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The light purple notebook is actually the third of its kind, the previous two having long since been filled, page after page of writing, planing, strategizing.
Unlike its predecessors, Mikage Reo protects this one from prying eyes with more fervor.
“Road to World Cup”
Its title is the same as the previous two, but Reo can’t help but feel that something is missing this time. He looks down on his lap where Nagi rests peacefully, on the brink of fully falling asleep and Reo brushes a couple of his sweat damp strands from his face. Looking back at the notebook, Reo realizes what’s wrong.
A couple of scribbles later a “with Nagi” appears in small writing underneath the previous title.
There’s a part of Reo that feels rather silly at the way he starts to warm at the sight of it. He had been alone all his life and now he had found someone, a treasure. A person who Reo was so certain about that for the first time in his life, Reo imagines a future with someone else. Letting another person in on his dream, it’s a bit scary, but for Reo, the excitement wins out in the end.
He doesn’t realize when he started spilling his heart out into the notebook. What used to be pages of notes and training regiments and football strategy turned into bits and pieces of Reo’s days, a window into his thoughts and feelings, and a chronicle of his thoughts and feelings about one boy in particular.
Every time he opens the notebook he can’t help but feel slightly embarrassed. He also decides that absolutely no one, not even his treasure, especially not his treasure, is allowed to open his super secret notebook.
(“it’s not a diary, Nagi!”
“Whatever you say, boss”)
Nagi reads it anyway and Reo is none the wiser.
1.
After Reo had bumped into that boy he knew in his very would that he was a chosen one. The way he trapped his phone with ease, jumped down from where he sat in a mere instant, Reo knew that he had to have him.
He couldn’t help himself when he opened his notebook and started writing. Writing about how he had a once in a lifetime encounter how he was going to convince this boy to join the football club, how they were going to win the World Cup.
looking back at it now, Reo thinks that maybe he got attached to quickly.
when he reads over his writing, he can’t help but cringe at himself.
Flowery. Very flowery. The words he uses, the tone, everything sounds so fond and sincere and all about a boy he had met for only a few short moments.
Silently, Reo contemplates ripping the page out, burning it, and scattering the ashes in the wind, any evidence of it gone along with it. He’ll tell himself that the reason he lets it stay is because of the half-written training program just a couple of lines above it.
” I met a boy today. It was incredible! I bumped into him and he practically flew down the stairs and trapped his phone like some elegant football god. I asked him to join the football club and he asked me for money lol, what a weird kid. The bell rang pretty quickly so I wasn’t able to catch his name right away, but I did some investigating. Nagi Seishiro. He’s in the same year as I am and he’s not in any clubs. He sleeps through most of his classes but is somehow still only just beneath me in ranking. I want him. He’s a chosen one and I can feel it in my bones, he’s the one, someone interesting and exciting, a treasure.”
2.
That damn purple notebook, if anyone ever looked inside it they’d be able to tell the exact moment Reo fell in love. If anyone ever looked inside it, they could tell you when he realized it too.
A sunny day after practice. He tried to get Nagi to do some extra drills but the boy simply layer down on the ground and refused to get up. In the end, Reo gave him a piggyback ride back to the limo where Ba-ya was waiting for them and on the ride back to Nagi’s apartment, all he could think about were how his friend had said he wasn’t a hassle.
Looking at him as he let himself fall asleep, leaning on Reo’s shoulder, he felt himself sigh. Nagi is incredible. Nagi is amazing and interesting and he’s everything. Not to mention a natural born genius at absolutely anything he tries. Reo doesn’t think he’s ever felt like this with anyone and when he’s back in the privacy of his room, he writes and writes and writes.
At the end of it is a certain but hesitant “I think I’m in love,”
Like the previous entries, he doesn’t cross it out, that’s pulsing feel right. For as embarrassing as it is, it makes Reo feel alive. He can’t deny his feelings, he can’t help it either, not when Nagi is the best thing to ever happen to Reo.
The next day at practice, Nagi acts a bit differently. His face is extra flushed and though they had been running drills non stop, Reo was starting to get concerned that his treasure was getting sick. The taller boy only let himself get taken care of, watching Reo with wide and hopeful eyes as he ended practice early and took him back to his apartment.
From that moment on, Nagi had become even more clingy and Reo, even if he didn’t know why, welcomed him with literal open arms.
3.
Perhaps Reo was a fool.
He had carved a space for Nagi out in his heart, made a place for him in his dreams for the future and had convinced himself that they were partners.
But Nagi has gone and left him. Not just once, but twice and this second time has an air of finality that Reo doesn’t want to breathe in. He feels sick, his world has been turned upside down and all the thoughts he had built up in his mind, all the touches, all the cuddles, all the fondness in his heart shatters in an instant.
Reo? A hassle? But hadn’t Nagi been the one to reassure him that he wasn’t?
Leave it to Nagi to continuously make Reo experience things he had never experienced before, with an intensity he never thought possible.
Kunigami is kind enough to comfort him, rubs circles in his back as he heaves and doesn’t look the slightest bit judgmental as the tears flow from his eyes. Eventually, once Reo has gathered himself, the bigger boy quietly tells him that he’s gonna go work out, but to get him if he needs him.
As soon as he’s gone, Reo falls face first onto the bed and sneaks a hand underneath his pillow, feeling around for a couple of seconds, and then grabbing onto the object for dear life.
He doesn’t want to look. He shouldn’t look. Every fiber of his being is telling him to drop it, to let it go, that maybe he’s taking this just a bit too hard. Yes, Nagi was his treasure, his first real and true and best friend, But Nagi wasn’t really his. What Nagi felt for him was nothing of what Reo felt for him, and now he knew that perhaps Nagi had never felt anything for him at all.
Had it all been a lie then? That first time that Nagi had told him he wasn’t a hassle, was all of that fake? But Nagi made him promise, he said to stay with him until the end and Reo had been adamant on seeing that promise through, only to be the one left behind in the end.
Anger bubbling over, Reo rips his head from the pillow and looks at the offensive purple notebook. He grits his teeth, opens it forcefully and reads the writing, his most private thoughts, his most sensitive feelings, all of it for someone who wouldn’t even look him in the eyes as he past through the winners gate.
He doesn’t realize when he starts ripping the pages out. He only realizes he’s crying again when his tears fall onto the pages and make the ink blur. Sucking in a shaky breath, Reo wills himself to calm down, tries and fails to convince himself that this isn’t something worth crying over, but he closes the notebook and he sees it.
“Road to World Cup with Nagi”
And the anger that had flowed like magma through his veins, suddenly feels like ice. He shouldn’t have ever let anyone so close to him, he should’ve just kept Nagi at a distance like he did everyone else.
In the end, Reo can only blame himself.
Finding a marker is easy, blocking out Nagi’s name with deep black ink is not.
Yet as much as it hurts, once it’s over, Reo feels a bit more calm. He looks at the pages he’s ripped out and decides against throwing them out completely, not wanting to let go of his feelings so soon. Gently, delicately, Reo places them in order as best he can, folds them in half and tucks them in the back of the notebook.
Replacing the marker with a pen, Reo writes and writes and writes until Kunigami gets back.
4.
From then on, the notebook once again becomes used for its previously intended purpose. Reo through a himself into training, a regiment made for him by Kunigami is what’s left to him by his friend and Reo tries and fails to not let the guilt eat away at him.
He spirals a couple of times. Uses the notebook to spill his feelings onto already-written-on pages and feels a sense of relief from it.
When he gets to play with Nagi again, he tells the other boy to keep waiting for him at the top, that Reo will catch up eventually and though he says it with confidence, he can’t ignore the new voice of insecurity that’s been popping up in his head more and more. But he finds something of use from himself. “Chameleon” style to make use of his dexterity and flexibility as a player. He decides he can work with it.
During the U-20, Reo gets to play for a little bit, and the feeling is exhilarating. Maybe he’s not enough just yet, but he’ll prove himself. He’ll show himself to the world, make them see him, and win the World Cup. He’ll get there, Reo is confident of that.
There are manifestations littering the margins of his meal plans. Things that made him smile through the day, things that made him laugh.
Nagi begins to make it back into his quick notes. Small things like how his hair is getting longer, how his face is looking a bit fuller, a sign that he’s been eating more.
When the two week break is announced, Reo does everything in his power to contact Nagi as little as possible. He sends the boy pictures of Choki and Nagi responds back with his favorite stickers. When they all meet up in Shibuya, Reo exchanges a couple of words with him and he can feel the way Nagi’s big eyes watch him carefully from across the room whenever his back is turned, whenever Reo talks and gets close with someone else’s. He wishes it meant something.
It still stings to not be with Nagi, even as they occupy the same space, the same room, the same group of friends, but barely talk to each other and steal longing glances. But Reo is happy for him.
All he ever wanted was for Nagi to enjoy himself. And even if it’s not with him, Reo wants to protect his new found will for life. Reo has found his resolve, he’s going to get better. He’s going to improve, to win the World Cup. He can make it.
5.
Perhaps his resolve isn’t as strong as he had thought. Maybe Reo shouldn’t be letting Nagi get so close to his heart again after everything that’s happened, but when Nagi asks for his help with such an earnest look in his eyes, when he tells Reo that it’s always been him, Reo can only hope that this time around he won’t get burned.
He says no at first, but all Reo’s ever wanted was for Nagi to say that he needed him and even though they don’t win, Nagi did need him.
The scribbles in his journal are fast and nearly incoherent. Questions upon questions on whether or not he made the right choice for himself in choosing to take Nagi back, whether Nagi made the right choice for coming to him.
Putting his pen down, Reo decides to call it a night, that if this is a bad decision then he’ll reap what he’s sown some other day, because right now, he struggles against Nagi’s grip around his waist, pulling him down. The other boy had made himself right at home, letting Reo wash his hair, dry it, dress him, and then crawled into Reo’s bed like it was second nature.
When he finally lies down, Nagi pulls him even closer, hold him tighter and Reo thinks that he might just pass out. Nagi was surprisingly strong before but after all the Manshine training, he’s even stronger. The thrum of Nagi’s heart is fast and Reo wonders why, almost immediately, he gets his answer.
“Mmm, missed you, Reo,” Nagi says with a content sigh and he plunges his face into the crook of Reo’s neck, breathe warm and lips nearly touching the sensitive skin.
Reo thinks his heart skips a beat and he swallows hard, “I missed you too, Nagi.”
When he gets no response, he assumes Nagi’s drifted off into sleep and decides to try and find sleep as well.
“Love you too, Reo,”
He wishes that those words he heard were real.
True to his word, Nagi really must’ve missed him if the way he clings to him has anything to say about it.
He asks for Reo’s attention, makes grabby hands at him, and has Reo carry him around and pet his hair just like he used to.
Chigiri catches Nagi baby talk and his eyes nearly pop out of his head when Reo just laughs as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. “That’s just how Nagi talks sometimes,” he’s says nonchalantly.
And Chigiri, who was subject to Nagi and Barou’s arguing for most of the second selection and has seen Nagi act like an ass and speak with the mouth of a sailor and sneeze the loudest most obnoxious most wet dad sneeze ever, knows for certain that Nagi must only act like a cute little baby around Reo.
“You guys are hopeless,” Chigiri says and he leaves.
Reo just shrugs and turns back to what he was doing and Nagi, ever the troll, flips Chigiri off while Reo isn’t watching.
Having decided that enough time has passed where Reo hasn’t been giving him constant attention, Nagi crawls closer to him and plops his head down on his lap, watching as Reo scribbles away in his notebook as he always used to.
and that’s when he notices it.
“You scribbled my name out…”
Reo drops it almost immediately, flustered at the fact that Nagi ever noticed he wrote his name on there at all. He gets no chance to respond as the pages he stuffed in the back of the notebook fly out as it hits the ground and Reo feels his heart race.
“Don’t look at those!”
But it’s too late. Nagi’s eyes are wide as he looks at all the writing on crumpled up pages, some of them looking as if they’d had water spilled on them. Other than that, Nagi doesn’t look too surprised.
Reo holds his breath, waiting for something, anything, but Nagi remains silent and it’s eating away at Reo.
“At least say something,” he whispers. His voice wobbles and Reo doesn’t want to imagine how it might break depending on Nagi’s words, but he has to know. He needs to know.
The feelings he’s kept hidden are written plane as day on all of the papers, maybe not directly, but praises and idolizations, and some embarrassing fantasies about one white-haired genius.
Finally, Nagi breaks the silence. “I knew it was a diary,” he says, the corner of his mouth lifting into the tiniest of smiles.
Reo’s eyes grow wide, his face is red with embarrassment but also anger, he can tell he’s about to blow up but Nagi interrupts him.
With a fucking kiss on the cheek.
Now Reo is livid, “What’s wrong with you!” He gets up immediately, eyes shining with unshed tears of frustration, “you can’t just play with me like that!”
“What do you mean?” Nagi tilts his head to the side and if Reo were any less angry, he might’ve cooed.
“What what do I mean— Nagi, did you even read any of those pages?”
“Of course I did, I know how to read,” he pouts.
“That’s not what I—“
Nagi cuts him off before he can say anything else.
A kiss on the lips this time, just as quick as the first and it shuts Reo up immediately. There’s a look of confusion on his face, along with hurt and the tears he’d been struggling to hold in come spilling out.
“Reo?” Nagi sounds concerned but Reo just closes in on himself, and Nagi moves to comfort him. “What’s wrong?”
“Am I just a joke to you Nagi? You can’t do this to me, you can’t— you can’t play with my heart like this please,”
“But you love me, don’t you?” Nagi says, voice bordering on frustration.
Reo’s breath catches in his throat.
“I love you too, so it’s okay right?”
“What—“
“I mean, we’ve been dating for months now, I though you knew—“
”Nagi, What?!” Reo removes himself from Nagi’s grasp immediately and looks directly into the others big grey eyes. There’s not a hint of deceit in them and Reo feels himself want to cry some more.
Brining a hand up to his cheek, Nagi gently wipes some of the tears away.
“You wrote it in your notebook, I saw it after practice one day,” he starts slowly. Nagi struggles to find the words but Reo is patient, letting Nagi continue at his own pace, “You said that you loved me. I could read it even though you tried to scribble it out and… I felt the same so I thought…”
The sound of Reo’s laugh has Nagi looking in his eyes again, “Nagi, you never told me,” he says softly.
“Reo never told me either,” he says, resting his forehead against Reo’s. “But I thought you knew. Reo knows me best and after I saw it, I wanted more cuddles.”
Reo tries to not let his heart melt, but it’s fruitless. He brings his hands up to Nagi’s face, squishing his cheeks a little before leaning in.
Their third kiss is soft and sweet and has Nagi wanting to chase after Reo’s lips once he’s pulled away, eyes practically glittering.
As much as Reo would like to kiss him again, there’s something he needs to say first.
“Nagi Seishirou,” it’s Nagi’s turn to hold his breath, “I love you,”
“I love you too” Nagi whispers.
They look at each other for a moment and then Nagi starts to fidget nervously. Looking around the room, at Reo, and finally at Reo’s notebook.
“You scribbled my name out…”
Reo’s eyes go wide again and he picks up the notebook and looks at its cover, guilt clawing at his chest, “I’m sorry,” he says quietly and feels the sadness behind Nagi’s pout.
Quickly, Reo stand up and starts searching the room like a madman, opening drawers and cabinets, looking under the bead until finally— He holds a black marker in the air triumphantly and shows the marker and the notebook to Nagi, before turning around, scribbling ferociously and then turning back to face Nagi, notebook clutched tightly to his chest.
Nagi tilts his head and opens his mouth, but Reo sits next to him and shows him without a word.
The writing that was once there is now completely blacked out along with Nagi’s name, replaced instead with— Nagi looks at Reo with eyes full of love.
“Road to The Future with Seishiro”
Looking away with his face completely red, Reo gingerly hands the notebook over to Nagi.
“Seishiro,” he says, and Nagi’s head snaps up immediately, “is it okay if I call you that?”
Reo’s answer comes in the form of Nagi nodding his head to fast that he’s afraid he’ll get a neck injury.
One moment, Reo is sitting up and then the next, he’s on the ground with Nagi on top of him, holding on for dear life.
The notebook lays next to them and Reo pets Nagi’s hair. Seishiro’s hair.
A future with Seishiro? Reo would like that very much.
A future with Reo? Seishiro had wanted it from the start.