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love is in the air
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freed, cordated, beissen & jawdacity
When: IC 03/14 (White day!!)
Where: Gardens
What: Rin sets up a date for Makoto & Haru. Explosions happen.
Rating/Warning: well... depends on how successful the date is?! wink wonk
[ rin wakes up on the 14th with a vague feeling of dread.
the thing is, as much as rin is a do-first-think-later sort of guy, he's also the sort that underlines and highlights and populates the margins with dozens of footnotes. he knows his plans are all in order, he knows that all of it should work out in makoto and haru's favor (because this is about them, not him), but that doesn't mean that he doesn't feel the pressure.
the string quartet could fall through, the food could be terrible, it could start raining. rin has an umbrella ready for the rain, he's taste-tested the food thoroughly, and he's grilled nonon on the reliability of her string players. even if all of it falls apart, if makoto and haru find something to use as the focal point of their - relationship (it still feels odd to call it that, even though they've been married since they drew first breath) - then all of this frenetic planning would have been worth the effort.
rin's seen how they've been around one another. the slow descent of haru's calm, white noise where there used to be the rhythmic drag of the tides. makoto, who used to make it a point to stay where haru stayed, now bowing his head and hiding in the silence between words. they're nearly unrecognizable to rin, who has known and known them throughout his life: as friends, as rivals, as the glimmer of a goal at the end of the run. their happiness is as important as his own.
he's out scoping the gardens by noon, the picnic blanket tucked under his arm. he'd texted both of them in the morning, telling them in no uncertain terms that they were to meet him by the entrance to the gardens — at which location rin has instructed the members of the string quartet to guide them to the picnic spot. the gardens are still torn awry by the flood, but the ground is dry, the sky sweet and clear overhead. even the ground beneath rin's frenetic steps is dry, the grass springing back to form once he takes the next.
he finds a spot under an imposing oak, close enough to the lake for its reflection to cast islands of light across the grass. the leaves dapple the ground with shadow. it's perfect. ]
Here! Here's good.
[ behind him, heine follows. rin doesn't expect an answer from him, but his presence is appreciated nonetheless — not for his input, of course not, but heine keeps him from making this into a theatrical production.
he spreads the blanket, enlisting heine's help. weighs the corners down with smooth stones he'd wandered around the lake to find. halfway into the planning stages, he'd nixed the idea of tuxedo rentals, as trying to convince makoto and haru to wear tuxedos without explaining to them what he was trying to do seeming like a logistical impossibility.
then, the glass candelabra, fitted with an array of white candles. they're capped with plastic so the flames won't be doused by the wind's curious hands. he leaves them unlit for now, busying himself with spreading out the place settings: plates, chopsticks, elegant flutes. the ground is flat enough that everything stands without threat of wobbling, but rin still spends much too much time arranging and rearranging until he deems it perfect.
then, the flowers he'd bought from zack. white roses, of course. he's not much for arrangement, so he'd done little more than cut the leaves off and braid the stems together; it makes a fair centerpiece when looped around the base of the candelabra. ]
Looks good, right?
[ whatever heine's answer, rin will take a moment to grin up at him. it's an unfettered sort of expression, lacking rin's tendency to censor himself. something about the air in tellus this month. he feels good, feels hopeful. this is going to work, even if the set-up isn't perfect.
and heine's here. their friendship may have run aground, rin may still feel that trill of danger when heine ventures too close, but being here with him, not thinking about the weight of his knife, of heine's blood pooling in the creases of his palm — it's what he'd needed.
the string quartet shows up, then. rin gives them quick instructions, arranging them on one side of the blanket, then the other. then remembering that the sun will be at its apex at noon and moving them back to their initial spot. it's five-'til; haru and makoto will be here any moment.
thus appeased by the string quartet's easygoing nature in the face of rin's type-a tendencies, he moves to unpack the food from his bag. grilled mackerel for the main dish, grated daikon and bowls of steaming rice on the side. he'd bought a cake for dessert, not trusting himself to bake. cooking was one thing, but -- baking? beyond rin's skillset, especially since he was loathe to taste the resulting dish.
the plates are covered with plastic wrap - don't want it all to get cold before makoto and haru can dig in - and rin plates the tiny cake next to the candelabra. he's about to turn away when he remembers the candles.
he spends a panicked moment digging through his bag. did he forget a lighter, of all things? ]
Shit. Heine? Lighter?
[ heine - the bastard - has been holding out on him. he doesn't have a lighter, but he does do some convoluted trick with a spark on the end of his gun (rin watches with trepidation, wondering if he's going to end up with several holes in his carefully-chosen picnic blanket) that gets the job done. well, then.
a moment, just to survey the work that he's done.
it's acceptable. not perfect (his flower arrangement is messy, his mackerel is definitely not as good as haru can make it, and the cake looks somewhat lopsided after its journey to the park), but it'll do.
with that, rin drags heine away. he'd been planning on heading back to his apartment, maybe heading off for some ViViD battles with heine, but —
the fact remains, he doesn't know how well this is going to go. it wouldn't hurt to stand guard and make sure that makoto and haru don't need anything. just for ten or so minutes, then he'll leave them alone. besides, what if he wants to do this again? it'll be worth the mild breach of privacy to know what worked for them and what didn't.
plus, if they start playing tonsil hockey, he'll be off like a shot — there's no way he wants to stick around and watch that happen.
yeah, rin wants this to happen. yeah, he's happy they found each other. but that kernel of directionless jealousy hasn't quite dissipated. there's no swimming around here, not like in their own world. and sometimes it feels like that's all that tied him to haru in the first place. sometimes it feels like haru is too far away for him to reach.
of course that's not true.
once they've found a spot a fair distance away, hidden in some shrubbery, rin again begins to rummage about in his bag. he glances up at heine once he's found the prize. ]
I brought pizza for you. Hang around for awhile and we'll call it even, okay?
[ it had been repayment for sticking around the last hour and a half, but now rin's going to extend its value for the spying effort. not like heine has anything better to do, right? ]
freed, cordated, beissen & jawdacityWhen: IC 03/14 (White day!!)
Where: Gardens
What: Rin sets up a date for Makoto & Haru. Explosions happen.
Rating/Warning: well... depends on how successful the date is?! wink wonk
[ rin wakes up on the 14th with a vague feeling of dread.
the thing is, as much as rin is a do-first-think-later sort of guy, he's also the sort that underlines and highlights and populates the margins with dozens of footnotes. he knows his plans are all in order, he knows that all of it should work out in makoto and haru's favor (because this is about them, not him), but that doesn't mean that he doesn't feel the pressure.
the string quartet could fall through, the food could be terrible, it could start raining. rin has an umbrella ready for the rain, he's taste-tested the food thoroughly, and he's grilled nonon on the reliability of her string players. even if all of it falls apart, if makoto and haru find something to use as the focal point of their - relationship (it still feels odd to call it that, even though they've been married since they drew first breath) - then all of this frenetic planning would have been worth the effort.
rin's seen how they've been around one another. the slow descent of haru's calm, white noise where there used to be the rhythmic drag of the tides. makoto, who used to make it a point to stay where haru stayed, now bowing his head and hiding in the silence between words. they're nearly unrecognizable to rin, who has known and known them throughout his life: as friends, as rivals, as the glimmer of a goal at the end of the run. their happiness is as important as his own.
he's out scoping the gardens by noon, the picnic blanket tucked under his arm. he'd texted both of them in the morning, telling them in no uncertain terms that they were to meet him by the entrance to the gardens — at which location rin has instructed the members of the string quartet to guide them to the picnic spot. the gardens are still torn awry by the flood, but the ground is dry, the sky sweet and clear overhead. even the ground beneath rin's frenetic steps is dry, the grass springing back to form once he takes the next.
he finds a spot under an imposing oak, close enough to the lake for its reflection to cast islands of light across the grass. the leaves dapple the ground with shadow. it's perfect. ]
Here! Here's good.
[ behind him, heine follows. rin doesn't expect an answer from him, but his presence is appreciated nonetheless — not for his input, of course not, but heine keeps him from making this into a theatrical production.
he spreads the blanket, enlisting heine's help. weighs the corners down with smooth stones he'd wandered around the lake to find. halfway into the planning stages, he'd nixed the idea of tuxedo rentals, as trying to convince makoto and haru to wear tuxedos without explaining to them what he was trying to do seeming like a logistical impossibility.
then, the glass candelabra, fitted with an array of white candles. they're capped with plastic so the flames won't be doused by the wind's curious hands. he leaves them unlit for now, busying himself with spreading out the place settings: plates, chopsticks, elegant flutes. the ground is flat enough that everything stands without threat of wobbling, but rin still spends much too much time arranging and rearranging until he deems it perfect.
then, the flowers he'd bought from zack. white roses, of course. he's not much for arrangement, so he'd done little more than cut the leaves off and braid the stems together; it makes a fair centerpiece when looped around the base of the candelabra. ]
Looks good, right?
[ whatever heine's answer, rin will take a moment to grin up at him. it's an unfettered sort of expression, lacking rin's tendency to censor himself. something about the air in tellus this month. he feels good, feels hopeful. this is going to work, even if the set-up isn't perfect.
and heine's here. their friendship may have run aground, rin may still feel that trill of danger when heine ventures too close, but being here with him, not thinking about the weight of his knife, of heine's blood pooling in the creases of his palm — it's what he'd needed.
the string quartet shows up, then. rin gives them quick instructions, arranging them on one side of the blanket, then the other. then remembering that the sun will be at its apex at noon and moving them back to their initial spot. it's five-'til; haru and makoto will be here any moment.
thus appeased by the string quartet's easygoing nature in the face of rin's type-a tendencies, he moves to unpack the food from his bag. grilled mackerel for the main dish, grated daikon and bowls of steaming rice on the side. he'd bought a cake for dessert, not trusting himself to bake. cooking was one thing, but -- baking? beyond rin's skillset, especially since he was loathe to taste the resulting dish.
the plates are covered with plastic wrap - don't want it all to get cold before makoto and haru can dig in - and rin plates the tiny cake next to the candelabra. he's about to turn away when he remembers the candles.
he spends a panicked moment digging through his bag. did he forget a lighter, of all things? ]
Shit. Heine? Lighter?
[ heine - the bastard - has been holding out on him. he doesn't have a lighter, but he does do some convoluted trick with a spark on the end of his gun (rin watches with trepidation, wondering if he's going to end up with several holes in his carefully-chosen picnic blanket) that gets the job done. well, then.
a moment, just to survey the work that he's done.
it's acceptable. not perfect (his flower arrangement is messy, his mackerel is definitely not as good as haru can make it, and the cake looks somewhat lopsided after its journey to the park), but it'll do.
with that, rin drags heine away. he'd been planning on heading back to his apartment, maybe heading off for some ViViD battles with heine, but —
the fact remains, he doesn't know how well this is going to go. it wouldn't hurt to stand guard and make sure that makoto and haru don't need anything. just for ten or so minutes, then he'll leave them alone. besides, what if he wants to do this again? it'll be worth the mild breach of privacy to know what worked for them and what didn't.
plus, if they start playing tonsil hockey, he'll be off like a shot — there's no way he wants to stick around and watch that happen.
yeah, rin wants this to happen. yeah, he's happy they found each other. but that kernel of directionless jealousy hasn't quite dissipated. there's no swimming around here, not like in their own world. and sometimes it feels like that's all that tied him to haru in the first place. sometimes it feels like haru is too far away for him to reach.
of course that's not true.
once they've found a spot a fair distance away, hidden in some shrubbery, rin again begins to rummage about in his bag. he glances up at heine once he's found the prize. ]
I brought pizza for you. Hang around for awhile and we'll call it even, okay?
[ it had been repayment for sticking around the last hour and a half, but now rin's going to extend its value for the spying effort. not like heine has anything better to do, right? ]
no subject
unfortunately the latter had been persistently shoved into his hands, grease staining through the warm base of cardboard and he could smell the cheese coming through the cover. somehow, it didn't ease a sour mood, even if he does deign to stay.
rin hadn't explained the event in its entirety; why was he dropping stones on the edge of some blanket? rin had told him, sure, but he stopped listening on the second minute. it sounded like something mimi should have asked badou to do and that's about as far as his comprehension skills got.
he already has half the pizza slice in his mouth when he's talking (no table manners whatsoever) ] Why?
[ still, the list continues on. point six - use vivid. actually use vivid. fight something. his muscles felt like they were getting stale, lethargy rusting the joints and the chambers of his pistols were too clean from the methodical hygiene he subjected them too.
point seven. find a job. he was running kinda low on cash, considering not everyone needed actual mercenary work as frequently as back home.
whatever.
guess he'll have to stick around. how unfortunate. but he settles behind the shrubbery, the picnic site beefing through the thick of the green and browns of twigs. another piece is torn from the pizza slice instead of a yawn that is nearly literally swallowed down.
it's funny. in a weird way, this reminded him a little of the odd jobs badou would drag him along. certainly a lot less gun smoke now. maybe that is why the question is prompted, almost accidentally. ] Oi. Have you seen Requiem for a Dream?
no subject
Just because.
[ the lingering tension from their last fallout seems to affect rin alone; without the distraction of set-up, he's left with his hands and his thoughts, neither of which have anything productive to offer. the smell of grease and pepperoni is turning his stomach; he looks away, focusing instead on his handiwork. the bright red square of the picnic blanket, dappled in silver and gold.
it's a good thing that heine isn't acting strangely. still, rin is jittery and overwrought, distracted by the impending plan, by heine in the periphery of his vision. a pale interruption in the greenery. ]
Hm? [ rin's startled by the nonsequitur; he looks to heine, brows drawn. yeah, he'd seen requiem of a dream. it had come out when he'd been a sixteen-year-old in australia, angry about his lack of progress in the pool. he'd watched it with the rest of his teammates and swallowed his tears until his throat felt raw. usually crying during movies felt like a catharsis, but that had been another trial that he'd felt like he failed.
melodramatic, rin thinks, with a inward scoff.
miraculously, none of this shows on his face. rin shrugs, trying for nonchalance. it's a skill he's picked up here in tellus, heine's example teaching him more than knife handling. ]
Yeah. Forever ago. Why?
[ it doesn't seem like heine's kind of movie.
then again, a story about circling the drain, about clawing one's way up from the gutter... well, maybe it's fitting. ]
no subject
rin's interpretation then was the source of something unsettling - his ideas to 'help' had left heine mulling over them for a little bit of time, before he chose ignorance. before he chose disregard and shutting eyes and ears towards false hopes. or towards apprehension.
it is why now, there is no cloud hanging between the space of them - at least, not the sort he's brought. it happens, words were said and past brought up to well as purple as broken capillaries under papyrus skin. then, with all that said and done, he moves on.
anything else would be annoying and headache inducing, neither of which he cared all too much for.
so he settles for nostalgia of the easy kind. for recollection as something akin to indulgence. badou would choke on his damn cigarettes if he heard even the implication that heine missed the stupid, one eyed fuck.
it wasn't that rin was a replacement. it was just that their rhythm held certain reminders and it was an easy thing to fall back to in ways heine didn't spend the time analyzing.
which is why he takes the pizza in stride, why he stays, grease on fingertips before he sets the box aside. why he asks the question seemingly out of no segue at all.
the answer makes his breath catch in a chortle, sickle grin easy and smug. ] Did it make you cry?
no subject
What?
[ rin's response is too quick, too defensive. he's scowling, the expression forced into place, fitting all wrong. embarrassment peeking out around the corners. ]
The hell I did! Why, did you?
[ as far as comebacks go, it's scraping the bottom of the barrel, but heine had surprised rin.
good thing, too. with that one jab, rin feels the air settle between them. normalcy shoves the awkwardness to the background — for the moment, at least. this, rin can work with.
besides, where's the logic in dubbing rin a crybaby after he'd shed a few (okay, maybe "a few" is an understatement, but that's not the point) tears upon hearing about heine's childhood? that story would have brought harder men to tears. even now, thinking about it, rin blinking up into heine's face - the white of his skin rendered blinding under the sun's attention - he has to drag himself back to the present. they're sitting in the bushes, waiting for rin's idiot friends to partake in a romantic picnic. it's something straight out of some slapstick comedy.
the fact that rin did explode into tears during the movie is entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. also not worth bringing up. ]
no subject
as it has always been so, though arguably in the past 3 odd years of knowing those he has (has it been that long?), the unclear outline of smoke found it easier to keep shape.
not that he saw it that way. introspection was not synonymous with silence and its clear which he prefered.
still this was normalcy. easy set against bites snaps and jabs and a rasp of a laugh follows. ] Ha-ha. Thought so.
[ the purpose of them being here - no, scratch that, mainly of him being here - is still lost on him. so lost it will never be clear but he stays.
he stretches, a pull of hands upwards with a wide yawn in the relaxed light. grass was, he was beginning to think, kind of comfortable in an entirely unnatural way (to him). at least, it was enough for him to want to take a nice, long nap as they wait for something he seriously does not care about. ] I'll probably regret asking, but what's the point of all that?
no subject
and rin makes sure heine knows just how unimportant he believes the subject to be by huffing and turning away, casting his gaze instead into the distance. makoto and haru are late. probably haru's fault. makoto would have been here precisely on the dot, concerned by the militant tone rin had used to demand his presence. ]
They've been in love with each other since there were - I don't know. Probably since their moms popped them both out. Makoto and Haru, I mean.
[ he doesn't ask if heine's met them. if he's being honest with himself, he doesn't really want to know. ]
But they won't admit it, and it's really pissing me off.
[ that's it. that's his explanation. if heine wants more insight into the excessive preparations, he's not going to get it.
rin is quiet for a moment longer, apparently debating between continuing and leaving it at that. the internal debate doesn't last long: rin's always been one to act first and agonize about the consequences afterwards. ]
Maybe our world's gone. Maybe this is all we have left. I just wanted them to forget about it all and be happy for a little bit.
[ he's very studiously avoiding heine's gaze. ]
no subject
though no. it was unimportant. it was like a breath, words exchanged and moved on through the breeze and the leaves and whatever else this environment was made of.
rin waits for the other two, and heine lounges in lethargy. this is as unimportant as unimportant could get, as far as one (1) bonethin guy was concerned.
he does know them. he does and he says nothing of it because it doesn't matter. a lot of things don't matter in this situation, and rin talks about love and happiness and heine has nothing to add to it.
maybe something about that should remind him of mimi's fumblings when it comes to badou, but all heine really thought of that was her stubborn - idiotic - reluctance to ask that one-eyed moron anything in non-roundabout ways. even a bastard like heine knows she cares.
maybe it was something like that?
it was...remarkably mundane. too mundane for him to fully grasp the point of. happiness was never part of his emotions - maybe he would never recognize the feeling even if it hit him in the face with a brick. on second hand...maybe that would be the only way for him to recognize such things.
teeth on flesh. ] Hmm.
[ rin is avoiding his gaze so much, even he notices. silence is kept until heine elects to break it with slow words, nonchalant and languidly casual. ] I guess - you don't want them to worry all the time, right.
[ many times he did that for nill. maybe that is where he should search for understanding. ] I don't get that whole happy thing, but I get not wanting someone to be afraid all the time.
[ eyes slide closed, and he leans back until he's sprawled on the ground, arms cushioned under his head. ] Still. Don't get why you need to spy on them for it -
[ just what type of exhibitionist crap are you into, rin?- ] - but if that's your thing... you should have brought more pizza.
no subject
sometimes rin doesn't understand heine. it's like looking through a glass pane, seeing a face both human in shape and form but knowing - somehow - that the similarities end there. friendship should have been an easy thing, the path of least resistance from point a to point b, but with heine it's fraught with something quieter. rin would name it, give its presence more than his perfunctory attention, but he understands it even less than the differences between them.
besides, whoever heine is, whatever horror he's suffered, there's no one in the world - in all the worlds - that should have to admit to unhappiness like that. or - worse - someone who misunderstands the precepts of happiness to such an extent that its presence seems foreign. that he doesn't feel its lack.
the tension in rin's shoulders finally loosens. that's why he'd been drawn to heine from the start: it's that honesty that keeps him here. he wants to know why heine is the way he is, why he doesn't strive for the same gentle goals that rin himself does. friendship. love. happiness. it should be the fertile earth upon which all else grows.
so he folds into a seated position beside heine, propping himself up with his palms digging into the dirt. the picnic blanket sits unattended, makoto and haru yet missing.
yet - somehow - already rin feels lighter than when he'd started. this will work out. makoto and haru, of course. and heine, too. ]
If you want to figure out what happiness is, eating that shit isn't going to get you there.
no subject
avoiding haru was a decision he'd taken upon himself to fulfill, entirely unrelated when it came to the dynamics he shared with the rest of his friends. his distance temporarily abated with the flood, all of them brought together by the constraints of mutual crisis, but given an inch of normalcy and makoto tripped over himself to go the mile, back to his usual routine of tactical evasion and heavy remorse. a stopgap for the damage he wrought, and haru hadn't said anything in the way of demands (even while emanating complete agitation), so it'd been alright like that. it worked out just fine. time healed all wounds, and what couldn't be fixed would eventually subside, left to be handled at a later, indeterminate date.
but much to his chagrin, rin just wouldn't let it go. they could barely hold a conversation without it reverting to the topic of haru at least once, like he'd invoked his friend's sempiternal ire just by trying to keep the peace. lately, his disconcerting composure has reduced those matters to a state of borderline irrelevancy, but it's wearing down on his placidness, nerves hit every time they fall into the same discourse hashed out in a different configuration.
so: a quarter before noontime, makoto unceremoniously arrives at the garden entrance, hands tucked neatly into his pockets on the expectation of at least encountering the guy who summoned him in the first place, who has never priorly taken the expense for reconvening on such short notice when it had (apparently) nothing to do with haru or swimming. it's a bit nostalgic: the spindling bareness of the sakura blossom tree in the playground yard, rin profiled against it, reciting his wish for a pool full of petals like it could've been a litany, strings of scripted verse spoken under the breath.
with the afternoon sinking in unadulterated thaw around him, makoto loiters around the garden entrance for another ten minutes, alternating between eying his cerevice (which he's since taken to strapping to his wrist) and shielding his eye from the glare silhouetting his vision.
it's not longer still until he's trampling moisture-bitten grass underfoot, voice snared with ineloquent confusion, calling out as he goes, fingers plyed on a hair-trigger impulse to send him a message. ]
Rin? Where are you?
[ his patience derives itself from an inordinately high tolerance threshold. makoto doesn't mind waiting but rin defines himself by his promptness. it's his friend's attention to preciseness that has him slightly keyed-up, even if he can't deduce the rationale just by wandering a few meters off from the entryway.
so he loses the fight with his self-control, tapping away on his cerevice to dial rin up and scrounge the answer for himself.
ring, ring.
makoto's so absorbed in the task that he wouldn't notice if someone snuck up behind him and pulled a fast one. how anticlimactic. ]