Four

Bachira eventually fell asleep and Rin spent his time watching soccer videos and playing games on his phone, still stuck in the vice grip, until he eventually woke up of his own accord.

He started stirring, coming back to his body slowly, stretching and releasing Rin as he did, leaving patches of noticeable cold on his skin where he'd been holding him. Bachira rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and gave Rin a lazy smile once he was finished.

"Morning," Rin said, both by means of joking and as an apology. "Feeling better?"

"Mmm," Bachira said. Rin didn't know whether this was in the affirmative or not. "How long was I asleep?"

"A couple hours," Rin answered. Two hours and forty seven minutes, to be exact. Not that Rin was counting or anything, but he was aware of it.

"Hours?" Bachira asked. "What time is it?"

"A little after six," Rin said. Bachira's eyes became starkly alert and he pushed himself up to sitting. "You, uh, hungry or something?"

"I gotta go," Bachira said, pushing the covers off himself.

"Uh, alright," Rin said, climbing off his own side of the bed.

He had this strange realization as he did this. He hadn't thought anything of this get-Bachira-to-sleep plan when he'd concocted it, or during any of the one hundred and sixty seven minutes he spent actually carrying it out, but as he was crawling out of his bed with someone else exiting on the other side after having spent the better part of the afternoon all tangled up in each other, he couldn't help but wonder, fake dating aside, was that weird?

There wasn't much time to think about it. Bachira clearly had somewhere to be or something to do and Rin's focus was drawn to following him down the stairs to the front door. He tried to tell himself good riddance, finally, let's get this thing out of here, but there was just an ominous feeling that held the place instead.

"Thanks for having me," Bachira said once he'd gotten his shoes on, and it sounded like he meant it.

"Yeah," Rin said.

"And for everything else," he added.

Rin didn't feel like he was much deserving of thanks, because it felt, to him anyways, like all he'd really done all day was stab at some freshly formed wounds and make the guy cry, so he didn't accept it.

Instead, he said, "Well, I'll call you."

"Sure," Bachira said, smiling at him. "I'm looking forward to it."

Rin thought again that Bachira was a lot better at this whole faking dating thing than he was. Bachira turned and opened the door.

"Hey," Rin said, reaching out for his shoulder without really thinking about what he was doing. Bachira turned around, looking like he was waiting for something awful to happen. "Text me when you get home, okay?"

The smile was back. "Okay, Rin-chan."

"And call me if you get lost," Rin added.

"I think I'll be alright," Bachira said. Rin gave him a harsh look, which only got him a widening of his smile in response. "I will."

And then he just left.

Rin felt weird about it. He stood at the door a while before convincing himself to close it. He was more than halfway tempted to watch Bachira walk off until he disappeared down the block, but talked himself out of it. It's not that he was worried or anything, but he wasn't heartless, and considering how the afternoon went, it felt a little like letting a newborn puppy with a broken leg out into the world to fend for itself.

Get a grip, Rin scolded himself. You've seen this guy threaten more people with violence than some horror movie evils.

That reminder, however, brought on its own horror. How had Isagi of all people broken him?

Rin closed and locked the door. He refused to think about it any longer. There was a reason for all of this.

There was some solace in that thought. The house was big, but it wasn't that big. Sae had been bothered for one reason or another, and sooner or later they'd run into each other and Rin would get to find out why exactly that was. Isagi had looked upset, or surprised, or flustered, and Rin knew his brother was either feeling horribly stupid or horribly jealous.

Either or was fine with Rin.

Until then, he needed something to do. Rin made his way back up to his room to kill time, but he noticed there was something hanging in the air not a step into the room. It was weird seeing his bed all dishevelled, because he made a point to be so meticulous with it, but it wasn't that. The room smelled like Bachira.

It was weird. Rin opened the window and started stripping the bed sheets, tossing them into the laundry basket with his sadness stained shirt. Once he was finished, he still felt something amiss, but figured he was off to a good enough start.

Rin took his sheets down to the laundry room and shoved everything into the empty washing machine. It still felt weird to him. Bachira's smell was still hanging all over the fabric, even though he'd spent all of two hours and forty seven minutes in them compared to Rin's multiple nights. He was pouring the soap in when he heard footsteps coming from the hallway. They stopped in front of the door.

"Move," he heard.

"Wait your turn, you useless bag of dicks," Rin said back, not bothering to turn.

Sae pushed his way into the laundry room anyways, making his way past Rin to get to the dryer.

"Seriously?" Rin asked. "Since when do you do your own laundry, anyways?"

It was a bit of a point of contention between the two of them. Rin had learned to be independent while he lived at home, because he'd been there. Because Sae had been gone for most of the past few years, their parents still seemed to see him at his fourteen year old self, entirely incapable of taking care of himself.

Sae rolled his eyes as he leaned down and opened the dryer, pulling out a piece of fabric that Rin recognized as his sheets. "Ever since I needed things washed that I didn't want mom washing."

Rin offered up a sound of disgust while Sae pulled the rest of his sheets out of the dryer, entirely unbothered. Or seemingly unbothered. If he had been bothered by his and Bachira's little stunt earlier, those feelings were probably still fresh, and this was as good a time as any to investigate.

"Whatever you're doing with Isagi seriously involves sheet washing?" Rin asked.

Sae got a strange type of smile on his face as he looked over at Rin. "It's not any less believable than you conveniently dating his little ex boyfriend."

"Yes it is," Rin fought back. "I already knew Bachira."

Sae shrugged. "Isagi impressed me."

"What's even less believable than you liking Isagi, which you don't," Rin bluffed, without giving Sae the chance to fight him on it. "Is Isagi liking you."

"Oh?" Sae said, raising his eyebrows. "And why's that?"

"Besides the fact that you're literally the world's worst human being?" Rin asked. Sae just kind of looked back as if waiting for him to continue, so he did. "Because you are a heartless piece of shit and the thought of you as a boyfriend should terrify anyone."

"Do you think Isagi's any different?" Sae asked.

It was not the response Rin was expecting. Rin had expected Sae to defend himself. Upon hearing this question, Rin didn't know what to say. He didn't know if he even should answer. Was Sae really saying what it sounded like he was? That the two of them had just cozied up to be the absolute worst together and use their joint forces to wreak even more havoc on him and the rest of the world?

Rin then thought about Bachira. How different his voice sounded. How easily he could be brought to tears. How entirely he'd transformed in the course of two days. Rin had been pretty standoffish and downright rude to him at Blue Lock, and he'd never taken it as a hint to stop pestering him.

Maybe someone did need to be heartless in order to make him what Rin had seen this afternoon.

Sae tucked his sheets under one arm and took a step towards Rin. "Do you know what happened between them?"

This was a challenge and Rin recognized it as such. "Yes."

"Do you really?" Sae asked.

With this question, he wasn't mocking him. He was making it perfectly clear that he had information, obviously from Isagi, that he knew for certain Rin didn't. Sae was hoping Rin would ask for it. He may have been trying to undermine Rin's fake relationship as being just that, fake, but Rin suddenly felt so defensive, not over his fake relationship and his efforts to keep that fact a secret, but over Bachira himself. He took a second to figure out how a good boyfriend might say what he wished to.

"I know Meguru's side." Rin shrugged and turned the washing machine on. "That's all I give a shit about."

Sae pushed his way back out of the laundry room with a sound of triumph, but it didn't land. Rin felt a sense of pride in the answer he'd given.

Rin was still feeling pretty shaky in his overall boyfriend abilities, so as with most things, he took to the internet to do some research. He took what he found to heart, and was planning to wait the suggested three days before calling, but Bachira called him after two.

"Hello?" he answered, trying to sound excited or eager or whatever, just in case Sae had the same habit as he did of pressing his ear to closed doors to eavesdrop.

"Hey, Rin-chan," Bachira said.

"Uh," Rin said. "What's up?"

"I didn't hear from you," Bachira said.

"I was waiting three days," Rin told him.

"Oh!" On the other end of the line, Bachira started laughing. Not the sad kind either, so it sounded nice. "You're taking this thing very seriously, aren't you?"

"Of course I am you-" Rin cut himself off and took a breath. "Honey."

Rin hated that the second it left his mouth. Bachira laughed more, but had the good sense not to call him on it.

"Well, I had something to ask you," Bachira said.

"Sure," Rin said. "Go ahead."

"Are you going to that group hangout in Shibuya?"

Rin took a minute to rack his brain to see if there was anything, even a half sentence in his brain that he'd tuned out or blatantly ignored, that would give him any context into what the hell Bachira was talking about. He found none.

"The what?"

"A bunch of the guys from Blue Lock are meeting up in Shibuya in a few days," Bachira explained. "They're planning on doing bowling or karaoke or maybe both? I don't really remember all the details. Anyways, you wanna go?"

"I would honestly rather die," Rin answered.

"I thought you might say that," Bachira said.

"Are you going?" Rin asked next.

"I was thinking about it," Bachira said. He then sighed. "But I don't really want to see Isagi. Especially not, you know, alone."

This conflicted Rin. On one hand, yes, he could go and be a good fake boyfriend and force himself through the unbearable activities these losers had planned and conversations that would inevitably come with them, but on the other hand, he didn't really want to see Isagi either, or play some competition of the fake boyfriends with his shitty older brother. Especially not under the scrutiny of everyone else who would be there.

"Say you're busy," Rin finally said. "Let's just do something else."

"Like, just us?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

"You got some kind of problem with that?"

"No," Bachira answered. "Just surprised is all."

"Why?" Rin asked. Sure, he hadn't been a fake boyfriend for very long, but he'd done his research and he would get better with more hands on practice.

"No reason," Bachira answered. "So, this is like a date?"

"Yeah, I guess," Rin said, getting up from his desk and heading over to the door. He opened it, found no eavesdropping brothers, looked both directions down the empty hallway, and closed it again. "We should probably hang out even when it's not for show."

"Why?" Bachira asked.

"Because it will make it more believable!" Rin hissed into the phone.

"Okay, okay!" Bachira said back, still giggling. "Then it's a date. I'll see you in a couple days."

"I guess so," Rin said, already mentally starting the painstaking work of planning what they were to do on this fake date.

"Can't wait," Bachira said. "Miss you already!"

"Bye," Rin said, hanging up.

Rin fell back into his desk chair and slumped over the desk, lying his head on his arms. Miss you already! He made a mental note to look up terms of endearment and romantic phrases and how to deliver them without feeling like he wanted to crawl out of his skin after he finished planning this date of theirs.

He had a lot of work to do.