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On his first day of practice with Real Madrid, Sae Itoshi barely glances at him.
That stings. Michael doesn’t know what he’d expected, exactly, but the silent treatment hadn’t even been a possibility. This is Sae we’re talking about. Sae, whose blue-green gaze belongs on Michael, belongs to Michael.
Or... or it had.
Well. It doesn’t matter. Michael has moved on, too.
It’s just that Sae is a starter. And Michael is a starter. And he needs to be on good terms with his midfielders. And he can’t be on good terms with Sae without claiming his attention, first. So, for the sake of his soccer career, Michael tries to start some shit at the next practice.
Tries being the key word. Because when he saunters over on a water break and says, “You made the right choice, giving up on the whole striker thing,” Sae doesn’t rise to the bait at all.
Throat bobbing, gaze off in the distance, he finishes his drink. It takes a while; Sae seems especially unhurried. With a smack, the water bottle finally leaves his wet lips. “I know.”
Michael almost falters. “Now you can focus on serving me and my goals,” he presses, grinning his cockiest, most incendiary grin. “It’s always where you belonged.”
“That mindset is how my brother and Isagi Yoichi played you like a fiddle in the Neo-Egoist League.” Sae follows up that sucker punch with another — beautiful blue-green finally looking at him, bowling into him. “You’re lucky I’m here.”
Michael doesn’t feel lucky, though. Not when Sae passes to him once in his entire debut game, and he leaves the pitch without a single goal to his name.
It had been an abysmal game all around. A friendly, but they’d handily lost, and one of their best defenders had twisted his ankle. The air in the locker room is oppressive and sour, and it clears out fast.
Michael sulks until everyone’s left, then heads back to the shower stalls to brood in peace.
Except he can’t, because Sae Itoshi waited until the locker room had emptied to take his shower, too.
Neither of them acknowledge each other as Michael starts his shower a few stalls down. He stands there for a moment, just letting the water pour over him, running over his body, rinsing away the sweat and dirt from the game. But he can’t escape the presence of Sae. He can hear his shower: the click of bottles opening and closing, the changes in the flow of water, his shifting feet against the tiles.
“Fuck you, by the way,” Michael finally says, faux-pleasant, his voice pitched to carry across the stalls. The way Sae pauses in his shampoo lathering feels like a victory.
“Don’t take your shitty performance out on me.”
“It’s hard to score when one of your midfielders won’t do his job properly.”
“I did my job properly.”
“You passed to me once.”
“I pass to anyone who can score. If you didn’t fit the criteria, it’s not my fault.”
Michael shuts off his water.
Sae isn’t facing him, so he doesn’t catch on until Michael’s already opening his shower stall, and then it’s too late — he has nowhere to go except the wall that Michael backs him up against. Blue-green washes over Michael again, but the surprise in Sae's eyes quickly gives way to annoyance, then dull unamusement as he stares Michael down.
Michael uses every centimeter he has on Sae to loom over him, slapping his hand against the tiled wall and leaning in close. “Don't sabotage me again,” he says, low and threatening.
Sae’s lip curls in mild disgust. “You don’t intimidate me, Mihya.”
That name out of Sae’s sneering mouth — instead of murmured against the crown of his head, or gasped against his neck, or spoken alongside the squeeze of fingers against his own — nearly cuts him in half. “Is this about us?” he asks, incredulous. “Are you still hung up on me, so you—”
“It’s about you," Sae snaps. “You, and how I can get you to reach your true potential, but only if you’re not playing like a moron.”
“And what, oh great and all-knowing Sae Itoshi, is my true potential?”
“The greatest striker in the world,” Sae says without missing a beat.
There’s nothing adoring about it, none of the praise that Ness had offered an endless well of. Sae doesn’t say it like a belief he has faith in, but rather like it’s a fact he knows absolutely. The sky is blue. Grass is green. Michael Kaiser can be the greatest striker in the world.
And somehow, hearing Sae Itoshi speak it so confidently makes Michael remember the truth of it, too.
“I’m glad you’re aware,” Michael says, aiming for bravado but too stunned and flustered to really sell it. The warm shower water is cool where it drips over his face.
“I always have been,” Sae says quietly. “You fucking asshole.”
The shower stall is so small. Sae’s breath is on his face — has he been this close this whole time? “Glad we could have this little chat, then.” Michael steps back, but...
Sae’s expression creases in pure annoyance. “You barged in here and pinned me against the wall, wet and naked, and you’re not even going to—”
The kiss Michael cuts him off with is hard and wet and glorious, achingly nostalgic and sizzlingly new, but nothing beats the way Sae’s gaze drips all over Michael’s body when they part.
“Let me suck you off,” Michael blurts out.
Sae’s soft, sharp inhale burns through him. “Sexual favors won’t get you more passes,” he says, a deadpan joke only noticeable to someone who knows him well. It makes Michael have to kiss him again.
“My playing can do that on its own,” he says, allowing himself a smirk against Sae’s mouth.
“It’d better.” Sae sounds unimpressed, but his fingers are still tangled in Michael’s hair.
“No passes for the blowjob. But,” Michael says, “you have to keep your eyes on me while I do it.”
“Hmm.” Blue-green glitters at him. “Fine.”