Chapter Text
There’s something wrong with Nagi Seishiro.
At least, there’s something more wrong with him than usual. It’s tough to tell with Nagi, really, because he’s always been a little bit off.
On Tuesday, they’d won their match handily—some Nationals qualifier, or something. But that wasn’t the issue. Nagi was the issue.
First of all, Reo had scored more goals than him: a true rarity. And, when he thinks back to that last drive of the game, when Nagi had touched back one of his passes instead of trying to score, it was weird. And that was just the first occurrence.
After the game, he’d cornered Nagi in the locker room, eyeing him kindly and fussing over him like a concerned parent. Why didn’t you score that goal? Are you feeling alright? Do you need to see a doctor?
But, no matter how hard he tried, Nagi insisted that nothing was bothering him. And Nagi never has any trouble telling Reo what’s on his mind, albeit bluntly. Definitely weird.
At first, Reo thinks it might be something personal, but Nagi is his best friend. What could be too personal for them?
Just the week before, Pep Guardiola—Manshine City’s manager—had gotten into a bit of tabloid heat. In an interview, he revealed to the press that he’d been telling his players to have a lot of sex, because it helps clear their mind on the field. Makes them play better, or some nonsense like that.
Of course, Reo saw that interview too. Even non-soccer people had probably heard about it. The media was crucifying him as some pervert, but it really wasn’t like that. Made for a great headline, though.
Still, it gets Reo thinking. If having sex could help your game… could not having sex harm it?
After all, if there’s one person in the world that’s too lazy to jerk off, it’s probably Nagi Seishiro.
Reo considers this theory for a moment. It seems plausible enough. And it would certainly explain why Nagi doesn’t want to talk about it.
Next time I give him a massage, maybe I should offer to—?
Reo quickly servers that thread of thought before it can go any further. Absolutely not. That bad-porno, AV level shit is too ridiculous.
First of all, there’s no way Nagi doesn’t jerk off.
Second of all, there’s no way that’s the root of his issue on the field.
A coincidental sex interview doesn’t mean jack shit. Nagi probably just skipped lunch today, or didn’t get enough sleep. Or got a bad gacha pull.
There are sane explanations for this. Explanations that don’t require thinking about the masturbatory habits of his best friend. Or offering to get him off.
Not only is Reo not thinking about this anymore, he vows to never think about it again.
A shrill honk startles him. It’s Ba-ya, here with the car.
Dimly, anxiety gnaws at the edges of his mind. He’s committed to soccer. To this dream. Without Nagi, his parents will be right about him. Everyone will be right about him.
Reo won’t accept ending up like all the other patrician fuckheads he knows: every achievement in their lives, attributed only to their parents’ influence and wealth.
Being born rich means that none of your own hard work ever amounts to anything. No one will ever respect you, or give you any credit, or praise. All of your success was bought, of course, because there’s nothing money can’t buy.
Except the World Cup.
Reo swallows, determined. Above him, the white, leather roof of the limousine closes over his head like the roof of a prison van.
It’s another Friday, the best day of the week. And what a weird week it’s been, too.
Sometimes, after a late practice, Reo would bike the both of them to his family’s penthouse. Nagi is more than happy to get shuttled around, and while he never outwardly expresses his fondness for Reo’s place, he certainly tolerates it.
Reo’s parents were often out of town, something he and Nagi have in common. Whenever it happened, Reo would give the staff a night off, and just hang out with his best friend. They’d watch movies, or play video games—which usually devolved into Reo just watching Nagi play video games, because he’d never really been into them. But he liked that too.
Today had been a tough practice. And last night, his selfish, miserable excuse of a father had—
No, today is Friday. The best day of the week. And Reo doesn’t want to think about his parents today.
What he wants to think about—what’s really been littering his mind—is grabbing one of the nice bottles of vodka off the liquor shelf and watering that bitch down. It wouldn’t be the first time.
Reo looks over at Nagi’s impassive face. At the way his pale skin absorbs all the minute flickerings of the screen, eyes like a blank canvas. An intrusive thought dips into the forefront of his mind: there’s something oddly cathartic, watching Nagi’s hands move over a controller like that.
Reo has had these kinds of thoughts his entire life. Like, the thought of screaming at his parents and telling them what pieces of shit they are. The way he can envision potential goals on the field. Sometimes, he acts on the thoughts. Other times he discards them. It isn’t productive to let them stew in the slush of his brain.
Maybe he could convince Nagi to get drunk with him. It’s pouring outside. A real, proper rain for the rainy season. The penthouse is dark and empty, but Reo doesn’t feel alone.
“Did you make some tea?”
In his peripheral, Nagi vaguely registers his host approaching. He’s balancing two small glasses, a larger bottle, and a decanter of orange juice in his arms.
“It’s not tea. You want a drink?”
“After this match,” Nagi replies, eyes never leaving the screen. Rain pelts endlessly against the dark windows.
Wordlessly, Reo pours himself half a shot and downs it. It doesn’t matter if he pulls a face. Nagi’s not logging any of this anyway, he’s dialed the fuck in right now.
He sits back on the floor, leaning against the front of the couch, nearly pressing himself along Nagi’s side. Nagi, himself, is still forty-five seconds from noticing any of this.
The central feature of the Mikage home theater isn’t a television screen: it’s a projector. And the screen it spits light onto is pretty big, but not too big. Maybe some old-money snobs would consider the size vulgar. But those’re the same types who’d turn their noses up at riding in a limousine, so what did they know?
Reo’s looking into the totally respectably-sized screen, eyes soaking up the glossy array of pixels. Each electrified dot is meaningless on its own, but together: the only thing in the world capable of enrapturing the genius beside him.
The only thing so far, comes the thought. And then: Am I already drunk?
Exposure to video games: one of those unintended consequences of forcing himself into Nagi’s life.
Nagi would certainly classify his best friend as a dyed-in-the-wool normie. Reo wasn’t a huge gamer, unless soccer training on the Mikage Corporation’s VR system counts.
Not for lack of trying on Nagi’s part. He’d really tried to get Reo into video games. Rocket League? That shit he didn’t understand at all, even though it was technically soccer-adjacent. The physics made no sense.
FIFA, though… FIFA Reo could fuck with. He pours himself another shot as Nagi frowns up at his match, concentrating. On Fridays it’s always FIFA, because that’s when the Weekend League drops.
FIFA is a soccer game, but with a pseudo-gambling gacha twist. A true pioneer of scummy microtransaction tactics. You were supposed to win matches to earn packs, which had players inside.
A “walkout”, Reo quickly learned, happened whenever you opened a rare player. A dramatic little animation even played when it happened, y’know, to really sink those claws into your dopamine receptors.
Reo knows all the players and their stats, because the players are all their real-life equivalents. He’s God-awful at the actual game, though. His only saving grace? Insane pack luck.
You’d think that being born handsome, smart, and into one of the wealthiest families in Japan would have drained a person’s luck dry. But you’d be wrong, because God plays favorites when it comes to RNG, and Nagi Seishiro is very quick on the uptake wherever video games are involved.
Predictable creature of comfort and habit that Nagi is, Reo already knows what’s going to happen next. As soon as this final match is over, Nagi’s going to lean in, pass the controller to his best friend, and make him open his Weekend League rewards.
That’s kind of endearing, isn’t it? supplies Reo’s brain, unhelpfully and against his will. He spent the last three hours grinding matches, just to let you open these stupid packs.
There’s a quilt of warmth suffusing through his stomach, like dye dropped into clear water. It burns a bit. Reo thinks he must be quite drunk.
And then, another thought. This isn’t some cutesy, shojo share-my-bento bullshit. You know that, right? He just wants your luck, dude.
“Reo, you have to press X.”
“Right, sorry.”
I’m drunk, he almost says, but doesn’t. Because Nagi’s shot glass is right there, full and untouched. The vodka catches in the half-light, distorting the pattern of the ten-thousand dollar beige-and-blue carpet it’s sitting on. Reo stares.
“Reo,” Nagi drawls, impatient. Gingerly, he covers Reo’s hand on the controller with his own, like he’s a pathetic, stupid child, and presses Reo’s finger into the button for him. His hand feels sweaty, and then the game spits out a solidly mid pack.
“See? That’s what you get. You tainted the luck,” Reo huffs, startled into alertness at Nagi’s touch. He sticks out his tongue. “Watch this shit.”
While Reo opens the rest of the packs, Nagi peels his hand off the controller and reaches for the glass on the floor. At a glance, the contents appear to be water, but he knows better. The penthouse’s kitchen has two refrigerators: one for drinks, and one for everything else. The Drink One has an ice machine built into it.
There’s no ice in whatever this beverage is, so it’s not water. He inspects the contents closer.
“Oh, shit! A walkoff!”
“Walkout,” Nagi corrects, sniffing at the alcohol. It smells like sterile, dead water. Like his mother after a long shift at the hospital. “I don’t want this,” he frowns, setting down the glass. “A hangover would be a pain.”
A series of images flash on the screen above them in quick succession: first, the walkout player’s nationality, then position, then current team.
“Costa Rica… GK… plays for PXG?” Reo cocks his head, trying to remember who it is. The alcohol makes it feel like there’s a glassy haze over his brain. Nagi stares quietly at the screen, and then, the name pops up.
“Oh, nice. A cheeky Keylor Navas. He’s alright, Reo.”
Indeed, Keylor Navas is a pretty alright GK. Overall stats of 88. But that’s not what Reo cares about right now.
“You don’t want to drink? C'mon, you’re 190cm. You won’t get a hangover from doing one shot.”
Actually, Reo isn’t a hundred percent sure about that. But it’s probably true.
“It’ll taste gross.”
“Fine, give it here.”
Briefly, Nagi considers. Reo’s killed at least half the orange juice and probably three or four shots by now. And in all the movies he’s ever seen, that’s usually enough. With his thighs still so sore from practice, the idea of carrying a passed-out Reo to his room is, frankly, unappealing.
“If I give this to you,” Nagi says, holding the glass away, “you’ll get too drunk. And then you won’t give me a massage.”
“Huh? You want a massage?”
“Yeah, my legs ache.”
“I can give you a massage,” Reo says hurriedly, mind fraught in the face of Nagi’s discomfort. He wonders if the alcohol is amplifying his protective instincts. “Wanna take a bath first? My parents’ tub is huge.”
Somewhere in the basement of Reo’s mind, he vaguely registers that this has the potential to become a Bad Situation.
Wait. Why would it be bad? It’s just a massage.
That’s bullshit, obviously. Reo knows why.
You can’t give Nagi a massage, he thinks. You can’t give him a massage, because you’re going to offer to do it. You’re going to open your mouth, and freak him out, and fuck everything up. And then you’re going to lose your Treasure, your only chance to-
Right then, Reo’s stream of consciousness comes to an abrupt end. Because he’s drunk off his ass and looking at his best friend. More specifically, at his hands. The strength there. If Nagi wanted, he could sink his nails deep into Reo’s skin. The camera of his mind sees it.
Silence. The penthouse smells like new paint and air conditioning. Wordlessly, Nagi nods his head, attention already diverted back to the game.
Now, it’s important for you to understand that in referring to his parents’ bathtub as merely huge, Mikage Reo has committed a gross injustice against the Japanese language.
The thing about his parents’ bathtub: it isn’t huge. It’s immense. It’s fucking massive. It has three faucets and still takes almost forty-five minutes to fill.
Not only that, but it’s an infinity tub. You’re intended to fill it up all the way, then let the water flow over the rim. There’s a mechanism in the floor to catch the overspill, or something. Reo doesn’t know, he’s not a fucking bathtub engineer. What he does know, is that he needs to start filling that tub. Now.
He’s going to give Nagi that massage.
Reo might be drunker than he originally thought. Sitting down has unfairly skewed his self-assessment. But now, trudging toward his parents’ room, the veil of alcohol hangs heavy and noticeable over his senses.
In the cupboard under his bathroom sink, there’s several bags of epsom salt. As he moves to grab one, they crinkle up at Reo in their plasticy wrapping.
He knows it’s more of a home remedy, but it’s supposed to relieve sore muscles. For good measure, Reo adds a bottle of massage oil and a fresh razor to his arms, then continues the trek to his parents’ room.
This week, his father is in San Francisco for a tech conference. His mother, he’s not entirely sure. But she’s definitely out of the country, and, last Ba-ya heard, not slated to return until Tuesday.
Reo doesn’t usually sneak into his parents’ room. He’s never had a reason to, except to borrow their bath. They probably wouldn’t care anyways.
Up until five months ago, Reo was an exemplary son: top of his class, excellent at athletics, and friends with all the trust-fund kids of important families. His parents let him get away with almost anything. Except girls.
And, to be fair, Reo understands why. Outside of school, he requires a chaperone around women; it's forbidden to be alone with one.
And he can still remember that hazy, mellow day in August: his fifteenth birthday. The way his father had gruffly clasped his shoulder and told him, be careful.
There would be no inheritance if he got anyone pregnant, the Mikage corporation won’t risk any scandals. How true that threat actually was, Reo didn’t know. Either way, he found it easy to behave. No girl had ever managed to hold his interest for long. Not like soccer, or Nagi.
Shit, Nagi. Quiet and determined, Reo balances himself in the dark and focuses in on the set of double doors at the end of the hall. Puts one foot in front of the other.
His parents’ room is dark and clean, and smells deeply of cologne. This scent used to be nostalgic. Comforting. Now, it’s nothing but a reminder of the happiness these people are intent to deny him.
Reo seethes and throws open the bathroom door. He knows Nagi likes the water scalding, so he turns the tap as far to the left as it will go.