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Chapter Text

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HIORI YO: PART ONE

kurona ranze’s gobsmack counter and the fact he believes he’s always right

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Something is rotten inside him. 

Ever since he was a kid, Hiori Yo never imagined himself actually living. He was just a thing inside his skull maneuvering a flesh cage—on autopilot on most occasions, having the same old conversations, all in all machine-like.

(His elementary school teachers were obviously freaked out. No child at a single-digit age should be able to think like that. He did anyway.) 

(He wished he didn’t.)

Of course, he could easily blame his parents for it. He could blame them for everything: the fact that they forced him into sports, or to that training camp, or to those stupid YouTube vlogs his mom still insists on making. He just felt so trapped in this bubble where the isolation kills—now he got mold instead of bone marrows under his skin. He wouldn’t be surprised if he literally just started wasting away because it sure felt like it most days.

It was all thanks to Anri that he escaped that bubble for a while but even then, he still couldn’t escape the mental boundaries that accumulated over the years.

The ingrained belief that he is nothing but A Thing anywhere he went. 

For example:

At home, “Hiori Yo” is an image. 

He is a doll-like statue of the baby Nazarene seated on a dusty shelf in his parents’ house, all sheltered with a glass-like sheen and fragility. A patron that they only ever agreed on getting two decades ago to dress up, show off, feed, and pray to. A vessel of their prayers held like a rosary, born to cleanse them of the guilt of their failures.

He is his parents’ sacrifice meant to redeem sins he did not commit.

Many times he even found himself seated on a fluffy hospital bed just like baby Jesus on the manger, as his parents knelt on the floor pleading for his cracked ankle to not ruin “his bright future” which they bought at the expense of theirs.

(Which is, of course, just a funny way to say they loved him as a concept as opposed to a son.) 

Because, well, his sole purpose as a son is to be holy—to turn water into wine, to turn silvers into gold, to be salvation personified. Oh well. The insult is that he’s not even anything close to God or whatever his parents think God was. 

Meanwhile, in Blue Lock, “Hiori Yo” is a gear.

A small yet insignificant part of a greater machine. Admittedly a breath of fresh air after being God for so long but still insignificant nonetheless. 

In Blue Lock, it became abundantly clear how crucial one’s role is amongst the interwoven many. That’s how Ego’s soccer works. That man can say it was a “selfish” sport all he wanted but the best moments in soccer were always embedded with the art of teamwork and they all knew it. With enough gall, he too could change the outcomes just as well as anyone else, which he did so well in fact it even gained him the favors of Isagi Yoichi—but then again, it wasn’t difficult for gears to be replaced once it faults. He is valuable, sure, but frankly indispensable.

Thankfully, neither of hose were the least of his problems nowadays. 

He had never minded being a saint or a gear or anything for a long time now. He can be anything anyone ever wanted. He doesn’t care. Blue Lock had ended a while ago and he had long accepted he was okay being prayed to. He also learned to like hospital beds, being told what to do, being treated like a hidden weapon or consecrated.  For two whole years after BLTV ended, he did…nothing. 

Sure, he remained in contact with the guys. He was in fact part of the lucky few that made it to the Japan national team’s bench—and so most times, it felt like Blue Lock didn’t really end. He even became closer friends with Rin, Isagi, and the others (but mostly just Rin and Isagi), all of whom unfortunately had lives outside of soccer and had chosen to travel the world in their free time.

(Unlike him.) 

Regardless, he now had a booming Twitch channel and thousands of commercials (mostly of laundry detergent, for some reason) constantly generating numbers in his bank account. He also enrolled in an online college because, well, those numbers have to be put to good use somehow, right?

It was fun. He had fun. It has its…flavor, for sure. 

Summed up though, it all still felt like nothing. A thousand steps only to end up in nowhere.

In the end, fact remains that he still drives home to the same old house, wearing the same old headphones, with the same soccer ball in his bag. Years and he's still cooped up in his childhood room doing his best to ignore the same old yelling in the next room over. The only difference is that now he has a degree, millions in his bank account, and a brand new sedan. Or two.

Oh, and a driver's license. 

Although it all felt hollow, at least he is now okay with just being anything.

He had been living a comfortable life with just the occasional weekend phone call with Isagi, and the monthly game nights with Rin and sometimes Nagi. The fact it's all inevitable to change in the future is something he ignores. It’s a perfectly respectable life. The present is all that matters. In fact, he was actually doing infinitely better than the likes of Karasu, who had spent the last two years bitter that he never made it to the starting 11 despite being co-captain with Aiku. 

But everything changed when Isagi Yoichi transferred to Bastard München.

It was Valentine’s Day of 2024.

The very rumor of his transfer launched a series of events that ended up being penned the Great Migration or something. Before anyone could process the implication, fans already spotted Bachira Meguru landing in Barcelona, Reo and Nagi walking around a British high street, and Barou and Niko on their way to what seemed to be the Ubers’ headquarters in Turin, Italy.

The world, of course, quickly went batshit.

It was obvious now what was happening and people love patterns. Now, everyone looked the remaining few of them in the eye, waiting for their inevitable move. Which was only inevitable for the others, maybe. For Hiori, not really.

He had zero plans to follow the Migration to Bastard München, even after Rin made up his mind to sign to PXG and asked him when he’s going to take the bait. He told him, “No. I’m actually loving my liberty this year. I might start a podcast, actually.” Rin was flabbergasted to say the least.

(That is, if flabbergasted is the proper word to describe the striker scowling at him in disbelief in Discord, staring at him for a solid five seconds without a word, before reluctantly saying okay, then asking for a revive, then interjecting with a whine because Nagi stolen all his kills so far.)

It was all fine and dandy. His mind had remained set that he had manifested enough destiny for the rest of his clan until perhaps the last Hiori on Earth dies out, and it is perfectly okay to lie low now for the rest of his life. 

Until an old someone hit him up on the phone. 

Of course. 

ranze.kurona: 👋

AUGUST 2021

Kurona loved Hiori Yo since time immemorial.

Well, since three years ago, when Blue Lock started, but yes.

He couldn’t describe the specific hows and whys if he could. It just happened. What he feels, he feels. What he thinks, he says. Who he loves, he loves.

His mother—may her soul rest in peace—believed that the best way to live life is to be simple, and so he deemed himself a simple man. Life is simple: He likes Hiori Yo. 

At first, they were unsure about each other.

Hobbes stated that man is by nature in a state of war with each other and personally? Kurona felt it overcomplicated some things in Blue Lock a little too much. Soccer doesn’t need all these intricacies—much less all these “metavision” bullcrap he’s 90% sure Ego just made up because he's a sadist. 

Instead, what he believes in is the wonder of talent.

It's simple. It’s either you know the ball well or you don’t. That's his kind of soccer.  You only get the title “best in the world” if you actually love doing what you do. That’s what he thinks about all this metavision yada yada.

That was precisely why meeting Hiori Yo was such a breath of fresh air.

In a world full of aggressive highschoolers who had the entire world to impress, there was one who, like him, does not believe in the hustle and the grind. He finally found someone who just does his thing and does it well—Hiori Yo, Team V, Jersey #8.

He first met him when Team W played against Team V. The boy was just another face in a crowd, overpowered by the likes of Karasu Tabito and Otoya Eita, but it quickly changed when he marked him at the match and he started to talk.

Hiori Yo opened his mouth and revealed a vast realm of knowledge that has hooked Kurona into his orbit ever since. Kurona then quickly became an admiring witness on how this Hiori guy managed to get along with everyone he met, even with opponents who initially underestimated his calmer temperament. All were gravitated to him just from the very way he talked, because he spoke as if he knew you. He spoke as if he could understand. Who would be able to resist someone like that? 

As time went on, Kurona just found more and more reasons to admire him. He was one of the few people there who got on the good side of both extremes, with primary example being the Ryusei Shidou and Rin Itoshi tolerance spectrum (what exactly made him Shidou and Rin's mutual friend is something lost to everyone).

Kurona truly thought that Hiori just so happened to be more on the introverted side and that’s why he’s a little quiet, but sadly, his initial impression of him turns out to be all nothing but a sheen. 

Turns out, Hiori Yo is not who he seems. 

Kurona was spacing out in the shower one random evening when he heard them come in.

“Bother is…a liberal term. Find a word less generous and ask me again.” 

“I just can’t imagine being repulsed by the one thing ‘ya have going, man! You sure Blue Lock didn’t change your mind? You do realize this is an easy one way shortcut to the national team, right?”

“…Can you please just pass me the towel, Karasu?”

Turns out that this boy from Kyoto with a freaky cool accent and pretty cyan eyes does not believe in the basic concept of fun at all. In fact, he dreaded soccer. “Repulsed” was the word Karasu Tabito used.

Oh, he was gobsmacked. He was never this wrong about someone before.

Figuring Hiori Yo out became his tiny little sidequest in Blue Lock ever since. After all, if not glory or fun or some other principle, why did this boy even bother playing soccer in the first place? Why did Hiori Yo bother to be good enough at soccer for Anri to invite him here? 

Like, for him personally, the obvious answer is fun. He loves soccer because he’s good at it, which is because he allotted so much time to play it, which is because he thinks it is fun.

There are also others around whose primary motivations are money and glory (both perfectly valid things, by the way) but Hiori clearly doesn’t play for either of those, so what could this all be for?

“AH-! Kurona, oh my God- you surprised me!”

The answer came naturally later on, freely offered and innocently given, on the eve of their match with the Japan U-20. He had found Hiori sulking in the viewing room with a glass of milk, quietly rewatching Sendou Shuuto and Oliver Aiku’s reels over and over on the big screen.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, uh... I can’t sleep. You?”

“Me too, me too.”

Hiori Yo didn’t speak much that night. The air was mostly filled by Kurona’s curious marine facts in a friendly attempt to lull him to sleep. However, it was strikingly clear how he was only there to lament his loss on a spot on the Starting XI. 

At the end, Kurona eventually asked him why he’s so upset if it didn’t really matter.

He told him he only said that because he didn’t expect to be upset at all. 

“I was a prodigy, you know.”

Lo and behold. 

Kurona was gobsmacked yet again—This boy who couldn’t even care less about soccer, who apparently only came to Blue Lock for “peace”, is a prodigy. 

Now that he thought of it, wasn’t there a Hiori in some sports documentary somewhere? By any chance does Hiori belong to a family of sports lineage like Rin?  Eventually, Hiori gave him the straight answer to his questions on the way back to their beds. 

“I was great at this, you know,” he said casually, delirious with drowsiness. “At soccer. That was the only thing my parents had me do in this life. I was the prodigy who fell.”

There it is. 

“I don’t think you fell,” Kurona had to reply as they stopped in front of his room and he stepped in. “You’re one of the coolest players I ever got to watch. Like cool-cool!”

The automatic doors to Kurona’s room remained open as Hiori Yo stood still outside, surprised at the sudden thumbs-up of approval from Kurona who was just a stranger to him at the time. Then, he laughed quietly.

“No, I mean I literally did. I fell down the stairs when I was 8.”

Thankfully, he managed to sleep after five minutes of shifting and turning. 

They ended up making the bench the next evening, when all of Japan came to Blue Lock's main stadium to watch them lose against the Japan U-20 (and mostly Itoshi Sae, let’s be real). It was an experience like no other, like a fight to the death.

All of their struggles in the past few months amounted to this very match, and while Kurona would have loved to be out there with the starters, he’s also perfectly content just watching everyone give their best. Besides, Hiori Yo actually managed to play. Kurona remembered watching his face when Ego made the call to sub him and Reo in. He happily watched from the sidelines as all of Japan doubted them. The cheers, the fanfare, the pressure, and the terror convoluted into one of the best versions of Hiori he ever got to witness. That was the day Hiori Yo became just Hiori. 

And the day Kurona realized he was a liar, because Hiori never not cared. 

It was the exact moment he knew that he was there sulking for a reason. Hiori was chosen by Anri for a reason and he made it this far for a reason. Kurona thinks that perhaps he's just lost and misguided, motivated by the wrong things possibly even by the wrong people.

On that note, Karasu Tabito was also wrong: Hiori does love soccer. He sadly just seemed like he didn’t know what to play for yet. 

(This accounts for a negative gobsmack! The total counter returns from three to two.)

The moment blue and black confetti rained on the stadium, Kurona ran and fell on top of Hiori in a euphoric stupor. The latter actually caught him and smiled a real smile for the first time.

And when their eyes met, Hiori looked at him with a depth of knowing, and he embraced him until they all fell on one great screaming pile. The reason why Kurona was so sure this time that he was right—that Hiori is not empty, that he isn’t as gloomy as he thought he was—is because the sparkle in his eyes wouldn’t be there if he does not love this. 

It was just a spark, a crackle that would soon grow into roaring fire by the time the NEL rolls around, but Kurona felt honored on being the first one to catch a glimpse of it (and believe in it.)

Hiori Yo loves winning. He discovers now that he loves winning things with high stakes the most. This entire time, Hiori is just a person full of love and passion yet to be given. He’s actually bursting so full of it like a long-dormant volcano ready to be awoken and unleash all of it in one go, or a gambler biding his time until he gets a good card and goes all in. There is in fact a heart inside this cold shell. He can almost touch it and hold it himself.

That was the day Kurona fell in love. Or at least, the day Hiori Yo became Hiori. 

Though, for him, that’s just the exact same thing. 

The tale began with Kurona Ranze. 

If there’s one word Hiori could use to describe them, it’d be the word comforting. Either that, or unlikely. Kurona Ranze is unadulterated honesty in its purest form, possessing a kind of frankness that doesn’t care, a man whose most precious currency is trust. The fact he even looked at him when he values honesty and trust is…something, for sure. 

He is Hiori's first real boyfriend. 

Interestingly enough, he is also his third real boyfriend. There’ll definitely be more on that later. 

It was the hot summer of 2021 when junior year break ended. Hiori came home from practice one day when his letter from Blue Lock came—and the rest of the tale wrote itself from there. Three years ago, if he had to describe Kurona Ranze, he’d say he is the season of summer personified. 

He just made him feel so dizzy on the comedown, the first person to make the sun shine behind rainy spring clouds and morn, the first to make him feel so alive—as if he was being seen and looked at properly for the first time. And such is what summer does to people. They melt even the most frozen things with their radiant heat.

“Really. That guy?” 

Karasu deadpans to him over the phone, the man already rushing on the way to Shibuya to meet up with the rest of the guys when Hiori texted him his change of plans. That is, that he’ll skip in favor of meeting up with Kurona. It was the first break they’ve had since Blue Lock started.

“Who is ‘that guy’?”

“Hiori, come on. What’s up with that shit? Is it not just a Blue Lock thing?”

“What Blue Lock thing? There is no Blue Lock thing-”

“Dude. You and sharky?”

“We’re just hanging out. We’re friends.”

“But we’re your friends.” A long pause. “Alright. Fine, fine- I’ll call ‘ya later. Train’s here.”

“Please tell Isagi and the others I can’t go, sorry.”

“Yeah, well, whatever.”

Honestly, Hiori isn’t sure if they’re dating. If anyone’s going to ask if there’s a huge proposal or a big day where it all started, he won’t be able to give a straight answer. It just roughly started right after the third selection when Hiori made a nightly visit to the viewing room. Before they knew it, he knew Kurona just as well as he knew himself. Then they hung out beyond Blue Lock and…well, yeah.

It was a lightheaded experience, to say the least. They were at least best friends, for sure. He went as far as telling Kurona where he and his parents lived in Kyoto, and Kurona went as far as telling him where his mom was resting on the Earth. They both knew that counts for something. 

When Hiori eventually told the surprisingly unsupportive Karasu about it, he was caught off guard but not exactly disturbed. Hiori guessed they really weren’t that noticeable for anyone to mind. All Karasu told him was:

“Are ‘ya sure? I mean…”

Then the barista calls their name and hands them what Otoya liked to call ‘coffee’. Hiori doesn’t even like coffee, he just did it because this one’s from their friend’s wallet. 

Speaking of, their friendgroup’s very booked-and-busy fourth man, Yukimiya Kenyuu, was there on Otoya’s birthday which came a few months later in December, after NEL. 

He too had something to say about…things. 

“Thanks- Oh, Hiori! Wow, oh my God- I didn’t know you’d be here. Hi.”

It was the one and only time the gang ever got together outside of Blue Lock, for Hiori always couldn't make it. Not in Shibuya, not even in Tokyo. Of all places, it had to be in their nihilist casanova of a friend’s house in Nagoya, which is only an hour away from Kyoto. This is the farthest “friend’s house” his parents will ever allow him to go. Sadly, it's Otoya's. 

Hiori casually hands Yukimiya a bowl of ice cream—his first act upon appearance at the birthday party—and finally sits down. 

“Don’t mention it. I don’t think I can stay for long. I need to be home by six.” 

“Figures.” Yukimiya smiled. “I’m glad you made it though. Really.”

“Me too.”

Yukimiya smiled, all actions and expressions ever so curated and poised as if he was born to be in front of a camera. He and Hiori weren’t the closest in their four-man circle, that’d be Karasu and Otoya, but they were the ones in charge of the rationality conch most days. Hiori is a man of reason and Yukimiya is, well, simply put: attractively intimidating as hell. Even the way he immediately started prodding on the vanilla mounds of ice cream with his spoon is reminiscent of a calm and collected villain from video games. 

Hiori didn’t like to think that Yukimiya of all people would be concerned about him, which is why it came as a shock when:

“Hiori.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask a question?”

“Go ahead.”

“Are you and Kurona-” 

“Who knows.”

Yukimiya looks at him in surprise, then to the party of Otoya’s friends and relatives that mostly heard nothing. Most of the guests were all huddled around Otoya on the other side of the family porch, busy handing out drinks to his older aunties who had taken a liking to him since he was a baby. Yukimiya proceeds to smile and shake his head.

“I haven’t even asked the question yet.”

“I really don’t know what to tell you,” Hiori smiled shyly before he looked up at the noon sky. “Let’s just say you’re not the only one asking me about that.”

“Oh, I see.”

Hiori faces him, smiling a little.

“I meant Karasu, if you didn’t know.”

“I actually do,” Yukimiya snorts. “He thinks he’s always up on everyone’s business because he’s naturally observant.”

They laughed.

That was the day he forgave Yukimiya for all the things he said and did to everyone—to Isagi, to him—in the NEL. 

In the end, that December is something he would like to call his new summer. Blue Lock TV had given them a long break after the foreign guest players left, and before they started with the World Cup Arc after the New Year. It was his first summer because for once, he had no idea where to go from there. He mostly spent the winter in his house as usual, with his only family trip (which is uncharacteristically to Disneyland of all places) still did not escape his mother’s selfie camera.

It was his new summer because what he held onto on such bleak days was this newfound connection with Kurona.

Who was more chatty online than he thought. Kurona made it so that some days made it feel like the sun itself was blossoming from the crunchy snow on his window, like it’s warm and hot and nice—all because he enamored Hiori with random little peeks into his life. 

See, Kurona lived in a coastal town and his mother used to be a director for Japan Aquarium Osaka. He spent his childhood roaming the water tunnels and watching the fish swim around his mother’s workplace because nobody could watch him at home. He felt particularly drawn to sharks and other marine life at an early age, that he still had memorized the placards and fun facts for every specie of fish he could name, all out of boredom.

He was also into soccer and music as a kid, even more now.  He told Hiori once that his mom fashioned him a little iPod so he doesn't get bored while he walked around the place, so he developed the habit of listening to music while he got himself lost. It was why he was so quiet; his brain hadn't stopped running and reading and his eyes were all too busy with seeing and observing. 

That was why in the multiple times Karasu and Yukimiya asked him about Kurona, it took all of Hiori to not burst out right then and there. There could simply be no words for the admiration he felt for him as a precious person—his precious person—who in turn also made him feel so seen. They were best friends, so that's what he often ended up saying, but the “full” feeling he had deep inside isn’t like what he felt for Karasu or Otoya, or even Yukki or Isagi. It was different. A good kind of different.

He blames the Earth for never having a good word for that. 

In exchange for these mystical tales of Kurona’s simple yet precious life, he too in return offered more and more pieces of himself. Nothing too deep of course, like his foot scar or his mom’s Youtube channel. No, he told Kurona about his extensive collections of Pokemon games and his ninth-grade Counterstrike and Resident Evil addiction. Those are very important things. Games are what sharks are to Kurona for Hiori.

That said, that cold December was quickly filled with these stories of their lives. As it was ending, however…

ranze.kurona: hey hey

ranze.kurona: wyddd

yo.hiori: playing horror rn, why?

ranze.kurona: ooooh scary

ranze.kurona: look behind u

yo.hiori: wow ok nice talk

yo.hiori: RANZE WHAT THE FUCK

Kurona appeared on his windowsill on the night before New Year’s Eve, bike in tow, just to wish him a great year ahead.

What the actual hell. 

Hiori felt like his soul glitched out of his body after the initial fright of a knock on his window, because there is literally no way Kurona’s actually here on the second floor ledge of his house, eyes sparkling with mischief, as he held up a chunk of random lego pieces generally shaped like a flower- is that a flower?

Like, what?

“Dude-!” Hiori scrambled to unlock said window, that is, after picking himself up from the floor where he fell. “What on earth do you think you’re doing?”

“Happy New Year, ‘Yori! I made you a firework!” 

He knew there’s no way his parents wouldn’t catch a redhead trespassing off their property by tomorrow morning, given their security cameras that apparently scares no one now, so he at least let him in. The boy hops in, choppy ruby hair messy and cold with the evening chill. By then, Hiori’s convinced he’s really gone insane now and all the games he’d been playing had caught up to his grasp on reality—because why would Kurona be in his literal room, on December 30th, with no bag or anything, just a lego firework and a hair tie?

“Kurona. What- how- why-”

“I want to see Hiori,” he said, blinking around the room to search for his lego firework’s place. “And, well, why not, you know? I'm in town anyway.”

On that night, Hiori realized some important things. His priorities. His dodged inquiries. The fact that he maybe should have foreseen how Kurona is this good at climbing. 

But most especially the fact that holy fucking shit, he might actually be in love. 

The following morning when he inevitably introduced their redheaded burglar to his parents, who were just surprised (that he had a friend other than Karasu, or that their house wasn’t that robbery-proof, Hiori does not know), Kurona never commented on the dusty wall of medals and trophies in their living room. Or on the weirdly placed calendar hiding a hole in the wall right where the stairs ended. Or the fact that nobody acknowledges the lack of wedding photos on the walls.

Instead, what Kurona looked at and noticed were Hiori's little photos packed around in a very tiny shelf of their very large hallways. Thousands and thousands of medals out in the open but what Kurona saw was the well-hidden evidences of Hiori's short yet shallow human life.

His mom was all too happy to finally have a guest over to show his baby pics too, but even those were mostly him attending their meets and competitions as a baby. Hell, his one-year-old photoshoot was even him dressed as a tiny Messi. (Kurona hadn’t commented on those either.)

For the instances prior to this, Hiori had to admit he was unsure about Kurona and what his bursting feelings toward him were. He wasn’t even into guys for all he knew. Karasu and Yukimiya seemed doubtful about it for good reason, or at the very least confused. But now that he knew this was all real—that Kurona really knew and understood him from the very beginning, that he was listening to both his words and his silence when certain things were brought up—he immediately came crashing down. 

It even got better when his parents welcomed Kurona to stay over, after they were told that Kurona had been staying at a nearby hotel for a short little visit to Osaka. 

(Why Kurona is “short little visiting” his own hometown is something Hiori realized now he should have asked about.)

The next evening, when they all went to town for the little New Year’s fireworks display, Kurona was there next to him the entire time. Hiori knew now he wasn’t engineering something out of nothing, because Kurona held his hand. The timer of the year went down to zero, and Kurona was there holding his hand. 

“Hey. Wanna hear something suuuper big?”

Hiori was huddled up in one of his father's old blue yukatas, letting Kurona explore the stalls of dangos and fried chicken as the first hour of the year rolled on. He reappeared holding up sticks of caramelized fruit, strawberries and grapes alternating. They were taking the quiet scenic road home as the festival goers started to disperse. Hiori thought it was fun, a memory he wilo forever cherish. It was when they reached his front door when Kurona decided to talk. 

“Yeah? What?” Hiori took a bite of the last strawberry, the crunch of the sugar cracking and falling to the ground. 

“It’s something I haven’t told anyone yet so it’s, like, a secret secret. Got it?”

This is when Kurona reached up, standing on his toes, just to push his headphones off his head. For some reason, Hiori's heart started to race—but not because of the gesture. He just quickly sneaks into Hiori's room as he remained by the doorway, frozen but he didn't know why. 

“What is it?”

When the lights turn on, the first thing he saw was Kurona lying on his bed, leaning against the headboard as he rummaged through his passport and ID and receipts and…more receipts. There was a sparkle in his eyes as he looked up from the chosen paper, before unfolding it theatrically with a snap to show the logo of…Lufthansa?

“Is that a…”

Kurona nods, flashing a thumbs up with a toothy smirk. 

“I’m going to Germany,” he said proudly.

Hiori stares at the printed page of the airline ticket booking, stating in bold letters a flight from Osaka to Munich. His eyes were already blurry before he could even look lower to read the flight’s departure date. 

“Oh,” he starts, already off to shake. “You’re leaving?”

“Yeah,” he said as he leant back down, perfectly at home in Hiori’s bed as he continued rebraiding his hair. “You know how my aunt is not really into me leaving and other stuff? You told me to just stand up, so I did, and yeah. Talked to an agent. Finally allowed me to go.”

“Oh. Wow, I- what about Blue Lock?” 

Hiori doesn’t know what to feel. Under his long sleeves, his hands were already trembling.

“Ego’s the guy guy. The, uh, agent…guy.”

“Oh.”

On the day the festivities ended and Kurona had to leave, Hiori faces the fact that he had chosen something beyond anything he could give. They hadn’t talked further than what Kurona told him that night—no explanations on why he bothered with the visit, or the hand holding during the countdown, or the goddamn firework lego. Kurona still eventually left Blue Lock TV and was the first of the project to go pro, officially signing to Bastard München and moving to Germany that very spring. 

Only that on the eve of his flight, also the eve of when they were summoned back to the facility for the World Cup Arc, Kurona went far enough again to call before he left. 

Which is a cruel thing that only cruel men do. 

“Hey. You sure you don’t want to come with?”

“With you? To Germany?” Hiori couldn’t help the spite in his voice, in front of him Anri who was patiently waiting for him to put his phone back down where he'd surrender it. “Are you not in your plane yet?”

“No. Wanna come?”

Heaven knows he wanted to ask him so many things at that moment. Why did you even tell me that? Who am I to you? Did you mean what you did back then? Why would you even leave? Who do you think I am?

Instead, what he managed to ask was:

“Kurona, what is it you want to do?”

‘With me?’ was left unsaid. There was a pause and a crackle on the other line—possibly Ego’s fault fucking with the signal because who else could it possible be but that sadist?—before he heard Kurona sigh a little.

It was the first and only time he heard him sigh. 

“What you’d like for me to.”

Which is a very cruel thing to say. At his silence, Kurona proceeded to have the last word instead. 

“What I know is that Hiori will be able to do great things while I’m gone,” was his goodbye. “It’s not like we’ll never ever ever see each other again. I know you’ll come here eventually—some time, some time.” 

"Goodnight, Kurona." 

"Goodnight." 

And so ever since Kurona moved to Germany, Hiori had been here taking note of his eventual disappearance in his life; how the void he left is soon filled by everything Alexis Ness could give; and how they are conjoined to one another in this strange way.

Himself, included—like a guardian angel beaten up and used as he’s forced to people watch from the backseat of cars.

So when the Great Migration asked him two years later when he’ll finally move and ride the current, he lied to Rin. He was never content in this life. It was all because there was a someone in Germany he hadn’t talked to properly for a long time. 

The same someone who had zero problems sliding back into his life with no gusto nor precaution whatsoever.

ranze.kurona: 👋

yo.hiori: hey.

ranze.kurona: when’s your flight? :Z

Oh, for fuck’s fucking sake.

“Who are you talking to? Shit- Nagi, get your ass back here! God!” 

“Nothing, Rin. Just give me a sec.”

“Fuck- I SAID NORTH, ASSHOLE! I died. Hiori, revive me.”

“Uh huh.”

yo.hiori: next week

Chapter Text

—

HIORI YO: PART TWO

the avant-garde type of masochism that stems from a pseudo-breakup

—

And so he left for Munich anyway. 

“WAIT, WHAT?!” 

Hiori flinched as Isagi screamed over the phone, the endless Tokyo treeline going on and on outside the taxi. He had just told his bestfriend the good old, same old—that is, the heartache that was Kurona Ranze. 

He honestly didn’t know why Isagi’s so surprised. 

“You didn’t think to mention this in the two years we spent together? I was literally taking his calls while I was right next to you! Why didn’t you say this sooner?”

“The fact I’m leaving for München or the whole Kurona thing?”

“DUDE! Come on.”

There was a brief, only a brief, moment of chuckles before it got replaced with yet another hollow silence. Hiori didn’t know why his hands itched to call him on his way to the airport now, but he felt like it was the right thing to do today. 

“Happy to spill the entire story to ‘ya.”

His faraway daze out the window gone unnoticed by the other. 

“Damn. Hiori, I- … I miss you. What the hell. I can’t believe it.”

What the hell indeed, huh?

It has been two weeks since Isagi Yoichi arrived in Munich and this is the first time they had talked since. It's the real last day of February, a leap day which only says hi every four years. It was as if the universe made it so that he had a bonus day to think things through.

“Just…I didn’t know it was that deep. I thought you guys just fought and that’s why you’re not talking to each other.”

“Is that what he told you it was?” Hiori stared blankly at the outside scenery.

“No. He actually didn’t say anything. Not in the past two years. In fact, it even seemed to me he misses you because he’s still pointing out stuff you liked and shit.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake.

Hiori swallowed, closing his eyes and leaning his forehead to the glass. Inside, he heaved a big sigh and a loud scream. 

“Now you’re just rubbing salt in my wounds, Isagi.”

“No! Like, for real. If I thought something was off, I would’ve done something. Or said something. You know me.”

He does, Hiori thinks he does, and he is right. He is an innate horror. Hiori and Rin openly tells him that to his face too: ‘Hey, Isagi.’ ‘What?’ ‘You’re actually fucking insane.’ ‘…Unprovoked?’ ‘Yes.’

See, this best friend of theirs has this tendency to watch his niche selection of interests so closely it’s terrifying. He will know everything about a certain something or someone and literally nothing will stop him once he did. He's like the All Seeing Eye once he picks his obsession. 

Sadly, but also fortunately, whatever he and Kurona must have had back then was so understated it didn’t catch much of anyone’s attention. Not Ego’s cameras, not Rin, not Isagi. The only people who noticed were Karasu and Yukimiya, and neither of them actually knew anything either. 

“Are you mad, Hiori?”

“Why would I be?”

“I don't know. You sound angry.”

“I'm not.”

It'd be insane of him to get mad at the only person who listens to him now. Most times, he wonders why Isagi bothered to remain friends with him given he’s just so…diluted. He knows he’s not much of anything and never did he ever contribute anything that special to his friendship with Isagi that his other friends haven’t already did. He knew Isagi already had Bachira, Chigiri, and Rin (not to mention Reo and Nagi, and Yukimiya, and Kurona) who were hundred leagues way more fun. 

(But he couldn’t bring himself to bring that up for sure. He is thankful for the friendship nonetheless. It was Isagi, after all, who was the only person to consistently call him even when there’s nothing obligating him to. Even when it’s inconvenient, in fact. Not even Rin or Karasu was this…openly caring, if that makes sense? 

Karasu specifically is…well, he had moved to Paris long ago and had since been swallowed by the glamour and the ditz. They haven’t talked much recently. Hiori hadn’t even told him yet that he’s signing to München, but he liked to think he and his original four-man circle were still friends. 

Even if none of them call nowadays.)

“‘Ya still there?” Hiori asks the window, blinking against the pitter patter of rain as the rainclouds covered what could’ve been a beautiful afternoon. 

“Yeah. I just went to close the windows. It suddenly just poured.”

“No way,” he deadpans, staring at the raindrops on his window. Here too. 

“It’s just…I’m sorry I didn’t know, man. I mean, I did know something was going on but I didn’t know you two used to…be like that. Has this been what’s going on the entire time? For the entirety of NEL? And there was a breakup and all?”

That’s the thing.

There was none.

Hiori sighed once more, just as Narita Airport came into view outside his window. 

“Hiori.”

There’s that scolding, half-whining tone Isagi pulls as if he was a matron of some sort. An intonation proven effective, because when the taxi stops right at the departures lobby, Hiori found himself surrendering.

“Yes, okay? Isagi, yes. It hurt.”

More than he cared to admit. More than what he told Karasu or Rin or anyone. He hops out and walks to grab his suitcases at the back, switching the phone from his left shoulder to the right. 

“Damn, dude. Just asking.”

“I know. And the reason I’m saying this to you now is just for you to know,” he sighs, biting his lip as he pulls the trunk open. “And I’m sorry for only saying this now.”

Isagi only sighed on the other line. 

“I’m going now, yeah? I’m already here and I gotta check in.” Hiori slams down the trunk as he brought down the last of his suitcases onto a pushcart. He switches the phone back to his left ear as he approaches the xray by the entrance. “What time are you picking me up again? Are we taking a cab to your place because I don't think I have change. Wait a sec.”

Fully expecting Isagi’s usual niceties, Hiori slams down his phone onto the tray and breezed straight through the metal detector. Once he got past the entrance, he pushes the phone back to his ear. 

Isagi was groaning. 

“Sorry- you were in the- the thing. You were saying?”

The striker was hissing in a sharp inhale with what seemed to be his hand running down all over his face. “Aaaa, look, Hiori, about that…”

“Yeah?” He switched ears and straightened, now pushing his cart to find the lounge as soon as he can. 

“Let me clarify that I’m NOT taking back my offer about you staying with me here, okay? You are still perfectly welcome to share my room, 100%, I just-” 

“Can you please just say it?” He finally spots the elevator, walks right in, and presses the floor to the VIP before anyone else could see him. 

“The flat I’m staying in…”

“Uh huh?”

“It's Kurona’s place.” 

The ball drops, the elevator shoots straight down. Hiori felt his soul escaping his body for a second as he choked on his own spit. 

“It’s actually his apartment, okay? He has this one big spare room he doesn’t use so he gave it to me when I first got here. I’m basically renting his house. I did tell him about inviting you to live with us but I didn’t hear anything weird so I assumed… yeah. I’m so so sorry…” Isagi said. “I’ll help you find somewhere else to stay. I'm super sorry!”

Oh, shit.

He knew it. He shouldn’t have taken the offer. He shouldn’t have gotten the plane ticket to Germany, he shouldn’t have signed back to Bastard München, he shouldn’t have- 

“Did he say something about me staying?” came choked out, a question that was punched out of him just to be spoken.

“He just asked me what time you’re going to land.”

Cool. Now he suddenly hoped that he wouldn’t.

Sixteen miserable hours later and Hiori found himself landing in Munich with five wheel-less suitcases, no mother to call, and an excess of a few thousand yen that he forgot to exchange for euros. 

One day into his impulsive decision and he’s already facing the consequences: he found himself with no place to stay, no cash to spend, and with no cell service to call anyone for help.

The only alternative, apparently, is to live with an ex and there is no fucking way.

(One would’ve thought if you were going to rent someone else’s fucking house to a friend, you would at least tell that friend that it wasn’t a place you owned, right? But oh well. Isagi is… Well, he’s mad at Isagi right now.)

But for this very first hour of his new life in Europe, in a country whose language he deemed barbaric, at least the accommodation wasn’t his problem yet. He could look for apartments later. That’s what managers are for. What matters is that he can still count one victory, and that is the fact he made it out of that house. 

He’s also 100% sure that being an athlete with a multimillion euro contract to a major football team has its perks. 

By the time his first cup of German coffee was empty (it was a lot worse than he thought), it was when his phone finally finished charging on the communal port. He opened it for a quick second just to check, and among the many missed calls  and enraged messages from his parents was his pick up, Isagi. 

Which is already a bad sign because Isagi only ever calls multiple times when it’s bad.

When he called back, Isagi was quick to apologize. He said something about Reo and Nagi- 

Well, just by saying those names, Hiori deemed he already said enough. 

(Not that he ever judged Isagi in his interesting choice of decisions in the past two years, especially that very vague arrangement he had with those two that he is kind of sure counts as a polyamory, but he should at least be allowed to be mad. How does polyamory even work? He’s pretty sure Reo and Nagi “love” each other more than they do Isagi. Or was it all just sex?) 

“It’s not what it sounds like! I swear! I don’t do that with them anymore!” Isagi said, as if anticipating his suspicion. Either way, he really didn’t want to ask, clarify, nor know. The man is with Reo and Nagi overnight and forgot to pick him up. Okay, cool, chill. Whatever. 

By the time he mustered up enough gall to order himself at least one bread, he now had zero expectations of anyone ever coming to pick him up now. Not Isagi who slept in after sleeping in and not his manager who he isn’t in the mood to talk to right now.

Honestly, his best bet was Yukimiya but even the guy somewhat became a figure that got stuck in his past and not beyond. After Blue Lock TV ended, Yukimiya was one of the first to go abroad (only second to Kurona who left immediately after NEL). He chose to sign a modeling contract with Burberry instead of pursuing a professional soccer career, which was a heartbreak on its own—to watch someone fight so hard just to give up because of exhaustion and constant disappointment. 

(The only one who hadn’t really given up on soccee in their original circle seemed to be Otoya, funnily enough. The guy had been enjoying his party life in Barcelona and St. Tropez as if his soccer career—which was more stable than Hiori would like to admit—was just a side hustle.)

Clearly though, God seemed to have other plans for the rest of their quartet. The three of them miserable clowns eventually found themselves back in fucking restaurant. In PXG, Karasu became vice captain like he wanted. In München, Yukimiya returned his heart to the pitch. Also in München, but specifically stuck at the airport, he broke away from his shell of a childhood home. Who would’ve fucking thought, right? It's the circle of life. The illusion of choice. The Great Migration. Isagi Yoichi’s fault. 

He started to wonder what Karasu, Yukki, and Otoya even thought about all this. They all swore to part ways with Blue Lock years ago. Yukki went as far as to swear never to play soccer again. What on Earth do they think they’re doing now?

(It really is Isagi’s fault. Normalize blaming Isagi for everything.)

Even further, Hiori wondered if the others felt just as humiliated by it as he was. It just felt so insulting to prove Ego right. It’s like they’re some flock of his birds stuck in flying predictive patterns. Should he call them right now and ask? Would they pick up the phone? Do they even think of him as much as he does of them? Because for him, he still remembers his middle school days with Karasu so well. He could still remember the taste of Otoya’s birthday cake, as well as the smell of the air the night he saw Yukimiya with a toothbrush down his throat. 

Because the thing is, he knew Rin and Isagi treasured him as part of a solid trio—the trio that suffered the same national team—but Rin and Isagi had friends outside of this. The three people Hiori thought had his back on that regard all went their separate ways. Maybe that’s why he came here. Maybe it’s starting to get colder and lonelier in Japan. 

Was it so bad to just wish that none of them have grown up?

That Blue Lock never ended?

That nobody ever left?

Not them, not Rin, not Isagi, not Kurona? 

In the end, he took it upon himself to at least give himself some mercy. He took his five stupid suitcases, slammed them on a pushcart, and walked out into the open. He hoped to hail a taxi without being recognized, brain deadset on just putting one foot in front of the other until he gets a hotel room.

Only to see familiar magenta hair under a black cap. 

Alexis Ness. 

EARLY 2022

It’s cold today, but in a spring way, I love you. 

-vladimir nabokov

(in a letter to his wife) [24 march 1937]

Hiori Yo is a case that Alexis Ness had always found fascinating. 

Despite innocent features and a very pretty face, Hiori Yo had this sort of horrifying depth to him that he doubted Hiori himself even knew. There was a shadow around his being that unnerves him for some reason, although it feels like he was the only one who saw his rival this way. Everyone else just saw “Hiori” as this nice, smart, and useful guy who lackeys around good strikers—which is mostly true—but for Alexis, he’s way more than that. He was unsettling. 

For one, why is this random extra so admired by everyone around him? The guy hasn’t even done anything remarkable, or at least never looked like he could, and yet many of the guys from Blue Lock and Bastard München were enamored by this softspoken six-footer cyanhead. Only he and Kaiser seemed to see this “Hiori Yo” for who he truly is, which is…definitely not this. 

Not the type of person to grow from love. Or accept love. Or be any three feet from the nearest fastfood place that serves love.  

And yet. 

The soft spot everyone had for this guy is something so prominent for Alexis that he quickly figured that he is specifically this other guy’s calm after the storm, last dew of spring, first kiss of snow, his first leaf of fall.

Hiori Yo was Kurona Ranze’s…call it what you call it. 

Whatever they had, he is sure it is something only the most distracted would miss—and ever since, he hated it. Alexis hated Hiori Yo. 

“Ness, let’s- what are you doing?”

“…Huh?”

“The fuck you’re looking at?” 

Kaiser asked him, only to follow his gaze and see Isagi’s little trio huddled up on their table eating peacefully…but Kurona and Hiori were giggling and holding hands under the table and-

“Ugh, Aprilscherz.” Alas, Kaiser was looking at someone else. “Leave that clown alone. Let's go.”

Or maybe, he envies him. He envies them.

Just- how can one unremarkable person mean so much to another? What did Kurona even do to have Hiori’s eyes on him? What did Hiori say to have Kurona’s heart in his hands? What in the world did they have that he didn’t?

All in all, the Neo Egoist League wasn’t perfect.

Obviously. 

He was mentally at his worst, if not physically too. It was the worst period of his life for many, many reasons and Hiori Yo (and the overwhelming love Kurona Ranze has for him) was just a minuscule part of that. Alexis isn’t sure why nobody else seemed to notice that as much as he does. 

Now, two years and a hundred therapy visits later, he finally accepted that that part of his life, and the memories he held therein, is severely skewed. He was a little insane, maybe a little deluded. In fact, he still isn’t sure what was real and what wasn't when it came to his teenage years. When it comes to Kaiser. When it comes to who he used to be because of Kaiser.

Either way, all is well. Challenges arise, people change, people get up. The Kaiser he knew had been buried long ago. The one in his call logs now is Michael. 

(Micha, he calls him. Alexis, he calls him back.)

And that shit wasn’t easy. The journey from point A to point B is far from what he’d call smooth sailing. Hell, the old Ness wouldn’t even take this road. He would never leave Kaiser’s side. He was the vines that wrapped around his skin and they both knew it. 

But they came. 

Kurona Ranze, and later, Hiori Yo. 

“…Ness?” Someone calls him, and upon hearing his name, he turns around and looks up from above his glasses. “What are you doing here?”

“Picking you up, obviously.” He simply skips to the nearest elevator and presses the button to the basement parking. When the elevator doors opened and he stepped in, he eyed Hiori outside who might as well have seen a ghost as he looked at him. 

And they stood there aimlessly like that.

When the doors started to close, it was to their surprise that Hiori held one side open while his palm ended on the opposite one. Then they looked at each other, and only then did Hiori hesitantly push his cart in. 

“Okay... Why?” Hiori asked as if heavily disturbed, and Alexis honestly asked himself the same thing. “How did you even know I’d be here?”

“I’m vice captain now.”

Alexis finally took off his shades and smiled.

“And all you have to know is that I’m not doing this for you.”

Alexis’s tale starts with Kurona Ranze. 

It was a lonely Christmas that awaited him in Germany after NEL. His family didn't celebrate, his younger brother spent the holidays with his college friends in Norway, and Kaiser’s birthday had come and gone and without a call from him for the first time. It was a victory, yes, but God did it hurt. 

He spent the winter break at the one remaining person who could still stomach him in this state—his sister. (Mostly because he knew if he was left unsupervised, he’s going to crawl back to Kaiser as soon as he could.) He had to stay with someone, even if it’s her whose large empty mansion just made him feel even more physically lonelier.

Another reason was that she was also the least likely to call him out if he moped on her couch for weeks. She was the first one to stop frowning upon his interests, after all, even if she isn’t a fan of him pursuing football over college. None of them were, but her tendency to just let him be still says a lot.

December 24th came quickly before he knew it. 

It's the first 24th he'd spend not getting Kaiser a gift. 

What his sister did that day was perhaps her first act of mercy: she took him out of that couch, dragged him with her to her in-laws' family dinner, and made him think about something else for a change. 

He didn’t complain nor ask until his hand was being shook by a man he would later know as his sister’s brother-in-law, a huge fan of Bastard München. By the time the gift exchange time came, his sister stoically gave him a tiny box wrapped in gold foil. It was a polaroid camera. That was the first time they hugged in years.

“Why do you keep watching that?” she asked him one day after she came back from work. It was one of the days in the week between Christmas and the New Year, where absolutely nothing happens. 

“I don’t know,” he sulked, as BLTV’s last episode replayed on the screen for the fifth time. “I just want to see what the last game looks like on camera.” 

“For the fiftieth time? ” 

“... Uh huh.”

There was a pause in the rustling of bags and cases on the kitchen counter, the clacking of her heels stopping on the first step up the stairs. 

“Alexis.”

“…Yeah?”

“Congratulations.”

“For what?”

“You won that, right?”

It was the first time Alexis peeked out of his blanket fort to see her lingering by the stairs, the image of her late husband on a large painting behind her. (He was nice to Alexis and their other brother while he’s still alive.) 

“How did you…?” he chokes out in mild horror. The implication that his sister watched BLTV is- 

“Lukas- er, my brother in law, mentioned your team winning in that Blue Lock show,” she said, emotionless as ever. “He had me extend to you his well wishes. When will your break end?” 

“I- Uh, next next Monday I think we have practice again. Why?”

“I can drive you back to Munich.”

“…Ok.”

“Ok.”

It was a kind way to say she wanted him out. It was a mean way to say she cared. 

They proceeded to spend New Year’s Eve with her in-laws again, in lieu of a family who actually comes together to celebrate certain things. It was a quiet night where nothing but fireworks happened. 

A much needed break, he'd say. Something he will always think of until the day he dies. 

As his sister promised, he found himself in the car with her by “next next Monday”. They were driving back to Munich where he could feel Kaiser’s presence everywhere; every corner of the city being a reminder that he once let himself get dragged through shit for someone like that. 

“I don’t think you should forgive him.”  

A sentence he had heard a dozen times before. What’s shocking though is that the words came from his sister’s mouth now. 

“You know how much mom and dad liked that boy. I don’t,” she finally said, hands ten and two on the wheel. “I bet something happened between you and Michael and that’s why you came to stay with me. Correct?”

A helpless, “Yes.”

They were quiet for a good while.

“I…watched your show. For a bit. Last night. The one that's replaying on the TV.”

“Oh.” Alexis felt his stomach sink. She ended up seeing it, huh? 

“Find something better to hold on to, Alexis.” She pauses. “Either that or just don’t forgive him. People like him don’t change. I just want to make sure you know that.” 

What she couldn’t understand, however, or what Gesner or the others never did, is that he wanted Kaiser to change. Alexis wanted his redemption to come so badly. He had been waiting this entire time for an apology. It wasn’t just an act of kindness, he had to believe that even Kaiser's worst sins could be forgiven, that even the most lost will find their way back—because if they don't, then there is no hope left for people like him. 

Sadly, nobody understood how that felt. Everyone just told him that this is his chance to move on from the “abuse”. That was when the most unlikely person came into his life. 

“Yo.”

Kurona Ranze blinks at him from the lounge beanbags, spinning an unassuming random black pen between nimble fingers. Alexis couldn’t believe his eyes. He could only raise a suspicious brow and drop his duffel bag on the floor. 

“Contract signing,” Kurona clarified before he could even move past his stuttering.

When his sister followed him in, she proceeded to just stare at Kurona with the same dead purple eyes before walking to the restroom wordlessly. When she disappeared, Alexis took one step closer and afforded his best English on a Sunday night of all days. 

“What contract?” he hissed, gritting his teeth, “You were supposed to be in Japan.”

“Meh. I quit.” 

Simply seeing Kurona in what was supposed to be his Blue Lock-free haven started to twist his cool into haywire. He was holding the shorter boy by the collar before he knew it, knuckles turning white against the black shirt, as the boy…

…simply shrugged, holding his fist with gentle hand and taking off Alexis’s hold on him. With absolutely zero offense taken, Kurona simply laid back down and brushed a hand on his braid. 

Only now Alexis felt bashful, as his shadow towered over the smaller midfielder who just looked at him blankly. 

“You…quit?” he choked out, just as his sister stepped out of the restrooms and saw the suspicious scene.

“Mhm. I quit Blue Lock,” Kurona replied, as if he was just reciting what he ate for breakfast. “I got an offer to play here, as most guys in the team did. Only I accepted, I think, I think.” 

As Kurona was called by a man in a suit—which to Alexis’ horror was one of München’s actual fucking lawyers—he watched as he left him and just quietly made his way to a black car parked out front. 

He had enough confidence to know that Kurona was being driven to meet with München’s stakeholders, to sign the next few years of his life away.

(Alexis saw a trolley full of luggage at the corner of the lobby as he escorted his sister out, whose questions had gone unanswered as he truly didn’t know what to feel. When he came back, he noticed the pile of shark-stickered luggage at the corner of the lobby. He tried his best to ignore that one was shaped way too similar to a guitar.)

It was why it came as no surprise (to him) when the team was summoned the next morning at Allianz for warm ups and a new face appeared with them during assembly. Kaiser was nowhere to be seen, but one of Isagi Yoichi’s lackeys was. 

Even Grim found the scene incredibly amusing; it looks like Blue Lock will haunt all of them for longer than they thought. 

It was also no surprise that Alexis found himself thinking way too much about Kurona Ranze ever since. He was an enigma, a simpleton, an airhead never caring about anyone else’s opinions, and something else about his sudden appearance in Germany irked him. For one, Blue Lock TV’s ratings were skyrocketing now that the next arc, called World Cup Arc, started. Why on earth is this guy here? He does not belong here. 

There was therefore that weird feeling that Kurona wasn’t there for surface-level reasons. It was not only because he got a good opportunity to go pro earlier and risk mediocrity or migrate just to escape a lame hometown. There has to be something he’s here for.

Before Alexis knew it, he was attending practice just to watch and investigate the guy. Because, frankly, what the fuck. 

Then, on a random Tuesday by March, it finally hit him. It wasn’t Kurona’s one weird guitar-shaped luggage. Or the nonchalance. 

It’s because he appeared alone. 

Alexis realized he never visualized Kurona with no taller body being half hidden into, with no hand holding his hand, with just by himself. He was always with Hiori Yo. What on Earth happened to that?

To Hiori’s surprise, someone did arrive to pick him up from the airport. Not Isagi or Yukimiya or Kurona, but his team’s vice captain, who seemed to be told that there was a guy in the airport who still hasn’t reported to be alive. 

They didn’t talk much in the entire car ride to the headquarters. All he knew is that suddenly, he’s at the passenger seat of Ness’s brand-new Audi, with his suitcases piled at the back. It was a surreal experience, because the Ness he remembered was the guy who nearly lost his mind when Kaiser abandoned him on live television. The Ness who hated Isagi and all non-Kaisers with a seething passion. The Ness who did nothing in the NEL except stare down Hiori every time they found the ball crisscrossing between their legs. 

The Alexis Ness driving him now was someone else entirely.

He still had the same fluffy magenta hair in his nest-like haircut, but he had chubbier cheeks and a new, fresh, and confident air around him that he could compare to Mr. Model Kenyuu Yukimiya and Mr. Picture Perfect Multimillionaire Reo Mikage. Hiori spent enough time in Blue Lock staring him down to know that he didn’t always look like this. 

Hiori was quick to find himself wondering what it had been like for the guy, if he too would glow like this if he stayed here. (Maybe it has something to do with the water they drink here.)

Ness's car also seemed new. There was still some plastic around some of the features around the dashboard, with the only exception being proof of use—specifically, some red slippers on the passenger seat (which he kindly tried not to step on), a mint Tiffany and Co. paper bag, and some black hair ties shoved in the cup holder. Oh, and a fortune cookie, which Alexis tossed for him to eat since “he’s staring at it anyway”. 

(Take that dagger in you and remove it, was the message he got inside. He crumpled it and buried it deep in his pocket.)

A few minutes of silence later and Alexis dropped him off to the HQ without a further word, just passing him off to an assistant in a business suit who ushered him to a room where the chairman was. They were both shocked to see each other—he wasn’t supposed to report, not without his manager, until tomorrow morning—which made him question why or how Ness even did what he did. Clearly, it wasn’t for the chairman that he picked him up. 

Either way, he ended up calling his manager to get the legal things over with. He’s there anyway. It took a few hours, mostly just his team speaking to a bunch of impromptu-summoned lawyers and businessmen over Zoom, but the preliminaries were over before he knew it. 

When he stepped out, however, he realized he forgot one crucial thing. 

The accommodation. 

“Fuck!” 

Seriously, he should really smack Isagi super hard once he got to see his stupid face. 

“What are you doing?” 

A voice calls out from behind and Hiori flinches in terror. The lobby’s lights were shut off except for the main one, and his phone had been blinking half past eleven by that point. Alexis Ness stares at him from behind, hair wet and curiously holding a plastic bag of what seemed to be food. The vice captain was going back inside instead of stepping out, which made Hiori stare at him in disbelief.

First of all, why is he still there? Second of all, why is he going back inside instead of out?

“What are you doing? The building’s closing.”

“No, it isn’t.” Alexis just stares at him blankly before walking past him, the automatic doors opening at his very first step. Then he stopped, just as the doors closed again. 

With a glass wall between them, Hiori saw Alexis turn and stare at him. It was a stare that just connected, as if something suddenly made sense, and Alexis just stepped back out again with a sigh. The doors opened, and Hiori watched Alexis cross his arms and lean on the doorframe. 

“Seriously. What are you doing?”

And Hiori hesitates, hands pointing everywhere. He was stuck with an endless stream of complaints, of wanting to strap Isagi to a missile and let him slam onto a tree or something, but he managed to hold it all back: 

“I- I have to find a hotel.”

“Hotel? I thought you’re staying with Yochan?”

Exactly! 

(Wait, 'Yochan'? ) 

“Actually, I thought so too!” Hiori barely suppressed his groan just at the memory of Isagi’s dumbass tomfoolery. He will never let the guy live this one down, ever. Fuck him, seriously. 

“Really,” Alexis breathed, and Hiori shrugged. 

For the first time, he lets himself collapse at the entire weight of his day. The jetlag had been fucking with his system, the coffee may have made his stomach upset, and all he had in his day so far was shitty bread. He had no place to stay, all his money are in Yen, and- 

“Hey.”

“What?”

“This place has some empty rooms. Stay here tonight and get yourself together.”

When Hiori turns his head, Alexis already disappeared back inside the dark lounge. Then, suddenly, a bright light from one of the hallways turned on (oh, those were motion-sensored!), and that was the equivalent of heaven’s gates for Hiori that night. 

He follows Alexis through the hallways and the stairs and ends up in a dark room with an empty office desk, a large sofa, and random boxes stacked in the corner. Like Alexis’ car, the only proof of life could be missed if only he didn’t care enough. But it was the pile of soft blankets and pillows on the sofa, and he watched as Alexis pulled it out onto a sofa bed. 

But there wouldn’t already be blankets and pillows here if-

“Wait, are you sleeping here?” 

“For the week,” the other replied, fluffing up the pillows before sitting on the spare office chair. “You can have the bed. I’m still waiting for a call.”

“But where would you sleep?” 

He hesitantly treads to the sofa bed and sits down, the temptation of a warm place to sleep a little too good for someone who got stuck in a foreign country with nothing but luck.

“I’ll figure it out.” 

Alexis was no longer as smile-y as he was before, but in a good way. It felt as if he’s finally talking to a real, conscious, thinking human being instead of the ticking bomb that he used to be. Then, Hiori paused. 

“Wait. Why are you- You live here. Don’t you have a house in Germany or something?” 

Alexis spun on the chair to face him, his phone being the only light in the otherwise moonlit unused office. They stared at each other from opposite sides of the room, and for Hiori, it seemed Alexis was debating deep inside if he’ll answer him or not. 

He ended up answering, but not without digging through his plastic bag of food and tossing Hiori a cool water bottle. 

“My house is being renovated right now. The chairman allowed me to stay here in the meantime,” he said, before cracking open his own can of coffee and tinkering with his watch. “Now shush. He’s going to call anytime now.”

“He? The chairman?” 

Hiori isn’t sure why he’s asking. He couldn’t care less whomever the fuck he was going to-

“No, my boyfriend.” 

Hiori chokes on his water which warranted a very annoyed stare, a look that is something more familiar from their Blue Lock days. Ness was obviously pissed now, glaring at him from the desk as Hiori coughed and re-capped the water bottle which he already halved. 

“Boyfriend?” he repeated, though he isn’t sure which part of the implication he was more shocked with. “To clarify, this isn’t Kaiser, right?” 

The look on Alexis’s face grew even more annoyed, but not as murderous as the old Ness would’ve reacted once Kaiser entered the conversation. 

“Insensitive prick,” was all Ness said before taking his phone, his coffee, and stood up. 

He marched to the balcony, which was hidden behind some curtains so well Hiori didn’t realize they were there at first, and glared at him as he shut the door. In the last moments of Hiori’s consciousness, all he remembered was that he spent the last few minutes of that tiring day watching Alexis Ness lean on the railing, talk to his boyfriend over the phone, and wish he was loved enough by anyone as much as those two did. 

The next morning, Alexis was nowhere to be seen and Hiori took it upon himself to sneak to the nearest restroom he could find. Only then Isagi finally appeared, apparently told by Alexis that Hiori spent the night at HQ, and he finally gave him his long overdue angry rant.

At least, Isagi compensated by spending the whole day with him. They were joined by Yukimiya, who was a lot more welcoming than the first two teammates Hiori met so far. Yukki was kind enough to tour them around the city in his car, stopping by a few condos and apartments for lease, and the day ends with him being dropped off back to HQ “so he can discuss his apartment choice with his manager.” 

His true answer, however, was to see Alexis Ness again. He didn’t know why. His new mission is suddenly to uncover what on earth was that look they shared the previous night—when Alexis could’ve just left him to his own devices but instead stepped back out that glass door to coax him into safety. Why did he pick him up anyway? Who told him he was going to be there at the airport in that terminal in that time of day? 

The only people who could’ve told him was either Isagi or Yukki, the two people who knew he’d be in Munich by that specific time. He had to confirm, however, just as a little mental game he wanted to play.

True to his revelation, Alexis Ness reappeared that evening talking loudly to someone on the phone... again. The only problem was Hiori didn’t know if he wasn’t seen or was just not acknowledged, but the vice captain came inside, slammed his takeout food on the desk, and sat down on the swivel chair—all while still talking out loud. 

“I don’t know about wishing wells,” he was saying, as Hiori sat there buried in the blankets unsure if he had to say something. You know, that he was there. “Have you already thrown a coin in the Merlion? If you did, I wouldn’t do it. You can throw all my coins though.”

Merlion? Singapore?

“Yeah, yeah- Hm?” Alexis grew quiet for a while. His back was to him, and Hiori watched as he swayed slowly still. “Oh. Oh, well, yeah- I don’t know. When are you coming back? I can pick you up. No? Okay.”

Hiori decided his best option is to pretend he’s asleep. He slowly buries his head with the blanket, closing his eyes, but of course keeping his ears perked and alert. 

“Hey…” 

Then, he hears Alexis’ voice change, a tone he never heard from the guy before. 

“I love you.”

Hiori stills.

The words—the three words—were daunting to hear spoken so vulnerably, especially from someone like Ness. It was delicate, like a bashful confession, but at the same time solid and opaque with no question mark nor hesitance. Then, silence. Hiori assumes the call had ended, if it wasn’t for:

“No, no. I’m not with anyone. I’m at the HQ, in the empty office at the back,” he said. “Oh- no, no. No! I don’t know where he slept last night. I don’t know where he is right now. Leave me alone.”

Hiori frowns, not helping the expression when he had the gut feeling that that was about him. 

“I don't know? Maybe a hotel. Look, I dropped him off yesterday around 7 and I didn’t see him again.” 

Oh, shit. 

That is when Hiori covers his mouth. He isn’t sure what kind of relationship his vice captain has with his mystery boyfriend but he was 100% sure that was a lie just now. A lie that was made at his expense. 

Then, it dawned on him. With his position, he could be very easily framed as a homewrecker, sleeping in the same room with a guy who is taken, who is also lying for him. But nothing happened! He isn’t even sure why Ness would do all this, but- 

“Okay. Goodnight. Fine, I’ll think about it, okay? I love you. Bye.” 

That night, Hiori simply closed his eyes and eventually drifted back to sleep by pure exhaustion. If Alexis discovers him later that night, he didn’t know. 

Then he finally saw Kurona again. 

It was another morning of apartment hunting with Isagi and Yukki. It was March 2nd by then, a Saturday. He ended up not able to pick one apartment to stay in, for all of them are either too far from the arena or too cramped or too big. He ended up going back at the HQ’s unused office with Ness by lunch (this time making sure he greets him first, so he doesn’t have to…overhear things he doesn’t want to overhear.) 

Eventually, he made it to his first practice with the team that afternoon. Noa was ecstatic (ha.) to re-introduce him to the rest of the team along with the last comers—Raichi and Gagamaru—and finally, the lineup was complete. All he could see, however, was Kurona. 

His Kurona Ranze. 

The moment Noa left them to their own devices and the team huddled together, it was Kurona who leaped into his arms and enveloped him into a large bear hug. He nearly fell backward with the force but it was Kurona who smiled at him like he was the world, saying something about how much he missed him. Behind him, Hiori made eye contact with Isagi, who made his way to them and hugged them both just to make it less awkward (and to heed his look for help.)

Oh, Kurona. 

What a ton of heartbreak he is cramped up in a mere five foot four.

See, he had made it a point in the past two years to unfollow every social media Kurona had. He didn’t exactly block him out of his life—given the latter felt welcome enough to send Hiori a waving hand emoji as if nothing happened—but he did mute his Instagram, his stories, and his phone number for his inner peace. 

Which made Hiori’s knees all the more weaker because of Kurona’s new look. The shorter midfielder appeared to have gotten an undercut, like Isagi, while keeping his cute little side braid. He also grew a little buffer, as Hiori felt in the hug for his shoulders were now wider than how he remembered it. When he smiled at him, Hiori saw that his teeth remained the same jagged, crooked, mess he loved—but he and his breath and his neck smells different. Kurona now smells like stuffed rooms, also a little bit sweaty instead of powdery, with a hint of musky Arabic cologne. 

Oh, and a bunch of piercings on both ears. He had several cuffs, as well as studs and even a bar. Wow, just- wow.

That was the day he knew he fucked up. Suddenly, Hiori’s heart started beating again, as if he was resuscitated from being dead.

A Stupid. Fucking. Move. 

And it has been a slippery slope ever since.

Kurona ended up never addressing the “breakup” that apparently wasn’t even a breakup at all. He also did not put notice to the two years they barely ever talked to each other, nor the Isagi apartment offer thingy that Hiori also didn’t bring up. All that happened was that he ended up seated next to Kurona once again during welcome dinner that night, bonding over the same old strawberry grape sugar candies with the team, and walking together side by side from the restaurant to their homes. 

And in that first day, Hiori really tried his best to keep his toes in line. It was clear now that whatever he thought he had with Kurona was just friendship for the guy. He shouldn’t have fallen that time, or this time, or any other time. 

That evening, back at the unused office, he now had a phonecall to make.

After two years, he mustered enough courage to tell Rin the entire story as well. 

Itoshi Rin—the same Rin who occupied the third spot in his and Isagi's established trio in the National Team. Hiori liked to think their friendship extended beyond the professional, and in a way, it did. (Something he wishes to rekindle with his original Blue Lock friendgroup... deep inside.) 

”Are you…dumb?” 

To hear Rin say it hurt as much as a bitchslap from all the way in Paris. Hiori ended up having to divert to Rin because he realized that Isagi’s position as a mutual friend to Kurona is unfair on his end. As angry as he was at Isagi for the tomfoolery, Hiori didn't want to ruin someone else's relationships at the expense of himself. 

And as expected, Rin wasn’t ecstatic at the confession at all.

Nor was he at the explanatory narrative he attached to it. Hiori felt even more ridiculous. 

“Fine, it happened. What do you want to do about it ?”

“So I’m fucked, clearly? He- I don’t know what to do.”

He groaned in frustration, back sliding on the restroom wall as he hid away from Ness, who should be making his own phonecall to his mystery boyfriend by now in the office outside. 

“Look, Rin. You’re the only one I know with a decent love life. I’m hopeless and Isagi is…'ya know.”

“Still going on with his stupid fucking hyperfixation,” Rin hissed. “Look, I don’t know about you but nothing about my life is close to decent. I’m losing my mind. I don’t fucking know what to do with this chaotic bullshit.”

“But at least you know you’re loved back.” 

Something in the background clicks off. Hiori figured the man was trying to timer something over the stove. Like, Rin? Baking? Since when on Earth?

But Hiori guessed that's just what love does to people. 

When Rin didn’t answer, he added a second personal footnote, just as a jab towards the younger striker who he deemed his and Isagi’s resident spoiled brat. After all, Rin was the only person he knew whose worst problems consists of a perfectly alive and successful brother, as well as a mother and father that albeit were divorced, at least lives in two different houses and doesn't burden him with their fights. Rin even outright told them once that he never heard his parents ever argue or yell at each other. They just separated, but still doted on him the same. For fuck's sake, his parents made it to every match and genuinely cheered him on! 

And now, at the mere age of 18, Rin was the only person in their trio to have found a stable and loving relationship with someone who he actually loves. Man is engaged. Hiori, at 20, and Isagi at 19, are fighting eyerolls. Alexa, play Teenage Dream. Jesus Christ. 

“I just wish you could see how badly Isagi and I would kill to have a problem like that.”

Rin was silent on the other end, as something clunks on something. There were voices in the background, but not anywhere near. They were awkward once again, before Rin reached around for anything to say. 

“I’m going now. The cookies are baked and he's here....so.”

“Yeah. Bye.”

“Bye. ”

Then, he found himself in limbo. Asking Rin for emotional support is something only the most desperate would even think about, and that said a lot. He also couldn’t bother Isagi much about his Kurona-related woes now that the two were literal roommates. Same with Yukki, sadly, who if not busy with his modeling career, is also good friends with Kurona. 

It was now midnight on March 2nd, he still hasn’t talked to his parents, and he had no idea what’s going on anymore. He had ended the call with Rin a few minutes ago. He's lost. 

And he still doesn’t have an apartment.

It’s been three days and the farthest he had gone is when he napped at Yukimiya’s expensive flat, but only because it started to rain. All of the friends he could call for help are also all, if not uncooperative, just highly unhelpful (*cough* Rin *cough*).

His remaining option is the one (1) number he had in his contacts for years that he barely calls nowadays, so he called him.

He called Karasu.

Miraculously, the hour-long call he had with Karasu somehow led to Yukki appearing at the office at 2 am to pick him up. Together, they drove to Nuremberg and spent the next whole day with Karasu and Otoya in an Airbnb the former impulsively booked. 

Ever beloved by luck and coincidence, it so happened Karasu and Otoya were in Germany when Hiori called for help. The reason? Otoya got himself a German bootycall and got stood up. 

Just like that, by the sunrise of March 3rd, the circle he so badly wanted to reunite finally met together, reigniting their lost connection like some bunch of awkward dorks. By the time Hiori could no longer feel his fingertips with the buzz of the alcohol, there was one thing Karasu said that marked his skin like a brand: 

“Go for it,” he told him, drunk and blushing on some Otoya-sponsored Chardonnay. 

At that moment, Hiori was spread on the pool table with a missing shoe and a pulsing head. Karasu was standing next to him leaning poorly on a cue stick, swirling his cup with one or so gulps left. Otoya was still singing his heart out at the karaoke next to them, and Yukki was probably trying his best to shut Otoya’s loud ass down and coax him into sleep. Only one of them was sober, and Hiori commends Yukki forever for his self-control. 

“Go for what, exactly?” he asked Karasu, hearing his own voice come out dry. 

“Talk to him. Like, ‘yer only option is either swallow this up for the rest of your life or tell him everything you need to say. Who cares about his feelings? He clearly did not care about yours when he left.”

When he slowly sat up and grabbed the nearby black 8 ball to throw to Karasu's head—because wow, okay, thank you so much for that!—he missed, of course, and it just ended up rolling by his side until it fell on the corner hole. Karasu laughed at him first before he reached down and took the ball out. He then looks at Hiori with a smirk. 

“Go on, be mad!” he said, smiling genuinely at Hiori as he brushed his sticky and sweaty hair off his face. “Lucky for ‘ya, I’m the kind of mean you need.” 

Karasu was right. He really is the one punch Hiori needed to face it all.

When he came back to Munich that next weekday, he surprised himself (and Isagi alike) when he marched to Kurona in the locker rooms and asked him to the bar. Just the two of them.

(Even if he’d be fucking sick of the taste of liquor for a while. Thanks, Otoya!) 

“Okay! Where, where?”

“You pick.”

Kurona ended up taking him to this cozy decent bar nearby, one he apparently frequents (although the bartender doesn’t seem to have a tab under his name, strangely). All Hiori told himself is that it has to be a bar. Why? Because a bar was his easiest way to go. 

The thought process is as follows: if this all goes downhill, at least he’ll then avoid bars, and it will help him avoid the possibility of being an alcoholic and coping through alcohol. Win win, he’d say. 

“Hey, I actually came here to tell you something.”

He kept cradling his beer pint as Kurona led him to the rooftop. It was quieter over there, with only a few patrons (all of whom were fucking couples though, for fuck’s sake) as well as a breath of fresh air. He ended up following Kurona around like a lost dog, he just noticed, until the boy picked a seat facing a particular side of the city. Hiori then sat next to him, only to pause at the view. 

Because...  wow. 

“This is a spot that made me think of Hiori,” Kurona suddenly said, and Hiori immediately forgot everything he had in his mouth. 

The view on that side of the rooftop was towering above the other buildings, giving a clear view of the orange setting sun on the far distant horizon. It was breathtaking, and now he wished he hadn’t asked Kurona to a bar. 

Fuck this shit, now he had to think of Kurona when he sees sunsets too.

(As if fireworks and New Year’s Eve and window ledges and strawberries aren’t enough.) 

“You…thought of me?” Hiori gulped, hands tightening around the handle of his beer pint. “Did you, really?”

“Yeah!” 

Hiori sighed to resign his death away. This is it. He is forever doomed to this. He had to do it, one way or another, to ease the pain. It was easy too (at least in his head). All he had to do is say, Kurona, I am hurt by these things you did. I lost my mind in the past two years when you were gone. The fact you’re here thinking you didn’t do anything wrong is hurting me even further. Please respond in three to five business days upon receipt. Thank you.

Then-

“So! What do you want to talk about? It’s making me excited, really, really.”

Kurona smiled, and oh, God, holy shit. He can’t do it. 

“I-” he choked. 

“Yeah?”

“How…is Germany?”

And in that moment, Hiori shriveled up deep inside. He could already feel Rin, Isagi, and Karasu smacking his head like ghosts over his shoulder at his utter stupidity. Fuck- look, he can’t help it, okay?! With Kurona, he just ends up…you know! 

Absolutely fucking weak. 

“Germany? Hm. It’s lonely at first, and I don’t know German, but I’m happy I came here, really,” Kurona answered knowingly, eyes reflecting the sun as he took a sip of a pint. “Why, why?”

With the lower half of his face drowned by the beer, Hiori found himself mesmerized with how much deeper and wiser he found Kurona’s eyes. He truly lived an eventful life, it seemed. He didn’t even have to talk because it showed. 

Which was a smack, or a sting, because it meant Kurona led an entire life he does not know about. Or rather, a life he didn’t bother telling Hiori about. 

Hiori didn’t know which he should feel—if he should be jealous Kurona had a life, or if he should be mad Kurona didn’t include him in it, or if he should just beg Kurona right here right now to kiss him again and make him feel alive like he did back then.

Because for fuck’s sake, he’s so tired of yearning. He grew so tired of hearing Rin rant angrily about love he was freely being given by an actual loving boyfriend. He grew so tired of watching Otoya fuck around when he could easily find someone in the hundred millions he could actually love. He grew so jealous of seeing Karasu and Yukimiya wallow over minor lapses when they both have perfect lives and loving families outside their loveless empty hearts.

Because at least they have that. He had nothing. 

Now he realized why he and Isagi must’ve gotten along so well. Isagi is the only other person who for sure knew this exact feeling of emptiness. Isagi is the only other person who had been empty in the past two goddamn years like him. They both also had to suffer Rin and his (may God bless him but seriously he needs to- just- be with his fucking bitch, oh my God- ) first world problems while dealing with loneliness of their own.

Yes, they both reached for different ways to get their fix. Hiori buried himself even deeper inside his walls, choosing to go to college and just focus on Twitch and the national team, while Isagi chose a more active life traveling around the world with Rin. Still, given how they both ended up in Germany anyway, he knew they’re both just as empty as each other.

Because while Isagi had been empty ever since Kaiser left him that Valentino jacket, Hiori had been empty since Kurona showed him that Lufthansa plane ticket. 

Bottom of the ninth: Isagi looked around the world for the same kind of high Kaiser gave him and Hiori just wanted Kurona back.

Two empty enamel vessels looking for an adequate fill. 

“Kurona.” 

“Oh? Not Ranze?” 

Hiori realized that was the first time he addressed Kurona by name since he got here. The other looked genuinely surprised, and a little hurt, and Hiori nearly corrected himself—if only it wasn’t on purpose. 

He had to say it. Damn if he loses this chance-

“I love you-” 

Just as an ambulance drove by and they both flinched. 

“What was that?” Kurona frowned, leaning closer. “Sorry, sorry, didn’t hear.”

Hiori swallowed, laughing at the ambulance driving down below sardonically. With that, he slaps himself to reality, sniffing back unshed tears, and smiled at Kurona.

“I said, what things here do you love?” 

“Love?” Kurona hummed, looking back to the setting sun. “Everything! I love the parties, the people, the recording studio…” 

Hiori had no idea what he’s talking about. 

“Uh huh?” he only hummed weakly, fully aware he’s going to cry about this later that night. 

“I love everything here, super. I wish you came sooner than you did. There were way bigger fish in the aquariums here, and…”

“And?”

Kurona looked like he was hiding a smile when he took the next sip of his beer. 

“And I found someone I love here.” 

The crashout should’ve been something he expected. So much for setting his own shackles when he also knew how to get around them. When he and Kurona parted ways, leaving two half-drunk pints behind, his feet took him back inside, he ordered three strong and straight shots and paid for it in cash, then he marched to the nearest payphone. 

With shaking hands, he tried to dial the most familiar numbers he could—Isagi, Karasu, Rin, Yukki, his mom—only to get it all wrong. 

“UGH!” he all but screamed, but no one outside the booth even heard nor cared. Hiori just felt his heart rate rise to its all time highs as he choked on his own tears, sliding down the dirty payphone in misery. Soon, women wearing close to nothing under their coats started to appear in the streets, smoke escaping their lips and beckoning him close. 

Like, come on. 

“And I found someone I love here.” Seriously, him too? What on earth is in the air in Germany, the cupid’s stupid sprinkle dust? 

He surmised therefore no one could blame him when he ended up taking one of the women by the wrist, pushing her inside a cab, and taking her to his place.

Which is a bad idea, because he forgot he didn’t have a place. What he had was just the backdoor to this inconspicuous expensive building in the quiet side uptown—specifically, an unused office in a major football team's HQ. 

“Who the hell was th-”

Hiori was shirtless, with a chest full of hickeys, when the dark room opened and there stood Alexis Ness with a phone pushed to his ear. The woman had long gone, perhaps far too gone herself that she didn’t notice Hiori paid her in his leftover yen. She must have bumped onto Ness on her way out, though.

“- What the fuck?”  

Alexis all but screamed when he saw the state of his body, and Hiori guessed he deserved it. With a migraine, he ignored his vice captain and went straight to the adjacent restroom, where he couldn’t even look at himself in the mirror by the sink. 

“What the actual fuck, Hiori?!”

He wished Alexis would just shut up. Seriously, he regretted it all already five minutes before he even came in. Besides, thankfully, on the physical worries, he was sane enough to use condoms and not exchange spit. Oh God, her saliva is everywhere. He needed to shower. He needed to throw up. He- 

“Hiori-? What did you- Are you insane?!” 

He isn’t sure which part Alexis was madder about. Is it that he thinks they did it at the sofa bed he too sleeps in (they did not, he had her pushed to the wall) or that he brought a woman over to the HQ building? Hiori couldn’t care, he knew he’s fucked either way.

He shouldn’t have come to Germany. 

“Jesus- okay. Hiori?” Alexis drops off everything at the desk and follows him to the bathroom, staring at his reflection to see tears running down all over his face. Since when was he even crying? “Okay. Sit down. Come here.”

Then the shower started running, and suddenly he’s there standing motionlessly as the warm water stuck his hair all over his face. Then, gentle hands parted them for him and he came eye to eye with Alexis—who was looking at him for once. 

The same look that he gave him on the first night he found himself lost. Deep purple irises, closer to black than violet, examined his face with so much care he nearly melted. 

Hiori didn’t know if it’s just because he’s tipsy, or because he’s so overwhelmed by sex, but he started to cry even harder. He proceeded to collapse onto the tub and Alexis followed him down, rubbing his back and shushing him as he wrapped his arms around him in an embrace. He was saying something Hiori couldn’t understand, maybe in German. Either way, it sounded like he cared. A sensation he isn’t too familiar with.

Then there was shampoo in his hair, and a loofah rubbing around his neck and chest. He still had some pants on which were already soaking wet under the water, and he only looked up at Alexis who himself had already been drenched. 

“Ness, was I-” he hiccuped past his drunken tears. “Was I hard to love?”

Something flickers in Alexis’ eyes and the loofah falls down from his grasp to float on the water. It seemed the question cracked something on Alexis’ own surface, and he too fell on the floor as he stared down at the tile as if in a loss.

“Sorry.” Hiori sobered up that very second, hands wiping down his face and turning off the knob for the water, laughing awkwardly. “Holy shit, I’m sorry. That was- Yeah, I- Fuck.” 

“No, stay. You need this shower, trust me,” he said, and it was Alexis who left him instead. “Call me if you need anything.” 

Then the door clicks shut, and Hiori fell back down in the water at a loss at what just happened. 

It took him a while, but he eventually made it out of the bathroom. He first quietly and shamefully made his way to his suitcases at the corner, pulled out some pants which he put on, before he could even face Alexis. 

Who was sat on the sofa, which he had since pulled out to a bed, holding a whisk.

“How are you feeling?” 

“Not the best,” he admitted, slowly taking a seat on the other end of the bed.

Alexis then hands him a bottle of water, which he first cracked open, before he started waddling to Hiori’s side of the bed. With cold hands, Hiori felt him touch his naked shoulder and usher him to lay down. His weak exhausted body followed, and he realized that the softness behind his head were Alexis’ thighs. 

Then, he started whisking the hickeys on his neck away. 

“…Why?” was all he could ask, as tears pricked the corner of his eyes again.

Alexis had zero, as in no reason to do this for him. Not the airport thing, or showing him this office, or this. 

“Does everything with you have to have a reason?” Alexis sounds annoyed, but his face looked so blank and dark. “Did you know you’re the exact kind of person I hate the most?”

Okay, wow.

“Thanks…for the honesty.”

Then, Alexis used a cold soft hand to turn his head sideways towards the balcony, getting the rawest hickey by the back of his ears. The moon outside was shining, though it almost looked like it was crying. 

And they stayed like that. Talking was a hassle. Hiori had felt enough emotions for an entire lifetime. He felt his eyelids droop, and he’s gone until the morning sun peeked past the balcony they left open overnight. It was the first time Alexis remained close, up and awake and doing his morning stretches, but close. 

Then, with no words exchanged, they made their way together to the nearby convenience store and bought some breakfast. Nobody talked as they made their way back either. It was only when Alexis was showering and Hiori was brushing his teeth with his head down, when they talked.

“I’m sorry.”

Alexis suddenly started apologizing. Hiori blinked himself out of his mental fog when it sank into him, and he immediately spat out to the sink.

“What are you talking about?”

He could think of a hundred things Alexis could be apologizing to him for, like yelling at him, or being mean to him last night, or generally being a pain in the ass during Blue Lock. But instead, he said,

“I don’t know. It just seemed like you needed to hear that.”

“Wow,” Hiori couldn’t help the sarcasm now, completely disregarding his vice-captainship for now. Sometimes, Alexis is just a prick. “You are-”

The shower curtains suddenly part and there, Alexis steps out with a towel wrapped around his waist and Hiori couldn’t help but look. 

Oh. 

He couldn’t help the gasp that escaped his lips when he saw Alexis Ness’s perfect and fair skin was almost porcelain-looking when wet, down to the glossy sculpted abs that he had no idea the guy had been packing. 

“Sorry about last night. You just reminded me of myself when I was…” Alexis paused when he reached the door, as if realizing he was talking out loud. Then he looks at Hiori, who was staring for more reasons than one. “…when I was at my lowest, I guess.” 

Then he exits, and Hiori rinses his mouth in a complete daze. 

Oh, shit. 

Chapter Text

—

HIORI YO: PART THREE

an ode to isagi yoichi and itoshi rin, who thinks hiori’s friendships never end

—

At nights where Hiori just couldn’t sleep, that’s where Alexis comes in. 

Ever since that night the vice captain whisked his love bites away, there grew between them a mutual understanding. Now that he thought about it, if there’s anyone there who would know what it felt like to not be looked at by the most significant person closest to them, it’d be Alexis Ness. 

It started the next evening, on March 4th. They wordlessly made it a point to eat dinner together. The next day, Alexis drove him to the gym and to their practice with the team and no one bats an eye. Then, on and on and on. At the end of their exhausting days, Alexis slowly started inching closer at night, finally taking the space on the sofa bed next to Hiori. By March 7th, they started sharing the same blanket. By March 8th, Alexis started to tell him gentle stories of magic and wizards until the both of them passed out.

At first, it was just random things that occurred during their day. What was just, “Have you seen if I locked my car or not?” “You did.” eventually became “I can’t believe Noa still thinks of Ego in this fucking day and age.” “My God, I thought it’s just me who noticed that.” eventually became “Did you know my sister did not want me to be gay?” 

“…I’m sorry?”

“She’s not homophobic…I think.” Alexis rolls over, facing Hiori who had been challenging the ceiling to a staring contest for two minutes now. “I think she just knows how bad different people get treated.” 

After a long silence, Hiori breaks away from Alexis’ face and looks back to the ceiling. Now that he thought about it, he still hasn't called his parents yet. How long had he been in Germany anyway? Half a month now? It’s March 15th.

“She’s a psychiatrist, you see. Dad didn’t like that she chose the most non-stem major in college.”

“Are all of you really scientists?” 

“Clearly not. I exist, don’t I?” Alexis smiled at him softly. “My sister is the one I understand the best in my family. She gave me a polaroid last last Christmas.” 

Hiori blinked. He hadn’t seen a polaroid camera in a while. The polaroid-haver in his circle was Yukimiya. 

“Will you take my pictures on it one day?” he asked, blinking towards Alexis’ smiling face in the dark night. 

“Sure. If I find it.”

Some of such nights, Hiori would just let Alexis talk and talk. It was surprising just how talkative he actually is, given his first interactions with Hiori were barely civilized. Alexis first started telling him wonders of his family life (which were not wonderful at all) which was actually backwards because he should have told him about the little things first.

Like, for example, Alexis Ness’s fascination toward Harry Potter lore—which, admittedly, cracked Hiori up more than he was happy with. Like, seriously? Harry Potter? Of all things? He should have seen that one coming. It would explain so much about the metaphors Alexis had been spouting from Blue Lock until now. 

On other nights, they would talk about more serious things. Serious things, that is, before laughing it off. For that segment, Hiori had way more things to contribute, like the scar he had on his ankle and the calendar-covered hole at the end of the stairs in his parents’ house. In return, Alexis told him about Kaiser. 

That is how Hiori knew he’s in for a real ride.

(Pair that with the newfound realization that Alexis trusts him enough now to confide that to him. Then, pair that further with the realization that he just told Alexis something he never talked about to anyone else. Not even Karasu, Isagi, Rin, or Kurona.)

It turns out that some time in the past two years before Hiori or “Yochan” came in, Kaiser secluded himself away from the team for a little while. He trained alone, he slept alone, he drove home alone. 

All their coach told them was that Kaiser was diligently receiving professional help in the meantime, and will come back and be accountable to his faults in due time. 

That was also the time that Alexis was given Bastard München’s vice-captainship, but only because Captain Erik Gesner is no longer always in the starter eleven.

“I still don’t know why Noa and Coach Gerland think I’m fit to be vice captain,” Alexis told him once, “What do I know about taking care of a team?” 

(Hiori decided not to tell him just how well he had been doing that exact same thing this entire time.)

Then, apparently, sometime around someone’s birthday—it was Birkenstock’s, Alexis said—Kaiser finally made his first appearance to the team and even brought with him an actually decent gift. Alexis said that was the day he gave his non-explicit apologies, that he was there watching Kaiser genuinely have fun with the guys as they partied (and even apparently showed Theo Sachs what his real smile looked like).

Which is something Alexis in particular seemed so genuinely happy about. 

Later on, Kaiser finally pulled Alexis aside and personally reflected on everything he did and said to him in one go. 

“He was drunk though.” Alexis frowned. “I wasn’t too happy about that.”

Then, a few days later, he did all that again but sober this time. Kaiser revealed all his therapy appointments, his recovery journey from alcoholism, and his recent reconciliation with his estranged mother in her massive Stuttgart mansion. That was when Alexis said he finally, truly, wholeheartedly forgave his best friend. It was the greatest thing to ever happen to him, he said. Hiori also didn’t know Kaiser had it in him to even change that much. For all he knew, Alexis could be lying but…

Kaiser did change. Hiori could feel it. He and Isagi were still beating each other up on the field—there is sadly no changing that—but everyone in München just stands by laughing it out now instead of awkwardly watching as Kaiser genuinely loses his cool, like he did back then. 

And Hiori was just glad Alexis made it this far. In those nights, he fell asleep to the sound of Alexis’ voice wondering what it would be like if Kurona also took him seriously. 

In those nights he spent with Alexis in the backroom office talking, discussing everything from the most mindless thing to the latter’s deepest lore, Hiori found himself thinking less and less about Kurona day by day. To taste strawberries and grapes no longer hurt. To watch Kurona re-braid his hair all on his own no longer stings. He still wished they didn’t have to end that way but at least now he had made a new friend. 

He gained a companion who actually looks at him when he talks. 

Eventually, Kurona disappeared from the mirages for all that mattered was Alexis Ness now. 

“I’m so proud of you,” Hiori told him one night. 

It was a sentiment he had been holding back for a while now. He wasn’t actually referring to anything in particular. He just wanted to put the spotlight on how Alexis, as a person, came so far. 

From the old Ness to the man next to him on the bed now, Hiori doubted it was that easy for him to change. It was a conscious decision Alexis had been making since he patiently waited for Kaiser to change. 

He wished he could do the same. 

He admires Alexis for having done what he couldn’t have. 

He just couldn’t imagine how much willpower that must’ve taken. He couldn’t have been able to stomach the same if it was him and Kaiser was Kurona. In that case, if he was Alexis, God knew he would’ve forgiven Kurona on the spot if ever apologized and owned up to it. He doesn’t understand how Alexis had done it.

“Really? What are you talking about?”

By that moment, his and Alexis’s hands were just inches from touching under the sheets. The other seemed to be deep in sleep, if not for the blinking pair of lashes that moved and looked at Hiori in surprise. 

“Yeah.” Hiori laughs softly, smiling at his face. “I…thought you were asleep.”

“I was but- They really were right about you, Hiori.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re amazing.”

Then they were looking at each other, oh-so-close, and he could feel Alexis’s eyelashes tickling his cheeks now. Then someone’s hands were drawing through his hair and pulling him close, then their lips met, and Alexis tasted so much of grapes, and- 

“Oh shit-!”

Alexis flinched away before holding Hiori by the wrists. They both sat up, and Hiori started to crumble once again. 

”Hiori! What’s wrong? Did I-? I thought you-”

Another big mistake: he just kissed a taken fucking person. 

“Ness, let me go! I- fuck!”

Hiori kicked off the sheets as he attempted to get up and walk away, but Alexis’ grip on his wrist was vice-like.

Long story short, the horror of accomplishing the “homewrecker” prophecy was something that filled him with so much shame he actually managed to find an apartment at the end of the day. 

He ended up staying and moving in with Isagi in Kurona’s apartment. 

What a miracle, right?

Only shame, it turns out, could compel him to do the most unthinkable things. 

“Hiori!” 

Kurona greeted him gladly the day he came back from…the backroom office. Isagi immediately came into alert to mediate the nonexistent tension, but all he saw was Kurona hopping happily to Hiori and embracing him into a large bear hug.

In his embrace, the person who he thought meant the world to him, felt like nothing now. 

Because what was something beautiful he shared with Alexis Ness was quick to become ruined by him again.

“Hi, Kurona,” he said, so exhausted that he just gave into the warmth of his arms. “Do you mind if I stay here?”

“No,” the other deadpanned. “I was actually wondering when you’d move in, in.”

Isagi’s face from over Kurona’s shoulder is comparable to being constipated with confusion. He shrugged, and Hiori just his eyes and sighed.

And it just has to go to shit. It was March 21st. Isagi Yoichi must’ve thought he was being sneaky. 

“When were you going to tell me?” Hiori asked, rummaging through his locker and staring at Isagi’s figure through the mirror. The striker slammed his locker shut, turning around with a confused face and tilted head.

“What?” 

“I saw your laptop,” he replied, also closing his locker and pulling his sweaty jersey over his head. They were the only two left in the lockers. Everyone else already went home or somewhere for dinner. He swallowed a little as he started regretting why he even thought rooming with Isagi in Kurona’s place was even a good idea. 

“You were the one who charged it for me?”

“I saw that email from your manager about FC Barcha.”

This caught the striker’s attention, his loud exhausted breathing behind Hiori pausing in horror. When Hiori pulled a fresh shirt on, he turned around and saw Isagi standing there like deer in the headlights. 

And the mixed emotions in his gut were two-fold:

One, that Isagi didn’t tell him. Sure, it’s a decision that may not have anything to do with their friendship, but it did involve why Hiori went to Germany in the first place. What, Isagi’s leaving? Why did he summon everyone back to their NEL teams in the first place then? Asshole. Dick. Narcissist.

And two, a secondhand offense that Isagi rejected said offer. 

Hiori didn’t know which part to be more offended by: is it Isagi not telling him about it, or is it Isagi actually not leaving this godawful town?

Because 1) if he told him, Hiori would never try to convince him to stay anyway. Isagi may think of him as an attention-seeking sob story supplier but he would actually never push him away from things that would encourage him to grow. In fact, he would even push Isagi to Spain if that’s what it takes—because he is a good friend and he knew that’s where Isagi would truly shine. 

Not only that, he also 2) spent the past 2 years trying to ingrain into Isagi Yoichi’s thick skull to never let his shine be dimmed by anyone or anything on Earth. Why did he reject the offer now? 

But oh well. He didn’t tell him and he seemed deadset on staying in Munich. 

The cherry on top? He saw on the laptop that Isagi only ever DM’d Rin about it. As if they don’t have a groupchat with him in it too.

Whatever, right? Sure, he could still forgive that. He had long accepted that there were things—understandings—between Isagi and Rin that he will never get. He also knew there were times he told Rin things and not Isagi, and sometimes only Isagi and not Rin. It should be fair. He did, and is doing, the same thing. Alright, fine. 

Still, why did Isagi reject the offer? 

Is it because of…?

“Why did you reject the offer?” he spoke through clenched teeth, gripping his water tumbler to keep himself stable. 

“What? That’s what you’re-?” Isagi blinked and came closer. “Hiori, man, I’m sorry. I was going to tell you. You were just…still shaken about your own personal stuff. I didn’t want to be a bother. And I only told Rin because he happened to be online, playing Resident Evil last night on Discord.”

“Isagi, why did you reject the offer?”

“What do you even mean?” Isagi brushed a hand through his sweaty hair, laughing awkwardly. “Why- Do you want me to leave to Spain? Will you not miss playing with me? Ow, dude.”

Isagi can joke about it all he wants but Hiori had an inkling about things for a while now. While he had honestly been reeled into Alexis Ness’s orbit these past few weeks, it was not lost on him how Ness had just as much free time for him as he does. 

And that meant Michael Kaiser is free. 

Then he started noticing the changes. Hiori started noticing the way Isagi and Kaiser’s eyes started sparkling in a different way when they swung at each other in the field, with fists and insults that never really connected. 

He also started looking at Kaiser’s face whenever Isagi scored, just to confirm for himself if he’s insane or not, only to see a surprisingly calm reaction that looked both astonished and even caught. 

Then there's the fact that Kaiser no longer gets that mad, the fact that it was Isagi who willingly and habitually hands Kaiser his water bottle during breaks, and the fact that they always disappear and reappear together sometimes…

“Isagi, you told me before your thing with Kaiser is nothing,” Hiori finally tried gently, keeping his voice as low as he could. Across the room, Isagi stood frozen at the mention of Kaiser’s name. 

“What about it?” the striker whispered, petrified.

“You told me you’d get rid of his stupid jacket. You told me you found way better people in your trips around the world,” he said, recalling their phonecalls these past few years. “You told me you’ll find someone better to admire. What is this?”

“What is- Hiori, there is nothing to talk about.”

Isagi faces him and pushes him gently away before walking to their bags on the bench. Hiori notes now that he is avoiding his eyes—a telltale sign he is lying.

“I said no to FC Barcha for the next transfer window and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it, and that I rejected it. Dick move, I know. You must be so affected by things that only concern me.”

Hiori frowns at the sarcastic jab, but shakes it off. “Isagi, can you please just tell me you’re not shackling yourself here because of a man?”

The striker did not reply. He just kept packing his bag frustratingly as he recapped his markers and placed his shoes in its bags. 

Thing is, Hiori has been a tortured receiver of all his friends' curses since the beginning. He didn’t know if it’s just because he’s everyone’s comfort person, or if he just looked like he would understand, but he was there when Marisa passed away and Karasu cried on Hiori—still the only person to see him cry, apparently—for the first time. 

He was there listening to Yukimiya pour his heart and dinner out on the Blue Lock toilets whenever Noa pushes him aside and makes him feel worthless and heavy during NEL. 

He was also there when Rin, during the U20, was struggling with his heavily suppressed desire to make friends like the Top 6, crying silently in the showers at midnight because he was avoiding Nagi and Yukki who were speaking to him badly at the time. 

And he was there when Isagi struggled with the void in his chest left by NEL—left by Kaiser—as he only had one stupid Valentino jacket in his closet to remind him of the times he actually felt genuinely driven and happy. 

And all the advice he gave them were quite similar. He told Karasu that the love he had for Marisa, as childish and shallow as it is, will never fade. He told Yukki that Noa doesn’t even know what he’s doing so he should never give him that much power over him and his body. He told Rin that the other guys must be equal parts jealous and mean just for the sake of it. And he told Isagi he should burn the jacket and throw it away because Kaiser is shit to him anyway while he was there. 

He all told them they were never the problem. 

The problem now is Isagi is clearly being one, against himself. 

What should good friends do when faced with dilemmas like this?

“Isagi, please.” He calls with finality, and Isagi stops right by the doorway. His shoulders were trembling, and Hiori just knew by that that he was crying. “We talked about this. You told me you’d let Kaiser go. You told me signing to München now isn’t about him. I just want you to tell me right here, right now, that you understand what I mean.”

That’s when he burst. Isagi turned around and kicked the door to the room shut, making Hiori flinch as he marched over to him and held him by the collar. 

“Fine! Yes! You’re right! You’re all right!” 

“Isagi,” he called, all but begging as his friend reaches his limit, grabbing onto the hand that held his collar. “I just want you to think this through, okay? That's Barcelona, man. La Liga. And Kaiser’s going to La Liga too. Once you’re stuck here in Munich because of this stupidity, what are you going to do?”

He finally got Isagi’s fist off of himself and he proceeded to hold it gently between his hands like a prayer. There, Isagi just cried to him past his angry hurt glare. 

“Listen to me. Please don’t waste your opportunities. Rin and I spent the last two years trying to tell you how valuable you actually are. How the entire world fights over you. How everyone would kill to have what you have right now-” 

Then, Isagi shakes him off roughly and just laughs at his face. 

“Hiori, I'm sorry- I just fail to see how this is your problem,” he spat. Hiori looked on in terror as his friend’s eyes grew cloudy, the same faded dark look he had in the field when he was purely thinking of himself and no one else. 

“Isagi…?”

“My problems are my problems, alright? I don’t think you have the grounds nor time to even look at me. Besides, what about you? Don’t you have a fucking threesome to go to? Yeah? Then go! Have these fucking condoms while you’re at it, slut.” 

He gasped. 

But Isagi kept going. 

“I know you’re fucking Kurona and Ness, Hiori, so don’t play me for a fool. You’re not the only one who’s not telling your friends things here.”

That’s 100% not true.

“Isagi, I just-”

“What? You’re mad? If you act like a fucking slut, don’t be surprised to be called as one-”

His hand slapped Isagi across the cheek before he could help it. 

“Isagi!” he exclaimed, hearing his own voice crack. “Are you hearing yourself right now? What the-”

In that same moment, before he could sadly let it all out, the door creaks open and they both turn away to face the wall, sniffing and wiping shocked expressions off their faces.

“-Hiori? Isagi?” 

They both turned in surprise, their teary faces hidden by their respective neck towels, only to see Kurona at the door.

Great.

“Hiori, uhm, I just wanted to ask if you want to go eat hotpot with me and a friend in the, uh…” he slows down, eyes going back and forth between them. “Are you two ok-”

Hiori bit back the impulse to smile and reassure him it was fine, because for once in his life, he could admit to himself that it is fucking not. 

“Hiori.” That’s when Isagi calls, with hands outstretched to reach for him, which he shrugged. Kurona stood there watching them in increasing concern. “Hiori, I’m sorry, I don’t know what came over me-”

Following his anger, Hiori grabbed his bag and took Kurona by the wrist to go. 

“Let’s go. Leave him.” 

“But-” Kurona fought back the grab and peeked back to Isagi in concern, noting his tears and very red cheeks. 

“I don’t care,” Hiori stood his ground. “Clearly, one of us needed some time to think.” 

Then, he turns to Isagi one last time.

If meant he could emphasize just how fucking fucked up the shit he just told him were. 

“And Isagi? I don’t think you’re one to talk about sluts. I’m not the one who’s actively trying to fuck one,” he spat, his own voice wavering.

God, he does not mean that. He does not mean this. Why is he still talking?!

“That’s right. You can think he changed for the better but he didn’t. His skin will always have hickeys that didn’t come from you and you will turn a blind eye to that because you're both masochistic and dumb. Don’t blame me and Rin in the end if you get hurt- we warned you. Don’t talk to me until you figure out which one of us is a real friend and who isn’t.”

That night, Kurona ended up not taking him to this hotpot place with his unknown friend. They ate out at another cozy fast food place in town, deadly quiet as Kurona never brought it up and neither did he. 

He later learned Isagi ate at the hotpot place though. He wondered if the friend Kurona mentioned has something to do with that. 

Chapter Text

—

HIORI YO: PART FOUR

the self fulfilling prophecy of the homewrecker slash slut

—

The next day, he saw Alexis again in practice.

He could only move away and dodge the hand that reached out. 

Over the years, Hiori had managed to nurture a certain level of familiarity with pain that made it instinctive for him to avoid painful things. Like fire because it'd burn. Like lightning. Like Alexis Ness.

Regret flashed across the midfielder’s face when he turned away from his touch.

It wasn’t Hiori’s fault his hand was scorching—so didn’t turn around; he kept walking away. 

Only for Alexis to take him anyway, drag him out the hallway, and shove him inside the team bus. 

“No-”

“Shh.” 

Slam. Alexis closed the bus door behind them, only to be greeted by…

“They’re back, Erik! Hiori, get here.”

“Yup. We good! Go!”

…Raichi and Ndiaye who were closest to the door. He quickly noticed the bus was full of the other Bastards; with only Isagi and Kaiser were nowhere to be seen. 

He looks back at Alexis. 

Who avoids his eyes. Touché.

“Settle down, assholes!” Captain Gesner spoke, clapping and summoning everyone’s attention. “Tomorrow is the big day and Gerland finally gave me the flight info! Are you ready?!”

“Yeahhh!”

“ARE. YOU. READY?!”

“YEAHHH!”

Hiori tried not to think about Alexis at this moment. 

“And the beautiful destination that won the vote for this year’s vacation—courtesy of Coach Gerland and Noa of course—is…! Give me a drum roll, Ali.”

Their defender at the very back of the bus summoned his cleats and drummed them to the metal ceiling. The captain then made a show to unravel a large folded piece of paper, fashioned as a giant version of a boarding pass—which actually revealed the Lufthansa logo first before anything (Goddamn that airline. Hiori immediately groaned just from seeing it again.)

Gesner takes one peek and gasps exaggeratedly, “Starts with a B, assholes!”

The guys cheered, some groaned, with Hiori laughing a little especially at Grim’s reaction. “Please don’t tell me it’s Britain-”

Gesner then unravels the rest of the ticket-banner and screamed: 

“BAHAMAS, MOTHERFUCKERS!”

Everyone roared, and the wild, primal, prehistoric cheering made Hiori cover his ears with a smile. Ah, well. Just another meeting with the guys but actually fun this time. 

Amidst the chaos, he meets Alexis’ eyes once again.  

He was looking at him, lips shut, and he looked away. 

They arrived in Nassau on the bright and sunny March 25th.

On the first day of their arrival, Coach Gerland and Noa encouraged them to explore and have fun on the island, as long as they gathered at one of the bars for dinner and nighttime fun by 6pm. 

What Hiori heard from Gesner’s instruction is that it’s one whole day for a damn good nap because honestly? Fuck the beach. They came here to rest, didn’t they? Because ‘the guys were looking down lately’? 

Either way, he’s taking his nap no matter what.

He ended up purposefully taking an afternoon nap, mostly to deliberately sleep in and wake up late for the team’s evening bar rendezvous. Sadly, he had already developed an intolerance for getting in any kind of bar. The last time he went in one, he left broken. He isn’t dumb as to keep trying. 

On that note, even if he is, he would still choose to sleep in the hotel cottage, mostly only to make his team leave him alone but also to have one long rest without the stress of having to see the people he didn’t want to see. 

Plus, he loves the guys truly, but their alcoholism and party attitude is honestly kind of fucked. Not to mention he had numerous Bastards he’d rather not talk to right now. 

Oh, and Ness? 

He hadn’t heard anything from the vice captain the whole day since they landed at the airport. It was like whatever they had these past few weeks were nothing. 

Like it wasn’t real—and the thing is, he still isn’t sure what to feel about that? Should he celebrate not having to acknowledge it? Should he hurt because he ruined it? 

But what happened had happened. Something that would’ve been so nice had come and gone. Actually, maybe the mystery boyfriend finally learned about what was happening with his cheating boyfriend and thus made Ness avoid Hiori until the end of time. Well…Good! 

He should’ve just stayed away for good. 

Though… 

Hiori had to admit that the short amount of time he spent with Ness, he did love it. It was nice. It really was. Some nights, when he is staring at Kurona’s industrial ceilings littered with pipes, he wonders if Alexis is still staying in the office sofabed. If the stupid ceiling fan in that room still whurrs when it spins. If the whisk he randomly had that night had made it back to the kitchen cabinet of whence it came from. 

But he couldn’t just ask. He couldn’t take back the impulsion ingrained in his system of kissing people he shouldn’t.

How did Isagi even know about Ness anyway? Did Ness tell him? The snitch. They never fucked! They never touched each other. It was never like that. They weren’t even… It wasn’t about that.

It’s just about…

The things they talked about, maybe. They spoke a lot for two people who knew those things were nonsense. They weren’t even the real conversation; the real sentiments lie in how Alexis was the one who whisked his hickeys away. Who took him in. Who picked him up. Who drove him around. All without a request or without having him ever ask.

Maybe that’s just what he wanted.

To have someone do things for him that never had to ask for. 

As for Isagi—still the superstar, but a little more regretful lately—their fight had reached Rin, Nanase, Chigiri, Kuni, Reo and Nagi, and Bachira. Of course it would. The biggest ‘fight’ prior to this which their small subcircle ever had to deal with was when Chigiri and Kunigami broke up a year ago before getting back together again. That was awkward and dramatic but it was the kind of fight they knew they didn't have to interfere in. Hiori personally knew Chigiri would take Kunigami back (although he already forgot why they even broke up in the first place.)

So for them to know now that it was him and Isagi specifically must have emphasized enough how deep this one might’ve been about. They just never fight. It’d be a different story if it’s Rin and Isagi or Chigiri and Bachira—but Hiori and Isagi? That never ever happens. 

Hiori isn’t sure how much they actually ended up knowing, given it was Isagi’s words against him in this case and he got to them first, but all he knew is that the guys had been pushing them to talk it out since “they’re both wrong anyway”. 

With that, he guessed Isagi had included excerpts about what they actually said. He didn’t know how verbatim he was though. 

Doesn’t matter. Isagi himself had been trying to apologize in person for days and he hadn’t entertained the attempts yet. Not any of the five times he tried. Was he evil for that?

It’s just that, he knew they would talk eventually. For one, Isagi’s birthday is right around the corner and he also doesn’t want to ruin yet another good thing. He just doesn’t know what to say to Isagi’s face right now while his words still stung.

The hotel cottage was bright with oranges and yellows scattering on the ceiling from the blowing sheer white curtains. It was empty, and he had been drowning in his thoughts ever since he woke up quietly.

Sunset came after who knows how long after his staring contest with the ceiling. By the time the sun kissed the tip of the horizon, the door to the cottage was opened by…Kurona. 

“Hioriiii. Wake up. Oh, you’re up, up.”

As he was eased up and awake, he sees the gentlest person he knew approach and sit on his bed with crossed legs. The rest of the cottage was empty save for them; he quickly figured out that Isagi, Kunigami, Yukimiya, Kiyora, and the others had already left for the bars. The clock at the top of the door ticked 6:27pm.

Yep, he’s definitely late. 

“You’re coming to Stuttgart with us, right?” was Kurona’s first question.

“Huh?”

Truth be told, he secluded himself here in the beachside cottages with the deliberate decision to avoid both Ness and Isagi. Mostly because he isn’t exactly expecting a friendly conversation with Kurona either. 

“Stuttgart? What’s in Stuttgart?”

“Isagi would’ve wanted us to come to his party-party,” Kurona spoke quietly as he played with his braid. “His birthday’s this April 1st. Everyone from Blue Lock is coming.”

“Oh- Yeah, no, of course. Why would I not?” He suppressed and yawn and just stretched instead. 

“You two…still haven't made up. And today, you were being, you know-”

This alarms him, which is why he immediately deflected.

“Oh! No, no. I’m totally going. I’m also going to the bar in a bit. Yeah. I just- I have nothing against the team or the guys at all. I just fell asleep and…forgot the time. Sorry.” 

Why he could still tell what Kurona’s thinking made him feel sick.

“You’re just so distant lately, Hiori. It’s been a while since we did something together. Like, with each other. With the guys.”

“…Now that you said it, yeah.”

He nods bashfully, trying with his entire life to not look at Kurona. Out of awkwardness, he instead looked all over their cottage and he only shifted when Kurona suddenly let himself fall on the mattress. He’s the one now sitting up. Above, nothing but the old and noisy ceiling fan greeted him. 

“Are you mad, Hiori? At me?”

If he wasn’t already awake with Kurona’s previous question, he definitely would be now.

“Wait, why? No- What do you…” 

“I just feel like…I did or said something that Hiori didn’t like,” Kurona said, eyes on the ceiling deep in thought “Ness-Ness said something about you avoiding me. Is that true?”

Ness again?

“That’s not-” Hiori tried to say, only to stop and swallow his words immediately. 

Because it is true. 

“Did I?” Kurona asked, turning his head to him. “I’m sorry.” 

There. 

He finally heard it.

The apology he had been craving for years.

Just casually whispered in a random hotel in Nassau. 

“Kurona, I-” Hiori resigns with a deep breath, fisting the blanket he’s still half covered with. They’re seriously not having his conversation right now, are they? “Look. I don’t know what to say.”

Thankfully, Kurona continued before Hiori could roll it all up in yet another slippery slope. But they do have a bar to go to in approximately 30 minutes. They can’t have this conversation right now.

“I just hope you know you’re a very important person.”

“-Dude, yes, I get it. Stop,” he said, unable to look anywhere else but him. “Stop it. I mean it. Don’t. Not now.”

At that, Kurona also sat up and looked at him. This time, like a moth to a flame, he couldn’t help but look. 

There, he had no choice but to behold the Bahamas’ setting sun reflecting on Kurona’s magenta eyes, sparkling every single crevice in his iris and every red vein in his sclera. He wasn’t saying anything yet but Hiori knew what that look meant. 

So he didn’t move when Kurona threads his fingers through his hair starting from the nape.

He could only sigh, letting Kurona touch and touch.

“Kurona…”

“Yes, yes?”

He was looking back now at the setting sun. “Did you know it was Kaiser?” 

“Kaiser is what?”

He still didn’t move when Kurona moved closer and ushered him slowly into a hybrid of a hug and a cuddle. 

“Did you know Kaiser and Isagi were…”

Kurona was quiet, hands still caressing his hair. “Hooking up?”

Ah. “So you knew?”

“…Yeah,” Kurona answered calmly, as if it wasn’t a revelation for him at all. “Why?”

At this moment, Hiori took his eyes off of the sunset and braved enough courage to blink at Kurona’s still enamored face. 

He looked away, for Kurona looked like he could love him in this exact moment. 

“Did Isagi tell you what happened to him in the past two years?”

“No, no. Not much.”

Thought so.

“Well,” he tried, “have you ever read a book that clearly stopped at a cliffhanger, and you just feel like there’s something more there but there’s not?”

“…I guess. Don’t read, but yeah.”

“That’s what he felt. With Kaiser,” he sighed, shaking his head as he felt his body fill with melancholic pain. 

Because that’s what he felt too. With him. With Kurona. Does Kurona even know how many layers there are to this? Does he even understand why he and Isagi became close friends? Why they understand each other so well?

Because for the both of them, NEL ended so…unceremoniously. After the best thing that happened in their lives, suddenly everything ended. It was over. Everyone was gone. Like the ringing noise in your ears after you leaves a happy noisy place? It stays there when you sleep. For two years, that’s what he felt when Kaiser left.

For two years, that’s what he felt when Kurona left. 

“Oh. I see, I see,” Kurona was clueless as ever, or is he? Hiori doesn’t know anymore. “Isn’t that great now that they’ve met each other again?”

Now here’s the part where he and Isagi might differ. 

“The problem is it’s not love, Kurona,” he corrected. “Kaiser doesn’t even like him. Have you forgotten how cruel they were to each other? Isagi thinks it was the time of his life but Kaiser…he was actually going to kill him if he could. Are we forgetting that or is it just me?”

“Oh.”

“Our friend spent two years trying to find worth only to come back to the one person who’s going to use that against him, Kurona. Seriously, why is everyone just okay with-”

When he looked at him however, he saw him just sitting there, staring down at him with a tiny frown as his hand started to slow. 

“What?” Hiori asked nervously. “What is it?”

“Uhm, well, Kaiser was…doing well these past two years.” 

There, Kurona revealed his side of the story, purely from an observance as he even placed a finger on his chin. An obvious misunderstanding. 

“I only see him in practice and he always leaves later than everyone else so I don’t know what he actually does, but he offers Ness-Ness and I food sometimes. I heard they also go to soup places together often- Oh, and I heard he sponsors a Dutch kid and he doesn’t yell at people anymore.”

Hiori blinks once. Twice. 

“And?”

“I don’t know…” 

“What do you mean you don’t know-?”

“I just think you think he’s mean.”

He didn’t know what to say at this point. Kurona’s hand is still on his nape. He just told him he thinks Kaiser is mean. 

“Have you forgotten what he used to call the three of us? And what he called Yukki?” 

Kurona was biting his lip hesitantly over his words, staring right at his eyes as his hands resumed the caresses by his head.

“He changed,” he said. 

“Maybe he did. So what? He hurt Isagi.”

Kurona shuffled even closer until their legs were almost tangled on the sheets. 

“Isagi likes him. And he likes him. They work together. So what?”

And he guessed that’s all that took him to understand just what exactly Kurona thought about everything. 

Kurona Ranze is the kind of person who believes that as long as things work out in the end, everything in the middle is not worth as much thought. Perhaps, he thought, that as long as two people are happy together, it’s alright. 

That no matter who gets hurt, as long as the love is there, everything is fair. Anything goes. 

On that day in Nassau, when he said it, Hiori finally remembered that Kurona Ranze had always been a simpleton. A simpleton who rarely ever explains himself, that he ended up manufacturing equations out of nowhere trying to explain his behavior…only to come at a simple answer. 

Like a math exam question, which required pages and pages of calculation only to arrive at a final answer of 1.  

“Because Hiori, if they like each other now, even after everything…” Kurona proceeds to tilt his head. “…shouldn’t they just do what they’ve always wanted to do?”

What’s terrifying most of all is that maybe, this entire time, Kurona knew what he was talking about. 

He knew that it’s not about Isagi and Kaiser anymore. 

“Do you really think Isagi should just forget everything Kaiser did just because he liked him?” Hiori whispered back, voice wavering, as Kurona leaned closer and stared right at the soul of his eyes. 

The sun had since become a half circle over the sea. 

“No, no. Not exactly,” Kurona whispered back, holding his head steady until their lips were inches from clashing. Like the Milky Way to Andromeda—about to kiss. “But if they had forgiven each other, who are we to do anything about it?”

The moment the sun disappeared from the horizon, Hiori Yo forgave Kurona Ranze. Soft lips clashed against his tears, the tip of his nose, and eventually his mouth. Colors all but burst out of his veins like a paintball shot to the heart—beautiful, impactful, but also something that’d bruise. 

So he held Kurona back, as a last act of defiance. 

For one main reason, he thinks: because Kurona Ranze is a great yet terrible person to love. By God—he liked him! So so so so much. Maybe even more than Isagi ever did Kaiser, or whichever poor fucker he was actually in love with. 

And since he loved Kurona so much, he didn’t want this to be a lesson. He wanted all their kisses to be of love.

Miserably, in the saddest way possible: this isn’t it.

“Stop- Kurona, stop.” He pushed him away and held him at an arms’ length. “Stop it. No.”

“Why?”

There is no longer a beautiful way to describe this:

“I liked you.” His voice cracked as he pushed himself to stand, deadset on escaping out the door after he got a bathrobe on. “Okay? But can you not- Don't do this. For your lover's sake. Please. Nothing happened here.”

“Ah- Hiori-”

As if on cue, someone’s phone starts ringing and Hiori doesn't need to glance or pat around if it’s his. Kurona looked down and fished his phone out of his pocket, staring at the single Merlion on the caller ID photo which made Hiori only laugh at the irony of Isagi Yoichi’s self fulfilling prophecy.

That in Germany, Hiori Yo—the Son, the Gear, the God—is reduced to a homewrecker and a slut. 

“Answer that,” he said. “Tell him, or her, you’re cheating or I would.”

He could remember his hands were shaking. He turned away from Kurona while he still could, pushing himself off the mattress as he went to the wardrobe and whisked through their robes in it. Change of plans, he guessed: take a bathrobe, submerge his feet on seawater, and ditch the rest of the guys for the night. 

(Courtesy of the hotel, they have each received a complimentary bathrobe with their embroidered jersey numbers on it.)

As he rummaged, he heard Kurona move to answer the phone in hushed tones, saying something that only sounded like excuses, excuses, excuses—as Hiori all but slammed everyone’s hangers to the other side of the closet trying not to cry but also not swipe off his lips on the back of his hand. 

Slack. Slack. Slack. The hangers all went one by one to the other side. When there were only two left, Hiori stood there staring at the mint color paperbags hanging on the one that said #16. Kurona Ranze’s bathrobe. Still in plastic, unworn, like the rest. 

While Hiori only subconsciously took his bathrobe, the one that brandished his painful #23, his eyes remained on the mint paperbag, a familiar sight he swore he had seen somewhere. 

When he turned around, Kurona was staring at him with a sad frown as he pressed his phone to his ear. The look in his gaze wasn’t an angry one, not a desperate one, not a depressed one, nor an empty disappointed angry one. It was a simple look of sincere apology and care—and if there’s one thing Hiori hated in the world right now, it’s sincerity in sheep’s clothing. 

Mint paperbags, the Merlion, the hair ties in their vice captain’s Audi RS6?

Oh, no.

No fucking way. 

Hiori discards the bathrobe on Yukimiya’s empty bed nearby and just marches straight to Kurona. He snatched the phone off of his ear as if he ripped it out of his being. Then he pressed it to his ear-

“- do you mean? Where are you two? Gerland is treating everyone to shots right now- are you okay? Hello?”

-to hear Alexis Ness.

“Hiori!” Kurona snatches the phone back but he already heard what he heard. 

Kurona was Ness's mystery boyfriend. 

They were together this whole time.