It was an overcast morning. It was neither hot nor cold, just gray. The only thing remarkable is the funk of the morning dew. Sae turns off the lamp at his desk, staring at a journal.
“That’s it, huh?” he utters beneath his breath. There was nothing on the next page, no more traveler's journals filled to the brim with words with founding father-esque handwriting, no more paper soaked in expensive fountain pen ink, no more grammatical errors and smears. The next page was a bright, stark white.
Closing the journal, he enters the living room to see his kids' eyes glued to the TV, watching Pretty Cure patting both of them on the heads
“Do you guys wanna go to the park today?”
The kids were wide-eyed and starry-eyed, Stelle jumping up and down while Caelus was nodding
The playground was mostly empty, but at least the sun came out, and Sae took refuge on a nearby bench to watch Stelle and Caelus play a made-up variant of soccer, dominated by kid logic, where the rules sometimes matter when it benefits them.
“I wonder between the two of them who’d be the bigger ego-“
“Oh my god! Again with metaphors about you and Rin for the billionth time”
Sae looks to see who took a seat beside him
“What do you want?” Vexed by the interruption
Stealing Sae’s Coke, he can feel her eyes focused on his, but he can’t see what she looks like; he can sense her presence like a field of daisies
“More like what do you want with me?”
“Nothing,” Sae scrunches his eyebrows in refutation
“If I’m still here, there must be something you want from me”
She takes a big swig of his Coke. “Let me guess, you read the last page of my journal, and now you feel conflicted that there was no grand goodbye?”
“Shut up”
“I’m right, you know it”
“Go away,” he scowls
“So why haven’t I?”
The calmness in her tone makes Sae’s stomach sink as he feels the thread in his mouth being tugged on, tightening whenever he tries to open his mouth.
“Ah, that's right, I'm just a figment of your imagination, so just stop thinking about me, and I’ll go away,” She remarks as cool as a cucumber to Sae's disdain from her lack of condescension.
“You know I can’t”
“Why?”
Sae calms down, grumbles, “Ugh, even in my imagination, you still prod and pry into my emotions until I give you the truth”
“It’s because you know without this trait I wouldn’t really be her anymore”
Sae finally opens his can of Coke right next to him and takes a drink
“I’m pathetic, I’ve gotten so delusional I’m talking to a self-made illusion of you, I should probably move on.” Sae knows his words might come off as self-pitying, but he lost a care in the world when his constant restless nights began.
“Yeah, you could move on. There’s no real medal at the end. If you keep yearning, I can tell you’re already trying to move on from me anyway; that’s why you refuse to call me by name or even look at me”
She glides her hand closer to his. Sae can feel the warmth of her smile, but he can’t manage to look up
“But you still always manage to think during meal times, wondering if I’m eating well. You don’t think I’m in the healthiest shape physically or mentally, but you wonder if we can see the same stars at night. You wish I were dead so that you can have the luxury of closure”
Sae relents, “What do you want me to do!?”
Sticking her tongue out, “I don’t know what the real her wants”
“You’re not helpful”
“You didn’t create me to be helpful. I’m just an extension of your mind. I only know what you know,” she pouts. She takes a deep breath
“I’ll give you this food for thought since you need it coming out of my fictional mouth instead of your own. Your life is a mess right now, ignoring hangouts with friends, working as hard as you can so you can ignore your mind, only going outside when you have to”
Rolling his eyes, “Thank you”
“Let me finish!”
“You can think about the messiness all you want; the only thing it’s doing is sinking you further. I’m not telling you to forget me or ignore your pain because there’s no panacea waiting for you. So, at least take a step forward, talk to someone about your issues, rather than bottling them up. Go out there, focus on what’s in front of you, rather than getting carried away by the hypothetical of it all. What’s done is done; there’s no going back now. She made her decision, and you got caught up in her consequences”
Fidgeting with his feet, “I should hate you, leaving me alone to father two kids, no updates on your whereabouts, I feel guilty at night thinking you should’ve been selfish for once, knowing deep that it would mean thousands of people could die”
The woman stayed silent before speaking up, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for my actions to go this way”
“I know you didn’t,” he could only make a poignant smile
“Thank you”
As she finished her final words, Sae blinked, and the space on the bench was empty; he could've sworn she smiled back at him.
He gets up from his seat and walks over to Caelus and Stelle, who are playing something in the sandbox
“What are you doing?”
“Making sand castles,” Stelle remarks, putting sand in a pail
“Can I join?”
“Of course,” the little redheaded girl says with a grin
They played in the sandbox for a while
“Dad! Your castle looks boring”
“No, it doesn’t, Caelus, does my castle look boring”
Caelus nods
“Dad juth put thand in a pale and put a twig on top”
“I’m a beginner, guys, don’t be mean to me”
“I thought you lived by a beach growing up, though I thought you’d be a mathter at thith,” the little boy remarks curiously
“Dad only played soccer as a kid”
“Figurthth” shrugging off his father
Sae didn’t know whether to be offended or not
“Do you both talk to your friends at school like this?”
“No,” said in unison
“Can you teach me how to make a good sand castle then?”
The kids nodded
Sae kept playing along with his kids, but he doesn’t know why. However, after that earlier conversation with an old face made him happy, he kept it at the back of his mind. But when he got home, he noticed two books on the shelf that had always been there before she left. He just never had a desire to grab them. Pulling it out, but it was a big chunky empty photo album and a thick red book that reads in big bold letters:
‘SAE PLEASE DO THIS IF I’M NOT ABLE TO’
Sae skims the book’s pages to see what exactly this book contains. Turns out it’s a how-to book consisting of sewing templates for dolls and clothing, and recipes for children’s cold remedies like chicken noodle soup and chaga tea. The handwriting was legible, but clearly frantic: the beginning was neat, but the conclusion was something only Beethoven could understand; it was the last thing she had written before she was stationed again.
He chuckles to himself, “When you made that decision, I always imagined you talking with a smile filled with hubris behind your words like you normally do, but I guess I forgot you could get stressed out of your mind too”
He begins genuinely to read the first page, ‘This book is completely Sae proof so even a guy who doesn’t know anything but soccer can understand these tutorials’
He chuckled a little bit. It was only the first page, but it already felt like she was here next to him, making their usual back-and-forth jabs at each other like they always do.
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From an early age, I knew I was pretty, even if I had no no idea I was pretty the only thing I knew was girls always liked me, but I wanted nothing to do with them
I was kicking a soccer ball against the wall repetitively until a girl behind me was trying to get my attention. “Sae, can you be my boyfriend?” I continued, playing with my best friend, the concrete wall, but the snot-nose brat pulled on my arm, tripping me up with a soccer ball to my face. “SAE BE MY BOYFRIEND RIGHT NOW!”
Maybe it’s because I was a little boy, but I felt disgusted that someone would disrupt something I treated so sacred. “No,” the kid then began to fall on the ground and kick and scream, “What’s up with you anyways, and soccer, that’s all you do, are you some freak?!” “Well, it’s funner than being with you!” The girl weeps with those glassy globs, which are a mixture between tears and mucus that run over her face, her cries sending signals to the caretaker on duty, “SAE-chan! Apologize to Kimi-chan right now!”
“I didn’t do anything wrong”
“Sae, if you don’t apologize right now, I’m going to take away your ball.” All I remember is how it ended: Kimichi’s friends came rushing towards her, staring daggers at me, and, being irked and at a loss, gave in to the teacher’s request: “I’m sorry, Kimi, can we be friends now?” My voice was so robotic that it was insulting. “Fine,” she accepted in between sniffles
It was around middle school that the confessions escalated. I don’t know why, though maybe it was puberty, or maybe it was from all the romance movies and shows the girls in my class were watching, that it was probably both
I can’t blame it fully on the girls cause the guys were the same way; they always hurried into relationships that wouldn’t last, and the guys I would talk to on occasion would pressure me into admitting a crush, thinking I was lying whenever I said “no one”
Maybe that’s why girls liked me? Cause even to me a dense as a rock 12 year old could tell that they guys never really liked the girls they were dating but not give myself too much credit I only figured that out by the boys straight up telling me to me my face they only liked the girls for the status knowing I wouldn’t rat them out because I was so detached with the class anyways but dating for status goes both ways but most of the girls wanted a real relationship so maybe the fact I admitted I wanted no one made everyone want me.
But I remember this one day in particular being rather messy. In history class, the teacher lectured on whatever, it doesn’t matter, since I vaguely remember doodling hypothetical soccer strategies, looking up every now and then to check if the clock on the wall, 2:20, magically became a 3:00.
The bell eventually arrives to save the class but as I was putting my notebook away I feel a tap on his shoulder turning around it was a girl I never talked to before she was a bit on the nervous side though “S-Sae could we talk after class” all the other students had left the classroom by then “just say it now” the girl bows down “I really really love you Itoshi Sae I know we haven’t talked before but I hope I can be someone by your side”
“You should move on from me”
The girl immediately ran away from the classroom, but the thing that makes this memory so ingrained was that the next day, most of the people’s beady eyes were staring at me, and I couldn’t figure out why until I heard the whispers of the so-called gossip I got myself involved in
“Did you hear Itoshi-san rejected Tomoko-chan?”
“Really?!”
“I wish I were so pretty that the most popular girl in school confessed to me.”
“You’re so real for that, though”
“What’s so appealing about him anyway”
“He’s just a pretty face, duh! His personality sucks with all his football bs, but at least he’s pretty to look at”
“I’m so excited when his ass gets exported to Spain”
“Sush! That’s rude”
“Come on, we’re all thinking that”
“Yeah, but he’s in the room with us”
I never really understood how a person could get invested in another person in that way. I mean, it was never unappealing for me. Mainly coming down to between football and dating I’d choose football.
But it all changed when I met you
You were the only person who understood me, and I understood you even though you weren’t involved with anything soccer-related. I could tell we are the same breed of human. Whenever I said something, most people would think I was being rude, but you never did; you never took offense and found it funny that I’m too blunt for my own good.
When everyone thought I was just a cold-hearted man holding some mystical dark past, you saw me as normal. You knew I had issues, but you didn’t date me in an attempt to fix me. You call me out when I do something shitty or morally questionable. You gave me advice, your love, and your support, but left me to figure out my problems by myself.
Whenever I hang around you, I feel normal, and I think we can both agree that’s why we mesh so well together. Our lives outside our relationship are so hectic, whether it's me dealing with fans and the paparazzi or the pressure to perform well in every game.
I like having someone’s lap I can come back to after the off-season to collapse my head into.
I like having somebody to have menial arguments with
I like having someone who can make me burst out laughing
I love how, despite how not normal we are to the rest of the world, we’re normal together, and that’s all that matters
a/n: as a heads up y/n isn’t in the story but she is mentioned
edit: I just posted a pt 2 ♡ (๑>•̀๑) ♡
w/c: 619
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Rolling over in bed, Sae feels that every time he opens his eyes to wake up and get the day started, his body is fighting him, surrendering him to drift off into his blissful slumber once again. As his sleep deepened, he suddenly felt a cannonball to his stomach.
The perpetrator jumped repeatedly, shaking the bed over and over again
“Stelle, stop that, you're going to break the bed,” in a voice so groggy it was hard to take the sternness of his words seriously.
Stelle then slaps her tiny kid hand on Sae’s forehead
“Wow, Dad, your forehead is soooo huge it’s bigger than my hand”
She then clasps her hands and stretches her arms as wide as she can.
Propping himself up, Sae strokes his daughter’s head
“What happened to good morning?”
“Morning, Papa,” she said with a large toothy grin
“That’s my girl,” Sae continues to ruffle Stelle’s hair with his head pats
Pondering to himself, ‘I wonder who she got her blunt tongue from?’
“Is your brother still awake?”
“I think he’s in the kitchen”
Immediately, Sae hears clanging from the kitchen and immediately runs towards his son, climbing up the countertop and immediately snatching him, holding him up
“Caelus, what did I tell you about climbing up the countertop?” he stresses
“Not to do it,” Caelus said, side-eyeing his father’s rule
“Caelus, can you tell me why we don't go climb up the countertops”
“I can hurt mythelf”
“Don’t side-eye me, mister! What did you want anyway?”
Caelus points to the flour in the cupboard
“What are you trying to make?”
The small child points at the ingredients he has already set aside
Sae makes his best guess since he doesn’t own a waffle maker. “Pancakes?”
Caelus nods
“If you want pancakes, I have to be here with you, so do you want to make them together?”
Caelus nods
Sae puts Caelus down next to him and yells across the room, “Stelle, do you wanna make pancakes with us?”
The little girl immediately bolts into the kitchen at the word ‘food’
Yawning from not being entirely awake, “I wasn’t expecting to make pancakes this early in the morning today,” Sae utters to himself
“Ok, so what we’re going to do is take turns since Caelus already prepped the ingredients. He’s going to pour in the flour first, then you can pour in the second cup. Are we clear?”
“Okay,” both twins say in unison
After letting the kids make the batter, Sae takes it upon himself to flip the pancakes
“This one is for Caelus and is for Stelle. Go take it to the dining table”
As the kids placed the food on the table, Sae was, for once, glad that cooking with kids takes half a century, since by the time he made himself a plate of pancakes, he was able to brew himself a pot of English breakfast tea
He sits down at the table, the kids staring at him like two golden retrievers begging for permission to eat
“Itadakimasu”
The twins look at each other, confused whether to copy their father cause they know all that word means is that they get to eat
“It something mas” Stelle prays vigorously with confidence, “ida- whatever I give up.” Caelus recites with equal confidence, and then both of them begin to chow down
‘I guess that’s something to work on? I forget that they’re used to staying with their uncle most of the time, so what I do might come off as strange to them’
Sae begins to take a bite of his pancakes, and a bittersweet feeling washes over him
‘Mmm, it reminds me of her. I should make these more often’
