archived

On top of the fact that swimming consumed most of his time, he found himself gravitating more towards guys as they were a lot easier to hang around with, and he felt like females required a bit too much for his liking, even though the two most important ones don’t demand that much from him. Pulling his thoughts away from that, his face brightens visibly on his favorite topic:swimming.

“Ah you swam butterfly? Me too; and freestyle. Maybe we’ll get to race each other one day soon.” He has to wonder though, if he swims freestyle maybe he’s heard of Haru. It wouldn’t surprise him by this point as people he’s come to know somehow have already heard about his childhood friend. He can’t help but feel a little proud of himself about this. Rin’s face falls just slightly though. Right, right, if this guy came from somewhere like Naribusawa U. then he had to have heard of him… In fact he’s pretty sure he has. If it’s important it’ll show face in due time.

“Ahh, see I train in Australia, and I don’t keep up with the news as often as I should, if I can tell you the truth. I just heard about that Albert guy being here, so sorry if I’m supposed to know who you are.”

There’s just something about not being recognised as the totally amazing person you are that just does it for him. It wouldn’t have been right for him to snap at someone who’d just saved his ass... but here he was now. Butterfly to freestyle - this familiar story didn’t sit right with him. 

“Supposed to?” he grumbles, staring at the train tracks in hopes that Rin would hop on the next train and he wouldn’t have to talk to him anymore. “My practice times beat national records. I was literally in last week’s newspaper, what do you have the memory of a goldfish?”

Even if he didn’t intend on sounding like he expected a royal treatment, it sure as hell did. He’d heard of Rin back in highschool, and to think that he didn’t think the same of him wounded his pride about as much as a bad comment on social media. It wouldn’t hurt to at least know your rivals if you were to compete against him - another country be damned.

“‘sides. Albert and I go back”- if back meant one meeting where they didn’t even swim and hung around an arcade -“that ain’t right to ignore your competition.” By his rather dramatic pout, it was evident that he was annoyed by how Albert was just... that Albert guy. He couldn’t help but feel like Australia might’ve just been an entirely different planet.

           YOU  SHOULDN’T have  let  your  captain  rope  you  into  this  kind  of  party  ,  especially  with  the  pounding  music  and  crowded  people  ,  sweaty  bodies  and  the  stench  of  what  you  know  to  be  BOOZE  ,  you  nurse  your  own  apple  juice  ,  phone  in  hand  at  the  countdown  ;  you’d  rather  be  HERE  than  at  home  with  your  father  ,  at  the  very  least  .  

           AND  IT’S  A  FAST  movement  ,  tugged  towards  the  stranger  ;  golden  eyes  flickering  upon  him  ,  once  ,  twice  ,  and  the  countdown  MOVES  faster  than  you  can  ;  so  find  your  red  solo  cup  fallen  to  the  GROUND  as  he  PULLS  you  in  for  a  kiss  .  not  your  first  ,  not  your  LAST  ,  but  it’s  a  KISS  nonetheless  ,  and  it’s  OVER  as  soon  as  it’s  begun  ,  find  your  hands  on  his  chest that  had  previously  just  been  clinging  to  his  shirt (  as  if  ,  to  continue  &  want  more  of  this  kiss ) pushing  against  him  and  AWAY  .

         ❛   what’s  wrong  with  you  ?   ❜

   It’s something he barely registers. Snapping out of his daze he realises it all. The cup on the floor. The cheer as the minute flies past. The steps he takes back once the girl shoves him off of her. Not an ounce of sense is left in his head as he struggles to form a single word. An explanation.

   “You looked. You looked lonely and I wanted to take care of th- NEW YEARS KISS. I wanted to kiss someone real pretty.” 

   None of it makes sense. What he doesn’t understand is how she hasn’t raised her hand to slap him three hundred and sixty five days forward. He straightens his jacket before bowing, feeling the strain at the back of his legs.

“Really? I thought you did more than enough for him.” Harmony laughs when he brings up his coach’s demands. He seems to be more of a slave driver than a coach, but perhaps that’s just her perspective. Professional swimmers face more demands than what’s she used to see when she was a swimmer in high school and through university.  

“We’re happy to have you back. The kids missed you, and I missed you too.” 

Kaede grins, holding back a laugh. “Of course you missed me. How couldn’t you?” He leads them over to the dining table to sit, leaning over to hold her hands. His thumb traces over her wedding ring, beautiful around her finger. He wears his ring as well, and the sight of the two bands together is a sight that he missed too dearly.

“Anyways, I’m back home for a while now. At least a little time after New Years and all. So we basically have all the time in the world to ourselves.” Kaede sure wasn’t used to this sort of thing. His holidays with his parents were never too big - not that he even remembered a Christmas tree ever being up, since they were always too busy for that sort of thing. 

Rin purposely looks away when Kaede pulls out his phone to text the girl he’s supposed to meet, not wanting to feel like he’d peek in and snoop or was even the slightest bit curious to the contents of his messages. He makes another noise, and a sigh, looking at the watch on his wrist. His lips smack harshly.

“Yea. I just hope he’s wiling to wait a little longer. It be a pain in the ass to try and walk to our meeting place now…” Rin grumbles, stuffing his hands back in his pockets and looking at where the train was supposed to be coming from before blurting out suddenly. “So, what styles do you swim?” Filler conversation he feels obligated to have while still having the males attention. That and it would be sorta awkward to walk away now that he’d butted in and started making small talk.

“Nah. Nah. We aren’t like that.” Kaede never had the best of luck with this sort of thing, but when it did happen he definitely did strike lucky. His flatmate was the closest of any girls that he knew, and even they weren’t overly affectionate with each other at most times. She’d definitely chew him out for talking about her like this. “But you’d be surprised how girls can be.”

Though, he wonders who Rin means when he refers to the guy he’s meeting. He seemed pretty irritated, so it must’ve been someone close. He hoped the best anyways for the two. But at least Rin actually wants to talk about the only thing that interests him.

“Used to be in butterfly but I got bored of it. Things are looking up in freestyle.” Still, hadn’t Rin heard of him before? This would be about the time where people would pick up on the fact that he’d held all these records, or that he’d beaten the national times in practice races... Somehow not having that acknowledged was annoyingly refreshing.

@ursusxarctos

Family is important. He’s definitely not so close to his parents, but they’re about as distant as he is as well. Not that there isn’t any love there, but they aren’t an overly affectionate family to begin with. Kaede always wanted his family to be closer, but it never came to the point where anyone would call them a cute family.