"I'm fine," he said quietly. Shakily.
Rima glared at him. "No, you're not."
Nagihiko scowled, but she could tell that he was really just hiding his wince. Rima stared at him, eyes narrowed—challenging. Stop lying to me. He held her gaze like he normally would, but this time, broke contact just seconds later.
"Okay, you win." Nagihiko sighed. "I'm not fine, okay?" His voice ended with a soft growl. "But it doesn't matter. I'll get over this."
"No, you won't. Not like this," Rima snapped. She felt a strange, cold type of anger rush into her voice. "Stop thinking so highly of yourself. You think you can get over this by pretending to be fine? By ignoring every single one of your problems and projecting the appearance that you're perfectly fine and nobody should be concerned?"
Rima paused. The memories of herself when she was just like this—small and lonely and helpless—were rushing back. Her voice was on the edge of shaking and her eyes were already tearing up, but she took a deep breath. She had to control her emotions. She had to remain calm. Especially when Nagihiko—the sensible, composed Nagihiko—was the one who needed help this time.
"Look." Rima willed her voice to remain steady. "That's how you don't get over it. That's how you make yourself feel worse, because every time you pretend to be fine, you envy your own fake image. It'll continue until you hate everyone around you for not noticing anything. And until you hate yourself for not doing anything about it and betraying your real feelings. It's unhealthy."
"I know." Nagihiko looked down, but his expression was softening. Or breaking...? "But I can't do anything else. Not when... everything's the way it is right now."
Rima hesitated, her heart twisting. Seeing Nagihiko—of all people—look so defeated and helpless was distressing, for sure. "I know that... it's hard." Her voice became soft with compassion.
But mainly, seeing someone else look so weak and broken, yet trying so hard to remain strong, was what made her want to hug him and cry. She knew how it felt. No doubt that everything she was saying, he knew already.
She should've listened to him, comforted him, understood him—instead of criticizing his decisions. "I'm sorry."
Before she knew it, her vision was blurred and tears were sliding down her cheek.
Nagihiko stared at her. "Rima?" Then he smiled. It was small—hesitant—like he wasn't sure if it was safe to smile yet. "Rima, are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Rima furiously rubbed at her tears. She hadn't expected to end up crying like this, but it was hard not to. She understood him too well. "I'm not even the one who's supposed to be crying right now."
Nagihiko looked at her, still smiling. "Do you want me to cry?"
"Yes." Rima took a deep breath to control her emotions. But her tears kept on falling.
Rima had always been good at acting and faking emotions. She could control her tears at will—she was able to fake-cry, to put it bluntly—and it was something she thought she'd always have a control over.
But now, for the first time, it was like something inside of her broke and she just couldn't stop crying. Maybe it was all the emotions she'd let build up inside of herself over the years, flooding out after the dam finally broke.
Nagihiko pulled her into a hug.
The warmth that rushed into Rima was overwhelming. She'd always thought that on the day when her emotions overflowed inside of her and she couldn't hold them back anymore, she'd be alone. Alone, like she'd always been whenever she cried. Cold and alone.
Not warm and embraced by somebody else.
She cried into his chest, clutching his shirt. He tightened his hold on her.
"Stop it..." Rima was angry at herself. She was supposed to be the one comforting him while he cried, not the other way around. "I'm not supposed to be crying. You're supposed to be crying."
Nagihiko didn't respond.
"Nagihiko?" Rima tried to push away from his embrace to look at his face, but Nagihiko didn't let go. Nagihiko silently lowered his face so that it was hovering over Rima's shoulder, and that was when she realized that he was shaking. Tears fell on her shoulder.
"Rima." His voice was soft. "I am crying."
Author's note:
This is a small scene I wrote for fun based off of a story idea I had where Nagihiko gets injured due to a basketball game, and his life basically starts kind of falling apart afterwards. Rima confronts him about the fact that he's trying to hide all his pain and refuses to talk to anyone.
Kind of cliche but it's Rimahiko so it's okay XD
I might turn this into a real story sometime in the future, I'm not sure. If you liked this please let me know! Thanks for reading!