Work Text:
face to face, eye to eye, kise and aomine stand defined on the court. and it should be thrilling, it should be everything they wanted. to stand against each other like this as equals. but its as if theyre reaching, stretching out their hands, and they slip through each others fingers like sand.
this competition feels lackluster, empty. like a dream you can only drift through with no meaning. theres nothing kise can do to bring aomine down to earth, and theres nothing aomine can do to have him again.
“is this actually real?” they want to say.
they’ve always seen each other as something more than themselves, someone that deserved the sunshine. they thought the other deserved nothing less than the universe and all its possibilities. they shouldve been stuck to each other like glue, bickering at any chance they had, holding their heads high knowing whos by their side.
and yet, here they are, facing off instead of standing together.
did i do everything i could? were we not meant to be? maybe im not like you.
maybe it was luck that they loved each other. maybe it was only for a moment, and meant to be that way. maybe they never trusted each other like they thought they did. maybe they dont deserve each other.
after all, kise and aomine always compared themselves to each other.
kise is scared. he cant answer questions about his own personality, doesnt know his own favorite foods, he cant draw the line between himself and others. whats him and whats someone else? he feels this pity deep inside him, this self-consciousness that only hurts.
so he keeps living out his dreams of meeting people he can love, but he cant tell if they think hes worthy of trust. the self-consciousness gets worse, he gets stuck in his head, and cant help but feel that these good things cant be happening to him.
when aomine was approached by touou, he had long abandoned his passion for anything. he thought that maybe if he signed that paper, everything would be right. but then the pen was in his hand, and for a moment he doubted. for a moment he was terrified.
his passion for what raised him as a child, turned into his greatest fear, his greatest letdown. just when he thought he found people who would support him unconditionally, he found he could no longer smile. now, when something good comes crashing into him, he can only think of when it’ll disappear.
here and now, when they’re so close they could touch, when this is all they can want, it feels like theres something missing.