Her mother had never liked Haruka. Well, that was slightly untrue: when they were little kids, and Rin had been friends with the whole swim team, she probably hadn't had much opinion of him one way or the other. Back then all Rin did was exclaim over how fast Haruka was and wheedle their mother to let him transfer schools so they could be on the same team. But now that Haruka was sleeping with her son, had been sleeping with her son for five years, had moved to America to sleep with her son, and looked to be sleeping with him for the foreseeable future… well, things had gotten a little tense.
He wasn't quite a persona non grata; she had grudgingly allowed Haruka to visit along with Rin on their annual trips; had taken an adjoining hotel room in London peaceably enough. But it was an uneasy relationship at best. She vividly remembered, the year Kou had entered university, Rin admitting the real nature of their relationship to their mother and herself: it never failed to make her wince.
So when Kou, freshly showered, sat down to catch up on her email after a hard day of study, it was with a sinking feeling that she took the news that Rin was back in Japan – because of Haruka.
The absolute proudest thing in her mother's life was Rin's Olympic career, nothing else could hold a candle to it. The least proud was his relationship with Haruka. Interrupting the one for the other could only bring her unhappiness – and direct at Kou a lot of complaining.
From: Rin (rinmatsuoka )
Subject: READ THIS ALONE
Date: 09-09-2013 15:57
Kou, don't panic & make sure youre not with mom when you read this. I'm about to board a train for Iwatobi. Sorry for short notice, just thru customs.
Fuck. Didn't want to get you involved in this, just can't see any way around it. In the past couple days, have you seen Haruka? DON'T PANIC. He told me on the phone that he's in Japan, he just won't say where and I can't figure out anywhere else he would go.
Haveto go. DON'T TELL MOM. I think I can still resolve this without worrying her.
For years, she'd hated being in the middle of this stupid drama between Makoto, Haruka and Rin. She'd definitely told him so often enough. Now though she wondered if she should actually have encouraged her brother to talk. What was going on?
She thought back over the past few days, nibbling at the end of a pen. Saturday – no, Friday, Makoto had emailed her out of the blue, seemingly just to… talk. It wasn't that she minded, it was just a little strange, since Makoto usually seemed to hang out with a different set of people.
Then on Saturday, he had texted both her and their mutual friend Kuro-chan, as well as Nagisa and other friends, wanting to go out drinking. Again, she didn't at all mind, it was simply out of the ordinary. And had Makoto ever drunk that night! He was usually the one helping others home, not being helped.
And then she'd stupidly mentioned that Haruka had been back to Iwatobi with her brother.
She still felt like it was only somewhat her fault. She'd been really, really drunk, and Makoto had brought up Haruka like he only did when he was really, really drunk. And he was always a cutie, but at that moment he had just looked so sad…
Well, it had been stupid to say and just made things worse instead of cheering him up. Afterwards, when the bar was closing, she'd overheard him ask Nagisa to take a trip to the old pool with him as she left with Kuroragi-chan. He'd still looked so…
Her thoughts trailed off for a moment before she lightly bonked herself in the head and started vigorously rubbing at her damp hair with a towel. There was a situation to be attended to.
Sometimes, she was really angry at Rin and Haruka for doing this to Makoto. She had no clue what had come between the three, only that it had happened sometime after their high school graduation, while she was a senior. Every time she asked – and she didn't often, it took a lot of effort to confront the great shark-toothed Matsuoka and coldly expressionless Haruka – she was soundly rebuffed. The most she'd ever managed was a vague "We're all busy" from Haruka, and that had been years ago.
No duh they were all busy, that was life. It didn't mean you had to abandon your former best friend and never speak of him again. She knew boys were stupid, but she'd never encountered any as obstinately stupid as these ones.
But she was only angry sometimes, because – well, she was happy for Rin. It almost made up for seeing Makoto so upset, as he had been Saturday night. Since high school, he'd emotionally done a total one eighty, from angry loner to annoyingly in love with life. And why not? At the tender age of twenty three, he'd managed what few usually accomplished in fifty years: not just found his passion in life, but completely excelled at it. So far, he had two Olympic medals to his name, was close to graduating from a foreign university, had already travelled the world extensively – and managed, somehow, to keep Haruka along for the entire ride.
Kou frowned at the computer monitor, tossing the towel into her dirty clothes hamper and grabbing a comb from its perch beside her bed. Any idiot could see that Haruka – not to be a romantic – filled a hole in Rin; made him happy but also motivated him. But there seemed to be something off about their relationship lately all the same. Ever since they'd worked through that silly high school rivalry thing, it had seemed to Kou – with her admittedly limited chance at observations – that Haruka didn't seem very happy. Well, as happy as Haruka ever seemed to be, anyway. She'd always dismissed this little doubt because, well - Haruka was still with Rin, wasn't he? He'd chosen to follow Rin to university in Fukuoka, had chosen to go with Rin to America, and to London, and after… it was silly to think in the face of such overwhelming evidence, that he was anything other than satisfied with his life.
Which brought her back to the contradiction of the email, still displayed on her computer monitor. It seemed to Kou that there were three keys points:
One – Rin was on a train. In Japan. On his way to Iwatobi.
In any other situation this would have delighted her; she'd have run down to tell her mother and they could have fun cooking his favourite foods (and some that he disliked, just to see the look on his face). Her mother was always ecstatic when her baby boy was home, she hadn't stopped worrying about him in almost ten years, since that very first trip to Australia. But the email had specifically said not to tell their mother; much as she would like to, she couldn't betray that trust. Hadn't she just been thinking that Rin should open up more to her, to avoid situations like this? Didn't she want to know more about his life than the cursory "fine / food here is awful / too hot out" that she'd been hearing for half her life on the phone?
Two – Haruka was also in Japan.
Now, that was unexpected. Haruka hardly ever came back, and never without Rin.
Wait, that couldn't be right, could it?
It struck her suddenly how sad that was, that she and her disapproving mother were the only family Haruka had to come and visit at the New Year. But then – Haruka might have come back at other times and just not informed Kou of the fact. It was possible.
She shook her head free from the depressing thought, and grabbed sweatpants and a tshirt to put on. It was still really early in the evening, but she wanted to get comfortable – this had all the trappings of a really long night about it.
Three – Rin didn't know where Haruka was, but thought Kou might.
This suggested a few things to Kou: that Rin hadn't arrived in Japan with Haruka. That he thought Haruka would head for Iwatobi rather than Fukuoka or anywhere else. That he actually had some small amount of faith in her, a gratifying prospect.
Mulling over all of these things, Kou finally decided to send a quick email to Makoto. Of all people, she somehow still thought he was the most likely to know where Haruka was, even after their years of – whatever you would call it. That meant Rin would probably think the same thing and go for Makoto; the poor guy deserved a warning.
She didn't worry too much about Haruka, though. After all, Rin was in contact with him, if not very productively: she thought he'd have mentioned should Haruka had been, like, kidnapped or something. She snorted at the thought and got up for some tea.
Besides, Haruka was a big boy. He could look after himself.
