Chapter Text
He hears it before he sees it.
The sound of cleats crushing into the ball—it's like the crack of a whip, echoing out into the field even over the cry of fans. By then, it's already too late: the black and white blur of the ball whizzes past, gnawing through the air like a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth. The spin on the ball, so fast it looks like a smudge in his vision more than a ball, suddenly comes to a halt—then the ball is dipping, slipping just out of reach of the goalkeeper’s outstretched hand and sinking into the back of the net with a thunk.
The net springs back with the ball, cradling it like a bulletproof vest, and the goalposts seem to shiver. Like they, too, are suddenly overwhelmed with goosebumps.
It’s silent, then.
Distantly, Rin knows that the crowd must be deafening, exploding out of their seats as the clock hits 0, but there’s a ringing in his ears that drowns it out. His eyes flit from the net, still rippling from the impact, to the scoreboard.
4-3.
The buzzer shrieks.
4-3. This is it. He lost.
A body suddenly crowds his vision, and it’s him—the thief of his win, the object of his hatred—
Isagi Yoichi is still heaving from his goal. His shoulders bob up and down, up and down, like he’s chasing each breath. And his eyes—his unhinged, deranged, eyes, so blue he could drown in them—they pierce through Rin. They swallow him whole.
Then, his hand reaches out. Isagi is trembling, reaching out a hand to Rin because—because he’s on the ground, still, from where Isagi had shoulder checked him out the way to make the game-winning shot.
This lukewarm moron—mocking him.
Rin’s mouth curls back into a snarl, feral and primal like a beast. He shoves past Isagi’s outstretched hand, and a look of surprise flashes across his face. Rin almost scoffs; surely, he saw that coming. Rin knots a fist in the front of Isagi’s jersey and yanks him down. He crashes into the dirt with Rin with a gasp, all but colliding into his chest.
This close, they share the same hot, ragged breath. Nose-to-nose, foreheads smashed together. He’s enveloped in Isagi’s scent, his sweat, the heat of his body, he can even smell the stench of pride seeping out of him—
“I’m going to fucking kill you,” Rin promises. On his goddamn life, he will end Isagi Yoichi. This will be the last time Isagi scores on him. Ever.
Those eyes of his shine brighter. Fucking psycho. And then he has the nerve to smile, lips peeling back to reveal straight, white teeth.
“I’d like to see you try, you monster,” Isagi says through his insane, stupid grin. Rin shoves the striker off of him and gets up on his own.
“Freak,” he spits, and turns his back on him.
Rin doesn’t listen to the post-match speech. He doesn’t care about what woe-is-me, you-did-the-best-you-could, you-should-be-proud-of-yourself bullshit they have to spew. He sits silently in the locker room, hunched over himself, his anger a palpable thing engulfing him.
Fucking Isagi Yoichi. The entirety of this season, they’ve had it out for each other. They always have. The stupid prick declared Rin his rival sometime when they were teenagers, and he hasn’t been able to shake him off since. Always, always, Isagi is there. Getting in the way. Pissing him off. Trying his damnedest to usurp his throne, all the way into adulthood.
At this point, their rivalry is a world-wide spectacle. Not that Rin particularly cares about who follows his career, but somewhere between then and now, between a reconciliation with Sae and Isagi’s sudden overwhelming, unyielding presence in his life, he’s been unable to escape him. Rin’s goal has shifted from a childish desire to defeat—or prove his worth to, really—his big brother, to something much more realistic, much more mature: pinning Isagi to a cross and crucifying him.
He’s going to eat him alive.
Anytime they share the pitch, it’s personal. It’s a battle to the death. And this time—this time, Isagi had—
Rin clenches his fist until his nails dig into the flesh of his palms. On the national stage, Isagi bested him. Fuck this.
“Itoshi? Do you have anything to say, captain?” Coach asks, breaking Rin’s trance.
Rin looks up from where was boring holes into the ground. He looks past his sweat matted fringe, and his voice is a knife in his mouth when he speaks.
“Next time, they’re dead,” he says. “All of them are dead.” Isagi Yoichi is fucking dead.
He stands, then, hardly addressing his teammates before disappearing toward the showers.
He stops in front of a mirror clouded with steam. His face is distorted and blurred in the fog, and what faces him in the reflection is nothing more than the vague shape of himself.
Back in Japan, Rin kickstarts the off-season with a vengeance. And by vengeance, he means recovery—
A lesser man would jump straight into intensive training. Drills, conditioning, scrimmages. Rin knows better, though—this is a process. Being an athlete is a mindset, a certain kind of will, but without the body—the vessel—he is nothing. Unnecessary strain now, after the long, demanding season he just had, would be nothing short of stupidity.
(He doesn’t linger on the fact that this, too, was something he unfortunately owed to Isagi. In one of the many training camps they participated in together, Isagi was the one reminding him not to push too far, too fast. Rin won't ever admit this out loud, though).
Thus: rest and active recovery.
The evening he landed in Japan, Rin came home to his and Sae’s shared apartment—rarely were they ever there at the same time, what with their drastically different schedules, but it’s theirs all the same—and slept for 10 hours on the dot. Nine in the evening to seven in the morning, because getting enough sleep is crucial to the recovery process.
10 hours of sleep. Breakfast. Yoga. Reading. Review film. Biking. Swimming. Lunch. Dinner. Macros. Micros. Yoga. Journaling. Meditation. Massage therapy. Foam rolling. More Yoga. Rin cycled through different modes of rehabilitation every day, the first phase of his postseason agenda progressing smoothly.
Today, after another 10 hours of sleep in which he dreamt about sinking goal after goal into the back of a world-stage net, he has a hearty breakfast: Oatmeal. Yogurt. Eggs. Carbs, protein, vitamins—another thing crucial to the recovery process. Every bite of food he stabs through with his chopsticks is one step closer to destroying Isagi Yoichi. A wicked smile overcomes him.
“Rin, it’s weird to look at your breakfast like that.”
Rin’s head whips up, face falling. Sae stares at him, bored, if not the slightest bit endeared.
“Nii-chan?”
Sae adjusts the duffel bag on his shoulder. From where he sits at the kitchen island—because there are never enough people home to justify using the dining table—Rin sees suitcases parked by the front door. Sae’s team won their league championship, naturally, so Rin didn’t expect him to be back so soon.
“Finish your food,” is all Sae says. “I’ll join you at the Wellness Studio today. That’s where you’re going when you’re done, isn’t it?”
Rin nods. It’s still an adjustment, being on… normal terms with his big brother. After years of idolizing him, to then hating him, to wanting to destroy him and then make him stand by his side all over again—it’s a lot. Rin looks away from Sae’s impassive face. It’s no surprise that he knew exactly what Rin would do upon returning to Japan.
After Rin finished eating and Sae changed into more suitable clothes, they go to the Wellness Studio. It was renovated in recent years, and what once was a quaint non-profit Rin stumbled across in high school is now a gorgeous, state-of-the art building that offers a wide selection of services. Still, Rin always sticks to yoga.
He follows Sae through the expansive glass doors, approaching the receptionist desk when—
Rin halts, the grip on his bag tightening.
“Oh—Itoshi brothers? What a surprise!” Bachira Meguru says, and this is bad. Bad bad. Because where there’s Bachira, Isagi Yoichi isn’t far behind.
Rin's chest burns with anger at the thought of seeing Isagi so soon. It hasn’t even been a week yet. If he sees him now, he’ll smash his head in. Or something.
Sae pauses to make pleasantries—he’s mellowed out over the years and gives some people the time of day now—but Rin continues to stalk ahead toward the yoga studio. The absolute last thing he needs is to have his focus, his routine, his absolute, stream-lined concentration, broken. Which is exactly what will happen if he—
It isn't even a glance. Rin doesn't even turn his head toward the large, glass windows that look into the various studios lining the hall, doesn't care to see who is in the gym or who is attending the weekly ballet class, and yet— yet—
From his peripheral vision, Rin catches a glimpse of him. Unfortunately, he’d recognize him anywhere, even the smallest, most insignificant part of him (not that all of Isagi isn't insignificant), like his fucking shoulder or his ear or in this case, the flex of his stupid fucking hands—
Isagi Yoichi is the only person in the ceramics studio. He’s bent over a pottery wheel, forearms flexing as he carefully presses his palms into a mound of clay. He’s got that stupid, insane look in his eyes, blue like a tidal wave encroaching a shore. Goddamn idiot. If he hunches over anymore, he’ll get his hair in the clay. Rin prays that he does.
What the hell is he even doing here? This place isn’t for him. It’s Rin’s place. It’s for Rin. Who does he think he is, intruding like this? Doesn’t he have something fucking better to do then ruin Rin’s day?
Rin glowers at Isagi through the glass, willing him to fuck up. Somehow, he does—Isagi’s mound of clay, which had been forming into something bowl-adjacent, unceremoniously crumples into his hand.
Isagi lets out a groan that Rin can’t hear through the glass and slumps back in his chair. He throws his head back, his fringe off of his forehead and consequently revealing his disgruntled, clay-smeared face. Serves him right, Rin thinks. He hopes everything he throws on that wheel looks like shit.
As if he hears the ill-will Rin wishes upon him, Isagi glances toward the glass. He meets Rin’s eye, and—and smiles? Rin bares his teeth and stomps off.
Stupid Isagi Yoichi. Always in the way. Always pissing him off. Rin hurls his bag against the wall and slams his yoga mat on the floor. Stupid lukewarm motherfucker. He hates him.
Rin settles onto the yoga mat and inhales deeply. In, out. In, out. In—
This isn’t fucking working. Rin’s breath comes out in bursts, shallow, restless—Isagi does this to him. Just the sight of him makes his blood pressure spike and his heart thunder, invigorating him like a hungry animal catching sight of prey.
“Calm down,” Rin mutters to himself. “Calm down.”
Isagi is not worth breaking his focus over. He just isn’t.
Rin closes his eyes and tries again. He inhales, pulling the air from every corner of the room. He exhales, easing the breath out. In… out. In… out. In—
“Rin! What are you doing here?”
Rin’s eyes snap open. Fucking—
Isagi Yoichi stands in the entrance of the yoga studio.
“And why are you sitting here in the dark?” he continues.
Obviously, Rin was unconcerned with getting the lights in his rush to escape looking at Isagi.
“Get the hell out.”
“Are you doing yoga?” Isagi asks, unperturbed by the murderous intent pulsing from Rin’s unmoving form. He ventures further into the studio, because he clearly has no sense of self-preservation.
Rin grips his knees where he’s sitting cross-legged on his yoga mat. Is he fucking stupid?
“Are you blind?”
“Are you?” Isagi shoots back.
Rin’s nostrils flare. “If you’re just here to disturb me, leave. ”
Isagi crouches down in front of Rin and it takes every ounce of self-control for him not to sock him in the throat. Up close, Rin can see that he really made a mess of himself—clay on his face, sticking to the sleeves of his sweater, splattered across his already filthy Converse. Typical.
“I just wanted to talk to you and see what you were up to. Can’t let you get too far ahead of me, now, can I?” Isagi says brightly.
His face is so… annoying. His hair is in his face again. There’s even clay there. And his eyes are too blue. And his nose is too… straight. And his mouth is ridiculous when he smiles.
Rin closes his eyes. He can’t bear to look at him.
“Tepid.”
“Hey!”
“Why are you even here?” Rin snaps, eyes still closed.
“Sae told me about this place.” Rin’s mouth twitches, and Isagi continues with that lilting voice of his. “He said this is a great place to hunker down for postseason recovery, so I thought I’d check it out.”
“Now that you’ve checked it out, you should leave and never come back.”
“No way! I really like the ceramics studio. It helps with quieting my mind—I feel like I’m always thinking really hard about a lot of things, so it’s nice for my head to be empty for some time, even if it takes a while to get there.”
Rin knows this about Isagi: the way he is on the field, analyzing every moment as it happens, before it happens. Inquisitive. Calculative. Dissective. Never reacting, always predicting, unfolding with each pass, each play, like the field is in his ear, whispering, singing him its secrets. He is the orchestrator, the conductor, the puppeteer pulling the strings and choreographing the dance of the game.
Still, Rin responds, “Here I thought your head was always empty.”
“Of course it isn’t. How could I have caught up with you with an empty head?”
In seconds, Rin goes from cross-legged on the floor, the picture of meditation, to on his knees with his face in Isagi’s.
“You haven’t caught up with me, you second-rate, lukewarm moron! You’re still eating my goddamn dust!” Rin growls.
“Yeah?” Isagi purrs like a cat, and it makes Rin’s head spin, “Where’s your championship trophy?”
Rin doesn’t get a chance to land the hit aimed at Isagi’s stomach. Sae is already boredly stepping between them.
“Do you want to get us kicked out?” he chastises, hands in his pockets.
Rin falls back on the yoga mat on his ass and huffs.
“Whatever.”
If he was capable of stooping so low, Sae probably would’ve rolled his eyes at Rin, but he doesn't. Rather, he nods at Isagi, who is also on his ass.
“Isagi. Bachira is waiting for you out front,” Sae says.
“I shouldn't keep him waiting, then.” Isagi stands and peers around Sae to find Rin. “I’ll see you around, Rin.”
“Like hell you will.”
Isagi’s laughter follows him out the door.
Rin collects himself with a shuddering sigh. Lukewarm piece of shit.
He pushes into downward facing dog. Stupid Isagi. Stupid Isagi.
Isagi and his stupid, crazy, insane eyes that see right through him like he’s a glass house. They're the ocean at the drop of a cliff ledge: Dangerous. Beckoning. Fatal. Rin wants to kill him, or something—destroy Isagi before he can destroy Rin. Not that Isagi ever could, of course.
Thoughtfully, Sae says, “You can’t just be normal about things. It’s always indifference or obsession.”
Rin snaps his neck so hard toward Sae he’s surprised it doesn’t pop clean off his body. Obsessed? Obsessed with Isagi Yoichi? No. Absolutely not. Maybe obsessed with destroying him, of taking Isagi into the palm of his hand and crushing him into dust—but that’s—that’s—
“Shut the fuck up.” Rin looks back down at the yoga mat.
He sinks his hips down and presses his chest out, limbs stretched into cobra pose. Stupid Sae and his stupid comments. Stupid Isagi and his… him. Stupid him and the way he worms himself into Rin’s brain at the most inopportune moments. Stupid, stupid, stupid.