HaruGou: Drabbles
By Confused Panda Bear
Forty-Two
"Everything That Could Have Been"
It was far too late in the evening to be practicing as hard as he was.
His teammates had long thrown in the towel for the day, and the only other person still around was the centre's janitor — a silent, mutual agreement between the two strangers that allowed Haru to continue swimming, uninterrupted into the night, whilst staff carried out their cleaning duties.
To anyone who did not know him, Haru appeared to be another dedicated, young athlete of the university.
Azusa Ryuuji would use him as an example to the others that he coached — that the extra hours that he put in after practice was the reason why he was as fast and as successful in competitions as he was.
But he and Haruka both knew that was far from the truth.
"You have to give something up."
He had said back in Japan, and when Haru went to ask him what that was, Ryuuji looked at him in that expectant way as if to say that he already knew the answer.
His legs pedalled faster; each breath he took more difficult than the last, endeavouring without avail to outrace his own thoughts.
"Why are you doing this, Haruka-senpai?"
Reaching the wall he resurfaced, eyes darting to the clock.
Another record lap.
"Because you make me want things that I can't have."
With shoulders heaving from the exertion, Haru waited for some sort of sense of satisfaction, for an applause bouncing off the tiled walls and empty bleachers that would justify exactly why he was here.
"Young man," the janitor said, breaking their usual protocol.
He had propped himself up against his mop and was pointing to the benches that lined the pool.
"Your phone is ringing."
Unable to figure out why he hadn't heard it himself, Haru hauled himself out of the pool with heavy limbs and retrieved the device before it went to voicemail.
"What's up, Makoto?"
"Haru? You sound out of breath," his best friend spoke, without much need for a greeting. "Have you been for a run?"
Haru lowered himself down into the bench and inhaled deeply through his nostrils to regulate his breath.
"No, I just finished practice."
He could practically hear Makoto's brain doing the math.
"Wait, isn't it almost 11pm over there?"
"Yeah."
"Don't you think you may be over doing it a little…?"
Haru did not answer and Makoto didn't press him on the topic.
Yes, it was late, but it was the only time of the day that he would allow himself to think about her, otherwise she'd appear in his dreams and during the sleep that came few and far between.
"…Gou-chan is in Tokyo. It looks like she's staying with Kirishima-san," Makoto continued, as if he had read his mind. His voice was unsure of how he would react, so he added after a beat: "I'm not sure though. I just thought that you should know."
The room swam before him in a haze of blindingly vibrant colours only at the mention of her name.
Despite his best efforts, Haru is taken back to his Hidaka University's cafeteria, lunch tray in hand and just feet away from Ryuuji and Gou, conversing privately whilst they thought he could not hear them.
Her slight shoulders and ponytail was all he could see, but it wasn't difficult to imagine the expressions on her face from the words that were being exchanged:
"You used to be his manager, right Matsuoka-san? Then you should know as well as I do that he won't improve if he stays in Japan. It's all good and well being the biggest fish in your own pond but what Haru needs is a new challenge, to be exposed to new swimmers and different kinds competition…"
Ryuuji cast a look at her hands, twisting with discomfort on the tabletop between them.
"…I'm thinking of taking him to America. But he wants to stay. Because of you."
He leant back against the tiled wall and drew his free hand over his eyes.
"Why are you telling me this, Makoto?"
"Like I said, I thought you should know."
He went to add something else to the end of that sentence: something that would surely devastate him going by the potent gap in their conversation.
Instead, he diverted his line of thought and asked: "do you not think it's time to call her?" and Haru sighed into the receiver once more.
"What good will that do?" — she wanted me to leave, he wanted to add — because Gou never grew out of being his manager first and his girlfriend second.
Haru ran a hand through his hair and hardly felt the droplets of water run from his neck into his shoulders and back.
"It's not like she has tried to contact me either," he added tersely, to which Makoto countered in an exasperated tone:
"Yes, but that was because you told her not to even try."
His voice was filled to the brim with an internal struggle, leaving Haru's heart pounding and wondering what could she possibly be doing in Tokyo, with Kirishima, that would be torturing him so.
"You deserve to be happy, Haruka-senpai. But so do I."
"Haru, I know it's none of my business but," — Makoto paused, considering the best way to relay his message without telling him the entire truth — "but I just don't want you to end up coming home one day and she won't even know or care if she did. Or that you find out that she's moved on with her life and you'll walk past her one day with someone else — in love with someone else."
Haru placed a hand over the centre of his chest, feeling as though some feral animal were ripping through the skin there, tearing him from the inside out.
"What will you do then?" Makoto asked, and Haru gripped at his phone so tightly that the edges cut into his skin.
"Keep on walking, I guess."
