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Isagi was confusing.
Frustrating.
He wanted to hate him.
No… He did hate him, but at the same time, he was so impossibly confusing that Ness couldn’t help but be curious.
But curiosity kills the cat and all that…so maybe being curious wasn’t for the best either.
Nothing was ever for the best when Isagi was involved, and sometimes, he regretted agreeing to ever participate in this god forsaken project.
Even so, his biggest regret was trying to understand Kaiser. All he wanted to know was what Kaiser saw in him… He didn’t want Kaiser to be correct, and to finally be able to see the parts of Isagi that were… not entirely horrible.
But those positives…those “good” things about Isagi just made Ness hate him even more, because how could he compete with him if he was actually a good person?
That was the thing that Ness hated about him the most.
The fact that he was kind.
Nice.
That people genuinely liked him off the field and on it.
It made it near impossible to hate him completely, and it confused Ness every single time he tried to think about him because no.
This wasn’t how it was meant to be.
Isagi was meant to be a rival, one they could overcome and then move on to bigger and better things. He wasn’t meant to like him.
It would be so much easier to hate him.
Because then he wouldn’t be fighting with the internal desire to be closer to him. He could keep his distance, and turn him away whenever he wanted to, and he wouldn’t feel guilty about that sad kicked puppy look on Isagi’s face when Ness told him no.
He wanted to tell him no.
“Ness, are you okay?”
Isagi’s voice pulled him out of the blind anger that he was experiencing. The blind anger he had caused.
Ness looked up from the floor, and did his best to relax his fists rather than placing them exactly in the corner of Isagi’s mouth. He flexed his fingers, and his palms immediately burned from where he was digging into them with his nails just a second before.
“Ness, your lip is bleeding! What happened?”
Suddenly Isagi was in his space, looking up at him with those huge, annoyingly blue eyes. As if he had not just humiliated him with the announcements of their current values. As if his every move wasn’t meant to undermine his and Kaiser’s years of hard work.
Ness did not answer him, but he also did not protest as Isagi grabbed his wrist and dragged him to a nearby bathroom. He stood there, glancing at himself into the mirror while Isagi wet a hand towel. His cheeks were still red from being so angry, and sure enough, his lower lip was stained red from where his teeth had bitten through the skin.
He really should learn to control his anger.
He knows this.
But the cool wetness of Isagi dabbing at his face was a pleasant comfort…one that Ness did not expect. It relaxed him immediately, and he felt the tension release from his shoulders as Isagi continued to dab his face with the towel, careful not to hurt him.
Because of course, Ness knew that Isagi’s behavior was never intentionally cruel, no matter how frustrating it could be.
It would be easier if Isagi was purposefully terrible, rather than by accident. It would be so much easier to dislike him… he wished he was an awful person.
Ness exhaled as Isagi removed the cloth, inspecting his lip without ever directly touching his face. Ness watched his eyes, brows knit together in genuine concern as he looked at the cut Ness had caused on his own skin.
It would be easier if the concern was faked and manipulative. If Isagi was trying to get him to betray Kaiser and get him on his side. But he wasn’t, and he never once tried to use his genuine kindness to get the things he wanted. Ness would have used that influence to his advantage.
But Isagi wasn’t like that.
Because Isagi was a better person than him.
“There, it looks like it’s already stopped bleeding.” Isagi nodded firmly to reassure him, as if Ness needed his reassurance. Ness didn’t need any of that, but his soft smile was nice, and soothed his angry soul further in a way he hated.
He hated it because he wanted to be angry at Isagi. For coming up to him and meddling and taking care of him like he wasn’t the reason Ness was in the state he was.
He wanted to feel disgust when Isagi touched his face, and to spit the blood on his tongue onto the shorter boy’s shirt and to push him away with all of the force his body could manage.
But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
All he felt was the deep need to lean into Isagi’s fingers… to accept his affection and to let all of the anger go in exchange for the deep, soft feeling that being alone with Isagi and the object of his kind gaze brought him.
But he couldn’t do that either.
So instead, he stared down at Isagi with an empty gaze. One that concealed the range of mixed emotions swirling in his brain and did not allow Isagi to see that all he wanted was one more gentle touch. Maybe a hug because it had been so long since he had been hugged by someone who actually cared.
Isagi responded with an uncomfortable smile. One that let Ness know that he would never have those things because Isagi was now walking away from him, telling him to be more careful, and to get back in shape for their next game.
His blank stare pushed him away when Ness couldn’t.
It was better this way, Ness convinced himself as he looked at himself in the mirror again. Dead eyes, dull, with a small red break in his lip. The color in his cheeks had faded, and he now looked no different than he normally did.
This was better.
Better…but certainly not easier.