Fanfic Recs

"Is this about Australia?"

They reunite on the tiny balcony outside Seijuurou's fourth-floor apartment. "It feels like its been months since I last saw you," Rin confesses, fiddling with the knot of his tie. "It's only been—" Haru tries to say, but Rin cuts him off. "I missed you."

maybe you like me too. “It’s probably going to be kinda cold, even if it’s warm out today so uh… just hold onto me. Don’t fall off.” “I’m not stupid,” he said loftily and sat down behind Rin. Close. Rin could feel his warmth, even though he had his hoodie on. And then he pressed closer, and said in a soft voice, “Go.”

[Day 5 - Dark AU] Haruka has had a thousand first-times with Rin, but all he really wants is a second-time.

A heart-to-heart that was long overdue. A sketchbook that needed more red. Two hearts finally connect, after so long.

Once, the Olympics were an unattainable goal, a future he'd ceased to dream of. But with high school graduation Rin dares to dream again, and this time he isn't doing it alone.

They are always discovering more of each other. Or: on second thought, Haruka isn’t sure if there’s anything romantic about them at all.

“So, umm,” Rin muttered, trying to make conversation and hoping that the heat of the water would work well enough to mask the redness he was feeling on his cheeks and ears. “What are the plans for the next few days?” “I have no plans,” Haru said with a shrug. “Ehh,” Rin objected. “You brought me up all the way to Hokkaido for a week and now you tell me you have no plans for us?”

Rin has been having issues with nightmares since he was a child. When it gets particularly bad, Haru is there to support him.

Haruka's life is stirred once more by the hand of a wilful redhead. Past and present intertwine as they dissect and evolve their lifelong connection. (or how Rin Matsuoka woos the love of his life by roping him in to a ridiculous number of DIY projects) Companion piece to An Evening Before Autumn Comes, told from Haruka's point of view.

They broke up the spring following graduation.

Rin is back in Australia for college. Ikuya leaves the US but does not follow Hiyori to Japan. Haruka is at a crossroads. A story of encounters, doubts and decisions told through the eyes of three boys.

When an experiment goes wrong, Levi and Eren end up in swapped bodies. Unfortunately, existing as each other until they can figure out how to reverse it turns out to be more difficult than they had anticipated. Ultimately, it leads to a journey of hard truths, mutual discovery and a greater understanding of one another--not to mention an appreciation for being themselves.

Every day Rin woke up to a morning message. Sometimes it was simply forlorn, like I can’t find a market with mackerel that tastes like Iwatobi mackerel. Sometimes it was poetic, like, I can’t forget your expression after we won the relay together. The forlorn ones, Rin actually paused to try to fix. The poetic ones, Rin still had no good answer for, except Why are you saying such embarrassing things, idiot! It didn’t stem the tide of messages.

Haru and Makoto have been invited to their first real party. That means drinking, girls and maybe even kissing. Haru isn't sure he wants any part in it. But at least he’ll get to see Rin ...

In the microscopic cosmos that passes in that brief flicker of time, three things irrefutably happen: one, Gou informs them that they are visiting the nearby hot spring for her birthday, two, Haruka decides he will not go, and three, Nagisa revokes every attempt to refuse with the grin that stretches across his face. In the aftermath, Haruka keeps layering fragments of happiness over the fracture that keeps festering in his heart, but at the end of the day we bury the most important things the deepest.

It's been almost three years since Rin and his excuses left. Almost three years since Haruka's flat is quiet, so quiet he feels like he's drowning.

Rin gets a full frontal view of Haru's hairy legs in their shared hotel room and decides to do something about it before their competition. But why stop at just his legs?

Haru hadn't meant to avoid Rin all summer. It wasn't that he didn't want to see Rin. Haru was dealing with an unfamiliar feeling; it reminded him that sometimes you had to actually expend effort to get the things you wanted, and Haru was waking up to the fact for the first time in a very long while.

A week prior to a large swimming tournament in Hawaii, Rin heads back to Japan.

Even from five thousand miles away, Haruka Nanase continues to surprise Rin.

Once in a while, Rin sleeps over at Haruka’s place. Once in a while, Rin has panic attacks. He never really expected these two to happen on the same night.

“Oh,” Rin said. “Like a crush?” “Yeah. What does it feel like?” “Warm,” Rin said, thinking of bright afternoons and fluffy-clouded skies, tentative hands brushing together, the smell of chlorine-soaked hair drying in the sun. “It’s, uh, warm. And weird. And you want to hug them and never let go.”

The bathwater always cools too quickly; never ice cold like a swimming pool or steaming hot like an onsen, but tepid. Lukewarm. An in-between, a numbness, a silver medal smile, an unreadable expression, cherry blossoms two days late -- strewn dirty over the sidewalk. The water is tepid. Uncomfortably so. He’s been laying there too long, thinking of things that shouldn’t be thought about.

"The jingle of the keys and the kachak as the door gives way and swings open are the only sounds for a few moments before Rin takes a tentative step through the threshold. Haruka watches on curiously, warm tingles crawling up his spine again, can’t figure out why. Rin’s back in the glow of his small entryway is a new sight, Haruka realizes, warming him from the inside out." Rin visits for the Holidays.

Rin makes a run for it.

Haruka is so used to thinking they're always at odds that he doesn't realize until afterwards that sometimes, they prove that they aren't.

Eren disappeared for three years, and came back a different person.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

The term "boyfriends" doesn't suit the feelings Haru has towards Rin.