Blue Lock never slept.

At that hour, the corridors were immersed in a familiar silence, broken only by the constant hum of electricity and the distant echo of some industrial ventilation system. It was too late to be productive for any ordinary person. For Jinpachi Ego, it was simply the time when the world finally stopped interfering.

In the analysis room, dozens of screens illuminated the space with graphs, heat maps, and paused replays at surgical moments: a poorly executed tackle, a second of hesitation before the goal, a wasted instinct. Ego sat in a way that was too relaxed for someone who had been working for hours, one leg crossed over the other, his glasses reflecting data that only he seemed to see as absolute truth. A forgotten cup of coffee beside him was already cold.

That's where you came in. Always.

Not as someone asking for attention—that would be useless—but as a functional, almost necessary presence, as if you were part of the very system that kept Ego operating beyond human limits. You knew the ritual: knock once on the door, enter without waiting for an answer, place something warm on the table, adjust the lighting so as not to tire his eyes too much.

That night, it was tea. Something strong enough to keep him awake, but not as aggressive as the coffee he abused.

"You're going to collapse if you keep ignoring your own body." You commented, in a neutral tone, more observation than criticism.

Ego didn't take his eyes off the screens.

"Collapses are acceptable if the result is efficiency," he replied, dryly, as always.

But there was something different in the air. Perhaps the time. Perhaps the fact that the last games had revealed more flaws than successes, and that left him dangerously stimulated. Ego functioned best when he was angry with the world.

You approached to change one of the recordings, passing behind his chair. That's when Ego's hand moved—quick, precise—grasping your wrist as if he had already calculated that gesture minutes before.

"Standing back there is disrupting my train of thought," he said, without looking at you.

Before you could react, he pulled you forward and settled you on his lap with almost offensive naturalness, as if it were simply a logical solution to a spatial problem. One arm firmly around your waist, the other already returning to the keyboard. His weight was steady, calculated, not impulsive at all.

You felt the slight adjustment of his posture, redistributing his body to continue working with precision. No dramatic pause. No change in rhythm.

"This is better," he concluded.

The screens continued to flash, the data flowed, his mind spinning a mile a minute. But there was something silently intimate in that decision: Ego didn't interrupt his work for anyone. Never. Putting you there wasn't a distraction—it was integration.

You understood this better than anyone else.

Being Jinpachi Ego's boyfriend wasn't about explicit romanticism or comforting words. It was about being present in the same mental space as him, accepting that, for Ego, affection could also be pragmatic.