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Soulmate connections weren't new. Everyone had a soulmate. Everyone knows they have them. The strength of a soul bond would be entirely independent to each individual, to each connection. Some saw colours (or lack thereof), some saw the red string of fate, some had their names written, and some had their first words.
The truly rare ones were the ones with a mental and emotional connection.
The bond didn’t mean much. If anything, the bond was more trouble than it was worth. The connection was simple: you would only feel the most intense of emotions that belonged to your respective soulmates. These emotions would occur in events where an individual would feel fear in the face of great peril, or grief from a deceased loved one, or joy from winning a once in a lifetime reward, or literally anything that would trigger what Isagi liked to call a ‘really really big wham of an event’.
This is what Isagi Yoichi knows: his bond with his soulmate was a mental bond. But everything that the research papers have written, and the stories that people have told him, was nothing like that. At all. Big wham events would happen all the time! Or at least, that’s how his brain interpreted it when he was 4 years old.
As he grew older, he understood more. It was rare, his connection. His soulmate caught on quickly too, they both understood and knew that what they had wasn’t normal, even with the ‘rarity’ of their soul bond in the first place.
They could feel almost everything their soulmate felt.
Isagi doesn’t remember most of what emotions were exchanged, or the moments that were based on it. But Isagi remembers the joy, the sadness, the anger, the tantrums, and all the emotions his soulmate would experience. He wasn’t supposed to feel anything but the most intense, but Isagi had long accepted that difference. It was easy to accept how different he was, after all, if his soulmate didn’t think it was a big deal, then why should he?
Isagi Yoichi also knows this: his soulmate is someone kind. By the time he reached middle school, his soulmate and him had established a strong connection. When Isagi would feel sad, his soulmate would send waves upon waves of comfort, encouraging him through the hardest times. In turn, Isagi would do the same, encouraging them through every battle.
It doesn’t take them long to figure out that they were close in age, and that they were, at the very least, in the same country. Isagi feels the amusement his soulmate sends his way in response to his spring allergies. In turn, Isagi is sure to send back waves of teasing in winter, when his soulmate is grouchy and cranky. Autumn is stressful with exams, but they both work through the anxiety and irritation together. Summer is a mix of all kinds of emotions, but summer is summer, and to Isagi, that’s enough of an explanation.
Isagi Yoichi knows his soulmate is kind, with feelings so intense it leaves Isagi breathless. He wonders sometimes, how his soulmate would cope with the intensity, whether it was difficult. Everytime, the worry would transmit through their bond, and everytime, Isagi’s soulmate would simply send him back amusement . Well, sue him for wanting his soulmate to be happy. Isagi would always feel exasperation in turn.
Sometimes, he would even hear a whisper of a thought. Things that weren’t important, but would make Isagi smile. He would hear them sometimes, saying (thinking?) things like onii-chan is so cool . Or the occasional I should go to the beach , and other little bits like this teacher is really boring . He wonders sometimes, what thoughts of his are being transmitted in return. Whether his soulmate can hear the responses he sends back.
Their connection is, and always has been, strong. That was what he had accepted as fact. He didn’t think it was going to change.
Winter comes, and his soulmate, their shared soul bond, is suddenly burning . Isagi remembers falling to his knees, gasping from the intensity, clutching his chest and shouting while his own soulmate goes through agonising pain pain pain . The heat pierces through the chill of the winter air, his gasps coming sharp and heavy.
His parents are by his side when Isagi starts crying, tears he knows his soulmate doesn’t even shed, hidden behind walls and walls of anger . Isagi, for all he can do, sends waves and waves and waves of comfort, confusion, panic, to his soulmate.
What’s wrong? What happened? Are you okay?
It all passes by in a blur, but when it finally ends, Isagi Yoichi is left with a fragment of what was once his soulmate. It is then that Isagi hears his soulmate’s thoughts again. The clearest he has heard yet.
You’re lukewarm.
After that, he doesn’t feel anything from his soulmate for a long, long time.
“Wait wait wait!” Bachira interrupts. “So you’re telling me, you have one of those super DUPER rare soulmate connections, and that you felt literally everything since you were a little kid, and then, NOW, you don’t feel ANYTHING from your soulmate anymore?” Bachira asks, his voice a weird mix of confusion and concern.
Isagi scratches his cheek, feeling a bit sheepish, “I mean. I don’t know? Sometimes I feel glimpses. Some bursts of emotions that don’t really make sense. But when they do happen. It’s…” here, Isagi hesitates, but Bachira’s relentless.
“He’s just. I don’t know, I can’t describe it. To me… it just feels weird.” Isagi sighs. The furrow in between Bachira’s eyebrows deepens. “What do you mean?”
“It’s like he’s intentionally blocking me out. I don’t know HOW, or if that is even POSSIBLE, but… when I do feel him, it’s just. Anger. Sadness.” Grief, and pain , Isagi thinks, but doesn’t say.
“That’s… I can’t imagine that. That sounds awful. I barely get anything from MY soulmate! Yours is supposed to be a life and death thing ya know. I’m jealous!”
Isagi sighs. He doesn’t really understand why this was so interesting to other people. So what he’s different? That he can feel his soulmate’s emotions when they are not dying. Isagi faintly recalls that Bachira’s soulbond had something to do with seeing the red string of fate. Isagi wonders what it’s like, seeing the thread on your pinky finger, but never going after it. Taboo , Bachira had said when he asked him, way back in the first selection.
It’s kinda ridiculous, this whole soulbond thing. Isagi muses to himself.
Bachira steamrolls on. “But wait, you said ‘he’? How do you even know your soulmate’s a guy!”
Isagi frowns. “I mean. It’s obvious.”
“You’re not bothered by that?”
“Er, not really…”
“Sheesh Isagi, you’re super laid back…. So.. when did you, you know, stop getting anything from him?”
Isagi puffs out a breath of air. “I don’t know, probably my last year of middle school? It was all a blur.” Painful, horrible…. lonely. Isagi thinks.
Bachira eyes Isagi for a moment, his body language going all soft. “Hey. It’ll turn out alright.”
Isagi shrugs, “I’ve accepted it. It happened like, what, almost 3? 4 years ago now? I got used to it.”
Bachira pouts, “That isn’t something nice to get used to, Isagi-chan!”
Yeah, but what else do you want me to do?
Isagi smiles, trying to put Bachira at ease. “Hey, you said it yourself, right? That it’ll turn out?” he tries, picking at the edges of the Blue Lock issued blankets. He really doesn’t want to talk about it. The uncomfortable feeling sits in his chest like a hangman’s knot around his heart. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Doesn’t even want to think. Bachira eyes him for a moment, his fingers pulling at his pinky. Isagi thinks that Bachira is probably wondering the same now, whether his soulmate will turn out ‘alright’.
“New selection tomorrow. We gotta rest.” Isagi says at last, not being able to stand the sudden heavy atmosphere in the room. Bachira seems to shake out of whatever thoughts he was in, because the next moment he’s out of Isagi’s bed, stretching long like a cat that just got out from a very long nap.
“You’re right! Ego wouldn’t have put us through all that hell for nothing, right? It’s you and me tomorrow, Isagi!” Bachira cheers.
And that was that.
Later, when Isagi loses Bachira to Itoshi Rin, he feels waves and waves and waves of fucking inferiority . Nagi is panting by his side, but isagi feels like he’s choking on his own emotions. Distantly, he wonders if this would count as a ‘big wham event’, wonders if his emotions could be felt by his soulmate.
Pathetic, even now you’re thinking of your soulmate? How lukewarm.
The thought comes out of nowhere, and Isagi gasps with the sudden, unfiltered voice that crams itself into his head. He thinks it sounds familiar, but it's so ridden with static that Isagi can barely hear it. There’s a ringing in his ears, and a force that’s prompting him to look up.
Isagi does. Standing there is Itoshi Rin, staring him down with an eerily blank expression on his face. The emotions get stronger. Isagi nearly lunges at the man, but he settles angrily, locking eyes with the number 1 in Blue Lock, while Bachira looks at him and says, “If you want me back, come and steal me.”
If Isagi wasn’t so overwhelmed by fury, he would’ve responded: it’s not you who I want, Bachira.
He sees Rin’s steps falter, but he doesn’t think much of it, already planning for his next battle, his next evolution.
The fury stays. Even worse, the fury keeps growing.
He remembers a lot of his second match against Rin. Remembers barely being able to hold back all the anger he felt, playing against Rin, and LOSING. He remembers the shouting, the despair, the way he curled in on himself. He felt the flicker of annoyance, of grief, a glimpse of thought of this feels just like back then. His head is scrambled, but Rin picks him.
So Isagi grits his teeth, and continues on in Blue Lock.
Every now and then, he feels the leash, that was previously so fucking tight around him and his soulbond, start to loosen. He starts feeling waves of eagerness, determination, and conviction.
But above them all, the anger and fury stays.
When the selections are over. When the groups are in session for training. Their practice matches against each other. During breakfast, during lunch, during dinner. The fury stays.
During the preparation leading up to the match against U20 Japan, the fury grows.
It’s in his veins, the buzz in his head and the insistent weariness that drags his bones down. It happens again and again and again. It reached a point that Isagi had to excuse himself from dinner one night, just so he could lean against his bedroom wall in an attempt to NOT throw up.
He’s sure.
His soulmate was in Blue Lock.
And whoever it was, he was not fucking happy.
It takes Isagi a long long time, but by the time he figured it out, he was in the middle of the goddamn match of his life, and Itoshi Rin is running next to him with his waves of conviction and fury that Isagi has no choice but to get sucked into it.
Blue lock won’t let me be alone.
I’m going to RUIN YOU.
IhateitIhateitIhateitIHATEIT.
Isagi’s chest feels tight, he wants to run, run back to Rin, cover him in his arms, reach for the kindness that he knows is still there. But he can’t. He won’t let Rin down. He won’t. He won’t stand against the limitations of a goddamn soulbond. Not for Itoshi Sae, not for Blue Lock, not for Isagi Yoichi.
These thoughts aren’t mine.
Isagi nearly stumbles, but it doesn’t matter.
The one I have to ruin, is MYSELF.
If Isagi doesn’t use Rin now, he will lose him forever. That’s a Rin that I don’t know.
He won’t let that happen. Absolutely not.
Itoshi Sae takes the ball.
“You get it now, right? Rin… you will never be the world’s best.”
Oh, Isagi is going to kill him.
Rin steals the ball. Kicks it into the air. Isagi waits, feels every fibre of Rin’s emotions, wants so badly to give this to him, give it to his soulmate. To his Rin. He wants to.
Blue Lock has no place for such emotion.
He knows Rin like the back of his mind, trusts in his Flow, in his determination and fury. The ball lands right at his feet, exactly how he knew it would.
Isagi takes the shot.
4-3. Blue Lock 11 has won.
Isagi confirms it then. He sees Rin on the ground, body limp with his elder brother standing by him. It is Itoshi Sae that glances at him, not Itoshi Rin. Yet, the scene feels familiar. Bursts of images flash through his eyes, Isagi feels his fists clench at his side.
They won.
So why does it feel like a loss?
“Rin.” Isagi calls, his voice firm and loud, echoing around the locker room where Rin still sits. He ignores the wide open channel of their soulbond, ignores the go away that filters through his head when Rin doesn’t even have the fucking decency to say it outloud.
Ignores the irritation, the desperation, the anger, everything.
It’s funny. Isagi wanted for so long to be able to feel his soulbond again. Now, he wants nothing but for it to SHUT UP.
“Shut up?” Rin snorts as Isagi walks closer. The towel is still on his head, hiding his face from Isagi’s sharp eyes.
“It’s kinda ridiculous, this whole soulbond thing.” Rin mutters, a bit crankily. “That’s what you said, right? You never shut up. Your thoughts are like a constant stream in my head. It’s distracting. It’s stupid. It’s useless fucking trash that fills my head and it just wont stop.”
Isagi’s breath hitches. A distant memory of his conversation with Bachira. Words he has never said out loud. “You knew.” he feels the beginning waves of anger lick at his throat, the tears he is trying to desperately hold back. “You knew this whole time.”
Rin’s head tilts back against the locker, his eyes craned to the ceiling. “Isagi, I knew the moment I entered this shitty place. I knew the moment I saw you. You’re too obvious.”
“Obvious?!” Isagi exclaims, suddenly angry. He doesn’t know where all these emotions are suddenly coming from. He told Bachira he had long accepted it, but now, it’s like a dam broke. A dam he didn’t even know existed.
Maybe he was hiding from Rin too, after that incident.
“I cried for you!” Isagi shouts, throwing one of the towels on the benches right at Rin’s stupid fucking face. Rin looks surprised for a brief second, before his face clouds over in anger. Isagi can’t find himself to care, feeling the waves of emotions clogging his throat. His hands reach down to yank Rin onto his feet, snarling at him like a wild animal.
“I grieved! I tried every fucking day to reach you! Years of my life in middle school and highschool, reaching and reaching and getting NOTHING.” Isagi shouts, his throat straining from the effort. “I fucking mourned you, Rin! I thought I had lost you forever!”
“I didn’t fucking ask you to!” Rin spits back, backing up into Isagi’s space and reversing their positions, slamming him into the lockers. “I don’t need this. I don’t need teammates, friends, soulmates, you. ” Rin angrily declares. Isagi is riding off the waves of Rin’s anger, his own anger? Their anger? It’s so confusing, and Rin can clearly feel that confusion too, because instead of reacting to it like a fucking adult;
Rin leans down, and kisses him instead.
Isagi reacts immediately, Surging up into the kiss and winding his arms around Rin’s necks, fingers tangling into the short crop ends of Rin’s hair. Rin’s bangs are in his face, but all Isagi can feel between them is want , so so different from fury.
“Isagi.” Rin breathes, barely audible. Isagi starts to feel Rin overthinking, so he flips them back around, crowds Rin into the corner of the room, between the lockers and the wall. He surges up, crashing their lips back together. Rin can’t do anything but gasp, leaning down into Isagi, arms going round his back. “Isagi.” Rin chokes again, but Isagi doesn’t care.
“You will never be alone. Never. You will not lose me.” Isagi declares, hearing the unspoken words, the unspoken thoughts. Rin shudders, his eyes squeezing shut, his fingers digging into Isagi’s back. He drops his head on Isagi’s shoulders, and allows himself to finally feel .
They collapse on the floor together, legs tangling, Rin hiding in Isagi’s neck, Isagi’s arms around the younger boy. His junior, his prodigy, his soulmate. He forces Rin onto his lap, uncaring of the feeble attempts of Rin trying to dislodge their bodies. Isagi grumbles, shoving Rin’s head further into his shoulder. “Just cry. Idiot. When was the last time you cried?”
Just like that, Rin starts to wail.
Isagi holds him, chest to chest and breathing in the sweat and grass still clinging onto Rin’s skin. Hears him cry, the years of pent up emotions crowding their bond. Every puzzle piece is back in its place, and Isagi slumps too, putting his own face into Rin’s neck, letting out shaky breaths, one after another. Unprompted tears sliding down his cheeks. Now both their shoulders are wet.
There you are . He thinks, his soul loosening, the hangman’s knot gone. He feels the shiver that goes through Rin, through their bond. Isagi just holds him tighter.
After a while, Rin takes a very deep breath. “You saw. You saw Sae. You saw my brother. You saw what he did. I lost, Isagi. I fucking lost. Because of YOU. I don’t need you, I don’t WANT YOU.” he bites out, teeth gritting together, muttering into the fabric of Isagi’s blue lock issued tank top.
Isagi takes a very very long time for himself, knowing the emotions he felt on the field was not his, and slumps further into Rin. “If you really didn’t want me, you wouldn’t have let the bond back open.”
Rin doesn’t react. That's enough of an answer.
“Rin, I will always, always, want you.” Isagi declares, his voice softening. Rin doesn’t do anything but grip back. “Just because you have me now, doesn’t mean that you will lose me in the future.”
“You are my soulmate. I am never leaving you.”
Rin doesn’t say anything. Processing the words, filled to brim with down to earth honesty. Rin chokes, but he has something to say too.
“I didn’t mean to make you lonely.” Rin admits quietly. He lets the sadness bleed into their connection, the yearning, the loneliness. Everything he had ever felt from Isagi in their years apart. “I just. I just wanted to beat my brother. That’s all. I didn’t know that. That putting a block to a bond would… do that to you.”
It is then that Isagi realises that while he has been receiving glimpses of Rin, his thoughts, his emotions, Rin has received nothing . At least not until they cross paths again in Blue Lock. That’s years worth of nothing. What the fuck?
“You’re a goddamn fucking idiot. Dumbass. Fool. Incomprehensible. Egoistic bastard.” Isagi grunts, bringing their foreheads together. Rin doesn’t respond. Isagi doesn’t expect him to. Distantly, he wonders. Did them being in the same place accidentally remove Rin’s own mental block? It would explain… a lot, now that Isagi thinks about it.
“... Maybe proximity affects our type of soulbond.” Rin mutters, outloud.
Isagi blinks at him. “Huh?”
Rin frowns like Isagi is a really complicated equation and it was a bother for Rin to solve. Even though he’s clearly smart enough to solve it, bastard.
“I heard that.” Rin grumbles.
Isagi takes a very deep breath. Right. Soulbond. Thought sharing. Right.
“Can you stop repeating yourself?” Rin grunts, attempting to dislodge their bodies once more. Isagi quickly yanks him back down. Rin doesn’t yelp. He doesn’t. Before Rin can protest, he feels Isagi’s resolve before he even sees it.
“What, what is it now?” Rin asks, suddenly exhausted.
“Tell me. Tell me everything. What happened that day. Please.”
Rin looks at Isagi, feeling nothing but acceptance. Rin swallows, clearing his throat. “Not… not aloud.” he mutters. Isagi readily agrees.
Through their bond, Rin shares everything, his childhood, his adolescence, his brother playing football with him, his brother declaring them to be the world’s best, their shared dream. His brother leaving, his training without him. 4 years of a normal life, a life Isagi remembers sharing with him.
Rin’s brother returning. That snowy day at that football field. An eye-sore, a pain in the ass little brother. I don’t need you in my life anymore. Sae’s back walking away, leaving him in the cold.
It was so, so cold.
Isagi holds Rin closer.
“Sheesh, you have a brother complex as bad as Sasuke and Itachi Uchiha.”
Rin stares back at him blankly.
Isagi blinks.
“Please tell me you know that anime.”
You’re not an eye-sore. You’re mine. You don’t need Sae.
“Who wouldn’t, dumbass. And we’re nothing like that. For one, Itachi fucking dies.”
I need to be the best. I have to be the best.
“I mean, you’re the one that was yelling kill kill kill on the field earlier!”
Who says you won’t be? You just have to share that spot with me .
They stare at each other for a good long while. The seconds tick by, but then Isagi is snickering, and then Rin is smiling . Isagi can’t help it. He’s leaning back into Rin’s shoulder with a pleased smile on his face. They both feel it, the beginnings of Rin letting their soul bond properly reestablish, the tentative nudge he gets.
Isagi snorts, nudging Rin’s knee with his own. “I’m right here, you know.”
Rin grumbles something, letting his irritation flood through the bond. Isagi can’t help but laugh even more. Rin, for all purposes and intent, simply turns his head to the side, fighting down the blush high on his cheeks.
You’ll beat him. Sae. You’ll continue beating him.
I know I will. You won’t stop me even if you tried.
Who said I was going to stop you?
… You’re my rival, Isagi. Don’t ever forget that.
Wouldn’t even if I tried.