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It's ridiculous, Rin thinks, that he feels he owes Ryugazaki anything. It was nice of him to give Rin the chance to swim with his old teammates, and he'll acknowledge that, but what had Rin even done to deserve it? Nothing, he tells himself after the fact, after the euphoria has somewhat worn off and he's just exhausted from all of the determination and the positive emotions and the fact that Nagisa has texted him six times in the past twenty minutes.
Rin hadn't deserved Ryugazaki's kindness, and he almost wishes he could see it as weakness that Ryugazaki had given him it anyway. He knows that a week ago he might have looked at Ryugazaki and sneered; called him pathetic for giving up something he wanted so badly for the sake of someone who had done nothing for him. But when he thinks of him that night, lying in bed with his brow furrowed and feeling a mix of nausea and joy rolling through his stomach, he can only feel reluctantly respectful.
He hasn't given up something like that for another person in a long time, doesn't even remember the last time he saw someone hurting and decided to hurt a little in their place. He's gotten selfish in ways that dawned on him a long time ago, feeling powerless to change and powerless in other ways, and all the more resentful for it.
It takes someone who is barely more than a stranger now and was certainly closer to an enemy just a short while ago to have him feeling resolute enough to send a reply to Nagisa.
nagisa. what’s the best way to thank someone
Rin-chan! u replied!!! :) :) :) who are u going to thank????
nobody. it's hypothetical.
hmmmm. i would buy a thank you gift!!! something cute :) maybe a stuffed animal!!!
i’m not buying anyone a stuffed animal.
i thought it was hypothetical rin-chan!!!! ;)
Nagisa can be such a little shit when he wants to be. In retrospect, texting him was probably a stupid idea. Then again... Ryugazaki is Nagisa's friend, so he obviously likes something about him. Maybe he wouldn't be as opposed to receiving something "cute" as Rin himself would be.
Rin scowls at the thought of presenting Ryugazaki with a stuffed animal. He'd probably look at Rin like he thought there was something wrong with him. There probably is if he's even considering it, but Rin doesn't want anyone knowing that. Still, if Ryugazaki doesn't realize by now that Rin's not all that stable when it comes to self-expression, chances are he won't even if Rin hands him some fluffy, adorable thing in a fit of misguided gratitude.
Groaning, Rin turns over to shove his face into the pillow. Trying to do something even remotely nice for someone after years of practice at remaining cold and irritated is hard.
--
There's a strong possibility that going home a few days later to steal from his sister is not Rin's best idea. But Rin's had a lot of bad ideas in his lifetime, and there's no way he's getting caught dead buying anything like the monstrosities that his sister has covering her bed, so he tells himself that this is his only viable option if he's already choosing to be dumb enough to take Nagisa's advice.
Gou's not home when he gets there, which Rin notes with a huge sigh of relief he'll never admit to. He's not scared of his little sister finding him. It's just that she's a bit protective of her things, and if she comes across him trying to kidnap one of her stuffed animals, he's going to be leaving the house with no gift, no pride, and probably nine fingers.
He's a little bit scared of his sister.
So he sneaks through the house, mindful not to touch anything he might leave fingerprints on until he remembers that he's here to take a toy, not a classic painting or a human life.
When he gets to his sister's room, it's like walking into a horror film. She's grown significantly more interested in the male physique over the past year or two, and it's uncomfortable being stared at by the multitudes of half-naked men that are plastered to her walls. Uncomfortable because it's sort of distracting for Rin himself, but also because there's no world in which he wants to think of his little sister actually touching some guy's pectorals, fawning over firm biceps or deltoids or god forbid a nice set of glutes.
He wonders briefly if she's ever admired Ryugazaki in his swimsuit, and then shakes that thought clear out of his head. It's as he's reigning in the urge to snarl at an empty room, or maybe pee on something to mark his brotherly territory, that he sees it.
His eyes go wide, and they might be sparkling with excitement if he were an idiot, or Nagisa, but what he sees, trapped between a stuffed giraffe and a giant, soft-looking frog is -- it's perfect. This is the one, he realizes, and he glances furtively around the room once before striding over and shoving it into the backpack he brought.
He escapes swiftly out the window, because sometimes the adrenaline that comes with theft just calls for that sort of thing.
--
Getting it to Ryugazaki is even harder than acquiring it in the first place. There is no way in hell he’s giving the thing to him with everyone else around, because he’s not giving Nagisa the satisfaction of seeing his “hypothetical” idea come to fruition. He can’t find it in him to stake out the poor guy’s house, either. He thinks that would be leaning towards the wrong side of weird, and as funny as it might be to terrify Ryugazaki by randomly showing up on his doorstep, that’s not really his objective, here.
In the end, his only real option seems to be observing him until he’s alone. It’s not until after he starts that Rin realizes this may be even creepier than finding out his address would have been, but it’s too late to stop now when he's already followed him to an unofficial swim session at Iwatobi and he’s hiding up in a tree with a perfect view of the pool, backpack on and perched like he’s ready to jump down at a moment’s notice to quickly achieve his objective.
Now that he’s gotten to swim with his team again, it’s not so painful watching them all interact. Seeing Makoto splutter when Haruka sends a man-made wave crashing over his head while wearing the tiniest of smirks doesn’t make him feel half as bitter as it might have a week ago, and looking on as they all get serious and start to practice in earnest together doesn’t make something inside of him ache as insistently as it had.
He watches the whole practice, and the only time he feels even vaguely annoyed is when he realizes he’s been staring at Ryugazaki for long enough that it’s now gotten twice as weird as it would have been to just visit his home. He always makes it a point not to look at his teammates in the locker room, even if he’s caught himself admiring his captain once or twice – purely aesthetically.
Ryugazaki’s not a teammate of his, and never has been, but this is supposed to be about thanking him, and giving him a gift, not drooling over his admittedly impressive physique. Rin frowns and looks pointedly away from where Ryugazaki is pulling himself smoothly out of the water, and finally notices that the other three, and Gou, have disappeared inside.
Rin nearly stumbles out of the tree, he moves so quickly, but after a few mishaps he’s safely on the ground and running over to jump the fence around the pool.
Ryugazaki turns at the sound of the fence shaking under Rin’s weight, and he gapes when his eyes fall on Rin just as Rin’s feet hit the ground.
“Rin-chan-san, what are you doing here? That was dangerous, you could have—” he starts, sounding somewhat concerned, of all things, and Rin interrupts him, his nerves getting the better of him.
“Didn’t realize you cared,” he sneers, and then nearly hits himself. That wasn’t how he wanted his words to come out, he thinks, wincing when Ryugazaki’s eyes go a little hard behind his glasses. He wants to say he’s sorry, but he’s stuck somewhere halfway between stubbornness and humility, so instead he just stalks a few feet closer, so that there’s enough distance between them that Ryugazaki can’t catch him off-guard if he wants to punch him, but just close enough that Rin can see a drop of water rolling down Ryugazaki’s chest slowly like water’s sole purpose at the moment is to torture Rin.
Rin’s mouth is open, a little dry, and he realizes once again that he’s staring, but he can’t drag his eyes away from that frustrating bead of water until Ryugazaki says his own stupid version of Nagisa’s nickname again.
“Rin-chan-san?” He sounds a little alarmed now, like he thinks Rin is going to attack him, which – is wrong, but not a surprising assumption.
Rin still feels an uncomfortable twinge in his stomach at the knowledge that Ryugazaki is still so wary of him despite what he’d done for Rin, but he understands where the wariness comes from, knows he deserves it.
He opens his mouth to respond, to attempt to fumble with an explanation as to why he’s here, but then Makoto’s voice is coming from the locker room, echoing closer, and Rin freezes for the barest of seconds and then rips his backpack off of his shoulder, shoves a hand in and yanks a decently sized stuffed, purple butterfly out of it before throwing it at Ryugazaki.
Ryugazaki flinches a little, spluttering as he’s directly hit in the face with what was meant to be his thank you gift, not some kind of fluffy projectile. He looks confused and a little indignant, and Rin can feel his face burning, the irritation at being interrupted rising in him, but there’s no time to explain himself now, not with Makoto approaching.
So he turns tail and runs.
--
He’s a little horrified with himself for running afterwards, but less horrified than he probably would have been if he’d gotten caught. Regardless of how much emotion he let the team see at regionals, there’s something about what he’s doing that makes him feel nervous, a little sick and frustrated in a way that’s different from the kinds of frustration he’d felt in the past. He’s not sure why that is, exactly, but he’s not about to try to psychoanalyze himself after an already shitty, embarrassing day.
It doesn’t make much sense, because he’s just trying to show the guy a little appreciation for what he’d done. The thought of one of his former teammates having walked in on his display shouldn’t make him feel so self-conscious, but it does. And when he thinks about the possibility of Ryugazaki telling them about it, maybe being upset about the fact that Rin had thrown a fucking butterfly at his head, or worse, laughing at him, he has to kick his blankets off and do some agitated floor exercises for the next hour.
He’s interrupted fifty minutes later by a ding from his cell phone. As he wipes the sweat from his forehead and then picks it up to read the text he’s received, his heart sinks a little.
Why did you throw my butterfly at rei???
Shit fucking fuck, Rin thinks. Had Ryugazaki told all of them, then?
how do you know about that?
he knew it was mine so he told me!
Rin takes a deep breath and tries very hard not to demand a reason as to why Ryugazaki would have been in his little sister’s room often enough to recognize her stuffed animals. He’s fighting a losing battle, though, because he’s just about to ask when another text comes through.
are you okay? there was no reason to make fun of him
That has Rin stopping short. Making fun of him?
he knows his butterfly is not as good as yours, but he is a very hard worker and very determined!
WHAT
I DID NOT MAKE FUN OF HIM
he said you hopped the fence after practice, gave him mean looks, threw my butterfly at him and ran away
are you sure?
OF COURSE I’M SURE DO YOU THINK I DON’T KNOW WHEN I’M MAKING FUN OF SOMEONE
WELL MAYBE YOU SHOULD TELL HIM THAT INSTEAD OF YELLING AT ME
I’M NOT YELLING AT YOU
sorry. i’m not yelling at you
i was only trying to help
i know. thanks
thank me later, because if you don’t tell rei you weren’t making fun of him i’m going to tell makoto you threw something way harder than a stuffed toy at rei’s face and then he will give you that look for the rest of your life! ^_^
God, not that look. Makoto has always had the worst kind of knack for making Rin feel guilty – completely by accident, too, unless Makoto is secretly some kind of evil mastermind who specializes in pretending to be a kicked puppy in order to get whatever he wants, which Rin highly doubts.
He wonders vaguely how his sister can go from caring an uncomfortable amount about his well-being to chastising and threatening him in the blink of an eye, but figures it’s a skill she’s perfected in the time he’s been gone.
Youre evil
i’ll tell him
--
Admittedly, Rin has never been one to deal in a healthy way with failure. That, he knows, is in itself a failure, but he’s only human. He’s got flaws, and he’s not blind to them. It’s gotten easier, since regionals, to keep from snapping at people who don’t deserve it, from being overtly cruel, but that’s only most of the time, because perfection can’t happen overnight. Perfection can’t happen at all, and that’s something Rin is slowly getting used to, too.
But the knowledge that he’d failed so spectacularly at finding an adequate way to thank Ryugazaki that he’d left the encounter thinking Rin was insulting him and his skills as a swimmer? That failure sits heavily in Rin’s stomach for the rest of the night and through to the next.
He feels silly for not realizing that that was what Ryugazaki would likely take from it. From Ryugazaki’s perspective, he had, in fact, popped up out of nowhere, given him mean looks, and then thrown a butterfly at his face, just as Ryugazaki had told Gou. Rin is usually at least mildly uncomfortable with his emotions at the best of times, and the amount of guilt he’s got sitting in the pit of his stomach nags at him insistently, but he’s determined not to let his embarrassment get in the way of what he wants to say this time.
--
He gets Ryugazaki’s address from Gou, feeling a twitch of annoyance at the fact that it warms him a little when she adds that she’s rooting for him.
By the time he’s actually there, standing at the door to Ryugazaki’s house, his palms are sweaty and he’s this close to just turning around and letting the poor guy go on thinking Rin still hates him for the rest of his life.
But Rin doesn’t hate him, and never really did – the idea of Ryugazaki, he’d hated. Some kid who didn’t swim half as well as him had taken his place, and Rin wasn’t a gracious enough person for that to automatically be okay. From what it seemed, Ryugazaki had felt some of the same resentment for the Rin of the past, so at least they’d been on the same page then in a way they clearly weren’t now.
Because Rin knows they aren’t on the same page, here, not anymore. He isn’t even sure what page he’s on. The kind of page that makes him feel like he’d just sprinted for miles, winded and nauseous and a little bit euphoric. What kind of fucking page is that?
He gets it when Ryugazaki opens the door. He’s got creases on his forehead, like he passed out on top of a textbook for an evening catnap, and his eyebrows are furrowed as he blinks at Rin a little blearily and adjusts his glasses. It clicks, just like that.
Oh, he thinks, so I’m on that page.
And then he says out loud, “Well, that sucks.”
“Whaaaa—” Ryugazaki cuts himself off halfway with a yawn, and he looks adorable, and Rin is horrified at himself for even thinking that, because there’s a difference between thinking someone’s hot and thinking someone’s “adorable,” but as soon as Ryugazaki’s mouth is closed again he steps closer anyway.
“I’m gonna hug you right now,” he warns, “and then if you don’t tell me to get the fuck away from your house or punch me, I might kiss you.”
“I—what—” Ryugazaki manages before Rin hugs him, and of the two of them, Rin isn’t sure who’s more tense. He hasn’t hugged a lot of people over the last few years, so he’s sort of out of practice, and he’s just revealed more about his feelings than he even thought possible when he set off for Ryugazaki’s place today. He’s entitled to be a little tense, he thinks.
Surprisingly, Ryugazaki’s the first to relax despite Rin being the one to initiate their somewhat awkward embrace. His arms come up to wrap around Rin, and his breath ghosts past Rin’s ear when he says, “I’m not sure what’s going on,” sounding confused and still a little sleepy.
Rin sighs and finally unwinds a little, relaxes into his hold, mostly because there’s a possibility Ryugazaki’s reflexes are just fucked from his nap and he hasn’t realized yet that he should be punching Rin, so this might be his only chance to enjoy a hug from the guy. He’ll take what he can get while it lasts.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “I just—Gou told me you thought I was making fun of you the other day. I wasn’t.”
That’s the wrong thing to say if he wants to keep hugging him, apparently, because Ryugazaki draws back, though only by a few inches, and his arms are still locked in place around Rin. “So you’re here to hug me and—” His cheeks go a little pink, then, like it’s finally hit him just what Rin said a minute ago, and his voice cracks when he goes on. “—and, uh, kiss me, to prove it?”
“I’m not trying to prove anything,” Rin tells him, carefully controlling himself so he doesn’t sound irritated. It’s a fair question to ask, he supposes, but—he didn’t come here expecting to have to answer that, or anything like it. “I was trying to thank you.”
“You… threw something at me to thank me,” Ryugazaki says slowly.
“No,” Rin says, and then grits hit teeth. “Okay, maybe. I didn’t come to the practice planning on it, but then I heard Makoto’s voice, and I had to hurry, so, yes, I accidentally threw a toy at your face.”
“You accidentally threw a toy at my face,” Ryugazaki repeats, disbelieving and a little amused and something else that Rin can’t quite put his finger on.
Groaning, Rin tries to step back, only to find Ryugazaki’s arms are still keeping him in place. He scowls in an attempt to hide the blush he knows is rising on his cheeks. “Look, can you let me go? This is fucking embarrassing now.” It was embarrassing before, he thinks, but being mocked immediately after realizing and admitting to everything, that’s a little harder to swallow.
Ryugazaki’s arms go slack, and Rin steps back. He opens his mouth, not even sure what he wants to say, and then closes it, turning to go back the way he came. He did what he meant to, at least—told Ryugazaki that he hadn’t been insulting his butterfly skills, and explained that in reality it had been an attempt to thank him. He doesn’t bother to hide the way his shoulders are slumped, but he’s glad there’s no way for Ryugazaki to tell that he’s got a dejected lump in his throat the size of a golf ball.
“Wait,” Ryugazaki says before Rin’s even taken a step. Rin turns around reluctantly, trying to keep his face carefully blank. “What were you thanking me for?”
Rin stares at him. He thought this guy was supposed to be smart. “For regionals. Letting me take your place.”
Ryugazaki takes a moment to process that, and then nods. “It wasn’t only for you, but I’m glad to have played a part in your happiness,” he says seriously.
And that’s—that’s too much, right now. He’d rather Ryugazaki kept being a jerk to him, at this point, because then at least he could focus all of his energy on being angry instead of the alternative. Instead of replying, Rin just shrugs uncomfortably and turns to leave again, only to find himself being grabbed by the wrist less than a second later.
“Wait, wait,” Ryugazaki repeats. When Rin looks at him, he’s blushing again, like he did earlier when he could barely get the word “kiss” out. Rin almost doesn’t dare to hope—he’s made himself feel like an idiot quite enough tonight already, thanks—but Ryugazaki clears his throat and points out, voice assured, if a little wobbly, “I didn’t punch you. Or tell you to get away from my house.”
As Rin’s eyes go wide, Ryugazaki’s narrow in determination, and then Rin is being pulled in, and soft lips are pressing against his own chastely. It’s not much of a kiss, and Rin has a strong suspicion that it’s Ryugazaki’s first ever, but it still has his insides doing somersaults.
He pulls back and flashes Ryugazaki a sharp-toothed grin, confidence regained as easily as that, and Ryugazaki's throat works before he says, “Rin-chan-san—”
“Hey,” Rin nudges him, “that’s Rin-chan to you.”
And then, after a moment:
“Wait, no, I take it back. Don’t call me that.”
Rei laughs at him, and this time, Rin doesn’t feel like he’s being mocked. He feels fond and ecstatic. He feels like a cliché, like every other person on the planet, no better and no worse. And right now, that’s enough.