Work Text:
“I know that my handwriting stinks and that it will feel cold if I print out a suicide letter, so… a video it is, I guess.”
His gaze went down immediately, as if he was a little, guilty, lost boy once again. He covered his eyes, allowing a shaky breath —that may have been held inside for too long— to come out, pressing the space key on his laptop’s keyboard. With that stiff movement, his little brother stopped talking and his image froze, but the words lingered, they filled the room with Rin’s once hidden darkness.
“I wanted to leave some tapes, actually. I don’t know, sometimes you just hurt so much that you just want people to fucking pay for what they did and you just want to… haunt them, you know? Like Hannah Baker?” the green-head’s words felt heavy, in a way. Sae still knew, somehow, how to recognize his brother’s attempts of throwing a joke to lighten a room that could definitely not be lightened. That was, in fact, eleven year old Rin speaking. “I don’t know why I even fucking bother.” Rin raised his brows sarcastically for a few seconds, his sharp gaze returning before getting back to that empty one they had learnt to hate.
Sae was speechless. Not in a good way, of course; not like the loss of words you feel whenever you see someone amazing play, or when you have the chance of contemplating how superior you are to anybody else. No, not like that: he didn’t know what to feel, where to look at, what to tell the screen. He knew for a fact that he was listening to a dead person speaking a few of their last words, but maybe, just maybe, the idea of the dead person being his brother himself hadn’t fully settled into his mind.
“As pathetic as it may sound, if you’re listening to this, I’m dead.” Rin’s eyes escaped from the camera for a moment. “Today is September 8th. If God truly loves me, tomorrow will be my last day alive.” he paused, biting on the pen he had on his hand, possibly the one he wrote the initial letter with. “I always liked that phrase. The one that says «I hope death feels like being carried to bed after a long ride». I hope it does, I really do.” he took a hesitant deep breath. “Dad, do you… do you remember when we visited grandma and you used to carry me out of the car and tucked me into bed, careful not to wake me up? I was always awake, and I’m pretty sure you knew that. I don’t remember when we stopped doing that, actually. But again, I’ve reached a point where I don’t even remember why I was born in the first place, so… that invalidates my point, doesn’t it?” He let out an empty laugh. “After that Sae just punched me when we got home and I had to get out on my own”.
That memory, too, became poisoned. Fuck, he wanted to cry so bad but not even a single tear dared to drop out of his eyes. He grabbed Rin’s World Cup jersey —which had been handed to him by his parents after the funeral— and buried his face in it. Rin’s smell… it wasn’t there anymore, just the lingering scent of the stupidly expensive detergent their mother used.
Every corner of his mind insisted that Rin’s death was inevitable, that it was what destiny had planned out for him since the very beginning, and, as stubborn Sae Itoshi is, he listened and tried to agree. Therefore, based on that —very stupid— fact, if he was given the chance of turning back time, he wouldn’t try to talk Rin out of it. He would… he would get his little brother to wear that stupid shirt one last time and hide it so it couldn’t be washed until the younger died.
However, despite how fast his thoughts raced and how he strictly listened to them, it was still a factual idea that every single person around Rin could’ve stopped him somehow.
“I remember my mom’s face the first time I covered my freckles. She gave me a twenty minute lecture about how it was wrong to cover something that made me… myself, something that everybody considered precious when I was a baby. I didn’t listen though. Then it became a habit to cover up every single detail that made me remember who I am. Sometimes I wonder if that was the start of me losing myself” Rin paused, biting his lip, processing the information he had just said, as if it was a surprise for him too. “Shidou pointed them out once, a day I accidentally didn’t cover them up; I think he knew my facial expressions way too well, because then he quickly told me that ‘they are beautiful and that I look so dumb and pretty when I’m ashamed’”.
His voice mocked Shidou, which never quite happened before. For anybody else, it was a normal thing every kid does, and that was exactly the problem. As soon as it slipped out of his tongue, the realization of Rin still being a damn kid stabbed Sae a thousand times.
“Shidou, you… you were everything and nothing at the same time. You were the only one who saw my scars and never shifted your behavior out of pity. Ironically, you were also the only one who actually asked if I was doing alright. I told you to focus on training, but in reality? I wanted to yell. To tell you everything, to admit I’d been losing every single battle inside of my mind, I wanted someone to know. Someone to… save me, somehow. And, to add to my infinite list of disappointments and shames, I won’t lock the door tomorrow. You know, in case mom wants to check in. In case I can… be saved”
To Sae, those words and the fact that his mother was, in fact, the one who found him felt like another punch to the stomach. You were found, Rin. You were found but you had already bled out.
Rin took a deep breath and changed the topic, staring at the paper he had on his hand for a few seconds before speaking, his voice lowering still, somehow managing to turn an already sad voice into a depressive one. It sounded almost hollow.
“A few months ago, right before the U-20 World Cup, I felt everything getting bad again (which is a lie, because it never got better). I told myself that if it stayed like that and that if I wasn’t able to ask for help, I would commit suicide. And here we are today, aren’t we? I’ve called each one of you lukewarm at least once, but it turns out that it was actually the other way around. You won, Isagi. You won again, and you will keep winning and you will keep getting Sae’s recognition until the day you die. Congratulations, I guess. I hope you know I never truly hated you (nor anyone), I was just… I was just dying”
Rin sighed for what felt like the millionth time.
“I made amends with the idea of me dying soon a couple of weeks ago. It felt right, it felt inevitable, it felt like a relief. But now I am… I am terrified. I’m pretty sure I’ll die scared, because as I said, I’m terrified. I’m having doubts. Maybe I don’t want to do it, after all. But I still know that I’ll end up regretting it if I don’t. Do you know how genuinely difficult it is to have a free day so you can end it? I hope you guys never have to go through the process of clearing everything of your calendar so you can kill yourself peacefully”.
Rin hesitated. He hesitated hard, everyone could see it on the way he opened his mouth and closed it shut immediately. The video got silent for a few seconds before he finally found the words to begin.
“Nii-chan, you were… you were right. I’m mediocre, disgusting, it must be embarrassing for you to have me as your brother. You were right that night, I should’ve dropped everything there. I should’ve stopped. Your dream changed, I should’ve understood that, I am so sorry” Rin’s face was neutral. He spoke, he made a perfect portrait of his emotions with his words, but his face told absolutely nothing. “Sae,” the name alone, plain, emotionless, was… shocking. No nii-chan, no humanity left. That was just his brother’s skin. It was then when Sae truly comprehended that Rin had been dead for a really long time. “Sae, you were supposed to come back. I waited for my brother, my hero, not whatever you were that night. I’m sorry, I just can’t… I can’t get over it. I can’t quite understand it. When I made peace with the idea of me dying, I tried to understand everything I didn’t before, but I couldn’t. I’m sorry”.
“I’m so sorry, Rin. I’m so sorry.” Sae finally managed to say, tears finally coming out. “I am deeply proud of you. I’m sorry, please come back. Please come back.”
“However, I do believe that it is impossible to die with no regrets. Sometimes loneliness, hopelessness and sadness get there faster. I died with thousands of regrets. There’s still so many places I want to see, so many concerts I want to hear, so many people I want to meet, so many goals I still want to achieve. I didn’t get to play football without feeling sadness wash all over me, and I’m pretty sure that I didn’t get to be a better person”
The mask was long gone. Tears formed on his eyes and threatened to get out, his nose getting pink and his eyes getting puffy as the first sob came through the screen.
“But sometimes, dying with regrets proves you were human, and I… I think some of you forget that that’s what I am. A human”.
Rin bit his lip, soothing himself, obviously trying to pull himself together, trying to end the video before fully breaking down.
“Nii-chan, I love you. Don't you ever doubt it. I will always love you. I know for a fact that in a few hours I’ll bleed out in a tub, but I don’t know what comes after that. But whatever it is, please know that I’ll love you anywhere. I’ll admire you from hell, if you want to. Just keep going, keep it up, aim for the best. I’ll be always cheering you up. Sorry for saying I hated you, but we both know it was a lie all along”.
Sae felt despair creeping up his neck, he felt it going through his veins. His heart appeared to be pumping grief instead of blood, and it was washing all over him. As sick as it may sound, he didn’t want it to end. He wanted to keep hearing Rin’s voice, he wanted to keep seeing his face, he wanted to stop being the brother of a dead guy, he wanted to feel him there, he wanted to give him a pass so perfect the stadium would explode. He wanted Rin, he wanted his Rin.
“You were always the best, can’t you see it?” Sae asked, placing his palm over his forehead, sobs growing louder.
“And so I think this is it, I guess. I’m sorry for not being a good son, a good teammate, a good friend, a good athlete, a good brother. I promise I tried, I tried with all my strength to be better. I’m sorry for not asking for help. Please forgive me, I love you all, I love you with every single piece of my soul.” Rin tried to smile, failing almost poetically. He looked down, exhaled sharply and… that was it. The video ended abruptly and silence ruled their childhood room. Just like that, Rin had stopped breathing.
The oldest Itoshi stared blankly at the screen before letting out a gut-wrenching yell, crying and shaking uncontrollably. He wanted to run, he wanted to slap Rin across the face, he wanted to listen to his brother complaining. But instead of that, he had silence, he had an empty room, neatly organized by the younger before getting into that bathroom. He yelled a million times, he fell to the floor, he smashed his fist against the desk with enough force to draw blood, splitting the skin over his knuckles. A set of arms hugged him from behind and another one from the front, both of them holding him closely, their respective sobs joining Sae’s.
“We know son, we know”.
“He couldn’t do it alone” Sae cried.
“He couldn’t baby, he couldn’t” another voice -their mother- replied.
“He was a kid!”
That response only got his parents’ gasping breaths to worsen. Rin’s room was neat, it was impeccable. He had given a lot of his stuff up, but the drawings and the frames and the owls only screamed louder into their heads. Rin Itoshi was dead. Same guy who still held his #1 ranking, same boy who had just signed for ReAl. He vanished as quietly as the sea breeze they used to chase as children.
Rin Itoshi never made it to eighteen.
Rin Itoshi spent a week in a coma before finally being able to rest.
That same Rin looked fragile on that hospital bed and he looked like a kid on the casket.