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Isn’t it so beautiful, being in love? Isn’t it so beautiful when you see your lover smiling, when you lover is excited, when he simply exists? Isn’t Rin so beautiful? Isn’t unrequited love so beautiful?
Isn’t it so beautiful when you’re clawing up your arms, sobbing on a cold bathroom floor, biting your lips until they bleed so you don’t scream? Isn’t it so beautiful when you’ve crafted a mask so perfect that you could have an open mental breakdown and no one would bat an eye? Isn’t it so beautiful when the only escape you’ve ever found is being locked in a building full of kids that hate you? Isn’t it beautiful to just survive day by day?
Shidou’s hands were twitching, aching to lock onto his neck and never let go. He wanted to die, to go to sleep and never wake up, or to wake up unable to breathe. He wanted to die so, so bad.
But he’d never been closer to his dream. In this place, every touch he took on the ball was filled with a new kind of electricity he’d never felt before. Every surge of adrenaline, every goal, held a new kind of power. He was evolving, growing, and best of all, his mom wasn’t even here. He had to stay alive, because he was addicted to this feeling. It was like he was sitting on wires, shock after shock of delicious electricity surging into his veins with every passing second. It was beautiful, this pain.
Shidou was not a masochist. Truly. He hated getting hurt. But emotionally, wrapping himself in this pain brought him a twisted, cruel sense of comfort. One day, he’d explode. He was getting closer to that day, digging his nails deeper into his arms, sobbing for hours, turning his shirts into nooses just because he could. Who cares. Who cares. It was beautiful now.
He thought of Rin again. Never in his life had he met anyone as unbelievably dense as Rin. He had no depth, no layers. He wore all of his emotions on his sleeve. His words were not shielded; they were simply the truths that he believed. He was the best at soccer, everyone else was tepid, Shidou was a bug. Rin hated Shidou. Why would Rin like Shidou? Why would anyone like the mask Shidou wore?
Rin was someone Shidou would never, ever have. That hurt. That was beautiful.
Shidou’s entire existence was beautiful.
He would die soon, and it would be beautiful. No one would miss him.
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Rin loved Shidou.
He wasn’t one to deny himself of his feelings. If his motive ever changed, he would just quit soccer. He would work for what he wanted, and only for what he wanted. There was no point in making himself miserable chasing after other people’s expectations.
But this was one thing that Rin just couldn't say, just couldn’t act on, no matter how much he wanted it.
Rin loved Shidou. He loved his grin, his energy, his hair, his skin, his mindset, his skills, his body. Rin loved everything he knew about Shidou, which, admittedly, wasn’t much. But still, Rin had never felt anything like his feelings towards Shidou. Rin found himself constantly torn between punching Shidou’s mouth out of his body and kissing him until they both couldn’t breathe.
He wasn't stupid. He knew he could do neither.
He knew that no advance would work, simply because of Shidou’s nature. He knew that Shidou was into girls. He knew that Shidou was probably a really shitty person, or just someone so naturally hateable that it would be impossible to like him for long, much less live with him and love him.
Rin’s heart was about to explode out of his ribcage. It was easy to play it off as heartburn from exerting too much of his energy. But the more he denied the pain, the more it hurt. His heart was dying. It stole his breath away and sent images of Shidou into his mind, day in, day out. But it was nothing Rin couldn’t handle. At least, not yet.
This love would be a filthy little secret that he would take to the grave. That was okay. It wasn’t meant to be. The world they lived in refused to make room for a single cliché. There was no such thing as bonded pairs, two people fated to be together just because one of them wanted to be. That was okay.
Rin was dying.
He would die soon, and that was okay. No one would miss him.