Genres: angst, romance
Rated: K
Characters: Makoto Tachibana, Haruka Nanase
Pairing: Makoto/Haruka
Summary: Every day, Haruka's memories reset. Every day, Makoto makes new ones with him.
Note: I don't know what this even is. I get that feeling quite often about the things I write.
Day After Day
Makoto met him for the first time in the park of his neighbourhood.
It was the summer after his final year of high school. Makoto had wanted to read in the park, to spend some time away from his siblings' noisy chatter and to enjoy the peaceful environment outside.
He was there, sitting on the swings. Makoto noticed him first: he noticed the way his dark hair, shining in the sunlight, fell tousled across his forehead, the way he swung slowly, his bare feet just brushing the soft grass, and the way his clear cerulean eyes stared into the distance as if he was elsewhere.
"Hello," Makoto walked up to him, Sputnik Sweetheart tucked under his arm, and said with a smile, "I'm Makoto."
The boy glanced at him. "Haruka," he responded quietly, before looking downwards again.
Makoto sat down on the swing next to him, and when Haruka did not react, he opened the cover of Sputnik Sweetheart and began to read. However, even Haruki Murakami could not fixate him and Makoto found himself peeking at the strange raven-haired boy sitting next to him.
After what seemed to be hours, Haruka finally whispered, "My grandmother passed away yesterday."
Makoto was at loss for words. "I'm so sorry," he finally sputtered. "Do you want to talk about it?"
There was no reply.
They sat in silence until evening arrived. "Goodbye, Haruka-san," Makoto offered. "You should get home before the Sun sets."
Haruka did not look at him.
Makoto visited the park again the next day, but the swings were unoccupied.
Makoto did not see Haruka for a few days. When he did meet him again, it was in the park, but this time Haruka was sitting on the seesaw.
"Hi Haruka-san," Makoto greeted him hesitantly, uncertain what he would say—or not say. "How are you feeling?"
"Who are you?" the dark-haired boy asked with an air of disinterest.
"Um, I'm Makoto, remember? We met a few days ago here," Makoto answered, grinning bashfully and scratching the back of his neck.
Haruka was silent for a while, before blue eyes met green and he told him softly, almost regretfully, "It's my memory."
"What?" Makoto asked, confused.
"My memories reset every day." Haruka swallowed, before he continued on, "And I don't know why."
"So you don't remember meeting me at all?"
"No," Haruka replied blankly. "What happened?"
Immediately, Haruka's heartbroken and hollow words about his grandmother's death passed through Makoto's mind. I can't tell him that, he thought, hating how empty Haruka had seemed that day. "I-it was nothing!" Makoto stammered.
Haruka gave him a long look, before saying, "Okay."
Something within Makoto ached.
It was raining in the park that morning. Makoto found Haruka sheltered under a large oak tree, and so he joined him.
"Nice weather we're having," Makoto commented, ending the stifling silence between them.
"I don't mind it," Haruka said, stretching out a hand to catch some droplets in his palm. "I like water."
Makoto laughed. Haruka is cute, he decided. He wanted to ask Haruka if he recalled the events of the previous day, but thought better of it.
"Sometimes I think," Haruka continued emotionlessly as water dripped down his hair and soaked his tee shirt, "about how meaningless my life is."
"Why?" Makoto asked, worry in his voice.
"I'm like this raindrop: I don't stand out—I'm nobody special. No one will remember me. I have no one to remember me." Haruka said all this with no trace of desperation or sadness, only acceptance. The words "I can't even remember myself," went unsaid but lingered in the air anyway.
"If it is any consolation, I will remember you," Makoto said earnestly.
"You know," Makoto said to Haruka the next day—a Haruka who once again does not recognize him—as he sat down next to him on the park bench, "if I told you that we've met before, would you believe me?"
"Yes."
"How come you are always out so often?" Makoto's mother asked him one night during supper.
Makoto could not tell her that he has fallen in love.
The Sun was out and the heat was nearly unbearable, but they lay underneath the shade of the trees and everything was okay.
"I will remember you forever," Makoto told him sincerely that afternoon.
All Haruka asked was, "Why?"
"Some things do not need a 'why.' Sometimes, they just are."
Images of green eyes, warm smiles, and rain whirled in Haruka's mind. For the first time, tears came to his eyes.
"Even if you can't remember me tomorrow, I'll remember you."
It was raining hard, as if the heavens were crying, but they sat on the rusted park bench together. Haruka took Makoto's hand in his, desperate to remember every line, every scar, every wrinkle, even if it was only for today.
Then the rain flooded the sandbox and washed everything away.
The end