Archive of Our Own ^beta

It had been four days since the Spider Incident, as Haru liked to refer to it (in his own mind at least), and three since he’d last seen Makoto.

They had met up for dinner at the cafeteria as planned the day after meeting and it was… nice. It was more than nice, if Haru was being honest, which he hardly ever was with himself, at least when it came to feelings. It had been the highlight of his college experience thus far, besides rescuing Makoto from the giant spider, of course. Makoto had arrived promptly at 6 and waved to an already there Haru- not that Haru had arrived early to ensure he wouldn’t miss Makoto or anything- and they had swiped their ID/meal cards together, waited in the annoyingly long line together, gotten suspicious looking fish dinners together (Haru was silently very displeased at the lack of mackerel), and sat at a small table in the corner together.

The conversation flowed easily enough, at least from Makoto. Haru was fairly silent as was usual for him, adding to the conversation only when required or when he was fairly interested in the topic- he had quite a bit to say about the sad state of their fish dinners when Makoto made a comment about his inability to discern the type of fish covered in far too much breading. Despite the subpar food, the conversation was good, the company was better, and the fact that Haru got to stare into bright green eyes in a way that was considered socially acceptable for an hour and a half didn’t hurt either.

It was a very pleasant experience overall.

Which only made the last few Makoto-free days of his life that much less, well, pleasant.

He supposed that was a bit unfair of him, as he sat across from Rin at dinner that night, watching the redhead go on and on about his apparently impossible to live with roommate. Haru had been eating dinner, and sometimes lunch, with Rin in the cafeteria since the semester started. The only reason- besides Makoto’s unfair level of hotness- that Haru had agreed to eat with Makoto in the first place was because Rin had spent the weekend visiting his boyfriend over at his college, and Haru therefore had no one to eat with Friday through Sunday. But now it was during the week, and Rin was back, and Haru should have been appreciating the company of his friend, but instead found himself wishing he was staring fondly into green instead of annoyedly into red.

“I really don’t see why you’re complaining so much.” Haru sighed, poking at the once again lackluster fish offering on his plate. If this kept up he was going to be forced to start cooking mackerel himself in the pitiful dorm kitchenette, it just couldn’t be helped.

“Have you been listening to me at all?” Rin demanded incredulously, glaring across the table at his friend. “He stays up all hours of the night, his taste in music is awful, he never stops talking- and his volume settings seem to be ‘loud’ and ‘off,’ he invites his upperclassman friends over constantly, he’s always up in your face, and he spends hours in front of the mirror on his godawful orange hair! How could I not complain?”

“... Wait,” Haru said slowly, narrowing his eyes at Rin as he mentally sifted through Rin’s previous rantings, which he had half-listened to, and this new summary. “You’re telling me your roommate is a loud, obnoxious, vain redhead who has no respect for someone’s personal boundaries?”

“That’s what I’ve been saying, Haru!”

“Are you sure you actually have a roommate and you’re not just looking into a mirror, Rin?” Haru deadpanned, managing to hold back the smirk threatening to curl up the side of his mouth.

“... Fuck you, Haru,” Rin grit back, glaring at Haru with one of his infamous ‘if looks could kill’ stares.

“You should have gotten a single like me,” Haru stated unhelpfully, returning to picking at his dinner, completely unphased by Rin’s deathglare.

“Yeah, well, not all of us are antisocial pricks like you.” Rin rolled his eyes, setting his chin in his hand as he propped his elbow on the table. “Plus that costs extra, and my family can’t really afford that sort of thing with Gou starting college next year too.”

“Asocial,” Haru corrected automatically, not bothering to look up from his pile of fish scraps and soggy vegetables.

“Whatever.” With another eyeroll Rin gathered his tray and stood, prompting Haru to do the same as they dumped their trash and returned the trays and dinnerware to be cleaned. “The point is,” Rin continued as they made their way outside, cool April air reminding them to close their jackets, “I’m stuck with the guy and it sucks.”

“Are you going to complain about your roommate every night at dinner?”

“Jeez, Haru! Have some compassion!”

Haru shot Rin a sidelong glare as they walked towards the freshman dorms. “My compassion allotment for this subject was used up three dinners ago.”

Rin gave a groan, causing Haru’s lips to turn up in a small smile of satisfaction, before remaining thankfully silent on the subject for the rest of their walk.

“See you tomorrow,” Haru murmured the now customary valediction as he started to split off the main path, Haru’s dorm building closer than Rin’s.

“Yea, see ya- wait. Tomorrow’s Thursday, right? Shit, sorry, Haru, I’ve got my night class. I have to eat by 5,” Rin said, stopping short and facing Haru with a frown.

Haru matched his expression. “I have chem lab.”

“Crap. Well, guess you’ll just have to miss me then.” Rin gave an exaggerated sigh accompanied by his signature shark-toothed grin.

Come to think of it, Rin has far too many signature expressions, Haru noted offhandedly.

“I’ll try my best to survive.”

“That’s the spirit!” Rin enthused as he wrapped an arm around Haru’s shoulders in an unreciprocated (and unwanted) half-hug, pointedly ignoring the sarcasm practically dripping off Haru’s words. “I’ll see ya in class Friday though. And maybe I’ll text you if you manage to remember your damn phone for once.”

“Mmm.”

“Whoa, calm down there, Haru! You’re gonna talk my ear off! Always so verbose, aren’t ya,” Rin teased, laughing when Haru harshly brushed him off.

“Someone’s using using big words again to try and make themselves seem smarter I see,” Haru shot back, glaring at his annoying friend. He had officially reached his Rin Limit for the day, he decided.

“Wow, a sentence with more than three words, I am shocked, Haru, shocked!”

“Have fun with your roommate, Rin.”

“Fuck off,” Rin said, but any aggressive intent was lost as his laughter broke through the words. “I’ll talk to ya later, Haru.” Rin shook his head with a final laugh and waved as he continued down the path to his dorm.

“Later,” Haru echoed, turning to head for his own room, small smile on his face.

As soon as his door clicked shut behind him a few minutes later a thought entered Haru’s mind. Looking around his pristine room it only took him a moment to locate what he was looking for. The blue phone was off, of course, but surprisingly still plugged into the charger, so it wasn’t dead like Haru had expected. He waited until the cycle of startup music had finished before unlocking the screen and opening his text message app.

As expected, there were a few messages from Rin, mostly consisting of curse words and yelling about how Haru ‘never had his damned phone on him.’ Haru rolled his eyes. His breath caught when he noticed a message string not from Rin but from a certain tall brunet dated a day ago. Shit, he really did need to start paying more attention to what he did with his phone (he could almost hear Rin start cursing at his thought).

Haru’s thumb was certainly not sweatier than usual when he opened up the message while he held his breath.

Haru felt his face heat up at the idea that Makoto considered him a friend. Haru didn’t really have many friends. He had Rin, of course, his closest and oldest friend, and he (grudgingly) supposed Sousuke counted as one- though he would never admit that out loud, especially not to Sousuke or Rin. And Haru guessed even Gou was one, she was always nice to him and never hesitated to talk to him even if his responses were always few and far between. But other than them Haru had really only had acquaintances and passing friends, people who slipped in and out of his life, leaving behind nothing but memories and empty spots at lunch time.

And he had never really minded before. Haru preferred to be alone. It was easier than having to put forth an annoying amount of effort to pretend to be interested in what other people thought he should be interested in, things like having conversations or being social in general. It wasn’t until Rin crashed into his life in high school- quite literally, running into Haru as he rushed around a corner on the way to class one morning- that Haru even really considered friendship could be something more than an obligation or another word for temporary-space-filler.

And Haru had been happy with that, with his newly redefined definition of the word and his one friend which quickly turned into two and then three when Rin introduced Haru to his sister and his childhood friend (which turned into Rin’s boyfriend their last year of high school). But now three didn’t seem like enough. Something about Makoto made him want more, for the first time in, well, ever. Four, four is a good number , he thought as he stared at the texts still open on his phone, smiling at the cat emoticons and the frantic and embarrassed look he could picture on Makoto’s face as he sent the second message.

His smile dropped though when he saw a third text, clearly sent after a self-conscious Makoto had not received a response to his initial ones. 

Haru grimaced, a cold wave washing over him. He abruptly felt terrible for missing Makoto’s texts and making Makoto worry that he was bothering Haru, or worse, that Haru didn’t want to hang out with Makoto anymore, that he didn’t want to be Makoto’s friend. Suddenly, being considered Makoto’s friend was the most important thing Haru could think of at that moment, and he knew he had to make sure that Makoto still thought of him as such. It was true that he would have been in bed already when Makoto’s last text was sent, but Haru knew he wouldn’t have minded even if it had woken him up. He quickly opened up the keyboard function and sent a response before he was overwhelmed with the sick feeling beginning to make itself known in his gut at the possibility that Makoto thought Haru didn’t like him; in any meaning of the word. 

Straight and to the point, Haru was satisfied with it. That’s how he usually texted, after all, surely that would be fine. But then his stomach churned uncomfortably as he reread Makoto’s messages. Should he write something else? Reassure Makoto more? What if Makoto thought he was being rude? What if Makoto thought he hated him?!

Haru forced himself to put the phone down after he had to tap the screen to keep it from turning off twice, telling himself Makoto was probably busy eating or doing homework, the second being something he should be doing himself if he was being completely honest. He would just have to wait to see the fate of his relationship with Makoto. He could handle waiting. His eyes slide over to the phone again, fingers itching to reach out. Shaking his head and firming his resolve, Haru dragged out his art history textbook and began reading. He was starting on the second chapter when his phone pinged.

Haru was once again glad he lived in a single since no one would ever know about the way he lunged for the phone.

Hot Guy

7:46 PM

Haru caught himself smiling again as he read the text over for the third time. Most people probably wouldn’t find the little cats made of symbols as cute as Haru did, but he couldn’t bring himself to care as he moved his fingers to reply.

He wondered what class Makoto was taking for the few seconds it took a new message to pop up.  

Haru found he couldn’t even be bothered that he was once again grinning dumbly at his phone for what was probably the hundredth time that night. And all because of a bunch of silly cat kaomojis and a hot brunet. It’s fine though, is what he told himself. It was a normal reaction to a crush. Makoto was attractive, so of course he found things Makoto did attractive too. Sure, Haru had always quickly found something (usually many somethings) so negative about his previous ‘crushes’- Rin was the one who labelled them as such, much to Haru’s annoyance- that their attractive appearances had never been able to outweigh those things. But surely he just had yet to find that thing about Makoto. Nobody was perfect.

Hopefully that negative thing wasn’t too big though, because Haru found he really did want to spend more time around Makoto. As a friend. So once he discovered Makoto’s bad quality, he would be free to move away from this silly crush business and have another person to count as a friend.

Just a normal crush, he reiterated to himself as he reread the wish for him to have ‘sweet dreams,’ blush crawling unbidden across his cheeks before he turned back to his abandoned textbook, eyes occasionally sliding over to the once again charging phone as he studied.

And if he found himself wishing it was tomorrow at 6PM already, that was just normal too.