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It’s hotter than Satan’s ballsack and just as swampy.
Sae would never choose to spend his weekend out getting sunburnt and wearing his boyfriend’s spare “If You Can See This You're Gay” shirt, but Shidou had asked very nicely—and promised to stop freaking out his manager ‘til he cried for two weeks—so Sae agreed.
He wishes he hadn’t.
A flash of red enters their vision, and for once it’s not just Shidou’s easily rage-baited mind trying to pick a fight.
“Our fellow Gen 11,” Hugo greets, “and Shidou.”
“I’m gonna bite you one day and it won’t be in a sexy way,” Shidou warns with a smile.
“Please don't, I'm sure you have many diseases.”
Shidou looks to Sae to defend his honor who just shrugs. Love can do many things, but it will not make him blind.
Loki is wearing a simple Love is Love shirt, which was as lukewarm as him. Hugo is wearing a similar one but in gray. Their attire is very different from Sae’s t-shirt and triangle-stamped sunglasses, and Shidou’s blue and green tu-tu, rainbow socks, and gay nightclub-themed crop top—not that it was a crop-top before Shidou got to it.
Hugo turns to avoid the sun, revealing a lesbian pride flag painted on his cheek. Sae looks between him and Loki, who briefly glances at him then away again.
“Congrats,” Shidou says. “Though you’ve never struck me as a girl-kisser.”
“Shidou,” Loki warns.
“It’s the homosexual pride flag,” Hugo informs them proudly.
“Is it now?” Sae asks.
“Yes,” Hugo nods.
A beat.
Sae pulls a small trans flag out of his pocket and looks to Loki.
“Congratulati—” Sae begins.
“Stop,” Loki hisses. “It’s his first pride, leave him be.”
“So you’re both cis?” Shidou asks.
Loki crosses his arms. “Obviously.”
Sae frowns. He was looking forward to being a good ally…and also having one less thing to carry.
“Where’d you get that anyway?” Loki asks.
“Someone gave it to me when I walked in.”
“Is it accurate?”
“Who knows?” Sae says cryptically.
“I want to know,” Shidou grins, hand sneaking to cop a feel.
Sae whacks him upside the head. “No.”
The smack does the trick, but unfortunately it brings forth more spectators.
“Domestic abuse is wrong, Sae, or did you forget your manners since you’ve been back?”
Sae grimaces, irritation lining his face as Bunny walks up.
“You stalking us or is this a coincidence?” Shidou spits, wrapping an arm around Sae.
Despite the sticky heat, Sae leans into his boyfriend's touch. Hopefully his blatant homosexuality will offend Bunny and he’ll blindly walk into traffic.
Alas, Bunny just smiles. “It wasn’t my idea to come in the first place. We needed something to do before the World Cup.”
Following close behind him are Kaiser and Lorenzo. Despite the parade usually being packed, it clears up a bit when Lorenzo approaches, likely because of his terrifying demeanor and general Lorenzo-ness.
“If it isn’t my favorite queers,” Kaiser says.
Sae isn’t sure if that's a compliment or not. Ultimately, he decides he doesn’t want to be Kaiser’s favorite anything, and wrinkles his nose in disgust.
Lorenzo is wearing a shirt with a gruesome pink, yellow, and blue zombie that says “I want to eat everyone” while tearing gorefully at the victims’ flesh. Frankly, it was more appropriate for a metal concert than a pride event.
Bunny is wearing a rainbow shirt that has a small set of pins near the collar of his shirt, one striped forest green, lime green, white, gray, and black, while the other is striped black gray, white, and purple.
Kaiser’s outfit reveals nothing, although his usual blue rose tattoo has been intermixed with pink and purple petals as well.
“‘You could always paint the roses red’ type shit,” Shidou comments.
“I can’t understand you when you’re like this,” his boyfriend sighs.
“It seems like everyone is here,” Hugo comments.
The others notice the flag on his cheek, but one glare from Loki keeps them quiet. Except for Bunny, who didn’t seem to care either way.
Shidou grins. “Kaiser, where’s your cuter half?”
Kaiser gives Sae a Can you deal with this? look. “Sae?”
“No, he’s right. Where is Ness?” he cranes his neck around, if only to piss Kaiser off.
It has the intended effect, and the blonde chokes, red-faced.
“I didn’t know you were into polygamy, Sae,” Bunny says innocuously, and Sae immediately gets a headache, “or is it just for Shidou’s benefit so he doesn’t run off?”
Sae grits his teeth as Shidou snarls, “Listen here, fucker—”
“‘Ello ‘ello! What’s all this then?” someone says behind them with a very thick English accent.
Everyone jumps. Even Lorenzo, notorious for his ability to creep around, is startled.
A pale-haired man is standing behind them, his eyes as empty as the group chat whenever Kaiser goes online.
“Fucking shit,” Shidou hisses. “Have you ever thought of wearing a bell?!”
Kaiser cocks a hip like the cunt he is. “Can we help you?”
“I’m one of the New Gen 11, I am!” the man says, although because of his accent it comes out as “Augh wahn o’ theh nawh genn ehlehvahn, auhh ahm.”
“What?” he deadpans.
“Maybe he’s from a different studio,” Shidou comments.
“I think he’s the new British recruit,” Sae says.
“The og colonizer,” Hugo mutters.
Loki decides he needs to stop leaving him unattended with Charles.
“Tehdeh Nyght, augh ahm, augh ahm.”
As if threatened by the Brit, Hugo discreetly steps in front of Loki to shelter him. The action, while sweet, is akin to being protected by a wet paper towel.
“Teddy,” Loki tries, pleased he guessed correctly when that gets the other’s attention, “you’re a bit difficult to understand, maybe you could speak a little slower?”
Teddy sputters indignantly, as if someone had spat in his everyday breakfast of beans and toast. “Ahm perfektlee uhndehrstahdable, augh ahm!”
Lorenzo laughs maniacally. It’s unsettling, although the group is mostly used to it. The crowd around them, however, thins a bit more.
“Seems like Lorenzo is scaring off the hoes,” Shidou comments sadly.
Sae raises a brow, unimpressed.
“Some of them had really phat asses.”
Sae now understands what they have lost. A truly mournful day indeed.
Lorenzo grips Teddy’s shoulder. “I like you! We’re friends now!”
“Thaht’s myhghtee kynd o’ yeh,” he says.
“You can’t keep a person like a pet, Don,” Bunny interjects.
“Why not? Lorenzo keeps you just fine,” Sae says.
Before he could argue, Shidou cuts in.
“You guys are basically the same person anyway.”
Him. And this random guy they met not even three minutes ago.
The comment was insulting.
“I can’t unsee it,” Kaiser agrees thoughtfully.
“It’s like a doppelganger situation,” Loki nods.
Bunny purses his lips, disturbed by the comparison. Loki looks around, noticing the absence of his boyfriend.
“Wait, where’s Hugo?” he asks.
In the time they looked away, Hugo had been swallowed by the crowd.
“Who cares,” Kaiser says.
“Doesn’t matter,” Bunny says.
“Sae’s a better midfielder anyway,” Shidou says.
“I’m—” Loki pauses to give the three a harsh glare “—I’m not leaving without him.”
“Works for me,” Sae shrugs. “That’s even less people to deal with.”
Just then, Hugo emerges. A lesbian pride flag is sticking out of his pocket, shimmery reddish eyeshadow on his lids, and a lesbian flag-colored flower crown on his head.
“Oh wow,” Loki reddens, atrociously downbad for his scarlet midfielder. It would be laughable had Hugo not been even more pathetically whipped for the other. Loki once scraped his elbow by bumping into a wall and Hugo later had bruised knuckles from punching the wall in “retribution.”
They were stupid but they were in love.
“Where have you been?” Kaiser asks.
“I think I was kidnapped,” Hugo says mildly. “They said it was a public service to ‘serve cunt’ and that I was slacking.”
Shidou sighs, “I love lesbians.”
A guy walks by, taking in Hugo’s outfit. “Yas queen!” he snaps.
“Thanks girlie pop!” Hugo calls back. He turns back to the others, “What’s next, fellow—”
Just then, a nearby speaker malfunctions and makes a horrifying screech, covering up Hugo’s words for all except them.
Lorenzo snickers. Bunny frowns. Kaiser’s jaw drops. Teddy nearly chokes on his fifth cup of tea—he was getting a bit parched. Sae’s eyes widen 0.00001 cm, a testimony to his aghast reaction.
Shidou doesn’t blink. “It’s been a while since I’ve heard that one.”
Hugo gestures the direction he came from. “The women over there taught me that.”
“You cannot say that,” Kaiser hisses.
Hugo frowns, puzzled. “But they said—”
“You cannot say that!”
“Rip Hugo, I’ll miss you when you’re canceled,” Lorenzo says mournfully, using Kaiser’s rat tails to dab his eyes.
Kaiser smacks him. “Quit it!”
“Yeah, you might stain your face with that cheap dye.”
“Not as cheap as yours. It looks like your hair has a rash.”
“Pink is a perfectly acceptable color, meanwhile you look like you chose your appearance during an emo bender. I mean, a tattoo and dyed hair, really?”
“Emo?!”
“Break it up. This fight isn’t even interesting,” Sae demands.
Shidou’s face goes angelic. “Whatever you say, snookums!” Then with that same innocent expression, “Wanna find an empty tent and do hand stuff?”
“Ew,” Kaiser wrinkles his nose in disgust.
“Aha!” Shidou points a finger in his face. “You see that? He’s homophobic! That’s why he hates my pink hair!”
“What,” Kaiser says flatly.
“How disgusting,” Sae chides.
“And narrow-minded,” Hugo reprimands.
“No respect for any of us,” Loki tsks.
“So disappointing,” Teddy might’ve said.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Lorenzo says.
“Wha—Lorenzo, you brought me here!” Kaiser says.
He clasps his shoulder. “Exposure therapy is part of the process.”
“I’m bi!” Kaiser protests.
“So? You can be homophobic and gay,” Shidou says.
“I am,” Bunny says.
“See,” Shidou gestures.
“What the—? Bunny just admitted to actually being homophobic! Jump on that!”
“Old news,” Sae shrugs.
“I have a boyfriend!”
“Who isn’t here,” Hugo notes. “How suspicious.”
“You’ve all met Ness before.”
Shidou gasps. “He’s trying to gaslight us!”
Sae nods. “It’s the first sign of mental imbalance.”
“What the fuck is with you guys?!”
“Aggression, just as I feared,” Sae says grimly. “Another sign of poor cognition.”
Shidou turns to his midfielder. “How long does he have, Sae?”
“Based on appearance, he’s been dead for days—“ “HEY!” “—but if he gets his act together he could make it a few more weeks.”
Kaiser squints. “You think homophobia could kill me?”
“It can’t, but Shidou can.”
Shidou smiles devilishly, “I’ve been waiting for a reason.”
Kaiser sweats, and not just because of the ball-blistering heat.
Luckily for him, Shidou’s already lost interest. Unluckily for the rest of them, Shidou’s interest happens to lie in Sae’s pants.
He dips an apathetic Sae close to the ground, “God, you’re so hot when you threaten people for me.”
“Why am I part of your foreplay?!” Kaiser shrieks.
Like always, they ignore Kaiser and move on. The group walks further into the festival, the noise from celebrating broken up by a fit of yelling.
Stupid, ugly, annoying, repressed people with absolutely no game, no bitches, no money, no property, no hoes, no friends, and no class stood near the fence, protesting.
What weak-willed, pathetic, nonsensical losers.
“You’ll burn for your sins!” one of them yells.
“I’m burning now, it’s like 100 degrees!” Loki shouts back.
Meanwhile, Lorenzo hardly considers this a threat as he tends to run cold. If anything, this is a promising upgrade.
“There’s still time to save yourselves!” another protestor cries.
“I think you mean there’s still time for you to save yourself,” Shidou counters, before trying to lunge at them.
Luckily, Sae picks Shidou up by his scruff like a cat and tosses him over his shoulder before he could cause another international incident.
Kaiser wanders a bit too close to the fence, distracted by his phone, and one of the living shitstains the protestors grabs his arm. “You look like a reasonable young man, would you like a sign?”
Disgusted, Kaiser rips his arm free. He snatches the person closest to him—Bunny, since he doesn’t have a danger sense—and pulls him into a steamy, open-mouthed kiss. It goes on for ten excruciating seconds—not excruciating for Bunny or the protestors, but rather the rest of the Gen 11 who all briefly wished they were within the emperor’s grabbing range.
A few cities over, Ness flinches, suddenly sitting up. “I’m gonna kill him.”
Satisfied by his horrified audience, Kaiser flips off the protestors.
“Fuck you guys, I literally have blue hair and pronouns.”
He stalks off, leaving a dazed Bunny blinking and off-balance for the first time in his sadistic life.
Privately, Bunny feels a kinship for the magenta midfielder always scurrying behind Kaiser. If he knew Kaiser could kiss like that, he, too, might’ve followed him around like an eager pup.
Publicly, Bunny scrubbed his mouth with the back of his hand and forced his blush down.
“What are you all waiting for?” Kaiser flips his hair over his shoulder. “Let's go, lesbians.”
Shidou clenches his little rat fists at the sight. Kaiser was, unfortunately, very cool, and he now had respect for him.
“Don’t you have a boyfriend?” Loki asks once they catch up.
“Ness will understand.”
Meanwhile, Ness is grimacing, fingers massaging his temples.
“You okay?” Reo asks.
“I think my boyfriend is being a dumbass.”
“When isn’t he?” Rin scoffs. Ness and Reo shoot him a glare.
Back to the pride parade.
“Yeah, he’ll totally understand,” Kaiser nods to himself.
“I don’t think he’ll understand,” Loki says.
“Sure, because Ness screams ‘mentally stable,’” Sae scoffs.
“I want to be there when you tell him,” Lorenzo says, grinning his gold teeth.
They sparkle in the sun like a bowl of wet lemons. Sae wishes he was as cleanly as lemon-scented disinfectant, but alas.
“I admire Ness, he seems devoted to his striker,” Hugo says.
“Gag,” Sae gags.
“I think it’s sweet,” Loki says.
“I do too. Don’t you, Sae?” Bunny smirks. “A midfielder completely devoted to their striker. Makes you think of Spain—”
“I’ll make you think of Spain without the ‘a,’” Shidou threatens.
Bunny blinks. “What?”
Shidou violently spins in place, much to the confusion of Bunny. Once he was thoroughly distracted, Shidou used the momentum to smack him hard across the face. “Ya bitch.”
Loki snickers. Lorenzo cackles. Kaiser chuckles. Teddy chortles. Sae wants to propose. Hugo missed the whole thing because he was wondering when was an appropriate time to hold Loki’s hand.
Sae looks over, having sensed a dilemma with their redhead to redhead telepathy.
“Don’t. PDA is disgusting.”
Though the words seem to lose their integrity, what with Shidou trying to climb him like a tree and all.
Sensing the other’s skepticism through telepathy, but also Hugo’s deadpan expression, Sae explains, “It’s a reward for eliminating vermin.”
“Slay,” Hugo nods.
Sae nods back.
Having sufficiently claimed his boyfriend, Shidou hops off and goes to terrorize Teddy with Lorenzo. Loki is nudging a despondent Bunny with his shoe while Kaiser takes a selfie with them, making sure to capture the red handprint on Bunny’s face.
The redheads eye each other for a moment, silently judging their respective partner.
Misunderstanding, a couple yells, “You two should kiss!” off to the side before passionately smooching.
Sae and Hugo stare at each other before grimacing, both clearly put off by the idea. Loki and Shidou quickly run to their sides, forcing the two apart. They narrow their eyes at each other, glares dirtier than Lorenzo’s internet history.
Shidou pulls Sae into a graphic kiss that immediately blinded anyone who happened to look, meanwhile Loki holds Loki’s wrist who wonders if this was the PDA Sae warned him about.
“Stoppp, I literally love masc-butch couples!” someone shouts in his ear.
They jump, turning to see their new arrivals.
A group stops behind them, the members likely tipsy. There’s a good mix of masculine and feminine-presenting people, along with a few completely androgynous ones that gives Hugo a slight bit of gender envy.
The group quickly swarm around Hugo and Loki, cooing and flapping their pride flags they’re wearing as capes. Hugo recognizes a few of them as the people who stole him from his friends earlier, but it seems they have their alcohol-goggles on and don’t quite remember they’ve met before.
“Masc-butch couple?” Loki questions.
He and Hugo side-eye each other, unsure who was who.
Meanwhile, Sae is patting Shidou’s back to console him.
“There, there. We’re great too.”
“But I want strangers to say that!” he whines.
The initiating woman gets close to Loki. “You’re literally the prettiest butch I’ve ever seen,” she says, fingers reaching to grasp his chin.
Hugo steps in front of him, and the group instantly coos.
“She’s so cute.”
“Just look at those lashes!”
“Hey!” Loki puffs up, pressing a hand to Hugo’s chest to nudge him behind him.
They’re even more amused, eyes sparkling.
“Aw!”
“Don’t worry babe, we don’t want your girl!”
“You two are so cute together!”
They titter, seemingly awaiting a response.
Hugo thinks for a moment before saying, “Purr.”
The drunken group cheers.
Hugo succeeded at being gay. Straight? He’s not entirely certain.
Feeling the power of queerness running through him, Hugo takes Loki’s hand.
“This is my girlfri—boyfriend. He’s my wife. Wait, no. Um. We’re dating!”
The crowd cheers once more, finally satisfied as they make their drunken exit, and Hugo beams.
Loki squeezes his hand, getting his attention.
“Initiating PDA was really big of you, I’m so proud,” he compliments.
Hugo practically glows, the praise blowing him up like a balloon.
“But it’s really hot out here and if I touch anything else slightly warm I’m going to cut my arm off.”
Splat! There went Hugo’s dignity, falling to the ground like an empty balloon.
He lets go of Loki’s hand and pretends not to notice when the other wipes his sweaty pants on his pants.
Hugo frowns, having considered their shared sweat their offspring. He then frowns harder, realizing Shidou and Sae’s freakiness may have rubbed off on him.
Speaking of, Shidou is now pestering a stranger, their makeup glamorous and outfit stunning even in the heat.
“So how does one become a drag queen?” Shidou asks.
“How long you got?” She arches one perfectly manicured eyebrow.
Shidou shrugs. The queen beckons him along with a finger, and he drags an unenthusiastic Sae with him.
Teddy bumps into Bunny for the fourth time since they’ve started walking. Bunny briefly contemplates violence, but after getting slapped stupid, decides on a different approach.
“Why are you here?” Bunny asks. “You never said.” Probably. He’s been talking slower and more concisely but it was still hard to tell sometimes.
“Eh?”
Now that Bunny was really looking at him, he noticed Bunny wore no indicating colors at all. His outfit was an all-black ensemble that was as colorless as London’s skies.
“Are you gay or an ally?” Bunny tries again.
“I’m an empty puppet,” Teddy says, eyes vacant like a British spice rack.
Bunny considers this, interest spiking.
“You seem miserable.”
“I don’t feel much of anything.”
Bunny’s eyes are practically hearts. “Is that so?”
“Down, boy!” Lorenzo chides. “You’re going to scare off my new friend.”
“I don’t think that’s the thing we need to worry about,” Loki comments, unsettled by how Teddy is staring at Bunny.
“You missed your chance, Kaiser,” Lorenzo says.
“I have a boyfriend!”
Ness stops sharpening his axe.
“Hm?” Reo asks.
“I had a good feeling,” Ness says. “We can cancel the air strikes.”
Rin crosses his arms, sulking.
Back at the festival, staff begins encouraging the crowd to clear the path.
“It looks like the parade’s starting,” Loki says.
“Where are Shidou and Sae?” Hugo asks, looking around.
Just then, they see Shidou and Sae on top of the first float with a crew of drag queens. Sae looks unamused. Shidou looks ecstatic. Loki hardly blinks before the two are making out sloppy-style on top of the parade float, tongues intertwined like an Egyptian finger trap.
“My eyes!” Loki yelps.
“MY EYES!” Hugo screeches, vision soon covered by Loki’s hands.
“My eyes,” Bunny echoes, zooming in from his phone where he’s recording.
“Uh-huh,” Lorenzo hums, filming on a high-def camera complete with a boom mic.
Teddy says something indistinguishable, but it makes Lorenzo cackle all the same.
The pride festival eventually comes to an end, and everyone is gayer for it. Hugo and Loki scandalously hold hands in public once more, Lorenzo scares off future protestors, Bunny and Teddy sit in utter silence and contemplate existentialism, Ness barely misses Kaiser with an axe next time they meet, and Shidou threatens people into legalizing gay marriage. It’s hot. Shidou and Sae french some more, tongues flip-flopping like amphibians playing leapfrog.
The end!