Chapter Text
Rin stared at the chalkboard, listening to his teacher drone on and on when he felt the familiar vibration of his phone, altering him to a text message. He reached into his pants pocket and pulled it out, flipping it open to see another picture message from his younger sister. Pushing the button to see the attachment, he snorted a little too loudly, the picture making him roll his eyes.
“Am I boring you, Matsuoka-san?” The teacher turned around to look at him, as he quickly snapped the phone closed.
He shook his head, putting the phone back into his pocket, not wanting the object to be taken away for the rest of the afternoon. But he couldn’t have helped his reaction, after what he had seen.
Makoto had been about to dive into the pool, but it looked like Nagisa had ambushed him and had pushed him into the water instead, the flailing Makoto captured on his sister’s camera phone. The look of abject horror on Makoto’s face, the realization that he would not be swan diving into the pool, was all it took to make Rin have that reaction.
Paying attention once more, he blocked the thought of his old friends having fun without him. He didn’t like thinking about them, but it seemed that his sister was being the ever persistent one. Since he had seen her on the beach, when Samezuka's swim team had gone to the island to train, and had asked her about Makoto, and how he felt training in the ocean, it seemed that picture after picture kept coming to his phone.
When the class ended, he grabbed his bookbag and put it over his shoulder. Pulling his phone back out of his pocket, he sent a text to his sister. “Stop bugging me during class. I almost got into trouble because of you.” He hit send, and placed the phone back into his pocket.
“Senpai!” Nitori came running up from behind him. “Senpai! I heard you got called out in class!”
Rin rolled his eyes. “Word sure gets around this school fast.” He put both of his hands in his pockets and walked towards the sports center. “Why do you care?”
“Because! I don’t want Senpai to be benched! We need you on the team!” Nitori’s blue eyes were bright with worry. “What were you doing to get called out?”
He felt his phone vibrate in his hand. “I looked at my phone. So what?” He flipped his hair back, as he pushed the swinging door open to the locker room.
“Was there an emergency?” Nitori asked, genuinely concerned. “People don’t normally text you during the day, do they, Senpai?”
Opening his locker, Rin shook his head. “No, not really. Just my sister being nuts.” He got changed into his swimsuit, and placed his bag and clothes in the locker, forgetting about his phone.
“You should tell her to not bother you while school is in session. I’m surprised their school lets them text during class time.” Nitori nodded his head, holding two towels in his hands. “I grabbed a towel for you!”
The two walked towards the pool together. “Thanks, Nitori.”
As their practice began, Rin found himself thinking about what the practice sessions for Makoto were like. He snapped his goggles against the back of his head, a grimace coming over his face as he approached the starting block. Did they drill constantlly like his new swim team did? Or, were they lackisdasical with their routine, doing whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted? He'd have to remember to ask Gou, if she'd even give him a straight answer. She may play the 'manager' card, and tell him she can't say anything to him because he's on the 'competing' team.
“Something the matter, Matsuoka?” Seijuurou eyeballed him, as the others dove into the water, starting to practice their relay laps.
Rin shook his head. “No, captain. Not at all.” He stood at the edge and dove in, landing the dive perfectly, unlike the blonde captain at Iwatobi, quite the opposite from the picture he had received that afternoon. What the hell? Why do I even care? Rin popped up out of the water and began to swim the butterfly stroke, following the captain’s orders to choose whatever stroke they wanted to use for working out.
The practice flew by fast. Two hours seemed like only fifteen minutes to the now somewhat focused redhead. Except he still thought about the drills that Makoto's swim team must go through. Rin hopped out of the pool last, grabbing onto Nitori's hand to help him out of the pool. Nitori handed him a towel, which he took without pause. “Thanks, Nitori.” The two headed back to the locker room.
“Did you want to go get some food in the mess hall, Senpai?” Nitori asked. They had both just finished taking a shower, and were getting dressed back in their clothes.
“We can, I guess. I thought I’d just go back to the room and work on homework.” Rin pulled out his phone and groaned loud.
“What is it, Senpai?” Nitori asked, immediately worried.
“Nothing. Just my sister, being annoying again.” He saw he had four missed texts from her, apparently one for every half hour he had failed to text her back. He clicked through the messages, his finger lingering on the arrow key, staring for a moment at one picture in particular.
Gou’s comment on the picture was, “Doesn’t he look nice wet, nii-san?” Makoto was just coming up out of the water, the look on his face was one like he had no care in the world. At peace with everything around him. Rin stared at the photo, entranced by his wet hair, his toned arms, and just everything about him. His sister was definitely on to something. Makoto did look quite nice dripping wet.
“Senpai?”
He quickly scrolled to the next message as Nitori tried to look at his phone. “You ready to go get some food?” He took a quick glance at the last picture, another one of just Makoto, with a big smile on his face. He had to wonder how his sister was getting all of these pictures of just him, and not with the others. He knew that Haru, Nagisa and probably that one guy were always with him. When they had been in school, he knew that they were always together. If he didn’t know any better, Rin would think that his sister had a crush on him.
He slammed his locker shut with a bit more force than he intended. He heard Nitori squeak, and stared at the small dent he had made in the locker. “Sorry.” Rin muttered, as he left the locker room, knowing that Nitori would be on his heels. He didn’t know where the anger had suddenly come from, and felt weird just thinking about it.
After they ate dinner, he sent a text to his sister, after not receiving anything from her since earlier. “You aren’t dating Makoto, are you?” He listened to Nitori complain about the piles of homework he had for his science class, but really wasn’t paying any attention. He was waiting to feel his phone vibrate again, needing to know if his sister was indeed into Makoto.
It was an agonizing two hours before he finally got a message from Gou. “What? Makoto-senpai? No way!”
“Then why do you keep sending me pictures of him?” Rin threw his phone on his bed, listening to Nitori’s pen scratch against the pad of paper he was doing his homework on. The phone buzzed again, almost immediately, much to the redhead’s reserved delight.
“If they’re bothering you, nii-san, I won’t send anymore.”
Rin typed fast. “I didn’t say that. I just didn’t know why you keep sending me pictures.”
He waited for her to reply, relief flooding through him when another message popped up from her. “I just thought you might like seeing him, since you were so concerned about him before.”
“Thanks, Gou.” There was no point in denying it, as he did like seeing him. He liked it a lot more than he was ready to admit to himself. He left it at that, and went back to his reading, satisfied by her answer.
And so it went, for about a week, as his sister sent him picture after picture of the antics of Makoto. He laughed outright in class when she sent him a picture of Makoto trying to grab Haru from diving into a fish tank at the pet store, telling him it had been taken over the weekend. He got his phone taken away from him, and wouldn’t be able to get it back until the end of school day. He fumed for the rest of class, feeling somewhat naked without the phone in his pocket. He grabbed it after class, muttering a half-hearted apology to the teacher, and made his way to the pool, not bothering to check his phone as there was no time. If he didn't hurry, he would be late, and he didn't want to have to run laps around the pool to make up for his lack of discipline.
Once swim practice was over, Rin checked his phone to see if any other new messages had come since the one that had got him in trouble in class. But there were no new messages, and he somehow felt….let down. He wanted to see more, but there was nothing from his sister. Did I remember to reply back to her? He scrolled through his texts, finding the last one she had sent. And there it was - no reply. Crap. He quickly typed out a reply to her. “Hahaha. Poor Makoto. Sorry for late reply. Got phone taken away from me.” He felt a little better, hoping that the only reason she hadn’t sent anything else was because he had forgotten to reply back to her.
“Everything okay, Senpai?” Nitori was standing right next to him.
“I think so.” Rin nodded, placing his phone back into his pocket. “Food?”
“Yes!”
It was almost midnight, and still no text from Gou. He couldn’t sleep. All he could do was toss and turn, each picture that she had sent to him playing like a movie in his mind. Makoto falling into the pool, Makoto swimming, Makoto smiling, Makoto trying to corral Haru. Just Makoto. He hit his mattress with his fist, pissed off at himself for constantly thinking about him. He heard Nitori snort in his sleep, making Rin freeze. He waited until Nitori’s snores began again before moving around on the bed. He grabbed his phone, checking it one more time, his stomach clenching as he saw ‘No new messages’ displayed on his phone. Swinging his legs off the bed, he stood up quietly and left the dorm room, not wanting to wake up his roommate.
As he stepped outside to the hallway, he pressed the number 2 on his phone, his sister’s speed dial number. He listened to her phone ring half a ring, then went straight to voicemail.
“Hi! You missed me, but leave a message and I’ll call you back!”
Rin pressed the red button, hanging up on the call. Maybe she just went to sleep and turned her phone off. A small part of him was worried, but he knew that his sister was probably just trying to get under his skin. And it was working. He looked at the clock on his phone, and saw it was now half past midnight, and still he wasn’t tired. There was only one alternative to get him to sleep, and as he thought about it, his palms began to sweat as his nerves kicked in.
His finger scrolled through his contacts until he reached the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, trembling slightly. He knew it was late, and the idea of him actually picking up didn’t even cross Rin’s mind. He was the reason Rin couldn’t sleep, so maybe if he spoke to him, sleep would finally show up. He held the call button down, until the phone began dialing. When it rang for a second, Rin chickened out and ended the call, hoping that it never connected. He closed his phone tightly and began to head back towards his dorm room, having walked the length of the hall, one of his nervous habits.
Placing his hand on the door, he froze as his phone began to ring. His eyes tripled in size as he looked down at the call, scared to see his name. After the second ring, he made eye contact with his phone and almost dropped it. Flipping open the phone, he spoke quietly, “Hello?”
“Rin?” A soft yawn sent a shiver through Rin’s body. “Did you just call me?”
“Sorry if I woke you up. I was just…” He tried to think of a valid reason why he would call Makoto this late in the night. “Have you heard from Gou? I can’t reach her.”
“Gou??” Makoto now sounded more awake. “No, I haven’t. Did something happen to her? Do you want me to call the others? See if they’ve heard from her?”
“No, no.” Rin groaned, forgetting that Makoto would jump into action if he was needed. “No, I’m sure she just went to bed. Again, sorry I woke you up.”
There was a slight pause, Rin’s stomach starting to do funny things as he nervously waited for a goodbye. He didn’t want to just hang up on him, even though it was his own fault for waking him up at this hour. Opening his mouth to give an official farewell, he was stopped when Makoto finally began to speak.
“I don’t mind that you called this late. You’re worried about your sister. I understand. And Rin?”
“Yeah?” He replied quickly, his cheeks becoming warm, hating himself for replying so fast.
“It’s nice to hear your voice. You know you can call me whenever you want.” Makoto yawned again, his voice becoming softer. “I miss you.”
“I miss you too,” Rin whispered, shocked by the truth that came out of his mouth. He heard a low snore in the receiver of the phone. “Makoto?”
All he heard was another snore. He said a quiet goodbye, hoping that the other’s phone would end the call automatically when he hung up. He went back into his dorm room, walking a little bit lighter than he had when he left, only one thing on his mind.
As he laid back down, his phone rang again. Glancing at it, he saw it was finally his sister. He pressed the button to answer the call, waiting for her to speak first. “Onii-chan?”
“Gou? Did you just wake up?” He spoke quietly, making sure that Nitori was still snoring.
“Yah. I think my phone turned off when I plugged it in to charge.”
Rin turned on his side to face the wall, picturing Makoto doing the same thing, a small smile gracing his face. “Go back to sleep. Thanks for calling me back. I hope I didn’t make you worry today when I didn’t reply back right away.”
“It’s okay. I thought you were mad at me because I got you into trouble again. Do you still want me to stop sending those pics?”
“No, but…” Rin knew he was going to regret his suggestion, but couldn’t stop himself.
“But? But what, onii-chan?”
“Maybe this weekend, when I come home to see you and mom, will you take pictures of me and send them to him?” He couldn’t believe he was even saying it, but it was too late to take it back.
“Are you serious?! Do you like him, onii-chan?” Gou sounded more awake, her voice almost trilling too loud for Rin’s ears. He held the phone away, but then heard Nitori start to mumble in his sleep, quickly pressing it back against his head.
“Maybe I do. You’re the one to blame.” Rin spoke into his pillow. “Look, I gotta go. Good night, sis.”
Gou was still giggling, almost to the point of hyperventilating. “Okay, no problem onii-chan. Sweet dreams. Don’t have perverted dreams about Makoto-senpai!”
They both hung up, Rin’s stomach still doing funky things, as he thought about the conversation he had had with Makoto. He knew he sealed his fate for the weekend, but if his sister got him into this mess, then he hoped she would get Makoto into the same frame of mind.
...
A/N: Thank you for reading! :)