Disclaimer: Free! Iwatobi Swim Club is not mine, but I can ogle it like nobody's business.
A/N: I started this actually ages ago before school started in earnest this semester, buuut well life happened, so it's here now?
Dedicated to DestinyHeart13, who requested this little story~
••∞• Phone Service •∞••
It's quiet.
Too quiet.
Even considering it's Monday morning, it's too quiet.
Makoto can't quite place his finger on why, or what it is, but he feels a weird sense of dread crawling up his spine with the frantic whispers.
Then again, it might have something to do with the fact that, the moment he and Haru walked into the classroom, what had been an oddly loudly buzzing gaggle of girls for a Monday morning went deathly quiet.
He'd turn around and poke Haru to ask him what he thought, but Haru already has his chin propped up on his hand as he gazes pensively out the window (and what he really means is he starts dozing off as he looks longingly toward the pool).
Makoto gives a tiny sigh as his eyes rove adoringly over his boyfriend's face, eyes flickering occasionally down to his neck where he cautiously eyes the way his collar is slipping down, coming dangerously close to revealing a dark bite from a few nights before, and he thinks he may have to fix it later after the first class, or else he may try and kiss it and he will not be held responsible for his actions.
Because Haru is so undeniably sexy, without ever even trying, and it's totally not fair that he turns Makoto's legs to jelly, like he did yesterday when-
Makoto feels his cheeks flushing and he has to bite his lip and shake the thoughts that are quickly spiraling into a dangerous (not to mention mortifying) situation away, sighing a little huffily as he turns back to face the front. It is all he can do not to whip his head right back around when a girl near him bursts into shrill giggles before her friends frantically shush her.
And no. He does not miss the way their eyes flicker cautiously back over to him, voices quiet but eyes oddly agleam.
Thank goodness, Ama-chan chooses that moment to walk into the room, heels clacking daintily on the tile floor, and cheerfully calls for everyone's attention. Makoto is more than ready to put the odd behavior this morning behind him, and start another, normal school day.
Unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though he's going to get it, if the way the response to Haru's name is a short burst of squealing and – after an awkward pause of classmates craning their heads this way and that to glance between the culprits and a slightly taken-aback Haru) – a fit of shrill giggles when Makoto's name is called.
Ama-chan's gaze darts between her two swimmers worriedly, mouth working silently as she glances helplessly to Makoto, her big brown eyes wide and curious—and it's honestly all Makoto can do not to sink down in his chair until he slips out of sight—but she calmly calls for quiet, and finishes reading off the roster before clapping her hands and starting the day's first lesson.
It's a lesson that for once, goes in one ear and right out the other, try as he might to focus on anything other than the sudden rush of questions all clambering to be answered. It's nearly more than Makoto can bear, not glancing back over his shoulder to look to Haru for support.
Because after the first time he does that this morning, in order to rouse the dozing teen with a quiet, stern, but amused Haru, there's a tell tale shutter directly to his left, and when he glances over there's a girl staring right back. Her glossy lips parted in an 'o' of surprise, her grey eyes wide like a deer caught in the headlights as she aims her camera phone right at them.
Haru, after following Makoto's confused expression, merely raises an eyebrow at the brazen girl, and she whips back around tucking her phone into her lap, leaning forward to hide her burning face in his arms while the shoulders of the girls around her shaking with badly muffled laughter.
Suddenly, Makoto is missing the too quiet he'd initially thought when he'd first walked into the room.
Something is up, that's for sure, and he honestly can't fathom what it is. He knows these girls – not particularly well, but they take the same train he and Haru do, and get on at the same station. He's idly chatted with one or two of them a couple of times before, when Haru just wasn't up for talking, and maybe there was an upcoming test, or they wanted to ask about the next swim meet...
In any case, Makoto hasn't the slightest idea what it could possibly be that these girls want, or are twittering over, and Makoto sits helplessly by, watching the clock tick tick tick painfully slowly to lunch, feeling very much out of the loop.
Ama-chan has to raise her voice for the first time in weeks when the girls in question start passing notes right in the open, and Makoto is glad when they stay comparatively quiet for the rest of the class after their sensei snatches the notes away.
She crumples and drops them into the waste bin at the door without so much as glancing at the pretty pink stationary before resuming her lessons, eyes straying over to the girls to look each one in the eye sternly even as she sweetly continues her lecture.
Makoto forgets sometimes that, to the rest of their classmates, who don't have Ama-chan as a supervisor for their club, Ama-chan isn't scary at all. Only the Iwatobi Swim Club knows better.
The rest of class goes comparatively faster after the minor outburst, and Makoto is clambering to his meet the second the bell rings, Haru's head turning to look up at him with mild interest.
"Ready for lunch, Haru-chan?" Makoto asks, maybe a little bit loudly, a little too cheerily, and Haru is barely standing before Makoto is whisking him out the door to the baffled swimmer's chagrin.
"Makoto," Haru says, but they both know it's really a question as he's practically dragged along to the roof where Nagisa and Rei are most likely already waiting for them, as they get out of class on the third floor while Haru and Makoto need to trek up from the first.
Makoto turns his head, opening his mouth to say something, but closes it again when he doesn't find the right words to voice his confusion, and he turns back around, practically jogging now. Haru obediently doesn't say anything else until they're bursting through the roof door, both a little breathless.
Nagisa and Rei are, indeed, already on the rooftop, but rather than amicably arguing about something pointless, they're sitting together in an eerie state of calm right outside the door, bentos on their lap and eyes fixed on the pair of them solemnly; though Nagisa's mouth is twitching in its state of forced calm, while Rei's actually looking a little pale.
This is about when Makoto looses it.
"What the heck is going on today?" Makoto yelps, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation, Haru looking up at him with slightly wide eyes.
"'What's going on?'" Haru echos, confused, glancing between Makoto, who has dropped his head into his hands to rub his face furiously, and Nagisa, whose serious face is crumbling into a sly grin.
"Haru!" Makoto exclaims, dropping is hands to pin Haru with an incredulous, pleading look. "I know you're pretty tuned out when it comes to picking up on the atmosphere of a room, but that class was ridiculous!"
Haru blinks calmly and has the gall to tilt his head ever so slightly to the left questioningly, and dammit he knows it makes Makoto want to coo, both inward and out, whenever he does that. "It was?"
"Haru, everyone was giggling at us! Everyone!" Makoto wails, and now Haru's eyes go from neutral to thoughtfully narrowed. Both his gaze and Makoto's suddenly turns on Nagisa as a shrill giggle escapes his throat, while Rei shushes him fiercely with a "Nagisa-kun, be serious!"
Makoto feels his stomach drop because if it's something even Rei knows about, who knows how many more people know?
Mostly, he just wants to know what they know that he doesn't know that they know and he just wants to be let in on this, goddammit.
"Mako-chan, don't be upset!" Nagisa sing songs, clapping Rei hard enough on the back that the other boy splutters as he fumbles to catch his glasses as they slip at the abrupt gesture—before he's prancing over to the tall swimmer, taking his larger hands into his tiny ones and swinging their arms.
"It's really not that big a deal, it'll blow over soon," he grins, but Makoto doesn't really like the smile on Nagisa's face; it's the predatory one he's all too familiar with from their childhood, when Nagisa would confine in him and Haru all the pranks he would pull on his three older sisters.
"Nagisa," Makoto says, doing his best to sound firm, even though he feels a little silly using the same, disciplinary voice he uses on the twins on his high school friend. "What is going on."
The Voice seems to do the trick, though, because Nagisa calms down a little, letting go of Makoto's hands at the dirty look Haru sends his way and merely rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet.
"It's nothing, really, it's not. Besides, like, no one knows about it," he chirps, sending an almost apologetic look back Rei's way when the other freshman lets out an indignant, mumbled sound. "Well, almost no one. It's really just me, Rei-chan, and maybe a few girls. Like, five tops. Maybe. Oh. And Rin-chan."
"Knows about what, Nagisa?" Makoto insists again, voice louder but, unfortunately a little shriller, and Nagisa merely offers a sympathetic smile before he—
pulls out his phone?
Makoto blinks, completely lost, as Nagisa taps furiously into his phone, because thrusting the device up at Makoto so close that his green eyes cross, until Nagisa carelessly drops the device into his hands, and then he's fumbling frantically to catch the phone when—
The color drains from his face completely.
"Makoto?" Haru asks, actual concern starting to lace his voice as his best friend gapes at the cell with horror before slowly, as not to startle his gentle giant of a boyfriend, moves to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder.
Then Haru's eyes go pretty wide as well.
And suddenly, Makoto isn't pale so much as he's burning bright red, from the roots of his hair to his neck.
"What the fuck?" Haru mutters quietly, squinting and tilting his head to try and get a better glimpse at the picture, and Makoto's head turns weakly to the side as well, the two staring blankly at the image together.
It's not anything surprising. Nothing either of them hasn't seen before.
But what's on this screen definitely shouldn't be seen anywhere outside either of their bedrooms.
To be fair, though, the time this particular picture was taken, they hadn't been inside. Their bedrooms, that is.
Well.
That was the last time Haru managed to coerce Makoto into a quickie in the classroom for the next, well, ever.
It's not a particularly good photo. But it's definitely good enough that the two of them are recognizable, and there's no mistaking what Haru's doing behind Makoto with the taller boy sprawled over his desk, clutching at the sides for support.
It's plain as day, the blissed out face he's making. His usually bright green eyes are dark, his pupils blown wide with pleasure, and his face is visibly flushed, even with the poor, afternoon light filtering in through the window behind them. His mouth is parted, and he's visibly panting for air, hair already impossibly mused and then—
Then there's Haru
Makoto feels a distant guilty pang, but—god, it's not like they've ever taken pictures of each other like this, aside from sexting, but that's always just the two of them one on one, never together—so he knows Haru looks good, especially like this, but this isn't the time nor place to start thinking those kinds of thoughts about Haru, but.
But here:
Here, Haru's dark eyes are somehow brighter than Makoto's hazy ones, burning with desire as they look down at his lover, and his normally pale skin is visibly flushed a pleasant pink from exertion.
His hands are gripping Makoto's hips, tight even from this far away, where the picture was taken; and somehow, even now Makoto thinks he can feel his boyfriend's fingers digging into his hips; bruising them as he squeezes tight to ground himself, trying to keep from groaning too loudly.
It had a second purpose, though—of trying to keep a boneless Makoto standing even while his feet slipped as he tried to find purchase while Haru pushed into him—the two of them getting off on the high of just how bad this was, how much trouble they'd be if they got caught.
Well. They did get caught. Though, admittedly, this wasn't the kind of reaction Makoto had even dreamed of getting.
It just…
That is…
…goddamn Haru looked amazing.
"Hngh," was the incredibly coherent response Makoto was finally able to voice at last after a good full minute of their joint staring, until the screen went black and suddenly Makoto found himself blinking into Nagisa's concerned magenta eyes.
"Mako-chan, are you okay?" Nagisa asks in a voice that's, really, way too cheerful for the occasion, and Makoto just blinks at him, dazed and incredulous.
Nagisa only shrugs as he gives a bright beam, one that has just the faintest hint of satisfaction.
"I won five thousand yen from Rin-chan, saying that you guys were secretly kinky, but I never imagined you were that kinky! And Mako-chan. I can't believe you take it up the ass!" he tacked on in a confiding tone with a sharp, self-satisfied grin, waggling his eyebrows, which was, of course, Rei's cue to regain control of his facilities of speech and holler "Nagisathat is not appropriate now, nor will it ever be!" as he grabbed Nagisa's collar to jerk him back.
Haru twitched.
"Nagisa."
"Hmm?" the little blond hummed sweetly, turning his mischievous eyes towards Haru, who hadn't spoken a word until now.
Haru was staring at him with a dangerous, dark gaze, as he pointed to the phone and arched a delicate eyebrow of his own.
"Oh. Oh!" Nagisa laughed, waving a hand dismissively. "No, that wasn't me –though it was perfect timing, cuz there was this reallyreally cute phone charm that I wanted with a penguin on it and it was just over my budgetbutitreallywasn'tme!" Nagisa ended shrill, backing away waving his hands frantically as Haru took a few lazy, intimidating steps forward from his stock-still boyfriend.
"No—I saw that posted on some weird link while I was surfing the school's internet threads—I dunno how I got there, I went from looking up when the school vending machines would start stocking strawberry pocky again, to a school secrets page, to some really freaky porny stuff about poor Iwatobi-chan!—to here, and it was posted like two minutes before I'd got there—so I was like oh no! Nagisa-chan to the rescue!—so I looked up the first trending ad thing I could find and posed it on the thread to get them reported—after that, the IP address taken down immediately, and I waited around an hour or two to see if they'd post it again but the didn't—I guess they were feeling pretty bold the first time and couldn't get the guts to do it again," Nagisa explained, impossibly, in one breath, and beamed brilliantly in response to all three boys' gawking stares.
Well, Rei's and Makoto's. Haru's was more of a slight parting of lips, but it was noticeable all the same, and any noticeable emotion that flashed across Haru's face was pretty tremendous.
"But it worked pretty well as tangible proof for Rin-chan that you guys are hussies," Nagisa declared proudly, pointing dramatically at the pair of them, other hand on his hip before he snatched the phone back, fingers tapping swiftly over the keys again before he turned the phone to face the two of them again, and make a quick show of pressing DELETE.
There was a pregnant pause, that was finally interrupted when Haru nodded once, patted Nagisa's shoulder absentmindedly with a mumbled "thanks,"before meandering over to the steps to sit down, and calmly take out his bento.
Only once Makoto was absolutely sure that his cheeks weren't about to spontaneously combust into flames, he took the backs of his hands away from where he'd futilely bought them up to try and cool them, and he graced Nagisa with about two seconds of eye contact before he began to blush all over again, staring down at the ground.
"Thank you Nagisa," he said meekly, before he walked over to join Haru with as much dignity as he could muster. Meaning he walked over to his boyfriend with his shoulders hunched and all curled into himself, because holyfuckthatwasnotworththeadrenalinerush.
Eventually, Rei and Nagisa sat beside them on the ground, cross-legged, to eat their own bentos, and chatted amiably, kindly allowing Makoto to recover from the shock of discovering that, well.
He and Haru might have a shadowing fan club now for a while, after that particular stunt.
Makoto glanced up at the gentle touch of Haru's hand on his knee, and he offered a weak smile up at Haru's serene expression. Haru squeezed his knee gently, before he leaned in to press an almost kiss to Makoto ear (Rei turned so red at the miniscule gesture that Makoto worried he was going to pop a vessel or something, and Nagisa grinned manically as he gave them a sidelong Look but never stopped chattering).
Makoto's smile grew despite himself, and he was just about to nudge Haru bashfully away, when the other boy whispered—
"You looked really good in that photo. Maybe we should take more pictures someti-"
"Haru, I love you, but I swear to God-shut up."
••∞• Owari •∞••
A/N: I…don't know how this cranked itself out, but that it did! Just went from one page to eight, sooo…yeah. NAGISA-HERO-CHAN TO SAVE THE DAY FROM POTENTIAL CYBER BULLYING OR ABUSE YEEAAAH no but really I didn't mean for this to take such a weirdly serious turn but that stuff's not okay.
Anywhoo I hope this was along the lines of what you wanted, DestinyHeart13! Sorry about the wait, I hope it was worth it! I had a good time writing it~
I'll be posting more stuff soon, hopefully. I'm just happy to be getting ANYTHING out.
Please Read and Review~