The Monsters Inside Us

Four

A/N: okay, yes, technically this chapter should have come before the last one, but using the magical power of fanfiction, we're just going to ignore that. cool. excellent. (i'm tired) 

Isagi wished he could stop thinking about it. More than that though, he wished he was talking about the loss against Team X.

But it was afterwards that was weighing on him.

Tension was high and everyone, himself included, was emotional and exhausted. Or, at least, that's how he was rationalizing it to himself. It would have been different if he was in his right mind. Surely.

It was hard not to feel like a failure. He felt once again like he'd missed his chance. He'd won rock paper scissors, got the chance to play forward, and fucked it up. He wished he could blame the lack of teamwork and the chaos that ensued from everyone looking out for themselves, but it just wasn't the truth. If he'd had the skills, none of that would have mattered. It was the same thing as when he'd faced Kira's team as a forward and missed the shot.

And it wasn't just the loss. The loss was bad, but having everyone tell him, Barou and his own teammates both, just how poorly he'd done, was worse. Everyone was disappointed, he tried to assure himself. But he wasn't assured. He was just choking on the loss, and he felt as if he more than deserved it.

It was what he should have been thinking about. But it felt so insignificant.

Bachira felt for Isagi, albeit silently. He saw Isagi, potential and all, everything that was brewing under the surface. It was why he'd reached out for him during the match. It was also why Isagi had reached back without a second thought. He was pretty sure, anyways. And in his mind, it had been a success. It may have been Kunigami's goal, technically, but it was Isagi's, really.

Nobody else seemed to see it that way.

Least of all Isagi.

Bachira had watched him collapse on the field, underneath the weight of the loss and everyone's comments. He knew the feeling well. He'd long become familiar with being on the receiving end of such emotions. He'd watched him long after everyone else had left the field.

I should say something, Bachira thought to himself.

No, the monster said immediately. His monster is newborn and starving. It's feeding on his despair.

Bachira nodded to himself, understanding immediately. He continued to watch Isagi though, his head tilted towards his lap, surely fighting off tears. It made Bachira sad to watch, but still, he forced himself to do it, as if he too could feed Isagi's monster with his own sympathy.

When Isagi finally lifted his head, Bachira was already gone. He'd watched for as long as he could, but he left just as he sensed the boy on the field was calming. He wouldn't be the one to hinder Isagi's monster's awakening. He did think about it for a long time in the shower. How he'd looked. How broken, how frustrated. How familiar.

Isagi didn't notice. He was in and out in the shower in mere minutes, taking only as long as it would take to wash the grime of the game off of himself.

By the time Bachira had rejoined the team, they were still giving Isagi a hard time about it. They were so small minded. The lot of them, Bachira reasoned. Now was the time to come to Isagi's defense, Bachira decided. Isagi didn't seem to push back. Not verbally, anyways. Kunigami had even agreed, moving to mention he'd needed both of them to make that goal.

Isagi seemed to forget about it after that, and Bachira considered it a job well done.

But he hadn't forgotten about the loss as much as he'd been distracted by something far worse.

Bachira had come in from his shower long after everyone else and fully naked. It was something he didn't try to remedy, Isagi noticed. Not even as he spoke to him, saying something about the match that Isagi barely heard.

It's not like it was a big deal. Growing up playing team sports gives you a decent amount of exposure to locker rooms and the happenings within them, but most guys didn't go waltzing around the space fully naked with the towel draped over their shoulders instead of wrapped around their waist.

But whatever, Isagi told himself, brushing Bachira and his naked cheeriness off with the bare minimum of responses. Bachira was not most guys. Isagi had learned that much already. It's not a big deal.

But there was this off handed comment he'd happened to hear. One of the other guys, maybe Naruhaya, maybe Yudai, had told Bachira to stop parading that thing around and get dressed like a normal person already.

"No way," he'd responded. "Air drying is awesome. If you don't want to see it, don't look."

And before he could think about what he was doing, Isagi was looking up.

His eyes caught the small of Bachira's back. He could make out the dip and grooves of where his spine sat in the middle of his waist. I shouldn't be looking at this, Isagi heard as a half formed thought in his mind, and still, he didn't look away. Bachira's body turned, but he was still stuck on the same spot, so his gaze was then filled with the lines of his abdomen. How the muscles separated and pressed against his skin. The way his hipbones gave way to lines that sunk down to separate his torso from his legs.

What the fuck am I doing? Isagi suddenly heard shouting in his mind. But in his exhausted, disappointment fueled trance, he was sure this was what it was, his eyes shot up to Bachira's face instead of just away. To his horror, he found that he was already looking back at him. And somehow, they lingered enough to see Bachira's head tilt to the side and his mouth become a grin.

Finally, Isagi found the sense to whip his head back around and forced his face into the towel he was still holding. What the fuck was that about? He demanded of himself. But no answer came. Instead, there were just the after images of Bachira's body.

Yes, he wished he could be so concerned about the loss. Instead, he was wondering how he could possibly explain himself when Bachira inevitably brought it up.

Which he wouldn't. He hadn't noticed. Well, he hadn't not noticed. He'd seen Isagi looking at him. Nothing less, nothing more. As far as he was concerned, their relationship wasn't platonic or romantic or sexual or anything of that nature. It was something else entirely. Something, everything, all at once infinite. As long as Isagi was looking at him instead of anywhere else in any room the two of them would ever find themselves in, that was the only thing that mattered.