A/N: Woooooo, happy day after Water Day! That first episode was everything I ever wanted and more. So, since the last update I have graduated college and gotten a job, wow! I've been busy, but I feel like I need to reiterate: please don't ever feel I've given up on this fic! It will always be slow going but I try to work on it a little bit every single day, pinky promise. Sorry if you have to go back and read previous chapters to remember what's going on with each update, though... A big thank you to the guest reviewers from last chapter: yuu, Pleaseupdatesoon (lol that'll never happen), and the three of you that simply went by 'Guest'.
As for this part, it was my intention to complete the spring break section with this chapter, but it ended up being almost thirty pages, so in order to not take 500 more years editing, I actually divided it into two chapters. Good news is, that means the next chapter is already written (and is longer than this one), I just have to edit it! So give me about a week to do that, and it'll be up soon. It also means I might've ended on a cliffhanger again? I just can't seem to avoid them.
Chapter Six: Immediate (Spring Break - part 3)
It might be amusing in any other situation, how everyone sort of half-turns toward him, as though he's called all their names as well. At least Makoto doesn't look confused like the rest of them; he just looks like he shares Haruka's ever-mounting worry, a pinched look to his face that doesn't inspire Haruka with much confidence.
Rin looks very pale and very nervous, like some skittish creature that wants to scamper away but can't figure out which direction to go across the field that engulfs them from all sides.
Makoto reaches for Rei and takes him by the elbow, then mutters something around Rei to Nagisa, who nods quickly in understanding. Kou needs no explanation of what's going on, and starts to lead them away without a word.
"Wait, what're you guys doing?" Rin says.
Haruka sees Makoto flinch, likely feeling guilty about abandoning Rin like this, but he keeps on walking.
"What's – what's going on?" Rin says, tone growing panicked. He's turned completely toward the others, so that all Haruka can see is his back. His shadow stretches out behind him, just an insubstantial smudge of the person Haruka is trying to reach.
Kou stops walking, turns abruptly to face her brother. When the others stop too, she waves them off. "Just go. I'll catch up," she tells them, giving an extra shoo when they hesitate, actually having to give Makoto a push to get him moving. Once they're all heading toward the street, she glares at Rin. "We are leaving you here, to talk to Haruka-senpai, who you've clearly been avoiding. Which is really pathetic of you."
Rin makes a meek sound in his throat. Tries again, and manages an incredulous, "What?"
Kou gives a harsh laugh. "Stop playing stupid. It's hard to watch." Then, after taking a loud breath, she says it again, more pleading this time: "It's hard to watch. For all of us. So you're not going to run away this time. Seriously Rin, you're staying here."
"You can't – you can't make me!" Rin says, voice cracking. The sunlight angles down and breaks over the top of his head, making him hard to look at, like he's gone fuzzy. "I don't have to talk to him because you say so!"
It's hearing Rin call him 'him' instead of 'Haru' that is the worst part, worse even than being spoken about like he isn't there listening to everything. It's like he is Haru to one degree less, like part of his identity has taken away from him, leaving him feeling bruised and battered from within.
"You're friends!" Kou shrieks, the pitch so startling because even though she can be loud, Haruka has never heard her sounding this venomously out of control. Her cheeks are reddening, and even at this distance – thirty yards, forty – he can see a fire in her eyes that makes her look dangerous. Far behind her, near the edge of the field, Haruka sees Makoto take hold of both Nagisa and Rei's shoulders to keep them walking.
"I can't believe you!" Kou is yelling. "The big brother I know has done some pretty stupid things, but this level of pathetic makes me embarrassed to even be related to you! You should be ashamed! You should be embarrassed!"
"You don't – I – you –" Rin's hands curl into fists, his shoulders rise in agitation. "You have no right to get involved! None of this has to do with you!"
"What is wrong with you?!"
"Nothing's wrong with me!" Rin shouts, with so much force that the words sound like they grate their way out of his throat. Haruka can't see his face, but he imagines a wild-eyed snarl. "You have no idea what's going on!"
"He misses you, you idiot! You're not even paying attention, which is why whatever's going on with you guys is just getting worse!" Kou flings her arms up over her head. "I'm sick of watching you run around with your head up your ass – don't say anything, you swear all the time – screwing things up even more! Start acting your age and do something! Or I won't be able to forgive you!"
She whips her hair over her shoulder and stalks away. The park seems to get larger the farther she gets, until she looks centimeters high and her shadow stretches tall behind her. She is at the street before long, turns the corner on the sidewalk, and eventually goes out of sight behind some trees.
Which leaves just Haruka and Rin and the grass all around them, slowly turning yellow with the sky. The park is quiet; the other visitors have packed up and left now that the sun is going down and taking with it much of the day's heat.
Rin doesn't turn around.
"Stop avoiding me," Haruka says. His voice sounds like someone else's, or like it's just materialized in the air – he doesn't remember the feeling of moving his mouth. There is a low rush in his ears, his heart racing, willing Rin to look at him.
"Stop avoiding me," he says again, a bit louder. He starts to take a step but second guesses it. Curls his fingers, uncurls them; his fingernails leave a lingering burn in his palms. "I don't – I'm not angry, or anything, I don't know." His voice shakes, the nerves twining relentlessly through him. "I don't know what you think I am, but I'm not. Rin."
Rin tips his head back – Haruka doesn't know if he hears the breath Rin lets out or if it's another breeze passing through – and then he turns. Everything in his expression is hardened. His eyes are glaring and his mouth is a thin, tense line, but Haruka knows him too well and can make out every crack. The fear, the distress, the desire to be anywhere else.
"I don't care if you like me," Haruka says, with a tumbling feeling in his chest because it's the first time he's said it out loud.
Rin's eyes narrow, like he's looking for the lie. "You really don't?" he says, skepticism brimming from every syllable. "Because you had two months – two and a half – to tell me that. But you didn't."
Haruka feels like he's been punched in the throat. The air he breathes struggles to get to his lungs. "I know. I'm – I was stupid. I needed to think. I was surprised."
Rin just stares at him, and Haruka wants to hit himself. Of all words, he chooses surprised?
"I'm sorry," Haruka says. That foggy feeling from the kitchen earlier today is twisting back through his brain, melding urgency with an inability to find anything to say. "Please, Rin. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I just want to talk to you."
Haruka can see the challenge in Rin's eyes, and realizes distantly that Rin is giving him the chance to prove himself. His throat starts to burn; he's afraid he's going to cry. "You're still Rin. You're Rin. You're my friend. I don't want to lose you again."
Rin's entire expression crumples, like someone has shattered the armor mask he was wearing. Haruka feels like he's watching in slow-motion, hardly daring to believe he found the words to do that. Now Rin looks very much like he's going to cry, lower lip held firmly in his teeth, hands fisted at his sides.
"I don't want to lose you again either," Rin says, sounding choked.
"Then don't," Haruka says quickly. His heart beats a vicious, hopeful heat, raising the hairs all over his body. He wants to run forward, take Rin by his jacket and shake him and make him understand that the last thing he ever wants to happen is to lose him again.
He takes a few steps, and when Rin doesn't show any alarm, walks forward until they're close enough he could reach out and truly grab Rin's jacket, but he doesn't. The sky feels closer than ever before, the golden hue getting richer and thicker and making Rin's hair orange.
"I was scared," Rin says, voice hardly louder than a breath.
"Me too," Haruka says. "But I'm not anymore. You can like me. I'm not saying it won't change anything, but I don't – I don't want it to change them in a bad way. "
Rin's eyes are watery, and he rubs his fists into them. "I missed you," he says thickly.
Haruka feels a flood of warmth so strong he's afraid it's going to block his airway. "Me too."
"I can't help it," Rin says, heels of his palms now fixed firmly over his eyes. "How I feel. I don't wanna mess things up, but I can't help it."
It's okay, Haruka wants to say. You're okay. Don't cry. Please, I hate it when you're sad.
He steels himself and reaches out, takes hold of one of Rin's wrists. When Rin doesn't respond, Haruka pulls Rin's hand away from his face, and Rin lowers the other one himself. His eyes are red, but still mostly dry – he's trying valiantly to keep the tears at bay.
"So stop avoiding me," Haruka says. He gives Rin's wrist a squeeze, is almost surprised by the solidity of it, the fact that Rin is really here. "Or else we'll both keep messing things up."
Rin gives a small nod. "Okay."
Haruka lets go, and Rin's eyes flicker nervously away, a faint crease forming between his eyebrows.
Haruka finds himself sighing. The sound, surprisingly, elicits a twist of the lips from Rin – a depreciating expression, not truly a smile.
"We're so fucking stupid," Rin says.
"Yeah," Haruka agrees. His brain struggles for something to add, and he hears himself spit out, "We should try to be smart."
Humor comes slowly to life in Rin's face, though his gaze is still elsewhere, somewhere to the side. "We're too stupid to even know what that means."
Haruka almost laughs. He lets out a sound, something loud and quick through his nose, maybe relief and maybe exasperation. "We should still try."
Rin gives another nod. Looks at Haruka, lips finally pulling back over his teeth. "Okay."
It's shaky, but it's a start. Not an end, nowhere close to where they're going to have to go, but it's a first hurdle behind them.
Rin scratches the back of his head a bit awkwardly, says, "We should probably get to the station." And then it's just the two of them in a park, with places to go. Time has resumed, night is catching up to them.
Leaving the park side by side with Rin, Haruka feels like he's found his way back somewhere he belongs, but that he's forgotten what being here used to feel like. Their shoulders don't touch, Rin doesn't talk. There is a buffer space. It doesn't make him uncomfortable per se, but it does make him hyperaware of everything – the placement of his feet on the sidewalk, the minute, practically unconscious twitches of his fingers, the weight of his eyelashes coming together when he blinks.
The way to the station is lined with small houses and businesses, their windows opaque with the glare of early evening. Everything is that orange-yellow hue now – the sky finally settled down to the very ground, so that the air almost looks the color of syrup, though it's really just the tint on the whitewash of the buildings. What's more surreal is that Haruka knows neither he nor Rin will speak, so it's almost like neither of them are there. If he looks over, Rin might have just vanished into the air, dispersed into the glow of everything.
But they make it to the train station together, climb the steps up to the platform, never once jostling.
They wait for the train in silence too, standing beneath the metal overhang, in front of the vending machines and facing the opposite platform, where a group of teenage girls sits giggling on one of the benches. Makoto and the others clearly caught a previous train, or else went off somewhere else, because they're nowhere in sight.
The earlier gusts of wind are becoming more streamlined and constant, ruffling Haruka's hair. A springtime rain is in the air, and on the horizon, above treetops that look sharp as arrows, are thick gray clouds.
"Do you want something to drink?" Haruka asks, turning to the machine behind them and fishing out his wallet. He sticks some money into the slot and punches the button for a hot coffee. It clatters into the tray, and when he picks up the can it sends instant heat through his fingertips.
Rin is looking at him dubiously, a frown that only increases when Haruka holds the can out to him.
"I don't drink coffee," Haruka says, which is easier to say than It's for you. He gives the can a shake, hopes he can tempt Rin into accepting the small peace offering – though they've already made peace; he just feels like he has to work towards maintaining it now.
Belatedly, Rin takes it and mutters a thanks. "You didn't have to get me one," he says, but he cracks the lid open and takes a long sip.
"It's just so you don't get cold."
Rin lowers the can, cradles it in his bare hands. Quirks an eyebrow. "Didn't say I was cold."
"You can't catch a cold before the term starts."
Rin rolls his eyes, drinks more coffee to hide a smile he can't erase.
Haruka knows that months ago there would have been so many words passing between them, or from Rin to him, but now they drift back into silence, facing the opposite platform again. He can feel words forming on the very back of his tongue, lining up waiting to be deployed, but none of those words take form in his mind, and so he swallows away the sensation every time it appears.
He sinks into a daze on the train, the wheels over the bumps in the tracks providing a constant, gentle jostle. They sit on the bench beside the door, backs to the window. Their compartment is otherwise empty, and the light flickering overhead gives off a faint static sound.
At the stop before Haruka's, when the doors close and the crisp air stops spreading into the compartment, Rin finally speaks up.
"I'm not –" he starts, but he cuts himself short.
Haruka blinks, and the window across the way comes back into focus, showing a dusky landscape beyond: houses passing in snatches, all lit from within, yellow square windows. Rin is looking at the can in his hands, between his knees, his head bowed. His hair falls into his face, but not enough to hide the tense set to his mouth.
"I'm not gonna, you know, try to do anything to you just because, you know. I won't – I wouldn't –"
"I know," Haruka says quickly, heartbeat picking up at the implications of what Rin is saying.
Rin turns his head, has the look in his eyes again that says he's trying to make sure he can believe what Haruka said. Haruka knows he'd be useless with words, and hopes whatever is on his face will give whatever assurance Rin needs.
Rin nods once. "Okay. Good." He turns his head jerkily away, sets his jaw, and stares out the opposite window.
Silence again, until they reach Haruka's stop. The train slows as it pulls into the station, and Rin stands first, which gives Haruka a moment of pause – he hadn't thought Rin would be getting off with him, and wonders if Rin intends to come over. But when they reach the doors, Rin stands aside to let Haruka pass. Haruka steps onto the platform and turns back to Rin, who looks down at him from the top of the stairs.
"So," Rin says. He crosses his arms, uncrosses them, stuffs his hands in his pockets. Frowns, an attempt to cover his awkwardness. "We're cool, then."
Haruka nods. "Yeah."
The train lets off a blast of air.
"So then, if I text you, you'll answer," Rin says.
Haruka knows they're probably thinking the same thing – Rin will be gone by the end of the week, and will they see each other before that happens?
"When I see the text," Haruka says.
Rin brings a hand to his forehead. "You're so fucking hopeless," he mutters, and Haruka isn't sure if he's meant to hear or not. But then Rin lowers his hand, pins him with a hard look, and says, "And you can message me too, you know."
"I don't have things to say," Haruka says.
"Haru! Talk about the weather, I don't fucking care." It's mostly exasperation, but Rin's expression quickly goes weary. "But Haru, seriously. I live across the ocean now. Can you – can we just try – you know, to just do friend stuff? Make up for all of this?"
The doors start to shut, and Haruka steps forward as though he'd be able to stop them. "Okay," he says in a rush, and then the doors are closed. He watches Rin as the train pulls away, and then the glass glints and throws the light back into his eyes and Rin is out of sight.
The notification light on his phone, sitting on the living room table, is blinking when he gets home. It's a message from Rin, which isn't a surprise.
serious, you have to message me back, it says, timed for just before seven, right after Haruka got off the train.
Haruka sends back an Okay, smiles as he sets the phone back down. He notices a scratching sound at his back door – the cats angry at him for missing their dinner time. Sometimes they hang around and sometimes they live elsewhere; these past few weeks they've been in his back yard more often than not. They meow fervently when he opens the door a couple minutes later, and try to trip him up by twining around his ankles.
"It's your fault if I spill," he says, but he manages to set the two bowls down on the patio safe and sound. The cats instantly abandon him in favor of the food, and so the day ends like any other.
He wakes up the next morning and feels perfectly fine staying where he is, beneath a thick layer of blankets and staring up at the ceiling. He isn't tired and he isn't hungry either, and for once neither the bath nor the swimming pool is an irresistible tug coaxing him from the covers.
What a difference regaining Rin's friendship makes. It's like some festering thing has been drained right out of him, leaving so much room for calm, calm, calm. The crosshatching on the ceiling is hypnotizing; he has a hard time keeping his eyes in focus.
But to Rin he's no longer just a friend. He scratches his nose, suddenly uneasy. Turns his head toward the open door, through which he is able to see the slats of the hardwood stretching away down the hall. He decides to get up, but to not change out of his pajamas. For breakfast he sticks some bread in the toaster, and as it heats he curls up his feet to keep as much of them off the flooring as possible – there's something about feet on a cold floor in the morning that is near unbearable, and yet he doesn't want to expend the effort to go back upstairs and put on socks.
He watches the heating rods in the toaster glow red, and wonders when Rin started thinking of him in the liking sense. Wonders what started it.
What started it for any of the girls – not that there have been hoards, but there have been some – that have confessed to him over the years? Rin knows as well as anyone how unlikely Haruka is to show affection, but maybe that isn't something he wants. Maybe what Rin is interested in is purely aesthetical. Maybe. Who knows. He sure doesn't.
With a trilling chime, the toaster coughs up his toast. He munches on it, still not very hungry but knowing that any handful of people would advise him to eat first thing in the morning.
Instead of going to the pool, he goes into the back yard and waters the garden because the rain that had been looming never came. The cats show up and watch him from the patio, legs folded beneath their bodies and amber eyes trained lazily on him, only half-open. When the plants are all glistening with water droplets, Haruka joins the cats on the patio, lets them crawl onto his lap and curl up there. The sun is out but isn't very strong, so their two bodies quickly become the best source of warmth.
Rin hasn't texted him since yesterday. Haruka tries to think of something he could send, but the only thing he can come up with has to do with the weather – I don't know if it's warm or cold today – and that's really a stupid thing to say. He runs his fingers through one cat's fur – long and soft, a mottle of brown and gold – and it starts purring, which sets the other one off as well.
Maybe when they let him leave, he'll go to the pool. Or maybe he'll stop by Makoto's, or maybe he'll take a walk along the beach. Today he feels like fooling himself into believing he has time to do whatever he wants, or nothing at all. Whichever involves the least amount of exertion, mental or otherwise.
"I knew you two just had to talk," Makoto says later, while he and Haruka sit on the stone step at the very base of the hill, facing the beach. It's low tide, so the water just kind of sits there, doesn't even make enough sound to reach them.
"Hm," Haruka says. He hadn't actually told Makoto what he and Rin spoke about, or even that the talk went well at all, but of course it had only taken Makoto one look at him to know that things hadn't gone badly.
On either side of them sits a plastic pail containing flat stones picked up along the rockier parts of the beach. Ren and Ran are at the shop nearby, buying popsicles because "You can't go to the beach and then not have popsicles," Ran had said, as though it was something every reasonable human being should know. She comes back up the road with her brother now, each of them with a popsicle in hand and bickering loudly.
Haruka doesn't know where his plan about no exertion went to. He was the one to knock on Makoto's door, though, so there's obviously some form of self-sabotage going on.
"It's so cold," Ren complains, when he and his sister make it back to the stairs. He tries to take a bite of his popsicle, but flinches every time his teeth touch the purple ice.
"That's what I told you," Makoto says resignedly. He stands and picks up a pail, and Haruka does the same.
Ran takes Haruka's elbow as they start back up the steps. "You're gonna stay and paint with us, aren't you?" she asks him. Somewhere in the past few days, she and her brother had decided they wanted to make a stone path in the backyard, but that it would be way too boring if the stones weren't painted.
"Do I get to say no?" Haruka asks.
"No," she says simply, and her pigtails bounce along as she speeds up and pulls him after her, setting the stones in the pail rattling together.
Later still, while Ren is laying down stones in the backyard, Ran comes back to the patio where Haruka and Makoto are painting and says, fists on her hips, "I thought you were supposed to be good at art, Haru-chan."
Makoto makes a valiant effort of stifling his laugh, but his cough is thoroughly unconvincing.
"Your paint brushes are hard to work with," Haruka says, which is true. He's pretty sure the one he's using had been chewed on sometime in the past – the red plastic is far from smooth, and a good portion of the bristles stand out at all angles, like a head that's been electrocuted. He thinks, secretly, that Ran gave him the worst brush on purpose – she's becoming more and more devious these days.
"It's okay," Ran says, taking a stone in each hand from the painted ones laid out on the newspaper beside Haruka. "The colors are still nice."
Haruka decides not to say anything along the lines of 'I thought you were supposed to be good at laying paving stones' because they aren't using paving stones, and the twins never said they knew what they were doing. The pathway they're creating, from just below where Makoto and Haruka are sitting to somewhere across the short stretch of lawn, looks more like someone's accidentally dropped a bunch of rocks all over the place.
Haruka finishes another stone – this one he's done in blue and purple stripes – and sets it on a free space on the newspaper. They're using watercolors, which makes the painting even more difficult. You have to make it like mud, Ren had said, or else the colors won't show up.
"Let's see how long this lasts," Makoto says, painting in the eye of an orange smiley face on his own stone. "The rain has to come one of these days. Here, this one's done."
He places the stone in Haruka's palm, and Haruka sets it down to dry between the green smiley face and the yellow one.
"Why was she criticizing my painting?" Haruka mutters, and Makoto grins at him.
"You're funny to annoy. She said that. I didn't." Makoto laughs about something, and in answer to Haruka's bemused frown says, "She probably has a crush on you."
Haruka thinks for a split-second of Rin, the crush that has sent everything spinning off its axis, but he's able to push all that aside and fix Makoto with a blank-faced stare.
"Don't be weird."
"In a cute way," Makoto says, still smiling.
Haruka absolutely doesn't see how it would be cute for a Makoto's younger sister to have a crush on him. Speaking of little sisters, though.
"Was Kou okay yesterday? When she caught up to you guys…"
Makoto's smile dulls a little bit, but he wastes no time trying to pull it back up. "She was okay. Just needed to fume for a little bit, I think. I rode the train to her stop with her; she was glaring at the floor the entire time." He gives a quiet laugh. "She looked a lot like Rin on one of his bad days."
"Haru-chan," says Ran, popping up once more in front of them. "Can you draw one with Iwatobi-chan on it?"
"Why do you want him on one of your rocks?" Haruka says, setting his brush down and letting his weight rest on his hands.
"I don't know," Ran says, rolling her eyes. "I just do. It'd be cool."
"I can't draw him with these brushes. They're too big."
"Haru-chan, please! I know you can. You draw him really well."
"I know."
Ran puffs out her cheeks. "Hey! You're supposed to say 'thank you,' you know."
"I know."
"Haru-cha-aaan! Stop! You're so annoying!"
Haruka's lips twitch. "I know."
Ran tries to look indignant, but she starts laughing. Tries even harder to stop that, and ends up making a frustrated sound that is half-laugh half-groan. "Make him stop," she says to her brother with a stamp of her foot, but Makoto is already chuckling and this sets Haruka off as well.
"You two are so dumb," Ran says, making a show of gathering up some more stones, head ducked to keep her reluctant grin out of sight, and storming away.
When Haruka gets home, it's with two painted rocks in one hand – one is white with a blue wave on it, the other orange with a purple star – and in the other hand a container of some of the leftover curry udon Mrs. Tachibana made him take home after having him stay for lunch. When he had been leaving, Ran had come running down the hall with the stones in hand, had ducked beneath Makoto's arm to hold them out to Haruka.
"Put these in your yard somewhere," she had said, and then, with an expression of utmost determination on her face: "Haru-chan, you seem happier today. Keep feeling like that, okay?"
She had disappeared, face going red, and Makoto had raised his eyebrows at Haruka, looking amused and all-knowing. Haruka told him to stop being stupid, but had walked the thirty seconds home wondering if it really had been so obvious that he was feeling happier.
He puts the udon in the fridge, the rocks on the kitchen counter in the sunlight – he'll keep them inside until the rainy season passes, at least – and finally feels ready for a trip to the pool.
The doorbell rings late Friday afternoon, when Haruka has just gotten out of the tub, and somehow – with what feels like an electric shock in his throat – he knows, just knows it will be Rin.
He dries off, not really rushing but still quickly. The single ring – a move that is very unlike Rin, but that doesn't fool Haruka – makes him think that maybe Rin is prepared to wait, or just doesn't want the door to be answered that quickly. His hands fumble with his clothing, his fist punches through the head hole of his shirt instead of an arm, he almost loses his balance pulling on his pants. His feet, still damp, pad loudly down the hall and stairs.
When he opens the door, Rin's arms are crossed and his mouth is twisted into something displeased, maybe worry and maybe impatience. But then his gaze falls on Haruka, and he grins. It's an expression that is both sheepish and eager.
"Hi," he says, looking windswept and sounding a bit breathless, and Haruka knows he ran up the steps, probably even jogged from the station. His hair is in a ponytail, his track jacket is zipped halfway up.
"Hi," Haruka says, adrenaline spiking through his body. Water drips from his hair down the back of his neck, dampening his shirt. He wonders if Rin is going to ask him out into the cold for a run.
Rin uncrosses his arms, and is all defenses down when he says, "I'm making up for avoiding you."