Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Rin's flame red eyes shot daggers at his cell as it moved shakily across his desk. You can all just piss off, he thought snappishly. I said I wasn't going, and I meant it.
The phone shook haughtily in protest, it's demanding light piercing the dark room.
"Argh!" Rin cried, leaping to his feet. Snatching the phone off the desk he opened it violently and grouns his sharp, shark-like teeth together as he perused through the texts. Hey Rin-chan, it's Nagisa! Hope you haven't forgotten about our trip to the beach tomorrow! It's gonna be great! We're leaving for the beach at eight a.m. It would mean a lot to us if you changed your mind. Hope to see you there! -Makoto Dear Rin-chan-san, it's Rei. I hope you don't think you can skip out on the beach trip. You know how long we've been planning it. It's all Nagisa's been talking about and I'm not going to let you disappoint everyone.
"Tch." Rin scoffed in the dark. I bet all those idiots are sitting around a table somewhere, trying to guilt me into going on their stupid field trip. Well it's not going to change my- Rin's eyes lit up as they landed on a fourth text. Beach Sunday?
Funny how two little words could inspire such a change in Rin, but Haru hardly ever remembered he had a phone half the time and spoke so little at all that even a text as short as this one was a testament to how much Rin-I mean, the beach trip-meant to Haru.
Rin fought to remind himself of this when he sent back his reply. YEAH. I'LL GO.
*The previous day...*
They had all met up at the Iwatobi swimming pool for a dual training session. It had started relatively harmless, just two teams gathered together for some fun and friendly competition. Apart from some poolside flirtations, that is. Rin couldn't help but notice how much fun Gou was having talking to his captain. Concern for his sister's obsession with muscles aside, it was who was in the water that interested Rin the most.
It was true that it had been a while since Rin had last seen Haru, but he hadn't expected to come back and find him so ripped. Rin had always been drawn to the way Haru moved in the water, but now he found it made him slightly uncomfortable. Each time he watched Haru's toned body slide through the water, see his muscles pushing forward and back and hear his gasping breaths as he came up for air there was a delicious clench in his stomach like he was diving off the deep end.
Rin watched as Haru touched the side of the pool with his hand, pushing his goggles onto the top of his head while pausing to catch his breath. All of a sudden, Haru's piercing blue eyes met Rin's hungry stare, causing him to blush and cast his eyes downwards. Shit, he silently cursed himself. What the hell was he doing?
"Rin-san!" Ai called cheerfully, running up behind him. His happy-go-lucky puppy dog attitude was dropped very quickly when he saw the look on Rin's face. "You okay?" he asked. "Y-yeah," Rin lied, his face blanched. Ai laid a concerned hand on Rin's shoulder, unconvinced. "You sure? You don't look so good..." Rin felt his anger rising. "I said I'm fine!" he shouted angrily, shaking the silver haired boy off. Rin froze as he realized he used more volume than he had intended, hearing the happy chatter surrounding the pool dissipate as all eyes turned towards him.
Rin clenched his fists, refusing to acknowledge the pair of baby blues pouring into him. He knew that Haru was undoubtedly scrunching up his face into that concerned pout of his, eyes shifting like the sea. Lately those eyes had a dangerous tendency to douse the flames of Rin's anger and reduce him to a simpering mess.
Startled by where his train of thought was taking him, Rin snapped back to reality. He didn't know why he was acting this way, and he damn well didn't like it. "I'm going back," Rin muttered, stalking off to the locker room. As soon as he was out of the line of sight of the pool, he slammed his fist angrily against the wall. What was wrong with him? Things had just about gone back to the way they had been before. He and Haru were friends again. But a strange voiced nagged at the back of Rin's mind. Would that really satisfy him? Or did he want more...?
"Rin?" Rin's blood ran cold as he turned to face Haru, still dripping wet from the pool. He was wearing that stupid expression like he knew he would be. Stupid, but strangely alluring. Rin wanted to shake himself, harshly reprimanding his train of thought for once again being derailed. Haru took a step forward, making his heart do a somersault. "Get away from me!" Rin snarled, eyes widening fearfully. Desperation flooding his veins, Rin turned to leave but was stopped short by Haru's hand gripping his wrist. "Rin..." Haru said again, a quiet question. He knew that Haru was only trying to help him by getting Rin to open up to him, but the sudden contact caused panic to bubble up in Rin's chest. I have to get out of here!
Rin inwardly pleaded with Haru to let him go, but he knew the raven haired boy would follow him. Unless...
In order to protect himself Rin responded the only way he knew how. He lashed out.
Shoulders rolling in a wave of anger at his own cowardice, Rin shouted: "Don't touch me! I don't need your sympathy, or your friendship!" Rin wrenched his arm free, rushing past as he heard the footsteps of the others on the tiled floor. He also heard a muffled thump, which caused him to hesitate just long enough to cast a look over his shoulder. His heart sank. Haru was doubled-up on the ground, a look of pain and bewilderment on his face. An expression that Rin had caused.
Rin ran all the way back to his dorm, ragged and reeling. Along the way he had berated himself unmercilessly for allowing his emotions to spiral out of control again, which had caused his face to distort frighteningly and become even more sharklike. Rin's intense expression even scared one hapless kid who had the misfortune of crossing paths with him as he was in hot pursuit of his friend (who happened to share a striking resemblance with Haru.) Kuso!
Rin was almost to the dorm before rethought his decision and hastily changed course. If he went back to the dorm, Ai would only pester him about what happened at the pool. He would undoubtedly try to baby and coddle him thinking that he was sick or try to boost his confidence if he thought that his times were discouraging him. Rin knew he meant well, but at times Ai could be a real pain in the ass. Instead, he ran in the direction of home.
As Rin threw open the door to the house he was thankful for the quiet emptiness, hardly pausing to close it again before casting off his dirty clothes. He wasn't worried about running into Gou because she wasn't due home for a while yet, so he took the liberty of dragging his stuff to his room and tossing it onto his bed while wearing nothing but his boxers. He could hear his phone hissing angrily from inside his duffel bag but ignored it and made a beeline for the bathroom. He was caked in sweat and his muscles hummed contentedly from being worked so hard but his real reason for wanting a shower was to drown out the blood pumping in his ears-make him forget the way he felt when Haru touched him.
But try as he might as Rin stood in the steamy bathtub, feeling the water pelt his body, his thoughts found their way back to Haru. He thought he would be rid of his obsession with his long time friend/rival once he had beat him in a race, and then had become surprised when his desire to swim with him became stronger after the fact. In fact, Haru was on his mind all the time, which caused the question Rei had asked him not too long ago to surface in the back of his mind. How do you feel about Haru?
Feeling his anger and frustration building, Rin hastily shut off the showerhead and roughly dried himself off, putting on a clean pair of boxers before collapsing onto his bed, ignoring the ring of his cellphone for a second time. He wondered disinterestedly who was calling him. He didn't really feel like talking to anyone at the moment, but as the ring of his cell died away he felt incredibly alone. Arms folded behind his head, he counted the seconds as he stared at the ceiling. But all he could really see was Haru, slumped on the floor, face twisted in pain. Damnit! I am such an idiot!
Eyeing his phone reproachfully, Rin moved towards it cautiously like it was a wild animal that might attack him at any second. Sitting at the edge of his bed, his fingers moved idly over the keys as he attempted to form the right words. When nothing came to him he figured he might as well message Ai instead to say where he was-he didn't want the poor kid to worry himself to death. He also sent Gou a message to say he was spending the night-didn't want her to freak out on him thinking he was some kind of pervert or something. After he'd finished with those, he found himself fingering over Haru's number. He had no clue what he should say to him, but that expression he had worn was eating away at him from the inside out, and he knew that he had to at least try to apologize.
After working it over for fifteen minutes Rin threw his phone down in frustration, not even noticing that it missed the corner of his desk and bounced onto the floor-surprisingly still in one piece-and slid across the floor until it was just under the door. He was too consumed by his inadequate apology. There was NO WAY he would EVER be able to send that to Haru.
Feeling emotionally drained Rin closed his eyes and begged sleep to quell his frenzied thoughts and let him drift peacefully into a Haru-less oblivion.
"Tadaima!" Gou called out, dumping her keys on the floor while she kicked off her shoes. She half-hoped that she would hear a call back of Okaeri for once, considering her brother was home, but she just shrugged when silence answered her. "I wonder what we'll have for supper tonight," Gou mused to herself, massaging a kink in her neck as she settled in to her daily routine. "I'll probably make Rin cook, since it's been so long since he's come home." She smiled at the thought of Rin grumbling away as he worked. She knew that despite all of the times Rin had complained about it over the years he really didn't mind cooking for others, and the fact of the matter was he was pretty talented in the kitchen.
Humming a catchy little ditty to herself, Gou rapped her knuckles on Rin's closed door. "Onii-chan?" she called questioningly. After a moment of silence, she tentatively peeked her head into the dark room, surprised to hear slow, regulated breaths. "No way," she whispered incredulously. "Is he asleep?"
It was true that Rin had acted strangely at the dual training session earlier on, but Gou had dismissed the speculations of some of the Samezuka swim team saying that maybe he was sick because she knew he took impeccable care of his body and was fit as a fiddle so he rarely ever caught a cold. Creeping quietly to his bedside, she gently laid one hand on his forehead and another on her own. She frowned. It didn't feel like he had a temperature…
Suddenly, Rin's phone vibrated from where it fell, causing Gou to jump. Rolling her eyes at her shaky nerves, she went to place it on Rin's desk when her eyes accidentally landed on Rin's message to Haru. Was this…an apology? Gou knew that would kill her if he found out she read it, but her curiosity got the best of her and as she read the short note a devilish grin spread across her face. Someone's got to look after that idiot… she said, trying to justify her meddling. And sometimes that means giving him a little push. Silently asking Rin to forgive her, she pressed send.
"Bye guys, good work today!" Rin heard Gou call cheerfully. The Iwatobi swim club was just finishing practice, and Rin had been waiting anxiously for them to pack up and head home for a while now. He stood out of sight, his back up against the wall. This was it. He was finally going to apologize to Haru. He listened as Rei, Rin, Makoto and Nagisa said their goodbyes to his sister before heading in his direction. Pulling his ball cap further down over his face, he waited until they were almost to the corner before cutting in front of them. He could see four pairs of shoes peeking out from under the rim of his hat and watched as they shuffled to a halt. "Haru. I need to talk to you. Alone."
The words tumbled out of Rin's mouth as if on a whim, and though he winced at the rashness with which he had spoken, he looked up at Haru to gage his reaction. The first thing Rin noticed was that Haru's lips were set in a hard line as he gave him the slightest of curt nods and he couldn't help but wonder how those lips would taste…Mackerel sprung to mind. Rin flushed, begging his thoughts to change course.
They reached the locker room too quickly to seem real and Rin winced when he realized he must be dreaming. Smiling sadly, he stretched out his hands, gently framing the sides of Haru's face. It was so unfair. But he had to know.
Quaking apprehensively, Rin leaned forward, planting a swift, decisive kiss on Haru's lips. Unexpectedly, dream Haru became enlivened at the contact-passionate, even. His fingers reached up and entangled themselves in Rin's hair, his tongue slipping inside Rin's mouth. "Mmmfh!" Rin tried to cry out in surprise, his eyes growing wide for a moment before clouding over with desire, and deep sadness. He decided it was time for a change of pace. He didn't give a damn whether this was a dream or not at this point, he was so hungry for contact-hungry for Haru-he felt he'd go mad if he couldn't touch him, couldn't feel Haru beside him.
Grabbing him by the shoulder blades, Rin roughly slammed Haru's back up against the wall. Rin bombarded Haru with kisses-his eyelids, his forehead, his jaw, and especially his throat (Haru was particularly responsive here and his immense pleasure was causing shudders to run through Rin's body.)
"Haru. Haru," Rin whispered urgently, trying not to recognize the signs that none of this was real. He drew Haru into his chest, as if he could protect him from what would happen next. "I'm sorry," he heard the dream Haru whisper before Rin's eyes snapped open and he found himself alone.
When Rin was waiting at the train station on the predetermined day at the predetermined time he had to admit he was a little nervous. He hadn't seen Haru since the incident at the pool, and that dream he had last night…Rin gulped.
Gou watched him pace up and down the boardwalk and rolled her eyes. "Relax! They all know you're a spaz. They would have been more disturbed if you had been upset but didn't blow up." Rin paid little attention to his sister, continuing to circle like a caged animal. Gou paused for a minute before spinning on her heel, saying: "So, what was bothering you yesterday, anyways?"
Rin caught a few strands of his hair and started to twist the ends together. "Just drop it." Gou sighed, stretching her arms behind her back. "Fine. Have it your way."
"Heeeeeeeey~!" Nagisa called, waving dramatically at the end of the boardwalk. "'Bout time," Rin grumbled, attempting to quiet the tossing in his stomach. Rin had sworn to himself that he would at least try to be on his best behaviour, which meant keeping his ferocious temper from flaring up when he was feeling vulnerable.
When they met up Rin tried to act as normal as possible, but he couldn't look Haru in the eye-which did not escape his notice.
Once everyone had gotten their tickets they all piled onto the train, resigned to the two hour trip they had before them. Rin noticed apprehensively (but not unhappily) that he was going to sit next to Haru.
Rin was unusually clammed up, but Makoto, who was seated on Haru's other side, picked up the slack and helpfully carried the brunt of the conversation.
After a while, though, he too grew silent as Haru's head began to bob dangerously as the rocking movement of the train began to lull him to sleep. Suddenly, with one abrupt lurch Haru's head finally fell, connecting with Rin's shoulder.
"H-hey!" Rin yelped, blush threatening to blossom on his cheeks at the sudden contact. That would not help the situation. Haru sleepily raised his head and looked at Rin with a stony expression before shifting in his seat so that his head rested on Makoto's shoulder instead. Makoto smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head absentmindedly with one hand. For some reason it made Rin really pissed off.