Work Text:
There’s two Kunigamis now; one went away, and two came back.
Chigiri doesn’t really know what to do with any of it, but they’re on different teams, in different strata entirely, so so far, he didn’t have to.
There are whispers, of course. Some say it’s some sort of ghost thing, where something happened during the ‘Wild Card round’ that attached some sort of spirit to the facility (what a load of bullshit), some say it’s some sort of cloning experiment or something of that like. To create a copy of Noel Noa.
Which is obviously also bullshit. There’s no way that is true, that is so stupid. And impossible.
Chigiri watches the Barcha vs Bastard match on the monitor room in the Manshine stratum, and it’s like night and day: Kunigami, just like he remembers him, with the left shot and the hero’s smile, and Kunigami, with shaggier hair, a broader build, and a powerful right shot like Noa’s, with ambidexterity. His hair is going grey, too. He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks.
Chigiri swallows. It’s impossible.
Later, when he re-watches the match on his phone via the official Blue Lock TV app, there’s only one Kunigami.
.
“Yo, Chigiri!”
Chigiri’s heart plummets. When he turns, it’s just Kunigami, but for some reason, it’s all incongruent, the picture.
Well, they’re in the Manshine stratum, and Chigiri wasn’t expecting him at all, for some reason. He realizes this right now, right this moment, that he didn’t; furrows his brows at it. They’re friends, why wouldn’t Kunigami visit him? He’s sure the guy hangs out with Isagi all the time in the Bastard stratum, after all, and due to the Barcha match, he’s seen Bachira already, too.
Chigiri rushes over. “What’re you doing here?”
Kunigami smiles, and he really looks just like he always does. The same orange hair, the same thick brows, the same mild eyes. He reaches up and rubs the nape of his neck the exact same way, too.
“Just visiting. You’re the only one I haven’t caught up with yet, after all.”
Yeah. True.
They play football, and Kunigami plays exactly like Chigiri remembers. He’s really good. Tackles into Chigiri and almost sends him flying with how strong he is. Dribbles in powerful strides, but Chigiri is faster, steals the ball back and shoots it into the net.
Kunigami laughs. “God, you’re so good,” he says.
.
“It’s just weird,” Reo says.
Chigiri blinks. They’re eating; a bowl of rice and grilled veggies and some dipping sauce. Reo keeps glancing at Nagi, because they’re having issues again and aren’t talking, or something, but Chigiri really doesn’t care about that right now. Or ever.
Instead, he scowls. “Why’s it weird?”
Because it’s not weird. Reo tilts his head, rolls his eyes, purses his lips while he’s chewing. Squints. Because he can’t find any argument, because it’s not weird.
“After what happened,” Reo says, slowly. “One just can’t stay exactly the same. It’s impossible. It’s weird. And it’s not Blue Lock, either.”
Chigiri doesn’t give a fuck about Blue Lock. What he does give a fuck about is that Reo hasn’t talked to Kunigami once since he—they, he supposes—came back. What he does give a fuck about is that Kunigami really doesn’t seem to mind at all. What he does give a fuck about is the fact that Reo and Kunigami were alone, in the end, and that he wasn’t there.
“He said he’s going to visit his family on a one day trip,” Chigiri says. Reo points at him with his chopsticks.
“Which is fucking weird.”
.
Kunigami nudges his cleat against Chigiri’s. Chigiri nudges back. For a moment, it’s like they’re back at the very beginning; back in the First Selection, in Team Z. Kunigami’s face is shiny with sweat when Chigiri tilts his head to look at him, and once he catches Chigiri’s gaze, he grins with his lips parted, since he’s still panting from the exertion. His eyes are filled with such a passionate flame that Chigiri thinks he’d burn himself on him if he reached out to touch.
You’re really here, he thinks. Kunigami nudges against Chigiri’s foot again, as if to say, I’m really here.
It’s so very strange: it’s like Chigiri’d only noticed how little Blue Lock had felt like, well, Blue Lock without Kunigami when he returned. He’d been sad before, sure, but he had needed to continue moving.
And now—
“What’re you gonna do now?” asks Kunigami, who’s likely going to return to his own stratum.
Chigiri shrugs. Hesitates for a bit, because their match is soon, and he probably shouldn’t be telling the enemy this. “I’ve gotta continue working at my angle.”
Good natured, Kunigami shakes his head. “You work too hard,” he says, and now, Chigiri thinks—
.
After the match, there’s a weird sort of aura once Chigiri steps foot into Bastard München’s stratum, but perhaps he’s just imagining that.
He finds Isagi with the other Kunigami, for some reason. He looks excited, sunken into one of his rambling sessions, trying his best to keep up with Kunigami, who’s simply barreling down the hall. With Kunigami, whose steps falter when he sees Chigiri, eyes going wide for a second, then so narrow they cut through sinew and flesh and bone right into Chigiri’s core.
He shoulders past them both and disappears. Chigiri’s mouth is dry, dry, dry.
“Oh, Chigiri!” Isagi says. “What’s up?”
For a moment, all Chigiri can do is stare. The rhythm of his heart is all wrong.
“Uh,” he says, furrowing his brows. What is up?
Then the black hole pops and he swallows, straightens out, looks around, but there’s nothing there, nothing there, nothing there. “I was going to ask to have a four-way practice session. With, um, Bachira. And Kunigami. They’re—”
“Ah!” Isagi says, glancing past him. “But Kunigami just left! I’ll go get him.”
“No,” Chigiri says. “I meant the other one. They’re—Bachira and him are waiting already.”
Isagi frowns.
.
(“What the heck was that about, anyway?” he asks Isagi.
Isagi makes a face, wiping at his sweat-soaked bangs. “What? Okay, it could have gone better, but…”
“Not that. Earlier, with… Kunigami.”
“Huh? I was asking him for workout tips…”
“Dude,” snaps Chigiri. “No, I mean—just, the way you reacted to him, the other one, I mean…”
Isagi laughs, startled out of him, then looks almost shocked at himself. “Chigiri…” he says, sounding almost guilty. Chigiri’s heart is pounding weirdly. “This is Blue Lock. And that guy, well, he is…”
“What?” Chigiri asks. “He’s what?”
Isagi doesn’t say anything.)
(Chigiri isn’t quite sure why he’s here. It feels weird to be in a different stratum point blank, even when they all have the same layout, but it feels especially weird to creep outside in the hall like this, peeking into the weight room.
Kunigami is inside; the greying one. The one with those terribly grim eyes. The one Chigiri hasn’t yet spoken a single word to at all, whatsoever. The experiment.
His muscles bulge, shine with sweat. He grunts with grit teeth. His hands close around the bar of the weight and crush. Chigiri stares, and stares, and stares.)
.
Chigiri rewinds, then rewinds again, then rewinds a third time, but it’s the same fucking thing every single time. His phone is slippery in his hands with sweat, for some fucking reason. The screen blooms colorfully when he wipes his thumb across it.
It’s the same thing every time: Kunigami’s goal, in beautiful, high quality. His leg stretched high up in the air, his face set in determination, sweat soaking into his bright sunset-colored hair.
The problem is, Chigiri was right fucking there, and it wasn’t this Kunigami who made the goal. And his face had been so twisted, his teeth grit, nostrils flaring. This one looks so… harmless in comparison. Chigiri was there. It didn’t go like this. It didn’t.
He’s sure it didn’t. Of course it didn’t, he was right there; and it was the same with the first match, too, the one against Barcha. This Kunigami—the Noa-Kunigami, and now that Chigiri has seen him play up close and personal, it really must be true, it’s undeniable as it is impossible—hadn’t been in the app’s replay at all. Probably not in the live stream, either.
Chigiri rewinds again. It’s the same fucking thing every single time.
.
Kunigami’s hands are very big and very warm. He parts Chigiri’s hair carefully. “I’m not made out of glass,” Chigiri complains, wrinkling his nose.
Kunigami laughs. “I know,” he says. “You’re quite sturdy. I still want to be careful.”
Makes Chigiri roll his eyes. Quite sturdy, huh…!
And Chigiri thinks he might be a bit of a control freak, because he doesn’t actually like the idea of someone else doing his hair, but it’s nice, too. To have someone else do it. But, well, not even a bit of direction… with this brutish muscle-head behind him…
“I told you,” Kunigami says, shifting behind Chigiri as he’s braiding. “I’ve done this before. Lots of times.”
That’s true. He has told Chigiri this, ages ago. Because he has two sisters.
For a moment, Chigiri wonders how they reacted to him—to him now—when he went to see them, but that’s stupid, because Kunigami is right behind him and he hasn’t changed one bit.
“This looks great,” he says by the end of it, twisting his head to see. Kunigami’s face goes bright red.
“Shaddup,” he says. It’s the same, even this.
Don’t go away, Chigiri thinks.
“I’m right here,” Kunigami says.
.
“You need to focus,” Chris Prince says where he’s kneeling on the floor. Chigiri grumbles vaguely in response.
He’s right, of course, even when it’s hard to take him seriously when he’s currently, well, assessing Chigiri’s muscles like that. Hands rubbing down Chigiri’s thigh, before repeating with the other side.
“You’re doing well,” Prince continues. “You’re developing beautifully. You’re so diligent, too. But you just seem distracted sometimes, you know? You need to put your all in this for it to work!”
He’s right, of course. Chigiri grits his teeth. He’s right, Chigiri knows that.
“Only a little bit,” he says, anyway, feeling petulant. “I’m working on it.”
Prince hums, even though he most definitely has no idea what the hell Chigiri is talking about. Or maybe he does; he’s a master, after all. Working together with, well, Ego. Or at least he got hired by him. It makes Chigiri’s mind skip and jump all the way to Noa; Noa probably knows. Noa probably—
Probably—
“Well,” Prince says, dusting his hands off as he straightens out. “You’ve still made leaps of progress; you’re definitely not Manshine’s problem child.”
And that’s about Nagi again, so Chigiri rolls his eyes and leaves.
.
“What the fuck do you want?”
Chigiri stops short of running straight into Kunigami. He’s been following him for so long—trying to keep up with his pace without having to break out into a jog—with the guy ignoring him that he was about to give up. Now there’s Kunigami, glaring at Chigiri over his shoulder with open distaste on his face: His eyes circled dark, hair falling into them deeper, making them look sharper than—
“You’re the original,” Chigiri says, voice rough in his throat. “Right?”
Kunigami scoffs. “No such thing. Leave me alone.”
Something like panic jolts in Chigiri’s chest; he takes one, two steps forwards. He can’t let him leave. “Kunigami—”
“What?” Kunigami snaps, whipping around completely. He’s beautiful in his fury, Chigiri thinks somewhere far away, doesn’t look so resigned to his misery like this. “What the fuck do you want? The other one was a present, from Ego to you. You guys, his family, the world. So fucking take it!”
Not resigned, but still miserable. Chigiri doesn’t want to see him return to that state.
“Chigiri!” the other Kunigami calls from behind. Chigiri didn’t know he was there. “What are you doing here? C’mon!”