All the forwards want me all to themselves - Chapter 6

Following the team matches, there was a scheduled period for physical conditioning. During a break in training, the members of Team Z found themselves thinking about their injured teammate.

“I wonder how Chigiri is doing,” Isagi Yoichi murmured.

“Let’s go check on him then,” Bachira Meguru suggested.

Once training concluded, the group headed toward the infirmary.

Inside, hearing the approaching footsteps, Chigiri Hyoma couldn’t help but turn his gaze toward the door.

Over the past few days, that strange doctor had come by occasionally to evaluate the condition of his leg. Though the doctor had seemed ill-tempered at first glance, he was unexpectedly easy to talk to. Even when Chigiri had protested after eating porridge for several meals in a row, the doctor actually agreed to change it. The food he was getting now was even better than what was served in the Blue Lock cafeteria.

Would it be him this time? Or perhaps that grumpy, blond attendant?

As the footsteps drew closer, Isagi Yoichi’s face appeared, followed closely by the rest of Team Z.

It’s not him.

Chigiri couldn’t quite describe the feeling that flickered through him. Nevertheless, he pulled himself together and greeted his former teammates.

“Chigiri, how are you feeling now?” Isagi asked.

“I’m alright. I just don’t know when my leg will recover,” Chigiri replied with a bitter smile.

“It’ll get better eventually,” Isagi said dryly, struggling to find the right words of comfort.

“Thanks, Isagi. But if you think I’m just going to stay depressed like this, you’re dead wrong,” Chigiri said, his tone shifting. “You’ve been training hard lately, haven’t you? Go ahead and run for a while—just make sure you don’t let an injured guy like me catch up to you later.”

“Ah, I’ll be waiting for you up ahead,” Isagi said, his spirit lifting.

“Wait, wait! I have a question,” Bachira raised his hand curiously. “So, is the doctor in the infirmary really that good-looking?”

Kira Ryosuke added, “Yeah, I’m curious too.”

Under the inquisitive stares of the group, Chigiri cleared his throat softly. “Well, about that…”

“What, is everyone so interested in me?”

An unfamiliar voice rang out from behind the group.

Isagi started in surprise. He had been focusing most of his attention on Chigiri, but there was no reason he shouldn’t have noticed someone getting that close!

Isagi whipped around. The first thing he saw was a pair of nonchalant black eyes.

The newcomer had black hair, with a small braid tucked into the left side. He wore a mask that obscured his expression, but the bone structure visible beneath his eyes was clearly superior. He wasn’t wearing a standard white doctor’s coat; instead, he stood there with his arms crossed, watching them.

“Visiting the sick? There are too many of you. Don’t disturb the patient’s rest.”

In truth, Icarus was thinking about how he hadn’t delivered today’s portion of blood yet. He had been planning to wait until Chigiri fell asleep to quietly feed it to him through his lips, only to find the room packed with people.

He needed a reason to get rid of them.

Before Icarus could speak again, Bachira excitedly leaned in. “Are you the doctor? This is the first time we’ve seen you!”

“…I think it’s better if you don’t see me,” Icarus said, tilting his head.

Standing in the crowd, Kira Ryosuke looked at the profile of the man claiming to be a doctor and blinked slowly. As if sensing the gaze, the man glanced back at him before speaking.

“Alright, I need to examine the patient now. All of you, get back to what you were doing.”

Hurry up and go back to training, don’t slack off in the infirmary, Icarus thought.

He breathed a quiet sigh of relief as the group of visitors finally filed out. He wondered why that white-haired guy kept staring at him; it made him worry that his desire to kick them out had been too obvious.

The ward fell silent. Following his routine, Icarus checked the state of Chigiri’s leg and nodded in satisfaction.

At this rate, Chigiri would recover before the next selection. However, the missed training volume during this period might be hard to make up; Chigiri would likely be exhausted in the next round.

Given Chigiri’s recovery speed, people on the outside would probably call it a medical miracle. Icarus had played a small trick, telling Chigiri that the ACL wasn’t completely torn, only slightly frayed to quell his suspicions.

“Take your medicine.”

Icarus finished his checkup and tilted his chin toward the tablets and water on the table.

“Alright, alright.”

Chigiri complied obediently. Moments later, he felt a wave of drowsiness wash over him.

The room grew still. Soon, a sweet liquid with a faint metallic tang entered his mouth.

Again… just what secret are you hiding?

That pair of calm, dark eyes flashed through Chigiri’s mind before he lost consciousness. He thought about it dizzily as he sank into a deeper darkness.

The strange doctor hadn’t appeared for two days. In his place was the blond youth who usually followed him around.

As the blond boy set down the medicine and prepared to leave, Chigiri couldn’t help but call out to him.

“Excuse me”

“Ewan,” the boy interrupted.

“Ewan, why haven’t I seen the doctor?” Chigiri tried to make his concern sound justified. “What is the status of my leg? Can the doctor tell me?”

Ewan glanced at the red-haired boy’s heavily wrapped leg and dropped a single sentence before leaving without looking back: “It will be fine before the next selection.”

Chigiri’s heart skipped a beat. Although he had suspected as much, hearing a definitive confirmation allowed a thread of joy to wind through his heart.

Wait, but where is the doctor?

At that moment, Icarus was lying in bed. His pale cheeks were flushed with a faint feverish red, and a cooling patch was stuck to his forehead.

Ever since he started feeding his blood to Chigiri, Icarus had felt lightheaded. After pushing himself for several days to treat patients, prescribe medicine, and monitor the forwards’ data, he had finally collapsed.

In his daze, he remembered he hadn’t prescribed Chigiri’s new medicine. Forcing himself to write the prescription, he had Ewan who refused to leave his side go prepare it, ignoring Ewan’s foul mood.

A moment later, that familiar blond hair reappeared in his field of vision. Icarus asked groarily, “Is the medicine ready?”

“I watched him take it,” Ewan said softly, suppressing his frustration. “You’re sick yourself. Stop worrying so much.”

“It’s not worrying,” Icarus replied sleepily. “What if he’s the one who can become the world’s number one forward?”

Ewan fell silent.

He didn’t understand why the young master of the Cecil family was so obsessed with cultivating the world’s greatest forward. But if this was what Master Icarus wanted to do, he was willing to follow.

The condition was that Master Icarus shouldn’t harm his own body for irrelevant people. Remembering the scent of blood he had smelled in the infirmary every day lately, Ewan gritted his teeth.

Hearing the sound of steady breathing, Ewan saw that Icarus had fallen back asleep. He rose quietly, taking one last look at the boy buried in the pillows before closing the door.

The room returned to darkness.

After an unknown amount of time, Icarus woke up with a start.

He felt as though he had been dreaming someone familiar had said something to him in the dream. He had a feeling it was an important sentence, but now that he was awake, he couldn’t recall it at all.

How annoying being sick means lying in bed all day instead of playing soccer.

Having been off the field for days, every bone in his body was screaming to play. Icarus pressed the back of his hand against his burning forehead.

Yay, there doesn’t seem to be a temperature difference. He must be better.

In his muddled state, Icarus didn’t realize that since his whole body was hot, he wouldn’t be able to feel a difference by touching his forehead with his own hand. His mind was entirely consumed by the urge to play.

He staggered out of bed and swayed his way out the door. It just so happened that Ewan had gone to a secluded spot to call the eldest son of the Cecil family, so he didn’t realize the person he was caring for had sneaked away.

Icarus turned a corner and headed for the nearest pitch.

It was the middle of the night. There shouldn’t be anyone here wait, have I said that before?

The thought flashed by as he pushed open the doors to the field.

Swish—!

Sure enough, every time he thought that, there was someone on the pitch.

Are all these Blue Lock guys night owls? Who’s the vampire here, me or them?

Since there was someone there, Icarus didn’t bother changing pitches. The field was huge anyway. He found an area far away from the other person and started kicking the ball around for his own amusement.

Nagi Seishiro hadn’t cared who had entered. Aside from Isagi Yoichi, who had defeated him, he didn’t care about anyone else.

Well, except for Reo. But Reo was sleeping, so it couldn’t be him.

Nagi trapped the ball with ease and executed a clean, sharp shot that caught Icarus’s attention.

Oh, it’s Nagi Seishiro.

Wait a minute, aren’t you the one who loves to slack off and sleep the most? Why are you here practicing in the middle of the night!

However.

Watching the other man’s beautiful ball control, Icarus’s eyes lit up, and he rubbed his hands together. In a competitive sport like soccer, it was always better when there was someone to compete against.

Conveniently choosing to forget the fact that he still had a fever, he issued an invitation.

“Hey, let’s compete.”

Nagi originally had no intention of responding to a stranger. He was about to refuse when he was caught off guard by a pair of cool, dark eyes.

“Um…” He found himself agreeing involuntarily. “Okay.”

“Great!”

Seeing the sudden smile in those dark eyes, Nagi felt that agreeing wasn’t such a bad idea. After all, the night was still long.

“You’re good at trapping the ball, right? Let’s see who has better trap-and-shoot technique.” Icarus flicked the ball up with his heel and kicked it toward Nagi. “You go first.”

Nagi didn’t hold back. Taking the ball Icarus sent his way, he trapped it with his toe, swung his body around with his back almost entirely to the net, and followed through with a kick.

Goal!

“This is interesting,” Icarus said. He took the next ball fired from the automated training machine, trapped it with the side of his foot without pausing, and sent it flying into the goal.

Nagi watched the stranger’s practiced movements.

This person is strong.

He made the judgment almost instantly. The trapping motion was crisp and decisive; the moment the ball was launched, Icarus was already in the perfect position to receive it. To achieve this, one needed both excellent dynamic vision and absolute body control.

He hadn’t seen this person in Blue Lock before, nor in the other tournament brackets.

Who exactly is he?