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Had he known about Rintarou’s newly developed habit when he gets nervous, Tooru would’ve done something to help soothe the unsettling feeling rising up in the aforementioned’s stomach. Maybe a comforting hug, or a firm pat on the shoulder, or just any kind of gesture to make this hang out a little less awkward.
Had he known it was because of him that Rintarou was constantly fidgeting with the rings on his left hand, he would’ve... he wouldn’t know what to do, actually.
For as long as he could remember, him and Rintarou have been best friends. They had a rocky start—with Tooru mistaking Rintarou as someone who works at the thrift store where they first met (which, until now, Tooru can’t get over how embarrassing and hilarious that was, and even has Rintarou’s contact name set as “thrift store worker”)—but despite that, they still ended up as best friends. Apparently, Tooru goes to the same university as Rintarou, and another encounter at the library, where the two find themselves face to face on the opposite ends of the Japanese Literature aisle, brings them closer to each other, more than the both of them could ever expect.
Two years pass by in a blink of an eye, and in those two years, they learn all the little mundane things about each other—their similarities, their differences, and the habits they pick up on.
Rintarou likes dark chocolate, while Tooru likes pistachio. Rintarou prefers to drive, while Tooru prefers to take the train. Rintarou keeps his nails short and painted (usually black and red), while Tooru’s is slightly long and plain (sometimes he puts on clear nail polish to protect his nails).
They both love listening to rock music, especially when Rintarou adds his own melody to the song with his electric guitar, and Tooru sings along, his voice cracking every now and then but neither of them mind. They both prefer iced drinks over warm, because it just is more refreshing. They both like sunflowers, but for different reasons—Rintarou, because it was the first bouquet he received on his 20th birthday from his sister, and Tooru, because it reminds him of bees which he thinks are the cutest little critters.
Rintarou actually associates Tooru with bees. Honeybees, to be precise, and the reason is because honeybees make honey, and Tooru always smells like honey because of the shampoo he uses on weekdays (on weekends, he smells like mint, a nice contrast to the honey scent). It’s silly, but it’s what Rintarou first noticed about Tooru during the early stages of their friendship.
Tooru, too, associates Rintarou with something—a lemon, but not because he’s constantly making a sour face at the things that annoy him (a lot of things do). The way he styles his hair—blow drying it upwards and slightly curling the ends away from his face to give it more volume—is shaped like a lemon. He had started doing it since Tooru mentioned that he resembled Kunimi Akira when he wore his hair down. Tooru felt awful at first with the thought that because he made a comment like that, Rintarou changed the way he looks, but Rintarou assured him that he never took offense from it and he wanted to change his hairstyle anyways, Tooru’s thought was just the push he needed.
Tooru likes to think that he’s the only person who has managed to crack open Rintarou, given the fact that neither of the Miya twins know that he frequently visits the stray cats staying in the university garden’s gazebo to feed them, nor does Sakusa notice how he chews on the blunt end of his highlighter whenever the three of them gather at one of their houses to study together.
But in the two years of peeling back all of Rintarou’s layers, there’s still a part of him that Tooru doesn’t know. A part of him that he keeps hidden from Tooru.
Rintarou prefers that it stay that way.
He hears the subtle crunching of the grass they lay on as Tooru turns to his side to face him. Rintarou doesn’t need to look to know that Tooru’s face was showing suspicion.
He covers his face with his arm, telling Tooru that he’s going to nap for a few minutes, but he pulls his arm back as the latter shifts and positions his body above Rintarou, and if Tooru would lean in just a little bit closer, he would’ve been able to hear the erratic thumping of Rintarou’s heart.
Rintarou’s thoughts are all over the place. Why is Tooru pinning me down?! Is he aware that we are in a public park?! How long does he plan on staying in this position?!
Had it been anyone else, Rintarou would’ve pushed them off him and scowl in annoyance.
But it’s Tooru on top of him right now, and he has no fucking idea what to do.
Tooru cups Rintarou’s face with his right hand, and turns it to face him. “Seriously, Rin, what’s wrong? You won’t even look at me directly!”
Had Tooru known that every time he inches closer to Rintarou’s face, the latter feels as if he is Mercury and Tooru is the Sun—he burns so bright and so warm from such a distance, and the closer he gets, the more dangerous it is, the more agonizing it would end when he gets burned by Tooru’s flames—maybe Tooru would’ve pulled away.
But he doesn’t.
“You’re too close, Ru.”
“But we’re always close! Hell, you’re the clingier one out of the two of us!”
And that revelation awakens Rintarou to the reality that he hasn’t exactly been subtle about his newly discovered feelings for Tooru.
He wasn’t being subtle when some blond guy with piercings tried flirting with Tooru, and Rintarou, on instinct, hugged Tooru from behind and rested his chin on the latter’s shoulder, as if he was rubbing it in the blond’s face that he and Tooru are... very close. He also wasn’t being subtle when he made chocolate-covered almonds from scratch for Tooru on Valentine’s Day, as he once said that “The store bought ones taste like ass.” And he most certainly wasn’t being subtle when his eyes traveled to Tooru before answering a low “I might,” to Atsumu’s question of if he likes anyone at the moment.
Before Rintarou even realized that he does have a crush on Tooru, it was already so obvious. And now that he‘s realized it, he’s pushing his feelings back into the box it was stored in.
Because Tooru won’t ever see him as more than a friend, and Rintarou can’t risk damaging their friendship over a stupid little crush.
He’ll get over it eventually. It’ll just be a quick phase. His crushes on people don’t last long. He’ll be fine.
But when Tooru looks so ethereal with the sun’s glow complementing his features, Rintarou thinks that he is far in too deep to simply just get over Tooru.
“Can you... get off, please? People might think we’re doing something.”
Tooru stares for a few seconds (yet to Rintarou, it felt like an eternity), before coming back to his senses and rolls over to Rintarou’s side.
“You didn’t answer my question.” Tooru still pries. Masking is Rintarou’s number one skill, however, two years is enough for Tooru to learn how to see through his facade and determine if there’s something wrong. He just can’t tell what it is exactly.
“Nothing’s wrong, Ru. I swear.”
Tooru gets up from the ground and scans the area. His eyes land on a swing set not too far from where they’re at. He takes the opportunity to yank Rintarou off the grass and to the swings, the aforementioned defeatedly letting himself be dragged.
But Rintarou realizes one thing.
Rintarou never liked physical contact. It scares him when he feels an external presence on his own being without a warning. Even with a warning, he still feels repulsed from any form of physical contact. The only exception to this is his family.
But when Tooru touches him, it feels... different.
His touches are warm and gentle, calm and reassuring, like how one would hold a frightened animal. His touches are like a prayer to the gods, a promise worth keeping, a present at the bottom of a tree. His touches are more than what romance novels describe it to be.
Rintarou doesn’t let just anyone touch him. Tooru isn’t just anyone.
When Tooru slings his arm on Rintarou’s shoulder to pull him closer, when Tooru carries him to somewhere cool whenever he faints from the hot weather, when Tooru doodles on Rintarou’s arm whenever he’s bored—he gets to do all of that because he’s Tooru.
If Tooru were to drag him to God knows where for God knows how long, Rintarou wouldn’t mind at all, because it’s Tooru.
The two sit on the swings, and Tooru takes off. Swinging back and forth, feet kicking the air, it brings him back to his childhood.
“Have I ever told you that back in junior high, someone told me he loved me while we were swinging at a playground back in my hometown?”
“You haven’t.”
“Well, his name’s Iwaizumi. We dated for like, a few months, but he broke up with me because he said he doesn’t love me anymore. I hated swings ever since then!”
But here they are, on a swing set that Tooru found and dragged themselves to. For some reason, he feels as if he would get over his hatred of swings if he’s having fun with Rintarou. It‘s always been like that since Rintarou entered his life—he could bear the pain of his memories as long as Rintarou was there with him. He could conquer his greatest fear if Rintarou walks through it with him.
But what is his greatest fear?
“If you hate swings so much, why are we here?”
Tooru glances at Rintarou, and he thinks, “He’s the one who’ll hurt the most,” because he knows that Rintarou isn’t going to stay, just like the others. No one ever does. No one ever will. People come and go, and Tooru’s fine with that.
But not if it’s Rintarou leaving.
Because losing Rintarou is his greatest fear.
“To get over it.”
So just this once, can the universe let him be selfish and make Rintarou stay? Let Rintarou be his?
Tooru jumps off the swing as it flicked him into the air, a trick he loved doing as a kid. He had gotten pretty good at landing on his feet with balance from the countless times he had fallen and scraped his knee during childhood, but got back up to try again until he could nail it. If only it was that easy to get back up from falling for Rintarou. He’s not even done falling for him yet, as with every minute that they’re together, he finds a new thing about Rintarou to fall in love with.
“There’s something in your hair.”
Tooru leans forward to pick off a leaf stuck in between Rintarou’s hair pins—a Christmas gift from the former. He blows away the leaf and they watch it spiral away with the wind.
But Tooru doesn’t pull away just yet, and Rintarou is Mercury again. On instinct, he inches closer, and closer, and closer, but the closer he gets, the further Tooru feels.
His flames are cold.
And to make things worse, Rintarou’s phone rings from a call, his sister commanding him to come back home at this very second with strawberry ice cream. Of course, Rintarou can’t say no to his dear sister, and he needs an excuse to run away from the disaster of a situation he has put himself in, so he stands up from the swing and doesn’t even look at Tooru (he can’t, even if he wanted too), because if he does, he wouldn’t be able to force himself to leave.
“I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
“Yeah. Bye, Ru.”
Had Rintarou known that Tooru wanted to kiss him just as much as he did, he wouldn’t have left him on the swing alone.
Had Tooru known that Rintarou wanted to kiss him just as much as he did, he wouldn’t have hesitated to close the aching gap between them.
But it’s too bad that they will never know.