At the crack of dawn, when the sun had just barely peeked over the horizon, Makoto awoke to the quiet buzzing of his phone. He cracked his eyes open and picked his phone up, squinting at the bright screen to turn the alarm off before putting his phone face-down next to him. He buried his face deeper into his pillow.
5:30 am.
Makoto's heavy eyelids slid shut and he succumbed easily to his fatigue, allowing himself to rest for a moment, savoring the comfort of his soft, warm bed. A couple of seconds swiftly turned to minutes, and the next time he unlocked his phone to check the time, it read 5:45. His body felt glued to the bed, begging him to catch a few more hours of sleep, but Makoto's willpower was strong enough today that he managed to drag himself out of bed. He yawned widely, and popped a few joints as he stretched, feeling the weariness linger in every inch of his body. His roommate was still soundly asleep on the top bunk—he could tell from the snoring—so he pocketed his phone, blindly grabbed his basket of toiletries in one hand and a set of clothing in the other, and tip-toed out of the room. He took the extra time to twist the doorknob open without making a single click and, after stepping out, he closed the door behind him, as gently as he was physically able to. Makoto yawned a bit louder, now safely out of earshot of his roommate, as he made his way to the common bathroom nearby.
When he arrived, the bathroom was empty, but the lights were already switched on and one of the toilet stalls was occupied.
He set his green basket of toiletries down on the sink counter, next to an identical basket that was red. Makoto cranked one of the taps open, releasing a gush of water that was icy-cold to the touch, and started splashing his face. He felt ten times more awake after, turning the faucet closed with one hand and using the back of his other to wipe some droplets off his face.
"*O'ssu, Tachibana."
The greeting was cheerful—more cheerful than anyone should be at this ungodly hour, Makoto thought, perplexedly. He turned to his side and saw Rin grinning at him, looking charged, occupying the sink next to his. Rin was already dressed in his running gear—which today was a grey tank top and black running shorts with black tights underneath that reached the middle of his calves. He had his medium-length red hair tied up neatly into a low ponytail and a faded yellow towel slung around his neck.
And I'm still in my pajamas.
Makoto responded with a generous—albeit sleepy—smile of his own.
"Ohayou." His voice was still laden with drowsiness.
Rin gave his face a few quick splashes of water and picked out his toothbrush from the red basket, wasting no time. While he was squeezing an appropriate amount of toothpaste onto the bristles, he shot Makoto a sidelong glance, a flicker in his eyes.
"Starting to go on morning runs again eh? Who're you trying to impress?" He smiled devilishly.
The unspoken words hung in the air. Trying to impress Haru? Heat rose up Makoto's neck. He narrowed his eyes at Rin, not in a particularly threatening way, but intimidating to a certain degree. Rin took a small step back, grinning.
"Easy there. You're not you when you haven't eaten," Rin laughed, giving Makoto a pat on the back before putting his toothbrush into his mouth. Makoto couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head. There was something contagious about Rin's laugh.
The cherry-red head started diligently brushing his teeth, pausing to pull on socks and put on his running shoes, moving around like he had been awake for hours. Makoto watched in awe.
Where does he get the energy from? Who can multitask at 6 in the morning? Makoto was just getting sleepier watching Rin busying himself around.
They continued getting ready in relative silence. Rin was ready long before Makoto, so he waited at the school front entrance, jogging in place until the olive-haired boy joined him. They warmed up together for a few minutes, doing stretches to loosen their muscles, and, after sharing an affirmative look, they started off running side-by-side.
This wasn't the first morning they had run together. Makoto and Rin had always set morning run schedules independently of each other, but when they both happened to be up at the same time, it would have been odd if one started without the other. Going together was like an unspoken agreement between them.
Breathing in fresh morning air helped to dispel some of Makoto's lethargy, and he started to feel a lot better about his decision to wake up and run this morning. It was crisp, refreshing and, oddly, it was chilly enough to make the tips of their noses cold. Noticing this, both boys had worn jackets over their clothes, unzipped. A cool morning was an anomaly during Iwatobi summers, where the mornings were usually warm and humid, but it was a welcome change.
About a mile into their run, a gust of frigid wind blew past them, and part of it made its way into their windbreakers, sapping the warmth from their bodies. They started shivering, and were forced to stop for a beat to zip up their suits before continuing. The sun cast an amber glow over them as it rose, illuminating their hair and the high points of their faces, warming them up from the cold weather.
Rin, being the ambitious, driven person he was, ran virtually every single morning without fail, unless some unexpected issue came up, like being unwell—and Rin rarely got sick. Makoto, on the other hand, could only manage to drag himself out of bed early sometimes, when he really willed himself to. The extra training really showed in Rin's stamina—he was running at a consistently fast pace and showing no signs of exhaustion at all. While Makoto could match Rin easily at first, after a few miles, he was struggling to keep up. Rin noticed his labored breathing, and gradually transitioned from a run into more of a fast jog.
Makoto detected the change of pace, and was troubled at the thought of holding Rin back.
"You don't have to," pant, "slow down," pant, "for me."
"Well I wouldn't have to, if you had the discipline to wake up every morning," Rin smirked, his stray hairs bouncing on either side of his face with every step he took.
Makoto laughed breathlessly. "Well I managed to get up this morning," pant, "didn't I?"
Rin went quiet for a bit, as if he was thinking of the proper words to say. "You must have found a reason to."
Well you're not wrong, Makoto thought, deeming it wise not to voice it out.
Thankfully for Makoto, the blush that threatened to rise to his cheeks was whisked away by the chilly wind.
"Haru's going to enjoy waking up today," Rin said, out of the blue, making Makoto turn to look at him. Amber met chartreuse, and Rin shrugged. "He hates the heat."
Makoto looked closely at him for any sign of teasing, but there seemed to be none. He broke eye contact with Rin, burying his chin into his collar to hide his smile.
"Yeah." I was thinking of Haru, too.
Although his heart was racing with adrenaline, he still noticed the beat it skipped at the thought of the ink-haired boy.
They ran another mile and a half at a much more reasonable speed. However, just before he could make it to the end, Makoto finally conceded and came to a running stop, a few feet short of the school entrance. The run had taken them full circle, so now they were back at where they'd begun. Makoto was bent over with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. Rin stopped next to him, his chest heaving a little higher than usual, but the run didn't seem to have taken much out of him. In fact, he looked more than ready to go for another round. Both their cheeks were rosy from exertion, foreheads glistening with a light sweat.
"Hey, Makoto," Rin began, while they were doing cooling down stretches. The olive-haired boy, who was bent over to touch his toes, looked over his shoulder with a curious look.
"Just so you know, I told Haru about our summer festival."
Makoto hitched a breath at the mention of Haruka's name, but regained composure quickly. He cleared his throat.
"Is he coming?" Makoto tried not to sound too hopeful. Rin looked away and paused, just long enough to generate a bit of suspense, before flashing Makoto a toothy grin and a thumbs up.
"You bet he is. Who do you think I am?"
"Oh."
Rin swore he didn't miss a glimmer of joy flash in green eyes before Makoto looked back at the ground, a tiny smile lifting his cheeks. Rin laughed and slung his arm roughly around Makoto, teasing him while Makoto protested, desperately trying to shake Rin off so he wouldn't notice the blush on his face.
(He noticed.)
After cooling down, Rin and Makoto took a quick shower in the common bathroom before returning to their respective rooms to get dressed for school. Makoto was still thinking of what Rin had told him—I'm going to see Haru again—from the time he was showering to the moment he opened his room door, unconsciously wearing a dizzy smile on his face the entire time. His roommate, who was mostly dressed—turned at the sound of the door opening, looking up from the cellphone in his hand. His auburn hair was fluffed up and messy, and his voice was still nasally—Makoto assumed he had just woken up.
"Makoto-senpai! **Okairi," his roommate, Mizayaki Inari, greeted him with a grin.
You must have slept well. Guess the creeping out was worth it. Makoto snapped out of his thoughts and smiled back.
"***Tadaima!"
Inari placed his phone on his table and started busying himself with buttoning up his shirt. He was standing in front of a small rectangular mirror in their cupboard door—the only mirror in their room. Inari had already taken the liberty of putting Makoto's school uniform out on his bed neatly. Makoto made his way over to his side of the room, setting his things down on the bedside table.
"Do you mind if I change in here? The changing room was a bit crowded when I passed," Makoto asked, though his hand was already on the towel wrapped around his waist, ready to whip it off. Inari glanced over his shoulder, shook his head no and—after being done with his shirt buttons—moved on to knotting his tie, his eyes anywhere but in Makoto's general direction.
Makoto took off his towel and changed, glad to be out of Inari's sight, not because of anything in particular—like for it being weird or them feeling shy—but just because it felt like the most appropriate thing to do.
And, if he was being honest, Makoto didn't really care for anyone seeing him in his underwear—unless it was a particular blue-eyed boy with black hair.
"I didn't hear you go out of the room this morning," Inari said, turning around fully after peeking to check that Makoto was fully dressed, still fiddling with his tie. He yawned loudly, moisture pooling in his eyes, "I could barely wake up today."
Makoto chuckled under his breath. You mean every day.
"You went running, Senpai?"
"Yeah," Makoto laughed sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. A silent gap ensued in the conversation that Makoto felt obliged to fill up with further explanation, "I thought running would help me improve my swimming times." He felt his neck heat up from lying.
Over my dead body will I admit I'm running to impress someone. A guy too, for that matter.
Although Makoto was far from an expert at lying, the lie slipped past Inari, who was as gullible as gullible could be.
"I wanna be just like you, Makoto-senpai!" Inari said, bright-eyed. He moved a little closer to Makoto, but not close enough that the latter would need to back up. Inari gave Makoto a look intense enough to burn holes, a spark in his cerise eyes. "Do you think you can wake me up next time so we can go together?"
Soft-hearted by nature, Makoto was about to agree without hesitation—when flashbacks of trying to wake Inari up for school abruptly hit him, flashing on repeat in his mind like a siren on a police car. His memory was foggy—it had been so very early in the morning and he himself had just woken up—but Makoto could clearly remember a very violent Inari flailing his arms and accidentally smacking him in the face, yelling unintelligible words, minus the one sentence Makoto could make out—"Don't touch the red button!".
What was more surprising was that, after all the moving and shouting, Inari had managed to remain asleep. He had woken up a few minutes later without remembering anything, extremely concerned about Makoto's bleeding nose. Makoto had blamed it on the weather, not wanting Inari to feel bad.
Feeling cornered and forced to face Inari's skull-boring look, Makoto gulped, sweat forming on his brow.
"Yeah… I'll see how it goes, Inari," Makoto said, evasively. Inari looked more than pleased with the response, bounding back to the mirror to properly knot his tie. Makoto sighed quietly in relief.
After Makoto had finished changing, he made his way over to his table and gathered whatever books he needed for the day into his school bag. His rumbling stomach served as a reminder for him to stuff a slice of bread into his mouth as he slung his bag strap across his shoulder. He turned to leave, keycard in hand, when he saw Inari still struggling with his tie—and it had been almost ten minutes. Makoto felt compelled by habit to roll his eyes, but there was something oddly endearing about Inari being unable to do simple tasks. His eyes softened instead.
Why do you remind me of Ran and Ren?
Makoto sighed, walking over to Inari and grabbing hold of his tie, pulling gently to make the boy turn and face him.
He had to speak around the bread in his mouth, "Look, first you fold it like this-"
Don't we all adore when Makoto goes into big bro mode?
I tried my very best to get this chapter out asap! I have my major exam coming up, so unfortunately I probably won't be updating until December
Thank you for reading, I shall be back with another update as soon as time permits me!
ps: I had no time to proof-read this chapter almost at all, politely pointing out any errors would be appreciated! TQ in advance :)
*is a short, casual form of ohayou gozaimasu, which means good morning in Japanese.
**means welcome home in Japanese.
***means I'm home in Japanese.