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The worst year of Itoshi Sae’s life began with a bet.
Not a bet that he made. Nor that he or the others had been made aware of—but a bet between Noel Noa and Ego Jinpachi.
Though they were unaware of the wager, its affect on their lives was immediately palpable.
The abrupt increase in the intensity of their practices was the first clue that something had changed. Practices that had already been tailored with the intent of breaking them down into nothing but perfect players—robots who were optimized for peak performance—suddenly became longer, harsher, leaving the majority of the team unable to peel themselves from the ground to go shower.
Sae had thought that the nest had been hell before. Apparently it could get worse.
Sae had been sent to the nest just before his thirteenth birthday. He was not a stranger to long, harsh practices.
The second clue had been the look in the master’s eyes. There was a glint in his eye that betrayed genuine excitement. The master being excited had never meant anything good—it usually meant that they could expect the worst possible outcome any of them could fathom.
Since the practices had become more demanding, Sae had been forced to very pointedly ignore Michael’s constant comments about how the man had clearly lost it. Then, subsequently Alexis’s near frantic agreements and platitudes, a horribly pathetic attempt at calming the other man’s rage. Bunny’s thinly veiled jabs and Lorenzo’s attempts to instigate an actual argument were snubbed just as pointedly. Julien and Vivian had gone quieter, their scheming seemingly stalled by the shock of the master's sudden change of attitude.
It wasn’t like complaining would change anything, anyways. It never had.
The Noa family had come to collect on the debt his parents owed three weeks before Sae had turned thirteen.
They had demanded payment, and he had been insurance. He had never been told what, exactly, the Itoshi family owed, but it was apparently such a sum that his parents were unlikely to ever pay it in full. So the Noa family had taken Sae.
Sae, whose only solace was that it was him, and not Rin who was taken. They had shipped him off to France, and handed him over to Noel Noa, who had informed him that his only purpose from that moment would be to play soccer. Losing was not an option. Refusal to play? A death sentence for him, and his baby brother to take his place as leverage.
Rin was too soft. Sae could not let that happen.
He was bound to this godforsaken sport, and would be forced to play—to win—until his family’s debt was paid.
So Sae played.
Not out of anything as tepid as love for the sport.
He had been a striker, once. He had lived to score, for the rush of adrenaline from shooting, had dreamt of being the world’s best. Had been conceited enough to believe that he could. That he and Rin were capable of standing at the top of the world.
The nest had proven that to be impossible.
The other members of the the master's eleven had made every inadequacy in his play glaringly obvious. The master had watched. Had examined their flaws beneath a microscope, and had chosen positions that he found fitting. The man had broken them down and put the pieces together with surgical precision, rebuilding them into a shape he found more fitting. He filled in the gaps with temporary players, who were pitifully unaware of the fate that awaited them if they were chosen.
There was no space for argument in any of it.
So Sae adjusted. He had allowed himself to mourn the future he and Rin had envisioned for a single breath. Then he had changed. He molded himself into the perfect midfielder. His passes became pinpoint accurate, his ability to read the field nearly unmatched. He set up goals, strategized, and became completely invaluable. Invaluable enough that Julien and Vivian couldn’t quite manage to shove him out of the spotlight to make space for Charles.
He was certain that if he cared to try he could make pinpoint passes with his eyes closed.
He did not care to try. It would be a waste of energy.
He hardly spoke to anyone off of the pitch, and even within it, he hardly said a word. The rest of the the master's eleven were loud enough. Sae preferred to quietly observe, keeping track of the ever-shifting dynamics of the players at the nest. Those who hadn’t been permanently ranked by the master complained as they were cycled through short term 'training camps' as an attempt to fill in the missing players in the master's eleven. They called Sae and the others arrogant and creepy, among other, crueler words. They checked them harder than the others during practices, colliding with intent to injure.
With intent to steal a position that they saw as a promise of success, of riches, of fame.
Sae never complained.
At twelve, Itoshi Sae had believed that if he simply tried hard enough, he could be a striker again. The thought had gotten him out of bed each morning, and had helped him to push through hellish practices with adults who hated him for existing, whose words he could not understand. As the months had passed, Michael and Alexis had appeared in the nest in a flurry of violence, and Michael had been given the position Sae coveted. By the time Bunny and Lorenzo had been tattooed, Sae had been beaten into submission. He had accepted that his position would not change.
At eighteen, Sae would settle for surviving the rest of his his time in the nest and signing a professional team after. He would do anything to get out of this hellhole permanently. He did not care that his salary would basically be dedicated to paying off his parents debt. Not being locked in the nest with the others would still be enough of a relief.
The nest was truly something akin to prison. It was a maze of windowless hallways that truly only led to one place—the field. The field itself was dark, but just below the ceiling, there was a set of narrow windows that let thin slivers of daylight in. Sae had hardly seen the sun in the first two years since he’d been brought to this place. He’d hardly left his room for anything other than practices. Once he had completed the online high school curriculum that he had been assigned upon his arrival, he had been thrown into an even more rigorous practice schedule. The few hours he had been allotted to work on academics had immediately been exchanged for a third practice of the day, exclusive to the master's eleven.
His schedule had remained unchanged since his graduation. Each day, he woke up, ate breakfast, practiced, ate lunch, practiced again, ate dinner, watched film, and slept. There were occasional breaks in the routine, with exposition matches, or the occasional injury that was deemed serious enough to warrant missing practice. But otherwise, it was an endless cycle of days that were so similar they blended together.
A traitorous part of Sae wondered how no one had noticed that the master's eleven had all lived at the nest for far longer than they should have. The training programs that other players participated in were six months at the longest. But of course, the nest had hardly garnered any attention until recently. It was too exclusive to have drawn much attention on a national level, much less an international level. It seemed that as long as their documents were kept up to date, and none of their parents complained, they were all truly stuck. The master's eleven, and oddly enough Charles and Alexis were stuck permanently.
The debut of the the master's eleven two years ago had been a turning point. Soccer had always been popular, a sport accessible to anyone with something round to kick, but the idea that the best athletes of a generation had been hidden away in a facility in the French Alps had caused a surge of controversy. But the story, the introduction of seven prodigies with numbers tattooed onto their faces— who had appeared seemingly out of thin air—had only given the press more to speculate on.
Sae had genuinely loved soccer, once.
He had taught his younger brother everything he knew, and had spent almost all of his free time practicing of his own volition. Had played on youth teams, and won without any effort It had been fun at some point. But after years and years of playing solely to earn the right to stay alive?
Sae was tired.
His life was a monotonous hell. He only interacted with the same people, and really, interacted was a stretch. Sae had spent almost every second of the last five years with the other members of Noa’s the master's eleven. He trained with them, sat with them at meals, but hardly spoke to them. He was a passive presence unless they were on the field.
He and Alexis had been paired the moment Sae had been assigned his position, and in all honesty, that was somewhat of a blessing. Alexis was sort of pathetic, but he at least tried to maintain a certain level of performance so that he and Sae wouldn't face any consequences for slacking. He made for a decent partner. The only others that Sae found bearable were Alexis and Vivian.
Vivian, since Sae had ‘accepted his destiny’ at least, was quiet enough. The first few months when Sae had been paired with Vivian had been insufferable. Sae had heard the phrase 'suis ton destin' more than anything else. Not that he had known what it meant at the time. But since then, Vivian had mostly been a quiet, dependable presence, both on and off of the field. Even with the scheming, he was still fairly tolerable.
The others were far less tolerable.
Julien was the least awful of the them. For all his efforts to hand Sae's spot to an infant, he had always been polite, at least. Charles had always been so much younger, so much brighter, so much like Sae's memories of Rin—it was better not to think about it. Bunny was an asshole, and had never pretended to be anything different. Sae had always been relieved to not be paired with him. Michael seemed to genuinely believe himself to be an emperor above other human beings. Lorenzo was too loud to have ever truly been tolerable, and Teddy was quiet in the way a black hole was quiet. His silence sucked the life out of a room, leaving nothing but emptiness.
But Alexis? Sae had spent nearly every moment of every day for the last several years within arm’s reach of Alexis, to the point that being without him felt unnatural. They practically lived in one another's skin. The few hours each week when Alexis and Michael went off to do—whatever it was the two of them did when they were alone—the absence lingered. It sank deep into his bones, leaving Sae feeling mortifyingly untethered. He shuddered to think about who he would have become in Michael’s position—if he had been stuck with Bunny long enough to have become dependent on his presence.
The partnerships—much like their positions—had been decided by the master and would never change unless the master decided they should. They had been changed several times in the beginning, most notably when Michael and Alexis had shown up. Their partnerships had shifted frequently in the first three months after the Germans had arrived, the master attempting to find pairs with the most on-field chemistry. In those months, Sae had been paired with Alexis for first, then Michael for an awful several weeks, and back with Vivian for another two before the master had placed Sae with Alexis permanently.
The utter relief of being allowed to move back into the room he had shared with Alexis had nearly been enough to make up for the confirmation that Sae would permanently be playing as a midfielder. The moment this was confirmed, Sae had known that his spot in the midfield was only assured temporarily. The three French athletes had always been even tighter-knit, spending any unscheduled time practicing separately, trying to develop Charles's skills. He had known a time would come when Julien and Vivian had decided that Charles had progressed enough to take that spot, and he had known it would come soon.
Clearly, that time had come.
The two French players had begun to escalate their attempts to shove Charles into the position Sae had molded himself to fit perfectly.
The plot to remove Sae from his place on the field under the master's nose had begun in earnest several months ago. Carefully implemented to avoid any suspicion of what the master would consider misbehavior. Subtle comments about Sae needing to ensure that he was still improving consistently. Reminders that if Sae wanted to play professionally he had to continue performing at a high level.
The sort of comments that would, from anyone else, seem innoculous.
Friendly, even.
After that, the extra practices had begun. Julien, Vivian, and Charles would disappear for several hours each week, leaving Sae and the others to quietly speculate on the state of their plot.
As of recently, it appeared that they were not satisfied with the more delicate methods anymore.
The attempts to sabotage Sae so that it would appear that his performance was dipping had become violent. Charles was still steadily improving, while harsher shoves, checks, and trips during practices—seemingly anything they could think of to force Sae out or injure him enough to get what they wanted—became commonplace. Julian had never been a particularly cruel person, so it had caught Sae off guard the first time he had checked with intent to harm.
It had been equally shocking, and slightly more distressing when Vivian, as was typical, had followed in kind. Intercepting passes meant for Sae, softly spoken comments about how this wasn't his destiny, brutal tackles and checks against Sae when they were on different teams for a scrimmage.
It had all very quickly become frustrating.
Sae's life in the nest was difficult enough without dodging his own teammates' attempts to force errors in his carefully calculated plays. He wasn't even sure why they were so adamant about displacing him. There were still spaces waiting to be filled, spaces that Alexis and Charles were already being groomed to fill. Sae supposed it must be the literal number that they wanted for Charles, rather than a mark from the master. for numbers one, two, and three to be their little group.
Not that Sae truly cared about his spot, by any means—but there was already a number three tattooed on his face. It would be ridiculous to put him in any other jersey.
He refused to let it show on his face, but it was all exhausting.
And, a tepid, childish part of himself cried, holding his place in the lineup was the only way to protect his brother from this fate.
Lorenzo, Michael, and Bunny appeared to find Julien and Vivian’s attempts to displace Sae hilarious.
Teddy seemed rather unaffected by it all. Sae wasn't sure whether he had even noticed the scheming.
They three assholes had spent all of breakfast asking if Julien and Vivian believed they could convince the master to get Sae’s tattoo removed if his performance dipped enough. They fluidly switched between languages to insult more effectively, to pretend that they were being subtle in their ridicule of Julien's plan, of Vivian's blind support, of Sae's play, or when they couldn't remember a phrase in the language they had been speaking. They were loud—ruthless and obnoxious to a fault. Demanding to know if they were next, if Vivian was next, and whether Julien would support Michael shoving Vivian out in favor of Alexis. They commented condescendingly on the attempted coup, and layered beneath the insults at Julien, Sae could almost hear something akin to respect at his refusal to allow his performance to dip.
If Sae were any weaker of a person, he would almost believe the others were attempting to say they’d prefer him to keep his spot.
That train of thought was useless, however, so he disregarded it.
It wasn’t as though it mattered if the others preferred Sae to Charles. Either the French assholes would get their way or they wouldn’t. Sae wouldn’t allow his performance to dip even while they were childishly attempting to sabotage him. The only harm that their pitiful attempts had caused were for Sae to be sore and exhausted—and those weren't new feelings in the nest.
As Sae listened to the conversation numbly, he observed the other midfielders.
Noting that none of the older players acknowledged Charles’ whining that he didn’t even want to be number three. He just wanted to play fun soccer, he didn't care! He just didn't want to play boring soccer. Sae noticed how Vivian didn’t say anything at all. Sae could see the slight discomfort in the set of Alexis' shoulders, in how he leaned slightly closer to Sae. He recognized the slight anxiety in how Charles had spent the meal staring intently at Sae between complaints, as if he expected him to argue, to protest, to fight for his spot.
As if Sae had ever done anything like that.
Alexis spent much of the meal with his eyes darting across the table, evidently entirely wrong-footed at the mere idea that Julien thought he could hijack the master’s plan. As if something that had been a topic of conversation at meals for months had finally sunk in. Sae watched Alexis's gaze flicker between Michael, Julien, and Vivian, almost as if he were weighing his options. The conversation seemed to happen over the four of them. It probably should have stung that there was no space for argument, for Sae to speak up, that there was no expectation that he might.
But Sae’s opinions had never held any weight in the nest.
So he said nothing.
He finished his meal silently, and stood the moment that Alexis had finished eating, his partner mirroring him expressionlessly. They left the cafeteria without a word, matching one another stride for stride, their movements a perfect mirror of the other's. They were the perfect image of a pair—just as the master had insisted upon when they had first arrived. The synchronicity existed in every pair at the nest, but Sae and Alexis were both far too analytical for their own good, and had practically memorized every movement the other could make. Every action they took was done as one, with hardly a look or a thought passed between them.
They made for the locker room silently. This was their routine; eat then change into their uniforms, then stretch. Socks, leggings, shorts, undershirt, jersey, cleats. Then a stretching routine. Sae changed quietly and efficiently, not a single movement wasted.
Alexis and Sae had fallen into this habit of arriving early to practices in their first year as partners, when Sae hadn’t understood a word of German or English, much less any of the other languages he was now proficient in. Alexis had understood minimal English, and no Japanese, and they had both been almost entirely hopeless with French. It had taken so much longer for them to do anything back then.
Just as when Sae had first arrived, there had been more steps to any action—Sae often had needed to watch Vivian complete a task, or a drill first, because they couldn't understand one another. Sae had been forced to become fluent in Vivian's body language very quickly, and had often based his own actions on a mixture of observation and body language. Then Alexis had arrived, and it had been Sae's turn to attempt to teach routines with nothing but body language.
As he changed into his jersey, Sae felt Alexis’s gaze track down his body, fixing on the bruises scattered across his torso, arms, and legs. Sae didn't acknowledge the staring, finished changing, and stopped to take a breath and find his water bottle before stepping out of the locker room. He entered the field, made his way to the bench where he dropped his water, and began to jog a few laps.
He and Alexis hadn't been allowed to avoid contact or wear shin guards since Alexis's third week at the nest, when the master had decided one of them was too afraid of the ball and opponents.
They had never actually been sure which of them it was.
It did not matter that Sae and Alexis had both been particularly small at thirteen, that they had still been at least forty kilos lighter than many of the other—older—players. The master had seen a weakness in them. So he had corrected it. They were no longer afraid of collisions, or the ball. But they had never earned back the right to practice with shin guards. It seemed like such a stupid thing to miss, but he and Alexis had each broken an ankle at least once, and sprained an ankle more times than they could count.
It was the first of many privileges that they had lost in their first few months.
Sae's first few months had been hell. He hadn’t understood what was happening, or why. He couldn’t ask questions, or do anything to make the boy who he was apparently meant to spend every moment with hate him less.
He had been jet lagged, disoriented, and hadn’t understood a word that anyone was saying to him.
It had taken several brutal days of practice and Sae breaking down into frustrated and exhausted tears for Vivian to realize Sae wasn’t being deliberately obtuse. That he genuinely had no idea what was going on, beyond that he had to play soccer. He had softened slightly upon that realization, and had, in his own way, begun to attempt to teach Sae the routines of the nest.
Then Alexis had arrived.
And Sae had been given no choice but to cruelly pass along the routines of this cold world.
Their relationship had begun to improve along with Sae’s understanding of the two languages Alexis spoke, but Sae was certain that even now, years later, they were not quite friends.
He was sure they never would be.
Their relationship, if it could be called that, was strange. They knew it, everyone around them knew it. Partners were far closer with each other than any average person tended to be even with their closest friend. There was no Sae without Alexis, no Julien without Vivian, no Bunny without Michael, no Lorenzo without Teddy. They were all attached to someone else, half of a whole. None of them could imagine existing without the other. It was strange, considering none of them particularly liked their partner. But they were all trapped, each of them knowing far too much about one another to break whatever truce they had formed with their partner.
There was even an extent of a truce between the the master's eleven, really. They were not friends, they did not care for one another, but they were all stuck in this hell together. So the truce held. Unless, Sae supposed, they stood to benefit from it. Vivian certainly benefited from going along with Julien and supporting Charles taking Sae's place. The three of them had been in the nest the longest, and if they were all three marked, they could hold some sway with who was recruited into the training camps over the next two years, and would essentially be able to build themselves a legacy and find a professional team that wanted all three of them. A team that would perfectly fit Julien's vision. Vivian had always been happily number two, and so long as Charles was able to make seemingly risky plays, the imp would be perfectly happy.
All they had to do was get rid of Sae.
Sae heard the door to the locker room open and swing closed softly. He knew it would be Alexis, but still glanced up as if he needed to confirm. Alexis joined him as he jogged a three more laps, and followed him to the bench to sit and begin stretching out their legs.
His partner was quiet when he spoke, “I can speak with Julien,” Alexis offered in soft German, as he settled beside Sae, "or at least convince Micha to do it,"
Micha, Sae tried not to make a face at the nickname. Alexis's tone was anxious, the words soft and quick, as if they were dangerous, but the offer was given with an intensity that Alexis only applied to the most important things in their pitifully empty lives.
Sae scoffed, looking back down as he stretched his hamstrings, “Why should you, when you won't benefit?” he said, voice low and emotionless, “it would be unnecessary effort for you,” he added flatly.
It would, really. Sae didn't pretend to understand Michael and Alexis's relationship, but he did know that it was best if Alexis did not ask much of Michael on behalf of others. Besides, there was such a low chance anything Michael or Alexis said would actually improve the situation that it wouldn't be worth the effort. It wasn't as though Michael had any more power here than the rest of them, despite what Alexis had always felt inclined to believe.
“You're my partner,” Alexis said, as if that should explain it, and Sae felt his gaze burning into the side of his head.
In a way, it did, Sae supposed. He and Alexis were each half of a whole as far as the master was concerned, and the same was probably true to themselves. They had spent quite nearly every moment together since they were thirteen. As tepid as it was, they were dependent on each other. So maybe it wasn’t exactly strange for Alexis to offer to speak to Julien—or send Michael to do so—on Sae’s behalf, but it was not something he had offered before. In a way, Sae could even understand Alexis's reasoning—if Sae was at risk of garnering a consequence, he was inadvertently putting Alexis at risk, too. Michael did not care about Sae's well being, but he did care about Alexis, to an extent.
“Tepid,” Sae said, instead of acknowledging the faint warmth that had bloomed in his chest at the confirmation that Alexis cared.
Sure, Vivian and Julien wanted Charles instead of Sae, but that had never been a question. No one in the nest preferred Sae. He had known that from the very beginning. Vivian and Julien would prefer Charles in his place, Michael would prefer Alexis to be marked, and Lorenzo, Teddy, and Bunny would likely be just as content to play with anyone that wasn't Sae so long as they were effective.
Sae understood his place in this hierarchy, and was well aware that it wasn't the place indicated by the number tattooed on his cheek. He had learned very quickly that Alexis was his only real ally, and that was only because they were a pair. Sae knew, instinctively, that if it weren't for the number three already on his face, he would not still have his position. He would be stuck, just like Alexis. The single benefit of having the number three on his face was that for some reason, professional teams genuinely believed it meant something. It made him more marketable, and gave him a better chance at finding a professional team that would give a high enough offer that the master would allow him to accept.
Sae guarded his spot—despite it being the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Even if he could not care less about soccer. If Sae was no longer playing, no longer filling the role the master had given him, there was nothing to protect Rin. To keep Sae's sweet, naive little brother out of the cesspool of hatred and pain that was the nest.
Because the idea of Rin in the nest?
That was unacceptable.
So Sae fought for the spot. He ensured he improved consistently, that his tactics were flawless, that he could sprint an entire game, that he could predict any move a teammate may make, and pass the ball perfectly into the spot directly in front of their foot from anywhere on the field. He was utterly perfect.
It was exhausting.
Alexis sighed, but did not speak again. The two continued stretching in silence, until the door of the locker room was flung open with enough force that it crashed into the wall with a loud bang.
It was Lorenzo, then. It usually was, considering how he liked to participate in—or interrupt under the guise of helping—their stretching routine. Teddy would follow, then Bunny, and after that, Michael, Julien, Vivian, and Charles would all spill out of the locker room at once. After the entirety of the the master's eleven were on the pitch, the rest of the players, the temporary ones who seemed to appear and disappear in a blink would appear in one massive rush.
Predictably, the moment he had finished jogging a few laps, Lorenzo had predictably decided that Sae and Alexis’s personal space was his space. Lorenzo had always been touchy. When they were younger, it had seemed to be a reassurance, that there were actually others with him, but as they'd grown it had seemingly just become a habit. He grabbed Sae’s shoulders, shoving them down to deepen the stretch as he chatted about something or other that Sae was absolutely not paying attention to. Sae heard Alexis's murmured responses to whatever Lorenzo was saying, but considering his face was practically shoved into the turf, he assumed he was not expected to respond. Lorenzo let go of Sae, at some point, long after Sae would have moved on his own, and shoved Alexis down and deepened his stretch.
Alexis yelped, his eyes going wide with panic as his chest was shoved nearly into the turf below him. Alexis's ankles had always been the only particularly flexible part of him. He was probably being less dramatic than he could be, Sae mused.
The faintest haze of fear in Alexis's eyes prompted Sae to speak.
“You’re not helping,” Sae said flatly, narrowing his eyes at the Italian.
“Neither of you is flexible enough, okay?” Lorenzo responded in careful English, a smug smile crossing his features, "I am just so very worried that the two of you will snap like twigs if you bend down, so I must help you! I am just being kind, why do you not appreciate me?" he pouted.
He hummed to himself as he shoved Alexis’s shoulders further, and when Sae’s gaze caught his partner's there was the glimmer of genuine panic there as his chest touched the turf. Sae raised an eyebrow at the expression, but took pity on Alexis again.
“You’re going to break his back or strain his hamstrings,” Sae muttered, “the master wouldn’t like that,”
Lorenzo’s attention flicked over to Sae, his eyebrows raising as an expression of delight appeared on his face. He pointed at Sae just as the door to the locker room opened just enough for Teddy to slip out and begin jogging laps robotically. Sae watched the shock and delight on Lorenzo's face melt into something teasing and a little bit mean. Sae stifled a flinch as the door flung open again, clattering against the wall to interrupt the silence, and Bunny beelined towards them.
Was the asshole not even going to warm up? Sae wondered, pointlessly hoping that Bunny would turn and begin jogging in any other direction.
In the same moment, Lorenzo released Alexis, who sat up slowly, almost as if he expected Lorenzo to shove him back down. Sae regretted taking any amount of pity on Alex when Lorenzo opened his mouth to speak again.
“You!” Lorenzo crowed, “you’re so caring today! Are you worried about your partner? How cute,” he cooed in Italian, before spinning to face Bunny, who was wearing a matching grin, but without the genuine delight behind his eyes.
The full force of the sardonic smile on the Spaniard's face was directed at Sae, who glared back.
Bunny’s grin turned meaner, "Oh, so you do have feelings! But only for Alexis? Why does he get special treatment, huh? Not very fair of you to play favorites. He's not even marked." The man pointed at the number five tattooed on his left cheek.
Lorenzo nodded sagely, and Sae cursed under his breath.
"It's just so unfair how you hate us," Lorenzo whined, "we are only ever kind to you, and you mistreat us. It's not nice, okay?" He added, falling backwards dramatically and forcing Teddy, who had finally finished jogging, to catch him.
The dramatics were why he didn't speak to these idiots.
Sae fought the urge to roll his eyes, "Maybe I would care about you morons if you weren't entirely useless on the field," He scoffed.
Lorenzo and Bunny predictably took offense to the accusation. Teddy shoved Lorenzo back to standing, and started to stretch. Sae ignored their increased dramatics in favor of beginning to stretch out the muscles in his arms, only looking up from the task when the door flew open again and Vivian, Julien, and Charles tumbled out, in a show that made it obvious Charles had shoved Julien through the door. Sae privately thought that Julien should have expected it. It wasn't as if Charles had ever had any amount of self control outside of practice. Vivian caught Julien by the arm, tugging him back to standing. Michael shoved past the others and made straight for Alexis.
Sae watched as Michael muttered something into Alexis's ear, and Alexis stiffened. It wasn't an unusual occurrence for the two, but Sae didn't particularly like the renewed panic in Alexis's eyes. As Michael jogged to start his warmup, Alexis's shoulders slumped. Sae let his gaze drop back to his own stretching. Sae noted that Alexis's passes were likely to be slightly off during practice from whatever that had been. He would have to compensate.
A few more minutes passed, with the only background noise being Lorenzo and Charles's constant stream of chatter, occasionally interrupted by a comment from another member. The others finished jogging and sped through their own—much shorter—stretching routines. Sae finished stretching just as the rest of the athletes followed the master onto the field in a silent wave of dark jerseys. He and Alexis stood in unison and lined up beside the rest for the beginning of practice. The entire program was perfectly still, like toy soldiers awaiting orders. Even Charles and Lorenzo had stopped fidgeting and making their stupid little comments.
Everyone here knew what was expected of them, and that there would be no grace given to those who failed to meet that expectation. The consequences would be far less brutal for any of the temporary players, Sae knew. He was also painfully aware that the bar they had to meet was far lower than what was considered acceptable for himself and the others.
The master looked over the eleven of his players first, his gaze cold, gaze flowing over each individual player, as if confirming each of the players were present. As if that had ever been a question. As if any of them had ever missed a practice for anything less than being on their deathbed. Then his gaze shifted to the rest. Still cold, but more assessing. Looking for weaknesses, for players who would likely not perform to his standard, anything he could exploit to convince them of their own unworthiness.
When he spoke, the master's voice was soft, but commanded their undivided attention. Instructions were given once, and the moment the whistle blew, the players flew into carefully controlled motion.