AU - ish.

In which Haru attended Samezuka.

{ Pls love this fic it's the only one shot I completed recently, ty }

"Oi..."

...

"Haru,"

"..nnn..."

"Haru!"

His blanket was thrown off him with a sharp tug.

Groaning, he sluggishly opened his eyes to be greeted by the sight of his redheaded friend.

"It's almost 9 o'clock, and you're not even awake. What the hell are you doing in bed?!" cried Rin, surely demanding an explanation that Haru couldn't bother putting together.

…though the look he was getting told him that he had to at least try giving a reason if he wished to survive.

".. Mackerel. Too much." came the broken sentence. Haru reached for his blanket once again, dead set on returning to dreamland. And he was getting to the good part as well...

Rin stood there, clearly unbelieving of the excuse. Not once had Haru gotten even remotely sick from eating mackerel, let alone ill enough to stay in bed.

Eyebrows furrowed in concentration. He tried to remember what Haru was doing last night. Nothing out of the ordinary, he finally decided. He even slept quite early, as usual. It couldn't have been a case of food poisoning; he always had the same kind of brand. Perhaps he only overate?

Rin sighed miserably, running his hand through his hair. He couldn't stick around and nurse Haru back to health, and he couldn't think of anyone close enough to him that was willing to do the job. Nitori, as ideal as an option he seemed, would never miss a class, even for Rin, and Momotarou was practically one with Nitori, following him wherever he went.

That only left him with one choice. He glanced at the body under the blankets, visibly in pain.

Rin sighed again. Haru was feeling awful. He didn't think that he minded who looked after him. Maybe he wouldn't even know that it's not him, Rin hopefully thought. Convincing his longtime friend would be easy...

…With a white lie or two.

Minutes later, a tall, raven-haired figure stood at Haru's door.

"...hey, Rin..."

Rin was gone before he even started.

Goddamnit, Sousuke thought, he should've known that Rin was hiding something with the vague request he had made. He even made him promise not to leave until his 'friend' was feeling better, or until Rin got back.

He blamed himself for not thinking far enough. He should've known. Sousuke debated between staying here and watching over this 'friend' of Rin's, or leaving the dorm and going to class like he was supposed to, only to face Rin's wrath after it.

He shuddered at the thought. Rin was scary when he wanted to be.

The shuffling of blankets had him frozen in place. A while later, the sounds stopped. He thought that Haru had returned to sleep, or at least gotten used to this new position.

An idea crossed his mind. As long as he was forced to be here, he could have some fun of his own, right?

A while ago, he and Rin had this silly contest about who could imitate the other's voice best. He won that one easily. Rin had been shocked at the perfect imitation, but a win was a win, and he grudgingly admitted that Sousuke was far better than himself at that.

So when he was standing right beside Haru's bed, he shouldn't have been as nervous as he was.

Calm down, he told himself. If he could fool the actual guy, then this should be a piece of cake. Anyway, Sousuke was sure that he knew Rin better than Haru, so if he thought that he sounded exactly like him, then someone like Haru would never notice the difference between the voices.

That had done the trick. Sousuke got down on his knees, out of Haru's line of sight, and called him by his given name, as Rin would causally refer to him by.

There hadn't been any answer. Not even a small sound of acknowledgment. Perhaps he was a heavy sleeper? He tried again, though this time he was much closer than before. He hoped that Haru wouldn't open his eyes as soon as he heard him.

It seemed like lady luck didn't want to be on his side when he needed her most as blue eyes stared into turquoise.

"Ah, shit!" He hurried to regain space between them. "It's not what it looks like, Haru,"

Shit. Sousuke called him the name Rin would. It seemed that imitating him caused way more harm than good.

"-Nanase! I meant. Of course." he corrected himself awkwardly. He was dead, he thought, the damage had been done.

"Then what was it?"

Wait, what was Rin doing back here? He glanced at the door-

-No Rin there.

Could it be...?

"Hm, Sou?"

Haru was playing along. It seems that lady luck hadn't abandoned him completely yet.

Although Haru tricked him; Sousuke had even looked for Rin. How stupid had he looked by doing that? How was Haru even holding in his laughter?

A groan of pain interrupted his thoughts. Ah, right. He had been here to nurse Haru back to health. Sousuke stood up, wanting to get over with this utter humiliation as soon as possible. The fact that Haru played along also meant that he pitied him in a sort of way, not wanting to cause him embarrassment.

This was totally reversed. He should be taking pity upon Haru in the state he was in, not the other way around.

"Alright, I get it," Sousuke snapped. "Just stop it, okay?"

There was a moment of silence. Sousuke thought it would drag on forever until Haru sat up from his bed, looking him straight in the eyes.

"Now we're even, right?" he asked, humor lacing his voice.

"What?"

"Er. You know. I got back at you for the vendor... thing." he awkwardly explained.

Ah. Sousuke really didn't see that as a mistake, but as long as it would keep him quiet about it, he wasn't about to complain.

"Sure." he agreed.

And Haru sunk back unto the bed.

Well, first things first.

An hour or so passed. No casualties yet.

With Sousuke's help and advice, Haru was doing much, much better than before.

He was told to eat more vegetables and lay off the sodium. When Haru argued, saying 'what about my Mackerel?!' Sousuke reasoned with him that it would just be for a few days. Then, he could have as much Mackerel as he wanted, and that seemed to shut him up.

He then advised him to take a jog or a walk when he thought he could handle it without having his stomach cramp in protest.

Miraculously, Sousuke and Haru were currently holding a semi - normal conversation, even laughs and jokes exchanged. Why do I call it semi - normal? Well, is it a normal conversation when you hated each other's guts an hour ago, and now you're both trying to see who could imitate Rin the best, while maintaining a casual conversation?

Busy trying to prove that they were better than the other, the opening of the door went unnoticed by both of them until an extra voice joined in on their little game.

"Yo, Haru, Sou."

They all but jumped out of their skins in fright. What would Rin think? He had tricked Sousuke into this, and now he was even enjoying it, talking to Haru as though they knew each other for a lifetime?! They were supposed to hate each other, not casually talk to each other!

Haru lightly shoved Sousuke away from him in a poor attempt to undo whatever impression they left on their best friend.

The widening of Rin's grin only meant bad news.

"So," he started, and they gulped. "How long did you think that you could keep it from me?"

...Wait...

"You can't fool me. You would never turn from mortal enemies to best friends... or even more, during an hour."

...What?

They both seemed to understand at the same time, flushing bright red at the shameless implication Rin threw around, all the while stammering to find a proper excuse.

Haru was the first one to regain his composure.

"Yeah. Sorry for keeping it from you." he seriously said, smirking smugly at the disbelieving face Sousuke made when Rin turned away from him.

"Wait, Ha- Nanase, what the hell are you talking about?!"

Sousuke looked as though he could faint from embarrassment, while Rin just looked like he was preparing himself for the news for a long time.

"It's alright. I actually wanted to tell you something I've been keeping for a while, and because I allowed you two to see each other-" "-I'm not seeing him!-" "-You should have no objections about me being with Makoto."

At first, Haru had been absolutely shocked. Makoto was his childhood best friend, and he never kept anything from him. Why this? Haru then tried to tell Rin that he was just kidding, that there really wasn't anything between them, and that it was just for fun that Haru said what he had.

Although Rin could care less about what he told him, already convinced by Haru's words. When Haru reluctantly asked Sousuke for help, he just shrugged, way more nonchalant about the ordeal than before, and said that he had brought it upon himself.

A few days had passed, and none of them spoke about what had happened. Sousuke and Haru had an agreement, at least for now, to not insist that Rin was wrong.

Although small 'No way's and 'Impossible's were okay.

The matter seemed significantly important to Rin, and they didn't want to tell him that he just told them that under a wrong assumption. That, and they didn't seem to mind that much anymore.

A few weeks down the road and Haru had grown used to Sousuke's presence. Sousuke had gotten used to Haru's, as well. They seemed almost inseparable after the little incident in Haru's dorm, no one spotting the other on their own.

And much to Rin's delight, the pair had stopped denying that they were going out together.

Such a romantic way to get in a relationship, don't you think?

I am literal trash, don't look at me. I finished this at 2:00 AM so please excuse the errors. I'll come back to fix them later if I don't die of embarrassment first.

Thank you for reading!