[Fruits Basket] Haru/Rin, #1

Title: Better Left Alone
Author: Ysabet MacFarlane (ba087@chebucto.ns.ca)
Pairing: Sohma Hatsuharu and Sohma Isuzu (Rin)
Fandom: Fruits Basket
Theme: # 1 (look over here)
Disclaimer: Fruits Basket belongs to Takaya Natsuki and Hakusensha;
English-language versions by FUNimation (anime) and Tokyopop (manga). This piece
of fiction is in no way approved or endorsed by any of the copyright holders.
Please support the original work!
Notes: Set a week or so after ch. 70 (vol. 12); no additional spoilers. Title
from "2nd Law" by Tom McRae.

**********

Rin looked up from the textbook she was halfheartedly pretending to read, her
attention caught by a soft flicker at the back of her mind. She never knew
whether to call it a side effect of the Jyuunishi bond, or intuition, or pure
coincidence that she sometimes knew when Haru was nearby, but it was as
unmistakable as it was rare.

*Don't look,* she reproached herself, as if she weren't already on her way to
the classroom window, tossing her hair back over her shoulders to blur the
phantom sensation of being touched, of fingers curving to fit the back of her
neck. *Don't look.*

That her gaze landed on him instantly had nothing to do with their shared curse
and everything to do with the way his white hair and bright jewelry caught the
sunlight. He was leaning against the wall that separated the school from the
busy street, the shirt of his uniform half-open in the late summer heat; his
eyes were hidden behind his cycling goggles, but his face was perfectly calm and
nonchalant, as if skipping class to visit an all-girls' high school half an hour
from Kaibara were a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

"Go away," Rin mouthed, hands tightening on the sill as she stared down at him.
None of her classmates heard, although two of the other girls had started
whispering to each other as soon as she'd stood up; experience told her that if
she looked over at them, they would glance away in carefully choreographed
unison. She kept her eyes fixed on the wall below, and a heartbeat later Haru's
head turned towards the window. Towards her.

She gritted her teeth and stayed put, resisting the urge to step back and
pretend that they hadn't seen each other. *He's the one who shouldn't be here.*

There was nothing supernatural about the shiver that ran up her spine and pulled
at the mostly-healed muscles in her shoulder; without looking, she knew that her
hands were white-knuckled on the windowsill. Her body knew exactly how long it
would take to fall from the second-floor classroom to the ground. The memory of
the impact slipped away if she tried to think about it, swallowed by the way the
wind had sounded in her ears.

She sometimes thought it was the wind she was holding on against, as if it might
spring up out of nowhere and pull her down again.

Looking down at Haru, she felt a sudden spasm of horror that he might read the
irrational fear off her face. Even through his goggles, the silent, pleading
demand in his gaze was impossible to ignore. She remembered it from stolen
winter afternoons and nights they'd spent together, when he'd been fixated on
finding a way to induce the fleeting moments when the bond had brought them into
sharp, breathless awareness of each other.

It had never worked. It was--had to be--a coincidence that she'd felt him so
perfectly when he'd pulled her into his arms for the first time in months,
kissing her as if that alone could bring her back to him. The pleasure of it had
melted seamlessly into a clear glimpse of the anguish hidden under his steady
voice, as he stared back into her and spoke directly to whatever it was he saw
there.

Now, with his eyes invisibly fixed on her, Rin realized she was holding her
breath, waiting for it to happen again. Behind her, the whispering had stopped;
she dimly heard the scrape of a chair pushed back, the footsteps of someone
approaching. *Go away,* she thought, willing him to somehow understand. *Don't
let them see this.*

Just before her classmate arrived to see what she was looking at, Haru turned
away, rolling his shoulders as carelessly as if he really had only been taking a
break from walking in the heat. Rin kept her face blank as the other girl stood
beside her and watched him go. "Is that your type, Sohma?"

It was a careless question, rather than malicious, so Rin shrugged instead of
ignoring it outright. "I was just getting some air," she said evenly, going back
to her desk and sinking into her seat. She put her head in her hands and closed
her eyes, hoping the whispering girls would think she was sick, and eventually
their attention turned elsewhere, leaving her alone.