“ you’re not a bad person, you’re just a little lost. ” // basukee. akashi
aomine doesn’t usually bite his fingernails. it’s stupid, right, but he likes his teeth and was always told that biting his nails would wreck them. his mother had had braces, so what if he had to? so he doesn’t usually have the urge to. but when things are bad, everything is extra annoying. he stepped in a puddle and got a wet sock. no, OF COURSE he would step into a fucking dirty puddle in his NEW fucking sneakers and yellow the white fucking leather, and his fucking sock is wet! it’s so uncomfortable to work like this, it’s totally ruined his fucking mood! or he just caught a nail on something and it’s jagged, which just catches on more things. it has currently escalated to the point where, in his irritation at catching one nail on his clothes, he’s chewing them all down. it’s worse now. his mood deteriorates.
the trouble with basketball is that it’s a team sport. it requires interaction. and on these days, when basketball really is the only thing that can keep him from lying down anywhere and staring at the sky until he falls asleep, it doesn't take much to set him off. it's almost like he knows he doesn't deserve to be happy, to feel his effort strained, and he's waiting for someone to prove him right and piss him off.
the teiko lot have met up. since the game against the americans, they’ve been doing this more often. midorima’s being extra himself today, and aomine was sat next to him at the meal. all that bullshit about horoscopes and fate and how much better than everyone else he is. the motherfucker couldn't have been more annoying if he'd wanted to be. they got into an argument. midorima said something that was an attempt at a cutting remark about aomine inflicting his shitty mood on other people. sharing is caring, aomine had said in a half-assed attempt at a joke, believe it or not. he had been trying to keep the peace at that point. the joke didn’t land, and the situation dissolved into an argument. satsuki tried to remedy it with a change of topic, distracting midorima with a question when it was midorima’s turn to say something.
“nobody gives a fuck, satsuki,” aomine had snapped, then she’d retorted something pathetic, and the others told him to shut up himself. all this when akashi was absent from the table, naturally. the arguments didn’t last when he returned. not that akashi has anything like a calming aura about him, but arguments rarely continued when he was there to regulate them. go figure the green-haired ass kisser would explain the tense atmosphere with a pointed, “aomine has decided that his bad mood is everyone else’s problem.” which is super cool! aomine leaves before midofucker can embarrass himself any further.
cut to now, sitting on a wall a good mile away from that restaurant, a little bit lost and a lot miserable. he’s waiting until he’s bitten off the rest of the annoying tips of his nails, flicking discarded shards on the floor. he’s not listening to traffic or passers-by ( until he hears someone talking about roommates and he remembers that one video kagami translated into japanese and now he knows how to say they were roommates in half-passable english ). akashi enters his line of sight and aomine enters the present again. it’s a relief that the company isn’t satsuki, because she’d only want to talk about everyone's feelings and he doesn’t want to. doesn't care.
“satsuki finished talking about how shitty of a person i am?” she wouldn’t. or, she would, but she would temper it with the understanding and compassion of a lifelong friend. midorima would say it and mean it, which is why aomine isn’t joking about that.
"you're not a bad person," akashi replies, "you're just a little lost."
aomine doesn't betray that he even heard. his eyes remain averted as they were before, and his frown doesn't shift. it's sympathy, or empathy, or something like that. it doesn't matter. the teen feels exposed by the phrase, and really fucking tired.
"people say i was a nicer guy in teiko," aomine says eventually, kicking a shard of nail off his sneakers. he examines his muddied shoes as something to do, and lets his hand fall to rest upon the wall. his shoulders meet his ears in a slow shrug. "maybe we all were. 's funny," he knows not to say the following to the likes of akashi, but he does it anyway in search of a rise. aomine looks over at his ex-captain. "everyone says midorima has more of a heart now, so how come he's so fucking insufferable? like, jesus. shut the fuck up sometime."
he looks away again. aomine is jealous, if anything. he knows that he was a lot easier to be around when he was younger, and he wishes he could find his heart again. find the desire to want to make people laugh instead of making them angry. what is it about his constant need to rile people up? piss people off? it's funny, sure, but it doesn't exactly breed much friendship. he doesn't see what anyone else sees, either. satsuki said once that meeting kuroko again on the court had done him good, and that she'd glimpsed the happy kid playing with a smile. and sure, he smiles sometimes. playing against kise, playing against kagami. it's fun again. but then they leave the court and he feels just as he had before meeting that big freak ( kagami ). heavy. unwanted. isolated. he sighs, and awaits the wisdom of his old teammate. akashi has the soul of an old man who probably spent his whole life as a gangster. he'll know what to say. or maybe he won't say anything, and that would have been the right thing for the moment. // @sociieties
