DISCLAIMER: I wish I owned Free! Then there'll be more than just friendship between Rin and Haru in the anime.

A/N: I apologize for this very late and short update. A lot of things happened, like, getting my laptop stolen, strong earthquake and tornado and shizz(Oh I wish these are all just mere excuses and jokes but nooooo T.T). I'll be sure to update tomorrow or the day after tomorrow to make it up to all of you my readers. Forgive me for any mistakes !

Chapter 4

The first time Erika set foot in her boyfriend, Rin Matsuoka's house was four months after she'd conquered him from countless rivals. It was a harsh battle of one-sided love on the ladies' part as Rin was a famous Olympic swimmer with a beauty that could easily steal the ladies' heart. Not to mention he was very fit as he was an athlete so the girls were literally salivating over him.

Step by step, she won him over no matter what method until finally, they became official. That alone was of greatest happiness and pride to her but to enter Rin's private space was another achievement she was to brag of. Her eyes could only stay wide with excitement, her chest fluttering with happiness. She made sure to burn in her eyes the sight of the interior of Rin's apartment, every nook and cranny!

With that said, she caught sight of the pictures displayed on the shelves of the living room and ran to them to run her eyes over them. They were pictures of Rin from when he was young, a picture of him and his younger sister, Kou, and pictures of him from every tournament he won an award. She stared at each of them for seconds, making sure that the images remained in her mind, until her eyes fell unto a snow globe.

The figurine inside was that of a dolphin frozen at the moment of its jumping out of the water. She found it beautiful that she just took it in her hands and gazed at it closely. "This is beautiful!" She exclaimed.

Hearing her, Rin turned to look at her and his eyes widened at the sight of the snow globe. He stomped towards her and snatched it out of her hold, surprising her of his sudden movement. He glared at the object as if it was its fault that she saw it, his hands dangerously tightening around it.

Erika worried that Rin might tighten his hold any further that he'd break it and injure himself. But before she could say a word of warning to him, his hands slightly relaxed around it as if he'd realized he might break it and didn't want that to happen. He clicked his tongue and gently placed it back down on the shelf, telling her, "Don't just touch anything."

"Y- yeah." Erika replied and watched Rin walk away from the shelf. She looked back down at the snow globe and, this time, noticed a picture frame that was facing downwards. She was just about to reach out and pick it up to look at the picture on it when Rin's voice called out, "I just said not to touch anything." She withdrew her hand and turned to Rin who had a frown etched into his eyebrows. "Don't ever touch that picture frame, you hear me?"

Feeling a bit scared, Erika could only nod her head obediently and leave the picture frame nagging at her curiosity. As far as she knew Rin, he wasn't the type to really show strong emotions on things that didn't concern swimming. So even though he only showed what seemed like dislike towards the snow globe and the picture frame, they must've still meant something to him. Especially because, if he only purely disliked them, he could've just thrown them. But he didn't. He couldn't.

After the above event, Erika left the snow globe and picture frame alone and even forgot about them. She wouldn't even probably be reminded of them if not of Rin getting sick one day. He had this high fever probably from swimming while the weather was cold and she enthusiastically went to nurse him. It was a rare chance for her to see him weak as Rin was prideful and always kept a strong image and she figured she might as well have him depend on her a little.

Thus, she looked after her beloved boyfriend a little too happily when she wasn't supposed to be as seeing that he was sick until the man fell asleep. She continued to watch over him until she also fell asleep beside him and drifted into her dreamland. She was jerked awake, however, when Rin started groaning, his face twisted into a pained expression that had her very worried.

"Rin, what's wrong?" She asked as she tried to shake him out of his slumber then froze in surprise as a single streak of tear ran down from his closed eyelids. She watched that droplet run through his skin until his eyelids lifted open and revealed watery red orbs. "Rin, what's wrong?" She repeated and waited as he shifted his eyes to her. He slowly reached out a hand to her face, gently caressing her cheek as if to wipe away something there. And as her heart warmed up with this sweet gesture, her blood immediately ran cold at the next word that slipped out of his boyfriend's lips. "Haru."

After uttering that name unknown to her, his hand went limp and fell to his side, his eyes slowly closing down as his breathing evened out, back to his sleeping state.

As much as she wanted to shake Rin out of his sleep again to demand the identity of that name, she was way too shocked to actually do anything. But as she stayed frozen on her seat though, her mind was running wild with thoughts of different emotins.

Was he cheating on her? No, she was sure of that. Not only because of her trust on him but because he wasn't the type to cheat. He was the type to break off the relationship once tired with it and move on to his new interest. Although it was already miracle enough she was able to stay in a long term relationship with him, she was still convinced that Rin was not cheating on her.

Then, a person of the past? Someone he loved truly and couldn't get over with? The possible reason that Rin was such a playboy? But there was no "Haru" ever mentioned in the known history of Rin's relationships. Especially if it's someone he truly loved, then everyone who was a fan of Rin and was pursuing for him should've known her! She'd be the greatest enemy of the fan club, the final boss of the battle of Rin's heart. But in her almost a year of dating him, there was no "Haru" at all.

As she searched her mind for anything that could perhaps lead to this "Haru", she remembered the snow globe and the picture frame. Her heart jumped as she assumed she'd found the greatest hint about this "Haru" so far and ran down to the living room where the snow globe and the picture frame collected dusts on the shelves.

She stood in front of the objects of her interest nervously, her sweating hands clenched tightly. The snow globe must've been something "Haru" gave him and that's why Rin couldn't throw it away. She glared at the snow globe with dislike now when she actually found it very beautiful the first time. And the picture frame, her gaze shifted to the said object and she also glared at it. It must be a picture of "Haru" or something. Then Rin wouldn't be keeping it down, right?

I swear, when I find out who you are-! Erika grabbed the picture frame angrily and glared daggers at the picture. Until she found out what it was a picture of and her expression cleared of animosity and was replaced with confusion.

It was a picture of Rin from when he was in elementary school. A picture of him and three other boys she didn't recognize in a swimming pool. They were only wearing their identical swimming trunks with gold medals around on each of their necks, Rin's arm holding a trophy and the other draped across the shoulders of the black haired boy among the others.

She didn't understand why Rin didn't want anyone to see this picture when it was pretty ordinary although the picture showed a sight of Rin genuinely smiling of which is a rare sight at the present. She stared at it Rin's smiling face while wondering about the picture until finally, she remembered about "Haru". In the end, she couldn't find a hint of her existence and she might have also thought wrongly about the snow globe.

A little disappointingly, Erika returned the picture frame to its place and sighed, her shoulders greatly slumping down. Who was this "Haru"?

While still pondering about the existence of "Haru", the doorbell rang and stripped Erika away of her dazed state. She stood up from her seat on the living room and headed to the front door, absent-mindlessly opening it and greeting the person on the other side, "Yes?"

The familiar features that were exactly the same as Rin's made Erika's eyes widen and mouth slightly falling open. "Kou!" She exclaimed and the younger sister of her boyfriend politely bowed.

"Good morning." Kou greeted and smiled at the girlfriend of his older brother.

Erika stepped aside and let Kou enter the apartment then led here to the living room. "Tea, Kou?"

"Yes." Kou replied as she sat down on one of the couches and as Erika disappeared into the kitchen to serve her tea. She came back minutes later with the said tea and offered it to Kou, taking a cup for herself and sitting down on the couch opposite to Kou.

"I heard that brother got sick just when I came to visit." Kou started, taking the teacup to her hands. "I was hoping that we could go hang out together but I guess it's already good enough that I'm here when he needs to be taken care of the most." She seemed to have realized something and put down her tea with a bow of her head. "You must've been taking care of him this whole time. Thank you very much, Erika-san."

Erika smiled at Kou, waving a hand at her. "It's nothing. I'm quiet glad that he can rely on me at times like these."

Kou let out a giggle as she took her tea again. "I used to be the one who took care of him whenever he got a fever in the past so I felt the same satisfaction of being relied on by brother."

At the mention of something about Rin's past, Erika remembered "Haru" and wondered if Kou knew about her. They were siblings after all so Kou should at least know something about someone who was so important to Rin, right? She looked at Kou and hesitated on how she should open the topic. She didn't know where to start and just wanted to blurt out, "Who is Haru?" But that'd sure to surprise Kou and she didn't want to be so straightforward. So she decided to start with what's bugging her other than the identity of "Haru".

"Kou." She called out and the younger sister looked at her with question. "I want to ask something." She stopped at that with hesitation and sensing that, Kou pushed on with a, "What is it?"

Erika looked at the snow globe, Kou following her gaze. "Did someone give Rin that snow globe?"

"Eh?" Kou looked at the other lady with slightly widened eyes with a reply, "Brother bought that himself."

"Really?" Confusion swirled in Erika's eyes as she gazed at Kou. "But it seemed like he really disliked the snow globe."

Kou brought down her gaze to her tea and murmured, "It must be because it reminds him of something painful."

"Does it have something to do with someone named "Haru"?" In the end, Erika couldn't keep it in and just blurted that out. As expected, Kou looked really surprised which proved to Erika that the younger sister did know of something. She averted her gaze from Kou's as she explained, "Rin called out that name after he woke up from a nightmare. And he was crying."

There was only silence after that as Kou only stayed gaping at Erika until finally, the latter couldn't bear it anymore and called out, "Kou?"

The red haired girl snapped out of her shock and got flustered. She put down her tea clumsily and almost spilled it then went to fiddling with her fingers, her eyes averted. "Um… this is really hard to explain-."

Their discussion was cut off when Rin staggered into the living room suddenly, Kou jumping out of her seat from nervousness and Erika just flinching with surprise. Kou snapped up to her feet and ran to her older brother and greeted him, asked him how he was and urged him to go back to rest.

As the sister pushed the brother to go back to the room, she turned back to the girlfriend and mouthed, "I'll talk to you later."

Throughout the whole day, after that discussion, Erika couldn't sit still at all. She was itching to hear about this "Haru" and it was almost unbearable to wait for the day to turn into night and for their patient to go back to sleep. She couldn't help thinking that if she'd missed her chance to know now, then she might not know for another year or so. Rin was almost recovered and Kou wouldn't be staying with them for long. If not tonight, then at some other day or month or year but she was getting impatient!

Finally, when the two ladies were left alone in the living room, Kou almost felt awkward having Erika stare at her intently, waiting for her to tell about "Haru". Before starting things off, Kou took in a deep breath and exhaled audibly. Then she took out her cellphone and fiddled with it for a little before showing Erika a picture of a familiar black-haired, blue-eyed man whom the latter felt she'd seen before.

"Um… Erika-san… this… this is… this is "Haru"."

A/N: Thank you so much for all the reviews and the encouragement to continue this! I don't know if this satisfies you but I hope it does. This might seem a bit useless but really, I just wanted to express Rin's love for Haru in a different way. Thank you for all the reviews and the follows too ! Please review ! I love you all ! :D