When All Hell Breaks Loose

Week Three: Looking Back - Sae

"Fucking asshole!"

Rage was not a portion of the emotion wheel that Sae was particularly familiar with, even now. His personal brand of anger was a cold, mutable thing. Something he could always weaponize and handle like a seasoned master. This explosive, blue hot version of rage, however, he had no idea what to do with.

Not knowing what to do hardly stopped the fact that he needed to do something.

After taking the stairs two at a time, he found Rin at the table, coffee in one hand, his own phone in the other. Alone and seemingly having a good morning thus far. Neither of which Sae felt calm enough to preserve. He threw his own phone at him.

"Have you fucking seen this?" he demanded of his brother.

Rin was no more used to this sudden anger on Sae's part, but it didn't mean he let it affect him. He finished the sip of his coffee he was halfway through and slowly reached for Sae's phone after putting his own on the table. Sae was enraged by the casual nature of the action all over again and started pacing back and forth on the other side of the table.

Rin studied the screen, and when he looked up, he hardly matched Sae's expression. He just lifted an eyebrow and slid his phone back.

"Are you supposed to be reading this?" he asked.

"We're not supposed to talk to each other or milk anyone for information," Sae admitted, protecting himself with plausible deniability. "Tabloids are kind of a grey area."

"Stop reading them," Rin said, like it really was even that simple.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Sae said back, just narrowly avoiding making the windows shake. He was tempted to smack Rin's mug right down the front of him.

"What are you so worked up for?" he asked, motioning at Sae's phone, which had since gone black. "He's out with Mikage. I don't know if this is news to you, but he does that all the time. What the fuck is the issue?"

"Did you even read it?" Sae said.

The issue was not that Ryusei had gone out or that that he was out with Mikage, which yes, Sae was well aware of the fact that he did regularly. The issue was that he hadn't been wearing his wedding ring, and not only had he not been wearing it, but people were noticing. And commenting on it. And the whole internet, the corners of it that Sae occupied anyways, were a speculation filled PR nightmare.

First and foremost, he'd been trying to avoid it. They'd both agreed it was best. It was hard enough to talk about their issues amongst themselves, worse with Saichi, and worse even branching out with the closest confidants. Neither of them needed the world as a whole to comment in on it, and neither of them had wanted it, either.

Things had changed, apparently.

But the second and more shameful matter at hand was that he'd taken it off in the first place. Sae was aware that they were separated, trial or not, but it's not like there was a set destiny at the end of this. Things were still up in the air. This whole process was about figuring things out, to decide what they wanted to do.

And even when things were at their very worst, Sae had never, ever taken his ring off.

As he reached down and started fiddling with it, something he hadn't done regularly since the wedding when it was all of the sudden on all the time and he was getting used to it, he realized that it was the first time it had ever felt like a shackle. It was keeping him bound to something that maybe only he thought was worth saving.

Rin still wasn't getting it. His face was still emotionless. Irritated and judgemental, if anything.

"You do know that you're separated, right?" he asked.