Ripped Love Letters / Isagi Yoichi

II

Isagi's looking for clean socks in his drawers with beads of water slipping onto his shoulders all the way down to his shirtless torso.

It was foggy outside, and a small dim light was illuminating his four wall room. It was days like this where he would let his thoughts take over, muffled tunes coming from his phone fell deaf just before his ears.

He's thinking about the stray cat he couldn't feed on his way home, and his teammates. His asshole, egoistic teammates, that couldn't be anymore selfish.

Isagi snapped the elastic of his sock too hard at the thought of them, cringing at the burning red mark on his ankle.

'Ouch.' He frowned.

You can't blame him for being so mad at them, though. There's a memory that he's constantly thinking of, when he was about to score a goal, and the shortest boy in the team stole his shot and scored himself.

Everyone had seen Isagi come close to making the winning point, but rushed over to the other boy and cheered him on. It hurt, more than anything.

He deserved to make that point, and it stung when he couldn't. That day, he cried and cried.

Right now, he's struggling to hold the stinging feeling in the back of his throat and the tears pooling in his eyes. He quickly wiped his eyes and buttoned up his school uniform, slipping on his blazer.

"Yoichi? Hurry up! You're going to be late for school!" His mom called from the driveway, ready to drop him off.

He rushed down the stairs, slipped on his shoes, and slammed the front door behind him.

---

Isagi's hands were shaky as he stood outside of Ichinan high school, gripping the shoulder bag of his school bag harder than usual. He let the cleats tied to his bag hit his torso with every step, his mind centered around the thought of a pink letter.

The sun is out, and there aren't any clouds tainting it now; yet he has goosebumps.

It wasn't fair-- how could a bunch of words made him feel special, how they made him feel comfortable. He couldn't fathom it, but went along with it. He's unlocking his locker, standing rather close to not bump into anyone. He swings it open, and he's expecting something.

God knows what, but it isn't there. It's the same locker he opened last week; nothing special. It's filled with dust, for the exception of the shelf he leaves his thick school books at. Plain, probably full of cobwebs if you looked close enough.

He lets his eyes roam around the inside of the blue metal box unusually longer, before sighing and tucking his history textbook in his underarm.

Isagi has to ask himself-- why were you expecting anything?

Dejectedly, he walks to history class; tuning out the boisterous sounds of laughter from the girls and deep chuckles from the guys. He fumbles with his bag, takes out a purple ink pen, and starts writing on the desk his folded arms are sprawled over.

He doodles all over the corner of the beige canvas, sighing in disappointment when his art got smothered by his own uniform sleeve.

He resorts to the other corner where his arm won't go over, but it's quite uncomfortable for him to reach over with his non-dominant arm. So he caps the pen, and shoves in a random pocket-- he'll find it later.

The door swings open, his mid-aged teacher walking in. "How are you guys!" He asks, over enthusiastically.

Isagi snuggled his head into his arms, it's time to tune out the noise.