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At twenty-nine, Itoshi Sae is at the prime of his career.
He doesn’t get to this point without proper discipline, and that includes staying away from sinfully good food and avoiding nightlife so he could get seven hours of sleep. His body clock is used to getting those number of hours regularly, to the point that he doesn’t need an alarm clock anymore—but he still keeps one, in the interest of not allowing any chances of failure.
But today, something disturbs his routine. Something aside from his alarm clock cuts through the thick silence of his soundproofed apartment.
In order to facilitate his rest, his phone is kept perpetually on a Do Not Disturb state. Anyone who’s ever dealt with him knows about his refusal to entertain calls or messages past ten in the evening.
But today, Sae gets the surprise of his life when his phone rings at midnight.
There’s only one person who’s been granted the unprecedented boon of being allowed to call Sae at all hours of the day. This means that Sae can just pluck his phone from the nightstand, and bring it directly against his ear.
An electric stillness reigns on the phone line. Sae waits it out, until there’s faint rustling and an even fainter “Nii-chan” floating to his ear.
“Rin,” he says, and waits for his little brother to explain himself.
Rin proves that he hasn’t outgrown his tendency to repeat himself, especially when it comes to this particular form of address. “Nii-chan,” he says, all but choking on his words. He sounds spectacularly fragile when he pleads, “Help me.”
Running on two hours of sleep should make him beyond cantankerous, but he finds himself patiently kicking weeds and twigs out of the way as he treks towards the area that Rin told him about.
For such a populous city, Madrid has a lot of green areas. It’s still quite amazing that Rin is able to find such a secluded area like this, especially since Rin pretty much lives and breathes soccer ever since his transfer to REAL two years ago. Sae would know, since he also basically never leaves the training grounds outside of matches and his commercial commitments.
Making precise calculations and implementing those on the soccer field is his way of life, to the point that it bleeds on his other endeavors.
But today, Sae’s mind stutters to a stop upon seeing Rin.
Rin, his little brother who has gone from being a pure-hearted kid who looked at him with stars in his eyes, to a moody teenager who kept on picking fights with him, to a young man who chased him in the battlefield of soccer to become the best striker in the world. Regardless of how boldly Rin declares that they’re rivals and enemies, it doesn’t change the fact that they’re now teammates in REAL’s first team.
Sae cares nothing for scandals, but he isn’t so naïve to think that others’ scandals can’t affect the team that he’s playing soccer in.
More importantly, regardless of anything else, there’s nobody who can change the fact that he’s Itoshi Sae and that the person currently kneeling in front of him is Itoshi Rin.
That’s Rin, his little brother.
That’s Rin, the person that he has vowed to never leave until his death.
Perhaps it’s quite fitting that there’s a dead body beside Rin’s kneeling form.
The moon acts as an uninvited spotlight, casting a halo over Rin’s figure. He’s prone to kneeling whenever he has committed something that can be considered a transgression. Like a lot of Rin’s behavior, this has stemmed all the way from childhood and hasn’t shown signs of changing anytime soon.
Rin’s not wearing the team’s white uniform, but the streaks of blood remain obvious upon his dark clothes. Rin’s lips are parted, and his eyes are wider than an owl’s. Much cuter too, but that’s because Sae doesn’t really share Rin’s opinion about how an owl’s eyes are cute. The cool night makes Rin’s lips chapped, and his nose red from the wind. Rin looks like he’s seconds away from bursting into tears.
It’s a striking sight.
Sae may live and breathe soccer, but that doesn’t mean that he’s blind to the truths of the world.
He’s always known that Rin is a beautiful human being. In all honesty, Rin is the rare sort of specimen who manages to look beautiful in his eyes without having to account for soccer skills and his own tendency to find pleasure in destroying others. Rin is beautiful when he’s just a drooling infant who latched onto him like a koala; Rin is beautiful when he’s terrorizing the field like a greedy monster spreading horror in his wake.
Even so, this sight might be the most beautiful of them all.
Haloed by moonlight, kneeling on the ground and looking up at him with teary eyes and bloodstained hands.
“Nii-chan,” Rin calls out to him, voice shaking as hard as his body. “Help me.”
This would be quite the scandal if unrelated people pry into this. REAL’s top striker murdering someone would cause quite the fanfare. Investigations would disrupt the club, and would certainly cause Rin to be hauled into cold interrogation rooms, and sequestered into confining prison cells. Post-match interviews are already dull enough; they’d become even more of an eyesore if they keep on interviewing him to get soundbites about his reaction to his brother murdering someone. Rin still hasn’t managed to win the Ballon d’Or—this year is his big chance, something that would become less feasible if he’s too busy being involved in a courtroom mess instead of playing by Sae’s side, where he belongs.
For a brief wild moment, Sae wonders if he should also murder someone, so he could accompany his little brother.
But logic overrides that thought swiftly.
Sae clenches his fist in order to rein in his overflowing emotions. He kneels by Rin’s side, and rubs his little brother’s face, as if to ward the cold away. “Don’t sweat it, Rin,” he says in a low voice. “I’ll help you take care of it.”
It’s what he’s always done, after all.
Since his youth, he has taken on the responsibility of gathering all the scolding from their parents, claiming that he’s the one behind the destruction of all of Rin’s toys. He has taken care of those scum who have dared to talk badly about his ‘drooling weirdo’ of a brother. He has taken care to steer Rin towards the path where he could unleash all of his potential as a striker, instead of copying the path that is unsuited to him. He has supported his brother’s talent in the arts, even when others speak of how terrifying the aura of his paintings and drawings are. He has prepared Rin’s residence in Madrid, long before his actual transfer, because he has always known that Rin will end up following him here.
And today too, he’s going to help him deal with this nuisance.
Rin hiccups, his nose growing redder, eyes becoming shinier. His hands tremble, like he’s torn between wanting to clutch Sae’s clothes, and stopping himself from doing so in order to respect Sae’s infamous hatred towards any messes.
His little brother is truly too silly. How does he manage to be twenty-seven and still not know that while Sae would avoid using hairgel because of its texture, he would not mind wiping his drool at all?
But Sae supposes that that’s part of Rin being Rin. It’s good that he’s focusing on nothing but soccer and his determination to chase Sae down the battlefield. He doesn’t need to clutter his mind with unnecessary things.
So Sae reaches out with his other hand, and grasps Rin’s bloodstained wrists together. To others, it might probably look like he’s trying to handcuff his brother. But it’s simply an insurance and assurance that they would stay together side-by-side.
Because of how close they are, Sae could feel Rin’s full-body tremor upon his touch.
Another hiccup.
Then, in a very familiar teary voice that’s seemingly teleported straight from their childhood, Rin says, “I’m sorry, nii-chan. But he was saying bad things about you, so I—”
—!
Something inside Sae’s head snaps. Probably the string of rationality binding him together.
“You’re amazing, Rin,” he finds himself breathing out in the miniscule space separating their faces, until he’s erasing it entirely. “Don’t worry about it. No matter what happens, you will stay with me.”
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before;
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Rin has accumulated a lot of luck, or so would others say. He would always end up winning ‘one more’ from popsicle sticks, would always get small prizes in lotteries, would always end up claiming something from scratch cards if he doesn’t end up ruining the card entirely.
Of course, his greatest luck is to be brothers with someone like Itoshi Sae.
But too much good luck isn’t good, so a period of time has gone by when he had no luck whatsoever. But that doesn’t matter anymore. He has already managed to chase down his brother in REAL. The next step would be to become the world’s best striker.
…But he has grown greedier over the years.
Being able to receive his nii-chan’s passes once again, being able to live in the same neighborhood as his nii-chan, being recognized as a pair of monstrous brothers on the battlefield once again—
He wants more. He needs more.
He could survive on paltry things, but that’s not the same as thriving.
And what better way to check if his nii-chan still means his words from their childhood, than to check his actions? Would nii-chan still be by his side, even if he does something that would make him shunned by others? Even if he does something that would make it difficult for him to stay in the same battlefield?
Rin isn’t the sort to calculate things.
He has simply wanted to see what his nii-chan would do, and so he has done it.
Killed an eyesore who keeps on harping about how much of a terrible person his nii-chan is. As if that isn’t bad enough, this eyesore even insists that Rin would fare so much better if he’s not playing with his brother.
Even if Rin doesn’t want to test his brother’s words, he would have stopped him from talking entirely just from those nauseating words alone.
But thankfully, his nii-chan still means it.
His nii-chan still sacrificed his precious sleeping routine, and still made his way to find him and help him bury the corpse.
Thankfully, his lifetime of luck still holds true now, because nii-chan not only helped him bury the body, but also held his hands and kissed him under the moonlight.
“You’re amazing, Rin. Don’t worry about it. No matter what happens, you will stay with me.”
…Ah, as always.
His nii-chan is the best in the whole world.
It doesn’t matter if his hands are stained with blood that would surely disgust his brother. Rin finds himself beaming in agreement, and his cheerful “Un!” resonates in the desolate woods.
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before;
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Making precise calculations and implementing those on the soccer field is his way of life, to the point that it bleeds on his other endeavors. Visualizing stats and behaviors into numbers is one of his favorite hobbies, and when it comes to Rin, he calculates things beyond the soccer field.
In the private journal inside his mind, he quantifies the pitch and tone of Rin’s voice throughout the years. He notes that Rin’s voice has grown to be 17% warmer towards those who are not family. He notes that Rin has addressed other people by their name 25% more, compared to his preteen years. He notes that Rin is 94% less inclined to call him “nii-chan” nowadays, at least compared to their childhood where it’s said so often that it has buzzed itself directly into his eardrums.
The last time he has heard “daisuki” from Rin is from the day of his first flight to Spain. The last time that Rin has tugged at his sleeve in order to ask him to drop by the convenience store to buy twin popsicles is the day before that flight.
Meanwhile, the first time that Sae has ever experienced nocturnal emissions has been back when he has first realized that his calculations for the trajectory of Rin’s growth means that Rin is going to be that elusive ‘best striker in the world’ that Sae has longed for. The first time that Sae has realized that destruction could be so beautiful and pleasurable has been when he has thought about Rin and his destructive tendencies.
Based on Sae’s calculations, he shouldn’t allow Rin’s teenage moodiness to extend well into his adulthood. Soon, Rin would reach the pinnacle of his career, and it wouldn’t do to have him picking fights with Sae instead of sweetly celebrating with him when they finally reach the top of the world together.
Sae is a person who knows his strengths and weaknesses well.
When it comes to unfamiliar territory, he knows that it’s best to do research. He has gone through all of Rin’s social network—basically: a handful of soccer players who play at the world stage—and has reached the conclusion that Rin has never stopped proclaiming their rivalry.
And then Rin’s new manager—who also happens to be an old acquaintance, since he was the grandson of the owner of their local convenience store—reminds him, “Didn’t Rin-kun get into a fight before, because he was angry that someone was talking badly about you?”
Sae doesn’t care for idiots who don’t have any bearing on his soccer career. But he vaguely remembers beating up scum who used to bully Rin… did those bastards start bullying his little brother because Rin stood up for him?
Sae feels his chest squeeze tight.
Maybe he should get someone who would loudly berate him while within Rin’s earshot, and then he would see if there is still a 100% chance that Rin would fight on his behalf, just like before?
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At twenty-nine, Sae kisses Rin, after realizing that he has done something beyond his expectations and calculations once again.
At twenty-nine, Itoshi Sae stands at the top of the world.
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end
+ feel free to think of this as an unhinged AU… OR a very unhinged distant future of all my other fics under the “brocon sae agenda 2025” tag :)