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They didn't meet up very often.
It wasn't by their choice, of course. If they could, they'd meet up every day, but they were still the children of the Hijirikawa and Jinguuji conglomerates, and even at their young age, they knew that it wasn't convenient for them to meet often.
Still, Masato wished he could see Ren more often.
"Nii-chan!" He called, grinning widely with all the childish innocence of a ten year old, one hand raised in the air and waving while the other held onto the strap of his bag. He'd just returned home from school, and after having pleaded with his father for several days on end, had been allowed to see Ren again, despite it not being the norm. It was just that he had missed his friend so much, and the boys in his school all saw him as Hijirikawa-kun, the heir, and they never dared to speak to him for fear of offending him.
It made him lonely. His father never seemed to understand that concept, telling him that he didn't need any friends. It always made Masato sad, because while his father seemed to be perfectly fine alone, Masato surely wasn't, and he'd found a friend in Ren, someone who was in a similar - if not the same - position as he was, life controlled by others and not having the freedom that he wished for.
He saw Ren look up, and the grin that he received in return made happiness bubble up in his chest. Running towards the limousine that Ren had exited, he grabbed Ren's hand before the other could say anything - not that he would; he'd come here to play with his friend - and dragged him into the house and up the stairs into his room, the older boy greeting servants as they passed by them.
Once Masato'd closed the door, he'd meticulously put his bag on the ground and removed his water bottle, handing it to the maid standing patiently outside the door, before waving goodbye to her cheerfully. Turning around, he ran towards Ren and threw himself at his nii-chan, laughing happily as he did so and knocking the both onto his bed. "Nii-chan, nii-chan, let's play!"
Perhaps his father would never understand the happiness that playing with his nii-chan brought him. His father didn't seem to be the type of person to understand something as abstract as happiness, the way that he had brought Masato up. It was endless work and no play - his first bit of childish innocence had been when Ren had asked him if he wanted to sneak out of the party. Perhaps his father would never grasp the concept of friends.
But at that moment, Masato didn't care, really. He had a friend. He had a friend whom he trust, whom he could play with, could be himself around. It didn't matter if his father never understood. At that moment, all that mattered was that his nii-chan was here.
He'd thought no one understood.
His brothers surely didn't. Seijuurou was going to inherit the Jinguuji conglomerate anyway, with him being the eldest son and all. His second brother didn't really care about the conglomerate in the first place, preferring to invest his time in whatever caught his fancy at that point of time. He, however, Jinguuji Ren, third son of the Jinguuji conglomerate, was forced to attend parties he didn't wish to attend, forced to be the perfect son when all he wanted to be was a child.
When he went to school, he was popular. Of course he was; Even as a child, he'd had an aura of charisma around him, and not being the direct heir had helped - and stung. Because he was a Jinguuji, people tended to flock towards him, but because he was not the first son, they thought that it was okay if they stood by him to get into his good books.
He'd thought that he was the only one in his position, until he'd met met Hijirikawa Masato at one of the parties, looking around his age and bored out of his wits. He'd approached the other without thinking, on sheer impulse, and asked if he'd wanted to skip, because the party really was boring and Ren just wanted to get out and have fun like his classmates always seemed to be doing.
Meeting Masato had changed a lot of things. For one, there was finally someone Ren could talk to about whatever he wanted - they shared similar interests, and even if Masato didn't understand what Ren was talking about, having been brought up in a more traditional fashion, he always provided a listening ear anyway - and for another, Masato understood him, understood the pressure that he was under and the way that he felt about having been born a Jinguuji.
When he'd stepped out of the limousine, he'd been extremely excited, even if he didn't show it outwardly. Giving a thanks to the chauffeur who had driven him here, he heard someone call him - nii-chan - and looked up, blinking, then grinned widely at the innocent child. "Masato!" He shouted in return, and despite the fact that heirs of the Jinguuji family were not supposed to shout that barbarically, Ren didn't really care right now.
He was pulled into Masato's room, and place he was not unfamiliar with, and laughed with his friend when he was knocked onto the bed by all the force a giggling Masato could muster. "Let's!" He agreed to Masato's request to play, ruffling up the boy's normally perfectly cut hair. It was shorter than his, the bangs falling over his forehead in an adorable manner, and Ren grinned again.
Maybe no one other than Masato understood him. Maybe his friends weren't his friends at all. Maybe no one really cared about him. Maybe in the past, it would have mattered to Ren. Maybe in the past, he would have been upset.
Now, however, he just wanted to play with Masato again.