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“Coke?”
The bottle is pushed in front of Kunigami’s face, effectively obstructing his view of the water pooling on the street. It rained earlier today after the match, heavy raindrops resembling hail, only trickling down into a light drizzle maybe ten minutes ago. Kunigami thinks it fitting; today marks the third year in a row that his team hasn’t managed to win the most important game of the season. It marks the last chance to win for some of them—for him, too, given the graduation near on the horizon.
Whatever. It’s not like his life depended on winning this year’s Winter Kokuritsu after all, he tells himself, knows it’s true, and yet still finds it hard to believe.
“You want it or not? I’m not asking again.”
Kunigami exhales, chews on the inside of his cheek, wants to be anywhere but here, despite waiting for the other boy to show up for the past hours. His head is heavy, weighing down his shoulders, and he keeps it hung as he slides his gaze from the coke bottle to his sports bag, bracketed by his calves. From in front of him, he hears a loud sigh before his view is blocked, this time by a pair of shined black shoes, absurdly formal against loose sweats.
One of them kicks at his calf, a clear plea for attention. Even in the pitiful state he’s in, it takes a conscious effort not to smile.
“Shouldn’t you cut the caffeinated drinks out your diet and switch to water?” but he takes the coke, anyway, letting their fingers slide past each other. The label has been peeled off and he thumbs over the convex prints on the plastic, wondering why he even bothered to stay. “Your coach’s a real hard ass about shit like that, isn’t he? Don’t want a repeat of last year.”
“Worry about your own shit coach,” Reo says. Kunigami lifts his head just in time to catch his grin before Reo slips into the seat next to him, pressing right against his side despite the overabundance of space next to them. His hair is tied back into a small ponytail and Kunigami stares at it while Reo settles down; the purple’s already half-faded again, slowly being chased into the tips of his hair by his rising roots, and it matches the sky as the night nears.
The moment Reo glances at him, Kunigami’s eyes shift to meet his. There’s none of the defeat that Kunigami’s seen scrawled all over his teammates’ faces dwelling in Reo’s expression. There’s barely anything but triumphant elation, and Kunigami wonders if the affection he reads in the curve of Reo’s smile is nothing more than him projecting.
“A repeat of last year?”
“The cigarettes,” Kunigami says.
“The cigarettes,” Reo scoffs, smile wringing into a scowl, though the happiness in his eyes doesn’t dim any. “I only actually smoked, like, three, you know that. You were there.”
“He still got your ass, though. Didn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Reo says. He scowls some more and Kunigami smiles, then, watches as Reo glances out on the street, moving even closer to him, their thighs and shoulders pressed almost uncomfortably together. “Whatever. You owe me for the coke, by the way. You’re paying next week.”
“Next week?”
“The season’s over,” Reo says and doesn’t elaborate, and Kunigami finds himself too anxious to prod the topic any further. Instead, he occupies himself with watching as Reo peels the label off his own coke. It breaks into several thin straps of film and Reo scrunches his nose at it and sighs.
“Oh,” Kunigami says, eying the bottle. The coke is one of the limited edition Euro 2020 ones and Kunigami doesn’t ask how Reo was able to still find two to buy; figures Reo has a collection of them in his garage or something equally deranged. “You’re collecting the stickers, still?”
“Ugh.” Reo crumples up the sticker in his hand, not before Kunigami’s able to register it’s the one of Lewandowski. He crumples it up, groans, and straightens it out, his fingers powerless against the wrinkles they made moments ago. “I got Lewy from yours, too.”
“And you’re crumbling him? Fuck off,” Kunigami says. Reo just rolls his eyes, putting on a show of straightening the sticker out some more. “Well. Since you have two… are you not even going to offer one to me?”
“Don’t be selfish,” Reo says, chastises, hiding the sticker in the pocket of his adidas jacket. He slips his hand in there, too, tucks his chin into the collar of it, before kicking out his feet in front of him. "I’ll take you to the nearest supermarket tomorrow, help you pick out and pay for your very own Euro 2020 coke. If they have it in stock. You’ll get Lewy then.”
“How kind.”
“As the reigning champion of the Winter Kokuritsu, you should be happy to be able to spend any time at all with me,” Reo says. Here it comes, Kunigami thinks, and knows he should be annoyed. Is annoyed—is annoyed, frustrated, defeated, so on and so forth, but either he’s too tired to care or the imagined kindness dwelling under Reo’s voice is effectively numbing his brain; probably both. “I should be out celebrating with my team for winning for the third time in a row yet here I am, comforting the biggest loser I know. Little angel charity moment.”
Partly because the words really do make him feel worse but mostly for the sake of the act, Kunigami groans, briefly hides his face in his hands, hangs his head again. His neck aches from the action but it’s not any different from the pain pulsing through the rest of his body, melded together from a mixture of failure and fatigue.
“You’re beating a dead horse.”
“You shouldn’t think so lowly of yourself.” Reo’s hand slips out of his jacket to pat Kunigami’s thigh as he speaks, and Kunigami doesn’t have to glance up to know he’s grinning. To know the smugness has spread over his whole face, lighting it up in a way that nothing else has the power to. “No wonder you keep losing when your self-esteem’s so shit. You should start every morning with positive affirmations. I can link you some good instagram accounts to follow that’ll have you repeating ‘I am not crazy’ every day.”
“Maybe you should heed your own advice,” Kunigami says. “‘I am not crazy. Sanity is my middle name. I do not take pleasure in harassing others.’ That sort of shit seems right up your alley.”
Compared to Kunigami’s usually thin thread of patience, it’s not easy to rile Reo up. Not like this, anyhow. It’s no surprise it doesn’t work now: Reo doesn’t even show any reaction to his words, other than his hand pausing its movements, stilling on Kunigami’s thigh before slipping flat against it. His thumb rubs small lines across Kunigami’s sweats, pulling the material back and forth before he speaks.
“If you start every morning with positive affirmations, I think you could find yourself on the winning team someday,” he says, as if that’s how easy it is. As if Kunigami hasn’t just lost his last chance to do that this morning; three years of consecutive Winter Kokuritsu wins for Reo means three years of consecutive losses for Kunigami, though it also means he’s led his team past quarter-finals the last two years as captain. They played semis the year before and finals now; if high school lasted longer, maybe they’d be able to reach finals again next year and beat the competition without any problem.
As is, they haven’t.
So.
It hadn’t been a devastating loss. It could’ve been far worse; Reo’s team was leading by only one goal when the match ended, but Kunigami’s teammates took it badly, anyway. Kunigami took it badly, barely managing to give his team a speech full of empty promises before holing himself up in the restroom to calm down.
The post-match get-together didn’t last long. Any attempts at comforting each other failed, the wound too fresh, and everyone soon parted ways. Kunigami made his way to the bus stop, then, sat down on the bench, and spent the past couple of hours being sorry for himself.
It’s not the end of the world, of course. They reached semis, after all, held their own even against a team like Reo’s. It still doesn’t seem good enough for a chance at continuing Kunigami’s career, not professionally, not against players like Reo, like his teammates, whose skills go above and beyond. Maybe he’ll join his university’s team, if there’s one and it’s good, if they have any chance at winning in tournaments, (if Reo joins his own), but even then he’ll have to switch the focus to his studies soon enough. In theory, he won’t have to, can still live in hope of playing for the national team, can still dedicate his life to soccer.
It’s probably better to rip the bandaid off sooner, though.
Reo knocks his shoulder into Kunigami’s again, and Kunigami belatedly realizes he was droning on and on about potential affirmations for Kunigami to repeat every morning. “Here I am, giving you priceless tips, and you’re not even listening to me,” he says.
“I wouldn’t exactly call them priceless.”
“Right, right. Because you’ve also won three consecutive championships, yeah?” Kunigami groans, a little less for the sake of the act now, and Reo makes a show of patting his shoulder once or twice before his hand moves down to Kunigami’s thigh again. “There, there,” he says. “You’ll get another chance next year—or, well. Hah. I guess you won’t.”
“I guess not.”
He doesn’t say more than that, momentarily downtrodden as his fingers trace the patterns on his coke bottle. He allows himself a lapse in entertainment value, Reo’s words hitting a particular weak spot. It’s not like he faults Reo for being better; like he blames him for holding the trophy over his head when they see each other at times like this. He doesn’t think he could if he tries, but the truth remains that the loss is still fresh across his shoulders. Paired with the impending doom (high school graduation), it’s no wonder he’s a little worse for wear than usual.
For all his faults, Reo notices.
He knocks his shoulder into Kunigami’s. “Are you that upset? That you lost?”
His voice rings out uncharacteristically worried, uncharacteristically kind, carrying none of his usual bite. That, paired with his hand, stagnant on Kunigami’s thigh, nearly makes Kunigami’s head spin as he looks up at him; properly, this time, watches the way his mouth falters in keeping up his grin, and knows the answer is clear. It’s no secret that he’s upset that he lost—of course he is. It’s no secret that he was upset all throughout the second half of the game, as it was becoming more and more clear that they had no chance to win; no secret that he’s going to be upset about it for several weeks, replaying the worst minutes of the match over and over in his head.
It’s not what Reo is asking about, either. It’d be easy to say yes, to indulge him, to indulge himself, to let them fall into something that doesn’t have the chance to last. Kunigami can almost taste the word on his tongue before he shakes his head and forces a smile.
“You’re not worried about me, are you?” he asks, clicking his tongue. Reo grins in response and his hand slips off Kunigami’s thigh, settling instead on his own. “Mikage Reo, discovered to have a heart of gold. Who would’ve thought?”
“You make it sound like I’m the devil incarnate. The next coming of Lucifer or some shit.”
“You’ve been called similar things.”
“In middle school,” Reo stresses, knocking his whole body into Kunigami. “Stop bringing that shit up. See, maybe if you didn’t dwell on the past so much, you’d find yourself in better positions on the field.” He hits Kunigami’s knee with his coke for half-hearted emphasis, giving him a pointed look that’s only made sharper by his grin. “As is, you simply can’t keep up. Don’t worry—you’ve found yourself in the company of a professional, who’ll coach you and have you ready to take down the finest soccer players in no time.”
“Awfully full of yourself,” Kunigami says. He fiddles with the coke bottle, with the left behind scraps of its label, and decides it’s best to start cutting this short. “Congratulations, actually. For winning today. I don’t think I’ve had the chance to tell you yet.”
“You told me after the match,” and that’s true, now that Kunigami thinks of it; they’d passed each other while leaving the arena, exchanging little else other than glances and a set of congratulations. It’s nothing compared to the way they’re talking now, the air between them comfortable even if the conversation topics are only skin-deep.
“Congratulations again, then,” Kunigami says. “Your team’s practically unstoppable on the field.”
“It’s as good as disbanded now, with the end of the season,” Reo huffs. He slips his hands back inside his jacket, coke forgotten on the bench next to him. “I doubt they’ll be able to replace me and the rest of the third years. Mostly me. So. I doubt they’ll be that good come next season.”
“Mhm. Maybe you should offer them your coaching services, then.”
Reo hesitates and Kunigami turns his head to the street, lets his eyes give chase to the cars occasionally driving past. He looks over the ones parked along the road, too, takes note of the sleek, black BMW, and wonders what Reo’s chauffeur thinks of them; what he thinks of Reo’s request to stop here, hours after the match ended.
It’s ridiculous, the tradition they’ve built up. It made sense in elementary school, when they were on the same little league team; made sense in middle school, when they shared the same bus stop. It certainly doesn’t make sense now, when this is neither Kunigami’s bus stop nor the transportation Reo uses, and is absurdly nowhere close to their typical way home.
It certainly doesn’t make sense now, but Kunigami still found himself trudging all the way here, and Reo still came.
“You sure you want to pass on your very own private summer coaching session with a pro?” Reo says finally. He elbows Kunigami until they meet eyes, and it’s—Reo’s still ecstatic, clearly, though he’s mellowed out around the edges. What he said earlier was right, Kunigami thinks; to him, Kunigami’s little more than a charity project. “Which, you know, speaking of, I’m surprised you’re not swooning at the very sight of me. Captain of the winning team—reigning champion, in fact, and you’re not even going to ask for a photo? An autograph? A handshake?”
An ego boost, maybe, when Reo sees him sulking like a child, when he can run in figurative circles around him, boasting about his strength and skills and achievements and everything else that Kunigami lacks, and maybe it’s not—maybe it’s not something desirable, but Kunigami still found himself looking forward to it earlier that day. It’s been years since he and Reo have properly been friends and it’s not like these meetings change anything, but… at least it’s something. At least it’s something, more comfortable than their stuffy conversation on practice matches and in between official matches.
“I’m fine without any of that.”
“Even a photo?” Reo says. “If we take a selfie, it’d make for a killer insta post.”
“You need help,” Kunigami tells him.
“You need help,” Reo shoots back; only at Kunigami’s unimpressed look does he add, “on the field. It made sense. Stop. Stop! You do, and I’m offering it to you free of charge, in the form of a summer-long training program led by yours truly.”
“I’m just fine on my own. Really.”
“So we’ve seen, on the field today.” Kunigami inhales sharply and when he can’t find the words to reply, Reo elbows him sharply. “Joking,” he tacks on, as if Kunigami doesn’t know. “You weren’t too bad out there today. And I’m serious about the bootcamp, just so you know. We could—you know. Meet up to play, and shit. Haven’t done that in forever.” He pauses, flicks a fly off his knee, “and you do owe me for the coke.”
“Reo,” Kunigami says, stalling for a reply as his mind twists and turns. He thinks to deflect, to ignore, to insist he can’t, but when he opens his mouth, none of that comes out. “I didn’t think you’d come today.”
“…I couldn’t leave my biggest fan waiting, could I?”
“I’m serious.”
Reo blows a raspberry into the air, sliding down the bench. “You’re so dramatic,” he says, almost annoyed but not quite. “Of course I came. I always do.”
“You don’t have to,” Kunigami says. He regrets prodding the topic, wishes they could go back to a few moments ago, where the conversation was still easy and the air wasn’t heavy on their shoulders. “I wouldn’t hold it against you.”
“Again, I can’t exactly leave my biggest fan waiting.”
“Reo,” Kunigami says.
“Rensuke,” Reo replies, smile mocking around the shape of Kunigami’s given name. His tone isn’t cruel—it rarely is—but Kunigami still wonders just how beneath himself Reo finds the conversation to be, if he won’t even try to engage. “The summer training. You in or not?”
Maybe it’s meant to be implicit; maybe Kunigami’s supposed to be better at reading in between the lines, better at catching the I wanted to come that Reo avoids saying; maybe it’s hidden in the outline of all his touches, of the coke, of all his boasts and brags. Even so, Kunigami doesn’t hear any of it, instead hears the obligation dragging down Reo’s tone.
It’s not the only thing, surely. If it was, Reo wouldn’t bother showing up, that much is true; if it was, they wouldn’t have seen each other in years, would not have fallen privy to moments like these, spent sitting together on empty bus stops. If it was, Reo wouldn’t be extending the invitation now. But it’s there, anyway, hidden in the midst of everything else.
“I’ll think about it,” Kunigami says. Reo eyes him with a frown and Kunigami tacks on, “I need to check my schedule…? I’ll get back to you when I do.”
“You used to always have your schedule cleared already,” Reo says, “for us to pick up training together as soon as the season ended.”
Kunigami doesn’t reply, too busy trying to figure out what Reo wants to hear in response, too busy trying to figure out what he’ll do. He’s so enveloped in his own head that he doesn’t hear the sigh Reo lets out, doesn’t hear whatever he says, until Reo’s elbowing him again. It takes a muttered apology for the crease in between Reo’s brows to flatten across his skin, for his eyes to soften as they meet Kunigami’s.
“I didn’t get Lewy’s sticker from your coke.”
“Okay,” Kunigami says warily. “What does that have to do with anything…?”
Reo sighs, again, shifting as he sticks his hand into his pocket to pull out his Euro 2020 stickers. One’s of Lewandowski and Kunigami peers over his shoulder to figure out who’s on the second label.
“Oh. You got Reus.”
“We make quite the pair, don’t we?” Reo says. He stands up, still brandishing the two stickers, and waves them in Kunigami’s face. “I’ll give you Lewy if you come play with me. Hell, I can give you both of them, I have the sticker book filled to the brim and back.”
“Are you trying to bribe me or just brag, now?”
“Either one works,” Reo grins. Despite himself, Kunigami smiles back, and Reo’s posture relaxes slightly as he hides the stickers back in the pocket of his jacket. “So, you know. Unless you never want to see these again…”
“I thought you wanted me to go buy my own cokes and get my own stickers.”
“I can make an exception or two.” Reo hesitates, hand coming up over Kunigami’s hair as if he wants to brush his fingers through it, to push it back, to do anything to establish some sort of physical contact again—but he doesn’t, instead letting it fall to his side. “Well,” he swallows, awkward, more so than he’s been this whole time, “you have my number. So—let me know? When—if you’re free.”
Kunigami nods, keeps his mouth shut and know it’s best if he doesn’t respond, if he lets Reo leave, lets him go.
But—Reo stares at him, smile faltering the longer he waits without a reply, and as he nods back, moves to turn away, Kunigami imagines him, going back to his car, imagines him driving past and not seeing him through the tinted windows. It’d be the last time they’d see each other for the foreseeable future, and Kunigami’s track the side of Reo’s hair, the lights reflecting off his roots, and before he knows it, he’s standing up, knocking the coke onto the ground.
“Wait,” he says, and scrambles for something to say; scrambles to find a compromise between what he knows has to be down and what he wants, and comes up empty handed. Reo’s too busy staring at the coke that’s rolled to a stop against his shoes, and Kunigami feels like a complete idiot before Reo’s eyes shift to meet his, and his expression shines with some more of that perceived affection that Kunigami will never be sure really exists.
It’s there, now, though, and Reo’s smile is back full-force, too, and Kunigami feels his heart stop in his chest.
“Yeah?”
“Next week,” Kunigami forces out. He feels the entirety of his feelings lodged in his throat and knows the wrong word would make them all spill out in front of him, and knows he can’t let that happen. “You wanted to meet up, next week. Right? Since the season’s over, and all.”
“Was just throwing it out there,” Reo says. “It’s not like we have to. I’m not set on it, if—“
“No,” Kunigami says. He flushes when Reo raises his brows at him, amused, and wonders if there’ll ever be a time when Reo doesn’t have the upper hand in their relationship, and figures it won’t come. “Let’s do it. Meet up. I should be—I’ll be free on the weekend.”
“That eager to brush up your soccer skills?”
“To see you,” Kunigami blurts out before he can think better of it. Instead of laughing at him or teasing him endlessly about it, Reo’s smile widens and his eyes soften. “Is that okay?”
It won’t last, whatever’s brewing between them, silent in the air, and Kunigami knows. They’re too different, he reasons, in separate worlds with no way to connect, and figures it’d be best to let Reo go, to let him aspire to bigger and better things. Figures it’d be best to be rational about this, to make sensible decisions that won’t leave him worse for wear than before, but… this is Reo, after all, and he’s always had a hard time staying rational when it came to him.
“Okay,” Reo says, and that settles it. He leans down to pick up the coke, shifts it in his hands before he holds it out to Kunigami and with it, his pinky, sticking out unnaturally into the empty space. “I’ll call you, today, after I get home. Promise you’ll pick up.”
“Have I ever not?” but he humors him, holds his own pinky out for Reo to grasp. “Promise you’ll call.”
“I already said I’ll call.”
“You made me promise to pick up. It’s only fair.”
Reo huffs, rolls his eyes, but he repeats the whole ordeal, holding out his hand again. “There,” he says, once they’ve let go, and he’s set the coke down on the bench, left fiddling with his fingers. “I’ll see you soon, then?”
“Yeah,” Kunigami says. He has to force his heads into his pockets to not reach out for Reo, but it doesn’t matter; Reo grins, anyway, the promise of more hiding in the corners of his mouth. “See you. I’ll be waiting by the phone.”
“You better be,” and he’s gone.
Missing in Kunigami’s chest is the usual melancholy that comes when their meetings like these come to an end. In its place is everything else, swirling around his whole body, clouding his head. Maybe this was all a mistake, he thinks, briefly. Maybe he’ll come to regret it, when it ends for the nth time in a couple years, months, weeks. Maybe he won’t and maybe they’ll be able to work something out, and maybe it’s useless to worry about this now, when nothing’s yet in bloom.
Moments later, when a message from Reo comes through (you haven’t changed your number, have you?), Kunigami can only look at his phone and smile, the worry momentarily knocked out of his mind. No matter the outcome, he thinks, it’ll all have been worth it.
And—if it does end up being nothing good, then… well. They’re still in high school. If nothing else, they’ve got time to make mistakes they won’t regret.