Vicious || Aomine D.

Six

[ K-Kagami lives with a dog? ]
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Seirin was advancing to the championship league!

Kuroko and Kagami had been updating Riyo tirelessly about how their team was doing and which games had been the most exciting or nerve-racking. Kagami, in particular, had been talking Riyo's ear off about basketball. Though most of the time it was about Seirin's team, sometimes he slipped in some tidbits about the NBA's most recent games or some new technique he had heard of.

As much as Riyo loved watching Kagami's face light up whenever he was talking about basketball, she couldn't help the heaviness in her chest. They were so much alike... Almost everything about Kagami reminded her of Aomine. It was a new kind of torture she hadn't anticipated when leaving Touou.

Riyo had even had to fight the urge to call her former best friend. Her finger had hovered over his number for an obscene amount of time before she'd angrily thrown her phone on her bed and watched it bounce off and fall on the floor. She wanted to hate him. Hate him for his arrogance and ignorance. For his hateful words and the loathing look, he'd given her. But what she was feeling... it was far from hate.

Riyo missed the guy who'd made her laugh when she had been crying after falling on her bike. The one who'd cleaned the scrapes on her knees, and made sure they were bandaged. He'd used two packets of band-aids and the result had been counterproductive, to say the least, but he had done his best to help her. And when the kids on the playground had bullied her for being so small, Aomine had yelled at them and even punched a kid who hadn't backed down.

When had he become one of those bullies? When had he switched sides?

"You're coming to practice with us today, Miyo-chan!" Kagami said, snapping Riyo out of her thoughts.

She had to blink a few times to clear the tears from her eyes. "What?"

"BASKETBALL PRACTICE!"

Riyo covered her ears and grimaced. He was impossibly loud. A quiet slap of a hand meeting a head of hair echoed. Kuroko!

"Ahh!" Kagami shouted jumping away from the bluenette with a petrified look on his face. "DON'T DO THAT!"

"Sorry, Miyoshi-san," the phantom sixth man apologized. His expression was emotionless but his eyes held a hint of mirth only those closest to him could catch. "Kagami-kun, quit yelling at your roommate." His tone remained flat.

"She didn't hear me the first time! What was I supposed to do?" Kagami protested.

Kuroko leveled him with a steady look.

"Actually I heard you the first time," Riyo corrected.

...
...

"Why didn't you say something?!"

Riyo shrugged. "You started yelling."

"BUT--"

Kuroko slammed his hand over Kagami's mouth to stop his outburst. For anyone watching it would've been utterly hilarious. Kuroko was half Kagami's size and kept a straight face as his hand landed over the redhead's mouth. Kagami, in a futile attempt at defense, flailed his arms around and grumbled incoherent words to express his annoyance.

"Will you come with us?" Kuroko asked, not removing his hold.

"I don't know, Tetsu..." she sighed. "Won't I just be in your way?"

Kagami licked Kuroko's hand and he was forced to retract it. With a look of mild disgust, Kuroko wiped his hand on Kagami's shirt.

"You spend too much time alone! You need more friends! This is the perfect chance to--"