Work Text:
tink
The sound of Anri's lanyard and keys as she dropped them in the dish by the door filled the room, if only for a moment. After the roars of the crowd, the shouts from the JFA as they left the stadium, and the yelling of the boys on the bus ride back to the Blue Lock facility this sudden quiet felt so loud. Anri started to fall into her normal routine of whenever she'd return to the facility (keys, shoes, hair, clothes) but nothing felt normal. She felt like she was floating along in a dream.
We won.
Emotions started to stir inside her again. She had teared up when the call was made, the only thing she'd allowed herself in front of all those people. She couldn't fall apart then but now she was alone. Mostly.
Ego hadn't said much besides his last rallying speech to the boys and a few cocky retorts to the opposing coach before hopping on the bus. Anri had half expected him to whine about being hungry on the way back or tell her to start the water as they walked in but...nothing.
Ego Jinpachi had always fascinated her from the start. When you'd want him to speak he'd be silent, and when you'd want him to be quiet he'd never shut up. He was full of contradictions and riddles. Ego was, undoubtedly, an asshole and would make you feel stupid, but he'd explain his way of thinking so you wouldn't be left behind. Whether or not that was him being a good coach or a result of his own narcissism could be left up for interpretation. Anri almost always chose the first.
She checked her watch. 22:34. It was late. They'd usually have already retired to their rooms by now, but sleep was the last thing Anri felt like doing. Those emotions from before never went away they only simmered, bubbling inside her and nearly ready to boil over.
Like a pot of water. Why isn't he hungry? Enough about him. Arrogant prick can't even talk to me, this dream belongs to me just as much as it does him.
Anri found herself pacing. After trying to keep herself numb so as to not make a fool of herself in public now it seemed she was feeling everything all at once.
It was over. They had won. And Anri felt like screaming
.
There on the floor was a cushion. It would have to do.
Anri stared into the fabric before burying her face into it to yell, not quite as loud as she'd wanted but she was experimenting with just how muffled the sound would be. It felt good. It felt like she was letting out a breath she'd been holding for months now. But once wasn't enough.
She'd nearly fallen to her knees to hug the cushion with her whole body, burying her face in further, and let out a scream.
"I can still hear you, you know."
{ t he spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. }
Anri almost fell over. She looked up to find Ego leaning against the counter beside her. How long had he been standing there? Why didn't he say anything? Why is he even here? She must have been glaring because something like a smile appeared on his face as he looked in the direction of the window.
"If you're gonna scream make it mean something, make it count."
He didn't wait for her to respond as he walked to the window, opened it, then screamed.
{ i too am not a bit tamed, i too am untranslatable, }
Almost trance-like she had followed him, standing beside him in front of the open window. The night outside was cold and pitch black like the endless void of space.
"Well?" Ego dared.
With her hands gripping the bottom of the window frame she took a deep breath then screamed at the top of her lungs.
{ i sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. }
When she was done it was decidedly Ego's turn again, louder than before as if he was challenging her and followed with a goading sideways glance.
{ t he last scud of day holds back for me, i t flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds, }
"Fuck you."
He made the tiniest snort of laughter. "Don't just say it, shout it, own it."
Anri rolled her eyes before taking another breath then screamed a string of obscenities into the night.
{ i t coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. }
Only when her voice cracked near the end did she hear the man laughing and as her own voice died down did his grow louder.
And it's only then did she realize that it was the first time she had heard him really truly laugh. Not his wry sarcastic one or a devious one, but one of genuine joy.
{ i depart as air, i shake my white locks at the runaway sun, i effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. }
In what was most likely exhaustion the man she thought she knew was gone and replaced with a younger version. He was like a little kid, giddy and smiling and unable to stop giggling.
It was infectious, intoxicating even, and stirred that pot of emotions inside her even more. If Anri had the brainpower to put a name to it right now she might call it love.
{ i bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass i love, i f you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. }
What a terrifying thought, that she might be in love, or even that she had been in it for much longer than she had realized. Anri had thought it was mere fascination but maybe it was never just that.
{ y ou will hardly know who i am or what i mean, }
Every time Ego went to speak more laughter spilled from his lips, he gripped the bottom of the window frame ready for his turn then it would begin again. He was drunk on it.
When he'd gone to make a third attempt it was his last as when the laughter began again he dropped his head and hit it on the side of the window in the process.
{ b ut i shall be good health to you nevertheless, a nd filter and fibre your blood. }
"Ow, fuck." He wheezed softly, even in pain that smile never went away.
Anri's hands were quick to push his away to see the damage. A faint pink mark on his forehead and a few tiny beads of blood from catching the metal edge just right. Luckily she was still wearing her blazer and pulled a tissue from the inside pocket. With one hand Anri held back his hair while the other gently pressed the tissue to the tiny cut.
"Does it hurt?"
"Not really."
"Just admit I won already." She said with a smirk.
"I'll never concede." It was as if because he had started smiling he couldn't stop now.
{ f ailing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, }
She knew tomorrow that smile would be gone and they'd go back to work but tonight, now, it refused to leave. Even in the dim room and the window that led to the endless dark his smile felt impossibly bright.
"I think it's stopped bleeding by the way."
{ m issing me one place search another, }
Anri pulled her hands away. She refused to be embarrassed but she could still feel her body betray her as her face felt a little warmer. She had expected him to comment on it, to tease her in some way but he didn't. Ego once again never doing what one would expect.
"Do you feel better?"
She stared up at him almost dumbfounded. He'd never asked that, genuinely. Was he being nice? Maybe he got brain damage from that hit.
"Yeah," she lied. The night had started with needing to release her emotions and instead she only found more to bottle up, even more things she wanted to scream into the night but couldn't even dare to whisper, "I do."
{ i stop somewhere waiting for you . }
"Well then," Ego shut the window, "I guess our work here is done." He was almost to his room when he looked back again, "until tomorrow, Miss Anri."
It was done. He had left. And Anri felt like screaming.
Tomorrow. I can scream tomorrow.