Chapter Text
There were several unwelcome outcomes from the Neo Egoist League. First and foremost, Reo's best friend had gotten eliminated because Ego would rather eat glass than accept that Nagi was, actually, quite good at football.
Secondly, the counsellor that the PIFA told Ego he had to have, jesus christ, this project is barely legal as is was now obsessed with him, and whilst Reo wasn’t one to throw around words like anxiety or depression, he had to at least begrudgingly admit that ever since Nagi left, life had started feeling a bit like a deep chasm of everlasting, inescapable grief.
Thirdly, and perhaps most damningly, it had made Nagi sad, and that was something that Reo could not forgive.
“You know those are all the same thing, right?” says Chigiri, who Reo knows begged everyone and their mother to swap rooms with him but was promptly shut down, “you literally went ‘Nagi got eliminated’ in three different fonts.”
“No I didn’t!” insists Reo, shoving his practice shorts into his laundry bag with perhaps a little more violence than basic chores truly deserved, “it’s a shitty outcome because it’s unfair, because it ruined my life, and because it made Nagi sad. See? Three clearly different things.”
“Right. That’s… still just one outcome.”
Chigiri sounds tired, but mostly he sounds like he wants to be done with this conversation (that they’ve only had, what, four times?) as soon as possible. Reo decides it might be best to drop it.
“Anyway, how are we dealing with the…” he scrunches his nose, trying to remember the specific phrase, “bottomless pool of despair? Dark pit of existential dread?”
“I mean, same as last time? I’ll just focus on football.”
“...Of course. We are not dealing with it. That worked out so well before.” Reo’s eyes narrow, but Chigiri’s tone is so dispassionate it could even pass as genuine and he’s laying in bed at an angle that makes scrutinising his expression difficult.
“Hey, are you being sarcastic–“
“What about Nagi? Has he said anything to you since he left?”
“Obviously not. I blocked him.”
Stone-cold silence.
“I mean,” Reo starts defensively, “he said our dream was over, didn’t he? He’s done, Chigiri, and I can’t– I can’t be here– how else am I supposed to focus, when I already feel so pathetic for thinking of him all the time?”
Chigiri still doesn’t say anything, or even visibly react. Very calmly, he gets up, crosses the room, and gives Reo’s laundry bag a single, vicious kick.
The half-empty cotton pouch collapses slowly, pitifully, onto the floor.
“You two are the fucking worst,” Chigiri tells him, and means every word.
Later, as his long-suffering friend / roommate / unwilling confidante sleeps, Reo pads down to the bowels of the facility to do laundry for two, both because he is sufficiently self-aware to recognise that yeah, he is driving Chigiri insane; and not enough of an asshole to not feel at least a little bit guilty about it. The simultaneous possession of those traits is sufficiently rare within Blue Lock that Reo hopes Chigiri will continue to excuse his clear inability to stop rambling about Nagi.
Dumping the laundry bags by an empty machine, Reo goes to grab the powder detergent and its measuring scoop off the supplies closet. He now knows that adding too much doesn’t necessarily make the clothes cleaner, but it does make the washing machine explode.
Why they have to do their own laundry when the program’s got enough money for floating obstacle courses and automated robot goalkeepers is still a fucking mystery, but whatever.
Nagi had been amazed to learn that Reo did not have even the slightest clue about laundry.
He had dutifully explained to him the differences between powder and liquid (there weren’t any), how to set up the washer and dryer (always regular cycle), and when to separate clothes and use fabric softener (never). Although Reo held some doubts regarding the quality of Nagi’s instruction, results were results. Their clothes were clean, and besides…
“It’s nice, getting to be the one to show you something for once.”
Reo snaps out of it.
It’s fine. He’s fine. Whatever. Nothing wrong with tenderly reminiscing about the time someone taught you to use detergent in a room that smells faintly of feet.
Reo takes a deep breath to steady himself, and pulls open the door of the washer. Inside, because his life is nothing more than a series of trite clichés, rests a crumpled, familiar blue uniform. The number 11 stares at him, defiantly inconspicuous.
He lifts up Nagi’s jersey, and thinks not of goals or breathtaking talent, but of soft, wispy hair and of how Nagi, despite how much he’d complain about it, always folded their clothes slowly, deliberately.
Reo has dealt, however poorly, with absence, but that isn’t what clings, dark and heavy, to his bones.
It’s guilt.
He gave Nagi a dream and turned it into a burden, and when he thought he was helping, he was instead ruining him. How could he even begin to apologise for that?
Before training for the U-20 starts in earnest, the powers that be (Ego and Anri) grant them a temporary break from football prison. In preparation for their release to the outside world, and most crucially, their return to social media, Anri has them gather in the auditorium.
“Today, we are going over the three golden rules of celebrity engagement,” she explains, smile dazzling. “By the end of the Neo Egoist League, BLTV achieved 150 million subscribers. Whether you are talking to a reporter or posting life updates, you need to be aware that people are watching.“
“This is about how not to get cancelled online,” Otoya stage-whispers.
For once, Karasu is not up for jokes. “This must be about building a platform,” he says eagerly, leaning forward, “they must have so much data on post frequency and how to maximise engagement, what our target audiences should be…”
The screen behind Anri lights up:
- Make love, not war. Love your fans, but don’t engage with instigators.
- Curiosity killed the cat. If you’ve had a bad day, don’t look yourself up!
- Words fade, but the Internet is forever. If in doubt, don’t say anything at all.
The three golden rules, thinks Reo, are patronising as hell. Also, literally no one was going to follow them, but at least they had correctly approximated the collective attention spam of their group when confronted with something wholly unrelated to football.
“Whatever,” mutters Karasu, looking betrayed. Otoya snickers.
Hiori raises his hand. “If this really is about not getting cancelled, someone needs to go through Shidou’s posts.”
A murmur of agreement runs through the group.
“Already done,” replies Anri, efficient to a fault. “We’ve combed through all of your socials, actually. Also, we’ve got bots in place so that if you try to post any nudity, profanity, or sensitive information about our training and facilities, the page will just crash.”
Of course. The real power behind the three golden suggestions. Ego and Anri, leaders of a nanny state.
“That little detail aside, have fun! Stay safe!”
As they all start to trickle towards the exit, Anri makes her way down the stage and approaches Reo.
“Actually, Reo, can I grab you for a second?” Anri taps her stylus against her Blue Lock-issued tablet, and tilts her head a little. Everything about her inspires confidence, from her calm professionalism to her tailored pencil skirt. She’s like a bizarro version of his dad.
He follows her towards one of the facility’s many sealed doors, behind which he assumes is one of the offices. The door seems to automatically recognise Anri, sliding open with a metallic hiss.
She clears her throat.
“So, how much have you looked at your mentions recently?”
The Internet thinks that Barou is manly, and has aura. Shidou might be crazy, but he’s crazy in a slay way, not an American Psycho way. Rin, on the other hand, could be Japan’s answer to Patrick Bateman, but at least he’s good looking. The Internet desperately wants to know Chigiri’s haircare routine. Bachira is brat.
The Internet is also dead certain that Reo is in a gay situationship. The Internet, mostly, feels for him.
“What the fuck,” says Reo, profanity censors be damned.
“This is all, admittedly, coloured by my algorithm,” Anri tells him, apologetically. “Outside of my demographic there is some variance – older generations tend to find Shidou off-putting, and young straight males gravitate towards Isagi.”
“Do they all think me and Nagi are… that we are…” he can’t even complete the sentence. Anri has the good grace to look embarrassed, and perhaps, if Reo squints, a tad guilty.
“Err, yeah, that one is pretty consistent-”
“But why?" Reo demands, gripping the tablet harder to try to stop his hands from shaking. “Where the hell are people getting this from?”
Anri’s face is now a transparent admission of guilt. Corporate lioness, betrayed by her bleeding heart.
“Maybe it’s better if I just show you,” she says, and pulls up the Blue Lock TV app on the gargantuan screen that covers an entire wall of the office.
Fourteen minutes and one compilation video later, Reo is not sure whether he wants to be sick, hit someone, or scream.
“I’m so sorry,” says Anri. “We never expected him to be so… sincere.”
That would be a lot more believable if the compilation video, featuring a looping rendition of Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On, hadn’t been posted by the official Blue Lock account. The thumbnail, a still of Reo sobbing on the floor, hovers over them.
He points an accusing finger at the screen.
“This is supposed to be a show about football,” he starts, voice shaking, “why isn’t it just about football?”
“Player humanisation,” replies Anri, suspiciously quickly.
Anri, Reo thinks spitefully, is full of shit.
Chigiri blinks at him, uncomprehending.
“But you are in a gay situationship.”
Reo could kill him.
“They think you’re the woman because Nagi is taller than you,” Karasu contributes, not very helpfully. “And also, because he hasn’t cried on camera.”
“There is no woman in a gay situationship,” Reo snaps, “that’s the whole fucking point!”
He bunkers himself in his penthouse during their “rest” period, plainly refusing any invitation that requires him to leave the house.
The key to navigating scandal is to lay low. The Internet is a beast that consumes with the attention spam of a sugared-up toddler, and if you fail to provide it’ll inevitably move on to the next best thing.
He’s got work to do, anyway.
He makes a catalogue of famous players, and divides them into different styles. There’s speedsters, poachers, dribblers, playmakers, shooters, and more. He studies their physicals, the different muscles required for each move, and designs a training program.
Understanding someone’s skill in theory, after all, is not enough. He needs his body to be able to keep up too.
So Reo runs sprints, and runs marathons. He lifts, and works on his balance and flexibility. He practices skill shots, and ball control from every angle.
He throws himself wholly into training, so that when it’s time to go to bed he’s too exhausted to do something stupid, like Google his name, or think about texting Nagi.
If sometimes, late at night and under the covers, he looks up Nagi’s final monologue, well, that’s between him and his browser history.
At one point in his life, Reo thought of Anri as an ally. Someone in his corner. A voice of reason to chide Ego whenever he called a teenager a fucking loser, or to remind him of the legalities of child labour. She had been, after all, the one to invite him and Nagi, so she clearly had a discerning eye.
How things change. Now, the soft clicks of her heels ring as harbingers of doom.
“Here you go,” Anri says, handing him a small flashcard. “I have prepared a statement for you, in case they ask you about Nagi.”
If not for the memory of their last conversation, Reo would protest. He’s Reo Mikage. The family publicist had sat him down for media training the same week he started speaking full sentences.
As it now stands, he wants to get away from Anri as fast as possible. He tries to snatch the card away, but she holds on with an iron grip and smiles, sugar-sweet.
“Please use the statement.”
Reo cannot believe he used to think her harmless.
He swallows, and gives her a quick, curt nod. Seemingly satisfied, Anri releases the card, and clitters away to ruin someone else’s day.
Today is their first press conference, just a few days before their opening group stage match. Reo doesn’t quite know what to expect in terms of questions, but Anri’s intervention does not particularly inspire confidence. He skims over the prepared statement as he takes his seat, and sighs.
An hour later, he’s seething. So far, he’s only been asked to comment on Nagi’s elimination, on whether they’ve spoken since, and to give a detailed account of their past history. But again, Reo is a professional, so he’s obviously putting on an Oscar-worthy performance of being interested in the frankly humiliating proceedings.
“Blue Lock’s training programme aggressively emphasises the value of strikers,” asks a journalist from BBC Sport, an actual fucking publication, to Gagamaru. “How would you say such an environment influenced your development as a goalkeeper?”
Reo, who clearly committed unspeakable sins in a past life, is instead forced to continue to deal with tabloid garbage.
“BLTV commentator Martin Crofty famously described you and Nagi as ‘friends, teammates, rivals, everything but lovers’. How accurate would you say that is?”
The man’s badge proudly announces he’s TMZ. What passes as journalism these days is disgraceful. Reo refuses to let these hyenas have even a crumb.
He smiles pleasantly, and, for the fourth time, repeats Anri’s stupid statement.
“I am focused on our upcoming match against Nigeria. Whilst emotions were running high at the time of Nagi’s elimination, I now understand it as a necessary part of Blue Lock’s quest to create the world’s best striker.”
A reporter from the Asahi Shimbun goes next. Curiously, she’s not the one from their sports section.
“Would you care to comment on Japan’s stance on same-sex marriage?”
“…Surely this is a question you should be directing at our politicians.”
“Well, given your relationship with Nagi–“
Reo’s smile twitches, but he’s not the only one who’s starting to crack.
Barou, whose manly, gigantic aura did not need Anri’s micromanagement, slaps a hand on the table so hard Reo fears it might collapse.
“That edgeless, disgusting loser got rightfully eliminated,” he growls into the microphone. “He has no opinions. He has ceased to exist. Stop asking worthless questions.”
The reporter frowns. “It’s a significant national issue–”
“ENOUGH.”
The next day Karasu, who is a terrible friend, arrives to practice with an armful of magazines.
DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL: BLUE LOCK’S LGBT+ PROBLEM, screams the first one.
On another, a close-up of Reo’s face shared the page with a photo of Shidou chained up and gagged before their match against the former U-20. SILENT, OR SILENCED?, reads the headline underneath.
“They’re calling you homophobic,” Karasu, completely delighted, tells Barou. “Maybe it wasn’t so smart to say all those things about gay people being disgusting.”
Barou’s face turns a blotchy, furious red.
“I didn’t say shit about gay people,” he snarls, as Karasu looks on with pure, undisguised glee. “I just wanted them to shut up about that fucking rat.”
“I don’t know, King,” Otoya plucks a magazine advertising a couple’s popularity ranking from Karasu’s pile. “Calling your gay teammate a rat seems pretty hateful to me.”
Karasu dissolves into laughter.
“HE’S NOT OUR TEAMMATE ANYMORE, ASSHOLE. AND YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW IF HE’S GAY.”
Otoya gasps in fake outrage. “Why do you assume he’s not? Seems a bit… homophobic.”
Because he values his life, he starts bolting immediately.
Barou lets out an incoherent screech of rage and barrels after him as he weaves between Isagi and Bachira, jumps over an abandoned gym bag, and ends up ducking behind Shidou, who is looking particularly maniacal that morning.
“You know, Sae and I came third in that popularity poll,” he tells Barou, dangerously conversational, pointing at the magazine still in Otoya’s hands.
(“You beat Kaisagi,” Hiori informs Reo, and offers a fist-bump.)
“Also, I happen to enjoy sucking dick. Are you gonna have a problem with that?”
It’s not a problem that Shidou wants to sleep with everything that ‘lights his cells on fire’, whatever the fuck that means, including but not being limited to Sae, any midfielder that gives him a particularly nice pass, occasionally Rin, and the hot dog girl at the Ajinomoto Stadium. One might say that it is a problem how loud he is about it though. Reo often wishes there was a way to bleach brains.
Barou glares, seemingly weighing his options. Surely even he can recognise that fucking with Shidou when he is looking that mental is just asking to get stabbed in the neck with a fork. He could just explain the misunderstanding. It’d be easy.
“Fuck you,” he finally settles on, because no one in this cursed facility understands basic civility.
Shidou glances at Reo. Love is love, he mouths at him, forming a heart with his thumb and index finger, sending Karasu into hysterics. Shidou turns back towards Barou, and smiles with all his teeth.
“Tell me, slime king, did your hatred of homosexuals manifest before, or after me and Rin-Rin walked you like a dog?”
As was the norm in Blue Lock, violence trumps rationality. Barou, once again, charges.
For the record, Reo and Nagi are not in a relationship, or in a situationship, or anything of the sort.
Reo’s relationships have always been transactional.
There is nothing straightforward to kindness when it doubles as capital, to friendship when it gains association, and there is love in family but there is also legacy.
He defines people in terms of deficit, balance, surplus – what can you do for me and what can I do for you? In that particular way, Blue Lock fit like a glove.
It had been like that with Nagi too, at the start.
An investment: calculated, self-serving, jealously hoarded. Yet Nagi had somehow spilled past the confines of victory until Reo’s definition of him was no longer solely based on advantage.
Nagi is a warm pressure on his back, a disarming sincerity that sinks in without cost and without warning, and the sharp crackle of candied fruit against his teeth. He’s cherry blossoms in the spring, the muted glow of a phone screen, and the strength of a promise to stay together.
“Don’t die before I do,” he’d asked him, and something in Reo had started unspooling.
He doesn’t know how to navigate this because for once, it is his own motives that he can’t untangle. Reo wants to win at football, but he also wants Nagi – not because he’s brilliant, but because of everything else.
Things calm down after they win their match against Nigeria.
Reo gets actual questions during the post-match interviews, and when ESPN does an analysis of Japan’s U-20 lineup, they barely mention Nagi during his profile.
He wonders if he saw his goal, if he felt even the slightest whisper of pride.
He hopes he did.
The fans, however, are a different matter.
Any thread mentioning Reo ends up inevitably devolving into keyboard spam of gifs of him crying, and gifs of him scoring. Despite the overwhelming consensus that there is something weird going on between him and Nagi, a civil war rages between factions that love both, ride or die for only one of them, or hate them equally. A petition to bring Nagi back is also making the rounds, and is almost at ten million signatures. Reo adds his anonymously.
Hoards of people are excitedly waiting outside the stadium before their second match against France.
“He’s batting wildly out of his league, Reo!” yells a fan brandishing a sign reading LEAVE HIM and wearing his jersey. The chant let’s play football forever! competes with the considerably less wholesome clown, clown, clown in my story amongst the Japanese fan base.
“You’ve clearly captured the public’s imagination,” Isagi tells him, aiming for optimism, once they make it into the locker room and leave the roar of the crowd behind. “Must be good for ratings.”
Reo is not hearing shit from the same person who once smashed a phone to the ground because of a TikTok edit of him and Kaiser.
“Yeah, ratings. That’s what we’re all here for, isn’t it?”
Isagi, who doesn’t get sarcasm, gives him a thumbs up. Reo cannot believe Nagi once left him for this earnest idiot.
They lose against France, partly because Aiku gets injured halfway through, mostly because Loki seems dead set on absolutely wrecking Isagi’s shit.
Reo has never met anyone so fast. Like a pinball or a bat out of hell, Loki ricochets all over the field; blocking Barou, zooming past even Chigiri, and generally dashing around way too quickly for anyone to even attempt to steal the ball. He’s freaking everywhere, but he’s especially all up on Isagi’s face, whose bad habit of being a complete asshole to literally everyone he’s ever played against has finally come back to bite. Reo would feel a lot more vindicated if he wasn’t so pissed off.
Ego’s post-match debrief boils down to: you piece of shit losers will overcome your weaknesses, or die trying.
Poetic, really.
Barou punches his locker so hard he leaves a permanent dent. Aryu has pulled out the scissors from the first-aid kit and is dramatically threatening to cut off his hair. Everyone is giving Rin, who has been muttering curses under his breath for the last half hour (was that fucking latin?), a wide berth.
Reo simply tries very hard to not think about how, had Nagi been playing, things would have been different. He would have been stoked to face Loki again, Reo knows. And Loki may be lightning, but Nagi was the ocean – bottomless, ever-shifting, unstoppable in a storm.
Overall, he feels he is dealing with it all rather well. It’s not that he doesn’t care, it’s just that the last time he lost a game had felt like the emotional equivalent of sticking a hand in an industrial blender, so. This is nothing in comparison.
The only other person who is not looking depressed, possessed, or like they’re plotting bloody murder, is Shidou, who is weirdly emotionally grounded for a guy who runs around screaming about wanting to impregnate people.
“I don’t understand how you managed this,” he tells Isagi, perplexed. “Loki’s like, really chill.”
“Fuck off, clown,” says Isagi, who has learned literally nothing.
Next goes England. To get through the group stage, they have to beat England.
Reo, Karasu, Hiori, Niko and Isagi gather in the media room to watch some of the games of the English U-20. They’re a physical team, preferring long passes and fast wingers. Reo can see glimmers of Prince, the shadow of Agi. They're fast.
“Not as fast as Loki though,” Niko notes dryly.
Their game against England is exhausting. Chigiri’s knee gives out, and he has to be subbed out. Reo and Hiori are instructed to watch England’s hulking right back.
“Where’s your boyfriend, crybaby?” goads the New Gen XI, who clearly did not care for the stereotype of British politeness.
Right. Reo was planning on giving him Sae, but instead he blinks into Bachira, taking special satisfaction in executing a perfect rainbow flick over the asshole’s head.
“Worry about yourself, idiot.”
He threads the ball through the rest of the defense straight through to Rin, who burns like hellfire.
“As you are all aware,” Ego says, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger, “we will be progressing to the single-elimination rounds. Congratulations, my unpolished gems.”
A few whoops follow.
Anri is grinning, but the three other men joining them on the pitch look at best uninterested, and at worst bored. Ego, who tends to rest somewhere between blank-faced and generically annoyed, looks almost pissed off.
“The fuck are they?” Karasu whispers to Reo, eyeing the middle-aged men with suspicion.
“They’re from the Japanese Football Union,” Reo whispers back, which is something he knows because all rich people know each other. “The one on the left is Hirotoshi Buratsuta, the chairman.”
Karasu, turns out, was right to be suspicious, because Ego commands their attention for a second time.
“You may also be aware that U-20 teams can actually have up to 26 players.”
A squeal, somewhere in the back, as Rin elbows his way to the front, bursting through to glare at the Union board with all the considerable vitriol he is capable of.
“You lukewarm motherfuckers!”
Ego rolls his eyes, but doesn't seem to otherwise much mind Rin's interruption.
“Indeed. I’m here to announce that the Japanese Football Union, in all their wisdom, have finally appointed our last three members.”
Buratsuta takes a step forward. He looks so comically villainous he almost doesn’t seem like a real person.
“That’s right,” he crows, spreading his arms theatrically. “We have chosen the three heroes who will finally win Japan the World Cup!”
Right. Because the rest of them have clearly just been messing around in football Squid Games for the last six months as a warmup. His announcement is met with unimpressed silence. Buratsuta is not winning any points with his audience.
Isagi and Aiku preemptively take a hold of Rin, who’s gone pale as a ghost.
“Please welcome Sae Itoshi, Seishirou Nagi, and–“
Reo stops listening.
He stops doing anything, really, even breathing, because walking through the door is the one person whose shine makes everything in the world dull by comparison.
Chaos breaks out as Rin shoves off Isagi and Aiku and takes a swing at his brother. Instead, he slams into Shidou, who lunged for Sae at the same time. Aiku, who if anything was very brave, dives back into the fray, managing to grab Rin around the waist and haul him, kicking and spewing torrents of venom, away from his brother. Shidou seizes the opportunity, and throws himself at Sae. Everyone is screaming.
Reo doesn’t care. He doesn’t care at all.
“Nagi,” he says. “Nagi.”
Reo’s problem, really, is that no matter how many times he reminds himself to be cool, or has to suffer the consequences of having acted in mortifying, terrible ways on live television, it all turns to background noise whenever he sees Nagi.
He takes a step forward, and then another, and another, until he is running as fast as he can, slamming into Nagi. He throws his arms around him, fingers digging into muscle and skin, and takes a shaky breath, drinking in the scent of sea and cotton and Nagi, Nagi, Nagi.
The other boy goes stiff as a pole, seemingly unprepared for the closeness. Slowly, hesitantly, he draws his arms around Reo, at first tentative and then certain, until he’s hugging him breathless, clinging on as if afraid he might disappear.
“I’m back, Reo,” he says, breathing warm on the shell of his ear.
The rest of the team is in shambles.
Bachira is shoving tissues at Isagi, who’s desperately trying to control the flow of blood coming from his nose after Rin decked him in the face earlier. Kunigami and Hiori are now both helping Aiku pin the aforementioned feral beast down, as Shidou executes some kind of mating dance around Sae.
Completely unphased by the fallout of the bomb he’d just detonated, Ego resumes his monologue about the continued importance of devouring each other.
“So uh, what’s going on there?” Nanase asks Chigiri.
Next to whatever the fuck Shidou and Sae are doing– only Shidou, really, he won’t do Sae such a disservice– Nagi and Reo may look comparatively normal, but they are still, very much, not normal.
When you hug someone, you’re meant to squeeze them with your arms, not with your whole body. And yet, every inch of them is pressed against each other. Reo is clutching Nagi so hard the collar of his shirt is beginning to rip, and Nagi looks like he’s trying his very best to leave an imprint of his face on Reo’s neck.
That is not, in any sense of the word, normal.
Chigiri’s future, one wherein his roommate wants to talk about football and not feelings, or even better, one where Nagi swaps rooms with him and he’s finally free of their endless fucking bullshit, is materialising in front of his eyes.
He slaps a hand over Nanase’s mouth.
“Don’t say anything,” Chigiri hisses, “For my sanity, don’t say anything.”