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When Kise’s tired, it’s become palpable, obvious.
He’d done a good job hiding it before, but then, he’s found that there’s no use actually pretending at this point. It just makes him more tired – unnecessarily so. In fact, he’s been keeping in his stress for the past few hours. Most of the time, stress isn’t very helpful for a crash course-esque environment.
Slumped over his Histology textbook, his hands the only thing separating his cheek from a diagram of the kidneys, Kise says, bemoaning, “I can’t read.”
And that can mean many, many things, but it mostly just means that maaaaaaaybe he’s just not cut out for medicine? It’s a wake-up call, and he’s numb and sleepy not from The Dream but from something much simpler. The coffee-filled thermoflask says it all. The senpais all tell them that first year is a rough time, and it is. Kise just wants it to be over, which is not exactly the mentality he wants to start with, but, well.
His eyes flit about, calculated. The wave of hecticness is prevalent as always. The canteen is filled with minds buzzing like bees. The silence is deafening, so much that it’s almost a substitute for what a library should be. Kise recalls all those times someone had disrupted the conjured bubble of silence, none of them good, because sometimes, people just snap.
Thinking about it, there’s nothing even remotely special about this day. The cycle of intensive exam after exam is routine at this point. Ideally, it would be mundane, but Kise’s brain isn’t conditioned quite yet. It’s taking far longer than he wants it to because usually he’s one of the first to pick up information, but medicine is cursed-
There’s a spot in that blinding sun of hopefuls, one that’s sitting right in front of him.
Aomine (bless him) looks eerily calm, hands on his lap while studying. The way his brow is completely relaxed and not in a tight knot, Kise marvels at Aomine’s singular talent…
Yup, he’s definitely cramming.
Kise does the figures and goes over the facts, tapping his ballpen’s knob repeatedly with his chin. Aomine doesn’t even notice the sound.
Huh.
After this lunch break alone, they have 4 more exams to go through, of which 2 of them are cumulative ones. They don’t have lab today. Lunch? As for lunch, there’s about 15 minutes left, and Aomine’s lunch is only half-eaten. It’s basic sympathetics; he’ll be lucky if he isn’t constipated by the end of it. Kise himself has resorted to biscuits and – oh, he’s getting off track. Right, the kidney. Nephrons. Histology. Aomine. Everything’s beginning to mesh together like an ugly Christmas fruit salad prepared by an aunt you don’t like just so she can have an excuse to torment you when she sees your face. Kise, on his part, is done for.
So he does the next best thing.
“Can you even read those scribbles?” He mumbles. Aomine hears him and pauses from his reading – he just looks at Kise, and this time, his brow is furrowed, like Kise has asked him something genuinely stupid and worrying.
It doesn’t take long for the easy air around Aomine to make a return, evidenced by the way his mouth quirks up. “Fuck it, Kise, who even cares if I can read it? As long as I can remember, you know.”
“Guess I’m not the only who can’t read, then. That’s comforting.”
“Sure you can.” Aomine picks his pen up again and encircles something on his textbook, flipping it over so it’s facing Kise. Kise looks at it, withholding any form of judgement at all. There’s a spot on the stomach that’s encircled. It’s not on the curvatures, so it can’t be about that. No, Aomine’s circle is positioned inside of the stomach.
“Umm, that’s not reading, that’s identifying.” Kise deadpans.
“Give it a try, then.”
“But Aominecchiiiii,” Aomine jolts when Kise grabs his hand, eyes widening as he begins flailing his hand around, “My brain isn’t wooooorkingggggg-“
Kise, despite his stupor, is quick to notice people shooting glares at his direction. It wipes away the whining on his face. Raising his fingers into a peace sign, he bends down to whisper to Aomine. “You’re cruel, you know. Maybe you could just earth speak?”
“That takes away the fun, but I guess.” Aomine says grudgingly. He doesn’t flip his textbook again, making the decision to write upside down. It’s not the most legible, but Kise sees the letters and he gets it.
r/u/gae
Aomine gives Kise a look as if to brag that he’s the smoothest in the world. Kise fights the urge to smack the grin away from his face, covering his own mouth with a curled hand and beginning to write down a response with his other one. He takes his time with it, so much that Aomine has to cover his eyes to anticipate the surprise.
The sight of Kise’s reply gives Aomine pause to think.
Y R-O-R'
The letters stare up at Aomine mockingly.
Kise, who’d expected him to get it, can only show his amusement. “What, you don’t get it?”
“Spell it out for me.” is the request.
“Well, it’s properly spelled right there for you to see, isn’t it? Y R-O-R.”
“What, like… roar?” Hearing this, Kise facepalms, and Aomine murmurs to himself again, “That doesn’t explain the Y though.” Kise doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry with how stumped Aomine is.
(To be fair, Aomine's pretending. He knows what it's supposed to be, but also not. He doesn't recall the nomenclature, just where Kise's coming from.)
But gently, Kise also says, “You’re getting there, Aominecchi. I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.”
“How could you not remember rugae but remember Biochemistry?" And Aomine actually wrinkles his nose, looking convincing in his disbelief, "That’s disgusting.”
“Because rugae also applies to other organs? Not just the stomach?”
A moment passes. Aomine’s frown deepens like he’s a wounded puppy, but there’s something grimmer there, rooted in self-doubt.
“Fine, fine,” Kise relents, “This is sad, but hey, not because we don’t know-“ He points out markedly, to which Aomine interrupts with ‘sure it is’.
Kise smacks his lips together. “It is also sad, because we can sort this out just fine the way normal people do.”
Below the structure, he writes down what it means.
Y R – O – R'
Y(ETHER)
I AM VERY GAY FOR YOU <3
Kise flips the textbook back to Aomine’s side. The letters are written in very bright pink highlighter, and it prominently sticks out in the page of the photocopied book. Aomine’s grin turns wider, as if his book’s worth has increased elevenfold. Before they know it, they’re both laughing. Kise takes a peek at the clock. It’s five minutes till twelve, five minutes before their doom.
What Aomine doesn’t expect is when Kise stands up, his chair’s legs grating against the floor from the force with which he’s pushed forward, bending over to give him a kiss on the lips. It’s very brief, but, Aomine can’t mistake it, with a little bit of tongue and a little bit of, dare he say, pheromones.
When Kise pulls away, he smiles. “That’s your good luck charm for today.” He pushes the chair back, beginning to gather his handouts. “I’ll be expecting mine later.”
“You can’t seriously believe I’m studying after that, right?”
There’s a moment of awkward silence before Kise peeks downwards. Aomine follows Kise’s train of sight and swats his hand when he realizes where he’s looking, dismissing the idea before it can mutate into something abhorrent. “It’s going to take more than that, Kise.”
Kise shakes his head, grabbing his laptop bag. “Like that bit of information is clinically important.” He stuffs some of his handouts into the bag in a frenzy, not caring whether they’re going to get creased or not, “Of all the things I can know, ugh – yes, I am definitely failing Histology because of you. This is all your fault, Aominecchi. My brain is full of nothing but dirty thoughts.”
There’s something that makes Aomine grimace when he hears Kise whisper to him, “See you in hell.” before walking away in haste. Aomine takes a big chunk of food and stuffs it into his mouth.
As tempting as it sounds, he doesn’t want to die today. Resolute, Aomine goes back to studying, because priorities.
Begone, dirty thoughts.