Chapter Text
Huff— Huff—
As he caught his breath, sweat rolled down Kaiser's cheek,
perhaps a replacement for well-deserved tears after all those years of emotional bottling.
Watching Ness, the one person, the single individual who picked him in a room full of people no matter what he did.
He'd left.
This whole match?
What was he doing?
Every shift in formation.
Every hesitation before a pass.
Every weakness hidden behind his forced confidence.
What was he without his title?
It was what made him uncomfortable on the pitch— he saw the game from a perspective painted by not wanting to fail, striving to be recognised, and, of course, validation.
Ness was always there,
well,
used to be— always one step behind him, one pass ahead of everyone else,
always smiling even when the smile became thinner lately.
Maybe it had always been like that,
and that Kaiser just stopped paying attention after a while.
Off pitch, however,
was a different scenario.
°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•
That flashing epileptic light of the stage got to him.
How would he stay the best if he relied on someone?
Ness gave security,
but to become the best,
you have to make your own sense of lead.
A stable moral compass wasn't ever needed to play football is something he told himself on a daily basis.
Walking to the locker rooms alone after a game was calm,
It always had been ever since the day Kaiser had dropped Ness,
Kaiser had never hated being alone, infact he quite enjoyed the way no one was watching him,
the deep personic facade wasn't needed,
he could just be the normal individual he sometimes yearned to be —hating the way he relied on the validation from the world,
and the deep devastation,
the disgusting feeling of disappointment every time a potential goal went to waste.
The feeling of anyone being slightly better than him; second best this, isagi yoichi that, devoured and thrown away— as if everything else he achieved was destroyed.
As if like throwing a tiny stone at a fragile stained glass window, depicting a wiltering blue rose and falling pieces of its now shards clinking against the ground yearning to be fixed,
but cutting anyone who draws near it.
The walk to the shower rooms was distant, repressed, and somehow agitating.
The silence beckoned,
and he followed without any doubt;
he wasn't in the mood to talk down to Yoichi,
wasn't in the mood to explain to Kurona—in fact,
he wasn't in the mood for anyone.
His sight wandered off with that ounce of glimmer left in his dull eyes to no other than Ness;
he was kindly chatting,
joining in on group discussions he never used to talk in when he stood behind Kaiser.
...
Right,
Ness always stood behind.
When was it ever in front,
even beside?
After taking off his soaked shirt and throwing it in the off-white laundry basket.
Kaiser stepped into the shower,
eyes drifting off again without permission, unleashed back to Ness.
!?
Water streamed down cinnamon-brown strands and locks down to now a faded soft pink,
no longer the hot magenta Kaiser was used to.
It was...
unsettling to say the least— He first assumed it was just the harsh fluorescent lighting of the room,
until he noticed the faint swirl of diluted magenta spiralling (just like his thoughts) down the drain.
Hair dye.
Specifically one that hadn't been redyed in a while,
Ness' ends were light and untouched.
While he'd been redyeing his hair the same blue as if they were still the dynamics the coloured ends portrayed.
Dammit.
He felt fucking pathetic.
What the do you mean he had been actually dyeing his hair and not allowing it to fade after Ness wasn't there to dye it for him?
Kaiser's heart beat faster with a lisp,
breathing faster,
head in all corners of thought,
ears ringing,
blue orbs going small as panic set in—
Was he doubting the hate Ness had for him these days?
Was he really that stupid to believe Ness still wanted to have matching complementary end colours?
He clenched his jaw and expression hardened in self-anguish.
Shutting his eyes,
his fingertips were already around his neck,
slithering like snakes with a strong grasp, as if the thorns on the raven-black rose stem tattoo were penetrating his skin.
This had always been his coping method; it wasn't okay,
and he knew it,
but as long as no one else had to find out.
It didn't matter.
Ness noticed.
Of course he did; when did he have a day without remembering Kaiser in any way?
It was nearly impossible not to get hit with a wave of 'me, and Kaiser did this,' when performing tasks they did together daily that they still have to perform.
As if it was a crack in the illusion he'd painted himself to believe—
he didn't need Ness.
Ness needed him.
But how could that be possible when it was Kaiser holding the things he needed to let go?
Soap slid down Ness' body;
his sunken eyes glanced over at Kaiser just once.
Perhaps it was worry,
inquiry,
or even maybe pity?
He wasn't even sure himself.
The air,
the silence of just water clashing,
was heavy enough on its own without the interference of speech.
Ness looked exhausted; was he not sleeping at night?
His large eyes with hues of shimmer as if on the verge of tears,
slipping at any moment if anyone dared to say something.
No one noticed the easy smiles becoming practised ones,
or when his laughter sounded a bit too hollow for his own good.
It happened slowly—cruel and torturous;
the nice persona that once fooled everyone was detrimentally getting inaudible.
It was for the best that Kaiser left him,
he repeated to himself daily after the incident.
But no one saw the way he cried himself to sleep or stayed up thinking about ways to get Kaiser back.
Ness told himself that this allowed time for him to improve—not only in football, but also in his life as a person.
Take on hobbies other than football,
Spend time connecting with others,
And fulfil a life of magic.
Yet it never happened;
he became hyperfixated on getting Kaiser back,
every moment that he may have disappointed Kaiser that could've caused him to leave.
Why was it him?
What did he do wrong?
A few hard tugs on his hair soothed his worries; his slender fingers then combed through his hair, as ribbons of diluted magenta disappeared (like part of himself) into water.
Ah.
Ness' way of coping.
Pulling hair,
yanking on it,
inflicting pain on himself to fill the void of it not being there already present.
No magic could fix this.
Could it?
Thoughts devoured away at his brain, yet on the outside he looked decently pleasant and relaxed.
How terribly great he is at casting a spell to hide how things get to him.
Only allowing his blanket and pillow to witness the acts of real tears— He was slowly disappearing and becoming cold and distant.
And everyone noticed it.
For a moment,
Kaiser simply stared; they both stood on opposite ends of the shower rooms,
what a difference from before.
Ness looked back down at the floor, his thoughts collecting slowly again,
Kaiser finally broke and looked away,
unable to face the gut-wrenching guilt when looking at Ness.
What if...things went differently?
What if he didn't leave Ness?
And they didn't become the dynamic that led up to the harsh words he blurted out before causing undeniable damage.
Kaiser couldn't remember the last time Ness had actually done something for himself rather than him.
These thoughts were put to an end when teammates finally arrived.
The room soon became deafeningly alive.
Someone shoved another teammate into the showers,
laughter erupting as complaints bounced off the tiled walls.
A bottle of shampoo skidded across the floor.
Music crackled faintly from someone's phone.
Ordinary.
Everything was painfully ordinary again.
◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇
It wasn't like this before.
Before,
Before all of this,
They were inseparable,
The bestest of friends.
Kaiser was a broken soul.
Ness wanted to cast a spell to fix it.
Then, it gradually became obsessive.
Mixed with anger, ego, and possessiveness.
They had never learned where one of them ended, and the other began.
Somewhere between shared victories,
whispered promises,
and years spent chasing the same impossible dream,
closeness had curdled into something neither of them could name.
They called it loyalty.
Everyone else called it unhealthy.
Kaiser demanded to be the centre of Ness's universe,
and Ness,
almost gladly,
built his entire world around him.
Every success belonged to Kaiser.
Every failure belonged to Ness.
They fed each other's worst instincts until affection became dependency,
dependency became possession, and possession became obsession.
It wasn't enough to have each other's trust—they needed exclusivity.
Every new teammate felt like an intruder.
Every conversation with someone else sparked silent resentment.
Kaiser wanted to own Ness's devotion because it proved his superiority. After all, being irreplaceable soothed the hollowness in his own ego.
Ness wanted to be owned because being indispensable gave his life purpose.
Neither of them realised they had stopped growing as people.
They had become mirrors, reflecting only what the other wanted to see.
Kaiser's arrogance swelled into a god complex, constantly reinforced by Ness's unwavering admiration.
Ness's identity slowly dissolved until he could no longer separate his own ambitions from Kaiser's.
They weren't simply best friends anymore.
They were each other's addiction.
And like every addiction on earth,
It kills people.
○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●○●
The hair dye that covered their lower hair.
Just like how their perplexing outer identities hide who they really are and what caused them to come out the way they did today.
Ness' personality is slowly becoming more obvious and seen through physical interaction and display,
just like how his hair dye is washed-out streaks of pink,
paralleling his thoughts consuming him and leaving him stripped but new,
his prior charismatic smiles fading into dark eye bags and hazy vision.
While the other,
Kaiser,
still maintains his hair dye alone,
unable to give up what he has left–the blue hair dye doesn't fade;
it just keeps getting replaced,
just representing how quick he is to replace his outer display of emotion around others— going from deep in maladaptive daydreaming to making rude get-under-your-skin comments to teammates in under a second.
Unable to allow others to see the real him or ever understand him to an extent further than what he's allowed, he can't get over the feeling of control.
And so far,
he can't let go of things that easily as people think.
Yet as Ness the hair dye vanished into the water that very moment,
Kaiser had the unbearable feeling that something else had started disappearing long before he'd bothered to notice.
□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□▪︎□
(They both think)
'I should probably talk to Ness.' — Kaiser
'I should probably talk to Kaiser.' — Ness