Chapter Text
Sae had a bone to pick with Madrid.
It was a stifling dome of a city, gargantuan and sprawling with sweat-soaked limbs that reached out and tried to grab at his jersey. He felt trapped, then, unable to take another step forward as Madrid continued to hold onto him, determined. But he liked to believe that he was made of sterner stuff.
So, one cool midnight he hopped on the first plane going. And, at first, he thought that he was heading back to Japan, as he ought to have done if his parents’ heartfelt messages inspired any kind of sentimental feeling in him at all— but when he glanced down at his ticket for the first time since he bought it, he saw that he’d arrive at Berlin before the morning sun rose over the airport. It was the most ridiculous thing that ever happened to him. He had been caught in a stupor of hatred for a city that had never done him any wrong, really, to the extent that he was now the only person besides a toothy old beerhead in the cabin, snacking away on pretzels the anxious flight attendant kept offering him. He never knew that a person could just black out because they hated something so much. He hadn’t remembered buying the ticket, or the decision that had led him to make the journey to Berlin at silly o’clock in the morning. He just remembered that fierce instinct, the almost maddening need to escape.
He wasn’t going very far though. The Brandenburg Airport wasn’t in the least bit dissimilar to Barajas, though maybe all airports in the world were carbon copies of each other, designed merely to drain wallets dry and reap in its annual collection of noise complaints from unfortunate neighbours. And when he stepped out to wait for his taxi he basked in the cool flush of wind, something he’d sorely craved during his stay in Madrid, which was resembling a particular kind of purgatory in his mind the more he thought about it. But still, he was only a few hours away by plane from the team he’d cultivated over there— about twenty-four hours by car, too. By now, his teammates at Re Al would probably be wondering where the hell he was, and their thoughts could even be carried over the European land and fall into his ears.
But he’d ignore them.
‘Where to?’ the driver said, once he arrived with a squeal of his Mercedes. His accent was thicker than Sae’s arm, and so those two measly words merged into a grunt that was unintelligible to his foreign ears.
But he got the gist of the inquiry anyway. He shrugged as he slid into the cushioned seats, because whilst he understood he certainly did not have an answer. There were few places in the world for a Japanese kid whose only talent was kicking a ball about, and he doubted that this balding taxi driver knew of any of those destinations.
‘Ridiculous— you must tell me where you are going,’ the driver retorted gruffly. He tapped repeatedly on the steering wheel, and outside rain began to patter against the windows. The infernal cacophony was starting to grate on him, pushing him for a response he didn’t have.
‘Just. Just take me wherever,’ he said, enunciating each English word as clearly as he could so he could fool the driver into believing that he was certain of his aimlessness.
He’d half expected the driver to fly into a temper— why wouldn’t he, a busy man with a family at home to feed, probably, now stuck with a wayward customer. He even stiffened, as though he was gearing up for a good and proper yell. But then the man only sighed and adjusted the rearview mirror, and his blue eyes were now focused on Sae’s. He could see a degree of empathy in them, a willingness to listen to whatever gripe Sae had with the world— and of that he had many. He didn’t think that the driver had the time to listen to them all. But that generous look softened his own irritable mood, and he found that he had it in him after all to speak.
‘I’m just tired,’ he said. ‘Take me somewhere I can rest.’
The car started at long last, and soon it ate up the miles between the airport and the heart of Berlin. Before him skyscrapers towered overhead like stump-like legs, enveloped by the thickening fog. As the vehicle sped on, Sae realised that they had long since passed the hotel district, where he had been certain the driver was going to take him. He didn’t want to go to a hotel, sure, but he thought that maybe he ought to have said he did anyway, because now he was probably being kidnapped and he’d have his organs circulating the black market before the day was up.
Or the driver was simply looking to take his time with the journey so that he could charge Sae the entirety of what was left of his puny stack of euros. Whatever.
He couldn’t bring himself to panic. Or even care, not very much. Because today he was finding comfort in the unknown.
Soon the skyscrapers gave way to the eastern stretch of Berlin. It was the kind of urban nightmare he’d glance at in his old geography textbooks, during the rare moments he’d paid attention in class. He saw housing lodged into a narrow clump of brick and glass, with sparse patches of green here and there. And these buildings put the skyscrapers to shame— the stories piled on until the grey fog hid the summit from his view.
This was where the car stopped, and once again the wheels screeched unbearably. The driver grunted as he eased himself out of his seat and opened the door, and it was as though he’d forgotten all about Sae. So Sae had no choice but to step out in turn and stare curiously at the man beside him, wondering why he had been taken to such a barren place.
He carefully counted out his euros before giving in and holding out the lot of it to the driver. But he didn’t take it. He was gazing blankly at the apartment block ahead of him, and on his features was a dazed expression. Sae nudged him.
‘Will this be enough?’ he asked blandly.
The driver blinked. He turned towards Sae, as though he was recalling that he was in fact still on the clock, and that he had a paying customer beside him. He nodded and managed to look bashful.
‘Come in, why don’t you,’ he said, and Sae thought, Sure, why the hell not.
Two rooms. That was it. In the centre of what was apparently the living room there was a reeking, drink-soaked mattress that made Sae hold his nose— and that was it. No TV, no sofa, nothing but bare walls with cracking plaster as a makeshift pattern.
‘My stuff got— repossessed, is it?’ the man shrugged. ‘I don’t need anything, anyway.’
‘Why did you bring me here?’ Sae asked. About time, too.
‘You wanted to rest,’ was the reply. ‘Here, you can.’
Sae almost laughed. Almost. So, was this the unknown he’d wanted? He was standing about someone’s shithole of an apartment, and had probably broken every rule in the Stranger Danger Handbook. But again, he wasn’t at all worried, even though he should have been.
He sat down as gingerly as he could on the edge of the mattress, steering his minuscule luggage as he went. He reached for his backpack, just for something to do. The man watched him, silent and utterly strange. He noticed Sae’s lone football, which he’d stuffed into his bag in a blind hurry, rolling out onto the beer-stained floorboards, and his face began contorting strangely.
‘You— you play football?’ the man muttered, as though the question pained his throat to get out.
Sae shrugged. ‘I play for Re Al.’
Well. Used to.
‘The under-twenties?’
He didn’t look very old, did he? ‘Yeah, you’re right.’
The man made a sort of choking noise. He began mumbling to himself in a series of rapid German, and it was a sight to behold.
‘What’s wrong?’ Sae asked sharply. Surely he wasn’t going to have a psychotic fit on his hands, was he?
The rotting wood that was the ground creaked as the man slumped into them. His fits knuckled his eyes and he was away again, still muttering and not quite in the room. Any other normal person would have booked it then and there, but Sae wasn’t normal. He merely looked at the man breaking down the same way he had been a silent witness to his brother Rin’s childhood tantrums when he did not have his way. This man had not had his way either, and he hadn’t for a very long time. Regret pulsed visibly in his bulging veins, misery emerged in small croaks from his mouth.
Sae repeated his question. The man awakened.
‘Everyone,’ he began, and Sae could hardly believe that just an hour or two ago the stranger was just a nameless driver whom he’d never had to see again, ‘everyone is a parasite. They all use me. They take everything from me. They were nothing and then they became something because of me. Now I am nothing. And they forget me. I don’t exist. I only have a car that is not mine and a job that pays nothing.’
‘I was going to pay you—’ Sae protested, holding up the wad of euros still in his hand, but the man shook his head.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ he kept saying, over and over.
There was a brimming bottle of beer beside him, which he lifted and ripped off the cork with his teeth. Sae almost felt compelled to clap. Such sheer dental strength was something he suddenly wanted to obtain for himself one day.
There was a knock on the door. With the rapid energy of a bullet out of a shotgun, the man jumped to a start and crawled on all fours towards the source of the noise.
There was the click of a turning lock, and the door swung open, releasing the whistling ice-like breeze that almost froze Sae into a human popsicle.
There was yet another man— no, a guy who was probably around Sae’s age— standing there, dressed from head to toe in all-black. His jacket, boots, trailing scarf and gloves turned him into a real shadow, and there were even elaborate sunglasses perched on his nose, as though they were capable of detecting the invisible sun. However, a shock of long blonde hair drew him away from the dark, and it was clear to Sae that the guy before him was someone he ought to know. Like Sae, he wasn’t ordinary.
‘Michael!’ the man cried out, and he grabbed at the booted ankles before him, determined not to let go.
But “Michael” remained calm. He freed himself from the baggage with a swift kick of his leg that sent the man rolling onto his back. Michael then produced an envelope from his pocket and threw it. The man grabbed at it, panting loudly as he tore it open with shaking hands.
And inside was money. A whole load of it. It spilled out of the envelope and was spread out like a fan made of euros everywhere.
The man cried, warbling in sobbing German as he held the notes to his face and rubbed his stubble with them.
‘Damit kannst du deinen Job als Taxifahrer kündigen,’ Michael told him. ‘Der passt nicht zu dir.’
The man bowed repeatedly as though he was at the feet of some benevolent ruler, seemingly thanking him incessantly. Michael pulled a face.
He turned to Sae for the first time, and the abruptness of it rather startled him.
‘He makes me sick,’ Michael confided, in perfect English. ‘When I give him money, he loves me. When I don’t, I’m—how do you say…. A piece of shit.’
The man shook his head fiercely. ‘You’re not! You’re not! I love you, Michael!’
‘Really?’ And then, to Sae’s great astonishment, Michael began taking off his clothes.
He stripped bare to his boxer shorts. His pale skin ran without interruption until strips of black and purple coiled about his limbs and stomach. Sae had his own fair share of bruises from his training, but he’d never seen such a grand scale of violence before him in his whole life.
Michael pointed at the man, whose eyes began beseeching him. ‘He did this to me,’ he declared.
The man shook his head again, looking incredibly helpless for someone who supposedly had a brutal streak.
‘So take this as a lesson,’ he continued. ‘Never judge a book by its cover….’
‘Who are you?’ Sae asked. He might as well.
‘Hey, you’re the intruder,’ was the reply. ‘Who the fuck are you?’