Chapter Text
They hadn’t planned to be anywhere special that night. That was how it always started with them—no grand itinerary, no polished idea of celebration. Just a stolen gap in the calendar, a mutual glance, and the quiet agreement that wherever they ended up together would be enough.
The day had been long in the way only the end of a year could be. Travel packed tight with half-slept hours, shared earbuds, and the faint smell of convenience-store coffee clinging to their coats. Trains blurred into buses, buses into narrow roads curling upward into the mountains. By the time they reached the lodge, the sky had already deepened into that bruised winter blue, the air sharp enough to sting their lungs when they laughed too hard.
As evening crept closer, the world outside transformed. Strings of distant lights dotted the mountainside, constellations brought down to earth. Someone found scarves. Someone else found sparklers tucked away in a forgotten drawer. They layered themselves in mismatched winter gear, colors clashing and textures wrong in a way that felt honest.
By the time they stepped outside, the cold had teeth. Snow crunched beneath their boots. Breath bloomed white and vanished. Somewhere far below, the first firework cracked against the sky, as a test shot.
They gathered near the railing overlooking the valley, shoulders brushing, heat shared without comment. Yoichi leaned forward, hands wrapped around a paper cup gone lukewarm, eyes fixed on the horizon. He told himself he was just tired. That the tightness in his chest came from altitude, from cold, from the year finally catching up to him, but something else weighed heavy in his mind.
The countdown began drifting up from distant towns, carried on echoes and laughter he couldn’t quite place. Lorenzo bounced on his heels, already too alive for the moment. Michael lifted his phone on instinct. Julian smiled like the night had been waiting for him specifically.
Yoichi stayed very still as a thought crossed his mind.
The sky inhaled.
And then—
The fireworks lit up the sky in bursts of gold and red, their booms echoing through the mountains. The four of them stood together, bundled up in jackets and scarves, sparklers fizzing at their feet. Their voices carried over the cold air as they counted down the last seconds of the year.
“Five!” Lorenzo shouted, his voice laced with excitement.
“Four!” Michael joined in, already holding up his phone to film the moment.
“Three!” Julian's voice boomed, drowning out the crackle of the sparklers.
“Two!” Yoichi joined in
“One!”
The sky erupted in a symphony of color, fireworks painting the night as their cheers blended into the chaos. Lorenzo threw his head back, shouting over the bursts of light, his laughter raw and unrestrained. Michael rolled his eyes, exaggerating every gesture, mock-dramatic but secretly enjoying the moment and Lorenzo’s freer spirit. Julian leaned close to him, grinning, his deep chuckle rolling over them both.
Yoichi laughed, the sound breaking free before he could stop it. He watched them throw themselves into the moment, their joy ricocheting through the open space. The fireworks reflected in their eyes, colors dancing across their grins, and for a heartbeat, the rest of the world disappeared.
But even amid the laughter and light, something tugged at Yoichi. He stepped back, letting it wash over him like a wave. His chest felt impossibly full, not in pain, but in a way that made tears spill over unbidden. It even made it hard to breathe.
Michael noticed first, like he always did. “Oi, Yoichi?” His voice cut through the fireworks, drawing the others’ attention.
Julian stopped mid-laugh, stepping closer. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his expression softening.
Yoichi took another step back, his small frame illuminated by the fireworks bursting behind him. The tears weren’t stopping, streaking down his cheeks and stinging in the cold. His breath hitched, and he laughed shakily, trying to steady himself, but the ache in his chest only grew heavier.
“Yoichi, seriously, what the fuc– what’s wrong?” Michael asked again, his voice edged with alarm as he stepped closer. “You’re shaking—”
“I’m fine,” Yoichi insisted, holding out a trembling hand to stop him. His voice cracked, betraying the turmoil bubbling just beneath the surface. “I just… I need to say this.”
Julian frowned, worry etched into his features. “Breathe, mon cœur. You’re going to make yourself sick.”
“I am breathing,” Yoichi shot back, his voice wobbling. He took another shaky inhale, his breath visible in the crisp mountain air. “I just—I need to get this out. Please. Just… let me talk.”
Lorenzo hesitated, his broad hand hovering like he was ready to pull Yoichi into a hug at any second. “Take it slow, Isa. Whatever it is, it can wait—”
“It can’t!” Yoichi’s voice broke on the last word, a sob slipping through before he covered his mouth with a trembling hand. He forced himself to look at them, his tear-filled eyes wide and pleading. “It can’t wait. I have to say this now, or I’ll never get it right. Please, just– please let me do this.”
The others exchanged uncertain glances but stepped back, giving him space. Michael crossed his arms, clearly uncomfortable, while Julian’s lips pressed into a thin line, his concern evident. Lorenzo didn’t move far, still close enough to catch Yoichi if he crumpled.
Yoichi took another unsteady breath, his chest heaving. “I—I don’t know where to start. It’s like… it’s all tangled in my head, but I need you to understand. I need you to know how much you all mean to me so um, let me just ramble a bit okay? I have a point somewhere in this.”
Yoichi stood a little apart from them, the cold of the night pressing into his lungs, fireworks still echoing faintly in his bones. When he spoke, it came out quiet at first, as if he were talking to memory rather than to people.
“this is gonna be.. Um, a bit dramatic, sorry I cried so early but,” he said. “I've just been thinking about this for a while now, so I'll start from the beginning.”
“okay?”
“..I mean, sure Isa, if you're good”
“Don't scare us like that, lapinou, that came so out of left field I didn't know what to do for a hot second”
“Dammit, fine, out with it already Yoichi, I'm gonna get a heart attack here”
“Just.. I rehearsed this in my head so okay, here goes” His fingers curled into the sleeves of his jacket. Snow crunched faintly beneath his shoes as he shifted his weight, grounding himself.
“So, uh, when I lost my parents, and then my aunt, it felt like the world narrowed into something sharp and unforgiving. Spain became rooms that echoed. Streets that never learned my name. I remember standing there with nothing except a football under my arm, thinking that if I stopped moving, I would disappear entirely.”
He huffed a weak, self-aware breath.
“So I kept going. Not because I was brave—ha, you know I’m not. I cry, I panic, I get scared of everything. Mihya had a point when he first called me a ‘Crybaby’... Still don't call me that, or I'll punch you, jerk.”
A flicker of a smile. Brief. Fragile.
“But I ran because the orphanage… really sucked. And I would’ve rather died on the street than stayed another night there.”
The smile lingered, faint and crooked.
“I thought that was all life was going to be. Trains. Hostels. Cold mornings. Kicking a ball against walls just to hear something answer me back. The whole world against a shrimp like me.”
His gaze lifted then, drifting somewhere past them—toward Paris as it had existed years ago.
“And then there was bread. Stale. A little hard at the edges. Shared in the cold with a boy who had every reason to be warm and protected, on the surface at least, and still chose to run.”
His voice softened, reverent in a way he didn’t try to hide.
“Juli… you looked at me like kindness was a language you still remembered how to speak, even after the world tried to teach you something harsher. Gosh, I still remember hearing you trip over your own two feet.” he couldn't help but smile and compose himself again.
“I never expected that one small act would turn into a lifetime. I never expected that choosing warmth—offering it, accepting it—would mean hands finding each other again and again. Across borders. Across years.”
Julian smiled back, the taste of that bread, he couldn't even remember it. But the warmth? That moment made it so every time he ran he couldn't feel the cold of the wind against him, because that warmth would stay with him everywhere he went, for as long as he could remember it.
Yoichi's eyes softened when they shifted again, this time toward Florence.
“Florence should have been another place we passed through and left behind.” A quiet laugh escaped him.
“Then Ren-nii stepped out of the shadows with that grin— all teeth and defiance—and dragged us out of trouble like it was just another Tuesday. Saved us from getting arrested before the cops could cut our trip short for being stowaways on a train to… honestly, I can’t even remember where we were trying to go.”
Lorenzo let out a chuckle at that, he still thinks back to that day. What would've happened if he didn't have that strange urge to help out some cute brats running like they were subway surfers. Why did he even feel like helping? Who knows, maybe even zombies can have hearts that haven't rotten all the way yet.
Yoichi’s voice warmed at the memory. “I was just happy we didn’t get busted thanks to you, Ren-nii. You didn’t even have a name back then. So I gave you one.” Yoichi felt his smile falter a bit. “I, um.. didn’t know someone could go so long without one y’know?”
His chest rose, steadied. “I never knew that in doing that, you’d give me something back heavier and brighter than gold. Family. Protection. The feeling that someone older was watching my back, even when the world felt like it was closing in.”
His voice wavered. He forced it steady.
“Giving you a name felt… important. Like proof that the past doesn’t get to decide everything, we do. So yeah, maybe I made a big deal out of it, but I’m glad I did.”
A small, trembling smile.
“It suits you. Even now, years after, it still does. Lorenzo.”
His gaze dropped briefly before lifting again.
“And Michael—”
A crooked smile tugged at his lips.
“Mihya. You were all sharp edges and fury and brilliance, running like the world was hunting you.”
His voice softened, quieter now. “I guess, in a way, it was. I saw a bit of myself in that.”
He exhaled, slow and shaky. “We didn’t save you. Maybe you still think that, but.. I don’t. You fought your own battle long before we came along. You’re stubborn like that. Strong and you really should give your past self a lot more credit.”
He laughs, short and breathy. “We just recognized it. I hope someday you can too.”
Michael felt the fire of pride light up in his chest a bit. Even now, he never could look at that younger, bruised and weak version of himself with pity, or kindness. Even he wouldn't see the young him as somebody who deserved love, just somebody who craved it. But, he supposes, ever so slightly, that he could get used to that idea.
After all, if somebody as incredible as Isagi Yoichi can love him for who he was at every point of his life, then maybe he was worth being loved like a human even when he was nothing but a pathetic mutt as a child.
His hand curled into his sleeve again. “You chose us. And I chose you right back every day after.”
It was getting harder and harder for Yoichi to speak now. His emotions were twisting and tightening, both around his heart and his throat like barbed wire. But he needed to finish this, he needed to let them know, this year and for the many others that would follow, just how much he lived for them.
“And football—god, football was there every time.” His voice steadied, grounded by truth. “It was the language we all spoke before we trusted each other. A pass instead of a promise. A shared vision instead of an explanation. I didn’t have to tell you who I was.”
“I just had to play.”
All those days of training—under punishing sun, through cold rain, alongside kids their age and kids far older—rose up in him all at once. Endless matches. Endless bruises. Endless laughter that followed them anyway. Yoichi had never forgotten a single one. Not the losses, not the victories, not the way the world briefly made sense when a ball moved cleanly between feet.
“Somewhere along the way, I realized something,” he said quietly. “Every time the world tried to break us apart, football stitched us back together. A pitch in a foreign city. A ball rolling across cracked concrete. The sound of worn shoes on turf. That was our language. That was how we kept finding each other.”
His hands trembled now, though his voice sharpened, steadied—becoming unmistakably his.
“I don’t just love football because I’m good at it. I love it because it saved me. Because it gave me all of you. Because if a single game could carry a starving kid across borders and place him in front of three people who would become his entire world… then what can’t it do?”
He pressed a hand to his chest, fingers splayed, as if bracing himself against the force of his own heart.
“I want a world of football that makes room for people like us.”
“For kids with nothing but stubborn dreams. For runaways. For abandoned strays. For people who think they already missed their chance at happiness because of who they were born as and born to. I want to tear it open and make it kinder, wider, louder—because I know what it can do when it’s allowed to be honest.”
“I want to really make this sport ours, have our names be spoken in the same breath as it every time. Because this—this is what it gave me. If a broken kid with nothing but a ball could find three people like you through it, then it can do that for others too. It should do that. I believe that. I have to believe that.”
A breathless laugh tore out of him, thin and almost hysterical.
“And… that’s where I get scared.”
The words fell softer, heavier. The tears coming back and threatening to fall from those ocean-blue eyes caught the fading fireworks, turning light into fragments.
“Sometimes I feel like… like this is the only version of– um.. Reality, I think, where we’re together. Like, out of all the stars, a-all the galaxies, we’re just this one little blip where everything worked out. And it terrifies me because what if that’s true? What if this is all we get? Are we just a miracle that happens once and never repeats?”
His voice wavered as he rubbed his eyes, the cold biting at his skin. “The thought of it—it hurts and I know it doesn't make sense because we’re here now, and it feels so perfect, but it’s so fragile y'know? Like holding a snowflake in your hand, knowing it’s going to melt no matter how careful you are.”
Julian took a step forward, his hands twitching at his sides, but Yoichi shook his head, holding up a trembling finger. “No—don’t. Let me finish.” His voice cracked again, but he pushed through, his words tumbling out faster now.
“I don’t know how many years we get. I don’t know how many matches, how many sunsets, how many nights like this exist for us.” His voice cracked, raw and unpolished. “What I do know is that I would cross every border again. I would starve again. I would run again. I would rebuild myself from nothing as many times as it took”
“Because loving you guys is the one thing I’ve never questioned. Because sharing football with you—dreaming with you—feels like the clearest truth I’ve ever known. This game gave me a family when the world took mine away. And I swear, with everything I am, I’ll make a future where others get to find that same miracle. Or close enough, because they can never have what we have”
He lifted his head fully then, tears shining, spine straight despite the shaking.
“But then I think… maybe that’s what makes this so special. The fact that it’s so rare, so impossible.”
“I know, I know, I should be grateful. I am grateful. God, I’m so grateful it hurts. I found you. I got this lifetime. I got these years. That should be enough. Anyone sensible would say it’s enough.”
His voice dropped to a whisper, barely holding.
“But I’m not sensible. I’m selfish, aren’t I?” A broken laugh escaped him as he looked up at the sky, searching it for answers he knew wouldn’t come, but searching all the same.
“I’m the most selfish, egotistical striker there is.”
“I want more. I want every eternity. Every version. Every lifetime stacked on top of this one. I want to wake up and find you again and again and again, even if I have to crawl through the wreckage of a thousand worlds to do it. And I hate myself a little for wanting that, because who am I to ask for so much?”
A sob ripped free, harsh and uncontained.
“Who am I—some god who gets to decide the hands we’re dealt? Hah. I can barely keep my own hands from shaking right now. B-but if I were—if I could be—this would be the first thing I’d do. I’d write us into every possible future. I’d make it so no version of me ever has to learn what life looks like without any of you. Or any of you without me.”
He looked at them through tears that blurred the world into light and color.
“And yet, even with that fear, I wouldn’t trade this. Not for a thousand painless lives without you. I would choose this ache again and again, because it means I got to love you.”
“I–” a hiccup escapes his lips “don’t care how short our time is or how much it’ll hurt when it’s gone—I wouldn’t trade it for anything. And if I could go back, if I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t change much– or, well okay, maybe just a few things—”
His voice softened, the sobs shaking his words but not stopping them.
“I’d find you sooner—”
“I’d hold onto you tighter—”
“I’d make every dumb conversation last longer—”
“I’d tell each of you I love you every single day, louder and louder until you never forget it–”
Yoichi’s shoulders shook, his hands balling into fists at his sides as the cold air stole his breath again. But he pushed forward, his words spilling out in a rush.
“And I’d love you better... much better. I’d love you truer. Because I love you in this life.. So so much, and I swear I’ll love you in the next one. And the one after that. And every single one after that.”
He choked on another sob, his knees threatening to buckle, but Lorenzo stepped forward and steadied him with a hand on his back. Yoichi didn’t stop, his tear-streaked face lit by the soft glow of the fireworks behind him.
“So if this really is the only time—if this is the only miracle we’re allowed—then I swear I’ll live it so loudly it echoes. I’ll carry this into every match, every goal, every future I build. And if there’s even the smallest chance that love can bend reality, that football can carve kinder paths through the world—then I’ll chase that too.”
His voice broke, stripped bare.
“Because meeting you was my happiness. Loving you is my purpose. And losing you—” he swallowed hard “—that’s the only loss I’m truly afraid of.”
He stood there shaking, crying openly now, the words still spilling like they might never end. “I love you even if it’s just.. just for this moment, even if we never get another chance, I’ll— I’ll always be grateful.. I’ll always love you. In this life. In every life I can imagine. And in all the ones I’m terrified I’ll never get to see.”
The tears kept falling, unchecked.
“I love you. And I’ll keep loving you in every world I try to create.”
His lips curved into a small, trembling smile. The night seemed to hold his words gently, as if even the stars had leaned closer to listen.
“So, Happy New Year, everyone..” At last, with glossy eyes, tear streamed cheeks, whipped pink by the cold air, and hair ethereally styled by the blowing wind, Yoichi Isagi faced his world and smiled.
The last of his words lingered in the cold mountain air, just as the fireworks in the sky began to slow. The booming cracks had softened into faint pops, their vibrant colors giving way to fading trails of smoke. Only a few final bursts lit up the heavens, casting fleeting glows across Yoichi’s tear-streaked face.
He stood there, trembling and small, his shoulders rising and falling with every shaky breath. Against the backdrop of the receding spectacle, he looked almost otherworldly—like some fragile, grieving god unraveled, divine in his rawness yet utterly human in his pain. A figure caught pleading not to the heavens but to the humans he’d given the chance of life to and loved most.
For a moment, none of them moved, I mean what would you do after such a profession other than just stand there in awe? The vulnerability in Yoichi’s eyes, the way he shivered in the crisp night air, his tears glinting like fractured starlight—it was a sight that seared itself into their hearts.
Michael is the first to move, because he always is when Yoichi starts coming apart at the seams. He closes the distance, his fists clenched as though he were fighting back tears of his own. “..s-shitty Yoichi,” he said, his voice rough and trembling.
“You… you can’t just say something like that and expect us to sta–stand here like fucking.. idiots.” His hand reached out, hesitant for once, before gripping Yoichi’s shoulder firmly. His usual bravado was gone, replaced by something softer, something raw.
“Listen to me for a sec,” He cups Yoichi’s jaw, thumbs wiping away tears with a tenderness that looks almost violent for how fiercely it’s done. “I’m not—fuck—good with words. Or doing… whatever the hell you just did there with your sappy little speech—”
“Don’t worry, Micha,” Lorenzo cuts in with a fond sigh, lips curved soft despite the glass in his eyes. “I don’t think any one of us could top what Luce just pulled off.”
“And we don’t really expect it to be you who has the capacity for that,” Julian adds lightly, unable to resist.
“Shut it, Frenchie,” Michael snaps back, glare sharp and unmistakably affectionate. “…But you’re right. I guess.”
He exhales, sharp and shaky. “Still. Here goes.” His voice trembles. He doesn’t bother hiding it. “Don’t—don’t fucking judge me over this, alright? I’m gonna try real hard. Got it, Yoichi?”
Yoichi hiccups through a sob, a wet laugh breaking free. “Y-yeah… sure, sure, Mihya,” he manages. “I’m listening.”
Michael looks at him then—really looks—with an earnestness Yoichi has never seen before.
“I ran my whole life thinking time was something I had to steal,” he says. “Seconds. Minutes. Nights. From my father. From the world. From anyone who thought they owned me.”
He presses his forehead to Yoichi’s, firm enough to ground them both. “Then you— with your big, stupid, damn beautiful blue eyes—looked at me and said I could go with you to.. I didn’t even care where.” His mouth twists. “You just… passed me the ball. Or—whatever metaphor shit you were using, I–-look I told you I wasn't good at this word stuff alright?!”
His face heats, ears burning. He can feel Lorenzo grinning like an idiot behind him, Julian’s barely contained chuckles doing him no favors. But Yoichi—Yoichi’s eyes nearly stop him in his tracks, shining and open and wrecked with love. Michael lets out a breathless laugh at how dramatic this all feels.
A sharp, broken sound leaves him but he composes himself anyway. “That was it. That was everything.” His voice drops.
His grip tightens—painful, but only the amount he knows Yoichi can take. “If the world thinks it can take you from me after that, it can fuckin’ try.”
Yoichi blinked up at him, his lips parting as though to respond, but Michael shook his head, his grip tightening. “I’d tear the whole damn universe apart if it refused to let me be with mein leib for even a second. You’re not the one… whose entire world is just this, Yoichi.”
Michael exhales shakily, resting his brow against Yoichi’s temple. “You wanting more is selfish. Yeah. And when the hell has that ever stopped you from devouring more? You of all people.” A weak laugh escapes his throat and he shakes his head. “I want the same thing. I’m just as selfish. We all are. Every match. Every road. Every life.” His voice softens. “You think we wouldn’t fight just as.. goddamn hard to keep this forever, to keep you?”
Before Yoichi could find his voice, Julian surged forward, wrapping his arms around Yoichi from behind. His breath was warm against Yoichi’s ear as he whispered, “Mon cœur, you speak like the world is ending when we’ve barely seized it.” Gently, he caressed the fluffy head of navy locks he quickly nuzzled his face into.
“You’re not losing us yet because you’re not losing us ever.”
“This— “ he gave their clasped hands a squeeze. “the second you reached out and let our hands join..it was eternal. In this life, the next one, all of them. Wherever the stars take us, I’ll follow you.”
His hold tightens, protective and devotional. “Football saved me because it led me to you. To us. The way you see the pitch—the way you imagine a game that's actually fun, a world where people connect and light up the field—that is who you are.” His voice wavers. “You’re brilliant, you’re everything I was missing in the sport. And Michael’s right. You’re not the only selfish one here. I want all of you. Always. That’s why I love you.”
His voice cracked as he tightened his hold on Yoichi’s hand, burying his face in the crook of the smaller’s neck. “And if the world tries to keep us apart, then I’ll challenge every god out there until they lead me to you.” A quiet, resolute smile in his voice. “And if eternity is something we aren't granted, then let’s take it and run with it anyway.”
He kisses Yoichi’s temple, lingering. “So cry. Want more. I will meet you in every lifetime you dare to imagine.”
“And if there’s only one…” His voice settles into a vow. “Then I’ll make this one infinite.”
Lorenzo drops down in front of Yoichi, kneeling so they’re eye to eye. His big hands catch Yoichi’s shaking wrists, thumbs tracing slow, grounding circles.
“Isa,” he says quietly, smiling through glassy eyes. “You think far ahead in the game a lot. So much I can barely catch up to you, okay” A gentle shake of his head.
“Maybe don’t do that right now. We're still here okay, not going anywhere, we're not disappearing anytime soon, okay?” Lorenzo said softly, his deep voice grounding them all. He stood up now, his towering presence a stark contrast to Yoichi’s smaller frame. Yet, when Lorenzo cupped Yoichi’s face with his large, calloused hands, his touch was impossibly gentle. He tilted Yoichi’s chin up, forcing their eyes to meet. Azure blues to mauve hues that greedily drank in the moonlit sight.
“I was nothing before you, Isa. A stray with no home and no purpose to his name..and no name to begin with.. heh” at that Yoichi smiled, gaze cast downward. “You gave me a name. A future. A reason to believe I could be more than my next stolen meal.” His voice thickens. “No amount of money in this world could ever equal what you gave me that day.”
Lorenzo leans closer. “You’re worth every risk I take. I can’t repay you for not abandoning me like everyone else that came before.”
“If there’s anyone here who should be grateful for the fleeting time we have, it’s me. So stop crying and chasing for endings you’re far from.” Their foreheads touch, warmth against cold. “If loving you is the closest I get to repaying you for all that, then I’ll love you—and I’ll do it right, okay.”
The words broke something inside Yoichi. His knees buckled, and Lorenzo caught him effortlessly, cradling his head as though he were made of glass. Julian immediately tightened his hold around Yoichi from behind, murmuring soothing words, while Michael held him tight from the side, gripping Yoichi’s hands tightly between his own.
The fireworks had stopped entirely now, leaving the world in a serene hush, the only sound the soft rustling of trees and Yoichi’s quiet sobs. Above them, the stars shimmered like a scattered tapestry, their light faint but unyielding.
Michael brought one of Yoichi’s hands to his lips, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “We’re not going anywhere, mein liebling,” he said, his voice softer than a whisper. “Not in this life, not in any other. So stop crying, or I’m going to—and fucking hell..we-we’ll really be a mess then.” Michael hid his eyes, refusing to let anyone catch sight of their slight watering.
Yoichi let out a shaky giggle at that, his tears still falling but his heart feeling lighter. Lorenzo’s arms wrapped around Michael beside him and patted his back, as he caressed Yoichi's cheek with the other. Julian pressed a kiss to the top of his head, his voice a soft promise. “We’re with you, mon cœur. Always.”
For the first time that night, Yoichi allowed himself to believe it. As he looked at the three of them—Michael’s fierce protectiveness, Julian’s tender passion, Lorenzo’s unshakable warmth—he felt something in his chest ease.
The ache of fleeting time still lingered, but it no longer felt unbearable. Because no matter how short their time might be, it was theirs.