I have an errand to run. I'll be back before sunset.
Makoto sighed after reading the note a third time, and let his arm fall beside him on the bed, staring longingly up at the ceiling.
Was it normal? To already be so achingly familiar with Haru that he'd begun to miss him as soon as he opened his eyes and found the space beside him empty?
An errand.
He'd probably gone into town, and Makoto didn't blame him for not wanting to bring him along. He knew that Haru had ways of getting into town and back much faster on his own, and Makoto didn't want him to be gone any longer than he needed to be. Though, he himself wouldn't have minded another hike through the mountain, as long as they didn't bother with trying to step onto another boat just yet.
He wondered what Haru was doing. Selling fish probably? He didn't know how often that was necessary, and they had been hauled up in the cove for a solid three-plus weeks, just on their own, since the last trip to town. It was probably overdue, so Makoto decided not to lament it — but he did wish Haru was with him.
Sunset seemed so far away, and he could only hope that "before sunset" meant anywhere between now and just a few hours from now.
He sat up, leaning back on his palms as he stared out at the ocean beyond the glass. The doors were closed, but the curtains were pushed back, and he didn't overly mind it. He couldn't say he was becoming comfortable with the view of the ocean yet, but it didn't immediately tighten his chest or turn his stomach anymore, and he saw that as progress.
He wondered, only briefly, if he might be able to make the walk to the edge of the shoreline on his own today, but immediately rejected the thought. He was still elated that he'd been able to make it out into the water yesterday, but he also acknowledged that that was purely because Haru had been there with him, keeping him grounded with the blue of his gaze, with the resolute hold of his hands, silently affirming that Makoto was safe and not alone, that Haru would never allow anything to harm him, and he'd fully believed that. Still fully believed it, but he needed Haru to be there if he was going to do it again, so he sighed.
What he needed, was to find a way to thank Haru for all of this. Even with as much as Haru insisted his words were plenty enough, Makoto wasn't satiated with that. He had to do something. Something to show Haru how much it all meant to him, to prove how much he'd been listening and learning, how much Haru's words and help and very presence was changing him wholly and truly as a person — into someone who was beginning to fully appreciate what this world was and everything that it had to offer. To be one with it, to trust it, to live not only in it but with it.
And furthermore, he wanted to do something that would show Haru how much he was valued as a person, as just himself. This was a man who had been alone for an amount of time Makoto wasn't even sure he really wanted to know. Anything longer than a day was going to break his heart. Haru needed to know somehow that he was cared for in return, that Makoto felt just as responsible for his wellbeing and happiness, that he would have taken Haru into his own home and fed him, and clothed him, and given him shelter and warmth and comfort if their situations were reversed. When was the last time anyone had just simply done something nice for him?
"Oh no," Makoto moaned, dropping his forehead into his hands and raking his fingers down his face with a sigh.
He knew exactly what to do.
Whether or not he could pull it off was another question entirely.
He got out of bed and headed straight for the kitchen, already breathing with dread as he stepped in front of the refrigerator and opened it.
Every day for three weeks, Haru had been teaching him how to cook. He should be capable of at least something edible. Show Haru that his hard work, time, and great patience weren't a waste.
Makoto breathed several steady breaths and willed himself to have some sort of confidence about it. Cooking wasn't hard, he just simply didn't have a gift for it. If he devoted every blood cell and brainwave to making a meal for Haru, surely he'd be able to create something that was more than just edible.
So …
"His favorite is mackerel."
And that was where he started.
He took his time, planning out what he was going to make, consulting the notebook of recipes that Haru had been scribbling in during his training. And it wasn't until then that he noticed there were more recipes at the back of the same notebook, scrawled out in different handwriting, but very much explained in the same short but precise kind of way that Haru wrote out all of his steps.
"Maho," he mumbled, running a hand down the pages.
It must have been. And now suddenly he was even more eager and determined to pull this off. If he could make a recipe that Haru had never shown him, a recipe from his grandmother's end of the collection, maybe Haru would get to have that same nostalgic moment that Makoto had, of sitting at the table with his loved ones, eating his favorite meal, stuffed with wholesome memories that brought him back to good and happy days in his childhood.
"Saba no misoni. 'Classic home-cooked dish made with mackerel simmered in a miso and ginger sauce' … Okay. We can do this. We can do this."
He continued muttering affirmations to himself as he started pulling out ingredients. He decided to start with steaming some fresh rice and tossing together a vegetable salad, since the mackerel was intimidating to him. He sliced and marinated several different kinds of mushrooms, and mixed them with a bunch of spring onions, dried seaweed, and sesame. Then he decided to quick-pickle some shredded daikon and carrots, which Haru had shown him how to do the week before, and was probably one of the simpler things he'd been able to latch onto relatively easily, seeing as there was no actual cooking involved.
The vegetables turned out just fine, and the rice practically made itself with the help of the ricer cooker, which had all kinds of buttons on it and sang songs when the rice was done. He wrapped all of these things up and put them to the side, then procrastinated a little bit more by cleaning up the mess he'd already made, and taking a break to stand in the doorway, studying the position of the sun in the sky and skeptically eyeing the clouds in the distance, before sighing and returning to the kitchen.
If he didn't try tackling it now, it might not be done before Haru made it back, and he'd like to have everything ready and plated and waiting for him.
He started by scoring a slab of fresh mackerel. He did it incredibly slowly and meticulously, because the instructions were specific about "two millimeters deep," and he wasn't sure how to measure that, but he eyeballed it as best he could and just simply hoped that that tiny detail wouldn't make or break the dish.
The mackerel was meant to be blanched, and then cleaned and patted dry before being cooked in a pan with the ingredients for the ginger sauce, and he found himself reading these few lines of instructions several times, just to make sure he understood, before slowly making his way through the process.
In his mind, he did it exactly the way that he was meant to, then made the miso mixture and added it to the simmering fish along with more spring onions. He let it go for a little while — "until the liquid is reduced by half," said the recipe — and then he transferred it to a plate and garnished it with finely sliced ginger and extra drizzles of the sauce.
It would have been foolish of him to attempt the dish once and blindly feed it to Haru, hoping that it had turned out alright simply because he'd followed the directions. He knew better than that. So he tried it, and it was awful.
It took rinsing his mouth out with hot water and aggressively rubbing his tongue with a napkin to get the taste of bitter out of his mouth, and then he dumped the failed first attempt into the trash with a sigh, checked where the sun was at again, and pushed up his sleeves for attempt number two.
It did turn out better, but not great. So he forced himself to eat the rest of it thoughtfully while he started over. Unfortunately, attempt number three somehow turned into burnt sauce and coal-like fish, and he was beginning to get a bit discouraged, but he was also somehow just as much more determined.
He moved at absolute snail speed on the forth attempt, knowing that this would probably have to be the last, because he was wasting an incredible amount of fish. He was sweating by now, and it was getting rather dark outside, though this was more so because the clouds that had once been out in the distance were now blocking out the sun, which had been getting low on the horizon anyway. Makoto gave it only half a thought, a bit nervous, because he knew Haru would be back home any minute now. But he forced himself to stay at a steady creeping pace, because he knew if he rushed it, he'd have nothing to give Haru but a plate of vegetables and rice.
It was painstaking, but he got through it, and when he gave it a tiny test bite, he nearly burst into tears, overwhelmed by the relief that it was actually good.
This. This he could serve to Haru and be happy with, and judging by the time, it should still be plenty warm for when Haru showed up. So he gave it his best plating effort, made it look as fancy and professional as he possibly could, and was rather proud of himself for how well he was able to make it look like something a five-star chef would serve at a restaurant. (At least in his own mind.)
He plated a second helping for himself, and continued the effort with the accompanying dishes, realizing afterward that he had enough time to heat up some of the premade miso soup from the refrigerator on the stove. So he did that as well and added it to the collection of dishes, then stepped back to admire his work with a smile and an exhale of pride.
He glanced out the door to find that the sky was nearly dark and growing heavier with clouds by the minute. There was no Haru to find, but he was sure he'd walk through the door any second, so he busied himself with changing into fresh clothes and combing through his hair, and picking up around the cottage. He decided to decorate around the dishes with meaningful seashells that he simultaneously feared and hoped would read as clearly as he meant for them too.
Maybe it was too much. Sentiment really wasn't Haru's thing — from what Makoto had gotten to know of him so far. But he wanted him to know. How he felt and that it was more than just gratitude — that it was borderline scary how strongly Makoto cared for him and wanted him to have things like joy, and love, and conversation in his life.
There were candles. It would be over the top to light them, wouldn't it? He shouldn't do that. That would be alarming. That would be too romantic, and Makoto wasn't sure how far he wanted to tiptoe into those realms. Being romantic wasn't the point of this — though maybe somehow he'd naturally begun to slide down that road without really thinking about it.
The rain started. Very suddenly and quite aggressively. He looked up from where he'd been staring at his arrangement of seashells just as a streak of lightening hit the sky. It made him uneasy, all on its own, but now he worried about Haru being caught in the rain, and really wished he'd been more specific about where he was off to and how he was getting there.
Hopefully, he'd just gone into town, and hopefully he'd gotten there using the mountain path. There was the waterway that he had mentioned, and Makoto wouldn't put it past Haru to take that route, but he didn't have a boat, and he couldn't imagine swimming was the most efficient way to transport goods to and from town. How would that even work?
He scratched at the back of his wrist, unaware that he was also biting at his lip, and it took a while for him to realize the rain was splattering the windowsills and doorway. He crossed the room to close them all, eyes briefly scanning the black outside before being too unnerved to look at the rising waves.
Once the noise was dampened, he sought out a towel and soaked up all the water that had gotten in, then went ahead and mopped the floors. After wringing out the mop head and washing his hands, he decided to take a seat at the island and just simply wait as patiently as he could make himself. He stared down at the food, not so much concerned about how the minutes were ticking by and he knew the fish was growing cold.
He sat with his elbows on the counter and his chin hiding in his fists, trying not to fidget, though his knee started bouncing restlessly after not too long. His eyes glanced up at the time on the oven controls, then looked back down. He could almost hear his own heartbeat as it began to pulse anxiously.
He was trying to convince himself not to worry, but either way he put it, Haru was out in the storm, and he was fearful for what that could possibly mean. He tried to remind himself that Haru was well familiar with his surroundings, far more than Makoto was, that he was comfortable with the sea and knew the lands like the back of his own hand.
Maybe he'd found shelter from the rain somewhere and was simply waiting for it to die down. That was the most ideal scenario that Makoto could think of. Because he'd said he would be home before sunset and he wasn't.
It would have been relieving if he just stepped through the door right now, dripping wet probably, but safe, and Makoto knew his relief would be far too overwhelming to hold back. He'd end up jumping up to immediately hug him again, even despite how much he knew it would probably throw Haru off. But who actually cared?
Haru had needed the embrace just as much as Makoto had, and that was really all Makoto wanted right now. If Haru was there for him to hold, then that meant that Haru was there.
He breathed in a long and sharp breath, and was very much unaware of the exhale that followed because he suddenly snapped his attention back to the windows, hair standing up at the back of his neck as something called to him. Not literally, but he wasn't sure how to explain it. It was like a pull, like a voice that he could hear only in the back of his mind, but it didn't say any actual words, it was just an intensely sudden feeling — that he needed to go outside.
He tried to deny it at first, chalk it up to just being overly anxious that Haru was still not there and him simply wanting to get up and do something about it. But the more that he stared at the dark wet window, the more that he knew that was not it. The pull wasn't a part of him. It was outside of him, and weirdly, it seemed to come from the sea itself — which was unnerving, but it insisted, and he instinctively knew somehow that this was about Haru. And that was the only reason, the only reason, that he stood up from the stool and ventured across the room to open the door directly onto the storm.
The panic was rather immediate. He was swallowed instantly by the dread of drowning, surrounded once again on all sides by rain and waves, lightening and darkness, cold, cold, cold … But a clap of thunder shook him from that, snapping him back into focus, where the waves were crashing so insistently upon the shore that it was as though they were directly trying to get his attention.
He could feel his heartbeat in his throat, but against the fear, he stepped out of the safety and warmth of the cottage and onto the wet sand, drenched within only seconds by sheets of rain. The wind whipped around him furiously, blowing his hair in all directions, and as much as he squinted, he could barely see a thing.
He didn't know what he was out here for. He didn't know why he was willingly listening to the ocean's call — or whatever it was — telling him to walk further down the beach, closer to the water, where his spine started rippling with chills and his knees turned into jelly. The water was terrifyingly angry, and he had no wish whatsoever to approach it. But the attraction was magnetizing, and he wondered if he was under some kind of spell, if he was dreaming maybe, having another nightmare, or if he'd been hypnotized by a demonic force that was determined to drown him. One that had been unsatisfied all this while that he was surviving on this island, when it had meant to yank him to the bottom of the sea weeks ago.
A blinding flash of lightening lit up the sky, stretching across the entire ceiling of dark heavy clouds with jagged branches of white light that illuminated the cove for all of a split second, and in that split second, his eyes darted toward the cliffs on the left and saw a shape braced against the tide, half on shore, half off, holding onto the sand with exhaustion as though it only had enough in it to stop itself from being ripped away and dragged into the sea.
His breath hitched, and he ran toward it.
"Haru?!"