Virtus et Defectus in Aqua
[The Water is the Weakness and the Strength]
Chapter One
Haruka
There was a serenity surrounding the early-morning, one seldom felt in the laziness of vacation. The ocean spread out before him, taunting him with its frigidity and its smooth, footprint-free sands. Haru crossed his arms and leaned against the railing with a sigh, his hair still damp and his fingers pruned from the bath. Again, he had soaked for too long. Again, Rin had called to remind him to get out and get to school.
It was typical of Rin to be late. Rin didn't like walking to school alone on the first day; it was tradition now to wait for him. Every year Haru stood at the railing and pined for the water, and every year Rin jogged up to him, smiling, and whacked him between the shoulder blades.
"Haru!" he cried. "Hurry it up. You're always making me late."
Rin prattled on as they walked, Haru half-listening as the ocean beckoned. It seemed like only yesterday they were diving beneath its waves, Haru slinking away as Rin tried to hold him underwater.
A shrill, girlish voice interrupted his reverie, shouting their names between hurried footsteps. Rin sighed. "Thought I could avoid her," he muttered, glancing over his shoulder.
"Big brother!" Gou squeezed her body in the small space between them. "Mom is so mad at you. You were supposed to wait for me!"
"Yeah, whatever."
Gou hmphed and turned to Haru instead. "Haru! Good morning."
He grunted noncommittally.
Haru wasn't surprised that he and Rin were in the same homeroom. Again. Rin cracked jokes with their classmates as Haru took his usual seat in the back, staring out the window, envisioning the blue of the sky as the blue of the water. He envisioned that water, feeling the cold of the ocean prickling his skin—
"Welcome!" A young woman stood before them, trying to settle down the class. "I'm Amakata Miho, your new homeroom teacher." When she took the roll, the class burst into a fit of giggles when both Haru and Rin were mistaken for girls. Again.
"He has a girly name," a girl in the front said, pointing back to Rin, "but he's a boy."
Haru rolled his eyes.
The day dragged, as the first day of school often did. Lunch break was a relief, even if Rin insisted on escaping to the roof. It was too cold that day for the roof, but Rin always packed extra food and Haru had forgotten his in the morning rush. So he wasn't going to protest.
"What's gotten into you today?" Rin asked as they climbed the stairs.
He wasn't often expected to answer. He let Rin do the talking for both of them, even if some days it felt he wouldn't shut up. But now he was silent, waiting for an explanation.
"Don't know," Haru said. Rin narrowed his eyes, but held the roof door open without a word. Haru shoved his hands into his pockets as Rin stepped aside, allowing him to pass through first.
"Hey! There you are!"
It was a voice from years long passed, and Haru's chest constricted as the blond-haired boy attacked him in a hug.
Beside him, Rin laughed. "Nagisa! You're in high school already?"
"Hey!" Nagisa pounced on Rin next, squeezing him around the torso. "I'm only one year behind you! Coming up for lunch? Let's eat together."
The roof wasn't too bad, Haru decided. It was better than the stuffy interior of school. When they settled on the floor Rin passed him a spare set of chopsticks, like he had expected he'd forget his lunch. But Haru refused to eat out of the same bento, spreading out a napkin as a makeshift plate instead.
"What's this?" he asked, poking a piece of meat in the box.
"Pork. Eat it." Haru glared at the meat he scooped into his napkin.
Nagisa eyed the bento, grinning at the way they shared despite Haru's futile attempts otherwise. He unwrapped his own lunch, loudly rustling the wrapper to procure some kind of glazed bread product. Nagisa hadn't changed at all.
"What have you guys been up to? I bet you've have a lot of fun with your swimming." Rin side-eyed Haru, who remained expressionless as he ate his lunch. It didn't go unnoticed. "What's that look? You haven't been swimming?"
He looked so offended, like he took their lack of swimming personally. As if he had anything to do with it. Haru was tempted to lie just so Nagisa would stop pouting.
"Sure, we swim sometimes," Rin said, watching Haru dole rice onto his napkin. "Kind of hard without a pool, though. It's been too cold to swim in the ocean."
"Whaaa?" Nagisa's shoulders slumped. "But I was so excited to come here and swim with you guys! There's no team?"
"No." Haru's answer was clipped; end of discussion. He almost felt bad—he doubted this was the warm reunion Nagisa had expected. Rin looked away, chewing his food slowly. But Nagisa suddenly brightened, eagerly leaning toward them. "I have an idea! Let's visit the old swim club. I hear they're tearing it down."
"What?" Rin's head jerked up and Nagisa grinned, having finally received a suitable reaction.
"Yeah! We have to go before they destroy everything. Because . . . you know."
"No." Haru chewed on the end of his chopstick.
"Aww, come on, Haru-chan," Nagisa said, tugging on his arm. "It'll be fun! Just like old times!"
Haru scowled. "It'll be nothing like old times."
But when Rin agreed that it might not be so bad to see the old stomping ground, Haru was outnumbered. It was a losing battle, but he continued to deny any interest in the swim club. It meant nothing now; visiting an abandoned building without the entire team was pointless. Haru resented how they acted like there was still a team to reminisce about.
Nonetheless, Haru found himself standing outside the club that night. Rin had mostly humored Nagisa at first, but now he grinned as they stared up at the crumbling building. "Brings back memories, huh?" he said, elbowing Haru in the ribs. "C'mon, Haru-chan."
"Lay off the -chan already," he said, but neither Rin nor Nagisa were listening.
Nagisa pressed his ear to the door. "I hear it's haunted," he whispered.
"No one believes that shit," Rin said. "Let's go in."
Everything feels vast and grand in childhood, and Haru was immediately depressed by the reality of it. The hallways, once teeming with excitable would-be swimmers, were narrow and vacant. Once, they could stand four-across in the hallway, reaching out to touch either side. Now, Haru had to walk behind his companions, whose endless reminiscing echoed over the empty walls.
"Here's the locker room!" Nagisa said, swinging his flashlight beam over the desolate room.
"The lockers are so small," Rin said, sticking his head in.
Haru lingered in the hallway, staring down its depths. It felt like one of them should be emerging from that darkness, running toward him and laughing, wearing only the regulation blue swimsuit. He listened to his old teammates swap locker room tales he'd long since forgotten. Haru had only been there to swim. Then they grew up.
"Haru-chan, Rin-chan, are you coming?" Nagisa had trotted down the hallway and was now waiting, bouncing on his toes, and pointing his flashlight at them. Haru raised an arm to his face and squinted.
"Haru," Rin whispered, slinging an arm around his shoulders. "You doing okay?"
He wished Rin would quit it with the shoulder thing. He'd done it since they were kids: either putting an arm around him, or squeezing his shoulder, or casually touching his back as he spoke. At least he'd stopped doing it at school—the other kids had started to look at them funny—but it didn't stop him from doing it front of their families, or in the water, or in old, decrepit swim clubs.
"Yes," he said, pulling away to follow Nagisa, who had already disappeared around the corner.
"This way!" The echo of Nagisa's voice made it sound higher, younger, like his former self still wandered those halls. "I'm in the lounge!"
They didn't need direction as they rounded the corner, finding themselves in what was once the bright, welcoming room. Moonlight streamed through the wall of windows, and Nagisa's flashlight beam was focused on the far wall.
"Come look at this! Our picture is still here from when we won the relay."
"Ha!" Rin peered over Nagisa's head. "What a bunch of geeks."
They stepped aside as Haru approached, but Nagisa was too consumed with sharing memories to notice the vacant look on his face. And while Rin laughed along, correcting Nagisa where he mixed up the details, he slung an arm over Haru's shoulders. Haru stared at that former version of himself, incapable of ignoring the one whose approval he sought as the shutter closed.
"Let's go," he said, ducking out of Rin's grasp.
"Haru-chan?" Nagisa pouted.
"Maybe it's time to go home," Rin said, as he peeled the framed photograph from the wall.
"No, wait!" Nagisa rushed in front of them to block the lounge exit. "Don't you want to see if the time capsule is still there?"
Haru stared as Nagisa attempted to fill the doorway with his small frame. A time capsule, Rin had explained then, using the English phrase: A vessel buried underground, holding important artifacts. But the only important artifact their childish time capsule held was a memory he didn't want to unearth, a vivid reminder of when everything had changed.
"Fine," he said, to Rin's surprise.
"Haru—?" But Rin was cut off by Nagisa's cheers as he swung down the dark hallway. Haru, despite sensing the concern in Rin's voice, head outside without looking back at him. Rin could only dutifully follow as he squeezed the photograph into his jacket pocket.
The yard was dark. Haru felt a strong grip on his forearm, instinctively aware of Rin matching his stride. But Rin kept quiet, so Haru allowed him to maintain his hold.
But then Nagisa stopped short; Rin and Haru skidded to a stop and just avoided running into him. He huddled them together, linking arms to form a haphazard triangle, their bodies and faces too close without the requisite fourth side. He spoke in a low, urgent whisper. "Someone's there!"
Haru peered over Nagisa's head. He could just make out a figure huddled beneath the tree with an old, unearthed vessel at its side. His stomach lurched. No, he thought, gripping onto Rin's arm. Not now.
"Haru?"
He was vaguely aware of Rin speaking his name. All he could see was that oversized figure by the former home of their time capsule, and now—now that it had shifted—the glint of metal in the waning moonlight.
Rin inclined his head toward the tree, eyes wide in recognition. "Makoto."
He hadn't spoken above a whisper, but the name rang like church bells in Haru's mind. Makoto must have sensed it—he turned, still hugging his knees, and stared in surprise at the three of them. Nagisa frantically swung the flashlight back and forth to ensure he didn't miss the action, but Rin eventually growled and snatched it from his hand. He steadied the beam on the empty time capsule, the lid tossed off haphazardly; the glint of metal—the trophy, their crowning elementary school achievement—then Makoto himself. Makoto wiped his face on his shirtsleeve before rising, unsteadily, to his feet.
"Hey, guys."
Haru didn't want to look at him—his soft, juvenile features had been swept away, replaced with a weary attempt at a smile. But Haru, too, wasn't the same; his own features had hardened through middle school, through the time they hadn't seen each other. He glanced at Rin. Perhaps they were all the same.
Except for Nagisa.
"Mako-chan!" Nagisa finally rushed at him, wrapping his arms around Makoto's thick torso and pressing his face into his chest. "I've missed you so much!" Makoto's palm engulfed Nagisa's head as he stared down in wonder, mindlessly stroking his hair. "You got so tall! And you're really muscular!" Nagisa squeezed his biceps.
"Nagisa, cut it out." Rin steadied the flashlight on them. He remained close to Haru's side, a human blockade, as if daring Makoto to advance.
"Hey, Rin," Makoto said, crossing his arms as Nagisa stepped away. "Haru."
Haru pouted as he looked away.
"It's been a while," Makoto tried again.
Haru shrunk into himself and, as if conditioned, Rin slunk an arm around his shoulders.
"Let's go," Haru said.
Nagisa stared in utter confusion—back and forth between them, trying to gain some comprehension of the situation—then shrugged apologetically at Makoto as he rushed to catch up. The last thing Haru saw was Makoto clutching the trophy to his chest, reaching a hand out to him, as if he had something to say.
A/N: I don't claim to know Latin, so if you're better versed in it than I am, please let me know if this title is grammatically incorrect. (I've received four different versions from four different translators. I could not be snobby and use the English instead, but omnia dicta fortiora si dicta Latina (everything sounds more impressive when said in Latin.))
