Free! doesn't belong to me. Neither does High Speed!
Prompt: "Things you said at 1 am"
A good student
.
Rin had no idea how it had happened.
He was a serious, responsible student– had always been, either out of wanting to be the best at everything or understanding he would have more opportunities if his marks were better than everyone else's. He owned his share of laziness, of course –and had way better things to do than studying, like swimming, training on land or bugging Haruka to tell him his own times–; but overall Rin had always been a good student.
That was why he didn't understand how he had managed to forget the work he had to hand in next morning. Rin wasn't particularly fond of losing sleep to do homework, but he didn't like the subject and already knew his final exam wouldn't be brilliant; he needed those points.
Which didn't prevent him from being on the verge of falling asleep every ten minutes; the light from the screen of his laptop was too bright, the letters in the books he had borrowed from the library were too small and his whole body ached for rest, exhausted after spending the whole afternoon at the pool.
Rin was about to doze off for the twelfth time when he heard a tone coming from the laptop. He usually liked that sound, because it meant someone in Japan wanted to talk to him, but that night he couldn't help but glare at the incoming video call.
He frowned, though, when he recognised the name, muffling a yawn in the back of his hand before he accepted the call. It had been a while since he had talked to Kisumi.
His friend's face appeared on a corner of the screen, his smile as cheerful as Rin remembered.
"Hey, Rin!" he greeted, voice distorted by the distance.
"Hey," Rin replied, not even half as excited.
"Why are you awake now?" Kisumi frowned. "I just looked it up and it's 1 a.m. over there, right?"
"I forgot to do my homework at a more decent time," Rin admitted. He rubbed his eyes. "What about you?"
"It's not that late here," Kisumi defended himself. "Besides, I don't think I'll be able to sleep, so… I'm trying to do something productive instead." His voice grew quieter, almost ashamed, and Rin remembered how anxious insomnia made Kisumi feel.
He smiled, too. "Good."
Oddly enough, Kisumi didn't keep talking; he seemed to be doing things in his own computer, and for once Rin was grateful for the silence. Having someone watch him helped him focus, if only because he didn't want his friend to yell over Skype to wake him up.
"I didn't know if you'd answer the call," Kisumi mumbled at some point.
Rin looked up from his book. He hadn't understood anything from the paragraph he had just read, but he forgot his mild frustration when he saw Kisumi's sombre expression.
"Why wouldn't I…" But then he understood, a self-conscious blush spreading through his cheeks. "Well, I did," he said a bit too loudly, "so there's no need to worry."
"You'd tell us, right?" Kisumi's smile had almost vanished, but his eyes shone with something that wasn't only the light from his computer screen. "If there were something to worry about. You would."
Rin's shoulders tensed. He exhaled slowly before smiling at his friend, and there was no sharpness in his voice when he replied:
"I would."
Kisumi laughed.
"Good."