Haru’s eyes widened just a touch when he felt the shift beside him, then behind him, and suddenly the slight weight of Rin’s hand on his shoulder was noticed, and Haru had that to process now. It wasn’t uncomfortable, just…surprising.
Apparently Rin didn’t want him moving away, not if that new movement was any indication. Not that he’d intended to, but not he really wouldn’t be. His eyes stayed on the television for a few minutes, letting his attention be diverted to the show playing in front of them, but when his eyes moved off to the side and got met with red hair rather than Rin’s profile, a flicker of confusion went across the dolphin’s eyes.
“Rin?”
– For a few moments, it seemed like the raven wouldn’t question him averting his gaze so much, so he thought he would be able to just calm himself down and realize the move he had made was okay, but after a few minutes, his name came from next to him, and Rin had to collect himself in a matter of two seconds, turning to face Haru with a blink. The blush was impossible to hide though, but he didn’t want to look like an awkward idiot either (as if he wasn’t awkward enough right now).
"Hmn? What?“ he replied, smiling in attempt to seem calm before he turned his gaze to the screen where the probably very slow introduction seemed to finally be over, so maybe it could become more interesting now.
The smile remained on his features, making him look pretty dumb, but he could blame it on how he enjoyed the movie thing documentary waterver whatever.
Rin if you were that surprised that there was a show or two that revolved around sharks, you shouldn’t be considering who one of Haru’s best friends was. He knew perfectly well that Haru never did anything if he had absolutely no interest in it, so if he took the time to record something, it obviously wasn’t by mistake. It’s not as if these were incredibly graphic or loud documentaries or the like.
He didn’t smile but it amused Haru how quickly the redhead seemed to perk up attention wise as soon as he realized what might be their first show choice of the night. Dork.
“If you get scared just hide behind me.”
“… .”
All that did was give Rin a slightly unimpressed stare from the noir. He knew he was only teasing, but still. The stare just lasted for a few seconds before Haru refocused his attention on the television and started the show back up. Then settle a bit more against Rin, as in leaning on his arm more. Did Haru seem particularly affected by the contact? Not so much. Couldn’t potentially say the same about the one next to him.
– Rin acknowledged the stare he got from the raven, he had been expecting it, so another chuckle escaped him, more like a scoff, while his eyes remained on the screen. Then when it started, and Haru shuffled a bit, Rin followed his actions a little and made sure it wouldn’t be too uncomfortable for the dolphin, then he didn’t really think about his next action.
The arm the other one was leaning against, lifted up and created some more space, and before Rin could actually put it back, his hand was resting on Haru’s shoulder, causing him to look just a tiny tad bit away, or well, look more into the corner of the television to not spot any reactions that could practically ruin the whole movie–documentary–thing–whatever.
It wasn’t the shark’s fault that Haru had leaned against him, so therefore, if Haru was to somewhat move away now or even mention the action, Rin would obviously pin the blame on him for giving the wrong signals, and because that just came out so wrong in his head, that the slight blush on his face grew darker and bigger, making him look even more away now, not being able to see Haru, nor the television.
Rin hadn’t fully grasped yet that Haru wasn’t quite the quiet introvert that he’d met back in middle school. Was Haru the most talkative sort that’d rival even Nagisa? Absolutely not. But Rin would still be getting more than one word or minimalistic answers from the noir. Having him come back had been what Haru needed badly to be pulled out of his bubble of emotional distance, and it was only going to improve more now that the friendship had been repaired and rekindled.
Careful Rin, what’s interesting to Haru might bore the hell out of you and then you’d be stuck watching it just because you let him put on whatever.
True to nature, basically every saved program was about the ocean somehow, but if Rin was paying close enough attention, he’d see that there were a few documentaries about sharks saved in there. Saved with a particular person in mind, but that probably wouldn’t come as a surprise to the redhead if he really thought about it. Luckily for Rin, one of those is exactly what he picked, probably influenced just because of said person next to him. Clicking the button, Haru pulled up the special about great whites, paused it right at the beginning, and glanced at Rin questioningly.
“This alright?”
– Rin watched as Haru flipped through the list he had up, taking note of the fact that every single one seemed to involve some water. He wasn’t surprised, but he did blink twice when he noticed some shark movies in there. Did Haru really enjoy watching the documentaries with those animals in? Rin would think that the raven enjoyed more quiet documentaries, with not much action but only boring facts about turtles or something.
"Eh..? Oh, yeah. It’s good.“ He actually seemed more awake and interested now that there was sharks to be put on, especially when it was the Great White. He loved those sharks, didn’t like how people thought it was scary when there were barely any humans killed every years by shark. No, there were more people killing sharks. It made him kind of angry..
A smile was placed upon Rin’s features now, because he thought it would be nice to watch something both would enjoy. "If you get scared just hide behind me,” he teased, letting out a soft chuckle.
Yeah probably for the best that Rin refrained from chucking the remote, he would’ve had a really unimpressed look from Haru. Calling up his father and telling him that the television in the house needed to be replaced wasn’t something he wanted to try and explain. Wouldn’t leave the greatest of first impressions about Rin either, considering that he’d never met either of the Nanase parents.
“We could watch a movie?”
“Fine.”
Since he had free choice of what to watch, that was Haru’s cue to sit up straight and pick up the remote for the television, switch it back over to the first video function. He didn’t necessarily watch a lot of programs, but he recorded ones he deemed interesting enough and just watched them at his leisure. Mostly programs pertaining to swimming or the ocean or an occasional actual movie, but that shouldn’t really come as a surprise at all. Pulling up the list of things he had already recorded, Haru leaned back against Rin once more as he flipped through them. As long as Rin was content with Haru where he was, then that’s where he’d be staying for the time being.
“So you don’t care what we watch?”
– Rin was happy that he actually got an answer from Haru. Usually he would expect something like ‘whatever is fine with me’ or 'you choose’, but having Haru actually agree to something and then proceed to move himself made Rin let out a silent sigh of relief to himself. He then watched as the picture of the playstation disappeared, and he took the chance to stretch his foot forward and hit the power button to turn it off while it wasn’t used before he leaned back in the couch.
When Haru returned to his earlier position, leaning against the redhead, Rin couldn’t help but blink a little before he smiled just a little to himself. He then turned his attention to the screen, looking at the different things there. He knew that if Haru were to choose something boring, he would just have to deal with it, so he gave a nod while humming as a reply to the raven, one of his arms now resting on the top of the couch.
“Put on whatever the hell you want. You had to watch me play, I’ll watch whatever you wanna watch.”
Even if he badly wanted to put on a shark movie and lure Haru into it by saying it was water throughout the whole movie, he was nice enough to be fair for now. One day he most definitely would show on of his favorite shark movies, because he was wondering how Haruka would react if he were to see a shark eat everyone. Maybe it would even make him slightly more normal around water? It was an experiment to test one day..
That was that then, Rin would play and Haru would watch; works for him. It looked easy enough, but those also required quite a bit of precision that Haru didn’t necessarily have. He could utilize that skill for something that he could do on his own time, like drawing, but something like this where you had split seconds to make moves, he’d only be getting in Rin’s way.
He wasn’t necessarily tired, this was just comfortable; leaning just a bit against Rin that is. While Rin felt himself blushing just a bit, Haru’s face was still that of contentment and nothing else. He wasn’t thinking to look for anything like that, so Rin would get away scot-free.
The headshot happened in the blink of an eye, and his eyes moved back upward hearing the string of curses pass the redhead’s lips, to which an eyebrow got raised. That was something he picked up during their time apart. He knew Rin had a temper, but not a loose tongue when it came to swearing. On the other hand the way his facial expressions were contorting were amusing to say the least. Too bad Rin was too focused on his game, he missed the tiny smile Haru had for a moment.
“Going to keep playing or no?”
– If he had been alone, the controller in his hand would probably be thrown at the television or something, but this wasn’t his place, and he’d risk to destroy it, and it would all come pouring down on him in the end, so instead he just sighed heavily before he looked down at Haru, repeating the question in his head before he shook his head.
"I’m too pissed off right now,“ he mumbled, glaring at the game as if a message would pop up and say sorry and then proceed to play from where he died, but of course it never happened, and the redhead exited the game to come back to the menu of the playstation. He didn’t have any games he wanted to play now, and he didn’t really feel like it would be all that okay to just play and never do anything that could be fun for Haru as well.
”We could watch a movie?“ he then asked, looking down at the raven again. He had brought some of his own, but didn’t know if Haru was up to it, plus – he had been playing a game right now, leaving Haru with nothing but boredom, so it was just fair of him to let him pick a movie if so. "Dunno if you have anything you wanna watch, but anything goes.” During the movie, Rin would probably end up searching for a snack for them to enjoy while watching, but no matter what kind of idea he got for it, he couldn’t get himself to actually move from his spot, mostly because of Haru leaning against him – and it was kinda nice.
Makoto didn’t have any games of this particular sort, mostly because he didn’t want the twins watching him and/or play something this violent, and because the zombies scared him too much to be able to play properly. Haru on the other hand just didn’t understand the appeal behind having to shoot things and see blood and guts just to advance the game. He could watch it easily enough, but he wasn’t necessarily interested in playing it himself.
Haru listened to the explanation of the game easily enough, but it didn’t particularly entice him to want to play. He’d watch but that’s about it. At least Rin was enjoying the game if nothing else. If Rin was adamant about having Haru play too then he would, but otherwise he’d be content with just leaning on Rin and watching. Which is exactly what he did; Haru was already sitting right next to him, facing the same direction, all he had to do was lean a little to the left and he was leaning against the redhead’s arm. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, but then again it was, not like close proximity wasn’t something Rin was unaccustomed to.
“If you want to play, then play, I’m fine with just watching. I only play freestyle racing games much anyway.”
– Rin continued to shoot the fuckers on the game, the level just rising and rising as if it was nothing at all for him. It looked easy actually, but when the players in the game began going after him, he seemed to make a grimace that was more of concentration than relaxation. This game could really tick one off if you’d play it long enough to be addicted, not that Rin played this game too often, just sometimes to spare some time in between events or on sick days.
So when he felt something that couldn’t be anyone else but Haru against his arm, he didn’t seem to care much. Maybe the dolphin was tired? If he’d fall asleep on him, he’d just have to carry him to his room then – still, even if it didn’t seem like he noticed, an ever so light blush sneaked it’s way up to the shark’s cheek, but he was almost sure it was unnoticeable by the raven. Rin was just about to answer Haru when he was suddenly killed by a headshot on the game, and he couldn’t help but let out a row of curses because of that, then he complained about how far he had gotten and how fucking irritating it was when those motherfuckers were hiding and just waiting for him to pass by, almost as if that was the whole damn game. Especially on the online servers.
”Fucking stupid ass game,“ he mumbled after his rant, huffing childishly.
All the while that Rin showered, dried off, got changed, and wandered around the rest of the house, Haru was tucked back into his bedroom once again working on the remainder of his English homework. He was passing the class just fine as it is, so he wasn’t truly worried about how the assignment would turn out, and spending the entire evening having Rin go over each translation meticulously to make sure Haru had done it correctly didn’t exactly sound appealing. So he was working while the other was showering.
“Fine.”
Simple answer to Rin telling him he was done. Haru knew he’d be setting up the video games once he was dressed again, so he’d be busy for a bit doing that as well. He wouldn’t be much longer, but he saw no reason to stop his train of thought with the homework just to say something more when it was completely unnecessary.
What would be twenty minutes into Rin playing his video game, Haru would reappear and sit himself down right beside Rin. Yes, right beside him. He’d never understand the point of games that revolved around shooting things and people. The only games he ever really played were racing ones, that’s normally what he and Makoto would play.
“What’re you doing there?”
– The shark was currently busy killing of zombies and other players, chosen to play on one of the hardest difficulties. However, as the raven entered the room after some time of playing, Rin looked up for two seconds, enough to get killed. Great.
A huff escaped him, but he didn’t really feel that irritated since the mode he had set it on basically only lasted as long as he was alive, so even if he had to jump into it again and start over again with the score, it’d still be fun.
“Shooting things,” was his reply to the question the dolphin had asked, but he realized it would probably not give much of an explanation as to what the game was actually about, so as he re-spawned in a different location of the map he was on, he decided to go a bit more into details of the game.
"It’s the apocalypse. I’m supposed to go around and shoot zombies as well as I have to look out for players. Since I’m not playing on an online server, it’s easier to get far due to lack of good players hunting me down. The snipers are the worst, and with the zombies – the runner and jumper is probably the most hard to shoot. The zombies all make the same damages when attacking you, but get bitten and you’re dead.“
The game was rather complicated, with ways to avoid being bitten once a zombie grabbed onto you, but he had to click fast enough for it to get away.
Well that was unexpected to say the least. Normally Rin was energetic and whatnot, though Haru couldn’t think of a single instance where the redhead had become flustered over something. A bit aggravated in a way, sure, but never embarrassed to the point like this. It was pretty hard to miss the subtle blush on his normally pale cheeks, despite his attempts to hide it. He was standing right next to you Rin, did you really expect him to not see it for even a second?
And now all of a sudden he was practically pushing the workbook back into Haru’s hands and saying there was absolutely nothing else he could do to help his friend out and make sure the assignment was accurate. Okay then.
“Go set it up if you want to then.”
Babbling was also unexpected. Rin never babbled. Talk fast, sure, but never to the point where it was one long run-on sentence. Haru’s shoulders tensed up a bit when Rin decided he was going to mess around with the black strands. What was Haru, five? No clue why he randomly decided to do that.
“Also, I love you too!”
Hearing that surprised him. Did he actually mean that, or was he saying it for no reason? He didn’t understand Rin sometimes, some things never change. Haru didn’t quite know how to respond to that, so he did what he did best; go quiet. Dropping the workbook back on his desk, Haru stepped around Rin and exited his bedroom still quiet as ever.
Just as wordlessly he stepped into the bathroom just across the hallway, a towel got pulled out of the closet and left on the hamper next to the bathtub.
“Everything’s in there that you’ll need. I’ll be in my room.”
– Grateful for no questioning from the raven, Rin trailed after him into the bathroom, then he nodded to him as a confirmation that he got the note of where he’d be before he closed the door once Haruka was gone. A deep sigh escaped the redhead, hand resting on the door before he moved to actually do what he was supposed to do.
However, he had to go get his change first, walking out to get his bag and then once again disappearing into the bathroom. Then he proceeded to remove his clothes and get in the shower. It was quick, because he thought Haru wanted to have a bath during the evening, so he wouldn’t use all the warm water (even though he believed Haru had some kind of endless warm water in his pipes, one could never know).
Once he was finished, he took the towel and got himself cleaned up, also having his hairdryer with him since long hair that was still wet was one of the worst things he knew – once that was done, he took a hairstring around his wrist and tied up his hair in a ponytail before choosing his new set of clothing.
First one of his white tank tops, then over that he wore a grey top that looks like someone had just cut it up completely before he put on a pair of black pants. A black hoodie was put on top of it all before he put on his favorite leather gloves and some bracelets, looking like he was completely overdoing it. A chain was also attached to the pants, and last he put on his necklace with a shark tooth and put away everything he had used so it wasn’t a mess before leaving the room.
Peeking inside of Haru’s room, he blinked. “I’m done, just saying,” then he was off to get the playstation up and ready for later.
Assuming Haru would stay in his room for a bit more, Rin took the opportunity after the playstation was up to go see what he had to eat there, and of course he wasn’t surprised to see that it was mostly mackerel, and that most of the things there was impossible for him to work with…
"Seems like a trip to the store is in order then,“ he mumbled to himself as if he was checking of a list in his head. Leaving Haru be, he wandered back into the living room, dumped down in the couch and started to play one of the games he had brought – which basically involved only shooting, guns and action.
It was probably more fun for the one doing the observing than the one being observed. Haru had never heard his other friends speak English, not even Rin himself. Haru knew his pronunciation had a lot of work needed, he’d probably never be fluent, not that he wanted to be, but still. He wouldn’t be passing the class and graduating if he didn’t get through it, so Haru didn’t have much of a choice even if he honestly didn’t think of a time he’d even utilize English at.
What Rin said made sense, he heard the phrase he just said in English, in Japanese, so he understood the meaning of what he was saying.
Haru didn’t see any particular novelty in it, hearing him speak English. Sure it was strange, but to find it outright amusing, he didn’t see the appeal. Then again Haru had about as much of any sort of sense of humor as an orange would, so—
Okay, attempt two at speaking English, probably wouldn’t go much better or worse than the first one, but here goes nothing. Same mild look of concentration, then semi-awkward speaking attempts for the first sentence.
”How. . are you?”
Rin didn’t say anything immediately following the first phrase, so Haru’s eyes moved back over to his face for the first one. He was just saying a phrase, Haru didn’t think anything of it, his voice was still the same consistent tone, tentatively saying the unfamiliar words (not like he’d said them before anyway).
”I love. . you.”
Now to wait for Rin’s approval or disproval for how he said it. Forget what he just said, Haru wasn’t thinking about that, there wasn’t any meaning behind the words. For now.
– Rin listened carefully to how Haru pronounced the phrases, nodding a bit to himself in approval of the first one. It was better than expected, and Rin then waited for the next to be said, blinkg with his focus set on Haru.
When those three words were spoken, Rin blinked for a bit before he felt his cheeks heat up and he looked to the side, covering his face with one hand. He didn’t know why he was reacting like this to the raven’s attempt at speaking English, but he just couldn’t help but find it so extremely adorable, even if the words were spoken with not much as a hint of feeling in it.
“A–Ah. Good work!” he quickly spoke, wiping at his face and managing to get the blush away so he could focus back on Haru, smiling gently. “Really, you did a great job. Alright so..” He looked down at the workbook again, looking through some of it before he nodded a bit to himself. “It seems like I’ve given you all the help I can so far, so the rest is up to you! Correct mistakes and just ask me if something is confusing.. alright?"
He still smiled – how dorky. Handing back the book to his friend, Rin stretched his arms up with a groan. "Alright.. got much of that school shit to do, or is it okay for me to just go connect the playstation so it’s ready for later? I also need a shower, so maybe I could get to that right now before anything else? If it’s okay for you that I use yours, that is.”
Anything was okay for the shark, really. He was just happy he could be here. He then reached a hand out and ruffled Haru’s hair, messing it up completely while chuckling. “You’re doing much better in English now! Proud of ya, Haru."
| I love. . you. |
He couldn’t help but hear those words play over and over again in his head, so with a big grin, he pulled his hands back to himself. "Also, I love you too!” It was supposed to be some kind of friendly little inside joke, but he didn’t know if Haru got it. Anyways, he really decided to go for that shower now, so he was off to get that out of the way before it got too late.
Even if he was talking more than he did as a kid, in reality it still wasn’t all that much. Definitely not as much as a normal person. But any improvement was good improvement, right? The only reason Haru made any was because of Rin himself. Not even so much just coming back, but going back to the Rin that forcefully wormed his way into Haru’s life five years ago and never got out of his heart since then.
If there were any mistakes on the sheet, Haru didn’t catch them. Rin being more fluent probably would, but perhaps that’d be the inherent potential problem with having Rin help Haru out. Blue eyes floated over to watch Rin’s own eyes scan the page, reading his friends words, looking for anything wrong.
His gaze fell back down to his homework when Rin told him that there were some mistakes, trying to figure them out himself. Following the direction of his finger. He saw what he wrote, he was sort of following Rin’s explanation. The random bits of English caught his ear, but they sounded so foreign to his mind so there wasn’t much comprehension of the words.
“Can you say ‘my name is’?”
That was new. Haru could somewhat write English out, but he’d never really had to actually say it before. That wasn’t really part of the curriculum for the English class, that’d probably be something they’d do in third year as they had to take the class once more. Pursing his lips, he actually needed to think about how to do this. Pronunciation for Rin was easy, it rolled off his lips as easily as speaking Japanese did for Haru.
”My. .name is.”
That felt strange coming off his tongue. Whether or not that was said right, he wouldn’t know until Rin said yes or no.
– Patiently, the shark waited for some kind of reaction from his friend, eyes on the cerulean eyed teen until he finally said something, and Rin blinked a bit, eyes widening when he heard how different it was for him to hear Haru actually try and speak English.. He had heard most of his other friends do so – especially Nagisa – but none had impressed him.
Of course, Haru’s pronunciation wasn’t perfect, and not like Rin’s at all, but something with it had Rin smiling – no, grinning before he let out a chuckle at the other one, not meant to make fun of him, but probably came out as if he was trying to do just that.
“Alright.. That wasn’t exactly bad as hell, but you do need some work on it. Now if you say the same sentence and add your name to it on the end of it, you know how to introduce yourself to people! That’d be good, right? What’s different here is that instead of saying the name first in the sentence, you say it in the end of it, but normally that only comes at introductions so it won’t be a big problem for you until later.”
Behind Rin’s little rambling on about what needed to be fixed on his pronunciation, he couldn’t get over how different it had been to actually hear Haru say something in another language. It was different in.. in a weird way. No, in a cute way. Extremely cute way, and he couldn’t help but give himself a mental slap to stop thinking that so he could focus on the matter at hand – finishing this shit.
"Alright, you can practice those pronunciations alone sometimes if you want to, now onto what I said next, eh? You know that the r and the l in English is way different than the ones we use? So just follow after me–“
Rin cleared his throat before he spoke;
”How. Are. You?“ ”I. Love. You.“
”Both of these can be good to know, especially the second one for you to tell everyone you know. You see, ‘I love you’ means the same for everything, even if it’s said to a lover, family member, friends.. Like we have different ones, you know? So it’d be cool to know the English one too.“ He shrugged. "And 'how are you’ is good to know because that usually followed after you have introduced yourself. If someone is to ask you, you just answer 'fine’, 'good’, 'bad’… Three small, not so hard, words, but you can get to that later.” He smiled brightly at his friend. “Think ya can do it?”
NB!! On a mini hiatus. 
