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In the last minutes of the match, Yukimiya begins to feel nauseous.
It's his illness acting up as usual, he is aware of it: it happens every time he overworks himself, and lately it's been happening very often.
The more he runs, the more he feels his stomach bouncing back and forth. He ignores the first gag, he manages to win the battle against the second retch too by swallowing saliva, but at the third impulse he has to stop chasing the ball.
He finds himself wheezing in the middle of the field, holding himself up with a hand on his knee and rushing to cover his contorted mouth with the other.
He looks up, and he gets sick from the sight of everyone else still running around and screaming commands.
The corner of his eyes get clogged with the usual raven clouds that remind him of his dissolving dream.
The first one who sees his struggles is Noa, but the first one who walks up to him is someone who carries blue roses and thick black thorns with him.
"Kenyu," Kaiser calls, patting his shoulder and bending forward in search of eye contact. "Are you okay?"
Yukimiya feels like a thousand needles are stinging his brain solely by trying to raise his head and meet Kaiser's sapphire moons.
He yelps with distress when he sees raven puddles hide Kaiser's golden hair. This black fog that is the undeniable proof that Yukimiya has gone past his limits again covers half of Kaiser's face, Kaiser's stunning face, and it makes his ill irids burn with tears that he desperately tries to hold back so that he won't make a fool out of himself on global screen more than he already has.
"Kenyu?" Kaiser repeats, and Yukimiya is weak to the slightly hasted breath with which Kaiser has just sharpened the accent of his graceful name.
Kaiser is concerned, he seems genuinely concerned, and it makes Yukimiya choke down another gag because of the guilt he feels from making Kaiser, Michael Kaiser of all people, worried.
If Yukimiya dares free his mouth from his hand, he is sure that he will throw up on Kaiser's feet, hence he muffles a lament in his palm and shakes his head in a way that confuses Kaiser, unsure whether he is saying yes or no, even though from the look of it, he and everyone else on the field progressively stopping to check the situation can perfectly see that Yukimiya isn't okay at all.
Now that they've all seen that something is wrong, his teammates hurriedly reach him, but ten people screaming his name and other words he doesn't pay attention to can't do much except worsening his migraine.
Isagi and Kurona are those who approach him first, leaning towards him like Kaiser did, except they're standing right in the range of the blind spots caused by the fatigue, making Yukimiya able to hear their cries but not to see the mouths they escape from.
Even Karasu from the opposing team runs up to him, the only one from the French team to do so, obviously, like the good ex-teammate and buddy he is, and Yukimiya's appreciation for the gesture only lasts as long as his stomach doesn't contort again over the sadness for not even being brave enough to tell the first friend he made in Blue Lock about his condition.
"Kenyu, answer me!" Kaiser's voice echoes above all the others, somehow. Yukimiya doesn't know how it is possible that almost a dozen people are shouting in his ears and still the only one who stands out the most is Michael Kaiser. Kaiser, the only one among the crowd who isn't even screaming.
Yes, probably this is why Yukimiya's ears are focusing on him, or probably it's because he is still holding his shoulder so tightly that he might break it in his palm, or maybe it's because he keeps looking for his ambers.
Almost surely it's because even inside the morass of pain and deprecation he is drowning into he has the guts of feeling happy that his crush has been the first one to aid him.
Yukimiya hazards it. He uncovers his dry mouth and hovers the hand he has been using to keep their sneakers clean on top of Kaiser's shoulder.
It's his answer. Kaiser thinks it's his answer.
Kaiser's tattooed hand is on Yukimiya's right shoulder and Yukimiya's left hand is on Kaiser's colorless shoulder.
It's a hug in a way, Yukimiya thinks in a really far, really dark, really miniscule point of his mind.
It could be a better hug if he had the strength to stand up and open his arms wide and welcome Kaiser in them.
It becomes a better hug because the moment he raises his head again and the two of them look at each other in the eyes, Yukimiya loses his balance and flops, scared, scarred, by the black spots growing bigger in front of his burning irids and blocking even more portions of the blissful silhouette of Michael Kaiser.
A new wave of shouts floods Yukimiya's ears, everyone is panicking, but thank God that Kaiser has insanely sharp reflexes because otherwise Yukimiya would have dropped flat on the field and gained a broken nose on top of his sick eyes.
Kaiser manages to hold him firm, and this is what Yukimiya meant when he thought that they're finally hugging, because he's sure that he will never be granted anything more than this, anything more than nearly scratching his knees against the grass and Kaiser awkwardly holding him up by his waist and shoulders and yelping in his ears, "Don't pass out on me!"
Unlike Kaiser hopes for, that is the last thing Yukimiya hears before giving in to the physical pain caused by the needles in his head and the heartbreak caused by the colony of ants that's invaded his vision.
Kaiser's voice is the last thing he hears. It's Kaiser's. The voice he hears. The voice that tells him to hold on because… Why? Because he will be worried even more if he faints?
Yes, Yukimiya decides it's for this reason before his inner, scornful self, the worst enemy of himself, sneers at him and convinces him that Kaiser said that because if he passes out he will consider him nothing but a nuisance instead.
Black wins against gold, and everything around Yukimiya goes quiet.
When Yukimiya reopens his eyes to the world again, his eyes feel tired, see blurry, but no dark spots clog his sight anymore and no needles are stinging his brain anymore.
He is not on the soccer field.
His teammates aren't reunited in a circle around him. Karasu isn't here, either.
He looks around, grazing his head around the flat yet soft surface he is sinking into to see where he is.
It's white. And silent.
And Kaiser… Kaiser? Kaiser isn't hugging him.
Of course he isn't, obviously he isn't, and yet, even if it's so obvious, it still makes him clutch a hand on his chest in the exact point where he feels like he is being stabbed.
Kaiser isn't hugging him. Yukimiya sits up on the bed, finally recognizing the infirmary, still holding his chest in his hand because if he doesn't, the skin will peel off and his heart will jump out.
"Oh, you're awake."
Kaiser isn't hugging Yukimiya, but that voice comes as a whisper that makes his ears tickle just as if he was.
Kenyu turns around, and he's there, Kaiser. Michael Kaiser is there, he sees him, no black clouds are blocking the sight of Kaiser's sparkling aura, and if Yukimiya has never been really sure what guardian angels look like, now he is convinced that at least one of them looks exactly like Kaiser.
"You slept like a log," Kaiser says again, standing up from the chair he's been sitting on and slowly walking up to Yukimiya. "Like, nearly eight hours."
Yukimiya gasps when Kaiser sits again, now right next to him, close, really close, close enough for their shoulders to brush against each other.
He hazards it again, it's in his nature to be daring. "Have you been sitting there all this time?"
"No, not all the time," Kaiser answers.
Of course he hasn't. How dumb of Yukimiya to think, to hope otherwise. "But long enough to make me think that I'd go away if you didn't wake up within the next minute."
Yukimiya replies with a pout. Half apologetic, half offended.
What Kaiser has just said does sound like an offense. What Yukimiya doesn't know is that Kaiser has been telling himself he'd go away if he didn't wake up within the next minute for at least the past hour, meaning that he has given him at least sixty more chances to wake up and find him sitting behind him. Yukimiya doesn't even know that it was Kaiser, the one who carried him in his arms from the field to the infirmary, and Kaiser refuses to tell him. He will find out about it through their teammates, if anything. He prays that this will be the case.
Kaiser, who knows no God, prays that their teammates will tell Yukimiya that it was him the one who cradled his fainted body from the green of the field to the white of the infirmary. He prays that they will even spill the fact that he may have not been sitting behind Yukimiya for eight hours, but a good seven for sure, waiting for him to finally wake up.
Kaiser prays that their teammates do the work for him, because fuck if he ever makes his tough guy mask crumble to the ground and be honest for once in his life just because a pretty boy has been looking at him with his big, almost pleading eyes that remind him of the most beautiful sunset he has ever gotten melancholic to.
And if their teammates ever leak these facts, Kaiser will obviously deny all of them.
Of course.
It's what he swears to himself as he places his right hand on Yukimiya's shoulder and asks him, "Do you feel better now?"
And he calls forth all his strength to refrain his lips from curving up in the brightest of crescents when Kenyu dares, again, lean to his side, until his cheek touches Kaiser's shoulder, and he answers, "Yes, thank you very much for your help."
Michael Kaiser holds back from smiling at him, because he is still a tough guy, after all, and he still wants Yukimiya Kenyu to look at him with those big, almost pleading eyes that remind him of the most beautiful sunset he has ever gotten melancholic to.