Chapter Text
It all started with a lie.
A lie that Fudou didn't expect to bounce off his face like a soccer ball.
His hand trembled while holding the cell phone through which he was conducting a telephone conversation.
"I want to meet your boyfriend before I die, Akio."
He took a deep breath, feeling a pang of panic in the pit of his stomach, pursed his lips together in deep anxiety and forced himself to fake a smug smile even if no one was in the room to see him, after all, the pose as he spoke affected the words as they were uttered.
"Come on, great-grandmother, you are in the prime of life."
“This August I will be one hundred years old.” A pause, yes, they both knew that reality was inexorably approaching, with a bubbling fear that this moment would come even sooner than expected. "Our family is going to prepare a big party, I want you to come home with your boyfriend to celebrate it." He couldn't answer, the words stuck in a throat that refused to cooperate in this farce. "Make it as this old lady's last wish."
He turned completely pale and rubbed his forehead, stifling a tear in his eyes the color of the sea to which he should return, seeing a scar that ran down his arm with a burning and painful memory.
Family, that was a very bitter word for him.
He felt that his mind wanted to flee prey to an inevitable panic, he forced himself to focus on the voice of that old woman whom he loved so much and her breath getting weaker every day.
Returning home. This was even more difficult for him. Returning, returning home...
What was his home?
That tiny apartment in which he lived was much more his home than what Ozu ever was, than what Ehime ever was, than what his family ever was.
His home were Someoka, Tobitaka, Tsunami, Kira and Haizaki. And above all things, his home was Kidou. It was the afternoons playing video games, it was the classes shared at the University with his strategist friend, it was soccer training sessions with the team.
Where he should return was not his home, it was hell.
He took a deep breath and bit his lips.
“Will you do it for this poor old woman? Will you fulfill my last wish?"
He pinched the bridge of his nose, how was he even going to be able to fulfill her wish when it was an illusion reflected in a lie, just like the moon reflected in the Seto Sea.
He took another breath, drowning that feeling of restlessness, calming the desire to disappear, just like that same moon reflected in the dark waters of the sea after sunrise.
"Yes, great-grandmother, we will be there."
He could feel the joy of the woman on the other side of the line, he saw her smiling like when she gave him candy as a child with a secret gesture, winking at him after filling his clenched fist with sweets. He felt the old woman's happiness drain his own energy.
Nausea, he just wanted to run away. He needed to run away.
"I love you, great-grandmother."
"I love you, Akio. You know that you are my favorite great-grandson, right?"
He stifled a laugh.
"Don't let the others hear you."
The call ended and he flopped down on his futon, defeated.
When he told his maternal family that he had a boyfriend, it was simply because he wanted to calm down his mother and great-grandmother when they found out he was gay. He looked at his arm again and closed his eyes with a maelstrom of feelings sinking him more and more. He believed that the lie of a stable couple would save them from worrying about their sexuality and silence the voices of the others. And indeed it was. Mostly.
But the lie grew bigger and bigger, and that little snowball, innocent and benevolent, had become an avalanche that was going to suffocate him completely.
He never thought that his great-grandmother would ask him to introduce his boyfriend because of all the hate that the boy carried in the place. Threads that wrapped around his neck and limbs, threads that left scars that continued to bleed. Wounds that had not healed despite all the effort he made during the previous seven years to change, to be someone better every day.
He ground his teeth in frustration, anxiety, and fear.
He never thought that they would want to meet Kidou Yuuto.
Because that imaginary boyfriend, that chimera was modeled around the figure of his best friend. As a safeguard that the things he might say were coherent, it was better to lie on a basis of truth so as not to get caught.
But it was going to be inevitable.
Because even if in the deep of his heart he wished this wasn't a lie, it was.
He rubbed his eyes wearily. Thinking of him. Of Kidou Yuuto.
He had been in love with him for so long that he ended up drowning alone in that well that reflected a mirage that he preferred to embrace as reality.
He always believed that he was not good at lying, because his emotions always showed on his face in a way that he himself despised. That made him vulnerable on many more occasions than his heart, even after so many years, was prepared for.
And yet he managed to get to this moment with both lies. The lie that Kidou Yuuto was his boyfriend and the lie of not being in love with Kidou Yuuto. How ironic the way both lies overlapped.
Only his closest friends, those he considered family beyond blood ties, knew the truth. Or at least the second truth. They were confidants of his secret and supported him in it.
But he had to surrender to the obvious, he was not good at lying. For someone who had manipulated, stolen, and cheated, he had become awfully clumsy in this game of masks.
He thought quickly about what solutions he had left. Because telling the truth to his family wasn't one of them.
He could refuse to go to Ehime and break his great-grandmother's heart.
He could tell that Kidou couldn't go and break his great-grandmother's heart.
Or…
He could ask Kidou to go as his fake boyfriend to introduce him to his great-grandmother, continuing with that show while the curtain hadn't fallen yet.
Panic made him shake and a shiver ran through his body, quickly connecting a call.
A woman's voice sounded on the other end of the line as the pulsations in his chest increased.
"Akio, honey. Granny has told us that you are coming with Yuuto. You don't know how happy she is, I haven't seen her so happy since she got her new teeth."
He swallowed hard, the blood frozen in his body. He couldn't answer his mother, he only felt himself rooted to the aged floor of his apartment and the mattress of the futon dragging him into an abyss of darkness.
"What's wrong, dear? Why did you call again?"
He did not have the courage to face the truth, he did not have the courage to undo that joy, even if it was temporary.
“I wanted… to know when we should go. If we're going to spend just that day, it's enough, right?"
"Of course not!" The woman snorted on the other side. "You haven't been here for years, why don't you spend your summer vacation here?"
He felt his voice falter again, that day seemed to be really against him, perhaps it didn't help to stay until late last night working on the last essay from the University that he had to hand in that morning before the official start of summer vacation.
Summer, that word comforted his wounded heart, because it was in summer when he was able to take the most important step of his life, entering Inazuma Japan team.
"I don't think we can stay that many days, but I'll talk to Yuuto about it."
They said good-bye and hung up, and he flopped down looking at the slightly cracked and shabby ceiling.
Summer.
The sun was just beginning to rise high in a clear, blue sky, happy and bright. Beads of sweat would soon begin to trickle down his bare fair skin in an attempt to ease the temperature. But not yet.
He looked at his phone and sighed, resigned to doom.
"Kidou-kun, today at my house at 3 PM."
He dropped the object on the ground and fell into a troubled sleep.