Rei was right. If he didn't move he wouldn't be able to complete the last things needed to become a full-fletched working adult. Makoto had already realized this and had therefore decided to support Rei's decision of moving away on one condition.

"You will have to stay somewhere within a walking distance of 10 minutes at max," he dictated. He told this to both Rei and his senpai, Sera, whom he had invited over to discuss the matter. The two were still planning on living together to make it cheaper for both of them.

"Why?" Sera asked.

"Because of Nagisa," Makoto said. "Rei may not be in need of his family anymore, but we are still in need of him, especially Nagisa, and therefore I have to make this rule," Makoto explained further.

Rei nodded in response to this. "It seems reasonable enough," he said.

And so it should be. Rei found a relatively cheap place at a 5 minutes walking distance away. He and his senpai moved in there at the beginning of the summer break, and during all that time, Nagisa visited them on a daily basis.

Rin started training from the day after they had rescued Haruka. Haruka joined him after a week. The bruise on his stomach had faded a lot and it now only looked bad at the center.

On the day when Haruka returned to the swimming training he and Rin returned home with some good news. Scouts all over the world had seen them in Australia and they had gotten offers from at least 15 universities since a week before. There were even three universities in Australia alone. At summer break they had reached about 50 offers worldwide.

"That's because you won Freestyle," Rin said with a grin on his face.

Haruka shrugged at this.

"That reminds me," Kisumi said excitedly. "You never got to tell us how things went in Australia because so much happened right after you returned,"

"Did you win anything?" Nagisa asked, leaning forward.

"I'm also curious," Rei said.

They were gathered around the dining table with a bowl of strawberries in the middle, which they were all eating from (needless to say where the biggest amount of strawberries went). It was a hot summer day, right after Rei had moved out at the beginning of Summer break.

"Give them some space," Makoto said. "We have had an entire month to ask them about this,"

"Well," Rin said. "Haru placed first in 100 m. free. I placed 3rd in 50 m. free and 4th in 100 m. butterfly. Haru placed 9th in 50 m. free too and 4th in 200 m. free,"

"Didn't you participate in more events Rin-chan?" Nagisa asked.

"I signed up for the 100 m. free too but coach wouldn't let me go through with it and forced me to back down, also the 100 m. butterfly and the 100 m. free first round was at the exact same time, and no one can be in two pools at once," Rin explained.

"You said that like you didn't want us to think you were unable to beat Haru," Kisumi said with a smirk.

Rin didn't comment on this. It was part of the reason, but what he had said was also the truth. But he did hope that something like that wouldn't happen in the future. He wanted to race Haruka in the 100 m. free because that was the event where they were the most even.

Because Rin and Haruka had gotten invitations from so many universities worldwide, their homeroom teacher couldn't hold them up on the plan B idea she had been forcing on them since spring. Therefore she backed down and decided to torment someone else with all her bright ideas for their future. Most students agreed that she was probably not the most fit to teach a third year class in high school. She was too forceful with all her ideas.

Aki, Aiichirou and Sousuke managed to get some great ideas for their own future plans without any help. Sousuke decided on becoming a police officer and do his best to reach that goal. Aki recommended the university her brother was attending. Apparently he was also planning on becoming a police officer.

Aki, herself, decided to work towards becoming a teacher. Whether it would be at kindergarten, elementary school, middle school or high school she had yet to decide. She just attended the nearest university. Aiichirou ended up attending the same university as her, but without a clear goal in mind. He said he would find something along the way.

Kisumi was already becoming a great stylist. Even if he was still under education, more young models had requested him and so he was already earning a lot of money for the family, once again. He also regained some spotlight from the media and he was even thinking about becoming a designer along with this.

"The more famous I can get and the more I can do for the model industry, the more money I can bring in," he had said while discussing the matter with Makoto. However, he won't start on the designing part until he was done with his stylist education.

The man they had come to know as Nanase Taichi was imprisoned along with a police officer whom he had been getting classified information from for the past five years, among the information he had received was the fact that Rin and Haruka had been involved with the serial killer case two and half a year ago.

While the police was trying to make Taichi admit his crime, Rin and Haruka were picked up from just about anywhere at unpredictable times, to participate in the countless trials held against him. Matsuoka-san also participated in a few of them.

The most interesting thing that turned up during these trials was the fact that Taichi wasn't actually the man's real name. This was revealed when his mother, whom nobody had been able to trace for the past 20 years, appeared at a trial and called him by the name Ichirou.

By the end of summer break, Rin and Haruka had finally decided what university they were going to. Of course they applied for the same, as they could continue to train together and Makoto had to speak to them about this matter as well.

"How often will you be home?" he asked them one afternoon.

Rin and Haruka both thought long and hard, but Haruka was the first to come up with the answer. "At the Australian summer break and for New Years," he answered.

"That's twice a year," Rin added, feeling like he had to give a response too.

Makoto nodded, letting out a sigh. "I understand," he answered. "Please promise me that if any other times occurs, you'll come visit us. Such as… if there is a tournament in Japan some time and you get some spare time,"

"We will," Rin promised. "But then, you have to come see us too,"

"I will," Makoto assured. "Regardless of time,"

And so, the peaceful lives continued within the Tachibana family for a while longer. Everyone was happy and things had started to go well again for everyone. Eventually Rin and Haruka would go to Australia and Nagisa would have to move out too someday, but until then, they were all confident that they could maintain peace. And no matter where they went, they knew they would never forget their family.

And with that the story is complete. I hope it wasn't the worst sequel one could come up with for a relatively good story.

I will use this final note to point out a fun fact. We need to go a little back in time to the night when I couldn't sleep and accidentally came up with this sequel. I was afraid I would forget my idea and therefore I wrote the notes down on my phone, but I had to give the note a title, which would also be the title of the story and so I decided for Future Parenting, because it is about what will happen to the Tachibana family in the future. About a week later I realized that I had accidentally borrowed the song-titles from the endings for Free! and ES (Splash Free and Future Fish)

Okay, that is basically useless info to anyone who isn't interested (and there probably aren't many out there)

Now for the usual. I'm so happy for the reviews from AoiTsuki1412, Flowering Lotus and Guest

I'd also like to thank SonataDevil and xiahmick for following, Ice LunaWolf for favoriting and Autumnleray, Didja The Furry, Nirakun and patamon642 for doing both. I'm glad you all liked the story enough to do this. It means a lot.

I would also like to thank all those who pulled through to the end. As always, I'm super happy for anyone just reading my works.

A little piece of not so great info before I go though. From publishing this on both this website and AO3 I have arrived at the conclusion that it is actually easier to publish anything on AO3 and therefore I might not be as active here anymore as I have been all the way through last year. If there is more on the Free Parenting series I will, of course, continue to publish on both websites.

I'm sorry this have turned out to be a rather long note. I'll end it now, promise. See you some other time!

Jackie