A/N: Here's the first proper chapter! I feel like I'm completely out of practise with plot-oriented stories, so excuse the slight hiccups. The title means "to protect" (which is also what "mamoru" means in Japanese). Constructive criticism is still very much welcome! There will be one more flashback chapter after this one, and then back to the present (the way it is planned now, but it might be subject to change).

Eleutheria

Praetego

oOo

Once upon a time, everyone knew them as 'the sisters', even though they weren't. Not each other's, that is. Once upon a time, people may have said that they might as well have been each other's sisters, but alas, that was not the case. In fact, the truth couldn't have been further away from such an assumption, but, for the longest while, such a truth suited the two of them, and so they let it carry on, and then, nobody questioned how it was that the two of them, almost-sisters, best friends, spent possibly all of their time together.

The first thing they had in common was their age; both of them were the eldest child of their family. The second thing was that they both threw the status away, with both its privileges and responsibilities.

oOo

It was on a warm, sunny, early Autumn day, shortly after Haruka's fourteenth birthday, when he decided that he'd waited enough, that something must be wrong, if Makoto wasn't there yet to drag him out and tell him they were going to be late. Glancing at the clock on the wall, it quickly told him that he was indeed intensely late, and he entertained the odd thought that Makoto might have just gone to school without checking on him. It was unnaturally unnerving. Haru wasn't used to being unnerved by anything, and he had already been unnerved once the previous night, from the oddly empty look in his sister's eyes as she talked to him, even if it had been only a couple of quiet words.

Haruka was wrong, however - and somehow, that was even more unnerving. Makoto was, in fact, waiting for him, on top of the stairs, sitting in a half-slumped position, absent-mindedly petting one of the stray cats that frequented the street with the knowledge that the kind-hearted brunet would always have something for them. Haruka walked up to him, his expression impassive as usual, but his insides were wriggling with unspoken questions. "We're going to be late," he remarked quietly, causing Makoto to give a start (had he been that immersed in his thoughts?), and look up at him like it was his first time ever seeing his black-haired friend.

"A-Ah... good morning, Haru-chan!" he stammered, but it was clear as the light of the sun raying down on them that he was only saying words he'd said many a times before, without any real meaning behind this time. Haruka frowned, really frowned. Makoto's eyes were red-rimmed, shadows underneath them signifying he probably hadn't gotten much sleep, if any at all. What's wrong, Makoto? But the words just wouldn't come, as usual; it had always been Makoto who was good with words, and good with reading Haruka, and Haruka had hoped he could rely on that again, but Makoto simply seemed too distraught to even attempt, and all Haruka managed was,

"I told you to drop the -chan part. And I think we already are late." Makoto didn't respond, so Haruka added, with his cheeks colouring lightly, "... Sorry about that." And it was probably the heaviness of his tone that finally made the brunet look up at him; the fact that he wasn't only apologizing for not getting out of the bathtub in time to not make his friend late, but also for not knowing how to express his desire to help, because it was always Makoto pulling him up, not the other way around - all Haruka knew was how to be a rock, a rock for Makoto to lean against, hide behind, whatever it was that the taller of the two needed, which, Haruka supposed, usually seemed to be good enough, but not if Haru would have actually had to take the initiative.

When he was challenged, Haruka had a hard time admitting he was bad at something. When he wasn't, usually, he didn't really care. Challenges were a different thing altogether; it was why he had taken on Rin's promise, after all, back then, at the relay. Right now, the challenge was Makoto himself; Makoto's silence, as they finally began their descend on the stone steps together, his hands that were usually hanging casually at his side now stuffed into his pockets, his light green eyes avoiding Haruka's gaze. Haruka bit the inside of his cheek, deciding to give it a try, because it was Makoto.

"Hatsuki-nee told me yesterday that Mamoru-nee got a boyfriend." (Although Mamoru was of the Tachibana family, and Hatsuki of the Nanase, both boys had always been addressing them with the same honorifics; it was a habit that had stuck when they had been still too young to comprehend that the way other people addressed someone might not have been their only name. Makoto had called his sister Mamoru-nee, so it was obvious that Haruka would do the same.) The words were dropped casually, but from the way Makoto's shoulders tensed up in an instant, Haruka knew it had to be bull's eye. For one, fleeting, absolutely crazy moment, he thought of getting hold of Makoto's hand, and giving it a squeeze, but it was still hidden away in the taller boy's pockets, and linking arms would have been altogether too weird for Haruka's liking. For the next ten steps, ten seconds spent in frozen silence, he wondered why Mamoru-nee's boyfriend was a source of such distress for his best friend. Shouldn't he have been happy for his sister?

"Onee-chan left last night," Makoto finally whispered, or rather, mouthed - if Haruka hadn't been looking at him to read it off his lips, he might have had to ask back.

"Left?" Haruka echoed, incomprehension etched onto his features. "What do you mean left?"

"I... I really don't know." Makoto's lips trembled, and Haruka could see through the fabric of his sweater that his hands balled up into fists inside his pocket. "I just... heard her arguing with Mom and Dad last night, a-and then she said she's never coming back, and s-she stormed out with this huge backpack, and-..."

Weirdness be damned, Haruka thought as he latched onto his best friend's arm, tugged on it until the shocked Makoto allowed his hands to slip free from his sweater, and then he reached up and wrapped both arms around the brunet's neck, tugging him down so forcefully that Makoto had absolutely no choice but to lean down to accomodate Haruka's height. After that, wrapping his own arms around the raven's waist was instinctive, and, come to think of it, so were the tears, probably.

Makoto had always looked up to his sister, after all; she wasn't as openly caring as Makoto himself, but it showed that they shared the same blood - she was the kind of person who would smile at a random stranger frowning at her on the sidewalk, and buy an ice cream for a small kid who had just dropped theirs. She was probably the only one who could call her little brother's best friend 'Haru-chan' without repercussions, even at this age (and it might or might not have had to do with the fact that when Haruka had once accidentally called her 'Mamoru-kun', she burst out laughing). Haruka could hardly imagine what was actually going on, much less how Makoto was feeling. One thing was for sure, though; if Makoto was distressed enough to space out on Haruka's greeting, he would definitely be useless in anything that needed his concentration today. And so, without the slightest hint of shame in his voice, Haruka muttered into his best friend's ear,

"I don't feel like going to school. At all."

Makoto's shoulders shook a little under Haruka's arms, and he thought his blood might freeze in his veins, but then he realized Makoto was laughing. Haruka wasn't sure whether to feel relieved or annoyed at both being laughed at, and the fact that Makoto, as per usual, saw right through him, as soon as he tried. "Me neither," the brunet admitted, finally loosening his hold, and, not wanting to embarrass him (or worse, himself), Haruka let go too. Makoto took half a step back, and rubbed at his eyes. "But I think we really should."

"Are you sure?" Haruka's expression was back to its usual impassiveness, but the warm look Makoto was giving him was proof that the taller one knew just how much he actually did care.

"If I can't concentrate, at least I can ask for notes right afterwards," Makoto answered the unspoken question yet another time. "As for awkward questions..." Seriously, was he literally reading Haruka's mind at this point? "I can deal with them..." All of a sudden, he gave a real smile, a true Makoto smile that made Haruka's insides turn upside down and inside out, the kind of smile that made everything easier and altogether better, the one that he wouldn't have thought he would see on his best friend's face today, or soon afterwards. "As long as Haru-chan's there with me," Makoto finished, and the raven had to glance sideways as quickly as he could, so that there would still be a chance that the taller one did not detect the beginning of a smile forming in the corner of his lips.

"I told you, drop the -chan," he huffed, but nevertheless, by the time they were at the bottom of the steps, his fingers had interlaced with Makoto's, giving him the squeeze he'd been craving for long minutes, before letting go again. "You do realize we're already likely to get in trouble for missing half of the..." - a quick glance at a wristwatch - "no, the entire first period?"

"I'll just tell them Haru-chan can't get out of the bathtub by himself in the mornings," Makoto teased, and even if his voice still sounded a little strained, Haruka couldn't help but feel grateful that he was trying so hard - whether for his own sake, for Haru's, or merely for appearance's, perhaps it didn't even really matter. It didn't matter, because Makoto was smiling, his hands loosely hanging next to his hips as always, and perhaps it was selfish to think like that, but Haruka had always thought that as long as Makoto could smile like that, the world surely couldn't end, even if it was currently toppled a little upside down. That smile was worth enough, at this given moment, for him to not even complain about the suffix anymore.

As long as Makoto could smile like that, perhaps things would eventually be able to feel normal again.

oOo

But just the very same night, upon Haruka's return to home, there was no answer when he called out "I'm home!". And Haruka immediately remembered Makoto's words, and he remembered his own sister's faraway expression from the same morning, and then he knew, he just did, somehow, even before he found the envelope on the living room table.