looking in the mirror and seeing him. looking in the mirror, and the resemblance making you want to claw your own skin out, filling you with rage and self-hatred. that's rin itoshi, relieving the betrayal he felt, his dream crushed, his hopefulness and naivety crushed under the weight of his older brother returning home—different. sae itoshi's tired eyes, his unpacked suitcase, his spitting words, calm and so so fucking mean. 'you make me want to vomit', 'what have you been doing these past three years?' threading the rin itoshi's future inner thoughts of pure worthlessness and standards and internal conflict and distance and drive. there's preciousness shattered from when sae used to hold his hand. the calm care in how he'd look out for rin, his eyes sharp and knowing in older-sibling ways, mysterious and cool to rin, but foreboding to us. what the hell happened to sae? what the hell happened in spain? it was this incident that drew a line between them; it's under this line that they both grew. messy teenage years, a hard distance between them. and yet - they look the same. they appear the same in the way siblings realistically do: enough differences and similarities in physical appearances that help cut the lines of their personalities but don't prevent the air of inevitability between them. the same morning routine, the same eyes, the same phrases, tone of speaking, a pretence at the same outward cutting displeasure, but a difference in how far one's willing to take it, who excels where. rin itoshi serves as a bridge to sae itoshi, in the set-up of the story, and in the set-up of rin's own life. from the words sae gave to him back then, he's been tied down. he's been chained, unable to let go, and excel. what pushed him forward was the one thing he needed to—needs to—break free of. there's too much mystery about sae's own feelings, what he thinks privately when he looks at the boy he changed forever. whether his intentions were more complex then we'll ever come to know. instead, we watch them fight on japan's stage, cameras everywhere, curious gazes, for all to see and wonder at.
