Chapter Text
The strictly unmoving abyss begins to unfurl. Darkness yields to a light cloying weakly where the eyelids are beginning to part.
“Ah…? He’s moving…!"
For the first time in just over a year, his ears begin to perk up to the sounds in the room around him, not only to hear them but to actually perceive them, too. His skin begins to prickle with sensations; both warmth and cold, terrible circulation in the extremities, scratchy fabric laying atop the skin, and a stiff and uncomfortable mattress supporting the body. Soft muttering voices are heard distantly, though the meanings behind their words are not yet understood by the brain that has not recently adapted to receiving the words’ meanings.
As if he’s never breathed before, he gasps once loudly, feeling an unusual out-of-body sensation slowly lifting while he comes back to himself. When the eyelids finally open sluggishly, his eyes instantly burn and sting from the powerful light, and he reflexively seals them shut once again to protect his sensitive vision.
“Take it easy now…"
He attempts to lift his arms but it’s to no avail. His limbs, though attached to his body, feel as though they weigh a thousand pounds each and won’t budge an inch.
The eyelids flutter fitfully, and finally he cracks them again to face the nigh-unbearable brightness of the surrounding room. When he finally manages to open his eyelids, the appearance of the room around him is blasted into his retinas, sending pain shooting into his skull and blurring his vision.
Finally, he blinks once. Twice. The room is being brought into clarity, though even the small and supposedly natural act of blinking feels like it’s too much for him to manage right now. Everything just feels like way too much. He's barely capable of moving his body and his muscles feel inept, every pound of his weight feeling like it’s actually a hundredfold.
“Try making fists if you’re up to it.”
Though the suggestion is simple, when he tries to do so, there are many strange twitches that convulse on his upper body and down his arms and hands that don't quite result in a fist.
“Okay, okay, sorry. That might be too much to ask for right now. Just relax and try to remain calm.”
As if he even knows how to do that right now. Ridiculous.
Whoever this person is, their feeble attempts at guiding his actions are making him feel rather annoyed right now despite the disorientation, not calm.
The overwhelming brightness in the room is, however, finally beginning to give way, widening his range of vision. To his left, he sees two men standing who are dressed in long white coats, one holding a clipboard and writing, the other speaking to him, though their words are incomprehensibly quiet. To his right and further away from where he’s laying, another two men are standing and looking across the room at him with concern. He knows the man with the dusty coral-hued hair and bright yet bored looking teal eyes is his brother, though the brother’s name does not immediately jump into his mind. Standing beside his brother is a shorter guy with deep, midnight blue hair and round oceanic blue eyes with a camera hanging from a strap around his neck. This person’s name and identity are entirely lost on him, though. A friend, perhaps?
“Mhhnnnhgg…"
“He’s trying to talk,” one of the white-coats says matter-of-factly.
“Hey now, don’t overexert yourself…” says one of the non-white-coats. He turns his groggy gaze back over and sees the camera guy with the blue eyes stepping toward him with his arms reaching out, motioning for him to take it easy. In response, he grunts derisively.
Memories feel scattered and confusing. He doesn’t even recall his own name, though for some reason, seeing that concerned look on camera guy’s face brings him the first rush of a renewed memory fresh into his mind.
☾
Rin glances at the weird guy with the camera who's shown up a second day in a row, and in the exact same place, too.
He puts one hand on his hip, listening in silence as the man’s camera shutter clicks. Shortly afterward, a polaroid photo dispenses from the side of the device. With bright blue eyes that shine eagerly, camera guy takes the polaroid and glances at it once before he begins to fan it. He seems to be ignoring, or at least not entirely paying much attention, to Rin.
“What’re you doing out here?” Rin blurts out, accosting the stranger.
“Hm? Oh, hello…” the man mumbles, casting a distant yet kind smile his way, “I’m watching for birds.”
Rin gazes out across the field of verdant grass, above the many shapes and sizes of ash-hued headstones, into the nearby treeline that the man had just taken a photograph of.
“Birds?” Rin repeats, scowling out at the gloomy silhouettes of empty trees and their many twining branches.
“Well there aren’t any birds out there right now, obviously,” the intrepid stranger replies lightheartedly, flashing Rin an excited smile with his camera lowered, “I’m looking for owls specifically. I hear they like to come out to this cemetery often.”
Rin’s eyes widen in surprise; he’s more than aware of the owls that like to frequent the graveyard, given that they also happen to be his favorite animal. He’s spent more than one evening and late night listening to their distant hooting and admiring the illusive birds of prey from afar. They're his favorite animal because of their—
Click.
The flash from the stranger’s camera suddenly flares, and Rin immediately covers his eyes, blinking orbs of the bright light from his vision. “What the hell?!” Rin remarks, scowling deeply and squeezing his eyelids tightly shut.
“Sorry about that! It’s just that I really wanted to get a photo of that expression on your face.”
“Expression…?” Rin growls, cracking his eyelids to see the lingering ghostly presence of the camera flash dancing in his vision. After a brief pause, the man hands Rin the photo he'd just taken.
“Keep fanning that for another minute,” the man instructs him, “Then take a look at it. You’ll see what I mean.”
Rin does so, though he continues to glare at the mysterious photographer while he fans. After a couple of minutes more of quiet and the camera-wielding weirdo gazing through the camera’s eyepiece into the forest, Rin lifts the polaroid up to his face to investigate.
He sees the photograph of himself, clearly beginning to develop. The outline of his hair, shoulders, and face are all clearly visible… And his face… His expression…
He cocks his head, studying the round and bizarre shape of his own eyes that’s developing on the polaroid. From beside him, he hears the sound of the stranger chuckling softly.
“See what I mean? Well I came here looking for owls, and I thought when your eyes got wide like that, you sort of look like one yourself.”
Rin scoffs while he stares down at the partially developed photograph.
He hates to admit it, but he definitely sees what the guy means.
⸻
Rin.
So that’s his name.
And this must’ve been how he first met camera guy. So they’re friends, then. Or perhaps only acquaintances? But then why is camera guy visiting him in the hospital now if they’re only acquaintances and not closer than that? Friends, then.
Well, he’s also only assuming this is a hospital, too. But what else can it possibly be? The faded color worn on the walls, the stiff and starchy feel of the sheets on the bed he’s laying in, and the tubes he can see and feel in his body. All very hospital-esque things he can observe.
Unfortunately, Rin’s still unable to even recall his own surname yet, but even so, there’s a feeling in his heart that’s telling him he really isn’t the type to keep many friends around, if he even has any at all. So then… Who is this camera guy, exactly?
“You’ve been awake for a few minutes now, so let me explain what’s going on.”
Rin turns to look at the person speaking to him, a white coat. A doctor or nurse, perhaps? Likely a doctor.
“You’ve been in a coma for just over a year now. I don’t want to overwhelm you right now, so let me just say that it’s going to be a long road of recovery for you. We're very glad to see you finally awake. Please start things off slowly. Flex your hands and feet, take deep and controlled breaths, and try your best not to overwhelm yourself with too much information. It’ll probably take quite some time before you remember everything, too. Medical amnesia is very common following a long-term period of unconsciousness like yours.”
Rin’s brother and the camera guy watch him closely from the corner and he steadily returns their stares. He has so many questions he wants to ask, but right now the idea of forming any coherent words with his mouth is a very daunting one. So for now, he opts to remain silent, flexing his feet and hands as the doctor has instructed him to do.
☾
Click.
The camera’s shutter captures yet another image of the apple of the man’s eye.
Rin, in the process of raking leaves, watches the stranger with the camera taking photos of some birds in a nearby tree. This is the sixth day in a row he’s shown up at the cemetery Rin works at, supposedly still on the lookout for owls.
“I’m supposed to kick you out for loitering,” Rin mumbles irritably, passing behind the photographer with his rake, “You know owls aren’t active this time of day, right?”
“Oh. So you’re the groundskeeper for this place, right?” camera guy asks breezily, lowering his camera and dropping it to hang, “Well I can’t get in here when they’re active, it’s closed.”
“Not that it’s any of your business,” Rin snarks, “Go find someone else to bother. This isn’t the only place you can find them.”
“Well it sort of is some of my business if you’re gonna try and kick me out,” camera guy retorts, fiddling with the camera’s manual zoom, “I don’t wanna be intrusive or anything, but the scenery and sheer amount of birds that come here is just wonderful. So many photo opportunities, you see. I haven’t found another place like it.”
“Graveyards are a place for the dead to rest. No one is resting while you click around here with that thing,” Rin puts the rake over to one hand and points at the guy’s camera with his other hand. To his surprise, the camera guy just giggles at him as if he’s told a joke.
“I guess you’re right about that. Hey, by the way, have you seen any ghosts here? I’d like to get a photo of one at some point.”
“... Hah?”
“Ghosts. Are there any here that you’ve seen?” he repeats.
“You’ve seriously got a screw loose or something. Creep. This place is filled with dead people and you’re asking me about ghosts?”
“Are you afraid of ghosts?”
“What? No…” Rin’s hands squeeze tighter around the rake’s handle, “A coward who’s afraid of ghosts couldn’t do this job.”
“Okay, fair enough. You aren't afraid of them. So that means you’ve seen them, then?”
“I haven’t seen any. Just heard the lighthouse is haunted…” Rin mutters petulantly. His bangs fall limply across his line of sight, obscuring his eyes. With his free hand, he sweeps the dark fringe of his hair back and out of his range of vision.
“The lighthouse? What lighthouse?”
Rin scoffs down at the leaves. “If you’re really such an avid ghost hunter, why don’t you hunt them down yourself instead of pestering other people to find them for you?”
The camera guy blinks once at him in apprehensive silence.
“Well what about you? Do you think it’s haunted?” camera guy asks curiously, entirely ignoring Rin’s last passive-aggressive question.
Rin gazes up, eyes traveling out between the wrought-iron bars fencing the cemetery, at the walkway that leads down to the lighthouse stationed beside the sea.
“How the hell should I know? Idiot.”
“Hey! My name’s not ‘idiot’!"
⸻
Sleep gives way naturally, and Rin opens his eyes to wakefulness. Morning sunlight is peeking between the curtains pulled over his room’s only window, spilling golden serenity atop the drab hospital flooring. In the corner, camera guy seems to have removed his camera from his neck and has it placed on the far shelf beside a vase. He appears to be busying himself by arranging some flowers in the vase Rin had noticed in his room earlier.
“Mhhh…” Rin groans, and camera guy turns around to beam him a small smile.
“G’morning, sleepy-head,” the guy says to him softly, sitting down in one of the chairs positioned at his bedside, “Think you can manage to say anything other than incoherent grunting today?”
Rin instinctually knows he isn’t a man of many words by nature, but something about this person’s firmly gentle and expectant tone makes him feel like he can’t let himself slack off in the guy’s presence.
“N-No…” he says, voice raspy and weak.
Camera guy’s deep blue eyes brighten with vivid hope at hearing Rin’s lame attempt at speech.
“That was great! Think you’ve got it in you to say even more?”
The supportive and persistent man makes Rin scowl, an expression he realizes in the moment is one he finds himself wearing frequently in camera guy’s presence.
“Camera?” Rin asks hoarsely, glancing at the camera sitting on the corner shelf beside the flowers. Camera guy nods once and mirrors Rin, gazing into the corner where his camera is sitting.
“Yeah, that’s my trusty camera. I bring it with me everywhere. I don't suppose you remember it much.”
Rin shakes his head side-to-side weakly.
“Ah… Well I could tell you about it later if you don’t remember. I think for now, it’s best I don’t overwhelm you with too much information, like the doctor says.”
A couple of silent moments pass fleetingly before camera guy returns the vibrance of his twin azure irises back to Rin. He leans forward and laces his fingers atop his lap, intently focusing on the bedridden man.
“You don’t remember me at all, do you?”
Rin shakes his head minutely.
“A… Little bit,” Rin replies weakly.
“Oh, well that’s something I guess. Do you at least remember my name?”
A pause, wherein Rin searches what little memories have returned to him for what may be this guy’s name. Then, he shakes his head again. “No,” he replies plainly.
“Well that sucks,” camera guy says with a small sigh, “But it’s not your fault or anything. I’m sure it'll eventually come back to you.”
☾
“Isagi.”
Click.
Another snapshot, another moment in time immortalized by a single polaroid. Camera guy begins fanning his latest polaroid, flicking the cemetery groundskeeper an even look.
“You haven’t asked for my name yet. Well, there you have it.”
“I don’t recall ever saying that I cared,” Rin quips.
“And do you have a name, or should I just make one up for you?” Isagi asks, checking his developing photograph at the same time.
“Your worst nightmare,” Rin grumbles, prompting an unusually friendly little chuckle from Isagi.
“So I’ll call you a centipede crawling in my ear and slowly eating my brains?” Isagi remarks with a stupidly arrogant smile, “C’mon.”
Rin rolls his eyes as dramatically as he can manage and looks across the cemetery, watching a car pulling into the parking lot.
“It’s Rin,” he mutters, disinterested.
“Great! So you mentioned a haunted lighthouse last time I was here. Is it nearby?”
“Yeah, it is. Not that I’m gonna waste my time on bringing the likes of you there.”
“Oh, really?! Hey, wait! Don't just leave after dropping that bomb on me!”
Rin is already walking away, finishing the conversation with Isagi as quickly as it had started.
⸻
A few days after Rin woke from his coma, the nurses have all the tubes in his body removed so he can try and walk about freely.
He’s still on a strictly liquid diet, they’ve let him know he’ll have to be eased back into solid foods very gradually. The liquids-only diet is frankly disgusting, and he isn’t sure how much longer he’ll be able to tolerate it before he goes completely out of his mind. Being on such a severe calorie deficit makes standing, walking, talking, even thinking, all feel like very labor-intensive activities.
But still, even though just getting out of bed is an exhausting endeavor, he’s trying his absolute best to get his life back on track.
… Whatever that even means.
The scattered memories of his life are possibly the most disorienting thing about this entire ordeal. He still cannot recall a single detail about his own past or family, including his brother. There’re now a few memories that are beginning to take shape, perhaps because they are mostly recent, and oddly enough they all seem to involve this Isagi guy who takes polaroid photographs of everything.
Aside from the day he'd woken up, Rin's brother hasn't been back to the hospital to see him. Isagi, on the other hand, seems to show up every morning and spends the better part of each day visiting with him.
About a week or so after Rin's awakening, he's attempting to stand up by himself. Every other time he's stood since waking up he's had someone help him.
The hospital staff also had a walker brought into his room, and even though it’d probably make things easier for him, he stands with his hand gripping the walker and decides he's going to try and walk without it today. His steps are laborious, more like shuffling rather than actual stepping, but he still makes progress toward where the washroom is nonetheless.
From the corner, he feels Isagi's eyes on him watching him calmly. He’d honestly rather fall flat on his face and eat dirt than ask for someone else’s help, so he ignores the guy’s watchfulness and focuses on his own movements.
Besides, if he can’t relearn how to walk properly on his own, he’s never going to get back up to speed.
After shuffling across the room, he slouches against the far wall beside the bathroom door, utterly exhausted by the effort. Isagi suddenly appears beside him, gazing down at his slumped face with calm amusement.
“Mind if I grab a photo?” he asks, and Rin shoots him a bewildered glare.
“What?” Rin grumbles.
“A photo. I’d like to take one of you right now. Or maybe even of us together, if you’re okay with that?”
“Uh? Whatever…”
Rin is caught off guard by Isagi's insistent interest in photographing basically the entirety of everything around him, but he doesn't have the energy to really argue against it.
Isagi giddily fetches his camera. He then stoops beside Rin and gives him a little nudge, saying “Smile!” before he snaps a quick polaroid of the two of them. Rin in the hospital gown, leaning into the wall for support, looking gaunt and tired like the walking dead, and Isagi wearing a marvelous grin.
☾
A lot of Rin’s memories are muddled or incomplete, but the next thing he’s able to recall with clarity is the first time he and Isagi had visited the haunted lighthouse by the sea together at night. He surmises that at that point in time, he must’ve known Isagi for a bit longer than only a few days since their conversations seemingly lacked smalltalk and that initial awkwardness, and silence had felt a bit more comfortable and familiar to carry between them.
The most prominent memory he has of that night is of when he and Isagi are on top of the lighthouse beside the lamp housing. It’s off, as it normally is due to the place being in a state of disuse. The nearby harbor the lighthouse had been constructed to guide ships toward had been shut down for a number of years. The haunted aspect to the lighthouse: Rin hears that sometimes the lighthouse shines late at night despite there being no keeper present to illuminate or tend to its beacon.
He recalls that night being emphatically stormy. The sea’s rage in this memory was fuelled by the wind, transforming it into frothing mouths of whitecaps that lead tumultuous spreads of dark navy to seethe and crash against the rocky shore below them. Rin had been leaning back against the lantern housing watching Isagi trying different photo angles to photograph the haunting expanse of the stormy sky.
Isagi turns around and hands Rin another polaroid to hold onto and shield from the rain. Now he has three in his hand, he doesn’t recall when the other two had been taken. The last one isn’t quite developed yet, but when he peers at the faded negative he’s still clearly able to see a strike of lightning being cast straight through the centre of the photograph.
When Isagi turns back out to the storm and continues to wield his camera to capture the night’s calamity for himself, Rin watches the back of his head bob side-to-side checking different angles, studying the way the dark tendrils of the other man’s hair are swept up in gusts of wind while he moves.
There’s something about that night that stands out to Rin, and the more he thinks about how he’d felt at the time, the more he believes he understands why.
There had been… Emotions. He had felt. Unprecedented and unusual ones.
And in examining those emotions more closely from this fresh new perspective, Rin begins to recall the deeper complexities to them. Isagi’s presence had, in some way that he doesn’t know how to make sense of yet, changed his heart. For some reason, he knows he doesn't feel particularly happy or joyful about this. While he’d watched Isagi working at catching the perfect angle of the storm with his camera, he’d felt his heart aching. His feelings are difficult to sort through in the present without the full picture, and at the time they seemed to have been causing him immense anguish, but the exact origin or reason for these confusing and painful mix of emotions remains unknown to him.
Likely another unfortunate obscurity that will be illuminated once more of his memories come to light.
Now that he thinks about it a little harder, there are a lot of questions he has about himself. Why is he, a seemingly young and healthy man, working as a caretaker for a graveyard? That’s the sort of work an old person might choose to do, not someone young. And what’s the deal with his brother, who seems to be more absent from his life than Isagi? What’s the deal with Isagi, actually? What is Isagi to him that he’s been hanging around so consistently the way he does? And why had watching Isagi taking photographs at the lighthouse hurt his heart the way it had back then?
At the center of it all, what he wants to know most of all is how he’d ended up in a coma.
⸻
Ten days after waking up from the coma and Rin is able to walk about freely on his own, though very slowly. It’s been an agonizingly gradual process for him to work on retraining his muscles’ strength and balance.
Isagi strolls with him outside the hospital. They slowly meander along the walking trail, Rin's steps looking more poised and steady with every passing day.
“Lemme snap a photo,” Isagi says, lifting his camera.
“What's with all the damned photos?” Rin mutters, annoyed.
“You'll remember eventually.”
Rin shakes his head languidly. Isagi gestures past him at the hospital building. The window beside him is long and reflective like a mirror, showing Rin the pitiful sight of his state of being on full display. While he scowls at his reflection, Isagi snaps a photograph of them standing together.
“It's just for me, that's all. And still no memories of Sae at all?”
“No,” Rin replies, scratching the back of his head, “Not many memories of anything at all really. The lighthouse night is still incomplete.”
“I see… Well I hope you're able to recall it soon. That's one of my favorites.”
“Huh? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what I said.”
Rin bites his lip while he continues shuffling forward, surprisingly enjoying the feel of the overhanging sunshine on his face.
“You're a creep. When I remember everything, I'm sure I’ll fully remember how creepy you are.”
“Oh yeah, I'm so sure you will.”
Isagi steps off the walking trail and kneels, aiming his camera at a butterfly that's sitting on a huge flower near the path, wings of blue fluttering delicately, thin as paper.
Click.
He takes another photograph.
☾
The rest of the haunted lighthouse night finally comes to Rin a couple of days later.
He’s following Isagi down the staircase slowly while they descend, only the weak amber glow of an oil lamp illuminating their path that's dangling from Isagi's right hand. Each step they take creaks, and he can hear the wind’s turbulence screaming just outside the lighthouse’s sturdy walls.
“Why not just use your phone light?” Rin mumbles, eyeing the oil lamp they'd found left in the abandoned keeper's room earler.
“Well this is just more fun, don't you think?”
“Don't know about fun. It's definitely more dangerous, though. We can hardly see where we're walking.”
Isagi chuckles, flashing a daring grin back Rin's way through the darkness.
“Since when do you care so much about safety? Quit nagging me already.”
Rin glowers silently and seals his lips. He honestly doesn't really care about safety all that much, but this spiral lighthouse staircase is shoddy enough that it even sketches him out. If anything, he's surprised Isagi doesn't seem bothered by it at all.
Suddenly, Isagi stops without giving any warning and Rin runs into his backside with an annoyed grunt.
“Eh…?!” He remarks, outwardly annoyed, “What the fuck are you doing?!”
“I-I’m pretty sure just I saw something move down there!” Isagi stammers nervously, pointing down into the night's gloom ahead of them.
“It was probably just the wind blowing some cobwebs. Quit being a wimp.”
“No, I swear! I really think I saw something!”
Rin scoffs and shoves Isagi over. At the same time, he snatches the oil lamp from Isagi's hand and takes the lead. Still, he can feel Isagi walking very close behind him, one hand clutching at the back of his sleeve like a frightened child.
“You're an idiot,” Rin says back to him without looking.
“How are you not scared right now? Didn't you say this place is haunted? What if the spirit is like… A demon?!”
“A lighthouse demon? Sounds lukewarm.”
“A demon is a demon, though! I mean, what if it wants us dead?!”
“Demons can't kill us.”
“Okay, but—”
Rin snaps a severe look back at Isagi, noting the guy’s comically worried expression. When their eyes meet in the dim night air, Isagi noticeably relaxes.
“Kay… I'm being stupid. Sorry. Not all of us are robots like you.”
“I'm not a robot,” Rin says obstinately, “Whatever that's even supposed to mean.”
“I just meant that it seems like nothing phases you at all, really. But I guess that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case just because you don’t show it… Right?”
“Right,” Rin mumbles, “Don't make stupid assumptions about me.”
Thankfully they've now arrived at the base of the stairs, and he looks side-to-side, casting the lantern around to show Isagi there isn't anyone or anything around.
“See? No lighthouse demons.”
“Ah, I'm a bit relieved… But I really did wanna get a photo of one…”
“Eh? Make up your damn mind already.”
“I can be both scared and intrigued!” Isagi retorts.
The lighthouse isn't very big and there aren't any more areas to investigate, so they make their way back into the abandoned keeper’s room. Once they’re inside, they close the door behind them. Isagi begins to search the room’s only supply closet while Rin sets the oil lamp onto the bedside table, its light left to flicker weakly at its post.
“Hey, I think I found a couple of towels in here…”
Isagi pulls a couple of old looking towels out of the closet, unfolds them, and shakes the dust out of them with a few brisk movements. They are quite dusty, and the two of them end up sneezing a couple of times before the dirty air in the room finally settles.
“Here,” Isagi tosses a towel over Rin's head, “To dry your hair with.”
The wind outside is still howling like a banshee and the lighthouse around them is shuddering in protest against the storm’s relentless pressure.
Rin faintly recalls focusing on the sounds of the storm for a few minutes while touseling his own hair, finally coming back to his senses when he feels Isagi starting to rub his hair dry for him. The sensation of Isagi's hands rubbing the towel on his head is strangely calming, and though he recalls feeling a bit startled by the gesture at first, he'd ultimately decided to keep his lips free of any snarky commentary because he actually hadn't minded it at all.
“So Rin, I’ve been curious about this for a while now… Why’s a young guy like you working as a caretaker for a graveyard?”
“Huh? What kind of question is that?”
Isagi laughs at this, deepening Rin’s already prominent frown.
“And for that matter, why do you always react like that when I ask you questions about yourself? I feel like I haven't done anything to you that's worth you disliking me, but for whatever reason I still feel like you don't like me that much anyway.”
Just like that, a shadow begins to cast over Rin's heart as it had earlier when they were standing on top of the lighthouse and Rin was watching Isagi taking pictures of the storm.
Moments like these in his memories still confuse him greatly without any context as to why he was feeling the way he had, but he remembers quite clearly that Isagi's words had somehow hurt. Not as though they were directly hurtful—because they weren't—but they affected him in a way that brought a hidden pain out from somewhere inside of his soul. It was the same sort of pain he'd felt earlier in the evening atop the lighthouse, like a bundle of cold needles being stabbed into his heart, freezing him to his core and releasing unpleasant emotions from deeper inside of him.
In recalling how intense that pain had been, the very same icy sensation begins to creep into Rin's heart while he lays in isolation in the hospital bed.
Rin's emotional revelation originating from the night in the haunted lighthouse is thrown mercilessly into his present self. Even with no real context to what he'd been feeling at the time, Rin knows without a doubt that he'd felt extraordinarily and very intensely afraid.
But… Why?
From what he can tell, Isagi back then—Isagi even now—always was and still is good to him. A positive presence in his life, even. So then why does he behave the way he does toward Isagi?
Rin's genuine and profound fear that night had, without a doubt, shaped his reaction to Isagi's apparent interest in him, or what one can perceive as interest.
“Why should it even matter? I don't care, Isagi. Nothing you or anyone else can do will ever be enough to move my heart. I act the way I do because you're nothing to me, plain and simple.”
He feels Isagi's fingers on his head, digging deeper into the towel, passing through his hair and pressing into his scalp. A darkness passes over Isagi's face, a penumbra sweeping into his dusky eyes.
“I don't believe you at all,” Isagi whispers with an inexplicably immense conviction.
A gloom lurks over Rin from beneath the edge of the towel, shadowing his features as he stares at Isagi intently.
The tension between them is now vehemently unbearable.
Rin reaches up, pulls Isagi's hands off his head, and shoves them away angrily, that same look of fear beheld in his heart giving way to an even deeper and more visceral sensation. He knows he hates how it feels when someone tries to get closer to him like this, because…
Because—
“I'd like to take a picture of you right now,” Isagi says to him softly, not even bothering with any further commentary about Rin's clear aggravation.
Rin does not say anything. He doesn't move, doesn't lash out or get angry, nor does he even agree to Isagi taking the photo. He simply stands there and hears the camera’s shutter click, the flash snapping aggressively in his face. In vexation, he squeezes his eyelids shut in an attempt to drown out the wailing of his own unbearable emotions.
Somehow, Rin knows the photograph is an inevitability with Isagi. Something he will always push for no matter what the circumstance. Present day Rin has no context to this understanding, but it exists there in his memories nonetheless.
When Isagi begins to lower his camera, Rin can see the intensity of his bright eyes revealed. Perhaps Isagi had hoped to hide his enthusiasm behind the camera, he thinks.
The next thing that happens is perplexing, but does place more context onto Isagi’s unwavering presence in the hospital.
He recalls Isagi kissing him.
Ah.
So it’s like that, is it?
So is Isagi… His lover? Is he bizarrely attracted to whatever darkness exists in Rin’s heart? And Rin definitely recalls not rejecting him or pushing him away despite how his own heart had throbbed intensely with fear.
An emphatically contradictory interaction.
This entire situation is, to put it lightly, baffling.
⸻
The next morning following Rin’s full recollection of the lighthouse night, he yawns to wakefulness and sits up in bed before glowering pensively across the room at Isagi, who’s apparently busying himself by scrolling on his phone. When he notices Rin’s awake, he puts his phone away and smiles.
“So are you, like… My boyfriend or something?” Rin mumbles, gazing out the window at the morning sunlight to avoid the inevitable awkward eye contact.
“You’ve remembered more stuff now?” Isagi asks, and Rin sees him in his peripherals cocking his head like a curious puppy.
“I remember you kissed me the night we were in the lighthouse looking for ghosts.”
“Ah… Okay. Yeah. I guess the order with which you’re remembering things is a bit odd for me to try and explain things to you…”
“... Huh?”
“Well, no. To answer your question, I’m not your boyfriend. Things really aren’t like that between us.”
“... Huh?”
“It’s just a bit complicated. I hope you’re able to recall more things soon so it all makes more sense.”
He wants to ask about his own pain and fear that he recalls feeling quite clearly that night, but something tells him Isagi won’t be able to give him any clarity on all that. It seems that even though he has a habit of lashing out at Isagi, even saying things that are hurtful and purely reactive, things he doesn’t even really mean—because he knows for a fact Isagi definitely isn’t nothing to him—Isagi still seems to hang around him anyways. Is even being supportive and kind with him to the current day.
What an odd relationship. Or maybe Rin is just an odd and possibly even toxic person, and Isagi just goes along with him being this way. Because…?
Well, he doesn’t know the reason why.
But Isagi says they aren’t even in a relationship. So what the hell is going on here, really? A situationship from hell?
Rin is somehow even more confused, but regardless of that, his body’s natural urges are returning to him and he no longer has the tubes and nurses to deal with all that, so he slowly swings his legs over the edge of the bed with the intent of doing his morning business. He can walk now and doesn’t require any assistance, though the process is still egregiously slow and rather taxing on his body. Isagi, fully knowing of Rin’s hyperindependence, quietly watches him struggle from the corner of the room.
No more memories come to Rin for another few days, even when he’s discharged from the hospital. How the hell is he supposed to go home when he doesn’t even remember where he lives yet?
Well, as usual, the ever-reliable Isagi is there to help him out with that. He has a car and offers to drive Rin to his home, even going a step further and offering to help Rin out around the house in his daily life until he’s back on his feet. Rin accepts Isagi’s offer; he really has no other choice.
☾
The next thing Rin remembers is the first time he’d ever been to Isagi’s apartment.
Isagi had yapped on about himself that day. Apparently he's a journalism student nearing the end of his first year of studies, or rather he was at that point in time. Rin doesn't know if this is the first time he'd heard Isagi talk about school or not. Isagi also has a roommate named Bachira who hovers around while Isagi introduces Rin to him, then bounces off and away to go about his own business. An exceedingly irritating thing, that one.
This introduction seems to have happened between when he first met Isagi and when they went to the lighthouse together, so at the time he was still getting to know Isagi. He notes that his heart seems to feel much lighter that day, the pain and fear he had noted he'd felt on the lighthouse night is absent from its pulse.
Isagi makes them some tea and gives Rin a quick walkthrough of his small apartment. The living room appears simple enough, and is decorated by a bunch of plants that Isagi says his roommate had brought in. The kitchen is plain and simple. Posted on the refrigerator, Rin notices a bunch of Isagi's polaroids stuck to it with various sizes and shapes of magnets. Isagi's room is small but cozy, tidy, and minimalistic, though there is one thing about it that immediately stands out.
One wall is almost entirely covered by two large cork boards. Rin stands in front of the cork board wall and looks it over carefully.
The right side of the wall, a sticky note with a frowning face sits placed at the top. On the left side, a sticky note with a happy face is right across from the frowning face. Beneath the frowning and happy faces, a plethora of polaroids are placed in an array with thumb tacks. It seems that right now, the frowning face side holds more photos than the happy face side.
“This has been how I learn to make sense of my own emotions and document them,” Isagi says, standing beside Rin and sipping his tea, “Sometimes things are very confusing and unclear to me. I still have a hard time making sense of it all some days, but each one of these photographs represents a point in time where I felt either happy or sad and was able to identify those feelings correctly in my heart.”
Rin examines the collection of photos beneath the frowning face side first. Most of the photos there are taken of Isagi’s surroundings, like a cluster of trees, a park bench, or the way the clouds in the sky are arranged. There are a couple of photos of Isagi's face, too. In one of the polaroids it looks like he's crying.
On the happy face side, Rin sees some photos of birds, flowers, and even a few selfies of Isagi and Bachira together. And there's… Something else.
Rin is there, beneath the happy face sticky note. The photo Isagi had taken of him when he said he looked like an owl. And others, too—all photos Rin remembers Isagi taking of him. All of them sitting beneath the happy face sticky note.
For some reason, Rin remembers this making him feel uneasy.
Because there really can't be any reason for why Isagi would think he's happy when he's with Rin. That's not the type of person he is and he knows it. He's gloomy, antisocial, arrogant, and largely self-absorbed; not at all the type of person who can make someone else happy, and surely not the type of person who can take any sort of responsibility for someone else's happiness. That's not at all what he wants or needs in his life.
And yet… Here Isagi is, with his wall of polaroid photographs, silently and shamelessly telling Rin indirectly you make me happy.
He recalls that this hadn't been something that had made him particularly happy, though. It had seemed to be quite the opposite, actually. The idea of someone else coming into his life and putting any sort of expectations on him makes him feel all sorts of overwhelmed and confused.
This memory is what makes Rin realize something about himself, and it adds some context onto how he'd later felt at the lighthouse.
Rin is an extremely solitary person, and Isagi seems to have encroached on his solitude.
⸻
This memory comes to him while Isagi drives them from the hospital out to where he supposedly lives.
Having recalled the lighthouse night first, it makes sense that he'd initially assumed Isagi is his boyfriend or something along those lines. Now that he recalls the photograph corkboard wall with the sticky notes, though, he realizes Isagi may have been someone who's taken an interest in him first, and that Isagi's feelings for him may have overwhelmed him or made him uncomfortable in some way.
He gazes out the passenger side window while Isagi drives. It's a particularly dreary and rainy day.
“What am I to you?” Rin asks, breaking the silence of the drive.
Isagi flips the turn signal on and checks over his shoulder before turning the steering wheel. Click. Click. Click.
“You're someone special to me,” Isagi responds simply.
“But I'm not your boyfriend.”
“No, you're not.”
“Yeah, I'm gonna need you to explain, Isagi. This shit is confusing me.”
The windshield wipers pulse fervently. Isagi flicks a quick glance aside at Rin, then sighs.
“Remember what the doctor said? I'm not supposed to overwhelm you with new information.”
“I can handle it,” Rin snaps.
Isagi nibbles his lower lip. He's seemingly on edge. The fringe of his bangs fall ominously over his eyes, casting a shadow over his face.
“I fell in love with you, Rin, but you never loved me back. It's as simple as that.”
Upon hearing this, Rin's heart begins to race anxiously.
“You just assumed this or what? Explain.”
Isagi shakes his head. “The night I confessed to you, we were visiting the lighthouse. I told you I loved you, but you never said it back."
“Then why are you, right now, being this way with me? If I don't love you then you don't have any reason to be this helpful with me.”
“Because everyone needs someone, Rin. Even you.”
Rin scoffs and shakes his head angrily.
“So you're helping me because you pity me? Because you think I'm some poor, sad, lonely person who… What? Can't even help himself? Whatever, Isagi. I don't fucking need your help.”
Isagi glares at him sharply, placing his car into park.
“It's just like you to think that way. For what it's worth, no, I don't pity you and that's not why I'm helping you. I want to help you because I care about you, even if you have a nasty habit of being an insufferable prick when someone tries to show they care. Also, we're here.”
He returns Isagi's glare for a moment before he glances out the windshield. Between pulses of the car’s wipers, he can make out the shape of a small house.
“Say whatever you want to say to me, I don't really care. Just know that I'm done putting up with your shit once you're back on your feet.”
Before Rin can reply, Isagi throws his jacket’s hood over his head and gets out into the rain. Rin sees him running up to the house's front entrance through the downpour to unlock the door. He then sprints back to the passenger side of the vehicle, opens Rin's door for him, and holds out his hand to Rin calmly. Despite feeling frustrated by their conversation, Rin takes Isagi's hand anyway and allows him to help him stand up.
⸻
Isagi helps him into his home and says he will leave for the rest of the day to give Rin some alone time. They don't say another word to eachother about their previous conversation before Isagi leaves.
Rin now has a splitting headache so he takes one of the prescription painkillers the doctor had given him.
He thinks he's starting to understand how things are with Isagi. Even just the mere idea of Isagi loving him and caring about him feels strangely foreign and uncomfortable, yet he still doesn't really understand why. And Isagi's last words to him on the matter are really sticking with him.
Say whatever you want to say to me, I don't really care. Just know that I'm done putting up with your shit once you're back on your feet.
So Isagi cares about him, and also seems used to him being, as he'd put it, an insufferable prick.
Isagi shows up at his home the following morning with a couple of bags that seem to contain various grocery items. He still has the camera slung around his neck.
They don't really say much to eachother right away. Rin doesn't really know what he should say given how things had left off the day before. After putting the groceries into Rin's fridge for him, he snaps a photo of Rin sitting on the couch.
“So is this a happy-face or sad-face photo?” Rin mutters, watching Isagi fan the photograph while it develops.
“Neither,” Isagi responds plainly, “Sometimes a photo is just a snapshot of a moment in time. Someone once told me, we should always keep those memories close to our heart, because you never know when those memories will mean the most to you.”
“Sounds like pretty sagely advice.”
“It was.” Isagi looks across the room distantly. “It really helped me at the point in my life when I needed the most.”
“Where's my family? And my brother? I still don't remember anything about them at all.”
Isagi glances at the developing polaroid. “I don't really know that much about your personal life,” he admits, “It just seems like you live a very isolated life. I never even met Sae until after you were in the coma and he came to see you in the hospital. He says he lives in Europe and you and him have been rather estranged for a while. I suppose he must've went back home for now when he saw you were okay.”
“Estranged…?” Rin mumbles to himself.
“There is a lot I'd like to tell you, but it's just… A lot. I suspect something happened between you and Sae but I never asked him about it.”
“Hm…” Rin hums, toying with his bangs, which Isagi had trimmed for him apparently while he was unconscious.
“Anyway, I'll prep you some food for now, do a bit of tidying, and then I'll be out of your hair.”
Rin sits very still while Isagi gets to work cooking, stewing with his own internal conflict. On one hand, he knows he definitely needs the help. On the other hand, things between him and Isagi seem strained, and he wonders if it's an overstep to have someone do this for him when things between them aren't necessarily even on good terms.
Later in the day after Isagi leaves, Rin goes into his phone for the first time since he's woken up and searches his own call and text history. And, well... There really isn't much there to search through. It's mostly just... Isagi.
But when he finally does find Sae's name in his contacts, there are no calls or texts in recent history.
So they really are estranged brothers, as Isagi had said.
He sighs dejectedly, puts his phone aside, and sits back into the sofa, thinking maybe he'll try calling Sae later.