At the end of their scrimmage, the members of both teams took five to properly acquaint themselves with each other and discuss the strengths and weaknesses they saw in their counterparts. Rin, of course, already knew everyone, a fact that all the other swimmers were no doubt highly aware of and had carefully avoided mentioning, probably because they had been afraid it might somehow upset him, which they really didn't need to be because he was fine now.
Really.
But when he caught Rei dressing in the locker room after it was all over, standing the picture of cool and collected as he buttoned the last button on his shirt and adjusted his tie, Rin hesitated.
He hated to admit it, but even after their friendly reunion, watching his Iwatobi friends interact with Rei still felt a little like looking into a funhouse mirror and realizing that the distorted reflection staring back at him actually belonged to someone else. Though most days felt like he had never left at all, there were times when his lingering doubts ambushed him from the darkest recesses of his heart, and he caught himself waiting for the other shoe to drop. For them to test his loyalty. For them to demand repentance after brushing them off and ignoring them for so long.
Real people weren't that nice and forgiving, were they?
In his head, though, he knew that line of thinking was objectively ridiculous because these were his friends and they had put up with all of his shit to still be his friends. But the uneasy awareness that they could leave his life again as quickly as he'd boarded that plane to Australia had worked its way under his skin like a splinter.
"Rin-san?"
And then at some point during his personal introspection, Rei had moved to stand in front him.
Shit.
Rin quickly leaned back against the lockers behind him and stuffed his hands in his pockets in an attempt to look like he hadn't been staring stupidly in Rei's direction while mulling over his worst fears and dreaming up numerous crazy unlikely ways in which they might come to pass.
"Um, uh..." He scraped his heel against the tile and forced a smile. "Gou said you made a personal best today."
Yes, perfect conversation starter. No mentions of social inadequacy or dick pics or that date they were supposed to be going on that he still didn't know any details about and...
Wait, no.
Shit, they needed to talk about that before Rei left!
Grinning brightly from ear to ear like they hadn't gone five days without speaking, Rei replied, "I heard you did as well."
And then Rin instantly hated himself for blanking on ways to steer the conversation elsewhere.
Cautiously trying to disguise the fragility of his healing self-image as nothing more than polite humility, he admitted softly, "Not by much."
Fuck, he hated doing that.
He really should have just asked where they were going later.
Rei pushed up his glasses, the fire in his eyes practically glowing through the lenses. "Even a millisecond could mean the difference between gold and silver."
Which, while technically true, somehow felt less than encouraging.
Rin knew better than any of them that the difference between first and second was also the difference between qualifying and going home. He knew what it felt like to hit the wall and keep the same time for almost a year, he knew what the Olympic records were for every event he had ever swam, and he knew exactly how far his times were from even the slowest bronze.
He dropped his gaze to floor. "I'll need to lose a lot more milliseconds than that."
He just wasn't there yet.
"I'm certain you will," Rei countered with a completely inappropriate level of optimism. "It is statistically impossible for someone of your tenacity not to continue improving."
And then there was this guy, who had only learned how to swim a few months prior, insisting that Rin was a shoe-in for the national team like he knew what it felt like to be surrounded by swimmers of far greater skill and to come in last place at a competition and to continue racing against the odds despite it all with no guarantee of ever being anything other than average.
Because, well... Rei did know.
Rei knew, and he was still talking like Rin's dream was reasonably attainable. At the end of the day, he asked for Rin's advice on how to improve his stroke. Even when they had barely known each other and Rin thought himself lower than dirt, Rei had still looked at him as though he were truly worth something.
"Rin-san?" The quiver of concern in Rei's voice was unmistakeable.
Rin wiped across his face with the back of his hand. "A speck of dust flew in my eye!"
"Flowers for Oniichan?"
"That's a great idea!"
"Yeah, Rin-chan loves flowers!"
"I'll grab the bro, and we'll follow you there!"
"You do know you'll have to not drive like a maniac for him to do that, right, Neenee?"
"Oniichan's riding the train home with me tonight, so you'll have to come by the house to pick him up."
"Wait, when does this place close?"
"Neechan stays open 'til six, right?"
"Dude, that's in, like, ten minutes!"
"Relax, we can text her to let her know we're coming."
"Keiko-san?"
"Kei-chan?"
"Neenee, why are you making that face?"
Keiko's hand shot out abruptly, the end of her pink painted fingernail stopping millimeters from the tip of Gou's nose. "You. Go pry Rin-kun away from Rei-kun and make no mention of what we're planning."
Gou blinked, going cross-eyed as she reflexively focused on the sudden finger in her face before taking a step back, rubbing her eyes, and blinking again. "Yeah, sure. Gotcha."
"And you." Keiko swung her arm to point up at Kaede, who merely smirked and continued staring past her hand at either her chin or her breasts. Most likely her breasts. "Grab Rei-kun and meet me in the parking lot."
"Already on it, babe." He corrected his line of sight to her eyes and winked in a way that he probably thought was charming before following Gou to the locker room.
As if on cue, Rei and Rin emerged wearing their uniforms and complementing sappy expressions. Despite walking nearly shoulder-to-shoulder, though, they were apparently too embarrassed to make eye contact, sneaking glances when they thought the other wasn't looking like they had been up to something questionable.
It was disgustingly adorable.
"What about me, Neenee?" Nagisa piped up excitedly, both hands clamped around her wrist.
"Grab your stuff, get in the car, and shut up until we get to Neechan's."
He then pouted pitifully and turned on the extreme sad puppy face. "Neenee is so mean."
That was also disgustingly adorable.
Not that she would ever tell him that.
Regardless, he huffed and shouldered his backpack, taking off to where his little friends and Kaede had gathered. In the time it took Keiko to catch up with them, Rin hurriedly waved goodbye as Gou proceeded to drag him in a direction that Keiko was pretty sure didn't lead to any outside exits, which seemed odd until she remembered that Samezuka was a boarding school, which meant that Rin had a room on campus where he could be conveniently confined while she and Nagisa made off with the Ryuugazakis.
Perfect.
"See you tomorrow, Mako-chan, Haru-chan!" Nagisa called as the really tall kid and the freestyle miracle worker returned his wide full-armed wave with significantly less exuberance and exited through a set of double doors on the other side of the pool.
Keiko whipped out her phone.
Sent! (17:52) Have you started closing yet?
Neechan (17:53) Not for another 2 hours. I stay open later on weekends. Why?
Sent! (17:54) Nagi's friend has a hot date tonight and I wanted to send him to the best florist in town.
Neechan (17:54) Great! When is he coming?
A pair of deliciously muscular forearms settled on each of her shoulders. "Ready when you are."
His stomach flipped as the passenger side window passed within touching distance of a cement mixer, the deep honk of a utility truck fading in the distance as Keiko then sped through a changing yellow light.
There was no question that Nagisa would be the first among his friends to proclaim his undying love of thrill rides, but this ride in particular ran the very real risk of ending a little deadlier than an embarrassing photo finish. If not for his boundless compassion and protective nature when it came to his friends, he would've totally ditched and took the train home.
"Slow down! There's no way they can follow us like this!"
"Shut up, dweeb!"
He turned his head to protest, witnessing the exact moment her face twisted into an alarming scowl as she checked her rearview mirror.
"I can still see his shitty Hyundai," she spat.
"Are you trying to lose them?!"
He had only a split second to brace himself against the door before the car lurched sideways, rear tires squealing as they whipped around a notoriously dangerous curve leading to the steep local landmark known simply as "the hill". As Keiko righted the steering, he caught a good look in the side mirror of the fresh black streaks left behind, the longer of which stretched from the middle of the left lane to the grassy shoulder that sloped into a ditch the size of a creek.
Then, the phone in his pocket chimed.
Rei-chan (18:03) Could you please ask your sister to slow down? I mean no offense, but her erratic driving is difficult to follow.
Sent! (18:03) u think i havnt tried?
Sent! (18:03) THIS IS NOT HOW I WANNA DIE!
If he hadn't put on his seatbelt, in fact, Nagisa was pretty sure that his head would've cracked against the dashboard as she braked hard enough to burn rubber a second time, barely clearing the sharp turn at the next intersection. Once the road began the steady incline towards their destination, she took one fleeting glance in the rearview and floored it, knocking him flat against the back of his seat.
If by some miracle he survived the rest of the ride, Keiko was so dead.
His phone chimed again.
Rei-chan (18:04) Which way did you turn after the curve? We're approaching a three-way stop!
Rei-chan (18:04) PLEASE HURRY!
"Oh my god." Groaning in frustration, Nagisa slumped down and slapped his hands over his eyes. "Good job, Keiko. Now they're lost!"
Rather than the continued yelling and aggressive vehicular acrobatics he expected, his complaints were met with complete silence.
Then, she let out a light chuckle.
Confused, angry, and somewhat terrified, he cautiously peeked over his fingers to find a seemly genuine smile on her face, to which he clenched his fists and pouted. "This isn't funny!"
Without any explanation or warning, the car started coasting down to a reasonable speed, and Keiko gently tapped the brakes to slow down and actually stop at a stop sign.
"Hey, Nagi." She sounded calm.
Too calm.
"What?"
Like they hadn't just gone through a high speed chase that probably broke every traffic law in the country, she smirked, switched on her left blinker, and replied, "Tell your friend his brother owes me 1,000 yen."
"What?"
She side-eyed him knowingly and glanced in each mirror as if she cared that there were other vehicles behind them, drumming her fingers against the steering wheel while waiting for cross traffic to pass. "I told Kaede that I was a professional driver for a Honda commercial, and he didn't believe me, so I bet him he couldn't tail me all the way to the hill."
"That's mean, and we almost died," Nagisa replied humorlessly.
But the part of him imagining what Rei's panicked face must have looked like while typing that last text made him giggle.
"Oh, now it's funny, huh?" Keiko leered at him.
Pretending to still be angry, he crossed his arms and frowned. "Just don't ever do that again!"
At that, she snickered softly, which quickly grew into peals of really gross snorting laughter. "I make no promises."
After the last car crossing passed, she pulled out smoothly into the final turn of their death-defying journey. They were finally on top of the hill with Hazuki's Flowers & Gifts in sight.
Nagisa sighed in relief.
"Oh, by the way..." Keiko made a vague gesture at his phone. "Did you ever tell them which way we were going?"
