Author's Note: I don't know why I've been posting so much today. I was so bored, so all I did was write. Anyway, I'm obsessed with female versions of the boys, so this was born. And of course, I'm a creature of habit, so I made it sad.
And please excuse the excessive honorifics on Nagisa's part. I normally can't stand them, but that's just who he (she) is.
Warnings: Depression, Self Harm
Disclaimer: I do not own Free! and I most likely never will.
The bath water is scalding.
Haruka can see the steam rising from the tub, can feel the heat of it burning her skin. Somehow it isn't hot enough, but the girl has no energy to sit up and adjust the nozzle. She shifts slightly so her right knee pokes out of the water.
She decides that her skin isn't red enough and lowers it back down.
Haruka isn't wearing her swimsuit.
She doesn't want to ruin the material.
For years after her grandmother died, everything Haruka did was simply routine.
Wake up, take a bath, make breakfast and head off to school, come home at the end of the day, eat, take another bath, then head off to bed. The next day would come, and the cycle would simply repeat itself.
There were abnormalities, of course. Some days Haruka just couldn't be bothered, and she would lie in bed long after the sun came up, bundled in her blankets with the blinds drawn closed.
Those were the mornings when the sound of her alarm clock made her start to cry before she'd even opened her eyes, the mornings when she cursed its mechanical ticking for not being the soft, warm voice of her beloved grandmother, gently coaxing her out of bed because she knew how much Haruka loathed attending school.
In those instances, Haruka would sometimes find herself wishing for her parents and silently beg for them to come home.
Those were the moments when Haruka allowed herself to feel lonely.
Her classmates thought her strange. For a while after the funeral, they were all very sympathetic of her plight, but when her enforced solitude continued, it seemed as if they forgot about her entirely.
Haruka didn't mind. She'd never been a sociable person, and the lack of awkward attempts at small talk took a great deal off her mind. Keeping to herself was much safer.
She sat at the back of the classroom everyday, staring out the window or doodling on blank pages meant for note taking. Her teachers reprimanded her half-heartedly, for there was nothing they could do to make Haruka care about paying attention during class.
The only thing Haruka could do was cram the night before an important exam so she would have acceptable scores on the report the school insisted on emailing to her parents. Whether or not her mother and father actually paid sufficient attention to the reports, Haruka didn't know, but she didn't want to do so horribly in school that they would return to Iwatobi.
Or worse, force her to leave the home she'd shared with her grandmother and go to live with them.
Haruka already fancied herself fractured, but she knew without a shadow of a doubt that leaving would finally cause her to break.
"What are you drawing?"
It took Haruka a moment to realize she was being spoken to. Her hand stopped moving, the graphite of her pencil frozen on the page in mid-stroke. Slowly, she turned her head ever so slightly to the right.
Tachibana Makoto was smiling at her. Haruka only knew her name because they'd gone to preschool together, and Makoto had shared her crayons one day when Haruka had forgotten her own.
Still. That didn't explain why the other girl was speaking to her.
"Excuse me?" Haruka said after a slight pause. The sound of her own voice was startling. She never spoke at school for lack of someone to actually speak with. She never spoke at home either, also for lack of someone to speak with. When had her voice become as dead as the rest of her?
Makoto's smile turned into something almost sheepish, and her legs fidgeted underneath her desk, her hands worrying together atop it. "I'm sorry if I'm bothering you. You just draw so much! I got curious."
Haruka's eyes darted around the room. Lectures had apparently ended for the hour, and the rest of their classmates were busy chatting amongst themselves. No one stopped to ogle at the fact that someone had actually gotten Haruka to speak. At this point, she doubted anyone cared.
"How do you know I draw a lot?" Haruka asked instead of moving her arm to allow the other girl to see her doodle.
"I sit here everyday." Something about the green of Makoto's irises spoke of true disappointment. "I just noticed, I guess."
Haruka didn't say anything, and while she'd dismissed the ghost of emotion she thought she'd seen in the other girl's eyes, she still felt a small twinge of guilt for possibly hurting Makoto's feelings.
That was the only reason she moved her arm, allowing her classmate to see her paper.
Makoto leaned over, craning her neck slightly to look at the page. "Oh, I see. It's a dolphin. Don't they normally swim in pods, though?"
Not always. Haruka thought, staring at the lonely dolphin on her paper, but she kept her mouth firmly shut.
The first time Haruka burned herself was entirely on purpose, though it was also an accident.
She was six years old and observing on a footstool as her mother made dinner, a type of soba that took meticulous preparation. When she stepped away from the stove to get the water meant to boil the noodles, she told Haruka not to touch the burners.
Naturally, Haruka detested being told what to do and laid her hand down on one of the burners just to disobey. The resulting scream brought her father and grandmother both running from different corners of the household, and her grandmother held Haruka as she cried while the elderly woman berated her mother for leaving Haruka unattended near such a smoldering surface.
While the burn itself was not enjoyable, the aftermath certainly was. Her grandmother made her cookies that night, and her parents held her and read her stories until she dozed off in their arms.
Years later, when Haruka was alone and tried to make the special soba on her own, she plunged her hand into the pot of semi-boiling water if only to make the silence in her house stop.
She got her wish. She cried out and fell to the ground in her small kitchenette, clutching her burned hand to her chest as she wept.
Though she cried for her parents and grandmother, there was no one to come running to her rescue.
That time, it was completely her fault.
Haruka started paying more attention to Makoto.
Just as she'd said, the green-eyed girl sat in the desk beside Haruka's everyday. Even if she was the last person in the classroom, no one rushed to take her seat. Haruka wondered if it was simply because no one else wanted to sit there, or if Makoto had somehow managed to claim it as thoroughly as Haruka had claimed her own desk.
It didn't really matter to Haruka either way. Makoto could sit where she wanted. It didn't mean anything.
Until one day it suddenly did.
"Nanase-kun, I have a question for you."
It was raining. Haruka had been watching the drops hit the window when Makoto spoke, a fist pressed to her chin keeping her from falling over onto her desk and passing out. She had spent the previous night learning an entire chapter for their mathematics test and hadn't gotten any sleep.
When she turned to look at Makoto, Haruka's eyes were half-lidded and buzzing with exhaustion. But she was curious what it was the other girl wanted.
"Well." Makoto paused. She was turned in her chair so she was facing Haruka completely, hands in her lap, knees pressed firmly together. "I was just wondering. Do you still like to swim?"
Haruka blinked sluggishly. In a distant part of her mind, swimming did sound like something she enjoyed. She was just too tired to be sure. "Mmm."
Makoto smiled slightly. "My friend and I want to reinstate the swim-club here. We need two more members, and I thought I would ask you. I remember you used to swim at the club before it shut down."
Haruka furrowed her brow. Ah, the swim club. She did remember that. She remembered Coach Sasabe and the other children, particularly the girl with the red hair and exhausting passion, and…
"You were there." Haruka murmured, mostly to herself.
Makoto nodded anyway, reaching up to tug on a wavy, brunette lock of her hair. Haruka watched her movements, though all she wanted to do was sleep. "Yeah, I was. We swam a relay together. You, me, and my friends Nagisa and Rin."
The relay. All Haruka remembered about it was running into her grandmother's arms once it was over, laughing as she got the older woman's floral-patterned dress soaking wet.
Despite the rain, Haruka's mood dropped, and she turned away from Makoto. "Whatever. I'll do it." She said. It felt as if there was a rock in her stomach. "I only swim free, though."
"I know."
Only after Haruka got a sufficient amount of sleep did she begin to wonder how and why Makoto knew so much about her.
It didn't take long for Haruka to regret her decision.
Occasionally conversing with Makoto during class was just fine. But once school ended, Haruka's time was her own, and she spent most of it trying to ignore the deranged animal tearing her insides to shreds.
Since she agreed to be apart of the nonexistent swim club, Makoto was chattering away at every opportunity, trying to get Haruka to voice her input on how to recruit new members so they could finally start swimming.
"I don't know what you want me to say." Haruka said one day, tugging the sleeves of her school-issued sweater further down her wrists. It was the hottest day of the summer so far, but there were blisters on her arms from her latest escapade with the sink. "If anyone cares about swimming, they'll join."
"But Nagisa and I have been trying for almost a month now, and you're the first person to agree." Makoto sighed. Her eyes were closed, and she was bent over her desk, cheek pressed to the cool surface in an attempt to alleviate the effects of the heat wave.
Haruka took a moment to look at her, intrigued by the flush on her face for whatever reason.
After a moment, Makoto's eyes fluttered open, and Haruka was forced to end her observation of the other girl's unbelievably long eyelashes. She didn't look away, however, didn't want it to seem like she had been doing something wrong.
The lazy smile to which Haruka had become accustomed slowly spread across Makoto's face.
"What?" Haruka demanded.
"You look really pretty today, Nanase-kun."
Haruka didn't really think the sweat she could feel accumulating at her hairline was very pretty, nor the messy bun her hair was pulled into, but that was neither here nor there.
The blue-eyed girl shrugged and turned away, annoyed by the heat rising to her face that was completely weather-related.
Haruka was fixing her hair before school one morning when she wondered if maybe her straightener could serve an alternate purpose.
She lowered it slowly, looking at its reflection in the mirror warily. Strangely, she was always careful when she bothered to straighten her hair, meticulous when it came to keeping the burner away from her skin.
The thought was a tempting one, but she ultimately decided against it, quickly unplugging the offending appliance and putting it away. She had decided some time ago that she was through allowing people to hurt her, to use her when it was convenient and leave her waiting.
Haruka wasn't going to give anyone enough room to hurt her as her parents had, to leave her as they had.
But the water couldn't leave. It was everywhere Haruka went, and she'd worked out a balance with it.
The water would stay, so the water was allowed to hurt her, the only thing allowed to hurt her, on her own terms.
It was her only solace, and she clung to it as she used to cling to her grandmother.
That same day, Makoto asked Haruka if she wanted to eat lunch on the roof with her and Nagisa.
"You don't have to if you don't want to." Makoto said soon after she made the offer, probably due to the blank look on Haruka's face. "I just thought it would be nice. Nagisa's been wanting to see you again."
Somehow Makoto always made Haruka feel like there was a life somewhere that the older girl had left behind. The swim club was only a vague memory, a period in the Pre-Funeral Era that Haruka had attempted to wipe from her mind completely. It was hard to miss what she couldn't fully recall.
"I didn't bring anything." Haruka replied, meaning food. She never did. Bringing lunch to school meant having to get up early to prepare it, and she didn't have the energy. "But I'll sit with you."
Makoto made a pleased little sound, and the two of them left their classroom together. They didn't make it very far.
"Mako-chan!" A slight rush of air followed the cry, and Makoto cried out as she was slammed into from behind. Haruka stepped back, keeping close to the wall. This was exactly why she kept to herself. "Oh, Mako-chan, it's awful, just awful!"
"Nagisa, you're being too loud!" Makoto exclaimed, shooting Haruka an apologetic glance. The older girl frowned, wanted to escape back to the safety of the classroom, but she didn't want to be rude after Makoto had gone out of her way to ask Haruka to join them on the roof. "What's the matter?"
"She said no again this morning!" Haruka realized that she remembered Nagisa. Back then, Nagisa was akin to a ball of energy, blonde and spritely and cherub-like in a way Haruka's grandmother had adored. She invited her over to play once, and Haruka and Nagisa had drawn pictures in the kitchen for an hour or so before the younger girl had to go home. Obviously, not much had changed. "What am I doing wrong? I asked nicely, just like you said, but it didn't work."
Makoto sighed – this was obviously an ongoing problem – and wrapped an arm around the distraught First Year's shoulders. "It's okay, Nagisa. You don't have to try so hard to get Ryugazaki-kun to join. She just likes track, you know?"
"But – " Nagisa started to protest again, but then stopped. Haruka tensed when the younger girl turned her head to look at her, blinking in surprise, as if she'd just noticed that she and Makoto weren't alone. "Oh, my gosh. Haru-chan!"
Nagisa ducked out of Makoto's arm and flung herself at Haruka, who barely managed to keep herself from bolting as she was enveloped in a tight hug.
"Nagisa!" Makoto yelped, though Haruka couldn't see her through the bright blonde fluff of Nagisa's hair. "Don't be so informal!"
"I haven't seen you in forever!" Nagisa gushed, pulling away slightly to beam up at Haruka. "Mako-chan was right, you got so pretty."
Haruka quirked an eyebrow while Makoto buried her face in her hands, groaning out a strangled noise that might have been Nagisa's name.
"You can help me." Nagisa declared, dropping her hands from Haruka's shoulders only to grab onto the older girl's wrist and start to drag her down the hall. "We need Rei-chan for the club. I'm not giving up until she agrees!"
"Wait a second!" Makoto called, and Haruka heard her quick footsteps as she hurried after them. "Nagisa, you can't just force her to join, and you can't make Haru – "
The protests died down, and Haruka was left listening to Nagisa's excited chatter about how this Rei person ate lunch in the library and that no one can say no to Haru-chan!
Perhaps it wasn't polite, but Haruka had always been on a first name basis with Makoto – at least in her head, anyway. Makoto had always been careful to refer to her as "Nanase-kun" and nothing else. How long had she been suppressing the urge to just call Haruka by her first name?
Nagisa led them to the library, and Haruka felt better once she was inside. She didn't read much anymore and hadn't for years, but the smell of old books reminded her of her grandmother.
It was dim in the room, and Nagisa prowled around quietly, looking for Rei without letting go of Haruka's wrist. The pressure was agitating her blisters, but Haruka found that she didn't really mind.
Eventually, they came across a girl sitting by herself at a table, hunched over a thick, hard-back book with a half-eaten apple in one hand.
"Rei-chan!" Nagisa chirped happily, and the girl at the table stiffened. "We found you!"
"Here we go." Makoto muttered from somewhere over Haruka's shoulder.
Haruka watched, intrigued, as the girl turned to look at them. She was a First Year like Nagisa if the red ribbon tied around the collar of her blouse was anything to go by, but Haruka decided that her expression was much too serious and unpleasant for someone so young.
"Hazuki-kun, how many times do I have to tell you, I do not have any plans to join the swim club." Haruka frowned. Her voice was just as serious as the rest of her.
"You're no fun." Nagisa groused, finally letting go of Haruka's wrist. "I brought my friends this time, though, just like I promised."
Rei adjusted her red-rimmed glasses as her eyes flitted over to Haruka and Makoto. Haruka suppressed the urge to shift under the weight of it. She felt as if she were being calculated. Why on earth did Nagisa want this girl to join the swim club?
"Tachibana Makoto." Rei said suddenly. "You were there helping the First Years around campus during the Induction Ceremony."
"Yep, that was me." Makoto said, bowing slightly. Haruka wanted to roll her eyes. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
"Likewise." Those eyes then shifted to Haruka. "And you are?"
"Nanase Haruka." Makoto supplied before Haruka had the chance to, not that she was going to take it. She didn't make it a habit of talking to strangers. "She's in my class."
"Ah." Rei continued to study Haruka for a moment longer before turning back to Nagisa. "I'm still not going to change my mind."
"Please?" Nagisa clasped her hands together in front of her chest, fixing Rei with what was probably her most pathetic expression. "We just need one more member, and I think you'd be perfect. Every team needs someone with glasses!"
"I don't see how – "
"I swim breast." Nagisa announced, and Haruka resisted the urge to groan when Rei shifted uncomfortably. She was one of those. "Mako-chan swims back, and Haru-chan swims free. We're the best in the entire school. And if you join, you'll be the best, too."
Rei huffed, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "I don't care about being the best." Now there was something Haruka could attest to. "But if you insist, prove it to me."
"Prove it?"
"I want to watch you all swim."
Haruka bristled, but Nagisa was already bobbing her head eagerly, willing to do just about anything to get Rei to agree. "Okay, we can – "
"No."
Nagisa and Rei were staring at her, and Haruka could feel Makoto's warmth at her side. The blue-eyed girl straightened her back. "I don't swim because someone tells me to." She announced, staring hard at Rei. "I swim because I want to, and I have nothing to prove, not to you or anyone else in this school."
"Haru-chan." Nagisa said, surprised.
Haruka turned, ignoring Rei's guilty expression and Makoto's concerned stare, and headed for the exit, trembling like a leaf. "I'm leaving."
"Haru, wait!" Makoto called, but Haruka didn't look back.
She went home instead of going back to class, and she didn't go to school the next day, or the day after that, mostly because Rei had made her realize she hadn't been swimming for three years, not since her grandmother died.
And Haruka was scared. She didn't remember how to coexist with water that wasn't boiling.
Haruka had to go back eventually, and when she did, Makoto was waiting for her.
"Thank goodness." She said when Haruka sat down at her desk moments before the bell rang. "I thought you were really sick."
Haruka didn't say anything.
In her absence, Rei had decided to join the swim club, though after a mishap at Samezuka Academy – Haruka didn't know why Makoto, Nagisa, and Rei went over there and didn't care to ask – it was revealed that she was so prickly over the thought of joining the club because she didn't know how to swim. Nagisa sure knew how to pick them.
Haruka didn't care one way or another, too busy wondering how she was going to get herself into the pool. Some part of her was giddy with childish excitement at the thought of swimming again, but another part was sick with dread.
She'd dragged her swimsuits out of the farthest corners of her closet during her time away from school and tried them on, just to make sure they still fit. Haruka couldn't really judge the size of her suits, too busy staring at the blemishes on her skin. There were the more current blisters of course, still healing, and then there were ones that were years old, ones that never healed.
They were all over her arms and legs, blisters and patches of discolored skin, and Haruka felt ugly as she looked at them. If she went along with everything, Makoto and Nagisa and Rei would see them, and what would they think of her then?
Still. The day Makoto had set aside for their first practice came, and Haruka wore her swimsuit underneath her uniform when she went to school. Afterward, she walked with Makoto out to the pool, where they met up with Nagisa and Rei.
"This place wasn't renovated when we had our Induction Ceremony." Rei said, slight awe in her voice as she stared at the pool. She'd had quite the change of heart in Haruka's time away from school. "You and Makoto-senpai did this all on your own, Nagisa-kun?"
"Nagisa barely lifted a finger." That was Matsuoka Gou, the club's manager. Makoto had introduced Haruka to him the day she came back to school. He was pleasant enough, but Haruka had to wonder if he just wanted to see girls in swimsuits, especially since Rei was forced to wear a borrowed bikini until they got around to finding her something more suitable. "She and Miss Amakata sat and watched while Makoto and I did all the work."
"Not true!" Nagisa cried, fighting to stay still as Makoto pulled her short, blonde hair back into a ponytail of sorts. "I pulled weeds and filled in plaster and – and – Mako-chan, you know I get hot easily!"
"Yes, I know." Makoto laughed, throwing Haruka an amused glance. They were all already in their swimsuits. Haruka had yet to remove her blazer, blouse, skirt, and stockings. "You're a delicate little flower."
Nagisa seemed pleased with that response, turning her attention to Haruka. "Aren't you going to put your suit on, Haru-chan?"
Haruka cast a glance at the pool, filled with longing. "I guess… "
"Strip!" Nagisa started cheering. "Strip!"
"Nagisa-kun, that's indecent!"
Before she could lose her nerve, Haruka shrugged off her blazer and started unbuttoning her blouse, trying to ignore the way her fingers trembled. With each article of clothing Haruka removed – as more of her burns were revealed – Nagisa's words of encouragement started to fade away.
For a moment after Haruka stepped out of her skirt, the only sound to be heard was the water lapping at the edges of the pool.
As always, Makoto was there to make the situation light.
"It's been a long time since I've seen you in a swimsuit, Nanase-kun." She said pleasantly, finished with Nagisa's hair and starting on her own. Without her uniform on, Haruka could see that Makoto's arms and legs were comprised of lean muscle and flawless skin. Nagisa was in a similar state of build, though she wasn't nearly as tall as Makoto.
Haruka realized then that even though she'd stopped swimming, her old companions at the Iwatobi Swim Club had moved on without her. As she was now, she was at the same level as Rei, who could not swim at all.
Turning to the pool, Haruka tried to ignore how exposed she felt, the shocked expressions on everyone's faces, save Makoto, who somehow always knew how to catch herself.
"You can call me Haru if you want." She said before diving into the water.
Haruka needn't have worried. It embraced her like an old friend.
"Have you ever traveled outside of Japan, Haru?"
Haruka shook her head, folding her arms over the rope separating her lane from Makoto's. It was late, school had ended hours ago and Nagisa and Rei had already gone home, but still, the two of them swam laps together. Try though she might, Haruka couldn't ignore that she and Makoto had been spending a lot of time together in recent weeks.
"My parents have." Haruka said, being careful not to betray how that one word left a bitter taste in her mouth. "They travel a lot."
Makoto made a small noise of contemplation, arms moving in a half-circle at her side as she treaded water, keeping herself afloat without the use of the rope. Haruka didn't have to do as much work as she thought to catch up to Makoto and Nagisa. While Haruka always won when they raced, she didn't have to take as much time to recover now. "I think I want to go to Australia sometime."
"Why Australia?"
"Remember Rin? She went there to swim for a while when we started middle school. She just got back, actually. She goes to Samezuka now."
Haruka remembered that they were at Samezuka when they figured out Rei couldn't swim. Knowing that Rin attended the academy made the trip seem logical.
"The world is so much bigger than Iwatobi." Makoto said reverently, as if it were sensitive information. "I've always wanted to see it."
Haruka didn't say a word, though her stomach dropped at the idea of Makoto leaving. Which was completely ridiculous, Haruka concluded, because she wasn't as dependent on human contact as she used to be and never would be again.
"But I don't think I'd want to go alone." Makoto continued, breaking off for a moment as her chin, mouth, and nose dipped under the water. "That's entirely too terrifying."
"Take Nagisa. She's not afraid of anything."
"And have to watch her at all times to make sure she doesn't get into trouble? Not likely." Makoto giggled, and Haruka was left suppressing a smile. "I think I'd drag you along, Haru."
The twitching sensation around Haruka's lips died away. She blinked over at Makoto, genuinely confused. "Why me?"
"Why not you?" Haruka was speechless, and Makoto frowned slightly, swimming over the edge of her lane so she could hang on to the rope as Haruka was doing. "Okay, I'm gonna tell you something. Don't laugh, okay?"
I would never laugh at you. Haruka thought vehemently, but of course, she didn't say it.
"I've wanted to be your friend," Makoto said slowly, not meeting Haruka's eyes, "for… gosh, years now."
"I don't believe you." Haruka said bluntly. She wasn't laughing. Far from it. No one wanted to be her friend, least of all a girl as beautiful and kind as Tachibana Makoto.
Makoto finally looked at her, eyes wide. "Haru! Why wouldn't I want to be your friend? We've known each other since we were kids, you know. It's not like I just started feeling this way."
Haruka felt awful, because it was a new thing for her, wanting to be anyone's friend. And Makoto was it, the one person Haruka was almost willing to make an exception for. But not quite.
"I wanted to tell you how sorry I was when your grandmother died." Makoto said quietly, and Haruka stilled. "But I thought giving you space… would be best." It was breaking Haruka to pieces, knowing that maybe, just maybe, if Makoto had been honest back then… "It didn't seem like you wanted to talk to anybody, least of all me."
True. It was all true, and that's what made it unbearable.
"I sat beside you everyday at school after that." Haruka could only stare. The other girl had been sitting beside her since middle school? "I didn't work up the nerve to talk to you until this year, though. And I'm so glad I did. You're really something, Haru-chan."
"Only Nagisa is allowed to call me that." Haruka grumbled, mostly because she'd become accustomed to hearing "Haru" fall from Makoto's lips. It was comforting, having someone address her in such a familiar way.
"So, yeah, that's why I want to take you traveling with me." Makoto said, her green eyes sparkling with mirth. "You can draw what we see so we never forget."
"That's what cameras are for." Haruka replied, splashing at Makoto half-heartedly. It was strange. She wanted to fight the feeling of belonging, but she was making no effort to do so. Makoto was impossible to resist. The intensity of her draw was a force to be reckoned with.
Makoto smiled, a wide, joyous thing that showed off the brilliant white of her teeth and the dimples set deep in her cheeks. Haruka found herself wanting to kiss them, which was strange, because she'd only ever kissed one other person before, and that was Matsuoka Rin right before she left for Australia.
Haruka wondered what Makoto would think if she knew, since she and Rin were friends and all.
"Hey, Haru? I don't live very far from you. Would it be okay if I came to your house tomorrow morning? We could walk to school together."
Makoto looked so very hopeful, goose bumps spreading over her skin as the temperature began to dip with the setting sun, and Haruka found herself nodding.
She didn't see the harm in it at the time.
A.N. I'll go into detail about the Haru/Rin thing later. But it'll in no way be some huge, important thing, at least in a romantic sense. I may be a die-hard MakoHaru shipper, but I'm not going to ignore the fact that Rin is so important to Haru.