Tongue Tied

Two

Sae was busy in Spain, but it's not like he had no down time, so this is when they would talk. Shidou was on a break from Blue Lock, so most of what he did was wait around for Sae to be free. Sae didn't know if that was all the way true, but that's what Shidou told him, so he knew it was true enough. They talked almost every night, after Sae's practice and before dinner, and sometimes even after.

"I want to talk to you so bad, but I have to do the dishes," Shidou told him during one of these calls. Sae felt a sudden sting of disappointment, and it confused him. He went all day without talking to Shidou, so what would a night off matter? "I'm going to hang up and video call you so I can do both, okay?"

"Okay," Sae answered, fueled by relief.

The nervousness came in after. He hadn't seen Shidou since after the match, when he'd had an arm slung around him, their phones out in front of them, exchanging numbers as a result of the bet. Bye Itoshi Sae, Shidou had sang as he walked away from him, wigging a few fingers in a wave. I'll text you later. Sae hadn't even expected him to do that much, and now he was video calling him.

When Sae answered, Shidou's face was super close to the screen, muttering some mixture of expletives to himself, obviously trying to set the phone on something. He didn't seem to notice him right away. When he pulled back, he reached his outstretched hands towards the phone, as if magically willing it to stay wherever it was that he'd placed it. He was also shirtless. Sae was just holding his own phone out in front of him, but he could see his chin tilt down as he tried to swallow the lump in his throat.

Shidou finally seemed to focus on him. "Ah, there you are. God, you look so fucking good, too."

"Thanks," Sae said. He couldn't look at the screen while he did.

"Anyways, you're still doing hell week training because there's no game this week, right?" Shidou asked. This was another thing. Not only did Shidou listen, but he'd remember things that he said.

"Yeah," Sae said.

"How was it?" He asked. "Wait, let me guess, Romero was super annoying and pulled the bad ankle card?"

The two of them started video calling even when there was no reason why they should be. It wasn't much different than their voice calls. They talked about their days, their lives, the happenings within them, and their thoughts on it all. It was convenience that they had soccer to share, because it filled so much of both of their days, and the understanding and empathy came easy. It was from soccer that they could branch out from, and it was to soccer that they could fall back on if either of them, usually Sae, felt they'd wandered too far into uncharted territory.

One day, on one of these calls, Shidou told him, "Hey, so Blue Lock's opening back up the day after tomorrow."

Sae had admittedly forgotten about the whole program. Who was going to fill him in on it anyways? Rin? Hardly. All he'd known about the whole thing was that it was some kind of facility that turned out a team that had somehow beaten and disbanded Japan's U-20 team. He hadn't thought much about it since leaving, but now he was trying to figure out how long ago that had been. He flipped through the calendar in his mind, only to find he didn't have to go far.

Had it really only been two weeks since he and Shidou had met each other?

"Oh," Sae said.

"But don't worry," Shidou told him. "It's not like before. I'll still have my phone, so we can still talk."

Again, Sae hadn't been aware that they hadn't had their phones with them in the previous version of the program. But this filled him with relief regardless. He'd become quite used to these calls, to having someone to talk to. He didn't want to lose it.

"Cool," he said. Then, out of fear that sounded too indifferent, he added, "Good."

Their calls did become less frequent. Between the time difference, their busy conflicting schedules, and the fact that Shidou had very little alone time inside the facility, it's a fucking shit show in here. Did you know they made it a reality TV show? The whole place is crawling with guys, which I normally wouldn't mind, but, you know, their calls became infrequent and short. It was fine, Sae assured himself. He was plenty busy himself. They still texted a lot.

He did know it had been turned into some type of reality TV show, but Sae barely watched. He found it really boring. He didn't watch much soccer as is, and only found himself looking for Shidou, disappointed when he didn't see him, and then horribly embarrassed about that. Plus, he didn't want to see Rin, so he'd stopped watching altogether.

Shidou filled him in enough, so he didn't feel he was missing out.

"I picked Paris X Gen," Shidou told him.

"Why?" Sae asked.

"I dunno," he said. "Instinct, I guess. But it really paid off."

"Is that so?"

"It's lead by Julian Loki," Shidou answered. Sae felt a smile start to creep across his mouth. "They call him."

"Soccer's number one supernova," Sae said, finishing the sentence with his fully formed smile. "You're such an idiot."

"It's an explosion," Shidou said back. "And they call him a God. I was like, yeah, that's where I belong."

"Yeah," Sae said. "Sounds about right."

There was a pause and Sae heard voices in the background on the other side of the line, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. "Ugh, there is one downside though. I gotta go, but we'll talk soon, okay?"

"Okay," Sae said. "Bye."

"Miss you," Shidou said, and hung up.

He always said something in place of bye. Sae hadn't yet brought himself to follow suit, but he liked hearing it.

Not two minutes later, his phone started buzzing. Shidou had sent him a picture. It was of himself, half his face anyways, grimacing disgustedly, as Rin stood in the background, leaning against the wall, looking none the wiser. Look who I'm on a team with, the accompanying text said, followed by pretty much every displeased emoji their phones had to offer.

Sae laughed. Out loud.

That's so funny, he texted back. Sorry about your luck.

Did you laugh? Shidou asked.

Yes, Sae admitted. Out loud.

Fuck, I wish I could have seen that, Shidou typed back. I'll video call you later and you can show me.

You'll have to make me laugh again, Sae informed him.

I'm not worried, Shidou said.

And he shouldn't have been. Sae would readily admit, in the safety of his own mind, that nobody had been able to make him laugh so easily in, well, ever.