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It's cruel, that they didn't get a proper goodbye.
Their past few interactions had been wayward, tumbling, fleeting things. They'd been crooked in subtle ways, and Nagi had known they would need to be straightened out the next time they came across each other. He didn't like this new energy between them, all stinging and fragile, breaking at all points of contact. He had promised himself, then, that he'd talk to Reo properly next time. They'd lay out their grievances properly, show all their cards, everything open to the air, all for the sake of reconciliation.
They don't have to go back to playing together the same way they had before. It might even be impossible to do so. Still, the companionship, the understanding between them—that doesn't have to go, surely. It's not a package deal, the football and everything else. They can make up, and grow up, and evolve in their own ways, and Nagi can keep Reo's hands in his own, and they'll be happy. It must work out. Reo, especially, likes to make sure things work out. Nagi is confident that they'll fix the mangled mess between them.
It's inevitable, their reunion. Nagi had been wary of it throughout the Second Selection. Even with the fire on the field, and his attention occupied by the battle to claw his way through to the next stage, there'd always been a little piece of him reserved for wallowing over Reo. They had parted ways with such vicious words, Nagi's afraid that their next meeting will be even more catastrophic. Somehow, they would both find a way to say something even worse—if there's a place even further below not caring about each other.
But it doesn't matter. They're going to see each other, and Nagi will apologize, and they'll face whatever comes after the Second Selection with all the horrid, ugly things they'd said to each other buried ten meters below the surface. It'll be easy, just like everything between them used to be.
So, Nagi waits in the Second Selection's final room with something akin to hope buzzing through his limbs. He's eager every time a new set of silhouettes appears in the mouth of the corridor. Isagi and Chigiri are lively at his side, cheering for all the teammates they've gotten to see again. Maybe it'll be the same for him when he sees Reo.
Still, the third, fourth, and fifth teams go by with no sign of Reo. Nagi can't help but think of some of the other contestants with some disdain—surely, Reo's better than Niko. They'd destroyed his team handily in the First Selection. And yet, Niko's standing with the rest of his five-man team, glowing with victory, and Reo's still nowhere to be seen.
The sixth team comes and goes. Nobody Nagi cares about enters the room. It's down to the last team, then. Five more figures, growing ever closer, marching toward him to deliver the news. Nagi leans forward, eager to catch his first glimpse of Reo after being away from him for so long.
Igaguri arrives first, flanked by two strangers. With a dramatic delay, Kunigami slips out of the darkness; Chigiri and Isagi let out twin sighs of relief. Then, that final shadow, making its way out into the light, must be—
He's too tall, is Nagi's first thought. The last person is too tall. And his hair is unkempt, almost wild in a way. Nothing like Reo.
"Shidou," Nagi hears someone say from across the room. The final victor steps out to claim the name—towering, smiling, vicious with all his teeth. And that's all.
It's like those times he'd forgotten to bring his phone to school. He would rummage around in his bag, and at the first swipe of his fingers through the empty air, his heart would seize up, and his insides would disintegrate into dust. He would cease to live for the briefest of moments, all breath and all life stolen by shock. Then, like the flow of the tide, his standard functions would return, and he would go about his day as usual. That's the emotion that strikes him now—so devastating, so immense, that he can't even assign it a name.
Nagi tries to breathe. His lips part, and nothing goes in, nothing comes out. He doesn't notice Chigiri and Isagi have left his side until he sees them ahead of him, standing with Kunigami and Bachira. The four of them share an embrace, arms over shoulders, hands grasping hands.
"Hey," Nagi says. He takes a step forward. Shidou's cutting glare snaps onto him at the same time that Kunigami looks at him. There's murky guilt swimming in his eyes. Nagi can't hold his gaze, and he switches his focus to Shidou. "Where's Reo?"
"Reo?" Shidou echoes. Nagi sees it in the lazy flutter of his eyelids—he's uninterested. It lights an indignant, violent fire deep in Nagi's chest.
"Did you play against him?" Nagi asks. He turns to Kunigami, who's staring at the floor. Chigiri, Isagi, and Bachira are still huddled next to him. The sight of it leaves Nagi feeling uncomfortably conscious of himself, and the painful lack of people at his side. "Kunigami, what happened?"
Kunigami shakes his head. Dread spears its way through Nagi's sternum.
"Oh, him," Shidou says, snapping his fingers. "What about him? He didn't really make much of an impression, to be honest. He barely even moved when I played against him."
Impossible. Reo, whether for better or for worse, made an impression everywhere he went. He's wealthy, charming, clever, and confident. Nagi had known him through mere word of mouth before he'd seen him. Reo made ripples through the world with his mere presence. Shidou must be lying, then. There's no other way to explain it.
"I was thinking about choosing him instead of Kunigami, actually," Shidou says, completely unbothered by Nagi's lack of a response. "But I could see it in his eyes—he didn't want me to pick him. I guess he couldn't handle losing a couple of games. Dreamt too big, and threw in the towel when he realized he wasn't good enough."
"You're lying," Nagi says weakly.
Shidou grins wickedly. "What, are you his friend?"
Nagi's palms sting. He unhooks his nails from his own skin. He hadn't even realized he'd been balling his fists so tightly.
"Should have picked him for your team, then, if you're so upset he's gone," Shidou says lightly. Then, he's turning away, striding deeper into the crowd of players.
Nagi stares at the empty space Shidou had left behind. In his peripheral vision, Kunigami draws close and murmurs a quiet apology. Then, there's a commotion from up ahead. It's Ego, crackling to life on the big screen to announce their next objective, and the rest of the crowd turns to face him.
Nagi can't find it in himself to pay attention. The room is spinning, blurring, smudging into gray. He'd passed the Second Selection, but his dream—World Cup, with Reo—has died all the same. He's never lost like this before. It leaves him sick.
Did Reo give up? Did Reo give up because of what Nagi said to him?
It can't be true. There's no way it's true. Reo doesn't let other people tell him what to do. Reo works himself to the bone for his dream. Reo wins, and he always believed in his own ability to win, and even if he'd lost along the way, Nagi knew he would find a way to win in the end.
But Reo's not here. Reo lost. What does that mean?
All of a sudden, Nagi's burning desire to beat Isagi seems stale. He pokes and prods at it, stretches it into different shapes, but nothing can spark it back to life. Ego's next tasks for them, which he announces now from speakers high above their heads, are equally dull.
There had been a fire in him. It's been killed, unceremoniously, mercilessly, like a candle's flame between the mere pinch of two fingers. There are no sweet farewells for Nagi and Reo—just the quiet, gasping, dying breath of their shared dream, withered away before getting the chance to bloom.
Reo has blocked Nagi. Of course he has. Nagi gets to find out during the break after the U-20 game, when he tries to send a greeting and is answered with an automated text box, announcing Reo's lack of desire to connect with him.
Nagi takes it personally, because there's no other way he can think of taking it. It's simply mean. He even gets Choki back in a tidy little box on his doorstep, with no note attached, and that just about kills any hope he has of Reo reaching out to him. They didn't get the chance to say goodbye face to face—the final bullet point on a long, long list of things gone wrong between them—and now Reo doesn't even want to try and fix that, either.
Nagi will have to go to Blue Lock eventually, but he relishes his precious few days of freedom. He plays video games from sunrise to sundown, until he can barely stomach the sight of his phone. He practices football in sporadic, unmotivated bursts. Then, when he's run out of things to do, and his mind wanders back to Reo, he walks. He finds himself hoping, at every door he passes, every window he looks through, that he'll stumble across Reo. They share the same city; surely, they can't have drawn that far apart from each other.
It's poetic in some ways, that Nagi only sees Reo on that last day before he has to return to Blue Lock. It had been drizzling all afternoon, and Nagi had barely made it five minutes down the street when a storm blew into the city, full force. The library had been right there, glowing gold through towering glass windows, and Nagi had ducked inside without a second thought, thinking only of escaping the sudden onslaught of wind and water. Then, like a dream—Reo, sitting at a desk right by the door, staring right at him.
Reo's got glasses on. It's a new pair, wire rimmed and glinting silver, crooked across the bridge of his nose. He's cut his hair, too. It's just a trim, but Nagi notices it immediately, in the neat, orderly way it cradles the underside of Reo's jaw. Other than that, he's just as he was the day they left each other. There's a certain coldness in his eyes, but Nagi isn't a stranger to that, not anymore.
"Reo," Nagi says. Reo nods at him. "Can I come over?"
Reo rolls his eyes. "I'm not your boss," he says, and he waves his hand at the chair across from himself.
Nagi takes him up on the offer and sits down. Reo returns his attention to the laptop in front of him. There's a dreadful spread of handwritten notes scattered to both sides of the table. Nothing passes between them, save for the gentle clicking of Reo's fingernails against his keyboard. Nagi does his best to read the papers upside down. It's nothing they've ever studied in school before.
"What are you doing?" Nagi asks, rather feebly.
"None of your business," Reo says shortly.
Nagi tucks his feet in under his chair. "Why did you block me?"
"Because I didn't want to talk to you."
"Well, I—"
Reo chooses that moment to look up. It leaves Nagi breathless. It's the mirror image of the last time they'd seen each other, in the Second Selection—Reo, on the turf, and Nagi, standing over him, leaving him again. Reo's expression now is similarly distant, full of turmoil that he'd refused to share with Nagi in any form other than anger. It scares Nagi, a little. It makes him think that their conversation now is going to follow the same path, and they'll far endlessly further apart, somehow.
"You what?" Reo snaps.
"I wanted to talk to you again," Nagi says quietly. He shivers, and he's not entirely convinced that it's just from the rainwater trickling down the back of his neck.
Reo tilts his head. He says, "Talk, then."
Nagi has never had to speak first before, between the two of them. Reo was always the one to lead, spearheading the way for Nagi to follow, with enough enthusiasm to fill all eight corners of a room. Now, here he is, on the other side of the table, tight-lipped and unwilling, and it leaves Nagi feeling all the more exposed. It's apparent, to a painful degree, that Nagi's useless on his own. Maybe it's too hopeful of him, but Nagi thinks to himself, just briefly, that if he shows it enough, Reo will take pity on him.
"Are you still playing football?" Nagi asks.
The curling line of silver that frames Reo's eyes burns white under the overhead lights when he lowers his head. "Of course not," Reo hisses. "Did you come here to rub it in my face?"
"No," Nagi says, but Reo's glare only worsens. "Reo, why would I do that?"
"What else would you be here for?"
Nagi's not entirely sure. It's not for anything tangible, but it's a little more than just coming to see Reo, too. If there's a single thing he could tell Reo to right things between them, he would, but the expression on Reo's face hasn't gotten any softer.
He pushes on, regardless. "Why would you quit? Isn't it your dream, to win the World Cup?" With me, he wants to add, but he's not sure if he has the right to anymore.
"I can't," Reo says. Finally, his composure thaws; Nagi can see his growing distress, through the way he furrows his brows and squints his eyes. "That's the rule of Blue Lock, isn't it? I'm not allowed to play for the national team, now that I'm eliminated."
Nagi knows. Still, there's desperation crawling down his spine, prickling like fire, or like ice. It pushes the next question out of his mouth before he can think it over. "What about me?"
"What about you?" Reo echoes.
"Reo," Nagi says, helplessly. He feels like he's begging for something. For what, he has no idea. "What do I do now?"
"Why are you asking me?"
Reo's gaze is impervious over the top of his laptop screen. Even the scream of the storm past the windows isn't enough to drown out the frantic beating of Nagi's pulse in his own ears. He can barely hear his own voice when he whispers, "You promised we'd be together until the end."
Reo blinks. He turns his head away. Blankly, he says, "Well, we can't anymore."
It must be lingering anger on Reo's side that leads him to say such unforgiving things. Reo wouldn't be like this otherwise. It's completely unlike him, the lifelessness, the utter defeat that saturates the air around him. The only thing Nagi recognizes about him is his face. He's nauseated, somehow, and his immediate instinct is to undo it, whatever's made everything feel so wrong about this conversation. He takes Reo's hand—Reo flinches, and the churning in Nagi's gut triples its intensity—and he says, "I didn't mean it, before."
"What are you talking about?" Reo mutters. His fingers wriggle in Nagi's grasp, but he doesn't pull free.
"All of it," Nagi says. "When I didn't choose you. When I said I didn't care about you. I was wrong." Then, quieter, just as his voice threatens to fail him: "I can't play without you."
Finally, like sunlight cutting through gray skies, Reo's expression melts. There's a touch of something softer, now—pity, or sympathy, or maybe sorrow. He says, "Let's just forget it, Nagi."
Hope sets Nagi's skin alight. He asks, "Are we good, then?"
"I don't just mean our arguments," Reo says. "I mean, everything. Let's forget it all happened, okay?"
At least Reo's still holding his hand. It's a small mercy, in the face of such heartless words. Nagi can't scrape together a response, no matter how hard he tries. He just stares at Reo's face, and at last, at the worst of times, Reo feels compelled to fill the silence between them.
"All the stuff we said to each other when we were playing football together," Reo says. It's incomprehensible, how easily he can say it. "Our promises, and everything else. We can let it go."
Nagi clenches Reo's fingers tight between his own. They're completely limp. He says, "So you're just going to leave me?"
Reo nods. He drags his hand free of Nagi's hold and gets back to work on his laptop. Nagi takes him in again—glasses, trimmed bangs, eyes darkening into black—in a desperate search for the old warmth he used to have. There's nothing there for him anymore. It's like the thorough repainting of a room, with all the same shapes, in all different colors, and nothing left unchanged.
"Can't we still be friends?" Nagi asks.
"Maybe," Reo says, in the way people do when they mean no.
Reo's phone, which is face down on the desk, buzzes violently. Reo flips it over with one hand and peers at the screen. "I have to go," he says.
Nagi watches Reo shut his laptop and gather all his papers into a neat stack. He's gotten past the point of sadness, now. There's a bottomless pit deep inside him, draining every last trace of vigor from his body. He can't bring himself to move, not even as Reo packs his things into his bag, not even as he tucks his glasses away, not even as he pushes his chair back and stands, ready to walk out of Nagi's life forever.
Reo hesitates as he takes the first step. He turns back to Nagi, and it feels like the final time, with the world slowing and the storm fading into quiet, just for their farewell.
"Goodbye," Reo says. His voice has gone soft. It leaves Nagi the slightest inkling of hope that he might take it back—but Reo steels himself, straightening his shoulders, and takes two decisive steps backward.
Nagi's not entirely sure if it's out of kindness, but Reo waits. They stare at each other, and Nagi realizes Reo wants him to say it back. As if they're closing this chapter of their lives, natural and willing, like they've simply run their course together.
Nagi can't say it. He doesn't want to. He can't even fathom the idea of it, let alone put it into words.
Reo doesn't wait forever. He tugs his bag onto his shoulder and turns around, and then he's going, out through the door, into the storm, into the great, raging world.
It wasn't goodbye.
To his credit, Nagi can tell that Reo didn't lie to him on purpose. Reo's just as surprised to see him. He nearly drops his notepad when their eyes meet. He recovers it quickly, but his gaze latches onto Nagi, and he turns his head to watch as Nagi makes his way through the web of his teammates, as if entranced.
Nagi has had many moments like this over the long years, scanning the sidelines after every single football game for any traces of purple in the crowd. He comes up empty every time, except for today, apparently. He stands his ground against the moving sea of people, peering between bobbing heads and shoulders, and the sight doesn't change. Reo remains, watching him from the sidelines, still as stone.
"Nagi," says Karasu, clapping his shoulder. Nagi lets the blow sway his body. "Chigiri's going to get his leg checked out, so could you do the post-match interview instead?"
Right, Chigiri had scored today's winning goal. His leg is always volatile, though, and it's better safe than sorry. Some things haven't changed. Nagi's not entirely sure why he's being asked to go, though; he's never been good with the media, always unable to offer more than bland single-sentence answers.
"Nagi," Karasu says again, nudging him impatiently. "I can ask someone else to go, if you want." And then, he points, and Nagi follows the line of his finger, all the way over to where Reo's standing.
"I'll go," Nagi says instantly.
Karasu gives him a firm shove, guiding him forward. Then, it's just Nagi, a rock in the continuous flow of time, watching Reo across the field. It seems like Reo's waiting for him.
Nagi peels away from the rest of his teammates, who are heading for the locker rooms. Reo turns away for one moment to address someone at his side—a stranger with a cap, hoisting a huge camera over one shoulder—before he returns his attention to Nagi. There's a microphone held loosely in one of his hands, pointed vaguely in Nagi's direction. The image of him sharpens as Nagi steps closer, proof that it isn't another fluke, another glimpse of someone that might've been him, slipping away. It's Reo, just as real as that day in the library.
It's been two, maybe three years since they've last spoken—Nagi can't quite remember. Reo's gotten a bit taller, a bit thinner. He's pierced his ears. Aside from that, he's mostly the same. Maybe happier, actually. He even smiles at Nagi as he approaches, and he waves a hand toward the space at his side, inviting Nagi over to stand in front of the camera with him.
"Nagi, congratulations on the victory today," Reo says jovially, like he hadn't broken Nagi's heart the last time they saw each other. "Any thoughts about Chigiri's winning goal?"
Nagi stares at him. Incredulously, he asks, "You're an interviewer now?"
Reo's eye twitches. He lifts the microphone a little higher. He's still smiling, but he hisses through his teeth, "Can we do this later?"
The spark of silver on Reo's earlobes snatches Nagi's focus away. When he squints, he's able to discern the shape; they're flowers, each with five tiny petals, dotted blue in the center. They gleam with the movement of the crowd, catching every shining light that comes their way.
"I like your earrings," Nagi says.
Reo sighs. He turns to the camera and says, "We're just catching up," with a level of verve Nagi hasn't seen from him since their early high school days. Then, his eyes are on Nagi once more. "Nagi? Thoughts on Chigiri's goal?"
"Yeah, it was…" Nagi glances out toward the open sky. When he looks back, Reo's just as distracting as ever, bright and shimmery under stadium lights. "It was good, I guess."
"You made a beautiful pass to Rin for his goal, in the first half," Reo says, looking down at his notepad. He scrunches the top page back with his thumb, peeking at whatever he's written underneath. "We've seen some conflict among your teammates in the past, especially over goal-scoring opportunities; do you think, as a whole, the team has been able to improve in that area?"
It's the sort of long-winded question he normally wouldn't bother answering with more than a shrug. Something feels different this time, though, with Reo watching him expectantly. Nagi combs through the slow, rolling river of his thoughts, and does his best to cobble together a passable answer. "We're working on it in practice" Nagi says. "So, um—I think that we're getting there, maybe."
"That's good to hear," says Reo. He scans the field once and turns to Nagi again. "I think your coach is looking for you, so I'll let you go."
Nagi glances back over his shoulder. Anri is waving him over from the tunnel. "It's okay, it can wait."
"No, really," Reo says. "Thanks for the interview." And then, almost like an afterthought, he adds, "It was nice to see you again."
"Yeah," Nagi says breathlessly.
Reo's smile turns sweet. He turns around, and the camera follows him like a hulking mechanical tail. It blocks the sight of Reo as he walks away. Nagi's left staring over the blurry crowd, with the glint of Reo's earrings burned into his vision.
The internet is history's greatest scribe. It keeps tabs on nearly everything it touches. The moment anything is uploaded, it's doomed to immortality. That's the fate of Nagi and Reo's recent interview—posted, reposted to oblivion, written about, speculated on, and destined to absolute permanence, on Nagi's phone and in his mind.
Nagi rewatches it over breakfast every morning. It's not exactly on purpose—it's just the first thing that pops up on his screen whenever he checks social media. He's a little grateful, because he gets to fill in the missing parts of the scene he'd been too distracted to notice, like Reo's new beige coat, and the bandage on his middle finger. Every new thing he notices sets his heart at ease, just a little. It feels like he's slowly stitching together the fabric of Reo's new life, picking up where he'd left off all those years ago.
Heartwarming, is what the comments under the interview say. "Pathetic," is what Chigiri calls it, when they meet up for lunch that weekend. "You look like a kicked puppy."
Nagi frowns down at Chigiri's phone, which is propped up between them, with the interview paused onscreen. Reo is staring down at his notepad, and Nagi's staring at Reo. "No, I don't," Nagi says.
"And you said you liked his earrings," Chigiri continues, with a disdain that Nagi has long since gotten used to. "Seriously, you couldn't come up with anything better than that?"
Nagi sighs. It's better to just let Chigiri talk, most of the time. He usually enjoys hanging out with Chigiri, actually, because Chigiri is happy enough to ramble on his own, and Nagi is happy to let him, listening and offering no feedback at all. The less work he has to do, the happier he is.
"I invited Reo to come eat with us today, by the way," Chigiri says cheerfully.
"You did what," Nagi says, just as the restaurant door slams open, revealing Reo and Shidou in the entryway.
Shidou spots them immediately and hurries over, knocking aside chairs carelessly as he walks. "I was just getting hungry, too," he says, dropping down into the seat next to Nagi. "Let's eat together!"
Reo sits by Chigiri with a weary sigh. Apologetically, he says, "We just ran into each other on the sidewalk, and he followed me in."
Nagi's next exhale sticks in his lungs. He flips Chigiri's phone quickly and slides it back to him. To Reo, he says, "Hey, Reo."
Reo stares at him for a second too long. "Hi, Nagi," he says.
Chigiri grimaces. He hands out the menus, and he tells Shidou, "Behave yourself."
Shidou's responding grin is a clear indicator that he has no intention of behaving himself whatsoever. Nagi does his best to avoid eye contact when Shidou's gaze rolls around the table. They've never really warmed up to each other, even after all these years of being teammates. Nagi can't help it, not when he remembers Reo's elimination from Blue Lock every time Shidou enters his field of vision. Reo seems to feel the same—he's staring resolutely down at his menu, trying and failing to hide a growing frown.
"I haven't seen you in ages," Shidou says to Reo, leaning his elbows against the table. "What have you been up to after Blue Lock?"
"Journalism," Reo says stiffly. He straightens the menu between his hands with a resounding snap.
"Shame," Shidou says. "Though I guess you weren't good enough to stick with football, anyway, if Kuon was able to beat you."
Chigiri, Reo, and Nagi all turn in unison to look at Shidou. Nagi scans their faces; Chigiri and Reo both look as confused as he feels. "What about Kuon?" Reo says sharply, narrowing his eyes.
Shidou's grin grows, somehow. He says, "Well, Kuon won the Wild Card."
Nagi recalls it, then—Kuon, right before the NEL, joining them once more with resentment simmering behind his eyes, saved from defeat by Ego's secret program. It hadn't mattered, in the end, because he hadn't been good enough to make the final cut.
"The Wild Card?" Reo echoes. "Why would I do that?"
Shidou's eyes go wide. His expression brightens with mirth, and it's disturbingly similar to the look he gets on his face when he smells a goal, ready for the taking. "You didn't even try to come back to Blue Lock?" Shidou asks. "Seriously, you're that much of a coward?"
The rigid line of Reo's shoulders has Nagi's pulse jumping. "Why are you even here?" Nagi interjects. "Chigiri didn't ask you to come."
Shidou lifts both hands in surrender. "Hey, we're all teammates," he says. He cuts a quick glance in Reo's direction. "Kind of."
"That doesn't mean anything," Nagi snaps. Reo's not watching him, even now. It leaves Nagi unsettled. There's a new, unfamiliar heat bubbling to life in his chest. He turns to Shidou. "I never liked you in the first place, you know."
"Nagi," Chigiri hisses. "What's wrong with you?"
"What's wrong with him?" Nagi shoots back, jabbing his thumb in Shidou's direction.
Shidou looks positively delighted. "You're never this fired up, Nagi," he says. He leans in toward Reo and lowers his voice, as if he's telling some extraordinary secret. "He was like this after the Second Selection, too."
Finally, Reo glances at Nagi. It only lasts half a second before he's watching Shidou again. "What are you talking about?" Reo asks.
Shidou leans back in his seat and waves his menu, swatting Nagi's shoulder in the process. "He was interrogating me, asking about what happened to you," Shidou says. His grin grows so wide, he has to squint his eyes from the force of it. "He was so upset, I thought he was going to throw a fit."
Nagi's angry retort dies behind his teeth when Reo's gaze lands on him. There's something in it he can't make sense of—guilt, softening Reo's eyes—and Nagi can't look away. It's not like the interview, where there'd been too much noise clouding the air between them. Nagi can take his time now, drinking in the sight of Reo and all the subtle distress he carries with him.
"Oh, you two haven't talked about it," Shidou says gleefully. "Lovers' quarrel?"
"Shidou, shut up," Chigiri says. There's some degree of alarm in his expression. Nagi realizes, then, that Chigiri probably hadn't known about him and Reo, and the fact that they haven't spoken for all this time.
"I've got something to do right now, actually," Reo says. With a flick of his wrist, he sends his menu spinning into the center of the table. "I'll see you some other time, Chigiri."
"No sweet goodbye for your boyfriend?" Shidou asks, tilting his head in Nagi's direction.
"You are insufferable," Reo spits out. With that, he storms off, shoving his way through the front door so hard that the bells nearly rattle to breaking. Nagi stares after him until he can no longer see Reo's coattails fluttering away in the wind.
Shidou says, "Well, he's always running away, isn't he." He yawns slow and wide, like he's trying to show off all his teeth, and starts studying the menu.
Chigiri heaves a sigh that seems to deflate his entire body. He snaps at Shidou, "Will you ever learn how to read the room?"
"I'm trying to help," Shidou says. "Those two would never talk otherwise."
Would they? Maybe if Reo stuck around, doing interviews, they'd keep seeing each other, for ten minutes a month. They'd say hello to each other, and that would be all. They would go through the years at a distance, acquaintances for the rest of time. Maybe that would be worse than not seeing each other at all. It's far easier to miss Reo as a stranger—out of sight, out of mind. The way things are now, Nagi will be reminded forever of their time together, all the joy they had together, and all the sorrow when it ended.
"Go chase after him," Shidou says to Nagi. "He probably wants to talk to you again."
Shidou's crazy, as usual. It's not worth it, giving him the time of day. Nagi says, "Why would I do that?"
Reo's menu trembles, touched by the breeze. Shidou studies Nagi in a rare moment of calm. There's something like contempt on his face, wrinkling the skin between his brows. He points a finger at Nagi, the precursor to one final appraisal, and he says, "It's not just Reo, then; you're a coward, too."
Reo: how are you?
The text doesn't go away, no matter how many times Nagi checks his phone. It sits pretty in its little white bubble at the bottom of his screen, like it's begging for his attention. Nagi gives it that and more—it consumes all his waking hours, and by the time night falls, it's still unanswered and it starts to dawn on Nagi that it's not good, to leave Reo waiting.
Seishiro: good
He's not sure what else to say. He's not even good, to be honest, but what's the point in saying so?
Reo starts typing immediately. Nagi, halfway down the corridor to his bedroom, stops walking so that he can put his full focus into staring at the jumping dots in the bottom corner of his screen.
Reo: I've been speaking with your coach to set up interviews for the team.
Reo: would you be willing to meet up to chat for a bit and answer a few questions?
Reo: I would usually be more formal about this, but I figured I could just reach out to you directly
So Reo has unblocked him for work. Nagi's angry for about two seconds, and disappointed for the next three, and then all that's left is a curious, gnawing emptiness that sits heavy in the pit of his stomach like a stone. Maybe if it had been a little longer, and he'd been able to let his bitterness fester, he'd reply with something scathing—now, however, he's left with the desire to see Reo's face again, and not much else.
Seishiro: when?
Reo: how about we get lunch sometime this weekend?
Reo: no need to dress up
Even now, Reo knows how to convince him best. Or maybe Nagi simply hasn't changed that much, after all this time.
Seishiro: ok
Reo: I'll send you a location and time later
Reo: looking forward to it!
The insincerity of it oozes out of the screen and sticks itself to Nagi's skin. His body feels three times as heavy when he finally picks his feet up again. The trek to his bed is endless, so he checks his phone once he reaches it, hoping for another precious bundle of words from Reo. The universe isn't so kind—there aren't any more messages.
There's something raw and fragile in Nagi that tells him to reply with something hurtful. It used to lay dormant, buried under a layer of apathy, bolstered by the fading of his memory of them. Now that they've met again, it spills out of him every time he thinks of Reo; how could you, why would you leave me?
Maybe Shidou was right, after all. Nagi's a coward, just as much of one as he'd been as a child. He can't imagine anything that would hurt more than realizing, with absolute, irrevocable certainty, that Reo had gotten over Nagi. How he would be able to simply get over everything that had them bound together, Nagi has no idea, but it's not a possibility he can ignore. Reo had smiled at him so gently at him the other day—it could have been affection, or it could have been simple acceptance.
But when they'd met for lunch, and Reo had reacted with such discomfort at Shidou's prodding about his elimination, was it regret or mere irritation that had been dragged out of him? It could have meant everything, or it could have meant nothing at all.
Nagi doesn't even know Reo well enough anymore to answer that question. It's not as if he wants to answer it, anyway.
It doesn't matter. Nagi can live on his own, with or without Reo. He's capable of it, too, seeing Reo and letting him go, again and again and again. He can watch Reo from afar, on his screen and in his dreams, and it'll last him for the rest of his life.
Reo's wearing his silver glasses when they meet up. The sight of him strikes Nagi square in the chest. The sun is out, and the muffled roar of the city around them is the polar opposite of the stifled, frozen air of the library, but Nagi is dragged forcibly back to that stormy night regardless.
"Thanks for coming all this way today," Reo says, as if they're business partners and not old friends. He sets his phone on the table between them, face down. "If it's alright with you, could I record our interview? It'll make things easier for me."
Reo has his earrings from the last interview, too. Deliriously, Nagi wonders if it's because he complimented them last time. "Anything is fine," he says.
The coffee shop Reo has chosen is slow at this time of day. It's not what Nagi would have imagined for an interview, but it's better than the studios with their sun-bright overhead lights and patterned carpets in nausea-inducing secondary colors. He's not entirely sure how he feels about having Reo across from him, though. Feeling nothing for a stranger of an interviewer is probably better than this.
"I'll have to do this for all your teammates eventually, but I figured I'd talk to you first," Reo says as he flips back the cover of his notepad. "Get it over with, you know?"
"…Okay."
Reo seems to realize how harsh the words sound once said out loud in that moment, judging by the way his smile goes flat. He clears his throat and produces a pen from his pocket with a flick of his wrist. "Well, let's get started," he says stiffly. "Why don't you introduce yourself?"
"You already know who I am," Nagi says.
"Yes, but—I just usually ask these things," Reo says. Nagi notices his fingers curling against the back of his notepad, his nails raking imprints into the parchment. "You don't have to answer, actually."
Nagi looks at Reo's earrings. They wink back at him, blue as ever. "I'm Nagi," he says. "I play football."
"Alright," Reo says. Another smile, this one a little more convincing than the last. "Tell me a little about your football journey. How did it start, and how did you get here?"
Nagi says, "You know that, too."
"Well, I don't know what happened after I got eliminated," Reo points out.
It's starting to feel like a colossal mistake, coming here. Nagi swallows all his ugly anguish down, until he's sure it won't bleed out through his words. Reo is waiting for his answer, and Nagi is doomed to do his bidding, as usual.
"I met you," Nagi says. Reo's glasses gleam when he tilts his head. "We played football together."
A car honks outside, long and keening, like a faulty siren, throwing all sound out into the sky. Reo lowers his head and keeps it down, pressing the end of his pen to paper. Nagi studies the flicker of his irises from left to right, half-veiled behind the sheen of sunlight against his lenses. They're a little sharper now, not like he remembers, and it stings.
"We joined Blue Lock," Nagi murmurs. "And then you left me."
Reo scrawls a frantic, cramped line across the top of the page. He says, "I didn't really have a choice."
"You left me in other ways, too."
Finally, Reo returns his gaze to Nagi's. His lips part, but there's a hefty delay before he asks, "Is there something wrong?"
Nagi wants to lock himself in his apartment for all of eternity. He wants to reach across the table, through Reo's notepad and his ominous silver glasses, and weld their skin together. He supposes it's the ease with which Reo manages not to care that's upsetting him now. "Sort of," Nagi says.
Reo exhales until his shoulders drop. He flips his phone deftly and taps the screen—pausing the recording, probably. He says to Nagi, with his voice lowered, "I was going to say sorry."
"Why?"
"The interview last time, after the game." Reo's fidgeting with his notepad once more. This time, he's pulling incessantly at the barbed end of the spiral binding. "I thought it was going to be Chigiri, not you. And that time at lunch, I didn't know you were going to be there, either."
"Is that what you think I'm upset about?"
The wire between Reo's fingers snaps back into place. His eyes are murky, half-gray behind his glasses. "What else would you be upset about?"
"You left me," Nagi repeats, in a voice far too shaky for his liking.
They're older, but it feels like they're reliving the night in the library all over again. It's just the glasses, is what Nagi tells himself. The glasses, and the hauntingly familiar look on Reo's face, which is slipping from quiet bewilderment into misery. Guilt makes itself known in the form of heat, lighting up the skin of his neck, tugging idly at his temples. Maybe Nagi's the problem, continually unearthing everything Reo had wanted so badly to bury.
"Well, Nagi—" and here Nagi sees his tears, like dew kissed by morning light, sitting pretty in the corners of his eyes. "I had to. I'd never move on from football, otherwise. I'd remember it every time I saw you."
The next time Nagi blinks, his eyes sting, little pinpricks aching under his lashes. He has to take a breath, and take it slow, before he answers. "That's not fair," he says. "That's selfish."
"I know," Reo says.
"I was your friend," Nagi says. Maybe it's not the right word, friend, but he doesn't think he could ever describe what Reo was to him in a single word, anyway. "It wasn't just football for me."
"I know," Reo says again. "Me too."
He takes his glasses off, flips the cover back onto his notepad. He drags his palm across his eyes, and lets it fall into his lap. Then, he looks at Nagi, and for once it's with something other than apathy or false cheer. No sound falls from his parted lips. They stare at each other, Nagi and Reo and his blossoming earrings.
"So, did you?" Nagi finally asks, and his organs knot themselves up tight, and his heart grips his ribcage, begging for release. "Did you get over it?"
Reo gaze flicks left, right, down. He says, "I got over football."
The city seems to silence itself for Nagi. The room narrows, all walls sloping in, funneling his world down to their table and nothing more. He whispers when he speaks, then, to preserve the delicate stillness of the air that bridges the gap between them. "What about me?"
"I missed you every day," Reo says softly. "I wanted to come back and apologize to you, but I was afraid you'd turn me away."
Nagi's pulse jumps, as if Reo had reached right into him and tugged it with his bare hands. The truth slips from his tongue before he can cage it in. "I would have forgiven you."
Reo's eyes go bright, brighter than the silver stars studding his earlobes. "Would you?" he asks.
"I would," Nagi murmurs. "I still will."
"That's good," Reo says. He looks down to his glasses again. Nagi wonders if he also sees it in the reflection, the glass-bound recollection of that night they parted ways. "I lost football, and I thought I could lose you, too. I was wrong."
This is where the road ends, for things Nagi knows how to say. It seems to be the same for Reo. They study each other, eyes meeting briefly, and all of Reo's fleeting relief bleeds out again, leaving in its place an aching regret that Nagi is all too familiar with, from within the frame of his own bathroom mirror.
Reo folds his glasses and sets them down on the table. Nagi keeps his chin lifted, but it burns below regardless, a soft silver bonfire brought to life by the light of the sun. "I'm sorry," Reo says, with his voice wavering to the point of breaking. "I'm sorry I left you. I'll be sorry forever, if you want me to."
Nagi reaches forward. Reo lifts one hand to meet him, palm up, all fingers spread. Their hands meet, both warm, both searching, grabbing hold of each other immediately. "It's okay," Nagi tells him.
"To be honest with you, Nagi," Reo murmurs. "I didn't need to interview the team. I just wanted to talk to you one more time."
Even now, the sight of Reo like this, all edges rounded, dragged down by sorrow, has Nagi's chest splitting itself wide open. "Just ask me next time," Nagi says. "I'll never say no to you, Reo."
"Then—" Reo draws his fingertips across both eyes. He squeezes Nagi's hand hard, until his heart beats its way out through his skin. "Can we meet again?"
Isagi is the one to score the winning goal at their next match. He drinks in the glory like it's his reason for living, both arms spread, face tipped to the sky, fueled by the crushing roar of the crowd that surrounds them.
Nagi does his duty as a good teammate and congratulates Isagi with a pat on the back. He has to make way for everyone else quickly, namely Bachira, who seems determined to tackle Isagi permanently into the dirt. It leaves him the time to step back and watch the rest of the team, with their uniform jerseys, washed in the same victory glow, fists punched to the sky in shared triumph.
Then, it's time for the usual routine—he scans the edges of the playing field, from corner to corner to corner to corner. There's the goal, the sideline, the other goal. And when he turns fully, he sees it, cradled in the wild, writhing nest of cameras and clipboards and flashing lights. Purple, just the way Nagi remembers, floating in a sea of machines, floating his way.
All the cameras are pointed at Isagi. All the feet rush toward the team, desperate to steal a chunk of the spotlight. Nagi searches through the rushing crowd, and eventually, Reo resurfaces. He leans against the current, buffeted by wind and by people, struggling his way toward Nagi. And all the fire, all the glory, stands away across the grass, but Reo doesn't even turn his head—his eyes are on Nagi, just as they used to be, just as they always will be.