A/N: Thank you for your patience, and for your support!

Chapter Fifteen: Change (Summer - part 5)

When Haruka arrives in town on Saturday morning, it is to Zaki, Amano, and Shimamura waiting for him at the station. There is something exceptionally cool about them – they all wear caps, all have sweatbands on their wrists, all lean casually against the route display, chatting idly. Zaki blows a bubble with her gum.

"Aw, Nanase, don't look so surprised," Shimamura says when Haruka stops in front of them. He claps Haruka on the shoulder. "It's the only day all four of us get to see each other, so we might as well spend as much time together as possible."

"Yeah," Zaki says, looking sidelong at Shimamura, "Everyone's company is so enjoyable."

"Right?" Shimamura says with a laugh. Zaki sets off for the station exit, and he bounds after her. "I think I'm the funnest person to be around, too."

Amano lifts his eyebrows at Haruka in a way that might mean Hello, and they head off after the other two.

At the pool, Haruka's beginner group abandons their parents in favor of squeezing in around him wherever they can on the bleachers. Mei sits right beside him and shows off the new hole in her mouth. "I accidentally swallowed it," she says, with such gravity she may as well be telling him her best-kept secret. The rest of the group hears and immediately exclaims their mingled shock and awe.

And then the whistle blows to mark the start of the lesson, and they whisk Haruka away to the pool steps. "Walk around the pool," he reminds them, and they all slow down enough to grab onto his arms and try to make him walk faster.

The forty minutes fly by, though he has to regain Mei and Yumiko's attention several times – Yumiko keeps asking Mei about swallowing her tooth because, as it turns out, she has just gotten a loose tooth herself. She even asks Haruka about it when it's her turn to be pulled around the shallow end during their kicking lesson.

"Have you ever swallowed a tooth, Coach Nanase?" she asks anxiously, fingers curled tight around Haruka's and feet kicking wildly, sending great splashes everywhere.

"No, I haven't," he says, figuring it might not be the best idea to tell her that he once fell asleep with a loose tooth and woke up without a trace of it in elementary school. "But I've heard that if you do on accident, it means you'll have good luck." Yumiko looks slightly mollified when they return to the wall.

During the break between lessons Haruka checks the bleachers, but Rin is not there. He doesn't dare look once his intermediate lesson has started up.

Kasuko has yet another pair of little butterfly earrings – "Butterflies are my favorite," she explains, before she pulls her swim cap down over her ears. Luckily for Haruka, the twins have different colored goggles this week – Asuka's are yellow, Chou's are red. After they do their crawl and backstroke checkup, Taiki reminds him that they are supposed to start the frog stroke today. "You didn't forget, did you Coach Nanase?"

Haruka assures them that no, he did not, and near the end of the lesson they all file out to get kickboards from the stand. Back in the pool, Haruka shows them the kick, which several of them giggle over.

"You really look like a frog!" Taiki says, sounding very impressed.

The twins get a feel for it quickly and kick around the shallow end, while studious Noboru watches Taiki and tries to figure out why he isn't getting anywhere.

Taiki tells him, steering his kickboard in a haphazard circle around him, "You just gotta feel the frog, stop trying to think so complicated," and Noboru looks like this is the most confusing thing he has ever been told.

Haruka takes hold of the other end of Noboru's kickboard. "I'll pull you, so you can just focus on the kick," he says, and by the time the lesson is over Noboru is just as much a frog as the others.

"Let's do the frog arms next week, okay?" Taiki says when they all frog kick their way over to the steps, and Haruka says he'll think about it. One by one his students are wrapped up in towels and marched away, and as they go Noboru's mother sends a very thankful smile over her shoulder at Haruka.

And then, when they are all gone and he has collected a forgotten kickboard from the side of the pool, he dares to look at the bleachers, except his gaze doesn't even have to go that far. Rin leans beside the locker room door, arms crossed and smile looking like it wants to burst forth.

"I already swam," he explains when Haruka goes over to him. "Got here really early and then went to the weight room and lifted and stuff. I'm going to Makoto's to help him with English. Figured we could go together?"

"Yo, Matsuoka!"

Shimamura slaps a high-five into Rin's palm on his way into the locker room, and Rin looks a little bit stunned; stunned that he raised his hand in time for the high-five, too. But he gives an appreciative snort under his breath. "Okay…" Then he looks back at Haruka. "So, what do you say?"

Still soaking wet, kickboard still in hand, Haruka says, "That's fine. Let's go."

Shimamura tags along with them to the station, talking about the dance crew he's a part of and showing them the splotchy bruises covering both of his knees. Once he's boarded his train on the opposite side of the tracks, Rin lets out a breath.

"He never stops, does he?"

"No, he doesn't."

Their shoulders touch. Here they are again, waiting for their train. A group of flirty teenagers stands near the vending machines, talking loudly, laughing even louder, stepping on each other's toes.

"So…" Rin says, when the silence threatens to stretch too long. "Breaststroke, huh?"

"The kids wanted to," Haruka says. He shrugs, which makes him even more hyperaware of Rin's shoulder against his. When Rin takes a tiny step away, he is aware of the lack of contact more than anything.

"You're a good teacher," Rin says. "But I've already said that, haven't I?"

Haruka risks a glance, looks away immediately because Rin is already looking at him.

He shrugs again. "You haven't seen me teach that much."

"If anyone can teach swimming, Haru, it's you," Rin says, very seriously. And then he laughs. "Plus, for some weird reason kids love you. I dunno why, it's not like you've got a particularly sunny disposition or anything."

"At least my teeth aren't frightening."

"Wow," Rin says under his breath, trying to bite back his smile with his not-so-frightening teeth and failing. "How cold, Haru."

Haruka turns his face away again, because it's too late to smother his own smile.

"Have you started reading that book you got for Gou?" he asks when they board the train, the giggling teenagers squeezing past them to claim the seats facing each other.

"I got it for her!" Rin says, red-faced and looking pretty delighted at the teasing. "I'm not going to read it!"

"Hm," Haruka says, to Rin's spluttered indignation.

Flirting, Haruka thinks with a shivery feeling in his stomach, is surprisingly fun, even though he hardly know what he's doing.

The train lurches out of the station, and the two of them stumble. Haruka grabs a rail, and Rin grabs his arm, and for some reason they both end up laughing. It is all so strange and exhilarating. Haruka feels shy and brave at the same time, fueled by Rin's constant grin.

After the train ride, when they are nearing the fork in the steps to Makoto's house, Rin asks him if he wants to join them for their English lesson. Haruka says no.

"Come on," Rin says in English, nudging him in the side.

In English, Haruka says, "No, thank you."

He ends up in Makoto's living room, elbow on his knee and cheek on his fist while Makoto and Rin fumble their way through a conversation on something Haruka's forgotten about – weather? lunch? directions again?

He's staring at the dining table so that he doesn't stare at Rin, and he's mentally planning next week's swim lesson so that he doesn't listen to Rin talk. He's doing such a good job of not paying attention to Rin – eyes out of focus, thoughts having strayed from swimming completely to trying to remember if he put the rice from this morning in the fridge – that when a hand touches his knee, he jumps.

Makoto's smiling face comes into view.

"I said, want some lunch?"

Mrs. Tachibana has chilled noodles with ginger dipping sauce prepared for them, and afterwards Makoto takes three of the twins' popsicles from the freezer and they go out to the steps to enjoy them. The rain and clouds from yesterday have burned right away, and just a slight breeze coming up over the ocean serves to keep the heat at bay.

The popsicles turn their tongues purple, and even tint their teeth a very light lilac. A chunk of Makoto's popsicle falls off its stick and right onto his beige shorts, and even though he bats the ice away, a purple splotch remains.

"Put water on it," Rin says, pointing at the ocean, and Makoto says, "Why would I run all the way to the beach when there's a sink inside my own house?"

It must be the sugar that makes them all laugh. Mouth cold and teeth a little bit achy, Haruka thinks that today is the most he has laughed in a long time.

It feels remarkably like this is the same them as they had been in the winter, he and Makoto and Rin, sleeping in his living room and watching the New Year's sunrise and just being together without effort, no tension. Sitting between them on the sun-warmed steps, it feels like things have finally fallen back into place.

He doesn't even care that his popsicle hurts his teeth, or that on his right, Rin sits a bit closer than Makoto does on his left, or that his mind keeps bringing him back to kissing Rin. All day, every time Rin has smiled or laughed, he has thought about Rin's lips pressed to his and felt a rush go through him. But even thinking about Rin's kiss doesn't produce a rush right now, because it's just a slow summer day and he is with his two closest friends. It feels like things had never changed.

Except change is when they're inside, and Rin and Makoto are back at work, and Haruka watches Rin's eyes blink, watches his eyelashes, watches him brush his hair out of his face, watches his lips move without listening for the words.

Change is when Rin glances at him and finds Haruka already looking, and Haruka feels like he has been caught red-handed.

Rin holds his gaze for several long moments, and then, in no great hurry, turns his attention back to Makoto with a distracted Hm?

Change is the slow, turning thing in Haruka's stomach.

I want to kiss him again.

When Haruka finishes his last lesson on Sunday, Rin is on the bleachers with Zaki, and they've been speaking animatedly about something while she's been on her break. But when Rin sees Haruka he stands up just as animatedly, so much excitement that Haruka is almost overwhelmed by it, stuck in place for a moment, dripping onto the concrete.

When Zaki says goodbye to them and goes to join her group, he is only half aware, and maybe lifts a hand absently. Rin tosses him a towel, which lands over his face.

Somehow, he ends up inviting Rin over. And somehow, on the train ride, he manages through several conversations while hardly aware of what he is saying. Rin talks and smiles and laughs and it is difficult to extend his focus farther than that. Farther than the fact that I like him, a lot.

The conversation fades away once they're off the train, replaced easily by the noise of the people around them – commuters at the station, friends walking down the sidewalk, snatches of music from car radios. The beach is busy, too. Parents and children, towels and parasols, an orange Shiba bounding after the tennis ball its owner throws over the sand. Rin's shoulder almost touches Haruka's, but not quite.

"Oh, shit," Rin says, as soon as they're inside Haruka's house. He opens his backpack and takes out two bento boxes. "Gou made me bring these for lunch."

"Are they still okay to eat?" Haruka says, thinking of how long they've been in Rin's backpack, thinking of their walk in the sun. The front door is still open, and the heat spills greedily inside.

"Um…I dunno?" Rin opens one and sniffs it. "Smells fine to me. What, why are you laughing?"

"I don't know. You try it first."

"Why? You think it's bad? Haru, you have to try it too."

"I will once you do."

"If I get sick, I'm blaming you."

"You won't know that quickly."

"Then try it at the same time as me!"

The ridiculousness of the situation sets in – Rin gesticulating with a bento in each hand, Haruka standing with his arms crossed and chin turned up – and once again laughter makes itself their soundtrack. Rin's eyes catch his, and for a second Haruka thinks they must feel the exact same giddiness flooding through them.

They eat in the living room, and the fish cakes and cucumbers and fried rice all taste fine. The stubble on Rin's legs is longer. On his arms, too.

Without really thinking about it, Haruka says, "I thought you shaved."

Rin follows Haruka's gaze down to his arms. "Oh, yeah. Somehow there's like, no razors in our house and Gou would murder me if I used hers, and I'm just being too lazy to go buy some." He sticks his chopsticks into the corner of Haruka's bento, and gives Haruka a hopeful grin.

Haruka lets Rin take it; he'd grilled mackerel to add to their meal anyway.

"I thought you thought having hair made you slower."

Rin shrugs, chomping down on Haruka's last fish cake. "It's mostly psychological." He grins. "Or is it?"

"Probably," Haruka says. "I used to beat you without shaving my body hair."

Rin coughs, cheeks going pink, and after he manages to swallow his fish cake he says, "When did you get so ruthless?" His words are tinged with admiration.

Yes, Haruka decides with finality. Flirting is very fun.

Rin isn't deterred at all by the prospect of doing housework, so he does the dishes while Haruka goes upstairs to strip the sheets from the bed and gather all the towels for a wash. Rin absolutely insists on doing the dry mopping, so while the laundry spins around in the machine, Haruka sits on the low table in the living room with his lesson plan in his lap and Rin practically runs the mop around him. When Rin asks if Haruka wants him to do upstairs, Haruka says, "If you want, I guess," and he hears Rin's feet pound up the steps.

Rin puts the dry dishes away in the cabinets, runs Haruka's recyclables down to the collection center at the base of the hill, even feeds the cats, which seem to have shown up especially for him – and when Haruka tells him this, Rin grins up at him from the patio, his lap full of cat.

Up in Haruka's room after the laundry has gone through the dryer, Rin says, "So I never asked the other day, but what is this?" He holds up the shirt that just fell out of the sheets, and must have gone through the wash with them. Bright orange, emblazoned with a grayish-blue shimmery dolphin.

"I bought it for myself," Haruka says, holding his hand out. "I was wondering where it went."

"Haru, this is as horrifying as your other weirdo fish shirt."

"Loosejaw-kun. Don't call him a weirdo."

Rin starts to smile. "Seriously, why do I even like you?"

Words catch in Haruka's throat, because he has no quick response for that. Awkwardness rushes in, like a wave that has crashed unexpectedly fast and strong.

"Sorry," Rin says. "Sorry, shit, just forget I said that."

"There was a shark version," Haruka says. He's trying, and feels so stilted in trying, to remedy things. It always falls on Rin – to lighten the mood, to turn things around, to have to know what to say – but maybe he can help this time. "It made me think of you."

This is probably the wrong thing to say, but to his relief, Rin gives a good-natured roll of his eyes and tosses the shirt at him. Haruka shakes it out, then folds it and crosses to his closet to put it away.

"If I say something in English, will you understand me?" Rin says.

"Probably not," Haruka says, head in the closet. "Why? What are you going to say?"

"Well…it's something about you."

Haruka's stomach turns over. He sticks his shirt on the shelf with the other t-shirts, then pretends to rustle around the few coats he has hanging up. "Why would you say something about me to me in English?"

"Because I'd probably shrivel up if you understood."

Just knowing this makes Haruka want to shrivel up, but Rin has his attention completely. "What is it?"

Rin says something in English. Haruka catches the words 'funny' and 'like', and hopes his ears aren't bright red.

"Did you say I'm funny?"

"You did understand me!"

"Not really," Haruka says. He tells himself to be calm, and pulls his head out of the closet.

Rin has his arms crossed, but doesn't look nervous at all. Haruka doesn't understand how he does it – going from visibly flustered at one thing to supremely calm at another, seemingly no rhyme or reason to either.

Right now, Rin looks like he finds something very amusing. His fingers drum against his arms and his smile seems to be holding back a laugh. And Haruka thinks, I like him. I really like him.

"I said you're really funny and I'm glad we can spend time together like this again."

Haruka hears it but he doesn't hear it. He's going to say something stupid, he can tell. The words are in his mouth but not his head, and then they're nowhere but the open air between them, and he hears them too late.

"You can kiss me."

Rin's eyes go wide. Haruka wants to jump into his closet and close the door and never come out again.

"Really?" Rin says, with an aborted step toward Haruka. "Really? Can I?"

Haruka doesn't think he can take it back now, not when Rin looks so hopeful and his own heart is trying to beat right out of his throat. So he nods. Rin beams at him so brightly that he almost does pitch himself into his closet.

"Okay," Rin says, stepping up to him. He gives an awkward laugh, eyes flitting to Haruka's mouth. "Um, I'm just gonna…" He looks back at Haruka's eyes for a moment, giving Haruka time to turn him down.

Haruka just holds his breath and thinks that Rin is very close, and he suddenly cannot remember their last kiss at all, and this is the Rin that he's known since elementary school and he's the same but so different and Haruka thinks he has really nice hair and eyes and a nice smile, nice eyelashes when he blinks, and sometimes he smells really nice but now it's just kind of nothing tinged with chlorine –

And Rin's lips touch his, and those are nice too. The racing feeling inside Haruka's chest hangs suspended. His eyes are closed and he's still holding his breath, and when Rin pulls back Haruka wishes he hadn't so soon.

They stare at each other for several moments, or maybe no moments. Haruka has only just remembered to breathe so he can't be sure he remembers how many seconds have passed since Rin's lips left his. What he does know is that neither of them are going anywhere, and Rin watches him like he is trying to gauge his reaction.

"You can kiss me again," Haruka says, and Rin does just that.

It is still very careful, but the slight part of Rin's mouth, the slightest brush of their lips when Rin draws back just enough to tilt his head the other way and press close again, make Haruka feel like he will flutter apart. He has no idea how many seconds they stand there kissing.

"Um, tomorrow," Rin says suddenly. His hands bump into Haruka's, fingers falling just shy of lacing with his. "I won't see you at the pool. I'm spending the day at Samezuka."

"Okay," Haruka says.

Rin grins. "I'm going to kiss you again."

"Okay."

And again, they kiss.

Hiro and Ishikawa-san aren't at the pool the following morning. Haruka doesn't know why, and probably would be more curious if he weren't still replaying the events from yesterday's… He tries to find a word for it. Kissing session? How embarrassing. A kissing session with Rin. A very long kissing session with Rin. A shiver sits at the base of his spine.

No, no, he is here to practice. He is here to be serious. He shakes his head clear and jumps into the pool.

Using the clock on the wall to time himself really isn't accurate enough, though he finds that it does cause him to speed up toward the end to try to make up for the second or two he will lose in turning to check his time.

He knows Rin would be fine with practicing with him – would be delighted, probably. One time had been nostalgic, but Haruka doesn't want to end up being a thorn in Rin's side. He just isn't up to Rin's level anymore, and he doesn't think Rin should practice with someone who will slow him down.

He eyes the clock, waiting for the seconds hand to reach the top. When it does, he launches himself back down the lane. He is alone in the pool; the water is all his. He races his way through it with the same ease as always, but ease and speed are not the same thing and he can feel his internal timer telling him how much slower he has become. He reaches the opposite wall, performs the turn, and speeds back to the start.

He slaps the wall and throws his head out of the water to check the clock, and hears someone say, "Hi."

He turns his head so fast he pulls a muscle, and one hand flies to grab the gutter while his other goes to the burning spot in his neck.

"Oh, shit, sorry!" Zaki says, scrambling to her knees at the edge of the pool. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Haruka says through his wince. "How long have you been sitting there?"

"I came in right when you started your first lap," Zaki says. She's dressed to swim, and dangles a stopwatch from her fingers. With an apologetic smile she says, "Need a stopwatch?"

"Reiji's sick," she explains glumly when Haruka sits beside her, working the kink out of his neck. "Decided I'd come earlier and see if I could catch you. Scaring you wasn't part of the plan, I promise."

Neck pain or not, Haruka figures she is his problem solved for the day, so he welcomes her company.

She's surprisingly tough on him – surprising because they haven't practiced together like this before, though he supposes he shouldn't be surprised at all, knowing her personality. It's frustrating, going from next to no feedback to someone yelling at him to do his turns quicker, to time his dives closer, to keep his pace steadier.

But when he thinks he can't go on any more, when he clings to the gutter and gasps for breath and eventually looks up for his time, she grins and says, "Better already," and it is exactly what he wanted to hear.

When he times her butterfly, he is struck by how different it is from Rin's. It is ferocious, yes, and neither hers nor his make them look like actual butterflies, but while Rin strikes a tenuous balance between flying over the water and forcing it apart, Zaki appears to barely come out of it, hardly separate from it even when she breaches it. Haruka appreciates the grace he sees there, and wonders how her form can look so easy while looking so powerful at the same time.

Afterwards, they sit with their towels over their shoulders, their feet in the water, and Haruka asks her what he has been wondering for a long time – if she is on a team.

She gives a short laugh. "No. I was, but things happened and it kinda…" She makes a vague gesture with her hand. "Burned down."

"Burned down?" Haruka repeats in disbelief.

"Well, yeah. The building. Then we moved to a temporary building but other stuff happened to me and I ended up not going back. I know, super dramatic. It's true though. I kinda ended up taking time off, and now I'm trying to get back on track but…" Another vague wave, two hands this time, and her voice goes very small. "There's always so much ground to cover when you're getting back to something you thought you gave up."

Cautiously, Haruka asks, "Do you want to go back to the same team?"

"Oh yeah, it disbanded. Money problems. It was small to begin with but the fire really set us back a lot, so the coaches ended up getting everyone places on other teams. But I was out of the picture by then. I know where I want to try out, though," she says, glancing at him. "I've still got a couple months 'til then, so I'm working hard."

"You're bound to make it. You've been training a lot."

She gives him a grateful smile. "I hope so." Then she sighs. "But there's my parents to deal with, too."

"Your parents don't want you to swim?"

"It's not really that simple, but…yeah, basically."

She kicks her feet, sends out little splashes. Haruka feels like she wants to say more, so he waits. When she does continue, the words come in a great rush, like she's been waiting and waiting for the chance to say them all at once.

"My parents want me to be the ideal daughter. Go to college, study something smart and applicable, get a degree and do nothing much with it, get married and start a family, give them grandkids and be a good wife. But like, I have no interest in that. I don't want kids. Kids are fine, I like teaching them, but I don't want any of my own. I don't want to just be a wife. I don't want to be for the sake of other people. Like, I have my own goals and stuff. It's my life? They have their own? I wanna think about myself first, and I wish it could be that easy." She presses her lips together, looks away. "Sorry. You don't care."

"I do."

She looks back at him, expression tense, like she isn't sure she can trust him. But she must see his honesty, because she lets out a breath and says a little bit stiffly, "Okay, thanks."

"Your parents…do they know how much you like swimming?"

Zaki shrugs. "They think it gets in the way. Takes up too much of my time and attention when I should be on the lookout for a nice boy who will take care of me, shit like that. They kicked me out of the house when I dropped out of school, though, so I don't know why they think they still have a right to care. Yeah," she says in reaction to Haruka's surprise, her grin bordering on a grimace.

And now? Haruka thinks. Zaki clearly expects the question, because she provides the answer without hesitation.

"I'm living with Reiji and his family right now, and they're really great, and I've known Reiji since I was maybe five and he was seven so it's not weird or anything. Of course my parents disapprove, but the real gross thing is they've actually told me Reiji would be a good marriage candidate, and they'd be fine with it then." She lets out a very long sigh, and then she's left with a startlingly blank look on her face. "Families are hard."

Families are hard, Haruka thinks, looking down at his knees. Except not really in his case. He's always had freedom, so much of it, and after his grandmother's passing, sometimes it felt like too much. Or, not freedom so much as a lacking. What is a family that's never around, and pretends a few letters a year and a visit once a blue moon is enough, especially to become invested in a future that isn't even theirs?

"So," Zaki says, "why do you swim?"

"What?"

"Why do you swim? What's your story? I know you've got one. All you silent types do. Trust me, I deal with one enough to know." The hints of her typical grin are back – unrelenting and demanding.

"I swim…" Haruka's mind feels empty, even though the answer should be so easy. He's come up with it before, several times, but with each new person that asks he feels like he has to start all over. "I swim because I've always felt free swimming. I like being in the water. It feels easy."

"Because you're so good."

"I'm good because I don't fight it. The water. I just swim."

Zaki gives a little laugh. "Okay. But if you're so good, why aren't you swimming for a club? You like it enough, or don't you?"

"I didn't like scouting."

Zaki raises her eyebrows. "That's it?"

Like always, Haruka's hit with the desire to close off, and sink inward, and not have to talk anymore. It's always that reaction – That's it?, as though his reason for distancing himself from swimming is not legitimate enough, as though he was somehow wrong to feel the way he did.

But he reminds himself that Zaki didn't have to tell him any of what she did, and that she only did because he said that he cared, and now she's doing the same for him.

"I didn't like feeling like…like those people telling me to give a good race made it so that I was swimming for them. I didn't know them, but they thought I was swimming for them, and all they cared about was how fast I was, and they acted so encouraging but they didn't know me at all. They wanted me to swim fast, because they wanted to scout someone fast for their teams. I didn't want to give my swimming away to anyone like that."

Looking intrigued, Zaki says, "What do you mean, 'giving it away'? What does that mean?"

"Winning for me… I liked winning, but only when the people I swam with mattered. I just didn't care about swimming for people I didn't care about."

"Hm."

Haruka frowns. "What?"

"I dunno, you're talking about this all in the past, like this is how it was for you, but at the same time it doesn't seem like you've stopped thinking about it or like you've let it go. You're still hanging onto swimming, and I get that, 'cause it's been important in my life too, but if you're trying to say you've moved on and that's that, I totally don't buy it. I mean, I just saw you in the pool."

When he doesn't respond – and he doesn't know how to, has no defense, no rebuttal, he doesn't know – she carries on.

"Or maybe that's just me. Everything you say you don't want, is everything I want. Getting scouted, being on a team, getting better, winning." Her smile is wistful and self-depreciating. "I just want to go pro, and be known. Shallow, huh?"

Haruka thinks of Rin, and says, "I don't think so."

"You're full of encouragement, aren't you? I can see why you're a good coach for the kids." It's kind of teasing, kind of serious. She gives another loud sigh. Haruka can see her mulling over what she wants to say, can see that this is going to be what is troubling her most.

"The hardest part is…" she says slowly, but then she stops again, screws up her eyebrows. "The shittiest part…is that a part of me thinks it's too late for me, but then I tell myself 'how many people haven't even tried because they told themselves the same thing?'. You know? Like, how many people might have been able to do what they dreamed of, but were afraid to try because they thought they'd be starting too late? Because we're always told we have to do things by deadlines and schedules and if we don't hit the points along the way perfectly we've screwed ourselves over." She pulls her feet onto the edge of the pool, wraps her arms around her knees. "I just don't know what to do."

The door to the women's locker room opens, and several women come out, arms full of pool noodles. Zaki stands and heads for the bleachers, and Haruka scrambles after her.

"You should try," he says. "You're good. You should try. Do it for yourself."

She grins, grabbing her towel and wrapping it around her waist. "Yeah, I should." Then, with a last glance at the pool, she adds, "But then I have to start figuring things out, and that's scary."

Haruka doesn't says so, but he agrees.

While he waits for his train, the sky cloudy and the air heavy, the weather so undecided these days, what floats around in his head like an echo is: What do you mean, 'giving it away'?

He'd answered, but at the same time, he doesn't know the answer at all. Swimming, something that is so centrally him…his swimming…how can he give away something that he doesn't possess, that he just does? And conversely, if swimming means that anyone can see it, how can he keep it to himself?

Giving it away – what does it mean?

It's Tuesday night, very late. Rin had been at Makoto's earlier in the afternoon, but now he is at Haruka's.

The two of them ate dinner, and before that Rin had snooped through Haruka's lesson plans (Haruka had let him) and asked questions about all of Haruka's students, and Haruka had almost touched Rin's hair too many times, because aside from going to Samezuka yesterday, Rin also got his hair cut. It's closer to the length it was in high school, the ends just reaching his nape. The hair tie adorns his wrist now.

The plan had been to bid Rin off after dinner, but instead they'd ended up kissing in front of the door and Rin had said, "Can I stay longer?" and Haruka had used it as an excuse to tell Rin to wash the dishes for him.

But in the kitchen they'd just ended up kissing again, dishes, sink, everything forgotten. And this is where they are now.

Haruka thinks he has become much too used to this in such a short amount of time. But he loves the way Rin's hands come up to hold his elbows, while his fingers just barely curl into the front of Rin's shirt, while they press blushing feelings to each other's mouths instead of trying to say them.

Now, one of Rin's hands comes up to touch his face, and Rin makes a sound in his throat like he's just realized something. He breaks the kiss to say, "Oh yeah, Haru, seven days 'til your birthday."

Haruka thinks this is getting a little out of control. Especially because Rin's thumb is almost touching his bottom lip. And maybe it's not Rin's whole hand on his face – maybe it's just his fingers. Rin's fingers, very light against his cheek and below his lip, and Rin's face very close and Rin's eyes so full of light, and Haruka has to think very hard to remember what Rin had just stopped kissing him to say.

His birthday, in a week.

"Are you planning me a surprise?" he says, feeling like the words come out of him very slowly, his mind too placated with pleasure to think with any urgency.

His lips tingle, but then again so does all of him. His chest most of all. If only he'd decided that he wanted to kiss Rin sooner, so much sooner, they could have avoided so much awkwardness and hurt and avoidance and just felt nice. Kissing Rin feels so nice.

Who would have thought that touching lips together could be so pleasant? Why hadn't anyone told him?

"Hmm…maybe?" Rin says. His hand moves down to rest very lightly against the side of Haruka's neck, and he leans back in.

Haruka's not sure who hums when their lips touch, but he is sure that Rin's palm presses firmer, warmer, against his neck. And that Rin opens his mouth a little bit more than usual, and then closes it around Haruka's lower lip. Haruka feels a current go straight through him, jumpstarting his heart back into that rapid thrumming mess that makes it harder to breath.

Rin puts his other hand on Haruka's waist, pulls Haruka so close that there is almost no space between them, and this is when the thrumming turns into something too close to panic and Haruka's fingers curl tight against Rin's stomach and push.

"Sorry," he says, turning his face away, jerking out of Rin's hold. He already knows, without looking, that he's done something very cruel. When he does look and sees the surprise and the hurt mingling on Rin's face he feels a cold, hard feeling congeal inside of him. Rin's hand that had been on his neck is still raised partway, and he looks like Haruka might as well have yelled at him.

Haruka's face starts to burn, and this embarrassment is not the pleasant kind. He doesn't understand what he just did, doesn't understand why he did it except for the fact that things were too fast and he was afraid.

"Sorry," he says again.

Rin manages a smile. It looks sad and confused, and he leans in and kisses the corner of Haruka's mouth.

"You don't really have to do those," Haruka says, as Rin turns to the sink and pulls on the dish gloves.

"It's fine," Rin says. "I mean, you did feed me."

Haruka stares helplessly at Rin's back. That last kiss had felt like an It's okay, but also like he'd already lost his chance to explain himself.

The only thing he can think of to do is to get out a clean dish towel and stand beside Rin. Luckily, Rin understands, and hands him each clean dish to dry and put away.

Rin's arms are shaven, the skin completely smooth, another change Haruka noticed earlier. He can't help that he wants to feel them, but thinks it is shamefully hypocritical of him. The water runs, the dishes clink together, Rin is silent, and Haruka is afraid that he has not been able to remedy things at all this time.

But when Rin yawns, nose wrinkling and teeth all showing, and then turns his ear toward the window, attention caught on something, he no longer looks upset.

"Hey, it's raining again."

All Haruka can see out the window is the dark of night, but he hears the pattering now that Rin has shut off the tap.

"I guess I'm really getting my summer rain," Rin says musingly.

"Do you want to stay?" Haruka says, and then, backtracking quickly, "I mean, the trains aren't coming as often, and you'll have to wait in the rain. I don't mind if you stay here, if you'd rather stay dry."

Rin gives him a long look. "Are you sure?" he says. And this is a serious question, nothing playful, nothing flirty. Just his uncertainty.

Haruka nods as resolutely as he knows how. He knows the old him would just let Rin go, let the fissure he'd created between them linger untouched, but the new him that he can't quite place but that he feels more and more often cannot let that happen.

"Okay," Rin says. "Thanks."

"You can take a bath first. You can sleep in Loosejaw-kun, too."

Rin pulls a face. "Do I have to?"

"Oh, right, you want to sleep in the dolphin one. You can come up with a name for him, if you want. Or her."

Rin shakes his head, eyes rolling. "Just give me the damn sparkly shirt."

Haruka sets the futons out in the living room, since it's cooler downstairs. The rain is a light, muggy one, so he leaves the kitchen window open for the air and the sound. He listens to it while he lies atop his futon – the white noise that is both quiet and loud, or loudly quiet. And then he listens to Rin's footsteps approaching, and turns his head toward the entranceway in anticipation.

Rin returns with a towel over his shoulders and Haruka's orange shirt clashing with his hair. He leans against the entranceway and says, "Flip."

Haruka sits up. "What?" he says, because Rin had just spoken in English.

Rin points at the dolphin. "Flip. The name."

"Flip…"

"San. Flip-san."

Haruka starts smiling, and Rin does too.

"Yeah, I was seriously thinking about it this whole time," Rin says, coming into the room. "Don't be mad if I'm asleep by the time you get back. I'm exhausted."

By the time Haruka gets back, only the lamp in the corner is on, and Rin is sprawled atop his futon, the covers beneath him. Haruka tries to cross the room as quietly as possible, the dolphin on Rin's shirt sparkling in his peripherals, but when he turns off the lamp Rin says, "Are we running in the morning?"

"I always do," Haruka says into the darkness. He toes his way to his futon, pulls back the blankets. Their rustling sounds very loud, and only after he has laid his damp head onto his pillow does Rin answer.

"Okay then. Night, Haru."

"Good night."

But he can't sleep. He shuts his eyes and waits for the hush of the rain to pull him into a dream, or better yet, dreamlessness, but instead it sounds like whispers and he cannot relax into it. After what feels like an eternity of lying as still as possible, using every ounce of self-discipline to keep from tossing and turning, he turns on his side and cracks open the eye not pressed into his pillow.

He can hardly see Rin, might just be able to make out a vague shape a different shade of darkness beside him. Close enough to touch if he reached out. He feels safe with Rin like this, which counts for something big, he knows.

He isn't afraid of Rin, but he is afraid. Of how this changing relationship with Rin will make him change…or of how Rin might change from liking him…or of expectations he won't know how to fulfill, of not being good enough, of not knowing how to keep Rin happy because he has always ended up hurting Rin, always.

Things were so much easier when he was in high school. He could pretend there was still time to waste and that he didn't have to deal with growing up, didn't have to deal with friends going off places. Didn't have to deal with having feelings like these for a friend he hardly gets to see, a friend he has wrong-footed so many times, and who has wrong-footed him just as much.

A friend who is facing the world and one day might not have a reason to come back to him, stuck in his uncertainty, idling in place.

Very, very quietly, he says, "Rin?"

"Hm?"

And now he feels guilty about keeping Rin awake, but he wants so badly to say something, to open the bottle and release some of what he's been keeping stoppered. Maybe it's the darkness making him brave, the fact that he doesn't know if Rin is looking at him, and that he knows Rin probably couldn't see him even if he were.

"Haru?" Rin's voice is low and rough with fatigue, but he sounds worried.

"Do you think it's too late for me?"

"What?"

"To swim."

After a pause, Rin shifts, and Haruka is sure Rin is looking at him now.

"You mean compete?"

"I don't know." And, predictably, Haruka wants to retreat, end the conversation immediately, but he will not let his cold feet cut Rin off this time. "Not right now. But what if sometime? Would it be too late for me?"

Rin shifts again. Haruka's eyes have started to grow accustomed to the lack of light, and he thinks Rin has propped himself on an elbow.

"Well…there's what most people would tell you, and then there's what I'd tell you, and then there's what you'd tell yourself."

Haruka knows what most people would tell him, but he doesn't want to hear this – he's tired of people who don't matter telling him what he can and can't, should and shouldn't do. And he has no idea what he would tell himself, which leaves one option.

"What would you tell me?"

"I'd tell you…you're damn good, Haru. And yeah, you might be giving yourself a harder time starting back up later, and the more you wait the harder it will be, but it also depends on how competitive you'd want to be. Nobody has your talent. No matter what you decide to do with swimming, you'll be damn good at it. If you want to get really competitive…you'd have to figure that out soon and if you do, I don't think it'd be too late for you. For some people, yeah, but not for you. You're so damn stubborn that if you really wanted it, you'd work your ass off and get it."

Haruka bites his lip. Out of all the emotions hearing that could have made him feel, why does frustration have to be the strongest? He wants Rin's reassurance and he doesn't.

"Zaki said something yesterday. 'How many people haven't tried something because they told themselves it was too late for them?' It just made me think. That's why I asked."

"You and Zaki are kind of in the same boat," Rin says, with a chuckle. "And I don't think it's too late for her. But who knows, maybe I'm an idealist. Oh, but hey, listen to this. Statistics have shown that the average age of Olympians has been going steadily up over the years. And like –" He yawns, tries to speak through it.

"Like, Michael Phelps is probably gonna be in his five-hundredth Olympics so there isn't really an age limit for these things. Yeah, okay, he's been doing them since he was really young, but, he's still going strong so really if you start a little late, it's not like you can't catch up. You just gotta try, and –" Another yawn, and now his voice comes muffled from his pillow. "And you try, Haru. You're always trying."

For a while all Haruka hears is the rain. He thinks Rin might have fallen asleep, but there is a sudden rustle and Rin says, "M'not saying you've gotta go to the Olympics, by the way. It's just an example. Just data. I'm just saying."

Haruka hides his smile in his pillow, even though Rin couldn't see it anyway. "I know. Rin, thank you."

"Was that helpful?" Rin sounds surprised. "Okay, awesome. My brain's hardly working. I have no idea what I just said."

"Go to sleep. Good night."

But this time, after a minute or two of silence, it's Rin who speaks up.

"You know, Haru… I stopped swimming too. Only I really stopped. But here I am now. So if you do ever feel like you want it, it's possible. And if you don't, that's okay. Either way, I've got your back, okay?"

Haruka reaches for the vague lump that he hopes is Rin's shoulder, and that indeed is.

"Hm?" Rin says, but Haruka just skims his hand down Rin's arm, down the smooth skin, until he finds Rin's hand, and with the last bit of bravery the darkness gives him he curls his fingers around Rin's.

"Thank you," he says again.

Rin pulls their linked hands close to his chest, and says, "Goodnight, Haru."

Haruka's hand starts to sweat, but Rin doesn't say anything, or maybe he's asleep. Haruka's chest feels too tight, an addictive discomfort. He wonders how he will ever fall asleep, but soon enough he does.

He hears his alarm from far, far away. He should wake up, maybe, and shut it off, but it sounds so distant that he could probably ignore it and drift right back off.

But then he hears a displeased grunt beside him, and the sleep is whisked right away. He reaches blindly for his phone, but ends up hitting something warm and solid that says, "Ow."

Futons, the living room, Rin spent the night. His phone is on his other side, so he rolls over and reaches again, eyes still shut. He finds it, punches his thumb into some random buttons until the alarm goes silent.

Then he turns back over, and the first thing he sees this morning is Rin on his stomach with his head in his arms, one eye squinted open. His hair goes every which way, the shirt has twisted all around his torso, and Haruka has never wanted to kiss him more.

"Hi," he says.

"Getting punched in the face isn't exactly what I was envisioning this wakeup call to be like."

"I thought you were my phone."

"For some reason I'm having a hard time imagining you punching your phone every morning."

"I didn't punch you."

Rin laughs, breathy and sleepy, and Haruka's heart beats faster, harder.

"Let's run?" he says.

Rin's eyes are bright, happy, adoring. "Yeah."