A/N: This is a little fic for FanofBellaandEdward for her birthday! I know it's early I know I know I KNOW! I hope you like it either way x

DROWNING ON AIR

by

Belle A Lestrange

~0~

Five Years Ago

~0~

'I'm all alone.'

As depressing as the thought was, it was one that plagued Rin every time his mind quietened down. It was still all too new for him. He'd thought he'd adjusted to this new life but something was still very 'off'. He barely spoke the language and people still saw him as the 'foreigner'. The jokes he used to tell back home weren't very well-accepted here, in Australia. Maybe they just didn't get the jokes? That had occurred to him, however, explaining the jokes? That just made the whole ordeal that much worse.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Rin let out a quaking sigh. Dragging his sleeves down over his hands, he used the coarse fabric to scrub his face raw. His eyes had slowly been leaking the tears he'd held back all day. He very rarely got time away from his exchange-family to shed them. He felt bad for hiding how he felt. They already went out of their way to make him feel better and at home. However, he found himself spending longer and longer nights lying awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling. He'd even taken to having Winnie, the little black Labrador, snoozing in bed with him. He wasn't meant to have Winnie on the bed with him, but no one had told him off for it so far.

Letting out a choked sigh, he looked out over the grey sea churning before him.

The air was sharp and clawed at his face and hair, snagging the hoodie tight around his throat. It was brutal weather even for late July. He hated that Australia's seasons were backwards. Here he was freezing in his thermals, when the rest of the world were jet-skiing around the beaches. Not that it was much of an issue. It meant that the long strip of off-white sand a hundred odd feet beneath him were vast and empty.

Just what he needed; solitude.

Fingering the cold, smooth beads laced around his wrist, he bit his lip. His eyes were still wet and stung when another howling gust of wind ripped the hood off his head. It was starting to get late. The sky was already darkening to an ominous grey. The cold made his stomach heavy and uncomfortable. Yet, he remained where he was.

'I should be getting back,' he gloomily thought to himself.

He'd probably get back 'home' just in time for Lori to call out that dinner was ready. A hungry pang punched him in the gut, but Rin merely ground his teeth together and fought to ignore it. He couldn't leave Lori to worry about him. She already went above and beyond and, truthfully, he'd been feeling a little awkward around her whenever she offered to drop whatever she'd been up to, to ferry him around.

It wasn't like he did a lot of stuff, not really.

He went to school and back, just like everyone else. He didn't go to the arcades after school with the other kids and he hadn't been invited to anyone's house either. A part of Rin was relieved, considering he was still adapting to some of the Australian food. It wasn't as different as he'd been expecting, but some of it didn't sit right in his tummy.

Another gust of wind smacked like ice against his raw cheeks.

Rin was dimly aware of his nose running. Not that it mattered.

Looking down he felt his stomach drop. An icy weight pooled inside him as he toyed his sneakers on the edge of the cliff edge. It was one of the few places along the beach that had a direct drop into the water –no beaches for another half-mile to obstruct his fall. With the wind picking up, it was really hard for him to keep his balance on the ledge. His mind was swimming. The wet, salty air was crystallising on his cheeks and eyelashes. He could feel a layer of ice hardening all over his body.

A tremor ran down his spine.

It had been a trial for the last few months, getting used to life in Australia. Not only with his exchange-parents but also with the new language. He'd aced 'English' back home, but all of a sudden he felt at a loss. These kids barely seemed to understand him. They tended to use colloquial English –a dialect –as opposed to proper English.

It annoyed him.

"You just need to give it time," Lori had said one night as he offered to help her with the washing-up. She'd laughed sweetly and tried to usher him into the lounge to watch TV. "You'll make friends by winter, that's a fact! Middle school is awkward for everyone."

She had been so positive, that he'd felt instantly reassured. His attitude towards school, learning and in general interacting with others improved threefold. His grades inches higher, his reports came back with amazing results and even his bi-lingual counsellor was impressed with his sudden switch. That was, until he realised that no matter how hard he tried he was always going to be different. He was always going to be the foreign student who spoke 'sub-par' English.

He was always the one that needed an extra hand from teacher.

He was always exiled from parties or clubs because he was from another country and 'they don't have our thing over there!'

He was always left to shower alone after swim-practice because someone spread a rumour around the he 'smelled weird'.

A lot of it was petty rubbish, but they tore at Rin from the inside. Made him paranoid. For weeks he'd been itching to reach out to his friends back home, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He couldn't bring himself to admit that Australia was anything less than perfect.

His watch beeped. 5PM.

With a sigh, Rin cast one forlorn look down at the Cliffside sloping down beneath him. His stomach dropped. Turning his back on the churning sea, he tugged his hood higher over his head, bowed his head and made his way back along the road, his hands buried deeper in his pockets.

"Rin is that you?" Lori called from the kitchen down the hall.

Rin closed the door behind him creating a barrier between the howling storm outside. "Yes Lori it's me!" He took his time kicking off his shoes and hanging his hoodie up. He needed to start wearing his winter coat now. The soft fur inside the hood would stop his brain from freezing.

"Why don't you go and dry up for dinner, son?" Russell said as he came down the stairs.

Rin glanced up at the tall man, before nodding. "Yes, sir, I'll wash now."

As he moved up the stairs, he couldn't help but wince. No wonder people snickered at him at school, when he could still just about grasp 'English'.

In his bedroom, Winnie came to sit on his bed and wag her tail up at him as he peeled off his soaked clothes. It had started to rain when he'd gotten to the end of their street, and got drenched within seconds. Taking a hand-towel, he dried himself down, shivering at the cool air in his room. He shook droplets from his hair and once he pulled on a warm, dry tracksuit he let out a very long sigh.

The smell of dinner floated up the stairs, stirring a hunger deep in his gut. Rin grimaced. His body felt hungry, but mentally he wasn't prepared for all that jaw work. Glancing over at the bulky white PC on the neat desk by his bed, Rin bit his bottom lip. He really should message his friends back home. Maybe even send an email to his mum and sister? They'd worry if he didn't talk to them regularly. Tugging the hood over his head, he dropped down on his bed and clawed on some socks.
'So many people to worry about, and no one to worry about me,' he thought bitterly as he clicked his fingers for Winnie to follow him down to the dining room.

Dinner started off with Lori and Russell doing a lot of the talking. Almost all of it, really, since Rin took a while to warm-up. Rin toyed with his peas as Lori asked him in her chirpy voice how school had been that week. Rin muttered a few things. Considering that school was becoming more and more miserable with each passing week, he didn't have very many positive things to talk about.

"Rin are you glad to have a break from swimming practice?" Russell asked, half-forcing a smile at the solemn teen sitting across from him. The poor kid had his head tucked down against his chest. He'd looked like that a lot lately. For some reason things weren't going so well for the young boy. Russell didn't know what to do for him. Rins personality had done a one-eighty in the last few months.

"I like swimming," Rin mumbled.

Lori and Russell exchanged a glance. "Then –how would you like to go swimming together during the end of semester?"

Rins ears perked up but his heart wasn't in it. One day of swimming with his exchange-parents wasn't about to make up for the struggle he'd had to deal with at school. He wouldn't mind if someone would just talk to him. Back home, everyone had always been encouraged to welcome the new students and make sure that they didn't feel left-out of anything. Picking as his vegetables, Rin felt the loneliness expand within him, extinguishing his appetite and remaining energy in a heartbeat. "May I be excused?" he cringed as the word left his mouth, but he couldn't handle being near them in that moment. He just wanted to hide under the blankets of his bed and cry silent tears until the day ended.

Lori and Russell exchanged a look.

"Are you sure you don't want to try a little bit more?" Lori asked sweetly.

Rin shook his head. "Thank you, Lori. I don't feel too well. May I go to sleep?"

Another look.

"If that's what you want, son," Russell finally said. He was weary, his tone made that clear. Rin cringed again but excused himself all the same. As he made his way up the stairs, he heard their voices echoing up softly.

"Do you think he's still homesick?" Lori was whispering.

"I don't know," Russell replied. "I just wish I knew what we could do for him."

Rin ran the rest of the way to his room.

That night as he lay in bed with the covers pulled up to his chin, Rin listened as the rain lashed down against the window pains, branches creaked and whined together in the whistling wind, and trembled as the stars shimmered like shards of ice against the black sky. Winnie was a small, warm weight on his legs and he tried not to move. He didn't want to disturb her. She was the only thing that really seemed to comfort him. It was terrifying to think that he might never make friends in Australia. He tried to think of how Iwatobi would have been without Makoto, Nagisa and Haru. Especially Haru. The emptiness inside him grew.. The emptiness inside him grew. If he pressed his face against the glass, to the right, he could see the black mass of the sea stretching off into the distance.

That's when he saw it. The light.

It flashed once, twice, and eventually a third time. Almost as though someone were trying to send a message. Was it Morse code? Rin bit his lip in thought but quickly dismissed the idea. 'It's probably just the moonlight,' the logical part of his brain supplied. 'Something is catching the moon's reflection and making it look like an S.O.S.' That was probably all it was. Something shiny flapping in the breeze or caught on a piece of driftwood. Nothing important. Still, something unsettled him as he managed to wriggled back into the warm cocoon of his duvet, burrow down into the pillows and close his eyes against the darkness.

~0~

As the weather grew colder, Rin became more withdrawn within himself. He only really talked when he was spoken to. Russell had kept his promise and –most Saturdays –he would take Rin down to the local swimming pool. They'd swim, relax and play around for a couple of hours then grab a take-away lunch on their way back home. Rin found himself looking forward to those few hours on Saturday mornings. They wouldn't happen every week, but when they did it made him forget the pressure of the school-week for a little while. It distracted him from being the kid eating alone at the back of the lunch-hall. His mind emptied, focused only on the movement of his body through the water, as Russell proudly coaxed him on, laughing merrily.

However, as soon as he returned home, finished his schoolwork for Monday morning, his mind would be cluttered yet again.

He was beginning to feel a weight on his chest and mind whenever he fired-up the PC to write to his parents and school-friends. It was difficult to act as though he was happy to be there. His e-mails over the last few weeks had been getting shorter, too. He tried to leave it at least a week just so that he'd have something a little more interesting to report home with, but it never happened.

In two weeks his training with his coach would begin. They had delayed his training so that he could climatise to the new country and settle in. Now, on paper, that was done and he needed to start a hardcore training regime. Maybe he'd have more to write about then.

With a sigh, Rin raked his hair out of his eyes and leaned back in his swivel chair. He had never had so much time to himself before. He didn't know what to do with himself. He could only read and study so much. He'd tried helping with housework like his Mum asked him to do, but Lori kept a very clean house. There was hardly ever any mess.

Winnie toddled into the room and nudge his knee with her nose. His hand dropped limply from his lap, his fingertips softly caressing her silky fur. "What should I do, Winnie?" he asked. "I feel so … lonely."

"Woof!" Winnie perked up beside him.

Rin gave a weak smile. It faltered soon after.

At about 7PM he decided to go to bed. It was still fairly early, he could hear the hum of Lori and Russell watching TV downstairs, but he just didn't have the energy to go down and fake interest. Tugging his jumper off over his head, Rin changed into his pyjamas and crawled under the cool duvet. Winnie hopped onto the end of his bed, snuggled up against his shins with her snout relaxed over his knees. Rin pulled the hood of his jumper over his head, burrowed under the covers and flicked his bedside lamp off.

The darkness was calm and cool around him.

In a strange way, it helped Rin succumb to sleep.

Winnie's whining woke Rin up at about 3:12AM.

He was sure he was dreaming as he glared at the unfocused red digits of his alarm clock. Pulling the covers back, he saw that she was raised up on her hind legs, her front paws resting on the window sill. She was whimpering at something outside. Frowning heavily, Rin shuffled to the edge of his bed and pulled himself upright. The street below was empty.

"What is it, girl?" Rin whispered, glancing up and down the street with wide, unblinking eyes.

Still, nothing stirred.

Winnie continued to whimper.

Frowning, Rin drew closer to the window, almost pressing his cheek to the frosty glass. Beside him, the puppy let out a shrill little yelp. Yet, there was still nothing out on the streets. Other than the occasional whistle of the wind, nothing else made a move. Furrowing his brow, Rin bent down and gathered Winnie up in his arms. She still seemed tense but Rin didn't know how else to calm her. Climbing back into bed, Rin pulled the throw blanket up from where it had fallen onto the floor and tucked it around Winnie. She quivered a little, large brown eyes still fixated on the window but she didn't making anymore whimpering sounds.

"There you are, you just need to keep warm," Rin murmured.

However, as soon as he laid his head back down Rin found that he wasn't able to sleep. He tossed and turned a little, the cold creeping over his skin, but he wasn't able to empty his mind. About an hour later something caught his eye. Something was flashing in the distance. Perking up, Rin pulled himself up slowly –being careful not to wake Winnie –and peered back out of the window. There is was again; the blinking light he had mistaken for Morse code. What was that?

Squinting, Rin tilted his head from side-to-side. He'd tried to decode the flashing lights last time. It had been nonsense. So it was just a random sequence –but that still didn't answer Rin's questions about its existence. Hunching his shoulders, Rin watched as the light continued to blink for the better part of an hour. Eventually, he felt his eyelids growing heavy. Tearing his eyes away from the flashing light, Rin slithered back under his duvet and tucked himself in. He wasn't able to fall asleep straight away, however tomorrow was Sunday.

He had nowhere to be and nothing to do.

He might as well get used to it.

A/N: This is a small intro to a story I'm writing up for a friends birthday. It's a little early, but I'll probably be swamped down with other projects nearer the time! :O

Let me know what you guys think!

B x