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“He and I aren’t what you think we are.”
Ikuya scoffs. “You sound so sure of that. Have you ever once even talked to him about it?”
Rin turns to look at him from his post, where he’s leaning against the wall outside the infirmary door like a guard. They hadn’t been able to let him in, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave just yet either. “The hell is that supposed to mean?” His eyes narrow, though his voice stays soft - he’s drained all his energy in worrying over Haru, none left over for his usual vitriol.
He had known things were bad, but seeing it firsthand… Why? Why had Haru done this again? Hadn’t they trained together just to make sure he wouldn’t push himself to the brink like this?
“…Nothing,” Ikuya continues after a moment’s pause, searching the face across the door from him. “Maybe you should just be more honest with him instead of making any assumptions.”
“I’ve tried that. It never works out.” It’s said gently, plainly, but the wry bitterness buried in it still reaches his ears. Every time he tried to meet him as an equal, speak candidly about his feelings and plans, it always seemed to end in a fight.
Well, maybe not every time, he supposes; they had made up again, after all. Rin sighs at the memory from the pool a few short weeks prior, a smile almost reaching his lips. It had felt so good to race him like that again - no crowds, no pressure, just the two of them and the water with no inhibitions in their way. He knew Haru had felt it too, had finally swam like himself again for the first time in months, had accepted his embrace and apology.
It’s true he’d already made the decision to focus on butterfly, but that night was making him second-guess himself. Getting to swim relays with Haru would forever be one of his favorite sights, but the thrill of competing head-to-head with him was intoxicating - it had always pushed them to heights they could never reach on their own, and he’s not so certain he wants to give up that feeling anymore.
Haru had said he didn’t feel so breathless after that race, either… was this always going to happen if Rin couldn’t be the one in the lane beside him? It seemed awfully selfish of Haru to hurt himself in this way if he couldn’t have the competition that he wanted, but Rin couldn’t deny he’d also felt a little jealous seeing his attention shift to his new rival.
Rin’s gaze stayed unfocused ahead of him, not meeting Ikuya’s. If it had, he might have seen the flicker of confusion that crossed it at his admission.
“I don’t think you’re being as straightforward as you think you are,” he says eventually. “The Haru I know… there’s no way it wouldn’t work out, even if it wasn’t for forever. You never saw what he was like when you were gone. Long before I ever met you I knew I could never measure up to you in his eyes. Everyone can see it - except for you, apparently.”
Finally glancing back over, it was Rin’s turn for confusion. Was he… not talking about swimming?
In the past year Rin had certainly grown a closer friendship with Ikyua than he had expected, but he still wouldn’t have thought they spent enough time together for him to have noticed that. The feelings that lurked in the corners of his mind, that sometimes threatened to spill over but had always been roped back at the last possible moment. Somehow out of all the rash decisions of his youth this one he had managed to control, never letting himself confess more than he intended to, and now as an adult with a more rational mind he found he wasn’t quite bold enough to take that leap of faith.
He had never been sure that Haru wouldn’t reject him. He was always so cold, after all; hell, Haru hadn’t even hugged him back that night. But seeing him open up more and more these past few years, he couldn’t deny it any longer that Haru clearly lit up around him differently than he did around his other friends and teammates. Is that what Ikuya was referring to?
Growing tired of Rin’s puzzled look, Ikuya pushed off of the wall and looked away. “Never mind. Whatever it is you do, we need to support him now. No matter what.” With those parting words he turned and ambled off down the hallway, disappearing out of sight and leaving Rin to stew in his own thoughts.
With no more appearances to keep up, he sinks to the floor. Why did feelings always have to come to a head at times like these? Just once, Rin wishes that their emotional turmoil and their performance difficulties could happen separately when they’d have time to properly process it. He leans his head back against the wall, letting out a deep sigh. In the end, wasn’t what Ikuya was insinuating the exact same thing he’d just been told?
“If you think that way, why don’t you tell him directly? Don’t you dare let what you care about go after you’ve reached it.”
He feels like he’s shown it, many times over - but it’s true, he’s never been able to say it in as many words. Everything else he felt strongly about he’d always been so direct when addressing, was there really a point in continuing to run from the one that needed that straightforwardness the most? All that seemed to come from hiding was more pain, more loss. At this point in his life, he’s already reached the dream he’s been chasing after so desperately… maybe it was time to bring a new dream into the mix.
The tears of joy that were still flowing froze in an instant as Rin watched his fears play out right in front of him. Haru’s form slumped in his arms, unresponsive, the shock and horror of friends’ and teammates’ yells ringing dull in his ears.
He spent the wait for Haru’s recovery split between intense, stress-fueled training sessions and standing vigil at the door he wasn’t allowed to pass. Even if he knew logically that this had been Haru’s own choice, a last-ditch effort for the team rather than his own gain, he couldn’t help but partially blame himself for having been the push that drove him to those extremes in the first place.
The second Haru was well enough to discharge from care, there was no force in the world that could have stopped Rin’s embrace from enveloping its target. “God, I can’t believe you. You’re so unbelievably stupid,” he sobbed into Haru’s shoulder, the other somehow taken aback by the intensity of Rin’s reaction. It takes a moment for him to realize that while he’d fainted after races before, the unintentional naps were far more common - this was the first time Rin had actually seen him collapse in person before, not to mention his worst episode yet.
“Please,” Rin begged, “never again. I want to keep swimming with you, always, and I’ve already had one friend nearly lose that for good from his own negligence. I can’t afford to lose it with you.” He pulls back, hands gripped tight to Haru’s shoulders as his tear-stained face shifts into a mix of tenderness and resolve. He can tell Haru’s about to respond, but Rin cuts him off-
“I love you, you know?”
Haru’s eyes grow wide as the words settle between them. Neither of them move for what feels like an eternity, and he can see a lifetime’s worth of emotions rotate through the sparkling blue stare that holds steady against his own.
“You do?” It’s breathy, almost a whisper.
“…Have for a long time. Maybe always,” he admits softly, gaze finally dropping. When Haru’s hand comes up to encircle his wrist, his first thought is that he’s going to push him away.
He doesn’t pull Rin’s grip off of him. Instead it merely lingers there, hand warm against his skin. “Rin… I had no idea.” He hasn’t raised his eyes again, too afraid of what he’ll find in the ones across from him now that it’s been said. Just as he’s about to close them, though, he’s forced to look into them as a hand presses against his jaw and tips his head up.
When their lips meet, Rin doesn’t even care that they’re under a hospital awning rather than a sakura tree, that they’re just in the near silence of a tense scare and not an emotional outburst of big profound confessions.
It isn’t very romantic at all, really. And it is so much better.
Rin stayed with him the following week - helping Haru study long-abandoned classwork, assisting with chores in the disarray his depressive slump had built up in his apartment, training with him to make sure he couldn’t push past his limits even by accident. When media and brand deals inevitably heard his return and came knocking, Rin could turn them away when he was too overwhelmed to do so himself.
When the time came for him to part, he entrusted Makoto and Nao with keeping strict care over Haru’s swimming (only lightly threatening that should they or Ryuji let him come into any more trouble he’d be back faster than they could say “disowned”). At times when Tokyo became too much for him, the remaining Tachibanas and Matsuokas in Iwatobi would happily welcome Haru back for a weekend if he needed to not be alone. It was difficult to keep their ever-expanding friend group in contact while trying to maintain the rest of their college classes alongside strict world-class training regiments, but Rei and Nagisa made a point of arranging weekly calls and hangouts with everyone as often as schedules allowed.
The flight in for the Hungary competition was taken hand-in-hand, the pair of lifelong rivals eager to return to the spotlight and already feeling the bubbling excitement that always surrounded big tournaments like an aura.Soon they’d be standing side by side on the starting block, ready to fight against each other once again, but for now they’d be content to simply rest each other’s heads together in the cramped plane seating as they sleep, dreaming of a future they could finally confidently see on the horizon.
They’d taken a long journey to get this far, yet now… this was only the beginning.