Haru listened to the foreign words, spoken in a very not foreign tone. The freestyle swimmer carded his fingers through Rin’s red hair once more, and he felt his heart ache and swell to almost bursting. Slowly his head shook,
“No, you shouldn’t have.. but I shouldn’t have over-reacted like I did. Again, we were both wrong.. “ Rin’s head leaned against his stomach and Haru found himself embracing him, as if protecting him, and he sighed,
“I don’t know what you just said ... but I want to say something,” slowly, Haruka disentangled himself and sank to his knees in front of his lover. Leaning up, he nudged his forehead to the other man’s and closed his eyes. It took a lot of courage to admit when someone needed someone else, and Haru was no different from any other man in the world.
“You and I .. we’re soulmates,” yeah, he was that well-read. “We’re meant to be. Even in Australia, I .. hoped, prayed, longed to see you come home. Back to me. When you didn’t, I lost a part of ... well, of me,” his voice remained mostly deadpan, but Rin knew him well enough to be able to hear the thick emotion in his tone. Haru rather shook with the force of his own emotions and feelings, and he pressed on,
“Then you came back, and everything was right again. But you were angry .. you wanted something from me, and I didn’t know what to give you. Then when we swam together, finally, after all those years... I was complete again,” blue eyes slowly opened to peer into red, and his head tilted to brush his nose to Rin’s,
“So... go through this life with me, Matsuoka Rin ... swim at my side, forever..?” he hoped Rin caught the question. If not, he was thicker than Haru had originally assumed.
