It's not as painful as he'd feared. He feels almost euphoric. He even manages to fall asleep, at some point, after he's done.

It's only when he wakes up that the pain gets at him. Lying there, his own blood puddled in spots on the linoleum, he panics.

"Mom," he shouts. He hears the slur; okaa-aaa-san... He must still be drunk. Hasn't been that long, then. "Dad?" It takes him a while to remember they're gone.

The only landline in the house is downstairs, in the kitchen. There's a moment of stupid indecision. Makoto hovers. Eyes sloshing from his red arm to the pristine carpet. He ends up wrapping a wad of paper towels around himself. When he sets his arm on the counter, it looks exactly like one of the pieces of meat his mom brings home from the butcher. The world smears in a sick swirl. He looks away.

"119. Please state your emergency."

"Haru," he sobs.

"Sorry?"

"I'm sorry. I've been so stupid—please…"

"Sir, please state your emergency. Are you injured?"

"I wanted. To tell you I'm v… y happy for y-, you and Rin. But I, I feel so—"

"Please stay on the line. We're tracing your location right now. Are you hurt?"

"My a-arm."

"Your arm? Can you tell me more about what's happened?"

"Haru-chan…"

"Sir? Hello?"

The phone is very heavy. He puts it down for a minute, or maybe it falls from his hand. Just taking a rest.

"Are you still there? Sir?"

The blood is beginning to seep through the towels. He adjusts them limply with his good arm.

"Have to… clean th….t. Later…"

"Hello? Are you still there? Hello?"

He thinks he'll sit for a minute. He's very tired.

()

Waking up is a dance in pieces. Bits of light, of sound. He can't think straight. He's probably on something for the—the pain. At some point he's slurring to his mom, "You're… back. Why… 'dyou come back?" She shouldn't be here. She should be at DisneySea, having fun. She's crying. He feels awful. "Don't…" He wants to ask if the twins had a fun time. It's too many words. Asleep again.

When he comes fully back, it's his dad he sees first. He's snoring in a chair next to the bed. There are stress lines carved beneath his eyes like claw marks in wood.

"Dad…" he whispers. His father's mouth is fully slack; he looks like a puppet whose strings have been cut. He clears his throat and tries a little louder. "Dad."

He jolts out of his sleep like a man escaping a nightmare. Within seconds, his eyes are brimful with tears.

"Makoto. Thank god."

Makoto's mouth twists. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

His dad leans forward. Crying quietly into the front of Makoto's hospital gown. Makoto has only seen his father cry once, before, when Makoto's grandmother died. He hates himself so deeply for making it happen again that his arm throbs in pain.

()

Having all his family in the room at once is almost too much guilt to bear. Makoto feels as if he's about to black out from stress. Especially when his mother grabs his good arm and sobs into his hand, and he can feel her shaking.

Maybe his dad senses this, because seconds later he's taking the equally teary-eyed twins by their shoulders and steering them out the door.

"What happened, Mako-chan?" his mother breathes.

"It was an accident," is all he can say.

"You did this?" It's half a demand and half a plea. "You did this to yourself?" She looks at him and her face crumples. "Oh, my God, Makoto. Why? Why?"

"I'm sorry," he stutters. Over and over. "I'm so sorry."

He does fall asleep again, not long after that, which is a mercy, because he doesn't know how much longer he can stand the crying faces of his siblings, his mother and father. The next time he opens his eyes, there's no one there. A few minutes later, a nurse comes in. She says she needs to verify some things for the police report.

"The injury—was it inflicted by someone else?"

"No."

"Nobody attacked you?"

"No. You—you can tell them there's no one to blame."

Pity falls over her face, then, like a curtain. Makoto looks away.

"Oh, one more thing. Do you feel well enough to receive visitors?"

"I—I guess, I mean—why, who…?"

"I gather some of your friends have been waiting downstairs. Should I let them up?"

Makoto squeezes his eyes shut.

"Maybe… later… I'm still kind of tired."

"Okay. You take as much time as you need."

He claws at sleep like a drowning man at a lifeboat. Not as good as the other type of oblivion, but enough, for now. The meds help him down easy.

The third time he awakes, it's to voices in the dark. He cracks an eye open. His door is a breath's-width ajar, spilling a blueish spear of fluorescent light and noise to part the shadowed silence.

"You need to talk to him about it."

"I tried."

"Then fucking try again.How fucking selfish and dense can you be?"

"Stop yelling. You'll wake him up."

"Fuck you! Look, he hasn't been okay since practically fucking New Years', okay? I'm sick of watching him mope and pine away over your sorry ass, and all because you're too much of a fucking infant to sort out your issues like a fucking adult!"

Silence, for a second; the beam of light flickers as someone crosses in front of the door. The next time Rin speaks, his voice is very low and very quiet, and Makoto has to strain to make out the words.

"This whole time, I didn't think I should say anything, because I thought it was something between the two of you. I told myself all summer to keep myself out of the whole business. But considering the clusterfuck we're in now, I guess I should have spoken up sooner. He could have fucking died. Hasn't he been your friend since you guys were like five? Do you even—think about what that means. If you can't even understand that, I swear to God I'll wish I'd never been matched with you."

"Rin—"

"Don't. Fucking follow me."

The timorous voice of a nurse quavers in apologetically. "Ah, excuse me? Could you boys quiet down a little, please? It's the middle of the night and the patients are all sleeping."

"Mm. Sorry…"

"That's all right. Let us know if you need anything."

Nothing from Rin. He probably left.

A few seconds later, Makoto's door creaks lightly. He hears Haru slip inside to stand by his bedside, a source of invisible heat. Makoto imagines him as a white light behind the dark of his eyelids.

So Rin of all people had noticed. He remembers their odd conversation at that park bench at the overlook. So I thought—you know, maybe—actually, let's not talk about it. This is too fucking weird. Forget it. Was that what that was about? Was that Rin's typically heavy-handed way of acknowledging Makoto's feelings, like they're some brick that wouldn't shatter even when dropped a dozen times?

But Haru. Haru didn't suspect a thing. Didn't he?

This hurts like nothing else; a sick throb thrills up Makoto's arm from the tattoo (scar now, he supposes) and he has to force himself to stay still, "asleep" beneath the pain.

Since they were kids, he'd felt like he could just understand Haru. What he liked and didn't like, when he wanted to laugh or was irritated, or tired, or fascinated—all of it hidden behind that placid face yet as open to Makoto as a book. He was never confused by Haru, like the adults or the other kids in their class. He'd loved this, the secret of his friend cupped like a butterfly in his palms, because he thought it meant he was special, chosen in some significant way. And he'd simply assumed that Haru felt the same way about him.

But of course, Makoto has never made himself particularly difficult to read. Up until now, he's had no reason to keep secrets from his best friend, and even those few he attempted for "surprise" birthday parties and the like had failed miserably under the navy weight of Haru's gaze. Now he's not sure how Haru could understand him, when there's been so little to understand until this past year. And then, when it came down to that—nothing. Radio silence from the friend of thirteen years, as he kissed a boy who abandoned them years ago, a boy whom Makoto has had to help blunder through the tall grass of his overgrown emotions—right towards Haru.

He doesn't know himself; this summer has proven that more than anything. But if Haru doesn't know him either, then he feels like he doesn't exist anymore.

He's crying again, silently, and then he feels Haru's cool hand on his cheek, like he's trying to catch the tears before they fall.

He opens his eyes and looks at Haru through a prism of water.

"H-Haru…"

Haru stares into him and Makoto can feel his upset lodged like a knife beneath his ribs.

They still like that for a long while and just look at each other, and although they are almost touching it feels to Makoto like they are very, very far apart, calling to each other from different storylines in different universes, blindfolded and running in the dark. And the way Haru looks at him it is like he's trying to hand him something, pour something into him, and if only Makoto would move a certain way or nod or blink or say the magic word he would understand—everything.

But he doesn't understand, he doesn't understand anything, and so he breaks eye contact first. "I mean," he whispers in a rasp, "it's probably better this way. I probably can—handle it better than, ah, you know. Rin."

Haru shakes his head mutely. "That's not the point."

"It's not your fault. It is what it is."

"We should've—I should have been less obvious about it."

"Why? You two are bonded. There was no reason not to—"

"It doesn't matter. I should have noticed. I should have done something. Even if we're—even if we're not matched, you're still my friend. So you're not allowed to apologize, Makoto. Every time, it's like you're hurting yourself. I don't like it. Don't do it."

"I know. I'm sorry."

Haru closes his eyes, and it feels like a stab to Makoto's chest that he sees the tiniest rut between Haru's brows and instantly knows he's frustrated. He knows him far better than he knows himself.

"I think," Haru says slowly, "that you think that when you understand things, it means you accept them. But just because you know something is true, doesn't—mean anything. You can say to yourself over and over that it's true, that this or that is a fact, but inside you're screaming that it's a lie. And if the world turns on this fact then the world is a lie too.

"What happened on New Years is what happened, and all of us remember the same outcome. But that doesn't mean you weren't hurt. And it doesn't make that what you felt about it was wrong." He breathes in and out, slowly and evenly, and continues. "Rin told me. About the time you and him ran into one another in the park. And after that I lied to him."

"About what?"

"He asked me if that night I was sure it would be him. And I said yes."

Haru is shaking slightly now.

"I wasn't. I wasn't sure at all. Because if it hadn't been his name, I would have…"

He stops for a long moment, and the possibility of it breaks over Makoto's head like a great wave, so hard that he can barely breathe.

"I couldn't stop thinking about it. How it would have been if I were with you, instead. Every day, walking around town with him, or going to the beach. Shopping, talking, anything; I constantly be thinking whether I would be just as happy, or even more happy if it were you there instead. Rin would be sitting right in front of me, sometimes holding my hand, and I would look at him and talk to him, while in my mind it was all you. At the same time, I knew all he was looking at was me, and that if he knew what was on my mind he would be hurt in a way he could never recover from. So I kept it in. But I felt like I was drowning. I told myself I should move on, after the decision, but I couldn't, no matter what I told myself. I was stuck on the possibility of you.

"I could never talk to Rin about this. Never even mention it, because he wouldn't understand. Definitely, he would put on a brave front and say he did, that it was okay. He'd say he forgives me, then never mention it again. That's his way of being brave. But after that he would never be able to trust in me in the way he has to be able to. And I thought that I couldn't put that kind of burden on him. It wasn't his fault. It was mine.

"I didn't know how to balance you and Rin. Not before or after. Maybe if it hadn't been decided for us, I would have eventually figured it out. But it was. So I threw myself into this thing with Rin because I thought I could blind myself to any other possibility as long as I tried hard enough. And because I was weak, I was fucking weak, and I couldn't find it in myself to face you and him and act like we were the way we were before without cracking and letting the act slip. I could only have one of you. I would have died of you together.

"And I thought—" He stumbles for the first time. "I thought that you might—also…" He swallows heavily. "This—thing, between us. I thought that if I kept away, it'd be easier for you to let go also. And move on. If you felt that way."

Listening to Haru talk, Makoto thinks that even an extra ten years wouldn't be enough for him to sort out everything he feels. He tries to breathe normally, though the air feels thin.

He is aware that Haru has finished, for now, that he's waiting on him to say something.

"Why… didn't you tell me this earlier?" he asks. "Why didn't you say something?"

"For the same reason you didn't. Because I didn't want to hurt anyone."

Haru moves to hold Makoto's hand in his own. They haven't done this in a long time, Makoto realizes—maybe not even since they were children. He closes his eyes and focuses on the feel of Haru's hand. His grasp is just as cool and strong as Makoto remembers.

"But I know I did hurt you," he continues. "And I'm sorry. For what that's worth… I'm sorry for everything. I want to ask one more thing of you, and that's that you don't forgive me if it means hurting yourself. And if there's anything I can do to make it better, I'll do it. Anything in the world."

Makoto shakes his head. He's crying in earnest now, and the world blurs. Of course, some part of him wants to be angry at Haru. To send him away, to punish him. To give him even a taste of the suffering that he's felt himself—just because he can, just because Haru had looked him in the eye and offered.

But he can't. Can't be angry, or send him away, and least of all punish him for a situation that he is aware is beyond any of their control.

Because, in the end, that would just hurt Makoto more.

He hesitates, then draws Haru into a hug.

"It's just good to talk to you again," he chokes into Haru's shoulder, and Haru holds him tight and close, like he's trying to make sure even the night can't get between the two of them, and in his silence Makoto hears I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, over and over again.

Eventually, after what feels like a long while, they draw back. And then, slowly, they begin to talk. About everything that has happened since the New Year, about themselves, their friends, the brave new world they've been thrust into. And the more they talk the more Makoto realizes that it's really not all right. He thinks he's brave enough to say at least that, now. With him, with Haru, with all of their friends: nothing is right, and everything is wrong.

There's a question waiting to be answered, but he's exhausted. He has no strength left to feel anything, let alone any solutions or advise to give. Everything's been wrung out of him by this damned year.

He falls asleep before Haru does. The last he sees of him, Haru is sitting cross-legged next to him on the bed, holding his hand. It's enough, for now, or at least for tonight.

Still, some part of him doesn't want to deal with tomorrow. He wishes that he didn't have to wake up to this again.

()

He does though, and the next day, and the day after that. About ten days later he's released from the hospital. He has a lot of schoolwork to catch up on, so he goes, over the protests of his parents, because with the mood he's in, he's not even any use for babysitting the twins—and because he's afraid of the way he gets when he's alone. The days smear by like wet paint, and he lets them because it's easier. Fall comes and goes. Rei surprises everyone when he shows up to school with a tattoo—nothing elaborate, just a thick, black bar over the name on his wrist. Nagisa's father moves out of the house; Gou and Nagisa break up in a cloud of tears and drama. Everyone takes sides, Rin snarling at Nagisa and Rei ignoring Rin and Haru standing uneasily in the middle. Makoto draws back from it all, and they let him.

He has Haru back now, but he's beginning to realize that Haru is not enough. Some part of the healing, he doesn't know how large, has to come from himself.

Come the end of December, he finds himself antsy, so he buys a train ticket to Tokyo. There is nowhere in particular that he wants to go, but he needs to be out of here for a while, away from these people whose histories are so intimately tangled with his own that when one of their lifelines tugs it echoes through his own. This feeling of needing space is new and foreign to him, but he thinks that right now none of them can heal one another, because they are all hurting too badly in their own ways.

The train is set to leave at three, so he leaves school early, scattering faint goodbyes to his classmates and friends. Haru looks at him with burning, concerned eyes, and Makoto already knows that he'll text him every day while he's gone, that he'll probably call him before Makoto can even get on the train. It's good, he decides, and it'll help alleviate his parents' worry, since they've never gotten away from the mindset that if they can't get a hold of Makoto, the next best thing is to find Haru.

The station is relatively abandoned when he arrives. The sunlight isn't hazy and white the way it is in summer, but golden, crisp, hard in some ways. Makoto wanders around the waiting benches, thinking of nothing in particular. When he goes to the bathroom, he realizes with a jolt that he's left his luggage back at the platform.

He hurries back. It's unlikely someone stole it, but there's always a chance…

As he's walking, he feels his phone vibrate in his pocket. It's Haru, after all, wishing him a safe journey.

[Thanks], he writes back, and after another second, [I'm all right]. Haru didn't have to ask for him to hear the question. Almost instantly, a response comes back—[Good. Stay that way.]

[I will], he writes one-handed. He rounds the corner and the platform draws into sight. Someone is sitting in the bench he was at. He shields his eyes, but still can't make out much of anything. Just a vague silhouette, a question-mark curve of a body. By the bench, he thinks he spots his luggage.

The person turns, just a shade. Sunlight traces the edge of their face in a brilliant white, a line drawing waiting to be filled in.

"Ah—excuse me," he calls out.

()

Fin.