Their first meeting was strange. Aomine was entirely convinced he was rude, Momoi feared a street brawl, and Aisaka actually lost.

"This is bullshit," he spits, breathing so heavily he can't make a proper vowel.

Aomine laughs, "you're weak!" he teases, spinning the basketball on his finger as he crouches down beside the shorter boy.

"I'm not!" Aisaka argues sharply, "you play rough!"

"You just don't hold the ball strong enough," Aomine makes a swinging motion with his hand, "I can hit the ball right outta your hand, easy."

"I thought my fingers were going to rip off!"

"You exaggerate."

"At some point I think I was just running away and you were cackling like a vampire."

"I was not!"

"Yes you were!"

"Was not!"

"Was too!"

That continued for a while. They bark each other's heads off until both were simply gasping for breath at the sheer stupidity of the situation.

They sit down, Aisaka on the bench and Aomine beside it on the ground.

That was too much yelling for the rest of his life, Aisaka decides. He actually manages to laugh at it.

"So, what's your name?" Aisaka asks finally once he's caught his breath. He sees Aomine and his sweat-drenched state, so he pulls a fresh towel from his bag and tosses it at the boy.

"Me? I'm Aomine," he says, then adds a second later, "Daiki."

He contemplates returning the towel, but uses it with a soft word of gratitude because it's already touched him. Giving it back now would be nasty.

"And I'm Momoi Satsuki," suddenly the girl is there again, and Aisaka realizes she's been gone for a second. She holds two cans of Pocari in their direction, and that smile suggests he take it. "Here, I bought drinks."

"Ah, thanks, Satsuki," Aomine takes one without even thinking, but Aisaka freezes.

When the girl nudges it further in his direction, Aisaka blurts, "me too?"

Momoi giggles, pushing it into Aisaka's hands before he can ask again, "of course! Thanks for playing with Dai-chan. Not many people like playing with him cause he gets way too into it sometimes."

Aisaka looks at the Pocari like it's a blessing from the gods above.

"They just get tired way too easily," Aomine scoffs, taking a big, refreshing gulp, "I haven't been this exhausted in ages! What are you made of?"

Aisaka shifts, offended, "I'm normal, thank you very much, you're just a monster," he says, "ah, and, I'm Aisaka! Aisaka Hiroto. Nice to meet you two."

That was probably when things really began.

-

Aisaka meets Kuroko every few days before his classes, and he finds Aomine on every other day. For some reason or the other, they never meet, not even by coincidence. Aisaka tries to tell Kuroko about his other friend, but conversations would get interrupted somehow.

It was like some divine power was at work, so Aisaka stopped trying. They'll meet soon, anyways. Might as well not try to speed it up.

Aisaka knows that soon, he'll have to go to school each day. The empty, nonchalant days of just running and playing basketball would soon end, and he'll churn back into the hell of daily schooling. He isn't sure if he's happy about that, but at this point everything beats this dullness.

"Are you sure you want to go with me?" Kuroko asks, not for the first time, about Aisaka's choice of junior high, "the school I'm going to has standards for academics, so you might find it difficult to keep up."

Aisaka laughs heartily, "is that coming from the boy that needs my help in his homework?"

Aisaka taps his pencil on Kuroko's papers, and the boy promptly flushes. For a moment he seems to want to kick back his chair and bolt from this room, but Aisaka is standing within vicinity of the door.

"You're just better at English than I am," Kuroko insists.

"Sure," Aisaka shrugs, "we have like, five subjects and you're uncomfortably bad at four of them."

Silence.

"You are brutal."

"Thank you."

"It was not a compliment."

"You're welcome."

"That wasn't a-- nevermind."

It's the first time Kuroko's gone as far as come into Aisaka's house. Entrance exams are a month away, and Kuroko finally admits to his awful grades.

No, they aren't awful , but for someone aiming for a high-end school like Teiko, they may be tottering at the edge. In short, they're a little too slightly below average.

Aomine is an idiot too, but at least he's getting in with a sports recommendation from his grade-school principal. Kuroko can't do the same.

It isn't as if Aisaka is smart, either-- this school maybe high end, but they're lenient and big. As long as you aren't entirely hopeless, you can still get in.

Which is why Kuroko is here,on a sleepover, with his textbooks and a will to live in tow. No basketball until it's over.

KUROKO:

Aisaka-kun is mean.

S. O. S. Ogiwara-kun, save me.

OGIWARA:

Fight-o! (ﾉ'ヮ')ﾉ*: ･ﾟ

I'll remember to scatter
Ur ashes from a mountain so
You'll always feel super tall.

KUROKO:

Why are we friends

Aisaka slams his hand on the table,and Kuroko's phone jumps out of his hand. Aisaka scoops in to catch it while it's in the air.

"Answer this next test, and you'll get a break," Aisaka says, and Kuroko finds a sheet of paper with math questions before him.

"Y- Yes... sir."

Kuroko regrets everything.

-

"So you're the Kuroko I've been hearing about," his father looks at the small boy, "you're smaller than Hiroto."

Kuroko straightens at that, and Aisaka laughs, swinging an arm around the boys shoulders.

"Uh- Nice to meet you, I'm Kuroko Tetsuya."

"And much more polite."

Aisaka Jousuke, unlike his son, had black hair.

Proof that he's not a main character. He's got boring hair.

He also stood much taller than the average man. Hiroto would soon inherit that height, but for now and because of his period of not-eating-properly, he stood somewhere slightly below average. Even Aomine was taller than him.

It's amazing to realize that Kuroko is still shorter. Or maybe he's just normal and everyone else in this world is weirder. Even last time, Aisaka didn't break the 150s until he was fifteen or something.

"Don't eat him," he says, and Jousuke does a double take.

"I don't eat children!"

"Yeah, you just grab them and don't let go."

"That was a hug!"

They sit around the dinner table, and Kuroko is, once again, surprised. He had been doing a test while it happened, so he isn't too sure where all this food came from. He feels oddly out of place on the table, as all sleepover dinner were-- but this was just the slightest bit uncomfortable for a different reason.

Aisaka hasn't taken a seat yet. He makes sure his father got three portions set out before taking his own. He wore an apron that looked unsettlingly good on him. What in the world.

Aisaka could cook. And he's good at it, dear lord this was the best nikujaga he's had in his life. How could someone be so great at everything. He's such a cheat.

"I don't want to be called a cheat by you of all people, Kuroko," Aisaka leans over his chair, pointing at the boy with his chopsticks.

"Ah, did I say that out loud?" he wonders rhetorically, then a second later, "I'm not a cheat."

"Sure you aren't."

"I'm not."

Beside them, Jousuke smiles at the sight.