Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A small group of four people linger by the resort's wrought-iron entry gate. One of the four, Isagi Yoichi, stands with his hands in his pants pockets waiting patiently, studying the map that's on display.

As he waits, Isagi takes in his surroundings. The resort supposedly can accommodate five people, but he only sees four: himself, an elderly couple, and a young woman standing in the back.

The lady who runs the resort, Anri Tieri, finally meets with the small group after they'd been waiting for about ten minutes. She's wearing a well-tailored suit with a black blouse and pencil skirt and in her hands she holds a clipboard. When everyone seems to see her, she smiles and nods at them politely.

"Hello, you four," she says, "The fifth member of your group checked in earlier today, so he's already inside. Welcome to Vermillion Resort, the highly sought-after creative getaway! As you all know, we book well in advance due to high demand. The waitlist is currently over a year long."

Anri takes out her phone and scans each entrant's entry ticket, checking their identification along with it. She then stands back beside the resort map and begins to explain how things work to them.

"Our resort opens to five people per one-week intake. You're welcome to socialize with the other entrants and make friends, but do keep in mind that everyone has their own reason for coming here. Some people are starving artists suffering with art block, some are troubled or sick people, other people are just rich and bored. First of all, you should all start by scanning this QR code here and saving the resort map onto your phones." Anri points to the QR code in the bottom corner of the physical map. Isagi is the first to take out his phone and scan it, then the young woman who'd been standing in the back does it next. The elderly couple seem to be struggling, so he helps them open their cameras and scan it as well.

"Please look at the map's legend," Anri points to the legend, "Emergency exits, pullable fire alarms, first aid kits and AEDs, are labelled as such. Please take note of their locations. In your welcome email you would have received your room number as well as a list of things to bring along with you. Please find your room on the map. All rooms are located on the main floor, and are spaced out for each person's privacy. You will also have your own bathrooms."

Anri points to a blue circle on the legend labelled water well.

"The resort is a bit outdated in this way. The running water is good for cleaning and bathing yourself, but please refrain from drinking it. There are five installed water wells located outside near the building's exit doors, please fill your water bottles here. You're also welcome to simply buy water from the resort's convenience store located on the main level. As you can see, the resort is sectioned off into different types of artistic media. Each studio has three to five different types of similar media. For example, the painting studio is equipped with oil paints, acrylic paints, and watercolors. The literature area is equipped with typewriters, computers, and traditional calligraphy supplies. Each studio lists the medias that it has in it. In order to book a studio, you must use our app, which is linked in the QR code you scanned. Booking time periods for each studio start at one hour and go up to three hours, and a maximum of two people are allowed in one studio at a time. You must be out of the studio no later than five minutes after your assigned time period has ended to allow for our staff to clean, inspect, and restock the studio if needed. Does anyone have any questions about our booking system?"

After a short moment of silence, Anri then continues her speech.

"Alright then. Before you're allowed entry onto the resort grounds, I'll just say a few more things. There are recreation areas like a gym, a movie theater, and a planetary observatory, all located on the upper level of the resort. Studio hours are seven in the morning to nine at night, bookings will not go through outside of these hours. Quiet time is eight in the morning to ten at night, so please keep your voices down and activities to a minimum during these hours. The kitchen staff are aware of your dietary preferences, so when at the cafeteria you must give them your room number. Cleaning staff are wearing grey kimonos, other staff like myself are wearing red kimonos; guests are permitted to purchase day passes and will be in orange kimonos, and entrants like yourselves are supplied with blue kimonos in your rooms. There are many outdoor activities to do around the resort and off the resort grounds, but please refrain from leaving the resort grounds after dark. Lastly, you will see a forested area on your map to the south highlighted in red. No entrant is permitted inside the forest under any circumstance. Now, if you have any questions during your stay, I'll be in my office, which is labelled on the map. Please sign this waver and make your way inside. Welcome to Vermillion Resort, everyone!"

As he makes his way inside, Isagi studies the map on his phone more carefully. Tapping each studio brings up a listing of the studio's available time slots.

Isagi had come to this place in hopes of studying other forms of artistic mediums outside of his own. He's been suffering from severe art block lately, but more than that, he feels as though he's lost the spark of passion he once felt for his art of choice, poetry and creative writing. His finger hovers over the literature studio, but instead he selects the one beside it. Charcoals, pastels, graphite, and chalks.

That doesn't sound too bad, he thinks. Maybe trying something new that he's never tried before would help revive his creative spirit, so with an apprehensive finger, he opens the studio's booking.

It's already after nine in the morning, so he books the space starting at ten. An hour is probably enough time for him in this space, he figures, so he takes the ten to eleven AM slot to give himself some time to go to his room and settle in first.

The studio at that time appears to have another booking, which shows up in Studio space, 2/2 now highlighted in red. It seems someone else has already made the exact same booking as him.

He starts off by going to his room, which is on the west side of the resort, to put his things away and change into the resort blue kimono. After he does so, he grabs his metal water bottle and heads to the nearest water well to fill it.

To his surprise, there's someone else already there operating the pump. The person is also wearing a blue kimono, though they don't appear to be the elderly couple, nor the young lady he'd been intaked with. He surmises this must be the fifth guest that had arrived earlier in the morning.

Isagi stands behind the person, waiting for them to finish filling their water bottle. When the person puts the lid back on their bottle and turns around, they seem a little startled to see Isagi standing right behind them.

This person is another guy, probably around his age, he thinks. He blinks up at the dude, who just stands staring at him with a hand resting on his hip, a brooding expression on his face.

"Sorry, I hope I didn't startle you."

"Move, " the man barks without acknowledging his apology.

The guy just stands, staring, blinking slowly at Isagi as if he was the strangest thing he'd never seen. Isagi steps to the side, smiling nervously as the guy walks past him and back into the resort.

"Weird..." he mumbles, still smirking, "Guess I can't be friends with everyone I meet right off the hop."

He fills his water bottle with the hand pump and goes back inside. This may be a good opportunity for him to explore the rest of the resort, so he walks around for a while by himself, locating the cafeteria and convenience store. The resort looks something like a traditional Japanese castle from the outside, though the building has modern design touches that show that it isn't as old as a person would think. While he's on his way to his first studio booking, he stops beside an art piece that's hanging in one of the hallways.

In the center of the painting, a man stands, surrounded on all sides by twisting, writhing shapes of monsters. The creatures depicted seem to be a part of him, and also seem to be attacking him. Or hurting him. He seems to be standing in the middle of a busy city street, though nobody around him seems to notice him. The message of the painting is unclear to Isagi. The person's face is obscured so no discernable expression is seen, either, but the monsters surrounding him are piercing him with what appear to be thorns, and blood is oozing from all his many wounds. Isagi can't help how this piece unsettles him; it's a bit grotesque a piece to simply have hanging in a resort, but this is also a creative resort for adults only, so he does suppose it isn't entirely inappropriate. Art is meant to invoke human emotion, after all, even unpleasant ones.

Suffering. That's the one thing that comes to Isagi's mind as he studies this piece more carefully. The nature and placement of the monsters seems to indicate a clear and cold fact; this person is suffering in silence and seems helpless to stop it. Nobody around him seems to notice his pain, either, despite the graphic nature of his injuries.

He's spent too much time looking at the work of art and is now running a bit late for his first studio booking, so he hurries off in the direction indicated on the resort map. When he arrives at the charcoals and pastels studio, he hurriedly pulls the door open and shuts it behind himself.

He looks around, seeing a table placed in the middle with two spots side by side. The right spot is already filled with another person. It seems it's the same guy from earlier he'd met at the water well. When the man looks over at Isagi, he stares with an entirely blank expression on his face and doesn't offer any sort of greeting.

Isagi recalls what Anri had said about Each person having their own personal reasons to enter the resort, and finds himself wondering what this guy's reason had been.

"Hello..." Isagi greets the guy, his voice trailing off apprehensively.

"What are you, a stalker?" the guy asks accusatorially, rubbing what appears to be charcoal off his fingertips onto a piece of scrap paper. Isagi can't help but laugh a little at this as he sits himself down beside the guy.

"That's ridiculous. How would I have any way of knowing you were the one booked here in the same time slot? The app doesn't say anything about that."

"Whatever," the guy mutters, swiping a piece of charcoal across the page in front of him, "Just stay out of my way."

"I'll be sitting right over here, well out of your way." Isagi shuffles through the supply drawer on the side of the table. He notices the drawers seem to be organized by medium. The top drawer contains pastel supplies, as well as a scannable QR code that has some very basic guidance documents on how to use these different tools.

As he's scrolling through the document on charcoals, Isagi's eyes wander over to the crotchety stranger's piece that he's working on, which sits on the table in front of him. He blinks at the man's swift, controlled strokes trailing across the page, the guy's hands seem confident and steady as he works.

"Have you used charcoals before? You're pretty good at that..." Isagi watches the guy's piece of art begin to unfold as he works on it.

"No," he replies, "It's not like it's hard, though."

He seems to be finished what he's doing. With his thumb he smudes a few lines and grabs a kneaded eraser off of the desk beside him. The only thing he erases is a small circular shape in the very middle of the piece, going over it a few times to produce a sharp white circle, which contrasts the black scribbles of charcoal around it.

Isagi cocks his head and looks even closer at the piece. He can see the outline of a human bust drawn out on the page, which seems, despite having been done in around ten minutes, to be very well done. The artist's lines, though dark and curved in a highly controlled way, have jagged edges that give the skill of the piece a touch of madness.

The edges of the person's face can be seen clearly, but coming out from their head is a mass of twisting, curving, dark lines that entangle like some kind of rose bush, as if this person's own mind is the culprit behind the injuries the thorns are inflicting on them. The white erased circle stands at the very center of the piece, giving it a simple and steep element of ominous contrast.

"Your style is very... Interesting," Isagi says, unsure of how to describe how this image makes him feel. "It's supposed to be a bit frightening, isn't it? But I don't really feel that scared the longer I look at it... It just invokes a lot of sadness in me. I'm just curious... Did you happen to see the painting hanging on the wall outside the arts and crafts studio? This somehow reminds me of that..."

The guy scratches his signature in the corner of the page, flickering a vague look of interest Isagi's way.

"Sorry, I think I got a bit carried away with looking at your piece. It's just that I see artists with such talent who are able to convey such messages with so many emotions, and I feel a bit jealous. I've sort of felt, for a long time, that my own style of art has become hollow and emotionless."

"A muse can help with that," the guy offers, though not exactly with a friendly tone, "Any artist would know that, though."

"I know! And you're totally right! Normally I gain my inspiration from things around me that make me happy, like the color of the sky or tasty food, even beautiful flowers or landscape. But after I reached a certain point in my career, I feel all the passion I used to be able to channel into my creativity now lacks emotion and lustre."

"It's a product of you forcing yourself to create," the guy leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. Isagi seems to have his full attention, at least for now. "That's the difference between people like me, and tepid NPCs like you. Half-assed motivations and muses produce mediocre art."

"Huh... NPC?" Isagi mumbles, blinking quizzical at what the guy had just said to him. "What do you mean by that? If you think your creative muses are so much better than mine, then at least give me more of explanation as to why."

"It's nothing like that. I create because I..."

The guy cuts himself off, rubbing his charcoal-smeared fingertips on his scap paper in sullen silence.

"You create because...?"

The guy only stares down at his completed piece silently, though his silence is somehow telling. Isagi thinks the guy may not be comfortable with discussing this particular thing with someone he just met.

"I'm Isagi Yoichi." Rather than press the awkward subject any further, he introduces himself and holds his hand out for the guy to shake.

"The mob character seems to think I want to know his name?" the guy jabs, not moving at all from where he's sitting, his hands remaining folded in his baggy kimono sleeves. "Itoshi Rin. Not that I have any intention with conversing with the likes of you. Mob character A."

Isagi lowers his hand as the guy begins to shuffle through his supplies, pulling out a new page along with some pencils. He gets to work on a new drawing with the graphite pencils, seemingly done with giving Isagi any more of his attention. He seems a bit arrogant, and definitely condescending, but the longer Isagi stares at his work of art, the more he thinks he understands why this might be.

"I'm not just some NPC for you to look down on, Rin. Actually, I think you're the tepid one between the two of us. I saw some key similarities between this piece and the one I saw out in the hallway, then I realized... They must've been created by the same artist."

Rin's movements seem to slow, but his face is still downturned.

"The guy walking in the street, seemingly being attacked by monsters... Monsters that look like they're actually a part of him. And this piece here. Clearly a person being squeezed by these jagged thorns coming out of their head. Both give an initial feeling of fear, but both actually seem to speak to a deeper sense of sadness, and definitely, to some extent, isolation. I see now... You think I'm tepid because I create from a place of comfort, because what you create seems to come from a place of pain and silent suffering that exists within your own heart."

Rin's face upturns, and now their eyes lock. A wave of goosebumps shoots down Isagi's spine; for the first time since they met, Isagi feels like he has Rin's full attention, so while he does, he tilts his head and doesn't flinch away from Rin's piercing stare.

"Are you in pain, Rin?" Isagi asks him evenly, with such a bizarre sureness that it makes Rin feel a bit unsettled.

Isagi only pauses briefly, Rin not dignifying him with an answer to his question. Not right away, anyways. He then cracks a smile and chuckles, as if their conversation hadn't just taken a strangely dark turn.

"Sorry! Feel free to ignore me." Isagi pulls out some pastels and paper, humming to himself as he does so, entirely missing how he'd completely frozen Rin in his place with his eerily astute line of questioning. Rin glances out the window beside him, feeling a dark shadow casting along his heart at how this person had managed to see through him so effortlessly. He's used to people questioning him about his art, especially commenting about how creepy it is. He isn't used to people making such keen observations about the nature of his art—and him, for that matter—and especially not right away like this. Isagi's words settle deeper and deeper into his mind, making a place there where he finds he can't forget about them.

This conversation stays with Rin for the rest of the day, even though they don't see eachother again after the first studio booking. After dinner, Rin heads to the nurse's station as he's been instructed to do morning and night every day for a mental health check-up.

When he arrives, the nurse begins by asking him questions about his day and other trivial things. He's only just arrived at this place, but he's already sick of going through these motions.

"Why do I have to do this twice a day?" he asks the nurse angrily, "I don't see how this is any benefit to me. You're just wasting my time."

The nurse, who'd been scrawling something down on a clipboard, looks up at him. "Itoshi-san, this is standard procedure for us for people who are staying at the resort with mental health grievances. Especially severe ones like yours. I understand you aren't in a very good state of mind right now, but we just want to make sure you're keeping yourself safe. Also, since it was your brother who paid for your entry, he wants us to send daily reports on your well-being."

Rin huffs out of his nose in silent frustration, although he does understand the nurse's point. As the nurse listens to his heart with a stethoscope, he finds himself wishing he hadn't been reminded about why Sae had sent him to this place at all.

*

Isagi lays down into the bed in his room, pulling his phone out of his pocket to check the time. It's quite late and he's had a full day of exploring the resort and delving into different creative mediums. As he had every time he'd opened the damn app that day, his finger hovers over top of the literature studio. Instead of hesitating, this time he opens it to book himself in, choosing the eight to nine AM time slot before he has a chance to talk himself out of it.

After tucking his phone away, he tugs back the sleeve on his right arm's night clothes to reveal his favorite tattoo of his favorite haiku poem.

The sight of this tattoo used to bring him so much inspiration, but since he'd started suffering from writers' block months ago, looking at it now just makes him feel angry and frustrated with himself. He finds he cries a lot more these days, missing the nights he'd spend writing as many poems he could muster until he fell asleep feeling satisfied. Now he just feels bitter when he looks at it, as if it's a reminder of how much of a failure he is as an artist.

He feels tears stinging in his eyes again and angrily brushes them aside. His reason for entering this resort despite the staggering cost of it is to try and find his passion for poetry again, but he thinks at this rate he may never get it back. Rin was probably right about him, after all.

He closes his eyes and tries to sleep, but he finds himself feeling a bit restless. His mind frequently wanders back to his conversation with Rin about finding a muse, and also about how their conversation was abruptly cut off before Rin had said anything about why he chooses to create.

That night, Isagi finds himself falling asleep, thinking about the shape of Rin's pain. How it most likely differs from his own. Wondering what it must really be like for him if Rin's art is a reflection of the agony he feels in his heart.

*

When Rin arrives in his room for the night, he stares out the window at the emerald line of the surrounding forest, listening to the soft patters of rain touching the roof above him. His hands itch to create art that reflects the pain he's suffering from inside, but he knows each line he utters into existence is only a sorry attempt at making him forget about how much he'd rather not even try at all.

He's in so much emotional pain that it's tearing him apart inside, but he feels pathetic because he doesn't even understand why; the only thing he's ever been able to do for himself is create, but even his art, a product of his misery, is only a blemish in the world of art. This feeble attempt at conveying his suffering to those around him never works, though, and he finds it only makes him feel numb at best. Only creating from a place of pain has twisted his creativity into a toxic relationship between his mental health battle, his art, and himself.

As he raises his arm, the blue kimono sleeve falls away, revealing the black fabric of a long-sleeved shirt they've given him permission to wear underneath it. He pulls that back as well, revealing the scars from only two weeks ago. The evidence he'd left on his own body of how weak he really is. How disgusting he really is.

He continues to stare out the window, into the curtains of rainfall shuddering from the sky, heralding the passing of the storm.

He finds that amidst his raging inner turmoil, he still sees the shape of two deep blue eyes staring back at him, staring directly at the wounds he'd tried so desperately to hide from the world around him.

Chapter Text

One month earlier.

Sae enters his brother's apartment, feeling uneasy at the state the place is in.

"Hey, Rin..." he greets his little brother, who's sitting in the living room on his futon.

This was a bit of an impromptu visit, but Sae's been worried about his younger brother for quite some time now. Paintings of various shapes and sizes litter the area around Rin, some half finished, some completely finished, some canvases stacked nearby him are completely blank.

Rin remains on the couch, very still and very quiet. It's been clear to Sae that his mental health has been in a decline for quite some time now, although Sae is really the only person Rin has in his life to notice such things. He remembers how alert and attentive Rin had been only a few short months ago, in contrast to how unresponsive he is now.

Rin's bizarre obsession with painting these creepy paintings of his is, from an outsider's perspective, confusing; his paintings only seem to garner any attention when they're more grotesque in nature, so as Rin pushes himself harder, further and further into the abyss to find an increasingly more morbid source of inspiration, he slowly grows in popularity. To Sae, it appears almost as if Rin is stuck in the grasp of an addiction of sorts.

Sae helps Rin tidy his apartment and makes Rin some lunch with what he has in the house, since it seems like he hasn't been eating very much lately. They have a short visit, wherein Rin remains deathly quiet for most of it, frequently staring vacantly off into the far corner of the room or out the window with dead eyes.

"Have you been taking the medication they prescribed you?" Sae asks, although he already thinks he knows the answer to his question; when Rin drags his cloudy, lifeless gaze over to him, Sae finds himself shuddering under their cold stare.

When Sae gets back home, he scrolls through his emails in search for a specific one. When he sees the entry email from Vermillion Resort, he taps on it and reads it to himself again.

It'd been a while since he'd put a deposit on the waitlist to have Rin sent out this artist resort, but it does say wait times are normally around a year long. By his calculation, Rin would still need to wait another eight months or so for his invitation to come.

The woman who runs the resort, Anri Teiri, has her phone number listed in the email. Sae had already tried calling her a few times, though to no real surprise, she hadn't returned his phone calls at all. He taps the phone number and makes the call again with his desperation growing.

The phone rings a few times. Sae expects it will probably go to voicemail again, like it had all the other times he'd called her, but, to his surprise, Anri actually answers his phonecall.

"Hello, Anri Teiri speaking."

"Uh...!" Sae remarks, surprised, "Hello, um... This is Itoshi Sae..."

"Hello, Itoshi-san. Apologies for not returning your calls, I've been a bit busy these days. What can I help you with?"

"Listen, I just wanted to ask if there's any way I can get my brother into this resort early... An extra fee or something. I'll do anything. It's just that I don't think the psychologist is helping him much, he has this weird obsession... Like a toxic attachment... To painting. It just keeps making his mental health worse, I think. And I've heard this place can be therapeutic for struggling artists... Right?"

"Right," Anri agrees curtly, "But there are many people on the waitlist above your brother. I understand he may be struggling, but he isn't the only one."

"Come on... There has to be something you can do... Anything... Please. I'm not the type to do this sort of stuff, but I really think he could use the help."

"I'm sorry, Itoshi-san. I can maybe bump him up a little ways on the waitlist above the people who want to visit for recreation, but that's all I can really do. His wait time would still be about... Hmm, let me see... Around six months."

Sae sighs deeply and pinches the bridge of his nose.

He'd been hoping for a different answer. Sae has been trying his best to help his younger brother for quite some time now, but nothing he says or does really seems to help Rin's mental state from getting worse. In essence, it's been a slow but steady decline for Rin since he'd moved out to his own apartment.

Rin is an adult now, and Sae knows this. It's not as though he doesn't function at all, but because of how unhealthily fixated he gets on painting, it's not unusual for him to shut down and stop answering phone calls, stop eating properly or taking care of himself. Because of this, Sae also helps Rin sell his paintings.

"Alright... Thank you for your time," Sae ends the call right after saying this to her politely.

He sighs and leans back into his couch. It's been a long time since he's felt sure of himself when it comes to his brother's well-being. He's been doing everything in his power, but it isn't enough anymore. The older brother in him knows Rin won't hold out much longer like this... Something needs to change, and it needs to change fast.

After another two weeks of Sae visiting Rin, trying desperately to reason with him, to help Rin in any way he can despite Rin's clearly declining mental state, something finally gives.

That day, Sae would visit his brother's apartment as he normally does, and he wouldn't find Rin sitting at his kitchen table or on the futon...

He'd find him in the bathroom, in a pool of his own blood.

*

The day after Rin's suicide attempt, Sae is still with him at the hospital. The doctors had managed to stabilize him, but he's still unconscious and is receiving a blood transfusion. As he sits at his brother's bedside, his phone begins to ring.

"Hello?" he answers.

"Good afternoon, Itoshi-san. This is Anri Teiri with Vermillion Resort."

"Anri... Oh..." He's exhausted and spaced out so his brain can't quite comprehend what's going on just yet.

"I was thinking about our last conversation, and, well... You see, I originally founded this resort to help people... It's been a long time since I've spoken to someone who sounded as desperate as you did. I can tell you really care for your brother's well-being, and, well... There's been a cancellation..."

"Ah... Cancellation? Oh, for when?"

"Two weeks from now."

Sae freezes, looking down at his brother's pale body laying in the hospital bed. Was two weeks enough time for him to get back on his feet? He doesn't know.

Right now, he doesn't really care.

"I'll take the slot," Sae replies.

"Alright. I'm glad to hear that. I really do hope we're able to help your brother, Itoshi-san."

"Yeah, umm... I hope so too... Well there's just one thing I should mention, I guess, about his mental health... It's..." he finds his own voice strangling a bit in his throat as he watches Rin's chest rise and fall weakly, "It's gotten much worse."

"I understand. It's standard practice for you to have to fill out an updated status form regarding his health, mental health, and all that so we are prepared for him when he comes out here. I'll email that over to you right away. Take care for now, Itoshi-san."

After Anri ends the phone call, Sae returns his phone to his jacket pocket. In silence, he continues to stare at his brother's pale face, feeling the smallest bit hopeful about this one thing.

Rin going to this resort may help him, and it may not. Sae's taken the first step toward changing his brother's life for him, but the rest is all up to Rin himself.

*

Present day.

Isagi Yoichi's second day in Vermillion Resort starts off in a very disappointing way.

His first booking (in the literature studio) goes exactly how he'd expected it to go. He's there for a full hour, and doesn't write a single word other than his own name at the calligraphy station.

Dealing with severe writer's block has been a huge struggle for him, to put it lightly. He isn't normally the type to struggle with his mental health that much, but this has had him struggling for practically the entire year so far.

After giving up on his supposed medium of specialty, Isagi heads straight to his second booking at the paints studio, where he finds another person already in there.

When he enters the studio, he notes two paintings already completed with a third one sitting on the easel in front of the guy.

"Good morning," he says to Rin casually, even though he's almost sure Rin hates him at this point. Rin looks back at the sound of his voice.

"You again?" Rin grumbles.

"Me again. Sadly." Despite how Rin doesn't seem all that happy to see him, he somehow does find himself smiling at seeing Rin again anyways.

Rin's easel is positioned in front of the window in the far corner, probably to close himself physically off from any chance of someone bothering him while he works. Isagi looks at the other easel and chair still sitting in the middle of the room and he smiles a devious smile.

He picks both things up and positions them beside Rin in the corner, facing the window. As expected, though, Rin scowls at him as if he'd just done the worst thing in the world to him.

"What are you doing, Isagi?"

"Oh, nothing. Just watching you," Isagi replies lightheartedly, setting himself up for painting as well.

"Watching me?" Rin repeats, glowering at Isagi as he goes about setting up, "That isn't going to help you at all, Mr. Mediocrity."

"I don't know if it will or not, but I figured I might as well try," Isagi sighs between thoughts, "I was in the literature studio this morning but I got nothing done. It really soured my mood, so when I saw you in here I actually felt a bit excited. I thought maybe to lighten the mood from my depressing morning, I could learn something from you."

Rin's attention has returned to his painting, although he still feels Isagi's eyes on him as he works.

"This is interesting... What are you painting here?"

"None of your business."

He hears Isagi chuckle at him, and feels his gut clench with anxiety at the sound of the laughter.

"This painting, along with the other two, kind of follow a similar pattern as the other ones I've seen made by you. You're sitting over here, looking out at a beautiful green forest and a beautiful blue sky, but what you choose to paint is..."

Gruesome. Once again, Rin seems to be creating something that involves a person being attacked by some frighting outside force. Like a creature or monster with thorns or claws that are tearing his flesh.

To Isagi, this is strange. Not just because of the repetition in darker themes Rin chooses to use, but also in how, despite Rin's surroundings changing, these dark themes don't seem to change at all. Isagi himself, when he would go looking for things to influence his creativity, would often find himself looking at the world around him to find his next source of inspiration for writing poetry. The sky at sunset looks like it's on fire, I can write about that. The smell of rice cooking reminds me of my childhood with my mother, the feel of raindrops on my skin makes me feel more alive, the sounds of leaves rustling in the wind grounds me, the sound of a violin reminds me of the sound of someone crying...

All simple things he can relate to, things that are easy to turn into poems. Simple yet effective imagery can be used. And yet, as he looks at Rin's paintings, Rin's muses seem so much different than his. Rin doesn't seem to look without for his inspiration, he seems to only look within.

Or... Does he?

That's when Isagi has an epiphany, and without thinking before he says what he wants to say, he asks:

"Hey, are you schizophrenic?"

Rin immediately pauses what he's doing and shoots him a venemous glare.

"Hah? Schizo–what?"

Once again, Isagi laughs at him breezily, and once again he finds this making him feel anxious.

"I was just thinking about how you choose to paint consistently dark things like this, but there's even consistency in the way you draw them. I sort of thought that was because this is something you actually tend to see... Things no one else can see."

"I know I'm not like other people. It's not like it matters, or that I even care. The stupid doctors tried to put me on medication, but it... It changed me... I felt different, I didn't feel myself. So I stopped taking the pills. I'd rather die than be something other than myself."

Rin seems to have stopped working, but he catches himself before he goes on to say anything else. Isagi takes note that he begins working again, and doesn't cease in his silent observation, nor in his growing curiosity with Rin beginning to turn the cogs in his mind.

"So you don't wanna take medication because you don't want to be something other than yourself. I totally get that. They diagnosed me with ADHD, I had a similar experience with the pills they wanted me to take. I learned to manage it in other ways, and I don't do too badly generally speaking. So... Is this your way of coping, then?"

Hearing the word coping jolts through Rin like electricity, because, despite how that description actually does make sense for what he's trying to do, he recalls the deep scars on his wrists and how he's never been successful at all in actually coping with anything.

Rin's lack of a response diverts Isagi's attention back over to his own easel. He already feels, in this short interaction with Rin, that he's starting to learn a different creative perspective from this mysterious stranger. With the conversation seemingly at another standstill after Isagi asking yet another uncomfortable question, the two paint in silence for a little while. Rin finishes faster than Isagi does, and when he sits back in his chair to examine the finished product, he flicks a stealthy glance over at Isagi.

Since Isagi had mentioned that he's a poet, Rin hadn't really expected to see the guy getting so into painting. Isagi defies his expectations by working quickly and diligently on his piece, though the thing that stands out the most about him isn't necessarily any of that.

It's the look in Isagi's eyes.

The twin azurites that feel more like two deep blue chasms, seem to transform into spirals the longer he looks into them. Rin sees a pair of ocean whirlpools collecting into the blackness where Isagi's pupils are, dots of light pinpointing right in their centers, reflecting the white of his canvas; it's as if his focus and spirit has possessed him and transformed him into an otherworldly being. Isagi, when he's focused, is in and of himself, a work of art to behold.

Rin catches himself, though. He can't be bothered to let himself be swept away by the tides contained within those eyes, no matter how mesmerizing they look to him right now.

This presence—Isagi's presence—strangely impactful in a silent and persistent way, unwaveringly curious about him, makes him feel more... Normal. Than he has in a long time. Such a long time that he thinks maybe he's never felt quite this normal. He thinks he shouldn't be feeling so impacted by a person's mere existence at his side like this, and especially not somebody he just met. It's ridiculous, but something he finds he's unable to ignore despite how he knows he wants to.

Rin continues to paint, but an unfamiliar ache begins to form in his chest like tree roots knotting into a solid mass around his heart. The discomfort reflects itself not in any way someone else may have been able to pick up on, but it does show in his brush strokes. The small distraction wavers the torsion of his wrist and the pressure applied to the canvas loses its usual fluidity and control. No one else would notice, but Rin does notice.

He places his paintbrush into the cup beside his canvas. By the time on the wall, he still has around twenty minutes left in his two hour booking, but Isagi's presence bearing down on him from the side is making this room feel hot and unbearable to be in. He gets to his feet swiftly and makes to depart the paints studio by himself.

"Hey!" he hears Isagi call after him. As if ordering him to come back, his steps, which are brisk, slow down. "Your paintings...?"

Rin quirks his gaze backward, flitting a hand through his bangs anxiously.

"I don't care about them," he replies, and it's entirely true. Actually, Rin's never been much of a liar—he really isn't one at all, for that matter—so the reply forms naturally on his tongue.

Isagi, who's been pretty well cheerful and carefree since Rin had first met him, doesn't really look that way right now. The eyes... The whirlpools that pull Rin into them as effortlessly as a riptide... They're wide with a stern focus and shining with resounding, silent consideration. Their appearance is beaconing Rin, hooking him in, pulling him in and he doesn't look away from them. He can't let himself back down in the face of an unknown like this... A stranger walking into his life, considering his actions, his thoughts, his very being, as if he wasn't being ripped apart on the inside every waking moment of every day.

"Why don't you care?" Isagi asks while he has Rin's attention.

"Because I don't. I've painted hundreds of paintings just like those ones."

"Am I making you uncomfortable?"

"You're annoying me."

"I'll leave, then. I thought you might warm up to me or something, but I guess that isn't happening. I just..." Isagi's expression seems to fall, from calm and neutral to actually a little sad, "I was glad we met the first day, because I feel like I'm learning new things about art when I'm with you. I was even happier to see you today. I learned even more cool stuff from you."

Isagi gestures back at his painting. Rin realizes he'd been so preoccupied by either staring at Isagi's eyes or trying to avoid staring at Isagi's eyes, that he hadn't even noticed what Isagi was actually painting. He only squints at the image briefly; Isagi's style of painting is much different than his own. The art isn't actually bad, it's just way too colorful for Rin's liking, who prefers to paint either monochrome or monochrome with only a small splash of color. He only looks at it for a couple of moments, though unlike Isagi, he doesn't take any real time to try and break down the composition of the piece or study it from an artist's perspective.

"I wanted to show you what I was painting when I finish it. So will you stay? I won't say anything else until I'm done."

Rin bites the inside of his cheek as he turns Isagi's proposition over in his head. Talking this into consideration, and pulling apart the apparent fragility of his solitude, is uncomfortable for him in ways he'd never really realized until now. That's simply because of one fact.

In Rin's life, there have only ever been two people: Itoshi Rin and Itoshi Sae. A third existence is not something he'd ever banked on before, but this stranger does seem to be one. This Isagi Yoichi.

Rin sits back down next to Isagi quietly, in front of his nearly completed painting. He bites back all the commentary dancing on his tongue right now, insult after insult that he considers briefly but doesn't vocalize. He instead opts for prolonged silence.

Isagi continues to work on his painting, while Rin grabs his paintbrush and proceeds to work on his own as well. As usual, he doesn't think much about what he wants to add and just paints what he thinks might make the pain go away.

Maybe the pain doesn't go away, as usual. Maybe Rin's efforts make him feel numb again at best. But somehow, having someone else here with him makes him feel like he isn't having to endure this suffering alone... At least for now. Actually, the presence of this new being who's simply sitting next to him painting, is distracting him in a strange, yet undeniably positive way.

What is Isagi's internal struggle? Is it something like his own, or something that differs from his? As Rin watches Isagi work in his peripheral vision, with the small smile and spiral eyes, he thinks Isagi isn't actually struggling. Not really. He can't be. No one in their right mind can possbily struggle and smile at the same time like that. Rin certainly doesn't.

"Okay, I think I'm done." Isagi dips his paintbrush into the cup of water beside him. Rin looks at his work of art.

It's so...

"Lukewarm," is what Rin chooses to say, because there really isn't any other way for him to describe Isagi's painting.

"How so?" Isagi asks, seemingly unbothered by Rin's insult. "Tell me. I want to learn."

"Well, you need to use more colors. To give the painting more depth you would want to mix colors, darker and lighter ones. It looks like you have no knowledge of color theory either and just painted what you saw outside the window, but when painting something from real life like this, knowledge of color theory would be helpful to give it some added depth."

"I see... Can you show me an example of that?"

Rin checks the time. They do still have five minutes left in their booking. Showing Isagi something small like this definitely couldn't hurt and it won't take too long.

Isagi, who'd apparently noticed Rin checking the clock, whips his phone out. A few taps on the screen and he says:

"This studio is open for the next hour. Lets book it?"

Rin winces at the mere idea of spending another hour with this idiot like this. But, really... Is this all that bad? Rin had planned to go to the physical studio after this and work out.

Maybe that can wait.

Right now, this seems to be distracting him from the pain enough that he actually feels a little okay. Maybe.

Maybe... Isagi isn't all that bad.

They agree to spend another hour together in the paints studio. To start with, Rin grabs Isagi's paintbrush and starts by mixing a couple of colors together. Once he's finished, he blots the mixture onto one of Isagi's trees over top of his preexisting shading. Isagi stares at what Rin is doing quite intensely, and once he's done, Isagi smiles at it.

"Wow! Okay, that looks so much better. I see what you mean by adding depth to the painting."

"All you have to do to accomplish something like this is to think about the colors and how to add depth to them. This example helped to add warmth to the tree. Just using plain black for the shading made it look too harsh, but adding some greens and browns to match the forest. Even some orange to match the sun. All that would help make the colors look more rich."

"Yeah, I totally see what you mean. It looks so much better when you use more colors."

Isagi gets to humming away and mixing more colors to add to his piece. Some of what he does looks good, some not so much, and the end result isn't the most impressive painting, but still.

The act of learning a new creative medium like this makes Isagi, for the first time in a long time, actually feel kinda good about himself. He set out to do something and actually did it. Even if the quality of this painting, from a fine art perspective, is pretty well terrible, the act of creating it without running into a massive wall of art block makes him feel accomplished.

When their time is up, Isagi collects his painting and they make to leave together. He smiles at the mediocre work of art... Although it isn't all that much in the way of any actual progress toward overcoming his writer's block, this did definitely ease his creative frustration in some other way. Sometimes, even just the act of creating something is therapeutic in its own right, even if it isn't what you wanted to create.

Now he thinks he's starting to understand the appeal to this resort.

*

After the painting studio, Rin heads to the physical studio by himself. He does a workout to distract himself and afterwards does some yoga and meditation.

Mental focus and relaxation are a core element in Rin's every day life. He finds it helps him hone his creative side and his mind is more clear and able to work better with daily meditation. Although today, he finds he can't exactly clear his mind all that effectively.

There's just something about what had happened in the paints studio earlier that's really getting under his skin, although he doesn't exactly know what it is. As he meditates and reflects on how the day had gone for him, he realizes something about the way painting with Isagi had impacted him.

Normally, Rin would paint something centered around what he sees, feels, and hears. Living with frightening visual and auditory halleucinations has made functioning in day to day life, and society in general, extremely difficult for him. Becoming an artist wasn't a choice he necessarily made for himself, but rather, something the world around him, and his own mind, had chosen for him. Forcing his mind to fixate onto painting, or any other creative medium for that matter, allows him to channel all that into something strangely... Constructive. Which is why art has always been so important for him. He channels all his mental energy, thoughts, feelings, everything into making something with his hands. But there had always been, and still is, one other thing that people who consume and enjoy his works of art always seem to miss—not only is Rin's art an outlet for his creativity, but it's also the only way he knows how to communicate his pain. In essence, his art acts as his voice, uttering a silent cry for help.

He recalls the appearance of Isagi's eyes... The unnerving blue spirals that ooze with focus and determination, that interject an unmoving presence of mind into understanding Rin's art. They seem to at least be capable of trying to comprehend the language Rin's unspoken voice whispers from within the painted canvas.

This is something new for Rin. This is a form of companionship that differs from that of his brotherly relationship with Sae. This is something...

Unique.

Rin cracks his eyes, realizing he's been taking up space in the meditation area and entirely failing at actually meditating. As he makes to leave, he thinks carefully about where he wants to go and what he wants to do next.

Chapter Text

The time drags along excruciatingly slowly, hours feeling practically endless while Rin spends them alone. Each morning, he visits the literature studio, unable to fully come to terms with the fact that he's sort of hoping to find Isagi there.

Why? Why does he want to see that imbecile again? He's frustrated with himself, both for when he books that hour in the literature studio and for stupidly getting his hopes up about running into Isagi there. Maybe the itch in the back of his brain, the image of the spiral eyes, but most importantly, Isagi's words, have all left a lasting impression on him, for better or worse. It's too early for him to tell right now.

The first day he makes a booking in there, he opts to read some guidance documents and books left in the studio, thinking that, at the very least, if he's going to make a point of booking this studio, he won't waste the studio time by simply doing nothing. All he knows is that Isagi had said something about preferring to write in the morning, though he honestly doesn't know what time of the morning he would do it. The second day he books in the literature studio, he decides to spend his hour by actually attempting to write. He tries different poem structures and types, but he finds it's not really to his liking—poetry is far too rigid in structure and style for him—so near the end of his hour booking, he opts to practice calligraphy.

Rin's third and fourth days in Vermillion Resort pass him by. He does not run into Isagi anywhere, and aside from a young woman in the arts and crafts studio on the fourth day, he doesn't see any of the other entrants, either; he does see the odd orange kimono around the place, all seem to be older people who've paid entry to wander around and admire the place's art or use its facilities. It gets him wondering what his brother had paid to have him entered... It probably wasn't cheap—definitely wasn't—and if that's the case, he doesn't want to disappoint Sae by coming back from the resort without having made any positive progress on his mental state. He's always hated his own ability to make Sae worry, and he hates it now more than ever.

He doesn't run into Isagi during his booking in the literature studio on morning five, either. By now he's convinced himself Isagi is avoiding him... And really, he doesn't blame the guy. He thinks that if he was Isagi he'd probably avoid someone like him, too.

He can't deny how this disappointment burns him, but at this point in his life, he's more than used to this feeling. Not a single person he'd crossed paths with in his life had ever been stupid enough to continue seeking him out consistently. The worst thing for him, though, isn't his actual feelings of being let down, because he's used to those, however unpleasant they are. It's the response his mind has to this form of rejection. It always either catastrophizes and forces him into a downward spiral, or it makes him mentally shut down. The former is what happens to him this time.

As he makes to leave the literature studio on morning five after his one hour booking is nearly through, he pauses by the doorway. There are no doubt people out in the hallway, whether it's staff or otherwise, so he makes a check on how he's feeling. The conclusion he comes to is that he needs a moment to collect himself.

He stands beside the door unmoving, focusing as hard as he can on remaining present. Even the slightest bit of negativity tends to weigh heavily on his mind and can cause his hallucinations to intensify. Normally at a time like this he would simply pick up a canvas or a paper and start to paint or draw something, anything to distract himself from how weak his grasp is on his own sanity. There isn't much in the literature art studio except for some calligraphy ink, brushes, pens, and markers for writing... Maybe this is what he has to do right now.

He sits back down and fishes through the supplies in search of anything he can use to write. He then proceeds to write something. Anything. It isn't coherent... He doesn't even know what coherency is right now... But it does distract him enough anyways. At least for now this will have to do.

While he scribbles away at his schizophrenic frustrations, ignoring the frightening auditory hallucinations that are beginning to get louder and louder, saying things to him that he wishes would just stay in his subconscious mind, the door opens and closes. That's when he realizes he's been in this studio for over his one hour time booking already. The rule is set to make sure the artists get their space and solitude for contemplation, which is why only two entrants are allowed into a studio per time slot. It might also be the people who are staffed with checking the rooms for cleanliness and keeping them stocked between bookings.

Whatever, Rin thinks. It doesn't matter and he can't be bothered to care about it right now. If the staff want to give him shit, then he figures he'll let them, so he ignores the extra presence in the room while he continues to absentmindedly write whatever he's writing to distract himself from the growing intensity of his delusions.

One thing happens next, that simultaneously breaks the silence and helps bring him back to reality again the smallest bit.

"Rin?"

He slowly looks up.

"... Isagi?"

"I didn't know you wrote," Isagi says, leaning over his shoulder to look at what he's writing.

Rin actually doesn't really know what he's been writing, all he knows is that he's been focusing as hard as he can on keeping his hand moving to make sure he stays sane in the moment.

This is why he prefers to be alone. Interactions with people are strenuous, and the ensuing abandonments always send him into a vicious mental spiral. It's even more awkward for him now, because not only has Isagi sent him down into perhaps one of the worst and most sudden spirals he's ever had, but also because...

Well.

Apparently, he'd fixated a little too much on Isagi, because it wasn't any sort of poem or special type of calligraphy he'd been writing to calm himself down. All that was written on the page was a jumble of words that began as nothing, slowly wittling down to one single combination of three characters that were written over and over and over again without changing:

いさぎ

Isagi.

They both just stare down at the page, Rin knows Isagi must have seen it. The guy's observant as hell.

"That's a nice, uh... Poem ya got there," Isagi remarks, lifting one eyebrow curiously.

"It's not what you think," Rin hisses defensively.

"It's not? What is it, then? Does Isagi happen to mean something else, or... Do you happen to know another Isagi?"

Rin grabs the paper in his hand and closes his fingers around it, balling them into a fist with all the paper with all the Isagis written on it crumpled up in the middle.

Now this day feels exceptionally worse already and it's only just started. If Rin had just left the damn studio rather than scribble this dude's name all over some paper for him to see out in plain daylight, if he'd just... Been normal for once in his god forsaken life, this entire situation could've been avoided. But unfortunately, that isn't the case.

Rin feels like a psychotic, messy, suicidal loser, and now everything he's been struggling with inside must be perfectly clear on the outside, too. Hell, Isagi had been insightful enough to realize there was something not-quite-right about Rin, even before this. But now?

He's fucked. He's totally fucked.

Still spiraling, still battling with worsening hallucinations, still distracted by all the crap he has to pretty much deal with at all times, he doesn't quite notice Isagi grinning at him. And when he finally does, it snaps him out of it. Not fully, but enough for him to focus on how cocky and stupid Isagi looks right now instead of the gloom of his mental state.

What the fuck.

"What the hell are you smiling about?" Rin growls at him, his lips turning down into a deep, embarrassed frown.

"Nothing. I was just looking for you the past couple of days, that's all. I'm just glad we got to meet again before the end... Y'know?"

Isagi knows Rin is not a typical fellow, but he's made a very clear point in at least trying to treat him like he treats everyone else. In his eyes, every person is an equal. It's been clear to him since the first time they spent together in the charcoals and pastels studio that Rin is troubled, and in his mind, doesn't know how to reach out for help even if he wanted to try.

The assumption Isagi's made about Rin is that his visit to this resort is the first step he's taken toward trying to change the course of his own life. He doesn't know Rin's exact circumstances, but he doesn't need to see the whole picture to understand it.

The disturbing paintings. The self-isolation. The sharp-tongued remarks that would intially make Rin seem like he's just plain old mean. The social awkwardness. The (unconfirmed) schizophrenia. The long-sleeved shirts underneath his blue kimonos even though the temperature in the resort is actually a little on the warm side.

The disturbing paintings are actually Rin's only way of communicating how he feels inside; the self-isolation, sharp tongue, and social awkwardness are all just byproducts of a larger issue, something Isagi may have questioned a little more if it wasn't for Rin's mental state and the mysterious long-sleeved shirts.

He's surmised, with almost one-hundred percent certainty, that Rin is not as cool or nonchalant as he pretends to be. He's actually in extreme distress.

It's now day five, and he's spent the past three mornings in the painting studio hoping to see Rin again. He'd figured, since he hadn't seen Rin there at all, nor anywhere else since then, that Rin may have been avoiding him. Or at least, that's what he'd thought before.

Now he knows, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he was wrong. A result of that fact is that he's unable to stop grinning.

Rin definitely sees it, and seems to be avoiding eye-contact. Probably because he's embarrassed. It's not really like Isagi cares that he'd just seen his name scribbled onto that piece of paper in a string of manic characters. The thing that does matter to him is simply that he got to meet Rin again, because he has his own healing journey to work on, too.

"Looking...?" Rin grumbles absently.

"What, is that a surprise?" Isagi fidgets with the pen that Rin had left on the desk beside him.

"Well..."

Yes. Rin wants to say it, but the word stings on the end of his tongue like a lit flame. He chooses to keep it hidden away for the moment, beneath all of his pain, volatility, and vulnerabiliy, because that one single word would, in this moment, show too much of his raw insides that he doesn't want anyone else to see.

"Well what?" Isagi presses him.

Well. If I say what I really want to say to you, I'd say something like "You aren't really glad to have met me. People don't just feel something as... Safe... As a thing like glad, to meet a person like me." You're looking for me, and you're glad to see me, because you're a selfish bastard just like everyone else.

Rin glances upward. Being reasonable is not his strong suit when he's spiraling, though at the very least his spiral seems to have mostly halted right now. To that end, the irrationality of his mental illness isn't acting as prominently as it would while he spirals.

Now, they lock eyes. This action is simple but surprisingly powerful.

Eye-contact tingles again, nearly tangible evidence of some sort of chemistry the two of them seemingly have. Rin stares into the deep blue chasms, the pair of steely abysses that flash with blue flame, and Isagi stares back. Perhaps what Rin sees in Isagi's eyes is pure focus and unwavering determination, but he doesn't see the absolute truth that lies beyond that, carried within Isagi's heart... Not yet.

Casual conversation and eye-contact aren't enough for him to see the shape of Isagi's own suffering that he also keeps hidden from those around him, much like Rin does, though it's far less obvious to others; Rin is not as observant as Isagi is, either. Beneath Isagi Yoichi's calm, careful, and calculating demeanor, lies a bitter and unyielding coldness that's been slowly working it's way into his bones, worsening day by day with his prolonged writer's block.

Rin is quiet, avoidant about certain questions, and probably the most difficult person to read that Isagi's ever met. There's still a separation that remains between them, but Isagi's understanding of Rin has grown immensely. Rin's assumption about Isagi, on the other hand, is wrong; feeling glad about meeting Rin is something he does definitely, genuinely feel. It only seems suspicious to Rin because he's never dealt with another person being curious towards him, let alone someone trying to understand him or appreciate his morbid brand of geniousness.

"If you booked yourself in this hour, I could teach you a thing or two about poetry..." Isagi flickers his eyes into the far corner of the room nervously, "Y'know... If you want to learn."

"I'm not really a fan of poetry," Rin responds, "I don't like the structure. Or the rules. Conformity is suffocating and boring."

"Huh... Boring? I've never heard someone say something like that about poetry. But the rules and restrictions like syllable counts and stuff are just specific to types of poems. Poetry doesn't have to be like that, you can add your own type of flair to what you write. Make up your own style of poem if you want to, I'm sure nobody would care! Art is all about your individual freedom and expression."

Isagi sits into the desk next to Rin and gets a couple of things together. Rin, with the paper with the Isagis scribbled on it crushed into a tiny ball still clutched in his hand, watches what he's doing with silent interest.

"Will you try something with me?" Isagi asks him.

Rin stares at him from the corner of his eye, not really wanting to agree to something before he even knows what it is that he's agreeing to. Isagi shifts the page he has so that it's sitting on the table between the two of them, and taps the center of the page with one finger.

"I tried this writing exercise a long time ago with some friends of mine, where we make a poem together. So you start with one line and I fill the next one in, and so on, until we make a poem. I thought it might be cool to try this with Rin because you've got such a unique way of viewing the world around you, and translating that into art! So, wanna try it?"

"Like I said, poetry is boring. I'm not wasting my time on that."

"Is it boring, though? Is it really? Or is it something else? Maybe the idea of having to follow some kind of structure makes you uncomfortable?"

Isagi's eyes seem to be shining... Practically glowing with curiosity and insight. This is something Rin had never noticed about him before; his keen interest and unrelenting pursuit of the absolute truth simultaneously brings the life out of him and fills him with a powerful magnetism. So this is what's so captivating about Isagi, Rin realizes. The poet's charismatic pursuit of the unknown somehow draws out the thin filaments of passion that'd been buried in Rin's sorry excuse for a heart. This methodical, dredging process is, truthfully, excutiatingly uncomfortable, and only possible when done by this one person right here.

"Uncomfortable? As if something as mediocre as this could make me uncomfortable."

"Maybe. Maybe you're right and that's not what it is, but there's more to you than what meets the eye, I've figured that much." Isagi pressures Rin even more, not moving from where he's seated. "I think, in your mind, having absolute freedom and control over what you choose to create as an artist feels like what's so important to you about art. What's empowering about it, compelling even. But I don't actually think you know how it feels to allow yourself to let go of that sort of control and accept that art can be fulfilling in many ways, not just in the way you choose to use it."

"And what the hell do you mean by that?"

"What I mean is that you've let yourself become too comfortable in your own niché. Where you sit now with your relationship with art is, in your mind, the best place to be, but you're actually killing your creative spirit by restricting yourself to only painting in this one way. You paint to distract yourself from how hard it actually is to survive in the real world. You're blind to reality, and completely out of touch with the height of your true creative spirit..." Isagi pauses, and Rin takes note of his eyes glancing downward for the faintest moment. Looking at Rin's arm, which is laying on the desk. The arm that's exposed from beneath his kimono, but still covered by a black long-sleeve shirt, hiding the dark pit of his shame beneath a thin layer of dyed cotton. Isagi's words make Rin flinch and he wrinkles his nose at the sharp point the other artist makes.

Isagi does see this right away though. "S-Sorry, I think I took it too far with what I just said..." His apology is curt and earnest. "That was totally out of line."

Rin grabs the pen off the table beside him. He then hovers it just over the page with a razor-sharp, disdainful glare shot to the side. Isagi's little offer—his little game, his proposition, his provocation—it's like the cold edge of a honed blade placed right against his neck, and Rin's never been one to back down from a challenge when it's directed at him like this.

"Whatever. Your apology is as worthless to me as this piece of scrap paper. And you're one to talk all high and mighty, Mr. Mediocrity, who hasn't written a single thing in months."

"So you're gonna try it?" Isagi asks excitedly, completely ignoring Rin's insult.

"Shut up and let me think now."

Poetry...

If Isagi claims his form of art really is as flexible as he'd tried to sell it off as earlier, then Rin wants to test that flexibility. To hell with syllable counts, stanzas, and making your poetry flow nicely off the page. Rin isn't a damn poet. He doesn't even see himself as a painter or an artist, he's nothing as lukewarm as all that. He's a man who twists the very fabric of creativity, molding his thoughts and emotions into a thick, raw substance that has the ability to suck people into his work like harnessing the gravity of a black hole. With his art, he aims to reframe peoples' psyches and defy what one would normally label as simply art.

Rin is not an artist. He's chaos incarnate. He is entropy.

Which is why what Isagi had said to him earlier pisses him off the longer those words sink their claws into his brain. That poetry makes him uncomfortable. Who the hell does Isagi think he is, saying something like that to someone he barely knows?

Isagi needs to be proven wrong. So this chaotic being, with his twisted hallucinations of creatures beaconing him out of reality, bordering on the world of the living and the world of the dead—two places Rin feels he exists at the exact same time at all times—begins to write the first line in his shared poem with Isagi.

After a few minutes he finishes the first line, then passes both the paper and pen off to the waiting Isagi, who immediately begins to read what Rin's written. A smirk forms on Isagi's lips right away. No words spoken, he gets to eagerly scrawling the second line in their shared poem. He then passes the paper and pen off to Rin.

It takes about thirty minutes, and one interruption from a Vermillion Resort staff member, before their poem is finished. It ends with the page sitting in front of Isagi. He reads the poem from top to bottom once over. Then a second time. Eyes wide, expression entirely neutral, he turns his gaze up to look over at Rin before silently passing it over to him.

"Tell me what you think," Isagi says, watching as Rin begins to read the poem.

Because of Rin's particular feelings about structured poems (negative feelings), the poem is entirely free verse. In contrast to Rin's attitude toward poetry, Isagi would normally write a poem with a specific structure since he prefers how those types of poems flow, but in this case he didn't mind going outside of his comfort zone. In fact, this poem of theirs is the first thing Isagi's written in a very long time. Even if it isn't something he'd normally choose to write, he still does feel proud of it, nonetheless.

Rin's eyes, which are normally quite languid with disinterest when it comes to the world around him, are narrowed into contemplative slits that flash with an unusual curiosity. It's a change that seems to reflect back that which has caught his attention in Isagi's own sapphire stare. Once he finishes reading, he just sits and stares down at the page. His reaction is entirely unreadable to Isagi, the person who can normally pick up on any small change in a person's demeanor easily and read their feelings using these minuscule gestures.

"Well... Shall we give it a title?" Isagi interjects into the silence.

"Do that yourself if you really want to."

Isagi smiles a small, fond little smile. Despite Rin's frigid attitude towards him and his equally cold words, he finds his heart feeling unusually warm being in this person's presence. Rin, whose silent suffering and pain has always been obvious to Isagi, is simply and purely an artistic genius to Isagi; a painter who's drawn this poet in to him like a moth to a flame. Rin's mere existence as an artist defies everything Isagi once thought he knew about art. The dark, mysterious facets of his creativity and muses are new. Mysterious. Refreshing, in a sense.

Feeling satisfied with how things have gone with Rin this time, Isagi rereads their poem once again. Since Rin seems disinterested in helping him name the poem, Isagi opts to think up his own title for their shared work of art. At the top of the page, Isagi writes:

Ode to the abyss.

This abyss, which seems to have possessed Rin and distorted him into this odd man—this artist with his twisted creative inclination—has made its way into Isagi Yoichi's own heart as well.

And he finds he doesn't feel even the faintest bit afraid of this, even if he knows he maybe should be.

When the studio booking is over, Isagi snaps a photo of the page with their poem written on it. He's unsure if Rin even cares about it... The guy had said he didn't like poetry, and after the fact he hadn't really displayed much of an interest in keeping the poem.

They go their separate ways after the hour booking is up, once again without exchanging contact information. With a curt goodbye, Isagi leaves first, and Rin makes to depart shortly after him. As he approaches the exit door for the studio, his steps slow to a near-stop. He then slowly, methodically, looks back. His gaze falls, beyond his better will, upon the shape of the white page of paper still laying flat on the desk... The one with the poem written on it.

Chapter Text

Later that day after the sun goes down, Isagi is feeling restless. By now he's visited nearly every studio in the resort, but his writer's block is still as strong as ever.

It's after 9 PM now, and once again he finds himself flickering back into his phone's photographs and rereading the free verse poem he'd composed with Rin, Ode to the abyss. This is the first thing he's written in months, and even if it wasn't a poem he'd written on his own, he still feels proud of managing to be a part of it. Rin begrudgingly agreeing to do this poem challenge with him does feel, in its own way, like the first step he's taken toward refreshing his own creative mindset.

Rin's one-of-a-kind artistic perspective has made Isagi begin to rethink his own brand of creativity. The longer he contemplates it, the more he rereads this poem of theirs, the more he thinks he's starting to feel like a positive change is starting to come his way.

He opens the resort map and keeps it open, his eyes staring at it vacantly as he becomes lost in his own thoughts again. When he blinks himself back into awareness, his gaze it trained on the red block of trees located on the edge of the resort grounds. And something else.

He thinks maybe this map isn't all that accurate, so he opens Google Maps to get an aerial view of what he thinks he sees in the forest. Sure enough, in an aerial view, he's also able to see it too.

A lake.

He smiles at the mysterious shape of the body of water, his curiosity piqued.

*

Often times when Rin can't fall asleep, he'll go for a little stroll in the night.

Darkness has never really scared him all that much... If anything, it's a setting he feels a twisted sort of comfort within. His isolation and warped perception of the world feels somehow safer at night, when there aren't any watchful eyes around trying to pick him apart. It's just him and the voices carrying over from the other dimension.

Tonight the voices are quiet, though, the creatures don't seem to be following him, and there doesn't seem to be a single person around in the real world to bother him, either. He steps through the empty halls of the resort, enjoying the night's veil that feels like a comforting shroud in place over his clouded mind. For now, his only company is the sound of his geta tapping on the polished hardwood floor as he walks.

Lost within the haze of his own thoughts, the world around him grows murky, the darkness feeling thick as glue sticking to his skin. And from within that darkness, from the moment they first met to now, Rin still sees—still feels—the palpable curiosity, interest, and intrigue, shining its luminosity his direction, illuminating all the things about him he'd always hoped he could keep carefully hidden under lock-and-key.

He sees a clear blue stare and hears a voice like velvet in his ears, he feels Isagi. Still here. As if Isagi had somehow weaseled his way into Rin's mind and become a part of his schizophrenia. Well he really hasn't, that isn't possible, but Rin doesn't exactly know how to relate to this sort of intrusion. His heart is too damp and vacant of a place for this sort of thing—friendship, companionship, whatever the hell Isagi wants out of him—and yet he finds there's still a place for Isagi in there anyways, even if his heart isn't such a warm or welcoming space for Isagi to be.

He wants to open up. He wants to badly, but he doesn't know how. Hell, he'd never so much as taken an interest in this sort of thing at all... Never thought he needed to, really... But, kept prisoner in the endless winter within his frozen core, he finds the smallest little flower turning toward Isagi's radiance to banish the early spring's frost from its petals. The tiniest bit of life.

It's been longing for something like this, something like Isagi.

This feels foreign and painful, but maybe this discomfort is something he needs to pursue to better himself. But... How?

How does a person even do something like this?

What do I do next...?

At times like this, Rin normally finds himself doing one thing out of habit, because even now, even after reaching an all-time low in his life and trying to pick himself back up on his own, he still feels dependent on this one person.

He stops in his tracks and pulls his phone out of his pocket, hastily finding his brother's name in there.

Sae will help. He always does. He hasn't talked to his brother at all since coming to the resort, the staff had instructed to keep his distractions from his life outside the resort to a minimum, but he knows Sae will still help him anyways. However, before he can make the call, he hears something else... Someone else.

His brows furrow as he glances upward, toward the sound of footsteps coming his way. Because he'd just been looking at his phone screen he can't really see anything, let alone make out this person's features. He does hear something, though, that melts the waxy loneliness of the thick darkness around him... Something that's always seemed so skilled at bringing him back to reality.

"Rin...? Is that you?"

"... Huh? Isagi?"

As if he'd somehow uttered a cry from the back of his throat, or he'd somehow drawn this person back to him once again with an unseen magnetism, he finds himself standing face-to-face with none other than...

Isagi Yoichi.

He frowns at Isagi's silhouette, although he still can't really see the guy. Sure enough, when he steals a quick look down at his phone, the time reads 9:17 PM. So then why... Is Isagi out here?

"What the hell are you doing out here, Isagi?" Rin mutters, squinting at the dark outline of Isagi that's slowly starting to take shape before his very eyes.

He doesn't really understand why, even now, he can't just be friendly with Isagi. What he'd just said was unnecessarily rude and he's more than aware of it. He doesn't really want to be rude anymore, but this is the only way he really knows how to react to people getting way too close to him. Too close to his pain and darkness, to the visceral pulse of his heart that oozes with monochromatic paints, barely holding on for dear life while he tries to scribble all his emotional nonsense away onto a stupid piece of canvas.

He really is an idiot. Such an idiot.

This shouldn't be so difficult... Should it?

"Uh, like... I just meant, it's late," he fills in after the fact, hoping that even if Isagi can't see him that good, he can at least sense what Rin's trying to do.

"Yeah, of course it is. That's the reason I'm out here." Isagi sounds amused, which mildly irritates Rin.

Isagi has advanced close enough now that they're standing face-to-face. Rin can see the pale outline of his head, and the twin pair of onyx marbles set within his skull. The spiral eyes.

Actually, Rin thinks he's probably started to halleucinate these spiral eyes on Isagi specifically, for some odd reason. But either way, Isagi's eyes, right now, look like the same spirals he'd seen back in the paint studio. As if someone had scribbled over his irises, turning them into a pair of dark vortexes, drawing him in, drawing him in, drawing him in, pulling him in, pulling him in, pulling him in, picking him open, ripping him open—

"I couldn't sleep so I got an idea. Wanna come for a walk with me outside?"

Isagi's offer hangs in the air between them ominously.

"Outside? Why the fuck are you—"

That's totally unnecessary. Do you want him to like you or not?

"Uh. I mean, why are you going outside at this time of night, Isagi?"

From the other side of his flashlight, Isagi, with the spiral eyes and the ghostly pale face, just smiles at Rin. He feels goosebumps raising on his arms.

There's something about fear that's always been so attractive to Rin, and right now, he feels a bit high on the idea that Isagi looks like a creature that'd just clawed its way out of his nightmares.

Very interesting.

"There's a lake outside, not far into that forest they told us never to go into. Wanna come with me?"

"If they told us not to go out there then why are you going out there?"

"Well, there's something there I wanna see... Are you coming or not?"

Isagi waves his flashlight sideways. Rin realizes he's turned completely sideways as well and now stands, probably awaiting a reply from Rin.

What the hell, Rin thinks this sounds interesting enough.

He steps towards Isagi, making to following him into the darkness. He feels both a fear and a thrill begin sinking into his heart; for the first time in who even knows how long, Rin actually feels excited to do something.

He's always been a fan of all things scary, but as they make their way out toward the dark forest together, Rin begins to realize that even in his own brand of fear, he's found a niché he'd gotten a bit too comfortable in. Creating the bizarre paintings, and living with the creatures that visit him regularly from the other dimension, are both odd and creepy things that he'd grown so accustomed to in his life, that he no longer considers either of those things scary in the slightest even if other people wouldn't have that same attitude about them. They're annoying. They piss him off, they make him feel like he wants to crawl out of his skin and pull his own brain out of his skull. But scared? No. Even horror movies, books, and games, the other stuff that he's surrounded himself with to make sure he feels disturbed and abnormal at all times in his day-to-day life, all feel like strangely muted versions of fear. All these things lack the sharp edge that real life fears, like snapping twigs beneath your feet as you walk in a dark forest or feeling a cold breeze blow across the back of your neck in the middle of the night, seem to have in apparent abundance.

Following close behind Isagi, the night space feels like an endless mystery surrounding Rin on all sides, like a black silk cloak wrapped around his body. The feeling that something may jump out at him at any time sends his heart thumping faster and faster in his chest, each step they take away from the safe glow of the resort lights behind them makes him feel like they're somehow entering an impending danger zone. Once they've been walking for about five minutes, Isagi turns back and looks at Rin.

He's grinning nervously. "We're almost there," he says, his voice trembling a little with fear.

A little ways further, and Rin thinks he sees something through the twisting, slithering branches ahead of them, although it's muffled by Isagi's flashlight. They keep walking, the branches keep snapping, and both of them remain strangely on edge. At a certain point, Isagi gestures back at Rin silently to stop and turns his flashlight off, seemingly peering through the branches in front of him.

"What is it?" Rin asks, looking over Isagi's shoulder.

"Shall we go in and look for ourselves?"

It's really hard to see without Isagi's flashlight. Every single drop of sunlight has been bled from the sky above them, leaving an entirely blackened void of the night in its place. Some stars twinkle within its expanse, but they're fitfully small. The moonlight does offer a bit of light, but not very much.

That's when Rin sees the delicate dancing of light begin to play on the shape of Isagi's face, through the tree branches and thickets. It's an eerie color, a bit yellowish green, and still so dim it barely offers any extra help for their eyes in the darkness.

Isagi has excellent eyesight, though, and he reaches one hand back to help guide Rin along behind him. When Isagi touches his hand, he finds the sensation of the other man's skin pressed against his own injects an unfamiliar feeling into his heart. The nerve endings there tingle as his heart begins to dance with a beats as light as a piece of paper fluttering in the wind.

With Isagi pulling him along, they push through into an opening, and when they do, they both gasp.

What they see is a show of lights, streaks of these lights painting the night air with numerous small, warm pinpoints of stars captured before their very eyes.

"Fireflies!" Isagi remarks. At the sound of his voice, some of the fireflies seem to quiver and dim with fear for a short moment before they slowly begin to return to their dancing.

Isagi seems to have brought a blanket with him and lays it out on the small patch of grass near the lake waters' edge, where he then sits himself down and taps the ground beside him in a clear invitation that Rin silently takes.

"Have you ever seen fireflies in person before?" Isagi asks quietly.

"When I was a kid," Rin replies.

"Ah... Lucky! I've never gotten to see them in person before like this. I saw some photos of fireflies on the Google reviews for this resort but I couldn't quite pinpoint where they may have come from. Then I found this lake, in the aerial view of the area... I knew this had to be the place."

Isagi's voice is hushed, barely a gentle whisper, but still loud enough for Rin beside him to hear. When the persistence of a serene silence ensues, they both take in the sight before them together.

The quirkiness of the fireflies' small lanterns flitting about in the humidity of the lakeside air intrigues Rin. This may have been something he would've done as a child, but as an adult, a small and simple pleasure like this has mostly been lost within his despair.

He steals a look aside, while Isagi's entire attention is on the fireflies.

The gentle glow of bioluminescence paints his face a bit chartreuse, the soft smile he wears looks even softer in this romantic lighting. The spiral eyes are gone, replaced by those two deep blue chasms that swim with his endless presence of mind. The lights dance in Isagi's irises, like stars playing in the night sky. Once again, Rin loses himself looking at Isagi's eyes, only this time he notices tears beginning to collect on their rims, sparkling like molten silver. His first tear collects, then rolls down his cheek and off his chin, though his smile doesn't fade.

"I used to find stuff like this inspirational... I used to be able to write about stuff like this... But right now I don't think I could write a single word about what I'm looking at even if I wanted to."

Isagi laughs, dryly but not emotionlessly, and he wipes a bit of his tears from his eyes as he continues speaking.

"Sorry, I think I maybe pitied you a little bit when we first met... It's just that I can relate to you. It's been so long since I've really been able to write anything, but I used to write so much my hand would start to cramp up. I guess you don't really have that problem as much as your actual muse is what's making you hurt. I just wish I actually still had a muse... Something I could write about, anything... Anything at all..." Isagi sniffles a little and he wipes his kimono sleeve on his nose. Rin sees his smile fall from his face.

"I saw the long-sleeved shirts you wear underneath your kimonos, and I felt like... Maybe, even though you don't seem to care if I'm around or not, that you're hurting deep inside just like I am. You don't know if you want to be alone or if having someone at your side helps or not. I know for me this is helping, but I still don't know about you. That's okay though. Even if you don't care that we met, I do. I care. I..."

Isagi's breath seems to catch, his lips hanging open the smallest bit, his unspoken words dancing on the tip of his tongue waiting to be set free.

"I haven't talked to anyone about this except my parents, but... When the writers' block first hit me, I got so depressed... I'd cry every day wishing for something to come to me, anything, but my mind just felt so empty. Poetry, for me, is a connection to the world. I felt completely disconnected from reality, from my senses, from my emotions, it sent me into a downward spiral... This one day, I... I wanted it to end so badly, I just took a bunch of sleeping pills hoping I'd just go to sleep and never wake up."

The fireflies keep dancing, their light somehow feeling like a reflection of sorrow and pain. Isagi's tears continue to fall, and he continues to speak.

"I ended up calling my dad. After I took the pills... We only talked for a couple of minutes but he made me feel so much better..." Isagi's voice cracks with strain, "I immediately regretted taking the pills. I felt so stupid. I told my dad what I'd done and he started crying. My mom cried. I had to go to the hospital and have my stomach pumped out... It was horrible... I hope I never put them through that again. But I felt so pathetic afterward, I was even too cowardly to die but I had nothing to live for. Poetry was my life. It is my life. I never cared if I had to make most of my living off of writing stupid poems for greeting cards, because if it meant I could do what I love forever, then I'd keep doing it. I even started writing a poetry book but I only finished it about halfway, before..."

His voice trails off and is carried out to the fireflies. Their lights flicker as if to show pity for him, and he finds he somehow hates that.

Rin beside him is still quiet. He's always so quiet, so this really isn't a surprise. Isagi steals a look at him and sees he's staring down at his arm, with his sleeve bared into the night. Isagi can't tell if he's been listening, or even if he has been, if he even cares.

Although Rin is a hard person to understand, Isagi knows there's no way he's emotionless. Of course he cares even the tiniest bit, even if he doesn't know how to show it. Just having someone here, watching the fireflies with him, listening to him speak about his pain... It's enough for him right now. It's enough.

"You'll get it back," Rin says quietly. Isagi, who's eyes had wandered back out to watch the twirling lights painting the lake's waters, flicker over to look at Rin.

"Your writing spirit... You'll get it back. I mean, you did write half a poem. That's a start."

Isagi smiles warmly and nods once. It's true, the poem exercise he'd done with Rin is something. It isn't much, but he supposes it's better than nothing at all. It's a step in the right direction for him. As he reflects on the poem they'd written together, he realizes it's so very unlike anything he would've chosen to compose before the writer's block hit him. This is probably a result of letting Rin write the first line. Before he may have taken something like this wondrous night display of fireflies, used their beauty, and twisted it into captivating poetry. Perhaps in doing this he'd hoped for something like that to happen... For this beauty to provide him some small bit of inspiration.

It doesn't seem to be helping, though.

This is the sad reality that he may have to face... The shape of his creativity may change from here on out. He's come to terms with the fact that he needs to do whatever he can to keep hold of the one thing in the world he loves the most, even if his muses need to change.

They sit in serene silence watching the fireflies frolic in the space above the lake, transforming its placid charcoal waters into strings of lights that throb and bob. The two of them watch the ethereal circus for over thirty minutes, but neither of them seem to notice how they've drifted a little closer together. Isagi moves to brush his hair behind one of his ears, and when he puts his hand back down onto the surface of the blanket, he feels the faintest touch of one of Rin's fingertips nearby. His heart flutters and skips a beat as he looks down, Rin also shoots a look down at the exact same time as him. In unison, they both snap their hands up off the blanket, as if the touch of eachother's fingertips had left a burn.

Isagi feels his cheeks beginning to blush, the heat spreading all along his cheeks and out to his ears as he looks away. It's too dark for him to see, nor had he expected to see such a thing, but Rin's own face is flashing deep scarlet from embarrassment, too.

"Let's head back inside," Isagi offers, mainly to escape himself from how suddenly embarrassed he feels just to exist.

Now that he thinks about it, though, this whole setup is awfully... Romantic. Incredibly so. Disgustingly so. He gets to his feet, feeling a little flustered about this realization. Rin also pushes up to standing, although as Isagi is about to reach down and start packing up his blanket, Rin suddenly tips into his side.

When he looks over to investigate, Rin plants a hand on his head and mumbles "Dizzy..." just under his breath. Isagi grabs his arm and helps hold him upright, his eyes narrowing with worry.

"Will you be okay? Has this happened before?" Isagi asks, helping hold him steady. Though without Rin dignifying him with a response, he already thinks he's started to puzzle together why this might be.

The dark loops of Rin's sleeves, hiding something underneath them. Something... Something Isagi shouldn't see, shouldn't look into, something Rin doesn't want him to see.

He thinks he gets it without pressing the matter any further.

*

The next morning, rather than go into any of the art studios, Rin finds himself in the physical studio meditating.

This is to be his last full day in this resort, and he's starting to feel very on edge. He feels like maybe, by this time, he should be better. He should be a new, improved, changed man, but right now he feels so incredibly small when he compares himself to all that. Improvement. Reformation. Change.

He takes a deep breath in through his nose and out through his mouth, although his mental state is already starting to degrade. He has the idea that maybe he should head to the paint studio, but by now it's already too late.

Ahhhhhhhhh... So you didn't die, after all?

"S-Shut up..."

Why didn't you die?

"I... Don't..."

Don't you want to die? I thought you wanted to die? What's wrong with you? Just die already?

You aren't painting? You might as well just die.

Die.

Die die die die die die die die die.

Ehehehehe, oh, you're still not dead?

What's he doing? He's not dead?

Why aren't you dead? Why aren't you dead? Why aren't you dead?

WHY AREN'T YOU DEAD?

His hand jerks up off his knee and he slaps himself in the side of the head with a dissatisfied grunt.

"Shut up..." he rasps, "Shut up... Shut up... Why...? Just leave me alone, damnit..."

He pleads with himself desperately, because no matter what he does, he always feels like his subconscious just goes back to this one thing. Telling him to just die. Even your own mind wants you to die. These monsters, they'll keep cutting you, biting you, eating you alive until you finally decide to join them. So why not just... Die already?

"Fwooooooosh!!!"

Rin hears someone else in the physical studio, apparently they don't know how to breathe discretely because they've just exhaled a shockingly loud breath. "Keep it down," he growls at them without looking back.

"Oh... Are you talking to me now?"

Rin whips around, to see... Of course it's him. Of course it is.

"Isagi? What the... Are you following me or something?"

Isagi cracks one of his eyes. He seems to be sitting on a yoga mat, doing the exact same meditation Rin is doing with his legs crossed underneath him and his hands sitting on his thighs relaxed. Even his hand posture is identical to Rin's.

Rin's never seen him in casual clothing before. He seems to be wearing plain black sweatpants and a fitted black shirt, which highlights a spectacularly tiny waistline. It's not like Isagi's really all that small a person, he's more average sized than anything else, but his waist is so... Petite.

"I haven't really followed you, not until this morning that is." Isagi opens both his eyes and beams Rin another one of his cocky, self-satisfied smirks. "I saw you coming in here to meditate so I cancelled my studio booking and decided to try copying you. I thought maybe, if I do stuff just like you, I could be one step closer to getting back in touch with my creativity."

"Whatever. That won't do you any good," Rin mumbles, promptly ripping his gaze off of the tiny waistline and returning to his own meditation. Isagi's eyes—maybe right now they're the spirals again, Rin doesn't know because he isn't looking at them anymore—remain glued on the back of Rin's head.

"Were you checking me out just now?" he asks, way too nonchalantly for Rin's liking. This guy really has no business asking such a question with such a carefree attitude.

"What? Why the hell would I do that?" Rin denies, although that's probably a lie since he'd stared for a little too long at the criminally tiny waistline. "I just didn't know how small you are. I was thinking about how scrawny you look in that shirt."

"Hah... Excuse me?! That totally classifies as checking me out!"

"No it doesn't."

"It totally does!"

"I believe checking someone out would imply some sort of attraction, which doesn't apply here."

"Are you saying you aren't attracted to me? So why do you stare at me so much, then?" Isagi pauses. Rin winces. He can practically feel Isagi's stupid little smile forming along his stupid little lips.

"Oh, I get it! You thought I didn't notice you doing that."

"That didn't happen, you absolute imbecile. You just made that up."

"Nah, you're just shit at hiding when you check people out. I guess you probably don't do it much given how self-absorbed you are. Well here's a pointer, if you're gonna check someone out, make sure you're in their blind spot otherwise they'll probably notice you doing it."

Rin whips around again, this time he's noticeably flustered. When he meets with Isagi's gaze, the other guy has the audacity to actually be looking at him, but not at the back of his head like a person might do while they converse with another person. Isagi flicks his eyes back up to look into Rin's, and Rin scowls.

"Whoops."

"Whoops? Did you just try and give me some bullshit advice while you yourself are checking me out? Seriously, are you fucking stupid? Are you—"

Calm down.

Rin whips back around, this time avoidantly. He takes a deep breath; in that moment, not only does he realize how much interacting with Isagi really makes him lose his composure, but also how clear his mind feels right now. Only a few short moments before this, Rin had been battling with the evil army of voices that are always haunting him in the back of his mind. Right now he feels an unusual mental clarity, and it certainly wasn't the meditation responsible for this.

He wrinkles his nose and clenches his fingers together tighter. Isagi isn't all that bad, is he? He's not. He really isn't. Isagi is simply another person who's struggling as an artist, meandering through his life just like Rin is. Isagi may have seemed annoying at first, but he well and truly isn't that bad at all, is he? He's a bit too straightforward and unbothered, especially in how he interacts with total strangers. But even those qualities aren't necessarily bad, they're just things Rin isn't used to dealing with.

"Sorry," Rin blurts out, "Just forget what I said. Forget about the whole damn conversation."

"Sure," Isagi replies. Again, breezily. Nonchalant as can be. Rin tries not to let it get to him this time.

This is the last day in the resort, wherein they're required to check out the following morning by 11 AM. There's that knot of roots tightening around Rin's heart again, the one that pulls all the air out of his lungs and makes him feel like he'll never get it back again.

Does that mean... He'll never see Isagi again after tomorrow?

Or if he'd just man up and admit to himself that Isagi is... Isagi is okay. Isagi is tolerable, and seems to have a certain effect on him that nobody else has ever had before. If he can just admit to this, and admit he's maybe a little... Interested in Isagi. Maybe a little.

Not that much. Just a little, just enough that the idea of not seeing Isagi again ever after tomorrow makes him feel sick.

Okay... Okay... Maybe it's more than just a little.

*

The final morning at the resort has come to a close. After checking out at the front desk, Isagi pulls his suitcase along behind him as he departs the resort grounds. It's a beautiful day, the sun is bearing down exceptionally strong from its place high in the cloudless blue sky. Isagi dawdles a little by the front entrance where people normally go to get picked up by family or cabs, watching some small birds hop between a few branches above him. He has his own car parked in the parking lot around the side of the building, so he can leave at any time. Right now, he's just hoping he can see Rin one last time.

He'd messed up pretty much every time they'd run into eachother on the resort grounds, which happened to him a surprising amount of times. Especially night five, when they'd had a more personal experience together and gone out to the lake to watch the fireflies. He'd opened up to Rin a little bit, shown him a bit of vulnerability, and he still, still messed up again by not taking Rin's phone number.

There's always social media, he does suppose. Having said that, he hadn't really been that successful in his attempts at finding Rin on any social media he'd looked in, though he honestly hadn't really looked very hard. This shouldn't be an issue, though. Rin should be exiting through the same way everyone else is, which will give him this one last chance to finally do the thing he's been too nervous to do.

Finally, after a few minutes of waiting, Isagi sees Rin pull out of the exit door furthest from him and stand in the corner alone. He's probably waiting for someone to pick him up, so that's when he makes his move. He approaches slowly, and when he's close, he starts by saying, "Rin!"

Rin looks over at him, and his normally imperturbable demeanor is shaken up a little when his eyes widen with surprise. For a fleeting moment, Isagi almost thinks he spies a faint little smile pulling at the corners of Rin's lips, but whether he was imagining it or it just never happened, it seems to be gone the very next second.

"Isagi," Rin says coolly, "Still stalking me, even now?"

"Nah. I just saw you and thought..." Isagi pauses, feeling like he's embarrassing himself a little bit, but he decides to press on anyways, "Well, I wrote this poem for you. It's not much, but I felt the smallest bit of inspiration after the night with the fireflies. So here," he offers the page with the poem written out on it, "I hope you take it and cherish it, and maybe think about me whenever you read it."

Rin raises an eyebrow. He sets his bag down, slowly unfurls the page with Isagi's poem on it, and his eyes begin to drawl along the page as he reads it to himself.

the summer storm clouds

stain the sky with rain's shadows;

i hid, i wept, dry;

i didn't understand why

the blue sky needed to die

the season of change.

Rin purses his lips in thought. The first thing that comes to his mind is that Isagi had actually written something. So if that's the case, Isagi may have actually began to find reformation on this creative getaway. He's not one to pick apart things as an artist like Isagi is, so the real meaning of the poem is unclear to him. He nods and flicks a look back up at Isagi, his hand holding the poem falls to his side.

"Well... This is the new me, I guess," Isagi puts his hands into his pockets and kicks a rock bashfully, "I... Couldn't write about any fascinating landscapes or cute animals. I don't know if I can anymore. All I could think about while I wrote that was..."

Isagi pauses and bites his lip. Maybe he's hesitating, or just think about how he wants to frame what he wants to say. His lips part with the hope of his words, but from behind somebody suddenly shows up to interrupt them.

"Hey, Rin..." the guy shoots a look over at Isagi. He can immediately tell just by the guy's eye color and shape that the two of them are definitely brothers. "Uh. Hi," he then proceeds to say to Isagi.

The two of them hug. It's a long, tight embrace that makes Isagi feel like there's an unspoken bond they share. It's no surprise to him that two brothers have something like that, although he wouldn't know what that's like on a personal basis since he's an only child. He smiles and nods once at Rin curtly.

"Well, it was nice to meet you, Rin. I'm glad we got to know eachother. Take care."

"Oh... Uh, right... Goodbye..."

Rin watches Isagi walk off with his suitcase skittering behind, feeling disappointed that he hadn't tried to take Isagi's contact information. Maybe this is for the best... he thinks. Sae notices him staring and nudges his arm.

"Did you make a friend? Did you get his number?"

Rin just shakes his head. Sae knows how his brother is, though. He knows he probably won't get the full story about this guy out of Rin for a long time, if he ever does, so he opts to change the subject instead. "What's this?" he asks, holding his hand out to gesture at the poem Isagi had given Rin. Rin surrenders it to Sae without a word.

"A poem, huh?" Sae says, blinking as he reads the poem off to himself. He then places the page back into the palm of Rin's hand.

"That poem, it's pretty gloomy," Sae says as he walks back to his car.

"Yeah, I guess it is."

"I dunno why, but it kinda reminds me of you somehow. I'm not really good at artistic analysis or anything like that, though. Did you write that?"

"Oh... No, I didn't."

"Ah, well. Hop inside," Sae unlocks the car as he approaches the driver's side, "Tell me how things went for you this week."

Rin reaches for the door handle, but something makes him turn back. Maybe it's just a gut feeling that makes him turn, he doesn't know, but when he looks back toward the direction Isagi had been walking, he sees the other guy still walking out of his life as he had been before. He sighs, opens the car door, and gets inside.

A gust of wind blows across Isagi's bare neck and a chill shoots up his spine; he doesn't know why since it's summer. Maybe he's getting sick or something, but either way, the chill urges him to turn around. He finds his eyes searching the place where Rin and his brother had been standing not long before, but they both appear to be gone now. He sighs deeply, feeling defeating with the matter of having failed to fully reach out to Rin.

Maybe it was only meant to be a fleeting encounter, nothing more and nothing less. Maybe it was only the quick scratch of a pen writing a few words in a story, a tiny brush with fate that had brought them together for such a miniscule amount of time in what feels like such a vast universe. Maybe their paths would cross again, maybe they wouldn't. The rest is up to destiny to decide.

When Isagi gets back into his car, he goes into his phone and opens the photo of the poem he'd written with Rin, titled Ode to the abyss, to read it once again.

Chapter Text

When Sae and Rin arrive at Rin's apartment, the older brother helps the younger upstairs with his things. Rin's place has been in a state of disuse since he'd left for the resort, so when he unlocks the door and steps into the place he feels a bit uneasy. When he flicks on the lights, he stands in the doorway feeling as his heart slowly starts to sink.

Rin feels that he's always been this heavy burden on his older brother's shoulders, like a dark storm cloud hanging above his head that he can't shake off. Sae doesn't complain about helping Rin at all or giving him extra support when it's needed, he just does it as if its natural for him. Since they were children, the older brother has always been Rin's greatest source of comfort and strength.

He doesn't want to be a burden on Sae anymore, he doesn't want to feel pathetic or useless without Sae's help, but he hasn't quite figured out how to fix his own broken life. For now, Rin is still relying on Sae, but as they enter his apartment together, Rin is starting to feel the shame creeping back into his body.

He doesn't want to be a burden anymore.

"Well, I can stay for a little bit before I head back to work," Sae offers as the two of them set Rin's bags in the living room.

"It's fine," Rin finds himself blurting out before he even takes a moment of forethought.

"You sure?" Sae, maybe sensing something a bit off in his brother's immediate reply, gives Rin a scrutinizing look.

Rin is looking down at his own arm. The black sleeve, its fabric a curtain obscuring the thing—the window—a person could use to look into to peer directly at the true shape of his soul. It grips around his arm to hide his pain and suffering. His weakness. Since being discharged from the hospital, Rin had barely given what's beneath this sleeve so much a second look. He slowly pulls the sleeve back, baring his scars for the room to see.

Sae's eyes lock onto the steep ridges of Rin's scars... He's almost forgotten just how deep they really are. The sight of them makes him feel sick to his stomach, not out of embarrassment or anger or anything like that. Only in sadness.

Without a word, nor a look of pity or shame. Without anything that may make Rin feel worse than Sae figures he already feels... He wraps his arms around his little brother's shoulders and gives him a hug. Rin returns the embrace, the depth and warmth of it filling him with hope, however little amount of hope it actually is.

"You'll be okay," Sae whispers into Rin's ear, and Rin chokes back a sob as tears begin to cascade from his eyes.

"I... I fucked up..." Rin barely manages to say, his voice cracking as fresh waves of tears break loose.

"It's okay, Rin. We all make mistakes sometimes. It'll be okay from here on out."

"But..." Rin murmurs, "But..." he whispers.

"Isagi." he gasps, feeling as though the utterance of Isagi's very name off his lips forces every molecule of air out of his lungs all at once.

They part from their hug, Rin sniffling and wiping his nose dry. "That guy you met at the resort?" Sae inquires, and Rin nods a silent reply.

"He... Approached me first, started talking to me and stuff, but, like... I don't know how he does it, he just seemed to understand me so easily. I've never... Met someone like that before."

Rin plays with the edge of one of his sleeves, pinching a bit of the fabric between his fingers. He appears like a bashful teenager talking about his crush to Sae. But Rin is... Not a teenager. He's an adult, with insecurities and ineptitudes just like everyone else. He's never really shown them much until recently... Not until after he was discharged from the hospital, really... But Sae is starting to appreciate this more candid version of his brother.

"So you made a friend, but you didn't get his contact information," Sae says seriously.

Rin's eyes remain avoidant, teal green irises fix onto the far corner of the room. He stops playing with his sleeve and instead wraps the hand around his forearm, around the scars, placing pressure on the skin there that makes it dimple beneath his fingertips.

"What if I said... It's more than that?"

"Hm? More...?" Sae squints as he turns this over in his head, but he doesn't need to think about it for very long before it clicks.

"Wait... Rin, are you trying to come out of the closet to me right now?"

"N-No...! Geez, it's... Okay maybe. I don't know, okay? I don't fucking know..." Rin bites his lower lip. The sheen of his tears, now dried to his cheeks, lightens his features and makes him appear younger. "It's just that, he made me feel... Different. But I didn't get his number so I don't know what the hell to do. He's gone. But he made me realize a lot of things, he made me feel things, he made me feel self-aware, and accepted somehow, and nervous and jittery, and he made my heart dance, and I... I..."

"Okay, okay, I get it. Calm down." Sae's face adopts a serious tone as he places one hand on his younger brother's shoulder.

"You just... Keep it together, okay? I'm gonna go to work and when I get some time I'll try and help you find him. We will find him. Okay?"

Rin nods slowly, his eyes glazed and reddened from crying. It's been a long time since he's let himself cry like this.

After Sae leaves, he stands in his living room, staring vacantly off and out the window, examining the glare of the sun's distorted rays peering through the glass at him. Despite having just relinquished a huge amount of his emotional turmoil from his heart, he still feels heavy with what's left of it. The beige walls surround him on all sides, feeling less like a home to him and more like a prison.

The world is a fragile thing, a few small interactions with a person can really reformulate the entire universe for someone like Rin. He finds his mind searching for an answer to all of his problems, but right now he doesn't even know where to begin. While the birds outside begin to chirp from branches in the nearby trees, and Rin's chest begins to tighten, he's already started to hear the voices of madness growing louder, speaking to him from the other side.

As he usually does when this starts to happen, he gets together his art supplies. When the pristine white rectangular void of a 16 x 20 canvas is placed in front of him, he stares at it with manic focus, the paintbrush clutched in his fingertips—his lifeline. He knows what this does. He knows where this about to go; hours upon hours of dissociative painting, letting his hands spread images onto canvas after canvas in feeble attempt after feeble attempt to try and speak. He wants to speak with his art, to scream with his art. He wants to bend reality to fit into his creations, to formulate his own unspoken language, he wants his paintbrush to spread the words of his bleeding soul out into his art, but right now he's completely paralyzed. None of that is happening, and as he hesitates, the walls are closing in on him, and the voices are growing louder and louder in his conscience.

Rin... Riiiin...

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnn...

We know. We know what you want.

You can't run from death. Why won't you die already?

"I-I... Don't want to die... I never did..."

Isn't that a lie, though? Are you a liar, Rin? Liar.

Liar. Liar liar liar liar liar!!!! Ehehehehehe you're lying again, Rin.

"No... I'm not! I don't want to die! I never did. I just... I just want to live... How do I do that? How do I live?"

Live? Live? What?

No.

You're a liar. You want to die. You've wanted to die since you were a child.

Why don't you-

"NO! I don't want that!"

DIE.

"N-No...!"

-DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE-

"NO!"

Normally at a time like this, Rin would find himself starting to paint to drown out the sound of the voices and to ignore the accompanying visual hallucinations. But truthfully, what has painting ever done for him up to this point other than help him place a band-aid over his wounds? He's been trying to cope for his entire life, cope with all this torment that won't relent itself no matter what he seems to do. Rin doesn't need another band-aid—another pathetic excuse for a dressing over his open wounds—he doesn't need to paint right now. These wounds of his aren't just little cuts or scrapes upon his mind that can be healed by simply band-aiding them. They are mortal wounds. With each beat of his ice-cold heart, with each second of every day ticking past him at a maddeningly insatiable pace, with his life passing him by ruthlessly without waiting for him to get better, he continues to bleed out from beneath this pathetic band-aid of his. The world will not wait for him, not even after it's already too late for him to catch up.

Painting isn't helping. It never has and it never will.

His injuries need a tourniquet to hold them closed. No amount of manic painting, morbid self-expression, or shrieking a silent cry for help with tubes of paints and paintbrushes maniacally filling canvas after canvas, will ever be enough to mend what's already broken. Rin's hand, still holding the paintbrush, begins to quiver with tension as he suppresses the urge to paint.

You want me to die? You, my own mind, want me to die? You've been telling me to die for my entire life. But if I die you all come with me.

You creatures, you monsters... You've been beaconing me for my entire life, calling me to join you in the land of the dead.

Maybe one day I'll follow you. Maybe one day I'll die.

But not until I'm ready.

If I die, Sae will be all alone. If I die Sae would cry. Sae would be sad, wouldn't he? What would happen to him if I die?

If I die I'll never get to see him again. Isagi. I'll never get to paint with him again, see his smile, or hear his laughter again...

I have to... Do it...

I have to find him.

I'm so lukewarm.

I'm pathetic.

I need to...

Destroy...

Destroy...

Destroy.

Destroy myself. Become something new so I can keep on living. So I can protect Sae. So I can see Isagi again some day.

Rin's vision begins to haze with streaks of red and stars exploding along the horizon of his peripheral sight; madness and fury culminating into this singular moment in time. This is his final chance for him to finally try and forage himself a new path toward a new future.

The world he exists in has always felt so dark, but the guiding light of a new hope begins to twinkle in the distant future. Maybe...

Maybe it will all be alright if he can just obliterate what's left of his old self first.

DESTROY YOURSELF.

DESTROY AND BECOME SOMETHING NEW. BRING FORTH THE COURAGE TO BE REBORN FROM THIS TOTAL DESTRUCTION.

Tears are beginning to burn in the corners of his eyes, individual reminders of why he'd been so closed off from feeling things this deeply in the first place. Choosing to shut your emotions down is a blinding, cowardly thing; choosing to feel again is the worst sort of pain that can come from all that.

He bends over the kitchen table, planting his palms onto its wooden surface, panting heavily as he fixates. Dissociates. He's feeling it all in full force without a paintbrush in his hand. He's furious, he feels life and death and everything in between, sucking him in and tearing him apart with the overwhelming destructive power of a dying star. It's an emotional explosion, implosion, and everything else all at once congregated into this one small blink of time. This pivotal and singular moment of everything and nothing. His jaw muscles flex, clenching so hard that the sinew pops out along the side of his neck. This is tense and uncomfortable as hell, but right now he can't even be bothered to try and concentrate on physical pain.

Rin.

Are you finished yet? Finished your little tantrum? Riiiiiiiin?

Shut up.

Oh?

Ehehehehehe. You're so weak, so pathetic, so disgusting. It must be hard for people to watch you.

Rin? Rin? Rinrinrinrinrin—

—SHUT UP—

You're so feisty. So spirited for someone who deserves to die. Despicable. Just die—

—SHUT UP. SHUT UP. SHUT UP—

You know what to do. It'll all be quiet when you finally die.

"Shut up. Shut the fuck up, damnit."

We will when you finally decide to join us, Rin. Join us.

"No... No... No no no no no fuck you I HATE YOU. JUST SHUT UP AND LEAVE ME ALONE!"

You'll never be alone.

Not until you kill yourself.

Just finish the deed already.

A thick, heavy, razor-sharp silence ensues within the static of his mind, wherein Rin briefly considers listening to the voices. But at the end of the day, he knows these voices are only speaking what he tries to ignore, what he doesn't want to hear, when in reality those thoughts have never really left him.

In this moment, Rin's sorrow is beginning to metamorphosize into anger. His blood is beginning to boil with the surge of heat that's being injected into his veins by fury.

He wants silence. He wants destruction. He wants rebirth. He wants change. The anger overrides his sadness and his better judgement is snuffed out. An emotional paroxysm overcomes him, a flame equal parts rage and desperation burning him up from the inside out.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Rin's cry rips through the stale air and echoes off the walls of his apartment. Without thinking, he acts out, grabbing canvases, brushes, and anything else he can gets his hands on. He throws things, smashes things, and rips things to shreds, effectively smothering out the voices in his head for as long as he can. Pure destruction is all he craves right now, and deep within the twisted action of destroying, he finds himself beginning to feel euphoric as his freedom begins to take its shape.

Free of painting horrifying hallucinations. Free of the hallucinations themselves, at least for now. Free of the undeniable want he's always, in some way had, to die, because his desire to die was always the epicenter of these very hallucinations.

In the aftermath of it all, he's shoved himself into the corner of his living room. It's quiet... At least for now. Sunbeams are peeking from between the drapes not far above him, though the apartment feels particularly desolate following this total meltdown. Everything is destroyed or thrown into total chaos. Furniture, art supplies, lamps, decorations, nothing had been safe from his outburst. As he is now, with the serenity of silence filling the void around him, he feels relatively safe. That is, until he sees him.

In the far corner of the apartment, standing beside Rin's fridge, with shadow completely enveloping it, there stands a figure. Rin's now haggard stare falls upon the shape of that figure, and when it does, the figure slowly, methodically begins to pace toward him. It stops not far away, beside a pile of canvases and splatters of paint littering his living room floor. This visual hallucination is unlike anything Rin's ever seen before.

The thing turns what seems to be its eyes up to look directly at Rin. Its form is an apparition crafted solely by Rin's mind, of course. It's a monochromatic specter, dripping with the paints that are the very lifeblood of Rin's paintbrush. This is a creature that's been given life by the cold and destitute heart that sleeps within Rin's chest, the forlorn mind that sleeps inside the walls of his teetering sanity, and the oozing paints that bleed from within the core of his deepest sorrows and regrets. This seems to be both a thing he would paint, and also something he would have seen in real life. When Rin looks back at this thing, what he sees is his pinnacle of excitement, intrigue, and fear, all swept up in one.

The spiral eyes.

The whorls of its irises stare at him, as if to terrorize him at his lowest point. But even now, even while this thing attempts to embody the one person who'd somehow managed to creep into his subconscious without him even knowing, he only finds himself frozen in place by a pure sense of interest in this odd creature.

The paint monster with the spiral eyes, which seems to be haunting him with the shape of Yoichi Isagi.

With his legs pulled in tight against his torso, and his face barely tilted upward to look at this thing, his eyes narrow in a determined yet fatigued expression.

"You... You're still watching me, even now?"

In the wake of his mental breakdown, in the disconcerting silence, and in the presence of this thing—this new hallucination—Rin remains just like this. He sits and he waits. Maybe he's waiting for his loneliness to finally fizzle up and die away in the presence of this new thing, but he knows deep down in his heart that isn't going to happen. Perhaps he's only waiting for all of his suffering to finally reach its end. Another impossible outcome.

"What would you do right now... Isagi?" Rin directs the question at the spiral-eyed creature.

If the real Isagi was here instead, Rin thinks he may actually like to ask him this question.

*

Riiiing. Riiiiing. Riiiiiiiing. Riiiiiing-

"Good afternoon, Itoshi-san.""

Sae fidgets, looking for the right way to proceed with asking Anri for yet another out of line request.

"Uh, yeah. Hey."

"Your brother only checked out this morning. How is he doing?"

"Well, he's okay. I think. As okay as he can possibly be right now, I think."

"That's wonderful to hear. Sometimes it does take an artist quite some time after their stay in our resort for them to begin to work out their creativity issues, but I do have faith in your brother."

"Right. Yeah. Um, yeah, Rin... About him... I just wanted to talk about him actually... Well, he met this guy at the resort named Isagi, but he never got Isagi's contact information."

"I see. That is quite unfortunate, but not an uncommon occurrence. People often do make friends here but they don't exchange contact information before they leave. Another common occurrence is that people often call me and try and get others' contact information. Unfortunately, Itoshi-san, I'm not at liberty to provide you with Isagi-san's contact information. That would be a breach of confidentiality of his personal information."

"Listen. I get it. But you've already bent the rules for me once, right? Can't you do that again? It's just that Rin's... Well, he's awkward. But I've never seen him even want to go through the trouble to try and contact someone. Like, ever. And because of his mental state right now and how fragile it still probably is, I want things to go well for him for once in his life."

Sae hears Anri sigh on the other line. "I'm sorry, Itoshi-san. I can't help your brother with this. Have you tried finding Isagi-san on social media, perhaps?"

"Yeah... I did, but I didn't have any luck... Listen, if you could just-"

"The answer is no, and that's final on this subject. I may have something else that could potentially... Help your brother, though."

"Okay... And what is that?"

"In two months, I'll be hosting a coming of autumn art show here at the resort, out in the gardens. I have a collection of paintings lined up from artists who've attended Vermillion Resort in the past. The theme is autumn, although it's up to the artists themselves to decide where they may take their piece to be in line with the theme. Now, your brother is very talented, but his talents aren't exactly... Suited... To this sort of thing. The only other way for him to be allowed entry is to purchase a ticket, but all tickets have already been sold out unfortunately. I guess what I'm saying is that, if your brother is somehow able to produce a painting that's suitable for display at the coming of autumn event, I'd allow him entry. Now, I could, perhaps, invite Isagi-san to do the same, but he's in the literary arts so I'm not sure if I could persuade him to try..."

"Yes... Yes, please. Please try. I need you to do this. If that's all you can offer I'll take it. I need to make sure Rin meets this Isagi guy again."

"Alright, Itoshi-san. I'll do this for the sake of you and your brother. I can't guarantee Isagi-san will go along with it, though, but I will certainly do my best to try and persuade him."

"Great. Awesome, that's great. I'll let Rin know about this, then."

"Alright. I'll be in touch, Itoshi-san. Take care."

"Yeah, you take care as well."

Click.

The other line goes dead. After ending the call, Anri looks down at her phone with a frown.

"Not even a Thank you, Anri... What a guy... I swear, some people should learn their manners."

She quickly shifts through Isagi Yoichi's provided personal information, and when she finds his phone number, she places a call out to him right away.

*

After about thirty minutes of sitting at his kitchen table with a pen in his hand, staring down at a blank piece of paper, waiting for a poem to suddenly come to him for perhaps the millionth failed time, Isagi breathes out a deep sigh. He surrenders to the blank page and stands, making for the kitchen to prepare himself some tea.

While the water boils, he stares down into the empty mug and dry teabag, feeling that same creative frustration and hopelessness begin to wash over him again. His mind is constantly turning things over and analyzing the world around it, but it still feels like an absolute, dead disconnect persists between the two sides of his brain. He wants his neurons to fire up the way they used to, he wants to be able to let his creativity pour down onto the page and fill him with life. Poetry is life to him. Without creative writing, Isagi feels like nothing but an empty shell... Only a hollow imitation of an artist.

The blank page continues to glare at him from the table. Despite the size of his apartment, he finds that tiny piece of paper is the biggest thing in the room to him right now. Tears begin to well in his eyes and he bites his lower lip in an attempt to fight them off.

He thinks that maybe this pain isn't going to go away any time soon. The poem he'd written with Rin, and the other poem he'd written for Rin, were the only poems he'd managed to write in... Months. Maybe it's been closer to a year now since the art block hit him and it doesn't seem to be going away with time. It's an excruciating, all-consuming nothingness that's all but left him feeling hopeless. The future feels like a worn-out, faded image of a dream he once had, and that dream is starting to feel like, for him, something that may be long-forgotten.

Although this resort seemed to have boasted about helping artists with their creative frustration, he isn't sure how much it had actually helped him with his writer's block. One thing he does know, though, is that it did ignite something else in him. A small flame of something that seems to be growing warmer with the urge to create no matter what. Let your hands give birth to something new, something that's possibly even a different kind of art. Maybe it isn't writing... Maybe it doesn't need to be writing. Perhaps accepting that the dawn of a new and refreshed future needs to come his way is what he needs to get his life back on track.

As the kettle begins to simmer, Isagi's cell phone begins to ring. He picks it up, eyebrow raising at the name showing on the call display. Anri Tieri.

He answers with a polite "Hello?"

"Hello, Isagi-san. How have you been feeling since leaving the resort?"

"Well, I'm still pretty down, but overall I'm doing okay I guess."

"Good, good..." Anri mutters, the sound of her pen clicking against a page sounds from the background.

"So... Was that all, then?"

"Oh, no. Sorry, I was just writing something down here. Actually, Isagi-san, I've called to invite you to participate as an artist in a coming of autumn event I'm planning on hosting here at the resort. You see, I have space for extra art to be put out on display."

"Coming of autumn? Oh, but I did write in my personal information form that I'm into the literary arts, not so much the visual ones, so I'm not sure I'd be of much help..."

"Well I just got off the phone with Itoshi Rin-san. You see, I invited him to this event first, and he suggested I also invite you. I suppose he thinks highly of your painting skills."

Isagi's mind wanders back to the day he'd painted the forest with Rin at the resort, and how Rin had called his painting lukewarm. A small, wry smile curls on his lips as he recalls the memory.

"I think you must be mistaken. Rin doesn't think highly of my painting skills. And besides, I'm a total amateur at painting. I don't think I could make something good enough to hang at an art event as a display..."

"Is that so? I see. What a shame. He did seem quite excited about the idea of seeing what you come up with, but if that's the case, I suppose I can find other artists to participate."

"Excited, huh...?"

"Take care for now, Isagi-san."

"No... Wait!"

Isagi had just blurted out his interruption without even thinking before doing it. Now his heart is beginning to flutter fitfully, like a butterfly trapped behind his ribcage.

Is he even capable of producing a painting that will be worthwhile for Anri? He's not sure, but right now, the impending thrill of a new challenge for him is making him feel a bit nervous, and undoubtedly also fairly excited... Excited to paint something... Excited to possibly see Rin again.

"I'll do it. I'll paint a painting for this autumn art event."

"Wonderful! I'll send you an email with all of the details. Take care for now, Isagi-san."

"Yeah, thanks. You too."

The line goes dead again, and the two people on either ends of the line both sit in stunned silence after the end of their conversation. Anri pinches the bridge of her nose and lets out a long, deep breath, tilting back in her office seat with a groan.

"Men..." she grumbles, "What the heck is with them? And why did I lie like that?! What the heck is with me?! "

When Anri's email finds Isagi, he reads it as quickly as he can.

He feels like the biggest moron in the world right now. He's a total amateur at painting... No, maybe even worse than that. He's pretty well a beginner at it, which doesn't bode well for Anri approving his future painting to be hung at her classy art display. Isagi sighs after he finishes reading her email, and with his freshly brewed cup of tea now in-hand, he sits down and sinks into his couch cushions.

An autumn art display... Was this a mistake? This feeling, it's a bit odd. Trying to contemplate a future piece of art I have to create with my own hands. Normally I'd use words... In this case, I need to try and paint something good enough to display in only two months. Am I even capable of doing something like this?

But... If I can do it... If I can really make something...

That means I...

Isagi gazes out the living room window, the sunlight from outside diluting the deep blues of his irises to a softer, baby blue that matches the sky outside. He feels an odd sort of calm despite how far he knows he's about to go outside of his comfort zone. As an artist, this challenge is already making him feel a bit nervous, but there's something else that's inciting an unfamiliar giddy feeling within his heart.

Despite himself, he feels a smile softly caress his lips. Another thing that's making him feel the warmth of the smallest bit of hope: he gets to see Rin again.

Chapter Text

One week later.

With the coming of autumn art display less than two months away, Isagi is delving deeper into creating his piece for the event.

In the days after his conversation with Anri, he'd started out with pouring all of his time and attention into watching YouTube tutorials on painting, reading up on types and quality of paints, paintbrushes, canvases, brush techniques, and color theory. Even after doing all this, a week later after failed practice attempt after failed practice attempt had yielded nothing but pure mediocrity, Isagi is finding himself getting frustrated.

This day in particular, Isagi sits in front of his apartment window looking out at the maple trees planted in the street outside, and the colors of their leaves, which seem to be beginning to fade into yellows to signal the coming of fall.

He's pretty well decided that he's going to paint some trees with changing leaves. It seems like not only are leaves one of the hallmark things that make autumn so beautiful, but also a simple thing for an amateur painter like himself to try and paint. From what he understands, landscapes (although intricate to paint) tend to be flexible to adapt to a painter's individual style, and forgiving to someone who is new to painting.

After struggling for the better part of his morning and afternoon through trying to perfect his color theory, he sets aside his paintbrush and scowls at what little his efforts have produced.

He wants his piece to be worthy of Anri's art display... And worthy of other peoples' praise and approval, too. Yet all he finds he's able to think about when he pictures his piece painted to completion is the word lukewarm. When he recalls the appearance of the expert sway and flick of Rin's hand and wrist as he effortlessly creates his own works of art to breathtaking—morbid—captivating yet haunting completionism, he doesn't think there's any way he can rise up to the standards of someone as far above him as that. Yet, still...

He wants to try. He wants to dig his nails into the canvas and feel the rush of paint swelling to fill his veins. Due to his own creative frustration compounding onto his amateurism, Isagi finds himself starting to look into places he normally would never look into in order to find any shred of fresh inspiration... Any sort of muse at all.

What would he do? That's what Isagi asks himself as he stares at his two incomplete tree trunks that are all he has yet of his coming of autumn piece.

Anri invited Rin to this thing too, but this doesn't seem like something Rin would agree to paint for at all. So that must mean that Rin's beginning to change.

Which means, if I want to paint for this art display... If I want to find my creative spirit again... If I want to... See Rin again...

I have to accept that I need to change, too.

So then, I need to ask myself, what would Rin do? This is all I have for a baseline to completely remake myself from zero. If I can adapt my creative process to an outcome that will produce this piece, maybe even using Rin's technique as a template for how to proceed... Then that means I have to...

Isagi bites his lip and glares hard at the blaring white of the canvas, so at his wit's end with this thing right now that he decides to take a break and make himself some tea, instead.

I have to let go of my past self... I have to accept that the old me needs to finally die.

He has a feeling this is going to be a very, very long month.

*

One month later.

Rin's decided on what he wants to paint for Anri's art display. In fact, he's painted around twelve different paintings with the initial intention to use them, but each and every time he finishes one, he always ends up deciding that it really isn't the right fit for Anri's coming of autumn event.

At the very least, with this task taking up basically all of his time right now, the interdimensional creatures and voices have been rather mellow. The majority of his mind's worst energy has been put into sustaining that thing, apparently.

It still stands in the corner of his apartment, sits next to him on the couch, or stares at him while he brushes his teeth, but it feels like no matter what he does it's always present. Lurking. Watching him. It never ceases to take its eyes off of him while it's apparated in his mind.

Rin has attempted to produce yet another painting suitable for the coming of autumn display today, but he still finds this piece (number thirteen) doesn't exactly invoke a strong enough vision for what autumn is supposed to be. His preference to paint morbid monochromatic pieces has given him a very specific skillset when it comes to painting. Truthfully, although he'd given Isagi a very pointed lecture about color theory at the resort, his personal grasp on color theory is actually rather shit because of how little he tends to use it. His specialty focuses on contrast and overall composition and that's what makes him such a strong artist, but use of color has never been something he's really been strong at outside of maybe making use of the odd splash of color.

The first couple of pieces he'd painted were entirely off the mark. Too grotesque. Not nearly enough autumn. There probably shouldn't be gore in this painting, he thinks. After the first two, he'd done his best to try and mellow down from his usual style, which is as intense as possibly, purely intended to invoke discomfort or to convey suffering and pain. He doesn't exactly know how to mellow them out, though, so everything he keeps coming up with just ends up a diluted version of his usual freakiness, and still way too bizarre to meet Anri's criteria. And it never rightfully fits the theme of autumn.

Damnit... This fucking art show is only a month away and I still don't know what I should do.

Placing his next failed painting aside, he quickly snaps a photograph of it with his phone to send to Sae to see if it's something he thinks he can sell. Then, he turns his weary aquamarine gaze to look at the thing that's still observing him from across the room.

"What would he do?" he asks it, although he knows by now he can't expect an answer from the paint monster caricature of Isagi. As usual, it only stands and stares at him, the spirals of its eyes collapsing into two infinite coils of paired oblivions converging directly in both their centers where Isagi's pupils would've been. Paint oozes off its body, thick and dark as molasses.

The next painting he starts and he already knows before anything even takes shape that it's going to be wrong, so he rips his eyes off of the hallucination and lets his gaze wander to other things. He studies his apartment and the sorry state of it, the pile of dishes in the sink, the ceiling fan that always stays on twenty-four-seven, his shoes by the door, and that's when his eyes stop in the far corner. On the window.

That guy... Isagi. He'd always talked on and on about how much he'd enjoyed capturing the feel of nature in his poetry. And autumn, the season of change, is, in fact, one of the most visually stunning seasons in Japan from a nature connoisseur's perspective.

One of that woman's prompts involves autumn and nature. Maybe... If I can just capture a single moment in time, a single thing, a single feeling in nature.

In the center of the page, as his hand moves to give life to what he's attempting to picture in his mind, a single tree begins to take shape. Its branches are bare, writhing and curling as black serpents against the stark white backdrop of the fabric canvas.

the summer storm clouds

stain the sky with rain's shadows;

i hid, i wept, dry;

i didn't understand why

the blue sky needed to die

the season of change.

Rin's read Isagi's poem to himself so many times that he's memorized it word for word, though the meaning behind it has always been a mystery to him. He's filled to the brim with a natural aptitude for creating art but lacks an analytical mind for such things. But following his meltdown, he's begun to slowly undertake a journey towards changing that side of himself.

Perhaps art isn't merely an outlet meant to scream a silent cry for help. It isn't only a facet of a person's heart or a window to peer into their soul, but perhaps there can actually be greater meaning behind art that is able to invoke thought and convey other messages. Poetry, painting, dancing, singing, any art form can be left open to an infinite number of interpretations. And with this in mind, Rin's interpretation of Isagi's poem had recently began to change the more he turns it over in his head.

Now, he's almost sure he understands what Isagi was trying to convey with his poem. Especially in how Isagi had mentioned that this was his new style.

Learning what it means to comprehend—to understand—the complexity of this special language that is art is, in Rin's mind, in and of itself its own form of art.

That last line, the season of change. really resonates with Rin. Not only could such a statement be referring to the literal season of autumn, but also, it could be referring to a season in someone's life. Then, as he continues to push and pull his paintbrush across his canvas, he comes to a realization with what Sae had said when he'd read Isagi's poem.

"Did you write this?"

No, dear brother, it wasn't me who wrote this poem, but it was intended as a gift for me from another. A parting gift from a person who's seemed to have seen me for who I truly am and has recognized what I need before I even recognized it myself. That brilliant bastard, Yoichi Isagi... Rin flickers a look into the corner of the room, where the phantom with the spiral eyes continues in its endless observation of him.

That bloody genius. He wrote this poem for me to try and tell me that I need to persevere. I need to ride out this storm, grit my teeth, and say goodbye to the days of blue skies, which only represent a place of creative comfort...

What he was trying to tell me was that I need to change, no matter how much pain I feel like I'm going through in the process.

Yes...

Small splotches of red are placed on the canvas. Minute, delicate, extremely controlled.

This is it, Isagi, you bastard. The new me is coming for you. You better be ready.

This is my response. This is my season of change taking shape.

Two weeks before Anri's art show, and Itoshi Rin would contact her to approve his finished piece for the coming of autumn art display.

*

Three days until the coming of autumn art show.

Anri taps her heel on the concrete walkway beside Vermillion Resort's garden and checks her watch impatiently. "He should be here any minute..." she mutters to herself, looking around as she waits. When she finally sees him she waves him over with a smile and watches as he makes his way over to her.

"Isagi-san!" she addresses him with a curt bow when they're standing face-to-face, "It's very good to see you again. How have you been?"

Isagi returns her bow. She can see his covered canvas tucked neatly underneath his right arm, wrapped up in a plain white piece of fabric. "I haven't been too bad, actually."

His reply is warm, and afterward he smiles at her earnestly. It's a familiar smile often worn by tired artists. Anri returns his smile as they shake hands.

"I can't imagine this request was easy for you to meet. Thank you so much for your time."

Isagi nods politely. His hair is a bit scruffy and his skin is a bit pale, even his clothes look a bit unkempt. That's not an unusual look for artists trying to meet a deadline to wear.

"It was my pleasure, really. Painting this was a very... Unique journey for me these past couple of months."

"I see. Not too much trouble, I hope? And how has poetry been going for you?"

Anri folds her hands across her midsection politely, watching as Isagi smiles softly. It's an expression that also comes off as very sad somehow. At the same time, his eyes seem to glint with an unknown emotion.

"Enough about me. Here's the piece I've painted for the coming of autumn art show." He passes his canvas parcel to Anri, and she takes it in both hands.

He seems to wait calmly, digging his hands into his pockets as she unwraps his piece. Once the protective fabric is removed, she cocks her head and examines the piece with wide, studious eyes.

Interesting... Very interesting. I was under the impression that he hasn't spoken with Itoshi Rin-san since they met at the resort two months ago. So then... How?

"Well, how is it?" he asks her eagerly, maybe a little anxiously.

"This is quite good. For a so-called amateur, I'd say this piece will fit in quite well with the others, and it's in line with my desired theme. I do quite enjoy your composition as well. May I ask what your inspiration for this was?"

Isagi seems to relax at Anri's approval. "Inspiration..." he mumbles, seemingly pondering the question. His blue eyes narrow as he searches for a way to answer her.

"To be honest, it's hard to put into words."

Isagi smiles at her again. It's that same small, weak sort of smile that's both tired and content.

"I see. Well, I hope some day you're able to tell me about it." She then bows politely again. The two speak for a few minutes and agree that Isagi will be attending the art show for sure. She informs him that she will send him an email with all of the details he will require to attend, like dress code and opening time, before they shake hands again and send Isagi off on his way.

After Isagi leaves, Anri continues to examine his piece with keen intrigue. Not only is his skill level as a painter markedly improved since his time at the resort, but she can also sort of tell where exactly his inspiration for this piece has come from.

With a satisfied smile, she carries Isagi's piece out to the garden where the coming of autumn art display will be held in three days time.

*

The day of the coming of autumn art event.

Isagi arrives an hour early at the art display as he's been instructed by Anri, along with the other artists so that they can take a look at her layout and approve of where she's placed their paintings.

He steps along the paved walkway and makes his way through the ornate wrought-iron entry gate that's decorated with a fantastic twisting metalwork of vines, and heads into Vermillion Resort's garden. This place is not only open to entrants and guests of the resort itself, it's also a venue that's designed for events like this one. At this time of year (late summer, early autumn) the garden is no longer in full bloom but there are still certain species of plants and flowers that are flourishing, which seem to be well-placed decoratively around the garden courtyard. There's a fountain at the center of the main courtyard that depicts a white marble bonsai tree with black stone leaves decorating each one of its branches. Water flows from an open hole on the belly of the tree's trunk, appearing as some sort of carved wooden opening. On the edges rimming the fence line there are maple trees, a species known for looking particularly stunning in the fall, with oranges, yellows, and some reds beginning to spring splashes of color off their leaves. In the far corner, there's a pruned hedge with a flat facing surface and a bunch of fancy corkboards set up, and some lights shining down from above seem to have been placed. This appears to be the area where the art show begins, so Isagi makes his way over there.

While he searches for his own piece, he carefully takes a look at each other painting he finds along the way. Anri's setup is quite clever. She has paintings on display here, at the front-facing and most obvious part of the hedge, which is actually the entrance to a hedge maze where the rest of the paintings are displayed. After taking a quick look at some of the art hanging at the maze's entrance, he then walks inside.

Each painting is well-lit with its own viewing light, but Anri has also hung some decorative amber string lights along the top rim of the hedge that give the display an added atmosphere of romance. As he makes his way deeper into the maze, taking his time to have a good look at every other painting on display, he runs into Anri.

She's speaking excitedly to a couple of the other artists, but when she sees Isagi out of the corner of her eye, she brisky excuses herself from them to say hello to him. When they're standing face-to-face, they give eachother a quick, polite bow. Anri's hair is tied back into a neat and professional bun. She's donned a long accordion-style skirt and a long-sleeved whimsical floral blouse, the ends of her fingers decorated by some expensive looking silver rings. Her heels have been traded out for a pair of pumps to make walking in the grass a bit easier.

"Hello, Isagi-san. I'm so happy to see you out here. Have you had a chance to look at your own display yet?" Anri asks eagerly.

"Nice to see you again. I haven't seen my painting yet, no."

"It's hung just around this corner on the right-hand side," Anri gestures down the adjacent corridor of the maze from where they're standing. "I hope you don't mind that I decided to hang your painting as a pair with another one. I think they'd sell best as a set."

"A pair?"

Anri smiles and blinks at him. "Please go take a look, I'm certain you'll understand what I mean when you see the paintings together."

Isagi nods once and follows the line her gesture points, walking around the corner and down toward the next set of paintings on display. The sun is already going down so those viewing lights are starting to shine with their intended purpose.

Pair, huh...? What does she mean by that?

When he reaches the end of the current corridor he's traveling down, he turns his head left. The area there is empty, so he then turns his face right, and that's when he sees the beginning of the next arrangement, along with a few other people who seem to already be down there looking.

It doesn't take him long to find his own painting, and true to what Anri had said, it appears to be hung near the end of this corridor of the maze right beside another painting. There currently isn't anyone standing in front of it so he makes his way over to it to see how it looks, and what this other painting is all about.

To be honest, he's quite proud with what he's come up with, and he feels his pride swelling a bit when he gazes upon his painting hanging in this prestigious display.

Since his color theory is still lacking, he'd gone with a simplistic, monochromatic approach to the painting that speaks of simplicity and contrast. Autumn, in his mind, is not only a whimsical and dreamy time of year to enjoy pretty leaves and chilly air, but it's also a time of year that's a bit melancholy. Even a bit spooky in a certain light.

With the conditions he'd given himself, the conditions he was required to meet in order to make the cut for this art display, and his current skill level, he'd used this to adapt himself quickly to meet the end goal he had in mind. In the end, the thing that had ultimately acted as a vessel for him to achieve what he needed to achieve by the end of his two months, was actually Rin's art style.

As he had constructed his painting carefully, he'd kept Rin's style and technique in the back of his mind at all times and used it as a template to help shape his own piece of art. It wasn't without fail, of course. It had taken him twelve whole failures before his thirteenth had finally yielded a finished product that was worthy of what he deemed to be acceptable.

On the canvas, there are an array of maple trees sitting at a lakeside. Their dark figures stand in steep contrast to the leaves they bear, which are all red. Leaves in the trees offer the only splash of color, but the special things about his painting are: 1) the sun is setting, but he's constructed the entire sunset out of only black and grey tones, and 2) the forest's reflection is reversed, entirely black and white including the leaves, but the sunset itself is the splash of red in the reflection, instead.

He smiles at his piece, satisfied with how it looks. He doesn't really care where it's been hung, if he's being entirely honest with himself. Then, he moves his gaze over to examine the piece that Anri's informed him is actually a pairing, and his jaw drops right away. At the piece itself, the skill of the painting, but most importantly, the artist's signature that's scratched in the bottom right-hand corner of the canvas despite this work of art being so unlike something he would have ever chosen to paint before.

"Rin..." Isagi whispers, his breath hitching in his lungs in something adjacent to an inaudible gasp.

He almost can't even believe it's true. Anri had informed him that Rin would be another participant in this event, but still, he still feels like he's living in a dreamlike state right now because not only are they both at this event, but they've somehow, miraculously managed to construct two paintings that are extremely similar in composition.

"Good evening everyone!" Anri calls around the corner, to the group of artists Isagi is with, "If you'd please all meet back at the fountain in five minutes, the art show will be opening soon to the public and I'd like to address any concerns you have with the placement of your piece beforehand. Thank you for your patience!"

Isagi looks around as the small group of people begins to slowly make their way back toward the main courtyard's fountain area. The maze is slowly being dipped into a molten bronze bath by the setting sun, casting long trails of ominous shadows that bob along the grass as people walk.

Rin's painting is out here... But where is he?

As the small swath of people disperses and disappears around the corner, a single person is left in its wake, standing and staring off deeper into the maze. Isagi can already tell it's Rin from this distance, although his face is not pointed down the dead-ended corridor where their paintings are hung, but down the next corridor of the maze that leads deeper into it. Despite Anri having just requested everyone meet in the courtyard right away, Rin turns and starts walking deeper into the maze, instead.

Where's he going? Isagi wonders. His curiosity compounds onto his desire to see Rin and ask him about his painting, and he follows Rin into the hedge maze.

Rin seems to be walking rather quickly. They pass an area that's only lit by some string lights, followed by the last art display and group of paintings, without so much as stopping for a look Rin proceeds further into the maze. Isagi sees him turn right at the end of this corridor, so he follows him, calling "Rin!" after him, hoping Rin hears him and waits for him.

He doesn't.

By the time Isagi reaches the next corner, he shoots his eyes both left and right but there isn't any sign of Rin down either corridor. Now he supposes, if he's going to try and find Rin, he has to start by predicting which way he thinks Rin will go.

Rin had clearly just followed the string lights at the last fork in the road to lead him here, but this is now the end of the art display and there isn't any clear way for a person to know which way to go. So Isagi just picks a direction.

He picks left, but at the next fork in the road both ways are dead ends, which means he has to backtrack and take the right. Now the sun is almost completely set as he continues to weave his way down the path, deeper and deeper into the maze without any sign of Rin since the beginning of it where he'd first seen him.

Maybe he'd just hallucinated Rin, he starts to think. Maybe he's chasing after someone who isn't even real. After about thirty minutes of painstakingly navigating the maze and hitting practically every dead end he thinks is humanly possible, he finally rounds the last bend that leads down to the furthest end of the maze where the exit is. And that's when he finally catches up to Rin.

Rin is standing a little ways away from the maze's exit, face tilted to look up at the sky, which has almost entirely descended into darkness aside from a small crease of light along the western horizon where the sun used to be. Isagi slowly approaches him, and when he's a stone's throw away he calls out to him to make himself know.

"Rin."

Rin swivels his gaze to direct his eyes backward, shifting his bodyweight so he's looking away from the sky and giving his full attention over to Isagi.

When their eyes meet, a strange feeling washes through Isagi, something between relief and gladness. The longer they hold onto eachother's stares just like this, Isagi starts to wonder about what it means for people to be fated to meet.

Is this how it feels?

The teal in Rin's irises are peculiarly deep, mystified by the night that's swiftly falling around them. Isagi finds himself wondering if it's physically possible to get lost in another person's eyes, because if it is, he thinks he could easily end himself up completely lost in those twin blue-green marbles of melancholy.

"I was hoping I got to see you again, to be honest." Isagi says gently, stepping in closer to Rin. "Your piece..."

"The season of change," Rin interrupts him, with an unusual softness to his tone that Isagi could not recall ever hearing in his voice before.

"So you understood."

"I did what I could, and interpreted your poem my own way. This is the new me."

Isagi nods and smiles wryly as they take to standing side-by-side. Not far away, the edge of part of the tree line that rims Vermillion Resort is clearly visible.

"Your painting is spectacular. You've taken parts of your old self, which thrives in the heart of chaos and discomfort, and somehow used that to twist your simple piece of art into something that is... Both unsettling and captivating. And it definitely is well within Anri's expectations. I never thought I'd see the day when stubborn Itoshi Rin doesn't just paint whatever he wants to paint... Or rather, what you said you see."

"Listen, I wouldn't have painted that if I didn't damn well want to," Rin snarls, flicking his bangs out of his eyes with one hand, "And besides, part of artistic growth involves going outside of one's comfort zone."

"You're totally right. I wish I'd understood that a bit sooner, but it may be too late for me, I'm afraid. I haven't been able to write a single poem since I left the resort."

"How tepid. You've somehow managed to waste your time away on painting something mediocre for this art show while your grasp on your art style of choice withers away into nothingness."

"Maybe it's tepid to you, but Anri said she wants to sell our paintings as a pair, so... What does that say about yours, Rin?"

Rin sneers, his eyebrows bowing inward annoyedly, but his silence is very telling—Isagi is right.

Both their pieces, although nothing extraordinary or groundbreaking in the realm of art, are both pieces that are well outside of both artists' comfort zones. These respective pieces are different in many ways, but match up startlingly well in composition because they're both images of autumn trees constructed in black and white with a splash of red. Both artists' desires for self-improvement became so singular, and their respective influences on eachother shaped their two finished products in such a way that they may as well have been painted with the exact same artistic vision.

"To be honest, I tried my best to come up with this painting to challenge myself, but... At the epicenter of the challenge I set for myself, I had one final goal. If I can paint this painting and be happy when I see it hanging on display at this event, then that means I get to see you again, Rin. You helped me tremendously in developing my own style of painting."

"How ridiculous. You're so half-baked you can't even come up with your own art style. Your motivation for painting for this event is pure mediocrity."

Isagi smirks. "You can be nice, y'know? I saw you really trying to be back at the resort." Rin bites his lip and seems to wince, probably in having thought that Isagi wouldn't have noticed that. "It's okay."

It's just that...

Rin knows Isagi is right. He doesn't think Isagi is nothing, Isagi is not half-baked or tepid. Isagi is actually a rather remarkable person, and he even moreso is for still staying interested in Rin even after two who months of zero contact.

Although Rin had wandered off into the maze to try and distract himself from what he'd been seeing and hearing, he's starting to feel that unusual mental clarity, silence, and focus that he recalls he'd always seemed to have when Isagi was around at the resort. That odd paint monster doesn't seem to be around right now. Maybe that's because something in Rin's heart had been calling out for this person to come back to him. And, well, here he his. The flesh and blood Isagi is here with him now.

"I felt like I fucked up," Rin starts, intending to try his best not to say something insulting to Isagi this time, "After I left the resort. I wanted to..."

"You wanted to get my number," Isagi feels like if he doesn't finish Rin's sentence for him then he will quite literally never hear the end of it, "That's how I felt, too."

Rin purses his lips and throws a hand through his bangs again. Now he doesn't seem like he wants to look Isagi in the eyes at all, which is a tell-tale sign that he's probably nervous.

"I feel like we have good chemistry and we match eachother well. I'm glad I got to meet you, Rin. I really enjoyed getting to know you at the resort. I really do like you a lot."

"Tsk..." Rin chirps, and Isagi feels his face light up with a deep, dark, shameless blush.

That sort of just... Came out. But he's here and now and doesn't intend to screw things up with Rin again, so while he still wears a deep crimson on his cheeks, he opens his phone contacts and passes it over to Rin so he can enter himself before his bravery dissipates into nothing. Rin snatches the phone without giving Isagi so much as a look.

As Rin seems to be typing his information into Isagi's phone, Isagi watches him silently with the same smile on his face. The heat is starting to cool from his cheeks and he's more than just a little bit thankful for that.

Okay, so now he has Rin's number. He really hadn't considered what's supposed to come after this, so he decides to just opt for some simple small talk while they're still alone.

"How have you been doing since leaving the resort?" Isagi asks, flicking a quick look down at Rin's arms, which are still covered, only this time by a well pressed and wrinkle-free long-sleeved dress shirt.

"Fine..." Rin mumbles, "I knew as soon as I left that no matter what I chose to do after the resort, that I'd just have to accept that time doesn't wait for a person to get better. So I put all of my time and energy into this. I told myself that if I can do this without letting my mental illness entirely pollute my artwork, then I may be onto something. Some sort of... Self-improvement. It was fucking rough, though." Rin pauses, his gaze fixated onto the dark tree line sullenly. "I keep going back and forth between having control over what I paint and painting things in the real world, and painting what I see that I know is all in my head."

Rin thinks about all of the scrap pieces of paper he'd scrawled sketches of the paint monster Isagi onto, with its abnormally large and unblinking spiral eyes that never seem to leave him. That's when Rin has a thought, so he looks back over at Isagi and starts to stare at him. Stare directly into his eyes.

They are not constructed of the spirals... Not right now anyway. Currently, they are actually twin gemstones that are vast, sparkling oceans filled with curiosity and interest. And they're looking directly at him. Rin having given Isagi this bit of eye-contact actually seems to have added a sparkle to Isagi's eyes that wasn't there before.

And what the hell is going on?

Rin feels his heart start to gallop in his chest, especially when Isagi chooses not to break away from the eye-contact. The moments tick by and this feeling goes from slightly awkward, to interesting, to intense, to downright electrifying in the span of maybe fifteen seconds.

As they continue to stare at eachother like this, Rin notices something in Isagi's demeanor change slightly, and when he sees Isagi tick a look down (maybe only a few centimeters below his eyes), and for only a split second, he begins to pick apart the situation and discern what he thinks is going in.

This is when he starts to recall how Sae had probed him about Isagi earlier, when he'd just returned from the resort and was in the early stages of trying to sort through his own emotions. His feelings for Isagi are complicated and intense, but maybe Sae had been right, after all. Maybe all this time he really had been just hiding in a closet he didn't even know existed, because before Isagi, Rin had never met someone he'd ever actually been attracted to like this. And he definitely thinks he knows this now more than ever because Isagi—

Well, Isagi's just looked directly at his lips. That can only mean one thing... Right?

It seems obvious when Isagi takes a couple of steps closer to him that he hasn't just made this up, and there may be something especially mutual about what they feel for eachother (whatever it is, Rin doesn't even know)—and it's impossible to ignore Isagi's one hand that brushes up against his, so gently Rin may have thought he was imagining it if he didn't turn his eyes down to actually see that they really are standing this close.

This feels surreal, almost an impossibility to Rin because only a few months ago he'd been laying in a hospital bed trying to nurse himself back from a suicide attempt. His brother had checked him into this artists' resort as a last-ditch effort to try and help him get better, and Rin, who had hardly taken that resort seriously when he'd first entered, now feels like Sae's action had actually saved his life.

So here he is. He's standing here. His body is not only alive and breathing, but he's actually starting to feel like he's alive again, too. His heart flutters at the miniscule physical closeness, its pace quickens while Isagi's hand barely touches against one of his own, and when Isagi starts to actually lean toward him... Slowly, slowly, so slowly Rin still thinks he might be fantasizing this some messed up dream, only he knows there's no way a dream can ever make him feel quite like this—

Isagi's lips are now only a couple of inches from his. His heart is beating so fast he thinks it might actually give up altogether if he doesn't get ahold of himself. He doesn't move so much as a centimeter and just lets whatever this is happen, because it's making him feel good. It's making him feel good. For the first time in many long, desolate, isolated years, Rin feels like it may have all been worth something, even if that something is only as fleeting as one single, pivotal moment in time.

Isagi is so close Rin can feel his breath now, and this is something so simple and human that it baffles Rin how it actually makes him feel more than just a little bit good. He knows what's going on now.

He's seen people kiss in movies, although the urge for him to actually do such a thing has never even existed until pretty much right now. But he can do it... If it's with Isagi, he thinks he can do it. Maybe even find a bit of enjoyment in it. Hell, if this is the type of excitement he feels from only the mere idea of their lips pressing together like those people on the TV really seem to like doing, then he can't even imagine how good it will actually feel when their lips do touch.

Closer.

Closer...

Closer...

Their lips are so close now and Rin's heart is racing so quickly, he's worried his heart might actually jump straight out of his mouth and ruin the moment.

And, well, his heart doesn't really need to worry about ruining the moment because something else does it in its stead.

"Hey!"

They both freeze instantly, because a third person has just made themself known. Both their bodies turn away in one synchronized, painstaking instant of pure embarrassment.

Anri looks between the two of them with one hand on her hip. She doesn't look very impressed to have had to find these two all the way at the end of the hedge maze. When the reality of the situation sets in and she realizes what she's just interrupted, she puts a hand over her mouth to stop her smile from being seen.

"S-Sorry...! It's just that I've had a couple of people ask about your paintings and I haven't been able to answer any of their questions. This is what the artist invites are for, you see..."

Isagi puts a hand on the back of his neck sheepishly. "Y-Yeah, I see... I get it..." he mumbles, blushing so deeply his cheeks look damn near purple, though their setting is rather low light now so it's not really all that visible to Anri.

"There's time for artists to... Socialize... After the event."

"R-Right..."

Anri takes one final, sweeping look at the two of them before she turns back around and heads back to the event. Rin hurries to follow her without giving Isagi much of a second look. That's completely out of the equation right now.

Under absolutely no circumstances can Isagi see him blushing like this.

*

For the remainder of the event (which is three hours long), Isagi and Rin stand near their paintings to answer peoples' questions about them.

Surprisingly, a lot of people seem to think that these two paintings were actually intentionally made as a set. It's difficult for them to explain that they did know eachother and influence eachother unintentionally, but created these two pieces without a single word of communication. People almost find it hard to believe because of how remarkably similar their creative vision seems to have been in producing these paintings.

By the time the event has closed and the guests have all left, Isagi is simply exhausted. He's holding onto his umeshu for dear life, because he's had to explain to person after person that no this set was not pre-planned. No he is not lifelong friends with Rin, the synchronicity of their artistic vision was quite literally never even brought up. Rin is an absolutely phenomenal artist, but his ability to communicate is absolutely abysmal. Holding a conversation is clearly not his strong suit and he loses his patience very easily, so Isagi had basically told him to zip his lips and let him do all the talking.

When they're alone again with only the other artists standing nearby, the weight of silence falls heavily between them. Thankfully, Anri rounds the corner and lets them all know they're free to leave the event whenever they so choose. On cue, Isagi throws his remaining glass of umeshu down the hatch.

"Thank you for your cooperation, you two." Anri smiles at them, folding her hands neatly in front of her. "This event was a great success. I should let you know that one of the guests has already put in an offer on your works as a set. I'll email you the details later tonight and you can let me know if you'd like to accept or not."

"Nice!" Isagi smiles and places his empty glass onto a servers' tray as the waiter walks by, "A set, huh?"

"People seemed very intrigued not only by your individually unique takes on autumn, specifically Rin-san's bleeding tree garnered a lot of attention, but one thing people seemed to love the most is your story. Two artists who seem to have influenced eachother so much and continue to create with zero contact, and their resulting pieces that have come out looking like they're crafted by one mind existing in two bodies. Spectacular, isn't it?"

Thankfully it's dark now so the two men blushing deeply is not really all that visible.

"Yes, you're right..." Isagi hurriedly answers her, his tone betraying him by showing his nerves.

Anri shakes both of their hands at the end of the night. When the evening has fully wound down and everyone is back crowded around the marble tree fountain, artists remain mumbling amongst themselves.

Isagi doesn't really know how to handle this situation. Him and Rin continue to stand side-by-side yet the awkwardness between them remains because of what had almost happened earlier in the evening. Neither of them say a word to eachother and they sort of drift apart, Isagi going off to talk to some of the other artists, and Rin simply lurking and existing, refusing to leave but hardly giving himself a reason to stay.

By the time everyone else has taken their leave, Anri is already starting to take all of the paintings down, and Isagi thinks he may be the last one of the group of artists left.

Rin... Seems to be gone already, too.

After saying his farewell to Anri, he leaves the Vermillion Resort garden by himself and heads toward the parking lot around the resort's backside in a solemn and solitary silence believing Rin has left without saying goodbye.

He really doesn't need to be disappointed for very long, though, because when he gets close enough to his car, he sees Rin has, indeed, left the party early. Apparently to wait for him at his vehicle.

When he's not too far away from Rin, he watches the other artist as he wrings his hands anxiously. Rin's anxiety is palpable, even at the distance they currently have between eachother.

"And here I thought you'd left without saying goodbye," Isagi remarks accusitorily, obviously as a joke that Rin doesn't seem to get at all because his frown just deepens.

That's when something Isagi doesn't expect happens, and Rin grabs him by the arm. He's initially confused by this, but his confusion is snipped off head-first in the very next instant when Rin yanks him into position, throws him back against his own car, and kisses him.

This kiss is what should have happened earlier, before they'd been interrupted. Isagi feels fingers in his hair and a powerful yet desperate message being conveyed through Rin's lips. It's a kiss that's both confusing and honest, speaking with a reckless abaddon that's unsure of what its doing, but knows precisely where this will inevitably lead.

Isagi will take this while it's being shoved into his face. He puts a hand around Rin's waist, lets himself be pushed into the side of his car, allows his hair to be pulled, and accepts all of the adrenaline and dopamine as it rushes into his bloodstream. All because this is affirming all of the chemistry he'd always somehow known they'd had.

Within the intimate confines of the night, this one moment marks the end of their two chapters apart, and writes the first word in the beginning of their love story they will begin to write together.

Chapter Text

A few months later.

"Mr. Itoshi?"

Rin blinks, coming back to himself slowly. Apparently he's spaced out during his appointment. The psychiatrist appraises his vacant look briefly before she writes something down onto her clipboard.

"I asked how you've been sleeping," she adds calmly, placing her clipboard aside and folding her hands over her lap.

"Not horribly," Rin responds, tearing his eyes away from the corner of the room.

"And how has your mood been?"

"Mmh... Not awful."

She nods, nibbling the inside of her cheek as she considers not only his responses but his overall demeanor. He doesn't seem to be giving her any disingenuous answers, and she's satisfied with that, at least.

"You aren't very present, Mr. Itoshi. Are you seeing something right now?"

"It's just him..." Rin has to stop himself from looking back at the shadowy silhouette that's still watching him, otherwise he feels he may end up pulled back into the hypnosis of its deeply unsettling spiral eyes. "He's always here."

She nods as if to understand. "And who is he?" she asks calmly.

"He's..."

He's Isagi... Well, sort of. He's not anything close to Isagi, really, aside from the eyes. He is not really anything even human-adjacent. He is more of an it, really, and its unwavering presence in Rin's psychosis is only a manifestation of his apparent greatest vulnerability.

What it represents is something that Rin, whose mental health has stabilized, has slowly come to realize that is not only a thing that's forced him into a state of unease, but has also forced him to re-examine his own state of being.

This thing represents an ever-present, inkling feeling of insecurity, and a total lack of self that's always been, and still is, what holds him back from his full artistic potential—something that has only been exposed by a person's singular, intense interest and observation of him.

"It's just a creature. A thing that watches me all the time." A manifestation of my greatest subconscious fear. He doesn't say such a thing aloud... He hopes that maybe he doesn't need to.

"You first called it a he, now you're calling it a thing as if it isn't human. Is it unclear to you what this presence is?"

"I only started seeing it after I left the resort. While I was there I had sort of started to hallucinate something strange onto a person I met there, and then... Things started to change when I was by myself. I started to see something that sort of looks like him but isn't really him."

"I see. So this thing exists sort of in the shape of a person you met. And is this person what you would have considered only an acquaintance? Or, perhaps, are you still friends?"

Rin darts his gaze away from her avoidantly and he ends up staring at the paint monster again. Her question is one he truthfully doesn't know how to answer, because to him, Isagi (despite being an unwaveringly insistent presence in his psychosis), isn't exactly a being whose existence he knows how to define with words.

"He's... A person," Rin begins painstakingly, still staring into the whirlpools of his hallucination's spiral eyes. "People usually leave me alone after I scare them away, but he wouldn't. He kept following me around at the resort. I sort of... I don't know. I guess the more I thought about it, the more I realized he was just making me uncomfortable because I'm not used to that sort of thing. But I don't know how to put into words how I feel about him beyond that."

"And have you seen him since the resort?"

"Sometimes. But I... I don't know. I don't know how to feel about him being around."

"Well if you're used to being by yourself all the time, then that's sort of to be expected, isn't it?" She blinks at him calmly through her shining spectacles.

Rin grimaces as he continues to stare at the pair of sanguine vortexes in the corner, but he finds the longer the looks at them without looking away, the worse he ends up feeling.

"Mr. Itoshi?" she addresses him calmly, bringing him back to be present in the conversation.

"Uh... Yeah. I guess you're right. This is all just a heap of shit I'm not equipped to deal with. Some days I don't even want to wake up and try."

"Well this is your third time in the past four years sitting in that seat speaking to someone in my position. You told me you usually stop taking your prescription after a couple of months or so, was that right?" Rin nods his affirmation stiffly. "So then, do you think you're in a position now where this may be something you can take a stab at again?"

"I don't even fucking want to, but it's not like I have a choice. The only way for me to keep on living is to change myself."

"Because you think these creatures you often see, who are somehow a part of you, want you to hurt yourself? And does this new creature who seems to be visiting you regularly want that, too?"

"Well..." Rin furls his fingers around one of his clothed forearms, "It's a bit of a nuisance, but it never actually says anything to me like all the other ones. It just watches me, as if it's... Waiting for something. As if it expects something out of me, maybe. But I don't really know what the hell I'm supposed to do if it won't tell me."

"I see. Let me just venture a question, and I hope this isn't out of line for me to ask. Do you think that's because, in some way, you already know what it is that it wants you to do?"

That isn't really a question Rin feels like he's prepared to answer, but this woman happens to be a paid professional who's supposed to be helping him, so he squirms with discontent as he gets to work pondering her question.

What... I'm supposed to do?

This thing had only started to follow him around like this after he'd had a mental breakdown and fought back against his own mind, which also happens to be his greatest enemy. In attempting to sort of antagonize his schizo-whatever (he can never be bothered to remember the word for what the doctors had called it), it had fought back. Was this only a manifestation of his deeply ingrained internal conflict? Is this because, as Isagi had astutely pointed out, this pain and suffering is actually, in a way, a place of comfort for him? Or at the very least, a place of creative comfort?

Maybe it's not really about what the paint monster, or even Isagi himself, expect of Rin, but rather, the pressure he's put on himself to change in direct response to Isagi... Just being there, watching him, learning from him, and subverting his usual assumption that Isagi will just turn round and leave him like everyone else always does.

Rin flips his bangs out of his eyes with one hand, a nervous tic he sometimes does while he thinks. The air in the room has become thick with tension, and the weight of a judgmental silence overbears down on top of that.

"As if I should know. That's why I'm sitting here, not back in my apartment."

"Mmmhm... Yes, of course..." the psychiatrist has retrieved her clipboard and jots another thing down. Afterward, she lowers it and looks over the brim of her lenses at Rin.

"This person you met at the resort must have had quite the impact on you for the nature of what you see to change so much. And you mentioned you two still see eachother sometimes?"

"Yeah, we do."

"And what do you guys do together? Have you talked to him about your friendship at all?"

"Well, no... Not really. He likes to talk about art a lot, but it's tiring. He's just so passionate about it and it makes me exhausted. He's... Exhausting to be around, really."

"Mhmm," she nods to show she's listening.

"I kissed him once."

"Mhmm... Oh?" She cocks her head at this curiously and looks back down at her notes, a pensive expression passing over her face. She flips the top page over and reads something on the back of it for another few moments before flipping back to the front of the top page.

"You've never brought up your romantic life before this," she points out, "Not even with the psychologist."

"Yeah, because I don't have one."

"So you don't consider kissing someone to be some sort of romantic advance?"

"I don't know."

"Hmm... Well, let me ask you this. What would your friend say if I asked him the same question?"

"Isagi would just be honest."

"And what do you think, in this scenario, an honest, Isagi-like response might entail? I mean, if you kissed him that must mean you know what kissing is, at the very least."

"I've never done it before," Rin says—an embarrassing thing for an adult to admit to, really—with an unusual candid and unabashed manner about him. "I don't know about him, though."

"Most adults have at least kissed someone before. That isn't what I asked you."

"Well, Isagi would probably say that yes, kissing is probably romantic."

"So... Your relationship with Isagi is... Romantic, or at least something more than platonic?"

"I don't know," Rin sighs, feeling tired and exasperated with her sudden interest in this topic. "Why the hell does this even matter, anyways?"

"You bringing up your love-life and potentially exploring your sexuality is a positive step for you. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to right now, though. I can tell you've gotten a bit uncomfortable."

"Yeah..."

"I think this might be a good place to end your session for today, if that's okay with you. I have a few things we should work through, so I'd like to see you at least once more. Perhaps, if you feel ready next session, we can discuss some long-term treatment options I have in mind."

Rin nods slowly and absentmindedly, staring at the pair of dark blue sheers covering the window in the opposite corner of the room while the psychiatrist's pen taps and scribbles something onto her clipboard.

*

A few weeks later.

Sae taps his wristwatch as he waits, looking around for someone to arrive. The venue he's at is a place he's selected for Rin's latest art show.

He doesn't mind making a bit of extra money by helping Rin sell his paintings and holding shows like this one. It's not like Rin is even really capable of doing it himself. Sae is pretty bad with people, he always has been, but Rin is somehow a great deal worse than he is. Rin is quite a spectacular artist, but because of his extreme anti-sociality, his blunt-natured commentary, and his mental illness, Rin is... Not really suited to interacting with people, not even people who are fans of his art.

Tonight, he's set up this art show for Rin, but something else has come up in his personal life so he's had another person fill in for him. Isagi, who is quite possibly the only other person Rin will ever even let remotely close to his personal life, is that person.

About ten minutes after opening the doors and Isagi shows up. He's donned some nicer clothing and styled his hair in an off-the-forehead way that frames his eyes nicely.

"You're finally here," Sae mumbles, searching his pockets for his car keys.

"Of course I am. And is Rin coming?"

Sae just chuckles at this—he has no other way he can fathomably respond to that question.

"Rin doesn't come to his shows. If you have any questions, you'll just have to text or call him."

"Oh... I see..." Isagi's voice trails off while he watches Sae throw a bag over his shoulder.

"The curator of this studio usually hangs out in his office, it's through that door," Sae gestures hastily, "Down the hall and to the left. See you later," Sae then says to him before hurrying off, leaving Isagi in the middle of this art show by himself.

At least as of right now, there aren't many attendees. Normally at an event like this, people will just come and go as they please, and they don't tend to be too busy. Isagi looks around before he decides to take a look at some of the pieces Sae's selected for display.

Even in a few short minutes, Isagi can see quite a difference and even variability in Rin's art. When they'd first met at Vermillion Resort, Rin's paintings appeared to have a certain, uncontrolled manic quality to them that Isagi had never seen in a painting before. In learning more about Rin, he found that this was because Rin, despite being talented, did not paint from a pure and honest part of his soul like Isagi might choose to do when he creates. Rin's muse for painting was simply an excruciating necessity; before, painting was a matter of life and death... Literally.

Now, Isagi sees something else starting to take shape in Rin's creativity. An acquiescence to a beautiful season of change that lies beyond the pale storm clouds of his suffering.

He keeps walking through the display, carefully looking at every one of Rin's paintings hung there so he's prepared to question the artist himself about them later. He passes by a small group of people who seem to be discussing the same thing Isagi had thought when he'd first walked into the art show (that Rin's style of painting seem to be changing).

At the very end of the display, Isagi stops to look at the painting for a short while. It's a bit of an odd setting. The painting is quite dark, actually, but a spread of nighttime sky is painted in the upper portion of the canvas, complete with freckles of stars, a few wisps of midnight clouds, and a not-quite-full moon. Then, he studies the central part of the painting. A crisp, sepia outline of light sits in its middle, and in the middle of that halo of a single streetlamp...

A car.

A small, thin smile unfolds between Isagi's lips, and he pulls his phone out of his pocket.

*

In having informed Rin that he was coming over after basically hosting Rin's art show for him, Isagi runs a finger down beside the apartment numbers listed on the intercom at Rin's apartment building, searching for Rin's name. When he finds it next to the number 316, he indents the button and waits patiently for Rin to answer.

When the ringing stops, there's a bit of noise on the other line that sounds like shuffling, before Isagi hears a staticky "Hmm?"

"It's Isagi," he says into the microphone. Rin doesn't say anything back, but moments later the apartment lock buzzes loudly before Isagi hears a click from the speaker, signaling that Rin has probably hung up on him. He opens the door and heads up the elevator to Rin's apartment.

When in front of door 316, he takes a deep breath to calm his nerves before knocking thrice on the door. Rin doesn't answer right away, so he knocks again and continues to wait patiently.

Finally, Rin answers. Or rather, the door cracks, and Isagi has to let himself inside and close it shut behind himself.

"What is it?" Rin asks drearily while Isagi removes his shoes, placing them onto the shoe rack beside the door.

"A thank you wouldn't be so bad right now, would it?" Isagi asks, watching sidelong as Rin sits himself at his kitchen table. He splays his legs out lazily and throws himself against the back of the chair, rubbing his eyes as if he's just had the longest sleep he's ever had in his life.

"Thanks, or whatever. It's not like you had to do that."

"Oh boy, are you in an extra bad mood today or what?"

Isagi walks inside and makes to sit himself in a chair beside Rin at the kitchen table. As he does so, Rin darts a quick look at the polished surface of the kitchen table briefly, before shooting his gaze away in another direction. Before he can sit down, Isagi takes note of two pristine orange pill bottles sitting near the salt and pepper shakers and thinks he knows exactly what's going on.

There's no point in pressing Rin on how he's feeling right now if he's behaving like this. Rin had made it abundantly clear in the past that being on medication had made him feel strange, not quite like himself is how he'd described that strangeness. Isagi understands Rin's dilemma, especially so after getting to know Rin better.

Rin is stubborn to his own detriment, because he's afraid of being anything but himself—even if the himself in question is pretty much miserable and stuck head-first in a dizzying downward spiral with no way out of it. Rin seems to believe misery, pain, and constant torment are all he's worth, because he truly seems to think that treating his schizophrenia means changing himself to a point of unrecognizability... A fate that's apparently worse than than not changing at all.

"I'm proud of you," Isagi says with a warm smile. Rather than bring up what he thinks Rin is probably dreading talking about right now, he opts to just keep things simple and positive. He now stands directly in front of the seated Rin looking down at him.

"It's incredible how much you've improved in such a short period of time. Your style is evolving so much that everyone at the art show noticed, too. I can already tell you're doing better."

Rin's eyes swivel upward and he chooses to stay silent, one of his hands now resting in such a position that it covers his mouth. A simple and gentle touch of Rin's teal on his dark blue and Isagi already feels his heart beginning to race.

Truthfully, since Rin had kissed him after the coming of autumn art event, there's just been this unbearable tension between the two of them. God knows Isagi would gladly welcome another kiss if he thought Rin might still be interested in that, but... He honestly doesn't even know if that's possible. Maybe Rin had just been impulsive in the heat of the night, or maybe the kiss had changed his mind about his feelings toward Isagi, and now this is the unfortunate reality of the aftermath.

Isagi still cares about Rin. Quite a lot, actually. He thinks about that stupid kiss all the time even if it only lingers as a single moment of fleeting passion sealed away in his memory.

"The painting with the car..." Isagi mumbles, "Was that... My car?"

"Yes," Rin replies, straightforward and without hesitation.

"From that night?"

"Yes."

"Okay. So... Can I ask why you decided to paint that?"

"I had to tell the damn psycho-whatever about you," Rin mumbles, deflecting Isagi's question.

"Psycho-whatever?" Isagi harps him bemusedly, though he decides that maybe being playful with Rin isn't the most prudent decision he can make right now, "Why did you tell them about me?"

"Well, because, you..."

Rin doesn't just seem to be hesitating, his train of though actually just seems to have stopped dead in its tracks while his previously unwavering eyes whip off in another direction entirely.

"You had to tell the psycho-whatever about me because you still think about that night." Isagi steps closer to Rin, challenging Rin's strict and self-imposed solitude with a position that's a bit too close for Rin's relative comfort. "There's no way you don't if you're making paintings about my car on that night, and... Fuck, I don't know..."

Right now, after basically spending the entirety of his evening on doing a massive favor for Rin, and realizing that he would keep doing these absurd favors for him because he does, unfortunately, deeply care for this jerk, Isagi wants more than what Rin usually gives him. He wants more than just dancing around difficult questions and awkward, avoidant eye-contact.

He wants to go directly for Rin's heart.

"I guess I should know better than to expect any sort of transparency from you. I'm just gonna say what I want to say, I honestly don't care if you have any objections." Isagi reaches out and lifts Rin's face up with one gentle touch on the chin so they're deadlocked into eye-contact.

"I care about you, Rin." Isagi does not waver nor do his eyes budge an inch from Rin's while he speaks. "I do ridiculous favors for you like running a whole ass art show for you in your brother's stead. I do it because I care, but it's frustrating as hell because I feel like you're still completely closed off from me. I don't know what to do." Isagi cups Rin's face in his hands. The tender touch of his fingertips on Rin's cheeks is a betrayal to the true feelings of frustration that are burning up in his heart. At this rate, if he has to suppress his feelings any longer, he thinks his heart may burn straight to ashes.

"Why do you even care?" Rin asks angrily, "It's not like I fucking asked for you to follow me around. Text me. Call me. Talk my ear off. That's all on you. What the hell do you even expect me to do?"

"Oh, I dunno," Isagi chuckles bitterly, "Maybe just make up your damned mind? You kissed me that night, not the other way around. What did you want me to think when you did that? Hey, buddies always kiss eachother on the lips. Acquaintances like to do that don't they? Oh, whatever, it's not a big deal. Kissing is totally not a big deal, especially not when it's with someone you maybe have feelings for. You piss me off."

While Isagi continues to hold Rin's head gently in his hands, the thought passes through his mind that he'd really like to crush Rin's skull between his palms right now. Rin glowers up at Isagi while an uncomfortable silence ensues.

"I might be the only person on this whole ass planet who actually understands you other than your brother. Let alone actually tolerate you. Could it be that you actually just prefer being alone?" The warm touch of Isagi's hands melts off Rin's cheeks as his arms return to his sides. From beneath the fringe of his bangs, striking azure eyes, like miniature globes of ocean water, remain fixed on Rin carefully. Isagi's emotional turmoil stirs within them like writhing ocean currents fraught with the winds of a vicious storm.

"If that's the case, then this is the last favor I ever do for you. I'm not wasting my time on someone who can't even be bothered to look my way."

Isagi snaps around, but he's surprised that he isn't even given an opportunity to try and leave because Rin grabs him by the wrist. When he looks back at Rin again, this time Rin is looking away like he always seems to do... To avoid this confrontation and strain placed against the perfectly built walls he's constructed around himself—the ones that Isagi has made him realize were never strong enough to withstand even the slightest pressure from an outside force to begin with.

"Can't even be bothered to look your way? God you're stupid. Or just thick-skulled, maybe both. How the hell can you even think that? Think that I haven't bothered to look your way this whole time, when realistically I've never even taken my eyes off of you since the moment you sat next to me in the charcoals studio. You must be blind, because I've had no other choice but to look at you. I can't look away. I'm not a fucking robot, Isagi. You just don't understand me as well as you think you do."

Isagi frowns deeply at this, but he doesn't move, nor does he attempt to wrench his arm out of Rin's grip.

"Just... Don't go," Rin asks, not really pleadingly but definitely not in a demanding way, either, "I'm going through a lot right now and it's just... Not easy to navigate through. Especially not alone."

Isagi sighs. "I can just call Sae, or—"

"No." Rin tugs on Isagi's wrist, and now he turns his gaze back up to Isagi to plead with his eyes.

"You're a selfish bastard," Isagi admonishes him.

"So are you," Rin claps back.

Despite a bit of banter with an unclear driving force behind it (doesn't seem to be hostility?), Isagi remains frozen in place. Possibly just considering what he does next.

He steps back to his earlier position, standing over the seated Rin, placing his hands on either side of Rin's head to cradle it in a position where he's forcing eye-contact. Now there's a different weight to the tension that remains between them, and it's painfully more obvious because the distance between their faces is even smaller than it had been earlier. That's when Isagi abandons any and all shame he may have previously felt, and decides to say something that even he did not expect he would say:

"If you don't want me to go... Then I want you to give me a good reason to stay."

Rin realizes that a large part of him is still confused by his feelings for Isagi, and he's only been living in a state of fear over that confusion. He's struggling with other things and doesn't know if he has the emotional capacity to deal with this right now... But really, has he ever not struggled? Has he ever even had any sort of emotional capacity to deal with something like this?

No, not really.

This is the reality of his life. It's been one massive, perpetual struggle with no end to it in sight. In starting to trial the medication the psychiatrist had prescribed for him, in beginning to speak with a psychologist for long-term mental health therapy, even in attempting to re-direct the painful way in which he chooses to paint... Rin is finally starting to fight back against the evil part of his mind. The one that wants him to die.

So... Why stop with just those things?

If there's goodness waiting for him in this future of his (future is not a word he'd ever pondered too much, because he never actually believed in something like that for himself)—maybe, just maybe, it can involve showing some of his wounds to another person outside of only Sae. Even if the thought of doing such a thing is probably the scariest thought Rin's ever had in his life.

He slowly swoops his hands to hold Isagi's waist, testing Isagi's reaction to this. Isagi does not seem to have much of a reaction aside from maybe mild surprise. Good. He's been wanting to do that for a long time now (pretty well since he'd checked out the criminally tiny waist during meditation). Proud of himself for finally doing something right now, he proceeds to bury his face into Isagi's stomach around where his navel would be.

Rin feels Isagi's abdominal muscles tightening with a lighthearted spurt of laughter. "I don't know what you're doing," Isagi says, "But I don't hate it."

Stay... Rin thinks as he breathes in through his nose, taking in the smell on Isagi's shirt. Probably his laundry detergent, maybe a bit of how Isagi smells, too. I know I'm confusing... I know I suck at being nice, I'm terrible at opening up to people, and I contradict myself all the time. I know none of this makes sense... I don't even know how to make sense of my feelings myself. Just please, Isagi...

"I don't have a good reason for you to stay..." Rin mutters, his voice muffled in Isagi's shirt. "Will you stay with me anyways?"

He really doesn't know what this is supposed to feel like for him, or if a part of him that's supposed to be human should just somehow naturally know. So while he's seemingly got Isagi's attention and even attempted to half-assedly convince him not to leave, with his face still buried comfortably in Isagi's midsection, he begins to think about what he can do to keep him here.

This is an aspect to life that Rin is unfamiliar with, because up until now, he's spent a large part of it barely scraping by. Living in a liminal existence of sorts, drawing his sorry excuse for a life out painfully, in any way he possibly can. It's been years since he's considered living in any way other than only merely existing on a moment-to-moment basis, which takes him back in time to a point in his life when life had felt a lot simpler than this... His childhood.

So he gets an idea, and while Isagi seems to not be moving to leave, he unburies his head to look at the television he has set up in the living room. He can't even remember the last time he would've used that thing. Isagi looks where he's looking, silently raising an eyebrow at the layer of dust sitting on the smoothness of the television screen's surface.

"That looks like it hasn't been used in a hot minute," Isagi points out.

"I might need to change the batteries in the remote controller and dust the screen off, but if I can do that, then..."

"You wanna watch TV with me?" Isagi sounds amused at the idea. Whether that's a good or a bad thing, Rin doesn't know.

"Maybe..." Rin mumbles, and he has to squint because Isagi apparently finds him funny and laughs at him for it.

It's not really a mocking laughter, and it doesn't make him uncomfortable. Hearing laughter has always been a peculiar thing for him, because he quite literally does not laugh himself. Like at all. But hearing Isagi's laughter brings a very specific, warm sort of feeling into his heart—a place where normally nothing else exists except an absolute zero of apathy.

Is this... How it feels to, as Isagi had said to him earlier, care about someone?

"Considering you've never expressed any interest in actually hanging out with me, I think this isn't a bad place to start. So, what should we watch?"

Rin, with his hands still planted on either side of Isagi's waist, looks up at him with a new emotion beginning to illuminate his irises. When his face isn't all bunched up and he doesn't look all angry or annoyed at literally nothing, he actually looks kind of... Cute.

"The Shining," Rin suggests.

"What's that? I've never heard of it."

"It's a western psychological horror movie about this author who slowly loses his mind."

"Horror?! Ah... I'm really not good with that sort of genre..."

Rin rubs the back of his neck sheepishly with one hand. "I can't really watch anything else. I always fall asleep when I try."

"O-Okay... I see... Well, I guess I could give it a try..."

Isagi is hesitant to say this, but this feels—however small it it is—like an honest attempt on Rin's part to open himself up. Even the tiniest bit.

Now that Isagi thinks about it, Rin has seemed a lot calmer and more present in their conversations this evening. He can probably credit that to the medications Rin is trialing right now.

"Isagi..." Rin whispers. They end up looking into eachother's eyes again.

"You... You matter to me."

The saffron light emitted by the incandescent bulb in Rin's kitchen flickers, as if to acknowledge the weight behind Rin's words. These words carry themselves into Isagi's heart, resting into a place that's already long since existed for Rin. A metaphorical spot that is soft and warm, filled with patience and understanding for this artist, this person, he's grown to care for so deeply.

*

A couple of months later.

Isagi's eyes scan poem after poem in his incomplete book while Rin sleeps next to him.

It's early morning. Isagi has found that Rin is not much of a morning person at all. Though it hasn't been for lack of him trying to help Rin see the beauty of waking up early—there's plenty of scientific evidence to show that waking up early is actually good for a person's mental health—Rin still hasn't quite gotten himself there yet.

And that's perfectly fine. While Isagi waits for Rin to wake up each morning, he normally busies himself with reading, scrolling social media, or anything else he can do to keep himself busy. This morning isn't exactly a cheerful one, because Isagi's taken to reading some of his old poetry and made himself feel especially bad.

His phone begins to ring. It's maybe only around eight in the morning, not exactly a time of day he would expect to receive a phone call. Although when he checks the name on call display, he smiles a knowing smile.

"Good morning," he answers the call.

"Good morning, Isagi-san." Anri returns his pleasantry. "I just wanted to check in on you and see how you've been doing lately. Has the situation with your writers' block improved since we last spoke about it?"

Isagi places what he'd been reading aside calmly. Anri has called him a few times to check up on him since he'd left the resort. Part of it is probably a personal interest, Isagi thinks, but a larger part of it is probably so she can see if her resort has consistent long-term therapeutic effects on her patients.

"Well... Unfortunately not," Isagi replies softly, "But I think I'm at a place now where it isn't weighing on me so much mentally. Poetry used to be my lifeblood. I guess now... I'm sort of at peace with my situation."

"I see," Anri replies calmly, "I'm sorry to hear that, Isagi-san. I do always wish the best for the artists who check into my resort. Although many do find it helps with creative frustration, it unfortunately does not remedy every single case of it."

"Of course, and I can't blame you for this. Even though it didn't help me with my writers' block, I do think it's benefitted me in many other ways. So I have to thank you and Vermillion Resort for that, at least."

"I'm very happy to hear that. And have you kept in touch with Itoshi-san?"

"Rin... Oh, yeah. We're in touch." Isagi glances across his pillow with a small grin forming on his lips to where he sees Rin, stirring in his sleep after spending the night at his place.

"And how has he been doing? He isn't very responsive to my calls or emails."

"Ah... Yeah, that does sound like him. I definitely think he's doing a great deal better. I think the resort has helped ease his creative issues immensely."

"Really?" Anri responds semi-surprisedly. "That's so wonderful to hear. I'm glad you two have formed a bond. I did worry for Itoshi-san's situation. In some cases like his, attending the resort is only the beginning of the journey the artist needs to make toward helping themself." Anri pauses momentarily between thoughts. "Thank you for taking my call this early in the morning. It's been a pleasure speaking with you, Isagi-san. I should say my farewells to you now since my day seems like it will be a busy one. Please take care of yourself."

"No problem. You take care as well."

After the call with Anri ends, Isagi puts his phone back onto the night stand. When he turns back over onto his side to face Rin, he seems to have woken up.

"Good morning!" Isagi beams.

Rin blinks at him sleepily. It's unusual to find him awake before ten in the morning. His expression speaks to an annoyance at having been woken up so early.

"Who was that?" Rin asks.

"Just Mrs. Anri from the resort. She wanted to check up on us and see how we're doing."

"Hmm..." Rin grunts as he sits up, Isagi's comforter falling off of his bare torso.

Isagi silently admires the sight of Rin's body while he can, eyes studying Rin's sculpted abdominal muscles before he pulls a sweater over his body to cover himself up.

Rin isn't self-conscious of his looks per-se... Well, not that Isagi can see. He's only seemingly self-conscious of the scars on his arms. Because of this, he tends to dress modestly. He always seems to cover himself up right away in the morning and stays that way all day. Even sometimes at night he goes to bed in a sweater and wakes up covered in sweat. Isagi wishes there's something he can do for Rin, but he knows this is an insecurity that Rin may never overcome.

Isagi reaches out one of his arms and places his hand on top of Rin's, prompting Rin to look down at him. Despite the inopportune time of day for him, Rin still doesn't look like he's in all that bad of a mood.

"Let's go to the beach," Isagi blurts out.

"The beach?" Rin frowns.

"I know how you feel about beaches and swimming and stuff, especially in public. But what if I said I want to take you to my favorite little swimming spot? It's tucked away pretty well and it's a bit of a hike to get there, so there's almost never anyone there."

Rin seems to ponder this briefly before he gives a little shrug of defeat. "Fine," he agrees, "But I'm bringing a beach umbrella."

"I'll even slather you in sunscreen if you want," Isagi says, getting to work dressing himself.

"Kay. Whatever. Why the beach though, and why today?"

"This beach specifically is actually the first place I ever wrote a poem about," Isagi responds, although he doesn't exactly sound happy to say it. "And, well... There's just something I think I want to do."

Isagi's reply only serves to confuse Rin even more, but he supposes he'll figure out what's going on with him later.

*

As promised, Rin sets up his beach umbrella and sits a ways away from the water. He's even brought himself a book to read while Isagi does whatever he wants to do out here.

Unexpectedly, though, Isagi doesn't seem to be going into the water to swim. Rin watches him steadily, mystified by the sight of Isagi's figure standing completely still, only up to about his knees in the water. Rather than jump into the water or splash around, he just keeps standing out there gazing into the distant horizon. Rin feels a bit bad seeing him stand out there by himself, so with a heavy sigh he places his book aside. He gets up off the towel he's set up atop the sand, rolls his pant legs up, and kicks his sandals off. When he's walking out to join Isagi, he takes note of something Isagi's holding in his hands, and that's when realizes it's a book. But not just any book...

"Isagi?" he calls out, "What are you doing with—"

Whoosh.

A strong gust of wind blows across the beach, and at the exact same time, Isagi throws his book open, scattering all of its pages that he's apparently ripped out into the wind.

Rin stops and stares with wide eyes. Perhaps hundreds of pages carrying Isagi's life's work of poetry swirl into the breeze, each sheet fluttering like butterflies that are struggling not to fall into the water. The wind either carries them further out into the distance, or a little bit closer to shore, but each and every page inevitably meets its doom when it lands to float and soak into the cold salt waves.

"... Isagi?" Rin calls out to him again, and this time Isagi turns around.

What Rin sees on his face is a contradiction, because he's smiling a broad smile, but a waterfall of tears are also coating his cheeks.

This... This scene. It burns itself into the back of Rin's mind. It's both beautiful and sad all at once, and he finds himself starting to cry just like Isagi is.

"I did it..." Isagi calls back to Rin, "I... I said goodbye."

Isagi's writer's block has not lifted so much an inch in recent months, the poems they'd written together at Vermillion Resort apparently being the last two Isagi would ever write.

The sight of Isagi crying, surrounded by pages of his once most beloved art form that have been unleashed into the wind, is a beautiful tragedy; and yet, however heartbreaking it is, Rin thinks he understands Isagi's decision to finally say goodbye to writing.

While Isagi may have once felt pleasure and enjoyment in writing, lately it hasn't been the case. Forcing himself to try and write something has only brought him an increasingly deep anguish. Watching Isagi struggle with his relationship with poetry has been one of the most difficult things Rin has ever had to do.

Isagi slowly walks out of the water, waves lapping against his ankles as he hits the dry shore. When he sees Rin crying, despite his own tears continuing to flow without stopping, he tries to smile wider.

"I'm at peace now. I can finally move on. Maybe I can become a painter, or a singer, or an architect... Maybe I just drop the creative stuff and go for a STEM career. No matter what I choose to do, I hope I can always count on you to stay by my side." Isagi takes Rin's hands into his own. His tears seem to be slowing down now and a certain serenity seems to be washing through him.

"Maybe I'll become a tattoo artist and design you two beautiful tattoos for your forearms."

Rin can't help when a soft, warm blush spreads into his cheeks. He pulls back the hem of one of his sleeves for a short momentary glance, then tugs it back over top of the scar.

"Tattoos..." Rin mumbles. He's never even thought of something like that.

"It's just a suggestion. I was just thinking of ways I can help you learn to love your body the way it is, but I don't want you to think you have to do something like that for me. I like your body just the way it is."

Rin's blush deepens.

Even though they've sort of started seeing eachother and testing the waters on taking their relationship beyond only friends, they haven't talked like this before. Isagi's been hesitant to say anything about Rin's appearance in general because he can see Rin's struggle, and Rin just doesn't bring it up.

"Tattoos..." Rin repeats. "That... Doesn't sound so bad."

"O-Oh... Really?! I mean it was just a suggestion, I don't want to pressure you or anything! I swear!"

Rin pinches one of Isagi's tear-soaked cheeks with his left hand, and takes Isagi's left hand with his right hand.

"Only if it's by you though," Rin finishes the conversation with this. They turn and walk hand-in-hand back toward the beach umbrella, with Isagi's last farewell to his poetry left behind as only a memory of pages fluttering in the wind, meeting their end in the cool waves of the ocean—at the very place Isagi's journey with poetry had began, so too has it now ended.

Isagi's smile, though sorrowful, seems content with his decision.

*

One year later.

Sae stands in front of one of his little brother's pieces of art.

This piece is so unlike something Rin would've once chosen to paint. It's a beautiful sunny beach with sapphire blue waters and a crystal blue sky dotted with clouds. In the centre of the piece stands a single person with their back facing away from the perspective of the artist, and around them there are small white things painted in the air space. Birds? No, not quite...

"What do you think?"

Sae turns around. His little brother steps over to his side, nonchalantly looking up at his painting as he waits for Sae's praise.

"It's different," Sae says, "I... I'm kinda speechless, to be honest."

Rin gestures with one hand. "I put a lot of effort into the atmosphere in this one. I wanted it to look beautiful and sad, to invoke—"

"Is that a tattoo?" Sae interrupts, staring at the sight of a bit of something black peeking out from the end of one of his sleeves. It's what Sae thinks looks like a fresh tattoo.

Rin's arm drops quickly and he tugs the end of the sleeve bashfully. "I don't need your approval," Rin grits through his teeth, suddenly seeming a bit on edge.

"Approval? I wasn't judging you or anything. It was just a question.

"Whatever..." Rin mumbles anxiously, "Can you finish up here? I've got something else I need to do tonight.

"Can you just wait a few minutes?" Sae stops him, and Rin shoots him a confused look.

"Wait for what?"

"I just... Have something. Just ten more minutes?"

"Fine... Whatever."

Rin seems to have agreed to stay, so Sae hurries off to close the art show while Rin hangs around, looking at his own paintings.

After a few minutes all the people seeming have left the show. Rin hears a bit of voices that sound like they're in another room. The door into the adjacent hallway opens and closes and Isagi appears.

Rin gives him a look of skepticism, having discerned that something is starting to feel off. Isagi just smiles at him reassuringly and loops their arms together.

"What's going on?" Rin asks, his tone guarded as Isagi leads him out the door and down the hallway, where Rin definitely does, indeed, hear voices.

"Don't freak out or anything, but... I'd made you a social media account a few months ago," Isagi begins, stopping outside of a door near the end of the hallway. "I've been using it to showcase all of your art, old and new style. Some people preferred the old, dark stuff and some people like your newer stuff. Some people love art in general and just love you no matter what you choose to paint. Anyway... I sort of thought that it might be nice for you to meet your fans. What do you say?"

Rin scowls so deeply it's almost a humorous sight.

This is so not happening right now.

"FANS?" Rin grumbles in disbelief, "There's absolutely no way I actually have those. And there's no way I'm going in there."

Rin's heart is beginning to race anxiously, but Isagi holds his arm steady. "You do have fans," Isagi says, "Quite a few of them, to be honest. Let's go meet them?"

"Hell no. They can be fans of my art all they want but I refuse to waste my time on actually meeting these NPCs."

"Are they really NPCs, though? Isn't art just a creative expression for you to use to communicate your pain and suffering? Don't you at least want them to see you once and finally get to connect these beautiful, thought-provoking pieces to someone's face?"

Rin mutters something inaudible. He realizes he's fighting a losing battle with Isagi, and how stubborn Isagi is, so... Yeah.

He guesses this will have to happen if he ever wants to hear the end of it.

So he lets Isagi take him into the room, his muscles tensing with anxiety as they walk into it arm-in-arm. He's stiff as a nervous board as Isagi leads him through a room full of people, up to the front of the room where there's a microphone standing by itself with Sae on one side.

Isagi taps the microphone a couple of times. "Good evening, everyone," he says into it, then repeats the greeting again to silence the room.

"Thank you all for coming out here tonight. Some of you have also attended Rin's art show tonight. Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart, for supporting him."

A short round of applause breaks out before Isagi looks at Rin and gestures for him to take the mic. Rin just stares at him.

"Come on, Rin... I know you can do it," Isagi leans over and whispers into his ear. "I believe in you."

Rin takes the mic when Isagi hands it to him and holds it up to his mouth. He doesn't know what he should say right now, but when he looks out at the actual crowd of people who've apparently come out to meet him... Man, he feels really, really... Different.

"-U-U-U-Uh..."

Apparently, Rin is not a public speaker at all whatsoever because all that manages to come out of his mouth in place of a small speech or a word of thanks is just... Some sounds that aren't really words. Just a jumble of so many different emotions that he doesn't quite know what to say.

"-This is too much for him..." Rin hears Sae whispering, probably to Isagi, and he definitely agrees that yeah this is way. Way. Too much for him.

Isagi seems to take the hint, so he takes the mic out of Rin's clammy hands. "And that's our artist for you. He's just a little shy. Let's get a round of applause for the man of the evening, everyone!"

Rin expects some haughty sarcasm or rude remarks, some pointing followed by mocking laughter at the utter fool he'd just made of himself, but instead...

Everyone in the room starts to clap. The applause starts off slow, but soon enough everyone in the room is smiling up at him. The people who'd been seated all get to their feet to join in, and soon enough, the room is filled with the chorus of wave after wave of applause.

Rin stands, his eyes wide and glistening like a fawn's might after being caught in a pair of LED headlights.

Never had he ever expected that people would appreciate his art this much. Part of being an artist is that a person needs to accept appreciation—and criticism, for that matter—from the outside world. Yet Rin had always thought that his fans would've been so few and far between that you could maybe count the number of them on one or two hands at most.

The idea that this room is full of people who've not only enjoyed his art, but liked it enough that they'd gone out of their way to come and meet him, even stand up and applaud his nervous stammering as if he'd just given a heartfelt speech at the Oscars... Well...

This makes Rin feel a bit emotional.

While the applause continues, he turns back. Both Sae and Isagi are also clapping for him with the crowd.

Isagi's smile is earnest, gentle, and full of support. Despite having suffered like Rin, having given up his own fight to continue poetry, Isagi continues to tackle each and every day head-on with commendable bravery and strength. Isagi has tried many other forms of art, including painting, photography, even tattoo artistry, and he maintains a positive outlook on his artistic future despite not fully knowing its direction.

Not long ago, if Rin had heard of this scenario being a highlight in his future—his future—a place he would never have thought he would have made it to before, he wouldn't have believed it. Now he almost feels... Proud of himself.

He actually made it. They made it.

He's actually looking forward to not only his future as an artist, but his future doesn't feel quite so grim with this new presence at his side. With Isagi by his side.

While the applause begins to slow, Rin is still staring at Isagi's smile... The only thing in the room that matters to him right now. Isagi mouths something to him that lights a hundred candles of hope to burn passionately inside of his heart.

They hadn't said it to eachother before, but Rin feels elated beyond measure that he's reading this come off of Isagi's lips now.

"I love you."