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Atsuya was going to school alone. Not for the first time, because his older brother stayed home sick sometimes or went on school field trips and things like that. He was also a year older than Atsuya, so you know, they'd gone to separate schools on at least one occasion in the past.
(Only on one occasion. As much as Atsuya liked to pretend otherwise, spending time apart from Shirou just felt… wrong. He would never voluntarily choose to go to a different school.)
Also not for the first time, Atsuya was thinking about what that meant.
About where he would eat during lunch period, about if anyone would care when he got too reckless while showing off now that his brother wasn't there to stop him.
About the soccer team, with its half-empty roster. Now that the third years were gone, or, well, had just moved into high school, the team would have to find some fresh faces from the fresh meat new students to fill in the gaps. Did that mean Atsuya would have to talk to people? Put up posters and set up a recruitment booth and all of that other boring stuff Shirou normally took the lead on? Gross.
Despite how dreadful that sounded, Atsuya's mind circled back to another thought. An emotion that he hadn't expected to feel as intensely as he did currently, but now that the day had finally arrived–
“Nae, what are you doing?!”
“What?” The pink-haired girl lowered her equally pink stuffed animal. A bunny plushie. Of course. “You looked like you needed a distraction.”
“From you,” Atsuya shot back. His quips weren't barbed like they'd used to be, but he kept up the pretense of being angry and annoyed as a sort of tradition.
He was pretty sure the last time Nae had taken any of his complaints seriously was, oh, approximately never. Since he couldn't get rid of her or even annoy her back, Atsuya had been left with only two options. The first was learning to like Nae – not in that way, shut up Shirou – and the second was letting her annoy him for the rest of his life.
He'd chosen the first option. Over the course of the past year, had slowly learned to see Nae as a friend. Just as a friend. Seriously.
(Somehow, even in high school, Shirou was still finding ways to tease Atsuya and get into his head.)
“You should bring Snuffles tomorrow,” Nae said, and Atsuya's face turned red at the mention of his stuffed teddy bear in public. “Snuffles and Miss Floppy Ears would be friends.”
He was the Bear Killer. He did not have teddy bears.
…Yet for some reason, he still couldn't bring himself to kill the stuffed animal that had sat at the corner of his bed for his entire life. Oh, shut up. Even hard-core delinquents like Atsuya could have soft spots. Wasn't that supposed to make him, like, cooler or more attractive or relatable or something?
“And why would they do that?” Atsuya grumbled, sinking into his seat a little further.
Maybe nobody would recognize him if he did, but reminding Nae not to mention his teddy bear at school was pointless. She thought it was cute that he had one, got too excited, and consequently forgot to not say anything.
“Because we're friends, which means–” Nae's eyes widened as she realized her mistake. “Oops. I-I mean…”
At least she tried.
“What teddy bear?” She very obviously forced a laugh. “Atsuya, with a teddy bear? Ha! That's absurd! Haha!”
This would, unbeknownst to Atsuya at the time, set the tone for the rest of his day.
X
The first day of the school year involving anything more interesting than going over repetitive syllabi each class? That's absurd!
The cafeteria, serving anything other than what must have been last year's leftovers thawed from the freezer? That's absurd!
The soccer club actually listening to what Atsuya had to say, despite being their captain now? Haha, that's absurd!
X
“It doesn't make any sense!” Atsuya grumbled, growled, and complained at home. “Why wouldn't I be the captain? I should be the captain!”
Shirou didn’t seem as frustrated as Atsuya expected him to be, calmly toweling dry another dish after Atsuya washed it. However, Atsuya didn't notice either, considering he was too busy taking his frustration out on leftover specks of rice and curry sauce to notice his brother's lukewarm response.
“What seems to be the problem?” Shirou asked.
“I'm a better player than all of them combined, but I'm not the captain so they're not doing what I tell them to do!” Atsuya snapped. “And it's only the first day!”
“Ah. I understand now.”
“Well, what should I do about it?”
Sighing loudly, Shirou picked up another plate. “When I passed the captain's armband onto Oshiya, I said it was going to be a lot of responsibility. Right?”
“...”
“If you want people to treat you with the respect of a captain–”
“I need to convince Oshiya to step down from the team?”
“No, what I'm saying is that you have to act like a leader. You can't just play like you normally–”
“I should recruit new club members!” Atsuya decided. Soapy water splashed Shirou's cheek and arm as Atsuya attacked the remaining dishes with a fresh burst of energy.
“You just want some first years to boss around,” Shirou pointed out dryly, “Don't you?”
“No, but they'd probably listen to me better!”
X
Unlike Nae, who didn't listen at all.
“I told you, stop using so much glitter!” Atsuya said. He was looking over Nae's shoulder as she worked, providing helpful criticism as it was needed. “This is a sign for the soccer club, not arts and crafts.”
“We use glowy special techniques and stuff all of the time,” Nae retaliated. For some reason, she sounded less cheerful than usual. Even the ears of that bunny plushie – Miss Floppy Ears – that she'd gotten over summer break seemed to be drooping more than usual. “It makes sense to use glitter!”
“We use cool special techniques. Purple and pink glitter is not cool.”
Nae didn't respond. Some of their other teammates shot unhappy looks in their direction, and Atsuya felt a warmth spreading inside his chest. They agreed with him, he thought. Shirou wasn’t in charge anymore, but everyone could see how serious he was about leading Hakuren’s soccer club, even if Oshiya was the actual captain.
Several minutes finally passed before Nae grumbled, “Fine.”
She made a new sign with a noticeable absence of glitter on it. It was plain, lacking Nae’s usual creative energy, but at least it wouldn’t make the team look bad by association.
X
For the next few months, there would be at least one new incident every week:
A new recruit would quit, because being in the soccer club wasn’t “fun”.
There would be someone not taking practice seriously enough.
Complaining about the training regime.
Not paying attention during strategy meetings.
Talking for ten minutes at the start of practice instead of running laps around the courtyard.
Soccer was serious, and Atsuya was serious about soccer. That meant Hakuren’s team had no need for casual players. Even though he wasn’t officially the captain – and he really should have been – Atsuya had no problem yelling at his teammates to run extra laps, put down their cellphones, stop eating snacks during practice.
Because Oshiya wouldn’t.
Sure, it wasn’t making Atsuya more popular. Not by any stretch of the imagination. But the fact that his teammates were starting to avoid him in the hallways didn’t upset him that much, because he was sure they’d get over it once they realized he was doing all of this to help Hakuren win. Atsuya told himself that it didn’t bother him. At all. Not even when Nae began to avoid returning his gaze, looking guiltily at her feet as though she knew something that he didn’t.
But it didn’t bother Atsuya. Really, it didn’t.
Until Oshiya pulled him aside one day, and finally said, “Atsuya, that’s enough. We have to let you go.”
X
“I understand you want what’s best for the team,” Oshiya had said, wiping his dripping nose with the back of his hand as he spoke, “but if this keeps up, there won’t even be a team.”
X
Atsuya didn’t go straight home after practice that day. Well, after he’d shown up for practice and been kicked off the team. Going home early would have meant explaining why he was home early, and that wasn’t something he was ready to do.
Would he ever be?
If his older brother were here –
No, Shirou wasn’t here. Atsuya was alone now, and it felt just as wrong as it had on the first day of school. Except now he was
alone
alone, and it was supposedly all his fault. But that wasn’t fair! He’d only wanted what was best for the team!
“...Atsuya?” a small voice pierced his thoughts. Immediately, Atsuya rolled over on the snowy bench he was laying on, so that his face was hidden by the wooden backrest. He didn’t want Nae to see that he was… not handling his emotions very well…
Her footsteps crunched softly on the snow as she approached, a mixture of concern and uncertainty evident in her tone as she tentatively called out his name again. Atsuya remained silent, grappling with the weight of his recent dismissal from the soccer team. Knowing he’d been expelled left a bitter taste in his mouth, a stark contrast to the fierce determination that had fueled his actions until now.
“You shouldn’t ignore your friends,” Shirou’s said. His brother’s gentle voice jolted Atsuya back into the present, and he almost abandoned his position on the bench in surprise. “Nae is worried about you.”
“Shouldn’t you be at practice?!”
He’d thought he’d only heard Nae’s footsteps in the snow. But that would be just like his older brother, wouldn’t it? Always one upping Atsuya in some way or another.
Although Atsuya couldn’t see his brother’s shrug, he knew it was there. Because he knew Shirou, and suddenly, he was remembering that Shirou knew him too. Had even warned him that this would happen. All those times he’d complained to Shirou after practice, and Shirou had quietly listened before suggesting that Atsuya “not be so hard on the others”.
Atsuya hadn’t listened, because he’d been convinced that he knew better. That wasn’t the case. He never knew better than Shirou. Not now, or at any other point in his life.
“I talked to Oshiya,” Shirou said. “He’s willing to give you another chance on the team, if – and you really have to promise me you’ll do this – if you try to behave a little more like we did when we were playing together.”
“A little less like that, actually,” Nae piped up. “You just did whatever you wanted as long as Big Brother Shirou was around to cover for you.”
“Um,” Atsuya scowled for emphasis, “look who’s talking? For a while, our team’s entire strategy was ‘let Nae run around and do whatever she wants’.”
Nae puffed out her cheeks in response. “I don’t do that now! ”
“Stop arguing you two,” Shirou interrupted. He paused for a moment, then corrected himself, “Actually, I’m unsure that you two don’t enjoy it. But at least stay serious long enough to talk about what needs to change, okay?”
Neither Nae nor Atsuya were happy to hear that, but they also couldn’t refute his claims. They fell into silence, and listened.
“First of all,” Shirou looked straight at Atsuya, an accusatory gaze pinning him in place, “Atsuya, you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself. You let your emotions rule you, all of the time, but… caring for the team wasn’t wrong. Nae, Oshiya, and the others all knew that you meant well. That’s why you’re being given another chance.”
Nae looked at her feet. Again. This time Atsuya noticed.
“Another chance?” Atsuya asked.
“Um, well…”
Shirou responded, eliminating the need for Nae to answer. “Oshiya gave you multiple chances.”
“The team has been kinda…” Nae shifted nervously. “Um.”
“How long did you know this was going to happen?!” Atsuya finally jumped off the bench, frustration and anger compelling him to his feet.
Wait. Letting his emotions rule him, as Shirou had said, was what had gotten him into this situation in the first place. He brushed the snow off his jeans, in an attempt to calm himself down, and luckily both his brother and his friend were patient enough to wait.
However, he couldn’t just ignore the upset frown on Nae’s face. The sharp, disproving squint his brother aimed in his direction.
“I-I mean… I’m sorry. Nae. Shirou. I know that this is my fault, not yours.”
If Atsuya were hearing this apology come from anyone other than himself, he would have laughed. Would have sneered, and made fun of how trashy and insincere it sounded. After all this trouble that he’d caused, all he could say was “I’m sorry”?
The words wouldn’t come easily, but that was the proof he needed that Shirou was right. Atsuya did need to do better.
“Sorry for yelling at you. And I kinda hate apologizing, so – in the future. I’m just gonna have to make it so I have less to apologize over… Think you can tell me how?”
A look of shared relief passed over Nae’s and Shirou’s faces.
X
Not long afterwards, Atsuya realized that he wasn’t really alone. His brother had graduated from middle school, sure, but Shirou still supported him from wherever he was. Atsuya still had teammates. Friends. And whatever the heck Nae and Miss Floppy Ears were turning out to be – extra clingy, really glittery friends, perhaps?
(Atsuya would still refuse to admit that he more than tolerated Nae’s presence.)
Whatever. The responsibility for Hakuren’s success had never meant to be laid across only one person’s shoulders, and he knew that now.