Fanfic: "First Passenger" (Daiki/Satsuki, Kuroko no Basuke, T)
Title: "First Passenger"
Fandom: Kuroko no Basuke (The Basketball Which Kuroko Plays)
Status: Complete; one-shot.
Pairing: Aomine Daiki/Momoi Satsuki.
Rating: T.
Word Count: 3,017.
Summary: “What?” Kagami asked, clueless, blinking innocently back at him.
“That’s Satsuki’s seat,” Aomine explained, tight-lipped. His voice was clipped.
Kagami had the gall to quirk a brow at him as though he was making no sense.
“Err, Momoi isn’t here,” the redhead pointed out intelligently, thinking that would conclude the conversation.
It didn’t.
Challenge: 100 Situations.
Prompt: 014: Chair.
Written on: 23rd March, 2013.
An unforeseen perk that comes with being Aomine Daiki’s closest associate comes to Satsuki much, much later into their acquaintance.
It comes in the form of his driver’s license and, more specifically, his parents’ gift for him to celebrate his acquiring it.
Satsuki thinks her childhood friend is really lucky to have parents who adore him so much (despite his many transgressions and flaws) to be so kind as to buy him his first car.
Of course, it’s only a second hand vehicle, but it’s in good enough shape and it’s perfect for what it needs to do: namely, get Daiki from point A to point B in less time than it would take him with the public transport.
This fact, in turn, brings us to the topic of interest.
Whenever Daiki needed to go from point A to point B, Satsuki almost always ended up being there with him as well.
Of course, attending the same university and living in the same dorm meant that she had the convenience of bothering him whenever she pleased, or whenever she had nothing better to do with her time. More often than not, during those visits, something always came up: they either got hungry and decided to grab a bite to eat in the city, or got bored playing video games and decided to go downtown to check out if there was anything interesting to do.
Having a best friend with a car, who pounces at any excuse to take it out for a drive, Satsuki discovers, changes one’s lifestyle a lot.
Not only did he take her to and from university-since their schedules were very similar, despite their being in two completely different departments in the educational establishment-but whenever she needed to go for some shopping or groceries or to attend some gathering of any sort, she could just drop by Dai-chan’s dorm room and ask him (or blackmail him; or beg him; or con him-depending on his state of agreeableness and level of busyness at the time) to drive her wherever she needed to go. No longer did she need to spend hours and hours waiting at bus stops and transferring through four different kinds of transportation to get to her meeting places on time.
She’d be a liar if she said this set up wasn’t insanely convenient for her. Or if she denied she enjoyed the form of freedom it gave her.
While, sure, Daiki was the one with the license and the car was his, the fact he’d never really said ‘no’ to driving her anywhere made her feel like she was entitled to some kind of ownership over the vehicle as well.
When he first got the license, she was the first person to ride in his brand new ride with him.
And there was something about that which created an inexplicable bond between the three of them: Daiki, Satsuki and his Mazda 3.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Being “the friend with the personal means of transportation” more often than not ended up with Daiki driving friends around on various occasions.
Satsuki was pretty much a given-she lived in the same building, had pretty much the same responsibilities and tasks to do as he did, tolerated his imbecility most of the time, pulled his reins in whenever he went too far - the woman was pretty much entitled to a place in his car.
And, although she was his most frequent passenger, she was by far not the only one.
Especially when he was friends with people like Tetsu, Kagami and Midorima.
It still baffled him to this day how those… bonds, if they could even be called that, which they forged in high school, withstood the trials of time and, instead of getting severed with the years, only seemed to strengthen.
Whatever the case, fact still remained that at least once a month or so, the former Generation of Miracles, plus extra folks like Kagami, Takao, Kasamatsu and them, gathered together somewhere to have some fun together, maybe play some games on a court nearby for old times’ sake and just go all out partying. (Truthfully, Daiki found it ridiculous how amazingly fun those get-togethers were, especially considering what weirdoes each of those guys were separately, and how mismatched they were when bunched all together. But who was he to judge, anyway? Hell, he was probably the oddest out of them at times.)
It was on such an occasion that it was decided that Tetsu and Kagami would come ride with Daiki and Satsuki to the party, which was going to be held at Akashi’s parents’ villa out in suburban Tokyo. The four had made arrangements with each other, and decided to leave early enough to be able to go help Akashi with the preparations for welcoming that many guests-especially considering that Kagami was going to be one of the main cooks for the party’s appetizers.
When he’d gone to fetch her, Satsuki had told her childhood friend that she’d need some more time, because she had an errand to run for her parents. She’d told Daiki to go ahead and go pick up Tetsu and Kagami and that they could meet to pick her up at the university-she was sure to be done by the time the guys were all gathered up.
Daiki had blinked several times, but shrugged and agreed, calling over his shoulder to her that he’d see her later before snatching his car keys from the coffee table.
Neither of them really gave it much thought, but it was the first time that they were going somewhere, to a big get-together, without them both being already in Daiki’s car when picking up others.
So, when Daiki stopped in front of Tetsu’s dorm, he didn’t really understand why the boy paused for a few seconds, observing Daiki’s dark blue vehicle critically.
When the former Touou ace gave his once-shadow a curious look over the steering wheel, Kuroko was already opening the rear door.
“Good morning, Aomine-kun,” the teal-headed boy greeted good-naturedly with a nod towards the other behind the wheel.
“Morning, Tetsu,” Daiki responded with a small smirk, before pulling out of the driveway and heading towards Kagami’s apartment.
He wasn’t entirely sure what Tetsu’s deal was, but since the guy himself mentioned nothing, Daiki decided to just let it go for the time being.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
When they finally arrived at Kagami’s-and the redhead didn’t even pause a heartbeat before eagerly climbing into the passenger seat next to Daiki in the front-the former Touou ace gained a new respect for Kuroko and the quiet man’s insightfulness.
After all, he seemed to have realized something before even Daiki had.
“Yo!” Kagami greeted energetically while passing Kuroko some bags to hold as well and to put in the back. “Morning, Aomine, Kuroko.”
He regarded both boys and the teal-haired one gave him a polite greeting as well, while the redhead strapped himself in with the belt.
Only after he was done and he was telling them that he’d spent a lot more time making the rice for the onigiri than he’d expected did he realize that something was amiss.
That something being that, instead of already being on the way-like he thought they would be by the time he got to telling them this stuff-they were still in his apartment building’s parking lot, not having moved a centimetre.
At this, Kagami turned to peer over at Aomine with nonplus. He felt even more confused by the wry look on the driver’s face.
“What?” Kagami asked, clueless, blinking innocently back at him.
Kuroko eased back into his seat behind the two of them, a ghost of a smile tugging on the corner of his lips.
“That’s Satsuki’s seat,” Aomine explained, tight-lipped. His voice was clipped.
Kagami had the gall to quirk a brow at him as though he was making no sense.
“Err, Momoi isn’t here,” the redhead pointed out intelligently, thinking that would conclude the conversation.
It didn’t.
“We’re picking her up next.”
Kagami still didn’t get it.
“So? She’ll sit at the back with Kuroko-I’m sure she’d be thrilled with that.”
Kuroko turned his face away so as to hide the smile that was rising to his lips at Kagami’s argument. While it was a very solid one, the shadow found it quite amusing that Kagami-kun was still missing the entire point of Aomine-kun’s sentiment.
Daiki didn’t say anything to refute Taiga’s statement. He opted instead for staring the other man down, his expression growing increasingly more unnerving to the man next to him the more time he continued studying the redhead with it.
On the fortieth second (or so) of their staring match, Kagami already felt the hairs at the back of his neck standing in anxiety. Being on the receiving end of such meticulous-and expectant-scrutiny from Idiot-mine was not something the red-haired adolescent was used to.
And now he was breaking out in cold sweat.
“What?” he demanded at last, voice louder than he meant it to be, when he burst out.
Daiki continued staring at him with the same deadpan expression and compelling gaze.
“Sit in the back,” he all but ordered, making the boy in the passenger seat glare heatedly at him.
“Why? What does it matter who sits where?” Kagami argued feebly again.
Kuroko shook his head to himself in the back. Oh, Kagami-kun, so hopelessly clueless about certain type of things sometimes…
“She isn’t here now, and I’m sure she won’t mind sitting in the back for a change-”
“Doesn’t matter. Just go sit in the back.”
The air of finality in Daiki’s voice made the stubborn streak of Kagami’s character rear its ugly head.
“I won’t!” he said, crossing his arms petulantly over his chest.
Aomine raised an eyebrow at his front seat passenger.
“You won’t?” he reiterated, slowly.
Kuroko could feel the annoyance steadily seeping into the navy-haired young man’s tone, even if Kagami-kun obviously couldn’t.
“I won’t!” Taiga repeated, returning Aomine’s glare with one of his own. “I sat here and I’m staying here!”
Truthfully, Kagami rarely ever got the chance to ride in a car to begin with, and even rarer were the occasions when he got to ride in the front. Given the opportunity, he really wanted to enjoy his time being the one in the passenger seat for a change-especially considering that in Aomine’s car, Momoi was usually the one occupying it. In his parents’ car, it was usually both his parents at the front, so Taiga really liked the chance of being the one able to see the road for a change.
He was not surrendering that without a fight!
Daiki stared expectantly at him for a while longer, but Kagami refused to let the scathing glare bother him. He kept his arms crossed over his chest, his expression aloof, while the navy haired man scrutinized him.
Instead of reacting like Kagami thought he would-taking off at last and dropping the childish argument-Daiki surprised both his passengers when he turned the keys in the ignition until the engine could no longer be heard. He put one of his hands on his thigh while leaning against the other on the driver’s door.
When Kagami threw him an outraged look, he found the sapphire eyes of the former Touou ace pinned at some point ahead. He had turned his face away from Kagami, staring out of the windshield.
“We’re not going anywhere till you go sit in the back,” he informed them coolly, his demeanour the embodiment of nonchalance.
At this, Kagami’s jaw literally dropped.
“Are you for real?” the once-Seirin ace demanded, incredulous.
Daiki neither said nor did anything, choosing instead to continue staring out the windshield of his car.
When Kagami opened his mouth to say something else-offer his two cents to Aomine about this whole thing-he was stopped by a hand gently placed on his shoulder.
“Taiga,” Kuroko said in a calm tone, drawing his friend’s attention to himself.
As Kagami looked at him, the teal-headed youth shook his head barely perceptibly.
The redhead heaved a deep sigh, glaring accusatively at their driver before unbuckling his seat belt with a flourish. On his way out the door, he slammed it a bit harder than absolutely necessary before taking a seat in the back next to his former teammate.
“There!” he snapped once he was comfortably set in. “Happy?” the redhead demanded bitingly, turning his head to glare out the window.
In doing so, he missed the small smirk that surfaced on Daiki’s face.
“Honestly… He pulls shit like this and then goes ahead saying he thinks of her as nothing but a friend… Fucking retarded…” Kagami muttered irritably under his breath, sending death glares to the scenery out the window.
The key turned in the ignition and the engine roared to life.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
The familiar dark blue Mazda pulled over in front of Satsuki. She jogged up to the side of it, a smile playing on her face as she switched the bags she was carrying into the possession of her other hand so she could open the door.
When she was at the door of the vehicle, though, she noticed that something was definitely amiss.
For one, the passenger seat was open, and she had expected that either Tetsu-kun or Kagamin would’ve taken it in her absence. (It hadn’t been something she was looking forward to, so it was nice that it was still empty, but still, it was odd.)
For another, Kagami seemed to be in a rather huffy mood, looking anywhere but at the car’s driver.
Her brows furrowed and her smile went a bit askew, but she climbed in and greeted the boys before she raised any questions.
“What’s with Kagamin?” she asked her childhood friend, laughter bubbling in her tone while she buckled her seatbelt.
Her question made the look in Kagami’s crimson eyes darken and a smirk rise on Aomine’s lips.
“Nothing, don’t mind him,” the former Touou student told her, waving his hand dismissively. He then put it back on the gear shift, changing gears as he pulled out of their temporary pit stop. “Although, he could definitely use a lesson in proper etiquette and manners.”
“What was that?!”
Kagami all but launched himself toward Aomine in hopes of strangling the life out of him before two very disconcerted co-passengers jumped in to stop him with a chorus of ‘Don’t bother the driver when we’re moving!’
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
An hour and a half later found the merry quartet stopping over at a local supermarket a few minutes away from Akashi’s villa. Kagami insisted there were some things they still needed to buy that were best when fresh.
Instead of all of them going into the supermarket together, Kuroko insisted that he’d help his former teammate while Daiki and Satsuki waited for them in the car. There was no need to run errands in a crowd, after all.
A few minutes into their wait, and an open can of an energy drink in Daiki’s hand later, Satsuki found herself pondering the earlier matter once again.
“Hey, Dai-chan?”
“Mm?” Daiki hummed into the can he was tilting up to drink from.
“How come there was no one in the front seat?” she queried innocently, giving him a curious look. “I thought for sure that either Tetsu-kun or Kagamin would’ve taken it while I was gone.”
Her question made him pause slightly. It was barely there but she noticed it, and it made her tilt her head to the side.
“What?” she asked, even more curious now at his enigmatic reaction.
“Kagami the idiot tried to sit in the front, but I didn’t let him,” he explained smoothly, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
Satsuki laughed.
“Why not? What does it matter?” Her childhood friend threw her an unreadable look from the seat across. She shrugged her shoulders. “I wouldn’t have minded sitting in the back anyway.”
Daiki huffed and turned his face away from her.
“Shut up about this already, every single one of you. ‘What does it matter’, ‘what does it matter’…” he grumbled ill-temperedly before tipping the can to take another gulp of his drink.
The pink-haired young woman was starting to believe she must’ve said something wrong to make her friend get into such a sullen mood all of a sudden and wondering what she could do to make it better-a trying task, considering she had no idea what she did or said wrong-when he spoke again.
“The front passenger seat is Satsuki’s seat. No one else’s. That’s all there is to it.”
He said it so softly and so petulantly that she may not have heard him if she hadn’t been paying attention.
His words drew her gaze to him, though, and she had to bite her lip to keep herself from grinning when she saw the expression on his face. He was virtually pouting, leaning on his arm against the door, gaze pinned to the hood of the car.
It took her a moment to wrap her mind around what he’d told her.
Oh.
Oh.
This time, she couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her lips. Before he could lash out and demand what was so damn funny, she leaned over. Her arms wound around his neck, pulling him in so she could press a soft kiss to his cheek.
When Kuroko and Kagami came back, if they found the evasiveness of Daiki’s eyes peculiar, or the huge grin on Satsuki’s face unusual, they mercifully didn’t comment on it.
For her part, the pink-haired young woman had a feeling this party was going to be awesome. She already felt giddy before they had even arrived.
Then again, being told by one of the most important people in her life that she was the only one he wanted riding next to him in his car-you have to admit, it is a pretty invigorating thing to hear.
Fandom: Kuroko no Basuke (The Basketball Which Kuroko Plays)
Status: Complete; one-shot.
Pairing: Aomine Daiki/Momoi Satsuki.
Rating: T.
Word Count: 3,017.
Summary: “What?” Kagami asked, clueless, blinking innocently back at him.
“That’s Satsuki’s seat,” Aomine explained, tight-lipped. His voice was clipped.
Kagami had the gall to quirk a brow at him as though he was making no sense.
“Err, Momoi isn’t here,” the redhead pointed out intelligently, thinking that would conclude the conversation.
It didn’t.
Challenge: 100 Situations.
Prompt: 014: Chair.
Written on: 23rd March, 2013.
An unforeseen perk that comes with being Aomine Daiki’s closest associate comes to Satsuki much, much later into their acquaintance.
It comes in the form of his driver’s license and, more specifically, his parents’ gift for him to celebrate his acquiring it.
Satsuki thinks her childhood friend is really lucky to have parents who adore him so much (despite his many transgressions and flaws) to be so kind as to buy him his first car.
Of course, it’s only a second hand vehicle, but it’s in good enough shape and it’s perfect for what it needs to do: namely, get Daiki from point A to point B in less time than it would take him with the public transport.
This fact, in turn, brings us to the topic of interest.
Whenever Daiki needed to go from point A to point B, Satsuki almost always ended up being there with him as well.
Of course, attending the same university and living in the same dorm meant that she had the convenience of bothering him whenever she pleased, or whenever she had nothing better to do with her time. More often than not, during those visits, something always came up: they either got hungry and decided to grab a bite to eat in the city, or got bored playing video games and decided to go downtown to check out if there was anything interesting to do.
Having a best friend with a car, who pounces at any excuse to take it out for a drive, Satsuki discovers, changes one’s lifestyle a lot.
Not only did he take her to and from university-since their schedules were very similar, despite their being in two completely different departments in the educational establishment-but whenever she needed to go for some shopping or groceries or to attend some gathering of any sort, she could just drop by Dai-chan’s dorm room and ask him (or blackmail him; or beg him; or con him-depending on his state of agreeableness and level of busyness at the time) to drive her wherever she needed to go. No longer did she need to spend hours and hours waiting at bus stops and transferring through four different kinds of transportation to get to her meeting places on time.
She’d be a liar if she said this set up wasn’t insanely convenient for her. Or if she denied she enjoyed the form of freedom it gave her.
While, sure, Daiki was the one with the license and the car was his, the fact he’d never really said ‘no’ to driving her anywhere made her feel like she was entitled to some kind of ownership over the vehicle as well.
When he first got the license, she was the first person to ride in his brand new ride with him.
And there was something about that which created an inexplicable bond between the three of them: Daiki, Satsuki and his Mazda 3.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
Being “the friend with the personal means of transportation” more often than not ended up with Daiki driving friends around on various occasions.
Satsuki was pretty much a given-she lived in the same building, had pretty much the same responsibilities and tasks to do as he did, tolerated his imbecility most of the time, pulled his reins in whenever he went too far - the woman was pretty much entitled to a place in his car.
And, although she was his most frequent passenger, she was by far not the only one.
Especially when he was friends with people like Tetsu, Kagami and Midorima.
It still baffled him to this day how those… bonds, if they could even be called that, which they forged in high school, withstood the trials of time and, instead of getting severed with the years, only seemed to strengthen.
Whatever the case, fact still remained that at least once a month or so, the former Generation of Miracles, plus extra folks like Kagami, Takao, Kasamatsu and them, gathered together somewhere to have some fun together, maybe play some games on a court nearby for old times’ sake and just go all out partying. (Truthfully, Daiki found it ridiculous how amazingly fun those get-togethers were, especially considering what weirdoes each of those guys were separately, and how mismatched they were when bunched all together. But who was he to judge, anyway? Hell, he was probably the oddest out of them at times.)
It was on such an occasion that it was decided that Tetsu and Kagami would come ride with Daiki and Satsuki to the party, which was going to be held at Akashi’s parents’ villa out in suburban Tokyo. The four had made arrangements with each other, and decided to leave early enough to be able to go help Akashi with the preparations for welcoming that many guests-especially considering that Kagami was going to be one of the main cooks for the party’s appetizers.
When he’d gone to fetch her, Satsuki had told her childhood friend that she’d need some more time, because she had an errand to run for her parents. She’d told Daiki to go ahead and go pick up Tetsu and Kagami and that they could meet to pick her up at the university-she was sure to be done by the time the guys were all gathered up.
Daiki had blinked several times, but shrugged and agreed, calling over his shoulder to her that he’d see her later before snatching his car keys from the coffee table.
Neither of them really gave it much thought, but it was the first time that they were going somewhere, to a big get-together, without them both being already in Daiki’s car when picking up others.
So, when Daiki stopped in front of Tetsu’s dorm, he didn’t really understand why the boy paused for a few seconds, observing Daiki’s dark blue vehicle critically.
When the former Touou ace gave his once-shadow a curious look over the steering wheel, Kuroko was already opening the rear door.
“Good morning, Aomine-kun,” the teal-headed boy greeted good-naturedly with a nod towards the other behind the wheel.
“Morning, Tetsu,” Daiki responded with a small smirk, before pulling out of the driveway and heading towards Kagami’s apartment.
He wasn’t entirely sure what Tetsu’s deal was, but since the guy himself mentioned nothing, Daiki decided to just let it go for the time being.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
When they finally arrived at Kagami’s-and the redhead didn’t even pause a heartbeat before eagerly climbing into the passenger seat next to Daiki in the front-the former Touou ace gained a new respect for Kuroko and the quiet man’s insightfulness.
After all, he seemed to have realized something before even Daiki had.
“Yo!” Kagami greeted energetically while passing Kuroko some bags to hold as well and to put in the back. “Morning, Aomine, Kuroko.”
He regarded both boys and the teal-haired one gave him a polite greeting as well, while the redhead strapped himself in with the belt.
Only after he was done and he was telling them that he’d spent a lot more time making the rice for the onigiri than he’d expected did he realize that something was amiss.
That something being that, instead of already being on the way-like he thought they would be by the time he got to telling them this stuff-they were still in his apartment building’s parking lot, not having moved a centimetre.
At this, Kagami turned to peer over at Aomine with nonplus. He felt even more confused by the wry look on the driver’s face.
“What?” Kagami asked, clueless, blinking innocently back at him.
Kuroko eased back into his seat behind the two of them, a ghost of a smile tugging on the corner of his lips.
“That’s Satsuki’s seat,” Aomine explained, tight-lipped. His voice was clipped.
Kagami had the gall to quirk a brow at him as though he was making no sense.
“Err, Momoi isn’t here,” the redhead pointed out intelligently, thinking that would conclude the conversation.
It didn’t.
“We’re picking her up next.”
Kagami still didn’t get it.
“So? She’ll sit at the back with Kuroko-I’m sure she’d be thrilled with that.”
Kuroko turned his face away so as to hide the smile that was rising to his lips at Kagami’s argument. While it was a very solid one, the shadow found it quite amusing that Kagami-kun was still missing the entire point of Aomine-kun’s sentiment.
Daiki didn’t say anything to refute Taiga’s statement. He opted instead for staring the other man down, his expression growing increasingly more unnerving to the man next to him the more time he continued studying the redhead with it.
On the fortieth second (or so) of their staring match, Kagami already felt the hairs at the back of his neck standing in anxiety. Being on the receiving end of such meticulous-and expectant-scrutiny from Idiot-mine was not something the red-haired adolescent was used to.
And now he was breaking out in cold sweat.
“What?” he demanded at last, voice louder than he meant it to be, when he burst out.
Daiki continued staring at him with the same deadpan expression and compelling gaze.
“Sit in the back,” he all but ordered, making the boy in the passenger seat glare heatedly at him.
“Why? What does it matter who sits where?” Kagami argued feebly again.
Kuroko shook his head to himself in the back. Oh, Kagami-kun, so hopelessly clueless about certain type of things sometimes…
“She isn’t here now, and I’m sure she won’t mind sitting in the back for a change-”
“Doesn’t matter. Just go sit in the back.”
The air of finality in Daiki’s voice made the stubborn streak of Kagami’s character rear its ugly head.
“I won’t!” he said, crossing his arms petulantly over his chest.
Aomine raised an eyebrow at his front seat passenger.
“You won’t?” he reiterated, slowly.
Kuroko could feel the annoyance steadily seeping into the navy-haired young man’s tone, even if Kagami-kun obviously couldn’t.
“I won’t!” Taiga repeated, returning Aomine’s glare with one of his own. “I sat here and I’m staying here!”
Truthfully, Kagami rarely ever got the chance to ride in a car to begin with, and even rarer were the occasions when he got to ride in the front. Given the opportunity, he really wanted to enjoy his time being the one in the passenger seat for a change-especially considering that in Aomine’s car, Momoi was usually the one occupying it. In his parents’ car, it was usually both his parents at the front, so Taiga really liked the chance of being the one able to see the road for a change.
He was not surrendering that without a fight!
Daiki stared expectantly at him for a while longer, but Kagami refused to let the scathing glare bother him. He kept his arms crossed over his chest, his expression aloof, while the navy haired man scrutinized him.
Instead of reacting like Kagami thought he would-taking off at last and dropping the childish argument-Daiki surprised both his passengers when he turned the keys in the ignition until the engine could no longer be heard. He put one of his hands on his thigh while leaning against the other on the driver’s door.
When Kagami threw him an outraged look, he found the sapphire eyes of the former Touou ace pinned at some point ahead. He had turned his face away from Kagami, staring out of the windshield.
“We’re not going anywhere till you go sit in the back,” he informed them coolly, his demeanour the embodiment of nonchalance.
At this, Kagami’s jaw literally dropped.
“Are you for real?” the once-Seirin ace demanded, incredulous.
Daiki neither said nor did anything, choosing instead to continue staring out the windshield of his car.
When Kagami opened his mouth to say something else-offer his two cents to Aomine about this whole thing-he was stopped by a hand gently placed on his shoulder.
“Taiga,” Kuroko said in a calm tone, drawing his friend’s attention to himself.
As Kagami looked at him, the teal-headed youth shook his head barely perceptibly.
The redhead heaved a deep sigh, glaring accusatively at their driver before unbuckling his seat belt with a flourish. On his way out the door, he slammed it a bit harder than absolutely necessary before taking a seat in the back next to his former teammate.
“There!” he snapped once he was comfortably set in. “Happy?” the redhead demanded bitingly, turning his head to glare out the window.
In doing so, he missed the small smirk that surfaced on Daiki’s face.
“Honestly… He pulls shit like this and then goes ahead saying he thinks of her as nothing but a friend… Fucking retarded…” Kagami muttered irritably under his breath, sending death glares to the scenery out the window.
The key turned in the ignition and the engine roared to life.
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
The familiar dark blue Mazda pulled over in front of Satsuki. She jogged up to the side of it, a smile playing on her face as she switched the bags she was carrying into the possession of her other hand so she could open the door.
When she was at the door of the vehicle, though, she noticed that something was definitely amiss.
For one, the passenger seat was open, and she had expected that either Tetsu-kun or Kagamin would’ve taken it in her absence. (It hadn’t been something she was looking forward to, so it was nice that it was still empty, but still, it was odd.)
For another, Kagami seemed to be in a rather huffy mood, looking anywhere but at the car’s driver.
Her brows furrowed and her smile went a bit askew, but she climbed in and greeted the boys before she raised any questions.
“What’s with Kagamin?” she asked her childhood friend, laughter bubbling in her tone while she buckled her seatbelt.
Her question made the look in Kagami’s crimson eyes darken and a smirk rise on Aomine’s lips.
“Nothing, don’t mind him,” the former Touou student told her, waving his hand dismissively. He then put it back on the gear shift, changing gears as he pulled out of their temporary pit stop. “Although, he could definitely use a lesson in proper etiquette and manners.”
“What was that?!”
Kagami all but launched himself toward Aomine in hopes of strangling the life out of him before two very disconcerted co-passengers jumped in to stop him with a chorus of ‘Don’t bother the driver when we’re moving!’
x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x.x
An hour and a half later found the merry quartet stopping over at a local supermarket a few minutes away from Akashi’s villa. Kagami insisted there were some things they still needed to buy that were best when fresh.
Instead of all of them going into the supermarket together, Kuroko insisted that he’d help his former teammate while Daiki and Satsuki waited for them in the car. There was no need to run errands in a crowd, after all.
A few minutes into their wait, and an open can of an energy drink in Daiki’s hand later, Satsuki found herself pondering the earlier matter once again.
“Hey, Dai-chan?”
“Mm?” Daiki hummed into the can he was tilting up to drink from.
“How come there was no one in the front seat?” she queried innocently, giving him a curious look. “I thought for sure that either Tetsu-kun or Kagamin would’ve taken it while I was gone.”
Her question made him pause slightly. It was barely there but she noticed it, and it made her tilt her head to the side.
“What?” she asked, even more curious now at his enigmatic reaction.
“Kagami the idiot tried to sit in the front, but I didn’t let him,” he explained smoothly, as though it was the most natural thing in the world.
Satsuki laughed.
“Why not? What does it matter?” Her childhood friend threw her an unreadable look from the seat across. She shrugged her shoulders. “I wouldn’t have minded sitting in the back anyway.”
Daiki huffed and turned his face away from her.
“Shut up about this already, every single one of you. ‘What does it matter’, ‘what does it matter’…” he grumbled ill-temperedly before tipping the can to take another gulp of his drink.
The pink-haired young woman was starting to believe she must’ve said something wrong to make her friend get into such a sullen mood all of a sudden and wondering what she could do to make it better-a trying task, considering she had no idea what she did or said wrong-when he spoke again.
“The front passenger seat is Satsuki’s seat. No one else’s. That’s all there is to it.”
He said it so softly and so petulantly that she may not have heard him if she hadn’t been paying attention.
His words drew her gaze to him, though, and she had to bite her lip to keep herself from grinning when she saw the expression on his face. He was virtually pouting, leaning on his arm against the door, gaze pinned to the hood of the car.
It took her a moment to wrap her mind around what he’d told her.
Oh.
Oh.
This time, she couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her lips. Before he could lash out and demand what was so damn funny, she leaned over. Her arms wound around his neck, pulling him in so she could press a soft kiss to his cheek.
When Kuroko and Kagami came back, if they found the evasiveness of Daiki’s eyes peculiar, or the huge grin on Satsuki’s face unusual, they mercifully didn’t comment on it.
For her part, the pink-haired young woman had a feeling this party was going to be awesome. She already felt giddy before they had even arrived.
Then again, being told by one of the most important people in her life that she was the only one he wanted riding next to him in his car-you have to admit, it is a pretty invigorating thing to hear.