homo: haru

[damp]

itp: gay

Comments

[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.

[damp]

[ Rin's expression grows cloudier. ]

How do you know about that? And how is that a favour; all he did was unload his frustrations on me. [ Not like Rin would know anything about that.

Not like Rin going back to that moment, struck speechless by Rei's brutal honesty and all the truths that he hadn't wanted to face. ]

... I know he hates me. Just like Makoto and Nagisa.

[squirt]

[ he steps away from the window and up to rin, a little too close. his voice is quiet, but firm. ]

None of them hate you, Rin.

[ ... ]

Rei gave his spot in our relay to you.

[damp]

[ They hadn't talked about the competition since arriving back here. About any of the other guys or anything that had happened between them, not since their first confrontation on the day that they arrived. They had bigger things to worry about, and he was happy not to think about all the ways he'd screwed up and had been screwing up for the past five years.

But Haru's in his space, and now he can't stop thinking about it. ]

Why the hell would he do that? He- [ His teeth grind together. ] He knows that he deserves that spot and I don't.

... He told me the truth. That you quit swimming because of me, not because Iwatobi didn't have a pool.

[squirt]

[ he hadn't known how to bring up the relay again, but he's slowly adjusting to how absurd this place is. rin having a few months of memory loss or being from some alternate point in time is no longer completely inconceivable.

he looks askance when rin calls out the truth, but that's something they've put off talking about for a long time, too. ]

That's because... I thought you were going to quit. Because you lost to me.

[ it wasn't worth swimming competitively if he was going to hurt rin with it. ]

But you told Rei—told us. That your race with me wasn't the reason you thought about quitting.

[damp]

[ There's a sinking feeling in his stomach when Haru confirms that Rei had been telling the truth. There was no reason for him to lie, in the end, but there was still a part of him that believed that he might be wrong. That Haru wasn't so affected by others that he would've given up competitive swimming just because of him.

But it was true. And Rei, a stranger, knew about it. Which probably meant Makoto knew. And Nagisa knew. ]

What do you care if I quit anyway? [ He says, instead of reassuring Haru that yes, his spiral was not his fault.

—But he regrets not saying it himself as soon as he does, hesitating and jaw clenching as he stares at the ground. ]

It wasn't your fault. Of course, it wasn't your fault. But even if it was, you shouldn't let my personal problems decide how you swim.

[squirt]

[ haru had kept the truth of their incident to himself for a long time—it wasn't anyone's business. the reason why he quit didn't matter. no one could convince him to do something he didn't want to anymore, and sharing the truth wouldn't change that.

but there's something liberating in hearing rin say this much. it wasn't your fault. maybe he'd still been afraid that, in his carelessness, he'd ruined something rin loved so much. that rin hated him after he lost. ]

It matters.

[ it's mattered ever since rin burrowed his way into his life. when rin doesn't occupy that space, it's... lonely. now that the flowers are secured, he reaches out, not fighting the compulsion to touch rin's hair, pushing it back to encourage him to look up again. ]

I don't want you to give up on your dreams. I want to swim with you. [ these things matter to him. ]