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Winning used to be enough for Isagi. Before Rin.
But Rin ruins everything — turns every match into a confession he’ll never say aloud, every touch into a reminder that he’ll never be close enough. Isagi tells himself he hates him, and maybe he does. Maybe the hate just sounds too much like love whispered through clenched teeth.
He tries to forget how Rin’s gaze makes him feel seen and judged all at once. He tries to forget the night Rin said, “You make me miserable,” like the words tasted like devotion. Isagi laughed, said something cruel and shallow, because that’s what they do. They fight. They destroy each other instead of admitting they care.
But love is still there — in bruised knuckles, in shared breathing after a goal, in the way Rin looks at him like he’s the only opponent who matters.
“I shouldn’t have changed for you,” Isagi murmurs once, voice barely audible under stadium noise.
Rin tilts his head, expression unreadable. “Then why did you?”
“Because you made me believe I could be loved.”
The silence that follows is worse than any loss. Rin doesn’t deny it, but he doesn’t confirm it either. His hand brushes Isagi’s shoulder — fleeting, meaningless, everything.
Later, Isagi lies awake and whispers a prayer to a god he stopped believing in, asking to stop loving Rin. The prayer goes unanswered.
He decides that’s fair. After all, in Blue Lock, love was never part of the plan.