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bigdvmnhero · 4 months

Text

pairing: bachira/rin/isagi

word count: 5,510

summary:

Isagi’s parents always joked that when God was putting him together in the womb, he made Bachira between his breaks. They were a matching set. The yin to his all-consuming yang. Bachira didn’t route-read, because Bachira didn’t care about what was logical. Hell, Bachira didn’t care about what was legal. ”What’s the fun in knowing how it ends?” he laughed. “Good luck pulling that kind of shit on a real crag," Rin said. "You do know holds like these don’t exist in the real world, right? One wrong move and you’re dead.” “Well, do tell us more, almighty climber,” Isagi teased. “What’s it like in the big bad deadly outdoors?”

Or: Summer in the Blue Lock climbing gym. Going up and growing up. Don't look down now. [bachirinsagi]

Chapter One: first ascent

Whipper (Climbing) noun. a sudden and unexpected fall in lead climbing, where one plummets often dramatically in an arcing manner, with the rope creating a forceful whip-like motion

Warm-Up

“You the route-setter?” said the boy.

Isagi wasn’t paying too much attention to how life looked like before this moment, and that was his first mistake—he would’ve held on to it more, if he knew; noted the logical geometry of where things fell, the brown noise of climbers milling in, chalk dusting the air like a parody of snowflakes, the protein shake metabolizing in his gut, and one napping Bachira Meguru, drooling on his lap. The predictable trajectory of his life as it unspooled before him. A trajectory that did not include boys like this one—long under-lashes, dark hair that fringed a heartbreaker’s face. And the face, well. There was no preparing for it. Like a lance to the gut.

The black hole had opened on a Tuesday, 7 PM: the new boy had walked into Blue Lock’s climbing gym with a long-limbed easy grace and topped the boulder Isagi had set—a nasty V10 that even Bachira, for all his freaky hundred-and-one tricks, couldn’t send, the one Barou called, “absolutely sickening” and “fucking psychotic” and not in a good way, mind you, you donkey, you ever gonna stop fucking around and set some real boulders?

Isagi was going to be done with it, he promised; with Blue Lock being the only decent climbing gym this side of Saitama, Isagi knew it was time to settle for a little less crazy, a little more “friendly for the masses.” Even if the thought of it clawed at him. If no one could top this problem, then that would be his sign.

Eleven seconds. That was how long it took for the boy to assess Isagi’s route. He bent down to dip his hands in his chalk bag. Graceful hands, like a pianist’s. Then, simply, he—

”Went up,” was all the words Bachira could muster while they debriefed over greasy post-climb ramen and Isagi tried not to flounder in the soup of his despair and whatever tatters remained of his climbing career, whatever that was supposed to be. Bachira spoke with reverence, like recounting an urban myth: how, with an uncanny strength and elegance, the new boy went for the paddle dyno with no breath wasted—had the gumption to hold it there, where most had fallen, like he had time to ponder about what he was having for dinner while his legs flared out behind him, eight feet of air below.

When it happened, Bachira stilled, slowly sitting up from where he’d pillowed his head on Isagi’s lap. Bachira always had a sense for The Fun. Six holds left. The boy traversed to his right, with a tiny delicate footswap, over the hold the size of a crumb. (“A hold for fucking ants,” Kunigami grumbled.) Quick pogo to another paddle dyno, his back muscles contracting like tectonic plates. “Holy shit,” Isagi said. Bachira’s jaw fully ajar. Isagi had never seen such dancelike, sure-footed movement. Like the holds were magnetized to his body. This was a boy that would not fall.

Four holds left. The crux: an ugly blind dyno to an even uglier hold. (“Tore my meniscus again just looking at it,” Chigiri observed.)

Three holds left. Two.

One—

The boy’s left palm silently accompanying the right. Slow and controlled.

Match.

“Well?” the new boy said, eyes granite. Isagi’s mouth went dry at the full force of it sent his way. “You set that V10?”

“Yeah—yeah, I did.” This bastard just flashed it . “Just that one though, I’m still in training. Anri-san’s our head routesetter, so—”

Around them, climbers began to clap, like they were all breaking out of the same sleeping spell. The boy didn’t seem to notice; his eyes turned to the wall then back to Isagi, and the potency of it made Isagi stand a little straighter. Lashes, Isagi thought, already sliding all these new minute details into the vast library of data he accumulated to make sense of it all. Lashes, climbing like dancing, boys, pretty boys—

“You call this a V10? That was hardly a V6,” Itoshi Rin said. “This gym is a fucking joke.”

Then he turned to leave.

Beside him, Bachira made an aborted noise, a cross between a shriek and a garbled scoff. “Wait!” Bachira cried. “Well, whatever you feel about this gym, we still honor first ascent privileges. You top it, you name it. Don’t we, Isagi?”

“I guess,” Isagi managed, despite the lance in his gut.

Rin’s mouth curled at the edges, turning and turning the handle of his weapon. “Mm, how about,” and he smiled, like recalling a sour joke, “Warm Up?”

—lashes, chalk, pretty boys, graceful boys, punchable-in-the-fucking-mouth—

Reset

“Fresh problems, fresh out the oven,” Isagi sing-songed, turning the corner to see Kunigami, Chigiri, and Bachira already warming up by the bouldering mat. He ducked out of Bachira’s fake-high five and ruffled his hair, if only to see the answering pout. “Exrta spicy, just for you. Yeah, yeah, I set you some dynos on the steep wall, Kunigami, who the hell do you think I am? Everybody say thank you Isagi.”

“Thank you Isagi!” Bachira and Chigiri chorused. Kunigami mimed zipping his mouth and bumped Isagi’s fist as their friends dashed straight for the walls.

Why anyone would choose to spend their spare time climbing fake plastic rocks only to climb back down again, Isagi couldn’t tell you. Everyone had a different reason. There was a logic to it that drew him in—set your base, build the triangle, find the most optimal body positioning, tension, momentum. There were 1000 ways to reach to top, like there were 1000 ways to die doing so.

While there were no hard rules to sending a problem, there was, Isagi liked the argue, a single best sequence to get you there. Isagi had spent his first few years climbing being that weird, off-putting kid in rentals who studied how you moved up those multicolored cracks and footholds, only to tell you after—depending on your weight, strength level, and climbing IQ—what bad fucking form you had, actually, those first four moves were really shitty, and that’s why you ruined the rest of it, but it’s fine, hey, listen, we can fix it, next time here’s what you need to do.

Needless to say, that sort of intensity never stood a chance in a commercial gym.

Route-setting was the obvious choice.

Of sorts, Bachira was his natural antithesis. Isagi’s parents always joked that when God was putting him together in the womb, he made Bachira between his breaks. They were a matching set. The yin to his all-consuming yang. Break to his lever. Bachira didn’t route-read, because Bachira didn’t care about what was logical. Hell, Bachira didn’t care about what was legal. ”What’s the fun in knowing how it ends?” His best friend liked the flashy moves, the zingers and shoulderbusters. The sketchier, the better. Mostly, he liked breaking Isagi’s carefully sequenced routes and blowing his mind wide open.

There was THUD as Bachira’s back hit the mat. A few heads turned, a split-second of shock, until Bachira rolled back to his knees and beamed, like he didn’t just fall 10 feet.

“So close!” he giggled. “That was a fun one, Isagi!”

Only Bachira would think of doing a figure 4 in such a cramped, unstable position on the steep wall. Isagi rolled his eyes playfully as Bachira swiped his water bottle and planted his mouth on it, drinking long and greedy. Then it was Chigiri and Kunigami’s turn.

“That was inspired,” came Chigiri’s calm verdict; he came close to Bachira’s last position before bailing from the purple route with a loud FUCK, SHIT!

“Fun, right?” Bachira said. “I love when Isagi gets creative.”

“I don’t know, sometimes I swear he’s trying to kill us,” Kunigami replied, panting, two minutes after Chigiri’s attempt. “That one-handed catch? Disgusting.”

“Was thinking of you, you muscle freak.” Isagi winked. “Too spicy for you?”

“Yeah, Kunigami-kun. It’s literally all jugs, bro.”

“Don’t even fucking start. No yapping until you send it.”

“Oho.” Chigiri grinned, all teeth. “Maybe I will.”

Bachira swatted Chigiri’s back as he faced the wall again, accepting whatever it offered. “C’mon, Chigirin!”

“You got this, princess,” Isagi crowed—so buoyed by the presence of his friends, their laser-sharp attention that some days bordered on religious, even Blue Lock’s speakers piping awful hyper-pop into his ears, that for a moment, he forgot all about strange dullness that washed over him when he put on his uniform this morning, the same one he wore yesterday, same one he’ll pull on tomorrow, and the day after that. “C’mon, yes, nice, let’s go, nice one—you’re so close, c’mon, listen to me, no, listen—WHAT ARE YOU, SOME KIND SOME WEAK SHIT? FINISH IT!” A curse, then a body hitting the mat with a groan. “THE FUCK DID YOU BAIL FOR?”

“There it is,” Kunigami drawled, “Deranged Asshole Mode: On,” at the same time Chigiri hollered back, “Shut the hell up, I don’t wanna hear nothing!”

“Aw, good try, Princess. I think, maybe if you skipped that hold—the one that looks like a nipple? Then imagine if you went like—” Bachira flung himself on the third overhanging hold, facing them, then swung both legs over his head to hook his toes on the crimp above—a perfect bat hang. “Then you can rest your hands for a bit. See? Then, you just gotta—”

“Yeah, no.” Chigiri turned around. He jabbed a finger into Isagi's chest, breathing hard. “Isagi, I swear to god if you open your mouth.”

Isagi raised his hands disbelievingly. “Fine. Figure it out yourself.”

“Or you.”

Kunigami grinned back, rising to his feet to roll his shoulders. “I guess I gotta do everything around here, huh?”

“I hate gym rats,” Isagi announced, after Kunigami managed to cross over to the second to the last hold with no feet, all biceps, which was just sickening to see, really. “You put your heart and soul into a problem, and in the end, they’re just gonna campus it.”

Chigiri agreed. “I despise you.”

“Aw, don’t cry, babygirls,” Kunigami said, accepting Bachira’s exuberant high-five. “We can’t all be me.”

“Talking shit when you haven’t even sent it?”

“Don’t worry, guys. I’ll send it,” Bachira announced solemnly, and then was off.

“Speaking of gym rats, guess who I bumped into at the chest press this morning,” Kunigami began. Legs crossed, they shifted closer to each other in the middle of the mat. Isagi checked his watch; soon, the 8 PM after-work crowd would start swarming in; Igaguri took the day off, so Anri subbed him in to do a few safety briefings with some newbies.

“Is this Mr. Indoor-Climbing-Isn’t-Real-Climbing?” Chigiri said.

“That’s stupid,” Bachira called without turning. He blew off a layer of extra chalk on the starting hold until the purple underneath shone. “Indoor holds look way yummier.”

“...Right,” Kunigami said. “Anyway, get this. I hear Mr. Rin here moved back from the US after a climbing accident.”

“Accident?”

“What, like, a bad fall?”

“Real bad,” Kunigami said. “Failed rappel on the Revenger.”

They shared a collective, full-body wince.

Isagi gripped his ankle, eyes tracking Bachira blurring on the wall, still relentlessly trying to stick his bat hang move. “That’s crazy, though. Do we know any Japanese climbers who’ve sent the Revenger?”

“Nope. And still none,” Kunigami said. “Guy’s still crazy, though, I’ll give him that. Him and his brother. Itoshi Sae? Yeah, so that’s the bit: the minute Rin here’s back home, he starts visiting all these gyms. Saitama’s his second stop. The catch? People are noticing he’s challenging all the same comps Sae did, years ago, before they moved.” Kunigami added, “Winning them, too.”

Chigiri whistled. “Big brother push him off a cliff or what?”

“So he’s here for the summer comp,” Isagi said. “Bolting for Glory.”

Chigiri cursed, popping his heel out of his climbing shoe. “And I thought Barou was gonna be my biggest problem this season.”

“Not me?” Kunigami teased.

Lashes, Isagi thought, outdoor climbing, bad falls, climbing like dancing. No wonder the man moved like that; there was a knife-edged precision climbing outdoors demanded of you. It turned you inside-out. Summer comp. Bad blood? Itoshi Rin.

“Yeah, that’s his name,” Kunigami said, and Isagi flushed. Here he was, mumbling like a fool again.

THUD on the mat. Bachira, for all his airheadedness, managed to whisper-shout at them after rolling upright: “Guys, Mr. I’m a Climber Who Climbs Outdoors is here!”

He was right; Kuon was checking Rin in at the front desk. Rin was wearing a plain black tracksuit that drew even more attention to his stupidly long legs. As he passed, they all seemed to find great interest in their shoes. Only Bachira seemed brave enough to turn and wave. Isagi didn’t see what Rin did, though he imagined he kept emitting that same brand of Unpleasant.

Two hours and two safety briefings later, it was time for Chigiri and Kunigami to go. “My flappers have flappers,” Chigiri explained. He held up ten fingers and boasted their flayed, red skin.

Bachira said, “yuck!” like it was amazing.

“Anyway, we’re headed home. You coming, Bachira? Waiting up for Isagi, as usual?”

“Yep!” Bachira said, popping the P. Kunigami ruffled his hair. Isagi waved, watched them go, then turned back to watching Rin on the moonboard, absolutely demolishing the moves, from the corner of his eye.

“You don’t have to wait up again, Bachira,” Isagi called out, though it was half-hearted; Bachira always waited up for him to close shop.

“S’fine, I really wanna try sending this today. I’m so close! Also, I think new guy’s gonna project Anri-chan’s V12 on the boulder roof.”

The sentiment was loud in Isagi’s ears: I wanna see him send it. Isagi burned for it, too.

Every day Rin walked into the gym like it was his mission to send each of Isagi’s “unsendable” routes, the exact same way Isagi had envisioned, only to blow that vision apart with one brilliant move at the last second. If Isagi dwelled on it a bit more, he’d realize Rin had been going here nearly every day, all alone, and that he looked bored out of his mind. Or no—that wasn’t it, was it? It was a face that reminded him a little of Bachira, a lifetime ago, on the day they met. Holding on, waiting for the drop, and so keenly, quietly in pain it took Isagi years to catch up to it. Something inside him broke softly. There was a high victory whoop. A tangle of limbs hurtled against his side.

“ISAGI, I DID IT.” Bachira’s skin, like the soft bodies of giddy bees, against his. “I sent your purple route!”

“No way.”

“Uh, yes way.” The proof, shoved under his nose: a video of Bachira slinging his whole torso into the void to catch the final hold. “FIRST ASCENT, LOSERS.”

“You monster,” Isagi laughed, feeling the smile split his face. Bachira kept grinning back. “Well? Was it fun?”

“So fun.” The glint of Bachira’s eyes was a pocket knife. “I want another.”

“Greedy.”

“Duh. Now, I finally get to watch Rin-chan!” Bachira left the piece of paper in Isagi’s hands and darted off in Rin’s direction, like a bee to the world’s most repugnant flower.

Isagi glanced at the slip. “Oh, you are not naming my route Purple Nurple —”

Purple Nurple (V11 | FA: Bachira Meguru)

Rin considered the purple wall like it was a minefield. Bachira was grinning, like he planted them there.

“Oh, this one’s super fun, Rin-chan. Promise! I spent all yesterday afternoon sending it. It has two coordi-moves, then a really sketchy knee bar—”

“Did I ask?”

“Sheesh, man, just try it,” Isagi said. A rare rest day for him, and of course he’d spent it at the gym. Somehow, he’d found himself walking over to the duo, drawn to the line of Rin’s back and the hook in Bachira’s smile, reeling something in.

“Another pathetic warm-up route?” Rin spoke, in greeting.

“Nah, not this one," Isagi said. "This one’s got a little something in it.”

Isagi was proud of the way he kept his eyes level, even as his gut lurched at the gaze. The guy’s face card was making him feel violent. It was ruining his life.

Bachira let out a whoop! as Rin coated his hands in chalk, making a loose fist and blowing at to get rid of the extra stuff. Sit-start, the first move—then it was impossible not to notice the arc of his shoulders, all lean, corded muscle. Or the quiet power in his left arm, muscles flexing simultaneously while he rotated his body 180 degrees to reach the next overhanging hold. It was hard to pin down a style; Rin seemed to be using a mixture of Chigiri's speed, Kunigami's power, and Bachira’s general absurdity—their best moves, Isagi noted, with his own cocktail of jealousy and awe.

Rin was past the crux now. At this rate, he was going to flash it.

“I know!” Bachira groaned, like it was delightful. Did Isagi talk out loud again?

Well, whatever. Flash or no flash. This was why Isagi put two cruxes.

“C’mon!” Bachira gripped Isagi’s shoulder and shook him like a ragdoll. “Rin-chan, let’s go!”

Second to the last hold, the biggest, hardest nipple of them all—a ginormous, glorious sloper with dual texture: texturized on bottom, deviously slippery on top.

Pulling his torso back like slingshot, Rin jumped sideways—his first dynamic move. The swing nearly took him off: for a second, Rin was falling. Then he caught himself with his free hand and kicked on the wall hard, reorienting his center, then made his way up. Denying texture, denying physics. Weightless, again.

Match.

Two electric-blue Scarpas hit the mat.

Bachira whined. “You made that look way too easy!”

“Damn, dude. Solid.” Isagi reached his fist out for a bump. This, Rin quickly rebuffed as he reached for his water bottle.

“That won’t do.” Bachira grabbed Rin’s wrist and bonked it with Isagi’s. “Where’s your manners?”

Rin jerked back. “Where’s yours? You don’t just touch strangers.”

“Strangers? We’ve been climbing buddies for weeks now,” Bachira complained, crossing his arms. Rin looked like he wanted to contest this, but Bachira was already talking over him. “But why did you static the third move anyway? Bo-ring. You could’ve done a bat hang, at least. Right, Isagi?”

Bachira was already running towards the wall to demonstrate. “He’s not gonna let up,” Isagi informed Rin. “By the way.”

“See?” Bachira said, upside down.

“You’ll use too much energy,” Rin scoffed.

A laugh as Bachira accepted gravity. Isagi let him swipe his water bottle again as he hopped over. There was a stripe of chalk on his cheek. “Yeah, but it’s more fun, right?”

“It’s excessive and inefficient.” Rin looked pointedly at the way Bachira massaged the calf where Isagi was betting a cramp was going to set in, any minute now; in three, two, one— “Look: now you’re all pumped, your legs are useless and you don’t have any strength to do anything else. Am I right?”

“But did I look cool though?”

“Debatable,” Rin said. Bachira stuck his tongue out. Instead of taking off to hiss at first-timers or shred pushups at the pullup bar or god knows whatever else Rin liked to do all by his lonesome—not that Isagi liked to imagine what Rin did, not at all—Rin sat down, pulled off his Scarpas, and stared at the purple problem with a keen gaze. Tilted his head, like a cat. “Bat hang, huh,” Rin said, the closest they would get to a concession. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Isagi tore his gaze from the way Rin’s throat moved, taking in full gulps of water, back to the nasty cramp he was helping push out of Bachira’s leg. On his back, Bachira made pitiful sounds. “So it can work.”

“Good luck pulling that kind of shit on a real crag. You do know holds like these don’t exist in the real world, right? One wrong move, you’re dead.”

“Well, do tell us more, almighty climber,” Isagi teased. “I beseech you: what’s it like climbing in the big bad deadly outdoors?” And the second surprise of the night: Rin did exactly that.

Hakuho High West Wing Arete

In the strange blistering weeks after, summer crept towards a degree closer to unbearable, Bachira demanded wilder and wilder routes, and Rin continued to find more creative ways to badmouth his route-setting. Rin, Isagi learned, who under all those stupid lashes and radioactive levels of Off-putting, seemed to be a guy who was irrevocably, if not equally, obsessed with The Rocks like Isagi was.

Isagi was getting used to the shape of his attention. Rin jammed his fingers into Bachira’s back when his spine sagged without tension. Barked, “WRONG,” every time they made a move that wasn’t Rin’s exact flavor of climbing. Called Isagi’s latest boulder route, “fucking lukewarm,” like he was some kind underpaid undersecretary, delivering him coffee for the day. Still, Rin never failed to hold up his end of the bargain in this tenuous belaytionship: to show them some damn good climbing.

The little flame in Isagi’s chest was back. It licked him black and blue.

“You got that look on your face again,” Bachira sing-songed as they left the gym.

“What look.”

“Ah, yes. The look,” Kunigami agreed behind him. Chigiri grinned.

“What.”

“That little wrinkle. Here.” Bachira’s finger poked Isagi’s temple. “You’re thinking about Rinrin, aren't you?”

“Rinrin?” balked Isagi.

“Ah, did I not mention? We’re lead partners now! I think. He walked up to me one day and asked me to be his belayer.” Bachira swept his bangs over his right eye for his best impression of one Itoshi Rin. “Might as well, since you’re hanging out being useless all the time.”

Kunigami whistled. "Sounds like him."

“Okay, first of all? You gotta be around the same weight to be partners,” Isagi pressed. "Second of all, really, Bachira?"

“He said, don’t worry. I won’t fall. Isn’t that crazy?” Bachira laughed. “He’s so crazy. He's just like me!”

“He’s nothing like you, Bachira."

“Damn, Isagi’s gonna kick him out the gym for stealing his belay partner,” Chigiri said.

“I’d kick him out for less, if I could,” Isagi tossed back. “He’s gotta stop sending all my problems. Seriously. He’s scaring off all the first-timers, too. And he takes way too long at the showers! I swear he has this whole beauty routine, like—guys? Aaand there they go.”

Save for Kunigami, Isagi was alone on the street; they’d lost Chigiri and Bachira a few ways back to some cracks in the wall. They looked mesmerized by it. The sign on the arc above read: HAKUHO HIGH. Isagi recognized its fancy brick design. Flemish pattern. 20 meters wide. Crimpy, but good for traverse.

Chigiri was pulling out three fingers he’d plugged into a small gap in the wall. “That’s a great finger jam. You think you can do it?”

“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Bachira winked, already rolling up his pant leg.

“Sometimes, I hate climbers,” Kunigami despaired for Isagi to hear, but he was already whipping out his phone. Later, there’d be a reel of all four of them: climbing and slipping off the wall and climbing again, then falling all over each other in public.

When they were young, Bachira was always falling off of things. He’d gotten the itch first—always scaling trees, finding small notches in the wall, hanging upside off of ledges and promising the view, Isagi, the view! The first time they’d met, he’d chipped a tooth falling off the first-floor balcony when Marcus, the moneyed, hoity-toity class president, flung a shoe at him while Bachira tried to reach the school bell.

As kids, that bell was the closest thing they had to a god. It dictated class, recess, nap time. Only Bachira had the gall to reach out and pluck it for himself, grinning as he made that slow ascent. Grinning, as the sidewalk opened his hands. As they called him freak.

Later, after the parent-teacher meeting, the tearful fussing, Isagi had snuck out to tie Marcus’ shoe, his bag, and all his favorite things on the balcony like a flag. His teachers mistook it as another rebellion. Isagi meant it as a promise.

You know what would’ve made that more fun? Isagi asked him.

Bachira, who had hunched into the void inside himself the moment his mother came, said, Tell me. Unfurling, a flower to its first sun.

No one was surprised to learn it wasn’t a phase for either of them. Bachira liked it all—lead climbing, bouldering, top rope—he was happy to be weightless, to be a body hanging off an abyss, better if it was just them two; tied to one another, braiding visions to top a wall and come back down to do it all over again.

On the world's most awkward family dinner Isagi confessed he wanted to make plastic rocks for a living, Isagi had hoarded the apology in his mouth all day—until Bachira had whooped and said, mouth full of macaroni, you know Isagi, route setting at Blue Lock is a great idea!

It was a great idea. And it was turning out to be a great life. Bachira vaulted to the top of Hakuho High’s arete, pumped his fist, and for a fevered moment Isagi remembered that same hazard-eyed kid at twelve years old who matched his crazy, who leaned over the table and said, Make me fun routes, Isagi. The most fun. Chigiri caught his legs as Bachira jumped off. They rolled together in a haphazard tangle. Their laughs shattered the air. Kunigami grabbed them both by the scruff and grunted, fuck, cops, cops, move along.

Isagi would’ve been okay, if this was how the rest of his life looked like. He would've been fine. Then there was Rin's dumb little face again, rising to the surface. Bored, with a dash of pissed-the-fuck-off. Like he'd taken one look at Isagi's life, the small patch of green he’d been diligently watering and said, that’s it?

Lashes, Isagi thought, summer comp, climbing like dancing, outdoors. Then what? What comes next after all this?

“C’mon on, Isagi.” Bachira was grabbing him by the wrist, giggling as they ran down the opposite lane as cop cars blurred past, lights strobing red-blue-red. “Keep up!”

Lukewarm, Part One

Isagi found his answer, two hours after blindly pitching down the rabbit hole that was Itoshi Rin’s traditional climbing Youtube videos. Despite Rin having the online presence of a rock, leaving them to subsist on the odd compendium of short clips, competition recordings, and the even rarer interview accompanying his past partner, it was clear Rin’s magic was hereditary. None of those Itoshi boys moved right. Not like anyone with skin and blood. It was like watching water travel through rock: no second thoughts, just the cool forward rush, a bubbling under the surface.

The video was five years old: Boulder Breakdown: Hueco V15 Itoshi Brothers. Isagi finished the video, and he knew.

Rin nodded at him now when Isagi smiled at him in greeting. Small jerk of the head, barely there. Small wins. Isagi blew the steam from his coffee mug and sat down to man the front desk for the early Saturday shift. Rin took his usual spot by the moonboard, began picking out some warm up equipment. I swear, it’s this whole thing, Bachira described. I fell asleep waiting for him once! But after, Rin’s skin looked warm, more alive, sweat gathered on his lashes, and the way he moved—

It took Rin an eternity to notice the new route on the 45-degree wall. The holds brilliant blue. He looked back at Isagi for a second.

He took in a pull of coffee. Tried to go for nonchalant while Rin climbed but couldn’t help it—it was like looking away from a comet.

Seconds later, Rin’s shoes were hitting the mat. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet of the gym. Rin pushed himself up, looking stunned.

Isagi tore his gaze away, back to his phone.

Then Rin made a second attempt. He spent ten seconds glaring at it, finding the path up this beast of a climb Isagi had agonized over, inspired from Rin’s various trad climbing feats on scorched crag and mossy overhang, this little homunculus Isagi knew could finally bite back. Isagi even threw in a fist jam in there, then two disgusting moves one normally wouldn’t find in an indoor gym, because it tested the body in a bad way. The last hold, if you made it there, was lethal. Isagi made sure of it. If you could wriggle your torso out of those three consecutive heel hooks, you’d need the perfect balance of tension and momentum to surge up and stand on the sloper without windmilling backward, into the abyss.

One move left. A big one. Rin made the upwards move. The edge of Rin’s shoe planted itself on the sloper, catching it. His calf tensed so hard Isagi tensed his own in sympathy. Two palms on the wall as a brace, feather-light.

Clever, so maddeningly clever. But not enough.

Itoshi Rin didn’t fall. He slipped though; caught himself miraculously on another blue hold below, then let go—a little too fast this time. He landed on two feet—always on two feet—and had to roll twice to get upright.

Isagi couldn’t even hide it anymore. He was grinning right into his coffee.

“Oi. Routesetter.” Rin asked, palm landing flat on the front desk. The back of his head was in disarray, like he’d just dodged an electromagnetic field. "You set this?"

A slow sip. “My name’s on it, isn’t it?”

“So you did.” Rin's chest was rising, falling. “V13?”

“I don’t know, haven’t graded it yet.”

"You don't know."

Isagi’s smile edged out of its sheath. “What would you grade it?”

Rin’s nose flared, dodging the trick. “It’s not your usual style.”

“Call me inspired,” Isagi said. “Well? What’d you think?”

Rin’s chest was still heaving, proof of the effort he’d made. A bead of sweat unclipped itself from his chin and ran down the long column of his neck. The longer Isagi stared at it, the more flushed it grew. “Better than the shitty problems I’ve had to tolerate this past month.”

Isagi snorted. “Whatever you say. It’s the first time I’ve seen you not flash something. Don’t worry; that was a solid try though. Really smart climbing.”

“Thank god you think so,” Rin said.

Isagi bit back a laugh. “God, you really are like this all the time, huh? Don’t you get tired of it? Come on, get. There's more shiny stuff on the lead wall."

Rin’s annoyance didn’t abate, but he looked around the gym. “Where’s your fungal overgrowth?”

“Bachira never gets up this early. He’s coming in around twelve—but you only get him for an hour, tops. I’m doing lead later, too.”

“Get your own belayer.”

“He was my belayer first, asshole.”

“Don’t you have more boring walls to set?”

“You can’t even send this one, dude.”

At that, something in Rin’s eyes seemed to crystallize and go sharp. Isagi shouldn’t pitch forward, grinning wide and for show; he should be backing off, covering the tender in his throat.

Rin said, “Then, better keep your eyes on me.”

Isagi fake-yawned. “What're you gonna do?”

Rin was already walking off. “I'm going to fucking send it. With one hand.”

Lukewarm, Part Two

To Isagi’s chagrin, Rin, did in fact, “fucking send it.”

One-handed.

The video was in his phone. It burned a hole in his pocket. Isagi took it out to watch between shifts, twice or thrice a day, when he was in line at the grocery, when he was bolting candy-colored holds to the wall, when he wanted to remind himself how utterly, perfectly ruined his life was, now that Itoshi Rin stepped foot in it.

In the dark of his room, the video branded itself behind his eyes.

Then, strangely and without warning, he imagined himself, in Rin's place. A phantom tracing over his moves. All the ways he'd reach the top. All the ways he'd do different.

Ridiculous. That was what Rin's climbing was like. And Isagi was a realist: there was nothing particularly impressive about him. He wasn't monstrously strong or endlessly creative. There was nothing safe about this train of thought either. Only air under him. Nothing good. Right here. Right here was a good place to stop, recoup. But the light was seductive. Even as Isagi slept, the backs of his eyes felt dry, his mouth parched. The lance in his gut kept turning, turning, glowing white-hot.

#bachirinsagi #bachisagi #rinsagi #blue lock fic #bllk fic #bigdamnher0

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