Chapter Text
The only source of light in the square, small office space were the myriad monitors showing off Blue Lock's building structure and the hallway light that cast a streak as Anri squeezed through the door. Her sneakers echoed on the carpetless ground, but the constant clacking of the keyboard swallowed the sound. Leaning over the desk beneath the wall of monitors was the shadow of a man who would decide over the fate of Japanese football, Jinpachi Ego. He hammered something into the keyboard while his gaze swiftly switched between the monitors and the even brighter computer screen. His long fingers flitted across the keys just as quickly; his lean shoulders twitched with the movements, but otherwise he remained as stiff as a robot, carrying out his task without distraction. Almost a little too stiff not to complain about back pain later.
Anri knocked on the wall to make herself known. Jinpachi did not respond, so she reached out to him. At that moment, his gaze slid up and his fingers came to rest on the keyboard. His shoulders dropped, as did his gaze, which was a little too low to meet her at eye level. Instead, Jinpachi stared at the monitor next to her, mumbling something to himself, and returned to type at a less manic speed.
“What is it?” came his raspy voice.
“I've brought you some food. Stir-fried vegetables with rice.” She placed the plate and bowl on a spot of the desk that was not covered in papers, files or sports magazines. Her gaze flitted over the chaos. No empty instant noodle cups. “I’m aware we're running out of time to plan the selection matches, but have you eaten anything yet, Mr Ego?”
“I'm not hungry. Take this away.”
“Excuse me, but you do need to eat something.”
Jinpachi drew in a sharp breath and looked past her to one of the monitors before expelling his breath harshly. “I'm fine.”
“That's not healthy.” Her words lingered meaninglessly in the room because Jinpachi was too focused on his work to reply. Anri suppressed a sigh as she shuffled from one foot to the other. The air in the room was so stiflingly hot that she began to sweat under her tight clothes. She took off her suit jacket and tied it just above the waistband of her skirt. “Phew, it's pretty warm in here.”
“Can't be. The heater's broken.”
“Huh?” Anri strode over to the sectional radiator, which was on seven, and placed her hand on the steel plate. She flinched away from the heat, before she switched it down to five and blinked over at Jinpachi, who was shivering slightly. “Mr Ego?”
“What is it?”
“Are you all right?”
“What shit are you talking about? Piss off if you've got nothing to do here and take the damn food with you."
“Is it possible you're getting sick?”
“I'm working my ass off to fix that shit the JFU left upon – ” Jinpachi stopped to cough before continuing in a hoarse voice. “Leave. Just leave me alone.”
Anri shook her head and walked over to him, pressing the back of her hand against his forehead. Jinpachi tensed up so much that his fingers cramped inches above the keyboard. In the sudden silence, Anri could literally hear his skin sizzling. His forehead was wet in layers. Sweat was running down the sides of his face to his collar, which had become imperceptibly darker in colour. She took her hand away. “You're burning up like a hot plate on high.”
Jinpachi wiped his face with his sleeve and slowly resumed his work. “So what? It's just a bit of a fever.”
“I'll get a thermometer.”
As Anri lunged into motion, Jinpachi grabbed her by the tail of her shirt. “Stop your stupid shit. You better take care of the participants.”
Anri twisted out of his grip, which was frighteningly weak. “I've already taken care of them. Let me check on you now. I'll get the thermometer.”
Jinpachi gave her a disapproving look to make it clear what he thought of her plan, but did nothing to stop her. With a short sigh, he shrugged the tension from his shoulders and increased the speed at which he typed.
Anri slipped out of the room with brisk steps and returned a minute later with a clinical thermometer. She gently pushed the metal tip between his teeth. Jinpachi bit down on it and continued to work like a highly functional machine.
The thermometer beeped and Anri pulled it out to read from the flashing display. “Thirty-eight-point-seven degree. That no longer counts as a mild fever.”
“I'm fine.” Jinpachi coughed. “Will you bugger off now?”
“You sound terrible.”
"That's why you’re going to be the one making all the announcements today.”
“Mr Ego, look at me.”
“Tsk, cut the bullshit. I'm not going to do as you please.”
“Please.”
Jinpachi's hands stopped abruptly. He took a deep breath that chased him into a hacking coughing fit. After recovering, he leaned back in his leather chair with a gasp.
For the first time since she had been there, Jinpachi looked her in the eye. The monitors cast flickering lights on his pale face, colouring his complexion in sickly shades of blue, red and green. The bags under his eyes had multiplied. He looked exhausted. Incredibly exhausted, as if something hideous had robbed him of his energy. Paper-thin, dry cracks ran across his lips and an unhealthy blush burned on his cheeks. Twitching his facial muscles, he fought back a sneeze. Finally, he turned away to let it out.
“Satisfied?” he mumbled in a voice swallowed by the congestion. He sniffled, sat up straight and put his fingers back on the keyboard. But he did not type. He stared at the screen with a strangely unfocussed gaze before pressing his palm to his forehead and massaging his temples.
“Do you have a headache?” Anri asked softly.
Jinpachi did not answer. He squinted his eyes, his brows dropping to a pained expression as he let out a sound of discomfort. His body swayed like a tipped-over doll.
Anri instinctively put her arm around him and held him as he fell back. “You're not feeling well.”
“Oh, fuck off.” With flailing, albeit limp movements, Jinpachi freed himself from her grip and put distance between them. “I was just dizzy for a moment. Besides, you're bothering me. Get out of here. Get lost. Get the fuck out.”
“No matter how many times you say it and how, I'm not leaving. Not when you're obviously feeling bad. Give work a rest and lie down, Mr Ego.”
Jinpachi opened his mouth to protest, but instead pressed his lips together, looking straight ahead at the computer, on which countless spreadsheets and documents were open. Most of them were not even half-finished. Such sloppy work was unlike him. “We're already way too far behind,” he muttered.
“So what? We can always put the second selection on hold and postpone the games for a day or two.”
“What?” His voice turned into something horribly distorted. “Every minute counts. We can't waste a precious second here just because...” He trailed off, putting his hand on his chest and taking a deliberate breath to stave off what seemed to be a particularly nasty cough – without success. He barked forcefully into his fist several times and exhaled shakily.
“Because you're not feeling well?” Anri finished his sentence. “Of course, I understand where this comes from; I'm as passionate about this as you are and I don't want to waste even a millisecond of our great chance of making Japan the top football nation in the world, but you're not delivering good results like this. To be honest, you're doing a shitty job right now.”
Her serious tone was enough to make Jinpachi's pupils roll up at her. He narrowed his eyes dangerously and opened his mouth, probably to give her his snooty opinion, but instead he coughed dryly. “How do you think this is going to work?” he croaked. “There are only two of us.”
“I'm going to order a replacement for you. Just for a few days, of course, until you're better.”
“That's out of the question. I've got better things to do with our budget.”
“Mr Ego!”
“Saying my name won't change the fact that someone must work here. Someone who got the right idea of football.”
“Then let me take over.”
Jinpachi laughed dryly as if she had suggested hiring a mouse as a referee. Anri felt strangely offended and clenched her hands into fists like a boxer defending themselves in the ring. “D-Don't make fun of me! Every day I study the games and learn more about football. I've got this!”
“No, you don’t,” Jinpachi muttered, coughing before he spoke with barely a breath left for a voice. “I'm the only one who understands it; the philosophy behind becoming the world’s best striker. The hard work one needs to put into that. The selfishness that drives it all.”
Anri rolled her eyes. “Yeah, but you're sick.”
“Sick, but my ego’s still thriving,” Jinpachi replied with the hint of a smirk before his fingers slowly moved over the keys again. “Let me work. It's the only thing I can do right now.”
Anri put her hands on her hips and eyes him for a long moment before giving in with a sigh. “All right, then. But at least let me help you.”
“Mother-fucking God.” Jinpachi shuddered. “You sure are annoying.”
Anri could not help but mimic his grin from earlier. “I’m terribly sorry, Mr Ego, but I am.”
“Well, in any case, I'll get you something to drink.”
“No tea,” he croaked like a warning.
“Not recommended with your fever anyway. I'll be right back. Don't almost-pass out again.”
Jinpachi rolled his eyes as he stifled a cough with his fist and changed the document. Anri made sure he could manage without her for a few minutes before she slipped out of the room and into the kitchen.
The kitchen was not much bigger than a penalty area and had the same bare studded walls as the participants' accommodation, but the shining ceiling lights at least made it seem bright. Anri opened the fridge and pulled out a few bottles, which she left on the counter to let them warm up before grabbing some towels from the lounge and rummaging through the first aid cabinet in the bathroom. Surprisingly, there was a packet of ibuprofen among the rolls of bandages. It was open and one tablet was missing from the blister. Anri took the whole pack and put it in her fanny pack.
After the bottles reached room temperature, Anri went back to Jinpachi with everything she gathered.
His condition had worsened considerably in the last few minutes. Jinpachi was hunched over his desk, head on his propped-up hand, which he occasionally lowered to type in a number, while moving the pointer from one column to the next with the other. Printed documents spread out next to him to which he occasionally spared a weary glance. None of his movements showed the brilliant speed with which he usually threw himself into his job. On the contrary, he seemed almost a snail's pace slower than the average worker.
Anri placed the bottles on the desk and threw a towel over his shoulder. “When did you take the last dose?”
“Huh?” Jinpachi responded just the bare minimum to pass for conscious. Anri slid the clinical thermometer between his teeth despite his weak protest. For a moment, his hands did not move. One rested next to the keyboard while he rubbed the towel over his face with the other.
As if the beeping of the thermometer was the whistle for a match start, Jinpachi resumed his work. Anri took the thermometer between her fingers and read it. “Thirty-nine-point-one.” She suppressed a sigh, biting the insides of her cheeks. “Did you take some ibuprofen?”
“Yeah, this morning,” Jinpachi surprisingly answered.
“Good, then I'll give you another dose now. We need to get your fever under control.”
Jinpachi did not protest. Anri squeezed a tablet out of the blister and gave it to him along with a bottle of a pale-yellowish sports drink. Jinpachi took both, staring at the bottle a moment too long to go unnoticed.
“Is something the matter? Don’t you like it?” Anri asked cautiously.
“No, nothing’s wrong with it,” Jinpachi replied as he unscrewed the lid with shaky fingers. As he took the first sip, a gentle smile formed on his lips. It was the kind she had rarely ever seen on him, though his eyes remained oddly expressionless, as if building up a cold-grey wall around his feelings. Anri turned around to give him some privacy. Why did she feel like she had seen something that had not been meant for her?
When she turned back, Jinpachi had drunk every last drop from the bottle. Her expression slipped without her being able to control it. “You must have been dehydrating.”
“What?” Jinpachi put the empty bottle down and reached for the next one – a plain water bottle. He emptied it almost as quickly and then wiped his mouth dry with his sleeve. “More,” he demanded as he reached for the third and final bottle.
Anri blinked away her state of shock. “O-Okay. Be right back.”
With a shake of her head, she jogged out of the room back to the kitchen and returned with an armload of chilled bottles. “I've mostly brought water. Best give them a moment to warm up.”
Jinpachi ignored her advice and took one of the bottles, not drinking it, but holding it to his forehead. With his other hand, he continued typing as if nothing happened.
Despite the situation, Anri could not help but smile as a thought occurred to her.
“What are you getting hooked up about?” croaked Jinpachi without looking up at her.
Her smile died immediately. “Nothing. You just remind me of the boys after a match.”
“I do?”
A faint grin returned to her face. “They're always terribly thirsty when they went all out. They also do the same thing as you – holding a chilled bottle of water to their foreheads.”
“So what?” Jinpachi glared up at her. “Stop grinning so stupidly, Anri.”
“I'm sorry, but if you're acting childish, I can't help it.”
“What?” Jinpachi grimaced as if the water was coming right back up. “What did you just say?”
“Oh, I was just joking,” Anri assured him with an even bigger grin.
Jinpachi rolled his eyes and returned to his work, while Anri handed him the documents he asked for or pointed to.
“Are you drawing up the new ranking list?” she asked curiously. If Jinpachi did not keep reminding her with a cough that he was sick as a dog, it could have been one of their usual business days.
“Yeah,” Jinpachi breathed, clearing his throat to bring back his raspy voice. “Even if there are no significant changes. They are improving. That's good.”
Anri shrugged. She was more used to his harsh criticism and arrogant judgements, so she did not know how to respond to his factual claim beyond a simple and blunt “Alright.”
They continued to work for long, endlessly dragging minutes. Anri sat down in the corner of the room with a book about football, expanding her knowledge as this was her usual study time. It was pleasantly quiet in the room, apart from Jinpachi's constant coughing and sniffling and the clacking of the keyboard, which was occasionally replaced by a click.
Finally, Jinpachi broke the silence. “Can you take the food away? I've been sick of it for hours.”
Anri put aside her book and stood up. “You're really not hungry, are you?”
Jinpachi gave her a look as if to say, 'Do I look hungry to you in the slightest?’
Anri sighed and picked up the dishes. “Would you like something else? A miso soup? Some bread? Instant noodles?”
Jinpachi grimaced as if she had invited him to the cheapest restaurant in town. “I. Am. Not. Hungry.” He emphasised each word with a forceful cough before falling victim to a barking fit. Before Anri herself became aware of what she was doing, she placed her free hand on his back, rubbing small circles.
Jinpachi tensed for a moment under her touch before his muscles relaxed visibly like he had found something soothing in her gesture; though his expression quickly reflected utter disgust.
“Don't ever do that again,” he gasped breathlessly after recovering from the attack. His face burned red from exertion and sweat ran down his forehead in streams. He grabbed a water bottle and emptied it before wiping his face with the now wet towel. Anri handed him a fresh one.
Jinpachi threw off the old one and wrapped the new one around him before making a dismissive gesture in her direction. “Now take that disgusting food away. I'm gonna puke.”
“If you say so.” With stiff movements, Anri left the room and brought the untouched food to the kitchen. When that was done, she let out a deep sigh. In those past few days, she had got to know Jinpachi better: he was an unchallenged football genius, but he was also a damn dickhead; his illness did nothing to change that fact. She worked her ass off for him and all she got in return was his guaranteed participation in the project. That was enough for her, for now, but still. Why had she hoped that the guy would at least become a little nicer around her once they got acquainted?
With a shake of her head, Anri got rid of the nagging question and returned to said selfish person. Jinpachi was working himself to a shadow as she closed the door. She placed a metal bucket next to his desk. The sound stopped Jinpachi's hands and he looked down. “I'm not really throwing up. I have self-control.”
“You do, but you don’t choose for your body.”
“I'm fine,” Jinpachi croaked, swallowing audibly. “M-my body too.” The next moment, he grabbed the bucket with both hands and leaned over it. His pale, trembling fingers clawed at the metal rim, while his body shook as if in a violent fit as he vomited out the water he had been drinking for the last few minutes. He heaved dryly and coughed harshly several times, holding on to the bucket as if clinging to his consciousness. Sweat dripped from his sprayed fringes and hit the contents of the bucket with an almost silent splash. He breathed so intensively that every muscle in his body wriggled like a fleeing caterpillar.
Anri carefully loosened his fingers from the bucket, putting it down on the floor and gripping his trembling body with both arms to prevent him from falling forwards. Jinpachi rested his head against her chest, closing his eyes and calming his breathing as he swallowed and coughed violently. Anri rubbed against the cramps on his back.
They remained in this position for several minutes until Jinpachi made a move. He slowly pulled away from her, leaning back in the chair. One arm dangled over the backrest, while the other fell powerlessly on his crossed legs. His head sank onto the backrest while his eyelids fell halfway shut. He looked more exhausted than a human being could be.
“I've finished the evaluation,” he breathed in a raspy, unenergetic voice. “Will you pass the results on to the participants?”
“S-Sure.”
“Now,” he stressed, turning his head to cough into his shoulder.
Anri licked the hesitation from her lips, nodding and squeezing past him to the computer to print out the spreadsheet. As the rattling printer filled the room with familiar noises, she looked at Jinpachi, who was slumping down in his seat more with each passing minute. “Do you want to take a break?” She was annoyed that she had phrased it like a question. It was obvious that he needed a break.
“Yeah,” Jinpachi croaked, before slowly shaking his head as if delirious. “No, no, I'm fine.”
Anri pulled the papers out of the printer, stacking them under her arms and tilting her head to the side to catch a glimpse of Jinpachi. “Please lie down.” He did not respond. “Mr Ego?”
He jerked up, blinking his eyes into an alert state as he mumbled something under his breath. Anri placed a hand on the hot, wet towel on his shoulder and repeated gently, but firmly. “Please go and lie down, Mr Ego.”
“I'm too dizzy to get up,” Jinpachi grumbled as he rubbed the eyes under his glasses with a limp arm movement. “Been all day. That's why I'm sitting here.”
“W-what?” Suddenly his behaviour from before had taken on a whole new meaning. Perplexed sounds escaped from her open mouth. “H-How... Why?”
Jinpachi groaned and pushed her towards the door with a feeble gesture. “Go announce the rankings,” he hissed with barely any voice left.
As if moving through a soup bubble, Anri staggered forwards, but turned round at the last moment. “Stay here. I'll help you in a moment.”
Jinpachi rolled his eyes as his lips formed a soundless ‘As if I could go anywhere in my state.’
Anri nodded in understanding, before leaving.
As Anri walked to the recording room, she checked the papers. The rankings looked fine so far, not a single slip-up, nothing that grabbed her attention in a negative way. Even in his miserable state, Jinpachi Ego worked flawlessly as one would expect from a professional, even though it had taken him much longer than usual. Normally the results were already there in the morning, but now the ticking clock hand was already approaching five. She glanced down at the note on the last page.
First match: tomorrow at 12 noon.
Anri pursed her lips. He could not be serious. Did this big shot really expect to be fit enough to judge a game by midday tomorrow? Anri stopped and turned on her heel, ready to run back to him, but her feet hesitated. Was she even in a position to question his decisions? The answer was simply no. No, she was not. Because she was just the errand girl to that big ego of a boss.
Anri dug her teeth into her lower lip. She could postpone the game, she had all the means to do so, but she lacked the courage. And at the end of the day, she was on the rational side. Even the slightest deviation from their arrangements could ruin their carefully laid-out plan, shattering their hard work into a thousand pieces like a jigsaw puzzle pushed off the table. That was too risky. Completely out of the question.
So, she had only one option: to get Jinpachi Ego back to health as quickly as possible. Otherwise, everything would go down like a sinking ship.
With a deep sigh at this incredible challenge, she pushed the door handle down and stepped into the recording room to announce the results of the last matches along with the new ranking to the boys.