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Rin didn’t know how it came to be this way nor what he did to deserve it: all he knew was that he started rethinking every single aspect of his life ever since he sat at this table along with Isagi, his brother and his brother's sorry excuse of a boyfriend.
It all started when he heard from Shidou that Sae wanted to have dinner together – as in Rin and Isagi plus Shidou and himself – and Rin's first thought was: 'we're not having a double date.'
Unfortunately, upon voicing it, he immediately regretted it, as he realized he had just made the mistake of affirming Shidou's suspicions that yes , he and Isagi were a thing – not quite dating, but they both knew something was there. However, they seemed to lack skills in the communication area, Isagi being too unsure of the extent Rin wanted to take their relationship to and Rin just being bad with emotions and people in general.
"First things first, I never mentioned a double date, you said that yourself, so thank you for confirming what everyone already knew about. Secondly, your brother was the one who invited you two, not me. Sure, you can let him down, but don't blame me for anything that happens later on." Shidou teased, a sly smile creeping up on his face since he was aware of the effect his words would have on Rin no matter how much he pretended he didn’t care about what his brother thought anymore.
When Rin told Isagi about their new plans for the evening, his partner – was that the right word? – gave him a funny look, finding the arrangement a bit odd, but agreed without hesitation.
Now, Rin was starting to think he should have ignored the invitation himself and stayed at his house watching horror movies that Isagi didn't really like but put up with for Rin's sake. Or maybe they could have gone to Isagi's to play videogames – soccer games were his favorites as the soccer idiot he was, and Rin's were obviously horror RPGs.
(Though at this point, anywhere was just fine as long as it wasn’t this restaurant.)
The night was going well, or as well as it could go with Rin and Shidou's clashing personalities. No one broke anything nor screamed yet, and although for most people that might seem like the principles of being civilized, this was a huge progress to them. They were even talking like normal human beings.
And then the mess started when they finished eating. Shidou, with extremely bad acting, said that he had accidentally forgotten his wallet in the car. "I'll go get it. Isagi, come with me."
Being suddenly referred to, Isagi looked pretty confused. "If that’s what you want, then sure. I guess?"
"Sae usually pays for you, what do you even need your wallet for, anyways?" Rin pointed out, feeling something off about the situation.
"What an awful little brother you are, suggesting I should rely financially on your brother."
"You already do it anyway." Rin said under his breath, more to himself than to anyone else.
Sae remained apathetic to the situation and Isagi readied himself to act in case this small exchange turned into an argument: between those two, you can never know what to expect.
"That's because I usually forget my wallet at home, but I have it now, so I'll get it." Shidou replied before looking at Isagi and saying: "We'll be quick, won't we?"
The latter seemed eager to stop this conversation before anything happened, so he immediately obliged. "Yeah. Be right back, Rin."
Neither he nor Sae said anything until the two figures went past the front door.
"What was that about?" Rin broke the silence first.
After taking a deep breath, Sae started talking, and despite his usual deadpan face, what he said made Rin considerably surprised.
"Rin, I have noticed for a while now, but you and Isagi are together." It wasn’t quite a question, but he was still demanding confirmation.
"...Yeah." The younger Itoshi raised an eyebrow. "So what?"
"... Isagi is a very nice guy, Rin."
"Okay?" He was what, now? Rin was starting to wonder if he heard it correctly. "Where do you want to get with this?"
"You should be mindful of your own harshness, or you might end up hurting the both of you." His brother stated, his facial expression still blank.
"I– What?" Rin hissed. "I'm your brother, shouldn't this talk go the other way? Like, you coming to him and telling him that he shouldn't hurt me or else he'll have to deal with you too or something like that?"
"Don't raise your voice, people will stare. Think, who's the nicer one between the two of you?" Before Rin could muster an answer, Sae continued. "Definitely not you."
"... So you asked Shidou to leave so you could scold me?"
His brother unlocked his phone and typed something before answering. "The opportunity was simply fitting."
Rin didn’t buy it, but didn’t press, not only because this didn't make any sense, but also because he could feel his patience vanishing with each word that slipped from Sae's tongue. His brother wouldn’t usually press either, he was never one to go deep into the subject of feelings. In fact, he tended not to go into it at all since he didn’t even like talking about this stuff, but considering his weird behavior that evening, of course he talked more.
"But you do understand, right? Relationships are complicated, especially romantic ones. If you are not responsible, they are bound to fail. Don’t deny your feelings for him."
The younger one scoffed at that. "Now you are talking about emotional responsibility. That's just great."
"Look, they are coming back. Remember, Rin, love is hard–"
"Shut it–" He tried to interrupt, but didn’t succeed.
"–but no matter how hard it is you can overcome those hardships with–"
"Enough!" He exclaimed, his face burning at the mere mention of the word 'love.' He sighed soundly and continued with a more composed tone: "Okay, I get it. What the hell has gotten into you today?"
"We're back~" Shidou crowed.
"And we are leaving. You ready, Isagi?" Rin was already standing when they returned with the wallet.
Knowing about the past conflicts regarding the Itoshi brothers, Isagi furrowed his eyebrows worriedly. "Did something happen?"
"Let's just go."
"Alright, just let me pay and we'll leave."
"No need to, Shidou insisted he will pay for all of us."
"Did he?" Isagi uttered.
"Did I?" Unlike Isagi, he seemed amused – way too amused, actually.
"Yes, he did." He ignored Shidou and answered Isagi. "You ready?"
"Yeah." Before following Rin, Isagi smiled apologetically at Sae and Shidou. "See you guys around, then?"
…
"Now that we are alone, do you wanna talk about it?" Isagi asked him as soon as they arrived at his house and laid side by side on the couch.
Rin shrugged at that. "It wasn’t serious, just annoying. And weird."
"But you seem troubled."
"Yeah…" He wondered how he could start to explain the situation and decided to go straight to the point. "Apparently my brother woke up today and decided he knows all about emotions now, which led him to lecture me on…"
"... On?" Isagi inquired.
"... On how you were a nice guy and I should pay attention not to hurt you? And how love is hard and shit."
The other was clearly taken aback. "Huh? We don't even talk that much. That's pretty odd." Isagi said.
Rin nodded in agreement. "It really is."
"Yeah. Maybe he's just making fun of you. Shidou must be rubbing off on him more than we expected."
"Don't even joke about that. I'd kill myself on the spot if I had to deal with two people like that guy."
"Now you don't joke about that. " Isagi flicked Rin's forehead lightly. "You know what, I'll let you choose the movie tonight."
"Is this you pitying me?" Rin teased, his lips tilting slightly upwards, though no one who didn’t know him very well would be able to notice. However, Isagi knew him extremely well – it almost scared Rin at first, but he grew used to it while also growing to like the other's company.
"That's me being nice. You should try once in a while."
"I'll pass the 'being nice' part." The remote control was handed to him. "But I accept to choose the movie."
Isagi let out a chuckle. "Asshole."
…
(A while back, still at the restaurant.)
"He looks pissed! You did it, right?" Shidou asked enthusiastically, sounding as if he had just won the lottery. But then again, pissing Rin off was his hobby and succeeding at it was like a huge reward for him, so it worked just the same when someone else did it, especially if that someone was Rin's own brother.
"I did." Sae assured. "Now you can stop nagging me about wanting to get back at him for whatever fight you two had this time."
"You really did all this for me!" Shidou said. "How dedicated."
Sae found amusement in the fact that his boyfriend was acting like him bothering someone else's life for his sake was akin to a grand act of love. Taking his personality into account, it most likely was.
"The lines you wrote about relationships were too cheesy though. I'm never doing that again, just so you know." Sae objected. " 'Don't deny your feelings for him.' 'Love is hard.' Does that sound like something I would say?"
"Not at all, but he must have been really confused." Shidou smirked. Sae said nothing, so he continued: "I'll pay and we can leave too."
"Oh, so you really are doing it?" Sae teased.
"I've gotta pay my debts."
"If you were to pay for every time you forgot your wallet you would pay for my meals for the rest of your life."
Shidou laughed. "That's an exaggeration, isn't it?"
"You're lucky I love you."
Sae hardly ever said those words, not because they weren’t the truth, but because he preferred to make it clear through his actions and besides, he trusted Shidou to know it already.
Still, whenever he uttered this set of words, a genuine smile would replace Shidou's signature teasing smirk. Those rare moments were really important to him, and Sae found out he didn’t mind saying these sappy things once in a while if it meant he could see this expression more often.
...
Only when they had already watched half of the movie did Isagi notice something important about what Rin told him earlier.
"Oh." Rin heard the man beside him mutter to himself. " Oh."
" 'Oh' what?"
This seemed to startle Isagi, who didn’t realize he was talking out loud. "Nevermind, just had a thought. We can keep watching the film."
Rin pressed the pause button in retort. "You always tell me to talk about feelings, don't be a hypocrite. What's bothering you?"
"You said something earlier." Isagi averted his gaze. "You know, the thing your brother said."
"... That you were a nice guy?"
"No, not that. The other thing." Now Isagi was scratching his cheek with his index finger, something Rin noticed Isagi always did whenever he was nervous or flustered.
"That I should pay attention not to hurt you?"
"Hm, no. The other part. The last one."
Rin wondered what was so remarkable about what he had told Isagi since all he did was explain that Sae gave him a lecture on feelings and responsibility and on how love was hard.
Oh.
Oh.
It dawned upon him that Sae mentioned love to him and despite being flustered, he found it so natural that he didn’t even correct him. And then he mentioned it to Isagi without even remembering that they didn’t come to an agreement that their relationship was like that yet. Not a spoken one, at least.
Rin tried to speak calmly, although Isagi most likely saw right through him. "What about it?"
"I was wondering if… I don’t know, it's stupid. I was just wondering if this was only what Sae told you or if that describes what you're feeling as well… Like, not exactly that, but I've always been confused as to whether we were together or–" He trailed off, his face red. "Crap, I don’t know. Just forget I said anything at all.”
"I can't really forget something like this." Rin said. "But I can give you your answer."
Isagi finally looked at him directly in the face, and as soon as their eyes made contact, Rin closed the distance between them with a kiss, placing his hand on the back of Isagi's neck for support. The other reciprocated after a moment of shock and confusion about the meaning of this particular kiss among the uncountable others they had shared with each other before.
When they pulled away, Isagi was the first to speak. "So that means we are together, right? Or did I misunderstand it completely?"
Rin was at a loss for words. "I thought I told you so through the kiss?"
"People use words sometimes, Rin. It's quite effective." Isagi retorted, to which Rin sighed mockingly.
"Then I'll stop kissing you and we'll only ever talk."
"We have been rivals for a really long time and yet this was the cruelest thing you have ever said to me." Isagi said with a smile.
Rin leaned for another immediately reciprocated kiss and was going for another one before Isagi stopped him. "I still want you to use words though."
"Yeah, yeah." He answered. "Working on it."
"You better." Isagi nudged him. "Remember what Sae said, you should be responsible–"
The teasing was interrupted with a kiss from the person he was now sure he was together with.
Those kisses went on for a while, and for the first time in his life, he was glad Shidou was an asshole because without him this conversation would have never happened in the first place. So even though he was pretty sure his brother and Shidou joined forces to make his existence insufferable, Rin really felt like he had the upper hand this time.