itoshi rin is tormented by the lingering ghosts of your tragic breakup. he is cold and he lives with the burden of missing you. he wonders if you are hurting too, or is it just him?
pairing : itoshi rin x reader
content : hurt and comfort. exes to lovers. messy breakup. accusations of cheating (no actual cheating). insecurities. mentions of alcohol. cursing.
it’s one in the morning and rin is surrounded by his friends and acquaintances but still, he feels cold. even with the alcohol in his system that he drank to purposely warm him, it’s cold.
it has been this way for nearly a year now. eleven months and a couple weeks, if anyone is counting. a few days more and it would be the anniversary of your breakup.
the nearer it gets to twelve months without you, the colder it gets. right now, even with the perfectly working heater in one of his teammate’s penthouse, rin shivers.
it’s cold.
he never thought it could be this cold.
rin knows why he feels like this. he knows exactly why he wakes up and goes to bed alone. the reason why his life is dull and empty is not a secret to him—he just won’t acknowledge it.
he refuses to admit to himself that the reason why he has been suffering for the past eleven months of his life is because you’re not here.
how could he admit it? how could he ever address that your absence it what causes his pitiful state, when he brought it upon himself.
it was his fault that you’re not here. he wanted this. well, he had thought that he wanted this.
there is no way he could welcome the thought that he misses you when he was the one who drove you away, right? there is no use.
it’s too late now. all he could do is go out with his teammates on nights like this and pretend as if he wasn’t freezing from the inside out.
“damn, this is so boring,” seishiro sits down beside him on the sofa and rin tenses at the presence of the white-haired boy.
he does not know what to do because among everyone else in this crowded room, you are most connected to nagi seishiro. your best friend. and he has long been your best friend before you and rin even got together.
how is rin supposed to act around the person who is still in your life while he himself isn’t? this man seated next to him knows where you are right now and what you have been doing, while rin has absolutely no idea how you are.
“didn’t think i’d see you here, itoshi,” nagi speaks again. rin hums in acknowledgment, “thought it wouldn’t be so bad to come.”
there is this unspoken understanding between them, that both of them are thinking about you. after all, aside from soccer, all they have in common is their connection to you.
nagi debates whether he should tell you that he saw rin tonight or keep it to himself so as to not instigate negative feelings from you.
rin wonders if he should start asking about you. he decides against it and pretended to busy himself with his cellphone to avoid further conversation with your best friend.
he convinces himself that he does not care. he acts like he doesn’t want to know how you are. he tries to make himself believe that as long as he can fake it, it will somehow be true.
jokes on him, really.
meguru approaches nagi next to him and rin is planning to ignore him like he usually does, but the words that comes out of meguru’s mouth made that utterly impossible.
“nagi! i saw y/n by the bookstore earlier this afternoon, didn’t you ask her to come? i invited her but she said you didn’t mention anythin’ about a party!”
the mere mention of your name makes rin’s heart stop. it has been a very long time since he heard someone mention your name casually around him. now that your name has been dropped, everything comes crashing down on him, and he cannot breathe.
“oh, damn, i’m sorry—“ bachira seems to notice his mistake upon not seeing rin next to nagi. they know not to carelessly throw your name around because at first, it affected his performance. now, it is apparent that you affect him in and out of the game.
“excuse me.”
rin is cold. it’s like ice is running through his veins as he stands up and rushes to leave the suffocating penthouse.
rin runs out to the street and for the first time since he lost you, he names the sinking feeling in his stomach that won’t go away.
for the first time since you walked out the door of your shared apartment, rin finally admits it.
he misses you.
he is longing for you like how the moon misses the sun but never meets it enough. it burns and it is freezing all at the same time because when you were here, he felt nothing but the assurance of your love.
he runs, and runs, and runs. it’s dark and it’s cold, but he runs. he runs in hopes that he could change the past. he runs with the burning desire to correct his faults and take back all the hurt he inflicted on you.
maybe then, you’d be here.
maybe then, it wouldn’t be so cold.
“are you seriously accusing me of that, rin? are you hearing yourself right now?” the hurt was evident in your tone as you watched the love of your life with all of his guards up.
his glares were accusing as if what he saw was an unforgivable betrayal. he had seen you talking to his brother, sae, and rin was quick to act out of pure rage and jealousy.
“you were flirting with my fucking brother!” he spat out, and he knew it was irrational.
he knew he was wrong about and that you would never be able to do that to him, but his years of pent up frustration and hatred towards his brother made it impossible to remember his trust in you.
“and i already told you i wasn’t, rin. i was talking to him. i bumped into him at the coffee shop while i was getting your usual morning drink when he saw me and i sat down for a little chat! that was all, baby. believe me.”
you deserved an award with how well you held up, with how patient you were with him despite his hurtful accusations towards you.
no one else understood him like you did, and you knew to be more patient with him in times like these. you were aware of how his brother affected him and how he just needed someone to stick with him through it.
“well, fuck that! you shouldn’t have been with him in the first place! sae wants everything that i have and now, he’s tryna get you too!”
it almost made you flinch, with his tone rising and his voice getting louder. he is furious, and you try to disregard the sting of his words now that his fury is directed at you.
“i’m sorry, alright? it wasn’t my intention to hurt you, rin. he’s your brother and i thought it would be nice to ask him how he is and—“
rin cut you off like he couldn’t comprehend a word that you were saying. “that’s bullshit and you know it! just fuckin’ tell me the truth! that like everyone and everything else, you’re gonna leave me for him!”
it frustrated you that he blocked all your explanations out. you were growing weary with the accusations thrown at you, but you continued. you continued to reason with him because you knew him. you knew he needed someone to stay. and above all, you tried further because you were in love with him.
you loved rin three years before you finally got together. your two years together made that five. that was five years of your life being deeply in love with someone whom you thought was going to be your husband and the father of your kids.
that amount of time may not be much when viewed through the generations of people who loved each other, but for the both of you, those five years were enough to build a life and create an ideal future with the other.
so, yeah. it never occurred to you to give up in that argument. there was no chance in hell that you would leave him high and dry.
“it’s not like that, rin. i am never going to leave you for anyone, much less for your brother! i need you to listen to me! we talked! that’s it!”
“you’re lying to me. i know it.”
you shake your head in exhaustion. “i talk, and i talk, and i talk—and you don’t hear a thing.” a lone tear falls from your eye without realizing.
his sharp stare does not falter. all he could see was red. the scene of you and sae together replayed over and over again in his mind.
you, the person he loved most, with the person who took everything away from him. it killed him to imagine a future where it is not you and him, but you and sae.
“i’m in love with you. only you. i cannot see myself with anyone else and i thought you knew that, rin. i get that your brother strikes a vein in you but don’t i at least deserve to be heard? we’re better than this.”
“yeah? and i thought you’d be better than acquainting with sae like that. you knew how i felt about him, and you did this? fuck that.”
rin walked out on you that night without another word. it felt like he also walked out on your relationship because he started training more. this meant leaving before you even woke up and going home when you were fast asleep.
during those weeks when rin avoided you like the plague despite living under one roof, you felt completely alone and isolated. you were lonely. he spoke to you in words, and he treated you as if your encounter with sae was enough for him to give it all up.
until one day, he comes home to a living room full of bags and boxes. you were there, waiting for him with a tired smile on your face.
for the first time, rin realized that the black circles under your eyes have grown where they weren’t before. he noticed that you are all cried out and now, you’ve got no tears to shed as you leave him.
“w-what’s all this?”
“i’m leaving. i’m sorry for not getting out of your hair faster. it was really hard to look for another apartment that was within my budget but don’t worry, i figured it out.”
“leaving? leaving me? leaving… this house?” which one is it? or fuck, is it both?
“mhm. i f-figured it’s not healthy for us to live under the same roof after everything. i wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable in your own space just because i’m here, so…”
did you really think he wanted you to leave? he wanted to explain. he wanted to tell you that he only acted that way because he was hurt and he was guilty! you don’t have to leave!
but he’s frozen from where he stood. the sight of all your stuff packed up and ready to go was a little bit too much for him.
you stood from where you were seated among the bags and boxes, and you stop in front of him. again, you smile gracefully, in contrast to the breaking heart that almost killed you.
“and rin? i’m sorry again for what happened with sae. i should’ve known better than to do that to you, and i understand that you don’t want to do anything with me because of that.”
he shook his head but you missed it because you walked past him with some of your bags in your hand. “y/n, no. i—“
you hear it and for a moment, you delude yourself into thinking that he will ask you to stay. but he doesn’t continue.
he stops because how could he ask you to stay after how he treated you? it was his fault for not listening and in the end, it was you who apologized? in what fucking universe do i deserve this angel, huh?
he doesn’t stop you from leaving because in that very moment, the thought of you finally escaping from him and his hurtful treatment towards you didn’t seem so bad.
“so, i guess… i’ll see you around. nagi will be around to grab my remaining stuff, so try not to kill each other, yeah?” you try to play it off cool, mask the fact that inside, everything is falling apart.
rin nods but he stayed with his back facing you. until the end, he did not have the guts to face you. to face what he had done to you and your relationship.
suddenly, everything grew cold. everything lost their color. the empty corners of where your warmth used to be mocked him.
for nearly a year since then, he has lived and suffered with the mistakes he did. he didn’t know what to tell people when they started asking about you. he didn’t know how to ride the train without holding your hand. he didn’t know how to be soaked in the shower without letting his tears flow freely.
he wondered endlessly as he daydreamed of speaking to you again: are you hurting too, or is it just me?
his endless running brings him to your street where you moved when you left him. his feet takes him farther than he expected because this street is on the opposite part of town from your shared apartment, a telltale sign that you tried to get as far away as possible.
evidently, it is not far enough because on your way home from the convenience store, you run into your ex-boyfriend. rin is first to notice your presence, and instead of freezing up like he did when you left, he walks up to you.
“rin?” you are confused and nervous. after all, the last time you had seen him was almost a year ago. you never tried to see him again.
“it hurts.”
the two words he just confessed are two words that he has never said together in a sentence ever in his life. itoshi rin never admits it when something is hurting him. he never tells anyone when he is in pain.
for him to say that now, it is a cry for you to soothe him in a way that only you could, and you know this because you know him better than the back of your hand.
standing a meter away from you underneath a street lamp, itoshi rin confesses his truth.
“it hurts, y/n. it hurts without you. it feels like i can’t breathe. it is so cold without you. it hurts so badly. i thought i could live with it eventually—but i can’t. it only gets worse.”
rin sees your shoulders shake in your attempt to conceal your sobs but you are failing miserably, and so does he. you don’t say anything and rin figures that’s fair.
you already tried to talk. you already told him everything you needed to hear on the night of the fight that ruined your relationship. it’s his turn to tell you everything you deserve to hear.
but he isn’t as good as you when it comes to words. he thinks about how he accused you of cheating on him. he thinks about how he shut you out and left you feeling lonely. he thinks about every day that he could have chased after you but didn’t. he thinks about all of that and he thinks about how he’s sorry.
and he manages to get that last part out, hoping that you would get it. hoping that the deep-rooted connection between the two of you is enough to let you know what he means.
“i’m sorry.”
you drop your groceries to the ground and you close the meter of distance between the two of you. you welcome him in his arms but he wraps his arms around you tighter than you welcomed him, because he is afraid that if he doesn’t, he will lose you again.
“that is all i needed to hear from you, rin. i never wanted much from you. just you and your love. i just needed to know that you still felt that for me, and when i didn’t… i had no other choice to walk away.”
rin nods against your neck and you feel his tears staining your shoulder. “i’m sorry. forgive me, please. i love you. i love you. and i trust you. more than anyone, baby. i promise.”
“you know i could never hurt you like you thought i did—“ you recalled, but rin cuts you off because he can’t bear another second of you defending yourself when you shouldn’t be.
“i know. i know.”
his embrace around you tightens, and he does not care if anyone could look out from their windows and see the soccer star practically begging for you in the middle of the night. not when he is in your arms again after months of only dreaming about it and wishing for it.
“it hurt too much without you too, rin. i had to remind myself that i can’t run to you for warmth. i took everything in me not to throw away my dignity to beg you to bring me back.”
that answers his question.
in his absence, you were hurting too. your separation killed you just like how it killed him.
“no. no—don’t have to beg for it, baby. i should be on my knees to thank you for even taking me back like this because—shit—i swear that i wouldn’t have lasted another day.”
you run your hands through his hair before briefly pulling away to cup his cheek in your hands, and he fondly leans on your touch.
“for the entire year, i thought it was just me who longed for you, rin.”
you couldn’t be any more wrong.
“i begged the stars and the skies for this very moment. it wasn’t just you.”
happy bachira day may i interest you in some bachisagi?
goodnight moon, and goodnight you
gen - 1.3k
Meguru kicks in his sleep.
Or: Isagi gets a hint of what Bachira dreams about.
(soccer) partners forever
gen - 2.7k
"Oh, this?" Bachira had said, gesturing to his hand— his left hand— proudly showing the cheap band around his ring finger. "Isagi got it for me."
Then he'd sauntered off without further ado.
Apparently, Isagi and Bachira are dating now.
it would feel like this
gen - 1.7k
Almost as a joke, they sway, side to side, giggly and drunk on the feel of each other.
"You're stiff, Yocchan," Meguru hums, playing at dissatisfaction. "It's like you've never danced before."
Heat rises in his cheeks and Yoichi wants to protest— of course he's danced before. Hasn't he?
Or: Bachisagi slow dancing fic
search your heart (find me there)
gen - 1.5k
They'd built this life with their own hands; if the world ended tomorrow, Yoichi knew he'd have died exactly where he wanted to be.
Or: Retired couple bachisagi
Bonus bachirinsagi crack
honey sweet (the taste of you)
explicit - 3.6k
Isagi, too, seemed to be holding his breath as though torn between going out to breathe fresh air and protecting his partner. The sight of Rin breathless on the floor won out— he dropped the respirator on the floor and sank to his knees. His mouth was open slightly, looking at the two of them in wonder, like they were the most beautiful things he'd ever seen.
And Meguru? He drank the sight in like the sweetest nectar.
A rainy day brings about a chance meeting, and, perhaps, something more.
you always worry for sae and he always worries that he might lose you. when everything spins out of control, when his lies come crashing down on him, and when he is confronted by his fear—he has you to slow it all down.
pairing : itoshi sae x reader
content : hurt and comfort. inspired by the fray’s look after you. no manga spoilers. keeping of secrets. multiple injuries.
your boyfriend sometimes forgets that he is just human. he disregards all limitations and challenges boundaries that would have been extraordinary and great if it doesn’t worry you.
but it does—it worries you. the actions that his fans and the media label as out of this world are the same actions that inflict pain on him.
on your itoshi sae.
it broke your heart when he had to exert more effort than most at the start of his international career just to prove that he is as good as the european players. it was disheartening to see that even after he has proven that he is better than all of the midfielders in his league, he was then criticized by his own country for leaving.
welcoming him and his tired eyes home will never not tug at the chords of your heart but you do it anyway.
massaging his limbs to release tension and hearing him groan in pain will never not bring tears to your eyes but you offer it to him anyway.
embracing him to sleep and watching his face contort in fatigue will never not make you want to keep him in your arms forever but you let him go in the morning anyway.
it hurt, over and over again, yes—but you followed him to the ends of the earth. you followed him to spain because no matter how much it hurt, you knew that football made him happy. his happiness was yours, too.
you do your best to let your encouragement shine through and overshadow your worries so that it will make everything better for sae. the smile and the kiss you send him off with in the morning are nothing short of love and support.
but it doesn’t remove the fact that his career scares you. it terrifies you that one day, he’ll get hurt. your nightmares lately are composed of scenarios wherein sae gets himself hurt and there is nothing you could do to change it.
you’re worried and you’re scared, but you will wake him up anyway to start his day—because that is what you’re here for. to support him and help him live his dreams.
“sae, love?” you gently move the stray hairs away from his face and caress his arms to wake him up. “it’s time to get up.”
your boyfriend gives out a small hum of acknowledgement and he pulls you close to give you a loving kiss on the temple.
“good morning. thank you for waking me up.”
without another word, he gets up and gets ready for his morning jog. when he finally leaves for practice, all you could do was watch his car leave the driveway and pray to the heavens that sae would come home to you in a better state that the night before.
later that evening, sae comes home exhausted like always. you noticed that there was a slight limp to his walk but the next time you look, it was gone.
“everything okay?” you asked as you welcome him at the doorway. he shrugged off his coat and places a quick kiss to your forehead before walking past you.
it was complete silence from his part but you are not one to give up easily, especially not when it comes to him. “are you alright, love?”
he sits down on the sofa and wipes his face with both his hands in obvious frustration.
this makes your eyebrows furrow in concern and you immediately throw yourself on his lap, which he welcomes, and he wraps an arm around your waist.
“nothing’s wrong. just… tired.”
“are you lying to me?” you ask genuinely. “tell me the truth. what happened?”
sae hides his face in the crook of your neck and his breath tickles you but you could not care less when he’s clearly bothered about something. in return, you run your fingers through his hair in an attempt to comfort him.
“i’m not lying, baby. it was a bad day at practice and didn’t get the results i wanted. i’ll try again tomorrow so it’s not a big deal.”
you let it go and accept the truth, but what you do not know is that sae got a mild injury in his left ankle when someone had purposely toppled him over. he was worried you might see it and he did his best to conceal it.
“don’t worry about me, hm? i’m fine, but i’ll be so much better once i taste what you cooked for me tonight,” he says with a gentle smile on his face. you mirror it because how could you not?
sae gives your waist an assuring squeeze before you both stand up to go the dining room and go about your night with each other.
he knows how much you worry. he knows how much you have sacrificed to support him in his dream. he knows how much you hurt.
sae is also a man with a lot of worries, so he understands you. he lives in his head more than he lets on and he would never voice it out.
he worries he might not be good enough. he worries he made the wrong decision of leaving him. he worries that his relationship with his brother can no longer be repaired. he worries that you will wake up one day and realize this is not worth leaving him for. he worries that he will lose you.
he is worried because while he tries to manage a lot of things, the things that matter most to him are out of his control, and that haunts him wherever he goes.
sae had managed to keep himself away from more damage to keep you from unnecessary worry. he had also successfully kept his injury a secret from you—until the day you were both at the airport bound to japan.
his phone lights up with a notification from a message while he is fetching some food for you. see, it was never a big deal for the both of you to go through each other’s phones. you knew his password and he knew yours.
so, you open the message for him. much to your surprise, it us a message from sae’s physical therapist, saying: sae, your scans came back and despite recovering from your recent injury, i do not advise you to play in this weekend’s match in japan just yet.
your heart sinks to your stomach and it goes wild with all of the questions running through your brain.
“what injury?” you whisper to yourself.
the last injury sae had that you know of was in barcelona and that was over a year ago. that was the most recent one and he had been cleared to play! he recovered from it well! you were there at the doctor’s office with him in every appointment when he had that injury!
your head is throbbing with all of the stress brought by the unanswered questions in your head that only your boyfriend can answer.
as if on cue, sae arrived with your food on his hands. “baby, they didn’t have the flatbread that you asked for but i knew to get—hey, hey, what’s wrong?”
in the blink of an eye, sae is kneeling on the floor at your aid and looking up at you to search your face for answers. you raise his phone that flashes the text message.
his eyes widens in shock, or perhaps, guilt. “i-it could just be a misdirected text or something,” he tries to reason with you.
no—he tries to lie to you.
he knows it’s wrong, but god, he can’t afford to let you know about this now. not when you’re so excited to fly to japan for a game and have a taste of home after so long!
“if you lie to me one more time, sae, i don’t think i can take this anymore. just tell me the damn truth! when were you hurt?!”
your voice shakes but it is demanding. it is a result of the many years you spent waiting for him to come home to you in one peace. it is a manifestation of all your nightmares combined.
it brings sae to sit down next to you and take your hand in his, to try and make the blow as soft as possible. he looks down to your intertwined fingers, as if for courage, while you stare at his crestfallen face.
“last month. when you had asked me what was wrong, and i told you it was just a bad day. i lied. i didn’t want to hide it but—“
“but what? sae, we talked about this! that i followed you here so i could be with you every step of the way! this,” you motion between the two of you, “this is not letting me be with you in every step of the way! this is shutting me out!”
“i didn’t want you worry for me!” his tone becomes defensive but he doesn’t mean for it to come out that way.
his words are like a trigger to a bursting dam of your tears. they start to fall one after the other, and they don’t stop.
“i worry for you either way! i worry every day of my life that i feel like i will die early because of it! i take care of you because you don’t do that for yourself! i worry, and i always will! it is unfair for you to keep this from me, sae!”
the sight of your tears are enough to break his heart into a million pieces. right now, he knows he is wrong. he knows he made the wrong call. he knows he broke the promises he made to you when he had asked you to come with him.
“i’m really sorry. i thought i was doing the right thing but i know now that i wasn’t.”
“you can tell me anything. don’t ever let my worrying get in the way of that, please? it kills me that you think you should keep these things from me. i want to be there.”
you speak again when sae cannot seem to find the right words to say. “you are not playing in this weekend’s game, sae. i’m telling you.”
he is quick to shake his head in defiance. “listen to me, yeah? i promise you. i promise that i’m alright now. my therapist is just overreacting, but i’m fine. please.”
“i-i don’t know, sae…” you are now hesitant because you know how much the next game means to him. you know that he has spent his life training for games like this, a game at home, where he can show them that leaving was not a waste of efforts after all.
he holds your hand tightly before bringing it to his lips for a kiss. “i promise. i’m okay. i’m not lying this time.”
“lie to me one more time, sae… and i don’t think i have the heart to stay through this any longer.”
he wasn’t lying, he knew he was in the condition to play but he didn’t know what would happen at the game itself.
the first ultimatum that you have given him in the length of your six-year relationship kept on replaying on his mind when his legs betrayed him at the day of the game. his past injury that he had healed from suddenly came back when an opponent tackled him to the ground.
the whole stadium shouts in shock the moment the star player rolled on the grass in sheer pain, but no one there is as heartbroken as you.
no one there is as scared as sae—as he thinks, this is it. my girlfriend is going to leave me after this. my career will be over after this. my country will praise my brother and i will go down in history as a traitor. this is the end.
the stretcher brings him to the dugout and then the ambulance, and all sae could think about is your face.
his head spins as he thinks of a life without you, an unimaginable one that he could not even stomach to imagine. yet, he is forced to do so right now. because he knows that no one is stupid enough to stay in this predicament.
it hurts. it kills him because you are his everything. whenever sae loses control and everything spins around, he had you. you always knew how to slow down the world down for him.
and now, you will leave him.
but he’s wrong. he’s wrong because he will always have you, no matter how many promises he breaks.
you will always be the one he knows. you are the same person who fell in love with him in high school. you are the same person who said yes when he asked you to move with him. you are the same person who told him that you will love him forever, even when things get hard.
“sae! sae, baby… come on, look at me.”
so, the next thing sae knows, he is pulled away from his reverie and the first thing he sees as he opens his eyes is your face. the siren of the ambulance you are both in is loud, but he cannot hear anything but your voice.
“it’s okay. it’s okay. they gave you anesthesia to keep you from feeling the pain, baby. you’re going to be okay, yeah?” you say to assure him but you do not know that the thought of losing you hurt a million times more than his injured leg.
your presence is enough for him. nothing else matters, not even his broken leg. not when you’re next to him like this. he’s sure that you are more in pain and more terrified for him than him.
for the first time in forever, a tear escapes his eyes as he finally heaves a breath of relief.
“i’m sorry, baby.”
you signal for him to stop talking and you continue crying. “it’s not your fault, sae. don’t apologize to me. let’s just make sure you’re alright, please?”
he loves you so much. he loves you for being here. he loves you for staying. he loves your for understanding him. he loves you for taking care of him. he loves you for worrying about him. he loves you for silencing his demons.
he loves you.
“i am in love with you,” he whispers loud enough for you to hear. you grip his hand and kiss his head, “i am in love with you too. i will look after you, okay? i’m here.”
sae thinks, yeah. when i’m losing my control and the city spins around, you’re the only one who knows to slow it down.
lumi’s note: i recently got a report that someone has been translating my works into another language (most likely portuguese) on tiktok. i want to ask for your help in reporting them when you come across them! i do not post anywhere else nor do i translate my posts into another language. thanks, loves! <3
