Chapter Text
“He’s really starting to piss me off.” X seethes, tapping his foot angrily as he glares at the door. In the past hour they’ve been waiting, they’ve attempted numerous passing drills and attempts to hone their abilities in the safety of their practice arena. However, there’s not much they can do without their third member. In the stretch of time they’ve given up and just waited, Era took to sitting on one of the benches in their team’s practice arena. Their manager Sylvestra gave them (mostly X) a wide berth as his temper grew.
“Maybe he’s sick.” Era hesitantly offered, fiddling with her braid. He didn’t know their captain for as long as Era had, but what he did know was that he couldn’t help but dislike some aspects of Kai that he wasn’t indifferent about. Unlike him, Era was way too forgiving.
Kai doesn’t miss practice. It’s always been a fact, like how Era is shy, X is gonna give it to ya and water is wet. The asshole is always an early riser, consistently fifteen minutes early to practice like the overachiever he is. Whenever X or Era was late, Kai was always livid, snapping at them or rolling his eyes like he didn’t expect anything less.
Now, said captain was over an hour late to practice. Something was obviously wrong, but X couldn’t wait to clobber him for wasting their time.
“You sure?” X replies, finally turning away from the door to stare at his teammate. Era’s eyes say she’s worried, but she shrugs like she no longer cares how Kai spends his time.
Just another thing that has changed since he joined the team. A few years ago, Era had the biggest crush on their captain, so poorly hidden that everyone except Kai seemed to know about it. A few months ago she finally had the courage to confess to him, but apparently he turned her down. That’s all either of them was willing to say, both refusing to actually go into details. Even with him. They’ve been weird ever since, and X was getting sick of it.
“I’m going to go get him.” X says, scowling. Or drag him here at the very least. However, their manager shakes her head, looking up from the calendar app on her phone.
“It’d be better to call this session off, as our scheduled time for practice is near its end. Luckily we don’t have any appointments today, but I imagine you both have things to do in preparation for our match with Byte Breakers this week.”
With that, they left to go their separate ways. Sylvestra left presumably to make some calls, and since Era didn’t hang around, she probably wanted to be left alone.
Normally he would go to the gym in their headquarters and spend some time there to burn off what he liked to call his x-cess energy, but today apparently wasn’t a normal day. Grumbling, X stormed out the door after the others had left, practically stomping all the way to the elevator and mashing the penthouse button.
Ignoring the pleasant ding of the elevator, he kept his angry pace all the way to his chosen destination.
“Oi, pretty boy.” X loudly knocks on his team captain’s bedroom door. “You’ve gotten enough beauty sleep. You missed practice.”
No answer. X grumbles. Typical, his captain once again ignoring him. If that’s how Kai wanted to play it, X could be annoying too.
“Kai.” X snaps.
“What.” He can hear Kai’s muted sigh from the other side of the door. It’s exasperated, yes, but something about his tone feels wrong.
“Uh, bro?” X says, frowning despite his growing worry. “I said you missed practice. You could have at least told somebody.”
“I’m not feeling well X.” Kai plainly replies. For a moment, X wants to believe him. But Kai’s tone is definitely off. And not just the distant attitude he’s had since he turned Era down months ago. He doesn’t sound sick. Just tired. If it’s not Era he’s grumpy about, it’s probably something else.
“Frostfire isn’t worth moping around again.” X guesses, knocking again. “Now open this door before I kick it down.”
He can hear Kai’s muffled curse from behind the door. It takes a couple seconds, but X can hear an unmistakable click, and soon enough, the door creaks open.
Kai glares at him, dark hair dishevelled and apparently still in his pyjamas. But that’s not the most concerning part.
What worries X is the purplish bruise on his captain’s cheekbone, too dark, too fresh, and too noticeable to hide.
“There,” Kai snaps, magenta eyes practically glowing from anger. It makes the dark circles under his eyes more noticeable. “Happy now, X?”
No, X wants to say. But he doesn’t. The brawler just stares, and in his moment of inaction, Kai huffs and heads back into his room with the door still swung open. Taking it as not entirely a dismissal, X shakes his head and regains his senses, hesitantly entering himself.
They’re used to injuries. They’re strikers, of course they’ve been been bruised up a little bit in practice and on the field too. Not to mention X is a brawler type, so of course he’s roughed up plenty of strikers during the Ember Monarch’s matches. If it was some muggers stupid enough to attack, Kai would deal with them no problem. So…that’s not right either.
X may not be a genius, but even he can tell something is off this time based on Kai’s reaction, something worse. Which can only mean one thing.
Kai’s dad never hit him before. The retired striker preferred yelling or coldly interacted with his son to display his disappointment, but never hit him. That was a line even that man didn’t cross.
Apparently, until recently.
One thing X especially hates is how Kai never yells back. He may despise his father, but he never argues. In fact, he just sits there, silently taking it in a way that is so distinctly unlike their bossy captain that it’s jarring. The rare times X had witnessed one of their fights in person, Kai said nothing. His usually annoying teammate always sat slightly hunched over with his face pale, like he was bracing for the worst. It made him sick.
It still makes him sick now, in the present. Kai just sits back on his bed and stares blankly up at the ceiling. X lingers.
Now that he’s thinking about it, X has never been in Kai’s room before. It’s stupidly luxurious, suiting his annoying, stuck up captain. Expensive curtains drawn over large windows. Trophies lining the shelves like toy soldiers. His bedspread alone is probably more expensive than X’s entire flat. Kai likely doesn’t even notice.
But there’s other things too. Childish fan art of Kai hangs proudly on the wall near his desk. A tiny bat lamp that must surely be a gift from Era when things weren’t so weird between them. Even the silly Built Different bear plushie X gave him last year is sitting on a nearby shelf.
A small family photo hides among novels in a bookcase that his captain probably doesn’t have the time to read. In the tiny frame, somewhere on the seaside Kai as a toddler stands with his father and an auburn-haired woman who’s presumably his mother. They’re all genuinely smiling. Who knows when everything went wrong.
X rips his eyes away. This feels wrong, the sadness in Kai’s room, this whole scenario. Kai was supposed to be their vain, arrogant captain who was born with everything X wasn’t.
And yet he doesn’t even look upset at the fact that his father just hit him. He just looks defeated.
That’s what really gets his blood boiling.
But he definitely can’t pick a fight with Kai's old man right now, so X has no choice but to cool down while he figures out what to do. He decides to sit in Kai’s desk chair, and if Kai is annoyed by the action, he doesn’t say. The silence is thick and awkward and for the first time X doesn’t really know where to start.
“Uh…bro, you put ice on that?” X tries lamely.
“No X,” Kai sarcastically starts, still refusing to look at him. “I didn’t consider putting ice on it. I let it swell on purpose.”
X’s jaw ticks in irritation, but he raises his hands in surrender anyway. He doesn’t mention his own childhood, when he wished he had ice to put on his own bruises but had no choice in the matter. Their air conditioning constantly was broken, never mind monitoring the fridge or a freezer. When it was just him and his bro, they could never really get it into working order either. But X can’t blame him. His big bro was just doing the best he could with what they had.
He still doesn’t blame him even when his big bro leaves his frequent texts unread. He must be busy.
“…Sorry.” Kai sighs, finally sitting up when X doesn’t reply. He’s gotten more comfortable with apologies lately, but still stares down at his feet before finally looking at X, like he needs to build up the courage for it. “I put ice on it for a while. I even tried makeup too, but it didn’t make much of a difference. Is it still really that bad?”
Yes, X almost says. He shrugs instead. “I’ve had worse.” X replies, surprising himself. Kai bristles, staring at him.
Kai may be irritating, but he’s smart. He stares at X with that calculating glint in his eyes, measuring him up and surely sensing his disinterest in discussing it any further. His captain frowns, before he gets up from the bed and momentarily ignores X to pull a thick binder out from the desk drawer.
“What’s that?” X tries.
“Corestrike notes.” Kai replies, face blank and tone flat as always when he wasn’t posturing for his beloved audience.
Notes, X’s ass. It looked like a whole book. A book that Kai was handing to him. With mounting horror, X realizes that Kai actually expects him to read it.
“I meant to bring this to practice today to share with you both,” Kai explains as X hesitantly takes it. “For this season’s matchups and the strategies we’ll need to do this year. Lose it and I’ll kick your ass.”
“Hah, you can try.” Despite his retort, X grimaces and flips to a random page to stare at it. Kai’s handwriting is as sharp and organized as his personality, and he even highlighted the names of each rival striker, their abilities and how X’s play style would likely affect each rival striker.
No wonder Kai would be livid if X lost this considering the effort he put into it. He’ll try to read it for that, but even in his mid twenties he’s getting assigned homework.
“You’re giving this to me now?” X questions. Kai usually liked to give instructions directly, not through walls of text. He clearly had been working on this for a while, but X can’t help but wonder if their captain occupies his time with anything besides corestrike. The thought honestly makes him feel a little sad.
“As good a time as any,” Kai replies, thankfully forcing him out of thinking about it for much longer. “New season, so everyone is eager to do their best. They’ll be trying new techniques, so we have to stay sharp and stay focused. We have to win this year.”
Or I’m going to pay for it again goes unsaid. X’s jaw ticks, but he nods.
“While you’re at it, give this to Era too.” Kai slaps another thick binder on top of the one he’d just been given. This workload is x-cessive, even by his standards. But the request makes him frown for a different reason.
“You sure you don’t want to give it to her yourself?”
Kai stares at him like he’s an idiot, apparently refusing to dignify that with a response. There, that’s the captain he knows. He’d usually be offended, but for once he’s relieved.
“Oi, just because you guys are going through a rough patch doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about how you’re doing.”
For a second, Kai’s eyes flash as if he wants to argue. However, he must be even more tired than X thought, because the tension in his shoulders slowly deflate.
“…Right.” Kai replies instead, clearly not believing him. “In any case, don’t say anything about this to her or anyone else. I’ll be fine by our next match, so there’s no point in alarming anybody.”
X highly doubts that, but Kai’s already in enough of a bad mood. It’s not the right time to press further.
“Eh. Fine, you do you.” He shrugs. Maybe a quip would make this weird energy lessen. “I’ll say you’re sick. A cold. The flu. Or constipated.”
“Definitely not that.” Kai scowls, more exasperated than angry. X smirks. Finally they’re getting somewhere that’s a little more familiar.
“Constipation then! It’s believable enough!”
“Bye, X.” Kai rolls his eyes, his previous patience evaporated as he starts pushing him towards the door.
“Food poisoning? Some really bad cheese?”
Kai gives a long-suffering sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. Knowing him, X takes it as a yes.
“Thanks, big guy.” Kai huffs, giving up. “You’re helpful as usual.”
“Hey, the food poisoning excuse did wonders for me back in elementary school!”
Kai does that weird thing again where he looks a little funny at him, before shaking his head and swallowing his words down. Whatever he was about to say is lost to time before he changes his mind.
“In all seriousness…thanks X. For checking.” He looks a little flustered, as if he too is surprised at thanking X in any capacity. With his free hand, X grins and gives him a thumbs up.
“Ah, don’t worry about it.” X nonchalantly replies, and Kai’s shoulders sag slightly in relief. He still looks a little unsure, but at least it’s a hell of a lot better than how he was half an hour ago.
“So, we’re good for now?” Kai asks, awkwardly scratching his uninjured cheekbone.
“Yeah.” He assures. Kai gives a genuine smile, if a little sheepish. An extremely rare expression on him, so X makes sure to memorize it. Who knows when he’d get a chance like this again.
Back in the elevator with nothing but his own thoughts to occupy him, X’s good mood slowly starts to ebb away. Things are changing way too fast, and not always for the better. Their team, damn it, his team, really need to air out their grievances before things get even more muddled and tense.
Filled with resolve, X breathes out as he finally arrives on the ground floor. He’s the strongest, after all. It’s really time that he started to pull his weight around here.
His free hand clenches into a fist, knuckles whitening.
And he knows just where to start.