Chapter Text
The whole thing started when Aiku and Sendou were walking through the corridor separating Manshine City and Ubers' respective stratums, and crossed paths with Niou.
The defender had walked up to them with a wave, and they both reciprocated, happy to meet up with a former U-20 teammate.
"Aye! Long time no see!"
He flashed them a big grin before adding, with a teasing lilt to his voice, "How are Aikusen doing?"
Both Ubers players shot a confused look at each other, then a curious one back at Niou.
Sendou was the first to speak up, brows knit together as he looked at Niou like he spoke to them in a foreign language.
"Aikusen?"
Niou's eyes widened at Sendou's question, as if he was expecting him to immediately catch on.
"What? You haven't gone around your socials these days? Now that's unusual for you"
"That's called focusing on training, idiot."
"What about you, captain?", said the other defender as he turned to the man in question.
Aiku just shook his head. Niou gaped at them.
"There's no way- I gotta show you guys, this is hilarious."
He quickly took his phone out of his pocket and opened Twitter, scrolling through a few of his chats to find a post someone had sent him.
"Here."
He shoved the phone into Sendou's awaiting hands, who brought it closer to his face to read better, Aiku peeking from behind his shoulder to look at what was on the screen.
The message plainly said: 'Lol, isn't this about your teammates?'. Confusion was already apparent on his face, and then he clicked on the post.
Reading it did not help him understand in the slightest.
He was still confused by what Niou had said, and the random arrangement of words that constituted the text written on the screen made even less sense.
'Aikusen and how the couch theory could confirm something's actually up with them, a thread:'
On the main post was featured a picture of what looked like a part of their stratum's common aeras, just with lots of circles and arrows pointing to who knows where.
He had to scroll down and read some of what was said in the thread to get an idea of what this was about, and-
"Oh my god."
Gone was his confused expression, now replaced by.. astonishment? Shock? Come to think of it, he was still pretty confused, but more about why people would even think up all of that in the first place. No, it's not even 'why'. How are people coming up with all of that from just, let's say, three pixels.
First of all, he understood in the first part of the thread that Aikusen was a mix of Aiku's (that much was obvious) and his names. Like a 'ship' thing.
But he had to read through half of the thing to understand exactly what this 'couch theory' was about.
Aiku shook his shoulder, taking his mind off his train of thought.
"Hey, scroll back up a bit, ace, I don't read as fast as you do."
He passed him the phone without even turning to look at him directly, still too dumbfounded about what he had just read to try and move more than his arm.
"You really don't want to."
He sounded more exasperated than anything. Aiku just lifted a brow at that, but eventually got to reading to find out what was Sendou's reaction all about.
To be honest, it was funny at first. A silly theory was born from someone pointing a detail in the background of one of the BLTV broadcasts of their time in the common areas.
He thought it was considered silly. Which is what made the whole thing funny to read. Except the more he scrolled down, the more he realized the person that posted it was actually serious about this, and firmly believed it to be true. Don't even get him started on the replies.
A few seconds after Sendou passed him the phone, Aiku burst out laughing, lending him back the phone while lightly patting his back.
"Holy- Shuuto, I don't get why you're reacting like this, Niou was right, this is funny."
"Did you read until the end?"
"..No?"
He sighed as he took the phone back, passing it to its owner.
"People are fantasizing about us kissing and... other stuff... In the middle of the common areas! What is going on in people's minds?"
If his frustration wasn't apparent enough on his face, his tone did the job of conveying that feeling.
"This has got to be the worst PR I'm involved in since the start of my career. And they really believe it to be a real thing too!"
"Hey, don't dwell on it too much, it's gonna stop being relevant in a few days. Dont stress yourself over it.", Aiku tried to reassure him.
"You can think of it as some dumb conspiracy theory, you know when people start analyzing every detail of a picture of the sky to tell you there's a UFO there?"
"Pfft- Yeah, two big pink and green UFOs, in your case", supplied Niou, a big grin plastered on his face.
Sendou just glared at him as answer to his comment. But he wasn't buying the conspiracy theory thing.
Sure, he knows celebrities get shipped together sometimes, and he knew BLTV would represent nothing less than a nightmare for their personal lives, but it still felt weird. He'd never paid too much attention to that part of Japanese football's fanbase, but when faced with it directly it was hard to ignore. Especially since he was the one at the center of those stories in this case.
And frankly, while he did like being lavished with positive attention on social media (and he supposed this could be counted as positive, since he was considered attractive enough to be dating his captain of all people), this kind of attention felt... wrong. Kind of.
Not because it digs into his love life, but because it digs into his and Aiku's relationship. Knowing some people viewed them as potential romantic partners made him less weirded out than it terrified him of having to give up their current dynamic to stop the fans from talking about them like this because it made one of them uncomfortable.
Him and the defender have always been close, from the moment he had joined Japan's U-20, and they're still going strong now. He didn't want them to lose that comfortable closeness they have developed just because some fans made it to be weird. What if Aiku stops giving him the little taps on the back when he does good during training? What if he doesn't try to motivate him by squeezing his shoulders anymore? What if he gives up on praising his good plays? Or celebrating his goals by lifting him up in his arms?
Aiku seemed to take notice of his inner turmoil, because he immediately turned to try and give him words of reassurance.
"Awh, don't be like that. It's not gonna affect your reputation or anything, promise. Your fans won't give you hell about it either, they know it's stuff that happens sometimes."
Ah. So that's what he thought Sendou was worried about. Sure, he didn't like the idea that this particular theory could make its way into the list of things people know him for, but his connection with Aiku still came first in this situation. He didn’t really care so long as he was still there by his side to support him.
But saying what he's really worried about might expose the fact he doesnt actually mind when Aiku ruffles and fucks up his hair, even though he always complains that he has to redo it afterwards, or when he comes up behind him to lift him up by surprise, to which Sendou never fails to let out an embarassing yelp.
Yeah. Aiku might have his little habits with him that are also kind of annoying, but it's their habits. And he likes how they are right now. He's not gonna let some strangers on social media make their relationship awkward.
Still, his displeased expression didn't seem to have disappeared from his face, as Aiku kept on talking.
"And I'm sure there'll be plenty of posts making theories about your relationships in the future too, and this one'll be forgotten in the shadows."
The captain put his arm around his shoulders in that way he always did to cheer him up, lightly tapping his chest, and with that big silly smile he always wore when doing so.
"'Japanese soccer prodigy Shuuto Sendou seen out with famous actress! Could it be his latest catch?'", he adds, mimicking a high pitched imaginary reporter's voice, and moving his arm in front of them in an invitation to envision this silly headline, far off in a bright future.
Sendou can't help but smile a bit at that, his earlier frown being slowly eased off of his face.
"I don't think the Hollywood babes would be interested by a guy who apparently, I quote: 'can't keep his hands off his boyfriend'."
Niou fails to stifle a laugh. His former teammate was enjoying the situation way too much. Sendou distantly hoped for him to go though a similar predicament, so he would at least know how that feels. Although he supposed Niou would probably react similarly to how Aiku did. Speaking of which, wasn't he the one Aiku called 'Good boy' on live television? Why did this whole ship thing have to fall onto Sendou?
Some part of him, however, didn't feel right at the idea of people envisioning Niou and Aiku together instead of him and the captain... which was stupid, he thought. He wasn't jealous at the prospect of someone else being shipped with Aiku. He was jealous, but because it would strip him of the positive things people would say about him in that context.
They laughed a bit more about it (and by they, he means mainly Niou and Aiku), before parting ways again.
The rest of the evening went by smoothly, but when Sendou finally got a moment alone with his phone, he immediately opened Twitter to look up that whole 'Aikusen couch theory' bullshit. He had to find where it came from, at least out of curiosity. He had half the mind to ask himself if it was normal to feel curious about it, and if Aiku tried to look for it as well, but he shut down that thought in case he ended up with an answer he didn't like.
Turns out finding the post from which all of this originated wasn't so hard. It was an image with some text, posted by a small account who didn't seem to usually get as much traction as they had gained with that specific post.
The image in the post was zoomed in to focus on the couch of the Ubers' common rest area, on which one could guess a person was laying down on their stomach. It was pretty obvious: their feet were in the air, and their head was propped up by their hands just enough that you could recognize Sendou by his pink hair.
What the post was pointing out though, is not only that, but also the arm dangling from behind the couch in a position that made it clear it couldn't be Sendou's.
And that's not a particularily interesting thing to point out, except the only thing social media likes more than nitpicking pixel-level details, is creating drama.
That aforementioned post read, along with the picture: 'I'm not crazy right? That's Sendou lying down on top of someone! Look at that other arm!'
Of course, that particular post with that particular point of view on the picture had to blow up.
It could've stopped at that, but for some reason Twitter users got nothing better to do than speculate on his love life, so they had to dig into what informations they got to find out who exactly he was apparently lying on.
Someone even went ahead and wasted at least 30 minutes of their life finding the original broadcast, looking through it in search of the scene in the screenshot, analyzing it frame per frame, just to find a hint at who the person underneath Sendou was.
What glee had blessed these detectives when that someone found a moment of the video clip in which the mysterious teammate was leaning his head back, which meant we could see a part of his hair.
It wasn't a lot of hair, per se. But it was the part of the person's hair that stood out the most, and unfortunately, absolutely everyone recognized the unmistakable green of Aiku's colored lower hair.
That detail was so stupidly unnoticeable and painful to find Sendou had half the heart to applaud the effort. He would've done so if that same detail didn't prompt people into believing he and Aiku, quote: 'were making out on that couch as soon as the cameras were off'.
Which they couldn't even know were there since they still weren't aware of the existence of BLTV, by the way.
It was bad enough that he was beyond frustrated with the situation now that he knows where the whole thing came from, but now he's even arguing against these fans in his head. Great. Way to make this a topic that's not going to haunt him for the next few days.
It was all so stupid. He didn't know why he kept thinking it over and over and trying to make sense of it. He was never this iffy about people trying to dig into his personal life before. Maybe because this time is the first ever which involved trying to put his relationship with an actual close friend of his under a romantic light.
To make things clear: Sendou was NOT lying on top of Aiku.
The angle of the camera made it look confusing but his former capitain was simply sitting, albeit in a seemingly extremely uncomfortable position in which half his upper body was on the couch, with the arm slinged back behind the armrest, and the rest was on the floor.
And Sendou himself looked a bit more propped up than one usually would be when laying on their stomach (because yes, people even started doing these kind of calculations to prove their theory right, with scaling and everything), but that was because he put a few pillows under his arms to make himself more comfortable.
To make it short: this was all a misunderstanding. A silly, stupid, disastrous misunderstanding that definetly blew way more out of proportion than it should have and was now plaguing Sendou's thoughts.
If that post didn't blow up he'd have peace.
Internal and external.
For instance he wouldn't have Niou teasing him about it and calling him and Oliver 'Aikusen' instead of their respective names whenever he saw them together, which is a habit that a bunch of their teammates also picked up on for the sole purpose of annoying him.
Aiku didn't seem that bothered, but the guy had originally found the situation to be more funny than anything, so he's not surprised.
Still, since their teammates realized that could be used as a way to get on his nerves, a bright genius among them bearing the name of Niko Ikki decided it would be the funniest thing in the world to send him #Aikusen posts. Daily.
At first he ignored him. Just left the kid on seen and went about with his day. But he had to admit curiosity was starting to get the better of him. So he started opening them. And every day, he was graced (or cursed, really) with some new bullshit about the ace and his captain.
Because people apparently liked to put the emphasis on the fact Aiku was his captain in particular. He hates the fact it does succeed at making his heart fill with pride when he reads about it.
He came to discover he hated a lot of things about this whole 'Aikusen' situation.
He had thought about publicly commenting on the whole Aikusen stuff to make things clear that there was nothing between him and Aiku that went beyond friendship, but he realized it would probably eitheir change nothing or make things worse, so he decided against it.
But he couldn't let this go any longer. It was getting to his head.
And to make things worse, since he realized Sendou was ignoring the posts he sent him (at least that's what the 'Read' status led him to believe, he didn't need to know Sendou was actually looking through the posts), Niko decided that if he wanted to get a reaction out of him, he needed to take him by surprise.
And it did work.
How could it have not? Nothing could have prepared Sendou for what that kid had decided to curse him with.
When he recieved the notification, he just rolled his eyes and mentally prepared himself for some bullshit post talking about how "in love" he and Aiku were. But then he clicked on their conversation. And to his surprise, it wasn't a post with just 'talking about' involved.
It was a picture, or rather: a drawing.
A drawing of him, Sendou Shuuto, along with his former team's captain and best friend, Aiku Oliver. Kissing.
Kissing was putting it lightly.
The drawing featured Sendou straddling Aiku, one hand roaming his chest under his shirt, revealing the lower part of his abs, and the other holding his jaw as they shared an open mouthed kiss.
Aiku was supporting his hip with one hand, fabric of his shirt pushed up to show a little bit of skin, while the other was busy grabbing a handful of his ass from underneath his shorts.
He'd rather die than admit it made his stomach flip a little.
But what he will admit is that the drawing is 1: Pretty good, because the artist drew Sendou extra gorgeous, so he wasn't going to complain about that. 2: Very... original. Who even thinks about such a position to put people in? And 3: Hot. The drawing was hot. Even if he doesn't want to face the fact it got an interesting reaction out of him, he will gladly give the artist credit for hitting bullseye on the sentiment he supposed was the one he was expected to feel when looking at it. It was all very confusing to him anyway.
He will however not let Niko know about any of the positive feedbacks he has regarding that drawing, in fear of encouraging him to send more of the same type, which he isn't sure his mind would be able to handle at this point in time.
This one drawing was already making him feel funny. He wasn't ready for more, least he started to feel inclined to just jump at Aiku the second they make eye contact in the dorms, and finally feed into the fantasies of all those damn shippers on Twitter and what the fuck is he even thinking about right now.
Okay. Niko won. This drawing was driving him crazy.
He didn't even bother gracing him with anything else but the 'Read' status, but the glare he was shooting him during the whole time they were training was proof enough for Niko to know he had managed to get the reaction he wanted out of Sendou.
And he made sure to use that to his advantage. Sometimes just shooting him a knowing smile while Sendou was looking in his general direction was enough for the ace to frown, and sometimes slightly blush out of embrassement.
Sendou even tripped on the ball during a short practice match because Niko kept making kissy faces from the bench and it just brought the image back to the forefront of his mind. Luckily, his teammates and their coach bought his excuse of having a small headache and needing to drink water.
After finishing up training and showering, Sendou went back to the dorms, and was met with Niko laying on his bed while staring at the bare ceiling. He turned his head towards the door when he heard someone enter, and he couldn't hide the little smirk that immediately appeared on his face when he saw it was Sendou, even if he tried.
He carefully started walking to his own bed, hoping that Niko just decided on using the same staring and smiling tactic he used during training to rile him up, but he got interrupted halfway.
"So tell me-"
"Nope. Don't even think about it. It's bad enough you made me lose focus during training. Just- Let's not talk about it."
He walked the rest of the way to his bed and sat down with a sigh, not even looking at Niko.
"I didn’t know it would get you so worked up. What, you jealous of yourself in that drawing or something?"
That got him frowning again. He knew Niko was only looking to embarass him. He knew that perfectly well. Problem was: it's working. He was glad his head was down so that this time it at least hid the pink tint of his cheeks.
"Jeal- What?! Of course not!", he said before quickly shooting up and pointing an accusatory finger at Niko. "The fact you even sent me that is crazy, by the way. What is wrong with you?"
"Oh, come on, I thought it was a pretty good drawing. The person who did it is very talented."
"That's not the issue here. How do you even find stuff like that?"
Niko shrugged. Sendou sighed defeatedly, running his hand down his face with an exasperated look.
"Do you torture Aiku by sending him this shit too, or is it just me?"
As if on cue, the captain walked through the door, towel in hand to dry his hair.
"Sending me what?"
Sendou immediately turned back to Niko, shooting him an accusatory glare.
"So it is just me!"
Aiku walked up to the two of them, hands on his hips.
"What am I missing here? I wanna see too", he looked between his teammates in a silent request to show him what they were talking about, which he assumed was on their phone.
Niko's expression immediately beamed. Sendou's immediately did not.
"Sure thi-"
"There's no way you're showing him any of that."
Aiku looked confused.
"Why, what's the matter with.. 'that'?"
They both ignored him, returning to their previous back and forth.
"Yeah, what's the matter? Lorenzo found it funny too."
"You showed that drawing to Lorenzo?!"
"He's the one that found it", Niko shrugged.
"Oh my god."
Sendou let himself fall back down on his bed, hiding his face in shame. Why was everyone in on the 'harassing Sendou with posts shipping him and his best friend' plan? Next thing he knows their coach is going to tease him about it too.
He really did hate a lot of things about this situation.
Not only did that Aikusen stuff blow up online, but it's even blowing up here in Blue Lock. He has objectively no way of escaping it. He's sure even the other teams are in on the joke now. At least Manshine is, that's for sure.
Aiku broke the silence that had settled, rubbing the back of his head.
"So.. am I allowed to know what you guys are talking about or..?"
"Save yourself the trouble, Oliver."
Sendou sighed. He silently wished for him not to press the issue and for Niko not to cave in to his apparently overwhelming instinct of wanting to embarass him.
"Yeah, save him the embarassement, we need an emotionally functioning Sendou for the team to work."
Sendou groaned, bringing his hands down his face again. Why was this bothering him so much? If he was normal, he'd just laugh it off and gladly show it to Aiku, they'd joke about it then it'd be all forgotten. Right?
Who is he kidding. No one sees fanart of themselves and someone else making out and reacts normally. If anything, his reaction is pretty tame compared to how he should've handled this. Yeah.
And Aiku definetly doesn't need to know about the drawing either. He's just saving him from feeling put off if he came to see it for himself, because he's a good friend.
And maybe he wants to save himself from Aiku's reaction too. While he himself didn't react too harshly to that, he couldn't be sure Aiku wouldn't.
What if he was disgusted? What if he didn’t want to be close to Sendou anymore because some dumb people on Twitter decided to make their relationship weird, now with imaged examples? He didn't want to risk it.
So he'll make sure it stays his and Niko's little secret for now. And Lorenzo, too, he supposes. He could only pray the italian hasn't already sent it to Aiku.
Luckily, the defender dropped the subject entirely in favor of talking about everyone's performances in today's training, also seizing the opportunity to ask Sendou if his head feels better.
He can't help but look away from Aiku as he mutters a 'Yeah', trying to hide his embarrassment. He really doesn't want to think back about it. Drawing aside, he was still super ashamed of tripping in such a stupid way and he didn't want to think about it anymore!
They talked some more about training plans and future encounters before they were informed dinner was ready, and they all went to the cafeteria to eat with the rest of the Ubers.
Sendou had always been a slow eater, so it was pretty usual for him to not having even finished half his main dish while most of the table had left already.
Aiku usually kept him company while he finished eating, but this time Snuffy had asked him to come to the screens room to talk about something Sendou wasn't able to hear. Probably about his defense strategies, or that 'special vision' stuff he discovered recently.
So now, he was stuck with the other people who hadn't finished their dinner, which were none other than Niko and Lorenzo. Great.
He kept eating as he usually would, occasionally stealing glances at the two who were talking in hushed voices between themselves about something he couldn't quite catch, expressions way too giddy to have been anything professional.
He knew something was up when they stopped talking entirely, and as he looked up to see what they were doing, he caught them already looking at him, Lorenzo's toothy grin betraying Niko's calm face on what they were talking about.
"So, Sendou. I hear I might have caused you great emotional trouble? You know, if you trip like that again during a match, you'd definetly go down a few millions, okay?"
"Shut up, Niko was distracting me"
"Are you sure it was me specifically who was distracting you?"
Sendou opened his mouth to retort when he realized they were just trying to rile him up. Their tones were provocative. Their expressions were provocative. The fact they were both confronting him about that here, while they were alone was provocative. He wouldn't bite. He kept eating his food, only hitting them with the occasional glare while he chewed.
The silence stretched out for a while, and Sendou distantly feared Niko would pull out another suggestive drawing of him and Aiku to force a reaction out of him, since it had worked the first time. But Lorenzo finally spoke up again.
"You know, your little 'I have a headache' stunt had quite the effect on your fans"
Sendou deadpanned.
"What, are they shipping me with paracetamol now?"
The italian burst out laughing, but quickly composed himself before he took a bite out of his piece of bread.
"If that's what you wanna call mister 27 million, okay?", he said, still half chewing.
He shot him an inquisitive look. People were already shipping him and Aiku, what did this have to do with ealier's practice incident?
As if on cue, the New Gen 11 defender took out his phone to show him something on the screen. He instinctively thought about turning away from it in case he was showing him another drawing, but his curiosisty was stronger, so he took the risk and leaned over the table to get a closer look.
It was a screenshot from their practice match, which had been broadcasted as part of BLTV's entertainment programs when there were no official games being played.
The picture was very zoomed in, as the quality could confirm. But he could definetly recognize the scene: it was the moment he sat down after tripping.
He was drinking from a bottle Aiku had handed him, and the latter was squatting down in front of him, a grounding hand on Sendou's thigh as he asked him if he needed anything else, offering to go grab him some meds or something sugary to get him back into shape.
He had felt bad about lying about the headache at first, but he couldn't deny that sitting down and drinking some cold water had the intended effect of calming him down and help him focus on the game. So he considered it to be a rightful case of lying.
He even scored a goal right afterwards, even when faced with Niko, who was still determined on making him lose focus, in the opposing defense.
But back to the post he was shown. He could guess from the fact the picture was zoomed in to hell and back that they had switched to a broader view camera during that break, so it was very unlikely that people could catch on to exactly what they were doing, even less what they were saying.
But of course, Twitter's strongest warriors managed to pick out every single detail of what they were given.
The original post plainly said:
'Aiku looks so worried here, they're so cute 😭 He even went to fetch him water'
Which, okay. He could accept to be shown these kinds of posts. The wholesome ones that point out something that's actually happened. It's fine, because Aiku was actually worried, and its true that, even though it felt like routine to him, it was nice of the defender to get him water when he could've done so himself.
This however was the interpretation closest to reality that the post and its replies have to offer.
Not taking into account the people simply commenting on the wholesome aspect of the situation, a great lot of the replies were pointing out Aiku's hand placement.
'Whatchu doing with that hand, Aiku? 👀'
'Hand on his thigh and everything? Oliver Aiku I know what you are'
'Damn, nobody taking him from you bro'
Sendou didn't think anything was wrong with Aiku's hand placement. He had always done that when sitting down in front of him, either to show support for Sendou or to support himself physically. But these people were making it look like it was intentional and held meaning.
He knew that wasn't the case. He knows Aiku better than them, and he knows this is normal for them. This is normal Aiku behavior. It would've been weirder for him not to put his hand there just because of the implications it might have had.
There was no romantic intention behind that gesture, and that's that.
People needed to stop projecting their fantasies on his interactions with his captain, because their projections are starting to mess with his head in a way he far from liked. Or maybe these past few days of being handfed propaganda by Niko was finally bearing its fruits and making him completely lose his sense of rationality.
Realizing he's been aimlessly scrolling through the replies for a while now, he finally took his gaze away from the phone and faced his teammates, who were looking at him expectantly.
He didn't even know what to say. He had already voiced his disapproval of people overthinking every simple interaction between him and Aiku that had the unfortunate fate of being broadcasted on BLTV.
He simply shrugged, slightly raising his hands in mock surrender.
"What do you want me to say? There's no way to make this stop, I can't do anything about it. Are you going to show me everything new they're pulling off? It gets to a point."
Niko looked thoughtful for a second, before facing him again, a glint of mischief visible through the hair that covered his eyes.
"I mean, if you get bored of it we can move on to showing Aiku"
Absolutely not. He rolled his eyes.
"Spare him the joy of discovering these conspiracies"
"Aw, come on, you still haven't shown him?", Lorenzo's smile went down, disappointed, as he turned to Niko.
"Our ace here is really really against it... for some reason."
Sendou frowned as he crossed his arms. He didn't like how Niko's tone made it sound.
"What's that supposed to mean now"
Niko mimicked Sendou's own posture, leaning back into his chair, as if challenging the other.
"Ohh you know, nothing. You're just having a little extreme reaction to all this stuff, it's got me wondering whether you're trying to hide something behind that disapproving facade of yours"
"I'm disapproving of people making inappropriate speculations on me and my team's captain's relationship. It's perfectly reasonable. Don't get ahead of yourself."
He let that last sentence out harsher than intended. Maybe immediately going on the defensive wasn't the best idea. That would just make Niko more suspicious. Lorenzo is already raising a doubtful brow at him. He only frowned at them.
It's not like he's actually having an extreme reaction to this shipping stuff. In fact, he's pretty sure he's reacting very maturely by simply saying he disapproves of people painting them in that light. What in the world could be suspicious about that?
Sure, Aiku had taken it lightly at first, but so did he, at the very very first. And he wasn't the one recieving posts every day about it, taunting him! At this point he was pretty sure Niko's daily reminder of the ship's existence was annoying him more than the ship itself existing.
Sendou didn’t have time to mull this over as a hand on his shoulder startled him out of his thoughts, and he jumped in his seat.
He turned to look at the intruder and it was, as he had expected, none other than Aiku. He merely looked at him with a disapproving frown. He hated when he took him by surprise like that. But he guesses his arrival did save him from the two menaces in front of him, so he'll let it side for now.
"You still not finished? You're even slower than usual. Everything okay? Your head still hurts?"
His hand reached out to slightly rub Sendou's temple, and he couldn't help but notice how Aiku's bi-colored eyes softened as he inquired about his well-being, his own expression mimicking that change, a small grateful smile replacing the stuck up expression he had been sporting up to now.
Fine. He'll give it to them: Aiku was cute when he worried about him. But that's about it.
"No, don't worry, I'm fine. Thanks, Oliver. We were just busy chatting."
Aiku kept his arm slung around his shoulder as he reclaimed the spot he was sitting in earlier, right beside Sendou.
"Better hurry and finish, then, cause your dessert is making 'eat me' eyes at me"
Sendou huffed as he slightly pushed his tray away from Aiku, a playful smile pulling at his lips as he eyed the defender next to him. Sendou knew Aiku was mostly joking, but one time he had actually taken a few bites out of his dessert because he was taking too long, so he wasn't going to risk it.
Lorenzo leaned towards Niko, whispering to him.
"Dessert's not the only one doing so, yeah?"
Sendou glared at him. They had both finished their food, what were they still doing here?
"I heard that."
Aiku simply laughed. Sendou guessed it was easy to take it so lightly when the people making the joke weren't implying you seriously entertained such thoughts about the other a few minutes ago. Still, he smiled a bit, if only because Aiku's laughter is just that contagious.
His teammates' earlier confrontation kept haunting his thoughts for the rest of the night.
Sendou even found it difficult to focus on everything Aiku was telling him about his conversation with Snuffy, he who usually always paid rapt attention to anything strategy-related in hopes he could get a major role in one of them.
But no can do it. Everytime he let his mind stray from the simple order of listening to every word Aiku is saying, Niko's words come back to him.
He's not hiding anything behind any facade. First of all, his disapproval wasn't a facade: he actually didn't like people talking that way about him and Aiku, and it was his right. Second of all, he's pretty sure he's not hiding anything. Except hiding the drawings and other posts from Aiku, but that's not really what Niko confronted him about.
As tempted as he is to go fetch Niko, get them both in a secluded corner and try to get him to say what was really on his mind, he didn’t want to come off as too suspicious or desperate, so he dropped the idea entirely. Surely another opportunity would rise for them both to speak in private.
Which leaves him as he is now, silently walking side by side with Aiku, only half listening to what the other was saying, and his gaze fixed on the ground below him.
He nearly didn't catch the moment Aiku abruptly stopped in his tracks.
"Are you sure you're feeling well? You seemed out of it for the most part of this evening."
Two hands reached out to gently squeeze his shoulders, shaking him a little for him to lift his gaze and look at Aiku directly.
And he did so, being in return rewarded with the other's smile as their eyes met.
"I'm fine, I promise. Health wise. It's just-"
He groaned, throwing his head back a bit. Aiku deserved to know what was causing him to be so distracted, so he wouldn't be worried anymore, but he had no idea how to explain it to him without openly saying what exactly is bothering him.
"It's just social media stuff", he settled for. That was vague enough but not too much, and he already had a record of badly reacting to dramas emerging with him as the center of attention, so Aiku could reach a conclusion on the situation easily enough.
He looked thoughtful for a moment, brows knitting together, his hands and eyes however never leaving Sendou.
"I did notice you were on your phone more often than the start of the NEL. What's wrong? I told you to ignore the hate comments, and we know we're all bound to recieve more of them than usual with how big BLTV is growing. You should probably go back to minimal phone usage, it can only benefit you."
"Yeah, I know all that. It's just... it's not exactly hate comments. It's pretty weird. I don't know. Maybe I'm the one that's making it weird.
Aiku cocked an eyebrow at that, one of his hands coming up to scratch his chin, the other still conveying support and worry while perched on Sendou's shoulder.
"You mentioned a drawing or something, earlier."
Fuck. He had it figured it out. Please don't ask for details. Please don't ask for details. Please don't ask-
"Is that what's been bothering you?"
Okay, so that left him the choice to not delve into details. He could just vaguely explain the surface level problem and be done with it. Aiku wouldn't be satisfied with his answer but at least he'll stop worrying this much. He hopes.
"Yeah but... I dont think its how you're imagining it. Like, its not mocking me or anything. My problem isn't exactly about how I was portrayed in it. Well, it technically is, in a way, but not the way you're probably thinking right now. I'm sorry for making you worry over this. But rest assured it's not gonna affect me this much for long."
He tried to support his claim by flashing Aiku one of his pretty, confident smiles, but he could feel his face only half complying, instead displaying a small crooked smile that didn't carry the 'feeling great!' sentiment he had wanted it to.
Oliver dropped the issue then, no without reminding him he could always come to him if needed.
Although he didn’t carry his captain's responsibilities anymore, Aiku still felt he had to fulfill the duties of one, and that included reaching out and supporting his teammates during harsh times.
Sendou wished he could just go ahead and do it, like he's already done a hundred times already. Go to Aiku, vent out all of his frustration, indulge in his captain telling him he's the best and coddling him a little and then go back to top form. But the fact Aiku was an active guest in his distracting thoughts posed to be a problematic detail to navigate if he wanted to really talk to him about it.
No matter. He'll just sleep off whatever remaining confusions he's having about Niko's words and his general opinion on the 'Aikusen' situation - God he hated pronouncing that name in his head - and wake up all fresh and well-rested tomorrow, get back to ignoring the posts Niko's sending him and perform as best as he can during training.
Yes. By tomorrow morning his brain will have sorted itself out and everything will get back to how it usually is.