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"The passion rose inside him. Made him hard. Made his heart pound in his chest, only this time the fierce, erratic beating felt like a knife twisting.
Burying his dripping hands in her hair, he kissed her open mouth, ravaged it with his lips and tongue until she melted against him, clinging to his slick shoulders, while he grew bigger and harder between her legs, until she parted her thighs and he pushed his body into hers so fiercely she whimpered in her throat, and struggled, and dug her little nails into the skin of his back.
She wanted pleasure. Instead, he took pleasure. He found it on her wet breasts confined in her blouse. In the tiny, sensitive nub between her-”
Rin groaned and ripped the earbuds out of his ears. It was too much to stomach. He had decided that listening to romance novels was the best way to step up his flirting game, but peeking at Ai’s novel collection, under the guise of doing a room hygiene check-up as captain, was definitely a mistake. But how else was he supposed to learn about love? He sure as hell wasn’t going to ask Sousuke, and he was pretty sure Ai and the Minishiba brat needed more help than he did when it came to relationships.
“I didn’t know you liked erotica.” Rin heard a strained voice call from across him. “Why'd you stop, is it too heterosexual for you?” Sousuke struggled (and failed) to hold back his laughs, turning his body away from the desk he was at to confirm his guess that Rin was gawking. He was right.
“How–you–I–”
“I don’t think your headphones were plugged in all the way into your phone.” Dodging the pillow launched at his face, he went on. “You can come to me if you want love advice, you know.”
“Shut up! I already know what you’re gonna say anyway.”
“About Nanase, huh?” The Samezuka swim captain reddened even further, unable to deny it. There wouldn’t be a point;his feelings were at their most obvious when he lied. He murmured, “Maybe he is right about this after all.”
“What?”
“Nothing, hold on, I need to make a quick call.” Ignoring Rin’s protests, Sousuke grabbed his phone on the way out of their dorm room, dialing his most recently called contact.
“Sure, I’ve got it! I’m really glad you changed your mind about all of this. See you this weekend then!” Makoto shut his phone and set it on the table set in front of him. Hesitating to pick it back up again, he strummed his fingers on the wood, mulling over his options. Normally, he would call Nagisa, Rei, and Gou about matters involving the Rin-and-Haru-love-debacle...
...But last time had been a disaster. Rei, who was still convinced that romantic love was illogical and unnecessary, brought nothing useful to the discussion and only babbled on about his personal views on romance. This in turn only incited whining from Nagisa, who exclaimed that, “Love is a beautiful thing Rei-chan! I’ll teach you all about it!,” and all Rei could do was stutter and blush. He then went on and let out one of his pterodactyl screeches when Nagisa’s “teaching” became a hands-on lesson. The only thing they had actually accomplished was an agreement to be subtle for the time being; Nagisa took this as a cue to stick Rin’s phone down the front of Haru’s jammers the next day.
Honestly, those two had no place in the matchmaking committee; they couldn’t even get together themselves; it was laughable to expect them to help with Rin and Haru’s situation. He picked up his phone again, shooting off a text to the only second-year that he currently trusted with this particular matter.
“Here, I won this off of a crane machine outside the convenience store just now. It wasn’t the one I wanted, so I’ll just give it to you.” Yamazaki Sousuke was currently standing in front of his best friend’s bed, holding an obnoxiously oversized dolphin plush that was clearly too big for anyone to win from a crane machine. Rin's eye started twitching. His “best friend” had been an asshole all week, making not-so-subtle references about Haru: he kept winking at him after Rin’s phone went down Haru’s jammers during their joint practice with Iwatobi two days ago, and yesterday he had even brought him a coupon for fresh mackerel at a chain supermarket, mentioning that, “Nanase really likes mackerel from what I’ve heard,” and that, “You should go over soon and give it to him.”
As if I would go all the way over to Iwatobi just to fuel his mackerel addiction.
The most ridiculous, infuriating thing about the whole situation was that he totally would if Sousuke hadn't looked so smug. It wasn’t a big surprise that Sousuke knew all about his crush—Sousuke was the one person who could understand him completely. No, the surprise came when Sousuke also casually mentioned that he and Makoto were going on a date.
“What?” Rin snarled as he jolted up from his position on his bed, craning his head up towards his roommate.
“I said, Tachibana and I are going out to a dolphin show at the aquarium tomorrow, and he invited Haru to tag along.
“Okay, first of all, what the fuck, Sousuke? Since when are you dating Makoto? And why the hell is Haru going?”
Sousuke brushed off Rin’s outrage with a laugh. “It’s only the first date, calm down. We’re both just testing things out. That’s why Haru insisted on coming, to take the edge off.“
“Wouldn’t a third wheel make things weirder? I thought you wanted nothing to do with him until this week. ”
“Oh, he’s not third wheeling, Gou’s coming too-”
“SOUSUKE, LITERALLY WHAT THE FUCK,” Rin bellowed (or so he thought, though it sounded more like a screech to his roommate), jumping off his lower bunk to glare up at him. Sousuke merely replied with a shrug.
“We just don’t want Haru to feel like a third wheel. And someone to make sure he doesn’t jump in the dolphin pool.”
“Then I’ll go.” He relaxed his shoulders. “Better me than Gou, she doesn’t need to be going on dates at her age. Or ever.”
“I can’t just tell her not to go, she already made preparations for this.” He eyed Rin with the corner of his eye. “But you’re still welcome to come and make sure your sister stays out of trouble.”
Rin sighed in defeat. “Fine, then I’ll go too. But don’t get any weird ideas, it’s only to make sure you guys aren’t doing anything weird with Gou.”
Sousuke laughed.“Are you sure about that?”
Am I being too jealous?
“Enjoy your date with Haru tomorrow, Rin. At least you can put all your raunchy education to work now.”
“Shut up.”Rin groaned and went back to his bed, burrowing his face into his pillow.
Wait.
Why would Haru insist on going?
To a place where he'll be surrounded by water he can't swim in?
I've been tricked, haven't I?
Play it cool Rin, play it cool.
The Samezuka captain was waiting in front of the aquarium for the others to arrive. In his hands he held out his phone to check his texts, and in his heart he held back his desire to make a run for it. He stayed up late last night thinking about today–no, planning. He considered writing down cool one-liners to impress Haru like he always did on the mornings before racing him, but he had opted to remove himself from further ridicule from his (asshole) best friend. Haru was the next to arrive.
“Yo, Haru,” he called out, slinging his arm around him in an attempt to be casual. “I hope you don’t have your swimsuit under those clothes again today.” Haru responded by not responding to the jab, and instead brushed off Rin’s arm to greet Gou, who had just arrived.
“Haruka-senpai, I brought some sweets we can share!” Gou beamed up at the freestyle swimmer and ignored her brother, who glared at her beside her. He began seething even more when he saw that she had baked miniature heart-shaped cookies. Pink miniature heart-shaped cookies. Gou and Haru were close enough for her to bake him things without any misunderstandings between them, but this crossed the line.
“Oi! Don’t eat those!” Rin hissed, snatching the container of valentine monstrosities from Gou.
He shoved as many of the garishly pink cookies as he could into his mouth until he grimaced at the cloying taste.
Too sweet.
He was willing to overstep his comfort zone, however, if it meant he could come between the two.
“Onii-chan! Those weren’t for you!” Gou scowled at her brother, taking the tin away from him. “You don’t even like sweets!” She huffed and turned to face Haru. “Sorry, you know how moody he gets sometimes. There’s still one left, take one!” Lacking the social prowess to decline politely without offending her, Haru took the offensively pink cookie from Gou and eyed it warily before taking a bite.
You’re sweet enough already, put down the cookie.
“Rin.”
“Not when I’m around!!” Gou protested, trying not to laugh at her brother's look of horror.
I didn’t mean to say that out loud.
Kill me now.
“Th-that was just a joke!A-anyway, Gou, you should be studying instead of wasting your time baking. You shouldn’t even be going out with guys in the first place!”
Gou sniffed and turned her nose on Rin’s incessant nagging. “I studied before I came here,” she harrumphed. She eyed her brother accusingly. “And why’d you even tag along? Don’t you have better things to do than third wheel?” She faced Haru and announced, “Let’s go. He’s just being useless.” Gou grabbed Haru by the arm and dragged him to the entrance, ignoring her raving brother.
Rin caught up with his sister and Haru soon enough, although he had spent an embarrassing amount of time internally debating whether or not “If it’s water you’re looking for,then you’re looking for 60% of me” was an appropriate thing to say around his sister. He decided on saving the line for later. After all, it did take him 3 days to polish.
“Ugh, when are the other two getting here?” Rin groaned as he felt a vibration in his pocket. As he reached down to check his phone, he saw Haru approaching him. Alone. “Where’d Gou go?”
“She saw someone she knew and said she'd go home with them. Makoto just said both he and Sousuke can’t make it today. Something came up apparently.”
“She saw someone she knew? Whatever, it’s probably a girl from school. But hold on, both of them can’t make it? But I saw Sousuke this morning, and-”
“The dolphin show is about to start, we have to hurry,” Haru interrupted, grabbing Rin by the hand.
“O-oi!” Rin flushed at the sudden contact, but let Haru take control nonetheless.
He’s holding my hand.
Haru led Rin outside, where a stagnant crowd surrounded a pool. The water glimmered under the afternoon sunshine, a stark contrast to the lukewarm apathy of the people around it. The show didn’t seem to have started yet, so Rin sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, questioning his life decisions.
I don’t know how I ended up here. There really wasn’t any reason to tag along to this double date, but I insisted on coming anyway. Am I being too possessive? They don’t even like each other that way...do they?
He peeked at Haru. The water freak next to him didn’t seem to be enjoying himself, looking almost constipated. He probably wanted to enter the-
“Gou! It looks like we made it in time before it started!” Rin whipped his head back at the familiar incoming voice.
Mikoshiba?!
“And it looks like there aren’t that many people here yet–Matsuoka?” Seijuro Mikoshiba was currently gawking at Rin, his arm slung casually over Gou’s shoulders. He straightened up and smiled. “Hey! It’s been a while, how’s it been–”
“What are you doing here?” Rin hissed at the red-haired couple.
Why was I so worried about Gou and Haru when the fucking Mikoshibas are around?
He moved in between the two to split them up, paying no mind to their protests. Before he could start thundering at them about their relationship, Gou quickly pointed towards the pool.
“Look! Haruka-senpai’s trying to scale the pool!”
Huh?
Rin quickly snapped his head towards where Gou pointed. He almost choked at the sight. Indeed, Haru had a leg hoisted up the side of the pool in an attempt to access the water. A congregation of onlookers had surrounded him to observe his foolhardy quest, and their murmurs started to recalibrate into a louder tittering when security guards arrived at the offensive display. Coming to his senses, he rushed over to save his friend before he got himself arrested. He was so absorbed in his mission that he failed to notice his sister and Captain McSpeedo giggling off to their getaway.
After pleading to the staff countless times not to call the police, Rin had managed to drag a sulking Haru out of the aquarium. He sat down on a rigid bench not far from the entrance, and Haru followed suit.
Don't say it.
Don't say it.
Don't.
Ah, fuck it.
“If it’s water you’re looking for, then you’re looking for 60% of me."
Hell yeah fuckiNG RIGHT MATSUOKA, YOU PULLED THAT OFF LIKE A PRO.
“Then I’d have to get inside you,” Haru replied, not skipping a beat.
Did he just-?
“Haru, what the fuck,” Rin demanded, recoiling. He reddened at the innuendo, unlike his companion, who was oblivious to why Rin was so flustered.
“I can’t swim in you anyway.”
“Do you even know what it sounds like you said? It sounded like you were implying that.. you know..” Haru looked up at him blankly. “Nevermind!” He cleared his throat. “Anyway, you should really start learning more self-control. People will be less lenient when you’re older, and sometimes you won’t have people like me or Makoto to get you out of these situations. Especially when I leave to train after graduation. I’m gonna miss you–I mean, I’m gonna miss out on-I won’t be able to see you guys–.” He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Of course, you’ll still probably have Makoto, but still, you should be more–Hey, are you even listening?” Rin prodded Haru’s uninterested form, who in turn just huffed in reply.
He probably didn’t notice my slip.
He sighed,”You’re as hopeless as ever.”
“Let’s date.”
What the fuck.
“Huh?”
“Our friends keep cancelling swim practice for secret meetings to set us up. I can tell because they keep whispering too loud whenever they think I'm cooking. It’s cutting down on pool time. It’s more convenient if we can get this over with.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Am I nothing more than convenience to you?” He turned around abruptly, hiding the sting of tears in his eyes behind his bangs. “Stop talking nonsense and let’s go.”
Don’t think about it.
Don’t think about it.
Keep walking.
Don’t cry again.
“It’s not just that. I missed you too,” Haru mumbled.
“What are you going on about now?”
“I missed you when you left for Australia. I missed you when you came back because you weren’t you–you weren’t the same Rin who smiled so much that I used to wonder if your cheeks would get tired. I still miss that Rin sometimes. But I like you all the same.” He stopped meeting Rin’s eyes.
His heart stuttered in his chest. His throat felt parched. “Haru, don’t joke around like that, it sounds like a love confession.”
“You’re such and idiot, Rin,” Haru sighed as he stood up and faced the other. Taking Rin’s rose dusted cheeks into his own hands, he met Rin’s lips with his own.
Haru’s kissing me.
Holy shit, Haru’s kissing me.
What the fuck. He tastes like mackerel.
The sun setting beside them was casting a brilliant aurelian glow on Haru’s face, illuminating his closed eyelids.
He’s beautiful.
Rin couldn’t take his eyes off the angelic sight. That is, until he snapped out of his shoujo manga reverie and realized that neither of them had moved at all since Haru had joined their lips. In fact, the contact felt dry and uncomfortable, especially considering the fact that both of their lips were tightly shut. Haru broke the kiss and opened his eyes.
“Were your eyes open the whole time?"he asked, glaring at the other boy accusingly. Rin gaped at him.
“Is that seriously the first thing you ask? And what was that?” Rin tried to keep his voice from squeaking pathetically, but he was already too preoccupied with trying to repress the blush creeping over his face and neck.
Haru rolled his eyes. “Do you still not get it, Rin? I like you.You’re also too dumb to realize it, so everyone had to organize a date for us.”
Haru likes me?
Rin blinked slowly a few times before being able to connect what he had just heard to Haru's previous statement on secret meetings. “What?”
“Sousuke convinced Makoto and Kou to make a fake double date because you were stalling too long on confessing. And I happened to overhear, though it didn’t really matter because Kou already let it slip once.” His lips twitched in the ghost of a smile. “You know, how you transferred to Iwatobi because of me all those years ago. And I was glad to hear I might have a chance. I couldn’t stop thinking about you even after you left, Rin.”
Rin tried his best to stop his lips from quivering, but when Haru started to smile softly, the tears reigned victorious.
Shit, I’m crying in front of him again.
His ugly sobbing was muffled only by Haru stepping closer and letting Rin cry into his shoulder. The angle was awkward because of their slight height difference (and from Rin’s snot dribbling down his face, which Haru pretended not to notice), but Rin chose burying his face into Haru’s shoulder over letting Haru see how wrecked he currently looked. He didn’t want to let him see even more of his crying face than he needed to, especially after the middle school racing debacle that already ruined their friendship once.
After several uncomfortable minutes, Rin’s sobbing had improved into the occasional sniffle. Still, he was reluctant to lift his flushed face up, until Haru commented,” You know you can get off of me now, right?”
Rin straightened up and wiped his puffy eyes. “Shut up!” he croaked, blushing even harder. “And.. for the record.. Ilikeyoutoosoletsdate,” he mumbled, not quite meeting Haru’s eyes.
Haru cocked an eyebrow, trying his best to feign ignorance. It was his petty revenge for getting his shirt dirty. “What? Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that.”
I can’t believe this.
“I said let’s date, you asshole!” Rin snapped, although it would have had more of an effect without his hoarse voice cracking on the last syllable. And if he hadn’t just spent 4 minutes sobbing into the other’s shoulder. And if said shoulder wasn’t currently soaked with his bodily fluids.
“I’ll say yes after dinner at my house,”
“What kind of answer is that?” Rin demanded. Honestly, he had no idea how he’d never gotten over his crush on the jerk looking expectantly in front of him. “Fine,” he huffed, not wanting to delay their relationship. “But I’ll have to check in with the Samezuka dorms first. I won’t be able to catch a late train, so I’d need to stay over.”
Oh god, it sounds like I’m coming on to him.
Haru nodded. “Sure. Let’s hurry up. Your crying probably made us late for the trains.” Intertwining his fingers with Rin’s, he dragged a protesting Rin, who was about to die from embarrassment.
Romance was in the air later that evening, five blocks away from the aquarium.
“Ah, the food was great!” Gou sang as she looked around at all the others around the table of the restaurant they were situated in. Sousuke and Makoto had been looking at each other fondly, and Mikoshiba was wolfing down the last of his meat. “But do you think we should’ve invited Onii-chan and Haruka-senpai after all?’
“No,” Everyone else replied, in unison. They all laughed and Sousuke explained that Rin probably started crying over Haru’s confession. Makoto added in that they should probably be left alone today.
“Besides, Matsuoka wouldn’t have enjoyed himself if he came,” Mikoshiba interjected. “He would’ve been glaring at me all night, and then I wouldn’t have been able to spend time with you.” He grinned, looking at Gou’s still troubled face. “Plus, he probably didn’t bring enough money for a taxi ride home like the rest of us. But moving on to more important matters,” he said, looking at Sousuke and Makoto across the table. “When are you two going to admit you’re actually dating? I know we kinda used setting Sharkboy up with that other kid as an excuse to all come here, but I know you two scampered off during the middle of the plan.”
‘“That was just to give them more privacy!” Makoto protested, his ears turning red. Sousuke hid a smile beside him while Gou giggled at his reaction.
“You didn’t even show up in the first place, Makoto-senpai!”
After letting Makoto deny their relationship in vain a few more times, Sousuke silenced him. With his lips.
“Well, I guess it’s time to go home,” Mikoshiba announced, when nearby customers started to give them dirty looks. They all split ways, Mikoshiba going back to his dorm and Gou sharing a ride with Sousuke and Makoto back to Iwatobi, where the taller boy would be staying over. It had been a great night for all of them.
“You know, you kinda suck at kissing,” Rin said, looking up at Haru who had just come back from his bath.
“You’re not that great either. I bet you bite.”
“Shut up! Some people are into that, and–and at least I don’t taste like mackerel!”
“I’m still better.”
“You still think that? Then I’d suggest you get your ass over here and prove it.”
Haru complied.
By the end of the night, neither won nor lost. Instead, they went to bed yawning with slightly bruised lips and yearning hearts, promising to have a rematch in the near future.
Sousuke woke up the next morning to the sound of his phone vibrating. Groaning, he checked who had texted him this early.
1 New Message from Rin
i hope u know that ur a fucking asshole ❤
Sousuke laughed and went back to sleep, snuggling next to Makoto’s snoozing figure on the set of blankets next to him.