RIN ITOSHI ★ BOYFRIEND

The lock clicks with a sound far too soft for the violence simmering beneath his skin. The door to the apartment falls shut behind him, sealing out the city's indifferent hum, the distant blare of traffic, the phantom echo of a stadium that had felt like a mausoleum. He stands in the dark entryway, unmoving, his silhouette swallowed by shadow. His chest rises and falls with measured breaths, each one deliberate, like he's trying to remember how to exist outside the white lines of a pitch that just rejected him. The silence in here is different from the silence out there. Here, it's thick, charged—alive with you. Even before his eyes adjust, he knows you're somewhere in the dim light, waiting. You always are. That thought should comfort him. It doesn't. It twists in his gut like a knife.

He doesn't turn on the light. He doesn't want you to see him like this—not yet, maybe not ever. His hair is still damp with sweat from the match, flattened against his forehead, the dark red strands sticking to his skin like veins torn from his body. His dark jacket hangs open over a black compression shirt, the fabric clinging to his chest, still tacky with dried perspiration. There's a smear of grime across his jaw, a faint bruise blooming along his right cheekbone where an opponent's shoulder had caught him in the second half. It doesn't hurt. Not physically. Everything else does. The loss crawls under his skin like an infection, festering with every tick of the clock he's been too proud to look at. He'd roamed the city for hours after the final whistle, walking with no destination, his phone buzzing with missed calls and messages he'd silenced with a thumb. His teammates could rot. His coach could choke on his platitudes. The only place he wanted to be was here. The only person who could make him feel like he wasn't a ghost was you. And that was the cruelest joke of all.

He finally moves, shrugging off his bag and letting it fall to the floor with a dull, defeated thud. It's not like him—the carelessness of it—but he doesn't bend to pick it up. Instead, he walks slowly into the apartment, his steps heavy against the hardwood, his head low. The city's neon glow bleeds through the floor-to-ceiling windows, painting his features in cold blues and sickly purples. He looks spectral, half-real, a boy carved from static and spite. His jaw is set so tight that the muscle jumps beneath his skin. His hands curl and uncurl at his sides, restless, searching for something to strangle or hold. When he reaches the edge of the living room, he stops. He can feel you before he sees you—the warmth of your presence in the empty space, the silent gravity of someone who has stayed through every storm he's thrown. It should make him soften. It doesn't. It makes him angry. Because you shouldn't be here. Because you should have left by now. Because he doesn't know what he'd do if you ever did.

"Don't turn on the light," he says, voice low and scraped raw, like he's been screaming though he hasn't said a word in hours. His eyes, those sharp teal depths that usually burn with cold precision, are dull now—glassy with something too big to name. He looks at you, finally, but only for a second. Then his gaze drops to the floor, as if your face is too bright, too clean, too good for the wreckage he's dragged in. "You stayed up." It's not a question. It's an accusation. And underneath it, buried under layers of barbed wire and bone, there's relief so potent it makes his stomach turn. He shoves a hand through his hair, gripping the damp strands and pulling hard enough to sting. "You're so stupid," he mutters, but there's no heat. "Why do you do this to yourself? Why do you do this to me?" He laughs then, short and hollow, a sound like breaking glass. "I told you not to wait. I told you I'd be late. But you never listen. You never fucking listen."

He moves again, restless energy coiling through his frame. He doesn't sit. He can't. Every muscle is wound too tight, every nerve singing with a static that makes him want to punch a hole in the wall. Instead, he drifts to the window, stopping just before the glass. His reflection stares back at him, gaunt and hollow-eyed, and for a horrible moment, it's not his own face he sees—it's Sae's. His brother's cold, detached expression superimposed over his own like a ghost in the glass. His lip curls. His hands fist at his sides. "I could hear him," he says quietly, to you, to the city, to the boy in the window who won't stop being a disappointment. "All match. Every pass. Every shot." He exhales sharply, and his reflection fogs the glass for half a second before vanishing. "He's in my head. He's always in my head. And I can't—" His voice breaks, just barely, a hairline fracture in the ice. He presses his forehead against the cool window, eyes falling shut. "I can't get him out."

Silence stretches between you like a wire pulled taut. Then, without turning, he speaks again, and this time his voice is smaller, stripped of its armor. "Come here." It's not gentle. It's desperate, the words dragged out of him like a confession at gunpoint. "Please." The word tastes foreign on his tongue, and he hates it, hates how weak it makes him feel, hates that you're the only person in the world he would ever say it to. He waits, but only for a heartbeat, then he's crossing the room to you with long, swift strides, his body moving on instinct. He stops just short of touching, his chest rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths. Up close, you can see the tremor in his hands, the way his eyes keep flicking over your face like he's memorizing it, like he's afraid you'll dissolve if he blinks.

"Do you know what it's like," he says, his voice low and trembling at the edges, "to lose on a field full of people and feel like the only person who exists is you?" His hand lifts, hovering near your face, not quite touching. "It's the only reason I didn't put my fist through a wall tonight. Because I kept thinking, 'She's at home. She's waiting. She's still there.' And I needed to see you. I needed to—" He cuts himself off with a sharp exhale, his jaw working. Then his hand finally closes the distance, fingers curling around your jaw with a grip that's too tight, too possessive, but shakes with the effort of restraint. He tilts your face up, forcing your eyes to meet his, and the rawness there is nearly unbearable. "Tell me I'm not like him. Tell me I'm not going to end up alone." His thumb brushes over your bottom lip, rough and calloused. "Lie to me if you have to. I don't care. Just make it quiet. Make it stop."

The city hums on the other side of the glass, indifferent and endless. But in here, in the dark, Rin Itoshi is coming apart at the seams, and you are the only thing holding him together. He sways forward, resting his forehead against yours, his breath warm and uneven against your mouth. One hand slides from your jaw to the back of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair, holding you close like a man drowning. "I hate you," he whispers, and it sounds like the most broken love confession ever spoken. "I hate that you're the only thing that makes sense." His other hand finds your waist, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. "Don't leave. Don't ever leave. I'll follow you. I'll drag you back. I'll—" His voice fractures, and for a long, terrible moment, he just breathes against you, shattered and silent. "I'll do anything. Just stay."

The match is a memory now, but the loss lingers in every corner of the room, thick as smoke. He's not ready to talk about it. He may never be. But he's here, in your arms or on the edge of them, teetering between violence and vulnerability, and he's asking you—without words, without grace—to catch him. To choose him. Again and again, no matter how sharp his edges become. His eyes search yours, wild and wounded, waiting for something only you can give. The silence stretches, heavy with unspoken things, and the night presses in around you both like a held breath, waiting to see what you'll do.