Chapter Text
In the darkness of the night, the sun doesn’t shine.
It doesn’t need to. Maybe that’s why he was beyond grateful that his mother died during the sunset. It made her death seem poetic, and it made mourning easier.
Ah, his mother was dead. He was alone now.
Asuto sat down in the corner of the room, and suddenly he felt like the small room he grew up in was far too big, far too empty despite the clothes and other stuff lying around. He should really clean those up, just in case mom’s well enough to stay at home for a few days. He didn’t want her to deal with the mess- Oh, he forgot.
She wasn’t coming back.
For some reason the thoughts won’t stick to his head no matter how many times he repeats it. His brain couldn’t grasp the thought. It slipped and faded through the gears of his mind. His mom was dead, and he was alone now. His mom was gone- His brain still couldn’t hold onto the thought for any longer than a second. It was still telling him to clean the house, but he knew he didn’t have any good reason to do so anymore. It kept telling him that someone was going to come through that door soon so he needed to stand up and move, but he knew that no knocks would come and that door would remain closed until he opened it himself. He was alone.
The thought still didn’t stick with him.
With a heavy sigh- the same sigh he had heard from his mother when both she and him were years younger but never felt like their age- he hugged the soccerball tighter. It was the only thing he could grasp on right now. The worn out soccerball that he practically grew up with. He didn’t know how he exactly got this ball. Maybe his mom gave it to him when he was too young to remember anything. He would’ve believed the jokes about him just spawning into the world with the soccerball in his tiny hands if he didn’t know better.
He hugged the ball a little tighter, and maybe if he hugged it tight enough, he wouldn’t feel so cold.
The island was known for its humid climate, the coldest weather they had was when a storm would strike. So, why did he feel a chill from deep inside his bones? It crept up from his ribcage to the rest of him, making his bones rattle and his skin numb, but he didn’t pay it any mind. He was still trying to convince himself to get up and just do something. He couldn’t let- He just- He had to-
He didn’t have to do anything.
He had no good reason to.
His mom was dead.
Asuto was crying. He knew he was. He could feel the tears sliding down his cheeks, and suddenly, he didn’t feel so numb anymore. He felt much worse.
What was he going to do now? He didn’t have anyone else. He never knew his father, his mother refused to tell him anything about the man, and he never felt the need to know more about him except for the bouts of pure curiosity he got every now and then when he was much younger and less worried. Now, he couldn’t help but feel at the very least a little bit of resentment and anger. Would things have been different if the man had stayed? His mom surely wouldn’t have to work as much as she did, or maybe she still would’ve forced herself. She might’ve been sickly but she could be amazingly stubborn when she needed to be.
A weak and almost pathetic laugh forced its way out of his mouth. He really was his mother’s son, wasn’t he? For a moment he wondered if he could say the same about being his father’s child but he forced that train of thought out of his head before it could take up any more space. There wasn’t any point in wondering, just like there wasn’t any point in cleaning or getting up. There wasn’t anyone he needed to get up for.
His brows furrowed as, for the briefest of moments, his vision cleared and he caught sight of the calendar. It was Wednesday. He still had school tomorrow. Surely, the news had spread itself through the town already- rumors here were a lot like wildfire, especially with such a small population- and they would’ve understood why he chose not to go to class or- He blinked and suddenly everything felt light, too light.
He leaned back and took a deep breath, watching as the soccerball slowly inflate back to its original form. He didn’t realize that he was squeezing it that hard.
Asuto blinked some more, trying to get the leftover tears to stop blurring his vision. Life moved on, and he had to go along with it. It didn’t stop when he lost his father. It didn’t stop when his mom passed out when he was seven years old during her birthday. It didn’t stop when the doctors told them that she only had a few months to live, which turned into a few years- he laughed a little again when he remembered the townsfolk telling him that it was her stubbornness that kept her alive, and a selfish part of him asked why couldn’t she had been stubborn just for a bit longer.
His thoughts went silent.
If his mom had continued to live, what future would she have? She would’ve still been stuck in that hospital for years until she died of old age instead. The last time he visited her, she had a really bad attack, and it left her in pain for the rest of the day. She didn’t seem to be getting better.
He couldn’t get her better medical treatment if he wanted to. They didn’t have enough money, and they couldn’t ask help from the townsfolk. They had their own financial problems to deal with. In the end, maybe it was just her time to go.
Silence. He didn’t want to think anymore.
Suddenly, it felt like his body was too small, and he was too old to be in it. He wondered- how much has he been wondering this day? Had he ever let himself wonder this much in his life? He didn’t have a good answer- what it felt like to not have this weight in his chest, not unlike an old man’s. He never felt like his age during these moments, and usually he would get up and do something else before his brain could dwell on the feeling any longer.
The soccerball still in his arms caught his eyes.
A heavy sigh, and he stood up, holding it, like a lifeline, and went to clean himself up.
He still had practice tomorrow.
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The team got invited to a party to celebrate the end of the eliminations and the Ares project. It was a good way for everyone to relax from the whirlwind of events that happened one after another the past months.
Asuto took a deep breath and slumped on the toilet seat. It’s been a year since they moved into Inazuma city. They’d come so far from where they started. He’d come so far.
He rested his elbow on the edge of the tub near the toilet as the realization of how he came to the situation he was in washed over him, and his face burst into an angry pink.
Asuto Inamori was currently sitting alone on a toilet seat in the bathroom of the event’s place where the party was taking place, contemplating his life choices. Seriously, what was he thinking?!
He looked up at the door. Someone had knocked earlier, and he wondered if they had found another place to pee, or if it was a couple looking for a place to be alone together. He shivered at thought, but it was better than thinking about anything else.
Racking his brain for any explanation on how ended up locking himself in a bathroom during a party of all times, he remembered being with the team until they ended up getting split up as everyone wandered off to do their own thing. Nothing out of the ordinary came up in his head, apart from him swearing that he could feel someone watching him most of the time, but he just ignored it.
Something vibrated in his pocket and it took him an embarrassingly long time to realize that it was his phone. He swore he didn’t drink anything, unfortunately. At least he would’ve had a good explanation on why he was so out of it. He took out his phone to open the notification only to forget about it once he saw the date.
Oh, so that explained why he was feeling so off.
Slumping back into the toilet seat, he sighed and turned it off, putting it on the sink instead. Looks like he wasn’t going out of that bathroom anytime soon.
The memories came back in full clarity now.
Everything was suddenly too loud and too bright, and once he finally adjusted to the cacophony of music and voices and the blinding lights, he found that he was alone. Usually, he wouldn’t mind and would go search for the others or talk to the rest of the guests or just go and devour the food table, but there was something wrong with him. He knew that he was with Norika and Kirina earlier before the other two went off to who knew where. He couldn’t remember if they told him if they were coming back. All he knew was that he was alone now, and it felt so wrong.
The music and voices suddenly went muffled and an annoying ringing sound echoed in his ears. Bringing his hands up to slightly rub at his ears without looking like an insane person so that maybe the ringing would stop with the stimuli, but it was pointless. The ringing continued and the music and voices were almost incoherent.
He couldn’t tell if the music had any lyrics or if it was just another generic beat they could hear on the radio, nor could he tell what anyone was saying, even if he tried to focus on the voice. Whenever he tried to focus the ringing would get louder until it felt like a needle was piercing his skull. It took him blinking a few times to realize that his vision was messed up too. It wasn’t so bad. He could make out what everything was and who was which. He could see Takashi and Hanta fooling around somewhere on his left, but it looked like they didn’t have an outline, they were just blobs of color moving around. He remembered those times when the signal on the island would be so bad that the show they were watching would dramatically drop in quality, as if it wasn’t bad enough to begin with. It always hurt his eyes when he forced himself to watch even when it was like that.
Blinking more and absolutely praying that the next time he opened his eyes, everything would be normal again, he rubbed a bit more at his ears. The ringing kept getting louder, and his chest was starting to hurt. It was all pointless.
He needed to get out of there. Maybe some fresh air would help him.
He didn’t know if he ran or just sprinted. He hoped he didn’t. That would’ve made him look insane and cause unnecessary worry for everyone else. They needed a break from everything that happened.
Somehow, he found an isolated door in a just as isolated place, and it led to a bathroom.
That was how he ended up where he was now.
Alone in a bathroom at one of the biggest parties he had ever been to in his life.
To be honest, that wasn’t saying much since most of the parties he had been to only had the whole community of the island as its guests and that barely compared to the amount of soccer teams and city folks that were all gathered together in that huge event’s dome.
Another heavy sigh, and he rubbed his temple with his palm. What was he going to do now? He considered just waiting everything out in the bathroom, until the party was over and he could sneak in the bus with his team and sleep the rest of the day away.
If the team got too curious, which he knows they will, and start asking where he went, he’d just tell them that he went off to chat with the other players or explore and make up some story about a room that he found. Only the coach wouldn’t fully believe him, but he wasn’t worried about that. The man only intervened if it was necessary and one of his players feeling off for one night wasn’t exactly a big situation worth interrogating anyone for.
Fortunately, he could hear the music a little bit from where he was so he could tell when everything was over, but unfortunately, he didn’t know what to do until then.
He can’t go back there. What if whatever happened earlier happened again? Everyone deserved to finally relax, they didn’t need some kid causing problems for them.
He’ll just deal with this on his own. It wasn’t like he wasn’t used to doing that, especially after- Absolutely not. He was not going down that train of thought.
It might’ve been on that day, but he didn’t need to think about it anymore than he has too.
His mom was dead, and that was it. Crying over it wasn’t going to bring her back. In fact, he should be happy. She wasn’t in pain anymore. There was a time when he was about eight when all he could remember was her pained face as the tubes connected to her slowly increased, and the list for her medicine got longer and longer. He didn’t understand anything then. He just knew that his mom wasn’t coming back and Kirina’s grandma started visiting more often, always trying so hard to take care of him, but after the fifth time she had lied about tripping and falling over just to get to his house- sometimes he hated how he lived on one of the highest parts of the island- he knew he had to learn to take care of himself- more than he usually did, a more bitter part of him thought, before he pushed it to the very back of his mind.
Asuto didn’t want to go back in the past. The past was simpler, and his mom was alive, but she was in pain, and he was still alone. He wanted her alive, of course, he did, but not like that.
It felt wrong to think that he’d prefer his own mother dead, but after a vivid memory of accidentally hearing her crying out because she couldn’t handle the pain anymore on one unfortunate night, he’s pretty sure that he had a good reason. She didn’t deserve any more pain she experienced.
So, then, what would he do with his grief? A grief he couldn’t explain. Maybe he should’ve left this grief on the island when they left, but then the letter happened.
He felt around his pocket and sure enough, there it was. He didn’t know why he carried it with him to this party, but his head hadn’t been in the right place yesterday, or this morning, and definitely not tonight.
Part of him considered smashing it against the sink. Maybe that would fix him.
It would definitely give him something else to focus on than the incurable loneliness that made its home in his chest. As far as he knew, he was born with it along with his mother’s stubbornness and a soccerball. Maybe it was his father’s. Maybe the man chose to leave something behind, besides his wife and son, after all.
He furrowed his brows as if he was in pain and clutched at his chest, crumpling the very expensive suit that the nice lady in the inn lent him. He’ll iron it once he gets back to make up for it but he couldn’t bring himself to care now.
Just because he grew up feeling like this didn’t mean having to deal with moments like this any less bearable than the first time, unfortunately. It got worse since his mom died, and it looked like it wasn’t going to get better anytime soon. Was this how his mother felt?
A pathetic laugh at a pathetic attempt at a joke. A very dark joke.
It made him feel just a bit closer to her, and he wondered if that would’ve been better.
He didn’t know when the aching died down- but it didn’t disappear; it never disappears no matter what he did- but suddenly he felt exhausted. There wasn’t any fight left in him anymore, and all he wanted to do was lie down somewhere.
Following no coherent or sane thought process whatsoever, he climbed up the tub and just… laid there. It was cold, and that didn’t help him at all, but he couldn’t bring himself to climb out. The cramped space was almost comfortable, at least for someone with his height. Takashi would probably get stuck here. He laughed at the thought, even though it sounded weak. Everything took too much energy to do now, even breathing.
The coldness of the tub’s walls kept him awake just for a little bit, until he quickly got used to it and eyelids began to feel heavy. Any control for his thoughts and memories shattered in that moment, and he thought about seeing his mother in a coffin. They kept her in there for about a week until they cremated her. It was for formalities, so everyone can have one last moment with her. He didn’t stay long enough to get her ashes in an urn. They had to leave for Inazuma soon.
Was this how she felt being stuck in that coffin? Surely, it was warmer, or maybe it was just as cold. Her body never warmed up even after they took her outside. It wasn’t too uncomfortable so he wasn’t too upset if this was how she felt.
It was actually pretty comfy, he thought as he decided that he would just take a little nap in here until everything’s over and he doesn’t feel nor look like a mess.
He never heard the harsh knocks that sounded like they wanted to break the door in half, nor them stopping as yelling started and the doorknob started moving.