Chapter Text
For a moment, time stops.
It’s silent. Silence is supposed to be still. Silence is supposed to be quiet.
This silence opens its mouth and screams.
It takes Reo another breath for the sound to come flooding back—the shouts and cheers and laughter of the team on the other side of the field. It is loud and ugly, a cacophony of shrieks that Reo cannot bear to hear.
But that is not important.
For the first time—
Reo stumbles to his feet.
—I’m scared of losing you.
“Nagi,” Reo blurts out. “I’m here.”
Nagi doesn’t lift his head. He’s staring at the grass. His gaze is frighteningly blank, and his eyes, devoid of light. He stares, and stares, and stares—
Reo is terrified.
“Nagi.” When Nagi doesn’t move, Reo presses his palms against Nagi’s cheeks and forces his head up. His hands are probably disgustingly sweaty, but he can’t bring himself to care. “Nagi.”
“Reo,” Nagi rasps out, but no, no, no, Nagi isn’t supposed to sound like that—tired and broken and defeated, and his eyes—
Reo relaxes his grip until it’s a caress rather than a squeeze. He brushes his thumbs against the skin of Nagi’s cheeks. It’s warm to the touch, one of the only indications that Nagi is still alive. Reo brings a hand down to the side of his neck, breathing in tandem to the heartbeat he feels pulse against his fingers.
Nagi is here, but he is not. Reo can recognize that hollowness in his eyes—he’s seen it before in the mirror.
“Nagi,” Reo says helplessly again, because what else can he say? “I—” His voice falters.
He cannot falter. He has to be strong here. Because Reo can tell, even with Nagi’s practiced blankness, even with his terrible stillness, that Nagi will crumble if Reo hesitates here.
“It’s fine.” His hands quiver a bit against Nagi’s skin. He wills the tremors down and forces Nagi to meet his eyes. “Nagi, listen. It’s going to be alright. You got enough goals in the previous matches—you’re enough. This will be enough.”
Confidence has never been hard for Reo to fake, but when it comes to Nagi, Reo struggles. Nagi is the exception—has always been the exception—for all of Reo’s careful preparation. Normally, it is a thing of excitement, intrigue, fascination, but now—
“Nagi,” Reo says, and desperation begins to seep into his voice just as it begins to seep into his blood, “are you listening?”
Nagi blinks. It’s the only movement he’s made since the end of the match.
“Reo,” Nagi says again. His voice is quiet, small. “I had fun.”
A chill instantly settles against Reo’s skin.
Had?
“Nagi—”
“Playing with you,” Nagi interrupts, “being with you—it wasn’t a pain.”
Reo swallows down the growing lump in his throat. “I know,” he murmurs. “Nagi, I know, but this isn’t the end—”
“I had fun.”
Reo’s words wither on his tongue.
“It was fun. Playing soccer with you and—and being with you.”
Reo brings Nagi’s face closer to rest his forehead against Nagi’s. “Nagi,” he chokes out. “Don’t say these things—don’t talk like this, we’re not done.” He pulls away and brings his hands to Nagi’s shoulders. “We…” He gets out a shaky laugh and tries to flash a weak grin. “We made a promise, didn’t we?”
Nagi, for the first time, looks away. Reo’s heart falls, as does his pathetic attempt at a smile.
He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know what to do, and he is helpless. He has always known of this being a possibility, but it seemed so far outside the scope of reality that he hadn’t bothered truly considering its consequences. If anything, he had only truly contemplated the exact inverse—Reo getting locked off and Nagi moving on.
If it happened to Reo, what would Nagi do?
Nagi would stay, of course. He’d already proven to Reo that his interest in soccer went beyond their personal bond in the second selection, so Reo’s absence, if anything, would only be a motivating factor—
—is Reo’s immediate thought, but as he runs through their final match in his head, searching and searching and searching for what they could have done differently, what they could have saved, he realizes—
—I’m scared.
Nagi doesn’t like playing soccer. He likes playing soccer with Reo.
If Reo was locked off, Nagi would leave, too.
The realization makes Reo’s breath catch. Something wretched is tearing at his lungs, something that twists every breath Reo tries to take.
If Reo was locked off, Nagi would leave, too.
If Nagi was locked off, Reo would—
“No,” Reo says out loud. He shakes his head and forces himself to his feet before offering a hand to Nagi. Nagi stares at it with that blank, empty gaze of his, but eventually takes it. Reo pulls him up to standing, but doesn’t let go of his hand. “Nagi, you made it. Of course you’ve made it. How would you not?” He nudges Nagi’s shoulder. “You’re Seishiro Nagi. You’re…” Reo trails off. His gaze dips. My treasure, he almost says, before he remembers that’s not a title he can dole out any longer. “You’re a treasure, Nagi. The world isn’t going to forget you this easily.”
Nagi is silent. Reo wishes he would say something, anything—
“You are this team,” Reo tries, and there comes back that stink of desperation—in any other case, Reo would be embarrassed about his almost pleading tone, but here, now, all he needs is for Nagi to speak. “Nagi, you are this team. Manshine City doesn’t exist without you—how can you think anything otherwise?”
There’s something terribly ironic about Reo speaking these words—as if he had not pushed and forced and carved his own path into the team, securing his spot only by stealing Nagi’s. The team’s second goal was not his to take, no matter what Nagi had reassured him with afterwards, and yet it is Nagi who is now facing the consequences.
A breath passes. Reo disguises his building sob—an amalgamation of guilt and wretchedness and fear—with a shaky exhale.
“Nagi,” he murmurs with a squeeze to Nagi’s hand. “Please—talk to me—say something—”
Nagi looks up, and Reo’s words cut short. Because in his eyes is not desperation, is not fear, is not weariness—
—it is defeat.
Reo closes his eyes.
“Nagi, please.”
“A-ah, Chigirin~! You got sixth!”
Bachira’s voice breaks Reo out of his stupor. It takes another moment to register the meaning of the words energetically yelled across the field, and in that moment, Reo’s eyes find the monitor.
7 - Reo - ¥78,000,000
There is a strange sort of dread that builds on Reo’s chest at the number. His grip on Nagi’s hand goes slack.
8, 9, 10, so what if Nagi didn’t make the top ten? The top 23 would play on the U-20 team—
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, there was still space, there was still time—
16, 17, 18, 19, 20, who the fuck was Fukaku—
21 - Raichi - ¥27,000,000
This time, it is Nagi that squeezes Reo’s hand.
22 - Kiyora - ¥26,000,000
“Sorry.”
23 - Nanase - ¥25,000,000
“I’m sorry, Reo.”
24 - Nagi - ¥24,000,000
Reo’s ears are ringing. The world spins. It is too loud, too bright, too much—
If Nagi was locked off, Reo would—