Work Text:
Together
With Comrades and Rivals Alike
Greetings and salutations to all.
It is our fervent hope that this letter finds you well and in good health.
Happening on the blessed day of April 1st, at 1200 hours:
You have been cordially invited to the wedding of Yoichi Isagi and Michael Kaiser.
May Love Reign Forever, and Peace be Held by All.
–
“Do we really have to do this?” Isagi Yoichi shouted, slamming his palms on the tabletop. The members of the Japan U-20 present seemed to not pay any attention to his outburst, aside from Bachira who protectively cradled his warm mug of milk, afraid of any spillage.
The table was actually a big deal --literally. A round, brown table sounded mundane to the strikers at first. However, beautifully crafted to resemble ancient wood and large enough to seat all 23 members, it was a big and beautiful affair that was anything but simple. The manly urge to sit at the roundtable like King Alfred and his knights meant that the table was a favourite spot for meetings and strategy discussions. (Of course, everyone imagined themselves as Alfred.)
Isagi bashing the table managed to make even Shidou’s drink tremble (a mock-cocktail; he never just called it a mocktail, for some reason), despite the fact that the pink-blonde striker was sitting opposite the wife-to-be. Shidou, seeing the thick and viscous liquid jiggle in its glass, giggled.
Isagi continued. “Is there nothing else we can do? Or, better yet, why do we need to do something about it? Can’t we just let this online freak be?” In a show of eloquence, everyone who was there – Bachira, Shidou, Eita, Karasu, Niko, Chigiri, Zantetsu, Reo, Aiku, and (for some God-forsaken reason) Alexis fucking Ness – simply shrugged their shoulders.
No, hang on – Bachira had something to say. He took a swig of his warm mug of milk, gulping exaggeratedly and slamming the pink, rabbit-eared mug down on the table with an ‘Ahhhh’ that was equally ostentatious. “Nope,” Bachira said simply.
“Nope to nothing we can do, or nope to letting them be?” Isagi questioned.
“Yes.”
“Fantastic, great. Fuck you in the ass too.” Alexis Ness alone raised an eyebrow at Isagi’s apparent declaration of intent, but no one else noticed, and Ness held his tongue.
BL_LOVER_21 was a name no one could have expected to hold so much sway in online spaces, much less the entire world. When it first started, the innocuous social media account would only post about Jinpachi Ego’s soccer training programme, with a particular focus – love? – on the low-ranked Isagi, for whatever reason.
However, beginning with the match against U20, BL_LOVER_21 began to make certain predictions even before the matches would start. Simple predictions on who would win eventually gave way to who would score a goal. What time a goal would be scored. Attempted shots that were blocked, and even who would block it.
“The funny thing is, this problem you guys’re facing? It’s stretched to Germany since the NEL,” Ness said. “This… BL Lover… liked what they saw with Yoichi and Kaiser, apparently, and now our matches are subject to these prophecies as well. It’s messing up team morale, this thought that our results are pre-determined… or worse, BEING determined by the words of a Yoichi-Kaiser shipper.”
“Yeah, they’re the worst,” Shidou jumped in, both hands on his cocktail that was a mocktail.
Ness turned to him, genuinely puzzled. “Why?”
Shidou grinned, gripping the long shaft of his cocktail glass. “Why stop at two? Share the love, am I right?”
It was a concerning problem that bordered on the supernatural. Life danced to the tune of this BL Lover’s words. Predictions became reality. Playing around with the players, wreaking merry havoc on their understanding of the world.
If BL Lover could foresee even miraculous stuff such as some Gagamaru blocks or certain goals from Rin, was it less foreseeing and more willing it into existence.
“Couldn’t it be that they do that thing?” Niko said, bouncing his leg, raising a polite hand to get everyone’s attention. “I saw someone talk about it before. Apparently people make a whole bunch of posts, keep all of them private, then once something happens that somewhat matches one of those posts, that post becomes public and… voila!” He formed his trademark circle with his fingers and peered through it, as if to convey how Niko had seen through the situation. “Prediction made.”
“Oh damn. I never thought of that, actually,” Chigiri remarked. “It’s stupid and brilliant at the same time, in some weird way.”
“But-but-but…” Zantetsu stammered, fumbling with his words. “Isn’t that infidelity?”
“What.”
“Infidelity!” Zantetsu pushed his glasses up, sporting a confident look now that he’d found the word he was searching for.
Niko continued to stare at him, still perplexed. “How the fuck… oh. You mean cheating?”
“That’s what I said!”
Chigiri snorted, and Bachira let out a wild howl of laughter. The rest of the table had smiles of varying levels of mirth on their faces – even Ness, whose translation earphones seemed to convey to him the inanity of the conversation.
“Alright guys, let’s not get carried away,” Aiku said, keeping up a calm and relaxed demeanour. He seemed to be the only one focused on keeping the conversation on track, for which Isagi was absurdly grateful. “Niko’s theory is interesting, admittedly. Reo, is it possible?”
“No, it can’t be,” Reo said, shaking his head. “The platform is owned by the Mikage corporation, and we have emergency overrides and provisions set in place… including being able to see anyone’s private posts. Of course, these are reserved for when they’re truly needed.” Reo rushed to reassure everyone, promising that the massive social media platform did not unduly invade anybody’s privacy.
(Everyone present in the room either rolled their eyes to the heavens or rolled their mind’s eyes to the heavens.)
“Anyways… it seems that this account has no hidden posts. There’s something else too… Eita?”
“Right,” Eita stood up, and addressed Isagi directly. “I have connections, who are used to working in the shadows. We… or rather, they.. have kept up with the advent of technology. Yet, it seems that this… BL Lover continues to elude us. Even with the Mikage corporation’s cooperation, this Lover remains a mystery, an enigma.”
Eita said this in a bitter tone, as if he’d been faced with a plate full of veggies – his worst nightmare. “This is no joke we’re dealing with. Whoever this is… they’re serious. They’re serious trouble.”
The table was silent. “Mikage cooperation’s corporation?” Zantetsu muttered. Shidou contemplated his drink. He raised it to his lips and threw his head back, swallowing the liquid in one gulp. Isagi watched Shidou’s throat working as a lump travelled down his gullet.
“Well, if even this skirt-chaser ninja couldn’t find them, I don’t see any other way of forcing them out,” Karasu contemplated. "Well, just take it on the chin, Isagi. If I were you, I'd actually be madder that the date is on my birthday. People'll think one gift is enough for both occasions, so you lose out."
Eita nodded. "Yeah, it's not like you're actually being sent to life's graveyard."
Bachira chimed in. “I wish you and your rival a happy marriage, Isagi! May you guys have many healthy, soccer-playing babies–”
“Is this a joke to you?!” Isagi couldn’t believe it.
The table exchanged looks, everybody not quite understanding his rage. Everyone was confused, aside from a certain German midfielder.
“Well,” Aiku started, trying to mollify the striker. “Marriage is a serious thing, but it’s just a cover. We’re hoping we can lure this Lover out of hiding. Send them an invitation saying that they’re one of a hundred lucky fans, so they show up thinking they’ll be safe in a crowd and then we can grab the stranger who shows up to the venue, or something. Anyways, it doesn’t have to be official, it'll just be a fake marriage. Alright, man?” Aiku grinned, hoping to pacify the situation.
“...”
It made logical sense, but… Isagi clicked his tongue. He stormed off, fuming.
Aiku leaned back in his chair, sighing. “What’s with him?”
It hits too close to home. It ruins a dream he has. It poisons the real with a fake. Ness held his tongue.
–
“Goddammit, man.”
“What?”
“This sucks.”
“I know you do, and with aplomb.”
“Eat a dick.”
“That’s what you should do. I don’t get it. Didn’t you want this? Didn’t we want this?”
“Well… yeah, but in the future, and privately! Not… this!”
Isagi, agitated as he was, continued to pace around the living room of the flat he had moved into a few months ago. With his salary and winnings, getting a big apartment was easy enough, and still felt spacious despite the fact that two men called it home.
Michael Kaiser, shirtless despite the air-conditioning, gulped down his soda. “We can’t go down a street without being recognised. In any country, not just Japan or Germany. Did you expect to still have privacy at this level of fame?”
Why did he have his shirt off… it didn’t make his rock-hard muscles stand out any more than they already did. Only his nipples seemed affected, standing proud as two hard nubs with just a bit of brown around them. Isagi couldn’t tear his eyes away from–
“OI. Stop staring, freak, you’re gonna burn a whole through them. Close your mouth before you drool over the carpet too.”
“I do not drool over–”
“You don’t? Liar.”
Isagi crossed his arms, with effort. He licked his lips, getting ready to get back on track. He certainly wasn’t thinking about the taste of those lumps, how they felt in his mouth. Isagi licked his lips again. Get serious, Isagi! Weren’t you mad until just now? Michael Kaiser just had a certain effect on him...
“I don’t have a problem with the wedding. I have a problem with how it’s being done.”
“Oh?”
“It feels like our wedding is more about flushing out and finding this BL Lover than it is about…”
“The lovers getting married?”
“Yeah!” Isagi felt a rush in his heart as Kaiser finished the rest of his sentence. Placed the final puzzle piece in his heart, a piece he didn’t even know was missing until it came into his life. “Pretty much everyone was giving me shit… except Ness, because he knows about us.”
“Ok, I’ll humour you. Let’s say it does feel like other people are paying attention to the wrong thing,” Kaiser said, crushing the can in his hand and tossing it into the garbage can behind him as he walked towards Isagi. Lifting the fringe of blue hair out of his way, he gave his partner a kiss between the eyebrows. It was a kiss as gentle as the thumb he used to circle the corner of Isagi’s mouth as he gazed down at his rival, his comrade, his lover. “And that then colours your impression, makes it feel like your dream wedding is being sullied. A precious first experience, taken away. But other people don’t matter, do they? Let’s nip this in the bud. It’s not about them. Never has been. It’s about us. Now and always. We don’t have to let their feelings poison ours.”
Kaiser drew Isagi closer, lips centimeters away. “Do we, Yoichi?”
Isagi closed his eyes. “We don’t.” He closed the gap himself, taking Michael by the mouth. Their tongues would usually do a dance at this point, but the lack of any this time did not make the act any less vigorous, any less stimulating, any less sensuous.
Michael Kaiser, Isagi thought, opening his eyes slightly to see himself drowning in pools of blue. A man who could be so wrong, yet oh so right…
The lovers came apart, the physical connection cut whilst the emotional connection remained.
“Anyways… remember what I said earlier. I told you what you should be doing. You’re an idiot, but you do have… certain skills, no?” A flush crept over Michael Kaiser as he walked over to the light controls on the wall. He turned the dial slowly, and the lights fell in their intensity, allowing calm and moody shades to creep into the room. A strange, heavy, cloying mood hung in the air and enveloped the men, sticky and as sweet as syrup. The room was as dark as the desire that still shone in the light of their eyes, cutting through that darkness.
Isagi thought about it. A mood had taken him over, but what did Kaiser mean? What had he said… oh… Isagi stiffened. A blush came over his face as well. He went over to Kaiser’s side, allowing emotions to take over and spring free. He swallowed, and bobbed his head up and down.
Up and down… perhaps…
Perhaps…
Perhaps the wedding would be public.
Perhaps it was hard to swallow, the fact that privacy could be pierced.
Perhaps it was, indeed, difficult to come by when you were famous.
But – blessedly – some things could still be kept under wraps.