Archive of Our Own ^beta

The bulky physics textbook right at the top of the pile that Rin’s just barely managing to carry slips to the side a little and Rin curses in all the languages he knows. He slows his step a little and glances at the wall clock in the hallway. Five minutes to ten. He has five meagre minutes to make it to the physics lab, which is conveniently on the other end of the fucking campus.

He tries to imagine the look on his old, cranky teacher’s face when he comes in late and immediately cringes. He never had been the amenable sort and the last thing Rin needs is a teacher to develop a dislike for him right at the beginning of a new term.

 He knows he should’ve dropped off at least a few of his five books in his locker, but he’d barely had time to make a trip there after the consultation with his Math teacher, which had dragged on and on. Rin had been trembling with the urge to just make a run for it, respect be damned.

And now, his notebook is slipping off the pile too. He’ll never make it to class on time at this rate.  He’s strong enough, but hell he wishes he had a better sense of balance. Or better brains. To not have planned a consultation with the teacher who was notorious for going on and on and on right before his damn lab session.

He’d had a good time at Haru’s house last night. The five of them had returned to Haru's after a trip to the ocean side and had started on dinner. On hindsight, grilling marshmallows right by Haru’s precious mackerel strips hadn't been the best idea.

The marshmallows had unfortunately melted right into the fish and the hilariously traumatized look on Haru’s face had made Rin and Nagisa burst into hysterical fits of laughter. After cleaning up the mess they’d all made while trying to cook dinner, they’d retired to Haru’s room, where there had barely been an inch of floor showing.

Futons had been spread all over the floor and they’d settled into them and played video games and talked till late into the night. He still remembers the sort familiarity and comfort that he’d felt, with Nagisa’s snoring loud in his left ear and Rei’s feet draped over his thighs.

He had looked up to see if Haru was sleeping too, and as he had sat up and craned his neck a little to find Haru on the futon, he had made out gleaming blue eyes staring right back at him. Instead of flushing and throwing out a snide comment as he’d usually have done, he’d just smiled a little. Haru’s eyes hadn't left his till he had laid back down on the futon and there had been a renewed shine to them.

Now though, it looks as if the lucky streak that he’s been on for the last two weeks is coming to an abrupt and disgraceful end. He finally stops by the side of the hallway and tries to readjust his grip on his books. But when he takes a few steps, the two books on top slip precariously to the side. Fuck. He sighs a little in frustration and blows his fringe away from his eyes.

“Need a little help there, Rin?”

The voice is unfamiliar, as is the familiarity with which the distinctly male person addresses Rin. He turns around slowly to prevent any more displacement of the books.

The little half-smile that greets him is achingly familiar, something that he’d not seen (and missed, if he was being honest) for many years. The face is more mature now and the hair framing that face is a little longer in the front and sides than he remembers. Despite himself, his gaze trails down, beyond his neck, and yes, he was wearing that black polo tee very well.

The eyes, though. The slightly downturned eyes, somewhere in the spectrum between blue and green, bright and clear and focused: those haven’t changed one bit.

He nearly forgets that he’s balancing a whole pile of books in his surprise, and two of them go right off the edge of the pile. He squeezes his eyes tight for a second in sympathy, but the thwack of them hitting the floor has yet to reach his ears. When he opens them again, Sousuke is holding them in his arms. His smile has turned a little smug, and yep, this is definitely Yamazaki Sousuke. He’d recognize that glint of competition in his eye and that confident stance from anywhere.

“Samezuka, huh, Sousuke? I’m gonna give you a run for your money when you join the swim club, lemme tell you that.”

If Sousuke is surprised that Rin had recognized him so quickly, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he cocks his hip to the right a little and shoots a teasing smile at Rin.

“And how are you so sure that I’m gonna be joining the swim team? I could’ve developed a love for theatre in the last few years, y’know?”

Rin lets out his breath through his nose in a whoosh of amusement.

“You? Doing something other than swimming?” He leans his left side on the pillar nearby and looks at Sousuke from between his displaced fringe. “I don’t think so.”

When Sousuke’s arms shift a little to adjust his grip on the heavy textbooks, his biceps bulge a little through the black sleeves of the polo and Rin’s eyes follow the movement subconsciously. His stomach gives a tiny leap and his first thought is that he must follow his training regime as strictly or even more so than Rin. The next few thoughts that run through his mind aren’t nearly that objective or platonic. Great.

When he shifts his eyes reluctantly back to Sousuke’s, he looks even smugger and a smile twitches at the corner of his lips. He saw, that damn bastard. Rin flushes a little and averts his gaze, his fingertips tapping out a nervous rhythm on his math textbook.

He feels out of his game a little. He still knows how to handle Sousuke, his persistent rival cum best friend: their dynamic is very much the same as when they were in elementary school. But he hadn’t exactly been expecting to handle a very attractive rival cum old friend.

He snaps out of his reverie when fingers capture a strand of his fringe between them. Sousuke has shifted to keep the books sandwiched between his left arm and chest and he’s now rubbing a few strands of Rin’s hair between the index finger and thumb of his right hand.

“Still the same hairstyle. Longer. I thought you’d have cut it to make the swimming more convenient.”

Rin, who’s still a little out of his element, just makes a little sound of agreement. Agreement to what, he doesn’t know.

“Glad you didn’t though. Looks good on you.” His mouth droops a little and settles into that half-smile that Rin has always associated with Sousuke.

Rin is just about to throw out a snide remark to hide his embarrassment and regain his composure when his gaze lands on that same clock in the hallway. Fuck, he’s so dead. Just a minute till 10 o’clock. His Physics isn’t nearly good enough to redeem him in the eyes of that old fart if he’s late on his first lesson of the term.

Sousuke seems to have picked up on his anxiety and he begins to pull Rin by the arm in the direction of the physics lab.

“C’mon, we can catch up after lessons. We'll make it on time if we run.”

Oh. He must be in the same lab group as him then.

He reached his hands out to take back the two books from Sousuke, but he shifts away and shakes his head.

“I didn’t bring mine and you’re gonna have to share with me anyway, so let me carry them.”

When he glances at Rin from the corner of his eye, he looks competitive and almost hopeful.

“I bet I can still get there first, with these books.”

“Bring it on, Yamazaki.” Rin takes off halfway through his sentence and he catches the surprise on Sousuke’s face as he passes him before Sousuke catches up to him and then gains on him in just a few seconds.

There is a fifty percent chance of them getting caught by that smarmy discipline master of theirs who had a habit of patrolling the hallways just minutes before the start of classes to catch any misbehaving students. And they probably look ridiculous, lugging those books around and dashing down the usually orderly Samezuka hallways. But Rin couldn’t care less, and neither could Sousuke, by the looks of it.

It’s like they’d flipped on a switch and how it is now is exactly how it had been with them five years ago. They’d never really lost that camaraderie between them and Rin is relieved. What Rin has lost though, is the strictly platonic edge to his friendship. The outline of Sousuke's defined chest in that Polo had made sure of that.

As he pants and sprints a little harder to catch up to Sousuke (who clearly has been conditioning his quads and hamstrings in the last few years), he has a stray thought that swimming practices are going to get a lot more interesting now.