I Was Alive When You Were Right Here By My Side Part 2
Rin was kissing Haru and before Rin could even tell what was happening, Haru had shoved Rin off of him.
What just happened? Rin thought.
After he finally gathering his thoughts, Rin quickly turned away from embarrassment. He wasn't really sure what to say but Rin was pretty sure that they were each others first kiss. The two boys must have stayed quiet for around a minute and now things were getting awkward.
I need to say something Rin thought still not making eye contact. Anything!
"Look, I'm sorry Haru-" Rin turned around to see Haru but was surprised to seem him more affected by the accident than Rin expected. Haru was looking away and had a slight blush on his face that made Rin's heart skip a beat. Haru had never been this emotionally present unless water was directly involved. In some ways it was, they were in a pool but Rin was pretty sure that Haru's reaction didn't have much to do with that.
Most of this flew past Rin's mind because now all he was thinking was that he wanted to kiss Haru again and maybe Haru wanted to kiss him too. Looking around to make sure no one was there, Rin asked
"Hey Haru, I know that I wasn't your first choice in first kiss but" Rin glanced up and saw Haru who seemed to be looking away at something like he trying to avoid all thoughts of what was happening.
"Since it's too late, do you want to try for a better one?" As the words came out of Rin's mouth the excuse sounded more and more lame and Rin was certain that there was no way Haru would say-
"Okay" Haru was now looking straight at Rin who was still had a hint of pink on his cheeks.
"Really?" Rin responded in totally surprise.
Haru's eyebrows furrowed a bit and he looked like he was about to come back with a snippy comment.
"No, I mean, I didn't think you'd say yes. I'm just really happy is all"
Haru started looking away again but Rin placed his hand on Haru's cheek tenderly with his gaze back to Rin's own. Going in, right before Rin closed his eyes, he could see Haru's perfect blue eyes practically sparkling.
Lightly, Rin pressed his lips against Haru's for the second time. But this time Rin was able to feel Haru's warmth against him. He found the experience surprisingly nice, seeing as he was kissing a boy and it was Haru at that.
As they separated, Haru only lightly pushed Rin away. Rin couldn't keep from staring at Haru who was now looking away again.
"Hey, you kids need to get out of the the pool" Rin heard.
It was probably one of the parents but Rin didn't get the chance to see.
"Okay" Rin responded getting out of the pool.
Haru looked a little annoyed but he got out of the pool pretty quickly too. After changing quietly, Rin thoughts felt sped-up and jumbled. He was super happy about kissing Haru and was pretty sure Haru must have being feeling at least a fraction of the same. Rin was also feeling like he needed to say something to Haru but what and why was keeping him from doing so. Rin was leaving, tomorrow and trying to decide what this all meant would be too complicated and messy. Plus, it didn't help that Haru wasn't much of a talker.
As the two left the swim club, about to say their goodbyes. Rin was thinking of keeping it short and sweet, thanking Haru for everything, saying bye and that would be it. But before Rin could talk, Haru handed him a piece of paper.
"What's this?" Rin asked looking at the writing. It was an address.
"I know you'll be busy in Australia, but if you find the time, you could write me or whatever"
Rin couldn't keep himself from smiling when Haru said this. Grabbing a scrap piece of paper from his bag, Rin wrote down the address of his future school.
"You, know, if you want to write me too"
Haru nodded, still looking kind of embarrassed. Rin was pretty sure Haru wouldn't be the first to write, and it'd probably have to be Rin writing to Haru to get Haru to write anything at all. But this was fine because it was just the way that Haru was. After this exchange, the two just waved goodbye and that was it.
Rin was actually on his way to Australia. His dreams were finally coming true. But his didn't stop him from crying a little. Rin was going to miss everyone so much.
"Rin!" he heard behind him. Haru was shouting uncharacteristically. "Good luck in Australia"
And this caused Rin to immediately turn around and run back to Haru.
"Could was kiss again?"
Haru went all wide-eyed again. "What? No!"
"Aw, really?" Rin slouched a bit. He was okay with kissing me before.
Haru sighed. "When and if you ever come back, I'll let you kiss me okay?" Haru started to pick up the fact that Rin had a bit of a smirk on his face. "Wait what?"
"You really are going to miss me Haru"
"I-what-no-. Just go Rin"
"I'll definitely come back Haru. I promise"
Haru looked away. "Do whatever you want"
Finally, Rin and Haru parted ways for real this time.
Now, Rin found himself in Australia. His first school day wasn't the best. No one in any of his classes really talked to him, but Rin figured that it'd all work itself out eventually.
And then it was time for his first day of swim practice. Rin was super excited but soon realized that these people who he was swimming with were much fast than Rin. So, he tried pushing himself more on the practice sets but in his efforts of trying to keep up, Rin found himself exhausted only after the warm-up.
At the end of the practice, Rin felt more tired than he'd been in a long time. Rin was now even debating going on the nightly run he'd planned to do after this. Instead, Rin decided to go back to his room to rest for a bit. Lost in his own thoughts, Rin knew that he needed to get stronger if he was ever going to succeed. So he started making plans of taking up extra practice time and figuring out the best times to go running.
A few weeks after following his plans, Rin started to see results little by little. He wasn't where he wanted to be but the improvement made Rin a little less worried. Looking through some of his drawers for a pen, Rin came across a small piece of paper he had forgot about.
"Haru" Rin said quietly. He had been so busy over these last few weeks with school and extra practices, he had completely forgotten about this. So he broke out a piece of paper and started to write. The letter consisted of just generalization of what was going on. He left out the details of the struggles he'd been having and just replaced it by saying it was a new sort of challenge he had to live up to. Rin started to write that he missed Haru a lot but decided that was too sappy and kept it out.
After sending the letter, Rin wasn't really expecting anything from Haru seeing as he mostly never did something like this unless he had to.
Rin continued his loaded training regimen and his times kept improving. He was even making friends with his classmates now. Even Rin's grades were pretty good seeing as he didn't have much time for actual school stuff.
About a week later, Rin received a letter from Haru. Quickly ripping it open, Rin scanned the letter smiling all the way. He decided that he'd read in more carefully when he got to his room but wanted to at least know the gist of the letter now. It was unsurprisingly reserved. Haru wrote mostly about facts like how he joined the middle school swim team with Makoto and nothing really about his feelings on them. Rin then thought maybe if he was more emotionally in his letters it might force Haru to be a little bit more emotionally too.
But this didn't matter to Rin too much because he was having one of the best weeks in his life and top it all off he had his first tournament tonight. Everything seemed to be looking in Rin's favor and the letter in his hand boasted his confidence even more. Their was no way he was going to lose!
Well, Rin was almost right.
Swimming into the wall, out of breath, Rin looked up to see his time. He had gotten fifth place overall in the 100 meter free which meant that he just made it to the next round. It wasn't exactly what he wanted, but Rin was only in his first year so it was still pretty impressive.
That night, before Rin decided to write Haru back, he came up with an even more intense training plan for the next three weeks to make sure that he'd make to nationals. It looked really difficult, but Rin knew it would be worth it. Still riding from the high, Rin quickly wrote his letter to Haru about the events that happened that week. And this time, Rin thought Why not and added the sappy line he left out before. Because it was true, everything in his life seemed to be going so well and all that Rin felt was missing was Haru.
The letter exchange kept going back and fourth between Rin and Haru. They we're filled with pretty normal stuff of what happened in their week's but Rin couldn't keep his heart from skipping a beat when he received the next letter.
Now it was a week before the second round of tournaments. He had Haru's letter in his hand and had decided to wait until he was in his room this time before opening it.
His training wasn't exactly going as well as Rin had hoped. His times, instead of getting better, were getting a little worse. Rin's coach explained that it was probably a mix of nerves and overworking and told him to lay off the extra practices.
Of course, Rin realized he still needed to improve, even if he was improving at the rate he was before, there would be no way that he'd place. So Rin was pretty sure that was why he was so nervous. He hoped that when the moment came, adrenaline would take over and make him fast enough to get to nationals.
But for some reason, Rin felt like whatever was in this letter was going to determine the outcome for tomorrow. It made Rin really nervous.
Now opening the letter, Rin realized that it was much thicker than the letters Haru had sent Rin before. Trying to understand why Haru had so much to say, Rin figured out that they were three different letters. One from Haru, of course, and two from Nagisa and Makoto. They were all letters of encouragement for next week. Haru explained in his letter that he wasn't very good at cheering people on so he asked Nagisa and Makoto to write letters too. Reading through all three letters, Rin tried to keep himself from crying but failed. He was touched that not only Haru would do this but that his friends would do this for him. He quickly wrote letters of thanks to all them that he decided to send in the morning.
These letters were enough motivation for Rin. He had to make it to nationals, no matter what. Now this wasn't just for his dad, but his friends expected to win too.
"Hey Rin, you need to line up now. Your heat's up soon"
Rin nodded looking up from his friends letters. "Yeah, okay" Rin said packing the letters away before putting his swim cap on. His heart was beat faster and faster still as the heats kept going on. Rin tried to think of something else for a while because he knew if he was too nervous on the block he might have a false start.
But now it was time for Rin to race.
"Take your marks!"
Rin snapped his goggles quickly before bending over to grab the edge of the diving block.
And then the buzzer went off.
"You did your best", "There's always next tournament", and other variations was what Rin heard after the race.
He hadn't placed. He wasn't even close. And to top it all off, his time was one of his worst for the season. It didn't make sense.
It didn't matter if there was next year or if he did his best because he wasn't doing this just for himself. There were people who believed in him and Rin let them down.
All of this work only to end up just where I started Rin thought holding back tears at least until he got to his room. What was the point of Rin swimming if he couldn't even improve his times. And that was when started to convince himself that he'd never reach his dreams.
Rin started to distance himself from his beloved sport and found himself unmotivated to even go to practices. It even started to affect his motivation to do school work and he never really felt in the mood to talk to his friends during school.
After his under the weather week, Rin received another letter from Haru. This time, instead of his heart skipping a beat like normal, he felt his chest tightening and just did not want to have to face this letter. It was like facing Haru, Nagisa, and Makoto only to show them he'd failed at the only thing he thought was good at. Everything just felt so tipsy-tervy and wrong.
So Rin stayed away from Haru's letter for a few days instead of writing him back right a way like Rin normally did. And in those few days, Rin tried to think about how or why he wasn't able to swim as well as he needed to. It couldn't have been nerves because Rin had felt fine when he was racing before.
Then Rin had a short stupid thought in his head.
His friends from Iwatobi
"No it couldn't be" Rin whispered to himself going against his own thought. It couldn't have been his friends that kept him from winning the race. If anything, they helped him stay motivated. But a little voice inside Rin's head told him differently. It told him that his friends put to many expectations on Rin and that's why he lost.
Rin tried to block out these negative thoughts by trying to reason that...well that was problem. Rin didn't have a reason to not think this was true. He was already lost in of a haze of his broken dream that was now replaced by the blame he put on his friends.
But now, how could Rin overcome this?
What was the one thing you could never overcome? Rin thought. The answer was looking right in front of him this whole time. Rin picked up the letter, opened it and read it.
It was just the basic normal Haru stuff and at the end asked how Rin did in the race.
It was Haru. If Rin could beat Haru just once, this could mean that Rin would be back on track to achieving his dream?
Instead of answering Haru's question, Rin wrote Haru back saying he'd probably in town for the holidays. It was still a few weeks off but the thing was Rin was pretty sure this would be the last letter he'd write back to Haru for a while. At least until he made up his mind about his current theories. But Rin was pretty sure he already had.
Now back a swim practice, Rin was giving a bit of scolding for missing so many practices but it didn't matter now because all he needed to focus on was training for his and Haru's up coming race. Rin decided that he didn't need to put this in the letter to Haru because Rin knew that Haru was already training at the swim practices at his own school. Plus, he didn't want Haru to know why Rin needed this race.
Deep down, Rin still wanted to be Haru's friend, and even deeper down, even if Rin didn't realize it at the time, he wanted to mean more to Haru. This was still true even when Rin pushed the new letter from Haru in a drawer.
Rin was now back in his hometown. It had been a few days since he'd arrived but wasn't really up to seeing Haru just yet. And to be honest, he wasn't quite sure why. But in Rin's good luck, he found himself during a walk and in the distance saw a familiar face. He couldn't make eye contact and but he could feel his chest tightening.
"Rin?" Haru's eyes opened he got close enough.
"Hey" Rin said quietly still looking away. He could feel the blood in his cheeks rising and wished that these feelings could just go away.
"How's Australia?" Haru asked simply
"It's okay" Rin answered just as simply. "Say Haru, we should race"
Haru looked a little confused. "Um, okay?"
So the two started to head for the swim club. Haru looked up for a moment like he was going to say something but never did. Rin wondered what was going on in Haru's mind, but he was pretty sure that it was filled with questions that Haru wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answers to. And to be honest, Rin wasn't sure if he wanted to know the answers either.
At the swim club, their old swim coach stood behind the two boys taking their marks. Rin knew what he needed to do.
If I can't even do this, there's no point in continuing this dream Rin thought.
But now Rin was running out of the pool, eyes filled with tears. He had failed his friends, himself and most importantly his father. Rin felt like death would feel better than this.
Then he felt a hand grab Rin's wrist. Now looking back at Haru there was a look of desperation in those blue eyes he'd never see before. And this is Rin when realized something, he was attached to Haru. That's why Rin waited every week for the new letter from Haru.
Once again, the voice talked to Rin. These attachments were what kept him from reaching his goal until these connections were gone.
"I'm quitting swimming" Rin shouted at Haru before finally running off.
Now five years later, even after beating Haru, Rin just didn't understand. He gripped the metal fencing outside of his old elementary school pool. Looking back at his stupid middle school feelings it was so obvious. He was in love with Haru. But what did that mean now. Was Rin still in love with Haru despite being separated from him all these years?
And what able Haru's feeling for Rin? He couldn't possibly feel the same way about Rin especially now. Pushing his hand through his hair, only had one this running in the back of his mind. Rin needed to swim with Haru again. Whatever it took, he needed to get into that relay.
A/N: Sup guys? Again, thanks your support and I hoped you enjoyed this chapter. So I decided that eventually I'll make a separate fanfiction for the letters the boys wrote to each other so be on the look out for the that in the future. Also sorry this took so long, again, the editing just took forever (and I'm sure that they're are still some mistakes in there). Fingers crossed that next week doesn't kill me so I can put out the next and final chapter!
