Chapter Text
The soft scratch of a high-quality pen on paper was the only sound in the room, a soothing rhythm that Isagi Yoichi had come to associate with peace. He was hunched over a mountain of textbooks, the familiar weight of medical jargon a comforting presence rather than a burden.
Diagrams of the human cardiovascular system and complex pharmacological formulas covered the pages. A half-empty mug of coffee, long gone cold, sat forgotten by his elbow.
He was in his final year of his Master’s in Medicine, the culmination of years of relentless study. A polished frame on his desk held a different kind of certificate—a degree in Accounting, a path he’d abandoned with a laugh and a shrug.
The world of numbers had been a haven, a predictable universe he’d needed at first, but the human body, its intricate mechanics and the power to heal it, had called to him with a far stronger voice. Soon, he would be posted to a hospital. He’d be Dr. Isagi Yoichi. The thought sent a thrill of pure, unadulterated excitement through him.
A genuine smile, soft and unguarded, touched his lips. God, he was so grateful. Grateful for the cramping muscles, the sleepless nights, and the endless pressure. Because all of it was his. His life, his choice, his future.
The smile lingered as his mind drifted, the lines of text blurring before his tired eyes. It had been six years. Six years since he woke up in this world, disoriented and terrified, in a body that wasn't his but felt more like home than his own ever had.
A stranger’s face had stared back at him in the mirror, a face with the same name—Isagi Yoichi—but eyes that weren’t hollowed by cruelty. He could still remember the sheer, overwhelming shock of that first day. Waking up in a sun-drenched hospital room, his head throbbing with the echoes of a body that had just suffered a high-impact accident.
The door had flown open not to a sneering maid, but to a woman with tear-streaked cheeks and a man whose face was etched with profound relief.
“Yoichi! Oh, thank the heavens, my baby boy!” his mother—his mother—Isagi Iyo had sobbed, rushing to his bedside and enveloping him in a hug so gentle, so full of warmth, that he had frozen. He had never been held like that. Not once. She smelled of lavender and fresh laundry, a scent that, to this day, meant ‘safety’ to him.
His father, Isagi Issei, had stood behind her, his hand resting on his wife’s shoulder. “You gave us quite the scare, son. Don’t ever do that again.” The man’s voice had cracked with emotion, a display of vulnerability that was so alien to Yoichi it had made him flinch.
That was the first time he understood. He wasn’t the hated, cursed child in this world. He was precious. Loved.
Both of them were sweet even when Isagi couldn’t understand them. They panicked and cried while the doctor said he had amnesia due to the hit from the car; it seemed that his brain had been shaken too roughly, to the point that it caused damage to his own memories.
He would relearn the language that the other two called his mother tongue, “Japanese.” He was grateful. Not only did they never complain about him, but they supported him, pouring endless love on him.
The flashback shifted, and a different pair of Itoshi brothers surfaced in his memory.
A seven-year-old Rin, with the same sharp teal eyes but holding a picture book instead of a toy bat.
A nine-year-old Sae, stoic even then, but who’d silently place a bowl of cut fruit beside Yoichi’s textbooks when he studied for hours.
They were his younger adoptive step-brothers in this world, a twist of fate that had initially filled him with terror. For weeks, he’d flinched whenever Rin ran towards him, waiting for a blow that never came. Instead, the first time Rin hugged him, babbling, “Big bro Yoichi, read this to me!”, Yoichi had locked himself in the bathroom and cried for an hour, overwhelmed by a kindness he didn't know how to process.
It seemed that this “Rin” was rather fond of the original owner. Looking back, they were not that close at first, but after a few years, they grew closer and closer.
He remembered the evening Sae had come to him, quiet and uncharacteristically hesitant. The boy had stood in the doorway of Yoichi’s room, his small fists clenched at his sides, and had declared, “I’m not going to be the number one striker anymore. I want to be a midfielder.”
Yoichi had set down his book, giving Sae his full attention. “Why the change?”
Sae’s jaw tightened. “Because I want to control the whole field. I want to send the perfect pass, the one that makes the goal inevitable. Is that… stupid?”
The question had been so vulnerable, so unsure, from a boy who normally radiated cold confidence. Yoichi had crossed the room and knelt before him, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Sae, it’s not stupid. It’s your dream. If that’s the path you want, then it’s the right one. I’ll support you, no matter what you choose to be. Striker, midfielder, it doesn’t matter. You’ll be brilliant.”
For a heartbeat, Sae’s mask had cracked. His eyes had glistened, and he had nodded once, a sharp, jerky motion, before turning and walking away. But from that night on, the bowl of fruit by Yoichi’s textbooks had always been his favourite, cut into precise, perfect cubes.
Then there was Rin. Rin, who had raged for weeks after Sae’s announcement, his young heart unable to understand why his brother would abandon their shared dream. He had smashed his practice ball against the garden wall, screaming that Sae was a traitor, an idiot, a liar.
Yoichi had found him there, exhausted and tear-streaked, slumped against the cold stone. He hadn’t said anything at first. He’d simply sat down beside Rin, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, and waited.
“Why?” Rin had choked out finally, his voice raw. “Why doesn’t he want to be my striker anymore? Was I not good enough?”
“It’s not about you, Rin,” Yoichi had said softly. “Sae is chasing his own vision. It doesn’t mean he’s abandoning you. Dreams change. But family doesn’t.”
“He left me.”
“He’s still your brother. And I’m still here.” Yoichi had nudged him gently. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.”
Rin had turned, his teal eyes wide, and for the first time, he had looked at Yoichi not as an older brother by circumstance, but as an anchor. From that day on, Rin’s devotion had become absolute. Where Sae had been his idol, Yoichi became his home.
And then there was the video call. Sae had gone to Spain, chasing his new path with relentless focus. Yoichi had been on a call with him one evening, laughing at some dry remark Sae had made about his teammates, when Rin had stormed into the room, snatched the phone, and ended the call with a vicious stab of his finger.
“Rin!” Yoichi had protested.
“You shouldn’t waste your time on that stupid, tepid Sae,” Rin had snapped, his face flushed with lingering resentment. “He left. He chose Spain over us. You should spend your time on people who actually appreciate you.”
Yoichi had stared at him for a long moment, then his expression had softened into an exasperated smile. Without a word, he had gone to the kitchen and started cooking. Rin had followed, suspicious and sulky, until the familiar, comforting scent of ochazuke filled the air.
“Ochazuke?” Rin had asked, his voice small.
“Your favourite.” Yoichi had placed the steaming bowl on the table. “Because even when you’re being a brat, you’re family. And I’m not going to abandon you. Not for Sae, not for anyone.”
Rin had stared at the bowl, then at Yoichi, and then he had flung his arms around him, burying his face in his chest. His shoulders had trembled, though he made no sound. “Thank you,” he had whispered, muffled and fierce. “Thank you for not leaving as he did.”
Yoichi had patted his back, the gesture steady and sure. “We’re a family, Rin. Families don’t quit.”
The warmth of that memory was a stark, brutal contrast to the ones that used to haunt his nightmares.
Suddenly, he was small again, back in the cold, cavernous halls of the Isagi Countdom. He couldn’t have been more than six. He was huddled on the marble floor, his lip split and bleeding, a sharp, terrifying pain radiating from his ribs where Rin—his tormentor, not his brother—had just kicked him, again and again.
“Get up, you useless thing,” a young, high-pitched voice had commanded. Rin’s teal eyes, filled with a cruelty no child should possess, stared down at him as if he were a squashed insect. “Papa said I need to practice my kicks. You’re my practice dummy. So. Get. Up.”
Yoichi had whimpered, trying to push himself up on trembling arms, his body screaming in protest. A sharp, searing pain exploded in his ribs again as Rin’s shoe connected, sending him sprawling. He’d coughed, the metallic taste of blood filling his mouth. He’d almost died that night from internal bruising. The family physician, paid off by the Count, had simply diagnosed it as a “clumsy fall.”
And through it all, Sae had been there. The older Itoshi had leaned against the doorframe of the dark, unused storage room where the “play session” was happening, his expression one of utter boredom. He hadn't cheered his brother on, nor had he shown a flicker of pity. He’d just observed, as if studying a mildly interesting experiment.
When Rin finally grew tired, his hands smeared with Yoichi's blood, Sae had walked over with a pre-moistened towel. He didn't spare Yoichi a glance. He’d just taken his little brother’s hands and wiped them clean with a practised, almost delicate care.
“Rin, don’t touch dirty things so carelessly. You don’t know what you might catch.”
‘Dirty thing.’ That had been him. Less than a person. Less than an animal. A dirty thing to be cleaned off.
The memory curdled, replaced by another. The constant, grinding humiliation from the maids. The head maid, a woman named Ishida who had served his biological mother, had taken a particular interest in his misery.
He remembered being seven, trembling in a freezing bath, as she’d scrubbed his skin raw with a coarse-bristled brush, muttering, “You took our mistress. I’ll scrub the sin from your skin if I have to do it myself.” Mealtimes were worse.
While the count’s new, happy family dined on roasted meats and decadent desserts in the grand hall, he’d be locked in his barren room. A maid—often a younger one, eager to prove her loyalty to the rest—would slide a tray of scraps through a small slot in the door. Cold, congealed fat. Bread with spots of blue-green mould.
Pieces of fish that smelled so rancid his stomach would heave at the scent. He learned to eat it all, because starvation was a slower, more agonising torment.
And then, the final, ultimate betrayal. Eight years later, at the age of fourteen, his “father” had summoned him not with affection, but with a business proposition. His value as a punching bag had expired, but his lineage and his body could still be sold.
A marriage contract.
The Count had pawned him off to the Mikage Dukedom for political and financial gain, a bride-groom to be delivered to Mikage Reo. He’d been shipped off to the duke’s estate like a package, a week before the ceremony. The weight of a loveless, transactional future, of being an object passed from one abuser to another, had been so crushing, so absolute, that his body had simply given out.
He’d fainted in the pristine, gilded room that was to be his new cage... and had woken up to his real home. His real life.
Isagi jerked his head up, pulling himself out of the past. He blinked, his heart hammering in his chest before slowly settling as his eyes took in the sight of his textbooks, his coffee mug, the soft glow of his desk lamp. The present. He was here. He was safe. A wave of relief so potent it was dizzying washed over him.
He let out a shaky, grateful laugh. “What a stupid, pointless nightmare to revisit,” he murmured to the empty room. The exhaustion from hours of studying and the emotional toll of his flashback suddenly hit him like a physical blow. His eyelids felt heavy, leaden. “A quick nap,” he promised himself, closing his thick textbook.
“Just ten minutes.”
"It's not like something bad would happen anyway."
He folded his arms on the desk, rested his head on them, and let the darkness pull him under.
When he opened his eyes again, his neck ached from the awkward position, and his head felt strangely fuzzy. The room was too quiet. The air was wrong. It was cold, and damp, and smelled of… dust and floor polish, a cheap, cloying scent that immediately, viscerally, made his stomach clench.
He looked at the floor and immediately recognised it.
He didn’t dare raise his head. He just stared at the polished, dark wood of the floorboards inches from his face. He wasn't at his desk. He was curled on a hard floor.
No. No, no, no, no…
The door to the room banged open without a knock. The familiar, spine-chilling pattern of footsteps followed.
“Good, you’re awake, you lazy little murderer,” a voice sneered. It was the voice of a young maid, one he recognised with a dread that was bone-deep. A bucket was dropped onto the floor next to his head with a damp thud, sending a splash of grey, soapy water onto his cheek. “Face water for the filthy curse. Honestly, wasting good water on you is a sin in itself.”
It was the same ritual. The tray of rotten food. The bucket of dirty water to wash with. Every. Single. Day.
Something inside Isagi, something that had been dormant and broken, didn’t just snap back into place. It was gone, replaced by a six-year-long foundation of self-worth, love, and a spine forged from pure steel. The cowering, silent boy this maid expected was dead. In his place was a man who had spent years learning anatomy, who was on his way to being a fucking doctor, a man who was loved.
He pulled himself up, not flinching, not trembling. The movement was fluid, calm. Before the maid could register the lack of fear in his eyes, his hand shot out and tangled itself in her hair.
“Wha— Let go of me! Have you gone mad?!” she shrieked.
Isagi didn’t answer. His face was a mask of terrifying placidity. With a brute strength he had never been allowed to show, he twisted his grip and forced her head down, directly into the bucket of filthy water she had just delivered. He held her there, her arms flailing uselessly, her muffled screams forming bubbles in the murky grey.
He didn't feel rage. He didn't feel a thrill. He just felt a cold, hard certainty that he would never, ever be a victim again. After a long, long moment, he yanked her head back up by the hair. She gasped, coughing and spluttering, her eyes wide with primal terror as she looked at him. This wasn't the Isagi she knew.
The boy who wouldn't even make eye contact.
But this man..
This man was looking at her like she was a specimen to be dissected.
Isagi’s voice was quiet, hoarse from disuse, but it cut through the air like a scalpel. A simple, terrifying command.
“Get me a new one.”
A garbled, terrified cry tore from her throat. She scrambled backwards on her hands and knees, her uniform soaked, before stumbling to her feet and fleeing the room, leaving the door wide open.
Isagi was left standing in the dust and the silence of his childhood prison. He looked around the small, hateful room, at the bare walls and the single, threadbare blanket on the floor that had been his bed. He wasn't afraid. He was incandescently, gloriously, furiously home.
He took a deep, steadying breath, the cold air a sharp relief in his lungs, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a humourless smile.
“Kuso kurae,” he cursed in Japanese, the words dripping with quiet venom. Fuck this shit.