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Reo blinks, staring at the scoreboard in front of him. His own name is emblazoned in the seventh slot; it’s an achievement, a huge one, but he couldn’t care less.
His gaze flits down the list of names, barely absorbing the ranks or values because goddammit, Nagi’s name hasn’t appeared yet, and Reo won’t rest until he sees it. This has to be one of Ego’s sick jokes, it has to be, because he reads and keeps reading and Nagi’s name still isn’t there – who the hell is Fukaku? The values descend lower and lower, and still his treasure is nowhere to be found.
“Reo?” comes a shaky utterance to his right, voice quivering in a way Reo’s never heard before.
“No,” says Reo, completely firm, putting up a façade of confidence. There’s no way this is right, because in the twenty-third slot sits Nijiro Nanase’s name, sitting pretty next to his twenty-five million offer.
“Reo,” breathes Nagi again, sounding so horribly scared that Reo could vomit.
“This is fucking wrong,” he bites, whipping his body around to stare at one of the cameras stationed in the corner. “Nagi, you are not leaving.”
“And what makes you think it’s within your authority to decide that, Reo Mikage?” coos their prison warden, leer tinny out of the shitty pitch speakers.
“The fact that you’re wrong, because there is no way in hell that– that–” Reo splutters, panicked, glancing at the scoreboard for something to work with. “That Zantetsu is stronger than Nagi!”
“I’m sure your old teammate would be overjoyed to know you think that,” grumbles Ego, sounding almost bored. “Would you sell the rest of the team out for that sloth as well?”
“What are you saying?” Reo spits, stomach churning. He’s going to be sick. Nausea roils in his stomach and for a moment he genuinely believes he’s going to throw up on the pitch under his feet, live on television with millions of people watching. “You’ve watched us this whole time – months, you’ve watched us, our every fucking move, and you’re trying to tell me that you’re kicking Nagi out? Just like that? He’d beat half the people on that list with ease and you know it!”
“If he can’t even score a goal in the losers’ match, he’s of no use to me as a striker,” Ego tells him, irritation creeping into his tone. Reo slaps a hand over his mouth, all-too aware of the sensation of bile scrambling up his throat for escape. “Maybe if he’d had the awareness to see Bachira blocking his shot, he wouldn’t be on his way home with all the other plebeians.”
“Bullshit!” he yells, making it two steps towards the wall-mounted camera before a large, warm hand claps itself on his shoulder.
“Calm down, Reo Mikage,” says Chris Prince, looking far too okay with this whole nonsensical development. Doesn’t he know that Reo’s entire world has just been uprooted? Can he not see how the last year of his life, how every day spent with his treasure, completely confident that he’d become a world-class striker, has been thrown away into the dust?
“I’m not calming down, Prince, you know this is wrong! Nagi can’t get kicked out – not like this!” Reo implores, maneuvering himself into Prince’s line of vision, searching desperately for some infinitesimal hint that his coach agrees at all. But Prince averts his eyes, turning towards Nagi’s hulking, immobile form.
“Prince!” Reo insists, but still the Englishman doesn’t look at him, even as Reo grabs his arm and shakes, demanding attention.
“You knew the risks when you walked in, Mikage,” mutters Ego drily. “You both did. It’s your fault for making those foolish promises knowing full well you’d never be able to keep them.”
Reo’s heart jumps to his throat, so bitterly angry. Ego is right, his subconscious reminds him. You knew something had to change. You just didn’t bother doing it.
“Go to him,” Prince murmurs, scarily quiet. His coach’s hand slips from his shoulder, no longer deeming him volatile, and for the first time since the rankings, Reo turns to Nagi and really looks at him.
Nagi. His partner, his treasure, his everything. His world stands on the pitch, stricken, staring at his feet in shock, horror, something that Reo can’t decipher because he’s never seen emotion on Nagi’s face beyond adoration and annoyance. And isn’t that a horrible realisation to have – how dare he call himself Nagi’s best friend if he doesn’t even know what colour grief paints his face?
“Nagi?” he asks softly, padding across the grass towards his best friend, as if even the crunch of the astro turf beneath his cleats could startle him away. “Raise your head, Nagi, please. Look at me?”
And Nagi, his Nagi, his gorgeous, soft Nagi obeys, looking up at him with tears shimmering in usually expressionless eyes, face contorted into a terrified frown. His bottom lip wobbles as he chews on it, one pointed canine digging into relenting pink flesh.
“Reo,” he whispers, sounding so strange, so scared. “Reo, this is a joke, isn’t it?”
“My treasure,” Reo chokes out, hands flying to cover his mouth. “My Nagi.”
“Reo, this can’t be real,” Nagi begs, insistent now. That first tear spills over onto milky, unblemished cheeks and falls to its death on the artificial grass below their feet. Reo stifles back a sob of his own, refuses to cry for the media masses using the destruction of his heart for entertainment.
“I’m sorry,” he tells Nagi: the only thing he can say. Nagi reaches for him, pleading, despairing, and Reo falls into outstretched arms, letting his treasure fumble for purchase on the sweat-soaked fabric of his jersey. Someone’s yelling behind him – Chigiri, he thinks, or maybe Prince – he doesn’t have it in him to care, not with saltwater melting into his shoulder with the force of a flood.
“Reo,” Nagi says again, voice wet. “You saw something in me, didn’t you, Reo?”
“I did, my treasure, I did,” sniffles Reo, burying his face in the mop of white hair now nestled in the curve of his neck. “I do,” he corrects, and Nagi whimpers, fingers curling into fists at his back, jersey caught in a death grip between them.
“Do you think it’s still there? Do you promise?”
“Nagi,” says Reo weakly.
“You won’t leave me, Reo? Will you?”
And, oh, how Reo hates that it’s a question. How he hates that even after everything, even after splitting apart and coming back together again, it is still up for question as to whether Reo can leave his treasure behind.
The worst part is, it is a question. Reo thinks back to flippant comments on Harajuku streets (If you started sucking at trapping? Yeah, I’d abandon you.) and self-made promises swearing to never rely on Nagi’s genius again. He thinks back to the well-thumbed purple cover of a notebook sitting on his bedside table, and thinks of how by the end of the day the last two words scrawled on the cover with black Sharpie will have to be scribbled out.
“Of course I won’t, Nagi,” comforts Reo, loathing the taste of the lie on his lips. “I could never leave my treasure behind.”