By Dan'yu
The moment she was forced to acknowledge that Hatsuharu was no longer a child was the moment that started it all.
Forced to see him in a new light, Haru at fifteen had been torture, pure agony on all fronts, physical, mental, and emotional. She fought with herself, the side that wanted to hold on to the memory of the boy he had been, and the other longing to see the man he was becoming. She held herself deep in denial about her growing feelings for him, struggling to hold on to the last defenses left to her.
One of those defenses had been the two-year age gap between them. She held true to that resolve until the moment Haru turned his steel-gray gaze on her, finding herself the full focus of his stare for the first time in a long while. As laidback and simple as Haru regularly seemed, it was easy to forget how haunting his eyes could be when focused under their scrutiny. The eerie ability to see into a person, look into their heart, and lay them bare and vulnerable under nothing more than the intensity of a gaze was Haru's own. She had forgotten what it felt like to be laid emotionally naked before Hatsuharu Sohma, the only one she had ever let see such exposure.
In his eyes lay a truth she could not bring herself to accept, an ageless and scarred wisdom that came with life instead of time, no whisper of a boy child but the intensity of a man, one who had seen more in life than anyone ever should, and was likely to see far more before his body grew into his mind.
It was Haru who approached her first, took a friendship both fragile and strong and made it into something more. That afternoon in their childhood haunts, in the secret place just their own, where they had once come to escape the world of the cursed, the entire world had changed forever.
When Haru set his sights on something he wanted, he went forward without hesitation, waiting with infinite caring and patience until what he desired was his own. It was no less different in this circumstance. He brushed aside their age, her fears of Akito's wrath, the simple taboo forbidding association between the Jyuunishi as simple obstacles in his path, setting his sights on one thing and one thing only: her. He reached out to her with a simple touch, pulled her to him and kissed her, and she knew she was lost. Anchored by his strength and set free by his love, Rin took the plunge.
The "god" of the Sohmas could damn her for the rest of her days. Rin Sohma had fallen so far, even if she had wanted to turn back, there would be no ground in sight.
owari