For most people the prospect of reuniting with their best friend after years of being apart for so long would leave one feeling ecstatic but Rin is no normal girl and the knots in her stomach are growing increasingly harder to ignore the closer she nears to Mikuo’s apartment. It’s not that she doesn’t miss him-- quite the opposite of that, really, as Mikuo has steadily risen far above best friend status and in Rin’s eyes he is more of a platonic soulmate than anything. He just gets her.
Which is, ironically, the sole reason that she is so hesitant over seeing him in person again. He knows her like a book-- inside and out, pretty and ugly. He has been a firsthand witness to every possible side of her and was the only person to remain faithfully by her side through all of the highs and lows that carved her path to adulthood. Loyal to her even when she’d been thousands of miles away. As such, Mikuo has been her confidant for years and while Rin has never kept secrets from him before he is surprisingly unaware of the depth of her problems lately as she’s made sure to be vague and does not divulge with him the details. And the only reasoning behind it is none other than her pride and the unrelenting, nagging thought that he just might be disappointed in her should the entire truth be revealed. Perhaps disappointed with her for being such a failure of an adult thus far after being such an astounding student by comparison.
And although she knows deep down in her heart that he would never think so lowly of her (much less anyone else for that matter as he has always been inherently kind and caring) the negativity still persists. Rin darts her tongue out to swipe it quickly along her dry lips, the hands that are gripping grocery bags filled with various snacks beginning to shake as she ascends the stairs to his door. She doesn’t want to talk about her issues which is undoubtedly what Mikuo would want to do because she knows that once she says it aloud it will be admitting that she has a serious problem which is why he cannot find out for now. The reality of such an admission frightens her far too much to consider facing it head-on just yet and instead she wants to successfully keep up with this carefully crafted facade but the blonde is more than aware that if there is anyone capable of seeing straight through her like a shard of fragile glass then it is no one other than Mikuo Hatsune.
The excitement mixing with her anxiety is overwhelming, stifling her breath as she comes to a pause just a few feet away from the entrance. Before she has time to attempt to collect herself the door swings open without warning to reveal behind it the equally eager figure that she has longed to see. A smile is instantly plastered across her face, light never quite reaching her eyes.
‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,’ the mantra repeats itself within her head as she all too eagerly closes the distance between them.
“M-Mikuo...!” Just one look at him and it’s as if every single thing that she has been dealing with and bottling up suddenly reaches it’s boiling point, spiraling and overflowing beyond her control.
Her voice breaks right on time along with the dam that had been previously keeping her tears at bay as she bends over, swooping down to throw her arms around the male’s neck, the plastic bags falling from her arms to clatter onto the ground beside the two from the sudden movement. And even though Rin told herself not to, she is now standing in the doorway of her friend’s home and wailing loudly, grip on him only tightening rather than mercifully loosening up.
“I missed you so much!!”