A/N: Thank you, as always, for your patience and your comments! I learned a cool fact while researching for this chapter - Japan is the top importer of Canadian maple syrup! Japan clearly knows what's up. On a more serious note: I will finish this fic. Fanfiction is not my main writing priority anymore, but I owe pretty much everything re: where I am with my writing today to this fic. It's planned out til the end, and it will be finished. But slowly. Please don't lose faith in me! We're well over halfway through!

On that note, Rin's summer break comes to a close in this chapter. It's about 99 percent rh, so I hope you enjoy! I've been waiting to publish the last scene, have literally had it written in my notebook, for going on three years now. What a milestone!

Chapter Eighteen: Ebb, Flow (Summer - part 8)

Four days, including today.

He can feel it – feels it this afternoon, as soon as he opens the door and sees Rin there – that they're both trying to get as much of each other as they can before they're separated again. Nothing more has been said, nothing more has been done, but the urgency is bright-eyed and quick-pulsed. It's in the way they go still at the sight of each other, and in the way Rin's backpack knocks into the doorframe when he comes inside, in the "Hey" they give to each other, like nervous laughs tumbling out of their mouths, like exhilaration.

But it's an urgency that cannot really go anywhere, because the days are counting down, soon Rin will have to start saying his goodbyes, and before that he has schoolwork to complete.

Haruka busies himself however he can while Rin works, but there is only so much cleaning to do, only so much laundry. He ends up joining Rin in the living room, wanting to distract but knowing he shouldn't. His legs get restless so he stretches them out beneath the table, then refolds them, then props his chin on his palm and lets his eyes go out of focus. Rin scribbles into a notebook, scritch-scratch scritch-scratch, and time passes.

He wonders what they will do afterwards. Run? Swim? Get lunch?

Go on a date?

Could they do that? Have they?

"Haru…"

Haruka realizes he's been drumming his fingers against the table, and quickly stops. Rin looks up at him, head pillowed on his book.

"I still need to figure out what major to declare. Economics or International Relations."

Haruka processes the words slowly, mind still in a fog. "Are you asking me?"

"I mean…" Rin shrugs. "Yeah. I asked you before, didn't I?"

"And I told you it was your decision. It's not my future."

A subtle frown pulls at Rin's mouth. "I'm not asking you to make my decision for me, I just want your opinion."

"Does it matter?" Haruka says after a pause. He means it genuinely. Sometimes the things that make sense to Rin make little sense to him, and this is clearly one of those moments. "I haven't been studying what you've been studying. I don't know where you are, or what would be a good choice for you."

Rin sighs, a huff of displeasure that makes Haruka bristle.

"What?"

"Nothing," Rin says, with an edge that implies it isn't at all nothing. "I mean, I'm just asking for your advice is all. It's not that hard to give, is it?"

"I don't always have advice for everything. I'm not in school. I'm not doing what you're doing –"

"Oh my god, Haru. That doesn't matter. Don't you get it?"

Of course, of course… Bliss never lasts with them. They are hardwired against it, so Haruka's blood adopts a familiar simmer, a warning sign. "No. I don't get it. That's the problem."

Rin slaps his hand into his book, shattering any last illusion of peace. "What is there to get? I just – I just want an opinion. Something to weigh my thoughts against. Just some help while I'm trying to figure out what to do next."

"How am I supposed to know what you should do when I don't even know what I'm doing with myself?"

Rin throws up his hands. "God, fuck this! Forget it! I give up!" He slams his book shut and pulls his backpack over like he's going to pack up and leave.

"I don't have all the answers!" Haruka says desperately.

"I don't ask you to! But it'd be nice if you could give a fuck every once in a while!"

"I do care!"

As he watches Rin yank the zipper closed, Haruka is hit with a moment of clarity. Maybe they're trying to see too much of each other. Maybe they need the days when they aren't together. Maybe there is a limit to the time they can spend with each other, a too-much.

Rin pushes his backpack away suddenly, drops his head into his arms, and groans. "I'm sorry. I don't want to fight. I didn't mean all that."

Haruka is still trying to catch up. It's like he's just been tossed through a storm and ended up miles from where he thought he was. How do things always go so wrong so quickly?

Rin peeks up at him. "I'm just…I'm just a little stressed, is all. I'm sorry."

Slowly, Haruka starts to understand – this isn't about them, but the fact that life carries on around them, and Rin is very much caught up in it. The peace now is tenuous. Carefully, Haruka says, "I didn't know you were that stressed."

"Yeah. It's my fault. I didn't tell you." Rin turns his face back into his arms. "I just want to make all the right decisions. There's a lot I have to think about, being on the team, and my classes, being overseas. I'm just getting a little stressed, thinking about all the things I have to figure out." Quieter, he says, "But you are too."

Haruka doesn't deny it, but it isn't a conversation he wants to have now, not with the volatile energy roiling around them.

"Haru…" Rin's voice is strained. "I don't want to fight all the time."

"Me neither."

"Shit, but I said some really awful stuff."

"But you didn't leave."

From Rin's silence, Haruka guesses at his answer. Small consolation.

They let things fizzle out there, and eventually Rin pulls his bag back to him and finishes his work. But the damage is already done for the day, nothing irreparable but enough that there will be no swimming, or running, or lunch. They need that time apart, after all.

When Rin kisses Haruka at the door, he gently touches the shells of Haruka's ears. It feels apologetic, and makes Haruka shiver.

"Tomorrow?" Rin asks, pressing his forehead to Haruka's.

Haruka nods. "Tomorrow."

All they can do is try again next time.

Rin's text comes very late the following afternoon, so late that Haruka thought he'd forgotten, or was still upset. But his message proves otherwise:

another thing on my summer to-do list: swimming in the ocean.

Where? Haruka wonders. Am I swimming with you? When? He sends back a simple What?

The reply is instantaneous. come down to the beach.

The air is warm with dusk. The windows of Makoto's house glow yellow, and the horizon glows orange. Rin waits on the bottom step, ocean out in front of him, taking on the colors of the sky. He looks over his shoulder when he hears Haruka approaching, and lets out a loud laugh. "Of course you're in your jammers already."

Relief floods in fast, brimming with energy. Yesterday was yesterday, and today is today.

"We're swimming, aren't we?"

Rin slaps his hands to his thighs and gets to his feet, grinning broadly. "Of course. What else?"

An empty beach awaits them. Rin sheds his clothing along the sand piece by piece, leaving a trail behind them and revealing the jammers he, too, was already wearing. Haruka drops his change of shorts in the sand as well. They don't discuss what they are going to do, simply wade out through the low tide that ebbs and flows around them. Once they have gone far enough that their toes lose contact with the sand, they turn onto their backs and float.

For Haruka, being in the pool lately has always involved accomplishing some task or another. He hasn't disliked it, but he also hadn't realized until now just how much he missed simply being in the water, with nothing else to do.

The ocean laps at his skin, cooling down but still holding onto some of the sun's warmth. The sky almost seems like the water now. Deep, tantalizingly still, endless. It sits above them, all the way up there, without a ripple or break it its landscape.

A deceptive calm, because just like high tide, the sky can crash and roar, bare its fangs and attack. But now, splashed purple and gold and pink, it's like a plane of glass, or the unbroken surface of a pool. Haruka is lost in the looking, his breathing slow, his body relaxed, everything okay. Everything is always okay in the water.

"We better not drift too far," Rin says. His words are soft, like he is in the same sort of trance.

"We could probably swim back," Haruka says, watching two dark shapes flutter across the sky. "But you're right, we shouldn't drift too far."

Neither makes a move to check for shore. Neither makes a move at all.

"I mean, the worst that can happen is we get separated," Rin says.

"I don't think that will happen."

Rin takes his hand. "Just in case, you know."

Haruka does look over now, and is met with a grin. He breathes out a laugh.

They make it back to shore just as the last rays of sun are slipping beneath the horizon. Rin gathers up his clothes, and then drops into the sand beside Haruka. Neither of them thought of towels, so the grains stick everywhere.

"The peacefulness here is so different," Rin says. "There's just something about home that feels like, I dunno, like I've always just woken up from the best nap of my life. Like I can actually take a break and the world won't end."

Haruka rolls onto his side, his skin picking up more sand. "But you still don't take a break."

Rin glances at him. "Yeah, well, it's the feeling of it that matters."

Haruka lets out a breath, steeling himself. "When I think of you," he says slowly, forcing himself to finish through the nerves that tell him to stop, "I think of how you're taking on the world. You've been to so many places, and will go to so many more. So, between your two choices, I think International Relations sounds more like you."

Rin's surprise melts into a smile. "But maybe you're just saying that 'cause you don't like Economics."

Haruka cracks a smile as well. "Maybe."

Rin turns onto his side, cheek to sand, hair already full of it. "I wish I could say more to help you, you know, with everything you're worried about, but I really don't know what to say."

Haruka holds Rin's eyes, mesmerized by them, mesmerized by how they look at him.

"Will you stay over tonight?"

"Yeah."

Facing away from each other in the dark, they peel off their jammers and pull on their shorts, and then make their way back up to Haruka's. They scrape as much sand off of themselves as they can on his doorstep, but plenty follows them inside. Haruka can feel the salt on his skin, and he itches for a shower.

Rin grumbles and groans his way up to Haruka's room – he's tired, he's been training so hard, he would sleep for a week if only he could. He dives onto Haruka's bed, lets his limbs take up all corners while Haruka rummages for something to sleep in.

"You should take a shower before you get comfortable."

"I know," Rin says, but he stretches languidly, fingertips touching the wall. "Just five more minutes."

"It isn't like you to be so lazy," Haruka says. But he likes Rin in his room like this, likes Rin sprawled out on his bed, easy and at home.

"Yeah, well, give me a pass this time?" Rin holds out a hand, and Haruka takes it and lets himself be pulled down beside him.

"There's still sand in your hair."

"Oh no," Rin says tiredly. His eyes fall shut. His grip on Haruka's hand loosens.

"Rin."

Haruka wouldn't put it past Rin to be out in a couple minutes, and wouldn't put it past himself to follow soon after.

"Rin."

"Hm?"

Haruka brushes his fingertips across Rin's cheek, watches Rin's mouth twitch in response.

"Does that tickle?"

"Just a little bit."

"I want to try something."

Haruka gets a glimpse of bleary-eyed curiosity before he kisses Rin's jaw. Rin tips his head back, hums sleepily. The hard line of bone beneath Haruka's lips elicits a tender feeling all through him, and he brushes them down Rin's jaw, and then onto his neck. It's funny; he feels the salt on his own skin, but not on Rin's.

He shifts closer, and Rin cranes his neck back more, luxuriously even, giving Haruka more access. The very tip of his tongue touches Rin's skin – and yes, it's salty after all.

He finds Rin's pulse, thrumming fast, and kisses it firmly. Rin's neck is so warm; it's such a pleasant feeling beneath his mouth. Rin's Adam's apple bobs, and Haruka follows it, lost in the wonder of what he's doing. Rin's skin tastes like the sea.

"Haru." A weak sound in Rin's throat. "Haru, you should really stop."

Haruka backs off slightly, and realizes that Rin has slung an arm over his face. Rin's ears are bright red.

"Are you okay?"

Rin blurts, "M'really fucking hard."

Haruka takes a second to understand, and then he scrambles away, cheeks flaming. In his mortification, he can't look at Rin's face.

"Sorry."

"S'okay," Rin mumbles. He turns onto his side, and Haruka chances a glance. Rin is curled in on himself, his eyes lowered. Their conversation from a few days ago comes rushing back.

Rin wants to have sex with him, but stopped them for Haruka's sake. There must be something wrong with him, kissing Rin like that and not even thinking about where it could go. He was enjoying himself because Rin was enjoying it. But could he enjoy it if it was turned the other way, if he was lying pliant while Rin sucked on his neck, and took off his clothes, and got closer than close…?

Can it be tender? Can it be safe? Can it be like kissing, that kind of intense that he can put a stop to when he needs to, or will it just be frightening? Thinking about it now just makes him want to retreat into himself and have nobody look at him.

"Haru… For the record, the last thing I am is upset."

Haruka turns to him. "Do you want to take a shower?" he says, too forcefully. "You can go first."

Rin's blush flares up again, but he goes.

By the time they have both washed away the salt and the sand, Rin's face is no longer red, but Haruka's stomach is still in knots. Rin climbs right into his bed, and while Haruka is relieved that he didn't have to voice the invitation out loud, Rin's forwardness unnerves him. He can't tell if the nonchalance is feigned or not, but he does his best to play along.

The bed creaks as he settles. A careful space lies between them.

"Good night," Haruka says softly.

Rin blinks up at the ceiling. "Night."

If he was anybody else, would Rin have stopped him?

The thought of Rin underneath anybody else, anybody else's lips on Rin's neck, Rin enjoying that kind of attention from anybody else, elicits a bolt of red-hot jealousy in Haruka's stomach, so vastly foreign from any other jealousy he's felt before that he knows immediately what it is. It is possessiveness, and it is ugly. It's irrational and unfounded, and once it has passed, in its place is the duller feeling of regret. He regrets that he is so difficult.

"I have my lessons in the morning," he says, still quiet, not wanting things to die out on this type of note again.

Rin turns his head toward him. A few locks of hair, still damp after the blow dryer, fall over his face. "Are you getting up early?"

Haruka shakes his head. "They don't start until ten."

Rin yawns. Through it, he asks, "You gonna run, though?"

"I don't know."

"Mm, okay. If you do, wake me up."

"Okay."

Rin's eyes fall shut, and he is out like a light.

With Rin sleeping soundly beside him, Haruka closes his eyes and waits for sleep as well.

"You said Rin's here?"

Makoto sits down at the table, alongside the remnants of Haruka's breakfast. He looks around, as though expecting Rin to melt out of the TV or phase through the wall.

When Haruka woke up, Rin was still sleeping soundly beside him, mouth slightly open and hand curled into the pillow. Haruka didn't have the heart to wake him.

"Yeah. He stayed over. Stop it."

"What?" Makoto says. "I'm not doing anything."

"You're smiling."

"Oh, and I'm not allowed to do that anymore?"

"Not like that. Stop it."

"Okay, okay," Makoto says, but he doesn't stop smiling. "I'm just remembering how you were so worried last week, and the next thing you know he plans you a surprise party and you two have a sleepover. It's like I said, you two just have to talk about things and everything patches right back up again."

Haruka sits across from him, takes a breath, and says, "Makoto, how much do you –"

There's a thump from upstairs, and then a shuffle of footsteps moving down the hall and stairs.

"Haru," Rin calls, voice groggy. "Why'd you let me sleep so late? I coulda gone running. You make food? I'm literally gonna die I'm so hungry. I can't believe it's already –" He stops at the entrance to the living room, in the process of rubbing sleep from his eyes. "What are you doing here?"

"I live less than a minute away," Makoto says, still smiling that loaded smile.

Deciding this is a good enough reason, Rin ambles through to the kitchen, and then makes a sound of delight. He comes back with a bowl in each hand. "Haru, I was just kidding! I didn't think you'd actually make me breakfast."

Haruka shrugs, avoiding Makoto's stare. "It's just leftovers."

Rin eats with gusto, cheeks bulging with fried egg and miso soup as he fends off the advances Makoto makes with Haruka's chopsticks. Haruka watches them in amusement, but his attention is drawn away when his phone starts ringing. A half hour until his lessons begin. He's cutting it close.

"No rest for the working, huh?" Makoto says, standing when Haruka does. "I should get home too. The twins have been waiting for the weekend to play this new video game with me. Rin, are you going to be by again before you leave?"

"Oh, um…" Rin swallows his mouthful with difficulty, thumping himself on the back as it goes down. "I'm gonna be with the family most of the day tomorrow, so I dunno…"

Makoto gives an understanding smile. "I'll tell the twins you say hello."

They hug in the entranceway, clapping each other on the back. Makoto leaves with a wave, and a "See you later, Haru." When he's out of earshot, Haruka turns to Rin.

"What are you doing today?"

Rin's smile is apologetic. "I'm hanging out at Samezuka for the last time before I leave. But I'll see you at the rec center tomorrow."

Haruka nods, unsatisfied. Rin rides the train with him into town, electing to run home from there before making his way out to Samezuka. They debark onto an unusually crowded platform, and hesitate over their goodbyes. There isn't much they can do with people all around. Another thing Haruka has never had to think about, but now will have to become more aware of. Being together at night, or in an empty train car, or on a platform cleared by the rain, are all very different from being with Rin someplace busy.

"I'll see you tomorrow," Rin promises.

"Okay."

Still, they do not turn away from each other. Could Rin slip in a quick squeeze of Haruka's hand? Could Haruka brush aside the lock of hair hanging between Rin's eyes? They've been standing around long enough, and are probably already drawing attention just for that.

In the end, Rin breaks eye contact first. "See you, Haru."

Haruka watches him head away. It isn't nearly enough, but for today it has to be.

The kids love the races they do at the end of each lesson. On Sunday they frog kick from one end of the shallow end to the other, kickboards helping steer them along, and sometimes Haruka gives them a little boost to help them as well. At the finish they swim right to the steps and then climb into the towels their parents hold open for them, giggling and raining water everywhere. One by one the splashes quiet, and one by one the parents beam.

It still surprises Haruka how much the kids like the lessons, and how much the parents like him. "Bye, Coach Nanase!" the young ones call, towels around them like capes as they zoom away, and their parents send him their weekly thanks before following.

Only once they are all gone does Haruka look toward where Rin and Zaki talk, leaning against the wall by the kickboard stand. Zaki pushes off the wall when she sees Haruka approaching, and sends them both a wave before going to collect her group from the bleachers.

Haruka stops in front of Rin, and raises his eyebrow at the grin Rin sends him.

"Come over for breakfast," Rin says.

"I already ate," Haruka says, trying to ignore the butterflies. If anything is obvious, it's the way Rin looks at him now, the warmth of his smile coupled with the easy slouch of his body, the way he looks like he is seconds away from reaching for Haruka. "And you did too. It's late."

"I know, but Gou's home and probably just getting up now, and she'd be happy to see you."

Of course Haruka agrees. Today is the last day – a thought that weighs on both of them through the quiet train ride to Rin's. Their knees knock together with every bump in the track. Their hands knock together on the walk down the streets.

When they reach Rin's house, they find Gou rummaging through the fridge in her pajamas. She glances over the top of the door, then straightens up in surprise.

"Oh! Haruka-senpai! Hi! Are you staying for breakfast? Mom's out already. I was thinking American breakfast. I've been craving bacon and syrup."

"She's a monster," Rin mutters to Haruka, nudging Gou aside with his hip so he, too, can peer into the refrigerator. Gou reaches up and swats the back of his head, then throws open a cabinet instead.

"Obviously what Mark-san said is true, and you don't know how to enjoy a true American breakfast," she says, pushing a frying pan into Haruka's arms and pointing him toward the stove.

"You need to stop butting into our Skype calls."

"Aw, but it's so cute that you Skype with your friends."

"A monster," Rin reiterates, much louder.

Haruka falls into their routine as naturally as if it were his own. Gou tells them what to cook and they cook it, while she carves fruit into shapes. As bacon splutters in the pan, Haruka catches a glimpse through the window of a group of children on their way to the beach, one of them carrying a giant beach ball over their head.

"Are those supposed to be cute?" Rin is looking askance at the mangled strawberries Gou arranges on a plate.

Gou gives him a threatening look, but then lifts her chin and says coolly, "No, they're supposed to look exactly how they look. Pay attention to the eggs, Nii-san, I don't want them to turn out like rubber."

Haruka enjoys breakfast immensely, and especially enjoys listening to Rin and Gou bickering throughout. The way they pick on each other is full of affection, and fills the house with life. It is nothing like mealtime at home, and nothing like mealtime at Makoto's, either. The Matsuoka siblings have something all of their own, and it's hard not to smile in the face of it.

"Haruka-senpai, I swear," Gou says, pushing a hand into Rin's face to stop him mid-sentence. She waves her fork at Haruka over a potted succulent – it looks like she's been smuggling more home. "If you tell me that that is not the most delicious thing you've ever eaten, I will – I'll –"

Rin snickers. "Oh wow, threatening."

"I'll take the rest off your plate!"

Haruka takes a bite of bacon drenched in syrup and says simply, "It's good." Gou groans in frustration.

"Don't tell her," Rin says to him later, when they're heading up to his room, "but I love that stuff. But, you know, gotta keep up appearances. It's sweet," he adds with a laugh, in response to Haruka's questioning look.

There are green sticky notes all over Rin's room, one affixed to nearly every surface. The door, the bed frame, the desk, the closet... Haruka turns slowly, taking in the scene.

"It's so I remember everything I need," Rin says. A suitcase sits half-packed on his bed, and another sticks out from underneath. Haruka reads the note on his closet door: running jacket, new shoes, green hat, socks?

"Socks?"

"Yeah, I lose them. But I can't remember how many I lost. Oh, Haru." Haruka turns, and Rin presses a quick kiss to his lips.

"For yesterday, at the station," Rin says. He flutters his fingers over Haruka's cheek. "Aw, are you blushing?"

"Stop being stupid," Haruka says, pushing his hand away.

Rin kisses him again, quickly and shamelessly. "Help me pack and I'll try."

Packing with Rin is like sitting through a tedious geometry lesson. Everything Rin wants to take with him must fit into both suitcases, so he has Haruka folding some shirts one way, and rolling others up another way, and laying others flat yet another way on top of everything else.

"Why do you only have shirts?" Haruka asks, when he realizes he's folded at least a dozen in a row.

Rin is arranging long-sleeved items into stacks on the floor around him, both arms covered in green sticky notes. "I don't. The other suitcase is for everything else. And don't worry, we'll have room for some shoes in that one too."

"Don't you already have clothes over there?"

"Yeah, but I brought a lot back and need to bring new ones over." Rin crosses something off of one of the sticky notes, then moves it from his arm to his forehead. "It's a new school year, Haru. I can't just keep wearing the same things."

Haruka raises his eyebrows but says nothing.

"Nii-san!" Gou calls from downstairs. "Are you getting ready? You didn't forget, did you?"

"Yeah, yeah, hold on," Rin calls back. "We're meeting Mom in town," he says to Haruka, and then, trying not to look too hopeful, he adds, "Can I stay over tonight?"

"Of course," Haruka says. He reaches over and pokes a finger into Rin's cheek. "Aw, are you blushing?"

Rin's eyes bug, and he starts laughing. "Shit, you're getting good at this."

"Nii-san!" Gou calls again. Her footsteps come up the stairs, and Haruka and Rin spring apart.

Rin arrives well after dinner, with a single ring of the doorbell that Haruka was waiting impatiently for.

The porchlight glows around Rin when Haruka opens the door, and he's hit with the memory of their first kiss, the disaster of it right on that step. But that time the sky had been dark as pitch, and now the edges cling to the last dregs of sunlight.

"Hey," Rin says.

"Hey," Haruka says back, stepping aside to let him in. "Did you finish packing?"

"Yeah, all set." The small talk is stilted, and there are zero days left. Rin wastes no time pulling Haruka into his arms. "I'm going to miss you."

Another memory floods in, that of the goodbye that took place right in this entranceway one whole summer ago. Only this time Haruka is not wet from the bath, and Rin's tears aren't hot against his skin. But Rin speaks into his neck, just like that time.

"I'm gonna have to leave really early to get home in time. My flight's in the morning."

"The trains won't be running."

"It's fine. I'll walk. Or run. Could use the exercise, I'll be on a plane forever."

Back then, Haruka had hugged Rin tentatively. Now, he does so fiercely, and all for himself. Five months – five months – until December. How will he be able to stand five months without Rin? They've come so far in a year, standing in the same place but with hearts that have grown so much. It almost feels like too much, if all that growth has allowed for the ache he feels now.

"You can text me as much as you want. Or I'll find out how my phone data works and you can call me. Or I'll get out my computer and we can video chat."

Rin's fingers dig into his shoulder blades. "Can we just go to bed?"

They go upstairs, climb beneath the sheets, and immediately pull each other close again. Rin hasn't started crying, and Haruka is a little bit amazed. The emotions are raw enough, their arms needy enough for each other, the farewell looming low enough over them, but Rin has kept it together. Haruka is grateful, because it means he has too.

They are a tangle of limbs, legs slid together, Haruka lying both in Rin's arms and on them. His head is tucked beneath Rin's chin, his forehead tucked against Rin's chest. Maybe, if their limbs all fall asleep, their minds will be able to as well. He sees no other way.

"Haru?"

Haruka feels too heavy with sadness to even talk, but he forces sound out of this throat. "What?"

It takes a very long time for Rin to answer, and when he does, his voice is full of nerves. "Honestly… Honestly, you probably think the first time I confessed to you was when you were giving me back that necklace, but…I kinda did before that."

"What do you mean?"

Rin pulls back enough to meet Haruka's eyes. "It wasn't an accident," he says, hushed in the twilight. "I didn't forget the necklace at the end of summer. I gave it to you."

Waking up with the blanket pulled over him. Finding Rin's necklace lost in the folds. Falling back asleep with it held tight in his hands. Haruka remembers it all.

"I didn't – I didn't think it'd actually mean anything to you," Rin says. "But for me it was a way I could give you some of my feelings while still being a coward about it. It was getting so hard to hide it around you."

Haruka can hardly draw a breath. His heart beats at his ribcage, sore and bruising. "How long?" he whispers.

"So, so long."

Another pang in Haruka's chest. "I gave it back to you."

Rin breathes out a laugh. "At least you didn't forget about it. I thought you'd forget."

Haruka shakes his head. I couldn't forget, he thinks, chest too tight for words. I missed you for two months.

Rin swallows loudly. "When I gave you the necklace the first time, you didn't feel the same way, but now it's different. So if I give it to you again now, will you take it?"

"Yes."

Rin disentangles himself and clambers out of bed like he'd been waiting for the cue, like he's propelled by springs rather than his own muscles. He goes over to his pile of clothes on Haruka's desk and takes something from their midst.

"It's stupid," he says, the bed dipping and shifting under his weight as he climbs back on. "It's just a dumb necklace. It's not even something special. I know you don't even wear this kind of shit. But, I dunno, I just –"

"Rin. I want it."

"Okay," Rin says, voice small. "Come here."

Haruka sits up, and then lowers his head so Rin can reach around him.

"Shit," Rin whispers to himself, taking a long time with the clasp. His fingers fumble against Haruka's neck again and again, until finally the shark tooth slips beneath the collar of Haruka's shirt and settles against his chest. "Okay, there."

Haruka takes it out, holds it in his palm. He looks from the tooth to Rin, and croaks out a "Thank you."

Rin smiles, then presses that smile to Haruka's, then presses Haruka into the pillows. He hums, and pulls away enough to look down at Haruka. "Jeez, it's like I'm living in a dream."

Haruka touches Rin's cheek. He feels the same.

Rin opens his mouth, then hesitates. He's on the verge of saying something else, but closes his lips before it can get out. He leans down and kisses Haruka again, long and slow, melting against him when Haruka's arms loop around his neck.

"You don't have to wear it every day, by the way," he says during a break in the kiss.

"I will."

Haruka feels the smile when Rin's lips are back on his, feels his own heart bursting with joy. This is better than any dream, this vividness of emotion that only reality can hold.

Rin eventually rolls off of him and pulls him close by the hip. He presses a kiss to Haruka's shoulder, and then another, and then another. With a sigh, he finally settles. "Night, Haru."

And maybe this is a dream because it's so bittersweet, the type of reality that will be over all too soon. Haruka covers Rin's hand with his own and squeezes tight.

"Goodnight, Rin."

He wakes up to daylight, and the sound of birds, and rising over that a stampede of children running down the stone steps outside, whooping and laughing as they go. He rolls over to Rin's side of the bed, spreading his limbs into the coolness, and feels something on his forehead. It sticks when he tries to brush it off. The second time, it sticks to his hand.

How like Rin, to play a prank on him before leaving. A smile pulls at Haruka's mouth, but he still doesn't want to open his eyes. He tries to remember Rin's hand on his hip, Rin's lips against his shoulder. Already, the sensations are fading from memory.

The green sticky note is perched on the back of his hand, a blur the first few times he blinks. He brings it close to his face, squinting through the bleariness of sleep as slowly, and then all too suddenly, the characters become clear.

I love you.

His throat burns, his eyes prick. The world stands still for a moment.

And then he brings the note to his chest, presses it against his heart. He curls in on himself, the paper crumpling in his fingers. Nothing has ever hurt so much.