Authors' Notes:

This is co-written with MufasasPride-it just so happens that we're posting it on my account.

We do not by any means own Free!. If we did, Haru would have given Makoto that CPR...


Green

The old Satsumori Distribution Warehouse sat at the end of a quiet and desolate street, in the outskirts of downtown Tokyo. The Satsumori company went bankrupt in the late 1980s, and the building had been abandoned for some thirty years. It stood distanced from the other buildings, that were in such close proximity to each other that if one caught on fire, then they all would.

Even though it was an area of Tokyo that many averted their eyes while in passing, and almost no human life could be found so late at night, a small, lithe figure appeared walking silently in the shadows. The figure wore a black hoodie that covered the top of their head, and carried a heavy looking backpack. They stopped in front of the Satsumori Distribution Warehouse, and although they couldn't be seen beneath the hood of the jacket, a pair of ocean blue eyes methodically swept up the face of the building.

Beneath the hood, shrouded by shadows, was the face of a young man named Haru Nanase. A light breeze ruffled his straight ebony hair, as he paused, taking a moment to observe the creepy old building, staring at its decrepit, worn down exterior. His long, slender hand reached up to adjust the strap of the backpack, before he looked behind him. After making sure there was no one there, he opened the rusted door and walked in. Although he had done his research and had discovered that the old Satsumori Warehouse did not have any video cameras, he still kept the hood to obscure his face just to be safe.

Back when it had been in business, the Satsumori company had distributed wood and bamboo based products, and so the base floor of the warehouse was littered with long neglected dismantled pieces of wood furniture, planks, kindling, even wooden spoons. Haru set his backpack on the stone floor and slipped his hand into the pocket to retrieve his package of sterile, latex gloves. He took out a new pair and carefully slipped them over his willowy fingers. Next he put on a mask to cover his nose and mouth, leaving just his eyes visible. Okay, he thought, straightening up. Time to get to work.

Haru began searching through the various bits of leftover wood, looking for any pine, eucalyptus, or red cedar scraps that weren't damp and soggy. He lucked out and found a half dismantled red cedar dresser, and several pine planks. He carefully dragged them against the wall, making sure they were against the wood planks lining the wall. The wood planks lined the entirety of the walls on the base floor, mostly mildewy and molded from the years of neglect.

Haru walked back to his backpack, and pulled out a can of gasoline. Stopping over his carefully placed pieces of wood, he lightly drizzled the gasoline over the top, and then began to walk around the perimeter of the room, leaving a trail. He continued the trail outside the building as well, even splashing the outer walls. Once satisfied with his job, he carefully crept back into the building, making sure he didn't mess up any of the gasoline he left behind. He grabbed his backpack and walked outside again. His heart began to race and his breathing became shallower. What came next was the part he didn't like.

Haru sighed and turned to his backpack, his blood pumping his ears. After rummaging through around, he found what he was looking for. Slowly and carefully, he withdrew a box of matches. He looked at them, resting in his gloved palm, with an inscrutable facial expression, filled with neither enjoyment or displeasure. Instead, he felt an inexplicable desperation and need that controlled his movements.

He pulled a single match out, his eyes watching it anxiously. Even though he had done it many times before, he still felt nervous about that first spark. Taking a deep breath in, he lit it, and a small orange glow flickered from the end of the match. The orange danced tauntingly in the reflection of his wary, cool eyes, before he flicked it right towards the building.

The gasoline quickly caught light, and Haru made a run for it, not wanting to be caught in the wrath of his own creation. He ran over to a different building that was good amount of distance away, and upon noticing it had a fire escape that was shrouded in darkness, quickly ran up it's steps. He stopped at about the fifth floor, deciding it was the best place as any to hide and stay out of sight. He sat down to watch and wait.


Makoto Tachibana was reclining on the the break room sofa when the alarm sounded.

"Not again," he groaned, brow furrowing, as he jumped to his feet and followed the stream of men rushing down to the garage.

Makoto listened to the muted chatter around him, much in tune with his own internal dialogue, as he hoisted on his heavy, fireproof coat. The sirens sounding around him drowned most other noise, but he could still make out a few mutters of "serial arsonist" and "second time this week". Makoto shook his head as he pulled his helmet over his tousled brown hair, red lights flashing in his emerald eyes. As much as he tried to wrap his head around it, he still couldn't understand why someone would set fire to abandoned buildings, and so many of them, in such a short span of time.

Makoto had been present at the scene of all but one of the arsonist's fires-he had thankfully had the night off that time. All of them were the same, occurring on the outskirts of Tokyo away from any modern developments, and all of them had left their building of choice charred beyond repair, leaving no evidence behind that could potentially lead officials to the culprit.

Whoever was burning the buildings was smart, and had no intention of being caught, which of course only made authorities want to catch them all the more desperately.

Hopping into the passenger seat of a firetruck, Makoto waited for the rest of his crew members to board before giving clearance for the driver to take off. The clock read "1:03 a.m."-the perfect time for someone to set fire to a building and slink off into the shadows, never to be found. Upon seeing his lagging teammates step onto the truck in the side mirrors, Makoto gave the driver a thumbs up and they sped onto the freeway that would lead them to the abandoned Satsumori Distribution Warehouse.

As the city deteriorated further out from Tokyo's epicenter, so did the quality of the roads. Makoto's head reeled from the jarring bumps and singing sirens of the ride. The truck flung up bright lights against the dark sky, and the flashes pulsed behind his eyes, amplifying the sleep-deprivation he already felt so intensely. He fumbled with the orca keychain he kept inside his coat pocket to distract himself in the hopes of staying alert.

He had found the keychain on a day off, a few weeks after the serial fires had started, when he had gone down to the fish market for his family. The keychain had been lying under the end of a fold-out table and he had picked it up. The edges of the orca's tail were a bit charred, the plastic curling back in a wavy pattern indicating that it had been glossed by flames. After asking around in the hopes of finding a child that may have dropped it, Makoto turned up no results and had decided to keep it. There was something about the keychain that resonated with him-maybe its still sense of abandonment in the crowded market, or the mark of the fire signifying a history screaming to be told. Whatever it was, it was powerful enough to earn the orca residence in Makoto's pocket ever since.

About a ten minute ride later, Makoto saw it: the Satsumori Distribution Warehouse. As the truck approached it, the familiar smell of smoke and gasoline assaulted his nose. He had been working as a fireman for three years, but he still hadn't grown accustomed to the smell.

"We've got a big one tonight," the driver observed from the seat next to him, voice made husky from years of inhaling smoke.

Makoto offered a curt nod in response as the truck pulled over, close enough to the flames to put them out, but not so close that the crew would be put at risk. Makoto and his teammates immediately rushed out of the truck and set up the hose, waves of heat crashing over their skin, and rivulets of sweat dripping down their faces.

The first look at a fire up close was always blinding, and this one was no exception. Makoto held an arm out in front of his face as he adjusted to the onslaught of light, squinting until his eyes hurt. As unpleasant as his situation was, though, Makoto much preferred the blazing light to the pitch black-exactly what the scene would have been shrouded in if not for the fire. He knew it was ironic, but somehow he was a fireman that was thankful for fires. They lit up the dark, where menacing creations of his imagination took up residence, and reminded him that everything he knew to be true in the day was the same at night.

Finally adjusted, Makoto gazed straight at the smouldering building in front of him, black foundation glowing with yellow flames. He sighed. It was going to be a long night.


Haru had been sitting on the fire escape, mindlessly fiddling with the dolphin keychain that hung from his backpack, for over a half an hour before he heard the sirens. A firetruck and several police cars came speeding down the deserted road, their flashing lights illuminating Haru's face for a moment before they passed his hiding spot and he was under the cover of darkness once again.

The truck and cars screeched to a stop thirty yards from the Satsumori warehouse, various police officers and firefighters hurriedly clambering out of the vehicles. Haru leaned forward slightly, his eyes searching fervently through the crowd of firemen.

There.

An electric jolt went through Haru's body as he saw him. Even from his distance away, he could still recognize the tallest of the firemen, who he had only seen up close once. But once had been enough. The image of the fireman's face was carved into Haru's mind, the scruffy brown hair poking out from beneath his helmet, and the sparkling green eyes that seemed to repel the orange glow of the flame. Those jades had some mysterious power over Haru, who saw them reflecting back at him wherever he went, following him, watching him.

Haru had first seen those eyes about three months ago. It was Christmas Eve, and his roommates Rei and Nagisa had thrown a party to celebrate. Haru was not the most social and generally hated parties, but stayed only because Nagisa threatened to take away his pool membership. As he worked at a small stand in the fish market, Haru's meager pay didn't cover much more than rent, and Nagisa offered to pay for his membership. Despite Rei's protests about Haru "needing to get a better job" and Nagisa "needing to learn to be frugal", Nagisa paid for Haru, knowing how much he loved and needed swimming. Haru greatly appreciated Nagisa's generosity at the time, but later came to realize that it was an investment for Nagisa, and it acted as a bargaining chip. Haru could not escape Nagisa's master manipulation strategies, and was forced to attend the party.

On that Christmas Eve, it was around eleven, and most of the guests had left. Haru hadn't know any of them, and had sat in a corner alone, drinking water, while watching Nagisa excitedly flit from person to person, and Rei holding forth about art and politics. The two of them became louder and more abrasive as they consumed more alcohol and became drunk.

Haru had felt incredibly exhausted with all the human contact, and slowly leaned his head against the wall, drifting off into a peaceful sleep. It didn't last long, and he was roughly jolted awake by the harsh, acridness of smoke in his nostrils. He quickly jumped up in surprise, noticing the flames rising from the center of the living room. He stared at them in horror, adrenaline pumping through his veins. Nagisa was jumping around trying to put them out by dumping various bottles of liquid over the fire, but it was already too big to be put out easily.

Rei was belligerently shouting about how their apartment doesn't have a fireplace and how stupid it was for Nagisa to try to create his own. "I can appreciate the beauty of a fire on Christmas," he drunkenly hollered over the crackling of the flames and Nagisa's frantic shouts. "If you have a fireplace!"

At that moment the fire alarm began to blare, and Haru quickly grabbed his roommates, who were still shouting and stumbling, and practically dragged them down the six flights of stairs. Once outside and a safe distance away, Rei called the fire department and described the proceedings in an irritated fashion, and as soon as he hung up, he rekindled his sentiments about Nagisa's actions. Soon the two of them were in a full-blown argument on the sidewalk. Groaning slightly, Haru awkwardly shuffled away from them and sat down on the steps of a different building across the street, where he watched the fellow tenants of their apartment building flee in panic from the slightly smoking structure.

Before long, sirens began to wail, and a firetruck and several police cars arrived on the site. A young police officer with red hair and unusually pointy teeth and a shorter one with gray hair began to mill around, asking people for their names and about how the fire started, while a group of firefighters went inside the building.

One fireman was slightly behind his coworkers, and was stopped by a frantic mother from the fourth floor. "My daughter Yumiko is still in there!" she cried, tugging on the fireman's jacket. "She's fascinated by fire, and doesn't understand how harmful it is!"

From across the street, Haru saw the fireman smile and pat the woman's shoulder comfortingly. "Don't worry," he said. "I'll go get her." He ran into the building.

Haru watched as the the firemen put out the flames in his apartment, which ended up not being a very dangerous fire at all, and continued to sit on the steps. Eventually all the firefighters milled out of the building, but Haru didn't see the one who had gone to get that girl. Her mother continued to sob desperately.

After what seemed like five hours, the fireman returned, carrying a young girl with ease, as if she were a cat. He set her down and removed his helmet, revealing his messy brown hair and his slightly smudged face. He smiled and ran his fingers through his hair, when the mother tackle- hugged him. Haru could see the fireman's surprise, a slight blush dusting his cheeks. Laughing, he was released by the woman, and he kneeled down and said something to the young girl that Haru couldn't hear. He patted her on the head and then departed from them, walking closer to where Haru was sitting. Haru didn't want to be caught watching, so he quickly averted his eyes.

"Hey, are you okay?" He heard a light, amiable voice call out. He turned and saw the fireman walking over to him. The fireman stopped a couple of feet away from Haru.

"Uh," Haru said awkwardly. "Yeah, I'm fine." He stared at the ground.

"Ok," the fireman said politely. "Just wanted to check." Haru glanced up and made eye contact with the man. Haru wasn't expecting to have two emerald eyes looking at him so intensely and understandingly, and his heart rate increased. But unlike most of the time, Haru didn't feel the need to look away, so he continued to stare into the fireman's eyes.

Haru felt something unusual in that moment. He had lived most of his life as a loner, with only a few friends like Rei and Nagisa. Often he was the person who was left out, or was never quite understood. Even though Rei and Nagisa were great friends and obviously cared about him, neither of them really understood him as a person. Haru had pretty much given up on finding a person that truly accepted him. But while looking into that friendly, smiling face, Haru felt understood for the first time in his life. He didn't feel the need to explain himself, or continue talking, because somehow the fireman knew. Some sort of mutual conversation silently passed between the two of them. The fireman laughed, his green eyes lighting up, and he left Haru alone, whose ears were ringing.

Since then, Haru's mind had been infiltrated by those eyes and that affectionate face. It became an obsession for him to see it again. He couldn't explain what had happened to him. He had never experienced something like this ever before, and it ate away at him until he was so desperate that he lost all sense of morality.

In his frenzied curiosity with the uniqueness of the firefighter, he came to a conclusion. If there was a fire, wouldn't the firefighter be there? So Haru became an arsonist. Although he had somewhat lost his rationality, he was meticulous in his planning, making sure to set fire to buildings that were completely abandoned, in areas of Tokyo where there wasn't a lot of human activity. Haru didn't want to kill anyone. He also took great pains to cover up his tracks and be as discreet as possible, for although he wanted to see that fireman, he didn't want to be seen by anyone else. He wasn't sure what exactly about the fireman motivated him, all he knew was that he had to see and feel that understanding again. There was something that he had experienced, something he couldn't put words to, and he didn't want to lose it.

So there he sat, on the fifth floor of the fire escape, watching his fifth arson decimate the Satsumori Distribution Warehouse. He was frozen in his spot, focused on the tall, athletic fireman's every move.

The man's jaw was set and his face looked focused and stoic, but his green eyes had an air of tiredness about them. Haru watched attentively as the fireman grabbed the firehose along with some of the other firemen, and they began to spray the building. He breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of water. Ironically, the sight of fire made him feel troubled and anxious, and the part he looked forward to during his arsons was when it was put out. His eyes followed the arc of the water as it flicked serpent-like against the crackling flames. Slowly, the fire began to disintegrate.

Once all that was left was a bare structure of the building and soggy ashes, the police and firemen packed up and left. Haru observed the man pause while climbing into the truck, where he looked back at the smoldering building. After a moment, he slipped into the truck and out of Haru's sight. The police and firefighters left, and the street was once again as silent and lonely as before, just permeated by the smell of smoke. It was 3:06 A.M..

There was a strange feeling in Haru's chest as the image of the fireman's eyes burned the back of his skull. Even after all of these fires, I still feel that, he mused, his hands a little shaky. What is it that he has that's so different from anyone I've ever seen? Shaking his head, he stood up and dusted himself off, shoving his hands in his pockets. I have to figure this out. He clenched his jaw and started walking down the stairs, to go home.


A/N:

So, thus concludes the first installment of this fic, annnnnndddddd we felt the need to add blurbs here to possibly irritate you with our taking up of the space and continuing to talk even after the fun stuff is over, so here they are:

MufasasPride: I used to have ambitions and goals before being sucked into the world of gay swimming dweebs, so this fic should really be named "Rest In Peace, Productivity". I got the inspiration from this fic from Uptown Funk, because every time I hear "I'm too hot, hot damn, call the police and the fireman" I think of Makoto and Rin in Future Fish. Thus produced the stupid fangirl thought of "Damn son, I'd light fires to see you" that evolved to "Hey, what if Haru were an arsonist?" so thanks, Uptown Funk. The title on our googledocs copy of this fic might still be "Call the Police and the Fireman"...

sexythroatbitchohyescats: This anime was supposed to be watched as a joke for my birthday, and somehow turned into an all consuming obsession that has plagued me every day since. I really did walk into my next year of life a completely new person... who sits at their laptop all day... living, breathing, and dedicating my every spare (or not spare) moment to this ship. Oh, and thanks to MufasasPride's shitty 1 AM ideas, (shitty for my life and sanity, but fabulous for all the other things that actually matter, like Makoharu), I ended up writing a novel about it too! So, here goes.

We'll probably be posting updates for this weekly (though no promises), seeing as we already have the first 7 chapters mostly finished. Just a warning: I was not kidding when I said we ended up writing a novel. We have 263 pages worth of this fic on our document currently, and it isn't even close to being done (mostly because we made some *minor* miscalculations with certain plot points that we decided to completely redo... heh...), so if you're looking for a way to waste away your life, this is it. Anyways, hope you enjoy arson Haru!