Archive of Our Own

You were eight when you thought you hated your soulmate.

It began in your knees—a bright, clean sting that made your crayon drag an uneven line of maroon across the paper. Then your ankle throbbed, your shoulder ached, your fingers stiffened as if you’d been clenching them too long. You stared at your small hands in bewilderment.

By the time your mother called you for dinner, the aches had dulled to a heavy pulse. You told her your body hurt for no reason, and she only smiled.

“That’s your soulmate trying to say hello,” she said, drying her hands on a towel before cupping your face. “You must be feeling what they feel. Isn’t that wonderful?”

You frowned. “They hurt me.”

She laughed softly and pressed a kiss to your nose.

“It means you’re connected. Soulmates share something sacred—pain. What we hide from everyone else, they’ll always see.”

You didn’t understand. You thought it was stupid. If someone was your soulmate, why would they let you hurt?

Still, the pain came and went in waves. Skinned knees, twisted ankles, bruises that never showed. You got used to wincing for no reason. Sometimes you’d mutter, maybe you should be more careful, as if the stranger on the other end could hear you.

When you turned twelve, it became less about scraped skin and more about something deep and shapeless—a pressure behind your ribs, a loneliness that sat heavy in your throat. It came without warning. Some days, you’d be laughing with your friends, and suddenly you’d want to cry for reasons you couldn’t explain.

You told your mother again. She just said it meant your soulmate was growing up—that pain changed as people did. You went to doctors, too. They told you nothing was wrong and maybe nothing was at all. But you learned to live around it, to stretch your fingers when they ached like they belonged to someone else, to lie in bed and wait for the quiet to come back.

Sometimes, before you slept, you’d wonder what kind of person they were—the one who hurt this much, this often.

You imagined they must fall a lot. Maybe they didn’t care about their own body the way you did. You promised yourself that when you met them, you’d tell them to be careful. You’d tell them that their pain made it hard to draw, hard to run, and hard to breathe sometimes.

But the years went on, and you never stopped hurting.

You just learned to call it living.

…

By the time you turn fourteen, the pain has settled into the rhythm of your life. It comes and goes like the weather; some dull reminder that somewhere out there, someone is still running and falling and fighting the world with their bare hands.

You stop complaining about it. You stop waiting for it to stop.

Instead, you join the volleyball team.

At first, it’s just to fill your afternoons—an excuse to be too busy to notice the phantom ache that accompanies you like a shadow. You learn to dive and sprint and spike until your arms throb and your knees burn. The other girls laugh when you groan about the drills, but the pain feels good. It’s real. Most of all, it’s yours.

When you stagger home after practice, you think to yourself, See? I can hurt too. If your muscles ache enough, maybe you won’t notice the other ache underneath—the quiet one that doesn’t fade with ice packs or sleep.

It works until you dream of a boy you’ve never seen before.

He stands in a wide, gleaming hall where everything is alight with movement—wheels clicking over tiles, a woman’s voice echoing over some unseen speaker. Light pools against glass walls, and the air smells faintly of metal and rain.

His face is blurred at the edges, swallowed by distance as people drift past him in waves. Somewhere in front of him, a smaller figure calls out, reaching out with a chubby little smile.

The boy hesitates, just once. Then he keeps walking.

When you wake, your cheeks are wet. Your throat aches like you’ve been shouting, though you don’t remember making a sound.

For a while, you stare at the pale strip of dawn leaking through your curtains. The ache in your chest isn’t sharp, but it takes the shape of something missing. You can’t name it, but it feels too large to be yours.

When your mother knocks, you tell her you’re calling in sick. She leaves a glass of water by your bed, and you spend the morning tracing the ceiling cracks with your eyes.

It was just a dream. Just another trick of the bond.

But even when you close your eyes, you can still hear it—the murmur of a place meant for departure, and the echo of footsteps that never turn back.

…

You don’t remember when the ache turned into hatred.

Maybe sometime between the late-night practices and the mornings you woke up feeling like someone had scraped you from the inside out. Maybe it was when you realized that it didn’t matter how hard you trained, or how many bruises you earned for yourself, your soulmate’s pain was always worse.

You try to ignore it, the same way you always have. You focus on the court, on your team, and the satisfying smack of the ball against your palms. But even in those moments, there’s that flicker of something else beneath your skin.

It happens just before a match point.

You’ve been serving strong all game, riding on muscle memory and adrenaline. Interhigh season is always the most anticipated run of the year. The light in the gym is harsh, the air thick with heat and sweat. When the whistle rings throughout the court, you toss the ball, step forward, and something inside you shatters.

Not pain. Not the kind you were used to.

It’s worse.

A hollow sound, deep and gutting, like a sob echoing through an empty room. A flash of helpless rage, of despair so wide it swallows you whole. It slams through your ribs, floods your lungs, blinds you. Your knees hit the floor before you realize you’ve fallen.

You could take a twisted ankle or a bruising arm. Anything but the pure misery carving itself into your heart.

The noise around you is distant now—muffled shouts and sneakers squealing on varnished wood. You can’t breathe. You can only feel it—the weight of someone else’s ruin pressed into your chest.

They’re breaking.

And they’re taking you with them.

When you come to, the world is sterile white. Your throat is raw, your eyes swollen. A nurse sits beside you with clear worry creasing her brow.

“I didn’t find anything wrong physically,” she says softly, as if that should be comforting. “No signs of fainting, no heatstroke either.”

You stare at your trembling hands. They don’t even feel like they belong to you.

“My soulmate,” you whisper.

“Hm? What was that, sweetheart?”

You swallow hard. “…My soulmate is the one doing this to me.”

The silence stretches into something poignant until you see a flicker in her eyes—recognition, maybe even pity. She takes your shaking hands in hers and squeezes gently, as though she understands more than she can say.

For a moment, you remember your mother’s words from years ago: Soulmates share something sacred—pain. What we hide from everyone else, they’ll always see.

You want to laugh.

Because if this is sacred, then love must be the cruelest religion in the world.

…

Since then, you’ve turned your body into a weapon.

Not because you loved the hurt, but because you want it to mean something. You want it to land back where it came from. Twofold, threefold, tenfold. Just so they can feel a fraction of what you’ve had to live with.

So you trained until the edges of you were raw. You practiced serves until your shoulder ached in protest. You dove for every ball as if the court were a battleground, and you could bury your soulmate under the weight of your bruises.

Your teammates started to notice the shape you were taking. They called you relentless behind your back, admiring and alarmed in the same breath. Even your coach sat you down once after practice.

“You look like you’re running on a grudge,” he said. “Relax. Play smart.”

You merely smiled at him like he was naive.

At home, your mother watched you stitch ice around swollen ankles and wrap your wrists every night. She worried the way mothers do, and sometimes she said the practical things— eat more, sleep earlier—and other times her worry came out like superstition.

“Soulbonds aren’t cruel on purpose,” she said once, as she pressed a bowl of soup into your hands.

You wanted to spit at the word soulbond. But she looked at you with the same small faith she’d used to kiss your scraped knees when you were a child, and the words stayed in your throat. You let her think what she needed to think. You let her hold the story that made your pain seem like destiny. It made her sleep easier.

Inside you, the resentment calcified. You stopped imagining a face when the ache sharpened. You pictured instead an absence to fill with pain—a space you could punish. You served harder. You hit harder. People started worrying about you more and more, but you stopped caring.

Just like your soulmate never did.

So when Interhigh championship folded into the last set, you were all teeth and motion. You were a machine wrecking itself in the name of not being helpless. Every spike was a declaration. Every block a small, furious sermon.

You played like a monster. You didn’t listen to rhythm; you listened to vengeance. The opposing captain kept receiving your powerful strikes—and you snapped after her, lunging for one last impossible return.

You hear it before you feel it: a thud, followed by a sound like a twig breaking under strain. Your knee folds the wrong way, and the pain blooms in your bones with a clarity that makes everything else stupid and small. The world tears into a single bright, reeling point that has taken root beneath your knee pads.

You stay conscious long enough to see the scoreboard change, your team’s chance sliding out of reach. You try to bite back the scream but it pours out of you anyway. Someone is already at your side. Your teammates’ faces are splintered into horror as the bench dissolves into chaos. You feel hands under your thighs and shoulders, feel a stretcher, hear someone call your name like a curse.

They carry you out of the gym as the court lights throw long strips across your face. When they strap you down, the pain in your knee flares white-hot, and you bark out a laugh—a sound full of spite and something like triumph.

It’s directed at the faceless thing that had been living in your bones all your life, at whatever shadow had been siphoning you dry. It was neither poetic nor clean. It was everything you’d been holding in for years, finally thrown like a brick through fragile glass.

I hope you feel this, you muse.

Hope it haunts you forever, bastard.

…

The diagnosis doesn’t surprise you.

A partially torn right ACL. Not as catastrophic as it felt when you collapsed. Therapy is recommended over surgery, and recovery is more than possible—if you care enough to walk yourself through it.

You nod when the doctor explains the regimen, and sketches out the months ahead in words like commitment and discipline and hope. You thank him because that’s what people do when someone delivers bad news kindly. But the whole time, you’re staring at the light glinting off his pen, thinking how small the words sound compared to the noise inside your head.

He calls it an injury. You call it closure.

Because the truth is, you never loved volleyball. You loved what it gave you—a place to pour the pain until you could almost believe it was yours. But now the ache in your knee is constant and heavy and real. You no longer have to chase it. It follows you. It anchors you.

So when your coach calls a team meeting and everyone gathers in the school gym that still smells faintly of resin and defeat, you already know what you’re going to say.

They’re all crying before you even finish.

One of your fellow seniors grabs your hands with red eyes and snot trailing down her face. “You’ll come back next year, right? When we’re all in high school?”

You just smile. Because you’ve already learned what happens to people who believe in futures.

“I’ll try,” you lie.

You leave your uniform neatly folded in the locker. The air hums with nostalgia you can’t feel.

After that, your life condenses into a series of small, sterile routines: Class. Therapy. Home.

Your world is smaller now, quieter without the shriek of whistles and sneakers scraping against the floorboards. You walk with a brace that squeaks if you move too fast. You’ve learned the names of all the physical therapists on your rotation, and which ones actually care enough to look you in the eye when they ask how you’re feeling.

The pain in your knee overshadows everything else—it’s your own brand of suffering, your own proof that your body doesn’t need the pain of your soulmate to betray you.

One afternoon, while waiting for your session, you find yourself sitting in the hospital hallway beside the vending machine that only takes coins. The walls are a muted beige, designed to soothe patients into docility. Across from you, two men are talking in low voices.

“…that kid, what’s his name again?” one says, scrolling on his phone. “The boy genius?”

“Oh, right. Sae Itoshi,” the other replies. “The one who went to Spain. He’s only turned sixteen, hasn’t he? There’s an article about him here, says he’s—”

You don’t catch the rest.

Your therapist appears in the doorway, calling your name with that practiced cheer reserved for patients who’ve stopped believing in progress. You push yourself up with a wince, your knee throbbing in familiar protest.

For a brief moment, you think about that conversation you caught in your periphery, about the name Itoshi, the word Spain. They mean nothing to you. Just noise in a waiting room, another life orbiting somewhere far from yours.

You don’t know that if you’d lingered a few seconds longer, you’d have heard the rest of it.

“…suffered an injury last week, poor kid.”

But you’re already limping toward the therapy room, where pain feels simpler because at least this time, it belongs to you.

…

By the time you turn seventeen, the world has grown softer around the edges.

The sterile white hallways, the shrill whistle of matches, the sharp clarity of ambition—they’ve all faded into memory, dulled like the faint scar that curls around your right knee. Sometimes, when you run your fingers over it, you can still feel the echo of what it cost you.

But you healed. Everyone said so.

Your doctor smiled at you after the last check-up, and said you were lucky—that it could’ve been worse, you could’ve lost more. But he didn’t know there are some pains you don’t come back from. You just learn how to walk differently with them.

You never rejoined the volleyball team in high school. You couldn’t; not after that. But some afternoons, when the last bell has long faded and the court lights glimmer against the twilight, you linger by the open doors of the gym to watch the life you could have had.

You tell yourself you’re fine. You even almost believe it.

Time has made you quieter, but also gentler. You don’t hate the world the way you used to. You don’t even hate your soulmate—whoever they are, wherever they might be. Because hate is a heavy thing to carry forever. Somewhere along the way, you just… set it down.

Maybe that’s why the ache faded for a while.

It’s been months since you last felt the throb of their pain through the bond. No sudden stabs beneath your ribs, no lingering bruises that weren’t yours. Just silence.

You’d like to think they learned to take better care of themselves—that, somehow, across the great, invisible distance between you, they’d understood what you’d been trying to communicate. You imagine them finally learning how to live in a way that doesn’t bleed into someone else’s body.

It’s foolish, even if it comforts you.

But then you start waking in the early hours with a heavy heart, the same way it used to be before everything went wrong. The first few times, you tell yourself it’s nothing—a dream, a memory, the phantom pull of something long gone.

But it happens again. And again. And again.

Calling it pain doesn’t sound right. It’s heavier than that. Loneliness, maybe. Despair so deep it feels like falling through someone else’s chest.

You’ve learned to expect it the way other people expect the sunrise. While you’re rubbing sleep from your eyes, your soulmate must be winding down, thinking too much in the dark. You’ve come to accept that your mornings belong to their nights.

Until one day, they don’t.

You lie awake one evening, staring at the ceiling as the quiet presses in from all sides. It’s unbearable, this heaviness that doesn’t belong to you. You twist in your sheets, bury your face into a pillow as though you can smother the feeling before it swallows you whole.

But it lingers. It crawls under your ribs and throbs with every breath.

Finally, when you can’t take it anymore, you whisper into the dark:

“What happened for you to hurt this much?”

…

One day in the summer, your best friend Ayane drags you to what she dubbed as "the most anticipated soccer game in the season." Her good-for-nothing boyfriend Oliver got her two tickets to see it, and you’ve since learned how to say yes to things you don’t care about.

She’s beaming in her U-20 jersey, hair tied back with a ribbon that matches the team colors, and well, you’re just there to keep her from embarrassing herself too much.

“You’re going to love it,” she insists, tugging your wrist through the stadium gates. “The Itoshi brothers are facing off!”

You squint at her. “The who?”

Ayane stops in her tracks, turning on you with a look people reserve for the hopelessly uninformed. “You seriously don’t know? Sae Itoshi? The prodigy from Spain?”

“Can’t say I do.”

She groans. “Just watch, okay? You’ll see.”

You let her lead you to your seats, halfway up the bleachers. The air hums with thousands of voices and the metallic buzz of excitement before a kickoff. You’ve never really cared about soccer, or their prodigies, but Ayane’s joy is infectious, so you let yourself be pulled into it.

The teams spill out onto the field and under the floodlights. The U-20 squad walks with confidence that comes from reputation alone. Blue Lock, the ragtag team of challengers, looks hungry and reckless. You’re scanning the crowd when the announcer’s voice cuts through:

“—and the star midfielder of Japan’s U-20, Itoshi Sae!”

The moment he walks out, something inside you twists.

You don’t know what you expected from a name like that, but it wasn’t him. He moves like gravity bends a little closer around him, like the air itself has learned to make way. Under the lights, his hair burns a deep maroon, a color that shouldn’t exist outside of fever dreams, and when he glances toward the stands, the cameras catch his face.

For a moment, you forget to breathe.

Those eyes—clear and sea-green, detached in a way that feels almost cruel—meet the lens, and your chest lurches like someone’s hooked a hand inside it and pulled.

You press a hand to your sternum, the way someone might if they’ve just been struck. It’s not new, this sensation, but it’s never been this immediate. This real.

Ayane’s voice is distant, muffled by the roar of the crowd. “See? I told you he’s insane—! Hey, are you okay?”

“…Just got dizzy for a second,” you tell her, forcing a small laugh. “Not used to crowds this big, I guess.”

She narrows her eyes, clearly unconvinced, but the referee’s whistle pierces the air, and the game begins before she can press further. You use the distraction to ground yourself—the roar of the stadium, and the buzz of tension that climbs higher with every second.

You focus on anything but the ache still coiled tight in your ribs.

The U-20 defense moves like a single organism. At its center is Oliver, cutting off every pass before it even happens. He slides in clean, rises smoother, barely sparing a glance at the forward he just stopped cold.

Ayane screams beside you, practically shaking your arm off. “OLIVER! DID YOU SEE THAT?! OH MY GOD! THAT'S MY BOYFRIEND!”

You laugh, startled and captivated by how loud she is. But when your eyes stray past Oliver, catching on the faint gleam of red hair just ahead, the pang in your chest returns.

Itoshi Sae.

There’s something surgical about the way he plays. When the ball is with him, every motion is precise, pared down to intention. He threads passes through impossible spaces like it’s a reflex. While everyone else is fighting to prove themselves, he’s simply… existing—as though he’s already proven everything he needed to, years ago.

His teammates know this. You watch as he receives a pass with the ease of someone bored by difficulty, shifts his weight once, and sends the ball slicing across the pitch like a whisper turned into a blade.

The crowd gasps. You do too, though you’re not sure why.

The camera finds him again with a glint of sweat on his jaw. Under the lights, he looks almost unearthly. Too composed. Too controlled. You wonder, for the first time, if a person can be built entirely out of restraint.

Ayane grabs your arm again, nails biting through the fabric of your sleeve. “Look—look!” she squeals, half out of her seat.

You follow her gaze. The U-20 offense has surged forward. There’s a narrow opening; just a breath of space at the corner of the penalty area. Sae’s there before anyone else can react. You see the line of his body as he draws back his left leg, smooth and devastating, and then—

The ball arcs cleanly into the net.

When the crowd roars, it’s deafening. The commentators explode into praise, Ayane’s screaming into your ear, Oliver’s name is somewhere in there too—but all you can do is stare.

And feel the way your leg aches as though you were the one who made that shot.

It shoots from the ball of your foot to your calf, ricochets up your knee like a firecracker going off in old scar tissue. You jerk back in your seat because you know this pain. You’ve felt it your entire life. It’s the sharp, buzzing ache that once wrapped itself around your bones until you wanted to tear it out.

No way.

You scramble for logic. Maybe you’re projecting. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, or your own fraying nerves. There’s no way Itoshi Sae is at the other end of your soulbond. The thought alone feels absurd, too big to fit anywhere inside you.

The roar of the stadium dulls to a distant rush. You sit unnaturally still, watching every movement, every calculated pass, every sharp pivot. The way Sae glides across the field feels like he’s already five steps ahead of everyone else.

You barely register the crowd losing its mind as the Blue Lock players push back against the U-20 with reckless brilliance. None of it matters. Your pulse thrums in your throat; your entire focus narrows to a single maroon blur. If this is some cruel joke from the universe, you want to catch it in the act.

Then, like fate baring its fangs in your face, it happens.

It’s a small thing—so small anyone else would miss it. Sae doesn’t use his dominant left foot this time. The angle’s too tight, the defense too close. So he pivots, draws on his right leg, and sends the ball spinning to a teammate with effortless precision.

And the world lights up in your knee.

The familiar, sickening pull rips through the scar like an old wound being split open. You choke on your breath, clutching your leg with eyes wide. The agony burns through you like hellfire, and you have to keep absolutely still to not make Ayane worry.

On the field, Sae keeps moving, calm and flawless to everyone else, but you see the truth tucked in between his strides—a ghost of a limp. Familiar. Personal. Something you’d only recognize if it’s lived inside you before.

“No fucking way,” you whisper despite the roar of the crowd, your heart beating just in time with the ache in your knee. But the truth is here, right before your eyes.

It’s him.

It’s always been him.

…

It’s one thing to know your soulmate is a football prodigy. It’s another to know what to do with the information.

You go home after the match without saying a word—to Ayane, to your mother, to anyone. You don’t even remember the train ride, just that the crowd’s cheers are still ringing in your ears when you lock your bedroom door and collapse in front of your laptop.

You type his name into the search bar before you can stop yourself.

The results are endless. Headlines, photos, clips of his goals and passes edited to cinematic soundtracks. You scroll through them like someone trying to understand a stranger wearing your heartbeat.

Every article says the same thing: Genius midfielder. Prodigy from Japan. The youngest to debut overseas. Cold. Arrogant. A machine made flesh.

They talk about how he left for Spain at fourteen, how he turned down endorsement deals worth millions just to “focus on soccer,” and how he’s rumored to hate interviews because he thinks most journalists aren’t worth his time.

And yet… you can’t stop scrolling.

Because nothing about him on that field looked empty. Detached, maybe. Controlled, yes. But you’ve felt the kind of pain that hollows a person out, and this—this doesn’t look like that.

The person in the photos doesn’t match the one tied to you by pain and sleepless nights. The world paints him as a monster of precision, a boy who traded his heart for discipline, who doesn’t feel anything except victory. But you know better. You’ve felt him. The quiet agony that used to hum through your bones wasn’t born from pride or perfection. It was loneliness. It was exhaustion. It was someone who hurt enough to make the universe take notice.

You scroll until your eyes sting. Clip after clip. Headline after headline. And still, you don’t find anything that resembles the person your body recognizes. In fact, you would have scrolled indefinitely until you find an article buried deep in a sports blog dated only a few days ago.

“Though originally scheduled to return to Spain following passport renewal, sources say Itoshi Sae has shown interest in Japan’s Blue Lock project and may remain for the foreseeable future.”

You stare at the words until they blur.

Then you close the tab, shut your laptop, and lie back on your bed. You trace the old scar on your knee with your thumb with a quiet exhale.

You stare at the ceiling as the ache behind your ribs starts to simmer again. You don’t know if it’s yours or his anymore—only that it’s still there, pulsing in time with a stranger’s heartbeat.

For a moment, you almost pity him.

Because no one that brilliant should have to bleed this much just to shine.

…

“Come on, it’s Oliver’s birthday this weekend,” Ayane pleads over the phone one day. “He’s renting out a place in Roppongi. It’ll be fun!”

You nearly drop your pen. “As in Roppongi Roppongi?”

“Yes, duh.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Ayane, that’s underage drinking.”

She laughs like you’ve told her a joke. “Please. We can totally pass for twenty.”

“That’s not the point.”

“The point is,” she cuts in, “you’re coming with me. I’m not going alone.”

You open your mouth to refuse, but the image of Ayane in some too-short dress, hanging off Oliver’s arm in a district known for everything your parents warned you about flashes in your head. The thought of her going there alone knots your stomach.

You sigh. “Fine. But I’m not dressing up.”

Ayane cheers like she’s just scored a victory. “You never do!”

When the fated day comes, the summer night air is thick by the time you reach the station. You’ve done exactly as you promised—plain shirt, long, flowy skirt, and sneakers. Something you can run in, if it comes to that. The district is alive with neon lights bleeding into the pavement, and the smell of asphalt and alcohol hanging in the heat.

Ayane arrives two minutes later, already dazzling under the street lamps. Her top is cropped within an inch of its life, her skirt definitely illegal in several prefectures, and her lipstick a dangerous shade of red. You take one look at her and wordlessly hold out the extra jacket you brought.

She blinks. “What’s this for?”

“You,” you say flatly. “Because I don’t trust your shitty boyfriend to have one.”

Ayane laughs, throwing her arms around you. “You’re the best. I knew you’d have my back.”

The bar Oliver rented out is small but expensive-looking—black marble counters, low lights, the faint thrum of bass curling through the air. A banner that says HAPPY BIRTHDAY OLIVER!! hangs crooked above the bar, surrounded by a few too many bottles already opened. It’s a place that reeks of money and pretense.

Oliver spots Ayane first and breaks into a grin. “There’s my girl!”

You hang back as she runs into his arms, watching the way he leans down to kiss her like he’s performing for an audience. You’ve met him twice before—once at the mall, once outside a karaoke bar—and both times, you left with the same impression: charming in that slippery, practiced way people use to get what they want.

“You remember my best friend, right?”

Oliver turns his head, and his grin sharpens. “Of course. Hard to forget.”

You force a polite smile. “Hi.”

“Hey,” he says easily, eyes flicking down and up in one slow sweep that makes your skin crawl. “Didn’t realize Ayane’s best friend was this cute before.”

Ayane laughs, swatting his arm. “Stop, you’re embarrassing me.”

You smile tighter, knuckles whitening around the strap of your bag. The only reason you don’t clock him right there is because it’s his birthday—and because Ayane’s eyes are too bright, too happy to ruin it for her.

For now.

…

You tell yourself you’ll stay for an hour. Two, if Ayane needs you.

The bar hums with too much bass, too much laughter, too much everything. You pick a corner stool by the bar, the farthest one from the music, and order a glass of water despite the bartender’s confused look.

“Just water?” he asks.

“Just water,” you repeat, because someone in this place needs to remember sobriety exists.

The glass comes slick with cold. You press it to your lips, scanning the crowd over the rim. Most of Oliver’s guests look familiar only because you’ve seen them before, sprinting across the field or on Ayane’s phone screen when she’s bragging about her boyfriend’s team. A few wear the U-20 crest on their jackets, half a drink away from spilling secrets they shouldn’t.

You search for red hair and don’t find it. The relief hits embarrassingly fast.

Good. You can handle Oliver. You can handle athletes pretending they aren’t below drinking age. What you can’t handle is running into him. Not when you still don’t know how to breathe around the truth that binds you together.

So you do what you came here to do: keep an eye on Ayane.

She’s radiant, spinning between tables, laughing too hard at Oliver’s teammates’ jokes, her borrowed jacket tied loosely around her waist. You track her like a tether. It’s easier to focus on her than the haze pressing in from all sides, and the faint burn of spilled alcohol staining the air.

You were an athlete once. You remember the discipline that came with it. So seeing top-level players like Oliver chugging liquor like it’s water makes something in you recoil with disgust. It’s all so loud, so far from the quiet hum of purpose you grew up with.

You’re so busy staring at Ayane’s outline through the shifting crowd that you don’t notice someone sitting beside you until a voice cuts clean through the noise.

“Water,” he says to the bartender.

You glance sideways—just polite enough to acknowledge, just careful enough not to engage—and then your breath catches mid-sip.

For a moment, you’re not sure if it’s the lighting or your brain short-circuiting. But the color of his hair gives him away before anything else—the unmistakable maroon, muted in the bar’s dim glow. Then his side profile, sharp and unyielding, with a face cameras adore and people call cold because they don’t know what else to name it.

Itoshi Sae is less than five feet away from you, sitting like he has every right to be there.

Your first instinct is to look away. Your second is to bolt. But neither comes fast enough; the world’s already narrowed to the sound of his voice and the distance between you that’s suddenly too small.

You’ve imagined meeting your soulmate a hundred different ways, but none of them included the faint smell of gin in the air, or the buzz of a bad pop remix vibrating through the floor.

Yet, here he is.

As real as the ache still hiding behind your ribs.

For a while, neither of you say anything. You’re both just two people sitting side by side, pretending the air between you isn’t crackling. Sae isn’t even looking at you; his gaze drifts over the crowd with the same detached calm he wears on the field.

You try to focus on the chaos—Oliver laughing too loudly, someone clinking shot glasses, Ayane half-dancing with a drink she probably can’t handle—but the awareness of him presses against your skin like heat.

You don’t notice you’ve been fidgeting until his voice cuts through the noise.

“Are you an athlete?”

You blink. No greeting. No introduction.

For a second, your brain refuses to catch up. What kind of question is that? Does he know who you are? Who Ayane is? He wasn’t supposed to be here at all—you’d assumed he only joined the U-20 squad for that Blue Lock match. So what is he doing in a Roppongi bar surrounded by temporary teammates and cheap neon light?

And why is he talking to you?

You clear your throat, trying to find your voice somewhere between disbelief and the faint tremor under your skin. “I used to be. Why’d you ask?”

Sae hums before taking a measured sip of his drink. His sea-green eyes flick toward you for the briefest moment.

“I saw your knee brace.”

The words land like a punch.

You freeze as your breath snags in your throat. Your skirt covers it—you’d made sure of that. He shouldn’t have noticed it at all unless…

Your foot had been propped on the rung of your stool earlier.

You feel heat rise to your cheeks before you can stop it. “Oh, yeah. It’s an old injury. Started acting up again, so I—uh—thought I’d wear it just in case.”

Sae only hums again. He doesn’t press. He doesn’t even look like he’s listening, eyes half-turned back toward the crowd. But nonetheless, you can feel the pull. That silent, unspoken thread that vibrates between you like a heartbeat neither of you can claim.

Does he know?

Does he know about the pain he carved into you without ever touching you? Does he know about the dream you tossed aside just for the sake of getting back at him? Does he know that your pulse has been sprinting ever since he sat down?

…Will it even matter if he does?

But despite how carefully you both preserve this silence, it doesn’t last.

It starts with a tremor at the edge of the crowd—raised voices, the scrape of a chair, a glass shattering somewhere too close to the music. You turn instinctively, catching sight of a woman you’re certain wasn’t there before. She’s older than the rest of you, mid-twenties at least, her dress short enough to make a statement and her heels sharp enough to follow through on it.

She looks furious.

“What the hell, Oliver?” Her voice cuts like a blade. “Who is that brat?”

You follow the direction of her glare and your stomach drops.

Of course she means Ayane.

Oliver’s got an arm around her shoulders, grinning that easy, careless grin he’s always had—one that looks good in photos and terrible everywhere else. But the second the older woman opens her mouth again, even he can’t smirk his way out of it.

“I thought you said I was the only one,” she snaps. “You told me you weren’t seeing anyone else!”

Ayane blinks, her expression freezing halfway between confusion and horror. “He told me you were just an old friend!”

You can almost see the headache forming behind Oliver’s eyes. He exhales, palms up, like he’s trying to settle a pair of unruly pets. “Ladies, come on. Can we not do this here? It’s my birthday. Let’s just relax, yeah?”

The woman’s response is to swing her purse at him.

It hits his arm with a sharp whack that makes the nearest table burst into laughter. Ayane lets out a shocked noise and suddenly she’s throwing herself forward, nails and all. The crowd erupts. Phones come out. Someone yells, “Do it again!” and that’s all it takes for the bar to devolve into complete chaos.

You’re already on your feet, cursing under your breath. “For god’s sake—Ayane!”

You wedge yourself between them, grabbing at her arm. She’s stronger than she looks when she’s drunk, all flailing limbs and misplaced fury.

“She called me a brat!” she slurs, trying to kick free. “She called me—”

Her kitten heel catches your knee.

Right where the brace is.

The pain flares white-hot, so sudden you almost see stars. You stumble back, hand flying to your leg as your breath hitches in your chest. The world narrows to a single throb—deep, familiar, and cruelly precise.

Ayane and the woman are still shouting. Oliver’s pretending to mediate but mostly just shielding his face. The rest of the bar watches like it’s free entertainment.

You steady yourself on a nearby table with gritted teeth, willing the pain to ebb. But across the room—

Sae shifts.

He hasn’t moved much since the chaos started, still seated at the bar, one hand curled around his untouched glass of water. But now his jaw tenses. His fingers flex once before sliding down to his right knee.

He doesn’t look at you right away, but you feel it all the same—the pulse that jumps between you, invisible but undeniable. That same echo of pain, the aching flicker that kept you company in late nights and early mornings.

You bite down hard on the inside of your cheek, breathing through the sensation. When your gaze finally meets his across the crowd, you realize he felt it too.

Neither of you say anything. The connection speaks for itself.

Like an ache that doesn’t know it’s supposed to heal.

…

By the time the night’s noise fades behind you, Ayane’s half-asleep on your shoulder, and her breath smells like peach schnapps and regret.

You keep an arm wrapped around her as you guide her down the quiet street, her heels clicking unevenly against the pavement. She’s clutching your jacket to her chest like a security blanket, mumbling something incoherent between sniffles.

“I told you those shoes were a bad idea,” you murmur, mostly to fill the silence.

She lets out a wet laugh. “You told me Oliver was a bad idea.”

“Well,” you say softly, “I wasn’t wrong.”

“Yeah. You were right.” Ayane sniffles, her voice cracking halfway. “He’s the worst. I can’t believe I fought someone over him.”

You glance down at her. The smeared eyeliner, the reddened nose, the faint scratches tracing her arm.

“You’re not the first person to make a bad call while drunk,” you tell her. “Just—maybe don’t date guys who drink under twenty next time.”

“Okay,” she says, small and sincere, leaning more of her weight against you. “I promise. No more shady guys.”

“Good.”

“I’ll stay loyal to my soulmate instead.”

You nearly trip over your own feet. “What?”

Ayane giggles weakly, eyes half-lidded as she looks up at you. “Isn’t that what you’re doing? Waiting for yours?”

The words hit harder than they should. You open your mouth, then close it again. There’s nothing to say that doesn’t sound like a lie.

“You’re drunk, Ayane.”

“I’m observant,” she mumbles.

You don’t answer. By the time you reach her house, her head’s already lolling against your shoulder again. You manage to get her up the steps and ring the doorbell with your elbow. The porch light flickers on.

“Go to bed, okay?” you say, gently pulling your jacket from her hands once she’s inside.

She nods. “’Night, soulmate girl.”

The porch light flickers once, then fades. The street settles into stillness.

Each step back crunches against the gravel, the weight of the night pressing down heavier with every breath. You’re still thinking about Ayane’s words when the car comes into view. Black, sleek, and idling at the curb.

Sae’s elbow rests on the window frame, head tilted slightly, sea-green eyes following you even before you reach him. The streetlight turns his hair to copper, and makes his expression even more indecipherable.

You clutch your bag tighter, unsure what to do with the sudden awareness crawling up your spine. “You didn’t have to wait.”

His reply is instant. “You shouldn’t walk alone at night.”

There’s no softness in it—just that same flat certainty he probably uses to tell people how to play football. Like facts are things you obey, not argue with.

You huff out a quiet laugh, too tired to hide your annoyance. “You really didn’t have to—”

“I’m already here.”

“…Do you always talk like that?”

He doesn’t answer.

You shake your head and reach for the back door anyway, but his voice cuts through the still air before you can slide in.

“Don’t treat me like some drive for hire.”

Your hand freezes. “Excuse me?”

His reflection catches yours in the rearview mirror, eyes narrowing just enough to be infuriating. “Sit in the passenger seat.”

You stare at him for a beat. “Are all geniuses this bossy, or is it just you?”

Nothing. Not even a smirk.

You sigh, muttering under your breath as you circle to the front. The leather creaks softly as you sink into the passenger seat, refusing to look at him. For a moment, neither of you speak. The engine hums low, the city outside blurring into quiet shapes through the windshield.

It takes you a minute to realize he’s waiting for you to tell him where you live.

You clear your throat, trying not to sound as flustered as you feel. “Uh—left at the next corner. Then straight for a few blocks.”

Sae doesn’t say anything, but his hand finds the gearshift, movements smooth and practiced. The car groans forward and the city lights slide past in streaks of white and amber. It’s quiet. So much that it leaves lots of space for thought.

You glance sideways despite yourself.

His sleeves are rolled just enough to show the sharp line of his forearm, a silver watch glinting whenever the light changes. The pinstriped shirt and tailored slacks fit him a little too well; even his posture radiates precision. Everything about him feels controlled—down to the way his fingers rest on the wheel like they own it.

Your eyes trail to his face before you can stop them. Strong jaw. Unbothered expression. The faintest crease between his brows that might mean irritation or focus. You can’t tell the difference anymore.

And then his gaze flicks toward you.

You tear your eyes away immediately. Great. Perfect. Exactly how you wanted to spend your night—getting caught staring at your soulmate like some lovesick idiot after watching your best friend brawl in a bar.

“So you’re the one who’s been giving me a hard time.”

You blink. “What?”

Sae doesn’t look at you. “Do you know what that injury of yours cost me back in Spain?” His tone is maddeningly calm, almost conversational. “A place on the starting roster. I could’ve snagged it earlier if you’d just taken better care of yourself.”

You gape at him. “If I’d taken better—? Are you serious right now?”

“Do I look like I’m joking?”

Something hot snaps inside you. “You— You think I wanted this? You think I asked to feel your pain every time you got tackled or twisted your knee chasing a ball halfway across the world?”

Your voice cracks, but you don’t care. The words spill out like they’ve been waiting years to escape. “It’s not just the bruises, Sae. You think I don’t know what it’s like when your chest feels so empty, you want to die? When it feels like you’re running on fumes just to keep going? You think I don’t feel that too?”

His knuckles tense on the steering wheel. A muscle in his jaw shifts, the only sign that your words have hit somewhere close to home.

You lean back, the air between you buzzing with everything unspoken. “Don’t you dare act like this is all my fault. I’ve been carrying your hurt for as long as I can remember.”

The car slows to a red light. Sae clicks his tongue once, before turning his head toward you.

“Then stop feeling it,” he says flatly.

Your pulse spikes. “Then stop causing it!”

It comes out sharper than you intend, breathless and shaking. Your heart’s pounding so hard it almost drowns out the traffic outside. You hate the way he makes you feel. Cornered. Small.

Alive.

Sae studies you for a long moment, his expression unreadable under the glow of the stoplight. For a second, you think he might snap back. But instead, his gaze softens like a shadow easing off a wall.

“You shouldn’t let it control you,” he says finally.

But it’s never been about control. This thread between you has been cutting into your ribs since you were children—something beyond control or reason. You even promised yourself, if you ever met him, you’d tell him to be careful.

But there’s nothing careful about Itoshi Sae.

The light turns green. He looks away, one hand shifting back to the wheel.

“Try to rest,” he murmurs, eyes forward again. “You’ve had enough for one night.”

You want to argue, but you don’t. Instead, his car rolls on as the city unfolds around you, and for once, the silence doesn’t feel entirely unbearable.

…

Itoshi Sae is the most demanding person you’ve ever met.

You learned that the same night he dropped you off. He didn’t even wait for you to say thank you or slam the car door shut in righteous fury. Instead, he shoved his phone into your hands and said:

“Type your number.”

You blinked, certain you misheard. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Your number,” he deadpanned. “Put it in.”

You stared at him, completely lost. After everything you talked about, you’d expected him to want nothing to do with you. Honestly, you were fine with that. What could you possibly offer a man who already had everything?

Your thumb hovered awkwardly over his phone screen. “Why?”

Sae rolled his eyes. “So I can tell you to stop being a nuisance. In case you decide to start crying or whatever on your end of the bond and it distracts me in the middle of a game.”

You gaped. “Crying? Excuse me—”

“Just type it in.”

You did, mostly because it was easier than arguing with him again. He snatched the phone back without another word, saved the contact, and drove off before you could tell him to fuck off.

That was that.

That night became the blueprint for your so-called relationship: a tangled mix of snark and irritation, stitched together by a soulbond neither of you wanted.

Days passed. Then weeks. You don’t hear from Sae aside from the headline about him renewing his passport and flying back to Spain.

You tell yourself you didn’t care. Not about him, not about the dull ache that settled under your ribs whenever the bond went quiet again. It isn’t longing. Just... background noise.

Until one afternoon, while you were buried in notes for your midterm, your phone buzzes.

World’s Shittiest Midfielder: can you stop

Me: ?

Me: stop what

World’s Shittiest Midfielder: that

World’s Shittiest Midfielder: you’re picking at a scab on the back of your foot

Me: ...you’re bothered by THAT?

World’s Shittiest Midfielder: i’m in the middle of a meeting. cut it out.

You grin. Then, out of pure spite, you dig your nail under the edge of the scab and rip it clean off with a yelp in surprise.

World’s Shittiest Midfielder: what the fuck is wrong with you

Me: consider it payback for the car lecture, genius.

Three dots blink for a moment before vanishing.

You leaned back in your chair, smiling to yourself despite the sting in your heel. Maybe this was your new normal—occasional cross-continental bickering with a world-class footballer who happened to share your pain, your pulse, and your bad habits.

You could live with that.

Probably.

…

You don’t hear from Sae for weeks after that.

No texts, no calls, no late-night complaints about phantom paper cuts or the occasional pulled muscle. The quiet is almost disorienting. You’re loath to admit, but you’ve gotten used to the constant static of his irritation.

But then, summer fades, and your mother falls ill right when the heat finally breaks.

The days start shortening, and your world follows suit. Between lectures and two part-time jobs, your life blurs into a rhythm of running between work, school, and the hospital. You learn the names of every nurse on the night shift, the brand of the bitter coffee from the vending machine downstairs. You start sleeping in chairs.

You don’t think about Sae much. Except when you feel that familiar hollow ache in your chest flare—like the bond itself has turned brittle with all the grief you’re carrying.

When your phone buzzes at midnight, you almost ignore it. But the screen lights up with an international number, and your stomach sinks. You swipe to answer, pressing the phone against your ear as quietly as you can.

Sae’s voice cuts through, cool and irritated as ever. “What the hell’s going on with you?”

You close your eyes. “Hi to you too.”

“I’ve been feeling it for a month,” he goes on. “Whatever it is—it’s unbearable. If this is you spiraling again, I’d rather quit soccer than deal with another second of it.”

You huff out something that might be a laugh if it weren’t so broken. Your gaze drifts to your mother, her face half-hidden under the hospital’s dim light.

“Are you done?”

Sae exhales through the receiver. “Do you want me to add more?”

You shake your head, even though he can’t see it. A small, bitter smile tugs at your lips. “I wish I could stop hurting, Sae. I wish I could rip this stupid soulbond out so neither of us has to feel each other anymore.”

Your throat tightens, but the words don’t stop. “I wish my mom’s soulmate didn’t leave her too early. Maybe then I wouldn’t have to watch her slowly die alone.”

The silence rings so loud in your ears, it almost stings.

Finally, he asks, “What do you mean?”

You wipe your tears with the back of your sleeve, voice dropping to a whisper. “It’s nothing, Sae. I’ll get my shit together soon. Good night.”

“Hey—”

You hang up before he can finish.

The phone slips from your hand and lands in your lap. The heart monitor keeps its steady rhythm beside you, and for a moment, you pretend that’s enough.

…

You’ve been seriously considering dropping out.

It’s your last year of high school, but the two part-time jobs you’re juggling aren’t enough to cover your mother’s medication for long. When you bring it up to her, she cries—hands trembling as she clasps yours, pressing her forehead against your knuckles like she’s praying.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m sorry the burden has to fall on your shoulders.”

You shake your head so fast it almost hurts. “It’s not a burden, Mom. I love you. Of course I’ll do everything I can to keep you alive.”

And you mean it. Even if it means pressing pause on your own life for a while.

That afternoon, while she sleeps soundly beside you, you’re back to scrolling through job listings—anything that’ll pay more than your current shifts. The glow of your laptop makes the room feel smaller. You’re trying not to think about how much longer you can stretch your savings when the door opens.

It’s one of the nurses. She’s usually kind but careful, always wearing that look of pity that makes your stomach twist. Today, though, her face is lit up.

“Good news,” she says. “Your mother’s outstanding balance has been paid in full.”

“…What?”

She nods. “And the referrals to the specialists you mentioned—those will be billed to the anonymous donor. You can start arranging for further treatment right away.”

You stare at her for a long second, half-suspicious. “This isn’t a scam, is it?”

“Not at all.” The nurse laughs softly. “You can check the billing records yourself. Everything’s been processed. Would you like me to contact the specialists on call?”

Your eyes flicker to your mother—the frail rise and fall of her chest, her once-strong hands now folded weakly over the blanket. The woman who taught you there was something sacred in pain. You don’t even think twice before nodding.

“Yes. Please.”

Later, while your mother is surrounded by a new team of doctors, you find yourself staring at your phone, thumbs hovering over a contact name you just thought of changing last minute.

Me: you didn’t have to do all that.

Me: how did you even know where to wire the money, asshole…

Sae: ?

Sae: what are you talking about

You huff out a laugh. He’s a terrible liar. But the grief that’s been curling in your chest for weeks finally loosens a little.

Me: whatever

Me: thanks, genius

Me: i might owe you one after all

Sae: i’ll fly back to japan next week

Me: so soon? could’ve sworn you just tried to run me over with your car

Sae: if you want to pay me back, treat me to dinner on the 10th. that’s my birthday

Me: you’re booking a flight for a birthday dinner????

Sae: i’m just collecting what i’m owed

You laugh, too loud for a hospital room. A doctor glances over; your mother does too, but you don’t apologize.

Because for the first time, your heart stirs at the thought of Itoshi Sae—not in anger, but something dangerously close to affection.

…

It’s already mid-autumn, and you’ve missed the first few weeks of your last year—something that would’ve wrecked you months ago. But now that your mom’s treatment is covered, and she’s stable enough for you to leave her bedside without guilt, you can actually breathe again.

Ayane nearly tackles you the moment you step into the classroom. She insists on helping you catch up, piling notes and worksheets on your desk like a one-woman rescue mission.

Halfway through reviewing algebra problems, she blurts out, “By the way, I was the one who told Sae about your mom.”

You blink. “You—what?”

Ayane pouts, twirling her pen. “Sorry! You were burning yourself out on both ends! Someone had to do something.”

You stare at her, horrified. “Ayane.”

“What?” she says, lips twitching. “Who am I to keep your soulmate from knowing something that important?”

The words hit you like a bullet.

Oh god. She knows.

Heat floods your face instantly, and you drop your pen, burying your head in your textbook.

“He told you about our soulbond?”

Ayane grins like she’s watching her favorite drama unfold. “Don’t give me that look! That’s Itoshi Sae! Your soulmate is a literal football superstar, and you’re shy about it?”

You groan. “Please shut up before I evaporate on the spot.”

Her laughter rings out across the study hall, drawing a few looks your way. But she eventually lets you off the hook, mumbling about how “soulmate privilege” should come with bragging rights.

The rest of the week passes in relative peace. You start feeling like a normal high school student again. But then your phone buzzes that evening while you’re eating dinner in the hospital room with your mother.

Sae: flight just landed.

Sae: hope you didn’t forget about tomorrow.

Me: yeah, yeah.

Me: all you’re getting is cheap katsu curry though

Me: no complaints or i’ll poison your food

Sae: 👍

You snort softly, shaking your head. The sound draws your mother’s attention. She’s sitting up, eating her soup with a bit more color in her cheeks than before.

“Who are you texting?” she asks, her tone light but curious.

You freeze. Then, without thinking, you tell her, “You’ll meet him soon.”

The words hang in the air like smoke. Your brain immediately short-circuits.

What the hell did you just say?

Your mom just smiles, completely unaware of your internal meltdown.

Later that night, you curl up on the couch you’ve claimed as your own, the room dim except for the faint glow of the monitors. You tell yourself you’re only staying up because you’re not tired.

But when the clock hits midnight, you unlock your phone, open your messages, and type before you can second-guess it.

Me: happy birthday, genius.

…

You are eighteen when Itoshi Sae asks you to be his girlfriend.

Except he doesn’t really ask, and you don’t really answer.

It happens on graduation day.

The sky is painfully blue, the kind that almost hurts to look at, and the air smells faintly of cherry blossoms drifting in from the courtyard. Your uniform is crisp for once, the pleats sharp and the ribbon tied neatly beneath your collar.

Your mom is sitting in the front row, clapping like her hands might fall off, eyes shining with pride that makes your throat ache. Beside you, Ayane is sniffling onstage—mascara already smudged, clutching your hand so tightly you can feel her nails through your sleeve.

When the principal finally announces your class, she lets out a watery laugh. “We actually did it,” she whispers, voice wobbling.

You bump your shoulder against hers. “Told you we would.”

It’s true. You made it.

Through the sleepless nights, the part-time jobs, the grief that used to gnaw at your ribs. What’s more is that the soulbond that once felt like a chain doesn’t drag anymore; it just hums quietly, a familiar weight you’ve learned to live with.

Sometimes, when Sae’s overseas, you forget it’s even there. Other times, you feel the faint pulse of him through it, steady and distant, like a heartbeat echoing from another world.

Having Sae as a soulmate doesn’t hurt anymore.

Not even the seven-hour time difference can stop you from blowing up his phone with inane messages when you’re bored: screenshots of terrible memes, blurry photos of your mom’s cooking, voice notes of Ayane snoring during class. He replies more often now, though he’ll never admit it.

Sae: stop sending me things when i’m in training.

Me: just thought you needed motivation.

Sae: you’re insufferable.

Me: you love it.

Sae: shut up.

You’re not really sure what to call whatever this is.

Friends? More than friends? Something in between?

Sure, maybe you had fun during his last visit to Japan. Maybe your mom had taken one look at him and said, “He’s polite. I like him,” which was suspiciously high praise. (She still doesn’t know he’s the one who paid her hospital bills, and you plan to keep it that way.)

Maybe you’d kissed the corner of his mouth in the hospital hallway before he left for his flight. Just a soft, nervous brush of lips, quick enough to pass for gratitude. You hadn’t looked back to see his reaction, but you felt it. The bond flared hot in your chest, pulsing with something wild and new before settling back to stillness.

That was months ago. You told yourself it didn’t mean anything. You told yourself you didn’t mean anything. At least, not to Itoshi Sae.

So why the hell is he ambling by the school gates like some sort of delinquent?

He’s standing under a blooming cherry blossom tree like he walked out of a commercial for expensive cologne. He’s wearing the same pinstriped shirt from Oliver’s birthday last year, sleeves rolled to his elbows, dark slacks tailored too perfectly for someone who insists he doesn’t care about appearances.

Behind him, his poor manager Dabadie looks seconds away from a cardiac arrest, scanning the crowd like the paparazzi might materialize from the bushes.

He’s not supposed to be back in Japan this soon. He’s not supposed to be here at all.

You break off from your mother, who’s busy chatting with Ayane’s parents, and march up to him, clutching your diploma to your chest.

“What are you doing here?” you ask in an attempt to sound casual. “You usually tell me about your visits like I should be grateful you’re gracing Japanese soil again.”

Sae doesn’t rise to the bait. He doesn’t even blink.

Instead, he gestures toward Dabadie—who looks immensely relieved to be acknowledged—and takes a bouquet from his arms. It’s a gorgeous arrangement of hydrangeas the same blue-green shade as his eyes. Nestled in the center is a small velvet box.

He holds it out to you.

“Congrats,” he says simply.

You blink at him. Then at the flowers. Then back at him.

“You…what— Sae, what is this—”

He just smiles, and you begrudgingly take the bouquet because, well, what else can you do? The velvet box wobbles slightly between the blooms, and when you open it, there’s a necklace inside. Silver. Simple. The pendant bears a single kanji.

His name.

You stare at it for a long moment. “You’re impossible.”

“Yeah,” he says, hands in his pockets. “You say that a lot.”

Before you can respond, your mom swoops in. She lights up when she sees him, linking her arm with his like they’ve known each other for years.

“Sae-kun! You came all this way! Oh, you shouldn’t have,” she gushes, eyes sparkling. “You look thinner—are you eating enough?”

You’re… stunned. The cold, snarky Itoshi Sae, looking almost sheepish under your mother’s fussing. He’s actually letting her straighten his collar.

Dabadie appears at your side, lowering his voice. “He arranged for a celebratory lunch at his favorite restaurant. Don’t worry about the expenses.”

You pinch the bridge of your nose. “Of course he did.”

Later, in the car, the flowers rest between you. Your mother is engrossed in conversation with his manager at the front. Sae reaches for the necklace box, wordlessly lifting the chain from its cushion. You hesitate only a second before turning your back to him. His fingers brush your skin as he fastens the clasp, warm and careful.

For a moment, the bond hums—steady and bright.

You glance at him over your shoulder. “You really didn’t have to do all this.”

“I wanted to,” he says flatly.

And you realize, in that quiet stretch of spring sunlight, that there are still so many things you don’t know about him. You don’t know why he carries so much pain that goes beyond soccer. You’ve never even met his brother or his family. You don’t know what made him decide to show up here and now.

But you do know that he likes salted seaweed with his rice. That he’s weirdly fixated on athletes’ butts. That he has an inexplicable fondness for seagulls.

There’s so much you don’t know about Itoshi Sae.

But when the car slows to a stop outside the restaurant and you catch the small, absentminded smile on his stupidly pretty face, you think maybe you have all the time in the world to learn.

The hydrangeas in your lap rustle softly as you smile.

“Hey, Sae?”

“Hmm?” He glances over as he unbuckles his seatbelt. “What is it?”

“...I’ll pay for dessert.”

That earns you a faint laugh—one that makes flowers bloom inside your chest as he flashes you a rare, but beautiful smile.

“Deal.”