A/N: LORD why are my chapters getting so long, it just makes it take forever to edit on top of everything else. Um, a wild headcanon plays a role in the end of this chap (though it's been in the rest of the story but still) - I kinda wish Haru had never stopped calling Gou Kou bc how cute would that have been?! Aaaaand I'm still having fun working ES things into my plot. Anyway, I feel like my eyes are falling out of my head from the last intense edit I gave this chapter, and I hope I haven't missed anything disgustingly glaring. Thank you to guest reviewer Guest (the kind, the supreme) for your review on the last chapter!

To answer a question I've gotten a few times and thus think must be on more ppls' minds - Rin is coming back in 2 chapters, but he's still playing a part in the next chapter as well. Also, Haruka is going to have to start Doing Things soon, and I'm looking forward to that but I think I'll also miss the calm of these past couple chapters.


Chapter Nine: Carbonation (Spring - part 2)


Hiro climbs out of the deep end, spilling water all over Haruka's feet. Once he's on the cement, he pulls off his goggles to stare up at Haruka imploringly.

"Haru-chan, after I learn this what can I learn next?"

Haruka almost ruffles a hand through Hiro's hair – maybe it's something he's seen Makoto do with the twins so much it's rubbing off on him. But Hiro's hair is wet, and it isn't a very Haruka thing to do anyway, so he catches himself.

"Next you should keep practicing what you know until lessons start. I can't really teach you anything more."

"Aw, but that's gonna take so long! I don't wanna wait." Hiro sticks out his lower lip. "I wanna keep learning things, Haru-chan."

Haruka motions toward the pool, the water rippling and the lane marker bobbing from Hiro's exit. "You're still working on dives, aren't you?"

Hiro breaks into a grin and pulls his goggles back down over his eyes. He gives Haruka a little push in the side. "Okay, watch out Haru-chan. You're in the way."

Haruka steps away, around the corner of the pool, and Hiro raises his arms over his head, hands pressed flat together, palm to back.

"What are the important things to remember?" Haruka says.

"Keep your arms straight and your hands together," Hiro chants.

"And try to keep your feet pointed when you're going in," Haruka says.

Hiro bends over, fingertips aimed for the water. "Okay. Say go."

"Go."

Like everything else Hiro has learned so far, he excels at diving as well. He enters the water with hardly a splash.

"Was I good?" he says excitedly when he resurfaces, hair plastered flat over his head, making his ears appear to stick out like a monkey's.

Haruka sits down, puts his feet in the water. The gutter gurgles and splutters beneath him.

"How did you feel?"

Hiro grins – there's a new hole in his smile, another tooth lost on the bottom. "I think I did really good."

"Good," Haruka says. "That means you did."

"So why do I have to wait to learn more?" Hiro asks, grabbing onto the gutter next to Haruka's feet. He doesn't sound whiny, just curious. Sometimes Haruka gets the feeling that Hiro thinks he has all the answers to everything. Practice, he tells himself. There'll be a lot more of this soon.

"You already know how to do the main strokes. The next step is improving them, and that's something you mostly do by yourself."

"By just doing them more?"

Haruka nods. "People can help you, but you're the one who has to do the hard work if you want to keep getting better."

"I'm a hard worker," Hiro says. He pushes off the wall and splashes onto his back, and the momentum starts carrying him away. "I wanna swim free. Like you, Haru-chan!"

Haruka's eyebrows fly up – amusement, disbelief, he's not sure. "You should find out what you like to swim best first, before you decide something like that."

"How did you know you liked free best?" Hiro asks, tipping his chin down to look at Haruka. His eyes are round and curious behind the light blue tint of his goggles.

Haruka thinks for a moment, looks at the water lapping around his shins, picking up the fine hairs and sending them swaying. "I don't know," he decides to say, lifting a shoulder halfheartedly. "It just felt right."

"Okay," Hiro says. He floats away for a bit, until he bumps into the lane marker, and then he turns himself around and slowly starts floating back. Ishikawa-san is doing her laps on the other side of the pool; all the lanes in between are empty. Two elderly women bob around the half-circle of the shallow end that's partitioned off by the first lane marker. They are a chatty pair, but the echoes distort the sound of their conversations.

Haruka hesitates, then says, "Hiro, you're a really good swimmer."

Hiro grins, breaks from his back float to grab back onto the wall. "I know."

"Have you thought about joining a club?"

"A little bit," Hiro says. "Mom says after summer swimming lessons, I can join the club here for all year if I want."

"Do you want to?"

Hiro starts climbing out, and water rains off of him once again, pattering onto the cement and splashing into the pool. He shakes the water out of his hair; Haruka raises an arm to shield his face.

"I don't know," Hiro says. "But swimming lessons didn't even start yet. Haru-chan, I hope you'll teach me."

"I'm already teaching you."

"But more!" Hiro says, feet slapping around Haruka as he goes to take up position for another dive. "I wanna know how to swim like how you did with your friend! Super fast!"

"You'll probably get someone better to teach you that."

"But Haru-chan, you're the best! Come on, let's do more dives! I wanna do a jumping one!"

Haruka can't help smiling, even though keeping up with Hiro is a daily drain, some type of small-scale marathon he puts himself through every morning. Now that he's sitting down, he doesn't want to get up again.

"How about you do the standing ones a few more times before we try a jumping one."

Hiro looks at him suspiciously. "How many times is a few?"

"Five," Haruka says.

Hiro groans, but raises his arms over his head. "Let's go then!"


Around mid-April, Haruka starts running. Mornings before swimming, then again in the evenings, mostly down at the beach but sometimes into and around the edges of town while the sidewalks are largely empty.

He figures he might as well since the weather is good for it – the skies are clearing fast, but both ends of the day will stay cool for a while longer and typhoon season isn't for several months, so really the timing is perfect. He can exert himself and not overheat, has cool air to fill his lungs and keep him vitalized. In the mornings the air is so crisp it acts like a jump-start, dispelling the hazes of sleep completely. The smell of brine leaves him feeling refreshed, and clean, and a good kind of empty. Reset and ready for each new day.

In the evening he starts his runs right before the sun hits the horizon line. The sunshine from the day still lingers as residual warmth in the air but there is nothing that isn't in shade. The ebb and flow of the ocean is an undercurrent to his feet pounding against the ground, to his breaths rushing short and quick from his mouth. It's at this time of the day that his energy feels boundless. Like he could run forever, straight into the sunset if he could run over water.

When Makoto brings it up, Haruka says he's getting into shape for lessons, which he knows Makoto doesn't believe for a moment. He doesn't even know why he bothers lying, and is surprised Makoto pretends to swallow it so easily.

Sometimes, instead of running – instead of jogging – he sprints. Along the empty beach with the sand tinted orange and the water a shimmering mix of pinks and purples. He loves sprinting when it's windy, even just slightly breezy, because if he's fast enough it feels like he's cutting straight through a storm. Sand sprays up behind him and he squints his eyes and feels his hair whisk off of his face and blow around like something wild.

But he isn't running anywhere, or from anything. The scenery in the background hardly moves – watchful mountains on one side, jagged cliffs and the endless ocean on the other. Afterwards, he just retraces his steps up the beach or out of town, exhilarated but also winded, a stitch in his side or a sandpaper feeling in his throat that just gets worse the more he swallows.

Makoto said to get a hobby. Which, honestly, Haruka doesn't feel like doing – he doesn't want to go out and get anything. Doesn't want to possess anything else, before he figures out what to do with what he already has.

But he's been drawing. Trying to. He isn't sure why. When he was younger he'd draw pictures for his grandmother all the time; he liked the act of giving them, liked the certainty he felt while drawing that she would be happy for each one.

There isn't a goal like that now, but he feels it in his fingertips, his arms, like a little nudge in his brain – there's an image he needs to put on paper, and when he touches his pencil down it begins so easily. Quick strokes, long strokes, fast, slow, scritch scratch, and sometimes he gets so ahead of himself that there's a snap and a piece of lead flies into some shadowy corner, or into his face.

He's using a mechanical pencil, one of those ones younger kids often start off with, with the extra thick lead. He found it at the bottom of the same drawer he found the notepad in when he was cleaning, and for some reason he's become attached. It's cherry red with a gel-filled grip that forms around the contours of his fingers. He sits on the living room floor sometime after lunch, turns to a fresh sheet of paper each day, and tries again.

He always ends up with some sort of border, and it's a pretty ugly thing, he thinks – dark around the edges of the page, layers of pencil on pencil that make him think of rough waters or of the feeling of the wind when he's running. The shading feathers out towards the center, where there is a blank space about the size of his hand, smudged with the lead he's spread around without intending to. Once he gets this far he stares at the blank space and wonders why he's even drawing at all. There's nothing in his head except the desire to draw, which feels like a blank space all of its own.

What good is drawing, anyway? he often asks himself, either in frustration or with his cheek pressed to the floorboards in defeat. If it's the latter, he hardly ever remembers sliding all the way down onto the floor, but it happens a few times, several, many. Once he had traced his own hand in the blank space, made it into a turkey. Another he had drawn Iwatobi-chan for the hell of it, and then glowered at it sulkily. Usually he leaves the space blank.

By the end of the day the notepad is back beneath the living room table and he's out on the beach again. He goes to bed exhausted and wakes up feeling tired. Like he's trying to compensate for something he can't compensate for. Like he's running himself empty trying to get full.

Stop it, he tells himself, whenever he feels the pity party coming on. He decided he would stop stagnating, that he would grow, so there's a resolution under his belt now. It's about time he takes himself up on it.

He just needs a bit of inspiration.


"I need inspiration," he says when Makoto comes to the door, after Mrs. Tachibana calls up the stairs for him. It's late afternoon, a Friday. He hears the twins watching TV in the living room – chatter from the speakers and their chatter over the top.

"Oh," Makoto says. For just a moment he looks perplexed, but he blinks and it's gone. "So, are you ready to run?"

"What?"

"I was thinking we should run," Makoto says in a clarifying tone. He motions over Haruka's shoulder, at the general outdoors.

"What?"

"I was about to come get you! Don't say 'what' again."

Haruka doesn't say it again, just narrows his eyes in a way that implies the question.

Makoto leans against the doorframe, crosses his arms loosely. "I've pretty much figured out when you run every day. Sometimes Mom or the twins or I see you going up or down the stairs. Figured I'd join you. Good post-studying wake-up."

"Are you going to run in that?" Haruka asks, because Makoto still looks like he's dressed for school – beige pants and a sweater, and on his feet are pig-face slippers.

Grinning, Makoto says, "I was going to change and come get you, but you were too fast for that."

So Haruka goes home to get into his running gear, and then waits on the steps beneath Makoto's house, eyes on the some point so far away he can't really tell if it's ocean or sky anymore, just that clouds could very well be ocean glitter. He hears the front door open, hears Makoto call something back into the house, and moments later the main gate squeaks open and Makoto comes down the stairs.

"Ready?" Makoto asks him, and Haruka takes the hand offered and lets himself be pulled up.

It's a bit earlier than Haruka usually leaves, and he can hear kids running around in the backyards of some of the houses they pass by – a lot of those unnerving screams that sound both like play and like bloody murder.

As they hop-trot down the last section of steps, Makoto tells him, "I don't think I can just give you inspiration."

"That's okay," Haruka says. He hadn't expected Makoto to give him anything, he had just felt like saying it and seeing what it would do. Though then again – "Do you have pencil lead?"

"Like…refills? Why?"

"I'm drawing something."

"Really?" Makoto says, sounding intrigued. "What?"

They start the jog into town. People mill about at food stands or are on their way into shops or down the sidewalk. The stores with fluorescent signs in the windows have them lit, but it isn't dark enough yet for them so they just give off a dull glow: Welcome, Open, and even one in English – Open, which Haruka can read. The windows are clear when Haruka runs past them, but glint into his eyes when they're up ahead.

"I don't know," he says.

He's sure he gets a raised-eyebrow look for that, but doesn't check to see.

"Yeah, I have lead," Makoto says.

"I need the big kind, though."

Makoto's laugh is jarred by his footfalls. "I'll see what I can find."


When they return, Makoto's house smells like food – rich and salty, a tang of seafood. Haruka imagines dark broth and crab legs and feels his stomach pang hungrily. The warmth of the indoors makes him feel muggy, though; the air outside had been cool against the sweat on his forehead and neck, but inside the house his skin feels like it's coated in a sticky film.

Up in Makoto's bedroom, he throws the window open and stands in the inward draft. Something lands on his head and falls over his face – a clean shirt, which he changes into once the sweat has dried. He topples like dead weight onto Makoto's bed, leaves his legs hanging over the edge. He hears Makoto rummaging through the desk, drawer by drawer.

"I'll check downstairs in a bit," Makoto eventually says. "We have an old drawer filled with crafts stuff."

"Okay."

"You should stay over tonight. And I'll come to the pool with you tomorrow morning."

"Don't you have things to do?" Haruka asks. Makoto's backpack lies open by the closet, books rising out like teeth, and the top of his desk is piled high with textbooks and papers, leaving just enough space in the center to work.

"Not really," Makoto says. He sits on the end of the bed, next to Haruka's knees, but Haruka's staring at the ceiling – a wash of white that makes his eyes feel heavy.

"Okay."

"How's waiting been?"

Haruka sighs. "Being bored is so boring. I'm tired of feeling like this."

"I'll run with you," Makoto says. "Every night. Come get me."

Haruka tilts his head down, chin to chest so he can peer at Makoto. "What if you're busy?"

Makoto shrugs. "Make me. I don't care."

Haruka waits for something to give in Makoto's smile, but nothing does, so he lets his head fall back. "Okay."

Feet thunder up the stairs. Haruka hardly has time to steel himself before the Ren and Ran burst into the room with twin peals of "Haru-chan!" The mattress bounces, and he bounces with it. Ren almost bounces right on top of him, but Haruka rolls out of the way before his ribs can be crushed.

"Haru-chan, the rocks got all their paint washed off," Ren says, looming over him and looking sulky.

"Mom didn't like them on the grass anyway," Ran says, sitting on her heels at the edge of the bed. "She says we should just bring them back to the beach."

"Or that we can put them around the garden," Ren says defensively.

"But they're all boring now," Ran says. Ren glares at her, but she ignores him and says, "Are you sleeping over, Haru-chan?"

Haruka sits up, shakes the hair out of his face. "I guess so."

The twins cheer, fists pumping in the air. Up the stairs comes the call for dinner.

"Haru-chan sits next to me!" Ren says, grabbing Haruka's wrist.

Ran grabs his other wrist. "No, he sits next to me!" They tug him off the bed, to his feet, toward the door. Almost tug him apart.

"Well, he usually sits next to me," Makoto says, following them out.

To the twins' discontent, Haruka sits next to Makoto at dinner, but to their delight he sits between them on the floor when they watch a TV movie afterwards. The genre is horror, and Haruka isn't surprised. Ran shrieks into one of his ears and Ren shrieks into the other. Makoto hides behind him and clutches his shirt so tightly it probably stretches – but then again it's Makoto's shirt, so he doesn't really care except for when the collar gets too tight at his throat and he has to remind Makoto not to choke him. Every now and then he sips from the soda Ran gave him when they all sat down – and he had pointedly ignored whatever look Makoto had given him then.

The taste is kind of sweet and kind of bitter, would be more enjoyable if the carbonation didn't leave his throat feeling full of pins, and with every swallow he has to swallow three more times to soothe that niggling discomfort. Blood and guts in the movie, ringing in his ears. When he belches the first time, Ran gives him such a serious look of admonishment he almost laughs. And then she screams at the monster than jumps out on the screen, and Haruka flinches.

"That really didn't scare you at all?" Makoto asks later, coming back into his room after brushing his teeth. He still looks a little shifty-eyed, like he expects something to slink out from beneath the bed and take shape in the middle of the room.

"We can leave the lights on if you want," Haruka says through a yawn. His ears still ring faintly, but his head feels heavy on the pillow and his brain feels heavy in his head, and not even the light can fight a winning battle against his drooping eyelids.

Something lands on the bed, bounces against his hip.

"I found that downstairs," Makoto says.

Haruka rolls onto his side, picks up a small container of pencil lead.

"It's rainbow colored, though," Makoto says. "It's all we have in that size."

"It's fine," Haruka says. He yawns again, doesn't bother re-opening his eyes this time.

"Do you mind if I study a bit with the desk light on, or do you want me to go downstairs?"

"It's fine. You can stay."

The main light goes off, and then the desk light comes on, creating an orangey-red glow behind Haruka's eyelids. He hears the chair creak, hears rummaging sounds, papers being sorted, notebook pages being flipped through. The slide of a book across the desk, and he can tell it's a large textbook because the pages sound like tissue paper when Makoto turns them. And then pen on paper, scribbles and pauses, every now and then a tapping that Makoto probably does unconsciously, the pads of his fingers against the desktop.

Haruka listens for a while, to the cacophony of quiet noises in an otherwise silent house. But instead of keeping him awake, the sounds travel through him the way rain on the windows or the TV on low shush away any last bits of wakefulness. He's going to fall asleep any moment, but a part of him wants to resist the downward drag and listen a little longer, because it's nice to be falling asleep in a room that doesn't feel too large and too empty.


The next thing he's aware of is an incessant, muffled beeping. Instinct has him reaching for his phone even though the alarm he hears is unfamiliar, but his hand just goes over the side of the bed into nothingness. Then he hears a groan, hears the alarm shut off. He opens his eyes to near-darkness, lifts himself up and looks over to see Makoto with his hands over his face, a portrait of misery.

"You said you wanted to," Haruka says, voice cracking with sleep.

"Can I do take backs?" Makoto asks through his hands.

"If you're five, I guess."

But Haruka knows Makoto will start getting ready when he does, so he slings his legs out of bed and gets to his feet, because it's easier to just get moving right away. The can of soda from last night is where he left it on a back corner of Makoto's desk, and when he shakes it he finds there are still a few swigs left, maybe enough for a small caffeine boost, anything to make it easier to open his eyes. He downs what remains, grimaces when it slides down his throat flat and syrupy. Somehow it's the most disappointing start to a day he's had in a while, but then Makoto trips trying to pull on his socks and the morning is already looking brighter.

Makoto still looks less than eager when the time comes to go outside – he slouches out the door with hands deep in his sweatshirt pocket and eyelids almost shut. The cold shocks him awake though, and when they're back home eating breakfast he says in a tone of wonder, cheeks flushed and hair windswept, "I actually feel more awake than I ever do for school."

Haruka would say that he feels more awake that he usually does with the rest of a day ahead of him, but he figures Makoto probably already knows.


When they get to the pool, Hiro clambers out of the shallow end and meets Makoto with a flurry of questions – Wow, are you a super good swimmer too? Can you show me? Want to race with us? – but it's later than Haruka usually arrives, so Ishikawa-san is already getting their things together and calls for Hiro to get ready to go.

Hiro crosses his arms, face pouty. "Haru-chan, is your other friend coming back yet?" he asks, looking at Makoto while he says it.

Haruka looks at Makoto too, sees that he's smiling a bit awkwardly.

"Not yet."

"You said he went far away," Hiro says. "How far?"

"He's in America right now."

Hiro's eyes widen, and he forgets that he wants to look grumpy. "Wow! Why?"

"He's swimming there."

"Is he winning races?"

"He's probably winning some," Haruka says. "He's the best swimmer I know."

"I want to see Min again. I like him."

Haruka is confused for a moment, more confused by the sound Makoto makes, like he's coughing and choking at the same time. And then it clicks and he can just imagine Rin's mouth dropping open in a flabbergasted Huh?!

"His name is Rin."

"Oh, yeah." Hiro's eyebrows draw together in puzzlement. "That's a funny name."

When Hiro and Ishikawa-san are gone, Haruka waits a moment, then looks at Makoto, whose expression is one of joyful disbelief.

"Min," Makoto repeats, voice wobbly, like he's holding back another laugh. "Which one of us is going to tell him?"

Haruka pulls his goggles on, allows himself one quiet chuckle, knows that if Rin had been here to hear it there would be steam coming out of his ears. "Probably you. He's less likely to threaten to kill you."


When he gets home, his phone sits where he left it yesterday afternoon, in the center of the living room table, but now the notification light is blinking a dark red. Low battery, once a much rarer occurrence, though with only Rin texting him regularly it still doesn't happen all that often.

He checks the charge as he's heading upstairs to plug it in, and sees that there's a message waiting as well.

i set a record training time yesterday. redeeming myself

He tries to count backwards – the yesterday of yesterday, and what day is today? – and trips on a step, stubbing his toe and having to throw an arm out to the wall to regain his balance. It feels like he's torn the toenail, but after a muttered curse and a glance down he sees no blood. There's a jagged feeling in his throat as well, a twang of guilt. Does Rin think he's been ignored? Probably not, but Haruka can't help wondering.

What's more important, though, is the news. A training time is just a training time, but any kind of record is a record, and Rin wouldn't lie about being back on his game. Australia and its aftermath are like the relics of another person entirely. Rin no longer lets losses pile up until he's crumbling; Haruka probably should never have worried.

Congratulations. I'm proud of you, he sends, once he's made it safely up the staircase. The pain in his toe is an undercurrent to the pattering in his chest, building excitement, relief maybe.

He hooks his phone to the charger atop his headboard, then sits and waits. He understands why it's called a swell of pride, because it feels like something is pushing his ribs out from the inside. Nothing painful, nothing alarming. Just that there's a bit more room for happiness to fill in.

Before Rin had left for America, before he had even made a definitive decision about where he would be leaving to, there had been one day – one vague day out of many vague days of pressure, pressure, pressure – when he had divulged to Haruka: You know, I can go back to Australia. My old coach sent me a letter.

Haruka doesn't remember where they were, or when it was, only that it was one of the few times Rin had brought up his own options instead of pestering Haruka about his. Only the shadows of self-doubt in Rin's eyes, because as much as he liked to talk, even he had been weighed down by thoughts of the future.

Rin had gone on, words slow and fast and slow again, like he'd been too far ahead of himself but also too far behind: But what are the chances, you know… America? Apparently it's only because that coach and my Australian coach know each other really well that the one in America started paying any attention to me. I mean…this never happens. It feels like a huge chance, doesn't it?

And Haruka had said, It does, because it had, and Rin had smiled like Haruka had just given him something he needed to hear, and said:

My dream… You know, I want to take on the world. And the more of it I can see…the more of it I can take into my swimming, the more I achieve that dream. I don't want to wait, I want to start now. I want to do whatever I can to see as much of the world as I can, as soon as I can. Do you think...do you think that's being too reckless?"

And Haruka had said no, because for Rin that wasn't recklessness. It was him knowing, simple as that. Knowing exactly what he wanted, and knowing that it could take him far away, if only to come back again.

He wonders if he had felt sad then, knowing that this would be separation again. He really can't remember what he felt listening to Rin.

I'm gonna swim in Japan after I graduate of course, Rin had gone on to say, ego slipping in without his notice, a pompous little lift of his chin, but his grin had been pure abandon. But I think that every place does things a bit differently. I think I'll learn things abroad I won't be able to learn here, or by going back to Australia. I'm just – I'm really excited, Haru.

Maybe Haruka doesn't recall the words exactly as they had been, but he remembers them well enough. Rin is taking on the world now. Haruka knows that there is no if about it – Rin will have the world one day. He knows it, Rin knows it, it's so simple. So comforting to have something set in stone like that, to have someone he can believe in so unwaveringly.

He waits for his phone to stop blinking red, then he carries it around with him while he prepares a load of laundry. It doesn't take long for it to buzz atop the drier.

really? do you have to sound like my mom?

How would Rin say the words in person? Would he be exasperated? Slack-jawed and monotone?

A minute later comes the afterthought, and Haruka can hear it soft, pleased, and trying not to sound embarrassed: thanks

Haruka feels warm, warmed by the clangs of the washer, warmed by the halfhearted sunlight through the windows, warmed by the phone in his hands – but the battery pack is starting to run too hot, so he hurries back upstairs to plug it in before it dies completely. For some reason he's always found the prospect ominous and irrevocable, even when he used to never use it.


The week goes by steadily, which is better than slowly, and when he shuts off his alarm and his phone says it's Saturday he's surprised, because didn't the cats just visit him and sit on his lap for over an hour in the backyard yesterday, on Tuesday, and didn't he just play board games with the twins yesterday, on Wednesday, and didn't Nagisa just come over with a bag of sweets, eat them all, and then throw up in his bathroom yesterday, on Thursday? They say time flies when you're having a good time, and maybe he was having some fun but maybe time just flies sometimes.

His morning shopping hangs off of his arms and his morning run lingers in the clammy, damp feeling of the his hair against the back of his neck. There is a satisfying burn in his calves as he makes his way up the stairs homeward, and then there is a familiar face appearing at the end of the pathway to his house. Or, he's still too far below to really make out the face, but the hair is unmistakable – a shot of red he hasn't seen in a while.

Kou spots him, raises a hand over her head. "Hi, Haruka-senpai!" she calls once he's closer, close enough to see that she looks relieved to see him.

"You're home for the weekend," he says, when he comes level with her. He doesn't ask why, instead looks behind her toward his front door and asks, "Were you looking for me?"

"I was," Kou says, looking slightly embarrassed at having been caught in the act. "I was wondering. Are you busy today?"

"I don't think so," Haruka says, which is stupid because he's never busy unless someone else decides to make him so.

Kou smiles. "Are you busy right now? For a few hours?"

"No." Haruka lifts the grocery bags. "I have to put these away though."

"Can you do it fast?"

"Yeah?"

Kou presses her lips into a line, presses the smile away. "I'll wait out here," she says, patiently but with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes.

Feeling like he's lost the general thread of things, Haruka makes his way into his house and puts his groceries away. When he steps back outside, Kou is still waiting by the stairs.

"Get a jacket, will you?" she says, before he can even shut the door.

Haruka turns around, goes back inside for a jacket. It isn't very cold out, but when she's in manager mode there's little point in arguing, so he slips his arms through the sleeves before coming back out for the second time.

"Better," she says, nodding her approval. "One more stop, okay?"

She starts down the stairs, and Haruka hastens to close the door and follow. They're heading for Makoto's, that much is clear, and it takes until they reach the main gate for Haruka to figure out what Kou could be doing back in Iwatobi.

"Happy birthday," he says, feeling graceless and thickheaded.

Kou grins at him, eyebrows raised. "You remembered a lot faster than I thought you would!"

Haruka can't decide if it's a compliment or some kind of jab. Either way, he opens the gate and they pass through the yard, and Kou knocks on the Tachibanas' door. A few moments later, footsteps approach from the inside.

Makoto looks tired, and then suddenly not tired, face lighting up when he sees Kou on the doorstep. When she asks, he's quick to assure her that he isn't busy, is just as quick to disappear up to his room to change out of his pajamas. "Happy birthday," he says to her, once he's back downstairs and putting on his shoes.

"Wow, you remembered way faster than Haruka-senpai."

Thanks for making me look bad, Haruka thinks at Makoto, but Makoto looks far from apologetic, smile full of teeth. They ask in tandem, as they follow Kou out of the yard, "What are we doing?"

"You're coming over," Kou says. "Nagisa-kun's meeting us at the station near home. My brother's going to call, and I want to surprise him."


Haruka doesn't know how he feels about that. And he doesn't know how he feels about his uncertainty. Is there really that monumental of a difference between texting Rin and seeing his face? Apparently, because while Makoto and Kou chat away beside him, every little jolt of the train along the tracks makes the jumpy sensation inside of him jumpier, like popcorn popping but with the prospect of a less satisfying outcome.

Or a more satisfying outcome. He is looking forward to seeing Rin. It's just that he's pretty sure he'll be standing there uselessly, without anything to say.

Nagisa is at the station when they get off, bounds up to them yelling, "Gou-chan, happy birthday!" He takes a paper-wrapped something out of the pocket of his coat, pushes it into Kou's hands. "It has raspberry filling. I picked it up on the way over. Eat it while it's still warm!"

Haruka sees Makoto give Nagisa a thanks for making us look bad look, but Nagisa just winks and links his arm through Kou's and starts them on their way.

The inside of the Matsuoka home is just as Haruka remembers it – cozy and warm, pottery full of plants, crisscrossing carpeting, the sweet peppery smell of spices. Kou fetches her computer from her room, brings it into the kitchen and sets it on the table. "He'll be calling soon," she says excitedly, ushering them all close, motioning for them to pull around the chairs.

Nagisa sits at her right, Makoto at her left. Haruka stands behind her, stares at a list of contacts displayed on the left side of the screen, some grayed out and some with a little green dot beside them.

Kou's phone buzzes in her pocket, and the icon that says Onii-chan~ lights up with a ding!

"He's ready!"

She clicks on the icon and a window pops up, dark at first, but then it flickers and brightens and there's Rin, looking like himself, chin on his palm and hood pulled up over his head.

"Huh?! The hell are all you guys doing?" he says, face lifting out of his hand. His voice is tinny over the connection but his expression – the creases between his eyebrows so deep it's like he's trying to carve canyons there – is perfectly clear.

"Surprise," Kou says, at the same time that Nagisa says, "Rin-chan!"

Rin's frown starts to slip, and when he sighs he's practically smiling. "Jeez, why're you trying to surprise me? It's not my birthday."

"I know," Kou says. "But I still thought it might be nice."

"Yeah, okay, you win," Rin says, chin back in his hand. His gaze sweeps over everyone, lingering nowhere, and he asks, "So, what's up then?"

Everyone else starts talking at once, while Haruka takes in what little of Rin's room he can see – namely, the closet set into the wall behind Rin's desk, the door slid shut. Everything painted white, and he's already run out of things to look at.

Rin looks sleepy, eyelids drooping in a way that makes his smile softer than usual while he listens to whatever the others tell him. Haruka feels a jolt, and looks away before Rin's eyes have the chance to find him staring. It isn't even surprising that he's anticipating awkwardness before anything happens. He'd tell himself to grow up if he could, or maybe he has and it hasn't worked. Rin is still Rin. And Haruka is a bad friend.

There's a disturbance from Rin's end of the call. Haruka looks back at the screen, where Rin's attention is off to the side, on some unseen person he's speaking to in English. He tsks, starts to say something and is promptly pushed out of his chair.

"Hi Gou!" says the person who takes Rin's place, though he makes Kou's name sound like the English word 'go' – more of a mouthful than it should be, like something he's drooling. He has very white teeth, very wavy hair, very green eyes, and very deep dimples around his smile.

"Oh!" Kou says in surprise, and then in hesitant English: "Hi, Mark."

"Happy birthday!" Mark says loudly, leaning close enough that his voice crackles through the speakers.

Kou laughs. "Thank you," she says, more comfortably.

Mark – who must be Rin's roommate, Haruka decides – looks at the rest of them and says something that Haruka doesn't completely understand, though he catches the word friends.

Rin's hand appears on the back of the chair, and he grumbles something to Mark, who gives a blinding grin and leaves both the chair and the screen, though not without one last spastic wave at Kou and the rest of them.

"God, what a pain," Rin says, once he's back in his seat. His hood has slipped off; his hair is a mess, seems barely contained by the lopsided ponytail it's tied into. The ends curl around the curve of his neck, aiming for his collarbone. "He's like Momo only…" He makes a vague motion with his hands. "Only more."

More noise off-screen. Rin rolls his eyes skyward. "No, I'm not talking about you," he calls out, still speaking Japanese. Mark's voice comes faintly, Rin answers back in English, and a few seconds later a door can be heard closing.

"Gou." Rin gives his sister a pain-stricken look, elbows clattering onto the desk, hands grabbing for his hair. "Stop being so nice to him."

"Why?" Kou sounds affronted. "He's really nice."

"That's what he wants you to think. He's really just a gross brat. I saw him picking his nose the other day."

"I'm sure you pick your nose sometimes too," Kou says, in the type of patient tone reserved for difficult conversation partners.

"Wha – I don't – what?!" Rin lets out a sardonic puff of air. "Gou, like I would."

Nagisa sniggers, and Rin mutters a dark, "You better be glad there's a screen between you and me."

"Okay, sorry I suggested something so preposterous," Kou says. Then, voice going warm, she asks, "How are you?"

"Feeling kind of insulted," Rin mutters, but he quickly drops the act. "Fine. Just had dinner. They had cake at the dining hall." He wrinkles his nose. "Figured I'd have a slice, special occasion and all. Made me nauseous."

"Oh, what kind!" Nagisa asks.

"Chocolate," Rin says, narrowing his eyes. "And you would've loved it."

Kou tells him about her plans for the day – Hanamura-san and another friend who have stayed local will be coming over for lunch, and there will be cake, and their mother will be home soon but Rin will probably have to go before then. Makoto talks about things, Nagisa talks about things. Haruka watches the fluctuations in Rin's expressions.

Rin laughs so much, so loudly, teeth always on display except for when he exaggerates frowns, and then his nose flares and his eyebrows twist up and he looks like he's in pain. Sometimes, when he's just listening to someone talk, everything just eases out. Lines and creases smoothing, muscles back to neutral. Just the lingering tiredness in and beneath his eyes, and Haruka wonders how busy he is, how much is swimming and how much is classes.

Makoto mentions running with Haruka in the mornings, and Rin's expression lifts in surprise. He looks at Haruka, eyes grabbing hold before Haruka can anticipate the move.

"Haru, you don't even like running," he says, grinning like he's digging for secrets. "What're you ramping up the personal training for?"

"Nothing," Haruka says, and he's glad to hear that he sounds defensive. That much is typical, though part of him is fighting against the desire to duck out of the camera's view entirely. It's just his face, he tells himself. You've already done this. "I'm just running to run."

A lifted eyebrow is all he gets in response, before Rin's gaze slips away.

And here Rin is, Haruka realizes: all the expressions he's been wondering about behind the words, but now that he has them in front of him he finds them anything but telling. They discombobulate in his head, sharp grins and the weary glaze in Rin's eyes. Was it always like this, or is Rin's face just different, is he seeing it differently?

He blurts, "Your hair's long."

Rin's eyes snag onto his, Haruka finds that his mouth has glued itself shut. There is a breadth of silence that lasts a moment too long, and then Rin lets out a tentative laugh, hand running through his hair, catching in the hair tie.

"Yeah, it's getting kinda long I guess."

"It's getting too long," Kou says sternly. "You really should think about getting it cut."

Rin makes a ch sound. "It's not too long. What about yours?"

"That's a look over there, isn't it?" Makoto asks helpfully.

"You look kinda hobo-ish, Rin-chan."

"It's not a hobo look, jeez." Rin leans back in his chair, crosses his arms. "It's a beach look. Surfer." He says the last part in English, a corner of his mouth lifting into a smirk, like he's just proven to them how cool he really is.

"Do you surf?" Haruka asks.

Rin's grin trips into a frown. "Hey. That's not even the point."

"Does it all fit in your swim cap?" Makoto asks.

Rin pins him with a warning look. "You. Don't start too."

There's a noise, vaguely discernible as knuckles on wood. Rin looks away, calls out; the reply is distant and muffled. Then Rin looks back at the screen and sighs, tiredness stealing back over all edges of his expression. "Hall meeting. I have to go."

Wait, Haruka thinks. Wait, I was just starting to get things right.

"Haru," Rin says, and he breaks into a slow smile. It's not really subtle but something close to it – small but brash at the same time, knowing it's being seen but also meant for him alone. "Don't be so jealous of my hair."

For a second, Haruka is stunned. Then he realizes the challenge. "I'm not –"

But Rin's eyes have already slipped past.

"Gou, happy birthday. You guys, push her face into the cake or something for me."

Kou lets out a sound of indignation, but she's drowned out by Nagisa and Makoto's farewell. Things wrap up before Haruka can catch up, and then the connection is lost, call window dark, Rin's icon back to gray.

And just like that, things settle. It's the difference between drinking a carbonated drink fresh, and then again after it's been sitting out for a while. At first it burns, a frantic feeling in your throat, the want for more but also to make it stop. And then without the bubbles, without Rin, things are a lot more bearable but also a lot more flat, and Haruka is already wondering when boredom is going to settle in again.

"If any of you push my face into the cake…" Kou says, snapping her laptop shut, and Nagisa and Makoto give nervous laughs, and Haruka thinks, Not yet.


He has the feeling that they'll be staying through the afternoon, and sure enough, when Hanamura-san arrives they're still there. Makoto and Nagisa have somehow managed to convince Kou to start a trial of some online fantasy game, but all Kou cares about is outfitting her character, and when Hanamura-san joins them the progress goes from slow to slower. Next arrives a friend Haruka doesn't know well, shortly followed by Kou's mother with a cake and take-out.

Matsuoka-san joins them for lunch, sits right down on the floor with them and passes around boxes and plates and chopsticks, urges everyone to take more food, have some more, are you sure that's enough?

Haruka hasn't seen her in a while, but she looks much the same as she always has – her hair is clipped up in the back and she's wearing a business suit, and she looks a bit tired around the eyes, like she spent the morning working double-time so she could take the afternoon off, which she probably did. She has never subscribed to the type formality that's often shared between a parent and their children's friends, and she eats with them like she's among her own friends, but also like they're all her children who have come back to visit. "Our Makoto-kun must have found himself a girlfriend by now," she says at one point,which leaves Makoto red and spluttering with noodles hanging out of his mouth, and Kou hiding her face in her hands and uttering an embarrassed, mournful "Mom!"

Matsuoka-san disappears into her home office after lunch, to get out of their hair and to do some more work. When Nagisa asks what usually comes next at Kou's parties, the girls share a look, and then the one whose name Haruka keeps forgetting – her hair is in two braids and her sweater is a deep navy, and tiers of bracelets tinkle together on her wrists – looks at them with a fox-like smile.

"We paint each others' nails," she says, and Haruka thinks of Rin's purple polish, thinks he knows exactly where this is going.

"Oooh, you want to paint ours, don't you?" Nagisa asks, sounding interested.

Makoto catches Haruka's eye, tilts his head in Kou's direction. Well, it's her birthday is what he means, so all Haruka can do is suck it up and let himself be lead outside – "So the fumes don't make you lightheaded," the girl with the bracelets tells him.

He can't tell if she's joking or not, but she and Hanamura-san team up to work on Nagisa and Makoto, who Haruka can hear making requests: "Can I have a flower on my thumb?" "Do you know how to do stripes?" "Do you know how to do a skull?" ("Why would I know how to do that?" Bracelet girl says to Nagisa in disbelief.)

He's sitting with Kou a few paces farther along the deck – and she was the one who led him away from the others, so he has a Feeling, feels like he's been having many of them these days. Kou isn't forthcoming, though, simply tells him to lay his hands flat on the deck and keep them still. He watches the others over her shoulder, huddled into a circle and immersed in whatever is being painted onto Makoto and Nagisa's fingernails.

"That feels weird," he says, when Kou lays a brush down against his thumbnail. "Why is it cold? And isn't it supposed to be colored?"

"It's a base coat," Kou explains, moving quickly to the next nail. "It helps the color go on more evenly, and keeps it on longer."

Haruka wrinkles his nose. "You don't have to do this step."

"Of course I do. What color do you want?"

"Just this is fine."

Kou laughs, has to lift the brush away from his hand so she doesn't paint the clear stuff all over his fingers. "Haruka-senpai! That's not allowed. You need a color."

She takes a small cluster of bottles from beside her and places them in front of Haruka's hands. "I have light pink. If you don't look closely it looks almost the same shade as your nails. Don't look so sad!"

"I don't look sad," Haruka says.

Kou looks like she's going to laugh again, so she ducks her head and finishes up with the base coat. Haruka watches silently, and one by one each of his nails turns slick and shiny. He blows on them when Kou tells him to blow on them, lets his expression droop into Utterly Displeased when she tells him he has nice nails.

"That's not a bad thing! It just means you aren't clueless about personal grooming, thank you for that. Don't – don't smell them!"

She snatches his hand away from his face, has him lay them back flat on the deck.

"Why does it smell so bad?" Haruka asks.

Kou shakes the bottle of pink polish, twists off the cap. "Because it's full of chemicals. Don't worry though."

Too late for that, but he can't help being impressed at how quickly Kou swipes the pink across his nails while still managing to stay inside the lines. The polish is a pale cotton candy color, and it makes the ends of his fingers look a little sickly, but from a purely aesthetic point of view he can appreciate that they are really well done. He knows if he tried he'd probably have the polish halfway to his knuckles. Hopefully Kou doesn't want him to do hers. Then again, maybe hopefully she does.

"I'm really glad you and my brother are talking again," Kou finally says. She makes it sound like a passing thought, like her attention is still foremost on his fingernails, but the brush is hovering over the last nail and her bangs are in the way of her expression. "I hate seeing him mope around, and I hate seeing you moping just as much."

Haruka doesn't know what to say, so Kou touches the brush down and ends up saying more, and the others are talking so loudly now that there's no chance of being overheard.

"Thanks for being patient with him, in your own way. I know he's too hard-headed and he's a pain and he can be so self-centered and he's really bad at telling when he's acting like a baby. So thanks for not giving up on him when he is acting like a baby."

"He's my friend," Haruka says. "I wouldn't give up on him."

He can just make out Kou's mouth pull into a slight smile. "I know. Which is why I'm so glad. I'm glad he has good friends."

Done with his nails, she twists the cap back onto the bottle and sets it aside. She hesitates for a moment, then reaches out, settles her hands on top of Haruka's, fingers light against his wrists. Her head is still bowed, but she gives his wrists a squeeze. "Really. Thank you, Haruka-senpai. For being there for him."

Haruka can't tell her why he thinks she's gotten it wrong, that he hasn't done that much, hasn't done enough. "Kou…"

"Gou."

Haruka blinks, eyebrows drawing together. "What?"

"It's Gou," Kou says. She looks up at him, smiles suddenly and fully. "I've decided. It's going to be Gou now." She lets go of his hands, rummages all the bottles of polish together.

"Okay," Haruka says. "Why?

"New chapters and everything," Kou – Gou? – Gou (Kou?) says with a shrug. "Thanks, though. For being the only person who actually listened to me. That was really nice of you."

"It wasn't a big deal."

"Exactly," Kou says, and she gives a little laugh. "It wasn't. Now stay still, you need these to dry smoothly before I can do the top coat."

"Do we…do we really need to do another coat?"

"Haruka-senpai." She looks at him, eyes wide and insistent – It's my birthday. "Trust me."

And Haruka sighs, and decides to trust her. For the sake of nice nails – purely aesthetic, because if he's going to have them, they might as well look like they were worth sitting through.

But mainly for the sake of giving thanks, because it's the only way he can think of to show how much he appreciates being appreciated by her, the only present he can think of to give besides getting her name right once more, which he thinks is going to take some work.