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Hugo watches as his deity scores, gold eyes flashing as he does his victory pose.
He’s not breathing, like some sort of pathetic creature who needs permission from his master to do even the simplest of tasks.
Which is crazy, he’s not Ness.
Nearby, Isagi is saying something—likely some last ditch attempt to rattle him. However, Hugo’s mind is elsewhere. Specifically on whether or not he’ll be forced to celebrate with the team or if he and Loki can sneak off to have dinner by themselves.
Maybe Charles could come too. He’s small enough that most restaurants blindly trust them for the “kids eat free” policy. Then again, Shidou and Sae might want to have dinner with him, since they’re all in the same area for once.
Wait, should the four of them have a double date? Is that something co-parents do? If the four of them are co-parenting, it would make sense for them to get to know each other.
Hugo supposes he could leave Charles with Zantetsu, but that action could leave one of them dead. Then again, Charles and Shidou were somewhat unsupervised during the NEL and only three fires broke out, so maybe it would be fine.
No, no point. Shidou and Sae were impossible to get along with. Sae might be reasonable, but Hugo could easily imagine Shidou flipping the table for fun. Then again, Charles has taken bites out of some of the tables they’ve sat at, so maybe it wouldn’t be so different.
He’ll have to remember to get Sae’s contact to finely tune the arrangement.
“You lost to me, you second-best bastard!” Isagi snaps at him, hackles raised like a particularly yippy chihuahua.
He was still talking???
Just to piss him off, Hugo flashes him a peace sign.
“Until next time, egoist.”
Isagi violently twitches, and Hugo tries not to laugh.
Loki yawns, bored. He had hoped Blue Lock would be challenging, but it seems he set his expectations too high. On the bright side, he was able to stick it to Isagi for insulting him all those months ago.
At least Hugo seemed to enjoy himself. He likes sharing his Second Best methodology with others, and it seems at least one person on Blue Lock took it to heart.
Privately, Loki doesn’t quite understand it—but he likes Hugo, he likes how he makes him feel, and he likes that he decided Loki was the one to help him fulfill his dream. And most importantly, he likes that he worships him like he deserves.
Loki catches Hugo’s eye, since the other is looking—always looking—and smiles. As expected, the redhead flushes, but forces himself to nod back.
How cute.
With luck, Loki will manage to convince the coach to exempt them from the team celebration. He has a feeling Hugo wants a private dinner between the two of them anyway.
Shidou clenched his teeth at the final goal. The loss didn’t bother him so much as how they lost—which was all thanks to his shitty soon-to-be-brother-in-law.
(Not that Shidou has proposed, but he knows his strawberry shortcake sweetheart secretly matches him freak for freak, so really it’s only a matter of time.)
Across the pitch, Charles catches his eye. The blonde waves energetically, like he didn’t just play a 90-minute match. Shidou waves back.
What can he say, he’s proud of his kid, even if his team kicked his team’s ass. Such as parenting goes.
Like the little ball of energy he is, Charles sprints over.
“That was fun! Let’s play again soon!” he chitters, sliding to a stop.
“We’ll play you again during the World Cup,” he promises.
Charles frowns a little.
Shidou cocks a hip. “What’s the face for, you doubting me or something?”
“Not you!” Charles exclaims before sulking again. “But the rest of your team can’t keep up. If it was just you, I know you’d make it.”
What a good kid. His good kid, since he and Sae won Rock, Paper, Scissors earlier.
“I’ll carry them if I have to.” Shidou gives Charles a noogie, making him squirm.
“Ack, stop it!”
Surprisingly, Charles shoots a millisecond-long look to Blue Lock’s side of the stadium as he pats down his hair. Shidou looks, but he doesn’t see anyone of interest there, except for the reserved players.
Oh god, does he need to give Charles The Talk?
…Shidou decides to cross that bridge when he gets to it.
“Charles!” Loki calls.
“Gotta go!” Charles says over his shoulder, already bounding away.
Shidou watches him go before turning to his team. Most of the players were scowling or teary-eyed, already heading to the locker room with their tails between their legs.
It sucks, but it is what it is. At the end of the day, even Shidou had to admit it was a fun match—minus the loss, of course.
What’s most embarrassing is that his boyfriend was watching him play live from one of the private screening rooms. Shidou was hoping to get some epic victory sex after the match, but that was definitely off the table now. But who knows, maybe Sae would let him fondle him a bit to console him.
On the other side of the field, Isagi and Rin are gripping each other’s collars, seconds away from exchanging blows. Ego says something impossible for Shidou to hear, which must’ve been crazy quiet for the others, but even as a whisper it had them freezing in place.
Isagi and Rin quickly untangled themselves and followed Ego away.
Good.
Rin absolutely fumbled, and now he would get the lecture of a lifetime.
Humming to himself, Shidou starts thinking of insults to post on his spam account.
Lorenzo laughs.
Every time he thinks he’s going to stop, he starts again.
He laughs and laughs, jaw flapping like a skeleton’s and bones cracking just as much. It’s uncanny and downright unsettling.
Finally, his phone buzzes, and he manages to pull himself out of it.
Fingers wrapped around an empty Coke can, Kaiser prepares to crush it as Yoichi scores the final goal of the match. Suddenly, Rin darts in and kicks the ball at the same time. It ricochets against the goal post with a loud clang.
In a millisecond, Loki reclaims possession of the ball and scores, bringing it to 4-2 France.
All is silent for a moment.
Kaiser hears a choked noise to his right, where Ness is covering his mouth with his hand. They lock eyes, and the dam breaks.
They burst into laughter, shoulders shaking. Ness’s laughter is light and sweet, coming out of him in quick bursts like he can’t quite contain it. It’s pleasant and melodic, something even the most trained of musicians would spend their lives trying to replicate to no avail.
Kaiser’s laughter is fine or whatever.
In their fit, Ness’s hand catches onto his arm. The touch tingles, and Kaiser finds himself leaning into it.
Ness doesn’t say anything about it, but magenta eyes crinkle at the corners and his smile gets just a little wider. If Kaiser’s lips curve a bit more at the edges, well, that’s his business.
They laugh until their sides ache, Ness squeezing his arm and Kaiser leaning into his side as they shake with mirth.
Kaiser can’t remember the last time they laughed like this, maybe sometime back when they were new recruits. As of right now, things were still rocky after the Neo-Egoist League, but maybe this meant they would be okay.
Ness’s face is pink from exertion, tears clinging to his eyelashes. Pale fingers cup his mouth loosely like he was still trying to conceal his laughter, but ultimately fall to his side.
Their laughter tapers off, but Kaiser’s temple inches towards the other’s shoulder and Ness’s hand only wraps around his arm more securely.
On the screen, Hugo flashes Yoichi a peace sign before turning away. The screen cuts to two sports reporters going over the leadup to the final goal. The play-by-play shows Yoichi aiming for the ball, but Rin suddenly comes to his side and kicks at the same time. The two were close, maybe half a foot apart when they shot.
The sight makes Kaiser grit his teeth.
Beside him, Ness snickers, “Of course they sold the match.”
He sits up.
“‘They’?” Kaiser repeats.
“Yoichi and Rin.”
Kaiser scoffs. "That's ridiculous. Yoichi would’ve scored if it wasn’t for Rin.”
“But he didn’t,” Ness pulls away. “He wouldn’t have made it anyway.”
The sudden distance between them only irritates Kaiser more.
“Don’t be stupid—”
Ness stands, furious. “Do not insult me.”
Kaiser stands as well, putting them on equal footing. They stare at each other, the moment growing tense.
“He’s not a god, Kaiser.”
Kaiser leans back, speaking with the finality of someone who knows they’re about to plummet off a cliff and does it anyway. “Don’t be stupid, Ness.”
Ness’s eyes narrow. He leaves, door slamming on the way out.
Rin sold the match.
“What. The. Fuck.”
Sae puts his head in his hands and tries to stay there.
Bunny thinks he should be laughing. It was hilarious after all. But laughing is something he does for others, to mock or to irritate or to belittle—so Bunny stays silent.
He does allow a smile onto his face, lets it stretch uncannily the more he scrolls online and finds the younger Itoshi is already trending.
Pleased, he sends the first twenty or so posts to the older one, knowing fully well he was blocked. There’s little chance he’d ever see them, but the thought of his eye twitching once he finds out brings a smile to his face.
Setting up his computer, he encourages Lorenzo to start a facetime between the Gen XI. the other shoots back an indecipherable message of emojis as an agreement, and Bunny smiles once more.
Knowing it will take a few minutes, Bunny scrolls through his contacts and finds a number long forgotten. A call would irritate him no doubt, especially if he teases about his brother, and by the time the FaceTime begins, Bunny will have an eyeful of Sae Itoshi’s misery.
He can’t wait.