Sound and Complication
Disclaimer: I do not own Galactik Football and I make no money from this fanfiction.
It was surprisingly hard for Artegor to remember anything in particular from his childhood; looking back he just saw a void, a silent expanse of time in which nothing worthy of note occurred.
His house had always been quiet, the loudest sounds were always from objects, never from people; although his parents had lived there too, it always seemed like he was alone in that house. They rarely spoke to him but to give him instruction, they rarely spoke to each other either- they were locked in their own private little war, fought exclusively through icy glares and acts of passive aggression. They were firmly of the belief that children should be seen and not heard and the seeing part wasn't absolutely essential either. His mother occasionally suffered fits of sentimentality, telling Artegor she loved him, fussing over him. But these periods were few and far between; his father never showed him any affection at all.
He'd never really thought about it, he wasn't sure what it was he thought about really- except football and even then he couldn't remember how the idea of it had entered his mind. He'd had an old fashioned football, one with black and white patches; it had belonged to a great-uncle of his. The black and white of the football always reminded him of the black and white of the piano keys or the squares of a chess board. He'd played the piano sometimes, just to hear something, anything, other than the occasional creak of floorboards.
The lack in his early years had left him with a void in his heart that he hadn't ever been consciously aware of until he got out of that house and into the wider world.
He left without telling them, he wasn't sure they'd even notice anyway, and besides, he had nothing to say to either of them. He'd learned to use words sparingly, as a limited resource, he felt like there were only so many inside him that he couldn't afford to waste them.
He knew where he was going; he'd always known he was heading for the Akillian Football Team. He wasn't running away from home, he was running towards his dream, his only dream. He'd never had anyone to tell him that you shouldn't set all your sights on one thing, that you should have a back-up plan in case everything didn't turn out the way you wanted.
He never needed a back up plan. He practically just walked onto the Team without any great amount of trouble, and once he joined, it was like he'd always been there, he was easy to overlook.
His own attentions, however, had been drawn immediately to the Team's Captain. Aarch.
Aarch was always surrounded by people; he was the central hub in a network of family and friends. Even from the start it was apparent that Aarch was all sound and complication.
He couldn't honestly say when his attraction had really begun; it seemed strange because the obsession had dominated his life for so many years. He kept thinking that if he could work out how it started, if he could work out any of this, somehow everything would be better.
After his first match, the Akillian Team threw a party, for they had won. This was the normal occurrence, he had been led to believe, but it was anything but normal for him. The overwhelming buzz of chatter and music, the clacking of heels against the metallic floor, it was all too much for him. After about ten minutes of standing alone, he ducked behind a curtain, knowing that he went completely unnoticed by everyone there. Except for one person, the person at the centre of it all.
He took deep breaths, the quiet wrapping itself around him like a protective cloak.
His peace doesn't last long, somehow Aarch managed to slip away from his place with his friends, and follows Artegor there. The others miss him and wonder where he went, his absence glaringly obvious, although no attempt is made to find him.
Aarch sits down, opposite him, without asking whether or not he could.
"I guess you don't like parties much," Aarch said, opening the conversation as if they were best friends already.
"No," he said, not wanting to admit that it was his first. He'd eavesdropped on the parties that his parent's had thrown occasionally, but that wasn't the same as being invited.
"Me neither," Aarch replied and although Artegor felt certain that Aarch was lying to him, he couldn't help but wonder what had prompted him to say that. "We have something in common."
If they did indeed have something in common, it was football, for there all possible similarities ended. They were as distinct as black and white, already Artegor made that comparison, rationalising and imposing the dichotomy on everything he saw. Anything, anyone, that was not a part of that was simply ignored. Aarch was masquerading as being the most simple of men, easy to understand and easier to talk to. It took someone on the outside to see that he was innately complex, containing within him a multitude. And although Artegor didn't know it, people were making the opposite assumption about him, and they were equally incorrect on that front.
In fact, Aarch was trying to get him to talk.
"Perhaps," Artegor said, despite the fact that he hated uncertainty. And everything with Aarch was filled with uncertainty.
"I'll see you later," Aarch stated, brushing past him, deliberately touching him on his exit from the curtained-off corner.
He could only feel in black or white; it was love now, it would be hatred later, opposite yet strangely similar. He'd never 'liked him', not now, not ever.
Later there'd be so many accounts of how they used to be friends, best friends even. Aarch could say that it was true but Artegor couldn't say that he'd ever considered Aarch his 'friend', the word sounded to weak in his mind, too grey, far too grey.
It was strange. Before the Ice-Age black had been worn at funerals. After the planet had been smothered in a blanket of snow that had all changed, white was the colour to fear, the addition of something rather than the lack.
They reached the pinnacle of their careers, their relationship, on the Shadows planet.
The Smog had suited Artegor; the sound it made was so deafening it was close to silence. The void that they travelled through in order to teleport felt like the home he had abandoned so long ago.
But the Smog wasn't right for Aarch, one had to be almost empty to be single-minded enough to use it, and that just wasn't him. When he left it was so easy for Artegor to consider him his enemy, for leaving him alone again, he'd been a hairsbreadth from hating him already. That day, that day he wasn't sure he even remembered correctly anymore, had just been the tipping point.
He'd never told Aarch he loved him. In fact, he'd never been able to say anything important, anything that mattered. He hid behind his declarations of eternal hatred, their true meanings shining through despite it all.
Even as they reconciled, he hated him, just as underneath, he'd continued to love him throughout their period of enmity.
Looking forward to the future, he couldn't imagine a scenario in which everything would all work out, it seemed impossible.
He looked to the future and all he saw was more white noise.
That's it for this fic. Please review; I really appreciate any feedback you could give me.