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Entry tags:
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
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.