Chapter 7

AN: I'm not a swimmer so I don't know how the competitions are structured or anything ^^;

I have this headcanon that Rin calls Seijuuro different names in his head. This is also one of my first fics so I would really appreciate reviews and comments? (I promise happy, fluffy times soon)

Rin tapped his fingers against his desk. He really hated waiting. Ever since he was a boy he could never remember having the slightest bit of patience. He bounced his knee glaring at the clock again. He pulled a chewed up pencil out of his mouth and scowled. He couldn't take this for much longer. Today was much too important of a day to be wasting in school.

It had been almost a month since the swimming competition. After reuniting with his old friends at the beach, he found himself doing better at swimming than ever. During the preliminaries, he'd beaten Haruka which made him happy, but more importantly...Makoto had hugged him after the finals. Iwatobi's team had come to watch Samezuka compete in the national tournament, even though Rin didn't qualify, he made it that far. It had been disappointing, not to go further, but he was contented to at least get that far.

Today Rin felt like his heart was going to leap from his chest. He'd been trying to ask Makoto out for what felt like forever, and today he'd convinced the other boy to meet him. He told Mako that he wanted to ask him a few questions for swimming. He lied, saying Seijuuro had asked Rin to talk to Makoto about important business. It was a flimsy and boring lie, but it was all the redhead could think of at the time. They were supposed to meet up later, but later was after school. Seeing as it was not currently after school, Rin was angry, annoyed, and frustrated. Starting to tap his foot, Rin went back to biting on the end of his pencil.

When the bell rang, he hopped out of his chair and basically dashed into the hallway. He slowed his pace trying to calm himself. Worrying about it too much would probably just make him do something stupid. As he rounded a corner towards the gym building, a familiar face popped into his vision.

"Matsuoka-senpai!", Nitori skipped over to him and walked at his side, struggling to keep up.

Rin nodded at the younger boy. He didn't have time to really humor him today. He was on his way to convince Captain Swim Trunks to let him leave practice early. He increased his pace. Nitori seemed to be determined to stay next to Rin. As they walked out of the Academic building and into the gym building, Aiichiro stumbled on his shoes. He took the trip in stride and followed after Rin a few paces behind. Rin slowed when he noticed Nitori limping awkwardly.

"You okay?", Rin asked wondering if he had injured himself severely.

Nitori blushed at Rin's concern, "I'm fine", he lied and started to walk normally with a gentle smile.

Rin figured the underclassmen was fine, so he walked faster towards the swimming pool. When he spotted Senor Captain, he took a deep breath before walking up to him.

Seijuuro stood by the pool watching some of the upperclassmen swim their laps. He had his arms folded across his chest and didn't look happy. After Rin had made it all the way to nationals, he'd taken it as an invitation to ask Gou out. Multiple times. Gou wouldn't let anyone but Rin know that she actually liked him, but she continued to tease the poor Captain Flame Hair. Everytime he asked her out, she'd either flat out reject him, or only agree to stay together for a short period of time. Rin pulled his cell phone out of his pocket ready to argue with the orange haired captain.

"Captain flamey- I mean, Captain Mikoshiba", Rin stepped into his line of sight.

"Matsuoka?", his face softened.

"Can I get out of practice early?" Rin asked directly.

"Why?"

"Reasons".

"Why should I let you?"

"I know something you'd like to know".

"Like what?"

"I don't know, maybe you should let me leave early".

"You're not making this easy Matsuoka".

"It's about Gou".

Captain Flame-Crotch perked up. The sounds of the other guys practicing in the background sounded distant.

"Gou-kun?" he smiled like a happy puppy.

"I know you've been trying to ask her out for a while but", Rin paused. "You can't just ask her out directly. She doesn't like that".

Rin pulled out his cell phone. "You still don't have her number, right? I'll text it to you if I can leave early".

Mikoshiba contemplated the offer for a few moments. It was true Rin felt a little bad about sharing Gou's number, but she liked Senor Fuego, so it was alright. It was mean of her to tease him in the first place. Finally he agreed, as long as Rin did the warm-ups with the rest of the team. Rin texted him the number and Mikoshiba returned the favor with a bone-crushing hug.

In the locker room, Rin was glad he had won the Captain of the team over. He would be able to go off and meet Makoto. They might even talk about things other than swimming. Rin was so excited that he didn't notice Nitori standing behind him for a while.

"Senpai, what're you so excited about?" the boy asked peeking over Rin's shoulder.

Rin turned to face him.

"I have to go meet with Iwatobi's captain" he answered nonchalantly.

Aiichiro blinked as his face fell. His lips parted gently and formed a small, hesitant smile.

"Mako-chan?" he whispered almost to himself. His lips twitched until he couldn't hold his fake smile any longer.

Rin looked into his eyes, silently agreeing. Nitori had been one of the first people to help Rin realize that he liked Makoto. Rin was a bit confused to why the younger boy was wringing his fingers.

"Oh…", he nodded turning on his heel. "We should...get to...practice", he walked away quickly bumping against another swimmer on his way out.

Rin noticed he was trying to stay off of one of his ankles. His attention was turned to his phone when it buzzed, signaling a text message. Opening the phone, he saw a message from Makoto.

From: Tachibana

I'm going to wait near the park, I'll text you when I'm there. :)

Rin's breath caught in his throat when he saw the smiley face. It wasn't even necessary for it to be there, yet it made him happy. Maybe Makoto was excited about meeting Rin, just as much as Rin was excited. He shoved his phone back in his bag and headed off to practice. Everything was going well.

Until it wasn't.

During practice Rin managed only to stay scatterbrained. He could hardly pay attention to anything. Words tended just to pass by him, their sounds became incoherent. Even being in the pool couldn't keep his mind off of Makoto. After pulling himself out of the pool, he shook his wet hair out. Looking at the clock he figured Mako would be leaving practice soon. There was soon a loud thud and a squeaky shout.

Rin flipped around to see his dorm mate on the slick tiled floor of the pool building. The boy was hugging his left leg tightly to his chest. The back of his neck was red as his body shook. He seemed to be holding back tears. Trying to stand on his own, he slipped and fell back onto his butt. He grabbed his ankle and grit his teeth together. The other swimmers stood around him, unsure of what movements to make. Some asked if he was alright, and Nitori responded by shaking his head.

In seconds, Rin was kneeling beside the younger boy. He looked carefully at the boy's swollen ankle. He'd probably tried to swim, and just now twisted it. It was sprained from the look of it. The poor boy's face was contorted with pain, but he seemed to be holding back tears better.

"It's your ankle, isn't it?" he tried to meet the blue gaze of Nitori.

"I'm...fine…" Nitori seemed to be pouting.

With a sigh, Rin put an arm under Nitori's armpit, hoisting him from the floor. With most of the boy's weight on him, Rin figured he'd be able to walk at least. The other swimmers seemed to go back to what they were doing. The redhead shot them glares as they headed towards the office in the building.

"Senpai...I'm fine", Nitori feebly tried to push away. "You don't need to-".

"Just let me help, jeez", Rin looked forward as they approached the little enclosed room.

The coach's office was a small stuffy room with a window facing outside towards the courtyard. Rin placed Nitori on a small bench in the corner, that was half covered in papers. He tried his best not to get anything wet in the room. Even if Aiichiro was soaking wet. Rooting around through the first drawer in the warped wooden desk, Rin retrieved a medical kit. Nitori sounded like he was going to die. He was shifting around on the bench, uncomfortable for whatever reason. Finding the medical tape, Rin was at Nitori's sde again. Kneeling beside him, he lift the boy's swollen ankle.

"Hey!" he jerked away, only causing himself more pain.

"Stop moving it, I don't think its broken though…", Rin examined the joint. "It would be bruised and bigger".

"...You know a lot about injuries Senpai…", Nitori started to play with his fingers, a pink glow came to his cheeks

"Only basic stuff", Rin unrolled a bit of tape and started binding the boy's ankle. "You shouldn't swim on this, we can get you an ice pack from the nurse…" he trailed off.

Getting things from the nurse would require both boys to change and walk to the main building. If the nurse was even there. Rin looked at the wall clock in the office room. He still had some time, they could make it. Helping Nitori into the locker without getting his foot wet proved difficult, but they got it eventually.

In the locker room, Rin started changing until Nitori interrupted him. Something about leaving his goggles out by the pool. Rin ran and got them, by the time he returned, his phone was out of his bag and Nitori was looking at him guiltily.

"What're you doing?" Rin picked up his phone ignoring protests from the other boy.

There was a simple message on the screen:

Message Deleted.

Rin turned his angry gaze to Nitori. "What the hell did you delete?"

Nitori avoided Rin's eyes at all costs, twisting his fingers in his hands. He didn't answer but simply stared at the floor. Rin groaned but changed anyway. Whoever sent it would just text again if it was important. He was a bit angry at Nitori but he would deal with it when the other boy wasn't injured. They headed towards the nurse's office with Nitori leaning heavily against Rin.

When Rin finally got back to the locker room, an hour had passed. He'd yelled at Nitori for deleting the message on his phone, which was not a good thing for the nurse to walk in on. She assumed Rin was the one to inflict his injury and almost chased the sharp-toothed boy from the room. Nitori and Rin both had to explain to her what had happened. After this, she made a big fuss about rewrapping Aiichiro's ankle, then ran off saying something about finding a bucket of ice. All of this seemed out of proportion to Rin, but he was too pissed to do anything about. There wasn't much to do anyway. Nitori had confessed that he'd deleted a message from his sister. Upon finding this out, Rin simply shrugged and forgot about it. When asked why, Nitori said that it was something embarrassing about him. Apparently the two had become friends recently. Gou mentioned something about it to Rin a while ago. Thinking nothing about it, Rin was glad to finally take Aiichiro back to the dorm room. The boy would have to sleep on the bottom bunk for the night.

Back in the locker room, Rin checked his phone anxiously. He almost dropped his phone when he saw the icon for a missed message. RIn hurriedly checked his received messages.

From: Tachibana

I went home, I was waiting for a long time. I had something to tell you…

Rin hurried typed a response.

To: Tachibana

w8 whut? U said u wld txt me whn u got here

There wasn't a response at first. Rin ran his fingers through his still moist hair. His heart was pounding in his chest, sinking deeper into his ribcage with each beat. Makoto wasn't one to outwardly show if he was angry or sad, but that text seemed urgent. Rin turned locked and unlocked the screen of his phone waiting for a message. Mako's had been sent 30 minutes ago.

Rin felt like his heart skipped a beat when his phone buzzed.

From: Tachibana

I did. Did you not get it?

To: Tachibana

No

Rin's teeth clenched together. Did...Nitori delete the message?

From: Tachibana

Oh, well I have to tell you something in person. We should meet up.

To: Tachibana

Yah. Just txt me

Rin exhaled a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. That could've ended a lot differently. He hated making Makoto angry, but he honestly hadn't read the other text. His thoughts drifted to Nitori, probably still lying on his bed. He would find out why he had deleted the message. Rin balled his hands into fists. It wasn't like he was angry, if anything he was just frustrated.

His frustrations with Makoto had started the day he realized he liked the boy. Something as simple as that had kept him from sleep. It made sense to him when he analyzed his thoughts, but he had no way to prove it. His proof was that the other guy was always on his mind, but then again so was Haru. But Makoto just...felt different he told himself. After swimming competitions had finished up, Rin had jumped at the chance to be around Mako. Whenever he was, he couldn't concentrate on anything but the other boy. The major problem was that even if they were on good terms now, they hadn't been alone together. And Rin had hadn't confessed yet.

But that wasn't so bad, it had only been a month. It hurt, but he could wait forever as long as Makoto didn't hate him.