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“I’ve come to reclaim guardianship over our son!” Shidou points a finger at the duo.
Sae glowers at his striker. “This is why I left Spain?”
Loki and Hugo stare at them. They had just left the locker room after the match against Blue Lock and they were already being accosted by Sae Itoshi and his feral dog.
“What son?” Loki signals for Hugo to get his phone out.
Shidou was hit pretty hard earlier, so with luck, they’ll manage to get him to the hospital in time for them to stop the brain bleed.
“Our son Charles!”
Scratch that, it’s just Shidou being Shidou.
“This is ridiculous,” Sae huffs.
Shidou frowns, lower lip jutting out just so. “You don’t want a family with me?”
“…Fine.”
It’s embarrassing how fast he caved.
Sae points a finger, less dramatically so but more middle-fingered than Shidou did. “I’ve come to reclaim guardianship over our son.”
Hugo stares at where Sae is flipping them off, before turning to his striker. “Is this typical Blue Lock behavior?”
“Partially Blue Lock, partially just Shidou.”
Hugo accepts the answer. “I see.”
“Fight me for parental rights!” Shidou cries again, upset at being ignored.
“I’m not entertaining this,” Loki says. “Do what you want.”
He and his midfielder turn to leave, but barely make it more than a few steps.
Shidou sighs. “It’s for the best. At least now Charles will be with the father he likes the most.”
Loki stops walking. “What do you mean ‘the father he likes the most’? He barely knows you!”
Gottem.
Shidou waves a flippant hand. “Semantics. Three months is more than enough time for me to be the favorite.”
That was enough for Loki to turn around and march back to the duo. Hugo, the basic bitch, follows.
“Three months is nothing compared to the years I’ve spent training him.”
“So you’re his coach,” Sae says.
“No, I’m—why are you even part of this? You’ve never met!”
“We’ve met over FaceTime,” Sae explains.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t heard?” Shidou’s smile is extra pointy. “That seems like something his parents would know.”
“You’re not a parent, you’re a glorified babysitter on meth.”
“I only sniff glue occasionally!”
Sae raises a brow, “Do you really?”
“No, of course not, everyone knows you huff it.” At Sae’s unimpressed glare, he hastily continues, “Which I also don’t do!”
“Was that supposed to be convincing?” Hugo asks.
“Yes. We just passed the drug test,” Sae says flatly. He wordlessly extends a hand and Shidou high-fives it.
“Verbal statements don’t count as evidence,” Hugo reprimanded, while also wondering if Loki would high-five him as well. He decides against asking, such PDA would be unacceptable.
“God, what a nerd.” Shidou turns to the redhead, “Who even are you? Charles didn’t mention you once.”
Inwardly, Hugo is instantly gutted and narrowly avoids spitting blood at them. Outwardly, Hugo says, “If Charles didn’t tell you, it’s because he thought you weren’t worth it.”
“What a cop-out.”
“Charles thinks very highly of him, so you must not spend as much time together as you think,” Loki says.
Sae and Shidou have to squint when Hugo practically glows from the praise, though his face is as impassive as ever.
“Downbad,” Sae mutters.
“Whipped,” Shidou says at the same time.
The two lock eyes and decide to make out over their shared disgust later. For now they have parental rights to win.
“You didn’t even want to fight for custody at first, which means we are the rightful parents.”
“Children deserve to be wanted,” Sae chips in, like he isn’t solely responsible for his brother’s abandonment issues.
Loki crossed his arms. “If anything, I’m Charles’s father—”
“Mother,” the three correct.
Loki blinks. “What gender roles are we pushing here?”
“Don’t feel bad, it’s a compliment! Sae’s my wifey so he’s a mom too.”
Sae doesn’t even blink, heroically stonefaced as he accepts his title of Wifey/Mom.
Loki glances between Sae and the wall several times, before sputtering, “What could possibly be the correlation between us?”
“You would make an excellent wif—mother,” Hugo encourages.
Loki raises a brow. “And you’re the father?”
Hugo nods, “I swear to do right by this family.”
“What—”
“You’d be a terrible father!” Shidou argues, “You and your clumpy ass mascara.”
Hugo raises a brow. “I don’t think either of you can talk about eyelashes.”
The two quietly concede that point.
“Charles is our son. We read psychology books together,” Hugo says.
“Aha!” Shidou yells. “Nice try, Charles doesn’t know how to read!”
Sae glances at Loki who nods, face grim.
“Charles is our kid,” Shidou continues. “Obviously I birthed him. That’s why both of us are blonde!”
“Your hair is fake.”
“Your hair is fake!”
Hugo lifts his hair showing off his roots, “It’s not.”
“You were born with firetruck red hair? Gross,” Sae winces, which was really just a slight twitch of the nose.
“Again, you cannot be talking,” Hugo huffs.
Loki and Shidou briefly caught the other’s eye, having a telepathic discussion about whether or not they have the same wife but different models. They simultaneously decide that no, their wife is the superior wife and the other striker has issues.
“Fuck you, he’s perfect!” Shidou screeches.
“What?”
Apparently telepathy time was over.
“Nothing.”
“You, lukewarm,” Sae juts his chin out at Hugo. “How can you be a father if you’re okay with mediocrity?”
“Second place isn’t mediocrity, it’s ensuring someone else takes the pressure of best and keeps the other players at bay—”
Shidou waves a hand, “Yeah, yeah. We all heard your shitty speech. Second place is just first place for losers.”
“I can be second best. Loki is more than enough as a parent, and I’m okay with being an addition that boosts him as the favorite while I take care of the rest.”
A beat.
“Wow. You are about to teach your kids some fucked up dynamics,” Shidou says.
Hugo now lay crumpled in a heap, wounded by his own lackluster parenting.
Loki heroically avoids commenting on that and steps around the red-hued puddle. Privately, he thinks he needs to work on his boyfriend’s self-esteem, but now would not be the time.
“Parenting will be done together, it’s a partnership after all. Which means taking turns with tasks.”
“I promise to feed and water Charles every day,” Sae solemnly swears.
“He’s not a dog!”
“With how many jerseys he’s chewed up, he might as well be,” Hugo inputs from his puddle.
“How could you possibly be a good parent?” Loki asks Sae.
“I’ve practiced with Rin.”
“And look how that turned out.”
“He’s adjusted.”
“He threatens to kill people mid-match.”
“But doesn’t go through with it. Ergo, adjusted.”
Loki squints at him. “That still doesn’t mean anything.”
“Rin was a test run. Practice means nothing compared to the real thing.”
On the other side of the building, Rin suddenly lurches to the ground, his chest aching with mediocrity.
“Enough! You—” Loki points to Sae “—are a hazard at relationships.” Sae blinks slowly, which may as well have been a slap in the face. “And you—” he points at Shidou “—are a lawsuit waiting to happen! Neither of you are suitable parents.”
“And why would you be a good parent? You’re basically the same age.”
Loki sputters, “I’m seventeen!”
“Oh, well that settles it.”
Sae nods, “We can’t have a child taking care of a child.”
Hugo rises from the floor like a phoenix from the dusty ashes, emphasis on dusty since the cleaners never sweep in this area. “I can take care of him until Loki’s ready.”
“Can you?”
“I’m eighteen,” he says non-canonically.
“Old ass,” Shidou snickers.
“We're the same age.”
“Yeah, but you look so old.”
“Must be the lack of emotions,” Sae says.
Loki rubs his temples, “Sae, you are killing me here.”
“Then die.”
“None of this matters,” Hugo says, while also plotting Sae's demise. “At the end of the day, Charles is a part of our team so he’ll come with us.”
“You haven’t heard of long-distance parenting? Sae, tell them how it works!”
“Please stop using me as an example. My family does not get along as well as you think.”
Shidou clings to his boyfriend, “Which is even more of a reason to let us have Charles, so we can finally fill the family-shaped hole in Sae’s heart.”
“Get a cat,” Hugo says.
“Get some bitches,” Shidou says back.
Hugo gestures to Loki, “I already have a deity.”
Sae turns to the side and violently gags—a faint cough, really—and Shidou’s face screws up in disgust. “God damn, you are such a homo. I mean, who would even want their partner to treat them like a god—” he trails off as he glances at Sae who immediately narrows his eyes “—no one! No one, that's who!”
“That was a hard watch.”
Hugo pulls out his phone. “I’m telling Kaiser you said that.”
“Tell him and his German fuckrag to go to therapy.”
“Shidou.”
“Too far, too far,” Shidou allows. “Ness is a cutie after all.”
“Shidou.”
“What can I say then?!” Shidou cries to his midfielder.
“Infidelity? We can’t let Charles be raised around that,” Loki says. “It’s decided then. He’s our kid.”
“Hang on—”
“Shidou, you’re more of a brother to Charles, just accept that.” He turns to the redhead, “Sae, I’d say the same, but given your track record with brothers…”
Rin, having recovered from his earlier pain, now keels over. Isagi worriedly pokes him with his shoe.
“Counterpoint! You’re PXG’s Captain, so you don’t have time to be a parent when you’re already looking after an entire team,” Shidou points out.
“Or that means I can handle the responsibility since I can take on so much.”
“EERGH!” Shidou makes a buzzer sound complete with crossed arms forming an X. “I was on your team during the Neo-Egoist League and I felt very neglected.”
Shidou punctuates this by falling into his midfielder’s arms in despair. Sae holds him to his chest accordingly. “You monster,” he cursed, voice flat as Kaiser’s ass.
Admittedly, Loki is surprised Sae is just as dramatic as Shidou in his own way. If nothing else, this conversation was proof that Shidou and Sae make a good match.
“Look, if we don’t sort this out we’ll be here all day.”
The four stood silently.
Shidou lifted a hand. “Wanna play rock, paper, scissors for him?”
By the time Charles exited the locker room, Hugo was once again lying on the floor in a heap, Loki looking annoyed by his side. Shidou was practically vibrating in place, only kept in check by his redheaded midfielder.
“Shidou!” he bounds over.
“Charley boy!” Shidou greets.
“Chevalier,” Sae says politely.
Charles glances at him. “You’re shorter than I thought you’d be.”
Sae glowers. “Never mind, Loki can keep him.”
Shidou quickly wraps an arm around his disgruntled partner. “Easy, lashes. You know how kids get.”
He turns back to Charles. “Good news—we’ve decided to split the diff. We get you weekdays and they get weekends and holidays.”
“During the off-season,” Hugo oozes from his puddle on the floor.
“Right, during the off-season,” Shidou verifies.
Charles blinks incredulously. “You weren’t kidding about that?”
“We should let Charles decide,” Loki says.
“You’re just saying that because you lost.”
“You cheated!”
“Gun is totally legal!”
“Whoa, American style,” Charles says, eyes wide.
Loki pulls Hugo up from his heap. The midfielder shook, like his bones were made of jello. At Loki’s calming hand on his arm, he shook more.
What a pathetic, downbad, ginger ass, no soul havin’, absolutely whipped bitchboy of a midfielder.
“Let’s settle this—Charles, who are your parents?”
Charles looked between the two expectant duos, before earnestly saying, “I’ve always considered Zantetsu a father to me.”
Zantetsu, who just walked out of the locker room, gasps. “I gave birth?”
“I was actually an egg,” Charles informs him.
“I’ll stop eating chickens from now on,” he promises, hand up like an oath. “It all makes sense. You look just like me!”
They walk off, Charles insisting he came from a fish egg, not a chicken egg, and Zantetsu nodding along profusely.
Hugo frowns, “I guess that’s been resolved.”
Shidou sighs, looking at his partner. “At least we still have Rin.”
Sae makes a face.
In the distance, Rin, having finally escaped Isagi’s concerned poking, once again falls over.