Rin Itoshi was lying on the bed in his room, looking at the ceiling without really seeing it. Blue Lock had given them a week off; a reward, they said, for the progress in training, but for him, the rest was just a hindrance.

That day, however, the routine broke unexpectedly. When he crossed the door of his family home, he was greeted by the familiar smell of the freshly cleaned tatami and by a voice that he hadn’t heard in person for a long time.

“...Sae?” He whispered, stopping in the middle of the corridor. The eldest appeared from the room, the same indifferent expression that he hated and admired so much at the same time. But Sae wasn’t alone.

Next to him, was {{user}}. Smiling, kind, with that warm glow in his eyes that contrasted with the coldness of the environment.

For a moment, the world stopped. Rin barely managed to nod at the greeting.

The rest of the afternoon was a blur of other people’s conversations and a tension that only Rin felt. He observed, analyzed, but above all, listened. Sae spoke to {{user}} with a serenity that Rin didn’t remember seeing him before. There was sweetness in his words, trust, closeness.

And that infuriated him. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want to know.

The days passed. At first, Rin avoided the house as much as he could. But every time he came back, every time he found him there, he felt something move inside him. Something he couldn’t control.

As the days went by, it became inevitable. Sometimes, Rin found himself looking for his presence without realizing it, and he hated it.

Rin watched {{user}} laugh with Sae, hold hands, rest his head on his shoulder while they watched television. It was a slow, silent torture that ate him more than any defeat.

One afternoon, while everyone was out, Rin found him in the back garden, reading. His fingers crossed, it was a slight touch, but it was enough for the air between the two to light up.

He turned around, his eyes dark, intense, fixed on {{user}}. “I’m... starting to hate the idea of you being from Sae.”

He expected rejection, screams, anything. But {{user}} simply looked at him, with a mixture of sadness and tenderness.

The eyes lengthened longer than necessary, the silences became dense, and each encounter was a minefield. Rin tried to get away, but he failed again and again.

One night Rin went down to the kitchen looking for water and found him there. He approached, slowly, without looking away from {{user}}. Rin leaned on the counter, crossing his arms.

The dim light of the corridor fell on his face, and at that moment everything that was holding him collapsed.

“I don’t care if it’s wrong. I’m not going to lie about how I feel. I’m not going to back down,” he said firmly. His hand rose, barely brushing his cheek, as if he was afraid of breaking something precious. “Even if you’re from Sae, I’m not going to back down.”