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A waitress finally brings their food over, two platters holding either a burger or a filet of fish on each palm, and sets them down in front of both Haru and Rin. On the small square table the edges of their plates touch, and all Haru can smell is fried food. Not the most healthy option, as Rin had pointed out even as he ushered them into restaurant, but hours of training has sapped any pickiness Rin might think Haru has.
Before him, with sharp teeth bared, Rin takes a bite from his burger and makes a sour face when he swallows.
“It’s not good?” Haru wonders, about to dig into his own meal, which, judging by the fact that his stomach’s at least an hour overdue, will taste delicious whether or not it actually is. Rin looks up from his plate, surprised that Haru seemed to notice.
“It’s not bad,” he reassures Haru, smiling, opting to pop a french fry in his mouth. Haru gives him a frown in return; something irritates him about the idea of Rin not enjoying a meal, especially a well deserved one.
“We should have went back to my place instead,” Haru mumbles, cutting into his fish, his growling stomach muffled by the surrounding restaurant bustle. Rin jams his knee against Haru’s under the table.
“I wanted to go out!” he insists, and laughs sweetly into another bite of his burger, “You probably could have cooked it better, though.”
“I would have made mackerel,” Haru replies, and as Rin chews his expression goes sour again for a different reason.
“That’s exactly why we’re here, then,” he says as he swallows, and Haru, satisfied though mackerel-less, takes another bite of his own. Rin knees him once again under the table.
“So, Haru,” he starts and Haru hesitates, food halfway to his mouth, “Have you ever dated anyone before?”
Biting down slowly on his next forkful, he narrows his eyes at Rin.
“What’s with that question, out of nowhere?” he grumbles through a mouthful, and Rin frowns right back at him, leaning his elbow on the table.
“We never talk about that stuff!” he urges, and something tells Haru he had this planned all along despite the way he flusters, “Friends are supposed to, aren’t they?”
Haru’s not so sure about that. He takes a sip from his water, wetting his dry lips as Rin, somehow chewing and pouting at the same time, waits for a response.
“You know I haven’t,” Haru mumbles, and he’s never felt self-conscious about it because he never wanted to date anyone before, but now Rin has him feeling twitchy, making the food in his mouth go thick and bland. Rin raises his eyebrows.
“I didn’t know,” he insists, and with a roll of his eyes Haru turns back to his plate, cutting up another piece of fish for himself. “That surprises me.”
Haru gives Rin a glare—until he realizes Rin doesn’t seem to be teasing; he wears a serious face, no taunting smile on his lips or tone to his words. Haru tilts his head at him.
“Why?” he manages to ask; he has never imagined himself dating anyone, he can hardly believe anyone else would. Rin shrugs a shoulder, curling his hand around his soda.
“I feel like a lot of people would like you,” he says, too casual, like they’re still talking about the quality of their meals. Haru starts to think he’s being made fun of; he could just as easily imagine Rin saying the opposite. He stares at Rin until he starts fidgeting, rubbing at his neck.
“It’s easy to want to be friends with you, that’s all,” he reasons, voice pitched so low that Haru has to lean in a bit to catch it all, “I imagine it would be the same if someone wanted to be in a relationship with you.”
Haru hadn’t expected to be so touched in the middle of a fast-food restaurant in front of a over-fried meal and surrounded by too many people—though, he guesses, it’s as inevitable as anything; it is Rin sitting opposite him, after all. Rin seems to look anywhere else but at Haru.
“It’s easy to want to be friends with me..?” Haru repeats slowly, as if to make sure those were actually the words he had used, to make sure they actually came from Matsuoka Rin, who makes friendship so enjoyable it’s addictive. Rin takes a too-big bite out of his burger.
“You attract people, you know.” He looks at the table again, trailing off, and at Haru’s stunned silence he forgets his manners and starts chewing angrily, “But actually being your friend is a real pain!”
He glances at Haru and then away in a fleeting jerk of movement with his head, and Haru doesn’t know what to say.
“I’ve never been confessed to before,” he decides simply, pitying the pinking display of embarrassment before him, but Rin seems less surprised by this.
“Because you’re difficult!” he berates him, leaning over the small table with a jeer, and Haru thinks, you’re one to talk, “And oblivious. You probably have been asked out without even realizing it.”
Haru racks his mind for any such memory—though, he supposes, if he were oblivious like Rin claims, he wouldn’t remember it as a confession. Wiping his mouth with a napkin, he considers it until Rin interrupts his brainstorm.
“And, you know, you don’t have to wait around—you can be the one to confess,” he says. That sounds like the last thing Haru would ever want to do, and he must pull a face because Rin snorts, shaking his head. Glancing up under his eyelashes, he gives Haru a dangerous smirk.
“Haven’t you had crushes, Haru?” he asks slyly, kneeing Haru again.
“Yes,” Haru replies, a little too quickly and a little too indignantly. Have I? he wonders; he hadn’t given any thought to that answer, coaxed out of him in that way Rin somehow specializes in. Rin across from him looks, for a moment, like he wants to ask about it, eyes wide and gasp audible, but he opts for a sip from his straw instead.
“What about you, Rin?” Haru wonders in return, grateful for not having to explain himself.
“I’ve had crushes,” Rin replies, grouchily reluctant now that Haru turns the interrogation on him. He sucks from his straw, keeping his mouth busy.
“Have you dated anyone?” Haru asks, and he sits up straighter in his chair when Rin pulls away from his drink to cough into his fist, his cheeks going pink even in the dim light of the restaurant. If Rin didn’t want to talk about it, then he shouldn’t have been the one to bring it up; Haru could tease him for it if he weren’t so gripped by the coiling stream of questions filling his head, about to overflow through his mouth.
“You have?” Haru says, and though he isn’t too surprised, it’s still news for him. This could be a part of Rin’s life that Haru has yet to discover—the thought makes him grip the corners of the table.
“I’ve been on a couple of dates,” Rin admits in a splutter, rubbing at his neck again, food forgotten, “It was nothing serious!”
“With who?” Haru asks, the question tumbling out of him, and Rin’s eyes go wide.
“You want names?” he growls, but Haru can’t seem to wait for answers.
“How many dates?” he wonders, hoping the pinkness of Rin’s cheeks will correlate to how much information he might divulge. Rin chuckles, a high, nervous sound.
“Oi, Haru…” he warns, but Haru presses, driven thoughtlessly.
“Are you dating someone now?” he asks, and he then wonders what he’d do if Rin said yes; his stomach clenches sickly, mysteriously every second Rin doesn’t respond. Rin glares at him, mouth twitching with unformed words.
“Obviously not,” he finally mumbles, though Haru doesn’t know what’s so obvious about it. He appraises Rin like he’s a new person sitting before him.
“What?!” Rin spits, letting his fist fall to the table. Their glasses rattle. He whispers, as if anyone would be eavesdropping on their conversation, “It’s not like I secretly got married.”
That assumption never even crossed Haru’s mind, but when it does, so does this: “Have you had sex?”
“Dinner table,” Rin reminds him with a whisper of a growl, so Haru relents. “Next question.”
“Were you ever in love?” Haru times it with Rin’s next vengeful bite, watching as his hand flies to his mouth, watery red eyes squinting at Haru from beneath bangs. He snatches up his drink between coughs, foregoing the straw.
“Let’s talk about something else,” he decides hoarsely, gulping down swallows. Haru eats a few of his own fries before they start to get cold and soggy with oil.
“You started it,” he insists, but he would have allowed Rin to change the direction of the conversation, mulishly remembering the kind thing Rin had said to him moments ago.
“What do you even know about love,” Rin, however, mumbles heatedly into his plate after a delayed second, just loud enough for Haru to hear it. He mulls it over for a moment.
“What’s there to know about it?” he wonders. Rin whips his head up again to glare at Haru.
“Why would you ask me that?!” he asks, voice cracking as if distressed. Haru thinks he walked right into this one.
“Everyone knows you’re a romantic,” he replies, and Rin scoffs, muttering a defeated everyone? under his breath. Slouching against the back of his chair, he picks at another french fry.
“I was never in love with anyone I dated,” he explains, then draws in a breath like he wants to continue. He doesn’t, though, and Haru tries to picture it—the romantic Rin, going on dates with someone he doesn’t love. It makes as much sense to Haru as anything about this conversation does.
“So you loved someone you didn’t date?” he concludes, and trying to get at whatever weight tugs at Rin's shoulders, he jabs, “Were you rejected, Rin?
“Shut up, that wasn’t it,” he scowls, folding his arms over his chest. “Jeez, why are you asking the questions, all of the sudden?”
It’s not like you’re answering them, Haru thinks, before asking more.
“You dated other people while loving someone else?” Haru wonders, sounding like he's summarizing the B-plot of a drama Rin probably pretends not to cry over.
“When you put it like that, it sounds bad,” Rin says, fiddling with his utensils; Haru’s eyes widen as he realizes that Rin hasn’t denied it.
“It's not bad,” Haru insists, though he doesn’t know what it is. The thought of Rin actually being in love seems bigger than anything Haru could ever fathom; it feels foreign and adult, vaguely like Rin has zoomed ahead of him once more, waiting for Haru to catch up. He’s not sure how he’ll ever bridge that gap. Rin chuckles, running a hand back through his hair.
“I guess it was a little selfish of me,” he admits, wrinkling his nose in thought, “but it’s not like they loved me, either.”
Haru’s knee-jerk thought, how could you know? , gets buried by another question: “You’re still in love with this person?”
Rin meets his eyes, stuttering a bit before responding: “Apparently.”
Haru doesn’t know what kind of answer he expected, but his heart thuds like it’s skipping. For a moment he feels childish for not understanding something Rin seems to be grappling with, and as always he begrudges the way Rin has him guessing.
“Why don’t you confess to them?” he asks, though even he knows, just by picturing it briefly, just how much excruciating effort that would take. Rin shakes his head, a downward twist to his mouth.
“There’s too much to risk,” Rin decides, after deliberating. “I value their friendship, more than any feelings I have for them.” Haru sits forward, rapt with attention. Rin squints at him again, but something about his expression seems overwhelmed by solemn resignation, like smoke that Haru wants to fan away. “And they’re apparently kind of stupid when it comes to this stuff.”
“Like me?” Haru asks, trying to lighten whatever mood has Rin looking grey. Rin furrows his eyebrows.
“You can say that,” he replies, distant, slow like he’s trying to piece something together. Haru, startled, tries to imagine what type of person can make Rin change moods in such sharp turns.
“Do I know this person?” he wonders softly, trying not to attack Rin with questions. But Rin sits up pin straight anyway, staring wildly at Haru, some unnamed confusion tugging at his eyebrows.
“Haru—I can’t tell if you’re—” he cuts himself short, looking at Haru like he wants him to say something. Haru doesn’t know what. “Do you really not..?”
“What is it?” Haru asks, leaning forward, “I do know them?”
Blankly, Rin sits back in his chair once more, shaking his head a little, swallowing visibly, rubbing his neck. He scoffs to himself, finally breaking his alarming eye contact with Haru.
“You do know them,” he relents in a sigh. Haru nods his head slowly, trying to think of people, of anything other than Rin right now, but he can’t seem to come up with someone that fits.
“...should I guess?” It reminds him of pointless playground conversations that he actively avoided in elementary school—to think he’d one day be the one asking it, and asking it to Rin, of all people. Rin lets out another derisive bark of laughter, resting his hand on his forehead.
“Something tells me you’d never guess right,” he huffs, and any other time a comment like that from Rin would rev Haru into spouting names until he got it, but Rin seems rather prickly after the turn this conversation took. Haru takes another sip of his water.
“Well,” he starts, thinking through his words carefully, heat crawling up his neck before he even says anything, “if they don’t love you back, they must be a terrible person.”
It’s an awkward thing to say, he realizes this much once it leaves his mouth—but he doesn’t want to leave the compliment Rin had given him unreciprocated. He doesn’t know how effective it is at lifting Rin’s spirits, but Rin does smile slowly, eyebrows drawing together like Haru just said something either particularly kind or particularly idiotic. He feels, red-faced, that it might be both.
“They’re not a terrible person,” he starts, and his smile turns into a grin; he shakes his head down at the table, chuckling, laughing at some joke that Haru doesn’t seem to get. Haru holds his breath, wondering what kind of person could make Rin like this; fighting off a grin while simultaneously rubbing some ache out of his temple. Rin mumbles, sounding just as uncomfortable as Haru feels, “They’re—my favorite person.”
Rin looks away once more, and Haru feels another clench of something in his stomach—of embarrassment, of feeling left behind, of excessive irrational curiosity—of too many emotions, all at once, only and of course brought about by Rin. Still, Haru is amazed—what kind of person could be Rin’s favorite, and what could they have done to earn that praise? He hopes they know just how lucky they are; he almost goes all-out and says that much to Rin, while they’re on the topic of being embarrassing, but Rin clears his throat definitively:
“We should change the subject.”
Haru, smiling softly, knees Rin under the table. “You still started it.”
Rin laughs again, though he looks like he wants to deny it, and Haru is struck with another spur of emotion, brought about by fatigue or hunger pangs or the way Rin's eyes nearly close whenever his grin takes up half his face; that cliche urge: he just wants Rin to be happy.
“Eat your fish already,” Rin grumbles, kneeing Haru back, so Haru complies without further question.