Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“See you tomorrow, Haru!”

Nagisa waves goodbye around an armful of sawdust bedding. Haru waves back with a slack hand, looking up quickly from his careful measurement of the latest shipment of dry feed.

“Have a good night, Nagisa.”

Haru hears the sawdust parcel drop into the crate and soon after the bell on Nagisa’s bicycle rings out, quickly fading in the distance.

I guess I’m the last one here again, he realizes.

There’s still at least an hour’s work to do before closing. And then he’ll hand off to Asahi on the night shift.

He’s in the middle of rinsing down enclosure A5 when he hears the door buzzer. Someone’s here. The wall clock says it’s twenty minutes until Asahi’s overnight shift. Asahi is usually at least five minutes late, rushing from some place or another before he sets up camp in the overnight room.

Maybe a late shipment?

Haru doesn’t remember there being late shipments in the past. Emergencies are always called in on the phone—almost everyone in the area with a boat, commercial or personal, knows of the sanctuary one way or another. Either they call or they don’t.

Haru isn’t worried so much as annoyed at the disturbance of his careful routine. He has his next fifteen minutes perfectly scheduled. Finish with A5, sweep the aisles between the upper deck pools, say goodbye to Maru-chan, lock up the storage room and dry dock, and stretch before running home.

Now, he’s looking through the small window out at the front doorstep of the welcome center.

There’s a man standing there with a hat low over his eyes and a bulky jacket.

Haru thinks he should be scared of the stranger, but he’s just increasingly annoyed. He swings the door open wide and watches with amusement as the man jumps back with the sudden scrape of the metal door on the asphalt doorstep.

“Hello! Is this the Iwatobi Seal and Marine Mammal Sanctuary?” The man looks unfazed a second after the door, smiling at Haru with pointed teeth. The first thing Haru notices about him up close, past the teeth, is the too-trendy outfit. A cord necklace high on his neck and a dangling chain. Loose fabrics. An important-looking logo on the arm of the jacket. The brim of his hat is larger than the typical baseball cap. Haru’s seen these kinds of accessories on people in the big city. Trends.

The guy also looks the faintest bit familiar, but Haru can’t place it and really, really doesn’t want to. This stranger should totally get lost no matter if he’s a long lost friend or relative or what.

The guy’s smile falters a bit when Haru continues to stare at him without replying, waiting for the guy to take the hint and go back the way he came. He catches a glimpse of the only car in the front lot—a sleek black sports car that Asahi will no doubt ogle when he arrives.

“Do you work here?” The guy tries again. He’s still smiling, if less, after a moment. His lips are unusually pink. Haru considers he may be wearing colored chapstick or make up like Kisumi or Gou.

And suddenly something becomes just a bit clearer. The inkling of recognition for this guy is from his hair. Burnt red like dark wine, much like Gou’s. Haru’s only ever seen a few people with the same color, and Gou’s the only one he knows didn’t dye it that way—for all the times she’s said she’ll dye her hair black or brown, she never has.

“What do you want?” Haru says, finally. The guy has taken to staring at him back, probably in a similar way to how Haru just was, only his stare is different—Haru isn’t in the mood to be scrutinized by city slickers with fast cars. All day he’s been wearing Makoto’s secondhand shorts from his first year days, the ones with the hole in the pocket and bleach stain. He needs to shower and soak the oil out of all of his clothes. He doesn’t need to be scrutinized—people aren’t supposed to show up so late in the evening.

Haru hopes his unwelcoming appearance will help the guy decide he actually doesn’t have any business here. He doesn’t like the messiness and prefers to wear the waders or apron when he can, but it’s getting hot and they haven’t brought out the fans yet.

“I’m here for the promotion?” The stranger says it like he’s coming for a 50% deal on baby seal encounters. With another winning smile, this one a bit more wrong, he continues staring, waiting for Haru to reply. Haru focuses on his mouth and his strangely pink lips. So much for Makoto’s advice on ‘how to look at people without making eye contact.’

“Who are you?” Haru has a feeling this isn’t the right question to ask back. Or, it’s the right one if he wants to offend Mr. Fancy Car.

“Who am I?” The guy looks less offended, more confused. “Gou wasn’t lying when she said you’re all still really isolated out here, huh?”

“What do you want with Matsuoka-san?” Haru asks. Is he a cousin looking to collect debt? Is Haru going to have to fight him off with a garbage shovel? Is he willing to do that for Gou? Yes, but she’d owe him.

“Matsuoka—Matsuoka- san ?” The guy’s pinched lips turn into another grin. This time, he’s laughing. Bent over and everything. His red hair falls in his face in well-placed curtains. “Wait ‘till I tell Gou her...her…heh… senior coworker called her—called her—”

“If you’re looking for Matsuoka Gou, find her somewhere else.” Haru is getting ready to slam the door shut.

“She didn’t tell you?” The guy seems to have recomposed himself. A little. His cheeks are slightly flushed from laughing.

“Tell me what?”

“About me, her brother!” The guy replies, pointing self-importantly at himself.

“She’s never mentioned a brother before, no.” Haru’s hand is on the doorknob. Come to think of it, Gou had mentioned a brother before. In passing and with a certain wistfulness-admiration combined that Haru had thought better to ask about.

“You’re fucking with me, Nanase.” Haru’s used to crude language from Asahi and Kisumi. Makes sense this guy would start swearing so casually as well.

“You don’t even know who I am.” Haru says.

“You’re Nanase Haruka,” Matsuoka points at Haru’s chest. He looks down at his plastic name tag. Oh.

Haru hears the crunch of sand in the driveway. Asahi’s here.

He looks past Matsuoka’s shoulder as Matsuoka turns.

Asahi parks as sloppily as always, gawks at Matsuoka's car, then turns to both of them.

“Matsuoka Rin!” Is the first thing he says, ignoring Haru completely. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here to promote your sanctuary.” Matsuoka says, many times less obtuse than when he addressed Haru. Maybe Haru should have complimented his car and then told him to get back in it.

At the same time Haru says, “We don’t need promotion,” Asahi comes up with, “Gou-chan told me about you! I really like your latest album!”

Oh. He’s a celebrity musician. Great.

Haru wants to inch back into the welcome center and go hide in the staff room. Asahi can deal with this Matsuoka character if they’re already hitting it off. Haru has his cleaning and closing to finish.

“You guys definitely need my help,” Matsuoka says, eyeing the cracks in the paint, the out of date welcome sign, Haru’s well-worn staff shirt in all its “worn almost every day” glory.

Haru wants to say fuck you . Haru wants to go find Gou and tell her to send her fancy brother to shove it.

“Welcome to the Iwatobi Seal and Marine Mammal Rescue, Matsuoka-sama!” Hearing Asahi call someone “sama” makes Haru’s skin crawl a little more. It’s not even a mocking title—Asahi’s in on it.

Matsuoka waves it off with another smile. “No need. Please call me Rin,” he says with the slightest of bows. “Please take care of me,” he adds, like they’re his caretakers.

“If you want to help, you can help me finish cleaning before Asahi’s night.” Haru says, surprising himself. He does want to see Matsuoka get muddy water on his pristine white pants, but he’d rather Asahi “take care” of him.

“Sure thing, Nanase,” Matsuoka says with a mock salute.

Asahi herds them all in through the door, jamming it closed as they spill into the small welcome center. Haru watches Matsuoka’s eyes go everywhere. From the blue and pink tiled floor to the framed awards on the far wall to the informational posters lining the long wall. He even picks up one of the souvenir keychains on the rack—one that Haru made a year ago to commemorate the release of Karasu and Neko. Haru doesn’t realize his hands are fisted at his sides until Asahi gives him a warning look.

Asahi abandons them to check on his stash of overnight snacks. Haru makes a mental note to rat him out to Sasabe for having them—so much for not being a, in Asahi’s words, “narc”, he wants nothing to do with Matsuoka.

The tension from not finishing his closing routine hasn’t gone away. Haru can feel Matsuoka’s smugness behind him with every step he takes out the back door and into the nursery. There are no seals right now—it’s too early in the season for abandoned pups, but Haru keeps up the maintenance all the same. They’re keeping a mother duck and her ducklings in the far pen. Nagisa has a juvenile green sea turtle in B3 that he can’t keep at the clinic.

Haru grabs the push broom harshly off its stand on the wall and rounds on Matsuoka. Matsuoka is looking around at the empty stalls. His face is less...judgemental...if Haru’s assessment holds. He feels less prickly now they’re in Haru’s territory. Haru holds a bucket out to him. The one with the brush in it.

“Can you get that mud from the storm out?” Haru gestures vaguely at it. Matsuoka gapes for a moment before reaching too far into Haru’s space to grab the bucket. Haru watches in astonishment as the guy carefully rolls up his sleeves and gets to gingerly scrubbing at the wall of the first outer stall that still needs cleaning.

Seriously, Haru is usually a good host. Or whatever he’s supposed to be with Matsuoka. But the sanctuary is serious . Matsuoka should be serious.

“Okay Nanase, new kid, you can start by cleaning the nursery. The supplies are in the shed. Please be finished by 16:00.” Sasabe told Haru when he arrived, offering no pity and nothing beyond the simple task. Exactly what Haru needed at that time.

Haru heads to the opposite end of the nursery and begins sweeping sand and leaves out into the gutter. If he sweeps loud enough he can ignore the steady scratching of Matsuoka’s brush. They go on like this for a while. Long enough that Haru has been more thorough than usual with his sweep. But the nursery needed it, he realizes as he looks on. Matsuoka looks up at him defiantly.

He seems to be trying to say, “Hah! I’m serious about this.”

Haru notices there’s a small spot of mud on his jacket. 

“Now what, Nanase,” Matsuoka throws the brush into the bucket for dramatic effect. Haru scoffs and looks away. So Matsuoka can help out for show but he has to be a diva about it.

“You’re done. Thank you,” Haru bites out, walking over to gather the bucket to take out to the wastewater drain.

“You sure you don’t need, like, some help painting this place? Repairing that rafter? Dusting cobwebs?” Haru doesn’t think Matsuoka is funny at all, though the guy seems full of himself.

“No, we’re fine.” Haru wants to go home. Asahi can handle Matsuoka and Haru can go recover from having to talk to the guy—from having to talk to someone so frustrating, from having to talk to someone at all—at home.

Asahi steps into the nursery pavilion, rattling the fence gate. “Haru! Super sorry but I have to go help out my sister with her kid. Work emergency. She doesn’t have anyone else. Can you stay?”

“Sure,” Haru doesn’t know what else to say. This is hardly the first time this has happened, but Asahi has never actually bailed before, and Haru’s met his sister Akane and her young son Tsukushi. He believes Asahi’s frantic explanation.

What a horrible way to end the day. Haru can feel Matsuoka staring at him.

“You can go now, too. Come back...come back when Gou’s around.” Haru says in his general direction.

“Sorry, no can-do!” Matsuoka is smiling again.

“What do you want to do, sleep here?” Haru asks. Anyone who knew him would know he’s about to snap. It’s a testament to how much he wants out from Matsuoka Rin’s presence that he can even recognize for himself he’s at the end of his patience. Usually, he just reaches it suddenly. Nagisa jokes that he’s like a temperamental dolphin, sometimes. They haven’t gotten a dolphin in a year, and the open-water cage needs dive maintenance. It’s on the list.

“Sure!” Haru raises an eyebrow the barest amount in surprise. Matsuoka’s willing to say he’ll sleep here, for what?

“You can sleep in your car.”

“No, I’m sleeping here.”

“Employees only.”

“I’m going to work for you guys.”

“You don’t work here.” Haru says, aiming for finality.

Which is how Haru ends up curled up in the night shift room with Matsuoka, the absolutely not-sane weirdo, sleeping on a bench in the two-table cafeteria.

Is this what celebrities do when they’re bored? Pretend to rough it like they have no other options...out of stubbornness.

Haru falls asleep quickly. He’s used to the night shift, though recently Makoto’s banned him for the foreseeable future. It’s a familiar rhythm to fall asleep in sturdier clothing on the hard cot in front of the open window. His toothbrush is thankfully still in the bathroom, and he reasons he can shower when he’s home. Maybe if he stews in his sardine smell enough Matsuoka will decide he’d rather go somewhere with aircon and room service.

He doesn’t.

Matsuoka is there the next day. His arrival wasn’t some surreal dream replacing Haru’s familiar night terrors. A mop of red hair, the sound of someone untangling themself from the plastic bench.

“Next time I get the bed!” Matsuoka is far too loud for 06:00. Haru stares out the window at the ocean.

“What do you mean, next time?” Haru mutters, half to himself. He hates, hates that Matsuoka draws words out of him. He shuffles down the hallway into the kitchen. Matsuoka follows him like a heeler. Like Azuma’s loud cattle dog.

“I can go down the road if you’ve got nothing here,” Matsuoka offers.

“No. We’re fine,” Haru opens the fridge. Alongside the deep freezer overflow is a bag of mackerel caught yesterday. Haru was saving it for lunch today, but he thinks he deserves it now.

He heats up the stove in silence while Matsuoka scrolls on his smartphone, occasionally chuffing out an amused breath kicking the baseboard. When Haru checks the griddle for optimal temperature, Matsuoka turns on his phone speaker and some guitar music comes on.

“Turn it off,” Haru says while rinsing the fish. He busies himself with cutting the flank and pulling out the spine lest he decide to use his knife in ways that won’t end with him eating a delicious breakfast. Namely, threatening a celebrity with a meat knife.

“I don’t think so,” Matsuoka says.

They go their separate ways until Nagisa arrives at 09:00 to check on “Midori Midorima” and “grandmother duck”. 

Matsuoka who told him, underhanded and snotty, that “I’m surprised at how good this is. I thought your sourness would extend to your cooking” after breakfast and left Haru to clean the dishes while he locked himself in the bathroom for thirty minutes, busies himself winning Nagisa over.

“I know the Seal and Marine Mammal name is redundant, but it’s been that way forever!” Nagisa says loudly.

“Yeah, I know,” Matsouka replies with far too much familiarity. Misplaced wistfulness.

Haru remembers Matsuoka humming along to a bubbly pop song that escaped out the crack in the door and drove Haru to head out to the beach to check for turtle nests. Few turtles nest so far north, and there have been fewer and fewer in recent years.

Haru is able to avoid Matsuoka for the rest of the day, in fact. So much so that he nearly forgets about him until he heads back into the building to grab his lunch—emergency canned mackerel out of the tin—and finds Matsuoka, Nagisa and Kisumi standing around the small kitchen eating pork buns. He ignores their calls to join them when he immediately turns heel to eat with Maru. Maru doesn't make incomprehensible faces at him or smile too much or try to convince him that the Iwatobi Sanctuary needs anything except time.

Maru floats on her back in the large pond. Her good eye stares at him with familiarity. He gives her a cheers with his mackerel and a silent promise to feed her as soon as he’s done. Nagisa said, recently, that she should be fed in more enriching ways, so he’s taken to giving her dog toys filled with oily anchovies or Sasabe’s Squid Special tied to a floating stick.

He also forgets to be upset at Gou when she arrives from her morning accounting classes. She doesn’t mention her brother and he doesn’t ask.

For the afternoon, he assumes that Gou will explain everything. That they don’t need whatever help Matsuoka’s offering. Nagisa says Matsuoka fills stadiums at his concerts. That he’s been on tours in Australia and Germany. What could German fangirls do to help Iwatobi SMMS?

Haru realizes they’re all serious about this plan when Matsouka announces he’s going to sleep over again.

Gou says she can explain everything tomorrow.

Asahi’s still taking care of “Tsu-chan”, so Haru isn’t going home.

Haru refuses to lift Matsuoka’s exile from the overnight room despite there being three cots.

Matsuoka grumbles but steals a blanket and sleeps on the table this time.

Haru falls into another night of uneasy sleep. The sanctuary used to be his favorite place to sleep, but this too has slipped from him. He was once so used to crashing as soon as his head hit the pillow, exhausted by practice. Now, he turns over and over in his mind new ways to convince both Matsuokas that they don’t need starpower, just maybe another veterinarian who isn’t still in training.

And then, at almost midnight exactly, the cicadas lulling Haru back to sleep, the main telephone rings.

The unmistakable trill sends a jolt of true fear down Haru’s spine. It’s a clear night. What could possibly be going on? He calls Makoto immediately, sets him on speaker, and picks up the emergency sanctuary phone mid-ring.

“I found a group of seals on... on the beach. Some of ‘em are bleedin’ looks like...and...uh...I think one of ‘em. One of ‘em didn’t make it.” It’s the voice of a man, sounding harrowed. “My wife takes our son to your place sometimes and I thought—I thought you could help?”

“Where are you?” After the bullshit of the afternoon, Matsuoka related stuff notwithstanding, Haru is white knuckling this call, but he’s asking the questions he knows he has to.

“Stone Beach. I—I can stay here.”

“How many seals?”

“Four. And the one.”

“Okay, thank you...” Haru waits for a name.

“Sakamoto. Hitome Sakamoto.”

“We’ll be there soon.”

Makoto picks up on the sixth ring. Later than usual.

“Likely boat strike. Multiple adults,” Haru manages as he rushes to throw the kits into the truck. “Can you meet me?”

“Yes. I’ll call Nagisa. He went to Tottori but he’ll come back.”

Haru almost jumps out of his skin when Matsuoka appears in the shadows of the welcome room.

“Emergency?” Matsuoka’s eyes are bright. He’s wearing nothing but a sleeveless shirt and pants Haru can’t make out in the darkness.

Instead of answering, Haru shoves a plastic dog kennel into his hands and points at the truck in the garage. Without a word, Matsuoka takes it.

— - —

Rin arrives at the Iwatobi Seal and Marine Mammal Sanctuary with high hopes.

He’s coming off the high (and bone-deep exhaustion) of his most successful tour to date. He’s so happy to have seen his mom after so long. To eat her cooking and run into the ocean and not worry about looking behind his back at every turn.

Rin hasn’t seen the sanctuary since he was a kid. It’s much...smaller than he remembered. In every way. Everything looks big when you’re small, huh?

The single main building is quite squat. In it, he remembers the main room for guests and a network of smaller rooms for staff living and working.

He arrives late, hoping to miss any possible guests. School-aged kids probably won't recognize him, but he’s learned to watch out for the senior high students accompanying younger siblings to places they wouldn’t usually go themselves. And then being caught off guard by a selfie or an autograph. It’s always jarring to encounter fans in places thinks he won’t have to put on the whole rockstar idol image.

He’s happy to meet fans, all the same.

He wears casual clothes. As casual as he brought back home in his carry on.

He parks his car as close to the door as possible and ducks under the overhang. There’s a buzzer on the door with an arrow pointing to it, so he presses it and holds, for good measure.

It takes a good moment for anything to happen. His hand is hovering over the button when he hears a crash from the building.

A split second later the door is swinging open fast. It almost whacks him across the face.

There’s a hot guy working at the Seal Rescue, huh?

And then the guy, Nanase Haruka, opens his mouth.

Nanase is, unfortunately, Rin’s type. And looks like he absolutely hates him when he isn’t staring him down anywhere but his eyes.

Rin prides himself on being able to sleep absolutely anywhere.

So when Nanase has him sleeping on a plastic bench that barely fits him, he takes it in stride for a night. He may not have started the pissing contest but he’s going to end it.

When he wakes up in the morning, he has hope. Last night, before he left, Asahi Shiina was much more welcoming than his coworker, and Gou texted saying she’ll be in at 13:00.

Matsuoka makes sure to stick close to Nanase as he walks deeper into the back of the center. Golden morning light filters through the dusty windows. Matsuoka takes a quick photo of Nanase in the early morning light. Day in the life of the crabbiest seal rescue employee.

They find their way into the kitchen early in the morning. Rin imagines running the sanctuary must be a bit like working a farm—always something to do. Usually with your two hands. After Nanase’s rudeness earlier, he’s not expecting any hospitality. So he really can’t complain when the guy starts grilling mackerel for their breakfast.

The way he skillfully cuts up the fish is reminiscent of Rin’s mom. No hesitation, clean strokes.

Even after Nanase tells him to turn off AKG, of all artists to dislike, Rin is determined to try to enjoy breakfast.

And breakfast isn’t bad. It’s quite good, if Rin has to admit. The fish is fresh and cooked perfectly. The rice is reheated white rice but it’s soft and the fish doesn’t need anything to mask its flavor. 

“I thought your sourness would extend to your cooking,” Rin tries to joke. Owing to Nanase’s deepening frown, the guy doesn’t like his sense of humor. As though Nanase's so much as smiled since yesterday.

Watching Nanase eat brings two realizations: 1) Nanase really really likes eating. Or maybe he’s just the world’s only mackerel super fan. 2) Nanase eats in a kind of adorable way. Prim and proper, fast but small bites. Everything about him besides the unavoidable stains on his shirt is very neat.

Nanase leaves him shortly after in order to do fuck knows. It’s probably important.

And Rin is left alone to walk around the grounds of the sanctuary.

He’s already seen more than enough of the welcome center.

The staff bedroom is small, but at least there are cots.

Out back there’s a covered concrete platform with a metal roof. This is where Nanase made Rin scrub yesterday. The sign says “nursery” but Rin sees no babies. He doesn’t even see any occupied stalls besides the sad looking turtle he remembers from last night.

The paint is chipping and the cobwebs are still there but the nursery is well maintained for something obviously not in heavy use. At least the center is prepared.

Further back is a set of three large pools. Plastic basins set partway into the ground with a wooden deck surrounding them and fencing surrounding each pool deck. Only one is occupied, though the others are filled with clear water.

A sign on the occupied pool reads, “MARU, rescued in 2008. MARU, due to health issues, cannot be released and has been an Iwatobi ambassador since 2011. She was likely born nearby in 2007. DO NOT FEED.”

Eventually, Rin makes his way back to his car to check on everything and rest in the familiarity of something he’s used to. Leather seats and air conditioning.

Later in the morning Hazuki Nagisa, resident veterinarian, arrives.

He’s short and has hair that’s blond to the root. He comes on a cruiser mommy bicycle that he parks against a tree.

Gou had introduced him previously, but he introduces himself again, with feeling. If Nanase was a dearth of energy, Hazuki is an endless well of it. After his long night on the bench Rin is infected by his bubbly personality.

“Why is it called the Seal and Marine Mammal Sanctuary, anyway?”

Rin knows exactly why. He wants to see if Hazuki knows the history.

He doesn’t, but his answer is charismatic and charming. Rin reminds himself to include the guy in promotion. Infectious charm like some of Rin’s coworkers but raw and unfiltered.

Rin forgot what normal people were like. Or—he forgot the simplicity of this. Of no ulterior motives. Save Nanase, who’s a special case and should not be counted. He’s just rude.

“Nagisa, why was Nanase the welcome crew? Don’t I deserve more VIP treatment?”

“Gou didn’t tell us when you were coming. Haru’s here the most, and he cares the most about the sanctuary, I think, so I’m glad you’ve met him already.”

“He’s a stick in the mud and has no manners,” Rin mumbles. Quickly, to soften the harsh critique, he adds, “But he took care of me.”

“Did he feed you grilled mackerel?” Nagisa asks. The entire center still has the slightest twinge of cooked fish in the air.

“Yeah, how did you know?”

“That’s, like, all Nanase eats.”

“He was the nicest he’d been to me since we met when we were eating.”

“Haru and mackerel are like Rei and overanalyzing.”

Rin doesn’t ask who Rei is. Instead, he tries, “So how can I help with publicizing this place?“

Nagisa cocks his head, “You’re the expert, aren’t you mister famous?”

“I want to help you with things you want help with.” This isn’t completely true. Rin wants to use his influence to help the sanctuary, but he has a game plan.

“Anything to get the word out about what we’re doing here. Stuff that’ll get people to visit and learn more about marine mammal rescue. Did you know we’re one of the forty or so accredited animal sanctuaries in all of Japan? We’re not a zoo but a rescue.” Rin finds Hazuki’s easy switch into public education mode amusing.

“So, just between the two of us, is the sanctuary sustainable as it is right now?” Rin uses the first euphemism he can think of. Sustainable. Making money. Not losing money.

“We’re a non-profit, Matsuoka, not a business.”

“You know what I mean.”

“We can pay for our supplies, yes.”

“And your personnel?”

“Usually,” Nagisa replies with a guilty hand on the back of his neck, fidgeting with a lock of pale hair.

Gotcha.

“I can help.” Rin can help.

After Rin finds an in, Nagisa tells him a lot.

He’s sharp and has a blunt view of the situation. Put nicely, the Iwatobi SMMS is dying by a thousand cuts and some people, read Nanase Haruka, don’t want to face the problems head on and think that everything will be alright so long as day-to-day nothing big changes.

Figures.

Rin can get sponsors. He can get fans to donate. He can promote so that people visit and realize that marine mammal rescue is a valuable thing to have. That the staff are cool and passionate people dedicating their lives to a very worthy cause.

Gou joins them around the kitchen table with pork buns and a smile.

Rin saw her briefly at the house, but he’s struck by how grown up she looks in her work clothes—the last time he saw her in person she was wearing a high school uniform. He told her she didn’t have to go to accounting school, that he’d help her if she wanted to pursue anything else, but she’s attending part time and working a part time internship nearby and he’s incredibly proud.

Nagisa attacks the pork buns first, opening the bag rather violently. The guy who was manning the welcome desk, Kisumi Shigino, is lured in by the sound of a plastic bag crinkling and maybe the smell of food. From what Rin saw of the open fridge when Nanase was making breakfast, most of it is filled with food for animals and Nanase himself.

Kisumi pulls up a metal chair to the table and sits with his leg propped up.

“Kisumi, what about the desk?” Nagisa asks, looking distinctly unworried.

“The desk? Nanase’s got it.”

“Haru never does the desk,” Gou points out. Rin is relieved that this is the case. That Nanase isn’t the typical welcome face. Sure, he’s nice to look at, but public education centers need well spoken, likable people. Not... guys who only seem to like fish.

“He’ll answer the door if anyone comes in,” Kisumi replies.

“Nobody’s here today?” Rin asks. He’s not surprised, but he can poke at this. The fact that no visitors, who are prompted to donate and typically do, or buy cute souvenirs, are in on a Saturday in the middle of the day.

“Slow day, yeah,” Nagisa says. “No school kids. People are probably at the beach...” He trials off, almost wistfully. As though he’d rather be at the beach.

“We can change that. I can change that right now by posting you guys on my Instagram.”

“Do you really want to get swarmed by fans here?” Kisumi asks with the same familiarity as Nagisa. At least these two are more casual, less rude about their easy comfortability in treating Rin like just another coworker. He did want to be included. All in.

“I can go away and make you deal with it. Stress test for your preparation as a public education center?” Rin suggests. He doesn’t think they’ll agree, but Nagisa is nodding along.

“I think it’s worth it. Not today, but maybe next week? Thank you for offering, Rin.”

“It’s really the lowest commitment thing I can do. Now let’s talk business...”

Kisumi and Nagisa lean into the table as though they’re talking serious business. And maybe they are but Rin would preferably talk about the most serious stuff with Gou only. She’s busy tapping away on her phone, chewing a bun thoughtfully, half turned away from the rest of them.

“Gou! Join the huddle?”

“Huddle? Are we baseball players?” She pretends to act offended. “I didn’t know this was a boy’s club.”

They talk business until each leaves the sanctuary one by one, leaving Rin alone with Nanase, again. Asahi is apparently still dealing with his “family emergency”, what luck, and Nanase doesn’t reappear in the center until the sun has set and the sky is a brilliant royal blue. Rin orders delivery pizza, enough for two because he doesn’t want Nanase to starve on his watch, and watches as the guy eats his with a can of pineapple. Which should have been Rin’s cue to leave for a hotel and come back in the morning. Pineapple with pizza? A bridge too far.

So Rin finds himself sleeping on a hard, non-mattress like surface for the second night in a row. He can’t admit it would have been nice to sleep in the backseat, only the car he brought home doesn’t have one.

The table is awkwardly shaped and high off the ground in a disconcerting way, but it’s stable and less cramped than the bench. He’d try his luck breaking into the staff overnight room if the door wasn’t locked.

Regardless, sleep arrives quickly. He’s tired from everything up to and including helping Nagisa carry animal feed and clean bedding to the petting zoo section. The exercise he usually does is much more aerobic, and lifting weights can’t replicate trying to go toe to toe with Nagisa’s deceptive strength.

He falls asleep to thoughts about how to promote the sanctuary. Adopt a seal? Corporate sponsorship? Zoo partnership… ?

Chapter Text

Rin is jolted awake more suddenly than he’s used to in a dark room with a crick in his back.

Blearily, through sleep lag, he recognizes Nanase’s voice. He’s speaking seriously in the next room. Or, more authoritatively than Rin’s heard until now. He’s actually speaking politely, and there’s an edge of urgency in his tone.

Emergency, all of the warning bells start going off in Rin’s head.

He opens the door to the main room and runs into a face full of Nanase carrying an animal crate with towels stacked on top.

Something’s shoved at him. A dog crate?

“Can you drive?” Nanase asks him, pupils blown wide in the low light and a slow burning panic Rin is surprised to see on Nanase’s stoic face.

“Of course?” Rin says. Nanase leads him to the garage behind the center. He doesn’t wait to jump into the driver’s seat and hears Haru slam the double doors of the back of the van closed before climbing in shotgun. He tosses Rin the keys across the console and sits back, staring out the window.

“Can you drive us to Stone Beach? Do you know where that is?”

Rin has many questions. Including how they have Nanase working the night shift if he can’t drive. And what the fuck is going on. It’s obviously an emergency but he has no idea what to expect. Drive first, ask later, Nanase’s face seems to say. Deciding it can wait, Rin turns the key, yanks the stick in reverse, and tests the pedal.

And they’re off into the night.

“I grew up around here. I know where Stone Beach is.” Rin says as they cruise down the main road. Leave it to Nanase to not know GPS exists.

Nanase nods minutely. “There are injured seals that need our help.”

Our help. Rin figures he’s talking about the sanctuary as a collective, not the two of them. But he’s glad to feel a little included. Us.

When they get there there’s a man standing by the waves. Haru tells Rin to get as close to the water as possible without running over dunes or going so far onto the sand that the wheels don’t work.

He takes off at a run towards the man on the beach. Rin trots after, taking deliberate steps in the dark.

Nanase’s flashlight turns on when they’ve reached wet sand. And Rin sees it.

Five small seals. It’s too dark to make it out perfectly, but there appears to be blood on at least two of them, darker strands on the dark sand being continuously washed into the sea. One is lying at a strange angle slightly apart from the others.

“Matsuoka, go into the van and get two crates, as many blankets as you can carry, and the covered white bucket.”

Rin can’t think of something both tactful and clever to say, so he turns heel and runs back instead.

When he gets back, Nanase is kneeling in the tide, head close to the seal in the middle. Rin can barely make out what he’s saying.

“You’re going to be okay... we’re going to help you...” His already soft voice is even gentler.

Nanase reaches for the towel and Rin hands it to him. He watches as Nanase swaddles the seal in a blanket-towel and lifts it gently, holding it firmly around the middle. The seal doesn’t squirm or try to bite at Nanase.

Rin hadn’t even noticed the middle-aged man standing to the side. It’s so dark outside of the beam of the flashlight. He watches Nanase walk back to the van with a seal in his arms, carrying the fifty kilogram animal easily.

After Nanase disappears in the dark, Rin looks up at the other man.

“Thank you for letting us know about the, uh, about the seals,” Rin manages. The man nods.

The seal on the far right isn’t moving at all. Rin meets the man’s eyes and they seem to agree that this one is the one that didn’t make it. With nothing else to do, Rin kneels over it and whispers a soft prayer. He’s never felt particularly close to animals, but there’s something quite raw about seeing this seal next to its injured mates, lying so still.

Someone turns on their high beams at the top of the beach. Nanase returns with another, much taller and much broader guy.

For all the reasons to be completely ignored by a new person, seal rescue is the top of good reasons to be ignored. The taller man brushes past Rin and picks up another seal, the same as Nanase.

Rin remembers Nagisa mentioning a “Makoto”—“he’s really good with kids. A gentle giant. You’ll understand when you meet him.”

“Can you...can you talk to the man?” Nanase asks Rin awkwardly, most of his focus on the seal he’s currently shining a light at. This seal jerks up at Nanase and he easily steps away. Rin notices a wound down its side that’s steadily oozing blood along its flank. It’s larger than the others.

“Actually. You’re going to help me carry this seal,” Nanase changes his mind quite quickly. The man hasn’t said anything. Maybe he’s in awe of what’s going on.

“Ok.”

Somehow, without speaking, they manage to maneuver the seal onto a blanket. The blanket becomes soaked as a large wave crashes up on them, but Nanase seems completely unbothered by getting a face full of saltwater.

They end up carrying the seal shoulder to shoulder. Facing each other with Nanase closer to its head and Rin supporting its tail-end.

Makoto passes them as they make their way slowly back to the van. There are two seals in dog crates next to each other in the van. Wordlessly, Nanase directs Rin to gently place the seal on the base of the largest dog crate before he snaps the wire cage back on it.

They meet Makoto at the shore. The last seal is smaller, so Makoto carries it by himself.

The man follows them back and says, with a small bow, “Thank you for coming, young men!” He looks more relieved than anything. He’s seen a lot. He’s done his good deed of the year. He can get back in his car and get some sleep.

“If you come any time this week and tell the people at the sanctuary your name we can bring you to see the seals,” Makoto says with a smile. Nanase has already climbed into the back of the van. Rin isn’t sure where he’ll sit in there, but doesn’t question it.

Turning to Rin, Makoto says, “Are you okay with driving my car back or do you want to ride with us in the van?”

Rin holds his hands out for another set of keys.

Makoto’s car is small and seems almost too old to pass the current emissions standards.

Rin beats the van to the sanctuary and stops to catch his breath.

What the fuck did I just witness?

And why do I suddenly get why Nanase is a necessary part of this little setup?

Rin has never seen someone move with so much purpose. Of all the relentlessly passionate, shiny people he’s met, Nanase’s shown Rin, willing or not, a new side of himself. In the arts it’s common to find people declaring, with all their worth, this is what I am fighting to be able to express. And now there’s Nanase and his speaking to marine animals, recklessly throwing himself into the ocean for them. Different but the same. Kind of an asshole on the outside but admirable in their focus.

In the darkness of Makoto’s car, Rin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He wants to do this. He wants to help. He’s okay with getting his hands dirty. He’s not afraid of the consequences.

Rin hears the van before he sees it, and then the light of the headlights flashes from behind his eyelids. He takes the key out of the ignition and steps out of Makoto's car.

“Thank you so much, Rin!” Makoto looks quite serious, but he takes the second to smile at Rin. What a nice guy.

Nanase is already carrying a crate, the one with the seal that looked to be in worse condition, back to the nursery pavilion. Makoto begins flicking on the lights and the night becomes less terrifying and a little more real.

As Rin follows Nanase, he sees the cut on the seal’s flank. From the little he knows, seals are protected by their blubber, but the poor animal has lost a lot of blood. If it were healthy, Rin would imagine a lot more fighting as it’s being carted in a wireframe box on dry land.

Nanase walks into the nearest stall and sets the crate down. Makoto follows after with another. The seal in his is much more lively.

“Rin, could you go into the fridge in the kitchen and get some fish? Any kind works!” To feed the healthy seal, Rin assumes. He does, looking over his shoulder at Makoto and Nanase hunched over the first seal together.

In the fridge he finds a large bag of smallish silver fish that doesn’t look as gnarly as some of the other bags. There’s less oozing pinkish liquid in the plastic bag, and the fish look like a reasonable size to feed a seal.

“You can feed the seal, if you want. Just take off the top of the cage and throw the fish into the enclosure. We should really be wearing sanitary equipment, right now, but it’s a bit too late for that,” Makoto winces without losing his good natured smile. A helpful skill to have.

Rin spends the rest of the night doing odd chores for Makoto and Nanase. Mainly for Makoto. As Rin walks back and forth. Makes calls and fills tubs of water, Nanase never leaves the side of the most injured seal.

Rin almost says something snarky about wasting time when he looks into the stall at around 03:00 and notices that Nanase has fallen asleep next to the seal. Its side is bandaged. This cannot be professional. Rin can’t help but also notice that the seal seems to be huddling closer to Nanase. It’s probably just because of body heat. The night isn’t cold, by any means, but it’s still spring.

Nagisa arrives around dawn and begins treating the seals in earnest. Three of them are issued a nearly clean bill of health—only bruising, exhaustion and confusion. They’re to be released in a few days once they’ve eaten their fill of easy meals and satisfied Nagisa with their alertness.

Nanase’s seal, or rather the seal Nagisa has taken to calling Lucky, is taken to a veterinary clinic in Tottori and arrives back looking worse for wear. In this time, Rin learns that it refuses to eat out of anyone but Nanase’s hand and has a skull fracture that needs time to heal before proper release.

For a week, Rin puts his mission on a backburner. He gave himself a month to turn the Iwatobi SMMS around, and he’s not going to butt in tactlessly while they’re dealing with something important. He does take notes when Nagisa says, distractedly, that the veterinary clinic does limited pro bono work for them. Apparently Iwatobi SMMS has free reign over some of some of their older imaging equipment, and the owner is an “old family friend of Rei’s.”

They can’t seriously expect to coast off the goodwill of a small town family vet practice forever, surely?

Rin moves into the closest hotel. It’s ten minutes by car (five if you’re fast) from the sanctuary and sees less and less of Nanase. He’s sure he’s being avoided, for one reason or another. Whatever hopes Rin held that Nanase would have warmed up to him after they made such a good team during the emergency soon vanish.

Rin quickly improves at his job as a maintenance/janitor/duck feeding guy. Nobody insists he keep a low profile, but Nagisa hasn’t given him the go ahead on his social media post, so he doesn’t want to risk being found out before he wants to be. It’s going to be a big reveal, not a fan sighting. That Matsuoka Rin isn’t on vacation but working and doing good in the world and all. However the vultures want to spin it.

— - —

Haru spends the week after rescuing Lucky confused. Confused at why Nagisa named him Lucky. Being hit by a boat is the opposite of luck.

At least, because Haru has joint final say on animal welfare despite Nagisa having the training and animal doctor kit, Lucky isn’t on display or seeing visitors. Haru adjusts his daily routine to spend at least three thirty minute intervals with Lucky alongside his hour long lunch with Maru.

He sees Rin around. The guy has tanned a bit, working in the sun. No longer the white-faced, well-dressed idol that barged his way into their life. Haru ignores him because he doesn't have anything to say to him. And he doesn’t want to push his luck while Matsuoka does nothing but offer another set of, begrudgingly much needed, helping hands.

He’s pulled into the security of seeing him as a daily fixture. Another part of the unimportant background.

While he isn’t surprised Matsuoka can handle pressure—Haru assumes being famous is a lot of bothersome stress—he is surprised that Matsuoka hadn’t tried to ask for anything in return for his help. He had helped a lot, more than Haru needed, and he’s left confused at Matsuoka’s continued earnestness.

By the end of the first week, Lucky looks much more lively in the second pool. He begins eating live fish. Nagisa suggests putting him in with Maru, but Haru settles on having them interact through the gate. Maru is best with nursery graduates, not fully grown seals. They could hurt each other.

The final release date for the other three seals is set. Nagisa is in Tottori city and Makoto has a class. The next option is Rin.

It takes one look from Nagisa, roughly translating to, “You want the seals back in the ocean as soon as possible, don't you?” for Haru to stop himself fighting it.

Makoto says that “Rin” was very good under the pressure and “Rin” basically had his trial by fire with rescue. “He’s a natural at it, Haru. If he weren’t here I’d tell you to just bring Kisumi but Rin should be able to go.”

So Rin climbs into the passenger seat and they exist in the same space for longer than they have for the past two weeks.

“Is this your only job, Nanase?” Rin asks. Oh, he still calls me by my family name, too,  Haru realizes.

“Haru…” He says, eyes on the road.

“Oh, uh...Haru.” His own name sounds strange in Rin’s mouth. He hates formalities but he almost wishes he’d asked Rin to keep calling him Nanase.

“I’m an artist,” Haru replies. He could have said nothing or nodded.

“Oh. That’s cool,” Rin doesn’t think it’s cool. Nobody does. Does it have to be?

Haru stares at the road and hopes Rin doesn’t ask any more questions. He doesn’t know when he began calling him Rin, but it’s less bothersome than Matsuoka.

“I didn’t know you could drive,” Rin says after a few miles. The release beach is a remote stony beach much further from the sanctuary than Stone Beach, which itself isn’t on any maps but is popular with families with small children for its gentle breaking waves.

“I can,” Haru says. I’m a better driver than you are.

“I thought ‘cause you made me drive that night, you know?”

“My hands were shaking and I hadn’t slept in... a while,” Haru has the impulse to be honest.

Rin doesn’t have anything to say to that immediately.

“Insomnia, huh?” Maybe he just now realized that Haru only barred him from the staff room out of mostly annoyance. The rest was consideration on Haru’s part, really.

No, not really. Night terrors. Haru wants to reply.

“When I was a trainee I had really bad dreams. About...” Rin trails off briefly before picking up with  a lighter tone. “About usual kid stuff. And they put me in my own room. I don’t think that made it better, but I felt better ‘cause at least I wasn’t keeping the other guys up, you know?”

Haru isn’t sure where the childhood memories are coming from. It doesn’t seem like Rin is trying to get sympathy. He’s just trying to sympathize.

Haru hums in reply.

The release goes as expected. The seals explode out of their opened cages as fast as possible and bolt for the ocean without even looking back. Haru smiles, and he’s glad that Rin looks happy they’re going back where they belong, too. They pack everything up and sit in silence on the way back. Rin types furiously on his phone and Haru tries to tell him, silently, that he’s thankful for not having to make small talk, this time.

Chapter Text

Rin starts making his changes on the second week.

Haru notices him taking more photos than usual.

And then, one day, a suspiciously large group of girls arrive, all at once.

Haru hides in the feed shed, taking stock of their deep freeze fish, when he hears them walking around the sanctuary. They’re loud. They’re probably scaring Maru. The chickens and ducks are probably getting fed a lot of hand feed, though, so they’re probably happy.

When the noise doesn't die down, Haru emerges from the shed with Maru’s lunch. He unlatches the gate and steps onto the deck in her enclosure. She perks up from where she’s resting in the shallows when she hears him. He tries to ignore the eyes of people staring at them.

“C’mon Haru! Tell them about Maru!” Rin’s voice echoes around the concrete space.

Haru feels cornered. He has to feed Maru. He could get her to do the only trick she knows, a roll that she only offers up when she’s happy, but that feels like betrayal. The fact that he even taught it feels like betrayal. She should be free in the ocean, not performing tricks for her meals.

Maru doesn’t look scared. Haru’s not going to show he’s upset so she doesn’t get upset. He walks carefully across the deck with the bucket, staring at his boots.

Taking a deep breath, be stares at the far wall as he speaks.

“This is Maru. She’s a spotted seal we rescued in 2007. She’s blind in one eye and can’t swim super well. Her favorite food is mackerel. She has very good taste.” He tosses the fish at Maru. He doesn’t want to give her her enrichment toys when she’s stressed.

He holds the last fish out, waiting for her to swim over. He hears, distantly, the fangirls cooing. A few shouts, probably trying to get Rin to notice them.

Lazily, he twirls the fish in his hand by the tail. Maru remembers the cue and rolls. There are excited shouts from the girls. Maru looks proud of herself. In spite of himself, Haru smiles and throws her the last fish.

Rin starts clapping and the girls join. Haru watches Maru swim back to her favorite corner as he goes back to the shed for Lucky’s lunch. At his back, the fans, he’s seen more than only girls, are clapping.

“That’s Haru! He’s one of the main animal keepers here!”

“Haru-san is handsome!”

“I love guys who are good with animals.”

“I saw Haru-san in one of your photos, Rin-sama!”

Haru wants to hide in the shed again. But Lucky is hungry, so he keeps his head down as he goes back out with Lucky’s small fish.

Barely raising his voice, he introduces Lucky before Rin can suggest he do more public relations outside of his job description.

“Lucky is a recent rescue who was hit by a boat. If you own a boat, watch where you’re steering.” He doesn’t say anything else, just holds the fish out for Lucky to grab them from his hand, crouching on the deck closest to Lucky’s deep water haunt.

— - —

“That was awesome, Haru! They loved you!” Rin is amazed that despite Haru’s complete unwillingness to be a part of the social media campaign, he put on a little show for the visitors. He didn’t know Haru had taught Maru a trick, but it had been the perfect touch.

“So, Makoto, want to watch a movie before bed?” Rin asks, knowing the answer. A likely no.

Makoto’s on the night shift and Rin’s staying over to work on a video about the sanctuary. The sanctuary feels like a better place to work than his room at the inn. He has his sturdy laptop and some tea and he’s pumped to get a lot of it done. He’s never made his own media, but he has an editor friend on speed dial and prides himself in being a fast learner.

It’s more genuine if you do it yourself, right?

He’s excited to be able to ask Makoto about the sanctuary.

He hasn’t seen the taller man, a swim coach by day, much. Makoto keeps odd hours at the sanctuary and mainly shows up in emergencies. There have been two small ones since the seals on Stone Beach—a turtle caught in fishing gear and a seal on the beach who turned out to be fine, no intake needed.

Makoto is writing reports about his students and Rin settles into his editing. He watches himself in the footage. He’s never liked exactly how he looks in his phone’s front camera. He looks different and his skin looks worse. Haru, somehow, manages to look decent in all of the awkward clips Rin has snuck since he arrived. Even when he’s scowling at nothing. The unstyled hair and the resting unapproachable face just work.

“You’re childhood friends with Haru, right?” Rin asks. Makoto smiles at this.

“Yeah, we grew up together in Iwatobi.”

“Do you know why he doesn’t like me?” Rin asks bluntly, trying to stay casual but a little desperate to know. Though he doesn’t think Haru strictly hates him, not anymore.

Makoto has the humor to laugh at this before looking thoughtful. “He doesn’t like change. I think he knows that the sanctuary needs financial help but he doesn’t like big changes. His first year in university he didn’t really talk about it, but he had a rough time adjusting to everything. And then…” Rin waits for him to continue but he doesn’t.

“Did he go to an art school or something?” Rin has yet to see any of Haru’s art. Maybe he’s really bad and lives off his parents’ money. He doesn’t seem like the NEET type, and the sanctuary is technically a job, but Rin has trouble picturing him standing in a gallery next to an expensive work. He always sees him in his stained uniform. There isn’t anything creative about cleaning the same empty stalls the same way every single day.

“No, he studied art marketing,” Makoto says. “He complained about the English requirement so much. It was his worst subject in senior high...”

“That’s...that’s..”

“Unexpected, right?” Makoto is still smiling, looking up from his papers. “I’m pretty sure it was the only major at his school that included art.”

“Ah. Where did you go?” Rin is picturing a local school.

“He went to Hidaka. I went to Meiji Chuo.”

“Hidaka’s the swimming powerhouse in Tokyo, right?” 

Rin doesn’t quite ask, “Why would Haru go there?” but he figures Makoto picks it up.

“You follow swimming?” Makoto’s surprise is written clearly in his expression. Rin notices his computer’s gone to the screensaver while they were talking.

“Not really. I know someone who wanted to go pro,” Rin replies. Sousuke, before he decided to follow me. He doesn’t mention himself.

“Oh. That’s cool,” Makoto stands up and straightens his papers, folding them once and tucking them in his bag. “I should get ready for bed.”

Is Makoto brushing him off? Maybe it’s not something he wants to talk about, his and Haru’s school days.

Rin opens his computer again and eyes the time. 23:22. He can go for another hour or so.

But since he’s already distracted, he figures he might as well try to find his answers with a good old fashioned internet search.

Because it’s only fair. Since Rin is sure all of the Iwatobi crew has typed Matsouka Rin into the search engine bar, Rin returns the favor on them. 

He types ‘Nanase Haruka’ into the search bar with some hesitance. It’s possible there will just be nothing.

He ignores the little voice in the back of his head telling him Haru probably didn’t look him up. Probably doesn’t care all that much.

“Nanase Haruka, 2020 Olympic team alternate, confirms his retirement from competitive swimming.”

“Nanase Haruka - Hidaka University - Men’s Swimming - Results”

“Topics: Nanase Haruka, JSwim”

What Rin finds isn’t what he expected.

And since he has this rule with himself not to go past the search results page—do unto others even if they could read the tabloid about you—he’s left wondering.

So Haru was a swimmer. And an almost-Olympian.

Actually what is that guy's deal? Swimmer-artists-seal whisperer with a barely hidden chip on his shoulder.

Rin doesn’t ask Makoto about it in the morning. He doesn't know how to confess he looked Haru up. He also doesn’t want to read the sports magazine articles about the guy. He doesn’t like how the media talks about himself. Why would he do the same to someone else he knows personally?

But the thought of it eats at him. Just when he thought he had Haru pinned down, something new crops up, a fifth corner of the Haru puzzle. The guy comes up with having been a nationally ranked sprint swimmer.

Makoto leaves early in the morning and Rin is left alone in the staff room, staring at the blue ceiling, uncharacteristically tired. He’d managed to finish the video in two hours and crawled into bed at almost 02:00, only to wake up with the dawn as he’d been used to. He should go for a run. He should make sure nothing’s happened since Makoto left.

When he manages to haul himself out of bed, he realizes he hasn’t remained in bed for a very long time. It’s always go go go. Get up and go. It’s uncomfortable to just be, but he isn’t sure he dislikes it. That’s for later to think about. He hears a car engine die in the parking lot. Someone’s here. Maybe it’s Haru so he can ask him as soon as possible.

Haru walks in the front door wearing unusually nice clothes. Instead of his typical loose jumper and interchangeable shorts he has on slacks and a button down.

“Going anywhere, Nanase?” Rin asks, slipping in his surname to see if he’ll get a rise.

“Move, I need to change,” Haru nearly bodily pushes Rin aside to get into the locker room next to the overnight room. Rin watches him go, then returns wearing his usual staff outfit. The bright yellow shirt with IWATOBI SEAL AND MARINE MAMMAL across the front.

“Coming from somewhere important, ey, Haru?”

“No.”

So Haru’s in a mood. Rin figures now’s as good a time as any to ask about his recent discovery.

“So the Olympics, huh?” Rin asks with no subtlety.

“Did Makoto tell you?” Haru looks resigned to it having been Makoto who Rin asked.

“No.”

“What about the Olympics?” Haru presses, though he really could have just walked away.

“You went,” Rin says in reply.

“I was an alternate.”

“You must have the Team Japan jacket though, right?” Rin would kill to get his hands on one of those.

“I wasn’t needed. Nobody withdrew.” Thankfully, the look in Haru’s eye seems to say, very clearly. Rin wonders to himself, Who wouldn’t want to go to the Olympics?

“I saw…I saw your times were improving at an inhuman rate until 2019. Everyone thought you were going to make the Olympics and maybe get into a final.”

“What do you want, Rin?” Haru turns at him fully, his expression unreadable and anything but inviting.

At this, Rin does pause. His goal was to wheedle the story out of Haru. There’s a story there and Rin wants to know it. But as soon as he started asking he felt the temperature in the room drop and cool tension coming from Haru. Touchy subject.

When Rin arrives in the morning, Haru is wearing bright orange rubber coveralls, standing knee-deep in the third pool with a large hose.

“Morning, Haru!” He says, looking around. Haru looks like he’s alone. The sanctuary is closed on Monday, and Rin didn’t run into any fans on his way, so he hopes people respect the off-hours. He’s lucky to have a fairly respectful fanbase. Comes with the territory of not being a mega-star. He’s popular, but he’s tried, with the help of the agency, to have a fanbase that isn’t as pushy as others.

It’s funny to see Haru in the coveralls. He must be draining the pool.

“Need any help?” He asks, expecting a null reply.

“Can you unfold the tube over there?” Haru asks, his voice slightly raised over the loud noise.

“Sure!” Rin sets his things down on the ground and goes to roll the tube so it isn’t lying on itself anymore. It’s surprisingly heavy. What did he expect? It's filled with water.

“I have to go out and fix the ocean pens soon. Can you spot me?” Haru surprises Rin by asking for another hands-on assist when the pool is being refilled. Still running on the excitement of feeling wanted, Rin almost forgets that he’s going to see Haru swim. He’s seen the ocean pen before. It’s quite small, surrounded by a wooden deck with netting on all sides. Nagisa told him that they haven’t had anything in it for quite a while—the seals do better in the pools if they’re hurt enough they can’t be released, and they rarely get dolphins that need rehabilitation.

Rin can’t imagine a place like Iwatobi SMMS is the best place to care for dolphins. Though Nagisa had mentioned that they’re typically a stop-gap before the dolphins can be taken elsewhere. Rin hadn’t asked where elsewhere was.

“Will I need to dive in and save you, Haru?” Rin asks, teasing.

“No. But you can swim, right?” Haru asks, straight faced, as he rolls the barrel of discarded water towards the gutter.

“Of course I can swim!” I used to compete in Australia! He doesn’t say.

Haru dives in with nothing but a small tool resembling a wire cutter wearing a racing swimsuit. The water must still be a bit cool, but he’s just wearing the jammers. It’s a graceful, competitive dive off the deck despite the tool clutched in his fist. Rin leans over the edge, clutching one of the beams, to watch Haru swim. His freestyle is frankly beautiful, clearly practiced and clean. So this is how an Olympic swimmer swims the front crawl. Rin can imagine lane lines on either side of him.

Admittedly, Haru excites Rin with all his surprises. Disappointment settles in when he realizes Haru’s going to dive down and not keep swimming the front crawl past the edge of the pen. First his head and shoulders disappear in the clear water, then his feet in a quick flick.

He’s under for more than a minute and Rin starts to worry. Just a little bit. If he hadn’t known he was a competitive swimmer, he’d worry about him holding his breath for so long. But he tamps it down. He’s not going to dive in all dramatic until he thinks he should actually worry.

Sure enough, Haru surfaces easily thirty seconds later and swims back to the dock, grabbing some of the twine he left where he dived.

Rin resists the urge to ask him more about his swimming. He’s not going to spoil a good morning.

It begins to get tedious, watching Haru dive and surface and dive and surface. His stroke is still perfect, and he still looks completely relaxed in the water. In fact, more calm than Rin’s seen him on dry land.

If this guy loves swimming so much, why did he quit? Rin wonders. Though that must be the touchy part of Makoto’s non-answers.

When he finally gets out of the water for good, he takes off his goggles and then shakes the hair out of his face with a dramatic jerk. Like a wet cat.

“Did you fix it?” Rin asks, a bit stupidly.

“Of course I fixed it,” Haru holds his hand out for the T-shirt in Rin’s hand. So demanding. A drop of water drips off his chin onto his collarbone. Rin tosses him the shirt with a tsk that’s probably overdoing it. Just a little bit.

It’s a good thing he did fix the pen, because they get a call after lunch (Haru has mackerel, Rin has chicken, Lucky and Maru have anchovies) from a panicked-sounding young woman.

“I think we hit a dolphin! Near the Number 7 Marina!”

Rin drives. Haru stays on the phone, occasionally saying a quick “yes” or “no”.

“How are you going to transport the dolphin?” Rin asks.

“We’re not,” Haru says sharply after he’s hung up.

There’s something in the dismissal. Haru wants the dolphin to be okay.

But a dolphin would be such an attraction... Rin thinks before catching himself. I want the dolphin to be alright, too.

“Why is it always you...” Haru mutters as they get to the marina.

Rin doesn’t ask what he means. Why is it always you for these recent emergencies.

There’s a dolphin tangled in a net in the deepest section of the marina.

“They didn’t hit it, they hit it while it was tangled,” Haru says with more anger than Rin’s ever heard from him. Sure, he’s been snappy and rude, but there’s the lurking emotion Rin’s been looking for. Not just panic or distress. Anger.

Rin would be happy to see this side, too, were it not for the unfortunate reason.

“Yeah, it’s been there for almost half an hour. Out there. Like I said,” A young looking fisherman is talking to Haru. Explaining where the dolphin is and how badly it’s tangled. What boat hit it, “She was coming in on her motorboat, so very slow…”

Before Rin can do anything, he sees Haru take his shirt off, then his pants, and he’s still wearing the swimsuit he was wearing in the morning.

“You're not going to—” Haru dives into the harbor amongst the docked boats. Optimal angle of entry. It’s not the right time for any boats to be leaving or departing, but Rin is sure that some will start coming in, soon. What if they don’t see him?

He watches, helplessly, as Haru swims, and he’s really fast, out to the small spot where the fisherman had said the dolphin was. Spluttering, he considers what he can do. He gets out his phone and dials Makoto.

“There’s a dolphin in the harbor...and Haru just jumped in!” He says immediately when Makoto picks up.

First Makoto says nothing. There’s rustling, then he swears he hears a muffled curse from Makoto, of all people. “Go after him!”

What.

“You need to go with him! I can be there in twenty minutes.”

And then Makoto hangs up.

What the fuck.

Rin takes off his shirt, places it on a bench, kicks off his shoes, unlatches his watch, and jumps in.

He hasn’t been surrounded by water in a while. The sea is still cold in May. He has a lot of ground to make up, but his swimming comes back to him like an old friend.

Spurred by the panic in Makoto’s voice, he catches up to Haru where he’s treading water a few meters away from the dolphin. Up close, he can see that the animal is caught against a small dark buoy in a large net. A near invisible gill net.

If Haru’s surprised to see Rin, he doesn’t show it. He only gestures Rin towards the dolphin.

The animal seems to know that they’re there to help.

Wordlessly, they begin to work together to untangle the dolphin from the net. Rin hasn’t been able to work this easily, this seamlessly with someone, since he swam relays with Sousuke in another life.

It’s a nice feeling, an irresistibly light feeling, to be able to help the dolphin struggling against the buoy. Feel its shift in attitude as it realizes that they’re freeing it.

I should have brought my waterproof helmet camera…

He’s lucky he’s still a strong swimmer. Haru keeps himself completely steady, upright, as he focuses on untying a knot in the net. The entire thing falls away soon enough. 

Rin starts to swim back. Haru seems to hesitate, double back once, before following.

Rin reaches the docks before realizing that the dolphin has followed them. And that Haru is somewhere behind him.

“No... go back. Go away!” Rin’s never heard Haru raise his voice.

Makoto is running towards them.

It can’t have been twenty minutes out there.

Haru appears to be bodily shooing the dolphin away. Kicking at it, not close enough to strike, as he swims.

“You need to be free...” Rin catches Haru’s words, garbled and partly under water.

The animal seems to finally get the hint and swims away.

Makoto is holding his arm out to Haru and pulls him out of the water as Rin hauls himself onto the deck, it’s much higher than the deck of a pool, and flops gracelessly on his stomach.

When they’re back at the sanctuary, they change their soaked clothes (Haru’s swimsuit) and warm up in front of the kitchen stove.

“You two gonna explain what that was about?” Rin asks.

To his surprise, it’s Haru that replies. “Makoto worries too much. I have a medical issue. I pass out sometimes. It’s not a big deal.”

“Why didn’t you mention it before you told me to spot you this morning?” Rin asks, suddenly even more affronted by Haru’s audacity.

“You’d say no or do something stupid,” Haru replies.

“Stupid like—be more careful with someone who could pass out and drown?” Rin knows he’s raising his voice but Haru’s crossed the line.

“I’m fine,” Haru says as though that settles it.

Rin really, really doesn’t want to bring his father into this argument, but Makoto must already know. It’s not like it’s a secret. It’s in his damn Wikipedia page.

So far, Makoto’s done nothing but look appropriately guilty for all of this. Though it’s really all on Haru for being a moron.

“My dad died in an ocean storm when I was in elementary school,” Rin says coldly. “Don’t pull shit like that again, Nanase.”

Haru has the mind to look mildly ashamed, though not really. All he says is, “Was I supposed to know that?”

Makoto winces before saying, “Haru, you should go home. Your shift is over. Kisumi is late but I can take care of everything.” Makoto, ever the mediator, says this frustratingly gently. How many fights would Haru have gotten into and lost were it not for this guy?

The door swings shut when Haru leaves, creaking in its hinges.

What a guy.

Chapter Text

The first seal pups appear on the beach in Rin’s third week at the Iwatobi SMMS.

Rin finds he can’t avoid Haru for long. And it’s a bit refreshing for someone not to immediately say something strange or unnecessary about his father. Not that Haru’s uncaring response was good or even acceptable, but he meets Rin one morning and says, stiffly, “I’m sorry for your loss and for...being irresponsible.”

Soon, they’re swept up in the seal pups, anyway.

The small beach behind the sanctuary has been protected for wildlife for many generations, and Rin watches in awe as the babies lie there in the sand. They’re tiny, chubby, undeniably cute, and completely unbothered by most things.

Asahi teaches Rin how to monitor the babies. He gives each a tracking name and a nickname, or uses the nicknames Nagisa gives them. Some of the names are fitting and cute. Others are baffling, such as bizarre English words like Fork, Aubergine, and Paper. Paper-chan is a large seal pup whose mother returns more frequently than the others to feed him and who barks at them if they’re within ten meters.

If Nagisa’s names are bad, Haru’s are even worse.

The three that Haru’s given nicknames are named after deepsea fish. Eelpout, Seadevil, and Loosejaw 4. When Rin looks up the fish species in question, he’s baffled by how ugly and un-cute the fish are.

When Rin asks, Nagisa explains, laughing, that Haru always names the babies like this. That for the ones they’ve been able to keep up with through the years, Haru’s seals are the most curious and least afraid of humans. And Makoto mentions that Haru gives them ugly names because he doesn’t want them to stay small and cute—he wants them to grow up and “win seal fights.”

Does Haru not think the adult seals are cute?

Rin thinks it's a little endearing. Just a little bit.

Rin’s nicknamed seals are Sakura, Fuji, and Ume.

“Cute baby seal” videos from Iwatobi SMMS begin appearing more and more on their account. Most are narrated by Kisumi, who has a knack for charismatic voice work. Makoto’s bribed Haru with enough mackerel to get him to work his magic on project “cute seal videos”, interacting with them in ways that none of the other staff are able to.

Haru never approaches the wild babies himself, but all the staff watch on as several of the pups approach him curiously. He goes out on a small wakeboard to check on a pup sitting on the jetty and another, who was floating in the shallows, climbs onto the board behind him. And because Haru is Haru, he smoothly slides off the board, standing neck deep in the cool water, holding the board steady until the pup gets bored.

Makoto gets it all on film. The video becomes their most popular in 48 hours.

Nagisa explains that, on a good year, all they have to do is monitor the babies. 

That year, a week into the cuteness and the rapid expansion of Iwatobi SMMS’s videos among the masses, it becomes a less-good year. They have to begin rehabbing a pup at the sanctuary. Rin has already extended his stay another month. He hasn’t done all that he wanted to do, and he has to admit that he’s hooked by the work and the people.

He fields ideas such as producing a short documentary or pursuing larger company partnerships than the ones they already have.

It’s Haru, of all people, that argues, with uncharacteristic clarity, about how larger sponsors would mean that they’ll lose the freedom to do what they want, and come with conditions they can’t accept. That aquariums typically intake seals that could have been released, given time, and the Iwatobi SMMS was not designed to generate more money than it required to run.

Which Rin realizes, as Haru sits across from him at the kitchen table, is what they’ve been able to do. And for once, he considers that maybe they don’t need more. Kisumi jokes that he’s been greedy, but Haru tilts his head at this.

“Rin is just used to having to make a lot of money for his agency.” Haru says, flat and disinterested.

He says it very simply. As though there’s a part of it he understands from experience. Rin has mostly given up on teasing the professional swimmer story out of Haru, too caught up in getting to know him in other ways that make him less cagey, but he considers it’s possible he quit because of the pressures of finding and keeping sponsors—of being both an athlete and a public figure.

“Say, Haru, what about getting one of your old swim buddies to do publicity for us?” Rin thinks himself a genius for this idea. Leverage connections they already have.

“What are you talking about?” Haru is much less enthused.

“You have to know some of Japan’s swimming stars, right? Mr. Olympian. The Kirishimas? The Mikoshibas? Kinjou Kaede?”

“They’re all busy,” Haru says. Such that Rin thinks they’re probably not too busy to help. Even to post on social media or something small. Only, Haru doesn’t want to entertain Rin’s great idea.

“So you do know them.” Gotcha, Nanase.

“Ask Makoto.”

— - —

Haru suspects that it’s only time before they identify the first abandoned seal pup. Pup #23012, “Salt shaker”, appears thinner and thinner for a few days before they assume that it’s been abandoned. When they catch it they realize that it has a malformed flipper and is older than they had thought, malnourished and ravenous when they bottle feed it in its new home: stall A2.

As in the past summer, both Nagisa and Asahi practically move into the sanctuary to take care of the pup overnight. Haru takes some early mornings and late nights, but usually goes home to sleep.

One day, he walks to the sanctuary before the sun is up so that Asahi can sleep until he leaves in the morning while Haru feeds “Salt-chan”.

Salt is staring at him when he looks over the walls of stall A2. He practically attacks the warmed bottle and then actually attacks the garden hose that Haru uses to clean out his plastic pool of water. It’s a good sign that he’s a fighter, but now that he’s grown several kilograms it’s easier to see how his left flipper does not match his right. Salt-chan may end up at the Osaka Aquarium.

“Hey, Gou, what about an “adopt a seal” program? People online can pay for the care of a seal and get updates about it, you know?” Haru overhears Rin spitballing another of his ideas.

“It’s a good idea. I can talk with Nagisa about it. It won’t cover everything…” She replies. “Even zoos only have it as a supplement to the funding they already have, but it’s a good idea.”

Makoto’s been calling some of the Japan Swim athletes they know. He has Hiyori, Ikuya, and all the Mikoshibas in his contacts, and so far all of them have said they can either visit or post a special post on their most-followed social media. Isuzu and Momoi have even offered to do an exclusive poster signing with all proceeds to Iwatobi SMMS. They must be preparing for Paris 2024, this year. It’s a nice gesture when Haru knows they must be very busy.

Haru tries, like Makoto suggested, to act like nothing’s changed. He replaces his old routines with new ones and tries to, in Nagisa’s words, “play nice” with Rin. Like he hadn’t been playing nice before. He’s busy enough with processing everything from his most recent gallery showing in Kyoto, organized by some of the old Hidaka art marketing department, and recovering his sleep from making the trip a “back home by morning” thing instead of a weekend or multi-day event.

Nagisa is the one to suggest a party. Gou is second to chime in, and Makoto offers to make sweets.

“We want to celebrate our recent successes and thank Rin for all of his help!” Nagisa says, scribbling on a piece of paper what everyone so far has said they’ll chip in.

Asahi says he can bring Asahi Super Dry and Sasabe even offers to supply squid to cook on a beach fire. Kisumi says he had leftover sparklers.

“Haru! What are you gonna bring?” Nagisa asks. Haru hasn’t even said he’ll be going. He sits off to the side balancing an expenses sheet he’s sure Gou will review and tell him he spoofed later. The small crew at Iwatobi SMMS can’t be louder and more annoying than the few university parties Haru was roped into. Least of all the few he was dragged out to in America, but he’d rather go home and feed the cats and grill himself his own mackerel without watching all of his friends get increasingly drunk and obnoxious.

“You gotta come. You can’t not celebrate Rin with us!” Gou shoots him the pleading eyes she knows doesn’t work on him.

“The Mikoshibas are also coming with wine and their dog!”

Haru misses the opportunity to say that he doesn’t think they should have the party at the sanctuary. That it may scare Maru, Lucky and Salt-chan. But Makoto seems to anticipate his protest.

“Haru and I won’t drink and we can feed Salt-chan before we leave. I can also drive some people home, after.”

Now Haru doesn’t really have a choice unless he wants to be ribbed for ditching their party for the next month. He tells Nagisa he can bring canned pineapple when Nagisa says he can’t bring mackerel.

When he gets home that night he finds some of the American snacks he’d taken a liking to and ordered online but no longer cares for in his cabinet and messages Nagisa that he’ll bring those as well.

The entire day before the party, Haru can feel the anticipation in the sanctuary. Asahi sweeps the welcome center quicker than he ever has, and Haru finds Makoto humming to himself while cleaning out Maru’s indoor enclosure.

Rin, of all people, doesn’t seem any different than normal. Loud and busy but not any more or less bright and happy than he usually is. The amount of Rin-fans visiting each day has plateaued since the first week, but there’s still a considerable amount. Gou and Haru get to be the makeshift bouncers that day, politely shooing away fans who get too close to Rin or any of the animals.

It’s exhausting, but Haru has seen how many more donations the sanctuary has gotten. Their limited partnership with Sanrio is enough to pay for a renovation of the main pools, and Gou and Haru have calculated that Asahi and Makoto, the part-timers, can get a raise of 500 yen per hour. Gou had somehow gotten a hold of a lawyer to work on the accelerated Sanrio contract on a pro bono basis.

Haru jogs home to gather his things. Surprising himself, he changes into new clothes, ones that he’s been told look decent, and walks back his bag of snacks and pineapple.

When he arrives back at the sanctuary, someone’s strung up lights and there’s a lot of noise coming from the top of the beach. They’re far enough away from where the seal pups stay and far enough away from the sanctuary itself to scare any of the animals, but Haru sighs at their insistence to have it here.

Would Nagisa have tried to get him to host it otherwise?

Rin is the first one to greet him. He has a can of something alcoholic in his hand and also seems to have changed out of his work clothes.

He’s less… Tokyo rockstar today, though. He’s wearing sweats and a fitted T-shirt. He’s also wearing a single earring, a red dangling tassel that’s the right shade to compliment his hair. All together, it’s something Haru’s seen guys wear in order to look attractive without trying. It’s a look that works for Rin, who clearly exercises like his career depends on it. Haru thinks it’s possible he’s gotten stronger from becoming the designated heavy-lifter of the team. It’s the newbie’s job, and nobody’s joined since Rin, so he’s still unloading heavy parcels and dragging sandbags.

Haru squints at the drink in Rin’s hand, a canned lychee abomination, when he realizes he’s been staring a little too pointedly at the idol’s shoulders.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never had a chuuhai before.”

“I don’t drink,” Haru says, eyeing the can. Which isn’t true, but it’s true recently. He’d drank in America when it seemed as though there was alcohol everywhere and all anyone ever looking forward to was drinking and dancing. And it had helped with the pent up...everything he’d felt there. There’s a lot of alcohol here, too. Only nobody asks him to drink after the first time. 

“This is barely alcoholic. It’s just for the buzz,” Rin says. Like he’s trying to be cool about it. Haru can see that the can says “5% ABV” on the front. Rin can get buzzed from that?

“You’re getting a little red,” Haru replies.

“You’re noticing,” Rin smirks at him. It's different from his usual teasing faces. There’s the edge that Haru’s been expecting for a while.

Because while Haru doesn’t like to read too far into people, he can usually tell when someone likes how he looks. Usually in order to avoid them. A few times in order to seek them out. And it’s been this thing at the back of his mind. Some small victory that even if they’ve fallen into a rhythm of blunting their jibes and losing the outright hostile routine, Rin had given him a look when they first met that Haru hadn’t reciprocated.

The party, now that Haru’s here already, might be the chance to make some bad decisions.

Rin, because he’s a fucking asshole, flicks his tongue out and lets his teeth catch his bottom lip. It’s the kind of thing that would look fucking ridiculous were Rin not Matsuoka Rin.

Haru wants one of Asahi’s Asahis. He doesn’t want to do this sober.

But Makoto had volunteered them for taking care of the sanctuary, and going toe-to-toe with Rin’s bullshit with teasing of his own is one slot below the animals on Haru’s priority list.

Haru excuses himself to walk over to the eldest Mikoshiba who apparently wants to grill the canned pineapple. All three of the siblings are there.

By the fire, Isuzu conjures a bag of sugar to coat the pineapple with and her brother begins sticking the slices on the metal grate. Haru stares at the flames, thankful that all of the Mikoshibas know him well enough that they don’t try to make meaningless small talk.

They’re debating amongst themselves about the worst pool they’ve ever swam in. Haru thinks on the question himself. Probably Miami. Definitely Miami. He shudders to himself at the thought.

“Haru, you have a least favorite pool or do you like all of ‘em?” Seijuro asks.

“Uh…the one in Miami?” He replies. “When I, you know…”

“Oh…Ikuya told me about that. That must’ve sucked.” The younger one, who’s about to edge out Seijuro in height and 50 m freestyle personal best, pipes in.

Something about Rin’s sudden disturbance of his life has Haru thinking about America more than he used to. He scared himself with the way that, after enough time has been put between that disaster and now, he’s almost fond of some of the memories. Though definitely not Miami Swim.

After he’s had enough of surrounding himself with chatter and of fighting over the last of the grilled pineapple, Haru goes back into the center to grab the black cod he saved for himself. It’s a small fish, but he plans to sidestep Nagisa’s mackerel ban and grill it on the fire when there’s spare space on the grate. He catches Rin tapping his foot along to the bass of the song Nagisa’s put on. Salted fish in one hand, non alcoholic “cocktail” from Kisumi in the other, he finds his way back to the fire, ignoring Rin’s red eyes on him.

— - —

Rin meets all of the Mikoshiba siblings for the first time and thinks— wow, so this is what it takes to be a single family with four combined Olympic medals.

He’s heard of them, of course he’s heard of the Mikoshibas. The siblings that made up 75% of Japan’s mixed medley relay at Tokyo. One year out from Paris, they’re all anyone talks about.

They’re larger than life in a way that even some of the mega stars Rin has shook hands with at awards shows and official functions are.

“You’re Rin, right?” First name basis immediately. “Your sister’s told me a lot about you.”

Mikoshiba Isuzu, OGM, is holding out her hand to shake. Like this is a business meeting. He takes it awkwardly and tries to reciprocate her solid handshake.

“Don’t scare away the man of the hour!” Mikoshiba Seijuro appears, ten centimeters taller than Rin, and as broad as one should expect a world class swimmer to be.

“I’m hardly...” Rin has grown used to being just another one of the team, and he’s always defaulted to bashfulness.

“You saved this place! Gou-san was just telling me all about it,” Mikoshiba Momoi joins the trio.

Gou-san?

“Thank you for your help,” Rin says. Remembering the posts he saw the other day. Makoto must have reached out to them.

“Nanase showed us the baby you’ve got here yesterday. We gotta leave tomorrow morning but we couldn’t miss a party,” Seijuro says between sips of his electric blue drink.

Rin nods along.

“You’re friends with Nanase Haruka?” Rin finally gets the chance to ask about Haru’s mysterious past from eyewitnesses who aren’t as protective as Makoto.

“We were on the national team together. He actually went to my university. I was the captain when he was a first year.”

“You were in your second year then, though, right?”

“What can I say, I’m just awesome,” Seijuro says, simple as that.

“So Haru...used to swim?” Leading questions, Rin. Leading questions. Like the interviewers.

“Yeah! He was scary good. It’s a shame what happened but he honestly seems a lot happier now.”

“What, uh, what happened?”

“I think he hit a wall leading up to the Olympics. We were all trying to peak for the trials and he just...I think his heart wasn’t in it. If you wanna know more you should ask the guy.”

Rin frowns but nods along.

He sees Haru out of the corner of his eye, sitting off to the side near a tree, eating what looks like fish with the plate balanced on his knee.

Rin drifts around for a while, downing more and more chuuhais as he goes, silently thanking whoever thought to bring them.

By the time Kisumi announces he’s heading home, the sand seems a bit closer, and more unsteady, and the world is bathed in warm light. Rin feels quite content to lie in it and watch the stars. Stars, he realizes he hasn’t seen for quite some time living between big cities. Airplanes and tour buses. Stadiums and dance halls.

He notices someone standing over him. He feels warmer than ever and hypersensitive. The sand almost itches, but it’s not uncomfortable.

“Haruuuu...” He mumbles. “You’ve got stars.”

Haru looks more flushed than Rin saw him before. He leans down. Maybe to try to hear what Rin is mumbling. Maybe for some other reason. And suddenly they’re both lying in the sand, Haru’s shoulder on Rin’s chest.

Maybe it’s because Rin is warm, but Haru feels cool.

Rin can smell the alcohol on Haru’s breath. “I thought you didn’t drink.”

“Makoto fed everyone. Rei brought the good sake.” Haru is as curt as ever.

They’re still lying on each other. Haru shifts so they’re only brushing shoulders and looks sideways at Rin. Hits him with his eyes the color of a certain sky.

There’s a spark of something in there. This is entirely too romantic a situation for what Rin really wants to do tonight, no matter how ill advised and counter-practical it is.

He feels warm—no, hot—and suddenly a little aware of the fact he chose to wear sweatpants. Fucking hell.

He groans when he wakes up the next morning with Nanase Haruka’s bare arm flung across his face.

The next thing Rin realizes when he wakes up is that he’s lying on the floor, on some mats, wrapped in a blanket and sheet, the fiber of the mat itchy on his back.

Haru blinks his eyes open and stares at him.

“Good morning,” he says.

“What the fuck,” Rin replies, voice struggling out of a dry throat.

“I’ll go make breakfast,” Haru says as he stands up, lets the covers fall, and Rin looks away until he realizes Haru’s wearing pants. Well worn pajama pants with a wave pattern on them.

Rin can’t put together any intelligent words. Gulps down his dry throat when he glances at Haru’s bare chest, does the guy still shave? With no better option, he, mortified, rolls back over and mentally checks over himself for any signs of...whatever happened to get him here.

There’s a tender spot below his right elbow. And he’s definitely still wearing his boxers. So maybe they just... slept. Together. 

Either way, this is going to be hot gossip at the sanctuary for the next week. 

He smells eggs frying. He wouldn’t have thought Haru owned eggs, just fish and fish and more fish. Maybe a giant bag of rice and a few vegetables for seasoning the fish.

He drags himself off the floor and lets the dizziness and steadily building ache in his skull settle.

He finds his shirt folded messily next to their floor bed and pulls that over his head, ignoring the way it smells like salt and someone spilled something sweet on it.

When he walks through the door to the kitchen, he’s met with the sight of Haru’s bare back with...a cooking apron on over...are those his swimming jammers?

He’s got a decent back. That Rin hadn’t really been able to look at much the few times he’s seen Haru shirtless. Too busy worrying after him drowning or studying his beautiful front crawl.

“I only have three eggs left. Makoto ate the rest.” Haru says as though they can both ignore the situation they woke up in.

“Are you...did we?” Classy. Rin wants to run all the way back to his mom’s house and never show his face at the sanctuary again. You’d think he’d have a better handle on his shame by now, but he’s the one who wanted to get Haru to cave while remaining unaffected and look where he is now. Rin’s not really opposed to getting his eggs cooked, fried with runny yolks the way he likes them.

“I don’t have any supplies and you fell asleep,” Haru says, transferring two eggs to one plate and one to another. He then places two slices of bread on the pan.

Haru needs supplies to have sex?

Rin realizes, through his need for painkillers and food that Haru’s probably talking about a rubber and lube. He avoids spoiling the morning by suggesting they could have done it other ways. So which of them had bailed last night? It was probably him, not Haru, based on the way the morning is going. That’s also embarrassing.

Haru places the plate with two eggs where Rin’s found himself seated before disappearing out the door opposite where they both came from. Rin hears, “Stay there,” from deeper inside the house. His eggs are getting cold.

Haru’s house is nice. It seems to have two stories and seems large enough for an entire family. Was this a family home? Did he inherit it or something? How could a retired athlete-artist-animal rescue staff afford a house like this? Even out in Iwatobi.

Haru returns with a rattling bottle of ibuprofen.

“It expired last month,” He says, holding out as he grabs his plate and sits down.

Rin snatches it, probably a bit aggressively, and downs two pills dry before stacking both eggs on his toast. Should he feel guilty when Haru, apparently a decent host despite his...everything else, gives him the two eggs?

Rin can pay him back. Should pay him back. Or even— Haru owes Rin for being a dick. These are compensation eggs.

Thankfully, neither of them are due at the sanctuary until midday. Nagisa and Asahi are probably cursing their own hungover asses for volunteering to take the morning shifts after the party.

“So...are we good?”

Haru just cocks his head. Funny.

“Do you want to...talk about it?” Rin tries. Actually a little nervous.

“About how you acted all confident until you got here, made out with the side of my mouth for a bit, told me I have nice abs, and then fell asleep in my sitting room?” Haru says this all in one breath. As though he rehearsed it.

“Oh.” Rin takes the moment to eat more eggs. “Why did you sleep with me?”

“You wouldn’t let me go when I came back with blankets.”

Okay, that’s more mortifying.

They sit in silence, the sound of Rin’s knife on the ceramic and Haru’s burnt toast crunching, interrupting the less than comfortable stillness of the morning.

“I, uh, wanted to ask you about. About what you’re doing in Iwatobi,” Rin finally says, when he’s itching to say something.

“I was born here.”

“Why are you here, like, again.”

“I live here.”

“What happened with your swimming? Why does Makoto treat you like you’re...you’re...” delicate isn’t the right word. Rin falters again. Is he really going to ruin an okay morning? When else is he going to get Haru alone to ask? He fully expects the guy to avoid him after he made a fool of himself last night. Series of bonding moments washed away by… But Haru never treated him like an idol, just an annoyance.

“He’s actually gotten better at it since everything happened,” Haru says.

“I have a friend, Sousuke, who gave up his dream so I wouldn’t be alone. But we’re on a bit of a break...from each other...right now. And I wish—”

“Makoto’s always been there for me,” It’s a surprisingly sweet thing for Haru to say. The kind of person Rin, perhaps uncharitably, expects to never outright acknowledge something like that. Haru continues, “I guess you want to know why I failed at making the Olympics and why I’ve ‘settled’, or whatever Kaede used to call it.”

Kinjou Kaede, current national record holder in the 100 and 200 meter freestyle events, Rin assumes. Though he doubts Haru cares if he knows.

Rin nods, not daring to break Haru’s actually answering the question. It’s a really straightforward way to hit the nail on the head. Maybe Haru’s just so done with him he’s willing to share. Maybe he’s a little on the miserable-exhausted side of morning-after-shouchuu, too. Post-aborted hookup existentialism.

“It just became too much trouble than it was worth. I had all these mental...blocks. And I realized I wasn’t free anymore and stopped.”

“Just like that?”

He makes it sound so simple. Like giving up all that work is simple. Rin had been so close to quitting so many times. When he sang a show while his mother was in hospital after her car crash. When he realized, at eighteen, that Samezuka had screwed him out of nearly a million yen he didn’t have the power to fight for. When he had to quit the Tokyo Municipal Sharks Swim Club in all but name so he could still say his interest was Olympic swimming without being able to spend the hours at the pool to actually aim for anything besides local meets. Only so much time in the day to train.

So Haru with his quiet house and his art job and his seal magic get to give up.

“You look angry,” Haru says it with the candor of Rin’s young cousin who tells people their shoes are ugly or that they have an annoying laugh with zero shame.

“I just don't get why...”

“I don’t care if you get it. I tried to explain…” Haru says.

“I just don't get it—”

“I just said!—whatever. Rin, I thought you’d be less of a dick about this.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re back here, too.” Rin’s being skewered by the same bright blue eyes—he thinks he can place the sky, now—that aren’t even looking directly at his own.

Oh. I guess I am, aren’t I? Back in Tottori.

Chapter Text

— + —

Rin remembers a few things about his father. He remembers that he loves him. He remembers being taken hand in hand to a large building with seals painted on the windows. He remembers seeing a small dolphin being fed with a bottle.

“It’s called the Seal and Marine Mammal Sanctuary because our founder was convinced that seals weren’t marine mammals, just mammals that lived in the ocean! In fact, the term marine mammals is an informal classification, and seals and dolphins, for example, are separated by millions of years of evolutionary time.”

For the first fifteen years of his life, Rin chases this dream his father had that became his own, wholly and maybe more completely than its inception.

And then, one winter when Rin is in middle school, he walks into the Tottori prefecture open-call auditions for Samezuka Entertainment. The rest is told across interviews and write-ups. Acceptance speeches and monologues.

It goes something like—

It’s the holiday. Rin arrives home to thick jackets and oranges. Distant temple bells and frost on the ground.

He’s tired. From his flight and from the instant release of being home. And realizes all of the pent of energy he’d been holding. The fear and the need.

Home is quiet. Sleepier than Rin and too small to hold him, now.

He sits at the kitchen table with Gou and mom and feels both too large and too different for it all.

Gou is entering her first year of junior high. Sano Middle School.

Rin says his greetings and settles into the house again. Since Gou’s completely moved into their old room, formerly shared, he drags the futon out into the dining room. They’re sitting out back while mom takes a call.

“I’m going to audition for Samezuka talent when they’re here in a few days,” Gou says, offhand. At one time she would have said this with a rush of excitement. She would have told him as soon as he came home. But she doesn’t look very excited, now.

Maybe it’s that she hadn’t been able to go to dance lessons this past fall. And for this Rin feels so, so guilty.

“Are your friends trying out, too?” Rin asks, instead of voicing any of this. He’s not sorry—Gou doesn’t want him to be—but it’s another thing to be reminded that she’s always gone all in on his dream and clipped hers.

“Yeah. We’re all going together. You should come and cheer us on. You can even audition, too.” Gou says, offhand. Like she doesn’t care either way but may as well offer.

The voice on the end of the line—a formal man who introduces himself as the VP of talent at Samezuka Entertainment says, in an important-sounding way: “You can’t dance, but you have a promising voice. You have an interesting look and already being fluent in English is a big bonus for you. We can offer you a position as a junior trainee.”

“I need to think about it.”

“Brother, you have to do it! You have to. Even if it doesn’t work out you can say you did it!” Gou is far more excited than he is. She’s more over-the-top than if it were herself.

“I can’t give up on swimming to become part of a stupid boy band,” Rin replies. He has another week before he goes back to Australia. Samezuka said they’ll handle his school withdrawal fees and defray the cost of any canceled flights or accommodations.

“Rin, they really, really want you. They don’t just do that type of thing for just anyone,” She explains as though he doesn't understand they do, in fact, want him. He knows. From the look in their eyes and the way they haven’t stopped calling the house since Monday.

“I can join a swim club in Tokyo, right?” Rin asks the faceless man on the phone.

“Yes. Though you may not have as much time as you used to, to swim. And as you know, your schooling will be remote.”

Rin manages to video call Russell and Lori to explain everything. He meets up with Sousuke after he’s signed the contract and tells him everything.

He suspects his friend will think he’s made an awful decision, and the guilt over his previous avoidance eats at him when they meet at the swim club.

“If you’re sure this is what you want to do, I can’t stop you.” Sousuke says mildly. Rin thinks he’s holding back.

“What, did Gou put you up to not tell me I’m making some horrible mistake.”

“You’re not giving up on your dream, are you?” Sousuke asks, dead serious.

Rin laughs softly. “Of course not. You know, I was kind of thinking that Australia might not be the best place...for me. I learned a lot and saw a lot but I had to spend so much extra time learning things that everyone there already knew.”

Sousuke nods like he understands. Rin could mention his guilt over enjoying the comforts of his own room with a wide bed at Russell and Lori’s. His corner store money and the way they would take him out to restaurants after his meets—win or lose.

When you’re a kid, your mind flips very quickly, with the right push or pull. Rin is sure, years later, he made the right choice, an ill-thought-out one, but right. But it takes a long time for him to get there.

Rin is a fast swimmer in Tokyo, too. For a few months, his swimming improves, even. Because he isn’t fighting against the wall of unfamiliar everything and the English language. Fast, that is, until he’s issued an ultimatum—take the two hour long dance class at the same time that morning swim practice is, or never debut.

From the fine print he was sure to read, he’s always known that while his terms are more favorable–Samezuka is respected for not being awful to its trainees–they can tell him to pack his bags and he won’t reach this new goal. He’s hooked on music, now, of all things. To think he used to joke that he was tone deaf.

The Olympics are in Tokyo, 2020. Years away but frighteningly too close. Rin, if he’s being honest, has so far to go before he makes it to the world stage swimming. The decision breaks his heart for a year.

He debuts the next fall as the only solo act of his generation. He sees how happy Gou and mom are. How much of a rush performing truly is.

Looking back, it was only a thing a middle schooler would think possible—pursue two careers that need your all at the same time. Sometimes, he thinks it just may have been possible. Samezuka, and later KOMA, always encouraged him to talk about his swimming “interest”. Once, before he admitted defeat, Sousuke sent him an article about a Korean athlete who successfully did both, compete as an international ice dancer and be a successful idol.

They tell him his music and performance give more to the world than swimming ever could have. Something about art being more valuable than performances of sport. Rin wants to argue against this. But he can’t follow professional swimming beyond Sousuke, until Sousuke quits, too, because of him. He is damn good at what he does.

He performs, off to the side but still there, at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. He tours the world. He gets a call from his sister, asking him for something, an acute rarity. She asks him to come visit her at this seal rescue she’s working at. She says he can use it to campaign for an acting role—the adaptation of the memoir he kept in his backpack for a year in elementary school. And that they could use his help. He goes because he remembers the Iwatobi SMMS. And because he wants to go home.

— - —

Three months before the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games, the first Olympics in Japan in more than two decades, Haru’s lungs decide to give up on him. He swears it’s his lungs, he’s told it’s his own head. There are sports psychiatrists with medicine and exercises, and friends who offer “anything you need” and coach Azuma, who seems to understand more than he lets on.

“Nanase, you’re having a panic attack.”

Haru swears his lungs are trying to strangle him. It’s as though he’s just swam a 400 meter race at a 100 meter pace but worse. In races, he gets air even though it’s painful. Now, he can’t breathe. There’s this pit of fear that seems to expand outside of his body somewhere behind his ribs. He can’t focus on anything around him besides Azuma’s voice, and that only makes it worse.

“Nanase!”

“What happened in America?” Makoto asks. Straightforward.

“I swam.”

Makoto tells him that’s not a good answer without opening his mouth.

“I’m glad to be back.” Haru tries again. It’s the answer to the wrong question, but Makoto takes it.

“Welcome back, Haru.” A smile that almost fixes this.

Haru does truly fight through 2020 All-Japan. Olympic qualification on the line. He fights against himself and against the water and against the betrayal of his own lungs. Or maybe it’s his brain if there’s nothing wrong with his lungs, themselves. But it’s done before it starts.

It all catches up to him because of course it does. The crowd. The sponsors. Azuma in his ear, at his back. The president of Japan Swim’s refusal to address him as anything but “boy”, like the distant relative Haru doesn’t have.

—don't want to be here I don’t want to be here, I don’t want to be here —Dominates his mind through all of the breathing exercises and Sakurai’s ‘mindfulness practice’ and the thousands of hours of remaking himself to get here.

So he gives up his spot for someone who does want it. In finality, it’s settled in the pool, but he loses before his hands leave the block.

Swimming isn’t supposed to be agony. There’s the rush of winning and the open arms of the water and the proving that he can win his way.

But this close to the ultimate goal, to someone’s ultimate goal, he stops.

Haru can bear the disappointment. He can, because it’s actually over.

It is not even his disappointment. It’s Tsukamoto’s and Azuma’s and maybe a little bit Makoto’s, though he doesn’t say anything. Maybe on Makoto’s front it’s more guilt. Frustration, even?

Albert calls when Japan Swim announces their official Tokyo-bound team.

“I looked forward to swimming with you.” Albert has the whim to use English today. Haru’s learned all of four Swedish words but Albert seems to think they can communicate in his language. He must really want Haru to hear him if he’s going for English.

“I’ll be in Tokyo.” Haru thinks Albert can understand the short sentence in Japanese. They’d exchanged words in their respective languages but Albert’s a natural study at most things so his score at the time of their last meet was nearing 40, plus elementary grammar. Haru will be in the city. Not in the village nor the Aquatics Center.

They leave it at that. Albert’s retiring after the season and he can leave unchallenged. No matter what Haru once thought, fighting that guy isn't his job or his dream. Albert doesn’t seem to hold it against him. But he seems to be the only one.

Makoto brings it up. “You know Haru, no matter what Nagisa says, I actually can’t read your mind.”

“What do you want me to say, Makoto? I’m done, you think I messed up.”

“I don’t…I don’t think you messed up.”

“Then I don’t want your…your pity…”

“Haru, I’m worried about you. We’re all worried about you. Your coach, your friends.”

“Azuma’s worried about his wasted time.” Haru says, though he isn’t sure he believes this bitter thought any more.

“Have you spoken to him? Have you asked him?”

“No, I don’t have to.”

“You should talk to him.”

Azuma tells Haru a lot of things that don’t make much sense, at the time. Like how he doesn’t regret training him. That Haru’s still young. That Haru should take a step back and that he’s talented enough to give swimming a try again, if he wants to, sometime in the future.

Haru can only thank him and then thank Makoto, silent gratitude, and move on.

He finds something—everything—in the Iwatobi Seal and Marine Mammal Sanctuary. Peace. Something new to care about and wake up for—the animals, who seem to understand him better than most of the people, who always wanted something more than what he could give.

The sanctuary is on unsteady ground, but it’s Haru’s sanctuary, too, so he can ignore the things he can’t control until he’s off to find another lifeline again.

He has home, and Makoto’s back in Iwatobi, too. He sells his art. He watches seals return from cages to the open ocean and thinks, I don’t want anything to change.

All of the changes had made him miserable.

In his third spring at Iwatobi SMMS, Matsuoka Rin appears in front of the sanctuary looking like trouble and change. Like Tokyo at his doorstep.

— + —

Chapter Text

Haru can tell that Rin begins his plans for moving on, after that. Rin’s setting goals with an end. He’s being more formal. He’s spending more time making videos and calling sponsors and less time working with the team.

Haru can’t say he’s upset that Rin is avoiding him. His own lackluster attempt at getting Rin to stop pushing about whatever he wants to know about Haru’s life before coming back to Iwatobi backfired, and Haru has the distinct feeling Rin’s ashamed of his behavior after the party.

It was all kind of cute and a bit surreal. Haru isn’t sure he’s met someone so baselessly confident and unable to hold his drink. The image of Rin falling asleep on his floor after gripping Haru’s arm and convincing them both to lie there stays in his mind.

Haru has seen a lot of bravado. Rin’s is special.

Gou corners him the evening after and elbows him in the rib. Hard.

“What did you do with my brother?” She asks, clearly searching for the details.

“What did I do?" Haru repeats, a bit indignantly.

“My brother won’t admit it, but he’s actually a good boy and doesn’t just…doesn’t just go home with guys after parties.”

“Guess he really likes me, then.” Haru 2, Rin 0.

“I think he does, actually,” She says this with a sudden seriousness.

When Haru thinks about it, he decides that Rin just hasn’t been able to stop and look at himself and think, Oh, I’m kind of miserable. Were they both young enough to care about chemistry alone, maybe Haru would let Rin mess up his barely reassembled life a little more.

But Rin’s leaving soon. And Haru is counting the days until he can go back to everything as it was.

Kaede calls him.

“So you and that Matsuoka guy?” Kaede’s voice instantly sends Haru into a sour mood. Did Momoi blab?

Haru hangs up.

Kaede, who easily dropped him with a, “I can’t wait up for someone who can’t hack it,” was his last something-with-benefits, and seems to be bored enough to follow the Japan Swim-Iwatobi rumor mill. Haru was glad he wasn’t weird about Haru’s departure. Or worse— sorry.

Haru takes an early morning one day, a week before Rin’s official departure date.

They’ve managed to do nothing but exchange polite (or impolite) “hellos” and only speak to each other when strictly required. Makoto and Gou seem to disapprove of their methods of dealing with the non issue, but they’re both content to leave it be.

Haru can sometimes feel Rin looking at him. Glaring or staring or whatever it is. He’s sure Rin has, what? a crush on him despite all of Haru’s best efforts to do all of his worst, save outright being an actual asshole. He feels like he’s in high school again, ignoring the few people who were very obvious with being too shy to confess to him.

Their careful dance comes to an abrupt stop when Gou decides she’s had enough and locks them in the shed together. Haru knows it’s Gou because Gou’s the only one who knows how to lock the thing from the outside. Makoto must have helped, being the one to tell Haru to get a pack of freeze dried squid for trick training, knowing full well Rin was already in there, trying and failing to find the exact package.

“What are they, fucking middle schoolers?” Rin snaps, shaking the door.

The only light in the shed is a naked bulb. A dull thing that flickers ever so slightly.

Rin has a point. This isn’t the way adults handle a problem that will be resolved, and more permanently, in a few days anyway.

Haru thinks about suggesting they make out. It’s what Gou probably wants. It’ll pass the time. Rin will be happy. He’s a horrible kisser drunk. Maybe sober it’ll be nicer?

“I thought about what you said,” Rin says, shattering the truce of their silence.

Not this again. Haru doesn't say anything.

“I’m not running from anything. I just like it here,” Rin continues.

“You’ve moved hotels twice and you extended your stay for another month.”

“I always had an open schedule. Why not stay as long as I can help out?”

“Everyone here treats you like a normal person and you want to keep that,” Haru says. It was Kisumi who had noticed this. Even the fans were tamer, once they got out to the small seaside town. The staff treated Rin like any other newbie—heavy parcels and smelly fish oil scrubbing. Invitations for drinks after work (declined), and trust to care for the animals as well as anyone else.

“Of course I like how welcoming everyone here is,” Rin says. “Who wouldn’t?”

Haru frowns.

Rin keeps going. “I realized I stayed because it’s nice to feel like I’m doing something good. I used to think I didn’t deserve all that I got, and it’s great to be able to give back.”

What a bullshit answer. It sounds like something on a press script.

Haru doesn’t dignify that with a response.

They sit in silence that grows increasingly loud until Haru can pick up the sound of Rin’s breath. He’s stopped looking for a way out.

“So how will we get them to let us out?”

“They’ll let us out when they want to.” Haru’s pretty sure.

More silence.

“The reason I stopped swimming was because I developed a panic disorder from international competition that I couldn’t manage,” Haru says. A better explanation, hopefully one Rin won’t argue with. “I didn’t want to hate swimming anymore.”

“But you swam in the Olympic trials,” Rin says. Is that concern?

“I couldn’t withdraw by then. After the semis I decided it was over.”

“But you still swam.”

“I wanted to let the water decide for me.”

— - —

Rin stares at Haru across the low lit room. The shed smells like fish and wet wood. The light glances off Haru's cheeks and sets the shadows of his eyelashes across them.

Running isn’t the right way to put it. Rin isn’t running. He’s taking a break. He’s giving himself time and space from Sousuke’s confession and recouping after his first international tour.

He has realized, after thinking Haru’s unhelpful explanation over several times, that he wasn’t quite fair to him when they’d argued at his house. Speaking past each other over a plate of eggs.

“And you’re...happier, now?” Rin asks. Because that’s supposed to be what matters. Not success or fulfillment. Rin is reaching for all three. It frustrates Rin to no end that someone as brilliant as Haru has decided to park himself here. Haru’s here to tell him that’s not his right to be frustrated about…

“I don’t have to be anything here,” Haru says, as if on cue.

For someone who spent almost a decade working himself to the bone to be something, hearing those words is a slap in the face. But Rin thinks he gets it a little bit better.

And what’s more, Rin has seen the competitive fire in Haru’s eyes. Over everything from carrying heavy things to playing pickup with Kisumi to calling shotgun.

“You were a prodigy, right? You won a bunch of local tournaments as a kid. Makoto told me.”

“My grandmother said that at ten, you’re a genius. At fifteen you’re a prodigy. And at twenty, you’re just ordinary.”

Rin waits to let him finish that thought. Because what the fuck does that mean. Who says that to a kid?

“I hated how people talked about me and looked at me and how they saw my swimming as something for them. I went to university because Makoto was going to Tokyo and I swam because why wouldn’t I. And then I wasn’t ordinary at twenty.”

“You didn’t like being exceptional?” I want to make you want more, again, but I’m not sure if I should.

“The thing I was always the best at was the thing that made me the most miserable when I finally did it, for real.”

Rin isn’t sure why Haru is saying all this. To pass the time. To treat Rin as a sounding board for his…processing. They’re having the strangest argument Rin has ever had. Ordinary or extraordinary.

Rin doesn’t get it, but he really wants to get Haru. Rin wants to catch more of the Haru who puts him at awe.

“Want to talk about anything else?” Rin asks. Simple. They’ll find another topic. One less filled with minefields and chances to let words come out wrong.

“Why did you kiss me?” Haru asks, almost smiling.

“I was drunk!”

“You still kissed me. You should have backed it up.” Tease. Haru’s actually laughing at him. A joke isn’t a rejection, though.

“Apparently I fell asleep.”

“On top of me.” Haru says.

“You don’t have to be a dick about it. I’m...”

“You’re already embarrassed. It’s okay. I’ve seen worse.” Haru hums.

Rin doesn’t ask about the context behind that.

“I’m...I’m glad you feel better in Iwatobi, Haru,” he settles on. Deciding he’d rather talk about life choices than his own shame.

“I’m glad you liked it here.” Haru replies, clipped.

They don’t end up kissing in the feed shed. Eventually Haru gets bored of talking and begins carving a piece of wood from his pocket.

“You can ... whittle wood, too?” Rin asks.

“I carve. Like the keychains out front.” Haru says.

Rin pictures the keychains. Some of them are of hideous animals, deep sea fishes, but the ones of seal alumnus are quite cute, and all of them are well done. He realizes that he’s never seen Haru’s art. And hadn’t ingratiated himself enough to ask about it.

Instead, Rin settles on a hum of understanding.

Makoto lets them out with a smile, apologizing profusely. “Gou didn’t say she was going to lock the door!” The entirety of the staff on duty look at them with disappointment when they get back to the center. Did they expect them to do the seven minutes in heaven routine?

That would have been less uncomfortable than talking.

After the shed, Rin spends his final days gathering up all the loose ends and saying his goodbyes. Making sure there’s a plan for when he isn’t leading every promotional project.

Once more, for old time’s sake, he scrubs the walls of the nursery until he’s interrupted by Salt-chan’s wailing. The quickly growing seal pup is needy and demanding and has lost his fear of humans, for better or worse. Rin is able to stick his hand in and wait for Salt-chan to get mad that he doesn’t have any fish on him. Lunchtime is soon. He’ll have to wait.

It’s getting even warmer. Spring is becoming summer, and the summers back home are always brutal. This one is shaping up to be no different. All of the staff completely trade out their light jackets for their T-shirts and summer shorts early. Haru’s been the only one to dress like it’s July in May. Rin takes to wearing a practical wide-brimmed hat bought from the gift shop once his nice ones are all packed away.

He feels closer than ever to at least one of his goals. Spending his limited vacation helping a struggling animal rescue near his hometown, one he has a “personal connection” to, has got to be a point in his favor for his next big break. Sousuke’s agreed to meet with him when he’s back in Tokyo, and whatever fear he’d felt over how things had gone down with his friend had vanished in an instant.

Rin’s final day is bittersweet. They decide to hold a beach day for him on a neighboring beach. The pupping season is in full swing, so they can’t take over the beach next to the sanctuary, but the beach Nagisa brings them to is also quiet and calm.

It’s just the immediate crew—Nagisa, Makoto, Asahi, Kisumi and Haru.

Haru immediately abandons them all to swim slow laps some twenty meters past the break point, barely a dot kicking up sea foam with his flutter kicks.

Rin hangs back on the beach, considering his options. He’ll have to explain away his tan to everyone back in Tokyo. Despite wearing sunscreen religiously, it was impossible not to be out in the sun. He’d lost himself in the freedom of being away from it all, but he’ll have something great to show for it.

His image is rebellious—calculated and cool—but rebellious, anyway. He can fold what he’s learned and done here into the image, too.

Nagisa’s boyfriend, Rei, shows up when Rin’s settled into reading a book under an umbrella. Haru’s somehow still out there, swimming as easily as ever. Rin can tell Makoto’s watching him, but there’s no nervousness in the way he’s sitting, looking quite relaxed for once, cloud watching.

Eventually, one by one, everyone goes into the water, and Rin decides he should probably join them. He runs down the beach, hot sand burning his feet, and into the waves. When everyone hangs back in the shallows, he swims out to Haru. The water is clear and still quite cool, but his skin is hot from the sun.

Haru squints at him when he turns his head to breathe but doesn’t try to swim away. Rin pulls up beside him, swimming in parallel, and before he knows it, they’re racing in the open ocean.

It’s surprisingly difficult to maintain a perfect course in the open water with no lane lines. Rin swears he almost runs into Haru’s legs before he gets the hang of swimming straight, even when he takes a side breath. Neither of them are wearing goggles. Haru, though he must have been swimming for the better part of an hour, slowly draws away from Rin. By the time they both pull to a stop, their friends are colorful dots back on their little strip of beach.

“You almost lost to a guy who hasn’t swum since high school!” Rin says, spitting out seawater and laughing. It felt good to race again. Even in such an unserious way.

It’s one thing to watch Haru swim, another to chase him in the water. Of all the things Rin’s seen Haru do as though he was made to do them, this is different. Rin figures Haru wouldn’t appreciate him saying this.

“You had more energy, Rin.”

“You’re supposed to be a professional athlete.” Rin dares to say.

Haru just huffs. They’re both treading water.

Rin spots an island in the distance. He wonders if he could swim out that far. He thinks back to the kid that used to be terrified of the ocean.

It takes him a beat to notice that Haru’s pointing at something. Somewhere between the island and where they are, a dolphin leaps out of the water.

“Dolphins!” Rin yells. Haru gives him a look. “I’m the one who saw them, idiot,” he seems to say without words.

To Rin’s amazement, some of the dolphins look like they’re swimming towards them. Rin is sure they'll turn back soon, but they don’t. Rin can see them circling them and hear them chirping. When he ducks underwater and opens his eyes, ignoring the salt sting, he sees them doing what he can only call playing.

Haru is completely still, just looking. He has this funny look on his face. Somewhere between happy and sad. It’s taken him almost two months to think he can really read his subtle expression. Like Sousuke, he seems to emote less than he thinks he does, and only in bare quantities. Anything you can’t get from what he says you have to guess, and he’s kind of hard to read.

They stay there for almost fifteen minutes, just watching the dolphins play. Neither of them try to interact, but it’s one thing to see them in the stress of trying to save them. Another thing to just watch them be as they are. To borrow Haru’s favorite word, free.

Eventually, once the dolphins have swam off, Rin follows Haru back to shore, surrendering to some easy side stroking when Haru’s front crawl relaxes enough for him to keep up.

Rin feels like this entire time he’s been getting closer then further then closer again to Haru.

This is one of the close moments, but it’ll be the last.

They meet everyone in the shallows.

Rin tries to explain, breathlessly, what it’s like to be so close to dolphins, just swimming in the ocean.

“It must be Haru’s dolphin magic,” Asahi says sagely

“I thought you were the seal guy, Haru. Dolphins, too?” Kisumi adds.

“Haru once saved a dolphin in the Tokyo bay when he was doing open water training. The dolphin’s living at an aquarium, now!” Nagisa says with excitement. Haru’s expression turns bitter at this.

He must not think dolphins belong in aquariums, right?

Rin wonders how he’s never heard that story, here or before. That sounds like something that would make local news—a swimmer saves an injured dolphin in the bay.

They stay at the beach until the sun’s about to set before relieving Sasabe who’s been holding down the fort with his girlfriend, Miho Amakata.

Sasabe waves them all goodbye breezily and leaves them to clean up the small mess he and Amakata left in the break room— it’s the least we could do for you kids!

They’ve all agreed to have a sleepover at the sanctuary for Rin’s last night. Rin had no part in planning this, but he figures it’ll be a nice way to say goodbye.

He gives a sappy speech when all his bags are packed. He remembers crying, and Haru giving him a funny look.

“…and…and I’m just happy I met all of you, you know, right guys? This place has always been really important to—to me. My dad, he—he took me here a lot as a kid, and you guys have been so welcoming and. And I’m glad I could help! Thank you! Let’s keep in touch!”

Rin says a lot of words, as always, but Haru sees the truth in his eyes. He has Rin’s number, but knows neither of them will reach out.

— - —

Haru, despite himself, finds himself looking back for Rin near constantly after he leaves.

He was an unrestrained presence. A heavy stone in a still pond. Loud and always there. Sending out ripples. Haru expects his excitement and energy where there’s now dead air.

How could he not miss him? Or at least notice the space he’s left behind.

Makoto gives him more cheeky looks. One particularly warm day, a Rin-fan asks after him and Makoto notices Haru’s, quote-en-quote “longing” face. Haru calmly aims the water trough hose at his friend’s knees.

Haru settles back into all of the routines he’d given up over Rin’s stay, with a few new ones.

He’s been put in charge of most of the scheduled live animal feeding sessions for visitors. As the summer continues, more and more people come, even though Rin isn’t here as an attraction anymore.

Salt-chan becomes an ambassador until they decide that he’ll be better off at the Osaka Aquarium where they have another spotted seal his age, also with growth issues, and some juvenile sea lions they plan to socialize all together.

So it’s just Maru, again. Her vision’s going and she’s too used to the sanctuary. A move would scare her.

Haru accepts Makoto’s offer to bring him to the Iwatobi Swim Club.

For almost three years, he’s managed to avoid an indoor pool. He’s completely cut himself off from having to stand next to one. From having to listen to the unique acoustics and smell the chlorine smell.

Makoto tells him, multiple times, that it’s okay if he has to step out at any time.

Haru tells himself that he isn’t doing this for any particular reason. Only that he thinks he should, and it feels like the right time to try.

It’s after an animal transport van arrives for Salt-chan and Haru loads him into a carrier with his favorite toy and promises he’ll visit him in Osaka. Salt-chan just looks at him with glassy eyes. You’ll have all the fish you can eat. They always take good care of their seals.

It’s surprisingly the feel of the tile on his bare feet that starts the same old cycle that drove Haru out of the pool in the first place. He feels his lungs shrink. He feels Makoto’s grip on his wrist and his concerned eyes. He rips his hand away and tries strategy one—just breathe.

He does his even-count breaths. He tries to focus on things he can see and smell and hear. He can distantly hear Makoto’s voice in his ear. He makes it to the edge of the pool—he isn’t sure how he got there, before he decides he’s tried hard enough.

Makoto tells him they can try again another day. If Haru wants. They do. One day he’s swimming laps, co-teaching Makoto’s junior class. It gets better but Haru isn’t going back, not like that.

It’s Nagisa who starts them—the Rin content marathons. They watch interviews and concert clips and promotional material from when he was much younger. Nagisa herds them into the break room where he’s set up his laptop. Rin’s hair was always long like that. His shark smile was the same, too. He always spoke with the same brightness. He’s fluent in English, learned in Australia when he was studying abroad in Sydney, trying to become an Olympic swimmer.

In the clips from his shows he’s electric. He plays an actual guitar, Kisumi explains that his red and black colored instrument is “a custom model from a really awesome company”. He jumps around the stage, smiles through the whole thing, and sings like it’s what he was born to do. In real life, he was just another passing comet. On stage, even through the video screen, Haru can’t deny he’s worth his stardom. The people with stars in their eyes when they saw him at the sanctuary.

I really thought I could…compete with? Hold something? Over him.

There’s that voice again. “You know, Haru. I think you’re going to meet someone soon who makes you want more than this.”

There are things Haru wants in the abstract. To someday take over Iwatobi SMMS as an owner or manager. Before Rin they were on the ropes. And their future is still unstable.

Sasabe said Haru needed a relevant degree and “real-world experience” to take over the sanctuary himself. Because of their being accredited. That it was a big responsibility, and Haru should really think it over, and then give himself the time to go back to school, if he was interested. That had been more than a year ago.

“I know you’ve only been here a year, but I want to marry Miho and we want to move to her parents’ old place in Mie. Makoto said you’d be interested in taking this place over. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think you could do it, with the right support.”

Haru wants to keep the sanctuary mostly as it is, Rin-related compromises aside, but he’s sure that he’s one of the few people who would see it through for the rest of his life.

Now, he can see small pieces of the future. He can’t yet admit that part of it includes being brave enough to be the person Matsuoka Rin will find interesting for more than a few months.

Despite Gou’s teasing and Makoto’s spare comments about keeping in touch with Rin, Haru never opens the contact Matsuoka Rin in his phone. He receives no messages, either.

Again, he hears Azuma’s, “Well, you’ve got all the time in the world,” ring out in his mind. Still, there are times he thinks he has no time at all.

So he has his swimming. This thing he’s good at. A thing he likes, loves, when it doesn’t hurt too much to stand.

And this thing he wants to do. “I thought about what you offered. Congratulations on your engagement, Sasabe. I want to go back to school.”

Tokyo is waiting, again, in a different way. He makes some calls and sends some messages and waits. At least, if nothing works, he’s not unhappy. Just, he has to admit. He hadn’t noticed he’d gotten restless.

— - —

Rin meets Sousuke the day after he gets back to his Tokyo apartment. They find themselves in a quiet hotel bar where they’re assured nobody can see nor bother them.

“I thought about what you told me. I’m sorry if I was unintentionally cruel, uh, when we were kids,” Rin says. After they’ve settled in, Rin doesn’t want to hold his punches. He’s been mulling over his reply to Sousuke since he left, and he wants to say something as soon as he can.

“Aren’t all kids cruel? I’m over it. I just...on tour I realized that I’d finally gotten over my feelings for you and I thought I should tell you.”

“I’m glad you told me.” Rin says. He is glad.

“Sounds like you had a good time in Tottori, huh?” Sousuke is teasing.

“What slander have you heard?” Rin is sure Sousuke’s gotten all the slander from Gou.

“You and that Nanase guy?”

“How did you hear?”

“I have my sources.” Gou, surely.

“What do you need to know?”

“Nothing. I’m glad you got some when you were away. Nanase’s hot, even if he’s an asshole.”

Rin must make a face because Sousuke laughs at him. Big and unrestrained guffawing. Rin had forgotten that Sousuke would have met Haru when he competed.

“Did you...did you not even do anything?” Sousuke asks.

“Uh.”

“Don’t tell me you had Nanase wrapped around your finger and you just stared at each other like idiots.” Sousuke looks genuinely invested in Rin’s failure to make something out of…whatever he and Haru felt for each other back in Iwatobi.

“Wrapped around my finger? What the—?”

“Your sister tells the best stories.”

“I can’t believe Gou—what about you? What have you been up to?”

“Stuff. Music. Girls.”

“You’re messing around with girls, now?”

“Kinda worked my way through all the guys in the Tokyo scene.”

“All of them?” Rin is sure he knows of at least a dozen. Only a few of them are Sousuke’s type. “Sousuke, it’s been two months."

Sousuke takes his chance to tease more, “...Actually, I think you were the stick in the mud, Rin. Nanase would’ve been happy with a one and done but you’ve always been...what’s the word...” Sousuke’s got his shit eating grin. Rin wants to lunge at him. And he would if they weren’t in a nice restaurant with drinks in crystal glasses on the table between them.

“...Ah...hopeless romantic. You’re a hopeless romantic!”

“Shut up!”

Because, the thing is, Rin has always believed in something like soulmates or true love or whatever you want to call it. It bleeds into some of his more sentimental songs. Into his more heartfelt interviews. It’s what many of his fans say they like about him—Matsuoka Rin has a lot of heart.

His mother, he knows because she told him, “I think I’ll always be in love with your father, Rin,” had planted the seed. She’d told stories about distant relatives far back in her family tree performing grand gestures of love, “Us Tosakas have always been romantics, I think.”

And he’s seen love like that work with his own eyes, and it’s kept him afraid. The women down the street who would bake them bread and share vegetables from their garden. Some of the celebrity power couples who had private ceremonies and still live happily together. Hell, even what Nagisa and Rei back in Iwatobi seemed to have, though Rin had been a bit too busy with all eyes on just one of the Iwatobi crew to notice as much.

Rin isn’t in love with Haru, but he thinks he could be. And it would really suck if this is all they’ll ever be—a missed connection. One kiss.

It’s probably the distance that’s turned him into this after outright avoiding Haru before he could make his escape back to real life.

“Too bad the guy lives back home. I think if he were still in Tokyo you could actually try dating someone kind of normal,” Sousuke says. Maybe Gou put him up to this, too.

Chapter Text

In early fall, Haru enters a local amateur open water race, paints what can only be described as a barely abstracted rendition of his bottlenose encounter with Rin, and considers what he actually wants to do with the rest of his life. A lot of him still wants to stay still and quiet and the only kind of free that’s ever come easy.

Ikuya offers to show him around his alma mater. Shimogami has a reputable marine biology program. A graduate program that accepts non-traditional path students and is still accepting applications so late in the year. 

Makoto looks overjoyed that Haru entered the 5k race and takes him to a fancy looking restaurant and izakaya afterwards. Makoto offers him a towel on the beach after the race and takes a photograph of him with his medal—heavy gilded plastic—in the light of the bar’s steps.

The Osaka Aquarium invites all of the Iwatobi crew to visit Salt-chan in their main seal enclosure. Apparently he’s a fast learner and a visitor favorite. There’s even some season pass holders who want to see him, specifically, when he’s off exhibit.

Haru’s the only Iwatobi staff that can make it to Osaka. Not tied down by the final stage of vet school, like Nagisa. Nor with other responsibilities like Makoto, Gou, and Asahi. His dolphin painting was sold online for enough to get him through the month. The anonymous buyer commented, “I like the inclusion of the surreal red character and blue streaks, it adds a dimension of color.” So Haru has time on his hands.

He goes to Osaka because he figures it’s only polite. To be a representative of Iwatobi SMMS at the aquarium that they've chosen to partner most closely with, at least in terms of animal care. Osaka is close enough, and the aquarium is a worldwide destination. They’re lucky.

The train takes more than three hours. Haru choses a middling hostel to stay for the night and arrives at the aquarium early in the morning.

He has a free day pass and isn’t due at the seal exhibit until noon, so he spends the day exploring the aquarium. He spends an hour with the deep sea exhibit, and stares for quite some time at the giant pacific octopus in the darkened corner of her tank. He swears she stares right back at him.

In the largest tank there’s skates, rays, sharks and several species of pelagic fish. They swim around in circles. Lazily, easily. Something in Haru’s chest aches for them. They could be free but they’re not. Hopefully, this is all they know. He can’t imagine knowing the whole ocean and then spending the rest of his life in a tank. He spots a bluefin tuna. When he walks under the underwater tunnel, he sees the young whale sharks from below. They’re massive. He doesn’t want to think about how, were they allowed to grow up, they’d never fit, even in the largest aquarium tank in the world.

He’s here for a reason. He’s grateful that the aquarium is taking care of Salt-chan. He really is.

He reaches the seal exhibit fifteen minutes before he’s supposed to. A friendly staff member invites him through an unmarked door after she sees him and his special wristband. “You’re Nanase-san, right?”

He nods.

“We wanted to show you the behind the scenes, too. So you can be assured we’re taking the best care of your rescue.” She’s speaking to him in the tone you would a young child. Maybe it’s an aquarium staff thing.

The indoor enclosure has blue painted concrete walls on all sides—no natural light—and rubber mats on the floor. The acoustics are a little too much like a natatorium. Something seizes in Haru’s chest again.

He hears a voice.

“...Yeah, I was there when they rescued him! He was so small and skinny! We tried to rehabilitate him for release, but we decided it would be best to send him to you guys. I’m glad you’ve taken such good care of him!” It’s Rin. And he’s...speaking English? Haru can’t see him around the corner, but he assumes one of the keepers must be a foreign specialist or student or something.

“It was a great experience to work with the sanctuary, yeah! I had a...a bit of extra credit to do a community service project for my future plans—it’s still a secret—but it was really the best way to do it. I met some really cool people.”

Haru freezes. “Extra credit”. Even after his loud parting declarations about his father’s past with the sanctuary and his own childhood memories of it.

“There’s this one guy. Haru....

“...He’s really passionate about marine mammal conservation and rescue. It’s really awesome! His ideals about release and animals being free. I’m not sure how much he’d like the aquarium, but he didn’t, like, stop you guys from taking Salt, so I guess he understands.”

The woman Rin must be talking to says something Haru doesn’t catch.

“Yeah, no, Haru’s great...I actually, well, I’ve actually been meaning to try to see him again. You guys should invite him here. He has this way with animals that’s like magic. And he’s just really cool. He’s like one of those people—you just get drawn to them, you know? You’d get it if you met him.

“One time, we were swimming in the ocean and a small pod of dolphins swam right up to us. I swear he just has this...this...”

The woman says something else that Haru can’t catch. Rin’s tone shifts from rapid-fire excitement to enthusiastic charisma.

Haru tries to ignore the impact of Rin’s words about him. That sounded like a confession about him, to some stranger, in another language.

“Thank you for having us, Marie! I haven’t practiced my English in a while, so sorry if I’m rusty! Yeah, I spent a bunch of years in Australia. You can hear the accent, right?”

The staff member takes this moment to gesture Haru into the room, divided by a chain fence with mesh over it, where Rin is.

Haru isn’t sure what he wants to do. He just stares.

“Oh, hi Haru! I didn’t know they invited you, too,” Rin is still smiling. Still speaking fast, like he did in English. Haru had barely caught it all. He’d improved a lot in his six months in California, but he hadn’t kept up with it at all. What need did he have to understand English anymore, anyway?

“It’s great to know that you only came to help us for ‘extra credit’ , Rin,” Haru says instead of a greeting. He considers saying something in English. To prove something. Maybe Rin would have explained it all to him if he’d asked. If there had been the right time. He’s talking about it shamelessly, now. But it’s another slap in the face. He sought us out for an assignment. For his career.

And then there’s the part of him that’s still reeling from hearing, “...you just get drawn to them?” Rin’s still talking about being drawn to him.

It feels like victory. And something else Haru doesn’t want to entertain, not right now.

“You heard me? I didn’t know you...” … You were going to be here? You could understand my funny Australian English?

Haru is aware that they’re ignoring their hosts to have this conversation here and now.

“I spent six months as an exchange student in America, to experience the competition over there,” Haru says.

Rin looks genuinely surprised by this. “Oh. Well. Let’s see Salt-chan, shall we, Haru?”

Because Haru does have manners, and they’re getting funny looks, Haru nods once. Let’s see Salt-chan.

Salt-chan has grown twice the size since they last saw him. He’s plump and happy. His flipper is still at a strange angle and small, but he’s plenty lively. He barks at Haru and shakes his head at Rin. Haru resists the urge to visibly gloat over this.

The aquarium keepers let them feed him. Salt-chan approaches Haru directly but snatches the food quickly out of Rin’s hand.

“You really are good with seals, Nanase-san!” The staff member who greeted him says warmly. “He never takes it from my hand, like that.”

“I’m like his mother,” Haru replies, deadpan. Salt’s mother would actually be more Asahi, who bottle fed him the most, but Haru had slept in his stall—a quick nap in the mid afternoon—once, so maybe he can be an honorary auntie.

They watch Salt-chan in the seal show. He does a single trick—bounces a ball off his nose and back at the keeper—and claps when it’s over. Haru isn’t sure how he feels about any of it, but Salt-chan’s off-exhibit enclosure is larger than the pools at the sanctuary and temperature controlled, with special monitors for things like acidity and filter status.

Salt-chan will be fine.

“Marie, this is Nanase Haruka,” Rin introduces Haru in clear Japanese. “Marie’s a student from New Zealand who’s doing a residency here.”

“Hello. Nice to meet you, Marie,” Haru says, in English, looking at Rin instead of Marie.

They find their way to the staff lunch room. It’s across a wall from the visitor cafeteria and equipped with a kitchen, fridge, and access to the visitor cafeteria food for a discounted price and self-service.

Rin gets a colorful salad and Haru gets steamed whitefish.

Haru waits for Rin to say something. He’s still upset, but he hasn’t sustained the same visceral anger at Rin through seeing Salt-chan and saying his thank yous to the staff. It’s quite possible he’s just not able to stay actually angry at Rin for long.

“How have you been?” Rin asks, looking up from his food.

“I’m swimming again.”

Rin raises both eyebrows impressively high. A piece of carrot falls out of his mouth. Haru resists the urge to reach out and flick it off of his chin.

“I’m doing some casual open water stuff,” He adds.

“That’s...that’s really cool,” Rin says with a genuine smile.

Haru was sure Rin would make a face at the admission. He’s not actually swimming, he’s swimming in the ocean, beating vacationers and triathletes on a taper.

“How have...how have you been?” Haru asks. It’s only symmetrical. Polite.

“I’ve been really good,” Rin breaks into a grin. “You know that thing I mentioned? Why I ended up at the sanctuary?”

Haru nods. If Rin’s reason for showing up was “extra credit”, he spent his time at the sanctuary doing “extra credit” on his extra credit. Rin seems appropriately guilty for never mentioning why he’d appeared at the sanctuary in the first place. Plus, Haru’s still gloating over taking Rin by surprise, again, with knowing English enough to follow his rapid-fire information blitz he’s given Marie.

“Yeah.”

“Basically Gou made this plan for me. So I’m trying to get a part in a movie, right? It’s gonna be a really big thing. It’s about this guy who saves a sea lion... and, and some other stuff.”

“Some other stuff?”

“Well. It’s apparently inspired by a story about a fisherman’s son. And this guy’s memoir—I read it as a kid. His dad, uh, died in a storm like mine and I always-I always cared so much about that book. And the director likes people who can act with experience. Mainly Gou put me up to it, though. I think I would have joined you all at the sanctuary even if the movie weren’t happening. It’s still all up in the air…”

“Mn,” Haru picks at his food.

That is one hell of a reason to get into seal conservation. Perhaps stranger than Asahi’s “I want girls to think I’m an emotional, caring guy.”

“I didn’t know you knew English,” Rin says after pausing to eat.

“I studied abroad in California for six months.”

“Really?”

“With Kirishima Ikuya and Tono Hiyori.”

“They’re both on Team Japan, right?”

“Yes.”

“We don't have any super competitive open water swimmers, do we?” Rin asks, not subtle at all.

“I’m not trying to swim for the world again, Rin.”

“But you could, if you tried.”

“I could. In a year or two. If I tried.”

They pause to eat their food after that. Haru leaves most of his. It’s too bland. A bit rubbery. It was the only item with cooked fish, but it’s thoroughly disappointing. He’ll find something better at the konbini he passed on his way from the hostel.

“I...I’m glad I caught you here,” Rin says as he stands up to dispose of his tray.

“It was… it was nice to see you.” Haru manages.

“Do you want to... do you want to meet again if you’re ever in Tokyo? I’ll be doing stuff there for almost all of fall. Just, uh. Just message me.”

Haru has Rin’s phone. For emergencies. He’s never had reason to message or call him. Now, he does.

“Yeah. I might be meeting with a distance swimming coach there. And I...I applied to a marine biology program at Shimogami. In Tokyo.”

Rin’s eyes widen. They keep talking for an hour after their first attempt at goodbye. And then Rin calls Haru when he’s gotten back to his hostel and asks him to dinner, “to keep chatting”.

“I won't take back what I said,” Rin says after they’re finished with dinner. A plate of fruit sits between them.

“What did you say? You say a lot of things, Rin.”

“That I’m mad—that I don’t get why you stopped swimming.”

“Ok.”

“But I wanted to apologize.”

“You already did.” Haru says, mildly confused but ready to hear Rin out.

“And I wanted to say I’m happy you found your way back to it.”

“Mm.” Haru inspects the strawberries for any mushy spots as he hums in reply.

“I swam—when I was a kid. Wanted to go to the Olympics. That was my dream, like my dad. I went to Australia to swim in middle school. And then I became an idol, instead. And Sousuke gave up his dream, too, to play music with me.”

“You like music. You...you look like you like it.” Haru says honestly, neglecting the halved kiwi on his plate to answer.

“You’ve seen me?” The look on Rin’s face is absolutely worth admitting Haru’s newest shared pastime.

“Nagisa has us watch videos. Of you.”

“If you want to see me for real, I’m playing at the Tokyo Dome. Opening for an American superstar band. I can get you tickets.”

“Ok.”

Something about the time apart has washed away some of the remaining tension. Now, Haru can enjoy seeing Rin and listening to him and being near him. Once the check’s been paid—rock-paper-scissors tie, final agreement 50/50—they end up at Rin’s shiny hotel with Haru forgetting to worry over the small pack of belongings he left in the hostel after they grab their “quick dinner” together.

The morning after, Rin takes them out for breakfast. It’s an upscale French place with pastries and eggs a million ways.

“You’ll call, right? After you’ve moved to Tokyo?” Rin asks once Haru’s stepped out the passenger door of his car. 

Haru nods. He has free concert tickets to cash in on. And maybe a few more nights, if Rin is still interested.

— - —

Rin doesn’t date. Hasn’t dated. And from what Rin can tell, Haru doesn’t either.

They have their do-over night. Fewer drinks included. Kissing is more successful. They end up in Rin’s hotel room in Osaka. The night progresses oddly sweetly for something simultaneously so pathetically desperate.

“It’s good to see you, again,” they said to each other. And Rin, because he’s lifelong friends with someone who’s always prepared for a number of things, has supplies this time.

“How did you get so...so...experienced at this?” Rin asks across a king sized bed, after.

“I think Ikuya called it my… hoe era? ” Haru says the last words like he’s unsure of them. “I had a fight with Makoto and went to America when Ikuya took his semester abroad.”

Haru studied abroad with Kirishima Ikuya in California and had a—hoe era? Rin is tired. Haru just said the words “hoe era.” Holy shit? Newly showered and still coming down from the high of probably the most fulfilling sex he’s had. Ever. (He won’t admit that one for a while.) What?

“Haru. You’re telling me you ran away from your friends in Tokyo to study abroad in America and just slept with a bunch of people…because?” Rin tries not to sound judgemental. And he’s not. But it’s kind of hilarious that Haru got a chance to get around while Rin was looking behind his back every time he so much as spoke to someone because he thought people (reporters, fans, friends) might take it the wrong way.

There are all the stereotypes about Americans being promiscuous. But Rin hasn’t seen Haru so much as blink at anyone in the time he’s known him.

“Ikuya was trying to make Hiyori jealous and I wanted to try.” Haru explains as though it’s that simple. Rin only knows Kirishima Ikuya from his swimwear advert billboard.

“You wanted to try…seducing a bunch of people in America?” Rin asks incredulously. “You got into a body count contest with Kirishima Ikuya? ” Some of Rin’s friends at KOMA had tried to ask for Kirishima’s contact info through Sousuke or slide into messages after seeing The Billboard of the guy.

Rin resists the urge to say he’s sure Kirishima won the contest.

No wonder Haru didn’t seem nervous at all after the party while Rin was freaking out, hands up the shirt of the guy he’d been sharing insults and rude looks with for a month. The memories of that night had slowly come back to him out of the fog of that morning and then the clusterfuck of a day that followed.

Rin’s mind flashes with an image of Haru making out with some frat boy in Los Angeles. What the fuck.

Sousuke would tell him he’s a prude and shaming and whatever.

Haru seems to be laughing at him with only his eyes.

“Wow, a rockstar with hang ups about hooking up.” Haru’s tone is playful. Rin is still trying to shut his mind off from his vivid, sleep-drunk imagination.

“I’m an idol . I had to sign a bunch of stuff that said I wouldn’t date unless it was, like, greenlit and everything. Did Japan Swim just not say anything?”

“Why would they know?” Haru shoots back, eyebrows raised the smallest bit.

Rin leaves for Tokyo a few hours later. Haru goes back home. 

As unromantic as it feels when Rin’s helping Haru carry an easel up four flights of stairs a month later, Rin feels especially optimistic. He pulls strings to get Haru celebrity VIP tickets and backstage permissions, and Nitori doesn’t let him hear the end of it.

“Rin, you never do this for guys. Like, non-celebrity guys. I need to meet him!”

“You’ll be in France.”

“I’ll fly back.”

Messaging: Haru >

Here’s the tickets. Let me know if you can make it.

I will be there.

— - —

Haru goes to Rin’s show. He arrives, says his name, like he was told to, and is escorted to a roped-in section situated almost uncomfortably close to the stage.

The people in the cordoned off section are clearly important. They’re wearing nice clothes, like Rin’s, and one of them is being yelled at by someone from across the barrier. VIP section.

Haru ignores the stares he’s sure he’s getting. He fiddles with the earplugs in his pockets, the ones Rin gave him. Why do I need these, again?

Rin’s only the starting act for this concert. The main event is a foreign rock band that’s making two stops in Japan, apparently. Rin had told Haru all of this in his usual breakneck speed. Not pausing for questions and leaving Haru more confused than he’d started. But Haru had caught the important parts, and then searched online for details.

As the starting act for Japan only, Rin’s just doing the two shows: Tokyo and Osaka.

“My agency, KOMA, right, wants to ease me back in, you know? This was actually planned a few months before the tour, but we decided to keep it. I’m really excited to perform again.”

“Mn.”

Thirty minutes before the whole thing’s set to start, music starts playing. It’s loud.

Haru’s been in swimming halls with awful acoustics. Sat in the back of an ambulance without soundproofing. He’s heard ear splitting things. But he’s never been to a concert. The noise is in his bones. Before the first song is over, he caves and slips the earplugs into his ears. Thanks, Rin, he can’t help but say silently.

As though Rin was waiting for that moment, a notification pops up on his phone.

Messaging: Rin >

I see you in section A! Wish me luck!

Good luck

Haru doesn’t recognize any of the pre-show music erupting from the speakers. Four songs pass. Each is good. Most are English, one is Mandarin Chinese. The last, before Haru is sure Rin is going to appear, is Japanese. It’s one of Rin’s. From his first album.

Though Nagisa hadn’t gotten them to listen to Rin’s discography—he’d only played his music upon special request for Rin-fans, usually as a reward or special donation bonus—Haru had worked his way through his first few albums over one long night shift. He spent the night dozing off to the surprisingly heartfelt songs somewhere between denial and acceptance that he was still searching for the guy he’d swore he’d never want to or need to speak to again.

It had been a challenge from Gou, anyway, to listen. And Haru didn’t want to back down and admit defeat to her. And, after starting with Rin’s debut single, he hadn’t wanted to stop listening. Telling himself it was his curiosity and to pass Gou’s strange test.

He wonders, now, anticipation building as the song rises to the chorus and the stage lights rotate up, if he should consider himself a Rin-fan, now. That’s kind of embarrassing. Too bad he can’t embarrass himself any more than Rin already had, the first night—after the party.

The second time, Rin hadn’t been anything like he’d pretended either. But it was less drunken fool and more shy, which Haru had sworn up and down to Makoto he didn’t have a soft spot for. What Makoto doesn’t know can’t hurt him.

Rin steps out onto stage to thunderous applause that drowns out even the guitar riff playing, still from the sound system.

Haru spends the next half hour caught up in the experience of watching Rin thrive on stage. No amount of being around his fiery energy, tamped down at the sanctuary or played out behind a video screen, matches this.

When Rin’s set ends, Haru gets a message, not five minutes later, while the stage is still being reset for the main act

Meet me backstage. Ask one of the VIP guards.

Somehow, Haru makes it backstage.

Rin is still flushed. Wisps of hair, black against his skin with sweat, are stuck to his forehead. He eases an earpiece off of his ear where it’s clipped. There’s a microphone taped to his cheek.

“You came!”

“I came.” Haru says, reading his lips instead of hearing him speak and realizing, belatedly, he hadn’t removed his earplugs. He flicks one out of his ear.

“Did you like it?” Rin asks, genuine and open.

“Yeah.”

“I was amazing, right?”

“I liked it.”

Rin is breathing heavily. Haru resists the urge to put his arm around him, like his teammates would when he was gasping like that. To hold him up? To comfort him? Unlike how Haru feels, when he’s struggling to breathe, Rin looks very much alive. His eyes are wide and even though he isn’t smiling, pure elation is still written clearly on his face.

“Do you have, like, an encore?” Haru asks, proud of himself for remembering that word.

“Nah. I go back on with the band for a song of theirs, but that’s in like, what? Forty minutes. We can chill.”

“Do you usually invite people backstage?” Haru can’t imagine this is normal. He’s been getting funny looks. But security hasn’t booted him.

“Not really. Sousuke, usually. Nitori a few times. Gou always finds me before I ask.”

“Who’s Nitori?”

“You’ve never heard of Nitori Aiichirou?”

“No.”

“Have you been living under a rock?”

“No, you know where I live.”

“It’s a figure of...”

“You’re the first popular music person I know of. Besides the ones everyone knows.”

“Oh wow. Someone failed you in your music education. You don’t know Nitori!”

“I listen to classical music. Traditional music, also. My grandma played the flute.”

“You what?” Rin leans closer to ask.

“And these songs from a while ago. That my mom used to play. I used to wear headphones during my walkouts.”

“You used to pregame international swim meets with...with city pop?”

“What’s city pop?”

“Oh my god.”

Rin has to go back to prepare for his “encore” before Haru can try to defend himself. He’s heard of city pop, but he’d just gotten Makoto to load the music they’d listen to onto his phone for him to listen to to calm down before tournaments. That didn’t require knowing genre or artist or really anything.

Haru watches from backstage, getting funny looks from people in staff uniforms and backup dancers and some guy with a camera on a pole, when Rin goes back onstage. He’d noticed, when Rin went back out from the other side of the stage, he’d changed his clothes and gotten his hair fixed between the time he left Haru and reappeared in the spotlight.

His energy isn’t as potent as it was when it was just him. At first, Haru thinks he’s more subdued because he’s just the backup. He’s only playing his guitar, not singing. But he’s still hopping around. He’s not jumping, like he was before. Haru watches him sway, barely perceptible, but Haru knows him. He’s seen him fall down the two steps that lead into the lower deck of the chicken enclosure. And saw him dead on his feet after a long day entertaining the Rin-fan influx.

When Rin steps off stage, onto the side Haru’s waiting on, Haru reaches out to catch him before anyone else in his entourage can. And ignores someone’s shout to “let me!–”

“Are you ok?”

“Yeah. Just light-headed.”

Someone appears with a sports drink and a funny-looking cookie. Haru is very aware of how Rin is still leaning on him. And that everyone is still watching him, now the both of them. He doesn’t really care. So long as no one is addressing him nor taking photos with flash.

“Thanks, Haru.” Rin pushes him away, gently. “But I’m not some damsel.”

“...You work too hard.”

“You literally made me carry twenty kilos of wood chips across the fucking beach for no reason.”

“You were being annoying. It was barely ten, not twenty.”

“Move. I need to go back to change.”

Haru, despite himself, smiles after him.

“Do you want to go on a date—with me?” Haru asks, a lopsided smile on his face.

“Don’t tell my agent,” Rin says with a grin of his own.

“That wasn’t a yes,” Haru’s outright teasing, now. He knows Rin’s been playing chicken with him—will you or won’t you ask, before I do.

“Yes, Haru. I’ll go on a date with you. Like we haven’t been seeing each other for a month already.”

Rin takes them to a cat cafe, rents out the entire upper floor, for their third proper date. He watches in awe as every cat in the room gravitates towards Haru as though he doused himself in catnip.

“Why’d you start working at the sanctuary?” He asks, because he’d never gotten to ask that question.

“Sasabe offered me the job. I used to volunteer there during senior high with Makoto.” A cat is rubbing its head against Haru’s knee, and Haru absentmindedly scratches between its ears.

“How’s school?” Rin isn’t sure how to ask questions like this. He wants to keep staring at Haru covered in fluffy cats. But their schedules don’t cross again until Tuesday and he’s restless.

“Good,” Haru replies with a vague shrug. “It’s nice to be able to study something I care about.”

“What, did you get bad grades in college?” Rin asks.

“I did okay.” There’s no defensiveness in Haru’s reply. To which Rin is grateful, internally cringing for phrasing his question like an accusation.

“I didn’t go to college,” Rin says. Though he guesses it’s probably obvious.

“But you were a good student,” Haru says, like he knows.

“I was.” It’s still something he’s proud of.

“We watched a lot of your interviews.”

The gray tabby paws at Rin’s knee. He takes a small treat out of his pocket and holds it up to watch the cat stretch for it.

“So you’re a fan, now, too?”

“I like your performances a lot, Rin,” Haru says. It’s with such heartwringing honesty that Rin knows he’s making an embarrassing face in response.

“You should come to my next one. Like, when I’m the headliner. If–if you can make it.”

Haru nods again.

Their time is up in the next five minutes. They take a pamphlet with information about the cat shelter that the cafe is partnered with. Rin isn’t sure he has the time to take care of a cat, but he was starting to bond with the gray tabby, an older foster who’d been returned to the shelter because her owner had to move away.

Though Rin hadn’t been idle nor bored in any way before, he waits for the times he gets to see Haru with that much more excitement. He doesn’t try to shut down the spark in his chest every time he thinks about their next meetup plan. Karaoke with some of Sousuke’s friends that Haru had surprised Rin by agreeing to go to.

Rin catches Haru staring at him while he’s singing along to a dramatic ballad. It’s too sweet a moment to tease him about. But he catches Sousuke’s eye and watches him make a “you’re being gross” face behind his hand.

In Rin’s expert opinion, Haru has an objectively above-average and uniquely wonderful singing voice. He hums sometimes when they’re completely alone. Haru doesn’t sing at the karaoke bar, but sits in the corner with one of his small, barely-there smiles on his face.

After that night, Rin starts writing a song about love. He's written a lot of songs about love since he taught himself how to write. This one is a bit different. He’s terrified of submitting it to his team, so bites the bullet and shows it to Sousuke, first. It’s been a while since he’s written his own lyrics. And few of his own songs have made it onto his albums. He genuinely likes the stuff that’s produced especially for him. But through the years he’s gotten enough experience with the songwriting process to create his own music. For the sake of pride more than authenticity.

Gou, who’s been insufferable since he told her he’s technically dating Haru now, asks for the voice recording as well. She replies with a million single-line texts with various emoticons and exclamations.

It takes Rin a month to share the thing with Haru, and when he does it feels way too much like a confession of sorts. Rin’s been mortified in Haru’s presence enough, at this point, that it’s almost comforting to drop the .mp3 file in his messages, turn off his phone, and wake up in the morning to a phone call.

— - —

Haru begins training in earnest at the old Tokyo Games open water venue, the Odaiba Marine Water Park. Rin’s schedule fills with set days and film tests. He’s recording a new album, too. Project: Eternal Summer.

The song he sent Haru in November makes the final cut for the album. Natsuya tells Haru that Haru’s blushing when the single comes on the radio while they’re at a noodle shop near the university.

When he and Rin are, in time, living together in a Tokyo high rise, they meet for breakfast with the rising sun, Rin’s (their) new cat, Pepper, yowling at them for breakfast in chorus with the digital alarm clock.

Haru’s grateful to his past self for never telling Rin how much he’d thought his clothing was over the top when they met after a designer brand jumper ends up in his closet. After, he starts “mixing up” the clothing piles a lot more on purpose. It’s soft, and washes well, and Rin seems to gloat over the fact he likes it.

It takes a lot of calling friends and what Nagisa calls, “arguing as foreplay” for it, for them, to keep working, as an item, three months on. But it does.

Thing is, Haru can see that Rin likes to brute force his way through difficult problems. He isn’t always smart about the way he works at it, but he has stamina, so he can get it done. And he’s told Haru about how he really wants to make his acting debut the kind of thing nobody can look at and say “he should really stick to music.”

So when Rin gets home from eighteen hours on set to a meal, still hot on the stove, with a small note, Haru watches him tear up with something very familiar and fond in his chest.

“Rin, why are you crying over leftover chicken?”

“Can you let me have this, please, Haru…” Rin says, closing the distance between them and grabbing his hand. Clingy bastard. He’s warm and close and Haru has an assignment due at midnight. He has, in recent times, gotten quite good at begging for extensions.

Rin doesn’t get to his dinner until after they’ve made a detour along the way.

Haru wakes him up the next morning at 10:00 and ignores his protests about letting him sleep in.

“G’morning, Rin. I just got back from training. You said you don’t have to go in, today.”

“Idiot,” Rin fights off the covers.

Haru’s hair is damp and he’s dressed to go to his 11:00 class. Rin can’t stop the dopey smile from arriving on his own face.

Somehow, Haru doesn’t learn for another few months how many hoops Rin has to jump through to live with him without being hounded by reporters about his ‘roomate’. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t wear my clothes but I’m saying it’s kind of suspicious.”

— - —

“Ya know, I’m glad you found someone who makes you want to try at something for once in your life,” Kaede says, looking at Haru through copper lashes.

Haru just hums. It isn’t worth saying that Rin isn’t all, or even most of the reason he realized he had enough energy to want to try again. He’s always dragged back to swimming. This time, he’s building warmer memories with the open water. After he’s cleared by his doctor to return to normal activities, given he has someone within thirty seconds on alert, he attacks this new challenge with a new goal.

He imagines someone swimming by his side and thinks about how it isn’t proving everyone right, that he has unfinished business, if all he needs are a few people’s belief in his swimming.

“You two really are a cool couple, huh? Beautiful and successful. Congrats on your signing with the canned fish company, by the way,” Kaede continues, somewhere between mocking and genuine.

“I haven’t won anything yet.”

“What, you gonna propose if you can bite a medal in Paris? It’s only been what, six months since you started again?”

“I’m not swimming because of Rin.”

“You’re swimming because you’re actually as insane as the rest of us, Haru. Maybe less sane because you decided to switch to the fucking marathon.”

“You know how I…in the indoor…” Haru trails off. Kaede had dragged him out of the pool when he’d nearly hyperventilated in the deep end.

“You’re actually unbelievable, Haruka. All your talk about finding freedom and being so happy about not making Tokyo.”

“I was happy about that,” Haru replies truthfully. Haruka.

“Hurry up and meet me in Paris. I want to see your goody two shoes boyfriend’s face when you’re a DNF in the Seine.”

“You’re not going to make a single final.” Haru’s trash talk is a bit rusty. 

“Bet.”

— - —

Rin now knows hundreds of assorted facts about marine life. From the fact that bowhead whales have the largest mouth of any animal to the fact that hammerheads have electric superpowers. There’s an entire ecosystem based around dead whales, and “diatoms” generate up to one half of all of the oxygen in the world. He can name all of the biomes that exist off the coast of Tottori and obscure bylaws of the coastal water’s fishery management.

He knows he’s going to spend the next few years taking last-minute flights back home to spend time with Haru while they figure out how to make the distance, half a day by bullet train, a little less. Haru’s moving back to the sanctuary and Rin has a year left in Meguro.

He convinces Haru to send him pictures, and gets updates on the Iwatobi SMMS website and social media platforms.

He gets photos of a young dolphin in the open water pen, set for release in a few days. The new, renovated and extended pools. Maru-chan balancing a ball on her whiskers. A new keychain design for the turtle they released a few days ago.

The question comes up more and more in interviews. Maybe because there are rumors, as always. Maybe because Rin is edging into his late twenties, and there’s this question from just about everyone.

“So, Matsuoka-san, do you have anyone special in your life?”

“Yes, I do.”

No further comment.

— - —

There’s a photo of Haru, buried on an unlinked page of the Iwatobi website. There’s light in his hair and only a third of his face is visible. It’s a good picture.

The webpage is titled, “Spring 2023”, and among it is the album of photos taken by Rin, Nagisa, Gou and Kisumi, of the first spring that Rin spent at the sanctuary.

“Haru…Haru d’ya remember how you hated me when I came here?”

“I didn’t know you took a romantic picture of me that day. I knew you liked me but I didn’t know you were obsessed. You were like my stalker fan.”

“Haru, we’re engaged. You proposed to me a year ago.”