Chapter Text
Sure, Anri had 100% phrased her idea a little differently when she pitched it to Ego. She was not above lying to Ego; he’s a stubborn hard-ass and sometimes that’s what must happen for things to keep moving. If it takes telling him that there would be “intense competitive elements” and “24/7 cutthroat rivalry” for him to agree, that’s what she would tell him. Ego, at the core of all his puzzles and cryptic messages, is a simple man and Anri knew exactly what he wanted. She NEEDED his two star players, and the only way to get them was to twist the story a bit.
“Anri-San, are you sure this isn’t a bad idea?” One of her staff comes up beside her, tapping something into a tablet. “Won’t he quit if he finds out you were- uhm... embellishing the program a bit?” Anri shrugs, smiling down at her employee.
“He WON'T find out, we cannot, under any circumstances, tell him anything,”
“What will the boys think of it?”
The Rivalry Program: Two weeks. Day’s will officially start after breakfast, held from 7am to 8am in the cafeteria followed by an hour of choice warmups. At 9am participants will engage in 4 hours of training activities. Lunch is a full hour and served between 1pm and 2pm. Training resumes for the following 6 hours. Dinner will be served from 8pm to 9pm. At 9pm participants will be dismissed to their room and allowed time to sleep, complete required schoolwork, or engage in other approved past times. Training will consist of multiple different activities, ranging from 1v1’s, two-person drill practice, solo refinement work, and various bonding activities. Meals will be served in the cafeteria. Participants are required to stay in the cafeteria for the entirety of mealtimes, even if not eating. Participants are not permitted to leave their room at any time before 4:00 am or after 12:00 am.
“No, no,” Rin crosses his arms, hunched over and scowled.
“Did Ego sign off on this?” Isagi rubs his temple, the fluorescents suddenly giving him a headache.
“We only have a month until the match, Blue Lock will be over for good if I don’t play my best!” Rin cuts in.
“We need to be working with our team!”
“I need to work alone.”
“Yes,” Anri flicks off the projector screen, waving her team out of the room, “I know you two feel like you are going to need preparation time with the others, but this will do you two good,”
“We can’t waste time on things you haven’t even tested,” Rin stands up, knuckles white with his iron grip on the tables’ edge, his chair falling backwards. Isagi folds over the forwards and brushes his head in his hands, ears ringing.
“You don’t exactly have much of a choice,” Anri collects her notes and her bag, pausing before she walks out of the room. “The trial day will be tomorrow, I hope it goes without incident boys,”
Rin thinks about Ni-san that night. He wonders what Sae would think if he found out that while everyone else was working hard, he was messing around. Sae wouldn’t care whether Rin WANTED to or not, he would be disappointed on the principal that Anri thought he even needed to “know his teammates better” if he wanted to win. Sae never needed to find rhythm with his team, if everyone else was a pawn he was the queen. Sae could win if he was playing blue lock alone.
Rin is so insignificant. He, number one at blue lock, was just as much the king of all fools. Being the best at blue lock means nothing if he’s the worst player in a real league. And when he loses, Ni-san will look at him the same way he did when Sae came back from Spain. All he will see is the same stupid kid he left and remind himself exactly why he escaped in the first place. Effort didn’t matter if he wasn’t getting better.
Ni-san used to love Rin, before he realized. If Rin thinks about it, he doesn't want to play, knowing his chances of winning and getting his brother back are completely spoiled. Stomped on and spat on and left for dead by Isagi Yoichi. Gone was the last shred of hope he had to win something. The only thing that mattered, gone with the two weeks he’d spent wasting his potential with another shitty striker. If you could even call Isagi that. He was going to go through two weeks in hell just to come back to his team, weaker than ever. Then, they too would realize Rin was always just a joke.
The trial comes and goes.
Rin and Isagi try to make everything go to shit. They bicker and fight until Ego threatens to lock them both off. They try completely avoiding each other, they even try and throw the 3v3s during practice that day. At lunch, Isagi has a loud conversation with Bachira about how immature Rin has been that day, shooting daggers at him from across the room.
Bachira doesn’t seem to take the “Rivalry Program” very well when Isagi eventually must explain why they’ve been acting off all day.
It’ll be hard to say goodbye to him for two weeks. He’s a great friend, one of Isagi’s closest if he’s being honest, but more than that he knows how fast Bachira improves. The same goes for Chigiri, Baro, Nagi, and everyone else. While he’s burning time getting to know Rin better, everyone is going to continue their training and keep improving. Two weeks is a year at Blue Lock, will he get left behind, fail before he even plays? How does he come back and adjust to all the changes afterwards? Will he even be good enough? None of which is a concern for Rin, of course.
There was never a question of whether RIN should be on The Blue Lock. Everyone has some special skill; some reason why they earned their spot. But for Isagi, that in itself was focused on Rin as well, so what did it really matter anyways. He NEEDS the next few weeks to keep learning and evolving with his team so he can prove himself as an individual.
But at the end of the day, when they find instructions on where to go the following Saturday, they know damn well they’re going, whether they like it or not. They try and enjoy the rest of the week to its fullest, Isagi spends more time complaining with Bachira and pushes himself harder during drills. Rin… doesn’t change very much.
On Saturday morning, their individual exams start bright and early. They are given until eight to warm up and eat before 15 brutal hours of testing with a cherry on top match between the two that takes their last hour and a half. Rin wins, barely. By midnight they are tired and sweaty and angry, with each other and everything else. It doesn’t help that the second they’re done Ego basically tells them to pack their shit and get a move on.
The sweat on Rin and Isagi’s skin has gotten sticky by the time they have their duffels of Blue Lock branded clothing to be escorted from their respective rooms. The boys don’t find out they will be living together for another two weeks until Rin swings the door of their room open and sees Isagi unpacking his bag into the dresser on the side he’s already deemed his.
It’s not a small room; no room at the Blue Lock facility is that small if everyone is honest. Even storage closets feel roomy. It’s got a bed, a wardrobe, a nightstand, a desk, and a lamp on both sides. A door where the sides meet in the middle, open to show a sterile (also large) bathroom. Perfect for two boys who would like nothing more than to knock each other’s teeth out.
Anri appears at the door just as Isagi’s and Rin’s escorts hurriedly ditch the two. She tosses a cellphone to both the boys, defualt white lock screens and black cases.
“You two will need those for communication this weekend, but you’re free to use them however during non-training hours until then,” She smiles and taps something on her tablet, “You have both mine and each other’s numbers, an app with your training schedule, and live feeds of matches at the main facility. I don’t care what you do with them, as long as you don’t lose them or delete anything preset,” She points at Isagi and Rin suspiciously, with a raised brow. Isagi and Rin nod quietly from their spots by the dresser and the door, respectively.
“Great, remember not to leave your room before 4am. Breakfast is from 7 to 8, use the facilities as you please unless told to report elsewhere,” Anri leaves them in silence, the only source of noise the echo of their door shutting them in together.
Silence suffocates the room. Rin clenches and unclenches his hand, feeling how the strap of his duffle digs deep into his shoulder, undaughterly leaving a deep, painful, mark. He bites his tongue hard, wanting to cry and to never see Isagi again, and wishing he had never agreed to this all at the same time. Not just the program, blue lock in full. He wishes he could pull this at the root of his problem, that he’d never even picked up a ball. Because at the end of the day, all his problems revolve around soccer, don’t they?
Sunday starts the week.
Isagi gets a good couple of hours of sleep before he forces himself out of bed at six to shower and find the cafeteria. Rin’s long gone by then. When he shuts the alarm, he finds a message from Anri with instructions on what to do, where to report, and what to wear. He appreciates that its “exercise clothes- blue lock issued training suits not required.” A small perk that certainly doesn’t make up for much.
By the time he finds the cafeteria, he’s squeaky clean and pretty much starving. It looks like every other cafeteria he’s seen at blue lock, mostly grey and clearly not made to host only two people. But the section he’s in is clearly not Z, because even though everything looks the same, nothing is in the right place. To add to that, there is a convenient lack of signage or maps. Although it was hard to find, he’s pleased to see he’s the first one there.
Rather than being offered something to eat based off his rank in blue lock, Isagi finds a plethora of options on digital menu board at the front of the cafeteria next to the silverware. Professional looking shots of different meals and entries with their names and basic nutritional values below them. “Select participant using digital ID” across the top in emboldened white characters. Isagi fumbled his phone from his pocket, scrolling through it for a moment before he found his identification card in the scheduling app. He looked for a scanner or something like that for a couple minutes before deciding to just hold his phone close to the large screen.
It went to a white loading screen for a moment, before beeping quietly, his name appearing at the top. Items start appearing in rows, previewing the entrée and side selections for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He selected breakfast, going through the motions of selecting a starter, two sides, and a drink. Then, it prompted him to choose lunch, then dinner. When he finishes picking through the dinner selections and hits finalize at the bottom of the screen, the machine thanks him, by his first and last name, for customizing that day’s menu, with it written out under the wording.
First come didn’t only mean first served in the rivalry program. It also meant controlling meals and choosing how the day would go. Isagi knew Rin needed form to his days, needed to control and understand as much of his day as he could to keep running smoothly. Isagi doesn’t need to like meals, he just needs to know that Rin doesn’t.
Not that he was going to abuse that.
Some minutes later Rin appears. Isagi watches the look of realization wash over his face when sees the finalization message and menu with his name written all over it in bold letters and as he is served. Chicken and white rice with a side of kintsuba and a Cesar. Rin storms over, fuming about Isagi’s “shit choice of meals,” getting up close and person, then stomps off to his own corner of the cafeteria before Isagi can get a in response.
At 8am, sharp, Anri comes over the loudspeaker and sends them off to individual warmups on two small faux fields with white, fluorescent lights. The boys didn’t remember seeing any of this size at the main facility, but neither had fully explored it so could not confirm for themselves that there isn’t any. Warmups would be the most peaceful part of the day for either boy.
Isagi spends most of the hour mindlessly trying to figure out what he could possibly do to get out between laps and fetching balls. At one point, while shooting goals at an open net, he’s so focused on how to get out without being locked off that he completely misses the ball and tumbles the ground. He feels his skin scraping against the turf and plastic grass as he goes down. Isagi picks himself up with a groan, seeing the ball slowly rolling away from him like a taunt. He sighs and centers it again, bringing his head back into the game.
Rin, within the first few minutes of being in the room, finds a wire hookup for a speaker. Having signed himself into his music streaming apps the night before, he’s fairly quick connecting to the amps, loud, violent, tracks bursting from the room in the next moments. He finds peace in the noise. Enjoying the familiarity of music he hasn’t really got an opportunity to listen to sense before blue lock. His playlists remind him of before the facility, when his life had no aim because he was drowning in soccer.
He remembers wanting to impress his brother and wanting to be the best and pushing himself to the forefront so that he would be noticed. Rin warms up, yoga, shooting goals, dribbling, laps, blabla bla. Letting his body move on autopilot, trusting he knows how to warm up, and enjoying his music again.
Anri comes to collect Rin at 9am when he doesn’t come when she calls the boys over the loudspeakers. It’s embarrassing, even after Anri assures him that he did nothing wrong and that she expected one or the other to not hear her. She brings Rin to a hallway lined with identical doors. She brings him to one no different than any other one in the hallway, aside from the fact that Isagi is leaning on the wall next to it.
“We’re going to do some... ‘partner activities,’” She explains, swinging the door open and walking inside, the boys trailing behind her, “I’m going to be personally running them today, to see how it goes.” The room is small and gray, similar to the one the boys remember finding themselves in when they first started blue lock. When had to play soccer tag.
“Ms. Anri, are we doing more drills? Or stretching? I’m just confused because there’s nothing in here,” Isagi asks, albeit very hesitantly. Anri just smiles and nods.
Rin and Isagi do seven hours, with an hour-long lunch of Isagi’s choosing somewhere in the middle, of icebreakers and cheesy team building activities. By the end of it Anri’s broken up countless fights and run just about as many games. Some of which include human knot, which ends very poorly when only two people play, two truths and a lie, this or that, one word at a time, and the alphabet game, among many others.
The boys are only dismissed to explore and use facilities at 4pm because trying to prevent a full-out fist fight was giving her a stress migraine.
Rin, while memorizing the unfamiliar layout for future convivences, finds multiple gyms, rooms with yoga matts, and soccer fields of all different sizes. Eventually he starts noting it down on his phone so that he won’t forget anything. At dinner he feels that he made some productive use of his time and is satisfied knowing he will spend less time looking for things later on.
Isagi gets lost immediately. The facility looks like backrooms to him; everything is the same from the outside and different from the inside. Whenever he thinks he finds he sees somewhere familiar, he peeks into the room and realizes it’s completely different than what he thought it was. By around 20 minutes till 8 he’s fortunate enough to find their room, which he then attempts to use as a landmark to bring him to the cafeteria. He takes three wrong turns and discovers a long way to get back that takes him about 30 minutes.
Dinner goes without incident, aside from some incoherent grumbling from Rin in his little corner. About the same for the rest of the night, Rin and Isagi don’t talk to each other at all. They just shower, mess with their phones, pass out.
Monday
Isagi wakes up early the next morning at 5am, thinking he would be able to stick it to Rin by choosing meals again that day. When he sees that Rin is not in his bed, he assumes that he’s just exercising early again or is taking a shower. He gets ready fast, throwing on whatever he finds first, not that it matters much. Theres not many choices to make when his clothes are all uniform black with the blue lock logo on their sleeves or pant legs. At least he can choose between short or long sleeve shirts and sweatpants or shorts.
His socks and shoes are logoed too. At the end of the day, it’s better than having to wear those stuffy, ugly, black and blue body suits with NO socks OR shoes.
He doesn’t find Rin in the cafeteria, but he does find crumbs of his being there. Mainly, a screen showing the day’s menu, already picked out.
Come to find out, judging by the eyebags Rin sports when he wanders back into the cafeteria, he is a maniac who doesn’t sleep and doesn’t like good food simply on the principal that Isagi does.
After a couple hours of grace, Rin and Isagi are called to training room 6 at 9am. They get there around the same time, Rin, as usual it seems, a bit after Isagi. They enter the room suspiciously, taking a seat across from each other, sitting in awkward silence for a moment before a staff member shuffles in.
He’s clearly nervous and holding a trey with monopoly set up on it. The staff puts down the board, the money, the cards, the dice, and the play pieces as quickly as he can and immediately sees himself out without a word. Anri’s, apparently back at her control room or wherever it is they go to oversee activities, voice fills the room.
“Eldest can go first, Isagi why don’t you start off by rolling,”
Isagi contemplates for a moment, truly considering whether this was even worth entertaining, before realizing that attempting to play a game with Rin was likely better than the consequences he would face if he didn’t. He picks the die up and starts the game.
As they finish one game, it’s quickly replaced with another…
Monopoly:
Goes awfully. Rin apparently has never played monopoly, giving Isagi the obvious upper hand, which he absolutely abuses. The game is stalled significantly by Rin’s skimming of the rulebook between every turn, and the constant arguments between strict official rules and what Isagi insists is “how the game is actually played.” The board is flipped and reset by some poor employee or another more than once. After 2 hours Isagi bankrupts Rin with a dark blue property set with a hotel.
Scrabble:
Probably not intentional but offered a redemption for Rin after that awful round of Monopoly, seeing as his opponent cannot speak English fluently. Isagi had to struggle alone for about 10 minutes before Rin tried to tell him that “stares” isn’t a word and Anri had to send in a translator. The round lasted only about 20 minutes longer, Rin completely destroyed Isagi.
Truth or Dare:
Played with two decks of cards, one of which labeled “Truth” and the other “Dare.” It pulls a truly visceral reaction from the boys. Isagi asks first, Rin barely mutters truth, Isagi picks up a card, and reads it out. “Why are you such a dick.” Anri immediately intervenes over the loudspeakers, letting them know that none of the cards say that and instructing Isagi to return the card to the bottom of the deck and draw again. Isagi slumps his shoulders and returns the card, picking up another that reads “What’s your favorite color.” Come to find out, every single all of them have get to know you questions, that includes the supposed “Dare” cards. They go through the entirety of the cards before lunch.
As per Rin’s choice, lunch is pan seared steak with rice and steamed vegetables. It’s not necessarily a good choice on Rins part, the meal isn’t something he particularly enjoys, but he thought it was something that Isagi would really dislike. He was unfortunately incorrect, Isagi is not actually a toddler and is completely fine with vegetables, especially when they come with rice and steak.
They work on their lacking skills for the four hours of training time they have left for the day. Despite the frightening, suggestive, name of the program, it turns out to be incredibly lenient when it comes to actually doing any sort of training. Especially for an experiment that is supposed to make them better before the most influential game Blue Lock will have.
At 8pm, the boys are sent to dinner. They sit on opposite sides of the room and do not talk. After an hour of eating and zoning out and occasionally looking at their phones, they are sent to their room. Where they continue to not talk. They change, and they shower, and they scroll on their cells until they doze off.
Tuesday
On Tuesday, Isagi wakes up at exactly 4am, fully determined to choose what they would be served that day. Seeing as it was the only way he knew he could get back at Rin. However, as he is wiping the sleep from his eyes and stretching out of bed, he sees Rin already in his warmups and already walking out the door.
“Are you not tired?”
Rin glairs at Isagi over his shoulder as he leaves.
After breakfast, they do flexibility training, so mostly yoga. Rin is better than Isagi. A pattern that’s quickly becoming a quiet grinding in the background of Isagi’s life as of late.
After a peaceful and quiet lunch, they spend the remaining 6 hours of their day doing 1v1s. It’s exhausting. They don’t usually play matches for so long, especially not against each other. They keep going back and fourth and back and fourth over and over again. It
Rin wins the first one, which pisses Isagi off. He puts in real effort on their second one, and wins. Then Rin wins again, and again, and again. And eventually, it’s 8pm and Isagi is frustrated but too incredibly tired to care that much because at the end of the day he knows that for now his role is just to support Rin. He’s the only one who can rival him in terms of field IQ and maybe that’s enough for him right now.
Rin, on the other hand, is pissed beyond belief. He storms to the cafeteria, completely skipping changing out of his game clothes. Which, to Isagi, makes absolutely no sense because he’s the one who won after all. And it’s not like he gave him a shit fight; he did good, the matches WERE close.
Isagi takes his time changing, enough that he thought Rin would cool off but not enough to get yelled at by Anri for skipping meals. Then, he goes to the cafeteria and sits on the other side of the giant room and watches silently as Rin picks at his food as if he hasn’t been literally losing sleep to pick it.
As soon as Anri excuses them, Rin stomps out of the cafeteria and to their room. Isagi, not especially wanting to sit with the awkwardness, takes the long way back. One or two or three times.
Maybe 20 minutes of slowly walking in circles later, Isagi finally swings their door open to find sitting Rin in his bed with his head in his hands and wet hair. When Rin hears the door opening his head snaps up and he pushes himself up from his bed. Isagi tries to ignore him, fairly uninterested in any more conflict after the day he’s had. He closes the door behind him and goes towards the bathroom to brush up and pass out as soon as possible.
Before he can even get close to the bathroom, Rin slams the door shut.
“What the fuck,” Isagi steps back, slightly startled by loud noise. “You’re the only one who gets to shower now?”
“What the HELL is your problem?” Rin says, stepping in front of the bathroom door to completely block Isagi.
“What are you talking about Rin, I haven’t done shit to you,” He sighs, truly to tired to deal with this. “If anything I should be the one asking you that.”
“The matches, what is your FUCKING problem,” He starts escalating, raising his voice and tensing up all over. “You threw them, you threw almost all of them!” He clenches and unclenches his fists repeatedly.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,”
“You’re telling me you couldn’t hold your own against me? Couldn’t even tie the matches? That’s a pathetic excuse,”
“I can’t tell what you’re trying to get at right now, but I just want to shower and go to bed,” He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, feeling a ringing headache coming on as the minutes standing face to face with Rin pass by.
“Like I believe that,” He practically spits the accusation at him, “You need to start caring, NOW. We’re going up against the U20 in a matter of weeks and you’re as weak as can be. The only reason you got picked for the Blue Lock 11 is because you can match ME, because you’re supposed to read ME, if you can’t even do that you’re completely useless. You’re a broken puppet Isagi,”
“I was never your puppet Rin- “
“If you’re fine being a stupid useless player, that’s fine with me. You’re just one less person to crush so I can stay on top.”
“You need to get that superiority complex under control, Itoshi,” Isagi takes a step forward, towards Rin who is practically shaking at this point.
“Don’t call me Itoshi,” His eyes sharpen and his voice gets real quiet.
“Move, ITOSHI,” He tries to shove past Rin, actually getting him out of the way for a second before Rin gets his balance back and instantly shoves him back against the hard wall.
“Don’t try that shit again, fucker, you’re nowhere near good enough to push ME around.”
Isagi swings first, he gets Rin square in the nose. Rin takes it, recovers from the shock, and hits him back just as hard. Rin wipes some blood from his nose, breath getting heavier and vison blurring as Isagi stands back up with a certain look in his eyes.
By the time they tire it’s been an hour of swapping insults and punches. Rin’s got a bloody nose, a split lip, and bruised knuckles. Isagi makes it out with blood dripping from his cut up knuckles, his bitten tongue, and a nasty bruise on his chin.
Rin finally collapses onto his bed when the ringing in his ears gets to loud to stay standing up, forfeiting the fight. They’re both panting and when Isagi looks down at Rin all he can feel is intense shame. It’s louder than the throbbing in his head or the metallic taste of blood pooling in his mouth and making him nauseous as he has to swallow it down. He silently goes to take a shower, nothing else to say anyways.
After drying off as well as he could manage, without pressing to hard on a bruise or a scrape, Isagi searches the cabinet for any sort of first aid materials. He finds a plethora of materials in the cabinet under the sink. He fixes himself up with bio freeze over the bruising, oral numbing ointment for his tongue, and band-aids to cover places he’s bleeding. Isagi considers giving the kit directly to Rin but opts instead to leave it on the counter next to the sink where he knows he’ll see it.
When he walks out bandaged Rin gets the memo and retreats to the bathroom. Isagi’s out cold by the time he gets back. His face is slightly illuminated by the bathroom light. Rin watches him take raged breaths for a second, tracing the bandages on his face and his Adams apple as it bobs up and down unevenly with his shallow breaths.
Wednesday
The next day is better.
Isagi doesn’t bother getting up early because he figures Rin’s not gonna sleep again and will have chosen breakfast as another petty revenge. He’s tired anyways, its not worth it to him.
He’s partially right, in a way, Rin did not, obvious by the worsening eyebags he sports, sleep a wink the night before. Although, when Isagi gets to the cafeteria at 7 sharp he finds that meals for the day are completely up to him. Rin arrives shortly after, eyes flickering to Isagi as he passes him, head bowed with something that resembles shame. They don’t talk and they sit on opposite sides of the room. Rin doesn’t eat anything that morning, which cannot possibly be healthy for him.
The rest of the day goes without incident, but Anri holds off on any team activities when she sees them.
They’re sent to dinner at 8pm. Rin looks and feels completely exhausted, to tired to hate dinner or Isagi, but so sluggish he can’t be bothered to take more than a few bites before they’re excused. He watches Isagi leave first, taking his time to get up and shove a few extra bites of whatever down his throat before clearing himself and returning to their room
Isagi’s in the shower by the time he gets there. He takes a seat on Isagi’s bed and waits for him to be out.
Isagi leaves the bathroom nearly a half an hour later, with sweatpants, boxers, and a towel slung over his shoulders. He immediately notices Rin on his bed waiting for him. For once he actually looks younger than Isagi. He looks up at him, lips pressing together as he tries to maintain some of his remaining dignity.
“I shouldn’t have hit you,” Rin starts, albeit quietly.
“Rin-“
“I let myself go overboard, regardless of how angry I may’ve been it was wrong of me to lay hands on you,” With how monotone and quiet Rin’s voice is, the only proof of him being human is how it slightly wavers on ‘angry.’ He’s staring at the band-aid on Isagi’s forehead, eyes flicking towards the sickly purple bruise that’s yellowing at the edges on his chin, and back to his own hands where they’re twisting in his lap. He doesn’t look especially sad, more emotionless, maybe guilty.
“I’m to blame, I provoked you,” Isagi sighs, closing his eyes for a moment. “And I hit you just as hard,” He opens his eyes again and waits until Rin’s looking at him again, “I’m sorry,” Rin doesn’t look away, doesn’t think he can. “I’m your senior and I lost control of my emotions; you aren’t in the wrong.”
Rin’s head tilts down a little bit, his gaze staying on Isagi through his eyelashes. His back is slumped and for once he’s the weak one.
For a second Isagi has thoughts about Rin, bad thoughts about him. He shoves off the sudden tightness in his stomach.
“I noticed you haven’t been sleeping,” Isagi sighs, “You should get some rest. I can only get better if you do too,”
Rin doesn’t fully look up at Isagi again and he doesn’t move an inch. Isagi walks over to his bed, maybe half a pace in front of Rin, closing the distance in a few long seconds. Rin stands up so they’re toe to toe, and eye to eye if he bent over or if Isagi grew a couple inches. Isagi moves around him and sits on his bed. He turns on his lamp and turns off the main light.
Without looking back, Rin goes to take a shower.
Maybe 20 minutes later he comes out, boxers and a towel over his head, cascading onto his shoulders and hiding the back of his neck. The bright fluorescents in the bathroom make him a tall, dark, silhouette, outlined with a thin bright line. Isagi looks up at the figure from where he sits on his bed, scrolling his phone lazily. He follows Rin’s hand as it moves to flick off the glowing lights of the bathroom, making him human again.
Isagi tears his eyes away from Rin sucking his teeth as he feels the other’s gaze stay glued to him. They sit silently for a few moments before Isagi flicks off his lamp as well, basking them in shadows. He hears Rin move around the room and the squeaking of his mattress as he finds it in the darkness. Isagi only falls asleep that night when he hears Rin’s breaths become shallow and rhythmic, knowing he was finally out cold.
Thursday
Isagi’s alarm goes off at 6am sharp. He feels his bones crack as he sits up out of bed, reaching over to his nightstand blindly as he searches for his phone. He follows the beeping and vibrations until his fingers finally land on the glass of his cell. He swipes his alarm away tiredly, raising the bright screen to his face, immediately reeling back and squeezing his eyes shut at the light.
He swings his legs off the side of the bed and flicks his lamp light on. Instead of the empty bed he usually finds in front of him, no matter how early his morning is, Isagi is surprised to find Rin also sitting up. He’s clearly disgruntled, still blinking the sleep from his eyes, with a pretty bad case of bedhead. Rin isn’t often found in such a state, it’s very rare that he allows someone, his age or otherwise, to see him when he’s not put together.
Isagi stands up with a yawn, stumbling a bit as he adjusts to the morning. He saunters towards the bathroom to brush his teeth, flicking on the light and leaving the bathroom door open. As he groggily wets his toothbrush, Rin enters the bathroom behind him. He stands close to Isagi, despite there being more than enough space for him to spread out if he wanted to. As Isagi sticks his brush into his mouth, Rin reaches around him to grab his own. Too tired to care, Isagi finishes brushing, spits into the sink and walks out of the bathroom.
He digs through his drawers for some clothes, important perk of the rivalry program- you don’t have to wear training gear 24/7, opens options to a new world of Blue Lock branded clothing. Isagi finds a pair of dark athletic shorts, a thin and blue running t shirt with fabric he knows will cling to him, and a grew hoodie, all with the signature Blue Lock pentagon on them in one place or another. Rather than wait for Rin to leave the bathroom, Isagi strips down to boxers and socks right by his bed, tossing his sleepwear into a laundry basket next to his dresser.
Rin does the same on the other side of the room moments later, opting for sweatpants rather than shorts. He notices Isagi’s eyes trail over to him, watches as they catch on him for a moment, lingering. They finish changing into their respective outfits in silence.
Isagi walks out of the room. Rin follows behind, no longer next to or in front of him. They get to the cafeteria with nearly 40 minutes to spare before meals. He tries to let Rin choose meals that day like it’s a peace treaty they have to uphold, Rin recreates yesterday’s menu to the best of his memory and walks off to who knows where.
Rin’s already sitting down in the corner of the cafeteria and well into his breakfast by the time Isagi shows up. He mostly ignores his appearance, staring at his drink a little harder and chewing a bit more thoroughly. He hears the sound of someone setting their trey down some moments later, looking up to find Isagi sitting in front of him, not looking to be feeling anything to strongly. They eat together without exchanging pleasantries, but both internally recognize how nice it is to eat with someone else after so much tension.
After an unusually quiet morning, the same goes for lunch, although one takes the liberty to swap something on his tray with something on the others every once in a while. Anri, albeit very awkwardly, allows the boys the day for their own personal business. Which realistically is just training. It occurs to them that there’s not actually that much to do when you’re only stuck with the one person you really can’t talk to. They split up quietly, Isagi not sure if he should invite Rin to practice with him, Rin trying to get away before he has the opportunity to ask. Isagi spends a sizeable two hours actually doing some work, laps, goals, some stuff Bachira attempted to teach him during their rare free time. He spent another two hours or so laying in the faux grass alone with his thoughts.
Rin didn’t spend his time much more productively; he got about three hours of solo work in before he started wandering. He never noticed how uncanny Blue Locks facilities are until you have no aim or any ambitions on exactly where to go next. He doesn’t even realize what he’s seeking out until he stops at the only occupied field room. It’s lucky that he finds Isagi before the silence can slither too deep into either of their minds and force them to explore things they didn’t want to bring up just yet.
He might as well have burst through the door, calling Isagi’s name a little louder than he probably had to. He sat up from the middle of the field with a start.
“First to five?” Rin radiated energy, waiting for a no, a soccer ball to the face, a nod.
“First to five,” Isagi agreed, standing up and retreating to one side of the field.
He collapses the second the buzzer rings out. It took two hours for him to win, two hours and a 5:4 score, but Isagi won. They gasp and pant, drenched in their own salty sweat. Rin can hear Isagi laughing from the grass, knows he fought tooth and nail to win. He drags himself over to Isagi, offering him a hand up.
Isagi takes him by the wrist and pulls, Rin falls to the ground with an “umph,” landing right on top of him and knocking the air out of his check. Despite his lack of oxygen, Isagi keeps laughing, pausing when Rin shoves his elbow into his gut as he rolls off of him. They lie together on the synthetic grass for a while, only sitting up when the sweat has cooled and Isagi’s done gasping for air.
Anri comes over the loudspeakers das they rise,
“Good job boys,” They could hear the smile in the way she spoke, “I’ve seen a lot of improvement from you both,” Isagi gives Rin a cheesy grin, which he doesn’t reciprocate.
They stick together for the remainder of the day, mostly in silence aside from some “constructive criticism” going one way or another. At dinner they talk about everyone back at the facility, Isagi tells Rin about his friends. Rin finds that he doesn’t have much positive feedback to give. They do their schoolwork together. Rin at his desk giving English tips, Isagi on his bed explaining their math work.
Friday
The next day is mostly insignificant. There’s not much new in the morning, breakfast together, Rin picks today, then they do individual and partner work outs. Rin will note that he’s been drawn to trail behind Isagi more so than before, Isagi has not noticed. Before they know it, they’ve gone through lunch, another couple of drills, and suddenly its about 6pm and Anri tells them to take early dinner and meet her at the blue lock screening room.
Rin and Isagi debate what she has prepared now over dinner, and by the end they pretty much decide that it’s a recording of their previous matches during the program. But instead of the stuffy, single chair, observatory they usually find in screening rooms, Rin and Isagi find a large couch with blankets and pillows and a table of snacks.
“Don’t tell Ego,” Anri whispers to them as she leaves them in the room, shutting the door on her way out and leaving them almost completely in darkness. The large screen opposite the couch flicks on. A blue screen with Totoro, then the opening credits and Isagi realize all too fast exactly what it is.
He gets settled on the couch before Rin even figures out what’s playing, patting the seat next to him so that Rin will sit down.
Rin gets through My Neighbor Totoro and most of Howls Moving Castle before he starts to doze off, and by the beginning of Whisper of the Heart he’s completely passed out.
He wakes up hours later to Isagi poking at him, scrambling back when the first thing he opens his eyes to is Isagi. Eventually he orients himself, and they drag themselves back to their room to sleep.