...the only addition I was supposed to make to this series was Aomine and Kise hitting on Momoi's date as referred to in the final section of Devotion.

AND THEN I HAD A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT MOMOI SAYING AOMINE USED TO BE A CRYBABY so... this happened. *lies on the floor and weeps*

Will eventually add other stuff, like said AoKise hitting on Momoi's date, and possibly um. Other things. *coughs* Warnings in chapter notes, etc etc.

Daiki had run ahead that day, far too eager to get out of the house and onto the basketball court, because it had been cold and rainy for so long, and now, finally, it was nice enough outside to go play basketball again, even though it was still a little cold. But it hadn't rained or snowed in a few days, Daiki had argued so surely it would be safe to play on the street court again.

And well, Satsuki was feeling the cabin fever pretty badly too, not that she wanted to admit it to Daiki and Ryouta.

Ryouta had been unfortunate enough to be caught by his older sisters, so it had fallen to Satsuki to somehow distract them so he could get himself back out of the dress they had contrived to force him into – thankfully, her suggestion for them to braid her hair had prevented them from liberally applying glitter and lip gloss to him, though it had also meant that Ryouta had had to hide outside after he'd gotten changed and wait there for Satsuki to be done.

Still, with a golden yellow ribbon sitting at the bottom of her braid, Satsuki wasn't really in the mood to complain about their delay, though Ryouta was clearly eager to get out and play basketball with Daiki again.

All up, Daiki had probably rushed off to the basketball court about twenty minutes before they set off. Also being completely unable to walk around without a basketball, Ryouta was dribbling his as they walked and cheerfully regaled Satsuki with how excited he was to finally play basketball with Daiki after the last few weeks had made it simply impossible.

Ryouta hadn't been looking ahead of them - he liked to look at the people he was talking to, which meant his attention was focused on Satsuki – and that was probably why he didn't notice when they entered the park that Daiki was sitting miserably against a tree. Satsuki, who was looking ahead because someone had to be paying attention to where they were going, and also to whether or not Ryouta was going to walk right into someone, did.

She watched Daiki's head jerk up as he heard Ryouta's voice, and watched as he scrubbed his eyes and face – why was he crying this time? – and as they approached, she could see why.

Daiki had, in his haste to get out of the house and onto the basketball court, worn only a t-shirt and shorts, despite the low temperature. He was just going to get hot when he ran around, was his reasoning as he'd left the house without a jacket. It was because he was wearing such things that Satsuki could see his bloody, scraped up knees and the redness on the skin of his arms.

Since she hadn't really been listening to Ryouta's non-stop chatter in the first place, she ran ahead, and Ryouta was a bare step behind her as his attention was finally diverted.

Daiki's eyes were red and puffy from crying as they approached.

"What happened, Dai-chan?" she asked when he stood up.

"Just a few kids tried to push me around," he said, with all the false-bravado an eight year old crybaby could muster. His voice was a little bit wobbly. "It's okay, I dealt with it."

Satsuki offered a hand to help him up. He was a little bit shaky, and she pulled his arm over her shoulder.

"I'm fine," he protested. "Just need some bandaids, is all."

She took a closer look at his arm. She'd seen this before on the playground, and there were a few older boys who really seemed to like doing it, grabbing their target's arm with two hands and twisting in opposite directions. It hurt, too.

"You're so brave, Daicchi," Ryouta said. "Does it hurt?" He was looking at the nasty scrapes on Daiki's knees.

"Not really," he said. Satsuki would never understand why Daiki hated to let Ryouta see him cry, especially since it had been years since she could count the number of times he'd cried with her.

Boys, she decided, were strange.

"Ryou-chan," she said, because she was an enabler of Daiki's ridiculousness, "You should run back and grab things for Dai-chan's knees. Go to my house so we don't have to wait half an hour for you to escape your sisters."

Ryouta nodded, and dashed off, leaving his basketball behind.

As soon as he was out of sight, Daiki started crying again.

"It was those boys, wasn't it?" she asked, and he looked away from her, but nodded all the same. He rubbed at his eyes again angrily.

"You took too long," he choked out.

Satsuki patted his head. "Ryou-chan's sister's caught us. Come on, let's sit down."

"They took my basketball," Daiki muttered, but he sat back down against the tree-trunk, and Satsuki settled down next to him, and moved his arm so that she could have her arm over his shoulders.

"Does your arm hurt?" she asked, looking at it.

"Only if you touch it," Daiki said. "It hurt when they did it but now it's just sore when it gets touched."

She took a deep breath. She hated bullies, and that group of boys in their neighbourhood was the worst. They always liked to pick on Ryouta, and always seemed to catch him when he was on his own. This must have been their revenge for Daiki's interference last time they'd caught Ryouta, when he'd kicked their shins and told them to leave him alone.

Always much braver when standing up for Satsuki or Ryouta than when he was standing up for himself. Typical Daiki.

He'd mostly calmed himself down by the time Ryouta came running back with a water bottle, cotton balls and large area bandaids.

"Here, Satsucchi!"

She was better at this than either of them were – they were never patient enough to completely get dirt out of the scrapes. She wished Ryouta had brought antiseptic too, but it had probably never occurred to him.

Ryouta sat and watched her work. She tried to be as gentle as possible cleaning up Daiki's knees as possible; she didn't think there was anything stuck in there when she put the bandaids on.

"You're so good at that, Satsucchi," Ryouta said, and she could hear the faint tone of envy in his voice, and knew it was because he wished that he could take care of Daiki like this, too.

"I wouldn't be if you two would stop getting into trouble," she said. She'd said it in a very high and mighty way, but they both knew she was teasing. She stood up with the bloody cotton balls in hand.

"I'm going to throw these out, and then we're going to go play basketball, okay?"

They both nodded, Ryouta slightly more eagerly than Daiki for once, and she smiled at them.

("So, will you help me?"

Ryouta's sisters looked at each other, and Satsuki watched, fascinated, as Ryouta's sly smile spread across both of their mouths.

"We'll be happy to take care of them for you, Satsuki-chan.")