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Itoshi Rin is a vase shaped by amateur hands: lumpy and deformed.
Different from the other kids. Imperfect. He feels this when he overhears his parents talking about him in hushed whispers; when he hears his mother sob, wondering if she is a bad parent. He feels it when the school nurse patches him up for the umpteenth time, a disapproving look on her face.
Rin is annoying and bothersome to be around.
He knows this. He doesn't mind. After all, his nii-chan is the same way. Nii-chan is the coolest in the whole world. If Rin is the same as him then he's fine with being weird.
Rin doesn't have friends. That's fine too. He has nii-chan, and he has their dream. That's enough for him.
Rin is lonely after nii-chan leaves for Spain. He still has their dream though, so he pushes himself harder than ever to get scouted.
Playing by himself isn't easy though. None of his teammates can understand his soccer. Without Sae, the team starts losing their matches, and when they do, the first person they point their fingers at is Rin.
It's not fair. But that doesn't change the fact that they're not winning. And if they don't win their games, Rin won't get scouted. So Rin swallows his frustrations and works harder. He changes his playstyle, even if it feels like he's trapping himself.
He's slowly losing his enjoyment of the game and he's lonelier than ever before but that doesn't matter.
He's doing this for their dream. He'll enjoy soccer once he plays with nii-chan again.
And then Sae returns from Spain and shatters their dream — and him with it — to pieces.
Most people take one look at Rin's cold exterior and assume that he's tough; unbreakable.
That is not the case—Rin breaks, same as everyone else.
But he does not stay broken. Rin determinedly pieces himself back together, bit by bit.
And if he rushes the process and ends up with bloody palms — then so be it.
Rin is whole again, but he is not without his sharp edges — ones that slice the palms of any that dare reach for him.
Rin has been alone for a long time. That won't change now.
What does change is his environment. In Blue Lock, the other participants don't reach for him; they fucking throw themselves at him, aiming to knock him off the top spot.
None of them succeed, not that he expects them to. In terms of competition, Blue Lock has nothing to offer him. Not even the cockroach, Blue Lock's number 2 comes close.
What he does succeed at is pissing him off.
The damn insect somehow manages to push every single one of his buttons. Being on the same team as him during the third selection is a nightmare.
Rin can't stand the way he plays football; entirely focused on following his instincts and scoring his own goals. Rin used to play like that too, until he learned better.
To become the best in the world, he needs to be calculating and rational. The insect is anything but. Worse still, he makes Rin irrational. The fight they got into at the end of their first match is the stupidest thing Rin has done in a long time.
Shidou lights a fire in him that hasn't been lit in a long time.
Rin wants to put the damn thing out.
And then Sae chooses Shidou Ryuusei over him, and all thoughts of fire and strange new feelings go out of the window.
Rin feels like he's breaking apart all over again. He holds himself together, clutching the broken shards of himself close to his chest. But with every day that goes by, Rin feels like he's closer to... something. Whether that something is good or bad remains to be seen.
He pushes himself to the brink in the days before the U-20 match. If he breaks from just this then… maybe Sae was right; he's a defective product after all.
Rin remains whole until the end of the U-20 match.
The match starts off horribly; he and Sae haven't seen each other in nearly a year , and yet Sae doesn't even acknowledge him; hell, he barely even looks at him until 30 minutes into the game.
It stings.
He ignores it. Rin's objective in this match is to crush Sae. It doesn't matter if he doesn't acknowledge him now. Rin will make him eat his words before the game ends.
And then the insect arrives.
He's a pain in the ass.
But more than that, Rin can't help but watch as Shidou and Sae interact on the field.
It pisses him off more than anything else in this match.
Rin wants to believe it's because Sae chose Shidou over him, and it is... but it's more than just that.
There’s a strange feeling growing in the pit of his stomach. One that grows stronger when he hears that U-20 guy proclaim them to be “a match made in heaven”.
He doesn’t understand it.
He just knows that he doesn’t like it.
When he first found out that Sae would be playing in the match, Rin made a promise to himself to make him eat his words.
Except he doesn't. Because Sae acknowledges Isagi Yoichi as the future of Japanese football, even though Rin was the one who single handedly broke through the U-20's iron defense. Rin was the one who battled Sae for possession of the ball and won. Isagi scored that goal because of Rin.
And yet all that might as well be worthless, because Sae acknowledges Isagi instead.
The biggest game of his career has just ended and Rin is left broken into a million pieces.
Rin knows he can’t put himself back together after this. He doesn’t try. He’s had enough of trying to fix something that’s been broken for a long time. Instead, he’ll build something new.
The Neo Egoist League is the perfect place to become something new; at least, it would be perfect if Rin weren’t on the same team as the cockroach. They still fight, they’re still far too different not to, but Rin isn’t foolish enough to not notice that something has changed ever since he awakened his flow state.
Every now and then, Rin will think back to when Shidou had grabbed him at the end of the U-20 match. He’ll think about how he told him that his ego made his love cells explode. It makes him feel… strange. Rin doesn’t understand what these feelings are yet, but it doesn’t feel… unpleasant.
What he does know is that these feelings are a distraction. He tries to put them out of his mind but the roach doesn't make it easy. He’s always there; in the dorms, on the field, in the locker rooms. Worse still, it’s almost as if he’s aware of Rin’s inner turmoil. He keeps winking and… making weird comments? Rin’s not sure what he means. He’s pretty sure Shidou’s just messing with him. He just doesn’t understand why.
Rin doesn’t understand a lot of things these days.
Rin crushes Isagi and the rest of the Neo Egoist League and feels better than he has in a long time.
It’s not just because he’s the player with the highest bid either. As much as he loathes to admit it, Shidou had a hand in it too. They clash, both on and off the field, and yet everytime they do it feels… exhilarating. Being with Shidou makes him feel the same way he does when he can just let loose and focus on destroying his opponents on the field. He can feel the thrill of it down to his very bones. It feels fucking amazing.
It’s also fucking terrifying.
Rin would never admit that something scares him, but this… thing that’s growing between him and Shidou does. He doesn’t understand it. And Rin doesn’t like things he doesn’t understand.
He’s been trying to change after… everything that happened during the U-20 game, but as much as he wants to grow and become something new, old habits die hard.
Being with Shidou puts him at ease. When they’re together, it’s easier to just follow his instincts and go with the flow. It’s fucking ironic considering that whatever he feels for Shidou is the thing that’s making him uneasy in the first place.
But Rin’s starting to learn that maybe he should just. Stop thinking so much every now and then.
Life has a way of throwing curveballs at you when you’ve finally adjusted to a routine.
They had come second in the U-20 cup, but Rin finds that he doesn’t mind all that much anymore. He’d scored a hattrick after all, and while the loss had been frustrating, he thinks that just the feeling of crushing his opponent and scoring goals was the best thing in the world.
Following the end of the U-20 cup, the players had been allowed to go home to get some much needed rest. Rin found himself spending his days eating ice cream with Sae by the sea and occasionally checking the PXG group chat.
It was relaxing, but Rin still found himself missing the environment in Blue Lock.
And maybe he missed a certain someone too.
Rin comes home one day after getting popsicles with Sae only to find Shidou Ryuusei lounging on his couch like he owned the place.
Rin probably shouldn’t have given him his address, but Shidou had pestered him relentlessly until he had given it to him. Rin’s probably growing soft, but deep down, he doesn’t regret it at all.
Shidou smiles, big and toothy when he sees him. “Hey Rin! Let's go on a date!” He announces out of fucking nowhere because of course he does.
What the fuck.
He has got to be joking.
Because while Shidou Ryuusei has never been normal by any means, this is out of character even for him.
For a second, Rin thinks that maybe Shidou has figured out his feelings. Maybe he knew about the way Rin felt about him (because Rin can freely admit in the security of his own mind that he had taken a while to realize what exactly it was that he felt for Shidou) and was just having a laugh at his expense.
But.
But Shidou Ryuusei has never been cruel. Between the two of them, Rin is the one with the cutting remarks that draw blood when they meet their target. Shidou is the one that acknowledges the good in people around them, the one that freely compliments their opponents on the field.
But Shidou would not joke around at his expense like that; not anymore. Because while they may have hated each other when they first met, Rin thinks they have gotten past that point (not that he’d ever admit that out loud).
But Shidou doesn’t seem like he’s joking. He called him Rin. Just Rin. No Rin-Rin, no Rin-chan, no Licky Rin. Just Rin. Like he’s being serious.
And.
And maybe, Rin wants to believe that Shidou is being serious.
So.
So he looks him straight in the eye and says: “This better be the best date of my life, Ryuusei ”. He's never been on a date before but what Ryuusei doesn’t know won’t kill him.
And Ryuusei’s answering grin is enough to put all thoughts of that out of mind anyway.
Rin feels whole again for the first time in a long time.
He’s still lumpy and misshapen; he still has sharp edges.
But he thinks it's okay now.
After all, Ryuusei has sharp edges of his own.