"Okay, just why the fuck is it only the two of us here?"
Matsuoka Rin's words carried a note of panic as he fielded the cool, blue gaze that the boy sitting across the table leveled at him. Nanase Haruka, its owner, looked as stoic as ever, seemingly oblivious to the other's discomfiture as he calmly regarded his company.
"Dunno. Pretty sure Makoto said they were all going to be here," the Iwatobi swimmer dropped his gaze to the menu, intently surveying the options on it.
"Yeah, and unless they've all collectively ditched us without any warning, I—"
Here he was interrupted by the shrill ringing of his phone as it chimed with a new message.
Rin-chann~~ (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ Don't be mad, but Rei-chan, Mako-chan and I kind of set Haru-chan and you up on a date~ (◡‿◡✿) Have fun! (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ
Before the magenta-haired boy even had time to splutter in shock, it vibrated again in his hand.
Oh, and! Be safe, you two! Use protection~~ (▰˘◡˘▰)
His face flushed red as beet as he re-read the words of the message to make sure he hadn't made a mistake. Just as he was about to hurl his phone across the restaurant, scream, and then go hunt Nagisa down to the ends of this earth, he received two more messages almost simultaneously.
Rin-san, all my calculations show that the probability of something sparking between Haruka-senpai and yourself tonight in approximately 98.79%. Best of luck!
I guess Nagisa already told you what we've done. Look, Rin, I know you probably hate us all right now, but even I've noticed the way Haru and you look at each other. Make the best of this opportunity, okay?
Any more of this embarrassment and Rin was sure he'd evaporate or something from the sheer heat of his blush. He must have looked pretty bad as was, because even the ever-oblivious Haruka raised a questioning eyebrow at him.
"Look at this," he muttered, hastily typing out a fuck u all to each of them and deleting Makoto's message before shoving his phone across the table towards Haruka like it was a poisonous object.
He averted his gaze, somehow strangely apprehensive of the dark-haired boy's reaction. A beat of silence passed between them before,
"One spice-grilled mackerel."
Rin snapped his gaze up in surprise and saw his companion flagging down a passing waiter. It was as if he hadn't even made that revelation to the boy.
"Seriously?!" he almost shrieked in exasperation. "I just tell you that our friends have set us up on a goddamn date, and your reaction is to order mackerel?"
A touch of defensiveness crept into the blue-eyed boy's expression, at the slight to his precious fish, Rin assumed.
"Makoto told me the mackerel was good here," he said, and belatedly realizing that he should at least address the issue that hand, tacked on, "and I don't care. Let them knock themselves out."
Haruka's non-reaction served to somewhat calm his friend's agitation as well, and the magenta-eyed boy scanned the menu for something to do now that he couldn't hide in the wake of his indignation anymore.
"What's with all the mackerel, anyway? All that mercury can't be good for you."
The shorter boy turned his head to the side, and Rin could almost her him mutter so annoying in his head. "I'm not asking you to eat it."
"Nanase, when people go to restaurants, it's usually to eat something different."
"I usually have salt-grilled," the ocean-eyed boy retorted, as if that resolved everything.
The redhead had a perfectly snarky reply to that, he swore he did, but it was cut short by the arrival of Haruka's food, his companion utterly disregarding him as his eyes took on that sparkle which only surfaced when marine objects were involved.
What was the big deal about fish, anyway? The taller boy grabbed a piece of the food off his friend's plate, popping it into his mouth.
"Oi," Haruka's annoyed interjection was lost in the noise of disgust the boy opposite him made as he swallowed the food.
"You call that food?"
On a sudden instinct, Rin grabbed the pale arm, yanking him up and tossed a few bills onto the table.
"What do you want."
"Come, I'll show you real food."
"Well?" Rin nudged the boy next to him. "How is it?"
"Mmmmmm," Haruka hummed, biting into a takoyaki.
The redhead had taken them to a little boardwalk a ways from the restaurant, liked with bustling shops. Strings of glowing lanterns cast their fiery radiance far into the sky, lighting up the little pathway like a little ball of fire. Sizzling sounds and savory smells pervaded the area they walked along, and the calm lapping of waves so close at hand lent an almost indiscernible, calming current to the lively scene.
An unspoken understanding led them to the sea in the course of their walk, and they made their way, in companionable silence to the shore, the water acting almost as a mediator between the two of them, keeping their contrary tendencies at bay. Rin felt suddenly overwhelmed by the sheer power contained in the great body of water before them. A surreptitious gaze at the brunet told him he wasn't the only one.
Magenta eyes fluttered shut as the Samezuka swimmer let himself drink in the waves washing over stone and sand and shell, drink in the presence of a friend he'd never thought he would have again. His tranquility was short-lived, however, as the rustling of cloth immediately drew his attention.
"What the— Haru!"
He grabbed his friend's arm, forcibly restraining him from stripping off and jumping in.
"You idiot, the water's going to be freezing cold at this time, and it's high tide, too! Do you wanna fucking die?"
When the ink-haired boy just gave him an annoyed stare, he sighed, sinking down onto the sand and patting the spot next to him. "Sit."
Haruka reluctantly conceded, taking a seat beside the magenta-haired boy, who pulled out two bottles from his bag and passed one to him.
"I don't even want to know," the blue-eyed boy muttered, reflexively accepting it, and the taller one just flashed him a sharp-toothed grin.
"I have my sources," he said, uncapping his bottle and raising it up to clink with the other boy's.
"I don't want any," again with that disinterested look, cobalt gaze sliding off Rin to lock with the sea behind him. "I want to swim."
The dormant flare of frustration, the one that Haruka could so easily elicit, kindled in the ruby-eyed boy's chest. It was inexplicable how, even when they'd been nothing but brats, he'd pushed himself harder, swum faster, been louder, all in the hope to get that cold, blue gaze to rest on him for more than a few fleeting moments.
So he just did what he always had, resorted to the oldest, simplest mode of communication between them.
"Scared, Nanase?" he met the impassive gaze point-blank as he took a long, deliberate swallow of his beer, the challenge his action sparked in it serving, as always, to appease that selfish part of him which wanted more from the person himself than he himself could ever communicate or even understand.
Haruka's expression almost imperceptibly changed to the one Rin knew so well, the one that meant like hell. He maintained the deadlock of ruby and sapphire as he mirrored the taller boy's act, sipping the alcohol before grimacing.
"This is disgusting."
"Don't tell me," a broad grin spread over the Samezuka swimmer's face. "You've never drunk anything before, Haru?"
"I don't see the point— it's just water with nasty-tasting stuff added in."
"That's not… entirely accurate."
After they had drunk their beers down, Rin tossed them back into his bag, lying back on the sand, running his fingers through it and enjoying the cool, gritty feeling beneath his nails. His upturned face was bathed in the soft, pale light of the stars glimmering here and there, like diamonds in the night's velvet cape. Right about now, he could have been on one of his escapades out of Samezuka, enjoying the rough texture under his fingertips and listening to the dull roar of oceanic nightsong mirror the indecipherable mess of emotions within him, an alcoholic haze tinting everything warm hues.
Except he wasn't.
Except that he was nowhere near buzzed from just the one bottle, and therefore painfully aware of the presence next to him. And wasn't it just a fucking testament to how pathetic he really was, that this guy could make him squirm uncomfortably, hyperaware of his own itchy skin, by just sitting there with that infuriatingly blank look on his face?
Presently, Rin, unable to stand the buzz just under his skin any longer without at least knowing what sort of black magic that idiot was pulling, ventured a tilt of his head in the other boy's direction.
And he did a double take.
Because it was so different, knowing something and understanding something.
He'd always known that Haruka was attractive, in an objective sense. That hair the color of night and those eyes that were a window straight into the Japan Trench practically radiated an aura of quiet intensity. But now, now that Rin was looking, now that the silver moonlight blanched his already fair skin alabaster, now that those long, sooty lashes Rin had never noticed before fanned out in perfect contrast against his fine, pale face, now he understood what Rei had meant when he'd made vociferous exhortations about Haruka-senpai's beauty. In that moment, the ruby-eyed boy could honestly believe that his companion's chi was convening with the ocean. He genuinely thought that the riveting sapphire eyes, which seemed far, far away were seeing sights no ordinary mortal could ever hope to, that a marine spirit had been mistakenly cast into the biped body.
Wait. Wait wait wait wait fucking wait.
WHAT. THE. FUCK. WAS HE DOING?
What was he doing ogling Haruka's form and… fucking writing poetry about him in his head like he was some sort of starry-eyed maiden with her first crush?
Hold on a second. First crush?
No.
No no nope nope nope absolutely fucking not.
There was no way he liked Haruka like that, it was impossible, he was the single most annoying person in Rin's universe—
"If you like me, Rin, just say so,"
Haruka hadn't even needed to turn around to sense the magenta gaze burning holes into him. What, did he now have another radar, a Rin-is-being-creepy-again-dar or something in addition to his water-within-fifteen-feet-dar?
Anyway, that was not the issue here.
"Wha…" the taller boy mouthed in absolute horror, seeming more like a goldfish than a shark. "Like hell I do."
And because it was just so much easier to hurt people, to hurt Haruka than to grow a pair and attempt to give voice to the strange, antithetical mix of feelings the boy provoked in him when he so much as moved a muscle, the redhead snapped out in continuation. "Why— why would you think for a moment that I'd want to hurt myself like that, to give you that power ever again?"
"You'd hurt yourself?"
And the ink-haired boy was finally looking at him, feeling flickering in that cold gaze for once, and Rin was reminded of exactly why they were like this, his own reason, at least. The guilt he felt at the hurt he caused was altogether mitigated by the satisfaction at seeing that icy façade of the brunet's crack.
So why did Haruka do it?
Why did Haruka not just tell him to fuck off and move of with his life, be as free as that damned stroke he was so fond of? Why would he just let himself be hurt, and hurt Rin, in turn, in this constant tug-of-war of theirs?
"I'm never going to let myself get close to you again," he snarled, sitting up and closing in on the blue-eyed boy. "Never."
"Never?" he returned the Samezuka swimmer's gaze dead-on, staring back with the same intensity.
"Never," the maroon-haired boy's voice, almost unconsciously, dropped to a more congenial pitch. Somehow, it didn't feel like they were contesting the previous issue anymore.
"Not what I asked," the Iwatobi swimmer said, the quick flash of hurt in his eyes melting as the same realization seemed to dawn on him, then, softer, "Me, too."
"I mean, you— god, you really piss me off, you know?" Rin said, a haphazard flurry of excuses flying forward to mask his confusion, brought on by Haruka's loaded response. "You're so… you're the most annoying person I've ever come across. You're weird, you're really fucking oblivious, and just basically, someone like me could never fall for someone like you."
"Me too," was the black-haired boy actually smiling? "Let's go home, Rin."
"I have to take the train back to Samezuka," the magenta-eyed boy muttered, but got up and followed the other anyway when he started walking.
The silence in which they made their way back to Haruka's was nothing like the one in which they had first walked to the beach. The very air between them was uncomfortably charged and an electric shock jolted through the redhead whenever their shoulders brushed.
This is not a date, this is not a date, this is not a date, he chanted in his head, as if the words would settle the uncomfortable conviction building in his chest.
Twenty minutes and one excruciating walk later, they were finally at the Nanase doorstep. The two of them just kind of stood around awkwardly, each waiting for the other to break the silence. With Haruka as his conversation partner, though, Rin should have known that it was futile to even expect him to do anything to that effect.
"…Well, I'll see you later, then."
What was he supposed to do now? Walk off? Produce a bunch of roses from behind his back? What did normal people do at the culmination of not-dates?
Should he kiss Haruka?
Just as he was proceeding to crush the thought into tiny little bits so that he could claim that the idea had never crossed his mind, thank you very much, he became conscious of just how close he was to the other boy with them standing side by side in the little porch, half-facing each other. Close enough that he could just turn to the side, take two steps forward, and that would be it.
To his utter consternation, he found himself toying with the notion more and more. He was suddenly suffused with the burning desire to find out just what kind of face the shorter boy would make if he cupped his cheek in his own larger palm, how that obstinate mouth would feel if he ran his thumb over those lips before covering them with his own. Would he smell like sea salt and intrigue when Rin breathed him in? Would that dark hair be ocean-rough or silk-soft when he slid his hands into it?
He felt an odd disconnect, pure instinct and not his brain taking control of him as the electricity that had been crackling and building between the two of them exerted an almost magnetic pull on him, enticing him into satisfying his curiosity.
It was the same force that drove him when he swam with the sapphire-eyed boy, making them close the distance between them, until they were pressed up against each other with lips only centimeters apart. He brought feverishly warm fingers to he brunet's chin, tilting it up to get a good look at his face.
And he gasped.
Those eyes, usually calm as the resting ocean and so wont to non-emotion were looking at him like they had that time the taller boy had caught him off-guard when he'd thrown him against the fence, that time in the regionals he'd pinned him to the ground.
The tantalizing proximity, the passion swimming in those ocean eyes had haunted him for days on end. The power he'd felt at briefly being in control of everything that had been tormenting him condensed into a single, lithe body had brought with it a sense of comfort he'd never admit to anyone else he craved.
Now, though, it served to snap him out of the fever-haze that had been animating his limbs. He yanked his hands away from the other boy as if he'd been burned, and, finding that he couldn't face that surprised blue gaze a second longer, he turned and ran.
"Fuck," Rin panted when his breath had run out, and his mind had caught up with his body, dragging it to a halt. He leaned forward, hands on his knees, fighting the urge to kick over another trashcan.
What had had been thinking, coming on to Haruka like that?
And what the fuck had he been thinking, turning tail and fleeing without finishing what he'd started?
The last thing he'd needed was to embarrass himself further in front of the brunet, although the jury was still out on whether his red cheeks and pounding heart were due to embarrassment, exertion, or something else entirely.
Almost unconsciously, his hand came up to twist in the fabric of his shirt, right above where his heart was. If only it had a voice, his hand clenched into a tight fist, how much simpler things would be.
His blood ran hot as he replayed that ephemeral moment in his head, that brief, trembling proximity that had roused in his heart a thousand hopes and dreams and fears and longings.
His train of thought, though, inevitably took its course beyond that iridescent moment and Rin winced as he recalled how it'd shattered, too precious to last, before one sweep of those pools of cobalt. He cringed as his flight played out in excruciatingly slow motion, in his mind's eye. How had those orbs looked back then?
A few stuttering beats of his heart, and the magenta-haired boy was now sure he was in starry-eyed maiden territory as the pale-skinned face, the expression on it, floated into his consciousness.
And his arms fell limply too his sides as he straightened up, just standing there for a moment, before he whipped around and sprinted back in the direction he'd come from.
God, he was whipped. And a fucking idiot, into the bargain. A whipped fucking idiot.
Because, because.
Haruka's expression hadn't been shock, or disgust, or anything Rin had made it out to be in the convoluted throes of his thought process. It hadn't.
It had been, simply, in that broken moment, disappointment. Disappointment and wariness and half-formed hope.
And maybe they were less different than either of them thought. And maybe Rin had always known this, but he was only realizing it just now.
So he felt like he was treading on air, his heart pounding frantically as landscape and rough-tarred roads flashed by until he was at the Iwatobi swimmer's doorstep. He couldn't, couldn't go back to Samezuka with this itch under his skin, let it fester and keep on and on wondering what could have been, so he pressed down on the doorbell with trembling fingers, repeatedly, until Haruka opened the door looking as irate as the other had ever seen him.
The surprise barely had time to flash in his eyes before the redhead was cupping his cheek again, bringing their faces together, and, in a rush of adrenaline and sudden, inexplicable confidence, he went all the way this time and sealed the remaining distance between their lips.
He felt the shorter boy's sharp, surprised inhale as his body went stiff for a few unbearable seconds, before it just relaxed completely, melting into Rin's hands like they were two bodies of water. His hands came up to grip the maroon-haired boy's shoulders as he reciprocated with what he could, and as the latter sensed the warm touch, the warmer acceptance, he was sure Haruka could feel his heart, thumping so hard he thought it'd burst.
Their lips had barely parted before everything the magenta-eyed boy had held in, suppressed resolutely, came spilling out like prayers.
"I didn't mean it back then, Haru. I… you are the most annoying thing in my world, but, fuck, I can't stop thinking about you. I like your weirdness and your obliviousness is adorable as fuck. I don't… mind being hurt if it's you. And," he could feel an embarrassing flush creeping up the back of his neck, "Swimming with you is the best thing that's ever happened to me."
"Idiot."
When he looked up, Haruka's face was still impassive, apart from the faint tint of pink on his cheeks, and his eyes, which were sparkling the way they only did when he sighted a particularly large body of water. "I know."