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You thought after Ness gave you that sermon earlier, trying to indoctrinate you into the Kaiser cult or whatever, the topic would be over and done with. But no, he’s still going. You wonder how he can go on and on, and on, and on, and on about something so worthless.
Maybe you’re becoming a part of the problem, though, and this isn’t a notion that occurs to you often. You’re sitting next to Kaiser of your own volition, after all, leaving you between them while Ness lectures you from the other side.
In your defense, your plan seemed like it would have a high chance of success. You assumed for sure Ness would be too embarrassed to keep talking about that stuff right in front of Kaiser, and here you are, wrong.
Kaiser also appears to still be half-asleep or something because he’s just picking at his breakfast without paying any heed to either of you. His movements are sluggish and he’s unresponsive, which makes his company about fifteen times more pleasant than it usually is.
“I mean, it’s just- How dare you take Kaiser’s first kiss so carelessly?! If you’re going to do that, it’s at least worth a confession.”
Your abrupt laughter results in you choking on your food and sends you into a severe coughing fit, to the point you’re slapping the table with too much force and gasping for breath. You knew it. This man is going to put you in the dirt.
It takes Kaiser precisely two blinks to register what Ness just blurted out, and it does a great job of shaking the drowsiness out of his system. The two of them are ignoring you as if you’re not on the brink of asphyxiating, and Kaiser seethes, “Ness, you shithead! Just because I fucking tell you something doesn’t mean you need to announce it to the world. What the hell?”
“Sorry, Kaiser,” Ness says, flinching. Apparently he has ordained that your offenses haven’t yet stacked up to deserving the death penalty, though, because he takes mercy on you and smacks you on the back until you spit out whatever got stuck in your throat.
Kaiser stares at you as if your hacking was in some way inconvenient to him. Ness is still babbling, muttering apologies both of your ways (though the ones directed at Kaiser are, of course, more fussy).
Despite the post-almost dying haze, you speak in your typical derisive fashion, “You can’t be serious? That was your first kiss? That’s just pathetic.” For good measure, you add in another cackle at the end.
“It’s not like I’ve never had the opportunity to kiss anyone,” justifies Kaiser. What to make this sentence any sadder than Ness nodding in agreement in the background, like he feels the need to provide some kind of confirmation? “I don’t care about useless gestures like this. How many people have you kissed before, anyway, huh?”
“A profitable amount.” You shrug.
“What does that even mean,” Ness asks in the most incurious tone possible.
“Honestly a little disappointing you’d waste your time on stupid shit instead of giving football your all. I expected better from you.”
Wow, leave it to Kaiser to try and make you look like a loser for this. You kind of respect the move, but you won’t admit it to his face.
“I guess it’s a little wild I have experiences outside of football. Wanna know what’s wilder, though?”
“No. Talk to the-”
“How quick you folded even though you’ve never done it before. That's crazy.” Kaiser rolls his eyes, but it doesn’t discourage you from continuing, “Don’t worry, I don’t blame you. I tend to have this effect on people.”
“Shut up! Kaiser is not easy.”
“You’re such an embarrassment,” Kaiser says, looking at Ness with a very pronounced lack of amusement.
He is about to apologize again — what is he even sorry for? existing? — but this brings your attention back to him, and you swing an arm around his shoulders with a look of intrigue. “You seem like the kinda guy who's never kissed anyone before either. Want me to remedy that for you, too?”
“N-No! Why would you even want to do that with me? You’re sick.” With these final words, Ness proceeds to… hop out of his seat and run off to a different table. Overkill much? Does he have no self esteem at all?
You stare incredulously at the spot he was previously sitting in along with Kaiser, and then you turn to look at each other with a vague sense of confusion as if you’re both unsure you actually witnessed this happen.
“So,” Kaiser begins, fumbling around his food with his fork in a manner he probably considers nonchalant, “if you didn’t notice it was my first time kissing someone, that means it was good and you liked it.”
You smile at him. “With how skilled you are at jumping to conclusions, you should consider a career change to obstacle course racing. Would you like a performance review? Constructive criticism? A rating from one to ten?”
In an impressive show of restraint, Kaiser doesn’t throw any of the bowls in your face.
Kaiser has been staring at himself in the mirror for more than thirty minutes with a thoughtless smile on his face.
You’re getting this estimate from the fact he was doing this when you first walked in, and the shit you were taking was on the tougher side, and now you’re done and he’s still at it. He does this nonsense every morning, though, so you’re about to leave him alone… until an idea crosses your mind.
You approach, your reflection coming closer and closer ominously. “Kaiser.”
“Go away. You’re interrupting me,” he says, despite not doing anything you can see at all.
“Hear me out for a second. You can go back to psychotically talking to yourself after.”
“I wasn’t ‘psychotically talking to myself.’”
“Really? Because it looked to me like you were giving yourself a motivational speech in your head.”
“What the fuck do you want? Just get on with it. I don’t have time for this.”
“Clumsy topic segue. But anyway, I’ve been feeling kind of bad about the stuff with the kiss.” Just the mention of it is enough to make him pull an annoyed expression, but you disregard it. “I wanna do something nice for you.”
He looks at you in a way someone who just swallowed an entire lemon, with the exocarp and all, might — weird, but unmistakably thrown off and irked. In a sarcastic tone, he asks, “Why would you want to do something nice for me? Since when are you such a good samaritan?”
You turn around and pull yourself up over the vanity, unfazed by his attitude. “Let me do your eyeliner thing for you.”
…?
It is obvious you have an ulterior motive here. Kaiser’s eyes dart between you and the make-up appliance. He only has his curiosity to blame when he hands it over to you after a while of paranoid scrutiny.
You lean in and push his hair aside with your fingers, using your other hand to draw the usual wing under his waterline. Despite the lack of suspicious or otherwise unusual movements on your end, Kaiser is tense. Nothing sinister is happening and it’s weirding him out.
You finish and switch to the other one. This is unsettling. A sense of foreboding looms over him, and though you’re being prompt about it, the process seems long and arduous in his mind.
Once you’re done, in one swift motion — as if you’ve practiced before — you press the tip of the pen against his forehead and scrawl something, before backing off and beaming at him with smug satisfaction. It all happens so quickly, he doesn’t react with more than a blink at first.
Kaiser’s brows furrow and he glances at himself in the mirror, confirming the unthinkable. “Did you just sign my fucking forehead?”
“For my biggest fan.”
“I’m not your fan. Get over yourself. You’re not Drake.”
“I figured it was fair you’d get my first ever autograph, since I got your first kiss.”
“Go to hell and burn while you’re at it! I have to clean this now.”
“Why would you clean it?” you ask. What kind of moron are you, Kaiser wonders. “I think you should get it tattooed. It costs millions, you know? In fact, you should show it off in front of the others.”
“Please. Whatever I wipe myself with would cost ten times more than your signature ever will.”
“If it helps you sleep at night, Kaiser,” you relent, still coming off as very pleased with yourself, which makes this whole thing more annoying than it needs to be. Though he looks like he’s about to bite your face off, you invade his personal space even further and inch closer, your nose almost brushing against his. “You can say anything you want. Doesn’t change the fact that you’re my little bitch.”
“Stop calling me that! What’s wrong with you?!” he fumes, reaching to grip your waist and attempting to push you off the countertop.
You almost fall despite resisting, too, but you throw the eyeliner at his face, and it creates enough of a diversion for you to slide down without accident. You’re at the door by the time you turn around to address him again. “I have to admit, the elephantine size of your forehead is what really made this possible for me. Thank you for this opportunity.”
Ele- ele-what?
He clenches his fists, grits his teeth, on the cusp of a hypertension headache. You’re so going to get it! Kaiser doesn’t know yet how he will go about hiring a hitman to kill you while you’re both still stuck in Blue Lock, but Ness is here, which means murder isn’t entirely off the table.
Kaiser relays the story of your little bathroom encounter to Ness with the seriousness and urgency of a kidnapper laying down ransom demands. Another person’s name on his- his- his… royal but not at all big forehead, it’s sacrilegious. He’s getting pissed off all over again thinking about it.
Of course, Ness, too, treats the matter as deserving of the gravity Kaiser is giving it. “Don’t worry,” he says. But Kaiser isn’t worried. He is bloodthirsty. “There’s only one way to deal with inflated balloon heads like that. I’ll take care of it.”
“How? You know something I don’t?”
With his usual guileless smile on his face — reminiscent of a frog — Ness leads the way and, in an uncharacteristically confident manner, promises you ‘will be very embarrassed.’
By now Kaiser is following him just because he wants to see whatever is about to go down. It doesn’t take them long to cross the field and reach you.
You’re bouncing a ball on your foot, and once you notice them, you wave with grandiosity. “Hello, numbskulls. Did you come closer so you can admire me better?”
Kaiser doesn’t even know where to begin with this statement, but Ness spares him the effort because without any hesitation, he says, “Yes.”
Snapping his head to stare at him with offense, Kaiser now has to wonder if Ness was the real maniac all along.
You seem to share similar sentiments because your eye twitches and remains stuck half open after. The ball rolls away when you fail to catch it. “What- huh? Huuuuh? You’re just gonna agree with me?”
“Yes. You’re an amazing player with exceptional abilities,” Ness says pleasantly. Candidly. “Not to mention how clever you are. You’re also really good at thinking on the spot. I don’t just mean on the field, but in general, too. Your wit is impressive.”
These compliments are way too upfront and honest. A chill goes down your spine and you gape at him, disturbed. Then your expression morphs into something more awkward — nonplussed, maybe, nervous in some manner — and you say, “I-I don’t know what game you’re playing, but I don’t like it.”
Probably realizing your usual poise is ebbing away, you grimace, cover your face with your forearm as if you are doing a bad job of shielding yourself from imaginary sunlight and pivot around before sprinting away from them at max speed while screaming something incoherent in terror.
“What?” Kaiser yells, gesturing at your fleeing figure. “What’s with that reaction?! No way? What? Over a few nice words? What the hell? What!”
As usual, Ness’s appearance is innocent enough, but there’s a certain glint in his eyes now, like he’s hungry for more power. “Kaiser… Kaiser, I… I did it!”
Kaiser considers making a getaway, but he already saw how unbecoming it is.