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When Reo gives Nagi his ring, Nagi doesn't know where to put it.
"Jewelry is a hassle," he says. "It feels weird on my skin."
Reo rolls his eyes at the response and returns his attention to his laptop. "You think everything's a hassle," he complains, sliding his own ring onto his middle finger. "You're going to leave me behind one of these days, aren't you?"
"Of course not," Nagi says softly. He shuffles a little closer and drops his chin onto Reo's shoulder. "What are these for, anyway?"
"We're matching," Reo says eagerly. He tilts his head against Nagi's as he holds his hand out. "It's a promise! We're going to win the World Cup together, right?"
"Right," Nagi echoes. "We are."
Reo smiles at him and Nagi stares back for a moment, fidgeting with the tiny piece of metal. He drops his gaze and slips it onto his ring finger.
"Nagi, the ring finger is for couples, you know..."
Nagi closes his eyes. "Whatever," he mumbles. He hears Reo sigh and shift away from him, back to whatever assignment he was working on, and he falls backward onto Reo's bed and stays there, sinking slowly into the mattress.
Marry me, he thinks. He sounds the words out on his tongue and mouths them to the ceiling, and then he turns his head and watches Reo, hunched low over his laptop with the tip of his tongue poking out between his lips. "Stay with me until then," he says instead, and Reo nods absentmindedly, engrossed in his work.
The ring is just as uncomfortable as he expected it to be. Nagi curls his fingers around it and resolves to wear it for the rest of his life.
They don't win the World Cup.
They played so well together. Reo practices hard, and so does Nagi, but two people can only take a team so far and they fall flat of qualifying for nationals every year of high school. It's devastating, but Nagi wants them to keep going—he urges Reo to play on a university team or join a club. Anything.
"It's fine," Reo says, during their last night together. They're not cuddling like they usually do—Reo sits on one end of the bed and Nagi stands halfway across the room, stalled from wrapping himself around the other boy by the terrible, terrible look on his face. "It doesn't matter anymore. My parents were right. I should have quit ages ago."
"They weren't." Nagi's not speaking loud enough, maybe. Or Reo's just not listening to him anymore. They're not on the same page, and nothing Nagi says can ease the tension in Reo's shoulders.
"You should go," Reo tells him. It's not his usual voice. There's something stiff in the way he speaks, and when he pulls his gaze up to meet Nagi's, his eyes are shiny with tears.
Nagi inhales quickly. He sighs and he thinks, I love you. "I'm sorry we didn't win," he says, and he sounds so fragile as he says it. Reo's eyes narrow at his words. "I'll do better. We'll both do better next year. I'll go to university with you and we can both—"
"Get out," Reo says. His tone leaves no room for discussion.
They played so well together.
"Don't," Nagi says weakly, but Reo's already dragging himself out of bed, stumbling over his feet to push Nagi out of his room. "I'm sorry, Reo. I know you're frustrated. I'll do better next time..."
"It's not because of you."
"We said we'd win together. I should have—"
"Not everything is about you, Nagi," Reo spits, and he's full of malice. He shoves hard and Nagi grabs the doorframe to keep himself inside, and they stand there for a few long moments, breathing silently in each other's presence.
It's not even about Nagi. It's about the two of them, together.
Something throbs in his chest. Nagi closes his eyes and swallows the urge to scream. Reo lightens his pressure upon seeing Nagi’s distress, but he doesn't draw back. He doesn't apologize or pull him in for a hug or kiss him like they do in the movies.
It's not fair. Reo is the only one who can make him feel this horrible.
"We promised, Reo," Nagi whispers, finally daring to open his eyes again. Reo stares back at him, his expression completely unreadable. "It's not just me. Both of us will do better, okay?" He tries for a smile and reaches for Reo's hands, holds them tight. "We're almost there. I know we are."
Reo twists his fingers out of Nagi's grip and says, "No, we're not."
"Reo—"
"Neither of us were good enough," Reo continues, plowing onward relentlessly. He raises his voice, growing increasingly agitated, and all Nagi can do is watch helplessly. "It was a waste of time to try winning something so unrealistic. I made you play this stupid sport for three years and now we're here and we haven't accomplished anything!"
"Reo," Nagi says. Don't give up, he wants to add, but he doesn't know how much worse that will make things. He doesn't know how to make Reo feel better, and Reo's right there, just unraveling in his arms. He doesn't know how to convince Reo to stay, but he knows exactly how he would convince himself, and he blindly, desperately falls back on it now—"Would you keep playing football if it was for me?"
"For you?" Reo echoes. He simmers down, just enough for Nagi to nudge them back inside, a couple of steps that leaves him and Reo standing in the golden wedge of light from his bedside lamp.
"For me," Nagi says. His heart is racing. He presses the heel of his hand to his chest. "Not for the World Cup. Not to prove your parents wrong. Just—" his voice cracks, and he runs his tongue over the roof of his mouth before he gets the words out. "Just for me. To make me happy."
Reo is quiet for a while before he laughs. It's subdued, and his heart isn't quite in it, but it's better than how he was before and Nagi allows himself to celebrate that small victory. He hopes for one brief second, and then Reo speaks and his world falls apart.
"I can't, Nagi. I'm sorry."
Nagi takes a step back. He finds the ring on his finger and twists it, and then he searches Reo's hands. They're hopelessly bare. A glint of silver catches his eye, and he follows it to find Reo's ring sitting on his nightstand. Put it back on, he wants to say. He wants to drop to his knees and beg Reo not to throw it away—not to throw him away—but Reo still looks like he's about to cry and Nagi knows he can't do that, not now.
"Okay," he says. He sounds far calmer than he feels. "It's fine. We did our best."
"Right," Reo agrees. His emotionlessness is far more terrifying than his frustration. Nagi waits for something, anything to flicker into his face and finds nothing at all.
Will you be the same when I see you tomorrow?
Nagi can't say it. He just backs away and Reo lets him go, already staring past him blankly. He's clearly not thinking about Nagi anymore, and it stings. "Goodbye," he murmurs, and Reo barely nods. Barely acknowledges him. "Feel better soon, okay?"
"See you," Reo says distantly.
Nagi doesn't see him. Reo is gone in the morning, moved overseas to learn at some prestigious university somewhere Nagi can't afford to go. Ba-ya answers the door when he shows up early the next morning, and she hands him a paper bag. "Reo wanted me to give you this," she says.
Nagi thanks her and takes it home to open in privacy. He's expecting some kind of parting gift—maybe a game or food or even a letter. He tips it over his dinner table and is met by the clink of metal on wood.
It's Reo's ring. Not even a note to come with it. It's like he's returning a library book or a borrowed pencil—like he's done using it, doesn't need it anymore. Doesn't want it anymore.
Nagi takes it in his hand and wonders if losing was really so bad. Was it so unbearable that Reo couldn't stand it, even if they were together? They'd lost before, and it's not like they couldn't try again. They still have so many years, and Nagi can still get so much better, and—
(And just what is Reo's breaking point, really?)
Under the shadow of an empty house, Nagi rolls the ring around in his palm and comes to the realization that the two of them aren't quite the same; because Nagi loves Reo, and Reo loved football.
They're still best friends. Reo texts him every day without fail, and they call often. Nagi goes to a university close to home and hurts quietly on his own, missing Reo anytime he comes close to anything that touches the sun. It's Reo who taught him how to live, and without him, it's almost too easy to fade into nonexistence again.
Nagi plays football, sometimes. He'll take his old ball out to the park and kick it around for an hour or so, juggling without anyone else to trade passes with. He does okay in school and he makes tentative friends with his grumpy roommate, Barou, but he's still so lonely and nothing he does can fill the hole Reo gouged in his chest.
Reo is too perfect. Nothing in Nagi's life can measure up to him. After he leaves, everything turns to gray—a shadow of what it used to be, and Nagi pales in tandem.
It's four long months before Reo comes back to visit during break. He calls Nagi once his plane lands—"Want to go out and grab coffee?" and Nagi agrees even though he's got two projects due tomorrow and hasn't started either of them, because it's Reo, and Reo is everything.
Reo's still so beautiful, but he's not quite the same. He smiles when he spots Nagi and waves him over to the table he saved for them, but as Nagi slides into his seat he sees that Reo's changed. He's not as open, anymore—Nagi has known him for so long, but there's a new kind of cautious delicacy in his voice as he says, "It's been a while, Nagi."
Nagi stares at him and wonders how he turned into his parents' model son in such a short period of time. "Hi," he says.
"How have your classes been?"
The conversation is smooth enough. Reo talks about high school, and all Nagi has to do is nod or mumble unintelligibly and Reo responds enough for both of them. He laughs just like he used to, but he doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve anymore and it's so easy for Nagi to tell. He knows Reo best, after all.
Reo is still Reo, but he’s not the boy Nagi played football with. He’s not the boy who cried over their first defeat like it was the end of the world—and it really could have been, back then. Reo used to be so afraid of the possibility of losing, and now he looks like he's afraid of nothing at all. Nagi doesn't know how to bring out the best parts of him anymore.
"I used to have a bit of a crush on you," Reo says out of nowhere, and he chuckles like it doesn't mean anything at all to him, anymore. "Back in high school. Isn't that funny?"
Nagi swallows hard. He presses his fingers into a tight fist until the metal of his ring bites at his skin. "Yeah," he chokes out. "I did, too."
Reo's grinning as he slings an arm around Nagi's shoulders and says, "Really? I couldn't tell! That's such a coincidence."
Nagi gazes at Reo's smile and dies just a little more. He's already too far gone, really—he takes his final breath and holds it before he says, "I miss you."
Reo goes still. He pulls back, just a little, and watches Nagi with new interest.
"I wish we still played football. I wish we could have won the World Cup like you wanted to." Nagi hesitates, but Reo's just staring at him and it's not enough for him to know if he's making a mistake as he says, "You could still do it. We have enough time to start playing again."
"I'm too busy with school," Reo says.
"I'm serious, Reo. Come back to Japan. We'll play again, and we'll be better."
Reo smiles. He reaches for Nagi's face and rests his palm securely against his cheek, and then he says, "You don't have to worry about silly things like that anymore, Nagi."
"Okay," Nagi says quietly. Reo curls his fingers into Nagi's hair one last time before he drops his hand away, and then he's talking about his latest project and all Nagi can do is stare at the tabletop and think that's it?
It's so anticlimactic. It's everything to him and Reo dismissed it like a joke. Nagi's not even sure what he expected—Reo's stupid ring is still sitting in a box next to Choki on his windowsill, and Nagi's exactly where Reo left him in high school.
It's incredible, really, how Reo can look him in the eye and throw three years away like they mean nothing to him.
"Hey, Reo," Nagi murmurs. The ring on his finger burns. "Do you love me?"
Reo's eyes soften. He says, "Of course I do," but it's not the same. It's not enough.
"Good," Nagi says. He wants to cry. He's never wanted to cry before. "I love you, too."