"There he is!" Ms. Matusoka cheered as her son finally entered the room. "Nice of you to join us, son."
Rin plastered on a smile. "I really needed to take a call."
Mr. Nitori chuckled gruffly. "He sounds like a businessman already."
The man's wife stretched her face into a warm smile. "His father was very sure about him taking the company on; I feel like I see the reasons why more and more each day."
Okay, one, how did she know his dad? And, two, what did she mean each day? He'd never even met these people before. Why did it feel like everyone knew everything about everything except him?
"That's very kind of you to say, Mrs. Nitori." He accepted the compliment as best he could without letting his skepticism leak into his voice.
Ms. Matsuoka folded her hands behind her back, purposely walking into her son. "Well, now that we are all familiar, we should probably..." She trailed off, looking to the Nitori family.
"Right!" Mrs. Nitori clapped her hands with a smile. "Rin! Please – I'd love for you to meet our son, Aiichirou."
It wasn't like Rin had been completely unaware of the kid. He kept note of everywhere he went in the room. He had looked at the view through the long windows, and inspected every piece of art. He seemed to enjoy making conversation with Gou, and every now and then a light giggle lilted from his mouth and landed on Rin's ears. When he heard his mother call out to him, he passed another smile to Rin's younger sister before approaching the group that had formed at the center of the room. Gou circled around the crowd, leaning to whisper in her mother's ear.
"Ai," His mother placed a hand on his shoulder, her hand gesturing towards Rin. "I would like for you to finally meet Rin Matsuoka!"
"Hello." The boy gave a slight bow, not looking Rin in the eyes. It was so strange because he, he had practically deadpanned the greeting. Less than a minute ago, he was smiling and laughing with Gou. Now he had his mouth uncomfortably turned up at the corners, and wouldn't look at him. "It's nice to meet you."
Rin was stunned. What just happened. He was taking too long to respond. "It's nice to meet you as well."
"I think!" Ms. Matusoka shouted, wrapping an arm around Mrs. Nitori. "We should leave these two to get to know each other a little better. Don't you agree?"
"That sounds fine to me." Mrs. Nitori replied, trying to read Ms. Matsuoka's face as she continued. "Come on, dear. I think Karin told me about a new installment in the house-"
"Oh! Right! I never did get to show you that." Ms. Matsuoka's face lit up as her companion caught on sraight away. "Please – allow me."
Ms. Matusoka began ushering the couple to the door, and it swung open just before she turned the knob herself. Nakamura stood there, holding a tray and a confused expression.
"I brought tea." He said.
"Oh!" Ms. Matsuoka quickly recovered. "We're showing the Nitoris the new installment we added to the house. Come along with us, Chiaki, come on."
Nakamura had been advising that woman too long not to know when she had her own agenda. "Of course." He nodded, turning sharply. "No problem."
Ms. Matsuoka allowed the couple out before her, then turned and winked to Gou before she slammed the door shut.
Gou poked her brother's shoulder, standing on her toes to whisper to him, "You better be nice." Then she turned to face Aiichirou with a smile, calling out a "See you later, Ai!" as she skipped up the stairs.
They were alone. Totally alone. Rin was alone with the person he was going to marry. This kid – he was a kid, right? He wasn't just a really short person who was actually older than him, right? He wasn't the younger one in this relationship, RIGHT? Oh god. He never considered it. Oh man. There were so many factors that he just didn't consider -
"So, how are you, uh..." Aiichirou tried his best to make conversation. A dilemma appeared immediately. They were technically engaged. Didn't that kind of automatically put them on a first name basis? But they were still strangers, so, maybe they shouldn't... But he did refer to Gou as Kou so... right? So? SO?
It was an actual miracle that Rin was still playing it cool. "Call me whatever you want."
"Senpai, then." The boy said near instantly. "Matsuoka-senpai."
And that kind of sent everything crashing for Rin, because now he couldn't exactly just waltz around calling him Aiichirou, so, no, they were not on a first name basis, even though they were supposed to be getting married.
"Yeah." Was all he could muster.
Aiichirou quickly realised that he would be the conversationalist. Yes, he was nervous, but he wasn't going to sit in the room with this guy and just not say anything. He was going to get whatever he could out of him.
"So, how has your day been?" He tried.
Rin didn't look at him as he took a seat in one of the couches lining the back wall of the room. "Pretty uneventful, so far."
Wait, oh god. That meant that he was calling Nitori uneventful. That was not the intention. Abort mission, abort, abort-
So I guess I'm pretty uneventful, huh. The exact thought was crossing Aiichirou's mind. "Things have been going fairly well for me. It really is nice to finally meet you!" He kept pushing, turning to where Rin had seated himself.
"That's great." Rin said. That was too straightforward. No emotion. He was screwing up all over the place.
Aiichirou stared at his fiance. Wow. Really? No. There had to be more to him. There absolutely had to be. No part of Aiichirou was willing to believe that this guy was so... flat. He was a Matsuoka after all. He couldn't just be the one member of the family who was completely devoid of personality.
"Matsuoka-senpai." Aiichirou blinked slowly, taking a long breath. He had to keep going.
"What?" That was too snappy. He should have said 'yes'. They weren't at that level of comfort yet.
Aiichirou opened his eyes, taking deliberate steps towards the couch before plopping down, right next to Rin. He stared the older boy in the eyes with his own sparkling (icy?) blue ones, and smiled a smile that held the same wisdom that was spread across his mother's face.
"What's your favourite colour?"