1:10AM | HAITANI RINDOU
Rindou waits on the edge of the bed for you while you admire yourself in the mirror for what must be the tenth time in the last two minutes. He’s leaning on his palms, his head resting against the base of his neck and his long legs thrown out in front of him, while you adjust the hem of your sundress again, turning on your heel to peer at the way the fabric flares at your waist. The dress is perfect (courtesy of Rindou again obviously, because according to him, a best friend is allowed to buy gifts for you which probably cost more than your entire week's wages) and the flats that go with it perfectly accentuate your legs.
Rindou has known you for so long that you don’t mind the way he watches you as you adjust the neckline, and you smile at him in the reflection of the mirror. A genuine smile, a warm smile. One that speaks of the countless years of history between you two.
He’s wearing a t-shirt, and the luminescent purple mullet has been pulled back into a ponytail. His tattoo at the base of his neck is on full display and bobs just a little whenever he swallows.
‘Why are you taking so long?’ He groans and falls back onto the bed, watching you with his head turned to the side. His gaze is never lecherous, never perverse. It is always full of warmth, love and respect, as if you hung every star in the sky. Always soft, always gentle. There is an assortment of headbands, earrings, hair clips and dainty necklaces on the dresser, and you pick up one of these as you catch his eye in the mirror again.
‘Do you have somewhere to be Haitani? You quip and bend to pull on your flats.
The sun is high in the sky and the heat of it pours in through the open window, the netting fluttering in the breeze. Every time it does, you see Rindou’s hair lift from his forehead, the fine strands falling to the side where his cheek is pressed to the bedspread. The room is awash with yellow and white and the clouds are stark and fluffy against the blue of the sky. It’s still early summer yet and the air isn’t pervaded by that sweltering late summer stickiness where the air feels close and stifling, begging for summer rain.
‘Yes actually, somewhere that isn’t here.’ He shoots back. His eyes follow you as you pull on a thin pink cardigan.
‘You say that, as if this wasn’t your idea in the first place!’
‘Only because you begged me!’
‘You don’t have to come if you don’t want to, you know,’ you say , raising an eyebrow at him as you bend to flick his forehead, now exposed by the wind wafting in through the window.
‘Shut up, of course I’m going.’ He moves to stand, rolling off the bed. ‘Besides, I am your bodyguard.’
‘That’s a weird way to say best friend.’
‘Best friend? I don’t even know you.’
‘You just said you were my bodyguard,’ you say, smirking when you see the faint tint of embarrassment creep up his cheeks.
‘Yeah whatever, let’s just go,’ he grumbles and snatches his keys off the dresser and you smile knowingly to yourself at the prospect of winning yet another battle.
Maybe this was too much effort for a simple trip to the park in early May. Or maybe the truth was that Rindou was the sort of person you felt like making an effort for because he did the same for you in ways you couldn’t repay.
Those awful nights when you were alone, separated by miles and drowning in solitude, when he was only a phone call away and then not. When he would pick up the phone, his gravelly, rough voice would be sluggish with sleep, and you’d hear him curse as he accidentally dropped the receiver onto his own foot. Or those nights when you’d call crying, and your words would be punctuated by hics and sobs and Rindou would be there with whatever he could think to get from the convenience store on his way over. Who’d stay with you all night if you needed him to, curled against you, sharing your warmth, his breath on your neck, rubbing circles onto your skin wordlessly. A best friend that felt closer to you than you thought humanly possible, who felt like he fit against you so well that your shapes were moulded together.
Whatever souls are made of, yours and his are the same.
The field just beyond the play area of the park is so much quieter that it's almost deserted, exactly how you expected it to be. The grass and thin wiry reeds are so tall they brush your legs. Rindou helps you off the back of his bike, holding out his hand as you swing a leg over, pulling down the hem of your sundress to cover your exposed legs, hiding the flush of your cheeks behind the gently fluttering strands of your hair. You’d held on tight to him, your cheek pressed against his back, feeling the muscles slide and tense when you squeezed a little too tight, your hands against the smooth planes of his abdomen, his hair tickling your nose.
‘This it?’ He asks and holds up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun.
You nod your assent.
The late afternoon rays bathe the field in golden light, the sun a slash of orange and pink on the horizon. The breeze has picked up by now and the reeds brush the skin on your calves.
‘Okay, quick climb on then,’ he says and bends at the waist, gesturing for you to climb onto his back.
‘Um…what?’ You blush instinctively and hope that the pinkish tint on your cheeks can be mistaken for the heat sitting on your skin.
‘Isn’t that what you wanted? This is a one time offer, Princess.’ He smiles over his shoulder, and the light coming through the strands of his hair make them seem almost lilac.
For a second you’re unsure. Yes he’s your best friend, yes he’s the apple of your eye, yes you’re convinced he put the stars in the sky. So why does this feel so strange? Why does your heart speed up at the thought of being so close you can feel the warmth of his skin? Why is he the most beautiful man you’ve ever seen, and why does it make you feel sick with longing?
You tentatively put your arms around his neck from behind, resting your chin on the curve of his shoulder as he holds your legs in place around his hips. The skin of his fingertips is rough against your bare legs and you suppress a shiver as you tense around him.
‘Relax y/n, s’not as if I’m going to drop you.’ He turns his head to the side, his hair tickling your ear and his lips are so close, so tantalisingly close that all you’d have to do is lean forward to brush them against your own. They’re soft you imagine and your countless daydreams about kissing him give you enough fuel to think what it would be like to just bridge the distance.
He glances at your lips, the bottom one pulled by your teeth, slightly red and puckered. His throat bobs up, down, and the tattoo at the base of his neck moves with the action. You can’t hear it, but his heartbeat is so fast, the blood is rushing to his head and all he needs to do is close the distance…
And then the moment passes, and he looks away, squinting at the sun and its bright light on the horizon, hoping that his hair hides the way his high cheekbones fade to pink.
‘Ready?’ He asks and hoists you higher on his hips so your body is flush against his back, your chest pressed against him.
‘Y-yeah,’ you reply, shakily. You can smell his aftershave, his shower gel, even the shampoo he uses in his hair and you want to touch him so much that it makes you dizzy. You want to run your hands through his hair, put them on his bare chest, kiss the eyelashes that fall onto his cheek, kiss the corner of his mouth and work your way down and it’s so embarrassing, you think, to have these feelings for the man whose bond with you runs deeper than any romance, who would fight death for you.
He doesn’t give you any warning before he bolts down the hill, clutching onto your legs and laughing, his head thrown back as you grasp onto the front of his shirt, giggling into the crook of his neck, your legs tense around his hips.
He trips at some point, and the two of you roll down the hill, holding onto each other as the world slips and tumbles around you, laughing against each other's skin, your hair flying in the wind, grass on your clothes and your face pressed to his chest.
When you slow to a stop, he can tell you’re smiling against his shirt. There is a few seconds of silence after the laughter dies down, and he hopes that you can’t sense or feel the way his heart is beating erratically in his chest.
Rays of light burst through the clouds over his shoulder and yet you feel no need to get up, and if you could stay here, nestled in his warmth, his arm around you and his breath fanning your hair, you would.
There is no surer thing in the universe than him.
‘Come on Princess, up you get,’ he says, holding a hand out as he makes to rise. There’s grass clinging to his clothes, and he brushes it off absent-mindedly as you walk hand in hand back to the bike. He brushes your knuckles every so often and your stomach thrums every time he achingly traces his thumb over each individual knuckle.
The bike dips when you both sit. You, with your arms around his middle, squeezing tight, your cheek pressed to the muscle of his back, and him, leaning forward and chuckling as he revs the bike. You can feel every shift of muscle, even the tense of his thighs, the slip and slide of his shoulders under his shirt, the deep rumble of his laugh when he goes just a little too fast and you hide your face in him.
By the time you’re home, the need for sleep has crept up on you. Rindou can tell by the way your head nods and you seem to sink into the thin cardigan that does nothing to protect you from the evening chill. You clutch onto his arm, your brow furrowed and your speech slurred and the effort it takes for you to drag one leg in front of the other is immense.
He takes the initiative, and lifts you, hoisting you up into his arms, your legs resting on his forearm and nudges the door closed as you step inside. From there, he slips off his shoes and takes you to the bedroom, slipping into the bed next to you, as he is prone to doing, pulling the covers up till they’re just resting on the curve of your bare shoulder.
You inch closer, till your arms are flat on his chest, your cheek now firmly nestled in the hollow crevice in the middle. You can hear his heartbeat, can feel the warmth of his skin and his breath on the crown of your head, even more so when he pulls you closer with one hand on the small of your back.
‘Rin?’ You look up at him through your lashes, your eyes now droopy and sluggish with sleep. You’re so close to him, so close that you can see the minor scratches and cuts from places the razor has slipped in the morning, the small crease of his brows that’s partially hidden by the fringe of his mullet.
‘Yeah?’ His tattoo bobs up and down as he swallows, his tongue thick and heavy in his mouth.
‘I had a good time,’ you say and perhaps it’s the sleep pressing firmly down on you, the blanket of warmth that comes from behind at home, in the arms of your best friend in the whole world, but you want to kiss him, and you suck in a breath as you glance at his lips, soft and supple and pliant, the lightest pink.
His jaw clenches and something inside him stirs, and it really isn’t his fault, he thinks. You’re so pretty, so kind and sweet, and fun and loving and you make him feel like he is the only man in the world, the only man worth looking at, and it would be so easy to just bridge that distance and close that gap.
You feel something against the inner part of your thigh, and without looking down, you know what it is.
‘Don’t…’ he says in a breathy whisper. ‘I want to… but we shouldn’t.’ And the rejection (or what feels like rejection) comes to you so quick that it’s like a metal wall slamming down on you. You hardly have time to register the way his lips tremble before Shame pools in your gut. You swallow the lump forming in your throat, hoping your hair hides the red on your cheeks, hides the tears gathering in your eyes.
He wants to, he really does. But is losing a lifetime of friendship worth it when he knows he can’t be the man you deserve, the one who comes home every day without cuts and bruises? The man who comes home every day full stop.
You slide off him, your lips pinched, the tears on your lash line, the hem of your now crumpled sundress gathered in your shaking hands.
‘Y/n…’ he says, his voice now laced with panic, his hair now spiky from the one end where he had creased it against the pillow. ‘Y/n wait, please just listen-’
The first sob rips its way out of your throat as you race from the room and Rindou panics, knocking over your lamp on the bedside table as he rushes after you to no avail. By the time he’s righted it, you’ve left the house, wiping your tears with your wrist, your choked sobs so loud, so painful that it makes you dizzy.
You don’t look back, don’t spare a glance over your shoulder even as you hear your name called from the door in a frenzied shout.
Rindou leaves for his shared apartment with Ran just as night falls, after having spent the better part of the evening looking for you, calling your name in the street, dialing your phone, even as the streetlights flickered to life, and he saw his shadow splayed out underneath him in the artificial orange glow.
It’s only when you’re sure he’s gone, when Ran has all but confirmed that Rindou had come back, slamming doors and hissing at him, that you venture back home. The tears are dried on your face and there’s a tightness in your skin that can only have come from crying so long and hard, and every movement feels like a small crack in marble.
You shift in the bed that smells so horribly like him and scroll through the pictures in your gallery, ignoring the barrage of messages, the explosion of missed calls and panicked voicemails. There is you and him on your birthday. There was you and him on Christmas when he had tripped in the snow and you had laughed and snapped a picture and sent it to Ran so the two of you could share the love and the laughter of the person who meant more to both of you than anything ever could. You smile even now, and the action brings a fresh new wave of pain, now dull and throbbing.
But sleep comes to you still, and though it is fretful and lonely and plagued by dreams, by the time you wake, the jagged edges of pain have softened into smooth tendrils of heartbreak. The ache in your chest persists however, and it takes a significant amount of makeup to cover the shadows under your eyes as you leave to get the groceries you desperately need.
Despite it all, your fingers hover over his contact many times throughout the morning. It would be easy to call. You’ve no doubt he’d pick up. Just to hear his voice, hear him mumble on the other end of the line and your sniffles would feed down the receiver and his heart would clench with both guilt and anxiety till he was pouring his apologies out to you. Would it make you feel better? Maybe not,but you’d get to hear the rough rasp of his morning voice, and you’d just know he was there, as he always is.
What exactly were you angry at? That he didn’t feel the same? Or that he did and that it wasn’t enough? That you weren’t allowed to have what other people took for granted all the time? That the one person whose love you craved like water in the desert, was the one thing you couldn’t have?
You sniffle again, and pick up a bunch of bananas when you feel a tap on your shoulder.
You spin, and the bananas fall from your hand into the basket with a thud when you see Rindou’s towering figure standing in front of you.
There are dark rings under his eyes and his hair stands in tufts, slightly to the side from where it pressed against the pillow as he slept fitfully, his head swimming with thoughts of you.
Perhaps, it's spite, perhaps it’s because you’re angry and upset and your heart is hanging on by a thread, but you turn away from him and continue inspecting the bananas, even as your lip wobbles and you have to bite on it to keep yourself in check. The supermarket is quiet at this time, and the only sound is the whir of the refrigerators and the clicking as items are scanned at the till point.
‘Y/n will you talk to me?’ he says and the desperation leaks out of his voice as it trembles. He moves to take your basket instinctively but you turn, hanging your head so that he can’t see the fresh wave of hot tears forming.
‘What's there to say Rindou?’ You drop the bananas into your basket and move along down the aisle, your hand skimming over products you have no interest in, just for something to focus on that isn’t him. You clear your throat, hoping your voice doesn’t betray you when you’re not quite sure how to feel and this strange sensation of both yearning and anger is foreign in you, so much so that it takes every ounce of willpower not to let another choked sob escape your throat when all you want is to weep.
‘I’m sorry Princess.’ And there is no playful lilt, no smile, no teasing or cockiness in it. It’s hoarse and worried and hushed and from the scratchy roughness of it, you can tell he’s smoked a few cigarettes before he got here.
Though they did nothing to ease his nerves and he still clenches his fists, his hands tight with pressure and tension, as if there are sparks just below the surface.
‘I’m sorry, I was stupid. So stupid.’ He furrows his brows and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, slack and unyielding. And even though you’re hurt, and the pain is still spiky and fresh and worming its way through your stomach, you know in your heart that you’ve already forgiven him, that you’d done so almost immediately and that you’d do it regardless of the outcome of this conversation. But still, you want him to feel it, just a fraction of the pain.
‘Very stupid-’ you say, just to drive it home.
It's a testament to your love for him that even though you’re angry, even though the pain is still a throbbing thing uncomfortably nestled in your chest, you can’t bring yourself to snap at him. Because you are irrevocably and hopelessly in love and you know life is too short not to make it known, not to love him the way he deserves.
‘Yes I’m very stupid thanks Y/n-’ he retorts without thinking, berating himself. But his heart lifts just a slight when he sees you snort and hold your sleeve to your nose to hide both the tears and the giggles. You can’t help it. You laugh, and your skin cracks with the action, a remnant or parting gift from the tears dried on there, and it feels so wonderful that he is so him, that he is just so unapologetically him.
‘That’s an understatement-’
You can’t help but snort again at the way he cocks his head to the side, tutting at your interruption when he’s very obviously on a roll.
‘I’m an idiot, and I don’t deserve you at all, and I was scared and I don’t want to disappoint you-’ he rambles and fiddles with a cigarette lighter he’s fished out of his pocket. Why is it so hard for him to look at you now?
‘Rindou-’ And it’s your turn to furrow your brows.
‘-but I love you,’ he says in an almost imperceptible whisper that you swear no one could hear over the drone of the electricity, the buzz of fridges and scuff of feet on linoleum, but you. You’d know his voice anywhere. You’d pick it out from billions. You know him like the lines on your hand and perhaps that is what it means to have a soulmate. To know them better than you thought possible to know a human.
‘Does this mean…?’
‘Yes. Yes it does.’ He nods fervently, eager to right what he’s done wrong. ‘I love you, and I want to try.’
The pain withers, the edges of it curling back like leaves in autumn and you feel yourself softening in a way that brings fresh tears to your eyes. It’s not as if you haven’t heard it before from him. You have. Just not in this way. You try to fight the watery smile and even though your lips tremble, you think you might be okay, he might be okay, and yesterday suddenly seems so trivial compared to this.
‘Princess?’ His eyes are wide with worry.
You take a shaky breath and the tension seeps out of your skin. It’s nothing, you realize. It’s all nothing compared to the vast expanse of love between you, compared to the years that are so full and bursting with memories. Would you really both be okay with losing that just because you were scared of taking a leap of faith?
‘I love you too Rindou,’ you say and it feels like the easiest thing in the universe, so effortlessly rolling off your tongue, so easily said that everything else, every risk and possible fear seems so inconsequential.
He blushes and looks at the linoleum floor and then at you, sighing, his shoulders suddenly sagging as the tension and stiffness seeps out of his bones.
‘Here.’ You thrust the shopping basket at him to hold and he puts a hand to his chest in fake outrage. ‘Hold this, since you’re my boyfriend now and all.’ You flash him a cheeky smile and Rindou’s heart does a dangerous thing as he takes it from you. There is no echo of worry this time, no wavering smile that threatens tears. Only love and endless admiration, persisting between you, as it always does.
a/n:... so. This is based off a dream I had that happened exactly like this. I love Rindou so much can you tell? my specialist most pretty star in the sky. I hope you all enjoy this anyways, I'm trying to be more consistent and give more thought to maybe opening a patreon or ko-fi. As always, likes and reblogs much appreciated! for u my sweet rin.
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