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A kimono really was just sort of a thick bathrobe, Kagami thought, irritatedly tugging at the obi behind him. He knew he was being immature, purposefully twisting the obi out of the adjustments Akashi had so carefully made just a moment ago. But he could not help himself.
Kagami narrowed his eyes, studying himself critically. He eyed himself, the lines of his physicality somehow outlined clearer from the darkness of the colour. Four years on, and Kagami thought he still looked the same, still was the same guy who had come to Japan intending to stay only temporarily. He both looked, and felt, like the same guy who had come to Japan only for high school, defeat the Generation of Miracles, and then go back to the States.
The words Akashi had said just a moment ago darted across his mind, taunting and teasing to Kagami, even though Akashi had said them with gravitas and seriousness.
“You need to learn, Taiga. You need to learn where you are and you need to learn how to act like you belong here. You're Japanese, aren't you? You'd think after four years back here you would've learned."
Kagami studied the scowl that twisted his face as he remembered.
Four years on, Kagami thought he was still not the kind of guy who belonged in Japan. Japan was a stop in a journey towards the top. It was not meant to be a place to stagnate, a place for Kagami’s failures to pool, dank and putrid from a halted progression towards success. Kagami was not meant to have stayed here so long.
An urge to take off the kimono swept over Kagami, overwhelming, making him choke with its suddenness. He felt sick, wearing it. He felt like a failure, wearing it. Adjusting to Japan, wearing a kimono, all these things felt like accepting a failure he never should have had.
“Taiga, you’re taking too long. Are you ready to leave soon?” In the brief time he had left Kagami examining himself in front of the bathroom mirror, Akashi had efficiently managed to dress up as well, in a kimono of his own.
In his white kimono, trimmed with thread as black as Kagami’s own kimono, the lines of Akashi’s physicality was just as clear as Kagami’s own had been earlier. Akashi wore the kimono like he had been born to wear it. Regal, and with a certainty that he belonged in it. Belonging in Japan, and assured in his place as a winner; all certainties Kagami did not have.
Even as he looked upon Akashi, Kagami wanted to look away, and it was not just the whiteness of his kimono that made him want to do so. Within his chest, two forces tore apart in opposite directions — one that dragged him, not altogether unwillingly, to follow Akashi Seijurou, because that was just the type of person Akashi was. Fascinating and intriguing Kagami every basketball game, every conversation, every smirk. His indefinable magnetism, that attracted Kagami towards him, both out of and within Kagami’s control.
The other direction was the reminder of failure, that made Kagami want to run away, and never see Akashi again. He had never been able to defeat him, the only member of the Generation of Miracles he had never been able to surpass. And now, Akashi was his university teammate, someone Kagami would never be able to defeat.
The smirk that played around Akashi’s lips made Kagami’s fist tingle with the urge to punch it off. Or his fingers tingle, his own lips itching with the urge to wipe it off, another way.
“That thing looks difficult to keep clean,” Kagami frowned at him. “How are you going to eat anything without getting food all over it?”
That annoying smirk still dancing at his lips, Akashi approached Kagami. He spread a palm on Kagami’s chest. Kagami looked down at it, the contrast of Akashi’s pale skin on the atramentous surface of the kimono. His hand, delicate and refined, a contrast to Kagami’s own clumsy, large hands. Absolute, a contrast to Kagami’s uncertainty, and a reminder of Kagami’s defeat.
“Not everything is about food, Taiga.” Akashi smoothed a crease on Kagami’s kimono. The stroke was almost a caress. Kagami swallowed around the lump that immediately formed in his throat, watching the white hand move across his chest, the sensation of the gentle stroke contrasting with the rude tugging at his heart.
“I don’t like it,” Kagami blurted out. The remaining words, “the kimono,” had somehow gotten left behind, drowned in the lump within his throat. Kagami didn’t even care about the non-sequitur. It was Akashi — he would know.
Akashi removed his hand from Kagami’s chest, and cold rushed in, dousing the warmth his hand left. He snapped his gaze onto Kagami’s, studying him.
In the harsh fluorescent light of Kagami’s bathroom, Akashi’s dichromatic eyes looked more cruel, more critical. Yet more beautiful.
Shame flooded onto Kagami the same way a flush rose in his face, abrupt and overwhelming. Kagami regretted saying those words, now that they hung between them, ugly and humiliating.
“Why are you so reluctant to belong here?” Akashi crossed his arms. He was standing very close to Kagami. Kagami could see the lines of his body tense in his posture.
Kagami’s throat felt too dry for him to tell the truth. About the confusion, and conflict between the two forces, raging within him. Even as he still felt the shame of failure, Kagami wasn’t sure he wanted to defeat Akashi, anymore. Somehow, Kagami thought striving to defeat him would mean an end to something in their relationship. An end to something Kagami could not bear to lose.
Standing at such proximity to him, Kagami thought again about being inexplicably pulled towards Akashi, and his decision to remain in Japan. Kagami thought the pain of not being with Akashi would have been worse than the stab of failure that came whenever he saw him. Kagami thought something within his chest would shrivel up, and die a lonely death, whenever the thought of never seeing Akashi again flitted across his mind, a sinister ghost leaving cold tendrils at the depths of his heart.
But therein lay that dichotomous conflict. Kagami would refuse to adjust to Japan, because he refused to give up on ever beating Akashi. He refused to stagnate, and rot, in his failure.
“I don’t have to wear a fucking kimono to show I belong in Japan,” Kagami’s arms itched to cross in turn, but he didn’t. He refused to get into a stand-off with Akashi Seijurou. He did not need to, want to, lose again.
“The kimono is insignificant to my question, Taiga,” Akashi’s tones were the measured ones of someone intending to question until he got the answers, no matter what.
Kagami’s tones came out shaky, thrumming and taut with the tension of stubbornness. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The two forces felt like they were ripping Kagami’s chest apart. He did not want to adjust to Japan, and accept never winning against Akashi. He wanted to stay in Japan, and bask in proximity near Akashi forever. He did not know which force was stronger.
“You are a predictably unsatisfactory liar, Taiga,” the smirk was again flitting around Akashi’s lips, but his eyes gleamed with the seriousness for Kagami to Answer the question.
Kagami gritted his teeth. He wanted to brush past Akashi and storm out, but that would have entailed touching him. He wasn’t sure he could stand doing that just yet.
“I shouldn’t have to change anything about myself to belong here,” Kagami bit out. He looked down, away from Akashi. The whiteness of the kimono was blinding him in the harsh fluorescent light. Instead, he studied the hem of his own kimono. The darkness, far from cooling the burning in his eyes, made Kagami feel like he was sinking in, deeper and deeper, lost into that blackness.
“Four years, Taiga,” Akashi’s voice was low, and soft. Kagami heard the gentle rustle of fabric as Akashi uncrossed his arms. Kagami watched Akashi’s bare feet, toes peeking out from the white hem of his kimono, take one step closer to him. “Isn’t it time to move on?”
Kagami wanted to move closer. He wanted to step away. He wasn’t sure which he wanted more.
"I wasn't planning on staying, after the first three years," Kagami breathed out. His voice did not sound like his own — oddly hushed, and scratchy. He wasn’t sure if he was excusing himself for not moving on, or revealing a secret he wasn’t entirely certain he wanted Akashi to know.
“What made you stay, then?” Akashi’s voice was so low, and so gentle, Kagami felt rather than heard it, the vibrations tenderly floating across the short distance between them.
The lump in Kagami’s throat was immense, and Kagami suddenly found he was breathing altogether too shallowly.
Kagami forced the will to open his mouth, to answer Akashi, to tell him the source of all dichotomous contradictions — but Akashi suddenly stepped away, and everything felt less closed in.
Kagami could feel the disappointment drop, large, and heavy, from his chest all the way down to the hem of his black kimono. He was only dimly surprised that he had felt so disappointed at the missed opportunity. Perhaps he had been more ready to move on than he’d thought. Perhaps he had been already begun moving on, making his choice without having even realised it.
All Kagami could see was the white of Akashi’s kimono, stretched across Akashi’s back, as Akashi turned to leave.
“If you don’t like this one, maybe we’ll try to find you a women’s kimono. The aesthetics are a little less...dull.”
Turning, Kagami could see the lines of Akashi’s profile, and the perfect framing of the white kimono against his secretive, knowing smirk.
This time, Kagami felt the force pulled him a little stronger towards Akashi, instead of away. He stepped forwards, fully intending to wipe that smirk off Akashi’s lips, the way Kagami suddenly found he had the certainty to do.
But with a punch or something else, Kagami hadn’t yet decided.