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Rin likes the cold.
It’s kind of complicated.
Snow still pisses him off when it doesn't melt fast enough. And he actually really hates the hassle of extra layers. Warm-ups suck, too, and his muscles usually ache afterwards in a way they don’t in the humid seasons. He hates all of these factors equally. Objectively.
(Rin knows he might just be the type to be discontent with everything, always a step away from being satiated. Maybe some part of him likes it like that. It’s not worth thinking about.)
Despite its obvious faults, Rin somehow finds himself looking happily on the first leaves of fall every year. It’s weird. There’s a strange comfort in the knowledge that the summer heat is drawing to a close. Something about the chill, maybe, the brisk walk to practice or the grocery store that makes his cheeks flush.
Whatever the reason, cold makes him feel present. Mindful.
And so winter is perfectly fine most times. Tolerable, which is often as kind as Itoshi Rin gets about irrelevant desires like weather.
Finding himself outside after midnight on a late February night is a bit much though, even for him. So much, honestly, that he considers actually missing the shitty heat for a moment too long. Thin slivers of skin not covered by scarf or shoved in his coat pockets seem to burn, sending his senses alight in a way that borders on painful. Should’ve brought gloves.
Rin had not expected to need gloves - or a scarf, or anything, really, because he got dropped off at the door tonight and was planning on leaving an hour into the whole event anyway. An event he hadn’t even wanted to attend, but certain circumstances (certain people, but Rin did not want to admit that, even to himself) had forced his hand. It was supposed to be quick.
And yet here he was.
Thinking about this alternate reality does nothing to actually ease his anger however and so Rin has no choice but to sit with it – and try to ignore the chill seeping into his jeans as the darkness deepens, eyes starting to adjust after spending far too long inside the dimly lit bar across the street.
Distantly, he hears laughter from his teammates, his friends. Probably ordering another round.
When the wind picks up again for what feels like the millionth time in the past few minutes, Rin abruptly decides he would rather be back in the bar – which is really saying something because the thought of dealing with Shidou again makes him nauseous. The bar, a cab, a beach in the middle of July, anywhere else, really. Just not here.
But Rin stands firm, arms crossed firmly across his chest. He doesn’t even consider a world where he might actually leave.
Because unfortunately Itoshi Rin only has two ways of being - one which is unbothered and the other is very deeply bothered, and the thought of Isagi Yoichi wandering away to God-knows-where by himself tonight has somehow set Rin firmly in the second category when he noticed him sneaking out the back door and so he followed.
And now he’s here.
“I’m not helping you if you throw up.” Rin makes sure to clarify, just in case Isagi somehow got the wrong idea when he sat down a few feet away.
Isagi nods from where he’s splayed himself out on the parking lot floor, nothing sharp or precise about the gesture, disjointed. His phone nearly falls slides out of his hoodie pocket as he does, and whatever’s left of his reflexes kick in through the haze just quick enough to catch it. Soft hands absentmindedly pick at the screen.
“You followed me.” Isagi observes - like that has anything to do with Rin’s desire to push his rival’s bangs back while he pukes into a bush, or something equally as domestic.
Rin doesn't even consider his response. He rarely does with him. Rin is not built for those sorts of things, and Isagi knows that, and so he speaks.
“Beating your ass wouldn't be worth it if you were running on a broken leg.” He scoffs, shoving his hands deeper in his pockets. “Or whatever other stupid bullshit you might get into unattended.”
“Right.” Isagi hums in quick reply, eyes still glued on his own palms. More callused than Rin’s, surprisingly.
What a child. In his eternal benevolence, Rin keeps this particular thought to himself. It wouldn't help.
Besides, there’s something unfortunately and undeniably charming about Yoichi Isagi drunk.
Dulled senses make him pliant in a way that’s entirely different from his ability to mold himself on the field. There’s a certain ease to his gestures here, his laugh coming out without a flush or nervous glance. It makes Rin wonder how much of Isagi is real. Sure, there are a million different versions of the man in front of him – constantly evolving. But this one feels better somehow.
Rin dislikes it on principle.
Isagi should be - well, he should be annoying. Overconfident. An asshole. It would make everything so much easier, and Rin is normally fine with a challenge but challenges of the social-emotional kind are ones he is, admittedly, unprepared for.
Not that he’s really cared about any of that up until now. But Isagi has an infuriating way of making Rin care about things he hasn’t considered before – and not just care, but want to do something about it. Interest in things outside of the pitch are, frankly, a waste of time, but Isagi and football are so entwined in most parts of Rin’s mind that it gets his wires all tangled and makes him consider things like softening his fucking tone or make Isagi want to be around him.
And then Rin finds himself in stupid places like this. With him.
It’s pathetic. He’s aware.
Tonight shouldn’t be any different. Rin has spent time alone with Isagi before. A lot, actually. Sitting here together in the cold shouldn’t mean anything. And maybe it’s something about the pretext of honesty that has seemed to drip off Isagi since he took his first sip a few hours ago, or the way his body had brushed against Rin’s when he stumbled over the sidewalk, or something Rin has yet to identify in his chest, but it is different. It is, and he hates it.
Luckily, it seems Rin’s words from earlier connect with his rival a few moments later than they should because suddenly Isagi turns – which is a great distraction from Rin’s horrifying train of thought and so he latches onto the sight. From where he’d been prior idly playing with his phone case, Isagi seems to have moved on to messing with the ground underneath them, humming to himself.
He’s always been weirdly tactile.
“You don't like me.” Isagi smiles, a full grin with teeth, like saying it somehow makes it funny instead of something that should be horribly, tragically sad.
Small puffs of air thicken. It might snow soon. Rin considers liking Isagi.
“Not particularly.” Rin agrees, watching with rapt interest as his companion’s slender fingers dance across the concrete towards him now, phone all but forgotten. Like it’s responding to the sound of his voice.
Rin does not know how to process this lack of verbal response and so he bites. “It’s been that way for years. You’re just realizing it now?”
Isagi hums. “Sure. I guess.”
He doesn't seem as bothered by it as he normally does - he’s still smiling, what the hell - and Rin wonders if Isagi snuck in a few more shots while Rin was turned around looking for his coat.
Idiot.
From what the youngest Itoshi recalls (again, not that it’s worth remembering or anything), Isagi isn't partial to hard liquor. It makes him nauseous. And he’s a lightweight. But Isagi was in good spirits tonight, and so was Bachira, which is a nasty combo when tequila is involved and so it didn't take long for Rin to make note of the body pressing warm against his shoulder, closer than either allows touch at the best of times.
When those same fingertips brush against the wool of Rin’s coat here instead of the bar, they drag away with a muffled giggle, tracing shapes into gravel instead.
Rin can't parse out the meaning.
“I don't like anybody.” Rin confesses dryly instead of thinking too hard about it, eyes following the trail of Isagi’s pointer. Seeing him silent is quickly becoming unnerving. “If that helps.”
At this, Isagi abandons his drawing, turning on his side to watch Rin a bit closer as he speaks. Cheek scrapes against harsh ground as he moves, clearly too out of it to notice. His skin is pink, and Rin scowls, dragging Isagi closer by his hood and shoving the thicker fabric under his companion's head before he can consider anything but the impulse.
“Helps with what?” Isagi asks, wide eyes blinking up at his companion. He doesn't even seem phased by the touch.
It would be a hassle to clean up bits of rock and blood from his skin, Rin tells himself. He pulls the fabric tighter, hoping the cold stings. Just a bit.
“Just if it helps. That's all I said, dumbass.” Rin repeats sharply - and he really doesn't like repeating things, especially when they're nice, but Isagi is drunk and genuinely curious so whatever. Still annoying, so he makes sure to add something at the end to warn against doing it again. “Don't think about it too hard, you’ll lose what's left of your few brain cells.”
Silently, Isagi seems to consider this. This close, hidden under the shadow of liquor and night, Rin has the pleasure of cataloging all of Isagi’s small expressions. His mind really is interesting - even if Rin would sooner die before admitting that out loud. Still, it doesn’t hurt to watch, now that it’s just them.
That crinkle in his nose when he’s concentrating. That mole right below his left ear. Even the small discoloring from a healing bruise, just off center from the ridge of his brow, hidden behind his bangs. They’re all - well, there’s not anything special about them. They’re just a part of Isagi, and therefore Rin is interested. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.
“Well, maybe it doesn't help.” The older grumbles, brow pinching in that way it normally does when he’s waiting before going out on the field. Here, it’s almost childish. “Maybe I'm still sad about it. Asshole.”
One of the trees lining the parking lot shifts in the late winter breeze, casting flickings of shadows across Isagi’s face, like it’s trying to conceal itself from Rin. The shitty lighting should wash him out, make him look undead, but Isagi looks alive here in an entirely different way that Rin can't place.
Rin scoffs, setting his stare on the sky instead. There will be other times to observe. “Don't be so dramatic. You have a million friends. You'll live.”
It’s not meant as any sort of compliment. God forbid. It’s just a fact, and Rin deals in facts perfectly well despite outside opinions.
Isagi is drunk. Isagi has friends. Isagi is moving closer to me.
“Huh?” The older jolts up, halfway to getting wrinkles before thirty because his face is infuriatingly expressive tonight. “No I don't?”
Rin has never taken Isagi for a liar. This is new.
“I have, like, a normal amount of friends.” He elaborates. “Maybe even less than that.”
Honestly, some things are too ridiculous for even Rin to tolerate in his apparent benevolence tonight.
“...You’re an idiot.”
“I'm serious! I'm not good with people.” He pushes, hands gesturing around like he can pull the right words from air. “I get, like, nervous.”
This is an entirely new concept to Rin. Sure, Isagi is pretty different off the field. Quiter. But the idea of him sincerely thinking he’s bad at talking to people when half of Blue Lock used to be in love with him is frankly ridiculous. It’s also something he would never admit sober, so Rin considers his answer.
Noting the silence Isagi’s gaze flickers to his companion, rapidly assessing something before he adds: “Which is totally normal, by the way. And I’m still better than you are. By a lot.”
Any grand observation Rin was going to make about Isagi’s utter lack of self-awareness pauses.
“Why the hell are you saying it like I'd make fun of you for it?” He scowls, knowing the answer as soon as he speaks.
“Because you would!”
While that is objectively true, the easy way Isagi says it rubs Rin the wrong way. He’s never given much thought to other people’s perception of him - really, who gives a shit when his results more than speak for themselves - but this assessment, given between puffs of warm breath, makes his nose crinkle.
“Huh? What kind of asshole do you take me for?”
They’ve had iterations of this discussion before. Too many times to count. Somehow, the argument feels more comfortable than anything else tonight, and Rin indulges in the sensation despite the pit heavy in his stomach.
Isagi levels him with what is clearly meant to be his best attempt at a sober glare. Rin breathes a sigh of relief.
Isn't it ridiculous? That Isagi could know him – know those parts of him, the mean ones, the ones that want nothing more than to crush Isagi under his heel and revel in it. Even if those pieces have evolved since that met on the pitch, shifted into something that walks alongside him. Isagi knows all this. Rin knows he’s easy to read.
And yet he’s still here. They both are.
Rin huffs. He suddenly really hates this conversation. What it means. Pulling himself up is easy with the burning of his cheeks cooling in the night air, hot motivation to get far away from Isagi’s prying stare.
“Alright. Get up.” He snaps, taking a minute before turning around fully.
“I’m tired of waiting for you to sober up out here. I'm calling us a damn cab.”
Isagi shuffles on the ground, looking up at Rin with something dull before sighing, nose scrunched. Like Rin has somehow disappointed him, or upset him - which is insane because Rin has been unnaturally cordial since he followed him out here by his own metrics, and besides, offering a ride home with him is far nicer than Isagi deserves, and really –
“I think I'm fine here.” Isagi says.
He accents the comment by turning and pillowing his head on his arm, and now Rin can only see the lines of muscle tensing under fabric, broad back and the measured rise and fall of breath.
A thumb hovers over where he’d just placed an Uber.
“On the ground.” Rin clarifies, trying to keep his cool. Waiting the five minutes (he checks the confirmation number three times to be sure) for their ride suddenly feels far too long.
The subsequent reply is muffled with Isagi facing away. “Uh huh.”
Rin’s eyebrow twitches. “Drunk.”
“I'm almost sober. I'll sleep it off.”
Isagi Yoichi is logical. Practical. Sometimes even something close to smart, if Rin is feeling particularly generous with his descriptors. Sure, he has his moments. Mostly with Rin. Mostly because of Rin.
But on the whole, Rin can trust Isagi to be, at the very least, able to listen to reason.
Does he really think Rin would let him sleep on the street tonight? Is that truly his logical conclusion, under the influence of alcohol that makes his mind and body honest? That’s his real opinion of his fated rival?
Normally, they’d both be in bed by now, ready to wake up and pass each other on their morning jog with nothing but a vague nod on Rin's end and a polite wave on Isagi’s. Normally, his offer at calling a cab would have been met with grumbling and scowling, but it would have been easy.
Nothing is normal tonight. Rin can’t place why, and somehow, that makes him even angrier.
“Okay, now you’re actually pissing me off.” He says, and leans down and grapples for the base of Isagi’s hood, crafting some vague plan to scruff him like a cat and drag him home as he does.
Rin's strong. He could do it. Maybe. If Isagi doesn’t put up too much of a fight.
Fingers grip fabric, and despite the cold, Isagi is still terribly warm. Rin almost jolts away like he’s been burnt.
Luckily he doesn't because the older man immediately scrambles, pulling away as well as he can while halfway pinned to the floor and scratching at Rin’s arms.
“Jesus! The hell is your problem -”
Ah, there’s his grumpy rival. He thought he’d lost him somewhere between entering the bar and laying out in the dirt. He clutches him tighter.
Rin heaves. “You're an idiot, that’s my problem.”
“It shouldn't be!”
Isagi is relatively predictable. It's why Rin can always find him on the field, can plan his next move around it. It's why he’s the only one that can come to the top with him, the only one that would even try in a way that matters.
Because Isagi is one of the very few things in life aside from playing that makes sense to Rin, even when he doesn't. Because Rin acts off instinct and something about Isagi feels right and easy in that part of his chest that controls his life on the pitch, and Rin trusts that feeling farther than anything else, every time.
Maybe it’s not Isagi that’s the predictable one.
The older boy shuffles to his knees, somehow wrenching out of Rin’s iron grip enough to stand. He wobbles for a second like a newborn fawn – which is an disgustingly endearing sight.
“Alright.” Isagi says, seemingly to himself as he steadies. Like he’s been playing nice all along, coddling a feral street cat. “I’m tired of waiting.”
And, like he’s somehow read Rin’s mind and is determined to prove his theory correct, bunches his hands into Rin’s jacket and pulls.
The momentum is off, gone somewhere along with his sobriety and so they nearly touch and Rin has to overcompensate so they don't fall, hands tight on Isagi’s waist to keep them upright. Their noses nearly brush. Rin can smell the alcohol on his breath.
He leans closer. Just so they keep their balance.
“You’re being evasive. Tell me you like me, or fuck off.” Isagi heaves, clearly trying to keep his voice level. This close, he barely needs to whisper. “I know you do.” Rin’s entire face heats up. Whatever vitriol he’d expected Isagi to spit, this was decidedly not it.
Rin has never let things like rationality or logic dictate getting the things he wants – and he wants this crush to stay between him and the pillow he considers screaming into at night after every match where Isagi scowls at him across the pitch. Badly.
He wants it more than he wants Isagi. Really, this is because he already has Isagi, just in a more unlabeled, but equally possessive kind of way. So it doesn’t really matter. Isagi is already his.
There's nothing to be gained from letting the more - ew - sentimental versions of those feelings come to light. But it seems it’s far too late for that.
Noting the uneven breathing into the silence, Rin considers that Isagi is actually serious. That he expects an actual fucking response. Wants Rin to pluck some stupid title out of the nebulous, tangled mess of their relationship and present it to him here. Now.
It would be so easy to end this conversation. Really, Rin already has a million responses on the tip of his tongue, starting with ‘you don't know anything about me’ and ending with ‘block my number’.
“Liking someone is childish.” He hisses instead. “Boring.”
It’s not enough.
Whatever he feels for Isagi Yoichi can’t be the same word that kindergartners use to confess to their playground crush. He won’t allow it, even if that’s what Isagi so clearly wants.
Somehow, the idea of the request being some secret wish of Isagi’s, something he waits for patiently while sober - and Isagi is not patient with his wants, which Rin respects and despises in equal measure - makes his heart do something weird. Something he considers ripping out before it can take root.
“I like coffee because it keeps me awake. I like drawing because it’s easy. I even like those shitty low-budget movies you make fun of me for.” He breathes, voice venomous. “I like those things, but I could live without them. Could play without them. So no, I don't just like you. That's stupid.”
Then, deciding he’s completely and utterly humiliated, adds on: “And stop saying I do. Dumbass.”
It’s possibly more on the subject than Rin has ever said in his twenty-something years of life combined. He's never really spoken that much period, but Isagi is barely listening, and probably won't remember it in the morning and dammit it feels kind of good to get off his chest.
The kind of good that leaves all the emotions welling up inside him receding like crashing waves, leaving him with nothing but a grip on Isagi’s shirt and his name on his lips.
They might have stood there for God-knows how long, that darker blue boring into his gaze, if Rin’s phone didn't ring, muffled in his pocket.
“Yea. That sounds different than liking.” Isagi observes through a haze, with all of his usual eloquence. “Can you say it again? How you more-than-like me?”
Some final stuffed-out ember of frustration burns to life, just enough to make him jolt.
Rin balks. “No? I’m not confessing to you drunk. Or at all, what the fuck? You’re such a -”
Taking a deep, deep breath through his nose, he reminds himself that he's here of his own volition. His crush is definitely not, but now that he’s already in it, he might as well see it to the bitter end with the remaining scraps of his dignity.
“Our ride is here.” He starts. “You - You’re getting in. You're going to my place, because I don't trust you not to choke on your own vomit like an idiot if left alone. You’re going to sleep. You're going to shut the hell up.”
Isagi makes some sort of noise, but Rin pays it no mind. He already has a mission.
“You're not going to complain when you wake up hungover either, because I don't give a shit.” He adds, thumbing his phone to avoid making eye contact.
Suddenly there’s a sigh. A shuffle. And then all of Isagi’s weight thuds against Rin’s back. Rin wishes, not for the last time, that he’d worn a scarf. Or a few more layers. Something to separate the contact before he combusts.
This isn't the first time Rin has held Isagi, pulling half his weight on the taller boy and grumbling into his shoulder. This is the first time he’s grabbed his hand while doing it though. It’s just practical.
After all, Rin argues, the car parked somewhere down the street. And he came out here to avoid his rival getting a career-ending injury before Rin can end his career personally. He’s not the type to go back on his goals when they get uncomfortable, and so he hefts a bit more of Isagi’s weight against his side. He presses him onto the other side of the sidewalk.
Rin does not consider himself lucky. Or divinely blessed. Especially when it comes to Isagi, and so Rin assumes that, despite all logic, Isagi will remember this tomorrow. All of it.
He’ll probably bring it up just to piss him off. Or maybe for other reasons, but Rin decides he really doesn't have the capacity to unpack that in the cold, with Isagi still on him. Maybe he doesn’t need to.
Grasping that warmth in his, that temporary warmth he decides he doesn’t hate, he drags the older boy towards home, murmuring to himself. “And you’re going to remember that in the end, this is all your own damn fault.”