Chapter Text
Kise can’t help it. He keeps fidgeting in the stylist’s chair, running his hands over his blonde hair with increasing anxiety. He adjusts his tuxedo once, then stops to fumble with the clasps of his Armani dress pants. He’s trying to ignore the ring weighing down his right index finger. The smooth gold basketball nestled in the center of the ‘hoop’ — a special style released by Cartier for their marriage — unnerves him more than the Kaijo vs Gakuen finals in Interhigh. For two nights now Kise has washed his hands after the dishes and forgotten to take the ring off - it’s still bright, but he worries.
“This is too expensive, Aominecchi.” He smiled at him - for real this time, not for the paparazzi, and tugged on his training jacket’s sleeve to kiss his cheek.
It’s hard, defined, and cold. Aomine walks faster, still taciturn. “We have to be at the hotel by 7:00 if we want to make our dinner date.”
His blue hair matched the color of the dying violets.
If Kise is weirded out, Aomine is no better. He’s always gone, either on the courts or in the gym, when Kise comes home to preheated curry. The nickname of “Generation of Miracles” persists, though it hasn’t exactly translated to a blissful love life. They’ve been married for two months now, but they only really see each other in interviews and photo shoots. Every camera is trained on their small movements as they come together, like a mathematician calculating two line’s infinite trajectory. (They touch often but for some reason it’s never enough as Kise likes.)
“You two must be overjoyed to be such public icons,” the radio host gushed.
“Well, it’s difficult,” Aomine glanced at Kise. They are sitting in two plush office chairs with the logo of Kise’s clothing brand stamped on the sides. “Kise’s always on planes for his modeling, and I’m playing basketball 24/7. There’s not a lot of rest, and a lot of people expect us to be 100% on top of our game, just because we’re gay.”
He says it bluntly, and Kise feels the momentary sensation of wanting to brush Aomine’s shiny navy hair back (it’s gotten cut into a buzz cut Kise is begging him to grow out normally). He can’t count how many times Aomine brushes his teeth and chants it - “gay” - like a mantra. Like it’s the only thing keeping him faithful.
“Oh, I see,” the host nodded her head. “Would it be alright to guess the honeymoon is postponed?”
Kise surprises himself when he shoots up his chin and frowns. “No, Aominecchi and I love each other. We want it soon. We’re going to Kyoto.”
He doesn’t even know if that makes sense, but his publicist gives him a thumbs up and buys them drinks after the broadcast. Kise grabs Aomine’s hand when saying goodbye, and Aomine doesn’t comment.
Kise wonders - about a good three times a day - how this even happened. It started out as a little joke, the advertising campaign’s idea to hitch them up with a few ‘couple style’ pikakura photos. Then, suddenly, the NBA and B-J leagues are gay-tolerant and proud and Aomine finds out that hey, if he’s a minority and sexually deviant player plus his beast, street hip-hop self, America will crown him a Miracle King. Unconditionally. The new Asian-American Michael Jordan (actually, it’s his teammate Kagami that’s got the ‘-American’ addend, but none of the NBA announcers seem to notice or care that they’re not politically correct).
A few months later, Kise’s fans are on his back for staying so suspiciously chaste over the years. He is tempted to go pro in basketball, but the scouts sneer at him. What a feminine boy, they say. But if he pretends to kiss one of them, they sputter and cave, and then offer him any position he likes. The flirting starts to come naturally for him. The perfect copy is finished after watching Hyuga date, and then propose to Riko (“Finally! After years of sexual tension!” Izuki mutters). Kise doesn’t like the shady way he’s scoring his minutes, but he figures that hey, love is a basketball court. What did he expect of the sport anyways, fairness and gentleness? He'd grown up under Akashi's hellish eyes.
Nike offered him a spokesperson role due to his cult following and ‘exemplary self-projection of anti-discriminatory ideals’. Then they publicly sent him rainbow flowers, rainbow Air Jordans, and rainbow headbands. (Thank God Kise looks decent in them, although he face palmed when he realized absolutely zero newspapers bothered to correct their misprint of his sexual orientation.)
Before it can blow over, Amnesty International is clamoring for Kise to sign their petition against Russia’s anti-gay laws. He agrees, and then does some risqué but well-curated campaigns about the past Sochi 2014 failure, propaganda, etc. It’s like he’s Jack Ryan in the Kremlin during the Cold War.
Everyone has to sacrifice something for a little glory, right?
“What I’m about to suggest is definitely unconventional. Especially for someone from your modern Japanese background, it might take a while to sink in, so I’m not expecting an answer until next month…” His agent looked at him appraisingly, pushing unpublished public relations papers in front of Kise.
COUPLE OF THE CENTURY: KISE RYOUTA & AOMINE DAIKI
Wedding Announcement of Mr. and Mr. Kise-Aomine
5 Reasons Why the Kise-Aomines are the Newest Big Thing
Best Kise shoots & Aomine shots
Kise dropped the papers. His gold eyes widened in shock, and his cheeks flushed.
“You’re suggesting I marry Aomine?”
Ms. Minami doesn’t bat an eyelid. “We thought that it would be a good match. You two know each other from middle and high school, he inspired you to go beyond modeling, and you made him realize his potential in product sponsorship. You both are tall. And ripped,” Ms. Minami unhelpfully added, “The union would bolster support for international gay rights, multi-disciplinary athletes, and not to mention… We’re willing to shell out a lot of cash to get this going. All your living expenses for the next five years are taken care off. Any children out of the marriage will receive a full tuition account at either Gakuen or Seirin or Kaijo.”
Kise felt a little faint. He melted into the chair and rubbed his eyes - he didn’t care about the contacts - refusing to seriously take in the idea.
Kids? Kids. Wow. Shit.
“You can’t be serious.”
“It’s a little out there,” she admits. “But if we can pull this off, the world will love you. You’ve already done Amnesty, Kise. However, that was a while back. People want a little something of your personal life. Something they can admire, fawn over.”
Kise doesn’t even know how to walk down an aisle with a groom. He’s never copied a waltz or done cake-baking or even attended to an actual wedding reception. As for a bachelors party... Well, Hyuga's was enlightening. But. No way. Him marrying Aomine...?
He still has nightmares about that day Aomine beat him at Interhigh. The cold aversion of Aomine's eyes, the thud-a-thud of his stupidly quick, heavy feet as they fade away, leaving him a mess of tears and sweat and broken muscles -
“Aomine hates me.”
“That’s not true. Just yesterday he gave you a praiseful twitter shoutout.”
“You’re my agent and you handle half of my social media accounts. Do you honestly think all his tweets are his?” Kise feels like he is going to throw up. “I’m calling Tetsu.”
(And yes, he doesn’t want to dwell on the fact that he just referred to one of his best friends by accidentally using Aomine’s nickname.)
Now, he’s preparing for their official portraits and he’s sweating balls. It’s as if he’s back in high school with Kasamatsu-senpai, doing suicides across the gym for attracting too many fangirls or something else ridiculous. He laughs a bit at the memory but sobers up when he sees his stylist about to come at him with a hair straightener.
“No, Mai, not this.” He groans. “It’s my wedding photo day, can we have it not chemically damaged?”
“It’s pretty!” she argues. “You can use the special conditioner your Italian sponsor sent you, that would work fine.”
Aomine bursts in suddenly and puts a firm hand on his shoulder. “Ms. Mai,” he says with a thick Californian accent that he most definitely picked up just for the NBA. “There’s no need.”
Kise can see his suit up close from here. The tie is atrociously tailored, but the pants are not at all objectionable. And there’s the matter of his shirt, a tad tight, which continues to ridiculously ripple over his ridiculously defined abs. (Kise didn’t get his proper three bowls of cereal today.)
“Aomine,” he smiles and intertwines his fingers with Aomine's, trying to quell the queasiness in his stomach.
They’ve been trained to copy this movement again and again for the reporters.
Aomine doesn’t crack a grin or give him any lovey-dovey looks but his eyes soften from steel to just... gray. “They want you out there first, Kise,” he says without fanfare.
Kise doesn’t mean to pout but he goes for it anyways. “Then when do you go out?”
“Right after you take your solos, then they're doing portraits of us.” If Aomine stumbles slightly over the ‘us’ they don’t linger on it.
Ms. Mai excuses herself and bows. She’s looking at Aomine with barely shielded awe, and who wouldn’t, after his phenomenal performance in yesterday’s shooting contest?
Kise was watching there, too. When Aomine won, he searched the crowd for the tell-tale slender blond figure and gave him the gold medal to wear around his neck. This was in the men’s room, to escape the bloodthirsty journalists. What the heck. Sure enough, he did it was a careless, fumbling throw and clipped words, but when Kise was speechless, he grinned and looked so pleased Kise could kiss him.
What are we doing, Kise thinks, as he stares at their hands. Still intertwined.
The photographers are making a fuss out of getting the lighting just right for the rings. They’ve got several shots lined up, and a couple of them are provocative, with some lazy making out and rough-n-tumble or ‘run-n-gun’ as Tetsu would say with unblinkingly blue eyes as he grips Kagami’s hand. The digital retouchers have a blast with the shoot because they honestly don’t have to do anything to remove a single blemish. Kise is his usual laughing self and Aomine is suave without even trying to be. There’s even a few candids that come out perfect: for example, Kise staring at Aomine’s exposed collarbone with overt desire and Aomine biting his lip. It’s adorable. The fangirls will scream when it is released online next Sunday.
“They’re going to stay up all night,” Aomine said, arching an eyebrow.
“So are we,” Kise said slyly, whispering as the last bits of equipment were packed up. He immediately slit his eyes, and Aomine stared at him with admiration.
“Oh, OK. OK.” Aomine’s mouth was wolfish, “If that’s what you want.”
When they go home in the car, the air-con is broken and the leather is freezing. Kise is lost until Aomine reaches for his hand — the one with the ring — and starts tracing patterns on the backs and insides of his palm. Aomine is quiet, and the lull of traffic washes over them.
He wasn’t lying during the interview - they don’t get moments like these together much.
“Kyoto, one week?” Aomine asks.
“I haven’t been there since I was a child.” Kise breathing is shallow and he closes his eyes (a model needs his beauty sleep). “My mom liked it there.”
“Then we’ll go.”
Aomine continues his strokes until they have to get out, and the abrupt stop leaves Kise feeling a little empty. Or hungry for ramen. He can’t separate his baser emotions from the mundane ones now, that's what being in Aomine's orbit constantly has been like. They’ve got an interview on TV tomorrow, and he’s flying out to Nevada to watch Aomine’s championship game, then there’s the Generation of Miracles media reception in a week. Kise just wants to sleep. In a nice hotel bed near the sea, with a futon and with Aomine’s damn short hair under his fingers.
He must have said it out loud because Aomine chuckles. “OK, that's fine with me, princess.”
“Prince,” he automatically corrects.
“Sure, your highness,” Aomine shrugs with signature nonchalance. “Let’s go. Fuck everything else. Clear your schedule, Prince Ryouta.”
Kise is stunned into laughter. “And your teammates say you’re stuck up, Your Majesty.”
Aomine shrugged, "It's a flop."
They fall asleep more or less in sync with each other. That night Kise dreams about dark blue hair and no one's face in particular.