Two Faced
By the time Makoto awoke, Rin was already gone. He knew when he walked by his empty room. Sighing, he ran a hand through his messy hair and made his way to the kitchen. The first thing he noticed when he stepped to the fridge was the message on the whiteboard. So he’d gone for a swim, huh? Well that sounded like Rin alright.
A quick look through the fridge made Makoto sigh- nothing. Turning to the cupboard, he grabbed a bowl and the box of cereal sitting underneath before pouring himself a bowl. He took a seat at the kitchen table before starting to eat. As he ate, his thoughts ran back to last night’s events. He narrowed his eyes angrily at the thought of Rin being with that Haru, and he finished his cereal quickly.
After rinsing the bowl off, he heard a buzzing noise coming from the counter. Expecting to find a bug, he was instead met with the sight of Rin’s phone. Grabbing it, he opened it to see a message from none other than Haru that read ‘I’m going to be a little late.’
Curious, Makoto went to the archived messages between Haru and Rin and read them. What he saw was not something that he liked. Apparently the two were meeting up today at a family restaurant. Well he knew of one place nearby- maybe that was where they were. He couldn’t let Rin confess to Haru- he could always stop by on the way to the University to ‘give Rin his phone back’ and see where it went from there. Heading to his room, he started to change.
When Haru woke up, he did his normal morning routine of soaking in the tub and then getting ready. What he hadn’t expected was to find his neighbor, a sweet older lady, struggling with some boxes. He couldn’t just leave her, so he sent a quick message to Rin before helping her.
Once done, Haru made his way to the restaurant, stopping just inside the door and scanning the area for Rin. Spotting his red hair, he made his way towards him and sat across from him in the booth. “Hi Rin. What did you want to talk about?”
Rin felt like he was a ticking bomb the longer he waited for Haru to arrive. Every time he heard the tinkling bells of the door opening, his head would shoot up only to get his hopes shot down every time it wasn’t Haru. He grew more aggravated and was starting to wonder maybe that water loving freak was standing him up or maybe he completely forgot like he feared. But he sent him two text messages about not being late before he left the apartment so there was no way he could forget right? But this was Haru they were talking about. Rin had half the mind to pull at his hair when the entrance door opened, and at last it was Haru who walked in.
The red head slumped back in his seat as he let out a sigh of relief. He couldn’t remember the last time he was so stressed out in such a short amount of time. Not even his swim meets were this stressful. When Haru slipped into the seat across from him, Rin shot him a glare, his eyes a little glassy like he was on the verge of tears. Though if he did start crying it would be tears of both relief and frustration for Haru’s late arrival.
“Don’t ‘Hi Rin’ me! What took you so long?! I specifically told you not to be late! The least you could’ve done was send me a text or—“ Rin started to rummage through his bag, “or called me to let me know that you uh…were gonna be…uh…” Rin froze as he seemed to remember something, and slowly his face turned red. “I left my phone at my apartment…” He sheepishly scratched the back of his neck, feeling quite embarrassed. Even if Haru did message him, he wouldn’t have gotten it because he made such a typical mistake.
Sighing heavily, Rin apologized, “Sorry, Haru. That was my bad, and I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I’ve just been really stressed out because ugh--! I seriously screwed up yesterday!” Rin finally gave in to his urge to ruffle his hair and tug at it in frustration before he slumped onto the table rather depressingly. The red head was about to confess his mistakes to his ever stoic friend, but it was at that moment a waitress came with a platter of their food. Sitting upright, Rin allowed the waitress to put down their food. “Oh yeah, I went ahead and ordered food for us. You always get the mackerel anyways.”
Rin thought it was probably better if he had something in his stomach before he started talking so he began to eat the hamburger steak he ordered. Besides, Haru was probably hungry too, so there was no harm to waiting a few minutes. Rin actually ate all of his main dish and was just starting on his side bowl of rice when he started talking.
“So yesterday I told Makoto that I was in love with you,” Rin said with a slight frown, getting straight to the point. He looked over at Haru, making eye contact with him. “Which we both know is a lie. And you’ve probably figured out that I’m actually in love with that dense numbskull so no point in hiding that, but my problem is I’m a coward who can’t confess.” Rin sighed heavily before he ate a bit of rice, probably an excuse to collect his thoughts. “He thinks I am in love with you…even tried to advise me not to ask you out cuz you’re ace, which I had no idea you were, but I want you to do me the solid and pretend to go out with me. Just until I work up the courage to confess to him…”
Rin looked really troubled as he stared down at his rice. It was obvious that this was really weighing on his mind. He put down his half eaten rice bowl, seemingly lost his appetite, as he sighed for umpteenth time. “Asexuals can be in romantic relationships, so it wouldn’t be strange if you accepted my “confession”, and he’d leave my love life alone for a while if knew we were dating. You know how Makoto is. Too kind for his own good, and always worrying more about the people around him than himself. I don’t think my heart could handle it if I blurt out a real confession to him out of panic like I blurted out the lie that I liked you,” Rin explained, knowing that Haru wouldn’t agree too easily if there wasn’t logic behind his proposal. The red head looked over at the other with pleading eyes. “So what do you say Haru? Will you “go out” with me for a while?”







