#reorin

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Looking up from his meal, Rin raised an eyebrow at the boy who had just sat down across from him.  Already making himself comfortable, as if he belonged there, unfolding his napkin and setting it across his lap before looking up to make eye contact with the person he had just disturbed.

“Do you mind?” Rin asked, pulling his plate of food closer to himself, not interested in sharing even a morsel with the other.  This meal was perfectly tailored to his own needs, and no matter how persuasive the older boy was, he would not be swayed.

He assumed that was why the other had joined him.  Because really, what else could it be.  Nothing else made sense because he had never even said two words to Reo, much less gave him the impression that he would be okay with company during dinner.

“Not at all! I just wanted to talk to you a bit, that’s all.” Reo grinned as he took a bite of his dinner, chewing thoughtfully as he tried to make Rin comfortable with his presence.  “There is a benefit to getting to know all of the top 6 here, now that we know exactly who you are.”

Rin scoffed, rolling his eyes. “And what makes you think that I’d let someone like you get to know me. You’re just power hungry, but I’m not interested in giving an ounce of mine to you.”

Reo laughed, throwing his head back dramatically before pretending to wipe a tear from his eye.  Rin didn’t even blink as he stared at him, absentmindedly pushing what was left of his dinner around his plate.  

“Everyone here is power hungry.  You, me, even the ones who already got eliminated. Are you really surprised?”

Rin didn’t respond. Narrowing his eyes, he looked Reo up and down, waiting for him to continue.

“I was just smart enough to get to you first.  I feel like we have more in common than you would think, Itoshi Rin.”  

“That’s a bold assumption to make,” Rin mumbled, curious as to where Reo was going with this. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you have something to prove,” Reo stated simply, shrugging his shoulders as if it was such a simple matter.  “I do too, which is how I know we are the same.  We want to show that we can do this on our own, without anyone disappointing us or holding us back.”

Pressing his lips together, Rin huffed, trying to not react to all of the bold claims Reo was making about him.  He didn’t know him. He didn’t know anything.  So what if he was intuitive and right on the money with this one? He could have said that to half the people in here, and he would have been correct.

Maybe though, he was a little bit more than correct because he was talking to Rin.

“Well, what do you say?” Reo asked, leaning forward with an excited, charismatic smile.  Rin could tell that he was used to getting his way, and he took some joy in seeing the way Reo’s face crumbled when he piled his plate with his after dinner trash and stood from the table.

“Finish dinner, and meet me in the training room,” Rin stated, pushing his chair back in as he watched Reo perk back up.  “Don’t waste my time.”

“I would never,” Reo swore, hand over his heart.  “Every moment in here is priceless.”

Rolling his eyes again, Rin grabbed his tray and looked down at Reo, who looked so cocky and pleased with himself that he had dragged the younger striker into this.

“Priceless. Right. Well, I guess I will judge if your reasons are worth anything at all.”

Reo smirked, grinning up at Rin as he accepted his challenge.

“Oh, you don’t have to worry about any of that.  I’m very persuasive.”

“And I’m hard to sway.” Rin returned his stare, before eventually breaking away to throw his trash away to head to the training hall like the liar he was.  Hard to sway, sure, but Reo had trapped him with his words and challenges with no effort at all.  

Guess it was time to see if Reo’s words had any truth at all.  Were they really alike? He had to doubt it, but Reo hadn’t been wrong so far.

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