A golden butterfly.

That had been Aomine's first impression of Kise - his bewitching, alluring Kise. Whenever he smiled, the world smiled with him - or at least Aomine smiled with him; he was hard to resist. To him, Kise was a brilliant ray of sunshine that would, come hell or high water, continue dancing merrily on.

When he had first met him, he had no idea that Kise would be such a person. He had thought that all idols were narcissistic and stuck-up; had thought that Kise would be like that too. Aomine hated such people - they had no right to act as if they were a level higher than others just because they were famous. Hence, when the basketball he had been handling slipped from his hands and introduced itself to Kise's face, he hadn't really been perturbed by it.

He had expected Kise to complain and whine about it, or to get all dramatic and uppity, but he surprised him by doing none of the above. Instead, he had simply thrown the ball back to him with a smile. Impressed, Aomine had headed back to practice with a better impression of the idol than before. When he noticed that the blonde had followed him, he did his best to play better than before just to impress him as well.

It worked. Before he knew it, his golden butterfly had joined him on court and was demanding one-on-one matches every day. He duly obliged to those requests - frankly, it was thrilling to have someone like Kise play with him. Although Kise had never once won, Aomine could sense that his potential was practically unlimited, and he liked the fact that he could help develop that potential.

As he got to know Kise more, he realised that he had more than a pretty face going for him. Personality-wise, Kise was a cheery, affectionate and tenacious kind of person - a very likeable combination. He was also surprisingly good at his studies, hence defying the stereotype that athletes were jerks and/or stupid. In fact, his only negative point was probably how whiny he was - then again, nobody's perfect. Still, in Aomine's opinion, he was as close to perfect as anyone could get.

He wasn't sure when he had started falling for Kise, but it was probably inevitable anyway, what with how much happier he always felt with Kise around and all. He was awfully confused about the way he felt at first, since he'd always thought he was straight, and had gone to seek Tetsu's advice. He was glad he did so, because while he was hopeless at feelings and stuff, Tetsu was great at it.

"Hey, can I ask you a hypothetical question?"

He got a nod in reply, which he took as a 'yes'.

"What if I, uh, liked a guy?"

A raised eyebrow. What was that supposed to mean?

"Aomine-kun, what is the question?"

"Huh..? I just told you the question!"

"There is no question, because there is nothing wrong with liking a guy. Gender should not have to matter in a relationship - what should matter is the person himself."

Just like that, Tetsu managed to clear all his confusion. If he were to overlook the fact that Kise was a guy, he wouldn't mind dating him - in fact, he would quite like it. And while he did still like boobs and curves and all that, he liked Kise more. It was as simple as that.

...speaking of which, he really ought to tell Kise about his feelings before one of those bitches get him first. It was irritating how those girls kept hanging around his Kise like it was nothing - how they kept vying for his attention like the desperate people they were. Stupid girls - the only one who could and should have Kise was him, simply because he was pretty sure no one loved him more than he did.

He'd thought of confessing before, but it was - it was hard. Aomine had always prided himself on being a do-first-think-later kind of guy, but this was different - he had no experience in this kind of confession stuff. He'd never confessed to anyone before, simply because he'd never liked anyone before either, so he didn't know what to do. He knew Kise was a romantic guy, so he should probably buy flowers or chocolates or something equally boring, but that wasn't his style at all. Perhaps he should just kiss him?

In any case, even if he doesn't confess, he was pretty sure that everyone already knew anyway. Well, perhaps everyone except Kise - he probably thought it was absolutely normal for Aomine to walk him home every single day; that it wasn't strange at all for a guy to stick with another guy all the time; that it was really, really ordinary for a guy to bring him out on weekends; that it was totally standard of a guy to bring him lunch and take him out to movies and all those little things couples do.

To be honest, though, Aomine was fine with their relationship as it was. While it was true that he kind of wished that they could be more than just friends, just having Kise around was enough. And that was all that mattered, wasn't it? Not the label on their relationship, not the fact that they were both guys or anything like that, but the fact that he loved Kise as he was.

...seriously, though, Kise should get a hint already.

Omake:

"How is it that Aominecchi doesn't get that I like him? I mean, we go out together on weekends, walk home together, hang out together, catch movies together and all that! Don't you think I'm being obvious enough, Kurokocchi?"

"...both of you are idiots."

A/N: You know how I've always written AoKuro before this? To be honest, while I'm fine with AoKuro, I absolutely adore AoKise. Also, I think it should be Aomine chasing Kise and not the other way round - I love Kise! It's also for that reason I hate fics where Kise is a third-wheel - just no. Anyway, here's some AoKise for my fellow AoKise lovers, and please do review? I love reviews. Thanks y'all for reading!

P.S. I'd really love it if someone could draw me a cover for this fic. /shot for being too direct