light a fire in me • aokise

[igrab]

Kuroko's Basketball • Aomine/Kise • possibly TBC • post Inter-High

Thud. Creak. Thump thump thump. Screech - THUNK!

There are, of course, limits to Kise's copying. He was no artist, or musician. Well - he could, in fact, re-create a piece of art or play a song exactly the way he's heard it played, but. In art, and music, it's all too easy to see the difference between something faked and something real, something with a soul.

He sticks to the physical. Unlike art, it remains possible for him to achieve perfection.

When he first meets Aomine, he thinks, perfect. This, this is what he's been waiting for his whole life. The kind of beauty that isn't simply there, like a model - it lives and breathes and moves.

So this is it, then - the truth. That Kise has been learning Aomine's style since that first flawless day, and every day since. That the time he's wasting in this game has nothing to do with the physical act of stepping into his shoes, and becoming, in essence, perfect.

Let go, he tells himself.

You have to let go of him.

You have to let go for them, for yourself, for -

For him.

You've wanted to beat him (by becoming him, showing him that you can) for so long.

He wants to be beaten.

No - he wants to be beaten by (Kuroko) someone, and you want to prove that it's you.

It's always been you.

But you have to let go of him.

And so it turns, around and around in his head as Aomine is there, present and panting and real and more alive than Kise has seen him in years.

Ah, Kurokocchi, he thinks, you would be so proud of me.

He thinks. He hopes.

•
The basketball court was the only place that Kise didn't feel jealous of Kuroko. He had his strengths there, he was amazing - but their styles were different, not in competition. For all that Aomine never seemed to stop laughing at the punk ass kid who kept begging him for a rematch, he kept playing. Kept letting Kise get under his skin.

But afterwards - Kise ached for what he didn't have. If this was all about basketball and only basketball, he would have given u--

No, he would just have beaten Aomine at his own game sooner. Because he wouldn't be hung up on him, dazzled and star-eyed over a boy who, for all intents and purposes, didn't give a shit about him.

If he were stronger, better, he would have been able to beat Aomine face to face. Kise's basketball, probably only able to scrape an advantage now and then, but better, because it was his and his alone.

And Aomine would look at him, like he was real.

•
What is Kise Ryouta? He's asked himself that time and time again. What is he, but made up of parts of other people? He has admired Aomine for so long, struggled so hard, to come against him on his own. But he can't. He's not enough. So, in a way, copying Aomine - though it seemed like such a surprise, to everyone else - it was the same as admitting defeat.

You were right, Aominecchi. No one can beat you, but you. And I have never wanted to beat you, but it was the only way I had to get your attention.

•
The thing is - not copying him was always a choice. Kise had made it again and again, over and over, because the stakes weren't high enough to compromise what had become such a core part of his being. I won't copy you, he told himself, I'll beat you. So what now, that he has done the first but still not the second?

He watches Aomine walk away from him on that court, without a second glance. Thinks, suddenly, of the day they met - the first day - when Kise was thinking about how bored he was of, well, everything, and smack! out of nowhere, a basketball to the back of the head. A smirking, unrepentant face, the most beautiful blue eyes that Kise had ever seen, miles of tan skin and toned muscles.

You did it, he thinks with desperation, hysteria. You lit this fucking fire that's consumed me since then and you left me here to burn. You did it, you broke the mirror, yatta!! Now go fuck yourself.

Because any other day, he would have thought, that was amazing, you're incredible, I want more. This time, the thought doesn't come.

You aren't up on my fucking pedestal anymore. You're not special, Aomine Daiki, you're just perfect, and perfection has limits. No one wants to look at a canvas painted in one color, no matter how perfectly.

His legs are trembling. He can't stand. He's exhausted, but more than anything he is angry.

Fuck you for making me throw this away. I loved you, so everything you did was poetry, it was more than just a body moving in a space. It was more because I loved you, and you made me -

He doesn't want a rematch. He doesn't want to win. He wants his heart back, goddamnit.

•
But if he'd won - oh, if he'd won. It would have been worth it.

•
When Kise never copied him, Aomine assumed that he couldn't.

Oh, he could do some things. Every time it was like a match striking, a flare of bright joy in Aomine's heart as he saw Kise flawlessly execute an otherwise unremarkable move, except that it was Aomine's, and he knew Kise was watching.

Kise started basketball because he could, apparently, but the more Aomine beat him, the brighter he burned. God, he'd never seen anything like it. Tetsu was one thing - he loved basketball, which was reason enough for him to keep pushing and pushing and pushing. Kise wasn't in it for that. He just wanted to be challenged.

So Aomine challenged him. The less he held back, the brighter Kise smiled, and the harder they played, the more he felt alive.

Until one word took root in his soul and started to grow, festering like a wound.

Monster.

Was it true? Did no one want to play him because he was.... too good?

(He remembers the look on Kise's face, shaky and desperate. Smiling while they played, yes. Intense and driven, yes. But when Aomine beat him --

No, it can't be. Not Kise. Kise always wants to play. Kise would want to play even if they stopped keeping score.

.... Right?)

But this wasn't the first sport Kise had played. And every single time, it seemed, he'd gotten good enough to beat everyone - and then quit.

"Well, it's not like I blame him," the captain of the volleyball team had said, rubbing a hand through his hair. "If you're so good at something that you always win - what's the fun in that?"

What do you mean, Aomine had wanted to say, so desperately. I always have fun when I--

"And besides," he continued, frowning. "If he was that good, no one would want to go up against him. It's not a sport anymore, it's just... throwing a ball around."

Right, Aomine thought, as something inside him broke a little bit further. Nothing fun about that.

•
"Aominecchi!!" Kise shrieked, the next day. "Let's go! One-on-one, come on! I'll beat you this time!"

What if he does? the voice in the back of Aomine's head whispered, whispered. He keeps getting closer and closer and closer. What if he does?

He let the air out of his lungs and shrugged, instead, though he felt his heart screaming under the pressure. "Nah," he muttered, pressing his voice into a flat, emotionless line (he can't know, can't ever know how much this hurts). "Bother someone else."

•
Doesn't it seem like Aomine is losing interest in basketball, they whispered.

Good. Better to let them think that, than to know the truth - that he's afraid if he keeps playing, he'll leave them all behind. He's afraid that if he asks for it, he'll be rejected.

Better to let basketball happen on someone else's word. It means they need him, right? And if his opponents don't face him with their full strength - he won't have been the one to want them to.

After all, he's a monster.

You don't have to come to practice, the coach says, with a pointed look.

What Aomine hears is, Don't.