Chapter Text
Alexis was standing in the shower, scorching hot water running down his body burning off his thoughts, his hopes, his dreams, maybe it would burn his body entirely. Maybe if he turned the water just a tad hotter he could be reduced to ash.
Just as everything burned, he thought. Oh how he would love to stop thinking. He thought about his past, his present, his future and most of all, his Michael. Except he wasn't allowed to think about Michael because he wasn't even his.
Everything about him was connected to Michael. So without him, Alexis was...
And the water turned hotter.
You wouldn’t notice just by looking but the water burned. The flesh turned a darker shade of red and it hurt. It hurt so much, but feeling hurt was familiar to Alexis. It felt good, comfortable. He deserved it. He deserved to be hurt. He would endure anything, as long as he could have Michael. But he didn’t have him anymore. All because Michael had said so.
“You’re not a piece of shit. You’re a flesh and blood human being” he had told him. He still stood by that. His Michael deserved the world and Alexis would give it to him with or without being asked. His Michael was... He tried turning the water hotter, but to no avail.
It felt like everything was against him. He was losing himself. He started to claw on his arms leaving even redder marks on his already burnt skin. He wanted to feel the pain. The pain that made his brain quiet in all the good ways. He dug his fingers in the skin of his arms and tried and tried, just like he always did with everything. He kept on trying but as time passed the water turned colder and his brain became louder and louder.
Eventually the water became freezing cold and that was in itself a different kind of pain. Alexis stepped out of the shower feeling worse about himself than he did when he initially stepped in. He didn’t mind that. He didn’t expect that it would help him in any way, he just wanted to not exist even if just for a little bit.
Alexis grabbed the towel and went to his room. He missed his room. He was glad he was back in Germany. Maybe now he could pretend that things could go back to how they used to be, even if he knew deep inside that it would never happen. Neither he nor Michael could erase the effect Yoichi Isagi had on them.
He looked in the mirror in the center of his room. His arms were pulsing, violent red scratches all over them. He couldn’t feel a thing. Looking at his reflection he was disappointed in what he’d become. He was a shell of himself. If only Blue Lock never happened. If only Michael never had met Yoichi.
Things would be better. They surely would be better. He could’ve made it better. He and Michael never had any issues before Yoichi. Alexis could spend hours analysing how Yoichi ruined everything he’s ever hoped for in his life but now it’s not that time. He got dressed and layed down on his bed. He grabbed his phone and ignored the worried messages from his teamates.
Ever since they returned to Germany, Alexis had isolated himself. He asked Noel Noa for time off, 3 weeks to be exact and it got approved in an instant. After all it was the first time he had ever asked. He hadn’t told anyone about it, not even Michael. His teamates had been worried. That much was evident from their text and calls. Alexis didn’t really care, he liked his teamates but he was looking for someone specific to reach out, but he never did. Something inside of him didn’t want to give up, Michael would reach out, he knew it. Alexis burried that deep inside of him. He didn’t dare to hope, not anymore at least.
The magic was fading, their magic, his and Michael’s, was ripped to shreds by Blue Lock, by Yoichi, or maybe it never even existed in the first place. Maybe there was no magic between them but that wasn’t something Alexis could handle. It was out of the question. He and Michael had magic, Michael himself was magic. So what was he without that magic?
This break was about finding himself, restructuring himself, learning to survive and eventually live without Michael. But why would he want to do that? Why would Alexis want to exist without the only thing he had ever been devoted to. His entire life revolved around Michael, even before he met him. Back then Michael was there for him as his hopes, as his magic.
Sometimes, only sometimes, Alexis thinks it might be best to let Michael go. Maybe letting him go is the best course of action. Michael deserves to be happy, he deserves to thrive and Alexis would do anything in order to see Michael succeed, even if that has to under Yoichi’s influence or even alongside Yoichi himself. It would hurt that’s for sure, but as long as he can see his magic truly live then all the hurting would be worth it.
In front of Michael’s happiness him suffering means nothing.
Alexis knows he shouldn’t think this way. Michael himself told him so. “Find a new King.” that’s what he said. How could Alexis even do that? How could he do than when all his life he’s been worshipping Michael or waiting to worship him. Stupid Yoichi. He didn’t even know what he was destroying. He was only thinking of himself, his goals, his win. He never once thought what he was shredding through. He ruined his Michael.
No, his Michael could never be ruined and never by someone so lowly and pathetic as Yoichi Isagi. His Michael was divine. He was his beginning and end. Alexis was nothing without him. He didn’t deserve to be.
Alexis looked at his phone once more to drown his thoughts. It was way past midnight, Michael would scold him for being awake so late, but time doesn’t really matter when you have absolutely nothing to do. It’s been a week since his return and a week since his break begun. Alexis has so far only achieved destroying his sleep schedule, his eating habits and whatever mental stability he had left. The whole point of this was to improve, to be better for Michael, to show him that he didn’t need anyone else, to show him that he could be just as good for him and that he’s worth taking back.
He wasn’t. He wasn’t worth anything actually.
Alexis started reading the masses of messages from his teamates. It was always something along the lines of “Where have you been?” or “Are you okay?”. All of them boring, predictable, unworthy of response. He sunk deeper into his bed, trying to get any form of comfort from whatever he could. Slowly but surely the consequences to his earlier actions came. His arms, his back, his legs. All burnt from the water. The pain he couldn’t feel before suddenly hit him all at once. Any other person would scream and cry. Not Alexis though. He was far too used to it. In fact, this was what he had been waiting for, the aftermath.
He found solace in his pain and fell asleep.