rin doesn’t like looking at himself for too long, especially on days when sae has been on his mind more than usual.
it’s something he would never openly admit because he hates giving anyone the impression that his older brother still has that much influence over him, but sometimes all it takes is one glance at his reflection for those old feelings to come back.
the shape of his eyes, the familiar expression, the way certain features look almost identical to sae’s—it all makes his stomach twist with irritation.
tonight is one of those nights, and you notice it almost immediately when you find him sitting quietly in front of the mirror, his elbows resting against his knees while he stares at his own reflection with a distant expression.
he looks annoyed, but you know him well enough to recognize that there’s something underneath it. he keeps brushing his bangs over his eyes, moving them away, then covering them again, as if he’s trying to find some version of himself that doesn’t remind him of sae.
when you sit beside him, he doesn’t tell you to leave. instead, he just mutters that he hates his face sometimes, and after a long silence, admits that it’s because he can see sae whenever he looks at himself.
you don’t immediately tell him that he shouldn’t feel that way, because you know rin doesn’t need someone to dismiss what he’s feeling.
instead, you sit close enough for your shoulder to touch his and quietly remind him that looking like sae doesn’t mean he is sae. rin stays quiet, his eyes still fixed on the mirror, but you can see his expression soften just slightly when you tell him that his face is still his own, regardless of how similar their features are.
you remind him that sae doesn’t own those eyes, that expression, or any part of him, and that everything rin has become came from his own choices, his own determination, and his own experiences.
sae may have been the person who introduced him to football and gave him something to dream about, but rin is the one who continued chasing that dream after everything between them fell apart.
he is the one who kept moving forward, even when the person he trusted most became the person he wanted to defeat more than anyone else. hearing that makes rin’s jaw tighten, and for a moment, he looks like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t.
instead, he slowly reaches for your hand and holds onto it, his thumb resting quietly against your fingers. after a while, rin finally admits that sometimes he still thinks about sae before everything went wrong, back when sae was still the person he admired more than anyone.
he remembers the way he used to follow his brother around, how badly he wanted to play football beside him, and how certain he was that the two of them would accomplish everything together. those memories hurt now because they belong to a version of their relationship that doesn’t exist anymore, and rin hates that some part of him still misses it. you gently squeeze his hand and tell him that he doesn’t have to hate those memories just because things changed. he can be angry at sae and still miss him.
he can want to surpass him and still remember loving him as his older brother. neither feeling cancels the other out.
rin doesn’t respond immediately, but his grip on your hand becomes a little tighter, and eventually he leans against your shoulder, quietly allowing himself to be close to you without worrying about how vulnerable he looks.
you stay beside him for as long as he needs, occasionally running your fingers through his hair while he watches the reflection in the mirror become less important.
when he finally looks at himself again, you gently tell him that you see rin when you look at him, not sae. you see the stubborn, difficult, competitive idiot who refuses to give up on anything once he decides he wants it, the same person who has spent years carving out his own path even when that path was tangled up with his brother’s.
rin gives you a small, almost embarrassed look before turning away, quietly mumbling that you’re being too sentimental. but he doesn’t pull away from you. if anything, he moves a little closer, resting his head against you as his eyes finally close. he may still dislike the resemblance tomorrow, and he may still have complicated feelings about sae, but for tonight, he doesn’t have to fight with his own reflection.
he can simply sit beside you and remember that he is rin itoshi, and that being sae’s younger brother will never mean being sae himself.