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Satsuki didn't mean to let it slip. Really, she didn't. She was just a bit wine drunk at Kise's twentieth birthday party, and she couldn't stop herself from giving an almighty roll of her eyes when the subject of Aomine Daiki—specifically, the subject of the absence of Aomine Daiki—came up.
"He's being ridiculous," she complained to Riko, who was holding her hand and petting her hair, which Satsuki always liked when she was drunk at eleven in the morning. Kise's party was a brunch at his shiny new apartment, so Satsuki was far from the only one who had been indulging in a bit of day drinking. "He likes Ki-chan. I know he does. I have the photocopies of Haizaki's hospital bills to prove it."
One of Kise's sisters, who had been on her way to the kitchen to fetch herself an extra slice of cake, suddenly came to a halt behind the couch Satsuki and Riko were cuddling on. "What hospital bills?"
Riko gave Satsuki a light warning pinch, but Satsuki was too far gone to feel it and Riko really wasn't invested enough in keeping Aomine's secrets to try harder to shut Satsuki's mouth.
"The ones Dai-chan paid after putting Haizaki in the hospital for Ki-chan!" Satsuki exclaimed in what was most decidedly not her indoor voice.
It wasn't just Kise's sister who overheard that time. Nearly every head at the party, including Kise's, turned in her direction.
After the rest of his guests cleared out, Kise funneled half a gallon of water down Momoi's gullet to sober her up. Then he got the full story from her, nearly five years after the fact.
"Aominecchi punched Haizaki," Kise repeated. "To keep Haizaki from punching me?"
"That little slimeball was planning to do worse than punch you," Momoi mumbled guiltily. She was still feeling bad for spilling the beans on something Aomine had specifically asked her to keep quiet, but not bad enough to not answer Kise's questions. "But yeah. Dai-chan wasn't going to let that happen."
Kise stared, flabbergasted. "If anyone found out, he could have been suspended. From basketball. For, like, ever!"
Momoi nodded. "You know as well as I do that Dai-chan doesn't think before he acts," she said. "But I think, in that instance, he knew the risks. And he still put a dent in Haizaki's stupid face, because Haizaki deserved it."
"Then… what does that mean?" Kise ran a hand through his hair and slumped back in the armchair he'd taken. "Did Aominecchi… care about me?"
Momoi's eyes softened. "Of course he did, Ki-chan. He still does. He's just too stupid to show it."
Kise reeled for a few days after his birthday. He did believe Momoi, because punching Haizaki's lights out absolutely sounded like something Aomine would do. But was it something Aomine would do for Kise?
In the past few years, their group had simultaneously gotten closer and grown apart in different ways. Some of them no longer played basketball, but that actually strengthened their bond as friends rather than 'just' teammates. Aomine and Kagami were the only ones still playing competitively—Aomine in college, Kagami in the NBA—but they all got together to play a casual game at least a few times a year.
Kise wasn't too sure where he stood with Aomine these days. They weren't on bad terms, exactly, but Kise had always gotten the sense that Aomine was disappointed in him for quitting basketball. And before that, he'd always gotten the sense that Aomine was disappointed in him for not being good enough at basketball.
Aomine wasn't hostile towards him, but he was… distant. He hadn't even attended Kise's twentieth birthday party, though he did send a kind of ludicrously extravagant gift with Momoi. There were times when Kise felt like Aomine was actively trying to avoid him, but for the most part Kise just felt like Aomine couldn't be bothered to make time for him. Which was fine. If Aomine wanted to be super normal about their friendship, Kise could match that energy. It wasn't like he still had a humongous crush on Aomine or anything.
Except he totally fucking did.
Which was precisely why the Haizaki Incident was kind of blowing his mind.
He wanted to talk to Aomine about it, but what exactly could he say? Wouldn't it be weird to bring up something that had happened so long ago? What even was there to talk about?
In the end, Kise decided—screw it. It was still his birthday week. If he wanted to be a little weird, he was damn well going to be a little weird.
Aomine, wearing sweats and a jersey and sleep-crusted eyes, looked like he'd just rolled out of bed when Kise showed up at his dorm room the next morning. Kise hadn't called ahead; he didn't want to give Aomine a chance to avoid him, if that was in fact what Aomine had been doing all these years.
"Did you punch Haizaki?" Kise blurted out, without so much as a greeting.
Aomine blinked and scratched a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. "Recently? No. Didn't he move to LA? I bet Nijimura would rough him up for you if you asked."
"But you did punch Haizaki," Kise pressed. "Before? After the Winter Cup, I mean. When we were first-years?"
"Oh," Aomine said. "Yeah. Did you just find out or something?"
Kise threw his hands into the air, then barged into Aomine's dorm when Aomine stepped aside to let him in. "Yes! You told Momocchi to keep it a secret!"
"Well, yeah, but…" Aomine shrugged and kicked his door shut. "It's Satsuki. I thought she would've blabbed ages ago."
Kise opened his mouth, then closed it again. Maybe that was a fair point. Momoi was his only competition for the title of Most Incorrigible Gossip within their friend group, after all. It must have taken some sort of miracle for her to keep her lips zipped on this matter for so long.
While Aomine grabbed a carton of milk out of the fridge in his dorm room's mini-kitchen, Kise leaned against the side of Aomine's desk and eyed him thoughtfully. He scrunched up his nose when Aomine drank straight from the carton, but he hadn't come to nitpick Aomine's home etiquette or lack thereof.
He'd come to get a few things straight.
"You punched Haizaki," he repeated.
Aomine shrugged. "Yeah. Bastard had it coming."
"Because he was going to hurt me."
"Yeah. Sore loser. Terrible hair."
"You wanted to stop him, from hurting me," Kise concluded. "Because you cared about me."
Aomine wasn't as quick to answer that time. He finished the milk and tossed out the carton, then turned to the coffee maker to set up a pot to brew. "What's this about, Kise?"
"Are we friends, Aominecchi?"
"Sure."
"Then why weren't you at my birthday party?"
"Did Momoi not—"
"She gave me your gift," Kise interjected. "But it isn't the same. If we're friends, I would have wanted you there. If we're friends, I would want to hang out with you more often. If we're friends, and if you care about me, I would want to hear it."
Aomine had stopped moving. He stood facing his coffee maker. Kise could still make out the profile of Aomine's face if he craned his neck to the side. He could see the way Aomine's jaw tensed, like he was holding something back.
"I didn't realize you cared about me," Kise admitted frankly. "You never acted like you did. Not before that year's Winter Cup and not after. Especially not after. You pulled away from me after that season, didn't you? I'm not just imagining it."
Aomine was quiet for a moment longer before he let out a rough exhale and fetched two mugs off a shelf. "You're not just imagining it."
"Why?" Kise prompted. "If you cared about me, why didn't you ever act like it?"
"Because you had a crush on me."
"What." Kise froze up. For a second, he considered trying to deny it, but Aomine had sounded pretty sure of himself. And he wasn't wrong, anyway. Kise frowned, feeling more indignant than anything. "You avoided me because I liked you?"
"No, I avoided you because I liked you back."
"What."
Aomine sighed a second time. There was only enough coffee for one cup at that point, but he paused the drip and filled a mug before setting the pot back to let the coffee continue brewing. He found some sugar in a cabinet and opened a fresh carton of milk to fix up the coffee just the way Kise liked it, before passing it over.
"You liked me, I liked you," he said. "But I didn't deserve to be with you. I treated you like shit back in school. If I'd asked you out, you would've given me a chance, but it would've been a chance I didn't deserve."
Kise nearly dropped the mug Aomine placed in his hands. He had literally never heard a more ridiculous string of words come out of any human person's mouth.
"Oh my god," he whispered. "Momocchi was right."
Aomine furrowed his brow with confusion. "About what?'
"You're stupid," Kise said.
"Oi!"
Kise set aside the mug and lightly slapped both his hands to Aomine's cheeks, giving his head a firm shake. "There's nothing between these ears, is there?"
"Kise," Aomine warned.
"It must be like the inside of a basketball in there." Kise had started to grin as he spoke, and that grin just grew wider and wider with every word. "Aominecchi, you treated everyone like shit back in school. It wasn't cool, but you didn't do it to be cruel. We all know that. None of us were perfect people back then."
"None of you were as bad as me," Aomine pointed out.
"None of us were as clinically depressed and undiagnosed as you."
Aomine rolled his eyes, but he didn't argue with that.
Kise smiled. "Do you still like me?"
Aomine rolled his eyes once more, but he didn't argue with that either.
"I still like you," Kise continued. "I like you a lot, Aominecchi. And to be perfectly honest with you, I don't give a damn about what you think you deserve. I mean, seriously. How dare you make that decision for both of us, without any input whatsoever from me?"
His words were a bit on the harsh side, but his tone was caught somewhere between teasing and gently scolding. He smushed Aomine's cheeks with his hands a few times, then slung his arms around Aomine's shoulders.
"Since you can't be trusted with these things, I've decided," Kise announced. "We're dating now. You're my boyfriend."
Aomine huffed a laugh, surprised and maybe just a touch endeared. "Kise, you can't just—"
"I can," Kise insisted. "We're also going to kiss now. I just decided that too. You can call it my birthday present."
"I got you a birthday present," Aomine argued.
Kise groaned at that. "Maybe I'm a bit stupid too," he muttered under his breath. "You got me an earring with what I'm pretty sure is a real diamond in it. How did I not realize you were into me?"
"Yeah, I'm not subtle," Aomine agreed. "That's the whole damn reason I tried to not spend too much time around you. Figured I'd let you get over me first, then—"
Kise had heard enough ridiculousness for one day. Since Aomine had unilaterally made the last big decision about their relationship, Kise felt it was only fair that he get the chance to unilaterally make this one.
He kissed Aomine, chastely at first, then rather… rambunctiously when an innocent brush of lips against lips proved to be nowhere near enough.
Later, when they were wearing much less clothing, Kise grinned over at Aomine and sipped the coffee that had gone ice cold. "Don't you feel silly now? We could have been doing that for years."
Aomine flipped him off while booking them a table for dinner at a fancy teppanyaki place. Once he was finished, he pointed his phone at Kise and accused, "I should've known you were only after my body."
Kise flashed him a positively angelic smile. "And your money," he joked. "A diamond before the first date? You're a keeper."
Aomine snorted and pulled Kise back into his lap. "That's the other reason I tried to put some distance between us, you know."
"Hm?"
"I knew," Aomine said. "I knew, if we got together, I'd want to keep you. I'd never, ever let you go."
Kise laced his fingers at the nape of Aomine's neck. He bowed his head and touched their foreheads together.
"Good," he murmured. "Don't ever, ever let me go."