Triple Narcissistic Special

By Clorinda

Rated: PG

Category: General

Summary: Ten years later, they meet again, and marvel with hidden surprise, at how much each has changed. One-shot.

Author's Note: I've been intending to write this for months, but it took psquare's "Vertigo" to give me a push in the right direction.

Updated to rub off the minute grammar mistakes I just discovered. (Gah, I'm so arrogant reading this every two minutes.)

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"Wonder where we'd land up ten years later?" Kyosuke thought aloud, sprawled on the grassy field beneath the widespread canopy of leaves.

"Dunno," said Sakai with not much intention towards conversation, as he lay propped against the trunk, his eyes following the girls practice soccer, "but I can sort of picture us making headlines every day, kind of like we're doing now. Cocky Trio Stands the Test of Time..."

"Man, you guys are so bloody sentimental," snorted Rodrigo from the fork above them. "You keep thinkin' 'bout the future too much, and you jus' don' get how great the present is. Who gives a damn 'bout ten years hence— 'cause we know we're gonna be rich an' famous."

"And hounded by girls," interjected Sakai. "Let us not forget the beauty of it."

"Eh, I hate girls," muttered Kyosuke. The other two burst out snorting with laughter.

"Yeah, righ', wait 'til we tell Miki 'bout that."

---

Ten years later . . .

Kyosuke Kannou drained the beer in one heavy swig, and binned the can in that roadside basket that said "Keep your city clean." It had been lying empty before this latest contribution. The morning skies grew threateningly dark above his head, and Kyosuke drew up the hood of his sweatshirt. He'd recovered from preliminary pneumonia just recently.

When Miki came home and found out, she'd been bloody furious, and when she'd simmered down finally, she'd been nice to him. Real nice. The blood crept up his ears. His mouth still tasted peppermint.

He leaned against a lamppost, staring ahead. Thinking. Of Miki. A goofy grin pushed up his facial muscles.

Soccer had finally reached somewhere with him; it had been the dog impatient for its walk when he'd been in school, and now, at last, he was holding the leash. He played for AC Milan. There was no way he would have turned down an opportunity like that. To play side-by-side with Seisuke— it had been his, no, their dream. Blood brothers. That's what they were, no matter what some crummy certificates could prove.

Soccer. Sometimes, when Kyosuke was alone in his flat, he'd open his drawer, and take a good, long, hard look at the Orange Hill High soccer team. It hurt him almost physically to reminiscence, because now, every one of them, even Murakami, had gone their separate ways.

Paths that did not cross.

It always hurt the most when he thought about that picture he had always kept, but stopped looking at anymore. That picture that had only three people in it. That memory.

Kyosuke pushed himself off the post, and crossed the street. There was the pub, The Aces, squeezed into the back of a dim alleyway. He would always find in there a drink, and solace in its half-lit yellow atmosphere of mute bonhomie that the drunk often revel in.

It was scattered with a few people, mostly leaning their elbows on individual tables and engaged in their private conversations. Kyosuke strode right up to the one-man table at the back, and sat facing the door, his hood pulled over to hide his face.

A short, high scream was heard outside, subdued by the brick walls, and the muffled sound of running steps followed on its heels. With little warning, the door to the pub was flung open with a bang, and the blue blur of a man dashed in, hastily closing it and pressing it shut with one bulky shoulder.

His ear pressed to the wood, he cautiously waited for signs show his pursuer was gone. He stayed like that awhile, and no one really noticed him. They were used to stranger occurrences. The man straightened, and timidly looked around at which lion's den he had wandered into.

Funny. If Kyosuke had seen that man, "timid" would have been the last adjective to use.

The man was very tall and very fair, platinum-silver hair in thick tresses hung to the length of the nape of his neck. Underneath the dress suit, his shoulders and biceps were powerfully muscled, and the intensity of his ice-blue eyes would have sent the dead fleeing back to the shelter of Tartarus.

But Kyosuke had not seen this man. His name was Sakai Jefferson Koji. He had followed his father's footsteps to become a brilliant, orphaned goalkeeper who owed no allegiance to any team. Lavishing in luxury and hounded by fans, he had little to regret and plenty to enjoy.

That was why the thorn in his heart stung so deeply, and why it bled so much.

When on nights he couldn't sleep, he would walk to the balcony of his mansion on the beach, and watch the sea in nightclothes. He would remember how he was so often plagued with nightmares when he was in high school, homesick and alone. And how night after night, he'd relive his mother dying and him not being told, not understanding that she was leaving him.

He'd remember how Miss Kaori had been there one nightmarish night, and how she taught him to fight away the insomnia with two other full-spirited teenagers, as tenacious and arrogant as himself.

He'd realize how he would never see them again, and tears would sting his eyes until they burned, and furious with himself, he'd turn and go back to sleep. But when he closed his eyes, he'd dream about them. Them of whom he had no material proof left.

Sakai walked to the bar, apprehensively glancing over his shoulder to ensure there was no paparazzo with his camera around. He asked for a whiskey. It set fire to his throat, and he hastily gulped it down and asked for another. After three pints, he decided it was enough to keep him steady, and went out stealthier than he came. The chauffeur-manned car was waiting to escort him to the inauguration of the new museum.

No one notices the barkeeper. Surprisingly, no one notices the barkeeper at all. The barkeeper's friend was taking charge today; an embittered and disillusioned young man with a head of thick black curls and a face chiseled of granite, with diamond-flecked gold eyes. He was a promising soccer talent, until his hellish temper had wrought him an indefinite ban after he seriously injured a player.

He needed money to send to his family, a large group of fourteen people, more friends than kin. Fourteen healthy, young people stuffed into an impoverished establishment, every one of them working their hands raw to make their ends meet. And although he had failed them, each one of them, before they closed their eyes, prayed, "Lord, give Rodrigo happiness again."

But what is lost cannot be regained.

Rodrigo knows it, and he tries to push it away, because he is older with responsibilities, and only fools live in the past. But it is not like he doesn't remember them, because each time he looked into the mirror, he saw the premature lines on his sculpted face, and he'd shudder at what time had done to him.

Because if he could take away any ten years of his life, he knew there'd be a smile in his lips, and he'd be playing soccer still with the only two teammates who were irreplaceable. But they had been replaced, and their lives had surely moved on, and Rodrigo never did like to be left behind.

---

Three boys had sworn loyalty and friendship to the end, as they stood beneath the shade of elm tree, hands clasped tightly and together. But ultimately, it was Time that had proved its strength, power and callousness.

— End —