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Ever since he was little, Rin had always wondered what the appeal of holding hands was. He knew his mom made him hold Gou’s hand they crossed the street, but it wasn’t only for that because sometimes his parents still held hands, even when there were no streets to cross. When he asked his dad about it, he said that he held his mom’s hand because he loved her, and it made him feel safe. Rin still didn’t quite get it, because even though he loved his sister, Gou’s hands were usually sticky, and holding hands with your little sister was embarrassing. He decided that he didn’t like holding hands much, and moved on. His dad told him that one day he would understand, when he found someone that he loved, and he would want to hold hands with them all the time. Rin wasn’t sure if he believed him, but his dad was never wrong, so he pushed it to the back of his mind to think about for later. After his dad died, those words remained buried deep inside his head, forgotten.
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He didn’t think about holding hands again until he was a first year in middle school. The girls in his year seemed to have developed a new game at recess, where they would run around and try to hold onto one of the boys’ hands. This was usually accompanied by a lot of blushing and giggling, and the reactions varied from boy to boy. Not many girls targeted him though, and Gou teased that it was probably because his hair was too long and he looked like a girl, but this didn’t really bother him. What did bother him, was the sheer amount of girls that liked to hold Haruka’s hand.
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“Okaa-san, how come the girls in my year try to hold boys’ hands at recess?” Rin asked one day after swim club. His mother was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and the smell of one of his dad’s old favorite western dishes he had learned on a fishing trip filled the kitchen with warmth. Rin leaned on the counter to get a better look at the food while his mom turned around, hands resting contemplatively on her hips.
“Well, I suppose it’s probably because the girls think they’re cute,” she smiled affectionately. “Why? Are there any cute girls chasing after you?” Rin huffed and crossed his arms over his chest.
“No,” he pouted, “they mostly just try to hold Haru’s hand.” A flurry of footsteps thudded down the hall as Gou slid on her socks into the kitchen, red ponytail whipping the air behind her. She flashed her brother a mischievous grin, which was only met with a scowl that flashed his oddly sharp teeth.
“Onii-chan’s just jealous because all the girls like Nanase-san and not him, right Rin-Rin?” she teased, and Rin’s scowl deepened.
“Shut up, Gou!” he growled as his face reddened, earning a disapproving look from their mother, “I told you not to call me that! Mom, she’s been hanging out with Nagisa too much! Tell her to quit bothering my friends!”
“Well, he is in her year, Rin,” their mother said, covering up Gou’s protesting cries of “it’s Kou!”, with a hint of reprimand in her voice. Gou stuck her tongue out playfully.
“Yeah, onii-chan! I can talk to whoever I want!” she bragged. Their mom sighed.
“Now, now, don’t fight. I need you two to help me set the table for dinner. Rin saw through the ploy to break up his death stare and Gou’s taunting smirk, but eventually conceded anyway and hopped down off his stool, small feet padding over to the cupboard that held the plates. Though Gou was totally wrong about why he would be jealous, the word stuck with him. Was he jealous of the girls?
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The more Rin thought about it, the more it made sense. Whenever he saw a girl try to hold Haruka’s hand, even though he always shut them down with a glare and pulled his hand away, an emotion he was now able to identify as jealousy welled up and ate away at his chest. Though, he didn’t quite get it yet, because he definitely didn’t want to hold the girls’ hands, so that had to mean he wanted to hold Haruka’s. The thought came to him in class one day, while they were working on an art project. Rin had never been good at art; his grip on the pencil was clumsy, his strokes too broad and rushed. The final project was always jagged, sloppy, at met with a trying too hard to be kind “what an interesting concept, Matsuoka-kun!” from their teacher. But Haruka was a natural at everything he did, so of course he was good at art. Rin had stopped his sketching of a sloppy, near indecipherable shark to admire Haruka’s sketch of the flowers in the vase on the windowsill across the classroom.
Haruka’s pencil strokes were controlled in a way that looked effortless, delicate hand curling around the pencil in a gentle and relaxed grip while the other splayed fingers across the corner of the page to hold in place as he sketched. Haruka had.. really nice hance, now that Rin actually thought about it. They always looked so soft, even after he swam. It was like the chlorine could not affect him. He never came out of the water with pruned fingertips, and even when they dried off the skin never lost its moisture. Haruka’s hands were just as powerful as they were dainty, too, when they sliced through the water and cupped it gently to pull himself through. His stroke was delicate, his pretty hands, and Rin honestly couldn’t think of a better word to describe them, hardly making a splash. It was beautiful.
Rin’s head had pillowed itself on his fist while he daydreamed, staring absently down at Haruka’s hands with a far off look in his burgundy eyes, hooded by his steadily drooping eyelids. He was pulled from his thoughts by the gentle voice of Makoto, who was looking across the table at them uneasily.
“Ah, Rin-chan,” he smiled, “I think Haru-chan wants your attention,” he said with a subtle nod to the black haired boy beside Rin. It was only then that Rin realised Haruka had been glaring at him, and he recoiled from the force of his piercing blue gaze. Rin’s face rapidly began to turn the color of his hair as his eyes went wide in surprise. When their eyes met, Haruka hastily turned away with a frown quirking his lips downward and what appeared to be a much lighter blush of his own dusting the tops of his cheeks.
“I didn’t want your attention,” he muttered to the desk in front of him, an irritated “drop the -chan,” tagging itself onto the end for Makoto’s sake. Makoto’s knowing smile only widened, and Rin turned the other way in a poor attempt to conceal his painfully obvious blush. It had been embarrassing getting caught staring like that, but Rin had made a discovery; he definitely wanted to hold Haruka’s hand.
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His efforts on working up the courage to do exactly that finally came to fruition several weeks later in the locker room before swim practice. As they were filing out the door, Rin let Haruka walk a bit ahead of him, and then (not so subtly) reach out to grab his hand as they passed through the doorway. It was everything Rin had dreamed it would be. Haruka’s hand was soft and warm in his, fitting perfectly against his palm. Rin’s face went red at the thought. He was so caught up in the dizzying feel of victory that he only slightly registered Haruka’s panicked whisper echoing in his ears.
“Rin,” he was saying, urgently, and when Rin broke out of his daze he noticed they had attracted a small crowd. His eyes wide, wine-red eyes finally settled on Haruka’s and Rin knew him well enough to decipher the hint of panic the other boy was trying (and failing) to conceal with his shaky glare. Rin’s heart twisted painfully as it thudded too fast in his chest. His breath was coming out in short gasps and it felt like he was going to drown in the trembling blue irises of Haruka’s eyes. “Rin, what are you doing?” he hissed.
Rin couldn’t think.
“Uh, romantic, right?” Rin blurted, the words tumbling quickly and uncontrollably from his lips and oh my god, why did I just say that?
After a few excruciatingly silent moments, Rin could vaguely hear the sound of laughter coming from the boys gathered around them. If it was possible, he felt his face and neck grow even warmer.
“Oh my god I’m so sorry,” he wheezed, and his chest felt much too tight as he tried to understand Haruka’s reaction. but the other boy’s face was unreadable as ever. “I’m so sorry, Nanase, I’ll just…” he trailed off awkwardly, but when he tried to pull his hand away, Haruka’s grip held him tight.
“Idiot,” Haruka tsked, but his eyes conveyed that it was okay, and the others boys’ laughter dissolved into confused muttering as Haruka tugged Rin along to the side of the pool to start warming up. Haruka dove into the pool without a word, and as Rin dove into the lane next to him, his heart was set a flutter for an entirely different reason.
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The hand holding became a regular thing after that, and no one questioned it, except for Nagisa, who wanted to know if they were in looovee~. Rin had gotten ready to yell, hands already curling into fists at his sides while Haruka bristled, but Makoto quickly defused the situation with a soft smile and a murmured “it’s okay if they want to, Nagisa.”
Rin would hold Haruka's hand at recess so the girls wouldn't try, and the most resistance he was met with was a disappointed frown before they shrugged and skipped back to their friends, off to locate a new target. Haruka protested no further than a halfhearted muttered insult and a glare in the opposite direction, but he never actually physically pulled away. It became almost as common place as the casual arm slung around Haruka's shoulders or the occasional hand clutching onto his sleeve, always initiated with a confident air and followed by a bluch and a questioning look, saying "is this okay?", and it always was.
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After Rin told them he would be leaving for Australia in a few weeks, he didn't try to hold Haruka's hand for a long time.
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On the day of the relay, even thought it had never been any different, Haruka was a little disappointed to see Makoto's hand reaching forward to pull him out of the lane and not Rin's.
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When Rin came to say goodbye on the day of his flight, Haruka's eyes were rimmed red from crying, and the sides of his hands burned a shade to match, rubbed red from wiping away the tears he so vehemently detested. Rin's heart ached. As they forced their way through pleasantries and choked back tears, Rin thought about everything his parents had taught him about loved, about how if you loved someone you were happy when they were happy, you were sad when they were sad. They taught him that when you loved someone you never wanted to leave their side. Rin thought about the ache Haruka was feeling in his chest, and how it matched the one tearing at his own. He couldn't hold back the tears anymore when he lurched forward, grasping both of Haruka's hands tightly in his own and lacing their fingers together.
"Haru," he sobbed into his best friend's shoulder, "Haru, I'm gonna miss you so much."
"Why now, Rin," Haruka's voice cracked with the words, and Rin didn't need to look up to know Haru, his beautiful, stoic, always calm, Haru, was crying. Haruka squeezed gently on his hands to let Rin know what he meant, and a thousand unspoken words passed between them. Why did you stop, why for so long? Why are you doing it again now, when you're leaving me? Why, like so many others? "Why now?" he repeated, desperation making his tone hoarse and barely audible.
Rin could feel Haruka's tears soaking into the top of his hair, and he thought about something his dad had said to him a long time ago, about holding hands, and when it hit him it knocked the air out of his chest and sent a fresh sob clawing its way up his throat.
"Because I love you," he cried, grasping desperately at Haruka's hands, "and you make me feel safe,"
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As the plane began to take off, the flight attendant noticed the worried look twisting his lips down and making his eyes wide, and suggested that he grip the armrest if it would ease his nerves. Her explanation said that usually people are more comfortable if they have something to hold on to. Her smile was kind, but unfamiliar, and the thinly padded arm rest was cold and lifeless in his grip, and only served to make him miss the feel of Haruka's hand in his own.
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He had been in Australia for two weeks when he finally settled into his desk and decided to write to his friends. His grip on the pen was shaky and nervous, the utensil trembling in his fingers as he searched for something to write. He remembered how effortlessly Haruka held his pencil and how his elegant script compared to Rin's terrible hand writing. He crumpled up the sheet of stationery before the pen had even touched it, throwing it at the trash bin (and missing) with a frustrated grunt.
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He never did write that letter.
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The feeling of Haruka's fingers clutched tightly around his wrist was one wrought with bitterness, Rin mused with a wry grimace as he spat angry, hurtful words at his former best friend's face. For years, he had entertained the childish longing to hold Haruka's hand again, but never like this. Not with Haruka's fingers in a frenzied vice grip around his wrist, frantically trying to prevent Rin's fist from colliding with his face. And yet, Rin couldn't stop it. He surrendered himself to his anger as they toppled to the ground and rolled across the dirt, hands gripping tightly at each others' arms in a ragged attempt to gain the upper hand.
It was only when Rin had came to his senses, when he had realized why it didn't say "free", when he was crying on Haruka's face, did Haruka's fingers glide down his wrists to twine with his fingers. Rin looked up in disbelief, fervently blinking the tears out of his eyes.
"Haru, what -" he rasped, but he couldn't bring himself to care even as his voice cracked and pitched back up to the octave of his twelve year old self. His eyes met Haruka's own, which were shining with a light he had not seen since they were middle schoolers. Haruka squeezed his hand reassuringly as the other came up to thread in the damp tangles of wine red hair cascading down the back of Rin's neck. Haruka's expression softened as he felt Rin relax almost imperceptibly into the touch.
"Because I love you," Haruka murmured with a voice soft and full of determination, just before their lips met, "and I want you to feel safe."
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end