Chapter Text
Those were glory days; Rin Itoshi was a star—a football star, young and brilliant, still maturing in this environment so fast and cruel. For football stars are falling stars; they pass in a bright, brief streak, fascinating everyone, and then they vanish into the darkness, their bodies spent, forced beyond their limits in endless training sessions, rigid as handcuffs chosen to each one's exact measure. And there are so many ways to end a football career, and few are kind; it is painful to look at these youths and think that, in a few years, many won't be anywhere near what they are now in their adolescent prime—they will be worn out, deteriorated, discarded, having faced fractures and sprains that will distort their bodies forever, muscular diseases from pushing the body past its breaking point.
There is also that which attracts the young like light attracts insects: exuberant parties, earned after a successful match. And from them, everything is born—accidents after drunk driving, blackouts that make them wake up amidst someone else's trash without knowing what happened, bitter drinks sliding down the throat fast enough to make them forget the days and hours and minutes. And the drugs—the drugs are tempting. Even if you don’t go to parties, as Rin usually didn’t, they will appear. They appear as promises of infinity, peak performance, pleasure, invincibility, innocent fun.
While sitting on the office sofa smelling of bamboo cologne, staring half-heartedly at Hirotoshi—who smiled like one of those money-hungry businessmen from classic black-and-white movies where you can spot the villain by his looks and the macabre music playing in the background—Rin tried not to look too closely at his evident baldness and his spacious belly. At that moment, the scene painted an almost conceptual image: the contrast of a greedy old age with an ambitious youth. And as he sits there, Rin doesn’t know what the first time he’ll hold it in his fingers—clutching it between his nails—his first bag of cocaine, will be like.
That little thing will look so innocent between his index finger and thumb, light as a feather; such a small amount of white powder in a plastic bag has an appearance so naive to Rin’s wide eyes that it almost makes him think all the fuss people made out there about this nonsense was ridiculous.
Though his stomach still churned, restless, for he was aware of entering the forbidden—that which is marked as an impassable limit and, if disrespected, reserves severe punishment for offenders. Extreme thermal sensations, weakness, trembling shoulders, arms, and hands, dizziness, a sense of unreality—the infinite list drags him into the dark corridor of prohibition, for anyone who has no interest in tasting and sinking into this somber place doesn't bother getting to know it.
And despite his instincts being in conflict because reality had such a serene appearance, hunched over his dormitory desk, a tranquil silence in tandem with the muffled voice of the King Gnu vocalist coming through the phone’s speaker, at a low volume it seemed to whisper: "Teenager forever, teenager forever, teenager forever..."
While the lower part of his body told him to run—a danger warned about over the years in movies about teenage addicts, like Christiane F. falling through the streets of Berlin, cruel accounts of the reality of drugs, players with their careers ended by uncontrolled consumption, caught in doping tests, and even Sae talking to their parents before leaving for Spain, a repudiation for any kind of "stimulant" stamped in his eyes, back then with features so much younger and more carefree.
It turns out that this existence shared between flight and serenity left him agitated, a silent adrenaline rising from the tight knots in his stomach, twisting all the time; the sensation was that of being challenged, the practice of an extreme sport. Rin felt, as he hadn't felt in a long time—since that cursed winter—impelled to act, to experiment, to challenge.
However, even the most excited of adrenaline junkies needs a push, a small incentive that offers some notion of safety, that makes the words "this is safe" crawl through their ears. "This is safe, because..." and Rin found the "because" in Hirotoshi's words, in the conversation they had in the office.
"Blue Lock TV has been a success, Rin!" He smiled, cheeks that seemed to turn red at the slightest physical effort squeezing together to fit on his face. "You are a success, our great star—besides Isagi, of course."
Rin rolled his eyes, irritation rising, thinking how this old man had no sense of social interaction to mention Isagi like that. Although, later, still sweating tirelessly in another night sleeping in the bathtub, Rin will question if it wasn't on purpose. He will look for ulterior motives in the smallest actions and words, a plan for his downfall, a Trojan Horse that entered his life without him noticing.
"But there is a way, Rin, to make everything even better," Hirotoshi said. Rin didn't care much; he wanted to leave. If he could, he wouldn't have even shown up. But Ego made him attend, even though he seemed more dissatisfied than Rin himself, saying to endure the man for a few minutes because, in the end, the pen that signed the continuity of Blue Lock was in this gentleman's hands.
In the next instant, Hirotoshi would say the phrase that made Rin listen to him—the same one that would make Rin writhe in pain, remorse, and tears in a few months. He would aim at the weakest point of a wounded teenager, twist it into a challenge, pressure his ego and pride until he felt forced to accept. Promises—drugs and everything involving them are always full of promises, like a cruel lover who never keeps them but always seems more honest the next time they repeat them. Endless promises, so many that Rin's troubled mind cannot put them in order, but it knows how to recognize them: a meeting with Sae, surpassing his limits, shining like the most beautiful of stars; the attention of the field would be on him, and only on him, because his body would function and pant and move in a way that no other player his age would be capable of. He would do everything in the possible and impossible and it wouldn't even be hard—in fact, he was promised it would be incredible, a sensation that could not be put into words.
As usual, the Blue Lock gym smelled like sweat—the collective effort of several teenagers whose hygiene wasn't a priority most of the time, and Rin loathed it. To his delight, his naturally closed-off—some would say hostile—attitude and his few words were enough to ensure that, with a bit of effort, he could have a section of the gym all to himself. After all, that was how everything worked in that massive block of egoism: be aggressive enough, unpleasant enough, and selfish enough to overtake and take advantage of others. These were the teachings: reject each other, be aggressive, dominate one another, no matter how.
At their age, it seemed so brilliant and innovative. No one had ever told these teenagers, so directly and in such raw words, that they should be cruel and unkind. Although Rin would later think, in his delusions, that society had always been this way—even in school, students wanted to devour each other, but they did it under the rug, silently. Everyone wanted to be smarter, sharper, funnier than the rest. There was nothing new about Blue Lock, except that in this place, there’s no need to pretend you give a damn about anyone else.
A few months later, he doesn’t think Ego’s ideals are exclusive to or contrary to the ideals of Japanese society, or any capitalist society where everything is a competition to see who deserved what more. It’s just that they dropped the formalities.
But as he stretches his legs, tracing a path with his fingertips from thigh to foot, feeling the familiar pull and burn, he still believes that being selfish is the right way; it’s a strength in his personality, perhaps a family trait. And in those moments where he doubts whether it’s right or not, he always settles on thinking that it is, at the very least, fair.
If Sae had the right to reject him so cruelly and humiliate him without any mercy, being selfish, then it was only fair that someone who was once in the position of being used evolves to become no longer the puppet, but the puppeteer. There was no need to be kind; exposing oneself like that in an environment as hostile as the world of competition is, at the very least, an unintelligent decision: love is a privilege that should be offered to few and, even then, always with caution. If possible, it shouldn't be shown at all.
Rin stretches a bit further forward, his torso almost flush against his knee; he huffs, a small unconscious plea for release, his body stretching beyond the limit, molding itself through shoves and unnatural postures, screaming that if he continued, he would break. He counted to five, breathing deeply, and finally let go. His lower back ached when he finally straightened up. He liked the feeling—as if he had come so close to tearing his tendons; he felt he had performed a well-executed exercise. His body obeyed him; it was strong and submissive to the whims of his brain, incredibly capable of performing every kind of maneuver on the pitch.
He liked this, this delicious sensation that emanated in his blood after each rigorous exercise, the practical proof that he was testing his limits and proving himself capable of surpassing them, even if it was just a controlled practice. A self-imposed egoism, the obligation to make himself face exhaustive efforts.
He liked his body because he liked it being useful. Although he wasn't very happy with his own face—the part of him that gave him away as part of someone else, that "add-on" that came after the original work because more was expected of such initial quality, but disappointment was almost always guaranteed.
It had been like this since childhood; his parents' whispers echoed freely through the curves of the doors where Rin would hide, trying to listen before being caught and met with a look that would become familiar: an unpleasant and awkward mix of confusion, pity, embarrassment, and distaste. The countless toys destroyed, deconstructed, bitten, and wrecked, as if that child were trying to reach the core of all things, to understand what lay inside the objects he couldn't comprehend. And there would be many suggestions from preschool teachers and psychologists: emotional dysregulation, neurodivergence, impulsive curiosity, frustration, attention-seeking, sensory overload... The list was extensive.
It was no surprise that over time, the day came when the worried words turned into angry warnings and prohibitions. Biting and destroying his toys was forbidden, but Rin watched Sae, and Sae didn't care about prohibitions; therefore, Rin wouldn't care either. And so came the disinterested repetitions of reprimands, until they were swallowed by sighs and silence.
And his parents' silence was shared with the silent notion that sprouted in his head after they gave up on Rin: prohibitions eventually cease to matter if you violate them continuously. Rin doesn't even remember why he broke his toys; any explanation from the psychologists and worried teachers sounded equally accurate and equally silly. And besides, it didn't matter that much.
After realizing that his parents would stop caring about his antics if he persisted in them, his heart felt lighter when he went out on the street with Sae, walking carelessly near the elevated curve that, with one wrong step, would lead to a lethal fall into the sea. They threw rocks in front of passing trucks to watch them get crushed, ran from pissed-off drivers, tricked the local convenience store clerks, and snatched ice cream for a few cents cheaper.
They would end a good day sitting in front of the beach, and Rin remembers—even amidst the shaking of his shoulders and hands caused by the cocaine, the muscle spasms and the hellish sweat—the smell of salt from the sea breeze, the sound of waves crashing against the rocks, sweeping the sand. The irregular patterns on the wet sand looked enchanting; the sky looked bluer than on any other occasion he got high. Those were happy memories.
He lived one memory inside another; the Rin Itoshi of months ago seemed much younger, remembering his childhood in the middle of exercises, feeling motivated to leave it behind. But the other version just wants to go back to the blue waves reflecting the soft, bright sky, the "lucky" winning ice creams, and the smell of salt.
The waves are still in the same place, near the house where he is now; in fact, Rin thinks he can hear every time they hit the rocks down there. But he isn't sure. The memory of him stretching started to fade, as fast as it had arrived, like all his thoughts lately. Thoughts, delusions, dreams, myriads, nightmares—it was all too fast for him to keep up, but his brain caught every single one of them amidst the confusion of pain and cravings.
Rin knew what cravings were; he researched every single drug prevention and help pamphlet online. Usually, junkies learn these things by using in groups, piecing knowledge together like a patchwork quilt. They talk about their bad trips, the "highs" gone wrong, the well-being after a line, repeating the words they heard in rehab centers or from people who passed through them. And although Rin hadn't had direct contact with any of these people, he had already found online forums, usually in English, help groups.
He never actually sent a message in any chatroom; he simply observed. At the time, he didn't consider himself an addict, though his subconscious whispered otherwise; he told himself he was studying, protecting himself from these problems. He thought that if he knew the signs, the symptoms, he would be able to stop. Others were only addicts because of carelessness; he wasn't. Rin was an athlete, physically disciplined; he could plan his doses sporadically. Though he hadn't noticed that he was already formulating his future thoughts with cocaine included; it was no longer a matter of using once and stopping, or for a week, maybe two. Now, it was "sporadic doses"—there was no horizon for stopping.
The initial plan was to use during the last week of the Neo-Egoist League, to shine in the final games enough for Real Madrid to call him. That asshole Hirotoshi told him that, but the amount of blow he gave him afterward was much larger. About ten baggies were left in his bag, and if he wanted more, the old man advised him to call, as they had the "right contacts." At the time, Rin was disdainful. He said he’d only use once, prove he didn't need it, and give it back. And that was only because he was curious.
However, his performance on the field was incredible; he felt faster, more confident, his heart hammered hard in his chest and he was alive. His pupils were almost the size of his irises, and a sense of well-being took over; the sky had never looked so divine, so incredibly blue; the grass under his feet felt like a dance floor, sliding and curving under him, inviting him to dance. There was a heat inside him that made him sweat even while standing still, an urgency to move, to speak—by the way, he thinks he’s never talked so much to his teammates, he had never needed to struggle so much to stay quiet. He taunted opponents on the field with extensive happiness, and chasing the ball, pushing his body to total exhaustion was the greatest pleasure of his life at that moment.
While he struggled to snort some of the powder, he found the sensation irritating; there was something along his throat he couldn't swallow. But shortly after, that didn't matter, and on the pitch, he completely forgot any adversity, hesitation, or disdain.
At the height of the pleasure, from the shaking of his legs forced to the limit to run, kick, and maneuver, to the increasingly short breath, his heart feeling close to escaping his chest, all his teammates seemed wonderful; he thought this was the feeling he had been seeking since he was a kid. The thought occurred to him, like a quick and distant memory but one that made more sense than any attempt at rational reflection: the animal programs he watched as a child. The essence, the core, the rawness were right there. That was what he was trying to reach all along: the budding self-destruction born from the certainty of reaching his physical limits, the glorious end he sought so much on the pitch—to end everything, everything around him, everything inside him, and yet feel light as a feather, because he had reached his peak right there.
And the next day, he had already changed his mind; he wouldn't use it just once, but he would use it in the final game. But he was being careful, he knew how it could end badly: they still had three games ahead, and he wouldn't use in any of them.
In fact, he didn't use. However, all three games were so tiring; the little enthusiasm he had for football was draining away. No movement seemed fast enough, the team looked stagnant, and nothing there made him happy or excited. There was no incredible sensation; the grass was just grass, the sky looked a bit gray, and his colleagues were almost mediocre—though he knew, in reality, they were skilled. The sweat was unpleasant, and the post-match fatigue irritated him.
He attributed this to the fact that none of those games matched the greatness of the last match; everyone knew PXG would get there, but no one knew if they would win. The incredible game he had three matches ago was the excitement of entering the finals, although he didn't deny the physical sensations attributed to the drug.
By the time he noticed, he was anxiously awaiting the final game. He was meeting his own goal and the personal limit he had set; besides, it’s the last game—if there’s a situation that justifies a wonderful explosion of joy and a glorious celebration, it’s the game that would put him in Real Madrid.
And he played well; Rin was incredible, his last game at PXG would stay in his head forever. Everyone seemed so pleasant, present like him, and Rin felt he could forgive their inconveniences; he was good enough to handle everything. His veins felt like they were pulsing along with his heart; he was alive, alive in an essential way, having reached the center of himself, of the sensations he could feel. And when they won, the victory roaring in his ears, his teammates clinging to him, Rin screamed along with everyone else.
Rin vaguely remembers the beginning of a classic Japanese short story he studied during the brief time he spent in high school. The Lemon, by Motojiro Kajii. At the time, he had liked the story very much, despite not being considered a good student in most subjects, and certainly not in literature. In one of the opening passages of the story, the narrator recounted: "An unrecognizable weight settled on my mind. It was not irritation, nor was it boredom; it felt more like the deep hangover that follows nights and nights of heavy drinking. Tuberculosis and nervous exhaustion were not to blame. Nor even my staggering debt. It was simply that indefinable weight."
And although Rin liked the tale as a whole, he could ignore the rest of the text without much concern while repeating that final phrase, "it was simply that indefinable weight"—the one that made him push past the first few paragraphs of reading. It was the way he found, in the words of a man who died nearly a century ago, to express what he felt directly. He had felt it his whole life, sometimes with more intensity, sometimes less. The only time he had been somewhat at peace was during the days he played football with his brother, though even then, he had his bad moments.
Now, this weight remained in his life, this time more intensive, present, and heavy on his shoulders. PXG had won the last game; now, it was time to stay still, to wait a month for a decent response, an analysis from the most important clubs in the world of football, the moment that would define the luck of his career. And then, take another period to reflect on where he would affiliate himself—though no other club was on his mind besides Real Madrid, it was better to take a few weeks to respond, so as not to give a desperate impression.
So, Rin returned home with about nine baggies of cocaine tucked at the bottom of his bag. Hidden under his clothes, Hirotoshi said it would be enough so that no teammate or coach would find them, and he would keep Ego's nose out of these matters. In the end, he didn't return the drugs; he felt like he didn't want to return them, even though he knew he should. He would like to say he thought about flushing it all down the toilet when he got home, but in truth, the thought barely crossed his mind; he simply thought about hiding them in a sock drawer. Why keep them? It was a question he avoided knowing but which, in the back of his mind, echoed an answer: he was preparing to use again.
His indefinable weight didn't weigh him down immediately as he took the train to Kamakura; he was tired, the peak effect of the post-game drug had already passed, and the world was returning to its axis—dull, but not exactly unpleasant; he even thought he could enjoy this atmosphere. He felt sleepy, very sleepy, and before he knew it, he fell asleep looking out the window. When he opened his eyes again, he saw the city's seafront.
As he walked past the numerous colorful houses of the residential area, which created such a domestic environment, he hardly felt real. A void of emotions vacillated quietly within his heart.
It was when he got home that the agitation, the indefinable weight, began to fall upon him with such speed that he barely knew how to react; suddenly he was nervous, feeling like a mess. The house was a bit messy too; his parents weren't there, as his father had left for a business trip and his mother accompanied him. There was that post-trip disorganization, and Rin felt that this was enough to irritate him: chairs moved in haste to leave the house, a few dirty glasses in the sink, a bit of accumulated dust—it made him feel destabilized.
He threw his gym bag in a corner of the sofa and tried to distract himself by looking at his phone. The Blue Lock boys had gone out to celebrate, Rin discovered when he saw the photo posted by the official Blue Lock TV profile—a trip to some park with restaurants around it. It was irrational, but Rin felt directly offended; they were happy and celebrating, despite the victory being exclusively his team's, his work, his goals—and Rin was the only one stuck in an irritating and lonely house. Which shouldn't have been a problem since he liked being solitary! But now he was alone, and that fact made his skin crawl.
He thought he should celebrate; not only should he, but he deserved to. He looked at the bag, a lingering gaze. It’s no news that in the world of football, countless players use drugs, especially in the West. And many don't even use them on the pitch; they use them at parties, in uncontrolled celebrations for big victories. Should Rin...?
No, how foolish. He had already used today, hadn't he? Wait! Exactly, he had already used today! If he used one more time today, what difference would it make? At least it would all be on the same day, better than using for two days in a row. He would even feel better to clean the house. Not to mention he was in a bad mood; at least this way, he'd feel a bit better.
He reached for the bag on the floor, opening it with unmoving eyes; he could feel his body wanting to tremble in anticipation, an anxiety and something he would describe as fear, but not exactly. He was so excited it made him scared. He rummaged through the bottom of the bag, his fingertip poking something with a colder, stiffer texture than the fabric of his clothes; he pulled out his second baggie of cocaine and what would be his third dose. He shook a bit less than half the bag onto his other hand in a cupped shape, brought it close to his face, and took a deep, quick breath, while leaving the half-full bag on the coffee table. The sensation of something in his throat returned and then, in a few minutes, dissipated, though he still felt the urge to sniffle and rub his face. He felt his eyes water and rubbed them.
How strange. He felt like a mess, and the feeling bothered him deeply, made him irritable, inspired destructive thoughts, a revolt against himself. But gradually, and then with some speed, these feelings began to disappear. What was he doing, lamenting? There was no need. If there was a problem, solve it. Imagine that, whimpering because of a dose of cocaine? If he had already used it, what was there to do? There was no reason to mourn; he should do something productive; so, he was going to clean the house.
And he cleaned—perhaps even with more fervor than necessary. He threw water all over the floor, scrubbed everything with an old brush, repeatedly; he moved back and forth, feeling motivated. He wouldn't finish one task before starting another; one moment he was scrubbing the floor, the next he was washing dishes, then pouring some of the water from the basins onto the floor and going back to dry it with a cloth. He polished the windows, the glass door of the room, the doorknobs, the kitchen chairs... He only stopped when each item looked and smelled perfectly clean. He shook the rugs outside on the bedroom balcony and put the clothes from his suitcase to wash; the only thing he didn't put away was the small piece of plastic on the table until he crossed paths with it again, almost half an hour later. Staring at it, now almost sober again, gave him a certain unease, so he stuffed it back into the bottom of the bag.
His body felt exhausted, his muscles trembling a bit from the extra effort after only a few hours of rest following such an intense game. He lay on the sofa again and then fell asleep, though not before feeling—rising from deep in his chest—that familiar discomfort, the indefinable weight, and the feeling of being a total mess.
Snow, snow everywhere, all around Rin—only the oppressive whiteness of snow stretching to the horizon, not even a single tree with twisted branches in sight. The snow was everywhere, including inside him; he felt frozen, his nose running as the ice melted inside his body, perhaps due to the natural heat of human flesh. Even so, the snow kept advancing inside him, making his eyes water; he sniffled like a madman, but felt more and more suffocated every time he did. He couldn’t breathe, so he tried to scream, but no voice came out; his tongue and cheeks were filled with snow, and only strangled sounds escaped him.
The heat from inside his body was vanishing; his warm, fleshy organs were becoming frigid, hard, and cold like butcher's meat. Around him, only more and more snow to drown his despair.
He tried to close his eyes, but could barely move them; his extremities ached, so he left them half-open. And then, he gave up. All his efforts drowned in complete silence; it wasn't even snowing, though the snow kept rising from the ground; there was no sound, not even wind. He gave up on breathing, on gasping and screaming, letting himself be buried by all that white vastness.
And then, he woke up, shivering with cold, before realizing that it was hot in Kamakura, especially now at dusk. In fact, he was sweaty, his clothes slightly damp beneath him. When he opened his eyes, blinking with distaste at the bright lights, confused by the sudden change of scenery—though relieved to be back to firm reality—he felt his heart throb: the lights were on! Why?
He stood up with a jolt. He hadn't turned the lights on; he never turned anything on during the day, there was no reason! Or had he turned them on? Was he too high to remember? No, he hadn't snorted that much... And then, a monotonous, humorless, and terribly familiar voice.
"If you plan on leaving all the doors and windows open while being a celebrity, you're going to have to hire bodyguards to babysit you all the time."
His head pulses; it’s Sae’s voice. Rin immediately wipes his nose and sniffs once more, trying to be discreet while looking for his bag at the foot of the sofa. It was there, of course it was; Sae had no reason to look through his things.
Rin groans and huffs, dissatisfied. He still doesn’t feel ready to get up and leave, but if he could, he would have disappeared already. He covers his eyes with his arm, fleeing from the light.
"We’re in Japan," he says; it comes out dry, weak, and thin. His throat and mouth feel parched.
Once more, after what feels like a minute or two of silence, he risks peeking at Sae again from the corner of his eye. He’s there, sitting at the table Rin had cleaned hours earlier while high on cocaine. He feels his stomach churn at the memory. Sae is sipping kombu-cha, as usual. He barely seems to notice Rin’s presence, and in truth, for the first time in a long while, Rin doesn’t want his attention, nor his surprise. He has no idea what he looks like right now; he feels that if Sae stares at him for too long, he’ll figure it all out: the proposals, the baggies at the bottom of the bag, the two incredible games he played under the influence, the two broken promises he made to himself.
He tries to calm down, taking a deep breath. It’s Sae, his shitty older brother who doesn’t care about anything except himself and a ball. There’s no way he’ll notice.
And although Rin still doesn't want to get up, he ends up moving his aching body—even more painful than before his sleep—upwards, muttering something, though he doesn't know why, about having been asleep.
Sae raises his eyes for an instant, and Rin feels his skin crawl and his chest throb.
And Sae finally says: "Disgusting. At least take a shower."