⤷ muselist found here ⤷ leave an idea/plot/character you want in the subject line. ⤷ you can leave your comment blank or create your own scenario. ⤷ have fun!
[Almost as if to prove his point, Fudou doesn't bat an eye as he pokes his chopsticks into his own box and starts eating at pieces of tomato. Sometimes after seven or so years, things change about people. Like one's dislike of certain vegetables.]
Hakuryuu's obsession with that sort of thing is great. It'll help him grow. I move around so I'll be fine, but you need to watch it or that tailored suit of yours'll stop fitting, Sakuma-kun.
[Eyebrows raise at Fudou willingly eating that tomato, all too familiar with how he was in middle school and high school, poking around his food or sneaking the red vegetables onto his own plate (or Kidou's, if he felt daring enough). Fudou had certainly changed a lot while he was gone, whether it was hair or the way his eyes seemed softer than they were as children or the way he dressed like he could afford nothing more than what you could find at a thrift store.
Sakuma...didn't feel like he'd made the same kind of changes. He'd grown up, sure. He'd gotten a lot more stoic, maybe, but that'd come with the territory of taking the Kidou Group and Teikoku on your shoulders.
Maybe in the mix of all that, he'd been blind to the world moving past him. Then again, Fudou had been the one to cut that connection off. His eye closes, stuffing those feelings down back to where they belonged, and opening it only when Fudou speaks.]
[Sakuma's hardly gotten the last "t" out before Fudou cuts in with a retort.] If I thought you were fat I wouldn't be getting you fried anything.
[With that, he shoves his mouth full of some chicken, chewing on it silently (30 times) before swallowing, then pointing the chopsticks rudely at Sakuma.]
But I'm saying you might, if you keep up that shitty lifestyle of yours. Don't think Rei[ichi] hasn't told me about it!
There's nothing wrong with my lifestyle! I'm handling everything as it should be run.
[Things he's said many, many times before, although not to Fudou Akio. Midorikawa and Kazemaru had the same conversation with him once before, mostly about his stress at work or how many hours of sleep he was getting a night. It wasn't a fun conversation. He didn't LIKE those conversations, he didn't LIKE being told that his life was as flimsy as wet cardboard and he was only keeping it together with strings and paperclips.
Have a rude jab of his own chopsticks back, childishly diverting Fudou's own to point elsewhere.]
[His face softens, pulling out a piece of vegetable to pop in his mouth. Truth be told, so much had changed in the ten years he'd held Teikoku. Koutei Penguin 7, Last Death Zone, Penguin Carnival, Penguin the Hand...so many new hissatsu and so many obstacles overcome.
He was a little excited to share it with someone from Teikoku who knew. Someone who paid attention.]
I'm not sure how well I'd be able to keep up with someone who went pro.
[Fudou had never looked back on Teikoku until he returned to it. He didn't know anything about any new hissatsu or tactics, or how it had been doing in tournaments since he left. But he didn't think they were weak; weak was the last thing Teikoku would let itself be, and under Sakuma Jirou...]
You'd be a better challenge than most guys I know.
Of course he would be. [He sets his chopsticks down, letting his food settle as he goes to look at the man across from him.]
What you teach him you can see as he grows. You're more than just a coach or a trainer, you're what he looks to put on the field. It's a little more personal than playing professional, I think.
We never had anyone quite like that...but it feels good seeing your own efforts show in the ones you teach. Miyabino...he knows Teikoku soccer better than anyone. It's something I'm proud of him for.
[He pokes at his food idly with the chopsticks, not sure how to respond to Sakuma's comment about Hakuryuu. He knows the boy cared about him, and he knows that they've warmed up to each other significantly over the last few weeks. Hakuryuu relaxed more in that apartment, moving about more freely and less silently, but when someone says it out loud like that...]
When I watch that kid talk to you, it makes me think of Endou back during FFI when he talked to Coach Kudou or Hibiki. I think it's a lot more personal for you and him than you're putting it, too.
[There's a small moment where Sakuma softens, closing his eye to think about how Fudou phrases that. He'd like to be seen as someone like Coach Kudou or Hibiki to the Teikoku kids. They'd been the one thing that tied him to sanity since he'd taken on so much work. Their smiling faces when they heard about Sakuma's new tactics...the way they tried not to look for praise and yet Sakuma gave it...
He wanted to be like someone he himself held in such high esteem.
But there's doubt there. Like he can't truly take that compliment without admitting to his many, many faults.]
Maybe.
It seems like we've both found someone like that in our lives. It's a challenge in its own right.
Mm. Teaching others anything is totally different from going for something for yourself.
[Sakuma doesn't accept the compliment, but Fudou doesn't push it onto him. He stuffs a few more pieces of food into his mouth, chewing quietly. One would say that the tension between them was thick enough to cut with a knife, but Fudou doesn't mind it so much. At least it exists. At least Sakuma let it exist again, after he cut it off the way he did.]
You're doing that with hundreds of kids here, and they answer to you.
[Thick was a good way to put it. While Sakuma could never truly hate Fudou, for awhile he had hated the subject of him, eyes narrowing when he was brought into conversation, seeing him on the television after he'd cut contact so immediately and didn't leave room for anyone else's voice or opinion. He'd grown so bitter over those years, from Kidou's absence to Fudou's, and only because of Miyabino and Fudou's return with Hakuryuu had that anger started to dissolve.
What they had now was pretty fragile, but roots could still take hold. They could rebuild what they'd lost.
It's not something Sakuma gets his hopes up too much for, though. After all, he's the one who's always left behind. He'll be the one standing still, like he always has.]
They believe in Teikoku's soccer. I just show them the path as I know it.
[Fudou doesn't argue against Sakuma. Really, he hasn't been argumentative about anything since his return to Japan, and when his eyes flicker up from his food to that piercing brown eye, his blue ones gaze at him through slightly furrowed brows. Fudou's eyes, once wide and ready to mock, now carried more of a searching, pensive look.
Europe had provided him an escape. Europe had also provided him years of isolation from the past with plenty of time to think, and when he looked at Sakuma, those thoughts always rose to the surface. But he keeps chewing his food to keep them at bay.]
... I watched some of Japan's soccer while I was in Europe, too. Middle school soccer.
Teikoku's soccer under you, even if with the Sector around, was always impressive.
[Something twitches on Sakuma's lips, a small light trying to be snuffed out by the darkness of the man's colder demeanor. A smile, however faint, but quickly extinguished for fear of what that smile could lead to. He'd been hurt enough and shouldered with enough burden between the Kidou Corp and Teikoku. And while he didn't exactly HATE the work (he loved it, deep down), it was the way he felt trapped by it when others with more obligation to it were free to walk that made him feel like he was meant to be stuck in this cage. At first glance, it's a cold shut down of an emotion, but looking further in, there's the hint of a damaged heart now shielding itself with as many spikes as it can manage to protect itself from shattering completely.
He tries not to sound overly pleased as he answers, but anyone who knew Sakuma well enough knows when he's bluffing. In actuality, he could talk for hours about his team, and how they seemed to follow him and his orders with undying loyalty.
'Commander Kidou's soccer' was not entirely false, but it certainly wasn't entirely true, either. It's the answer he gives, though, reluctantly curbing is enthusiasm for the moment.]
Commander Kidou's soccer takes the best of Teikoku and puts it to its limits. And the kids themselves are the ones who mastered Koutei Penguin 7.
I...we only provided what was necessary for them to complete it.
Commander Kidou's only been working with Teikoku for -- what? Two or three months?
[He tried to be careful with Sakuma. He was on thin ice, and he did not have any right to say what was right or what was wrong about the way this man lived his life (if it could be called living at all). As far as he was concerned, he played a great role in stranding him on a path that led to this present, and all he could do -- the least he could do -- was try to dig Sakuma's out of this dark, endless cave.
But there were some things he had to put his foot down about.]
This best of Teikoku exists 'cause someone took over and did all the hard work while the guy was off in Italy taking credit for shit he didn't do. The kids mastered 7, sure, but the one who created it, and the one who paved the path and built up Teikoku's strength thus far?
[An outburst he catches himself saying, catching his own tone and immediately pulling it back as quickly as it'd come out. It was true, though...he loved Kidou for all he'd done, all he'd accomplished, and for giving him a reason to stand on his own two legs again. A man he'd watched leave Teikoku more than once and leaving him behind to hold the fort in his place. And in that very same place...he'd found Fudou, another friend he found himself almost inseparable to...
Someone who also left Teikoku, and even Japan while leaving him still rooted here.
Fudou's words continue, and Sakuma falls into silence as he listens, having no more objections for the moment. There's idle stirring of his rice, listening to Fudou's harsh, but true words. Even Miyabino, who had always said it was Kidou's soccer, always looked to Sakuma when he said it. And Fudou's compliments hit him in much the same way.
It's confusing, and it makes his heart race just thinking about the idea that he had been a driving force for what Teikoku was. He'd always been so quick to default to giving Kidou the credit. He didn't mind it, he told himself. Kidou was the mastermind behind a lot of things both on and off the field. But maybe a small...small dark part of himself wished he would be the one who was praised.]
Yeah, well, I don't just say things for the sake of friendship.
[Fudou sets his own chopsticks down, leaning back in the chair some and running a hand through his hair with a sigh. It's not as coarse and dry as it used to be after the child at his apartment handed him some actual, proper shampoo. Now it was fluffier, and he appreciated those additional health points, but now it made it impossible to keep from falling in his face. Oh well.]
... And that goes both ways. I mean what I say.
Maybe Kidou's the name that's on all the papers and he's the one the media pisses its pants over, anyone who knows anything can see that you're the one that's been running the show.
I watched some of their practice earlier this week too. They listen to you well.
[He'd half expected it to be a joke, some sneering comment about how Sakuma had done well...for a trainer. But no, Fudou never did say anything for friendship or just to be nice. He either meant it or he didn't, and that's the part that gets Sakuma the most as he shoves rice into his mouth, buying himself some time before he hast to confront that.
An awful decision, really. It only gave him time to consider how that made him feel, his heart encased in ice deep down starting to thaw as if Fudou had put a match up to its frozen prison. Deep down, he wants to fight it. Shove away that comment and continue to live in the darkness he made for himself.
But that light was so tempting....
He stands up abruptly, chopsticks laid across that takeout container and hands pushing himself out of his seat.]
I should go.
[It's frantic, almost comical, how hurriedly he grabs his jacket and walks out that door, closing it behind him.
[And just like that, Fudou is left behind, stranded in the office with not just the food Sakuma left unfinished but his work as well, the last few pages of a document he'd been reading through but has now abandoned, stacked just a little haphazardly away from the food.
The door clicks shut with the softest tone of finality, and Fudou
sighs.]
This is your goddamn office, Sakuma...
[Well, time to clean up the food and put it in that mini fridge and maybe he can take care of the last of those papers. He could probably figure out a way to lock the door, and he'll just have to message Hakuryuu before he headed out.]
[A revelation Sakuma had too as soon as he got outside of Teikoku's doors. His body stops dead in its tracks, knowing full well he'd left Fudou all alone in his office with no key to lock up and all that food to put away. Food Fudou had offered to share with him...gotten FOR him...
A part of him's too embarrassed to got back up there. He could only imagine the smile on Fudou's face when he'd walk up, tail in between his legs and flustered beyond belief. But another part of him knows he's an adult, and these are the kinds of things he tossed away from himself as a child. To still get flustered over that man and what he said already proved he had not grown up as much as he wished he did. Those old feelings resurfaced far too quickly, and far too vigorously. He's internally grateful for his dark complexion--it was able to hide that deep flush of red on his cheeks as he marched stiffly back in, up the elevator and down the hall back towards the classroom he'd called his office.
He turns the corner down the long corridor that marked his office.]
[Fudou is not, in fact, gone. He looks up calmly when he hears Sakuma come back inside, the boxes of food already packed and put away in the fridge, dropping Sakuma's pen into its stand as a last part of his clean-up. The papers that weren't a mess but still pushed aside to accommodate the food are now spread in neatly organized stacks -- kept weighted down so they wouldn't get blown away by any gust of air -- and Sakuma's briefcase, forgotten also, is sitting on the couch in the meeting area next to Fudou's own jacket with the intention of dropping it off at the man's place after.
But all that's unnecessary now, he supposes, since the owner of the office is now back. He regards him neutrally, not a trace of a smirk or smile on his face.]
Oh, good, you're back. I was wondering what I was gonna have to do with the lock.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
no subject
[Almost as if to prove his point, Fudou doesn't bat an eye as he pokes his chopsticks into his own box and starts eating at pieces of tomato. Sometimes after seven or so years, things change about people. Like one's dislike of certain vegetables.]
Hakuryuu's obsession with that sort of thing is great. It'll help him grow. I move around so I'll be fine, but you need to watch it or that tailored suit of yours'll stop fitting, Sakuma-kun.
no subject
Sakuma...didn't feel like he'd made the same kind of changes. He'd grown up, sure. He'd gotten a lot more stoic, maybe, but that'd come with the territory of taking the Kidou Group and Teikoku on your shoulders.
Maybe in the mix of all that, he'd been blind to the world moving past him. Then again, Fudou had been the one to cut that connection off. His eye closes, stuffing those feelings down back to where they belonged, and opening it only when Fudou speaks.]
Are you calling me...
fat.
no subject
[With that, he shoves his mouth full of some chicken, chewing on it silently (30 times) before swallowing, then pointing the chopsticks rudely at Sakuma.]
But I'm saying you might, if you keep up that shitty lifestyle of yours. Don't think Rei[ichi] hasn't told me about it!
no subject
[Things he's said many, many times before, although not to Fudou Akio. Midorikawa and Kazemaru had the same conversation with him once before, mostly about his stress at work or how many hours of sleep he was getting a night. It wasn't a fun conversation. He didn't LIKE those conversations, he didn't LIKE being told that his life was as flimsy as wet cardboard and he was only keeping it together with strings and paperclips.
Have a rude jab of his own chopsticks back, childishly diverting Fudou's own to point elsewhere.]
Don't point your chopsticks, it's rude.
no subject
[But Fudou pulls his chopsticks back and sits up straighter, sighing and taking another bite of his chicken.]
Your body isn't a factory to be run, Sakuma.
no subject
[A hand moves up to adjust his bangs, a little nervous tic he had whenever he was speaking about something he wasn't all too comfortable with.]
Time gets away from me sometimes, is all. I still go to Teikoku's grounds to play soccer.
[Even if it's by himself. Even if it's just him and Miyabino.]
no subject
[Fudou has been away too long to recognize it as a tic, but he takes note of it, to remember it.]
Do you want to play with me later?
no subject
[His face softens, pulling out a piece of vegetable to pop in his mouth. Truth be told, so much had changed in the ten years he'd held Teikoku. Koutei Penguin 7, Last Death Zone, Penguin Carnival, Penguin the Hand...so many new hissatsu and so many obstacles overcome.
He was a little excited to share it with someone from Teikoku who knew. Someone who paid attention.]
I'm not sure how well I'd be able to keep up with someone who went pro.
no subject
You'd be a better challenge than most guys I know.
no subject
[He smiles, putting a bit of rice into his mouth.]
Overseas not giving you the challenge you thought?
no subject
Hakuryuu's been more fun.
no subject
What you teach him you can see as he grows. You're more than just a coach or a trainer, you're what he looks to put on the field. It's a little more personal than playing professional, I think.
We never had anyone quite like that...but it feels good seeing your own efforts show in the ones you teach. Miyabino...he knows Teikoku soccer better than anyone. It's something I'm proud of him for.
no subject
[He pokes at his food idly with the chopsticks, not sure how to respond to Sakuma's comment about Hakuryuu. He knows the boy cared about him, and he knows that they've warmed up to each other significantly over the last few weeks. Hakuryuu relaxed more in that apartment, moving about more freely and less silently, but when someone says it out loud like that...]
When I watch that kid talk to you, it makes me think of Endou back during FFI when he talked to Coach Kudou or Hibiki. I think it's a lot more personal for you and him than you're putting it, too.
no subject
He wanted to be like someone he himself held in such high esteem.
But there's doubt there. Like he can't truly take that compliment without admitting to his many, many faults.]
Maybe.
It seems like we've both found someone like that in our lives. It's a challenge in its own right.
no subject
[Sakuma doesn't accept the compliment, but Fudou doesn't push it onto him. He stuffs a few more pieces of food into his mouth, chewing quietly. One would say that the tension between them was thick enough to cut with a knife, but Fudou doesn't mind it so much. At least it exists. At least Sakuma let it exist again, after he cut it off the way he did.]
You're doing that with hundreds of kids here, and they answer to you.
no subject
What they had now was pretty fragile, but roots could still take hold. They could rebuild what they'd lost.
It's not something Sakuma gets his hopes up too much for, though. After all, he's the one who's always left behind. He'll be the one standing still, like he always has.]
They believe in Teikoku's soccer. I just show them the path as I know it.
[And then, a bit softer.]
After all, we both know what it's not.
no subject
[Fudou doesn't argue against Sakuma. Really, he hasn't been argumentative about anything since his return to Japan, and when his eyes flicker up from his food to that piercing brown eye, his blue ones gaze at him through slightly furrowed brows. Fudou's eyes, once wide and ready to mock, now carried more of a searching, pensive look.
Europe had provided him an escape. Europe had also provided him years of isolation from the past with plenty of time to think, and when he looked at Sakuma, those thoughts always rose to the surface. But he keeps chewing his food to keep them at bay.]
... I watched some of Japan's soccer while I was in Europe, too. Middle school soccer.
Teikoku's soccer under you, even if with the Sector around, was always impressive.
no subject
He tries not to sound overly pleased as he answers, but anyone who knew Sakuma well enough knows when he's bluffing. In actuality, he could talk for hours about his team, and how they seemed to follow him and his orders with undying loyalty.
'Commander Kidou's soccer' was not entirely false, but it certainly wasn't entirely true, either. It's the answer he gives, though, reluctantly curbing is enthusiasm for the moment.]
Commander Kidou's soccer takes the best of Teikoku and puts it to its limits. And the kids themselves are the ones who mastered Koutei Penguin 7.
I...we only provided what was necessary for them to complete it.
no subject
[He tried to be careful with Sakuma. He was on thin ice, and he did not have any right to say what was right or what was wrong about the way this man lived his life (if it could be called living at all). As far as he was concerned, he played a great role in stranding him on a path that led to this present, and all he could do -- the least he could do -- was try to dig Sakuma's out of this dark, endless cave.
But there were some things he had to put his foot down about.]
This best of Teikoku exists 'cause someone took over and did all the hard work while the guy was off in Italy taking credit for shit he didn't do. The kids mastered 7, sure, but the one who created it, and the one who paved the path and built up Teikoku's strength thus far?
That was you, Sakuma.
no subject
[An outburst he catches himself saying, catching his own tone and immediately pulling it back as quickly as it'd come out. It was true, though...he loved Kidou for all he'd done, all he'd accomplished, and for giving him a reason to stand on his own two legs again. A man he'd watched leave Teikoku more than once and leaving him behind to hold the fort in his place. And in that very same place...he'd found Fudou, another friend he found himself almost inseparable to...
Someone who also left Teikoku, and even Japan while leaving him still rooted here.
Fudou's words continue, and Sakuma falls into silence as he listens, having no more objections for the moment. There's idle stirring of his rice, listening to Fudou's harsh, but true words. Even Miyabino, who had always said it was Kidou's soccer, always looked to Sakuma when he said it. And Fudou's compliments hit him in much the same way.
It's confusing, and it makes his heart race just thinking about the idea that he had been a driving force for what Teikoku was. He'd always been so quick to default to giving Kidou the credit. He didn't mind it, he told himself. Kidou was the mastermind behind a lot of things both on and off the field. But maybe a small...small dark part of himself wished he would be the one who was praised.]
Do you...really mean that?
[It slips out before he can stop himself.]
no subject
[Fudou sets his own chopsticks down, leaning back in the chair some and running a hand through his hair with a sigh. It's not as coarse and dry as it used to be after the child at his apartment handed him some actual, proper shampoo. Now it was fluffier, and he appreciated those additional health points, but now it made it impossible to keep from falling in his face. Oh well.]
... And that goes both ways. I mean what I say.
Maybe Kidou's the name that's on all the papers and he's the one the media pisses its pants over, anyone who knows anything can see that you're the one that's been running the show.
I watched some of their practice earlier this week too. They listen to you well.
no subject
[He'd half expected it to be a joke, some sneering comment about how Sakuma had done well...for a trainer. But no, Fudou never did say anything for friendship or just to be nice. He either meant it or he didn't, and that's the part that gets Sakuma the most as he shoves rice into his mouth, buying himself some time before he hast to confront that.
An awful decision, really. It only gave him time to consider how that made him feel, his heart encased in ice deep down starting to thaw as if Fudou had put a match up to its frozen prison. Deep down, he wants to fight it. Shove away that comment and continue to live in the darkness he made for himself.
But that light was so tempting....
He stands up abruptly, chopsticks laid across that takeout container and hands pushing himself out of his seat.]
I should go.
[It's frantic, almost comical, how hurriedly he grabs his jacket and walks out that door, closing it behind him.
Sorry Fudou.]
no subject
[And just like that, Fudou is left behind, stranded in the office with not just the food Sakuma left unfinished but his work as well, the last few pages of a document he'd been reading through but has now abandoned, stacked just a little haphazardly away from the food.
The door clicks shut with the softest tone of finality, and Fudou
sighs.]
This is your goddamn office, Sakuma...
[Well, time to clean up the food and put it in that mini fridge and maybe he can take care of the last of those papers. He could probably figure out a way to lock the door, and he'll just have to message Hakuryuu before he headed out.]
no subject
A part of him's too embarrassed to got back up there. He could only imagine the smile on Fudou's face when he'd walk up, tail in between his legs and flustered beyond belief. But another part of him knows he's an adult, and these are the kinds of things he tossed away from himself as a child. To still get flustered over that man and what he said already proved he had not grown up as much as he wished he did. Those old feelings resurfaced far too quickly, and far too vigorously. He's internally grateful for his dark complexion--it was able to hide that deep flush of red on his cheeks as he marched stiffly back in, up the elevator and down the hall back towards the classroom he'd called his office.
He turns the corner down the long corridor that marked his office.]
Fudou I--
[Maybe he'd be gone by then. Who knows.]
no subject
[Fudou is not, in fact, gone. He looks up calmly when he hears Sakuma come back inside, the boxes of food already packed and put away in the fridge, dropping Sakuma's pen into its stand as a last part of his clean-up. The papers that weren't a mess but still pushed aside to accommodate the food are now spread in neatly organized stacks -- kept weighted down so they wouldn't get blown away by any gust of air -- and Sakuma's briefcase, forgotten also, is sitting on the couch in the meeting area next to Fudou's own jacket with the intention of dropping it off at the man's place after.
But all that's unnecessary now, he supposes, since the owner of the office is now back. He regards him neutrally, not a trace of a smirk or smile on his face.]
Oh, good, you're back. I was wondering what I was gonna have to do with the lock.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)