Nagisa tacks the poster to the back of their front door almost immediately after they're all done looking at it. Haru may or may not have quietly voiced his want for some of the jammers he wore in the shoot, to the tune of a chuckle from Rin, who circled his arms tighter around Haru.
"When does this go on sale?" Makoto asked, intelligently.
"It's being distributed tonight, it'll be on the shelves first thing in the morning," Rin explains.
"I'll send some to our parents, Haru."
"Why?" is all he can ask, looking up from where he's resting against Rin's shoulder, because why do his fifty-five year old parents want to see their deadbeat son in a bright yellow speedo?
Especially not after Nagisa had loudly proclaimed it looks like a kink item.
"Because they'll be proud of you, idiot," Rin teases, squeezing him.
Haru, really isn't so sure. He's pretty sure modelling, especially nearly naked modelling, was never one of their aspirations for their only son. Modelling is about as far from mathematics as Nagisa is from normal. There have been questions over his"friendship" with one Matsuoka Rin, "Really, Haruka, are you sure it's the real person?" "It's all over his SpaceTube thing… yeah, I'm sure." Which induced a round of fussing and fangirling he really expected his mother of all people to have grown out of by now.
He wonders, briefly, how she'll react when they announce their relationship in a day or so. He already knows how his father will react, and the internal grimace forces him to banish all thoughts on the subject.
"Whatever," he ends up saying, and Rin gives him a sloppy kiss to the cheek and an even tighter squeeze around the middle.
Rin scoots over as soon as Makoto slips himself out of the cramped seat, and brings his legs up for Haru to lie between, against his chest, and he considers having a nap.
"You guys need more seats," Rin complains, idly.
Rei lets out a light chuckle from his end of the couch, but it's slightly awkward. He and Nagisa do a few hours of low paid work each week, Rei in a boutique and Nagisa in a bar, and have their student grants to help out, but only Makoto has a proper income, especially after Haru lost his job at the pool. They had quite the boost for the few weeks Haru was actually working for Rin, but now he feels awkward accepting money for what really is just helping out. Bills are manageable, easily, but expenses like a new suite are out of reach.
"If I update mine, would you want my old one?" Rin asks to the room, catching Haru off guard.
That thing is pure white leather, a large curved sofa and two matching recliner chairs. It must have cost a bomb and Rin is willing to just give it away?
"You don't need a new sofa," Haru scolds, with a poke to the chest.
Rin just shrugs. "I feel like redecorating the lounge. White won't match what I have in mind. And besides, I need something less prone to staining with your chlorine butt all over it."
Haru gives him a purposeful pout, just for a moment. "Sure, we'll have your hand-me-downs," he mumbles. "How did you want to decorate?"
The current theme throughout Rin's home is sleek, monotone and modern. There are splashes of bright red, with his dining chair cushions, breakfast bar stools, and scatter pillows and rug, but everything else is very plain. Clean, Haru decides.
"Just more… colourful. Less like a show home," Rin muses. Haru finds himself agreeing. "And then I think I want to do sort of a surf theme for the back of the house, you know, the kitchen, dining room and sunroom? All looking out at the pool, like we're at the beach. I might even get some sand…"
"Like Australia," Haru interprets. And Rin is grinning at him like he's just declared world peace.
"Yeah," he beams. "I'll take you, some day."
"I'm a sea creature. I'm not meant to fly," Haru can't help but grimace. He's been on a short flight to the North island a grand total of once as a preteen, and flat out refused to even fly on the way home, shamelessly guilt tripping his parents into taking the boat and a train, resulting in a full days' worth of travel. He doesn't regret it one bit.
Rin is laughing at him. Haru doesn't know what's so funny. He scowls.
"And what kind of sea creature are you?" Rin chortles.
"A dolphin," Makoto, Nagisa and Rei chime in unison. Rin is laughing so hard Haru can't even lean on him, one of his ribs might make an escape and poke his eye out.
"Well, at least that's your birthday present sorted," Rin smiles, calming down.
Haru pauses, thoughts whirling. "You can't buy me a dolphin!"
"Well, I could, if I wanted," Rin shrugs, because of course, Haru's done his accounting. He's not quite sure how much a real life dolphin actually costs, but Rin could probably afford to set up his own aquarium. "Nah, something else. You'll see."
"Don't spoil him," Makoto chides, and Haru would be offended if he wasn't busy tucking Rin's hair behind his ear.
"How can you say anything about spoiling him? I've seen your fridge. There's so much mackerel – "
"But he does the cooking," Rei shrugs. And thank you, Rei. Ever the voice of intelligence.
Rin's phone rings somewhere under Haru's left leg, and it's a bit of a struggle to get it out, because Haru has decided to be especially difficult and clingy this afternoon. Rin strokes his hair soothingly as he answers Sei's call, figuring it's probably got a lot to do with how their online pages are practically flooding with comments from absolutely everyone who's gone into a news agents this morning and even glanced at the new Ties catalogue on the shelf, not to mention those in Tokyo who have a billboard of Haru, set into three sections, one for each of his outfits and looking absolutely beautiful in each of them.
"Hey," he says into the phone. "Uh huh… uh huh… I have a plan, actually… uh huh… yep. I know… bye."
Haru looks up at him with a huff, demanding explanation. "Just Sei, saying he's all on board and fine with whenever we, you know, announce," and he can't help feeling a little excited. "And reminding us about heading out to Tokyo this weekend, rather than Monday. He wants me to be present for the casting for the dancers and swimmers in the video."
"You say this like you assume I'm coming with you," Haru grumbles, but he's just being grumpy. He's been grumpy all day.
Rin decides it's best to just ignore his mood and tighten the blanket around them, from where they're cuddled up on the couch with a mindless show while Haru nurses his sulk. Rin is content enough to just hold him, if this is what he needs. It must all be rather overwhelming. They even made a small appearance in the national news at lunchtime.
"Are the guys free for pizza this evening?" he asks softly, into his hair.
"…It's Thursday."
"I know… but we won't be here this weekend, and I want to talk to Hazuki." Haru's eyebrows furrow, like Rin's just told him he wants to lick a cat, or something else incredibly bizarre. "I want to let him make the announcement, on his blog," he explains.
Haru scoffs a little. "Do you know what else he'd like to announce on his blog?"
"Go on? Is this what you and him were arguing over yesterday?"
Haru nods against him, and Rin just knows he's hiding a smirk. "Tell me."
"Nope," Haru says curtly, in the tone that means that's the end of that, thank you very much.
Rin gives him a light kiss to the head, just showing his affection. He thinks he should feel a little guilty, for liking Haru like this, all meek and needy, needing him to hold onto. Haru grunts his appreciation.
"Anyway, are they free?"
"Should be."
Rin sends out the invite, a group text from Haru's phone, which he had no qualms in reaching into his pocket for.
9, lower or higher? Nagisa texts back, instantly. Rin reads it out.
"Ignore him," Haru says, with an exhausted breath.
"What does he mean?"
There's another text. I think 10. 10 is proportioned. He reads this one, too.
"You have to tell me now."
"No."
"What's he on about? You can tell me, Haru. I'm just curious, you were so flustered over it yesterday."
Haru mumbles something incoherent. "Louder."
"Hewantstoknowthesizeofyourdick."
Oh. Well then… and then he remembers, Nagisa's voice squealing in his memory, "you can't call it nothing, that's offensive!"
"…Why does he need to know that?"
"Because he's a pervert?" Haru says, still grumpy.
"He's pretty good at guessing," Rin muses, idly, and Haru kicks his shin. "Relax. I'm not telling him. Stop sulking."
"I'm not sulking," he insists, sulkily.
"Haruka," he sings, softly, and he hopes it's soothing, while he contemplates what might make him feel better. "Do you want to wait a few more days, before we announce?"
"I don't care."
Rin hums lightly to himself. "We'll do it when we come home from Tokyo," he decides, and it's probably a smarter decision anyway, with all the work they'll be doing with the video next week. "Do you think Sousuke will get us a suite again?"
"If he does we can put it to better use this time," Haru deadpans, as if he's talking about the complimentary tea-sets.
He can't help but grin, pulling Haru tighter and bringing their mouths together in what turns out to be an unfortunately languid and lazy kiss, at least on Haru's part, but a few flicks of his tongue on Haru's seemed to wake him up a bit.
"Maybe we should christen the couch before I get a new one, hmm?"
"Why? So Nagisa can open our house as a private museum to see Matsuoka Rin's cum-stains?"
Rin chuckles into another kiss. They're probably cutting it a bit close with the other's arriving anyway. They've been known to get rather carried away…
"You should invite Sousuke," Haru says, bored again.
Rin hadn't been expecting that. Haru reads his confused expression easily, and shrugs as he says "So he can meet Makoto."
"You were serious about setting them up?"
Haru just nods against him. "If nothing else they'll have the best time talking about us."
Rin has to agree. He sees the way Makoto looks at the pair of them with an air of pride yet uncensored concern, and it's just like Sousuke.
"You know, he'll probably end up staying over, if he comes. Are you okay with that?"
"I'm staying over too."
Really, now? But he chuckles, his little burglar still just does what he wants.
"We'll have to all do something, sometime. Get Ai and Momo over as well, maybe Sei and my sister, too."
"I haven't even met your sister yet."
"Yeah, well, we'll work on that. She loves your pictures, by the way. She's got a bit of a thing for muscles."
"Maybe we should set her up with Makoto, then."
"Oh don't even start. I have enough trouble keeping Momo and Sei at bay. No one's good enough for my baby sister."
"How old is she, again?" Haru asks, and they've rolled over to face each other, lying out on the couch, arms wrapped tight.
"…Twenty," Rin says, after a pause. "But she's still my baby sister."
"You're an idiot."
"You're a jerk."
Haru gives him a silent kiss.
"I love you," Rin breathes as they part.
Haru just smiles. "I know."