The sports festival was an exciting event. It pit students from different classes against each other.
Unfortunately for this year…
"How??"
"Did they just win again?"
"Is it all the climbing…?"
"Look, they teamed up and won the cavalry competition!"
"What is going on!"
The students were flustered by the complete domination of class E over the rest of the students.
Rio flipped her hair, giving a couple gaping students a wink. They looked away with blushes.
Nagisa was shaking his head, pretending to not be a part of the class E, while the others preened under the attention from the gaping students.
Anaya had a clipboard in her hands as she ticked off another completed event and noted the winners.
"It's almost excessive," Ren spoke up from behind her. She didn't even twitch, and instead flipped over a page to prevent Ren from peaking over.
"They're winning everything," Ren continued, watching the field. "Honestly, we're pretty much setting ourselves up for a loss here," he sighed pitifully.
"Just because everyone with half a brain knows that Gakushuu would never actually want to win, doesn't mean we won't," Anaya said, a small frown between her brows.
Ren was silent for a few minutes.
"Principal Asano didn't protest as much as I expected him to," he said quietly, his voice going low with seriousness.
"Yeah," she said lightly, staring at the class 3-E student who just won the 500 meter dash. She ticked off another event. "He didn't."
Ren's expression flattened.
"Are you paying attention?" Gakushuu snapped his fingers in front of Kevin's face. He stared at the fingers then blinked up at Gakushuu blankly.
"What?" He asked, blinking innocently. Gakushuu sighed in response.
"What is it?" He raised a brow at the look on Kevin's face. Kevin looked away, turning his face away from Gakushuu.
"It's just…" he trailed off. Then he started again, "The red head you introduced… is he your boyfriend?" Kevin sheepishly rubbed his neck.
Gakushuu silently stared at Kevin before he decided.
"Yes," he said honestly. "He is."
Kevin's shoulders slumped a little.
"Yeah, of course," he said. "I mean, you're-" he waved his hand to show all of Gakushuu. "You're amazing," he said softly.
Gakushuu stared at Kevin.
"I'm sorry," Gakushuu sat down beside Kevin. They were still in the school grounds but there was no one in the room while Gakushuu went through Kevin's role one more time before everyone was supposed to gather. "I didn't think your feelings would last this long."
Kevin looked at Gakushuu, startled before understanding filled his expression.
"So, you knew already?" He asked.
"I did. And I'm sorry for taking your feelings lightly. We met so briefly that I didn't expect you to still have them till now," Gakushuu said.
"Does that even matter?" He asked with an almost wry smile. Gakushuu's expression twitched.
"You can blame me, if you want. I hear disliking a part of someone you liked can help you get over your feelings for them," Gakushuu's lips turned up into a humourless smile. "You can dislike me if you want."
"I didn't expect you to be stupid, Gakushuu," Kevin rolled his eyes, his upset expression nowhere to be found. "It's true that I like you but I've had some time to come to terms with it. And I'm the kind of guy who gets over upsets like this pretty quick," he grinned. "Also, I doubt a line like that actually works on people."
"It does," Gakushuu hummed, "sometimes."
"I'll be honest, those sometimes seem pretty shitty," Kevin said.
Gakushuu smiled faintly in reply.
Kevin was as blunt and frank as always. One of the reasons why Gakushuu rarely thought they would fall out.
Kevin would rarely let his problems with anyone fester. He was outspoken to a ridiculous level.
Gakushuu worried for the football world for hosting such a boy.
The pole toppling event was something that people actually got excited for.
Not only was Gakushuu on one side, the other side had class E students who had shown rapid improvement in sports. Aside from the students who single-mindedly trained for their respective sports, class E had dominated most of the top rankings.
It was unprecedented.
Which meant, it was exciting.
The crowd gathered to watch the pole toppling.
"No pressure of anything," Ren sighed, his eyes on the mass of people just outside.
Mori snorted.
"Well, let's get started," Gakushuu stretched his arms. They frowned.
"But you haven't even told us the plan," Miya asked, a frown on his face.
"I haven't, have I?" He smirked. "Well, then, you better get to it then."
Class A stared at Gakushuu blankly.
"What?"
"You better get started on making a plan then," Gakushuu smiled sweetly at the class. "I'll stand guard, and Kevin will go after the other pole. But aside from that, you can command either of us. You will lead me today."
Then Gakushuu smiled at the gaping faces.
Ren let out a wordless scream of fury.
"You should have said it before! Not ten minutes before we're supposed to go against them!" Gakushuu shrugged, a smile still on his face.
"Working well under pressure is a sign of a good commander," he nodded. "So better get to it."
"Fuck," Chika whispered, dropping his head in his hands. The one time he managed to attend a sports festival was going to be a complete fuck up.
Gakushuu laughed.
Gakushuu looked at the scrambled mess of a plan in front of him and wanted to laugh.
Well, it wasn't terrible.
But they had really panicked.
He hummed acknowledgingly.
They looked at Gakushuu desperately.
"No advice?" Ren asked. Gakushuu paused for effect.
"Well… I'll only tell you one thing. Remember to account for enemy movement," Gakushuu said.
Class A silently cursed Gakushuu out.
"Mori should take the lead here," he tapped one of the teams, then he stared back unperturbed at the irate class A.
Class A stared back bewildered.
"This is going to suck," Chika groaned to himself. Ren silently agreed watching Gakushuu look at them like new born hatchlings about to fly.
There were two heavy poles on either side of the field and the class A surrounded one, and class E surrounded the other.
Gakushuu met Karma's eyes and winked.
Isogai commanded two students to start off, and Gakushuu raised a brow. Ren commanded Kevin and Chika to go and they got thrown out, easily enough.
Gakushuu was the only one staring at the two, who pretended to be dead before subtly picking themselves up to disappear within the crowd. He hummed silently.
Class A divided up, and Mori glanced up at Gakushuu once, and met eyes staring back unmoved. He 'tsk'ed but obediently fulfilled his role, taking a team out to go after the class E team which had Karma.
Gakushuu looked down at the spread out students and smirked.
Then he met Isogai's eyes from across the field. He swallowed nervously, staring back at Gakushuu like he was the demon king of some sort.
Ren glanced back at Gakushuu before he led a team out.
Gakushuu stood in front of the pole alone.
The two students who had disappeared off into the crowd tried to jump him, and he smoothly took out their legs from under them, not moving more than necessary.
Then Karma's team came back, and Ren cursed from stumbling over chairs. Mori left his team behind, to move forward and hold a few students down with his sheer weight.
Gaksuhuu looked at the students rushing him, and met them halfway, leaving the pole unattended to dispatch anyone who tried to close in.
He grabbed people trying to sneak past, and threw them into the crowd of students like a ball to pins.
He caught Itona's startled gaze as Terasaka caught him, falling over himself.
Crowd control was easy as long as he was controlling the pace. But judging from their expressions, Gakushuu doubted the flow would favour him for much longer.
He caught Mori's eyes and whipped his head towards the other team's pole.
He nodded, setting out to help fell the pole.
Which was about when Gakushuu saw the blank expression on Kevin's face. An expression he was intimately familiar with.
The pole was about to fall on Kevin and he was moving just slowly enough to not avoid it.
It would look like an accident.
A sports event gone wrong.
A rising star of football being clumsy at just the wrong moment. And not only would all the blame would smoothly fall on class E, but Kevin's career might just end before he even started off properly.
Gakushuu felt panic and anger rise up in equal measures.
He abandoned the game.
Class E won.
But only because Gakushuu left the pole completely unattended.
He ran fast enough to surpass Mori who was halfway between the poles, running for the class E pole, not noticing the injury about to take place in front of him.
Gakushuu fractured his arm, holding the pole up so he could kick Kevin out of the way, before he let the pole drop just a few moments after class E toppled theirs.
Both classes surrounded the two, and Ren and Anaya exchanged glances when Kevin admitted to not knowing what happened.
Gakushuu sent Kevin to the hospital before he went to confront his father.
This had gone on long enough.
"This has gone on long enough," Gakuhou said. "How long will you continue to defy me?"
"When will you stop trying to hurt my friends?" Gakushuu answered the question with another question. His tone was mocking.
Gakuhou narrowed his eyes, sensing hostility.
"He was a tool," Gakuhou said slowly, assessing Gakushuu's reaction.
" He is a human being. A human being with dreams , with plans and hopes for the future . Not your pawn for you to play with," Gakushuu glared his father down.
Gakuhou's eyes flashed with fury. He stood up, not nearly towering over Gakushuu enough for his fury to subside.
"Did you think I wouldn't notice? Did you think that I would play along ?" Gakushuu hissed out the end.
Gakuhou caught Gakushuu's chin. He flinched in response. Gakuhou's hold was firm, and Gakushuu could almost feel the amount of restraint it was taking for Gakuhou to not simply slap him across the face.
He shut up, but he knew Gakuhou could feel the clenching of his jaw as he tampered down his desire to speak out.
"You will not speak to me like that," Gakuhou warned, his eyes were ice cold, shadowed, and stared down at Gakushuu like he didn't share his flesh and blood.
He looked at Gakushuu like he was running out of reasons why he even kept him around.
Gakuhou had always felt his father's twisted concern. Even in his anger and frustration, through their fights and his random decisions to run away, or make choices that didn't make sense to Gakuhou.
He could feel his patience running out.
When Gakushuu left the office, his classmates tried to look for an injury on his body, they tried to peak inside the office for signs of a fight, for signs of blood spilled.
But there was nothing.