#rintober

 “Reminded me a lot about you when we first started trying to figure the lyrics out,” Suna answered with nonchalance, nodding at the paper held between your fingertips as if to tell you to continue reading through it.

 “You’re not wrong,” you commented, humming in thought. “I’d still adore you with your hands around my neck, Rintarou.”

 Suna grins, a glint in his eyes evident. Maybe because he knew, even without you telling him. He knew you adored him to a sinful extent.

 The cheers and audience singing along to the sound of his voice were loud, but the thunderous beating of your heart was louder. So much louder. That’s when you think that maybe you shouldn’t have come here, you shouldn’t have let your friends convince you to stand directly in front of him yet stand so far away as if you were hiding. Well, perhaps you really were hiding; you could definitely step forward, see his face with a thin sheen of sweat, strumming along the guitar that hung around his torso—God, his torso—and his hair slightly covering the pair of eyes you’ve loved so deeply for a long time. His pretty face looked ethereal from where you stood, the beaming lights surrounding the stage accentuating everything that made him who he was, Suna Rintarou.

 Suna’s thumb grazes your lower lip, swiping lightly with his intense gaze locked with yours. It’s hypnotizing like always. Suna’s green eyes—heavily lidded that it made him all the more pretty, all the more breathtaking—set on you as you sat on his lap, the blunt tucked in between the fingers of his other hand emitting smoke that invaded your lungs like he invaded the entirety of your mind.

 You can’t look away, not even when he takes a drag of it directly in front of you—it’s frustrating how oddly seducing it was to watch him, your eyes following the way he inhaled the smoke that was toxic to his lungs like he was toxic to your own heart, poison to your own mind, venom in your bloodstream.

 His lips find yours immediately, his hand that was on your face moving to the inside of your thighs and it’s enough to make you gasp—your lips parting against his as he blows out the smoke to your mouth and you inhale.

 You inhale because it was more like taking him in your system than the smoke that was toxic for your lungs, poison to your mind, venom in your bloodstream.

 You inhale and take him in your system. Yet you never would’ve thought he’d vanish like the same smoke going up in the air until you see it no more.

 “Not shy of a spark, the knife twists at the thought that I should fall short of the mark,” You wish you were imagining it, the heavy drip of pain and contempt laced in his voice as he sang the words out. He sings like it’s flashing all in his head, every fight you both had—because it’s coming back to you too like a ton of bricks.

 Or maybe the sensation of it all coming back to you is more like what the lyrics he sang suggests already, a knife to the chest so deep that there’s simply no way you’d survive from it—no way a relationship could survive from it. The knife to your chest is dug deep enough; how do you live when it’s twisted and turned so sadistically?

 “You’re late again,” you mutter, sighing in exhaustion as you looked back at Suna who sat across from you from the table of the restaurant. It was your date night, scheduled already weeks before—yet he came in late—an hour late to be exact. An hour you spent giving tight lipped smiles to everyone’s gazes who fell on you near the middle of the restaurant as you waited, an hour spent smiling politely as you answered waiters who came near you asking if you’re ready to order.

 An hour spent wondering why this isn’t the first nor second time he left you waiting on nights that should’ve been about the both of you.

 “Look, I’m sorry, yeah?” He quipped, not bothering to even spare you a glance.

 He eyes the menu while your eyes begin to sting as you hold back your tears. You want to burst, to say something—anything. Anything that would take his attention, anything that would finally tell him you can’t keep doing this.

 “You don’t seem sorry, Rin,” you reply silently, gaze steady on his figure still looking through the menu. He finally looks up at you, exasperation fully evident in his features.

 “What’d ya want me to say? I just ran a lil late, alright?” He snapped, the menu falling harshly down the table from his grip.

 “You’ve been running a little late for months now—I’m tired of it,” your voice sounds weak, defeated. This is something you didn’t know was like knife twisted into Suna Rintarou’s heart.

 “If you’re tired, then leave,” his voice was cold to a scalding degree.

 Maybe the mistake was that you didn’t leave that night. That you continued something that you both should’ve tried to end that night—or at least attempted to. You didn’t know this either, but had you attempted to leave, Suna was bound to chase after you and engulf you in his arms.

 But you didn’t.

“I'm going back to 505, if it's a seven-hour flight or a forty-five-minute drive. In my imagination, you're waiting lying on your side, with your hands between your thighs.”

Every beat of the song felt like a kick with the kind of ache you felt against your chest that seemed so constricting. It’s like you’re inhaling the same smoke from his lungs again, choking you with it.

 You’re not sure how it happens, nor does it register in time when bright lights fall just where you stood—not in a dramatic sense like those god-forsaken clichéd romance novels—but simply out of coincidence. Come to think of it, had you stepped forward, you wouldn’t have been there, completely visible in his line of sight when his narrowed eyes zero on you in the crowd so easily as if you were magnet to his gaze, still.

 That could’ve been the case before. But not anymore.

 Not anymore, you ponder. If you hadn’t walked away and pulled from his embrace that day, would things have been different? He’s standing on a bigger stage now; oddly enough, you also heard he’s had more control of his schedule since. It’s been so long since the last time he’s seen you, been so long since he woke up to an empty bed—your warmth gone and your lingering scent on the sheets faint as if you were barely there to begin with.

 Just like that, he wished he could take it all back.

 The sound of Suna’s phone felt nagging and relentless. The more days passed, the more it was louder, the more his eyes remained trained on his phone.

 His fidelity remained unquestioned even as your relationship with him turned disastrously strained from all the hours you’ve spent waiting, all the days you’ve spent without him, all the replies you never received—all your messages left on read like you’re looking at Suna Rintarou, your own boyfriend, through a static screen.

 He continued to fall short and break your heart little by little but knowing he loved you beyond his actions was something you wholeheartedly believed; because his eyes staring back at you remained both tender and fiery like golden balance of true love.

 Yet maybe you were wrong.

 The final straw is the way your eyes follow the string of messages between Suna and another girl you’ve forced yourself to forget the name of. Your gaze lingers and wallow at the provocative pictures of the woman, enough to make you wonder where you lacked—where you came short.

 You wished it was only that which set you apart piece by piece like a puzzle being undone and someone else stealing the pieces of yourself you thought you gave to the man you can trust those pieces with to safe-keep.

 But the blue bubble saying, “Meet me in a few minutes,” on one of the nights he came late—bright blue and blinding enough to make you want to gauge your eyes out—and the following, “I’m here, where are you?” burns in the back of your head like his lit up cigarettes against your skin so fervently.

 That day, little by little, you packed your things in the most discreet of ways; sure, it should’ve probably taken a lot before Suna would have noticed when he’s barely home with you—but you remained scared that he would notice and you wouldn’t say no if he asked you to stay, because that’s how much Suna had you—line, hook, and sinker.

 You take one tentative step back, but your legs feel restrained and paralyzed underneath you when Suna’s eyes lock with yours, meters apart, but you would be lying if you said it’s an illusion when his eyes glimmer the same way—tender and fiery.

 “But I crumble completely when you cry, it seems like once again you’d have to greet me with goodbye,” his voice sounds so much louder, so much heavier—especially with his eyes trained on you as he sang the lyrics out without waver.

 Your heart swells and you think, it’s unfair. It’s unfair that his eyes looked as if he was pleading for you not to go the same way you knew he would’ve had he only known you were leaving him that day.

 Suna was worn-out. Tired beyond effable means or description of words; and he thinks he couldn’t be more exhausted when he rattles on the doorknob of the home you shared with him, the place he came home to with you—only to find it locked. He’s too exhausted to notice the way the house felt emptier, seemed emptier like something—someone was missing when he pushes the key in and enters the place.

 Suna was too exhausted to think you’d be gone forever; too drained to ever consider that it’ll take a year since that day before he sees you again.

 Suna was too exhausted to notice the letter you left on the bedside table; too exhausted to notice you’ve been gone for a week until he comes home again for a break, only for his heart to break at the sight of the empty house. Empty; defined as: without you

 You don’t notice the tears cascading down your cheeks until you see the way Suna’s eyebrows furrowed together from the stage he stood on as he continued to sing, never once taking his eyes off of you, like he’s hurting from the way he watches you cry.

“I'm always just about to go and spoil a surprise, take my hands off of your eyes too soon.” The ring placed as a pendant on the necklace around Suna’s neck glistened under the strobe lights dancing around suddenly felt heavier—so much heavier, as if it’s you who has your hands around his neck.

Maybe you do.

Maybe you do; because Suna runs off of the stage the moment the last beat of his lyrics come as he sees you finally looking away. Your figure slowly dimming away as the lights calm down to the beat of the song slowly dwindling away like you did—but never like the fire that burned in your chest at the sight of him.

You wish you could run but every step you took felt like you had boulders weighing down on your feet; as if no part of you wanted to go—and maybe that’s the miracle that Suna will forever thank whatever deity is out there for, because without it, he wouldn’t be able to find his way back to you as you attempted to drag your body and walk away, trying not to look back.

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01) Natsuiro Egao de 1,2,Jump!

Oof, off to a rough start here.  The unidolized is fine; albeit with a kinda derpy expression (a trait shared with several other cards from this set, lookin' at you Honoka and Nico), but the real offender is the idolized.  What... what is this?  You've destroyed the structural integrity of these overalls.  I'm very disappointed in you, Rin Hoshizora.  Which isn't to mention the art style, which feels just slightly off; her eyes aren't quite right, it's just different enough to be unsettling.  Idolizing this card was the reason I uninstalled the app on my first account.

02) Mogyutto "love" de Sekkin Chuu!

This card is leagues better than the last; it's not great, but it's a pretty alright card.  The unidolized is kind of neat as a look at an early design for their uniforms, before the current Otonokizaka Academy ones were standardized.  It's clearly a prototype Rin, but one that captures her core personality in a way that some of the other girls' cards from this set fail to.  The idolized... is fine.  I'm not a big fan of these outfits, but at least hers is less egregious than some others I could name (lookin' at you, Maki and Nozomi).  What I think it really has going for it is that little tuft coming off of her headband, which foreshadows one of my favorite Rin Looks™, the tiny side-ponytail.  I have no way of knowing if this was an inspiration or the similarity is just a happy coincidence, but regardless, it's close enough to make me smile when I see it.