Chapter Text
Everything was immediately wrong.
The alarm blaring was the first indication of wrongness; not only was it Sousuke’s, which was bizarre because Rin was always up before it even turned on, but it was also, for some reason, going off directly in his ear.
The second sign was more vague, just a groggy, blurred awareness of a feeling in his chest that bled into his appendages. It was a kind of heaviness, a foreign weight inside his skin.
The last was less vague. As he sat up, pain shot through his forehead, ricocheting into his skull. He cried out in shock, the sound dark and guttural in his throat. The shock of that silenced him entirely, forcing his sleepy eyelids open, forcing his gaze to meet the ceiling. The ceiling?
Then he looked down. He was all bronze skin and muscle and Sousuke’s pajamas.
“Oh my god,” Sousuke’s voice muttered through Rin’s throat. Or really, that was Sousuke’s too. “Oh my god!” He gasped.
Frantically, he scrambled down the top bunk, desperately attempting to coordinate his new numb, unfamiliar (yet somehow all too familiar) limbs. His feet slammed against the floor, but he couldn’t feel more unstable. Vertigo rushed through his whole body in a sickening wave, the ground impossibly far from his head. He gripped at the metal ladder, savoring the coolness of its edges. They felt very real in a way he didn’t. He looked at his hands— at Sousuke’s hands. He felt his shallow breath even out as he stared; even now, there was something comforting about seeing them. He knew these hands, all of their tendons and veins, the hills and valleys of his knuckles. He let out a deep breath.
From the corner of his eye, he saw his figure in their full-length mirror. Ice and adrenaline raced up his spine. The teal eyes staring at him were wide, and they blinked at the same time as him. This was real. He looked like Sousuke.
“Jesus Christ,” he managed to choke out.
He looked at his new reflection, in awe at the actuality of it. Tentatively, he approached himself. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was looking for, it wasn’t like he didn’t recognize it. It was the same long nose and strong jaw and full mouth he’d always known.
Out of pure curiosity he forced a smile as big and ridiculous as he could manage. Despite everything, delight overcame him at the sight of Sousuke’s dimples, which usually only made an appearance if Rin happened to say something particularly funny. The simple joy of it took hold of him, softening the smile into something more… tender. His normally broody looking eyes, darkened further by impossibly long eyelashes, crinkled with warm fondness, his eyebrows knitting themselves upwards in a way that was so gentle it was almost sad, and his curled lips were still parted, and what the hell is that fucking noise?!
Instinctively, his head turned to follow the origin of the sound, up to the top bunk. Oh, he thought dumbly. He hadn’t turned off the alarm.
Reaching up with his right arm, pain instantly seared through him, ripping out a sharp gasp. The immediacy of it was somehow agonizing, the hurt blooming from his shoulder and infecting all surrounding musculature. As the initial pain subsided, he felt something awful settle in his gut, something twisted and ugly.
It was… shame. And guilt. The feelings physically curdled in his stomach, like that was a body’s perfectly natural response to injury. That clicked the pieces together in his brain.
He didn’t just look or sound like Sousuke: he was literally in his body. And of course Sousuke would’ve trained his body to feel this way.
Idiot.
He couldn’t help but feel resentful over Sousuke’s response to his injury, that he hadn’t told him, that he felt this was towards himself. They hadn’t talked about it much since that last tournament, Rin knew it was still a sensitive topic, and knew he wouldn’t have gotten much out of his friend anyway. But it still inevitably broke his heart to know how much he was still hurting, to know he felt ashamed over it.
Fucking idiot, he thought as he turned the alarm off.
Though, this meant that Sousuke must have his body. He expected to feel a rush of anxiety, but none came. Whether that was because he wasn’t in his own nerve-prone skin or he just truly didn’t feel concerned was impossible to tell. Really, if he were being honest, if he was to trust anyone with himself it would be Sousuke. His heart suddenly stuttered at the thought.Before he could linger on it, another buzz came from his own bed. For the first time he realized he was alone in their room, that Sousuke had left with his body and hadn’t even brought his phone. Maybe he should be concerned.
“Shit,” he said as he read the notification, which was a text from Ai. He was asking if he and Sousuke were still on for practicing together with Momo after school. Oh god, school. He looked at the time; 15 minutes until his first class and he had no idea where Sousuke was.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to worry for much longer as their door creaked open. Rin whipped his head around and was met with… Jesus christ, met with his own fucking face. Even if he consciously knew this was an inevitable meeting, a confrontation with his own self, there was nothing in the world that could’ve prepared him for actually seeing it.
It was his, and yet it wasn’t. Sousuke wore his features differently than he’d ever knew he was capable of expressing. His eyes had turned into a dark umber, his mouth set like carved stone. He had changed into his uniform (which was a somehow dizzying thought Rin refused to linger on), but his hair was poorly tied back and sweat gleamed from his brow, like he’d been out for a run. He looked—
Rin couldn’t even think it, embarrassment punctuated by his heart doing an awful, violent twist.
He wondered why. Was it the shock of seeing himself worn so impossibly well? Of all of Sousuke’s stark, relentless beauty stubbornly taking hold of him? Or… did his best friend's insides always churn at the sight of him?
He gulped.
They just stood there, taking each other in for a long moment. Rin couldn’t stand it any longer.
“You could’ve at least brought a phone with you if you were gonna run off.” He had meant for it to be humored, but it came out curt.
Sousuke huffed a short breath as he closed the door behind him.“Excuse me for not studying magical-body-switching courtesy,” he replied, crossing his arms and leaning back against the door. Rin’s voice didn’t leave much room for nuance; you didn’t have to guess if he was annoyed.
Rin’s head involuntarily cocked to the side. “What was that? ‘Cuz it sounded like you were mad at me or something.”
Sousuke rolled his eyes flippantly, easily.
“Jesus dude, of course I’m not mad at you. This is just—it’s fucking weird, alright?”
It was The Understatement of the Century, so fine, Rin could understand callousness. He didn’t say anything immediately, but the quiet rumble of people starting their day out in the hall reminded him that they had at least a whole day to get through.
“Whatever,” he replied as he dropped his gaze, “we can talk about what the hell we’re gonna do about it later. I need to get dressed.”
Sousuke nodded, and pushed himself from the door. “You’re gonna want this,” he said, stepping past Rin towards his dresser. After rummaging for a moment, he pulled out his brace. Rin would’ve expected him to just toss it, but instead he walked directly up to him, hand extended. The sudden proximity made him want to back up, but that felt like defeat in some way, so he held his ground.
“Thanks…” it suddenly occurred to him that Sousuke never got ready with him in the morning; Rin was always up first, usually out for a jog or getting the two of them breakfast, and by the time he came back Sousuke was already dressed. His locker at the pool was also on the opposite end of the room from Rin’s too, so he didn’t see him there either. He had no way of knowing if he wore it throughout the day. He would’ve continued to not know it was there at all if Sousuke hadn’t told him.
He never mentioned how normal it was in his routine, so Rin wondered why he was giving it to him now.
“Have you been needing it more?”
Sousuke shrugged. “Depends on the day, but no not usually, I’m mostly used to it. That doesn’t mean you are, though.”
It struck Rin as a very considerate thing of him to think of, and he thanked him once more.
“No problem,” Sousuke said quietly, mouth tugged in a crooked, noticeably not-Rin sort of smile. It was rugged and charming in a way Rin didn’t see coming from himself.
Handsome. Pretty. He couldn’t silence that observation this time.
It also struck Rin, startlingly, that Sousuke was looking up at him. They only had a height difference of three inches, but he didn’t realize how much more drastic it seemed when he was the taller one for once. It set off something crazed in him, to see himself gently gazing upward at Sousuke’s face.
“Is this actually how you see me?” And as he said it, a spark of adrenaline zipped through him. He could’ve just asked, am I really that fucking short? But this was expansive, this had implications.
Is this how you see me? Is this how you’ve always seen me?
He watched as his own face rippled slightly, eyes shining wildly. With a flush of irritation, he realized just how much his stupid face betrayed everything, his expressions open and bleeding like a wound. It was worse to know Sousuke was the one expressing it this time, his thoughts being broadcasted for once, raw in a way Rin almost never got to see. The vulnerability stirred something in him, a sudden blur of endearment and an ache to see more. Did Sousuke always get this same rush? Was it only because he was in his body Rin was feeling it now, seeing himself as Sousuke would? Or… had he just not been paying enough attention before now? To anything?
Okay sure, maybe it hadn’t been entirely beyond him that things had felt different when they reunited. Maybe he could feel Sousuke’s eyes on him, maybe some of the things they said didn’t quite pass the threshold of just being jokes, and yeah maybe it was impossible not to notice how handsome Sousuke had become since they were kids, and maybe he secretly liked the thrill of a joke being a little too sincere, and liked the way Sousuke fought for him, protected him, and maybe they were both teetering on the edge of saying something out loud, but… he pushed it away.
He couldn’t begin to process it, couldn’t stand the instability of it. Sousuke was the one single grounded thing he had amidst so much heartache. He couldn’t have Haru, he couldn’t have his father, but he had his best friend. That should’ve been enough, so he tried to make it enough.
But this time he couldn’t push it away. It was all around him. He was all around him.
Before he could spiral for any longer, Sousuke settled on something that looked like a face Rin actually would make: mouth shifting into a smirk, sharp teeth gleaming.“Don’t get used to it. Now hurry up, I don’t want to be late.”
It doused him with annoyance. “Fine, jeez.”
Still smiling, Sousuke made his leave, but just as he opened the door Rin remembered—
“Oh wait, Ai wants to know if we can still practice later.”
Sousuke tossed his head over his shoulder, “you have an appointment or something?”
Rin felt the inclination to growl at him. “No, but I kinda feel under the weather though, like I’m not in my own fucking body or something.”
“Huh. It feels fine to me.” And then he walked out.
Cunt.