Notes: Written for Day 4 of aokiseweek - Inspired by a song. This was sparked by Fucked in Love and Disaster Boy by Cobra Starship.

"What you really want, Aominecchi," Kise said, his fingers splayed and gripping the edge of his cup and gently swirling it, "is a fuckbuddy. You don't want a girlfriend, you want someone who'll fuck you and get out of your life until you want to fuck again."

Daiki doesn't usually go out with Kise – it's too much trouble most of the time. The model is just as flashy and careless as he was when they were in high school, and his life, from Daiki's perspective, seems to be frustratingly, enviously put together. Kise's been working since he was fourteen, and has a hefty amount of money in his savings, if his blithe comments are anything to go by – and he's still working, modelling and acting and singing and generally being the annoying, can't go anywhere without seeing your face or hearing your voice little shit he's always been.

But Kise's also the best drinking buddy when you've been dumped because he'll pay for your drinks, and he'll take you somewhere the drinks are good, and he'll pay for the taxi back to his place afterward – and that's the other thing, Kise's apartment is really nice and always has food in it, unlike Daiki's which is always messy and the only food that's in it is leftover takeaway in the fridge. Kise also confiscates Daiki's phone at the beginning of the night, since the first time they did this he drunk dialled his ex.

It's really annoying that Kise's so grown up and responsible when they're barely 23, because he's always been such a child and Daiki was pretty sure they were on the same Peter Pan Syndrome trajectory. Still, he's not grown up enough to tell Daiki that these nights where they get way more drunk than they should (and these nights are increasingly frequent lately, it feels) should stop, and Kise doesn't appear to have found a girl to settle down with, so.

"What the fuck are you on about, Kise?" Daiki's not stupid. He knows that Kise's probably spot on the money about him. He's always had Satsuki to fill all the girlfriend spaces in his life, and even now that they aren't joined at the hip she still fills a lot of the boxes. Her relationships are frustratingly steady when she gets involved with them, though. Daiki thinks its witchcraft. (Satsuki says it's because she only dates men who are smart enough not to see Daiki and her position in Daiki's life as a threat.)

"Well," Kise says, taking a drink from his glass. Daiki can't remember what he ordered. "Your relationships always seem to fall apart because you don't care about the emotional intimacy."

"What's your point?" Daiki asks, because Tetsu's the only one who's supposed to give him insightful critiques of his lack of emotional capacity and general level of asshole-ness.

Kise sits back with a sigh. "Aominecchi, we've known each other for a really long time," he says. "So don't take it badly when I say you're a complete disaster."

Daiki scowls. "How am I supposed to not take that personally?" he growls.

Kise puts down his glass and sends Daiki a very pointed look. "I'm not done."

Daiki grits his teeth.

"You're a complete disaster. I'm not unaware of the pitfalls of your personality. If all you want from a relationship is sex, I'd be okay with that."

It takes Daiki a moment to unpack that statement. "Are you hitting on me?" he finally asks. His voice is a little higher than normal, and it's embarrassing.

Kise laughs. He laughs a lot before he finally answers the question. "Well, yes." he says when he's finally back in control of himself.

Daiki looks at their drinks. "Are these stronger than I thought they were?"

"Aominecchi." Kise's voice draws Daiki's gaze to his face; irritatingly beautiful as usual. "I'm not drunk. I wouldn't do this drunk, not with you."

It's really hard, though. It's not as if Daiki hasn't known Kise takes men to bed as well as women – it's open knowledge within the super special club formed of high school basketball prodigies and their special tag alongs. It's just that it's not something that Kise's ever been particularly open about with Daiki, and Daiki hadn't really ever entertained the idea of being with Kise seriously, though he, and most of the others, had at least thought about it once.

(It had come up in a conversation when they were all gathered for one of their infrequent get-togethers at Kagami and Tetsu's place; Kise had asked Kagami who he'd consider dating if he wasn't with Tetsu, and, after conferring a moment with Tetsu to make sure he wasn't going to get sucker punched for answering the question, he'd said he'd probably have considered Kise; whose vanity immediately prompted him to throw the question open to the rest of the group, though altering it a little for those whose preferences laid elsewhere – "If you had to pick a man, who would you pick?". Akashi picked Kise – "If I had to pick a man, Ryouta is exceptionally talented, hard working and pleasing to the eye," Akashi had explained - Kuroko picked Himuro – "I would like to collect the set," he'd said in a deadpan manner, causing Kagami to choke – Murasakibara had picked Midorima – "I wouldn't have to bend so much to kiss you," was his reasoning – Midorima hadn't wanted to indulge the question, but when Kise had suggested he was just too shy to admit Kise was a better looking version of his boyfriend, he'd scowled and said, "Akashi," and refused to explain why – and when they'd turned to Daiki, and he'd shrugged and said, "I guess if it had to be a man, it'd be Kise." No one had asked him for his reasoning (perhaps simply being glad he'd joined in and put forth an answer at all); instead, they'd turned to Kise to ask him who he would pick.

"Definitely Kurokocchi," Kise had answered, and winked at Tetsu, whose eye had twitched in response. Daiki had seen the way Kise's eyes had flickered in his direction, but hadn't really taken it on board.)

"Why?" Daiki asks.

Kise holds up his hand and counts off his fingers. "I don't really want to be tied down, and you don't either. I'm really not supposed to be going out to pick up some different stranger every night, because that kind of publicity isn't good for my image, and hooking up with fans can get really bad. We're good friends, and I can't see this fucking that up. And I don't care if you're screwing around with chicks on the side. I'm not asking you to have any kind of emotional investment. Well, beyond the little you're capable of for your friends, which is what I already have from you anyway."

"I don't know," Daiki hedged. "I mean, I'm not going to say you aren't hot, because we both know it's a lie, but I'm not sure if my bits agree with that."

Kise smiled, as if he knew something Daiki didn't. "I don't think that will be a problem," he whispered in Daiki's ear. Daiki shifted – something about Kise's mouth so close to his ear was discomfiting, and the tone he'd shifted to was... "But if you're not sure, you don't have to." Kise drew back and picked his glass up. "It was just a suggestion."

The sudden absence of Kise's closeness was almost as startling as his sudden closeness had been.

"Let me think about it," Daiki asked. Kise's mouth curved, and Daiki was eerily reminded of the smile he'd seen on Kise's face when he'd gotten Daiki to foul him for his fourth foul of their game in their first year of the Inter High.

They didn't talk about Kise's offer again that evening and they both got enormously drunk and when Kise took Daiki home, he did what he always did; put Daiki on his couch with a bucket next to his head and set water and painkillers on the coffee table, and went to sleep in his own bedroom.

Daiki didn't actually start seriously considering Kise's offer until about two weeks later when he found himself dateless for the second weekend in a row.

He knew Kise would pick up if he called – Kise always picked up when anyone called, it was one of his most annoying habits – but he didn't feel like he should until he was willing to give Kise a solid answer.

Daiki wasn't sure where to start on thinking about this.

So, he started thinking about Kise. Kise was hot. It didn't threaten Daiki's sense of masculinity to admit it – Kise had been a beautiful boy, and he'd grown into a beautiful man, prettier than a good quarter of the girls Daiki had ever dated, and Daiki had standards, damn it. So Kise didn't have his favourite parts of a girl, he could probably deal with that because Kise's face kind of countered that. And besides, it wasn't as if Kise's body was something to laugh at. He'd seen Kise shirtless around his apartment on mornings after they'd been drinking – Kise was still as fit and toned as he'd ever been playing basketball.

Daiki tried imagining touching Kise, but it was oddly elusive. He knew he'd rough-housed with Kise when they were younger, but he couldn't remember the sensation of Kise's body under his touch.

He could, though, imagine Kise on his knees – oh, he'd look very good like that. Kise would know what he's doing, through experience and simply because he's so damnably good at everything.

...that was a really hot thought, actually. Kise was very good at learning anything that involved physicality, and he wasn't inexperienced.

Still, Daiki hesitated.

Then he called Kise.

"Convince me," he rumbled into the phone, and he heard Kise laugh in a way he'd never heard before.

Kise was very thorough in his efforts to convince him, Daiki had to give him that much as he lay sprawled out on his back naked, still catching his breath as Kise wandered off to the kitchen for food, humming and seeming very satisfied with himself.

And that's how it begins.

He turned up at Satsuki's apartment on the Monday morning after hooking up with Kise so they could go out for breakfast and she could talk at him about what fine print in the contracts he's been offered needs to be tweaked, and when they sat down at the nearby cafe they always go to when they do this, she looked at him and said, "Please don't tell me you had a one-night stand while we're trying to keep a clean image on you for the teams who're actually interested in you."

He frowned at her. "What the fuck are you on about?"

Satsuki dropped her face into her hands. "Your neck, Dai-chan."

Daiki did not find this enlightening. "What about..." he trailed off as memories of Kise's mouth and teeth and tongue played through his mind, and an uncharacteristic warmth sparked in his cheeks.

"It wasn't a one-night stand," he muttered, though from Satsuki's perspective, it might as well be. She was aware of his lack of girlfriend, and Daiki didn't even want to start trying to explain the fact that he'd taken up Kise on an offer to have casual sex whenever, because that would be just as bad in terms of his scouting options.

Satsuki looked doubtful, but a waitress came to take their orders then, and the topic was abandoned for the time being, though Daiki caught her looking at what Daiki was quite sure was a few impressive hickeys with a small, pensive frown.

Daiki's phone buzzed.

'we might have gone a bit overboard on the hickeys aominecchi'

Daiki snorted. 'satsuki's staring at mine'

"Is that the girl?" Satsuki asked.

"No."

"Dai-chan..."

"It's just Kise. Stop fussing."

Satsuki seemed to accept that and put it into out of her mind, until their food arrived, and all of a sudden she choked.

Daiki stood and went to thump her on the back. "You okay?"

"Yes," Satsuki said, though her voice was oddly high-pitched. "Yes, I'm- I'm just fine, thank you, Dai-chan."

She then fished out her phone and appeared to start texting furiously. Daiki shrugged and returned to his own food, and tried to ignore her glances at his neck which were now making Satsuki go pink in the face.

Daiki's phone vibrated again.

'i wouldn't have thought this would be the first time momocchi would be seeing you covered in marks'

'she knows i'm not seeing anyone though so she's curious'

'i'm cool if you want to tell her, you and momocchi have always had some weird coexistence thing going so i doubt you can keep it from her anyway'

'fuck you kise i can so'

'is that a request aominecchi? '

Daiki hadn't thought this through at all, he thought as he felt himself flush. Kise, who was usually sparkly and flirty and annoying, now had a whole new section of his flirting arsenal unlocked, and Daiki... had not been prepared, because he now had a head full of what Kise looks like on top of him, and under him, and what he sound like when he's about to come and what he sounds like when he does.

Daiki had not been prepared at all.

He put his phone away and busied himself with his food again, and tried not to think about it, because while getting a boner at breakfast with Satsuki would not even rank in the top ten most embarrassing moments he had experienced and shared with her, that didn't mean it wouldn't be mortifying.

After they finished up their breakfast, and before they parted for Satsuki to go off to work, she put a hand on Daiki's arm.

"Be careful, okay?" she said.

Daiki raised an eyebrow at her. "Of what?"

So, the side effect of casually fucking Kise is that Daiki spends a lot more time at his apartment, whether Kise is actually there or not. Part of it is that Daiki can never be bothered to haul his ass home and neither one of them have any particular issues with sleeping with each other after.

Kise's mornings tend to be busier than Daiki's – he's often gone well before Daiki wakes up – but that never compels Daiki to hurry to leave. Kise has a better sound system wired up to his TV.

They've cooled it a little on the hickeys, if only because Kise can't be covered in them when he works and Daiki's pretty sure Satsuki will figure things out if he keeps turning up after visiting Kise covered in bruises. (Daiki doesn't think any other partner he's had has left quite so many vicious marks on him – to leave some in the first place is usually difficult with his skin tone. He enjoys the way Kise will mark him up, though he's not sure exactly why if gives him such a satisfied feeling.)

Sometimes, when Kise will be working late, Daiki will let himself into Kise's apartment with food and wait for him. (Sometimes, though he doesn't like to think about what it means, this does not lead to sex.) It gets lonely eating alone, he tells himself, and surely Kise won't want to cook or wait when he gets home.

Clothes start mingling.

And one afternoon as he tries to find his clothes before he goes back to his apartment, Daiki comes to the terrifying realisation that Kise's apartment is more his home than his own is.

"Satsuki."

"What is it, Dai-chan, I'm working," her voice over the phone sounded annoyed. "I'm finalising your contract."

"Is it urgent?"

"Well..."

"I need to talk to you right now."

"Are you sick? Have you been drinking alone? I know it's been a while since you had a girlfriend, but..."

"Satsuki, please just shut up and come over here."

He hung up on her before she could ask anything else or tell him to get his shit together for a few hours and wait for her to be done.

She seemed more concerned than angry when she let herself into Daiki's apartment. He sat at the table with a cup between his hands, and he was rolling his palms along the side.

"What's the matter, Dai-chan?" Satsuki sat down at the table next to him.

"You know how I had those hickeys?" Daiki asked her. She nodded. "Kise gave them to me."

When she didn't say anything, he looked at her. The lack of surprise made him scowl. "When did you figure it out?"

"Dai-chan," she said, and she sounded amused, "I figured it out that same day. But what's the problem?"

"Well, it was supposed to be sort of no-strings attached, friends with benefits kind of thing right? And then I realised today when I was getting my clothes that Kise's apartment is more like my home than this is and I think I'm in a bit over my head."

She sighed. "Didn't I tell you to be careful?" she asked him, but she put a hand on his head and ran her fingers through his hair.

"I didn't know that you meant about... this. What do I do?"

Satsuki shrugged. "I don't know, Dai-chan. What do you want to do?"

I want to go back home and wait for Kise to come home, he thought. I want to go back and pretend I never figured out that I got in over my head and care more than I was supposed to.

"I don't know."

She patted his head. "You'll figure it out."

Thing was, with a shiny new contract drawn up and a new basketball season starting, Daiki didn't have to deal with Kise, and he did what he did best – he shoved the feelings aside, and told himself he absolutely did not miss Kise's apartment (not home, Kise's apartment), he did not miss eating dinner with him and stealing some of Kise's food, he did not miss falling asleep next to Kise's warmth, or the way he'd laze in Kise's comfortable bed in the mornings, and shit.

Ah, this fucking sucked.

The worst part was that Kise didn't seem at all phased by the fact that Daiki hadn't been in contact for a few weeks. Kise had really held up his part – Daiki still remembered what he'd said. You want someone who'll fuck you and get out of your life until you want to fuck again.

The problem was that Daiki's pretty sure that's not what he wants – that it isn't what he's wanted for a while, not since he started turning up at Kise's apartment with food. There's always been some blurry lines – Daiki should probably never have stayed the night in Kise's bed – but that, he thinks, is the moment he was gone.

Wasn't it supposed to be girls who got their hearts tangled up in stupid friends with benefits arrangements?

Daiki shoves these annoying feelings and thoughts to the back of his head whenever he catches himself dwelling on them, but that doesn't stop him from keeping an excruciating eye on how long it's been since he's been in contact with Kise, which leads him to thinking about how long it's been since he fucked a girl. Not since before Kise – even though Kise had said it was okay for him to sleep with other people, he hadn't been, and god, Daiki had messed up big time, Daiki was so over his head he couldn't see the sky anymore, Daiki had feelings, shit.

In the absence of his usual drinking buddy (usual everything – fuck, when had Kise become such a big part of his everyday life, he was sure just the other day he was thinking about how intolerable it was to deal with Kise more often than once every so often), Daiki settled for unsatisfying games of street ball at courts with bad reputations.

At his first pro game, though, he was confronted full-force with his big screw up, because all the rest of the Generation of Miracles – none of whom, other than himself, had pursued basketball – came to watch him play.

All of them.

Including Kise.

It wasn't so much a problem playing – Daiki had always had incredible focus, and this, this was worth pulling out all the stops for – but after, when he had to socialise, and he had to pretend like things were exactly how they'd always been, pretend like he wasn't mentally undressing and exploring Kise's body, while he was interacting with these strange fucked up weirdoes he'd never be able to get out of his life.

He kept on wanting to reach out and touch him, flick his earring, toy with his hair, flirty things that they'd done in the privacy of Kise's home, casual things Daiki had always done – and the longing was so bad, oh god, Daiki was so royally fucked.

Somehow, he managed to make it through the night, and Kise smiled at him no more and no less than he would have before they started fucking. Daiki was glad when they'd all left, to leave him with his thoughts.

"Aomine-kun."

"Holy shit!"

...his thoughts and Tetsu, apparently. He looked at him; Tetsu was regarding him with a soft smile.

"You did well today. You should really speak to Kise-kun about your feelings, though."

"Satsuki needs to keep her mouth shut," Daiki snarled.

Tetsu sighed. "Aomine-kun, you were making eyes at Kise-kun all night any time you thought he wasn't looking," he said. "I am hardly blind, and you were not being half as secretive as you think you were. Please do not baselessly accuse Momoi-san of spilling your secrets."

"I don't know how," Daiki admitted.

"Just go talk to Kise-kun. I would rather like for the next time the lot of us meet, not to have to feel uncomfortable watching you mentally strip Kise-kun of his clothes."

"You are such a hypocrite," Daiki called after the retreating Tetsu. "Don't think I haven't seen those looks you send the big red idiot!"

So it was the next evening that Daiki let himself into Kise's apartment, and helped himself to Kise's alcohol while he waited for him to come home.

"Kise," he drawled as he heard him enter, elongating the vowels of his name. "Kise, I really like you."

"You really are such a disaster, Aominecchi," Kise said as he approached him.

"Kise, I really really like you."

"We are not talking about this when you're drunk, Aominecchi. Come on, how about you hop in bed and sleep this off." Kise was herding him towards the bedroom.

"I'm not drunk," Daiki protested.

"Yes, yes," Kise humoured him. "Of course you're not."

Daiki woke up in a familiar bed and groaned, not opening his eyes. "Fuck."

"You're awake, Aominecchi?"

His eyes flew open. Not once upon waking, had Kise ever been in the bed with him.

Kise had a mug of something hot cradled in the palms of his hands – it smelled like coffee.

Now his voice failed him, and he sighed heavily, looking up at Kise.

"Did you mean it?" Kise asked, looking into the cup. He didn't look at Daiki.

"Yes," Daiki answered. He buried his face in the pillow. "Feel free to kick me out."

A warm, gentle hand threaded through Daiki's hair. "Go back to sleep, Aominecchi." Kise's voice was soft and... loving. "We'll talk about it later."