46. THE U-20 TEAM

note: i love aiku.

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YOU

step out of the bus after catching your breath—you had just explained the lore of your favourite artist to Shidou and why they're so incredible—while Shidou practically tumbles out of the doors, half-asleep.

"Wake up." You poke his head, where his hairline is. He looks up at you (from how hunched he is, he has to) and rubs his eyes.

"You're such a fucking nerd... almost took me to sleep." He giggles, now standing up straight at his full 6'1 height. "But you're cute when you ramble, manager-chan ♪."

You roll your eyes, walking in front of him and placing a hand on your hip. Over your shoulder lies your cooler bag, while your suitcase is being carried by the lovely driver, "Whatever. Just... don't cause any trouble for me, okay?"

Suddenly, you're attacked from behind—Shidou crashing into you and wrapping his arms around your waist—fingertips digging into your torso. His head rests on your shoulder and you can feel his grin when his cheek presses against the side of your neck, "Mhm, I'll do whatever ya say, lil' miss manager."

You suck in a deep breath, significantly pleased with the fresh air that seeps into your lungs, "You better."

You pause for a moment, slapping his sneaky hands back down. "And don't get handsy."

He giggles again, "My bad."

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"I'm pretty sure that over in Blue Lock, they're doing pretty intense training too." You swipe through your phone, ignoring the frantic messages you're receiving from some of the Blue Lockers. "And the U-20 also have a training camp?"

Sae nods, eyes half-lidded and hands stuffed in his jacket pocket. If you didn't know any better, you would've thought he didn't want to be here. Luckily—he's eerily similar to Rin, and his mannerisms are nearly the same. "The players here are absolute trash."

Wow, rude much?

"I'm sure they're not as bad as you describe," you swallow thickly, eyes focused forward. Shidou—who's walking in an uncomfortably hunched position next to you—looks up at your face with a cocked brow.

Sae pauses, which makes a chain reaction of the three of you stopping as well. He doesn't turn his head, but stares through the corner of his eye, "Do you watch soccer?"

You feel interrogated, from how intense he makes the question sound, but you shake your head, face blank, "No, I don't. But I'm sure they wouldn't be on such a special team if they were as bad as you say."

You can hear him scoff—rude—but regardless, you keep trekking on, right until Sae stops in front of a door. It's in the middle of a hugely blank room—so it stands out well. There's also a faint noise coming from the inside that quickly dies down when the door creaks open, and you three all walk inside.

Instantly, you can hear whispers and feel eyes on you—but you try to not let it bother you and usher Shidou to sit down. One guy looks at Shidou strangely, so he gives him a sharp glare back and is about to threaten him—when you tug on his shirt to keep him moving.

"Don't fight anyone. Please."

Shidou pouts his lips out, right before he takes a seat at the back of the room—you follow and sit beside him. Even the way you both sit is completely different—he props his feet up on the table and shoves his finger up his nose, while you keep your legs underneath the table and take up as little room as possible, while your hands are clasped on your lap.

A guy with bright red hair in a side part looks at Shidou strangely, so you slap him on the shoulder and whisper, "Stop picking your nose. It's unsightly," through grit teeth.

"Since when were you a fuckin' dictionary?" He sneers.

Sae still stands in the front of the room, looking as bored as ever. His eyes are sleepy and sunken, while his jacket is zipped up all the way to his chin. There are even more whispers between the U-20 players when Sae gets introduced as their new addition for this match—in particular, the guy with a red side part scoffs and says Sae isn't all that.

You hear some other guys ask what you and Shidou were doing here—you're both watered down to Sae's weird tag-along, and Sae's hot tag-along. I'm sure you can guess who's who.

The coach of the team calls out, with a balled fist and excited expression, "As you know, your opponent will be Team Blue Lock! You must maintain the dignity of the U-20! Defeat is entirely out of the question here!"

He turns his head towards Sae—who looks just about ready to fall asleep where he stands—and grins, extending his hand, "Sae-kun! Any fighting words for the team?"

Sae pauses, a thoughtful expression for a mere second before he speaks, tongue poking his cheek, "Be thankful... you get to play football with me. I don't have the slightest interest in any of you, and since you'll never have a chance like this again... Do your best not to piss me off. That's it."

The silence that ensues in the room after his (not) thought-provoking speech is nothing short of excruciating. You slap the heel of your palm onto your forehead and groan, head already throbbing with a dull ache.

The guy with the red side part (you think somebody calls his name out in a warning tone, "Sendou") stands up, seat screeching back behind him with a snarl on his lips, "Get off your damn high horse, genius. You might be a bit famous around the world, but you're just a second-division player in the end, aren't you? I'm a regular forward in the best team in Japan. So, watch your mouth, because right now, I'm above you."

Despite Sendou's harsh words (of superiority, you think), Sae doesn't look the least bit bothered. He stares at him with the same expression he had ten, twenty, thirty minutes prior and says, without a hint of edge in his voice, "What about it? As for you, you'll compete to be the top scorer in the nation, get in the national team, get an annual salary of 50 million, marry a gravure idol, and then live a happy family life. That'd be the peak of your football life."

His eyes darken, and for a moment, he really does look like Rin. "My singular interest is becoming the best in the world. There is a fundamentally different depth to our greed. Just now, you thought the things I listed didn't sound too bad, right? That's how you know you'll never be the best in the world. Now piss off."

Sendou's face flushes bright red when everyone stares at him, fists clenched and shaky. He opens his mouth, ready to blurt back a nonsense comeback—when he's cut off, head slamming onto the table with full force. You just out of your seat when you realise Shidou is no longer beside you, but the one who caused Sendou's now head injury.

Shidou grins wickedly, hand clenched around the back of the forward's head, "Dream on, sucker! Better luck in your next life! Getting all hung up over some titles is lame as hell! You watch your own damn mouth, you dumb ass striker!"

The room is filled with prompt chaos after this happens—people get up out of their chairs, criticizing Shidou and giving him hard glares that do not affect him one bit. If you knew one thing, it's that Shidou's threat to fight everyone in this room would go through if nobody stopped him.

Perched up on the table, giggling to himself while Sendou clutched the fabric of his jacket, forehead bruised, Shidou says, "How about I get to be a regular if I win?"

Sendou gives a hard glare to Shidou, voice cracking and weak, "Itoshi Sae aside... a nobody from who-knows-where like you... doesn't get to talk to me like that!" He swings, but Shidou dodges easily and laughs.

"Then I guess, you're first ♪!"

Your body finally catches up to your thoughts to just move when Shidou swings his legs up in his personal stylistic motion of kicking somebody in the head that he's done so many times before, and you scramble forward, reaching around in your pocket for the button...

But then you stop because the kick doesn't land. His calf is grabbed by a big hand, right before it makes contact with Sendou's head. It's a guy with stubble and differently coloured eyes—calm, yet cocky grin and shabby black hair, "'Kay, that's enough. Man, you're really looking down on us. You should chill—ya even stressin' out your pretty lil' manager over there."

He swings Shidou's leg back and the suntanned man scrambles in his grasp—moving backward to try and land a kick on the guy's back—but the heterochromatic man suddenly slams Shidou onto the table and successfully subdues him, even as Shidou twitches and snarls in his grasp. Like a police officer—the man apprehends Shidou with ease and you're positively shocked by this sight.

Your jaw drops at this sight, button and taser long forgotten as you look at this man. Holy shit.

He grins, eyes half-lidded as he stares down at Shidou's struggling face pressed up against hard marble, "I do like your spirit, squirt... but it's out on the field where you need to show your stuff."

Another guy walks up to him, peering down at where their captain is squatting, "Need a hand, Aiku?"

"I got it, it's chill," Aiku looks up with a smile, then peers over his shoulder, where Sae hasn't moved an inch since this whole thing occurred. "And, uh, boy genius? That goes for you too, since you're both newcomers here. If you want our confidence, you won't get it by talking a big game, but by actually playing... Because us defenders will have your back."

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"I am really, really sorry, once again," You bow down at a perfect 90-degree angle, face on fire and eyes squeezed shut so tightly it would've been believable that you were trying to keep them from falling out of your head. "I... I know that it's my job, but really, it's so hard to keep control of him and I just—"

You let out a loud, stressed groan. 

Aiku lets out a laugh, hand on his hip and the other running through his hair. "No big deal. I get it. Dude's kind of a freak." His voice grows lower at the end—as if the knocked-out Shidou might hear him—it lightens the weight on your shoulders a tad.

You raise your head and force your eyes open, still—you refuse to meet his gaze. Your hands are squeezed around the loose fabric of your pants when you ask, "Is... that guy okay?"

You hope he knows you're referring to Sendou—but you feel like saying his name would make you feel even worse. Luckily, he does know.

"He's fine. Didn't get a concussion or anything, just a big fat bruise smack on the forehead," Aiku nods, flexing out his hands while he looks to the side, in the direction of you and Shidou's shared room—where the suntanned man is probably sleeping like a baby. "Is that guy always like this?"

You think back to all those times you had to shock him into submission, stopping him from slamming his foot into somebody's face, or even just letting him beat down on others, and you have your answer. "Yeah. Always. But usually, it's during or just before a match, so I really didn't expect this. I'm really sorry once again."

He laughs, "If you apologise one more time I'm gonna have to make you do somethin' to prove it."

"Right," you swallow thickly and force out a laugh. You feel like a shit human being. You had one job, and you couldn't even do that right. "I was actually going to tase him before you stepped in. Thanks."

"I'm the captain," he says, smirking. He stuffs his hands into his pockets. "It's my job. No biggie. Besides... I saw you freaking out, and I just couldn't let that slide. I mean, dealin' with that for so long—you gotta be a pretty good manager, or just super stubborn. Either one works."

The words bring a smile to your lips and you nod, bashfully looking down, "That's nice of you to say." Is this flirting?

His grin doesn't falter, but it looks like he suddenly remembers something. "Oh, right. I wanted to ask—where's that cockroach dude?"

"Sae offered to carry him to our room. He's asleep by now, so I'll probably try and finish up some paperwork while I have the peace."

Aiku nods. "Right. Well. I'll see you later, right? Three more days until you're gone?"

You purse your lips, then clasp your hands behind your back. You had almost forgotten about that. You should probably answer some frantic texts. "Yeah. Not too long now. When I'm gone, one of the other managers will be here to supervise Shidou."

"Well, better make the most of your time here, then." Aiku gives you a grin, then a low wink before he turns on his heel, back facing you. "Night, [name]. See ya tomorrow. Lemme know if he's givin' you any trouble, yeah?"

You unconsciously wave—even though he can't possibly see—as he walks away, you smile, "Goodnight, Aiku."

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