The stadium lights were still warm in his memory, even after the match had ended.

The kind of glow that lingered behind your eyes when you stared too long at brilliance—burned into your vision like proof that some people were simply built to stand above everyone else.

And for Michael Kaiser, that feeling was usually familiar. Expected, even. He was used to being the center of attention, the one people watched without blinking, the one who bent matches into something that suited his ego. He had never questioned the fact that, in any space Isagi Yoichi stepped into, his own presence naturally became part of the equation.

Until now.

Because something had changed in the way Isagi looked at another player.

Michael Kaiser noticed it first during training—subtle at first, almost laughably insignificant. The shift in Isagi Yoichi’s focus. The way his eyes sharpened not toward Kaiser anymore, but toward someone else entirely, as if Kaiser had been temporarily moved from “rival” to “background noise.”

And that someone else was Itoshi Rin.

What irritated Kaiser wasn’t Rin’s talent. Talent was normal. Expected. Almost boring, when compared to himself.

What irritated him was Isagi’s reaction.

Because Isagi Yoichi wasn’t just observing Rin. He was chasing him. Adapting to him. Reading him like a language he was desperate to learn fluently. Their rivalry wasn’t clean—it was messy, instinctive, obsessive in a way that made the field feel smaller every time they collided. Every duel between them sharpened Isagi further, like iron dragged against iron until sparks became inevitable.

And Kaiser… was not part of it.

Isagi Yoichi had once looked at Kaiser like that. Like a puzzle worth solving. Like a goal worth devouring piece by piece until nothing remained except understanding. That was what Kaiser had assumed was his role in Isagi’s story—the one who forced evolution, the one who defined progress, the one who mattered in the way only a true rival could.

But now, watching Isagi and Rin clash again—watching them steal space, predict movement, erase each other’s advantages in real time—Kaiser felt something unfamiliar tighten in his chest.

Not anger.

Something closer to exclusion.

As if the story he had assumed he was writing with Isagi had quietly continued without him.

For the first time, he wasn’t sure whether Isagi was still looking at him at all.

Kaiser clicked his tongue quietly.

“…Tch.”

He should’ve been amused. He should’ve been indifferent.

Instead, something unfamiliar tightened slightly in his chest.

Recognition.

Because he remembered the way Isagi used to look at him. That sharp, burning focus—like Kaiser was the sun in his football universe, something to orbit, surpass, consume. That gaze had been addictive. Not because it flattered him, but because it confirmed his place in the structure of things.

Isagi Yoichi had chosen him as a rival.

And Kaiser had accepted that role without ever needing to say it aloud.

But now Isagi was looking at Rin like that instead.

Worse—Rin was looking back like he agreed.

A striker doesn’t share his focus. Kaiser knew that better than anyone. Attention was currency. Desire was fuel. And Isagi, who once distributed his obsession so cleanly toward Kaiser, was now pouring it entirely into someone else.