Work Text:
All his life, Nagi hasn't quite grasped the idea of being alive just yet.
Sure, he breathes, eats, talks; he lives day to day, filling his time with video games and idle chatter. He wakes up, goes to school, tries to not fall asleep in class, goes home, sleeps, and does it all over again. It's all he's known, all he knows to do.
But he knows that's not the same as being alive, not when he sees other people laughing and playing, so full of joy it spills from their lips and into the air— the kind of joy he knows the slight thrill he feels when he gets MVP in his newest shooting game could never match up to.
He doesn't understand why they would care so much about something, what there even is to care so much about. How anything could be worth pouring his whole heart into, worth putting actual effort into.
"Nagi!"
He doesn't understand, but he thinks he's beginning to.
The ball is silent when it moves through the air toward him, propelled by a well-aimed kick from Reo. Nagi stops it with his shin, feeling it bounce and land safely in front of his feet.
Immediately, he turns to survey his surroundings: the defenders, the goal in the distance. It's much too busy, with the constant moving, the cacophony that is the noise from the audience and the grunts and callouts from the other players, but Nagi has learned to take it all in and only focus on the parts essential to the actual game.
There. There's a gap, one that he can aim for to pass the ball through to someone else, if he gets past a few defenders first. As if he'd heard his thoughts, Reo runs into that open space to receive his pass, and Nagi bursts into action.
The opponent players lunge at him as he does, but he expertly dodges around them, maneuvering the ball with moves that were drilled into him from hours of practice. A feint to the left gets him out of a tight spot, the movement once foreign and difficult but now as easy as breathing. As he slips past yet another player, he feels a slight smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
Only less than a year ago, he'd never expected something like this to pull this sort of unfamiliar joy from him. That he'd ever have days he would look back on and remember as special, instead of the indistinguishable blend of home-school-home of his life before.
But then he'd discovered— or, rather, been led to soccer, and everything had changed.
When he's on the soccer field, every breath and every step he takes feels like his first. Everything else fades away in the excitement of a fresh start; a new day, new game, even every pass is different. He'd used to hate new things, anything that deviated from his regular and made him expend effort to adapt to change, but now he welcomes them.
And when Reo calls his name again and Nagi moves to pass the ball to him, his legs moving without even thinking, as if they're two halves of the same body—
In this moment, Nagi's never felt so alive.
The rest of the world melts away until it's just the two of them and the ball. The opponent players are simply blurs that smudge across his vision; his vision that focuses only on Reo as they race across the field, the ball flitting between them. Every heartbeat bleeds into the next, a frantic pace faster than it's ever been. It fuels his body to move faster, run harder, caught in this haze of adrenaline and excitement.
He feels… amazing.
It's not just the thrill of the soccer game. It's the knowledge that it's with Reo, the one who'd started all this to begin with. He'd dragged him into this world. Since then, Nagi has been by his side, playing and laughing and learning— learning soccer strategies, learning how to live.
With one final pass, Nagi ends up with only Isagi between him and the goal. He doesn't even think as he does the five-shot revolver fake volley. He doesn't think about lining up the shot, the force behind his kick.
All he knows is the storm in his chest, the ball at his feet, and the distant net and how it warps when the ball slams into the back of it.
Both the crowd and the field erupt, but Nagi can barely hear them past the roaring in his ears. He's almost dizzy, caught up in the noise and the whirlwind he feels in his lungs whenever he inhales.
He feels everyone's attention on him, the player who just evened out the score with the most skilful play of the game so far. His eyes are still on the ball, which sits in the back of the goal. He'd done that, just a few seconds ago.
His heart soars, and he knows that this is what it's like to win.
Is this what you meant, Reo?
A familiar voice rises above everything else. "Nagi!"
Ecstatic hands grip his shoulders, the force of the hug almost knocking him over, and Nagi doesn’t need to turn around to know what Reo’s face is like right now. Not when he's become familiar with Reo's tells, what every pitch of his voice means, even with the short time they've known each other. Nagi can easily picture him; the way he'd ran over, how he'd jumped and slammed his hands down on Nagi, even the grin on Reo's face that's now seared into Nagi's mind.
Still, when he does turn his face up and gets a look at Reo's face, it's far prettier than what he could picture. His smile lights up his whole face, making his face scrunch in pure joy. Behind Reo, the clear sky blazes with light and burns his eyes, and Nagi has to turn away right as Reo crowds over to his side.
"That was awesome!" Reo enthuses, slinging an arm around Nagi. Nagi leans into him, and even though they're both sweaty and hot from the exertion of the soccer match, it's not uncomfortable. It never has been.
In the distance, the rest of his team is approaching to celebrate, but Nagi couldn't care less. Not when the boy glued to his side is smiling at him like he's his world; like he trusts him more than anyone else, and Nagi knows that just the light gleaming in Reo's eyes expresses far more than his whole team could through excited yells and back slaps.
And somehow, this knowledge gives him the same thrill as the one he'd just felt, right after the goal.
No. He decides that the joy of playing soccer is nothing compared to seeing Reo happy. Even this newly discovered euphoria of winning— Nagi was only able to reach this point because of him.
"Let's go win the rest of this, huh?"
Nagi looks over at Reo. On the soccer field, he glows with energy, one that Nagi had been drawn to from the very beginning. Before everything, he hadn't understood why Reo had liked soccer so much. But he'd been dragged in anyway, and now that he's discovered this whole new world, he only has one person to thank for it.
Nagi nods. "Yeah."