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The first time Re Al had made an offer, Rin had declined. It was an impulse thing, really: fresh out of their loss against Bastard Munchen, still trying to bottle the high of the flow he'd entered, Rin had refused the strongest club in favour of continuing with PXG. The second time, however, came after PXG played against Re Al.
They hadn't won, but it had been a narrow loss, both sides trading goal after goal. In the very last few minutes, Rin had been able to snatch up one of Sae's passes and rush his way down the field, joined by Nanase and Shidou. His intercept had left Re Al defenders in an unstable position, and though they were quick to regroup, Rin had for once been faster. He'd faked a shot and instead sent the ball spinning towards Nanase, leapt to catch the returning pass, and midair Rin had gone for the most ridiculously angled shot, knowing it was his only chance: he'd known his success by the sounds of his teammates cheering, as he tumbled back down to earth and rolled to catch himself. The game ended as Rin was picking himself up, at 6-5 in favour of Re Al. Three goals to Luna and Loki each, one to Shidou, the final one to Rin. Three assists from Rin, two for Loki and one for Shidou, pulled off in the heart of Re Al defenses, as destructive as he could possibly make them. Three attempted shots from Rin, two of them barely blocked. Not a bad performance from a team as new as PXG, most would agree. Not bad at all.
Rin had suffered through his teammates trying to slap him on the back and pull him into hugs, elbowing Shidou and hissing at Charles, reluctantly allowing Karasu and Nanase a few seconds. Loki had been kind enough to leave it at a congratulations, before he went to talk to Re Al's captain. Sae did not look at him once, and Rin entertained thoughts of what his brother might say about his play, like picking open a healing wound, prying off the clotted blood. Then Tokimitsu had ducked behind him with a terrified noise, as though he could actually disappear behind Rin's frame.
"What?" Rin had scowled, trying to step aside. No luck. He'd followed Tokimitsu's gaze: Leonardo Luna, as proud as any king and with a smile Rin thought was just as heartless. The lackadaisical way he approached made Rin bristle.
"Sae's brother," Luna greeted, genial. Rin was quite certain Luna knew his name, because with how often his teammates shouted it the entire stadium should have known, but the bastard probably just wanted to get under Rin's skin. It worked, naturally. Rin grit his teeth and tamped down a glare.
"What?" he said.
"Not bad, today," Luna said, and scanned Rin in a way that made Rin want to claw his eyes out. "You still have that habit, I see."
He tapped the corner of his mouth, with a smile that verged on mocking, and Rin tried to parse his meaning. He did stick his tongue out playing, as many had informed him, but so did plenty of other players, including — on rare, rare occasions — Luna himself. "So?" he demanded, with the sinking feeling that he was being left out of some kind of joke, a puppet unaware that it had strings, a doll who didn't realize real humans had bones and not ball-joints.
"Try not to open your mouth so wide, next time," Luna said. Something about his posture made Rin feel as though he was being stared down on, despite being taller than Luna. He drew himself up, trying to remind himself of that. "People might take it the wrong way, you know?"
Tokimitsu whimpered. "What the hell are you talking about?" Rin snapped. He almost wanted to take a step back, but Tokimitsu was behind him and it would be rather pathetic of Rin, retreating when there wasn't even any danger. "If you're not going to say anything useful—"
"Oh, I'm sure it'll be useful to you," Luna interrupted. The smile on his face barely twitched, still so casual that Rin wondered if he'd hallucinated the shimmer of cruel amusement in Luna's eyes. "Take care now, Sae's brother. I'm sure I'll see you soon."
He'd left before Rin could respond, leaving him unsteady and rather irritated about it. Rin turned on his heel and left the field, ignoring the way Tokimitsu scrambled to follow, apparently keen on using Rin as a shield until they were far from Re Al. Nanase appeared at some point, flashing Rin an awed look while Rin was changing, shoving his hair out of his face the second time it flopped into his eyes.
"Rin-san," he'd asked, "are you going to accept?"
"What?"
"Re Al is going to make another offer," Nanase said, while Rin stripped off his jersey and then his compression shirt, rolling his shoulders. "I heard they might offer 400 million. Or more, even."
So that was Luna had meant. Rin wondered if he should decline a second time.
"They're thinking about offering 450 million," Loki said, followed by the rest of Rin's teammates. He offered Rin a light smile, amused at something Rin couldn't understand, but at least not as bad as Luna. "Thinking of going?"
Rin bit down on his tongue, and waited for the taste of blood before he said anything. "Maybe."
"I'm sure you'd do well there," Loki commented. He was calm enough for Rin to settle, though not much. "They're the top club for a reason, much as I want that to change. Though, if you want to stay, I don't doubt that PXG can match the offer."
That was the crux of the issue. As much as Rin didn't want to meet Luna more often than he had to, if only to avoid getting into a brawl with Madrid's scion, Re Al was the strongest team in the world for a very good reason. And...
The thought of Sae did something complicated and twisty to Rin's stomach. He curled his hands up against his thighs, into half-fists. There wasn't anything particularly satisfying about stealing Sae's pass, about getting one over his brother for once: there was only the continued rush of adrenaline and the impulses in his ear, telling him to keep going, to crush everything in his path until he took hold of victory. Whatever connection they had was finally beginning to slip, if only because Rin's hands were loosening, and it was rather awful to think about.
He'd known that this was coming for years, ever since their childhood when Sae was the one their youth team centered around and Rin was the weird attachment, the kid who could shoot but didn't like to talk, or only said strange things. He'd felt the first stirrings of it when Sae left for Spain, the realization that their paths were truly beginning to split, a thing that left him tossing and turning in his bed, refusing to let it settle. Now, it was something he had to confront, a fight where there could be no victor. What felt worse, the fact that they could no longer be as they once were, or the fact that Rin could now withstand such a thing? It left him unmoored, certainly, struggling for balance, but he could still dig his heels in and face forwards. It felt a bit like a betrayal: of who, Rin didn't know.
After several months spent together, his teammates were used to his moods, the way he drew back in on himself and went silent. Shidou ruffled his hair with a mocking little careful if you go, Rin-Rin, the big dogs aren't so nice, and Karasu threw Rin a waterbottle, but otherwise they all let him go about his routine. Rin had had a lifetime to put together crutches and stumbling points for himself, for when he didn't want to talk or for when he wanted to tear into himself and scream. It wasn't always effective, but it was better than letting another hand try and fail, because at least Rin knew what to do.
He showered, scrubbed all the dirt and sweat away, washed his hair and cleaned an abrasion on his palm. He drank an entire bottle of water and then left to do his usual stretches. Charles interrupted at some point, like the little shit that he was, but at least did something useful by flopping over on Rin's back while Rin pushed his body into a butterfly stretch. He chattered away about increasingly ridiculous topics, while Rin attempted to finish his routine.
By the time he was done, Rin could make the choice rationally. He accepted Re Al's offer when it came in, and sat through a round of increasingly ridiculous goodbyes from his teammates, soon to be former teammates. He refused to let anybody hug him, until Nanase fidgeted one too many times and made Rin antsy enough to lift an arm and allow it. That was, apparently, an invitation to everybody else: they swarmed him, laughing when Rin swore at them. Loki patted him on the head, and both Charles and Shidou leapt onto his back, and Rin nearly stumbled from the sudden weight.
"I'll kill all of you," Rin hissed, regaining his footing.
"Now that's the Rin we know," Karasu said, ruffling Rin's hair. Rin headbutted him and, with some effort, tossed Shidou and Charles off. He seized his luggage, and turned away from his teammates, making for the counter as fast as possible. Past the departure gates, he gave in and looked back. Shidou blew him a mocking kiss, Charles stuck out his tongue. Nanase was wiping his eyes, with Karasu patting him on the back. Loki caught his eye and simply smiled, confident as ever.
Rin wanted to curse at Shidou and Charles, and tell Nanase to stop crying, and tell Loki that the next time they met Rin would crush him. He couldn't exactly do any of that, however. He waved to Nanase instead, flipped Shidou off, and promptly left before he could hear any of them shouting something stupid like goodbye.
For multiple reasons, Rin thinks, he dislikes Madrid. There's Luna, for one, cornering Rin into scrimmages and one-on-one practices which leave him aching and flushed from exertion by the end of it all, throwing an arm around Rin's shoulders and not-so-gently guiding him towards a cluster of other Re Al players. There's the fact that he and Sae are the only ones who speak Japanese, and though he can carry a passing conversation in Spanish, his weakness still shows when there are jokes passed around that he doesn't understand, when a table is laughing and Rin doesn't know enough to join in or pass it off. There's the matter of living with his brother—well, that in itself isn't the worst thing, not when their rooms are on opposite ends of the apartment, but it's a system shock every time he returns and sees his brother in the living room, or rifling through the fridge. It was one thing to be in Paris or Blue Lock, woken up by his roommate slamming the door too loudly or by someone managing to fall over with their head on his stomach. It's another to be in his brother's apartment, filling up Rin's space with Sae no matter where he turns.
Rin keeps his routine as stubbornly as he can, out of some urge he can't fully name. Up at 5:00, into bed at 22:00. Eat breakfast at 5:45, get out by 6:00. He let his hair grow longer while in Paris, preferred how the extra length weighed it down instead of letting it get ruffled up. It falls past his ears now, and he invests in a small packet of hair elastics, ties it back like he saw Mikage Reo and Chigiri Hyouma do when it gets irritating. He pushes himself into increasingly difficult stretches, ones he knows that Sae can't pull off, and even though it isn't a victory at least Rin can do them. He builds a wall from these habits until he thinks he can breathe properly, even with his brother around.
As it turns out, he doesn't need to try so hard. It crumbles apart the moment Sae touches him, hand around Rin's wrist and backing him up, a thumb on Rin's cheek like when they were younger. His brother has soft hands and a firm grip, squeezing just enough for it to begin to ache. Sae has stronger arms and broader shoulders, enough to give him an edge over incoming strikers, enough for him to seize and then defend his control. Excess weight on his shoulders will only hinder Rin: it's muscle much better used in his core and legs, letting him rush down the field at a moment's notice, giving him the strength to soar above others when he jumps.
He doesn't feel any of that power now. He's sure that Sae could drag him down before he gained any momentum. Not that Rin thinks he wants to, anyway. His hand is beginning to go numb and all he can think of is just how close Sae is, the attention like a knife to the gut, prying him open. His heart hammers against his ribs, thu-thu-thu-thump. An old terror seizes him, that Sae will carve him open and study his pieces and deem them all worthless, but that's not the way his brother is looking at him, is it? The apathy is gone.
A thrill jolts through him. Rin coils up, bracing himself to better feel the impact of whatever it is Sae will do. Anything, he thinks. Affection, pain. Anything so long as it's real, so long as it's you.
And then his brother releases him and steps away: retreats. Rin lists and has to catch himself, movements jerky. Stunned, he looks up at Sae. A plea sits on the tip of his tongue: do something. Look at me. Don't back away, why did you back away? Nii-chan, please?
"Go to bed," Sae says, low and quicker than usual, striding away and leaving Rin shaken. The shock keeps him in place, right until Sae is three steps gone and much too far. Then the frustration, boiling hot, boiling over. Rin swears at him, though Sae doesn't at all react, and then the door to his room thuds and suddenly he's back to being alone.
Rin presses his face into his hands. He feels out of place, even though Sae was the one being strange, but Sae can be strange because it's his apartment. At least his brother was the one to back off first. Maybe that's a victory, though it certainly doesn't feel like one.
Slow, he gathers himself. He does some stupid breathing exercises Loki once suggested, and they're enough for Rin to regain control of his body. He presses a fist to the wall, and digs his knuckles in until he is steady enough to stand. Irritatingly enough, it's late, late enough that Rin should go to bed unless he wants to screw up his sleep schedule.
He walks himself to his room, and fetches a change of clothes. His wrist is still red, he realizes. Rin puts a thumb over the marks and digs in, shifting his grasp until he's pressing directly over bone and it hurts. He wants it to bruise, maybe. It's not the same if it's his own hands doing the work, but it's something.
Rin turns the shower knob and waits for a few minutes for the water to warm, before stepping in. He scrubs himself down, and then stands beneath the spray until his head clears. As he turns off the water and redresses, a muffled thump drifts past the closed bathroom door.
It's probably nothing, Rin tells himself, exiting the bathroom. Or, at least, his brother is probably fine. He finds himself in front of Sae's door anyway, worrying at the fading marks on his wrist with his thumb, wondering what he should say or if he should speak.
"Did you drop something?" he asks. "I heard..."
"I didn't," is the response, flat and cool. "Go to bed, Rin."
Rin digs his teeth into his lip. It tastes like the lipgloss he was wearing, the product of a bet lost, the idea of one of his current teammates. He doesn't like the taste, he thinks. It's too sweet.
When he was younger, he might have pushed. He might have asked to come in, or if Sae actually didn't drop anything, was he sure? Rin doesn't do that now. "Fine," he says, and turns back towards his room. On his way, he spots the lipgloss tube. Impulsively, he swipes it from the counter.
This, he thinks, might have been why Sae was acting strange. Rin turns it around in his hands. Pink all around, small strawberries scattered over the bottle, black lid. The colour hadn't been that bad the first time he'd put on a coat. All it did was make his mouth look somewhat sparkly. That wasn't enough, apparently, so he'd been made to put on a second, and then a third, leaving his lips sticky every time he tried to talk. Showering hadn't taken it off, either. The stain remained there even when he tried to rub it off. Maybe that was what Luna wanted.
Irritated, Rin tosses the tube aside, listening to it land and roll on his desk. He climbs into bed and switches off the lights, and tells himself to fall asleep.
It keeps happening, Rin thinks. Or, his teammates will deny it until it becomes a joke, and they'll get to do that because Rin doesn't know enough Spanish to spin his gut feelings into proper words, but he knows what those looks mean, he knows how a person's eyes feel when they're trained on him. People are staring at him when they think he doesn't notice, and the more they do it the more he wants to overturn something.
He doesn't. He's managed to get a better grip on his temperament since childhood, so all Rin does is grit his teeth and throw himself into a better, stronger rhythm, until the beat of his pulse is enough to drown out the sounds of spectators. Luna nearly steals the ball from beneath him, but Rin kicks it to the side and pivots, jumping to trap the ball before Luna can. He's not fast enough, yet: Luna shoulders his way into Rin's space, snatching it up with a light smile, as though it's all just play. Maybe for him it is, who knows. Rin nevertheless rushes to follow after Luna, catching up to him in three heartbeats. His thoughts run in circles, trying to predict: scissors, a feint, one Rin manages to intercept, though he doesn't keep possession for long. What next? What now?
Luna shoots. The ball slams into Rin's chest, nearly knocking the breath out of him, bouncing up high. Midair, Rin twists and catches the ball with his left foot, throwing out his arms for balance. He hits the field running, wind rushing through his hair. Almost immediately, Luna is on him, a presence Rin can't ever shake.
"Now, that's a good look in your eye," Luna laughs. Rin grits his teeth, bites through his cheek and feels blood drip out of the corner of his mouth. He centers himself around the sting, settling into the ache. Everything falls away, his focus absolute. "Careful, though."
The ball flies out of his control. Rin doesn't blink, chasing after Luna, stealing it back mid-feint. Everything is turning oversaturated, or maybe that's just him, about as calm as a livewire and twice as erratic. All rhythm crumbles away, lost to the pounding of his heartbeat. Beat for beat they match each other, Luna caging him in and Rin slamming against the bars, hunting for weak points, for any spot where he can break through.
His pulse roars in his ears. He thinks people might be talking, but their voices aren't more than noise. The moment there's an opening, any kind of chance, he lunges for it. Rin blitzes through and down the field. He swears he can taste victory, and it's blood in his mouth, the salt of sweat dripping down his cheek. Rin shoots right before anyone can block him off, and the ball soars into the net, bouncing off the post before slamming into a corner and then dropping to the ground.
Three to one, but Rin knows that their fight isn't done yet. He pants, fumbling for the elastic around his wrist and tying back his hair. By now, one of them should be going to retrieve the ball, usually Rin, but Luna isn't moving and nor is he telling Rin to move. Instead, he tilts his head and then smiles, the same way he did the prior night. Come now, Sae's brother, that isn't quite enough. You should follow the spirit of the bet, not the words. Try harder, won't you? And just before Rin lost, under rules he still doesn't understand, a hint of excitement slipped into his eyes, relishing how Rin snarled.
Fuck off. Don't touch me. Give that here, I'll do it myself.
The memory leaves him prickling with irritation. Rin clamps down on it as well as he can and jogs towards the ball, kicking it out from the net, passing it to Luna and making for the center of the field, but their game doesn't restart.
"You seem to have a grudge of some kind, Sae's brother," Luna muses, setting one foot on the ball, sweeping his gaze over Rin. Rin thinks he can feel the tether of his control begin to snap. Of course Rin has a grudge. Of course Luna knows that Rin has a grudge, he has to. The proof is in all the times Rin snapped for him to fuck off, to leave him be, though it never does him much good.
Stop looking at me, Rin wants to say, stop talking to me. Don't touch me while giving me that smile, don't lean over me like that. He doesn't, because none of it would make sense to his teammates, because there's a joke to it so Rin should just laugh along. He bites down to keep the words from spilling through, but it's a hopeless endeavour.
"Stop calling me that," he hisses, and then, "It's your fault."
Luna knows what he means, Rin can tell. Still, he just smiles, blatantly amused. "Oh? What is?"
The way they're staring. The way they look at him. The way Sae has stopped looking at him, not giving Rin any time of day even during scrimmages when they're on one team, every play so clinical that it cuts Rin down to the bone.
"I'm never going to your parties again."
"Your brother did have quite an interesting reaction." Finally, Luna restarts their game. Rin surges into motion. "I'll admit, I didn't fully anticipate that."
"That's—your—"
"Fault? But you were the one to accept the bet, weren't you?" Luna nearly slips right past him. Rin swears and catches himself, forcing his spinning mind to focus properly, giving chase. "If you do things like that, you can't blame others for thinking you like the attention." A tap to his upper lip, a smile, mocking in a way that Luna doesn't need to hide. Rin can feel how the heat spreads to his ears.
Time and time again, they're stuck like this. Not even scoring can give Rin some sense of victory: there's only his frustration, twisting and writhing about like some caged dog, driving him through. He snarls, steals the ball, and swiftly dodges Luna by pulling into a sharp turn. "Shut—fuck— shut up," he pants. Luna keeps cornering him, preventing Rin from gaining any ground, forcing him into a dramatic feint, inertia dragging him one way right before his heels dig in and he snaps into a sudden pivot. The muscles of his core and thighs burn with the strain. His eyes throb from the whiplash, but the pain just goes to his head, a rush that almost dulls what Luna says next.
"Careful with your mouth, there. Sae is watching, you know?"
Rin does not stumble. Over time, mentions of Sae no longer tripped him up in the field, only made his ears ring and his head fill up with some kind of awful noise. Whatever it is that Sae pried out of him on that winter night, Rin was never able to grow it back, and it's occurred to him several times that maybe it was never his in the first place.
He doesn't bother to try, anymore, because there's no point in reclaiming lost pieces when his brother will never let him have them. He's figured out how to move around it. Adjust his weight here to compensate for how he knows he'll move, when Sae's name gets said. Arms here, legs there, shut your eyes and remember the way to breathe and dig your incisors into the soft parts of your mouth. Luna snatches the ball, but Rin just whirls around and steals it again. They trade possession back and forth, deadlocked. Worthless, the Itoshi Sae standing behind him spits. Unnecessary, a different one says. Useless.
Rin bottles up the scream that threatens to tear out of his mouth. Luna breaks past him with a nutmeg, the ball spinning between his ankles, and even in his state the humiliation sucker punches him. Snarling, Rin races after him. The rushing wind blows his bangs into his eyes. Half unable to see, Rin splits off at a wild angle and takes a running jump. The ball glances off of his shin, but that's good enough. Rin catches it with his left foot, bounces it up high, coils up tight and kicks it down, sending it flying across half the field. He goes crashing in the next moment, hitting the grass without any of his usual coordination, tumbling wildly until he manages to claw for purchase and drag himself up to his feet, head swinging around in search of the ball and of Luna. They spot each other at the same time. Rin bares his teeth, and all Luna does is smile. His fingers itch and curl with the urge to rip something apart.
A hand settles on his shoulder. Rin jolts, spins, stumbles back and shakes his head to clear his hair from his eyes, hissing in frustration when that fails. He shoves it back at first, and then makes the better choice to tuck it behind his ears instead. Sae is standing there, cold and impossible, watching Rin with that flat stare of his. The memory of his touch tingles over his skin. He pushes his thumb into his wrist, presses down on the fresh bruising hidden beneath his sleeve, the ache easy to settle into.
"Ah, Sae," Luna greets, jogging up to them. Rin is seized by the impulse to spin around and hit him, though all he does is sidestep his brother and Luna both. He's panting, each breath coming up short. Every part of him is burning up, he thinks. Why is it so hot? He doesn't need to even touch his cheeks to feel their heat. Rin wipes the sweat from his forehead, and then his neck, each movement shaky. Oh, he's trembling. Not ideal, he thinks, not at all.
He finds a different bruise, digs in until the pain pulses like a heartbeat, relaxes into the feeling. Sae is done talking, it seems, because he catches Rin's eye and holds it long enough for Rin to understand the order: follow me. Out of some natural impetuousness, the bits of him that are still Sae's cute little brother, Rin is tempted to disobey, turn away and pretend there's any dignity to that, then curl up around the hurt when all Sae does is shrug it off and keep walking: but Luna is still there.
"You should come again tonight," Luna calls after them. Sae doesn't show any signs of having heard him, but Rin twitches, can't help turning back. "You had fun, right, Sae's brother? During, and maybe even aft—"
Rin can feel the heat burn in his ears. "Shut up—"
"He's not going," Sae says, not even bothering to look. It doesn't make Rin feel much better that he's not the only one being ignored. Sae moves at a steady, effective pace, like he would do anything else. Even when Rin is trailing after him, even when Sae was the one to make him do it in the first place, his brother doesn't spare Rin a glance.
Rin chews on his lower lip. The taste of blood is one he's long become used to. Whatever overtook him on the field has not yet worn off, clearly, because as he strips off his jersey and compression shirt, he looks at Sae and everything he used to want to say weighs down his tongue. Look at me. Why don't you look at me? Touch me again. Do it harder next time, put more weight into it. I'll take anything you give me. Say something. Can I still call you in the way I used to?
It gets easier, eventually, to swallow it all down. He crouches and rifles through his locker, cursing the fact that they'd given him a lower one, even though Rin is taller than a good portion of his teammates. Rin unfolds and arches halfway into a backbend, sighing with the pleasant feeling, muscles beginning to unwind. He lets himself hold it for a minute or two, then he gathers his things and makes for the showers.
His stomach hurts. He sets the spray to cold and braces himself, and steps in.
But it isn't a one-time thing. Sae keeps ignoring him, except when Rin is in any kind of proximity to Luna. Their schedules overlap for the most part, but trust someone like his brother to find a way to turn them disjoint. Suddenly, Sae eats dinner earlier than Rin does, and lifts weights in the living room while Rin is trying to cook. Suddenly, Rin stretches alone, and Sae walks back in the moment Rin is finishing up.
It would be fine, Rin thinks, if it were just that. He's always been good at tolerating pain: he's known this ever since he toppled face-first into his toys as a kid and rolled over, and didn't think of his bleeding cheek but instead of the swoop in his stomach when he fell. Knowing that it's deliberate, because Sae is nothing if not that, gouges something right out of him: nothing too new, he thinks. He crams his snarls and his frustrations down his gullet, chases it down by biting his tongue, and knows that sooner or later, he'll learn to live with this too.
Except, Sae touches him sometimes, steering him by the wrist or shoulder. Except his brother listens when Luna strikes up a conversation with Rin, and Rin can tell because there's a particular way Sae acts when he is listening, a different set to his shoulders and the way he blinks slower. And so it is Luna's fault, that much is for certain, except Rin is the one who has to grit his teeth and figure out some way of dealing with things.
With his teammates, Rin just pushes through using blunt force, or sometimes willpower when he knows that he can't do anything but sit still. With Sae, all of that becomes pointless. If there's one thing Rin has learned from the past years of running after his brother, it's that he doesn't have the ability to properly fight Sae, or even to defend himself; any wound he carves will be on his own body.
His mood oscillates, violently so. He pulls off some of the most improbable shots he's ever attempted, he crashes and tumbles and lurches into running with scraped elbows and knees. When one of his teammates tries to tap him on the shoulder, Rin jerks so harshly that the bench beneath him rattles. It startles the man, who Rin takes a moment to recognize as Luis Navarro, a defender. They don't talk much.
"Luna was looking for you," Navarro says. He stays a few paces back, which Rin is unreasonably grateful for. "He's over there."
Rin is tempted to ignore whatever summons this is and suffer the consequences later. The thought occurs to him, rather suddenly, of where his brother might be. He looks. Sae is on the field, still, prying control out of the hands of some other unfortunate midfielder, eyes narrowed in cold focus. It's one of the few things Rin can understand about his brother. Right now, anything which isn't on the field and part of Sae's path to victory must be less than dirt.
He gets up and goes. The closer he gets, the more Rin wants to back away. As soon as the resolve to do as much begins to take root, Luna turns and flashes Rin his characteristic smile, as goading as it is knowing. Any out Rin might have had has disappeared, so he tightens his jaw and straightens and marches over.
"What do you want?" Rin demands, when he's at a respectable enough distance. The feeling of eyes on him never gets easier to bear. He crosses his arms, squares his shoulders, though it doesn't help much. He wonders if it ever did.
"No need to be so tense," Luna says, genial. "Take a seat, there's plenty of room."
"Just tell me." His voice comes out terse, clipped. Rin immediately hates the sound of it.
"If you insist," Luna says, though he doesn't exactly seem displeased. Something about the way he tilts his head, the movement lazy and the glint in his eyes ready to cut, sets Rin on edge. "You always seem to play against me, don't you? That won't do. As fellow strikers, shouldn't we learn to share the field?"
He offers a hand. Rin curls his own into the hem of his jersey, to stop them from doing something worse.
"Play with me next round," Luna says. There are so many people watching, staring, crows circling a hunt. "Two on four."
"The coach—"
"Approves."
The first time, Rin hadn't believed him. He knows better now. He supposes it was useless to bring it up in the first place. Everything itches, refusing to sit right, leaving him jittery. He traces his teeth with his tongue and gathers a reply, something between a scream and Alright, whatever you want. Rin braces himself for whatever will come out, nails clawing over his palms, and—
"Two on five," Sae says, flat as though the midday heat can't touch him, jogging over and pushing his bangs from his face. His words have a weight Rin's never will.
"Oh?"
"For a proper challenge," Sae says. Any other person and it might have been a compliment, but Rin's brother is not one to pass those out so easily. The way Sae sweeps his gaze over them turns it into an insult. "Get up."
Behind Rin, Luna laughs. It makes Rin twitch. He ducks around his brother, out of Luna's reach and onto the field instead, tying back his hair. Yet again, he thinks, Sae approaches him when Luna is around. Or maybe that one is a coincidence, and maybe the way Sae fixes them with a stare as Rin finds his spot left of center and Luna takes the right is also just that: coincidence. He's not sure if that's better than Sae being deliberate.
True striker that Luna is, he doesn't give Rin a hint of leeway during the game, so Rin spares him none as well. The most they do for one another is catch shots gone wide, snatch up the ball if it falls out of the other's possession. No one would expect Luna to pass to Rin, but there are three people Rin is willing to assist and Luna is far removed from all of them. Their play, he is certain, is less coordinated than it was before.
Miraculously, they manage not to make fools of themselves. Rin zeroes down on potential weak points and ruptures them right open, stopped only by his brother's control, cornering him down. Luna lands shots which Rin will reluctantly admit are brilliant, blocked by defenders following Sae's merciless rhythm. For once, Luna doesn't make strange comments, and Rin lets himself shed previous misgivings in favour of throwing himself into the flow of the match: not with any intent to follow, but only with that to break. The first two goals on their end go to Luna. The third and final one is Rin's, tearing past his opponents solo, curving a shot past Sae and straight into the corner of the net. He hits the ground right after and tumbles over onto his back, flushed and panting as the whistle blows to end their round.
Sae's cleats come into his vision, shadow falling over him. Rin tips his head back to look up at his brother. The sunlight makes Sae glow, but his face is inscrutable. He makes no move to help Rin up, but Rin doesn't expect it at this point, nor does he think he'd know how to react.
Under his brother's eyes, Rin rolls onto his side and clambers to his feet, dusting himself off. As soon as he's standing, Sae makes for the benches. Maybe he wants Rin to follow, but Rin turns away and jogs for the center of the field instead. He wants to keep playing, and some vindictive bit of him whispers about letting Sae be the one ignored, for once in their lives.
Whether or not it has its way, Rin isn't sure. For a moment, however, he thinks he feels the weight of his brother's eyes on him, pressing into the back of his neck. It makes him shiver.
That night, Rin tries on the lipgloss again. He does it in his own room instead of the bathroom, with his phone camera as a mirror, trying to remember how girls in his middle school would do it. One swipe of the wand over his upper lip, then his lower lip, press them together until it seems even. A second coat, because the colour doesn't stay the first time.
He looks stupid, he thinks. His mouth is very, obnoxiously pink, in the same way that candies and popsicles tend to be, the kind of thing which he would eat when he was a child, colouring his tongue. Nii-chan, look! My tongue turned red!
Mine is blue.
Woah!
It's not the taste of fake cherry on his tongue this time, but the artificial strawberry isn't any less sugary. Rin swallows until his mouth is dry, and it still manages to stick. Irritated with himself, he twists the wand back into the gloss tube and puts it aside. He'll have to wash it out.
Sae is watching game replays when Rin steps out of his room. He has headphones on, so Rin doubts that he's been noticed, and even if he has, he doesn't think Sae will look at him. In a way, it's a relief. He hardly wants Sae to see him looking like this, does he?
The memory of the last time he had lipgloss on comes to him. By now, the bruises are beginning to fade; they should have healed earlier, but Rin kept pressing into them, wanting to ensure they stuck. His wrist aches. A sharp breath escapes him, at the feeling. It’s not—it shouldn’t feel the way it does, he’s fairly certain, because pain is supposed to be how the body tells you to stop, but Rin has always had a good tolerance for it.
He wants to dig his fingers into them, push until his skin colours properly again. No, that’s not quite it. He wants—
Rin twists his wrist, back and forth. He’s twitchy, strung up all of a sudden. Heat flushes through him when he thinks of what he’s about to do, shameful and burning, but it doesn’t stop him from walking towards Sae anyway, sitting down on the couch armrest, crossing his arms around his stomach and leaning forwards to catch a glimpse of the video playing on Sae’s laptop. His brother doesn’t spare him a glance, so Rin slips his way off the armrest and onto the couch proper, tucking his feet beneath his thighs.
Sae is watching Barcelona’s most recent game, against Bastard Munchen. Rin notes down players he recognizes. Michael Kaiser and Alexis Ness, tearing through the field as a pair: Bachira, switching in for someone Rin doesn’t recognize, grinning as he races to intercept. Hiori rushing in, countered by Otoya. Briefly, the game absorbs him. Rin scans the field, picking out tactics and formations, distracting himself with thoughts of how to defeat either team until Sae moves.
“You’re blocking the screen,” his brother says, flat and unamused. It’s the first thing he’s said to Rin in days. The thought occurs to him that Sae might just walk away, again, and his pulse skyrockets. Sae doesn’t need him, and Rin— Rin doesn’t need him either, in the way that people technically don’t need both kidneys or both legs, but—
“You’re being weird,” Rin blurts. He feels stupid right after, petulant and small and clingy, the shadow his brother wants to cut off. “Why don’t you—”
Immediately, he cuts himself off, digging his teeth into his lower lip. It’s a mistake. He tastes strawberry, and remembers abruptly what exactly it is he’s wearing, why he tried to approach his brother when the past few years should have told Rin how unwise that is. His wrist throbs, and he realizes he’s got his nails dug in.
Sae lets out a harsh breath. Rin dares to look at him, and for once their eyes meet. He’s been the target of Sae’s attention several times at this point, but it’s never any less arresting, never any less thrilling, like leaning over a cliff.
“Why do you have that on?” Sae bites out. It makes Rin’s ears flush. Lipgloss isn’t a big deal, but Sae has a particular way of making him feel humiliated which others have yet to replicate. Reflexively, he bristles.
“It’s just lipgloss. Why the hell do you care?” And then, because Sae isn’t talking, and the silence is too quiet for all the noise in Rin’s head, he barrels on like an idiot. “It’s too sweet. I was going to go wipe it off—”
“But you decided to sit here instead,” Sae says, and it’s phrased like a question but it really isn’t, it’s a demand for answers, prying apart his bullshit excuses. Rin pulls back. He can see the way he moves reflected in Sae’s eyes, can pinpoint the exact second Sae notices his bruised wrist from how his brother’s eyes go wide.
“Rin,” Sae says, quiet and low, “who did that?”
Rin doesn’t need to say the answer, not really, because he knows that his brother is already coming to the right conclusions. Their schedules have been misaligned for the past days, but they practice with each other, and so he would know if anybody grabbed Rin like that. Rin hasn’t been outside of the apartment during nights and mornings, and the bruises are on the same place Sae touched more than a week ago: except they’re too dark, they should be healed by now if it were Sae’s fault, which leaves one culprit.
For all that Rin no longer knows Sae, his brother can still see right through him, and they both know it. The shame twists knots in his gut, prickles up his spine. The flush spreads down the back of his neck, and he’s sure Sae notices. Rin wraps his wrist up in the fabric of his shirt, baring his teeth and tucking his hand closer to his body. He wouldn’t blame Sae for getting up and leaving, right now or anytime within the next few minutes: and yet, greedy thing that he is, he’ll want to chase after his brother anyway, child overstepping his bounds, beast hungry for something it doesn’t deserve.
“You’re going to wipe that off,” Sae tells him instead, not looking at Rin. “Fully, this time.”
Heat blooms in his cheeks. Rin stumbles when getting to his feet, swaying like a newborn fawn and not like a professional athlete. He doesn’t know how he makes it to the kitchen sink, only that suddenly water is running over his hands and he’s trying to scrub his mouth clean, the stuff bleeding over his fingers, sparkly pink smears on his skin. He’s sure some of it is still there, because he can taste it when he swipes his tongue over his lip, cloying and oversaturated. But Sae had said to get it off fully, except Rin doesn’t know how, it just sticks to him no matter what he does. He almost wants to cry, and of all the people to make him do it Rin supposes it’s only right that it’s Sae, not Luna or Shidou or anybody else—
“Tilt your head down,” Sae says, and the noise in Rin’s head cuts out like someone pushed a button. “Look at me for a moment.”
Rin obeys. Sae retrieves a box of rubbing alcohol wipes, which Rin didn’t know they had, and tears the packaging off one. He presses it to the corner of Rin’s mouth, cold but with the weight of Sae’s touch right behind it, and Rin flinches. It makes his brother’s eyes narrow, free hand catching Rin by the forearm, pulling when Rin hisses and tugs back.
“Stay still,” Sae snaps, voice rougher than usual. Fervently, Rin hopes it’ll bruise this time. The lipgloss comes off fully in most places, and the more stubborn parts go away after a few passes. It stings where the rubbing alcohol touches the wounded parts of his lip, the parts where Rin tends to bite and chew and leave swollen. He tenses, but that’s all he can do: Sae’s hold on him has too little give. His hip hits the counter and the pain blooms somewhere deep beneath his skin. “There we go. Hold out your hand.”
The stains on his fingers and palm are wiped away. Sae picks up Rin’s other hand himself. There’s something unspeakably gentle to how he does it, and it leaves Rin unsettled. He curls in on himself, pliant when Sae tells him to open his hand, to twist it one way or another.
“You should wear gloves,” Sae says, without bite. “They’ll protect your hands. You fall too much.”
His mouth is dry. He should reply, though, because his brother is talking. “I like catching myself,” he manages, feeling as though he’s speaking around his tongue instead of with it. “Feels better without gloves.”
“Does it, now.”
“Mm.”
There’s a thumb brushing over his wrist. Rin twitches at the strange feeling, trying to figure out how to settle with it. He mostly fails.
“Don’t do this, Rin,” Sae says, and waits for Rin to drag his focus back before tapping one of Rin’s bruises with his finger, quiet emphasis.
“Why?” Rin mumbles. “’s not that bad.”
Sae sighs. The sound makes Rin flinch. Whatever haze he was under begins to dissipate. For once, his perfect older brother looks uncertain, and that knocks Rin off balance as well. “You… Let them heal for now, at least. Do that for me.”
“No.”
“Rin.”
Refusal is agreement with more steps, in the end, but Rin isn’t the one with foresight. He bites his lip and nods, tasting salt. Sae’s hand twitches, and Rin waits for whatever his brother will do next. As with before, however, Sae lets go, backs away and leaves for his room. It leaves him cold, numb beneath the incandescent overhead lights.
Quietly, Rin returns to his room, slumping down on his bed. The lipgloss tube is where he left it. Briefly, he’s overcome with the urge to smash it against something, but the thought of having to explain the broken glass is enough to dissuade him.
He shouldn’t wear it again, he thinks. It’s too sweet. It’s not the kind of thing Rin likes, anyway, and it’ll come off while he plays, that or it’ll smear and smudge. He doesn’t throw away the tube, nevertheless, rolling flat onto his back and curling his fingers around his arm, brushing over the lingering redness there.
Sae said not to do it. Rin presses his face into his pillow, feeling rather much like a disobedient child, and in the end limits himself to just squeezing, burying a wet sigh between his pillowcase and mouth. His hands don’t feel like Sae’s do, but it’s close enough.
For the first time in months, Rin breaks his routine. Lax-limbed and cold, he pulls the covers over himself, curling up and tucking the pillow between his arms. Before he can think not to, he falls asleep.