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“Nii-chan,” Rin whispers, gossamer-thin and soft as a breath, like a snowflake drifting on the wind.
It threads into the tail end of your dream, the sound of his voice incongruent with the dream itself. The dissonance rouses you, takes you by the hand and pulls you gently out of sleep, into a space that feels not unlike dreaming, either. Red light bathes the room in stripes, the glow of the dying sun painting Rin’s bedroom in a bloody, hazy warmth; strong arms wrap around your waist, a knee slots between your thighs, a chin hooks over your shoulder, caging you in entirely.
Your brother’s hair tickles your cheek, his nose against your jaw, breathing in your scent. His skin sticks to yours, overwarm and tacky with sweat under the tangle of sheets and blankets that hides the two of you away from the cold world outside. When you shift, his arms tighten around you, pulling you closer, your back to his chest.
“Nii-chan,” he murmurs again, breath fanning over your throat. “Are you awake?”
“I am now,” you grumble, voice rough with sleep, and Rin makes an apologetic little noise against your neck. You dig around within yourself for some kind of annoyance at being woken, but come up empty. Your hand finds Rin’s, palm sliding over the backs of his knuckles, fingers slipping into the spaces between his and interlocking with them—forgiveness, if not in so many words. “What is it?”
Rin hesitates, which is the second indication that something is wrong—the first was the fact that he woke you at all, as he’s been letting you doze as much as you want during these late-afternoon naps, knowing he’s tired you out after spending half the day tangled up in each other. His fingers grip yours tightly, and you feel in the clutch of his hand that he’s afraid you’re going to let go.
“Rin,” you prompt, when moments pass and he still hasn’t spoken. “What’s wrong?”
You feel him swallow, and then he tips his head down, presses his face into the back of your shoulder. His voice, when he finds it, is a small, trembling thing—he sounds less like the sixteen-year-old he is, and more like the child who always clung to your sleeves and gazed at you adoringly, who thought you were already asleep when he muffled his tears into your pillow the night before you left for Madrid. “When we both leave… when I go back to Blue Lock and you go back to Spain… what’s going to happen between us?”
Well. You can’t say you weren’t expecting this question eventually, although finally hearing it still makes your heart sink into your stomach. For nearly a week now, the two of you have been indulging in this newfound relationship; every time your parents leave for work, Rin pins you to the mattress and takes you apart with his mouth, his hands, his cock. You’ve spent countless hours these past days rolling around in this bed, around each other, inside each other, and both of you bear the evidence of it, matching bruises marking your skin and his alike.
The one thing you haven’t done is talk about it. Can you be blamed for it? Amid the fragile bliss of these short winter days spent keeping each other warm, the reality of your situation looms overhead, ever-present, its shadow growing over you with each passing hour. You feel it every time you scrub your skin clean in the shower afterward, every time you sit across the dinner table from each other and try not to catch each other’s eyes in your parents’ presence, every time you let yourself be coaxed into Rin’s bed in the dead of night when all the rest of the world is asleep.
You’re brothers. It’s not like you can date, or something. And come two days from now, Rin will be going back to that training facility, and you… you’ll be flying halfway across the world.
Is it so wrong to want to ignore it all for these last few days?
But as much as you wish you could, you can’t keep running from it. Carefully, so Rin doesn’t think you’re pulling away from him, you turn over in his arms, wriggling closer, tucking your feet beneath his calves and fitting yourself into the space closest to his heart. Your hand finds the smooth, soft curve of his cheek, your thumb tracing a familiar path below his eye—the motion of wiping his tears, even if right now, there are none.
“Whatever happens, it won’t be like before this,” you tell him. And maybe it’s because it’s easier in the dying light to make promises like this, but you mean it wholeheartedly. You’re reminded of another sunset, years ago, of Rin’s round face sticky with ice cream and your heart warm with conviction as you vowed to Rin that he’d have you until the day you died. You want that to still be true. Maybe, if you try hard enough, you can make it true once again. “We’ll stay in touch. We’ll make something work.”
Rin’s face, drawn tight with tension, relaxes, the worried furrow of his brow smoothing out. His fingers trail up your spine, his eyes soft, hopeful. “Do you mean that, nii-chan?”
“I do,” you murmur, letting your hand drift lower, thumb now pressed against the corner of his lips. “I promise.”
Slowly, gently, Rin draws you close, and you let your eyes flutter shut as he brings his mouth to yours. He kisses you so tenderly, you can almost taste the sugar and flavoring on his lips, innocent and popsicle-sweet. You hum against his lips, and allow his touch to melt you, thawing the ice in your heart again and again as only Rin can do. When he pulls back, he hugs you tight, burying his nose in your hair.
“Rest a little longer, Rin,” you whisper against his skin. “I’ll be here.”