Title: Can't Hold On, Can't Let Go
Characters: Aomine, Momoi, Kuroko, Imayoshi, Kagami, Kise, Akashi
Summary: This is the one where Aomine is the one who has to find a way to reach Kuroko and persuade him that basketball can be fun, instead of vice versa.
Notes:General audiences. No pairings here, but in my head, this is totally AoKuro pre-slash. Title adapted from Cloud Cult's song "Best Friend." 43,647 words.

A while back, I solicited drabble prompts over on Tumblr. This fic comes from a prompt from skyfireflies asking to see to see what would have happened if Kuroko had gone to Touou with Aomine and Momoi. As I said then, it was the kind of thing that I couldn't imagine having happened without a couple of things changing... and that it was the kind of thing that really needed to be more than a drabble. Yep, I was right.

My thanks to Branch and Andrea and Traci for reading the draft of this beast as I was putting it together and for cheerleading and providing feedback as I worked. It would not be the fic it is without them.

Can't Hold On, Can't Let Go

Part One

Satsuki must have known—Satsuki always knew everything, it was what she did—but Daiki had been in high school for a solid two weeks before he realized that Tetsu was at Touou, too.

He found out by accident, when he rounded a corner too fast and slammed right into someone and knocked him down. Daiki was complaining and apologizing and reaching a hand down to pull the guy up before it sank in that that was Tetsu's face over the school blazer and tie, Tetsu's flat expression gazing back at him.

"What the hell." Daiki was startled enough that he forgot, a little, that he was helping Tetsu up and just held onto his hand instead. "What are you doing here, Tetsu?"

"Going to class." Tetsu pulled his fingers out of Daiki's hand, like he was annoyed at something, and stooped to pick up his books. "Excuse me, I don't want to be late."

He left Daiki blinking and confused, standing in the hallway while the last few students in the hall scurried to get to class on time, and—that was strange, wasn't it? Akashi had been pretty clear about it when he'd given his final orders. They were all supposed to go to different high schools and different teams, for all the good that was going to do them.

Huh. Daiki rubbed his chin and headed up to the roof to catch a nap, wondering about that and trying to remember whether Tetsu had actually been there for that meeting or not (Tetsu had been absent more than not, towards the end).

Maybe he'd go to basketball practice that afternoon for a change, he decided. If Tetsu was at Touou, that might at least make things a little less boring.

He didn't catch up with Satsuki until practice, when he ambled in and dropped an arm around her shoulder while she talked to Imayoshi-san. "Hey, Satsuki, why didn't you say that Tetsu was here?"

Imayoshi-san's smile didn't even flicker, which was a little bit unnerving and set Daiki's Akashi-senses to tingling. "Aomine-kun, how good of you to join us for practice."

"Yeah, yeah." Daiki was more interested in Satsuki and the way she was biting her lip than Imayoshi-san, tingling Akashi-senses or no. "What gives, Satsuki?"

"I don't know," Satsuki said. The weird thing was, she seemed to be telling the truth. "I really don't know."

That was unusual, but then, Satsuki had been kind of weird and emotional for a while now. Daiki shrugged that off and looked around, craning his head as he searched for a short, pale figure in among the rest of Touou's players. "So where is he, anyway? It's not like him to be late."

Satsuki looked up at him, biting all the color out of her lip, and it was Imayoshi-san who said, "Are you talking about Kuroko Tetsuya? I seem to recall hearing that he went and joined the literature club."

Daiki stared at them both, baffled. "The fuck?" he said. "You're joking, right?"

But they weren't joking at all.

Daiki would have dropped everything then and there to go find Tetsu and demand to know what the hell was going on, but he'd made one fatal error, which was permitting himself to come within arm's length of Imayoshi-san. The guy smiled at him until Daiki was genuinely unnerved and cheerfully folded him into practice despite Daiki's protests that he had more important things to do. "You wouldn't leave again so soon after gracing us with your presence, would you?" he asked, right before setting Daiki to running laps with the rest of the team.

Daiki was beginning to suspect that Imayoshi-san could be one sarcastic son of a bitch when he put his mind to it.

He jittered his way through the laps and then the drills—hah, fucking drills, like he needed more of those in his life—and then a couple of practice matches that were good for one thing, anyway—they gave him a chance to show the rest of the club just what Aomine Daiki could do and why going to practice was so boring these days. Kantoku drew up the teams and put Daiki in with the four first-years who weren't awful. Then he stood back and looked thoughtful while Daiki worked out some of his frustrations by beating the pants off the second-years and then the third-years. By the time he was done, the rest of the club was looking at him differently—well, fuck it, he was used to that, wasn't he? He could count the number of people who'd played on the same court as him and hadn't come away shocked and awed on his fingers and still have fingers left over. So whatever. At least they could stop giving him nasty looks when they saw him in the halls now that he'd made the difference in their respective levels clear.

It was late by the time Kantoku and Imayoshi-san called an end to practice—late enough that Daiki looked at the time in disgust, sure that Tetsu had long since left campus for the day. He cornered Satsuki instead, bumping his shoulder up against hers (Satsuki could get awfully irritable about being assaulted by sweatmonsters after practice) and said, "You and me, we're walking home together, got it?"

"Hey, you can't just—" one of the second-years, Daiki thought his name was Wakaba or Watanabe or something like that—began to protest, like he thought Satsuki couldn't damn well take care of herself or something.

Satsuki forestalled him by sighing and tucking her hair behind her ear. "Yes, Dai-chan." It shut Waka-whatsit right up, even if Daiki didn't much like the way Satsuki looked worried around the eyes.

Wasn't like there weren't things to be worried over. Tetsu didn't belong in any damn literature club.

Halfway through his shower, it occurred to Daiki that maybe Tetsu had chosen the literature club because of Akashi's final orders. He stuck his head under the spray while he considered that possibility. Akashi had been clear about it. They were all supposed to have split up and gone to different teams and become enemies. Or something like that. Akashi could be awfully melodramatic when he put his mind to it.

If that was what it was, Akashi was just going to have to suck it. (Daiki felt vaguely weird thinking it, but whatever. Akashi was in Kyoto now, he couldn't do anything to Daiki from all the way out there.) Tetsu was at Touou, so he was going to play for Touou and that was all there was to that.

Daiki nodded in determination, toweled himself off briskly and pulled on his street clothes, and went to find Satsuki.

She was sitting just inside the gym doors, her mouth tucked down at the corners and her hands folded tight in front of her, and she climbed to her feet slowly. Daiki guessed she must have figured some of what was up, anyway.

"Okay," he said once they were outside in the cool night air. "What the hell is going on?"

She didn't bother trying to play dumb. "Tetsu-kun quit basketball," she said, pretty flatly for someone delivering news of the impossible.

"No way. "Daiki laughed, because come on, it was impossible. "There's no way. Tetsu wouldn't quit basketball. Tetsu loves basketball."

Satsuki walked half a block with him before she answered that. "I don't... I don't think that's really true anymore." Her voice was quiet. "In fact, I'd probably say the opposite."

The opposite? The opposite was—Daiki laughed again, uneasy. "Are we even talking about the same guy? Practiced late every night? Played first-string for Teikou? Small, kind of quiet, definitely on the snarky side?"

"I know who I'm talking about." Satsuki's tone was flat, the way it got any time someone questioned a conclusion she was sure of. "Just how many matches do you remember Tetsu-kun playing at the end?"

"Hell, I dunno, I've slept since then." Daiki cast his mind back anyway, thinking about it, the Winter Cup still only a handful of months past, not difficult to recall even if he complained about it—okay, sure, he'd been pretty distracted right there at the end, but even so, Tetsu's absences for those final games did stand out, didn't they? In retrospect and all. "I figured that it was something Akashi cooked up with the coaches. You know, Finals and stuff." Although if that had been the case, Tetsu should have been on the bench, cheering the rest of them on. Well, saying sarcastic things in perfectly polite ways to spur them on. Tetsu's way of being supportive was subtle like that.

"Dai-chan, did you really not notice?" Satsuki turned a reproachful look on him. "He quit the club."

"No way." He scoffed because Satsuki was just teasing him now, she had to be. "There's no way Tetsu would do that." Even the one time he'd talked about it, he hadn't really wanted to quit, he'd just gotten a little discouraged, at least until Daiki'd talked him back out of it. And then the rest of them had come in and Akashi had seen Tetsu's potential, and that had been that.

Satsuki made a sound, frustrated, and smacked his shoulder. "Stop saying that," she told him—yeah, she was angry now. "Listen to what I'm telling you. Tetsu-kun quit. He stopped coming to games. He's a member of the literature club. He said—"

She stopped; Daiki had to ask, "What did he say?" and nudge his shoulder up against hers before she would go on.

When she did, her voice was small and sad, and so was her expression. "He said that he hated basketball."

"He said that?" Daiki asked, not quite able to bring himself to believe it, even if Satsuki really did seem to be serious. "Really, Tetsu said that to you?" It just didn't seem possible, but Satsuki nodded. "But why?"

Satsuki turned her face up to him, frowning. "That's what I was hoping you could tell me."

"Why should I know?" Daiki demanded, with the words Tetsu said he hated basketball bouncing around inside his skull and making precisely no sense at all. There was no way a guy like Tetsu, who'd practiced relentlessly night after night, could possibly hate basketball. Satsuki must have misunderstood somehow (even if Daiki normally had unshakeable faith in her powers of perception, she had to be wrong now).

"Weren't you his friend?" Satsuki asked, simple enough, but—what did she mean by going and making it sound like it was all over and done with? "I thought that maybe he would have said something to you when he stopped going to matches, or at least when he turned in his resignation. But I guess he didn't, if you didn't even notice."

Daiki winced away from the complete lack of censure in her tone. Somehow that was worse than if she'd actually started scolding him right there on the street. "Aw, c'mon, Satsuki, I was busy!"

"I know that." Satsuki went quiet, expression downcast. "I know, and I'm glad you were—really glad, all that's been good for you, but..." Her voice trailed off. "I don't know. I just don't know."

Sounded an awful lot like she did know to Daiki, or at least had some suspicions. He jammed his hands into his pockets and braced himself. "But...?"

This time she wouldn't say any more than that. She shook her head as they came to their station and shifted the subject. "Are you going to talk to him?"

"Damn right I'm going to talk to him." Daiki bumped his shoulder against hers again, since she looked so worried and all. "I'll find him tomorrow or something and get him all sorted out, and get him on the team where he belongs. Hey, do you think Akashi is going to be pissed about that?"

"I think that Akashi-kun is the least of our concerns right now," Satsuki told him, but she wouldn't tell him what had made her go and say a foreboding thing like that, no matter how much Daiki pushed for it.

But it didn't matter, really, he reasoned. She was right. First he had to get Tetsu back where he belonged, and then they could figure out how to deal with whatever Akashi was going to have to say about that. (Hey, if Tetsu really had quit the team, then Akashi couldn't have given him any orders about high school, right...? Daiki considered how Akashi was likely to receive that argument and snorted. Yeah. Right.)

The problem, Daiki quickly found, was that talking to Tetsu was a lot easier said than done. He was supposed to be in class 1-B, but whenever Daiki went by there before school, after school, or at lunch, Tetsu was nowhere in evidence. Daiki was very sure of that, even taking Tetsu's ability to fade into the background into consideration. He'd had lots of practice in working around that, hadn't he? But Tetsu was a distinct non-presence every time Daiki went looking for him.

Daiki kept that up for the better part of a week anyway, figuring that he would either get lucky and find Tetsu or that Tetsu would get tired of dodging him and find him first, if only to tell him to knock it off. In the meantime, Daiki also went to practice a few more times, because he had to keep his hand in. Besides, he liked the way it made Wakamatsu grind his teeth every time he walked onto the court. Besides, Imayoshi-san seemed to get a kick out of coming up with sweetly sarcastic things to say every time he showed up, and Daiki could always hope that Tetsu would come back to his senses and switch over to the basketball club.

But Tetsu remained stubbornly elusive. "I don't get it, Satsuki," Daiki complained during his second week of trying and failing to find Tetsu. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say that he was avoiding me."

Satsuki bit her lip, which was pretty much never a good sign, and said, "Have you tried the literature club meetings?"

"Not yet." That was a good suggestion. Tetsu would pretty much have to be there, wouldn't he? "Where do they meet?" he asked, beginning to plot how best to extract Tetsu from the clutches of the book nerds.

He came up with a pretty good plan, or so he thought. The literature club did its thing on Thursday afternoons in the library, which made sense. Daiki cut his last class of the day and made like it was so he could go grab a nap on the sunny roof, but went to the library instead. He spent a pretty lively hour dodging through the stacks and avoiding the librarian, who had the damnedest idea that Daiki ought to have been in class or something. Eventually the school day ended and the guy gave it up for a lost cause and retreated to his office to make himself a cup of tea or do whatever it was librarians did when they weren't harassing innocent students. Daiki concealed himself in the stacks near the library doors and the long work tables that were probably where the book nerds would congregate, and settled in to wait for them and Tetsu.

It was exasperating beyond all measure when the book nerds finally showed up, at least fifty percent female and all a-twitter, because they'd brought Kise with them.

It seemed almost normal for a split second. Daiki didn't even know how many times he'd seen Kise wandering around Teikou or a rival school's campus or even one of the arenas where playoffs were being hosted, surrounded by a flock of his fans and doing that thing with them. ("That thing?" Satsuki had asked once, laughing at him. Daiki had tried to describe it, the way Kise smiled and nodded and ducked his head, modest but not, flirting with his fans. Tetsu had gotten it; he'd nodded and said, "Yes, that thing." The only surprise was that Satsuki hadn't gotten it right off herself, but then, maybe she wasn't wholly immune to Kise's supposed charms.) Then Daiki blinked and shook his head, because this wasn't normal at all. There was no reason at all for Kise to be standing in Touou's library, wearing what either had to be Kaijou's school uniform or else the least flattering suit Daiki had ever seen on him and courting a bunch of feather-brained girls who actually thought that Kise's pretty face was the thing about him that was interesting.

Daiki was just about to step out from his hiding place, the plan to ambush Tetsu forgotten in the powerful urge to demand an explanation from Kise, when Tetsu himself entered the library and stopped short upon seeing Kise there. Tetsu never had been one for showing much of what he was thinking—he was too self-contained for that—but Daiki had played with him enough to be able to read the surprise on his face, and the displeasure, too. (But why wouldn't Tetsu be glad to see Kise? Weren't they friends?)

Kise gave a glad cry, though. "Kurokocchi!" He beamed at Tetsu, bright as a sunbeam; Daiki was surprised that the windows didn't rattle with the force of the sighs that gusted out of his fangirls. "Just the person that I wanted to see!" He smiled at the girls clustered around him, doing that thing of his at full power. Daiki thought that a couple of them looked ready to faint at his feet. "I'm so sorry to cut this short, but will you excuse me? There are some things I need to talk over with Kurokocchi."

Tetsu didn't much look like he wanted to talk over anything at all, at least if Daiki were reading the faint tightening of his mouth and the set of his eyebrows correctly, but that didn't seem to matter to Kise. Or to the female book nerds, who cooed and swept out of the library, dragging their bewildered masculine counterparts with them—"But where are we going?" one of them protested as he was dragged off. "It's our library!" But no one paid attention to him.

Then it was just Tetsu, and Kise, and Daiki in his lurking place in the stacks.

Kise immediately boosted himself onto one of the long work tables that filled the area between the circulation desk and the library doors and smiled at Tetsu. "What, aren't you even going to say hello, Kurokocchi? We haven't seen each other in ages."

"What are you doing here?" Tetsu asked, blunt as ever. "It's a long trip from Kanagawa."

Kise pulled a face, maybe not as melodramatic as the one he would have pulled if he'd still had an audience to play to. "I came to see you, of course." He leaned back on his hands, still smiling, maybe waiting for Tetsu to respond. When Tetsu didn't, he went on. "I'm here to steal you, if I can."

What? If it hadn't been for the fact that he was honestly curious about how Tetsu was going to respond to that, Daiki would have burst forth from his hiding spot then and there to tell Kise to get his ass back to Kaijou and stop trying to poach his teammate.

Tetsu stared at Kise, who smiled back, perfectly serene. "I don't play basketball anymore."

Until that moment, a part of Daiki had honestly believed that Satsuki had been mistaken, that what she'd said about Tetsu had been wrong somehow—but there was no way for him to misinterpret the words out of Tetsu's mouth or the resolute tone of his voice. Tetsu meant that, what the fuck.

It felt like being punched; Daiki put a hand out and leaned against the nearest book shelf.

Kise either didn't know Tetsu well enough or deliberately chose to ignore the finality of that statement. He laughed. "What, so you can be in the literature club? C'mon, Kurokocchi, how much fun can that be?"

"I enjoy it," Tetsu said, calmly. "It's certainly more intellectually stimulating."

Kise flattened his hand over his heart. "You're so mean sometimes! Honestly." He shook his head. "Come to Kaijou. Play basketball with me there. It's a great team, and the school's not bad either, if you're after intellectual stimulation."

"No," Tetsu said, tone flat.

"Aw, come on," Kise whined. "You don't honestly want to waste yourself here, do you? This is stupid, you know that."

Daiki bristled automatically—Tetsu couldn't waste himself on anything—and Tetsu said, tone chilly, "I didn't ask for your opinion, did I?" It sounded perfectly calm, even reasonable, but—holy fuck, Tetsu was pissed. Daiki didn't have to be smart like Satsuki was to figure out that it wasn't just having his literature club called stupid that had Tetsu so angry, either.

Kise wasn't actually dumb, no matter how he liked to act. He straightened up and raised his hands. "Hey, hey, geez, don't be like that," he said, quick, placating. "You know I didn't mean it like that. But come on, you know you don't have to do this to yourself. Come to Kaijou and play with me. I promise I won't be like Aominecchi."

What? What? What the hell did Kise mean by that? For crying out loud, Kise made it sound like it was Daiki's fault that Tetsu had decided to quit basketball or something—and that didn't even make sense.

As Daiki wracked his brain, trying to make some kind of sense of that, Tetsu gave Kise a long look, one that actually was a lot like Akashi when he was trying to figure something—someone—out. "I find that difficult to believe. You're still chasing him just as hard as you can." Tetsu's tone was dead level. "Do you really want to play with me, or do you just think that I can help you catch him?"

Daiki flinched back from that almost as hard as Kise did, even if Kise immediately laughed, stuttering and nervous. "You make me sound awful, Kurokocchi. I know you're mad that Aominecchi went and found somebody new to play with, but you don't have to take it out on the rest of us." He paused a moment, looking thoughtful. "If you really feel that way about it, that's why you should come to Kaijou. You and I can show Aominecchi what he's been missing out on."

What—what? It sounded like Kise was talking about—but—that didn't even make sense, why would Tetsu be pissed about that? He'd told Daiki to hang on himself, hadn't he? Daiki remembered it clearly, the sticky cold of Tetsu's ice cream melting down his spine and Tetsu's urgency—how he'd insisted that it was still worth it to play, that there would be something worth playing for—and he'd been right after all. Tetsu had been right, even though Daiki hadn't met Kagami during the Winter Cup but on the street courts instead. It didn't really matter, the important part was that Tetsu had been right all along, and that there was still plenty of reason to keep playing. Still plenty of joy in the game.

Except—Tetsu didn't sound like he believed that anymore. He was looking at Kise, expression closed-off and shuttered, and his voice was cold when he said, "No, I don't think so. Goodbye, Kise-kun." He turned and walked out without any more ceremony than that.

Kise whistled between his teeth after the door closed after Tetsu, while Daiki leaned against the shelves and reeled. "Well, damn. So much for that." He slid down from his perch on the table. "Stupid Aominecchi."

Before Daiki could get enough of a grip on himself to ask what that meant, someone opened the door and peered into the room. She squealed. "Oh! It really is you!"

Kise immediately shifted back into gleaming smiles for her and the string of friends she brought with her, who clustered around him with questions to ask and things for him to sign and followed after him when he began moving for the door. He was gone before Daiki had even begun to figure out how he wanted to react to the conversation he'd overheard.

There was really only one thing Daiki could do in a situation like this. He straightened up and ran a hand over his face, and then he went to find Satsuki.

Satsuki listened to Daiki's recounting of what had passed between Kise and Tetsu with a furrowed brow and her teeth set against her lip and didn't even complain at him for having come to practice to extract her before the club was dismissed for the day. That had been a show of extreme patience on her part, not least because both Kantoku and Imayoshi-san had been very expressive with their eyebrows. (Daiki had heard Imayoshi-san remark, "I'm starting to be really interested in this Kuroko-kun" on his and Satsuki's way out the door, which was going to have to be something to worry about later.) Not that Daiki cared about them, not when Kise had tried to poach Tetsu and Tetsu had—Tetsu had—

"He didn't, did he?" Daiki asked Satsuki. "He wouldn't have quit basketball just because of Kagami—would he?"

He'd brought the question to her, hoping that she would tell him that it wasn't so, or even better, laugh at him for asking it, but she didn't do either. She looked aside instead and fidgeted with the zipper of her jacket. "I don't really know," she said finally. "I can't say for sure—he won't talk about it. He won't talk about anything—not with me." She stopped then, surprising Daiki with the look of misery on her face, more than he'd realized she was even feeling over this.

He'd thought—been under the impression, anyway—that Tetsu was at least still talking to Satsuki. But maybe he wasn't. Maybe he was avoiding both of them.

That pissed Daiki off. Tetsu could be as angry as he wanted to be about—whatever it was that had gotten under his skin—but there was no reason at all for him to take it out on Satsuki.

Yeah, he was definitely going to have to do something about this. "Do you think Kise was right?"

Satsuki looked up at him; her expression was drawn. "I don't know," she said again. "I really don't know, Dai-chan."

Right. It was time to go find Tetsu and figure this thing out, by whatever means was necessary. Daiki excused himself and headed back for the library, since the afternoon was young and the literature club's meetings ran for a couple of hours.

Maybe he shouldn't have been surprised when he went back to the library and found that Tetsu wasn't there, but Daiki was—at least until the surprise shifted over into irritation when one of the book nerds said, "Kuroko-kun sure is popular today, isn't he?"

There was nothing for it but to go home and stew. Daiki toyed with the idea of sending Kagami a message and seeing whether he was free for a game or three, but Satsuki had forbidden doing that during the school week. "You two idiots need all the academic help you can get," she'd told them both at the start of the school year. "You can't go calling each other up at all hours of the night while school is in session. I forbid it. Weekend games only." It was definitely too soon to test that decree, no matter how badly Daiki wanted to play someone who could push him hard enough to make it easy to let go into the game.

He played against himself instead, taking over the street court near his house, dribbling and cutting past a phantom opponent who was as fast as Kise and tall as Murasakibara, precise like Midorima and sharp like Akashi—and as full of potential as Kagami, yeah, someone who grew with every basket he missed and every ball that got stolen away from him. That guy didn't ever give up, sort of like Tetsu—

Daiki slammed the ball through the hoop and dangled from it for a second before he let himself drop to the court. He couldn't say that any more, could he? Tetsu had given up, by the sounds of it. Tetsu had given up, and that was like saying that the sun had decided to rise in the west or that Midorima had suddenly developed people skills. It just wasn't possible.

So much for what was possible.

He cut his last class again on Friday afternoon and spent most of that time on the roof, staring at the horizon and trying to figure out what he was going to say to Tetsu, how he was going to fix whatever was wrong and get Tetsu to snap out of it. He got about as far on that as he had during a night of restless sleep, which was not far at all. Whatever. He was good at improvising, wasn't he?

He went back downstairs a few minutes before the final bell of the school day and planted himself outside 1-B, taking care that he couldn't be seen from inside the classroom, and waited. Eventually the bell went and the end-of-the-day bustle began—people packing up their bags and helping clean the classroom, clustering in groups to talk or to head home or to clubs. Daiki watched the classroom door and ignored everything but the people who exited it, singly or in twos or threes, none of them of any interest whatsoever once he'd assured himself that none of them were Tetsu or concealing Tetsu in their midst. The minutes passed; the flow of them finally dwindled and stopped, and Tetsu still had not emerged.

Fine. At lunch, Satsuki had said that Tetsu was definitely at school. He generally didn't cut classes without a good reason. So, by process of elimination... Daiki came away from his spot next to the classroom door and went inside.

Tetsu was waiting for him. That was the only way to interpret the way he was sitting on a desk at the back of the classroom, watching the door. He was sitting very straight, hands folded in his lap, and his face was so still that Daiki couldn't read anything off him at all. He paused on the classroom's threshold, disconcerted, then came the rest of the way to meet him. "You're a hard man to track down, Tetsu."

"Am I?" Sometimes Tetsu could say things without putting any inflection at all into it, nothing to show what he was thinking. This was one of those times. He watched as Daiki came over and took a seat on the desk next to his and did not say anything else.

So it was up to him to do the talking? Daiki could handle that. "Yep, you are." Kise had been casual, had made a lot of jokes, all things considered, and that hadn't worked very well. So he would be direct. "So I figure you've been avoiding me. And you've quit playing basketball. What gives, Tetsu?"

Tetsu's expression barely even flickered. "Basketball isn't fun anymore." He said it quietly, a statement of fact rather than opinion. "Why should I keep playing?"

It still rocked Daiki back to hear that, even after listening to Tetsu and Kise and after hearing from Satsuki that Tetsu had said he hated basketball. "I don't understand," he said, bewildered by Tetsu's composure. "How can it not be fun anymore? It's still basketball."

Tetsu's mouth tightened. "Why don't you tell me?" Then, when Daiki blinked in confusion, he shook his head. "Never mind." He unclasped his hands and reached for his bag.

Oh, no. They weren't done yet, not by a long shot. Daiki sat up and reached across the narrow aisle to grab Tetsu's wrist and stop him.

Tetsu gave him a look that was plenty full of clear feeling then. "Let go."

"No way." Daiki hung on even when Tetsu tried to shake his hand free. "For crying out loud, you blew off Kise and you've stopped talking to Satsuki, and you quit basketball. What the hell is wrong with you?"

Tetsu stopped trying to pull free and stared at him. "There's nothing wrong with me."

His voice was like an arctic wind; Daiki was a little surprised that he couldn't see their breath hanging in the air between them. "Okay, fine," he said, remembering what Kise had mentioned. "What did I do?"

Tetsu frowned at him. "I realize that this is probably a shock to hear, but not everything is about you, Aomine-kun." He jerked his hand out of Daiki's grip while Daiki was still stinging from that. "I quit basketball because there wasn't any point in playing. You should be familiar with that feeling, I'm sure."

Daiki stared at him—that did sound sort of like what he'd said to Tetsu, complaining about how boring it was to play opponents who only rolled over and gave up, but—"You were the one who said it was worth it to keep going and not give up."

Tetsu slid off his desk and retrieved his bag. "I changed my mind," he said, not looking at Daiki.

"But you were right," Daiki protested. "Tetsu, you were right—basketball got fun again, and there's a guy who's like you, he doesn't give up no matter how many times I beat him, and he just keeps getting better. And everyone went to all different schools—it's going to keep on being fun." High-handed as Akashi had been about it, Daiki could see why he'd done it, after all. This way they were guaranteed to have at least four interesting opponents.

Tetsu straightened up and looked at him. "Maybe for you," he said. "But I'm not you. Please leave me alone, Aomine-kun. I'm done with basketball now."

"But—" Daiki said, baffled. "Tetsu—"

Tetsu ignored him and walked out, holding his head high and leaving Daiki gaping after him.

Then, as though the universe had decided that his afternoon wasn't complete, Imayoshi-san stuck his head into the classroom, smiling in such a way that all Daiki's carefully honed Akashi alarms went off at once. "Well, now," he said. "It goes against my better judgment to interfere in the affairs of my kouhai, but it seems to me that you've really put your foot in it." He sauntered into the classroom, still wearing that pleasant smile, while Daiki was still trying to recuperate from the fact that Tetsu had just disclaimed years of friendship and teamwork for reasons that passed Daiki's understanding. And now he had to deal with Imayoshi-san on top of that? Fuck.

"What are you doing here?" he asked for lack of anything better say. He glanced at the time as Imayoshi-san planted himself on the desk Tetsu had just vacated and clasped his hands around his knee. "Shouldn't you be at practice?"

"This is what I find so refreshing about you," Imayoshi-san said, smiling. "You're so very unimpressed with the charming little ins and outs of social niceties and always cut right to the heart of things."

Daiki squinted at him, trying to unravel the barb hidden beneath the pleasant drawl of the compliment until he decided that it wasn't worth it, not right now. "What the fuck do you want?"

Imayoshi-san pursed his lips. "Oh, world peace and a satisfactory conclusion to A Song of Ice and Fire, but I figure I'm not gonna see either of those before I die. So in the meantime I may as well try and see what I can do about getting you sorted out. I'm just selfless like that."

Where was a person even supposed to begin with that? Daiki opened his mouth but found that all he could think to say was, "What the hell?"

Imayoshi-san clicked his tongue against his teeth. "And much becomes clear. You're splendid on the basketball court and not too good off it. I guess that makes sense. I assume you've always outsourced the heavy lifting to Momoi-chan." He shook his head at Daiki, who wasn't entirely sure what Imayoshi-san was talking about or what Satsuki had to do with it. "That's laziness, you know, besides being just a bad idea all around. Momoi-chan is a fine and talented young lady, and the most forbearing creature I've ever met given how long she's been looking after your affairs for you, but everyone runs out of patience some time. You might wanna give that some thought." He paused a moment, looking contemplative. "Not to mention just how thoroughly you would be screwed if, heaven please forbid, she got herself run over by a bus or something."

There was one good thing to be said for Imayoshi-san's unwanted presence: his commentary was just obscure enough that deciphering what he was trying to say was a good way to take Daiki's mind off Tetsu. (Tetsu wanted to be left alone? He was done with basketball? What the fuck? And why did all that put such a sick, hollow ache at the pit of his stomach?) Daiki glared at him, not that it seemed to impress Imayoshi-san all that much. "Are you ever gonna get to the point, or are you just gonna keep insulting me? Because I've got better things to be doing than sitting here while you get your jollies making fun of me." For one thing, he needed to figure out what he'd done to make Tetsu so angry, and then how to fix it.

"Truly, respect from kouhai is overrated," Imayoshi-san murmured, still wearing that amused smile. Daiki growled, frustrated—and the smile fell right off Imayoshi-san's face. He sat up straighter and fixed a suddenly sharp look on Daiki, one that reached right down into that place where Akashi had installed respect for one's captain in Daiki's soul and hauled it to attention. "Pay attention to what I'm saying, brat. I'm attempting to teach you a valuable life lesson here. Someone ought to, and at least I've had practice trying."

"In what, being cryptic just for the hell of it?" Daiki asked.

"No, that's purely talent." Imayoshi-san studied him for a moment, eyes still sharp. "Let's see whether I can't break this down and make this simple for you. You've got yourself some bad habits and you've let them get you into trouble here. I reckon you've made the mistake of thinking that just because everyone puts up with your shit because you're pretty good with a basketball, the world really does revolve around you. I don't suppose that Momoi-chan is doing you all that many favors by indulging you the way she does, but that's her business." He shrugged, apparently setting that concern aside while Daiki blinked at him, caught somewhere between outrage and astonishment. "Now here's the thing you seem to have forgotten, if you ever knew it. Other people have feelings, Aomine-kun. They feel things just as strongly as you do and they can be hurt by the things you do. Or don't do, as the case may be. Even, and this is the important part now, so pay attention, even people who aren't basketball geniuses like yourself."

"I know that!" Daiki glared at Imayoshi-san, indignant (and not least because Imayoshi-san seemed so completely unmoved by his irritation). "Shit, I'm not stupid."

"No," Imayoshi-san agreed, placid. "I don't believe you are. But you are very careless with people, especially when you're more preoccupied with yourself than anyone around you. Tell me," he said, switching gears faster than Daiki could quite follow. "Why don't you come to practice?"

Daiki blinked at him, not at all sure what that had to do with anything—not sure why it even mattered, except that Imayoshi-san had decided to be an officious bastard about his personal failings. "It's boring. None of you people can match me, so it's not worth the effort of going."

Imayoshi-san raised his eyebrows. "Well, damn, why didn't someone tell me that our team was put on this earth for your personal satisfaction as a player?" he drawled. "And here I had the silly idea that practice was about getting better so we could win games instead." The edge of that cut like a knife; Daiki felt his face go hot in the unfamiliar flush of embarrassment. Imayoshi-san pointed a finger at him. "That right there is your problem, brat. You've got this damn fool notion in your head that just because you're something special as a player, you get to stand apart from the rest of us, above us, and look down on our efforts while you sneer. I figure I might be tempted to do the same thing, maybe, if it were me—it must seem awful funny that anyone would want to play a game when they know there's other players out there who'll always be stronger, no matter how hard they work. But here's the other thing, Aomine-kun—those people still play because they wanna play, because they love the game or they wanna win or because they just like doing it, and when you turn up your nose at them because they're not enough of a challenge for you, because you think they're boring, you're pissing all over their fun, and that is a thing only an asshole would do." He leaned back then, throttling down some of the intensity in his eyes and posture while Daiki sucked in a breath, the first he'd managed to take since Imayoshi-san had launched into that speech. "You want to have fun playing basketball, Aomine-kun? Well, perhaps you should consider that the rest of us do, too." He paused to flick a bit of lint from his sleeve. "Now suppose you tell me just what happened at Teikou that would have spoiled Kuroko-kun's fun?"

Daiki opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, feeling somehow scoured by that cascade of words, uncompromising as a naked blade and all the more unexpected given the generally genial facade Imayoshi-san seemed to prefer. That wasn't—he didn't do that—he didn't sneer, did he? "I... what? Teikou?"

Imayoshi-san gave him a look that fairly dripped forced patience. "Yes, at Teikou. I am given to understand that Kuroko-kun resigned from the club there before the lot of you had completely finished sweeping the tournament season. It seems pretty reasonable to assume that whatever soured him on the game started there."

"But Tetsu was first-string," Daiki protested, nearly automatic about it. "He played in games, he—" He began to say that they had depended on Tetsu in games, but he had to stop himself and think that over. The games at the end... he still didn't like to think about them, didn't like the sick feeling it gave him when he remembered playing game after game against opponents who were supposed to play, not surrender before the final buzzer went. Those games had been bad, so bad that he'd had to force himself to put on his uniform and play and would have avoided doing so altogether if Akashi hadn't insisted...

Imayoshi-san waited while he assembled his thoughts, smiling again, patient as a cat waiting at a mousehole as he wrapped his fingers around his knee and tapped them lightly. Daiki finally said, slowly, "Together, we were all... too good. The games we played were too good, maybe." It had been normal to triple their opponents' scores, very nearly expected—Daiki could still remember the game they hadn't quite done that, because Kise'd had a stomachache and Murasakibara had been distracted by the prospect of stopping by the store for a new flavor of chips. Akashi had frowned afterward and said, firmly, that they would not slip that way again. And they hadn't. "I don't know whose idea it was. But..." The games had been so boring. And it had been so easy, even in the quarterfinals, the semifinals, the fucking finals. "We... I guess we started... playing around our opponents." So easy to run rings around the other players, Teikou and opponent alike, and not even look like he was doing it, so easy to play like he was the only player on the court, to be just as selfish with the ball as Kise or Midorima or Murasakibara was, as selfish as Akashi could be when he left the bench to play.

"Toying with them, you mean?" Imayoshi-san's tone was very flat.

Daiki supposed it was accurate enough, either way. "I guess. It was something to do to pass the time."

"I see." Imayoshi-san was no longer pretending to smile. "And did Kuroko-kun also do this?"

"...no," Daiki admitted. "He couldn't. He's—he's a good player, sort of, his passes are amazing, but... that kind of thing, it takes more skill than he's got." It hadn't seemed like a big deal at the time—they'd all played together long enough that it had been easy to account for Tetsu and route their plays around him as necessary, but thinking about it now with Imayoshi-san looking at him like that, eyes narrowed behind the lenses of his glasses, Daiki felt almost like hunching his shoulders. "We were bored," he protested in the face of that disapproval. "We were just trying to keep ourselves occupied! I don't think any of the other teams ever guessed what was going on!" Which, in its own way, had been the worst of all.

"Did Kuroko-kun?"

Daiki took a breath that felt sharp in his throat. "He probably did."

"I see." Imayoshi-san raised his eyebrows just a bit. "Not to get all touchy-feely on you, but how do you suppose that might have made him feel?"

How would it have made Tetsu feel? Daiki could see where Imayoshi-san was going with that question, with the whole damn lecture that had led up to it, and resisted that conclusion as best as he could. "Tetsu wouldn't..." He stopped when Imayoshi-san raised his eyebrows again—how could such a simple gesture convey that much scorn? Daiki looked away from it. "I don't know," he confessed. "He stopped playing, I guess. It didn't seem like such a big deal at the time..." He tucked his hands under his elbows, angry again—fuck Imayoshi-san for making him think about these things, and fuck him for trying to judge something he didn't know anything about, and fuck him for the judgmental silence he was keeping now, one so heavy that it contrived to press the words out of Daiki, unwilling confession piling up on unwilling confession in an attempt to fill that silence. "It doesn't even make sense, Tetsu was the one who wanted—" Had it been about playing? How had that conversation gone, again? He'd wanted—to only work as much as necessary, something like that, only as much as it took to win. Then Tetsu had dropped his ice cream down the back of Daiki's shirt and—"He told me," he said helplessly. "He told me there would be someone, eventually. Someone worth playing. He told me not to give up, so why would he give up?"

Imayoshi-san tapped his fingers against his knee delicately. "Seems to me you don't need me to tell you that."

Daiki gripped his elbows more tightly and tried not to—not—it had to be something else, surely, but he could remember the last game he'd played with Tetsu on the court, the way the game had flowed and moved and how simple it had been to route passes and plays around Tetsu, just as easy as it was to evade the other team's plays—him and Kise and Midorima and Murasakibara standing under the net, Akashi on the bench and watching, comfortable and calm in his absolute assurance that they would win even if they'd stopped bothering to coordinate with one another. Tetsu hadn't been able to make that many of his passes. It had been easier to just make the plays without him, because they were already faster and better than any other player on the court, weren't they? Who needed to use Tetsu's misdirection to confound the poor bastards, anyway? And of course, Akashi had substituted himself in at the start of the third quarter, and that had been that. Tetsu had retired to the bench to sit with his towel draped over his head and his elbows braced against his knees, and Teikou had taken the game. They'd all gone their separate ways afterwards, and Tetsu had said he'd catch up with Daiki later. Only he hadn't.

"Way I figure it," Imayoshi-san said, startling Daiki out of his thoughts, "there's ways and ways of playing the game. Isn't anyone who sticks with it who doesn't want to play and doesn't want to win, somewhere in their hearts. No point in doing it, otherwise. But how you do it, well. That matters, too." He tapped his fingers, the rhythm quick and stuttering. "That's what the lot of you genius types overlook. Style counts."

Daiki blinked at him, more puzzled than anything else. "What does that have to do with Tetsu?"

"If we were the kind of team that was all touchy-feely, I'd say something here about teamwork and relying on your team when you get into tight spots," Imayoshi-san said, which still didn't have anything to do with Tetsu insofar as Daiki could see (except, well, maybe it did). Imayoshi-san stood then and used his superior vantage point to gaze down at Daiki. "We're not that kind of team. Everyone plays all-out because everyone wants to win, and that's that. But I tell you want, Aomine-kun. I ever catch you toying with our opponents, I'll bench you so fast your head will spin, you hear?"

He clapped Daiki on the shoulder, almost companionable, and began to walk away. Baffled, Daiki called after him, "But what about Tetsu?"

Imayoshi-san looked back at him, smiling. "I'm not gonna do all the work for you, you lazy brat. Figure it out for yourself." He walked out while Daiki was still sputtering at him in outrage, which was probably why he'd done it. But knowing that didn't help him with the problem of Tetsu.

He brooded on it for the rest of the afternoon and pointedly ignored all of Satsuki's inquiries about whether he was going to attend Saturday's practice and what had happened between him and Tetsu. Instead he took himself out to Kanagawa.

The Kaijou campus was every bit as large and impressive as he remembered it being when he'd come by for a recruitment interview—the perks of having a lot of money to throw around. Wasn't too hard to find the gymnasium, even without having seen it before, and it was easy enough to ease his way inside. Kise still had fangirls aplenty who were dedicated enough to come watch him practice. Daiki insinuated himself into their number and managed to observe a good fifteen minutes of Kaijou's passing drills before anyone caught on to his presence. It was the captain who did. He hammered a pass across the court at his partner and then called, "Our practices are private," as he fixed a pointed stare on Daiki.

Kise immediately undercut his captain's authority by uttering a delighted cry and bounding across the gymnasium. "Aominecchi! What are you doing here?"

"What do you think I'm here for?" Daiki asked, mostly out of curiosity to see how Kise would answer that. Saved having to actually know himself, too.

Kise's enormous smile didn't waver—not that it ever did, not unless Kise wanted it to—though something in his eyes turned sharper, considering. "If you're here for a match, you should know I'm not going to go easy on you."

That worked. Daiki caught an elbow behind his head and scoffed while Kise's fans sighed over how cool he was. "Geez, you've got the shortest memory of anybody I know. You and your team put together couldn't beat me."

"Aominecchi, you say such hurtful things—ack!" Kise staggered forward and turned, already wearing a wounded expression for his captain, who'd just kicked him a good one. "What was that for?"

"Practice is for practicing." Kasamatsu's tone was as severe as his expression. "Not for gossip. Get back to work. And you." He fixed that frown on Daiki, who couldn't help being a little impressed by how briskly the guy handled Kise. "If you wanted a game with our ace, you should have arranged it on your own time."

"There's not all that much practice left," Kise wheedled; his eyes were bright despite the fact that his captain didn't seem to be in any mood to put up with him or his whims. "And Aominecchi is an old friend! You wouldn't want me to be rude to an old friend, would you?"

"Shut up, brat." Kasamatsu didn't even bother taking his eyes off Daiki. "You can greet your friends after practice is over. Now give me ten laps."

Kise's sigh was doleful. "Don't go away before I'm done, Aominecchi!" he called over his shoulder as he jogged away.

Kasamatsu ignored that, too. "I'm sure you'll find that the benches outside are very comfortable for waiting on."

More amused than anything else—what, did they really think he cared about spying on them? That was Satsuki's thing, not his, and besides, based on what he'd seen, there wasn't anybody at Kaijou apart from Kise who was all that interesting—Daiki slouched out and found one of the benches in question. They weren't bad and the sunshine was warm, so he stretched himself out and let himself drowse there for a while.

He didn't know how much later it was when someone prodded his shoulder and blocked out the sunlight with his shadow—Kise, leaning over him and smiling. "Is there anywhere you won't sleep?"

"Haven't found it yet." Daiki sat up and stretched. Kasamatsu was still leaning in the gymnasium door and watching them. "We okay to play now or what?"

Kise followed Daiki's gaze and laughed. "If you don't mind that he'd like to watch?"

"Like I give a damn." Daiki stood and stretched his back out. "Invite your whole team for all I care." He stripped off the long-sleeved shirt he was wearing over his t-shirt as he ambled back inside and cast it aside. His pulse was already beating faster in anticipation of the game as he stepped onto the court and cocked his head at Kise. "All right, show me what you've got."

Kise retrieved one of the balls from the bin and bounced it a couple of times, eyes gleaming. "All right," he said, dropping into a ready crouch in the blink of an eye, and flashed into movement.

Daiki went to meet him, settling right into the rhythm of the game—the steady dribble of the ball and Kise's movements, smoother and more fluid than just about anyone else Daiki'd ever played, for all that Kise was a relative newcomer to the game. Kise feinted left and cut right; Daiki was there when he did and stole the ball from his very fingertips. He ducked away from Kise's reach and lobbed the ball at the basket. It swished through the net just like it always did; Daiki tasted the air on his teeth as they dove for the rebound together. "So about Tetsu," he said, which froze Kise up for the fraction of a second it took to poach the ball out from under him.

"What about him?" Kise launched himself into the air and slapped the ball away from the net; Daiki was pretty sure that he'd seen that move a year or so ago in someone else's repertoire. Kise hooked the ball into the net neatly enough, anyway, and grimaced when he realized that Daiki was right there to steal it away for himself.

Daiki cut away from him when he tried to steal the ball back. "What makes you think you'd be so much better for him than I would be?"

He sank the shot while Kise was still staring at him, and another before Kise shook himself and stepped into the arc of his next shot to block it. "How does Momocchi do it?" he asked, full of wonder. "No one else was even there!"

Daiki blocked the ball when Kise shot and kept his own counsel. Satsuki wouldn't mind it if he added a little to her mystique. "Well?" he asked, crouching with the ball and facing off with Kise while the clock in the back of his head began the countdown from twenty-four. "I'm waiting."

"I don't think I could be any worse." Kise moved when he did, feint within a feint, nearly fast enough to intercept the ball when it left Daiki's fingers. "I never made Kurokocchi quit basketball," he added as they chased after the ball together; he got there first.

That wasn't what Imayoshi-san's lecture had quite implied, but Daiki let it pass as he crowded against Kise, blocking him and close enough to hear the faint harshness in Kise's breathing—yeah, Kaijou's practice had looked pretty rigorous. "Neither did I."

Kise laughed, at least at first. "What, really?" He moved faster than Daiki had expected him to, almost formless—so he thought he could get away with that, huh? Daiki showed his teeth as he heard the ball strike the hoop behind them, rebounding off the rim instead of sinking through the net, and didn't let Kise get away from him. Kise's smile faded. "If it wasn't you, I'd like to know what it was."

He cut past Daiki, fast and hard; Daiki whirled with him, long years of instinct driving him to keep up—this, this was what he'd come to Kaijou for. "What do you mean?" he demanded as he drove the ball out of Kise's fingers and dropped it into the net himself.

Kise didn't answer while they went for the ball together or while they traded stealing it, back-forth-back again, Daiki flexing backwards, fading away from Kise to sink the shot. Kise knew that trick, though, and placed himself where he could snatch the ball for himself and make a basket of his own. "You were his best friend," he said as Daiki went for the ball and felt it pass just beyond his fingertips. He recovered instantly and poached the ball right out of Kise's hands. He dunked the ball through the net, but it was only punctuation for the way Kise said, "But I guess you've got a new one of those now."

Daiki's feet carried him after the rebound and his hands slapped the ball away from Kise's and his body twisted away from Kise while he made another formless shot—moved to catch the rebound then and hooked it right over Kise's outstretched hands and into the basket again, gathered to launch him into the air for the dunk home, which was all to the good. Daiki couldn't really think clearly enough to have made all those decisions himself just then.

He dropped from the basket as the ball bounced away and rolled to a stop against the wall. "Your game," Kise said, quiet in the stillness of the gymnasium. He tilted his head to the side, not smiling anymore. "But maybe it's also mine."

If he'd sounded the least bit triumphant, Daiki might have punched him, but mostly Kise just sounded puzzled. He stared at Daiki for a moment while Daiki looked back—it was one thing for Imayoshi-san, who didn't know, couldn't know because he hadn't been there, to have said all the things he had. It was another thing entirely to hear them from Kise, who had been there. Had been there for most of the important parts, anyway.

After a minute, Kise puffed out his cheeks on the sigh he heaved. He set his hands on his hips. "So, you're going to fix this, right?"

It was enough to jolt Daiki out of his daze. "What do you think?" he snapped, nettled.

Kise pulled a mournful face at him. "I think it's not fair that Touou gets you and Momocchi and Kurokocchi," he announced. He shrugged then. "But I guess you'll have earned that last one before you're through." He went and fetched the basketball while Daiki was still turning that one over, and flashed a bright smile at Daiki. "So. Rematch?"