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Kai feels fifteen again.
The roar of the crowd is deafening, but all Kai can feel is a slow and icy numbness that he hasn’t felt in years, cold from the realization that living up to his family’s legacy would be harder than he thought.
The crowd isn’t cheering for him.
They’re cheering for the opposing team, that newbie Juliette, Estelle, and that damned mutant hamster whose presence he still can’t comprehend. Their team name being Frostfire, or something corny like that. Just yesterday he had laughed to X about their name, but he can’t bring himself to laugh about it now.
The core had grazed him as it entered their goal, breaking the match point standoff their teams had been in for at least ten minutes. He hadn’t reacted in time. It wasn’t Era’s failing, or even X’s. He has nobody to blame but himself, and all Kai can do is stare at their goal as if it holds the answers behind this upset. The core still sits innocently in the goal, as if it hasn’t just stamped a permanent failure on his record that will follow him forevermore. At least years ago, he had an excuse as a rookie. Now he has nothing.
He can feel the eyes of his father glaring at his back, gaze surely molten in his disappointment. Kai failed, to Estelle yet again. It was always about Estelle. Estelle who set all the records that Kai struggled to surpass. Estelle, who grasped every achievement that Kai had to claw his way towards. Estelle, who could perform so effortlessly, while Kai had to scrape and toil and practice relentlessly day and night just to get to the same level. Always falling behind, attempting to beat a timeline already laid out for him since he’d been able to crawl.
She used to be an inspiration, but now Kai can’t help but hate her.
He hates how her pursuing another team and getting back into the field was a choice born out of want, not out of necessity. Meanwhile, he had to ask Era for help just to succeed because he simply wasn’t good enough to rely on his own skill. X got assigned to his team to make up for Kai’s own physical weaknesses. They had practised relentlessly, and nearly all of Kai’s free time had been spent honing his own skills, hitting fake practice cores into state-of-the-art fake goals in their teams’ shiny headquarters. Apparently, it still didn’t make a difference.
She had a nice, long break and waltzed back into the game just to get back at him for finally earning what was rightfully his.
He hates her for being able to just start again. Meanwhile, with this catastrophic failure collapsing his carefully built reputation of calculated success, he knows he’s done. He lost whatever shred of respect he had earned from his father, who would forever remind him of his defeat, his inferiority, what a disappointment he is to the family legacy. At least, if he’s still worthy enough to be in it at all-
“Come on Kai, let’s go.” Era says gently, cutting him out of his thoughts. His eyes drift from their goal to his teammates, numbness subsiding as she carefully grips his arm. Her brows are creased and faintly Kai wonders if it is because he’s embarrassing them in front of the cameras (as he surely is) or because she’s actually worried about him. X’s harsh face is stony as their opponents beam at each other and pose for their fans. Kai looks away, allowing himself to be guided away by his teammates. Guided away from the cameras, from his father, from Estelle who is surely basking in the glory of regaining her crown, blue eyes trailing him as they leave.
Their eyes all burn at his back. Kai wonders what he must have looked like, when they announced his failure.
———
In a nondescript restaurant somewhere in Ahten city, their team sits morosely as they wait for their food. The owner was definitely surprised to see the former reigning champions at his establishment (if Kai could even call it that, hidden in a sketchy alleyway with its peeling paint and dark weathered tables), but happily took their orders. X had assured him the food is good, but Kai isn’t hungry. Hasn’t been the entire day. Today, he just doesn’t have anything else to do.
Anywhere is better than their headquarters right now, which they had stormed from after his father had all but declared Kai unfit for his family. Wallowing in a restaurant was at least marginally better than wallowing in his room, obsessively watching reruns of the set as he tried to comprehend how he could have played differently. Advised his team differently. Been better, because he could only allow himself to be the very best.
Had the responsibility been with X or Era, the answer would have been simple. But the responsibility for this irrevocable failure is his and his alone, and he has nobody but himself to blame. And instead of immediately blaming him or outlining in excruciating detail where he went wrong, like he would have likely done in their position, they take him to dinner.
He wonders if they will broach the topic. Had it been one of them who missed blocking the last score, they would have been replaceable, even if a small part of his heart would have clenched from guilt at firing his oldest and only friends. Like it does know from the very thought. He’s only made it this far thanks to them, as his father reminded him. At least until X finished that thought with a resounding punch to his father’s face, so it’s a toss-up of whether or not his team will still be active come morning.
At least for now, in this small restaurant in a side street he doesn’t know, he doesn’t have to worry over that just yet. The three of them sit in a booth by their lonesome, as far away from the windows as they can get. Era fiddles with a water glass as X takes up half the booth seat, leg bouncing restlessly. Kai’s favourite coat long-since removed and draped over the edge, sadly laying next to him. It’s too big for him now, too big for tonight.
“It’s not your fault.” Era offers when the silence stretches on. Normally it’s him talking, whether informing them of strategies for their next matches when he’s in a good mood, or to bark orders when he wasn’t. Now, he doesn’t know what to say. After that long, arduous talk with his father, he doesn’t feel much of anything.
He must look childish to them. Estelle had handled her loss years ago with more grace than he could muster up tonight. Just another area where he fails to compare.
His throat clenches. “It is.” He replies hoarsely, fingers gripping his own glass so tightly he vaguely wonders if it’ll break. “If I had been just a few seconds faster-“
“Then what?” X interjects, voice a low rumble. “Then we wouldn’t have been any better off than we were before.”
Kai frowns. “We would have won.”
“They would just keep coming back.” X says bluntly. For all his irritable quirks, his honesty was one quality of the larger man he had come to respect, even if he didn’t always like it. “They aren’t like some of the teams we had beaten in the last seasons. Even if we would have won today, they would keep trying.”
He could imagine that. Estelle aside, Juliette and even that large tofu-eating hamster Dubu had that fiery determination they did, that burning itch not only to compete, but to win. Several teams in the past few years had dissipated from repeated losses against the Ember Monarchs, but like X, Kai too struggles to envision their newest adversaries dropping out of the game any time soon.
“What do you think?” Kai turns to Era, who flinches in her seat.
“Me?” Her dark eyes avert his for some reason, but Kai pushes further.
“Do you think we still have a shot?” He clarifies, frowning at the way she shifts uncomfortably with the question.
“…You always wanted a challenge, some real competition. Maybe…maybe this is our chance?” She suggests, though she looks skittish. Either because of him, his reaction, or from the possibility of their team breaking apart, he doesn’t know.
He considers trying again though. What that would mean. A clean slate, freedom of sorts. If his father really does cut him off, they’d have to start from square one. Different sponsorship deals, if they haven’t already been disbanded. Less media support, they’d have to manage their own public relations. He wouldn’t be able to rely on his father’s fame or fortune for their team’s stability anymore. Rookies of a different calibre. Yet, the same team.
Kai uneasily realizes that he’s been treating his team, no, his friends rather poorly.
He’ll surpass his father one day, yes. But maybe he’d been approaching it the wrong way all along. After his first, equally devastating loss against Estelle, his father wasn’t the one to encourage him of his potential as a player, Era had. His father wasn’t the one who had once taken him out to Ahten’s summer festival just because he knew Kai liked their fireworks show. X had done so. Many more small moments that Kai had nearly taken for granted because his family legacy had cast a shadow on everything in his life. Maybe without it, without the expectations, he can be more.
Maybe he can be even better.
“And if I wanted to try again with you both, would you be up for it?”
X and Era share a look. He doesn’t blame them for their brief hesitation, and why should he? Kai unclenches his fingers from his glass, grimacing as he looks up at them.
“I haven’t been a good leader.” The words feel foreign to him, but this is vital, and most importantly the truth. “I treated you both so harshly just to keep up with my father’s legacy, but when it really mattered, I got cocky and it lost us the game. I’m sorry.”
“We don’t care about the game, Kai.” Era says quietly. X says nothing, staring at him with expectation. Kai’s hand clenches into a fist.
“I’m sorry. For everything. I just wanted to make him proud.” Kai hasn’t cried since he was a child, but he feels that heavy lump in his throat that makes his voice waver, if only for a second. It still speaks volumes. “But I don’t want to do this for him anymore, for my family, or even just for me. I want to do it for us, if you both still want to.”
The words hang in the air, and as time stretches on Kai waits for the inevitable. His heart keeps hammering in his ears as he tries to will down the lump in his throat the same way he’ll will down the inevitable disappointment.
“I should punch your dad more often.” X whistles.
“Of course I’ll stay with you.” Era smiles, after she unsubtly kicks X’s foot beneath the table. Her tiny smile is practically a full-on beam for her. Stunned, Kai can only gape at their flippant replies.
“Obviously, we’re staying.” X replies nonchalantly. “Perfect opportunity for an X-ceptional entrance next season to return the favour.”
“But…” Kai starts, baffled. “Don’t you have anything else to say to me?”
X had always been less amenable to Kai’s frequent frustration over their performance than Era. He went along with Kai’s instructions on the field, but would push back when Kai would exasperatedly point out where they could perform better in their matches. Advice that Kai now realizes was less true advice to improve their performance, and more obsessive harping. It’d be a perfect opportunity to finally let loose on his under-performing, selfish leader.
“Nah.”
X only grins, and despite his subsiding fear, Kai can still recognize the firm glint in X’s eyes, that his friend expects their team dynamic to change from today onwards. It’s the least Kai can do. Maybe they can all plan their strategies together, maybe even allot for some more free time on things unrelated to Corestrike. Maybe they wouldn’t have to be so desperate to win, and could sometimes just play for the sake of a good game. They would still try their best, but this time they would have all the time in the world.
Their future is full of possibilities. His friends smile at him, seemingly unconcerned with the possible risk that their team as it is may change. Either way, it would change for the better, because Kai has always been expected to be the very best. However, this time it’ll be on his own terms. If his father tries to replace his team, well, it was high time that he stood up for himself.
Kai smiles back.