A Taste Of The Good Stuff

Makoto shivered, rolling over in bed he glanced at the alarm clock: 03:00 AM. Stretching himself, he groaned. He shut his eyes again but sleep failed to grasp him. It was so annoying! He had an important meeting tomorrow, and after that he was supposed to teach kids how to swim at the pool where he had his internship. He would be responsible for ten little lives, and Makoto knew it would feel like hell if he didn't get his sleep right now. He yawned. His eyes opened and open mouthed he stared at the wall, wondering what to do. He was all out of sleeping pills.

Just as he rolled over on his back, there was a knock on his bedroom door.

"Come in."

Haruka entered quietly, moving barefooted over toward the window. When he reached it, he took a piece of the curtain in his hand, and lifted it. A long beam of light spread out over Makoto's room. Haruka stared at the ongoing traffic, without saying a word.

"Tokyo really never sleeps, doesn't it?" Makoto said with a smile, dropping his head back on the pillow and covering his eyes with his left hand.

Haruka glanced over at him, then resumed his staring out the window. The window in Makoto's room was larger, and looked right over the main road. Haruka's room had smaller windows facing the backstreets. It was more quiet, but also a lot more lonely.

"Can't sleep either?"

Haruka nodded. Or, at least Makoto thought he had seen Haruka's head bob up and down. But he could never be sure cause it was so dark in the room and he was so tired.

"Yeah, I know the feeling. At least you don't have a swimming competition tomorrow."

Cutting Makoto's speech like a sword, Haruka's neck turned around, and his eyes grew creepily large. Makoto fell silent. When Haruka got like this, agreeing to everything was the only course of action.

"Every day is a competition."

Makoto tried his best agreeable smile on Haruka.

"Of course," he said, raising his hands in a placating motion, "of course you're right Haru, silly me..."

But that wasn't going to be enough this time. Haruka's eyes went as wide as a fish, with his lips droning on in sullen monotone.

"Everything you do counts. We must prove we deserved to be where we are every single day. Tomorrow I must be better than I was yesterday. And so it shall be every day. To stay on the team you must be the best. Be the best today, tomorrow, ten years from now. Be the best every day."

Makoto sighed a sigh of relief when Haruka turned back towards the window and was silent once again. He shut his eyes and tried to sleep again. The beam of street light that fell into his room didn't bother him much. He actually preferred it to the dark, it was in a sense comforting to know that he would always have someone around him, someone to blow out the candle when he fell asleep. Suddenly Makoto heard footsteps move away from the window, and it was dark again. He opened his eyes, lifting his head slightly.

"Hey, Haruka. Where are you going?"

With the calm of a graveyard, Haruka turned around and looked Makoto square in the face. It was downright chilling, like the replay of a scene he had recently seen in a zombie apocalypse movie. Makoto couldn't help but shiver a little under the blankets.

"To bed. Tomorrow there will be a competition."

Haruka turned to leave, but Makoto managed to throw a few words in before Haruka could make it to the door.

"Why don't you sleep here?" he said, "Why don't you sleep here?", and a blush redder than the Texas sun colored Makoto's cheeks - he could feel the heat burn, and was oh so greatful for the darkness (for once).

Haruka paused at the door. Makoto could just see one part of his large exansive back from behind. Haruka's back that had been rigid ever since he had walked in, now seemed to cave under the pressure. And Makoto wanted to catch him in his arms before Haruka hit the ground, so he sat up in bed, ready to take the leap if need be. But maybe that wasn't such a great idea, because the last time it happened, Haruka had hit him forcefully across the chest, and Makoto was left to explain the bruises to both his internship manager and the kids he taught for the next couple of weeks. Of course Haruka had been drunk that time. But Makoto couldn't be certain that Haruka was completely sober right now. So he sat there, twisting his thumbs in dreadful anticipation.

Haruka turned, rocking slightly as he did so. He had one hand on the door knob, and his chest was facing Makoto. In the dark, Haruka's blue eyes would turn pitch black, and be dark pools of water that had the power to swallow you whole.

Slowly, swaying as he shifted his weight clumsily from one leg to the other, Haruka ambled over to the bed. Before he had reached halfway, Makoto had reached out and grabbed his shoulders, steadying him, and carefully guiding Haruka's footsteps. With a thud Haruka collapsed on Makoto's mattress. His breathing was quick and laboured, and his fingers seemed to grasp at something, spastically opening and closing, but never reach it. Makoto patted Haruka's hair as he got in after him. He slid his arm slowly round Haruka's waist, and covered them with the blankets. Haruka's shallow breath fanned his neck. It was a welcome relief from the heat of the night, but the thought of how Haruka must be suffering kept raging through his underslept mind till his forehead was glowing hot.

He stroked Haruka's back through his T-shirt, and Haruka fisted his hands into Makoto's shirt, and that was how the fell asleep that night. Makoto woke up bathed in sweat, and with Haruka's scent still strongly present in the room. But Haruka was gone. Off to swimming practice, which started at 06:30 in the morning. Haven gotten out of bed, and into a fresh set of clothes, Makoto opened the curtains, letting the sun in. The room turned bright orange and as he watched the reflections in all the windows of the apartment blocks around him, a smile settled on his face.

Makoto bounded toward the kitchen, turned on the radio, and reheated a meal from yesterday. Before digging his chop sticks in the gooey pasta with omelet rolls, he raised his head to the ceiling and cried out

"Thank you Haruka!",

knowing that nobody would hear him, and not caring one bit.

His cell phone rang.

"Hello, this is Tachibana Makoto speaking."

Makoto paled. He set his chop sticks down, with the egg spaghetti he had been holding.

"Speak slower Nagisa, I can't hear you. You're saying the school burned down to the ground?"