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Rin sighs heavily through his nose when he comes to a halt in front of the door to his brother’s house. He doesn’t want to ring the bell, doesn’t want to talk the bare minimum with Sae. He doesn’t want to step into his home, look at the abomination of pictures of him and his stupid alpha plastered on every wall, and doesn’t want to spend more time invading the place than he usually does. Which is preferably, but not realistically, none.
But he promised to watch his niece today while Sae’s away for the parents’ evening at Mei’s school tonight, only because Ryusei is away for a game and his brother couldn’t find anyone in time who would watch his daughter instead. Even if Sae said he was the first person he asked, there’s no way Rin believes that.
Sure, they are on better terms nowadays— they text more frequently, they sometimes even call. On some occasions, when everyone finds the time, Sae, Ryusei, Rin, and his omega Meguru will go out to eat in a fancy restaurant, and at other times, they will go and watch a movie together.
However, that doesn’t mean Rin forgot, let alone forgave his brother entirely. Over the years, the eagerness to surpass and beat Sae has died down a little, but it never went away completely. There are still days when his brother annoys him with his mere presence and his stupid bored expression, or days he’s driven up the wall by Sae and his weird antics again.
(Not that he’s any better— but at least he doesn’t go around thinking everyone is beneath him. Just almost everyone. There’s a difference, alright?)
Rin’s just about to ring the bell with another tired sigh when the door suddenly swings open.
“How long do you plan on just standing there?” Sae asks and raises a questioning eyebrow. Rin scowls at that, wants to snark back a remark, but his niece suddenly appears from behind his brother’s legs.
“Uncle Rin!” she exclaims excitedly, and at the sight of her and her bright, toothy grin, the words die on Rin’s tongue. Mei jumps up and down happily before she grabs him by the hand and drags him inside. “You’re here! I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again!” she giggles and swirls around, her little pigtails flying into her face, while Rin’s taking off his shoes. “I made a whoooole plan of what we can do!”
“She couldn’t sit still from the second I mentioned you’d be coming over today,” Sae comments, and a weird warmth spreads through Rin’s chest. He thinks he will probably never get used to the motherly way Sae speaks to his daughter— how soft his voice becomes, how relaxed and gentle his expression gets. Rin will probably never get used to the way Sae’s omega scent has sweetened more over the years, and he will probably never get used to the way his eyes start shining more often with a light Rin hasn’t seen since they were kids either.
His brother has always been somewhat good with children, even if he doesn’t look like it, but he’s taken care of Rin most of their childhood, too, so it shouldn’t be so surprising that he’s doing a somewhat good job as a mother. (Maybe, one day, Rin will be able to jump over his own shadow to admit that out loud.)
“I’ll get going now,” Sae’s voice pulls him back and Rin blinks, once, twice. He watches his brother crouch down and hug his daughter, giving her a loving forehead kiss and an adoring “I’ll see you later, sweetheart”, before standing back up and throwing Rin a smile. “Thanks for looking after her,” his brother tells him, forcing him into a small state of shock. Why are you thanking me? Since when is that a thing you do? Since when have you started smiling at me again?
Rin can’t even answer, maybe Sae didn’t expect him to, because his brother is already out the door when Rin snaps out of it again. Maybe, deep down, he knows he was exaggerating earlier. Rin doesn’t want to admit it but ever since Sae met Ryusei, ever since he found love and his future mate, something has begun to change in his brother again.
Whatever was bothering him seemed to slowly fade away, seemed to slowly be replaced by positivity. Rin would be lying if he said he wasn’t glad that Sae started doing better again. It was as if Sae finally found what he lacked, what he missed, and Rin would be the last person to hate that.
Because he loves his brother even if he drives him mad most of the time, and he knows, in theory, how much Sae loves him back, how much he trusts him, too. (Even though he knows neither of them communicates that properly.) Mei means everything to Sae, and his brother would be stupid to hire a nanny if Rin is right there. He just likes to be dramatic— because it does feel weird to be home alone in Sae and his mate’s house. Usually, Meguru would accompany him, but he’s out with friends today, and Rin didn’t have the heart to ask him to cancel his plans just because of his petty feelings.
“Uncle Rin! Uncle Rin!” his niece tugs on his jeans impatiently. Was he spacing out again? He looks down at her and finds her big, pink eyes staring right back. Goddammit, Sae didn’t even try— how come Mei doesn’t look like him at all but like this weird antenna freak of an alpha instead? Lukewarm, big brother, absolutely lukewarm.
”I wanna play something!” Mei demands and well, there’s no way Rin can resist such an adorable face. Even if it’s a carbon copy of Ryusei, his niece wears it better. “Come on!” she starts dragging him around again. “We can even start with soccer!” she laughs and hops. “I know you’re somewhat good at it!”
“Somewhat?!” Rin almost sounds offended. It hasn’t even been five minutes and his niece is already trying to ragebait him. Great. That happens when two of the most blunt assholes create a child. A devil offspring— quite literally!
Mei giggles mischievously. “Yeah!” she smirks and leads him outside into the backyard. There, a small goal stands at one end, and a soccer ball lies somewhere in the bushes, abandoned. They won’t be able to stay outside for long, the sun has already begun to set, but Rin swears they will make the most of it anyway.
His niece runs over to get the ball. She brings it over and places one of her tiny legs on top of it. “Here’s how we do it!” she starts loudly, and Rin hears one of the neighbors’ windows shut close. “First to shoot three goals wins!”
Rin feels a small smile creep on his face. With one foot and really little power, he kicks the ball out under Mei’s legs. “Hey!” she yells angrily, and Rin snickers at that. “That’s cheating, Uncle Rin!”
“You just said to shoot three goals,” he tells her, and is just about to shoot, very slowly, when his niece suddenly steals the ball back from him. “Where did you learn that?” he asks, impressed, when Mei starts giggling and makes her first goal.
“Mama showed me!” Mei tells him proudly. “He told me I can win against everyone with this trick!”
“Well,” Rin starts, tone nostalgic. It’s the same kind of trick Sae used on him back when he came back from Spain, declaring their shared dream to be over. “He’s not wrong. But—” Rin smirks and makes the next goal. 1:1. “—you’ll need more than a few tricks to beat me,”
“You’re on!” she declares, determined.
They both get into the game. They fight for life and death until it’s 2:2 and they’re both panting heavily. Rin didn’t think that losing on purpose could be this exhausting, but that’s on him for underestimating the daughter of two of Japan’s most successful soccer players.
“You’re an equal opponent!” Mei says and huffs. “You play well, Uncle Rin!”
“As well as your mother?” Rin can’t help but ask. He will take every chance he gets to compare his soccer skills to those of his brother, will take every chance to get the validation he was missing during his teenage years.
However, he forgot he’s talking to his brother’s daughter right now. The immediate “No.” his niece shoots back without any hint of hesitation leaves him so stunned, he lets her have the final goal without any further complications. Was he seriously just gagged by an eight-year-old? “Mama is the best!” Mei goes on— laughs around, screaming and giggling, jumping and hopping in circles around Rin, who can do nothing but blink at her antics. “And I’m the second best!”
“Am I at least in third place?” Rin smiles and picks up the dirty ball. “Third place for your favorite uncle?” He can’t believe how desperate he sounds, but this is important. Mei has standards, and because Rin loves her to death, too, he needs this for his own reassurance.
“Yes!” Mei nods firmly and Rin almost, almost, smiles again, but then she goes on, shattering everything, “Alongside Papa!”
“Oh, come on!” Rin protests. He can’t accept being in the same place as that demon alpha. He absolutely cannot. “But first in third place, right? If you had to write down the names, you’d write down mine first, right?”
“No.”
Rin huffs and crosses his arms. “If that’s the case, you’re not my favorite niece anymore,” he tells her, and she gasps.
“Uncle Rin!” Mei narrows her eyes. “I’m your only niece, but you’re not my only uncle! The only one who can lose at this debate is you,” she smirks, fully aware of the situation. “But we can still go on if you’d like!”
“Why are you talking like this? What the hell is your mother feeding you?” he mumbles, and his niece giggles; victorious not only in the game of soccer but in their little argument, too. Nonetheless, he feels another smile spread across his lips and reaches out to ruffle Mei’s hair playfully.
The moment reminds him of his childhood days with Sae. His brother was always brutally honest with him, too, never bothering to lie to him. But somehow, that made things easier. Rin has always had trouble reading between the lines of people’s behaviors and words, has always had trouble figuring out whether or not they were being sarcastic, nice, or rude.
Shaking the thoughts away again, Rin looks at his niece who’s still grinning at him. She may look like a carbon copy of Ryusei, act like that feral demon most of the time, too, but Rin knows she’s a lot more similar to his brother than she leads on.
Mei is caring and thorough. She’s stubborn and ambitious, and just as sassy and petty as Sae as well. If not worse. His niece never shies away from a challenge, and never stops until she reaches perfection in her eyes. She’s proud of herself, confident in the things she accomplishes. Mei also carries the same storm in her eyes— even if she has Ryusei’s features, the looks, the fierce eyes of his brother’s don’t go unnoticed by him. He wonders if Sae is even aware of it. Or if it’s just something Rin realized by having spent his entire childhood glued to his older brother’s side.
“We should get inside,” he says after he finished watching Mei’s victory dance. “It’s getting dark and we should probably start making dinner,”
“Yes!” Mei agrees enthusiastically and kicks the old soccer ball away, back into the bushes where it was originally located earlier. “I’m starving!” she goes on and takes her uncle by the hand, dragging him back inside. “Winning has cost me sooooo much energy!”
“Now you’re just rubbing it in,” Rin comments, and Mei sticks out her tongue at that.
“Uncle Rin,” Mei begins and leans over his shoulder. She’s standing on the chair on tiptoes so she can attentively watch her uncle cut the vegetables into pieces, making sure he does everything correctly. “You’re cutting the bell pepper all wrong!” And apparently, he’s horribly failing already.
“I’m not!” Rin still defends himself.
“You are!” Mei retorts and points to the cutting board. “Mama always cuts the stem right off!” his niece goes on, and Rin huffs. “And then he cuts it in half to remove the inside more easily!”
“Well, I’m doing it this way though,” he returns. “And besides, have you ever considered that your mother may not be right in everything he does?”
Rin swallows dryly when Mei suddenly throws him a look. The deadpanned expression screams Are you serious? and, yeah, Rin doesn’t know who he was trying to fool with such a question either.
“But what about you, huh, princess Mei?” Rin goes on as he pushes the bell pepper pieces from the cutting board into an extra bowl. His niece giggles at the nickname, probably noting it down somewhere in her chaotic mind to make Rin keep calling her that later. He turns his head towards her, and she blinks back with her wide, innocent eyes. (It’s still crazy how little she resembles Sae. No, he will never let his brother live this down.) “How about you pick up a knife and help me instead of just stealing food pieces every time you think I’m not looking?”
Mei freezes like a deer in headlights, and Rin bites back a smile. Her hand, already on the way to the bowl full of vegetables, is pulled back faster than she realizes. “Mama says I’m not allowed to use the sharp kitchen knives yet!” Mei shoots back, trying to sneakily change the subject, and crosses her tiny arms in front of her chest with a pout.
“Then, at least wash them if you can’t cut them.”
“No!” Mei turns her head away, her little pigtails swinging along. “I will tell Mama you wanted me to use a knife unsupervised!”
And now, it’s Rin’s turn to freeze momentarily, the carrot in his hands almost slipping out of his grasp. “You wouldn’t dare to rat me out like this,” he challenges with his best set of puppy eyes. However, Rin should’ve figured those wouldn’t work on his niece; daughter of one stubborn omega and one blunt alpha. A hellish combination.
Mei grins at him devilishly, something she clearly inherited from this antenna freak demon, and then cheers happily when Rin offers her a piece of bell pepper. Call it blackmail or truce, it works and that’s all that matters to Rin.
“Papa loves stealing food,” Mei then tells him, and Rin isn’t surprised in the slightest.
“Of course, he does,” he scoffs, making his niece laugh once more as she reaches for another cut piece of vegetable, this time it’s the carrot Rin’s currently cutting. She shoves it in her mouth quickly before Rin can scold her again. “You’re just like your father then,” Rin goes on. “Not helping but snacking to your heart’s content.”
“I’m not banned from the kitchen though!” Mei retorts, proudly. Rin lets another small smile creep on his face. “Mama still trusts me enough not to burn down the kitchen.”
“At least something?” Rin suggests, and then, they both giggle. “Here,” he goes on and hands his niece the bowl of cut vegetables. “You can pour them all in the pan,” he says. His niece cheers happily at that, overjoyed that she’s allowed to help, after all.
The scene reminds Rin of the days he spent alone with Sae during their childhood. With their parents often working late, they both had to pick up cooking simple meals at some point. While Rin used to be less excited about all the extra work, Sae still seemed to enjoy it.
And what Sae enjoyed, Rin came to love as well.
He smiles as the nostalgia washes over him. He remembers the warm and comfortable atmosphere, the savory smell of curry in the air. He remembers the two of them sitting at their old dining table, side by side, talking quietly in the small kitchen. Rin remembers the giggles and smiles, the happiness when Sae sat him down on the couch after dinner to watch a soccer match with him.
Even to this day, curry remains one of his favorite foods. He could never bring himself to hate it, not when he links so many good memories of his childhood and Sae with it.
He will treasure them forever. (He wonders if Sae remembers those days as fondly as he does.)
“You’re good at cooking!” Mei suddenly tells him, bringing him back to the present. He eyes his niece with soft eyes, and she returns it with a smile.
She is such a bundle of joy, so full of happiness and whimsy. No matter how much Rin acts like he’s bothered by her, he will always love her to death. That’s his niece— sometimes, he still can’t believe it. Mei lights up every room, shining so warmly, it’s impossible not to have your heart melted by it.
Rin switches off the rice cooker and mumbles a Thank you when Mei hands him two empty plates.
When he thinks about it, Mei has given Sae something only a child ever could. Rin knows how much she means to him, knows how much his brother loves her. Both of her parents adore her unconditionally, as much as it hurts Rin to admit that, but the bond she and Sae have is special.
Rin knows about the worries his brother had before giving birth, too. He was scared to become a mother— of the responsibilities and obstacles that came with it. Which is why it involuntarily fills his heart with joy whenever he gets to see Sae smiling around Mei. Rin didn’t think it was possible, but perhaps, Sae’s happiness just wasn’t meant to primarily lie in soccer.
Rin bites his lips. Is this the reason it felt impossible to catch up to you, stupid big brother?
Perhaps, one day, Rin will be ready to thank his niece for unintentionally bringing his brother back. The big brother Rin used to look up to, the big brother he trusted with everything. The big brother who wasn’t too numb and stubborn to show affection in his own, weird way.
“Curry! Curry!” his niece starts chanting as she leads the way to the living room. The TV is already running, the channel already switched to the sports one. Soccer is on, and relief rushes through Rin’s system. (He’s still traumatized from that cartoon horse show his niece made him watch last time. Rin doesn’t think he’d survive it twice.)
“Tastes good!” Mei tells him, content.
“But not better than Mama’s,” they both say at the same time, and his niece gapes at him. “You’re so predictable,” Rin smirks down at her before flicking her forehead. She protests with a whine, making Rin widen his smile.
“The last time I was allowed to eat dinner in the living room was during one of your games, Uncle Rin!” Mei suddenly tells him out of nowhere after a few minutes of silently watching TV.
Rin almost chokes on his food, coughing uglily into his hand. “What?” he asks. “I didn’t know you were such a fan,” he nudges his niece’s arm with his elbow gently, and Mei giggles, throwing him a toothy grin. “I will give you an autograph later.”
“Mama makes everyone watch your games,” Mei explains, and this time, Rin does choke. “And Papa always joins without complaints, too!” He watches his niece shove a big spoon of curry in her mouth. “They’re always cheering for you!” she tells him with a full mouth, and Rin automatically picks up a napkin to clean her chin when drops of curry and rice stick to it.
“A cute little prank you’re playing on me here,” Rin tries to play it off, but Mei only huffs, offended.
“I’m not lying!” she insists, and Rin believes her. A longing feeling makes his chest feel tighter, his heartbeat picking up. “Mama is always so happy when you score! Papa is louder, but Mama is prouder.”
Rin looks at the TV and then down at his half-eaten curry.
“We watch alllll of your games!” Mei cheers. “That time you kicked Bastard München’s ass was my favorite!” she giggles. “I’ve rarely seen Mama so happy either.”
Rin wants her to stop talking, and at the same time, he wants her to repeat it a thousand times more. Sae is proud of him. Sae is proud of him? For years, Rin has fought for his brother’s recognition, has trained to surpass him one day, too, and now, on a random weekday his niece drops this bomb as if it were nothing. As if hearing this didn’t mean the world to him.
It’s so touching, so infuriating— Rin wants to cry.
“Uncle Rin,” Mei starts.
“Yeah?” he answers, voice quiet and raspy.
“Mama loves you lots!” his niece tells him, and the first thing Rin wants to do is deny it. The next thing he wants to do is get up and walk out of this house and never come back ever again. He looks at his niece who smiles at him, this time completely oblivious to the inner turmoil she’s caused within him. “And I love you thiiiis much!” she spreads her arms to prove her point. “Papa loves you, too. I think.”
Rin finally snorts. “Eat up, slowpoke,” he tells her fondly. “Or I won’t play board games with you.”
“Noooo!” Mei whines. “You’re supposed to say it back!” she huffs impatiently and whines once more when Rin ruffles her hair. Mei is an exact replica of Ryusei— again, his brother didn’t even try— and acts and behaves just like her parents. But maybe, she and Rin aren’t so different either.
“Love you, too, troublemaker.”
“I’m back,” Sae calls out in the silent house, “Sorry, this took way longer than I anticipated.” His voice is tired, exhausted from the parents' evening. When he doesn’t get an answer, neither in the form of a dissatisfied growl from Rin nor an energetic scream from his daughter, he raises an eyebrow.
Silence in this house is something that just doesn’t happen. Ever.
“Hello?” he asks no one in particular, and when he finally rounds the corner to the living room, his eyes soften at the sight he’s met with. Both Rin and Mei are fast asleep on the couch, lying on top of each other with drool running down their chins. His daughter’s dolls, board games, and ungodly amount of plushies scattered all around them; Sae sighs. He will have to clean that all up, but he doesn’t mind, not when his little brother and his sweet angel are looking so adorable right now. “Looks like you two had a good time,” he whispers fondly.
(He snaps a few pictures and sends them to his alpha.)
He smiles and steps closer, draping a blanket over them carefully. He doesn’t have the heart to wake them up, and the last time he sent Uncle Rin away without telling Mei, his daughter threw a crying fit.
Sae brushes loose curls out of both of their faces before quietly starting to clean up.
Perhaps he should prepare some tea for later, Rin would probably like some, too.