Chapter Text
The sound of the announcer blared through the stadium, and the deafening cheers from the crowd screamed the victor's name.
The Blue Lock Eleven had won, not that Shidou minded. He was able to explode and show the world who he was, winning or losing didn’t matter so long as he was free. And free he was, thanks to one Itoshi Sae. Shidou beamed at the thought. They were practically made for each other, he didn’t think he’d ever had so much chemistry with someone, on or off the field, before now. It felt as if his entire body was buzzing in anticipation to play with Sae again.
The rest of the u20 were patting each other on the back, and congratulating everyone for a good game, but Shidou had no interest in talking to them; they didn’t make him want to explode. As the team made their way into the u20 locker room, Shidou began to take off his dirty uniform, although that wasn’t what he was focused on.
Out of the corner of his eye, Shidou watched the entrance to the showers, which a few of the u20 members were already entering. Itoshi Sae was in there, he knew it. Sae had said himself at the end of the match, he would give Shidou his phone number once he had showered. Shidou giggled to himself, earning a few sideways glances from the other players. He would’ve preferred moving straight into Sae’s apartment, but baby steps were okay, he would get there eventually. The number just proved Sae was interested after all. Well, he thought to himself, he wouldn’t have made me explode like that if he wasn’t interested either!
So he sat and waited, not bothering to get fully changed aside from putting on a clean pair of shorts and fixing his hair. Every time someone left the showers he perked up, hoping it was underlashes senior, but it was always just some nobody he never bothered to learn the name of.
Eventually, almost the entire team had come and gone, with no sign of Itoshi Sae. Shidou was beginning to get impatient. Sae probably wasn’t even in those showers. Now that he thought about it, someone like Sae would have their own personal showers in a luxury apartment far away from here, there was no need for him to use some dirty public one with the rest of the team.
Just as Shidou was turning around to grab his bags and leave, dejected, he heard a familiar sigh behind him.
“You’re still here, Demon?”
Shidou turned excitedly towards the source of the voice he’d been waiting for. “Sae-chan!”
Shidou practically launched himself at the other man, Sae’s quick reflexes and outstretched arm being the only thing preventing both of them from crashing to the ground.
Sae shoved him back lightly, causing Shidou to stumble.
“But Saeeee,” he teased. “Someone promised me their phone number after they finished their shower…”
Sae gave a displeased look in return. “I thought if I took an unreasonable amount of time in there you would give up and leave me alone. It seems I underestimated you.”
Shidou grinned. “After a match like that, how could I? It feels like every cell in my body is on fire.”
Sae didn’t respond, only staring at Shidou with a sort of inquisitive look. He was only snapped out of it when Shidou started waving his phone in Sae’s face. “Well? You promised your number and the phone can’t type it in itself, ehehe.”
Electing not to comment on the irritating giggle or hideous phone case, Sae handed the annoying man his own phone, and took Shidou’s to begin typing his number in. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was writing the correct number. Any sane person would write a fake one so he could move on from this and never talk to Shidou again. But it couldn’t hurt to use his real one for this. That’s what the block button was for, after all.
As he typed, out of the corner of his eye, Sae could see Shidou happily typing his own number into Sae’s phone. Shidou looked much more excited about typing his number into Sae’s phone than Sae was about doing the same.
Once Sae was finished typing, Shidou gleefully took back his phone and slipped it into his bag. Shidou was beaming from ear to ear, you'd think he was just given 1 billion yen, rather than the phone number of some guy he just met.
“Uh,” Sae said. “I guess I’ll leave now.” Shidou pouted at him.
“Are you expecting something else?” Sae questioned, raising an eyebrow. “You should be glad you even got this, horny demon, you didn’t score the hattrick.”
Smiling playfully, Shidou responded, “You have no idea just how happy I am right now.”
“Then shouldn’t you be satisfied with just this?” Sae asked.
Sae could see the glint in Shidou’s eyes as he spoke. “I am satisfied, but are you, Sae-chan?”
Shidou’s words left a tension in the room so thick Sae didn’t feel like he could move. But he must have moved, because he couldn’t have been standing this close to Ryusei Shidou seconds before.
When their lips came crashing together it felt like all the energy that had built between them during the match was released in one overwhelming wave. And Shidou wasn’t holding back either, almost immediately opening his mouth slightly to deepen their embrace. Shidou’s hands were wandering, Sae sucked in a breath as he felt a palm run along his abs. His entire body was so hot, Sae was barely thinking straight. The only thing running though his mind was the sensation he was feeling, as Shidou sucked on his bottom lip.
The hand under Saes’s shirt moved up towards his chest, and almost instinctively Sae's own hands moved to hold Shidou by the hips. Shidou didn’t resist as Sae pushed harder into him, continuing to kiss as Shidou’s back collided with the locker room wall.
Sae stopped.
The locker room wall. He’s in the u20 changing rooms making out with one of his team mates. Blue Lock’s Ryusei Shidou of all people.
As fast as his body would let him, Sae pulled away from Shidou. He could feel Shidou’s body make an attempt to follow him, but he just pushed him away again.
Shidou looked confused, head tilted to the side like a confused puppy. Sae didn’t let it get to him.
“Get away from me,” Sae said, trying to keep his voice steady.
“You started it,” Shidou pointed out.
“I-” Sae didn’t know how to respond. He was Sae Itoshi, professional football player on top of the world. And he couldn’t do something as simple as this.
He could see Shidou’s mouth beginning to open, probably to say something suggestive he couldn’t deny. So Sae did the one thing he knew he was good at. Leaving.
“I don’t want or need you.” His hand fumbled behind him, picking up his phone to hold it up to Shidou’s face. It was still open on the screen where Shidou had typed in his number minutes before.
Sae hovered his finger over the block button, making sure Shidou could see it. “Don’t contact me. This was nothing, and never will be anything.” He pressed the block button firmly and deleted the contact, before slipping the phone into his pocket and storming out of the locker rooms. He only heard a few last words from Shidou before he was out the door.
“You know you don’t mean that, Sae-chan.”
Sae didn’t respond, he only thought to himself, Lukewarm.
Once Sae was gone, Shidou sat there for a second. Still high off of his and Sae’s locker room “activities”. Any sane person would’ve given up after Sae’s final words to him. But Shidou wasn’t sane, and he was barely a person.
Shidou chuckled to himself. Even if Sae didn’t know it, or wanted to admit it, Shidou knew this wasn’t over between them. Not if he could do something about it.
~ 💥 ~ ⚽ ~
Shidou almost missed playing for Blue Lock during their two week break. So when what Ego called the “Neo Egoist League” began, he was ecstatic to get moving again. Although Ego was talking a lot… something about picking a country to play with. It didn’t matter much to him. So long as the team he chose let his cells explode to their fullest, or as much as they could without a certain grumpy midfielder to excite him completely.
Paris X Gen jumped out at Shidou immediately. It seemed like the strongest team, and he’d been interested to know more about that Loki guy for a while. Plus once they were all separated into their teams, Shidou discovered Rin must’ve had a similar train of thought, because they were on the same team. This was obviously a hindrance in terms of actually playing the game… but who could say no to a free punching bag for his time off the field.
Rin looked up from his unpacking and glared at Shidou as he walked into the team's shared room. “Tch, can I swap teams? Why do I have to be in the same room as this cockroach freak again?”
Just then Karasu walked in behind Shidou, putting a hand onto his shoulder confidently, the usual smirk plastered across his face. “Come on guys cheer up, this is half of a top 6 reunion. It’s like we’re back in the third selection again!”
Shidou was glad to see Karasu. He was a lot more fun to talk to than Rin was. “Exactly, Assassin-chan. RinRin needs to stop being so negative all the time.”
Rin scowled at them both. “I’m not negative all the time, I’m negative whenever I see you people.”
Shidou stuck his tongue out at Rin before claiming one of the beds as his own, casually throwing his bag onto it. Overall Shidou decided it was a good team. Obviously it was no playing with Sae Itoshi, but he was looking forward to the NEL. And maybe he would find someone from the rest of the team he didn’t know yet to, to quote Karasu, “match his freak”.
That prediction didn’t take long to come true. France's impish midfielder Charles Chevalier quickly became one of Shidou's new best friends, much to the dismay of Rin who now essentially had two Shidous to deal with. Or Idiot One and Idiot Two as he referred to them. Rin got especially annoyed at them when they hung out in the shared bedroom, as they were now.
Charles made a shocked expression as Shidou finished explaining his situation with Sae after the u20 match to him.
“Woah…” Charles said, before grinning. “He definitely wants you, dude.”
Shidou flopped backwards onto the bed. “Exactlyyy, I just need to get him to unblock me and I’ve got this in the bag.”
Charles nodded, putting his hand up to his chin in thought. “Maybe if you try texting him again it’ll work. He could’ve unblocked you since then.”
Covering his face with his arms, Shidou groaned. “You think I haven’t tried texting him every single day?” Pulling his arms down again to reveal the pout on his face, Shidou continued. “None of my messages are going though, I send him something every morning and night.”
Charles sat down on the bed next to him, trying to come up with ideas.
As they both thought, Karasu walked over from his side of the room, where he was reading before. “I hear drama.” Karasu slumped down across from them on the next bed. “Who blocked who, what's going on.”
Shidou rolled over dramatically, kicking his feet as he did. “Remember how during the u20 match, Itoshi senior and I had that crazy chemical reaction.”
“Uh, yeah.” Karasu laughed. “It was kinda hard to miss, it was all anyone was talking about for a while there.”
Shidou nodded. “Well, the chemical reaction didn’t end on the field, if you know what I mean ♪.”
Karasu’s eyes widened slightly. “Oh so it’s like that.”
Shidou half yelled as he responded excitedly, “I made out with Itoshi Sae in the u20 locker rooms!”
Karasu opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a noise from the next bed over.
Rin’s headphones had fallen off and clattered onto the floor. There was an almost murderous look in his eyes. “...What.”
Shidou snickered at Rin’s shocked face. “And he loved it”
Rin scowled. “You’re disgusting. I didn’t think I could lose more respect for you or my brother, but it seems I have.”
Karasu tutted, shaking his head. “Don’t worry, apparently Sae blocked him after. Maybe he's not a complete lost cause after all.”
“Tepid. He shouldn’t have chosen that antennaed freak to play with in the first place.” Rin turned away, clearly still annoyed at Shidou.
Shidou smirked at the back of Rin’s head. “Mark my words Rinrin, Itoshi Sae wants me so badly it’s not even funny. Like, if any of you were there you would’ve known. There was an explosive energy around us.” Charles nodded enthusiastically, despite not having been there.
Rin looked back towards the group, head shaking in disapproval. “You’re seriously basing all this off of energy..? A vibe?”
“Uh, yeah obviously,” Shidou confirmed. “My intuition has never been wrong.”
“Neither has mine!” Charles added. “And my intuition tells me that his intuition is right, so it must be true!”
“There’s levels to this shit.” Karasu tapped the side of his head as if anything that was going on in the conversation had a sound logic to it. Rin just rolled his eyes and picked up his headphones so he could ignore them again.
Shidou poked Karasu in the side. “Oi, can I try with your phone?”
Karasu gave an amused look, but didn’t refuse, handing Shidou his phone from his pocket.
Shidou dialed Sae’s number into Karasu’s phone—obviously he had it memorised, it wasn’t something he was gonna forget easily.
He stared at the phone, the text on the screen said it was calling. “Come on, pick up pick up pick up,” Shidou muttered to himself as the phone buzzed.
“And…straight to voicemail.” Karasu shook his head, reaching to take his phone back from Shidou.
Shidou put a palm to his face, holding the phone further away with his other hand. “Shhh, let me leave him a voice mail.”
Karasu sighed. “Fine, whatever.”
“Heyy, Sae-chan,” Shidou cooed into Karasu’s phone. “I know you must be missing hearing my voice so much! I certainly miss yours ♪, Your voice isn’t the only thing about your mouth I’m missing, I’d like to-”
He was interrupted by Charles snatching the phone from his hands and screaming into it, “HI ITOSHI SAE! You should unblock my super awesome friend Shidou!” Shidou and Charles almost would’ve had a tug of war with the phone if it wasn’t for Karasu grabbing his phone back and firmly pressing the button to end the recording.
Karasu put the phone away again, smiling. “I’m sure he’s not even gonna open that message, thankfully, because that was terrible.”
Ignoring Karasu, a devilish grin spread across Charles’ face, as he nudged Shidou, indicating him to look at Rin again. “Itoshi senior has you blocked, but do you think he has his own brother blocked?” He whispered.
Shidou understood what Charles was suggesting. He responded back in a hushed tone, “Rinrin leaves his phone in here while he’s training, right?”
Karasu, who was listening in to their whispers, nodded. “I remember he puts it in the drawers next ta his bed.”
With their plan underway, the boys went into action the next morning when Rin went to training.
“Bin-go ♪,” Shidou sing-songed as he triumphantly pulled Rin’s abandoned phone from inside his bedside table.
He threw it lightly to Karasu, who caught it smoothly and pressed the on button.
“Shit,” Karasu muttered. “Obviously he’d have a password, are we stupid?”
“We are.” Charles nodded solemnly.
Shidou walked back over to Karasu and peered over his shoulder at the locked phone. “Try one of those emo words he’s saying all the time.”
Karasu turned away and typed for a few seconds, before letting out a laugh, and holding up the now unlocked phone for Charles and Shidou to see. “Dumbass set his password ta “football”, there's actually no way.”
Snatching the phone back from Karasu’s hands, Shidou almost doubled over from laughter, clutching his gut. “Oh my god that’s so bad, man’s gotta find himself another hobby.”
Karasu raised an eyebrow. “It’s not like we do much else either, this is Blue Lock after all.”
Shidou giggled, waggling a finger at Karasu as he spoke. “Maybe you don’t, I spread my cells in other ways than just football. I can be quite the artist.”
“That’s great man, try not ta get any of your “cells” anywhere near me then.” Karasu grimaced, sticking out his tongue at the end to emphasise his disgust. “Yuck.”
“Boo, you’re no fun!” Charles cried, jumping onto Shidou’s side and clinging to him playfully. “Shidou, tell him he can’t join our super cool pervert club.”
Shidou began to spin around with Charles, chanting their usual pervert nonsense, before they were interrupted by a pillow colliding with them, almost knocking them over, courtesy of Karasu.
“Stop getting so distracted,” he said, pointing at the phone still in Shidou’s hand. “We need to see if we can text Sae before Rin finishes morning training.”
Shidou nodded, pushing Charles off him onto the bed, then sitting down with the phone.
There was hardly anyone in Rin’s contact list, and of the few listed, none of them said “Itoshi Sae”.
Shidou dropped the phone next to him on the bed. “Fuckk, that could’ve been it.”
Charles reached over Shidou to see the phone for himself, and started clicking around for something.
Shidou perked up, leaning over to see what he was doing.
“I was thinking, and I think I know where Rin would have Sae added on his phone…” After a few more seconds of swiping, Charles made a squeal of victory, holding out Rin's phone for Shidou to see.
Rin did have Sae’s number added in his contacts, only, he was on the blocklist, under the name “Do not contact”.
Grabbing the phone back from Charles, Shidou eagerly clicked on the contact. Sae clearly wasn’t the type to respond to or check a message from an anonymous number, but surely he would check a message from his little brother.
As Shidou unblocked the number and opened the message stream, the other two boys huddled around him to watch.
There wasn’t a lot to see, if there was a text conversation there before the messages had been deleted, leaving Shidou with a clean slate to start off on.
“What are ya gonna say?” Karasu whispered, even though there was no need to, Rin was still at training, with the other members out of the room too. But something about actually finding the contact made them all feel pressured to sneak.
Shidou smirked as he began typing. “Watch and learn, I have a way with words.”
“What’s he typing? I don’t speak Japanese.” Charles looked at Karasu then at the phone again.
So as Shidou typed, Karasu began to read aloud each word slowly. “Hey… Sae-Chan. Guess who it is. I can’t… wait… to get in… those…” Karasu paused. “Okay I’m not reading this out loud. Sorry Charles, I think ya can figure it out.”
“No fair!” Charles crossed his arms, watching Karasu’s face get progressively redder as he looked down Shidou’s text to Sae.
Once he was done typing the terribly long message, Shidou held Rin’s phone out proudly. “Who wants to do the honors of pressing send?”
Charles put up his hand, waving it furiously. “Me! Let me do it!”
Shidou giggled, presenting the phone to Charles. The second his finger made contact with the screen, sending the message off to Sae (hopefully), there was a familiar voice at the room's entrance.
“What the HELL are you three doing with my phone!?” Rin’s voice was filled with anger, the same way it sometimes was during an especially intense football match.
“Oh no,” Karasu and Shidou said in unison, scrambling to keep the phone away from Rin, who was now storming across the room.
Rin was only slightly taller than them, so they were able to play a very dangerous game of hot potato to keep the phone away as long as they could.
Right when Shidou stopped for a second, standing on top of someone's previously tidy bed with the phone in the air, Charles yelped pointing at the phone, still open on Shidou’s text.
The noise shocked even Rin, he stopped trying to grab his phone as all of their eyes followed Charles’ hand to look at the screen properly.
There at the bottom were three small dots, wobbling up and down to indicate someone was typing on the other side.
Shidou screamed in excitement and hunched over the phone screen, shielding it from everyone else's eyes.
Karasu and Charles craned their necks to try and look at the screen too, leaving Rin to stare at them, seemingly to temporarily be too shocked that Sae was actually typing to try and get his phone back again.
Shidou watched the ellipses at the bottom of the screen eagerly. They kept on appearing and disappearing every few seconds, sometimes for a longer amount of time before stopping. After about a minute they stopped entirely, with no response.
Shidou stared at the screen for another minute, just to be sure he didn’t miss it, but the screen continued to display his own text to Sae on its own.
Shidou huffed, pressing the power off switch on the side of the phone. “You can have your stupid phone back now Rinrin, he didn’t send anything.” He threw the phone across the room to Rin, who caught it in one hand.
“Take my stuff again and I’m reporting all of you to Ego for theft.”
“Who caresss,” Charles whined. “All that work for nothing.”
Shidou smiled and shook his head. “Not nothing. He was typing, which means he saw it. This is basically a love confession.”
The common look of disgust returned to Rin’s face. “Don’t expect a response later either, I’m reblocking that number.”
“Aww come on, at least give him a chance to reply later.” Shidou unsuccessfully tried to give his best pleading look, but Rin wasn’t moved at all.
“He won't be responding, and I’d never do anything to help you.”
Shidou gave a thumbs down in reply, which seemed to piss Rin off more than any insult before it, causing him to leave the room without another word.
Once Rin was gone, Karasu spoke, slapping the other on the back. “Better luck next time dude, there’s plenty of fish in the sea or whatever they say.”
~ 💥 ~ ⚽ ~