Chapter Text
Childhood: Aomine and Momoi. The Hunt, for Adventure.
Aomine and Momoi crouched, waiting for yet another round of pies to come out of the baker’s into the merchant’s cart. Momoi hated coming to this part of the city — seedy, dirty and smelling of urine in every street. She felt unsafe here.
But here was where stealing was the norm, and people didn’t blink twice to see two lone kids scrounging for food. Here was where they could at least have a chance to survive, even if people killed each other in fights daily.
Aomine darted, lighting fast, and swiped an entire meat pie from the cart. The merchant did not even notice, too busy haggling with the baker to bring the price lower. Momoi had predicted that — she had told Dai-chan, after all, that this particular merchant, a stickler with prices and irrepressible bargainer, would be meeting at this street, at this time for his transaction. He was their best target to steal from, without getting caught.
They ran away, flushed with victory and the prospect of full stomachs tonight, when they slammed into a woman. The pie slipped out of Aomine’s hands and fell onto the her dress. She was beautiful, and smelled wonderful. Well, she had smelled wonderful — now she smelled like meat pie. Which was a wonderful smell in its own way.
She looked beautiful enough to be kind, but this was the bad part of the city. She shrieked and clutched at her dress, now well and truly ruined. Throwing a bone-chillingly deadly glance at them, she pulled out a machete from the folds of her dress. Aomine didn’t even know how a machete could have fit there.
He tried to hide Momoi as much as he could with his body, throwing his arms wide in front of her, screwing his eyes shut as he awaited death from the cold steel.
It never came. When he next opened his eyes, he saw the woman lying dead at his feet, machete useless in her stiff, cold fingers.
A man was standing over her, dagger held at the ready. “It’s always the most beautiful ones that kill you, in more ways than one, am I right kid?” he commented, smirking at them. Momoi shrunk behind Aomine.
“Who are you?” Aomine asked in a hushed voice. The man just chuckled and ruffled his hair. “Nobody important. I’m just a mercenary.” At Aomine’s puzzled expression, he chuckled again. “You heard of bounty hunters, kid? I’m one of them.”
Aomine brightened. But before he could ask any more questions, Momoi had enough. She grabbed him, whispered a quick “Thank you” to their saviour, and ran away, dragging him by the collar.
Aomine was more than a little irritated that she had taken away the opportunity for him to hear about “real life adventures” from a bounty hunter. But Momoi didn’t want to know more, didn’t want to hear about how people slit the throats of others for a living.
“I’m going to be a bounty hunter,” Aomine declared, with all the certainty and confidence a 9-year-old could possess. Momoi’s heart sank, clenched with fear and worry as she saw the stubbornness set into his face. Whatever Dai-chan set his mind to, he usually managed to succeed at it. Momoi knew he was always itching for adventure. But did he have to be a bounty hunter to seek it?
She inwardly thought that Dai-chan would be brilliant at being a hunter. He was naturally fast, and had instinctually amazing reflexes…but it would have broken Momoi’s heart to think that he could be a natural born killer.
She could never think about Dai-chan like that — her stupid, ridiculous childhood friend. He was gentle with animals (especially dogs), and he cared about her, even if he always ate the best parts of the grilled mackerel given generously to them by the fishmonger every week (even after she had said it was hers). He wasn’t, couldn’t be a killer.
But he longed for adventure, and somehow Momoi always knew he would have inevitably been drawn to the allure of bounty hunting eventually.
Did Momoi really have any other choice? There really was never any doubt about it. She followed him, as she always certainly would, into whatever he chose to do. She followed him not because she had no other choice, but because she chose to. She followed him because she wanted,needed to keep her childhood friend stupid and ridiculous. She needed to stop him from becoming too good of a killer, as she knew he just might become.
***
Childhood: Kise. The Hunt, for Acknowledgement
Kise was thirteen when he fell in love. Even now, in his early twenties, he is still unsure which he had been more enamoured with; the chase of trying to impress Aominechii, Aominechii himself, or the challenge that intrinsically lay in a bounty hunter’s lifestyle. All of those he had fallen in love with because it kept the boredom away.
Kise was lucky to have grown up in an entertainment troupe, a travelling circus. A boy as pretty as he could have done a lot worse. The older performers in the circus used to scare him into behaving by telling him stories about children in the worser parts of the city. Kise knew for a fact that sometimes getting killed was a more merciful fate than ending up elsewhere. Like in that other entertainment industry, which was a lot less fanciful than a circus.
As it were, Kise had loved his childhood there, growing up with his sisters, all pretty and dainty. Sometimes just their painted faces on the posters would draw sold-out crowds, wherever they went.
Kise loved attention, but eventually he got bored. And once he got bored, somehow the ennui never went away. His talent was mimicking others, uncannily so. In the circus, the audience would enjoy watching a lion-tamer make lions do tricks. Then they would go crazy watching Kise do the exact same thing, except with unrestrained lions, and he would make them do at least 5 other impromptu tricks. It was all too easy for him.
Thus, Kise began increasingly skipping his training sessions with his instructors, to explore the streets of the cities they visited. He kept a knife stolen from the circus knife thrower concealed in his sleeve — child-snatchers were everywhere, and Kise was skillful enough with the knife just from watching others that he was not going to get snatched.
Tokyo in particular was amazing — Kise watched with bright, shining eyes. For the first time, he wasn’t so bored. He walked from the nice part of town, to the less nice, getting less and less bored as the surroundings got dingier, so different from what he was used to. The houses got shantier as he passed, walls changing from plastered with brightly painted posters on shows to peeling walls covered with wanted posters. The smell changed from the rich smells of cooking meat and expensive scents, to the mingled stench of things you’d rather not know.
“What, can’t take a kid who’s smaller than you?” a taunt rang out. Kise stopped, attracted to a throng of people surrounding a space on the streets.
Eyes widening, he saw a boy his age, with dark blue hair, dagger in hand, circling a much larger, older man holding a hammer. All around them, the crowd was chanting, growing wild, placing bets.
The man roared and lunged at the boy. The boy moved — so quick and fast, Kise almost missed his movements. He darted between the man’s legs, and, leaping to grab his shoulder as leverage, flipped up, crouching on the man’s back. One hand was on the man’s hair to keep support, the other dagger was held at his throat. He did not even need to kill the man — every person there could tell he had the larger man at his mercy.
“Aomine wins again!” someone shouted, and the crowd groaned. Smirking, Aomine leapt down from the man’s back, grabbing the sack full of bets. “Thanks, old man!” he said, tapping his opponent on the back. The man only glared at him, full of loathing.
A pink-haired girl ran up to him. Smiling at him, she said self-importantly, “Didn’t I tell you, Dai-chan? Larger opponents are slower to respond if you attack from behind.”
The boy waved her off, but smiled widely. “All we need is a few more wins and we can earn enough to finally make the trip to Teikou!” The girl’s smile wavered a bit.
Kise could not hold in his excitement anymore. He bounded up to them, quivering excitedly. “That was amazing!” he gushed. Aomine just blinked at him, mouth hanging open.
The girl had better manners — she smiled at him. “What’s your name?” she asked politely. “I’m Momoi Satsuki and this is my childhood friend Aomine Daiki.” Kise was not used to people not recognizing him from circus posters, but that only made him more excited.
“Kise Ryouta! But you can call me whatever you want,” he sparkled with the charm he used with adults to get what he wanted. “You gotta teach me how you fought like that!” he gushed to Aomine.
Aomine laughed, loud and exuberant. “I’m the best with swords and daggers! It’s super fun. Hey hey, you know bounty hunters? They do these cool stuff all the time! And,” he leaned towards Kise, eyes shining like he had the most amazing secret in the world, “They go on adventures too!”
Momoi chided him. “Dai-chan, don’t overwhelm Ki-chan like that!” She turned to him. “We’re planning to travel to Teikou academy and become bounty hunters! We’ve been participating in street brawls to make enough money to last the trip.”
She looked down, slightly shy. “I know Teikou’s just at the other end of Tokyo, but we need enough money for the tolls between the districts, so…” she trailed off.
Kise brightened. “I could get you guys through! I have this permit,” he said, showing them the permit all performers got to move between districts without having to pay a toll. They blinked at it, not having had any exposure to that kind of privileged entertainment in the poorer districts.
Then Aomine perked up. Throwing an arm around Kise, he yelled, “Yes! Kise’s our travel buddy now, Satsuki!” Kise melted at his acknowledgement. This boy was so cool.
Momoi whacked Aomine on the head. “We can’t just randomly kidnap him and bring him with us! I’m sure Ki-chan has other commitments he needs to do.” Kise’s heart sank as he realized he was right. He couldn’t just up and go with them — he needed to convince his family at the circus that he wanted to do this.
Aomine wilted. Then he looked to Kise. “That’s okay. We’ll make our way there on our own, then. But,” he said, raising a fist to Kise. “We’ll definitely see you again eventually! I’ll teach you my coolest moves then!”
Kise bumped his fist, and smiled at them. “That’s a promise! I can show you some of my own tricks with a knife too.” Momoi smiled sweetly at him, and hugged him tight in farewell.
Kise watched them leave, Aomine’s arm slung around Momoi, chanting numbers with her as she counted their day’s earnings. He was struck by a sense of excitement he had not had for a long, long time. He had felt the ennui ebb away the moment he saw Aomine’s lightning quick movements, and a desire arise strongly to be like him, to match up to him, to impress him.
That was when he decided. He was going to enroll into Teikou. He knew wouldn’t be able to do so for another one or two years while he prepared to leave the circus. But after then he knew he make it there no matter what. He was going to chase after Aominechii, and make him acknowledge him. He knew then being a bounty hunter would be an adventure to last a lifetime.