- DISTRACTION ;; r.itoshi

14

-- 10 things i hate about you

rin was a lot of things but a messy person? he wasn't that at all. calling him meticulous was an understatement.

before her arrival, he cleaned and cleaned his room to make sure everything was in the right order. he even cleaned himself up and made himself dress up in his finest clothes. it was just his habit to appear his best even in the comfort of his own house. he wanted to look good in order to feel good.

there was no second reason to his cleaning behavior today, not at all.

or that's what he wanted to believe.

the thought crossed his mind multiple times that why was he cleaning his house so much? he didn't even do this when his friends came over so did he really care about what she thought? no, of course not. she was far too mediocre for his liking but then why...?

his feelings didn't matter, all he was doing was cleaning his house so that a guest could feel welcomed. yes, that's precisely what he was doing besides, there was far too much work to be done for him to dwell on such mundane matters.

after combing his hair one last time, he exited the bathroom to be greeted by an unwelcomed sight-his dear brother.

'a date?' he asked stoically-no sort of intrigue or curiousity was in his tone, it was as if he was just looking for ways to rile his younger brother up and unfortunately, it was working.

rin didn't say anything but just pushed past his older brother, not even bothering to look at him in the eye.

'y'know, you won't be able to become the best in the world if you dwell on girls. you won't even make the national team,' he spoke non-chalantly.

'it's not a date,' rin spoke at last, annoyance laced in his tone. 'oh?' his brother raised a brow, 'then why're you dressed up as such?'

'class project...' rin trailed off but he managed to finally look at his brother and noticed that his brother, too, was dressed up for an occasion, sae being more dressed up than him.

sae's hair was cleaned up and combed; he wore a nicely dressed t-shirt and jeans along with a jacket (that didn't belong to him) all of which were ironed as well.

'why're you dressed up?' rin asked.

sae was amused-a small smile appeared on his lips but it vanished as quickly as it came, 'just meeting a friend.'

but before rin could pester his brother further, he already turned towards the door and left.

rin wondered who this mysterious friend could've been--the mysterious friend that made his brother a little bit more livelier, a little bit more happy, a little bit more like the boy he was before that day in the playground.

a small part of him wondered if someone could make him the person he used to be as well.

immediately after the departure of his brother, the door bell rung again. rin sighed, wondering why his brother didn't just use his own keys and had to trouble him but when he opened the door, he was greeted by yn ln--his brother far gone.

'evening rinny!' she exclaimed. rin cringed at the nickname but before replying to her, he noticed how she looked like: she was dressed in far more casual attire than the day at the bowling alley, she had her backpack and was holding her chemistry book in her hand. furthermore, her hair was let down loosely with no other accessories whatsoever.

she looks cute, rin thought.

'don't call me "rinny"' he said at last.

'rin-rin, then?' she hummed as she made her way into the itoshi household with rin shutting the door and guiding her to his room, 'we're here to work so let's not overstep our boundaries.'

rin allowed her to enter his room which he had extra-cleaned just for today. his bed was well-kept (as always) with the sheets changed; his desk and side-tables were all properly dusted with not a single speck of dust destroying them. moreover, all of his soccer trophies and posters were on display for her to marvel at.

only after her entrance did he realise that he had done too much.

he shut the door and turned towards the girl who was now admiring the trophies and the small photographs in between them--photographs of rin's youth.

'is this you?' she asked, pointing to the smallest one with rin and his mother, he was about 4 years old in it and had won his first soccer match.

rin nearly died of embarrassment upon hearing the inquiry.

at last, he mustered up the courage and walked behind her, putting his hand on her shoulder. 'yes, that's me but do you remember what i said about boundaries?' he spoke, his voice low and his face besides hers.

she turned to face him, 'yeah sorry.' yn walked past him and situated herself on his bed and opened her books, 'shall we start?' she asked and he hummed in approval.

an hour later, they had ended up making the first slide of the presentation. rin mainly focused on the content part, advising yn on what to write or not while she was tasked to writing and making their presentation look appealing to the eyes.

'-kay aand done!' she exclaimed, with a smile on her features as she straightened up her back from crouching on the bed, 'anything else or are we done for today?'

'let me check,' rin spoke as he glossed over the pages of his textbook. yn sighed and began to draw the diagram on the project as she waited for rin's response.

however, rin was doing anything but focusing. his eyes kept glancing between the textbook and to where yn sat: she looked so focused in her work, carefully working through the sketch she had made. a strand of hair loosely fell on her face she hurriedly hid it behind her ear.

a smile spread across rin's face but he bit the inside of ihs cheek to force himself to stop and ground himself back to earth, shouting at himself to focus.

but he couldn't.

he just couldn't.

now his gaze was fixated on her lips. her lips--they looked so pretty, so complementary to her features. he wanted to kiss them. wait, why did he want to kiss them? was it attraction? this was unusual. rin didn't like unusual.

yet rin didn't give himself to contemplate over such questions as before he even realised it, his hands were on her cheeks and he was merely inches apart from her face.

she looked up, her e/c eyes were staring at his teals ones. her eyes were challenging him, telling him to continue and go through with his action.

in an instant, he connected his lips with hers.

[ 1115 words ]

a/n: no, they're not going to date now. it's going to get really messy from here on out :)