A/N:

Fuckin uhhh sorry that this chapter took so long to get out? Like, even longer than the last I think? I've been busy cause I've been moving, and then I got really depressed cause I was homesick (I still am, actually;;), so I decided to astral project that onto Rin as I always fucking do (lol).

Also please note that I'm also working on another fic, "a place within the sun", my Cardcaptor Hinata Shouyou crossover fic, and I also manage a pregame NDRV3 Ouma askblog game, so I have a lot to work on, but I also have to take time for myself so I'm not overwhelmed.

In short, please don't leave a review saying "please update!", it's rather disappointing to get a notification for a review only to see that. Actually, it's quite— well, to be blunt, annoying. I'm very glad you enjoy my fic and want more, but please understand that this is not my job, I'm not obligated to keep writing this, and I have my own life to live. Thank you for enjoying my fic though.

More notes at the end.

Someone was crying.

Rin's shoulders shuddered and his vision blurred with angry tears. The teacher try to get close, hands raised placatingly, but it was too much. He shouts and throws the nearest object at her, eliciting a shriek from the teacher as she flinches away.

"Rin-kun, please calm down!" One of the other teachers plead.

But Rin could hardly listen. His child's brain was completely overwhelmed by the years and years of memories that kept flooding his mind.

He always prided himself on his understanding, and his ability to solve things with communication— but his logic was no match for the childish emotions of a six year old.

"Stupid! Can't even read yet!" One of the other kids had jeered.

"Rin-kun can read!" Another piped in. "But he can only read English! Isn't that weird?"

The kids giggled, and Rin couldn't help the frustration that bubbled into tears then. He couldn't help it— He's only a child, after all.

"Freaky!" His friend shouted when Rin confessed to remembering things that never happened. "You're lying!"

"Rin-kun, I know it's fun to play make-believe, but it's not good to lie, okay?" A teacher told him when he came to her with teary eyes, overwhelmed by memories of people he knew but didn't know and missed.

"Demon!" He was called when his strange strength was shown off, "Stupid!" He was called when he couldn't learn the same way the others could, "Freak!" He was called when he said or did things that weren't quite right for a six year old.

And Rin cried. He cried and flailed his arms and hit and and kicked and screamed.

Why wouldn't anyone understand?

And everything was so loud and bright— it was so much. It was so much.

A tiny hand takes him by the wrist and pulls, dragging him along through all the lights and the screaming sounds, away from everything that swallowed him whole.

Then, something soft is thrown over his head.

And it was dark. And it was quiet.

The only sounds were his own quiet hiccups as he sobbed messily into his palms.

"Nii-san?"

Rin only cries harder, some more mature part of his mind overcome with shame at his messy breakdown, but another cried with relief to hear his brother's soft voice.

"— I want dad," Rin chokes out. He wanted his dad. He wanted his brother. He wanted to go home away from all the things that hurt and screamed and all his mistakes and angry bursts that only hurt others and made him feel worse. "I wanna— I wanna go home,"

He could hear Yukio shuffle in front of him. "I'll go tell the teacher," he finally says.

But when he made a move to leave, Rin's heart jumped, and he reached out in a panic. "Don't leave! Please— Please, don't, don't leave me alone, I don't wanna be alone,"

There's a pause, before Yukio shuffles over and sits beside him.

And it's quiet, for a while, until another pair of footsteps echoed down the hall.

"Rin?"

Rin's head shoots up, the blanket that covered him falling down to his shoulders. His dad was here.

Rin's eyes fill with more tears, and he runs towards his father, who crouches down to meet him as he leaps into his arms. His dad ran his fingers through his hair, whispering soothing words as Rin cried and snuggled into his arms.

"Dad?" Yukio quietly speaks up.

Their dad smiles warmly, moving to ruffle Yukio's hair with one hand. "You did good, Yukio," he says. "I'll take Rin home, so you can go back to class—"

"No!" Rin whines. "Nooo! I don't want Yukio to go!"

Shiro chuckles. "Alright, alright." He concedes. "Then let's all go get some ice cream, how about that?"

Yukio and Rin share a glance, before Yukio beams and Rin offers a watery smile.

"Oh, but," Shiro's lip purses as he thinks. "Rin still has to be grounded for hitting his friend."

Rin stares, slack jawed. "He's not my friend! He's mean and called me freaky!" He shouts, and instantly upon doing so, he realizes how childish it sounds, and he looks down with shame. "He's not my friend." He says firmly. "... But I shouldn't hit him. Even if he's mean and rude and a jerk."

Shiro ruffles his hair approvingly.

"That's tatolog— tauta—" Yukio stutters. "That word you said that means that's just the same thing!"

"You mean redundant?" Shiro asks.

"Tau-to-logic-al," Rin answers, sounding out the word slowly so it's easier for his small mouth to pronounce, and he explains it with all the pride a child can have for learning a difficult word. "A stupid fancy word for, um, repetition of an idea or word," he says, then, like an afterthought, he adds; "or whatever."

"And it is and he deserves it because he's mean and rude and a jerk." Rin turns his chin up.

Shiro laughs, taking the two boys by the hands and leading them out of the school. "Where do you learn all these random things, Rin?"

Rin shrugs. "I just know."

Rin is 13 and about half asleep on the floor, leaning against the bed, when his brother finally comes home.

Yukio enters the room with exhaustion weighing him down, not even looking at Rin as he shrugs off his coat and drapes it over the chair. With a shaking breath, he sighs, looking down at his shivering hands with haunted eyes.

"Yukio?" Rin mumbles, quickly shaking himself from the claws of sleep.

Yukio flinches, and whips around to face Rin with wide eyes. "Nii-san?" He says with surprise in a hushed tone of voice. "What are you still doing up? It's late."

"I was waiting for you." Rin answers, taking in his brother's tense shoulders and the bags under his eyes. Rin's face contorts in worry. "How are you feeling? You look..." You look like you've seen something awful, he wants to say. "You look like you've had a bad day." He says instead.

Yukio's face scrunches up. "I'm fine! You don't need to worry about me!" He nearly shouts.

Rin falters for a moment, then slowly, he nods. "Yeah, I don't need to." He says, watching as Yukio's lip quivers. "I don't need to, but I do anyways, 'cause I care about you." Rin pats the spot on the floor next to him. "You don't need to tell me what happened if you don't want to. One could argue that getting it off your chest might help, but counterargument; thinking about it might also stress you out more, so. Sit."

Yukio stares at him, before taking off his glasses and placing them on the desk. With a sigh, he stalks over to his brother and drops down beside him. "I don't wanna talk about it." He says.

"That's valid." Rin tells him, reaching up onto the bed and pulling off the blanket and draping it over his brother's shoulders. "You remember that mp3 I got a while ago?"

Yukio blinks at the sudden topic change. "What about it?"

Rin pushes himself to his feet, walking over to the desk. "I've been filling it up solely with upbeat and happy songs," he says. "Cause I get really depressed sometimes, you know? It's hard, but I try to remind myself that I don't have to feel that way— I can get better, my day can get better, my mood can improve, as long as I work for it. I mean, it's not easy, and some days suck even when I try to improve it, but I find that music actually helps a lot?"

"Nii-san, what are you talking about?"

"It's self care, Yukio," Rin answers, swiping his mp3 from the desk, along with his sketchbook and mechanical pencil. "It's a learned skill, and a damn hard one to learn."

It took him about seven years to even start learning it.

Rin slumps down on the floor beside Yukio again. "Anyway, if you don't wanna talk about what's bothering you, I won't push it." He offers the mp3 and headphones to Yukio. "But don't just bottle it all up, okay? I know you're always looking out for me, but don't forget to take care of yourself too, Yukio." He says. "Take a break. Relax. Don't worry about anybody but yourself."

Yukio's face scrunches up for a moment, staring at the offered mp3, before he hesitantly takes it, too tired to argue. Slipping the earbuds into his ear, he puts the mp3 on shuffle and instantly the tune of some cheerful English song is flowing into his ears.

Rin smiles approvingly and moves on to focus on his sketchbook, leaving Yukio to his own devices as he begins to draw. Yukio watches idly.

He draws for quite some time, hyper focused on his art as it takes form. Rin finally snaps out of it at some point to check on Yukio, looking up from his drawing to find Yukio leaning against the bed with his head thrown back; completely asleep.

Rin snorts and bites his lip to prevent a loud laugh from escaping.

"Hey, dummy, you're gonna wake up with a sore neck if you sleep like that." He tells him pointlessly.

With fond amusement, Rin chuckles. Gently, he removes the headphones and takes the mp3 away from his brother, and then, carefully, as to not wake him, he slides his arms under Yukio's body and lifts him off the ground and places him on the bed. Yukio is quick to roll over and snuggle into the blankets.

Putting his mp3 and sketchbook away, Rin crawls into his own bed, reflecting on his words and feeling satisfied with what he'd said.

Yukio awakes quietly, blinking into consciousness blearily as he forces himself to sit up. With a glance to his clock, he finds he's awoken just a few minutes before his alarm, so he goes ahead and turns it off before it goes off. He opens his mouth and looks over to Rin's side of the room with the intent to tell him to wake up, only to find that his brother's bed is already empty, the blanket crumpled and bunched up at the end of his bed.

Yukio glances to where their uniforms had been hung up, finding that one set is now missing. He raises an eyebrow, but dismisses it for the time being as he sets about getting ready for the first day of regular classes.

Tiredly, he stumbles down the stairs of their dorm as he buttons his jacket with a yawn. He hardly reaches the last step before a voice reaches his ears. It's Rin's voice, he recognizes, coming from the dorm's cafeteria.

"— I just can't look, it's killing meee~! And taking control," Rin sings along in impressively fluent English to the mp3 player hooked up to the small speaker on the kitchen counter. "Jealousy, turning saints into the sea, swimming through sick lullabies, choking on your alibis," He twirls around the kitchen as he cooks up what appears to be breakfast. "But it's just the price I pay, destiny is calling me! Open up my eeeaager eeeyees! 'Cause I'm Mr. Brightside!" He belts out the lyrics with glee.

As Rin turns, he spots Yukio in the doorway, blinking in surprise before he brightens up. "Good morning!"

"Morning," Yukio replies. "You're up early."

Rin laughs sheepishly. "Aha, yeah, I woke up really early and couldn't get back to sleep," he says.

Yukio's eyes drift from Rin's red rimmed eyes to the mp3 still playing music on the counter. "Bad morning?" He asks.

Rin winces a little and leans more comfortably against the counter. "Mmmmmmyeah," he admits. "Really bad, actually." His smile seeps away and he sighs. He drums his hands on the counter and smiles again, a little weaker, but he smiles. "Buuuut, that's just the morning, right? Maybe it'll get better."

"It will," Yukio confidently agrees. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

Rin smiles wider, although a little more bittersweetly. "I... I dunno, I just got caught in my thoughts about, like, everything?" He shrugs. Yukio nods understandingly. "And... I think I'm... Homesick?" He hesitantly adds, as if he's not quite sure. "I guess... I just wanna go home." Rin mumbles.

"That's understandable; you've never stayed anywhere but the monastery before," Yukio says slowly, unsurely. Emotions were Rin's strong suit, not his, but damn if he wasn't willing to try.

"Yeah," Rin sighs. "I actually have no idea how to deal with homesickness," he laughs a little. "Maybe I can look it up later," he mumbles to himself.

Yukio mentally makes a note of that as well.

"Anyway! Breakfast!" Rin suddenly calls out, snapping Yukio from his thoughts. "Most important meal of the day!"

Yukio nods. "A good day starts with a good breakfast,"

Breakfast is served quickly, and the two sit down to eat whilst chatting idly. Once their stomachs were filled, they cleaned up and were soon on their way to the school. The old boy's dormitory where the two were staying was actually a little farther than the new dorm, so they have to leave a bit earlier to get to classes on time. ('On time' meaning before the other students get there. This is approved by Yukio, of course, and enforced by one Okumura Rin who wants to hurry to make sure no one takes the seat he wants.)

"You're gonna crash in the afternoon," Yukio points out as Rin happily slides into the desk in the back, farthest from the door. Yukio puts his stuff down on one of the desks in the front, but follows Rin over to the back to lean on the desk in front of Rin's in order to continue the conversation.

"Maybe so," Rin agrees, then promptly yawns.

Yukio sighs. "Will you even make it to the afternoon?"

Rin hangs his head in defeat. "Please pray for me."

"No, I don't think prayer will do you, specifically, any good."

Rin laughs tiredly, just as more students begin to trickle in. Rin looks over curiously, and is surprised to spot a familiar face among them— the punk looking guy from cram classes.

I think his name was Bon? He tries to recall. The guy spots him and Yukio in the back, and blinks in surprise. Rin waves, which the guy returns, albeit a bit awkwardly, and wanders over.

"I didn't realize we'd be in the same class, Okumura-sens— uh, san," he stutters, looking at Yukio.

"Of course," Yukio smiles. "Outside of cram school, I am just a regular student here, after all."

"I see," he says, before turning to Rin. "And you... you're the guy who fell asleep in Grimoire Lit. the other day." He blurts out, causing Rin to choke on his spit.

"I— I didn't fall asleep!" Rin defends. "I just... happened to close my eyes for a second."

Yukio swivels to him. "You fell asleep in class?"

"I did not!" Rin denies vehemently. "You can't prove anything and you will die before you do."

The other student makes a strangled noise in shock. "Oi, don't threaten our fuckin' teacher!" He whispers harshly.

Rin turns on him. "Hey, I have legal permission to non-legitimately threaten him as his older brother." He firmly claims. This, of course, summons a laugh from Yukio, who quietly repeats 'Legal permission?' to himself in amusement.

The guy blinks. "Brother?" He repeats questioningly.

"That's right," Yukio nods with a smile. "We're twins, actually. So we're the same age."

"I'm older." Rin chimes in smugly.

Yukio rolls his eyes. "We're the same age." He repeats.

"That's exactly what the younger twin would say." Rin teases. "Anyway, I'm Okumura Rin, nice to meet you," he gives the other student a friendly smile.

"Oh, uh," he blinks, as if realizing only now that they'd never even introduced themselves. "Suguro Ryuji."

Rin maintains a friendly smile even as confusion begs him to raise an eyebrow. Wait, where did I get 'Bon' from then? Then, he mentally smacks himself. That's a nickname, dummy. "Nice to meet you, Suguro! I hope we can get along, yeah?" He offers.

Suguro simply grunts in reply, but Rin takes that as an agreement anyway, so that's a win in his book.

"Don't think I forgot about you sleeping in class," Yukio pipes up, and Rin tenses. He laughs sheepishly and Yukio sighs. "You won't be able to stay awake today, either," he pinches the bridge of his nose. "Are you sleeping alright?"

Rin shrugs in place of an answer.

Yukio must've caught onto his hesitance, as he shook his head. "Nevermind, we'll talk about that later." He says. Before he can say anything else, however, the teacher enters the classroom and calls for everyone's attention. The trio quickly give a nod and separate, settling in for class, although Suguro gives him one last look over his shoulder before he slides into his seat near the front.

Rin slumps in his chair, resting his chin on his palm with a sigh. At least cram school classes were new and interesting. This old stuff's gonna bore him to sleep, easy.

His eyelids droop without permission, and the world slowly fades without his awareness, before an old fear creeps up his spine and he jolts awake again. Rin blinks sluggishly.

Damnit...

Yeah, there was no way in hell he was going to last until lunch.

A/N:

I included some more things from the past because I wanna show off some more of their different childhood, to shed more light on how Rin's memories had affected him and Yukio growing up, and give more reasons to why Yukio is so different from canon Yukio too. He's lived with this version of Rin for fifteen years, of course he'd have some effect on him. Still, writing Yukio is always a challenge;; I hope I can do him justice. (Probably not, but damnit if I'm not trying lmao;;)

And hooray! Rin finally formally meets Suguro! This is only the start, but I hope I'm able to do him justice too, because he's one of my favorites. I love him! He got in on a scholarship just like Yukio, so of course he's in the same class with them! I know I wrote it but I'm glad they're in the same class lol.

The playlist thing hit me at 2am when I was crying because I was depressed as fuck and then I decided I didn't wanna be depressed anymore so I made myself a playlist of happy songs I like, then I decided rebirth!Rin would absolutely do that too, so I made another playlist of timeline accurate feel good songs (which is to say, songs released before april 5th 2012, since I imagine AoEx takes place roughly ~2012, and JP school starts in april so,)

Anyway it's time to play my favorite game of "How Can I Add This Link To This A/N Without Fanfiction Dot Net Erasing It?" (When will this website get with the times and let us put links in our fics? This is why we stan ao3 instead...)

youtu . be/tCnBrrnOefs?list=PL-64-2cMyhiw1urC9UPGStPSLdp_OEJgr

Please enjoy this mix of 40 (varyingly) old ENG and JP bops that rebirth!Rin would listen to, put it on and smash that mf shuffle button! There's at least five Queen songs and one (1) Persona 4 song! But please imagine that Rin has the whole P4 OST illegally downloaded somewhere.

Anyway.

I SAID OOH, GIRL! SHOCK ME LIKE AN ELECTRIC EEL. BABY GIRL! TURN ME ON WITH YOUR ELECTRIC FEEL. I SAID OOH G