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A warm night in the middle of July. Warm and yet it was lashing outside Sae's window.
He'd normally be asleep by now. It was half past 12 in the morning. He wanted to get up and get some training in since it was still summer.
Sae normally enjoyed the rain. But only when it was not the type that made your skin feel like it was bleeding after being in it for a minute.
The sound of this rain was bothering a very tired magenta haired boy.
He really wanted to try and sleep since his current talking stage - Ryusei Shidou - had been keeping him up late on the phone.
Not that Sae minded. If anything he wanted more time to talk on the phone. But again he knew how Shidou could get sometimes. He'd just start mumbling "mhm"s and "uh huh"s. It felt demeaning. Like he didn't give a fuck as to what Sae was even saying.
It'd been like a week since Sae found out Shidou's true opinion on Sae and Aiku's relationship. If you could call it that? It was Aiku stringing Sae along. But finding out that Shidou had referred to both himself and Aiku as Sae's "boytoys".
That one stung.
It's not like Sae enjoyed playing with people's feelings...
Okay he might've done it once or twice but only to people who did it to him first.
He didn't want to hurt Shidou. But he was scared. Scared of himself. His feelings. What if he wasn't even a boy and was just a confused little girl. He shouldn't like other boys if he was a boy. It was wrong only applied to him.
He hated it. Fuck he was on a sports trip and was acting like a trip to all of his teammates just because he phoned Shidou and the pink haired fucker didn't even say "love you" after. Isagi was on the trip as well. He didn't say much but saw Sae tearing up a little.
"Yo Sae. Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fucking fine okay?!"
Sae snapped a few times at him. And at everybody else. They were all so loud and obnoxious. He doubted any of them could go pro.
He wouldn't admit it but he was getting overstimulated from it all. He couldn't even get any sleep that night because everyone stayed up till 2:30am talking. Just talking on and on and giggling. It pissed him off so badly. The lights weren't even turned off till 2am.
For the next couple days Shidou didn't even talk to Sae. Only sent one message to keep their streak. But apart from that basically ignored Sae's existence.
Sae tried to message him after practice one day but all he got was an "Oh" in response.
He was upset but he was determined not to show it. He still had extreme practice going on. He could tough it up.
Now here he was. On a Thursday night asking Shidou and Charles to go into town on Saturday.
Charles immediately said yes. He didn't care. He just wanted to go out. Then he spammed Shidou asking if he'd go too.
“Idk. If I feel like it.” – was Shidou's response.
Stupid ass response. Last time Sae went out Shidou was annoyed that Sae hadn't asked him. And now he wasn't even sure he'd go?
Bullshit.
Was Sae being replaced. No. Shidou wouldn't do that.
Did he think Sae was toying with him? He was praying that the idiot wasn't thinking that.
Sae only played people to get where we wanted to go. But. Shidou wasn't part of that. Shidou was different.
Sae didn't even feel the need to play him.
He just wanted things to go back to normal.
This would just be another night of Sae praying to God that he could just be normal and not like other boys. He hated all of it. Or maybe he was just a confused girl. He hated the feeling of all of it. He wasn't a girl. He never was. But he stopped correcting people a long time ago. Too much of a hassle when he had to focus on football.
Why was he even complaining about any of this. This is not what a future world cup champion would be thinking about. He should be out training till he collapses.
Sae pushed himself every time he trained. He'd hit himself if he didn't score properly. Or he'd sit on the bench and just pick at his skin or pull his hair. Trying to focus. If he was trying to be as good as Álvaro Recoba and better than him, he had to focus. Not waste time on love.
He didn't need love. He needed soccer. If he was gonna be a professional soccer player then he couldn't be gay. He'd seen what'd happened to soccer players who came out. That wasn't gonna happen to him because he couldn't be gay.
Right.
Fuck he needed sleep. He missed Shidou and he wanted to just sleep. Wanting to wake up to a message from him.