Chapter Text
One, two, one two. The ball passes from foot to foot without ever touching the ground – the rhythm of their rally remains steady, even during the rare moments when Sae opens his mouth to reprimand Rin so he aims better. Around them, the park slowly empties of its crowd while the sky turns orange peacefully. Soon, it's just them in there.
If the ball falls, they'll go home. And Rin doesn't particularly want to go home today. Far from the worries that plagued him as a child, what keeps him in the park is more important than the fear of being scolded. A few hours earlier, after another victory for the club led by Sae, a man approached the coach and their parents to ask them about his older brother. Intrigued by Sae’s reputation, this scout – not from just any team, but from La Liga's top club, Re Al – attended a Kamakura United Youth match and, delighted by the boy's performance, offered to talk more, perhaps with the aim of sending him to Spain where his talent could fully blossom.
Rin isn't jealous, quite the opposite actually – he's always known that his brother's dream of becoming the best striker in the world was within reach, and if he joins Re Al's academy, that future is more than assured – but, despite the urge to tell everyone about this incredible news, the realization that this is likely the last summer vacation they'll spend together like this weighs heavily on his heart.
If the ball drops, the day will end and become nothing more than a memory of the past. If Sae leaves the team, he'll no longer have a perfect partner on the pitch, the kind who can read his mind and send him assists… It's less serious than his brother's complete disappearance from everyday life, but he's so used to playing with Sae that it will take him a while to find a replacement.
The ball comes back to him, so fast that it no longer resembles any specific object, becoming just a black-and-white blurry afterimage heading toward his foot. He returns it with more precision than previous times and watches it land on the tip of Sae's shoe, who balances it before tossing the ball into the air and catching it in his hands.
“Rin, let's go back, it's getting dark.”
“But–”
“Plus you're not focused,” Sae adds with a sigh.
“Nii-chan…”
Sae isn't wrong. Rin's thoughts were so tangled that he repeated the same movements mechanically without putting much thought into it – he'd improved some aspects of his performance, sure, but that was only because his body was moving on its own.
“Seriously, what are you going to do without me?”
Rin thinks he’s heard these words falling out of his brother’s lips – maybe it’s just the wind rustling through the branches – and it stops him in his tracks. If Sae is that worried about him, he won’t be able to go to Europe peacefully and their dream of becoming the best in the world together will become nothing more than a distant illusion…
Rin hits his cheeks with too much force, turning them bright red, and he walks over to Sae, who is juggling the ball with one hand, and timidly grabs his sleeve like he used to do when he was younger.
“Nii-chan, I'm going to train even more so I can join you in Spain…”
“What are you talking about? I already know that. We can't become the best if you stay behind.”
With a slight smile – the one he only shows to Rin, he ruffles his little brother’s hair with his free hand.