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Living with Reo is everything Nagi could ever want, but he's only allowed to do so a few months out of the year.
Off-season is a blessing, stretched between the end of May and mid-August. Nagi would have committed to professional soccer a lot earlier if someone had illustrated to him what it entailed:
Three long uninterrupted months of unemployment.
Three months of vacation where Nagi can do whatever he wants as long as his diet doesn't become disastrous, which is unlikely because eating is a chore. (There’s an acceptable explanation somewhere... What's the word the team trainer used for it? Maintenance?)
Regardless, these three months were practically shut-in gamer bliss. He doesn’t think he’s had a summer more fulfilling and indulgent than his first summer after joining the pro leagues.
Three months of being next to Reo, every waking moment. Just because he wants to, no questions asked.
“What are your plans for the break?” Chigiri had asked him as they finished up their last practice of the season, en route to their dorms.
Nagi had looked at Chigiri with a deadpan expression, as if to say isn’t it obvious?
Chigiri had put his hands up in surrender. “Just making sure.”
Sure, Reo’s place is further away now compared to when they’d both been on Manshine City’s roster (Back then, Reo had opted to pay for a one-bedroom flat over the dorms, citing I can afford to have more square footage), but PXG’s territory was only a day’s worth of public transit away. The trip is practically nothing armed with his cell phone, earbuds, a battery pack, and Choki.
It just made sense to crash at Reo’s rather than finding a nearby hotel. Nagi was going to spend all his free time with Reo anyway, so staying over was an easy choice— a way to maximize time together. Nagi can already smell Reo’s lavender-scented bed sheets and feel the Paris summer sunlight shining through the cotton curtains.
He never wanted to be too far from Reo. His throat constricts just at the thought of it. He sludges his way through the feeling though, for his own good. He never liked doing things people say were for his own good. Things like having good attendance, like making sure to eat three square meals a day, like how he should stay on the Manshine City roster where he has a regular spot as a striker, and not trade it for less pay and the bench at PXG. He would be the first to indulge in gluttony, given the option.
Instead, he learned to swallow the loneliness, even if he does it with little poise. Yeah, he’ll lie face-down on the soccer turf, with his teammates trampling over him, but at least he showed up to practice. He accidentally started a habit of extending his toilet breaks, filling up the seconds and minutes by running his hands under warm water long enough for him to feel guilty about being wasteful— but the warmth feels good and it’s not as if he could ask Chigiri for hugs. Chigiri isn’t a hugs kind of guy. Reo is. No one could match Reo’s hugs, and luckily for Nagi, Reo showered Nagi with them.
So Nagi shows up with nothing but a backpack on his back and Choki in his hands at Reo’s doorstep, pressing the doorbell button because Reo refused to give Nagi a spare key in case Nagi ever misplaced it (He wonders if Reo’s father told him to do that to deter Nagi from showing up unannounced more often than he already did.) He hadn’t bothered contesting the decision, but Nagi would never lose something like Reo’s key.
Reo opens the door with a smile, pointing to the phone he has held up to his ear, shuffling to let Nagi into the apartment. Nagi takes the cue, keeping his mouth shut and shrugging his backpack off his shoulders and onto the kitchen table chair. He carefully places Choki down, intent on placing it on Reo’s bedroom window-sill later. Choki would probably survive three months without watering, but it’s not recommended, and Nagi’s been following his plant book’s recommendations for so long now, it’s ingrained in him. Choki has grown healthily, so Nagi is not inclined to change his ways.
Nagi plugs his phone into a socket, pours himself a glass of water from the filter, and sits himself on Reo’s couch as he waits for the call to conclude. He doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but there’s nothing else to listen to.
“I understand, Father,” Reo says, posture rigid as if he were in a board meeting, not at home. “I can attend the meeting next month.” Reo sighs. “But,” Reo emphasizes, “Only because it’ll be my off season.”
There’s a small pause. Nagi takes a sip of water. And then: “Sure, is that everything? Okay then— goodbye, see you next month.” Reo flips his phone shut with a self-satisfied snap.
“Reo’s so dramatic,” Nagi says, half to tease Reo, half to bring Reo’s attention to him. “A flip-smartphone is so Reo.”
Reo grins and walks over to ruffle Nagi’s hair.
“Very funny,” Reo says lightly. “Did you start heading over first thing this morning? You would have had to have taken the first train out—unless you flew?”
“Took the first train,” Nagi confirms. Couldn’t wait to see Reo.
Reo throws his arm around Nagi in a side-hug. Nagi melts into Reo.
“I knew I’d see you today—or tomorrow.” Reo laughs. “Do you need me to help you unpack?” Reo asks, swiveling his head to look for Nagi’s luggage, then furrowing his brows when he spots Nagi’s backpack. “Is that all you brought?”
Nagi shrugs. “What would I even need?”
“Uh— a wardrobe that lasts more than three days, for starters.”
Nagi shakes his head. “I left some clothes last time. Plus, I can borrow Reo’s clothes.”
Reo wrinkles his nose. “I don’t have many oversized sweaters.”
“They’ll do,” Nagi assures.
“Well,” Reo says. “We could always go shopping. I’ll have plenty of time after my season ends next week.”
Nagi internally groans at the thought of Reo disappearing on him. Soccer always has been, and will always be, Nagi’s rival in love.
“I’ll be borrowing your computer setup for gaming until then,” Nagi says.
“No problem,” Reo quips. “Barely use that thing,” Reo adds in a way that would seem vaunt if Nagi didn’t know that it was simply Reo telling the truth. The setup was put together and polished mostly for Nagi’s use. Reo tugs Nagi up from the couch. “Now let’s unpack what you did bring.”
Nagi shuffles into Reo’s bedroom, Choki in tow. He carefully places Choki on the edge of the windowsill, slotted in the gap where the curtain just barely doesn’t cover.
Nagi opens the bottom drawer (the one that Nagi claims every time he comes over). He expects to see a few sets of sweats, and there is, but there’s also a set of the PXG uniform in the drawer. Huh. Nagi is sure that Reo usually puts his uniform in the second drawer. Nagi can move it for him, so Reo has it in the right place when he needs it.
Nagi picks up the jersey. The slippery, airy fabric makes it easy for the careful folds to disintegrate as Nagi picks it up.
Uniform unfolded, Nagi stares at the emblazoned number thirteen...
Reo is number fourteen.
Why is this in Reo’s dresser? Why is this in Nagi’s drawer of Reo’s dresser?
Nagi feels the ground beneath him turn to freshly mixed gelatin, not yet hardened. He’ll fall right through. His ears are buzzing— too much gaming on the train, maybe? A migraine is forming at his temple.
He opens Reo’s second drawer. There’s already a PXG uniform set in the drawer. Nagi lifts up a corner of the uniform to see the number; it’s fourteen.
Why is Nagi holding a number thirteen?
The ridges of Nagi’s teeth feel sharp on his tongue.
“You having trouble with something?” Reo asks. Nagi turns to look at Reo at the doorway. He has a fresh set of linen in his arms. The smell of Reo’s lavender fabric softener overtakes Nagi’s senses, and it offers him a minuscule sense of comfort.
“Whose is this?” Nagi asks.
Reo raises an eyebrow and steps closer to look at the uniform.
“Isn’t that my— oh, that’s Shidou’s.”
“Why is it in your drawer?”
Reo brings a finger to his chin and thinks about it.
Fear seizes Nagi’s throat, making it hard to swallow a breath. He should go check if Reo has any saltine crackers in his pantry. That’s what Reo gave him last time he felt ill. Salty things will help him feel less nauseous.
“Shidou’s place had a pipe burst, and he couldn’t find a hotel. I forgot he left his uniform here, he must be using his spare. It was the other night after practice, so I let him crash here,” Reo says.
“On your bed?” Nagi asks, because it’s important. Reo has only one bed.
“The couch,” Reo replies and Nagi’s throat unclenches. He breathes a sigh of relief.
“You should give it back to him,” Nagi says, putting Shidou’s uniform on top of the dresser and meaningfully putting his own clothing into his drawer. It’s Nagi’s drawer, right?
“Yeah, I’ll do it tomorrow,” Reo yawns. “Have you eaten yet?”
“No,” Nagi says.
“Let’s do take-out,” Reo says, as he dumps the fresh linens on the bed and strips the old sheets.
Living with Reo during summer vacation means greeting Reo when he comes home. It means eating together. Sleeping on the same bed together. Just being together. This is Nagi’s idea of heaven.
Summer vacation means that Nagi wakes when he wants, and so, the next day, it’s to the warm afternoon sun. He pricks Choki good morning.
Reo’s side of the bed is cold. Shidou’s jersey is gone from the dresser, so Reo is at morning practice, most likely. Nagi languidly plops himself down in the little gaming corner in Reo’s living room.
Reo’s apartment in Paris is smaller than the one he had in Manchester. The price of being closer to the city centre, Reo complained to him about it on one of their weekly calls. Nagi virtually toured all of Reo’s options on video-call, and Reo ended up taking the smallest one, surprisingly.
Nagi has a lot of time to stare at the walls when Reo is at practice. The computer desk is angled so that his back is to the wall, so when he needs to give his retinas a break from the screen, he looks around the living room. The walls have picture frames held up by command tape; photos of friends, mostly. A lot of photos from games Reo and Nagi won together. There’s a small one of his family, where Reo is really young, maybe six at most. The coat rack is bursting in parkas, trench coats, scarves, and at least five different shoulder bags. The kitchen counter is stocked with bottles of soy sauce: dark, light, less sodium, sweet, tamari.
The most noticeable difference in Reo’s apartment setup from his abode in the Mikage high-rise is the lack of awards decorating the walls.
“Why would I transport them across the sea?” Reo said incredulously to anyone who asked. Like his mother. His mother asked a lot.
And Nagi has never received enough awards to litter them on his bedroom floor, but that’s where a majority of the awards Reo received that he didn’t care for ended up, eventually. Or better yet, ones that his father cared for and Reo didn’t.
“Thanks for catching that one,” Baaya had once told Nagi, when Nagi picked one off the floor when he was over after school. It had been for a business case project extracurricular that Reo’s father had forced Reo to do in between their soccer tournament season. Nagi placed on the mantle with all the other awards; it was a small revelation that even Reo could be disorderly.
And well, none of those awards were the World Cup. Nagi knows that. Knows it all too well when he flubs a pass at practice. Knows it whenever Nagi wants to whine for a water bottle or a towel and is forced to remember that Reo left Manshine City for PXG.
Distance makes the heart grow fonder, or something like that. When Nagi was little, his mother took him to the newly opened local art museum. They had a huge miniature urban settlement exhibit; lego blocks made up city squares, wires strung from wall to wall made cell phone lines and held up plastic planes, complete with piles of sand dumped onto the linoleum flooring as a base. He politely viewed the spectacle, listening in as an elderly lady spoke with a museum employee. “This is new? So it will be moved to another museum then?”
“This one’s permanent,” the employee said.
“Oh,” the elderly lady said, tinged with disappointment. The disappointment echoes in Nagi’s memory. It bothered him, but he couldn’t articulate it at the time.
There is value in knowing something is temporary. There is grace given, when there’s something with a time limit. Like how Reo’s father is willing to wait, like how Nagi is only a guest in Reo’s apartment.
He accidentally stays up for an all nighter. There was a ranker nipping at the heels of his high scores and he was determined to not let them overtake him.
Reo opens the bedroom door in the morning, squinting through the morning sunlight pouring in through south-facing windows, then blinks at Nagi, as if to make sure Nagi is still alive. Then, he retreats back into his bedroom to get ready for the day.
“Don’t forget to clean up,” Reo reminds Nagi, eyeing the blanket that had fallen to the floor, jelly snack packaging, and empty energy drinks. An accumulation of a week’s worth of gaming, piled up in disorderly fashion. Nagi thinks he kept it rather well-contained in the corner.
“Later,” Nagi promises.
Later ends up being Reo. Nagi had plopped down on the sofa for a nap after a winning streak that would put a NEET to shame. When he awakens from his long slumber, Reo is in the middle of cooking dinner, and Nagi’s game-fueled mess in the corner is cleaned up so well it might as well have been gleaming.
“Awake?” Reo asks as he cracks a couple eggs into the fried rice.
“Mnh,” Nagi groggily answers.
“Just in time for dinner,” Reo hums. The eggs sizzle in the wok. Reo tosses the rice over and turns up the fan on the range hood. “Wash up,” Reo says, leaving little room for argument.
“Yes, boss,” Nagi mumbles, sitting up and yawning.
Nagi showers quickly and returns to the living room just as Reo takes out champagne from the fridge. Nagi eyes the bottle’s place on the table with a small frown. Reo planned to drink tonight, it seems.
“Don’t look at it like that,” Reo chuckles. Reo peels the foil, grips the cork, and twists the base of the bottle with the finesse of someone who grew up entertaining guests. It would be ostentatiously over the top if Nagi didn’t know Reo does these types of things without thinking.
“It’s not off season for you yet,” Nagi says.
“It will be tomorrow!” Reo exclaims defensively. Reo pours about a few sips worth into the champagne glasses, and the fizzy bubbles crackle as Reo spins on his heels to plate two servings of fried rice from the wok.
Reo hands Nagi the filled plates and Nagi sets them on the table with napkins and utensils.
Nagi sits down and dutifully spectates as Reo finishes pouring the champagne. Reo picks up a glass, tilting it nearly vertical, pouring champagne down the side of the glass until upright and full. It sparkles under the metal chandelier that charmed Reo into picking this one-bedroom apartment. Reo places it next to Nagi’s plate.
“I used to think champagne only looked like that in advertisements,” Nagi says as he watches the bubbling foam form. The type of ad that takes over the loading screen of his games, a rush of golden liquid that he swore had glitter in it. The ad would, without fail, appear during his evening sessions, a clear estimation of the demographic that plays at 1am in the morning.
Reo finishes pouring his own glass.
“It’s an art,” he says, sitting down. “Cheers?”
They click their glasses together.
Nagi takes a sip, the foam settling like a thick cloud in his mouth before dissipating.
“Refreshing, right?” Reo says, the corners of his lips upturned as he takes his own sip. Nagi thinks it’s unfair that he’s often called out for his gluttonous behavior when Reo is the one with a never-ending stock of champagne— the epitome of human indulgence: a circus of entertainment on the tongue and no nutritional value.
“This one has alcohol,” Nagi notes.
“What are we? High schoolers?” Reo jokes.
They dig into their dinner (Reo’s food is always delicious. Nagi savors every bite).
“So good,” he tells Reo.
Reo laughs. “You’re just too impatient to cook proper food yourself— that’s why you think everything homemade tastes good.”
Nagi shakes his head. “Chigiri sometimes has people over for dinner and I still think yours is better.” Nagi pauses. “Don’t tell him I said that. He threatened to uninvite me the last time I said it.”
“Chigiri cooks everything on high,” Reo scoffs. “Ever since people started calling him the Panther, he’s become more impatient, I swear. Faster doesn’t mean better.”
Nagi blinks. Cooking on high can’t make that much of a difference, surely, but Nagi doesn’t say anything because if Reo says so, then it’s probably right.
“Yum.” He takes a big mouthful.
“I made it with a new herb-infused butter I found at the market,” Reo says proudly. “I’m glad you like it.”
“Anyway,” Reo continues. “You really should get better at cleaning up after yourself. That's like— the only reason I didn’t look for a bigger apartment when we were on Manshine City together last year. Chigiri told me there’s no way you’d do your fair share of chores. But if we want to live together in the future, you have to get better at it.”
Nagi startles with the realization that his eyes are too shiny to be dry. Reo wanted to live with him?
“I know we’re not on the same team right now,” Reo adds. “But Chris let me know Manshine City was going to bid for me again, and I feel like I learned everything I could on my current team— though Shidou will probably be sad— but—”
“Please,” Nagi says.
“Huh?”
“Let’s live together,” Nagi says.
“Okay,” Reo says. “You can start by doing the dishes.”
Nagi smiles. Reo is being easy on him. Nagi always did them.