#i think he'd be a harbor or ringed seal

[floweringpopcat]

i see your fish/cod/salmon grians and i present: selkie

[rinstars]

MELANCHOLY.

PAIRING : Suna Rintarō x Reader

GENRE : Angst. SFW.

TAGS/WARNINGS : Best friends. Mentions of one night stands but nothing detailed or explicit, just literal mentions. Hurt. No comfort. Or maybe a little.

WC : 3.6k+

NOTE : My entry for Violet's (@rintarhoes) "but my feelings" collab hehehe <3 This took a long time because I kept trying to make it as good as I can but in the end idk if I'm satisfied 😭 Anyways I hope you enjoy itttt

It was almost like a reflex—the way your hand reaches to peel your blanket off the moment your alarm rings, your body immediately positioning itself and bracing for the sudden surge of dizziness about to take over your head for a few seconds as a result of standing up so abruptly. The nagging feeling at the back of your head you're so used to ignoring and a voice telling you to just quit it is just as present today too—but you brush it all off.

After all, it's a weekly routine you've gotten used to. And despite the fact that you harbor great love for the way routines help you get your tasks systematically done, you don't suppose you can say the same for this one.

Not that you can do much about it.

Not when it involves Suna Rintarō and the stupid commitment you made. The foolish promise you sealed months ago.

Once you thought of just abandoning him. Maybe leaving him to deal with the troubles he's put himself in—after all, he's grown and it's the consequences of his own actions. But when he pulls you to his lap, hand on your waist as he nuzzles his nose into your neck, the tip grazing the skin of your jaw with a small thank you, all of your hesitations dissolve into nothing but a little thought you spared for the sake of your wellbeing.

Perhaps you really wouldn't be able to leave him alone, especially knowing how clumsy he can get and how he would probably start being unnecessarily mean had you left him to deal with it. You inwardly laugh at the list of possibilities of excuses he'd come up with and the annoying sting returns back in your chest at the realization of how much you really know about your best friend as a result of spending all these years with him.

You're lucky I love you, you jokingly mused to him one day as you help him change the sheets of his bed, tucking the white linen around the corners of his worn-down mattress.

He looked at you for a moment then, the silence drawing out and you thought—no, hoped, that he was about to say something that could possibly change everything about your relationship. But instead, he opted for a smile at you, breathy chuckle following after as he tells you, Yeah, yeah. Just what would I do without you?

That's probably how it began—his stupid five in five or whatever he calls it.

Five steps in five minutes to help him get rid of his one-night stands who according to him, always seem to have something in store every morning they'd wake up in the same bed. They're very demanding, they think it goes beyond a single night of pleasure—that's why you have to help him. You remember looking at him funny over your shoulder when he suddenly brought it up one night while you were cooking him pasta.

"Why do I have to be involved with those types of affairs?" You frowned at him, stirring the pot as you mix the sauce with the pasta, the sting of the metal on the back of your hand as you accidentally touched it nothing when compared to the sting you desperately avoid in your heart.

"Because you're my best friend," He shrugged at you, popping a cheese in his open mouth while bouncing a knee from his position at the table. "Can't trust anyone else about it, y'know?"

"You can't just tell them to leave?"

"No, princess. I need your help," He smirked at you, arms reaching out to call you on his lap. Turning off the stove, you slowly walk over to him, letting him talk you into something so ridiculous with his slender fingers tapping on your waist. He rests a chin on your shoulder, knee bouncing below your thighs. "Will you help me?"

You hesitated for a moment, sucking in a deep breath while the cogs turn in your head. A lot of things tell you it's a bad idea to see him wake up every morning undressed with another woman equally as bare on the bed he takes you to for movie night.

"Rin," you began slowly, as if testing the waters to see how far you can push him. And if he'll hear you out that way you do him. He hums on your shoulder, lips against the dip connecting your neck and shoulders. "Have you ever thought of just—I don't know, stopping these flings?"

His knee never stops bouncing below you, fingertips still drumming against the thin material of your shirt, and without hesitation, he told you that night, "Of course not," he pressed a kiss to your jaw "It's all good fun, takes my mind off a lot of things."

His keys missing from their usual spot at the front door making you snap back to reality, looking around a bit deeper in the kitchen until you found it on the corner of the table. Fishing it out of its position, you tuck it in your pockets.

Great. As for the third step, he'd have an excuse to not take her home, just like he's always asked you to do.

Maybe you should've given up that night. Even as his hold on you only gets tighter when you lay with him, and his kisses even softer every time he does it, you suppose you probably should've just brushed the thoughts that plague your mind. The what-ifs that keep you up at night might be nothing but false hope after all. It should've been clear to you by now that you wouldn't be more than his best friend—hard as you try to always make him happy.

His insistence to keep sleeping around should've hit the nail on the head, the lack of refusal even in your presence a red flag everyone would've started to avoid by now. Yet your stubbornness refuses to back down. You think maybe you'd rather hear it for yourself, the words that will crush you down to nothing but ashes.

Locking the last room in the house, you sigh on your way to the guest room you sleep in every Friday evening. Now, all that's left to do is wait and as you check the time on your phone. It should almost be time.

As if on cue, the door opens to reveal a disheveled Suna Rintarō, shoulders slacked and feet tripping over itself as he makes his way over to you. You hold him by the forearm as soon as he was within your reach, trying to steady him when he slams his body on top of yours.

"Morning," He mumbles in your neck, your fingers caressing the chocolate locks sprawled all over your chest. Then he sleeps in your neck for a few minutes, light breathing being the only sound in the room along with the occasional ruffle of the sheets when he moves to find a more comfortable position.

Around five minutes after Suna's arrival comes the woman of the night, slamming the door open with a sigh of relief at finally finding an unlocked room. The sight inside however makes her stop in her tracks at the sight of you and Suna on the bed.

You quietly bicker for a few minutes. Her insisting on you to wake him up and drive her home and you telling her to just give it up and go home. The same type of headache you receive every week—but the quiet rumble of Suna's chest against yours when the door closes, his laugh echoing in the room before kissing you on the lips as a sign of gratitude makes you think it's all worth it.

He makes you feel very appreciated, very loved.

Until he suddenly tells you one night that it's fine to not drop by on Friday evening. That he will take care of the morning after himself and for the first time in 6 months he wouldn't need your help. He wouldn't be barging in the guest room at 7 in the morning trying to find escape in your arms as he lets you deal with the aftermath.

He said it so casually too. While he was eating ramen on a convenience store table beside you as you both look over the glass walls to watch the people passing the glistening pavement wet from the rain.

It takes you a beat, or two, or three to respond. Only finding the voice you were starting to lose when he nudges an elbow at you—not to find an answer but to drink from the carton of milk you've long since abandoned. You guess he just assumed you'd immediately get it. After all, there's no reason for you to question it.

Aren't you supposed to be happy? The routine of weekly torture finally setting you free. You wouldn't have to see the face of the next woman he would send to the moon while you endure hearing the noises you didn't even want to imagine on the room just two doors away from his.

You wanted to ask why but you didn't. For now, it might be better to just let it be quietly. Suspicions are the last thing you'd want from him. You believed you'd find the answer sooner or later and he'll laugh to you about how his first experience in kicking a girl he slept with the night before went.

But when curiosity got the best of you and you drove to his house that morning he told you not to—the drop of your heart that seemingly echoed throughout the whole space of your car when the woman you were expecting to retreat from his house alone, comes out instead with a hand around her waist was way louder than any of the alarm that went off in your head every other morning you had been here.

A foolish part of you trusted Suna too much, thinking he probably decided to be a gentleman for once—taking the girls home for the good time they've spent together albeit short.

Yet how do you keep denying what's so painfully clear in front of you?

How do you keep averting your eyes at her face all over his Instagram stories, slowly taking over the ones he shared of you? What other position do you have in the life of someone whose time is now spent with someone other than you?

He tells you all about her like he doesn't hear your heart splitting into two with every word that falls from his lips—those you wish to hear for yourself but never do. He asks you out to join them on a picnic date, come over for a movie night, like he doesn't see the sting behind your eyes and the sudden glisten of your irises. Maybe he doesn't, maybe he does. And as long as you are concerned, you can't show more than you already did.

Suna had a way of looking at you and knowing exactly what lies beneath the surface you're trying so hard to maintain and you're afraid if you give him enough chance to dive deeper, he'd rip you open piece by piece until there's nothing left of you.

So you distance yourself from him.

Slowly but efficiently. The excuses you make all but reused and unbelievable but you figured he wouldn't care that much when he has another company to keep his bed warm. He wouldn't look for your kisses or the feel of your arms around his neck or his hands resting on the curve of your waist. Not when he gained more than he lost.

"Everyone hates me," you grumbled to him one day back in uni, one of his arms around your shoulders while he uses the other to suck on his blueberry flavored chuupet. "The girls in your class won't stop giving me the death glares."

"Who cares? Just don't pay attention to them," he shrugged at you, releasing the stick with a pop.

"They think I'm taking you from them."

"Too bad," he kept walking, fingers absentmindedly twirling the hairs falling on your shoulders before lightly tapping on your cheeks—offering the chuupet that was once resting on his tongue to you. "I'm all yours."

He shrugged at the questioning look you gave him, small smile playing on his lips as he waits for you to take it on your mouth. When you do, he laughs at you, arms around you tugging you closer to him. Only when you take your eyes off him did you notice the girls starting to take their eyes off you and Suna.

Looking back at it now, you think it was foolish you even thought that Rin was trying to make a statement, trying to prove a point among the many others who wanted to go after both you and him—hoping to seal a spot in your lives. But the ache in your chest now seems too true to be a mistake.

The first few weeks avoiding him were the hardest. Especially when you see the efforts he's taking in trying to spend more time with you. More than anything, it's probably the guilt eating him up seeing as he's suddenly a lot more preoccupied with someone he didn't even bother telling you about until you noticed just how serious he actually is with her.

He'd stop sleeping around too. Atsumu and everyone else in your friend group taking notice and asking you for the details they couldn't get out of Suna himself.

"I don't know anything, 'Tsumu," you sigh at him for the nth time, digging in your cheesecake at the café you're so used to going with everyone.

"What do you mean?" The blonde guy across groans at you, arms crossed as he continues pushing for whatever. "He's your best friend."

"Well I guess not, seeing as I also know nothing about this," you glare at him with a sigh, sitting back on the chair to close your eyes as you feel a headache creeping up your head.

Sure, you know her name, her face, the kind of dates he takes her to but Suna never really let you in anything more than that. How he met her, what she is to him, who she even really is, what's so special about her? And you respected that privacy and intimacy he shared with her.

You just thought maybe you meant more to him and he trusted you enough to let you in on things like he once did.

"Doesn't he seem pretty serious with her, though? I keep seeing her face everywhere."

"Probably," you blink away the sting in your eyes, quickly sipping from your drink to calm yourself down. "It's none of my business."

He stopped trying to text you after two weeks. And it would be a lie to say it stopped hurting and made things better for you. Despite it being the best choice, you can't help but wonder if that's how things will end for both of you.

Sure, you felt it was also unfair for him how you distanced yourself just because he started catching affections for another woman but the smiling faces staring back at you on your phone screen, almost like a mocking response to your miserable face, tells you he's doing just fine.

Trips to the convenience store a few blocks away from your house lack the usual joy you used to get when you walk to it with him by your side, thumb caressing the back of your hand while you walk through the dimly lit street with flickering post lights.

You thought you couldn't possibly feel worse as you caught the sight of the last pack of chuupets sitting alone on the shelf where there used to be tens of them. But as you reach to grab it for yourself along with another hand reaching the same time as yours, you decide you definitely could feel worse at the sight of the fingers you could tell apart probably even from a single glance.

Despite your resistance to look, it was your own reflex that betrayed you—eyes snapping up to meet the golden-green ones you haven't seen in weeks.

He's beautiful. Just as disheveled as you remember him to be but the night has always looked good on him. The fluorescent lights reflecting on his pale skin, eyes darker and pupils blown. The rings on his fingers seem so much more beautiful than what you remember it to be. The stupid chain on his neck that never failed to catch your hair still hanging on his chest.

He looks even more beautiful with her.

You didn't even need to try and recognize her face. There was no question with the number of times you've seen her all over your screen and the way Suna grips her fingers against his—thumb caressing the back of her hands like he once did to you.

She looks at you curiously, like you haven't even been brought up in the stories he tells her. Either that or she, too, wonders why you've gone out of his life when you've always been in it.

"You can take it," you whisper at them, eyes on Suna as you softly smile at him.

He doesn't even look at the candy, eyes on you as he gently exhales, "No, it's fine. We— I can just look somewhere else." He stops himself like he knows the reason why you're so far from him.

Shaking your head, you reach for the pack, thrusting it to his free hand. "It's your favorite, Suna. It's fine."

A look flashed in his eyes at his last name spilling out of your lips, but it's gone just as soon as it appeared. If you didn't know him any better, you would probably even think this was boring for him—nothing but a stupid exchange on who should take the last candy on the shelf.

"It's your favorite too."

A beat passes.. then two, until your eyes are stinging, making you swallow the lump that keeps growing in your throat. With a bite on your lip, you're pretty sure he knows what's happening by now. The sharp inhale you took being the final straw for Suna as he wraps a hand around your wrist—firm but hesitant at the same time.

"Y/N I—"

"It doesn't matter, Suna," you shake your head at him, the tears starting to blur your vision and you thought fuck it, well now he definitely knows what's up with you. You glance over his shoulder, she's staring at both of you with a look on her face. "She's waiting for you."

He tries. He really does. Especially when the woman behind her puts a hand on his shoulder, he really tries—to just give up something he knew he already lost and just leave with the woman he's always been spending his time with. But he knew the look of contemplation that passed his face was too real, much too real. And it feels even more genuine than the feelings he's been forcing himself to believe.

"I just need a minute," he almost pleads, voice quiet like he doesn't want her to hear him. "Please."

"Don't make it harder for me," you choke out, eyes landing on her whose face has a shocked look on it. Only then did you notice the warm liquid falling over your cheeks, and when you look back at Suna, he stares at you with furrowed brows—almost as if he's just as pained to see you like this.

Wrapping your other hand around his wrist, you pull him away from his hold on you. Face nothing but a reflection of the regrets eating out at your chest, the multitude of maybes and what-ifs that plague your mind.

His arm falls defeated on his side, jaw clenching as you try putting the pack of jelly sticks back at his hand. He looks away from you, grip on the plastic loose like the appetite he had for it earlier has disappeared.

Turning your back to him after a quick bow at the poor woman caught in what she would imagine as a simple best friend affair, you grit your teeth, mouth parting to say what would probably be the last thing you'll say to him in a while—at least until you feel stronger to face the raging emotions that never seem to calm down inside you.

"I miss you," you sniffle as quietly as you can. "Please be happy."

Even if it's without me.

Nothing is clear, not to you, not to him. His feelings didn't make sense and yours didn't to him either. He had words to say but they never seem to roll off his tongue as easily as they should be.

He misses you too, he wanted to say. So much that he wants to drive out of the park he's sitting in with her, chuupet in hands as the woman beside him tells a story during college. So much that the cold breeze barely does anything to affect him despite the thin material of the shirt he's wearing.

Looking up at the night sky he decides maybe counting all the stars would be easier than trying to find out whatever the fuck is going on in his head and picking up the leaves which have fallen over from the trees is way better than trying to make sense of your relationship.

All he does know, however, is the bitterness of the jelly fruit stick resting on his tongue. The longer it sits there the more he wants to spit it out, the more he eats the more he feels like gagging—yet beside him is a pile of the wrapper staring at him and his idiocy.

All he's certain of is that nothing ever tasted the same these past few weeks, and that the chuupet he loved eating with you seems to be the thing he hates the most now—even as he eats it with the woman he swears he loves.

🏷 : @kageyamakock @basicallystillafetus @kililovesqueen @nozomiasl @moonlightaangel @mysticstrawberryballoon @devilgirlcrybabiey @fairyxkisses