The Sun Will Come Up

Nine

Rin left Bachira's in a panic.

After the weekend away was confirmed, Bachira made some joke about packing and asked if he needed to bring anything specific but Rin barely got through the questions without trembling. He stayed for a bit until he was sure he was really making a fool of himself and then he finally made some excuse about having to do his own packing and that he'd see Bachira the next day.

He spent the entire trip home entirely regretting inviting him at all.

I don't want to break up.

And he didn't. There was no other way to look at it. This had become something real to him and it was only with the prospect of losing it that it became apparent to him. He felt so stupid. He was smarter than this, wasn't he? But he couldn't untangle the events and his feelings towards them and figure out when this had all happened.

When had he started liking Bachira for real?

He still hadn't figured it out when he got home. The blue flower on his cork board was not just something that mocked him and his stupidity mercilessly. It was such clear evidence of his feelings. How had he tacked it up there and not realized what he was doing and why he was doing it?

Even Sae had caught on, he realized. Don't tell me you're actually falling for your fake boyfriend.

He had been. Maybe the whole time.

He had to break up with him, obviously. That was the only reasonable course of action. He didn't want that. His reaction even to Bachira's joking about it had made that perfectly clear, but he still had to do it. Now that he had this information about himself, the thought of being stuck in his fake relationship with someone he actually liked who, as Sae was so kind to remind him, was clearly using him to make Isagi jealous, the thought of spending any more time with him unbearable.

He had to break up with him right now.

No, Rin told himself. Just calm down. Think things through.

He got changed, grabbed his yoga mat from the closet, and unrolled it before laying it out in the space it sometimes occupied across the foot of his bed. Before he stepped onto it, he took the blue flower down so it couldn't mock him any further. He didn't have it in him to throw it away, so just tucked it into the top drawer of his desk.

The yoga and meditation helped somewhat, but not nearly as much as it usually did. It was only physical and mental exhaustion that didn't have his panic regenerating at that fact alone. He considered himself so well practiced at this point that there was no fear or frustration he couldn't effectively diffuse, but this one lingered.

He couldn't break up with Bachira. Not right now. Which is to say not before the trip. He'd invited him along for a reason. The underlying reason below his awareness might have been because he just wanted him there, but the reason he'd given him and the one they were agreeing on was because they could mess with Sae and Isagi if he came. It made Rin's stomach turn in this new context, but that's what he'd offered and agreed to, and it would be wrong to go back on that.

He could make it through the weekend. He'd break up with him after the trip.

A bit more yoga and meditation, a long run, some food, and a good night's sleep had clearly done him a world of good, because he wasn't as nervous or horrified as he had been the day before. He was mostly just feeling excited to see Bachira, and if he leaned into that feeling, it dulled the newfound sadness he felt towards the whole thing being fake.

Bachira showed up first, which is to say before Isagi, and that was ideal as far as Rin was concerned. Rin was still excited to see him even in person.

The impatient look that came over Sae's face was just a bonus.