Around the time Ness was placed on an infirmary bed, his dreams started to sour. They turned from distant memories of his and Kaiser's friendship to recent memories of Kaiser's disgusted face calling Ness pathetic. Maybe the rough texture of the bed sheets triggered this switch in his subconscious thoughts, or perhaps the loss of another person's body heat from Isagi putting him down. Either way, Ness's mind was filled with every time Kaiser pulled his hair, or forced him to bow to Yoichi, or called him pathetic. It was all playing on loop in his dreams.
Isagi looked at Ness, tossing and turning under the white infirmary sheets. He had absolutely no clue what to do. All he knew was that he didn't like the sight of Alexis Ness lying in an infirmary bed, brows furrowed, tossing and turning. Something about it made him feel like there was a pit in his stomach.
Isagi sat on one of the vacant beds and watched Ness's fitful sleep. He wasn't sure why he didn't just leave and go back to practice, but he felt like staying with Ness was the right thing to do in the moment. Plus, even though most of the words he had traded with the midfielder were insults, he still felt a strange warmth whenever he was near him. At first, he dismissed that warmth as rage or annoyance, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized it was something different. Something pleasant.
Isagi became hyperaware that he was staring at Ness when he started to notice him mouthing words. He had no idea what he was mouthing because no matter how good his translater buds were, they still couldn't make Ness's mouth move in Japanese. So, he got closer to Ness, jumping off the vacant bed and kneeling right in front of Ness's face. He could barely decipher the words 'Kaiser,' 'sorry,' and 'pathetic' from Ness's sleep-talking, but it painted a clear enough picture for Isagi to be sure Ness was having a nightmare.
"What do you do when someone's having a nightmare?" Isagi asked himself, trying to distract himself from how pissed off just the mention of Kaiser's name made him.
"You get the fuck out of their face," Ness said, eyes slowly opening and then closing once again to adjust to the light. When Ness opened his eyes again, Isagi was standing at the foot of the bed.
"S--Sorry," Isagi stuttered sheepishly, scratching the back of his neck.
Ness sat up on the bed. He looked around and was disappointed to find that only he and Isagi were in the infirmary. What else did I expect? No one cares about me; I don't even know why Yoichi is here. Ness thought.
"Why are you here?" Ness asked, standing up and stretching.
"I was, um, worried about you." Isagi looks away, a slight blush on his cheeks.
Ness's face scrunched up in disgust; he had absolutely no interest in making Isagi Yoichi worry about him. The last thing he wanted was the source of his problems pretending to care about him.
"Well, don't," Ness said with an air of finality and stood up from the bed, preparing to make his way back to practice.
"Wait! How could I not worry about someone who just threw up and passed out during practice?" Isagi grabbed Ness's arm to prevent him from leaving.
"Don't pretend like you suddenly give a shit about me!" Ness yelled back at him. No one gives a shit about me. He thought.
Isagi was taken aback by Ness's yelling, but he recovered quickly. "I'm not pretending. Just listen!"
"Listen? To you? In your dreams, shitty clown." Ness scoffed, pulling his arm out of Isagi's grasp and turning around.
"I want to know why you really threw up. I know you didn't eat anything at breakfast, so it couldn't have been that." Isagi said.
"I want to know why this is any of your business! And how the fuck do you know if I ate breakfast or not? Were you watching me?" Ness said, turning back around and dawning an even more disgusted expression.
Isagi blushed brighter this time. "That's not important!" He exclaimed. "What's important is you're sick, and it doesn't seem like you've told anyone about it."
Does he know? Ness thought. Does he know that I make myself throw up when I'm stressed? Does he know that it's all his fault? Does he know that I hate myself?
"I'm not fucking sick, shitty Yoichi! You don't know shit about me!" Ness yelled.
"Why would you be throwing up if you aren't sick?" Isagi questioned, more to himself than to Ness. Then he realized, because luck had never been on Ness's side.
"Are you making yourself throw up on purpose?" Isagi said, his voice softening.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. FUCK. Why him? Why now? Why?
"Fuck you, Yoichi!" Ness stormed out of the infirmary.
About halfway through the hallway, Ness ran straight into Noel Noa.
"Ness? Why are you crying?" Noa asked with uncertainty. It wasn't his first time seeing Ness cry, but no matter how many times he saw his tears, he still didn't know how to react. Usually, one of the other couches would deal with Ness's fits back in Germany.
"Just leave me alone!" Ness pushed past Noa and ran down the hallway. He didn't know where he was going, but he knew he had to get far away.
Ness ran for maybe two minutes before he switched to walking. In those two minutes, he had managed to get completely lost. Looking around at the hallways and doors, he could tell he wasn't in the German stratum. Normally, he would have knocked on a door and asked for directions back to his stratum, but with tears streaming down his face, he didn't want anyone to see him.
As Ness was trying to retrace his steps in his head, he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. He turned around to find a somewhat unfamiliar face looking at him in surprise.
"Alexis Ness, right?" Chigiri Hyoma asked.
Ness quickly wiped his tears and tried to appear as mentally stable as possible. He didn't do a very good job, but he assumed that trying would at least make him look a little less gone.
"Yes, that's me. Do you need something?" He gave a tight smile.
"No, not really. I was just wondering what you were doing in the English stratum." Chigiri said, trying not to address the elephant in the room.
"I was just going for a walk," Ness said.
"But why are you in the English stratum?" Chigiri questioned again. It seemed like there was something else he wanted to ask, probably, 'What are you doing in front of my door crying?'
"I got lost," Ness replied simply.
Chigiri looked at him with something that Ness read as pity. In reality, it was more sympathy than anything else.
"Do you want to come in?" Chigiri motioned towards the door.
"Why would I--" Before Ness could finish, Chigiri opened the door and pulled him inside. He was so quick Ness didn't have time to pull away.
"Alright, why were you crying?" Chigiri demanded, pushing Ness onto his bed.
"What?" Ness asked, confused as to how he got into this situation.
"I want to know why you were crying." Chigiri's tone softened as he sat on his bed next to Ness.
"Why should I tell you that?" Ness asked. Why do you care? Nobody cares about me. Not even my own parents care about me. He thought.
"So I can help you," Chigiri answered.
"Why do you want to help me? I don't even know you." Ness looked towards the door, thinking of all the excuses he could make to escape this situation.
"I'm Chigiri Hyoma. You can call me Chigiri," He introduced himself with a smile. "And it doesn't matter why I want to help you. Just know I'm something like the therapist of my friend group." He finished with a fond look on his face.
"Well, I'm not one of your friends, nor do I need a therapist," Ness stated firmly.
"Just tell me why you were crying, and I'll let you leave," Chigiri said.
Ness looked down at the floor, weighing his options. He could confess his life's secret to someone he didn't even know, or he could bolt out the door. He chose to take a chance.
"I was crying because of Yoichi," Ness whispered. If Chigiri hadn't been right next to him, he would have missed it.
"Isagi? What did he do?" Chigiri questioned, a surprised look on his face.
Make Kaiser look at him, call me Kaiser's boy toy, take Kaiser's attention away from me, make Kaiser hate me, figure out that I make myself throw up... His thoughts trailed off there. Ness didn't know which one of these he wanted to tell the most, so he settled on the one that happened most recently.
"He found out a secret of mine," Ness said.
"What kind of secret?" Chigiri asked; his nosiness was getting the better of him.
"One that I've been keeping my whole life," Ness answered as vaguely as possible.
Chigiri made a hand motion that said, 'Go on,' and looked at Ness expectantly.
"Ness, I can't help you unless you tell me more than that," He said.
Ness looked at the door, praying that one of Chigiri's roommates would come in and interrupt them. Unfortunately, God never answered Ness's prayers.
"Hello, Earth to Ness?" Chigiri waved a hand in front of Ness's face.
Ness looked back at Chigiri and took a deep breath. If he tells anyone, I can just lie about it, and it will feel good to get this off my chest. He thought.