Work Text:
Itoshi Rin does not care about Isagi Yoichi.
That’s what he tells himself every day, refusing to let it slip his mind even when he can feel himself being pulled into the other’s magnetic field. He didn’t get this far to get distracted by some random lukewarm striker.
But it’s hard to maintain that mindset when Rin watches him get fouled once, twice, three times in an unofficial match versus Bastard München. He can see every time Michael Kaiser’s foot slides out with malicious intent, not aiming for the ball but rather Isagi’s ankle.
It’s irritating, that’s all. Because Isagi stopped trying to get the referee to do something after the second foul, probably submitting to his fate of being unfairly pushed and tripped by that German fucker.
Rin would never give up that easily. Who gives a fuck if the refs are making calls like the match has been fixed? You just show your opponent that you’re better, fouls or not.
Isagi isn’t showing his opponents that he’s better. No, he’s slowing down in speed, losing bits of fire and energy with each contact with Kaiser. His frustration leaks out of him, obvious in the way his posture begins to droop and he begins to favor his left leg.
And Rin will not have it. He did not call Isagi his greatest rival, say he would kill him, just for him to succumb to something avoidable like this.
It’s partially anger at the officials for refusing to call the evident fouls and partially frustration at Isagi for acting like the game’s already over. Isagi never acts like this—he fights and claws his way to the top no matter the cost.
These conclusions lead to him jogging a little closer to where Isagi is panting, waiting for the play to restart. Kaiser’s off a few meters away from him, smirking like he knows something everyone else doesn’t.
Rin honestly can’t tell which one is more aggravating when he’s this close. That blonde, lukewarm striker who looks like he missed his exit for a modeling gig won’t stop provoking Isagi, which grates on Rin’s nerves despite the fact that he doesn’t even care.
It’s just because they’re teammates. Because they’re rivals, and it would be shameful if Isagi fails now after Rin has all but acknowledged their skill equality.
This is not the Isagi he declared war on. This is someone weaker.
Rin has no problem telling Isagi as much.
“Get yourself together, idiot,” Rin growls, voice lowered to an eerie whisper.
He’s now hovering right over Isagi’s shoulder, mouth to ear after clearing the expanse of the football pitch in moments. He can feel the muscles of Isagi’s shoulders and back twitch as his breath catches when Rin speaks, like he didn’t realize Rin was there.
Bullshit. That’s bullshit, Isagi’s always using metavision and he always knows what’s going on around him. But the hitch in his breathing, the way his body tenses up when Rin threatens him low and deadly says otherwise.
After a too-long moment, Isagi breaks away from Rin’s presence, belated and surprised.
“What do you mean? It’s not my fault he’s fouling me! Those fucking refs are—”
“—fixed, yeah. Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t explain why you’re playing like you’re scared of the ball.”
Isagi is facing him now, fully turned with indignation clear on his face as he disregards Rin’s words, arguing without even considering the words. Fuck, this is annoying.
“Scared? Me, scared? I’m not doing anything differently, I’m just being careful because Kaiser’s gonna break my fucking ankles!” Isagi shoots back, steam practically coming from his ears at this point.
It’s hardly intimidating when Rin has to crane his neck at a forty-five degree angle to see his full face properly. Short-ass idiot.
And after adjusting his view, Rin gets an eyeful of a sweaty, exhausted, but still adamant Isagi. That is the fire he was missing. His big eyes have that blue flame in them again, threatening to burn anyone who gets too close.
Rin is really close.
At some point during their argument, they have migrated so close together that their toes are nearly touching. Rin’s bent so much so that their foreheads meet in the middle of the space between them, an oversight that he’s now cursing because this is just too much.
The other boy hasn’t seemed to notice the proximity, the anger in his expression as stark as ever as he steps even closer, crowding into Rin’s personal bubble with irritating confidence.
Where was this audacity moments ago? What is it about Rin that gets Isagi so worked up, and vice versa?
But Rin has forgotten about a response the second he realized how fucking close Isagi was to him. He wants to back away, to regain his space and therefore his control, but that would be admitting defeat.
So he just keeps his eyes on wide ocean blue, trying to catch some of Isagi’s anger like a match igniting another. Rin focuses on the familiar heat that builds inside of him, searching for sharp words to throw back at him.
“Then break him back. Show him you’re better,” Rin mutters, brow furrowed in renewed frustration as the rational part of his brain regains control.
He feels hands fist into the front of his jersey, pulling him impossibly closer before shoving him back all at once.
“Fuck you,” Isagi scoffs, before turning away and reaffirming his position on the pitch.
What was that?
They’re always too close to each other. They always stare at each other like they want the other to die. But for the first time since Rin’s met Isagi, he felt a spark of something else when his gaze bored into the other striker’s.
It was like anger, times a hundred, but also dulled at the edges. A raging passion that aimed to disarm, but not kill.
What…?
His train of thought is cut off when the play resumes, and he startles into position, trying to get to his bearings before the ball gets too far.
And then he’s off, chasing after the ball in a fierce attempt to regain possession.
He’s not the only one. Of course, Isagi’s already sprinting too, but he’s still being trailed by the shitty German emperor, whose murderous gaze is fixed firmly on the emboldened 11 on the back of Isagi’s jersey.
Fuck, this is annoying. What is it with Kaiser and his weird obsession with Isagi? Isagi is his rival, there’s no place for—
His?
Rin nearly stops mid-sprint at the sudden realization. He just referred to Isagi as his…what the fuck? Yeah, he meant his rival, but still—
“Rin!”
This time, he does stop in his tracks, whipping his head and body around to meet the source of his name with urgency.
Isagi somehow got behind him, and he has the ball now (how did Rin not notice?), and he’s…about to pass to Rin with his torso poised forward, muscles tense as he prepares to slam the ball to Rin’s waiting feet.
The ball never comes.
In the blink of an eye, Isagi is on the ground with his face twisted in agony, Kaiser’s arrogant face sneering down at him.
His body curls in on itself, pain radiating from Isagi so intensely that Rin swears he can taste it. He’s clutching his left ankle with one hand, eyes squeezed shut as his face flits through a thousand different expressions.
Kaiser just continues forward after swiftly passing the intercepted ball to the right, barely watching as it makes contact with one of the German players. He seems unconcerned with Isagi’s obvious pain, or the way he doesn’t move to get back up after the ball has been taken away from him.
“So weak, Yoichi!” The blonde laughs condescendingly, peering over Isagi’s tense, unmoving body like he’s won a prize.
It takes all of two seconds for Rin to race over to the two strikers, forgetting about everything from the football traveling somewhere else on the field to where they are right now. Something is wrong, he can feel it, he knows it because Isagi isn’t shoving Kaiser away or stumbling up to find the ball again.
Distantly, he hears a whistle blow, but it doesn’t matter because Rin already feels dread creeping up into his bones.
Isagi has never looked like that before. He always springs right back up, even after a particularly harsh shove or slam. But just now? His face was…fuck, what did Kaiser do? Should he have said something earlier, when he noticed that Isagi was off?
Is it too late?
He voices his thoughts with pure vitriol, spitting at Kaiser with harsh words that barely hide his concern.
“What the fuck did you do? Quit fucking pushing him, you fucking dumbass!” He shouts, gripping Kaiser’s jersey as he shakes him roughly.
Rin is so angry that he can’t even put it into words, fists tightening so much that his hands hurt from his own excess of strength. His fingers protest, sharp bursts of pain shooting up his arms—but he doesn’t budge.
Kaiser looks actually surprised, at first doing nothing but loosely gripping Rin’s hands, as if to pull them away from the fabric of his shirt. He stumbles with Rin’s forceful movement, half yanking Rin’s hands away and half relying on them for balance.
The moment barely lasts before the brief shock in the blonde’s eyes shifts into sharp irritation, strong hands fully squeezing Rin’s wrists as he wrenches them out of his jersey.
“Don’t touch me, you shitty—!”
He doesn’t get a chance to finish because Rin is shoving him back with no restraint, causing the blonde striker to tumble to the ground, his back hitting the astroturf with a resounding thud!
Rin watches Kaiser’s face turn from annoyance to something deadlier, something edged with a razor-sharp blade.
But he doesn’t care. Rin does not care one bit, not when he thinks about the lack of confidence in Isagi, not when he thinks about the body behind him that he’ll see if he just looks back, the one trembling in pain.
The edges of his vision blur red, his mouth parting slightly to pant in pure bloodlust. He’s going to tear his nails into Kaiser’s flesh. He’s going to beat him into the pitch, he’s going to rip his heart out and stuff it back in, he’s going to—
Something yanks him backwards, disrupting his advance on Kaiser’s furious, ready-to-kill form. His gaze switches from Kaiser to the new force in an instant, his murderous rage turning to whoever the fuck decided to touch him right now.
He tries to focus his blurring vision, blinking twice before his gaze lands on the new figure.
“Rin.”
Sae?
What…?
Yeah, his brother’s on the U-20s team too, but what is he doing next to Rin? Normally, he wants nothing to do with Rin. They keep their distance, comfortably apart to remain civil.
That realization is what snaps him back to reality.
What is he doing?
He comes back to himself as if waking up from a dream, his brain slowly registering his physical position and the way his fists are clenched with some unnamed emotion. The realization leaves him reeling, and he’s unable to do anything except turn his head to stare helplessly at his older brother.
Sae just quirks an eyebrow, as if unbothered, even though the way his body is tensed for something tells him otherwise.
“Get a hold of yourself. You’re in the middle of the pitch.” Sae deadpans, sharp lines of his limbs softening as if he determined that the situation had been thoroughly defused.
It hadn’t, though. He’s still angry, even if it feels misplaced now—Rin can taste the pure fury that threatens to choke him, and he remains taut like a coil under way too much pressure. The haze has faded from his mind, but he’s not backing down.
“But—” Rin tries, before he’s cut off by a warning that leaves no room for argument.
“Not here.”
And despite all that had come between them, Rin still obeys Sae when it comes down to it.
“Let the refs deal with it. Go see if Isagi is alright.”
Right.
The reason why he’s feeling this too-hot sensation that urges him to break something, is Isagi. Or more specifically, the situation Isagi is in. Rin doesn’t let go of the anger, but he pushes it down, saving it for a time when he can release it onto something. Preferably Kaiser.
Kaiser, who is standing there with a mix of rage and confusion on his face. He’s not moving, but he doesn’t look calm, either. As much as Rin wants to ignore Sae and just let loose on the annoying German striker, he understands the cool logic of his brother’s words.
There’s something he needs to do.
As soon as what Sae said clicks in his head, Rin nods tersely and shifts his focus entirely on the curled-up boy who lies a few feet ahead. Subconsciously, he sees the rest of his teammates and a few refs running towards them, shouting miscellaneous statements that he doesn’t bother to process.
Isagi is the priority.
Rin walks right past Kaiser, ignoring the intimidating aura that drips off of him in a dangerous warning. He stands tall and proud, making it clear that just because he didn’t throw a punch doesn't mean he is the weaker one here.
A true number one would never use something like the smaller stature of another player to win. It’s shameful, not just because it’s wrong, but because it makes it all too obvious that they cannot win without resorting to underhanded tactics. How embarrassing for Kaiser, if he has to rely on violence to surpass Isagi.
He hears Kaiser scoff after Rin shoulder checks him on his way past, a decision that would probably have escalated quickly if it weren’t for the arrival of half of the field. Players and teammates and referees surround them all, questions thrown into the open air that don’t get answered.
Rin does not care.
What he does care about, however, is the heartbreaking picture of pain on Isagi’s half-visible face and the way the only person whom he has ever considered his rival is immobilized on the rough turf.
He doesn’t think about how he’ll probably make fun of Isagi for being weak later or the embarrassment of how he’s acting.
He doesn’t think at all, actually, when he lowers himself to the turf beside Isagi’s form and tries desperately to take control of the situation.
“Are you okay?” Rin asks uselessly—a dumb question, but sue him, he doesn’t know what to do here!
There’s not even a response, just a soft whine of pain as Isagi hides his face further by tucking it under a trembling arm. His other arm is stretched out beneath him, hand gripping his ankle tightly like the pressure will distract him from the pain. Isagi’s breath is coming out in short, shallow puffs, like he’s hyperventilating and not getting enough oxygen into his system.
Rin feels—he feels useless, unable to reach Isagi in his personal world of pain, but wanting to help him so badly all the same.
“Fuck, Isagi…” He whispers, reaching a hand out before stopping abruptly.
What does he even do? Is it okay if Rin touches him? Rin has never comforted another person before. He’s barely even been comforted himself, apart from the rare instances of Sae trying to calm him down after a bad fall or a broken toy when they were younger.
Then, so softly he almost didn’t catch it, Rin hears Isagi speak.
“It hurts…”
And he gives up on being casual, on respecting boundaries and being unable to help.
His hand surges forward, without pause this time, and reaches to brush the bangs out of Isagi’s face, if only to distract the injured boy from his obvious pain. Isagi leans into the touch, carefully exposing part of his face to the world as Rin’s hands twitch with unused energy.
“What hurts, what is it? What do you want me to do?” Rin blurts, unnerved by the sight of tears on Isagi’s cheeks.
They drip down and collect at the bottom of his chin before dropping off and wetting the fake grass, catching light from the stadium’s brilliant surroundings. Isagi’s normally bright and determined expression has twisted into something that makes Rin’s heart ache inexplicably, a terrible sensation that makes him feel like he should be doing more.
His eyes are half-closed, eyelids struggling under the weight of his obvious discomfort. Long lashes clump together from the presence of salt water, dark and wispy against his skin. Rin thinks, traitorously, that Isagi looks beautiful like this.
Those sad blue eyes flit open and close until they focus on Rin’s worried teal, clarity visible when they catch onto something familiar.
“My ankle, Rin—it hurts so badly. It hurts, please…”
And Isagi looks so distraught, so broken, so pitiful that Rin can feel himself caving into his deepest urges.
“Shit—just…c’mere.”
He doesn’t let himself consider the possible consequences when he leans forward and snakes his arms under Isagi’s prone form, pulling the smaller boy into his lap with the utmost care.
Isagi stiffens at the contact, making Rin curse himself and his dumb decisions. What is he doing? Did he just grab fucking Isagi Yoichi and put him on his lap? Shit, shit, shit, it’s too late, he can’t shove him off, but what does he—
And then Isagi is softening, melting into Rin’s arms like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and Rin’s head goes blissfully silent.
“Thank you. It hurts.” Isagi chokes out, turning his head and burying it into Rin’s lap.
All he can say back is,
“I know,” and hold him close as every nerve in his body threatens to combust.
Rin focuses on the weight of Isagi in his arms, pressed up against him, the growing wetness against the fabric of his jersey from his tears, the slowing of his breaths. If he thinks about anything else, he might freak out, and Isagi doesn’t need that right now.
But the moment doesn’t last for long—the rest of the Blue Lock players, along with some curious Bastard members, crowd around the two, demanding answers and shouting way too loudly, considering their proximity.
“Is he okay?”
“What happened?”
“Was it his ankle? I saw it happen, it looked like—”
“Kaiser, that motherfucker—”
It’s too loud. He can feel Isagi’s breathing start to pick up again, can feel hands burying into the fabric of his kit along with a quiet whine of protest.
“Everyone back up.” Rin’s voice cuts through the cacophony, a deadly promise of violence if his order is not obeyed.
Someone else’s voice—Aiku? adds on, silencing the final bits of chatter and forcing the players back.
“He’s right. We need to give Isagi some space. Rin’s got him for now, until the paramedics get here.” Definitely Aiku—Rin can picture his signature captain’s glare easily.
He doesn’t dare rip his eyes away from Isagi, his attention honed on every point of contact between them. If this were any other situation, not that Rin would voluntarily touch Isagi on an average day, Rin would be blushing furiously at their positioning.
No, wait, he is blushing. Shit.
Rin feels his cheeks with one hand, smoothing over the skin of his cheeks with a resigned sort of acceptance. This is the worst. Why did he grab Isagi and put him on his lap? What was he thinking? He wasn’t thinking, actually, because now that he’s let his mind drift, all he can think about is things that are entirely out of place for this scenario.
Slapping his cheeks, Rin takes a deep breath before shakily resting a tentative hand on top of Isagi’s head. He doesn’t move it, too scared to disrupt the careful breathing Isagi had adopted once everyone cleared out; he just lets it sit, a gentle weight that he hopes is comforting.
“Are—are you, um, feeling any better yet?” Rin stutters out, cursing the intensifying heat that rushes into his cheeks.
No response.
Rin frowns, momentarily forgetting his embarrassment in favor of peering down at Isagi’s head—it’s still buried in the fabric of Rin’s shirt, so he can’t make out any expressions.
“Isagi?”
Still nothing. Rin nervously brings his free hand up to run it through his hair, trying to shake off his anxiety at the lack of response.
“He’s asleep.” A voice sounds from behind Rin, sudden and startling in a way that makes him nearly jump to his feet.
Isagi mumbles something unintelligible, something that’s maybe not even a word, then clings even tighter to Rin. The man in question tries to slow his racing heartbeat, trying his hardest not to swing around and punch whoever just snuck up behind them.
“Or, more accurately, he passed out.” It’s Sae again, and Rin offers him a glare in return for being spooked before letting him continue. “It was probably the combination of the pain, the stress, and the exhaustion from the game. He doesn’t seem to have a high pain tolerance, and he’s significantly smaller than almost everyone in this field.”
He shoots one more dirty look before returning his gaze to Isagi’s…sleeping body.
Isagi’s…sleeping. On Rin. In Rin’s lap.
Really, if they weren’t in public, and Isagi wasn’t injured, Rin would have shoved him off and ran halfway to the locker rooms by now. His hasty actions, from shoving Kaiser to scooping Isagi into his arms are catching up to him. In the form of complete and total embarrassment.
And, as if the universe can sense Rin’s peril, it sends another issue for him to deal with.
Sae walks around from behind Rin to crouch beside his brother, squinting down at Isagi, while the bane of Rin’s existence comes to sit with legs criss-crossed on the pitch next to Sae.
“I didn’t know you and Isagi were fucking, Rinrin!”
Immediately, the stress of proximity and the overall anxiety that had been building in him from the moment Isagi got injured explode in the form of anger. Shidou is the last person he wants to see or talk to right now.
Rin snaps his neck to the side and fixes Shidou, who’s now grinning down at him like he knows something that Rin doesn’t, with a murderous glare.
“Shut the fuck up, you fucking roach.” He seethes, wishing more than anything that he could get up and punch the idiot blonde in the face.
The insinuation only makes Rin’s face heat up more, and he trembles with barely concealed rage, the only thing holding him back being the sleeping boy in his lap.
“You’re so fucking lucky I can’t move right now,” Rin adds, trying to convey his killer intent through eye contact alone.
Annoyingly, Shidou remains unfazed, a hand on his hip as he leers creepily at Rin.
“Yeah, can’t move ‘cause you’ll wake up your boyfriend!” Shidou sings, looking all too satisfied at Rin’s inability to attack him.
“He’s not my—!”
With effortless grace, Sae steps between the two, shooting a look of annoyance at Shidou before he addresses both of them.
“You can fight later, I don’t care. But right now you both need to be quiet and calm until the paramedics get over here,” Sae says firmly, before twisting to the side to point at a pair of figures in the distance. “They’re on their way.”
Rin resorts to scowling heavily at Shidou, who returns it with the ghost of a childish pout on his face.
The paramedics are indeed coming closer, pushing what appears to be a stretcher along with them. Rin tears his frown away from Shidou to look back at Isagi instead, whose formerly pain-stricken face is now peaceful with sleep.
Isagi’s soft, even breaths hit Rin’s stomach when they exit his mouth, a comforting pattern that Rin can’t help but sink into. A lock of Isagi’s hair falls down into his half-parted mouth, drawing out a little frown that causes Rin’s heart to squeeze uncomfortably.
Before he can think too deeply about it and change his mind, Rin moves a hand away from Isagi’s laid-out body and gently sweeps it away from plush, light red lips. The split-second contact of his fingers against the smooth surface of his lips sends a bolt of electricity through Rin’s body, uncontrollable and fierce in strength.
He ignores the burning, questioning stares that sear into his skin at his uncharacteristic action. Shidou’s probably got his mouth closed manually by Sae’s hand—it’s the only explanation for why he didn’t make a suggestive comment designed to irritate Rin.
But Rin doesn’t care. He can see the medics approach in his peripheral, but he pays no attention to the rest of the world, instead savoring the moment as it slips through his fingers. He knows the second it’s over he’s going to regret acting so hastily in front of so many people.
(He’ll regret being in front of other people, but not what happened.)
Isagi is still here, at this moment, though, so he just lets the hand that rests on the sleeping boy’s head move delicately through the strands of hair, marvelling at the silky quality of it. His face is still calm, having returned to normal after Rin fixed the hair in his mouth before.
And—he’s beautiful. Pretty and peaceful, with his full lips and long lashes, framed by fallen bits of hair that Rin sweeps up with his hand. It’s amazing how he can be so soft and cute like this but also be the purest embodiment of fire, burning through the field with nothing but pure determination and a promise of victory.
It’s almost too much to look at, which is why Rin normally averts his gaze to avoid being burned. But Isagi is tame right now, all quiet and pliable in a way he rarely is. Rin kind of wants to see him like this when it wasn’t born out of pain—some scenario where Isagi gave this version up to Rin for free.
The thought is dangerous, and far too close to the buried truth that Rin doesn’t want to acknowledge, so he shoves it back into the vault of his brain.
“—Rin, pay attention.”
The sound of Sae’s irritated voice snaps Rin out of his trance for the second time today, drawing his eyes away from Isagi and instead toward the new sight of the medics looking somewhat nervously at him.
“Excuse me, sir, but we’ll need to move the injured player onto the stretcher now,” one of the paramedics says, a nervous young woman who looks at Rin like he’s a dog that bites.
He glowers at her, watching her squirm uncomfortably as he shakes his head resolutely.
“I got it.”
The paramedic looks kind of shocked, opening her mouth before deciding against saying anything else.
Rin takes that as approval and stops his ministrations in Isagi’s hair—oh, he’d forgotten he was doing that. He snakes his arms underneath Isagi’s torso, earning a little grunt of discomfort which makes him stiffen in hesitance.
Carefully, he watches Isagi’s face for any signs of pain before he secures his hold and begins to get to his feet. The weight of Isagi’s body in his arms is warm and solid, the outlines of hard-earned muscles pressing against Rin through their jerseys. He gulps, trying to ignore the contact as his thighs strain under the weight of two bodies.
With a little difficulty, he rises to his feet, a curled-up Isagi wrapped in his embrace. Confirming that Isagi is still okay, he moves to the stretcher, trying not to blush at the unbelieving stares that hit him from all sides.
“What?” He scoffs, almost to himself, but it's a weak jab.
Rin shifts his eyes to the side for half a second as he walks toward the stretcher, catching sight of his brother and Shidou, the latter of whom is being kept quiet by Sae’s hand. He rolls his eyes and focuses on the new task of setting Isagi down onto the temporary bed.
An odd sense of loss fills him as he tentatively places Isagi on the stretcher, red in the face when he has to dislodge the iron-clad grip Isagi has on his jersey. He’s never been so embarrassed in his life, but never so…content, either. What is this feeling?
He watches as the paramedics check on their patient before hastily wheeling him away, their retreating backs consuming Rin’s attention as he takes in a few final moments of Isagi.
What the fuck?
;
“So, are we gonna talk about your little crush on Isagi, or just ignore it?” Sae asks, a hint of amusement in his voice as he finishes changing in the locker room.
Rin turns bright red and throws his jersey at his brother.
“What?!”
From somewhere out of sight, Shidou laughs like a maniac.