#all of this stemmed from the fact thaf there's a japanese team right here in singapore

[partrin]

oh no, another writing idea: i've read so many fics about rin and haru in australia, rin and haru in japan (for obvious reasons), rin and haru in america, and other non-asian countries, but i've never read a fic about them being based in a southeast asian country (but to be fair, i've obviously not read all the fics there are available under their tag so i wouldn't know for sure).

today, i was thinking about the local sports scene—primarily football (as in soccer), because 1. when i think of sports, my favourite one is football. i enjoy football, used to even play it regularly, but i mainly watch the english premier league, and on occasion the la liga, and 2. i was wondering, "why is albirex niigata, an originally japanese team, playing in the singapore (where i'm from) premier league?"

so i found out that albirex niigata singapore fc is the satellite team for the original albirex niigata of japan, and even so, the team is made up of all (but one) japanese players.

and then i thought:

what if, in some alternate universe, rin is a football player on albirex niigata singapore fc, a player on loan, and haru is an exchange student studying in a local arts academy (idk, either the NAFA/nanyang academy of fine arts or la salle college of the arts or SOTA/school of the arts)?

and what if, one day, haru is dragged to a football match by his classmates who thought it would be a splended idea since it's the premier league finals and albirex niigata, a club that has been dominating the table, is playing, and haru, you're literally japanese—you should support your fellow countrymen even if you're in singapore right now? and haru (begrudgingly) relents, so here he is, in a stadium full of people, munching on shrimp chips and witnessing a sport he has little care for.

rin is a bench warmer. and after the finals are over, haru bumps into him in the washroom. he recognises him from the match because of his vibrant, carmine hair, even though rin's barely had any play time, and he feels obligated to congratulate him if only for the fact that he wants rin to know that he, too, is a japanese man in a foreign country. he wants to connect, desperately, to some who reminds him of home. but there's only one problem:

haru is mute.

so he resorts to fishing out a notepad he always carries along with him in case of occurrences such as these (because he can't assume that he knows japanese sign language) and quickly scribbles out a congratulations—in hiragana, because he wants rin to pick up on the fact that they're both from japan. at first, rin thinks he's merely an excitable fan who's showing off the fact that he's learnt japanese to a player of his favourite club, but no, haru quickly clarifies in messy characters, and they fall into a natural conversation.

one conversation turns into many, face-to-face and text, conversations and eventually meetings. haru, despite being somewhat of a technophobe, burries his dislike for technology and abandons the notebook in favour of typing out his responses whenever they converse. (rin asks him to tear out the pages where he'd first scribbled in hiragana to him so he can keep it, for memories' sake). he finds that he likes rin's company, and finds his voice beautiful—and after several visits to rin's trainings and official matches, he starts to feel sad because the cheering at his matches are a loud cacophony of voices, and he knows his will never be a part of it. he falls further into despair when he finds that having rin read off a screen would pale in comparison to him actually being able to speak his mind, emotively, expressively. he wants, so badly, for rin to be able to hear him speak—to hear rin's melodious, sing-song voice, or his child-like laughter in response to something haru says.

and so he makes a decision.

and he isn't sure if rin would approve of it.