Chapter Text
From a young age, his mind was an intricately foggy bridge of collapsing colors. It build itself on the pathways of every interaction with the world, yet seized repeatedly, when it became too much. Isagi, truthfully, doesn’t remember much from this time. He couldn't, when his mind would spiral and his skin would ache and his ears would ring, ring, ring, and his eyes saw the expanse of a wide, detailed world.
His parents called him a crybaby. Fondly, of course, with the amount of times Isagi burst into tears randomly by getting set off through the most random of things. But they worried as well.
As a baby and toddler, Isagi felt too much. Heard too much. Saw too much. His mind processed things at such a spectacular level that it affected the way his body itself reacted. His mother once said that they had to be careful what they allowed to touch him because otherwise he would cry, while his father said they spoke in whispers for the first few years of his life, as the sound of anything above a certain level would make Isagi scream himself hoarse. This made it difficult for him to go to school, as Kindergarten was a place of loud noises and uncontrollable chaos.
Those were not the only things, as the smell of the air, the moisture of the wind, the overhanging clouds, all of it, Isagi Yoichi was sensitive to all. The feel of gravel, or grass, or dirt, or sand, under his feet, had his skin rippling. Texture, of nearly all kinds. Movement of people, placement of objects, every minute change in detail, Isagi's eyes captured with the ferocity of an unescapable judgement.
And for a timid, little boy like him, it was all too much.
With his hands over his ears, Isagi would cry and shake and beg it to stop.
His mother, Iyo, with her own heart hurting, would crowd her boy into her chest. His breath would stutter with too big breaths, pointing at whatever offended him and turn away. His father, Issei, would wrap his arms around them in an enduring circle, protective and devoted. Iyo's voice would then melts into an old Japanese nursery rhyme, soothing Yoichi to breathe calmly with them as the rocking cradle.
At this age, Isagi didn’t pick what to panic to, what to focus on, or what to forcibly ignore. He didn’t want for any of it, but his mind acted like an undeniable thread, unraveling at the seam of every instantaneous distortion. It was hard, nearly impossible to adjust to, every time.
So it was with shocked delight, on a fateful day, when a single set of tickets changed the course of everything he, and his parents, knew.
It’s not something any of them expected.
With the seasonal change, from Summer falling to Autumn's lonely, droopy chill, and Autumn seized by Winter's every delicate breath, Issei shivered with the cold when he comes home, sniffling into his age-worn scarf. His family sits inside, his son, sipping a cup of homemade hot chocolate.
“I'm home!”
“Welcome back, dear.”
“Welcome back, Daaad!”
Issei bundles the handknit scarf to the rack, smiling. He approaches his son first, who jumped to hit feet but stops before closing the distance in a hug.
“Cold!” Isagi accuses, like how a police officer would a criminal. “Dad is too cold! Brrr!”
“Well, I guess that means Papa will have to get reeeal warm before he can get a hug from Yocchan,” Iyo giggles, amused by the crestfallen pout that appears on her husband's face.
“Ehh? But I had a cool surprise for Yocchan too.” Issei dramatically heaves a big sigh and stomps into the kitchen to kiss Iyo's cheek. He ignores Yoichi's surprised, “What surprise?! Whereee??” And waits for her to ask.
“Surprise?” Iyo smiles, and Issei pushes back a straight strand of hair behind her ear.
“Kei-kun gave me J-League tickets for the upcoming game. His family will be going too, and thought we'd like to come with.”
Iyo looks over the tickets, lips pursed in confusion. “A football game? Ehh… I don't know anything about that. Do you think we should go?”
“Well, I don't care for football either. But it's a home game here at Saitama Stadium, so why not?” He shrugs, and expertly ignores the little rascal yanking at his pant leg. “Soccer was one of the sports we talked about for Yoichi, yeah? If it doesn't work, we'll cross it out like we did for swimming and baseball.”
“Hmm… that's right. But will it be fine, though? football has big crowds, I think…”
“If it get's too much for Yoichi, we'll leave right away,” he reassures. His hand catches her wrist, and they meld together like puzzles. Issei's light scent of mixed herbs burst to coddle Iyo's green tea, supplementing the leaves to catch a deeper aroma. Yoichi coughs, huffing and tottering about to the living room. They both smile, even though it must be frustrating for Yoichi.
“Let's try.” She nods. “There's no reason not to go.”
“Yoichi?”
Their little blue-eyed wonder, pouty lips and all, glanced from behind the wall.
“Wanna go to a football match with Mama and Papa? We'll get one of those fuzzy drinks you like.” Issei ignored Iyo's stiff glare, as if to say, 'I didn't agree to that!'
Yoichi hummed lowly, scuffing his feet. He wasn’t too enthusiastic. The sports he'd been in so far all ending horribly. “Okayy…”
At the time, none of them had any idea that this would change their timid son. Something so simple, so mundane, after all… how can it make an impact so big?
How can one pinpoint the birth of something incomprehensible?
How can you, when it always meant to be?
Isagi used to be a lonely person.
There was a quiet echo that seemed to follow behind him, dragging his feet in some ways from the other children his age. He couldn’t make friends with them as easily as each other. His feet would walk to them, and then past them, like it couldn’t stop to be beside them.
His hands yearned to reach out, but the echo would pang and his senses would grate like a boiling pot and fissures would flower from the bottom to the top. Once, Isagi explained it as best as he could, in that vague way a child does, by saying; “Everything is singing at the same time, but I can't find the voices.”
The words tangled in his throat then, unable to push more out as his parents gave him a sad, distressed expression.
He felt almost like a shadow, but it was more than being a silhouette; it was depth where there should've been a thin outline. Isagi couldn’t make sense of that discomfort, his kinetic output so intricately entangled to the world outside of himself that it warped his perception of moderation. Noise, smell, taste, sight, touch, intuition. The skin of his fingers were always prickling with phantom sensations.
Worst of all, was how unrepentantly honest Isagi was. His body could not lie to save someone's comfort; it nettled and boiled if it was driven into a temper, and this affected every part of him. His boundaries were strict and immovable, and this just made him a pain to everyone who was normal.
It was isolating.
And Isagi, who thought too much, rightfully believed he would never change. Cursed forever to be this bothersome person.
But then, like the seasons do, everything becomes clear on that day.
Unlike any other memory before, Isagi remembers that fateful day clearly. He remembers a stark blue sky, with no clouds and the sun shining down. He remembers the stadium. The biggest he's ever seen at four years old. He remembers the seats. The crowd. The people. Team t-shirts. Excited faces. Families clustered together. The loud, singing voices tangled together. The scents he couldn’t comprehend as a young-born pup. All-encompassing in a hotpot of infinite soup.
But he remembers the momentary hush before the first strike best.
How the world narrowed down to a single man and it was twofold, the panic and awe, a double tossed coin. Will he strike? Will he score?
How the silence bled into an ear-rupturing screech when the ball hit the net and suddenly, the world wasn't on pause anymore. The man was running and he had the eyes of everyone on him. Isagi no longer remembers his name, or face, if he even knew it in the first place, but he was the first brick to the foundation of this new throb in his chest.
Isagi Yoichi gasps as the crowd roars, unblinking, thoughts quiet, the pressure of something inexplicable a mere draping arm over the shoulder. Yoichi watches, hungry in a strange, aching way, and blocks out the unnecessary noise. He breathes. He speaks, tight and wondrous.
"I want that. I want to play football too."
Isagi is drawn to football like fish to water.
Through it, he sheds shyness like a second skin. He demands football lessons, and it's his second request, his second time voicing a wish and his parents are helpless to deny it. His first request is a soccer ball, and they watch as Isagi falls in love with it at first sight. It's days after the game, and soon, football is all he thinks about. If there was a live football game on, Isagi would hog the TV, whining if either of his parents needed to change the channel. They've always been weak for their boy, and don’t dare to make him cry.
But Isagi cries less and less, choosing to run onto a new path and never looks back. In the week leading up to their trip to the local park, Isagi consumes whatever there is to learn about soccer, and is delighted when there are more and more things to know.
At the local park in Saitama, there's a soccer field. They’ve never had a use for it, and Isagi always ignored it. Now, Isagi is vibrating in his shoes, smiling ear to ear, eager to play outside of his small backyard.
There are other kids of the neighborhood there too, and Isagi holds his shiny new ball close, his most prized possession. With permission from his parents, Isagi rushes to the field.
He is a boy of four years and does not know of any techniques, any plays, any abilities that come with the sport. Isagi has the ball at his feet and blinks up to the goalpost. Isagi is a boy and only has one thought, one want. It is a desire so simple, so pure, it cannot be misunderstood.
I want to score.
Yoichi is approached by some of the other kids, lured in by the sleek white of his ball.
They have big eyes, their smiles open and wide. “Can we play with you?”
At this point, Isagi has never managed to connect with kids, his reputation as a crybaby keeping them at a distance. Any attempt has had him scrambling to fix himself, make himself less, to be accepted and understood, and yet accomplished in only doing the opposite. These kids… it wouldn’t be any different. It was a disaster waiting to happen, but Isagi's mouth opens and comes out a single word.
“Sure.”
They scatter and swarm, something new in it's infant stages beginning to form. Someone else has the ball, and they kick it to another kid. The weather is cold, nipping his neck and ears and nose, stinging, but Isagi's breath comes out warm and he doesn't move his eyes from his ball. There's no rhyme or reason to where it falls, or to who, but Isagi follows it a second faster than where it lands. The wind whips past him with the tingle of nails, damp on his tongue. The kids are laughing, they're having fun, and there are spaces open all around, like empty plots of sunshine ready to melt the snow around them. His nose tickles. His skin shivers.
A new feeling rears its head, jaws wide, waiting to snap shut again with the ball in the net. Isagi weaves between two boys to catch the ball. As it thumps against the heel of his shoe, Isagi smiles. That feeling eases. He bypasses all of them, eyes on the goal, a sharp breath wheezing in his cold—freezing, aching, he feels too much—cold lungs.
Now!
Isagi doesn't hesitate, with kids on his back, and one in the front, Isagi kicks the ball and it sweeps against the net in a pretty, inspiring arch.
Some of the kids cheer, but the noise collapses into a vortex, muffled and distant. Isagi gasps, his blood rushing upwards, his heart caving into painful bursts. His body grows hot, taut, his mind breaking open like the universe folding itself into him. Memories upon memories filter in, braiding itself along his temporal lobe, yet they slip through his fingers like water.
“That was cool!”
“Waah! Nice!”
His mismatched team of unrelated kids from the neighborhood jump and run around each other, celebrating a childish, exciting win, but Isagi's mind is a fractured place, impacted by a grander thing, some unnamed piece wedged between him and himself. When he moves again, it's misaligned, his limbs heavy and weak, too soft and trembling. A puppet with its strings cut; a puppet no more.
One foot in front of the other. Step. Step. The ball rolls to his feet, propelled back by the net. Isagi bends, nearly topples—his hands take the ball, and it's a reunion of the strangest kind. He's had this ball for a week and ten years, he knows every ridge and dip, yet it's so shiny with no scuffmark on its sides. It's his newest friend and his oldest companion.
He is both himself and himself and someone else.
His mother and father cheer from the bench, surrounded by other parents, all of them watching their kids play together. Iyo snaps pictures on her phone and she's smiling. There are tears in her eyes. It's the first time Isagi has played with others without getting overwhelmed, falling into a tantrum that resulted in apologies and a swift exit.
He can’t hear them, can't hear anyone, in fact, the thudding of his heart echoing underwater. He nods anyway. An acknowledgement. He knows how hard they've tried. Years and years of patience overlapping over their faces. A kid pats his shoulder, urging him for another game, and Yoichi nods again, automatic.
He is here, standing in the present, yet his mind whirs into a far flung place.
Isagi smiles, a little strained, a little weak.
Something. Something. Something's changed.
Isagi pushes forward, intent on a new game, fixed to the rush of scoring a goal. He's an addict in the making.
Whatever's changed, doesn’t matter. All he needs to focus on is scoring more goals.
As the months trickle into each other, folding over a new year, Isagi Yoichi notices the undercurrent of a strange phenomenon.
He's never been the most studious, foregoing homework as easily as any other kid with minimum patience for it, yet he grasps concepts easier now. Math, Science, Japanese, Music—whichever class he took, answers came to him readily. Any worksheets he gets is finished in little time. Without even realizing it, his handwriting began to have a more mature quality to it. He only took notice when his teacher took time to compliment him.
It was as if he gained a new level of understanding, and was unconsciously applying it to schoolwork. If that was all, he wouldn’t make such a big deal out of it. But it wasn’t. He knew things now. Places he's never been to before, objects he's never interacted with, and even people. Should he stumble upon something he logically should have no idea about, he can blurt information about it without hesitation. On one memorable occasion, he guessed the name of a new substitute teacher for another class before the principal even introduced them.
He didn’t understand it. Couldn’t say why new pieces of information have made a home in his head, small nuggets of knowledge that anyone can get from exposure, but it wasn’t like he could reject it. More than that, he's already accepted it.
The floors he walked of his Elementary gave off a strange feeling of nostalgia, the faces of kids he saw and recognized, yet were blurred from the years it's been since he's spoken to them. The school subjects he's taken, the long days of vibrating in his chair, eager to go out and play soccer…
He's done all of this before.
He's laying on his back in the grassy field behind the school, close to the dirt-path they use to walk in groups if they were visiting their sister school for the gym. The grass tickled his cheek, blades bent under the weight of him. He was breathing slowly, parsing through the thin clouds up ahead. For months, he's had a lot to think about.
He hasn’t put the words together, even though he knows it makes the most sense. Maybe it was fear, or complete denial. He had just found soccer, after all. He didn’t want to add to it something he didn’t understand, was scared to pursue.
But now, he was getting a little older, entering a new school year and getting friends. Time was both winding down and picking back up, and he wanted to accept this—this Something.
“I…” Isagi mumbled, only to himself and the grass that surrounded him. His brows furrowed, his nose scrunching up cutely. “I… lived before.”
Lived as himself, under the same name, with the same parents, living the same… life.
“But I'm—I'm here again?” He continues, trying to rationalize it himself.
This was what stumped him the most. The why. His—new—old—memories were all swept somewhere untouched, inaccessible to the panicked curiosity of a child, so it wasn’t as if he could call any of them to the forefront. They came in the moment, living through it with a particularly strong sense of déjà vu. Last summer, Isagi floated in the grasp of an unending cord, mouth synched to the words and actions spoken and made by some other him. Every thing he did, a new memory burst, showing him it's identical twin. It was headache after headache. It nearly crippled him. It was so bad he thought he was losing himself to the version of himself that was plaguing him.
Isagi lifted his hand, dropping it on his forehead. “I'm here,” he repeats, “But how did I leave in the first place?”
Out of everything, this is the one fact that was completely obscured from his mind. Whatever happened to the other him for Isagi to get his memories?
Isagi frowns, his cheeks puffing out unconsciously. He didn’t get it.
With his back to the earth, the sky spread like a great bowl of blue dye, stripped with the fluffy clouds and yellow strips of the sun. Isagi's eyes followed the dotted birds flying at such great distance, catching the wings and the blur of their gray brown color just before they disappeared into the unknown. His eyes shifted to its next target, the trees and their rustling leaves, straining to count them one by one. The bark was rigid, worn lovingly under the thousand of insects that came to it. Insect. Could he find one at this distance?
Map the space. Focus below the bark, but above the bursting roots, moving up the trunk in a uniformed line of discipline… there. Black ants coming down the tree. One to lead all the others.
Isagi's eyes, honed to perceive targeted objects in relation to each other, kept hunting for new things to be drawn to. Down the soil and into the grass, pass the cluster of weeds and find a golden plot of sunshine, where the warmth is concentrated most. Stinkbugs. One. Two. Three. Riding on top of the same spot of grass, disguised against the backdrop. Isagi had already surveyed the area he was in, specifically chosen with nothing bothersome in sight. Mosquitos, bees, ants, hornets, and anything and everything under the sun. it was barren, home only for him.
His awareness bled through the corners of his mind, a tingle reaching through the pads of his fingertips. It no longer overwhelmed him, minute information clogging him on all sides. Now, Isagi could relegate them at any time, and push it back if it got too much. He started the method in relation to the memory dumps and hasn’t stopped since.
When his parents noticed, they assumed it must've been thanks to finding football. With happy, relieved grins and lightened scents, they congratulated him.
"It helps to have a nice hobby to focus on! I'm happy for you, Yocchan!"
Isagi's hand curled shut over a blade of cut-off stem, a white flower half weeping. The sensation echoes a dim lurch: a soft, bendable body, with ribboned petals. He doesn’t prick it off, doesn’t take it for himself.
“I don’t know why this happened to me,” Isagi murmurs. The wind picks up, tangling fingers in his hair and has the little flower cower with its entire body. “It's scary, but I want to keep going. Maybe… football is where I'll get my answers.”
He lets it stay, bop its head, and leaves for the sun to decide.
Isagi's Elementary School has a soccer club.
It's more organized than the preschool freefall that had kids toddling around with half a mind to follow the shiny ball and others to pick at their nose. The teacher specifically in charge of the club kept them in line, tackling formatted games that had more structure to them. It kept Isagi excited. So far, he's only gone against younger, dumber kids with less attention spans than a daft dog. So this keen, structured environment is exactly what he's been waiting for.
One day, his teacher tells them that they'll be playing against a neighboring school team, set up by the faculty as a way to foster skills and talent. A sweet reward also awaits for the school that emerges as the winner. It's not an official match, set on the whim of friendly rivalry, but at six, Isagi is still motivated. Isagi likes winning. The feeling of chasing the ball into a goal. There was no better high.
It leads him to practice long after the others are gone. He didn’t mind doing it alone. The heavy thump in his ears softened when they weren't around to whine about tired feet and dull-colored bruises decorating their knees. The other kids on his team weren't even that good, so Isagi was fine getting better by himself.
On the day of the match though, Isagi's ears ring with the last whistle long after it stops.
There's a group of spectators, families and locals and oldies that sit in the stands of a homegrown field snapping pictures and yelling out the names of their loved ones. On one half of the field is their rival school, Noda, and the air is ripe with celebration. Kids bumping fists and laughing. While their side is left with the buckled knees and panting groans of the losers. They watch on in envy at the winners.
Isagi breathes though his mouth, collapsed onto the green grass with a pinched, frustrated face. They had been completely overtaken. It wasn’t even close. Under the perfect, sunny day, Isagi Yoichi tastes the bitter tang of loss for the first time.
His team feel short—he fell short. There was nothing he could do.
Listlessly, his face pointed away from Noda and their glowing smiles. Sitting just in the front, cuddled beside the other parents, were his mother and father. He didn’t want to look there. Isagi can never doubt their love, but because of that, he can immediately tell what face they're wearing; those sad, supportive smiles, so kind it makes his teeth slip and cut across his tongue, blood a coppery coat beside the despair.
He was so close. So, so close! But Katsu kept telling him to pass the ball! And Neiji kept getting in the way! With his team like that, he got overwhelmed and passed the ball on instinct and lost!
He lost.
A bitter scowl warps his face, bowed into his knee.
Isagi doesn’t notice it the first time.
When Isagi gets back up, everything slides. It's all in a second; black spots blurring his vision like droplets of watered down ink, his breath squeezing short and choppy in his lungs, and a singularly odd sensation that climbs up the walls of his body.
Instinctively, he squeezes his eyes shut.
When he blinks, he's standing on a new patch of field. There's no sheen of sweat, no irregular breathing, no exhaustion imprinted on the back of his legs. His eyes are open, but he doesn’t comprehend what has changed.
The referee's whistle sounds again. Isagi jolts. What was going on?
He glances to the winning team, now standing far apart in their earlier formation. Weren't they celebrating just a second ago?
“Isagi-kun, what are you doing? Get in position!”
Huh?
He doesn't even have the chance to take a step forward as he's directed to his original position as the central midfielder. Their rivaling opponents do the same.
I'm back in the beginning.
It's a sudden thought, beckoned by his unconscious observations. His mouth dries, an edge of nauseous panic settling just below his chest. His mind is half distracted, skulking, pacing, blitzed on the unbelievable series of events. He almost thinks he's dreaming. He lost, he tasted bitter defeat just seconds ago and yet—
And yet—
The wind carting through his hair, the breezy nimbleness of his limbs—
Unknowingly, a smile lifted up his lips, a burst of freaked giggles spilling out. With a second chance in his lap, Isagi didn’t have time to let fear consume him.
He had a game to win.
Time stalks down the clock just like the first time, but as the game comes to a close with the last minute, Isagi beams with a full chest. The score is 2-1, with a win in their school's favor.
He's jumped on by some of the other boys, voices overlapping each other in their excitement. Isagi's cheeks hurt from smiling, laughing as Katsu ruffles his hair with a pout.
“You totally rocked that pass, Isagi-kun!”
Isagi huffed a happy snort. “Course I did. I wanted to score.”
He blocks the chain of oohs that go around and step towards his club coach. He happily pats Isagi's back.
“Well done, kid! I knew we could win with you!”
Isagi accepts the compliment and jogs to his parents. He jumps into their arms, laughing all the while.
He hasn’t forgotten the strange, time-bending end of the match, but he wasn’t going to question it. Not right now.
After they celebrate, they get to leave for the day. Isagi didn’t know what the reward was, but he imagined it had to do with either new club equipment or extra desserts for lunchtime.
His father treats him to ice cream before going home, his mom chatting all the way on their walk at how wonderful it was seeing her Yocchan play so determinedly! Isagi, on the other hand, is quiet, his mind riddled with questions and deep in contemplation.
“Dad!”
“Yes, dear?”
“Can we play one on one before dinner?”
Issei glances down at him, surprise lining his eyes. “Ahh. Still floating from that match, Yoichi? Sure! Just don't beat your old man too bad, haha!”
“Hai!”
After they get home, he rushes to the back of their yard, tugging his father by the arm. Isagi promised mom that he'll take a shower immediately after he was done playing with dad, or else he wasn’t allowed at the table.
“Okay, here are the rules!” Isagi informs his attentively nodding father, a serious look on his face. “First one to three goals wins! And the second rule, don't go outside the lines! That's it!”
“Alright,” Issei yields, amused, “I may not know a lot about football, but that doesn’t mean I won't try my best.”
“Watch out, Yocchan!” His mother calls from the open door, a hand on her mouth. “Your dad's coming for your crown!”
Isagi nodded, but was going to play with the secret aim of letting his dad win. It will be easier to fake being sloppy after a match like today's, and since dad didn’t know anything about football, he wasn’t gonna notice a thing different from Isagi's usual play.
It proves harder to lose than expected, mostly because dad doesn't know how to dribble, or even how much power to put behind a kick. Isagi makes sure to get at least one goal so they don’t get suspicious, and acts more tired than he is so that dad gets the third and final score.
“Woo!” Dad whoops a silly little cheer, making mom laugh. She came outside some time ago to watch and record them. “Look at that! Heh, maybe I should sign up for football classes. What do yo u thin k, Yoi c h i . . .”
Isagi's lungs squeeze like they were gonna pop with too much air inside. Black spots dance in his vision, heartbeat skipping and stopping too much to be normal and his skin, skin is so cold and clammy and—
He blinks.
“Watch out, Yocchan!” his mother calls from the open door, a hand on her mouth. It's the exact scene as before. “Your dad's coming for your crown!”
He wasn’t wrong before. He was at the start, once again.
The goals he set out are quickly scored, weaving around his poor father without a shred of mercy. His mother is on the side, phone in hand, recording his relentless beatdown of dad with cheers of encouragement.
“Haha!” He wheezes once it's over, hands on his knees, good natured in his simplicity, “Good job! That goes to show football just isn't for me.”
Dad leaves with a ruffle to his hair, telling him not to stay outside too late while mom kisses him on the forehead and goes back inside.
Isagi sits alone in his backyard, clutching the ball to his chest, a new, bubbling feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Something was happening again. An unexplainable occurrence. It was like an extension of his first encounter with the memories, but this time, it was conditional. He lost. Twice. And it happened—twice! Isagi didn’t understand what that could mean.
Biting his lip, he sinks into the cool edges of the stiff soccer ball. Isagi, at six years old, had the innocence of a young thing, born loving-soft, timid-hearted, yet with the ability to adapt to anything.
This Something, new and frightening, made him restless, wrongfooted. He had no name for it, couldn’t explain in words how it affected it. But it creeped up on him, this needle-thin nerve to understand it, sift through it like he did His (the other him, the one before) earliest memories. Still does. Every day.
And now, these things tug at each other, one to one, domino to domino. Isagi wonders how long it will take for him to get used to it, the memories seesawing off his daily life, unpredictable, while this dizzying reversal undoes the future he walks towards.
Isagi Yoichi, without knowing it, sits on the precipice of fate. He will realize one day, that no matter how fast he learns to run, that this is something he cannot escape.