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"Kidou, why is your bed so big?"
"It really isn't-"
"I'm pretty sure your bed is the size of my closet," Gouenji said blankly.
The playmaker in question rolled his eyes. "You're exaggerating." Gouenji opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, Endou leapt onto the sheets, letting out a sigh of delight as the fabric hit his body.
"Kidouuuu," he called out. "Your bed's so soft ."
Gouenji hummed and followed suit, though by just sitting rather than jumping. Someone clearly had to spend a lot of time making this bed (based on the size alone) and he didn't want to disregard the butler's hard work. He wasn't too surprised to find that Endou was right, the blankets and the sheets feeling softer than anything he'd ever slept in before.
Kidou let out a dramatic sigh. "I didn't even say you could sleep here."
"Are you gonna kick us out?" Endou asked with wide, trembling eyes. On cue, Kidou's face turned bright red and he stuttered.
"N-no, of course not! I was just saying you should ask before-"
"So we can stay in your bed tonight?"
"I- yes?"
"Yes!" He stuck out his hand, and with a smirk, Gouenji finished his high-five. "Operation 'Secure Kidou's Bed' is a success!"
"You guys are ridiculous," Kidou muttered as he sat on Endou's other side. "Sometimes I wonder why I joined this team."
"Because you love us," Endou answered without hesitation, and it took everything Gouenji had not to laugh at Kidou's entire face (and part of his neck too) going red again in less than five minutes. Endou, who either didn't notice or care for Kidou's reaction, looked around them. "Wait, am I in the middle?"
"You were on the bus," Gouenji pointed out. "Why would it be any different here?"
Endou shrugged. "Just asking." He crawled over to the head of the bed, dropping his face down onto one of the pillows. "Kidou, how did you sleep anywhere else after sleeping here? I'd never be able to."
"Maybe sometimes he sleeps on the couch to remind himself of what us commoners deal with," Gouenji joked, climbing to Endou's side, but not before taking a kick from Kidou, who had mostly recovered from Endou's use of the L-word.
"Or maybe I'm just that adaptable," Kidou argued while settling on the other side of their captain. "That's an important part of soccer, after all."
Endou hummed in agreement, slipping off his headband and tossing it over Kidou's head to land on the bedside table. Gouenji settled under the covers and watched with great interest as Kidou gently took off his goggles and placed them next to the orange headband, revealing his bright red eyes.
Kidou turned and gave him a stern look. "What?"
"Nothing," Gouenji answered easily. "Your eyes are just really pretty, that's all."
Yet again, Kidou blushed, though he was able to keep it (mostly) under control this time. "You guys saw this all the time on the bus."
"We see the sunset all the time too," Endou argued. "Doesn't make it any less pretty."
Kidou opened his mouth before deciding against it, instead opting to turn away from both of them and lay down with a huff. "Whatever. Are we going to sleep or not?"
“...Which one of us is going to turn off the lights?”
The three of them looked at each other, before Endou said, “I’m in the middle, so I can’t do it.”
Gouenji raised an eyebrow. “This bed is big enough that you could probably walk around either of us-”
Endou unceremoniously dropped his head onto the pillows, making the most obnoxious fake snore sound he could. Gouenji sighed, but deep down he was relieved. Endou only got this fussy when he was tired, so that meant sleep would come easy to him. “I’ll do it,” he said with more irritation than he felt, and pushed himself off the oh-so-comfortable sheets to go and hit the light switch.
He hummed as he made his way across the carpet back to his teammates, enjoying the way the carpet felt against his feet. Endou wasn’t kidding when he said Kidou’s house was the comfiest. He was so distracted he didn’t see a dark round shape roll out from under the bed until it was too late.
BAM!
He tripped over- whatever it was and fell flat on his face, making the other two spring up from the bed in surprise. “Gouenji?!” Endou called out worriedly, leaping off to his friend’s side while Kidou turned on the bedside lamp. “Are you okay?!”
He pushed himself off the ground, still rubbing his head. “I’m fine,” he answered. “What did I even-”
Both of them paused when they saw what exactly he tripped over. Once Kidou joined them, he once again turned bright red at the sight of the penguin plushie that had rolled out from under his bed, now resting at the striker’s knees.
With a sense of reverence, Gouenji picked it up. It wasn’t torn or in bad shape by any means, but it was clear that it had been squeezed a few more times than it could take.
“Hey, there’s more under here!” Endou said, lifting up the sheet to reveal a whole stash of penguin stuffed animals hidden under the bed. “Wow, Kidou, you have so many!”
Kidou dropped to his knees and hid his face in his hands. Gouenji couldn’t help but giggle at the sight. “How long have you had this one?” he asked gently.
After a few seconds, Kidou mumbled, “...Since sixth grade.”
“Hey, don’t look so down!” Endou said as he crawled back out from under the bed. “I still have some of my old stuffed animals!”
Kidou didn’t say anything, but he did peek out from in between his fingers. Gouenji gently placed the plush on the ground and gave him a small smile.
“I’ve given most of mine to Yuuka,” he shared. “But there is this turtle I keep on my shelf. When…” He paused, thinking how best to say the next part without causing too much worry. “When I can’t sleep, sometimes I bring it down for comfort.”
He felt Endou’s questioning look on his back, but he stopped focusing on that when Kidou lowered his hands, his cheeks as red as his eyes. “You guys don’t think it’s…?” he mumbled questioningly.
Endou gave him his signature thumbs up, grinning from ear to ear. “No way! Besides, remember that training camp we did with Raimon? Some of our teammates have way weirder sleeping habits than stuffed animals.”
“I actually would’ve preferred stuffed animals to Megane’s sleep talking,” Gouenji said under his breath. Kidou looked at them in belief, before letting out a laugh of his own.
“I don’t why I thought you two dorks would think this was weird.”
“Yeah, really!” Endou agreed. “We definitely would’ve said something about your ten pairs of penguin pajamas if we did.”
“Or the penguin books.”
“Or the penguin soccer ball.”
“Or the-”
“I get it,” Kidou sighed, raising his hands up in surrender. “Let’s just actually go to bed, okay?”
It took a bit of shuffling, and a little bit more banter, but eventually the three of them settled back into the bed, and sleep took Gouenji faster than it ever had before.
-
He was in the hospital.
Gouenji hated the hospital. It was synonymous with almost all of his family at this point, from his father’s job to Yuuka’s coma to his mother’s-
He shook his head. He needed to find the room.
He didn’t remember the number, and he didn’t need to. He’d know he’d find it eventually. The smell of antiseptic and the whispers of doctors filled the hallway as he did. There were vague shapes in the doors he passed by, some familiar, some not. He didn’t give them any attention, no matter how many times the voices sounded like his father’s, or the crying sounded like Yuuka’s. They weren’t. They were just- distractions. He needed to focus.
He needed to be there. He wasn’t sure, or when, or how, but it would all become clear eventually. He’d visited the hospital enough times in his life to know it always did.
He didn’t know how long he was walking for, how long he ignored the blinding overhead lights or the numb feeling in his hands, but eventually he reached it. A door at the end of the hallway, a small light spilling out from underneath it. There were no shadows through the window, no hints as to what he was getting himself into.
Gouenji didn’t need one. With more confidence than he had, he threw the door opened and-
And sunlight hit his eyes. For a few seconds, he was blinded, before he blinked and the room became clearer, like a lens readjusting. It looked a lot like Yuuka’s room. Large windows, a single bed surrounded by machines he couldn’t understand but his father would always play with like they were instruments, and a person- someone who shouldn’t have been there sat, staring blankly at the wall.
He almost choked at the sight of them. “Endou,” he gasped out, the air in the room suddenly feeling very thin.
The goalkeeper slowly turned to look at him, his face stuck in his usual grin. It felt wrong, in such a sterile, cold place. “Hey, Gouenji! You’ve finally decided to come, huh?”
So many questions and words came rushing out of his mind that they clogged up his throat, making so that only one managed to come out. “What…?”
Endou tilted his head, his neck bent at an odd angle. “I’ve been waiting,” he said simply. “A very long time.”
The machine next to him began to beep, a light next to the monitor flashing red. Gouenji’s eyes darted from it to Endou and back again. “Endou, you should-”
“Should keep waiting?” There was a bitterness to his tone, a bitterness he’d never heard Endou speak with before, and desperately hoped he would never have to again. “How long, Gouenji? How long are you going to take?”
Gouenji took a step back, hitting a solid wall rather than the door he entered through. “I-I’m here now-”
Another machine next to Endou went off, but it didn’t beep.
Instead, it screamed.
It took him a few seconds to recognize them, but he did. It was the Raimon Eleven, as Gemini Storm tore through their bodies and scored goal after goal. It was Someoka, screaming his name as he ran away from the team. It was Kidou, yelling into the darkness of the sky wondering where their ace was.
It was Endou, as Kazemaru hit him over and over, while he just laid there and watched.
The ceiling began to crack, pieces of a car dyed with blood falling to the floor. Something else turned on- an ambulance siren, as red began to spill from the bed and flood the room. Gouenji looked up, at Endou, at his captain, at-
At the machine, which was flatlining. At Endou, whose smile was full of bloody teeth.
“You’re always late, Shuuya ,” he said in his usual, sweet voice.
Gouenji opened up his mouth to say something, but blood filled his lungs and he choked on it, as his mouth tasted of lightning and hope and tears and regret and he drowned in it, knowing it was kinder than the fate he deserved.
-
“Gouenji? Gouenji?!”
He jolted up so suddenly that it was only thanks to Kidou’s fast reflexes that the two of them didn’t knock their heads together. His hands gripped the sheets as his body caught up fully to where he was.
In Kidou’s bed. In Kidou’s house. With Kidou, and Endou-
His eyes darted around the bed. The goalkeeper was nowhere to be found.
“Gouenji-”
“Endou,” he managed to gasp out. “Where’s Endou?”
Kidou looked around too, worry growing on his own face. “He wasn’t here when I woke up. Why? What’s-”
“We need to find him,” Gouenji said, attempting to get off the bed, before Kidou pushed him back down. Gouenji glared at him. “What are you doing? We have to-”
“What you need to do is calm down,” Kidou interrupted, hands remaining firm on his shoulders. His brilliant red eyes drilled into his own. “You were having a nightmare, Gouenji. Whatever happened there wasn’t real.”
“I-” Once again, he looked around the room. Kidou’s house, he reminded himself. Not at a hospital, not the scene of a car crash, but his best friend’s house. His shoulders sagged a little, and Kidou hesitantly let him go when he stopped trying to jump off the bed.
“Do you want a tissue?”
Gouenji blinked. He touched his face, and sure enough, his cheeks were wet with either tears or sweat, maybe even both. “Y-yes.”
Kidou turned back to the bedside table and pulled out a box, letting Gouenji reach for the soft paper and wipe his face. For a few seconds, there was only silence.
Then, Kidou spoke again. “Feeling better?”
Gouenji hesitantly nodded, not trusting his voice at the moment. Kidou scooted a little closer, resting his hand on top of the striker’s.
“What do you need?” Kidou asked as he softly stroked his fingers.
“Endou,” he said before he could stop himself. As much as he would like to trust Kidou, he needed to see his partner for himself before he could truly relax.
Kidou grimaced. “I can’t exactly get you him right now, but…” His eyes flickered to the edge of the bed. “Give me a second.”
Kidou pushed himself off and he faintly heard some shuffling underneath him before Kidou popped up again, now holding a familiar well-loved penguin plush.
Gouenji blinked as Kidou rolled the stuffed animal towards him. “What..?”
Kidou shrugged as he sat back down. “You said you had a stuffed animal to help you sleep sometimes. It’s not a turtle, but…”
Gouenji gently picked it up before hugging it closer to his chest, letting his breathing slow down. For some time, the two of them just sat there, with Gouenji slowing his breath and Kidou studying the rise and fall of his chest intensely.
That was, until the door opened.
Both of them jolted at the sound, turning with alarming speed as the final member of their trio stepped through, yawning and rubbing his eyes before he spotted the other two staring at him.
“Um- Hi?”
“Endou,” Gouenji said, relief filling his mind as he got a good look at his friend, safe and not bloody and not in a hospital. “You’re alright.”
“Y-yes?” Endou hesitantly began to walk towards the bed. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Gouenji had a nightmare,” Kidou explained before Gouenji could come up with a proper answer himself. “Something about you, I think.”
Endou’s confused expression softened. “Oh,” he said, jumping on the mattress and crawling around to the striker’s other side. Kidou moved away as he did (and quietly took the plush back), the two of them working in tandem like parts of a machine. “Sorry.”
Gouenji stared at him. “What are you sorry for?”
“I’m sorry you had a nightmare,” Endou elaborated. “I’m fine, really.”
Gouenji swallowed. “Yeah,” he said for lack of any other words. “You are.”
Endou tilted his head, and for a second it looked just like his dream, before Endou gave him a soft smile. “Would you like a hug?”
Gouenji looked at Endou, at his smile, at his pure white teeth. His hands squeezed the blankets in a vain attempt to ground himself. “Y-yeah.”
With a simple nod, Endou wrapped his arms around Gouenji’s body, pushing his face into his shoulder. Despite having more muscle than both he and Kidou combined, he still felt soft, and Gouenji couldn’t help but let out a shuddering breath as he melted into Endou’s touch.
In the silence and the warmth, he had the space to think.
It wasn’t the first time he had a nightmare like that. When his mother first died, he rarely slept, dreaming of the moment he walked into the room only to find the machine making a strange noise and his father forever a different man. The same thing happened when Yuuka was hit, only it was dreaming of what could happen rather than what did.
It… had never been about Endou before, someone who he hadn’t even seen in the hospital. Why had it started back up? Was his guilt from leaving the team still lingering in some part of his mind? It had to be, to manifest so violently.
“Gouenji?” Endou called out, noticing the way the other was tensing beneath him.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. Endou hummed, pulling him even closer.
“Don’t apologize,” Endou chastised. “It’s not your fault you had a nightmare.”
“No, I mean-” He took a deep breath. “For leaving.”
Endou pulled back, and for a second Gouenji wanted to take back his words just so that he would stay. “But… that wasn’t your fault either.”
Endou was right, of course. Even if Gouenji had been there when they’d taken his sister, he doubted he would’ve been able to stop them. But he knew his absence had done something to the team, to them, that they wouldn’t talk about.
“I wasn’t there,” he tried to explain. “When Kageyama came back… when you and Kazemaru… I didn’t even try to call you. Text you. Anything. I just…”
“It probably would’ve been harder, if you did.”
Gouenji looked over to Kidou, who was pointedly not making eye contact and instead staring at the ceiling. “What do you mean?”
“To stay away,” he elaborated. “I mean, it already took a lot of time for you to decide to leave for the sake of your sister. If we were telling you about some of the stuff that was happening in real time…” His eyes finally turned in Gouenji's direction, staring straight through him. “You can act all calm, but you’re a creature of passion, Gouenji. You would’ve been there in a heartbeat.”
Gouenji wasn’t sure why Kidou’s words made him blush, but they did. Endou suddenly wrapping an arm around his shoulder and pulling him in did not help in the slightest, though Kidou’s startled yelp as the same thing happened to him did make him chuckle a little.
“We’re all creatures of passion!” Endou yelled like it wasn’t some ungodly hour in the morning. “That’s why we made it this far, isn’t it?”
“E-Endou, y-you’re choking-”
“Whoops, sorry,” He loosened his grip around Kidou’s neck, though still not letting go. “Still… it’s okay, Gouenji. I won’t lie and say things weren’t rough, but I’m glad your sister was safe. That’s what’s important.”
Kidou coughed, but gave the striker the softest smile he could. “What he said.”
Gouenji had to look away, if only to save face with the blush darkening on his cheeks or the tears threatening to build up in his eyes again. It didn’t work for long, as before he knew it Endou had crawled around to the other side and left him stuck in the middle between him and Kidou.
“It’s ok, Gouenji,” Endou said as he wiped a tear off his cheek. “We forgave you a long time ago.”
Something about Endou’s voice just made the tears fall faster. As with most things he did, Gouenji was quiet when it came to crying, having learned to swallow down his sobs after his mother’s death. And yet, something about the way Endou cradled his face, or the way Kidou slowly moved closer and wrapped his arms around his torso made him feel like she was here again, comforting after one of his night terrors of monsters and ghosts, before he had real things to be scared of.
As the three slowly shifted as one to lay back down on the bed, Gouenji let their combined warmth consume him, burning with the feelings of safety and love .
-
“Kidou, help me.”
Kidou hummed, pretending to consider. “No,” he answered as he took another sip of his tea, enjoying the scene before him.
It was early morning. After Gouenji had calmed down from his nightmare, the three had fallen asleep easily. Of course, with Gouenji now being in the middle, he was now the only one susceptible to Endou's bear hugs, which Kidou knew first hand were almost impossible to escape from until Endou woke up.
Which in of itself was quite a chore.
“Kidou, he’s way too strong. I literally can’t get out.”
“That’s too bad,” Kidou replied with zero sympathy from the chair he’d pulled up beside the bed. “Now you know how I felt when you’d get up at 6 and leave me to fend for myself against Endou.”
Gouenji struggled again, but with Endou’s arms pinning his own to his sides, there wasn’t much he could do. “You can’t just leave your teammate here,” he tried.
“Gouenji, what makes you think I’ll have any more luck than you?”
“You can use all of your limbs, for one,” he argued. “Can’t you get something to wake him up?”
“Endou could sleep through a hurricane.”
“Kick a soccer ball at him or something, that’ll-” Gouenji was interrupted by Endou mumbling something, scooting even closer to him. Curious, Kidou got up to get a better angle, only to see the goalkeeper press his lips against Gouenji’s neck, leaving the skin bright red once he pulled away.
Gouenji’s face wasn’t doing much better, though a small smile could be seen through the glowing red blush. “Never mind,” he whispered, his body relaxing in Endou’s hold. “I can stay like this for a while.”
Kidou sat back down, biting the inside of his lips to keep his own grin from becoming too big. “Me too,” he replied as he took another sip of his tea, watching as the sun fell through the glass windows and highlighted the two against the white sheets, making a picture that kept the play maker staring in pure adoration.
What he wouldn’t give, to wake up to this every morning.