Comatose

9. The Hurt Game

❝It hurts because it matters.❞

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NUEVE:

THE HURT GAME

Something had been bothering him, eating away at his stomach and keeping him awake since that night at the park with Kaiya.

Like a virus, it crept inside him and breathed venom upon his heart. Crawling inside like a snake in search of a prey, it wrapped around his mind and fed off a sudden wave of insecurity born from the remembrance of the woman whose heart he was desperately aiming for in the arms of another.

After lying on the sofa for long minutes, Aomine had come clear to his own heart and found the truth behind his anger. It was a surprise, but a fact nonetheless. Far from the jealous bugs whispering to his mind, an uncontrollable fury screamed in his head.

It had only been a glimpse, a fraction of a second; her eyes fleetingly glancing at him as she kept her back to him. Unable to give him her full attention, Kaiya had done her best to keep her emotions away from his inquisitive stare. And in all his jealousy, Aomine had looked past her cloudy eyes and trembling hands to focus on the man whose arrogance rivalled his.

In the silence of the living room, his mind was showing him what his hurt ego had dismissed.

Pacing around the carpeted floor, he dialled a number while picking up his black jacket from the back of the sofa.

"Daiki?" came the slurred voice of a sleepy Satsuki.

"I'm on my way there," he stated as he fumbled with the keys to leave the apartment. "What are the chances of getting kicked out for showing up again?"

There was a moment of silence, and Aomine frowned — had she fallen asleep?

"Kaiya isn't here," Satsuki replied eventually.

He paused and looked at the time, only for his frown to deepen. "It's two in the morning."

"Yeah, I know. I was sleeping!"

"Do you know where she is?" he asked, ignoring her outburst.

Satsuki sighed. "Possibly. But you shouldn't go."

"Why the hell not?"

"Because she said she had to do something important. And I don't think you have the right to stick your nose in her affairs, Daiki. Respect her privacy," she admonished, but no reply came from him as Aomine locked the door and got inside his dark-blue Toyota Corolla, a car he had wasted no time spending half of his savings in. "You're not even listening to me, are you?"

"Not really," he admitted shamelessly. "Just send me the direction, Satsuki. I don't give a shit if she goes berserker; I'll deal with the consequences of crashing her party, but I won't stand here watching her self-destruction."

Hanging up, he gripped the phone in his hand until it buzzed with a new message. With a relieved sigh, Aomine typed down the address on his GPS and drove off into the silent night.

--

Ten minutes later, he arrived to his destination. As his blue eyes found the flickering, luminescent lights and a distant tune reached his ears; a frown made its way to his forehead, and he glanced around the crowd of people outside the building. Of all places Aomine had expected for Kaiya to be, a club was not even on his list of possibilities.