Chapter Text
Akira was bad at math. The absolute worst. No matter how much he studied, how hard he tried, he just never got the hang of it. He was a complete and utter disaster. But he would never admit that to himself of course, or anyone for that matter. His pride would never allow it.
So when it's testing season, and he's already struggling on the first question, he doesn't accept Ann’s help. because fuck Ann, he could do just as good without her.
One minute.
Two minutes.
Three minutes.
"You know what? Fuck you. I need your help. Give me the answers right now," Akira grumbled underneath his breath.
Ann grinned.
"Sorry, what was that? I didn't quite hear you," Ann said as she cupped her ear and leaned towards him.
"I said I need your help.."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"I swear to fucking god," Akira glared at the grinning blonde, "I will fucking burn your house down."
"Go for it, sweetheart."
“I need your help, Ann! I’m actually going to fail and be homeless then where am I gonna live? Who’s gonna feed Mona?"
"Mhm, that's nice. Here.” Ann replies carelessly as she slides her test a bit closer to her friend, angling her paper in a way wherein Akira could see her answers.
"Thanks, Ann. I owe you one." he whispers to her.
"Treat me to cake and you'll find yourself with good grades and a happy best friend," she smiled cheekily.
"I hate you."
"Yeah, yeah. Keep telling yourself that."
/
Akira smiles to himself as he sees a familiar blond standing outside of their classroom.
"Ryuji!" Akira yells as he grabs Ann and drags her over to him.
"Hey guys," Ryuji grins as he slings his arm around the boy, "So, how was the test?"
"It was fucking horrible. Why the fuck do we even need to learn this? We have phones for a reason," Akira grumbles as he crosses his arms.
"It wasn't that bad honestly," Ann rolls her eyes playfully, "Glasses over here just couldn't keep up."
"It's not my fault you're on the honor roll! and call me glasses again and you’re going into the abyss," He threatens.
“Then say goodbye to your perfect math grades."
"Fuck you."
"Love you too," Ann says before turning back to Ryuji, "Guess who's getting treated by Akira tonight? This girl!"
"What? That's not fair! Akira never takes me out, and i'm his best friend," Ryuji whines.
"it's because you're an ungrateful brat."
"but i'm your ungrateful brat."
"whatever, loser," Akira rolls his eyes playfully as he smiles at the blond.
"Hey, come on guys, we're all ungrateful brats. Get to practice already so that we can get cake!” Ann cheers.
“Ugh, don’t talk about practice,” Ryuji groans. “Coach is totally set on killing us now that the season is coming up.” He kicks his legs out and leans against the wall.
“Shut up, Ryuji. You have pretty boy Yusuke to cheer you on and watch you during practices. What do I have?” Akira complains.
“Hey, not to defend Ryuji because, when do I ever want to defend him, but you literally get confessed to on a daily basis. You’re not exactly having a hard time in the dating department.” Ann rolls her eyes as she crosses her arms.
“But that’s not fair,” He whines. “I want a pretty boy to cheer me on too…”
Yusuke walks up to the trio, sketchbook in hand, “My apologies for the late arrival, my teacher wished to speak to me about my next presentation.” He moves next to Ryuji before grabbing the blond’s hand. “Shall we go? You have practice, do you not?” as Ryuji stops functioning and lets his boyfriend take him to the sports building.
“Lucky bastard,” Akira grumbles as Ann throws herself on him.
“So, you gonna tell me about Prince Charming now?” She teases as Akira feigns confusion.
“Prince Charming? I have never heard that name in my life!”
“I follow you on twitter. You can’t lie to me, so just spit it out.”
“Well, what do you want me to say,” He groans and moves closer to the girl. “I’m never gonna see him again and I already asked Makoto if I could look through all the second years at our school. I can’t find him. Wait, unless he’s just a ghost that only appears at Leblanc when I’m alone? Am I cursed?” he fake gasps as Ann rolls her eyes.
“Try harder, idiot. He might just be a third year or something.”
Akira drops down to his knees, “The world is against me!” as Ann yells at him to stand up.
“Anyway, let’s talk about this later. You’re already late for practice.” She says as she drags him to his feet.
Akira silently complains about how the only reason he doesn’t have a pretty boy boyfriend is because the world knows he’d be too powerful one and Ann just agrees because she doesn’t have the strength to be subjected to many, many hours of how he desperately needs someone to hold his hand and make coffee for.
As they turn the corner, Akira slams hard enough into someone to cause both of them to fall.
“Watch where you’re going,” the boy snaps at the same time as Akira, who screams “Prince Charming!” with three exclamation marks.
Ann just stands there, watching this mess unravel.
The boy gets to his feet, brushing the nonexistent dust off his pants and picks up the the suitcase he had dropped, “I thought I said not to call me that.”
“But you wouldn’t give me your name! And,” Akira wiggles his eyebrows as he puts both arms around the boy, “You do look like a prince.”
He scoffs. “The name is Goro Akechi, you could at least try to find out my name before declaring that I’m your soulmate.”
“I didn’t say you were my soulmate, but if you want to be we can have something arranged-”
“Okay goodbye!” Akechi says, struggling to pull the boy’s arms off of him. Help me, he shoots Ann a pleading look who looks away in guilt.
“Noooo…. Gowo, stay with me,” Akira whines, holding on tighter.
“Do not call me Gowo! I”m older than you, show some respect. Now let me go,” He says in exasperation as he manages to slip away from the younger boy, only for Akira to latch onto his leg.
“I can’t do that! I just told the entire world that you were a ghost, what if I never see you again?”
“You saw me last night.”
“But I wanna see you now!” He pouts before reluctantly letting go.
“Just get to practice,” Akechi sighs as he walks away as fast as he can.
The pair stand in silence, with Akira still sitting on the ground. The blonde turns to her oh-so idiotic friend, “You fucking like Goro Akechi?” She all but yells.
“Yes, I know, I Know. My taste is brilliant, you don’t need to tell me.” He says proudly before finally standing up.
“Sure,” she snorts. “I know you only moved this year, but that ray of sunshine used to be called the detective prince. He quite literally used to be Prince Charming. I guess he suddenly decided to drop the act this year because he stopped with the fake smiles and well, you saw him. He seems kinda closed off now.”
“Perfect,” Akira grins, his smile growing even bigger. “Just my type, good looking and unattainable.”
“Mhm, okay let’s get you to practice now. You’re thirty minutes late. Have fun doing five hundred laps as punishment.” Akira looks up in fear as he checks the time on his phone and dies a little inside.
“I’ll be back! Pray for me!” He fake cries as he runs to the locker room to change.
/
Akira closes his eyes as he forces himself to focus. He nudges one of the opponents off balance as he kicks the ball towards Ryuji.
Ryuji nods sending the boy an I got this look as Akira drops off behind to cover him while Ryuji pushes further up the field in an attempt to get pass defense.
Ryuji sends a kick flying towards Mishima, who surprisingly turns a lot more aggressive during games, as the blue haired boy sends the ball into the goal.
The game ends as they all walk towards the coach who looks directly at Akira. “Have you been slacking off?” He asks bluntly as Akira’s eyes widen in shock.
“N-no. Of course not!” He says defensively as he looks down.
“You need to work on your aerial work. Go back to the basics and focus on overlaps because we could have finished up this game a lot faster if you actually focused.”
“Yes coach,” He says begrudgingly as he brings his thumb up and bites at his nail.
“Okay, it’s 6:30. You guys practiced enough for the day. Stretch and go home.”
Everyone starts to walk off as Ryuji moves towards the clearly frustrated boy. “Dude, it’s just a slump. You’ll get over it soon.”
“Mhm. Thanks Ryuji.” He forces a smile. “Go ahead, I’m gonna stick around here for a bit.”
The blond nods, “Don’t push yourself too much, aight? I’m gonna go. Yusuke’s waiting.”
“Yeah, bye.”
Akira waits until everyone clears out and he has the field to himself. He practices. He works on his footwork, he kicks the ball into the goalpost until he feels like his legs are going to fall off. This isn’t working , he thinks to himself.
He looks at his new cleats that are already starting to fall apart and groans to himself, realizing he’ll need to buy more gorilla glue on his way home.
He holds the ball in his hands and decides he’ll stay for one more hour as he drops the ball and walks towards the track. Maybe working on my stamina will help?
He forces his tired limbs to move as he gets ready to run a couple of laps.
Akira doesn’t notice the boy near the entrance, holding a suitcase and watching him. Tryhard, the boy thinks before walking off.