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“That’s surprising…”
Nagi makes a questioning noise without looking from his phone.
“Someone I didn’t talk to signed up for the soccer club,” Reo answers his wordless question.
“What’s so surprising about that?”
“I didn’t think anyone in this school other than me actually wanted to play the sport of their own volition,” Reo remarks, and when Nagi glances up from his game, Reo’s squinting at his phone. “I don’t think I’ve seen him before, either. I don’t recognize the name.”
A name even Reo didn’t recognize? That was surprising.
“I wonder if he’s any good,” Reo muses aloud, and Nagi makes a noise of acknowledgement. Reo turns to him with a grin, quickly ruffling Nagi’s hair. “Don’t worry, there’s no way he can be as brilliant as you, Nagi!”
“You’re going to make me lose my game,” Nagi complains, ducking away from Reo’s affectionate touch.
Still, his gaze lingers a little longer on Reo’s smile than it does on the screen on his phone.
“My name is Shoto Nishida!” is their new teammate’s energetic introduction. “It’s very nice to meet you all!”
Just being around this guy is enough for Nagi to feel tired. Nagi kind of hopes he sucks at the sport so Reo can kick him out.
Reo seems a bit taken aback by Nishida’s enthusiasm, too, albeit in a slightly different sense. “It’s… nice to meet you too,” he greets back, and Nishida’s already wide grin only widens when he sees Reo.
“Ah! Reo Mikage, right?”
Nagi watches the smile on Reo’s face falter for half a second. Reo always hates this part of meeting someone new—Nagi’s watched him introduce himself to enough people to catch the barely noticeable shift in Reo’s expression whenever his full name with the permanent attachment of “Mikage” is mentioned. Nagi sometimes wonders if Reo would prefer a different family name. Maybe something more like “Nagi.”
Nagi’s getting distracted. He tunes back in to see Reo nod.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Nishida starts, and Nagi resists the urge to roll his eyes. Here it comes, Nagi thinks. “You want to win the World Cup, right?”
…that’s new.
Reo’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “Yeah,” he agrees. “I’m taking this team to nationals, and then I’m winning the World Cup.”
“With me,” Nagi interrupts before he’s even realized that he’s stepped forward. “Right, Reo?”
Reo looks surprised at the interruption, but his grin softens when he sees Nagi. “Of course.”
Nishida’s gaze slides over to him, but it’s only for a moment before it travels back to Reo. Nagi decides that he doesn’t like the way this guy stares at Reo, half-smitten, half-mesmerized, and maybe a little in love. Only Nagi’s allowed to look at Reo like that.
Nagi supposes this is a rare time in which he’s grateful for Reo’s incapability of being able to tell when people are enamored with him. Nagi would need both hands to count the number of times Reo’s rejected a confession without realizing it was a confession in the first place.
“Then, I look forward to winning nationals with this team!” Nishida says loudly, interrupting Nagi’s thoughts. Nagi wrinkles his nose—did this guy have any sense of an inside voice at all?
“Yeah, let’s do it,” Reo agrees, and Nagi’s frown deepens.
What a pain, Nagi thinks.
And what a pain it becomes.
It takes only a few practices to learn that Nishida’s enthusiasm isn’t all just for show: he’s quite solid as a player, as well, and although he’s not nearly as adept as Reo or Nagi (at least in Nagi’s definitively unbiased opinion), he’s undeniably a cut above the rest of the players on their team. Nagi’s fine with it, because he still receives the majority of Reo’s passes and subsequently the majority of the goals of their team, but he does always feel a bit smarted when he positions himself perfectly for a pass and Reo sends it to Nishida instead.
“We can’t be predictable,” is Reo’s explanation when Nagi asks about it. “That’s how we’re going to win nationals, right, Nagi?”
“Hm,” is Nagi’s response.
In any sense, Nishida’s presence certainly improves the performance of the Hakuho soccer team. For some reason, Nagi always feels especially driven to secure goals with the other boy on the field, and after a particularly successful upset against one of the strongest teams in their prefecture, with Nagi scoring five goals out of six, Nagi’s rewarded by a triumphant tackle disguised as a hug from Reo that feels like a little sweeter of a victory with a not-so-conspicuous stare from Nishida.
Take that, Nagi thinks to himself triumphantly.
As their undefeated streak continues, Reo only becomes more and more excited for the upcoming qualifier rounds.
“We can do it,” he tells Nagi one day during lunch. “We can really do it—win nationals.”
“Yaaay,” Nagi cheers lazily, his head in Reo’s lap and Reo’s fingers in Nagi’s hair as Reo talks about possible matchups. Nagi doesn’t bother paying too much attention—only because he knows the two of them can defeat any team in the country together.
And okay, maybe Nishida helped. Kind of.
If that was the extent of his involvement—boosting the performance of the team—Nagi thinks he wouldn’t mind the other so much. But it’s only a few weeks after Nishida’s entrance into the team that Nagi realizes exactly how enamored the other was with Reo.
It starts with interrupting lunch—how did he even find them on the rooftop?—with an excited “hey, Reo, do you want to discuss some techniques for our next practice match?” and then it moves to “hey, Reo, could you teach me this trick?” and then it moves to “oh, Reo, you wouldn’t mind staying late to practice with me, right?” and after about a week of such nagging, Nagi is about ready to strangle him with his bare hands.
And what makes it all worse is Reo. Reo, with his kind nature; Reo, who has never seemed to notice how attractive he is, physically or otherwise; Reo, with his single desire to win the World Cup, with whoever will make that dream possible—Reo, who indulges every one of Nishida’s requests without fail.
For a day, for an evening, for a single hour, Nagi lets himself consider what it would be like: if Reo decided that this ball of endless energy, who never complained about anything being a pain, was who he wanted to win the World Cup with instead of Nagi.
It wouldn’t be so bad, Nagi tries to tell himself. No more nagging to go to practice every day, no more playing soccer, more time for video games—
No more lunch on the rooftop. No more bike rides home at the end of the day. No more hair ruffles and celebratory hugs and wide grins and bright eyes and “Nagi!”s in the way that only Reo has ever said his name—
Ah, Nagi realizes simply as he stares at his ceiling. I can’t lose him.
And Nagi knows, of course, that Nishida is nowhere near his level in soccer—that alone should be enough to keep Reo with him, but Nagi’s been watching Nishida, and he’s seen the other improve. With Nagi’s resistance to practice at all times and Nishida’s trajectory of improvement, by the time it becomes nationals…
Then, what if I couldn’t play soccer? Would you find someone else to be the best in the world with?
Ah? I’ve never thought about it before… if you started sucking at trapping…? Yeah, I guess I’d—
“Abandon you,” Nagi murmurs into the silence of his own room. Reo’s answer since the day they went out to buy cleats has lurked somewhere in the back of Nagi’s mind for some time now, but its full force is finally starting to hit Nagi, and it makes his gut twist in an unpleasant way.
But the solution, at least, was easy. Nagi was lacking in virtually any aspect that would make Reo want to stay with him—but soccer, he could do. The very idea of forcing himself into more practice makes his limbs sag with premature weariness, but the outline of a grin and the shadow of a touch force him to sit up in bed and reach for his alarm clock. Reluctantly, he sets his alarm clock for an hour earlier than his typical wake time, then sets the clock back down with a sigh.
“This is going to be such a pain,” Nagi tells Choki.
“So this is where you’ve been going every morning.”
Nagi, who had had his leg reeled back in preparation for a kick, whirls around at Reo’s voice almost fast enough to fall over.
“What are you doing here,” he blurts out.
Reo slides his bag higher on his shoulder. “This entire week,” he starts, watching Nagi with a strange expression, “you’ve left your apartment before Ba-Ya and I come to pick you up.” His gaze darts between Nagi and the soccer ball at his feet. “And you’ve been… practicing?”
Nagi’s immediate reaction is to deny the claim, but there’s little he can do with the evidence right at his feet.
“I guess.”
“...why?”
“Couldn’t I practice just because I felt like it?”
Reo raises his eyebrows. “You?” he asks pointedly. He shakes his head. “You’ve been off for a while, Nagi—is something wrong?”
The word off digs into Nagi’s skin. He puts a foot on the soccer ball. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not,” Reo says bluntly. “This extra practice, all the goals you’ve been scoring recently—” He shakes his head again. “Not that you’re not typically brilliant,” he clarifies quickly, “but you’ve never had to put so much effort before. This…” he gestures to the field. “It’s not like you, Nagi.”
Nagi looks away. It wasn’t like him, but that was the entire problem, wasn't it? Maybe if this was like him, Reo wouldn't—
“I’m fine,” Nagi repeats shortly. Reo stares at him, clearly unconvinced.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
“I’m not lying.”
“Are you sick? Is that what’s wrong?”
“I said,” Nagi grits out, pulling his leg back, “I’m fine.” He kicks the soccer ball at his feet, but the angle is off and the pressure is wrong, and it bounces harmlessly against the goal post meters away.
Shit, Nagi thinks as he blankly watches the soccer ball roll off the field. I shouldn’t have let Reo see that.
“Fine,” Reo bites out, and Nagi’s eyes swivel to see frustration tugging at the corners of his Reo’s eyes. “Be like that if you want. I don’t care.”
And then Reo turns, beginning to walk away, and something horrible and cloying begins to work its way up Nagi's throat.
No. No. Nagi cannot lose him.
It's with an unfamiliar taste of desperation on his tongue that he reaches forward and grabs Reo's shoulder.
"Reo, wait—"
"What?" Reo asks, spinning around with his hands in the air. "What the fuck do you want, Nagi?" Nagi pulls his hand back as Reo takes a step forward. "I can't take it, with you all—all—dithering like this. You used to be so straightforward, so why can't you just tell me what's wrong?"
"If I tell you what's wrong, you'll leave," Nagi blurts out. Reo's brows furrow in confusion.
"What are you talking about?" Reo shakes his head. "Why would I leave?" At Nagi's silence, Reo prods again. "Nagi?"
"You said you would," Nagi says quietly. "You said you'd leave if you found someone better."
"Huh?" Reo says. "Oh... yeah, I guess I did." He blinks. "So?" Nagi falls silent again, and Reo squints at him. "What, and you think Nishida is better?" he says with a laugh that cuts off abruptly when Nagi looks away. "What, seriously?"
“You spend a lot of time with him now,” Nagi mutters sullenly, and Reo laughs in surprise.
“His enthusiasm is contagious,” Reo says with a shrug, and Nagi frowns. “Like an excitable puppy, you know?” He shakes his head, and Nagi revels in the petty feeling of satisfaction that shoots through him at Reo’s words. “That doesn’t mean I like him or anything. He can be a bit much at times. I’m certainly not going to win the World Cup with him.” He glances at Nagi. “Is that what you were worried about?”
Nagi scratches his nose. “Maybe it’s not Nishida,” he says quietly, “but what about when someone better comes along?”
Reo takes a step closer. “You’re really worried about this,” he says, his voice hushed with something like awe. “You’re really worried I’d leave you.”
“I want to win the World Cup with you, Reo,” Nagi blurts out, taking Reo’s hands into his own impulsively. “I want to go to nationals with you, Reo, and win the World Cup, and after that, I want to move into an apartment together, and I want to adopt another cactus, Reo, and then I want us to get a house, and then I want us to get married, and—” When he finally registers the stunned look on Reo’s face, he cuts himself off and hopes Reo didn’t hear the last part of his rambling. “I’m scared, Reo,” he admits quietly. “I don’t want you to replace me with someone better.”
“Someone better,” Reo repeats weakly, and Nagi nods. Reo blinks a few times before pulling his hands out of Nagi’s to cup Nagi’s cheeks. “Someone better doesn’t exist, Nagi, not for me—” He cuts himself off. “Do you remember what I told you that day in Harajuku?”
“That you’d abandon me if I started sucking at trapping,” Nagi responds immediately. Reo shakes his head.
“After that.”
“...that you’re a hyper-competent, high-class, super popular elite?”
“...after that.”
Nagi’s silent. Reo squeezes his cheeks.
“No one can replace you, Nagi,” Reo murmurs. “Remember?” Nagi lets out a muffled noise of affirmation. “I meant it then, and I mean it more even now.”
“So you’ll only win the World Cup with me?”
“Only you, Nagi. It will always, always be you.”
“So you’ll only move into an apartment with me?”
“Huh…? Sure, but I mean, I don’t think I’ll need—”
“And you’ll only adopt another cactus with me?”
“If you want…?”
“And you’ll only move into a house with me?”
Reo’s face splits into an awkward, brilliant grin. “Okay, Nagi, whatever you want.”
“And you’ll only get married to me?”
“Okay—wait, what?”
“Yay. Reo Nagi or Seishiro Mikage?”
“What—Nagi, you can’t just—”
“I like both.”
“Oh, god,” Reo mutters, pulling his hands from Nagi’s face to cover his own fiery blush. “What the hell did I sign up for?”
Nagi pulls Reo’s hands away from his face to press his lips against the back of Reo’s hand.
“Only a forever with me.”