I am so very sorry for the delay, more than you can ever know. I've just lost inspiration in myself somewhat and life has been hard on me these last few months, leaving me depressed in a big way and just generally unable to write. That, and with the new season coming out, there's a lot of potential stuff that I was already going to cover that needs to be waited on because I don't want to fly in the face of canon. So, official ruling for now: this will be the last chapter before the next season comes out. Sousuke is a major point of interest for me and I have a lot of ideas on how to use him, but... until I know more about him, I don't want to go too much further. So I'll be back... but not for a bit. This should tide you over, I hope?

Chapter 30- Of Cooking and Nights
Rin sighed and stretched out his back, groaning slightly at the sound and feel of a pop deep in his spine. "So which movie had we decided on?"

"Not the horror one!" Makoto squeaked.

"Yeah, yeah, sweetheart, we know that much. No matter how much Haru wants you clingy, it's not necessary."

Haru scowled at the redhead and turned his face away. "That's not why."

Rin plopped down on Makoto's other side with a narrow-eyed grin. "It is too, and you know it, and stop being a dick about it."

"I know he's afraid and I said that's not why. I wouldn't do that to him. It came highly recommended."

"Yeah sure but Rei will recommend anything that he finds 'beautiful' regardless of content. I mean, if the blood spatter is beautiful he'll recommend it."

Makoto looked faintly green around the gills. "Is- u-um, IS there b-blood splatter?"

Rin waved a hand. "Nah. Shouldn't be. Come on, Mako," he rubbed the older boy's shoulder, "it'll be okay. Trust us. Anyway, who wants what for food? I'm cooking."

Makoto lit up. "Rin's cooking?"

Haru scowled. "He insisted I not do it. Too much mackerel for you, Rin?"

"Three times a week is too much. You're just obsessed."

Haru browsed the internet for reviews about the film they were about to watch (searching for horror or gore ratings) while Makoto popped it into the player as they waited for Rin to cook. Akiha came in, tiny tail vibrating wildly, and strut right up to Makoto to headbutt him in the chin from where he had stretched out to insert the DVD. She got her petting from him, purring ever louder, then headed to Haru and rubbed against his laptop until the oldest boy was forced to acknowledge their growing kitten. He distractedly reached a hand over the computer to scratch behind Akiha's ears and the kitten leaned so far into the touch that she curved right into a flop atop the low table. Without looking he shifted to rub her belly. Akiha wriggled, rolling from one side to the other occasionally, and Haru calmly scrolled past and clicked links.

"A total of three people die gruesomely in this movie."

Green eyes widened and Makoto looked anxiously between kitchen and living room.
"We're not watching it then," Rin said sharply in the brief moment he was visible between the doors to the kitchen.

Haru nodded and closed his laptop. Glancing at the nervous brunette he shrugged. "What else have we got?"

Makoto took that as a cue and turned around, riffling through their pooled DVD collection for anything they hadn't seen recently or seen yet, coming up empty with an apologetic wince.

"Sorry..."

"Why are you apologizing?" Rin called from the kitchen. "Not your fault."

Makoto still looked a little disappointed but after a moment a grin lit his features and he was headed toward the door. "I'll go see what we have at home! You two keep the peace, okay?"

Before either of his boyfriends could protest Makoto had thrown open the door and run out.

"Disney's Frozen?" Rin asked with a quirk of a disbelieving eyebrow.

Makoto leaned around the box he had thrust at the pair. "It's supposed to be good!" He whined, big green eyes pleading with Rin, but the redhead only rolled his eyes and headed back to the kitchen.

"Whatever."

Haru shrugged in time with Rin. "Put it in. Rin's almost done setting the table, too."

Makoto trailed after Haru as the older boy headed back to the table, rescuing the soy sauce from a probing kitten paw, scooping their kitten up and sitting with her in his lap, watching Rin come back from the kitchen with Haru's apron on and thinking how much it fit him.

"Haru, I love you," Rin grumbled as he set a large bowl of rice in the center of the table, "But I can only handle fish so many times in a week."

Makoto eyed the spread (Akiha did the same from the cradle of his lap, her oceanic eyes finally able to peer above the table) with a warm smile. "Wow, Rin! There's so much! And it didn't even take long. You're really good in the kitchen, huh? Thanks for the food!"

As Makoto dug in along with Haru the redhead sat down at his spot and immediately found himself with a lapful of Bobtail. He picked up Akiha and set her next to him, tapping her on the nose. "You'll get yours, you tiny adorable hellion."

Akiha mewed innocently and big blue-green eyes were the picture of pleading.

Rin paused with his chopsticks hovering above his hamburger patty. "...do we want to eat and watch?"

Haru shrugged and slurped a large portion of noodles into his mouth, sapphire gaze flicking to Makoto in silent urging. Rin rolled his eyes but looked to the brunette.

A flush lighting his cheeks Makoto ducked his head and hid his mouth as he finished chewing. "I-I'm deciding..?"

With a huff Rin rolled his eyes and pointed at the still-slurping Haruka with his chopsticks. "Apparently. He's too lazy. Probably 'too much effort' I'll bet."

Makoto decided to wait, thinking conversation without distractions would be good (minus the furry distraction that kept reaching a paw toward the tabletop with what Akiha apparently thought was stealth), only to run into the problem of the conversation carrying on well past their dinner. They missed most of the first twenty minutes of Frozen, Makoto lying in Rin's lap in his own kind of happy heaven as Haru read a book by tea light on the opposite side of the table.

The topics had gotten gradually more serious and Rin now drew small circles over the exposed skin and sensitive nerves of his boyfriend's hip as he thought aloud with a furrowed brow.
"Sometimes I think I ought to just quit Samezuka and come out to Iwatobi... but Samezuka can take me places and give me things Iwatobi just can't."

Makoto beamed, reaching up to slide Rin's errant forelock from his face. "Exactly. You need to stay there and do your best. You have to succeed, Rin. You have to."

Rin bared his teeth in a happy shark grin. "I know. And I will. But you'd like it if I transferred, wouldn't you?"

Makoto flushed and looked back to the screen but sapphire eyes were drilling into Rin.
"No we wouldn't. We'd get distracted." Haru stated blandly from behind Rin's back.

Makoto cocked his head back toward them, paying them his keen interest again. "Mmm, I don't know, I think I'd be okay..."

Haru sighed quietly and paused the movie. "I'd be distracted, then."

"With what?" Rin snorted.

Haruka locked blue with red and Rin didn't have to be Makoto to read the desire in those intense azure pools.

A lazy, confident grin stretched over Rin's lips. "Well well," he purred. "So, what, you'd be daydreaming about me fucking you like you like all day?"

Haru lifted an eyebrow. "You ask me that like I don't do that most of the day anyway."

"Wait, you do? Whoa whoa whoa, Nanase, maybe Makoto's right and you do need to tame your libido."

"I don't see why. I'm allowed to think of the men I'm in love with, aren't I?"

"Well, yeah, I suppose... Hey, Makoto, you okay?"

The brunette had squeaked and turned red all the way up to his ears, covering his face with his hands. Both of his boyfriends were peering at him.

"That's why, isn't it..!" Makoto wailed.

Rin glanced at Haru for clarification but the older boy shrugged, looking nonplussed.

"That's why what, Mako?"

"That's why Haru sometimes gets hard in the middle of class! Haru-chan, why would you do that?!"

Rin reared back, eyes wide, and turned to Haru again. "Wait wait wait- hang on- wait. You randomly pop boners in class because you're thinking about sex?"

Haru blinked. "You don't?"

"No, dumbass! Normal people don't fucking think so much about fucking! Normal people especially don't think about screwing their boyfriend in class! Christ!"

While the black-haired boy shrugged, seemingly unperturbed, Makoto finally peeked out from behind his hands to glare at the oldest.
"Haru! You can't do that! It's not- you shouldn't- oh my goodness..."

"You're the only one who can see."

His lovers paused and turned searching stares on him.

"...wait, so Makoto-"

"Oh no, Haru-chan, please don't tell me-"

"-and you fucking know that and you- my god you get hard because you know he's staring at you-"

"-do that because- wait what? Haruuuuuu! No! That's- that's-"

"That's kind of dirty of you, Haru. Color me impressed, babe."

Makoto moaned unhappily between his fingers. "Can we talk about something, anything else right now?"

A half hour later Makoto's head drooped, then fell hard to Rin's shoulder, slipping a little toward the redhead's chest before Rin could reposition himself to allow Makoto to sleep comfortably. The moment he found a good position he picked up the remote and clicked back through a bunch of chapters until he found the right scene and with another press of a button he switched the language to English.

Behind the pair Haru lifted his head and scowled.

Rin snorted. "Don't get pissy, you weren't even paying attention to it."

Blinking, Haru leaned back. "How did you know I was..?"

"Your breathing changed," Rin replied immediately. "I may not be as good as him-" a gentle roll of the shoulder Makoto's head occupied- "but I do recognize some things."

"Why'd you go back?" Haru asked as he went back to his textbook.

"Wanted to hear the song in English," the redhead said flippantly. "It's supposed to be good."

Haru was surprised to hear Rin singing along to the English song he supposedly didn't know, but once he noted the echoing note of tears clogging the younger boy's voice he wisely decided not to question him.

Movie finished, Makoto awoken with gentle hands, and litter box cleaned, the threesome lazed for a moment in the living room. Rin had blatantly thrown himself on Makoto's shoulders, dragging the brunette to a halt in the doorway, until Makoto buckled and they fell to the floor in a laughing heap. Haru sighed at their childishness, telling himself he was ignoring how his heart pounded when they began kissing in that pile on the wood floorboards, and Rin grabbed his pants to tug him toward them. Haru let him, if only because Rin's grip was rather high and close to sensitive parts of his anatomy that he would prefer he didn't have nails digging into, and knelt next to them when Makoto's searching hand found his shoulder. Before he could process it Makoto was kissing him on the lips and Rin on the collarbone and he didn't have a complaint to offer. Haru relenting to leaning onto their jumble of limbs a moment later.
Rin let him but sprawled out, arms wide, over Makoto's chest. Both his lovers regarded the wistful smile on his face with veiled curiosity.

"Reminds me of the time I first stayed over here after we all made up. You were here, but it was your parents' anniversary so you had to leave- how dare you, by the way, leaving without a word to me or so much as a quickie in the bathroom?- and Haru and I had some niiiiice, normal bonding."

Makoto beamed. "I remember that! I thought I saw you two leaving early!"

A teasing smile slowly pulled at Rin's lips until he was grinning smugly. "Did you know, Makoto, that Haru has a certain kind of book underneath his bed..?"

The black-haired boy abruptly looked like a cornered animal. "Rin! Don't-"

But the brunette laughed. "Famous Japanese Mineral Springs and Me Monthly? Oh, I know about it."

Haru sagged with relief but Rin leaned forward. "Are you kidding me? It doesn't- it doesn't bother you that he jacks off to pictures of hot springs?"

"There are many, many other things- worse things- that he could be obsessed with, Rin. In all actuality, he picked a fairly tame thing to obsess over." He stood, smiling softly down at the pair. "So. Can we go to bed? I'm exhausted."

Author out. Apologies for the delay. And the weirdness yesterday. I was on a time crunch and all of a sudden my computer's saying it has some serious issue ;~;