Title: What Wikipedia Can't Tell You About Lunches
Chapter: 1 (approx. 691 words)
Rating: General
Characters/Pairings: Makoto Tachibana, Haruka Nanase | MakoHaru
Summary: Haru always wondered why Makoto insisted on having lunch with him all the time.
Author's Note: because this was needed and I just felt like giving my take on it. Inspired by the scene in the ED where fireman!Makoto has lunch in an alley with chef!Haru, and in the very last episode where they are eating ramen together and megane!Makoto made my heart unable to handle.
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For some reason, Makoto always insists on eating with Haru.
From elementary school all the way until high school, most of Haru's lunches were accompanied by Makoto by his side. The only times when Makoto wasn't there was literally only when he was sick and absent from school.
Then when Haru found out that Makoto and him had timetables in university that were pretty much similar in terms of end of classes and lunch breaks, he was pleasantly surprised. They had been prepared for Makoto's classes clashing completely with his breaks, and vice versa, but by a stroke of luck, they managed to still spend a lot of time with each other in university.
Haru was not going to lie; he absolutely loved meeting Makoto for lunch. He had grown to like it. But what made it better was Makoto in his glasses. They made him look studious, but also ten times more handsome than he already was. He wasn't ever going to admit that, nonetheless. So whenever it was time to meet Makoto for lunch after swimming, Makoto would arrive with his glasses on and it would make his previous satisfaction from being in the pool intensify.
Then in the evening before Makoto returns to his dorm and Haru to his apartment, sometimes they would have dinner at the nearby ramen place within walking distance from both places. Most times Makoto would ask about his day – what he did, how was swimming, was it fun – and Haru would answer Makoto how he usually did – shortly and sweetly. He knew Makoto could understand what he meant perfectly fine just like that, anyway.
Makoto got busier and busier as time passed, but he still insisted on eating with Haru. Haru kept trying to get Makoto to focus on his own work and stop eating with him for a while, until maybe all his important projects were over, but he refused. Haru wondered about it, but didn't question why; if Makoto believed he could handle it, then he could handle it. It wasn't like he could Google it and Wikipedia would tell him why Makoto insisted so firmly on having lunch with him all the time.
There was this one time when he had nothing to do so he Wikipedia-ed "lunch" though, and he had a fun time reading about different types of lunches in the world, learning which countries' meals used mackerel in them as well. It was a fleeting thing, and he often wished that Wikipedia could tell him why Makoto always wanted to have lunch with him so badly.
When finally the holidays came, and this one day the both of them suggested to each other, at the same time, that they should get part-time jobs. They were surprised at each other's choice of jobs – Haru a part-time chef, and Makoto a part-time fireman – but they were even more surprised when they found out that their workplaces were just about 10 metres away from each other's.
And so Makoto, sometimes sooty and sweaty from firefighting, went every day during his lunch break to where Haru was working, and they would sit in the alleyway behind the restaurant, and have bentos that Haru prepared. At first Haru had tried to give Makoto and himself mackerel for their bentos everyday, but when Makoto whined for a day about it, Haru had no choice but to give in to him.
When Haru asked why Makoto always went to so much trouble just to have lunch with him and that he didn't need to do so, Makoto only gave him that bashful smile he always had whenever people asked him questions like this, and then said, "What are you talking about? We've been doing this since elementary school; wouldn't it be weird to stop now? Someone needs to be here to look after you and your diet, and the others would kill me if I didn't do my job properly."
But Haru can't help but smile at what Makoto says last, because he finally gets the answer that Wikipedia has been unable and will always be unable to give him.
"Besides, I love you."
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A/N: just a short ficlet that I'm writing at 2am at night. I hope you enjoyed it! This is really based off the various endcards in the last episode of season 2 that shows the endings of the various characters, so I apologise if you found it boring. 8(
