CHAPTER 9

Cleaning up the mess left after the school festival was something every Samezuka student was obliged to do, so there was no way Rin could escape that task. He was in charge of emptying out trash cans along school area and he was not thrilled to do it. He had rubber gloves on his hands and a mask over his face, but still didn't feel safe enough from all the dirt.

"Doesn't our school have a janitor who's usually doing this? You know, someone who's actually paid to do it?!" He rolled his eyes while sharing this duty with Nitori.

The younger boy, on the other hand, seemed pretty cheerful and happy to be doing this, especially since it involved spending time with Rin.

"Cheer up, senpai. It's not that bad. It's mostly paper and bottles anyway." Nitori picked up a big bag of garbage, ready to bring it to the recycling containers. He had some trouble handling the huge bag so Rin decided to help.

"Leave this to me."

"T-t-thanks, senpai." Nitori blushed while giving away the bag. "Just be sure to sort it properly."

As if it wasn't enough they had to pick up all the bags, they had to go through them and divide their substance by material so it could be properly disposed of. Rin wasn't a fan of recycling in this particular moment.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever…" The redhead grunted.

It was a morning after the festival and the school ground was really in a desperate need of a good cleaning, the only place more messed up in that moment was probably Rin's mind. After yesterday's encounter with Haruka, he ended up in bed with Nitori, which only made the younger boy's affections towards him grow even more prominent.

"Bottle… Paper… Bottle… Can… Organic…Ewww…" Rin was really getting into this recycling thing, separating trash diligently when he suddenly stumbled upon, after some food leftovers that disgusted him the most, a photo that was obviously cut out from a bigger one.

He was ready to throw it into the 'paper' container when he suddenly realized whose face was on it. Although, it had some ketchup over it, there was no way Rin wouldn't recognize the person under it. He wiped the sauce off with his gloves and took his mask off because he suddenly felt breathing was very difficult through it.

"Haru…"

Rin whispered as he looked at the photo in his hand. It was really Haruka, with his usual, stern expression, not even looking at the camera properly, his black hair covering up his forehead and his blue eyes piercing through the dark strains. He clutched his palm, crushing the photo, getting ready to throw it away. But when he opened his hand up and saw the wrinkled image of Haruka, he just couldn't make himself let go of it. He took his gloves off and brushed one of his digits over Haruka's face, as if he was caressing it. He folded the photograph and tugged it into the pocket of his training suit jacket.

Shit, at least I can keep this as a reminder, since I had to throw away the real Haru…

He tried to convince himself there was nothing wrong with keeping this for himself.

"Senpai…" Nitori suddenly appeared behind Rin, causing him to clutch the place in his pocket where Haruka's photo was hidden, in fear it was going to get discovered. "Use your equipment properly!"

"Huh?" Rin was confused by this sudden interruption of his train of thoughts.

"Your mask. And the gloves!"

"Ah… yeah, you're right."

"Senpai…"

"Calm down, I'm putting it back on." Rin covered up his face and reluctantly took his hand out of the pocket so he could put the gloves back on.

"Senpai, about last night…" Nitori was getting squirmish.

"Um… what is it?"

"I was just wondering, after we finish this… Um… About that thing…" Nitori was very vague.

"Can you just get to the point?"

"Since we didn't get to go all the way yesterday…" Nitori blushed and looked at the ground, unable to look his roommate in the eyes. "Maybe tonight, we could… you know."

Rin got exactly what Nitori was talking about, but he already thought the last night's fooling around was too much so he didn't really have a wish to go any further and give Nitori any more of that false hope he was carrying with himself.

"I'm busy tonight, sorry."

"But I thought… We… You… Senpai…"

"Nitori, we had fun yesterday, but that's it. Don't expect me to be your boyfriend or anything." Rin snorted and continued to rummage through the trash.

He heard Nitori running away and sighed desperately, realizing how he managed to hurt another person with his unsorted feelings and bad attitude.

Way to go, Rin!

A/N: Guess I got too excited after watching the last episode of Free! and decided to update the story sooner than usually. Well, wasn't the last episode just great?! It brought tears to my eyes, I must admit :')