Helpless - Young!Rin Matsuoka and Haruka Nanase

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Helpless

~P~

It’s not until their third local tournament that Haruka realizes the absence of one particular member of Rin’s family. His sister and mother are there, cheering enthusiastically for the little swim team that is theirs, but his father is not present. Granted, Haruka doesn’t know what the man looks like. He’d only ever heard his voice once, briefly, when he’d dropped Rin off in front of the pool for swim practice and took off in the car.

Rin doesn’t seem to care much - he’s grinning brightly and laughing, and he never talks about him anyway - and so Haruka doesn’t pay much attention towards it either.

~P~

It’s after they win that third tournament that Haruka goes looking for Rin, wanting to speak with his friend about the victory and the possibility of the four of them being able to stay at Haruka’s house that night. Everywhere he looks, though, he cannot find him. His eyes travel through the throngs of congratulating and cooing parents, praising their child’s success or encouraging them to train hard and try again.

He manages to bump into Gou, Rin’s little sister, but apparently neither she nor their mother have seen him since the tournament ended, either. They’ve been searching for him, as well, and both agree to inform the other if they find him.

It’s fifteen minutes later that Haruka finds him sitting, alone, in a dark hallway in a barely-used spot of the pool. Haruka observes him from a distance for a few moments - he looks upset and yet furious, even though they’ve just won - before stepping out from behind the corner he was standing and peering at his friend, curious and concerned.

“Rin?”

The purple-haired boy’s head shoots up, and his eyes are wide until he realizes it’s Haruka. “Oh, hey, Haru.” He grins and stands up, brushing off his shorts and walking over to the other boy.

Haruka blinks at him. “What’s wrong? You look--”

“Ah, it’s nothing. I’m fine. Besides, we won!” He slings an arm around Haruka’s shoulder and pulls him close, “Let’s celebrate!” He begins to walk them both down the hallway and back to where everyone else is, and though Haruka is still wondering what was wrong with his best friend just seconds before, he doesn’t prod, and instead, forgets it.

~P~

A few weeks pass easily, with nothing out of the ordinary, but one day, after practice, Nagisa asks a question, and for some reason, Haruka has a bad feeling about what is about to happen the second the words leave the little blond’s lips.

“Rin-chan, how come we’ve never met your dad? We’ve met your mom and Gou, who’re super nice, but never your dad! Why?” It’s an innocent inquiry, like mostly everything Nagisa says, but when all of their eyes land on Rin for an answer, Haruka can see as he tenses and begins to fidgets, his eyes anywhere but on his friends.

“I… uh, well…” He’s uncomfortable and doesn’t know how to respond. “H-he’s out a lot, you see. He spends a lot of time, um, out of town for… work. Yeah. He’s not here a lot. And when he is, he’s always got a lot of paperwork to do. So that’s why.”

It’s a realistic answer, Haruka supposes, and while both Makoto and Nagisa buy it, it’s Rin’s nervousness and tone that make for him to be suspicious of the words his friend speaks.

~P~

One day, Rin misses swim practice, and Makoto and Nagisa are abuzz with reasons as to why. Their friend adores swimming more than anything else - he would never miss it! And they had seen him previously a few days before; he had looked perfectly fine then, not sick at all. So why, they wonder.

At first, Haruka’s not worried. When another day passes and he’s still not there, it strikes his interest, but he doesn’t show it. It’s on the third and fourth and fifth days that he begins to realize something is wrong, and it from there on that he begins to feel sicker and sicker, his baseless apprehension seizing him more and more each day until he feels so awful that he can’t even swim.

On the sixth day, however, Rin is there, and he acts and looks no different than before. There’s a large grin on his face as always, but now, Haruka notices with a start, there’s a rather dark, but fading, bruise on Rin’s right forearm and his left upper arm. Haruka doesn’t draw extra attention to what Rin is clearly trying to ignore, to pretend doesn’t exist for whatever reason, but Nagisa doesn’t catch the drift, and curiously points out the marks.

“Rin-chan! What happened? We were so worried about you! Are you okay? Where did you get those bruises from?”

Rin is bombarded by questions from Nagisa, which he takes in stride. He pulls a hand through his hair and laughs before ruffling the shorter boy’s blond mop, but when his hand drops, it almost instinctively raises again to wrap around and hide the mark on his forearm. “I just fell down the stairs. You know how bad the steps are at my house, right? Well, I--”

Haruka doesn’t hear what’s said after that, because his eyes widen in a sudden, sickening realization, though outwardly, he doesn’t show it much. The story that leaves Rin’s lips sounds too fabricated, too rehearsed and the laugh that left his mouth was too anxious, too fake for Haruka to just ignore any longer. Upon closer scrutiny, Haruka realizes the shape of the bruises and he feels his stomach twist again. He wonders if he should say something to Rin, but when swim practice ends and he has a chance to talk to him, he sees how happy the boy is and he can’t bring himself to shatter  the fragile façade for him quite yet.

~P~

It’s when it’s just the two of them that Rin tells him. They’re wandering around after swim practice, and they end up at a little playground. The boys saunter over to the swings and find themselves sitting there in silence for a long while, before Rin scoffs and speaks.

“My father left. He’s gone.”

Haruka’s head flies up and he stares at the boy, who looks so utterly defeated and broken in that moment as he glares at the ground. He opens his mouth to say something of comfort a few seconds later, but Rin beats him to it, his hands tightening around the chains of the swing until his knuckles turn white.

“You knew, right? About what he was like. About what he did. You… were the only person who knew.” He sound angry, accusatory, like he’s ready to lash out, but instead, he whispers, “Thank you, Haru… for not saying anything to anyone.” It hurts Haruka to hear his friend speaking the way he is - he sounds so unlike himself - but when he tries to talk, he is once again cut off, this time by a curt, bitter laugh.

“Good thing, though. He was a good-for-nothing idiot… all he ever did was try to hurt us…” He sounds so hateful - this is not the Rin that is Haruka’s best friend, but someone else entirely. He is almost scared, and reaches out towards Rin, who pretends he doesn’t see the gesture and instead jerks up into a standing position, grabbing his bag. “Hey, Haru. I think I’m going to head home, okay? Besides, I guess I’m kind of the man around the house now, considering…”

In a few seconds, Haruka is standing, too, his eyebrows furrowed. “Rin, I--”

Rin doesn’t want to hear the pity, even if it’s from his best friend. He waves his hand nonchalantly at Haru. “I’m fine.” No, I’m not. Haruka gives him a look. “Really, I am. I’m glad he’s gone now - I don’t have to worry about Gou getting targeted anymore. Or my mom.” Haru, please, I…

“Rin.” Haruka’s tone is pleading, “Please, you can talk to me, you know.” He wishes his friend would open up to him, that he would stop acting like he needed to take on everything by himself, that he would see how he cares about him, but--

A flash of that ridiculous, fake grin, though his eyes hold a certain sadness in them. “Haru,” he places his hand on his shoulder and squeezes it reassuringly - a lie. “I’m good, okay? You don’t need to worry about me.” Haruka only nods and accepts the situation then because he doesn’t want to cause his friend anymore trouble.

The pair walk towards the entrance of the park then, and say their goodbyes. It takes everything in Haruka not to try again, but instead, he watches as Rin walks off in the opposite direction with that same fake, sunny smile, before turning and heading off home himself.

He feels frustrated tears form in his eyes and blinks them away furiously - but he cannot prevent the twisting of his stomach and the constricting of his chest as he walks. He wants nothing more than to help Rin, for his best friend to open up to him and vent, but he won’t let him, and it’s that realization, that powerlessness, that hurts Haruka the most.

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