AN: Yo, so here's number 2. And just before you panic, Rin and Haru will definitely end up together at the end, there just needs to be romantic tension since this is a romance story meaning that their relationship is the main story so having them end up together in the first chapter means it could only work as a short story (As I had originally intended). Also I just wanted to go over some other things. Nagisa, in this story, is non-binary and identifies as pangender. Nagisa's pronouns are "xe, xir, and xem." Also Rin's demisexual and Haru's homosexual. Rin's demisexuality is actually going to be fairly important later on in the story as well. If you want any explanations about these identities, let me know and I'll explain next time.

It had been a week since Haru had kissed Rin... Rin hadn't talked about it. He had shied away from physical contact in a fashion he hadn't done before. Haru supposed he hadn't fully considered how Rin might've percieved the whole situation. He supposed he should have tried harder to consider how Rin might've seen himself in relation to his own sexuality.

He'd been so sure that Rin wasn't straight. What kind of straight guy legitimately used the phrase "haute couture"?

And standing in front of Rin's house with his fist poised to knock the door but then ending up with it frozen must've looked odd. He pressed the doorbell instead because it was probably more polite. The ding-dong the doorbell made was daunting and ominous, the way that each chime seemed to drag on. His nerves kept him from the pressing the button again.

There was a scuffle of feet and Haru felt his heart beating in his chest. The door opened to reveal Rin's little sister, Gou, whom Haru knew little about.

"Hello?" She said.

"Is Rin here?" He asked.

"No, sorry, he's at late practice with Sousuke," she responded. But then she piped up with a "He'll be home soon, though."

Then she gave Haru the offer to stay at the house until Rin came back, which Haru accepted. When he walked in, Gou told him to wait in the front room and ran off to fetch some tea. Haru decided to just be polite and abstain from divulging into the fact he preferred cold drinks to warm ones and instead took a seat on the plush crochet couch in the cramped front room.

Haru only really knew what Rin's bedroom looked like, and some of the hallway upstairs and downstairs. The front room was nice enough. It had a wooden floor with a beaded rug in the middle with a coffee table on top. Various mugs and trinkets had been scattered over the table, making the room seem like it was in more catastrophic disarray than it really was. There was a medium sized TV in an alcove with a DVD player underneath it and a set of DVDs of varying genres in the cabinet the DVD player was on top of.

Haru noticed that there were various baby and childhood photos tacked to the walls, as well as a few posters for TV shows, movies, and bands. Haru looked at the childhood photos of Rin. He remembered that one time he and Rin had watched an American sit-com aimed at teenagers wherein a character expressed deep embarassement at their parents sharing their baby photos with their crush. The thought gave him a chuckle.

It was fairly difficult to tell, from the baby photos, who was Rin and who was Gou. However, Haru noted from the photos of Rin's childhood that Rin was a cute and feminine child. He'd almost thought he was Gou to begin with but found a group picture and realised the feminine child he'd originally believed to Gou was actually Rin.

"I made the tea," Gou chimed from the doorway, bringing two steam mugs to the table.

"Thank you," Haru replied.

"You want the TV on?" she asked, picking up the remote and waving it.

"I'm fine."

" 'Kay then."

She drummed her fingers against the coffee mug when she wasn't taking sips from it. Haru leaned forward and grab his cup, which had a kind of childish painting of a cat on it, and took a sip. He noticed that Gou's had an elephant on it.

"Sorry about the mugs. Mum's book club was around earlier so a lot of the mugs are still in need of a wash. Also kind of why the room's a mess... Who knew middle aged mothers could get so het up over Fifty Shades of Grey?"

"What's that?"

"What... Fifty Shades of Grey?" Gou responded, eyebrows creasing. Haru nodded. "It's this book from... America, I think, and it's got all this weird porny stuff in it and my mum hates it because she thinks it's really abusive and so does like fifty percent of the book club, but then the other fifty percent of the book club is like sexually repressed housewives who think it's great so almost every time they have a meeting there's a massive row over it. I heard it's one of the best selling books worldwide."

Haru hummed in response, not really knowing how to answer.

"You can call me Kou, by the way."

"Okay," Haru responded.

The doorbell began ringing crazily and Gou jumped up yelling "That should be them!" and ran to the door. There was a hushed conversation in the hallway and then Rin and a black haired boy with teal eyes walked in, along with Gou.

"Hi, Haru," Rin said, giving an awkward wave. "Uh, this is Sousuke," Rin motioned to the black haired boy with teal eyes, "Sousuke, this is Haru."

"Hi," Sousuke said. Haru gave a small wave in response. Sousuke seated himself on the three person sofa, rather than the two person one Haru had sat on.

"I'll make some tea," Gou chirped.

"I'll help," Rin added, trailing after his younger sister.

"So, you're Haru," Sousuke said, sitting up.

"Yes, I am."

"I've heard about you before," Sousuke said. "Rin told me you're a good swimmer."

"Oh, right."

"He also told me you kissed him," Sousuke scowled.

"It wasn't like that... we kissed, it was mutual."

"What?!"

Ah, shit.

Haru, luckily didn't get into a fight because Sousuke started yelling first and then Rin asked him to leave and then they argued. Gou sat in the corner sipping tea, a somewhat exhausted look on her face.

Sousuke did leave in the end and Rin sighed against the door. Then he turned his attention to Haru with a glare in his eyes.

"Damn it, Haru," Rin groaned.

"What did I do?" Haru asked.

"You had to come by tonight, didn't you?"

"You didn't say I couldn't," Haru huffed, crossing his arms.

"You didn't ask if you could."

"I always swing by randomly. I sent you a text this time as well."

"No you didn't."

"I did," Haru insisted, disliking Rin's accusations that he would lie. Haru pulled his phone out to find the proof, as he had indeed sent the text. He remembered doing so. "Ah..."

"What?" Rin inquired with crossed arms.

"I sent it to the wrong person... how did I do that?"

Haru's eyes widened when he realised who he sent it to: Nagisa. Shit.

"You're unbelievable."

"I came here to talk, anyway," Haru said. Teenagers did that right? Had nice rational conversations? Haru hoped so about.

"What do you mean?"

"I wanted to talk about when we ki-"

"Haru!" Rin yelled, his cheeks reddening remarkably. Rin grabbed Haru's arm and began to pull him out of the room. Gou had gotten out of her seat and on to her feet, with wide eyes and a hand covering her mouth.

"Haru, let's talk about this in my room, please," Rin pleaded, looking Haru right in the eyes.

"Yeah, okay," Haru replied, going upstairs with him.

"Look, Rin," Haru began as he stood by the door of Rin's room, which was firmly closed. "We haven't talked about the fact that we kissed since it happened. I told you that I..."

"Haru, I know what you said but... I don't think you were telling the truth. I mean we've only known each other for five weeks."

"Time doesn't change my feelings," Haru replied. Although it really should he thought.

"Haru, I know you just wanted to have sex with me when we went to the beach."

"What?!" Haru spluttered.

"You were being pretty blatant about it but I don't really do hook-ups... and I have a boyfriend-"

"You have a boyfriend," Haru narrowed his eyes. "Who?"

"Who do you think it is?"

"Me?" Haru responded.

"No," Rin sighed exasperatedly. "It's Sousuke."

"What? How come you never told me?"

"Well, Sousuke's in the closet so he doesn't want anyone to know."

"Why would anyone want to hide the fact that they're in a relationship with you? You're literally the most amazing person I've ever met."

"You don't have to be sarcastic," Rin huffed.

"I wasn't being sarcastic," Haru said staring at Rin's eyes. "I've never meant something so much in my life."

Rin stared for a moment, eyes becoming wide and his face became very red. He buried his face in his hands and made a muffling whining sound and said something akin to "Oh my God!"

"You really are in love with me," Rin spluttered, "I'm sorry for saying that you just wanted to have sex with me."

"I kind of did want to have sex with you and stuff, though," Haru added. "If that makes you feel any better."

Rin peeked out from under his hands and then shook his head. Haru nodded his head awkwardly.

"Um, should I just..." Haru motioned towards the door. Rin nodded.

"It could've gone worse," Haru told Makoto over the phone.

"I suppose, but it could've much better. Why on Earth would you tell him you wanted to have sex with him after he told you he had a boyfriend and he thought you were just trying to get into his pants?" Makoto responded, he sounded pretty horrified.

"He looked like he felt really guilty and embarrassed so I thought he'd feel better if he knew it wasn't a baseless accusation. Also, my pants were kind o-"

"Haru," Makoto interupted.

"Yes?"

"I don't want to know about what you're pants were like when you were kissing Rin."

"I don't get it, Rin was the one who put his tongue in first," Haru mused.

"Eugh, Haru, I don't want to know. Look, why don't you take this as a sign? Rin is mortal, you are immortal. Here is your window of opportunity to discreetly exit this before you make things any worse for yourself."

"What, do you think if I stay longer we'll end up in a relationship?"

"No, I think you'll fall in love."

"I am in love with him."

"Are you sure? I think you're just infatuated."

"I know how I feel about Rin."

"Maybe you should stay longer. If you are infatuated, it'll probably wear off in a few weeks."

"So, you think I should stay and be with Rin."

"You need to actual do things something someone genuinely in love with him would do. You need to support him unconditionally, be happy to see him happy whether he loves you back or not. Okay?"

"Yeah," Haru replied, irritated.

"Okay, I've got to go. It's daytime where you called me."

"Where are you?"

"California."

"Have fun," Haru said.

"I will. Bye."

Haru stared at his mobile phone, trying to figure how to send Rin a text message that was an apology but wasn't intrusive and wouldn't piss Sousuke off. He also wanted it to be short and punchy because if Rin saw that it was just pages long he'd think that Haru was weird and gushy and he would probably just skim the text.

He remembered one time, when Rin was in the middle of talking about a British punk band from the nineties, Rin got a three page text from Nitori, his name was Aiichiro but Rin's group found his last name suited him better. Rin groaned about it and went into a mini-rant about how annoying it was when people sent long texts and that he always skims through them anyway. He then surmised that Nitori had found a DVD from a comedy show Rin had really liked when he was in Australia in the city nearby while he was shopping with Momo. He wanted to know if Rin wanted him to buy the DVD and then exchange it with Rin the next day for how much it cost.

Haru decided to take a walk on the pier to try and clear his head and maybe to try and empitomise his feelings towards Rin and his own fuck up. He grabbed his coat from the mostly bare wardrobe in his guest room and went out, waving the the man that worked the front desk- for what seemed like 24 hours per day- and said he'd be back in an hour.

The wind on the pier was strong and gusty and the waves of the sea were a forceful cradle that rocked the pillars violently, trying to shake some sense into them. Haru found himself looking over the fence at the waves wishing they'd shake some sense into him.

What was he doing? What he was trying to achieve? Get a teenage boy to fall in love with him and try and dodge the question "how come you don't age?" over and over again? Even then, when he thought about the fact he'd been lying about his age, he felt dirty. He didn't even know how old Rin was. Sixteen or seventeen, he assumed. He felt a bit uncomfortable thinking about the age difference. He felt like a dirty old man. He wasn't sure if he was or not. He felt like he didn't look like one and his sexual fantasies about Rin hadn't been extremely graphic. He was more like a teenage boy, if he thought about it.

"Holy shit," Haru said over the side as he realised that he was going through the horny teenage boy phase of his life. "I'm a virgin."

And that just plummeted his mind into madness because he didn't know about Rin. Rin seemed to be pretty good at kissing when they had kissed on the beach. Haru hadn't been the one who'd pried Rin's mouth open, Rin had done that all by himself. If Rin was dating Sousuke, then how long had that been going on for? Rin had said they'd been friends since they were little so who knew when Sousuke had discovered his latent homosexual feelings for his friend.

"I've got no chance," Haru sighed as he looked across the sea.

"No chance with what?" A very familiar voice called.

"Nagisa?" Haru turned around to see that the... fairy had indeed turned up in this little fishing town.

"That's me!"

"Wow, Haru, I really never thought you'd be the one out of the three of us to do something that crazy... I always thought it would be Makoto if I'm honest. But I guess he always has been the level headed one. I guess I just always assumed vampires were romantic... which is weird because Dracula never alluded to that point... but then again I read Carmilla first because that came out first and there were some serious lesbian undertones in that. Carmilla was declaring her love for Laura in like every chapter, it was ridiculous. There was a part where Laura thought Carmilla was secretly a guy and was pretending to be a girl so she could woo her in secret but I think she dismissed that thought because Carmilla obviously had tits."

Nagisa was gearing into full on rant/lecture mode, in the middle of a fairly small twenty four hour fast food restaurant, provided mostly for people who were travelling through the sleepy little town. Haru wouldn't have minded much, if it weren't for the fact that he didn't want to be privy to a loud bisexual's rant/lecture on the pro's and cons of breasts when the vast majority of people in the cafe were judgy old people. Also, Haru had heard the lecture before and could vie that he really had no interest in breasts whatsoever.

"Before we get into a long, one-sided, discussion about lesbian subtext in Gothic literature, can I ask you how you got here so fast?"

"Haru it's been over twenty four hours since you sent me that text. I'm wondering what took me so long. Guess I'm getting slow in my old age."

"Have you done everything in the world yet then?" Haru asked, as he pushed gnarly bits of rugged iceberg lettuce from his burger around the paper wrapping with a plastic fork.

"I've realised over the years that it's impossible. By the time you've pulled every fig off the tree of life, you end up realising a whole orchid of new trees and possibilities have sprung up behind you. It's exhausting, in a good way, and I guess it gives you some hope for the future."

"I can't say it's been the same for me," Haru replied.

"Guess that's just because you don't how to grasp life. You want everything to stay the same. You think that moving about all the time is your way of trying to find something new but really it's just what you've always done. And then you move before you get to know anyone... Well, except for this time, anyway."

"Yeah. I guess it's because I met Rin on my first night here. The moment I-"

"Please don't go into a massive speech about how Rin capitulates everything that's alive and breathing about life again."

"You were about to lecture me about the pros and cons of breasts just a minute ago..." Haru responded sourly.

"How did you know? You said I was going to talk about lesbian subtext?"

"You said the word "tits" and that's honestly all it takes with you."

"I'm just waiting for medical science to advance so I can get a pair of my own."

"I thought you said you didn't have a gender. I thought boobs were for girls?"

"I am every gender," Nagisa replied.

"That sounds intense."

"It kind of is... in that a lot of people don't really get it."

An hour later Haru and Nagisa had finished their food, even though it was stone cold by the time they had gotten around to eating it. Their meeting had been mostly comprised of Nagisa ranting about bizarre experiences xe'd been involved in over the past year. Xe had a particularly exciting story about saving a girl on a run away camel or horse, that detail was a bit hazy, and finding out she was a rich heiress and being paid a handsome sum of money.

"I'll pay," Nagisa offered at the end of their meeting.

"Thanks," Haru replied.

"Are you still short on money?"

"I'm running low."

"You should get a job," xe suggested.

"I don't have any legal documentation which backs up my existence, or a CV."

"Well, I could mock up some files for you."

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's no trouble at all. I know loads of people who fake their identity. Or you could steal someone's identity... but it's better to go with the former."

The next week Haru received the fake documentation in the post from Nagisa as well as a fake CV filled with a number of, probably, fake schools and companies from other countries. Nagisa enclosed a note saying xe had used a few people he was friends with who would back up the CV if he needed them to.

Haru sent a text message of thanks. He looked at the rest of his inbox and found that there were no new messages from Rin. He looked out the window of the bedsit, which overlooked the pier and he noticed that the students from Rin's school were walking to school.

He decided to go job searching today.

There were very little retail jobs with vacancies. Actually there were none. The fishing town was struggling to support itself given that fishing made very little money and the amount of people who lived was fairly small.

When he got back to his bedsit, he noticed that he'd left his mobile phone behind. It was sat on the bedside, glowing ominously. Haru picked it up, remembering that when the green light was glowing it meant that he had a new text message. He flipped it open and found that the new message was from... Rin.

Haru took a moment to breathe and sit down on the bed, to prepare himself in case it was Rin requesting to cut all times between them. He sincerely hoped it wasn't but he knew it was possible. He pressed the button to open the message.

"Haru, can we talk? I miss you. Text me back soon."

That hadn't been what he was expecting. Rin even confessed to missing him which was odd.

"Yes. I miss you too. Sorry if this text is late. I was job hunting."

"Job hunting?"

The reply was fairly instantaeous which surprised Haru as he had assumed Rin would be slow when it came to texting. He imagined he would think each reply through and question each word placement. Then again, he thought about how Rin could be extremely impulsive and spontaneous. Perhaps he tended to be the type to not think about texts that much.

"Yes. I'm running low on money so I need to find a job."

"Sorry to hear that. Do you want some help?"

Was it a good idea to rope Rin along into job hunting with him? Haru didn't think so. Given Nagisa's involvement and the, most likely, criminal means exercised to obtain the documents. If Rin saw his CV he might ask about the things on it and Haru didn't want to fabricate a huge lie about his life. He didn't like lying to Rin.

"No thanks. But could you tell me if you see anything."

"Sure :)"

Rin sent another text about a second later.

"When do you want to talk?"

"When's good for you?"

Haru's phone was eerily silent for at least three minutes. He drummed the side of the bed with his fingers and his foot began tapping the floor. He began trying to analyse ever pixel of his text message and tried to see if he could detect anything that could be taken the wrong way in his message. Maybe it came off as sexual and Rin felt uncomfortable again because of the last time they'd had a conversation. Then Haru began cringing over the whole "I did want to have sex with you" fiasco of about a week ago.

Haru's phone made a jazzy little sound and he realised he had just received a text message. He snatched up the phone almost immediately.

"Come meet me at the pier at ten o'clock."

"Okay. See you then."

Haru felt giddy, like his stomach was twisting. He looked through his wardrobe but found he really didn't have a lot of clothes. He wondered what would make him look good but concluded that he had no fashions sense. He took a shower, making liberal use of the freebie toiletries that the hotel had left out. He wished that the smell was less of a nondescript musk and something more floral, like what Rin always had on.

He tried to blow-dry his hair but then it ended up all knotted up and he took an additional ten minutes trying to comb it back, which ended up flattening it. He also ended up with much more fringe in his face than normal.

His jumper was big and dumpy and made out of wool and looked awful on him. His pants were grey and as non-descript as the lingering smell of free shampoo. His trainers were scuffed and had dirt on them and he realised that despite taking an hour longer than he usually would to get ready. He didn't look any different.

Still, he slid his jacket on and put his phone in his pocket and braved through the blistering wind which dragged the upcoming winter along in its wake. It was dark out and no cars ran along the road. His fingers itched in anticipation.

He could see Rin from across the road, waiting on the pier with his cheeks resting in his bare hands as he supported his elbows on the fence. Haru crossed the road and then walked really briskly over to see the redhead.

"Rin!" He called. The redhead raised his head and turned around, giving Haru a gentle smile. His face was reddened by the chill in the wind.

"Hi, Haru."

"So you wanted to talk?" Haru panted, but recovered quickly.

"Haru... do you want to kiss me?"

"What?" He gasped, his cheeks flushing slightly and eyes widening. He must've heard Rin wrong.

"Do you want to kiss me, Haru?" Rin said slowly, dragging out each word.

"Y-yes," Haru stuttered.

"Why don't you then?"

"Because, uh, you haven't asked me to? A-and you have a boyfriend!"

"Haru," Rin smiled sweetly, looking up from his perched position over the fence. "I want you to kiss me."

It was an immediate and maddening sensation and Haru would have felt embarrassed if he'd seen the way he'd grabbed Rin and kissed him. Rin kissed him back again and Haru felt assured in the reciprocation of his feelings for the crazy moments in which their lips where touching. Then Rin pulled away, panting heavily.

"J-Jesus, H-Haru... how can you go that long without... b-breathing?" Rin said as he huffed in air and tried to stand up straight. Haru almost explained that he didn't need to breathe but then he remembered that most, if not all mortals, definitely needed to breathe.

"I have a lot of practive from swimming."

"That's an impressive lung capacity," Rin chuckled, "Have you ever thought about contacting the Guiness Book of World Records?"

"The what?"

"You've never heard of the Guiness Book of World Records before? I've got it at my house, I'll show you the next time you come over."

"Rin, as much as I'd love to act like everything's normal, it... really isn't and we just kissed, again. And we actually need to talk about this properly."

"What's there to talk about?"

"You've ignored me for the past week," Haru began.

"No, you ignored me. I thought you didn't want anything to do with me because you found out I had a boyfriend."

"I would never do that to you! I was giving you space to think."

"Well, I'm sorry that I don't know you very well. And couldn't you have sent me a text and been like 'Hey, Rin, do you want me to give you some space?' ?"

"I wasn't thinking. I just didn't want to make you feel like I expecting anything from you."

"At least you're admitting to not thinking."

"And why did you just ask me to kiss you?"

Rin was silent for a moment and he averted Haru's eyes and looked at the ground for a moment or two with seconds passing by in the bitter wind.

"I don't know... I wanted to remember what it was like. Whenever I'm with Sousuke... he never initiates anything. I don't whether he's shy or... if he doesn't actually like me that way."

"He must!" Haru insisted. "He wouldn't have tried to punch me in the face for kissing you if he didn't."

"I suppose there's some truth to that," Rin replied.

"So, what happens next?" Haru asked.

"Uh, I don't know?" Rin offered as he slid his hands in his pockets. "We can figure it out together, if you want."

"I'd like that."

AN: Thank you for the reviews last time. I'll try to update soon as hell. Okay?