reposting a meta i did under someone else's post bc people have been asking me to psychoanalyse aomine or kagami and i think nobody saw this one :( anyway @cemetery14 's original post is here!
jumping on for a second to talk about this bc it's so important to me. i'm not trying to mansplain aomine daiki here but his attitude is one of my fav parts of knb so pls excuse me if i say something obvious HSDHSDJH
just as a preface, i spoke about aomine's sense of security in the people he loves HERE, in the context of my aokaga fics. it's mostly hc because it talks about his parents whom we don't get to see in canon, but i'm fairly confident in this analysis to discuss this angle without referencing to that. i founded the parent hcs on how he acts with momoi.
SO. let's discuss aomine's relationships first and foremost. in the series, aomine refers to THREE people by their first names, and he does it exclusively when he feels comfortable and/or friendly with someone enough that they've earnt it. unlike with some of the other characters, he doesn't do it to get a rise out of anyone by assuming familiarity, and he doesn't do it to make fun.
he calls kuroko tetsu when kuroko proves that not only does he love basketball as much as he does, but that he's a good person and someone aomine feels he can trust. even when they fall out, even when aomine believes that kuroko must hate him, and he wants to hate kuroko for his naive view of basketball, he still calls him tetsu. he doesn't waver at all, not around other people, or shouting his name at the top of his lungs from the back of an arena. kuroko is tetsu. it's a badge of honour.
momoi is his childhood best friend and someone he does not believe will ever leave. she is, and has been for over ten years by the time the show starts, satsuki. in my view, he treats momoi as one would a sister, almost, because he treats her honestly pretty badly with no expectation that she's taking him seriously. he's surprised when he makes her cry (like in the rain when she's suggesting he pull out of a competition due to injury), because yeah he's calling her ugly and telling her to fuck off and all of that, but there's an unbreakable bond underlying his meanness that aomine trusts won't break. he shouldn't treat his friends like this, but i'm just trying to come at this from his perspective. he expresses his love for her quietly, but it's there.
as i said in my linked hc post, aomine does not believe that he has to do anything special in order to earn the love of those he trusts. he does not believe that their love is conditional, he does not think that it's linked to his skill or status as a prodigy. for better or for worse, he feels known by these people, and therefore, he's immature about responsibilities and regularly acts up around the people he loves. he ditches people, he shirks chores, and he genuinely does not care about annoying or bothering people.
and now we come to sakurai. aomine and sakurai have a faaascinating dynamic. they're classmates as well as teammates, but i'd love to know how they started talking. neither of them have the kind of personality to just sit next to the other bc they're in basketball club together. sakurai appears skittish, insecure, wet, pathetic, we love you sakurai but you have a reputation. and it's bullshit. sakurai's "drawback", what makes him look weak in the eyes of those around him, is in his need to please others. he takes it bitterly personally when he does something wrong, or he believes he does something wrong, quickly reducing to tears and the classic "i'm sorry! i'm sorry! i don't want to live! i deserve to die!" spiel he usually descends to. but in clutch mode, in his favourite sport, sakurai can be just as arrogant as the rest of touou. he has the confidence to make threes against strong opponents instead of just passing to the prodigal ace. he wants to score points. he isn't interested in proving himself to anyone, he already knows that he's great.
sakurai's actual personality, rather than his perceived one, is probably what draws aomine to him. i can very easily imagine that they're in a game early on, and sakurai looks like he's about to get into trouble with the opposing team who are picking on him a little. but instead of crumbling, he gives them the most disgraceful look of disrespect, and scores an amazing three. it's a moment like that which would make aomine interested, and as he pays more attention, he'd notice other things he also would like. sakurai is kind, he loves basketball, and he is not afraid of aomine. he's not afraid of his skill, however much he is impressed by it, and he doesn't see aomine is someone to prove himself to or compete with. sakurai honestly doesn't seem like he thinks about aomine much at all. which aomine would like. he's also a great cook. again, my idea is that they were eating together, and aomine is looming because he kinda wants to make friends but isn't quite sure yet, and sakurai offers him a little food. you know, like the neighbourhood cat? anyway. once he's had some, he wants to have more, and so, a friendship occurs.
sakurai's food making is one of his more beloved traits in his team, and everyone is comfortable enough with him to snatch and steal etc. like wakamatsu eating all the fucking lemons so aomine wouldn't get any. my fav team. stupid idiots. there are instances were sakurai expresses that he wishes they wouldn't (like the cursed replace novel where aomine eats all sakurai's food he made for the team during a study session to do aomine's homework, without him knowing, and when he discovers an empty fridge, he starts crying and has to be comforted), but overall his protestations are, in my opinion, coming from modesty rather than actual discomfort. sakurai is a strong enough person not to have people walk all over him, he simply doesn't mind being useful to a team he has grown to love and respect.
sakurai is the third person aomine refers to by his first name. sakurai earns this in his basketball skill, he earns it in how he stares fearlessly and disgracefully at nonbelieving opponents. the food definitely helps, but aomine wouldn't have just stolen a stranger's food. he doesn't view sakurai as weak. he doesn't bully him. wakamatsu may think that aomine is bullying him or taking advantage of him, but aomine isn't like that. he doesn't take advantage of the weak, he protects them. like the lady's bag getting snatched. like fighting haizaki when he knew his friends couldn't (not that he thinks they're weak, it's just that their hands were tied). i don't think i've seen him ever take advantage of anyone like that. he certainly takes advantage of friendships as i've mentioned above, but it feels different to me. idk maybe i'm just an aomine excuser at this point. it'll happen again.
for someone who doesn't sincerely smile much, btw, look at how he is in that scene with sakurai:
sakurai: but... this is...
aomine: huh?
sakurai: sorry, go ahead!
i think this dialogue is less aomine bullying his way into sakurai's bento, and more sakurai realising that the neighbourhood cat is getting more comfortable with him. would he have told him to get lost? probably not. but he doesn't move away when aomine's near, and he isn't flinching or worried about anything bad happening. if anything, his eyes closing when aomine's draped all over him shows, to me, that he's sort of accepting his fate, bc he knows aomine's not gonna do anything but take the good bits of his bento (not a bully. wakamatsu. please calm down). in fact, look at aomine's reaction when wakamatsu tries defending sakurai, whom he believes is getting kinda bullied here:
first, he checks on sakurai. look, he's fine. sakurai cries at everything, he's calm here. he hasn't overstepped any boundaries. but to me, aomine's first words being a reply to wakamatsu's claims that he should be at practise, and not about stealing food, suggests that aomine hasn't actually considered that he could be doing anything wrong enough to rile wakamatsu up this much. it has gotta be about coming to practise. he stops eating sakurai's bento and tries to leave. i think he'd probably be embarrassed by the idea that he could bully anyone. mean as he is, selfish as he is, aomine's good at heart. he'd definitely think his whole team was stupid as fuck if they believed that aomine would bully sakurai, or degrade him in any way. aomine's just showing that he's comfortable with him in the only way he tends to: by being a little shit.
phew! aomine brain dump out of the way. let's discuss haizaki more briefly because haizaki is a lot of fun, but he's not as fun to talk about as aomine.
i think it's a super interesting, deliberate choice to introduce aomine as a nuisance and then haizaki as a nuisance in a similar setting. aomine's food stealing, to me, looks like it's founded on habit and friendship. he doesn't view sakurai as weak and pathetic, and i think already by that point is calling him ryou, so they're solid friends. aomine is a definite loner and doesn't seem to want friends, but ryou is one of them. one of three, as i mentioned, whom he refers to by first name.
haizaki's entrance in the food hall is different because he doesn't have that base level of friendship with kuroko at all. from memory, he calls people by their first names and it makes them uncomfortable. that's likely why he does it. he is big on disrupting the balance of things. i know he hates the generation of miracles, i know he hates team play and friendship dynamics (likely because he finds it difficult to relate to people like that, and to forgive when someone does something that he finds annoying or weak). haizaki does prey on the weak. he's a menace to women walking around at night, he's a menace to kise in their match (his views on kise are super interesting but i don't wanna get into them now, but he does view kise as weak). and he definitely thinks kuroko's weak. it's no surprise that he targets kuroko's plate (this is all from memory so i'm hoping i'm right lmao).
haizaki's food stealing is a power play. look at what i can do, i can take what i want. you can't do shit about it. when called out for it, he says this:
(mido said fuck YOUUUUU aomine) now, i don't think this is actually haizaki believing that aomine is doing it for the same reasons he is. i don't think haizaki gives a shit, and he just sees aomine making a fuss and wants to cause trouble. (side note: aomine's i only take when i'm hungry is so funny. he's saying i'm DYING before i steal from my friends!!! that's so stupid. he's such a pain. but he's never going to say "i only steal from my best friends" because that is crazy talk, this is still aomine, whether he's 12 or whatever.)
murasakibara complains, drawing himself into haizaki's zone of interest, and then haizaki shows he doesn't give a fuck by talking only of the food. i am SURE there are translation issues to be taken into consideration, but haizaki's word choice at face value is: a) your fried chicken looks good too, b) that's mine now. essentially: the fuck are you gonna do about it? he likely doesn't view mura as weak, i think here he's just willing to fight for it. mura plays defence and haizaki loses interest.
haizaki seeks to remind them that he isn't emotionally invested in any of this shit, he just takes what he wants to because he can. it's a power play, and everyone knows it.
the fact that it's aomine putting up a fight about not stealing food is telling to how different they are. it doesn't matter that aomine thinks he only steals when he's hungry so it's alright, if he even does view it like that at all (aomine has a history of talking shit and lying sooo). aomine sets them apart by making it clear that he doesn't have any ulterior motives. haizaki is very quick to announce that he does. he isn't doing it because he has to, he's stealing and being a general menace because he wants to. and he tends to target either those he views as weak, or those he knows will fight him.
i wonder why he didn't take from akashi? i wonder whether it's a testament to nijimura's fighting skills or that haizaki didn't fight back when nijimura beat him up?
anyway. i'm so sorry i wrote an essay on your post. i love this topic obviously and i'm critically insane.
