MY FIRST THOUGHT when I stepped into the large building was that Blue Lock was an incredibly bad name for a project based around football. My second thought was that I was indeed a different breed of stupid for actually falling for Jinpachi Ego's stupid scheme to get me out of the house.

After stewing in my inferiority complex for a few days, I'd left home without too many things. Ema had packed me a volleyball, Noa had packed me a stash of BL manga, and they'd left it at that and a few articles of clothing, toiletries, and a blanket, plus a bottle of Dior perfume. I was fairly certain that I would grow to regret that decision, but it was fine. Surely, we'd be allowed to leave at times; plus, it was for the greater good that I didn't have much on my person, since apparently, I needed to walk.

I looked at the stairs, and then at my feet. I hadn't walked this much since junior high, what with its endless staircases, but hopefully, my stamina hadn't deteriorated that badly.

And, flash-forward to ten minutes later, as I sat at the top of the thirteen flights of stairs, wheezing, with my head buried in my knees. A lock of hair flopped pathetically onto my face, and I blew it away weakly with what little air remained in my lungs. Oddly enough, this place felt like home – not in a good way, though, it just gave me the air of a tortured Victorian artist who had gone through several divorces, eighteen wigs, and five counts of manslaughter – and wow, it was big for a staffroom.

I looked up wearily. There were a lot of people present, and they were all around my age – actually, some were a bit older. Just how many geniuses had Ego gathered? Geniuses? Genii? Whatever. But thankfully (or perhaps not so thankfully) out of the corner of my eye, I spotted someone familiar.

"Seiko," I called, grateful for a friend – or maybe friend wasn't the right word. It had been four years since I'd last seen her; maybe more of an acquaintance, then. Seiko had always been big on Home EC, so maybe she was here as a chef –

She stiffened, turning around. I saw that she'd buzzed her hair short.

"...Hey. Kirigiri." She flashed an awkward smile, not meeting my eyes. I could still see the gap between her teeth. "It's...Raiden now, actually. And, um, I go by..." Trailing off, they finally made eye contact. "...he/him...pronouns."

Oh. Oh.

Quick clarification: I was not transphobic by any means. Contrary to what many in my junior high class might've told you if prompted, I was actually perfectly accepting of anyone in the trans community, and in no way did I believe that it was odd to feel out of place in your own skin. I often felt that way, but that was more due to bodily problems – and allergies – than anything else. Also, I did like women. It was simply that I'd made the situation far worse than it originally would've been. Internally, I despaired – for myself.

I offered him a smile, and hoped that it didn't come off as weak. "That's great." Ah, why did I say that. "Raiden. That name...it suits you. How have you been doing?"

Personally, I thought that was possibly one of the worst responses I could've given to someone coming out to me, especially as an ex-Communications specialist. Raiden, though, seemed to relax just a bit, as if glad that I'd changed the subject. "Whole lot better than I was in junior high. I just got an email out of nowhere, and now I'm here as Assistant Head Chef."

"'Assistant'?" I echoed softly. I was a lot better at communicating over text.

He shrugged. "I think...there's someone else already acting as Head Chef. Well, I mean, obviously. That's why I'm assistant. But...he's a lot older than me, so I...guess that's why. What are you...here for?"

Mentally, I took note of his slight delay of his words. It was a lot weaker than it was in junior high. "Nepotism. I'm managing social media."

"Cool." He seemed at a loss for words, but the smile he gave me, though slight, was genuine. "I'm...glad you're here."

"I'm glad you're here." Not an optimal response, but how else was I supposed to reply? 'Me too'? The fuck? I didn't want to be here.

The room being projected on the large screen slowly filled with teenage boys as we looked on. There had to be at least three hundred of them in that godforsaken room; I could almost smell the testosterone reeking from the camera. The only saving grace of the current moment was that my godfather wasn't forcing us to stay in that room with those odd, sweaty creatures – if interacting with one person in real life was awful, I couldn't begin to imagine how difficult it would be to interact with dozens.

"Ooh, I know those twins," murmured someone in front of me. "Don't remember their names. They're weird, man. When I only knew one of them, I used to think his mom slapped him too hard in the face and he had to get surgery so I was ready to, y'know, not stare too hard at him, you know? But then there were two, and, like, how do you do that twice?"

"Your face looks like it's been slapped too hard."

"Die."

"What's this even about? Football?" I heard an older girl behind me whisper to the guy next to her, sounding scandalized. He responded with a shake of his head.

"Dunno, but if it is, 'm out. Football players always get the wors' injuries, and there's no way I'm patching up that many people, especially since from what I can see, they're all forwards. Those idiots always throw 'emselves straight into harm's way." He snorted.

"But think about the paycheck..."

"I don't like that you're right."

Someone behind them silenced them with a loud shush, and I saw on screen that the room had gone dark.

"And...test, test, test." My godfather's voice truly never failed to make me recoil in horror. "Congratulations and welcome, diamonds in the rough."

"A bit excessive," I mumbled as a spotlight hit him straight-on, courtesy of the boy sitting a row and two seats in front of me. Raiden snorted a laugh.

"You are the three hundred eighteen and under strikers who have been chosen according to my arbitrary and biased decision-making." He didn't stop ever, did he? "And I am Jinpachi Ego. The man who was hired to ensure Japan's future victory at the World Cup."

Whispers erupted, not only in the screen room but also in our little room. Although I was fairly sure no one in the room could run a lap – unfit as we seemed to be – even we knew that Japanese football wasn't...optimal. 

One row two seat boy pressed a button, and the Japanese flag flared behind my godfather as he raised one long finger. "It's simple, really. In order to outstrip the rest of the world, Japanese football requires just one thing." He spread his arms. "And that is the birth of the revolutionary striker. I'll be performing an experiment to turn one of you three hundred into the single best striker in the world." A step forward. "Here – " One-row-two-seat pressed another button, and a logo and a map glitched on screen – "at this facility. Blue Lock."

"Starting today, you will live here together and undergo the same specialized training I devised to transform you. You won't be allowed to go home – " This elicited several gasps from the staff in the room, as well – " – and your previous football careers will be a mere memory. But I promise you this: if you fight hard enough, if you survive to be the last man standing out of the three hundred candidates assembled here...you will be the greatest striker in history."

His teeth gnashed together, echoing into the mic. I cringed at the sound. "That's all for now. It's been fun."

Another button. Everything returned to normal, and the boy managing them rotated in his wheeled chair (absolutely discrimination that he was the only one who got one) to look at us. "Hey, dude, that's pretty wack. Does 'not going home' include staff members?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely," I confirmed immediately, and then I regretted it when the rest of the room turned to look at me. "He doesn't do things by halves."

"And how do you know that?" a pretty, dark-skinned girl retorted as she looks back at me, eyes a gleaming green. Her voice wasn't mean, exactly. Just interrogative.

"He's my godfather." I didn't really know why I wanted to apologize, but I did anyway. "Sorry."

"Damn. We all have weird family members, but I'm sorry, man," one-row-two-seat told me, looking like he genuinely felt bad. He kicked his feet up onto the rack of buttons sitting in front of him, which I was pretty sure he wasn't allowed to be doing. "'m assuming we'll do introductions later. Includin' all the tragic backstories, and...genius stuff. That's what the redhead told me, anyway. Teieri?"

"She said that everyone in here is a genius in their own right," another girl in the front row said tentatively. "Whatever that means."

There was silence for a moment, except for my godfather's incessant babbling on screen. One-row-two-seat jolted to attention and hit another button, projecting a team of players onto the wall, and...great. He was yapping again.

My godfather had always had an odd speech memorized and at the ready. There was the bird shit speech about probability. There was the 'Santa isn't real' speech about idealism – he had given that one to me when I was around five months old – and then there was this speech. "Why Japanese Football is Shit, and What We Can Do to Fix It: TED Talk by Ego Jinpachi". He'd named it and everything, and he gave it at every family reunion, every Christmas dinner, every single occasion you could possibly think of. Namely when he was drunk. Actually, I thought that he might be drunk right now. I had not seen him willingly interact with so many teenage boys since December 8, 2014, but that was a story for another time.

"Kirigiri, why is your godfather so..." Raiden pulled his bangs. His face was scrunched as if he was trying to find the right words.

"Eccentric?" I offered. "Weird? Creepy?"

"...frightening," he finished, brows creased, "though...all of the others work too."

"Well, um," I considered this for a moment. "Some childhood trauma that I never bothered to listen to when he talked about it on Christmas."

"Cruel, but I see why."

"Right?"

We were interrupted once more by some oddball with white hair – bleach? – making a stand in the crowd. He said something about his heroes, and teamwork, but I knew my godfather well enough to know that he didn't care, and, judging by the expressions of the others in the room, they couldn't care less, either. Staff, 1, players, 0.

One-Two pushed another colorful button and then a couple more labeled DO NOT TOUCH, and a picture of a queer old man with the most atrocious haircut I had seen since Ego first showed up with that disgusting bowlcut – maybe it was a football thing – kicking a football popped up behind him. He repeated this process a few more times – each with an uglier and uglier man – and, finally, Ego gave it a rest and bent backward to shriek loudly.

The girl who shushed the two behind me before wrinkled her nose. With a flick of her silky black hair, she mumbled, "Ugh. Distasteful." She was right. It was distasteful.

"It just occurred to me," said Raiden, side-eyeing me, "that...you have had to hear speeches like this every year. Do you...have them memorized?" He went back to tugging on his bangs, and I had half the mind to slap his hand away before he ended up going bald.

"Eh. Like, a good half. Up to the part where he starts talking about egoism." I picked at my nails to distract myself from Raiden's stupid hairpulling. "My cousins want to kick him out of the family."

"For good reason," he mumbled.

Paycheck girl whistled lowly. "Well, I can't deny that he's a good speaker. Maybe he's a bit over-the-top, but if I heard a speech like that..."

She trailed off. The rest of the room didn't respond, but it was fairly clear that we were all thinking the same thing, because even I, after listening to his speeches time and time again for the past ten years of my life, couldn't help but feel the competitive instinct inside of me ready to lash out. I didn't even play football. I didn't even want to play football. This was stupid.

The doors behind my godfather opened, and he shoved his hands in his pockets, staring the crowd of teenagers down. There was a challenging glint in his eyes, and suddenly, those pitch-black holes of hell didn't seem so empty anymore.

The first person ran – this dark-haired guy standing next to Teamwork Boy, and wow, for a football player, his posture was pretty bad. Scoliosis? Dozens of others followed him, even the proclaimed selfless, eventually, until only two boys were left: another white-haired boy who looked like he wanted to leave, and some familiar kid with purple hair and –

No, it couldn't be. He'd never been interested in football before.

Before I could ponder on the topic any longer, the two entered the doors that led to the buses, and the screen glitched off. One-Two turned around once again, and stared at us.

"So," he finally said. "Thoughts?"

A few hours later, my godfather had us booted off to the Blue Lock facilities on our own personal bus – really, it was quite luxurious ("The money that was used on this bus could've been used on so many other things," bemoaned the "distasteful" girl, whose name, I learned, was Machiko) – and shoved all of us into a squished, tiny room. Ms. Teieri threw us a look that said he was about to make another speech, and, true to her warning, his freakish face flickered onto the screen. Half of the – eleven? – people present let out noises of disgust, terror, and possibly agitation, and the other half teared up a bit.

"Hello, Blue Lock staff." Ego took a moment to crack his neck, as if he hadn't been doing just that for the past two hours we'd been on the bus together. "I see that you're all here. Good. I hate untimeliness, and excuses, and untimely excuses, especially those related to bathrooms. Make a note of that for the future." He stopped, then eyed us scrupulously. "I meant that literally."

I looked at the iPad in front of me, then at Ms. Teieri. She cleared her throat. "The passwords are your birthdays. Please don't download any apps on these iPads unless you put in a request; they are being monitored by the Japanese Football Association."

1-1-0-1. Unsurprisingly, it worked. I wasn't sure why I believed she would lie to us.

"Your first restriction," Ego said, not waiting for us to scramble to finish our notes, "is that you will not be allowed to interact with players in-person for the First Selection unless they have committed serious infractions. The exceptions to this rule are: Hiramasa Kento, Equipment Manager, who will be tasked with tasing any players who prove that their control over their temperaments is akin to that of an animal's..."

One-Two – or, I supposed, Hiramasa now – nodded, though he looked frankly quite uncomfortable. Ah, well, it was a crime; any normal person would be uncomfortable committing crimes.

"...Kanagawa Natsu, Head Medic, who will be tasked with taking care of eliminated players...and Kirigiri Shion, Social Media & Communications Manager, who, after a minimum of twenty-five players have earned their phones back, will be tasked with sending out daily announcements about all events, remaining players, wins, and losses, and will also be tasked with fixing player rankings each day."

Damn him.

"How am I expected to do my job?" the paycheck girl whispered, horrified.

"There are five different buildings, and five different teams in each building." Ego cracked his knuckles, letting his head fall to the side, like a freak. "Each and every player in this building believes that they are the lowest of the low. They are all under the impression that the buildings are ranked from one to five, the teams are ranked A to Z, and the players are ranked 1 to 300. In reality...after today, there will be 275 players remaining, 55 per building – and each of those 55 are ranked 275 through 221."

The room was silent. Ego caught on to our confusion and rolled his eyes. "Numbskulls, the lot of you. Essentially what I'm saying is...there is no Team A, or Team L, or any team above Team V. No player is ranked above 221. This is simply a tactic to force them to work harder. If they think that they are more at risk of being dropped, they'll try harder to reach the top."

"That's evil," Raiden declared under his breath. His hands went to nervously play with his bangs again. "Do...you think we're being dropped? I need the pay..."

"None of you will be Locked Off," Ego announced in response to this. "That is, unless you breach one of the restrictions, in which case, I will crush your self-esteem and send you home like a pathetic bug. Afterward, I will find a replacement and parade them around on live TV to rub it in your face that you have been Locked Off." He paused briefly to relish in our horror. "Speaking of restrictions, your second restriction is disclosing any of this information to anyone, and your third is disclosing any information about Blue Lock, its location, or the personal life of its players to the outside world. You may apply for one-day vacations, although this will not be enough time for most of you to return home, and if you do apply, I will likely reject your application." At this, there was surprisingly little dissent among the staff. Perhaps they all had bad relationships with their families. 

"You will be sleeping in rooms of two. This is because our budget has been spent primarily on equipment for the players. Worry not; you will be paired by gender, though I am sure that none of you would be stupid enough to break the law in this facility." Besides me, I saw Raiden stiffen, but Ego immediately shut his previous statement down with a, "My only exception to this rule is siblings. Uchida Raiden and Sorano and Kanagawa Jin and Natsu will stay together, unless they put in an official request to switch rooms."

"I told you he was an okay person," I mumbled to Raiden, who visibly relaxed beside me.

"You never...said that."

"In any event," continued Ego, ignoring our chitchat, "I suppose it's about time to tell you why you've been hired." He snapped his fingers, and Anri hurriedly stood from her seat, passing out sheets of paper.

"To be perfectly honest...none of you are as skilled as the people around you make you out to be. All you have amounted to so far...are burnt out geniuses." I felt him lock eyes with me, and I looked away before it could turn into a staring contest, as it had last time. Funnily enough, I hadn't heard this speech before, but I could tell that it was already hitting a lot of nerves in the audience. "You don't have the motivation to continue to polish your skills, but you have too much ego to turn away from them." He paused for a moment before going on. 

"For a normal person, when they can't turn away from something, their thought process is something like...'If I'm not good at this, I'm not good at anything, am I?' But you incompetent losers are different. When you lost the will to keep chasing your ego, it was your half-assed ambition that kept it around. Your thought processes were more ...'I can't stop doing this, because if I do, then someone worse than me now will be better than me tomorrow.' Isn't that right?" Ego waited, as if ready for someone to say something angry that he could refute. No one spoke up.

"And that," he said, "is what makes you perfect for this program. That is what makes you egoists. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't care less about any of your individual skills – the only thing I care about is football. But by your achievements, you inept write-offs have proven to be the eleven best fit for the staff of Blue Lock, the place for those who will eventually become the best in the world. Consider that title an honor."

The screen flickered one last time, and Anri got up to stop it.

"You start work in twenty-five minutes. Good luck, my useless egoists, and once again...I hate untimeliness."

I. THE BLUE LOCK PROJECT: COMPLETE.

um i want to make something clear rn and that thing is that no character in this story is heterosexual. i am sorry straights. i am an avid enjoyer of women. also look at the blue lock characters and TELL me there is one heterosexual in that crowd of losers. you cannot say imamura.

blue lockkk where the gayest of gay survive..blue lockkk be glad you're still alive..