41. Loss

That night, Y/N fell apart.

He'd smiled the pain of the loss away throughout the entire time. When Loki had hugged him goodbye, promising to see him after the project ended, he'd smiled. When the World Five had left, he'd smiled. When each of his team had taken showers, one after the other, he'd smiled.

They'd spent the rest of the day doing normal things. They'd trained, cooled down, worked out, and ate dinner as a group. Throughout the entire time, they were talking about the World Five, praising the techniques, lamenting the loss, and looking up at them with all the awe of a five year old.

They'd praised Y/N too. Bachira and Isagi had fawned over him for a good hour after the match. They'd never seen such a good player, and him being able to hold his own against the World Five, even scoring three solo goals, was crazy to them. Aryu had grudgingly admitted that it was cool.

Rin didn't compliment him. Y/N didn't want him to.

And later that night, they'd discussed what might come up next. Y/N was the only one who knew about the big match, U-20 against Bluelock. For now, he kept that information hidden. What they didn't know couldn't hurt them.

So to the rest of the team, Y/N was quickly back to his normal bubbly self. He lounged across his large bed, laughed at Bachira teasing Isagi, and waved his arms exaggeratedly as he joked about the game.

But at nighttime, when he was sure that everyone else had fallen asleep, Y/N crumbled. Curled into a tight ball in his bed, pillow over his mouth to keep himself from making noise, he cried.

He knew he was weak. A stronger person wouldn't cry. A stronger person wouldn't feel sad in the first place, because they would've won. Not that this was sadness. No, to him, it was... different. It was fiercer, more painful. More piercing.

He wasn't just sad. He hated himself.

Because a better him would've won. A better him could've made so many better decisions. A better him wouldn't have let a single goal in. It didn't matter that Y/N had nearly ran himself into unconsciousness. A better him would've done it.

He kept thinking. What if he'd just been a tad bit faster? What if he'd noticed the traps they were setting up for him? What if his teammates were competent? What if he was smarter? What if he could manipulate them?

Those were nice ways to think about it. Plenty of goals for him to improve on, plenty of logical explanations to why he didn't win.

But then it would always hit him, harder than anything had before.

He lost.

He fucking lost.

And so he sobbed his emotions out into his pillow, fingers clawing at the fabric like a drowning man trying to pull himself ashore. He squeezed his legs to his chest, making himself as small as possible.

None of it helped, though. Because he lost.

So he transitioned from clawing at his pillow to clawing at his own neck. Y/N grasped his neck with both hands, choking on his next sobs. His strangled cries were drowned out in the pillow, inaudible to any of the other sleeping boys.

He wasn't just upset. And he wasn't just angry. The more he lay there, a third emotion began to circulate.

Fear.

He lost.

What did that mean? He curled himself impossibly more, barely able to breathe. He half expected Kuroi to appear out of the shadows, one long, ripped arm grabbing his shoulder and tossing him into the corner of the room. Kuroi would smile that sinister smile of his as he beat Y/N for every mistake he made, every single thing that caused his loss.

Because it wasn't good enough that Y/N punished himself for losing. No, he had to have someone else do it as well. That was how much losing meant.

The room was silent, and practically empty. The only light came from the bathroom, the door being slightly open. But it didn't feel silent, and it didn't feel empty. Not at all. He didn't want to look up, keeping his face buried into his knees. If he looked up, he was certain there would be things looming above him, ghosts snickering in the shadows of the room, phantoms snarling at him from every nook and cranny, demons looking to prise his mouth open and crawl between his lips-

He felt someone touch his back.

Y/N inhaled. His eyes went wide with shock. When the hand moved to place its palm on Y/N's spine, he shot into a sitting position. It was cold, calm, and small. Electricity tingled up to his shoulders.

He bit his lip to keep himself from crying out aloud. The taste of metal filled his mouth. Y/N pressed himself against the bed's backboard, pulling the pillow into his chest. He scrambled back as fast as he could, eyes wide and yet seeing nothing.

Because there was nobody there. His teammates lay sound asleep, but Y/N couldn't get the feeling of the phantom hand off his back. It felt real. Was it real? Y/N's spine tingled. It was real. Right?

The room was quiet. The only noises were Y/N's ragged, desperate breathing, and the others' quiet snoring. Y/N pulled the blankets close to himself, wrapping them around himself as he curled into himself. He didn't stop looking around the room, eyes flickering for any small movement.

You lost.

He placed a hand over his chest, squeezing his heart and forcing it to calm down. He decided to take a risk, murmuring to himself under his breath. Please don't let them hear it. "You lost. But you'll get stronger. You'll beat them."

But you lost.

Something flickered in Y/N's vision. He froze. A strange distortion of light, eyes staring at him from the wall. He was sure they hadn't been there during the day, staring at them with horror. They stared back.

Was that a person there? He couldn't tell. The only light in the room came from the bathroom. If he turned on the main lights, he'd wake everyone else up. Better to not.

No, that was movement, right?

Wasn't it?

He was being strange. That was it. He was tired. That was it.

Why did it come closer?

Y/N squeezed his eyes closed. His entire body tingled with fear. Was it still moving closer? Would it touch him? He didn't know. Maybe closing his eyes was a bad idea. But he didn't want to reopen them.

He whispered desperately. "Please, go away..."

🥕🥕🥕

"He's always waking up in these weird positions. He's not like Igaguri, he always looks terrified in the morning and I just don't know what to do..."

Y/N awoke. He felt the cold headboard of the bed pressed against his back, face buried in the pillow he still clutched to his chest. His back ached from a night against the wood, and his legs and stomach felt completely drained after the game yesterday. His stomach dropped. They know?!

His team was talking about him. "Yeah, Isagi's right. I don't know what happens to him at night time, but it always seems to hurt him. But he doesn't talk to anyone. Even when we were in Team Z."

"Perhaps he is attempting to keep a glam exterior, like so many others."

"If he hasn't told you, he must have a reason. Let him work things out himself. If things get really bad, then that's when you step in."

Y/N clenched his teeth at Rin's voice. It's not that I don't want to tell people. It's just... how would it help me? I'd just be being a nuisance, they can't do anything to help me. And it's my fault for losing anyway.

He sucked in a deep breath, and looked up. The conversation stopped as everyone glanced across at him.

Y/N feigned surprise to see all four of them sitting on his bed. He gave them a small smile. "Having a team meeting without me?"

"Just about to wake you up, actually." Isagi smiled back. "It's pretty late, but we all slept in."

"I didn't." Rin coolly added.

"But you're strange."

"Everyone is strange, Mr 'I'm going to devour you'."

"That is pretty strange, he's right."

"Bachira, you literally have a monster in your head."

Y/N's head jerked over to Bachira. "What?"

The bumblebee boy looked surprised. "What?"

"Monster?"

Bachira placed a finger on his lips, humming. He was sitting cross-legged at the end of Y/N's bed. "Yeah. It's like a voice in my head that helps me and guides me. When I play soccer, I just follow that."

"I see." That doesn't sound anything like what I have. Y/N sighed. Maybe they're different things? Is what I have not normal? Surely everyone feels like this sometimes.

"Was there any specific reason for asking?" Bachira questioned.

"No, not really." Y/N laughed, shifting on his bed so he was in a proper sitting position. He stretched, raising his hands to the ceiling and arching his back. "Why are you all on my bed?"

"We're gonna start some language and foreign culture training over the next few days." Rin ignored his question. "Until the second selection is over."

"Okay." Y/N accepted the conversation change readily. "When do we start?"

Rin glanced at the clock across the room. "Few hours."

"Cool, cool." Y/N yawned. He lay down on his side, curling into a ball and moving his pillow under his ears. Everyone was sitting on his blanket, so he tugged what little material he could over his body. Under it, he looked less like a seventeen year old, more like a primary school kid.

"What are you doing?" Rin looked at him strangely as Y/N curled catlike into a ball. He rubbed his cheek against the soft pillow.

"What does it look like?" Y/N replied. He tugged on the blanket a little bit more. Isagi shifted over to give him some more space. "You said a few hours. That's a few hours more to sleep."

"Can I sleep with you?" Bachira's eyes sparkled, and he bounced on the bed excitedly. Y/N blushed a bright red, pulling the sheets up to his chin.

"No."

"Aww, please?"

"No way." He reached a hand over the edge of his blanket, and made a shooing motion. "Get off my bed, please. I wanna sleep."

"It's late in the morning already." Rin slowly said.

"Call it a nap."

"You're being lazy."

"No, I'm a normal sleep-deprived teenager." Y/N snuggled into his blankets. "Turn off the light when you leave for breakfast please."

"You're really difficult sometimes, you know."

"Oh, I definitely know." Y/N chirped. "Now let me sleep."