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Rin Itoshi likes to think that he’s mellowed out quite a lot since he was sixteen.

He’s less angry, at least. He’d sorted things out with Sae when they were put on Japan’s U20 World Cup team together at seventeen and nineteen - they’d punched it out, screamed loud enough that Nagi and Barou spent weeks complaining of tinnitus, cried, and patched each other up. Their parents had wailed on the phone when they told them, sobbed so hard Rin would have believed they were mourning instead of celebrating if he wasn’t part of the conversation. He no longer needed the spite shoved towards surpassing Sae, so he tossed it away, moved it over to other, better things, like winning said U20 World Cup. He still doesn’t see the need for other people - most people he knows are lukewarm at best - but he’s nowhere near as angry as he was.

At the ripe age of twenty-one, Rin Itoshi likes to think he appreciates the world far more than he did when he was sixteen. At seventeen and hormonal and on a plane to Jakarta with his thighs pressed too close to his then-rival’s (best friend, he admits now, four years older and much more mature), the world was composed of one football, twenty-two people, a referee - was one-hundred and five metres long and sixty-eight metres wide, and otherwise empty. He knows now that life is larger than that, that life includes, but is not limited to: expensive food in some cottage in the south of France, straining his ankle after tripping on uneven pavement, his big brother’s wedding in spring-warm Australia, as well as the football from when he was seventeen.

Eerily enough, life now is reflective of itself four years ago, except instead of being on a plane to Jakarta, he’s on a plane to Tokyo, and instead of his thighs pressed too close to those of Yoichi Isagi, they’re squished into the space remaining next to one aggressively manspreading Tabito Karasu. He’s saying something about Otoya, how he managed to be on the same layover flight as Bachira despite coming from different Spanish airports, and Rin is halfway listening, because he’s with Karasu enough to have deemed him worthy of a fraction of his attention. He’s arguably more focused on the news article he has downloaded onto his phone, which he’s read a grand total of seven times over the something like nine hours they’ve been in the air. It reads, clear as day in bold, italicised lettering: 

Yoichi Isagi Rumoured To Be Captaining Japan’s World Cup Team After Uninterrupted Victory In Bundesliga

“Seriously, that again?” asks Karasu, peering over his shoulder like the undignified heathen he is. Rin sighs, shutting off his phone and tucking it in his pocket. He doesn’t even have to look to know that Karasu’s staring at him, one eyebrow raised, judgemental, knowing. Resolutely, he uncaps his bottle of water, dodging the pressurised fizz of liquid it releases, and takes a sip, pointedly ignoring Karasu. “Stop ignorin’ me, Rinnie,” says the aforementioned seatmate, nudging him in the shoulder. Even after so long in France, he still hasn’t lost his stupid Kansai accent. It lilts in the way he speaks, even though they only ever speak Japanese between each other, not quite heavy but not unnoticeable either. “Ya know that’s just speculation. Y’know what Ego’s like, he doesn’t tell us shit ‘til it’s about’ta happen.”

Rin’s spent enough time around Karasu in the last four years to know that he’s not wrong. Karasu’s also mellowed out - no less insufferable to be around, but somehow he’s also wiser, better at getting a read on people. Horrifyingly, in the time that they’ve spent together at Paris X Gen, Karasu has gotten much, much better at getting a read on Rin in particular. He’d pick out Rin’s nervous ticks, his awkward habits, and highlight them in dark charcoal. He does, however, know how to soothe them - he acknowledges the nervous spiralling and restates what should’ve been obvious, and Rin tries his best to stop picking at the skin around his fingernails.

“But we all agree he’s getting captain, right?” says Rin, resisting the urge to reopen his phone. 

“Eita, Hiori and Yukki say so,” Karasu grumbles after a moment, leaning back into his chair. “I mean, though, it’s Isagi, right? Shit, man, the guy won Blue Lock, and now he’s tearin’ up the German leagues. If anyone deserves it, it’s him.”

Rin scoffs low in his throat. Karasu’s right, of course - each Blue Lock alumnus is successful, hugely so, with the exception of maybe the bald guy who was on Kunigami’s team in the first selection, but Isagi has the most prolific career of them all. It would surprise absolutely no-one, Rin included (as much as he hates to admit it), if Isagi received captaincy for the World Cup team. It feels like every time Rin opens Twitter, somebody’s singing the praises of one Yoichi Isagi and his most recent monstrous goal for Bastard München or the last competition he’s unequivocally dominated.

Over the years, Rin has tried incredibly, unusually hard to hate Isagi for it. Every time, he fails miserably.

“When was the last time y’even spoke to Isagi, Rinnie?” Karasu asks, relaxed, as if that wasn’t the most loaded question he could’ve possibly given him.

“Four years ago,” responds Rin shortly. “After we won the U20s.”

“Wait, seriously? That long ago? He always tries to keep in contact with me! Y’know he asks me about ya?” rattles Karasu on, and at this point in the conversation, Rin is perfectly content to go back to tuning him out and rereading the article.

In a move that surprises nobody who’s in the loop with German football, Japanese-born striker Yoichi Isagi has once again led Bastard München to victory in the finals of the Bundesliga, taking the prestigious cup’s title for himself and his team. With skills cultivated in Jinpachi Ego’s infamous training program Blue Lock, Isagi has, time and time again, stunned the world with his incredible playmaking and striking ability, surpassing even the greatest members of the New Generation World XI.

Now, Isagi informs the world of his plans to return to Japan in June to represent the country in this year’s upcoming PIFA World Cup in early July, taking a break from Bastard München and European football to train with his home teammates to “hopefully win Japan its first World Cup trophy!”. Isagi’s, and Japan’s, previous massive success in the U20 PIFA World Cup four years ago has shown the world head coach Ego’s plans for the national team, formed primarily of members from the Blue Lock Project of five years ago, likely to include iconic players such as Paris X Gen’s Rin Itoshi and FC Barcha’s Meguru Bachira, as well as Rensuke Kunigami of the Kawasaki Breakerz.

Rumours have begun to circle the Internet concerning Isagi’s role in Japan’s national team, with a great many betting on Isagi’s allocation to the captain role in the coming months. Jinpachi Ego and the Japan Football Union will likely release the team roster to the public approximately a month prior to the opening ceremony of this year’s World Cup, leaving football fans globally waiting with bated breath to witness the incredible talent that Japan promises to bring to the table. Japan’s victory in the U20 World Cup four years ago has set high expectations for the country’s players, and the entire nation seems to be wishing the team luck and success in the tournament.

In recent years, Rin’s relationship with Isagi, if it can be called that, has been strained at best. From the start, their chemistry had been unmatched - Isagi was the only person in Blue Lock who could keep up with Rin’s brain and movements, and Rin was the only one that Isagi seemed to truly want to chase. He admits he spent time high off it, high off the way Isagi relentlessly pursued him, hand unconditionally stretched towards Rin’s back. The Neo Egoist League marked the finish line of that chase, with Isagi slamming the final goal into the net with Alexis Ness behind him, leaving Rin in the dust, chest heaving onto the astroturf beneath his feet.

At the time, Rin hadn’t hated the feeling. It’d been gratifying, strangely enough, a combination of some deep-rooted hatred for Michael Kaiser, a joy over the look of sheer, despairing loss on said German’s face, and a dopamine shot straight to the heart over the expression of adrenaline-drunk jubilance on Isagi’s face as he smashed into Ness’s chest and wrapped his arms around him, screaming as if his life was laid on the ground underneath him. Rin had felt drugged, out of his own body, floating above his head, hardly mourning the first loss of his football career after Sae had left his dreams in tatters. For once, a loss didn’t stoke the curling flames of rage in his stomach - only let the rest of him burn, searing marks into the pitch where his legs dug into the grass.

He’d only become closer to Isagi after that. When he called him lukewarm, he didn’t mean it, and each time he called him a loser, it was a lie that sat like a stone underneath his tongue. The affection he’d cultivated for Isagi was a double-edged sword, because every time Isagi spotted him while lifting or passed him a bottle of water from the pair he always took with him to the gym (knowing that Rin never brought one of his own?), it set his heart racing like a jackhammer and turned his arms to liquid. He’d bore with it, lingered with the idea of waiting it out as if it were a silly teenage infatuation, hesitated as Isagi grew more and more notorious, both within Blue Lock and in the outside world.

And then the U20 World Cup happened, and Rin had done a magnificent job in destroying his carefully-constructed façade of indifference to Isagi. Isagi was on par with him now, a veritable football genius, making play after play that Rin could never have even dreamt of. They’d torn through every match, ripped through opposing teams with reckless, adolescence-fueled abandon, all the way to the finals. Italy had been a ferocious opponent, and Rin recalls seeing a rare display of nerves out of Ego during half-time when they were down a point. They’d won, though, by the skin of their teeth in the game’s last fifteen seconds, with the most painfully-average direct shot from Isagi that he’s still not completely sure how the goalkeeper missed.

They’d celebrated like it was their last moment on Earth that day. The five minutes after the goal is still a complete blur to Rin, but he remembers grinning so wide his cheeks throbbed and drowning himself in the bodies of his teammates. He’d hugged everyone he could see, all of them screaming in tandem. He remembers gripping onto Nagi’s - Nagi’s - sweat-drenched jersey like a lifeline, laughing and yelling with him as they tripped over their own exhausted feet to get to Isagi, collapsed on the green. Rin hadn’t been thinking, only moving, his limbs going faster than his brain. He didn’t think as he grabbed Isagi by the jaw, index fingers lingering at his earlobes, didn’t think as he pressed his forehead down, didn’t think as he stared at the smooth, wet rounds of Isagi’s lips, didn’t think until he looked up and saw his eyes, glittering and victorious and anticipatory , gazing at Rin’s mouth himself.

He’d stopped himself then. Pulled away, dropped Isagi’s face, backed off to balance on his ankles and let Hiori sweep him into a choking embrace. Rin didn’t miss the look of raw, vulnerable disappointment that flashed across Isagi’s face, but he forced himself to ignore it, burying himself in Hiori’s shoulder and laughing like a man possessed.

Four years ago, at seventeen years old, on a random, meaningless pitch in Jakarta, Indonesia, Rin Itoshi tried to kiss Yoichi Isagi for the first time, and instantly hated himself for it. Four years ago, at seventeen years old, he had run away to France, torn himself away from the memory of Isagi’s mouth barely a breath away from his, blocked his number and changed his own. Four years ago, at seventeen years old, Rin Itoshi had played a part in winning the U20 World Cup, and all he remembers is the boy he couldn’t bring himself to kiss.

They land in Tokyo’s Narita Airport four or five hours later, yawning and groggy off the back of half a day being tossed around in turbulence far too intense for Rin’s preference. Karasu had received a message from Otoya almost immediately after landing, very crudely informing him that there was a group waiting for them at arrivals, and to “hurry their asses up before they got bored and left”, so they stumble down through baggage claim on plane-cramped legs, Karasu’s arm around Rin’s shoulders as the younger drags both of their suitcases. This many years into their friendship, Rin doesn’t mind the contact too much, the weight of it subtly working at the knot of muscle at the base of his neck.

Rin yearns for his yoga mat and a solid wall. Plane rides always stress his limbs in a way that other transport doesn’t, and the first thing he does after any flight is stretch out his body, long and thorough, contorting himself neatly into positions that uncurl the stiffness in his joints. He receives no such opportunity today, because Blue Lock is two hours away by taxi and there is no room to stretch in a car, nor will Karasu, Otoya and whoever else may be there wait for him to spend an hour in the airport’s quiet rooms doing yoga. It’s why Rin tends to travel alone, so he can spend as long as he wants on meticulous, precise self-care without disrupting the lives of anyone else. The World Cup, however, doesn’t care about Rin’s personal philosophies, and neither do his teammates.

They’re met at the arrival gates by a relatively small group, all things considered. Karasu leaps for Otoya the moment he spots him, ditching Rin to drag their bags over like some sort of slave. People are stopping to watch, having recognised the famous strikers of Blue Lock, filming Karasu and Otoya giggling at each other like children with intrigued expressions. Rin rubs an eye with the back of his hand, exasperated and exhausted, and looks up to see one Reo Mikage doing the same with his free one. The other is gently entwined with that of Seishirou Nagi, who observes their messy group curiously, one eye on his flashing phone that’s angled halfway out of his pocket. Kenyuu Yukimiya stands at his shoulder, affectionately watching the reunited pair.

“Rin!” greets Reo softly, waving him over. Rin blinks, nodding his head in acknowledgement and making towards the trio. He’s seen Reo and Nagi a few times in the last four years in matches against Manshine City, and they’re as publicly affectionate as ever. Both of them have aged since the U20s - Reo’s solidified, grown into a stockiness that his body only hinted at during Blue Lock, and Nagi appears to have gotten even taller, to Rin’s utter chagrin. He notices something new, though, something he hadn’t anticipated just yet - in the corner of his vision, his eye catches on the glimmering silver band that sits comfortably on Reo’s ring finger.

“Reo,” responds Rin, glancing pointedly downwards at his hand, which is raised amicably for a high five. He obliges reluctantly, then piques an eyebrow in interest.

“Keep it quiet,” says the man in question, smiling despite himself. “Seishirou doesn’t really care, but I’m not particularly sure I want the entire world to know about it just yet.”

“The World Cup is televised,” Rin reminds him. “There’s going to be speculation all over the place.”

“Rings under gloves. Duh,” mutters Nagi from Reo’s other side, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“Right,” he hums, not quite believing him. “Congratulations, though. Nagi or Mikage?”

“Nagi,” murmurs Reo. Rin looks downwards to the pair’s intertwined hands just in time to see Nagi’s fingers tighten minutely from where they’re wrapped around his husband’s, tensing protectively. The rush of envy that floods Rin blindsides him - directed at what, towards whom, he’s not sure (despite the cruel voice in his ear whispering Isagi’s name). “I didn’t want to drag Seishirou into the mess that my family is.” Nagi grunts at that, nondescript, but Reo seems to understand what he’s saying, if his affectionate smile is anything to go off.

“Congratulations to the both of you,” says Yukimiya, coming up from Nagi’s right to involve himself in the conversation. “And welcome back, Rin.”

“Thank you, Yukimiya.” Rin nods his head in gratitude. Rooming with Yukimiya during the third selection let Rin garner a lot of respect for the striker - he was neat with his space, and ensured that Nagi maintained his own as best as he could in the absence of Reo to regulate his daily activities. Nagi seems to have improved in that regard, though, judging by the lack of phone in his hand and the vague attention he’s been paying to the conversation in front of him. With a sharp gesture, Yukimiya beckons Karasu and Otoya over from where they’re standing, and Rin proffers the former’s suitcase to him, eager to get rid of it after having dragged it behind him since they picked up their baggage at the claim.

“Wait, Eita, where’s Bachira? Weren’t ’cha on the same transfer flight?” asks Karasu, accepting his bag from Rin.

“Yeah, Bachira left with Isagi earlier. Kunigami was here too, but he left with Chigiri when he landed with Reo and Nagi - the four of them went off together,” explains Yukimiya.

“Egoist Four,” scoffs Reo, shifting his suitcase closer to his hip. “Always running off without the rest of us.”

“They’ve prob’ly gone ta train or some shit,” Karasu grumbles. “Monsters, the lotta ‘em.”

“Can’t let them get ahead!” trills Otoya, shoving Karasu in the shoulder in a way that indicates for him to shake off the grogginess of their long flight. “C’mon, c’mon, let’s go.” He bounces off towards the exit, Karasu right behind him, the two of them laughing like maniacs. The four of them left behind follow suit, and Rin is distinctly aware of the plethora of odd looks their group is now gathering. He’s not particularly inclined to associate with some of these idiots outside of just football, but from the giggling arising from the crowd and steadily-increasing phones raised in the air to film their activities, it seems to be inevitable.

“How do you even put up with Karasu every day?” mutters Nagi unhappily.

Rin sighs, drawing the breath from his stomach, low and exhausted. “He’s normal usually,” he admits, a smidgeon of regret at his closeness with Karasu colouring his tone. “I honestly think it’s Otoya’s influence more than anything.” Nagi hums, slumping slightly into Reo, who wraps an arm delicately around his shoulder and tugs him closer. It sets a small, nauseous whirlpool into motion in the base of Rin’s throat, whirring and heating just enough to be uncomfortable. Nagi and Reo touch each other like it’s casual, like it’s an everyday motion that comes just as easy as breathing. A certain jealousy settles deep into his shoulders, weighing on his joints and dragging his aching body down with it.

God, Rin really misses his yoga mat right now.

The concrete jungle of Blue Lock is just as much of an eyesore as it was five years ago, and Rin is very loudly reminded of this fact as his vision fills with the towering pentagonal walls of the facility. Every so often, he wonders to himself how he lived in that literal prison for so long, surviving on shitty cafeteria food and breaking his back on Ego’s mass-produced futons before he bought himself a bed with his numerous goal points. They’re lucky enough to have earned actual humane treatment, having graduated from the program so to speak, but the facility seems to be their consistent meeting spot whenever there’s an international competition that requires attention.

According to the email Ego sent out last month, they were all to meet a week before the opening ceremony of the World Cup in the main Blue Lock facility, to get reacquainted with each other’s playstyles and to calculate specific countermeasures as the initial lineups for the knockouts were released. Rin’s not too fussed about needing to get used to everyone in the team again - he doesn’t particularly enjoy linking up with the more lukewarm members of the team, but he’ll do it if need be, and he’ll adapt where he must. His primary goal, as always, is to simply dominate the field - articulate his own presence, draw the spotlight on himself at centre stage, and humiliate any team that dares to step out of their own lane and into his way.

The universe, unfortunately, has other plans for him, and their group is greeted at the door by a horde of familiar faces, approximately none of whom that Rin wants to interact with right now. In an ideal world, he’ll retreat to the training room he claimed for himself way back when, stretch out each and every one of his locked joints, take a brief nap to re-energize, and only then will he deign to attend Ego’s over-meticulous briefing meeting. Despite his prayers, Teieri Anri meets the six of them as they clamber out of their taxis. Rin’s just spent the last two hours third-wheeling the Nagis, and the last thing he wants to do is spend another thirty minutes dragging himself bodily through greetings with people he hardly even remembers.

Luckily enough, Jinpachi Ego parts the crowd of stocky pro athletes like some sort of religious figurehead, forcing his way to the front of the group to put himself in the spotlight, preventing anyone from coming up and bothering Rin when he’d rather die than go through one more social interaction. He’s still unsettlingly tall, standing gangly even over people like Nagi, and a gust of wind rustles through his hair, lifting the strands and making him seem bigger, more imposing. Rin understands the art of body language and positioning, and he’s confident that Ego does too - every aspect of Blue Lock and his assembled athletes is gradually manipulated to fit his mental image, actions guided by pointed metaphors and playstyles shaped by directive ideas that, to the untrained eye, seem subjectively interpretable, but are actually one-way streets to Ego’s end result.

“Hello, my unpolished gems,” he greets, voice rough around the edges, as if he hasn’t slept in weeks and is surviving solely off coffee. In all honesty, Rin wouldn’t be shocked if he was. “Welcome back to Blue Lock. Nostalgic yet?”

Murmurs of assent or dissent ripple through the crowd, and Rin huffs. He’d rather be anywhere but here, but, as much as he hates to admit it, Blue Lock was essential in cultivating the ego Rin had buried deep under bitterness and hatred for his brother. He can spot Sae in the crowd, pressed up close to Ryuusei (first name, because he unfortunately took up Sae’s family name when they married, and Rin absolutely fucking refuses to call him Itoshi) and listening intently to Ego’s words. 

“You will spend the next week doing intense physical and mental training in preparation for the upcoming PIFA World Cup in Pakistan. Whatever preconceptions you have about it being at all similar in difficulty to the U20s, trash them. The World Cup is on a completely different level, and you and your training will all be treated as such.” There’s a general unhappy grumble, interspersed with a few sceptical scoffs, and Ego levels a heavy glare over the crowd. “If you handled this training in your teens, you’ll all be fine in adulthood. If you don’t think you’re equipped for this, feel free to lock off. Same rules still apply.” He waves a hand towards the assembly, dismissive and unbothered.

Rin can’t help but laugh to himself at that - Ego’s attitude and blatant dislike for slackers is refreshing. It’s rare that one finds a coach so willing to rip into his players, both mentally and physically, and it itches a little part of Rin’s brain that prefers constant pushing and pressure towards his own improvement. If asked, he would never say he enjoyed Blue Lock - it was essentially a glorified term of imprisonment, with his punishment being extended service to football itself. However, he would admit that he enjoyed Ego’s method of coaching - it was harsh and annoying and the stakes were through the roof, but it worked, and he’d somehow managed to convert three hundred self-absorbed teenagers into a streamlined group of twenty-three highly-trained athletes perfectly equipped to dismantle any competition that stood in their way. Admittedly, he talks a lot, but his words are wise and well-thought-out, and the way that he speaks is as encouraging as you can get when speaking to a group of professional football idiots.

“You can find your assigned rooms on the maps on the walls,” adds Anri when Ego takes a brief pause from the monologue that Rin’s been tuning out for the past few minutes. She seems tense, voice laced with determination. It’s understandable - this has been Anri’s goal since the beginning. The U20s were ultimately just a stepping stone on her pathway to taking Japan to the top of the World Cup, and while all twenty-three athletes present have spent the last four years focusing on their personal careers, Anri and Ego have worked tirelessly to ensure that the Japanese national team was in the best state it could possibly be in for this year’s World Cup.

“Now, before you all disperse, my diamonds in the rough, I’d like to announce the leading roles for this year’s national team, based on my arbitrary and biased decision-making,” announces Ego coolly, scanning the crowd once more. Rin doesn’t miss the furtive look that Karasu shoots at him, and he folds his arms in response, sending back a glare which he hopes his teammate loosely interprets as ‘keep your mouth shut or else I’ll rip your tongue out’. Judging by the mildly horrified stare he receives in reply, Karasu gets the message.

“In the role of vice-captain, Sae Itoshi,” declares Ego. He holds out a jersey, emblazoned with a dark blue number two on the back and his older brother’s first name, and Sae weaves through the crowd to receive it, sending a grateful nod to the clapping crowd. Rin pats him on the back as he walks by, and Sae shoulder-checks him in response, nudging him with a small smile.

“In the role of team captain, Yoichi Isagi,” follows Ego - to nobody’s surprise - and Isagi flushes a dark red, making his way up towards their coach. Bachira claps him loudly on the back as he goes, whooping once and earning himself an elbow to the skull from Chigiri. The team begins enthusiastically applauding, and Rin begrudgingly joins them - Isagi has earned his role, and he doesn’t doubt for a second that he’ll do an excellent job. It’s just tinged with bitterness, remnants of Rin’s desire to have Isagi at his side, a desire that gets whisked into nothingness the moment that Isagi accepts his jersey, a one starkly underscored in an indication of captaincy, from Ego’s outstretched hand. The cheers intensify, and Rin watches as Isagi scans their assembly, smiling in an excited way that’s reminiscent of the last moment of half-time in the U20’s Italy match.

They’re dismissed after that, having been told that each member will find their complete kits in their rooms. The crowd disperses, wandering off in groups of reuniting friends. Karasu has once again trotted off with Otoya, and this time, Yukimiya as well, and Rin can see Chigiri in his peripherals speaking to Kunigami and pointing towards the hallway that leads to their dorms. He’s about to set off himself, wanting to unpack his yoga mat as soon as possible, but he’s approached by the last two people he wants to speak with at that moment.

“Rinrin!” cheers Bachira, planting his hands on his shoulders and using him as leverage to jump up into the air. “I haven’t seen you in ages! How are you? Karasu told me you’ve been crushing the French leagues!”

“Of course I have,” deadpans Rin. “Have you opened a sports news site in the last four years?” He’s about to shake Bachira off when he catches sight of his companion - Yoichi Isagi stands in front of Rin, and he looks older, more assertive, more present. He’s seen Isagi in pictures, of course - he’s plastered all over football news sites, all over adverts in stadiums, and if there’s ever a conversation about German sport, it’s almost a guarantee that Isagi will be brought up at least once. It’s different seeing him in person - at twenty-two years old, Isagi looks wiser, more mature. His jawline is more solid, and his eyes hold more weight. His gaze is assessing, and he looks at Rin like he’s trying to pick him apart and find what he’s missed these last four years.

“Rin,” Isagi greets him. His voice is quieter, but it’s got more presence to it - Rin never thought he’d say this about Yoichi Isagi, of all people, but his voice demands attention now, and Isagi is a far cry from the tepid striker with zero field influence he was at seventeen. “It’s been a while,” he says, and what an understatement, because Rin was the one that blocked his number and vehemently ignored any attempts at indirect communication. “How are you?”

“Well, thank you. And yourself?” Rin replies, because if Isagi’s ignoring the elephant in the room, so is he. If growing up the younger brother taught him anything, it’s how to be petty.

“You look well,” responds Isagi, nodding. “I’m alright myself, thanks.”

The conversation tapers off into an awkward silence, and before long, Bachira is looking between the two of them with a confused expression on his face. “What the fuck? Normally the two of you are cussing up a storm right now, vowing to devour each other or some weird shit like that!” He pokes Rin in the stomach. “C’mon, I wanted some fun! Why’re you being boring?”

“Boring?!” splutters Isagi, cool demeanour gone in a flash. “Meguru, I’m- we’re not here for your entertainment, dude!”

“When it’s you and Rinrin, you absolutely are here for my entertainment,” snorts Bachira. “Did you see yourselves way back when? You were always all up in each other’s business, like,” - he puts on a gruff tone, likely a poor mockery of Rin - “Hah, Isagi, you’ll never be on my level. You’ll always just be a lukewarm striker, chasing after my shadow - go die! And then Isagi would always be like,” - he switches to a softer voice, but no less assertive - “Oh, shut it, Rin. I’ll beat you someday and become the best striker in the world! Fuck you!”

“I do not sound like that,” says Rin after a beat of silence.

Bachira bursts into laughter. “Maybe not anymore, but you totally were like that in Blue Lock! But you guys are boring now, so I’m leaving. Bye!” Without another word, he bolts away in the direction of Chigiri and Kunigami’s retreating forms, leaving Rin alone with Isagi.

“Um,” opens Isagi, eloquently.

“I do not want to have this conversation right now,” Rin mutters, kicking the body of his suitcase away from him to open up the handle. “I don’t want to have this conversation ever. Leave me alone. I’m going to stretch.” He manages to get about two steps away when Isagi’s hand curls around his wrist and doesn’t budge. He’s gotten stronger since Blue Lock - Rin used to out-lift him any day of the week, but it seems he’s been spending more time on weights, and it’s paying off.

“Rin, you’ve had me blocked on everything for four years. You heard Meguru - we were inseparable during Blue Lock. What the fuck happened?”

“That is just not at all what he said,” Rin says blankly. “We spent the vast majority of Blue Lock tossing death threats at each other - that is the genuine opposite of inseparable.”

“ You threw death threats at me ,” rebuffs Isagi. “And are we ignoring how you tried to kiss me after the U20 finals? What was that? We could’ve, I don’t know, talked about it, instead of you blocking me on everything? Are you that scared of rejection?”

Isagi’s grip on his wrist is iron now, and Rin’s skin feels like it’s on fire from every point of contact. He wrenches his hand out of Isagi’s hold, spitting out a forceful “I said we are not having this conversation right now!” as he tears his arm back into his own body. A flash of hurt crosses Isagi’s face, and nausea washes over Rin almost instantly. The similarity of that face to the expression he made four years ago - it’s sickening, and confronting, and Rin wants to simultaneously run away and wipe the look off his face forever.

“You cannot be serious,” hisses Isagi, tone bitter and pained. “You think we’re gonna be able to play properly with you acting like this? Get your fucking act together, Rin, this is the World Cup. We are winning this. Get off your high horse.”

“Why do you care so much?” yells Rin. He thanks whatever higher power is up there that the parking lot is empty, because his tone is sharper and rougher than he’d prefer, and though he’s never cared very much about his teammates’ opinions of him, he’s generally not the same angry teenager he used to be, and he wants them to know that - a screaming match with Isagi does everything but prove that. “We haven’t spoken in four years, and what happened at the finals-” he swallows thickly - “What happened at the finals was a mistake.”

“No it wasn’t,” murmurs Isagi. “We both know it wasn’t. We both know what your intent was.” He forces eye contact, and his gaze is searing. Isagi’s eyes feel like they’re flaming, a quiet, subtle rage that swallows Rin whole and leaves him to roil. “I care about you, Rin. I never stopped trying to contact you, if that matters. I still want to talk about it, but if it’s gonna make you angry at me for the entire tournament, that won’t work out well on either front. We’ll talk afterwards, but you have to get your shit together, or this will be over before it even starts. Understand?” Isagi’s hand is fisted in Rin’s shirt, something he hadn’t noticed before now. His face is dangerously close to his own, so close that he can pick out the barely-there freckles that adorn his skin and the light flush from anger that colours him, and that fact overwhelms him so forcefully that he has to step back from Isagi and breathe out a lungful of air he didn’t realise he was holding.

“Fine,” he mutters, looking away. His lungs feel like they’re full of tar, and his bones ache for some unknown reason, and all he can think about is how badly he needs to find his big brother and ask him why he feels like this.

Suddenly, yoga doesn’t feel so important any more.

As expected, Rin meshes just as well with Isagi as they did four years ago. Isagi is better now than he was, having spent his time in Bastard München being pushed to his limits by Michael Kaiser. His spatial awareness is flawless, as good as Rin’s, and he’s picked up considerably in his dribbling technique. He remembers reading something on some news site about how Isagi and Alexis Ness had built up a strong friendship, and that Ness had spent a while helping Isagi improve with dribbling. Something in him twinges, vaguely jealous, but he shakes it off and hones his focus on the football in front of him, casting his eyes through the fray of voices and bodies on the pitch. 

Isagi is to his left, slightly behind him, marked closely by Hiori. Reo is in front of him, and could function as an effective transfer point when Raichi inevitably closes in on Rin’s stronger right. He passes forwards, watching the ball arc through the air and get cleanly picked up by Reo’s chest in a tidy trap, from which it lands at his feet. He presses it down the pitch, and Rin notices Chigiri snaking through Reo’s blind spot in an attempt to steal. Isagi cries out in warning, and Reo kicks back on his heel at the last possible second, flicking the ball backwards towards Kurona, who immediately moves to set up a one-two with their captain. Rin side-steps Raichi and sprints up the pitch to meet Isagi, who receives a neat pass from Kurona and takes it further upwards. 

With a yell from Karasu, Kunigami barrels towards Isagi, and Rin senses his next actions before they happen, moving to position himself exactly where Isagi wants him to be before he even pays it a second thought. He traps the pass he’s sent, and just as Karasu and Otoya move in towards the goal and Gagamaru braces for the shot, he winds his leg back and shoots, watching the ball slam into the net with a satisfying whirr as the fabric kills its spin. Cheers ring out across the field, and Rin spots Isagi hesitantly approaching him, arm raised for a high-five.

“Nice one, genius,” he offers with a smile. Rin returns the high-five, if only to watch the expression on Isagi’s face grow happier.

“Jeez, Rin, didn’t know they taught you how to pass at PXG!” exclaims Reo, coming up from behind and clapping Rin on the back. “Thanks for that one. Seishirou’s been helping me work on my trapping.”

“You’re getting loads better, Reo,” calls Nagi from where he’s sitting on the sidelines. They’re in the middle of a practice match, eleven versus eleven, with the twenty-third sitting out and substituting in after every goal. Unsurprisingly, Nagi was the first to volunteer, ever lazy, but the kid with the hair that looks like a bush and barely qualifies for the actual league wanders over and tags him in, bringing Nagi onto the opposing team. He stands up, stretching each leg twice and mock-glaring at Reo. “Gonna beat you now, though.”

“I’d like to see you try,” snickers Reo, backing up to his starting position.

“Gross, stop flirtin’!” trills Hiori. “No PDA in the middle of a match, ya lovebirds!”

Isagi giggles at that, and Rin doesn’t miss the way he glances up at him, quick and furtive. He looks away just as quickly, though, and makes back to their half, beckoning for Rin to follow. Playing with Isagi feels just as good as it always did, a pleasant concoction of anxiety, confidence, jealousy and anger bubbling up in his throat. There’s always been a chase between them, distorted and attractive, whether it be Isagi pursuing Rin or Rin running up to linger just behind each of Isagi’s successes. They surpass each other rhythmically, each achievement giving one a leg up before the other approaches with something new to devour it with. It’s beautiful in an ugly sort of way, tinged with Rin’s bitter self-hatred and Isagi’s plethora of esteem-killing losses under his belt from when they were teens.

And so it goes. They play, they score, they devour the entire field. Each teammate falls to their hunger, and they are exactly, perfectly unbeatable. Aiku had told him once, after an international match in Italy, that he genuinely believed that Isagi was the final puzzle piece to Rin’s success and vice versa, in what he now recognises as a bid on Isagi’s part to get Rin to speak to him again. He sees now how correct Aiku was - every minute movement of the ball is followed by Isagi, in Rin’s possession or not, and he’s the only one immune to his puppetry, the only agent that he can’t quite predict.

“Oi, Rin, get over here!” barks Isagi, one foot on the ball. His smile is small but blinding, and Rin resists the urge to cover his eyes as he approaches.

Yeah, they’ll be fine for the tournament.

Four days later and they’re in Karachi, Pakistan. The early July heat is sweltering, completely different to what Rin is used to in Tokyo or Paris. The entire team seems exhausted by the heat, to the shock of absolutely no one. Rin’s shirt is drenched with sweat as he runs warm-up laps down the length of the People’s Football Stadium, and those who aren’t on the starting team have overarchingly chosen to forgo the insulating jackets meant to keep them warm off the bench. 

They’re preparing for the first match of the World Cup, against Poland. They’re likely going to be suffering just as much in the Pakistani heat as the rest of them, if not moreso, so their disadvantage is thankfully negated. Each team is warming up in their individual halves, and the Polish team is eyeing them suspiciously. Many of its players were regulars on the U20 team, and Rin vaguely remembers calling one or two of them a few choice words after Isagi was accidentally (on purpose) elbowed in the face just sneakily enough that they didn’t score a foul. 

Isagi, Hiori and Kurona are swapping passes between themselves while simultaneously dodging the balls tossed around by Barou and Raichi, who are attempting to beat each other in goals scored in a one-minute time slot against Gagamaru. Their screaming can be heard from the halfway line, down which Rin is currently jogging, and he rolls his eyes exasperatedly. He’ll run one more half-lap, then head to the sidelines and stretch with Reo, who agreed to help him with some leg moves that required another person. He’s not particularly fussed about this match - Poland was a pretty easy match-up in the U20s, and Rin’s improved massively since - as has the rest of the team. The Polish guys, unfortunately, seem to have improved as well - they’re bigger and stockier than Rin remembers. Maybe it’s just a cultural thing, because apparently, by international standards, their team doesn’t have much visible muscle, with the exception of Kunigami, Barou, and occasionally Tokimitsu, whose bodies can definitely be likened to weaponry.

“Yo, Rinnie. Got a second?” asks someone, coming up behind him. He can tell from the accent almost immediately that it’s Karasu, and he slows to a brisk walk to allow him to catch up before returning to a jog. “You'n Isagi chatted, right? Hiori said he heard you two yellin’ at each other outside Blue Lock the other day.”

“Chatted is an understatement,” scoffs Rin, picking up the pace. “But yes, we spoke. Briefly.”

“What’d’ya talk about?”

“He just asked why I hadn’t spoken to him since the U20s, I told him I didn’t want to talk about it, he told me to get my shit together - nothing interesting, you tepid little gossip,” Rin explains.

“Wait, seriously? Man, with the way Hiori described it, I’d’a thought you two’d, like, let out years of pent-up frustration, if yer pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down.” Karasu elbows him, wiggling his eyebrows and smirking.

“Ew. No. Gross. We’re not like that,” Rin says with a grimace.

“Totally, man. Y’ve been performin’ pretty well in trainin’, though, so I’m not particularly fussed. Just makin’ sure my favourite teammate’s gonna be alright,” trills Karasu.

“Otoya and Yukimiya are your favourite teammates,” deadpans Rin, and Karasu seemingly can’t hold back a laugh at that. He runs off, still cackling, and Rin watches him go. He’s approaching the end of his last lap, so he slows himself down and feels the astroturf scrape against the bottom of his cleats. The fake grass is the same here. The pitch is the same size. There’s still going to be twenty-two people on the field, and the rules will be exactly the same as they have been in every other World Cup Rin has watched. No matter how many times he repeats straight, undeniable facts in his head, though, his jitters don’t clear up, which is strange in and of itself - Rin doesn’t get pre-match jitters.

“Ready to play again?” says Reo, walking up next to him and dropping into a lunge. Rin hastily mirrors the action, ignoring the shake in his calves and the buzz in the back of his head. 

“Hm,” he responds elegantly.

“Nervous?” Reo checks, peering at him curiously. “I didn’t think you could do that.”

“Fuck off,” Rin mutters, but there’s no real bite to it. “It’s just because this is the World Cup. It’s important. I don’t get nervous. Getting nervous is for lukewarm strikers with no talent.”

“Everyone gets nervous,” rebuts Reo, laughing to himself. “I used to think I didn’t get nervous either, but then the U20s happened, and then my wedding happened, and both of those times I was so nervous I thought I was gonna throw up.”

The arena is starting to fill up now, flooding with fans emblazoned with Japanese flags and gaudy signage. Rin scans the quickly assembling crowd with something akin to interest, and Reo dons his signature blinding grin, waving at the people in the stands. A girlish scream emanates outwards, and Rin cringes. Growing up rich and famous means that Reo’s customer-service grin, as Nagi calls it, is megawatt, and Rin counts himself lucky he doesn’t have to suffer through it very often. 

“My point is, Rin,” continues Reo, dropping his smile and coaxing him into the next stretch, tucking one hand around Rin’s right knee and lifting it, pressing the heel of his other palm into his ankle. “That you’re going to get nervous. This is the World Cup, something we’ve all spent the last forever gunning towards. I’d be more worried if you weren’t nervous.”

“I don’t get jittery,” says Rin, but even as he says it, he knows it comes out pathetic and whiny. Reo treats him as such, flicking him on the forehead.

“Stop being bitchy,” he sings, leaning more weight into Rin’s leg stretch. He hisses with the extra pressure, and Reo laughs and lets up slightly. The stadium is practically full now, packing quickly in the two minutes or so they’ve been speaking, and the noise is rapidly becoming overwhelming. He’s shooting panicked glances at Sae, practically begging his big brother to get the message and come help him out with his eyes, when Isagi approaches him from the front, bending down to one knee in front of Rin.

“It’s loud,” he says, getting close to Rin’s ear and lowering his voice. It feels almost intimate, Isagi’s subtle acknowledgement.

“Mm,” mumbles Rin in response. Isagi chuckles softly, and cups one hand around each of Rin’s ears, pressing gently into the cartilage beneath his earlobes. His touch is delicate and gentle, but it blocks out some of the incoming noise from the mess of the stadium, and Rin draws in a deep, long breath, filling his lungs completely before exhaling slowly. His mind is gradually becoming his own, his limbs less itchy and brain calming down. 

“I thought that’d work,” hums Isagi, contemplative. “It worked back before the finals.”

“I wasn’t nervous before the finals,” Rin spits, but he can’t muster any malice behind it. 

“You were,” comments Reo. Rin had almost forgotten he was there - if it weren’t for the stretch in his shooting leg and the pressure on his ankle, Rin would’ve melted completely into Isagi’s soothing touch. “Nice one, captain. No idea how the hell you remembered that worked, though. It’s been forever.”

Isagi laughs awkwardly, moving his hands away from Rin’s ears. He almost misses the touch. His jitters have mostly faded, changing instead into a dull thrum in his joints that propel him to move forward. “That’s just the kind of thing I remember, I guess. I don’t think I could forget if I tried.”

The look on Reo’s face is mildly sceptical, but he smiles regardless. “Well, it worked. He’s had a wonky expression on his face for the entire time he was jogging.”

“Stop talking about me like I’m not here,” Rin huffs. “And what do you mean wonky?”

“Why do you think Karasu came up to you, dude?” asks Isagi, piquing an eyebrow. “You were making this weird face. You looked kinda constipated or something.”

Reo smacks him upside the head. “Don’t tell him that,” he hisses, but he’s trying not to laugh, and Rin furrows his eyebrows.

Just as he’s about to respond, a whistle sounds across the stadium, and Anri starts loudly beckoning people over. Isagi gets to his feet, and Reo lets go of Rin’s leg, letting it drop unceremoniously onto the astroturf. Rin huffs as it does, pulling it into himself and then back out again. When he looks back up, Isagi is offering him a hand, and he takes it reluctantly, drawing himself into a standing position.

“You didn’t have to do that,” mutters Rin as they walk towards the gradually assembling group of athletes. “I’ve treated you like shit for four years. You don’t have to give a fuck about me.”

“Yeah, but I do,” says Isagi, and for some stupid reason, he’s smiling, and his cheeks are coloured a soft red. “I always cared about you, Rin. You know that.”

“Fuck off, lukewarm,” Rin breathes out, because what else is there to say?

They breeze through the majority of the rounds. The other teams are strong, sure, but they’re no Blue Lock, and they’re definitely not on Rin or Isagi’s level. The teams that are on their level - namely France, England, Germany and the Philippines - are mostly fighting each other in the other half of the knockouts. England is already gone, knocked out in the quarterfinals by France, and France is up against the Philippines in the semifinals. Either way, that match will end in the removal of one of the World Cup’s powerhouses, and with how Rin’s watched Chevalier get absurdly powerful these last four years, he distinctly hopes it’s France. They are, unfortunately, up against Germany in the semifinals, however, a fact which has left Isagi in a constant state of frantic, jittery practising in the two rest days they’ve had after the quarterfinals.

They’re standing on the pitch in their starting position, doing some final stretches, when Michael Kaiser swaggers down the pitch with a gait that Rin can only bring himself to describe as ‘egotistical pornstar’. Rin peers at him warily, following his gaze across the field to meet the tense figure of Yoichi Isagi. Kaiser walks up to him, smirking thinly, and says something in German that Rin can’t understand, but he can tell from his tone that it can’t be particularly pleasant. Isagi’s face morphs into an angry thing, and Rin can see the way he grits his teeth before hissing out a response. Kaiser’s smirk grows, and he nudges Isagi in a way that looks far too friendly before sticking out a thumb to point towards Rin.

Most of the players on the field have been watching the exchange, but now their eyes are tracked solely on it. Rin can feel Sae’s eyes on his back from where he’s standing at midfield, and without looking, he juts his head towards the pair. Kaiser’s clearly having the time of his life riling Isagi up, and their usually unfazeable captain seems to be falling for it hook, line and sinker. Rin has no idea what Kaiser’s actually saying to him, and he doesn’t really want to know. Thankfully, Sae gets his message and walks over, clapping a hand onto Isagi’s shoulder and saying something in accented, broken German to Kaiser.

The emperor scoffs, angling his glare through Rin’s brother and leaning back on his hip. Sae is just beckoning Isagi to step away from Kaiser when he says, in clear, distinct Japanese, “Just so you’re aware, Yoichi , I’m gonna crush you so badly you see this loss in your nightmares.” He spits out Isagi’s first name like it’s a curse, like it tastes of bitter, sour grapes, and all Rin can think of is how wrong Kaiser is, because Isagi’s name tastes nothing but sweet and luscious. Isagi’s face crumples into a strange cocktail of rage, determination and fear all the same, and Kaiser looks like he’s about to hurl another insult, but thankfully Alexis Ness approaches him and drags him back by the earlobe. He whispers what looks like an apology to Isagi, whose lips turn upwards in a smile. Rin is only grateful to Ness at that moment - it appears that he’s grown a spine and knows how to break away from Kaiser, unlike his lukewarm, subservient nature in the Neo Egoist League.

Sae says something to Isagi, in a voice too quiet to overhear, and Rin sees them both quickly glance over at him. He raises a judgemental eyebrow and folds his arms, pointedly looking over at Kaiser and Ness’s approaching forms. Isagi grimaces, but smiles lightheartedly, and Sae pats him on the back encouragingly before walking away. The arena is buzzing, something Rin has now gotten used to after the myriad matches they’ve played to get to this point. The crowd chatters and cheers, and he can make out his name more than a few times in the din. He looks up towards the clock, which denotes a short twenty-six seconds till kickoff. The referee is saying something, approaching his post on the halfway line, and Ego and Anri are finally taking their places at the edge of the bench.

Rin braces, dropping his hips down into a ready position and nudging his right foot backwards for a strong dash to wherever the ball needs him. Sae has the ball at the halfway line after Isagi won the coin toss for possession, faced by a stocky member of the German team. If Rin had to guess, he’ll likely pass it backwards to Chigiri, who lingers at the left sideline and would be able to slice through the opposing midfield with ease, or to Otoya on his right, whose exceptional curved dribbling ability could thread the ball through a vast majority of their defensive wall. They’re running a tried and true 4-5-1 formation, with Karasu, Aiku and Gagamaru building a tight defence layer supported by the strong sidelines of Bachira and Yukimiya. Sae sits at centre midfield, rolling the ball back and forth under his foot. He looks confident, hugged by Isagi and Chigiri on his left and Nagi and Otoya on his right. Rin heads the pack, pushing the penalty box of the German team and surrounded by their built defensive line.

The timer hits ten seconds, and the crowd begins chanting, a mixture of the players’ names and counting down to zero, and Rin’s bones tingle under his skin. He itches to run - he’s ready to backtrack to where he’s needed, ready to taste a pass from Isagi made solely for him to score; though he knows that won’t happen because Isagi feels the same thrum through his limbs that Rin does, the one that urges him to dominate the field and take every opportunity to score - especially against the German team. At its core, the Japanese National Team is a team of strikers - each of their eleven is at any moment itching for a goal. This match, to them, has never been a game. In Blue Lock, football is an all-out war, and scoring is the only way to come out on top.

The whistle blows, and Rin runs .

Rin Itoshi hates Michael Kaiser and his stupid, egotistical Kaiser Impact bullshit. Even moreso, Rin Itoshi vehemently despises Alexis Ness and his ridiculous subservience to said Kaiser Impact. Way back in the Neo Egoist League, Kaiser was too busy missing (and, to his credit, eventually shooting) his self-dubbed Magnus shot to play with his more consistent techniques, and for the duration of that match, Isagi was Rin’s main threat, so he was never very much of a pain. Today, however, is starkly different, because Kaiser’s had four years to master Magnus, as well as every other skill under his belt, so Rin’s spent the first thirty minutes of play running around near the halfway line swiping the ball out from between that asshole’s feet.

The score’s sitting at a frustrating nil-nil, and neither team’s gotten anywhere close to scoring yet. Both sets of defence are airtight, and as much as their midfield clearly would prefer to advance onto an attack, judging by the way Otoya’s been frantically glancing up and down the other half, there’s no end to the interruptions from the opposition. Rin’s only solace is that Kaiser seems itchy too, shooting for the goal whenever he gets possession only to be met with the unbreakable wall that is Oliver Aiku. The ball’s just come back into play after the match’s fourth throw-in, and Yukimiya’s delivered it neatly to Bachira’s feet. He dances up the sideline, weaving through the German centre and left midfield with the footwork of a ballerina. He’s evidently learned from Lavinho during his time at FC Barcha, and he’s as unpredictable as ever as he nutmegs between the ankles of the final midfielder in his path.

Otoya is tearing up the opposite flank as if his life depends on it, but he’s marked closely by Ness, looking for any opportunity to set a goal up for Kaiser. Magnus is, by far, the most dangerous weapon in their arsenal, with Ness having seemingly perfected the art of spinning the ball just so that Kaiser kills it the moment it impacts his foot, and the aforementioned emperor managing to blow each shot whistling just past the ears of their defenders. Rin truly believes that the only way that they’ve survived thus far is Isagi’s detailed observation of the pair’s play during his time at Bastard München. They’ve spent the game picking up leftovers from interruptions, incontestably running on defence for the first time in the World Cup thus far.

Rin aches for a goal, and he can hear Ryuusei screaming about it from the sidelines - “Explode, Rinnie, explode!” It’s grating and annoying and the cheering from the entire stadium is seriously starting to get on his nerves. Michael Kaiser is, in every single aspect of his existence, inferior to Rin. He knows this. Rin’s a better all-rounder, with a wider range of skills and a deeper understanding of his own talent. Paired with his sixteen years of football experience compared to Kaiser’s paltry nine, everything about this match should be an absolute breeze. Despite this, as Isagi had warned them all before the match, Kaiser is part of the New Generation World XI, and for good reason - he’s undeniably a beast on the field, and when paired with Ness, he’s almost unstoppable.

Almost is the key word, because Bachira manages, finally, to break through the midfield, and he’s gone, sprinting up through the opposing half, eyes alight for a goal. He won’t make it, though, because the Germans have positioned a brick wall of a left back directly in Bachira’s path, forcing him to pass. It arcs gracefully through the air, spin perfect, and is neatly trapped by Otoya, who lets out a loud whoop as it falls to the ground. However, that opportunity is quickly sealed by the opposing centre and right back players, who cut off any potential scoring routes. Otoya passes, reluctance evident on his face, and he sends it backwards, bouncing once on Nagi’s chest before he rotates into one of his absurd shot positions and boots it back towards the penalty box. It won’t reach the goal, and it wasn’t intended to - Nagi’s traps are a terrifying thing, with his tendency to contort himself like some kind of spider doing a better job of distracting the opposition than any midfielder or defender. It leaves their opponents fixated on nipping Nagi’s movements in the bud, momentarily unaware that it was a pass all along, thumping into the grass at Rin’s feet with a gentle tmp .

For a moment, there is silence. He’s twenty-nine metres out from the goal, slightly to the left, just ahead of the halfway line. There’s no spin on the ball, killed by its impact with the ground. Two defenders are coming up in front of him, but Chigiri and Karasu are on each flank, waving their arms to signal for a pass. There’s Isagi to his right, and-

He stops. Ah, Isagi.

This game is incredibly important to Isagi, isn’t it? Rin saw the way he interacted with Kaiser and Ness during the Neo Egoist League - tense and merciless and aggressive, determined to win, focused solely on the act of surpassing Kaiser and everything he stood for. After Noa’s betrayal in their final match, he grew even more hostile towards the emperor, but softened to Ness, the aftermath of their joint goal marking the beginning of a friendship that apparently still lasts to this day. Beating Kaiser means something to Isagi, more than just taking home the World Cup, or scoring a momentous goal - beating Kaiser means that Isagi finally wins, after suffering endless losses and demeaning comments. Beating Kaiser, in this moment, means more to Isagi than anything about the World Cup.

Rin is at war with himself - he remembers his rage, his all-consuming anger when Isagi stole that goal of his in their match against the Japan U20. He doesn’t want to put Isagi through that - it made him sick, made him violent and angry and bitter and vengeant, and Isagi has earned none of that. But he doesn’t want to swallow his ego. Deeply, fundamentally, at his very core, Rin Itoshi is a selfish man. He fights for what he wants and takes it with force - what kind of self-betrayal would passing to Isagi at this crucial moment constitute?

What would Karasu think? What would Sae think? Above all, what would Isagi himself think? What would Isagi want ?

Rin freezes. His legs are like trees, rooted deep into the astroturf and curling into the concrete beneath, hard and tough and unmoveable. Somebody is screaming at him to shoot. He tries. He honestly, really tries. He tries to rip his ankle out of the grass, tries to nudge his toes under the ball and kick it forwards, but his body is made of ice and his willpower, his ego, is melting, dripping onto the turf beneath. The crowd is roaring, setting his ears full to bursting, and Rin’s thighs burn . He is a forest fire, spreading and inescapable and infectious, destined to hurt others and himself and collapse in a raging inferno.

Kaiser steals the ball, and Rin does not move. He whips around in a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn and bolts down the pitch, swapping between Ness in a plethora of needle-threading one-twos, and Rin does not move. He winds back his leg to shoot, and Rin does not move.

Kaiser scores the first goal, and Rin does not move.

Half-time, Japan National Team locker room. Tabito Karasu is the angriest Rin has ever seen him.

The thing with Karasu is, his anger is not explosive. Karasu seethes quietly on the sidelines, white hot and absolutely, utterly silent. He’s watching Rin like a hawk, eyes burning into his back. His rage worms its way into Rin’s skull, behind his eyes and through his ears, running like nearly-boiled water through his pores and burning the inside of his mouth. Yukimiya is frantically trying to calm him down, pressing a large, well-manicured palm into his back and talking to him under his breath, but Karasu refuses to let himself be quelled, and his gaze on Rin’s back does not waver. Isagi himself is eerily quiet. Bachira is chattering at him, clearly running his mouth to try and coax his friend out of whatever slump Rin’s failure dropped him into. The team’s morale is low, and Rin is more than completely aware that it is entirely his fault.

“Rinnie,” says Karasu, very quietly.

“Karasu,” replies Rin, keeping his tone flat.

“What just happened?” Karasu takes a step forward. Yukimiya’s hand, nestled snugly between his shoulder blades, falls away. “I didn’t know y’had no fuckin’ backbone.”

“I don’t know,” Rin murmurs, because honesty is all he can muster.

“So what, ya just froze up?” Karasu hisses. “Rinnie, that could cost us the match . That could cost us the Cup . Ya realise that, right?”

“Let him be.” Sae pushes his way in between the two of them, glaring upwards. “Everyone makes mistakes, Karasu. You know full well Rin never slips up like that - he’s beating himself up enough as it is. It won’t happen again.”

“It still happened , Sae,” breathes Karasu. The life seems to have gone out of him, his body slumping into itself when no longer fueled with rage. “I don’t wanna lose ‘cause of a mistake.”

“We won’t lose -”

“Shut the fuck up, all of you.”

Rin whips his head towards the door, blood running cold. Jinpachi Ego stands at the entrance, staring Rin dead in the eyes, arms folded over his ribcage, tablet snug in his grip. He drops his head in apologetic respect, staring at the floor. It’s the first time he’s done something like that in front of the team, something that so openly admits fault, and he thinks he hears a couple of people gasp.

“Rin Itoshi. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t substitute you out right now and switch Barou into centre-forward,” says Ego, blank and straight to the point.

“You can’t sub me out. You’d lose.” Rin looks up, holding Ego’s gaze. “I’m sorry for my slip-up, and I’m aware of what it might cost. But if you substitute me out of this team, we will lose. The German team is calculating. You need my mind, and you need my specs. Everyone in this room knows that.”

Ego snaps his tablet towards him. “Correct answer,” he says, begrudgingly. “I’m not subbing you out. However, I will be making some changes - we’re too tight on the defence, and we need more opportunities to attack. Aiku, Yukimiya, you’re off.”

“Coach, with all due respect, the defence is the only thing keeping us afloat right now,” challenges Aiku, shouldering forward. “Subbing Yukki and I out would be a bad idea.”

“Oh, please. You’re a team composed entirely of strikers. There is no need for defence if we’re on the offence. Every single one of you here has played as a striker before. Or have you forgotten?” Ego’s cruel stare sweeps across the assembly, and Aiku falls silent. “Hiori and Kurona - use this time to warm up. In the second half, the ones with the most powerful egos are all of you. Don’t let me down.” The heels of his shoes click rhythmically against the locker room’s tiled floor as he leaves, and the group falls silent. 

“Isagi,” says Hiori suddenly. Their captain glances up from his hands, which he’s been watching intently since he first sat down. “Next goal’s ours, ‘kay?”

“You got it, ultra-sadist.”

Isagi’s watching Rin again. Their formation has switched to a 4-2-4, ultra-offensive Blue Lock style, with Rin and Nagi guarding half of the penalty box each. Isagi is to Rin’s left, slightly behind him, mirrored by Otoya on the right. Sae and Hiori mark the halfway line, Rin’s big brother once again guarding the ball, backed up by a weakened defence constructed mainly of playmakers like Kurona, Bachira, Karasu and Chigiri. Gagamaru is their only real defensive unit in goal, and from the buzz in the crowd, it seems to have been noticed. The purpose of this formation isn’t to stop Kaiser, or to stop Germany from scoring at all - it’s a full-frontal assault on the German defence, designed to break down what ought to be an impenetrable wall for them to score.

Kaiser’s standing up near their own penalty box, a smug smile on his lips. He’s looking backwards, gaze honed in on Isagi, because of course he is, aggressive asshole bastard -

Rin kills that thought as it comes, and not-so-gently reminds himself to get his shit together, because there’s no turning back if he fucks this up. Karasu seems to have forgiven him, by the looks of things - he’d patted him hard on the back on their way onto the pitch in response to Rin’s whispered apology, and grinned while threatening to snap his neck if he let it happen again. He’s not particularly fussed about the death threat, because in all honesty he’d earned it, and he was expecting to deal with a lot worse.

“Ready?” calls Isagi up the field, angling a boyish grin upwards. 

“You ready to watch me destroy these guys?” yells Rin back, half-teasing. 

“I’d like to see you try, genius!” Isagi’s eyes are alight with motivation, and he looks just about ready to kill. 

“Can you losers stop flirting and focus on the match?” asks Otoya, shouting up the pitch. “No more clowning, Rinnie!” He trills a little sound effect alongside it, drawing a snort out of Isagi that really shouldn’t be as endearing as it is.

“Fuck off,” Rin barks in reply. “Must you all call me that tepid nickname?”

“Oh, so Isagi’s the only one you’re not dicky to? Must be nice…,” Otoya hums, but he’s smiling. One thing that Rin appreciates about football players, especially professional ones, is that there’s not much room in their brains for anything but football (he may or may not be including himself in that generalisation), so they forgive easily and freely, and Rin presumes that as long as he scores one goal or another this match, it’ll be as if his slip up never happened in the first place. He refuses to admit, to himself or otherwise, that the feeling is a good one, and instead focuses on the tingling in his feet and the ringing in the back of his ears. He doesn’t have the jitters - he doesn’t - but he buzzes with a motivational kind of nervousness, the same kind of buzz that flooded him against Bastard München in the Neo Egoist League, his final proving stand. The crowd is roaring as the referee takes his stand at the halfway line, but Rin’s world falls silent the instant he brings the whistle to his lips and blows.

Immediately, Sae twists and sends the ball backwards, and for the second that it’s in the air, the only sentence going through his mind is a loud, all-consuming what the fuck . That is, until Kurona bolts forward from centre back, sprinting past Bachira and Karasu who move in quickly to fill his position. As in any of Sae’s passes, the ball arcs beautifully, calculated down to the millimetre, and meets the inside of Kurona’s right foot. He twirls it around a midfielder, flicks the ball into the air with his toe and boots it precisely back up the field. It sails over the halfway line, and the German defence trips over themselves trying to stumble back towards the penalty box. It’s too late, though, because Rin’s falling back to midfield and the football connects with Isagi’s chest in an exhilarating display of Planet Hotline, and he runs like his life depends on it.

Hiori is sprinting upfield now too, and Otoya falls back to support the halfway line like it’s easy as breathing. Chigiri presses himself to Kaiser in an oppressive mark and Sae dances his way towards Ness now too, and when Rin spares the emperor a glance, he looks irritated. He can’t break away from Chigiri, who’s learned how to use his legs to make his speed and presence suffocating, and the moment Rin sees that he’s realised that is gleeful. Kaiser had gotten cocky after that last goal - picked out Rin’s weakness and capitalised on it, and foolishly believed he’d won. You’d think the four months of Neo Egoist League had taught him that in Blue Lock, it’s every man for himself, but Kaiser must have forgotten, and as each member of the team launches their own separate attack on the goal, Germany scrambles for purchase.

Isagi weaves around two nameless defenders, weaving ever-closer to the penalty area, and Rin feels the rush as if the goal were his own. He sees what Isagi sees - the blind spot on the left, the passing location birthed from it, Hiori hugging the right flank. The ball flies upwards, across, devastating, and Hiori laughs as he makes the receive. The crowd whoops and cries and screams as a defender plasters himself to the midfielder’s back, but Hiori doesn’t seem to care, flinging out his arms to guard his own space and dribbling further and further upwards. Rin notices it a split second after Isagi does, it seems, because the captain makes a break for that inner rectangle, devoid of a defence that is still scrabbling to rearrange themselves. 

The world stops as Hiori winds back his leg and passes, and Rin watches as, in the very same moment, Isagi launches himself up into the air and he thinks that he forgets to breathe in the half-second that his right foot connects with the ball in a destructive volley shot that no goalkeeper would have a chance of grabbing. The football slaps into the net, screams against the rope, and there is a deafening silence that explodes into a roar as Isagi’s back hits the astroturf. The score ticks up to one-all, and Hiori’s jumping towards Isagi, and Otoya’s cheering like a maniac, and Isagi hops straight to his feet from where he’s sprawled on his back and stares right at Rin, beckoning him over with a fiery smile.

“Your turn!” he tells Rin, like he hadn’t just accounted for the biggest mistake Rin’s made in his football career thus far, and quite possibly saved Japan from losing out on the World Cup. Someone’s laughing behind them, and Isagi’s eyes are glittering. He glows like some sort of saviour, heaven-sent and angelic, and fuck , Rin wants to kiss him.

“I’ll beat you, lukewarm,” he says instead, because there is always an after they win burning in the back of his mind. He thinks of what his seventeen-year-old self missed out on, and decides upon the delayed gratification, because kissing Isagi while he tastes of victory and jubilance and the World Cup sounds significantly better than kissing Isagi while he tastes of astroturf and a match not yet won.

Isagi looks at him like he knows exactly what Rin is thinking. “I’m holding you to that,” he tells him, decibels away from a whisper, barely audible over the arena-wide screaming. He holds eye contact even as Chigiri hops on his back, even as Bachira grabs him in a crushing hug, even as Sae pulls Rin away to tell him to catch up with a lilting, sarcastic smile. Only when Isagi finally breaks their staring contest to turn and return to his starting position does Rin turn to look at Kaiser, smirk halfway onto his lips, and he’s absolutely seething . Isagi’s been right on Kaiser’s tail for what seems like the last forever, and Rin genuinely believes this is where he’s finally surpassed the German.

Rin resists the urge to laugh to himself. He’ll laugh when they win.

They’re going to win. They’re going to. They have to win. Rin thinks that he might die if they don’t win. He probably will die, just from sheer force of will. The score hasn’t budged since Isagi, Hiori, and Kurona’s goal that tied up the match, and with five minutes left on the clock, every player on the field is itching for some sort of change. Japan’s tilted more towards offence in the second half, forcing the vast majority of the German team into their own side of the pitch. Victory is so close he can taste it - Rin hungers for it, wants to chew it and swallow it and add it to his roster of wins to hang on his wall. He wants it like water in an endless desert and he’s dying of thirst, his entire team clawing through the sand on their knees behind him.

One of the German strikers has the ball, some lukewarm player who Rin never bothered to learn the name of during pre-match review. However, Chigiri chases him down the pitch, lithe form and leopard-like speed catching up quickly and swiping the ball out from under his feet. Rin mirrors him and turns on his heel, running upwards to the German penalty area. Chigiri’s making a break for it, bolting up the opposite flank in a desperate bid for goal, but he’s met with Ness in his running path, blocking his way up to his ideal shooting spot. The midfielder moves in quickly, pressing his right shoulder into Chigiri’s collarbone in an attempt to disrupt his balance, but the striker sees through it and passes in a razor-sharp cross, which thumps into Isagi’s waiting calf. 

Kaiser presses himself up into the captain’s space, and Rin watches, intent and observant, as Isagi’s eyes drag hurriedly across the field for any opportunity to weave past into a scoring location. He seems to almost drink in the state of the pitch, hovering over it like some sort of god, omniscient and all-seeing, mapping it out like a cartographer. He’s beautiful as he does so, dropping his hips and shifting his centre of gravity to nutmeg the ball between Kaiser’s ankles and dance around his left in a Bachira-patented twirl. He weaves a path through the astroturf, threading a needle between the German defenders. Rin swallows thickly - he is hungry, so hungry he would do anything for a goal. He is running in a world on fire, and Isagi is at its epicentre.

Despite his strange affection for Yoichi Isagi, and all the softness that comes with it, Rin Itoshi is a selfish, egotistical bastard. What’s the point of winning if the end result doesn’t belong to him?

He makes his decision.

The pitch shreds beneath his feet, his cleats tearing and ripping at the false grass with a desperation he hasn’t mustered up since the finals of the U20. He’s aware, peripherally, of the wetness of his tongue as it lolls against the seam of his lips, air flowing easier into his lungs now that his mouth is open, and between it all, he hears some teammate laugh as he blasts past him. Rin’s world narrows, hyperfocused on the three metres in front of him and the ball on the verge of departure from Isagi’s sphere of control, and he tosses away everything to bet his life on this play - tosses away French food, his strained ankle when he was eighteen, his big brother’s wedding, and bids drunkenly for the curve Isagi’s shot slices through the air.

The moment his foot makes contact with the ball, Rin understands what Ryuusei always meant by ‘explode’, because the field roars, alight with screaming fans and bright red flags and the aborted gasp that whispers from between Isagi’s lips as Rin traps and turns on instinct. He assesses his situation, not exactly thinking , operating on the oxygen that flushes him headily - the goalie’s on the floor, having scrambled for Isagi’s interrupted shot, and the defenders are too far away, too lukewarm to matter, and with the flames that Rin is breathing, nobody else stands a chance.

With ten seconds left on the clock, Rin draws back his right leg and shoots with abandon, throwing everything to the wind, and the ball rockets into the net with the force of twenty-one years of conviction and thirty seconds of pure, unadulterated egoism.

After the fact, their hotel hallway is quiet. Most of the starters are asleep, having crashed out early from exhaustion, and the others are likely celebrating in the conference room they’d booked out for the duration of the Cup. Despite having spent ninety minutes running the highest-stakes match he’s ever had the pleasure of partaking in, Rin is, down to the bones, itchy. He wants to sleep, but he’s always been strangely energetic after exciting matches, an unfortunate trait that’s followed him into adulthood. He normally remedies it with an hour or so of yoga, or thirty minutes of scrolling endlessly through messages from Isagi gone unacknowledged (because nothing ever made Rin want to put his phone away faster than regrets that feel born from some kind of past life). However, these days, Isagi spends more time in the forefront of his mind than out of it, and Karasu, who’s snoring passionately in the room they’re sharing, would likely not appreciate Rin rummaging around for his yoga mat while he’s trying to rest. Hence the way Rin’s pacing the hallway outside his room in a mostly-futile attempt to wear himself out. 

He doesn’t exactly remember his goal. All he remembers is the pressure of three teammates on his back, a withering glare from Michael Kaiser (which, now that he thinks about it, is the only unfettered display of emotion he thinks he’s ever seen from the German), and the sensations of sweat on his temples, astroturf against his knees and the ache of his throat as he screams in jubilance. Isagi hasn’t said anything to him since the match and, distantly, Rin wonders if he’s angry with him for stealing the final goal.

It’s not that Rin regrets it - anything but. He’s still buzzing off the high from it (not that he’d ever admit that to anybody), and he doubts he’d truly be able to reconcile his failure in the first half if he didn’t end up making up for it personally. But equally - this match, beating Kaiser, all of it was- is - important to Isagi. Some small, niggling part of Rin whispers that he’d stolen the victory Isagi had spent the last few years trying to achieve. He shakes the thought off, however, because he has the sneaking feeling that Isagi would be discontent if he ever learned that Rin sacrificed his own ego for his aspirations. That’s the way it’s always been at Blue Lock - tear your teammates apart for an opportunity to score. Scoring a hattrick and losing feels better than winning one-nil - one of Ego’s personal favourite quotes.

Rin curls his toes into the soft bristles of hotel carpet underneath his feet. There’s a background hum in the air, music emanating from their conference room down the hall where Ryuusei’s probably trying to encourage some sort of party in Sae’s regulating absence. The buzz of it is soothing, almost - not lullaby-esque, but familiar and comforting in a way that Rin’s never been able to bring himself to believe is tied to the football prison that is Blue Lock. Rin decides to himself then that he would be perfectly willing to stay in this moment, pleasantly hyperactive yet quietly worn out from a match, smelling nothing in the air and tasting little other than the infectious tang of his teammates’ excitement that floats up to him on the periphery.

“Rin,” says a voice, a smile lilting in his breath. Rin turns towards the sound and meets Isagi’s blue eyes, round and observant, watching him intently from where he’s leaning against the doorframe. He’s clearly just woken up, eyelids dazed and hanging low from sleep, blinks uncoordinated and devoid of rhythm, one wrist raised to press against his temple.

“Isagi,” quips Rin back. “You look tired.”

“You stole my goal,” murmurs Isagi. He doesn’t sound mad about it. In fact, his tone is almost reverent - admiring, soft, gentle. His voice curls into Rin’s sinuses like a warm towel on the forehead, almost affectionate in the way that he speaks. 

“So I did,” breathes Rin in reply. “What of it? Are you jealous?”

“Ask me again later,” he says, tying a chirp into his voice that tapers upwards with the yawn he releases soon after. “You were breathtaking out there, y’know.”

Rin takes a step forward, tentative and soft. Isagi watches him, still smiling ever so delicately. With each breath he draws, Rin is gradually overcome by the desire to touch , to feel , to have Isagi tangible and real underneath his palms and not something that he’s dreamed up in an exhausted fever. “You can’t say that, Isagi.”

Isagi’s lips curl upwards into something akin to a smirk. It’d be intimidating if he didn’t look like a cat that had just woken up from a nap. “Why can’t I? What’s stopping me?” He pushes himself upwards, off the doorframe, up to his full height. He looks angelic, hair falling in a messy bedhead halo, cheeks flushed from being pressed into a pillow, lips small and pink and a rebellious part of Rin’s heart that he’s never quite been able to control whispers sweet fantasies of leaning over and controlling and turning them red and kiss-bitten. 

“Someone might get the wrong idea,” says Rin, barely a whisper. The air is hardly entering him now. Isagi is so close. Too close. “I might get the wrong idea.”

“What if I want you to get the wrong idea?” Isagi’s tongue flickers over his mouth, barely there, wetting it with a stroke Rin knows he’ll be thinking about later. “You’re breathtaking in more places than the field, Rin. I don’t remember the last time I saw you as anything but beautiful.”

Rin sags, shoulders giving in under the weight of Isagi’s words. “You’re ridiculous,” he murmurs weakly. “Lukewarm. Presumptuous, delusional , really, Isagi, what is wrong with you, out of everyone you could pick? Out of everyone who wants you?”

“Don’t care about them,” Isagi says, staring unabashedly at Rin’s lips. His eyes upturn suddenly, training his gaze, full and blue and round, into his own. “Won’t you kiss me, Rin?”

If Rin were any less of a man, he’d take Isagi by the nape of the neck and kiss him till he forgot his own name - he’s at least somewhat convinced that four and a half years of pining compounded by burying himself knee-deep in denial for a significant portion of that period has rewired something in his brain. But, goddammit, Rin is selfish, and he wants to wait and fix that four-year-old mistake, rectify all his wrongdoings to Isagi in one fell swoop. His next exhale comes out shaky as he reaches up a hand to tuck a stray lock of black bed hair behind his ear, and Isagi’s breath hitches almost imperceptibly as the pads of Rin’s fingers ghost lightly over the helix of it. He won’t stop looking, gaze fixed and glittering and hopeful, and Rin almost gives in, but-

“Can you wait?” asks Rin softly, almost a whisper. “Until after we win the finals?”

“Are you trying to kill me?” responds Isagi, voice breathy.

“Maybe a little bit,” admits Rin, slumping his head onto Isagi’s shoulder, nose tipping into his neck. “I recall some death threats being thrown a few years back.”

Rin feels Isagi laugh into his hair, a tiny puff of air lifting the strands. “ Some death threats, he says.” 

He bites the inside of his lip firmly to keep himself from smiling. Isagi smells of hotel shampoo and crisp sheets and faintly of sweat and sleep, buried under layers of Pakistani humidity and football field excitement, and Rin aches to flick out his tongue and taste it. He wants to breathe Isagi in, wants to get so close they can’t really tell where one ends and the other begins, wants to take and claim and hide him away, have him all to himself. But Isagi’s pride is too great to allow himself to be squirrelled away by a romance, no matter how spirited, and for some reason Rin adores it, longs for that selfish part of Isagi that drags him to the field over and over again.

“I’m only letting you kiss me if we win,” mutters Isagi huffily, shoving Rin off of him.

“Lucky I’m not that tepid shithead Kaiser,” says Rin, drawing himself back up to full height. Isagi’s grown, he notices belatedly - Rin’s still taller, but it’s no longer too big of a gap, with Isagi standing comfortably at Rin’s eye level instead of at his nose. A prideful part of Rin chuffs at the leverage he still holds, and considers a little too strongly how easy it would be to tilt Isagi up by the chin and press his own lips down against him. “I win my matches,” he tells him instead, resisting the smirk that flits to his mouth almost unconsciously. 

Isagi laughs at that, short and pleasant. “I hope you can prove yourself right, Genius,” he hums, twisting himself around the doorframe back into his room. He casts one last glance over his shoulder as he opens the door, and his gaze softens as he establishes eye contact. “Goodnight, Rin.”

“Goodnight, Isagi,” mumbles Rin in return, almost a whisper.

That night, sleep comes to him easily.

Winning the finals is not an easy matter, all things considered.

It’s not that Rin was expecting it to be - he would never be so naïve as to think that winning the finals of the World Cup would be a simple come-and-go situation. But when you’re eighty-seven minutes into the game and it’s still nil-nil, one begins to get a little frustrated when, getting down to it, the sport simply constitutes kicking a ball into the goal. 

The Filipino defence is almost impenetrable, but their strikers are mid- to low-tier, so ultimately Rin has no idea how they of all teams managed to beat France in the last round, knocking out the sheer powerhouses that are Julian Loki and Charles Chevalier. However, they managed it, and they’re running Blue Lock absolutely ragged as it stands. Rin stopped counting the corner kicks and throw-ins at half time, but there must’ve been at least ten of each. Otoya and Chigiri especially look worn, having spent the entire match sprinting back and forth across the midfield instead of scoring or facilitating goals, and Otoya leans heavily on Sae’s shoulder as they stumble back to starting position. Karasu sags onto his own hip as he stands on the sideline, rolling the ball absently underneath the arch of his right foot.

They deployed a 3-6-1 formation into the second half in an attempt to increase ball possession and push for a goal, but it’s been ineffective so far. The Philippines have scrambled to catch any goal opportunity, constructing a wall that, at this point, feels unbreakable. Rin heads the pack, as always, nudging at the opposing penalty box, hugged by Isagi and Nagi in the offensive midfield. Bachira, Chigiri, Sae and Otoya go toe-to-toe with the bulk of the Filipino team in the midfield, stealing the ball when possible and attempting to push it up to Isagi or Rin, to very little avail so far. Their defence is equally tight, with Karasu pushing the borders of the primary midfield in a defensive role, supported by Raichi’s monstrous stamina and Aiku’s all-seeing eyes. Gagamaru, in goal as always, has scooped out a strike or two, tossing it back into the chaos of the penalty box or out of play.

Their only solace is that the Filipino team looks just as exhausted as they do, doubled over their own knees and panting out all the water they drank over half time. One of their midfielders is glaring at Rin like he personally killed a goal of his, which he doesn’t doubt - with the way even Rin’s been throwing himself around the pitch, he’s probably done everything other than scoring goals this match. He tosses the player the snootiest smirk he can muster around his exhaustion, earning himself a breathy laugh from a teammate behind him, before settling down into a ready position and trying to hold his core muscles taut so he doesn’t fall over the moment he breaks into a run.

A noise sounds across the pitch that definitely isn’t the starting whistle, robotic and siren-like, and Rin glances down the field to see a hand holding a sign into the air, glimmering with bright red LEDs that can be seen from the hundred metres away that he stands. Under the ‘OUT’ label reads a glaring number nine - Otoya’s number, Rin realises, and he hears his teammate let out a moan that sounds like a cross between frustration and relief. Next to it, under the ‘IN’ tab, reads a large twenty-one, and upon a look towards the bench, Rensuke Kunigami is leaning into a deep stretch, glaring at the astroturf beneath his feet.

Otoya high-fives Kunigami on his way out and all but collapses into his seat. Yukimiya shoots him a sympathetic smile, patting him on the back and proffering a water bottle and towel, which Otoya gratefully accepts. Karasu watches them, liltingly affectionate, from the wing, football blessedly stationary under his foot. For once, Rin isn’t jealous.

“Do those three have something going on?” he hears Nagi ask Isagi, a question quickly succeeded by a disbelieving snort.

“How did you ever manage to bag Reo,” says Isagi in lieu of an answer. Rin allows himself a small, personal chuckle at Nagi’s expense. 

Down the pitch, Bachira somehow still has energy, and is hopping up and down in place as Kunigami jogs up the field from the bench. “Egoist Four, back together again!” he cheers, waving frantically at Isagi, who returns the gesture, albeit with more exhaustion. Chigiri’s wandered over to the pair of them in the chaos of the substitution, and is leaning his full body weight unforgivingly on Kunigami’s shoulder, who supports it with ease. He still sports his prominent eye bags from the Wild Card, but his gaze has softened, especially whenever he’s looking at Chigiri. Bachira and Isagi too, but in a different way - no less loving, but less weighted, less history behind it, and Rin is, nauseatingly, struck with the realisation of how much love is packed into this team.

Reo and Nagi. Otoya, Karasu, Yukimiya. Chigiri and Kunigami. Sae and Ryuusei. Aryu and Barou, if he pays enough attention. Isagi and himself, if he allows himself to close his eyes and breathe. 

For a nonsense team of three hundred strikers cobbled together with some plus-ones and harshly pruned into a functional unit, they’re surprisingly close to each other - even Rin knows everyone’s name, and their usual country of residence, and their preferred position (though the response is pretty much, across the board, striker). It’s confronting to draw that conclusion in the middle of an all-too-important match, because in his head, Rin is still sixteen and hates everyone on his team bar Isagi and maybe Yukimiya and begrudgingly Nagi - in reality he’s twenty-one, and has enough people he can call friends to make his teenage self gag. But as he watches Bachira wrap an arm around Kunigami’s burly torso and Chigiri sag breathily into his side, and Yukimiya fuss over the rate at which Otoya is draining his water bottle, and Reo watch Nagi with concentrated intent from the bench, Rin realises that, now that the competition is past and Isagi has claimed the title of number one, all that remains is the time-tested bonds forged between them.

What a lukewarm, sappy thought.

Four years ago, he would’ve hated himself for thinking like this - for not only needing, but wanting other people around. But as Isagi smiles at him, loose and on the verge of collapse, Rin concludes that maybe caring about his team isn’t all that bad.

He drops himself back down into a starting position, exhaling thinly through pursed lips. They’re arranging themselves back into formation now, Chigiri dragging himself back to his spot on the right flank, and Kunigami getting himself accustomed to Otoya’s old spot. The wing is typically for sprinters, facilitating quick, sly cuts down the pitch to scoop holes in the opponent’s defence, so placing a brawler-type player like Kunigami on the wing is unconventional. He’ll perform well, however - his stats are solidly all-round, especially after developing his skills other than ambidextrous striking in the Kawasaki Breakerz, so he’ll function tidily in midfield and as a pinch striker. As much as Rin hates to admit it, he does trust Ego’s judgement, and he does know that Ego wouldn’t take a substitution lightly. The noise of the stadium fades into a dull roar, and Rin rolls his shoulders back, inhaling slowly and deeply. Three minutes left of play. They’re all too worn for overtime - they need to score before then, lest the entire team runs themselves ragged.

A glance behind him. Isagi is staring directly at Karasu, screaming at him with his eyes. Nagi is similarly fixated on the ball beneath the midfielder’s foot. Rin’s legs feel like they’re on fire. The starting whistle blows, and Karasu bends, picking up the ball and spinning it once between his palms before tossing it over his head into the centre of the pitch, where it’s picked up by a Filipino midfielder. He begins his descent towards goal, but unfortunately for him, Bachira is dancing behind him, chasing the ball like it’s a meal and he hasn’t eaten in days. The midfielder barks out something to a teammate in Tagalog and attempts a pass, but Bachira jumps and spins in mid-air, jerking an ankle down and propelling the ball to the ground beneath his feet in a fatal steal.

He giggles to himself as the Filipino defence comes crashing in, all sweeping legs and broad shoulders, but Bachira twirls around them easily, playing with the football like a toy as he kicks and flicks his way through the sudden onslaught of attackers. He tears up the centre of the field, eyes scanning the pitch as if waiting for something - and does that something come, in the form of Hyouma Chigiri finally managing to dislodge the player who’s been oppressively marking him since the start of the game. Two minutes left, now, and Rin’s breath feels caught in his lungs as Bachira sends a violently spinning cross into Chigiri’s right foot, forcing him to hop up into the air to receive it. He kills the spin on his ankle and sends the ball flying forward in a tried-and-true pass to himself, flying up towards goal at a mind-blowing pace. They’re all breaking their limits today, it seems, because Rin doesn’t think he’s ever seen Chigiri run like his life was at stake, but the sight of it now is almost terrifying.

That elegant sprint is disrupted, though, by one of the Philippines’ offensive midfielders tossing himself into Chigiri’s path, and he sends the ball soaring left in a desperate bid to maintain possession. It thumps neatly into Kunigami’s raised shin, but there are two other players upon him almost instantly, and he’s left thrusting out his arms and setting back his shoulders to keep them at bay. His absurd build serves him an advantage that feels almost unfair to the Filipino team, but Rin takes the wins as they come, and sprints forward towards the penalty box. It’s unreasonable to assume that Kunigami, who’s had few opportunities to prove himself in the competition thus far, would be so generous as to deliver him a pass, but he can hope that a flubbed shot, perhaps, will trip in his direction.

He doesn’t think that there’s a single member of their team in their half of the pitch, bar Gagamaru, staunchly in goal. The ball is flitting back and forth in their repeated attacks, and the Filipino team is scrambling to regain control, but it doesn’t look like they’ll be letting up. Raichi is bodily shouldering the opposing centre forward away from the ballpath, mirrored by Karasu, and there’s so much screaming Rin’s ears won’t stop ringing. Throughout it all, whenever Rin glances to his right, Isagi is there, seeing the same vision he is, tearing up to the penalty box and glaring Rin down like he’d eat him alive if he ever slipped up. It’s so different from his expression in that hotel hallway four nights ago, almost obscenely so, because that night Isagi was a softly crackling campfire, and now he is a raging inferno, a peasant with the stage presence of a king, eye-catching and all-consuming.

Isagi is beautiful. Rin needs to crush him.

One minute, twenty-three seconds. He won’t call it a prediction, nor himself a prophet - it was simply an educated guess when he suggested himself picking up a shot gone haywire, but as Kunigami lines himself up - or attempts to, at least - for a goal between the shoving, burly arms of the Filipino defenders, Rin can already tell it won’t hit its mark. By the looks of it, it’ll go flying off to the left of the goal, making for the back line, and Rin rushes to intercept, hardly thinking before he moves. It strikes him momentarily as he runs that he can no longer see Isagi, but he doesn’t have the time to pay it any mind, because the ball is moving as he envisioned, rocketing from the inside of Kunigami’s cleat towards the back line. He rushes out a curse in apology which goes ignored by Rin, who cuts through the path of a Filipino winger to pick up the football first. He’s faster, leaner and more lithe - he’s no Chigiri or Otoya, but he’s fairly quick, and he disrupts his opponent’s movement with reasonable ease as he scoops up the ball in the dead centre of the penalty box. 

Eleven metres out from goal, give or take a little bit from his slight left tilt. Fifty-eight seconds remaining on the clock. Two defenders by the right post, already midway through a dive for the shot Rin will inevitably take. Goalkeeper braced. No way he’ll catch it - it’s too close to the end, they’re down to the wire, he’ll be itchy, too jittery to count on his instincts and too exhausted to calculate a trajectory. By all criteria, this goal is absolutely his, and for the first time since the awkward silence in the locker room at half-time, Rin is completely confident in his own ability. 

He fixes his gaze on a point just above the centre of the goal, drawing a parabola towards it with his eyes as he steps into the strike. Rin sees it in slow motion as the goalkeeper drops his hips and exhales thinly, and the sensation as his foot makes contact with the ball is almost out-of-body with glee. Scoring the winning goal in the World Cup, simultaneously with and against a player like Isagi , is everything Rin’s ever dreamed of and more. He’s finally won, finally win ning , until-

A pressure appears at his back, sturdy and immovable and disruptive , and Rin, precarious from his kick entrance, forgets to tighten and hold his core, and, horrifically, his shooting leg wobbles as it smashes into the football, sending it flying degrees away from his precisely calculated trajectory. Instead of spinning satisfyingly into the back of the net, Rin is forced to watch as his shot careens into the goalpost, slamming off the metal bar with a deafening clang. Forty-seven seconds. If it goes out, there’ll be a free kick, and even if the opposition doesn’t score, there’s no way they’ll be able to set up another play, not with the time they’ve wasted on this one. They can’t afford to go into overtime - they’ll collapse from exhaustion if this stalemate goes on much longer. Essentially, if there isn’t a miracle, it’s all over. 

And then he hears it.

A dark, rumbling timbre hums through the air. “I thought so,” breathes Yoichi Isagi, and when Rin’s head jolts to look at him, he is ablaze . He sucks in a sharp breath, wincing as it scrapes coolly against his teeth, but he refuses to close his eyes if it means he’ll miss even a moment of what’s about to happen. As with any of Isagi’s last-minute goals, it’s gloriously messy as he steps into his kick, and by all means it’s lukewarm, simply another direct shot which for some reason makes him indomitable on the field. Nevertheless, the sight burns itself into Rin’s retinas as the rest of Isagi’s body follows through on his kick, landing in a low squat as his head jerks to follow the ball.

The goalkeeper has no chance, of course, already on the floor from jumping for Rin’s botched shot, and the football smashes into the net, tugging the mesh backwards before it sinks to the ground with a soft thump. The arena falls deathly silent for what feels like an eternity, and Rin’s gaze snaps to Isagi, crouched on the grass and chest heaving as he fights for breath. The silence melts away, then, as the stadium is overcome by yelling, matching the way Isagi’s lips fall open in a jubilant scream. Rin’s screaming too, he realises belatedly, his throat scratchy with the effort of it, and he’s scrambling to his feet, tripping over himself inelegantly to get to Isagi. 

Bachira’s already on Isagi’s back, yelling and bouncing like they hadn’t just run the most exhausting ninety minutes of their lives, but the latter tosses him off gracelessly as soon as he spots Rin approaching, blue eyes lighting up. Bachira splutters something indignantly as he lands on his ass, but wisely shuts up when Rin skids a stop on his knees in front of Isagi, cradling the striker’s face in between his hands. 

“Does it still count if I scored the final goal, not you?” muses Isagi breathlessly, laughing into the empty space between them.

“It’d better,” Rin grumbles, pinching his cheeks slightly. He waits, though, sinks back on his knees and glances back to the centre line, where a timer counts down the remaining few seconds on a screen above the crowd.

“What are you waiting for,” hisses Isagi, getting halfway through another protest before being cut off by the shrill screech of the referee’s whistle, calling the game for Japan. 

“That,” says Rin, before tossing caution to the wind and closing the void between them, pressing his mouth to Isagi’s with the weight of five years of longing. The motion punches a soft, breathy gasp out of Isagi, and Rin hums against his lips, pleased with the sound. The roar of the arena gets even louder, if even possible, and Isagi laughs into Rin’s mouth, winding his arm around the back of his neck and pulling him in closer. 

Rin could definitely get used to this.

Rin is one-hundred percent certain that the only reason any of them even made it to the hotel party is because of the naps Anri forced them all to take as soon as they returned from the stadium. Not one of them had complained, not even Rin with his meticulous post-game routine. He’d simply stumbled into bed, lips still tingling with the sensation of Isagi, and resolutely ignored Karasu’s incessant teasing as he tucked himself under his blankets. He’d slept long and dreamlessly, and had only been woken up by Raichi’s loud rapping on the door, yelling at them to get ready.

This places him where he currently stands, leaning against the wall next to his brother and nursing the only drink he had allowed himself. He doesn’t let himself drink often, but he’s found himself partial to this particular wine, and he’s been sipping it gradually over the night. Nobody’s drunk, thank god, but with the chaos of the room, they may as well be. Ryuusei looks like he’s about to fight Ego for some reason, and Sae doesn’t seem particularly inclined to move to stop his husband, so the two of them have just been watching their coach get progressively more and more irritated.

Rin glances across the room towards Isagi, who’s perched on top of a table and talking enthusiastically to Chigiri. He seems to sense his gaze, however, because he turns to Rin and shoots him a blinding grin, winking quickly before turning back to his conversation. Sae snorts into his wine as Rin looks away, trying to ignore the heat creeping up his cheeks.

“You’re acting like a high schooler, tepid brother,” Sae tells him, elbowing Rin sarcastically.

“Shut it,” hisses Rin back, but there’s no real bite behind it. “Go and leash your dog before he jumps our coach.”

“I don’t control Ryuu,” hums Sae, but he pushes himself up off the wall anyway, setting down his empty glass. “Grab me some water?” Rin nods his agreement, and Sae makes his way over to the now openly arguing pair with an exasperated sigh. The drinks table is closer to where Isagi is sitting, and even the thought of him sends a tingle down through Rin’s fingers. He’s been itching to touch Isagi ever since he woke up, unable to stop thinking about their kiss on the field. He’s received more than his fair share of ragging for it so far, a vast majority of it coming from Karasu and his meddling boyfriends.

He picks up Sae’s wine glass by the base, letting it hang between two fingers as he pads over to the tablecloth-draped table that’s covered in a swathe of drinks. The party is by no means a formal thing, a simple gathering for the thirty-ish of them on the team and their coaches. Nobody’s dressed formally, at least, bar maybe Ego, who Rin doesn’t think he’s ever seen in anything other than a dress shirt and straight pants. Rin himself is in a pair of loose trousers and a polo, working around the nighttime heat that is somehow still stifling, and had strongly considered forgoing shoes before considering the inevitability of someone smashing glassware on at least one occasion and donning a pair of slippers. Everyone else has done something similar, with even Anri dressed down from her usual pencil skirt and turtleneck.

Setting his brother’s dirty cup by the collection of other used ones, Rin fishes out a new one and moves over to the water fountain. Sae likes his water cold, and even though it’s relatively late at night, summer in Pakistan seems to be constantly sweltering, so Rin tosses in a generous handful of ice cubes to cool it down. The cup’s almost full when someone sidles up to him, their arm pressing up against his. He’s half a beat away from gracelessly shoving them away when he looks down to meet sharp blue eyes and a lilting smile, and Isagi softly bumps his hip against Rin’s in greeting.

“I believe you owed me an explanation?” says Isagi, peering knowingly up at Rin.

Rin sighs - he did promise to tell Isagi why he had up and disappeared for four years. “Not here,” he mutters, turning his face to the side to get away from Isagi’s piercing gaze.

“Then drink that and get out of here with me. I’ve been watching you sit in the corner and mope with Sae for the last hour.”

“People-watching,” Rin corrects instinctively, then narrows his eyes at the gleefully victorious look that washes over Isagi’s expression. “This isn’t even for me, anyway. It’s for Sae.”

“Then go give it to him, mopey. And then get out of here with me,” huffs Isagi, clearly not taking no for an answer. Rin watches his eyes, watches his gaze flick down to his hand, then his wrist, then back up to his face again, glancing furtively away when he realises he was caught in the act. There’s an itch in his own limbs that tells him to curl his fingers around Isagi’s arm and drag him with him to say goodnight to his brother, but a wall erects itself between him and his desire, forcing it to melt fruitlessly into the hotel carpet. Isagi elbows him instead, shoves him off and spins on his heel to presumably bid Bachira and Chigiri and most of the other party attendees goodbye, and Rin takes it as an invitation to leave with Sae’s water.

Once he’s within his brother’s line of vision, he takes a swig from the glass, enjoying the irritated curl of Sae’s upper lip in younger-sibling satisfaction. “Got your drink, lukewarm.”

Sae’s holding Ryuusei by the collar, restraining him as he snarls at Ego. Rin has precisely zero doubt that, if given the opportunity, the cockroach would pounce on their coach, but Sae’s grip is unrelenting, and Ego is, intelligently, backing away, likely to go harass another of their strikers into asking him for detailed criticism on their performance. 

“What, you heading out or something?” his brother asks, accepting the proffered glass with his free hand and shoving it at his husband’s face. “Normally you’d just wait for me to come back over.”

Rin shoots a surreptitious glance over his shoulder towards where Isagi is being warmly clapped across the back by Aiku while simultaneously incurring a wary glare from Sendou, hanging off the former U20 captain’s shoulder, and Sae follows it, expression warping into a knowing half-smirk. “Don’t even,” Rin warns as Sae turns back towards him, one eyebrow piqued in interest.

“I wasn’t going to say anything,” comments Sae, looking like he means exactly the opposite. 

“I am, though,” says Ryuusei, wiping his mouth and sighing after knocking back the entire glass of water. “Be safe, get consent, don’t be too rough-”

Now, Rin prides himself on his ability to maintain composure in an embarrassing situation. As such, if asked, he will refuse to acknowledge the way that he slapped his hands across his brother-in-law’s mouth to shut him up, nor will he talk about the sharp peak of his voice as it cracked into a “That’s enough, thank you,” that made an (admittedly poor) attempt at salvaging what little dignity he had remaining. He hears Isagi snicker across the room from where he’s well-wishing Kurona and Hiori, and tries not to let the mortification weasel itself too deep into his brain. He’s seen and heard Isagi do worse, after all. The occasional voice crack is nothing in comparison.

He mutters out a goodnight to the both of them, walking away and firmly ignoring Ryuusei’s teasing jeers. Isagi’s still making his way around the room, because it seems like everyone and their father wants to talk to him, so Rin settles himself near the door and watches, fiddling absently with the neckline of his shirt. The conference room is almost welcoming, with an intricate chandelier hanging from the ceiling bathing everyone in yellow light. Pale refractions from its crystals bounce off Isagi’s hair, glittering off the tiny curls above his ears and casting him in a soft, warm glow. Rin ponders, absently to himself, whether or not Isagi is aware of the people watching him. Kaiser, Bachira, Kurona, Hiori, Rin himself whenever he can steal a glance - there is always a pair of eyes on Yoichi Isagi, and he seems to preen underneath them, symphonic in his performances whenever he can feel the weight of a gaze on his back.

Something curls in Rin’s diaphragm, something he tentatively identifies as jealousy, and a selfish little voice in his ear whispers treacherously of drawing Isagi’s eyes only to him and keeping them there. He’s with Kunigami and Bachira now, caught up in conversation, and Rin’s gaze lingers on him as he drinks in the subtle shifts in his stance as he dodges a tackling hug. He accepts Kunigami’s firm handshake, though, and Rin sees his lips form the word ‘hero’ around a megawatt smile. Kunigami’s cheeks flush, and while the logical part of Rin’s brain tells him it’s attributable to the glass of champagne in the striker’s hand, the coil of something tightens up to his throat.

He looks away, unable to watch any longer. The wine he’d drunk earlier buzzes unpleasantly in his stomach, and he’s suddenly swarmed with unsettling anxieties about the upcoming conversation. He’d never really considered the actual why of running away to France - it all happened in a whirlwind that Rin never actually took the time to unpack beyond a vague he cannot know this about me yet . But Rin’s Doomsday fast approaches, and he sits now in the grasp of Fimbulvetr, a three-year winter condensed into the ten minutes Isagi spends flitting from teammate to teammate. After all, what right does Rin have to Isagi after four years of disappearing off his radar?

His time to himself ends both sooner and later than anticipated, because Isagi only darts between a few more people before glancing around again for Rin. It’s almost scarily easy, the way that Isagi slips his hand into Rin’s and gently pinches his thumb as he drags him out of the conference room, the intricately-patterned tile clicking rhythmically beneath his shoes. The world falls silent as the conference room doors click shut, constricting the world to simply him and Isagi and the yawning gap between their bodies, bridged only by the confident grip of Isagi’s palm intertwined with his own.

The shorter man leads Rin to the elevator, talking quietly about how Chigiri means to ask Kunigami on a date before he returns to England and how Yukimiya’s been looking at rings for Karasu and Otoya, a matter which he instantly makes Rin swear not to breathe a word of. Rin obliges with relative ease - if Karasu was going to find out in any way that isn’t a proposal, it’d be through him figuring it out himself, and he tells Isagi as such.

“You know, Rin,” hums Isagi, contemplative. “You say you don’t care about us that much, but you do, secretly, don’t you?” He nudges Rin in the side knowingly, tapping the last remains of softness on his body that hug the muscle of his hips. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rin tells him fluidly, trying to position a neutral expression on his face like Reo does with his customer service smile. His heart pounds in his chest, and he can hear the blood roaring in his ears. He picks absent-mindedly at the skin around his thumbnail, tearing off the loosened layers and rolling them between his fingertips nervously. Isagi rifles through his pocket to get to his room key, scanning the card on the reader and cracking the door open. He squeezes Rin’s hand once as he gestures for him to go inside, tight and secure, and somehow he starts feeling a little better about the whole thing. It’s just Isagi, he reminds himself, kind, lukewarm, slightly foolish Isagi - Isagi all the same. 

“You do care, though,” says Isagi, instead of acknowledging Rin’s internal turmoil.

“Maybe,” replies Rin, toeing into ambiguity. Isagi sits himself on the double bed closest to the door, staring at Rin expectantly as he settles awkwardly into the chair at the desk opposite. The room is dark, all the lights flicked off, but the moon casts a gentle glow over them, scattering mirrors over Isagi’s skin. The beds are neatly made, dragging out some muted memory of Isagi back in the Second Selection telling Aryu how Barou taught him to fold his duvet. Traffic whirs in the background, and the sigh Rin pushes from between pursed lips is almost overshadowed by the loud honking of a car horn many streets down.

“I don’t know exactly why I left,” he starts, hesitant and slow. The words feel like honey in his mouth, sludgy and viscous, and he struggles to push them out. “The only thing I can clearly identify is the fear of rejection. I knew that you knew, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to pass it off as just a goal celebration, so I panicked.

I spoke to Loki as soon as I could,” he admits, grimacing at the memory, “and he somehow managed to wrangle me a place in Paris X Gen. I think I started hating myself for it a little bit,” he murmurs, mostly to himself. “I was guilty. Mad. Upset. Regretful, in a sense, that I hadn’t just forgone my own inhibitions and stayed, if only for a while.”

“That’s not all your fault, though,” justifies Isagi softly, blue eyes meeting teal. “Plus, you made up for it today, didn’t you?”

“Mm,” mumbles Rin, unconvinced. Isagi laughs to himself, a quiet thing, barely audible under the traffic. He pushes himself up off the bed and wanders towards the desk, turning and leaning his body against it to face the window. 

Eyes on the flickering street lights, Isagi speaks. “I was upset for a very long time. I liked you a lot, Rin, so much it ached. The rejection stung .” Rin’s gaze flits up to Isagi’s face at his use of the past tense, and he seems to realise his slip-up, words falling into the night air more quickly now.

“I still do - like you, that is,” he corrects, hands fluttering momentarily around his face. “But I was really hurt when you left. Any time I tried to make contact, indirectly or otherwise, it felt like I was making conversation with a brick wall.” Rin cringes, wincing away even though Isagi isn’t even looking at him.

“It was Meguru that got me back to my senses, in the end,” explains Isagi. “It was a couple years ago, when he was visiting over the holidays - something about nobody in Spain understanding the magic of KFC over Christmas - and he caught me making lists of how to get you a present.” Isagi laughs despite himself, relaxing his shoulders and leaning back slightly into the desk. “He literally whacked me across the head and told me that you weren’t gonna get your head out of your ass, so I had to.”

“Rude,” huffs Rin quietly, drawing a short breath of laughter out of Isagi.

“He ended up being right, though, didn’t he? I had to argue with you in the middle of the Blue Lock parking lot to get you to even talk to me, let alone chase up on whatever the hell happened back then.” A brief pause, and then Isagi glances down at Rin, eyes sparkling with something Rin doesn’t want to give himself the hope of naming. 

“I really don’t want to credit that tepid bee with anything,” hums Rin reluctantly.

Isagi is silent for a moment, quiet in a place where Rin thought he would at least give a chuckle, and when he looks up to meet his gaze, Isagi is staring at the floor, chewing shallowly on his bottom lip. A car whisks past on the street below, casting a glimmering shadow in the shape of the window across his face and illuminating sharp cheekbones and contemplative blue eyes. Rin is struck, then, by a beat of fiery affection, presenting itself as a near-uncontrollable urge to take Isagi’s face in his hands and kiss away whatever seems to be troubling him.

“Does that mean that this is… something?” Isagi asks after a moment, voice quiet and low.

Rin swallows, feeling his throat bob. “If you’re okay with it being something,” he breathes, drinking in the look in Isagi’s eyes as he turns to face him. He’s a vision, some subconscious part of him thinks, glowing in the nighttime air, hair shining in every shade of LED street sign, hope almost tangible in the rapidly closing gap between them.

“Can our something involve this, then?” asks Isagi breathlessly, close enough Rin can feel the exhale fanning across his lips.

“It can involve whatever you want, if you’re egotistical enough to take it,” replies Rin, half a challenge, half assent, and the space between them winks into nothingness.

Their second kiss is simultaneously everything and nothing like their first - Isagi’s hands find their way to Rin’s hair almost immediately, and Rin hooks his thumb thoughtlessly into the collar of Isagi’s shirt, trying futilely to pull him ever closer. Where their first kiss was a raging inferno, tinged with the sweat of ninety minutes well-fought, their second is a steadily crackling hearth-fire, burning securely in the pits of their stomachs, as enthralling as the quiet gasp Isagi lets out as Rin pulls briefly away to tug him down by the hip.

Isagi’s knees buckle, his body collapsing into Rin’s lap, and they melt together, Rin’s fist twisting into the wispy hairs at the nape of Isagi’s neck as the older’s legs move to straddle his thighs. Their mouths collide like anti-particles, locked in a never-ending cycle of birth and annihilation. Rin revels in the whispering noises that flutter from Isagi’s lips, and groans low in his throat when Isagi’s fingers twist just so around the lock of hair he has in his grasp. One of his hands descends to curl around the base of Rin’s neck, and the kiss turns messy, a whirlpool of teeth nibbling into lips and humid exhales. They separate with a breath, barely leaving a moment to draw in fresh oxygen before meshing together again, and Rin is halfway convinced that any onlooker would genuinely struggle to tell their limbs apart with the way it feels like Isagi is moulding himself to fit against his body.

Isagi pulls away, further than he would to simply take a breath, and Rin’s already pulling him back by the chin when he clambers off his lap entirely, stopping him in his tracks.

“Up, up,” invites Isagi urgently, tugging Rin up by the wrists, and he follows blindly, rising up from the chair and stumbling back into Isagi’s vice grip. He’s dragged down to the mattress, back meeting blankets, and Isagi’s palms are cupping his face before he even has time to think, solid and warm, bright blue eyes burning holes into his. Rin is stunned into silence, laid unmoving on Isagi’s bed, and for once the voice that whispers to him to wrest back control is blessedly silent.

“Rin,” breathes Isagi, looking like an angel. Black hair frames his face, messy and rumpled from the fingers Rin’s coursed through them, forming a halo around his lips, cherry-red and kiss-bitten. He’s flushed, panting lightly, cheeks aflame. Rin wants to consume him, draw Isagi into his skin and devour him completely and utterly, subduct Isagi into himself until their lungs are flush, melting together. “Rin, I need you to tell me you want this, before I go too far.”

“What,” mutters Rin, interrupting himself with a winded exhale, “about any of the last two minutes has indicated to you that I don’t want this.”

“Rin,” Isagi warns, tone harder now.

“I want it,” Rin admits, folding easily at the look of firm, righteous determination in his eyes. “I want this, you, whatever, Isagi, just don’t fucking stop.”

“Stop me if I do anything you don’t like,” says Isagi, laughing low in his chest, and finally he dives back in, pressing his mouth to the base of Rin’s throat with intention, jolting out a startled whimper. His lips form a loose circle, and Isagi sucks , waxing and waning, beat and off-beat, for what seems like an eternity until he lets go with a gentle scrape of teeth over the skin, soothing the angry red mark with a soft kiss. He pauses on the upwards arch, gaze fixed on his neck, and Rin squirms under the attention. 

“Gorgeous,” Isagi whispers, more to himself than anything else. He raises a hand, palm lightly calloused around its heel, and traces the mark he made with something akin to reverence. Isagi seems to drink Rin in, prone and vulnerable on the bed, limbs loose and open, and it’s not awkward , per se, but Isagi’s gaze is searing into his skin, and he just honestly wants him to get on with it already.

“Are you going to stare at me all night or kiss me already, you tepid asshole,” he bites out indelicately, curling a fist into the sheets. Isagi, the bastard, laughs at him, thumbing once more over the mark before returning to the base of Rin’s throat, leaving kisses down the expanse of skin. He spares no effort as he covers every square centimetre of Rin with his lips, pressing involuntary huffs out of him as he sinks a hand into Isagi’s hair, guiding his motions.

“Stop- mm , stop beating around the bush,” pants Rin after what feels like years, taking Isagi by the chin and tilting his face upwards to meet his eyes. His lips are shiny, moist with the kisses dropped onto Rin’s skin, and they’re half parted, eyes glazed over in devotion.

“Don’t know what you mean,” sighs Isagi, but he complies anyway, trailing his mouth upwards from the slope of Rin’s jaw to meet back with his lips. Rin sighs into it, letting his eyes close and letting his hands migrate back to the nape of Isagi’s neck. Every part of Isagi is soft now, warm and inviting, so utterly different from the version of him seven hours ago on the field. On that field, Rin had devoured Isagi, and been devoured in return, but now, with Isagi’s body melting into his, fluttering little gasps pouring like litanies from the space between their lips, Rin is thinking of anything but leaving him behind.

Isagi’s hands wander as he kisses, Rin notices. While Rin’s own hands have been consistently trailing patterns over the back of his head or neck, Isagi’s have wandered to the hem of his shirt. His fingers tease at the fabric, pulling it up and over before tugging it back down again. His pinky finger brushes momentarily over the exposed sliver of midriff, and Rin jerks, rolling upwards into Isagi’s touch. It pulls a hum out of him, contemplative yet amused, and the bastard does it again , purposeful this time, dragging three fingers down the cool plane of Rin’s side. Against his will, Rin’s grip on the hairs at the back of Isagi’s neck tightens, drawing a short moan out of him before he can cut himself off, and oh , Rin likes that Isagi likes that. He tries again, experimentally, twirling short blue locks between his ring and middle fingers and pulling gently, and Isagi groans low in his throat, deep and rumbling. Rin opens his eyes just in time to see Isagi’s fall shut, face dripping in bliss, and Rin hungers.

Isagi is the stars, and even tossed back into something terribly obscene, he is bathed in soft glowing light, skin aglow with World Cup victory and the whispering of lifelong dreams coming into fruition. Rin’s heart beats its wings like a bird taking flight, threatening to claw out of his chest and leap into Isagi’s waiting palms. His mouth has found its way back to Rin’s neck, now, kissing and nibbling and sucking with a kind of fervour Rin’s only ever seen on the football field.

“ Mmm , Rin,” murmurs Isagi between breaths, kissing over his Adam's apple like it’s the forbidden fruit, succumbing to sin without even a moment of hesitation.

“Isagi,” Rin responds in kind, trying not to let the words come out as gasps. “Ah, Isagi ,” he sighs out again at a particularly harsh suck to the base of his throat. His body moves completely on instinct - stripped down to his base desires, it’s involuntary as his digits curl meanly into Isagi’s hair and twist, coaxing another moan unbidden from the other man’s lips.

“Rin, Rin,” says Isagi, over and over, tone tinged with a hint of desperation. “Rin, let’s not end this here, mm , stay with me even- hah - even outside of this room, ‘kay?”

“Go on a date with me,” Rin demands in a rush, heart on fire. It’s not a question, and Isagi knows it, if the throaty hum exhaled onto his skin and the relaxing of his shoulders are any indication. “After we get back to Japan, mnn, Isagi - Enoshima Island, I’ll take you - we can go to the beach, whatever you want, okay, just, fuck , just let me show you around, whatever, as long as you stay.”

Rin feels Isagi nod into his neck, sounds coming out as soft jubilant laughs, and a flicker of pride lances up his lungs at his own initiative. It doesn’t get far beyond that, though, because after that Isagi is wriggling his fingers up Rin’s shirt and untucking it, making very obvious movements towards pulling it over his head to discard it, an action which consumes any room remaining in his brain previously allocated to thinking coherent thoughts.

It’s only after the fact that he realises that he was just as desperate for Isagi to stay as Isagi was for him. He only realises after they’re in bed together, his eyes drooping closed to the sound of Isagi’s soft snores next to him, that he realises he’d rather die than leave the man next to him behind again. Even now, even after everything, Isagi still wants him - Rin would rather sacrifice the World Cup to Michael Kaiser than let that escape him again. He vows to himself, in that moment, to hold on to Isagi henceforth, to treat him like something precious, to Enoshima Island and beyond.

Isagi tosses his bare thigh up over Rin’s, wiggling around unconsciously; what else can he do but roll over, sink his nose into soft hair, and fall deeply, contentedly, dreamlessly asleep?