Rin walked towards the Iwatobi train station with quick short steps, his gloved hands buried deep in the pockets of his winter coat, shoulders hunched so that his muffler covered his nose.
He sighed, warm breath ghosting over his cheeks before escaping as white clouds into the night air. With every step, he mentally packed up his feelings for one Makoto Tachibana into a box, to be sealed and placed at the deepest lowest shelf of his mind and then, hopefully, forgotten. He packed up the memories of warm smiles, kind words, the ridiculous happy feelings that arose when Makoto was being thoughtful and kind to him and made him want more despite knowing that Makoto and Haru were together and had probably been since kindergarten. He took all his little fantasies and packed them in, too. The ones of holding Makoto's hand as they walked down the street, of getting matching scarves. Of wanting to be hugged from behind into that undoubtedly warm and generous embrace, or to snuggle and share hot chocolate and kisses in front of the fire place. There was so much he had wanted to do except that Makoto belonged to Haru. He couldn't bring himself to upset the equation that was Haru and Makoto equalled one happy couple.
And Rin was an outsider.
He packed and packed, focused so much in his own head that he was barely aware of having reached the station and finally, when he was sure that he had gotten his heart cleared out till it felt like a big empty space in his chest, the bottomless box was sealed for now and he could cautiously think of leaf-green eyes and only feel a sad, numb, painfully philosophical feeling of "you didn't lose anything, you can't lose something you never had" in response. He looked up at the smattering of stars in the night sky and thought about how nice it would be to be one of them, bright and cold and detached and emotionless.
He was smacked out of his reverie by a heavy hand landing on his shoulder and he spun around, heart beating wildly, to see his team captain, Mikoshiba Seijuuro, casually dressed in jeans, white turtleneck and a black leather jacket, grinning down at him. "Hey, Matsuoka! Fancy meeting you here!"
Rin could only swallow his heart back into his chest cavity and try to snarl a greeting of,"Buchou, you fucking nearly gave me a heart attack." He managed to bare his teeth but Mikoshiba was clearly unrepentant, grin widening as he poked Rin in the ribs.
"Lighten up, man! Always so grumpy. You're gonna get wrinkles before you're twenty."
Rin rolled his eyes as he moved away, removing one hand from his pocket to swat irritably (and ineffectively, Mikoshiba was too fast, damn him) at his captain's evil and unerring pokes Right. In. His. Ticklish. Spots. Unbelievable! They were too old for this! Rin blushed red from more than exertion as he made another outraged squeak as yet another attack connected. Mikoshiba was fucking lucky that the train station was fucking quiet this time of the night and no one was near enough to witness the fuckingly ridiculous spectacle of two (nearly) 6-feet tall young men engaged in fucking poke wars better suited to kids half their fucking age or the Samezuka swim team would forever wonder about the mysterious disappearance of their fucking captain.
"STOP FUCKING POKING ME!"
Rin finally got out of range of his captain's attacking fingers and stood a safe distance away, face flushed, slightly out of breath and eyes blazing, glaring at Mikoshiba who was wearing an infuriating, self-satisfied smirk on his face. Rin wanted to punch it off. Mikoshiba spoke first, taking advantage of Rin's breathlessness.
"That's a better look than that long face you had on earlier. What happened, you got rejected by Iwatobi's captain or something?"
And that was so close to the mark that Rin who had been about to snark at his captain shut his mouth with a snap. His captain fucking knew, had he been that fucking obvious? Or his captain had just been a lot more perceptive than Rin had given him credit for. They stared at each other, Rin with his jaw working hard as he tried to think of something to say, the empty space in his chest echoing so loudly that the time for a snarky rebuttal passed and Mikoshiba, carefree smile finally disappearing as understanding dawned on that cheerful face.
"Oh, hell, Matsuoka, I'm…"
Rin interrupted, "Save it, buchou," and turned around so that he wouldn't have to see or hear his captain's pity, he didn't need it. "It's nothing, anyway."
He started to walk away but was stopped short by a tug on his muffler. He stumbled backwards, his back hitting a broad chest, strong arms wrapping around his shoulders, smelling of coffee, leather and Mikoshiba's aftershave.
"Hey, Matsuoka," Mikoshiba's voice breathed into his ear. "Does this mean I have a chance?"