Work Text:
“Do you ever just wake up angry?”
Michael Kaiser casts a glance to his side.
The question comes as a surprise, and a break from tradition. Their field workouts together were mandatory—for “team building” and “establishing chemistry between our best prospects”—but curiosity was not.
He and Isagi Yoichi had been sitting in silence, staring ahead at the soccer balls littering the empty field with nothing between them but labored breaths following their practice. They had been doing these workouts for months, with only competitive insults or icy silence passing between them. Kaiser wonders at the unexpected change of pace.
Beside him, Isagi sits nonchalant. He stares ahead resolutely, mouth set, legs spread territorially, elbows perched over bent knees, and a water bottle loosely in hand. It was a personal question, but he didn’t seem to care.
Every day, Kaiser thinks bitterly, but he says something else.
“A foolish question, Yoichi. You should be asking me how to improve.”
“And what about afraid? Do you wake up afraid?” Isagi continues. He clasps the bottle in his hand more tightly. His mouth is twisted downward and tinged with frustration.
Kaiser sucks in a sharp breath and denies his hand the impulse to clutch at his tattooed neck. Kaiser can’t tell if he’s been seen through that clearly, or if there’s another intended meaning behind this sudden line of questions.
So he says nothing and waits.
“When people see me, they see someone polite and friendly. They expect nothing else. That’s what I give, because that’s how I am. That’s how it’s supposed to be in Japan. That’s how my parents raised me to be.”
“Your parents did a shit job. You are nothing like them.”
Kaiser doesn’t really know anything about Isagi’s parents outside of having seen them congratulate and embrace Isagi after every single one of his professional games. He has no doubt they’ll fly in to be at the game tomorrow as well. While he knows Isagi to be relentless, they seem gentle. Kaiser nearly shudders at the sentiment. He would never associate such a word with his own parents.
At Kaiser’s blunt comment, Isagi looks up and exhales deeply. More than you know, his freed breath seems to agree.
“Thing is, there is something else to me. Something I’ve not been able to accept until some pieces came together recently.”
Kaiser doesn’t know what he’s done to hear such things from Isagi unsolicited. Maybe nothing. He wants to hear more, and at the same time he doesn’t want to hear another word.
Isagi turns to face Kaiser more fully, ocean eyes blazing. Kaiser nearly recoils at the honesty there. “I’ve figured it out by playing soccer. Bachira told me years ago that I have a monster, and I know it now. I wake up every morning, and it’s there. I go to sleep, and it’s there. Fear… and rage. The monster has no name and no face, but it’s there.”
Unbidden, Kaiser sees his father’s face in his mind. He curses Isagi inwardly for rousing these images to the surface, breathing through flared nostrils. At least today he is composed in the light, not choking back his air in the dark.
“Little Yoichi, I assure you, that monster has a name and a face,” Kaiser grits out, fists clenching in the grass at his sides, forgetting himself for a moment.
Isagi looks surprised by Kaiser’s response. Buoyed, he takes a swig of his water with a hum, then dares to double down.
“I want to be the best. I don’t crave peace. I crave conquest. It’s the only thing that keeps that monster under control.”
“I don’t care what you want. Why even tell me this?”
Kaiser would like nothing more than to use these uncharacteristic ramblings against the calculated striker that is Isagi Yoichi to grind him into dust. But he thinks Isagi must know this, too.
“I’ve played with you long enough by now. I’ve seen how you strike the ball. I’ve seen how you fight. I recognize it as familiar.”
Kaiser wants to shout in Isagi’s face at his ignorance, or laugh at his weakness; wring his neck in defiance or his own in despair, but he doesn’t. The years have matured him somewhat. He doesn’t invade Isagi’s space like he used to do, but he does look. Kaiser’s blue eyes dart from Isagi back to the ball nearest his feet and finally settle back on Isagi again. His lips part in a slight huff, and he nods stiffly—a meager acknowledgment and all he can give.
It’s an almost imperceptible move, but Isagi’s sharp eyes catch it. Isagi tilts his head and flashes him a satisfied smile. His midnight hair is matted to his forehead, there’s a lingering stain on his cheek from where Kaiser had made him eat turf earlier, and he’s said way more than he ever should to his competition, but he looks... pleased.
“You’re not as shitty of a listener as I thought, Kaiser.”
The breaths between them are slow now, and steady. The elevated heart rates from their vigorous drills have long since returned to resting. Something in its infancy hangs in the air between them instead, waiting to be nurtured and live, or be starved and die. Possibility and impossibility.
Without another word, Isagi unceremoniously stands and heads toward the showers as usual.
Kaiser remains behind. He runs his fingers through his blond hair and scoffs, disgusted, but whether with himself, with Isagi, or with something else entirely, he does not know.