Free! - Iwatobi Swim Club Destiny

Because my beloved kohai Harukaaaaaaa mentioned a soulmate AU with Marinka and _how could I not?_ Wonderful cover art belongs to her! Seriously she's just awesome.

**Destiny**  
>840,764,759 minutes is what the count started at.<br>He'd painstakingly done the math. Checked the calendar. It took him a lot of time to work out all the... variables... but he now holds in his hands a piece of paper with the exact date and time that he'll finally meet his soulmate.

The thirteenth of November in the year of 2018.

Seven-year-old Matsuoka Rin smiles as wide as he can smile. He smiles until his cheeks hurt.  
>Only fifteen years, two-hundred-and-four days, eighteen hours, and now twelve minutes and forty-six seconds until he meets his soulmate.<br>It feels like a really long time but he simply can't wait.

* * *

><p>The small paper in his pocket serves as a burning beacon of his future all his life. It's his reason, his purpose in getting up to face the day, because he knows someday in the future he'll meet the person destined for him.<br>The move to Australia when he's only nine is very, very upsetting because what if they're not there? What if his soulmate doesn't speak any Japanese? What if he can't speak English well enough by the time they meet? Granted, he still has thirteen years left, but the void of the unknown spreading out between then and now is daunting. Plenty of horrible things could happen between now and then to make him worthless as a soulmate. It's days like that that he finds himself taking the paper out of his pocket- old and feeble, the formerly crisply ripped edges dulled to soft waves instead of defined ridges- and stares at the date he's rewritten over and over as it fades.  
>Whoever he meets on that day will have been waiting for him just as long. He smiles at the smudged string of numbers and feels his heart beat irregularly.<p>

It still feels like a long time in the future but he only gets more excited for the day as the days between slip away.

And some days slip by faster than others, once he meets the blue-haired kid of those two scientists. Ryugazaki Rei is a stuffy little nine-year-old who cares too much for logic and theories but he's a good kid and Rin makes friends with him easily. The instant ten-year-old Rin learns his new friend has never been swimming he drags the younger boy to the pool at his swimming club and tosses him headfirst into the water.  
>Rei doesn't come up and Rin realizes that maybe the reason his friend has never been swimming was because he didn't know how. Rin leaps into the water after his friend and Rei is wild, thrashing for the surface and panicking, bubbles erupting from his gaping mouth. Rin grabs Rei under the arms and hauls the younger up with him to the surface.<br>His coach is yelling about recklessness and the parents are whispering in worry and the other kids are pressing too close for comfort but Rin ignores them. He rubs Rei's back as the other coughs and hacks pool water back up and glares at him while squinting because his glasses are at the bottom of the pool.

Rin nervously shuffled up to Rei's side later with the red plastic frames clenched in one hand and he gives them up with a contrite "Sorry, mate. Thought you could swim."

Rei snatches his glasses back but he's slowly softening as Rin continues to stand at his side shuffling awkwardly and looking intensely apologetic.

"I suppose it's all right," Rei sniffs archly. "I should have been more clear concerning my abilities."

"So... are you still mad at me?"

"Of course I am! I almost drowned!"

"I'm really sorry, Rei."

"...apology accepted. I guess."

"Really?!"

Rei blushed and crossed his arms as he looked away. "You're my... only friend, Rin. I have to forgive you."

After that Rin taught (forced) Rei to learn how to swim. Rei was proficient- he studied the theories and dynamics reverently until he knew them by heart- but he exceeded in the butterfly stroke. Rin kept to his own styles, freestyle and butterfly, and they had long races every night after swim practice before they'd head back to the condominium their families lived in. Rin calls his best friend and former neighbor Nitori Aiichirou as he does every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and the two young boys talk about their past few days and the interesting things that have happened to them since they'd last spoken and occasionally their countdowns. Nitori had been stunned to hear about Rin's mess-up with Rei and the pool but eager to hear about the duo's progress.  
>Gradually he leans more and more on Rei and they form a close bond- the hopeless romantic and his ever-serious foil- and he spent nights in Rei's apartment spilling his every fear about his assuredly lovelorn future.<p>

"I'm never going to find them. How can I, if we're always _moving_?! Gou got to figure it out when she was a kid but she doesn't even care! She _ignored_ him! How can you do that?!"

Rei rubs his forehead and carefully, putting all his concentration and energy into it so he wouldn't snap, sets his pencil down.  
>"Rin, calm down. The likelihood of you missing meeting your soulmate is approximately one in 634,000. Everything will be fine."<p>

Rin curls up on his side, away from Rei, and tucks his knees to his chest. "...but what if they hate me? What if I'm not good enough for him? O-or her!"

"I don't think that's even possible. You need to calm down and simply let time take its course."

Rin explodes outward in a jumble of limbs until he's spread-eagled flat on his back. "But I don't _want_ to wait."

"Well, the numbers say you have to. So you have to."

Rin groans as long and as loud as he possibly can.

Rei rolls his eyes. "You still have a time. Remember people like your mother, who will never find that person. You still have the ability to find them." Though Rin was gaping at him in horror- death of his soulmate had never even been a possibility to him but _now_- Rei adjusted his glasses and smiled.

"I have complete faith, Rin, that you will find your soulmate."

"Your time is only like two weeks after mine, why aren't _you_ excited at all?"

Rei settles his glasses on his nose and turns back to his textbook. "Because it is more than ten years until it happens and I am content to let it come to me."  
>Rin growls but gives it up, knowing he can count on Nitori to reassure him later.<p>

Nitori at least doesn't change over the years and always is ready to lend an ear for Rin's soulmate worries.  
><em>"Don't worry, Rin! You're amazing and anybody would be honored to have you as their soulmate. I know I would!"<em>

"You're biased because you like me," Rin grumbles back but his heart feels a little lighter at the compliments. "I know I'm a jerk sometimes. Well, a lot."

_"You're just honest."_

"I'm an honest jerk then. Rei says so. And he's not afraid to lie to me."

_"Rei-san shouldn't say such mean things..."_

"So it's okay if I say it but not someone else? That's what I meant right there. You're biased because you like me. I'm a jerk. My soulmate's going to hate me."

_"Rinnnn..."_ Nitori whines. _"They'll love you. They have to! So don't worry! Please."_

"I guess. Yours two and a half years after mine though, you have more time to get ready."

_"I know when you find your soulmate you'll help me until I find mine and if you can do it and wait then so can I! Oh but I meet them on my birthday, I wonder what will happen? I'm so excited about that, you know?"_

Rin turns to face the wall with a dubious expression and the phone cord digs into his neck as it's strained. "...hey. Ai?"

_"Yes?"_

"...thanks. For putting up with me and listening to me and... stuff. Thanks a lot."

_"Any time, Rin. This is what best friends are for!"_  
>Rin hangs up the phone that night with a lightened heart and he sleeps easier for it.<p>

Nitori remains his best friend and confidant as they get older. Rei gradually gets more bookish and serious and uptight. Rin becomes surly when he can't beat his own damn times and is a constant third place on the roster due to the fact that Malloy and Jenkins always post better times than him no matter the trial. His father's dream seems to dance just beyond his fingertips and it's infuriating. It makes him waspish and vitriolic as time passes. The move back to Japan doesn't settle his nerves. It coils them tighter until it's all Rei (his parents' ten year pharmacological study of local wildlife had finally ended and they returned home to Japan) and the newly-pubescent Nitori can do to keep him sane and non-homicidal. Every night, though, every night he huddles under his covers and looks at the unending steady decrease of his timer. Every night he stares at the dull red glow of the digits and whispers, "One day closer to you. Whoever you are."

* * *

><p>And years later, coming from nowhere and catching him by surprise, that day is upon him.<p>

It isn't a nice day in the port town of Iwatobi. This town is the third he's moved to in almost as many years and his unease is ever growing. It's freezing out and not even his best coat, warmest hat, and thickest gloves can help him ward off the shivers in his spine today.

_**Fifty-six minutes left.**_

Nitori's been his best friend since they were little kids at their mother's sides and all, but today, Matsuoka Rin simply cannot handle the younger kid's constant one-sided talk.

_**Forty-five minutes left.**_

His pulse is racing a mile a minute and his heart skips a beat every time he looks back at his watch and sees the numbers are dwindling.

_**Forty-three minutes left.**_

He loves Aiichirou, really he does, but he doesn't want his chatterbox of a best friend at his side when he finally meets _them_. Whoever he or she will be. He doesn't care about gender. So he turns to his dear old buddy Rei with a pleading look. Rei rolls his eyes but he doesn't immediately take Nitori away- and mouths '_pool_' with a knowing glare that makes Rin blush and huff- and with every step Rin can feel his disquiet mounting. Fifteen minutes pass and with a quiet grumble at seeing Rin check his wrist for the fifteenth time Rei takes pity on his friend. The younger man fixes his glasses and takes Nitori by the shoulder, steering him away.

"Stop worrying so much, Rin! Everything will be fine!" Nitori yells as he's being pulled away.

Relieved, Rin walks a few more blocks before a sign for piping hot chocolate catches his eye and he ducks into the coffee shop.  
>He makes a quick order for a large hot chocolate and stands at the counter blowing on his hands to warm them up. His gloves have been shoved in his coat's pocket and he glares at the signs and waits.<br>"Fuckin' cold," he grumbles.

The barista hands him his drink and he nods and offers a small smile that drops the second he reaches for his drink.

_**Twenty-two minutes.**_  
>His hand is shaking when he takes the cup.<p>

Rin turns to leave the shop, to-go cup at his lips, when the thought strikes him to wait. Where would he really conceivably be in twenty... one minutes? And if he waits here, doesn't that mean the person will come here too? What if he misses them by not leaving? What if he misses them _by_ leaving?  
>He finds a secluded booth in the back to nurse his drink and waits.<p>

* * *

><p>Tachibana Makoto and Nanase Haruka are as happy as they've ever been but also as nervous as they've ever been. They walk together, hand in hand as always, down the snowy streets with wrists pressed together like doing so will make the identical numbers on their watches slip away.<br>_**Twenty-two minutes**_, Makoto confirms with a twist of his arm. Haruka glances at him and Makoto smiles at his best-friend-yet-more and Haruka gives a slight curve of the lips in return.

They're excited. Thrumming with nervous energy. Because today, after a whole lifetime of waiting, is the day. Today is _their_ day. Now they just need to find the one they're to share it with.

All their lives, as far back as either young man can remember, the numbers on their timers have been identical. Exactly the same, even down to the seconds, the numbers have baffled everyone who knew. It hadn't taken long for them to realize they were unusual. Soon they stopped showing people to avoid questions they didn't know how to answer. If someone asked Makoto for his number he would only show it if he was certain Haruka hadn't already shown his.

"We're different, huh?" Makoto remembers asking one night when they were seven.

It was a cold night, February second, and they lay cuddled up with each other, arms and legs interlocked like puzzle pieces and foreheads pressed together. Haruka's sapphire eyes were no longer veiled and he let Makoto read him.

"I don't think so either," Makoto commented on the unspoken words easily. "But I do wonder what it means."  
>He glanced down at the watch on his wrist with its brand new orange band and read the dimly glowing green numbers.<p>

840,764,759 minutes was when is started when they were infants. It wasn't unusual for the watches to read as blank when a baby was born clutching the device. It simply meant their soulmate hadn't been born yet. Things became strange one February day- also the second, as it were- as both of their watches blinked on early in the morning.

Ten-twenty-seven in the morning, to be exact.  
>Talking on the Nanase side porch while breastfeeding their babies, it was Nanase Setsuna who noticed her friend's necklace light up with a emerald glow. Too small for the child to wear and far too early for him to understand its import Tachibana Megumi had taken to wearing her son's watch as a necklace so she would be immediately aware of any changes. And just as her friend had noticed the green shine of the numbers coming to life so did Megumi see sapphire glitter around her friend's neck.<p>

So at the same time the young women gasped and pointed to each other's necklaces.

"Meme!"

"Setsu!"

Eagerly the two had wiggled to sit pressed together and held the watches up and side-by-side.

"Setsu, they're-"

"I noticed. But they haven't even officially started yet. Let's give it a little time before we panic."

"Y-yeah, all right."

"What a number." Setsuna whispered.

"I've seen some longer, but it does seem impressive when the boys are so young and have all this time to wait."

Bottle-green and azure the numbers blinked and blinked, signaling that the soulmate had not yet drawn in a breath, and then they began an inexorable countdown. In perfect sync.

The watches first read 840,764,759 minutes.  
>Now there's only fifteen years, two-hundred-and-four days, eighteen hours, and currently twelve minutes and forty-six seconds until they find their missing piece.<br>Haruka shifts and brings his arm forward and twists his hand until his watch- dark purple band indistinguishable under the covers but blue digits visible- gleams in the darkness next to Makoto's.  
>The numbers are the same. The seconds tick away at exactly the same instant.<br>Makoto sighs, happy to see the identical readout as always, and chastely kisses his best friend. They know- something hidden past the numbers and society's rules and the puppeteer strings called 'destiny'- that while their numbers expressly say otherwise there's something between the two of them as well. Makoto burrows against his best friend's shoulder to fall asleep and Haruka holds him until they drop off to sleep in the same moment.

It was hard to be odd.

The elderly neighbors titter politely behind their hands at the sight of the older black-haired boy and the younger yet taller brown-haired boy. 'So nice to find your soulmate so early in life!' they say. 'Already so close!' they exclaim at the sight of their hands clutched tightly together.  
>Makoto doesn't know how to explain that they're different and so he accepts the neighborhood's words with artfully-hidden winces. His own parents and Haruka's had tried and failed to find anything very helpful about identical timers and so their quiet talks at the dining table last long into the night. But as long as their children are happy they agree they'll support their kids. Makoto soon learns to smile past anything that disturbs him and it's only ever Haruka who can tell the difference between his smiles.<p>

And now he can see the eager sincerity in Makoto's expression and it makes him smile back because seeing his best-friend-but-more this happy is a blessing in and of itself.

He would be lying if he said he wasn't excited himself.

Twenty-two years they've waited for this.  
>Makoto stops next to him.<p>

Confused, Haruka stops two paces ahead and comes back to his best friend's side. He reaches up and lays a gentle hand on Makoto's cheek but Makoto has gone rigid and his gaze is locked almost wistfully on a nearby café.

"I guess four days early is okay. I don't mind early birthday presents."

Haruka turns the hand he holds to look at Makoto's wrist; their time but his friend's wrist.

_**Thirteen minutes.**_

Haruka glances at the building Makoto has become fixated on then back to examine his friend's face.  
>They've never been inside this café before so there's no need for Makoto's look of some ancient sadness, as if it was a place he'd been to as a child but hadn't seen it again until that second, like it was something he'd missed so profoundly he couldn't put the loneliness into words.<br>Haruka glances back at the café and feels a longing way down deep inside him.

"Well," he says softly. Makoto turns his gaze on him immediately though, intimately attuned to him, wistfulness and sadness swept away by the same warmth he always regards Haruka with. "We won't find them over here."

He threads his fingers through Makoto's and leads the way, tugging the bigger man into following, smiling back at his best-friend-but-more.

"Let's go."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eleven minutes left.<strong>_

Rin's styrofoam cup is half empty. His hands are shaking around it and he can't stop the tremors no matter how hard he tries. He's been anticipating this moment for almost two decades. He's so excited sitting still is virtually impossible.

_**Ten minutes. **_Why can't time go faster?

He takes a few good swigs of his lukewarm hot chocolate and glances at his watch. Just under nine minutes now. He looks up and scans the crowd but no one strikes him. Not a one of the faces among the college-kid crowd affects him. He swallows another gulp of his drink.

_**Six and a half.**_

He hunches in on himself in the booth, pressing his forehead to the plastic lid of his to-go cup and whispering a quick prayer that he hasn't messed up for eternity by not leaving the café.

At five minutes, panic sets in in earnest.

It's suddenly too soon. He's not ready for this. What if they hate him? He runs his tongue over his sharp teeth. They're unusual. He knows it. What if his soulmate can't stand that about him, finds him disgusting, doesn't want anything to do with him because he's fucked up?

_**Three minutes, seventeen seconds.**_

"Oh god," he whispers to himself.

His throat is tight. His left foot is tapping a staccato, nonsensical rhythm on the tile. His hands are shaking so hard the cup hasn't been stationary in four minutes. Every goddamn thing is about time now.

_**Two minutes.**_ He looks up again, desperately scanning this sea of unfamiliar faces and pleading with any gods that like him that one of those strangers is his.

This time, he catches unbelievably green eyes and before he can focus someone moves in between his line of sight and those amazing eyes and when the balding salaryman has moved on he doesn't see the eyes again and something inside him wrenches.

_**One minute, thirty-four seconds.**_

This time his restless gaze is arrested by eyes deeper and bluer than the ocean. He doesn't immediately lose sight of this person; in fact those eyes pin him in place, something sultry and knowing in sapphire depths. Rin's heart flutters over a beat.

_**Fifty-nine seconds.**_

The young man with blue eyes pivots suddenly and brings a taller man crashing into his chest. They stand pressed close like that for a long moment and Rin can tell by their body language that they're each other's soulmates and the crushing disappointment seizes his heart again.

_**Twenty-eight seconds.**_

He's messed up, hasn't he? He should have left. If he ran now, would he be able to catch up with them? Would he run into them in the street? Was that what he was supposed to do? He started to rise but flopped back down into the booth's seat at the sight of his wrist, leaning over his cup on the table, inhaling deep, ragged breaths and fighting the sting of his eyes and thickness of tears clogging his windpipe.

_**Eleven seconds.**_ He wouldn't even make it out of the coffee shop.

_**Eight seconds.**_

The cup was crushed in his hands as he glared hatefully at the ever-decreasing numbers on his personal watch.

_**Six.**_

_**Five.**_

_**Four.**_

Someone slid into the seat across from him. Someone heavier (judging by the sound) followed suit.

_**Two.**_

Swallowing hard, he looked up.

_**One.**_

The pair sitting across from him smiled in unison at him and his heart crawled up into his throat.  
>Unbelievably green eyes and a softness to that sweet smile and a bigger body than his.<br>And sitting next to him, head now turned stubbornly away, staring at the window...  
>An emotionless façade betrayed as fake by blue eyes sharp with nerves and a slender body perfectly suited to swim with him.<p>

Suddenly all his waiting is over but all he can think is-  
>"Which one of you is it?!" He growls, switching his gaze between his wrist and the couple across from him.<p>

They look at each other and they bring their hands up- fingers interlocked and Rin's stomach bottoms out at the intimacy of the gesture- and then they show him.

Both their own watches read zero.

"November thirteenth, year two-thousand-eighteen." The black-haired, blue-eyed one states in what would be a monotone if his voice didn't carry a slight tremor.

"At four-thirty-nine in the afternoon." His friend, their- their?- soulmate adds in a soft voice.

Rin's eyes widen, remembering how often he'd thought those same two facts, that same date and time he'd been anticipating all his life.  
>Everything has started to sink in and he wilts bonelessly against the back of the booth, stare darting between the two young men across from him.<br>"Does this even happen?" He asked numbly.

They both stared at him a moment and he was about to ask why when the green-eyed man chuckled quietly and cocked his head as he smiled. "Apparently it does."

"I like your regular voice," the other says. "When you're angry it's not as soothing."

Rin stares at the black-haired one incredulously. "_Excuse_ me?"

The brunette squeezes his- their- soulmate's hand. "While I agree with him, I think introductions are in order. My name is Tachibana Makoto."

"Nanase Haruka."

Slowly Rin's heart comes back to a normal rhythm and he even cracks a smile. "Matsuoka Rin. Mind if we stay a while? My treat. We've got a lot to catch up on."

* * *

><p>...I'm going to leave this open to a sequel if you guys want one. Sequel will have Reigisa and SeiGou, so, let me know!<p> 


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Free! - Iwatobi Swim Club, Fantasy, Romance