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Dinner was awkward, to say the least.
With the rush of victory and the adrenaline of the match itself having run their course, the silence at the table felt deafening. Gouenji, usually willing to make at least a token effort at small talk, was subdued, contemplative. Daigo, as usual, was thumbing through a stack of papers and clearly ignoring the elephant in the room.
It didn’t feel very much like winning at all, Yamato thought, the taste of his salmon oddly bland and oily in his mouth as he chewed through the silence.
Sure, his father had hugged him once the results were in, the audience had cheered for Dragonlink when they took the final point. Gouenji’s reelection had been elegant, refined, an easy transition back into normalcy as if Hibiki Seigou’s candidacy never happened.
He wasn’t really sure where things had gone wrong; things had been fine this morning, with Gouenji patting his shoulder before he left for the stadium, and his father already gone to work earlier. Yamato hadn’t actually been sure he’d be playing; he’d been on standby throughout the entirety of the Holy Road tournament, but he knew his father wanted to keep his cards close to his chest. After all, Dragonlink wasn’t an inherently good look for Fifth Sector, merely a necessary one.
Of course he knew Gouenji and Daigo had been having trouble for a while now, if not from the start, but, well. Yamato didn’t know what they’d talked about before Dragonlink took over, thankfully for the one school the transition would be easy to explain for, but going by the hollow silence hanging over the dinner table it was probably nothing good.
Daigo had never yelled, as far as he could remember. He’d never gotten visibly angry no matter how stupid a child Yamato had been, never raised his voice at Yamato’s mother, never been someone to fear. But his disappointment, when it arose, was a silent killer, even when it was aimed at someone else.
He brought their empty plates to the kitchen, feeling almost like he was wading through the same cavernous silence from before even as Daigo disappeared into his study, and a usually helpful Gouenji retreated to the couch to stare into his whiskey.
Feeling the intense need to do something, anything at all to try and soothe a tension he didn’t quite understand the how or why of, Yamato set to making hot chocolate. It wouldn’t be as good as Gouenji’s, who was some sort of savant when it came to snacks and comfort foods, but it was something to do. Besides, he kind of wanted to drink something warm to keep the weird chill in the apartment from creeping under his skin.
“Shuuya-san,” he called out, mug in hand, as he made his way over to the couch. Gouenji was laying on it, though, so he settled on the slightly less comfortable Guest Chair, not quite comfortable enough to make himself at home in his dad’s chair instead.
“What is it, Yamato?” Gouenji asked him, not unkind but solemn, opening his eyes and looking at him over the rim of his glass.
The bottom of amber liquid sloshed inside, already mostly gone. It wasn’t the first time Yamato had caught him drinking, and it wasn’t like it was abnormal for a guy in his mid-twenties to have a glass every now and then, but still…
“You’re drinking a lot,” he said, trying his best not to make it sound too scolding as he pushed one of the mugs across the coffee table.
Gouenji closed his eyes and breathed out, a deep, troubled sigh that Yamato couldn’t even begin to guess the full meaning of, then chugged the last few sips of his drink in one go, face scrunching up like he was absolutely hating what he was tasting. His empty glass touched the table with a heavy clink, but at least Gouenji was pushing himself up from his sad sprawl.
“You’re a good kid, Yamato.” His peace offering of chocolate is pulled over silently, swirled in its cup a few times. Yamato had put in marshmallows and hazelnut syrup, because that’s what he’d seen Gouenji put in his own when he didn’t think anyone was looking, but now he was starting to worry that had been somewhat over the top, maybe. “And a really, really good goalkeeper.”
There was a little spark of pride somewhere in his chest at that, despite the probably unintentional accusation in Gouenji’s voice. Gouenji, who had been one of the absolute stars of the soccer world until he faded out of the pro scene, was calling his goalkeeping good. Not that he was insecure about it, but it wasn’t something he got the chance to hear very often.
“I’ve been practicing,” Yamato said noncommittally, staring into his mug to avoid having to look Gouenji in the eye.
“Yeah, I could tell.” He could feel he was being stared at, but not quite what Gouenji was looking for. “So your volunteer group, all this time…”
Gouenji trailed off when he said it, but it was clear enough he’d figured out exactly what Yamato had been doing during school club hours, despite not ever having formally joined a club. It made Yamato feel surprisingly small, like he’d done something wrong hiding it.
He nodded, guiltily stirring his hot chocolate. “Yeah, we’re technically listed as a study group but. Well, you saw us play. Dragonlink’s pretty good, right?”
Because, guilty about lying to Gouenji or no, Yamato was proud of his team. He’d been working with them for years, seen many of them go through tremendous growth once they’d figured out the right spot to actually plant roots that they’d been denied before. They hadn’t had the same advantages the other teams had; the diversity in opponents or the public support, and they’d won anyway.
“Why didn’t you tell me you played?” Gouenji sounded tired. Not the kind of tired that came after long days of meetings or hard work, but something deeper, something that made him sound older than his years. “Why would you hide something like that?”
“Dad asked,” Yamato answered immediately, defensively. “He didn’t want people knowing about Dragonlink unless it was absolutely necessary. The fewer people know, the less likely-”
The less likely anyone could leak their team’s information to anyone who might take advantage of it.
Yamato wasn’t stupid; he knew full well that without his father’s guiding hand, most of the members of his team would be stuffed back into the cracks of a broken system. Maybe if they were lucky people would milk the situation first, take advantage of their complicated histories and Daigo’s unorthodox methods to tear Fifth Sector down before they became inconvenient.
Daigo had trusted Gouenji with so much. Why not this, Yamato didn’t know. What he did know was that he’d gratefully clutched his friends’ secret to his chest a little longer, where he knew they’d be safe.
“Of course your father asked,” Gouenji sighed, sounding a little defeated. “It’d be too much to ask- no, no, ignore me, I’m sorry. He’s your father, I shouldn’t be talking like this to you.”
So they’d definitely had a fight of some sort, then, Yamato figured.
“I’m not really sure what happened between you guys,” he started, carefully considering his words, because he didn’t think his own confusion about Tsurugi and Matsukaze’s fire tornado would help this situation any, “but I’m sure dad’s not mad at you or anything. It’s just been a stressful couple of weeks, but it’s all resolved now. Things’ll be fine again before you know it.”
Pep talks weren’t really his specialty, not to people ten years older than him, and going by the sad, watery smile Gouenji was giving him he wasn’t doing a very good job at it.
“Yamato, you’re really-” a shake of his head, maybe fond, maybe derisive. “You’re a good kid, you know. I know I’m not really a real parent to you, but I’m proud of you anyway.”
That, for some reason, made his throat constrict painfully, and he looked out of the window determinedly before his eyes could start burning. “Well, I mean. You’re… You’re not my mom or anything, but you’re not not a real parent to me.”
Which was a stupid thing to admit, because Gouenji wasn’t anywhere near old enough to be his actual parent, and he’d been trying to hard to stay awkwardly distant no matter how personable Gouenji tried to be.
Gouenji was looking at him with an unreadable expression, then patted the couch cushions next to him. “Come here for a bit?”
This was hug territory, Yamato was pretty sure. This was Gouenji giving him an out before he got dragged into some touchy-feely bullshit that he absolutely shouldn’t be tolerating from anyone but Yuuka, and from Yuuka only because she was older and bossier than he was.
Before his brain could kick in and stop him, Yamato vacated the guest chair to sit next to Gouenji instead, a polite distance away.
Gouenji cared absolutely nothing for his politeness, and instead pulled him down into a comfortable hug, only made slightly awkward by his being taller.
“Yamato,” he said softly, fingers stroking over the length of Yamato’s pink hair, “if you’re worried about your dad and I, don’t be. We had some… disagreements, today, but we’ve already settled them.”
Even though every ounce of him hungered to take that as the reassurance it was clearly meant to be, there was something ominous enough about the way Gouenji said it that it made Yamato feel something approaching dread.
“Shuuya-san,” he started, the hand not clutching a mug of hot beverage curling around Gouenji’s shoulders protectively while he tried to figure out what he was trying to say.
“Shuuji,” Gouenji corrected, looking up at him with another one of those bone-tired smiles. “You should probably get used to calling me Shuuji instead. I’m thinking of changing it legally. I don’t think I can step onto a soccer field as Gouenji Shuuya anymore, after all.”
Yamato had no idea what that meant, or why it sounded so heavy.
‘Soccer is crying,’ Matsukaze had claimed. Maybe it was something like that.
“Shuuji-san, then,” he agreed instead, resting his chin on one of Gouenji’s shoulders. “Dad will probably know how to do something like that.”
“I’m sure he does,” Gouenji agreed softly, warm and soft and oddly frail in the circle of Yamato’s arm. “Hey, Yamato?”
“Yeah?”
“Congratulations on winning today. You did great.”
Maybe, he thought as he closed his eyes, maybe he was starting to feel a little bit like he’d won after all.