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2024-10-22
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Wait, This is a Date?

Summary:

Itoshi Rin texts Isagi a place, time and date. Isagi texts back a question mark. Rin follows up with, "Be there."

Isagi goes. If only to figure out if he's meeting up for something soccer related, his own murder, or some other third thing.

It's some other third thing.

Notes:

my beloved friend who got me into bllk loves rinsagi, loves halloween, and had a birthday this month. and so!! thought the ao3 people might fw it too. plus this is a oneshot!! who knew I was capable? not me!!

I was going for the same vibe as riptide by MistressSleepless. it's a gem. go check it out.

Work Text:

Isagi wouldn’t say that it was morbid curiosity that led to him accepting this bizarre invitation from Rin, but it was curiosity nonetheless.

It wasn’t so much an invitation as a demand, if it was anything. It’s not like there was a question involved. The text didn’t actually include anything but a street corner, a date, and a time. Isagi had texted back a question mark, because he and Rin had exchanged numbers, sure, but they had never once texted before this. Rin had replied, Be there.

And so that was that.

Between himself, Bachira, Chigiri, and Kunigami, not a single one of them could come up with an explanation for what this might be or what he would find. Kunigami figured they were meeting up for something soccer related. Chigiri made some snarky guess about how maybe Rin was going to try and make his first ever friend. Bachira made a joke about how maybe he was planning to murder Isagi, that or challenge him to a fair and square fight to the death, and Chigiri promptly switched sides to agree with him.

As such, he was taking the train to some inconspicuous street corner to either talk about soccer, get murdered, or some weird mysterious third thing.

Rin was already there when he got there fifteen minutes early. Which Isagi expected but felt a little surprised by anyways. They hadn’t spent much time together, none in this context, which was in street clothes, on an actual street, with some ambiguous goal and motive known only to one of them.

His face was giving no clues. Rin didn’t really appear to be waiting. He wasn’t looking around or staring at his phone. He was just standing there, hands in his pockets. Isagi wouldn’t say it was weird to see him, but it felt so out of place. Seeing him out in the wild. Seeing him in a black button up coat. Seeing his hair free of sweat and effort, every strand having fallen exactly into place. Isagi also wouldn’t go as far to say he looked good.

If Isagi didn’t know better, he’d say he looked a little nervous, actually.

“Rin,” Isagi said when he got close enough, raising a hand to wave. “Hey.”

“Isagi,” Rin said, in that same monotone he was so good at, looking up with no surprise. “You look…” He trailed off, his face once again still without a twitch of any emotion, and then decided on, “The same.”

“Thank you?” Isagi said, his voice involuntarily turning up at the end.

Because he still had absolutely no idea what the two of them were doing here. On this street corner, just standing there while commuters and tourists passed by them on either side.

It was a question that Rin didn’t answer.

“How are you?” Isagi tried.

“I hate small talk,” Rin said.

Isagi didn’t know exactly how that constituted as small talk, but he let it go. “Okay, so-”

“Let’s go,” Rin said.

That was clear enough. Some kind of request. One without any room for debate, but still. And with that, he started off, leaving Isagi no choice but to follow after him.

“Where are we going?” Isagi asked, after about a half block of them walking in silence.

Because that wasn’t small talk. It was a reasonable enough question. The city was bursting with possibilities. There were plenty of things that two teenagers with a bit of free time and spending money could get up to on a quickly darkening fall afternoon.  

Rin still looked annoyed. Or maybe that was just what his face looked like.

“For coffee,” he said.

“It’s, like, four pm,” Isagi said with a laugh.

“Well, I never said you had to get one, did I?” Rin shot back. Isagi was left with no further information as to what the hell they were doing and went back to wondering when Rin added, “You can have a tea or hot chocolate or whatever.”

Isagi continued to follow him, but this was weird. Where the hell were they going? What the hell were they doing? And out of all the people Rin knew to do whatever this task happened to be, why did Rin invite him? It’s not like they were friends. Quite the opposite, actually. Rin had made that painstakingly clear.

But alas. Isagi followed Rin up to the coffee shop, walked through the door that was held open for him, took his place in line. He liked coffee and the like just fine, and the cold was seeping in quickly as the sun went down, so he could use something warm to hold in his gloveless hands. Who knew how long whatever they were doing was going to take? He was reading over the menu when Rin joined him. They were standing noticeably close.

“What do you want?” Rin asked.

“I’m still deciding,” Isagi said.

“Just decide,” Rin said, the words coming out on the back of a sigh.  

Again, weird. How was he and his coffee order a keystone to this plan? He finally picked something to alleviate the awkwardness of standing there, and so they could perhaps swerve the conversation back onto the elusive topic of what the hell they were doing, but then Rin stepped forward, ordered both drinks, and paid for both.

“Wait,” Isagi said, reaching for his own wallet which was tucked into his pocket. “I can pay.”

“So can I,” Rin said, and Isagi recognized the tone. He’d heard it well enough times. It was a challenge.

But this wasn’t the pitch, so Isagi didn’t know what the hell the challenge was. He just backed off. “Alright. Whatever. No problem.”

The two of them hovered in another horribly awkward silence as they waited for their drinks, and then when they got them, instead of heading to the door, Rin started towards a table by the windows and took one of the two chairs. Isagi was a little dumbfounded, emphasis on dumb. They weren’t leaving? Was this the event? He just looked down at the chair and the table and Rin’s hand around his own drink and his expectant gaze.

“You need someone to pull that out for you or what?” he said.

“What? No,” Isagi said, scrambling into the chair across from Rin. “No. Sorry. Just, out of it, or something. I didn’t sleep well.”

“I didn’t ask,” Rin said.

“Right,” Isagi said.

And then they were in that same weird silence, just sitting now, and the fact that the seating arrangement made it so they were forced to look at each other was much worse.

“So,” Isagi said.

And Rin waited. Either untempted to fill the silence or feeling no need to. Rin lifted his coffee to his mouth and raised his eyebrow the slightest amount. Isagi felt itchy.

“This is a nice place,” Isagi said. Rin effectively hummed, but it seemed to be in agreement. It was a start. “Do you live near here?”

“No,” Rin said.

“Come here often?” Isagi tried again.

“First time,” Rin said.

“Why’d you want to come here?” Isagi said, inching ever closer to the actual question at hand.

“Seemed decent,” Rin said. Kind of shrugging. It was hard to say.

“It sure is busy,” he said.

And then, to give himself something to do as well as a new potential conversation topic, he lifted his drink to his mouth so he could comment on the quality of it, the heat, the taste, the fucking anything to avoid sitting here in silence.

“And it’s nearby,” Rin said. Unprompted.

Isagi burned his tongue. Tried and failed to play it off. But it was something. He could work with that.

“I thought you said you didn’t live near here?” Isagi said.

“I don’t,” Rin said.

“So?” Isagi waited. Rin did nothing with the silence. “It’s nearby where?”

“Where we’re going next,” Rin said.

“Which is…?” Isagi asked, thinking he was just on the verge of getting an answer. Rin didn’t provide one. He just sipped his coffee again. Isagi sighed. “Where?”

And then Rin said, averting his eyes, “It’s…a surprise.”

Isagi’s stomach plummeted and he burnt his tongue again trying to take another nonchalant sip of his drink. He wondered how rude it would be to pull out his phone and text the group chat, just in case. With each passing second, he felt like the chances of him getting murdered were getting higher and higher.

“So,” Isagi started. He was trying to take longer before having to fall back on old reliable, but he’d exhausted his capacity for making conversation with such a cryptic, not to mention unwilling, partner. “Have you been training?”

Rin scoffed. But it sounded a little lighter than it usually did. Less patronizing.

“Obviously,” he said.

That was enough to open the floodgates. Well, the Rin equivalent anyways. They made decent enough conversation with minimal pauses about training drills and yoga and recent games played by their favourite pro teams and stats and life events of their favourite players and it was smooth enough. Rin seemed a little distracted. Or rather, distracted for him. Which was anything but the borderline insane hyper laser focus he had towards anything Isagi had ever seen him doing. Now, it was more like he had one foot in the conversation, the other out of it. Periodically, his eyes flicked outside and then returned. When Isagi tried to follow his gaze, he couldn’t figure out what he was looking at.

Finally, Rin cut the conversation off and stood. “It’s time. Let’s go.”

“Right,” Isagi said, chugging the rest of his drink that had gone cold in his hyper focus to keep his head above water during the entire conversation. He stood too. “Let’s go.”

It had gotten dark outside. Not that the city ever really got dark. Isagi didn’t know where they were going, and Rin still wasn’t telling, so he walked close to him to avoid losing him. He was still confused. Rin didn’t seem to mind the proximity. There wasn’t a single warning to back off, either outright or in a glare. He seemed to be in a suspiciously good mood.

Despite the confusion, Isagi was in a good mood too. The night had the hint of a bite to it now that the sun had gone down and they were well into autumn, but he’d forgotten what it was like to be out at night anywhere that wasn’t just the soccer field or the walk home from it. Being out and around strangers. The smell of food. The lights. The voices of strangers coming in all directions as they went about their own lives. Just hanging out with a friend.

Or, kind of. They were friends, weren’t they?

“It’s a nice night,” Isagi said, mostly speaking to himself aloud. But it could be considered conversation if Rin didn’t blatantly ignore him.

“Yeah,” Rin agreed.

“This is a lot of fun,” Isagi said.

“Yeah?” Rin said again, but this was undoubtedly a question.

He side glanced at Isagi, the question having made its way to his face too. He was waiting for an answer. This was weird, but Isagi smiled and nodded regardless. Rin nodded. Just once. His face softened a little.

And then he said, “Good.”

Weird. So fucking weird.

They walked a few blocks without as much as slowing. Isagi knew better than to ask where they were going again. He’d gotten an answer. As weird as it had been. It’s a surprise. So, instead, he commented on things they passed. Restaurants. Arcades. Street performers. Drunken couples stumbling around. He got mostly indifferent hums.

Until he said, “Oh, look, the Halloween fair has already started.”

And Rin said, “Surprise.”

Isagi stopped dead in his tracks. This had reached peak level weirdness. Rin, Itoshi Rin, holier than thou top Blue Lock player and all around jackass had invited him, Isagi Yoichi, some guy who was a stranger-slash-enemy that he’d threatened at least once in every conversation they’d ever had, out for coffee and to go to the Halloween fair? What the actual fuck?

“What?” Rin asked, turning around once realizing Isagi had stopped. “You scared?”

“Scared?” Isagi said. Maybe. But that was besides the point. “No. I’m just…confused?”

Rin just stared on him, that icy cold glare urging him to get on with it.

“What is this?” Isagi asked. “What are we doing here?”

The scoff came through clear. “Isn’t it obvious?”

Rin didn’t clarify, but he didn’t have to. Isagi felt like he was going to fall right through the pavement and just keep falling. His mind played back through the encounter thus far. How Rin had gotten the door. Asked for his order. Paid for their drinks. Brought him to this festival. Was uncharacteristically concerned with him having a good time.

This was…a date?

That changed the entire context of this entire day. Isagi’s entire life, actually. This was no longer the weirdest experience of his life, spending the afternoon and evening with his possibly friend for some unknown reason. Now, it was the weirdest experience of Isagi’s life, spending the afternoon and evening with some guy had made it painfully obvious that he didn’t like him…because maybe he liked him a little bit after all.

Maybe more than a little bit.

Enough to ask him on a fucking date.

Back in the real world, Rin was still looking at Isagi. He’d turned all the way around. His face was pinched with even more annoyance.

“You coming?” Rin asked. “Or are you just going to keep standing there like an idiot?”

It was a good question, in all honesty. Was he going? What did he want in this scenario? If he’d known what Rin had wanted, if he’d been clearer about it, would he still have shown up? Hard to say. He was still so baffled by the concept.

Baffled, but curious.

Curious enough to laugh and say, “Yeah. I’m coming. I’m sure as hell not scared of you, idiot.”

Once Isagi was able to wrap his head around the fact that the Itoshi Rin had asked him on a date, his entire nervousness about the whole thing dissipated. Well, kind of. The thing about Rin was, in Isagi’s eyes anyways, that he was this unattainable ideal. As an athlete. As a teammate. He was cut from soccer royalty cloth, already one to watch before he’d even made it pro just for sharing genes with Sae. Moreover, he had the skill to back it up. He had abilities that Isagi couldn’t dream rivalling. And the cherry on top? His personality was completely unapproachable. So, in that aspect, he’d always been deeply intimidated by him, regardless of how his curiosity sometimes took over.

But this, the date, had entirely levelled the playing field.

In this moment, and every other until the time came that they were back on the field as athletes, Rin was not some unattainable ideal. He was just some sixteen year old guy. Isagi kicked himself a little at that thought, too. He was just some sixteen year old guy. It was so easy to forget that Rin was younger than he was. He wasn’t being intentionally cryptic. He wasn’t testing Isagi any with this weird date and the weirdness with which he'd gone about it. He was just some sixteen year old guy.

Isagi guessed that for once in Rin’s soccer driven life, he had no idea what the hell he was doing.

Which was kind of endearing, if he thought about it that way. Mr Of Course My Shot is Going Into The Net in a Perfect Curve, I Don’t Even Have To Watch It Itoshi Rin had put himself out there and gone out of his comfort zone and had in one single action made himself absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

Which, in turn, was terrifying. What the hell? Isagi wanted to shake his head out. Yeah, Rin putting himself out there and showing quite possibly the first instance of vulnerability in his life was great and all but the fact that he was standing there alongside Rin in the line to get into this Halloween festival after sunset meant that Isagi was on the receiving end of the vulnerability. And he didn’t know what to do with that. He’d never thought about Rin that way. He’d thought about him a lot, probably more than most people, but always in the context of being a rival, an object of admiration, a level to aspire to, someone to absolutely destroy. Did any of those things overlap with romantic interest? He wasn’t sure.

He'd got so stuck in his own head, he hadn’t realized he’d been staring.

“What?” Rin asked, his voice cold as short as it always was.

“Nothing,” Isagi said.

Then, he supposed, he didn’t have to know for sure. That’s what the purpose of a date was. To find out.

He looked down at Rin’s hand hanging from the sleeve of his coat, considering it. What would it be like to walk around this festival, hand in hand with Itoshi Rin? Their prior contact had been minimal, and most often violent and sport related, so Isagi couldn’t even imagine it. Might as well find out, he reasoned.

He barely even brushed Rin’s hand before he pulled it away, looking down at him with an irritated glare. Isagi was dazed. What the hell was this for, then?

“We’re not there yet,” Rin said.

Isagi sighed. “Fair enough.”

This had the potential to be a very interesting night. Either that, or a very long one.

As the line moved forward and the two of them started approaching the ticket booth at the entrance, Rin and Isagi started up a bickering match about who would be paying that included some choice words as well as some name calling and regardless of the date context, it felt playful and familiar and it seemed to serve to calm both of them. Isagi eventually backed down and Rin got a very smug half smile stuck on his face and Isagi found he liked the look of it. Rin was, objectively speaking, gorgeous, but up close and in this context, it was nice to see him smile, even if he was just bragging.

Once they were inside, hands stamped, Isagi asked, “So? What’s next? Rides?”

“We’re going to the haunted houses,” Rin scoffed, as if it was the only sane option.

Even though it was a fundamentally insane option. But whatever. It wouldn’t have been Isagi’s first choice, but he wasn’t vehemently opposed. He could play ball. So he let Rin lead the way towards the far end of the festival, towards the screams, where all the haunted houses were. He was not necessarily looking forward to adding to the symphony of terror, but hey, he was very much looking forward to seeing if Rin, if this entire situation actually, looked different in the dark.

Rin took them into the lineup for the first one, and Isagi stood there, looking up at it. The fake walls, the spiderwebs strung up on fake windows, the blood dripping down from the windowsills.

“I don’t get it,” Isagi said, pointing it out. “Are the spiders bleeding? Or are the murderers spilling the blood out the windows?”

Rin sighed. “This place goes downhill every year.”

“You’ve been before?”

“Every year.”

Well, at least they were talking.

“So, is this house any good?” Isagi asked.

“Dunno,” Rin said. “They change every year. That’s why you have to try all of them.”

“All of them?”

Isagi looked down the row of haunted houses. It was packed. Teenage girls taking photos of their friends crying. Friends shoving each other’s arms. Screaming and laughter in seemingly equal amounts. Employees dressed as various monsters wandering around. Lineups and lineups and lineups. The road stretched on and on. There must have been at least fifteen different houses.

Isagi chuckled a little. “I’m starting to think that maybe you don’t like me very much.”

“I haven’t decided whether or not I do,” Rin said. “Hence the date.”

“Fair enough,” Isagi said.

He could respect it. At least the guy was honest.

It brought him back to the question of whether or not he liked Rin. He still didn’t know. He was still trying to wrap his head around the concept. He’d been fine being rivals. Or maybe he’d settled for rivals. It’s not like he was indifferent towards Rin. Not at all.

So what was hiding underneath all that?

Isagi didn’t consider himself a horror fan, nor did he consider himself someone who scared easily, but for fuck’s sake, there was only so much a guy could do about people dressed up in horrifying costumes popping out at him from behind corners, underneath tables, from cutouts in the wall. Isagi tried to keep it together, and managed, maybe half of the time? He wasn’t really all that embarrassed, really, seeing as everyone else was losing it about as much as he was.

Everyone except one person, that was.

Rin was unshakable. One might think that he’d designed the entire house, right down to the exact timing. He never even jumped, let alone screamed. And it’s not like he missed things. He saw it all, looked over all the details, looked the actors right in the face. They seemed more afraid of him, his lack of reaction. Isagi found it impressive as much as he found it offputting. He was having a decent time, he supposed, on this date. Even though he was on a date with a psychopath.

They got out of the house and Isagi took a huge breath of fresh air. He didn’t know how he could do that whole thing fourteen more times. He’d manage, he supposed. Or maybe he would try to talk Rin into a breather around house six. Isagi tried to be as subtle as possible as he caught his breath. Rin was looking at him, blank yet eternally unimpressed expression on his face.

“Yeah, yeah,” Isagi said, his heart beating so fast it was threatening to jump out his throat. “Lukewarm.”

“I wasn’t going to say it,” Rin said.

“Now you don’t have to.” Isagi took another few breaths. “You’re…you’re something else.”

“Why?”

“You’re insane,” Isagi said, shocked that it wasn’t obvious. “You actually like this stuff?”

Rin shrugged. “It’s exciting.”

“Exciting?” Isagi said. “Don’t you mean boring? You walked through that entire place without any reaction.”

“Just because my face doesn’t change doesn’t mean I’m not reacting,” Rin said.

Isagi gave him an exasperated look. His own adrenaline was making everything feel a little more on the knife’s edge. Rin clearly took it for confusion, or judgement, or something, because he scoffed and rolled his eyes and Isagi had half a thought that the date was going to end there. Too incompatible. We’re done here.

But then Rin just took Isagi’s wrist and pressed his palm against the middle of his chest.

And he felt it. The fierce, quickened beating within.

He was stunned still by the action. Rin had done it like it was nothing, just a way to prove a point, but he clearly didn’t understand how sentimental of an action this was. Rin had let go of Isagi’s wrist, but his hand lingered there, his fingertips feeling the soft material of his black shirt, the palm itself feeling every contraction of the organ within. Isagi knew it wasn’t the case, just the muscle that controlled blood circulation, but still, this whole situation was so bizarrely tender that he couldn’t help but think the heart: master of all matters of love.

Feel mine.

It had clearly taken a while for him to come back to himself. Rin’s heartbeat had slowed and settled itself inside his chest. Isagi looked up at him, wanting to verify if that had just fucking happened. Rin was already looking at him with a look that said, are you done yet? Isagi pulled his hand back. Leave it to Rin to make him feel like an idiot over something that he’d started.

“If you’re going to be such a baby about it,” Rin said, already walking off towards the lineup to the next house. “I guess I’ll let you hold my arm through the next one.”

Isagi didn’t say anything, just followed. Decided to take that as a sign that the date was going well.

Rin made good on his statement and Isagi took him up on the offer. It wasn’t any less of a rather unenjoyable experience, but it made it better. And Isagi could tell, even through the sleeve of his coat, he wasn’t lying. It was subtle but it was there. The way his arm stiffened. The way he flinched. It humanized him, which was a bonus to the more prevalent truth that it was just nice. To be this close. Touching. Still, Isagi’s mind kept lingering back to that moment outside the last house, his hand to Rin’s chest, his heart beating wildly underneath his touch, and longed for it to happen again.

Isagi took it as another good sign that Rin kept letting Isagi hold his arm. Held it out in offering, even. By the time they got through the sixth haunted house, he was getting the hang of it. Starting to be able to discern the differences. Strengths, weaknesses.

“That last one was lame,” Isagi joked afterwards. “Only three jump scares and the gore was subpar at best. Why even bother?”

“I know you’re being sarcastic,” Rin said. “But that is genuinely a good critique.”

The routine they’d fallen into was that they’d step back into the street of the festival’s haunted house boulevard and disconnect, linking back up only when they stepped through the door of the next house. This time, Isagi decided to press his luck. Kept his grip on Rin’s arm. One step back into the night air, and he didn’t pull away. Five steps and he either didn’t notice or react as Isagi’s grip slid lower. Into his hand. He didn’t pull away this time.

There were there, Isagi supposed. Gotten there. To hand holding territory.

Rin used this grip against him, pulling him in to lean into him.

“This next one’s a real treat for you,” Rin said. “It’s a haunted house ride.”

“I know you’re being sarcastic,” Isagi said back. “But that genuinely is a treat.”

Things worked backwards this time. They walked in holding onto each other and came away from each other and climb into their allotted seat. They lifted their arms out of the way while some bored guy barely older than they were lowered the bar onto their lap. Then, the ride jerked forward and plunged them into a pitch black hallway where they waited for all the carts in front of theirs to go through first.

“Love the theme of this one,” Isagi leaned in to whisper.

“Lots of people are afraid of the dark,” Rin said back, either missing or ignoring the sarcasm.

Unless.

No. Way.

Isagi couldn’t help himself. They hadn’t grabbed back onto each other, but they were sitting close enough. Their sides pressed right up against each other, their arms leaning on the same lap bar. Isagi could figure out well enough how they were sitting, where his hand would be going. He was still thinking about that first moment, his hand pressed to Rin’s chest, and aimed for the same spot. He hit fabric, but not the right fabric. His jacket maybe. It was hard to tell.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rin hissed in the dark.

Isagi’s arm was swatted away. Violently. He pulled it back towards him. He hadn’t been trying to do anything too malicious, nothing that hadn’t already been offered. But then again, it was dark. Hard to tell what he’d been doing, what it felt like from the other side. If he’d stumbled and given off the impression that he was bolder than he was.

“Nothing,” Isagi said.

“You’re trying to check if I’m scared,” Rin accused.

Which was, to his credit, spot on. “Are you?”

“No.”

“Let me check, then.”

“No.”

Under the protection of the screaming of ride goers as well as the machinery, and fueled by Rin being a scaredy cat fuck ass, Isagi shoved his hand forward anyways. He’d lost the privilege of him being careful about it.

“What are you doing?” Rin said. An elbow hit Isagi’s ribs. “Get off!”

“What are you so scared of?” Isagi asked.

The element of surprise as well as the dark were both on his side. After minimal struggle, his hand had found that same spot it had outside, the beating beneath his skin even more furious than it had been then.

And all they were doing was sitting here. Waiting for the ride to start. In the dark.

“Get off!” Rin said, finding his bearings, shoving Isagi off so hard he was pushed to the other side of the bench.

“You are scared!” Isagi said, full of triumph. “Huh. So that’s Itoshi Rin’s weakness, huh? The dark.”

“I’m not scared of the dark, you idiot,” Rin hissed back. “I’m not five.”

“You are!”

“Am. Not.”

“What are you so scared of then?” Isagi taunted.

Because he genuinely believed he was right. That’s he’d stumbled upon something. Itoshi Rin’s biggest fear being nothing other than the universal unknown. He didn’t even really care if this was their last straw, it had still been a good time, a great date, with an especially good ending.

It was only once Rin was actually kissing him that he realized he was wrong.

It was, as could only be expected, a forceful and intentional action. Isagi was pulled in with all the same force he’d been pushed back. Their faces smashed together, finding each other in the dark. Realizing what was happening. Finding a rhythm. It was awkward, not to mention shocking, but even so, Isagi couldn’t deny the fact that he liked it. A lot.

When the ride jerked forward, Isagi thought it was his cue to go, pull back. He tried, but Rin just pulled him back in with the grip he still had on his shirt, kept kissing him. There wasn’t much light in the rest of the ride either. Not that either of them would have cared otherwise. Not at that point. The ride went on. The screaming. The scares. The music. The flashing lights. Isagi couldn’t have picked out a single thing that had happened that entire ride besides Rin, Rin, Rin.

Rin, who’d been paying more attention that Isagi had apparently, pushed him off just a single second before their cart left the last dark hallway and slid into the exit bay. The lap bar was released by a different but equally bored looking employee. Rin got out of the ride, looking as if absolutely nothing had happened. Isagi felt dazed, like his entire face was on fire, and felt too clumsy to follow him out of the ride. With the same look of cold irritation, Rin offered him a hand, and with the same bewilderment, Isagi took it and let him pull him out of the cart.

And then they were back into the cold air, Isagi holding onto Rin’s arm as if for dear life.

“What’d you think of that one?” Isagi asked, once he regained the ability to speak.

“I didn’t mind it,” Rin said. Painfully casually.

Had he imagined that? No way. No fucking way. His lower lip wasn’t that swollen for nothing.

“You didn’t mind it?” Isagi said. Rin nodded. Just once. “Would you say, you know, that you, maybe might have liked it?”

Rin didn’t answer. Just yanked on his arm. Back the way they came.

“What are you doing?” Isagi asked. “You’re going the wrong way.”

“We’re doing that one again,” Rin said, pulling him back towards the line.