Work Text:
Ego has finished typing on his computer keyboard the latest report of the recent match between the Ubers and Manshine City. With heavy eyelids he tried to focus his eyes on the screen to check if he had typed anything wrong, unaware that the sun's rays were streaming through his window showing that it was just dawn and another day was beginning.
He had spent another sleepless night working.
'Well, it's not like I could sleep either.'
He leaned back in the chair leaning into it, his bent legs feeling numb from being in that position for so long and his muscles aching from the uncomfortable position. He let his head lean back against the chair and stared at the ceiling fan, he brought his hands to his face to rub his eyes so he would be more conscious.
The last few weeks he'd barely gotten a few hours of sleep, the ecstasy of the Neo Egoist League, the rise in popularity of Blue Lock TV and the constant requirements of the JFA had kept him from sleeping more than two hours a night, even staying up three days in a row.
Not that he minded much either, since he was young he had a bad habit of going to bed very late or simply not sleeping in order to make the most of the time and do more productive activities. Even before his playing days, the dark circles under his eyes were noticeable from staying up late day after day.
And these days it is important to make the most of as much time as possible, after all they are in the third selection of his most prized Blue Lock project to create the best striker in the world to dethrone the incumbent.
If he has to sacrifice a few hours of sleep, he will.
Although, if he had time off, he wouldn't be able to sleep either. Maybe it's the stress of the programme, but he gets a bad case of insomnia every time he tries to relax his mind and immerse himself in the paradise of Morpheus that he wanted to visit.
He sat back in his chair and turned off the computer monitor. Maybe a cold shower would wake him up more.
He needed the maximum output of his brain if he was going to turn one of his diamonds in the rough into the world's best striker.
As he made his way to the shower in his room, he remembered a vague moment when he helped him sleep one day when he was almost a week into a severe insomnia. That night was the best sleep he'd had in years.
Just remembering how warm it felt made him want to give in to his muscle memory and head for his room.
But, no. What was the need to go near that bastard?
He almost tripped over the carpet when he got out of the shower.
This sucks.
He wore his glasses, it was impossible for him to see blurry, but every time he closed his eyes to blink, he did. His vision became blurry and heavy, but when he wanted to take a nap, he magically couldn't sleep for more than five hours.
It was as if he was being made fun of and it was a practical joke.
He decided to ignore all the tiredness in his body and concentrate on his work. Not without first making himself a black coffee to try to wake himself up - even if it didn't work - and do his best.
How he wanted to be held by someone who was warm, comfortable and helped him sleep. But who wasn't that shitty Frenchman.
He doesn't plan to get caught up again in his majestic way of relaxing and the majestic way he depended on him when it was time to sleep.
Not in a thousand sleepless nights would he ask him for help for something irrational and stupid that he could perfectly well solve on his own.
"Ego, let me be casual, but you look like shit," Snuffy said without a second thought.
"... I know, so?"
Snuffy had approached the Blue Lock creator's office to report about Ubers' last game at Blue Lock, from the perspective and presence of being the team's coach. He is proud of the wonderful players the egoistic man had managed to harvest in that blue prison and reality show, Blue Lock.
Very surprised and happy to see how his twisted dream of Japan winning the World Cup was getting closer and closer to being achieved.
But at that moment he looked like shit. Like a university student in the middle of his final exams going without sleep for days just to learn the syllabus, surviving on coffee and junk food. Well, it wasn't far from the truth.
Except that Ego was working on the project, and I had probably slept well for weeks, maybe even months.
"You should try sleeping pills, or ask someone to help you sleep." Snuffy sorted through the reports and set them on the desk. "Maybe it will help you sleep. I remember when you were playing you looked the same way, with dark circles under your eyes like you hadn't slept in days..."
"None of your business, your only problem is teaching my unpolished gems before the League is over." said Ego interrupting him.
The problem with Marc having figured it out first was that he was the only one who discovered how he managed to sleep in his teens.
By a mere accident, he saw them.
"...I've known you for years, I'm telling you as an equal."
In one of his off-guard moments, one of his most vulnerable moments.
"I know he won't mind."
His stomach churned, either from disgust, embarrassment, or from his daily diet of just yakisoba. Someday he should have been given effect.
"And you know it too."
Or for the simple fact that he want to do it too.
"You should go to him to help you sleep, he'll probably help."
He knew that perfectly well.
...
"No."
"Ego, I'm saying this for your sake..."
Jinpachi clicked his tongue and turned around sitting in the chair, his back to the other adult.
"If you're going to keep talking nonsense, fuck off. You're annoying me with your know-it-all air." The Japanese was starting to get pissed off, his headache and having to listen to him talk wasn't helping matters.
Snuffy looked at the headrest of the chair, waiting for him to turn around to see him. He sighed, getting used to his attitude, and decided to leave the place.
Not forgetting to send a message to a master striker.
"All right, all right. I'm leaving."
Ego heard footsteps walk away from him and a door open and close. The dark room fell silent again, with the dim lighting from the screens and desk light he turned his gaze to the computer to continue his work.
He didn't really have anything important to do at the moment, he had been so immersed in finishing everything to distract himself while he couldn't sleep that he completely forgot to organise his day and not get bored doing nothing.
Maybe he should have gone to bed and left work for today. But he didn't.
He decided to get up from the chair and stretch out on his bed, try to fall asleep and eliminate from his mind the memory that Snuffy made him remember less than five minutes ago, as in a moment of exhaustion in his youth, he approached the French player like a cat rubbing against its owner looking to be cuddled and pampered.
That evening he didn't give it much thought and simply let himself be carried away by his tiredness, seeking comfort in the man who stood a few feet away from his original position, not caring if there was anyone who saw him in that way, so different from his normal way of acting.
"Tsk."
'If only I hadn't just fallen asleep on his chest...'
A few days after that event he left the team and everything related to his playing days to return to his native country and focus on the Blue Lock project. He didn't bother to say goodbye to him on the day he left.
It was water under the bridge. He wasn't about to repeat it at the time, either. He's here for the benefit of his players, in the same contract that all of the master strikers there signed it specifically said that they would only have to worry about the players and nothing else.
I shouldn't have to visit him for childish things like that.
He was standing in front of the bedroom door that he swore he would not touch unless it was strictly necessary.
Was he going to go so far as to ask him that favour, again? In short, yes. During the whole blessed day of doing absolutely nothing he couldn't sleep for two hours straight, his mind was screaming at him that he wanted a break and his eyesight was failing more and more often. He was tired, exhausted and mentally drained. He couldn't think clearly and that made his future plans and moves for his gems even more difficult, a very serious problem with the U-20 World Cup just a few months away.
He had made his way at a slow and silent pace through the corridors of the venue, past the Spanish and French strata to the German. The lights in the corridors would shortly be switched off due to curfew, so luckily he did not encounter any players wandering around the area.
It was 21:45 in the night. Barely forty-five minutes ago the French would have finished doing his last stretches of the day and about fifteen minutes ago he would have been lying in his bed reading whatever shit he had in hand that day.
He stood in front of the door watching it with a gaze as if trying to see behind it, squinting his eyebrows so hard that his face was beginning to ache. Silence surrounded him again as if it had been following him since morning, his ears hardly picking up any outside sounds except the sound of turning a page he had recently heard inside the room.
He was paying too much attention to detail, with the little awareness he has.
He took a step backwards without making a sound.
'It was a bad idea. Even that insensitive striker wouldn't let me do it.'
...
Just as he was about to turn and head back to his room to forget all about it again, he felt a sharp prick in his head, annoying migraines popping up and setting off the alarms in his head. He brought his hand to the area of pain and gripped it tightly, squeezing his hair with the pass.
Fuck it.
He didn't bother to make any noise with his footsteps. Here and now he just wanted to sleep fucking well, to be held by the best striker in the world, to feel his arms wrapped tightly around him, not tight enough to suffocate him and kill him, but tight enough to know he didn't want to let go. To feel him touch him gently with no ulterior motives and spoil him like an affectionate cat. And the damn kisses on his forehead. It seemed stupid that he liked that shit.
But he did.
He brought his hand to the doorknob and opened the door to enter the room.
"Ego?"
Noa heard the door open and peeled his eyes away from the book he was reading 'How to fall asleep', for a long time... almost a decade, he had started to find it difficult to get his minimum eight hours of sleep. All thanks to his habit of sleeping next to his first rival, Ego Jinpachi. At the time, he had not taken his dependence on him to sleep at length to heart.
And he realised it the moment he had his first night without someone else in their shared room. No more complaining about Japanese football, no more that horrible smell of Japanese noodles and sleeping alone in a bed.
He thought it would be perfect, there was no one else to get in the way of his game or his performance in training. In that cold bed trying to find a comfortable sleeping position, while the vast dark blue sky covered the French landscape he could see from his window, he realised how fucked up he would be at night from that long night that seemed endless.
He moved up his training by almost two hours because he couldn't fall asleep. If his mind didn't cooperate he would do something else to distract himself.
All thanks to the Japanese ex-player with who he had a peculiar relationship, if he could be considered as such. Maybe his body and his being got used to the warmth of the thinner body that when he was exhausted could be compared to a cat in need of affection, so docile and different from his way of being that when he saw him for the first time he doubted if it was really him who was asking to be hugged.
And just that same ex-player, almost a decade later, came into his room in a deplorable state as the first time he asked to sleep next to him.
He closed his book and left it on the bedside table, just as he was about to uncover the sheets and get up, the Japanese man spoke:
"Don't move, you bastard." Ego ordered, not stopping to look him in the eyes or greet him.
Noa could feel the tension emanating from him and his annoyance. His lifeless black eyes were surrounded by darker than normal dark circles under his eyes, as if he hadn't had any sleep in days.
Almost like him.
He realised he was coming too close towards him and his mind clicked, it was night, it was his bedtime.
Ego had come towards him because he wanted to sleep next to him.
All the dots connected in the blink of an eye, his pupils widened and he opened his mouth to tell him; 'I waited a long time for your return, Jin'. But the words couldn't see the light of the room as he noticed how the Japanese's pale hands grabbed at his pyjama shirt and how the conscious body dropped to his side, his arms retracted to his chest without letting go of Noa's pyjamas and as if he was dreaming at that instant, he could mistake him as a black fur cat trying to be pampered, Ego was snuggling towards him, rubbing his body against his as if he was ashamed to ask for something verbally and decided to say it with gestures.
Noa stood for a few seconds pondering what had happened, noticing the black hair brushing against the side of his abdomen, he couldn't resist the urge to stroke it, to tangle his fingers in the dark hair and relax.
The idea of reading on while he stroked him was tempting, except that the cat himself raised his face with a heavy look.
"Come here and sleep."
Noa didn't flinch.
Ego was trying to recreate exactly what they did as teenagers. He wasn't going to refuse.
"Yeah, yeah, going." he replied. He stretched his arm out to turn off the lamp so he could sleep more comfortably.
He pulled up the sheets to get into bed, Ego didn't move away from him, Noa turned his body to face the Japanese. He pulled the blanket over them and brought his hand to his dark hair to continue giving him gentle caresses.
Ego moved again to get comfortable, his head resting on top of Noa's other arm, using it as a makeshift pillow.
"Stay like that and don't move... Let me sleep." Ego replied without bothering to look at him.
"You're using me as a pillow to sleep on?" he asked wryly. He stopped stroking him to remove his glasses so they wouldn't dig into his skin, leaving them on the bedside table. "Without glasses it's more comfortable."
"As if you don't like me doing that." He spat. Just like he's used to hearing.
He almost, almost let out a laugh at the comment.
"If you can sleep well like that, it's fine." replied Noa continuing his task of petting him. "It works for me too after all."
Ego lifted his arm and brought it to Noa's back, hugging him on the spot and closed his eyes, never in such a long time had he felt so tired, so much so that he could fall asleep right then and there.
And he did, his migraines became less acute and his breathing slowed with each inhale of the French's perfume.
He let himself be carried away by the pleasant caresses, by the comfort of the bed and the warmth of the man who held him tightly.
He surrendered to the comfort of the atmosphere, falling asleep at that moment.
Noa realised this when he noticed that the arm holding him was losing strength.
'Sometimes Jin can be soft when he wants to be...' thought Noa, he moved his hand from his hair to his cheek. 'Maybe he won't mind if...'
No doubts, he never hesitated in his actions in those moments. He brought his lips to the Japanese's forehead and planted a delicate kiss. A kiss after ten years without any contact.
He broke away and decided to let himself be carried away by this comfortable, very comfortable moment.
Maybe after ten years he still hasn't strayed from his bedtime habit. Everyone has a bedtime habit and his was to cuddle that twisted egoist in order to fall asleep.
He decided to copy Ego and close his eyes to rest once and for all, he read too many books to try to sleep and any technique didn't work for him.
The only way to sleep was to be with a cat hungry for cuddles and he could fall asleep in a minute.
He doesn't complain either.
He remembers the time Ego looked abandoned and fell asleep on his chest, standing up, while he was talking to Snuffy. Later that afternoon he had to carry him to his room with the help of the Italian who teased him all the way.
But it was fine.
At least he knows that in those little moments of vulnerability, Jin wouldn't hesitate to look for him.
He felt his body relax and he lost consciousness. Slowly he was falling asleep.
He will say thank you the next day to Snuffy for the advice to turn off his alarm that night.
'Good night, Jin.'