Chapter Text
Makoto peers up at him from his spot on the floor, surrounded on all sides by papers and textbooks but somehow calm in the face of it all. “You’re thinking really hard about something, aren’t you?”
Haruka hides his smile in the palm of his hand, though Makoto sees through it and grins in that soft way of his. “What tipped you off?”
“You were staring,” Makoto says, glasses sliding down his nose in a way he knows Haruka finds distracting. “Pretty intently.”
“Mm.”
“So?”
“So, what?”
“You gonna tell me what’s on your mind?”
Haruka actually has to think about this, and judging from the slight furrow of his brow, Makoto notices. “You don’t have to,” he quickly amends, and it makes Haruka’s chest ache, how nervous Makoto still gets sometimes, “if it’s too personal or… “
“No, it’s just… ” Haruka shakes his head, glancing out the window. There really isn’t much to see this deep into the winter, when the skies are clouded almost constantly. “I thought life would be ordinary by now.”
There’s nothing to be said into the empty space Haruka creates with his words. Makoto knows about everything at this point, all the good and bad things that make up Haruka’s personality, and even if Makoto doesn’t necessarily agree, at least he understands.
Haruka pulls his blanket tighter around his shoulders. “We live together.”
“Yeah.”
“And you… read poetry to me.”
Makoto’s eyes seem to soften behind the rims of his glasses. “Of course.”
“It’s just something I never would’ve imagined at fifteen.”
“Trust me, I never imagined any of this either,” Makoto laughs, and it really does hit Haruka then, what exactly they’re doing. How young they are, and how badly it could all end. “But it’s nice. Right?”
A question like that doesn’t really dignify a response, and Haruka tells Makoto as much through a stern look. Makoto lifts his hands in surrender, but his eyes are still bright with laughter.
“I wish I could’ve met you at fifteen, or even earlier,” Makoto says, and there it is, one of his biggest regrets. He feels a keen sense of guilt over it, though Haruka isn’t sure why. “Do you think it would’ve made a difference?”
Haruka considers the various possible reactions Makoto might have to what he’s about to say before actually speaking. “If I’d met you back then, I don’t think I would’ve liked you very much.”
Makoto, to his credit, doesn’t seem terribly shocked. If anything, the look he’s fixing Haruka with is one of curiosity. “Really?”
“You smile too much,” Haruka says, and the default upward curve to Makoto’s mouth furrows in petulance. “You just… You would’ve been everything I wanted but couldn’t have. If we’d met when we were younger, I don’t think I would’ve listened when you tried to knock some sense into me.”
“You sure? I can be very persuasive.”
“Positive,” Haruka assures. He’s thought about this a lot, even if Makoto doesn’t know it. “We’re better like this. I’m better. I wouldn’t change anything.”
Makoto studies him a moment longer, just processing, but then his chest expands with a large inhale and his gaze drifts back down to his homework. “This talk is too heavy for a Saturday afternoon.”
“Maybe,” Haruka says, but he can see the pleased flush creeping up Makoto’s neck. “Hey. Do you wanna know what I was really thinking about?”
Makoto opens his mouth, but for a moment, no words come out. “Nanase Haruka, you – “ He stops, pushing his glasses up and rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Haruka can only laugh, snug in his blanket and amused beyond belief.
“You derail me more than anyone or anything else ever has,” Makoto groans, but the way he says it, it doesn’t even sound like a bad thing. “But okay. What were you really thinking?”
“That I wanted to take a bath with you.”
“Okay, I'm putting my foot down,” Makoto says. “Haru, it’s the middle of winter, we can't just take baths whenever you feel like it. You're gonna make yourself sick because you never dry your hair properly!”
And it’s so much easier, Haruka thinks, to let Makoto rant about taking proper care of his body than to just tell him the truth, that Haruka was really thinking about how, until Makoto came along, life had just been something to endure.
𓆝 ⋆｡𓆟 ⋆｡𓆞
Haruka hasn’t spoken to Rin in nearly four months, not since their blowout the day Haruka quit the university swim team.
“Oh, cut the bullshit, Haru. This guy shows up out of nowhere and then you just suddenly decide that you hate swimming. What am I supposed to think, huh?”
“I don’t hate swimming, and Makoto didn’t make me decide anything,” Haruka had replied. “He just helped me realize that I was swimming for all the wrong reasons. That’s it.”
The fact that Rin didn’t believe him was obvious, and Haruka had trembled with an anger so consuming that Rin backed off, intimidated and probably confused, because he’d never seen that side of Haruka before.
They’d parted on uncertain terms, the air between them clogged by many things that shouldn’t have been said. Rin stormed out, Haruka moved his things out of their shared dorm room, and that was the end of it.
Haruka’s known Rin for a very long time, and he’s nothing if not stubborn. He’ll come around eventually but… it’ll take time and energy that Haruka doesn’t have to make him understand. Even Haruka’s parents took the news better, and they’re mostly stuck on the boyfriend part, rather than his having quit the swim team.
It distresses Makoto, being at the epicenter of this massive upheaval in Haruka’s life. No matter how many times Haruka’s tried to tell him otherwise, Makoto thinks there has to be a way for him to help smooth things over.
His insistence only adds to Haruka’s many anxieties, but mostly it adds to his charm. Makoto wouldn’t be the man he is if he let things like that go, and Haruka loves that man. Almost too much, it feels like.
“I know how important he is to you,” Makoto says. Why he’s brought this up when they’re in the bath together, the most relaxing place in the world, is beyond Haruka. “I just hate that I’m getting in the way of your friendship.”
“You aren’t in the way of anything,” Haruka replies, boneless and cozy and not engaging with this discussion right now. “Rin’s wrong. He’ll realize that eventually.”
Makoto sighs so deeply it rankles Haruka, and he lifts a hand out of the water to pinch the skin just above his boyfriend’s knee. “Rin isn’t wrong for feeling the way he does with the information he has,” Makoto tries, diplomatic as always.
“That doesn’t excuse what he’s doing. He can’t tell me what to do with my life.”
“You never told him about how you were really feeling though, did you?”
Haruka stares hard at the slope of Makoto’s left knee, then the right, bracketing his own in the water. He marvels at how they can even fit together in the bathtub like this, what with Makoto being so big and all…
“Haru.”
“… No, I never told him.”
“Then you can’t blame him for being confused.” Makoto wraps his arms around Haruka’s chest, pulling him even closer, and Haruka tips his head back against the firm shoulder beneath him, nosing carefully at Makoto’s jaw. “And don’t try to distract me.”
“Worth a shot,” Haruka grumbles. “What does it matter? Rin wouldn’t have understood even if I told him. Swimming is different for him than it is for me.”
“But you don’t know that for sure,” Makoto presses, and why is this still a thing, Haruka wonders, they are naked in the bath. “He might surprise you.”
“I’m always surprised when Rin acts like a decent friend.”
“Whatever, I know you love him.” Haruka squirms as Makoto dips his head to plant light kisses along his throat, but even then, his resistance is half-hearted, and Makoto knows it. “I’ll stop talking about it if you really want me to,” he says, quietly against Haruka’s skin, “but I think four months is long enough to not speak to your best friend.”
It’s too long, actually, but Haruka won’t say as much. He doesn’t want to be the first one to cave, not when he hasn’t done anything wrong. But considering Makoto’s logic, maybe Rin isn’t the bad guy either.
“Come on,” Makoto says, pushing Haruka into a more upright position, and Haruka resists the urge to groan, already missing the warmth of Makoto’s body. The bathwater just doesn’t compare, and Haruka is at a loss as to when that became true. Perhaps he’s asking too much of Rin; how can he recognize Haruka when Haruka is still noticing all the changes within himself? “I’ll wash your back.”
“This might be the most domestic thing we’ve ever done,” Haruka says as Makoto presses the palm of one hand flat against his back for no apparent reason. His touch lingers, igniting Haruka’s nerves and halting his breath. “I’m not even hard.”
“Now, Haru,” Makoto tuts, “you can’t use that in here. There’s a time and place for everything.”
As Makoto begins lathering his back up with soap, Haruka frowns to himself, uncertain. “Did you just… quote Pokémon at me?”
“What would you do if I did?”
“Nothing, but you just tainted a perfectly good childhood memory.”
Makoto doesn’t even try to defend himself, just giggles like the overgrown child he is, and Haruka tries his best not to smile.
It isn’t until later, when Makoto is towel drying Haruka’s hair, that Haruka looks at his phone and notices with a remote sort of horror that he has a message from Rin.
“Just see what he wants,” Makoto urges before Haruka can chuck it across the room.
[Matsuoka Rin 7:41pm]
that guy of yours…he’s alright
Haruka stares for so long and so hard that the words lose focus.
“Makoto.”
“Hm?”
“What did you do?”
Makoto meets Haruka’s accusatory stare evenly, sliding the towel down around the back of his neck, ropelike, and tugging gently until Haruka stands up from their bed. “Nothing really. We just talked a little.”
“How?” This is far beyond Haruka’s comprehension. Makoto is an absurdly persuasive person, but this is Rin they’re talking about. He once didn’t talk to Nagisa for two weeks when they were children for eating the last popsicle in the freezer.
“You should ask Rin about it,” Makoto says cheerfully, pressing a light kiss to the bridge of Haruka’s nose, and if Haruka falls a little more in love with him as a result, well, that’s his business.
𓆝 ⋆｡𓆟 ⋆｡𓆞
Rei thinks Haruka has been glowing lately.
Haruka thinks Rei needs to get his prescription checked.
“He does have a point,” Makoto says, sounding thoughtful. He tugs a book down from the shelf and ignores Haruka’s glare. “I mean, you don’t really know how you look objectively, so… ”
There’s really no point in being annoyed, but Haruka still is. Mostly because they’re in the university library on a Friday night when they could be doing more important things. Like sleeping. Or having sex. But preferably sleeping.
“Last time I let you sit in on a Facetime,” Haruka grumbles, leafing through a random book he’d grabbed off a shelving cart.
“Aw, don’t be mad, Haru-chan.”
“You’ve been talking to Nagisa too much.”
Makoto shrugs, shooting him a mirthful glance, and Haruka doesn’t know why he even bothers. Anyone on the outside looking in, particularly Nagisa and Rei, don’t believe Haruka when he mentions how cheeky Makoto can be.
They weave in and out of the isles – or Makoto does, Haruka just trails behind – and they’ve been here so long, Haruka has pretty much forgotten why they came in the first place. Makoto might have an exam… or something. But usually he has study group on Fridays before a test, so Haruka has no idea what happened with that.
“Have you spoken with your advisor yet, Haru?” Makoto inquires suddenly. “I know you said you were going to last week, but I forgot to ask.”
Haruka hesitates for a fraction of a second, but it’s enough for Makoto to turn to him with a look of concern. “She asked me why I quit the swim team. Again. So I just left.”
A weighted silence follows, Haruka gazing at the relaxed slope of Makoto’s shoulders as he waits for a response. He hates disappointing Makoto almost as much as he dislikes catering to others, so this is probably a conversation better suited for when they get home.
“You couldn’t tell her why?”
“She doesn’t need to know.”
“It wasn’t for you,” Makoto says, and Haruka busies himself with his book again, reading about the second personality type: the Helper. Joyous, radiant, warm-hearted, nurturing. “That’s all anyone needs to know.”
“Maybe I’ll just be an athletic trainer like you,” Haruka muses, running his thumb along the pages. Rei loves stuff like this, studying people, putting them into neat categories. “Save money on books.”
Makoto laughs quietly, a balm to Haruka’s weary heart. “We could open our own practice.” Haruka almost smiles. He’ll probably never get over how the world in Makoto’s eyes is full of possibility instead of limitation. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry about hating your coworkers.”
“I like how you assume we’d work well together in a professional setting.”
“I’d just make sure you wouldn’t slack off.” Haruka glances up, because Makoto’s tone of voice has taken on the soft, whispering quality that he always used in the beginning, when he thought there was something Haruka was missing. Their eyes meet, and Makoto isn’t smiling, but his expression is still imploringly soft. “Don’t worry about it, Haru. You still have time to figure things out.”
Haruka stays quiet for a moment as he gathers his thoughts. “Altruistic,” he says. Makoto tilts his head slightly, blinking in confusion. “That’s definitely you.”
“Your tone makes that sound like a bad thing.”
“It’s worrying.” Haruka wonders what would have happened if Makoto had decided to befriend someone other than him that day. If they would’ve loved him as much as Haruka does. If they’d be better at it. “And maybe a little naïve. But not bad.”
“You worry someone will take advantage of my kindness?” Makoto asks, sounding amused. “How could that happen when I have my big, scary guard dog around?”
“You let this big, scary guard dog into your life pretty easily.”
Makoto hums, staring up into the stacks. “I used to be intimidated by you, you know,” he admits. “Before we really started getting to know each other.”
Haruka quietly shuts the book, shoving down an intense feeling of dread. This is the first he’s hearing of Makoto’s initial impression of him, though he tells himself whatever he’s about to hear can’t be too bad. Makoto wouldn’t do that to him in public. “Really?"
He feels Makoto’s eyes on him, but he hesitates to meet them. “Your eyes reminded me of the ocean. They were unfathomable to me. Bottomless. I couldn’t figure you out no matter how hard I tried.”
It’s not Makoto’s intention, but Haruka feels a slight twinge of guilt, recalling what Makoto has told him about his childhood in Fukuoka, how scared he was of the sea.
But he knows what Makoto means. They met when Haruka was at his breaking point; failure became inevitable and eclipsed everything Haruka had previously known about himself. There was too much happening at once and not enough time to process it all.
So he just didn’t. Haruka ignored everything to the best of his ability, nodded and shook his head when appropriate, drifted in and out of discussions about his own future.
His passivity came back to haunt him. It felt like one day, Haruka blinked and found himself living a life he didn’t want, a stranger to both himself and those who knew him best.
And suddenly Makoto showed up and changed all of it. He smiled at Haruka with a soft gaze and uprooted the delicate balance Haruka had constructed to keep himself going. Makoto made Haruka see, for the first time, that he didn’t have to build a life from the bones of his passion.
If Haruka wasn’t happy, there was nothing saying he had to put up with it. He had the power to change his situation; he just hadn’t realized it until Makoto showed up with his careful hands and well-loved poetry books.
Makoto shifts closer to him while maintaining a respectful distance. Whatever he’d come here looking for, his entire focus is on Haruka now. It’s the weighted, purposeful attention Makoto has always had for him, though Haruka struggled to understand it all those months ago. “After I finally got you to talk to me, it was so different. Your eyes were like a pool instead of the sea. They were so calm. I could’ve looked at them forever.”
“You’re exaggerating,” says Haruka, hating how his face burns even as he commits everything about this moment to memory.
“I’m not,” Makoto says, with a horrible, wonderful conviction. “It felt like I’d been looking for you for a very long time. I loved you so much, Haru, even back then.”
There’s something lodged in Haruka’s throat, a rising hysteria, a fierce relief. The genius he was at fifteen, the man encroaching on ordinary he is at nineteen, they’re both at a loss. Haruka’s so sick in love it terrifies him, and there are no words strong enough to convey that.
“Let me count the ways,” Makoto murmurs, and knowing exactly what he'll see, Haruka finally looks at him.
𓆝 ⋆｡𓆟 ⋆｡𓆞
One Year Earlier
“Excuse me… are you alright?”
Haruka experiences a flash of annoyance for half a second before he realizes… he knows that voice.
Sure enough, the guy from Haruka’s afternoon kinesiology class is staring at him, eyes wide and bewildered. He’s the only one who’s worked up the nerve to approach; over a dozen people are lingering in the background, alone or in small clusters, gawking and whispering behind their hands.
He doesn’t know his name, but Haruka recognizes his voice because he’s the person who talks the most in class, second only to their professor. He usually sits in the second or third row, completely visible from the very back where Haruka never strays. His questions are always thoughtful, and more than a third of the pages in Haruka’s notebook is filled with the discussion he incites.
Or it used to be, anyway. Haruka isn’t sure where that notebook is anymore.
Haruka doesn’t mind that his classmate has approached him, not necessarily, but he would’ve rather avoided being spoken to at all. “I’m fine,” he replies. Does he really seem to be in any sort of distress? If their roles were reversed, Haruka would assume the person standing in the fountain had a legitimate reason to be there and go about his business.
“Oh, okay.” The man lets out a nervous laugh. If he’s uncomfortable with the spectacle, Haruka thinks, he shouldn’t have involved himself in Haruka’s business. But even though his ears are nearly as red as cherries, those forest-green eyes don’t leave Haruka’s even once. “Is there any particular reason you’re in the fountain?”
“I was curious about something,” Haruka says. The man tips his head and waits, as if expecting more, but Haruka has nothing else to say. Not to him or anyone.
Part of Haruka wants to stay in the fountain until the man goes away. For the first time in his memory, he’s uncomfortable with how wet he is; his shoes are soaked, maybe ruined, and the grime on his hands from sticking them beneath the spray grates at his nerves.
Haruka and his classmate move at the same time. As Haruka shifts to turn his back, the man tightens his grip on the strap of his messenger bag and straightens up with a curious set to his mouth. Haruka takes a half step back, and the man swings one leg over the edge of the fountain.
Haruka goes still.
“I’m Tachibana Makoto.” The sound of his voice carries over the constant splashing. Tachibana extends a hand to him, and for a long moment, Haruka just looks at it, completely at a loss for words. “We share a class, I think?”
Tachibana stays exactly where he is, straddling the fountain and waiting for Haruka to take his hand. And Haruka doesn’t want to, is the thing. He understands what’s happening to him a little better now, but knowing doesn’t make it easy, and Haruka would rather retreat to his dorm and forget the world exists for a while.
He doesn’t want the kindness in Tachibana’s eyes, or his patient expectation. If Haruka goes along with him now, getting rid of him will likely be difficult, and Haruka has done well to avoid forming connections at college so far.
But Haruka’s body thinks differently. That ancient, well-loved feeling he’d been looking for isn’t coming, but something new is. It's weird and uncomfortable, but it’s something.
He takes Tachibana’s hand. “Nanase Haruka. I’ve seen you around.”