Chapter Text
“Aomine-kun.”
“Mm?” Daiki, lounging on the couch flipping through channels on the TV, looks up to see an expectant Tetsu staring down. “What is it?”
“Tomorrow, Aomine-kun.”
Daiki frowns and checks the calendar… Nope, nothing in there to remember, right? Right. So he frowns at Tetsu, and Tetsu’s mouth so subtly pulls down at the corners.
Oopsies. Wrong.
So what was it he’s supposed to remember? A date? An anniversary? Come to think of it, when was their anniversary anyway? Was it next month? No… This week or next—? What was it about tomorrow?
“We’re babysitting my students tomorrow, Aomine-kun.”
Trust Tetsu to always know him best. Daiki relaxes a little to hear Tetsu speak in the calm manner that usually just means he thinks Daiki’s being an idiot. Nothing new there. “Oh, that, okay—”
Then he balks and sits up too quickly, narrowly avoiding headbutting his boyfriend because what the heck did Tetsu just say?
“We’re what—? Babysitting those– those rascals?”
Tetsu stares back at him as impassively as ever. “There is no need to call them ‘rascals’, Aomine-kun,” he tells Daiki, who is still reeling from the shock. Why did he ever forget this? “In fact, for kids, they’re very well-behaved.”
Daiki shakes his head. “Tetsu, you know I don’t have the greatest track record when it comes to taming rascals—”
“—They are not rascals, they are children,” Tetsu sternly corrects him. “And your last encounter with children was two years ago. That was a different class.” There is a tiny hint of amusement in his voice, and is that a small smile?
Daiki glares at Tetsu. “Those kids trashed the house, Tetsu,” he growls at his boyfriend. “Trashed the house, refused to sleep when told, pissed on the carpet! The living room reeked for three weeks, remember?”
“And yet again, that was a different time.” Tetsu’s maddeningly-patient air tells Daiki that the latter has already forgiven him for forgetting—or perhaps more aptly put, Tetsu is now punishing him for forgetting. Daiki stares long and hard at Tetsu’s face and—yep, Tetsu is taunting him alright.
He gives up and lays back down on the couch. After all, there isn’t much he could do against Tetsu when it came to kids. “Whatever,” Daiki grumbles. “But you’re cleaning up their shit and changing their diapers.”
“You will be cleaning the house,” Tetsu chimes in. He turns around, heading for the door, and is long gone when Daiki realises the demonic implications of Tetsu’s final words.
The school bus arrives early the next day, and Daiki is in his boxers sitting at the breakfast counter playing with his cereals, too miserable to eat properly, when he hears the unmistakable sounds of a vehicle whooshing away and toddlers babbling about.
He sighs and quickly finishes his cereal bowl before going up to their room to change. Hell hath no fury like Tetsu ignored, he thinks, and it’s about time he starts remembering Tetsu’s school appointments. After all, this arrangement – where the teachers and parents leave town for the annual PTA meeting and leave Tetsu in charge of the ras—kids – was annual, and he’ll have to put up with it or break up with Tetsu, because no way will Tetsu ever stop accepting the kids and no way is he ever breaking up with the guy again.
When he decides to go to the living room an hour later, he is slightly surprised at the lack of sound. Well, they are kids, they’re still noisy, but it is… a more peaceful kind of noise somehow, unlike the usual shrieks and obnoxious blabber of children in kindergarten. It strangely even resembles actual, coherent conversation, and Daiki thinks maybe these kids might not be so bad after all.
When he sees the kids all settled in the living room with the television on, however—
“What, is this Rainbow Day?”
Tetsu and the kids all turn to him. Tetsu smiles and beckons him forward. “Hello, Aomine-kun, come join us.”
“Hewwo, Ame— Amon— Anemonecchi!” cries a jolly blonde kid clambering over the back of the sofa with difficulty, and nearly falling over had Daiki not thrown his arms out. “Thank yew!”
Daiki catches sight of the worried look on Tetsu’s face which is so quickly replaced by happiness, and then decides maybe this year it wouldn’t be so bad. He lifts the boy into his arms. The kid giggles and claps in glee. “Higher, higher!”
Daiki spares the blonde a smile and looks around, assessing the kids. On Tetsu’s side is a spectacled, green-haired boy holding what seems to be a toy rabbit, who surveys him rather critically before returning to the television. Beside this boy is another kid, purple-haired this time, with his lap full of food with different kinds and flavours; this kid doesn’t even look at him and just munches away, occasionally checking the bag he eats, and then grunting and eating on.
He barely notices two others. “Tetsu, they’re colourful!” Daiki cries in mingled incredulity and sheer amazement. The blonde child screams joyfully as Daiki jumps a little. “They’re tiny, colourful monsters!” Three- or four-year-old monsters, by the looks of it.
“We awe not monsters,” a small but imposing voice tells him pointedly. Daiki turns toward the source and sees, to his absolute delight, another colourful kid: a little boy with bright red hair and mismatched red and yellow eyes, who sits on the chintz armchair that Tetsu usually sat on himself.
“Of course you are,” Daiki replies before he could filter himself.
He giggles at the kid, looking so serious and intent on murdering him. It takes him a little while to notice the scissors in the boy’s hand. “We awe not monsters. Tetsuya wikes us, Tetsuya would never wike monsters,” the kid, in all his squeaky-voiced imperiousness, declares before turning his back on Daiki and resuming watching the television.
Daiki now feels the creepiness crawl in, and he glances at Tetsu in a quiet plea for explanations. Tetsu just shrugs and smiles in amusement, and that’s when Daiki notices another red-head clinging obstinately to Tetsu’s neck.
“Why… Why is that thing clinging to you?”
Tetsu’s smile quickly disappeared in favour of a frown. “This thing is a child named Kagami Taiga,” Tetsu replies coolly. “He’s the newest student, just transferred from America. He’s still learning his Japanese and he’s only starting to make friends.”
Tetsu holds the kid closer and for a moment, Daiki feels the sharp pang of jealousy. How could a child be so possessive?
He grunts and makes his way next to Tetsu, and sees the obstinate monkey glaring at him. He ignores this and decides to play with blondie, who seems to be preoccupied with his skin.
“You’re dark, Aminomecchi,” he says, looking at Daiki with wide, topaz eyes. Then he breaks into a huge, sparkling smile that leaves Daiki a little overwhelmed and a whole lot mystified. Tetsu sniggers beside him.
“Mister Amomine,” the green-haired kid suddenly says, “what is your zo-dack sign?”
Zodiac? Why would the kid need to know that? Whatever. Daiki answers anyway, failing to notice Tetsu’s increasing mirth radiating in huge waves. “Umm… Virgo, I think?”
“Your lucky item for today is a teddy bear,” the kid expertly tells him, pushing up his glasses as he does so, “and be careful because Oha Asa says Virgo will have mind-grains for today.”
The purple-haired one lazily raises his bag of chips and says “Seaweed and blue cheese tastes good” and then resumes watching television.
At this, Tetsu actually laughs and Daiki just stares at the tiny, green-haired and purple-haired blobs.
What the heck was that?
Blondie removes himself from Daiki’s arms and runs around the living room until—
CRASH!
Oh, Daiki definitely feels the migraine coming, alright.