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Kaiser’s mid-throw, a lamp clutched over his head and aimed at the darkened television, when his phone vibrates.
The sound snaps him back into his body. Only one person ever contacts him, and he ordered Ness to fuck off, so what the hell does he want now?
Teeth gnashing, Kaiser lowers the lamp and snatches his phone from where he’d slammed it onto the nightstand.
helpme, Ness’s text reads.
Everything in him hollows, cold. The message stares back at him until his peripheral vision blurs and the letters start dissolving into nonsense. As if testing reality, he closes the app and reopens it. A thin thread of worry twists through his gut when the text continues to sit there, bare and urgent: helpme.
Ness has never before asked Kaiser for anything.
And that’s not how he usually texts.
In his mind's eye, Kaiser flings his phone and any festering connection to Alexis out the window. Both skitter across the pavement, crushed beneath unforgiving tires before he can even blink. The sinking feeling in his chest doesn’t amplify in the dark when he shuts off the lamp. He boards a plane to Germany in the morning. Moves on with his life.
But that's not what happens.
Michael Kaiser clutches his phone like a lifeline until his forearms spasm.
"Fuck," he hisses, then strikes onto his keyboard: tell me where you are
Three dots appear, then disappear.
alexis!!!, he types, backspacing when his thumbs keep missing letters. answer me!!
It's a command, but it remains unread.
After all, Alexis Ness doesn't do what he says anymore.
Part of Kaiser—the one that finds reprieve in sinking his nails into his skin as he chokes himself—wants to wash his hands of this entire situation. Caring about others is exhausting in a way that leaves him more sore than squatting his own weight at the gym. He isn’t built for human connection. Brushing his own hair is already an arduous feat; tending to someone else’s needs feels impossible.
But then the memory of Ness following him in the tunnel comes back to him like a song on repeat.
"Even so, I'll stay by your side," he promised.
i WILL find you, Kaiser writes, jabbing the send button again and again, as if force might carry the words faster. The message is a threat on the surface, born of his insides crawling, molten and restless, diving into isolation while Ness keeps him tethered to sanity.
And beneath the fury, something worse settles in: a crooked calm. Because Kaiser knows Alexis will read between the words and interpret them as a vow.
Because Ness needs him, too.
The thought coils low in his gut, dizzying, but he stifles it before it blooms.
Minutes bleed past.
Nothing stirs on the screen. The dots don’t spring to life.
That’s enough to push Kaiser into action.
But no matter how fast he moves, it’s like sprinting through an escape room that rearranges itself every time he turns.
Slipping into his shirt takes more effort than it should. It falls from his uncooperative hands and hits the polished floorboards; when he finally wrestles it on, it’s inside-out.
It takes longer than it should to locate his shoes, as if they’ve joined the room in conspiring against him. They’re gone until he spots them crammed under the bed, kicked there earlier during his outburst without noticing. On all fours, he drags them out, irritation scraping raw against his nerves.
He’s barely halfway out the door when he freezes. The door slams against his back, the knob digging into his lower spine. Growling, he turns back—where is the keycard?
Ripping the room apart in search of it only makes everything worse. Pillows frumped and scattered. Covers draped off the bed. Luggage toppled. Boxers and socks littering the floor like confetti, mocking.
And of course, the keycard is in the last place he looks: next to the TV he should have smashed.
Thrusting it into his pockets, he pulls out his phone. Ness still hasn’t read the message. The dead air needles through Kaiser. It must clear some blockage in his brain because he is struck by an idea. He opens location sharing instead, fingers finally moving on instinct more than thought. For once, he’s grateful he never had the nerve to cut Ness off completely.
He’s not far.
Why isn’t he answering?
Kaiser shouldn’t even go.
Why isn’t he answering?
Two blocks away. At some club.
Why isn’t Ness answering?
One more time, he pats his pockets, making sure the keycard hasn’t decided to play hide-and-seek. Only then does he step into the hallway, its eerie stillness deafening, like the building itself is waiting for a signal.
x
The club is a sensory-overload horror house. Bass thumps through his chest as he bulldozes past dancing, sweating bodies. Lasers stab at his eyes while he scans the crowd, scanning for Ness’s familiar outline.
He almost grabs the DJ mic to call him out, but then the VIP room catches his eye, and it clicks. Ness isn’t a club person. Not really, unless he’s trying to fit in with the team.
Security doesn’t bother stopping him.
Stepping into the room feels like entering another dimension. Blue, pink, and purple lights wash over the vast, quiet space. People cluster at the bar, a sullen hush hanging over them. He spots Ness at the epicenter, folded in on himself over the counter, face buried in his palms.
Kaiser makes a beeline for him.
A disembodied voice calls out as he approaches, each word laced with suspicion and warning: “What do you want, Kaiser?”
Heads turn. The room stills, as if the air itself has been sucked out, leaving only the tang of alcohol and despair. Tension spools in the air, like a noose pulled heavier with each passing second.
“I’m here for Ness.” Kaiser’s voice slices through the room, absolute, each syllable lacquered with calm. “He’s mine.”
Bodies shift in front of him—shoes scraping the floor, postures straightening. Hands twitch at sides, some sloshing their drinks, others disappearing into pockets, unsure which move might matter, if any of it matters at all.
A narrow corridor clears straight to Ness. Kaiser takes it, happy to know that the weight of his presence makes dissent impossible, even after his PXG fumble.
But then his sovereignty is challenged when one of the players from Berserk Dortmund steps forward, tight-lipped grin failing to mask his disdain, arm jutting out like a barricade. “We can’t let you do that.”
Annoyance spears through Kaiser as he barges past. “I didn’t ask for your permission.”
Ness lifts his head in a daze, mouth parting in shock. Tears cling to his lashes like the jewel stickers he uses to bedazzle his journals. “Kaiser…”
The puppy dog eyes, the wistfulness in his voice—it pulls Kaiser in like a siren call. He crosses the space between them on instinct, reaching for Ness’s wrist, already planning to leave with him in tow.
Kaiser doesn’t notice Gesner at Ness’s side like a bodyguard—thick muscle, solid bone—until he slaps Kaiser’s hand away.
It doesn’t surprise him. Of course Gesner sides with Ness, or thinks he does. To him, Kaiser is a nuisance and a problem, and always has been. No insight, no apology, no rebirth could alter that. He witnessed the tantrums on the field during the NEL. Heard Kaiser lash out at Ness just hours earlier.
Kaiser can’t remember what he said. Rage had swallowed chunks of time whole; he only resurfaced in the hotel room when Ness’s text dragged him back.
He shrugs off Gesner’s resistance. He’s already signed with ReAl. The sense of teamwork died the moment the clock ran out. He owes Gesner nothing. Gesner is nothing.
But Ness—
“He texted me,” Kaiser says, gaze locked on Ness and no one else. “He wanted me to come get him.”
Another player lets out a derisive scoff. “Oh whatev—”
“It’s true,” Ness interrupts. Wet streaks line his cheeks. He sniffles, but doesn't bother wiping his face. “I didn’t think you’d come, Kaiser…”
A wave of guilt surges through Kaiser. Is he that terrible? Hasn’t he changed, even a little? “I’m here,” he reassures, face flushing like he’s been out in the sun for too long.
More tears well in Ness’s eyes, chin quivering. “Can you take me away from here?”
The other players on the team grumble:
“Ness—”
“You don’t have to go with him. We’ll take care of you—”
“You can’t be serious, Nessie!”
“Kaiser will never change! He’s still the same asshole!”
Ignoring them, Ness slides off the stool, teetering with a startled, “Ahh!” Kaiser’s hands are already at his waist, steadying him, pulling him upright. Ness drapes an arm over Kaiser’s shoulder like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Guys, shut up! Just let them go.” Gesner’s resigned voice rises above the others. “It’s not one sided…”
Months ago, Kaiser would have leveled a contemptuous smile at Gesner, shutting him down without a second thought. Now, a small, insistent voice gnaws at the edges of his mind, reminding him why Ness’s loyalty isn’t just another trivial bond. It matters. And no matter how many times he backslides, he can’t box it away and forget.
Especially not now, with Ness cleaved onto him, resting his forehead in the crook of Kaiser’s neck like Kaiser is a comforting presence and not an overgrown thornbush.
Kaiser doesn’t bother telling Gesner to shut the fuck up and stay out of his business.
The faint smell of citrus tickles Kaiser’s nose as he trawls Ness away, pace accommodated to Ness’s sluggish, clumsy footsteps.
“You changed your shampoo?” he asks, heart cramping. How did Ness switch his brand so quickly? What happened to the usual rose-scented—
“No, I used whatever was in the locker rooms,” Ness hiccups.
Ah. Kaiser sucks in a deep breath, centering himself.
Ironically enough, crossing the club’s nightmarish landscape serves as a reprieve from both his racing thoughts and interrogating Ness. Steering them along the outskirts of the dance floor monopolizes all of his physical and mental strength. He repels careless party goers from crashing into them and sidesteps grimy litter. Each time, Ness keens in protest, “Not too fast, Kaiser! My head hurts…”
Finally, fresh air fills Kaiser’s lungs when they step out onto the clean and orderly sidewalk. Head now free, Ness floods his senses. Kaiser lets himself drown in the closeness—the warmth of Ness’s weight against him, the soft rattle in his chest as his breath hitches.
There’s no use asking why he’s crying.
“So, you got carried away? That’s not like you.”
Then again, nothing about tonight is normal.
Drunk Alexis Ness giggles at momonga landing-fail videos, bakes cupcakes at four in the morning, and then sways his hips to musical soundtracks. He passes out with his mouth open, drool pooling on his pillow, and wakes the next morning laughing as he scrolls through awful photos on his phone, reliving the night’s shenanigans.
But this drunk Ness weeps. His hands shake. He latches onto Kaiser, loath to let go.
“Ness, say something—”
“I was scared I was going to vomit, and I wanted you to come get me,” Ness laments. Pathetic, Kaiser thinks, and presses Ness closer. “I’m still gonna vomit…I think.”
A memory from two years ago hits him like a brick: his head in the toilet, retching spoiled tuna, while Ness gathers his hair away from his face patiently. Kaiser never thought a time would come where it would be the other way around. “And you wanted me to help?”
“You can stick your fingers down my throat, or something.”
Kaiser doesn’t respond.
Sometimes Ness says the most outlandish shit, rendering him speech. It both bothers and impresses Kaiser, who dedicated years tailoring his image to perfection. Every word, every gesture had been part of the performance, and Ness was his accomplice, honest to a fault.
He used to think Ness was his dog, trained and subordinate.
Turns out he was holding his own leash.
“You didn’t say no,” Ness says after a while.
Kaiser pinches the skin over Ness’s hipbone through his shirt, savoring the way Ness flinches because of him and then hugs him closer anyway, despite the pain.
“You’re saying things you don’t mean,” Kaiser says. “Let’s just go back—”
Ness growls and crushes his face into Kaiser’s neck, right against his tattoo. Teeth graze the skin there, and Kaiser suppresses a shiver as Ness clings to him, too close, like he’s trying to crawl inside his chest.
“I’m tired of you dismissing my feelings, Kaiser,” Ness snaps. “I mean every word I say. I—”
They’ve stopped moving now. Kaiser presses Ness’s head closer, remembering something he once read—if a dog bites, you push into it. Ness’s breath is hot against his skin, all heat and desperation, and Kaiser grips Ness’s hair, tugging without quite knowing why or what he’s trying to do.
“Ness,” Kaiser warns, stumbling as Ness tries to climb him.
“Believe me, Kaiser!” It’s both a command and a plea.
“Ness… Ness—” Kaiser starts, tilting his head just enough to capture Ness’s earlobe between his teeth. Ness shudders and groans in his arms—then pushes away.
“Fine! Don’t believe me. I can stand on my own feet anyway,” he pouts, cheeks red, tears welling again because of Kaiser.
It isn’t fair.
Kaiser watches him wobble like a baby deer, heart pounding.
“I want to go home,” Ness says. And whether he means Germany, the hotel, or somewhere else, Kaiser doesn’t know.
X
One time Ness told him home was where he was.
Michael Kaiser.
He scoffed.
Ness simply let his eyes roam over Kaiser’s face, smiling gently after taking in whatever he needed to take in. He didn’t go home for the break, not even when Kaiser ignored his attempts to hang out, grab dinner, practice, or watch a movie. It was Kaiser’s way of punishing him, but Ness didn’t argue.
He never said it again.
He also never returned to Hamburg.
So when Kaiser brings him to his hotel room and Ness doesn’t complain, he understands why.
“I’m gonna vomit,” Ness announces as soon as the door swings shut behind them.
That’s how Kaiser finds himself crouched on the bathroom floor, a space barely meant for one person, while Ness kneels before the toilet, dry heaving. Helpless, he draws back a curl back from Ness’s face, marveling at how easy it is to touch him, even in this situation. Everything about Alexis Ness feels miraculous, if he lets himself think about it.
He’s the first drunk person Kaiser can stand. The first drunk person who hasn’t hurt him.
Yet.
Even the other Bastard Munchen members vented their frustrations with him, their inhibitions lifted by alcohol. They targeted their passive aggression at him, jokes a little too bold, standing in his way when he left the room, stance too provoking, impatient.
At least it was a slight improvement from back home, where little Michael prayed his shithead dad would lose a fistfight with death on the way home from the bar. But every time he’d stumble through the door, reeking of alcohol and misplaced anger. To this day, the sight and smell of beer still transports Kaiser to the days when knuckles against his jaw and kicks to his gut and blood leaking out of his nose and headaches were the norm—
But drunk Ness always has a shimmer in his eye. Like no bad things exist in the world. Beneath it, something else lingers: a fragment of loneliness, one Kaiser recognizes and finds sublime, because his own is ugly.
So, seeing Ness in this miserable state of drunkenness feels discordant.
“I thought you blocked me,” Ness says, sitting back on his heels, voice dead.
Kaiser sets his jaw. The tiles are suddenly too hard underneath him. “I didn’t. And it pisses me off that you think I would do that—”
“My texts wouldn’t go through.” He fishes his phone out and angles the screen toward him. “See?”
Kaiser takes it, reading the message thread. Ness’s I drank too much and come get me and I miss you already and help im gonna be sick texts are left unsent thanks to unreliable service and probably divine intervention. Kaiser knows himself. He wouldn’t have gone to retrieve Ness if he’d known Ness was drunk. Maybe.
“My head hurts, Kaiser. I want to sleep.”
Letting the phone screen go dark, Kaiser climbs to his feet with a sigh. “Stay here tonight.”
They say nothing as Kaiser gets Ness ready for bed. Helps him brush his teeth, then scrubs his face clean and raw. When it’s time to undress, the world seems to warp, a strange vertigo in the space between them. His fingers linger at the hem of Ness’s shirt, hovering, almost asking Ness to stop him.
Ness stills, barely breathing.
The memory of Ness’s teeth on his neck pulls a slow exhale from Kaiser. In the quiet between them, he notices again the perfect curve of Ness’s cupid’s bow, the way his lashes clump together as he holds back more tears.
Goosebumps rise along his arms at the thought of what might follow if he stops holding back.
Everything since the NEL ended presses in on him like a collapsing roof—
The arguments beneath the harsh glow of late-night practice lights.
Ness refusing to leave his side every time doubt clawed at Kaiser’s chest.
The passes, precise and unmatched, daring him on the field.
The quiet, existential questions that followed him off it.
Ness still touched up the blue in Kaiser’s hair, still lingered at the edges of his routine, but he didn’t act like a servant anymore.
Ness. Ness. Ness.
He’s been there for Kaiser this whole time. Not because Kaiser held him on a leash, but because he chose Kaiser.
But for Kaiser, accepting his humanity is a feat. Letting something fill the hollow space inside Kaiser that used to throb with self-loathing, destruction, feels even more impossible. That space sits empty now. Waiting. Maybe for Ness. Maybe for whatever this is now.
Ness rubs at his bleary eyes and peels off his shirt in one fluid motion, tossing it behind him without a second thought. A small frown tugs at his lips, gone before Kaiser can fully register it.
“Do you think it’s my fault we lost the semifinals tonight?”
Kaiser freezes. He can’t believe Ness would think that, but he doesn’t look away. “No. Of course not. We lost to Japan because our fucking goalie wouldn’t even be able to block a car from getting into a parking space—”
Ness’s chin trembles as he pulls down his pants and sits on the edge of the bed. He looks down, but not before his eyes go glassy.
“If I had just worked my magic a little better—I don’t know.” His fingers twist into the bedsheets until his knuckles blanch. “I hate this. I feel like a failure. I wanted to win so badly.”
“I did too,” Kaiser says, and tosses him an extra set of his loungewear. God, he wanted that trophy. Not to prove himself, not to justify his existence, but to mark how far he had come. To hold it in one hand and Ness in the other. “It’s just the U-20 cup. We’ll win the next senior one.”
“I can’t wait that long,” Ness whispers, struggling to pull Kaiser’s shirt over his head. When it finally settles on his shoulders, Kaiser registers distantly that it looks right on him. “I don’t want to wait that long, Kaiser.”
Kaiser shakes his head. “Time will fly by.”
“No. That’s not what I mean.”
He doesn’t explain. Instead, he tucks himself in, too careful with the blankets, his eyes tracking Kaiser as he moves around the room tidying up the mess he made. Even when Kaiser eventually slips into bed beside him, the tension doesn’t ease. It sits between them, thick enough that Kaiser nudges him with an elbow.
“What?” he goads. “Just say it.”
Ness pouts, exaggerated and earnest. Kaiser has the brief, stupid urge to press his thumbs into the corners of Ness’s mouth and force them into a smile.
“I made a bet with myself,” he says quietly. His eyes are flat, distant. “If we won the World Cup, I would tell you I loved you.”
Loved?
A high-pitched whine fills Kaiser’s head. His vision narrows until there’s only Alexis Ness, covers pulled up to his nose, acting as if he’s not throwing glass shards at him.
“I loved you, you know. I put you on a pedestal for the longest, sure, but I loved you.”
The logical, self-preserving thing for Kaiser to do would be to clamp his hands over his ears, hum loudly, leave the building—anything to shut Ness out entirely. But even then, it wouldn’t matter. He can’t forget this.
Loved.
“Well?” Tears spill free, tracking down his cheeks. “Say something, Kaiser.”
“I think you’re drunk,” Kaiser utters, inching toward the edge of the bed. Away. The room isn't cold, but his hands shake anyway. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Ness lets out a broken sound and kicks the covers aside, grabbing Kaiser’s arm before he can retreat. His grip is desperate, sure. “You’re doing it again. You never believe me.” His voice cracks. “I know exactly what I’m saying. I know what I feel. I loved you.”
Loved.
Past tense.
Kaiser pictures the word detonating, its pieces landing heavy between them, impossible to gather back into anything whole.
“Kaiser.” Ness says his name again, softer now, and suddenly he is close. He cups Kaiser’s face, thumbs brushing his cheeks like he is afraid Kaiser will disappear. “I loved you. I don’t even know when it started. Maybe when we first met. Maybe when I dyed your hair. But either way, I loved every version of you. Even while I kept changing too.”
Kaiser does not move.
“I wanted to tell you after we won the World Cup.” Ness’s smile folds in on itself. “I thought it would be a sweet goodbye. But now it just feels bitter. We lost. We weren't good enough.”
“Goodbye?” Kaiser repeats. The word catches, lodged tight in his throat.
Ness nods. “You are going to Re Al. This was our last tournament together for a while. I wanted it to be the best one.” His voice thins. “But we lost.”
Kaiser’s limbs go numb. The room tilts on its axis, threatening to drop him out of this universe.
Silence hangs in the room. Ness opens his mouth, then closes it again. He is waiting—Kaiser sees it now. Waiting for something Kaiser does not know how to give. He has never been good with this part. He is not an artist. Not a poet. He has no careful words to dull their regrets. Nothing uplifting to offer back.
“I broke up with you in my head,” Ness continues at last, his gaze flicking to Kaiser’s mouth. “During the PXG match.”
Now it is Kaiser’s turn to swallow bile.
Broke up with you in my head broke up with you in my head! It reverberates in his bones, like when his father used to kick him for forgetting the milk. Everything he has ever feared surges up at once, familiar and rotten. Rejection. Being abandoned.
His hands jerk up to his mouth, his throat.
Ness catches them before he can spiral, fingers threading through his and pressing them gently back against his lips. “Wait. Wait.” His voice is steady, urgent. “It’s not what it sounds like. Let me finish.”
He draws in a breath. “During the PXG match… You said you didn’t need me anymore. So I had two choices. I could keep playing for you. Or I could choose myself.” His grip tightens, just slightly. “I chose myself.”
Kaiser does not pull away.
“That didn’t mean I stopped caring about you,” Ness says quietly. “I thought maybe we could grow alongside each other. Together. Just not like before.”
Pig. Pig. Pig. Kaiser’s words from the PXG match come back to haunt him, revolting and relentless. Things Kaiser said to Ness. Things he can’t take back. His stomach twists. He wanted to push Ness away, and he succeeded—
Ness squeezes his hands, refusing to let him spiral. “We did that, didn’t we? We’re better now. We made it to the semifinals. But now our time together is done…” His eyes go bright in a way that isn’t happy. He worries his bottom lip raw. “And I don’t need you anymore—”
Ness doesn’t need him anymore Ness doesn’t need him anymore Ness doesn't—
“But I still want you.”
Kaiser’s thoughts skid and stall, sparking uselessly as he tries to keep up.
“I thought I could handle the distance. I wasn’t afraid of it. I wanted to support you. I still do. But I hate that I won’t see you everyday anymore, because I want to be there—”
Something snaps inside Kaiser.
Anger is easy. Safe.
So instead of running away like he did in the players’ tunnel, panic hammering in his chest, he molds it into something sharp. He pulls his hand free from Ness’s, whose eyes go wide with surprise, and yanks him close, fingers tangling in his hair. Their forehead almost touch.
His heart somersaults in a way it never has.
Ness’s mouth parts just slightly, and Kaiser wants, recklessly, to shut him up.
“Alexis, are you sure you want me around?” he asks, venom in his mouth. “Healing isn’t linear, like you keep saying. I’m going to be malicious sometimes. That’s part of me. I yelled at you after we lost… even though you did nothing wrong. You didn’t deserve it. And you still want me, even when I’m like that?”
Defying expectation, Ness doesn’t pull away. He meets Kaiser head-on, hands settling on his shoulders—not rough, not gentle. Just enough. He tugs Kaiser closer until their noses brush, so close Kaiser has to squint to focus.
“Yes. I want you,” Ness breathes, certain. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. I’ve always wanted you. Maybe I followed you blindly before, but I’ve always been selfish. I’ve always wanted you. You pushing me away only made me realize it. And I see it now—you’re changing. You’re working on yourself, and… I want to be with that version of you.” He bites the inside of his cheek as if to reset himself. “I don’t need you anymore, but I want you.”
Kaiser exhales, dazed. He isn’t really listening. He can’t. All he hears is I want you, and it scrambles every sense in his body. Ness isn’t intimidating. But this certainty, this quiet confidence, looks devastatingly beautiful on him.
“Do you still love me?”
“Yes.”
It's everything Kaiser has ever wanted, and yet.
The anger dissipates, leaving him empty. It was only ever a mask, anyway.
Kaiser shoves Ness away roughly, leaving his skin warm where they touched. Ness grunts as he sinks into the bed, bouncing a little with the force of it.
Kaiser pulls his knees up to his chest and hugs himself, shielding himself from Ness and his own mistakes.
They lost.
Ness doesn't bother sitting up.
“You’re the worst,” Kaiser says, hating the defeated edge in his own voice. “You should’ve led with that. I thought you were saying you loved me once, but not anymore.”
Ness stays still.
“Your logic is shit, by the way. Doesn’t matter if we won or lost. You’re the one who taught me that things like that don’t change our relationship, remember?” He presses his nail into his skin until it leaves a mark. “I wouldn’t have said it back, anyway…”
A small, stubborn voice whispers in the back of his head argues—in the heat of the moment, feeling at the top of the world, confetti swirling around them, Ness beaming at him, maybe—
“I just—I thought we would win,” Ness sobs. “We were unstoppable.”
Kaiser tugs at his leg hairs, trying to ground himself. “Yeah. It felt like we were flying every time we ran down the field. When I shot. You even scored a few goals, Captain Ness.”
“We were magic, Kaiser,” Ness murmurs, lifting a trembling hand to wipe his face. “I know none of what we accomplished is gone just because we lost, but… I’m going to miss you.”
The thought feels alien to Kaiser, so he has to clarify: “Because you love me?”
“Yes.”
Kaiser clears his throat, turning toward the wall as his vision blurs. Little Kaiser could handle the screaming, the violence, the hunger. This is worse. No one has ever missed him, ever cried over him. He doesn’t know what to do, how to act.
“I always wished… I don’t know. It's hard to believe.”
In an instant, he pictures Ness’s life without him: breakfast at the same spot, drills during practice, the Bastard Munchen players nudging him to join their get-togethers, to move on.
But Ness won’t have any consolations like this. Kaiser doesn’t even know what Re Al will hold for him.
Change never scared him, until it slithers up his spine right now.
Next to him, Ness shifts. The movement alone is enough to chase some of the fear away. “Do you believe in the impossible?”
Kaiser is so startled he looks back at Ness, who’s over onto his stomach, propped up on his elbows and peering up at Kaiser through his messy curls. “What?”
“I said, do you still believe in the impossible?”
“I want to be something that shouldn’t be possible in this world, and I’m a real flesh and blood human being, so yes. Of course I believe in the impossible.”
“Then…” With a deep sigh, Ness struggles to find his balance to sit up, no longer looking up at Kaiser but now meeting him at eye-level. “Your wish wouldn’t be impossible with me.”
Kaiser’s heart stutters—Ness, using his words…?
Fuck.
Kaiser gulps.
Fuck.
Then suddenly, his lungs run out of air. The world clouds, vision overtaken by a wave of something fierce and blinding. It takes long, aching seconds for his mind to realize he’s crying. Silently, violently. His chest shudders with each breathless sob, his face flushed and burning.
And he hates it—hates it with a raw, desperate fury. It makes him feel small, like the boy he once was, the one who never spoke or mattered to anyone.
Maybe this is everything finally catching up to him, all at once.
Ness cries too, his face pressed against Kaiser’s shoulder, arms curling around him like he could hold on forever, like Kaiser is the only solid thing keeping him upright. It’s almost flattering, the way Ness trusts him so completely, and the absurdity of it makes Kaiser reach out, twirling a lock of his hair before tugging lightly. He revels in the way Ness’s face scrunches in that helpless, cute way, knowing he’s the only one Ness would let do this.
“You’re drunk,” he murmurs, low and rough. “Will you remember this tomorrow?”
“I’m not that drunk anymore,” Ness says. Looks at Kaiser’s mouth and licks his lip. “Help me, Kaiser. My head hurts—”
Kaiser doesn’t think. He leans in, and their mouths collide, drawn together like magnets. It isn’t gentle, because Kaiser doesn’t know how to be gentle yet. It’s desperate, urgent, and all-consuming.
Moaning against his mouth, Ness’s hands entwine in Kaiser’s hair, tracing his back and neck. The pressure is equal parts claiming and pleading. Kaiser’s hands move instinctively, too, catching Ness at the waist, anchoring him close, matching Ness’s frantic rhythm. Every touch leaves a spark, every shiver of contact a reminder that this—this chaotic, desperate, messy, delicate thing—is theirs alone.
Part of Kaiser wants to shake him, shove him off the bed, out of his life entirely, not to punish Ness but to punish himself. He isn’t allowed to have nice things. Instead, he pushes Ness onto his back, and Ness doesn’t resist, only hooks his legs around his waist and pulls Kaiser down on top of him.
Kaiser pulls away first, gasping, taking in Ness’s flushed face, the tears clinging to his lashes. The air between them is heavy with something unfinished, grief tangled with want. He brushes Ness’s hair from his eyes, thumb tracing the line of his brow. “Let’s stop,” he says quietly. “You’re a little drunk.”
Ness squirms beneath him, like he can feel something slipping. “Fuck, fuck,” he mutters, needy enough that it makes Kaiser’s chest warm. Ness squints up at him. “If we weren’t both so fucked up in the head, this would be way easier.” He laughs, the movement rocking them both, and Kaiser absorbs the vibration of it, the rise and fall of Ness’s chest beneath his own. Ness grazes Kaiser's lips, tucks a blue lock behind his ears. “Kaiser. My Kaiser. I love you.”
Kaiser rests his forehead against Ness’s. He could get used to this. “You still have to be drunk to say things like that,” he murmurs. “If you wake up and don’t remember any of this, I’ll be pissed.”
Ness whimpers softly. “I think I’m sober now, I promise. Tired, but sober.” A beat. “Do you love me, too?”
Sometimes, when Kaiser watches himself in the mirror while Ness cuts his hair, he thinks about how easy it would be for Ness to end him right there, with scissors plunged into his throat. He thinks about how Ness never would hurt him. Thinks about the way Ness's brows knit together when he reads. About Spain. About how he’s going to miss him. About the U-20 World Cup loss, and how it can’t be the end of their partnership. He won’t let it be.
“Ask me again in the morning,” Kaiser answers. “So I can say no, and you can get mad and insist I’m lying, and we can make out again.”
Ness lets out a half laugh, half sob. “I love you, Kaiser. We lost.”
“We lost,” Kaiser agrees, noticing that it stings less. “But I’m not going anywhere, Ness. Everything you said about this being the end for us? It's wrong. I’ll make sure of it.”
They turn onto their sides, and Ness gives in to exhaustion first, his breathing rhythmic, familiar enough to keep Kaiser awake. Kaiser waits, even flicks Ness's nose just to be sure he's asleep, before whispering, “I love you,” testing how it feels, how the words feel on his tongue.
It’s a start.