Confession. I've never been to Australia, go figure. I did some research about the geography and different ecosystems in different areas of the continent … Let's face it, this ain't going to be accurate. Let's pretend that's not a hindrance. Have fun.
Who knows how long later, they're pulled over in front of a convenience shop and being judged by the smatter of city-goers shifting in and out of the dinging door, because Haru and Sousuke are sitting on the curb like five-year-olds, being scrutinized by their blond chauffeur, who is standing over them with his arms crossed and his lips pinched.
Haru's not sure how long they've been paused here like this, not saying anything. His head is throbbing and it's hotter than before. He's even more angry now than he was when he was first forced into this situation, but he just stiffly keeps his head turned away from Sousuke next to him, who is breathing annoyingly loud.
"Are we cooled off now, yea?"
Neither Haru nor Sousuke respond, but it's probably less because they don't know what he's saying and more because they're both stubborn.
"Do I need to call Rin?"
Haru mostly understands that, because of the tone of the threat in Lucas's voice. It's sounds like when his grandmother used to warn him she would call his parents if he kept refusing to eat vegetables. Sousuke seems to catch onto it too, because he also looks up to Lucas in a rather sheepish silence. Neither of them says anything, but Lucas appears to read their expressions pretty accurately.
"Right then," he says with a nod. "Let's grab us a couple of fizzy drinks and get back on the road."
The Aussie is back to being gratingly cheerful by the time they're all in the car and sipping on sodas in a placated silence. It's not a peaceful silence by any means, and it's mostly confined to Sousuke and Haru, as Lucas very quickly dives back into chatting to the wind, probably more convinced now that they're actually listening, except that they're really not.
Sousuke's in the passenger's seat now, staring moodily out the window that just gets darker the more that the city falls away behind them. Haru has his back against the door with his legs stretched across the whole of the backseats, sipping his soda through a straw. He doesn't really care for it, but he finds himself mind-numbingly distracted by the carbonation bubbling on his tongue. He also watches the view outside of the window that becomes less and less of a view as the scenery goes by, and becomes eventually just a sheet of dark sky and flat land that's only really visible by the light of the moon.
They wind up in a stretch of empty grasslands, on a dirt road that seems to stretch on forever, and the ride itself become less haphazard on account of the fact that there are just simply no other cars to possibly bump into. As uninteresting as the land is to look at, Haru is quite mesmerized by how much open space there is. He hadn't yet been outside of Sydney, and he never planned to be really, but he had never given much thought to how big Australia is, even though he knows that because of geography class and other such nonsense.
For a while, it's not so bad. The tension levels drop a bit, Lucas's voice becomes a kind of tolerable white noise that keeps it from being too quiet, and Haru finally takes off his hoodie, which allows him more room to breathe through the heat, because the air conditioning is, for whatever reason, not reaching the backseat of the car.
They've been driving for maybe twenty minutes through the plains when the car starts making suspicious noises. At first it doesn't register to Haru, who is hypnotized by the endless waves of grass. But then the car jerks underneath them, and he blinks himself out of his daze, looking toward the front where Lucas's tone of voice also changes.
"Uh oh," he sings, and it's oddly chipper sounding even still, but it's the kind of "uh oh" that likes to laugh off the embarrassment of having forgotten to do something simple like … turn off the oven in the middle of the night.
Haru turns around in his seat, leaning forward level with the two front seats. Sousuke is also looking to Lucas with a look that isn't quite readable, but also the spark of fresh wariness is not entirely hard to miss. Lucas is looking down at the steering wheel, which does not seem to want to do what his hands are telling it to.
The car slows down — significantly. The sputtering gets worse and the jerking more abrupt, and then just a short few seconds later, the tires roll to a stop in the middle of the road, and the engines shuts off entirely.
Aside from the muffled symphony of chirping, nighttime bugs in the background, there is silence.
Lucas purses his lips, drums his thumbs against the steering wheel, and then turns a toothy smile on them.
"Well, gents, looks like we've run out of petty."
Sousuke and Haru stare.
"Dumplings over flowers. The good news is … Oh, nah wait, nevahmind. I was supposed to put the jerrycan in the trunk this mornin', but I think I may have left it in the garage. Let me go and check right quick. I'll be right back."
He gets out of the car, and both Sousuke and Haru perk up like meerkats, heads turning as they follow Lucas through the windows around the car, until he disappears behind the trunk.
"What's he doing?" Haru asks.
"I don't know."
"What happened?"
"I don't know."
"You weren't paying attention?"
"I was looking out the window."
Haru scoffs.
"You weren't paying attention either."
"I'm in the back. I can't see what's going on."
"We probably just ran out of gas. I think he's getting some from the back."
Except that that is not what Lucas appears to be successful at, because he comes back around to poke his head in the car with empty hands. Again he smiles, but it doesn't make Haru feel any better, mostly because it makes Lucas's gibberish even harder to read.
"Bad news, mates. I did leave the jerrycan in the garage. But it's okay. Theah's a servo just down the road, back wheah we came. I'm a fair runnah. I think I can get theah in decent time. But I need you two to stay heah, alright? It's a bit dangerous wanderin' 'bout open land at night, what with all the animals. So just stay in the cah and you'll be alright. I'll go and get us more petty, come back, and we'll be off again like nothing eveah happened, yea?"
"What's he saying?" Haru mumbles under his breath.
"I don't know."
"What's he saying?"
"I don't. know."
"Right then. Try not to kill each othah while I'm gone, yea? Would be a shame. I promised Rin I'd get you to him in one piece, and that's what I plan to do. So just sit tight, yea? Seriously, do not go anywheah. Don't let your daughter-in-law eat your autumn eggplants."
Haru literally struggles not to combust with strain. "I don't understand."
"I just …" Sousuke shakes his head. "He's not … He's not saying it right. It just- I don't think it fits. It doesn't fit. That doesn't work there."
"No worries. You'll be fine." Lucas gives them two thumbs up and another reassuring smile that is not reassuring at all. He pats the top of the car, and then closes the door and starts to walk off. Both Haru and Sousuke whip around in alarm, again following his movements through the windows.
"Where's he going?"
"I don't know."
"He's leaving us. Why is he leaving us?"
"Nanase, if I knew, I wouldn't be saying I don't know."
"He's walking away."
"I can see that."
"He's … We're in the middle of the road."
"Okay, calm down."
"I'm calm."
"You are not, you're freaking out."
"I'm not freaking out."
"Yes, you are and it's freaking me out. Just shut up and sit back. We'll be fine. I think we just need to wait."
"Wait for what?"
"I don't know!" Sousuke bursts. "For him to come back from wherever he's going. I'm sure he's not just dumping us in the desert with his car to leave us for good."
"This isn't the desert, there's grass."
"Whatever. He'll be back. Just shut up and wait."
Haru clicks his tongue with an exaggerated sigh that he huffs out on purpose because he knows it will annoy Sousuke, and it does. His biceps flex with strain and everything, but Haru leaves it at that and sinks back against his seat, also crossing his arms, and returns to staring out the window.
Time passes.
Haru returns to sitting with his legs stretched out over the seats.
Then more time passes.
Sousuke sneezes.
Excessively more time passes.
Haru rakes his hair back from his forehead to clear away some of the sweat that's beginning to drip down his temples.
And then more time passes.
Sousuke's breathing is annoying again.
...
"It's hot."
"What do you want me to do about it?"
"I need water."
Sousuke snorts. "Tough luck, kid."
"Don't call me that," Haru grumbles.
"Well, you act like one, so I don't know what you want me to do."
They go quiet for another moment, but it doesn't last long.
"I think he got eaten."
"By what?"
Haru shrugs. "I dunno … A koala."
"Koalas are herbivores."
"So?"
Sousuke hisses out a long sigh.
"What if his name's not really Lucas?"
Sousuke's brow furrows. "What?"
"What if he was just pretending to be Lucas, and we just allowed ourselves to get kidnapped by a psychopath who's left us in the wilderness to get eaten by the koalas?"
"Okay, you know what, I can't do this."
Sousuke pushes himself out of the car. Haru's tempted to laugh, but the door opening for just that quick second allows a waft of air to filter into the suffocating heat of the car that had been building over the past who-knew-how-long, and it feels good. So Haru crawls across the seats and opens the door to get out too.
It's not that it's much cooler outside of the car, but the circulating air has a small breeze to it that cools the sweat on his brow. He sighs, and then glances up to Sousuke, who has his hands in his pockets and is squinting back and forth between the empty stretch of road ahead of them and the empty stretch of road behind them.
He doesn't do anything for a good long while, so Haru pretends he's not there and wanders around to the other side of the car to stare out across the grasslands. There's one gnarled tree way out in the distance, and the grass is maybe tall enough to reach his knees. That's about it.
The wind picks up for a moment, and he relishes the gust of fresh air, breathing in the scent of dirt with his eyes closed. He's really thirsty, and he starts thinking about how he maybe should have taken his chances and thrown himself into the river while they were closer to the coast. He could have swum back home. It couldn't be that far.
He opens his eyes when he hears the car door open again. Sousuke has gotten around to the driver's side and is bent over, fishing around for something.
Haru stares thoughtfully at his ass during this, not necessarily because he feels inclined to, but it just so happens to be there, and he gets the tingling temptation to kick it. He only blinks away when Sousuke grumbles something under a frustrated sigh and straightens back up. He slams the door shut.
Haru at first thinks to leave it alone and go back to ignoring him, but he for some reason feels compelled to question him. "What?"
Sousuke doesn't look at him. He perches his hands on his hips. "He took the keys."
"So? The car doesn't work anyway."
"I know that," Sousuke snaps. "The trunk latch doesn't work either, which means we can't get our stuff from the back."
"Why do we need to get our stuff from the back?"
"Fine. I need to get my stuff from the back."
"Why?"
"Because I'm going on foot."
This time, Haru actually does allow himself a patronizing snort. "On foot where?"
Sousuke shrugs, ignoring his teasing. He opens the door to the back, and again sticks his butt out in Haru's line of sight. "Somewhere that's not here," his muffled voice says. The car shakes as he pulls at the seats, probably trying to find an alternate way into the trunk. It appears he is unsuccessful there as well. "Dammit."
He slams the door shut. Then he turns and just starts walking.
Haru waits a moment, watching his massive shoulders very slowly begin to shrink with distance. "Where are you going?"
Sousuke, without looking back, throws an arm out in front of him. "Forward."
Haru finds himself biting at the inside of his lip, squinting just a bit as Sousuke shrinks farther and farther away. He doesn't realize he's doing this for a good long minute, but when he does, he forces his expression to smooth itself back out, then huffs a short sigh and walks quickly to catch up. It's not like Sousuke is walking particularly fast, but he does have a longer stride — a lumbering one that moves slow, like a two-ton elephant. Haru waits to speak again until he's just under Sousuke's shoulder. Unfortunately, he's just a little bit out of breath by then.
"What comes after Forward?"
Sousuke shrugs. "I dunno. There's got to be some form of civilization up ahead. We were moving in this direction anyway. Maybe Rin is in the next town."
"How do you know?"
"I don't."
"So why are you leaving the car then?"
"Because I don't want to sit out here all night with you, that's why," Sousuke bites, snapping down a cold glare. Haru doesn't give him that satisfaction of an expression change.
"You'd rather get lost instead?"
He huffs another bull-breathing breath through his nose. "There's one dirt road moving in one direction. It can't be that hard to navigate."
"Well, not for normal people maybe."
"What's your point?"
"My point is you're going to get lost."
"Tch. Then why are you following me?"
"I'm not following you."
"You seem pretty insistent about staying with the car, and yet here you are, attached to my hip, because you're a child and can't be left alone."
"I am not a child," Haru argues, and his tone actually lifts with a mild form of frustration as he says so and pierces Sousuke with a threatening stare. Sousuke glances down at him out of the corner of his eye, but this time does not respond. Haru scrunches his nose when Sousuke looks away again. "Just because you're bigger than me, doesn't mean you get to look down on me."
Sousuke doesn't answer.
"I've lived on my own for practically half my life."
"Yeah, with a surrogate mother living a flight of stairs around the corner. You're not convincing anyone, Nanase. I know Tachibana waits on you hand and foot. I've heard the stories, and I've seen how you two act around each other. You can't do a thing without him, and that's why your following me right now."
Haru stops walking, jaw tight. He glares at Sousuke's back as he continues forward without pause. The larger man actually has the gall to wave tauntingly over his head before he stuffs his hand back into his pocket.
Haru just stands in the middle of the road, fuming, his thoughts so clouded over that he's unsure what to do. He refuses to acknowledge any form of authenticity in what Sousuke just said, but at the same time, he really does wish Makoto was here right now, because then they'd be able to sensibly come up with a solution together — which most likely would involve staying in the car, because Makoto would probably be too afraid to just walk out into the night in a place he's unfamiliar with, when neither of them knows where they're going. And that makes perfect sense to Haru. That's probably why he doesn't like Sousuke.
But also, the further away Sousuke gets, the more Haru's stomach tightens into a ball of knots, because he can feel the space between them getting wider, leaving him in a growing circle of aloneness that only makes him uneasy, because he doesn't know where he's currently located, and he would prefer not to be lost in the Australian wilderness by himself.
He should get back in the car, that's the simplest and most sensical thing to do. But his body decides to walk forward again. He doesn't walk extra fast to catch up this time, but naturally his steps are quicker anyway — having adjusted to Makoto's pace over the years, which also just seems faster because his stride is so long.
He's never really paid much attention to how similar Sousuke and Makoto's bodies are. Makoto's big, but he's never really seemed that big, and it's probably because he doesn't insist on dominating whatever space he walks into. Makoto's bigness is more protective and comfortable, like a warm shroud. Sousuke's is like standing in the shadow of a mountain that's threatening to fall over.
He manages to catch up anyway.
Sousuke grunts. It's a smug noise that communicates his satisfaction in thinking that he's won a point over Haru.
"I'm not following you," Haru says, even though he doesn't really mean to.
"Sure you're not."
"I just figured Rin would be pretty pissed if I let you get lost."
It's amazing how quickly Sousuke flares up and tosses his hands around. "It's …" He growls through his teeth. "It's a straight road! It's a straight road moving in the same direction! How could I possibly get lost?"
"I'm sure you'd find a way."
"I just … wish that I had thrown you out of the window instead." Sousuke mostly whines this to himself as he pinches the bridge of his nose, but Haru doesn't really catch it, because he's stopped walking again.
"Yamazaki."
"Maybe it's not too late. We're literally the only ones out here. No one would know."
"Yamazaki."
"It's not that hard to pull one over on Rin, and I think I could live with myself for that one."
"Sousuke!" Haru hisses, sharper this time, because the dolt is not paying attention at all.
Sousuke whips a glare over his shoulder. "What?" he snaps.
Haru, frozen, does not respond other than to gesture with his gaze not too far out into the distance where several pairs of glowing eyes are staring at them through the shadows. Sousuke jerks to a halt with a sharp inhale. Then they're both frozen, having a stare down with the pack of wild dogs.
"What are those?" Sousuke says under his breath.
Haru opens his mouth, closes it, and then opens it again and manages to whisper, "I- … think they're dingoes."
Sousuke lifts his chin. "The things that eat babies?"
"I think that's just a myth, but … probably."
"Okay." Sousuke just barely nods. He takes a step back. The pack shifts in response.
"Don't move," Haru murmurs.
"Don't tell me not to move," Sousuke argues quietly, lips just barely moving. "We're being stared at by things with glowing eyes and teeth. I'm not standing here to wait for them to get closer."
"If you move, they're going to move."
"They're going to move anyway."
"They're waiting for you to run —"
"Yeah, not shit. No thing in its right mind is going to just stand around —"
"You're not faster than them."
"I'm going back to the car."
"Sousuke, seriously. If you run, they are going to chase you. And if they chase you, I'm going to have to run, and I am not a fast runner."
Sousuke takes off in the next second. The dingo pack charges forward half a second after that, and Haru barely has time to catch it, because he's also already turned around with a growling hiss of, "Bitch."
Sousuke is way ahead of him in literally no time, and he's not sure if it's the trying to catch up or trying not to get eaten that's making him work his legs harder than he ever has in his life. He's grateful that he's just had a burst of rage blossom up in his stomach to accompany the harrowing fear, because this seems to give him the boost that he needs to be just fast enough not to be too quickly gained on, even though, he can hear the hungry concentrated panting of the dogs practically breathing on his ankles.
Sousuke is already back at the car, and has dived in in all of two seconds. The door slams shut behind him, and Haru's heart, which is already leaping with terror, gets lodged in his throat. He really tries not to look over his shoulder, but he kind of has to, and a truly unfamiliar sound makes it out of his throat when he catches a glimpse of his chances.
He practically throws himself against the car when he finally reaches it, but when he yanks on the handle the door doesn't budge.
"Sousuke!"
Sousuke's voice is muffled, shouting something back.
"Open the door! It's not fucking funny! Bitch. You son of a bitch!"
It's a waste of time that he does not have, so he runs around to the back of the car and jumps up on the trunk just in time for one of the dingoes to take a snap at his heel. It misses, but it's all the encouragement he needs to scurry up to the top of the car, while the dogs yip at him, their claws scratching up the paint with ear-pinching screeches.
Haru swears he's never been more out of breath in his life, and he swims for a living.
He pounds on the sunroof, where he can see Sousuke staring up at him from inside the car.
"Asshole! Let me in!"
Sousuke gestures wildly. Haru has to press his face against the glass to hear him. "… keys! There's no key! He took the keys!"
"Kick it out! Use your fucking hands! I don't care! Just open it!"
The car rocks and Haru snaps his head over to shoulder just in time to see one of the dingoes attempt to leap on top of the car, only to slide right off.
"Sousuke!"
"I'm trying!"
"Try fucking harder! Get it open!"
They continue to scream at each other while the car rocks under the attack of the wild dogs, and Sousuke presses himself up against the glass, while simultaneously pulling it with his hands, and no grip, to force it open. Haru claws at it from the outside, and the moment it shifts an inch, he grows more frantic with both a heightened sense of terror and relief. They manage to crack it open and both immediately stuff their fingers through the narrow space to pull it down, only Sousuke's hands are too big, so Haru's left yanking on it by himself.
One of the dogs leaps so high up against the side of the car that Haru can feel the aggression of its teeth snapping at his face, and he screams.
"Fucking … sh-shit!"
"Pull, you gotta pull!" Sousuke's shouting at him.
Except that Haru's arms are kind of reedy, and they're trembling with fear. "I can't, I can't, I can't."
"Nanase, if you don't want to get eaten, then you have to!"
"Fuck you!" Haru shouts, yanking back with all his might. "You're the fucking asshole that left me out here, I can't believe you would do that!"
"Just get the damn window open, goddammit!"
The dingo leaps again and this time Haru reflexively kicks it in the jaw. It yelps and falls back to the ground, and the other pack animals are not particularly happy about it.
"Holy shit," Haru gasps.
"Holy shit," Sousuke echoes. "You just kicked it in the face!"
"I didn't mean to."
"Don't apologize, just come on!"
The growling has gotten increasingly more vicious, but the window jerks down another centimeter and Sousuke's able to get his hands through this time. He forces the whole thing back with much more ease, and Haru dives in headfirst. The heel of his shoe kicks Sousuke in the jaw as he falls onto the seat, and the larger man scoffs with pain. But the moment Haru's fully in the car, he rights himself to immediately double back and slap Sousuke purposely across the face.
"Fuck!"
"Why would you lock the doors?!"
"We were being chased by wild dingoes!"
"You're three times their size! You did that on purpose, you knew they would get me first! You fucking asshole!"
He swings to hit him again, but Sousuke catches his wrist this time, and when the dogs jump up against the window closest to them, they both squeal and Sousuke automatically yanks Haru against his chest, but maybe also Haru ducks instinctively into him, and then they cling to each other while the car shakes and the dingoes bark angrily.
It's a bit of a blur, just sitting there waiting for it to stop, because Haru has his eyes squeezed shut and he's listening very closely, but all he can really hear after a few seconds is how loud Sousuke is breathing, and really Haru's not much better, practically hyperventilating into his chest, with his nose buried in his shirt, so it makes it even harder to catch a breath.
He's not sure how long it lasts, but eventually everything goes still, and the muffled yipping subsides, and then Haru starts to become aware of how damp Sousuke's t-shirt is, but he not sure whose fault that is or if it's a collaboration of their sweat combined.
Sousuke smells like outside. He doesn't care for it … Like really, he doesn't care. He's not even sure he has a cognizant thought about it. He just notices. And then he notices how big Sousuke's chest is. And then he notices that his face is being forcibly held captive by the hand gripped in his hair at the back of his head.
At first, he's offended, and he wants to shove Sousuke away and tell him he doesn't need his protection. But then he has the passing thought of teasing Sousuke for being so scared that he has to cling this tightly to Haru. But then he's still scared himself, and he's sure that would come out of his voice, so instead he says, "Are they gone?" And it's completely swallowed up by Sousuke's sternum, but he seems to hear him anyway.
Sousuke doesn't let go of him yet, but Haru can sense the movement of him peeking out the window.
"No. They're just circling the car."
Haru lets a breath fall out of his lungs. It's not relief. He just needs to breathe. "You're suffocating me."
Sousuke pushes him away, not very nicely, but Haru doesn't complain, because he gets to pull in a proper breath. He feels those stormy teal eyes watching him very closely, and when he looks into them, he can't read what's there, but for a moment he knows it's at least not ire. But then Sousuke blinks to himself and scrunches up his nose as though Haru's done something despicable.
"Get off of me."
He doesn't realize he's straddled over Sousuke's right leg until know, but he removes himself quickly, before he can really think about how massive his thighs are. He shuffles over to the opposite side of the car and peeks out of the other window.
Indeed, the dingoes are pacing about restlessly, their tongues lolling out of their mouths as they pant. Two of them have even decided to park themselves on the edge of the grass, laying down like house dogs to rest.
"Fuck," Haru breathes. "Look what you did."
"What I did?"
"I told you not to move."
"Okay, well fuck, how long was I supposed to stand there for?" Sousuke spits bitterly. "They were going to charge us either way."
"You don't know that."
"And you do?"
"I can't believe you would let them pick me off first like that."
"That wasn't on purpose."
"Like hell," Haru huffs, crawling over the center console to plop down in the driver's seat. He props his feet up and crosses his arms, wiggling his body into the seat to get as comfortable as he possibly can.
"I change my mind," he says as he closes his eyes. "Other Nagisa was most definitely not eaten by koalas."