and having to control myself. Every time I look at you, I just feel myself going crazy.” 

“Tatsuya…” 

“We don’t have to do anything. Just let me hold you like this. Pretend that this means something—anything at all.” He let out a long shudder that ripped through his body. “Please.” 

His arms tightened, becoming this iron vice around Kagami’s waist that it even frightened the redhead to the full extent of Tatsuya’s obsession. A madness cultivated over decades worth of yearning and untreated affections and vicious jealousy, all accumulating in a man dancing on an abyss. Perhaps taking advantage of Kagami’s current state was questionable and yet, the redhead could not feel any anger towards his friend. 

In truth, what he felt was the heat of desire and the coldness of pity. A long, drawn out pity. 

He reached over and cupped his hands over Tatsuya’s, turning his head to the side to whisper in Tatsuya’s ear. 

“I need to shower.”

“Just give me a minute…”

“Tatsuya.”

“Yeah.”

“That was an invitation.” 

A flush of blood touched upon Tatsuya’s usually cool face and he had to blink twice before he sported a rare shy smile, enough to cause Kagami to turn red at the sight of it. He squeezed the man’s waist and tugged him close, practically nuzzling his neck with a sigh. 

“I’d like that very much.”  

XXX

Warm water cascaded down in a gentle rainfall as steam climbed up the walls into a thin, misty cloud. It was so soothing that Kagami barely noticed Tatsuya’s cold hands roaming slowly down his body—his mouth pressed against the side of his neck, teeth teasing the flushed skin as his tongue lapped up the trails of shower water from his hair. 

His hardness twitched impatiently against Kagami’s bare ass and every time either one of them shifted even slightly, Tatsuya would shudder and groan. Kagami raised his head up to the rain and closed his eyes. 

Tatsuya squeezed his breasts possessively, long fingers kneading and pulling at his nipples, and Kagami choked out. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured like a dream and began to pepper the red head’s shoulder and neck with biting kisses. “I always wanted to have you like this. No one else but us in the world.” 

“Tatsuya…” 

“Sometimes I wonder if this is all some dream. That I wake up one morning and you’re still with him despite everything.” 

“I can’t go back to the past.” 

“Yeah. Neither can I. And yet, here we are now.” He smiled and in the soft veil of the shower mist, Tatsuya Himuro looked more myth than man—a celestial entity that decided to live among men and somehow retained his innocence and beauty. 

Kagami suddenly felt insecure—he probably looked like some neglected shelter dog next to Tatsuya. What did Aomine ever see in him? 

Without another word, Tatsuya used his hand to guide Kagami’s head to the side and after making just a brief exchange of their drunken, half-lucid gazes, caught the redhead’s mouth with his. The kiss was gentle, almost like a night dance with how slow they were compared to early, and Tatsuya’s tongue carefully slipped into Kagami’s gasping lips, pressing itself against his own hot tongue with an audible groan moving between them like a wave. 

Kagami’s eyes fluttered shut, gradually becoming drunk in the heat of Tatsuya’s hungry kiss—he could feel himself growing hard as well with his length fully erect and stiff.

Tatsuya chuckled in-between short breaths, clearly pleased. His hand started to travel down and over. 

“Looks like someone is excited,” he breathed low and dangerously, curling his fingers around Kagami’s cock. The sudden feeling of Tatsuya’s smooth skin on his made the redhead start to whine and he was silenced with another fierce kiss. 

Tatsuya started to jerk him slowly, pulling and pushing the skin—blood rushed to Kagami’s head, his whole body beginning to practically burn in the warmth of the shower’s slow rain as electricity flooded his nerves. He did not realize that he had begun to shake and squirm, left so rusty from what felt like years without any intimate contact that even just Tatsuya’s expert fingers rubbing his cock had caused him to boil over dangerously. 

Kagami did not even notice that he had begun to cry a bit. “I—ah, fuck, I...I...” 

“It’s okay, Taiga. Relax. Just let it all go,” Tatsuya whispered in his ear before nibbling the lobe. 

His hand squeezed gently as his speed picked up, causing Kagami to give out a tight gasp. His cock twitched impatiently in Tatsuya’s fingers, pearly white beads of pre-cum washed away from all the water. The heat had begun to bubble to his head—he was swelling, unable to speak or breathe except whenever he felt the man’s equally hard cock rub against the back of his inner thigh and ass. 

Tatsuya was too fast, Kagami was too tight, and the shower mist began to veil the two men in a smothering hug, blocking the world around them from view—no one else existing in this single space save for them. 

Kagami leaned his head back against Tatsuya’s shoulder, choking out with his teeth gritted as the blood rushed to his gut. A cruel laugh echoed into his ear, someone’s hot tongue licking the trails of water flowing behind his neck, and Tatsuya furiously pumped his cock towards finality.

“That’s it! That’s a good boy, Taiga! Let me hear your voice! Let me hear you!” 

“T-Tatsu, p-please,” Kagami begged, sobbing and hyperventilating as he desperately grappled with Tatsuya’s iron arms, “please s-slow down, I can’t!!!—”

His vision flashed white. He could feel himself exploding in Tatsuya’s hand, hot ropes of cum hitting the opposite wall before being washed down by the streams of shower rain. His body practically trembling against Tatsuya with every breath coming out in a sob. The heat had died, leaving his muscles a jumbled mess of jelly nerves as Tatsuya supported him from behind, pressing half-laughing kisses against his neck and face. 

“See? What a good boy you are,” he whispered, licking away the redhead’s tears from his face. His hands teasingly squeezed Kagami’s breasts, causing another pained whine from him. Tatsuya gave another laugh, the sound sharp enough to make Kagami tremble again in his arms. 

“My good, sweet boy. It’s been a long time since someone has touched you like this, right?”

“T-Tatsuya...I’m tired...so tired…,” Kagami stuttered, blinking away the tears. His body was so worn out, the shower was so warm, and Tatsuya’s hardness was still pricking against his ass in a cruel reminder. He just wanted to sleep now somewhere warm and dry. 

“We will sleep soon, Taiga, I promise.” Tatsuya kissed his shoulder, almost apologetically. His hands had traveled down to the man’s ass, two fingers pressing teasingly against his hole. Kagami’s weakened heart started to race again. 

“Please. Let me feel you. I want to feel you.” 

“...O-Okay...Okay.” 

“I love you so much,” he chuckled, kissing his check. 

One hand slithered up to Kagami’s neck and he trembled when Tatsuya squeezed, slowly pressing him down until his forehead stuck the cold shower wall. He then trailed kisses all down Kagami’s shoulder blade, his fingers slipping into the rim of his ass slowly.  

The dull pain began to spike hotly with every push of his fingers into his tight, velvet walls and all Kagami could do was stand there, head to the wall, and grit his teeth against the want to whine and groan at the intrusion. Something had begun to fog his mind—he’s been here before, in another place in another time, when he was younger and less broken. But when and where? 

When Kagami blinked away his tears and looked over his shoulder, his heart stuttered. 

The panther’s dagger-sharp smile pinned him on the stop. Eyes, mere blue dark slits against the thick mist of the showers, eating him up with every passing second. And the blood ran hot beneath flushed, marked skin a hundred miles an hour. 

A hand breached the space between them; powerful, callused fingers caressing Kagami’s cheek as though he were someone deeply loved and cherished. The worship of a God. 

“What are you thinking of, Bakagami?” The predator licked his lips, revealing just the tiniest glimpse of sharp, white canines underneath. “Maybe how tight your ass is squeezing my cock right now?”

He gave a short, rough thrust and the bubbling heat in Kagami’s guts flared painfully, causing the redhead to cry out—his own hard cock trapped against the shower wall and his stomach, already painted white and sticky. 

Kagami blinked away the tears, wondering what kind of sight he must look at Aomine right now. Probably horridly ruined because his partner’s own cheeks flushed upon meeting his gaze and he smiled wickedly.  

Giving another rough thrust that practically knocked Kagami against the shower wall, he leaned forward and caught the redhead’s open lips with his. Their tongues danced teasingly between their mouths as Aomine’s sharp teeth nibbled Kagami’s bottom lips. 

The stronger man kept chucking in between wet gasps and he made it a point to chase the redhead’s lips whenever he pulled away with a weak whine. Kagami felt like he was being consumed with every touch, with every jerk of Aomine’s powerful hips, and how the man took away his breath upon his hungry lips.  

Aomine’s hands roamed up and possessively squeezed Kagami’s breasts, rough fingers kneading at the sweet muscle fat of his pink nipples—pulling them hard before letting go and squeezing again as though they were dough in his hands.

“S-Stop...I’m going crazy,” Kagami breathed out, feeling the tears threatening to break through again when Aomine squeezed his tits together to create a cleavage as he began to pick up pace with pounding his ass with the filthy flesh sounds overriding that of the shower’s rains.

Aomine licked his earlobe with a laugh. “Can’t help it. How am I supposed to resist myself when you have such amazing tits and a big ass?” He pressed his entire weight against Kagami’s back, trapping the man effectively against the shower wall, fucking him with short, circling thrusts.

Kagami trembled; he could feel Aomine’s thick cock forcibly spread him open, twitching against his tight heat and pressing dangerously close to his prostate. His head was swimming deep underwater and every push and pull was enough to burn Kagami’s tortured throat with another wail, smothered out by the chatter of the shower head and the fleshy, wet slap of Aomine’s hip striking his ass.

Suddenly, his pace quickened to a dangerous speed. Aomine’s breathing grew hot and erratic in Kagami’s ear and his grip on his hips tightened to an iron vice. He started to laugh like he was dying. 

“Taiga...I’m so close…,” he rested his head against Kagami’s shoulder, burying his nose into the side of the man’s marked neck. “I’m so fucking close…C-Can I come inside…” 

“Yeah,” the answer was practically ripped from the redhead’s sore throat. He closed his eyes, which stung under the heavy shower, and pressed his forehead against the wall. “It’s okay, Daiki...just do it…” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yes...please, I want you inside…,” Kagami turned his head to the side, managing to press a reassuring kiss to his lover’s cheek. “Please.” 

Aomine did not need any more reassurance. Curling his arms around Kagami’s middle in a possessive hug, he quickly slammed his hips into a rushing finish, filling the redhead’s head with the heat of his grunts. The swirling ball of fire in Kagami’s gut ebbed and bubbled loudly, growing bigger and bigger with every thrust—his own breath shortened and he threw his head back, feeling the roar ripping through from his pained chest. The ball was getting bigger and bigger and bigger—

Kagami threw his head back and screamed out a name, practically shuddering in Aomine’s iron grip as he came, hot white ropes of cum hitting the wall before being washed down to the drain by the shower. 

There was a ringing in his head that swallowed up every sensation, causing even his fired nerves to feel numb for a second. Then, there came a pain, a throbbing dull pain that slowly ebbed from his forehead before something thick and warm tinkled down from his head to the bridge of his nose. 

Kagami blinked slowly—red intermingled with the soapy bubbles of the shower water. He just realized that someone had slammed his head against the wall. An iron hand gripped the back of his neck, squeezing so tightly that Kagami felt like a misbehaved dog being shoved down and kept still. He breathed slowly, labored, and managed to look over his shoulder. 

Aomine was gone. Tatsuya had returned. His eyes were wide, burning with an icy sharpness that could cut through skin and bone cleanly. The man’s skin was eerily pale even in the warm rush of the shower’s rain, as though he were suddenly stricken with a cold. A squeeze of the hand—Kagami went still against the wall, his heart beating violently against his chest as he felt Tatsuya’s grip tightened around the back of his neck. He managed to open his mouth. 

“...Tatsuya?” 

The man did not reply. He simply stared at Kagami, the ebb of murder and rage plain on his face. It was the sort of malevolent, bubbling fury that Kagami remembered in that moment, always fearing as a child. His wrath. His anger. His need to scream and thrash at an uncaring world that decided that he didn’t matter anymore. 

Tatsuya laughed and it rang mechanical and cold. 

“Why?” He whispered, voice hoarse—heavy with red grief. He gritted his teeth and shut his eyes, futile in hiding the palpable hatred behind them. His hand tightened even more. “Why?” 

“W-Why...wh-hat…,” Kagami wheezed out, his breath slowly thinning out against the force of Tatsuya’s monstrous vice around his neck. 

“Why? Fuck, why him?!” 

“...Tatsuya?” 

“Even when you’re with me, all you can think about is him, huh? Why couldn’t it be me?!” 

In a sudden great force, Tatsuya threw the redhead down from the wall and onto the hard, slippery floor of the shower. His head, already bleeding from being shoved violently into the wall, struck the hard tiles and rang out loudly like a broken church bell—the room spinning around him, abstract images and colors wading through his murky vision. 

And he tasted blood in his mouth, felt the trails of it tinkle down from his head wound and down his nose and cheeks. His hands uselessly gripped onto the wet floor as he managed to push himself up on his knees, rain peppering his bruised back.

Kagami looked up. The shower door was open. Tatsuya was gone with just a trail of water indicating the man’s cold departure from the bathroom.

He heard a voice whisper loving into his ear, an echo of a dying memory. 

“I love you. You know that right?” 

XXX

Tatsuya was gone by the time Kagami stumbled out of the bathroom, his head loosely wrapped with some medical gauze he found in the medicine cabinet. When the redhead called his name, he was met with the low groan of the cabin. He looked outside—Tatsuya’s car was gone. 

He must have needed some space to cool down.  

Kagami tried to not overthink but it was hard with the painful ache in his chest. He never registered for Tatsuya to be violent though it was clear his old friend was controlled so easily by his internal rage and fury. The redhead sat down on the couch, leaning his head back against the cushions to touch the wound on his forehead. It stung hard—Tatsuya really did a number on him. 

“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, staring up at the wooden beams of the ceiling. “Why do I always say stupid shit? Why can’t we get this right for once.” 

Kagami blamed his lack of memories. He blamed his stupid, empty head. Why else would everyone walk on eggshells around him or Tatsuya being so prone to his rage? The only process he managed to make was small bits and pieces of remembering an old love that apparently had died a long time ago.

He slipped down, laying fully into the couch and ignoring how cold he felt with just a bathrobe on. The man closed his eyes, listening to the trees rustle against a nearby window and the forest breeze kissing the walls. A drowsiness came, slipping in naturally from the weakness of Kagami’s muscles and the dull pain of his head throbbing behind layers of wrapped gauze.

Kagami sighed out through his nose; he would wait for Tatsuya. When he comes home, they will sit down and talk honestly for once. Talk about all the feelings and trauma and history between them and those memories lost when Kagami drove his car into the river. 

Yes, he thought, closing his eyes, this would save us. 

This would save him. 

XXX

Kagami was dreaming again. 

This time he was in the kitchen of the old house he shared with Aomine. His hands were moving a heavy wok back and forth over the high heat of their gas burner, watching as the shrimp fried rice he was apparently cooking danced in scorching arches around in the pan. Someone had opened the fridge behind him. 

“No, Daiki.” 

The fridge door shut quickly, almost with indignation. 

“I’m just taking one,” said the deep, rumbling voice of his lover. 

Kagami peeked over his shoulder and an irritation bloomed in his heart when he saw that Aomine was still walking around in his boxers, topless. In his hands was a small can of Ichiban beer.

“Put it back and put on some proper clothes. Our friends might show up any minute.” 

“They seen me half naked before.” 

“Aomine.” 

There was a grumble of Kagami being a tight-ass before Aomine reluctantly placed his beer on the kitchen cabinet and drifted noisily back to their bedroom. It was a lazy sort of Sunday that Kagami imagined sleeping in on—covers thrown back and sun pouring through the window on their exposed bodies with the TV still on from last night. 

Well, at least that was what Aomine wanted. Unfortunately, the pair had decided to host a house party a month ago after Momoi suggested it and Kagami was not one to back out on an obligation. 

His partner, on the other hand—

“Why don’t we call it off?” Aomine’s voice trailed through the house from the bedroom. “Say we’re sick and stay inside.” 

“And do what?” Kagami asked between wok tosses, moving his head back to avoid any of the oil from hitting him. 

“Sleep. Have sex. I dunno. I just don’t want to play host all dayyy…”

“You mean I play host and you go outside to second hand smoke with your buddies.”

“Yeah. That.”  

Kagami let out a mocking sort of laugh as he turned down the heat. How many times have they repeated this conversation? In Aomine’s growing age, he became far more lazier and standoffish than he was as a teenager. Hell, he was an upstanding police officer too—where was any of that nobility in this apartment? 

He ignored the sudden warmth that wrapped around him from behind, someone’s nose pressed into the side of his neck (and hardness against his ass). Aomine was dressed but the slothful nature of a man deprived of his Sunday nap was still very much present.

Kagami sighed gently before lifting his hand up and petting his lover’s head. 

“It won’t go on all night. Just a few hours and then people will start flooding out—I promise,” he said as though consoling a child (which seemed to be the case every time). 

Aomine huffed. “Sure. And there you go, chatting up with Himuro until the evening.” 

“We get carried away sometimes.” 

“Yeah, okay.” 

Kagami blinked; he put his wok down and turned his head, catching the faintest hint of pink on Aomine's cheek. His expression, usually a dead sort of apathy or mischievous was replaced with a boyish indignation as though he were just caught glaring at someone from afar. The redhead smiled. 

“...Are you jealous of Tatsuya?” He asked quietly. 

Aomine reached over and grabbed the chain necklace around Kagami’s neck, bringing it up for both of them to look at. The silver ring of brotherhood gleamed in the kitchen light. 

“Duh. Why wouldn’t I? He’s in love with you,” Aomine hissed, the words bitter in his mouth.

The redhead scoffed. “He is not—how many times do I have to say this?” 

“As many times as you want, that still doesn’t change the truth of the matter.” 

“Jesus Christ, we grew up together, idiot. That doesn’t mean he has feelings for me.”

Aomine drew close, eyes narrowed to thin blue slits; his arms coiled around Kagami’s middle possessively, almost afraid that the man might squirm away and disappear. 

“You’re blind, bakagami. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. How his eyes search for you in every room, follows you through every crowd. It’s like watching a hunt,” he whispered hoarsely. 

Kagami ignored the dull ache in his chest and just assumed it was a suppressed laugh. Aomine was not the paranoid type nor was he particularly jealous (he bore the confidence that he was the top contender in everything he owned and did, including his relationship with Kagami) so hearing another half-crazed accusation that Tatsuya was anything but fraternal made Kagami shake his head slowly.  

“We’re old friends—brothers. It’s natural that we would want to hang and chat with each other at every social gathering, Daiki. But I know he doesn’t love me in that way. I think you’re just mistaking our familiarity as romantic, which is just very easy to make,” he explained, heaving out when Aomine’s hug tightened. 

“Momoi and I have known each other since we were babies and you don’t see me stalking her at every party or glaring daggers at her partner.”

“He’s glared at you?” Kagami did not mean to laugh but came out that way anyway. Aomine, on the other hand, did not find the situation funny at all. 

“Dude. Your ‘brother’ looks like he wants to murder me with a sword. And I’m on the force—I know what a you-should-watch-your-back look entails and he’s got that death glare down to a perfect T.” 

“Are you sure you’re not imagining things?” 

“Kagami.”

“Sorry.” The redhead closed his eyes, silently hoping that tonight’s party wouldn’t be too troublesome with all these different theater characters running around. Damn could he have one normal day. “I’ll...talk to him. See what’s up.” 

“Right. And give him a chance to profess his dying love for you.” 

“Aomine.” 

When the man did not answer, Kagami turned around so he fully faced his betrothed. Aomine has donned a rather fitting t-shirt so it clung to his upper body in a way that highlighted his powerful arms and lean-muscled chest, which made his aura rather intimidating to any outsider looking in. 

To Kagami, however, he could not help but chuckle because for a man so big and tall, he bore the saddest, sodding expression as though he were just sprayed with water. The redhead reached out and took Aomine’s hands into his, pleasantly feeling his lover’s calloused finger tips against his skin and the radiant heat that eventually arose from such an intimate touch. 

They had ten years to get this right, of course. 

“Listen Daiki: I love Tatsuya but not in that way. Never in that way. He’s my brother and that’s all he will ever be to me. My family. But I love you. In love with you. And nothing is going to change that, not even a surprise confession from my oldest friend. Do you understand me?” 

“...Okay…” 

“Come on, where did all the bravado go? The cockiness? May I remind you that you confessed to me first?” 

Instead of his cheeks usually lighting up like a tomato in autumn as Kagami expected from his routine teasing of their earlier romance, Aomine was eerily still. He stared at the redhead, eyes almost ebbing with apprehension and even fear, something that made Kagami’s smile falter a bit. And yet, Aomine’s grip did not loosen around his arms—instead they tightened, powerful fingers digging into Kagami’s flesh until it stung. 

And then Aomine forced a smile, dark eyes drifting down to look at the floor. A laugh rumbled from his throat, a harsh spiteful sound that petrified Kagami in a way he could only recognize as intense loathing. 

“Yeah,” his partner said as though he were somewhere far away and unreachable. He finally looked at Kagami, eyes washed over in a rare sort of grief. “I remember.”

His smile was broken. 

XXX

It was the knock on the door that woke Kagami up. 

He slowly opened his eyes only to see the entire cabin cascaded in darkness with just the silver rays of moonlight creeping through the veiled curtained windows, illuminating blue squares on the wooden floor. When the man pushed himself up from the couch, the first thing he instantly noticed was that his head was cold and damp; he reached over and carefully touched his head, finding the gauze wrapped around his wound to be completely soaked. 

The knocking on the door intensified. 

“C-Coming!” Kagami croaked out, feeling stifled that his throat was utterly dry. 

He managed to stand up, only groaning when his legs awkwardly struck the corner of the coffee table. It was hard to see basically anything in this darkness, especially with the nights here being thicker than the cities. Kagami rubbed his arms to keep himself warm as he carefully staggered towards the front door, which began to shake under the force of whoever was knocking behind it. 

Kagami braced himself mentally, hoping that by now Tatsuya’s anger had quelled enough for them to actually talk to each other. Gripping the knob tightly, he pulled it open. 

“Finally, you’re home, Tatsu—” 

The glare of an industrial flashlight blinded Kagami so much so that he had to step back into the house to fully recover. When the lights dropped down to the floor, he finally could see that it was not Tatsuya standing before him but two police officers in full uniform.

One of them Kagami recognized for the azure-eyed glare of a panther leered at him from beneath his cap. 

“Evening Kagami-san,” Aomine’s associate, a far older man with graying side hair greeted with a polite tilt of his head and a fatherly smile with wrinkles around the mouth. “We do not mean to disturb you at night but we just wanted to know if Himuro-san is home.” 

“I…” Kagami blinked, unable to steer his eyes away from Aomine’s harsh, near petrifying gaze. He blinked and that alone was enough to break the spell. “...Sorry, he kinda left.”

“Can you tell us when and where?”

“Not sure? Maybe hours ago. He never said where he was going.”

“How many hours ago? Are we talking about noon? Early afternoon?”  

“I...I’m sorry, I don’t really know—” 

He stopped for Aomine had closed the unspoken distance between them by reaching over and gently—almost lovingly touching the wet gauze around Kagami’s head. The inspector’s eyes were dark and savage, bearing witness to an image that practically could turn a benevolent God hostile with rage.

“Did he do this to you?” Aomine whispered as the affronted sinner. 

“N-No, I...It was an accident, he didn’t mean to…” Kagami weakly pushed the man’s hand away, stepping further back into the house. His heart was screaming hot in his ears and the only thing he could see was Tatsuya’s icy cold glare ripping through his flesh. “It doesn’t matter, okay? What do you want with him?” 

“Kagami-san,” the older officer interrupted, stepping in front of Aomine as if he sensed the inspector might make another move towards the frantic redhead. The motion of him taking off his hat and pressing it to his chest just unnerved Kagami all the more, especially when their expressions gradually became solemn. 

“What? What is it?” Kagami whispered, hating how small he sounded. Where was Tatsuya? Why was Aomine here? How did he know where to find him? 

“We would humbly ask for your cooperation at this time. In our investigation, we have great cause to find Himuro-san a suspect in the murder case.” 

“...What? You can’t be serious.” 

Tatsuya, a murderer?

“Unfortunately, we are hence why we needed to find you as soon as possible.” The older officer’s expression softened, almost pitying him. “Do you have anywhere you can stay? We do not find it safe that you stay with Himuro-san anymore during this investigation, especially since you are recovering.” 

“No...this doesn’t make sense. He couldn’t have killed anyone, it…he’s a murder suspect?” 

“Kagami-san? Are you okay? Do you need to sit?” 

When the redhead did not reply, only muttering to himself like a madman in the coolness of the shadows, he hardly registered that Aomine had moved aside his companion and fully stepped into the house, muddy boots tracking soil onto the floor. His hands reached up again and Kagami flinched, fully expecting the inspector to try and touch his bleeding head wound again. 

Instead, those hands cupped his cheek and the warmth of an old memory instantly flushed through his blood. His body remembered this touch and when he opened his eyes, he saw the face of not a stranger but a lover watching him from years before. As though they were still in the sunny warmth of their shared kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, chatting about eating leftovers while watching the NBA. 

“Look at you, Taiga,” Aomine muttered, his first name leaving those lips like a prayer in the dark. “Bleeding all over and staggering like a kicked puppy with no sense of north, south, west, and east. I truly left you alone for so long...we need to get you to a safe house far away from here as soon as possible.” 

“Tatsuya…”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to deal with him anymore.” 

A white moon crescent of a smile stretched across the panther’s face as he brought his forehead to Kagami’s, the blood from the gauze staining Aomine’s own skin—like they were sharing one wound. And then came a whisper of a promise, which echoed deep within; the song of broken, lonely heart.  

“You leave him to me.”

XXX

It was hard to discern what was a dream and what was real these days with Kagami for it all blended together on the twisted, ruined canvas of his life like muddled paint. Diseased is what he would call it, this horrid state he found himself in ever since Tatsuya knocked his head into the shower wall. 

Sometimes he wandered off to a space and time years before where the sun was a bit brighter and the colors a bit more vibrant, sometimes he woke up in complete darkness in the middle of winter with Aomine’s limbs lazily sprawled on top of him—the TV on to a Larry King interview translated to Japanese. And sometimes he did not dream at all. Sometimes he was awake, staring up at the wooden beams of the old hotel the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department haphazardly threw him in since they had to investigate both the cabin and Tatsuya’s house. 

He, too, mistook this as a dream sometimes and it was only when the cold sun rose through the paper-thin windows, illuminating his small room, that he realized that he had not slept at all. 

And Tatsuya never came back. Even when Kagami tried to call him, he was surprised to find that the man’s number was out of service. It was as if he walked off the earth itself.

On the seventh day of his isolation, which was mostly peppered with an older investigator coming to visit him with food and asking questions about Tatsuya’s line of work and schedule—most of which he could hardly answer as Tatsuya never told him what he did exactly for work or where he went when he left the house alone—Kagami heard a knock on the door. 

Wearily, the redhead left the bed, hoping the police would forgive once again his appearance since he hadn’t had the energy to shower or dress himself well enough beyond just boxers. He rubbed the back of his neck, still sore from the nightmare last night that he could hardly recall save for someone screaming in his ears, and staggered to the door. 

To Kagami’s surprise, it was not the elderly inspector he had been expecting. 

“Oh.” 

Aomine Daiki—oddly enough, out of uniform, wearing just a black open-zipper hoodie and a dark-blue t-shirt underneath with a pair of tight jeans, stood at Kagami’s hotel porch. He was holding a grease-stained paper bag in one hand and two coffees in a cardboard holder in the other. The two men stared at each other, eyes wide. 

“Hey…,” the inspector started, bearing the sort of awkward grin Kagami would expect one would show to an old relative they were forced to say hi to at a reunion. 

Kagami gave one back. “Hi.” 

“Um. How are you?” 

“Good, I think.” A pause; Kagami looked down at the paper bag Aomine was clutching. “What do you have there?” 

“Just, uh, egg, cheese, and bacon croissant sandwiches.”

“Oh, that’s my favorite.”

A genuine, warm smile pulled at the officer’s lips this time as his eyes softened. “Yeah, I know. Do you mind if I come in, Taiga?” 

Kagami moved to the side, only thankful that the dimness of his hotel room managed to hide the faint tint of his cheeks as the young inspector stepped through the door. He watched as Aomine looked all around the room—probably judging him for practically living in the dark for close to a week. Instead, the man placed the food down on the nearby table and looked over his shoulder with a semi-pitying smile. 

“You’re always such a clean guy. I’m sorry this investigation has taken up so much of your energy and time.” 

“Oh...thank you. Here, do you want to sit? I can grab an extra chair.”

“If you wouldn’t mind.” 

The sound of the chair’s legs rubbing across the short-fabric carpeted floor was probably more awkward than silence itself but Kagami did not mind, seeing as how Aomine began to take immense interest in the room than the man currently approaching him—seemed like they both had found themselves in a strange sort of bell jar. The cicadas were suffocating at the stalk of winter. 

“Thanks,” Aomine mumbled as he accepted the chair.  

Kagami also sat down across from him—not too close though—watching as the inspector began to take out wrapped breakfast sandwiches from the grease-paper bag, some of which rolled in his general direction. Magically, a coffee cup was pushed in front of him—Aomine’s silver Rolex gleamed in Kagami’s eye and he suddenly remembered that he got it for him on the man’s 21st birthday when they took a surprise trip to Las Vegas. 

The inspector started to open a sandwich in his lap, eyes still drawn away from Kagami’s figure. “I should have gotten more since we’re both big eaters...but, well I kinda have an investigation to conduct…” 

“I get it.” The redhead’s voice came out oddly clipped and he took a sandwich. It laid warm in his hands and he realized just how cold he had been in this small, dead room. “You have a job to do.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Just…” Aomine looked around the room once more and a soft sort of sigh escaped from his lips, too quiet for it to be apprehension but too loud for it to be pity. He shut his eyes and took a bite of his sandwich, chewing it slowly. “Sticking you here. It wasn’t my idea but the chief needed some place close to the office for convenience.” 

“When do I get to go home?”

“Home?”

Kagami swallowed audibly and instinctively reached for the cup of coffee resting by his arm. It was a cappuccino with a shot of vanilla—he used to have it often back when they lived together. “Tatsuya’s place.”

“Oh.” Aomine’s chewing stopped; he swallowed and kicked his heels against the floor. “That...would be complicated. The whole house is considered a crime scene so…”

“So I’m stuck here for the time being?”

“Well, not exactly either. This is just a temporary solution. I actually came to see if you’d be willing to move to our witness protection safe house just on the north of town.”

The redhead took a sip of his coffee and suddenly wished he didn’t because Aomine was watching him closely with just the slightest twinkle of appeasement in those dark, swirling pupils. As though he were taming a savaged beast with love and tenderness. Kagami pushed the coffee away and clasped his hands together around a warm sandwich, seeking its heat. 

“I...I don’t think I would like that. Could I stay with a friend? I really prefer not to be alone right now,” he mumbled, hating how Aomine finally was staring at him since he arrived. And it was the sort of intensity that could make a man choke.  

“Sure.” 

He took out a pad and a pen, clicked it open, and tapped it methodically on the table with the roller ball ink rubbing on the wood. Here comes the homicide inspector—cold and mechanical and sterile like a fine silver knife shining in the dark. Perhaps in another life, Kagami would have found this particular expression fascinatingly attractive akin to their old days on the court when it was just the two of them and no one else in the world. 

Not now, though. 

“Do you mind if I take this time to ask you a few things? Just to help clarify some things in our investigation,” Aomine asked coolly, rubbing the date haphazardly at the top corner of his legal pad. His eyes flickered up, hauntingly dark with the ire of a panther in motion. 

Kagami kept the coolness all the same with a shrug. “As long as you can answer some of my own.”

“To what I can share with you.”

“Fair enough.” 

The pen clicked. “So, just to clarify from my senior inspectors, the night Himuro ran out, you two had gotten into a bit of an altercation?”

“Yeah. In the shower.”

“Come again?”

Kagami kept his gaze down to his thumbs, watching as they pressed into the aluminum of the breakfast sandwich. He found himself absolutely loathing Aomine’s unwavering stare, this petrifying, sharp look that bordered on viciousness. They should be playing basketball right now to be the subject of such a leer, not a private investigation. 

“Y-Yeah, didn’t they tell you? I was in the shower with Tatsuya when he threw my head against the wall.” 

“Oh. No, they didn’t. Must have read over that part.”

The pen clicked again. 

“What led him to hurting you like that?” Aomine continued, voice tight. 

Kagami shrugged as he lifted his hand up and touched the healing scar on the top of his scalp, just edging down to his forehead. The stitch work, arguably, was amazing—props to Midorima’s fingers despite his nurse’s constant chatter. 

“Not really sure, actually. We were having sex and I said something I shouldn’t and he got angry,” he said casually. 

Silence crackled between them, eerie like static and cold like magnification. The pen clicked again—Aomine tapping it rapidly on the table in a staccato pattern, leaving a small dot visible from where Kagami was sitting, and filling the room with a hollow, eerie sound. 

Then, the inspector let out a shuddering sigh and leaned forward, expression muted in the darkness of the hotel. His shoulders were taunt, a rubber band being pulled at two ends without any sort of rest. He looked like a weeping statue and all Kagami could think of was floating down the river again, rears lights beeping in the fading waters. 

“You two...were intimate,” Aomine started back up again, his words slow and heavy, and he gripped the pen in his hand tightly. “And you said something and he grew angry with you?” 

“Just about it.”

“What did you say exactly?” 

Kagami’s head tilted, shooting Aomine a baleful, exhausted look. He knew what he said; he knew what he dreamed of too that night in the shower. And he knew that it was Tatsuya’s last straw. That, somehow, the dreams were bleeding into the real world and back into his empty, cold heart. But he wasn’t going to let the inspector know. 

“...Does it matter?” He asked quietly.

The pen clicked again. 

“Everything is important in this investigation. Down to the smallest detail. Considering that Himuro completely disappeared off the radar, you must have really stirred something bad in him.”

“Are you victim-blaming me?”

“Not victim-blaming. Just stating that you had started a catalyst and we really need to know what that catalyst is.” 

Pen clicked. 

“I...I really don’t feel comfortable with this, inspector,” Kagami said, squeezing the sandwich between his fingers, allowing the sharp edges of the aluminum to prick the skin of his palm. 

“Do I have to?” 

“Technically no, but it’s really important for us to know this. I mean, despite your clear affections for the man, he is a murder suspect and that is something we take incredibly seriously here.” 

“Well, why is he a suspect for murder? How do you know I’m not the murderer—I could have been there at my neighbor’s house. It’s just a walk away—”

Pen clicked.

“I known Tatsuya my entire life. Sure, I don’t fucking remember shit but I trust he would never kill another person.”

Pen clicked. 

“I think it’s absolutely unfair that this entire investigation is hinged on him alone. What proof do you have that he even did it?!” 

The pen stopped. Aomine stared at Kagami through the darkness, a face that haunted his dreams with the hunger of a phantom drifting between levels of a dead house it is forever chained to. Kagami was this house, Aomine the phantom, and they were never going to get rid of each other. And then, slowly, the inspector reached into his hoodie pocket and dropped something on the table. 

It fell with a metallic clank; Kagami’s eyes shifted down, catching the silver gleam of their brotherhood band around the chain necklace. There was a splash of crimson on the ring’s scratched up facade. 

Silence. 

Kagami turned away, his eyes stinging bright. 

“It was your name?” 

“Pardon?”

“Your name. I said your name in the shower,” he repeated, hating how hoarse his voice came out. 

Pen clicked again. Aomine’s tongue ran over the whites of his teeth, slowly, like he was tasting something precious he needed desperately to savor. When Kagami braved himself to look up, he caught the inspector’s near-manic gaze, washed over dark in the dimness of the hotel—hysterical enough that even the slightest move could send the man into a frenzy. 

Kagami was suffocating faster in this bell jar than he expected and he suddenly wanted to leave. 

Aomine gave a controlled laugh, low and rumbling. “So….let me get this straight: you two were having sex in the shower, you said my name, and he freaked out and bashed your head in. Is that what you’re saying?” He asked slowly. 

“...Yes.” 

“That’s...good to know. Thank you.” 

“What else do you want to know?” Kagami asked quickly, desperate to move on from this conversation.

“We don’t need to rush.” Aomine pushed the coffee close to his arm again, nodding his head up. “Drink. Eat. You haven’t really touched a thing since I got here.” 

“Neither have you,” Kagami retorted back.

“Can’t. Been too distracted.” Pen clicked onto the table, the inspector’s face softening from that initial stoniness that seemed almost impenetrable. To Kagami’s surprise, he dropped the pen entirely and reached for that half-eaten sandwich he left nearby, leaning back into his chair. “Why don’t we take ten and just eat, hm? You look hungry, Taiga.” 

“No more questions?” 

“Not for ten minutes that is. Let us just...sit here, okay? Sit and eat. Please.” 

“Okay…” 

Perhaps this too was a dream in its own twisted way, one that somehow broke through the floodgates of Kagami’s withering consciousness, but he could easily mistake this as another one of their mornings together. 

In that old apartment brimming with wondrous light, covered in Aomine’s dirty clothes and clear attempts to tidy up on Kagami’s account, and the song of the TV on to some random channel, this almost felt the same: two men, sitting together at a shared table, eating in the silence of their presence. He could almost feel the tip of Aomine’s shoe tickle against his ankle and he was sure that the man was only chewing slowly just to hear his breathing. He always enjoyed it in those mornings. Always watching him with a tilt of a wolfish smile on the lips from across their Facebook marketplace painted dining room table. 

Kagami looked up; the inspector was not smiling like he imagined but the corners of his lips were twitching with every chew. Like he was replaying a nice memory in his head over and over until nothing mattered outside of the room. Just them, sitting at a table, in the darkness, in the cold. But, nonetheless, together. 

Almost a dream, right? 

XXX

All it took was for a single visit. An invitation to an unwanted house guest that could not see fit to leave. 

Kagami no longer saw the elderly inspector that once came in those early days of his hotel stay for he had been completely replaced by the much younger and hungrier ace of the homicide unit, who appeared so suddenly at Kagami’s door at random periods of the day that the redhead wondered if there was a good way to actually shake him loose. 

Sometimes he came on official business, asking more probing questions about the intimacies of he and Tatsuya’s conflicting relationship that always left Kagami red-faced and vulnerable to having spilled so much details. And sometimes…

Sometimes he just came with food. Burgers. Pizza. Bagels. All of Kagami’s favorites. And he would sit there, eating slowly, with his eyes locked on the redhead—never leaving once to look elsewhere as though nothing else of any importance could exist. No questions, no long conversations: just to share a meal together in silence. 

And Kagami hated those moments. He hated Aomine’s stare—stripping him down with every passing minute. How his eyes wandered all around his figure, jaw tight and breath tight. He hated how he licked those sharp, white canines slowly before pulling his lips back to that old wolfish smile. And Kagami especially despised how his blood betrayed him, so happily pulsing beneath his flushed skin hot every time Aomine accidentally touched him—a brief touch of the elbow or even his foot tickling his ankle.

This, too, must be a dream with a twisted message. 

Kagami wanted to go home. He wanted to see Tatsuya again. Where was he? Why did he disappear? Was he okay? 

Did he still care? 

The days passed without any answer, especially from Aomine’s side as the police had suddenly become tight-lipped about certain details of their investigation. The inspector mostly came to see if Kagami needed anything else during his stay: food, medicine, books. But he did not answer any of the redhead’s impending questions, merely eyeing Kagami a little too softly for his comfort before repeating his usual jargon that they needed to keep new information confidential.

It was a weekend of cold, heavy rain that Kagami finally found out a bit more—unfortunately, it came with a physical exchange. 

“We need to relocate you.”

“Pardon?” 

Aomine had surprised Kagami with a sudden burst through the hotel door. His entire figure was draped in a black water-proof hooded cloak that dripped heaps of rainwater onto the carpet of Kagami’s hotel room as his boots squished wetly with every labored step. His eyes were dark and glazed over beneath that arched hood and Kagami slowly stood up when he caught the inspector’s panicked breath—a frenzied sound that he never thought Aomine could be capable of making.  

He was scared.

“What’s...what’s going on?” Kagami asked a little too quietly. 

Aomine let out a strained groan and rubbed the bridge of his nose. His movements were short and eccentric and unpredictable as he then started to look around the room frantically—at Kagami, at his books, at clothes. He spotted the black suitcase in the corner of the room Kagami originally arrived with and dragged it out onto the floor, kicking it open. 

He pointed to it with his gloved hand. 

“Pack,” Aomine ordered shortly.

“Excuse me?”  

“Did you hear me? Pack. A truck should be here any minute to relocate you to our office until we can find a safer place for you.” 

“Wait. Wait—hold the fuck up for a minute!” 

Kagami grabbed Aomine’s arm, stopping the officer from trying to throw his clothes and books in. He whipped his head and the redhead’s breath hissed dangerously in the base of his throat upon meeting the wild viciousness of those eyes leveled at him, wide and dark like dying stars. 

“You need to explain, asshole! Why am I packing all of a sudden? What happened?” He asked with a shaky voice, squeezing the officer’s arm for emphasis. 

Aomine’s throat bobbled. “A second murder break-in. Killer dropped a photo on his way out the door.”

Kagami asked no more for he knew. Instead, he released Aomine and bent down to gingerly throw his clothes back in the suitcase, hoping that the man could not see how badly he was shaking now. He could hardly feel his hands—they were just cold tools, moving back and forth as he cleared the hotel of everything he brought with him. 

Aomine, on the other hand, stood at the open doorway facing the heavy curtain of black rain as he quickly gave orders to his team on a radio intercom attached to his hip. After a minute or so, the blaring white headlights of an armored truck pieced through the thundering storm and someone else’s voice filled the space but Kagami did not hear a thing. 

He was packing. He was remembering. He was dreaming.

There was a tall hooded man in this dream. He stood in the darkness of Tatsuya’s bedroom, staring at an old childhood photo of the boys. And he ripped it in half, taking a young Kagami as a souvenir. 

Or, perhaps, a reminder of a better game for the future. 

XXX

Another dream: unfamiliar. 

The first thing Kagami heard was the collective laughter of men—loose and nigh giggly with ripe intoxication—penetrating the thickness of a summer night. Another thought: he was sitting alone on someone’s pristine white couch holding a glass of red wine that probably should not be anywhere near all this nice, beige furniture. 

The sound of glasses clinked behind him and Kagami turned to see a group of his friends opening up a bottle of pink champagne—Momoi giggled when it accidentally sprayed all over Midorima who stood there staunch and icy. 

Another party? Suddenly he remembered: Midorima just received his residency at the Tokyo General Hospital for internal medicine.

Another burst of laughter and Kagami’s head swiveled to see that Aomine was out on the balcony once more with his usual group of friends, their suits a bit disheveled and ties loose over their exposed necks. In the middle, his betrothed downed a can of beer before throwing his sweat-glistening head back and laughed with the sharp gleam of his canines beneath a low moon. 

He was drunk again. Idiot. 

“Taiga.” 

Cold fingers touched the back of his neck and the redhead sighed into the touch, leaning back fully on the couch to see that Tatsuya was leaning over him with a half-smirk. His eyes, gray-washed and opaque, glittered affectionately upon their gazes meeting. In his hands was a lean glass of champagne, still bubbling gently with an audible crisp. Kagami smiled. 

“Hey you. I was wondering where you might be,” he greeted kindly, scooting over a bit so Tatsuya could just lean against the top of the couch with his elbows resting on the head rests. 

The silver-eyed man hummed nonchalantly. “I was trying to prevent Atsushi from eating away at the celebration cake he made for this party. Which proved to be more of a challenge than usual…” 

“The big guy likes to eat. I can understand it.” 

“Really? Because you have barely touched anything since you got here.” 

Kagami huffed. “Maybe because I’m not much of a charcuterie guy? Unlike you, I prefer my cheeses melted and meat medium rare,” he pointed out, matter-of-fact. 

“You always will be such a child,” Tatsuya sighed out loudly, swirling his glass. Suddenly, from the comfort quiet of their pleasant conversation, a bolster of booming laughter erupted from the open balcony followed by the sound of a definite beer glass crashing to the floor. Midorima shouted an insult over the crowd. 

“Speaking of children…”

“God. He’s always drunk,” Kagami remarked under his breath, rubbing the bridge of his nose—mostly to keep his face from blossoming red when he heard Aomine’s slurring insult back at doctor four eyes with a collective snort from his friends. 

Tatsuya patted his shoulder before squeezing it tightly. “These parties are pretty routine for you two at this point.” 

“And that is?” 

“Easy. You two arrive semi-late. You make a point to greet everyone while your pet there grabs a couple of beers and drinks enough into the night to forget his own name. Then, once he threw up into someone’s clearly beloved houseplant, you drag him back to the car, drive home with his head stuck out the window like a dehydrated dog, and throw him in bed—on his side, while you call me at midnight to complain about playing mother. Am I getting that right?” 

Kagami did turn red this time and he turned away from Tatsuya’s pitiful smile. “Curse your elephant memory…” 

“I’m just saying that you two had this song and dance before. If you’re so bothered, maybe talk to him about it.” 

“You don’t think I have? But like everything, he’s been avoiding the conversation about his drinking as much as he’s been avoiding talking about finalizing a wedding date. Idiot.”   

Tatsuya said nothing and Kagami took it as an admission of not knowing what to say, really. He long knew of his problems with Aomine—everyone’s got problems. Kuroko isn’t very experienced with romance so it was mostly Momoi picking up the pace, Kise’s rise through the world of modeling had taken a very sour turn with his age now a considerate factor with so many young men entering the flock, Akashi’s father recently passed with the man not sure if he should move on with either hatred in his heart or sadness for what has been nothing but a broken father-son relationship. 

And then there was Tatsuya—beautiful, pristine, and perfect Tatsuya who all of Momoi’s girlfriends constantly stare at from afar with reddened cheeks. He had no problems. He was the listener of problems—Kagami’s problems. And boy did Kagami have many problems. His job, which nearly killed him every day with a crazed teenager arsonist running around, setting fire to abandoned buildings. His relationship with his own father, which had gone empty and cold since he introduced his obvious male groom to him. And Aomine. Crazy, wild, and unpredictable Aomine who held him at night, kissed him in the morning, and refused him in the afternoon when he wanted to talk like adults. 

His only predictability in that aspect.

In the background, someone had turned up the music—this soft, gentle violin that swayed through the room and started prompting people to link together in duos, swaying together in a slow dance. Kagami and Tatsuya watched them before looking at each other. The latter placed his champagne down on a nearby stand and held his hand out, palm up and long fingers curled slightly. 

“Wanna dance?”

Kagami’s eyes shifted over towards the balcony; Aomine was slapping Imayoshi’s back as the two men burst into a crude fit of laughter over something one of their friends had said. The redhead sighed with his chest and accepted Tatsuya’s hand—it was cold in his grasp.

It was not too irregular for them to conduct themselves in such a manner. At their age and in their friend group, it was practically expected: Momoi was even dancing with Riko, the two women awkwardly knocking their knees about as they giggled with Kuroko on the couch chatting with Kiyoshi. The casualness of their bodies was something that brought a strange source of comfort for Kagami, that he could be intimate without that shame of their younger years. 

Kagami rested his hands on the sharp arch of Tatsuya’s shoulders as his friend dropped his arms down, fingers hooked on his waist, just barely touching his hips. Their eyes met—red to gray—and through that cold smoke, the warmth of light emerged with Tatsuya’s far-away smile. He laughed all too quietly as they began to sway with everyone else. 

“What’s so funny?” Kagami asked quietly, smiling to himself. 

“Just remembering when we were kids. We found your dad’s old stereo and CDs that one summer. You put one on and it was a 1969 track of David Bowie.” 

“Oh yeah! It was when we were trying to clean out the garage for a yard sale, right?” 

Tatsuya nodded. “We started to dance and stuff until you accidentally elbowed the metal shelf holding all those outdated paint cans. It crashed and dented the top of his new Toyota, which he just brought in from the dealership in Bakersfield.” 

“God. The welts we got that day were disgusting.” Kagami shook his head, trying to dispel a bad memory. “All over our butts and legs once the old man found out.” 

“That was all your fault—I always said you had no grace back then.”

“Well, you were the one taking up all the room in the garage with your big ass circles.” 

“You still have no grace.”

“And you still take up the entire room.” 

The two men gawked at each other before bursting into a hysterical fit of laughter, receiving affectionate stares from their friends around them. Kagami felt Tatsuya’s cold hand curl around the side of his neck, thumb pressed against a slow beating pulse, and he smiled boyishly, somehow looking even younger in the low light of the living room. Perhaps they have gone back in time, when they were much younger and ignorant and free. Tatsuya certainly has not aged in a day and still looked as youthful as he did in high school. 

The dark-haired man’s single silver eye gleamed with an unknown energy and he smiled with the nervousness of a child.   

“Listen...Taiga, there’s something I need to tell you and I really don’t know where to start…” 

“Shoot, go ahead.” 

“It’s about—” 

“Bakagami~” 

A boisterous, slurring, sing-song voice burst into the beautiful calm of the room and everyone’s heads snapped in annoyance at the stumbling figure of Aomine Daiki entering from the balcony. His tie hung loose over his shoulders, stained dress shirt open, exposing his dark, smooth chest, as he bore a funny, elusive grin on his plastered face. Ignoring Momoi’s usual loud ire in the form of a rant, he pushed through the crowd and immediately came upon Kagami who let go of Tatsuya to catch his lover from falling. Up close, he smelled bitter like smoke intermingled with that harsh lingering scent of beer. 

“There you are~ I was looking everywhere for you….” 

Kagami arched his brow. “From the balcony?” 

“Y-Yes!” 

Tatsuya stood close behind him, his gaze oddly taciturn and cold as Aomine met his eyes, blinking slowly. That goofy, lucid grin then disappeared, replaced with a scowl that would have looked incredibly intimidating had it not been for the small burps that came afterward from the drunken man’s mouth. He then pointed accusingly at the man with a shaky finger. 

“Thief,” he hissed out, eyes narrow and dark.

“Daiki, that’s very rude,” Kagami retorted, slapping his arm down as he propped him up on his unstable feet—still leaning on him apparently. “Tatsuya hasn’t stolen anything.” 

“He’s trying to...” 

“Trying to what? Steal your fourth beer of the night, stupid?”

“Make it fifth considering that he can barely stand,” Tatsuya murmured, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“I don’t need your judgment,” Aomine laughed—then burped again, and shook his head loosely. “Just get away from us, thief.” 

“Sounds like your house cat is cranky. Best turn in for the night, Taiga.”

Kagami sighed out, irritation bubbling in his chest when Aomine hugged him tightly, rubbing the stench of cigarettes and beer all over his neck with a manic smile. He turned to his old friend, a silent apology palpable in his own eyes. 

“Yeah, we’ll call in for the night. If you’re free this weekend, we can grab drinks from Hashimoto’s in Shinjuku and talk then.”

And Tatsuya smiled though it did not reach his eyes. “Sure,” he said quietly, and rubbed his arm. “That sounds good.” 

Without another word, the man disappeared into the crowd of their friends, Kagami staring after him with a whiny, heavily drunk Aomine squirming in his arms. The soft rumbling of laughter tickled his chest and the redhead peered over to see that his lover was staring off at the space where Tatsuya had gone off to, a sluggish yet victorious smile gracing his smug face. 

“Coyote, coyote, no dinner for you tonight ~” 

 

Notes:

Second Chapter coming soon :)