Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Sae

The pitch sparkled like glass under the floodlights, every blade of grass slick from the rain that hadn’t let off since dusk. The drops were fine now, but enough to bead on jerseys, to darken the white lines into silver streaks. The ball moved through it like light itself — one clean line to the next.

Sae read the rhythm before it happened. The game slowed for him, the way it always did when he was working inside its pulse. He saw the angle before the ball left the boot, felt the press before it came. One look and he knew how the rest would unfold.

Left side overcommitting. Midfield staggered. The defender opposite him heavy on the outside foot.

Predictable.

He took the pass with speed, cleats biting into wet turf. The rain hissed against his skin, the droplets collecting on his lashes. Another touch. The ball spun under his sole like it trusted him more than air.

He cut forward. Water sprayed out behind every stride, scattering under the lights like ocean spray. A feint — enough to draw the press an inch too far.

That inch was all he needed.

He broke through midfield, passing lanes blooming open as if the pitch itself understood what he wanted. Each breath was timed, each stride clean. He lived here — in the split-second decisions he could manipulate, dictate.

This was control.

A long pass arced ahead of him — perfect height, spinning back into gravity. He went for it without thinking.

Air caught under him, cold and thin. For a heartbeat, he was above everything. Weightless, soundless, a body that could write the problem and solve it in the same breath.

Then — pain.

Something slammed into the side of his head — hard, bone to bone. A hollow crack.

White detonated behind his eyes and the world went out.

Time didn’t pass, it slipped. He couldn’t tell if the dark was a second or a season.

Sound returned in fragments.

Voices first — muddled beneath the ringing in his ears. A faint roar under them, distant and low. The squelch of cleats on wet turf. Footsteps closing in.

“—move him yet!”

A hand found his shoulder. Then a steadier voice, calm and close. “Stay still, Itoshi. Don’t move.”

He blinked. Light multiplied, six knives where one floodlight should be. The pitch was sideways. No—he was.

His head was heavy. Packed sand where brain should go.

He tried to ask what happened. His jaw lagged like a delayed pass, stolen before arrival.

“Easy,” another voice — different accent. “You took a hit to the head. You’re on the pitch. We’re with you.”

A third, Spanish, quick to someone else: “Loss of consciousness — eighty, ninety seconds. Left ankle, bad angle.”

Left ankle? He hadn’t…

Then the pain arrived, delayed, climbing from bone to nerve to breath. It found the joint and flared, hot and deep, then climbed his calf, lit the side of his ribs, lived behind his eyes.

He gasped — the world folded at the edges.

A hand pressed flat over his sternum, not hard, just a weight with a voice attached. “Breathe for me. Slow in, slow out.”

He tried. Failed. Tried again.

Air tasted like rubber, wet nylon, ozone. Something cool slid beneath his jaw. Plastic hugged the sides of his neck. Velcro tore the rain.

“Cervical collar,” said the calm voice. “Don’t fight it.”

He wouldn’t. Couldn’t.

The stretcher wheels hissed through puddles. Someone’s gloved hand brushed his temple to align the collar. The touch was impersonal, practiced — gentle only by habit — but he flinched anyway.

“You’re doing well,” the calm one again. “Eyes on me. Can you tell me your name?”

His mouth answered a beat late, tongue thick. “Ito—shi… Sae.”

“Good.” The voice angled closer. “Do you know where you are?”

He knew the shape of the answer: stadium, Madrid, matchday. The word itself skittered. “Estadio… Madrid.”

“That’s fine. Do you know what you were doing?”

“Playing,” he said, and it sounded like someone else had.

“Good man. Stay with me, Itoshi.”

They slid the board under him. Lift, count, transfer. His stomach rolled with the motion; he swallowed against the bile. Rain stung the thin skin at his ear.

“Don’t sleep,” the calm voice said, a hand appearing in his field of view so his eyes would follow. “Keep your eyes open for me, alright?”

He nodded — or thought he did. The world dimmed then snapped back, like someone adjusting the brightness too fast.

“Left ankle splint,” someone called. Tape rasped, foam bit into wet sock, then heat found the new pressure and made its objection clear.

“Pain scale?” the calm voice asked. “Zero is nothing, ten is worst pain you’ve had.”

He drifted a moment. Numbers behaved. Pain didn’t.

“S-seven,” he said because admitting the truth would’ve felt worse.

“Okay. No opioids yet,” the calm voice said to someone else. “Keep his exam clean.”

They began to move, stretcher wheels bumping at the tunnel lip. The stadium roared behind and then was gone — sound replaced by stale air and concrete echo.

“Stay awake,” the voice said again, softer now. “Sae? Eyes open, that’s it.”

A fluorescent fixture doubled, then doubled again. His body felt shelved slightly to the left, like a picture hung wrong. The light bars along the ceiling multiplied, then staggered out of sync. A penlight entered and retreated. “Follow.”

He did, but the dot left a comet tail across the dark. A hand entered his view. Two fingers up.

“How many?” calm voice.

He blinked the clones away. “Two.”

“Good. What team do you play for?”

“Royale… Madrid.”

“And your age?”

A beat. That should be easy. His mouth found the edges. “N-nineteen.”

“Good. What month is it?”

He saw the calendar grid in his head and then all the boxes slid. He chased one. “Sept—” The rest fell apart.

“That’s okay,” the voice said, not losing rhythm. “Don’t force it.”

They turned. Cold outdoor air slapped the tunnel smell out of existence. Rain found his face again. Siren lights fractured across the wet asphalt, blue-white, blue-white.

“Three, two, one — lift.”

He let out a sound he wouldn’t name as the ambulance swallowed him, warm plastic and sweet antiseptic. Rails locked. The ceiling moved too fast. His stomach moved with it.

“Breathe, slow.”

A pulse oximeter snapped onto his finger. A cuff took his arm. The numbers climbed. Numbers always behaved. He tried to focus on those.

A paramedic leaned into his left visual field with gentle eyes and a clipped bun under her cap. “I’m going to put an IV in, okay?”

He didn’t want a needle. He didn’t want anything that required choosing. He nodded anyway.

His wet sleeve bunched up. The stick found the vein. Tape warmed under rain skin. The cuff sighed at his arm again.

“Zofran four milligrams,” the calm voice said. “Slow push.”

The edge came off the wave in his stomach. The one in his skull didn’t. His ankle screamed its own woes.

“Okay, Sae,” the calm voice shifted back to him. “We’re going to ask a few more things. Do you know what day of the week it is?”

He found the match schedule before he found the word. Saturday routine, midweek light, Sunday travel. Late September, night game, Spain. “Sábado,” he said. Then, because he’d been asked in English, “Saturday.”

“Correct.” A small, quiet praise, like passing a drill. “Do you remember the play?”

There was rain. A ball in the air. Weightlessness.

“Header,” he said. The rest blurred.

“Any neck pain?”

He waited for the neck to answer. Collar kept it contained. “…No.”

“Good. Stay with me.”

The ambulance moved. Each vibration sent pain from ankle to skull in slow rising waves that didn’t quite crest and never receded. He counted breaths to bracket the waves. In four, out six. Numbers he’d taught his lungs to respect. They didn’t.

He drifted.

Came back to the calm voice again. “—Sae? Eyes on me. How old are you?”

“Nineteen.” Easier this time.

“Where are you right now?”

Ambulance. Madrid. Hospital soon. He picked a word that felt true enough. “Ambulance.”

“Which country do you live in?”

“Spain.”

“Perfect.”

“Field team says LOC about eighty to ninety seconds,” the athletic trainer said from somewhere by his knees. “No posturing. No seizure activity.”

“Copy,” the calm voice answered. “Photophobia, nausea. Keep lights down.”

The siren cut. Urban noise replaced it — tires on wet, a diesel idle, voices blurred by rain. The back doors opened. Cold hit him again. The stretcher shifted, and they rolled. A sign flashed in his peripheral then was gone: URGENCIAS. He couldn’t catch the rest.

The air changed again, too bright, too clean. He realized, dimly, that he was still drenched. His jersey clung to his ribs, socks heavy with rain, shin guards slick against skin. Bits of turf stuck to his arms, the side of his neck, something gritty under his jaw.

“Wet kit,” a nurse said as they wheeled him past triage. “Hypothermic risk.”

The word hypothermic landed somewhere behind meaning.

Hands moved around him, competent, impersonal.

“Trauma Two,” someone called.

The gurney turned. The doors hissed open, then shut on the world he recognized.

Warm air met him head-on, mixed with the hum of fluorescent light and the smell of antiseptic. Someone placed a towel under his head to catch runoff. Another pulled a thermal blanket from the warmer.

“Let’s get you dry, okay?” a nurse said near his ear. The tone wasn’t a question.

He wanted to nod. Dry sounded better than wet.

The calm voice — his constant since the field — was still there, closer now. “We’ll keep your neck stable. Don’t move. Cutting jersey.”

Scissors whispered through soaked fabric. A quiet rasp. A small surrender. The neckline parted, then the sleeves. Cold air touched the skin beneath before the blanket replaced it, thick and heated, tucking in around his shoulders. The shock of warmth made his stomach turn, but it was better than the rain.

“Left ankle immobilized with splint, no manipulation,” the calm voice said.

He felt the pressure change around his leg, not pain exactly, just the knowledge of it waiting.

"Warm saline ready.”

He drifted as the warmth came in layers — fabric, then air, then the slow slide of IV fluid through the vein they’d found in the ambulance. The world steadied enough for him to notice he was trembling. Whether from cold or pain, he couldn’t tell.

Someone checked his pupils again, light cutting across both eyes. “Equal, sluggish. No worsening.”

“Okay,” the calm voice replied. “We’re going to ask again. Name?”

“Itoshi… Sae.” The answer was slower, like his mouth had to look for it.

“Good. Where are you?”

“Byōin.”

A pause. “Hospital in Japanese,” someone supplied softly.

“Right. What day of the week?”

He heard the siren in his memory, used it as a marker. “Saturday.”

“Great. You’re doing fine.”

The phrase doing fine didn’t mean what it used to.

He could hear the steady rhythm of instruments being set up: metal on tray, click of syringes, the whisper of gloves. A monitor stitched its beeping line through the air — steady, indifferent.

“C-spine intact,” the hospital doctor said, Spanish. “You can finish removing the wet kit.”

A pause, then more cutting. The sound of scissors near his ribs again, a tug at his waistband, fabric sliding away. One of the nurses narrated as they went — gentle, practiced: “Socks and guards off. Cutting bottoms now. You’re still covered, okay?”

He didn’t search for an objection.

She moved quickly, folding the wet clothes into a biohazard bag, pressing a clean towel to his shoulder before drawing another blanket across him.

“Eso,” she murmured. “Much better.”

The weight of the blankets felt heavier than anything he’d worn all season. Warmer too. His body argued with the comfort, shaking until it didn’t.

They moved him again. The hallway lights blurred by — square, square, square — each one a measure he couldn’t keep time with. Someone adjusted the blanket so it wouldn’t catch the wheels. Another nurse kept pace beside his head, hand hovering near his shoulder, ready to steady if the tremors returned.

The calm voice again. “Sae, what team do you play for?”

“Royale Madrid.”

“Who was the opponent tonight?”

He saw the away kit, the crest, the way the striker had squared his shoulders at him in the tunnel with a swallowed grin. The club name scrambled out of reach. “I—don’t know,” he said a beat late.

“That's alright.”

As they turned toward radiology, the calm voice found him again. “Okay Sae, we’ll scan your head first, then your ankle. Try to stay awake a little longer.”

He wanted to say I’m trying. What came out was air shaped like effort.

They rolled him through another set of doors. The temperature dropped — the sterile chill of the imaging wing. He shivered despite the heat trapped under the blankets. His hair, still wet with rain and sweat, stuck to the edge of the neck brace.

“CT ready,” a radiographer called. Machinery hummed, a circular presence at the edge of sight.

“We’re going to move you to the scanner table," the calm voice said near his ear. "Don’t help. We lift.”

The slide board rasped under him again, movement and pain blurring until they were the same thing. The table felt colder than the stretcher. The air sharper, glass-edged.

A hand adjusted the blanket, keeping him covered to the waist.

“Head first,” someone said in Spanish. “No movement, please. Ten minutes.”

Ten minutes was a drill. He could do a drill. He’d done thousands.

“Name?” the calm voice one more time, testing before the lights went louder. “Full name, please.”

“Sae Itoshi.”

“Where are you?”

“Hospital.”

“Why?”

He could name every reason that wasn’t fear. “Hit to head,” he said. “Ankle.”

“Good. Try to keep your eyes open. If you can’t, that’s alright. Don’t talk unless you need to.”

He didn’t plan to.

The table slid. The scanner closed over the world — white ring, soft insistence, a hum that vibrated in his teeth and the places behind his eyes that hurt to think about. He watched the red beam tremble across foam, then vanish. His stomach rolled, settled, threatened again.

The hum rose. He drifted.

Came back to the circle of light. Someone said his name, not loud, not urgent, just enough to anchor. “Stay with us, Sae.”

He did. Or tried. The whiteness behind his eyes pulsed once, pulled back. He wondered, uselessly, if the ball had gone where he’d meant it to. He wondered if it mattered. He wondered why he couldn’t find time the way he found seams on a field — anticipate, arrive, control.

The machine clicked. “Almost done,” someone said.

When they slid him out again, the brightness stung. He tried to lift a hand to shield his face, but a firm palm caught his wrist.

“Easy,” the calm voice murmured. “You’re okay.”

For the first time, the voice wasn’t purely professional. There was fatigue in it. Concern, maybe.

“Where—” His throat caught. The word scraped out.

“Hospital Norte,” the doctor said. “Madrid. You remember the match?”

He thought he did. The ball. The air. The light. The sound of his skull hitting something it shouldn’t.

He flinched, and the doctor’s hand pressed to his shoulder, steady.

“Hey. Breathe. You’re safe, Sae. We’re just checking you out.”

Safe. Was he—safe?

They moved him again. The shift of weight triggered something in his stomach. He managed a breath, then another — but it wasn’t enough.

“Bucket!” a voice called sharply.

Cool hands braced him as he heaved, bile sharp at the back of his throat. The nurse murmured in Spanish, gentle, wiping his face with a damp towel.

Sae turned away, jaw locked, ashamed of the sound that escaped him.

“Sorry,” he said before he could stop it. The apology was old habit, older than the club, older than Spain.

She shook her head. “Don’t be. Pasa todo el tiempo.”

Warm air met him again, faint with detergent and steam. The nurse drew the curtain halfway, enough to make a square of privacy that felt thinner than it looked. Sae was still half-wrapped in the heating blanket from radiology; it smelled faintly of plastic and something sweet, almost like rain left in sunlight.

Another nurse appeared with a basin and towel. “Let’s get the field off you,” she said — half to him, half to herself. Her gloved fingers brushed along his hairline, working loose the black crumbs of turf that had glued themselves there. She paused once — just long enough for her gaze to meet his. Whatever she thought, she didn’t say it.

“Nearly done,” she murmured, averting her eyes to the task again.

Someone adjusted the blanket again and the weight pressed him into the mattress. The hum of machinery softened to a background chord — IV pump, heart monitor, distant ventilation. None of it asked for anything.

His body, no longer moving, began to register everything it had postponed. The ache at the base of his skull, the constant, sullen pulse in his ankle, the fine tremor along both hands. He watched the tremor with the same detached attention he used for film review — data, not feeling.

A nurse checked the IV site, then touched his shoulder lightly. “Anything you need?”

He thought of answers that belonged to other versions of the question: more time, less noise, the ability to stand up without the world tilting. What came out was simpler. “Water.”

“Soon,” she said. “Small sips only.”

Her Spanish lilt softened the order enough to sound like care.

Across the room, someone dimmed the lights. The white glare thinned to amber. He hadn’t realized how loud brightness was until it left. His breathing eased without permission.

Bits of conversation leaked through the half-drawn curtain — radiology timings, an incoming case, the shuffle of shoes on linoleum. The world outside his bed continued at a normal tempo. Inside it, time had slowed to the beat of a pulse oximeter. Each tone felt both steady and personal, like proof that something was still responding.

The nurse came back once more, carrying a comb meant for patients who couldn’t sit up. She ran it once through his fringe, separating damp strands that clung to his forehead. “There,” she said, tucking the comb away. “All clear.”

Her tone was cheerful in a way that asked for nothing back. When she stepped away, the quiet settled again. He focused on the ceiling vent and the rhythmic sway of its shadow across the wall.

His eyes burned with fatigue. He let them close halfway, enough to blur the edges without losing the shape of the room. The tremor in his hands slowed. The ache in his head did not. He exhaled — slow, cautious, measuring the space between breath and pain. The movement hurt less than expected.

A new voice — male, measured — entered at the periphery: “CT negative for bleed. Concussion moderate.”

The words drifted through the air like a verdict already known. He didn’t react. He only followed the sound until it landed somewhere near him and stayed.

The calm voice returned to the near distance. “Sae, we’re going to move you again. After ankle films, we’ll let you rest.”

He seemed to have done a lot of that already without choosing it.

“Quick check.” The voice tugged him back to what could be done now. “Can you tell me your name?”

“Sae Itoshi.”

“What day is it?”

“Saturday.”

“What month?”

He chased it. It ran. “Sep—” The end was lost in a click of something at his wrist.

“That’s fine.” No disappointment in the voice. “Country of birth?”

“Nihon,” he answered before his mouth knew what to say. “Japan.”

“Do you know the score of the match?”

He saw the pitch as it had been and as it never would be again tonight. “One—” He lost the thread. “I don’t know.”

“It’s okay. You’re doing well.”

He let the praise sit on the table between them like a cup he didn’t have to lift.

They moved. Lights again, then fewer lights, then softer ones. His ankle throbbed in slow, resentful rings that had learned his pulse and wanted to keep time with it forever. His head ached in a different meter — arrhythmic, stubborn, disinterested in metronomes.

He drifted once more and surfaced to the sound of rain on glass he couldn’t see. The Royale liaison’s voice somewhere nearby, quietly decisive in a way that meant signatures were happening that he would not be asked to make. The athletic trainer’s radio whispering and then not. Shoes on linoleum. A curtain drawn a little too gently.

The calm voice — still there, or there again. “Sae, you’re okay. Breathe.”

He wasn’t sure what okay was, but he believed the tone. Took in air. Didn’t choke on it.

“Close your eyes if you need,” it added. “We’ll keep asking. Small questions. You can sleep soon.”

He nodded. The motion didn’t cost as much as it had. The ceiling held still for two breaths. He counted them because numbers were the only things tonight that hadn’t lied.

“Name?” the voice asked softly, once more, like a ritual that held.

“Sae… Itoshi.”

“Good,” the voice said, and the word good did not feel like a lie either.

He let his eyes close. He did not sleep. He stayed where the questions could still reach him, in that narrow hallway between light and blankness where people kept saying his name and he kept remembering it.

Distantly, he thought of the pitch, of his apartment, of the city lights outside this sterile room. He thought of how no one he really knew was within a thousand miles. The truth settled slowly. 

No one was coming, not tonight.

Outside his hearing, the rain decided nothing. Inside his body, pain wrote its own math. He lay still and let the numbers pass through him without trying to hold them.

For now, that counted as control.

Rin

The door swung shut behind him, muffling the sounds from the hallway. The locker room was cool, dry, and bright, the hum of fluorescent lights steady above him. The air carried the faint bite of body wash and turf rubber — morning normalcy, the smell of routine.

But the silence was wrong.

Half the team stood gathered near the far wall where the television flickered above the benches — too quiet, too still.

Isagi’s training top hung loose around his shoulders. Bachira had one cleat half-laced, frozen mid-motion. Chigiri’s arms were crossed tight over his chest, red hair still damp from a shower.

Rin stopped halfway across the room. The quiet felt heavy, deliberate.

“What,” he said — half demand, half question.

No one answered.

Then the sound from the television sharpened — voices low, measured, that careful tone people used when something had gone wrong.

And then he heard it.

“…Itoshi Sae — collision mid-air during today’s match—”

Rin froze. For a heartbeat, the words didn’t fit together.

Sae’s name had always lived in the background — TVs, headlines, strangers’ mouths. But not like this. Not in that tone.

The commentator’s voice strained to stay composed. “Club representatives report that he was responsive on the field before being transported to the hospital.”

A still image flashed on-screen — Sae on his side, one arm pinned, the other bent beside his head, fingers curled loosely as if to block the light. Most of his face was hidden, but the shape of his body told enough.

Heat climbed his neck in a single, clean line. He loosened his grip on the towel because it was that or tear it.

“As reminder to viewers, this footage is… difficult to watch.”

The broadcast shifted to slow motion. Sae went up for a header. The defender’s elbow came out hard. The impact landed clean on the side of his head — a wet, sharp sound against the rain — followed by a flash of white. His body folded mid-air before crashing down, motionless, spray lifting where he struck the turf.

Commentators spoke over the footage, voices subdued.

“We can confirm Itoshi Sae briefly lost consciousness after that aerial collision…”

“You can see the impact here — elbow straight to the temple, accidental but dangerous…”

“Medics are already on the field. They’re being extremely cautious.”

The replay rolled again — the collision. The spin. The uncontrolled fall. Rain caught the light in a thousand separate threads as he hit. Then the sickening twist of his left ankle beneath him, the joint bending in a direction no human limb should.

Chigiri flinched slightly.

“Aw, hell,” Hiori breathed.

Bachira murmured, “That’s bad. That’s really bad.”

No one corrected him.

The replay looped, the angle tighter this time. The defender’s eyes tracked Sae before he leapt — focused, deliberate. The arm came up a beat too early, not for balance but for space.

“That’s not an accident,” Isagi said quietly.

Bachira’s voice followed, low. “He meant to clip him. Maybe not that hard, but he meant it.”

“Reckless play,” the commentator said from the television, words neat and diplomatic. “The referee will certainly review this footage post-match.”

Karasu exhaled through his nose. “They’ll call it careless and move on.”

No one disagreed.

On the screen, Sae was already falling again.

The commentary continued, thin over the growing noise in Rin’s ears. “He’s conscious now — you can see his hand moving there. That’s a good sign.”

“They’re fitting a neck brace before transferring him to the stretcher. Standard protocol after head trauma.”

Rin watched as the medics lifted Sae, methodical, practiced. The camera followed, shaking slightly under the drizzle. Drops ran over the lens, distorting the light until it looked like Sae was disappearing behind glass.

Then a fleeting image — Sae’s hand shifting weakly toward his face as if to block the light. Then gone, carried off the pitch, floodlights painting his skin too white.

The broadcast cut back to the anchors. “We’ve received confirmation Itoshi Sae was transported to a nearby hospital for evaluation of a concussion and ankle injury. There are no reports on severity yet.”

“A terrible blow for Royale Madrid, and of course, for Japan’s national program.”

Rin didn’t move. He couldn’t seem to.

His chest hurt, but not sharply — deep, slow, radiating outward.

Isagi’s voice broke the silence again, low but even. “That’s serious.”

Rin turned his head, the motion small, mechanical. “They said he’s conscious.”

Isagi nodded once. “Yeah. Conscious.”

The word didn’t sound like reassurance.

The commentators kept talking — something about recovery time, about what this meant for the league. Their voices blurred, fading into static. Rin’s reflection stared back from the dark edge of the screen: pale, composed, unreadable.

He looked down at his hands — clammy now, fingertips faintly trembling.

He told himself it didn’t matter. That he’d stopped caring long ago. That Itoshi Sae had nothing to do with him anymore. But the echo of that impact stayed, bright and cold. It was too easy to imagine the rain on Sae’s hair, the weight of breath returning, the twitch of his hand against the grass.

Rin pressed his thumb to his palm, grounding himself in the small pain. His body wanted to move — something between running and collapsing — but he forced it still.

Around him, the others turned back to their lockers. The sound of zippers and Velcro filled the air, subdued but familiar.

Chigiri spoke softly, voice carrying just enough to dissolve the quiet. “He’ll come back from it.”

Rin didn’t answer. He couldn’t trust what might come out if he tried.

The morning light caught on the television, pale and thin. Rain still fell on the screen’s replay, silver against black — crossing Sae’s motionless figure, and then gone. Rin’s reflection hovered there a moment longer, blurred into the rain.

Then he blinked once, slow, and said nothing.

Chapter Text

Sae

Light was the first change.

Not the hospital ceiling light — that one still hummed, square and indifferent — but the gray outside the blind. Madrid was washed-out, no longer night, not quite day. The rain had thinned to a film on the window. He could hear it in the metal frame.

A cuff tightened on his arm.

“Buenos días,” the nurse said, soft so it wouldn’t shatter anything. “How’s the head?”

He had to think about it. “Still… there.”

She smiled like that counted. “We’ll bring something once the doctor sees you. Any nausea?”

He weighed it. “No.”

“Bien.” She made a note, then, without ceremony, “Name?”

“Sae Itoshi.”

“Where are you?”

“Hospital.”

“Day?”

He saw Saturday on a match sheet and then remembered this was after. “Sunday.”

She nodded and returned the clipboard at the bed’s end. “I’ll be back with ice. Helps the swelling.”

He blinked, slow.

“Breakfast soon.” She smoothed the blanket near his hip — a mothering gesture that didn’t claim to be — and said, “Rest.”

She slipped out, sneakers whispering against the floor, and the room exhaled. Sae let his eyes close.

He didn’t know what time it was. He didn’t care. Time right now was only the space between checks.

The air under the blanket felt uneven — warm on one side, cool where she’d touched it. His left side hummed, thick and foreign, like sleep trying to climb out of the muscle. When he breathed too deep, something under his ribs caught and stayed.

Every shift of his eyes set off a low ripple, dull and spreading, from temple to chest. The ankle kept its own rhythm, lower, farther away.

He drifted before deciding which hurt the most.

Eventually, the door opened again. This time, the team doctor — and it clicked. The voice from the field, from the ambulance, from the CT room — now attached to a tired face and hair still flattened from yesterday’s rain. Dr. Morales.

“Morning, Itoshi.” He held a tablet under his arm. “You look better.”

He didn’t feel better, but he no longer felt like the room might tip him off the bed. That was something.

Morales scrolled through something. “So. Head CT still clean this morning. We’re calling it a moderate concussion. No bleed, no skull fracture. That’s good.”

Moderate. A word nobody wanted to hear in soccer. Not minor enough to shrug off. Not catastrophic enough to cause devastation.

Sae blinked once. “Okay.”

“We’ll keep you on observation through tomorrow, just to be safe,” he continued. “Lights low, no screen time if you can help it, small meals. You vomit again, we medicate.”

Sae nodded.

“Now then,” the doctor’s focus moved from his face to his ankle. “The other part.”

Morales tapped the tablet once, as if to punctuate it. “MRI came back.”

Sae’s attention sharpened without his permission.

“We’re working with a Grade III lateral ligament rupture in your left ankle — that's a full tear of the ATFL and CFL, the ones that keep you from rolling. There’s also some deltoid strain medially from the way you landed.” He didn’t over-explain; he knew Sae would look up the rest. “No fracture. No talar dome damage. That’s the good news.”

Good news.

“The bad news,” the doctor continued, “is that with a full rupture and how unstable the joint is, reconstructive surgery is definite. But we can’t do it on a balloon; we have to wait for the swelling to go down. Ten days, maybe two weeks.”

“Two weeks,” Sae repeated, like a number he could file.

“Give or take a few days,” Morales added. “Then, some rest before physical therapy to get you game-ready."

“How long,” Sae said, voice thinner than before.

“For you?” the doctor considered — not for an average player, but for Sae. “Ankle: twelve weeks to basic field work if we don’t run into complications with the head. Sixteen to cutting and deceleration. Match fitness after that. We’ll stage it.”

Twelve. Sixteen. Sae slotted the numbers into the calendar he kept in his head. The season moved without him. The fixtures aligned to nothing he could touch.

Time, he thought. It’s going to be time.

“We’ll get you through it,” Morales said. “You’re young, healthy, disciplined. This is recoverable.”

Recoverable. As if the word could account for how you lived while recovering.

“We’ll keep you here through tomorrow,” Morales said. “When you can stay stable, we’ll move you to club housing until surgery.”

“Okay,” Sae said again, because what else was there.

The doctor’s gaze softened by one degree. “You scared everyone last night.”

Sae looked away.

“I know you don’t like fuss,” he went on. “But they’re coming by. The manager, the captain. Sponsor liaison sent a card already. Try not to look like you hate us.”

Sae almost said I don’t hate you. The words got lost somewhere between his ribs and his throat.

“Any dizziness right now?” the doctor asked.

“…A little.”

“Nausea?”

“Not now.”

“Vision?”

“Better.”

“Good.” Morales tapped the note in. “We’ll come back at noon. Rest. Don’t overthink the ankle — it’s hurt; we’ll fix it.”

Then he left, carrying certainty with him.

Sae lay back. The room regained its hum.

Grade III, full rupture.

That was a clean phrase, at least. No half measures. No gray area. Either it held or it didn’t. His ankle hadn’t.

He let the syllables sit in his head the way he laid out passing lanes: neat, aligned, under control.

They didn’t feel like control.

A tray arrived sometime after that — hospital breakfast attempting cheerfulness: white toast, jam, yogurt, a little coffee. The nurse warned him to go slow. He did. The yogurt tasted metallic. The coffee smelled too strong. He ate a few spoonfuls because athletes ate, because recovery required fuel, because obligation was a habit.

Then midmorning, they came in the club jackets. The head coach, the captain — both carried concern tucked neatly under professional expressions. They were damp from outside, rain still clinging to their shoulders.

“Hey,” the captain said, grin already in place but softer than usual. His eyes caught on something near Sae’s face before he looked away again. “You look like shit.”

Sae blinked. “Thanks.”

The coach huffed a quick laugh. “He’s not wrong.”

They came closer, stopping where the bedrail made it clear he was not to be shaken.

“How are you?” the coach asked.

“Headache,” Sae said. “Ankle.”

“Yeah,” the captain said, eyes dropping briefly to the elevated leg. “Saw the replay. That was nasty.”

When he looked up again, something in his expression shifted, a flicker and gone. Sae felt the pull near his temple then — tight skin, small ache — and realized they weren’t just seeing the splint.

The coach nodded. “We talked to Morales and your doctor. Surgery is the plan. We support it.”

Sae nodded once. The room seemed to tilt less when he kept the movement small.

“You gave everyone a scare yesterday,” the captain said, voice gentling. “Press is going crazy. Kids in the academy were asking about you.”

“We’ll make a statement,” the coach continued. “Something simple. And no need to worry about a return date — we’re not giving one yet. ”

Sae nodded. That answer cost nothing.

The captain held out a small paper bag. “Your phone, charger, and… uh—snacks. Don’t know if they’ll let you eat them.”

Sae took it. “Gracias.”

“De nada.” The captain sat back on the visitor chair, elbows on his knees. “Itoshi — serious — don’t try to rush this.”

“I know.”

“Do you?” There was no bite to it, just weary knowledge of who he was talking to.

Sae met his eyes for the first time. “I know.”

That seemed to satisfy him.

“We’ll win the next one for you,” the captain said as they stood to go. “So get boring and rest.”

He nodded again. “Okay.”

When the door closed, the room expanded — a rubber band released. The visit had taken more energy than it should have. His head buzzed; his ankle throbbed in the brace. His hip and shoulder pulsed faintly, in time with each other.

He breathed in slowly. Out slowly.

He reached for his phone on the tray. When the light stung and the numbers drifted, he understood the no-screens advice.

He tried to nap. Concussion naps were different — light, easily shaken awake. He hovered in that layer when his brain reminded him of things: the flash of white before darkness; the exact sound of his body hitting wet turf; the slow roll of the fog in his head.

Later that afternoon, the nurse brought acetaminophen and another anti-nausea pill.

“You’re a little warm,” she said, touching his forehead with the back of her hand. “Maybe a small fever later. Trauma does that sometimes.”

Trauma. The word floated in the air above his bed, impersonal. He let it.

Night came faster inside hospitals. By seven, the hall lights dimmed. By eight, the quiet got heavier. 

Sleep came, but it was the light, fractured kind — the kind that let machine noise through. He drifted in and out, losing thirty minutes at a time, never more.

Sometime after midnight, he woke hot. Not on his skin, but somewhere inside, deep, as if the center of him had decided to burn. The room was dark except for the monitor glow. His gown stuck to his back. He shoved the blanket down; the heat stayed.

He tried to breathe deeper. The inhale caught halfway, like the air in the room had turned to syrup. His fingers tingled. His jaw too.

Not again, he thought, though there hadn’t been a first time for this version — only the memory of being seventeen in a too-cold room, breath running away from him while he pretended it was anger.

He sat up slowly, dizzy from the motion. The room tilted right, then left, then steadied. The ankle complained at the change of angle. The rest of his left side followed — hip, shoulder, the whole length of it pulling tight like fabric caught on a nail.

He planted his right foot on the floor to ground himself. The cool tile helped.

His left hand reached for the water glass. The tremor was worse than he expected. The glass scraped, tipped, spilled a thin arc onto the floor. The sound — small, ordinary — still startled him like something breaking.

His heart pounded at his throat, too fast for the situation. He pressed his palm flat to his sternum, as if he could keep it from leaving.

It didn’t change.

A soft knock. Then the curtain opened a fraction.

“¿Despierto?” the night nurse said, voice immediately tuned to concern. She took in the scene quickly — flushed face, spilled water, hand to chest, blanket kicked halfway down.

“Fiebre,” she said to herself, already crossing to him. “Está bien. Look at me.”

He did, because he was tired of not obeying simple orders.

She touched his wrist — cool, firm. Her voice lilted with soft Spanish. “Thirty-nine on the dot.” She made the face nurses make when something is expected but still needs handling. “Don’t worry, this is normal. Easy, cariño.”

He understood, but his chest still wouldn’t unlock. He gasped, and something higher pitched escaped his throat without permission. 

“There, there…” she murmured — the same rhythm his mother used to hush him as a boy. For a second, he almost believed her.

“Easy now, breathe. In through the nose,” she said, demonstrating. “Slow. Out through the mouth.”

He followed. Once. Twice. By the fourth, his hands stopped buzzing. By the sixth, the air actually reached his lungs. The pain quieted, too — not gone, just smaller, like something finally following orders.

She changed the blanket with practiced quiet, pulled a drier one over him, not too heavy. When she wiped his temple, her touch slowed, careful around that side of his face — like she already knew where it hurt. She dimmed the light further so the room belonged more to shadows than to white.

“Call if it climbs,” she said. Not scolding — just putting a rule in the air. “Duerme ahora, cariño.”

He nodded. His throat worked once, hard — an old reflex that felt too close to calling for her. He forced it down.

When she left, the quiet didn’t feel thick anymore. It felt hollow. His breathing filled more space than it should. He lay back carefully, stared at the corner where ceiling met wall until the line blurred.

What rose in him wasn’t quite grief, not quite longing — just the quiet proof that he didn’t want to be alone.

He let the thought drift off before it turned into need.

Someone was already in the room when his eyes opened next. A new nurse, checking the IV line behind him. The room was pale with morning light.

“Oh, you’re up.” She smiled gently when she met his gaze. “Your temperature is better this morning. Any pain?”

“…Yes.”

“Head or leg?”

“Both.”

The pulsing dulled, and he drifted into something parallel to sleep. Later, they served oatmeal, fruit, coffee. The coffee cooled untouched.

He checked his phone. The light still stung, but the numbers and letters stayed put this time. A single text from his father.

Otōsan: We saw the news. Get better soon. Reach out when you can.

He read it until the words blurred.

He hadn’t realized until that moment what he’d been waiting for. Not the message — a voice. His mother’s quiet fussing, his father’s warmth through the line, something human that felt familiar and intentional. What he got was distance, typed neat and well-meaning.

He told himself he shouldn’t be surprised; he’d kept that distance himself. Still, something in him twitched at the silence, the shape of a question he didn’t let finish.

Down the corridor, someone’s TV mentioned his name and “expected to miss the remainder of the season.”

He set the phone back down, turned his face to the wall, and let the quiet build a room inside the room.

By the afternoon his fever was gone, but the room still felt suffocating. He resorted to distraction and gave his phone another chance.

Plenty of messages from people who wanted the camera version of him. He wasn’t interested in entertaining — especially now. He scrolled until a name that didn’t make his stomach turn broke the list.

Aiku Oliver: Heard about the injury. Text me back or I’ll assume you died

It made his mouth twitch, the almost-smile kind. Sae called before he could change his mind.

“Well, damn,” Aiku answered in his unbothered, easy tone. “He lives.”

“Barely.”

“Never thought I’d get a phone call. What an honor.”

“I can change that.”

A soft laugh. Then, gentler, “You remember the hit?”

“Parts.”

“Probably for the best. How’s the ankle?”

“Hurts.”

“And the head?”

“Same.”

“You sound thrilled.”

“I’m tired,” he corrected.

“Yeah, I bet.” A shuffle, like Aiku sat down. “They treating you alright?”

“They’re fine.”

“That bad, huh?”

He made a small sound that could be agreement.

“When do you get out of there?”

“Tomorrow. Hopefully.”

“You sure you’re up for that?” Aiku asked after a pause. “You sound—flat. Even for you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Sure you are.” The warmth in his tone undercut the words. “Listen — I know you’re not the clingy type, but keep in touch. Send a dot if you have to.”

“You’ll take a dot.”

“I’ll frame it.”

Silence. Not awkward, just full.

“You’ll text me?” Aiku asked finally.

“I’ll try.”

“Translation: no. I’ll bug you anyway.”

The call ended and for once, the silence that followed wasn’t sharp this time. It stretched, light and unfamiliar, leaving behind a small ache that didn’t feel like pain.

Later:

Aiku: How’s it going, prodigy?

Sae: Fine

Aiku: You suck at lying. Eat something that isn’t air

He almost smiled. Almost.

Later the nurse brought his clothes in a folded stack — sweats, hoodie, socks that weren’t hospital white. The clothes were his, though the folds weren’t. Someone had gone to his apartment while he was asleep.

“You’ll feel better out of the gown,” she said, drawing the curtain halfway. “Slow movements, please.”

He eased the blanket back. The light from the window felt too sharp, like it was seeing him before he could look away.

His left side looked wrong.

Bruises had bloomed — across his hip, ribs, shoulder, a dark map of impact. Blue and purple at the center, spreading to green and yellow at the edges. They looked angry, like something still mid-argument.

He hadn’t realized the body could hold color like that.

When he shifted, the skin there answered — a heavy, deep ache that moved under the surface instead of on it. He let his fingers hover above one patch, not touching. The heat coming off it was its own pulse.

“They’ll fade,” the nurse said, quiet but certain. “That color means your body’s healing.”

He nodded, though it didn’t feel like healing. It felt like proof.

When he pulled the hoodie over his head, the fabric caught at his shoulder and brushed his ribs, turning the ache sharp. His breath left him in a short sound he didn’t recognize.

He swallowed it down, slow, until it stayed.

“Take your time,” she said, folding the gown with practiced hands.

He dressed the rest of the way in silence, left foot careful not to touch the floor. When he glanced down again, the bruises were half-hidden by cotton. He didn’t look twice.

They discharged him on the third morning.

The sky over Madrid had the smudged look of rain that hadn’t decided when to fall. The club liaison walked ahead with the tablet; Dr. Morales signed where pointed. Sae signed too, where fingers indicated, his name neat even when his hand was slow. Nobody made him read anything. He was silently grateful.

The van ride was short, quiet except for wipers.

Monitored housing was just a nicer word for recovery apartment. End of a white corridor, security badged. Inside: single bed, chair, window that didn’t open, a kitchenette pretending to be useful. A laminated schedule on the table — vitals, meals, physio visits once cleared. The air moved in that slow, forced way that never quite matched human breathing.

“Call button here,” the liaison said, tapping plastic. “Meals here. We check vitals every six hours until neurology clears in two days. PT will come then. If you need anything—”

He bowed once. “Thank you.”

When the door shut, the room rearranged around him — vent, fridge, rain suddenly loud.

He sat on the bed and studied the schedule. 06:00 vitals. 07:30 tray. 12:00 tray. 18:00 tray. Four rectangles, nothing in between; he pictured them tiled across two weeks — a floor he hadn’t chosen.

In the black screen of the TV, he saw his own face — paler under the apartment light, hair limp on his cheeks, dark shadowing near his left eye that explained the tenderness. He looked away before he could decide how to name it.

He loosened the brace exactly one notch, like the nurse had shown him. The release made a small sound. Skin sighed against padding.

He lay back slowly so his body wouldn’t protest more than necessary. The pillow smelled like nothing. The vent kept breathing. He matched it.

This was temporary, he told himself. A hallway, not the destination.

Sleep happened to him, not because of him.

By evening, the window was a mirror. He’d obeyed all day — rest, elevation, ice wrapped in a towel. He’d done it until obedience felt like a job. 

He told himself he only wanted to check the floor with his foot. Not weight — just contact. A reminder that his left leg was more than a construction site.

Right foot down. Good.

Left foot lowered an inch. Brace kissed tile.

Pain lit him up, clean and soundless. Not a spike — a current — tearing up the outside of the leg, into the calf, up the side of his ribs. His stomach lurched in solidarity. He leaned over the bin, eyes squeezed, let what little he’d eaten burn its way out.

After, he rinsed his mouth, palms on the sink. His breath came in a rhythm he couldn’t count or steady. He tried anyway.

He stared at the small round drain and thought about circles — how they never arrive anywhere new.

Back on the bed, he watched his fingers instead of pressing the call button. They shook a little. He tucked them under the blanket so he didn’t have to watch.

He closed his eyes and let the room tilt alone.

Four days into October, he was cleared for “light supervised physiotherapy.” It sounded like nothing. It wasn’t.

The club physio — Rojas, hair twisted up, eyes that didn’t miss fatigue — came to the apartment with a mat and the lightest resistance band.

“We avoid the ankle directly,” she said, laying the mat down like she owned the floor. “But we remind the rest how to behave. Easy, yes?”

He lay flat, boot propped, and did what she asked — diaphragmatic breathing, quad sets, glute squeezes, right-side heel slides. On paper, it was rehab for someone’s grandmother. In his body, it was a sprint that never picked up speed. By the end his shirt stuck to his back and there was a slow drum behind his eyes that promised an afternoon headache.

“Normal,” she said, penlight checking his pupils before she left. “Concussion makes everything cost more. Rest after. No phone.”

He rested. He did not touch his phone.

The headache came anyway.

The next day was the same, with two more exercises. The day after that, she made him sit on the edge of the bed and balance with his eyes closed for thirty seconds. He opened them at twenty because the room felt like it wanted to tip. She called it good and wrote something in her notes.

The apartment filled up with that particular kind of tired — the one that wasn’t sleepiness so much as low battery. He obeyed, iced, ate some of what they brought. He stayed off social media because the scrolling made his vision smear and because he didn’t want to see himself slowed down, frame by frame, in a thousand languages.

Days slipped by.

One late afternoon, light going gold against the window, his phone buzzed once on the table.

Aiku: What, a whole week and not even a dot? I’m wounded

Aiku: You alive over there?

Sae stared at it for a breath. Then another. Then picked the phone up.

Sae: Alive

Aiku: Look who remembers how to text

Aiku: They got you doing those toddler drills yet?

He considered which version to give — the one that sounded right or the one that was true.

Sae: Started prehab

Sae: Boring af

Aiku: Boring af but you texted back 4 hours later

Aiku: So it’s doing more than it says on the label

Sae: Concussion makes it worse

Sae: Doctor said it’s normal

Aiku: Normal as in “it sucks, keep going”

Aiku: You getting dizzy?

Sae: Sometimes

Sae: Stops when I lie down

Aiku: Gotta love the brain filing complaints

Aiku: What’s the rest of your day look like?

Sae glanced at the laminated meal schedule, the dark TV, the ice wrap on the counter.

Sae: Rest

Sae: Ice

Sae: Nothing to do

Aiku: Careful with all that free time

Aiku: Last thing you need is another deep dive into the meaning of life

Sae let that sit. Then:

Sae: Surgery's on Monday, 7am

It was the cleanest fact he had.

Aiku: Swelling must’ve backed off then. Good

Aiku: Time diff’s 8 hours, yeah?

Sae: Yeah

Aiku: Got it

Aiku: Anyone there with you for it?

Sae watched the cursor blink. He could say club liaison. He could say medical. Both were true. Neither answered the question.

Sae: Team will handle it

There was a slightly longer pause on Aiku’s side, as if he was deciding how much to push.

Aiku: Club’s solid at paperwork fs

Aiku: I’ll check in after, your time. Answer if you can

Sae: Depends on anesthesia

Aiku: Showoff

Aiku: Eat today. You sounded empty on the phone last time

Sae: I ate

Aiku: Did you eat food or did you just stare at it like “interesting”

He almost smiled.

Sae: Food

Aiku: Hm. I’ll buy it for now

Aiku: Monday then. Don’t disappear

Sae: Can’t run

Aiku: See? Progress

The chat went still. The room didn’t. The vent kept its slow breath; the ankle throbbed; the back-of-the-head ache spread like fog the longer he stayed upright.

He put the phone face down again.

He’d given him nothing — just facts, clinic words, schedule. But he knew Aiku would read the gaps anyway. That was the problem with people who’d known you outside the myth — they could tell when you were answering around the center.

He lay back, closed his eyes, and let the apartment return to its usual noise.

A few days later, the pre-op wing had a friendlier white. Lucía’s badge read Student Nurse; her hands said careful in any language. She wrapped the cuff methodically around his arm.

“You can call me Lucía,” she said, then glanced at her tablet and blinked. “Oh — feliz cumpleaños atrasado. Happy belated.”

Sae looked at her, waiting for the rest of the sentence.

“It was yesterday,” she added, tapping the chart. “You turned twenty.”

The information stayed where it landed.

He waited for his chest to react — to tighten, to lift, to protest. It didn’t. The number sounded wrong, like it belonged to another timeline. Somewhere in the days he’d lost, one had been his.

“Thank you,” he said, because politeness has its own pulse.

Lucía studied him in the honest way students do before they learn to hide it. “You’ve been through a lot.”

He made the shape of a shrug without moving. “How long will it take?” he asked.

“The surgery? About two hours. You’ll be asleep before you know it.”

“Good.”

When the older nurse pushed through the curtain, Lucía walked with the gurney to the doors. She didn’t speak again until the threshold, where her fingers brushed the rail and stayed there a breath longer than necessary.

“If you were my brother,” she said, almost to herself, “I’d remind you to take your time. There’s no race today.”

He nodded once. The nod could mean anything.

The mask settled over his face. The anesthesiologist asked him to count. He didn’t. He let the counting happen without him.

Twenty was a number. Numbers behaved. Now he watched it roll away and didn’t reach.

They came in jackets that never wrinkled, smiles pressed flat. Successful surgery. Clean repair. Passive therapy next week. Nutritionist on call. Mental performance support available—

“No, thank you,” he said, and delivered the words with the softness reserved for declining extra rice.

“Of course,” the man said, as if he had heard yes. “We’ll issue a statement. When you’re cleared to fly, a short return to Japan. Family photos, a few interviews—”

Sae looked up. The man amended smoothly, “Only if you’re ready.”

They left a folder on the table. It had weight out of proportion to its paper.

Lucía returned with porridge and tea, the scent of starch and cinnamon trailing her. She placed the tray within reach, the spoon already turned the right way. “You should eat something.”

“Later.”

She lingered just long enough for the steam to thin into nothing. The quiet between them wasn’t heavy — just unfilled.

He looked past her to the window, to the slice of sky that wasn’t blue or gray, just blank.

“My dad says you play like math,” she said finally, a small, careful smile. “He means it as praise.”

He blinked once, slow.

The room clicked back into rhythm — the IV pump, the distant door. The kind of order numbers love. The kind of order he used to love.

“Math doesn’t lose birthdays,” he said, and wasn’t sure if she heard.

When she left, he picked up the remote and tilted it toward the blinds. The slats obeyed.

Light thinned, then sat down. The day outside kept going, a muffled sound behind the wall. Inside, the dimness was a thing he could still control.

He breathed in, and the air arrived where it was supposed to. He breathed out and the room did not change its mind. The brace weighed what it weighed. The schedule waited on the table. The city didn’t notice him, and he didn’t ask it to.

He watched the strip of light at the floor’s edge shrink to a blade — and then to a thread, and then to nothing at all.

Rin

His mother called the following morning.

By then, all of Japan had seen the footage — paused, slowed, replayed. Every angle, every network. The dorm had fallen into that strange quiet made of curiosity and restraint; everyone watching while pretending not to. The clip always ended the same: Sae on his side, rain streaking the grass around him, medics closing in.

When his phone rang, he almost didn’t answer.

“Rin.” Her voice was soft, careful — the kind of careful that already knew something hurt. “You… saw what happened?”

“Yeah.”

“They called last night. The liaison from the club. He was unconscious for a bit, but—he’s awake now. They said he’ll need surgery. For the ankle.”

He waited for the part that mattered. It didn’t come.

“Where?”

“Madrid. A hospital there. The doctors said he’s stable.”

He nodded, though she couldn’t see it. “Then he’s fine.”

“You’ve… spoken with him?”

“No.”

“Oh.” The pause stretched, thin and uncertain. “I thought you might have.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re brothers.”

Rin stared at the floor. “That doesn’t mean we talk.”

Her breath caught. “You haven’t spoken since—”

“The U-20.”

Silence stretched — long enough for him to hear his father’s voice in the background, low and questioning. Then, softly: “Let me.”

“Rin,” his father said, voice measured, as if testing the shape of what he’d already overheard. “The manager called us too. Said he’s in good care.”

“Of course.”

“They said he’s stable. Surgery soon. It sounds like the club’s managing everything.”

“Good.”

A pause followed — short, deliberate.

“Still,” his father said, the word holding more weight than it should, “you didn’t call him?”

Rin hesitated. “No.”

Another pause. Then, quieter, “I see.”

It wasn’t anger. Just the sound of something being confirmed.

His father continued, calm but with an undertone that pressed like a thumbprint. “We sent a message. It’s… good to let him know someone’s thinking of him. Even a short one.”

Rin could hear his mother in the background again, murmuring something too soft to catch.

“The doctors said rest is most important now,” his father went on, filling the space that would’ve been comfort. “He’ll recover. That’s what matters.”

“Right.”

“You’re training hard?”

“Always.”

“That’s good. Don’t neglect sleep.” A faint sigh — not disappointment, but something heavier. “Take care of yourself too.”

The call ended.

For a while, Rin just stood there, phone still in hand, listening to the quiet that came after. He told himself it was fine — Sae was fine. He always was.

He showered, ate what passed for lunch, and showed up to practice before anyone else. No one mentioned yesterday's news. Even Isagi, who usually filled silence like oxygen, didn’t say Sae’s name. Warm-up laps, passing drills, scrimmage rotation. The whistle cut cleanly through the cold air.

Everything in order. Everything unchanged.

Except he missed a cue on the third drill. His touch came too early — the rhythm wrong. The ball rolled a meter wide.

Hiori jogged over, picking it up before the ball boy could. “You off tempo today?”

Rin didn’t answer.

Hiori rolled it back with a clean, easy tap. “You’re usually the one correcting us,” he said mildly.

“I’m fine.”

“I didn’t say ya weren’t.”

It was said so simply that Rin couldn’t find a reason to argue.

By the end of practice, the sun had started to fall, drawing long shadows across the pitch. The locker room was quiet again, heavy with the smell of soap and turf. Most of the others had gone. Only Hiori remained, sitting with his laces undone, elbows resting loosely on his knees.

“You’ve been early lately,” he said, not looking up.

Rin tugged the zipper on his bag, voice flat. “You notice everything.”

“Not everything,” Hiori said. “Just what repeats.”

Rin closed his locker door harder than necessary. “And?”

Hiori twisted a lace between his fingers. “Rhythms change for a reason.”

“I’m training,” Rin said.

“Of course.” His tone stayed light. “It’s good to use your time well.”

The silence that followed wasn’t uncomfortable. Just… full. The kind that offered a path if someone chose to take it. Rin didn’t.

Hiori stood, slinging his bag over one shoulder. “Still,” he said softly, almost to himself, “sometimes a rhythm changes because something else is echoing underneath.”

Rin glanced up. “Meaning?”

Hiori smiled faintly. “You’ll know if it’s yours.”

Rin scoffed. “You should stop reading people.”

“Then you should stop writing it all over your face,” Hiori said, not unkindly.

Rin left before he could think of an answer.

Days passed. Then a week. Then another.

Spain’s headlines softened into official statements and sterile optimism. Successful surgery. Favorable prognosis. Expected to miss the remainder of the season.

Rin stopped opening the links.

He trained longer instead — extra drills before breakfast, more conditioning after dark. The others noticed but let him be. Everyone had their way of staying ahead of ghosts.

He thought less about Sae than about the sound the ball made when struck clean — thock, the small perfection that made everything else irrelevant.

Even so, when the athletic trainer asked if he was sleeping enough, Rin said yes too quickly. It wasn't a lie, but it wasn't the truth either.

Hiori was the one who didn’t buy it.

One night after late drills, they were the last two in the locker room. Hiori leaned against the bench, towel still over his dripping hair.

“You keep training like this,” he said, “and you’ll start chasing what’s not on the field.”

“I’m chasing improvement.”

“Mm.” Hiori’s gaze was steady, unbothered. “And what’s the name of the thing ya can’t improve?”

Rin frowned. “What are you talking about.”

“I don’t know,” Hiori said quietly. “You haven’t told me yet.”

Rin threw his towel into the bin and left. The door shut behind him, and the sound echoed longer than it should have.

Chapter Text

Sae

The apartment looked the same as when he’d left it — clean, cold, indifferent. The fridge was stocked. His meds lined up like soldiers. A bouquet on the counter already bowed at the stems. Everything prepared, organized, ready.

None of it was home.

He hadn’t looked at his phone in days — left it on the nightstand through surgery, through the haze after. When he finally unlocked it, a message waited, sent two days earlier.

October tenth. His birthday.

Otōsan: We heard the operation is tomorrow. Please rest well and take care of yourself. Happy birthday. — Mom & Dad

Formal. Careful. The kind of message written to stay gentle, to avoid troubling him.

He read it twice. Three times.

The words stayed flat. Polite enough to belong to anyone.

Still no call.

No voice.

Why.

He hadn’t checked any headlines since the fall. Push alerts from football apps stacked quietly on his lock screen — Itoshi stretchered off, Midfielder’s future in doubt, a thumbnail of blue and white and rain. He never opened them. The blurred preview was more than enough.

He didn’t know what he expected — a different phrasing, a warmer cadence, something to anchor him to a family instead of a formality. Whatever it was, it wasn’t this.

The realization cut sharp and fast, too close to a place he couldn’t let himself touch.

He set the phone facedown. Thinking about it meant letting the ache rise, and he didn’t have room for that. Not tonight.

His head pulsed. He needed a sound that wasn’t himself.

The remote sat on the counter — untouched until now. He clicked the TV on and immediately lowered the volume. He didn’t intend to watch the first thing that appeared. He just… didn’t change it.

A pair of gloved hands unscrewed the back of an old wristwatch. Soft clicking, the brush of metal. Nothing else.

His eyes tracked the movement a half-beat behind, as if whatever connected sight to thought had slowed. Concussion fatigue or something deeper — he couldn’t tell.

The technician lifted a tiny gear with tweezers.

Sae’s breath caught — a small, involuntary hitch, like his body reminded him it still existed. His fingers curled in the blanket without meaning to.

Another brush stroke. Rust flaked away in neat lines.

Something in his chest tightened, then warmed — not comfort, just a strange recognition. Care taken with broken things. Too much like memory. Too much like want.

He shifted the pillow under his ankle and stopped halfway through, the effort suddenly too much.

The next video auto-played. He didn’t move to stop it.

A long breath slipped out of him, quiet, surprised — he hadn’t realized he’d been holding it.

The room stayed dim. The ache stayed present. But for a few minutes — just a few — the noise inside him thinned into something quieter than silence.

Something almost like rest.

The first days blurred.

Painkillers, ice, half-hours of physio that left his head throbbing almost more than his ankle. His appetite drifted in and out, but obligation made him try. Sleep came in pieces; he woke sweating, breath too quick for a room that refused to change.

The morning knocks stayed bright and professional.

“How’re you feeling?”

“Fine.”

They always nodded, like the word meant progress.

By day six, the TV was too loud, the silence worse. He sat by the window with his leg propped and watched kids kick a ball down the narrow street until the sound of it echoed in his skull. He stopped watching.

The phone vibrated on the table, sharp in the quiet.

He blinked at it once before reaching. The motion pulled at his ribs.

Aiku: Haven’t heard from you since surgery

Aiku: You doing okay?

He stared long enough to reread the words before answering. The screen light stung behind his eyes.

Sae: Fine

Aiku: That word again. Trademark it

His mouth twitched. Fell still.

Aiku: How’s the ankle?

Sae: Attached

Aiku: You’re a joy, as always

Aiku: So this is you “keeping in touch,” huh?

Sae: Said I’d try

Aiku: You didn’t even try, you just ghosted better than usual

Sae: Been busy

Aiku: With what, blinking?

Sae: Rehab

Aiku: Uh huh. That code for sleeping through physio?

Sae: Depends on the day

Aiku: For real? Sounds like you’re running on fumes

Sae: You wanted honesty

A longer beat passed. Sae wondered if he’d been too blunt. Then:

Aiku: I wanted a pulse, but this works

Aiku: Don’t let “fine” turn into radio silence again, yeah?

Sae: I’ll think about it

Aiku: Which means no

Sae: You’re learning

Aiku: Great. Can I get my medal now?

Sae: It’s in the mail

Aiku: Right next to your vitamins

Sae: Already taking them

Another pause, before:

Aiku: Doesn’t count if you’re still shaped like a shadow

Sae: Thanks for the medical advice. Didn’t have enough today

Aiku: Anytime. My rates are high, though

Sae: Bill me later

Aiku: I’d rather see proof of life first. Pics or it didn’t happen

Sae: No

Aiku: Worth a shot

He stared at the last message until the light dimmed itself.

He set the phone face-down.

The room carried on humming — the vent above, the fridge across the room, the small sounds people stopped hearing when they weren’t alone.

Light slid across the wall in tired gold. The brace hugged his ankle like a bad promise. He told himself he’d cook later. He didn’t move.

Evening physio ran longer than usual — micro-movements, quad activation, the kind of work that made breathing feel like labor. He obeyed, blank-faced.

“You look pale,” Rojas said, gaze steady. “Getting enough sleep?”

He hesitated. “...Trying to.”

“Hm.” She watched him a beat longer, then nodded. “Don’t push too hard.”

The door clicked behind her.

The room found its hush again — the kind of quiet that didn’t care if he answered.

He picked up his phone, put it down. Warm room, cold hands.

He told himself this was recovery — fatigue, emptiness, the ache behind his ribs — all part of the process. But the shape of it felt familiar. Like something old wearing a new face.

He’d been here before.

He just hadn’t known how quiet it could get when there was no one left to hear him fall apart.

By the tenth day, the swelling had quieted enough for the doctors to trust him with a removable boot.

“Clinic sessions start Thursday,” Rojas said, tapping the new schedule onto the counter. “Don’t look so excited.”

He wasn’t.

He’d gotten used to the quiet here — to the way time folded between knocks on the door. The clinic would be louder. Brighter. Full of other people recovering from things they didn’t want to name.

Still, he nodded.

Thursday came quickly.

The clinic smelled like disinfectant and lemon. Mirrors everywhere. Too clean. Too busy. Even the light had an echo.

He sat on the edge of the table, brace off. The sutures had been removed the day before, leaving a thin red seam along the joint — glossy, raised, the skin around it still swollen where it hadn’t learned how to bend yet.

“Simple today,” Rojas said. “Mobility only. Range first, strength later. No weight-bearing.”

Sae nodded. He knew the speech.

“Pull your toes toward you.”

The signal left his brain and stalled halfway down. The foot waited. When the joint finally obeyed, pain pulled up the line of his calf — deep, grinding, hot. He hissed through his teeth as his scalp prickled.

“Easy,” Rojas said. “Slow. Don’t fight it.”

He tried again. The motion came cleaner this time, the pain blooming, then settling into a dull, steady ache.

“Good. Hold five seconds.”

He counted inside his mouth.

Ten more micro-movements.

By the end his shirt clung to his back, and the air-conditioning cooled the sweat too fast. The edges of the room had gone fuzzy.

“That’s enough,” she said, writing something down. “If the ankle responds well, we start resistance next week.”

Sae nodded — he didn’t trust his voice.

The door opened. A familiar voice from the hallway: “Itoshi? You’re actually here?”

He glanced up. Álvaro, one of the B Team's midfielders, stood with a bandage wrapping his wrist.

“They told me you’d be starting rehab,” Álvaro said, stepping in with an easy grin that faltered halfway. “Man, you look—”

He stopped himself. Smiled again, smaller. “—better than the photos from the match made it seem.”

A faint wince moved through him, so quick it barely registered. Sae hadn’t seen the photos. He didn’t need to. The way people said the photos told him enough.

“Press loves a disaster,” Sae said. His voice came out flat, a half-joke that went nowhere.

Álvaro’s mouth twitched, sympathy caught between amusement and discomfort. “Yeah. Guess it sells.”

Sae didn’t answer. The silence filled itself.

When Rojas returned with the next chart, Álvaro straightened. “Good to see you, man. Take it easy.”

He left with a pat to Sae’s shoulder that didn’t land quite right.

Rojas watched him go, then looked at Sae with the kind of clinical concern that never turned sentimental. “You’ll be getting a lot of that,” she said mildly. “People mean well. They just don’t know what to do when an athlete stops looking indestructible.”

He forced a short hum.

She adjusted the brace, checked his range of motion, the swelling, the color around the incision, and then finally his face. “Still pale,” she said quietly, more to herself than him. “And you’re running on less than six hours, I’d guess.”

He didn’t confirm it, but his silence did.

Rojas jotted a note. “Eat something with salt. Rest when you can. You can’t rebuild what you don’t feed.” Her tone softened, practical instead of pitying. “You’ll get there. One thing at a time.”

He gave a small nod. “Yeah.”

“Good,” she said. “Now — ice, ten minutes. Let the body catch up to the will.”

He didn’t stay for the ice. The walk to the elevator was longer than it should’ve been. By his floor, the ache had a heartbeat. 

He didn’t turn on the light. Left the curtains half-drawn. The air was so still every sound felt like a mistake. He dropped the bag, leaned the crutches against the wall, slumped onto the bed, and propped his leg on a pillow.

Pain climbed in slow rings. His heart pounded against his sternum. He pressed his eyes until colors popped.

Overuse, he told himself. Normal hurt — it’s fine.

The phone split the room once. He didn’t move.

It rang again: Aiku.

He thumbed it open, pressed speaker, left it beside his ribs.

“About time,” Aiku said. “Was pricing search dogs.”

“Congratulations.”

“Whoa. You sound like death.”

“Physio.”

“Yikes, man. How’s the pain?”

“Ankle remembered how to scream.”

A pause. “That bad, huh.”

“They say it’s normal.”

“They say a lot of things,” Aiku agreed.

“Mm.”

“You listen to any of them?”

“Probably not.”

Aiku’s laugh scratched through the line — relief disguised as humor. “You’re supposed to let pain pass, not take it on as a hobby.”

Sae closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose where the ache pulsed. “I’m fine.”

“You keep saying that like it makes it true.”

Silence breathed across the distance — neither of them hanging up, neither speaking.

Then Aiku, quieter: ”It’s okay if it’s not, you know.”

Sae’s jaw tightened. “Why are you calling?”

“Because apparently you don’t talk to anyone.”

“And that’s your problem?”

“Nah.” A beat. “Just… sounds too quiet.”

Another pause. “Lonely, maybe.”

Sae almost said it wasn’t, that he preferred it that way. The lie wouldn’t come out cleanly.

“And you sound tired. You sleeping at all?”

“Some.”

“Eating?”

“Enough.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

A breath that might’ve been a laugh, might’ve been exhaustion. “Then stop asking.”

“Can’t. Someone’s gotta make sure you’re still human.”

The vent coughed once, then steadied.

“Look,” Aiku said, tone easing but still anchored with worry. “Being stuck messes with your head. But you’re not done.”

“What does that mean anymore.”

“It means this isn’t it. You’ll find your way back.”

Sae watched dust specks move in a strip of light. All that motion, going nowhere.

“Just stay in touch, yeah? You said you would.”

“I’ll try.”

“You said that last time.”

“And I’m saying it this time.”

Aiku huffed. “Sleep, prodigy. I’ll check in tomorrow.”

A half-hum.

“And, Sae?”

“…What.”

“Good work today. Even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

The line clicked before Sae could answer.

He lay there for a long time, phone facedown beside him, the city’s hum pressing against the windows. Somewhere below, someone played a song too soft to identify. He let the sound fill the room until it faded.

His leg hurt.

His head hurt.

Everything hurt.

But for the first time in days, the ache didn’t feel totally empty. It felt like proof he still existed — and that someone, somewhere, had remembered him.

Weeks passed, and Rojas kept him busy with a new exercise or treatment every few sessions.

This morning started like the others — too early, too bright, too quiet. The clinic was half awake: the low hum of treadmills, resistance bands snapping faintly in the next room, disinfectant layered into the air.

Rojas met him at nine sharp. Clipboard under her arm. Ponytail neat, voice steady. “Morning, Itoshi. We’ll test some weight-bearing today. See how the joint behaves.”

He nodded once. Finally — he’d been waiting for this.

“The bars,” Rojas said, rolling them closer. “Hands here. Use as much support as you need. Stop at sharp pain, not just stretch. Ready?”

The brace came off. His ankle looked foreign — muscle thinned, skin drawn tight over the pale seam that crossed the joint.

He gripped the rail. Breath even. Eyes forward.

The first touch sent fire up his leg — deep, bright, everywhere at once.

He tried again and the floor swayed. Pain spiked, but it wasn’t just pain — heat pooled in his neck. The air thinned.

“Easy,” Rojas said immediately. “Slow down. Breathe.”

He did. Once, twice. Air scraped his throat raw.

The floor tilted, and his stomach twisted with the kind of nausea that feels like falling.

“I’m fine,” he managed, though the words broke halfway.

“Sit.”

He didn’t make it.

The world narrowed to white edges. His knees gave and the mat caught him as his stomach lurched. He turned away, dry-heaving once, then again — nothing in him to lose.

Somewhere to his left, a resistance band snapped to a halt. Footsteps slowed.

He didn’t look, couldn’t, but he felt the shift — the way a room changes when people stop pretending not to see. A couple of athletes had paused mid-exercise, caught between instinct and uncertainty, eyes hovering in his direction without getting close enough to matter.

No one approached. No one ever did in places like this. Not unless they were allowed to.

“Hey,” Rojas said, already kneeling, voice low but firm. “Stay with me, Itoshi. It’s just a blood pressure drop, not you breaking. Look at me.”

He did, barely. His vision pulsed gray around the edges.

“You’ve been horizontal for almost a month,” she continued. “You stand up, your blood pressure tanks. Add pain on top, and your system panics. It’s normal.”

His pulse pounded behind his eyes, breath too shallow to count, while his throat worked around another wave of nausea. This was normal?

Rojas set a hand lightly against his shoulder, grounding, not guiding. “You’re not weak. You’re adapting. There’s a difference.”

He swallowed, throat dry, head heavy. “It doesn’t feel like it.”

“No,” she agreed. “But it will. You did more than your body was ready for. That’s progress too, Itoshi.”

The phrase hung there — not soft, but steady.

She reached for her tablet, eyes flicking over the screen. “You’ll be dizzy for a bit. Sit still.”

He nodded weakly. The motion alone made his stomach pitch again.

“I’ll file it,” she said, quieter now, “and scale back tomorrow. You’ll get there, but not all at once.”

“Don’t call the doctor.”

Rojas looked up. “Protocol says—”

“Don’t.”

The flatness of it made her pause. She studied him — color drained, breath uneven, eyes half unfocused — and relented with a small exhale. “Fine. But if it happens again, we call. Understood?”

He blinked hard in reply.

Rojas steadied him until the spinning eased enough for him to track the outline of the room. When his vision finally stopped pulsing, she helped him shift to the chair.

“You just pushed past your threshold,” she said, gentle but steady. “Go straight home. Feet up. Salty food. Water. No bonus exercises.”

He nodded once — careful, controlled, pretending the motion didn’t sway.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she added. “Slow steps only. And use the railings.”

He didn’t answer, and she didn’t wait for one.

When she left, the door eased shut with a soft pneumatic hiss. The quiet that followed felt too large.

Sae stayed seated until the dizziness thinned to something manageable. His breaths still came in shallow pulls, but he could stand — barely.

The hall back to the elevator was short, but he had to brace himself on the wall twice, despite the crutches. The fluorescent ceiling flickered once, and he had to close his eyes until the floor stopped tilting.

No one stopped him or asked if he needed help. He wasn’t sure whether he was relieved or grateful.

The elevator ride up was slow enough that he could feel his heartbeat in his teeth. By the time he reached his floor, sweat cooled in a thin layer down his spine, and the world had the fuzzy brightness of something too close to fainting.

He made it inside his apartment. Locked the door. Didn’t bother with the lights. The air felt untouched, like it had been waiting for him to break privately.

He set the bag down. Then the thin veil he’d been holding — the one made of breath control and posture and pretending — tore cleanly. His knees hit the floor before he’d fully decided to sit.

He stayed where he landed, one hand braced on the floor, the other pressed to his forehead. Damp. His pulse wouldn’t slow.

Not the ankle. Not even the pain.

Something else.

Each breath caught high in his chest, shaky and thin. The room trembled at the edges. Black specks flickered in and out like static.

He angled his weight carefully, fighting the nausea clawing up his throat. There was nothing left to throw up, but his body hadn’t gotten the memo — each swallow burned.

He tried grounding — palm flat to the floor, feeling the faint grit. It didn’t hold. The fuzziness crept in anyway, soft and merciless. Another wave of heat rolled over him. He couldn’t stay there.

He forced himself upright. Made it to the sink, flicked the faucet on. Cold water rushed over his hands, his wrists. It helped, but only enough to notice the tremble in his fingers.

He pulled a breath in; it stuttered in his throat. His face burned. The water stung his cheeks next, dripped down his neck. It still wasn’t enough.

Chest heaving with effort, he slid to the floor. Leaned back against the cabinet, right leg pulled up to prop an elbow. He let his head hang and focused on drawing air in, only for his chest to seize up.

It wasn’t working.

Nothing was working.

He didn’t know what name to give this. Overwhelm. Stress. Something worse. It didn’t matter; none of the words felt right. All he knew was the clarity that cut through everything else:

I can’t do this alone.

His hand found his phone before he realized he was reaching for it. His fingers still shook, but he tapped slow enough to hit the right name.

The ring tone pulsed in his ear.

Once.

Twice.

Three times—

“Yo,” Aiku’s voice, confused, “you calling me?”

Sae pressed the phone between his shoulder and his cheek, leaning forward with his eyes shut. “Yeah.”

“You sound like hell. Did you just have physio?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh oh. Scale of one to vomit?”

He tried to breathe around a nonexistent laugh. “Already crossed that line.”

“Good grief, Sae.”

He let the sound of Aiku’s voice fill the gap between his breaths. It steadied the room more than anything else.

“You upright right now?” Aiku asked.

“Mostly.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I’m sitting.” A swallow. “Trying to breathe.”

That pulled Aiku’s tone down a shade. “You dizzy again?”

“Yeah.”

“How bad?”

“Dunno.” Sae opened his eyes. “Everything’s…tilted.”

A quiet moment. He could hear movement on the other end — soft, uneven footsteps. The shift of weight, maybe, or pacing.

“Are you alone?” Aiku asked.

“Mm.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“I—don’t want them here.”

“Not great criteria for survival.”

Sae exhaled through his teeth. “Didn’t say I was great at it.”

“You don’t have to be. You just—keep the line open.”

Sae leaned back again, letting the cabinet’s cool surface kiss the back of his skull. The spin eased a fraction.

“I don’t even know why I called,” he murmured.

“Sure you do,” Aiku said, voice low. “You needed someone to hear you breathing.”

Sae let out something like a huffed sigh — too worn to be dismissive. “You’re making it sound dramatic.”

“Man, you’re in Spain, alone, post-op, trying to stand again, and sound like you nearly passed out. You’re allowed some drama.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“Someone’s gotta.”

He didn’t answer. Squeezed his eyes shut harder.

“How’s the ankle right now?” Aiku asked.

“Feels like a live wire.”

“Head?”

He paused, subtracted the pain. “Floaty.”

“Food?”

“Haven’t tried.”

“Then do me a favor,” Aiku said. “Eat something after we hang up. Doesn’t matter what. Just prove you exist.”

Sae breathed in, shaky. Out, shakier.

“You really think that helps?” he asked.

“No,” Aiku admitted. “But it helps me.”

Silence.

But not the empty kind — the held, waiting kind that felt like someone had a hand on the other end of the line.

“You okay now?” Aiku asked after a long moment.

“Getting there.”

“I’ll believe it when you sound like it.”

Sae made a noise too faint to be a laugh. “You set a low bar.”

“Yeah, well,” Aiku said, “no one else seems to.”

More quiet. Sae used it to breathe.

“Most people—” he swallowed, mouth dry, “—stop responding after the first few times.”

Aiku hummed. “Guess I’m not most people.”

“Lucky me.”

“Same time tomorrow, then?”

Sae didn’t argue. He didn’t have the energy to.

Aiku exhaled — quiet, almost relieved. “Get some water before you pass out again, yeah?”

Sae let his head rest back against the cabinet. “I know.”

“Doesn’t mean you’ll do it.”

A pause — small, tired, real.

“…I’ll try.”

Something eased in Aiku’s voice. “Good enough. Call if it gets worse.”

Sae didn’t promise. He didn’t have to.

The line clicked.

The room didn’t feel fuller. Just — slightly less hollow.

He stayed on the floor long after, the phone still warm in his palm. Eventually the ache behind his eyes sharpened into something heavy, pulsing. He tried to stand and immediately sat again when the world tipped left.

He breathed.

In through his nose. Out through whatever was left.

When the room steadied, he moved through the motions that usually counted as living.

He rinsed a cup. Folded the blanket. Straightened the blister packs of medication so their corners lined up. The order helped, but only in the way sandbags help against a flood — never enough.

Sleep that night was shallow.

The next night, thinner.

By the third, it split apart entirely — thirty minutes at a time, like something inside him refused to stay asleep with him.

His head ached constantly now. The kind of ache that made light look hostile. He iced, elevated, stretched when told. Ate when his stomach agreed.

He dissociated through most of it.

Rojas noticed — of course she noticed.

“You’re pale,” she said. “And you’re favoring the right side even when you don’t need to.”

He’d said nothing until she sighed and let him go.

Once back in his room, he drifted to the chair by the window — the only place in the room where the light couldn’t reach his eyes directly. He sat there for hours, ankle elevated on a pillow, staring at the wet street far below.

Cars drifted past in soft blurs. People walked with umbrellas, shapes without faces. He didn’t register any of it. Just movement he wasn’t part of.

His laptop sat open on the bed behind him. The same page had been sitting frozen on the screen for two hours — an article about ligament healing he wasn’t actually reading. Sometimes he dragged the cursor just to prove he could still move something.

His pulse thumped too fast. His breathing sat high in his chest, as it always did now.

He didn’t know what he was holding himself together for. Only that if he loosened his grip, even a little, something would come apart in a way he wouldn’t be able to hide.

He let his eyes close. Just for a second.

A knock broke the quiet.

Not polite. Not patient.

Purposeful.

He opened his eyes but didn’t move.

“Sae Itoshi?” the liaison called gently through the door. “We’re coming in.”

He didn’t answer.

The door opened. The liaison stepped inside, and behind her — Dr. Morales. Hair flattened from rain again, same tired steadiness from the night Sae was wheeled from the pitch on a stretcher.

“Sae,” Dr. Morales said, voice softer than usual. “You awake?”

Sae lifted his gaze an inch. “Yeah.”

They exchanged a look — one of those silent, professional oh no, this is worse than we thought looks.

The liaison folded her hands, careful. “We’ve been checking in, but… you didn’t respond to two follow-ups.”

“Physio logged a collapse last week,” Morales added. “And the dizziness has been getting worse.”

He stepped in a little, eyes moving over Sae’s posture, the pallor, the dry skin at the corners of his mouth.

“And right now?” His voice stayed even. “You’re dehydrated, exhausted, and barely holding your balance.”

Sae exhaled through his nose — the closest he could come to a laugh. “I’m drinking.”

“Not enough,” Morales said gently. No disappointment, just fact.

The liaison shifted forward a step. “We’re here to recommend a temporary transfer. To Japan.”

His attention snapped back. Slowly. Like moving through water.

“…Why.”

“For support,” she said. “Your recovery is—” she searched for a word that wasn’t failure, “—overburdened. You’re doing a lot alone.”

Morales crouched slightly, meeting his eyes without crowding him. “Concussion regression is common when the nervous system is overwhelmed. You’re not sleeping. You’re not eating. The dizziness is worsening. It's late November. This isn’t sustainable.”

“We think being closer to family will help,” the liaison added.

The words landed like heavy pins.

Sae’s hands clenched. “You talked to them.”

His voice didn’t rise. It didn’t tremble. It just thinned — like something stretched too far.

“We informed them of the option,” the liaison said immediately. “And emphasized there’s no obligation on their end. Or yours.”

“But they were concerned,” Morales added quietly. “Said you haven’t reached out in a long time. They didn’t want to overstep, but… they want to be available.”

Sae looked away — hard. Out the window.

Anywhere but at the concern he didn’t know how to absorb.

“You already decided,” he murmured.

“No,” the liaison said. “We prepared. You decide.”

The room felt too small. His hands shook faintly against the chair arms. His heart kicked unevenly in his chest.

“Someone told you,” he said.

A pause. Not long.

But long enough.

“Yes,” Morales said. “Someone who cares.”

His throat clenched. A microscopic reaction — and still more than he wanted them to see.

“When,” he managed. “When would this happen.”

“Tomorrow, if you want. Or later. Whatever you choose.”

They didn’t touch him. Didn’t move closer. Just left the papers on the table and walked out, door shutting soft behind them.

The room reorganized itself in their absence.

Too bright. Too loud. Too empty.

The words echoed anyway:

Transfer.

Support.

Japan.

Someone who cares.

His phone buzzed once on the table.

Aiku: You still breathing?

He didn’t open it.

Not yet.

The phone rang before he had time to question what he was doing.

Three rings.

Then—

“Yo, genius,” Aiku said, voice thick with sleep. Right — it was early morning in Japan. “Didn’t think I’d hear from you today.”

Sae swallowed, throat still raw.

He sat against the headboard like he was trying to keep himself upright by pressure alone. His brace rested on a pillow. His fingers curled against the sheet without meaning to.

“They’re sending me back to Japan,” he said.

Aiku went still. The silence on the line sharpened. “…What? When?”

“Soon. They want me there for recovery.”

Another beat of quiet — not surprise exactly, but something heavier.

“…I didn’t know they’d go that far.”

“You told them.”

Not an accusation — just something stripped, tired, unusually bare.

“I told them someone should check on you,” Aiku said. “That’s all.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“It’s not.”

Sae shut his eyes. His head pulsed.

The words came out a shade too hollow to disguise. “I was handling it.”

Aiku didn’t raise his voice; he just let the softness fall away.

“It didn’t sound that way.”

Heat pricked under Sae’s skin.

“You don’t know.”

“I do,” Aiku said quietly. “You called me like that. Anyone could tell something was wrong.”

Sae’s breath caught, the room shifting at its edges.

“It was just—a moment,” he murmured.

Aiku made a small sound — not quite agreement, not quite denial. Just worn.

“Sae…”

The ache behind his eyes throbbed again. “I don’t need people deciding things for me.”

“They didn’t decide,” Aiku said. “They were… worried. Even your parents.”

A small, sharp sound escaped him — half laugh, half disbelief. “They haven’t called me in months.”

Silence.

When Aiku finally spoke, his voice had changed.

“…They haven’t?”

Quiet. Shock, not pity.

“No.”

Another silence — heavier, recalculating.

“Still,” Aiku said slowly, “doesn’t always mean nothing. Sometimes people… hold back.”

“It means they stay away,” Sae whispered. “Like I asked.”

“You never asked.” Aiku’s voice lowered. “Knowing you, you just… went quiet.”

Aiku didn’t understand.

Something inside Sae jerked like a pulled wire. The room brightened unnaturally for a heartbeat. His breath skidded.

Aiku heard it. “Sae?”

“I’m fine.” Too sharp. “Just—tired.”

“That didn’t sound like tired.”

Sae swallowed. Vision hazy at the edges, the window doubling. “I don’t want them seeing… this.”

“Seeing what?” Aiku asked, gentler now.

He had no answer. None he could survive.

The silence tightened.

“Sae,” Aiku tried again, softer, “please say something.”

“You shouldn’t have called them.”

Aiku let out a quiet curse — the kind someone makes when something hurts more than they expected. “I didn’t do it to screw you over.”

“You still did.”

“Because someone had to.” Aiku’s tone rose a fraction — thin crack at the edge. “You think it was easy hearing you like that? And not being able to do a damn thing?”

Sae’s pulse jumped. The pressure behind his eyes spread downward, thickening into nausea.

“You don’t—”

His breath caught mid-sentence. The floor tipped left. His fingers tightened on the blanket.

“Sae?” Aiku’s tone snapped instantly — all irritation gone. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing.” His heart kicked hard, fast. He pressed a palm to his sternum. “I'm fine.”

“Your voice—”

“It’s just a headache.”

The ceiling warped.

He couldn’t do this.

“I don’t—have time for this.”

“You’re not making sense,” Aiku said, now fully alarmed. “Sae. Hey—stay with me a second.”

“I need to go.”

Barely audible.

“No—wait—Sae—”

He cut the call before anything else could break. The phone slid sideways onto the blanket. His breath came wrong — short, thin, uneven. Not dangerous. Just too much.

He pushed himself upright, each movement dragging the room out of shape, and made it to the bathroom by habit alone.

Cold water shocked his hands. Then his face. The sting steadied the world — just barely.

He lifted his head.

The mirror was merciless.

Washed-out skin. Hair limp and dripping. Eyes shadowed and too bright — fever-bright. Cheekbones sharper, cheeks hollowed. A face pulled halfway out of its own life.

A face he never wanted his parents to see.

His stomach turned. He gripped the sink harder.

He’d wanted distance. He’d never meant to be seen like this.

The reflection wavered. He blinked it steady.

A thin breath escaped.

A rubber band stretched too far. He didn’t know if he’d snap, break, or just stay this way.

Rin

It was late in October when Aiku called.

The dorm hallway outside was half-lit, the kind of blue-or-grey that didn’t bother committing. Rin had just switched off his desk lamp when his phone buzzed.

Aiku: You awake?

He hesitated. Then typed:

Rin: Yes

The call came immediately.

“Evening, genius,” Aiku said, voice scratchy from sleep — or thinking too much. Hard to tell with him.

“What,” Rin answered.

“Just checking in.”

“Why.”

“Because your brother’s impossible to reach.”

Rin’s fingers stilled. “You’ve talked to him?”

“Here and there.” Aiku’s tone shifted — lighter in sound, heavier in meaning. “He’s home from the hospital. Deep into rehab. Sounds… worn down.”

Rin said nothing.

“And from what little’s gotten out…” Aiku paused. “He doesn’t look like the guy you remember.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Rin muttered.

“Just that the cameras didn’t exaggerate this time.”

“He’s fine,” Rin said, sharper than he meant — too fast.

“Mm.” Not disagreement. Not belief. Just acknowledgement. “If you say so.”

Silence pressed thin between them.

Rin finally asked, “Why’re you telling me.”

Aiku answered like it was obvious. “Figured you’d want to know.”

“I don’t.”

A soft huff of breath through the speaker. “Right. That’s why you sound like someone stepped on your chest.”

Rin’s teeth clicked together. “You sound like Hiori.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Another pause, then Aiku’s voice went quieter. “You know what day it was last week?”

“No.”

“His birthday.”

Rin blinked. “...I know.”

“You text him?”

“...No.”

Aiku didn’t laugh this time — not really. More like something wry that never took shape. “Thought so.”

“He doesn’t need that from me.”

“Maybe not,” Aiku said. “But needing’s not the only measure.”

Rin opened his mouth, closed it.

Aiku continued, gentler now: “He didn’t even mention it. Not once. That… isn’t like him, is it?”

Rin didn’t answer.

“This injury’s hit him hard,” Aiku went on. “Harder than he’ll admit. Just—think about that, yeah?”

Before Rin could answer, the call ended. He stared at the screen as it dimmed, the room falling back into its usual silence.

He checked the date anyway. 10/10.

Already gone.

He shouldn’t have opened the browser. He did anyway.

Typed Itoshi Sae hospital.

Articles loaded first. Rehab timelines, press statements, useless optimism. He ignored them and tapped the images tab. Thumbnails appeared: Sae in a wheelchair, Sae on crutches, Sae flanked by staff as he left the hospital’s side entrance. Grainy. Distant. Shot through fences or car windows.

Rin opened one.

Sae stood in a plain hoodie, weight tipped off his left leg. His hair was flattened, even his bangs — Rin was eleven the last time he’d seen that. Sae’s eyes — usually bright, keen, calculating — looked muted under the gray Madrid light. Shadows clung beneath them. His jaw was sharper. His shoulders narrower.

He didn’t look injured so much as… dimmed.

Something in that expression — blank, unguarded, almost emptied-out — scraped at him in a way he couldn’t name. It wasn’t a look he recognized. But it felt like one he should.

He shut the screen abruptly. The case creaked under his grip.

Whatever this was — whatever version of Sae the world had captured — it wasn’t the one Rin kept in his head.

He tried to remember what he had done that day. Drills. Weights. Dinner. A shower. Nothing that could have reminded him.

He lay back on the bed. The faint hallway light cut a stripe across the floor.

The memory came soft, the way childhood does — not as a story, but as a room he walked back into without meaning to.

He was barely seven.

The kitchen had been warm that night, lit by a yellow bulb that softened everything. Sae sat straight at the table, hair damp, face calm in a way that never seemed to match the number on the cake.

“Make a wish,” their mother said.

Sae didn’t close his eyes. He just looked at Rin first — that small sideways glance he always used to check that Rin was paying attention — and Rin sat a little straighter without meaning to.

Sae blew out the candle. One breath. Clean.

Before the smoke even cleared, he reached for the knife. “Which slice do you want?”

Not do you want some. Not should I cut it. Just which one, like the choice already belonged to Rin.

Rin pointed at the slice with the most frosting. Sae didn’t hesitate. Didn’t judge. Just cut it and slid it toward him with a practiced neatness that Rin used to try to copy when no one was watching.

Rin smiled too wide — he could feel it even now — and Sae’s expression softened in that small way Rin had always noticed, even when adults didn’t.

Frosting got on Rin’s cheek. Sae wiped it away with his thumb, muttering “always a mess,” but he said it like the mess meant Rin was his to take care of.

Rin had loved him with the helplessness of a younger brother who didn’t have the words yet.

The kitchen felt full back then. Full and safe.

Rin swallowed, throat tight in the dark of his dorm. He didn’t know the last time Sae blew out candles. Or whether anyone wiped frosting off his face. Or asked what slice he wanted.

He didn’t know if Sae had gotten a cake this year. Didn’t know if anyone had stood beside him that day at all.

The memory ached in a quiet way — not sharp, not dramatic. Just the kind of ache that reminded him something had been warm once.

And now wasn’t.

The weeks that followed passed in a kind of functional blur.

Training. Weekly check-ins. Scrimmages. A rhythm he knew so well he could’ve sleepwalked through it. He kept his head down, kept his form sharp, kept the silence between every obligation tight enough that nothing slipped out.

Most days, it worked.

But some nights, when he stretched on the dorm floor after drills, the memory of those hospital photos — Sae standing under gray Madrid light, eyes dulled, shoulders narrower — flashed behind his eyelids without warning. A face Rin didn’t recognize. A face that shouldn’t have belonged to Sae at all.

He pushed the image away every time. Pushed hard.

But the ghost of it stayed.

So when his phone buzzed a month later and Home lit across the screen, he felt something in his chest tighten before he even touched it.

He stared at the caller ID long enough for the screen to dim once before he answered.

“Rin?” his mother said. Her voice was soft in that way it only was when she’d rehearsed the words first. “Are you free to talk?”

“Yes.”

A breath — not relief, just gathering.

“We heard from the club today,” she said. “About your brother.”

Rin’s spine went straight. “What about him?”

“They said he’ll be transferred back to Japan,” she continued carefully, “to… rest. And finish his rehabilitation here.”

There was the faint rustle of the receiver changing hands.

His father now. “It’s already arranged. He should be home soon.”

“We saw some recent coverage,” his mother added quietly. “From the training facility. He didn’t look like himself.”

They didn’t elaborate. They didn’t need to. Rin heard it anyway — the thinness in his mother’s breath, the way his father cleared his throat before speaking, the slight delay before each word.

Fear.

The quiet kind.

The kind adults don’t admit to their children.

“So he’s… not doing well,” Rin said, voice level.

Another silence — long enough to be an answer.

His mother’s voice returned, smaller this time. “The club said he’s… having a difficult time. Recovering.”

Difficult.

The same word people used when they meant more than we expected and we don’t know how to help.

Rin sat down on the edge of his bed. “I see.”

“We thought…” His father hesitated. “Once he’s settled, maybe you would like to come for dinner. One evening.”

Not an order — or even a request. Just a hope held carefully, like it might break if he breathed on it wrong.

Rin’s throat tightened with something he refused to name. “I… don’t know.”

There was the smallest shift on the line — disappointment swallowed quickly, respectfully — but he still felt it.

“We understand,” his father said. His tone was polite enough that it hurt more. “It’s only a thought.”

“We can… adjust, if your schedule is busy,” his mother added, too quickly. As if that was the real reason. As if they hadn’t all been orbiting each other at a safe distance for years.

Rin couldn’t bring himself to say yes. Couldn’t bring himself to say no. So he said nothing. And the silence — respectful, resigned — closed the conversation for him.

“We’ll… call again when we know more,” his mother said softly.

“Yes,” Rin answered.

“Good night,” she said. “Take care.”

His father echoed it.

The line ended.

Rin lowered the phone slowly, staring at the blank screen long after the call had cut.

They didn’t say they were scared. They didn’t say they were worried. They didn’t say that Sae sounded nothing like the son they knew.

But Rin had heard all of it anyway.

He sat in the quiet for a long time, the memory of candlelight and frosting-smudged childhood settling heavy in his chest — a life that felt close enough to touch and impossibly far at the same time.

He didn’t move.

And somewhere between the breath he took and the one he couldn’t quite finish, the distance in their family stopped feeling normal and started feeling like loss.