A/N: I do not own Inazuma Eleven.

This fic corresponds to the Monthly Special Days for August: International Friendship Day (first Sunday of August).

Requested by an international friend of mine, Girl with a Golden Heart. I hope you'll enjoy this one as well.

Sidelines

It all began with Teikoku. The spying incident, getting accepted into the team, revealing who I really was…

I knew Endou was different the moment I first saw him. His passion for soccer was on a whole new level, so high that I never thought it existed. And it wasn't just his love for the sport on the field, that boy genuinely cared for his team as well.

He was a great captain.

Always present and deep in discussion during team meetings, always training late into the evening with some beat-up old tyre, always ready with encouraging words to psyche up the team… even to a "new" player like me, he readily accepted me like one of them. I didn't know how, but he made me forget who I was and what I was supposed to do. All that had started to matter to me was the chance to play soccer with him.

When Fuyukai had exposed me, Endou didn't hesitate and quickly came to my defence. He dismissed the idea, saying that we had been playing soccer together long enough for them to place their faith in me, and stated firmly that he believed in me. I wanted to agree and say he was right, and I could have gone with it too, but I would never betray Endou's trust like that. I had to tell everybody the truth.

So I did, and I ran away from him. The shocked and torn expression on his face that day still haunts me.

But I had never regretted it. I knew I had done the right thing by alerting Natsumi about the trap on the bus, by not stealing the training log from the clubhouse, by not turning against Endou. He was someone I could really, truly, connect with aside from Aki and Ichinose. I wouldn't trade that for anything in the world.

And when he came back for me on the field, I knew I would always stay by him. Just like how he had stuck by me.

Then the aliens invaded.

Things progressively got worse. We faced team after team, often wondering if there was ever an end to all this. First came Gemini Storm, then Epsilon, then Genesis…

Hiroto doesn't know this, but I hated him when I first met him. Of course, he was the enemy at that time, but we are fairly good friends now. After all, he was a victim of the whole incident as well.

I was aware of how much this whole Aliea Academy fiasco affected Endou. It caused him to lose his teammates and friends. Not all of them had his strength to stand up against the threat, but they still tried. Well, most of them did, anyway.

As I had promised myself, I continued to stay with Endou and gave him my continued support. But it wasn't easy, especially with Hiroto running around trying to get his attention.

He was the enemy, yet he managed to get Endou riled up to a state that I've never seen before. Normally, it didn't matter who the opponent was. Endou would treat them all equally like rivals, always pumped up and ready to beat them in a soccer match. With Hiroto, it was a totally different story.

Endou's attention was focused entirely on him, both on and off the field. I hated the way he could get under Endou's skin so easily and work him up. I hated the way Endou had to struggle during each match to keep his team going and protect the goal with his own body. As a defender, I had already lost count of the number of times I had tried to intercept the striker's attack, weakly attempting to shift some of the pain from him. Needless to say, Endou remained taking the brunt of it all.

And when Hiroto, smirking smugly away, told him how much he was in love with his eyes, I nearly snapped. I fought back with all I had left, and so did the rest of us, trying to salvage something from this whole mess of pain and humiliation.

We failed.

The match was lost, along with Fubuki and Kazemaru.

The next few days were nothing short of torture.

It was so painful to see Endou in such a broken and pitiful state. Gone were the light and spirit in his eyes, replaced by a dull reflection of resignation and defeat. He just sat there in a corner of the school's roof, day in day out, just… staring into nothing. He refuses to eat and sleep, let alone stand up and move. Seeing the empty shell of our – my – captain tore my heart into pieces.

Even when the rain poured, he remained where he was. It took everything I had not to lash out at the managers when they ordered the team to leave him be. How could they just abandon him like that? After all he'd done for the team? They just made things worse. Kurimatsu had left because of it.

I never gave up on Endou. He was only human, after all. Like all of us, he had to face the ups and downs of life. I believed that he would recover on his own. No matter how long it would take, I would wait for him.

But things changed when Coach had taken him off the team. That was when I knew that if I didn't do anything, Endou and I would be separated. I would have to leave him behind when the Inazuma Caravan took off. I couldn't bear to part with him, so I knew something had to be done.

Unknown to the others, I snuck out of my room one night and made my way up to the roof. I had decided to try and talk to Endou. As usual, he was slumped over in his corner, face buried in his arms. Nudging him gently to inform him of my presence, I sat down next to him and draped the blanket from my bed across his shoulders. I waited for a while to see if he was awake.

A few minutes later, he shifted around, wrapping the blanket closer to his body and leaning against me. In the darkness of the night, no one saw my face flush as my cheeks heated up. Hesitantly, I reached up and pulled him closer towards me. I opened my mouth to speak and encourage him, but no words came out. The speech that I had planned in my head had suddenly disappeared.

I struggled for a moment to remember what I wanted to tell him, but I kept drawing a blank. Heaving a sigh, I finally relented and leaned back against him, listening to his breathing as he slept. Just what was it about Endou that made me act this way?

Sometimes my heart gets filled with so much joy just by being around him. Other times it is pained when I think about how he may not feel the same way. Did he? I didn't dare to approach him and ask. At least not right now. The time isn't right at the moment.

It was all I could do to stay on the roof with Endou and keep him company, even though he may not realise it was me he was using as his personal pillow. This thing between us? I guess it can wait for now.

All that mattered was spending what could possibly be my last night with him before we left the next morning.

A/N: An unusual pairing, but I do hope you'll keep an open mind about it. Happy International Friendship Day.