Work Text:
Is this how envy feels?
Seiya’s eyes tracked his every movement. Putting on his new white and red jersey, the one with the red flames curling out from the side of the shirt, their school name slapped right at the side of his chest. Pinning on his race number, which was printed on a seemingly miscellaneous piece of paper, it recorded all the participant’s timings for the races. Putting on his spike shoes, whose colour hadn’t faded, which hadn’t even been broken in, the spikes were nice and shiny, not rusted, not a scratch on them. Seiya glanced down at his shoes. Roughed up and darkened with soot, he didn’t even have spike shoes. His stomach curled up in anger.
In envy.
But it wasn’t just envy, was it? Oh no. It was much more than that. Seiya knew that very well. Even though his eyes seemed glued onto Reizou’s every action, his mouth curled into a sour frown. Envy wasn’t the only thing Seiya felt.
Jealousy was a better word. It was simply fitting.
How could he just feel envy, when Reizou’s personal best had been seconds away from his. Not even milliseconds. Seconds . Milliseconds were like minutes, and seconds were like hours. Seiya was hours away from Reizou in terms of his ability, lengths away from outdoing him. And it wasn’t a nice feeling. It wasn’t even a feeling. It was the sun exploding, it was the apocalypse, it was the meteorite crashing onto him-
Jealousy. Seiya was simply jealous of Reizou.
“Reizou, let’s go warm up in the call room.” Jin, the captain of the team, who was also going to the competition patted him on the shoulder.
“Okay.” He turned off his phone, the one he used to play games with. He played games every day, even during practice. Seiya came to despise him and his phone. He didn’t know how Kazuki and Jin hadn’t.
Sure, Seiya was “reserved”, “timid”, “shy”, but that didn’t mean he didn’t feel. Instead, he felt a lot. His emotions and his thoughts were his friends, his foes; his allies, his enemies.
Maybe his reticence caused him to be emotional. His inability to speak his truth caused it all to echo in his mind, constantly. They resembled a person in an empty room, everything reverberating over and over…never escaping.
“Seiya.” A voice called out to him externally. Kazuki, whose distinguishable long hair was pulled up into a tight ponytail. He was the only person in the team who entertained his antics.
He looked up. Kazuki was also pinning up a race number, and that made Seiya have an indescribable urge to rip it out, tear it into shreds, carefully aiming for the number “86”, and push the pins into Kazuki’s face.
Regret washed over him. Kazuki was the only person in the team who entertained his antics, and this was what he wanted to do to him? It wasn’t even his fault.
It wasn’t his fault.
“I’ll be going for my warm-up in my call room. See you later, okay? Cheer for me during the race.” He gave a warm smile. Seiya couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Okay.” Was the only thing he could say. What else could he say?
Kazuki gave him a pat on the back and left, with Reizou, with Jin. The spikes made a metallic “clink” on the ground whenever Reizou or Jin pushed their soles against the hard concrete, and it hurt Seiya’s brain. He wanted to pull every one of them out and make sure they were truly broken in. The way he liked it.
But he wasn’t going to do that.
Seiya had another agonising forty minutes before his team was up. He had a juice packet right beside him, chewed markings on the paper straw. He had no jersey, no race number, no shoes.
He was the only one without them.
Seiya almost laughed at the absurdity of the situation.
He had been in the foulest mood since they had rode the bus to the stadium, barely speaking, mostly staring at Reizou’s gleaming white spikes. They matched their new jersey entirely, what a grace from the gods.
Jin had been praising them half the time at the bus stop, which just made him sink into his seat even more, and made him stare at them. What was he even praising them for? They were ugly. They would reflect light when he crouched down to start the race. He would then complain about the glare, and get disqualified…
They were ugly, and Seiya wanted them.
He had been an asshole, and for what? What came out of it? Nothing. Pure nothing. He had been pathetic for an hour and a half because he didn’t qualify for the races.
Seiya had wanted to race ever since he was young. The track just felt right . How could he explain? His weight felt light, his legs would run faster, and faster, like an unstoppable machine, like the speed of light.
Then he came along. Reizou Kimura had never touched that terracotta red until he joined in high school. Who constantly walked during practice, who was on that goddamned phone whenever he could, even during one-minute breaks where the sole instruction was to hydrate. He, and those stupid school shoes that he wore to practice sessions, accompanied by his box dye bleached hair and silly piercings that just made him look worse. He had never touched the field in his life, but he ran like he had been gifted wings. He ran faster, faster, faster, quicker than anybody else. And he needed nothing. He didn’t need any fancy equipment, didn’t even need running shoes, none.
And Seiya ended up dead last.
Reizou, who had never even glanced his way towards the running track, claimed a full 11.29 seconds on his trial.
And Seiya had never stopped abhorring him.
And his rage festered, as he ended up dead last in the trial, as he trained with rigour and reaped nothing, as Reizou kept on wearing his white school shoes and his piercings and his bleached hair and that detestable game that he played on that expensive phone. It grew and grew until Seiya couldn’t take it anymore, until his teammates had all qualified for the heats but him, until Reizou condescendingly questioned his skill in the field, until he had thrown his shoe bag at Reizou, straight in the face and scored.
And bingo! He didn’t qualify for the heats, but he qualified for a ticket straight to hell.
His brother had to personally intervene. His brother. It had been a horrible day, and Seiya vowed to make sure to never repeat any of that.
Rage was a horrible thing. But it was also the one thing that echoed the most in that dark, empty room. And there was no escape.
A loud narration, the clap of hands. The cheer of the audience, and the people they were cheering for.
Seiya left his empty room. The heat had just started.
Seiya had always worked hard. He was always committed to his work and worked to reach his goals.
But he wasn't always good enough. He was never good enough. In middle school, he failed to register for the track team and missed out on the competitive sport for years. It was only when he was in high school that he got the opportunity. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t run a good time. He couldn’t get into the qualifying heats.
But again, Reizou had never touched the track in his life, and he managed to beat all of them. And there he was, preparing himself down on the track, ready to go for the finals.
He was running the 100 metres, possibly the hardest race out there. You had to be quick. You had to have a good reaction time. You had to have explosive power to push yourself off, to be as quick as lightning, to see your name plastered on the top of the leaderboard, representing your school, your team, and yourself.
Reizou had a very good chance of doing so. He had come out as first in his heats, semi-finals and now this. There was a very good chance of him getting the gold medal, which athletes trained day and night for, which he could get in just six months of training.
Seiya bit his tongue, barely restraining himself from drawing blood. Damn it. He had everything handed to him on a silver platter. His father was a millionaire. He had a record-breaking sprint. He was about to win the finals.
The world was so unfair.
Seiya’s eyes continued to track Reizou’s every movement. Pulling up the shoelaces on his sneakers pats his race number, rubs at his jersey, gives a look of annoyance towards the track, yawns, watches the runners complete their races, and looks away.
He wasn’t deserving of anything.
Seiya deserved everything that he had. The silver platter that he was given should’ve been snatched, and everything on it should’ve been his. He should’ve been the one adjusting his race number, wearing the jersey, and getting new spike shoes to run in. He should’ve been the one on the track, preparing for the starter pistol to go off.
And yet…
Reizou was in lane one, preparing himself for the race. Of course, since he was the fastest runner. It didn’t give him much of an advantage, but it was clear why it had been given to him. He was the speediest, he was the best, he was the one with the silver platter.
Just then, the screen on the top of the huge stadium that had been commentating on the race zoomed in to the latest runners.
“In lane one, Reizou Kimura!” The team that was with the runners would usually clap. But Seiya’s whole team was in the call room except him. And he was never going to clap for Reizou. So he sat in silence, watching Reizou from the big screen. Not like he deserved any applause. The silver platter he held simply didn’t provide any, and Seiya wasn’t willing to give him it.
The only person who truly cheered was Reizou’s father. A burly, middle-aged considerably sized man who had taken the day off to see his son’s victory. He gave huge deafening claps when hearing his son being announced. Reizou gave a look of irritation, not at the camera, but at his father. The live television captured his face scrunching up in annoyance and turning away, so the crew quickly turned to the other participants.
They then crouched down to prepare for the final showdown. It wasn’t necessary, Seiya thought. Reizou would just beat them again like he did in his heats and his semis.
He wanted Reizou to break his ankle then and there. He wanted him to get such a sore headache he had to retire. He wanted him to get anything but first. Anything, but triumph. But it was Reizou. Who else would emerge champion if not him?
The starter pistol went off. Reizou burst forth, emerging from the group, his expression in so much ease it was like he was having a light jog. He ran, a few milliseconds ahead of the second runner, his jersey reflecting against the sunlight that gleamed down on the runners. Or specifically, him. It was his natural limelight. He was the protagonist of the show. His steps, quick and swift, moved forward. Seiya’s eyes followed as he moved closer and closer to the finish line.
He was like Icarus. The man with the wax wings. The man who soared across the Aegean. How beautiful it was, the grace he upheld.
And just like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun.
Reizou seemed to trip on camera, and he collapsed onto the floor. The other runners were swift to overtake him, leaving him dead last, alone on the red track. Gasps were emitted from the audience. In a matter of seconds, everything was over. The race, Reizou, and his championship.
Seiya stared at the track. Reizou seemed to be struggling to get up. Jin, who had been standing near the edge of the track, ran forward to help him up. He limped back to the call room.
“NO!” His father roared.
Seiya didn’t feel anything. He couldn’t.
He fell. He lost. Did your wish come true? The man in the empty room asked him. Did your wish finally come true?
He wished he could say yes.
The silver platter that Reizou had been holding was gone.
And the man in the empty room repeated his question, over and over.
Did your wish come true?
Reizou emerged in the grandstands a while later. A fallen hero, everybody was watching as he limped towards his belongings. He trudged forward, his ankle wrapped with a bandage, ignoring his father’s rebukes, he made his way towards Seiya.
Clink. Clink. The metallic noise from the spikes under Reizou’s shoes tapped against the floor slowly, one by one.
He grabbed his bag, threw his bottle in, pulled off his shoes and shoved them in as well, pocketing his phone and throwing on his uniform.
Finally, he wore it around his shoulder, and that was the cue for Seiya to start packing and leaving as well. As he was disposing of the trash and putting his items into his bag, Reizou stepped in front of him in one swift quick motion.
“Are you happy now?” He snapped incandescently, a wrath Seiya had never seen in him flashing through his eyes. And with that, he limped towards the exit. Seiya froze in his spot, unable to say anything.
Did your wish come true?
His bafflement turned into rage when he realised what Reizou had said.
He spun around in Reizou’s direction, who was just five metres ahead of him. His stomach was turning repeatedly.
It wasn’t his fault.
“It’s not my fucking fault you were reckless, tripped over your ankle, and made a fool of yourself. So don’t come crying over spilt milk to me!” He hollered, apoplectic with fury. His entire body felt hot, very hot. The world was coming down. The sun was exploding, and he was going to crush Reizou with his very hands-
Reizou stopped for a second hearing that, but he continued to leave. Seiya grabbed his bag, eyes burning. He grabbed his bag and headed for the exit as well, ready to make their humiliating leave from the stadium.
And once again, the man in the empty room questioned him.
Did your wish come true, Seiya?