Cross-posted to AO3

A/N: Here's the second piece I wrote for Rin's Birthday Countdown on tumblr (30daysofrin). I tried to keep it short... and kinda failed. I also still haven't figured out how to accurately rate my fics. Oh well. Enjoy!

It all happened on one of those weird days when Rin actually had a reason to stop by Haru's house.

The past couple of weeks, he had found himself stopping by randomly, sometimes by chance, sometimes by whim, but mostly for nothing in particular. While Rin always expected it to be awkward, instead Haru always received him in the most open-armed way he could: namely, with a blank stare and an equally blank "Oh. It's you again." It worked to Rin's advantage that Haru never questioned his reasons for being there, though, so he tried not to complain too much about it.

Still, this time Rin did have a reason to visit him. His own birthday was coming up and both his mother and his sister had insisted he at least invite his friends over for a small get-together at their house, and (because women were fussy about these things, he guessed) they had both stressed that he handed out (or rather, spoke) the invitations personally to all four of them.

(Rin was glad to have already been forced into accepting a party thrown in his honor at the Samezuka dorms prior to his family's suggestion, because, while he wouldn't have minded Nitori's presence at the party, there was absolutely no way he was going to allow Mikoshiba into his house that easily.)

That was how Rin found himself at Haru's doorstep, with a practiced invitation speech in his head and a reluctant frown on his face. He didn't even bother with the doorbell and just slid the door open to make his way in (wondering yet again why nobody ever said anything about how dangerous it was for access to the house to be so ridiculously easy), and he was right in the middle of kicking his shoes off before he realized it might have been wise to call first (call Makoto, obviously, because when ever did Haru answer his damn phone). He ran a hand through his hair with a sigh before lazily calling out to the owner of the house, taking the silence surrounding the kitchen as a sign, and already mapping in his head the steps he'd have to take to get Haru out of the bathtub.

"Oi, Haru! Get out of the bath already, I have something to tell you and I don't have all da—"

Rin's faked annoyance was cut short when he heard the sound of unidentified things tumbling to the ground (he wasn't worried; Haru wasn't graceless enough to trip and fall) followed by rushed footsteps that came from… upstairs? Heading over to the base of the stairs in his borrowed slippers, he made it just in time to catch Haru's expression as he climbed down in a hurry, looking uncharacteristically surprised and a little flustered at the same time. Rin himself looked baffled for a moment, but then couldn't help the smirk that appeared on his face, his extensive years of dorm life having taught him exactly what people wearing that same expression were usually caught in the middle of.

"Rin!" Haru's voice sounded slightly startled (perhaps even a little pitchy) but otherwise steady as ever when he finally spoke. "You could've called."

"I did," the redhead teased, knowing full-well that he hadn't, but if he was properly up-to-date in his Haru-lore, then the other would be unable to call him out on his bluff. "You didn't answer."

"…oh."

Yep, right it was.

(He felt a little bad for tricking him, but if this served to encourage Haru to pick up his calls more often, then he could live with it.)

Rin let out a dramatic sigh that spelled out 'what am I going to do with you', but the mischievousness immediately returned to his eyes when they went back to Haru, who was still standing completely stiff right in the middle of his staircase, as if debating himself over two very important options.

"Sorry, were you busy?" Rin signsonged in the most innocent and inconspicuous way he could, and the slight pause and slight widening of blue eyes before Haru's 'No' gave him all the information he needed.

The two boys stared at each other in silence for a few seconds before springing into action at the same time. Haru rushed back up the stairs with Rin chasing right after him, and even though Haru had a headstart, Rin had always been lighter on his feet. Indeed, he managed to slip an arm into Haru's room before the latter had a chance to slide the door shut on his face. Haru, on the other hand, had apparently foreseen this result, because he busied himself with gathering whatever it was that needed to be hidden from prying eyes instead of attempting to lock the redhead out. In the fraction of a second that it took Rin to shove the door open with an 'Aha!' in his lips and a smirk on his face, Haru had already retreated as far away from it as he could (but with enough space at his sides and at his back not to corner himself, Rin calculated mentally), hiding what looked suspiciously like a sketchbook in his arms.

That was a surprisingly mild and slightly disappointing turn of events, he had to admit.

He knew Haru was pretty skilled when it came to art (and that was a euphemism for a fucking genius, but he also knew Haru had a slight dislike for that term), and Rin didn't see any reason why he would want to hide his pieces.

Unless, of course (and this is where the proverbial dorm-life circuits in Rin's brain connected again), Rin had walked in on him drawing something ... questionable.

He couldn't help cackling out loud at the unlikely thought and at the little-to-no chances of it turning out to be true. This, in turn, earned him an odd stare from Haru, who still stood warily and at a safe distance from Rin's curious eyes. Ridiculous or not, he wasn't going to miss his chance to tease the other about it.

"All this for some drawing? Seriously, Haru…" He started, eyes wondering towards the desk, and lo and behold, there were a whole bunch of sketchbooks and pencils unbelievably (after all, this was Haru) scattered messily around it. Rin figured the mess had occurred either when he had arrived, when Haru had hurriedly grabbed the one sketchbook he had managed to salvage before he barged into his room, or both. He couldn't help grinning playfully at the way in which Haru's eyes were uneasily scanning the desk and its surroundings as well, almost as if second guessing his decision of saving only one item. That was all the invitation Rin needed to head over there and pick them all up, and even though Haru didn't move an inch he could almost sense the disturbance in the air around them (kind of like when they were in the water, except different) as he was clearly making the biggest effort not rush right up to him and rip them off his hands.

"Rin—" He tired, but the redhead was having the time of his life turning the covers around so that all four books were the right side up, shooting a last playful glance at Haru before he teasingly flipped the cover of the first one open.

When he was met face to face with a charcoal-stained page of what his mind could only process as depressing abstract crap, Haru's voice cut through the air in an almost solemn calm.

"That's the third one."

"What?"

"You've got the order wrong."

It took a moment, during which Rin wondered how the hell Haru was able to tell four identical sketchbooks apart at that distance, before he realized the spines were numbered (in his defense, the markings were absolutely tiny and completely missable), putting them in the right order before resuming his previous actions, and by Haru's expression when he shot him another glance before he did, Haru was either simply resigned or was choosing to allow it. For a split second, he found it terribly annoying that he couldn't tell which was which (even though he had been getting better at relearning how to read Haru lately), but he was obviously being expected to peek into the sketchbooks anyway, so he waited no further to do so.

Rin clicked his tongue when all his anticipation amounted to nothing, as he stared into what were evidently old scribbles, still better than average, but childish and boring nonetheless.

"The hell is this…" He muttered, flipping pages listlessly, his eyes glancing over drawings that were obviously random art assignments and doodles. It almost made him wonder why Haru had been so intent on keeping them out of his view (though he could understand why these he had not bothered picking up), until he turned the page to be struck in the face with a sketchy, but nonetheless frightfully accurate depiction of their old swimming club pool. Even in black and white lines, Rin could still tell exactly from what bench the view had been recorded, and his eyes widened slightly as the memories begun to crowd behind them, of reckless days where he had all but crashed into the lives of three (almost) complete strangers, hell-bent on building a relay team strong enough to win the trophy in less than half-a-year's time. Rin flipped the page before his eyes ended up betraying him, and again he was thrown into slight confusion, because the following sketches all depicted random places around Iwatobi (some which he had been to, some which he was pretty certain didn't exist anymore, and some which he didn't even know), and his brow scrunched in frustration because he was pretty sure there had to be a meaning behind all these drawings, and he couldn't tell what it was. As far as he knew, Haru wasn't the type to sit down and sketch things just because. The pictures were obviously rather crude but there was clear effort put into them, the skill and colored sections gradually increasing with each turn of the page. A few more pages later showed him a very basic but, again, generally accurate rendition of a young Makoto playing with some cats, followed by something that looked like an ice-cream stall and then a gorgeously colored sunset spreading over the ocean, and at this point Rin felt the urge to turn to Haru because he was out of options and he was dying for an explanation.

"Grandma used to say it's easier to stay connected when you have memories to share," Haru said bluntly, and Rin's evident confusion had him sighing before he was forced to elaborate. "I was going to send you these," he said, pointing towards the sketchbooks piled up on the desk in front of Rin, "to Australia."

Rin swallowed painfully hard. There was a flicker of concern upsetting the blue of Haru's eyes before he continued with his explanation. "Taking a camera everywhere was a bother. So I drew."

Rin's stare turned back to the promised sketchbooks, and for a moment he wondered (he had the nerve to wonder) why he had never seen these before. His stomach churned at the thought, and he realized perhaps it was not entirely a good idea to keep browsing through the old sketches, especially when it hadn't been so long ago that those particular memories had made him sink to his absolute lowest. A moment of consideration let him conclude that he at least owed it to himself, and also to Haru, who (by the amount of sketchbooks that had been filled so far) had obviously continued to draw and store his memories to share with him even after their epic fallout so many years ago.

The vibrant and colorful sketches spread throughout practically the entirety of the first sketchbook and more than half of the second one, all depicting different places of Iwatobi (and an awful amount of various beautifully depicted bodies of water) throughout the seasons, including an exceedingly tender rendition of the cherry tree in their middle school yard in all its full-bloom glory, which threatened to bring Rin to the brink of tears. Each and every single one of the messages on the bricks had been faithfully reproduced, though the sight of the carefully written letters that spelled out the phrase I Swim Best Free For the Team pulled at his heartstrings the most and tugged at the corners of his mouth for a smile. He went back to turning pages with a huff, and Rin still couldn't decide if it was a bad or a good thing that the books had never reached him; undoubtedly they would have lifted his spirits when he first found himself alone in a foreign country and in need of support, but at the same time he might have ended up causing irreparable damage to the adorably heartfelt drawings in a fit of rage when he came to the flawed conclusion that his team was the reason for his lack of progress.

His thoughts came to a halt when he flipped the page to a sketchy drawing of a certain railroad crossing, eyes immediately drawn to the pattern of an all-too-familiar scarf and the intense shade of wine-red hair that ran in his family. The colors in the background were faded and lazy, and Rin could see Haru's focus on him like a laser pointer, all through the detail and care put in his own figure. His fingers clenched around the edges of the pages at the sight of his own face, blurred and dirtied as if the pencil lines had been drawn and erased over and over again, nothing but faint traces of several different expressions that didn't quite fit the picture remaining on his blank visage. He could still remember how cold the air had felt on that day, and the picture communicated exactly that, even though the things he had seen and felt from his vantage point at the time had probably been very different than whatever had been going through Haru's mind. But the end result was the same, and it hurt a little to think just how much that encounter had changed them both. In retrospect (and even though it was a little bit unfair to ask that of his younger self), if he had given himself the chance to stop crying out his own unspoken misery and just listened, everything might have taken a different turn. If he hadn't shut himself out in masked shame, he might not have missed those four years that were currently placed in front of his eyes right now. Rin turned the page a bit too roughly, clicking his tongue at his own lack of control over such old emotions and reminding himself to be more careful with the paper next time, ultimately coming to the conclusion that yes, it was probably better that the existence of these sketchbooks hadn't been revealed to him until now.

Perhaps that was exactly why Haru had reacted so defensively and tried to keep them hidden, not to safeguard his work and his own privacy, but to keep Rin away from the unwanted flashbacks instead. He wasn't a stranger to Haru's odd displays of kindness. But Rin wasn't that weak anymore; he had long since passed the breaking point and was well on his way through the healing process already, and a few little bad memories weren't going to keep him away from the rare chance of seeing life through Haru's eyes. Or trying to, really, because the more pages he turned and the further he advanced through the sketchbooks, the less clear the message became. Even though the quality had increased drastically, the pictures kept gradually losing the color they had gained earlier and went back to being lazy black and white sketches, random and somber and pretty much boring, all in all. Even the mandatory art assignments in the first book had more spark than the last few pages of the second one, and while he was no expert in the field, even Rin could tell the reason why. He felt the painful pang of his chest intensify when his brain decided to remind him it was his fault that Haru had quit swimming in the first place.

"They're really old," Haru's voice drifted through the air calmly, cautiously breaking into his thoughts, and Rin scoffed mentally in return. His expression must have really been betraying the growing turmoil inside of him to warrant such an unnecessary interjection. "I could just throw them away."

"Like hell you are," he found himself immediately snapping back, his voice coming out with more bite than he'd intended it to. Turning his gaze back to the sketchbooks, Rin's entire demeanor became softer and slightly apologetic as he switched his focus to the third one. "They're for me, right? So I get to decide."

"Don't apologize."

"…'m not. Shut up."

Rin's appreciation of the picture he had previously labelled as depressing abstract crap was completely different at that point, and he had to concentrate extremely hard to keep his fingers away from the charcoal-stained canvas, his body itching to scratch it and smudge it all away and find out what was buried underneath. To his despair, there were quite a few equally-stained pages spread out across the current sketchbook, some covered more angrily than others, and Rin couldn't help but wonder what exactly had been going through Haru's mind when he purposefully ruined those pictures like that.

(It's something you don't want to see, but it's so deeply ingrained in you that you keep running face-first into it, and the only thing you can do to keep yourself away from it is to cover it up, close your eyes, and pretend it's not there.)

Rin was pretty sure that, while his current line of thought was probably curator-worthy, Haru would just shrug it off and say it was just a bad sketch and ripping the page would have ruined the binding. He wondered briefly if Haru had actually meant for him to ever see that particular set at all, and he almost (almost) gave in to the urge to put the sketchbook down.

In any case, the canceled-out pages were making him uncomfortable, so he skipped forward as fast as he could, past more random locations and sceneries and, surprisingly, quite a few cats (some he could most definitely recognize already, having stopped to pet a few in the past), hurrying to get closer to the present day. A funny feeling tingled in his gut, and he wasn't quite sure why, but suddenly the thought of whatever it was that Haru was still keeping hidden firmly against his chest was making him nervous all of a sudden. What could be in those pages that could bare his feelings even more than the things Rin had already seen? He didn't have to be an expert to see the extent of the damage that their fallout had caused, and now he was eagerly curious to see the difference with the ones that had been produced after their reconciliation. It was strange to have visual proof of just how much of an impact their friendship and lack of thereof had had in someone like Haru, of all people, and while Rin was pretty embarrassed to admit it made him feel proud to some extent, at the same time he felt infinitely worse for not realizing that he hadn't been the only one suffering through it all. He'd been too fast to force his way into Haru's life and faster even to force his way out of it, and the lifeless sketches did nothing but help the regret fester inside him at all the precious time and moments that he had willingly forfeited, and that, in turn, they had both lost.

The fourth sketchbook turned out to be aggravatingly dull. Most of the work wasn't even completed, everything was done lazily, and there were some frighteningly horrifying sketches of what looked like something that was even more atrocious and awful than Iwatobi-chan. Rin grimaced at the sight of it, and Haru stretched his neck to steal a glance at the page, wondering perhaps what had caused such a reaction.

"That's Tobimaru-kun," he said flatly, and Rin just scowled in return.

"It's the ugliest thing I've ever seen," he sighed in displeasure, hoping that Haru had better judgement than to ever let Rei anywhere near this particular sketch. The guy would most definitely have a stroke at the mere sight of it. "You have zero sense."

"It's cute."

"It's not!"

Haru moved closer to Rin and took another look at the page, his expression completely unchanged as he scanned the picture, a hand over his mouth pensively as he deliberated. "I think it is." His tone sounded perfectly honest when he spoke, and Rin couldn't help sighing and shaking his head melodramatically at it. He could sort of feel for Rei at the moment.

"Maybe you're the one who need glasses."

"What?"

"Never mind." He brushed off Haru's confused blink with a wave of his hand, and went back to turning the page as quickly as his fingers could manage, thankfully not coming across with any more pictures of the dreaded thing (which would surely end up showing up in his nightmares very, very soon). Out of respect for Haru's pride as an artist, though, he tried to keep his expression firm and unchanged when Iwatobi-chan came into the picture later. In the end, aside from the two creatures, the contents of that particular sketchbook were otherwise uneventful. The last few pages were surprisingly blank, though, and Rin was forced to turn to Haru next, his eyes landing on the one that still remained clutched (though a bit more loosely now) in his arms.

"Well?" Rin poked him vocally when Haru showed no signs of wanting to relinquish the sketchbook. "Aren't you going to show me that?"

There was a moment of silence during which Haru held a firm stare on the book, but then his eyes closed shut with a sigh, and he met Rin's gaze as he finally handed it over.

"It's a few days early but," he said blankly, but with a slight hint of resignation in his voice as well, "here."

Rin took the book carefully, almost warily (and wondered briefly what Haru meant by 'early'), but as soon as he flipped the cover all the thoughts in his mind were shut off in a blank. He was thankful that Haru launched into an immediate explanation, because he didn't really know what to think.

"I don't really know why I did," he began, his voice forever steady, and Rin was a bit jealous of that at the moment, "but I had to start drawing again that day."

Rin didn't need to be reminded of which day 'that day' was, as he flipped back and forth between the detailed sketches of their old, run-down swim club, with not just the pool but rooms and lockers and corridors also preserved with care on the pages. Haru's voice was quiet and helped to buffer the emotions that boiled inside him as the rest of the sketches danced before his face. Rin wasn't surprised to see the Samezuka indoor pool gorgeously bathed in moonlight, nor the Iwatobi pool all fresh and colorful under the sun (and he certainly didn't miss the cherry blossom petals floating about, raising an eyebrow at this. Haru's only comment was a small shrug). There was an assortment of human figures in odd swimsuits, a white, sandy beach and an abandoned-looking building that seemed like it had been taken straight out of a teen horror flick. There was a breathtaking night sky reflected in the water and a birthday cake built out of sand. There was a small boat, a few more cats, and a small bunch of pages which had been drawn on roughly and then promptly erased. He saw a few festival stalls he only vaguely remembered, the details coming into focus through Haru's confident lines and bold coloring. He saw the front of a small hotel and a swing set in a park, and a powerful overview of the pool where the regionals had taken place. Rin's fingers curled more tightly around the paper, because unlike before, he could recognize most of those places and, while their memories of them were probably much different, it was still something they could share. Rin found himself eager to ask Haru more, learn the story behind each and every sketch, and patch up the gaps in their lives without further delay.

But he turned the page first, and he had to stop and blink the tears away before they fell.

Rin had never bothered, had never had the guts to ask for a copy of that picture. Each time he found himself at Haru's, he tried his best to avoid staring in its direction, not entirely sure if he had done enough to entitle himself to reclaim those memories just yet. But turning the sketchbook sideways gave him a clear view of an amazing reproduction of that very same photograph, the last picture they had taken together four years ago, the four of them fresh out of the awards ceremony, looking bright and elated (except for a certain someone, who refused to smile for the camera as usual, and had earned himself some very well-deserved teasing for it).

"Turn the page."

Haru's voice floated quietly over his shoulder, and Rin did as told without thinking, unprepared for what was waiting for him right behind that drawing. Haru hadn't even finished breathing out an 'It's not finished yet' before the tears fell from Rin's eyes.

Before his eyes was an obviously unfinished, but nevertheless heartwarming rough of their newest winning picture, so different and yet so fundamentally similar to the previous one. The smiles, the joy, everything looked and felt exactly the same, and even though it wasn't spelled out for him, Rin could see exactly what Haru was trying to tell him through it all.

We're a team.

Together, we can do anything.

"And I'm the romantic," Rin complained loudly, just as Haru was taking the sketchbook from his hands and placing it back on his desk. He pretended not to pay attention as Rin wiped the tears away roughly with his sleeve, focusing on picking up everything that had fallen to the floor before and setting it back where it belonged. "Thanks, Haru." Rin eventually muttered softly, but the other didn't turn to acknowledge him.

"You're a lousy leader," he retorted out of the blue instead, and Rin let out an indignant scowl at what was obviously a late comeback for Rin's own comment on Haru's designs.

"Gimme a break! I got stuck with nothing but weirdoes!"

Haru had the gall to snort at him (biggest weirdo of them all, damn water freak), but his expression turned serious when his blue eyes landed on the pile of sketchbooks Rin had left on the desk. There was a moment of silence, and then Haru picked up one of them, flipping the pages quickly, as if he knew the contents by heart (he probably did), and then picked up a pencil to scribble. Rin couldn't help wonder about what had possessed Haru to do something like that, but looking over his shoulders proved useless, as Haru kept turning away from his view, and Rin eventually figured out with a click of his tongue that giving up for now was the best course of action.

He didn't have to wait long, though, because Haru put the pencil down faster than imagined, a soft smile tugging at his lips. Rin crossed his arms, tapping his foot for added emphasis, and Haru sighed, holding the sketchbook towards him and promptly looking away when Rin took it.

Rin let out a snort of his own when his eyes landed on the page.

"Looks much better like that," Haru muttered while he mindlessly made some (unnecessary, Rin noted) order on the desk. A big grin spread on Rin's face, almost, almost as bright as the smile that adorned the previously blank face of his younger self.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?" He teased, and Haru shrugged.

When Rin was officially handed the sketchbook a few days later, amongst sodas and paper bonnets and birthday cake slices, he found the drawing of their group photo had been finished, and the following pages appropriately littered with colorful birthday messages from the entire group.

Gou's was surprisingly long and sweet, and Rin was certain to give her a few well-aimed noogies for it.

Makoto's was just right: not too long, not too short, and expectedly heartfelt. Rin made sure to let everyone know that some of the confetti thrown earlier had gotten in his eyes.

Rei's was half-gibberish, which Rin only half-bothered to decipher, and half-challenge, which he dutifully snorted and smirked at.

Nagisa's was not only decorated with glitter and obviously mock-intended stickers, but also took three pages on its own. (If there was anything in this universe ever meant to be worse of a nightmare than Tobimaru-kun, Rin had unwillingly found it).

As for Haru's, it was only one short phrase almost hidden behind all of the word-heavy (and glitter-filled) pages. Upon seeing it, Rin said nothing, and he didn't have to.

It had always been there, really. He had simply been too focused on keeping his eyes away from it.

Once the party was drawing to a close, and while everyone else was busy helping to make some order around (with the exception of a certain blond, who seemed keen on letting the party go on forever by purposefully interfering with the cleanup), Rin made certain to pull Haru aside to give him a proper reply. Without prefaces, and almost without thinking, the words came out sharp and honest.

"I swim best with you, too."

Haru said nothing either.

He simply nodded once and stood there, staring Rin down until he was as red as his hair and finally conceded to lean towards him for a quick kiss—except he chickened out last minute and went for his cheek instead. "But you're still an ass," Rin added with a scowl, while trying to rub the red off his own face and pretend that it hadn't been a fluke. It was inevitable that a frown found its way onto Haru's face.

"Not as much as you," he shot back quietly, giving Rin's sleeve a small tug before placing a kiss of his own over the offending blush. Completely on purpose.

What a jerk.

"Ugh," Rin turned with a sharp growl when the burn on his cheeks only worsened. "I hate you sometimes." Haru's hold was even firmer than before, and Rin didn't need an answer for that, nor to clarify the true meaning behind his words, either.

"I'll take care of Nagisa," Haru said all of a sudden, releasing Rin's sleeve and starting to head back to the others, and turned to give Rin one last, intense stare, "but you owe me."

One, two, three seconds, and Rin's blush turned three shades darker.

"Dammit, Haru…" he growled just as the other left, pacing around nervously and irritably before finally deciding that chasing after him was the only viable course of action. "Like HELL I'll let you win!"

The next time he managed to scrape some alone time with Haru, Rin made absolutely sure to let him know exactly how he felt about being in his debt. And, naturally, Haru didn't voice a single complaint.