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Sae has no particular attachment to his parents, but he’s not so uncaring as to reject their invitation to dinner at his childhood home after the U20–Blue Lock match. Of course, the problem is that Rin will also be there, because Rin is his little brother, and while Sae had gone on to touch the vastness of the world, Rin had stayed in this house carrying their childish dreams in his heart for far too long. It was ridiculous, the way Rin had looked at him when he first arrived in Japan, eyes shining in just the same way as the day before Sae left. As if he was a years-buried time capsule Sae had dug up, unmarred and unchanged, while Sae was just the opposite.
Staying away didn’t work. Rejecting him didn’t work. Losing to him—probably hasn’t worked, either, not with Isagi in the way, and it was too concrete of a goal to satisfy him completely. Maybe it was Sae’s fault, for letting Rin orbit so closely to him as a child. Maybe it was Sae’s fault, for waiting until his return to crush his dreams.
He’s not sure if their parents have told Rin that he’ll be over. Either way, despite the fact that their destination is the same, Sae leaves the arena as quickly as possible without a word to anyone, sneaking out before any reporter can catch on. And then, he lingers in his own hotel room until he’ll arrive just in time for dinner, so that Rin will definitely be home already, and Sae won’t have to make idle chatter with his parents while they wait.
Going “home” is strange. There’s no need for him to look up directions, but there’s some things that have changed: a new subway exit, a different restaurant, a remodeled store. The walk from the station to the door seems to at once take forever and be over before he can prepare himself for what lies beyond it. He presses the doorbell outside, something he doesn’t think he’s ever done before.
The sound of footsteps, muffled voices, and the door is thrown open by his mother, who immediately exclaims, “Ah, it’s Sae-chan! Come in, dear, come in.”
Sae greets her, briefly returns her hug, pulls off his shoes in the doorway and places them in the same rack from four years ago. That’s all he gets to do before he hears, “Nii-chan?” and his imaginary bubble of a normal family dinner bursts with a dramatic pop.
He ignores Rin, walking into the kitchen and dining area to find the table already set, his mom just finishing up the last dish. His father is already seated at the table, and upon seeing him enter, waves him to the spot that he always used to sit at. “Sae, you should come home more often. No need to stay in a hotel.”
Sae greets him, too, then shrugs and sits. “It’s not that much.”
Whatever his father is going to say next is drowned out by Rin plopping into the seat next to him, and saying, with all the devotion of a younger brother, “Welcome home, nii-chan.”
“...Rin,” Sae says, just so it doesn’t seem like he’s ignoring him in front of their parents.
His mother turns off the stove, and before Rin can get in another word, Sae gets up to help her bring everything to the table and fill their rice bowls. It makes Sae realize that it’s been a long time since he’s had a meal like this with rice, and it’s been a long, long time since someone else has cooked a meal for him.
While they eat, his parents ask him things he expects, things he’s answered a million times from reporters, things he answers in a slightly softer way than he might normally. Rin, on his part, doesn’t interject much; at least he still has the dignity to not start something at the dinner table. He’s so docile that Sae could have mistaken him for the grown-up Rin he’d first seen in the snow, practicing, waiting endlessly for his brother to come home.
“Oh, Sae-chan, it’s a bit late for you to go all the way back, right? Why don’t you stay here tonight, your room is still pretty clean.” His mom smiles at the prospect of him staying just a little bit longer, before he slips away back across the ocean far beyond her reach.
He has nothing to gain and plenty of Rin to deal with if he stays. But somehow, the words that come out of his mouth are, “Sure. Thank you, mom.”
She beams at him. “Rin, would you go get him some clean bedding and towels?”
“Okay.” Rin gets up and goes up the stairs without protest, without hatred, without excessive joy. He responds completely normally, actually.
“I’m going to shower, then. Thank you again for the meal.” Sae bows his head, getting up, too, grabbing his suitcase from the entryway and heading up once he’s sure Rin is busy looking for things.
When he reaches the bathroom, he remembers that it used to be theirs. Not much has changed at all, except that there’s only one toothbrush and one set of towels. He stares at the faded stickers of a giant dinosaur and a mecha robot on the mirror for a moment, before opening the drawer for new toothbrushes and unwrapping one.
He picks up the party-used tube of toothpaste and is almost done brushing his teeth before he thinks, this is Rin’s, as if he might have somehow poisoned it. Which was ridiculous, because Rin had had plenty of opportunities to poison him during dinner that would have been much simpler, and Rin wouldn’t think of using poison, anyway. It’d be much more straightforward than that.
A knock sounds at the door. “Nii-chan.”
Sae opens it halfway and takes the offering of towels without looking at him. “Thanks.” Then he closes the door before Rin can try to get another word in.
While showering, he flips between thinking of what Rin will try to say to him and thinking of nothing in particular. If he really wanted to, he could just leave—he could claim any vaguely urgent excuse and slip away. If Rin really wanted to, he could make him stay—Sae doubts he could beat Rin in a fight, especially if he slipped into that…trance.
Before opening the door, he listens carefully for any movement outside, then steps out as quietly as possible into the hallway. Just a bit more.
The door to his old bedroom is already open, with one of the lights on. Rin must have left it like that after getting the bed ready. It’s probably better this way, so that Sae can easily see the room before entering just in case. Still, a terrible sense of foreboding sits on his shoulders as he steps in.
Rin is standing in the corner not visible from the door.
“Nii-chan.”
Sae bites back his noise of surprise. “Why are you hiding and trying to scare me? I’m tired from today, I’m going to bed.”
“Nii-chan, go out with me.”
“...what?”
“Let’s go outside.”
“...” I told you not to say it like that. Just say it normally. “I already showered and changed.”
“But…you’re leaving tomorrow, right?”
“I am,” Sae replies immediately, even though he hasn’t even booked a flight yet. After the second time he had to reschedule, he’d just cancelled it since deciding to play against Blue Lock.
“So…let’s go walk.” Rin’s eyes are pleading in much the same way he’d looked when Sae spoke to him after the match—before he'd mentioned Isagi, anyway. They’re filled with such childlike innocence that no one would ever think he was capable of such grisly destruction.
No, he could say. Get out, he could say. I don’t want anything to do with you anymore. I’m leaving.
Sae looks at him for a long time. Rin stares back, unyielding. Even though he’s taller than Sae, he seems so small, so vulnerable, as if Sae could crush his throat with two fingers and he’d crumple like a piece of paper. He’s turned into a pathetic shadow of the monster he was capable of being the moment Sae returned home—a dog that listens only to its master, a cat that bites everyone except its owner. The light in his eyes is so fragile, yet so easily rekindled the moment Sae so much as breathes in his direction.
Could he say no to that? Should he say no to that? What was better, to smother the flame out before it could learn what it was like to be blazingly hot, or let it grow and grow on its own until it eventually burns itself out?
Rin has always been capable of waiting forever, of holding his dreams close to his heart without letting them waver. Sae hasn’t.
“Nii-chan?”
“Fifteen minutes. Just to the shore, and back.”
Sae turns and heads out without another word, not waiting for Rin to follow.
“I—oh, I, okay!” Rin stutters, rushing to catch up with him.
Outside, it’s already completely dark. The streetlights are slightly dim with age, but he’s sure that the latent monster following after him is enough to scare off anything that would dare to approach. Rin’s footsteps fall in line with his.
They walk all the way to the shore in complete silence. Sae thinks of nothing in particular; then of Rin; then of them, as children, walking the same path; then of nothing in particular.
“Nii-chan,” Rin says. It’s the only word he knows how to say today, and apparently, it’s taken a lot of courage to build up to this time.
“What?” Sae turns, since they need to head back, anyway. Rin seems to have forgotten to prepare something to say after that, because he doesn’t reply.
“If there’s nothing, I’m heading back.” He takes a step forward, about to pass Rin—
But before he can, Rin catches him. Steps right in front of him and places his hands on his shoulders—
“...Rin?”
And kisses him.
Everything in Sae’s body freezes. His limbs, his blood, his heartbeat. He lies unmoving underneath Rin’s hands and lips, unwilling to believe their touch. Perhaps if he stays still for long enough, he will freeze to death and topple into the sea, and neither he nor Rin will have to acknowledge that such a thing ever happened in their lives.
“Nii…chan…” Rin’s eyes are wild, blazing. “Hey, Nii-chan. Will you go out with me?”
“We’re already outside.”
“Go out with me,” Rin repeats, seemingly unable to understand Sae’s words. “I want to go out with you.”
“You’re insane,” Sae bites out, quietly thinking of the best way to slip out of Rin’s grip without his notice. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
“Come back home, Nii-chan. I miss you.”
Sae was right. The scariest monster he could possibly encounter in the dark is right in front of him, and his only refuge happens to also be the very place it lives.
“I’m leaving tomorrow,” Sae says.
“Then, stay with me tonight.”
“I’m here already. Let go of me.” Sae shrugs him off, believing he’s placated Rin enough, and, thankfully, Rin lets him go. Once again, it takes Rin a few extra seconds to start following after him.
Once again, Rin says nothing on the way back. He unlocks the door and holds it open for Sae, who also says nothing. Because of that, Sae is a step quicker than Rin in taking off his shoes, a step quicker in heading upstairs, a step quicker in entering his old bedroom, and a step quicker in closing and locking the door. He exhales, finding his heart pounding in his chest, shakes his head and reasons that Rin would surely not knock down the door in his own house; it would wake up their parents.
He takes out his phone and books the earliest flight he can. His room is closer to the stairs than Rin’s, so unless Rin decides to stay in the living room the whole night, he should be able to make it to the front door before him. In the worst case, he can instead knock on his parents’ door and apologize for waking them up, but something came up and he wanted to say goodbye, and they’ll walk him outside safely.
A soft knock sounds at the door. “Nii-chan?”
Sae says nothing, does nothing. The chair at the desk is a good height to block the door handle, he thinks.
“I’m sorry if I…that I…” Rin mumbles something he can’t hear. “I hope you have a safe flight back tomorrow. Good night.”
Silence. Then, after a couple minutes, Sae finally hears Rin back away from the door and retreat back to his own room.
He waits, quiet, for the better part of an hour. When he’s sure Rin’s asleep, Sae calls a taxi for the airport.