peregrine | s. nagi

prologue

content warnings: unhealthy relationships, cheating, non-linear narrative, probably ooc, angst, kira is kind of a love interest but sucks, nagi is endgame, alternate universe, original characters

a/n: literally shaking as i post this because i have NOT been in the bllk fandom for long enough to be writing a fic for it but oh well #livelaughlove. but anyways if the characters are ooc that would be why and i apologize in advance!! other than that, this is an au fic so obviously things will be different from the source material, and it is also nonlinear, so things will be told out of chronological order. also, as per usual for my fics, there will be random ocs thrown in w no warning. sorry if any of that throws you off!!

Seishiro Nagi had always been beautiful when he ran, albeit atypical in his form. He lacked the fierceness that the others on his team had, his feet never pounding against the turf the way theirs did, his strides never swallowing the ground in quite that same manner. Instead, his steps were light, like he was dancing, or perhaps flying, like he was a falcon diving across the field in pursuit of his next goal.

He was the only thing that could unite your entire miserable, shitty town. Everyone was outside that day, crowding in restaurants to crane their necks at the little screen in the corner, pressing together in the square to peer up at the projection of the tied match, which only had a few minutes left to go before the end of the second half.

Nagi had the ball. You weren't really sure how he had gotten it, who had passed it to him or what maneuver he had used to get around the other team's defense, but it was all irrelevant. He had the ball, and as he barreled towards the other team's goalkeeper, the entire town held its breath.

Even you, who were never supposed to have much interest in soccer nor in Seishiro Nagi, found yourself worrying your lower lip between your teeth, leaning forward slightly, clenching your fists by your sides.

"Come on, Nagi," you murmured. "We're so close. Come on."

A few more steps and a strategic feint, and then he had made it behind the defenders. The town swelled with anticipation as victory became all but certain, as the clock ticked nearer and nearer to the moment when Nagi would pull off one of those impossible moves of his, where he would slam the ball into the net and win the game for his team once again.

But the moment never came. For some reason, right as he drew his leg back to shoot, Nagi froze. His foot never connected with the ball; instead, it slowly came back down to rest as he stared down at his muddy cleats.

"What is he doing?" someone said. The cheers turned to whispers as Nagi proved himself to be a statue, incapable of moving, of defending his possession, of scoring, of anything. He just stood there, and as one of the defenders stole the ball off of him and passed it to the opposing team's striker, he did not make any attempts to turn around and make up for his mistake. He just stood there, contemplating something, a cloudy dreaminess settling over his eyes. It was the most disconcerting thing you had ever seen, that complete apathy in face of an imminent loss, that resignation to an eventuality which he himself had created.

"What the hell is wrong with him?" a man screamed, and then it was a mass chaos as the people who had been praising Nagi only seconds earlier turned to baying for his blood, demanding he never play again as a punishment for his great sin.

They got their wish. The next season, and the next, Seishiro Nagi spent every match on the bench, not even afforded the role of a substitute, no matter how tired the rest of the team grew without his relentless presence, how many games they lost when they did not have him to rely on.

That first season after his disastrous loss, he was made a mockery of. Every single news article was about his downfall, every reporter charting out with glee the exact moment that he had gone from the media's darling to their newest scapegoat. By the second season, though, he was largely forgotten. There were more exciting things, newcomers who had entered the league and dominated matches with their own unique styles, and so when it became clear that Nagi would not give them the reactions that they were hoping for, the journalists turned to talking about those players instead.