The Foxhole Court Tumblr Part 2

More about Riko & Kevin's past

Ok can you tell us a bit about kevin and riko's past? I'm dying to know

This is so long-winded and meandering and probably full of 8000 typos. SORRY? I was hoping that if I sat on it for a while it would be more coherent, but uhhhh I was wrong.

Oh, but where to begin.

We've got a little of the groundwork already, and once that's in place there's nowhere else to go but up into the spotlight ((and into the resultant shadows of madness it casts)). But let's take a look at the master's pets.

I feel like Tetsuji had to be an otaku growing up, into those super high-strung sports manga & anime where even Go is INTENSE!!!!!!with DRAMATIC MUSICS and EXAGGERATED SLOW-MOTION FLOURISHES. There's really no other excuse for what he put his Ravens through. He created a hive mind and fed them this—this hyperactive, delusional, over-the-top view of the world. The Ravens have an image, have an ideal, and they love it. They believe in their own hype, in their fantasy, in their synchrony and their ugly toxic psychological incest.

This is where Riko and Kevin grew up, in the midst of this, the master's pet projects and the so-called heirs of Exy. #1 and #2, destined to be Ravens, destined to be Court, destined to be legends.

Someone forgot that they were supposed to be children first.

Rather, someone just didn't care.

Kevin came to Castle Evermore on the tail-end of his mother's death. Sick with grief and numb with the shock of sudden loss, he might've come out okay if Tetsuji wasn't a psychotic bastard, because Kevin knew Evermore & Tetsuji & Riko — not that well, because his mother didn't always have time to cross the pond to see her old friend, but they were at least familiar. But grief is a selfish, useless emotion at Evermore, and Kevin learned that lesson his first day. He had no space or time or room to grieve, and that wild, unresolved ache became an open wound that gave the Moriyamas a foothold into a battered soul.

The facts of life at Evermore: Winning is everything. Exy is everything. Riko & Kevin will be the future of the school and the sport. They are the face of what is to come.

, and they knew Kevin was Riko's right-hand man. They knew the two were Tetsuji's pet project and the culmination of everything they were doing. They knew Riko & Kevin never went anywhere alone, and they knew they never left Evermore. These were two little gods underfoot– off-limits, and very, very important. Whatever Riko and Kevin wanted, Riko and Kevin got, whether it was private lessons or access to notes and old games ((or Lydia Shetfield, when Riko decided he and Kevin ought to lose their virginity like all the other Ravens had)).

Riko and Kevin were in an awful place, two bits of coal under unfathomable pressure, destined to be diamonds if they didn't completely shatter first. Tetsuji treated them with spite and heavy hands, and the Ravens treated them as more than they were. At least Tetsuji wasn't allowed to hit them where anyone might see–the public was fascinated with these two prodigies, and their faces were in too many pictures. They needed to stay poised and perfect for interviews and stray photographs. Armpits to knees, however, were free game. If they fucked up, he'd fuck them up.

You will be perfect. You will do it again until it is perfect.

Again. Again. Again.

Again.

Imagine living underground with a violent hivemind that has put you on a pedestal, with a god that comes and goes with cutting words and a hefty stick. Imagine 16hr days, the occasional roadtrip to faraway stadiums, the flash of cameras and the awed speculation. The people who say "but they are just children" who are too quickly drowned out by "the future of the sport."

You will do it again until it is perfect.

If it is not perfect you will not eat, you will not sleep.

You waste everyone's time. You make a mockery of this sport. You are disgusting. You are a disgrace.

Having a cult fall in around you means nothing when your god cannot see you, when your sacrifices get spat on and your altars are kicked over no matter how well they are presented.

They should have shattered within a couple years. In a game of tug-o-war the rope never wins.

Maybe all that saved them was each other, was the roles they fell into, the king and the prince, the captain and vice-captain, the master and the pet. This made sense. This was a safety net. These were lanes to stay within, lines they could color inside. You lead, I'll follow. You speak, I'll answer. You smile, I'll nod. A moon orbiting its planet, desperate for an anchor, pulling the tide higher and higher. This was hell and they were in it together.

Together but not together, because Riko and Kevin knew from day one that they would never be equals.

Kevin didn't just learn Exy at Evermore; he learned how quickly to avert his eyes when Riko was angry and how to bite his tongue on everything he wanted to say. He took that terrible attitude out on the rest of the Ravens instead–where Riko was the haughty, refined brat, Kevin was the acerbic, condescending asshole. ((See also: why Riko was always more popular with the press and their fans)) They were ruthless perfectionists because they did not know how to be anything else, but one expected and one hungered and that was the critical difference in the end.

Kevin hated being Riko's pet, but at least Riko was easy. If Kevin remembered his place, Riko had no reason to hurt him. Riko was a safer bet than the master was, since Tetsuji was impossible to please no matter what they did. Kevin could survive two monsters only if one of them was dormant or otherwise entertained, so he bowed his head and did what he needed to do, and eventually he forgot he'd ever existed outside of Riko's circle. He stayed close enough that his leash wouldn't choke him and followed Riko to the top.

Riko was never kind to Kevin, but he was–for a while, at least–manageable. But the older they got, the more pressure that was applied to them, the addition of multiple teams and college classes, and the brutality that Riko could inflict on Jean without any recourse whatsoever, the more Riko started to fray at the seams, the more often the poison started to slip out, the harder it was to detect the cruelty before Riko lashed out with words or fists or racquets. But by then Kevin had forgotten how to fight back, so he cowered and hid and licked his wounds in private. This was his place. This was who they were. This was what Riko needed, and Exy needed Riko, and Kevin needed Riko. This was part of the deal.

His hand was not part of the deal.