at age seven, isagi learns two things. one, universal truths are always in the present tense (his teacher told him so), and two, you kiss the people you love (his mom told him so). knowing these, he kisses you under the slide in the playground, because he loves you, at least as he understands it at his age.
at age sixteen, isagi decides two things. one, he will become the best striker in the world, and two, he still loves you, albeit a little more than his seven year old self previously thought. but instead of kissing you, he hugs you tightly before he boards the bus to blue lock, and he takes in all the details of you. he thinks of the smell of your shampoo and the melody of your laugh while he's there, but he never tells anyone that.
at age twenty eight, isagi achieves two things. one, he wins the world cup, and two, he gives you his last name. the kiss you share at the altar is wetter and saltier than the one you shared under the slide, thanks to your tears, but his feelings engrave themselves into your memory all the same. he kisses you again for good measure, much to everyone's amusement, and wonders how his love for you is meant to stay in the present tense when it exists in all past, present, and future tenses.
it's so hilarious how yukimiya is canonically the unluckiest character, i imagine he would have such a hard time trying to impress his crush.
being a model, yukimiya knows his angles and how to carry himself, but somehow, you never catch him in the most flattering positions. the first time you meet, you see him trying to catch the snack his friend was going to throw into his mouth, but his friend sneezes right when the snack is launched and yukimiya gets hit in the eye (yes, the snack somehow gets past his glasses. how does that even happen?). on another day, he sees you stranded at a bus stop near the school because it's pouring and you didn't have an umbrella, but when he walks towards you in hopes of getting to share his umbrella with you, he slips on a puddle and lands on his butt with a splash.
while yukimiya always has a smile on his face, his close friends would know that it isn't always genuine, and behind his polite friendliness, he loved to gossip. the unfortunate thing is, you've caught him more than once in a less than ideal situation. for example, after politely rejecting a classmate's confession, he turned around to roll his eyes because she could barely give a good reason beyond his looks for why she had feelings for him, just for you to be right in front of him to see his scoff up close. ah, not to mention that one time you overheard yukimiya snickering with his friends about a teacher looking like a turtle. it still keeps him up at night sometimes.
yukimiya knows that it's impossible to keep up his smile all the time, but at the very least, he wants you to always see him smiling, so he makes sure to try extra hard whenever you're around. or at least whenever he thinks you're around.
it's one of those days when everything is just a little too much to bear, so yukimiya excuses himself from soccer training to catch a breath in a corner of the school compound, hidden from view behind a vending machine. but of course, it's just his luck that you happen to use the one next to him, out of all the vending machines in the school. he brushes off your concern when you ask why he's crouched on the ground, and he slaps on a smile as he tries to distract you with some small talk. yet, you seem unconvinced, so you buy him a drink and crouch next to him.
in your bid to comfort him, you recount the silly situations you've seen him in, not realising that he's burying his face deeper into his hands with every word you say. you let it slip that you think these sides of him are cute, and although many, including himself, think of yukimiya as calm and composed, he looks up at you with wide eyes and an uncontrollable blush.
perhaps the itoshi divide is in the way they love.
when itoshi sae loves you, he finally stops settling for less. his eyes glow with a newfound passion to no longer stay beaten down by the world, but break the limits he set on himself. he puts in the work to become the best he could be, to become the person you deserve, to become irreplaceable, at least in your eyes. sae builds himself up to one day fulfil the dream he once forgotten; he builds you up to surpass anything you ever thought you were capable of. he melds and meshes your strengths together and shapes your contours into his, and his into yours. with you by his side, sae forges the path ahead, paves it prettily so you don't ever have to suffer.
when itoshi rin loves you, all his walls crumble. the ice in his eyes melt and the sharp edge of his voice dulls. the insistent, relentless thrum of his heart slows, but his footsteps towards you thunder nonetheless. rin stops looking down from above; he lets himself come close enough to take apart and internalize every inch of you. he drops his lofty speech and lowers his prideful ego, obedient only to your beck and call. the podium under his feet disintegrates and he falls down his priority list, just a notch. with you by his side, rin tears away the bits of himself he plasters on for others to see and strips down his bells and whistles—for you, he is only ever just himself.
and this is the itoshi divide: while sae loves you to creation, rin loves you to ruin.
imagine being hiori's online friend; you first met on league and bonded over trash talking your opponents. you found his calm, snarky insults hilarious, so you asked for his discord and steam. without fail, you game with him every night at eleven pm. at least, until he completely fell off the grid one day.
he didn't respond to your discord invite to call, nor did he even see your message asking to game. although you initially suspected he was ghosting you, you come to realise that he hasn't even been logging in to any of his games, which meant he hadn't been gaming at all. when a week passes and it's still radio silence from hiori, you get worried. you regret not asking him a little more about himself, because how useful can knowing he's from the kansai region be if something bad actually happened to him?
almost two months after his sudden disappearance, you get a message from hiori saying, "sorry, got locked in a facility without internet access. apex?", and what else can you say to that but "what the fuck?"
it's two am, and you call reo to pick you up because you're tipsy and none of your friends have a ride home. although reo always has a driver available, he picks up the car keys himself and drives to the bar you were at.
your friends thank reo, giggle about his nice car, and coo about how lucky you are. in response, you slur, "right? reo is the best. i'm the luckiest person on earth to have him as my best friend!", and fall asleep once it's just the two of you left in the car.
reo turns up the heater and lowers the intensity of the massager built into the passenger seat, just how he knows you like it. the rest of the car ride is silent, and reo starts to think.
he thinks about how you always grab onto his hand in crowded areas, how you're never afraid of asking him for help, how you never shy away from comforting and accepting him even when he tells you about his mistakes. he thinks about how your judgement of him has never once been clouded by his wealth and status, how you're always willing to call him out on his bratty ways and tease him for his sheltered upbringing, how you never fail to challenge him and push him out of his comfort zone. he thinks about how your friends trust him just as much as you do, how even nagi is willing to get out of bed to help you when reo's unable to, how his parents stopped setting him up on blind dates after seeing the way he smiles around you.
he thinks about you, and all the memories you've shared, and of the future together that you occasionally discuss. he thinks about how well your hand fits into his, how well you fit into his life. he thinks about how everything has always been given to him on a diamond platter, but despite his ability to get everything he wants, you still sit in his passenger seat, less than an arm's length away and out of reach.
"best friend, huh," reo mumbles, and perhaps he truly is a spoilt brat, because he doubts he can stay content with what he has for any longer.
you meet itoshi sae on a plane to japan by pure coincidence.
you were given a seat free upgrade, and somehow, you end up on the other side of the aisle from the famous footballer. you try not to stare, you really do, but it's your first time being this close to a celebrity, much less one who was so unfairly attractive, so you forgive yourself for being this starstruck. you thank every god out there that he's fast asleep so he doesn't notice you looking.
what you don't realise is itoshi sae himself, all pride and ego, is also stealing glances at you while you slept peacefully, curled into your seat. he's met models, actresses, pretty daughters of important figures, which is why he finds your serene, unguarded expression all the more intriguing.
the air stewardess hands you a note with a smile as you disembark the plane, saying it was from the man who sat across the aisle. you open it only to see a date, time, and the name of a rather fancy restaurant.
sae isn't good with words. he knows, because you once told him that he sucked at comforting you when you were down. you weren't blaming him, though. if anything, his clumsy attempt at asking you what was wrong only made your heart feel lighter. how could you complain, when you could see so clearly how hard he was trying to sound sensitive and warm?
instead, sae brings you comfort in other ways. he holds your hand in silence while you cry and supplies you with tissues and hugs until your breathing evens out and you fall asleep in his arms. he wakes up even earlier than his stupid athlete schedule dictates to make you a bento on days he knows you're sure to forget about lunch, because your schedule is equally as packed as his, if not more. he keeps a hand on the small of your back when you're in an overly crowded place and uses his coldest stare to ward off unwanted attention. he 'forgets' his shirt at home when he leaves for a match overseas, and never fails to bring back a souvenir for you when he returns.
so even if sae is terrible at telling you things are going to be okay, he never makes you feel it would be anything but.
you wake up to four missed calls and a voice mail from rin. it's been a year since he broke your heart, and eleven months since you last heard anything about him.
the memories flood back when you see his number in your call log—the number you've memorised by heart and the number you couldn't bear to block, so you settled on deleting his contact when the relationship ended. you remember the nights you spent in his arms surrounded by his scent, the unintentional jokes he'd crack, and the obnoxious neon turquoise post-its he'd leave around the house for you to find when he was out of the country for a game.
you remember the knife through your heart when he told you he didn't want to be held back by you any longer.
the voice mail sits heavy on your mind as you go about your day. it beckons your finger to tap on the notification bubble and tempts your ears to listen to what rin had to say at four in the morning, but you resist. it's nothing new to you, resisting every urge in your body to seek him out again, even when you know full well the relationship cannot be salvaged.
a whole twenty four hours after you received the voice mail from rin, your restraint crumbles. you're burrowed under your blanket, your eyes burning slightly at the light from your phone, and your thumb touches your screen before your heart is ready.
your entire body freezes over when it isn't rin's voice you hear. you don't recognise the voice, and the man on the other side of the line didn't seem too familiar with you either.
"hi, uh," the man sounds just as confused as you are. his voice is slightly muffled by the noise in the background, and your brows knit. rin hates parties, especially the ones with pounding music. the man goes on to introduce himself as rin's teammate. "i'm not sure who you are to rin, but i thought i should update you on his whereabouts since you're at the top of his favourited contacts. rin's really drunk and has been trying to call you, as you probably can see already. he's passed out now, though."
the man is interrupted by someone, and despite how long it's been, your ears perk up when you recognise rin's voice among the chatter.
"sorry," the man returns to the phone before you could make out what rin said. "since rin's responding to us now, i'll get his girlfriend to pick him up."
he goes on to say something about rin never mentioning your name before and he apologises if he was being rude to someone important to rin, but you're barely listening. all that registers before the voice mail ends is the man telling you that rin's in the good hands of his girlfriend.
rin's girlfriend, who wasn't holding him back from his football career. rin's girlfriend, who has been seeing him for god knows how long while he's kept your contacts at the top of his favourites.
