Free! doesn't belong to me. Neither does High Speed!
This fic was written for the RinHaruWeek 2015 (Day 3, blue).
This story is for María.
Like the waves
.
Theirs is a simple relationship.
.
Close—
Crash—
Away.
.
It's always like that. The growling ocean approaching to the magnificent lighthouse on top of the cliff, a devastating kiss somewhere between water and stone, foam carving want and need into the rocks. And then, a goodbye whispered by the retreating wave.
.
Close—
.
He feels his presence in the lane next to him, calm and composed and electrifying, and he sees the shore he'll inevitably find in those blue eyes that stare at him like he had never seen anybody cry. And he is grateful there is no pity in his eyes, because he doesn't want it– because what he needs is getting closer to the boy who flies in the water.
Nanase is his name.
Nanase is what pulls at Rin's little finger for the next months.
.
Crash—
.
Miraculously, Nanase's glare doesn't cut the thread. Maybe he doesn't hate it so much when Rin isn't looking.
He doesn't care about anything. Not about times, not about trophies or medals. Only about his free, but he doesn't seem to want Rin's free for so long that nobody thinks he'll accept it.
He agrees to try, though. And when he does he is light and Rin reaches for him, but he can't grab the sun and it burns Haruka's figure in his retinas.
.
Away.
.
Rin leaves so fast he can barely take one last look back before he loses sight of the shore.
It's a blurry landscape, and it disappears when the water swallows Rin, not only unable to see the lighthouse, but also struggling to find the sunlight that extinguishes as he sinks deeper and deeper until he doesn't know if he's underwater or trapped into the darkest night.
.
.
But hands he didn't think he needed find Rin, and fight against his own desperate struggle until he can float again and finds he's closer to land than he'd thought.
.
.
And it starts again. A taller lighthouse, a bigger wave.
The same story.
.
Close —
.
This time, it's slower and somehow gentler. This time Haruka offers him his hand, saves him from losing himself.
(He's not Nanase anymore; he's more of a friend and less of a distant star, though there are things not even the most devastating tsunami can reach.)
.
Crash—
.
Maybe it's seeing the tower staggering. Maybe it's finding the way to stop it from crumbling down, sensing its confidence as if saying I know what I want afterwards. Perhaps a part of Rin sees a challenge in Haruka's determined look, perhaps he pushes with all his strength because he thought his defiant gaze meant I can take anything and wanted to prove him wrong.
At first is just another competition. Who kisses better, who makes the other fluster more, who learns the best places to put his hands on faster.
Neither of them knows when it turns into who can hurt the other more. It probably doesn't happen on a specific day.
It probably has been there for months before they realize. Quiet, unnoticed.
Rin only realizes after the umpteenth argument, when his eyes itch as Haruka's frustrated reply echoes within his mind and he hears rhythmic stomps from the other room, that it's time to disappear again.
.
Away.
.
It's the first civilised conversation they've had in weeks, and it's a goodbye.
"Even if it's awkward at first," Rin starts, "I'll keep in touch."
Haruka just nods.
He's sitting on the opposite corner of the room, as if he didn't trust himself to get closer to Rin. Rin understands because it's the same for him. It's dangerously easy to drown all their problems with kisses, but making them disappear isn't that simple.
"Don't skip practice, and eat properly. I want a proper race when–" But Rin's voice dies in his lips. He can feel himself already slipping away.
"When you come back from Australia," Haruka finishes for him. "I'm not a child."
The silence that follows contains thousands of unspoken words.
"It… It'll be better if we're just friends, anyway." Rin finds himself wondering who's talking with his voice. "It would just distract us."
Haruka nods again.
Two weeks later Rin watches the Pacific from his seat on the plane, and can't help but wonder if Haruka is looking at the sky.
.
.
Makoto helps Haruka with his internet connection, with his laptop, with Skype.
Makoto helps Rin by setting group video calls every Sunday. Rin doesn't know which deity gave him better people than he deserves as friends.
Months later, at their first international competition, it starts again.
But now it's a storm.
.
.
Rin doesn't exactly knows who forgets their unspoken agreement first.
All he knows is that Haruka has a bronze medal and he's been less than ten hundredths of a second from beating him, that he feels far from frustrated and that his whole body still trembles due to the adrenaline running through his veins. That he waits until everyone else is gone to go back to the showers and congratulate Haruka.
But when his– friend turns around, already half-dressed, he seems wary. It's almost imperceptible, but Rin notices the way Haruka's shoulders tense, the sudden nervousness as he closes his hands into fists.
"Congratulations," Rin hears himself say, despite everything.
"Thanks," Haruka replies, despite everything.
It's the first time they've talked face to face since Iwatobi. And it's harder than Rin could have ever imagined, harder than the first Skype video call without Makoto.
And even after all these months Rin finds himself surprised by the soft, natural urgency that pulls at him.
.
Close—
.
He knows what comes next. Finding Haruka. Clashing and hurting before the tide pulls him back.
.
Crash—
.
Haruka's hand pulls at his hair when Rin bites his lip. One second he has Haruka cornered against the tiled wall and the next Rin feels the faucet painfully sinking into his back.
There are no unnecessary words, no how have you been these months? or I missed you embellishing the moment, nothing that can fool them and make them believe this is fixing anything. Just short questions and shorter answers to make sure they both want the same thing.
It's just sex, just physical, and Rin is grateful because he doesn't need to think right now.
But he would have never imagined it would feel so cold.
.
Away.
.
When it's over, Haruka almost trips over his own feet in his rush to get away as soon as he can, and Rin wonders if he's felt that cold, too.
He doesn't ask him. He doesn't see him until he's back in Australia, and when Haruka's tired look greets him from the computer screen Rin can only talk about how strict his new coach is.
.
.
It becomes a new habit they never mention. A secret they're embarrassed to talk about.
Close, meeting abroad. Crash, angry kisses and red marks, and moans muffled into skin. Away, and they play to be friends and pretend they haven't done anything more than what friends are supposed to.
There are only two rules, never stated aloud.
Rule number one: don't stay around more than necessary. Also called run away. They are ridiculously good at it.
Rule number two: it's just what it is.
Rin carves it in his heart and refuses to cry when it bleeds.
.
.
One Sunday night, on the weekly group video call, Makoto asks Rin something on a private chat.
22:14 – Makoto: How are you and Haru?
Rin examines his friend's face, slightly distorted by the bad connection and the distance. Though Makoto is talking about some friends of his in a cheerful tone, he isn't looking at his webcam.
22:15 – Rin: Fine. I guess.
His fingers linger on the keyboard for a few seconds, and he can't help but ask.
22:15 – Rin: Why?
Their conversation stops; Rin pretends he's heard Makoto and shares his own anecdote, giving him time to answer.
22:17 – Makoto: I thought that maybe you two had started dating again.
Rin bites his lip, but he can't do anything about the lump forming in his throat. He lets out a shaky sigh, makes up an excuse and exits the call barely in time to cover his watery eyes with his hands.
His mind inevitably wanders to dark showers, tiny rooms and uncomfortable hotel beds. A start… Maybe that is what they're–
No. Rin shakes his head. Those aren't starts. But they aren't endings, either.
He realizes what this– the waves, the cold sex, doing what is easier– is when he sees Makoto's sent a new message:
22: 33 – Makoto: I'm sorry if I asked anything I shouldn't have.
Rin writes his reply mechanically and wants to scream it's a lie.
22:36 – Rin: Don't worry, it's fine.
It's not fine. Rin is not fine. Haruka is not fine.
They are not fine.
They are slowly killing each other.
.
.
"Um, Haru."
"What?"
"Uh… I'm going to Tokyo for a few days. If you could–"
"Okay."
"You didn't even let me finish."
"'If you could let me stay in your place, you'd be a very good friend'. Isn't that?"
"Well…" Rin doesn't have the heart to tell him he wanted to ask for cheap places to live in Tokyo. "Yes, more or less. Thank you."
"It's nothing."
Rin wants to turn his laptop off and go to sleep, but something in Haruka's eyes freezes him.
"Haru?"
"Now what."
"You look tired." You sound exhausted. "Are you alright?"
Haruka looks down. "Yes. Just more practices."
And Rin can already hear the rumble carrying him to the shore, to him, but also knows Haruka is lying.
"Take care," is all he can say before Haruka disappears from the screen.
.
.
Makoto picks Rin up at the airport. Apparently Haruka is in class, but wanted to make sure Rin wouldn't get lost.
They talk about unimportant things, but sometimes Rin catches Makoto looking at him out of the corner of his eye and can't help but wonder if he knows more than he lets on. He's Haruka's best friend, after all.
But Makoto doesn't say anything about Haruka, or about Rin's –former, former, former– relationship with him, and Rin breathes deeply when he finds himself alone in his friend's tiny home, trying to ignore the paranoia slowly turning into relief.
And what if Makoto knows?, Rin finds himself thinking. Haru is old enough to know what he's doing.
Haruka comes back less than half an hour after Rin. He freezes when he opens the door and finds the redhead sitting on his floor with a book in his hands, but the surprise doesn't last long.
"Hey," he mutters. He looks more tired in person.
"Hey," Rin replies, closing his book and standing up.
And he feels it all over again. He's never had more things to say, yet he can't find the words he's been thinking about during his flight. Now he understands why Haruka is so quiet; he lacks the ability to babble nonsense, so he doesn't say anything but what he means.
Just this once, he thinks, and he knows he's lost again.
At least, until he feels Haruka's hands on his chest, pushing him away.
"No."
Rin blinks, the unexpected negative enough to make him momentarily forget about the nearing crash.
"No?" Haruka shakes his head. "Why?
"Because," Haruka lets his arms fall to his sides, "I live here."
"Wouldn't that mean that we can be calmer about it?"
Haruka grits his teeth.
"You don't understand anything, do you?" he hisses, walking towards the bathroom. "That's exactly why we can't."
.
.
It could have been anything. The expected mackerel for dinner, Haruka's monotonous comment about how he'll beat him at their next race, the old neighbour that knocks at the door because she needs some bread. The way Haruka simply refuses to lay Rin's futon out.
But what finally makes Rin stop running away and breaking their first rule is Haruka's unceremonious punch on his arm, followed by a terrified cry that freezes Rin's blood. Not fully conscious yet, Rin grabs Haruka's arms to stop him from hurting himself in his struggle, shaking his shoulders as he calls his name.
Haruka awakens with a gasp, sitting up and looking around in the darkness. He exhales slowly and leans his head on Rin's shoulder, and nothing but his shaky breath breaks the silence of the apartment as he calms down. Rin holds his trembling form, not daring even move until Haruka seems to notice their posture and pulls back with a wince.
"A nightmare?" Rin finally asks, trying to ignore the pain of that little rejection.
Haruka nods.
"I'm sorry," he mumbles. "I didn't want to wake you up."
"Don't worry about that."
Haruka lays back down on his futon and covers himself to the nose. After some seconds, Rin does the same, but instead of staring at the ceiling he looks at Haruka's profile. He's still trembling.
"Do you have nightmares often?"
Haruka closes his eyes. "Only when you're close. It's not your fault," he quickly adds, stopping Rin from apologizing. "It's just– this."
Rin turns to his side. Takes a deep breath.
"We should talk," he mumbles the words he should have spoken many months ago. "About this."
Haruka doesn't move.
"I hate this," he states. "It's cold."
His voice breaks, a bit.
Rin closes his eyes, hides his hands under his pillow to prevent them from reaching out to Haruka. Bites his lip, winces at the stinging and wonders how many times he's done that since he left Sydney.
"Then why do we keep doing it?"
Rin can feel Haruka's gaze burning him, but he doesn't dare open his eyes.
"It's easy."
Of course it's easy. Stop thinking is easy when Rin can lose himself under the touches of someone who knows his body better than anyone. The cold is easy to ignore when arousal clouds his mind; even the pain choking him like a hand closed around his throat can be mistaken for his breath being taken away, like it's happened so many times.
But it's just one more way to die. And it's not even sweet.
"The first times I thought–" Haruka huffs, frustrated as he tries to find the right words, and for a second they are back in Iwatobi and their disastrous relationship has never happened. "I thought we could start again. But you never said anything."
"Sorry." The apologize stumbles out of Rin's lips without any warning, and he opens his eyes just in time to see Haruka's own ones widening. He's turned to him now, too. "This sucks."
Haruka shakes his head.
"It's not only you." His hand closes around the border of the blanket.
But it is Rin. Rin assured him they'd be friends even though they had been lovers. In the end, they haven't been anything but pain for each other.
"What do you want now?" he asks, and he feels sick when he finds he still fears the answer.
Haruka tenses up, looking away.
"I don't know." All of a sudden he looks like a lost child. "Tomorrow."
Rin understands. It's three in the morning and Haruka still looks shaken from his nightmare.
"Tomorrow," he repeats.
"Can I sleep with you?"
Rin doesn't even think before nodding and lifting the blankets as Haruka rolls over until he's curled up by his side. He swallows as he thinks that this may be the last night they spend together, then remembers they haven't slept in the same room since they finished high school.
But that's not important. Haruka is.
"What if you have another bad dream?"
Haruka looks up, and for the first time in ages his tiny smile is aimed at Rin.
"I don't mind."
For the first time, Rin wonders what those nightmares are about.
.
.
"Rin. Rin… Rin."
Rin can sense Haruka's impatience in the pillow he gets thrown at his face. It's annoying enough to make him stop pretending to be asleep.
"What?" he grumbles, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.
Haruka is kneeling on the floor, next to him, still in the old clothes he uses as pyjamas, hair tousled and eyes sleepy. He sounds pretty awake, though, when he replies:
"Let's go for a run."
Rin raises an eyebrow. Last night conversation is still in his mind, but he can't help but tease:
"And here I thought you'd use me as an excuse to skip land training."
"Rin." And it's not a demanding Rin, not even an annoyed one. The single syllabe has something between a request and a plea hidden in its tone.
Haruka hasn't forgotten the words whispered in the dark either.
"Okay."
Haruka has gotten pretty familiar with Tokyo, Rin notices. Despite knowing without a doubt he's faster than him, Rin is almost left behind whenever Haruka turns abruptly a corner, whenever he zigzags to dodge people with almost insulting ease.
They end up on a park near Haruka's place, and they plop down on a bench as they catch their breath. Rin still feels slightly offended, even though he had no way to know Haruka's route–he doesn't even think Haruka does the same tour twice; but he forgets it the moment Haruka's voice breaks the silence.
"Last night you asked what I wanted."
Rin bites the inside of his cheeks, remembering his lip is still sore.
"I did," he admits. "Have you–"
"What about you?" Haruka tilts his head, and all the hope, the fear and the anxiousness he manages to keep out of his tone shows in his eyes, no matter how hard he tries to hide it.
"I..." Rin sighs. He'd be lying if he said he hasn't thought about it, and decided to keep it to himself. It's not important, not as much as their emotional state is. But if Haruka wants to know, Rin isn't going to lie. "I want you. But–not like this, not like before graduation."
Haruka nods, looking down.
"I'd like that." He fiddles with his fingers, an unusual nervous habit that catches Rin's attention. "But can we?"
Rin shakes his head, making Haruka look at him again.
"No. No, we can't." And Haruka's shocked expression hurts his heart, but Rin is done being selfish, doing what is easy. "You saw what happened then, what– What's happening now. It'd be the same all over again and I don't– I don't want–"
Rin swallows the lump that has formed in his throat and stops him from keeping talking as Haruka goes from hurt to angry in a blink of an eye.
"Who says that?" he snaps. "Have you tried?"
Rin grits his teeth, refusing to feel bad for Haruka's resentment –because it's not only his fault, because one person can't mess up so greatly without help– and failing. How can he not realize that Rin is trying to do what is correct?
"Have you?" Rin retorts.
"That's why we're talking about this!" Haruka all but blurts out, and manages to make Rin forget about his anger, about his pain, about the fear of crashing into Haruka again and destroy both of them this time.
Because Haruka's words don't come from a sick need of self-destruction, but from the will to heal, to fix what is broken and build stronger, higher castles.
He's not choosing the lethal option. But he risks so, so much.
Meanwhile Rin is thinking, again, about the easy choice. About running away from the only thing he knows he'll find again no matter how far they are.
When did you become so brave?
"And have you thought– What if it doesn't work?"
Haruka inhales sharply, and Rin can tell he hasn't thought (hasn't dared) about that possibility.
Yet his voice doesn't waver when he answers:
"It'll work."
All Rin hears is we'll make it work.
And suddenly it's so obvious, so clear, that Rin feels stupid for not having thought about it earlier. They'll make it work, and they know they can, because they've done it before. That being fated to crash is a curse, but also a blessing.
"It has to," Rin mutters, softly, as he reaches out and takes Haruka's hand in his.
They'll find a calmer shore, one where the waves don't hurt, but caress their feet, where foam doesn't open cracks on the rocks, but curls around their ankles as they play with the water.
It doesn't seem easy.
But the easy option was never made for them.
Author's note: The fic was inspired by Rhyme XLI, by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, a Spanish romantic poet. I found a translation, in case anyone is curious.
You were the hurricane and I the tall
tower that defies its force:
You had to demolish me or be shattered...
It couldn't be!
You were the ocean and I the lofty
rock that steadfastly awaits its advance and retreat:
You had to uproot me or be crushed...
It couldn't be!
You beautiful, I arrogant; accustomed
one to sweep away, the other not to yield:
the path narrow, the collision inevitable...
It couldn't be!