Chapter Text

It’s moments during a test or exam when Isagi takes a second to sit back, look around, and get lost in his thoughts. Maybe it’s to avoid completing the grueling task at hand, but there’s also something about seeing variables, numbers, and letters that spell “cos” on his paper that twists his stomach uncomfortably. It washes away any desire left to complete the test, so, instead, he likes to have a little existential crisis about what the hell he’s going to do with his life . Then at the last ten minutes, he desperately scribbles on his test like a madman and turns in sloppy work. It’s the effort that counts , he thinks in his head, and to break out of that terrible habit of his, he reluctantly picks up his pencil that was issued by his teacher—to prevent cheating they say, but no one would bother in this school—and gets to work on the fifth question.

Isagi mentally pats himself on the back for getting through four questions until he discovers he’s only completed a fifth of the test. He glances at the clock to see he only has twenty minutes left to complete the rest. That’s a little over a minute for each remaining problem, and the thought of that almost sends him throwing his pencil and test sheet across the room. He berates himself moments later. 

It doesn't help that the clicking of the clock starts to make his heart speed up, becoming overly aware of every little sound that’s made in the class. The classmate that’s sitting next to him who breathes a decibel too loud for Isagi to focus, the tapping of another’s pen two rows and one column away from him clicking in his head. The rustling of paper behind him as he realizes someone has probably moved onto the next page and he’s still on the first, the clacking of the teacher’s dress shoes as he walks around on the waxed wooden floors at an uneven rhythm that will drive Isagi insane soon.

He's not sure why he’s like this. He’s not sure what has gotten into him either—he was perfectly fine a year ago when he’d first joined Blue Lock Academy.

He vividly remembers his first impression of the school; it was terrifying, and he almost pissed his pants at the sight of the buildings on the first day, intimated by the buildings that paid homage to victorian era architecture,—incredibly pretentious of Ego, but fitting—towering over him. He was equally astonished at the sight, from the designs of the many, large buildings to the gorgeous greenery that surrounded the school. He often wonders how much it cost to build the entire establishment. Considering the campus housed lavish education facilities, student stores, and well furnished dorms, which in total, likely cost more than Isagi would ever make in a lifetime.

It was also oddly isolated from the rest of civilization—the nearest town was forty minutes away by car, you couldn’t ever imagine walking—but he didn’t mind nor question it. It was a private school after all, and Blue Lock was almost like its own mini town, so he’d gone in with high hopes and expectations. 

It wasn’t bad when he first started. He was mostly grateful every day, it’s not often that kids get to be educated at a private school with nutritious meals and comfortable housing. The cost to get in as a result was pricey, both monetary and on his end, he’d have to study hard and follow rules to a T.

It seemed like easy work at first glance, and that was partially true, but it wasn’t a private school for nothing. Not that Isagi ranked poorly, he was fairly book-smart, though the curriculumn and workload were a nightmare, unlike his easy life in public schools.

It was mostly the excitement of finally being in his dream school that fueled his motivation to do well,—and also the reason why he did well—so he studied hard every day, on both his own and during class. 

(He turns his test to the next page.)

But since coming back from his mini-break after his first year ended, there’s been a weird shift. Maybe it was how moving up a grade made the schoolwork all the more difficult; the first years had already been doing advanced curriculum, but when moving up a grade, as you can imagine, the concepts get harder to understand. Or, maybe, coming back from the break made him lose motivation to study after lazing around for two weeks straight. Or, maybe, he’s lost his drive to do well altogether. The latter is mostly true, or at least that’s how he’s been feeling for a month.

He hates it, he hates feeling unmotivated and the things he once liked turning into chores. 

Things he likes… orchestra .

Orchestra was a whole other issue. Blue Lock Academy was especially known for its orchestra as well as the wide variety of music and art programs it has to offer. This was one of the main reasons why Isagi wanted to study in this school; he was a music nerd , and this school was the best fit after he decided to seriously pursue orchestra in middle school on a whim.

He’s not sure if he regrets making that choice—orchestra was fun , and playing the piano and violin was fun . Music was a passion, and one of his greater talents after all, so it made sense to want to further his passion. But now, it’s not so fun, and along with his schoolwork, orchestra practice has been more of a burden and more unforgiving than ever. With him being a junior, of course, he’s pressured to take his roles in the club more seriously and dedicate more time practicing to improve and live up to his and others expectations(and to maintain his grades).

Once upon a time, there was a thrill in practicing the violin while doing algebra homework, but it got lost somewhere between moving into a serious, harder part of his school life with an added mental crisis he’s now facing.

Flip.

Isagi has no idea what he wants to be anymore. 

Flip.

After high school, his plan was to enter a prestigious music college, since he could almost get anywhere with the fact that he was in Blue Lock Academy. But now he’s unsure. Isagi would never admit this to anyone, but playing the violin—or any instrument—feels like a chore, like he’s playing for the sake of others and not himself. It’s almost like everything he does is for the sake of others, isn’t that how all humans live life? Working for the sake of others, and depending on where you are in society, you more likely, than not, will never benefit from this system. 

Flip.

He's unsure about everything. The pressure to do well from his family and peers doesn't help because he feels like he has to be something important. But how can he be something important when he doesn't even know what's important to him anymore?

It doesn’t help that orchestra is competitive, there were try-hards everywhere you looked, the remarks, the side-eyes, the huffed chests, egos clashing. He felt more pressure to succeed and prove himself.

He’s not sure if his parents would ever forgive him for going to a mediocre university after all of the effort spent on getting into a top-ranked high school. He’s not sure if he could even bring himself to care, and that scares him. Does he even care? He’s so unsure, and the uncertainty is eating him alive.

Isagi will not bother getting started on his senior year.

He manages to turn in his test with five minutes left to spare, miraculously managing to get through the terror of  derivatives. He doesn’t remember struggling with precalculus like how he is with calculus this year, and sure, calculus proceeds precalculus, so it would be tougher, but  doable. To Isagi, it was more like knowing how to read a language but not knowing what any of it means.

He longs for the times when math was at the palm of his hands, picking up lessons the day they were taught, only needing to study for three hours a day, and aceing his quizzes and tests. He’s struggling, and he feels pathetic. Out of everything he’s ever felt in his life, Isagi hates being demotivated the most.

He walks to his seat begrudgingly, for no reason in particular, or maybe it's because he’ll have to sit with his racing mind for the next few minutes. The sound of his shoes knocks in his head, muffled, and he’s oddly self-aware of his movements now. When he slumps into his seat, he buries his head into his arms on the desk and closes his eyes, wishing to fall asleep and never have to wake up to be a human. 

Click.

Click.

Click.

Even after the test, the sound of the clock, the breathing of his classmate, the clicking of someone’s pen, the teacher’s clacking shoes, and the anxious rustling of papers twists and contorts Isagi’s brain painfully. He can feel his hard breath against the desk, compelled to smell the remnants of a lemon-scented cleaning product that makes him somewhat nauseous. He lifts his head instead and stares at the analog clock that glares at him in a faded shade of navy, the same shade of his school’s uniform. 

11:29.

He mentally prepares himself for the loud buzzing that will sound in a minute. And when it rings, the remaining test-takers stand up, eerily synchronized, and rush to the teacher’s desk to set their papers down messily, hurrying out of the class for lunch. 

“Isagi!” a cheery voice calls from the side as he’s getting up. It’s Bachira, and he looks and sounds awfully content after taking a test. He's wearing a child-like grin on his face that Isagi has grown fond of over time, paired with two golden eyes that beam joyously. Isagi only grumbles.

“Well, someone doesn’t look too happy.”

Bachira’s once jolly expression wavers into a curious, questioning one.

“Not after that test, no,” he mumbles, leaving out the existential crisis he was going through moments earlier that was, most likely, the cause of his sour mood. Though, the test was to blame since it spurred him into one.

Bachira giggles, “I finished it.” 

He swings an arm around Isagi, the scent of banana mixed with vanilla attacks his senses, and he welcomes it pleasantly, curing his nausea from earlier. “Within ten minutes. So I can’t know how well I did,” he adds.

Isagi sniggers, not too surprised, but somewhat proud of Bachira for managing to get through all of them. Then, he wonders how Bachira managed to even land a spot in a calculus class.

“I didn’t guess this time if you were wondering."

He scoffs and shakes his head with a small smile. "Amazing. Good job."

Bachira is not the brightest when it comes to his studies, he’s far more talented with the arts. This was the main reason why Bachira was accepted into Blue Lock, having artistic rigor like no other, however, his biggest downside was his... intelligence. Not that Isagi is calling Bachira dumb , after all, there’s more to intelligence than just being book smart, but in Blue Lock, where studies mattered, Bachira wasn’t just bad at his studies, he was terrible. Isagi remembers when Bachira was almost kicked out of the school for having three F’s only a few months prior.

It was not his duty, as his best friend, to help him improve in his studies. But somehow, he was roped into an unmutual agreement in which Isagi didn't benefit from at all. Eventually he gives in to Bachira's pleads for tutoring and emotional manipulation, threatening to drop out and leave Isagi alone, as if he wasn't already on the path to do that.

To an extent, and it was only after three weeks of intense studying,—that Isagi graciously created—when Bachira’s grades started changing for the better. Despite the long hours and the painful  amount of explaining he did, it was well worth it.

Studying became an activity the two did daily, despite Bachira’s protests. For this test alone, they might’ve studied for over twenty hours in two weeks.

“Isn’t that a record?” Chigiri pops up from behind, tone teasing but curious. Bachira gives him a side glare, grunting, then swings at Chigiri’s head who swiftly dodges.

He sighs disappointedly, unfazed from the attempted attack, grabbing his bag and wearing it. “Assault is a no-no, Bachira.” 

Bachira only sticks out his tongue. Chigiri’s eyes land on Isagi, almost instantly clouding over with worry. He blinks twice before asking, 

“You okay, Isagi?” 

It’s a question he’s probably heard more times than he would've liked in the past week. He didn't realized how much his thoughts of his future were wearing on him until someone commented on the expression he seemed to always be wearing.

"Like you about to drop dead, bro."

His response is always the same.

“Yeah.”

It’s a dry, empty answer, and he’s sure Chigiri doesn’t believe him from the looks of it. But no one is okay if they have to be asked if they are in the first place. It’s easier to lie than be honest about your feelings. Isagi can’t, and neither does he want, to bother Chigiri and Bachira with what he’s feeling.

Chigiri, thankfully, drops it and offers a mildly comforting rub on his back. He’s now wondering what type of thoughts are going through Chigiri’s head, and if he’ll ever confront him on the matter. His heart pumps uncomfortably at the thought of ever being confronted and prays Chigiri and his friends leave him be.

The three walk out of the classroom and into the busy halls that that slowly fill with students. Bachira’s arm is still around Isagi, and Chigiri is on his other side, close by, nice and reassuring.

The two are rambling about something that Isagi doesn't pay attention to, instead, his mind buzzes with the loud chatter in the hall, observing people and their faces mindlessly. Something is bugging him, something he’s trying to remember. There’s a guy he’s never seen before who walks by him with abnormally long hair. 

Then, a thought.

“You two go on without me,” he says, rushed and eager, before taking off in the opposite direction. He hears sounds of protests from the two, but he ignores them, there's a more pressing issue, after all.

Isagi dodges the crowd of bodies, sprinting down the corridor, and he could care less at the thought of getting into trouble from running in the halls. Some people give him strange looks as he squeezes past them, accidentally shoving into some and stepping on their heels. He hopes the rushed apologies he squeaks back are enough.  

Isagi thinks of the important thing he had while he clamors down the hall. That was to hear Itoshi Rin play the piano. 

He can feel his heart bubbling with excitement as he steps out of the building, and into the cool, early spring breeze. It’s oddly humid despite the breeze, and it makes Isagi feel sticky , especially after the mild jogging he did earlier.

So, he shrugs off his navy blue blazer as he makes his way down the cobblestone path to a distant building.

He thinks to himself, who is weird enough to scout down an unused classroom on the other side of campus to hear a student play the piano? Isagi was, apparently, and it was his little secret since the pianist had no idea that he’d come down during random lunches or evenings to hear him play. No one knew that Isagi had a strange pastime like this(he would never tell a soul).

He takes in the scenery around him. For some reason, knowing that he’ll be able to watch Rin play the piano makes him strangely appreciative of the good things around him. The sky with wispy, cirrus clouds—his favorite kind—against the vibrant light blue sky. Then the sun that’s covered by a thin film of a cloud, and the rays of light that peeks out around it, falling onto the greenery around. It’s spring, so along with occasional chatter from a passersby, there’s chirping from small sparrows on budding trees and little bugs that hum as he passes some bushes. 

Isagi and Rin are not friends, let alone on speaking terms. Despite the two being in an orchestra, and seeing each other nearly every other day, Rin, probably, has not even the slightest idea of who Isagi is. He’s never had any real interaction with the other, ironic considering Isagi sits a row behind him in practice and their classrooms right across from each other. 

Everyone in the school knew who Rin was, he was like the school’s celebrity, well known for ranking first in the school and as a musical genius. Rin was talented, Isagi having seen his skills for himself, and the fact that anyone even went to school with him was a big deal.

Maybe that's an exaggeration—at least Isagi thinks it's a privilege to go to school with someone like Rin.

He wasn’t necessarily well-liked, though everyone mutually agreed that he was talented(and very good-looking). He had a bad personality with a nasty temper, or that’s what Isagi heard. Rumors, of course, are never a good judge of character, so Isagi has always taken them with a grain of salt. He's never talked to Rin, so he can't exactly confirm or deny the rumors. Isagi likes to believe that Rin is secretly a nice person.

He finally arrives at his destination and pulls the door open to the large building, a building for the school's music classes and programs. Isagi makes his way down the hall, the floors of this building are different from the others for having large, polished squares of white tile. It has occasional skid marks from large instruments being pushed down or into classrooms, and most of the rooms were all similarly sized to regular classrooms. There are the occasional large rooms that house instruments and rows of chairs, which are orchestra rooms or practice rooms for large groups.

He turns the corner and hurries up the stairs, speed-walking down the straight corridor ahead. Then he stops just before the hallway turns to the right and waits, unmoving. His ears are putting in extra effort to hear footsteps, movement, or anything that lets him know of Rin's presence. 

The room in question is right behind him, with only a thick wall that separates his back and the the room. It’s an unused room that was used for music theory. But music theory was moved to a different, bigger class to hold more students due to its popularity, so, here sat a lonely classroom with a single, classic grand piano in the middle.

Well, not exactly in the middle, Isagi vaguely remembers the structure of the room when he went inside once in his own time; the piano faced large windows on the other side at an angle and was placed somewhere near the right corner of the room. There were large, white, silk curtains that draped over the windows that rustled loudly on windy days. There was another set of windows on the walls adjacent to where Isagi is, but they had no curtains, so Isagi, sporadically, caught glimpses of Rin playing. 

“Can I help you?” 

A steely voice startles him from his side, and he whirls his head around to spot the pianist. He’s glaring at him, and the question sounds more like a statement to leave . From the way Isagi’s positioned, he looks weird and awkward, like he was being sneaky or spying on someone. He gulps.

Isagi has no idea how he hadn’t heard the other approaching. He must've been absorbed with his thoughts of the layout of the room—stupid, he knows.

It’s the first time he’s having an actual interaction with Rin, knees trembling under the other’s heated glare. 

But he can’t look away. 

His eyes—they’re impossible to look away from because they're unlike anything he’s ever seen. They're cold and calculating, and a shade of turquoise with something icy. One eye is mostly covered by a mop of dark green hair—black on first glance—and it makes him look all the more brooding (and emo. Isagi could've giggled in any other circumstance).

Then there are his notorious bottom lashes—Rin is also known as “the long-eyelash-asshole”—that jut out from his eyelids at sharp angles, reminding Isagi of thorns on a rose's stem. He’s standing straight and tall, towering over him by a couple of inches, with a perfect but unnerving posture that makes Isagi correct his own.

“Uhm,” he clears his throat and faces him, sheepish.

“I was just waiting for someone," He lies, then after a small pause says, "Sorry."

He doesn’t intend to apologize but he feels like he owe's him one, Rin squints at him, and from the look of it, he doesn’t believe Isagi. But he doesn’t press it, and simply says, “You shouldn’t be here.”

His eyes move from Isagi to beyond him, and he moves past him swiftly.

“What—” about you, he meant to say, but the words don't make it out of his mouth. He groans, furiously rubbing at his temples. A small part of him was hoping they could have a conversation that somehow ends up with Rin inviting him inside the classroom to watch him play. It’s a childish thought and he feels waves of embarrassment creep up on him. Rin stops, then turns to him stiffly. 

“Can you leave?"

“Oh,” he replied airily, not exactly expecting the response. He doesn’t know what to say, but Rin doesn’t wait for a response, turning away and walking into the classroom, sliding the the door shoot.

His indirect way of telling Isagi to fuck off does not work, and instead, Isagi waits for a few moments before crouching. He’s thankful that the floors are polished tile and not wooden so they don't creak under him as he waddles his way to turn down the hall.

He inches only a bit further, far enough that he’s past the door and below one of the windows. Then he sits and waits. He knows it takes Rin a few moments, and sometimes longer, to start playing. Since he can’t see the other’s expression, Isagi assumes he’s either thinking of a piece or mentally preparing himself to play.

Has Isagi mentioned how good Rin plays the piano?

It was one of the things that Isagi equally envied and admired the most about Rin. So, when he starts playing, Isagi starts to relax feeling the tension he's built up over the week dissipate. Rin’s choice of music felt fitting to Isagi’s mental state from earlier,  Nocturne No. 20 in C Sharp Minor , a Chopin piece.

It’s a familiar melody. It's depressing, beautiful, and most of all, bittersweet. The melody resonates throughout his head, thoughts passing by cease to nothing, and his mind stills. And so does his heart, he feels himself slipping into a daze. Rin's interpretation of the piece was sad, almost heart wrenching. Despite his haze, he can feel his chest twist with phantom pain, yet despite the pain, the music cascades beautifully into his ears, then down, and in between the knots in his neck, undoing and healing.

The once bright blue sky across from him dims. He wonders, briefly, why Rin decides to play a song like this on such a beautiful day, why he makes Isagi's skies blue skies turn gray.

It's almost like Rin was calling to someone, someone he so desperately loves but can’t quite reach nor convey everything he wants to. There's a shift in the melody, and Rin plays the lighter, softer measure of the song.  It remains sad, though, in a twisted sense, giving the impression of someone waving fake ‘hope’ in front of a hurting person.

It’s foreboding, and the sweet tune sits in Isagi sickly , he waits, antsy, anticipating the change once again. And when it comes, it’s just as beautiful as when it was in the beginning. It’s different—the tempo falls short of a beat, Isagi can hear Rin keying the piano sharply. He wants to see the kind of expression Rin is wearing, does he look troubled? Or is his face still?

He's hit with a strong curiosity to stand up and watch him play, one that he's had many times in the past but never succumbed to. But now felt different than those other times.

And so, he’s standing where he sees Rin at an angle. His face is covered by that dark green hair, making it impossible to see Rin's face. From his hunched and swaying posture, he was in a trance, playing his sick, twisted melodies of false hope.  

He stills when he nears the end, a serenade of notes that leaves Isagi breathless. Just when he thought it couldn't get better. He shuts his eyes at the heavenly sound. The sound gets softer, and up until the end, Rin plays the keys so soft that Isagi can barely hear. He holds the last chord for a long time, presumably lost in a catharsis.

Isagi opens his eyes when all is silent, observing Rin slowly removing his hands from the piano, letting them settle on his lap. A strong breeze flows in through the open windows on the other side, picking up strands from Rin’s head and lightly disheveling his hair. He stays still and small among curtains that danced big, staring ahead blankly. 

Thunk.

In the haze Isagi was in, he forgot about the bag that was holding on for dear life on his shoulder. It lays pitifully on the ground, and Isagi freezes when Rin snaps his head toward him. His once stoic expression was now a mix of confusion, recognition, and most of all, annoyance . Isagi gulps dumbly, his feet rooted to the floor beneath him even though his mind screams at him to run. 

Rin only lets out a huff, swiftly reaching down to pick up his bag, then walks toward the door of the classroom. He doesn’t give Isagi a second look as he turns the corridor to where he once was when caught the first time. Somehow, Isagi feels worse, almost wishing that Rin decided to confront him,  maybe pin him to a wall and yell at him. 

“Uhm—!” he calls out when he hurriedly picks up his own bag, rushing to follow him. Rin doesn't stop walking forward as if Isagi were merely a ghost. An annoying ghost.

“That was really beautiful!”

He can hear Rin audibly sigh when he trails behind him cautiously, like Rin was some sort of predator in the wild that Isagi needed to be wary of. Not that it would keep Isagi away. Clearly, he has zero survival instincts. Rin stops in his tracks to face him.

“I—”

“Do you happen to like Chopin?” Isagi cuts in with a nervous smile. Fuck it then, maybe he will entertain the little delusions in his head by making a mess of himself. You only live once—or whatever.

Rin frowns, a look of confusion, bewilderment, disgust(?) present on his face.

“I—your interpretation was amazing, and I was wondering if you liked Chopin since you play him ofte—” He stops himself, clearing his throat.

“I mean, y-you look like you love Chopin!” he exclaims awkwardly. Rin’s eyes narrow, eyebrows furrowing further.

“Are you stalking me?” 

Isagi’s heart sinks, quickly shaking his head.

“I’ve just heard you play a couple of times," a pause. "In class. Because we share Orchestra 3."

Isagi winces at his words, somehow managing to save himself. Rin stares blankly, eyebrows unknotting, then he turns away. He walks down the hall, no ‘thank you’s or any sort of expression of gratitude. When he disappears into the stairwell with no words to spare, Isagi lets out a scoff. 

There are thirty minutes left before the lunch block ends, so with the extra time, he decides to make his way toward the cafeteria. He exits the music building, unhurried. Everything is the same as it was when Isagi walked down the path earlier. The sun that peeks through thin, wispy clouds, the vivid, light blue sky, the light, humid breeze of early spring.

It's times like this when Isagi realizes how indifferent nature is. He’d just experienced something incredibly embarrassing, and Isagi wants to go hide in a hole, but mother nature remains unbothered and beautiful as always. He reaches into his bag to pluck out his phone and reads three missed calls from Bachira and two from Chigiri. There’s a text from Bachira asking where he is that was sent ten minutes ago. Isagi purses his lips, feeling guilty, so he decides to pick up his pace and lightly jogs toward the cafeteria to see his friends.

“Look what the cat dragged here…” Bachira remarks when his eyes land on Isagi's awkward silhouette. Bachira scrunches his nose and scowls, setting his spoon down.

The cafeteria is somewhat crowded with some chatter. Most students started to leave the cafeteria around this time. The three of them included, they would’ve finished their lunch by now and walked back to their classroom. But here are his two best friends seated in front of him with emptied trays, who waited for him to come back(and even saved him lunch). 

“Sorry guys,” he hopes his friends aren’t too mad at him. Chigiri waves his hand as if telling him to pay no mind.

“Where were you?” Chigiri questions instead beside Bachira, gesturing to the seat across and sliding a lunch tray toward him. Isagi sits down, offering a smile toward Bachira, who’s still sending daggers his way. 

“I just took a walk and got kind of lost,” he answers. It was a lie, but a believable one since most students, regardless of how long they’ve been here, get lost in the maze that is this school.

So, Chigiri and Bachira mostly sum up Isagi’s overwhelming urge to have a walk to the mood he was in earlier. Isagi eats while Bachira and Chigiri converse casually, Isagi adding on sparingly. 

The events from earlier pop into his head.

“Do you guys know who Itoshi Rin is?”

Bachira and Chigiri blink.

“You mean that eyelash freak?” Bachira is the first to comment—or question. Isagi nods.

Chigiri crosses his arm in thought. “Don’t we take orchestra with him?”

The question wasn’t asked to anyone in particular, but Isagi nods again.

“What about him?”

Isagi shrugs. “Just curious if you knew anything about him.”

Isagi now knew a lot more, than the average person, about Rin. Still, he was curious about what his friends had to say.

“Not really…” Chigiri drags, looking at Bachira, eyebrows creasing in thought. 

“Oh. Wait,” he starts, “I think I was assigned to cleaning duty with him once. For orchestra,” Chigiri pauses. Isagi gestures to continue.

“It was last year. It’s not an interesting story, he ignored me anyway—and he's kind of an ass."

"An ass?" Isagi presses.

Chigiri huffs. "I don't think he even knew that cleaning duty was assigned to two people. Like, he didn't even acknowledge me. At all."

"No, yeah, I get that. Because you're so easy to ignore," Bachira remarks casually, twirling a strand of Chigiri's hair. Chigiri kicks him under the table.

"Hey!" Bachira sucks his teeth and rubs at his shin to soothe it. He chews on his bread seconds later, “Isn’t he like, really good at the violin?” 

Isagi nods absentmindedly. “Yeah. He’s fucking awesome.”

Isagi prefers the way Rin plays piano over the violin, though. He leaves that out. Chigiri stares at him weirdly and he raises a brow.

“Is he not?”

Chigiri stares at him for a second longer before snickering. 

Chigiri nods. “Yeah, he’s the best in the school so far." 

Bachira hums in consideration. 

“We’re not all that bad,” Chigiri flaunts, but Bachira seems untrusting, squinting his eyes at him. He only rolls his eyes back.

Not as good as Rin .

“Wait.” Bachira slams his hands on the cafeteria table then points. “Isn’t that him?”

Isagi turns to, in fact, see the tall body of Rin walking into the cafeteria. When he comes closer into view, he's impassive as always. If looks could kill, Isagi thinks when he observes Rin’s face from afar. His eyes scan the cafeteria, to the right, to the left, then… Isagi flushes, ducking out of view quickly but spots Bachira still pointing at Rin. 

“Bachira!” Isagi hisses. Bachira realizes, and Chigiri wrestles his arm telling him to put his fucking arm down. Isagi rubs the back of his neck, feeling his blood pressure spike.  

Chigiri sighs, exasperated. “I told you like a gajillion times to not point at people. You're going to get jumped one day and none of us are going to be there to save you.”

Bachira giggles shyly. Isagi sighs, the same. 

Still, curiosity gets the best of them, and they slowly turn their heads to watch Rin walking at the edge of the room, and toward a mini vending machine. They spy on his every movement, the way he stands in front of the machine, scanning in thought, then fishing out an object, his wallet, to insert coins. 

“He’s buying a melon-soda,” Bachira announces, somewhat loud and comically. Chigiri looks at him with a mix of a frown and grin, moving to slap him but he dodges. Isagi snorts in approval.

“I never knew he was that tall,” Chigiri says, hushed, and in awe. Isagi hums in agreement. They've only ever seen him sitting down at orchestra. They observe how he nearly towers over the machine. Isagi feels bad for it, maybe it feels exactly how he did when Rin caught him.

"Lucky bastard," Bachira grumbles lowly,  coining a spiteful expression toward the boy.

"You're only a few inches shorter," Isagi offers reassuringly. Bachira shows his teeth, smiling fakely.

"Thanks Isagi."

They watch as he waits for the machine to drop the drink before he bends down to pick up the item. Then, he opens the soda before taking a sip as he walks along the edge of the cafeteria again. He exits through a different door than the door he came from. Silence falls upon the trio.

“Well, that was unexciting,” Bachira chirps, and goes back to gnawing on the half-eaten bread. 

“Anticlimactic,” Chigiri half adds and half corrects. Bachira rolls his eyes dramatically. 

“Potato-potato!” he grabs a dirty fork from his empty tray and shoves it into the air, defiantly. 

Chigiri corrects him again, “Potato, potato, ”, emphasizing the difference in the “a” vowel. It starts a somewhat violent, and somewhat heated banter about English and pronunciation before it starts getting out of hand, with Bachira threatening to "shut him up with his fork" and Chigiri provoking him, saying "I dare you to,". It ends with Isagi quietly ushering the two out of the cafeteria.

Still, his mind can't move on from the icy eyes from earlier, a small chill trickling down his back. Secretly, he's excited for the next time he'll see Rin.

Chapter Text

The orchestra room is as ample as ever, chairs misplaced, music sheets strewn about on the floor, and cases of string instruments and percussion that line the back wall, just below a row of rectangular windows. It’s a sight Isagi’s used to seeing, almost everyone has gotten used to the mess the third year’s make, with the second and first years left to clean up after. 

It reminds Isagi how much more difficult orchestra will start to get. The thought unsettles him. One of the seats is neatly placed at the front, and there sits Rin, who is in the middle of tuning his violin. Isagi stands at the door, awkward, before he feels a light push on his back. 

It’s Chigiri who he’d walked with—“What’s with the hold-up?” 

Isagi only offers a small apology before moving to the side, Chigiri eyeing him strangely before shaking his head and entering the room. Isagi follows. 

His limbs feel stiff and awkward as he walks toward his seat, as if he’d never learned how to before. 

Everything is normal. The events that took place earlier were normal and nothing out of the ordinary. Rin probably doesn’t even remember his face, and probably wouldn’t spare a thought toward it before he sleeps. But it’s certainly something Isagi would do, and perhaps it would keep him up for the rest of the week.

Rin barely acknowledges anyone as he walks in. 

He’s caught up in observing the round head in front of him that he barely feels the prodding at his side. He faces Reo.

“Did you hear what we were just talking about?” Reo asks. Isagi shakes his head.

“Since the A-Y-O-C is coming up,” Reo accents every letter, “We were guessing what pieces we might be playing.”

Isagi lets out a small ‘oh’ as Reo and two others look at him expectantly for an answer. The AYOC, otherwise known as the Annual Youths Orchestra Concerto, that was more of a contest than a concerto. It was an event where orchestras in schools across Japan gathered to showcase pieces they’d practiced over three months. It took place every August end during summer break vacation. No first years have played for the event, it was mostly second and third years. There were rare exceptions of first-year prodigies, one of which was Rin. They’d nearly won first prize, but placed second after a school—Isagi had gone to watch last year and thought his school should’ve won. It was also the first time he’d heard Rin play the violin, and up until then, he’d only heard rumors of a first year student that was incredible at the piano and violin, along with other myth-like rumors that sparked a curiosity in Isagi.

He was blown away, to say the least.

“I can’t tell,” he begins, picking up his violin case. “Ego is kind of weird.”

Ego was the school orchestra’s official teacher and conductor. He didn’t start working in Blue Lock until February of the last school year, before the previous teacher retired. He was… an eccentric man to say the least. Ego had a strange, off-putting appearance and a matching talking style to go along with. He had a bizarre way of teaching, yet was plausibly the best teacher he’s ever had and maybe as far as the school has ever seen. Ego had unconventional beliefs with orchestra and music—something about dedicating your ‘ego’ to every performance you put out—but he was passionate for it and good at his job and that passion was contagious. All of his students had never improved as quickly as they did under Ego’s strict guidance in their respective instruments within the few weeks he started teaching.

Isagi plucks the latches to his case and props open it, glancing at Reo to see if he’s listening. Reo is taking out his instrument but nods as a gesture to continue. 

“He might make us do the unexpected—hell—we might not even end up preparing for the—” Isagi pauses, gesturing to nothing, not particularly in the mood to pronounce the word. Reo gets the message, nodding in consideration. 

Isagi goes back to fixing up his violin, pulling it out of the case and setting it aside. He lets it rest on his lap to admire it. 

It’s a mini ritual, similar to the prayers he recites before eating a meal. Isagi always takes his time to scan the polished wood with carvings of small swirls and shapes along the curve of the instrument. At the very edge of the violin is an engraving of his initials in cursive. It was a gift from his parents on his thirteenth birthday, almost four years ago, to not only celebrate the occasion, but also for taking home a medal from an event his middle school orchestra won. Isagi has always placed sentimental value on material objects of significance to him. His violin was no exception.

The hall continues to ring with untuned instruments. Peers turning to talk with each other, some offering to tune someone’s violin and in exchange, to tune theirs. Strangely, Isagi likes this part during class, right before the teacher walks in and starts on warm-ups. Some people tap Isagi’s shoulder as he busies himself with his violin, asking for help with theirs, though Isagi always declines, coming up with an excuse to avoid doing so. 

Despite how entertaining it is to see everyone struggle, it’s every man for themselves. Or, maybe not everyone, but there are a few exceptions, people know how to tune the violin on their own. That included Reo, who most people turned to for help, and Rin.  

Isagi’s eyes wander back to the back of Rin’s head. He’s finished tuning his violin, and it rests on his chin and shoulder, playing low melodies that only Isagi can hear. He has to strain his ears over his noisy classmates. Rin is always so quiet, whether it be amongst a crowd of people, or even as he plucks at his violin. He’s already started on his own warm-ups, different from Ego’s, but something that Isagi has picked up from months of sitting behind him. 

He copies him, silently, and almost unconsciously. It’s not as refined or as good as Rin does it, it’s an improvement from when he first attempted those bow staccatos. 

He’s given the nickname ‘ silent but deadly’ to the particular exercise. It took skill to play it quietly, and it was one hell of a workout. Isagi has started to seriously consider taking up Kunigami’s offer of going to the gym after following Rin’s warm ups. He wonders if Rin works out, Isagi can picture him as a swimmer with his wide, broad shoulders that remind him of a cloth hanger.  

There’s a loud clap that sounds at the entrance of the room. It’s the small, thin shape of Ego, who stands at the doorway, with the crabbed expression he always wears. When whispers come to a hush and instruments cease, he enters the class with his hands placed behind his back, surveying.

“Good afternoon, class,” he says monotonously, loud and clear. The class mumbles in place of a response. Ego walks to the front of the class, then stops in the middle. 

“Before we start, I’d like to announce something,” a small quirk at his lips that always unsettled Isagi, “All of you may be thinking we’ll be doing the AYOC this year—we will not.”

Soft murmurs begin to sound throughout the class. Isagi glances at his friends on his side, who look as equally confused as he is. Ego claps once more before the class falls silent again. He looks around the class with a hard stare, moments passing before he speaks again.

“The administrators wanted to try something different this year. Something about many of you having talent and wanting to showcase that. Don’t know, don’t care.” 

Ego emphasizes the word ‘talent’ before he starts pacing back and forth. Tension grows as Ego takes a step forward, then back. Everyone holds their breath, and the class waits in silence for what he’ll say next. 

“What you should care about—what I care about,” he brings a hand to his chest, “Is the fact that we’ll be hosting our first string concert. Ever,” he pauses to study the class and gauge everyone’s expressions. The class remains silent, suffocating. “And our second years,” he gestures to the class, “Will be our main stars.”

Everyone waits. There’s anticipation, but no one dares to start chattering as Ego stands in the front intimidatingly. 

“Allow me to explain. This concert has eleven total solo performances, including a duo piece.”

“Which means, to choose those eleven players, I’ll be evaluating you all thirty days from now. Then, me, and a few other administrators,” Ego rolls his eyes when he mentions the other administrators, “Will choose eleven of forty of you to play. A chance to play either solo or with a partner, of whom I will be choosing.” 

Another pause, and there’s a devilish smile at his lips.

Ego then holds up one finger as he speaks, “For that evaluation, you are allowed to choose any string instrument and piece of your choice to be evaluated on. The piece you choose will be the piece you play at the concert. Of course, it cannot overlap with any other person’s piece. First come, first serve.” 

He claps his hands with growing excitement.

“As for the duo, they will be selected based on technique and chemistry. The song that I’ve chosen for the duo is Passacaglia Op. 20 No. 2.”

Isagi’s eyes widen, looking around to see everyone’s face cast with a similar expression. It’s a notoriously difficult piece composed by Handel-Haloverson, usually played as a pair with violas, violin, cello, or a mix of two. 

If Isagi were to seriously consider making it to the final lineup, he’d have to put in an immense amount of work and effort. There’s already a small pit of anxiety forming in the back of his head, a sludge of self-doubt, fear, and those expectations ready to torment him. He doesn’t feel like he’s about to drown—not quite yet. What’s keeping him afloat is the chance to play with Rin.

It’s a foolish idea at first thought, and if he were to voice it out loud to his peers they’d likely laugh in his face. 

This concert was, perhaps, his only chance to get to know the boy. And also, perhaps, his only chance to make something of himself.

Ego continues.

“Not to worry, of course. I, and only I, will be evaluating you all,” Ego has a strange possessiveness over them, “And to find the best duo among you all, I’ve created a list of twenty pairs based on your playing styles, and how compatible you would be with each other. The most important part to your performance must be execution.”

“The perfect technique and chemistry between two players will evoke something that I like to call a chemical reaction .”

It’s a little more cornier than Isagi would’ve thought to describe it, but fitting for Ego. Ego was more cartoonish than normal, like he was plucked straight out of a Willy Wonka rip off movie. 

“If the pairs I put you in do not produce the best reaction, I will switch you around. I need you all to keep two things in mind during this,” Ego raises two fingers, waving them at the class with a stern look, “Do not take this lightly. I take this seriously, and I expect the same from you all. Only the best of you can make it to this string concert, and even if you don’t, even if you suck—which, let’s be real, most of you do, I still want your best. I want to see growth, I want you guys to transform within a month. You all can do it, because I’m your teacher.”

Isagi chuckles mentally at Ego’s monologue. A heck of a monologue at that. Even though he’d just insulted half of the class, there’s still something about his speech that makes Isagi want to give it his all. That passion, like he mentioned earlier, was contagious. 

At that point, Isagi muses that he’s heard enough, so he stops paying attention to anything else Ego babbles on about. It’s nothing important anyway, just minor details that Isagi thinks are arbitrary. Ego moves onto warm-ups shortly after.

For the rest of the time remaining, most people formed groups to talk about their opinions on the concert, as well as the pieces they planned on playing. 

Isagi’s circle animatedly speak about the news and who may be chosen.

“Definitely Rin. No doubt,” Yukiyama declares from behind, a bit too loud. When Isagi pays a glance toward Rin, he’s relieved to see that he hasn’t heard from where he was, engrossed in his own world. 

Chigiri huffs. “Well, yeah. That’s a no-brainer.”

It certainly was a no-brainer, and it was safe to assume that Rin would be one of the two players for the duo. 

“Well if Rin is obvious, I’m more curious to know who’d be playing with him,” Hiori says, head resting on his palm. 

“To be honest, I don’t want to automatically assume that Rin is going to be in the top two,” Reo says, fidgeting with a bracelet on his wrist in thought. 

“I think several of us in this class are pretty decent on our own. Most of us could probably play with Rin, but Ego mentioned something about having chemistry. I don’t think anyone in this class can have chemistry with Rin.”

Everyone giggles at the last sentence Reo says. Isagi stays silent.

Reo isn’t wrong, it shouldn’t be safe to assume that Rin would automatically be in the top two.  Everyone in this class is studying at a prestigious school, so most are above average than a regular student studying music. There’s also the fact that Rin was difficult to get along with, and imagining that he, out of people, could have chemistry with anyone in the class was wishful thinking. 

But this is Itoshi Rin, a literal prodigy that got to participate in an advanced event in his first year of high school, recognized by multiple established musicians. Isagi doesn’t know Rin. What he does know is that if Rin wanted to, he would do anything to get what he wants.

“In terms of technique, Shidou is pretty good, I think Ego might’ve paired those two,” Yukiyama suggests, pointing with his thumb discreetly to the crazy-haired boy. 

Shidou Ryuusei was the only other person in the class that is on par with Rin’s skills. Rin and Shidou bickered quite often, usually when Ego wasn’t around. They had such different personalities, one of the main reasons why they were at each other’s throats majority of the time . 

Isagi thinks they resemble each other in some ways; they were rude, arrogant, loners that were blessed with talent. 

Chigiri snorts, “Yeah, but that wouldn’t go too well.”

Everyone agrees.

“I agree with Reo. I think most of us have a chance to land a spot,” Hiori comments, motioning to the small group that’s now arranged in a messy circle. 

They’re seated near one of the large windows at the back of the room, the clouds clearing a path for the sun to peek through. Isagi spots sparrows flying from tree to tree, then to the ground, and back up.

It’s late April, so nature has gained back its lost greenery from the cold winter, and it’s a calming sight to see for Isagi. If autumn is his favorite season, spring would place second. There’s a resemblance that the two seasons share. Spring would be the start of new life while fall would mean the end, maybe not of a life, but to a chapter. They aren't polar opposites or extremes like summer or winter, they’re just in the middle, in between. Isagi likes that. He’s also somewhere in the middle of everything, in between. But nature doesn’t have conscious thought to the extent humans do, so they don’t experience a crippling existential crisis every year.

Isagi shifts his focus back to the conversation. Someone asks, “Any of you guys decided on what you’ll play?”

“I might play Paganini,” Hiori half-jokes, though you couldn’t tell from his unmoving face. His eyes were more expressive than his face, something Isagi caught on to after dorming with him in his first year. 

“Not the caprice's, I assume?” Reo questions, almost like a statement, like Hirori would be setting himself up if he said yes.

Hiori trails off, “I was going to play the twenty-fourth caprice…” dejected, but still, no one can tell if he’s serious. Isagi huffs out a small laugh, patting his back.

Yukiyama shudders, “Doing that in front of Ego out of all people would be suicide.”

“Paganini’s pieces are suicide,” Chigiri retorts with a sigh. 

Isagi agrees with a nod. You’d have to be on a whole other level of talented to pull off most of Paginini’s works. Though Isagi would like to choose a difficult piece for the fun of it, he supposes it would be safer to opt for something he’s comfortable with, thinking back to Ego’s words from earlier. He’d have to choose a piece that showed his strengths and less of his weaknesses that he had many of. 

He purses his lips.

“I might do Bach’s Fugue in G Minor,” he says. A few hums and nods resonate throughout the group. 

Yukiyama nods, “That’s a good choice.”

“Yeah, I was thinking you’d do a Bach piece,” Hiori remarks with a small smile.

Isagi tilts his head. “What made you think that?”

“You talk about that piece all the time.” Chigiri says, patting his shoulder lightly. 

Hiori nods, then adds, “You’d do well. You weren’t titled Bach’s son for no reason, after all.”

Laughs resound in the group, and Isagi sputters with amusement, playfully punching Hiori on his shoulder.

“Bach is always great. I might consider doing one of his pieces as well,” Yukiyama says, a finger on his chin. 

“Copycat,” Isagi says quietly, but loud enough for Yukiyama to hear. Yukiyama shoots him a glare. 

He wound up choosing a Schubert piece.  Hiori and Reo chose a Tchaikovsky piece, and Chigiri a Kreisler piece. They were all decent selections, and they’d all do a good job. 

Class is almost over, and the group starts to take turns filling out a sheet of everyone’s choice. When it’s Isagi’s turn, he’s writing down his name while he searches the paper for Rin’s name, but to no avail. He hasn’t written down his choice yet, and Isagi was curious to know what piece he’ll choose. He briefly considers staying back to get a quick glance when Rin fills the sheet in, ultimately deciding against doing so. He has an obligation to get to, which was tutoring Bachira. He sighs.
—

Still, Isagi shows up to the library on time, unlike Bachira, who likes taking his sweet time to annoy Isagi. 

Isagi has grown used to Bachira’s silent, unsuccessful attempts at protesting against studying. In retaliation, he likes announcing a pop quiz with “a scary consequence if you don’t pass,” that somehow always works.

It’s nice, though, to sit in a secluded corner of the large library on campus, and just relax for a little break as he waits for Bachira. He stays still instead of laying out his notes and textbook, mild drowsiness weighing on him. 

He considers calling off the study session. There was no point in having one if Isagi wasn’t in the right condition to teach him, and he rubs his temples at the thought of having to explain integrals to Bachira. His thoughts don’t get too far when he spots brown and yellow emerging from a large bookshelf. He gives him a sheepish smile as he walks toward him, dropping slightly when he gets closer.

“You look tired,” he comments as he takes a seat across from Isagi. Isagi nods sluggishly. 

A moment of silence hangs in the air, and Bachira leans back in his seat, head resting on his arms behind him. He scans Isagi’s face in thought.

“We shouldn't study today.”

“Okay.” 

Bachira makes a face at that, “That was easy.”

Isagi huffs a dry laugh, patting his bag. “Unless you want to learn about integrals.”

Bachira furiously shakes his head. 

Isagi sighs, then groans, resting his head on the table. “I’m so tired.”

Bachira laughs softly and pokes at his head, then his shoulder, “If you plan on sleeping, let’s just go back to the dorms.”

“Too much work,” he whines, finding comfort on the way Bachira swirls his finger through his hair. 

“I can carry you,” he offers. It’s enticing, and Isagi almost agrees before recalling when he’d attempted to carry Kunigami once, nearly breaking his spine. He lifts his head off the table and sends him a glare. Bachira snickers, as if he read his mind.

He has a cheesy look on his face. “I’m a changed man.”

Isagi doesn’t believe him, but he only shrugs with a light smile. 

“I have been working out,” he admits but doesn’t elaborate. 

Instead, silence falls upon them again. Isagi catches Bachira staring outside, so he follows his gaze as well. Nothing noteworthy, but Isagi lets it be. He likes sharing calm moments like these with Bachira, though it was rare since Bachira had a motor somewhere in his mouth that never knew how to shut off. So, Isagi listens to the soft breathing between them, the distant whirring of fax machines and printers, and the subtle rumble of the air conditioner. Then, Bachira breaks the silence. 

“You know,” he begins, his tone calm and even, “You’ve been a bit weird lately.”

Isagi stills. Bachira continues, “I won’t pry. But you know,” he shifts awkwardly. He’s never been good at stuff like this. “I’m here for you.”

He doesn’t look at him when he says this like he’s thinking of how to continue when he looks outside. Isagi prefers it that way.

“We’re best friends, y’know? You get in your head so often it makes me hate to see you so…” he trails off, “Sucky.”

Isagi feels his heartbeat race when Bachira finally looks at him, a small, crooked smile on his face. It’s still awkward, but warm and comforting. Maybe confrontation wasn’t as bad as Isagi was making it out to be earlier. Bachira wasn’t pushing him to share everything with him, which made him feel light, bits of burden crumbling away and relieving Isagi. 

Bachira doesn’t look at him expectantly, he just watches him with a happy look, borderline adoration. Isagi looks away, pressing his forehead onto the cool, wooden table.

He’s grateful he has such a friend  that cares about him to notice the shitstorm he’s caught in.  

He looks up.

“Thank you, Bachira,” he offers a smile—genuine and thankful , “I… I think I’ll be okay.”

Bachira grins and reaches over to ruffle his hair.  “Let’s go back to the dorms, yeah?”

Isagi nods, feeling his chest swell with happiness. 
—

For the first time in a while, he’s left with a feeling of hope. He has something to look forward to, something to help him get his shit together, which was preparing for evaluations.

When he’s back in his room, he’s already writing down a schedule in his planner for the next few weeks. 

The piece he chose, Fugue in G Minor, is one that he’s familiar with. He’s always been fond of Bach’s pieces, and Fugue was the first piece he’d self taught to himself. It stood out to Isagi among Bach’s vast discography, it being one of the more complicated but intricate pieces. It’s one of the few pieces that he’s been perfecting over the years, more casually than serious. It was all a matter of polishing and tweaking the finer details. Ego was demanding enough, so Isagi couldn’t begin to imagine how much worse the other judges would be. 

As he’s almost finished summarizing in his planner, his phone buzzes loudly on his table. He sets his pen down and grabs his phone.

“Did you get that too?” Chigiri asks from behind him, peeking into his room. 

Chigiri, Bachira, Isagi, and Kunigami are all roommates. Roommates used to be assigned randomly last year, but because of popular demand, this year, students had the option to choose. 

Isagi had already been rooming with Hiori and Bachira, but Hiori planned to room with a different group of people for this school year. He made friends with Chigiri and Kunigami in his first year study hall, and it turned out that all of them were friends with each other. Naturally, they decided to room together.

Not much thought or reflection was put into the decision, and no one seemed to mind. They ended up being decent housemates, so it was better than choosing to gamble and dorm with a random person. 

Currently, along with Isagi, Chigiri was the only other housemate at the dorm. Bachira was off to his classes and Kunigami… somewhere.

“Yeah, an email from Ego?” Isagi responds, tapping the mail icon. His heart thrums lightly when he reads the header, “ Duos For the Next Class… ”.

Chigiri sits down on the bed next to Isagi’s desk, “It’s the list of the duos.”

“He’s switching them around every class,” he comments after a few moments of reading. Isagi scanned the contents of the email curiously, searching for his name.

Isagi… 

Isagi… 

Aha.

Isagi Yoichi and Chigiri Hyoma he reads. When he looks up at Chigiri, he’s already staring back with a grin.

Chigiri splays himself on Isagi’s bed, “I guess we’re stuck together.”

Chigiri seems content. Isagi stays silent.

Perhaps he's getting ahead of himself if he wishes to be partnered with Rin already. Why would Ego do that anyway? Even if he were to pair the two, he’d be risking wasting precious time that would be spent on struggling and coordinating as opposed to practicing. 

Not that it matters anyway. He's destroyed any chance at working together with Rin because of the incident from earlier. 

He’s not opposed to pairing up with Chigiri. If not Chigiri then maybe Hiori would’ve been a good fit. The problem that sticks out to him the most is being good enough. Would Chigiri and Isagi be the duo that gets places? He doesn’t think so.

As expected, Rin and Shidou were partnered together. 

Great. Shidou out of all people?

Isagi considers giving up momentarily.

This isn’t permanent, he reminds himself. He has to, or else the thought of never getting into the top eleven would gnaw at him, and the motivation he built up over the past couple of hours would be washed away. 

Sighing, he gets up from his seat and stretches. It’s a quarter to seven, so he still has plenty of time left before curfew at nine-thirty. He has a pile of assignments from other classes he has to finish, so he plans to go to the library and finish as much as he can. 

He changes out of his uniform and into more casual clothes, mentally noting to take a shower when he comes back from the library.

The walk to the library was considerably short. Isagi waved goodbye to Chigiri, then Kunigami, who he met at the front of the dormitory, and walked down the long path to the building. 

His mind was cluttered with thoughts of the pairs, though he tried not to let them trouble him too much. There was no use in trying to resist. He’d read somewhere online that it was best to let them float about and not pay much mind to them. Isagi thinks it’s bullshit, really, just like any other piece of advice on the internet.

But whatever, he thinks as he pushes the large glass door to the library. He stumbles into the building, his balance messed up from trying to carry his belongings with no bag. He’s regretting not taking his bag earlier, but there was no point in worrying anymore when he was already at the library. Isagi will deal with that later, huffing with budding frustration.

He walks down the carpeted floors of the library, scanning the area to find a place to sit. There aren’t many students that occupy the area, so there are some plausible options he could choose. Instinctively, he walks over to the place he usually does when he’s with Bachira, the back of the library. 

The idea of coming here during the evening was a bit strange to Isagi. He’d come here on the spur of a decision. Getting work done at the library was a wiser option since his anxious thoughts would get the better of him if he were cooped up in his dorm.

He might start studying with Bachira during the evening instead. The ambiance is nice and different. 

It’s quiet, no whirring of fax machines or printers, just the soft rumble of the air conditioner unit. The library remains well-lit, but the yellow lighting gets warmer by the minute with the blackening skies outside. It complements the wooden structures of the bookshelves, something Isagi only spots now. It’s almost homey in a sense, it makes Isagi miss his own home, miles away.

He spots a figure sitting in his usual spot. A wave of annoyance and the desire to just go back to his dorm washes over him. Someone is sitting in his seat—the only seat in the entire library where he gets work done. It had to be that one seat. But he’s come too far already, letting out a groan in childish frustration, and stomps over to the neighboring tables. 

Isagi stops in his tracks. The stranger was Rin. Rin sitting in his seat. His beloved seat. 

His irritation from earlier ceases. 

The other boy doesn’t notice his presence, scribbling wildly in his textbook, even as Isagi walks toward the seat that’s across from him. 

Clearly, he was absorbed in whatever he was working, paired with white earphones at either of his ears. 

Isagi watches him cautiously, setting his books down slowly. He’s caught, and Rin’s head snaps up from his book. He stares straight at him and there’s a look of confusion, annoyance, and recognition . His forehead creases slightly—Isagi’s wondering if he wasn’t staring so hard, could he have avoided being caught? 

His eyes shot away from the other’s, staring at his pile of textbooks and books, and working to get them sorted. 

He stops midway when Rin says, “Why are you sitting there?”

Isagi winces and slowly looks up at Rin. 

“This is where I usually sit…”

Rin squints his eyes, frown deepening.

“There are other places you can sit.”

Isagi gulps.

“This is a public library. I can sit wherever I want.”

Then, silence. Rin scrutinizes the neutral expression that Isagi is trying very hard to school. He wants to look away, but he can’t. It starts an unprompted staring contest that only lasts for five, long seconds before Rin lets out a heavy sigh. 

Rin stays seated, against Isagi’s better judgment. He must like this seat as much as I do , Isagi thinks. 

He was expecting him to  reply or get up and move, but Isagi tries not to mull over it too long for the fear of manifesting those thoughts into reality. He gingerly cracks open his chemistry textbook. 

But he cannot focus. At all. He tries, he really does, taking out his earbuds and listening to music, then leaning back in his seat to regain his thoughts to start again. Nothing helps, and he chalks it up to the fact that the presence of Rin distracts him, so he can’t get his work done. Well, he brought that upon himself.

It doesn’t help that he’s also stuck on a certain chemistry problem that he can’t find the energy to put extra effort into solving. 

Curiosity gets the better of him, so he looks over at Rin who has a similar chemistry textbook out like him. He stares at it for a few seconds, it clicks that it’s the same exact textbook Isagi has. He feels a weird excitement settle in his chest—and it’s the realization that Rin shares the same chemistry teacher as him—maybe he could ask him for help. His mouth starts moving before he could think.

“Do you have Miss. Teieri for chemistry too?” Isagi says. Though it’s like talking to a wall . 

He can see Rin’s hand halt for a moment, shutting his eyes, then taking in a deep breath.

Isagi gulps. Was talking to Rin that much of a brother that he had to do breathing exercises to calm himself down? 

Surely it wasn’t Isagi that he was sighing at, or, maybe he was. He’s starting to regret opening his mouth.

Rin goes back to scribbling with no response. Stale, dry air hangs about instead of a verbal response.  

Still, he presses. 

“Out of all my classes, I think chemistry is the worst ,” but then he thinks again, “Wait—no—actually, calculus is worse.”

He shivers in distaste at the thought of the test he took earlier. 

Then he asks, “Do you take calculus as well? Actually—considering you’re in class 2-1, you probably do. We’re on the—” Isagi lets out a squeak and clamps his mouth shut as Rin scowls at him sharply.

“Same curriculum…” he finishes smally.

“Who the fuck are you?” Rin spits harshly. If this were a cartoon, Isagi can imagine his face going red and steam shooting out of his ears with anger.

He gives a hesitant smile, “Isagi Yoichi.” 

Though his heart pangs a little from being cursed out, he’s built up a sort of resistance to Rin’s rudeness.

Fascinating how adaptable humans can be.

“Didn’t fucking ask.”

“You just asked who I was…” Isagi trails off, bewildered.

If looks could kill, Isagi would be dead on the floor, bleeding profusely from the daggers that Rin throws his way. He should lay off on the jokes, and so he does, closing his mouth once again and looking back at his books.

He leaves Rin alone for the rest of the hour he stays there. Eventually, he gets his chemistry assignment done after hastily texting Reo for help. Rin seems unrelenting in his own endeavors of studying, and Isagi is almost embarrassed at the difference in work ethics. Isagi had the attention span of a toddler, while Rin seemed like he was Einstein reincarnated. 

He calls it a day after an hour. Isagi gets up from his seat discreetly, quietly packing his belongings under his arms. He glances at his phone. 

It’s eight o’ clock, and only an hour and a half remains before he has to be back in his dorms. Rin still scrawls away at his notes, focused and unbothered. 

Isagi wonders how long he’s been sitting here, studying endlessly with no breaks. He’d never set his pen down, nor took his grip off the pitiful textbook in hand. Isagi wants to say something to Rin, maybe to tell him to eat a meal soon or even take a break. But they weren’t friends, they were strangers that just met a day ago, and Rin would prefer him dead than alive. 

Isagi tries pushing down the well of guilt he feels, but it pins him in place. He reaches into the pocket of his pants, pulling out a large peppermint that Bachira gave him a week ago, placing it on the table and sliding it over into Rin's space. 

Rin’s hand stops again, and Isagi’s throat itches. He clears his throat, opening his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out. So his mouth is ajar like a fish gaping dumbly, staring down at Rin who looks back with a raised brow. 

Something in him tells him to just leave, and he finally follows the voice with no explanation for what he just did. 

Isagi might just be the weirder one among the two of them. 

Chapter Text

Rin hates time.

There’s never enough of it, or there’s always more than there needs to be. He’s heard before that time moves in the way you want it to. The more aware you are of it, the slower it goes, and the less aware, the quicker it goes. 

Somehow, there’s not enough time in the day to do everything he wants, but there’s too much time for the arbitrary parts. School was arbitrary, but to everyone else around him, it was like a cult—something people mindlessly followed and never exactly questioning why they followed it. School wastes Rin’s valuable time, time he could use on practicing. Violin, piano, he didn’t care, anything with music was much more worthwhile than school. 

Perhaps it’s the fact that he’s placed first, the extra time and effort he puts into maintaining the spot that makes him hate his circumstances. He has, in fact, brought this upon himself. But if getting good grades in a good high school didn’t determine the fate of his future, Rin wouldn’t be the overachiever he was. He needed to do this—he needed to so he could be the best in Japan, the best in Asia, and the best in the world. It wasn’t ambition. It was simply something he was meant to do since he was thrust into this world. 

There was no such thing as talent. You’re not born with the ability to magically play the piano or a bunch of other instruments. It took drive and discipline. Rewriting and recalibrating the old, flawed you into something more ideal and worthwhile. Looking back, Rin has been through hell at the hands of his family. They were just a bunch of music enthusiasts who were obsessed with the arts and projected their failed dreams onto their kids. 

Rin doesn’t blame his parents though—he never did, really. He’s always liked music, so it wasn’t always the worst thing in the world. Or, maybe, after watching his brother, a child prodigy, he developed a similar passion for music. Though he's rather dubious of his brother’s interest in the art, he doesn’t care—not anymore. Why should he care about someone who's abandoned his own flesh for his own selfish reasons? 

He couldn’t bring himself to think about Sae. It would be like willingly walking into an onslaught of traffic, each passing car a memory he could barely avoid. It’s feelings he’s repressed for years now, and it might make him tip over the edge and drive him mad one day. But not today. If not today, then he can always put off his feelings—his stupid, useless feelings—for the next, and if not tomorrow, then maybe never. It’s not his feelings or emotions that would get him to the top.

He’s been sitting at the library for three hours, the uncomfortable wooden chair beneath him creaking under his weight and bruising his tailbone. It’s the only place where he can study in peace and undistracted. But the churn of his empty stomach distracts him greatly. He didn’t have time to eat a proper lunch, and the thought of concluding his study session was out of the question when he had a pile of assignments to complete and tests to study for.

He sets down his pen and takes his earbuds out. Joining his hands, he rests his forehead on them and closes his eyes for a moment. 

He’s exhausted, starving, and equally bothered from the news about the duets from earlier. 

Rin was paired with Shidou. Shidou fucking Ryuusei out of everyone in that stupid class of his with thirty students. Even if Ego was likely to change around the pairs; something about creating the ‘ best duos’ —Rin feels somewhat betrayed. Ego, out of all people, should know that pairing the two of them would be asking for an irreversible shitstorm. A shitstorm that would lead to a screaming bloodbath and manslaughter. Only one would make it out alive, and Rin is betting his life that it would be him.

Still, there is a chance—a high one—that Rin would be able to get a different partner. 

The whole idea of duos seemed questionable. It could end up in ruins for all he knows and he doesn’t want to take the risk, or be involved at all. All that matters to him is landing a spot in the eleven. Duos be damned. 

Rin opens his eyes and plugs his earbuds back in, picking up his pen with a sigh. With an open chemistry textbook and pen in hand, he reluctantly completes his assignment. As tedious as it is, chemistry was easily the simplest subject in the world, so he’s nearing the halfway mark of the homework a while later. He could cry tears of joy, mentally, at the thought that he’ll be out of the stuffy library soon.

Something moves in his peripheral, but he pays it no mind. It must be a person.  

It was impossible to shift his attention back to his work, hearing the loud scraping of a chair in front of him. So this person was here… to sit. Across from him .

He snaps his head up at the stranger—or boy—or…?

Rin recognized this person. It was the creepy, weird stalker he’d met earlier who’d interrupted his very intimate piano conclave. He can feel a wave of annoyance wash across his brain. What was this weirdo doing here? And sitting here? In front of him? 

It was clear from his expression this was intentional from the way he looked at Rin with big round eyes, especially considering that there were more tables around him that he could’ve chosen to sit at. The boy quickly looks away, a hint of red at his ears and cheeks, a fucking tomato . 

Oh for mother’s sake. 

Rin removes his earbuds, “Why are you sitting there?”

He’s making sure to give a nasty glare, hopefully enough to scare him off. He stays resolutely glued to his damn chair—Rin swears he sees the boy’s lips tremble.

“This is where I usually sit…”

This asstard was fucking persistent — why couldn’t Rin study in peace alone? It was like the universe had it out for him, piling schoolwork on him as he sits here famished to the bone , and now sending him an obnoxious, bug-eyed creep to disturb him. 

“There are other places you can sit.” Rin says, almost through gritted teeth. He’s tapping his pen on the table in an attempt to calm his boiling frustration. 

The boy stares at him—that same creepy bug-eyed one like he’s a fucking bug . His throat bobs.

“This is a public library. I can sit wherever I want.”

Fucking hell. The other has this stupid look of determination, a way of telling Rin that he will be sitting here against his wishes. He has to very unwillingly admit that this boy can in fact sit wherever he’d like. But why next to him? There are more seats around him—that’s what boggles Rin the most—this fucker is bothering him on purpose.

He slowly exhales, counting to three. There was nothing he could do about it. Without realizing, his eyebrows were furrowed deep and his jaw ached from grinding his teeth. He attempts to relax himself to get back to working. Rin couldn’t waste time being mad at the boy across from him, he had to finish his assignments so he could eat. 

So, he dials up the volume on his music and starts to work again. Focus comes back to him a bit easily, he’s almost done, but he could’ve been quicker if it weren’t for the sluggishness that weighed on him. He can feel the end, he can taste it—his stomach rumbles—and he’s ecstatic. He can close up this darned chemistry workbook and move on with his life. 

He’s already planning on what he’d eat for his last meal of the day. It’s almost eight; the cafeteria closes at nine-fifteen and he’d have to be back in his room by nine-thirty. It’ll take him until a little past eight to finish up his work—and he likes to take his time when eating—suddenly the idea of eating doesn’t look too fun anymore. Fuck. Maybe miso soup would do the job, and, because he deserved it after this long day, breaded chicken. He could feast on a whole cow if he had the time to.

“Do you have Miss. Teieri for chemistry too?” 

The universe has other plans, apparently. Frustration seeps into him like before, his hands stop writing and he closes his eyes to take a deep breath to calm himself down. Things might get heated and violent if he didn’t—maybe he’d strangle the boy to death and get expelled. He doesn’t want that.

Rin ignores him, or attempts to. But the other persists like a cockroach that just wouldn’t die .

“Out of all my classes, I think chemistry is the worst.”

He pauses after that. Rin hopes he’d realized his lack of response and decided to shut up. And who the fuck can’t do chemistry anyway—why was he being told this?

“Wait—no—actually, calculus is worse. Do you take calculus as well? Actually, considering you’re in class 2-1—” 

Rin felt like throwing up.

“We’re on the—!” the boy squeaks at the end when Rin flicks his head up with a violent stare.

Internally, he celebrates in joy despite annoyance still present. He’s making sure to send his nastiest glower he has in his arsenal of faces, enough to shut the bug-face up forever. Maybe even scare him off so he leaves and never speaks to him again. 

He could really go for a drink (green tea— with honey) right now.

“Who the fuck are you?” his blood pressure was definitely spiking. His chest moves rapidly, jaw clenching once more, and his forehead wrinkles with a scowl. Faintly, he could hear a voice at the back of his head, chiding him for skipping lunch and something about the importance of maintaining a healthy BP level.

“Isagi Yoichi,” the guy has the nerve to smile at him when he replies.

His persistence reminds him of a certain someone— Shidou, another pest—and he hates it, he hates everything associated with Shidou and anything and everything that reminds Rin of the asshole. Naturally, this includes this—Usagi? Isagi?—boy across from him. 

“Didn’t fucking ask,” because he really didn't, his question was rhetorical.

The other looks bewildered at this, confused, “You just asked who I was…”

Rin doesn’t care—he could taste acid in the back of his throat as he grabs his pencil like he’s ready to stab someone. And he has to thank the heavens because Isagi leaves him alone after that. He ignores the prodding feeling at the back of his head. He bites back a gag.

He gets so absorbed in his work that he doesn't notice time passing by. The next time he raises his head, the boy across from him—Isa… he forgot his name—has gotten up to leave, his back facing him and frozen in place. Whatever. He focuses on his last assignment, there are two more questions left and he’ll be out of here so soon, he could froth with happiness. 

His heart drops when he catches movement—the boy padding over to him awkwardly with something in hand. Rin doesn’t have time to react—he places a peppermint on the table and slides it to him. He opens his mouth, as if to say something, and it stays like that for a couple of moments. Rin doesn’t say anything either—doesn’t know what to say—and looks up at the other with a raised, questioning brow. 

His mouth clamps shut, and Rin is addled when he scurries away. He looks between the peppermint and the now vacant seat across him.

Rin eyes the peppermint cautiously, then rips open the wrapper to devour and crush the nonexistent soul of the candy.

Rin wakes up in a good mood. He was able to get to the cafeteria in time to have a fantastic meal, and eight hours of sleep—a record time. It was the first time in what felt like decades that he’d peacefully slept. It came as a welcomed surprise to him, who always slept terribly in places other than his home. Just as he was getting used to the thought that he’d have to live with his undiagnosed insomnia for the rest of his life, maybe there was some hope after all.

It was everything and nothing that kept him up into the crack of dawn. He could be exhausted from his day, debilitated from all of the ruminating of his lost memories, but sleep swung across his face like a pendulum, taunting him for what he couldn’t have. 

Most nights, he stares up at his ceiling. It used to be bare, until he thought it’d be a good idea to tape something to it so he could stare at it from night to dawn. It was a picture of a sunset, a random one he’d found online, and often wondered what it would be like to live there. Would it be welcoming? Warm? Would he have no worries? 

He couldn’t see the picture well anyway, almost pitch black in the room save for the window next to his bed that dimly lit the paper, the vibrant reds and yellows a muddy mush of blacks and blues. It looked exactly like what dwelling on the past was like. 

It lost its vibrance and ardor over time amidst the endless black nights. It was pointless, too. Why think of the past when it was gone? He couldn’t go back and make his wrongs right. Only time would show how insane one can get from longing. It tore at every fiber of his being until he was all but a miserable pile of ash. Forgotten among the embers of time.

Rin was now indifferent to those flashes and bouts of memories. Yet, the question lingers. How long until the strongest glass cracks under its own weight? Rin is human after all.

He rises to start his day. 

When he snaps out of autopilot, he’s already grabbing his school bag, swinging it over his shoulder as he wriggles into his choses. He’s at the door, to leave, and spares a glance over his shoulder at the lifeless dorm. 

His day was mostly uneventful. Classes were painfully boring and uninteresting. 

When afternoon comes around, he decides to skip lunch for the second day in a row. If he didn't learn the repercussions from that from the first time, he supposes he never will. He also doesn’t happen to be in the right mood to eat. There was something about the graying skies that sat at the pit of his stomach uncomfortably. 

He likes the rain, likes the climate, the suffocating humidity, the sounds of raindrops and rumbling thunder. 

Though, something was amiss—it didn’t settle in him like it usually would.

And it turns out Rin has a good fucking hunch.

It starts off with being forced to work with Shidou fucking Ryuusei. 

“I have to work with this fuck—”

Ego cuts off Shidou with a stern look. He clears his throat as if to correct himself, “This dude?”

Shidou points at him like he was some sort of insect—and Rin would chew his finger off if he could—and the feeling was well too mutual. 

“I did mention that these duos would be temporary ,” Ego pointedly says. 

No amount of mental preparation could ever ready Rid for Shidou fucking Ryuusei—no one in their right minds would be. It takes every living cell in Rin to clamp his mouth shut from Shidou’s stupid goading. He’s even more annoying than usual today.

Perhaps it's the exact humidity Rin loves that sets something off in Shidou. At least he’s suffering from the bad weather, though it wasn’t enough in Rin’s books. Maybe if he burned in a certain circle of hell, that would be better. Maybe one specifically designed only for him.

Ego catches on relatively quickly. Still, for nearly thirty minutes, he wastes his time in trying to make it work between them. Though, no amount of work or effort could ever salvage their crippling and crumbling mess of their relationship. Rin suspects his hatred for Shidou transcends this lifetime. Shidou must’ve murdered his family member or something of the equivalent in his past life—it just didn’t make sense as to why they could hate each other for no apparent reason.

Eventually, Ego gives up. He scans the classroom with a hardened stare, patience running thin. His eyes land on a spot and stay stuck there for a few seconds. Rin tries following his gaze but Ego snaps at him and ushers him to his desk. He wordlessly picks up a clipboard and scans it. 

“Stay here.”

Ego walks toward the direction of someone. A person with red hair—no—he deviates to the side. He can see two strands of blue hair poking out, a small figure and two, big blue eyes—

The blue-eyed bastard. The fucking bug with comically large blue eyes as if he was a poster boy for a commercial for ice cream . 

Isagi Yoichi.

The boy who’d gone full on Hamlet monologuing while Rin fought for his sanity. His heart drops when he sees Ego ushering the boy over. 

This couldn’t be happening.

“Isagi Yoichi,” Ego gestures to the boy—he’s staring at him, bug-eyed and pink, “You’ll be working with him for now.”

‘For now’ meant indefinite and somehow, Rin did not like that. He’d rather eat six live cockroaches then spend even a minute with the guy.

Rin’s mouth remained sealed. One look from Ego told him not to act up anymore. Whatever. 

“Well,” Isagi starts, scratching the back of his head, “I didn’t think we’d be seeing each other anytime soon.”

Rin glances at the clock at the front of the room. Five minutes remain before class ends. He wasn’t able to practice much at all. The short lived interaction he had with Shidou earlier consisted of nothing productive. 

Isagi stands awkwardly, fiddling with the case of his instrument. He catches him looking, blinking quick, face still red, “Are… are we going to practice together today?”

Rin really did not want to practice with the boy. He was seriously considering dropping everything—his interest in pursuing violin, orchestra, school , he was tired of it all. Maybe run away to an island—the paradise that hung above him as he tried futilely to sleep. Isagi’s stare makes Rin’s skin crawl. Like a bug—a fucking praying mantis, with his eyes that moved every nanosecond, trying to decipher and piece something together. Like Rin was a fucking jigsaw puzzle. 

Rin could only find it in him to shrug. “Yes.”

The bell rings loud and clear. He turns around to grab his belongings, closing the latch to his violin case and swinging his bag over his shoulder. He’s already heading out of the door on autopilot, thinking of which practice room to use on the second floor. Maybe he could start working on his solo piece— squeak .

Fuck.

How could he forget about the elephant in the room, and so quickly at that?

Rin sighs. He slows his pace as he walks further down the hall, sneaking discreet glances in small intervals to make sure that the boy was following.

“I’ll be playing the first part,” Rin says. 

The two of them were now in a practice room—it’s a bit smaller and cramped compared to the others that are occupied. There are two chairs beside each other that Rin adjusts, moving one of them to the other end of the room. The chairs were too close for his liking, and even after the chair was practically stuck to the wall, the distance was still too short. Rin tries ignoring it anyway. 

“I’m fine with that,” Isagi smiles, proceeding to take his instrument out, “I was playing the second part with Chigiri anyway.”

Chigiri was the name of the redhead, Rin now learned. Not that he’d remember something like that anyway. Isagi scrambles to pull out his sheet music, Rin following suit.

“Have you memorized the piece yet?” Rin asks.

“Completely? Not yet, but I’m pretty good at reading,” Isagi gestures to the music sheets.

Rin eyes him skeptically. 

Isagi only snorts in response to his face, “Just trust me,” gesturing to their sheets, “I’ll start on your count.”

Rin gives him one last look before lifting his violin out of his open case. He adjusts it on his shoulder as Isagi does the same, propping the music sheets upright on the stand across from them.

Rin doesn’t bother counting before he plays the first note without hesitation. Now, if it were Rin, he would’ve done it flawlessly on his first try. It wasn’t an easy feat—Passacaglia was on a whole other level—but Isagi held his breath and barreled forward anyway. It didn’t sound as terrible as Rin was expecting. The violin didn’t moan or hiss despite the boy’s rough and messy handling of the violin, and he kept up just fine.

Just fine wouldn’t suffice, though.

When they finish the first few measures, Isagi looks at him with wide, expectant eyes.

“Even a fetus could play better.”

Isagi blinks once, then drops his instrument to his lap, incredulous, “Yeah, well. I did tell you that I’m still learning. This was my second attempt at playing the entire first verse.”

Isagi continues staring at him as Rin shifts in his seat uncomfortably, placing his violin on the side.

“Tell me what I could work on, then.”

Rin opens his mouth to speak.

“And—actual constructive criticism. No insults.”

Rin scoffs.

“It's not my fault that you can’t take my constructive criticism.”

The quietness that follows has Rin bask in embarrassment from his childishness.

And as if Isagi had purposely stayed silent, he finally asks, “Well?”

Rin tries glaring at him.

“Well. You have to practice more, number one. Number two, your rhythm is absolute garbage, and the way you handle the bow— too rough. Are you trying to rip the strings, or something? It’s too pitchy. Like nails being scratched across a chalkboard.”

Isagi has this stupid look on his face, his big bug eyes wobbling like he’d just been told that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. He purses his lips, eyebrows twitching into a frown.

“Okay,” he says slowly. Something flickers for a brief second on his face—annoyance?

Rin bites back a comment.

“Help me get better.”

Rin crosses his arms.

“I’m not your teach—”

“ Rin, ” Isagi cuts in. Those stupid bug eyes.

Rin sighs.

“Only for a little. After a few days you’re on your own because it’s your part,” Isagi slowly nods, his stupid kicked-puppy face disappearing. 

“And you’d better improve.” Or else. 

Rin leaves that part out, assuming his statement gives the implication and hopefully Isagi isn’t dense enough to miss the cue. 

Fifteen minutes later, Rin is reluctant to admit that Isagi has improved. If anything, it would’ve been from his excellent guidance and not because Isagi absorbs everything like some fucking sponge. Isagi soaks up Rin’s words as if they were the bible, eyes glued to Rin’s body and every move they make, trying to replicate each on his own. It didn’t seem as though he was aware of that weird trait and it baffled Rin. Rin tries to resist squirming under Isagi’s pressing gaze.

“So,” Isagi says, setting his instrument down. They’d made it past the first two pages, which was more than what Rin had been expecting.

“Same time and here again? Tomorrow?”

“Next week,” Rin mumbles as he reaches for his case.

Isagi nods. 

He reaches to pick his bag and violin case, making a move to leave, hand on the door handle before Isagi speaks up again, “Thank you for helping.”

Rin looks back at him, somewhat taken aback. 

There’s a small smile on his face that Rin is growing to detest. “I feel like I’ve already improved, like, a ton,” he says as he stretches his fingers.

What the fuck was he talking about? 

“...”

He can’t bring himself to respond—to reply. Where is his brain when he needs one?

Rin clears his throat and mutters a jumbled response that he cannot decipher, opening the door and slamming it behind him. 

He can’t tell if the pounding in his chest is from the door or his heart. 

Chapter Text

Isagi feels giddy.

It’s been a little over a week since he and Rin had last practiced together— been together. Despite ten days passing by, he’s still as restless as he was on the night after they’d met, unable to wrap his head around his new found luck.

Isagi doesn’t remember much from that day besides the mild bickering and tips Rin had offered, if anything, he was more concerned with playing the violin correctly to impress. Sleep did not come easy since he would spend the nights flipping his brain inside out, creating scenarios of what ifs and every other restless thought that comes when you’re fixated on something.

During one of those nights, Isagi had come to a few conclusions. One, the rumors of Rin’s reclusive nature were true; he was definitely not a people-person. Two, Isagi might be a people-pleaser, exclusively for Rin. Isagi was fine with this. Even if it meant him putting in most of the work to communicate and cooperate, more than anything, if it meant he could have a chance to play with Rin, he could put up with his antics. For now.

Isagi believes teamwork makes a dream work and eventually plans on making them work. 

↓

If they happened to cross paths, he would wave at Rin, who made it a point to acknowledge Isagi, and purposefully never wave back. Isagi found it amusing more than offensive. A part of him relishes in the small moment.

Bachira and Chigiri happened to witness this on a Wednesday afternoon. 

“Honestly, I think you’re weird,” Chigiri comments, face crinkled into an expression of pity as Isagi waves at no one (he was waving at Rin three seconds ago who speeds past him, all the while maintaining eye contact, almost in mockery). 

“And like—super pathetic,” Bachira nods out loud to himself.

But they don’t get it because they’re not Isagi, or Rin. It’s almost like they’re in their own bubble in moments like those, time slows down and they speak with their eyes, which was fairly romantic to Isagi. Even if it seems like Rin is out to kill him with his murderous glare—a glare that stuck on him for a second longer than he probably intended. So romantic.

↓

Isagi begins to see Rin more often because of his increasingly regular bouts at the library.

He was already familiar with Rin’s relentless and prolonged study sessions, but Bachira was not. And he certainly wasn’t pleased about it. 

On an evening at the library, Bachira groans to him, “He’s a fucking nerd. That’s what he is. Both of you.”

“Be nice,” Isagi elbows him in the ribs, eyeing over a large Chemistry textbook, fixated on a particular boy fifteen feet away. Secretly, he likes being lumped together with Rin, realizing that they have something in common. Bachira huffs, exasperated. 

“Match made in heaven, am I right?” he quips to the ceiling, as if a deity was watching over them.

Isagi smiles shyly. “You think?”

Bachira scoffs.

“I’ve been trapped here for four fucking hours. I’m out of here.”

It’s quite the feat for Bachira to be in the library for longer than two hours, so Isagi mentally notes to buy his favorite snack—pineapple bread that, in Isagi’s opinion, tastes like melted plastic —on his way back as a token of appreciation for his moral support. 

↓

He finds himself waiting for Rin’s evening appearances at the library despite his preference for the afternoons. Maybe Rin could be considered a celebrity—as far as this school, at least—and if that was the case, what Isagi was doing would be borderline stalking. He likes reassuring himself that it’s okay, doing this was okay. It’s not like he bothered to strike up a conversation with him, let alone mustering up the courage to sit in front of him like last time. 

And he knows Rin knows . His all-knowing glare he sends to Isagi when he’d pretend to ogle at a book preaching about Confucius and his teachings, appearing like he was there for a real purpose. 

Though, no matter how hard Isagi tries to plunge his feet into the intricacies of Confucianism, he can’t seem to focus when Rin’s piercing eyes are locked on him, an unspoken ‘ fuck off’ . 

Still, Rin never confronted him, nor did he make it a point to move. 

He arrives at a third conclusion later that night, gazing up at his dull dorm ceiling, seeing lines drawn out so clear that makes Isagi want to push , to erase. Two words ring in his head: time and patience. Isagi knows he doesn’t have all the time in the world, and he’s not sure if he has the patience to wait. 

—

There’s a cold, wet thud on his forehead when he comes to. Bachira is poking him with a metal spoon, eyes round and curious. 

“What could you possibly be thinking about that is more important than devouring this succulent meal in front of you?” 

In front of him was one of the finer menu options the cafeteria occasionally offered, two chicken cutlets, savory cutlet sauce drizzled on top, placed on top of a crunchy looking cabbage salad with a serving of rice. 

Isagi shakes his head and wipes his forehead in disgust, Chigiri snickering next to him. Isagi is dozing off more than usual, eyelids drooping, and head heavy. His messed up sleep schedule is to blame for his weariness, the meager hours of sleep he’s been getting for the past week catching up to him. As if Rin wasn’t enough of a reason for his sleep deprivation. He could also blame it on the hours he’d been spending alone in a stifling practice booth with his violin, practicing until his arms and fingers ached, measures and notes branded to his eyelids when he closed them. All the practicing and ruminating has been eating away at his appetite.

He opens his mouth to respond, but slumps into his seat, sluggishness bearing down on his shoulder like weights. He closes his mouth and simply shrugs. 

Bachira leans back in his seat, arms crossed and huffing, as if Isagi were a puzzle he couldn’t solve. 

“Is this about Rin?” 

“No,” Isagi shoots back almost immediately, tone unnatural. He grimaces.

His two best friends snort at him, exchanging looks between each other, a gesture that has Isagi wondering what kind of inside joke he wasn’t in on. Bachira leans onto the table and clasps his hands together, chin resting atop.  

“So…” he trails off, a stupid, cheeky smile growing on his face, “Have you made any moves?”

Isagi knows feigning ignorance wouldn’t go past the two of them. Amazingly enough, Bachira and Chigiri happened to be unnecessarily observant in these matters.

“I gave him a peppermint,” he offers, sheepish. 

Isagi has not made any progress, aside from stalking him during his evenings at the libraries and progressing whatever story he conjures up before he drifts off into sleep. He didn’t have any opportunities to ‘make moves’. It’s not like he had Rin’s number, and even if he did, he’d be scared shitless at the thought of sending a single text.

The two look expectant, something more … Chigiri probes, “What else?”

Isagi clears his throat, then mumbles, “I’ll be seeing him today. I think.”

A pause hangs in the air for a moment, and when Isagi refuses to elaborate, Bachira sighs, leaning back in his chair, expectations crushed.

“You might be a lost cause.”

Chigiri assaults his leg underneath the table in disapproval, “Don’t say that,” then he turns to Isagi, a hand patting his shoulder to comfort him, “Don’t listen to him. You two, officially, only met a week ago. Give it some time.”

Isagi considers Chigiri’s advice, albeit things he’s told himself before, to be patient and let time take care of things. 

He’s pulled away from the doze he almost slips into by the buzz in his pocket. 

There was a message from an unknown number that read:

Practice at three, sharp.

At the back of Isagi’s mind, he has an itching feeling he knew this person, the direct and curt manner of the message telling of who it could be. Still, he texts back,

Who is this?

A few seconds later, he gets a reply. 

Rin

Isagi’s heart nearly jumps out of his chest, staring wide-eyed at his device. Chigiri peers over his shoulder at his phone and gasps.

“You have his number ?” 

Bachira abandons the pineapple bread he’d been chewing on, slamming his hands on the table, loud enough to receive weird looks from others. His eyes squinted intensely at Isagi, slack-jawed. 

“This is a perfect chance. How could you not tell us?” Bachira exclaims, though his feverence deflates as Chigiri signals for him to calm down .

Isagi stammers, dumbfounded just like the rest, “I—I never gave him my number.”

How the hell did Rin get his hands on his number? Did he ask someone? Did he ask Ego? Did he hire a private detective to dig up Isagi’s personal information? Okay, that last part was certainly an exaggeration. Not that he would mind.

“He’s definitely a creep,” Bachira decides after a moment of thinking.

Isagi stays silent at the comment, heart thrumming against his ribcage. All he could think of was finally . Then, he’s thinking of the new developments there could come between them, if he could somehow make them work.

And despite his plans of resting with a well-needed nap, Isagi would rather be in close proximity to Rin in reality than in his dreams. 

—

It’s exactly three in the afternoon when Isagi carefully pushes the door open to the practice room. He’d been waiting outside the door around ten minutes ago after asking his friends if he should arrive earlier or later, all pathetic and desperate. Isagi already knew the kind of answers he would hear from the two; Chigiri was for early and Bachira was for later. There was no point in asking them when he would arrive earlier anyway, but he needed reassurance—that he didn’t get—from his friends that going early was the best option. 

Rin had said three o’clock sharp , and in all honesty, he expected to see Rin right beyond the door to greet him with a ‘ you’re late ,’ if he came in even a second later, or a sour expression.

He doesn’t expect to find a sleeping Rin, next to a window across the room, his violin perched in front of him on a small table. Isagi is reminded of the scene he saw two weeks earlier, spying on Rin from outside the abandoned classroom, taking in all his splendor as he played Chopin’s Nocturne No. 20 . He recalls bits and pieces of the incident, as if it were already a distant memory, and cringes internally. God he can be such an idiot at times.

He pushes the thought past him and looks at the window beside Rin that was slightly open, rustling the large white curtains that are surely riddled with dust. He crinkles his nose as he quietly makes his way inside, ignoring the way his nose tickles and threatens to disturb the serenity in the room as he nears Rin. Eyeing the violin and the disorganized music sheets splayed on the table, it was obvious he’d been here for some time before three. There were scribbles and markings all over the papers, and some were left untouched. 

Isagi spots the chair beside Rin that’s placed meticulously, only a few feet away and angled toward him. He smiles a little, picturing Rin moving the chair, wondering what expression he wore while he did so. 

At this point he’s fully seated, so he opens his violin case, which takes a painfully long time since the zipper is idiotically loud . He can hear his heartbeat pulse in his ears. Rin is as still as a statue.

Isagi breathes a small sigh of relief when he manages to pull the violin out of his case without much difficulty.

He sits for a while, observing Rin’s sleeping figure. Weirdly enough, it’s only now that he’s hit with a sense of guilt that comes with stalking and staring. It was weird—weird to stare and stalk someone in their most vulnerable state, just like what he’d done a few weeks prior. Still, he can’t seem to take his eyes off of Rin. 

Isagi remembers reading somewhere that humans have a sense for when they’re being looked at—he wonders if his stare will stir Rin in his sleep any moment soon. He lets his eyes linger on the smooth skin and the usually stern wrinkles that were ironed out by slumber. 

When he finally peels his eyes away from Rin, he decides to look at the music sheets that Rin seems to have been hard at work on. 

It wasn’t like what Isagi had imagined his notes to look like. Instead of the imagined neat, organized writings, there were messy, harsh scribbles that littered the sheet, almost like the markings of a madman. He could hardly make out what half of the corrections were, straining his eyes to decipher whatever kind of new alphabet Rin invented. 

His eyes trace over each note carefully, fixating on the ones with a little star and an exclamation drawn beside them. 

Isagi sets the papers down on the table, the familiar weight of his violin in his lap shifting as he moves his fingers above the strings. He can’t exactly put Rin’s suggestions into practice yet, not when he can’t make out most of them, so he resorts to fingering the air instead of his strings, attempting to simulate them through feel.

A few moments pass by when hears a faint sigh, head shooting up toward Rin. He’s still asleep, but he’s squirming, brows furrowing, deep inside a dream. His lips part, muttering something unintelligible, letting out a small whine that was uncharacteristic for Rin.

Isagi shifts closer to Rin, hand hovering over his shoulder, torn between waking him or leaving him to rest. Just as he’s about to tap him, a murmur escapes his mouth, soft and pleading.

“Don’t leave.”

Isagi’s hand falters, lowering it back to his side slowly, left to think what could’ve been behind the two words. A nightmare. A painful memory.

Rin’s eyes flutter open promptly, heavy with sleep and something else that Isagi can’t discern. For a brief moment he looks disoriented, gaze unfocused as it lands on Isagi. 

Rin blinks at him slowly, the fog of his nap wearing off as his awareness comes back to him. 

The room grows tense, steady silence occasionally interrupted by the rustling of the curtains. 

“You’re late,” Rin says airly, voice rough from sleep. 

Isagi’s mouth hangs open dumbly, for a moment. 

“You were asleep when I came in,” he pauses, “I was here at three. Just like you said.”

He thinks back to the sudden text and how Rin could’ve possibly gotten Isagi’s number. A hundred questions flood his mind.

Rin hums, eyes narrowing as they fix on him. There’s a sliver of curiosity in them when he asks, “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

“You… you seemed tired. I was going to wake you up after I reviewed the music,” Isagi lies. 

There was nothing to review. Isagi abandoned his attempts to read and play out the revisions. He meant to leave Rin be until he awoke on his own, afraid of bothering him if he’d done otherwise. 

Rin looks almost peaceful, Isagi searching for the usual sharp edges of his features that were now softened and relaxed. There was a soft glow to his face, Isagi was unsure if it was because of the nap or the sunlight that peeked through the curtains.

“For thirty minutes?” Rin cuts through his thoughts, glancing at the clock on the wall behind him. 

Isagi feels his face heat up.

“I saw the suggestions you made,” he blurts out, attempting to divert his attention to the sheets on the table.

“These?” Rin says, finally looking away and at the papers. 

He almost sighs a breath of relief, only for Rin to look back at him, resting his chin on his hand, all casual and relaxed, so unlike his typical rigidness. Though, there was nothing casual and relaxing about Isagi’s rapid heartbeat.

“What about them?”

“Uh,” Isagi slaps himself mentally before he continues, “I think we should try them out and see how it goes. From what I saw they seemed… insightful.”

Insightful . The word feels awkward in his mouth, and he can almost hear Chigiri and Bachira’s cackles from across the campus.

Rin reaches out, taking his violin from the table and letting it settle between his chin and arms.

“Okay.”

“Great,” Isagi echoes, attempting to regain his composure.

Rin adjusts the violin against his shoulder, resting his bow on top of the strings. His fingers hold the bow delicately, as if it were floating in air. Isagi mirrors Rin, shifting his own violin against his body, fingers feeling around his bow for the right grip. 

Rin’s eyes meets Isagi’s, sharp and expectant. “From the fourth variation,” his tone was even but with an edge to it that was hard to miss. He tries not to let himself get too fascinated with Rin’s change in demeanor, ignoring the pit of hotness that wells up in his stomach.

Nodding quickly, he uselessly skims over Rin’s scrawls one last time before they start.

At first, the music cascades seamlessly from Isagi’s fingers, the familiar pattern of the notes flowing out and into the small classroom. His fingers jump between the strings with practiced effort, though it was nowhere near Rin’s remarkably flawless movements. For someone that had been sleeping only a few minutes prior, he appeared composed and played smoothly. 

He could feel tension creeping its way into his arms and fingers, getting more self-conscious by the second, the subtle changes forcing him to adapt. Isagi can feel Rin’s watchful eyes on him, and the pressure eventually makes his fingers slip, violin hissing in retaliation.

Rin stops playing instantly, gaze turning pointed and sharp. Thick air hangs in between the few seconds of silence.

“Again,” Rin says firmly.

Isagi swallows hard, nodding before they start over.

He forces himself to concentrate harder than before, devoting his attention to his violin. Even if Isagi couldn’t make out the details of Rin’s revisions, he got the general gist of them. Rin’s additions were his own—they weren’t meant for Isagi. Isagi had to figure out how to meet Rin’s pace, to meet his vision. Rin wasn’t going to spoon feed him the answer, not that there was a correct one. Isagi had the time to figure that out when he held himself a prisoner to the small cubicle of a studio, until his limbs went numb from all the practice. If he couldn’t show that to Rin, then he’d be abandoning his hunt for purpose, which Isagi subconsciously vowed to keep to himself when he joined this school. He had something he needed to prove to Rin, to the world. 

Pressure still fills the room, only easing up ever so slightly through steady progression. The fervor that burned at the pit of it all was still strong, even as they neared the end. He was immersed, possessed even, fingers relentlessly strumming against the strings, enough so that they could break under the intensity. And when the last harmony fades, it’s only then that he lets the wave of satisfaction wash over him. 

A bead of sweat rolls down his temple. His fingers tremble from strain, ache permeating throughout his right hand and arm, knots welling up between his shoulders, yet for the first time in a while, Isagi relishes in the pain. It feels good.

He glances at Rin, who’s scanning over the music sheets, expression contemplative. He catches Isagi’s expectant gaze.

“Better,” he says quietly, setting the sheets down on the table along with his violin.

It wasn’t enough for Rin and Isagi knew. He wanted more —Isagi could see it when he caught sight of Rin’s eyes darting about the floor with a glimmer of something he’d never seen before.

Isagi lets out a small, resigned sigh, leaning into his chair, unwelcoming and stiff. For now, he’ll be content with just this. And he’ll wait until the next time he’ll feel the rush he gets when he’s with Rin.

By the time they finish, it’s almost seven o’ clock. This practice session was more productive than the last, Rin was considerably less grumpy, and Isagi managed to follow his lead without much trouble. The glimmer in Rin’s eyes never quite goes away, and it intrigues Isagi, the small, warm pit in his stomach stirring.

The room is quiet when they begin packing their instruments. There’s a fog that settles over Isagi’s head, the week of terrible sleep and physical labor he subjected himself to finally catching up to him as he lifts his violin case.

When he gets back to his dorm, he’s ready to knock himself out on the first piece of furniture he sees.

He sneaks a quick glance at Rin before he moves for the door. The sight is strange to say the least. He would’ve been out and gone in less than a second, but today, his movements were deliberate and slow, as if he were stalling time. Rin catches him staring, opening his mouth then closing it, a small frown settling on his features.

Isagi waits, expectant.

After a few more seconds of silence, Rin finally speaks, awkward and hesitant, “Have you eaten yet?”

Isagi blinks.

“No,” he lies.

Rin rubs his nape with one finger. “You… should.”

“Yeah,” Isagi says slowly.

“Well,” Rin says, eyes squinting and gesturing around the room that was only occupied by the two of them.

“What is it?”

“I haven't eaten either.”

Isagi nods. “That makes the two of us, then.”

Rin sucks in some air and clamps his eyes shut for a second.

“Weshouldeat.”

Isagi doubts his ears. “...What?”

He also doubts what he’s seeing—are Rin’s ears red ?

Rin bites the inside of his cheek, opening his eyes. “Nevermind.”

“Wait—” Isagi hurries to follow an escaping Rin.

He abruptly stops, spinning around, and loudly announces, “I’m going to the cafeteria.”

Something in Isagi’s brain shifts.

“Come. If you want. I don’t really care anyway,” then he’s off again, speed walking off into the empty hallway,

Keep your fucking cool , Isagi thinks, standing for a few seconds to breathe. Then he’s off, calling after Rin to slow down.

—

A school cafeteria date was certainly not what Isagi had in mind for dinner.

The menu is the same as what it was for lunch, two chicken cutlets with a cabbage salad and an addition of miso soup. His appetite still hasn’t returned, and Isagi can’t figure out if it’s from his body being too tired to care about food, or the fact that Rin was in front of him. Actually in front of him—live, breathing, and eating.

He’s different from Bachira, who scarfs down his food in a matter of seconds, and Isagi always has to remind him to slow down or else he’ll throw up later. He’s also different from Chigiri, who picks at his food most of the time, complaining about the amount of grease there is— lard in his words—and how he wishes there were more ‘diet friendly’ options (there were).

Rin eats neatly, if that could be considered a thing, and chews on both sides of his mouth. He’s not particularly slow and neither is he fast, more so in the middle, moderate. He looks up from his food, then to Isagi’s untouched plate.

“Are you not hungry?”

“Huh?” And Isagi snaps out of his daze. He follows Rin’s gaze to his own plate, feeling a twinge of guilt. He picks up his chopsticks, prodding at the salad before deciding to slurp at the soup instead. Rin watches him all the while, expression unreadable. He sets his chopsticks down.

“You’re wasting food.”

Isagi chokes a little, clearing his throat and setting his spoon down.

“You said you were starving,” Rin points out.

He did, in fact, say he was starving, but it was said in a rush, afraid to lose out on the opportunity to eat with Rin. He smiles awkwardly.

“I had the same thing for lunch,” he admits. 

Rin eyes him before taking a sip of his own miso soup. They return to silence, only interrupted by the clicking of Rin’s chopsticks and Isagi’s spoon.

“How does it feel?”

Isagi swallows the last sip of his soup, setting his bowl down before asking, “How does what feel?”

Rin leans back in his seat with his arms crossed, finished with his meal. 

“When you play.”

Isagi considers his question for some time. It’s unexpected, and he hasn’t ever sat himself down to let his subconscious thoughts surface to his conscious mind. It’s always been purely driven by his instinct, as if his body knows exactly what it has to do.

“I haven’t really thought about it.”

Rin only blinks back at him.

“You’ve never really thought about it,” he echoes. He pauses.

“You don’t ever just… think about it? After you finish practice. Or think to yourself how the violin makes you feel when you play?”

Isagi chews at his lip. “It’s kind of complicated.”

He could spill his whole life story to Rin and share his mid-life crisis, how the expectations and burdens thrusted onto him by his peers and family and the world threaten to swallow him whole. How playing the violin felt, more often than not, like an obligation, and how one can argue, he willingly brought upon himself. How he could only feel the same excitement he once did when he first learned the violin when he’s with Rin.

“I don’t like playing the violin anymore,” he decides. He doesn’t elaborate—he doesn’t know where to begin elaborating. Rin stays silent, impassive.

Isagi lets out a dry laugh. “I can’t exactly remember when or which moment. Maybe it was after I joined this school,” he pauses, “I don’t hate the violin. It just—It doesn’t feel the same. Anymore.”

He takes a deep breath. “But when I play with you, it’s different.”

Rin tilts his head, the glint from earlier reappearing, but the scrutiny and impassivity were still present and all the same. Isagi’s skin crawls from the heat of his eyes, starting to regret saying that out loud.

“How so?”

Isagi averts his gaze, landing his eyes on the empty bowl on the table in front of him. He contemplates his response carefully, not wanting to say something outright embarrassing, but not exactly wanting to hide his true feelings.

“I guess… I feel like my old self again, like when I was first starting out and felt like I could be the next Tchaikovsky—”

Rin snorts at that, and Isagi shuts his eyes, embarrassment creeping out from an unknown crevice of his mind. He opens his mouth to elaborate more, but Rin cuts in.

“I get it,” a quirk at the corners of his lips. Isagi thinks he’s imagining things.

“What about you?” he asks, attempting to shift the attention away from him.

Rin is silent for a while. Isagi waits patiently, just as Rin did for him. His eyes search for something, flickering among a spectrum of emotions, holding a particular heaviness that resembled the look he saw on Rin from earlier when he’d woken up.

It settles on that indiscernible glint.

“With you it’s fun.”

“With me.”

Rin nods.

“It’s fun. With me?” Isagi says with disbelief.

Rin rolls his eyes. “You still suck. Like, a lot.”

So cruel , Isagi thinks to himself, but he’s already smiling.

Rin looks away, and quietly says, “Today you were fine.”

And maybe the exhaustion and tireless struggle to keep up, to find that purpose, to prove himself was worth it. It will be worth it at the end. 

Chapter Text

Isagi loses track of time, and it’s already time to be evaluated on the solo and duo pieces.

He’s been hard at work for the past two weeks, polishing his solo piece that took up most of his free time, along with his part in the duo piece. The duo piece with Rin.

He’s probably seen him more than Bachira, and certainly more than Kunigami who’s always everywhere else but the dorm. There’s some tension between his roommates, something that Isagi caught onto almost immediately, but definitely wasn’t involved in whatever the cause was. Not as much as the other three are, at least, and he catches it in the brief bits of when he’s at the dorm.

Bachira is occupied with his dance classes more than usual, rambling excuses of having to practice for a nonexistent recital that Isagi would’ve heard about but hasn’t. Not even a flyer of the recital on the bulletin boards spread across campus. 

Chigiri, in particular, seems to be more stressed than everyone else, wordlessly stalking Isagi’s and Bachira’s shared room as opposed to his own, and burying himself with assignments and practice for his own piece. Isagi doesn’t ask him about it, knowing better than to confront him about his weird behavior—Chigiri doesn’t like that. 

The three of them still ate lunch together, as they always do, but it didn’t feel the same. Chigiri would hang his head low, picking at his food more than usual. Bachira would gnaw on his pineapple bread  contemplating.

It was hard to be in such a stifling atmosphere around his friends and not knowing what the cause was. His friends were keeping him in the dark, intentionally or not, and Isagi couldn’t do anything else but to accept that. It’s not like he has the time to sit down, listen, then figure out what could possibly be going on, and perhaps his friends are aware of that. They probably needed time, too, to process what was happening between them. Maybe, sometime after things die down, whether that be after the concerto— if he makes it— or junior year, he would have a talk with his friends. That wouldn’t be until months from now, but his friends might come around by then. His plate was already filled to the brim with assignments, the concerto, and Rin.

He finds himself going back to his dorm less and less. Perhaps it was the uncomfortable atmosphere back there, or the fact that he would force himself to stay out practicing with his violin after school, up until the last minute of curfew. Isagi met with Rin more often, sporadic and sudden, practicing into late hours. Sometimes after practice, they would eat together, falling into natural conversation and comfortable silence. Comfortable silence…. Isagi never thought he’d experience something like that with the likes of Rin.

Talking with him became easy. The shift was gradual and slow, but Isagi noticed all of the changes and little details. To Isagi, Rin was like an orange. The kinds that were hard to peel, and you had to stick something in it to get it open. They always got stuck underneath your fingernails, and smelled strongly of citrus that lingered on your fingers for hours. Isagi preferred tangerines, the ones that were ready to be picked and eaten in late December. It was a tradition for him and his family to travel to Shikoku to see his grandmother and pick enough tangerines to last them for next year, but they were always gone in less than a month. They were much easier to peel, skin soft and the flesh was more tangy. 

Despite the fact, Isagi would now find himself reaching for oranges rather than tangerines. A new found appreciation, perhaps. They’re just as delicious as tangerines are, even if he has to break a tooth and nail to peel them. 

Now, as he sits in the large, bustling orchestra room, he taps his foot nervously on the ground. Chigiri is next to him, fixing and tuning his violin, as everyone else is in the class. Isagi feels a hand on his lap.

“Will you stop that?” Chigiri says, looking at him with concern. 

Chigiri’s least favorite thing about Isagi, if he had one, would probably be his anxious stimming. 

“Sorry,” Isagi says. He decides to clutch the fabric of his pants tightly.

“Just nervous.”

“Yeah, me too,” Chigiri sighs, placing his violin down on his lap. His eyes are weary, eyebags stained gray-blue from the lack of sleep and possibly stress.

Isagi slides his hand across the smooth wood of his own violin.

“How’s it going with Yukiyama?”

Chigiri sighs again. “Honestly? I kind of hate you right now for abandoning me. I know it’s not your fault. But Yukiyama is like—” he leans in, “The worst .”

Isagi smiles weakly. He can’t say the same about Rin.

Chigiri leans back on his chair in defeat, staring ahead. “I’ve just given up. On the duo thing. I’ve only really been practicing my solo. We haven’t even met up to practice in two weeks because of how bad the first practice went.”

Isagi offers a comforting shoulder rub. “I’m sure you’ll do well. If not the duo then the solo, I guess.”

“Right,” Chigiri nods. He turns to look at him again.

“How’s it going between you and Rin?”

Isagi rubs his nape. He doesn’t want to admit to Chigiri that it’s been going great and that he thinks they’d have a good chance at landing the duo piece, not after he’d said all of that.

“It’s… going. We’ve made good progress. I’m just nervous I might mess up.”

Chigiri hums at that. They fall into silence, and Isagi decides to tune his violin as he waits for Rin to show up.

“What about, you know,” Chigiri says, then gestures vaguely with his hands. 

“About?”

“Don’t you like him, or something?”

Two months ago, Isagi would’ve been a blushing and sputtering mess, feverently denying the claim. Now, after ruminating over the thought for many sleepless nights, he simply shrugs.

“It’s complicated.”

Chigiri presses on, violin set aside and abandoned, head now resting on his chin.

“How so?”

“I can’t really explain it. I can’t tell if we’re friends or just partners. He always invites me to eat dinner with him after we practice, but on the notion that he owes me something—which he doesn’t. He seems… okay now. In the past, I think he kind of hated me,” At that, Chigiri snorts, then motions him to continue.

“Now, he’s nice to me. Kind of. But I literally know nothing about him, besides the fact that he plays the piano and violin, and is ranked number one at school,” Isagi blows at his hair in frustration.

“So you’re confused?” Chigiri asks after a moment of consideration.

“Yeah.”

“And you want to get to know him more?”

“Yeah.”

“And then where would you want that to lead to?”

Isagi hasn’t ever thought of that. Someone that he’s admired for so long, looked up to, tried to emulate, and even borderline stalked, was now within reach. He practiced the violin with him, gave his own input, and even ate dinner together . Now that he got what he’s wanted, what now? Was this even what he wanted in the first place? So, what did he want?

Chigiri huffs at Isagi’s lack of response. Then, grabbing his violin, he says, “What did I tell you before? Do you even remember?"

And Isagi does remember, so he responds, “You said to take it slow.”

“Do you know what I was implying?”

He had an idea of what Chigiri meant. He shakes his head anyway. It had something to do with friends and companionship. If companionship was even possible with someone like Rin. Maybe that’s why he’d always pushed that idea to the back of his head, knowing that entertaining the possibility of friendship would lead to nowhere. So, he settles for the gray area, that is the area where you’re friends, but not quite. Friends? No. Partners? That was a little more intimate than what they had. Acquaintances? Maybe. 

“Just be friends with him, Isagi. That can’t be hard,” and in Chigiri fashion, he always ends the conversation by chiding him like a mother would, “Seriously, you should fix that habit of yours. Always trying to rush things. And overthinking,”

“That’s two,” Isagi dryly remarked.

Chigiri ignores this, and gets up, sending him one final look. 

“I’m gonna sit with Yukiyama over there. You go have fun with your new friend. And good luck.”

“New friend?” a deep voice says from behind Isagi. 

He doesn’t bother turning around, only grimacing, and vowing to harm Chigiri after he laughs at the predicament he’s trapped Isagi in.

When he finally turns around, he finds Rin already sitting down beside him, taking his own violin out of his case. 

“Hey, Rin,” he says, voice cracking slightly from his nerves. He’s going to get Chigiri.

“So we’re friends, huh,” Rin remarks. His face is unmoving as he fiddles with his violin.

“Uh. Yeah,” Isagi says, not knowing what to say. He’s being put on the spot. How was he supposed to respond to that?

Then, after a moment of silence, he adds, “But that’s more of a mutual thing, you know.”

Now he just sounds passive aggressive and hurt. He internally cringes, wanting the floor to open up and swallow him whole. Rin doesn’t respond for a while. In the midst of it, he’s fixated on tuning his violin, and Isagi doesn’t think he’ll be getting a reply soon. 

“I don’t have any friends,” Rin quietly says after he’s finished a few minutes later.

Isagi doesn’t have the time to respond when a teacher aide loudly announces the beginning of the auditions. They were going by the order of a list posted on the door, as well as written on the large board on the front wall. Isagi and Rin would be last.

A few more minutes pass by, the orchestra room filled with noise and chatter

“We…” Rin finally says, trailing off. Isagi steels himself. “Can be friends. On the condition that you do well at the audition.”

Isagi doesn’t feel relieved at all. Instead, his anxiety worsened, and pairing that with the fact they’d have to wait close to an hour before it was their turn to audition. And what a terrible condition—a requirement —that Rin decided to impose on Isagi so that they could be friends. What would even count as ‘doing well,’ at least to Rin’s standards? Now, he would have to sit with his racing thoughts, sweaty hands, and fret even more about the potential mistakes and slip ups he might make. They couldn’t be friends if Isagi didn’t do well. If Isagi made a mistake….

Just the way to make his anxiety worse. He might as well give up on the rising hope that they could be friends, and the potential that they had. Would they have been great friends? Laughed, and made jokes that only the two of them understood? Eat together often, and stay up late at each other's rooms?

Isagi has given up and hasn’t even tried.

Time is ticking, and he still hasn’t responded. He’s caught up in staring at the space between Rin and the violin tucked under his chin. Very small. Very precise. 

Rin’s words sounded more like a declaration than anything else. That meant that Rin wouldn’t take mistakes and failure as an option. That also meant that Rin, as stubborn as those oranges, wanted to be friends with Isagi. Well, that was somewhat reassuring.

Isagi clears his throat.

“Yeah. Of course. I’ll try my best.”

Facepalm. Suddenly, he can’t use his big boy brain to formulate a proper sentence. His mind is still racing and cluttered with random thoughts that he can’t exactly sort through at the moment. But seeing Rin sniffling in laughter pulls him out of his thoughts and reassures something in him. He’s not sure exactly what.

“How… are you? Are you ready? To be honest, I don’t feel ready.”

“After all I just said?” Rin asks, more absorbed with adjusting his violin against him.

“Um, well. You can’t ever practice enough.”

The corner of Rin’s lips tug upward, vaguely intriguing Isagi, as if there was a story behind it.

“I agree.”

Isagi continues. “It’s just the nerves, for me. I practiced a bunch but it doesn’t feel enough. Maybe it’s more of a psychological thing. I should probably be a little more confident in my playing for how much time I’ve spent on it. But because of…” 

But because of how much better you are. Because you’re way ahead of me. Because, maybe, this—us—may not work out, and I’m scared of that, and scared of losing what comes with that…

Scratch that.

“Anyway. I can get over it, though. As we play, I’ll probably catch drift and follow along.”

Rin puts down his violin, and finally looks at him.

“What exactly are you so afraid of?”

“I’m…” he pauses, thinking of what to say. Or, what would be the best thing to say. Isagi looks away from Rin’s eyes, but he can still feel them piercing through him, trying to pick apart his brain. He settles on playing with his fingers.

“I’m afraid of making a mistake during the audition and losing out on the chance to perform up there.”

“There?”

Isagi gestures with his hands. “There. The stage. It… it means something to me,” he huffs, dryly, “It’s my last chance.”

He could hear the echo of his words despite the room filled with chatter. Suddenly, it was like he was transported back to when they practiced together on that evening two weeks ago. Just the two of them, in that abandoned classroom, and speaking with their violins in place of their voices.

“Why do you think I came this far with you?”

Startled by that, Isagi looks back at Rin. His face was unmoving and unreadable, as always. Yet, his eyes. That glint, the same one from two weeks ago, the one that was hard to shake off and even stalked Isagi in his dreams.  

“Why…?” he croaked.

“Use that brain of yours to think.”

Well, he didn’t have to put it like that. But Isagi knew, and he knew it was dumb of him to ask. All of those evenings and nights spent together, impatient and eager, persistent and exhausting, Isagi is getting one step closer to figuring out the enigma that Rin is. He’s still a long way from even sinking his fingernails inside, from even getting his hands to touch that bumpy exterior with thorns littered throughout. 

Rin wouldn’t waste his time if he thought that Isagi wasn’t worth it. If they weren’t worth it. 

Rin sighs.

“I’m not going to spell it out for you. You can figure it out. And when you do, maybe you’ll feel…”

Rin has this constipated look on his face, like he’d rather die than have to say what he wants to say.

Isagi chuckles at that. He does feel a little more reassured. Rin believes in him, trusts him to do well. So much so that he was even willing to be friends with him.

“I understand. Thank you for that.”

Rin looks away, face stoned, but the tips of his ears that poke out from the mop of his hair were red, as if the rest of his body refused to blush. Cute.

“Don’t let it get to your head,” he says when he looks back at Isagi to see him smiling dumbly.

“Let’s… just warm up.”

Thirty minutes feel like five minutes instead, and they’re already backstage on the left wing, waiting to be called.

Isagi’s hands are a sweating mess. He’s trying not to let it show, especially to Rin, but he’s on the verge of fucking panicking and maybe exploding. He’s trying his best to stand as still as a rock, hoping Rin won’t notice the shaking of his hands. And if Rin asks, he’s not sure if his excuse of the thirty minute warm ups they did took a toll on his arms would work.

Rin looks completely normal, as if this were any other day. He’s definitely more experienced, having auditioned for multiple concertos and competitions in the last five years than Isagi ever has in his seventeen years of living life. 

But nothing seems to go past Rin’s eyes. When they're on him, he takes note of Isagi’s clammy, shaking hands and unnaturally still posture. He frowns.

“You—”

“Can the next duo come in please!” A voice shouts.

Isagi might just book it to the bathroom instead. But his feet are already moving toward the stage, mechanical and stiff. A hand stops him and spins him around, then another grounds him in place. He meets Rin’s earnest gaze.

“Look. You’re not going to mess up or make a mistake. And you know why? Because I said so. The only thing I want you to remember when you're up there is me. Look at me—not the stage, not the lights, not their stupid faces. Me. And my fingers. Do you understand?”

Isagi nods. 

“Good,” and with a final pat on his shoulders, Rin turns him around and ushers him forward with a gentle push, making sure Isagi doesn’t stumble over his feet.

They stand under the stage lights, harsh and scorching. Isagi’s not used to this at all. The air feels stuffy and oppressive, reminiscent of the kind of air that’s around and hangs heavy after a night of rain. Sticky, humid, and very uncomfortable.

They bow and do quick introductions. Staff members hurriedly place two music stands and sheet music. Isagi shuts his eyes tightly so that they don’t wander over to where the four judges are sitting. 

“Whenever you’re ready,” a voice says.

Isagi opens his eyes again to see Rin’s locked on him. With only a second to spare, they begin.

His eyes stay latched on Rin. Every movement. His feather-light grip on his bow, nimble fingers holding and releasing the metal strings. As always, his movements were graceful. But Isagi couldn’t hear Rin, and neither could he hear himself. It was as if he’d plunged into cold, deep water. Dark, and encompassing. The sounds were muffled and inaudible.

Rin kept his gaze firmly fixed on his violin, and a part of Isagi was relieved at this. He wouldn’t have been able to handle the weight of that gaze, that gaze Rin had whenever he played the violin. Anger, frustration, and a plethora of other unnamed emotions. The fire in his eyes threatened to burn his violin alive if it didn't conform to him, if it didn’t bend to his needs, his playing. 

Isagi fascinates himself with each of Rin’s movements. He can’t feel his own hands or the violin against him. He can’t feel his bow, and his arms that were hard at work in front of him. He was all but numb to those sensations and merely an omniscient viewer of an audience that spectated the two of them.

Not once does Rin look at Isagi. Not once does he seem to pay attention to the way Isagi plays. He was more concerned about devouring Isagi, himself, and his violin. He played as if Isagi didn’t exist, as if the only human alive on this planet was only Rin himself.

Isagi doesn’t know how it ends. 

He finds himself standing in front of a bathroom mirror, face flushed and dripping with cold water. His arms and fingers ache, and he takes a look at them as they grip onto the ceramic sink, knuckles growing whiter by the second. He lets go, and turns off the running water that seemed to be keeping his thoughts at bay. 

Now faced with silence, he turns around and leans on the sink, rubbing his face with his wet hands. Something was terribly wrong—he can’t remember why. 

He takes a deep breath, and another, before he starts retracing his steps. To no avail, however.

He flinches at the sound of the bathroom door opening and sees a confused, concerned looking Chigiri standing outside.

“Isagi,” he says cautiously, slowly stepping toward him.

It’s now Isagi’s turn to bear the same, confused expression. 

When Chigiri is close enough, he stops in front of him, eyes glazed over with worry.

“Are you okay? What happened back there?”

Isagi tries again to recall the past ten—twenty? thirty?—minutes. He draws a blank. 

Sighing in frustration, he says, “I don’t know.”

Chigiri chews at his lip, as he always does before he bombards him with a million questions. This time, he seems to be holding back.

“Do you know something?” Isagi rasps. His voice is sore, throat grainy and burning. 

“I wasn’t there, but I heard some stuff. I heard that you guys did awful, apparently, and that you were gagging outside the auditorium. You don’t remember anything?”

So that explains the soreness in his throat. In the weird stupor he was in, he must’ve eventually thrown up. The bathroom faintly reeked of bile. Still, nothing came to mind.

“Fuck—I can’t remember anything,” Isagi hisses at the sharp pain he feels at the side of his head, clutching it in pain.

“Hey, I got you. Let’s go to the infirmary first, yeah? We’ll get you fixed up, rest a little, then we can talk. How does that sound?” Chigiri was already guiding Isagi out the bathroom, and into the empty hall by his shoulder. 

Warm, and making Isagi miss his own mother miles away, he leans into Chigiri’s hold.

After he’s sat down on the medical cot, he’s given a glass of water and medicine for his stomach. Chigiri attempts to make him lay down, but Isagi protests. He gives up quickly, and sits down on the chair next to the cot.

“Do you know where Rin is?” Isagi asks. The whereabouts of the other boy has been plaguing him since he regained his senses.

“I’m not sure,” Chigiri says, the look of concern still etched on his face, not very appeased. 

“I don’t think he’s doing too well. And don’t even think of getting up to go find him right now. You need to rest,” Chigiri warns.

It’s as if he’d already predicted that Isagi would do exactly that, even before it was a conscious thought for Isagi. 

He kicks his legs up on the cot, crossing his arms. 

“As if you’re any better.”

“Yeah, well. At least I didn't have a panic attack and almost throw up in front of the entire orchestra. Seriously. What was that? Nevermind, don't answer. It’s not like you even remember.”

Mortified, Isagi sinks lower into the cot. 

“You don’t have to put it like that…”

Chigiri offers a gentle pat on the head as an apology.

“Someone had to step in and stop you from practicing to death. I’m sorry I couldn’t do that. I was… I was caught up with some stuff. But that’s not an excuse. So, I’m sorry, Isagi.”

Isagi blows a stray strand out of his face. He was never good at having conversations like this. Saying sorry was one thing, but hearing someone that you cared about was sorry to you was another. 

“It’s fine,” Isagi offers. He wasn’t lying.

“You’re forgiven. If you tell me what’s up with you. When you’re ready, of course,” Isagi sneaks a look at Chigiri.

He smiles.

“Yeah. When I’m ready,” Chigiri’s hand doesn’t leave Isagi’s hair. It was nice.

“I just hope I didn't ruin everything else. With Rin. Things were going well,” Isagi sighs.

“I saw him for a brief second in passing. He seemed pissed and on the verge of crying. Not sure what that was about, but finding out can wait. Don’t go stalking the campus or his dorm at the crack of dawn to ask and see what he’s up to. And if you guys really did that bad, then give it a few days. Maybe even a week. He probably needs some space and a break from you two.”

Isagi slowly nods. As much as it hurt to admit that Isagi might’ve truly fucked up his chance to play with Rin, to play at a prestigious stage, to be friends with Rin, not seeing him for some time was probably for the best. Though, Isagi really wonders if he was the real reason behind Rin, supposedly, being upset. 

Failure? So what? He hasn’t ever been ‘winning’ since he'd come to Blue Lock Academy, so failure was nothing new. He’ll go through the motions of another loss, mourn what he could’ve had, and move on with his life. Because life goes on. Even if his entire world is starting to crumble.

With a ruffle of his hair, Chigiri stands up and grabs his bag, as well as Isagi’s belongings. 

“I’ll head back now. You should rest up here and let the nurse know if you need anything else. When you feel better, come back to the dorm. Keep curfew in mind, too. You don’t want to get locked out like last time.”

“Yes, mother,” Isagi responds lazily, already laying flat on the cot and ready to drift off into sleep. 

“And no meeting Rin. Do you understand?”

“Yes mother. Please have mercy on me and take your leave now.”

Chigiri snorts, then heads out of the infirmary. 

It’s silent again, but this time, Isagi’s heart isn’t pounding and his head isn’t throbbing. His mind feels buzzed, eyes weighed down by sleep. He shuts them, and faintly hopes that he wouldn’t wake up remembering the incident that conspired after the audition.

The throbbing headache is back when he wakes up. His mouth was dry, throat sore, and bladder threatening to explode. Isagi was in desperate need of water and sustenance, as well as the bathroom. 

It took him a full moment to gain some sort of conscious clarity of his surroundings. He sits up, taking in the empty room, indistinct moonlight illuminating the room through the windows.

He checks his phone placed on the bedside table beside the cot. 

There was about thirty minutes before he had to be back in his dorm at nine. That meant he’d passed out for five hours. To Isagi, that was pretty much a full on coma.

He shakes away the thoughts of having to catch up on assignments he’d planned to do that evening at the library. That will be a problem for tomorrow’s Isagi. 

He gets up with a grunt, stiff from sleep and exhaustion. He wasn't fully awake, but he had to get moving, making a quick trip to the bathroom, then out of the building he was in. His stomach growled with hunger, so he decided to get a small dinner that consisted of a steamed pork bun and miso soup.

He eats in record time, less than ten minutes, and decides to take his time in getting to his dorm with fifteen minutes to spare.

Truthfully, he’s been trying to ignore the itching feeling that he’d recalled something from earlier. It was only flashes of pictures, but he’d pushed them to the back of his mind, more focused on eating and a little scared about what he might recall.

Now, during this pale, chilly night and no passersby, Isagi’s left alone with his thoughts, flashes of memories resurfacing from earlier. Because all efforts to push and repress end up in vain. 

He can’t quite figure out the full story, but he remembers bits and pieces. While he played up there, his mind and body felt numb, as if he were playing on autopilot. He remembers the judge’s faces after they finished: awe, shock, and horror . Then, the haunted look Rin wore after being ushered off the stage. There was sadness, anger, and something more, like there always was with Rin in his eyes. The next thing he knew, he was at the bathroom sink, dry heaving after vomiting his insides out.

He’s not sure what tipped him over the edge. Was it the performance? Stage fright? The judges? Or something that Rin had said? The answer was probably all of the above.

He’s stuck between the desire to want to know what happened and just burying everything beneath him, stuffing it away into the recesses of his mind. He’s just so confused and lost. 

As Isagi unlocks the door to his dorm, he hopes that a good night’s sleep would cure the aching and soreness he feels throughout his body and mind. He steps inside and removes his shoes, noting the absence of Kunigami’s shoes, again, and takes in the empty living room. 

It was as if there were no signs of life. The dorm was dark and cold, and the only lights came from the two bedrooms that were shut. He goes to check on Chigiri and Kunigami’s room with a slow twist of the doorknob, but it is locked. Frowning to himself, he goes to his shared bedroom, and finds Bachira atop of his bed, barely greeting Isagi. 

He plops down onto his own bed, then stares up at the same, dull ceiling. 

Kunigami wasn’t home, Chigiri had locked himself in his room, and Bachira hadn’t even greeted Isagi properly. Something was definitely up. 

The four of them used to eat breakfast together, always causing a ruckus in the mornings. Chigiri and Kunigami were the chefs, and Bachira would attempt to help but was always shooed away by Chigiri. All while Isagi observed them at their dining table, laughing at their antics as if they were a sitcom, and liked to steal bites of the food they made. He would always get chided by Chigiri, who nagged at him for eating the food, and always preferred that Isagi tried helping rather than Bachira since he was “born with an actual cooking sense”. 

Fridays were always movie or board game nights. Bachira had a bag stuffed with old movies and board games that his family sent along with him when he came into this school. Over break, the three of them had visited Bachira’s family, and found out that they all were geeks over board games and old movies. They had collections upon collections of ancient, outdated, and rare movies, and the strangest, most obscure board games, so many that Isagi has never heard about.

Friday nights were always fun. They stayed up until late, eating junk, competing over who was the best player and strategist, laughing, crying, and screaming over movies. They’d even get complaints from the dorms next to them, and they’d always try to hush each other and whisper, but that always evolved into fits of laughter and stomachs cramping. 

Isagi would come to his dorm room tired and burnt out from a long day of school and practice, but the sight of Chigiri and Kunigami bickering at the kitchen or Bachira lazing off on the couch lessened that strain just a little. 

Now, Kunigami was barely at the dorm, Chigiri was holed up in his room, and Bachira would actually sleep in his own bed instead of the couch. 

Isagi wonders if growing out of old habits came with growing up. And if so, why would that have to happen? Why couldn’t everything stay the same? Isagi hates change, and yet everything he’s ever known is changing right in front of him. Because life is cruel like that, almost like it takes pleasure in seeing you experience the things you hate the most.

With change in his life comes change in his friend’s lives. Just as he’s trying to find his footing from the changes in life, perhaps his friends are trying to do the same. Even as he tries to rationalize his feelings, and tries to offer a logical explanation to the other, emotional side of him, he can’t ignore the growing tightness in his chest. 

And as he attempts to count sheep to lull himself to sleep, he wonders where all time, that seemed so steady in his grip when he was younger, has drifted away to.

Isagi doesn’t see Rin on Thursday or Friday. He doesn’t even run into him on his paths to class like he usually does, and, so, Isagi’s growing worried. It was unlike Rin to be absent. He was known not only for his perfect grades, but also perfect attendance. Some people were even envious of his immune system because he was never out sick.

So, when Rin doesn’t show up on either of the days at any of his classes, the school starts talking. Rumors of a failed audition, a death in his family, and a shitty partner—Isagi—start circulating. It takes everything in Isagi to not start a fight with onlookers and classmates that bore holes into him with their stupid, prying eyes. Some even have the audacity to corner Isagi in the halls and outside campus to ask about Rin. Where is Rin? What happened to him? And best of all, what did you do to him? 

Isagi can only laugh. Because gee, he really wonders too! And if only he knew, because he really wishes he did, more than those clueless, dumb strangers that know nothing about Isagi or Rin. 

He buries himself in practice and school work. Auditions for a solo performance at the concerto would be held on Monday after orchestra, so he had no time to wallow in embarrassment and frustration. Even when his bandmates gave him strange looks, and babbled nonsense online in group chats and forums, he turned a blind eye to that and kept his ears shut.

Still, it was getting to him. No matter how hard he plucked at his violin and scribbled away on his textbooks, he couldn’t ignore that impending feeling of doom. ‘Doom,’ in this case, was failure. Rejection.

On Friday, alone in his room and curled up on his bed, he grapples with rejection and failure. It keeps him up the whole night, restless, and anxious. Because what if he doesn’t get in. What if he does fail. What next? What is there left for Isagi?

Saturday, he steels himself. He’s almost at the point of acceptance, if not already there. Saturday is when the results of the audition were to be announced. Yet, Saturday night came, and there was no announcement. 

No result was revealed, and no explanation as to why. Something was terribly wrong. 

But Isagi keeps on and practices anyway, hours stretching into the evening and nights, little time left, but just enough to eat a small dinner and rush back to his dorm. 

Sunday, he completely gives up hope of passing the duo audition. It’s radio silent from Ego and the administrators. Isagi still hasn’t seen Rin, and his classmates continue to speculate about the reason’s behind Rin’s absence and Ego’s silence.

Some say that there will be no duo at the concerto anymore, others think there will be no concerto at all. And if the duo performance happens, Isagi would get replaced with Shidou. No one outright says why, but almost everyone seems to agree. Isagi just wishes they would say why. Out loud. To his face.

He wants to reach out to Rin, to send him a message, and maybe go see him. He wants to understand and make out some of what this mess is. But Chigiri’s words have been weighing on him at the back of his mind, an important reminder. Even if he did see Rin, what would he even say? What would Rin say?

Throughout his classes on Monday, Isagi remains on edge. The silence, from his friends, Rin, and Ego, bothers him endlessly. He wants to put a stop to it, he wants people to stop whispering and staring at him, to stop his friends from getting farther and out of reach, to stop feeling so shitty . 

Come orchestra and a part of Isagi feels less of that. At the sight of Rin. 

He was back, seated in his chair at the first row, looking as normal and impassive as ever. But Isagi doesn’t miss the puffiness of his barely visible eyes. Isagi almost stays rooted at the doorway, but Chigiri gives him a gentle push, helping him regain some of his senses. He forces himself to look away and avoid staring, as everyone else was doing.

Hushed whispers and boring holes. People looked at Isagi, then at Rin, then between Isagi and Rin.

“Do people have nothing better to do than stare?” Chigiri says beside him as they take their seats, and voicing out exactly what Isagi was thinking. 

They were right behind Rin, but there was some distance between the seats, so Isagi relaxed a little. He was out of hearing range.

“That’s all they know what to do. And stare,” he grumbles, settling his case on his lap. 

Chigiri does the same, then pauses. 

“How have you been handling that?”

He plays with the zipper of the case. 

“It’s… going. If anything, Rin probably has it worse.”

Chigiri huffs from beside him. “Do you even know what they’re saying about you?”

“I’ve heard worse,” he says, finally glancing at Chigiri. 

“From Ego.”

Chigiri shuts his eyes tightly, sighing. “That’s different. Ego is Ego. But they don’t know anything. I wish I could just strangle them all,” then he opens them, eyes filled with concern and contempt, “They think it’s all your fault.”

Isagi shrugs. “It probably is.”

Chigiri slumps into his seat a little. “How can you be so… fine? So… okay? Doesn’t seeing them spew all of that bullshit about you make you angry?”

It makes him sad. It made him feel shitty, unworthy. He slumps into his own seat.

“What would I even say? No one would want to listen anyway. It’s not like I even know what happened. I only remember performing then throwing up. And even if I did know everything and explained it all, would they even listen? They only want to believe what they want to believe.”

Chigiri hums. A few seconds pass before he speaks up. 

“Have you given up?”

Isagi chuckles dryly. “How did you know?” he asks, though he already knows the answer. Chigiri just knew him that well.

He feels a hand caressing his nape. 

“I feel like you shouldn't. Not yet,” Chigiri says in a calm, soothing voice.

Isagi thinks, letting that settle in. When he finally thinks of something to respond with, he’s cut off by Ego’s teacher assistant coming in and quieting the class.

With a brief explanation that Ego wouldn’t be present to teach, orchestra starts soon after. They don’t learn anything of substance or practice together. It was the same, boring, repetitive work of fine tuning their skills and a bunch of other crap. They waste two hours at that, and Isagi just wants to get back to his dorm already. It’s only a Monday.

At the end, Isagi begrudgingly packs his belongings. He can’t get to his dorm just yet. They had solo auditions left to do, and Isagi couldn’t believe it was already upon him. 

Just thinking of standing up there on the stage alone, to be scrutinized and judged, made his stomach churn. The class he just had was like a glorified two hour long warm up, yet he can feel his arms growing stiffer with anxiety. Chigiri seems to notice this.

“Will you be okay up there?”

Isagi zips up his case. 

“I have to be.”

Chigiri offers a comforting pat on Isagi’s shoulder.

Then, a loud, familiar clap startles the class seconds later. Everyone looks to see Ego standing in the doorway, his expression stoic but eyes frenzied.

“Class,” he begins, making his way to the front of the room, “Sit down. Please.”

Everyone halts what they were doing and takes their seats.

A minute passes by. Ego studies the class as he always does, eyes landing on every student’s face. 

“The final duo has been confirmed, and I have the splendid honor to inform you all on the decision. I will spare you all the details,” he explains, then pauses.

He lets another minute drag by, an excruciating wait for everyone in the room. 

Ego’s lips curl upward. 

“Rin and Isagi. Congratulations,” he grins, clapping. 

The sounds of Ego’s claps were deafening. Everyone in the room remained in a stunned silence.

Grin unfaltering, he casts a final gaze toward the class, then he chirps, “Class dismissed! Oh, and Isagi and Rin, do stay back, please.”

Ryuusei is the first to leave, kicking out of his chair with a grunt and stomping away. The rest of the class follows in pursuit. Chigiri, with a hand on his shoulder, makes Isagi promise to talk to him when he gets back later. Isagi can only manage an absentminded nod.

He stays rooted to his chair, as if he were stuck there. Rin stayed motionless, not making a move to get up.

The two of them only do so when Ego ushers them toward him. The light in his eyes is glittering and manic, the grin remaining etched onto his face, like a permanent expression. 

“I know you guys were not expecting to win the auditions. Not after that mess of a performance you showed the judges,” he sighs, dramatic, “And, well, none of the other judges were expecting you both to win either. Though, everyone did want to see Rin up there. Just not you, Isagi,” he gestures to Isagi with a hand.

“It was really just a matter of changing Isagi out with someone ‘better’. And, so, I asked them, if not Isagi, then who? You should’ve seen their faces. No one had an answer. Everyone wanted you gone but had not even the slightest idea of who to replace you with.”

“I’ll be honest with you guys. Both of you were shitty. I can list three other duos that outplayed you both, in terms of technicality, that is. Rin, you were playing as you always do, but you got caught up with yourself toward the end. Isagi, you managed to keep up, but it was almost as if you were a dog being dragged by a leash. You barely managed to keep up.”

“So, now, you both are wondering how in the world did you both pass the auditions? Well, that’s all thanks to yours truly. Despite the mess that you guys made, you were the only duo that actually had something— chemistry . That chemistry that I talked about weeks ago. It didn’t matter if there were other duos that played better than you. In terms of technicalities, you guys were shit. But your performance was the most memorable. Because the two of you have something special, something that no other duo had.”

“That’s why I proposed to them a deal. If I let you both perform and it goes terribly wrong then they’re free to kick me out of this school, revoke my teaching license, and have me live in hiding for the rest of my life,” still smiling, Ego continues, “But, if you guys make it, then I get a promotion and raise. And of course they agreed, because they’re looking for any valid excuse to kick me out of this school. The higher ups don’t like me. But that’s precisely why I’m using that to my advantage to get you both to perform at the concerto. It has to be you two.”

“From now until August, I’ll be assisting with and monitoring your progress. You both have a lot to work on. For starters, you both need to work on finding a balance. Right now, Rin stands out too much. It’s clear that he’s the better player between the both of you. Isagi, you’re holding yourself back too much. I don’t know if it was a mix of nerves and inexperience that got to you on stage, I don’t care. And neither does the audience. Always keep that in mind. You have to match Rin’s energy. Rin can’t tone down his performance to match you— you must match him because you’re the most lacking.”

“Only when you find that balance can you guys create a harmony worth listening to. I don’t care about what it takes for you two to find that middle ground. What I’m saying is I want—no—I need you guys to do whatever it takes. Try not to let yourselves get devoured by each other. Even if Isagi is lacking, that doesn’t mean he can’t consume you whole, Rin. He can if he tries. It wasn’t just sheer willpower that got him to where he is now. You have the power to create a magnificent disaster, all for the world to witness and hear. So, find that balance, and work together. Only then will you both put on a performance of a lifetime.”

Ego soaks up Isagi’s and Rin’s stunned expressions. 

“Well, I have to be somewhere now. Be prepared for this tough journey that awaits you. I’m excited for the both of you,” he clasps his hands together, then with a quick nod, he rushes out of the room, leaving the two boys alone and dumbfounded.

Isagi’s brain hurts. Ego decided to dump a myriad of an explanation on the both of them, then left as soon as he came. It was a lot to process, a lot to digest.

The ‘higher ups’ were passionately opposed to letting Isagi perform with Rin at the concerto, as was everyone else around him. But Ego, risking his livelihood, decided to make a deal with these people that have all of their lives at the palm of their hands, just to let Isagi perform up there. Then, something about chemistry, and finding a balance to make it work.

Isagi wonders if Ego is just really smart or really stupid. 

No one in their right minds would take a risk with such steep consequences, consequences that Ego is willingly imposing and accepting upon himself—his life— just to see two high school kids perform together on stage. Ego probably wanted this more than Isagi did. That said a lot. 

Now, having to bear the burden of Ego’s vast expectations and his life, Isagi faces yet another obstacle. With a shaky exhale, he sneaks a look at Rin, who’s already staring dead at him.

Isagi quickly looks away then clears his throat, thinking of something to say. The air was awkward and quiet. He wonders if he should stay silent instead. Though, his mouth moves first before he can stop it.

“I guess we’re friends now.”

Rin studies Isagi for a moment, then snorts. He walks to his seat and grabs his bag and case.

“I guess so.”

Isagi wasn’t satisfied with that, but he swallows back a response and goes to get his own belongings. When he’s finished, he sees Rin waiting by the doorway, fidgeting, and looking everywhere else but Isagi. 

“Do you…” he trails off. Isagi waits, expectant. He’s reminded of the scene from two weeks ago when Rin had asked Isagi to eat dinner with him. All shy, fidgety, the tips of his ears pink.

“Have you eaten yet?” he finally asks.

Isagi has eaten. It was a big lunch, too, because he wouldn’t have the time to eat anything between the auditions (that he didn’t have to do anymore), more practice, and studying. But this was the first time in a few days that they were seeing each other—talking to each other. 

He lies again.

“No. I’m starving,” he says with a small smile as he walks toward Rin.

“I see,” Rin says wobbly. “Do you want to—”

“Sure,” Isagi responds brightly. 

“Okay,” Rin says cautiously, eyes staying on Isagi for just a second longer. Then, he wordlessly turns around and walks off, Isagi trailing behind him.

They had so much to discuss, so much to chew over about together after the news they’d just learned. 

And hopefully, Isagi could at least get himself up and over that large, looming wall in front of him to see what lay ahead. Preferably, not alone, but together—with Rin. 

Chapter Text

Isagi wasn’t too shocked to see who the final ten soloists would be.

It went in this exact order:

Shidou Ryuusei, Viola

Jyubei Aryu, Violin

Shoei Barou, Cello

Reo Mikage, Violin

Tabito Karasu, Cello

Eita Otoya, Viola

Hyoma Chigiri, Violin

Kenyu Yukiyama, Viola

Yo Hiori, Violin

Ikki Niko, Cello

Unsurprisingly, all of those who played first violin landed a spot. Though, the order of the solos implied that it was a sort of ranking based on skill. How Barou made it above Otoya, a first violin player, was unexpected, and a question that lingered in everyone’s head. Not that Isagi could complain about that—he himself was probably the biggest question mark.

Chigiri, who placed above Yukiyama, was beyond ecstatic, bursting into Isagi’s room only seconds after the announcement was posted. Something about failing miserably during the duo auditions, getting into another argument, and relief that he’s overtaken his now sworn enemy. Isagi was happy for him.

The long hours of practice continued for the next two weeks, never lessening or easing up in the slightest. They followed a strict schedule, practicing separately during orchestra, then meeting and practicing under Ego’s supervision.

Ego had the eye of a hawk, a hawk with laser focus that was scorching under its heat and even more so at a single slip up. He heard the tiniest flaws that Isagi, and even Rin, didn't have the ear to catch. Either the man was not in his right mind or was the school’s maestro for a reason. Or, most likely both. 

Ego was also a harsh instructor. He had an endless list of critiques that felt as though he was asking a monkey to juggle; fix your posture , lock your shoulders, quicker—people would spit on you if they heard that . 

And it was truly astonishing at how much little time they were given to polish such a difficult piece. Being a prestigious school, there were unvoiced expectations that shot up through the Earth’s stratosphere, almost unreachable, and a hell of a drop if you failed to reach it. 

Passacaglia was a beast of its own, one that couldn’t be tamed and hungry for tears over blood. Every time Isagi played, it was as if he entered a battlefield with landmines littered about every measure, a single misstep costing a life. A life, in this case, would be time, which is finite.

Isagi was lacking in many ways. But making up for it through painstaking effort was all he knew to do.

Ego preached about harmony and chemical reactions, as if his words would will it into existence. But lead couldn’t turn into gold the same way Isagi’s desperation and Rin’s obstinance couldn’t conjure the perfect synergy. Ego might as well just tell Isagi to go make friends with a wall. 

Isagi’s efforts were in vain, trying to connect with Rin—with his large, impenetrable fortress and barbed wires. 

At times, Isagi could find himself reaching over its tall, brick walls, catching a glimpse of something beyond. Maybe it was in his borderline-insulting guidance and commitment to eating dinner with him, their only constants. Isagi would skip lunch and arrive at the cafeteria with an empty stomach and one hundred questions that would never be answered. They mostly sat in silence, Rin dissecting his food and Isagi starving for more than just the meal in front of him. Mundane conversations were not enough to fill him. It was always ‘ Your vibrato is pitchy,’ or ‘ You’re dragging on the sixteenth notes, ’ and never ‘ How was your day? ’ or ‘ How’s life?’ .

People still talked, still whispered, following him around like a dissonant echo on repeat. But Isagi had stopped listening.

He sought refuge from nature during his increasingly nonexistent breaks. On days where Ego’s critiques wormed its way under his skin, Isagi found himself at the campus's benches and sat under the sun for hours, letting its warm rays heal his unseen wounds he’d amassed during the day. 

Sometimes Bachira would join and sit next to him on the benches, silently following Isagi after classes. He often stayed quiet, no wild mentions of conspiracy theories or the sounds of him chewing on pineapple bread. Just the occasional comments on the weather or half-hearted complaints about their assignments. This was what their study sessions dissolved into; physically close but separated by something unspoken. 

Bachira was never one to hesitate. Bachira didn’t cry over spilled milk—he spilled it then laughed about it. The same boy who’d once loudly announced Kunigami’s crush on Chigiri in the middle of lunch now bit his lips until they turned white. 

Isagi could only piece it together after the confession and countless nights of ruminating. Sneaky glances, smiles that were too wide for a lame joke, words that carried the intimacy of something more than just friends. Isagi would brush it off as their usual dynamic, but he couldn’t anymore. Not after seeing Kunigami busy himself with menial tasks outside the dorm in avoidance and Chigiri’s cloudy stare and strained smiles.

And Bachira knew what was wrong. Isagi couldn't help the curdle he felt in his stomach when he realized, and it left a spoiled taste in his mouth. His friends kept secrets from him, as if they were trying to save him from the trouble. As if he wasn’t worth the trouble.

As he would watch the sunlight dip into the trees, he wondered if this was what it was like to be a ghost. Existing but forgotten, fading at the edges. He wanted to know that he was wanted somewhere , for once.

With nowhere to go, he sulks to himself in orchestra, alone, because Chigiri was at the dorm, bedridden from a cold. He would much rather take care of him, but Chigiri, as stubborn as a bull, vehemently denied Isagi’s offer. 

Chigiri was, really, no better than Isagi. He had no place to tell Isagi to stop practicing himself to death when he was doing, quite literally, the same. Isagi didn’t miss the way Chigiri’s uniform collar dampened from sweat, or the way his arms trembled from holding his violin for only five minutes the day prior.

And look where that has him—at least Isagi wasn’t sick for more than a few hours like Chigiri was.

He picks at his nails, counting down the minutes until orchestra would just end. Not that he could escape to his dorm right away. His precious, rare break would be interrupted by a last minute meeting that Ego had planned for the twelve players to discuss something ‘important’.

Whatever it was that Ego had to discuss, it couldn’t be more important than what Isagi had planned for his break. His bed was eagerly waiting for him with open arms, warm and inviting.

Ten minutes later, they’re all gathered around in a circle at the front of the class.

“I wanted to inform you all on some news. With the concerto only being three months away, our administration thinks that it would be a good idea for you all to get some exposure. Naturally, I think this is a terrible idea. Something about attracting a bigger audience, which I don’t think would be necessary. We already have more than enough people that are quite literally frothing at the mouths to see you all perform. But my job is on stake here. So I decided to listen to them on the condition that I get to choose to plan an event for you all,” Ego explains.

Ego must really take pleasure in risking his entire existence just to get what he wanted. 

“What they want is over-glorified promotions and image building. The perfect way to do that is getting involved with the community.”

He pulls out a piece of paper and unfolds it for a better view.

“Can you all tell me what this is?”

It’s a picture of a hospital, patients, and kids. The lettering was tiny from where Isagi was, but he could barely make out the words ‘Volunteers Needed!’.

“A hospital,” someone responds.

“Correct. I happened to come across an event this hospital was holding—a children’s hospice. A talent show for the patients. Perfect for image building,” Ego dully informs. 

“This weekend, as a group, we will be performing for the terminally ill patients,” he folds the paper haphazardly into his pocket, “A simple piece will suffice. It could be on the piano, violin, viola—the choice is yours. To frankly put it, it’s a publicity stunt. Twelve rising musical prodigies performing for sick, dying children. That should be a perfect way of attracting a bigger audience,” Ego then trails off, eyeing Shidou, “So, I expect you all to be on your best behavior.”

The boy ignores Ego, looking as if he had better places to be. Isagi did, too. 

He dismisses them after that. Isagi speeds to his dorm with an unmatched quickness, itching to shed his uniform and get into more comfortable clothes. These days, he’s starting to loathe his uniform. It’s tight and rigid in all the wrong places and almost feels suffocating after a long day.

He makes sure to check up on Chigiri, who, even in his sick haze, was avid on taking care of himself and refusing Isagi’s help. Isagi, having none of that, manages to convince Chigiri to let him make warm tea, along with giving him medicine to reduce his fever.

After that, he goes to his room and plops down on his bed, limbs spread out like a starfish. His plan was to nap for an hour, then make a dent in his never ending pile of assignments. Before the night ends, he would try to get some practice in by playing the violin for Bachira. He would lay down on his own bed and listen to Isagi play, like what they used to do when they were first years. Mundane, repetitive, and Isagi finds that he was stuck in a cycle, the very thing he hated the most. 

The flyer of the hospital pops up in his train of thoughts and he rolls onto his side to face the wall. 

Isagi has never been fond of hospitals. Knowing that he would be performing at a hospice made his stomach stir uncomfortably. How morbid , he thinks.

He was often stuck at the hospital as a kid because of his weak immune system he was born with and a troublesome stomach. Stomach bugs, his doctors called it, but Isagi thought that the word ‘parasite’ was more fitting. It was severe enough where he’d never really had a proper childhood, always stuck in hospital beds instead of a desk at school. The childhood he barely had consisted of listening to classical music with his parents, learning the piano from his father, and playing football with his mom. 

During his time there, his interest in football and classical music had grown. It must’ve been when he idly sat at the hospital’s common room, watching as an unnamed pianist hacked away at the piano. Or when the crabby old patients would snatch the remote away to change the channel and watch highlight reels of football instead. Perhaps that loss over a normal childhood had deepened the desire for one even more. It was as if he lived a lost childhood through the moments where he sat in the common room and listened to Bach’s top ten classics or engrossed himself in a football match with the other patients. It kept him waking up everyday and choosing to live over rotting.

With no friends that visited him and only family that stuck beside him all day, he grew lonely. At times, that loneliness threatened to take him whole, manifesting as a dark, blurry figure at the foot of his bed at night. Standing and stalking. He could only stare back at it, unable to move or cry out for help, and the creature would watch with its fervid, black gaze. Even now, during his darkest of days, the creature would still be there, lurking, and waiting to make its reappearance when Isagi was at his most vulnerable. 

He couldn’t completely erase those painful images even after he made a full recovery, the lonely hospital rooms and the constant beeping of the heart monitor. Or the IV bags and other needles that hung from his arm, hooked up to different machines. The constant tests and scans. He felt more like a lab rat than human. 

He often looked outside the large glass window next to his hospital bed and wondered how long he would be confined to it. And perhaps, did those stars that hung there at night feel the same, confined to the endless blue pool that was the sky with nowhere to go. 

Isagi drifts into sleep with a heavy heart, as he often does these days. 

—

The weekend approaches quickly. Isagi was half hoping it wouldn’t and half hoping that it’d arrived slowly. But the universe always has a way of giving the opposite of what you hope for, so here he is, standing at the front of the music building alongside his classmates, waiting for Ego and the bus.

To say he wasn’t anxious about performing at a hospital would be a lie and an understatement. Bachira, who he’d briefly mentioned his concerns to the night before, had advised him to search up images of hospitals and engrain them into his mind as much as he could to get himself familiar with hospitals again. Isagi, finding it more humorous than not, had to explain to him that, unfortunately, it didn’t work like that. 

They’re not that far into May and it was barely past eight in the morning, yet Isagi can already feel how swelteringly hot the afternoon would be. With the added fact that he ran hot, he wore a long-sleeve striped blue shirt and cargo pants that reached down to his ankles. Sure, he should have checked the weather app yesterday, but Isagi also thinks that it shouldn’t be this hot in the morning in early May. It was barely even twelve. 

Chigiri, who impatiently taps his foot beside him, was doing much better, evident in his now healthy skin that was once a sickly color. He was dressed more appropriately than Isagi, with a yellow polo and white shorts. 

Isagi starts to sweat a little, swiping the back of his neck. Chigiri observes him with a frown. 

“That’s why I told you to check the weather app. Who in their right mind told you that wearing a long sleeve shirt in May was a good idea?”

Isagi shifts, bumping into Chigiri with a small smile. “You should’ve told me. You’re dressed in a polo and shorts and now I have to sweat in a pool of my own clothes.”

Chigiri huffs exasperatedly. “Great. You wanted a sick person to inform you of the weather. Would you like me to change your diapers next?”

“Well,” Isagi replies with a playful lilt. “Seems like you knew anyway. Isn’t it your duty as my best friend to inform me of such matters?”

Chigiri only rolls his eyes, grumbling to himself. “Can Ego and this bus just get here already?”

Seconds later, Isagi hears footsteps, and he doesn’t have to look to see that it was Ego. He could tell from his characteristic mumbling and the nonexistent gray cloud that hung over him and that everyone could feel without looking. 

Another pair of footsteps approach him, and Isagi sees Rin just as he stands next to him, staring right at him. It was how he always greeted Isagi. The words ‘ hi’ and ‘ bye’ weren’t in his dictionary. 

Isagi averts his gaze to his outfit that Rin wore, a dark blue sweater and beige dress pants. A light blue collar peeked out from underneath his sweater, and Isagi took in how unfitting Rin’s outfit was for the season that they were in (or rather approaching). Somehow, there wasn’t even a trace of sweat on his pristine skin, which Isagi envied. He also envied Rin’s broad shoulders that were like cloth hangers and long legs, seeming more like a high-fashion model instead of a high-schooler. 

Chigiri pinches him from the side. “You’re staring,” he whispers. Shit. He suppresses the urge to flush and quickly turns his head away, facing Chigiri with wide eyes. 

“You’re as red as a tomato,” Chigiri says through his teeth in a low voice.

“Seriously?” Isagi questions, bringing a hand to his warm face. Chigiri only shakes his head with a sigh.

It’s really hot. Isagi just wishes the bus would arrive sooner. 

His prayers must’ve finally been answered, and moments later, he spots the coach bus arriving and stopping just ahead of them. As Ego takes a painfully slow roll-call, Isagi waits in the small line for his turn to board the bus. 

“Are we sitting together?” Chigiri asks beside him. 

Isagi shrugs. “I don’t mind,” he responds, resulting in a snort from Chigiri. He sends him a look.

“I thought you’d want to sit with your boyfriend ,” Chigiri teases, leaning into his ear at the last part.

Isagi gulps, then lightly kicks Chigiri on his calf. “You know what? Maybe I will. Have fun sitting with your boyfriend,” he says after climbing up the steps of the bus, then sticks his tongue out. 

Chigiri’s face almost drops in horror at the realization of who he would have to sit with, and Isagi has to stifle a laugh as he finds Rin at the back of the bus.

He hesitates for a moment when he reaches the pair of seats, one already occupied by Rin. Isagi clears his throat, warranting a glance from Rin.

He debates on asking Rin if he could sit next to him, but it wouldn’t matter anyway. Rin would shrug and tell him to piss off but Isagi would sit beside Rin regardless of the answer.

Rin barely spares him a glance and goes back to looking outside the window. Isagi cautiously takes a seat beside him, trying to calm his increasingly quickening heartbeat. He’s never been this—physically—close to Rin, and he’s hit with the faint aroma of mint. Pleasant, but somewhat of a surprise. It didn’t smell as if it were cologne or perfume, but rather the products he used, or even his natural scent. 

So this is what Rin smelled like. Isagi had always imagined Rin would smell more like… white musk or something foresty like pine trees and juniper. Soothing and calming, remarkable and rare. But mint was equally pleasant and had its own, unique charm. Icy and bitter, like how the air smelt around you moments before a blizzard. The smell was addicting. 

The bus departs shortly after, and Isagi feels a buzz in his pocket moments later. It’s a text from Chigiri that reads:

IM GOING TO KILL YOU!!!!!!!! 

He lets out a small chuckle and peeks out from the seat to see Chigiri who sat with Yukiyama two rows down, with a glare that could’ve sliced Isagi’s head right off. Isagi sends him a kissy face in mockery, then settles back into his seat. He sneaks a glance at Rin who gazed at an uninteresting view outside the window, earphones in both ears.

Isagi wondered what kind of music Rin listened to. Maybe classical music, he assumed by default. But Rin was a boy with many surprises. He played the violin and piano, wore sweaters in the summer, and smelled like mint. So, really, Rin could be listening to Beethoven, Chet Baker, or Hatsune Miku. 

Then he sees it.

Rin’s phone flicks open from a notification and Isagi sees his wallpaper, a small black kitten, and the song he was listening to. Stoned face as he looked out the window, his earphones were blasting California Gurls by Katy Perry. Isagi’s brain short-circuits.

As if he sensed something, Rin snaps his head toward him, eyebrows furrowing. “What are you looking at?”

Isagi blinks up at him a few times, sputtering into a coughing fit because suddenly, something felt lodged inside his throat. “Sorry. I was spacing out.”

A half truth was always easier than lying. Rin continues to glower at him. 

Forcing himself to be calm, Isagi takes a moment to lean into his seat and calm himself. “You listen to Katy Perry,” he points out seconds later, sounding more accusatory than intended. 

He might’ve imagined seeing the reddening of the tips of his ears. 

Rin stiffly glances at his phone, then shoves it into his pockets, as if he were strangling it. “Is there a problem?” he asks, defensive. 

Isagi shakes his head as if he were possessed, hands out in defense. “No, nothing—I…” he was at a loss for words but desperately needed them to save himself.

“Guess I wasn’t expecting that.”

“I don’t care about your stupid expectations of me,” Rin quips. The tips of his ears were still red. 

“Well. I think ‘Hot n’ Cold’ is better,” Isagi tries. 

Rin shrinks into himself, ears still pink, and looks away. “Didn’t ask.”

And there goes Isagi’s chance of attempting to bond over Katy Perry’s music. With the conversation cut short as it always did, Isagi's left starving for more. He might as well start playing with fire to get something .

“Can I listen?” Isagi asks, gesturing toward an earbud. 

Rin looks at Isagi as if he were Frankenstein brought back to life, but before he could get a word in, Isagi plucks out one of the earbuds and plugs it into his ear. Rin could’ve probably said no and probably punched Isagi square in the jaw for good measure. Maybe revoke his privilege to sit next to him and kick him out from his seat. But he doesn’t. His scowl deepens, but he doesn’t pull the wire back. All the while, Isagi’s heart thrums rapidly, ready to go into cardiac arrest, the taut wire between them makes his stomach flutter strangely.

Rin grumbles something underneath his breath, then turns toward the window again. Just as Katy Perry’s tinny voice warbles the last chorus, the bus hits a bump, Rin’s knee brushing against Isagi’s. Neither of them moved away. 

When Isagi slips into a light nap moments later, he dreams of himself biting into a large, ripe orange that hypnotizingly beats in his hands like a heart.

—

Isagi startles awake from a tremble. One look outside tells him that they’re past the suburbs and in more farmland that was identical to the fields that surrounded their school, lush, green, and vast. The sun was just above the bus as it pushed forward on the rocky terrain that awoke Isagi from his nap, blazing and bright. The earbud in his ear must’ve slipped out during his nap, and he spots it lying loose on his thigh. As he traces the wire to the boy beside him drifting off to sleep, head slightly lolling and long lashes fluttering against the angle of his cheek, Isagi cautiously places the wire on Rin’s lap. 

He takes a good look at him. Rin was unsettlingly human like this. No frowns or hard lines. No sharp criticisms or remarks. It was only his quiet, rhythmic breathing and the twitching of his fingers against his legs, unconscious, but as if he were ready to raise his defenses at any moment. The sunlight that bled through the windows painted his mossy dark hair in a warmer hue, flyaway strands poking out and moving along with the bus. Isagi wondered for a while what it would be like to tuck those strands away, to let his fingers linger on the skin behind his ears. To see if his skin was as cold as it looked. 

He resists the tic in his hands, and checks the time on his phone. 30 minutes left before they arrived at the hospice. He lets out a long, labored sigh at the thought of how ironically morbid his predicament was. Isagi was rather dubious of if this event would really be enough to elicit interest and positive reactions from the general public. If anything, it was blatantly obvious that this was a publicity stunt, which was unusual for Blue Lock Academy, with its high prestige, and elites that held their noses way too high up in the clouds to even acknowledge the people below them. In other words, it meant that the stakes for the concerto were high. It could flip or ruin lives at any moment. 

With a sigh, he reaches into his pockets, fingers brushing against two small circular objects. Pulling them out, he finds two peppermints, like the one he’d given Rin a month ago. Throttling them in his hands, he cringes at the memory that rushes back to him. A gaping fish of his mouth, wordlessly handing Rin the mint after evading his own potential homicide, then scampering away with a tail between his legs. And all thanks to that peppermint, he was soon to play on a grand stage with Rin who he was now friends with.

He unwraps one and pops it into his mouth, glancing at Rin. He was awake and blinking away his drowsiness, faintly staring at Isagi’s clamped fist that held the last mint. Isagi stretches his hand out, offering it to him. Rin stares at it for a second longer, then takes it. 

Isagi smiles. 

“What do you plan on playing?” he asks, watching as Rin tentatively places the mint in his mouth.

After a long moment’s hesitation, he says, “Chopin’s Op. Twenty-Eight Number Four in E Minor.”

Isagi nods in recognition. Another heavy piece that Rin willingly chose to play. He seemed to always play depressing, melancholic melodies. The kind of pieces that lodged itself deep into the crevices of your heart and echoed throughout days later. Chopin had plenty of lighter and upbeat pieces that were just as good. But Rin always reached for the ones that ached and asked questions with no answers. 

Why? Isagi wanted to ask, the thought persistent as a moth to light. 

“You always play depressing stuff,” Isagi says out loud. A little slip up from his stream of thoughts. He bites his lip as soon as he realizes.

Rin turns to look at him weird, furrowing his brows. “What would you know?”

A lot , Isagi thinks while recalling the countless times he’s lurked, hidden from sight, listening as Rin played the piano at the abandoned classroom. 

Isagi clears his throat. “It’s—it’s not a bad thing,” he pauses. When Rin doesn’t respond, a brow simply raised, Isagi asks, “Will you be playing the piano?”

Rin nods, then looks ahead at nothing. “Chopin’s pieces are always best on the piano.” 

Isagi nods in agreement. He also prefers the way Rin plays the piano over the violin. How his fingers sunk deep into each key and pulled its soul out as if he were Lucifer—he wasn’t just playing the piano, he was speaking to it. It was different from when he played the violin. It lacked the heaviness and raw emotion that Isagi felt from all the times he’s heard him play. It’s been a little over a month since Isagi had crept away to that abandoned classroom, with its old, rustic grand piano that beckoned Rin. It should’ve been long enough for those memories to fade out, but it couldn’t when it clung to Isagi like a shadow at his heels. 

Rin interrupts his thoughts, asking, “What are you playing?”

“One of Bach’s Partitas. Not sure of which one to play, yet.”

Rin shifts, a look of mild surprise. His expressions almost never reached the edges of his face, as if the mask he always wore stopped himself from doing so.

“You haven’t decided?”

Still grinning, Isagi says, “Nope. I’ll probably play whatever I feel like playing before I go up there.”

Isagi knew a few of Bach’s Partitas by heart, almost second nature like muscle memory to his hands. Bach’s Partitas were upbeat and cheery, a stark contrast from Rin’s depressing choice. It wouldn’t be a problem to just play whatever came to mind, but Isagi had a fatal flaw, and that was his indecisiveness.

“Huh,” Rin says, going back to staring at the seat ahead of him. 

They’re silent for the rest of the way. Isagi counts down the minutes and seconds left until their arrival. By the time they arrive, it’s almost eleven, and Isagi finds his hands growing clammy despite the cool air blowing throughout the bus. His stomach knots around itself, a familiar phantom itch he used to get from IV tapes throbs around the skin of his elbows. 

His gurgling anxiety didn’t lessen at the sight of the large building. When Isagi steps off the bus, he’s hit with an air of overwhelming heat, and wants nothing more than to just get back to his dorm and change out of his clothes. He really should’ve checked the weather. To hell with global warming.

Craning his head, he takes in the tall hospital looming over him, foreboding with its darkened windows that resembled prison cells. He took slow, timid steps toward the entrance, falling behind the group. The itch rose and encased the skin of his arms, confined by the sleeves of his shirt. He has the urge to scratch at it until he couldn’t feel them, but as he learned when he was younger, that itch would never be calmed. 

Isagi tries to remind himself that the feeling wasn’t real—it couldn’t be. This time, he wasn’t stepping into the building in a hospital gown with an IV bag hooked to him. 

The hospital wasn’t like what he imagined it to be. He didn’t imagine seeing a homey interior with warm lighting and a scent of cinnamon wafting through the halls. The cinnamon scent couldn’t quite mask the underlying sting of antiseptics and cleaning liquid. Too familiar, too bitter. 

The first thing he saw as they were guided past the lobby and into a big hall were children that darted around the room. There was a growing cluster of them in the middle of the room, and some of the hospital staff would guide the children to the center and have them sit down. On the parameters of the room were circular tables with different objects atop them, neatly prepared for the next activities they’d do that involved making crafts with the patients. 

These were children , Isagi thought. A part of his heart clenched at the sight of them. He could see it in them, their bright, sparkly eyes with an endless curiosity and nimble bodies bubbling with energy that seeped into the room. He could feel it—there was so much life to live, to experience, to see. At that age, the world was their oyster and fit right into their palms. And yet, here they were, at a hospice with a ticking clock that loomed over them, and an imminent end to their short-lived adventures.

The moments leading up to the mini-show were of a blur to Isagi. There were more kids that poured into the hall, and they ranged from all different kinds of appearances. Some had crutches, some were on wheelchairs. Some looked like carbon copies of seven-year-old Isagi, with IV bags and patches of medical tape around their arms.

He tries in a futile attempt to distract himself through conversation with Chigiri.

“I feel more nervous about playing here than in front of Ego,” Chigiri says next to him.

They were seated in a row of seats to the side of the mini-stage, wide, and sturdy enough to hold a digital piano. 

“Little kids are ruthless. I feel like they’ll throw tomatoes at me up there if I mess up,” Chigiri shivers.

Isagi snorts. “I don’t think they can tell. Maybe Yukiyama might, though. And Ego.”

Chigiri pinches him, and Isagi yelps at that.

“Speaking of,” Isagi carries on, “How was your bus date with him?” he pushes against Chigiri’s shoulder and wiggles his eyebrows.

Chigiri gives him a disgusted look. “I’m this close,” Chigiri gestures with his hand, “To getting arrested for manslaughter. Third-degree murder .”

Isagi laughs at that but Chigiri was seething and incredulous. “You think I’m joking?”

“No,” Isagi says in between a chuckle. “He can’t be that bad.”

“But that’s the point. He is that bad,” Chigiri says.

“He’s nice to me, though.”

“He’s nice to everyone . That’s what pisses me off even more. He pretends like he’s this innocent boy with a good heart but stabs your back the moment he thinks you’re useless,” Chigiri whines.

“Hmm,” Isagi says, considering Chigiri’s words. “Well at least you placed above him. And you won’t be playing together anymore.”

“I’m still stuck with him. Haven’t you heard? Ego is making the rest of us pair up with each other for ‘peer support’. A fancy way of saying ‘fuck off I’m lazy and have better things to do’. And guess who I was paired with. Fucking Yukiyama. I would rather Ego spit on my face.”

Isagi giggles, then pats Chigiri’s back. “Hang in there. And I think Ego spitting on you would be worse.”

Just then, a loud noise crackles from the nearby speaker startles him. A staff member walks onto the small platform of the makeshift stage and announces that the show will begin. Ryuusei was up first, followed by Chigiri, then Isagi. Rin would be last.

The children made for a great audience. They had a strange power to shift the energy of the room with the mood of each song that was played. Lively and animated for the upbeat melodies which cast the room in a gold-tinted glow, then downcast and glum for the heavier ones that seemed to weigh on them the most. 

They energetically clapped for each performer, and Isagi had shockingly found himself comfortably choosing a piece and playing with ease. He found a strange solace in the children’s welcome and warmth as he put on his best performance.

When it was finally Rin’s turn, he strided toward the piano with practiced coolness and grace. 

Oh—and Isagi would now have a view of Rin’s face while he played. 

And, as he thought, it was different.

For a piece that was played at Chopin’s funeral, it sounded of a dirge, full of misery and pain. It was the most expressive Isagi had ever seen Rin. His eyes were downcast and heavy, a weight impossibly like the ocean that dragged at him. He played with a cadence that lingered too long on a particular note. It was sickening, and dragged the audience through his wave of wallow that threatened to smother everything in its way.

Just as he handled his bow, his strokes were feather-light, but held more meaning than when he played the violin. As if there were a deeper purpose that transcended every language that has ever existed. A purpose yet to be found. A message left unsaid. A word too late to utter.

He thumbed each key and concealed a part of himself away each time. The same ears that reddened from the revelation of his music taste were now pale and colorless, just like the rest of his face. They weren’t just seeing Rin anymore—no—they were watching a caricature of a ghost play the piano.

Beyond just bleak and somber, it was wistful. Rin played as if he were lamenting over a loss he could never find again. A goodbye and a grievance. A hand that held on, even as the threads of the universe became undone, even as everything he knew took its last breath, ready to leave and disappear. But Rin still held on anyway, because a loose end could never be severed.

The last chord dies out, but the melody still echoes amidst the silent room. Rin slowly gets up from his seat and takes his bow. One clap. Then two, and soon, a storm of clapping ensued throughout the hall. Some of the kids whooped, and Isagi spotted some with runny noses and red eyes.

Even Ego quietly clapped and he almost never did. Rin surveyed the hall with a neutral expression, a curious glint flickering in his eyes. Isagi barely catches the fleeting glint just as he locks eyes with Rin, two thumbs up in a show of praise. There’s a shadow of a tiny smile on Rin’s face as he turned away and walked off the platform.

Isagi spun to look at Chigiri, who already regarded him with a strange look. “You look like you just got baptized.”

Isagi’s heart was on fire and the embers settled in between his nerves.

“I think Rin is secretly Chopin’s incarnate,” Isagi says. Chigiri reluctantly agrees.

He definitely prefers Rin playing the piano over the violin. 

Isagi scans the room as some of the audience moves out of the hall, then gets pulled by Chigiri to a forming circle where the rest of his classmates and Ego were. Ego dryly commented on their performances, “ There’s always room to improve but that’s not what's important right now…” Blah blah blah. 

He couldn’t stop himself from sneaking glances from across at Rin, who stood there impassively and blankly stared at a point on some wall. Isagi only vaguely catches a few relevant words that Ego spoke. Children. Volunteer. Crafts. 

“Off you go,” Ego then says, flapping his hands. 

There were still a sizable amount of children left in the hall that migrated to the tables now moved and placed about the room. Some of his classmates had already found tables to sit at and got to work. Isagi observed Shidou as he roared with laughter and entertained the kids with an enthusiasm he’d never seen before. 

Barou, a parody of Shidou’s charade, sulked to himself while the kids around him poked and prodded at him, berating him with bizarre questions and comments. A vein on his forehead twitched violently as the children, with no regard for Barou’s short fuse, stuck stickers onto his face and laughed. He looked as though he might snap in half at any second.

There were enough tables for each of them to sit at, and most of them had already found a table to work at. Chigiri pats his back encouragingly just as he walks off to take a seat at a neighboring table.

Isagi had better get going. He surveys the room then locks eyes with Rin. He stood a few feet away from him, awkward, terribly out of place and looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else than here.

He spots two tables left for each of them to sit at, then gestures toward them with a point. Wordlessly, they both make their way toward the tables, and join the activities that the children were up to.

As Isagi takes a seat, he watches as Rin is bombarded with shouts and hollers, almost devoured by the excitement and sheer joy from the children around him.

“That was amazing!”

“That was super duper siiiick!”

“Are you an octopus or something mister?”

Isagi snorted at the last comment. Rin wore a pained look on his face, lips pursed into a wobbly line, eyes darting around and scanning for possible escape routes. They settled on him and silently, and equally reluctantly, begged for help. Isagi only shrugged with a smile, then glanced around at his table.

Strangely, there was only one child present, a notable difference from the several at other tables. He was only a short distance away, peeking at Isagi shyly through his overgrown fringe. He was thin and scraggly with messy hair and skin that tinged green. Isagi could make out faint bruises that littered his skin but were covered by his clothes. He clenched his fist. 

“Hi,” Isagi says and tries his best to muster a smile. 

The boy held his gaze, eyes glassy and starry but hesitant. Isagi makes a move to shift his seat closer, cautious and slow so he wouldn’t scare the boy. The boy seemed as though he would flinch away and hide underneath the table, away from Isagi. 

“I’m Isagi,” he tries again, despite the lack of response. 

The boy slowly nods and glances down at his hands. Isagi watches as he cuts out shapes then sticks them onto a small white paper. He was decorating it, but the sheet lacked the color and creativity you would expect from a child of his age.

“How come there’s no color?” Isagi asks.

“Don’t like any,” the boy says, voice light and raspy, presumably from disuse.

The response comes as a surprise. “I’m kind of the same. It’s so hard to choose one when there’s so many,” he says at an attempt for conversation.

The boy fell quiet, silence stretching on as he stared at his colorless, white sheet of paper.

“I have one,” he starts, “But everyone says it's ugly.”

Isagi blinks at him. “Do you think it’s ugly?” 

The boy shakes his head.

“Can I know what color it is?”

The boy peers at him warily. “Green.”

“Green,” Isagi repeats. “What’s so bad about green? I think green is great. In fact, if I had to choose, I think I’d pick green as my favorite color.”

The boy’s shoulders slump, then he looks back at his paper. “People call me Shrek ‘cause my skin is green.”

Isagi stills at that. The boy was startlingly like himself when he was just like him, only eight with a sickness that seemed chronic, who hated the color green but for different reasons. It was the gorgeous view of nature and greenery that was at arms length but separated cruelly by a glass pane and thirteen stories. He could only watch. He could only look, but couldn’t touch. So he grew to resent that very color that stuck at his peripheral.

“That’s not an insult,” Isagi says, “Shrek is awesome. He has an awesome swamp and defeats bad guys.” 

The boy shifts side to side on his feet. 

“Lord Farquad,” he quietly mumbles.

Isagi nods. “Have you watched Shrek before?”

The boy glances at him shyly, pink blooming across his pale cheeks. He nods. 

“What do you think about Shrek?”

The boy presses his lips into a tight line, staring at a spot on Isagi’s shirt. “I think… he’s… cool. He… he’s nice. And he has a big heart. And super strong,” the boy says. He looks up at Isagi for approval. Isagi’s grin grows wider.

“I agree. Shrek is great. He may not look the best, but he teaches us not to judge a book by its cover. And, well, he has a few people around him that love him for who he is. That’s what’s important, don’t you think?”

The boy eagerly nods. Isagi looks around on the table, then picks up a sheet of an assortment of green stickers and gives it to the boy. He takes it with a small smile, and starts to peel some off to stick onto his sheet.

“D’you have friends that love you?” the boy suddenly asks a few minutes later. 

Isagi thinks. “Sure I do.”

“How d’you know that they love you?”

What a tricky question. Isagi finds himself thinking of all the ways his friends must hate him rather than love him. It’s almost inevitable, he thinks, from how much more distant his friends become with each passing day. Do people usually avoid the people that they love? Most likely not.

Maybe they did love him, back when they would stay up late watching movies, huddled under their blankets in the dark like it was only the four of them in the entire world. Maybe there was love when they would sit together every morning, cooking and eating burnt pancakes with too much teeth-rotting syrup, talking about nothing and everything. There was love somewhere in all of those memories. But Isagi couldn’t find it anymore, couldn’t find his friends among the thick fog that clouded their lives. How could Isagi find love when he was lost?

“You just know,” he settles on. It was hard to explain.

The boy hums. 

“My mom says friends are s’posed to visit. My friends do, sometimes.”

Isagi’s smile strains.

The boy hands him a sheet of paper. “You should decorate too. I’m going to show this to my mom and dad. Who’re you going to show yours to?”

Isagi looks at the paper in thought. “I’ll show my parents as well.”

With that, the both of them work on decorating their small sheets of paper. Isagi watches as the boy draws a picture of his family only using different greens, messily scribbling hearts and smiles. 

Isagi’s heart clenches at the sight. What started off as a short message to his parents ends up as a long, heartfelt letter. Oh well. He would give it to his parents over summer break just as he left for another semester of school. He wouldn’t bear to see thensight of their faces as they read his letter.

Time passes by normally. Hospitals weren’t as terrible as he was making them out to be, but surmises that he wouldn’t get over his own traumatic experience for a long time. Whatever. Two things can be true at once.

The time he spent on decorating his piece of paper and making crafts with the boy was pleasant. After learning that his favorite movie was Shrek and favorite color was green, Isagi also learned that he’d been at the hospice for the last six months. He was eight years old and lived in a small, rural town near the hospital. He had a younger brother and they enjoyed playing outside and reading books together and even showed Isagi a wrinkly photograph he always kept in his pocket. Two boys stuck to each other's sides, holding lollipops bigger than their tiny faces, beaming at the camera with wide, sparkly smiles. Isagi’s stomach bubbles with something he can’t exactly place. 

It was around three when all the kids started to exit the hall, signaling the end of the activity session. The hall is a mess, cutouts of paper lay atop the tables and floor, and other miscellaneous items scattered about the room. 

Isagi says his final goodbyes to the boy.

“I hope you had fun. I know I did,” Isagi smiles as he gets up. 

The boy jumps up with excitement, smile faltering seconds later. “Will I ever see you again?” he says with wide eyes and a small pout. He shoves a piece of paper at Isagi, “This is for you. You can’t lose it.”

Isagi examines the paper curiously. It had a drawing of a green man with strange ears, blue hair with two strands poking at the crown of its head, playing the piano with a crooked smile. 

“Is this me?”

The boy shakes his head. “It’s you with Shrek ears.”

Isagi lets out a surprised laugh, heart swelling with fondness. “This is awesome. Thank you,” he says with a smile, patting the boy’s head.

Soon after, a nurse ushers the boy away, and he sends one last eager wave toward Isagi before skipping off. 

“New best friend, huh,” a voice says from beside him. Chigiri stands next to him as he stares at the back of the boy with his arms crossed. 

“Yup. And he actually likes Shrek, unlike someone,” Isagi says, as they start making their way toward Ego at the center of the room. 

Chigiri rolls his eyes. “I don’t dislike Shrek. I just don’t get what’s so entertaining about a character that has a rock for a brain and is friends with an even stupider donkey . At least Fiona is… understandable.”

Isagi gives him a look and scoffs. “That’s exactly why Shrek is great. You just don’t understand the deep, meaningful themes and its commentary on society. Maybe you have rocks for brains.”

Chigiri shoots him a glare. He opens his mouth to retaliate but clamps it shut as Ego begins to explain plans for the remainder of their time. The bus wouldn’t arrive until two hours later, so he gave them the option to hang around the building and outside within a thirty-meter radius that they couldn’t cross (he says this all the while boring holes into Shidou, who could care less. He would still cross it anyway).

After Ego finished speaking, they dispersed once again. Chigiri joins a small group that were headed to the hospital’s cafeteria. Isagi declined his offer to join, and instead, decided to find an exit to the stuffy building, craving to breathe in fresh air that didn’t smell of disinfectant and hear something other than the buzzing fluorescent lights.

Just as he leaves the main hall, he spots a large set of windows that he mindlessly saunters toward and takes in what seemed to be the back of the hospital. It’s a large verdant field that was about the size of a football field, two goalposts opposite to each other but didn’t quite take up the full length of the field.

Almost immediately, he makes his way to the back, asking for directions from employees along the way to navigate the labyrinth of a hospital he was in. 

When he finally steps outside, he welcomes the warm air that surrounds him. The hospital, with its many blasting AC vents, started getting chilly for Isagi. It was just past the hottest part of the day, so Isagi doesn’t feel the sweltering heat as much as he expected to in the morning. 

As if it were calling him over, he jogs toward the ball at the center of the field. The makeshift football field wasn’t large by any means, but it appeared to be enough space for a group of young children to play and run about. Maybe not exactly for an overgrown child like Isagi was, and definitely not for a group of teenagers, but it was only him on the field so it would suffice.

He sits down beside the ball, rolling it around with his hand. 

Football matches and classical music. If he didn’t like the piano as much as he did, and wasn’t pushed to pursue music over football, he might’ve become a football player instead. That didn’t stop him from joining his middle school’s official club anyway, and he turned out to be a decent player, rarely ever benched and took part in almost all of their games, all the while participating in his school’s orchestra. 

Ambitious, and hungry for challenge. That was why he switched to playing the violin instead. It meant learning everything from scratch again, and it was a grueling process. He struggled, but strived to devote himself to the violin, which was a whole lot more difficult than learning the piano. Isagi couldn’t force the violin to conform to his fingers the same way he could with the piano. His fingers didn’t callous or peel from the piano like they did with the violin from overuse and strain. 

It might’ve paid off in the end. Well, it was more of a trade off. Like he’d signed a deal with the devil, stating that he would have all of his wishes come true in exchange for his happiness and sanity. He should’ve let it take his soul instead.

A ruffle in the grass from behind him snaps him out of his thoughts. Craning his head, he spots Rin walking toward him, watching all the way as he stops in front of him. 

As stoic as ever, he stares at the ball under Isagi’s hand, then asks, “You play?”

Isagi blinks.

Panting and swiping away his sweaty bangs, Isagi helplessly watched as Rin launched the ball into the goal post at an impossible angle, concluding their death match with a score of 11–9. Yes, they’d gone up to twenty rounds as a result of Rin’s incessant baiting—that totally didn’t work—in trying to get Isagi to play more rounds until they ‘settled the score’. 

“Another round” divulged into twenty, and Isagi wonders about ‘what score’ Rin meant as he flops down onto the grass in defeat. All he knows is that he’s a sweating mess from the football match that lasted longer than it needed to be after he scored the first two goals. 

Isagi hears Rin kicking the ball around, then eventually coming to a stop to his right, towering over him. 

“Midfielder? More like a benchwarmer,” Rin says, barely winded, barely panting. He flicks the ball between his feet, then toward Isagi’s ribs. 

“Shut up,” Isagi gasps from the nudge, but the twitching of his lips betrayed his words.

He sits down beside Isagi who was sprawled out on the grass.

“You play as if you're trying to murder the ball,” Isagi comments.

“You play as if the ball is going to bite you,” Rin quips.

Isagi grins. “Maybe it will. My coach once said that I pass like I’m asking for permission.”

Rins snorts. From Isagi’s view, he could look up and catch Rin gazing at the sky, sharp features glowing and painted gold. It caught his eyes more than the scenic backdrop behind him, the way his hair gently tousled with the evening breeze and posed, rather than sat, as if he were a muse for an artist. But Rin would put even the nine muses to shame.

“Earlier when you played,” Isagi says with a pause, finding the right words, “I thought it was amazing.”

Rin’s face barely moves. It comes off more like a statement than a question when he says, “What about it was amazing.”

“I don’t know—just,” Isagi trails off, gesturing to the sky with his hands as if they would speak instead. 

“You can’t even explain why my performance was amazing,” Rin says dryly.

“Well. Are you expecting, like, a formal analysis as to how and why you may be Chopin’s incarnate?”

Rin eyes him oddly. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

Isagi shrugs. “It goes beyond words is what I’m trying to say.”

Isagi barely registers a nod. He twiddles the blades of grass between his fingers as he says, “I’ve always wondered why you played the violin instead of the piano.”

He could see something in Rin’s expression that hardened, as if the carefully curated mask snapped back into place. But it wasn’t fast enough for Isagi, who caught the twitch of his jaw and a sharp inhale. 

“Strings are harder to control,” he says. “Anyone can play the piano, but most people can’t even hold a bow without the violin screeching like a dying cat,” Rin glances down at him. When Isagi doesn’t respond, he looks away then huffs. 

“Whatever. You wouldn’t get it.”

“No,” Isagi says immediately, scrambling for a response. “I get it. I switched for the same reason.”

Silence. Isagi continues. “I mean, well. It’s a matter of preference. The violin is hard—like a challenge I wanted to take on and conquer. But the piano is more sentimental for me. My dad used to teach me since I was four, way before I learned the violin. He wasn’t a professional or anything big. He used to be in a club in highschool and later played at jazz bars in his twenties for fun. That’s also how he met my mom,” he fondly says.

“Lukewarm. No wonder you suck,” Rin dead-pans. 

“Hey!” Isagi swipes at Rin’s knee. “That’s disrespectful to my dad. And plus—I did take lessons for, like, five years. There’s nothing lukewarm about that.”

“You’ve played instruments since birth but your sense of rhythm is still worse than a baby taking its first steps,” Rin says with a straight face, his apathy astonishing Isagi.

“Well, Ego begs to differ,” Isagi says with a somewhat crooked smile, recalling the first and last time Ego had acknowledged something he had done well in during practice. 

“That’s the only thing you have going for you, right now. If you can’t even do that at the concerto, then what's the point of even being here—or this school?” was a compliment in Isagi’s books. 

“Enough about me. When did you start playing?”

For a long while, Rin doesn’t respond. His eyes were searching, the green and blue in them were darkened and browned from his thick eyelashes and the blazing red sky. He could drown in them, Isagi thinks, even if it meant dipping into an ice-cold lake naked. But it wouldn’t be the first time that he’d plunged head first into something without thinking, and it wouldn’t be the hypothermia that kills him, if anything.

“My brother plays the piano,” Rin starts cautiously, as if he were trying to pick out the right words. Isagi’s ears perk from the mention of his brother.

Itoshi Sae. Isagi heard of and seen him before. Magazines, newspapers, radios. He was almost everywhere if you were familiar with the classical world. A rising young prodigy from a family of esteemed musicians, coming to snatch the seats of older, seasoned players. 

Isagi had also physically ran into him once, almost literally. It was the first day of his first year, rushing to find his dorm before curfew after a chaotic student orientation. Then, he’d bumped into someone in his rush, short and sturdy with piercing eyes that pinned Isagi under his stare like a helpless bug. It was later that he’d found out that the intimidating mauve-haired man with frigid blue eyes was Rin’s brother.

“Itoshi Sae,” Isagi says. Rin looks at him, a murky gaze gaining clarity. “I ran into him once,” and he looks exactly like you, Isagi wants to add. But something tells him he shouldn’t. 

“Like, literally. I bumped into him. I thought he was Medusa or something and that I’d get stoned if I stared too long.”

Rin clicks his tongue. “He’s not that scary. At all. He’s just…”

Another pause. Rin looked as though he could use a plethora of adjectives to describe his brother. 

“We used to play together. He started playing first, and because I would do everything he did, I started playing too. He would teach me before I took actual classes,” Rin says distantly as if he weren’t present here, but in a memory from light-years ago. 

“We would make big plans for our futures. Whatever it was, it always involved music and we would be together,” Rin’s hand clenches around nothing. He huffs dryly, “Things changed after he went abroad to study. He came back and—” he cuts himself off, eyes shutting tightly and head hanging back.

The silence that ensues stretches long, and Isagi’s holding his breath at the edge, waiting. 

Rin opens his eyes, but Isagi can't see them. “Doesn’t matter what happened after. Just wanted to prove that I can do hard things on my own without his shitty guidance. He was a shit teacher anyway. Everything was…” he inhales, clutching the grass beneath him, “ Shit .”

Rin straightens his head and looks back at Isagi. The look he gave was something close to anticipation—he was expecting Isagi to respond, to say something. 

Isagi clears his throat, the corners of his lips quirking. “You should be the poster boy for an anti-sibling propaganda ad.”

Only blinking, Rin scoffs, then throws a clump of grass at Isagi who fails to dodge. 

“Fuck you,” Rin says, but there’s no bite. He watches curiously as Isagi sits up, dusting off his damp shirt. 

The grin on Isagi’s face only grows wider. “My bad. I’ve always wanted a sibling. Probably a younger one—used to beg for one from my parents,” he says.

“So you can bully them into playing the piano and boss them around?” Rin remarks.

“What—no. I would never,” Isagi says, but maybe he would and now he’s not too sure. Rin catches his faltering expression.

He rolls his eyes. “Every older sibling does that.”

“Maybe. You definitely would,” Isagi jokes, playfully poking Rin’s arm. 

Only after does it dawn on Isagi of the space between them and how small it was, how he could smell that compelling mint, how he could hear Rin’s voice reverberating throughout his ears yet barely catching what he says, and the way he turns to look at Isagi, those cold, enchanting teal eyes—

“Your brother,” Isagi hurriedly says, hushing his thoughts and looking away. The distance, or the lack thereof, was causing him some serious heart palpitations. 

“What about him?”

“I mean. Siblings fight all the time. I think I would if I had one. Do you fight with him often?” Isagi asks while looking far out at the tree line.

“I haven’t talked to him for a while,” Rin says.

“How long is a while?”

“Three years.”

Oh. 

Isagi is, albeit barely, starting to understand now. His brother, the transition from piano to the violin, the desire to prove something. Rin wasn’t all that different, it seemed. He had something to prove, too, and to his brother. Isagi doesn’t know what, but he could guess. That he was better? That he was capable? Independent? 

There must’ve been a falling out of some sort. A conversation that turned into a screaming match, hurling insults that were vicious enough to stab through layers of flesh and bones and imprint itself there for years and years, never quite healing the same. What was it that set Rin off on his hunger for perfectionism? No—it wasn’t ever about perfectionism. It must’ve been a need for control.

Rin taps the side of Isagi’s head.

“Stop trying to psychoanalyze everything,” he says.

Isagi blinks back at him.

Rin sighs. “That look on your face. You always look like that whenever you’re reading over our music sheets. Or when you’re stuck on the easiest chemistry problem in the world. Always overthinking random shit. You look like a fucking—a fucking praying mantis.”

“A praying mantis,” Isagi parrots dumbly.

Rin scratches the side of his neck, face scrunched in chagrin. He lets out a long sigh and slowly rises to his feet.

“I’m very flattered to know that you imagine me as a praying mantis,” Isagi says, clambering to stand and follow Rin.

“I don’t imagine you as anything . Forget what I said,” Rin grumbles, quickening his pace. Isagi smiles to himself, matching Rin’s quick and long strides.

“No, I don’t think I will. Praying mantises are pretty cool—did you know that they have 3D vision? Or that they’re as agile as cats are? And that some species could fly? So really, I take that as a—” Isagi clamps his mouth shut when Rin snaps his head toward him. 

“Do you ever shut up?”

Isagi could barely contain the giggle he lets out. “Does this mean I can’t sit with you on the bus on our way back?”

Rin shoves his hands into the pockets of his pants. “Only if you stop sharing weird facts about praying mantises.”

“They’re not weird ,” Isagi says, his cheekbones aching from the width of his smile, “They’re fun .”

Rin shoots him one last glare as Isagi motions to keep his lips sealed.

Later, when Isagi quietly closes the door to his dorm room, he realizes how much he’s been missing the fullness he used to feel in his heart. He gently rubs the spot in the middle of his chest as he gazes up at the ceiling, wondering why the hollowness doesn’t feel so empty anymore. 

Chapter Text

With summer comes the kind of weather Rin hates, namely the thick, oppressive humidity that stalks him as soon as he steps outside, confined to a cocoon of sticky, hot air. 

It was the heat too, and it does things to people. A lose-lose for everyone. Not even the bravest of souls can stand the psychological tribulations that come with Japan’s humidity. Rin has long accepted that summer brings out the worst in people—himself included.

And perhaps it was precisely that fact which had Rin immediately thinking something was off as he left for his classes in the morning. It was unusually humid, more than usual, but Rin figured it must’ve been because of the thunderstorm from the previous night. Though he didn’t mind rain and thunder, he did mind the remnants of its loud presence—its heavy dankness. 

Throughout the day, it seemed as though that humidity intensified and ballooned, following him everywhere he went. Classrooms, hallways, and even outside. Incessant, pressing, and worst of all, inescapable. 

The constant plethora of complaints from his classmates didn’t help at all. Clenched jaws, white-knuckled fists, and barely disguised annoyance only made Rin aware of its intrusive presence even more, like he was trapped in a maze with no exits.

He tries ignoring how the sinking feeling in his guts reaches impossibly low depths as orchestra approaches. He must’ve eaten something bad—skipped a part of his routine in the last three days that could explain why things felt wrong. 

Or—right. The humidity. It was just the humidity and couldn’t be anything else.

But Rin couldn’t quite ignore the presage that carried itself in the air. 

It only made sense when he saw it—those identical pairs of teal eyes he’s met with as he steps into the orchestra room, classmates filing out and curiously looking between Rin and him. 

Those eyes, the same ones that’d engraved itself deep into the recesses of Rin’s mind, in a perpetual state of contempt and disappointment as he abandoned a whole life the both of them had spent countless years building. 

Sae stands at the front of the orchestra room with his pocketed hands and dull expression. He’s facing the board, scanning and scrutinizing, and hasn’t noticed Rin’s lingering presence at the door.

He looks alarmingly the same. Same, stupid hair, same stature, same eyes. Rin was a good distance away, feet rooted to the floor at the doorway, but he could feel the strands of his hair rise up on his arms, something ugly and repressed making its way up to the surface, simmering like the oppressive summer heat.

When he finally manages to gain a piece of mind, he backs away from the door and out into the hallway with its cooler, less suffocating air where he can properly breath again.

“Rin?” A voice startles him. 

He’s made aware of the way he’s gripping the wall behind him, like it would give him the willpower he so desperately needs at the moment to get himself together and walk into the room. Rin moves away from the wall, clenching and unclenching his hand.

Isagi looks at him curiously all the while, hair frayed and messy, like he never finds a second in the day to comb his stubborn bed hair. It stuck out more than usual.

“Is everything okay?” he frowns, making a move to peek into the classroom.

Rin grabs his arm just as he does so, “Don’t—” but it was too late.

Isagi’s eyes blow wide as he’s pulled back, “That’s…”

Rin sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“You didn’t know?”

Rin sucks in some air. “No.”

Isagi observes him for a moment, lips pursing in thought. Then, something warm wraps around Rin’s wrist. 

“Follow me,” Isagi says as he pulls Rin away from the orchestra room and down the hall.

He can’t find it in him to swat away Isagi’s hand, firm and unwavering, like he’ll hold on even if Rin tries pulling away. It wasn’t like he can with a grip that threatens to cut off his blood flow, so Rin lets him, having enough of a brain to avoid tripping over his feet as he’s tugged away.

“Fucking hell,” he hisses, yanking his hand from Isagi’s loosened grip when the practice booth door slams shut.

“You almost got us caught, idiot. Ego was right there—”

“Almost,” Isagi waves a finger with a placid smile. 

Rin presses his lips into a firm line. “What’s the point of all of this anyway?”

Isagi walks past him to sit on one of the chairs, placing his violin case on his lap. “Nothing much. Just thought you might need to calm down first before going back there.”

Rin impatiently taps his foot. “And what’s it to you?” 

Isagi shrugs.

“Don’t want your emotions to interfere when we start practicing.”

Rin narrows his eyes at that. “Isagi. You need to mind your own fucking business.”

He has the audacity to let out a small laugh. 

“I’m not stopping you from going back there right now and facing your brother whom you haven’t met in almost three years,” he clicks the latches open, carefully pulling his violin out, “You definitely looked like you were about to commit arson if I didn’t come up to you.”

Rin clenches his fist, face growing hot from an unplaced emotion. 

“Fuck off. You don’t know shit about me.”

Isagi nods, “I don’t,” he gestures to his instrument. “You could always tell me.”

When Isagi finally looks up, he’s smiling as he offers his violin, the dingy light bulb that hangs over them casting a small spark in his eyes—knowing blue eyes like some black hole that would suck in and eradicate Rin’s whole existence. 

He makes it a point to glare at Isagi as he sits across from him, grabbing his violin and settling it between his arm and shoulder.

“Your violin is abhorrent.”

“They’re all the same,” Isagi replies unbothered.

Rin exhales harshly, wondering when Isagi became so indifferent to his remarks, then picks up the bow to play the first song that comes to mind. 

It was different playing with Isagi’s violin and bow. The dents and furrows didn’t fit him the same like his own violin did, too small, narrow, and unfamiliar. 

Unlike Isagi’s words, all violins aren’t made the same. And it wasn’t just about physical composition, but the weight and burden it carried from its owner. That's why Rin’s has always felt like hauling up a hundred bricks over a hill, unlike other violins he’s held. It carried different memories and stories that would never see the light, hidden away in the violin’s hollow, but not forgotten. It was impossible to ignore the heaviness it carried, not when it threatened to crush him under its weight.

Isagi’s violin was heavy, but not like Rin’s. It made him—surprisingly—wonder. Wonder about the kinds of burdens the instrument carried to be heavy enough to feel, and wonder what that meant about Isagi. Did he, too, tear away a piece of him to bury deep and as far as he could inside the violin’s endless hollow? 

Rin notes the small lines and swirls on the edge of the worn wood, chipped from time and use. Each mark and scratch likely had its own tale to tell: maybe Isagi had handled the violin too rough, dropped his case too many times to count, in his rush to get to class on time, tripping and stumbling over himself with his untamed hair and messy uniform.

Rin lets out a snort, and as soon as he does, he stops playing. 

What the fuck was that?

“Wow,” Isagi says, thinking Rin was finished. 

And Rin doesn’t dare to look because Isagi would be looking back at him with his giant blue eyes, regarding him as if he were Vivaldi in the flesh.

“What song was that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” Rin snaps, clearing his throat and setting the violin down. His arm didn’t ache. Strange. 

“Sounds familiar. It was beautiful, and kind of sad, but also, wistful?” Isagi shakes his foot, probably with a stupid look on his face and stupid tongue jutting out between his lips like it did when he engaged in the rare act of thinking. 

A finger points at him, “You laughed at the end. What was that about?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Isagi sits up, leaning in, and Rin can’t help but to reluctantly look at Isagi’s face and the way lip quirks as he says, “Yeah you did. You were super focused, then, you just laughed. But—you didn’t even smile.”

Had Isagi been inspecting him that closely, as if he were a bug under a microscope? And, so what if he didn’t smile while he laughed? That was a totally normal thing that normal people do. 

“‘Yesterday’ by The Beatles. Are you happy now?” Rin splutters, thrusting the violin toward Isagi so he would take it and let Rin put some distance between him and those two black holes of eyes.

“The Beatles, huh,” Isagi says, grabbing the violin, warm fingers brushing against Rin’s. “Interesting.”

Rin crosses his arms, staring hard at Isagi as he weirdly smiles at his violin, as if that would force him to elaborate.

Isagi doesn’t get a chance to, interrupted by a loud buzz in his pocket. Pulling his phone out, he reads the screen, brows forming a knot and face instantly souring. Whatever. It wasn’t Rin’s business.

“So,” Isagi says, still frowning as he pockets his phone, “Terrible news. Your brother is supposed to be evaluating us.”

Never-fucking-mind.

“Us.”

“Yeah,” Isagi gulps, fingers thrumming against his case again, but done in haste and lacking rhythm from before. 

“Us, all thirteen of us. Everyone’s expected to be there and—” his eyes darting toward the digital clock across them, red and glaring, “We’re late. Ego is pissed, apparently.”

Rin shivers from the way his blood turns cold, mind drawing blank. 

His body has a mind of its own, jerking up from his seat and drifting toward the door to leave. He barely registers the walk to the room down the hall, faintly noting the presence of Isagi behind him as they reach the door. 

It’s only when he steps inside when he finally comes to, a sensation akin to someone stuffing a plastic bag over his head and strangling  him to death. As if all of that air that Rin had been feeling for the last seven hours had really belonged to Sae, attached to him like an apparition with tendrils eager to wrap itself around Rin’s throat and body.

It tugged him further into the room where Sae stood planted in the center along with Ego, small back turned to him as he faced the rest of the class. Rin could barely manage to peel his eyes off his figure when he goes to sit down, ignoring the prying stares he gets from the others. 

“Wonderful of our duo to join us today,” Ego’s grating voice cuts through the white noise, a sharp lilt that has Rin boring holes onto the floor, hoping it would give out beneath him to swallow Ego whole.

“Let’s not delay this any further,” he says, scribbling on his clipboard as he and Sae walk to sit at the back, “You two are up first.”

Rin tightens his grip on his violin case until his fingers turn pale. Neither of them move. 

Just as Ego passes Rin, he looks down at him, “Well?”

Isagi shifts beside him. 

One. Two. Three. 

Rin takes out his violin and proceeds to the front of the room where Ego and Sae once were, Isagi scrambling to do the same. 

Immediately, he slots the violin between the groove of his shoulder, twisting the bow in his right hand, a ritual of sorts before he plays each time. 

He gives Isagi a stare, one that’s caught between a stretch of the passing seconds, longer than it actually feels. Isagi was ready, violin resting against him, bow hanging midair, and waiting for Rin’s signal. 

His breath hitches. There was something exhilarating about the sight—something about Isagi’s readiness, eagerness, and the twinkle of his impossibly blue eyes. As if he trusted Rin, trusted Rin to guide and helm them through the deep, unknown sea that was the next five minutes. 

Yet, somewhen after they start, Rin is half convinced that Isagi had been the one steering them all along. Like Isagi was the steady hull that tugged them along that unpredictable sea, a guiding light in all of its coldness—the north fucking star at the darkest of nights.

Stringing the violin doesn’t feel so much like Sisyphus’s endless losing battle anymore, and for the first time in forever, Rin is scared of letting that feeling slip away. 

It was hard to come to terms with the fact that playing with Isagi resurfaced painful memories that once meant the world to Rin, the only world he’d ever known. It was also hard to admit that he’d been so desperately yearning for the same passion, the same highs he’d experienced with Sae years ago. 

It was bound to happen—he should’ve seen it coming from a mile away. But he hid like a coward, convinced that feeling would never come back. Like a stone after it's thrown into a river, like time after it vanishes through your fingers. 

And there stood Isagi, a few meters away, locking eyes with Rin every few seconds with a knowing smile worth more than any precious gem, and the exact spark Rin needs to set himself ablaze again.

He’s alive, he realizes, in every sense. From the way his lungs burn with each inhale and exhale, branding his bow with his fiery grip, strumming as if the strings would sizzle into the air any second, a reminder to never let go again. Because he’s caught it. The days of longing are far behind, and what he wants—the only thing he’s ever wanted—is finally in front of him for him to take. 

Even if he despises the violin, despises his brother with a burning hatred that would surely transcend this lifetime, because it was always full circle with Sae, he has something he can keep for himself—something where he’s not hating with every fiber of his being. Somewhere he can just be.

Right there. With Isagi.

As the last chord fizzles out, Rin can only wonder if he has what it takes to abandon everything he’s ever believed to become reborn. He doesn’t get to dwell on it, pulled back from his thoughts by the sounds of loud clapping. 

He didn’t have to hear them to understand that they’d performed well. It must’ve been the first time that the both of them had played seamlessly. Rin had felt it, felt it in the consonance between their melodies and the way their sounds meshed together to form harmonic solidarity. 

And this was, perhaps, what Rin had anticipated would eventually happen, from countless evenings spent in each other’s company, hacking away at their instruments to make something that shouldn’t have been possible work out. 

Even Ego clapped smally, looking between the two of them with an indecipherable expression. 

—

Rin’s mind still doesn’t quiet even after they’ve sat down and three more players perform. Unwittingly, all his attention was focused on the boy who sat only a short distance away, close enough to feel the heat he radiated. The heat was akin to the sun itself, cracking through a millennia long ice age, and Rin was the dying plant that desperately extended itself for the last time to bask in its glory. 

It was sickening, he couldn’t pick out exactly what he was feeling. A barrage of unfamiliar and unwelcomed emotions, and an alarmingly large part of him wanted more. Like a rush that you spend the rest of your life searching for, but nothing quite compares.

Rin despises many truths; nothing lasts forever. Ephemeral and irrevocable. 

It’ll never come back, he thinks. It’ll disappear before I know it.

—

“Any final comments?” Ego asks Sae who wore a vapid face.

The rest of the class had performed in a blur. Rin had barely paid attention. His thoughts were more potent and all-consuming than usual. Having to focus his attention back onto the familiar, yet unrecognizable figure of his brother proved to be difficult. He wanted to get the fuck out of there as soon as possible.

Sae stared beyond the class and toward the back windows for a few, long seconds. 

“Unimpressive. Lackluster. For the most part.”

Rin hears a few whispers. Isagi sits still beside him. 

“Great,” Ego says with no trace of a polite smile, “Is that all?”

Sae coolly stuffs his hands into his pockets. “This felt like a waste of my time.”

“Who the fuck is this guy?” Shidou says from somewhere in a low voice.

“Great,” Ego echoes flatly. “Can’t say I agree.”

He faces the class, “We’ll be seeing Sae again the day before the concerto when we rehearse. He’ll be more hands on and helpful, I expect.”

Then, he waves a stack of papers in his hands, “I’ll hand over your critiques on your way out.”

And just like that, the air thickens and latches onto each one of them as they pack and exit the room. Sae doesn’t look at Rin the whole time. Doesn’t acknowledge him at all. 

As Rin steps out into the hall with a paper in hand weighing about twenty-five kilograms, he wonders if Sae knew he had a brother at all.

It was like the universe had it out for him. He would have to see Sae again after this, and the potential that he may come out to watch the concerto loomed over his head like a bad omen. Somehow, it was even worse than a bad omen. Seeing Sae two or more times too many was worse than every bad omen out there. 

Rin wanted nothing more but to crumple the sheet and throw it into a pit of lava to eradicate its whole existence. But he’s grounded in place out in the hall, staring at the back, hesitant to flip it over and see what his brother wrote. 

“There are criterias,” Isagi says beside him, reading his own paper. “Seems like he had to rank us out of five on technicalities. Stuff like rhythm, intonation, control,” Isagi looks up and smiles sheepishly, “I got mostly twos and a couple of threes. Is that good or bad?”

Rin eyes Isagi’s paper. “Neither.”

As the rest of the group pours out into the hallway, he hears increasingly loud noises of protests and complaints. 

“Did everyone else also get one sentence for feedback?” A purple-haired boy asks with a peeved look.

There are sounds of agreements. “I don’t even understand mine. He wrote ‘Stop strangling the violin.’ What does that mean?” a short blue haired boy says. 

“Exactly what it means,” a taller black-haired boy says beside him. 

He displays his paper to the group, “He wrote that I need to learn the basics again. I wonder if he knows that I play first violin here.”

“I sort of expected… more,” some four-eyed boy says, “He’s super famous and all. Thought he’d be more… professional? Or offer good advice?”

Some agree. Everyone regards their papers with discontent.

“Isn’t he your brother?” someone asks, pointing to Rin.

Heads turn, pinning him under a dozen stares. Fucking hell. He should’ve left when he had the chance to. 

“I see the resemblance.”

“Uncanny.”

“He’s more of a carbon copy but more crappy,” Shidou points out with a sharp, pointed grin, hundreds of canines on display, “Guess the shittiness runs in the family.”

Rin tightens his grip on the paper, clenching his jaw until a dull throb peals through his teeth. 

They must’ve seen it, all of the performances, news, articles about his brother and his unmatched greatness. How every one of those articles never failed to bring Rin up and pit him against his brother, placing their bets on who would surpass one another in five years time, like they were cage animals ready to brawl to the death. It was easy for everyone to place their bets on them as they would with mere poker chips, discardable and replaceable. 

He opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. He’s chewing on the spoiled air instead, in front of twelve pairs of eyes scrutinizing every inch of him. Maybe he’ll throw himself into a fiery pit of lava along with the paper.

“I don’t really see it,” a voice says. Rin snaps his head toward Isagi, and he’s already looking back at him.

“Rin has black hair, Sae has pink. What’s so similar about that?”

Silence. Isagi continues. 

“What I’m trying to say is that he’s his own person, and I think it’s a little out of line to say that about Rin to his face,” Isagi turns to stare—glare at Shidou, slightly puffing his chest and raising his chin. 

Shidou stares back with his brow raised and wholly unimpressed. It stays like that for a long, stifling beat. The rest look between the three of them, as if a fight were about to break out at any moment. 

The tension breaks when Shidou shakes his head and mumbles something under his breath, bumping shoulders against the both of them as he struts past. 

Just like that, the group disperses. Rin stands there for an eternity, staring off into space, and half waiting.

When the last of Isagi’s friends walk off, Rin finally turns to him and sighs. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Isagi crosses his arms. “Do what?”

“Defend me. I don’t need your shitty help.”

Isagi blinks at him, then snorts.

Rin frowns. “What’s so fucking funny?”

“Nothing,” he giggles, nose slightly scrunched and a faint dust of pink across his cheeks.

“I wasn’t defending you,” he says with a cryptic smile, turning to start walking. 

Rin follows. 

“I was just stating a matter of fact. Plus, what Shidou said was out of line. Even if you are an asshole and all. I mean, at least say that when the asshole isn’t around.”

Rin smacks the back of Isagi’s head. “Fuck you. Were you actually defending me back there?"

Isagi nurses the back of his head with a pained look, smile still too jolly. 

“Yeah, well. A non-asshole doesn’t resort to assault as his first line of self-defense. That includes verbal.”

“And you’re the expert to be reckoned with?”

“Maybe not an expert. But I’m miles ahead of you on impulse control. Perhaps I should teach you my ways.”

“Shut the fuck up. And I don’t need to be taught anything from you,” Rin grumbles. Seriously. When did Isagi become so comfortable around him?

“I’m only joking. For the most part,” Isagi says with a stupid grin. It falters only a second later.

“Have you looked at what Sae wrote on your paper yet?”

Rin pushes the door open to outside. The sky was colored a depressing gray and a light fog still drifted about the distant tree line. An aftermath of last night’s raging thunderstorm. Petrichor clung to the air around, and it still smelled as if the storm wasn’t quite over.

“No.”

“Let’s look at it,” Isagi says expectantly, as if Rin would let him look at something so humiliating. 

“Don’t want to,” Rin sighs, breathing in the soggy zephyr with a hint of citrus.

“How bad could it be?”

Rin squints his eyes in an effort to see what was beyond the thin sheet of fog. 

“Bad.”

Isagi mimics him, following his gaze to the vague shapes of trees blurred by haze.

“Don’t run away from it.”

Rin exhales. “From what.”

“You’d know better than me.”

Rin doesn’t respond.

“I know you’re curious. And that feeling will only get bigger the more you ignore it. Even if you decide to rip it into pieces and get rid of it. Then regret would outweigh that curiosity. You’ll be jumping to all sorts of conclusions and keeping yourself up at night wondering what he wrote. Sort of like self torture, if that’s a thing. And considering how you are, maybe you’ll let it eat at you until you’re nothing but raw flesh and bones—”

Rin flattens the sheet and swiftly turns it over, effectively silencing Isagi.

He stares. And stares. He stares long and hard, trying to make out the shapes and scrawls. Sae’s writing has always been terrible—worse than Rin. His only flaw, the only one Rin had believed he had for so long.

He doesn’t notice Isagi shifting closer to peek over his shoulder.

“You got all threes,” he says.

At the bottom of the page, there’s two sentences written in the feedback section. It reads, ‘Mediocre. Takes up less space.’

“You take up too much space.”

Rin can only stare until the words are carved onto his retinas.

“Are those compliments or insults?” Isagi asks quietly.

“Neither,” Rin says. It was neither.

Calling this an unfavorable circumstance would be an understatement. The words horrible,’ ‘horrifying,’ or ‘horrendous’ should be more fitting. But Rin is in no position to complain—at all. If he did, Ego would be beyond ecstatic to kick him off the coach bus headed to the middle of nowhere. 

With nothing but their phones and instruments, the thirteen of them are on their way to a remote location with no internet, home to the most unimaginable bugs and creatures to terrorize this Earth, and strangers that may hold them hostage and sacrifice them in an ancient ritual.

Or maybe not. But laboring in the scalding summer heat for four straight hours and planting rice seedlings one at a time might be the close equivalent. 

It was another one of those outreach events that Ego had planned, and Rin can’t help but to wonder how planting rice in some unknown paddy can attract more of an audience at the concerto. And why he might’ve thought that it was a good idea to not tell them where or what they’ll be doing until the day of. 

“It’s never been done before. Sort of unconventional. People want to see that sort of thing,” Ego said. 

“A lot of you guys wouldn’t have shown up if I told you in advance. I know how those smooth brains of yours work. And don’t tell me that you’d rather die than help out wrinkly, old people who can barely walk.”

Whatever it was, Rin definitely didn’t consent nor agree to this. Even if he has a straw hat and all to shield him from the burning rays that would melt him right into the mud beneath him. It wasn't easy to see the ‘good’ in that anyway when he decided to wear all black, effectively canceling out the ‘good’. 

The rice farm resided in a humble village, tucked far away from big cities and smaller towns. The village only consisted of about one hundred people, a tiny community but self-reliant and interconnected(of which, the farmers and workers were in fact not wrinkly and could each haul multiple twenty-kilogram sacks of rice). Rin had learned this from one of the owners, the only person, so far, that hadn’t been hostile toward him.

“Don’t worry about them,” he says. “They’re always hesitant towards city folk.”

He hands Rin a chunk of grass to be planted into the soil. Rin hesitantly looks between the grass and the owner. 

“I’ll show you,” he says, understanding Rin’s hesitation and non-verbal question, taking a seedling and sticking it into the soil, “You don’t have to stick it in too deep. Otherwise, it’ll be hard to get out.”

He offers the chunk of grass again, and Rin reluctantly takes it. Following his steps, he removes a small seedling and sticks it into the mud. Almost immediately, it facepalms into the mud.

“Not too soft now,” the owner chuckles, another seedling in hand, “Stick it low enough where the very tips of your fingers are in the mud.”

Rin tries again. He slowly plants the seed where the mud just barely covers the tips of his fingers. It droops somewhat pitifully. 

“Better than the last,” the owner nods. 

Rin looks at his patch of droopy seedlings, then the owner’s sturdy patch. “How do I get mine to stand like yours?”

“Keep planting,” the owner says, gesturing to the chunk of grass waiting to be planted. 

Rin huffs resolutely and gets to work. 

Yet, it was maddening—galling, even, and not as peaceful or relaxing like he’d imagined farming to be. 

Whereas solving the world’s hardest math equations or playing the most difficult violin variations came to him like breathing, planting a singular tiny rice seedling into mud easily cleared both of those. It shouldn’t be this hard to plant a seed when his fingers are more than capable of doing so. Hell, these were the same fingers that strung Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 when he was eleven years old. This should’ve been child’s play. 

“Not bad,” the old man glances over at Rin’s expanding row of planted rice. “You’re quite good if this is your first time planting rice.”

“It is my first,” Rin says, ripping away a seedling with more force than necessary. “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

The old man grins. “Not everyone gets to plant rice in their lifetime. But everyone in this country eats it everyday for every meal. Strange, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t thought of it like that,” Rin says. “Most of us eat meat everyday but we don’t hang around chickens and pigs for fun.”

When he doesn’t hear a response, Rin squeezes his eyes and bites his lip, cringing from his harshness toward the nice stranger.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude,” he says, giving the old man a small head-bow.

The loud chuckle he hears instead startles him. “You’re alright. I’m not offended at all. In fact, I have a son that speaks just like you. He doesn’t say much but when he does, he’s blunt and straightforward. He tells me the same thing more or less,” the old man says.

Rin draws lines in the mud. “You have a son?”

“Yes. He must be in his late-thirties now. Forgive me, I can’t seem to remember my own son’s age,” he says with a dispirited smile.

“Can I ask how old you are?”

The owner looks at him. “Try guessing.”

“Well,” Rin briefly scans the man’s face worn beyond years, eyes holding a whole universe's worth of stories and life. It was hard to tell when the rest of his body was small, but still sturdy and agile. “Maybe sixty?”

The owner laughs heartily and pats the back of Rin’s head. “You’re a funny boy,” he says, eyes crinkling.

“If I remember correctly, I should be seventy-five.”

Rin tries not to let his eyebrows shoot up off his face. “That’s—wow,” he stutters, picking at a grain of rice. “You must’ve been working at this farm for a while.”

“Since I was born,” the man replies, looking off into the distance. “Before me were my parents. And before them were their parents. And so on. It’s been looked after and maintained for generations,” he says, surveying the mudflat, “I’ll be the last of mine. But everyone else will continue taking care of the farm, and maybe their next generations will too. There’s a whole community here.”

Rin studies the workers bustling about.

“Your son doesn’t want to take care of the farm?”

“Yes,” the man says, weary eyes watching, but not exactly present. “For some good reasons. There’s nothing left for him here. And I’ve practically forced him out of here where he wouldn’t want to come back. It’s painful for him.”

“Is it painful for you?”

The owner looks at him in mild surprise. “Yes,” he says after a moment of consideration. “It’s painful for the both of us.”

Two minutes pass in silence. Rin continues planting the seeds. Each time he does, they stand taller and seem less likely to fall.

“I wanted him to study hard so he would get a good job and live the life I couldn’t give him,” the owner starts, “So I would force him to study. Monitor his grades like some hawk that’s out to hunt him when he fails a test or comes home with something other than an ‘A’. He resisted, at first. Would act up, rebel, the typical teenage antics. Would beg me to let him work at the farm so he could eventually become the owner one day. But I never let him near the paddy,”

“I didn’t realize until much later that he was dying to leave, to be set free, far from this small town,” the man gazes at a flock of birds that fly overhead. Rin follows his gaze

“I’ve wished countless times to be sent back to the past and redo everything again. Maybe then, he would visit often, with his wife and son. Maybe he would call every night to tell me about his day. All the boring and mundane things—they mean the world to me,” he pauses. Rin stays silent. 

“I’d just like to tell him to do what he loves, even if it meant being the poorest man in the world. Even if it meant living on this grubby farm for the rest of his life. I’d rather he be abundant in happiness.”

He stops speaking. There’s a strange pang in Rin’s chest after listening to him. 

“I can understand your son’s pain,” he says after a considerable moment, “So, I can say this for sure that he still loves you despite all of that.”

The man regards him carefully.

“Even if you were a shitty father. He still loves you. Even the ‘grubby’ farm and all of its charm.”

“How can you be so sure?” the man asks, eyes glossed over.

Rin plants the last seedling. “If I were him, that’s how I’d feel.”

The smile the owner gives is warm and radiant, quite like the sun perched above them. He hands Rin another stack of grass, and thinks that maybe planting rice in the middle of nowhere wasn’t the worst thing ever. 

Aside from the sweltering summer heat that has him rethinking all the decisions that led him to wearing a black long-sleeve shirt, there was something meditative about it. It cleared away the thick fog that’d been clouding his mind and senses for the past two weeks, and he could finally hear his thoughts, even over the loud, incessant buzz of the cicadas nearby. 

And laughter only a couple of meters away from him.

His eyes land on Isagi chatting up the aunties surrounding him with a mud-stained face and an all too bright, crooked smile, which was apparently enough to woo them. 

Poor aunties. With all his glistening, sparkly teeth, one would think he feasts on innocent humans for dinner.

But there he sits, looking particularly unsuspecting, with his rows of unevenly planted rice, despite the fact that he receives help every minute or so. 

At least Rin tries to plant his rice the right way, but Isagi doesn’t seem to have an ounce of talent in rice-planting. He should stay far from farming, and definitely from farming equipment, with all his inherent clumsiness and messiness. 

The embodiment of danger—a danger to everyone around him. 

That’s exactly why Rin’s eyes stay pinned on Isagi for the next ten minutes, because he might as well start planting the rice into his scalp, thinking it would grow right out of his head. 

And also. 

Because Rin wants to relish in the satisfaction that he’s better at another thing than Isagi is. 

It was hard to look away, anyway. His presence was so salient and conspicuous, and Rin is positive that he’s not the only one who felt this way. 

Because who couldn’t keep their eyes off of some dumb idiot who smiled wide every time he planted a seedling or laughed jovially at some auntie's lame joke?

The only thing that manages to pull him away from his surveillance is the kind owner, who asks him what his favorite instrument was, though, his eyes occasionally travel back to the same spot where Isagi was to make sure he wasn’t putting someone or himself in danger.

—

Three hours later, they’d finished planting the rice and it was just in time for lunch.

Rin sat across from Isagi and his red-haired friend, Chigiri, at a round wooden zataku the workers had set up. Atop were a variety of side dishes consisting of stir fried and pickled vegetables with grilled fish and miso stew. And of course, each had their own, hefty serving of fresh rice. 

It smelled heavenly, and Rin is certain that he never knew what it means to be hungry up until that moment. Before, he’d viewed food as fuel for him, and a meal was a task he had to complete to get on with the rest of his day. 

Yet, he devours everything on sight. He hasn’t ever tasted fish so savory, vegetables of the perfect texture and seasoning, and rice so fluffy and addicting. 

One bowl of rice wasn’t enough, so for the first time in seemingly his entire life, he has a second serving. 

No, he could never eat food the same anymore, because the next time he eats, his taste buds will be yearning for the food laid out in front of him instead.

All the while, Isagi sneaks super discreet glances at him as he swallows the table in front of him, smiling weirdly and giggling to himself, like seeing Rin eat was the funniest thing in the world. 

He barely acknowledges the strange look Chigiri casts between them.

—

The last task of the day takes them into the evening. It doesn’t involve them drudging away under the blazing sun, instead, they have to fold boxes, stick labels, and package rice. A fairly easy task, but Rin has spent the last two hours fighting off the urge to sleep right there on the cold floor.

“You’re probably experiencing a food coma,” Isagi’s voice prates. “Ever had one before?”

Despite his drowsiness, Rin snaps his head toward Isagi, who carefully sticks a label onto one of the packaged boxes. Still, it’s somehow off center and crooked.

“Sounds made up and moronic.”

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Isagi continues, “It’s a real thing. Guess that makes you moronic.”

He must be some sort of magician—a witch, the worst and evil kind—because Rin is wide awake now. He takes a look at the boxes with uneven, crooked labels and lets out a deep sigh.

“How are you spending ten seconds on sticking a label and still managing to fuck it up?” Rin says, observing how Isagi, once again, fails to stick the label on properly.

“That’s totally centered,” Isagi frowns, pointing to the crooked label.

“Totally,” Rin deadpans, sliding the box he worked on next to Isagi’s to compare. His was perfectly centered and he spent less than three seconds on it.

Isagi huffs resolutely and attempts to place a label on another box, Rin observing as he takes another eternity sticking the label on the box. 

The result was beyond tepid. 

“You might as well be blindfolded and stick them on. What’s the purpose of having eyes if you don’t use them?” he says, gently pushing Isagi to the side with his shoulder. “Watch.”

Rin takes a label and points to the center of the box. 

“This is called the ‘center.’ Do you know how to find one?”

Isagi shoves into Rin but makes no move to stop him, the touch lingering like a phantom. 

“Does it really matter?” Isagi asks.

Rin pauses just as he finishes pasting the sticker. He smooths the plastic over with his thumb. “Of course it does.

“Uh huh,” Isagi says, wholly unbelieving. “And how so?”

Rin steps back to admire his work, then to Isagi. He stood with his arms crossed, pink lips in a slight pout, and overgrown bangs pinned back by a clip with a toy cake glued on, full eyebrows and broad forehead in full view. Unfairly straight nose and more freckles speckled across his midface the last time Rin had noticed them, and Rin just takes it all in because he’s never seen Isagi so close up and so real that it has him doubting his fucking eyes. Nothing Isagi was doing was making it easy for Rin to see him clearly. Did he always smell like cheap, citrus-scented shampoo? Did he always have such thick blue hair, straight out of a wig maker’s wet dream?

There’s a stubborn strand that juts out and threatens to stab Isagi’s iris, so Rin, being the considerate friend he is, tucks it behind his ear.

“Someone once told me ‘go big or go home’.” 

He doesn’t stay to listen to whatever dumb stuff might come spewing out of Isagi’s mouth—pink mouth—and his legs have a mind of their own, fingers tingling from grazing the skin behind his hair and the silkiness of the strands. But it was enough to brand itself onto the sensitive pads of his fingertips. 

Holy fuck. 

He barely hears Isagi sputtering behind him, more focused on getting out of that tiny cramped room and getting some fresh fucking air. 

—

The farm refuses to let them go without a feast. 

Rin still hasn’t digested the food from earlier, and he’s still full, though the smell of the food has him thinking otherwise. This time, they’re eating outside completely, helping set tables around the courtyard at the back of the farm. 

It had to be the biggest barbeque that Rin has ever seen. All kinds of meat he could imagine were there with at least twenty servings of each. 

The atmosphere is inexplicably rich and full of life, buzzing with chatter and laughter with the comforting smell of smoke and char floating around. The courtyard looked almost picturesque, like a scene from a fantasy film, the glow of the fairylights emanating bringing warmth to Rin’s cold body. Even if he wasn’t eating, he thinks he could feast off of the energy itself, and perhaps it would keep him full for centuries.

Two hours in, and Rin must’ve eaten enough meat for two grown men. His stomach threatens to burst as he chews on a piece of pork belly.

“This is the last one,” he says out loud to the pork belly and not to anyone in particular.

Beside him, someone snorts. 

“You said that five pieces ago,” Isagi says, eyes glistening like the cup of apple cider in his hand.

Rin squints back at him. “You’re no better. They should start charging you for your next glass. Are you trying to milk them dry?”

Isagi shrugs, then extends his cup toward him. “Try it, and maybe you’ll understand.”

Rin looks suspiciously between Isagi and the cup. 

No, he wants to say, because he’s too lazy to extend his arm and take the cup. His body reacts first, dropping his jaw, and motioning to his mouth with a jerk of his head, locking eyes with Isagi as he stares back somewhat puzzled. 

Then, a flicker of understanding in his gaze, and he leans over to bring the cold cup to Rin’s lips. Rin doesn’t bother holding it, letting Isagi tilt the cup into his mouth while he uses his free hand to catch any stray droplets.

He was close. So close. His lips part slightly as he watches Rin drink, eyes fluttering from his mouth, to his throat, then back to his eyes. He quickly pulls back after Rin has a sip.

In his mouth, he tastes a firework of apple, sugar, and maybe a hint of citrus, sizzling around in his mouth, like the feeling in his gut. It fades out into a dull but sweet aftertaste, nothing overwhelming, but his heart and stomach felt otherwise. Faintly, Rin contemplates walking twenty steps to get his own glass.

“You can have the rest,” Isagi offers, lips curling into the softest smile, face flushed from the warm lights above them.

Say less. Rin abducts the cup from Isagi and downs the rest in one go. 

Later, he slumps onto the wooden floor beneath him, gazing up at the dark sky where he can see all the stars. There seemed to be an endless amount. Every time he refocuses his eyes, he’d see a new bunch, appearing and disappearing at their own will. He finds himself entranced, the way they hang over him, visible, but not quite his to take. He could reach his hand into the sky and believe for a second that he could grasp them, hold onto them, even if it was for a millisecond. But when he opens his fist, he’ll see that they’re still there, painted onto that black canvas, blinking from hundreds and hundreds of light years away. 

The next time he gets up, he’s not so weighed down by his stomach anymore, and he ends up playing the violin for the people gathered around the courtyard. At that point, many townsfolk had stopped by the farm to congregate, eat, and enjoy the mini show the thirteen of them put on.

It wasn’t anything formal, or even like the performances they’d put on at the hospital, and it was definitely unlike anything Rin has ever experienced before. No fancy equipment, no platform stage or rows of seats in front of him, no harsh, scalding stage lights. Just the faint smell of smoke that wafted around, people scattered about in their own groups who listened and cheered loudly, and the warm hue of the fairy lights much like fireflies floating about. 

There’s a bonfire in the middle, and Rin imagines throwing himself head first into it as he plays Ernst’s Last Rose of the Summer. It was something about the piece that spoke to him, the way it captured all the moments leading up to the very moment he played so… perfectly. How playing had felt… fun. Freeing. A bird let out of an iron cage. A weight chained to him that had finally shattered.

By the end of it, his flesh and bones are surely melting off but it’s good. It’s fine. This is the feeling he’s spent years chasing after and he hasn’t realized he’s been running for so long. There was something profoundly different about hearing the claps from an audience of fifty people as opposed to five hundred. They were all from different walks of life, united by music, by Rin’s violin. 

It was deeply personal and intimate, like Rin had an actual reason for playing the violin beyond just hate and grief. A feeling he’d never experienced but had been missing anyway.

—

It’s nearly midnight when they board the bus back to the dorms. Just before Rin boards, he says goodbye to the owner.

“It was nice meeting you,” Rin says, and he means it with his whole heart, shaking the owner's hand.

They’re calloused and rough, but warm and soothing, and Rin wouldn't mind reincarnating as a rice seedling in his next life just to be planted by those gentle hands. 

The old man’s smile heals something in Rin. “I’ll come out to watch you in August.”

Rin manages a small smile of his own.

Summer break, for the entirety of the school, meant going home and spending time with loved ones, old friends, and reminiscing over a distant childhood. And, well, most likely a plethora of other things.

Yet, summer break for the concerto performers meant longer hours of practicing and rehearsals that stretched late into nights for consecutive days. Ego was unforgiving, a madman, who decided that risking his whole career and life over some teenage violinists was a good idea. In full honesty? Rin could care less about Ego and his idiotic life choices.

But what he did care about was putting on a good performance. A very good one—one that had to be his best, something that’ll surpass his previous ones and something he could never think to replicate again. So, Rin complies with Ego’s extensive routines that even olympic-level athletes would question.

And it technically pays off when he and Isagi are making substantial progress, in ways that are both terrifying and exciting for Rin. They’re not exactly perfect, yet, but the fact that they’ve come so far without even a slightest crack is shocking. And still—terrifying. 

Duos and partner work has never gone particularly well for Rin. His past partners were either too eager to outdo Rin or lacked the skills needed to even stand on stage without being booed off immediately. And, well, to say that Isagi was the perfect partner would be far from the truth. At least in terms of technique. 

Rin could probably write multiple academic papers and ten thousand books and still not get to the bottom of it all. It was impossible to explain in any existing language. It had to be something that transcended languages at all, something only the two of them had to understand for it to be real. But Rin wants to make sense of it all. So fucking bad.

But he can’t—for now—so he’ll instead keep Isagi hostage in a practice booth for hours until he figures out what exactly "it" was. 

If it wasn’t practice or rehearsals, Rin would spend the days staring outside his dorm room’s window listening to music, counting the days down until they all got an actual break. Which wasn’t too far off eventually. Thankfully.

“Can’t believe the concerto is only—what, almost three weeks away?” Isagi says as he carefully lays his violin back into the case.

“Two weeks minus the break,” Rin says. He hasn't started packing his violin yet.

“Time really flies by,” Isagi sighs, hands on his hips after he closes his case. “I didn’t think we’d make it this far.”

We.

Rin thinks the same. In fact, he’s so shocked that he’s started having second thoughts, but he’d never tell a soul.

He musters the little energy he has to pack his belongings, getting ready to escape the sticky practice booth and maybe let himself crash early for bed. Their actual summer break would start the following Monday after the weekend, so maybe he can rest easy with that in mind.

“Do you have any plans for next week?”

Rin halts for a moment. “...No.”

“Wait—really?”

Rin purses his lips.

“So… you’re not going back home? You’ll just be trapped—” he clears his throat, “—staying here for the week?”

Rin lets out a sigh.

“There’s no one waiting for me back home.”

It was the truth. His parents were probably vacationing around Europe as they always do at this time of the year and his brother… well. His brother would be somewhere. Anywhere but home.

“And no plans?”

Plans? Probably spend the whole week practicing some more, eating, and sleeping longer than he usually can during school. But even sleeping was a big question mark. Would he be able to sleep peacefully knowing that he has no one waiting for him at home while everyone else did?

“Nope.”

Isagi stays silent for a while. When Rin turns around after he finishes packing, he finds Isagi with a contemplative look, biting his fingernails until they turn white.

“Are you finished?” Rin asks to snap him out of the daze he was in.

Isagi comes to immediately, stuffing his hand away and reaching for his bag. He stops.

“Hey Rin, I’m going to ask you something and you can say no. Like—I’m not gonna force you. I know it might sound dumb but it was just a random idea I had—”

“Spit it out already.”

“Doyouwannacomeovertomygrandma’shouseforacoupleofdaysandharvestfruitsandstuff—”

“Slow the fuck down,” Rin says, frowning, blanking, questioning because what the hell?

Isagi takes a deep breath. “I’m asking. If you want to come with me to my grandma’s house for a few days. And pick tangerines on her farm and stay at her house. I’m not forcing you, you can say no—I only asked because you’ll be here all by yourself with no one to talk to and be around and that would be boring—even if you hate people—and I thought that we might be close enough now where we can stay at each other’s houses and have sleepovers and stuff but if not I totally understand and sorry if I overstepped—”

“I’ll come.”

Isagi gawks at Rin. “What?”

“I have nothing else to do. Might as well join,” Rin mumbles a little too quietly, but hoping that Isagi heard anyway because he’s not going to repeat himself again for the third time.

“Okay. It’s a date then—a play date,” Isagi stutters, his face a shade of bright pink.

A date. Something dies inside Rin. He’s made all too aware of his own burning face. 

“Just—shut up. And text me the details or whatever,” he says, speeding past Isagi and toward the door.

He’s fucked. So fucked.