Chapter Text
Reo's life can be cleanly divided into two major sections—before soccer, and with soccer. When Reo quits Blue Lock, she circles back around to the former; a life without soccer and a life without dreams are one and the same.
It's for the best, she tells herself. I'm the same as him, anyway.
Ba-ya is the only one who comes to pick her up. She's glad; Ba-ya's silent the entire time, and meets her gaze only once. She doesn't know what she'd do if a different maid tagged along, let alone someone as terrifying as her mother showing up. Her father would never show up—a truly good Mikage should never have to show their face to prove their victory, it should haunt the loser regardless. Reo could hear him, too. Her father had always been a cut above the rest.
"Ba-ya," she says, avoiding her gaze. "The farther house."
Ba-ya nods solemnly and packs the car without another word.
Reo packs up all her stuff from the facility. It's not much. There's a spat of paperwork and some documentation she has to handle, and the standard logistical processing. Reo's throat is sandpaper as she swallows—soon enough, she'll be the one conducting these sorts of things. Business deals, or something like that.
Ego lets her look over her data before she leaves. It feels something like pity, so Reo doesn't think too much about it. Ego probably isn't capable of such emotions, anyway. Wryly, she notes that most of their data has been collected via Mikage tech—she'd probably be able to access it from her room. Reo points it out and laughs. Ego doesn't. He says something to her as she leaves. She doesn't catch it.
Reo is gone before the first team is done.
The car ride is quiet. Ba-ya spares her a cursory glance in the rearview mirror and smiles kindly, too kindly. Reo can't bring herself to smile back (and feels terrible about it, even if she knows Ba-ya understands). They keep the radio off the whole time. She fidgets with her phone for a minute or two, idly checking and rechecking her stocks, but it does more harm than good, so she shuts it off.
Despite her efforts, the lights are on when Ba-ya approaches the house. Ba-ya doesn't slow down.
"Should we keep going?" She asks, though that seems to be what she intends to do, anyway.
Reo offers her a mirthless laugh in response. "No," she says, nails digging into her palm. "It'll be fine."
Things are a blur after that. They have dinner. Her mother brings out cake and fusses about her short-cropped hair. Her father asks her about her grades at school. Nobody mentions soccer, much less Blue Lock. That part of her life is in the process of being erased.
"And Reo," her father says, not bothering to meet her eyes. "There's no further benefit to remaining level with your peers. Skip a grade or two and get an advanced degree."
"Yes, father," Reo responds.
"I've already put in the work for your transfer out of Hakuho," he says. Reo grits her teeth. "You can pick which school to attend. You'll leave by the end of the week."
Reo baulks. "This weekend? What about finishing this school year?"
"Reo-chan's too serious..." Reo's mom smiles, shaking her head. "There's no need to worry about your transcripts. Your grades are good enough, you know."
Reo doesn't miss how her smile doesn't quite reach her eyes. They all know what goes unsaid. And besides, you're a Mikage, her eyes say. You can have anything.
Anything except for what she actually wants, it seems.
Reo bites her tongue. "...of course. I'll need to send off my classmates properly, however. I'd also need to see my tr— my professors once before I go."
The words bubble up in her mouth before she can catch them. If her parents notice, they don't say anything. It would've been easier, maybe, if they had opposed it.
If they had ordered I don't want you wasting your time on useless pursuits' or yelled 'You can't see that girl or anyone on your soccer team' or anything along those lines, maybe she would've had a reason to run back. If she was told she couldn't, then perhaps, in her desperate rage, maybe she could've .
Reo knows it's a pipe dream. Nagi wouldn't see her anymore now, anyway. Not when she had lost, fair and square. She'd lost the match. She'd lost Nagi.
(If she said something now, would Nagi give up soccer? Some part of her wants to text Nagi, to give her one final, decisive order—like she was still Nagi's esteemed boss, and not the pathetic girl who cracked open at her feet because Nagi had chosen to get better, to start dreaming.
If she said something now, would Nagi take back her words? Would Nagi take her back? Would she stop being a pain, a hassle, a shackle and just go back to being Reo again?
The weight of Reo's phone is heavy in her pocket. The weight of her heart is heavier, still.)
Reo's mother takes a cursory sip of her wine, sharp eyes watching the way Reo picks at her food. Reo's father doesn't say anything, but his face makes it clear that he knows she's ruminating.
"You should visit your friends," he says. "Connections are important, of course, but your emotional well-being is a top priority as well."
Her mother nods. "Mm, like the cute girl who was there at the last party...what was her name? Her mother was that CEO who refused to talk about investments..."
"Ah, the Amemiya daughter?" Reo's father supplies.
Amemiya Rei , Reo thinks. Light hair, sleepy eyes. Clung to her mother's footsteps the whole time. Had a good grasp of numbers, but was most interested when the topic shifted to the film subsidiaries.
Reo kicks herself for immediately recalling everything important before she can help herself.
It's not like Isagi Yoichi would know any of these words or people. Barou would've caused a diplomatic incident if a disagreement occurred. Zantetsu wouldn't have been able to put two and two together. Maybe that's why they're there and Reo's here. Maybe she's not enough of an idiot to play soccer. Nagi wouldn't have ever spared this conversation a glance, let alone actively contribute to it.
(For what it's worth, she'd once thought Nagi's wholly empty life would make Reo's presence all the more important. She'd thought, for a moment, that if Nagi was so hollow, it would be all too easy for Reo to fill the void—and it would keep Nagi as hers, forever. If Nagi had nothing, then Reo would be her everything. It'd been a cruel thing to think, but Reo was used to thinking those sorts of things. It'd been a calculating thing to think, and Reo seemed to have been engineered that way. Even now, her head kept spinning.)
"Reo," her dad says, smiling at no one in particular. "If you'd like, we can organise an exhibition match for you before you leave."
Reo barely stifles the wry laugh building up in her throat. An exhibition match? With what team? Reo knows the answer to this—there are hundreds if not thousands, of kids who'd play for her if asked. It's largely pointless, anyway, because no matter what team she was handed and how easily she could lead some ragtags to a semblance of victory, the kind of soccer she'd so desperately wanted to play had left her.
Reo shakes her head. "No. I'll be quite alright without any of that. However, if you could hold a short board meeting..."
The conversation trails off into nothingness. Reo finds that even if her heart's not in it, she's a good daughter, and that's really all that matters here. The night passes without sparing Reo a second glance.
She swings by Hakuho and collects her transcripts. Her professors are full of glowing praise. Quite a few of her classmates cry when she announces her departure, but seem to share the sentiment that if it's Reo, something like this is only natural. Nobody asks her about Nagi. Reo isn't sure if it's a blessing or a curse.
At the end of it all, Reo stumbles into her room with her arms full of flowers and parting gifts, and can't make it more than three steps inside before she crumples to the floor. She doubles over, clutching at the stupidly well-carpeted floors—it doesn't even hurt, why doesn't it hurt —but finds that for all she seethes, the tears never flow.
Reo's chest clenches itself, twisting and turning and compressing itself into a lump so small, that Reo starts to lose her common sense. She can't breathe; it hurts. She needs to scream, to cry —she can feel her rage, hot and heavy behind her eyelids, pounding in her head, clamouring for her attention—but nothing comes out.
She grabs her phone with shaking hands. Her vision is blurry. The contact pinned to the very top of her chats is the same as it's been for the last six months.
The words burn on her tongue. There are good things to say (now that you've found your dream, I hope you keep chasing after it; I want you to keep changing and growing and finding what it is you want), and there are diplomatic things to say (I wish you the best of luck on your journey; good luck on your training and good luck to Blue Lock), and there are the things that Reo hides in the worst recesses of her mind (you've abandoned me; you're hurting me; I hope you're happy leaving me for dead; I thought you promised me forever; I should die for wanting to crush your dream; I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry). Reo doesn't say any of those things.
If you abandon our dream, Reo instead types. I'll kill you.
Reo throws her phone across the room. It probably cracks. She'll have to get a new one, an empty one, one with no matching keychains or shared MMO games or stupid folders and folders and folders of game plans. Ba-Ya watches her quietly, with not a speck of judgment on her face. Reo rises from her misery and dusts herself off. If Ba-ya has something to say to Reo, she doesn't say it.
The Mikage Corporation nearly doubled its investment in the Japanese soccer tech industry that year. Reo is on her flight to England when that interview airs.
*
The next few years in England go brilliantly—which is to say Reo is miserable the whole time. She gets better at swallowing it, though. It starts to feel like home when she reaches the halfway point in her first year.
Upon landing, she'd got a new phone, a sleek, black version of the latest model. It's empty of all personality, which Reo thinks is a fair metaphor for her life, and then immediately follows up with thinking wow, I'm going insane. But the point is, it's a blank slate with no old contacts, which means no Nagi—because even if Reo knows Nagi's number by heart (and can recite it backwards, even in her sleep), there's no way for Nagi to know Reo's new number.
(That is if she even still wants to call you, a voice in Reo's head tells her. She's probably playing with Isagi right now. I bet she calls Isagi 'Boss', too. I bet Isagi's her new partner.
Shut up, Reo tells the voice.
The voice, being a voice, does not.)
Reo's life from touchdown on out will be uneventful. Her schedule will be packed to the brim with meetings and classes and clubs, her social calendar will be overbooked, and every once in a while she’ll have to fly over to another country where the Mikage Corporation is setting up a new branch to host a gala and speak. All in all, it's a whole lot of nothing.
University, and getting an advanced degree, is the easy part.
"Reo!" A girl churrups. Anya, from Advanced Statistics, her brain provides. Even having not been here for more than a handful of days, she knows names and faces—the duty of a Mikage, of course.
"Anya!" Reo grins as best as she can. "What can I do for you, hmm?"
The girl laughs. "Oh, you charmer. Don't try it with me, little prince. I heard from the grapevine that the professor for stats is offering an extra credit paper this semester."
"Oh?" Reo says, raising an eyebrow. It's an easy conversation. "Go on."
"I know you don't need the extra credit, but I wanted to let you know since it's the only thing the guy corrects himself," she says, shrugging. "Figured you might want the extra in with the guy. I'll be putting in one myself, so."
Reo rolls her eyes, a soft smile on her face, and sighs. It makes things easier, and non-confrontational. It makes it friendlier and draws on their rapport. It makes Alya giggle a little, leaning in closer to her. Reo can now ask her questions and get the response she wants.
"Tell me what you really came to say," Reo hums. "I know this isn't everything, hmm?"
Alya laughs. "Ha! Of course, you'd figure it out. Wait for me to finish, man. Anyway, point is, there's an exhibition match."
"...what?"
"An exhibition match! You're into soccer, aren't you? The U-20 Japanese midfielder girl who's sort of halfway famous for never playing for Japan is playing for Japan!"
Reo nearly jumps. How did she not know this? But she'd blocked any mention of soccer from all her news sites, and scrolled like a maniac whenever an image of a too-green pitch showed up, so this was on her. She wants to kick herself.
"Sae Itoshi?" Reo asks, sort of breathless. " The Sae Itoshi?"
"The very one! I knew you'd understand! This campus is sooooooo uppity, it's like, impossible to find someone who cares about U-20 soccer, y'know? Especially Japanese players, cause that team sucks —" Anya freezes, then looks at Reo with wide eyes. "Oh! I mean—!"
Reo snickers. "Don't worry about it. I agree, you know. Plus, it's basically a fact at this point that our team has lost its charm. Who are they playing against, anyway?"
"Mmm, some group of unknown kids from some one-off 'project'. Let me just..." she trails off, tapping at her phone, presumably pulling up information on the match. Reo nods along.
"Ah! These guys!" She holds up her phone triumphantly. "The team's called...Blue Lock XI!"
Reo nearly throws up.
She forces a laugh before she can do anything she'll regret. She leans over to look at the screen and feels dread weigh her stomach down like a shackle. There it is, that’s Ego Jinpachi's face on the front page, and Reo doesn't know whether to laugh or cry—but she finds that she can't do either.
Anya scrolls down to let her see the list of players. Horror and despondency gnaw at Reo like twin vices as she sees names she knows rub themselves in her face. Then again, Reo is only looking for one person. Reo is always only looking for one person.
Where are you, traitor. Reo seethes. You better be here, or else I’ll—
“Ah, that one’s asleep in her photo! Pfft—oh, that’s so ridiculous!”
(And Reo has to bite her tongue to swallow the rage— she’s not ridiculous, what do you know about her, I’ll show you fools just what my beloved treasure is capable of —bubbling up in her mouth, the nearly-practised speech almost falling from her lips against her will. She’d never really had to hold these words back before; it was painful, really, to hide Nagi like she was her shameful past. But that was then, and this is now—and Nagi wasn’t hers, and Reo would have to be a fool to open up a discussion she’d rather die before having.)
“Mm, well,” Reo shrugs. “There’s always more to those types than meets the eye. She wouldn’t be there otherwise, right?”
Alya rolls her eyes. “Never took you as the type to root for the underdog! Ah, well—they’re up against Itoshi, anyways. They’re basically being screwed over…what a shame.”
Her body knows how to work better than she does, because as if on autopilot, the conversation continues. Reo's surprised by how normal her voice sounds as she talks to Anya. All her frayed nerves are neatly tucked away, and her voice which should’ve been hoarse and raw is as silken as ever. It’s disgusting, how well she’s been trained.
The conversation about soccer continues until it’s time for their next class. Reo wants to claw her skin off the whole time.
*
If you stand in the middle of any street in Japan and blindly flail your arms around, you'd hit something funded by the Mikage Corporation. As such, it's a no-brainer that the exhibition match has Reo’s family name everywhere.
Reo has to process some of those documents herself, which is the real kicker of the whole debacle. She thumbs through paperwork on cameras and licensing agreements and an offensively long docket on Blue Lock Man (who'd started off being trained on her data, mind you). She wishes she could complain about it—scream ugh, you won't believe the day I’ve had! and flop down on someone's lap—but that's a dangerous train of thought to continue. She's Mikage Reo, and a good Mikage can handle everything alone.
(Besides, the only person who'd be able to stomach Reo hadn’t really been able to stomach her all, in the end. It had been so, so easy to love Nagi—and she had been so sure that it was easy for Nagi to have loved her, too. It felt like a gentle autumn, it felt like coming home. She'd been too presumptuous with Nagi’s passiveness—she’d jumped on the idea of Reo being special without realising that maybe it'd simply been easier to go along with Reo’s nonsense rather than endure her incessant pestering. God, she'd been a fool.
And if even Nagi had thought that she was a hassle, then she most certainly was. There was no point in denying it. It was easier to carve out that weakness, stretch herself thinner and thinner still until it was taut enough to snip that part of herself off. There was no need for a Reo who dreamed of winning the World Cup. The people only needed a Mikage.)
When she's about 76% of the way through with her work, her mother strolls in like they weren't supposed to be countries apart. Then again, Reo notes sourly, she had her own private jet, too. It was less about the unthinkability and more about the lack of advance notice, really.
“Mother,” Reo says, standing up to greet her. “My apologies for not realising you were en route. I would've prepared a welcome for you, had you mentioned it.”
Reo's mother laughs and waves her off. “Oh, don't be ridiculous. You didn't find out because I didn't want you to find out. It's that simple, doll.”
Reo isn't sure what to say, and her mother smiles in a way she’s seen countless times but never really understood. It's a gentle, kind smile—or it seemed like one, at least. Reo could never tell.
She reaches up to smoothen the ends of Reo’s hair. Reo feels a little more self-conscious than usual.
“You have lovely hair, you know,” her mother says.
“Thank you,” Reo says.
“How are you doing these days, Reo?” Her question is noncommittal and pointless—she’s her mother, yes, but she’s a Mikage first—but a pleasantry is a pleasantry, and Reo is built to entertain.
Reo gestures to the documents on her table. “Father is having me reorganise the plans for the U-20 exhibition match, so I guess I’m mostly busy.”
Reo’s mother laughs. It’s a miss; that wasn’t what she was asking about. Reo racks her brain, gathering the materials to try again. Classes seemed too trivial, the company was too formal, and her personal life was non-existent—what was left, then?
“Reo,” her mother’s voice is light and airy—and Reo feels her skin crawl. “You haven’t invited that girl over recently—the one from your class, the one with the pretty white hair.”
Reo trips over her own breath—when did breathing become so hard —and fights off the urge to cover her ears to hide from the ringing thud of her own heartbeat. Nagi. Her mother is asking her about Nagi.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that she knows her, really. A good Mikage knows everything—especially the things they aren’t supposed to know. Reo was great at that. She’d learnt it from her mother, after all.
“We played soccer together,” Reo says. It serves as response enough.
Her mother laughs—as grating as it is patronising. “Are you trying to tell me it’s my fault, hmm? How cute.”
Reo doesn’t scramble to correct her. It’s easier to say it is—but both her and Reo and everyone that matters (Nagi, Nagi, Nagi ) know that all the blame falls squarely on Reo. If she wanted to have soccer, she had to prove herself. She had failed to deliver, and so she’d failed to keep soccer. And so she’d failed to keep Nagi, in turn.
“Her hair was a terrible mess, you know,” her mother continues, “All frizz and split ends, like she’d never bothered to take more than bar soap and ten minutes to it. A veritable horror show, wouldn’t you think?”
Reo isn’t sure where she’s going with this—but she already knows she doesn’t like it. Her mother’s hands idly pick up a pencil, shuffling through the documents on her desk. A spike of ire shoots through her, and she takes a deep breath and holds it for three counts. Her mother takes the silence in her stride and keeps going, strategically avoiding her gaze, no doubt.
“No doubt, you’d spend hours styling it for her,” her mother hums, her voice lilting. “But, then what? At your touch, hay spun into gold, water to wine, dirt to diamond—but then what? You are meticulous and miraculous, but do miracles happen on their own?”
The air conditioner’s working just fine, Reo’s sure, but the room is freezing all of a sudden. Her mother looks up from the documents, neatly aligning them and placing the pen on top of the stack. She smiles and, as always, it doesn’t reach her eyes.
“There are the people who choose and the people who are chosen,” she whispers, gently using a finger to tilt Reo’s chin upwards and straighten her posture. “And perhaps, it seems, that the few chosen ones must stand on centre stage—but that is only because someone far more powerful put them there.”
Reo doesn’t dare to breathe. She’s sure her hesitation is visible on her face, awkward and obvious in the way her mother laughs delicately, tilting Reo’s head to the side with nothing but the force of her gaze. Her eyes glance over Reo’s hair—styled neatly, but the day’s exertion had taken its toll on it—and every hair on Reo’s neck prickles, standing at attention,
“You should start growing it out,” she whispers, gently twisting the ends of Reo’s pin-straight hair around her fingers. “It'll make you look less childish.”
(Reo had worn her hair long as a child—sleek and glossy and deliberately curled into beautiful waves. She’d adorned it with a handful of ornate hairpins or a silken bow. Her mother had always told her she was pretty, then.
When she’d gotten into soccer, she’d realised it’d felt like too much. Reo couldn’t explain it, but it set her apart in a way that screamed Mikage, and that had been enough to unsettle her. She’d cut it all off the day she’d handed her game plan to Ba-Ya, the same day she’d decided she prove to everyone that Reo existed. Gone were the luxurious ringlets that cascaded down her shoulders, traded in for a sleek cut that was just enough to throw into a wispy little ponytail if need be—stamping out the spotlight on her title of the school’s princess, becoming their prince instead.
No one had objected to it. It had been cool, even, at the time, save for her mother’s pursed lips. Her disapproval made Reo’s stomach churn, at first. Then, she’d met Nagi, who’d loved idly running her thumb over the close-cropped bit just shy of her nape—the texture was soft, she’d said—and everything had been fine in the world.)
“Of course, mother,” Reo says. “It’s already grown quite a bit, hasn’t it?”
*
Reo had to watch the exhibition match from a Mikage-only box. Best seats in the house. The thought of them made Reo nauseous, but the threat of Nagi seeing her was worse, still, so she conceded. This should've been her father's job—which meant, unfortunately, that it was halfway into being her job, now. It wasn't a fun realisation, and it got even less fun every time it smacked her across the face like this.
Reo shivers. She pinches her hand, forces herself to keep a straight face. The first goal goes to the U-20 team—predictably, but still, worryingly. It’s a brilliant, beautiful goal—Sae is a player that has Reo holding her breath and gripping her armrests. There’s not a breath out of place, not a single wasted movement and god, Reo feels alive. This is it, this is soccer.
The second goal goes to Nagi Seishiro.
It’s a match-defining, crowd-rousing, bone-chilling goal. It’s as beautiful as it is shameless—disgustingly opulent talent dripping off every smooth movement. Nagi’s eyes gleam with some untapped, unpolished, undiscovered joy and she rises in the air, face impassive as ever, hair flaring out behind her and blocking out all the light—an angel, Reo knows this horribly well—as she scores.
Reo nearly runs her throat hoarse cheering before she catches herself. The whole stadium screeches with her. Truly, isn’t this the birth of a genius?
Pumping her fist in the air in victory, Nagi’s eyes scan the crowd intently, surveying the stands before shooting straight up, gazing locking on the box seats. Reo trips over herself and her seat trying to duck down. Her heart is in her chest, surely, but it rages against her ribcage like it’s desperate to get out.
Nagi scored, Reo thinks. My Nagi scored the first goal of the match.
The rest of match is, for better or for worse, a brilliant match. It has Reo on the edge of her seat, her leg trembling as she tries not to chew the pads of her fingers. It had started terribly slow—gotten worse before it got better—but each goal had been scored in a frenzy more maddening than the one before. The winning goal is scored by Isagi. All Reo can think is ‘well, that’s fitting’—it had started with Nagi and ended with Isagi. The bitterness of it all makes her want to scream.
There’s nothing she can do now but keep moving. Reo shuffles out of her seat and hurries for the exit. The faster, the better. She doesn’t want to get caught in the wave of interviews. Hopefully, everyone who wants an opinion is fighting for the teams’s attention now—so faster, still, while anyone who knows her face is still occupied.
“ …Reo?”
Reo freezes. “Chigiri,” she says, her tone wobbling. It’s never that easy, is it? “Shouldn't you be at the pitch? They're all celebrating there, aren't they?”
She doesn't have to turn around to know that Chigiri is giving her a withering glare. She can feel the weight in the gaze boring into her back, but she laughs it off, shrugging jovially. She can pretend she wasn’t just turning tail and running away. Chigiri doesn't bother with taking the hint, and simply walks over to stare at Reo’s face—getting in close enough that Reo can't look anywhere but her.
“ You didn't pass?” Chigiri asks. Reo keeps her mouth shut. She prays it looks enough like mortification—anything for Chigiri to leave her alone.
Chigiri stares some more. Her eyes are as sharp as ever, and Reo knows she knows more than she lets on. She'd know then, too, in the second selection.
“You didn't fail, either, did you…” Chigiri’s voice is soft, but not gentle. Her words are as piercing as ever.
I did, but not in the way you imagine, Reo wants to say. I’m back in a golden cage, with shackles made of brilliant diamond. I’m back to being weighed down by the gemstones that stud my throat and choke my every breath.
Reo squeezes her eyes together. “I did,” she says, instead. The redhead raises an eyebrow, and Reo knows her words have come out too fast, too obvious, too hurt.
“Right,” Chigiri says, looking at her like it pains. “Obviously.”
“You should go,” Reo says. Chigiri doesn't miss the way Reo presses her lips together. “ Please .”
Chigiri sighs, but lingers for a moment. “I won't tell her I saw you,” she says, grabbing something from the stands. Then, she turns around and runs back—and, for the intents and purposes of all matters Reo, disappears for good.
*
At some point, Reo’s personal motto had been ‘ I always get what I want.’
It worked for a while. She'd had everything she could want and more as a kid—which wasn't much because it was always a fleeting desire, and never a want that burned through her entire soul. That want had come when Reo had watched the soccer World Cup for the first time, but it’d multiplied tenfold when Reo met Nagi.
(Reo had meant to apologise, really, when she saw the phone falling down the stairs. She’d thought it was a goner, but she had the quote for its replacement halfway to her lips when the girl had leapt from her perch at the top of the staircase.
Her leg extended out, her sleek figure cutting through the afternoon sunlight like an arrow. Her hair trailed behind her like an aura of her very own. Her foot flexed—on instinct—and with pin-point precision, she'd caught the device in a brilliant trap.
Reo could scarcely find it in her to remember to breathe. This is the one, she’d thought. She’ll help me reach my dream. )
It’d been only natural to want Nagi. And perhaps, Reo was beginning to think. It had only been natural to lose her.
*
When the new home theatre is set up, the only channel it plays is a sports channel. It's yet another cruel joke. Reo lets it run anyway—she hasn't been able to work without background noise recently.
They do a few interviews with up-and-coming high schoolers. They're all bright, bursting with energy, vomiting the usual ‘I want to win the World Cup’ spiel. The same drivel. Reo wonders when those sorts of dreams started to sound childish and grating to her.
There are some highlights of a match being replayed. With a start, Reo realises it's the World Cup. The U-20 World Cup.
The World Cup you couldn't win, that voice says. Because you were a snivelling, spineless coward and you turned and you ran.
While Reo mopes, argues with herself, and does whatever else crazy people do when they're going insane from sleep deprivation and over-exposure to bad businessman cologne, the channel starts running live interviews. The first one is Rin, who doesn't say anything but a ‘we’ll win next time, too’. The next is Shidou, who they cut away from the second she opens her mouth. The third, however, is Nagi Seishiro.
The interviewer's smile starts jovial. "So, Seishiro—" he starts.
" Nagi," Nagi interrupts.
"Nagi," he tries again, his smile faltering. Nagi doesn't notice, her wide eyes as impervious as ever. "How do you feel after your big match? Your team's won the U-20 World Cup—and in your first year playing, no less!"
Nagi's quiet for a moment, mulling it over. "I miss Reo."
Reo turns off the TV.
In the process, she knocks over a vase and drops the remote. The shattering grates on her ears but there were bigger problems at hand. God, this can't be happening to her. She cannot be watching soccer interviews, let alone post-World-Cup interviews where Nagi Seishiro is talking about missing her. It’s been so long and not long enough, simultaneously, to see the face of a girl she once loved (and still loves, probably, but that was sort of not the point) look all…like that.
Reo turns on the TV again. The sheer difference in Nagi’s appearance hits her like a truck. She’s taller now (even though she was always unfairly tall) and sits straight too (which Reo hadn’t thought she was capable of). She’s put on more muscle that ripples with unspoken strength underneath her milky-white skin. She even looks the interviewer in the eye the whole time she speaks.
The most notable change—and the thing Reo was trying not to take note of—was her hair. Nagi had always had the most stunning hair—pure white, delicately curled, trailing down her back like her own personal set of angel wings. She could still feel the way the wisps clung to her fingertips, gentle and feathery-soft. She’d styled it for Nagi every day they’d played together.
Something about it pisses Reo off. Sure, enough time had passed and sure, Nagi had every right to do whatever she wanted with her hair and sure, maybe she’d gotten so much stronger and better and more beautiful in the time that Reo hadn’t been there to bother her—but does it have to burn the way it does?
On screen, Nagi even cracks a joke that even has the interviewer giggling along with her. She’d grown beautifully. Reo hated it. Change was so very cruel.
Like a fool, she’d stayed frozen in place; she was still the pitifully naive Reo who’d been scorned and shattered and never pieced back together all those years ago. The world had kept turning, and with it, Nagi had kept moving. It really was only Reo who’d turned around and run away.
*
Reo has only ever had one recurring dream, and that's the only dream she finds she's capable of having nowadays.
It's started off the same every single time she can remember—she’s five, and lost in the winding corridors of her own house. It's big, the ceiling stretching taller with every second, and Reo is so, so small.
The house is noisy and quiet at the same time. Reo calls out for her dad, but nobody responds. Somewhere, her mother's voice rings through the hallways, shushing her.
Reo runs. The walls are full of trophies upon trophies with her name emblazoned on them, polished till they gleam like mirrors. Reo watches her face in them, smiling politely, a neatly-placed grin. That's not my face, Reo thinks with horror. That's not my face right now!
The trophies start small—two large gold ones for violin, three for piano, a few smaller ones from debate, a basketball cup, a medal from a radio program, a tentative contract from a songwriting competition—and then get more specific. Trophies about her future—placards that are emblazoned with some useless titles (like Youngest Shareholder or Executive Director), and some cruel ones (like Mikage’s Heir, or U-20 World Champion).
Even if she runs, even if she screws her eyes shut and makes a mad dash forward to somewhere, anywhere that's not here, she can still see the way that Mikage smiles. It's not Reo. It's not Reo at all.
The cloying scent of the house presses down on her windpipe. Her chest is collapsing in on herself, her breathing erratic and misshapen—Reo has been fraught in the shape of something and cannot escape. She keeps running and running and running.
And then, as if absolute, the whole house echoes with her name.
Reo, the fine chine clatters. Reo, the one-billion-yen paintings whisper. Reo, the antique furniture thuds.
Reo, her father calls back. You were meant to stand above the rest.
She trips on nothing and cries out in fear—she’s falling, she’s falling, she’s falling —and before she knows it, she’s sat spine-chillingly straight in her chair in his office, not a muscle out of place. Every single one of her joints is locked in place, and every single one of her limbs is tied with golden threads.
Mikage Reo, he says. Look at this beautiful world.
The glass window wraps around the whole room. Floor to ceiling, left to right. All that stood between Reo and the brilliantly shinning, forever-unfurling, constantly shifting world outside was a thin sheet of glass divided into thin vertical panels the whole way across.
I want to see the outside, Reo says. I want to disrupt the ocean’s waves and blow away the clouds of the mountains. Father, won’t you let me touch the world with my own two hands?
Reo’s father only laughs, looking at her inscrutably. It’s not fondness, and it’s not coldness either. Reo knows her father’s anger and can approximate his sadness. Reo knows his joy and can extrapolate his fears. And yet, the way he looks at her is none of them—and all of them, the same.
(And she’s eight and she’s twelve and she’s seventeen all the same—somewhere in between begging and demanding and deciding she wants the world in her hands. Shaking with fury or agony or some bone-chilling mix of the two, voice raised and hands clenched and the world spinning underneath her feet. She reaches out the grab the world and watches as it crumbles—breaking and shattering and dissolving, never to be seen again—all at her very touch. What has she done? What has she done to this beautiful world?)
I’ll have someone touch the waves and feel the air for you, Reo, her father says, never flinching. Is there anything else you’d like? You can have anything you want, you know. Just look at this beautiful world in front of you.
God, if you're out there, Reo fervently wishes for the nth time. Please just kill me.