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He’s not waiting.
He isn’t. Of course he isn’t. He didn’t wait for Nagi then, he doesn’t wait for Nagi now. Isagi waits for no one, no matter how close you are, and that’s what Isagi does.
Nagi’s not surprised. Nagi doesn’t expect him to. It’s Isagi, after all.
Isagi, the biggest egoist out there. Isagi, the most selfish, insatiable man for his goals there is.
It’s why he knows Isagi isn’t waiting for him. Because waiting means delay and delay means waste. Isagi’s too much of an egoist to do that to himself. He has goals to achieve and a deadline to it. He’d never allow anything, let alone anyone, to pull and bring him down, to cause him to be left behind.
(It’s funny. He’s second in the world and Isagi’s fourth, and yet they both know that farce of a goal means nothing.)
Isagi doesn’t help people, he uses them. Isagi makes people move for his goals - he’d never stunt his growth for somebody else’s sake. Especially if it’s for somebody who doesn’t know what they want. It’d be an insult to him. Isagi may have gotten lost and taken wrong turns along the way, sure. But his destination has always remained clear ever since Noel Noa kicked that ball - has always remained steady, has always remained true. And he’d do absolutely anything to get it. To get there, to that point. He wouldn’t allow anything else. There was no other possibility.
He’d climb the highest of mountains, raze down the most expansive of forests. For his dreams he’d rip open the heavens alone and tear himself apart. God knows how many times he’s done so ever since he started off nearly last in this hell hole of a prison, all to claw himself up from its dregs to ultimately end up on top. Waiting would be an insult to all that. Waiting would be enabling, waiting would be stagnating. Waiting would be settling, and he’d never allow himself to do that. Never.
So there is no waiting. Isagi didn’t wait for him then, Isagi doesn’t wait for him now.
Nagi’s not surprised. Nagi doesn’t expect him to.
And in reality, it’s a gift. Because in the end, Nagi doesn’t want him to.
Because Isagi tried doing so once in the Second Selection. Maybe Isagi had thought giving him that look would be taken as out of care but Nagi hated the look he’d given him. He’d wanted to crush it with his foot - he’d detested it on sight. That look of regret - regret for, what? Leaving? Why? Did Isagi not think he could do this without him? Dependency? That was the biggest insult. The two knew their dynamic and that wasn’t it. Did Isagi not remember who’d gripped him by the hair, who’d told him to get it together when he was out of fight? Did Isagi need a reminder?—
That Nagi would never ask Isagi to forsake his ideals, the same way Isagi wouldn’t force himself to devour Nagi. The same reason why Isagi knew why Nagi had never asked him to be on his pre-U-20 team, the same reason why Nagi had never questioned why in its Top 6, there was no Isagi. Asking and waiting were meaningless when the answer was all the same. If Isagi wanted to be part of the top after this, he’d find a way to. If Nagi wanted Isagi to pick him after this, he’d make it so that it would be the only choice to. Nagi and Isagi both knew this - both greedy and egoistical, this was how they worked. It was a given for them - their dynamic, their language; there was no need for it to be stated - it was something they both knew and understood.
So Isagi doesn’t wait and Nagi doesn’t want him to. Isagi doesn’t pick him and Nagi doesn’t ask him to.
Because Nagi would rather sink to the ground than be chosen out of feelings and pity. He’d rather not be chosen at all than to be the spoils of a second choice. Isagi doesn’t want anything less. Nagi knows he sure as hell isn’t going to allow himself to be chosen as something less.
So Isagi moves forward without looking back and Nagi doesn’t expect him to. Nagi doesn’t ask; and, in the same way, Nagi doesn’t want him to. Nagi doesn’t even think he cares that Isagi is. He’s gotten his goal and that’s fine with him. Or rather, it should be. That’s what Reo tells him, at least. Who cares about Isagi when they had that supernova of a goal, right?
But the stirring in his stomach doesn’t die down, no matter how much Reo reassures him. The confusion he’s been in since the BM match swirls even further right after Rin crushes him. Lying on the mound after the PXG game, he lies with eyes closed, confused to the bone, dissatisfied - shouldn’t he have already been content with beating Isagi? What the hell was this frustration over losing doing lying in his heart? What exactly was it that he wanted? Why wasn’t he content? Fulfilled? Why wasn’t he all right?
Isagi’s parting words echo in his head and Nagi’s eyes widen, causing him to sit straight up. How could he have not realized it? Isagi’s words were a clue this whole time. Other people wouldn’t have understood it but Nagi very well did. See you later, Isagi said, like he knew that this wasn’t the last he’d see him no matter what Nagi thought. He knew Isagi knew he wouldn’t be content after that goal. They spoke the same language, after all.
The language of egoists. Of course he wouldn't be content - he was an egoist.
He just needed the reminder.