homo: haru

[damp]

itp: gay

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[squirt]

[ blinks. okay.

he's just going to nap until rin comes back with his flowers. he hasn't moved from the penguin sleeping bag since he left. ]

...What are those?

[damp]

[ he jumps, not realizing haru is awake. ]

... They're flowers. What do they look like?

[squirt]

[ ...cute. he stares at them, clearly surprised. ]

I didn't know you liked flowers.

[damp]

[ frowns ]

Doesn't everyone like flowers?

[squirt]

[ the way i can't even backdate a thread for w1 because they were fIGHTING ]

Not everyone. [ he gets up to go touch one. ] I guess you do like sakura.

[damp]

[ you coming back to this a full 10 days later ]

Who doesn't like flowers? [ he squints at haru, feeling self-conscious about his flowers now. ] I just found them outside of McDonald's so they're not that nice or anything.

... I should've gotten something else.

[squirt]

[ stop ]

I like them.

[ after a moment, he delicately tugs a few of the stems out, tapping the water off of them. ]

They won't last very long. We should dry a few.

[damp]

[ He looks about what Haru is doing. ]

I'll just get more. You don't have to keep them.

[squirt]

[ he picks at a loose string on his hoodie to tie them together with. ]

I like these ones though.

[damp]

[ ...

Ugh, he's embarrassed but he gets up to see what Haru is doing. ]

What are you going to do?

[squirt]

[ haru is good at dexterous little tasks like this, taking the wobbly-stemmed flowers and tying them together with a portion of thin string. ]

I'm going to hang them until they dry. My grandmother would do that with aji.

[ this is not fish but it'll still work... ]

[damp]

[ He can't suppress the quiet laugh that follows that. ]

Fish and flowers are pretty different, Haru... But I guess you're good at things like this.

[ Rin means more like... arts and crafts. He just watches Haru contently. ]

[squirt]

...It's just a hobby.

[ nothing compares to swimming, but. ] I couldn't swim during the winter.

[ when their swim club closed. ]

[damp]

Oh yeah, because Iwatobi's pool is outside.

[ He doesn't know that it didn't exist a couple months ago. ]

You should've gone to a school with an indoor pool.

[ He's teasing, leaning one arm on Haru's shoulder. ]

[squirt]

[ for a second, he doesn't respond. that's right—he'd never talked in much detail about when he went to high school. because it didn't matter if iwatobi had a pool when he had no intention of joining the team there.

flippantly, ]

Moving around is a pain. It was easier to just stay at Iwatobi.

Soaking in the tub was enough.

[damp]

[ He's quiet for a moment before he rolls his eyes. ]

You can't swim in a tub. [ ... ] Is that why you stopped swimming competitively?

[squirt]

[ he shrugs, looking for a space to hang their crummy little mcdonalds bouquet from. ]

I guess. I just didn't feel like doing it anymore.

...But Nagisa set up the club again. Couldn't really say no.

[damp]

[ Haru is pretty whimsical, so Rin just accepts this answer, gesturing him toward a window to hang the flowers. ]

You're still weak to Nagisa, huh?

[squirt]

[ thinking about how actually, he joined swim club again for rin. does that mean he's weak to rin?

that doesn't sound right. ]

Enough. [ he knows he's being teased, focusing on tying up the delicate flowers instead. ] You're the one who'd do whatever he wants.

[damp]

[ Rin freezes for a minute, aware that Haru's hit the nail on the head. ]

That was when we were kids! Nagisa used his cute looks to his advantage...

[ He sighs, quiet for a moment as he thinks about his last few interactions with Nagisa and Makoto. There was no trace left of their childhood friendship. ]

Whatever, the point is at least he got you to swim again. I'll give him credit for that.

[squirt]

[ nagisa is actually the most powerful iwatobi team member. sometimes you're adorable and use it for evil. ]

...He's persistent.

[ nagisa is not the singular reason he started swimming again, but he was the hardest working at convincing him. ]

He recruited Rei, too. So that we'd have enough members.

[damp]

[ His expression darkens at the mention of Rei, but he glances away so that Haru can't see. ]

You couldn't find anyone in your entire school who could swim a decent butterfly.

[squirt]

[ he finishes up with the flowers, pausing before he looks back at rin. ]

He's improving, and he works hard. [ ... ] You don't remember what he did for you?

[damp]

[ Gives him an unimpressed look. ]

What has he ever done for me?

[squirt]

[ he doesn't know how to tread this topic. it makes him feel a little insane. he sits there, buffering for a second, thinking. ]

Didn't he talk to you? Before the tournament.