Chapter Text
By all accounts, there is no situation in which Rin could be convinced to run full speed through an airport. The same is not at all true for Bachira.
Naturally, this means that Rin is sprinting through Munich International, one hand on his own suitcase (black, because he is normal) and one eye on Bachira’s (piss-yellow, because he is afraid of losing it and also odd) that keeps drifting away from the aforementioned’s body as he checks and re-checks the supposed layover notifications on his phone.
In the back of his mind, Rin registers the sun and how it is shining through the windows and onto Bachira’s back. Munich and Madrid might as well be different planets with the lack of oppressive heat and fast paced Spanish echoing around the terminal. Airport shops and other waiting passengers blur around him as they run. He already regrets letting Bachira navigate.
But it’s too early to start regretting this trip. The flight from Barcelona to here had already broken him down some, though he’d sooner die than let Bachira know that.
The offseason was set to be a pretty free schedule this year: no FIFA international matches for the Asian teams, no club nonsense to worry about, and no impending World Cup. Rin had been between going back to Japan or staying in Spain before Bachira called to invite him to his mother’s exhibition gallery in late July and his own twentieth birthday celebration a week later. Rin had pretended to think it over for a few days before agreeing on the condition that Bachira play no part in booking the tickets to Tokyo.
“Oh, y’know… about that. Y’know how Yoichi’s parents are friends with my mom?”
“Forget it. I’m staying in Madrid.”
“No-o, don’t be like that, Rin-chan. There are way more direct flights to Tokyo from Munich than from Barcelona or Madrid.” Unfortunately, Rin had already been aware of that.
“So, what, we’re doing a thirteen hour flight together? All three of us? Why would I ever agree to that?”
“Well, you don’t have to come if you really don’t want to. I just figured we all… haven’t spoken in a while, and I really--” Rin tuned him out completely, trying to improvise a way to get out of having his bluff called without losing his dignity entirely.
“It’s fine. I wanted to see your mom anyways.”
“Yes! I knew you loved me.” Rin didn’t think anything about that at all. “I’ll send you the booking details, I can handle it myself! I’m gonna be an adult soon, after all.”
And that leads, naturally, to running through Munich International Airport and receiving more than a few weird looks from European onlookers.
“If you’re just dragging me around this airport because it entertains you, I will kill you myself,” Rin says. He’s starting to get out of breath, a testament to how long and how hard they’ve been running. Bachira sticks his tongue out.
As if on cue, another Japanese voice rings out. It’s such a normal voice, the kind that shouldn’t be distinguishable from anyone else’s except for the out-of-place language. It’s really all too average of a voice for Rin to recognize as fast as he does.
“Meguru! Rin! Over here!”
Yoichi Isagi is standing at their gate, suitcase in hand and two flight attendants next to him. The sunlight backlights him like a poorly placed spotlight. His hair is neat and his hands are at his sides. The gate is entirely empty; they are the last ones to board. Stupid layover. Stupid Isagi, who ignores your texts for two months and then waits outside your gate?
“I saw that your flight was delayed,” Isagi is already explaining as Bachira speeds up and throws himself forward, past the empty seats and tired airport employees. Rin grabs that stupid yellow suitcase with his free hand as it starts to roll behind him. “We should board, we’re seriously the last ones.”
“Yoichi, I missed you! Rin missed you too, even though he looks like that.”
“I missed both of you. Ness and I watched your last game together, he says you’ve gotten better.” It’s not clear which of the two of them he’s addressing. Rin chooses not to ask.
“I should hope so! Y’know, Sae-chan was just talking about this the other day, did you know that statistically--” Rin stops listening around then, but he can still see Isagi nodding along.
The flight attendants do their best to usher their lopsided trio through the hallway and down onto the aircraft. Rin remains pulling both suitcases so that Bachira can continue clinging onto Isagi, talking and talking in that way Bachira does where you can’t bring yourself to tell him to stop.
Unless you’re as practiced as Rin, that is.
“Shut the hell up, Bobcut. You’re about to be together for days, save some conversation for the flight.” Bachira sighs dramatically, swinging one of his arms over Rin so that he’s awkwardly wedged between the two of them. The other business class passengers are starting to look at them strangely.
“Rin-chan is still so, so mean to me, Yoichi. You’d think that two years in the same league would soften him up, but really, some people never change.”
“I’m sure he’s just homesick.” Isagi sends Rin a smile, stupid and boyish and immature in how competitive it is, as if that’s all Isagi knows how to be.
Rin doesn’t deign to respond, instead focusing on storing his and Bachira’s luggage overhead and barking at Isagi to let him through to his seat.
Their seating arrangement is dumb; it’s obvious that Bachira had chosen it for them. Rin and Isagi occupy the two seats in the middle of the aisle, while Bachira takes the window. Isagi is nearest Bachira, even with the walkway between them.
Isagi sits, hands in his lap and a smile spreading across his face.
It’s gentler than the last one, but when Rin looks into those stupid eyes it’s all the same as before, as when their careers had just started, as it always has been. Rin scowls in response, but it’s a voluntary action. He knows that his gaze holds none of Isagi’s fire like it should. He knows, but he doesn’t look away. He hopes Isagi won’t either until--
Isagi, because he is terrible, laughs. Bachira, because he is also terrible, remorselessly thanks Rin for his help. He’s already yanked open the window shutter to look out onto the tarmac.
It’s all Rin can do to pray that he will be asleep for at least nine hours. He tears open the disposable heated eye mask he’d been storing in his pocket and places it over his face, a sign to the other two that he isn’t interested in conversation.
He can still hear their meaningless chatter. Isagi is saying something about his family. Bachira is responding with more energy than anybody should have before a flight so long. Rin’s face fills with warmth and he tries to focus on the swirling patterns under his eyelids. Against his will, the meaningless spirals blend into green and yellow.
As he drifts off, he can barely make out Bachira saying something to Isagi, something about Barcelona’s weather, something about how Otoya is doing, something about children’s movies.
Rin dreams of being alone in his apartment. Actually, Bachira is there, but he’s found in the past two years that those things don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
If he really had to choose a specific moment, he would say it was El Clásico in October of 2020 that doomed him for life. If he were honest, though, he would say that it had been over for him since the end of Blue Lock, since second selection when two lonely boys with ugly haircuts wouldn’t stop talking to him, since before Blue Lock.
Since before Sae left him.
October of last year was the culmination of it all, in a way. It was after the game, after the win that it all hit a breaking point. Contrary to popular belief (i.e. what Eita Otoya had taunted him with the last time they played Atlético), it was Rin that approached Bachira first. He couldn’t stop himself, not after that game and not after the years they’d spent in orbit but not side-by-side.
It was pathetic. Rin knows that now and he knew it at the time. It was pathetic to walk up to Bachira’s hotel room like a dog with a bird in its teeth. It wasn’t any less pathetic than Rin had ever been.
They didn’t even sleep together (also contrary to Otoya’s beliefs).
Bachira could handle it, his callous and his desperation alike. For all that growth bullshit, Rin knew that the lonely boy with ugly bangs was the same even now, with grown out dye and more people around him. They were the same, the two of them. They had to be, because Bachira would never stay with him, would never book him a stupid plane ticket and invite him to stupid Chiba otherwise.
Rin knew it from the beginning the same as he knows it now. He needs Meguru Bachira because he needs a singularity beside him, always. Meguru Bachira will never need him the same and that is acceptable because even so, Meguru knows what the need is like.
Yoichi Isagi knows nothing about the need. This is obvious based on how he is currently typing away on his MacBook, humming along with whatever is playing through his Airpods. This has been obvious based on the nine weeks of radio silence from him right before this trip.
Rin peels the eye mask off of his face and taps his phone to check the time. They’re only two hours into this hell and he is already seconds from ripping Isagi’s face off.
“Can you shut up?” he says, leaning in so that his voice will carry over the rev of the plane. The humming comes to an abrupt stop. Isagi closes his laptop partway and looks up at Rin, the everpresent gleam in his eye catching under his reading light. “Some people are trying to sleep.”
“Sorry, I didn’t realize you could hear me,” Isagi replies, sheepish again. The expression is out of place on his face; Rin wants to wipe it off. Two months of nothing and he has the gall to act like this.
“Turn off your computer, too. It’s better for you to sleep now.”
“Can’t, I have work to get done.”
“You’re a soccer player. Nothing worth doing is getting done on a plane.”
“Jesus, Rin, do you really have nothing better to immerse yourself in than my business?” Rin shuts his mouth so fast it echoes through his skull. He should’ve known. Isagi sighs and shuts his laptop, gentler than Rin’s jaw. Rin is quiet. Isagi sighs, then is quiet.
“I wanted to sleep,” Rin says.
“We can watch a movie,” Isagi says at the same time, because they only ever fall in step with one another when it’s least convenient. “You can even choose.”
Isagi does not end up letting Rin choose because exactly as Rin goes to click on It, he redirects them to the Japanese movies and starts playing the most recent Detective Conan film.
“You’re a child,” Rin says.
“You’re an adrenaline junkie. I don’t want to think about kids dying while I am actively on a plane to my hometown, and you shouldn’t either. Haven’t you heard that people who only consume one genre have less empathy?”
“I’ve never claimed that empathy is one of my best qualities. Neither should you. Your lack of self awareness is lukewarm.”
“I have way more empathy and self awareness than you, jerk,” Isagi says lightly, stretching his leg out to knock his knee against Rin’s.
“Kicking around like some kind of child,” Rin says, voice rising as he reaches over and grabs Isagi by the shirt.
“You’re the one yanking me.” Isagi grabs him back. His hands are cold, colder than just the air in the cabin and the smooth synthetics of their sleek business-class sidetables. It’s befitting of Isagi, Munich’s neo-egoist soccer machine, to be cold to touch. They don’t even really touch skin-to-skin, but even through the fabric it startles Rin to the point where his shoulder feels like it's burning under his clothes.
He falters. It would be ridiculous not to. There’s a moment then, where Isagi has time to let go and shove a flight-provided earbud into Rin’s left ear. The Conan theme flows into Rin’s brain against his will and he leans back, dropping Isagi’s collar.
Isagi has the other earbud in, but it seems he had reopened his laptop the millisecond Rin let go. It’s between two options for Rin: watch Isagi work himself to death or accept that he’s been dismissed.
He keeps his eyes on Conan. Eventually, he falls asleep. When he wakes up again thirty minutes later, Bachira and Isagi have switched seats and Bachira’s hand is in his. Isagi is still glued to his laptop. Bachira’s palm is warm and he is asleep. Rin doesn’t think anything about it at all.
He doesn’t sleep for the rest of the flight.
Tokyo-Haneda is nothing if not efficient. Isagi’s parents are early to the airport as well, smiling and warm and ready to greet their son the way Rin already knew they would be. It’s expected, because everything about Isagi other than his character is completely and utterly predictable.
Bachira, who had slept for an impressive amount of time on the plane, is the most refreshed Rin has ever seen him so early in the morning. Jet lag does wonders for some.
“Iyo-san, has Yuu told you anything about the exhibition?” Bachira asks from the middle seat. It’s a ridiculous seating arrangement for three more-or-less grown men, but it would be much worse to force one of Isagi’s parents to the backseat.
Rin had pointed this oversight out in the form of directly asking ‘Why would both of you come, then?’, to which Isagi had laughed awkwardly and Bachira had replied ‘I want to sit in the middle!’. Iyo and Issei, to their credit, had not been phased at all.
“Nothing! Her lips are totally sealed, I think she wants it to be a surprise for all of us. Are you planning to stay with her until then?”
Right. The nightmare schedule that only somebody as… connected as Bachira could’ve dreamed up. Two nights at the Isagis’ (‘we can’t leave Yoichi alone, and his parents haven’t seen us since Blue Lock!’), four in Kamakura (‘so Rin-chan can at least pretend he came to see his family’), the exhibition week in Chiba and Tokyo (‘Yuu will be so excited to see you!’), and ‘wherever the wind takes us!’ for his birthday and beyond.
What Bachira means by that is ‘I want to go back and stay with Yuu, and you can spend your month anywhere else’. Which is fine. Which is nothing, because even Rin was raised well enough to know when family is family and your rival-slash-teammate-slash-not-boyfriend isn’t welcome.
Clearly, Rin doesn’t do well around parents anyways.
“Yeah! In a bit, Rin and I have some plans before then.”
“Well, isn’t that exciting? I think Yocchan was just planning to stay in his room all month until we heard about the exhibition.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m some hermit teenager, Mom.”
“Ah, you were so shy as a kid. Look at you now! Winning soccer all over the world!”
“Y-yeah. Sure.”
“What about you, Rin-kun? Are you going to see your parents? You have a brother, too, right? Is he in town?” Rin’s head snaps to attention and he blinks hard enough that he can feel an eyelash getting stuck there.
“We’ll be with them for a couple days,” he says, voice even and back ramrod straight. It’s how Sae would respond, probably. “The water should be nice this time of year, but there might be a lot of tourists.”
Bachira’s head swings around to face Rin. His hair is in his eyes and there’s a piece that’s just a little bit stuck on the corner of his mouth.
“Are we gonna play soccer on the beach, Rin-chan?”
Isagi, on the other hand, is leaning against the window. His thigh is pressed against Bachira’s, but his shoulders are turned almost a full 180 away from them. Rin can see from the window reflection that his eyes are tracking the other cars on the highway.
“If you want.”
“You kids and your soccer! It’s amazing to love something so much. You boys really are talented,” Issei says, smiling at them from the rearview mirror. For a moment, Rin is sure that he’s seen the same grin on Isagi-the-son’s face before.
The moment passes almost instantaneously, and they are still three professional athletes cramped into one backseat. The handle of a suitcase is actively digging into Rin’s back. He kicks Bachira’s backpack at his feet out of spite.
They arrive at the Isagi house about ten minutes ahead of schedule; it is ten in the morning and Rin is slowly becoming more and more aware of his hunger.
“I’ve already made food,” Iyo says, as if she’d heard the oncoming grumble from Rin’s stomach. “But I understand if you boys want to rest for a bit first. Yocchan, why don’t you figure out the sleeping arrangements while your dad unloads the trunk?”
“Wh-- No, Dad, I’ve got it. Don’t hurt your back,” Isagi is saying, already going to help. He really is a good son. Rin resents that observation.
For a moment, Rin and Bachira are alone on stairs up to the Isagi family home.
“You can sleep in Isagi’s room if you’d like,” Rin says, then regrets. How presumptuous to think that Bachira would need permission from him. “I mean-- if-- I don’t mind being by myself. However you choose is fine with me.”
This is a lie. Rin has been aware since the beginning of this half-baked plan that he would probably pass away if left in the Isagi family home alone at any point in time. But it’s fine. He’s practiced at it, being alone, and so is Bachira. If anybody has the right to leave Rin to his own devices, it’s Bachira. Better to be alone for two nights now than alone for every soccer season until retirement.
But there’s a part of Rin, the part that aches and hates and climbs on everybody around him like an infection, that wants to take Bachira by the arms or the legs or the swirl of hair that’s never in place and rip him away. Not away from Isagi, no, the thought of separating that lukewarm duo is ridiculous. But away to somewhere where they are alone but they are together, where they are in Rin’s apartment and Rin can have every waking moment of affection and bask in their shared seclusion.
In the worst version of this fantasy, Isagi is there too. Playing for Real, even, so Rin can know what it’s like to have both the updated versions of his soccer-computer brother and soccer-machine rival by his side on the field.
“Hm? Don’t you want to stay with him?” Rin blinks twice.
“Wh--”
“Are you guys talking about me behind my back?” The man of the hour comes up behind Rin and gently drapes a hand over his shoulder. His hand is still cold. Rin does not pull away. “I put both of your things in the guest room. Do either of you want to shower?”
“Ooh, me! I feel airplane greasy,” Bachira says, already halfway through the front door.
Rin takes this as a sign and doesn’t push the conversation.
“Also, my mom is putting food out. Eat whenever you want.”
Rin’s stomach makes audible noise.
“Which can be now,” Isagi teases. His hand is still on Rin’s shoulder. “I’ll take you to the living room.”
The Isagi house is exactly like its owners: average and predictable. It’s lovely. It’s Rin’s worst nightmare.
They’re sitting at a dining table that is adjacent to the kitchen and to where the couch and TV are. True to her word, Iyo has put out enough traditional Japanese breakfast food to feed a small army. Rin tries to be respectful while eating his rice, but Isagi keeps laughing every time they make eye contact.
“What are you laughing at?” Isagi freezes as if caught in the act. His laugh is gentle too, reminiscent of the Isagi he was before Rin had really known him.
“Er, nothing. Your face is so calm but you’re eating so fast. And you keep looking at me like I’m gonna jump out at you, it’s just a little funny.”
“I’m hungry.”
“Yeah, I can tell. Still a growing boy?”
“Bachira is more older than you than you are older than me.” Isagi tilts his head like some kind of confused animal. Rin pauses mid-bite. They look at each other for longer than they really need to. “What?”
“You call him Bachira.” Wrong. I call him Bobcut to his face.
“That’s his name.” Isagi sighs and grabs a pair of chopsticks, pulling his chair closer to Rin.
“You’re impossible.”
They eat in silence. Iyo comes back into the room and starts fussing over Isagi’s something-or-other.
It’s domestic in a way that makes Rin’s skin crawl. He tries to focus on eating, but it’s hard. It’s hard to be anywhere that Isagi knows how to be better than Rin does, which is unfortunately most of the world. It’s hard to be around Isagi without the pretense of killing each other on the field, it’s hard to want to be around Isagi in any non-soccer capacity. Rin wants anyways.
Isagi feels it too, he has to.
They make eye contact again even as Iyo keeps readjusting his collar. Rin blinks slowly.
“Yoichi, can I get a towel?” calls a distant voice. Internally, Rin is relieved that Bachira didn’t just saunter out of the bathroom dripping wet and/or naked. Isagi obviously feels the same based on both his expression and the speed at which he stands.
“Yeah, let me grab one. Mom, are they in the laundry room?”
“Yep, on the left.” Isagi leaves to go help. Iyo sits in his spot and smiles over at Rin. “I’m glad you’re enjoying the food.” Rin’s back straightens again.
“It’s good. Hard to find in Spain.” Iyo’s smile is like her son’s laugh. Rin runs his tongue along the back of his teeth and takes another bite of rice.
“I hope you can try and feel at home here, Rin.” Her hand is on Rin’s non-eating forearm. He doesn’t react at all, because Sae wouldn’t react to that. “Thank you for taking the time on your trip to visit us. It’s really nice meeting all the people Yocchan is closest to, and an amazing athlete, too!”
At this, Rin puts his food down and turns to face her.
“Thank you. Please treat me kindly.” Iyo laughs. It’s not much like Isagi’s laugh, this one. It’s more drawn out, like she doesn’t mind staying in the moment longer than needed.
“So formal, what a respectful young man. Yoichi and Meguru are both lucky to have you.”
Rin doesn’t know about that one. Still, he nods and even tries for a smile, which receives another drawn out, chiming laugh from her.
“Wow, Rin-chan is getting along with people! I’m so happy,” Bachira says, wearing a T-shirt that definitely belongs to Rin, athletic shorts that definitely belong to Isagi, and a sopping towel around his neck. Rin blinks. There’s not much else he can do. “You should go shower, then we’re gonna play FIFA or watch a movie in Yoichi’s room.”
“You’re terrible at FIFA,” Rin says, unable to stop himself. It’s true. Bachira has always been the worst out of them at any videogames; he usually struggled to coordinate the buttons and the movements without moving his actual body.
Bachira sticks out his tongue.
“Some of us aren’t addicted to screens like your generation,” he says, huffing. “Move over, I want food.”
He sits down next to Rin so that Rin is sandwiched between Iyo and Bachira. If either of them find it awkward, they don’t show it on their faces. Rin eats some more before standing.
“Issei is going to get to-go for dinner, since we figured you boys might be too tired to go out,” Iyo is explaining. “If either of you are hungry before then, let me or Yoichi know.”
Rin and Bachira both echo their thanks as Iyo goes to badger Isagi, who is sitting on the couch and once again on his laptop. Rin says to Bachira that if anybody is a screen-addicted teen, it’s Isagi. Bachira laughs in the way he does where he giggles and then squawks, shaking around and shoving Rin in the shoulder.
Rin goes to shower, and because he is grown, he remembers to get his own towel.
“How are you this bad at FIFA but that good at soccer?” Isagi says, watching Bachira play from where he’s sitting on his bed. Rin is next to him, halfway lying down and scrolling through his email.
He would be more invested in Bachira’s videogaming (FIFA 19 on Isagi’s PS4, hooked up to the small TV on a shelf facing his bed) if he weren’t comically terrible at it.
“There’s very little skill overlap! And I can never remember which button does which.”
“I don’t believe that you don’t know how to move right, Meguru.”
“I never played videogames as a kid! I was always playing soccer!” Rin sits up at that, putting his phone down without sending the text he was drafting and scooting over to the edge of the bed where Isagi is.
They had spent a few minutes trying to play together, but it turned out that Bachira was genuinely too confused about the controls for multiplayer to be a viable, entertaining option. It had taken Rin that entire period of time to muster the courage to sit on Isagi’s bed, something that he’d then been teased for by both Isagi and Bachira.
They’d stopped for a bit to watch Totoro, which Bachira had cried during. Isagi had semi-frantically suggested they play more games to get his mind off it. Currently, the success of that suggestion was variable.
“Play something else. FIFA is boring,” Rin says, watching Bachira lose the ball and make a noise of frustration.
“He’s not gonna be better at anything else, man,” Isagi says. Bachira huffs in displeasure but doesn’t argue. “And you only like horror games. I have… I don’t have a lot of other multiplayer games. Minecraft?”
Isagi’s room is very soft. It’s not particularly large, unlike Rin’s back in Kamakura which had been shared and then converted when Sae left. It doesn’t feel empty, which is unlike most other rooms Rin has been in. Maybe that’s because Bachira and Isagi are both here. The wall to Rin’s right is lined with a desk and two bookshelves filled with manga and old textbooks, and there are soccer figurines and soccer posters along the walls where the headboard is.
It’s clear, though, that this room has not been Isagi’s for a while.
“This is dumb. Let’s just watch soccer,” Rin suggests. Both Isagi and Bachira seem to consider this for a moment.
“We’re kind of cringe,” Isagi thinks aloud. “We really don’t like anything except for soccer.”
“This is your house and your frankly upsetting videogame lineup, don’t group me in with you,” Rin says, while Bachira nods in agreement. It’s unclear with whom he is agreeing.
Rin lets himself flop over so he’s lying down, feet hanging off the edge of the bed. His entire body feels tired. Isagi makes a surprised sound and then laughs gently. He thinks about Iyo Isagi’s chiming laugh and eternally pink cheeks. When he looks up, he finds color dusting Yoichi Isagi, their Isagi’s, face as well.
Bachira drops his controller and stands up from where he’s sitting on the floor, then flops down in the same way. He makes a big oomph sound as he hits the bed, which makes Isagi laugh again.
“Waaaaugh! I hate being bad at stuff,” Bachira says, rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes (which are still slightly red, Rin notices) and thrashing back and forth a bit. His elbow hits Rin in the shoulder, but Rin doesn’t react.
“It’s okay,” Isagi says, also lying down.
The three of them really do not fit on this bed; they’re all grown, more or less, and professional athletes at that. With each added flop, the bed had dipped a little bit further down, and now with Bachira’s arms splayed out both Isagi and Rin are at risk of falling off.
They just keep ending up like this. In one space, just the three of them, not really fitting comfortably but not so much that they want to move. Isagi rolls over so he’s facing the two of them. Bachira scoots upward so he’s fully lying in Isagi’s bed as if it’s his. Rin finds himself face to face with Bachira’s lower thigh.
His shirt is Rin’s, and Rin knows because they had been videocalling while Bachira packed. He would never stay on task otherwise. He’d pulled the shirt out of his clean laundry hamper and said ‘I don’t remember buying this!’ to which Rin had replied, ‘Yeah, because you stole it from me’. Bachira had shrugged. Rin didn’t remember that he’d ended up packing the shirt.
His shorts, on the other hand, are Isagi’s. Rin really has no idea how he would’ve gotten his hand on them, but Rin would know if Bachira owned athletic shorts so ugly.
Rin scoots up so that he’s not about to be literally kicked off the bed. Isagi does the same, to the point where they can make eye contact over Bachira’s rising and falling diaphragm.
“Your parents are so nice, Yoichi,” Bachira says. Rin can feel a hand fall over his head and brush his bangs out of his face. He can see something similar happening on the other side of the bed; Bachira has grabbed Isagi’s ever-present futaba and is running it between his fingers. “Your dad is funny and your mom is a good cook. Some people just have it all.”
“I missed them,” Isagi says. “I really haven’t come back in… more than a year, that’s for sure. I kind of forgot what it felt like to be here.”
“I miss Japan sometimes,” Bachira says. He’s just thinking aloud now, in that way he does often and Rin has to stop him from when they’re in objectively bad situations for it. “The food and the vibes. I mean, Barcelona is way more suited for my personality and career. But I miss how I felt when I lived with my mom.”
“That’s called homesickness, idiot,” Rin says, rolling onto his side and curling in so that his feet aren’t hanging off the edge of the bed anymore. “Everyone gets that way.”
“It’s more than that, though. I’m so different from how I used to be. You guys are too.”
Rin can see Isagi plugging his phone in somewhere. Some quiet music starts playing, not enough to be distracting but enough to fill the room.
“You’ll see her soon,” Isagi says, also turning. His feet are not hanging off the edge of the bed because he and Bachira are still the same stupid height, maybe one or two centimeters away from one another.
In the back of his mind, Rin can’t help but feel like that closeness can’t change. He can’t imagine it without his skin crawling.
There’s a gentle hum and a comfortable silence. Actually, Rin can’t really distinguish between the silences that are comfortable and uncomfortable. Usually he finds out that it was one or another after the fact, when someone has started speaking again. But he is comfortable. Isagi’s bed is warm, Bachira’s hand in his hair is soft, and the music is quiet enough.
Bachira’s breathing turns steady and his hand limp.
“Of course he fell asleep,” Rin says, sitting up. Isagi does the same; Rin hadn’t registered when he’d gotten off of the bed. Together, wordlessly, they gather each end of the blanket and work it out from under Bachira’s slack figure and onto him. “It’s only five. This is terrible for his jet lag.”
Isagi breathes out and looks up at Rin.
“Honestly, I’m tired too. Flights really take it out of me.”
“Every time I saw you, you were on your laptop.” Isagi’s smile turns a bit tense. Rin notices, then tells himself that he’s watching too closely.
“I had some important stuff to reply to.”
“More important than taking care of your body? Lukewarm.” Rin settles back into the bed, leaning up against the headboard that is a shelf. He is halfway under the covers.
“I’m not neglecting myself, jerk,” Isagi says, walking over to his desk and back again. His hand wanders to Bachira’s forehead, where his bangs are sticking. Rin’s hand had been doing the same. They touch, but Rin can barely feel it. They’re the same temperature, the three of them, likely a result of having spent far too many stressful, consecutive hours together. “Just busy. You know how it is.”
Rin does. He’s seen in everybody he thinks of the most, he’s seen it in himself.
“I can take him to the guest room,” he says, in lieu of actual conversation.
“It’s fine. We’ll just wake him up for dinner.” Rin nods.
His body feels warm, not just because it’s against Bachira’s and under Isagi’s big comforter that his mom had made a whole fuss about laundering before they arrived. It’s warm, but it’s not hot. It’s soft, like Isagi’s room and his mother’s laugh and his smile.
Isagi is in the covers as well. Rin can see the part of the blanket where Isagi’s feet are sticking up under it. Rin can also see the laptop in Isagi’s lap.
“You’re hopeless,” Rin says. He tries to focus on the music, but it’s hard when Isagi’s hand is still touching his and Bachira’s entire sleeping body is pressed against him.
“We’re the same,” Isagi replies. His hand pulls away. The color in his face isn’t gone, but Rin can’t quite see it from where he's laying anymore. Bachira is quietly snoring.
Rin doesn’t know if they’re the same. They were, for a period of time. Maybe they were for a while before then, before they’d met. Now, though, Rin is different. Playing with Sae, being with Bachira have done something to him in the same way Sae leaving had. Isagi and Rin couldn’t be a soul to two bodies if Rin always needed the things he couldn’t have and Isagi never needed anything he didn’t want.
But Rin doesn’t say any of that. He listens to Bachira snoring and watches Isagi write emails without touching Bachira’s face or reading the words on Isagi’s screen.
His eyes grow heavy at some point. He slumps further down and settles into the blanket against his will. There’s still time to adjust for jet lag later, he thinks vaguely. Isagi would wake him up to go to the guest room or for dinner or for whatever Isagi really cared for, since it’s his house.
The music is soft. Bachira is soft. The clacking of Isagi’s laptop isn’t, but it mutes the thoughts that are uglier, that hum that is always under his skin instead of flowing from his mind to the rest of his body. Sleep comes and she is kind.
When Rin wakes up, it’s dark out and he has moved to the middle of the bed. Bachira and Isagi are both sitting on the floor and there’s a match playing on the TV. Rin’s phone is plugged in by his head. He checks the time and it’s a bit after three in the morning. He’s gotten an entire night's worth of sleep in Isagi’s bed.
“You slept through dinner,” Isagi says. He’s noticed that Rin is awake before Rin processed it himself, the creep. “We tried to wake you up, but you were totally gone. Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” Rin says, still too groggy to come up with a meaner response.
Isagi pauses the match. Bachira flops onto the floor and groans loudly.
“Dude, be quiet. My parents are sleeping,” Isagi chides him and then turns to Rin. “What do you want to eat?”
“I want fizzy water,” says Bachira.
“That’s not a food. Also, I was asking Rin.”
“I’m fine with anything. I don’t want to wake your parents up, though.” Isagi nods and looks up, tapping his knees in thought. Rin wants to rip his fingers off.
“There’s a FamilyMart close by. We can be loud and everything. I don’t think I’m falling back asleep.”
“Field trip!” Bachira exclaims, shooting to his feet and then directly onto Rin. Rin, still halfway under Isagi’s blanket, folds in to protect himself physically. Bachira pays this no mind and lies down on top of him so they’re face to face. “We didn’t have to work out the guest room in the end, did we?”
Rin had completely forgotten about that point of misery.
“No,” he replies, sighing. “No, we did not.”
“I mean, I don’t mind it ei--” Isagi starts, also sitting down on the bed
“Shut up,” Rin says. Isagi shuts his mouth. It’s reminiscent of how they used to be.
Rin feels like some kind of kid when they’re leaving. He and Isagi have to team up to convince Bachira to wear a windbreaker, since it’s chillier in the nighttime. They’re quiet, but not as quiet as they should be. Rin trips into the genkan and Bachira laughs, loudly. Bachira refuses to wear his actual shoes and instead steals a pair of Isagi’s dad’s slippers.
It would feel like they were sneaking out, if they weren’t almost twenty and professional athletes. Rin almost finds the absurdity entertaining. Partway out the door, there’s a rustling and some kind of bird sound. Isagi gets startled and all three of them start sprinting down the stairs. Rin wins that unofficial race and adds it to his mental tally of all the times he’s beat Isagi.
Convenience stores in Madrid tend to be much pricer and much less welcoming in the unfortunate hours of night than the FamilyMart a five minute walk from Isagi’s childhood home. There’s a tired-looking part-timer at the cash register who welcomes them without looking up from her phone.
“Ooh, can we get snacks too?” Bachira asks.
“If you feel the need to ask permission, it probably means you shouldn’t do it,” Rin says.
“You had dinner, aren’t we here for Rin?” Isagi says, simultaneously.
Rin can see from the corner of his eye that the part-timer is looking at them out the corner of her eye. She looks about their age. It’s possible that she recognizes them. Rin brushes his bangs into his eyes.
Rin stands by the windows where there are exactly three seats, watching Isagi and Bachira comb through the shelves. Bachira practically springs into the air with a new bag of chips in hand every few seconds. Isagi responds by raising three bottles of cheap sparkling water, the very thing Bachira wanted in the first place.
The two of them don’t touch. They barely even speak. Bachira says something and Isagi only smiles the smile that is most distant from the one Iyo gave Rin at the dinner table: tense and unfamiliar.
Rin has nothing he really wants to eat. He’s hungry, but it’s a comfortable temperature and the light of the store is easy on his eyes so it’s an easy discomfort to ignore. After one more look his way from the part-timer, he decides it's for the better that he shop around a bit too.
There is an assortment of popsicles in the freezer, as expected. Rin didn’t even realize that he’d walked there.
“Do you want one?” Isagi asks. Rin is still too softened by sleep to resist reacting; he startles and jumps halfway into the air. Isagi does this often, it seems. Sneaking up behind him, positioning himself exactly where Rin doesn’t think he will be.
Rin used to always know where he would be. Rin used to draw it out of Isagi and onto the field to hold in his hands and pummel under his feet. Playing against and with Isagi are both different now. What’s more, they’re the same kind of different.
“Not really. There’s only a discount for two, we can’t split that evenly.”
“One of us could eat two of them.”
“Your dietician hates you.”
It used to be clear that whoever Isagi was to Rin, he was the same to himself. There wasn’t a disjoint between the Isagi in Rin’s mind and the Isagi in Isagi’s mind. There were no gaps between their thoughts at all, ever, before they’d gone pro.
Rin looks over at Bachira. He’s walking up to them, the flop-flop-flop of his slippers incredibly audible. Rin expects Bachira to lean up against Isagi the way they were at the airport, but he doesn’t. Or rather, Isagi steps over to Rin’s other side before he can. Rin blinks.
“Let’s get one of those super big ones and just take turns,” Bachira says.
“Your dietician hates you, too,” Rin replies easily.
Rin doesn’t know what Isagi and Bachira are to each other. It makes sense that they wouldn’t change, because very little about the two of them ever seemed to change. They talk the same as they did in Blue Lock, they antagonize Rin the same as they did in Blue Lock. It would be more strange for them to have changed than for them to not.
Even so, something is different. Rin can’t say for sure if it’s a gap the same way he feels with Isagi, but it’s something.
“Let’s just get three individual ones,” Isagi says. “It’s gonna be hot out anyways and we don’t need a discount.”
Bachira and Isagi are a relationship that he has grown alongside. Bachira has made it very clear in words that he does not need Isagi. He couldn’t have taken Isagi’s nine-week-silence so well otherwise. Rin knows this. Rin knows this, and despite everything he wishes, Bachira would take it the same if Rin had been the one to drop off the face of the earth. To Bachira, Rin and Isagi may well still be the same soul.
“Y’know, if we get two with the discount and one is redeemable then really we get three for the price of one and a half,” Bachira says.
“It’s all chance, though. And they wouldn’t sell these at a discount if there were a ton of them that are redeemable,” Isagi replies.
Bachira does not need Isagi. Therefore, Bachira does not need Rin.
“This is stupid, I don’t want a popsicle,” Rin is saying, but Bachira has already thrown three into the basket Isagi is holding. There’s two bags of chips, three fizzy waters, and a large pack of sour gummy candies. Rin throws a tuna onigiri in. Sae would totally make fun of him for this.
Rin cannot process the lack of quality in his meal to-be because he is too busy turning this over in his head. It makes him a bit dizzy, the way Isagi is. Never where you want him, never where you expect him. He can’t recall the last coherent feeling he’s had about Isagi; it is and always has been everchanging. Maybe it’s par for the course, the way Isagi is different now. Maybe they’re just getting older.
“Can I get famichiki?” Bachira asks as they hand their basket over to the cashier. It’s unclear who he’s asking; it could be any of the only three other people around him. “Rin, will you finish it if it’s too spicy for me?”
“That’s so bad for you,” Rin says. “And Spanish food is way spicier. You’ll be fine.” Bachira groans and dramatically leans against both Isagi and the counter. Isagi makes an apologetic face at the cashier.
“I’ll get one spicy chicken, if that’s alright,” Bachira says to her, completely ignoring Rin. Rin has no idea why he even bothers asking.
They end up in the seats by the windows. The sun is starting to rise. When Rin points it out, Bachira immediately pulls out his phone and takes a photo. First, one of the sunrise through the window where the FamilyMart stripes overlay the part at the top. Then, he pulls Rin and Isagi in and snaps a selfie. They both jump this time, but Rin calms down first. Bachira’s eyes are glowing in the new light and the ridiculous way his bangs are sticking up casts funny shadows over his face.
“Don’t post that,” Rin says. Bachira is actually pretty bad with social media, but despite his unorganized and aesthetically troubling page (he has a habit of posting single slide pictures of anything interesting he finds on the street) he has a pretty large following.
“I wasn’t going to, buzzkill. I wanted it for myself. This is nice.” Rin leans back and angles his head straight forward. He’s right, the sunrise is nice. Specifically, the reflection of the sunrise in Bachira’s eyes is nice. He looks to his left, where Isagi is still blinking away his surprise at being grabbed for a selfie.
It’s always been clear from Isagi’s gaze when he’s lost in thought, even as the glare of sunlight almost pulls him out of it.
“What are you thinking so hard about?” Rin questions, kicking Isagi uncharacteristically gently from under the small shelf of a table. “Better places to be than here?”
Isagi startles again, like he wasn’t expecting the question.
“No. No, not at all. Just planning what I’m gonna do until Champions League starts up.” What a bad liar. Isagi looks down, then, at the bag of chips and the drink in his hand. “Y’know, in Germany they always give you sparkling water by default.”
“It’s because German people are so serious all the time, they need to up their fizziness with the water,” Bachira says, as if that makes complete and perfect sense. His ankle is hooked around Rin’s, whether that be to stop Rin from kicking Isagi again or just because he feels like it.
“Sure. It’s different, is all,” Isagi says. Rin kicks him again with his left foot, harder. “Ow, what the hell, dude?”
“Don’t tell me you miss Germany. You’ve been gone for a day.” Isagi shakes his head.
“It’s not like that. I don’t know, you guys don’t get it. It’s just different. Everything. Even small things that you don’t expect to change, they’re never the same in two places at two times.”
“What do you mean, we don’t get it?” Rin says, scowling now. In this moment, Isagi is farther away than he’s ever felt. “Don’t make that decision for me.” Bachira is nodding, but his mouth is too full of chicken to actually say anything.
“No, I just-- forget it. It doesn’t matter.”
Obviously, it matters to Rin. He wants to think that it matters to Bachira too.
“You’re probably right about things being different,” Bachira says. That surprises Rin a bit, that he has such a response ready. “I don’t feel the same way about Japan at all.” His gaze is forward into the sun.
“This is dumb,” Rin says. Bachira looks at him. Oddly, so does Isagi. His eyes are stormy again when he’s turned away from the window. It should be stifling, the intense gaze coming from both sides of Rin, but it isn’t. “We’re here now and that’s all there is. Rumination is a waste of time when you’ve already put the time and effort into it all.”
“You’ll understand when you’re older, Rin-chan,” Bachira says, clapping Rin on the back and eating the rest of his chicken in one go. The juices are starting to drip out of his mouth, which is minorly disgusting. “Oh, to be eighteen again.”
“You’re a shitty upperclassman. Both of you.”
“Don’t lump me in!” Isagi says. The storminess is still there, but his voice is lighter and jokingly indignant more than anything else. “Bachira is infinitely worse for being the one to strip you of your innocence.” Rin freezes.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Rin asks. It comes out faster than he meant for it to. Isagi blinks, rapidly.
“Sorry, is that a sensitive topic? I won’t joke about it again.” His hands are in the air as if in surrender. Rin doesn’t like that. Isagi shouldn’t do that.
“No, it’s not. I just didn’t know this was public information.” Rin turns to Bachira, who looks wholly unapologetic. Why does Isagi think we’ve had sex? is what he hopes his eyes say. It’s unclear whether Bachira gets the message.
“I tell Yoichi everything, when he remembers to text me back,” he explains, opening a bag of Calbee. “Besides, you’re basically one guy anyways, right? Isn’t that the whole schtick? And Otoya and Sae both know, so I didn’t think you cared about other--”
“What do you mean, Sae knows? Who told him?” Rin can feel his heartbeat; it’s not faster so much as louder. Why does my brother think we’ve had sex? We have not had sex. There’s roaring in his ears. He’s angry. He might be scared, but he’s mostly angry. It’s the thing he feels the loudest, always. He’s angry that Bachira just added another layer of confirmation to his theory of their relationship. He’s angry that Sae knows. He’s angry that these two things make him feel as strongly as he does.
He wrests his ankle out from Bachira’s and ignores the flash in Bachira’s eyes.
“Uh, he just kind of knew. I thought you told him, so I thought I could tell other people. Was I wrong?”
Of course he knew. Rin’s stupid brother just always has to be one step ahead of him. He hates when this happens, when he’s reminded of who he modeled his disposition against and it all crumbles into the destruction that he knows in his body but not in his mind. Never in his mind, never fully. That’s probably why Sae still doesn’t really talk to him off the field.
“I’m gonna kill him.”
“If we all text him that it isn’t true now, do you think he’d believe it?” Isagi wonders aloud. It’s such a stupid thing to say that Rin is momentarily no longer angry. It’s a miserable moment, because the lack of anger gives way to something that feels much more empty and much, much worse.
“That’s the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” he says, voice rising as he resists the urge to kick Isagi again. “Are you stupid? Only a stupid person would even consider that.”
“No, I’m serious. Do you think three people telling him would override the brotherly instinct?”
“Brotherly in-- shut up!”
“He has a point,” Bachira says. He looks like he’s genuinely mulling it over, which makes Rin’s anger come back though to a much less intense degree. “It couldn’t be Rin, he’s too unreliable about those things. Maybe me and Isagi and one more person?”
“This is dumb. You’re both so dumb. Nobody is texting my brother. How do you even have his info?”
“Well, then I guess it’s settled. There’s nothing we can do about what Sae does and does not know,” Isagi says. Rin pauses. He’s been swindled out of his rage by way of a dumb suggestion from Isagi and a dumber, more sincere follow up from Bachira. He’s never been so humiliated in his life.
“I hate both of you. And I hate Sae, too.” Rin turns his tiny popsicle over in his hand. He starts to crush it in his fist, but Bachira interrupts by grabbing his wrist.
“Let’s eat these together on the way back!” he says.
Bachira is standing now, so Rin stands as well. Isagi follows, gathering their trash. The cashier recites her customer service goodbye to them while Rin gets rid of his onigiri wrapper and Isagi tosses the bag of Calbee that’s now a bag of other empty bags. According to the clock behind her, it’s after half past four.
It’s warmer out now that the sun is halfway up. Rin dutifully eats his popsicle, which has started to melt. Isagi and Bachira are doing the same, to varying degrees of success.
“I got a winner,” Bachira says when his stick is completely empty. Half of his popsicle has actually just melted down his face and onto the pavement, but Rin and Isagi both neglect to comment on it.
Rin gets a winning stick as well, though he doesn’t announce it so much as show it to Isagi smugly when the latter’s is only a set of points to redeem a cheap toy.
“It’s okay, Yoichi,” Bachira says. “If you get the same one again, they’ll give you…” He pauses to read something on the packaging. “A keychain!”
“That’s so lame,” Isagi says, more dramatic than he needs to be. Rin pats him on the back.
“You’ll get it next time.” For some reason, this makes Bachira laugh so hard he almost falls into the street a second time. Rin almost smiles.
The phone call that changes the course of their entire trip comes that morning, while everyone is sitting on the Isagis’ couch and watching the most recent Man City game. More accurately, Bachira is watching the Man City game and periodically pausing to explain something to Issei and Iyo, who do not seem to understand at all based on the vigor of their nodding. Isagi is at the dining table on his laptop. Rin is also watching the game, but he is mostly watching Isagi and Bachira.
“See, that’s not a very good call,” Bachira is explaining. His voice is similar to how it is when he talks to children, but that isn’t a testament to how he’s treating Isagi’s parents so much as how he treats the children. “If he’d been maybe a step or two farther forward, I’d say it’s offside, but here -- see, there -- that’s way off.”
“This is so much information to keep track of!” Issei says. “Honestly, I don’t know how you boys do it.”
“It’s all just practice! The more games you watch, the easier it is to understand.”
They’ve watched every televised game that Isagi’s ever played in. If they were ever going to understand, they definitely would have by now, Rin thinks. He doesn’t say it, though, because he knows better.
Instead, he starts to contribute his own explanation of the situation on the screen (Bachira has never been renowned for his articulation) but is promptly interrupted by a ringtone.
Which is odd. He has his notifications off so that everybody who wants their call to go through has to try at least three times. Rin thinks it’s a good way to filter out people who have nothing important to say to him. Bachira, as someone who often has nothing important to say, finds it annoying. Acting like you’re so important, Rin! What does your manager do? His manager calls him three times, obviously.
Isagi’s parents are both looking at him. Actually, everybody is looking at him, including Isagi who hasn’t looked up from that computer for a good hour.
He picks up on the third ring. It’s his mom.
“Hello?” he says, pushing himself to standing and walking over to the hallway by Isagi’s room.
“Rin? It’s your mother.”
“Yeah. Is everything okay?”
“Are you in Japan yet? You didn’t reply to my text.” Rin pauses. That had been last night, and he’d fallen asleep before he could send it.
“Yeah. I’m in Saitama with a friend, I’ll be there around lunch tomorrow.”
“My brother had a medical emergency while overseas.” Bachira is sending him an ‘okay’ hand sign and a questioning look. Rin nods back at him, then walks farther into Isagi’s room. “Your father and I are going to see him. I’m really sorry, Rin, but if you still want to come by we’ll be back in a week.”
“I’ll be in Chiba with a friend. It’s fine.”
“Oh.” They’re quiet.
Rin’s lack of skill when it came to communicating with parents extended to his own. When Sae had been around, he’d managed it most of the time. Rin had found speaking to be difficult as a child, something that his parents had trouble understanding, and he had found being around other people difficult as he got older, something his parents probably had even more trouble understanding. It was another thing to curse his brother for -- he’d never had to learn how to talk to them.
“I can still be there tomorrow, though. If you want a house-sitter.”
“You don’t have to if it’s too much trouble, Rin. We’re really, really sorry, and we would’ve let you know sooner but we just got the call from your aunt.”
Rin hadn’t seen any of his extended family since before Blue Lock. It was hard to stay informed about the inner workings of his bloodline when soccer took up all of his time and was infinitely more interesting.
“It’s okay. I’ll be in Japan for the national team games. We can see each other then.”
“Alright. Text me about that schedule. We really need to talk more, Rin.”
“Yeah.”
“Your brother, also, he--”
“I’ll remind him to call the next time I see him.” His mother hums.
“Okay, Rin. Thank you for taking care of the house while we’re gone, I’ll leave you a key.”
“Give Uncle my best.”
“I will. I’m sorry, Rin.”
“It’s fine, seriously. I’ll see you soon. Sorry I didn’t text you back.”
“It’s okay, I know how jet lag can be. I’ll see you soon.”
The phone call ends. Rin shifts from foot to foot and then walks back into the living area.
There’s another conversation happening. Rin stays in the hall so he can say his part without interrupting. Isagi notices, but says nothing.
“I was actually just thinking about staying here for a few more days,” are the words out of Bachira’s mouth. Issei is asleep next to him, and Iyo is facing him directly as they speak.
Everything pauses for a moment, then speeds up again. Suddenly, Rin’s heartbeat is loud. If he was now set to go home without Bachira and stay in his parent’s house alone for, what, four days? He would call his mother back and tell her there was another overseas emergency, one requiring that he go back to Spain immediately. Maybe he’d tell her something was up with Sae and that’s why neither of them ever called.
“Oh, well we certainly wouldn’t mind!” says Iyo. She sounds happy about it, like she also wants Bachira to stay. Isagi is still looking at Rin. His expression is completely empty. It should be anything else on his face -- hatred is always better than indifference. “Having you over is always a pleasure, Meguru-kun.”
Rin has that on his mind when he interjects.
“Bobcut. Something came up.” When he explains the situation, mostly to Bachira and a little bit to Isagi’s parents, it feels like the entire room replies back to him.
“Oh, darling, I’m so sorry,” Iyo says from the couch. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Is your uncle okay?” is Bachira’s reply. Rin wants to hit him. That cannot possibly be the most important takeaway. Then again, maybe it is and Rin is just a bit of a selfish asshole who doesn’t care enough about his family.
“He’s fine,” Rin says, though he isn’t actually sure. “And yeah, I said we’d still go to watch the house. And thanks, Isagi-san, for the offer, but I don’t know what else there is to do.”
“So you’re still leaving tomorrow?” Isagi asks. His mother shoots him some kind of look from across the room. It’s unclear whether or not he notices. “I mean-- you’re taking the train there, right? Do you have a house key and everything?”
“She said she’d leave one.” Isagi and Iyo look at each other. Her eyes are a different color than his, Rin realizes for the first time.
“Actually, I was just talking to Iyo about this…. would you want to stay longer here?” Bachira says. “It’s just been so long since I’ve seen Yoichi and I don’t want to wait all the way until the exhibition to hang out.” Rin shifts from foot to foot again. His eyes shift towards the TV, if only to avoid Isagi’s gaze, then directly back at Bachira.
“I heard you. I don’t need a pity invite from the two of you, and I already told my mom I’d go.” It takes more willpower than Rin knew he had to force those words out. To be honest, he wouldn’t have minded spending a few more days in Saitama either. Being around Isagi is different, but it’s still Isagi. His rival. It’s hard to imagine a world where Rin is truly unconcerned with Isagi.
“Wait, Rin, it’s not like that. I wanted us--” Bachira starts. He’s standing now, walking towards Rin.
“How about we all go to Kamakura?” Isagi interrupts. “Not to be presumptuous, but if it’s gonna be empty. I can come back here after you guys go to Chiba. That way we all spend time together and I’ll get to be with my parents, but you can still house-sit.”
Rin looks over at Iyo. His ears are actively ringing. His head is completely blank. She’s beaming and the eternal red of her face is glowing more than usual.
“That sounds wonderful, if Rin-kun and his family are alright with it. I was worried you’d get bored at home all break, Yocchan.” She turns to Rin. “Not that we wouldn’t love to have you if you chose to stay, Rin-kun.”
“Y-yeah. Isagi can come,” Rin says. He’s completely at a loss. There’s nothing at all, nothing in his mind that could’ve come up with a contingency plan of a response for this. “That sounds good.”
“It’s settled then,” Iyo says. She gestures to her sleeping husband. “When this lump wakes up, I’ll let him know he’s taking all of you tomorrow.”
“I like this plan!” says Bachira. “I wanna talk to you though, Rin.”
“Uh. Okay.” Rin is at a loss again. The ringing is loud, so loud. Bachira stands, grabs him by the wrist, and leads him all the way into Isagi’s room. Iyo is smiling the whole time. Isagi is on his stupid computer again. All Rin can think is that both Isagi, who he has spoken to for the first time in weeks a day ago, and Bachira, who he has been sharing a bed and the occasional kiss with every other weekend for months, are going to his house. His stupid house.
It’s a bit ironic, using Isagi’s room as their private space.
“Look, I don’t care if you want to stay here,” Rin says the moment the door shuts. It’s as coherent as he can manage. It’s all he can do, to make sure Bachira knows. To make sure Bachira does nothing for Rin on the basis of Isagi. “It’s none of my business whatever is up with you and Isagi. You know his family better, and if you want to tell me now to go home without you I will do it.”
“Hey, Rin, that’s not what I was saying at all.” Bachira’s eyes are watery as his hands find Rin’s cheeks. Rin hates when this happens, because there’s always a nagging thought in the back of his mind that Bachira only ever cries when they talk because he wants something from Rin. It’s not true. It’s never true, because Bachira could never do that. The nagging stays, though. “Rin, I wanted you to stay. And you wanted to stay, don’t lie. You want to be around Isagi.”
Rin pauses. Takes a breath. Sits down at the foot of Isagi’s bed. Bachira follows him, standing between his knees. His hands don’t leave Rin’s face. They’re warm. They’re so, so warm. Rin’s face feels warmer than it has for ages.
Rin hates it when Bachira is right about things.
“You don’t need to make me feel better.”
“That’s not what I’m doing. You’re misunderstanding me on purpose.” There’s actual tears in Bachira’s eyes now. Rin hates it, he hates it because Bachira knows there are things that he can’t or won’t give and he knows that this is one of them. “Rin, I want you with me. I planned all of this so we’d be together the whole time because I want you with me. Can you believe me?” Rin shakes his head because he can’t speak. He’s too focused on Bachira’s tears and his own heartbeat. “Can you try?”
Rin sighs. He nods.
“Promise?” Rin nods again. “Is it okay with you, really, to have Isagi with us too? Is that what you want?”
“It’s okay.” Rin looks up, directly into Bachira’s wet eyes. The roaring in his ears is a hum now. His heartbeat is fast, but not loud. If he closed his eyes, he could probably pretend they were in Spain and it was just them in his apartment, not Isagi’s room. “It’s okay.”
“I need you to answer me all the way.”
“Yes, it’s what I want.” He’s telling the truth. He hates that. “He’s weird, though.” Also the truth. Bachira laughs. His hands leave Rin’s face and he sits down next to him.
“I’ve been thinking that! He’s so different, after Munich.”
“After Blue Lock. I want to figure him out.” It’s honest without Rin wanting it to be. Bachira and his stupid wet eyes always do that to him.
“Well, he’s our rival. You’re my rival, too!”
“I hear people talking about me,” says Isagi, entering the room. His laptop isn’t in his hands.
“Ever heard of knocking?” Rin says, the same time as Bachira cheers out ‘Yoichi!’
“It’s my room, you jerk. If anything, you guys should’ve knocked.”
“We were having an important heart-to-heart. And planning out what we’re gonna do in Kamakura!” Bachira stands and pulls Isagi further into the room. “You should bring a swimsuit, since the beach is so close. Here--”
Rin watches the scene before him, Isagi and Bachira fumbling around the former’s closet. He doesn’t believe Bachira when he says he would choose Rin or, God forbid, both him and Isagi at any given moment. But he will keep trying. He made a promise, and he doesn’t intend to break those the way certain other Itoshis do.