Phantasmal Fear- Bachisagi (Blue Lock)

Chapter 4

"Barou really is amazing. I wondered if they've decided who's taking the bed..." Isagi's mind wandered whilst his eyes stuck to the monitor screen. The side of his head stung at the camera cutting to Naruhaya, but it had gotten better since the beginning of the recording. If anything, the sting was immediately accompanied by a shot of adrenaline tensing his eyes. He tried to revel in this pleasure as much as possible until one day, maybe he could be completely numb to this new second nature. Then, he could say that he'd surpassed them all. His gaze stuck to the screen focused on Barou and his movements, completely reeking of confidence, and his jaw clenched at the prospect of his own improvement.

"...perhaps training your eyes will..." he muttered involuntarily before he could even process what he was saying. For a moment his own voice had come out unrecognisable. He paused the recording to reshuffle his beanbag arrangement. Where had he heard that before? Was that what "ego to ego" meant? Surely not. Surely something so simple couldn't be the answer. Isagi flexed his right hand in and out of a fist shape, hummed, and resumed the video.

He wondered how many mental rebirths people like Rin or Barou had to go through. And how often. And what triggered them, could you train up your self-control to kill your former self so easily, could you reach deep into yourself and revive a past version of yourself if you wanted to, is it possible to manipulate luck, how lonely is it at the top, are you enough for yourself, what exactly did Bachira have that he and Nagi didn't? Could someone like Rin ever warm up to someone like Bachira?

"It's a bit of work in progre- oh. Sorry," a voice behind him started off with familiar brightness before, almost artificially, lowering his volume. "I'll go use another ro-"

"Oh, hey, Bachira," Isagi's head turned around so fast that he felt his neck crack. He rubbed it and avoided eye contact once he remembered that they probably shouldn't be talking if it wasn't to set up a match. A few more moments than necessary passed.

"So I'm gonna g-"

"What were you g-" They said in unison, which only led to even more silence. A pillow perched by the wall fell over.

"You can come in," said Isagi eventually and he had to consciously hold himself back from making a vampire joke. Though in hindsight, Bachira was the last person who would find that weird. He nodded, padding over to where Isagi was sitting cross legged. As observation exercise, he'd taken to watching people's behaviour whenever he was off-field, especially within his peripherals. But in that instance, he couldn't ignore the person who, no matter how hard he seemed to be hide it, kept shining. Despite the typical smile, he also couldn't ignore the good 30 centimetres between them. Still, he could see Bachira's fingertips subconsciously inching closer to his.

"Bet you had a fun time fighting Barou and Naruhaya," Bachira gestured vaguely to the screen, his eyes intently fixated on it even though it was paused at a very unflattering angle. "And 'cause you're here, it means I was right to keep believing in you. But maybe I should also give some credit to Nagi..." he turned to Isagi with glittering eyes, blinding eyes. Isagi stretched out his legs and chose to ignore his concealed smile. He reached for the remote control and turned the screen off, immediately regretting this as they were now in pitch dark.

"Oh fuck-" the screen blinked back on to Bachira silently laughing beside him. In the second of darkness he could've sworn pure white, trapezoid eyes met his in a staring contest he was unaware of.

"Um, anyway," he coughed. "What did you wanna watch?" Bachira straightened back up.

"D'you remember the very first match we played as team Z?"

Hardly enough time had passed since to make this considered "nostalgic", hence Isagi's quizzical look.

"I mean yeah. Why would you wanna watch that?" he asked, already clicking around the recording archive.

"I want an example of what isn't a chemical reaction. Just to see something." Isagi had the grace to giggle at this.

"It would be a pretty good example of that, wouldn't it? Barou completely steamrolled us."

"Glazed."

"Obliterated."

"Put down."

"Slaughtered."

"Banjaxed."

"Ex-fucking-scuse me?" felt like the appropriate response to hearing this word for the first time in Isagi's short life. Banjaxed. It never occurred to him that Bachira's vocabulary could be more than noises.

"Huh. Don't know where that came from," he started giggling out of similar incredulousness. "I guess I just read that somewhere a while ago."

"You read books?"

"Occasionally. I nearly needed to get glasses when I was a kid," he pretended to push up invisible glasses Zantetsu-style, also attempting to imitate his voice which sent Isagi into another fit of laughter, and it was as if Blue Lock didn't exist anymore. Nothing outside of their shitty pillow fort could hurt them or take either of them away or change this or hurt them. The only things that made up the universe was their atoms.

"It's always fun to have your initial idea of someone ruined by that same someone– oh I'm sorry, banjaxed. But I guess that's just how making friends works, you know?"

The monitor automatically went into sleep mode, leaving them both in darkness once again. Through his tears of laughter, white eyes stared back at him from beside Bachira, and this time there was darkness long enough for a twisted smirk to form below them. Isagi blinked back, trying to work out if this was all still a dream. Bachira only laughed harder, making no move to wake up the monitor. In fact, he began laughing so hard that it became almost maniacal.

Isagi moved the mouse again, and so there was light. Wordless, he selected the recording of "First selection: Team Z vs Team X" and attempted to focus all of his attention on it because something told him– call it intuition– that he shouldn't look at Bachira at that moment. Ideally for quite some more moments as well. Had he ever seen him or was Bachira the one seeing him? No, focus on the video. Holy shit that's some bad ball control. Of course whoever that nobody was could steal that. Maybe you should be ashamed that you made it this far. You wouldn't have enough to be like Niko.

If it hadn't been Bachira, it would've been Nagi. If they had lost the 2v2, it would've been Nagi. How is it that you've made it this far from home to this strange world, a kitten in a world of tigers? What makes you think that this is where you should belong?

He snuck a glance at Bachira, who seemed to be simultaneously present and not present. Glazed eyes, as if he had transported himself to the him who was playing that match. Playing, because Isagi didn't know if anyone could so viciously love football like he did. It was almost weird actually. Isagi slowly lifted his head to the ceiling as if to find a god, only to be met with an outstretched hand, which placed itself on his head. It trailed down to cradle his cheek, then lifted his chin further, honey welling between their molecules. He closed his eyes, and breathed.

"What's with the weird stretching?" Bachira tried imitating him. "Look at you! Getting bored before me."

Isagi's eyes snapped open despite them, admittedly, quite enjoying the break. Next thing you know he'll be yawning. Bachira paused the video and stood up.

"Your match is tomorrow, right? You should get some sleep."

"I've done more on less sleep before, and you know that," Isagi chuckled.

He had to crane his neck up to search for Bachira's eyes, casting a rippling shadow. But they were turned away, despite his feet still facing him. So Isagi's gaze panned down to Bachira's chest noticeably rising and falling at a pace that made him think that there could've been a hole in it. His right heel jittered. The monitor would go to sleep any second now, Isagi thought, as he reached for the mouse. In the moment this took, there was a rush of air, and without even turning back around, he knew that he was alone. The door closed, and it was dark.