Her name is Cassy, and according to Rin, she is one of his closest friends from his time in Australia.
Her hair is blonde, though Rin swears she was a brunette the last time he saw her.
Her eyes are the colour of the Mediterranean sea, and playful as a dolphin's - if not also a little overwhelmed looking. ("Who can blame her?" Rinsays when Sousuke points it out. "She isn't from around here.")
Her grin is infectious. When she smiles, Rin smiles too.
Sousuke has known Cassy for five minutes, and already he hates her.
His eyes drill holes into her back, willing her to look at him, walking a few steps behind where she and Rin chat cheerfully in perfect english - halfof which he doesn't understand - so that he can glare at her properly, and hopefully scare her far enough away to get Rin back to himself.
Today was supposed to be his and Rin's day. Instead, his best friend is having a good time with a foreign girl, oblivious to the storm cloud of a bestfriend behind him.
Sousuke loves Rin, but sometimes the redhead can be so god damn blind to Sousuke's feelings.
He seriously contemplates leaving, if only to worsen his mood further with proof that Rin won't notice that he's gone. That would just be icing ontop of the cake. But, no. He's better than that, and he doesn't want to deal with an angry Rin later, besides.
Cassy touches Rin's shoulder and gawks at a group of school girls across the street. They're all crowded together outside a convenience store,staring at a magazine, which Sousuke recognizes as one of the more popular shoujo magazines, Gekkan Shoujo.
"What about them?" Sousuke hears Rin ask, most likely in response to something Cassy had said.
"I didn't think people really dressed like that here." Cassy wonders, continuing to gawk openly - and quite rudely - at the completely harmlessand innocent grade school girls.
Rin "huh's", equally as confused over Cassy's amazement as Sousuke, but significantly less irked. If anything, Sousuke thinks that he finds itendearing.
"Yeah," He says, rubbing the back of his neck and chuckling. "I guess it's pretty different here than in Australia."
Sousuke continues to glare daggers into Cassy's back as she says something dramatically, and then swoons into Rin who stumbles a few steps,awkwardly trying to keep Cassy up as she leans into him and laughs.
She apologizes.
Rin laughs.
Sousuke morns for his lost afternoon.
He had been looking forward to spending his day off with Rin, taking him to see some stupid action flick that the redhead had spent all of last weekraving about, and then promptly forgot when the breast stroker who was supposed to be on the medley relay team with them broke his knew that Rin really needed this day off, and he had planned out exactly what he knew his best friend needed. And then Cassy had comewaltzing into their life and ruined all his plans.
He was bitter to say the least - even more so, since Rin wasn't even bothering to include him in the conversation.
"Hey, Sousuke!" Rin calls back cheerfully. Sousuke raises his head glumly.
"What is it?" he asks. Rin's cheeks are flushed, his eyes dancing with excitement. He grins.
"Cassy wants to try the sweets at that cafe we stopped by the other day. I know we had plans, but would you mind if we stopped by there for awhile?"
Sousuke sees red.
He really can't fucking watch this happen. Not with his carefully constructed plans already ruined. There is absolutely no way that he is going todrag himself around for the rest of the day and watch Rin and Cassy flirt with each other in a language he can barely understand. Not when hewants nothing more than for Rin to look at him, and smile at him, and joke with him and do that stupid thing where he nudges him with his kneeand laughs obnoxiously at his own jokes.
"Go ahead," he replies, unable to keep himself from snapping. Rin's grin falters for a moment, as he finally notices Sousuke's sour mood.
Rin coughs awkwardly and looks at Cassy, who is looking around in wonder, oblivious to the attention she's drawing to herself. Sousuke wishesthat she could at least try to keep her mouth closed for more than five seconds, because people are looking at him too now by association.
"You're not coming?" Rin asks, and Sousuke feels a small pang of joyous pain in his heart when he realizes that Rin is disappointed that he doesn'twant to come.
And yet, Rin, as always, manages to be painfully oblivious to Sousuke's feelings.
He's going to drive me mad before the year's over, Sousuke thinks, exasperatedly, affectionately. He can't bring himself to be mad at his childhoodfriend, even when he's being neglected, and he know's it isn't fair to him, but as long as he gets to see Rin smiling, Sousuke thinks that it doesn'tmatter if he doesn't always get what he wants.
"I'm not feel well," Sousuke tells Rin, holding back a grimace when he realizes that he hasn't hesitated or felt any guilt in lying to Rin.
Rin looks like he's going to say something else, but Sousuke cuts him off.
"Have fun." he says, and then stalks off before Rin has a chance to reply.
It really is a dick mood, and Sousuke knows that Rin's going to be at least a little bummed out about him leaving, but he also know's that Rin'sgoing to have a good time with Cassy.
If that's what makes him happy then Sousuke won't stop him.
Still, his heart aches when he thinks that he isn't going to be the one to make Rin smile, laugh.
He slinks towards the train station, and then, even though he had thought that things couldn't possibly get any worse, it begins to rain.
Sousuke yanks up his hood, shoves his hands into his pocket and thinks glumly, none of this would have happened if it wasn't for that Australiangirl.
Sousuke doesn't see Rin again until ten minutes before lights out, when the redhead bursts into the room, gasping for air and covered in a lightsheen of sweat that makes his pale skin glisten almost sickly in the florescent lighting. Sousuke spares his loud entry a glance, Sousuke quicklygoes back to pretending not to notice his best friend's arrival because he's still mad about being cast aside for the irritating, young, blond woman.
Sousuke tucks a hand under his head and shuffles through his ipod, pretending to look for a song though he really is just idly scrolling and tryingto look busy.
"Sorry," Rin calls out, once he's got his breath back. Sousuke hears him throw himself onto the bottom bunk with a groan. "We ended up talkinglonger than I thought we would. Man, Cassy's a riot once you get her going. It really has been too long..."
Sousuke decides - not completely objectively - to not respond, instead pretending that he can't hear Rin over the sound of his music.
Rin sighs, groans, and a moment later, his head appears behind the guardrails on the side of Sousuke's bunk.
"Oi, Sousuke!" He calls loudly. Sousuke closes his eyes and tries to focus on the erratic drum solo playing quietly in his ears. "Are you listening?"
He is listening, but he's also mad and doesn't particularly want to hear Rin talk about Cassy - which is exactly what he expects Rin to do once hehas Sousuke's attention.
Sousuke fulls intends to keep up his charade for the rest of the evening, but then there's a sharp pain on his forehead, which half startles, halfirritates him, and succeeds in getting him to open his eyes and glare half heartedly at Rin.
"Finally." Rin says with a grin. A grin which slowly fades as Sousuke continues to stare at him expectantly.
"Momotaru stopped by earlier," Sousuke says in an offhanded attempt to make Rin feel guilty about leaving him with the obnoxious orange hairedfirst year. "Apparently he heard that I had been coaching Ai, and wanted me to coach him as well."
Unfortunately, it has the opposite affect. Rin's grin returns. "I'm not surprised. You're a good coach."
Sousuke sighs.
"He's a pain."
Rin laughs.
"Don't let his brother hear you say that unless you want to start something."
Sousuke thinks for a moment, then despite his resolve to be mad at Rin, he replies with a grin, "I think he'd get more riled up if I said somethingabout his sister."
Rin cackles and then they really get into joking about the eccentric, exhibitionistic, Mikoshiba brothers.
Eventually the conversation dwindles and Rin drops back onto his bunk with a sigh.
"Ney, Sousuke?" he says softly.
"What?"
"I'm really happy." The honestly in Rin's voice makes Sousuke's heart flutter with such an intensity that it's almost painful.
"Is that so?" He says without thinking, then realizes how lame that response is.
"I definitely thought you'd be mad at me for today."
Sousuke sighs. Mad? Yeah he's still pretty peeved at having his plans with Rin ruined by a woman he assumes is his best friend's ex-lover. But if Rinis happy...Sousuke can't bring himself to be mad for long over something like that.
"You hand't seen her in a while, right? It's fine."
Rin doesn't respond. His silence is so palpable that Sousuke feels like he'll be smothered to death if he doesn't say something.
"So...how has she been?" He forces out. Goodness knows he'd rather talk about anything buy Cassy right now, but nothing else is coming to mind.
Rin is startled by Sousuke's question, he can tell by the long pause before his response.
"She's good." Rin says, measuring his words carefully. "Apparently she's taking the year off school to do some sightseeing and thought she'd dropby Iwatobi on the way to Tokyo after she heard me talking about it in Australia."
Rin laughs, and adds as an afterthought, "She was strangely interested in our fish market - apparently her girlfriend back in Australia is thedaughter of the CEO of a huge fishing company."
"I didn't know you that you knew enough about our fish market to carry on a conversation about it." Sousuke teases.
"Well I picked up some stuff from my dad before he..." Rin clears his throat and lets his sentence trail off. Sousuke winces.
"Sorry," he mumbles. "You never seemed very interested in his work when we were kids so I assumed you didn't pay much attention."
"It's fine. It was a long time ago, but he talked about it a lot and I still remember enough to carry on a half decent conversation."
Sousuke replies noncommittally and the two lapse back into another awkward silence.
"Sorry about today," Rin says - quietly enough that Sousuke wonders if he is talking to himself. "You seemed excited about getting out but youended up going back early because of me."
"It's fine," Sousuke says, even though it really isn't. "It rained anyway."
The last thing he wants to do is make Rin feel bad over something so menial.
"Maybe we could try again tomorrow." Rin suggests.
"You aren't going to spend the day with Cassy?" Sousuke can't hide the bitterness in his voice.
There's another pause and then suddenly Rin's head appears over the side of the bed, a mischievous smile dancing on his lips and Sousuke knowsfrom experience that he isn't going to enjoy the teasing that is sure to follow.
"You know, Sousuke, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were jealous." And then the bastard wiggles his eyebrows and god does he look hotdoing it.
"I'm not." Sousuke says, too quickly and Rin's grin grows wider.
"We'll there's not need for that," RIn teases. "Cassy has a girlfriend."
Sousuke freezes.
"A girlfriend?" He repeats dumbly. Rin had mentioned a girlfriend earlier but Sousuke has assumed that she was just a friend of Cassy's...whohappened to be a girl.
"Yeah. They've been together for almost two years now. I actually helped hook them up." Rin chuckles fondly at the memory. For some reason,hearing Rin talk about the unconventional couple so naturally makes Sousuke relax for the first time since he had met Cassy.
A blush warms Sousuke's cheeks. A blush that Rin doesn't fail to notice.
He's a fool. A stupid, overreacting fool.
"So about tomorrow..." Rin wonders, resting his chin on his arms.
"I have a test to study for next week, but I suppose we could catch a movie." Sousuke concedes.
Maybe his plans aren't completely ruined after all.
"Oh man! Good idea. There's a really great action film out right now that I totally forgot about." Rin smiles his adorable toothy grin that leavesSousuke's stomach feeling like a jar full of butterflies.
"That's fine. I was going to take you to see it today actually." Sousuke admits. He has only a moment to regret his choice of wording before-
"'Take me to see it', huh?" ...and of course Rin has to take it that way.
"You know that's not what I meant." Sousuke grumbles - though to be completely honest, he isn't quite sure that it isn't what he meant - andsends Rin an annoyed look.
"That's a shame. If it were you, I wouldn't mind." Rin's confession, spoken in an entirely too serious, and as far as Sousuke can tell completelyhonest tone, catches the larger teen off guard.
"What?"
"I said that if you were the one taking me, I wouldn't mind going on a date." And then Rin says it again, with the same seriousness and intensity asbefore. Steadily, without hesitation.
Sousuke doesn't know how to respond.
Sayyes, his mind screams at him, because god does he want this, but he's so shocked that he can't get the words out.
So he just gawks at Rin.
Probably rather unattractively.
"You know I'm not completely blind, I've seen the way you look at me." Rin mumbles awkwardly when Sousuke doesn't respond. He rubs the back ofhis neck and bashfullly refuses to meet Sousuke's eyes.
Fuck, is the only word that runs through Sousuke's mind. Rin had noticed. Rin who had noticed so little about Sousuke. Who had missed hisshoulder injury, the bone he'd been picking with Nanase. Of all the things Rin could have noticed he had noticed this.
God fucking damn it.
"It's not like that." Sousuke says. But it is like that, and he can't come up with an excuse to prove otherwise.
"So we won't call it a date then." Rin mumbles. He still isn't looking at Sousuke. And then he's ducking his head down and going back to his ownbed and-
Sousuke panics.
"Wait!" He throws himself after Rin, just managing to grab the redhead's arm without toppling over the railing.
His cheeks are on fire and he isn't entirely sure that this is a good idea, but he can't just let this moment slip by when it's exactly what he wantsfrom Rin.
"I don't mind." He says. Rin looks up hopefully and Sousuke can't help but clarify, testing the words in his mouth.
"Calling it a date, I mean." They're sweeter that candy in his mouth, and so much more satisfying.
Rin's beams up at him, grinning from ear to ear and laughs loudly.
"I'm glad. For a moment there I thought I'd completely misread your feelings."
"Shut up." Sousuke says, because he really isn't ready to talk about this. Not at all. He turns away to hide his burning cheeks and listens to thesound of Rin chuckling and collapsing back onto his bed with a content sigh.
For the first time, Sousuke wonders if his unrequited love for Rin isn't quite as unrequited as he thought it was.
"Well, I'm going to bed." Rin tells Sousuke.
"'Gnight." Sousuke manages to reply with his face buried in his pillow. His chest is a swirling mass of feelings and he doubts he's going to be ableto sort them out any time soon.
Dealing with Rin really can be exhausing...
He hears the sounds of the redhead shifting around on the bunk below, and despite his conflicted emotions, finds himself smiling.
Today, his plans had been ruined. But tomorrow, he wouldn't have to try to hide how much spending time with Rin meant to him.
And then gratefully, Sousuke thinks, none of this would have happened if it weren't for that Australian girl.