This chapter is a little shorter than the others, but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable! As always sorry for any spelling or grammar mistakes and hopefully you can just look past them...anyway, please enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: Free! and it's characters do not belong to me and belong the respected owners. I only own/made this story.

"I'm coming in" Rin said, taking off his shoes near the door. Haruka frowned at him and walked off, hoping if he ignored the red head then he would leave.

School was over and he knew Rin was tutoring him. He had no problems with tutors, but the fact it was Rin tutoring him pissed him off to no extent. Haruka knew Rin would tease him and call him an idiot, but was Rin really that smart anyway?

"Oi, where are you going? The table is right here" Rin questioned, watching his friend walk off

"Changing out of my uniform" Haruka answered, continuing to walk. He stopped though, as Rin had grabbed him by the collar and was holding him back.

"Liar, you're trying to get in the bath, aren't you?"

"No"

"I've known you for ages and do I look like an idiot?"

"Do you want me to answer that?"

The two glared at each other, both of them feeling a sort of fire between them. Rin knew he couldn't let his competitive spirit get the better of him, as he really had come over to tutor Haruka.

"Well whatever, just sit your ass down and get your maths out"

Haruka frowned, grabbing his bag and sitting down. Rin sat across from him and watched as the raven haired teen looked around in his bag for his maths book. He began taking out other books and putting them on the table so he could find the one he needed.

While he was searching, Haruka didn't notice Rin reach over and grab one of the books he carelessly dropped on the table. The red head recognised it as an English book and flicked through it. He got to a sheet of paper, which was a recent English test, and frowned when he looked at the mark.

"You failed this English test?" Haruka's eyes widened and he looked up to see Rin holding the test up "You have your sentences mixed up and you're missing words! 'This house great'? You have to flip these two words around and put in joining words! It's meant to be 'This is a great house'"

Haruka's face heated up, he knew he was bad at English so he didn't need Rin to rub it in "Shut up, what would you know about English anyway?"

Rin gave him a look of disbelief "Haru, I went to Australia, remember? I am fluent in English! So it looks like you need my help with this too!"

"I thought the agreement was you would tutor me with my maths, not English!"

Rin sighed as he saw Haruka's angry look and combed his red hair back, knowing if he didn't help the teen he would fail every English test to come.

"Your parents want you to have a tutor, correct?" Haru said nothing and Rin took this as a sign to continue "And the two things you need a tutor for is maths and English. Those happen to be two of my best subjects and you want a tutor that isn't a complete stranger, don't you think I'm fit for the job?"

Haruka stared at him for a while before turning away and saying "No"

"Well too bad, I'm taking it anyway" Rin smirked, knowing Haruka agreed to his logic but didn't want to admit it.

Haruka glanced at Rin to see him smiling, to see his shining white teeth, a smile that always brightened up the room. His smile, Rin's smile, a unique smile, a beautiful smile...a beautiful smile?

Haruka's eyes widened as he realised what he was thinking, making him shake his head and look down at the table in confusion. Why was he thinking these things? What was his problem? He had never thought about Rin like that as a child, so why think about him like that as a teenager? It didn't make any sense!

Rin raised an eyebrow as he noticed the teen across from him looking down at the table with a scrunched up face, an expression that meant he was thinking hard. Rin couldn't help but chuckle at this unusual look, it didn't look natural on Haruka's face at all.

The red head grinned and leaned over the table to only be inches away from Haruka's face "Are you thinking about maths? It's not a very attractive look you know"

Haruka's eyes widened and he quickly pulled away, making Rin jump at the sudden reaction. He noticed a red tint on Haru's cheeks and had to squint to see if it was actually there.

"Are you...blushing?"

The raven haired teen said nothing and stood up, walking to the kitchen while saying "I'm making mackerel, then you can start tutoring."

Rin watched him walk away, confused as to what had just happened.

"Haru was blushing, right?" Rin thought "I didn't imagine that, did I? But...Haru never blushes! Well at least...not around me...I don't think I've ever seen him blush before. But, even so, it did look kinda..." Rin sunk down to the table and rested his head on his arms, feeling his face heat up as he thought of the blushing Haru

"...cute"

"You need to use this word, not this one! It makes no sense if you use that!" the redhead growled in frustration, pointing to words in a book.

Haruka frowned and slammed his pencil on the book "But aren't they both joining words? Aren't they the same?! Why do I have to use this word instead?!"

"Because like I told you, it doesn't make sense! You're messing up the whole sentence by doing that! Japanese has joining words too, doesn't it? And they are all different, aren't they? We don't have one word to join all our sentences together, no language does!"

"Well why is English so complicated?!"

"It's not! It's probably one of the easiest languages to learn! You're just making it complicated!"

Haruka frowned and looked down to his book "But they have words the wrong way around! It's not even the same structure as Japanese!"

"Yes, but after you get the structure down, it becomes really simple." Rin sighed, rubbing his temple and feeling a headache coming on from all the yelling. "God, you are so hard to teach, you know that? I feel sorry for your teachers"

"You're just a horrible tutor" Haruka pouted, looking away from the red head.

Rin sighed once more and he stood up, stretching as he did so "We haven't even gotten to your maths yet, this is going to take the whole night"

Haruka frowned down at the table, almost feeling guilty for reasons he didn't understand "Sorry I'm so stupid"

"You're not stupid, you're just stubborn." Rin stated "How about we have a break for a bit then get on with your maths?"

Haru nodded in silent agreement, but didn't move. Instead he just sat there and stared at the English book in front of him. Rin looked down at him with a raised eyebrow, seeing the teens blue eyes looked almost...sad.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he asked, Haruka now turning away and ignoring him "Haru?"

The raven haired teen still said nothing, and Rin recognised the look his friend was making.

"Haruka, why are you sulking?"

Said teen was surprised to hear his full name, he knew Rin only used that when he was serious. So he glanced up at the redhead, then back down to his book and answered the question.

"...I don't like it when you get mad at me..."

Rin's crimson eyes widened, not expecting to hear that. He chuckled and gave Haru a big smile when he knew the teen was looking at him "I'm sorry, I wasn't mad I was just frustrated. But don't worry, I'm sure you'll get your English down in no time"

Haru didn't respond and just looked away again, making Rin shake his head and begin to look around the room. It really hadn't changed from when he visited as a child, apart from the small shrine of Haruka's grandma in the corner, but something that was different was a sketch book sitting on a shelf in the corner.

Rin walked over to it and picked it up, recognising it as an art book.

"Ah, that's right, one of Haru's top subjects is art" he thought, beginning to open the book.

Haru, noticing the teen move, looked up to see Rin holding his sketch book. He would have been okay with it but, the problem was, it wasn't the sketchbook he used for school and was more of a...personal one.

"N-no!" Haru yelled out, quickly jumping up to try and stop his friend from looking through it.

Rin's reflexes immediately reacted as Haru tried to grab the book from him, making Rin hold it in the air where the teen couldn't get it.

"What's wrong with you? Surely I can look at the pictures you draw?!"

"N-no!" Haru said again "Not that one!"

Haruka jumped up in an attempt to grab the book, making Rin stumble back and bump the shelf behind him. Something fell to the ground and he dropped the book in surprise, then looked back to see what had fallen.

Haru quickly recovered the book and was getting ready for Rin to try and grab it by tensing up, but it never happened as the redhead was too occupied with what had fallen from the shelf.

"Rin?" Haruka questioned, now walking up to him to see what was wrong.

The redhead bent down and tenderly picked up the fallen item "H-Haru...is this...?"

Rin turned around with the item still being held, and Haruka's blue eyes widened when seeing the small, worn flower crown covered with cherry blossoms, sitting in the teens hands...

Aaaah I'm sorry for ending it on a cliffhanger! But the next chapter will be out tomorrow so you'll just have to wait till then! And also, one of my friends who is Italian and main language isn't English, said that English was actually a pretty easy language to learn! So I don't really know if that's a fact or not but meh.

I would also like to thank the people who have read and reviewed so far, and I am glad you are enjoying the story!

Thanks for reading!