From the bench, Bachira looks amazing.

Isagi isn’t particularly surprised that Bachira had managed to worm his way into the starting line-up in only ten days, though he wasn’t expecting just how much he seems to have already changed. His stance, his strategy, his confidence—all of it is leagues away from where he was the last time they spoke, when Bachira had grinned at him and said, ‘It’s common courtesy to have evolved by the next time we meet, got it?’.

The desire to be on the field claws into him as if it were tangible. He desperately wants to evolve as promised, but the gap between him and the world’s best—even the gap between him and Bachira, right now—feels like a chasm. Isagi watches every detail from the sidelines while envy and ambition ache helplessly in his chest.

Luckily for him, it’s short-lived. Despite his numbers not being high enough, the gap between him and those on the field, or the gap between where he is and where he wants to be—despite everything, the world wants Isagi Yoichi.

He’ll take whatever he can get. All his pent-up energy from the bench simmers inside him as he stands side-by-side with Noel fucking Noa, surrounded by soccer of a caliber he’d only ever seen on TV.

He’s frantic to prove himself. He’s desperate to belong here, with these players, on this stage. His brain screams do something, do something, do something.

So Isagi does something. It’s a mistake. One embarrassing half-tumble and a lost goal to Lavinho’s impressive tricks later, Isagi promises himself that he won’t be making any more.

The last play kicks off. Everything comes down to this—Noa and Lavinho are both off the field, and both teams only need one more point to win. Isagi is going to make this one count. He has no other choice.

Bachira takes possession of the ball, and Isagi knows perfectly well that he’s capable of driving it to the end of the field all by himself. His first order of business: stop that from happening at all costs.

Bachira smirks, reading his mind. “Try and get it, Isagi,” he sing-songs, and immediately launches into footwork that would make even seasoned players weep. But Isagi knows Bachira, and no matter how incredible the evolution, ten-day growth has to have limits.

Isagi rushes forward, intending to press and apply pressure. Bachira’s eyes widen a fraction, but he reacts quickly, stance shifting and angles changing. The preparation for a pass.

Isagi won’t let Bachira pass. He’ll steal the ball from him and him alone, right in this very second.

Three things happen nearly at once. One, Isagi surges forward, overconfidence in his passing prediction filling him with a brash audacity. Two, Bachira jolts out of his fake-out passing stance, deftly handling the ball and rapidly swinging back into the same direction Isagi is coming from. Isagi feels his knee make contact with Bachira’s leg, feels Bachira’s arm collide into Isagi’s chest, and Isagi turns his head, mouth falling open to let out some sort of apology or profanity or—

Three. In line with the complete collision course they’ve been set on, their two faces reach a unified point of impact, and Isagi’s partially opened lips slide perfectly against Bachira’s.

Isagi feels both inside his body and out of it, watching himself kiss Bachira with a sort of dumbstruck horror. Bachira’s lips are soft and warm. A little damp. Kind of nice, his brain supplies, traitorously. They tumble backward, heads bumping together, teeth pressing uncomfortably into lips, and hit the ground with Isagi on his back and Bachira sprawled out on top of him.

Isagi’s ears are ringing. His mouth stings. Bachira pushes up and stares down at him, eyes like saucers, as Isagi distantly hears Igarashi and Raichi cracking the fuck up from the bench.

The cacophony from the peanut gallery startles them both. Bachira scrambles to get off of Isagi, and they sit a few feet apart, chests heaving. Bachira’s whole face is slightly flushed, though that could just be from all the exercise.

Isagi wonders if his own cheeks are stained the same pretty red that Bachira’s are. You know, from the exercise.

A few members of Bachira’s team run over to check on him. No one from Isagi’s team, or at least none of the ones currently on the field, seem to care much about him. It doesn’t feel like long before computerized voice plays over the speakers: After VAR review, the collision was determined to be an accident. No cards or penalties will be awarded. The current play will restart.

There’s murmuring about the call, humming and hawing as players mill back toward their starting positions. Someone on the sidelines calls out something to Isagi, but he can’t bring himself to make eye-contact with anyone—especially not Kaiser or Noa, who he’s sure are both making very different expressions that are equally likely to cause him emotional distress. He sits stuck on the ground, head still spinning, lip still throbbing.

He blinks when an outstretched hand appears in front of him.

“No harm, no foul, right, Isagi?” says Bachira, already appearing recovered. He smiles, but his lower lip is swollen. There’s a red mark on it where something broke skin—most likely Isagi’s teeth.

Isagi can’t take his eyes off of it.

He has an idle daydream, quick and unwitting, about leaning in and biting that spot on purpose, letting the red spread. He pushes it out of mind as fast as he can and tries to speak instead, throat dry and tacky.

“Yeah,” he manages to say.

He takes Bachira’s hand.

Isagi turns off his phone.

They’re calling him “Loverboy”. “The Heart of Blue Lock,” they say, there to assist and look pretty and smooch all the other players. Isagi doesn’t want to be Loverboy, he wants to be the best fucking striker in the world, but clearly the universe has had other plans for him.

As if Isagi wasn’t still dealing with the fact that half his team has it out for him, or that Kaiser is still both infuriating and infuriatingly out of reach—now he gets to be the internet’s court jester on top of it.

He didn’t feel particularly good about anything that happened in that match, even when he didn’t know that it was being broadcasted to the entire world. It’s good that Ego only told them after the game, and it’s good that despite his numerous displays of clumsiness, he still managed to get a decent initial auction offer.

But all he can think about is how he’s still so far behind. Kaiser’s value is astronomically high, yes, but Rin’s value is a lot higher than his too. So is Bachira’s.

Goals are important. Isagi didn’t score.

He trudges to the cafeteria with a storm brewing in his head. Some of the guys snicker when he walks in—they’ve all had a field day with the online coverage that the match had gotten, mostly at Isagi’s expense. He doesn’t particularly blame them, but he does wish they would shut up.

Most of the team, or at least the Blue Lock portion, are already there and eating by the time he arrives. Kurona looks up as Isagi sits down. “Hey.”

Ever since the full truth about the Neo-Egoist League had been revealed, Kurona had been particularly keen to practice with Isagi, and they’d been collaborating better and better with each passing day. It’s self-serving, like everything Blue Lock is—Isagi knows Kurona is just trying to strengthen their link-ups to win himself a chance to play—but he’s grateful for it, nevertheless.

“Do you want to practice after this?” Kurona asks. Isagi opens his mouth to respond, but before he can get a word in, a mocking voice answers from behind him.

“I’d be careful spending so much time with Yoichi if I were you, little one,” calls Kaiser, who probably still hadn’t bothered to learn Kurona’s name. “After all, it seems there’s no way to know if he’s going to jump you on the field.”

Across from him, Igarashi snorts, but Hiori pales. The temperature in the room drops.

“Watch it, Kaiser,” Isagi growls.

Kaiser tuts lightly. “Please, Yoichi, I’m only joking. I was actually quite fond of your little stunt out there. It was quite fitting for you.” His face twists into something cruel, eyes bright. “I mean, a clown’s purpose is to entertain.”

“Listen here, you fucking—“

“Alright, alright, enough,” Raichi barks. “You two are bad enough on the fuckin’ field, can’t we eat in peace?”

Isagi grits his teeth. He hasn’t eaten much of his dinner yet, but his appetite has completely left him, his stomach twisting around in rage. This team is bad for his blood pressure.

“I’m done eating,” Isagi mutters. “I’m going to train.” He pushes up sharply from the table with a force that makes some of the plates clatter.

“I’ll join you—“ Kurona starts to stand, but Isagi shakes his head.

“Alone.” He wills Kurona to understand. Kurona stares, then thankfully nods once, and Isagi marches out the practice fields without listening to any of the other jeering or exasperated comments that follow him.

He doesn’t have time for this. Doesn’t have time for the teasing, for uselessly scrolling through tabloids, for laying awake at night while his brain keeps replaying that split second of Bachira’s lips on his, warm and soft and slack against his mouth—

Isagi grinds his palms into his eyelids and curses at himself. He only has a couple of days to improve his numbers and prove himself worthy of a permanent spot on the starting lineup, to show that he’s more than just an assist player and a bumbling idiot. Focusing is more important now than ever.

He hits the field and sprints.

Isagi’s never been fast like Chigiri, but he does enjoy running. The burn in his legs and lungs is satisfying when done right. He sprints to a ball waiting at the end of the field, hits a swift shot into the goal, and sprints back to the other side. He carries a ball down with him on the second run, carefully keeping control of it while trying not to lose speed.

He feels some of the tension slide out of his shoulders as he kicks another goal. It sails into the top corner, right where it wants it. He wishes it were this easy in an actual game.

Then a different ball hits him squarely on the back of his head.

Isagi whips around, his previous tension snapping back and earlier anger once again flooding through him. His lips start to curl into something unpleasant, but it falters and fades when he sees the unexpected face beaming back at him.

Bachira is as bright as always, expression impish and unbothered. “Got room for one more?”

“What are you doing here?” Isagi mumbles, hoping he doesn’t sound as tired as he feels.

“I requested to come! Wanted to see you. In Lavinho’s own words—” Bachira changes his whole body to a clear Lavinho-imitation pose, throwing up double hang-loose signs with his hands, “—you’ve always got permission to go see your boyfriend, blondie! Gwa-ha-ha!”

Bachira’s tone is lighthearted, but the words still make Isagi grimace. Clearly the mocking has been happening to Bachira too.

“It doesn’t bother you? You know—” Isagi makes a vague circle with his arm, a gesture to anything. “—all that.”

Bachira shrugs as he juggles the ball with one foot. “They’ll forget about it eventually,” he says. He kicks up and around the ball, switching feet effortlessly. “They always do.”

Bachira hadn’t talked too much about his life before Blue Lock, though he’d insinuated that he’d never really hung out with friends. Isagi wonders if this isn’t the first time Bachira has been on the receiving end of a relentless barrage of teasing, and he starts to feel a bit stupid for handling this as poorly as he has.

All things considered, Isagi has never had to deal with anything like this. He’d grown up average: normal grades; liked but not popular; good at soccer, but not good enough to amass celebrity. It wasn’t as if people went out of their way to be nice to him, but no one was ever particularly mean to him either.

Then he hit his flashy, game-ending U-20 goal, and the eyes of the whole world turned in his direction. He hadn’t anticipated the weight of it—expectations, opinions, commentary. Both the good and bad. Though he supposes if he really does want to be the best striker in the world, he better get used to it pretty fast.

Bachira surprise-passes to him, quick and devious. Isagi manages to intercept it, barely. Bachira grins, says, “Let’s play!”, and they both take off running.

Soccer is easy, fun. Soccer with Bachira is even easier. At the end of the day, everyone’s words are just words. Teasing remarks, thoughtless things said in jest, even outright insults and cruelty—none of it will ever hold a candle to this.

Isagi’s breath rattles through his lungs as he laughs and runs at the same time. For the first time all day, the negative energy festering in him starts to clear up. Bachira always makes everything seem simple.

Bachira takes the ball again, and Isagi moves to steal it from him. Bachira shifts his stance, his eyes flickering across the room, like he’s subtly planning to pass to an invisible teammate.

Isagi recognizes this move. It’s the exact same one he’d used in the game, when he’d pivoted the other direction and crashed straight into Isagi.

He’s ready for it this time. Instead of rushing in, Isagi backs up, and when Bachira swivels, Isagi is right there waiting for him. He kicks the ball away full force—not an effective steal for himself, but had there actually been a teammate nearby to intercept it, it would have been impressive.

Bachira whistles, looking delighted. “Much less disastrous that time, huh,” he teases.

Isagi grins. He wonders if he should feel embarrassed about the clear reference to their stupid kiss, but strangely, he doesn’t. “You should know better than to try the same move on me twice.”

“I was testing you, egoist. Go get the ball, let’s go again!”

So he does, and they do go again, and again, and again. Bachira tries out new moves and Isagi keeps up, most of the time. He’s having so much fun that all of the stress of everything else leaves his mind: the numbers he so desperately needs to improve, the cold and impenetrable gaze of Noel Noa, the several thousand tweets making jokes at his expense, even the headache that keeps coming when he reflects on the soft curve of Bachira’s mouth for just a little too long. In this moment, none of it matters.

Isagi really does love soccer.

He loses track of how much time passes. When they finally stop, Isagi is sweaty, out of breath, and in sore need of hydration.

They go to the sidelines to grab their things, Isagi grasping onto his water bottle like a lifeline. It’s still cold.

Bachira disconnects from his own bottle with a pwahh. “The real reason I came over here was because I wanted to check on you, after that match,” he says. “With everything that happened, and all the things people were saying. But I see you’re working just as hard as ever.” He turns and grins, sweaty, flushed, radiant. “That’s the Isagi I know.”

“Making mistakes just means I have to get stronger,” says Isagi. “I’m not stopping here.”

Bachira’s smile gets even brighter. “Right!”

Isagi’s whole chest feels light. He hadn’t even realized how much the pressure of this place was getting to him until Bachira arrived to lift it away. He’s really grateful to have him.

He’s not thinking about the kiss.

Really, he’s not.

“It got late, huh,” Bachira muses. “I guess I’ll head back.”

“Yeah, I guess it did. I’ll see you.” Isagi isn’t even looking up when he speaks. He has his eyes closed, water bottle in hand, just catching his breath. That’s why he doesn’t notice Bachira approach him.

But his eyes fly open when he feels something on his lips. Warm, soft, a little damp, and somehow a smidge familiar. It’s brief—so brief Isagi isn’t even sure it happened.

Then Bachira is backing away from him, warmth in his eyes and on the quirk of his lips, the same lips that were definitely, probably, potentially on Isagi’s a minute ago.

“See ya, Isagi,” he says.

And then he’s gone.

Isagi stands frozen, staring at a half-empty water bottle, for a long time. If he had to guess, Bachira probably makes it back to his room, gets washed up, gets snuggled up in bed, and is sleeping soundly before Isagi even manages to move his feet.

There are ten days total between the match with FC Barcha and the match with Manshine City. Bachira had come to Isagi’s stratum and kissed him on day three. Isagi continues training and gets quietly tortured by his own mind day by day until he finally cracks. It's day seven.

Visiting Bachira’s stratum means he has to request permission to leave with Noa. This the most awkward 45-second interaction of Isagi’s life.

(It’s late, Noa had said. You want to go now?

Yeah, Isagi replied. I need to visit a friend.

Noa stared at him, expression perfectly flat. Then he raised an eyebrow, singular. …A ‘friend’. I see.)

Isagi is choosing not to think about it.

Every facility of Blue Lock is maze-like, but the twisting halls of the Neo-Egoist League feel the worst of all. Each stratum appears to have the same basic structure, but Isagi belatedly realizes that he has no idea where Bachira is or what room he’s staying in. He has no way of contacting him either—his phone has been turned off in a drawer for the last four days, courtesy of the whims of the internet.

It is late, though. Bachira is probably about to go to bed, if not already asleep.

Isagi hesitantly walks up to the first four-person room he sees, prays that someone he knows will happen to be staying in it, and knocks on the door.

It opens. The person standing on the other side is tall, Spanish, and certainly someone Isagi has never seen in his life.

He asks Isagi something incomprehensible. Isagi then realizes that he’d left his translator earphones back in his room—he’d been so focused on Bachira, he’d forgotten that he might encounter literally anyone else.

The guy in the door says more words. Some of his other roommates, all strangers, peek from behind him to see what all the fuss is about. Isagi feels embarrassment creep up his neck, face growing hot. What the hell is he supposed to say? Names are at least constant across languages, right?

So Isagi says, articulately: “B-Bachira.”

Door Guy hoots with laughter. Some of the others join in. He claps Isagi on the shoulder, says something bright and airy, and then marches out into the hallway, presumably to show him the way to Bachira’s room. Isagi follows with his head hung low, feeling like a humiliated baby duckling.

“Bachira!” the guy calls outside one of the other rooms, followed by another sentence that makes Isagi flush. He’s never studied much Spanish, but the energy of ‘your boyfriend’s here~!’ is transcendent, in this case.

Bachira appears in the doorway. He’s clearly just recently out of the bath, already in his sleep clothes. Isagi is grateful he’s at least wearing them.

He wonders if Bachira wanders around naked even when surrounded by foreigners. Probably.

“Wow, it really is Isagi,” Bachira laughs. “What’s up?”

Isagi shifts uncomfortably. He’s aware of the other people in the room, even aware of the original Door Guy, who has neglected going back to his own room in favor of watching whatever teenage melodrama he clearly thinks is about to go down. “Um, can we talk?”

“Sure!” Bachira says, and makes no move to come out into the hallway nor invite Isagi to go into his room. Not that Isagi particularly wants to go into his room.

“Uh…” Isagi’s eyes dart around. “Alone?”

“Ah. Sure.”

They make their way out, ignoring the wolf whistles and laughter that follow them. Isagi feels the tips of his ears burn red.

It’s hard to find a private place anywhere in the Blue Lock facility, partially due to its odd shape and partially due to the sheer amount of people Ego has shoved into it. Other than the cafeteria, training rooms, and fields, there aren’t many common spaces to hang out in. They wander through twisted corridors, the air a little awkward, before finally stopping at a somewhat secluded corner between two empty hallways.

Isagi hasn’t seen anybody walking around in a while. He figures this space is safe enough. He turns.

“Well?” says Bachira, gaze boring right into him. “What did you want to talk about?”

Isagi has never found it easy to be the sole focus of Bachira’s attention. His eyes are too round and wide, full of curiosity and expectation and a splash of madness that always makes Isagi feel like he’s being swallowed whole. His hair is still damp from the bath, and Isagi fights back the urge to brush away a stray curl from where it gently clings to his jaw.

He doesn’t know where to begin.

“We have a game in three days,” Isagi says.

“Mm.” Bachira looks amused. “We do, too.”

“The game is important.”

“Well, yeah.”

Isagi frowns, trying to arrange his thoughts in order, trying to think of how best to get his point across.

“We have a game in three days, and I’m going to need to give it all of my brain power and attention,” he continues, and he meets Bachira’s all-consuming gaze head-on, “so I can’t afford to waste any more of my time thinking about you.”

If Isagi were at all in control of his own mouth once he gets going—which he usually isn’t—he would’ve wondered if this choice of words was harsh. Maybe at one time it would have been. But the Bachira now, the new breakout star of FC Barcha, meets his gaze evenly, not hurt or surprised at all. Isagi takes it as a sign to keep going.

“Why did you kiss me?”

Bachira’s eyebrow furrows. “It was an accident, wasn’t it? I mean, we literally ran into each other.”

“No—the second time. When we were practicing.”

Bachira’s eyes widen. He stares, opens his mouth, hesitates in a way that’s unusual for him. It feels like a long moment passes before he says, quiet: “I just wanted to.”

Somehow, Isagi knew that would be the answer. Bachira has always lived free, his heart on his sleeve, doing what he wants. If he wanted to kiss Isagi, then he’d just do it. That’s how he does everything else.

Was it the same for him as it was for Isagi? With their accidental kiss, clumsy and too brief, replaying in his head at all times? When he saw Isagi again, did it spin around in his thoughts—the desire to try again, try purposefully, do it better this time around?

The difference between them is that when Bachira felt that way he’d given in, let himself be swept up by his own desires and passing impulses, and pressed right up against Isagi’s lips. When Isagi felt that way, he’d—

Well. Isagi is not really sure what he’s been doing. What he still is doing, even now.

He realizes that he’s allowed silence for just a little too long when Bachira decides to break it. He’s worrying his lip, something halfway between anxiety and remorse creeping into his eyes. “Look,” Bachira says, “If that was too far, you can just forget about it. Honest. I really didn’t mean to—”

“I don’t want to forget,” Isagi blurts, all in one rush.

Bachira stares. “What?”

“The first time we kissed,” says Isagi, “it was an accident. The second time, you caught me off guard. So… it seems to me like we still haven’t managed to do it right.”

Bachira's face shifts to comprehension slowly. He meets Isagi’s eyes, hesitant at first, and then straightening up with a confidence and boldness.

“Do you want to try, then?” he asks, the quiet words feeling too loud in the fragile moment. Something in his voice, his gaze, is electrifying. “Doing it right?”

“Yeah,” Isagi says. “I want my own fair shot.”

Bachira's gaze falls, noticeably, to Isagi’s lips. “Then shoot.”

It’s different, with preamble. Isagi is aware of every single move he makes, aware of the distance shrinking between them, intentionally this time. He gets close enough that he can feel Bachira’s breath on his face, his own breath a shaky puff.

His heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest. It had almost been easier, when he had just tripped into this. At least then he didn’t have to think about anything.

Bachira gets impatient.

So much for this being my turn, Isagi thinks wryly, as a bundle of Bachira is suddenly up against him and in his hands. Then Bachira turns his head just slightly, angling himself just so, and Isagi stops having any coherent thoughts at all.

Bachira’s lips are soft: confirmed. Warm: double confirmed. Kind of nice: disproved. They’re really nice.

Isagi is woefully inexperienced with any of this, but the kissing feels so good that worrying about his own performance doesn’t even cross his mind. Just like playing together, talking together, being together—with Bachira, all of it comes so easy. They move in unison, a slide of lips against lips, devouring each other whole.

Isagi remembers the little mark of red on Bachira’s lips, the tiny cut he had accidentally made after their disastrous collision. Suddenly he very much wants to see it again. He shifts his head, finds Bachira’s lower lip, and bites down.

Bachira makes a wounded noise. Isagi feels drunk off it. Then Bachira meets him with the same kind of vigor, tongue and teeth being mixed in, hands beginning to wander.

Isagi starts to feel lightheaded, and he realizes that he can’t remember the last time that he took a breath. He makes a desperate break away for air, but he only manages to suck in a sharp gasp before Bachira whines and is back on him, like even a second of separation is too long.

Something about it is—cute, Isagi thinks, and it makes him laugh. They still haven’t separated, so the shape of Isagi’s smile gets pressed into Bachira’s lips in a way that he knows he can feel, because an answering smile forms against Isagi’s own. Then they break because they’re laughing, and it’s too hard to kiss like that, and Isagi finally gets a chance to breathe.

He presses his forehead to Bachira’s, quietly sharing this moment. He feels both giddy and lethargic, like he’s just run a marathon but still has a live-wire current running all throughout him.

“I think,” Isagi whispers against Bachira’s kiss-swollen lips, “I’m still going to have a hard time focusing on my match, after this.”

Bachira pulls back, blinks at him, and then lets out a peal of laughter, bright and loud and warm. Isagi has heard him laugh like this so many times, but something about this one sends his heart jackhammering in his chest, a grin involuntarily spreading across his own face.

“You’re still thinking about soccer even now, you egoist?” Bachira wheezes. “Amazing, Isagi!”

“Come on, as if you aren’t!”

Bachira laughs harder. He wipes little tears springing from the corners of his eyes before he snakes his arms around Isagi’s neck, interlocking his fingers together to trap Isagi in his hold. It’s unnecessary—Isagi wouldn’t want to escape anyway.

“Tell you what,” Bachira giggles, leaning against him, “let’s make a deal. For every goal you score in your next match, you get one more chance to try again.” His gaze falls again to Isagi’s lips, the curl of his own smile crooked and mischievous. “We’ll be sure to get it really right next time.”

“Same goes for you, then,” replies Isagi. “Better keep scoring goals, monster.”

“Oh, I plan to.” Bachira’s eyes burn, and in return, Isagi feels his own heart catch flame.

So Isagi swoops in, giving one last peck to Bachira’s lips—warm, soft, brief, and not accidental at all.