A/N: Well, this chapter turned into a 22 page monster, and I'm just going to lie down for ten years to recover. On a serious note, I'm not going by the canon for Sousuke's story; it's up to you whether he ever had his shoulder injury, but if he did, he was a lot more intelligent about dealing with it, so that's about all I'll say on that topic. More importantly, now that I'm getting pretty far into this story, I'm at the point where I've already looked back over some of the previous chapters and found an inconsistency I had to correct. Basically, a drawback of posting a story chapter by chapter is that if my ideas change, there's already so much that's been published, and I'd like to be able to catch things I've contradicted in one way or another, but I know I probably won't remember or catch them all. So if you notice any inconsistencies, please don't hesitate to bring them to my attention (be nice about it though, I'm honestly low-key stressing about this!) because I'd like to go back and smooth anything over that's formed a wrinkle. You're welcome to be my editors in that sense, I guess, since I'm literally the only person that sees this story before it gets posted. Okay, that's that, enjoy the chapter!
Chapter Eleven: Momentum (Summer - part 1)
The first lesson comes too fast – ironic, because in April Haruka wasn't sure the end of May would ever arrive. But it's here now, and the pool is full of toddlers and their parents, the first lesson of the morning coming to a close. Every now and then, a childish shriek of delight rips through the general drone of a full pool room, ricocheted and amplified by the high ceiling.
"God, I'm nervous," Zaki says out of the corner of her mouth. "They're just kids, but jeez, I'm nervous. Are you nervous? God, why am I so nervous?"
Haruka glances over, sees her drumming her fingers against her elbows. The two of them stand between the entrance to the men's locker room and a rack of bright yellow kickboards, as though they want to blend into the wall and go unseen. The bleachers are full of prospective students; Haruka has tried not to look that way too much.
"Aren't you early?" he says.
Zaki starts one shift after he does, and he'd rather point this out than admit that her jitteriness is wearing off on him. The brickwork is hard against his shoulder blades, but he's worried that if he starts shifting he won't be able to stop.
"Gotta see what it's like," Zaki says, with a restless grin. "Gotta prepare myself." She sounds like she's preparing for a battle.
The locker room door opens, and Amano comes out looking a little harried, probably because Shimamura practically bounces through the door behind him.
"Hey! So, you guys ready?" Shimamura says, rounding immediately on Haruka and Zaki. "Don't be nervous. Everything will go great."
"Calm down, Mister Big-Shot," Zaki says, words slow, doing an impressive job of hiding the nerves Haruka had just seen. "Two lessons in and you're already an expert?"
Shimamura and Amano work Friday and Saturday, whereas Haruka and Zaki work Saturday and Sunday. Two lessons per day, five students per class, so twenty kids Haruka has to teach to swim, or swim better. He agrees with Zaki: they're just kids, but jeez, he's nervous.
"Well, maybe not an expert," Shimamura says, leaning a shoulder against the wall next to Zaki. "But they went pretty well, huh, Amano?"
"They went well," Amano says, looking at the space between Shimamura and Zaki's shoulders mistrustfully.
"Yeah, well, looks like you guys have to go," Zaki says, shooing them all away from her.
The pool is emptying, and Satou stands near the bleachers with a clipboard, his dreadlocks pulled back with a headband. He waves them over when he sees them looking his way.
"Don't be nervous," Amano says to Zaki before they leave. Like most things, it's hard to tell if he's being sincere or sarcastic. Zaki just shoos him away more vigorously.
Haruka's heart is definitely beating faster when he's standing in front of the rows of parents and their restless children. Satou reads off the groupings and before Haruka's really aware of what's going on, he's sitting in a circle with five little kids at the side of the pool. The youngest is four and the oldest is six, and they all look at him with eyes round in anticipation. There are probably countless ways he could start things off, but he thinks the most relevant is:
"Do you like to swim?"
It's a relief when they break into grins and a resounding chorus of "Yeah!"
"So can we go in now?" the six year old girl asks, leaning forward over her crossed legs. The others' heads bob, enthusiasm all around, a rainbow of goggle lenses on their foreheads and a rainbow of swim caps over their hair.
Heartened, Haruka goes over introductions, and then the pool rules ("What do we have to do when we're outside the pool?" "Walk!" they all cheer. "How do we get into the pool?" "The steps!") and then he lets them flock to the rack to collect their kickboards.
"So far so good?" Zaki says, arms crossed, still standing where they left her. She's almost smiling; there's a tinge of laughter to her voice.
"So far," Haruka says, and then he has his group file away so Amano's bunch of kids can hone in on the kickboard rack.
The water has a balancing effect on him – the moment his foot touches the first step, he already feels more focused. Three of his group let out little squeaks of "It's cold!" and clutch their kickboards close as they tiptoe down the steps; the other two have already hopped down the stairs and are urging the rest on.
It's just swimming, Haruka thinks, facing his group once they're all lined up against the wall, the water up to almost their shoulders. They can't keep still, brimming with little kid energy that reaches Haruka through the water, the first inklings of fun.
Teaching swimming and learning swimming – it's all just swimming, Haruka realizes. And he's never had trouble just swimming before, so why should he now?
"I'm starving," Shimamura moans, a little over two hours later.
The smell of chlorine has travelled into the hallway, probably from all the people who have carried it with them through the changing rooms. Haruka knows how persistently it clings, even after a shower. The four of them likely carry it with them, too.
"You shouldn't have waited for us," Amano says, pulling his still-damp hair into some sort of knot on his head.
Shimamura looks at him like he's said something mildly hurtful. "Nanase and I wanted to go to lunch with you guys."
Haruka hadn't actually said anything of the sort, he just hadn't argued against the suggestion, and from the look Amano gives him over Shimamura's head – an unimpressed blankness that Haruka knows perfectly well how to school onto his own face – he knows Amano isn't fooled.
Zaki doesn't seem to care either way, and says from Haruka's left, "Well, we're getting meat."
When they turn the corner and the front doors come into view, though, Haruka spots three very familiar people milling around the railings outside. Nagisa is the first to notice him, and calls out something that doesn't travel through the glass.
"Oh, hey, whose friends are those?" Zaki says.
Makoto and Kou have broken off their conversation and wave. Kou has a large wicker basket hanging from the crook of her arm.
"Mine," Haruka says.
Once they're through the door, Nagisa zooms over and introduces himself to everyone, and renders Amano speechless by calling him Reiji-chan ("I'd call you Rei-chan, but I already have a friend named Rei-chan, so it looks like you'll have to settle for Reiji-chan, okay Reiji-chan?") Even Shimamura can only get out a surprised "Oh, okay, yeah," when Nagisa asks to call him Kota-chan. Zaki is the only one who takes everything in stride, grinning from ear to ear at the other two's reactions ("So do I call you Nagi-chan, or…?" she even asks Nagisa, who is delighted by the idea.)
"What are you doing here?" Haruka asks Nagisa a bit helplessly.
Kou comes to the rescue, nudging Nagisa over with her hip and a bit of a forced laugh. She holds up the basket. "Well, we wanted to surprise you, and I figured you'd probably want to eat. Um, I didn't make enough for everyone, though," she says, looking at Haruka's coworkers.
"Don't worry about it," Zaki says. She jams her elbows into Amano and Shimamura's sides. "Me and Reiji-chan and Kota-chan were gonna go find a place to eat anyway. We'll let you guys do your thing. See ya, Nanase." She steers them away, bursting into laughter when Amano, ears shining red, mutters something to her that is too quiet for Haruka to make out.
"Wow, Haru-chan," Nagisa says, while Makoto lifts a hand in a bit of an embarrassed farewell. "Your friends seem really cool."
Haruka has a very vivid recollection of Shimamura getting his head stuck in his t-shirt and running into a locker a few minutes ago, and says, "Er, I guess."
There's a little picnic area at the back of the building that they head to – four tables, benches, and even a drinking fountain set atop a slice of tarmac. They're right behind the pool; Haruka recognizes the windows set impossibly high in the wall, but he can't hear anything coming from them. It's either free-swim and nobody's in the pool, or they just aren't slanted open enough for sound to squeeze through.
The entranceway remains open, and a tall wooden fence with no discernible gate along either length makes up the other two sides of the enclosure. What's beyond the fence, Haruka doesn't know; it gives the place a sense of isolation, somewhere you could go to lay your head down on a table if you wanted to be away from everything and listen to the birds and planes and cars all out of sight.
Kou takes a checkered blanket out of the basket and lays it atop one of the tables, then she takes out four bento boxes. "I got up early this morning to make them, so you better all like them," she says, setting out napkins and utensils next. "I didn't add any protein powder this time, but…" She gives Makoto and Nagisa a critical look as they sit across from her. "Some of you could use some."
"Gou-chan, that hurts," Nagisa says, not sounding hurt at all and already opening up the bento nearest him.
Kou pulls the bento back to the middle of the table. "Well, I hope you're all at least staying active. You need to take care of yourselves, you know, even if you aren't swimming anymore." When she doesn't get a reply she turns a dangerous stare on Makoto and Nagisa; it makes Haruka think of a mother who hasn't had the opportunity to nag her children in a while.
"I run with Haru," Makoto says, raising his hands.
"I run to class when I'm late," Nagisa says, fingers inching for a pair of chopsticks. "Do you stay active, Gou-chan?"
She lifts her chin. "That doesn't matter." Before either of them can say anything, she turns to Haruka and says brightly, "So, Haruka-senpai, how were lessons?"
Haruka thinks for a moment of the ten little swimmers under his instruction, of ten colorful pairs of goggles and loose kickboards and feet splashing clumsily, and the Awws of disappointment when lessons had ended.
"It went well," he says, and Kou smiles at him.
"Great!" Nagisa says. "Then we can eat!"
This time, Kou lets him snatch away a bento box. She tries to look stern for a moment, but this only lasts as long as it takes for Nagisa to exclaim, through a full mouth, that the food is delicious. She catches Haruka's eye, pushes a bento box in front of him.
"Haruka-senpai, eat! You've been busy!"
After they eat they wander, and eventually they end up back at their high school, in front of the flowerbed they planted in the spring. The bushes all around have grown thicker and taller, and the flowers have grown as well, petals bright orange and yellow and leaves a healthy green.
Haruka's looking over the tops of the bushes, though, through the chain link to the pool deck beyond. He can't see the water – the deck's too high – but he can still imagine himself at the poolside looking in, can imagine the sun beaming onto the surface and making it look glass-like, as easily as he can remember the feeling of the cement on his bare feet, burning when it was too hot. He can see the starting blocks, too, and can almost hear the buzz of a start signal and the wall of sound that is eight swimmers hitting the water in near-unity.
"Now that I'm standing here…" Kou starts to say, trailing off into another long stretch of silence. Haruka looks over at her, sees that she's been staring at the pool as well. Nagisa, on her other side, also looks on silently, a faraway, reminiscing sort of glaze to his face. Next to Haruka, Makoto chuckles as though he already knows what Kou is going to say.
"I kind of feel like I'm still supposed to order you all into the pool to get to practice," Kou finally finishes.
Off in some unseen part of campus, a lawnmower hums away. Otherwise, it's quiet until Haruka says, "We could probably climb the fence."
Kou looks at him. "Are you still wearing your swimsuit?"
"No," he says. He shrugs the swim bag on his shoulder. "But I could be soon."
"What about us, Haru-chan?" Nagisa says, all the dreaminess in his expression gone, to be replaced with an exaggerated pout. "Normally I don't mind skinny-dipping, but with Gou-chan here I don't know if I could do it."
"Nagisa…we're still in public anyway," Makoto says.
"It's a weekend, who's gonna be here?"
"You're not skinny-dipping!" Kou says.
Nagisa crosses his arms. "Gou-chan, if this has to do with you thinking I need some more protein powder –"
"Oh my god, Nagisa-kun, stop it!" Kou claps a hand over her face, starts laughing. Nagisa joins in, and their peals of laughter flurry around the flowerbeds. Haruka watches with a sense of baffled amusement. Slowly, their smiles slip away.
"I miss Rei-kun," Kou says.
Nagisa sighs. "Me too."
"Can we call him?" Makoto asks.
Nagisa shrugs in a way that implies No. "One of his clubs has a brunch thing Saturday mornings." He squats down in front of the flowers, wraps his arms around his knees.
"One of his clubs?" Makoto says. "How many is he in?"
It's Kou who answers. She, too, sound subdued. "I think two. Society of Chemical Engineering something-or-other, and Biological-Chemical something Institute. Something like that." She kneels down next to Nagisa, who says to her, "Wasn't there something about some Brotherhood of So-and-So too?"
"Oh, yeah. The all-boys one. Sounds boring."
Nagisa laughs. "Gou-chan! Seriously, coming from you?"
Kou shrugs, and Nagisa's grin fades, and then the two of them stare at the flowers and don't say anything.
Haruka catches Makoto's eye; Makoto gives a small smile that's a little bit sad.
Haruka sometimes forgets that, especially after he and Makoto left Iwatobi High, Kou, Nagisa, and Rei were their own unit, completely separate from the group as a whole. What with carrying the swim club forward through its third year and finally getting it popular enough to warrant tryouts for new members, the three of them had shouldered a lot of responsibility together. Rei never particularly wanted to become captain, but he held the post dutifully with as much projected enthusiasm as possible, with the other two to lean on. And they did put together a very good team; amazing, for one person who hadn't know how to swim two years prior, and one who still doesn't, and then Nagisa, who Haruka still has trouble imagining holding any sort of authority position.
Though the reboot of the swim team had been his idea in the first place, and that had counted for everything.
"Do you think we can pick these?" Nagisa's asking Kou. Their heads are together, another sign of time spent together in discussions and planning. Haruka watches them, and even though he know it can't be the same, he wonders if this is anything like what it is for people who see him and Makoto together.
"Well, we planted them," Kou says. "But…"
"I don't want to kill any," Nagisa says, touching a bright orange petal with the tip of his finger.
"I think you'd need shears. I think just tearing it off will hurt it."
"Rei-chan would know."
Kou looks skeptical. "I doubt it; he didn't know anything last time. Why do you want to pick them, though?"
"'Cause they're so nice, of course! Ah, wait, look." Nagisa flops down cross-legged, picks one of the weedy white wildflowers sticking out of the grass instead.
"Those aren't nearly as nice," Kou says.
"Sure they are," Nagisa says. He plucks a second, then tucks one behind Kou's ear and the other behind his own. Grinning, he looks up at Makoto and Haruka. "Mako-chan, Haru-chan, how about you?"
Kou turns her head too, and with the two of them looking at him, jewel-toned eyes and a flower each behind an ear, Haruka feels a moment of profound protectiveness.
Has it really been so long since they were all on the other side of this fence together, Kou chasing them into the pool and timing their laps and handing out water bottles, Nagisa instigating impromptu breath-holding contests, or handstand contests, or diving contests? Haruka left this pool behind at the same time Makoto did, but now Nagisa and Kou have too, and it feels like…
Like they've all thrown off that security blanket now, that common thread that brought them together almost every day, so they'd always know what was going on with each other, could always see what was happening on each other's faces, track the change. Even after graduating, there had been a reason for Haruka to come back – not often, but once in a while, to see Kou and Nagisa and Rei at the pool and trick himself into believing for a little while longer that the scene in front of him was timeless.
Makoto politely turns down a flower. Nagisa puffs out his cheeks and announces that that just means more for everyone else, and he makes Kou laugh by picking another weed and putting it behind her other ear.
Kou tears up some grass, throws it into Nagisa's hair. Nagisa retaliates by doing the same to her. Makoto halfheartedly suggests that maybe they shouldn't mess up the lawn, and has grass thrown at him.
At least things haven't changed drastically, Haruka thinks.
They wander more, through the streets lined with food stops and boutiques and china shops, and little hole in the wall places that take up so little space they look like they've been forcefully wedged between whatever two businesses surround them.
Some of the doors are shut, some are open; some are decorated with beads and baubles designed to make noise when visitors arrive, or little lights to be lit once the sun is down, or craftsy-looking signs flipped over to 'Open'; others are less festive: unlit neon lettering, or the business hours stenciled into panes of glass, or nothing at all.
Kou and Nagisa walk few paces ahead of Haruka and Makoto, chattering away. There's a vague noise between Haruka's ears, like his brain leaking half-formed thoughts all over the place, like his mind has gone out of focus the way his eyes do sometimes when he stares at something for too long.
He feels a nudge in his side.
"Hey, Haru, look," Makoto says, coming to a stop. He's pointing at the shop window they're passing.
The mannequin on display wears a shirt emblazoned with a cartoonish dolphin mid-arc, like it's just leapt out of the ocean. It smiles and waves, one fin raised in a beckon.
"Let's go in," Haruka says.
Makoto lets out a laugh, which hitches into a sound of surprise. "Wait, really?"
Eyes locked on the shirt, Haruka backtracks to the shop door and goes inside, setting off the bell hanging overhead and warranting a greeting from the woman reading a book behind the cash register. The store smells a bit stale, though not in a completely off-putting way – like new clothes thick with the scent of dye, and like incense.
Behind the window display, racks and racks of clothing fill the corner of the shop, squished together to form narrow aisles. The bell chimes again, and he hears Nagisa and Kou wander away deeper into the store. Makoto comes up behind him and says, "Well, they sure are eye-catching."
"Which color should I get?" Haruka asks. They come in bright orange and bright yellow; the dolphin is a grayish blue and, up close, a little bit shimmery.
"Um –" Haruka looks over his shoulder in time to see Makoto's grimace "– they're both nice?"
"Hm," Haruka says.
Makoto rustles through the nearby racks. "Hey, this one has a crab on it," he says, holding up a lime green shirt with a grin. The crab waves just like the dolphin does, but with a claw instead of a fin.
"Crabs are for eating, not wearing," Haruka says.
Makoto snorts. "If you say so." He puts it back, then drifts around a corner.
Haruka picks an orange shirt off the rack, then trails after Makoto, following the sound of hangers sliding this way and that. He finds him at the wall, pointing at a turquoise shirt hanging too high up for anyone to reach.
"Look, I found Rin."
The shark is leaping out of the water, cartoon teeth triangular and sharp in a snarling mouth. Haruka's lips twitch.
"I don't know how happy he'd be if you gave him that."
"Honestly, he'd probably find some way of making it look like the newest fashion trend," Makoto says. Haruka decides that's probably true.
Makoto leads him through racks of sweatpants and sweatshirts, and then displays of sunglasses, and then stationary, toward the sound of Kou and Nagisa's voices drifting from the back of the shop.
"I don't know," Kou's saying, somewhere on the other side of two towering shelves of postcards. "It's kind of a…loud look. I think it's too much for me."
"C'mon Gou-chan, don't be silly," Nagisa says brightly. "They're fine."
"Hmm… I'm not sure I'd look good in them."
"You look good in everything! Right, Mako-chan?" Nagisa says, just as Makoto squeezes through the gap between the shelves.
Makoto chuckles. "Right," he says.
Haruka follows him through, and Kou and Nagisa come in to view at a dark wooden counter along the back wall. Nagisa turns one of the jewelry displays round and round, while Kou leans into the mirror mounted atop the second display, holding a pair of dangly earrings up to her earlobe. She lets out a huff of indecision.
"I know," Nagisa says, letting the display turn itself to a standstill. "A late birthday present!"
Kou frowns at him. "You got me that raspberry pastry, though."
"That was nothing," Nagisa says, waving his hand. "I got it last minute."
"And Haru and I didn't get you anything," Makoto adds.
"I said I didn't need anything," Kou says, turning her frown on him now.
"Exactly," Nagisa says. "You don't need these earrings, but you want them, so we'll get them for you."
Kou turns her frown lastly on Haruka, but when he just returns the look unwaveringly, she sighs.
"Fine, if you insist," she says, still looking doubtful. Then she notices the shirt in Haruka's arms and says, "Haruka-senpai, that's quite a shirt."
"Thanks," Haruka says. "It's for when Loosejaw-kun is in the laundry."
"I never see you wear Loosejaw-kun, though. When will you wear this one?"
"I could wear it to sleep," Haruka says, starting to follow Kou to the front register.
"You should wear it to practice. The kids would like it."
"I don't wear a shirt in the pool."
The grin Kou shoots him over her shoulder is unabashed. "Good," she says, and somewhere behind Haruka, Nagisa chokes into laughter.
It really is alarming, sometimes, how like her brother Kou can be – how she can be more than he is at his own game, sharper wit and quicker tongue. Who actually taught who? Haruka wonders. Rin probably would have choked – and not on a laugh – if he'd heard his sister just now.
"And Haruka-senpai," Kou says much later, voice much gentler, the basket in the crook of her elbow and her new earrings wrapped carefully inside, and a smile making her entire face soft in a way that is also alarmingly similar to something Haruka has seen in Rin time and again. They're seeing her off at the station; the sun has made it past its peak and has begun the slow hike back toward the horizon.
"It's Gou," she says. At his surprised look she adds, "I could just tell." Then the doors close, and she waves through the window as the train pulls away.
Days pass quickly now. Haruka works on-hand at the rec center on Tuesday mornings with Zaki, doing anything from filing paperwork to running deliveries between various offices, to keeping the stock of towels at the front desk full and the bulletins along the walls updated.
He counts down the days until Rin's return – ten, then nine, then eight, then seven…
During the weekend his life is loud and crowded – lots of little faces and little voices, always forgetting to walk around the poolside, but none of them have forgotten the first week's lesson and they're eager to show off all they can do. It makes his job easier; they're so excited to be in the pool that they don't miss a beat when he gives them instructions. He's still surprised by how enthusiastically they listen to him; surprised that they listen at all.
"Your kids really love you," Shimamura says to him in the locker room that second Saturday, after they've finished their lessons.
"I know," Haruka says. "I'm not really sure why."
Shimamura laughs; the towel on his head slips to his shoulders. "Are you kidding me?" He shuts his locker, takes a seat on the bench to shake out his socks. "You totally have a way with kids. It's kind of surprising, no offense. Plus you're so calm. That probably makes them comfortable around you."
"I guess," Haruka says, neither convinced nor unconvinced.
Tuesday comes again, and the count is down to three days. Rin is taking exams, and Haruka sweeps the gym floor with Zaki.
She's way down at the back wall, pushing the giant dust mop along in front of her with a kind of listless determination that Haruka's become good at recognizing in things like her whole-body slump over the mop handle, or the barely-present expression she's probably wearing on her face. She has a talent for looking extremely un-enthralled, but he's yet to actually see her work anything less than her best.
Haruka empties his dustbin into the garbage can in the hall, and comes back into the gym just in time for Zaki to push another pile of debris up to his feet.
"How the hell does this much crap get on the floors?" she says. She props the mop against the wall, but it slips and clatters to the floor, and she looks at it like it's offended her.
Haruka sweeps up the pile, and tosses it out, and this time when he comes back into the gym Zaki is standing near the three-point line, staring up at the beams criss-crossing beneath the ceiling, fists on her hips.
"So, how do you think we're gonna get that down?" she says, when Haruka comes over.
Haruka looks up, sees a basketball wedged into one of the lower junctions in the beams. There's no real way to get to it, except…
"We can throw basketballs at it," he says.
Zaki laughs. "That's what I was thinking!"
So she wheels over the basketball cart from the corner of the gym, and they start tossing balls up at the crossbeams, then running around the gym to collect them, then tossing them again. Every now and then there is a metal clang as a ball hits a beam, but they mostly miss their mark and fall straight back to the hardwood. It sounds like an entire team is dribbling around the court.
"I never had good hand-eye coordination," Zaki says after a while, face flushed from the exertion. She's given up taking any kind of careful aim, and is instead launching the balls as hard as she can underhand. "Ugh, I'm getting tired."
Haruka lets loose the last basketball in the cart; it hits the junction, but not strongly enough to shake the trapped ball loose.
Just then, Kaji-san sticks his head through the gym door. He takes one look around and says, before disappearing again, "You two can take a break when you're finished cleaning up. Donuts in the main conference room if you want."
Zaki looks delighted. She grins at Haruka. "I say we just tell someone about this, and they can find a ladder and get it down."
So she rolls the cart around the gym, and Haruka follows along and tosses in the basketballs they've scattered. When, out of the corner of his eye, he sees someone enter the gym, he assumes it's Kaji-san again until Zaki lets out a happy laugh.
"Reiji, what are you doing? You're way early!"
Haruka turns and sees Amano standing at the edge of the court, dressed in a tank and basketball shorts, holding a drink in each hand. They collect the last of the basketballs and head over to him, and he holds one of the cups out to Zaki. Iced coffee, by the look of it.
He holds the second out to Haruka, and says, "I didn't know if you would want one. You don't have to drink it."
"Oh." Haruka stares at the cup, then realizes he should take it. "Thanks."
"He likes to play a gentleman," Zaki leans in to tell Haruka, in a not-so-quiet mutter that Amano pretends not to hear. "But really, why are you here so early?" she asks Amano. "We're only on break."
He says he's going to try out the weight room, before he and Zaki take advantage of the free-swim period to train in the pool. Zaki invites Haruka to join them, and leaves the offer open for future reference when Haruka declines.
"You want donuts?" she says to Amano, after taking a long swig of coffee.
"Already ate," Amano says. He takes a basketball out of the cart and shoots it cleanly through the hoop.
"Hey, we just cleaned those up," Zaki says. Amano just raises his eyebrows, and she rolls her eyes. She sets down her coffee, takes a ball, and dribbles it to the free-throw line. Her shot hits the backboard, ricochets off the rim, and bounces away. She tsks, then looks over at Haruka.
"Nanase, you ever played?"
Haruka recognizes a challenge when he sees one, and he sees another when Amano takes a second shot and is rewarded with the crisp swish of the net.
And so instead of eating donuts, Haruka spends his break drinking iced coffee and shooting hoops with Amano and Zaki, which is unexpected, and bizarre, and he isn't very good, but he has a surprising amount of fun.
He wakes up to his alarm the second Saturday of June and thinks, Rin's back.
He rolls over and checks his phone, but there's no new message. He isn't surprised, though – Rin's flight got in during the deepest hours of the morning. If anything, he'll probably sleep through most of the day.
Still, Haruka types out Welcome home and sends it before his brain can rev up enough to second-guess it. He left his window cracked last night, so his room smells like morning air. The hairs rise on his arms, and he rolls out of bed and changes before he gets too chilled.
The morning clouds burn off while he runs, so he eats breakfast outside on his deck (the cats have been gone for a while), then he takes the train to work. He spots Shimamura, who has just arrived from the other direction, when he gets off at the station.
Shimamura waves, accidentally knocks the cap off of his head and scrambles to catch it before it rolls over the side of the platform. He rams it back on backwards, then calls for Haruka to wait for him before rushing toward the railroad crossing. Haruka waits, and they head for the rec center together. When they reach the parking lot, they see Amano and Zaki disappearing inside.
"Hey, do you think they're together?" Shimamura asks suddenly.
Haruka looks over, but Shimamura is staring at the doors, a look of concentration on his face.
"I don't know," Haruka says. He's wondered about it too – he's noticed that sometimes Zaki tacks on a kun to Amano's name, and sometimes she doesn't, and Amano always has a watchful eye on her, but he's not good enough at reading signals to know what these ones mean.
Shimamura is quiet until they come across Amano in the changing room, and then he's back to being lively. Haruka hopes nothing comes out of the silence that just passed; he only has to think of him and Rin to feel a flurry of dread, because there's no way for Shimamura to avoid any of them should he try something stupid and have it go horribly wrong.
And then Haruka's thinking of the text he sent Rin earlier, and something drops like a stone into his stomach. His phone is at the very bottom of his swim bag again for a reason.
There's no room to dwell, though, once lessons start. The pool room echoes, and the smell of chlorine rushes up Haruka's nose. Mei and Yumiko, the two rowdiest from his beginner-level group, take his arms as soon as they leap off the bleachers, and try to talk over each other as they walk him toward the pool steps.
"Coach Nanase, look at my tooth. See?" Mei says, grinning wide and pushing her tongue against her bottom teeth. One of them wiggles and sticks out at an alarming angle.
"Stop it, gross!" Yumiko says, grimacing, while Mei giggles and the boys in the group crowd around to see. "What if you make it fall out in the pool? Coach Nanase, can we do back floats again? I think I can do it now."
They do back floats again, and Mei's tooth doesn't fall out in the pool, though the boys ask her every five minutes if it's still there. The first lesson seems to end as soon as it starts, and Haruka's intermediate-level group accosts him before he can even make it back to the bleachers. Kasuko has new butterfly earrings to show him, Taiki an impressive scar across his knee where a scab had been last week, the twins Asuka and Chou with new matching goggles (which, Haruka thinks, won't be too helpful for him.)
"Coach Nanase? You know the frog stroke?" Taiki says, right before the end of the lesson.
The group hangs onto the wall between the four and five-foot section, while Haruka stands a little ways out, about to start them on their round-up exercise. His fingers are pruning, the only real downside to spending so much time in the water.
"You mean breaststroke," corrects Noboru. Haruka thinks of him as the Rei of the group – expressive and very smart, though without the prescription goggles. He always clarifies everything Haruka tells him before trying out something new.
"Yeah, that one," Taiki says, scratching his nose. "We're gonna learn that one, right?"
"Do you all want to start the breaststroke next week?" Haruka asks the group at large.
Little fists pump, and everyone cries, "Yeah!" They really do make his job easy.
"We will, if you can each swim to me and back. Front crawl this way, and backstroke to the wall. Taiki, ready?"
Taiki pushes his palm against the lenses of his goggles. "You bet I am."
One by one they swim out to him and then return to the wall. Noboru and butterfly-earringed Kasuko take a moment to grab onto his hands out in the middle of the pool before turning themselves around, but they swim back without any trouble. The ones on the wall call out things like "You're almost there" or "Kick some more" or "Turn around now" so nobody hits their heads when they return. They make a great little team, Haruka thinks proudly. Who knows where any of them will go with swimming, but they have the right spirit.
Satou blows the whistle from the life guard podium – one long screech followed by a short blast that signals the end of the lesson – and Haruka dismisses his group. They splash through the shallow end and up the stairs, fold themselves into the towels their parents hold open for them along the poolside.
There's a ten minute gap between lessons, but all the worrying parents had worried themselves out to him the first two weeks, so all Haruka gets now are polite Thank yous and See you next weeks. "Bye bye, Coach Nanase!" Taiki calls over his shoulder, goggles waving, as his mom frog-marches him away.
Haruka follows after them, heading for the locker room and wondering what to do for the rest of the day, only to come to an abrupt halt when he sees who is standing beside the door.
Makoto leans against the wall, smiling in his direction, and Nagisa is beside him, leaning forward and grinning. They're both in their swim gear.
And then, over Nagisa's shoulder, unmistakable red hair, unmistakable ponytail, is Rin.
"Jeez, soon your friends will be taking over this whole place, won't they?" Zaki says, passing Haruka by on her way to the drinking fountain. He hardly hears her and hardly sees her; his heart is thumping into his ears, an actual pounding sensation in his throat.
His eyes meet Rin's for one skewed second, but then he notices a familiar-enough head of silver hair. Nitori, standing next to Rin. And then orange; Mikoshiba Momotarou. And then, to make whatever's going on in his chest turn leaden and sink into his stomach, he sees Yamazaki Sousuke, tall and brooding, at the end of the line.
Haruka forces himself to start walking.
"Surprise," Makoto says, a bit hesitantly.
But Haruka goes straight past him and Nagisa, stops in front of Rin, and says, "What are you doing here?"
He realizes, the moment the words are out, that they don't sound very friendly at all. His brain feels like it's gone five places at once, though, so he can't quite gather the piece of mind to try to backtrack.
Rin gives an awkward laugh, rubs at his neck. He manages to look small, which is quite a feat. "Well, you said you wanted to race, so…"
"What?" Haruka says blankly. He glances to the side. Yamazaki has his arms crossed and is looking out over the pool, a bit of a frown on his face. Nitori looks apprehensive, and Mikoshiba is looking at the bleachers, where – Haruka turns his head – Kou is sitting. She sends Haruka a wave.
"What?" Haruka says again, looking back at Rin.
"Haru-chan, we're going to race," Nagisa cuts in, pushing off the wall and bumping a hip into Haruka. "Obviously."
"These guys were in the area," Rin says, motioning toward his old Samezuka teammates. "We all kind of figured it would be nostalgic, or something, to have a race. And you said you wanted to."
It hits him in that moment, like words processing minutes too late, that Rin is truly here. In front of him. Proposing a relay.
"Oh," Haruka says. "Okay."
Rin starts to smile. "Really?"
Haruka wants to point out that everyone's here, there's no point in saying no, but Rin could have at least given him some warning. But instead what comes out is: "There's still another lesson."
The smile blooms across Rin's face, and with it something unclenches in Haruka's chest.
"Yeah, Makoto told me there's free-swim afterwards, though," Rin says.
"I need to clock out," Haruka blurts. He turns on his heel and goes straight into the locker room. Picks up a towel and scrubs it through his dripping hair, realizes only once he's out the other door that he's walking barefoot through the hall. The linoleum is cold, and likely dirty, and he probably leaves a trail of droplets behind him, which is a safety hazard.
He runs into Ishikawa-san and Hiro in the hallway, rushing for the locker room, late for Hiro's lesson. He knows he exchanges some sort of greeting with them, but it's just another whirlwind added to the rush in his head. Clock out, he thinks, trying to center himself.
When he comes back to the pool room, they've all taken a seat on the top bleacher, and by the look of it Shimamura has been roped into the relay as well. He sits at one end, wrapped up in a very emotive conversation with Nagisa; Haruka does a quick count, and realizes he rounds out their eight. Rin sits with Makoto at the other end of the bleachers. They're laughing about something, and there's space beside Rin for Haruka to sit.
Haruka makes his way up the bleachers, muttering apologies to the people he steps in front of or who have to lean out of his way to let him by. He reaches the middle of the top row, then edges his way to the end, stepping over Kou's feet, then Mikoshiba's, then Makoto's, then Rin's. He notices that Rin and Makoto have stopped talking, which unsettles him more than it probably should.
He drops his towel onto the metal, and sits.
"Sorry this was so sudden," Rin says right away.
Haruka looks over. Rin's hands are on his knees, his fingers tensed. His hair is so long – the ponytail falls over his neck, the ends caught beneath the strap of his goggles. There's a pinch to his brow – an apology, or a question of whether he should be apologizing.
"It's okay," Haruka says. "I don't have anything else to do."
Rin's eyes slide away and he gives a slight nod, like he's reassuring himself.
Haruka watches Zaki and Amano with their groups in the pool for a moment, or tries to, but he has a hard time focusing on them. Even with all the noise bouncing from wall to wall, it's like he can hear Rin most of all, just being beside him, and the gritty sound of his own brain trying to work out what he should do next. He rubs his thumbs over the pruned pads of his index fingers, the far lesser discomfort at the moment.
He wants to ask what the others are doing here – he doesn't really believe that they were all just 'in the area'. He knows Yamazaki is in Tokyo now, and even visiting wouldn't put him in Iwatobi.
"You look like a good teacher," Rin says. "I mean, it looks like you're doing a good job," he adds quickly, and Haruka glances over to see a hint of a blush high on his cheekbones.
Now Rin is looking determinedly at the pool, so Haruka just says, "The kids like me."
"Yeah, I can tell," Rin says. He's smiling again, that quiet smile that always makes Haruka feel like he's seeing it by accident. Especially so now, with Rin's cheeks still flushed.
It's like a billboard blaring in his face; he knows exactly what that blush means, and no longer has any idea how to interpret the resulting twist in his stomach.
He's said things to Rin, and thought things to himself, and tried to rationalize the blur of emotions Rin's confession has been causing for months, and now he just…
Can't do anything but feel, probably. He's known that Rin likes him for so long now. He's exhausted all his shock at the knowledge, and the shocks now are just from seeing it in front of his eyes, the truth of it, the honesty. The strength – because it's been a long time, and Rin's face is still the same red, and that must be a lot of like.
"Aren't you tired?" Haruka asks. He needs to say something, because he's scared that otherwise he'll either keep staring, or he'll rub his fingers raw.
What do you do, he wonders, when someone likes you? What are you supposed to feel? What does it feel like, when you're not sure how you feel? What is the physical sensation that comes with handling that knowledge, and is he experiencing it right?
If Rin's hands are still tense over his kneecaps, such a clear show of discomfort, then where is the line between the discomfort of liking someone and the discomfort of not knowing how to handle being liked?
"Yeah, a little, I guess," Rin says. "But I don't have classes to worry about, so it doesn't matter."
"Oh," Haruka says, remembering: "You finished your first year. Congratulations."
Rin meets his eyes, looks away quickly. Breathes out a kind of messy laugh. "Thanks."
Haruka's relieved when Makoto suddenly turns from the conversation he'd been having with Kou and Mikoshiba to say, "Oh, Rin, you can still help me with my English a couple times a week, right?"
He's relieved to hear Rin speaking easily, and relieved for the breather. Relieved that until the end of the lesson, every other conversation he's dragged into involves Makoto as well, which means he doesn't have to say much, can just let Makoto interpret his one-word answers for them.
Lane markers are pulled across the pool once lessons are over, while the bleachers clear and the pool room takes on the volume of a hive of bees buzzing about. The locker room doors swing open and shut, and bit by bit the poolside empties and quiets.
Hiro catches sight of Rin before he leaves, and waves toward bleachers. "Min-chan, hi! Welcome back! Let's swim together, okay? Bye!"
Rin waves, but once Hiro and Ishikawa-san are out of sight, he gives Haruka an incredulous look.
"Why did he call me that?"
"He thinks your name is weird," Haruka says.
"What? Hey, don't laugh!"
Awkwardness is forgotten when they're at the poolside, because this is something they know how to do together. There's a matter of dividing into teams, which becomes more complicated when Zaki comes over, Amano in tow, and asks what's going on only to demand to take part in the race as well.
"We need two more people," Nagisa says, hands on his hips as he surveys the group. He looks back at Kou, who's moved down to the bottom rung of the bleachers.
"Are you kidding me?" she says. "Do you want me to drown?"
"Hold on," Zaki says. She calls across the pool to Satou, who's checking his phone by the shallow end. When he agrees to join their race, she says to the others, "He's a good swimmer, trust me. Still need another person, though."
It's Rin, who's been hovering silently at Haruka's side, who suggests that someone could go twice.
"Someone who's good at two strokes, you mean," says Yamazaki, the first thing Haruka's heard him say today. The first thing he's heard him say in well over a year, actually.
Yamazaki's standing a bit apart from the rest of them, still looking broody, arms still crossed. Like there are a million places he'd rather be, but for a moment his eyes dart away from Rin and meet Haruka's, and Haruka knows the real reason Yamazaki is being so uptight is because of him.
"And how many people does that leave?" Rin says, sounding haughty, stealing Yamazaki's attention back.
Yamazaki lets out a low laugh, a smug twist to his lips. "Just tell me if you think you'd get too tired. I'd be happy to take the burden."
"Tough words for someone whose best of the season is a fourth place."
"Okay you two, cut it out," Kou says (Gou, Haruka reminds himself absently; a wonder that with all that's going on, he's able to think of this). She makes them play a round of rock-paper-scissors, and in the end Rin is assigned the double leg.
Haruka ends up teamed with Mikoshiba, Nitori, and Zaki. To their left, Makoto and Amano are paired with Rin; on Haruka's right, Shimamura, Nagisa, and Yamazaki line up behind their lane, while Satou stands at the edge of the pool, whistle to his lips. Mikoshiba, Makoto, and Shimamura jump into the pool, get into position against the wall, hands in the gutters.
"So, Nanase, let's see what you've still got," Yamazaki says under his breath, just loud enough for Haruka to hear. He doesn't speak with outright hostility anymore, but the glance he spares Haruka still implies mistrust and, most of all, incomprehension.
For some reason he'd always feared Haruka would drag Rin down, that Rin wanting to swim with Haruka would mean Rin catching Haruka's attitude toward swimming; at least, that's what Haruka understood from his and Yamazaki's few, fragmented confrontations. The ones that usually ended up with him backed into walls and Yamazaki towering over him. Those confrontations were the closest Haruka's come to wanting to hit someone. He has to remind himself that Yamazaki has known Rin for longer, that Yamazaki cared about Rin's swimming and his future first.
He still doesn't get why Yamazaki was so scared. It's not like there was any way Rin would 'catch' Haruka's attitude – whatever Yamazaki thought it was – and detour away from the dreams he'd been fighting painstakingly for.
Even with that behind them, Haruka can still feel the weight of Yamazaki's judgment. Haruka knows that if anyone thinks he's wasting himself, it's Yamazaki – because, while loathe to what Haruka aimed (or didn't aim) to achieve with his swimming, Yamazaki always had a perverse sort of respect for Haruka's skill. Yamazaki told him, once, that he was good. Maybe the word used was incredible, maybe it was amazing; either way, Yamazaki had looked like he'd rather bite his tongue off than repeat it. It was during the same confrontation that Yamazaki told him he was an idiot. He clearly hasn't changed his mind.
Haruka just wishes Yamazaki would stop caring; it's too in the past for him to feel angry anymore, he just simply doesn't understand why his future was ever something Yamazaki made it his business to form an opinion on.
The whistle shrieks, and the three in the pool are off with a splash. Nitori cheers Mikoshiba on; Nagisa's shouting "Kota-chan, good job, keep at it!"; Amano is silent and still. Mikoshiba pulls ahead quickly, but that means very little with how the teams are balanced.
Haruka can feel it on most peoples' minds instinctually, like this is still high school and he's studied the teams and knows who to be wary of – Rin and Yamazaki are the star players, and as he has neither on his team, he's counting on Mikoshiba to gain as much of a lead as possible early on.
"Makoto, hurry your butt up!" Rin's yelling, while Zaki's clenching her fists in front of Haruka and chanting "C'mon, orange dude, c'mon, orange dude."
Zaki whoops when Mikoshiba hits the wall and Nitori dives in; a couple seconds later Nagisa is in as well, followed right behind by Amano.
Zaki steps up to the edge of the pool, looks left at Rin, then right at Yamazaki. "I'm guessing you guys have never raced a girl before."
"Depends," Yamazaki says, looking over her head at Rin for a second. "This guy cries like one."
Rin makes an offended sound, and Zaki lets out a sharp laugh. They're all grinning in exhilaration. The sound of churning water and cheering cut straight into Haruka, making his heart race and his muscles tense in anticipation. Nitori is still ahead on the return, but Haruka watches the other two slowly gain time; any second now, Nagisa's strokes will appear to double in length.
When Zaki crouches down into dive position and says "It's you and me now, Nanase," Haruka gives her the silent encouragement to Win. And then she's off, and Haruka steps to the poolside, takes a deep breath. He realizes he's holding back a grin, and lets it loose. He looks sideways for Rin, only to see him getting poised to dive.
"See you in the free, Haru," Rin says, moments before he's in the water, split-seconds before Yamazaki's in too. They tear after Zaki, and it's almost frightening to watch.
Haruka holds his breath for a moment, stunned by the ferocity with which they swim – some dizzying mix between flying over the water and forcing it out of their way. They look nothing like butterflies. It's competition – Haruka can feel it between them, an all-consuming intensity that's one step away from being frantic, that has been meticulously honed and controlled.
He's in awe. And then he shakes his head, forcing it clear, forcing all but his own lane out of his sight, and he's ready. The last thing he's aware of before he dives in, in third place but not by much, is that Zaki is grinning. When she hits the wall and shouts something garbled by the sound of water already hitting his ears and swallowing him whole, he has a very clear objective in mind.
Beat Rin, beat Rin.
He doesn't, but Rin tires himself out by the end, whereas Satou is fresh into the pool and pulls off an impressive burst of speed that, coupled with the gain Yamazaki already made, wins the race by a long shot.
Haruka and Rin hit the wall so close together that third place isn't much of a loss. Rin is so tired he clings to the gutter as he heaves air into his lungs, while Satou is tugged out of the water by his cheering team. It's a ruckus on the poolside, and Haruka feels his own lungs burning, his own heart trying to break through the confines of his ribcage.
"Well, looks like we're both losers," Rin says when he can speak again, head resting against the wall above the gutter, an exhausted smile aimed Haruka's way.
Water laps around Haruka's shoulders, his neck, swelling against the wall and rolling back as waves that buffet his chin. "Looks like it," he says. He feels like he's on fire.
They're a loud procession through the halls afterwards. Haruka finds himself swept up between Nagisa and Makoto; somewhere behind him he hears Zaki begrudging Shimamura his win; Rin is up ahead with Yamazaki, ponytail swaying in time to his strides. Haruka learned in the locker room that Rin is heading to Samezuka with his old teammates to sit in on a practice. He wonders if that means they're simply done interacting for the day, if Rin was here like a whirlwind and will be gone just the same.
They're out the door into bright sunlight, down the steps, at the end of the railing. Haruka's just about ready to accept that all that's eventful has come to an end for the day, when Rin turns around and says, "Haru."
Yamazaki stops for a second too, looks from Rin to Haruka, looks his typical confused-displeased, and then he keeps walking. Everyone else continues their trickle into the parking lot, but Rin backtracks through them and stops in front of Haruka.
He waits until everyone is far enough away, and then he says haltingly, "Um, you said last time…you said you wanted me around. To get used to it or whatever." His eyes flicker away, but he wrenches them back. Haruka has to appreciate his bravery, or his boldness, or whatever it takes to be so outright about his feelings. The fastest way to the soul is through the eyes – is that the saying? Whatever it is, Rin holds his gaze stubbornly, if stubbornness can be timid and daring both at once.
"But, um, how much do you want me around?" Rin finishes.
"As much as you want to be," Haruka says. He doesn't even miss a beat, which is shocking to him because he doesn't know how much of this gut-twisting feeling he can handle, something more anxiety-ridden than just embarrassment.
"Okay," Rin says. He smiles tentatively. "Then, I know this was a race today, but I was serious when I said I'd race you. One on one, I mean. If you still want to."
"Okay," Haruka says.
Rin's eyebrows lift, like he's surprised Haruka had agreed so easily. "Okay. Then tomorrow. Same time?"
"Yeah."
"Great," Rin says. He gives another quick little grin that falls away in moments. He looks at the ground, kicks at a pebble, or at nothing at all. "And, um, thanks," he says. His cheeks flush all the way up to his ears. "It's good to be home."
Haruka's mind is blank, but then Rin looks at him and he remembers the text, and he feels his face go red.
"Oh," he says. "Yeah."
He doesn't know whose face is hotter anymore, just that he wants to melt into the ground, or take out his insides and incinerate them, or teleport home.
"Okay," Rin says. "I'll, um, text you tomorrow."
"Okay."
There's an unspoken Bye in there somewhere, but Haruka looks across the parking lot at the same time Rin does, and he's pretty sure they both realize they're going to have to cross it together.
But then the Samezuka group along with Gou and Haruka's coworkers break from the rest of them out on the sidewalk and start in the direction of the station, and Nitori waves both arms over his head and yells, "Rin-senpai, hurry up, we have to catch the train!"
Rin flashes Haruka one last grin, says "See you," and hurries off.
And for the second time that day, Haruka has to force his legs to work. He makes his way to Makoto and Nagisa, who wait with smiles on their faces. He wants to look after Rin and the others, feels his eyes drawn by the sound of their voices, but he feels like he shouldn't. His ears still burn – a feeling he's not at all used to.
"That was fun," Makoto says, once they're on their way to lunch.
"Yeah, I'm glad it worked!" Nagisa says.
"What worked?" Haruka asks.
Makoto chuckles. The sound is warm and familiar, helps settle some of the disjointed feelings still poking and prodding at Haruka's insides.
"Well, Rin texted us a couple weeks ago saying he wanted to set up a relay with as many people who were in the area as possible."
"And then he kept texting us to remind us not to forget," Nagisa adds. "Like that would've been possible after the fifth reminder anyway."
"He didn't text me," Haruka says, and they both look at him in a very You can figure this out, Haru kind of way.
Oh.
Oh.
Wow, he thinks. Rin did that for me.
The calm is gone, utterly and completely. It's too much, Rin likes him too much, Rin does too much for him, too much to try to make him happy. He doesn't know what he's done to deserve it, doesn't know that he deserves it at all.
And he's a bit wonderstruck that Rin thinks he does.
Rin did that for me, he thinks. All through lunch, and afterwards, back when he's home, when he's running, and eating dinner, and getting ready for bed.
Lying under the blankets, thoughts too loud to grant him any sleep, he stares up at the ceiling that his eyes have slowly adjusted to seeing in the dark, and thinks, Rin did that for me.
He tries, one last desperate time before he gives up completely, to compartmentalize all the feelings crushing together in his chest.
He's happy. And afraid. Overwhelmed. Giddy. Full of dread for tomorrow. And so, so amazed that Rin can like him so much.
It hurts.