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The heat is broken in this metal death trap of a car, but beggars who’ve severely procrastinated getting their driver’s license can’t be choosers of what vehicle takes them to their destination. Or the company they’re in, but Ryuusei doesn’t have complaints when it comes to that. None that he hasn’t already voiced.
“You have money, don’t you?” he says, cheek pressed against the passenger window. “Why don’t you buy a new car?” The bitter cold condenses his breath against the glass, fogging up his view of the landscape. There wasn’t anything interesting about it, but it was a place to look.
A scoff comes from the driver seat. Ryuusei doesn’t understand why the sound makes him smile.
“This one works fine,” Rin says, voice cracked from not talking for so long.
Ryuusei chooses not to dwell on why it took him two hours to make conversation. He reaches down and tugs on the window crank. The ice has it jammed shut, but it’s enough to illustrate his point. “Dude, it’s like a hundred years old.”
“Twenty,” Rin corrects. “And I’ve only had it for seven.”
“Seven?” Ryuusei looks over. His cheek feels numb and there’s a space in the condensation in its shape. “You’re twenty-five.”
“What about it?”
“Rin Rin, you little sap…” Ryuusei coos, searching Rin’s steely expression for a point of weakness. “Could this be your first ever car?”
But Rin’s eyes remain fixed on the road, determined and focused. Too much for the task at hand. But that’s Rin for you.
“I had no idea you could be so sentimental.” Ryuusei grins and it feels lopsided on his left.
“Shut up.”
Rin has both hands on the steering wheel, precisely at ten and two, knuckles whiter than the snow that dots the hills and trees around them. This year, the winter has been unusually cruel and his skin, pulled taut over fragile bones and green veins, is dry and cracked, kind of like Ryuusei’s throat, kind of like Ryuusei’s resolve to not reach out with his own cold-bitten hands and share the warmth bubbling inside him.
They’ve passed exit after exit, each one filling him with false hope that the journey will come to an end. But Rin crushes them each time by continuing on forward and Ryuusei begins to think that they’re heading towards the edge of the planet. Maybe that was what the dread that had lodged itself in his chest before he got into this car with Itoshi Rin was trying to tell him.
Everything is quiet again. Even the whir of the engine and the whoosh of vehicles that pass them have completely disappeared. When Rin says “Shut up,” the world listens and Ryuusei should know better, but still, he grasps around within himself for the words to throw into the silence. He misses the glass, which covered quickly with fog after a couple of breaths. Whatever fills the space between the passenger and driver seat is bottomless, and Ryuusei feels motion-sick from looking at it.
He leans his temple against the window, skin dampening from the condensation. His cheeks are warm, numbness wearing off, and the vibrations of the tires against concrete rattle his skull. It makes it hard to think, but he thinks he might need that, and closes his eyes.
The car smells like oranges. He wonders if that is Rin’s favourite fruit. He wonders if Rin even has a favourite fruit. One washed and cut by the hands of a mother who loves him and given to him in a bowl, fork sticking out of it, already speared into a piece and ready to be eaten.
Ryuusei doesn’t have a favourite fruit.
He’s not doing a very good job at this not thinking thing.
That is why he prefers to talk. But lately, he hasn’t been able to find the words. And besides, it’s Rin he’s talking to. Sometimes, he thinks Rin hears him better when he doesn’t speak.
Case and point: “Thirty more minutes,” he says even though Ryuusei never asked.
He thought it, of course, leg bouncing impatiently, teeth gnawing at hangnails on his thumb. Rin must have seen. Rin must have heard.
It’s like he’s being spied on, another act of aggression in their ongoing state of war. Between them, that has always been the case. But it’s different now and Ryuusei doesn’t know what changed and when. Maybe this is the way war works. Ryuusei is a fighter, but that doesn’t make him an expert. Rin, however — he’s far more knowledgeable about this kind of thing and that’s why, even if he loses the battle, he’ll come out on top.
He would like this analogy.
Ryuusei can’t feel his temple. Still, he keeps on thinking. Thirty more minutes.
Loverboy really has a flair for the dramatic, making them travel all this way. Normally, Ryuusei wouldn’t complain, but this ride has been an unprecedented torment. He’s cold and he’s hot and there is something he wants to say, but his throat closes itself around the words. He thinks he might be allergic to the car or maybe even to Itoshi Rin and after nine years of acclimating to his presence, his body is having a delayed reaction.
Taking the train would have been fine and the ticket price would have been worth it alone for the heat. But Ryuusei had to bitch about it anyway and of course Rin had to open his mouth with a solution to the problem. All casual and nice because they’ve been playing together for almost a decade, old enough now to let go of whatever childish pride had them butting heads to begin with.
They were in the changerooms after practice. Two shots were fired. First, Rin took off his shirt. Ryuusei whipped his head the other way, cheek hot and stinging and just barely grazed by the bullet. Then, Rin said, “I can drive you,” an unexpected kindness from an unexpected benefactor. That one got Ryuusei in the left shoulder. It’s the only way to explain why that entire side of his torso ached for the rest of the day.
Aside from war lords at opposite ends of the battlefield, Ryuusei doesn’t know what else they could be. They’re not friends, are they?
Sure, they talk every day. But that’s a necessity to being teammates. And it’s usually just verbal sparring during drills and training, honed over the years into something more productive.
Tired already, Underlashes Junior?
Aim your passes a little further, freak.
Oh, Rin Riiiin, use more spin!
Tighten your core or you’ll break your back, dumbass.
Outside of practice too, Rin texts him — mainly video clips from soccer matches followed by an essay’s worth of analysis. Ryuusei has to coach himself through what to do with these messages. Reading them would be the obvious answer, internalizing them, adapting his playstyle accordingly because the players discussed will share the field with them one day. And he does. Rin is a genius and their team is better for it, but that’s something he has always known.
Here is another thing that Ryuusei knows: Without the team and the training and the desire to play better and win, he and Rin would never speak.
And that is troubling for Ryuusei whose imagination must have deteriorated with age, because he can’t wrap his brain around the idea of playing alongside anybody else. Is that what friendship is?
He looks over at Rin, even though he doesn’t mean to. Rin’s expression still creases with focus, like nothing has changed since Ryuusei last looked at him. But for Ryuusei, it feels like so much has changed. It feels like everything is always changing.
We’re friends, right? he almost wants to ask. But if Rin says no, he’d feel —
Actually, he doesn’t know how he’d feel. Unhappy, probably. He’s never really had friends. But another part of him wants to say he’d be relieved. For the exact same reason. What the hell is he supposed to do with a friend? Water twice weekly? Use AAA batteries only?
On the other hand, maybe Rin will say yes. Maybe Rin’s nose will ruffle with a frown and he’ll call Ryuusei stupid because they’re on their way to a wedding together and is that not what friends do?
His imagination might be fine after all. Rin’s voice, pinched with annoyance, plays in his head like Rin’s lips aren’t pursed in concentration and are actually speaking the words into the still and cold air of the car. Ryuusei smiles.
“What?” Rin catches him in the corner of his eye, gaze shifting momentarily from the road.
“Nothing,” Ryuusei rushes to say, “nothing,” he lies. “You just look funny when you drive.”
“Fine then,” answers Rin. “I’ll focus on looking cool and crash the car, killing us both.”
That widens Ryuusei’s grin and helps him regain his footing. “And the last thing I’d ever see is Itoshi Rin, looking absolutely glam.”
“Now, there’s a word I haven’t heard in ages.” Rin laughs and clears his throat. “Let’s keep it that way.”
“Too bad for you,” sing-songs Ryuusei, stretching his arms over his head and getting distracted by the knowledge that he could reach out and run his fingers through Rin’s hair. “We’re probably gonna see him tomorrow.”
Just slightly, Rin’s eyebrows raise. “You think they invited him?”
“I mean, they invited me and I almost got into a fist fight with both of them when we first met.”
“You’re always almost getting into fist fights with people,” Rin deadpans. “And you’ve gotten into plenty of fist fights with me, but look at you now. You’re in my car.”
Ryuusei chuckles. “You fishin’ for a thanks?”
“No,” Rin replies, “but now that you mention it, it's weird that you haven’t thanked me yet.”
“Why should I thank you?” Ryuusei hugs himself, hands rubbing along the length of his biceps. “I could be warm and toasty on a train right now.” He makes a point of shivering.
And Rin strikes back. “Why don’t you better prepare yourself for the weather?”
“Because normal cars have heating.”
“If you want a heated car, then get a license and buy your own.”
Ryuusei huffs around a laugh and smiles. “Touché,” he says. Then, “It’s sweet that you’ve hung onto this car for so long.” And, after all, Rin is saving him the cost of a two-way train ticket. “Thank you.”
Rin pulls a face. “Okay, don’t thank me like that,” he mutters. “And you say I’m the sentimental one…”
The thing is, Ryuusei knows he’s sentimental. His cluttered apartment is evidence enough. There isn’t much he won’t hang onto. His first ever pair of soccer cleats, sitting at the back of his hall closet, stinking up the tiny corner it occupies. The cardstock flyers that looked too pretty to throw out, advertising women’s jewelry he has no plans to purchase. The thirty-year-old wind chimes hanging from his kitchen doorway, just like it did in his childhood home, that Rin walks right into the first time he came over.
Oh. Ryuusei forgot about that. Looks like that’s another tally for the ‘friends’ column.
But if they’re friends, that means there’s no war, that the ground on which they stand is not a battlefield, just a regular field where a warm breeze rustles the grass at their ankles. And he and Rin are just there, staring at each other through a swarm of dandelion seeds, and maybe the sun is setting — or is it rising? Ryuusei wants to run to him.
None of that, none of it explains the bullet wounds, not in any way that Ryuusei can make sense of.
To avoid looking at Rin, he redirects his gaze to the coffee cups in the cupholders. His name is scrawled on the one closest to him, half on the insulating cupsleeve and half on the cup itself, reminding him of how he stumbled over his answer when the barista asked for his name.
“Shidou,” he said, surprised because he didn’t think he’d have to do more talking after placing the order. “I mean—” he thinks surnames are a ridiculous formality, “Ryuusei.” But there’s an overwhelming feeling of disembodiment that comes from hearing his given name. “Shidou Ryuusei.” Final answer.
And minutes later, it was handed to him, scrawled onto a paper cup in unfamiliar handwriting. Still wrong. But Rin was waiting and Ryuusei paid for the coffee in the cup, not the writing on it.
He reaches out and turns it, now frigid to the touch, until the black ink disappears from view. They had stopped for coffee to warm them up for the journey, but Ryuusei let his sit for too long and drinking it now would just make him colder — provided it is still drinkable and hasn’t already frozen through.
Rin yawns and Ryuusei catches the flash of movement in the corner of his eye, but like a solar eclipse, he doesn’t look at it head on. And besides, he has seen Rin yawn before. The memory of it and the way it makes the dread in his chest heavier are enough to remind him why he should keep his eyes averted.
They don’t, however, stop him from wondering if Rin drank his coffee at any point during the drive. Both hands on the wheel, that’s the first thing they teach at driving school. (Ryuusei is assuming.) But did Rin, at any point, throw caution to the wind and take one of them off to warm himself up with a sip? Rin doesn’t seem like he would. And the more Ryuusei thinks about it, the more he knows Rin wouldn’t and finds himself wishing that he also knew how to drive.
It can’t be that hard. He thumbs a scar on the inside of his middle finger. No harder than learning how to cut fruit.
“Rin?” No -chan or -kun, and no second Rin or an Itoshi before it. Just, “Rin,” he repeats, like it’s a sentence worthy of standing alone. Still, he wants to give it a companion. “What are we?”
He told himself he wouldn’t ask, but technically, he hasn’t disobeyed himself. He didn’t ask “Are we friends?” He asked something more open-ended, something more hopeful, more volatile.
And if Rin senses the danger of what Ryuusei has released into the air, he doesn’t let it show.
“Fifteen minutes away,” he replies.
“What?”
“Where we are,” he says. “I’m not really sure what the area is called, but we’re fifteen minutes away.”
Ryuusei drops his gaze to his hand, pinching the scar until it darkens, lowering his voice until it’s barely audible. “I said what.”
An unnerving silence follows, broken not soon enough by an even more unnerving, “Oh.”
The air is cold against the nape of his neck. Ryuusei feels a pressure against his throat, like it is pushed up against the wooden beam of a guillotine and he is waiting for Rin to release the blade and say something, send him to either Heaven or Hell. But when he closes his eyes, awaiting his fate, there are white knuckles on the back of his eyelids, and cracked skin and green veins.
And then, “Oh, shit!”
The car veers abruptly to the left, throwing him in the opposite direction, hair strands brushing against the collar of Rin’s coat and seat belt digging into his shoulder.
“Sorry,” Rin grunts once they’re back on a straight trajectory. “Almost missed the exit.”
If Rin takes the interruption to mean an end to the conversation, Ryuusei forces himself not to mind.
Instead of a heavy silence, Ryuusei is given a task as Rin passes something to him. “Can you read the directions out for me?”
Ryuusei stares at the piece of paper in his hand, folded five times and pressed into a rectangle. Rin never stops surprising him with his absolute absurdity. “You know you can pull this up on your phone, right?”
They slow to a stop at an intersection. He thinks Rin would have told him to shut up if he wasn’t actively ignoring a ten thousand-tonned question that Ryuusei had just asked. Looks like this war lord can be merciful after all. “Just tell me which way to turn.”
Ryuusei unfolds the sheet of paper to find handwritten directions. As his eyes scan the scrawled-on arrows and street names, he fights the urge to inform Rin of the existence of printers.
“Neither,” he tells him. “Go straight.”
The light turns green and Rin does as instructed. Ryuusei keeps an eye on the street signs.
And then, “Left,” he says, like Rin did on the highway, he almost misses this turn.
Once again, the force sends to the right, his temple crashing into Rin’s shoulders. He thinks, after the pain dulls, that he could sleep like this, that he would like to sleep like this. And when they exit the turn, Ryuusei is pulled back into an upright position, out of his brief daydream, and back into helping Rin navigate this strange town.
“Right.”
A strange town where, still, they might be the strangest thing.
But that is all familiar territory. From Blue Lock to their current team to here, they’re two weirdos, two loners and maybe Ryuusei is used to it being that way, maybe Ryuusei finds it comfortable.
“The inn should be on your right.”
Rin divides his attention between the road and looking out the driver’s window. Ryuusei, on the other hand, has to wrestle his attention from Rin’s silhouette and at least pretend to be more interested in the couples that appear every so often on the sidewalk.
“Crazy that Isagi and Bachira were able to score a venue for Valentine’s Day,” Ryuusei says in an attempt to be casual.
Rin’s voice is unreadable as he replies, “Guess they got lucky.”
“Yeah…” Ryuusei struggles to keep his light. “Yeah, I guess they did.”
Ryuusei thought he would be married by twenty. Granted, he was a kid at the time and back then, twenty seemed much older than it actually is. And now that he is well past that age, marriage, for him, is so far beyond the horizon that it has travelled the circumference of the Earth and is right behind him. Ryuusei runs, but he doesn’t know if he is trying to catch up or if he is trying to escape. He must be tired from it, though, because when his eyes refocus and Rin is right there, he finds himself a little breathless.
So yes, Isagi Yoichi and Bachira Meguru are lucky. Lucky to have a partner, a soulmate, each other. Lucky to reach out with their cold hands and warm blood towards someone who is reaching back.
And perhaps that means Ryuusei should feel fortunate to celebrate this event with them, like a crowd gathering to watch Halley’s comet, because he might never see something like this again, or experience it for himself.
“We’re here.”
They’re parked in what must be the last available parking spot, but Ryuusei doesn’t feel fortunate at all.
“Rin,” he says and Rin turns towards him with a look in his eye that says don’t, or do, or quite possibly nothing.
Whatever it is, whatever it isn’t, Ryuusei changes course. “You think the lovebirds will cover me if I use the mini bar?”
Rin’s answer is a scowl, familiar and comfortable. “Don’t bankrupt our friends,” he mutters, reaching between them to undo his seatbelt. “If you want snacks, just come to my room.”
“Oh wow, Rin-chan,” Ryuusei teases, voice cracking around the syllables as he figures out how to speak with his heart in his throat. “So prepared. Like a Girl Scout.”
“Yeah, and like a Girl Scout, I’ll charge you for my cookies.” With that, he exits the car.
Outside, the first thing Rin does is stretch. Inside, the only thing Ryuusei can do is watch. A thick layer of down separates Rin’s back from the elements, but even if all he can see is the puffed up nylon of a winter coat, Ryuusei stares until Rin turns around and he has to fake like he hadn’t been looking at him the entire time.
The parking lot isn’t huge. But when the temperature is well below freezing and the only thing Ryuusei has to keep him warm is an old hoodie, time and space lose all meaning. Say what he will about the trash heap they drove up in, but it was insulating him from the worst of the day’s weather.
As soon as Ryuusei emerges from the car, Rin’s words about better preparing himself for the cold replay in his head. He skips the small distance between the passenger door and the trunk, an effort to warm himself up, and when he gets there, Rin has their suitcases out and the garment bags with their tuxedos draped over his arm.
“Told you you should have been more prepared,” Rin says. “Take these.” He shoves the garment bags in Ryuusei’s direction.
Ryuusei shivers so much he almost drops them, but once they’re secure in his grasp, he turns and makes for the inn.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rin calls after him. “Get back here.”
Right, the suitcases. He never pegged Rin for a diva, but he supposes carrying all of their stuff in would exert him enough to generate some body heat.
When he turns around, though, he finds Rin, face unreadable, unzipping the front of his jacket and slipping out of it.
“Here,” he says. There isn’t much Ryuusei can extrapolate from just one syllable. Still, Rin’s voice being empty of tone as he hands Ryuusei his jacket and relieves him of both tuxedos has the synapses in Ryuusei’s brain firing uncontrollably.
So, Ryuusei can only stare, grip tight to ensure the wind doesn’t whisk Rin’s coat away into the winter afternoon.
“Well?” asks Rin, impatient. “Put it on so we can get going.” Then, he grabs the handle of his suitcase and hauls it off towards the building entrance.
Ryuusei does as Rin commands and the coat fits him much better than he thought it would. As the wind whips him in the face, he smells oranges. Oranges that remind him of summer. Summer is warm. Time and space lose meaning in a different way. The walk ends as quickly as it began.
When they reach the doors to the inn, there is an attendant waiting to open the door for them. Before Ryuusei goes in, he hears a sniffle from Rin’s direction. Ryuusei looks over to find him, face red and bitten by the frigidity, but he puts on a brave face. Specifically, a scowling one. Even with the extra layer, the wind was unforgiving, bringing tears to Ryuusei’s eyes, only for the cold to freeze them over. Rin suffers the same fate, perhaps worse, eyelashes beaded with ice. Ryuusei shouldn’t find them beautiful. Ryuusei shouldn’t stare. But he does both.
Isagi and Bachira have them on the ninth floor, along with the rest of the wedding guests. Rin, who is in the wedding party, has the rehearsal to attend. There are still a few hours until then, but Ryuusei knows, and he’s not sure how, that Rin has a daily training routine and is probably eager to have it done before he has to get ready.
They don’t run into any familiar faces while checking in. Ryuusei hasn’t been to enough weddings to determine whether that means they are early or late. What he does know, as the elevator doors close on just the two of them, is that everything smells like oranges again and he should’ve taken the stairs.
Counting to nine has never taken so long. Turns out there are other things, aside from the weather, that can warp space and time.
But the doors slide open eventually and Ryuusei releases a breath he had no idea he was holding.
“I’m serious,” Rin says as they prepare to part ways. His room is to the right of the elevator, Ryuusei’s is to the left. “Stay away from the mini bar. I have food.”
“Roger that,” Ryuusei replies, taking his tuxedo back. Their fingers brush and it’s probably just static electricity, but something hot climbs the length of Ryuusei’s arm.
Rin appears unaffected as he walks off. This time, only cable knit wool covers his back and Ryuusei doesn’t know if he is enjoying or mourning the view as Rin’s shape gets smaller and smaller.
He doesn’t realize until he’s in his room that he still has Rin’s coat. At that point, it feels weird to give it back. He can picture Rin’s eyes, all-knowing and analytical, stripping him down to the marrow in his bones as he mocks Ryuusei for wanting so badly to see him again already.
He hangs the coat in the hall closet by the door, then drops everything in his hands to the floor. His clothes too, peeled off and discarded until he’s standing in nothing but his boxers, feeling the draft of the room against his skin. Instead of the bed, Ryuusei chases warmth by grabbing his bag of toiletries and hopping into the shower, faucet turned all the way to the red.
Rin isn’t the only one with a routine. You don’t get hair like Ryuusei’s without a regimen. A regimen that is completely disrupted by Ryuusei himself, who can’t do anything but stand beneath the hot water, steam rising around him and looking solid enough that he could reach out and pretend it’s Rin’s hand.
But when he does, his fingers curl around air, which is exactly what he was afraid of — of reaching out and finding that Rin has pulled away or that he was never more than an angry little figment of Ryuusei’s imagination to begin with.
By the time his skin is tender from the heat and the glass divider is completely clouded with fog, he still can’t decide which would be worse.
And then he’s standing on the bath mat, making eye contact with the mist of water droplets that fog over his reflection, realizing that the hotel didn’t give him any towels. He reaches out, fingers hovering over the glass. He can make out the soft borders of his outline in the mirror, unsure if he wants a clearer view. As a happy medium, he scribbles shapes in the condensation, and they quickly turn into the characters of his name.
Shidou Ryuusei.
His wobbly penmanship makes it worse and he wipes away the writing, only to still be looking at Shidou Ryuusei once the condensation is gone.
He walks out of the bathroom, leaving wet footprints against the carpet. From his suitcase, he pulls out the first items of clothing he can get his hands on, putting whatever it is on and flopping face first onto the bed.
The mattress hits him like a punch to the face and, eyes closed, all he sees is the cracked skin of white knuckles and green veins. He knows the fist belongs to Rin, much like every other thought that passes through his mind.
Itoshi Rin.
On the field, he goes by his family name, Itoshi stretched across the back of his jersey, yellow captain band around his arm. He leads with an iron fist, a weapon in and of himself. To their team, he is a saviour. To their opponents, a tyrant.
But most commonly, he goes by Rin, no anchor to his bloodline. To him, blood being thicker than water means he is more likely to drown in it. He doesn’t know that whatever he chooses, Ryuusei will be at the edge with a lifesaver ready in his hands.
“Rin,” he whispers to the empty room.
The name means ‘cold.’ He wonders what Rin’s parents were thinking when they named him. Was it another muggy day in early September and Rin’s arrival into the world cooled things down? Like a breath of fresh air? Or were they seeing the future? Of the ways life would change their son’s temperature? Maybe he means temperament.
A ‘holy dragon’ like Ryuusei could be the warmth he needs. But when Ryuusei says it out loud, the name sounds nothing like him. Instead —
Pervert, he thinks. And that is more fitting, chanting Rin’s name into the afternoon and teetering the line between two kinds of wanting.
Then, he opens his eyes and he’s on a soccer field. Except this one has no grass, cracked concrete in its place. But still, Ryuusei’s mind says soccer field.
Ahead of him on the road — wait no, the soccer field — is Rin. He wears Itoshi across his back and with it, the faith of his team. At his sides, he holds his hands, balled into fists. Ryuusei wouldn’t be surprised if one of them were to unfurl and out fell his heart.
That doesn’t happen, though. Instead, Rin starts to walk with a determination that is only fitting for the battlefield on which he stands. Or rather, soccer field. They’ve been over this before and Ryuusei knows. To him, it’s the same thing. Bla, bla, bla , he wants to say of Rin and his metaphor, but instead he follows like a dutiful soldier, trailing behind his —
Nothing. Suddenly, there is nothing and at this point, Ryuusei thinks he must be dreaming. Unless, of course, it’s normal to teleport from barren concrete to a luscious green meadow. It’s another soccer field. But the grass here is overgrown with flowers or weeds — he doesn’t know the difference — and the day is warm and sunny, a gentle breeze running through it. That’s when Ryuusei knows he’s dreaming.
Rin keeps walking and the horizon makes way for him, telling Ryuusei that this could go on forever. But as Rin gets smaller, the Itoshi on his back gets bigger. Ryuusei is already sleeping, but he is tired. Here, tired means he wants Rin to turn around.
“Rin,” he calls out to him. When he doesn’t reply: “Rin, Rin, Rin!”
His eyes shoot open. He doesn’t remember closing them — until he does, looking around at his hotel room, dusk filtering in through the window. He sits up and looks outside, back in snow-laden reality.
The room is warm now, which means the thermostat is doing its job. Ryuusei checks the face of the digital clock beside the bed. It reads 10:41pm, but it doesn’t feel like he had been asleep for that long. Rin should be back from the rehearsal dinner by now. He looks through the darkness at the closet where Rin’s coat hangs. Ryuusei should go give it back to him.
He has the silliest thought, borne of jealousy that is so unlike and unbecoming of him. Rin, the best man, in bed with a bridesmaid. A knock at the door knocks some sense into him. There are no bridesmaids at this wedding. There is no bride.
He rises to answer the door.
To his surprise, even though it shouldn’t be, Rin is on the other side.
“Hi,” he says, awkward and rubbing the back of his neck. “You didn’t come by.” A plastic bag hangs from the bend of his elbow. “I wanted to make sure you weren’t raiding the mini bar on Isagi’s and Bachira’s dime.”
His hair is fluffy the way it is when he’s fresh out of the shower. In some places even, it stands on end. Ryuusei has seen the way he dries himself off in the locker rooms, generating enough static to power this entire town. It’s a wonder he still has as much hair as he does on his head.
And on the topic of showers, Rin takes them on the cooler side, but Ryuusei can’t not ask himself if Rin’s skin, pale as it is, would get all flushed and red from the spray of hot water. He almost loses himself to that train of thought, but he snaps out of it enough to be his usual annoying self for a moment.
“Aw, Rin Rin,” he coos, “do you really have such little faith in me?” And he steps out of the way for Rin to come inside.
Rin drops the bag onto the dresser and it produces a dull thunk that sounds nothing like cookies.
Ryuusei frowns. “Something tells me your snacks are no fun.”
He gets his answer when Rin’s hand reaches into the bag and emerges with three mandarins. “They’re a good source of vitamin C.”
“They’re sour.” Ryuusei twists his expression into one that feels suitable for the observation made.
“It’s because of the vitamin C.”
“Oh, that makes it better then,” he replies sarcastically.
Rin lays the mandarins out in a line, then picks up the one closest to him. “My dumbass brother gave me an entire crate of them when he visited last weekend.” Even so, Ryuusei detects the slightest hint of a smile. “Whatever. You can eat them or not. I don’t care.”
“Alright, alright,” says Ryuusei, “I’ll eat one.” He grabs one off the dresser.
“Paws off,” Rin orders, slapping the back of Ryuusei’s hand. The mandarin falls out of Ryuusei’s grip. “I can do it.” Rin stops it from rolling onto the floor and places it back in line.
Ryuusei watches Rin pry off a strip of orange peel, pulling until he’s left with a long ribbon.
He hands the mandarin to Ryuusei, thumb and index finger at each end where a patch of skin still remains. “Here, I left some for you to peel since you were so eager to do it.”
But Ryuusei doesn’t take it. Instead, he asks, “Did your mom ever cut fruit for you?”
“Still does,” Rin replies. “It’s embarrassing, but…” Then, he does the thing again, where he listens to Ryuusei’s silence, from the answers he never gives to the brief gaps between syllables.
He peels the rest of the mandarin, breaks apart the pieces and picks off the fibrous bits before he offers them to Ryuusei, palms cupped, almost like a bowl. Ryuusei’s hands mimic the shape, except when he does it, it looks more like a prayer.
What does he have to pray for?
“Rin,” he finds himself saying.
Rin drops the mandarin wedges into Ryuusei’s hands, then plucks one out for himself and pops it into his mouth. “No nickname?” he answers while chewing, looking like a chipmunk, looking like Ryuusei’s cause of death. He grabs another mandarin and starts to peel.
He’s let his guard down since they’ve left the car. Or maybe it was all insignificant enough to forget. But Rin doesn’t seem to expect what Ryuusei says next, even though he has said it before, in the exact same way.
“What are we?”
Something pinches in Rin’s expression and a hard push of his thumb into the mandarin has it falling to the floor. He sighs. “You ask like I know the answer to that.” He bends over to pick it up. When he stands back up, he asks, “What do you think we are?”
Rin sets the mandarin on the dresser surface, separate from the others. Carpet fuzz sticks to where he pressed too hard.
“I thought, maybe, that we’re friends,” Ryuusei replies.
“I see.” Rin’s face becomes frustratingly unreadable. “So, we’re friends.”
Ryuusei doesn’t recognize the small voice that leaves him. “I don’t like that.”
“You’re the one who suggested it.” Rin picks up a third mandarin, but he doesn’t peel this one — just wraps his fingers around it in a fist. Ryuusei feels his chest tighten. “I’m going along with it.”
And then, they’re on the battlefield again and Ryuusei is out of bullets. Actually, he threw away his gun years ago.
“You cut fruit for me,” Ryuusei whispers.
Even now, Rin can’t resist correcting a mistake. “Well, you don’t technically cut mandarins.”
“You cut fruit for me,” repeats Ryuusei, “even though I don’t ask you to. You always do that and I just—”
Ryuusei drops the mandarin pieces in his hands. It’s not his fault. Somebody’s kissing him. Somebody whose mouth tastes like oranges and spit.
Somebody who pulls back and turns out to be Itoshi Rin.
“Idiot,” Rin whispers, “leaving me to do everything as always.” Then, he bites his lip. Ryuusei doesn’t know if it’s on purpose, but if the chipmunk chewing from earlier didn’t kill him, then that definitely just did. “Does that answer it?”
“Answer what?”
“Every question you have.”
“I don’t know.” Ryuusei’s head spins. “But…” He smiles and dives in for another kiss.
Rin was not kidding about receiving a whole crate. Ryuusei licks into his mouth and tastes nothing but mandarins. They stumble back and forth beneath each other’s weight, a push and pull like the tides and the moon and whatever other act-of-god cosmic shit that applies to them and what they are, stepping on the mandarin pieces Ryuusei dropped, filling the air around them with the smell.
Rin has the front of Ryuusei’s shirt in a vice grip, pulling him close until they can’t get any closer. And yet he continues to tug like he means to challenge that truth. Rin has always been superhuman like that. Otherworldly, if Ryuusei is feeling romantic — which he is, always.
“Why are you wearing a pajama top with boxers?” Rin asks following a gasp for breath. Everything smells like oranges.
“If you don’t like it, then take it off,” replies Ryuusei, gaze drawn to the collarbones peeking out from beneath Rin’s shirt collar.
“Hmph,” Rin grunts, then rotates their bodies and falls backwards onto the bed, dragging Ryuusei down with him.
“I had a feeling you’d be mean,” Ryuusei says, repositioning himself on top of Rin, whose hands work fast to undo the upper buttons of Ryuusei’s shirt.
“And?” Rin says, antagonistic at first, but the way he keeps his eyes down betrays another meaning. “Is that a problem?”
Ryuusei helps Rin pull the shirt off over his head. And then it’s somewhere on the bedroom floor, no longer a priority. There’s still a draft, but Rin’s hands on Ryuusei’s bare skin has his nerve endings on fire.
“Not at all,” he replies. “It’s perfect.”
Rin smiles and leans up to press his lips to Ryuusei’s neck, climbing up the column of his throat and dislodging the words stored there.
“You’re perfect.”
Ryuusei trails a hand down, fitting it around the front of Rin’s thigh, palm against rough denim. Rin wouldn’t have worn them to the rehearsal dinner — he takes his best man role comically and adorably seriously — which means he came back from the event and freed himself from his suit and tie only to put on black jeans. Ryuusei chuckles.
And on the topic of clothes, “I have your coat,” he finds himself absentmindedly murmuring.
Rin’s lips stop their mouthing at Ryuusei’s jaw. “What?”
“Your coat.”
Rin shrugs and strokes the hair at the base of Ryuusei’s head. “It’s fine. I brought a second one.”
“Of course you did,” Ryuusei says with a grin, touching his temple to Rin’s cheek. “You’re such a mom.”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Rin says with a sigh.
Ryuusei smiles, lips stretching against Rin’s pulse. “You were?”
“Who do you know that enjoys being likened to a mother while they’re trying to get fucked?”
“The fools whose wedding we’re attending tomorrow.”
“Ugh, don’t go bringing them up too,” Rin complains.
“Sorry, sorry.” Ryuusei laughs, rising onto his elbows to grin down at him. “Can we go back to the part where you’re trying to get fucked?”
Rin rolls his eyes, pretty turquoise things, then he shifts them to the side and mumbles, “Do I have to say it again?”
Ryuusei is already pulling down his zipper. “Not at all.”
He slips his hand down Rin’s pants, palming the soft bulge through his briefs. Rin’s mouth falls open at the contact, moan escaping as Ryuusei works him to full hardness.
“Touch me,” Rin orders, Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulps.
“I am,” Ryuusei replies, gruff.
“Not through my underwear.” Fingers wrap around Ryuusei’s wrist. “Touch me for real.”
Ryuusei maneuvers his hand past the waistband. Rin’s dick is hard and hot and wet to the touch and he’s bucking up into Ryuusei’s fist after only half a downward pump.
“Careful,” Ryuusei warns, but he finds he doesn’t entirely mean it, speeding up his tugs the more desperate Rin gets. “You’re gonna come before I get to fuck you.”
“Then stop touching my dick and put your cock in my ass.”
Ryuusei’s smile widens. If Rin keeps being so endearing, Ryuusei’s face might split in half. Rin leads with an iron fist. Even as he surrenders control, Ryuusei finds himself in the palms of impenetrable hands, like he himself is a mandarin, unravelled and broken apart.
And speaking of hands, Ryuusei’s shake as they grab the hem of Rin’s shirt and push it up to reveal Rin’s stomach, goosebumps rising along the skin wherever Ryuusei’s touch passes over.
“Do you have… uh… I didn’t bring—”
Rin sits up, the abrupt motion cutting Ryuusei off. He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans and pulls out what looks like an oversized condiment packet. Ryuusei recognizes the all too familiar pentagon logo.
“A party favour. Courtesy of the grooms,” Rin explains. “A gag, I assume. Real lube, though.”
“And you brought it with you to my room?” Ryuusei raises his eyebrows. “Rin Rin,” he teases, “did you come here to seduce me?”
“What’s it to you?” Rin shoves the sample into Ryuusei’s hands and averts his gaze, murmuring, “I was hopeful.”
Ryuusei keeps losing hit points tonight. It’s a wonder he’s still alive. He should have died at least two hundred flutters of Rin’s eyelashes ago. What’s going to happen when Rin is finally naked?
Rin shimmies himself out of his pants and kicks them onto the floor. It looks like Ryuusei’s about to get his answer.
The first time Ryuusei saw Rin in his underwear, he was surprised they weren’t patterned with little owls. More surprising, however, was the fact Ryuusei even had a hypothesis on the matter, that he was thinking about Rin to begin with. But now, as Rin undresses himself, his arms, his legs, his entire body beyond imagination, he realizes that thinking about Rin is the norm for him, and has been for quite some time.
He tears the lube packet open with his teeth, some of it spilling down his chin. Isagi and Bachira have quite the sense of humour, handing out lube samples as party favours. Bachira’s doing, most definitely. Ryuusei makes a note to thank him as he empties a quarter of the packet onto his fingers and shifts his gaze to Rin, naked and waiting.
He opens up beautifully, jaw dropped and keening the instant Ryuusei pushes past his entrance. Ryuusei gets hard from the tightness around his fingers alone, a tantalizing first taste of what’s to come. He adds a third, and then a fourth, a test so to speak. Rin takes it all.
And then, Ryuusei crooks his fingers just so, and Rin arches off the bed, ribs threatening to tear their way out from beneath his flesh as a sound so inhuman and beautiful rises out of his open mouth.
“I’m ready,” he heaves, settling back against the mattress, breaths audibly short in his lungs. Ryuusei concentrates the push of his fingers, feeling the latent tremble of Rin’s body beneath him.
He doesn’t believe Rin in the slightest, but call it impatience or a duty towards his captain — he slips his fingers out and obeys, wiping them against his boxers, thankful that Rin is too busy panting and fussing over the absence of Ryuusei inside of him to comment on it.
His cock springs up like a pervert’s jack-in-the-box once he takes off his underwear, thrown onto the floor with the rest of their clothes. He spreads the second best gift he’s ever received along his length with his fist, gazing down at the first best through half-lidded eyes.
He can’t believe fingering Rin was all it took to get him like this. He can’t believe fingering Rin was something he was doing to begin with. But it happened. The proof is right below him. Rin, with his chest heaving and his stomach a glistening mess of pre-come. Ryuusei quickens his strokes and loses himself in the sight of trembling limbs, wet eyelashes and dark hair splayed against a white bedspread until he realizes he’s about to come.
“What are you doing?” A heel jabs Ryuusei in the lower back and Rin’s voice, quiet but sharp, drags him back to reality. His cheeks puff adorably even though he looks annoyed. “Put it in.”
Hands fit against his shoulder blades, pulling Ryuusei down until Rin’s breath fills his nose once again with the smell of oranges. Ryuusei does as told, but slowly, inch by inch. He read somewhere that this kind of thing takes some getting used to. But slow, like this, is torture for him, and when he bottoms out, he doesn’t know if he can handle inch-by-inch again.
He can feel his pulse in his crotch, pounding through his dick as it sits inside of Rin’s body. Rin’s body, naked and beautiful, pale skin flushed red from head to toe. Like how Ryuusei imagines he’d be after a long, hot shower; except this is way better than a shower. Ryuusei wants to give him a nickname based off of this. Something he can say to remind them both of this moment, remind him of this image of Rin, so perfect underneath him.
His hips rock with a mind of their own. “Rin,” he whispers. “Rin, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, but I can’t go slow.”
“Who said you had to go slow?” Rin answers, nails digging into his skin. He feels like a mandarin again. “Do what you want with me.”
“What I want…” whispers Ryuusei.
Rin angles his mouth up and gives Ryuusei a kiss. “Whatever you want.”
Ryuusei runs his tongue over his lips, hoping to taste the words Rin just spoke against them. Then, he leans down for another kiss and decides he wants to do this more often.
But first and foremost, “I wanna fuck you.”
Rin exhales a shuddering breath. “Then fuck me.”
Ryuusei has watched a porno or two (hundred) in his time. He knows what it means to fuck as he pulls out part of the way and slides back in, fucking Rin like it is just another word for claiming. He wants Rin to be his. He wants Rin to be his. But the more he chases the friction, the slide of their bodies like two flints igniting a fire beneath his skin, he realizes that, more importantly, he belongs to Rin.
“I wanna fuck you,” he says again, voice unsteady but the feeling remains firm.
Nails scrape down the length of Ryuusei’s back. “You are fucking me.”
“I know,” Ryuusei says. A particular thrust of his hips has both of them shuddering. “I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it, idiot,” Rin hisses. And then, “There, there, there.”
“I want you to be mine,” Ryuusei continues, finding the rhythm that makes Rin the noisiest, “I wanna be yours.”
And mingled with the whines that spill from Rin’s mouth: “Shidou…” released in a broken moan that builds a home in Ryuusei’s chest.
And in the kitchen of this home, at the centre of the dinning table, is a bowl of orange slices.
He’s not sure how this works, if he and Rin will ever speak of this again, but he memorizes the look on Rin’s face as his lips part around these syllables and give them new meaning. “…Ryuusei.”
“That’s me.”
Shidou Ryuusei.
Then, he watches Rin’s head tip back and his mouth fall open around something soundless — yet loud. And Rin just shakes, hands falling to his sides and clenching at the sheets. His knuckles are white again, like snow, like the bed, like the spurt of come that is wet between their stomachs. Ryuusei wants to touch them as always and he hopes the way he holds Rin’s body against the bed is enough to keep him warm.
Ryuusei falls apart not long after, hapless with his rutting as he chases release. He falls against Rin’s chest as he empties himself into him, tired arms wrapping around him like a welcome home. Ryuusei thinks he could fall asleep like this, with his dick half falling out of Rin’s ass. The little pervert in his brain provides the image of him waking up, hard again. Easy access.
“What are you thinking about?” A thumb comes up and smoothes out the crease between Ryuusei’s eyebrows.
He kisses Rin’s palm, inhaling the dregs of mandarin scent on his skin and letting Rin coax his head into an upwards face. There, he opens his eyes, immediately stricken by the reminder that Rin is breathtaking at every angle imaginable.
“I’m thinking about how I’d like to have sex with you again,” Ryuusei answers, honestly.
Rin makes a face. “You’re a perv,” he says, but he doesn’t look or sound too mad.
“It’s your fault,” replies Ryuusei, hunching over to press a kiss to the base of Rin’s sternum.
Rin hums, wriggling as Ryuusei’s lips trail up his chest. “We can fuck again later.”
“And then again after that?”
“Is that all you want me for?” Rin frowns.
Ryuusei drops his hands to the mattress and uses them to pull himself up to Rin’s height. Then, he smiles. “I want you for everything.”
“Fine.” Rin rolls his eyes, but is easily betrayed by the red flush of his cheeks. “Though, don’t expect me to catch the bouquet tomorrow or anything.”
“Of course not,” replies Ryuusei. “I’ll be the one catching it.”
Rin huffs around a laugh. “We fuck once and you’re already thinking about marriage?” he teases.
Ryuusei likes this side of him. “What can I say? I go fast.” He ducks forward to give Rin a kiss. “It’s why I don’t drive. I’d be a speeding ticket magnet.”
“You don’t drive,” Rin starts with an amused roll of his eyes, “because you don’t know how.”
“Teach me then,” Ryuusei says — perhaps even challenges — taking Rin’s hand in his own, as well as a page out of Rin’s book and being hopeful.
Rin smiles as Ryuusei’s lips press against green veins and cracked skin. “Alright, I’ll teach you.”