It was a beautiful thing, Rin thought, jealousy: it sharpened the senses, made one hyper aware of flaws and imperfections, even more aware of anything better-than-oneself in the subject of that jealousy. And Makoto was jealous. Rin could almost smell it.

But he was light years above Makoto, orders of magnitude, so there were few flaws for the other man to latch on to. Rin was studiously polite to the Tachibanas, aware that it was confusing Makoto: he sat with them over tea, acknowledged their congratulations gracefully, correctly interpreted the young boy's awestruck look and spoke to him kindly. When he finally stood to leave Makoto was off-kilter and followed him silently.

Rin kept the polite look on his face until they had left the house well behind – it was sort of fun. But he had some questions to ask, so he dropped the pleasant look for a scowl and turned to face Makoto once they were a few streets away. It was by now full dark and the narrow street was empty.

"So," he started, but Makoto frowned.

"What was that?" he asked, not with hostility but with – what seemed mere confusion. Rin shook his head.

"What was what?"

"Back there, at my family's place. You were… very nice."

"You don't have to sound so shocked," Rin said irritably. "I can be kind. Right now, though, I'm looking for Haruka. Where is he?"

Makoto ran a hand through his hair. "I still don't know? Why do you even think that I would?"

"Because he wasn't at his house," Rin replied. He started walking again, aimlessly, and Makoto followed.

"That doesn't exactly answer my question…" Makoto said. "When did you arrive in town, anyway? Haruka said you were still in America."

"Just got in," Rin said nonchalantly. He noticed Makoto playing with his cell phone and went quiet, thinking. He had just arrived, and caught the first train here that he could. He was exhausted. He'd been unable to do more than doze for a few minutes at a time all during the long, long flight here…

He was sitting on the plane, flying over the Pacific: Haru was kneeling in between his legs. He wasn`t wearing pants but it wasn't alarming. The plane was full of people in suits and Haruka started giving him head, licking up and down his cock. But then it was Kou, wearing her old high school uniform, in between his legs and he startled awake, feeling filthy.

…because of the awful dreams he'd kept having. That meant he'd been awake almost twenty four hours now. Although in Iwatobi it was only just approaching eight pm, to Rin it felt like six am. That fact probably contributed to his jitteriness as his phone went off loudly in the quiet night. The shrillness made him start as he grabbed for it, but was sharply disappointed when it was just a spam email from the university. Makoto just looked at him as he shoved the phone back into his pocket.

"Did Haruka leave you?" Makoto finally said, bluntly, and Rin gritted his teeth.

"No."

"Then why-"

"Shut up," Rin said shortly. He turned to face Makoto who was watching him warily. Fucking dammit, he did not come here to have this conversation with fucking Makoto Tachibana.

"Okay, okay," Makoto said peaceably, spreading his arms wide. "I'm just asking. I'll help you look for him. You said he wasn't at home – when was that?"

"About ten minutes before I went to your place," Rin said with a shrug, feeling the anger fade away again. He tried not to question Makoto's offer too much – he was tired, it was dark, and truthfully, he could use the help. As little kids he'd known Haruka only for a short while; in high school, they hadn't exactly been best friends. Rin actually had a pretty poor idea of where Haruka might spend his time in Iwatobi.

"Have you looked anywhere else?" Makoto asked, but Rin shook his head. "Okay then, let's split up. Oh – you've been calling him, right?"

Of course. "Yeah, but he won't say where he went."

Makoto gave him another strange look. "You've been together five years and he won't tell you where he is?" Rin didn't feel the need to dignify this with a response, and Makoto thankfully kept any further opinions to himself. "I'll try his number, then," Makoto announced, and pulled out his cell phone. There was no answer, and Rin listened to Makoto record a voice mail disinterestedly.

"Alright, I'll go this way," Rin said when Makoto was done, already turning and walking away from Makoto. "If you find him, let me know."

"Yeah, yeah," Makoto replied. "You're welcome, Rin."