Second
Disclaimer: I do not own Galactik Football and I make no money from this fanfiction.
Artegor had always had the best of everything; he'd lived a privileged life, his parents had always insisted on the highest quality on everything from something as petty as the buttons on clothes to the more important things; it was a matter of pride. For him it was just a fact of life.
He wanted more than that though, it wasn't enough simply to possess the best, he wanted to be the best too. He could have sat on his inheritance; he chose to become a footballer instead with the goal of becoming the best striker in the Galaxy. It seemed perfectly reasonable to him; 'no' wasn't a word he was accustomed to hearing.
He'd never had a lover but it was only reasonable that when he did that he would be the best.
He found, much to his frustration, that it doesn't work that way.
When he first met Aarch he had hated him, he was equally good at football as Artegor and that made him a rival. Artegor was an only child; he had never learned to share.
It hadn't taken much for Artegor to fall for Aarch. He'd lived a sheltered life; he'd never met anyone like Aarch before. The talent that had made him hate Aarch became one of the things he loved most about him.
No matter what he did though, Aarch never noticed him as anything more than a friend. It was frustrating, the entire experience was so unsatisfying, he was the best- Aarch was the best, it made sense that they should be together.
But they weren't. Artegor wasn't used to not getting what he wanted.
Norata had always been used to being second best, with Aarch around it was just natural that he'd take second place. He'd never really minded, it was just the way things were. He always tried his hardest, with football, with everything and if he didn't come first then that was no big deal.
He played Defence and he played it well, he didn't get as much praise as the Strikers did but knew that his role was valuable to the team nonetheless.
Perhaps if Aarch had been boastful or cruel to Norata then he might have resented him but Aarch never treated him like anything less than an equal; he treated everyone that way- it was one of the best things about him.
Norata had been in love with a girl named Keira for many years but he'd never really spoken to her. She had a Saturday job at the florist his father owned and Norata had admired her cautiously from a distance but was never able to pluck up the courage to speak to her. He was resigned the thought that a girl like that would never go for someone like him. He was grateful for the fact that she and Aarch had never met, girls seemed to invariably fall for him and that would have just been too cruel.
It hadn't been a good day for Artegor, the day he ended up in Norata's room. In fact it hadn't been a good month. He'd been hanging onto the hope that Aarch would come around it time and see how suited they were for each other. A hope that was solidly crushed when Aarch started dating Adium.
It was sickening, the way she clung onto him like a parasite, her actions always boasting of her hold over him. It was maddening to Artegor because she was all wrong for him, she was a defender and football definitely wasn't her life like it was for the two of them. She made Aarch go shopping with her and everything! Even worse it was throwing Artegor off his game.
The fatal blow came when he was 'politely' asked to leave the room for a night so that they could have some alone time. That had been Adium's idea (Aarch wouldn't have been so forward of his own volition) but Aarch had been all too happy to go along with it. Hence Aarch had come up with the oh-so brilliant plan that Artegor could sleep in Norata's room seeing as Norata had a double room but no room-mate seeing as there was an odd number of players on a team.
Needless to say he was not in the best of moods.
Norata wasn't too happy either, he didn't really know Artegor that well and he didn't particularly want to have to spend his free time coming up with ways to entertain him. They couldn't just ignore each other for the whole evening- that would just be awkward but he didn't know what they had to talk about and somehow he didn't think that playing a board game would be up Artegor's street.
When Artegor arrived at his door, with an expression like storm clouds, Norata knew the night was going to be even more difficult than he anticipated.
Norata sighed and let him in; pointing to the spare bed to which Artegor walked towards and sat down awkwardly- perching on the edge due to the unfamiliarity of the bed. After a second he also let go of the bag of stuff he had been clenching and dumped it on the floor. Norata looked at him uncomfortably wondering whether Artegor was going to bite his head off if he said the wrong thing.
Nevertheless, he had to at least try to get along, at least for the time being. He tried to think what Aarch would do in this situation but he drew a blank.
"So…looking forward to the Lightnings vs. Technoids match tomorrow," Norata asked, trying to sound as natural as possible. Football was a safe, predictable topic of conversation.
"Yes," Artegor answered, stiffly, although from his tone he didn't sound too enthused; in fact he sounded almost upset.
Norata knew it wasn't him but he had to wonder what was going on with Artegor. He knew it was inconvenient for him to have to leave his room, but it was only for one night. He knew that he was a step down from Aarch as a room-mate but it wasn't as if he was repulsive or anything.
As much as he wanted to know what was going through Artegor's head he knew better than to ask.
Instead he was cowardly and excused himself from the room with the excuse that he needed to use the toilet. He hurried into the en-suite, sat on the edge of the bath and let himself panic for a moment, this was going to be a nightmare, why had Aarch lumped this upon him? He had nothing against Artegor but he just wasn't equipped to deal with him- he knew very little about him and what he knew was all based on what Aarch had told him.
He had come up with no solid plan before he realised that staying in there too long would look suspicious, so he flushed the unused toilet and washed his hands so that it would appear that he really had used the bathroom for its proper purpose rather than as a sanctuary away from the burgeoning tension in the room.
He stepped out the door, giving Artegor that forced, awkward smile usually reserved for distant relations when they came to stay.
For his part, Artegor looked slightly more composed than he had before; his face was carefully sculpted into a mask of total neutrality, like he was merely indifferent to the situation at hand. It was so perfect that it couldn't have been anything but false. Norata still couldn't pinpoint the source of Artegor's apparent emotional turmoil so he decided that perhaps the best option was to take his mind of it- at least to make things bearable until it was time to go to sleep.
"Let's play cards," he said, figuring it was better not to give his a choice in the matter. It was what Aarch would have done.
Artegor just blinked then nodded, not looking entirely enthused.
Norata dug out his pack of cards from his bedside table and went over to sit with Artegor on the spare bed. He took the cards out of the packet and shuffled them for a minute.
"Which game do you want to play?" he asked, nervously.
Artegor shrugged. "I'm not too familiar with card games."
"I guess we should start out simple then, how about snap?"
Artegor nodded and they started to play.
An hour later and they had moved on to playing 'Old Maid.' Artegor was good at card games despite his earlier protestations that he was not well acquainted with them, he won most times. The atmosphere had lightened considerably in the time they had been playing- there was still an air of odd formality that just came along with Artegor but it wasn't a frosty one- it was comfortable enough anyways.
Artegor scrutinised the back of the cards as if that would somehow give him the x ray vision to allow him to avoid the dreaded 'old maid' card that lay somewhere in Norata's hand of cards. He took the whole game entirely too seriously, it was a competition and as always, he wanted to win. Not to mention it stopped him thinking about Aarch for two minutes.
He dithered further, he was close to winning but picking the wrong card could be just the turn around that Norata needed.
Norata sat there and waited patiently. There was no rush. He couldn't tell what Artegor was thinking, mostly because of the sunglasses that covered his eyes, he would have complained of an unfair advantage but they seemed to be getting along and he didn't want to ruin it, Aarch had told him that Artegor was touchy about the sunglasses, it was a miracle that he took them off when they were on the pitch- Aarch had also said that he slept with them on but Norata thought that he must have been joking about that.
Artegor got in even closer, looking harder at the cards, instinctively Norata pulled them closer to his chest so that Artegor couldn't get a look- he wasn't about to let him cheat.
Artegor's hand hovered over several cards before plucking one out decisively. Then he stopped, froze, Norata wondered whether he was reconsidering and pondered whether he would let him pick another card seeing as he hadn't actually looked at it yet.
Instead Artegor leant forward ever so slightly and brushed his lips lightly against Norata's. It took a minute for Norata's brain to process what had just happened. It had just happened from nowhere.
It felt right in some way though, cautiously, he started to respond in kind. He'd never been kissed before tonight.
Artegor deepened the kiss, venting all his frustration with Aarch, knowing exactly what he was doing now. Norata was Aarch's brother, his flesh and blood, the closest match, the next best thing. He could settle for second for now.
They had both dropped their cards, but neither was really aware of it, they just lay scattered, forgotten across the bed. Artegor's sunglasses bumped into Norata's nose causing Norata to pull away for a minute. Feeling weirdly confident he pulled the glasses off Artegor's face and set them down on the table beside the bed and then quickly resumed their prior activity.
Artegor tugged at Norata's shirt, pulling it off over his head, and then doing the same for himself. Pale skin met pale skin; they were too similar, always trailing after Aarch in one way or another, both longing for someone else entirely.
The next morning, Aarch came over bright and early to check on them and tell Artegor that the coast was clear, that he could come back to his own room. He was positively glowing with happiness which only made Artegor feel worse.
The room was tidy by the time Aarch got there, they'd removed all traces of the night's activity, put away the scattered cards. He might have sensed the odd atmosphere but he was in such a good mood that he was completely oblivious.
Artegor slunk out of room, feeling slightly ashamed but reassured in the knowledge that neither of them would tell what had happened that night- it was a silent agreement, just obvious.
Artegor shook of the feeling of guilt and reassured himself that now he'd had the consolation prize he was even more determined to go for gold.
I honestly sat down fully intending to write the next chapter of The Obscured Path, but this happened instead. I don't know how these things keep happening. Please review!