The hospital is surprisingly busy, Kazemaru notes as he walks up the stairs. Nurses and doctors hustle here and there, but he feels oddly detached from it all (shouts come from down the hall, the smell of citrus disinfectant permeates the air – he barely notices.) as he glances down at the paper in his hand. Second floor, room 224 – he repeats the instructions in his head as he walks through the halls. They aren't special words, but he rolls them around in his mind, narrowing his field of thought. No amount of time spent with Endou could make that handwriting any easier to read, so memorizing them was certainly easier in the long run.
The halls the defender walks through are lightly pink-tinted, growing dimmer as the sun goes down. He feels a little uncomfortable here, but he can't quite pinpoint why – he's been tense the past few days, but it's a different sort of unease. There's a feeling of hopelessness here. Though he's always been told "people come to hospitals to get better", recent events make it a little harder for him to focus on the optimistic side of a place like this.
"Hey mom, isn't that the boy we saw on television the other day?"
The questioning voice comes from down the hall a bit, where a young boy, cast on his arm, stands next to his mother, tugging on her sleeve. And they're both looking at the visitor, who ducks his head and keeps walking. Just look away, he tells himself. Kazemaru knows he doesn't have much of a right to complain, but the fact that he can't even leave his own home without someone recognizing him as captain of the late Dark Emperors is nerve-wracking. He's hardly stepped outside in the past week.
The last bit of wandering through the hospital he spends without making eye contact, not any nurses, or doctors or anyone. He can feel the stares of visitors and doctors on the back of his neck, and he can only imagine what they think of him. Almost everyone in the country saw Raimon fight Dark Emperors, but far fewer understood everything behind it – not that that he thinks it would excuse him from deserving their judging stares.
A sudden noise brings him to a halt in front of a room at the end of the hall – laughter. It's a laugh he's heard before, but happier than he recalls. There's another voice in the room as well, but it's too muffled for the defender to make out any words. With a bit of a jolt, Kazemaru looks at the door number and realizes that he's reached his destination.
He knocks on the door, a quick rap with his knuckles – his fist is clenched so tight, nail marks are left on his palm when he unfurls his fingers. Immediately the voices quiet down, and he can hear the scraping of a chair as it's pushed across the linoleum floor.
"Come in."
Ichirouta opens the door. He still feels a bit of surprise at seeing who's sitting in the hospital bed; no amount of forewarning could've prepared him completely.
It's Zeus' captain, Aphrodi.
Standing next to him, having just risen from his chair, is another player from Zeus; he's a brunet, with a dark scar across his forehead – but Kazemaru hasn't the faintest memory what his name was. He's not given any time to contemplate it. The mood was clearly ruined by his entrance, and the other boy scowls at him until the defender looks away, stomach sinking even further.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the brunet relax once again as he turns to talk to Aphrodi (who's still smiling, oddly enough).
"Will you stop by again tomorrow before you leave?" Aphrodi asks, in a tone so surprisingly gentle and… normal, that Kazemaru doubts for a second that it's the same person that Raimon had fought in the Football Frontier. That voice was haughty and loud and full of anger – but he can't see any signs of that in the boy in front of him. Maybe a bit strangely formal, but nothing he thinks twice about.
"When are you coming home?"
"As soon as the infection's mostly gone and I get the stitches out, I told you already." The brunet doesn't reply immediately, but rubs the scar on his forehead absentmindedly. "Are you going to stop by?"
"…Yeah." With that, and an awkward wave goodbye, he leaves the room, not even acknowledging Kazemaru as he exits. Kazemaru shuts the door, blocking out the noise of the hall.
With the visitor gone, he looks around the room. It's small, as most of the rooms in this hospital are; the window shades are pulled wide open and are letting in the last of the day's sunlight. There are flowers all along the windowsill, roses and lilies and carnations and more he can't name off the top of his head, and Kazemaru would swear he could smell them from across the room.
"Do you like them?" Aphrodi says suddenly. "Most of them are from Zeus, but those –" he gestures towards a particularly nice bunch of lilies "– Coach Hitomiko sent me." He pauses, and looks at them for a second with an almost nostalgic look on his face before turning back to Kazemaru. "Sit down."
Kazemaru obeys, but he remains remarkably confused – yes, Endou had told him about how Aphrodi had joined them, and how he was a genuinely good person. But the boy propped up in the bed in front of him is so shockingly different from when he'd last seen him, it's disconcerting. Honestly, he's a little intimidated. As much as Aphrodi seems changed, he can't get the image out of his head of all that anger, and raw strength and how ruthlessly he'd fought Raimon.
He's still doesn't know why he's here. All he was told was that "Aphrodi wants to talk to you" and an unsure shrug when asked about what, with a definite undertone of "you need to get out of your bedroom for the first time in a week".
"Sorry about Hera. He's a little irritable today, but he's really alright once you get to know him."
Hera must've been the brunet then, Ichirouta concludes. "Don't worry about it. Sorry for interrupting," he says – his first words to the blond since the match – but his voice doesn't match the words at all. They're strained, but he's too tired (emotionally and physically) right now to try harder than that. "Endou told me you wanted to talk to me." He's not quite frank enough to outright ask the question, but the statement is very pointed. The reaction he gets is a little underwhelming at first.
The blond says nothing for a minute, seemingly gathering his thoughts. He messes with a bit of hair around his face, and Kazemaru can't help but fixate on it. It's a bit annoying, but he's not going to tell the injured one what to do.
"I know when I say it like this, it sounds like I'm blaming you… but frankly, you were wrong."
Kazemaru's knuckles blanch as he grips the arms of the chair. He didn't need to be told that, it's not like he hasn't been repeating to those words to himself – and "wrong" is one of the kinder words he's been using.
"Endou-kun mentioned how you'd talked about wanting to drink the Aqua of the Gods." Aphrodi moves his eyes from Kazemaru, and back to the window again. It looks like he's remember something, but like he's trying to dig it up from the dregs of his mind, and he almost doesn't want to hear what the blond is about to say.
Sirens from an ambulance come from the street, several floors down.
When Aphrodi speaks again, there's a sterile formality to his voice. It's not quite devoid of emotion, but it's carefully regulated, like he doesn't want to imply that there's some emotional connection there. "Do you know what that drink was?"
Kazemaru looks at him questioningly – why would he? Why does it matter? At the time, what he knew is that it made Zeus so strong they were nearly unstoppable, and that's all that seemed important. "No, I don't."
"Neither do I." Aphrodi's expression stays serious, though the answer sounds to Kazemaru like the punchline to some sort of joke. "Some kind of chemical – there were security guards Kageyama hired; big, scary-looking men. They were afraid of drinking it." His voice shakes a little when he says "afraid", and Kazemaru's blood goes cold – he feels like he shouldn't be listening to this anymore. Like this, even though it's being shared with him, is something he shouldn't be privy to.
"I thought it would make me stronger," Kazemaru mumbles, looking down. He couldn't have known any of this.
"It does." Aphrodi turns from the window, turning to look at him, but Ichirouta doesn't look up. "But it takes away everything else."
It's probably not, Kazemaru knows on a logical level, but he can't hear the blond's words as anything but an accusation, and he tries so hard to stay civil, but barely two minutes into their conversation and he's already wondering how impolite it would be to leave.
As if Aphrodi could read his mind and detect the restlessness, the blond mutters a quiet apology. "I know you didn't know any of that. It's tempting, isn't it? The idea of having it all, all the power and all the glory."
"…Yeah."
There's a frustrating duality in that admittance. On one hand, the way Aphrodi says it isn't just apologetic, it's almost comforting; and though Kazemaru isn't sure he wants to admit it, saying it out loud is oddly cathartic. But on the other hand – there's no hiding from the decisions he made, and the reality of how futile hiding away is when the whole world knows of it settles in.
"What was it like for you?" The question's out of his mouth before he has time to really think about it, but Aphrodi doesn't seem affronted or anything. Just thoughtful.
The sun's just about below the horizon by now, but the last of the sun illuminates the midfielder's face, casting an ethereal glow about him. There's something oddly… delicate about him, Kazemaru realizes with a jolt.
"I didn't want to be a disappointment."
It's not just because he's lying in a hospital bed, but more of an intrinsic fragility, one that can't entirely be hidden by kind smiles, or charismatic smirks, or all the physical strength in the world. It's bizarrely comforting. Before, the way Aphrodi spoke to him wasn't unfriendly, but it felt a little artificial.
"I always felt like I needed to live up to these unreachable standards, and when I got the opportunity to reach them, I didn't think about anything but that."
Out of the corner of Kazemaru's eye, a bud falls to the windowsill from one of the flowers. The halo-like glow around Aphrodi's face has disappeared. But now what he feels is an unfamiliar calmness – one Ichirouta hasn't known in a long, long time.
"For a while, I thought no one would be able to forgive me, not my teammates, not Endou-kun, or the rest of Raimon, or everyone else I hurt." Aphrodi's words feel so familiar, like he was reading the defender's thoughts. And he doesn't seem distant anymore, like he's remembering something in the past; but speaking of the present, instead.
"But – people are a lot kinder than you think they'll be, you know." Ichirouta isn't entirely sure he believes that part, not because he doubts the kindness of the people around him, but because of the severity of what he's done, and how many saw.
"You're like me," Kazemaru says, a little incredulous. Aphrodi looks back with an expression that seems to say that of course he knows that, and the defender suddenly understands why Aphrodi wanted to talk to him. He leans back in the chair, and looks up at the ceiling, a little overwhelmed, but not entirely in a bad way. If anything, he feels hopeful.
The very fact that he's able to sit here, in front of the boy who commands a team that nearly crushed Raimon a mere few months ago, and understand and relate to him is unbelievable. But the midfielder understands – he understands what it's like to not feel strong enough, to never be satisfied with what you are on your own. Aphrodi hurt people too, and people saw him hurt them. They looked on with fear and disgust as Zeus tore through their opponents – just as people looked on when Dark Emperors challenged Raimon. A week ago, Aphrodi had fought alongside the team he'd hated so vehemently.
It makes the possibility of Kazemaru being alright in the end look just a little more likely.
As if recognizing that he's come to some kind of realization, the bed's occupant leans forward a bit and crosses his arms, a cheeky smile playing on the corner of his lips. "What are you going to do now, Kazemaru Ichirouta-kun?" he asks, not quite teasing, but pretty close. There's a hint of that old Aphrodi there, but Ichirouta supposes that's just how he is. Kind and thoughtful, yes, but also a little cheeky and slyly clever.
The question is a good one – of course, he feels much better, but there's still so many things left to repair, and a twinge of fear finds its way back into his mind at that. He steadies his breath. "I'll start from the beginning again," he says, starting off a little shaky. "I'll earn back the trust I lost. I'll play soccer the way I really want to." His voice gains confidence as he continues, and Aphrodi gives his answer an approving look. Although there's a moment of hesitation, worried it's a bit too forward, he smiles at the midfielder. "What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to try out for the Football Frontier International," he replies confidently, like the fact that he's confined to a bed at the moment means nothing to him. Ichirouta has a feeling that it doesn't, that no kind of bruising or breaking could stop him with his mind set on something. Zeus' captain quickly puts a finger to his lips as they twist into a smile. "Don't tell Endou-kun or the others, okay? It's a secret for now." (He adds a wink at the end, probably for good measure.)
When Kazemaru leaves Aphrodi's room to head back to the exit, some of the calm he'd felt in there evaporates. Of course a brief conversation couldn't solve everything, but he wishes he could walk back in, and sit down in that room that smelled like flowers and didn't feel like it was a hospital room, listen to Aphrodi more. Besides visiting hours being over, he knows he can't go back because he promised – if not in those exact words – that he'd move forward from now on.
It's grown unseasonably cold out, and there's a bitter wind that blows and cuts through his thin jacket, raising goosebumps on his skin. Kazemaru shoves his hands into his pockets and walks against the headwind.
Despite the cold, he smiles a bit.