It takes him a while to come to awareness the next morning.

It's not just that it's hard to wake up, but that he's laying there with his brow furrowed and his eyes blinking slowly for a while as he tries to separate dreams from reality, and holds a debate with himself about how much of the day before actually happened. But it's the most ridiculous of scenarios when he's thinking about it all, so he's not convinced for a while.

He's wrapped up snuggly in a thick, warm comforter that has his body heat trapped inside with him like a burrito. He doesn't initially want to move, but then he actually focuses his gaze on the shadowy figure on the bed across from him.

Sousuke has his back to him. It's bare and smooth, wide and inviting. His blanket has been kicked off the bed, so there's only a sheet draped low on his waist, and Haru watches him breathe for a moment — deep, settled, and calm.

He does snore, but not like a mountain troll. It's actually quite soft, and not nearly as annoying as Haru would have expected.

He's tempted, just a little bit, to curl up against Sousuke's back and sleep for another hour, and it takes him a while to rediscover why that is. His pulse skips a beat or two, and then he's suddenly a bit too warm.

He pushes himself up, but he ends up having to do it slowly and with a grimace, because his body is all kinds of upset. His back hurts. His ass hurts. His throat feels a bit raw. And there are definitely bruises on his skin, when he looks — specifically circled around his arms and dotted across his thighs and hips. He's more intrigued by them than he is bothered that they're there, and it becomes a tangible reminder of the last little bit of the evening.

He doesn't actually recall even having a dream last night, to be honest. Which means that being abandoned by a guide that couldn't speak Japanese, on a deserted road in the wilderness of Australia's grasslands, getting chased by ravenous dingoes, and forced to leave the car by an upsettingly large spider, hopelessly searching for a cellphone signal, and having to navigate through a road full of snakes, all with someone he most definitely used to hate only hours ago, all actually happened.

He absorbs that for a moment, lets it sink in, and realizes, despite all of that — and the massive battle of tug-of-war consistently fought within it all — he feels incredibly relieved, like a giant weight has been lifted from his shoulders, allowing him to breathe fully and deeply through muscles that ache, but are completely unstrained.

It's a bizarre feeling. But it's not at all unwelcome. It feels like free.

So he's okay with getting up out of bed, even though he has to very intentionally stretch and take it slow at first. He allows his gaze to hover on Sousuke just a little bit longer, and then ventures to the bathroom to reclaim his clothes and rake water through his hair.

He's quiet, gathering his wallet and the room key, and making his way out the door, careful not to let the blinding sunshine fall too widely over Sousuke's body.

He's not necessarily fast-moving on land, but he tries to be quick about it anyway. He remembers the very vague and confusing directions the woman at the front desk had tried to draw out for them the night before, explaining where the electronic store is. And as his luck would have it, it's only about a fifteen-minute walk from where they're staying.

He finds it easily, uses poor English and less-poor drawings to explain to the shop clerk what he needs. They have it. He spends more money, and then takes a detour into a donut shop across the street, buys two coffees and half a dozen assorted flavors of fried dough, and balances everything rather expertly in his arms on the walk back to the motel.

Sousuke's still asleep when he gets back. Haru's less quiet about moving around now, but he realizes quite quickly that Sousuke is just a heavy sleeper, so he takes his time setting everything down, breaks the power adapter out of its packaging, plugs Sousuke's phone in, and sets it on the nightstand between the two beds to gather a charge, then stares thoughtfully at the donuts for a while, before he chooses the one he wants.

It's when he sits Sousuke's cup of strongly-scented coffee on the corner of the nightstand closest to him, that he begins to stir. Haru sits on the edge of his own bed, watching, thinking quite actively about how actually attractive Sousuke is, while also quietly praising the donut shop for their work. He wishes he'd paid more attention to the name of the place. It's probably on the box. He doesn't look.

Sousuke squints back over his shoulder. Haru blinks at him, and takes another bite.

It's quiet for a good minute, and he can see that Sousuke is struggling to come to terms with reality, just like he had to. Then he sits up, shoulders slumped, hair ruffled, though it's so short it's hard to really tell the difference. He stares down at the sheet over his lap for a while, breathing slow and even. His eyes become more awake as he blinks some more, and then he turns his gaze back on Haru, who is still thoroughly enjoying his donut.

Haru doesn't bother to look away, or pretend that he's not staring. It seems to him they've never really had a problem with just looking at each other — quite unapologetically. So he doesn't change that, and he allows himself to continue watching every little thing that Sousuke does, while incredibly unbothered by any of it.

Sousuke looks back over his shoulder toward the coffee Haru got him, most likely drawn by its smell again. Haru swallows his last bite and wrings a napkin between his fingers.

"I didn't know how you like your coffee, so I left it black," he says, then, almost as an afterthought, "like your soul."

Sousuke coughs up a chuckle. The corner of his lips lift in a soft smile, and Haru thinks that it's far from the worst thing in the world to look at.

Sousuke picks up the peace offering with a nod. "That's valid," he mumbles, taking a sip. He contemplates it for a second, though Haru can't tell what he thinks about it. Then he raises his eyes back to Haru and nods again. "Black is fine. Thank you."

Haru accepts this, and then reaches over to grab the box of donuts on the end of his bed. He holds it out across from him, and Sousuke tables his coffee to take it gratefully. He chooses one without much hesitation and leaves the box sitting open next to him. He grabs his coffee again, both hands now occupied, looking quite satisfied and maybe just as relieved as Haru felt when he truly woke up for the first time.

"How long have you been awake?"

Haru shrugs. "Not long … I got the charger."

Sousuke follows the direction of his nod, looking down at the phone.

"We can probably turn it on now, at least," Haru says.

Sousuke's quiet for a moment, eating. His bites are quite big, but he chews them for a while, and Haru can see him thinking as he just stares down at the phone with a very unhurried blankness to his gaze. He looks back to Haru.

"Rin can wait." He takes another bite.

"Today's his birthday," Haru says, also not feeling particularly hurried, though they probably should both be reminded of the fact.

Sousuke shrugs. "It's early. He's got all day. We're going to be here for the rest of the week anyway."

It's not very difficult to concede to that. So Haru nods. "Okay."

Sousuke stands. His donut hand is empty, so he's free to grab the box and carry it with him as he moves to sit next to Haru, so close that they're bodies brush together, and Haru is still chilled by how warm he is. He sets the box down on their laps, propped up on one of each of their legs between them. Haru carefully chooses another one, and then they eat in silence.

"Fair suck of the sav! I thought you two were dead! Almost got shanked just for losin' ya. Rin's been mad as a cut snake all night. Saw the scratches on the cah when I got back from the servo. No one in sight and theah's a damn spidah on my seat. Those things are nasty, ahn't they?"

They still don't understand what Lucas is saying, though he's not shy at all about hugging them with relief when he arrives to pick them up from the motel. They've already checked out and there's nothing to carry, so they just climb right into the back of the Kia, which is all kinds of scraped up from the attack of the dingoes the night before. Haru and Sousuke take it in in the light of day, exchange glances, and then just agree to forget about it. Though it is another tangible reminder that their wild Australian adventures were one-hundred percent not a dream.

Lucas is chattier now than he was last night, and he doesn't even think to throw in another misplaced proverb, because he's apparently got so much to talk about.

"You guys wouldn't believe the night I had …"

Haru's content with letting him ramble on without minding it. He stares out the window as the scenery passes, fading once again from civil life to the wide stretching plains of grass. Some small part of him is rather anxious about getting stuck in the middle of the road again, but they were sure not to leave town before the car was well stocked with gas this time.

It's a bit breath-taking in the daylight, the grasslands. There's still not much to see, but the blue of the sky against the green and gold of the waving grass is vibrant, and it stretches on forever, like an ocean, occasionally accompanied by a distant tree. It looks so harmless and life-giving, but by now he knows it's full of things his eyes can't see, and he's not at all upset that they manage to clear this stretch of road much quicker than before.

He feels a touch on his wrist and turns his gaze to Sousuke, whose eyes are staring down. He pulls Haru's hand off of his lap and places it palm up on the seat between them, then his fingers just quietly roam his skin, gliding up and down his forearm and tracing the lines on his palm. The weight of his fingers is so light that it tickles Haru's skin. Not so much with the kind of sensation that tempts him to laugh, but with the kind that makes him quietly shudder on the inside and notice his own pulse just a little bit more.

He watches Sousuke's face while he does this. And Sousuke watches their hands. Eventually, he slides his fingers between Haru's and they curl securely around his hand. Haru slowly folds his fingers too. Sousuke raises his eyes to him, and it's with a look of tenderness so thorough that it makes Haru's cheeks go warm again.

They concede to look away from each other at the same time, not out of embarrassment, but out of resolve and quiet submission. They each look back out of their own respective windows, and continue to hold hands between them, while Lucas prattles on in the driver's seat, all the way to Rin's place.

They know they're in for it long before they even get out of the car.

Rin's already standing in the driveway, waiting for them with his hands propped on his waist and his shoulders tense. He's scowling, which is valid, and Haru and Sousuke are both quiet getting out of the car and finally putting their bags on their backs, when Lucas digs them out of the trunk for them.

They walk up the driveway toward their friend. They're not holding hands anymore. And they stop in front of him, and then just wait.

Rin's eyes narrow seethingly as he glances between them, as though he's not sure who to yell at first, or even what to say.

"You fucking jackasses," is what he lands on. Then he punches Sousuke in the stomach and kicks Haru in the ribs. Sousuke doubles over with a cough. Haru scrunches up his nose.

"Ow."

"What the hell is wrong with you two! What kind of birthday present is finding out your best friends have probably gotten themselves eaten by wild animals?!" He grits his teeth and growls, settling for aiming more kicks at Sousuke's shins. "Stupid! Both of you! I didn't sleep at all! But oh no, you're fine, just lounging around in a hotel in the next town over. I should strangle you!"

Sousuke pushes Rin's kicking leg away, so he turns to punch Haru in the arm instead.

"Ow."

Then he throws himself at them, tossing an arm around each of their necks, and squeezes them with desperation, already trembling with tears, sniffing in their ears.

"We're fine," Sousuke says. "You don't need to cry."

"I'm not crying!" Rin wails.

Haru sighs over his shoulder, because this is an inconvenience, but he's used to Rin by now, so he just waits. Eventually, he's had his fill of squeezing them to death, and his eyes are most assuredly wet and red when he pulls back. He sniffs some more and wipes his face, and the corners of his lips are turned down pitifully.

"This is a horrible birthday," he whines.

Haru pinches his lips, then reaches back and digs around in the left pocket of his book bag. He pulls out the neatly-wrapped little box with the shiny red bow on it, admittedly happy that it's still present and in-tact. He had worked rather hard on the wrapping job. It was the only part of the gift he had anything to do with (Makoto is terrible at wrapping presents). He holds it out in front of blubbering Rin, who sniffs again, and then accepts it.

He tears the paper off rather carelessly, and Haru thinks that's a waste, but Rin's lip pokes out when he gets into the box and finds the shark tooth necklace inside. He stares at it for a while, eyes glossing up with more tears. Haru thinks he acts a lot like a toddler, but he doesn't mind.

Rin looks up and wipes the corners of his eyes. "You didn't have anything to do with picking this out, did you?"

"No."

Rin nods. "Makoto's good at gifts."

"Yeah."

"I love it. Thank you."

Haru just nods, feeling particularly accomplished, even though that was ultimately a lot of trouble to go through just to deliver a birthday present. Rin's still wiping his face and sniffing when his eyes glance between them and his brow suddenly furrows, as though he's looking at something that's not quite right.

"What's different?" he says.

Both Haru and Sousuke just blink at him with their eyebrows raised, as though they don't understand what he's getting at.

A crease forms on Rin's forehead and he leans further back, as though to get a better look at them, eyes still shifting. "What's different? Something's different."

Haru and Sousuke exchange glances.

"You're not fighting," Rin says, propping a hand on his hip.

"Ah," Sousuke breathes out, rubbing at the back of his neck. He shrugs. "I mean, you said you'd kill us if we weren't getting along when we got here so …"

"It was a long night," Haru murmurs.

He's sure Rin doesn't notice the hesitance between them. Believe it or not, they're both incredibly good at keeping a poker face, and Rin is kind of easy to get one over on. But even still, his red eyes keep up their stare of suspicion for a bit longer, as though trying to assess what exactly is different other than their lack of arguing. And he's not stupid. There's something different there for sure. Haru and Sousuke just aren't going to tell him what it is specifically, and they've decided that without having to say anything to each other.

"Lucas!" Rin shouts, eyes sweeping over to the Aussie, who perks up and rushes over.

"Yeah, mate?" He looks nervous, like he's waiting for Rin to point him toward the doghouse and chain him to the fence for losing his friends.

Rin purses his lips. He's not even looking at Lucas. His eyes are still on Haru and Sousuke. And then after a long hovering pause, he concedes and says, "Good job."

Lucas blinks, looking both relieved and confused. "Errrm, sure, mate. No problem."

Rin takes them in for one last second, and then turns away with a huff, waving a hand over his head. "Don't think any of this gives you a pass today. We're still celebrating tonight."

Haru and Sousuke exhale at the same time.

Rin's Aussie friends throw him a surprise party on a yacht. Haru's not sure how they pull that. He figures either it's a normal thing in this country, or one of Rin's friends is quite privileged.

Either way, they all end up on a fancy boat just off shore, and pretty much nobody speaks Japanese. They've practiced a few phrases here and there on Rin's behalf, but it's not like Haru or Sousuke can hold a legitimate conversation with any one of them, and most likely, even if they could, they wouldn't.

Haru's not a fan of parties. Makoto had warned him that something like this would probably happen, because Rin's like that, and he told Haru to be nice and sociable as best he can, but Haru doesn't much feel like it. He spends a good portion of his time staring at the food table and being upset that there's no mackerel, and he at least nods and responds shortly to the people who try to talk to him. Unfortunately, a lot of them seem to want to, and they keep saying that Rin talks about him all the time, and that's embarrassing, but he decides he'll wait until tomorrow to complain to Rin about it.

The birthday boy is pretty drunk anyway. It didn't take him long. And he's dancing quite ridiculously with a cup in his hand that's spilling liquid everywhere. Haru's glad he's having fun. Rin is rather annoying when he's crying.

He finds himself wandering away from everything, slipping out of the ring of warm light toward the stern of the boat, where the music and the conversations at least aren't as loud. He presses his stomach against the rail and stares longingly down at the water below, watching the moonlight shimmer off of its surface as the sea breeze ripples through his hair.

"Please, don't jump."

He looks back over his shoulder where Sousuke is walking up with his hands in his pockets. Haru turns back to the water.

"You took too long," he complains, though there's no variance in his tone.

Sousuke steps up beside him, and Haru feels a bit better, though it's still really weird to now associate Sousuke with a feeling of safety and familiarity.

"Believe it or not, this thing only has one bathroom, and I wasn't the only one who had to go."

"So assert your dominance and push the line out of the way. Problem solved."

Sousuke chuckles under his breath. It's caught and carried off by the wind. "Seriously, Haru, don't lean that far over the rail."

Haru sighs and straightens his back to a satisfying angle, though he doesn't take his eyes from the water. "Are you going to be overprotective of me now too?"

"No."

He presses his lips together, and then shifts his gaze to the larger man. "Why not?"

Sousuke raises his eyebrows. "Do you want me to?"

Haru shrugs, looking away again. "I dunno. I think it's kind of flattering that you might back someone into a coke machine on my behalf."

"Tch. I thought you were bitter about that."

Haru shrugs once more. "I mean, as long as you're not doing it to me, I don't really care."

Sousuke half chuckles again, but it's really weak. He goes quiet rather quickly, and Haru can sense him staring down into a distant universe where he's probably rethinking life decisions.

"Haru," he speaks up, after a long while has passed. It's not like quiet thunder this time. His voice now is more like the gentle push of a small wave, and Haru looks up.

Sousuke's eyes are quite an uncanny color, not quite blue, not quite green, not quite expressive, but always looking at things with a great amount of fervor. He shifts closer, lining their arms, and Haru can feel his body heat through his sleeve. Sousuke rests his elbows on the rail and leans against it, which puts enough of a bend to his back that they're nearly level with each other.

He blinks out over the water for another pause of a moment, gathering what he wants to say, and then he looks back to Haru and sighs.

"I'm sorry," he says. And it's the first time Haru thinks he fully trusts his words. "You were um … right about me. I took a lot out on you, because I had a lot of feelings that I didn't want to deal with myself, and you were easy to push those onto. It's not even that you really did anything wrong. It's just that … I guess … I was trying so hard not to like you."

He scratches at the back of his neck and heaves another sigh. "That completely backfired on me of course. And I should have recognized that. But all I knew was that I felt even more whenever you were around, and I hated you for that." He shakes his head to himself. "I was being a dick. I shouldn't have pushed you around."

Haru allows himself to absorb the sincerity in his eyes for a moment, before he shrugs like it doesn't matter anymore. "It's fine, I guess."

"It's really not," Sousuke says. His voice comes out much quieter when he adds, "I don't want you to be afraid of me."

Haru rolls the inside of his lip between his teeth, and then sighs himself. "I'm not."

"No?"

Haru shakes his head. "Not anymore."

Sousuke doesn't say anything in response to this, but he seems quite relieved by it, and Haru's surprised to realize that it was that important to him.

"I'm sorry too, I guess." Haru shrugs again. "Not really for anything specific, but I suppose I made your life hard sometimes … and maybe said some mean things about you."

"Maybe."

"It's probably not going to be all that different, you know."

Sousuke smiles, that small little grin that's amused and not unattractive. "I guess I can deal with that."

"Can you?"

"Well, I would like to at least," he says, coming out of his lean to look down to Haru with a glimmer of severity to his eyes. "If you'll let me."

Haru feels his cheeks going warm under that gaze, and he wonders if he'll ever stop doing that. He doesn't really like blushing, and also it comes with this weird belly thing that tickles and might be unpleasant were he not growing steadily more comfortable with Sousuke. He pulls in a heavy breath, as though none of this affects him as much as it really does.

"Are you making an offer?"

Sousuke purses his lips, eyes turning up toward the star-studded sky for a moment. "Well, 'offer' sounds kind of formal."

"You'd rather be casual?"

Sousuke tches, eyes dropping back to Haru. "Not like that."

"So what are you looking for then?"

Sousuke huffs out a breath. He's a bit annoyed, and Haru can tell, but mostly he's nervous, and it's comical. He scratches at the back of his neck again, and mumbles toward the deck.

"You're making this difficult."

"Just say what it is you want, Sousuke."

He breathes out of his nose. "I would like to have you, Haru," he says, raising his eyes again, and dropping his arm. "If that's okay with you. I don't deserve you at all, but that would make me happy. And I have a lot to do to make things up to you anyway."

Haru nods thoughtfully. "Yeah … You do."

He can actually see Sousuke holding back a smile. His lips twitch in the corner, but that's all that he allows, even though it comes out shining bright in his eyes anyway.

"So is that a yes?"

"I guess so."

Sousuke scoffs. "You're a pain in the ass."

"No. You're a pain in the ass — literally. I've barely been able to sit down all day. We're going to have to fix that."

This time, Sousuke allows his lips to curl up into a grin. "Well, there's only one way to do that."

Haru smiles too, small and soft, but sure. He looks back out at the water as Sousuke shifts closer. He stands behind Haru, framing his back, and wraps his arms around his shoulders as he sits his chin on top of his head, and there's a collective final movement of them relaxing into this, into each other, and being completely comfortable with that as they stare out at the water.

"Are we going to tell Rin?" Haru asks.

"Mmm … We'll wait 'til he gets over his hangover tomorrow."

Haru nods. "Okay."

The breeze carries the rest of the conversation away, but they don't really need it anymore. The party goes on behind their backs without them, but they're okay with that.

It's probably the very least possible ending they could have reached after such a tumultuous adventure, but they're not mad about it either. In fact, it's probably for the better this way. At least now, Rin doesn't have to coerce them into flying down to Australia at the same time — because they most assuredly won't be coming back.