A/N: I honestly wanted to have this done and updated a couple weeks ago, but let's just say life kept throwing things at me. But this chapter ended up longer than I anticipated, so there's a bit of a consolation? I want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for the feedback for last chapter, it was extremely kind and still makes me feel warm and fuzzy thinking about it. Also, group huddle of secondhand embarrassment for Rin - I felt it too while writing it. And of course, a big thank you to guest reviewers No0onat, Cupcake, Thegrandabyss, and Guest!
I started this fic back when I only has S1 to work off of and I wanted to address the big question of 'The Future', and I just have to say it's been so fun (and painful) and exciting watching Eternal Summer start addressing the question of 'future' more and more as the season has progressed. Especially as I was writing this chapter and watching the past few episodes come out, I've been feeling like my fic is almost like an alternate universe of ES set a couple years in the future, or like a possible outcome of ES in a surreal almost but not quite kind of way. It's been trippy, basically xD. And lots of fun seeing how some parts of my fic can still be considered canon, and also very fun trying to tie in certain parts of ES that fit in with my overall plot. Bottom line, I'm still having tons of fun writing this fic even though it takes me eons to update! (Speaking of ES, I haven't even had time to watch today's episode, I'll have to do it tomorrow before work!)
Chapter Eight: Lull (Spring - part 1)
The sun is out when he wakes up again, and a light rain patters against the sides of the house. He's tangled in the blanket, but his feet stick out and are growing ever colder, which is probably what woke him. He works himself out of the blankets and out of bed, pads barefoot to the kitchen and makes himself two slices of toast – it's nearly all he has left to eat.
The bread dries out his mouth, and he washes it down with water, chewing mechanically and staring out the window at the skyline – more of the same washed out, grayish blue. Soon enough he is out the door, swimming bag slung over his shoulder and umbrella in hand, equipped for the shower that will be coming.
The train ride feels bumpier than usual, and it's with one particularly strong jolt that he remembers, suddenly, the previous night. Rin on his porch in the cold and the yellowy light. But the more he thinks, the more the thoughts just slip in and out of focus, like he can't muster the concentration to dwell on any one thing. Like the train jostles them right out of his mind. He remembers in snatches – things like nail polish and deflated oranges and Rin's shining nose and the headbutt – and then feels too tired to keep the snatches there.
He lifts his gaze from his knees to the opposite bench, which is as empty as the rest of his compartment, typical for a Saturday morning. He casts a quick glance around anyway, to make sure no one is there to witness him thinking about the things he is. Rin's smile is what he remembers the clearest – a tentatively hopeful expression, and he doesn't know when it's from, before the not-kiss or after, but either way it feels too private to be thought of in the vicinity of others.
Then again, he's relaxed enough to break into a long, eye-watering yawn, so maybe he isn't as anxious as he thinks he is. Maybe there's nothing really to fret over.
The sun is pale and the train windows are watery from the drizzle. The droplets have time to swell thicker and rounder when the train is at rest, and are blown thin when the train moves. Rin is in the sky somewhere, up above the clouds, and Haruka won't be seeing him again for a couple of months. And it's not like anything that's happened between them can change, and there's no point worrying about what else might happen before the future even arrives.
Whatever, he thinks, leaning back against his seat and crossing his arms, eyes shutting with a grateful sting – how much sleep did he get, anyway? He pulls up his hood to cushion his head against the bumps, and feels himself unwind, the flashes of last night slowing and then turning into the blissful darkness of a mind at ease. If there's one thing tiredness is good for, it's for putting things in perspective. What's worth worrying about, and what isn't.
He's done fighting, done stagnating over whatever's happening between him and Rin. What will come will come, and he'll deal with it then. And maybe now he'll be able to grow.
By the end of the day the fridge is restocked, and he's made enough mackerel fried rice that he doesn't have to cook at least one meal tomorrow. It's plain mackerel for dinner, and then he's sitting inside but with the door to the yard open wide, so he can smell the rain and feel the chill on his face and hear that pattering like it's all up and down the hallway. For a while he just sits on the floor and stares out at the night sky and the faint streaks of rain he can see lit by the backyard lights. The air smells so clean that it feels like he can breathe more of it into his lungs than usual. He wonders if Rin has landed yet; he doesn't even know how long those flights can be, doesn't know how many connections Rin has to make, or if he's searched out direct flights far in advance.
He takes his phone to bed with him, stares at where he knows it is in the dark beside his pillow with a sense of jittery foreboding, wondering when it will light up and what it will have to say to him when it does.
His sleep is one unbroken stretch of unconsciousness, not even interrupted by dreams. Sure enough, the notification light is blinking when he wakes up. His room is dusky enough that he knows the sun is still rising; the message is timed for just past six in the morning – almost an hour ago.
He pulls up the message, and has to read it several times before any of it starts to sink in – and even when he has the words, the meaning spins right out of his head, and it's with an enormous amount of concentration that he finally makes sense of the nonsense Rin's greeted him with:
so since i'm technically living saturday twice does that mean i'm adding days to my life?
Haruka lets out a sleepy snort, turns his face into the pillow. Part of him would really like to sink back into sleep – the covers are the perfect warmth that one can only wake up to but never manage to achieve when first getting into bed. And it's silent, no rain outside, creating a stillness that settles like another layer of bedding.
But he dredges up the energy to sit up and shake the hair out of his face. He tries to blink the bleariness from his eyes but has little success, so instead he types, with lots of mistakes and lots of deleting, I don't think it has anything to do with adding days to your life.
He takes the phone with him when he goes to wash his face in the bathroom, takes it with him to the kitchen, sets it on the counter when he cooks up a fresh mackerel. He slept so deeply that he can hardly dispel the sleep that still hangs around him – he can't stop yawning, and each one pops his eardrums a little bit. He flips the fish over, stares with unfocused eyes at the charred and bubbled skin, feels his stomach growl. If he lets himself zone out enough, he can hear the blood rushing past his ears.
His phone buzzes, and his vision snaps back into focus. He shuts off the heat, picks up the phone.
but i literally am spending more than 24 hours in the same day. so like when the year's over did i spend more hours in the year than you did?
Haruka blinks, once, hard, but the message is still the same when he opens his eyes. What? is all he can think, over and over again as he serves up his breakfast and as he takes it to the living room table.
I don't know. Did you? he sends once he's seated. The reply comes before he can even pick up his chopsticks; it's overwhelming how awake Rin is when Haruka kind of wants to lie right down on the floor.
i don't know, that's why i'm asking you
Haruka heaves a sigh, and his stomach gives a loud rumble.
I don't know.
Haruka takes the resulting silence as an opportunity to start on his breakfast. He's half finished when a reply finally comes, setting the phone rattling against the tabletop.
rei probably knows
Before Haruka can set his chopsticks down to type back Probably, Rin asks him, did i wake you up?
No, Haruka sends, wondering if the rushed, anxious way he hears Rin's words are just something his mind's created. He can hardly put his phone down before he gets a response.
ok, good
He smiles, feels for a moment like Rin's spoken to him from just across the table, in a tumble of words and a stubbornly averted gaze. And then, in typical Rin fashion, Rin hides his embarrassment by saying: i just got back to the dorm, so i'm gonna finish unpacking.
Ok, Haruka sends.
Slowly, easily, the smile slips off of his face, and without his phone buzzing every second the clink of his chopsticks against his plate is the loudest thing in the house. The distance becomes a palpable thing once more, the fact that it's just a hunk of plastic-coated electronic connecting him to Rin, and that he doesn't know how long it will be quiet for, now. But that conversation had been a success, a good first, and when he brings his plate to the sink, it's with the satisfied thought of Well, that was that.
On Tuesday, the last day of March, he gets a call asking him to come in for an interview the following afternoon. He doesn't tell Makoto, because Makoto would probably have him rehearse answers to common interview questions, which Haruka thinks is really stupid and would make him a lot more nervous than necessary.
The interview room is small and very white and Haruka feels like all his answers and even the questions themselves are being sucked into the colorlessness, but he obviously says some things right, because at the end of it all the woman interviewing him asks him to come back tomorrow for a swimming trial.
He doesn't tell Makoto about this, either, because he knows Makoto would say something along the lines of 'I don't think you can tell them you only swim free this time.'
And so late afternoon on Thursday, a relatively clear day, but with a breeze that seems to come from and go to nowhere, he troops out of the men's dressing room with two others – a Shimamura and an Amano, who have been called back for the trial as well.
Shimamura is the shortest of the three of them, with light brown hair growing in darker at the roots. He's the youngest, also, just started college a few days ago, and his backpack had sounded like it was filled with bricks when he'd set it down on the bench in the locker room. He bounces when he walks with them toward the pool, like he has too much energy pent up, and his arms are crossed, fingers drumming against his biceps.
The only thing Haruka's heard Amano say so far has been his name – "Amano," in a low, quiet voice, when Shimamura had asked in the locker room. He has long hair, tied up now with many rubber bands – just rubber, none of those hair ties most people use – and a perpetual distant expression on his face. His gaze seems to always fall on something far away and far above the other two's heads; he's very tall, which doesn't make him appear any more approachable. Haruka doesn't know how anyone thinks he'll be good with kids; then again, the same can be said for him.
The pool is empty, and so is the rest of the room. They reach the deep end, stand an awkward distance away from each other.
"So who's gonna be watching us?" Shimamura asks. He uncrosses his arms, crosses them again, starts tapping his foot.
Haruka's about to say he doesn't know, when the door to the women's dressing room opens. The girl who comes out heads straight in their direction; she's in a swim suit, is tying her hair up into a ponytail. Her eyes take each of them in quickly, with a sharpness that makes Haruka think she's sizing them up. There is a brisk edge to the way she walks, long purposeful strides that close the distance between them quickly.
"Hey. Guess I'm swimming with you guys?" she says when she reaches them. She plants her fists on her hips, and the first thing Haruka thinks of is a bulldozer, not because of how she looks – she isn't very big, isn't very tall – but simply because he can tell that hers is a personality that would easily leave his in the dust.
"You here because you got a callback?" Shimamura asks her, coming to stand beside Haruka.
She grins. "Yup. You three the only other ones?"
"Looks like it," Shimamura says. He rests his weight on one hip. "You swim in town? Don't think I've seen you around before."
"That's because I don't swim in town. I swim for a club in Fube, with Reiji-kun." She points at Amano, standing behind Haruka and Shimamura.
Shimamura makes a surprised sound, a nasally "Heh?!",and spins around to no doubt ask Amano for confirmation, but the girl says, "Oh, look, I think that's our guy," and points now toward the far end of the pool.
Their supervisor comes through the doorway that connects the observation room to the pool room, the glass-paned wall right behind the shallow end. He's dressed in typical lifeguard attire – red swim trunks and white shirt, a whistle around his neck. He has long, shaggy dreadlocks, kept out of his face with a headband. Under one arm he carries a clipboard.
"Hey recruits," he calls, raising a hand in greeting as he nears. "Nice to see you all found the place. That puts us at a good start, and if everything goes as planned we'll be out of here in no time."
He introduces himself with an easygoing smile ("Hey guys, I'm Satou. Just call me Satou"), then gives them the run-down of what they'll be doing: diving in, front crawl to the end, butterfly back, then breaststroke, then backstroke. "Simple stuff, no big deal. Just take your time," he says, taking out his clipboard and folding the top pages over until he gets to the sheet he's looking for. "We don't need you to race, I just need to see that you can do each stroke across one length. And don't worry too much about butterfly; we're mainly looking for the other three. Gotta see you can do them if you wanna teach 'em."
It sounds more than easy enough, though when Haruka makes his way to the end of a lane after a few minutes of stretching by the bleachers, it's with the realization that these will be the first people outside of his group of friends who will see him swim anything other than freestyle. He feels, for just a moment, like he's about to do something inauthentic. Like he's about to do something blasphemous, even. And what if he gets into the pool and forgets how to swim every other stroke?
"Hey, you guys specialize in anything?" the girl asks from Haruka's right, pressing her goggles in place over her eyes with her palms. She gives both arms several firm slaps, the sound resounding off the high walls.
"I do back," Shimamura chimes in eagerly, on Haruka's left. His smile is a bit cocky, a bit hopeful, but the girl doesn't appear to notice. Shimamura turns to Amano on his other side, who says quietly: "Breaststroke."
In the silence that follows Haruka feels compelled to answer.
"I…free."
The girl lets out a heh sound, shows her teeth as she crouches down, ready to dive. "How perfect. I'm butterfly."
"Wait, serious?" blurts Shimamura. "How long have –"
"Get ready for the whistle," their instructor calls, standing at the pool's halfway point.
Haruka crouches, fingertips against concrete, vision tinted darker by his goggle lenses. He feels a moment's swell of anticipation, the water so near, and then the whistle sounds shrilly and they're all in.
It's clear from the second they all break the surface that even though they aren't supposed to race, none of them is willing to be last. Their energy sends a current through the water, twining around Haruka's limbs and then seeping into his muscles, warming him and filling him with adrenaline. It feels like they're all taunting each other, egging each other on to go faster, but not fast enough to lose their cool and make their lungs scream for air. Haruka's pace is a several levels beyond relaxed, but still far from the furious all out of his competition days.
He's easily the first to the turn, just as he'd intended because he knows the transition into the butterfly will feel strange. When Rin had first given him lessons, it had felt like someone else was controlling his body even though he was the one doing the swimming. The movements no longer feel completely foreign, just like rarely-treaded territory – both arms moving up over his head in tandem, a burn in his shoulders that grows and travels down his back and into his abdomen. Even the water rushing over his ears is different. Louder, maybe. Stronger. Complete submersion and emergence, like waves engulfing him over and over, streaming through his hair, pushing him under and then up. With butterfly, he almost has to force the water to part for him. There is no leisure in this stroke, no way to try to go slow without not going at all.
Two lanes over, the girl who said she specializes in the stroke catches up and begins to pass him. Haruka hears her splashes in the brief moments his ears are clear, but he doesn't bother trying to speed up; there's no hope of catching up, and the gap only widens. He knows his form isn't stellar, but he knows it isn't terrible, and he doesn't fall behind anyone else. Rin and Rei would have a cow if they saw him now, though.
He can imagine Nagisa tagging along down the length of the pool beside him while he does the breaststroke, can practically hear Nagisa's cheers of Wow, Haru-chan, look at you go! It isn't Nagisa, but Amano who is right on his heels by the end of that length, and Haruka is most happy to be finished with breaststroke, because while butterfly is the most physically demanding, he's always felt it hardest to built up momentum with breast. Too much up and down, too much bobbing; he's never been able to pick up Nagisa's art of extending his strokes at the end of the last leg.
Shimamura makes his move during the final length, steadily catching up while Haruka stares at the ceiling and wills himself not to hit his head against the wall when he reaches it. Backstroke feels the most natural, like an upside down free, but predicting what's coming ahead by what he sees above feels like trying to see things through smudged lenses.
They all finish within seconds of each other. Haruka doesn't know who finishes when in relation to whom, except for the fact that the girl is the first to touch the wall – her shout of triumph confirms it. The crowded sounds of disturbed water go quiet except for the glug glug of the gutter, and Haruka can't tell if the buzzing feeling inside of him is because the experience was exciting, or just downright strange. His heart rate has picked up, and the others are breathing quickly; it feels like there should be a crowd cheering, even though their times would be horrendous.
"All right, nice. Thanks guys," their supervisor says. "Looks like you're free to go. We'll call you up soon."
"That's it?" the girl says, still a bit breathless, but grinning. She takes off her goggles, wrings out her ponytail.
"That's it. Keep an eye on your phones, all of you. You're looking like a good group."
They all pull themselves out of the water, and Amano goes straight to talk with the advisor while the others drip onto the pool ledge.
"That was fun," the girl says to Haruka and Shimamura, and Haruka can't tell how genuine she's being. "Hopefully we'll see each other again."
"But I didn't catch your name," Shimamura says mournfully as she heads away, too quiet for her to hear. He turns to Haruka. "Did you?"
Haruka tells him he didn't, and starts for the changing room. Shimamura tags along with him, and finally says in a rush, when Haruka has changed and is slinging his bag over his shoulder to leave, "You know, I swam against your team in a relay once a couple years ago. You guys blew everyone out of the water. I've always wanted to swim against you again."
Surprised, Haruka only says, "Oh."
"I mean, not really against you because we swim different strokes, but we kinda just did swim against each other. Anyway, I'm basically trying to say I hope we both get this job, because it would be cool to swim together." He gives a winning grin, towel draped over his head, swimming bag in one hand, backpack weighing his other arm down. He looks a little bit like an over-eager Labrador who's been told to fetch too much at once. Haruka resists the brief urge to smile. He can already tell that Shimamura is the type of person everybody is bound to like no matter what.
"Me too," he says, and then he leaves.
He wonders, on the way to the train station, when exactly he swam the relay Shimamura was talking about. What team had Shimamura been on? Would Haruka even remember them if he knew?
And what about Amano, and the girl? He thinks he would have at least heard about a girl as strong in butterfly as this girl is. She had been the first to finish; an all-around swimmer, and a strong one. Amano and Shimamura had been more than decent as well. Maybe they're all good, but were never good enough to go places.
Or maybe they're like him: good enough, but not wanting to go to the places offered. Time will tell, he supposes, if he sees them again.
There are two backpacks and two extra pairs of shoes in the entranceway when he returns home, and Makoto and Nagisa's voices cutting off quickly in the living room. Then footsteps, and just as Haruka shuts the door behind him, Nagisa appears in the hallway.
"Haru-chan!"
The pompoms on the ends of Nagisa's jacket strings bounce wildly as he launches himself down the hall. The floor shakes, the walls might even rattle, and then he latches onto Haruka's arm, gives Haruka an examining look. "Where were you? You smell like chlorine; were you swimming?"
"Yeah," Haruka says. He slips off his shoes, extracts his arm from Nagisa so he can drop his bag on the floor.
Makoto appears much more calmly, leans against the entranceway into the living room. "Don't you usually go in the mornings?"
"Yeah." Haruka says. "I had job things to do."
Nagisa's eyes widen; Makoto's expression turns delighted.
"Do you have the job, then?" Makoto asks, pushing off the wall and coming over.
"Not yet," Haruka says. "They said they'll call me. What are you two doing here?"
"Staying for dinner?" Nagisa says, grabbing Haruka's wrist. "Hanging out and eating at the same time? Wow, Haru-chan, that's the best combination! I already told Mom I'd be home late, and I haven't seen you in a week."
Haruka looks at Makoto, but all he gets in response to his unspoken Are you the cause of this? is a carefully undisclosing quirk of the lips.
"All I have is mackerel," Haruka lies, which Nagisa understands as his cue to pull Haruka around Makoto and down the hall.
"Mackerel sounds great! Jeez, I'm starving!"
"You just ate a strawberry bread," Makoto says, bringing up the rear. Sure enough, amid the textbooks and notebooks on the living room table is a crinkled, crumb-covered pastry wrapper.
"Mako-chan, studying is draining," Nagisa says, craning his head around to frown at Makoto even as he continues to pull Haruka after him. "One strawberry bread isn't going to tide me over."
Nagisa lets Haruka go in the kitchen, opens the refrigerator and starts taking out packages of food – he has an eerily precise knowledge of where things live in Haruka's fridge.
"Are you staying too?" Haruka asks Makoto, and before Makoto can answer, he says, "I'll feed you both." Because he hasn't seen Nagisa in a week, and Makoto is gone during most of the day as well, and his house has been getting too quiet recently.
Nagisa lets out a whoop, Makoto gives a smile that is slightly apologetic but mostly just warm. Haruka cooks the mackerel while the other two do vegetables – "Rei-chan literally asks me every other day if I'm eating enough vegetables," Nagisa had said when he'd taken the carrots out of the fridge.
"So did they have to argue you out of swimming only free, or did you cooperate?" Makoto asks once they've sat down with their food. The smell of cooking fills the house and steam rises from their plates, but Nagisa has started digging in anyway, sucking in air as he chews to relieve his burning tongue.
Haruka gives Makoto a look he hopes is supremely unimpressed. "I can swim other things when I have to."
"Wow," Nagisa says through a cough, eyes slightly watery. "Haru-chan, you've come such a long way."
"Not really," Haruka says, and he takes a careful bite of his dinner.
He can't shake Nagisa's comment, though, in the sense that he doesn't think it could be farther from the truth. Nagisa can say whatever he wants as sarcastically as he wants, but the reality is that Haruka is still wondering what the hell he's doing. Swim teacher, a plan through summer – and then what? Maybe he'll never actually have things figured out. Maybe he'll always just be figuring things out as he goes along.
Nagisa suggests that they call Rei, and when all they get is voicemail he thrusts the phone into Haruka's face.
"Haru-chan, leave a message for Rei-chan."
"Ah, Rei." Haruka thinks for a second, lowering his chopsticks, which are holding a slice of cooked carrot. "We're eating vegetables."
Nagisa passes the phone to Makoto, then he nudges Haruka in the side and says under his breath, "Nice thinking, Haru-chan. You saved me with that one."
All in all, it's easy to dispel his worries as the night goes on – food helps but good company helps more, especially when Rei calls back at half past six and excitedly tells them about the new laboratory he discovered on campus today, with the high tech whatchamacallems and the thingamajigs, and the high-power zooming telescopes, or maybe they're microscopes, he talks so fast Haruka can hardly keep up.
The best part, the part that leaves Haruka most at ease – because somehow Rei has always been the best at saying both the wrong things at the wrong times and the right things at the right ones, and when it's the latter it's with a grace and simplicity that can leave Haruka stunned for minutes – is when he tells Rei about the swimming trial, and Rei says with utter genuineness:
"Haruka-senpai, are you saying you swam the butterfly stroke? You must have looked beautiful."
Days roll by, dreary, cold, as slowly as the clouds seem to inch through the sky – always gray and swollen and the air always smells like rain. Makoto is busier than he's ever been, and often when Haruka contemplates going over in the afternoons to see how he's doing, he instead stays home because he thinks he'll just get another Sorry Haru, I have a lot of studying to get through.
He doesn't feel alone, per se, just like he's been using his voice a lot less. He swims in the morning and then comes home and has nobody to talk to. He gets the job – he knew he would – but training doesn't start until May, so it's a waiting game now, and the beginning days of April drag on, reluctant to end. Everyone is busy except him, and he feels like he's wasting time.
He often finds himself sitting on the patio in the backyard, hair damp and jacket wrapped tight around him, answering the messages he got from Rin while he was at the pool. The sky is all shades of white or watery blue when the clouds allow it through, and the cats are gone, and the messages are about swimming – besting a previous practice time, training for this race or that one, for this meet or that one. They are messages full of motivation and drive and Haruka is glad to see them, even though a part of him feels drained a little bit more each time he tries to think of something to say back.
Almost two weeks go by like this – Haruka braves the increasingly damp mornings on the way to the pool, and finds a brief few hours of respite in swimming and teaching Hiro and coming home to text Rin on the patio.
it happened, one of the messages says one morning, paired with a picture Rin sends of what looks like a restaurant chalkboard menu displayed out on a sidewalk. Half an hour after sending the picture, Rin had sent another message, apparently remembering that Haruka doesn't read English fluently.
the second line from the bottom says they're serving mackerel
Is it the expensive restaurant? Haruka asks. He knows it can take a little while for Rin to see his message, so he leaves his phone on the patio and crosses his yard to the plants, squats down and pulls out the weeds that have started showing – and maybe this is a project he can do to take up some small bit of time some day. He has a good handful when his phone buzzes, so he drops them in the grass, wipes his hands off onto his pants on his way back to the patio.
yeah. i can't tell you how it compares to yours because it's too expensive
Why are you there, then?
there's an ice cream place next door
Isn't it cold?
ice cream generally is
Haruka lets out a breath that is somewhere between a scoff and a laugh, and he knows – can feel it bone-deep – that Rin is proud of himself for that one.
Stop smiling. Idiot.
you can't see me, Rin sends, and then several seconds later: but it's warm here today. we have weird warm days sometimes
Haruka doesn't quite know what the best thing to say would be without turning the conversation into something completely mundane. It's cold today. It's been raining a lot. I wish it was warmer. I want to swim outside, in the ocean.
I haven't eaten mackerel today, he sends, feeling kind of stupid for it. He knows he could just let the conversation drop and Rin would probably take it to mean he's busy, and then Rin would get back to his life until tomorrow's exchange. But all Haruka has to look forward to after talking with Rin is nothing, or maybe weeding. With Rin, even though he isn't using his voice, it's still conversation – he hears it in his head and feels a little less mute.
haru are you serious?! you better have some for lunch because you're freaking me out
Haruka smiles, can't quite reign in the muscles to make it fade. I bought meat for lunch today.
don't fucking lie
This usually happens at one point during their text exchanges – a pain will grow in the very center of Haruka's chest, a happy feeling mixed with a sad one, the feeling of missing someone and being in touch with them at the same time. He can see Rin so clearly when they talk, can see grins and devious eyes and eyebrows that pull up and pull down and make every sentence something dramatic.
And then Haruka's eyes will refocus and it's the fence that he sees, and the garden and the grass, and he's the only one there.
Rin is in the palm of his hand and on the other side of the ocean. There isn't really a way to adjust to that; at least he hasn't found it yet.
I wouldn't lie about that.
prove it. send me a picture.
Haruka's never sent a picture with his phone before, and doesn't know if he knows how, but it doesn't matter because the time for it is gone the next moment.
oh hey i have to go. early practice today
Haruka exhales, feels the painful feeling in his chest flood out of him, leaving him emptied.
Okay.
He sets the phone down, brings his knees up and crosses his arms over them. Even Rin is busy now, leaving him acutely aware of how incredibly un-busy he is. His entire body feels fidgety, strung tight by the hours of nothingness ahead of him.
It's mostly time to think, which is a dangerous thing because he thinks about his parents' concerns, worded very carefully in the letter he received a few days after that uncomfortable phone call he made, in which he informed them of his newest shift in plans.
In the letter they had said (in his mother's handwriting, but in two voices) things about taking unnecessary risks and not having plans and having to think hard about whether he's ready to face the outcomes of his choices. The suggestion that perhaps it is not too late to revisit the question of what he could do with a talent he is so blessed to have.
And of course when he begins thinking of blessed talents he begins thinking of what Rin had said out at the gazebo, about Haruka's talent and all the waste it's going to.
You can't just not do anything with it.
Which is exactly what he's doing right now.
He knows his parents wrote it all in a letter because they don't want to seem too imposing by talking all over him. They're just worried, and want to give advice, but want to give him the option of foregoing it, because they want him to make his own choices. And Rin…
Rin loves greatness in other people as much as he loves it in himself, and this can be a double-edged sword. He never means to make people feel like he's overlooking them, but sometimes he has his sights so set on himself that he doesn't realize that what he thinks is praise, or motivation, or even friendly exasperation – what he thinks is him looking outwards – is the exact opposite.
Rin would feel guilty if he knew how he was making Haruka feel now, and Haruka feels guilty just thinking about it.
It's the lull, that's all that's making him feel so down. He's used to always having his friends around, to always having things he needs to do. There is an empty April between him and forward motion again, another obstacle to surmount. A few more weeks and he'll be back on track.
When the doorbell rings on Saturday afternoon, Haruka is lying on his stomach on the living room floor, doodling on a pad of paper he scrounged up while cleaning out his desk drawers earlier – something to try to pass the time. The entire side of his hand is coated in smudged pencil lead, which he wipes off the best he can on a clean part of the paper before he stands up. He kicks the notepad underneath the table, then goes to get the door.
Makoto is bundled up warmly on the doorstep, a collapsed umbrella in hand. "Hi Haru," he says. "What are you up to?"
"Nothing really," Haruka says. He doesn't get the sense that Makoto wants to come inside – he wouldn't be dressed so warmly if he was just going to walk up the stairs to Haruka's house.
Makoto gives an understanding hum. "A few more weeks, right?"
"Yeah."
"Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to go swimming," Makoto says quickly.
Haruka perks up. "Really?"
"I know you just went earlier, but maybe after lunch –"
"Let's go."
Makoto laughs, steps aside to reveal the swimming bag on the ground behind him. "I figured that's what you'd say."
"Wait a second," Haruka says. He slips back inside, gathers up his things and is out the door in less than a minute.
It drizzles on the way to the station, and Makoto uses him umbrella to shield both of them. Haruka thinks about pointing out that it's not actually raining hard enough to get them wet, but Makoto would probably just give some vague sign of hearing him but ignoring him and keep the umbrella out anyway.
"Sorry I've been so busy," Makoto finally says, sounding a bit guilty, when the station is in view. "I finished things early this weekend to make up for it."
A group of teenage girls comes their way down the sidewalk, talking and laughing loudly. They part when they reach Haruka and Makoto, half the group stepping into the street and the other half forming single file to go past on the sidewalk, not even pausing their conversation in the process.
"You didn't make yourself do too much, did you?" Haruka asks, glancing over, searching for signs of fatigue or stress.
Makoto shakes his head, smiling in the way he's developed that tells Haruka nothing. "No, it's fine."
Suspicious, Haruka thinks.
The train ride is quiet until Makoto reaches into an inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out something that crackles – a chip bag that he rips open and then offers Haruka.
"Nagisa brought some to class the other day," he says, taking the bag back when Haruka makes no move towards it. "They're really addicting."
They're orange and smell somewhat poisonous; Haruka feels a little queasy watching Makoto stick them into his mouth, feels queasier still when Makoto starts licking the powder off of his fingers.
"You shouldn't eat before going swimming."
"It's just a snack," Makoto says, tone appeasing and fingertips stained orange even once the powder is gone.
"If you eat too much you'll throw up in the pool."
Makoto breaks into an explosive laugh, and then a fit of coughing. Haruka watches, alarmed, but Makoto waves him off with a strangled, "I'm fine, I'm fine!" A young woman in the far corner of the compartment glances up from her book, pulls her eyebrows together severely, and looks back down.
"Haru!" Makoto says, eyes streaming, once he's regained his breath. "We're not going to a meet, jeez!" He tries to look stern, but his mouth twitches into a smile, and then he's laughing non-stop, hand over his mouth as he tries to keep the volume down.
"Was it that funny?" Haruka asks.
"I don't know," Makoto says, shoulders shaking. "I think I just missed hearing you say things."
A senior citizens' class is just finishing up when they arrive at the pool, so they take a seat on the bleachers. Haruka doesn't usually notice the smell of the chlorine when he visits in the mornings – maybe he's become so entrenched in the habitual actions of everyday that his nose forgets to smell while at the pool, only remembers to breathe – but arriving later he's once more aware of the scent that permeates everything. Thick, pungent, it feels almost like a film over his nostrils, made even thicker by the warmth of the many bodies in the room right now.
Chlorine has never been a pleasant smell to him, but it has always been a welcome one, and as the seniors slowly make their way out of the pool and the lanes are laid out, he feels his muscles tense with the anticipation of diving right in.
He hears a chuckle, looks over to find Makoto watching him.
"What?"
"Nothing," Makoto says, with a smile that is very much not nothing.
Haruka realizes he's drumming his feet impatiently against the bleachers, and immediately stops. He turns his face away, until Makoto taps his shoulder as a sign that they can get in the pool, and then he's on his feet and off the bleachers in seconds.
The other lanes start to fill quickly with recreational swimmers, but Haruka still feels calmer than he can be anywhere else. He takes an easy lap, the air gone cool against his face each time he turns his head for a breath. The air even tastes of chlorine, a friendly bite on the tip of his tongue.
He thought Makoto would be swimming too, but when he makes it back to the wall he's surprised to find Makoto waiting, treading water, something surprisingly close to a smirk on his face.
"So, since you swim backstroke now…" Makoto says, and he's already turning to grasp the gutter, ready to take off.
Haruka doesn't think, just grabs the wall and hears Makoto say Go! and then he's swimming and the ceiling speeds by above. He doesn't realize until after they've left the lane markers bobbing in their wake, until his arms are tired and Makoto is already treading water again by the time Haruka touches the wall, that the words I only swim free hadn't even made it into his head.
Makoto laughs, probably at the look of surprise that Haruka feels on his face, and says, "Don't you have a reputation to uphold?"
Haruka frowns. "What's the point?" he says, and pushes off the wall to take another slow lap. Face back in the water, the frown dissipates. Because Makoto is swimming, which is infinitely more important that some stupid reputation he never even asked for, and Makoto is swimming with him, which is so comforting in its familiarity that he thinks he could just swim away all the worry he's been piling on.
"I still mostly swim free," he says, when they cross paths again, around the middle of the pool, and Makoto gets the implied I want a rematch.
"Give me a head start," Makoto says, tailing Haruka back to the wall. "Come on, I have no chance otherwise."
Haruka says nothing, just takes hold of the gutter and waits.
"Count to five," Makoto says, positioning himself into a sideways crouch against the wall. "Okay? Ready, go!"
Haruka rolls his eyes and starts counting, panics at three because Makoto is getting too far ahead too fast, and sets off after him.
His lungs are burning afterwards, but Makoto can hardly breathe, has his arm stuck into the gutter to hold himself up – maybe they should have started in the shallow end. Makoto's too busy panting to notice that they've won themselves a small audience – a few of the other swimmers had stopped in their lanes to watch and are only now returning to their laps. Haruka can't tell what sort of expressions they might wear beneath their goggles. He's too invigorated to care much.
"I'll beat you one of these days," Makoto says in a rush of air, mouth pulled up in a grin that is harsher than usual. A lost race is a lost race, even if it's lost with grace.
"Hm" is all Haruka says, before gliding away again, this time on his back. He stares at the ceiling, all the metal beams up there, the checker of windows so high up that no one will ever look through them, that only the pale wash of sunlight can traverse. Makoto passes by in the next lane, just swimming, and for a little longer Haruka has no trouble breathing.
They get lunch at a tiny ramen hut near the shoreline, where the broth is steaming and salty and the noodles fill the bowls forever, and the pork cutlets aren't mackerel but really, they're good enough. Makoto's nose is running by the time they're finished; he leaves a graveyard of crumpled napkins behind, takes two more for the road when they leave.
Haruka feels heated through, cheeks and nose and hands warm, stomach full, his jacket left unzipped at the neck. It's stopped drizzling, but everything looks gray – the bits of visible sky, the ocean, even the sand on the beach. The smell is gray too; the air is too many parts cold air and too few parts sea salt.
"If I wasn't here to stop you, you'd actually swim in that, wouldn't you?" Makoto asks after a long bout of silence broken only once by the trumpeting sound of him blowing his nose.
Haruka had been staring fixedly out at the water – it looks nearly solid enough to walk on, eerily still. "Not yet," he says, a hint of defensiveness, his hands going into his pockets. "It's still too early."
Makoto chuckles. "You've gotten more sensible in the past couple of years, at least."
Haruka's about to deny any such thing, but Makoto makes a quick turn, shoulder bumping his, and starts toward the beach. Haruka hesitates for a moment, then follows. Hesitates again when he reaches the edge of the sand and Makoto is several paces ahead, dropping his bag and removing his shoes and socks.
It's too cold to swim is on the tip of his tongue, but Makoto looks back at him over his shoulder.
"It's just nice to feel the sand when it isn't scorching hot on your feet," Makoto says.
Haruka lets his bag fall to the ground, takes off his shoes and socks. The sand is cold, but not unbearable; it's gritty and soft and spills between his toes and around his heels. He follows Makoto closer to the water. The tide is low, a languid push and pull of water, and they stop a few paces before the damp line in the sand.
"Why are we standing here?" Haruka asks.
"I don't know," Makoto says. "I just don't feel like going home yet."
Suspicious, Haruka thinks again, but only halfheartedly. The water looks so listless, like even it is going through its tidal routine halfheartedly, only expending enough energy to create the slightest of whispers against the beach. It's hard to believe that high tide could exist, hard to believe the ocean won't just continue on forever like the exhausted thing it is now.
"Do you think I made a mistake?" Haruka says. Makoto doesn't have to ask what he's talking about, for which he is infinitely thankful. He can feel the immediate snag in the air when Makoto understands, like he's reeling the question in to think about it.
"Well…I think that you made a big decision, so you're going to be worrying about whether it was the right one for a while," Makoto says. "But… I think you know what's best for you." In tandem, they look at each other, and Makoto smiles. "I mean, you didn't just make a choice off of a whim. You didn't just wake up one morning and decide you suddenly didn't like school and wanted to do this instead. You thought about it. And it was a big decision. It's normal to second-guess that kind of thing. I don't think you'd be rational if you just did things and didn't look back on them and question yourself."
"I don't like having to sit around and not do anything."
"You're not patient," Makoto agrees pleasantly.
Haruka digs his toes into the sand, looks away. "I feel like I'm wasting my time."
"Honestly? You want to know what I think?"
Haruka nods, jaw set stubbornly.
"I think you're allowed to feel this way, and I think you're allowed to regret things, even if it's just more because you're worried than actually regretful. But…what was the point of doing what you were doing in school?"
"Nothing really," Haruka mumbles. He can't tell if he feels better because this is what he needed to hear, or because it's what he wanted to hear, or if he doesn't feel better at all.
"Exactly," Makoto says. "So I think I get to remind you that you didn't just throw things in the air. Wait a little bit longer, until this job actually starts, and then see if you still feel how you do now."
"Waiting's hard." Haruka sighs. "I think too much."
"You should find something to do."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Start a rock collection? Learn to drive? Hang out with Ran?"
"I'm not going to –" Haruka starts, but he realizes that Makoto is joking about the last one. "Shut up," he mutters.
Makoto laughs. "Just don't let her see you all gloomy. She'll be crushed. She'll paint you more rocks."
Haruka zips up the top of his jacket, buries his chin into the collar. "It's more than just this decision, about quitting school and taking this job," he says. He looks at his feet, wiggles his toes and watches the sand stream off. He can feel Makoto waiting, can feel it in the expectant pressure in the air. "I haven't really known what I've been doing since the end of high school. If – do you ever think – the scouts…" He feels flustered, kicks at the approaching water, but it slows and recedes before it gets to him, gives him a sigh for his efforts. "If then I'd at least know what I was doing?"
"Would you?" Makoto says simply, a question with nothing disguised beneath it, the answer space completely for Haruka's filling.
Haruka snorts quietly. "No." He looks over at Makoto's feet, can't raise his eyes any higher. "Maybe I'd know more, though. Have some idea of what's coming."
"Maybe," Makoto says, with an airiness that Haruka visualizes as a shrug.
Haruka looks out over the ocean, narrows his eyes and wonders if he sees a speck of a fishing boat in the distance, or if it's just the water's reflection. "I…I talked to Rin. He talked to me about it."
Makoto exhales, and it sounds like relief, like he's suddenly figured out where this is all stemming from. "He's going to have to let go of this some day."
"I think he has," Haruka says. He gives a stiff shrug, feels the discomfort gnawing its way back down his arms. The antsyness in his chest, and the lethargy that makes him loathe to do anything about it. "Mostly. Except for sometimes."
"Rin…" Makoto trails off, makes a warm sound in his throat that isn't quite a laugh. "Sometimes he tries to motivate when it isn't needed."
Haruka looks at Makoto, feels like he's missing something – there had been something sentimental in that statement, something more personal than just a few throwaway words. But Makoto's smile is just a Makoto smile, directed first out at nowhere over the ocean, and then at him, and it's probably something Haruka doesn't have to know about. Who knows what Rin and Makoto talk about on their free time, anyway; who knows what Rin bugs Makoto about when no one else is around.
"You and professional swimming…" Makoto gives a one-shouldered shrug, a bouncy, unconcerned motion. "I'm sure you could've found a way to like it. But you've never really been the type of person to do things you don't think you need."
It's a nod toward a conversation they had a long while ago, when decisions were pending and Haruka had asked Makoto to Help, actually just tell me something, and Makoto had asked him, What do you think you need in order to be happy?
It had thrown Haruka for a loop, because for so long it had been for the team. And now the team was going away regardless, and it was for himself solely that he was – that he should be, as Makoto had reminded him with that question – making a choice.
What had made him happy? What did he think he'd need to be happy? They hadn't been light questions. He wanted to swim, but he didn't want to be erased by swimming.
I don't need to give my swimming to anyone, he had told Makoto, after a few days of mulling the question over. I don't think. And Makoto had smiled, proud and supportive no matter what the answer would have been.
"I think you're being free," Makoto says now. "There's a difference between that and being careless. You're still doing things. But your own way. Honestly, with things how they are now, I have a hard time imagining you doing things any different. Does that even make sense?" He laughs, short and under his breath, then tips his head back so he can look at the sky. "I guess I just feel like you're still being you, even if the road you're taking isn't traditional. It's still genuine. It's Haru, because it isn't what anyone else is asking you to do."
"I don't have a plan though."
"Maybe you do and you don't know it yet," Makoto says.
Haruka frowns, but Makoto just tilts his head to look at him, smile holding steady.
"Maybe," Haruka relents, looking away. Time stretches on, the bottoms of his feet start to grow cold in the sand, and the water comes closer and closer to his toes. Maybe the weather's a reason he feels so gloomy; the past several months have been a source of more bad than good, and it's been overcast almost the entire time.
More than bad, the past months have been a source of just too much. He's hardly thought about Rin kissing him; still doesn't remember the feeling, just the impact. And he talks to Rin more frequently now that he has almost ever before, and what's going to happen when summer comes?
"Do you…" Haruka gestures with his hand helplessly. "Ever feel like you don't know what you're doing, too?"
"Hmm… Not that often," Makoto says. There's a pause, time for an inhale, and then he continues on. "But sometimes I'll just be lying in bed at night and I'll think about it and I just, I don't know, feel like I have no idea. I have plans, but what if I just can't accomplish them? What if everything I'm doing gets me nowhere, or what if it's not right, or what if I'm just…" He gives a long exhale, and sounds like he's smiling again when he continues. "But that's only sometimes."
"What do you do when you feel that way?" Haruka asks. He looks over, finds Makoto's forehead pinched, a troubled expression which leaves him worried.
"I guess…I just tell myself that I can either keep going or just stop," Makoto says. "You already know – I want to be able to help my parents out, but do something that I'll like also. But how much do I really like what I'm doing? I like it," he says quickly, but then sighs. "I don't dislike it, but will it stay that way in the future? I don't know. If it's the future, who knows." He shrugs. "But I want to start swimming with you more. It's really a shame I haven't been in the pool for so long."
It feels like a dodged bullet, but Haruka doesn't know how to keep prying. It's always Makoto doing the needling; there's no way he'd be able to without being blatantly obvious.
"Growing up is hard," Haruka mumbles.
Makoto chuckles. "Yeah. But I think what you're doing is pretty amazing."
Stop making this about me, Haruka wants to say, but he bites his tongue. He feels anything but amazing, and the question is, how can Makoto still think he is?
And what is Makoto harboring, and how much does he actually want Haruka to know? How much does he want Haruka to try to get it out of him on his own?
The water licks at their toes, and Makoto jumps back with a strangled squeak. Haruka flinches at the cold, feels the skin beneath his toenails hurt, like they've been stuck with pins. The water retreats, but the sand he's standing on is still ice; he feels his heels throb.
"Haru, how are you still standing there?!" Makoto splutters, several paces behind him.
Haruka turns around, heads for his shoes. "It's just water," he says, passing by Makoto, who's trying to rub the wet sand off of his feet. "You're the one who decided to stand in the sand barefoot."
"Don't lie!" Makoto calls after him. "You're cold too; it's all over your face!"
"Cold isn't on my face," Haruka says, picking up one of his socks and turning it right side out.
Makoto catches up to him, sending sand everywhere, all over their shoes and bags. "Your toenails are blue," he says.
Haruka burrows his toes into the sand. "I'm not cold."