Make him beg - Michael Kaiser (Blue lock)
Synopsis: Where Kaiser doesn't really know how to handle your silence.
Content: angst at the beginning, Kaiser being Kaiser again, lots of swearing, Isagi Yoichi mentioned againnn
Notes: you guys can read this as a continuation of the same couple from my last kaiser story, but it's entirely up to you
The key slammed into the apartment lock with enough force to make the metallic crack echo through the hallway like a gunshot. The moment the door swung open, the atmosphere inside shifted. Kaiser stepped in like a storm barely held together. Bastard München had just lost a crucial match, and the worst possible outcome had become reality: Isagi Yoichi had stolen the spotlight, dictated the pace of the game, and left Kaiser humiliated under the stadium lights and the eyes of the international press.
His ego wasn’t just bruised, it had been shattered.
He hurled his training bag onto the floor, the water bottles inside rattling loudly. There was something unsettling about the look on his face. The usual crooked smirk was gone. So was the smooth, velvety tone of his voice, along with the theatrical sarcasm he normally used to disguise his boredom. All that remained was venom. His jaw was clenched so tightly the muscle stood out beneath his pale skin, and his blue eyes looked as cold and sharp as blades.
You were sitting on the couch, a mug of lukewarm tea cradled between your hands. You had watched the match on television and knew exactly how deeply this defeat had wounded him. Knowing how fragile his mind became under pressure, you decided, for once, to set your own patience aside and offer him a chance to cool down.
Kaiser stomped through the living room, yanking off his Bastard München jacket with such force that the fabric nearly tore.
“Michael…” You called softly, setting your mug down on the coffee table. “I watched the match. I know you’re furious, but go take a shower first. Give yourself some time to cool off before you keep reliving it.”
He stopped in the middle of the room.
Slowly, he turned to face you, and the look he gave you was so raw, so vicious, that it would have made anyone else instinctively take several steps back.
The words came out low, but as sharp as broken glass.
“I don’t want to hear your voice. You don’t know anything. You don’t understand a damn thing. So don’t you dare open your mouth and talk about my game.”
You took a slow breath, refusing to let your composure crack. You knew this was nothing more than his armor lashing out, trying to drive away anyone who might witness his weakness. Rising from the couch, you walked toward him at an unhurried pace and reached out, intending to rest a hand on his tense shoulder and pull him back to reality.
“I know losing to him hurts, Michael. But taking it out on me isn’t going to—”
Before your fingers could brush against the fabric of his shirt, Kaiser slapped your hand away with enough force to sting. The sharp crack echoed through the silent apartment. He stepped forward immediately after, invading your space until the distance between you became suffocating.
His voice broke, low and venomous, his blue eyes blown wide with pure fury. His lips twisted into a cruel sneer, the same poison he always reached for whenever he wanted to tear someone apart.
“You really think you’re so mature, don’t you? So clever with that calm little voice of yours…” he spat. “But the truth is, you’re nothing but a useless distraction. Dead weight I keep around because it’s convenient. I don’t need you. I don’t need your pity, and I definitely don’t need you pretending you care. I’m sick of you. You’re not my babysitter. Grab your damn things and get out. I don’t want to look at you right now.”
Anyone else would have cried, screamed back at him, demanded respect after being humiliated like that.
You did none of those things.
You simply looked him straight in the eyes.
There was no hurt in your expression. No anger. Not even surprise.
You regarded him with complete indifference, as though you were watching a spoiled child throw a tantrum in the middle of the room. His opinion of you simply wasn’t important enough to wound you.
You didn’t answer. You didn’t grant his ego the satisfaction of a reaction.
Instead, you turned around with perfect composure and walked toward the guest room, where you kept some of your belongings. You picked up your bag and your coat, returned to the entryway, slipped on your shoes without rushing, took your keys, and opened the front door.
Before leaving, you gave Kaiser one last glance.
He was still standing in the middle of the living room, frozen in place, fists clenched at his sides, his breathing heavy. Without another word, you pulled the door shut behind you.
The soft click of the lock echoed through the apartment.
As the sound faded, the adrenaline that had been keeping Kaiser upright slowly began to wear off, leaving nothing behind but suffocating silence. His chest still rose and fell in uneven breaths, his jaw remained locked tight, and the image of Isagi celebrating his victory continued to burn through his mind like an endless taunt.
With an irritated scoff, Kaiser spun on his heel and lashed out at the first thing within reach.
His kick slammed into the coffee table hard enough to send one of the glass ornaments crashing onto the floor, where it shattered into dozens of glittering shards.
He didn’t even spare it a glance.
Stepping over the broken glass, he headed straight for the bathroom.
He yanked his shirt over his head with rough, impatient movements, tossing it somewhere behind him before he’d even finished undressing. The shower was already running by the time the rest of his clothes hit the floor.
The moment the hot water poured over him, he stepped beneath it without hesitation.
Closing his eyes, he dragged both hands harshly through his soaked hair, as if he could scrub the entire night out of his head, the loss to Isagi, the inevitable media storm waiting for him over the next few days… and the fight that had just exploded inside his own home.
To him, though, those two things carried completely different weights.
The defeat still burned like an open wound.
The argument with you… That was just another fight.
You needed time to cool off. You’d come home eventually.
“Whatever.” He repeated the word to himself as his fingers dug back into his dripping hair.
You’d come back. Everything would go back to normal. The only real problem was still Isagi.
When he finally stepped out of the shower, wearing nothing but a pair of gray sweatpants, water still dripped from the ends of his blond-and-blue hair onto the back of his neck.
He threw himself onto the bed, grabbed his phone, and buried himself in the only thing that still felt familiar.
The next two hours disappeared behind the glowing screen. He replayed every moment of the match. He rewatched the same sequences over and over, dissected positioning, mentally cursed Isagi, and fed the resentment festering inside him with every replay.
Whenever the memory of your argument threatened to surface, he shoved it back down without a second thought.
That would sort itself out.
When he finally glanced away from the screen, the clock read midnight.
Only then did the silence begin to bother him.
Kaiser locked his phone and, almost instinctively, looked toward the empty side of the bed. He got up, walked into the dark living room, and switched on the lights.
He expected to find you sitting in the armchair, arms crossed, wearing that familiar expression he always believed he knew how to deal with.
The apartment looked exactly as he’d left it.
Even the shattered glass was still scattered across the floor. He walked into the kitchen. The mug of tea you’d left behind had gone completely cold.
He checked the guest room.
The bag you always carried was gone.
For the first time, a crack appeared in Michael Kaiser’s pride.
He picked up his phone again, his fingers suddenly tense. He opened their message thread. The last conversation between the two of you had been before the match.
He typed, “Where are you?” and hit send.
The message stayed on a single gray checkmark. He frowned, his heart giving an uneven thud against his ribs. He typed again.
“Enough with the childish games. Come home.”
Another single gray checkmark.
For the first time, his mind, so convinced until then that he was the center of your world, began to spiral toward the one thing it had always feared most: real rejection. Real abandonment. You hadn’t gone out to cool off. You weren’t waiting for him to calm down so you could come back and lecture him. You had actually left. You had taken your things, stepped out of his orbit without a single warning, and walked away without looking back, treating both his existence and his threats as though they meant absolutely nothing.
The realization hit him like a punch to the stomach. He had gone too far, and the punishment waiting for him wasn’t another argument, it was the cold, absolute silence of your absence. He returned to the bedroom, tossed his phone onto the bed, and buried both hands in his blond-and-blue hair before sinking onto the edge of the mattress. Around him, the apartment seemed to grow larger by the minute, colder, emptier, and unbearably quiet.
The hours slipped by in silence. At some point before dawn, exhaustion finally managed to overtake him just enough for his eyes to close, still lying exactly where he had spent the entire night.
Gray morning light seeped through the edges of the blackout curtains, slicing through the darkness of the master bedroom like the edge of a blade.
Kaiser opened his eyes slowly, the weight of a sleepless night pounding behind his temples. For one brief moment, the haze of sleep dulled his thoughts enough to let him forget. Then he reached across the bed and found nothing but the smooth, ice-cold sheet beside him, and the reality of the previous night crashed down on him all over again.
The silence filling the luxury apartment wasn’t merely the absence of sound. It had become something tangible, a suffocating presence that echoed every mistake he had made. Kaiser sat on the edge of the bed, messy hair falling over his eyes, his jaw already tight with a tension that refused to leave him. He reached for his phone once more.
The screen lit up his pale face.
With practiced speed, he found your contact and called. Holding the phone to his ear, he caught himself holding his breath, desperately waiting to hear the ringtone.
“Your call has been forwarded to voicemail…”
Kaiser pulled the phone away from his ear with a sharp click of his tongue, blue eyes flashing with equal parts disbelief and fury. You were really ignoring him.
The woman he had tried to tear down with cruel words at the height of his post-match rage had simply vanished, leaving him behind with all the significance of a ghost.
His stomach growled painfully, reminding him that anger burned through energy. He pushed himself to his feet and dragged his bare feet across the hardwood floor toward the kitchen, hoping the routine of a new morning would somehow restore the untouchable composure he showed the rest of the world.
Instead, the kitchen stood before him like a monument to his own domestic uselessness. Kaiser stopped in the middle of the sleek, modern room, surrounded by state-of-the-art appliances whose controls he barely understood. This had always been your domain. You were the one who silenced his bad moods with the smell of freshly brewed coffee drifting from the machine. You organized the cabinets, prepared every carefully balanced meal that kept his body performing at the highest level of European football, and did it all without ever asking him to lift a finger.
He opened the refrigerator, grabbed a carton of eggs and a nonstick frying pan, and dropped it onto the induction stove with little patience. The problem was that he didn’t even know how to set the temperature. Less than three minutes later, the egg had welded itself to the pan, the yolk had burst, and the smell of something burning spread through the apartment.
He slammed the stove off with far more force than necessary.
Throwing the spatula into the sink, he stared at the culinary disaster with his fists clenched at his sides.
His mood, already hanging by a thread, sank even lower. Michael Kaiser, the untouchable prodigy of Bastard München, couldn’t even fry a single egg. He stood there in the middle of his own kitchen, hungry, because the one person who had brought comfort and order into his life had decided he wasn’t worth another second of her time.
The realization of just how dependent he had become on you, physically and emotionally, burned through his pride like acid. He strode back into the living room, his chest rising and falling unevenly, and grabbed his phone again. The urgency had begun to rot into something far worse.
The humiliation of losing to Isagi Yoichi still stung like an open wound, but your absence hurt in a completely different way. It reached into the oldest, deepest scar he carried, the terror of being discarded and left behind in the dark.
His fingers tightened around the phone as he opened your chat again, any trace of elegance disappearing from the way he typed.
“Where are you? I told you to come home. Answer your fucking phone.”
You weren’t even receiving the messages anymore.
You had either turned your phone off or blocked his number entirely.
A wave of blind fury, tangled with the sickening helplessness of having absolutely no control over the situation, shot up his spine. With a muffled snarl tearing from his throat, Kaiser hurled the phone across the living room. It slammed into the hardwood floor with a violent crack, the glass screen splintering into a web of fractures before the display went completely black.
The shattered pieces glinted beneath the late-morning sunlight creeping through the windows, and Kaiser remained frozen in the middle of the room, staring at the ruined device.
He hadn’t just destroyed his phone.
He had destroyed the only line of communication he still had with you.
The hours dragged by as though time itself had decided to mock his loneliness. The sun crossed the sky and slowly began to set, washing the apartment walls in muted shades of orange. Kaiser spent the rest of his day off slumped on the leather sofa, elbows resting on his knees, his head hanging low as he stared into the darkness swallowing the room.
His arrogance had evaporated. Without the stadium lights and without your calm, steady presence to challenge his behavior, Michael Kaiser looked like nothing more than a frightened boy trapped inside a castle he had turned into his own prison. Again and again, his mind replayed the slap against your hand and every poisonous word he had thrown at you. He had wanted to make you hurt because admitting how badly he himself was hurting had felt impossible.
You had simply looked at him with quiet indifference, recognized his immaturity for exactly what it was, and walked out the door, taking every trace of warmth with you.
Kaiser squeezed his eyes shut, letting his head hang for a few seconds as the pressure in his chest became almost unbearable. He knew you weren’t going to come running back. He knew you had a life of your own and far too much dignity to accept the emotional wreckage he had tried to dump on you. His punishment had only just begun.
Another night proved every bit as cruel as the last.
The hours slipped by without sleep ever coming. His shattered phone remained where it had landed on the living room floor, untouched. Water was the only thing he managed to force down his throat, and with every passing minute, the silence of the apartment seemed to tighten around him, squeezing the air from his lungs.
When morning finally arrived, it brought nothing but gray skies hanging over Bastard München’s training facilities.
Kaiser forced himself into his training kit and headed to the club. His body showed up, but his mind remained trapped inside the void you had left behind.
The locker room was unusually quiet when he walked in. The other players, still intimidated by the recent defeat and Kaiser’s notoriously explosive temper, kept their distance.
Alexis Ness sat on the bench in the middle of the room, adjusting the studs on his boots with his usual devoted smile. The moment he noticed Kaiser approaching, he looked up, his smile widening automatically.
“Morning, Kaiser! I was thinking about yesterday’s play. If we adjust the angle—”
Kaiser cut him off, his voice cold and flat, leaving no room for greetings or tactical discussions. He stopped directly in front of Ness, extending an open hand, his pale blue eyes fixed on him without a trace of warmth.
Ness blinked, his smile faltering for the briefest moment at the harshness of Kaiser’s tone. His hands froze over his laces.
“My phone? But… what happened to yours—”
“Give me the fucking phone, Ness. Now.”
His voice dropped another octave, his jaw clenched so tightly that the words almost came out through gritted teeth. His patience had fallen below zero, and the faint tremor running through his fingers betrayed the anxiety he was trying so desperately to bury beneath his aggression.
Ness swallowed hard. The fear of disappointing Kaiser outweighed every other thought in his head. Without another word, he reached into the pocket of his club jacket, pulled out his phone, and hurriedly handed it over. Kaiser practically snatched it from his hand before immediately turning away, making for the quietest corner of the locker room near the rows of metal lockers.
He didn’t need to look up your number. Every digit had been burned into his memory, repeated over and over inside his head like a curse throughout the past thirty-six hours.
With quick, rough movements, he entered the eleven digits and hit the call button before pressing the phone against his ear. His chest rose and fell unevenly as the line continued to ring. One tone became two, then three, every passing second feeling like another drop of acid burning through his stomach. He had already prepared himself to hear the voicemail greeting again, already bracing himself to drive his fist into the metal locker in front of him.
The silence on the other end was broken by the faint sound of someone breathing.
Your voice drifted through the speaker, soft, clear, and terrifyingly calm. The very same voice he had tried to silence on saturday night.
A knot tightened in Kaiser’s throat. For the briefest moment, simply hearing your voice forced air back into his lungs. The relief lasted only a heartbeat before it was swallowed by blind fury as he realized you had never actually been unreachable. You had simply chosen not to speak to him.
“So you’ve just been avoiding me.” He growled, every word dripping with defensive venom as his nails dug into the palm of his free hand. “The second you saw Ness’s number on your screen, you picked up. What the fuck is this supposed to be?”
There was a measured pause on the other end of the line. You didn’t sound surprised. Your voice didn’t rise. His aggression failed to shake you in the slightest.
“Michael?” You asked, your tone level, almost bored. “What are you doing calling me from Ness’s phone? Where’s yours?”
“Doesn’t matter.” He shot back, his voice rising just enough to draw a nervous glance from Ness, who had been watching the exchange from across the room in complete silence. Kaiser pressed the phone tighter against his ear, possessive panic twisting inside his chest beneath the anger. “Where are you? You’ve been gone all day. Where the hell are you? Get your ass back to the apartment. We need to talk.”
“I have nothing to discuss with you, Michael. And I’m not going anywhere as long as you think yelling means you get to make the rules.”
Your voice remained as cold as ice.
“You’re really going to ignore me again? Aren’t you tired of this shit yet? I already—”
The sharp beeping that signaled the end of the call echoed through the speaker, cutting him off mid-sentence.
Kaiser froze. Slowly, he lowered the phone and stared at the dark screen confirming the call had ended. You had hung up on him right in the middle of his sentence. No explanation. No argument. Not even the satisfaction of hearing you yell back. You had erased his presence from the conversation with a single tap, treating the fury of one of Europe’s brightest football stars as nothing more than an irritating noise you had no obligation to listen to.
The humiliation hit with startling physical force. Heat rushed to his face, his cheekbones burning with pure rage and frustration.
His grip tightened around Ness’s phone until his knuckles turned stark white.
“Kaiser…?” Ness called hesitantly, taking a cautious step toward him, his expression filled with concern as he watched his friend teeter on the edge of collapse. “Is everything okay? Did she… did she say something—”
Kaiser roared, turning on him with wide, blazing blue eyes before throwing the phone back against the midfielder’s chest. Without waiting for any response, he spun on his heel and strode across the locker room. He shoved the heavy metal door open with both hands and stormed out onto the training pitch beneath the cold morning light, his breathing rough and uneven.
Throughout warm-ups and every tactical drill that followed, Kaiser was a complete disaster. He misplaced the simplest passes, blasted shots wildly over the goal, and ignored nearly every instruction the coach barked from the sidelines.
Every time he sprinted across the grass, the image of you ending the call replayed inside his mind like torture. The silence you had chosen as punishment slowly ate away at what little mental stability he still had after losing to Isagi.
With a bitterness that was almost impossible to swallow, he realized you weren’t like everyone else. You didn’t orbit around his talent, you didn’t depend on his money, and you weren’t afraid of his temper. You had far too much dignity to let yourself become the emotional punching bag of a boy who simply didn’t know how to lose.
By the time training finally came to an end, Kaiser felt neither hunger nor exhaustion. All he could feel was the suffocating weight of an empty apartment waiting for him at the end of the day.
He remained seated on the locker room bench for a long while, unable to gather even enough willpower to stand. Cold sweat clung to his training shirt, sticking the fabric to his skin, but he barely registered the discomfort. His elbows rested on his knees, both hands buried in his hair while his gaze remained fixed on the concrete floor. The silence around him felt almost sacred, and the few teammates who still lingered in the locker room made a point of avoiding his path.
Ness approached slowly, clutching his phone against his chest, uncertainty written plainly across his face. He cleared his throat softly before taking one cautious step into Kaiser’s line of sight.
“Kaiser…” He said quietly, barely above a whisper. “About that phone call earlier… if it was about her… I think I know where she is.”
Kaiser slowly lifted his head. His pale blue eyes, lifeless only moments before, locked onto Ness with such frightening intensity that the midfielder instinctively took half a step backward.
“What did you say?” He asked, his voice rough and low, slicing cleanly through the silence.
“Yesterday afternoon I had to run an errand near one of the upscale residential districts… and I saw her.” Ness explained hurriedly, gesturing nervously with both hands. “She was coming out of one of those modern studio buildings carrying a few folders. She looked… calm. Maybe she’s staying with a friend over there, or renting a place for a while. I think I can find the building again.”
Kaiser remained motionless for a brief moment, as though he needed to make sure he had heard correctly. Then he shot to his feet in one abrupt movement, giving no thought to his exhaustion, the humiliation of training, or anything else. The mere possibility of finally knowing where you were ignited a spark of possessive fury he could barely contain.
“Grab your things.” He ordered, his voice trembling with unhealthy urgency as he stripped off his training shirt and pulled his club jacket over still-damp skin. “You’re taking me there.”
“But… we don’t have a car, and the team bus already—”
“We’re taking the fucking subway. Move your ass.”
He slung his training bag over one shoulder and stormed toward the exit of the training facility without looking back.
The subway ride to the district became an endurance test for Ness’s nerves.
Since neither of them could drive, they had no choice but to blend into the stream of passengers on the subway. Kaiser, however, refused to make himself small. He spent the entire ride standing against one of the metal poles, his foot tapping relentlessly against the floor, arms crossed over his chest, wearing an expression severe enough to make nearby commuters quietly move to different seats.
His pride was bleeding, and the only way his mind knew how to cope with the terror of being abandoned was to wrap itself in even more aggression.
“That girl…” Kaiser muttered through clenched teeth, his voice low but still perfectly audible to Ness, who stood beside him with tense shoulders. “Who the hell does she think she is, pulling a stunt like this on me? Disappearing in the middle of the night, blocking my number, hanging up on me… Who the fuck does she think she is?”
“Kaiser… calm down. People are staring.”Ness said cautiously, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Then let them stare.” Kaiser’s blue eyes flashed with defensive fury as he glared out the train window, watching the dark tunnels race past. “She’s going to pay for every second of this pathetic silent treatment. Does she seriously think I’m one of those pathetic guys who just accepts being thrown away? The moment I get my hands on her, she’s going to learn that nobody pulls this kind of shit on me.”
Ness didn’t answer. He simply swallowed hard and looked away. More than anyone, he understood Kaiser on the field, but seeing him this completely unraveled, so hopelessly obsessed with a single woman, was genuinely frightening. This wasn’t just anger anymore. Kaiser was running on desperation.
When the subway doors finally slid open, Kaiser was already moving before the announcement had even finished. He practically dragged Ness out of the carriage and up the escalators without slowing down. The cold afternoon air hit his face the moment they stepped outside, but it did nothing to cool the heat simmering beneath his skin.
They walked three blocks in tense silence, Ness leading the way until they stopped in front of a quiet, tree-lined street surrounded by sleek glass buildings and minimalist luxury apartments.
“It’s there…” Ness said, pointing toward an elegant gray building with a glass lobby and a refined café on the corner. “That one. I saw her leaving through the main entrance yesterday, around four in the afternoon.”
Kaiser stopped on the sidewalk, his breathing growing noticeably heavier beneath his Bastard München jacket. His eyes locked onto the mirrored façade, his fists tightening inside his pockets. The fact that only a few meters now separated him from you made his heart hammer violently against his ribs.
For the first time since leaving the training grounds, every threat he’d repeated to himself on the subway died in his throat. In their place came something far colder, a knot twisting painfully in the pit of his stomach.
The entire trip, he’d rehearsed exactly what he would say when he found you. Standing in front of that building, none of those words felt convincing anymore.
And for once in his life, Kaiser had no idea how to face someone who no longer seemed to need him.
The uncertainty settled over him for several long seconds. He remained motionless on the sidewalk, staring at the building’s mirrored windows as though they might offer him an answer.
Silence was still the only response you’d given him since that night.
Behind him, Ness wisely kept quiet. He didn’t dare interrupt. He simply watched his friend standing before the entrance, realizing that Kaiser was actually hesitating before charging into a confrontation.
Not knowing had become worse than whatever rejection might be waiting on the other side of those glass doors.
With one final breath, he forced his legs to move again. The automatic doors slid open as he approached, while Ness remained outside, silently watching him disappear into the building with unmistakable concern.
The lobby exuded understated luxury, gray marble floors, recessed lighting, and the kind of pristine silence that made the heavy echo of Kaiser’s footsteps sound almost intrusive. Without slowing down, he headed straight for the reception desk, where a middle-aged woman in a perfectly tailored suit was typing calmly at her computer.
“I need to know what room someone is staying in.” Kaiser said bluntly, leaving no room for pleasantries. Planting both hands firmly on the granite counter, he leaned toward her. His Bastard München jacket, made it obvious he wasn’t just another visitor.
The receptionist didn’t even blink.
She slowly looked up from her monitor, adjusted her glasses with practiced composure, and met his gaze with complete professionalism, a level of calm that immediately made Kaiser’s stomach twist with angry.
“Good afternoon, sir. For security and privacy reasons, we cannot disclose any information regarding our residents or guests to third parties.” Her tone remained perfectly polite, perfectly detached. “May I have your name, please? And the name of the person you’re looking for?”
Kaiser gritted his teeth so hard the veins along his neck stood out.
“Michael Kaiser.” He spoke his own name as though it should have functioned as universal clearance. “And I’m looking for my girlfriend, [Name] [Surname]. You know exactly who she is. She came in yesterday carrying a bunch of stupid folders. Stop wasting my time and tell me what floor she’s on.”
The receptionist’s expression remained unreadable as she calmly reached for the desk phone beside her.
“Mr. Kaiser, standard procedure requires me to contact the guest first to confirm whether she authorizes your visit. One moment, please.”
Kaiser’s heart slammed violently against his ribs.
For a split second, the mask of arrogance cracked, exposing the raw panic underneath. He knew with absolute certainty that the moment the receptionist spoke his name over the intercom, you’d tell her to lock the door, or worse, call security. You weren’t going to let him in. You were still punishing him with silence, and this time there would be no grand reunion waiting for him.
As the receptionist began dialing the number, Kaiser narrowed his blue eyes, watching her fingers with obsessive focus. His gaze flicked to the small digital display on the desk phone.
The instant the receptionist turned to grab a notepad while the phone began to ring, Kaiser moved on pure instinct. He didn’t think. He took two quick steps to the side, slipped through the electronic gate left open by a resident leaving the building, and headed straight for the elevators.
By the time the receptionist looked back toward the front desk, the metal doors were already sliding shut.
He jabbed the button for the third floor with far more force than necessary, watching the glowing numbers climb one by one. Both hands were shoved deep into the pockets of his jacket, his fists clenched so tightly his knuckles throbbed.
And in his mind, that alone would be enough to put everything back where it belonged.
The third-floor hallway looked almost identical to the lobby below, silent, lined with dark carpeting that swallowed the sound of footsteps, its solid wooden doors marked only by polished chrome numbers. Kaiser barely remembered to breathe as he walked down the corridor until he stopped in front of 304.
Raising his hand, he pounded on the door three hard times, the sharp knocks echoing aggressively through the hallway.
“It’s me. Open the fucking door.”
The words came out in a low growl as he stood perfectly still, straining to catch any sound from the other side.
A few seconds later, the lock clicked.
The door slowly swung open.
You were wearing gray sweatpants and a comfortable jacket, your hair hanging loose around your shoulders, several study papers tucked beneath your left arm. Contrary to every desperate scenario Kaiser’s feverish mind had imagined during the subway ride, you didn’t look exhausted. You didn’t look sad.
You certainly didn’t look afraid.
Your eyes held the same quiet composure they always had, a calmness that disarmed him far more effectively than any scream ever could.
“How did you get in here, Michael?” You asked softly.
Your gaze briefly swept down the hallway behind him before settling back on his face.
“And how did you even find out I was here?”
Kaiser kept one hand braced against the door, making sure there was no chance of you closing it.
One of your eyebrows lifted.
“Was it that snitch Ness?”
A flicker of irritation crossed his face.
“Fuck Ness. That’s not the point.” His expression hardened. “The point is that I found you.”
Without waiting for your response, he shoved the door open with his shoulder, forcing his way inside before kicking it shut behind him with a heavy thud.
“Did you seriously think you could just disappear like this?” He snapped, his voice rough, trembling with restrained anxiety.
His hand rose to his own chest, gripping the front of his jacket as though he still couldn’t quite believe any of this was happening.
“You blocked me everywhere. You hung up on me. Have you lost your mind? Who the hell do you think you are, leaving me alone in that apartment without saying a single word? I spent the entire day unable to eat because that kitchen’s fucking useless, and you disappear just to hide away in this tiny little box?”
You didn’t take a single step back.
Instead, you calmly placed your papers on the breakfast counter of the small kitchenette, let out a slow breath, and folded your arms across your chest.
“I’m not hiding, Michael.” Your voice remained steady. “I simply changed environments because your apartment had become temporarily unbearable. And I have absolutely no obligation to cook your meals or tolerate your temper every time your ego gets bruised on the field.”
You held his gaze without flinching.
“Do you remember what you said to me saturday night?”
Kaiser’s jaw locked instantly.
The memory of the words he’d thrown at you after the match hit him like a bucket of ice water. His fingers began drumming restlessly against the seam of his sweatpants, betraying an agitation that suddenly looked far less convincing than it had only moments ago.
“I was stressed, damn it!” He shot back. “Isagi humiliated me out there. The press was already breathing down my neck… I said things without thinking.”
His voice hardened again, clinging to the last scraps of defensiveness he had left.
“You’re smart. You should understand what this kind of pressure is like instead of making such a huge scene and disappearing.”
“I understand it perfectly, Michael.” You took a step forward, closing the distance between you until he could catch your scent again, the one that had vanished from the sheets back at the apartment. “What I don’t understand, and what I refuse to accept, is a boy thinking he can turn his girlfriend into an emotional punching bag every time his ego gets bruised after a match. I left because you told me to. I gave you exactly what you wanted: your space. So why are you so angry? You should be celebrating that the ‘dead weight’ is finally gone.”
With every word, the arrogance he’d carried with him since barging into your apartment seemed to lose another piece of itself. His eyes searched your face for any sign of guilt, any hesitation that would let him seize control of the conversation again, but they found only the same calm, unwavering expression.
The silence stretching between you unsettled him in a way he hadn’t expected. For the first time since forcing his way inside, Kaiser realized you weren’t trying to hurt him back. You weren’t yelling, arguing, or trying to make him suffer. You were simply making it clear, with an almost infuriating calmness, that there was a line he had crossed.
“Oh, come on…” He muttered under his breath, frowning. “Are you really going to keep this up?”
You held his gaze without answering. There was no sign of you backing down, no hint that this was some temporary punishment meant to make him chase you out of pride. There was possibility that you simply weren’t coming back, and now, that possibility felt terrifyingly real.
The old fear of abandonment, the one he’d always believed he’d buried alongside his miserable childhood, crept back up his spine.
Almost without realizing it, he took a step toward you.
His hands rose slowly until they rested around your arms. The grip wasn’t rough, only uncertain, as though he himself wasn’t sure what he was trying to accomplish.
“Stop this…” He murmured, his voice far quieter than before. He lowered his head until his forehead rested against yours. “This place is awful. The silence in that apartment is driving me insane. I couldn’t even train properly today… I messed everything up. You can’t just throw me away like this.”
You remained still, allowing the contact but making no move to return it.
“I didn’t throw you away, Michael. You did that to yourself the moment you crossed the line with me. I’m not Ness. I’m not going to applaud your outbursts, and I’m not the press either. I don’t have to sit through your performances. If you want me to come back to that apartment with you, you’re going to have to learn how to clean up your own emotional mess.”
Kaiser squeezed his eyes shut before burying his face against the curve of your neck, breathing in your scent like someone finally taking a full breath after being underwater for far too long. His pride was still fighting to stay alive, but simply being close to you was the only thing quiet enough to drown out the chaos tearing through his mind.
“What do you want me to do?” He muttered against your skin, his childish irritation surfacing again as, almost instinctively, his hands slid down to your waist.
“For starters…” You replied evenly “You’re going to step back, look me in the eyes, and apologize like a grown man for what you did on saturday. No excuses. No blaming anyone else.”
The request hung between the two of you like an impossible wall. Stepping away from you and breaking the contact felt like losing the only solid ground he’d found in thirty-six hours, but he forced himself to take half a step back. His fingers lingered reluctantly at your waist before falling to his sides.
He lifted his chin, trying to recover what little remained of his composure. His blue eyes, however, couldn’t stay still.
“I’m sorry.” He said abruptly, the words clipped and stiff, as though he were forcing down something bitter. His jaw remained tight. “I was an idiot on that day. I shouldn’t have talked to you like that, and I definitely shouldn’t have told you to leave. There. Happy?”
You stayed where you were, your arms still crossed as you leaned lightly against the kitchen counter. Your eyes studied him with the same detached calm as before. There was no hatred in your expression, but there wasn’t the slightest sign of forgiveness either.
“No.” You answered softly, your voice barely above a whisper, yet sharp enough to slice through the silence of the apartment. “I’m not. And I’m not going anywhere with an apology like that.”
Kaiser blinked, his brow knitting together instantly. Defensive irritation surged up his throat, only to be crushed beneath the knot of panic tightening in his chest.
“What do you mean, no?” His voice rose despite himself as he stepped toward you again, invading your space, his trembling hands cutting through the air in frustrated gestures. “I just admitted I was wrong. I came all the way here, got past that woman downstairs, skipped training, stood here and told you I was an idiot, and you’re saying it still isn’t enough? What else do you want from me?”
“I want honesty, Michael.” You interrupted, your voice firm and unwavering despite his size. “That apology didn’t sound real. You’re not sorry because you hurt me. You’re sorry because your life became inconvenient without me.”
The words landed with the force of a punch to the stomach.
He opened his mouth, ready to throw out one of his usual arrogant lines about not needing anyone, but nothing came. His eyes stayed fixed on your face, on that cold, unwavering indifference. If he hid behind his pride now, you’d open the door, tell him to leave, and that would be the last time he ever saw you.
Raw, clumsy desperation began cracking the shell he’d spent years building.
Kaiser took two uneven steps backward, dragging both hands through his hair until the strands stuck out in every direction. He began pacing across the cramped apartment, breathing harder with every turn. He looked like a cornered animal, one completely unequipped to communicate like a normal human being.
“I… I don’t know how to do this!” He burst out at last, his voice cracking into something strained and almost desperate. He stopped pacing and turned to face you, his gaze wide with a mixture of anger and helplessness. “What do you want me to say? What am I supposed to say to make you believe me? I don’t know how to apologize any other way!”
He took another hesitant step closer, his shoulders finally slumping as the last remnants of his arrogance gave way. The untouchable image he showed the rest of the world disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a frightened nineteen-year-old who had never learned how to deal with the possibility of losing someone he loved.
“I don’t know how.” He admitted quietly, his voice dropping to a rough whisper. The words stumbled out without any of his usual theatrical confidence. He stared down at the floor, unable to meet your eyes. “No one ever taught me how to apologize… or how to be the kind of boyfriend who’s actually worth a damn.”
Drawing in a shaky breath, he spoke again:
“When I came home that night… I was bleeding inside. And I wanted everyone around me to bleed too, just so I wouldn’t feel like I was the only broken person in the room. You were trying to calm me down, and the only thing my stupid head could think was that you were looking at me with pity.” His jaw tightened as he finally forced himself to look at you. “…I hate it when people pity me.”
You watched the way he drew in a slow breath before taking another step closer, until you could feel the warmth radiating from his body after the cold walk through the streets. He lifted his eyes gradually, and the desperation in them was so painfully genuine that it made the silence filling the apartment feel unbearably heavy.
“But I never wanted you to actually leave.” He admitted, his voice faltering ever so slightly, stripped of every trace of arrogance. “I smashed my fucking phone because every time I called you, it went straight to voicemail, and I didn’t know what to do with how empty that place felt. I don’t know what to do when that apartment goes quiet. I don’t know what to do when the lights go out and you’re not there to tell me everything’s going to be okay.”
Slowly, he reached out again, his long, pale fingers hesitating in the air before settling carefully around your waist. This time, though, his touch was unbelievably gentle, as if he were silently begging you not to push him away.
“I’m sorry.” He said again, his voice soft now, completely free of its usual edge. His look never left yours, pleading for the chance you hadn’t yet given him. “I mean it this time. I’m sorry for taking everything out on you. I know none of it was your fault… I just… I didn’t know what to do with any of it.”
Another slow breath followed, as though admitting what came next demanded even more from him.
“I know I'm a shitty boyfriend most of the time… but I don’t want to go back to that apartment without you.”
The silence that settled between you was different now, clean, untouched by the noise he usually brought into every room. Kaiser kept his hands resting lightly against your waist, waiting for your answer with an anxiety he could barely hide.
You studied him for a few quiet seconds before gently taking his hands away from your waist. There was no harshness in the gesture, only a boundary being put back into place.
“This is the last time, Michael.” You said calmly, your voice as composed as it was firm. “The last time you use me as an outlet for a bad day on the field. The next time your ego gets bruised, you can take it up with the mirror, but not with me. Do we understand each other?”
He nodded almost immediately, completely disarmed, the last of his defenses giving way as he leaned forward, resting the weight of his head against your shoulder and letting out a slow breath, as though an enormous weight had finally slipped from his back.
“We do.” He mumbled into the fabric of your clothes, his voice noticeably quieter than before. “We do… fuck. Just… don’t ever ignore me like that again.”
“If you learn how to talk like a normal person…” You replied, giving his back a light pat before reaching for the folders resting on the kitchen counter. “I won’t.”
You gathered your study materials before looking back at him.
“Now help me with my luggage. I’ll return the key, and then we’re going home.”
Kaiser straightened up, absentmindedly running his fingers through the blond-and-blue strands of his hair. A hint of his usual cockiness threatened to return, accompanied by the unmistakable satisfaction of having you beside him again. His gaze wandered around the tiny apartment, lingering on the stack of books you’d neatly arranged on the desk before he’d barged in.
“This place is tiny anyway.” He muttered, slinging your backpack over one shoulder with effortless ease, trying to reclaim at least a little of the control he’d lost. “The ceiling’s so low it’s giving me claustrophobia. We’ll make Ness carry the heavier bags as payment for being such a damn snitch.”
You packed the last of your belongings into your shoulder bag, double checking that nothing had been left behind. Kaiser stayed by the door the entire time, watching your every movement as though he feared you might change your mind if he looked away for even a second.
When the two of you rode the elevator down and crossed the lobby, the receptionist pretended not to notice either of you, focusing with remarkable dedication on her computer screen instead. Outside, a sharp gust of wind swept across the sidewalk, and Ness looked seconds away from collapsing with relief when he saw the two of you walk out through the glass doors together.
“Kaiser! So it worked? You—”
“Take this.” Kaiser cut him off, dropping the luggage into Ness’s arms without the slightest ceremony. “Now get moving. We’re taking the subway. I’m tired as hell, and I want to get back to my bed.”
Ness clutched the bags, blinking in confusion at the abrupt order, but quickly hurried ahead anyway, visibly relieved that Kaiser’s mood seemed infinitely better than it had been earlier.
A quiet laugh escaped you as you followed the two of them toward the station. Kaiser wasn’t going to change overnight, and the sharp edges of his personality certainly weren’t going anywhere. But the way he deliberately reached for your hand during the walk, tucking it into the pocket of his coat before lacing his fingers tightly through yours to keep the cold away, told you everything you needed to know.
For all his bluster, all his pride, and all the chaos he carried inside him, when it came to the two of you, he knew perfectly well who truly held the upper hand.
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