It sulked for most of the evening, and Haru was irritated by this. It was a soul-sucking thing, and he couldn't get comfortable in it. The air felt heavy, weighed down by grief, and anxiety, and tension, even more so than the night before.

They really didn't speak much to each other at all for that time. The Makoto rolled off of the couch every half-hour or so to try using the phone again, only to seemingly get the same results and sink deeper into its moping. It hardly ate any of the food Haru gave it this time, and it was a long time before it finally stopped pacing in circles, or laying with its face in the couch cushions, to instead grab a bundle of the clothes Haru had gotten it and retreat to the bathroom.

Haru heard the water running and sighed to himself as he resumed leaning against the counter, sipping on a cup of tea. He glanced out of the doorway at the sea.

"What does chocolate do?"

…

He'd kind of lost track of the time, rounding the cottage to dust all the shells and put the books back where they belonged. So when the Makoto finally emerged from out of the bathroom, Haru had almost forgotten that it was there. He turned his head to glance up at it, and found himself freezing where he was for a second — thrown all the way off guard for no apparent reason.

The Makoto had chosen lounge-wear — a white muscle shirt that hugged it like a second skin and black draw string sweat pants that Haru did not remember buying. Its hair was still wet and laying slightly flatter than usual. The tops of its shoulders were a bit red, either from the heat or maybe from rubbing at them. Its eyes seemed a brighter green for whatever reason.

Why it made Haru so flustered, he wasn't sure, but the smallest of confused scowls made it to his face when he got a grip and was able to look away. He shook it off, but also found his eyes sliding back almost as quickly as they'd left, and this time he noticed that the Makoto seemed a little less burdened.

"Do you feel better?" he ventured.

The Makoto pulled in a very large breath and let it all out at once, then stretched its arms up behind its head, biceps flexing naturally — but Haru did not pay intensely close attention to that.

"There's nothing I can do about it," it said, then looked directly at Haru and braved a small smile. "Might as well quit worrying, right?"

The smile wasn't entirely appeased, and there was still stress in its eyes, but Haru nodded curtly, then breathed himself and said, "We have books that aren't about seashells, you know."

"Oh … Are they yours?"

Haru shook his head and squatted down in front of the cabinet doors at the bottom of a book shelf, which ironically held mostly seashells. The books were underneath. There weren't a frightful many, but there were enough for passing the time. The Makoto shuffled closer and knelt down next to him. Haru ignored the way his skin tingled from its body heat.

"I never really cared for reading," he explained. "They're more my grandmother's. She liked the romance novels sometimes, but she was mostly into Earth science." He picked up a botany text and turned it over in his hands. "Not sure how interesting they would be to read."

He offered it over and the Makoto took it with a much more relaxed smile. It opened the book with gentle hands and respectfully flipped through the pages.

"I actually learned a lot about the seashells today," it said, eyes scanning dozens of pictures of flowers. "I like the abalones. I think they're my favorite. They're really pretty, but it's also said that they offer emotional balance and enhance feelings of love and compassion — bring you peace when you're anxious. That kind of thing."

It tilted its head to the side, eyes still on the book in its hands. "I can see why. They're mesmerizing to look at. It was kind of soothing."

Haru studied the straight line of its nose for a moment, the way that its bangs lay on its forehead. It had long, dark eyelashes. Maybe that's why its eyes stood out so much. Its face was incredibly symmetrical. That seemed quite impossible.

"My grandmother always knew the spiritual meaning of things. Nothing could ever be just what it was. There was always something more to it than that."

The Makoto smiled and looked up to meet his gaze. "She sounds like a wise woman."

Haru found himself scoffing an amused breath. "She also believed that luck was a myth, and coincidences were fate in disguise. She said, 'Anyone who thinks anything happens by accident has their nose in bird shit.'"

The Makoto giggled, and it took nothing at all for that to turn into a full out laugh. It raised its hand to its mouth to catch it, and probably hide the true mirth in its smile, but Haru thought that was unnecessary. It took a second to catch a breath and nod definitively.

"A very wise woman indeed. She sounds like a wonderful person."

"She was."

The Makoto's smile dissolved into something soft and compassionate again. It closed the botany book and shifted to sit with its legs crossed and lean back on one palm to face Haru better. "You miss her a lot."

It was a statement, not a question, and given the way that it gazed so steadily at Haru, he wasn't sure how he was supposed to respond, but there was no hesitation in him when he opened his mouth and simply said, "Yes."

The Makoto nodded, gaze wandering away in thought. "My mom always says that death is just a transition into the spirit world, kind of the same way we end up in dreams when we fall asleep. No one really truly goes away — not to anywhere that they can't still be reached. It's just a matter of connection." It looked back. "If your bond with them is strong enough, then they'll always find a way to speak with you."

Haru let himself sink into the Makoto's gaze for a minute, absorbed by its tenderness, and he tried to think of anyone else who had ever looked at him in that way. He tried to think of the last time anyone had looked at him, the last time he'd connected with someone, the last time he'd been comforted — outside of the one person who had always been there and now no longer was.

Those memories did not exist.

"She probably believed something like that too," he said, turning away, looking toward the sea.

"What was her name?"

"Maho."

He could feel the stretch of the Makoto's smile. "Truth," it said warmly. "Very fitting."

They figured out that getting along was relatively easy, and that the silences didn't need to be awkward. In fact, across the next day, they learned that they were quite good at just existing around each other without being bothered or unsettled or compelled to do or say anything to change the balance in the air.

The Makoto was quite invested in the books, and decided to tackle one of the romance novels. So it spent a good chunk of the day curled up on the corner of the couch reading, while Haru cooked, and swept sand out of the cottage, and sat opposite it to sketch out drawings of various random things.

The Makoto looked up at one point and commented on his talent, asking him questions about other things that he'd drawn, and so Haru ended up showing it the box full of sketch pads and loose papers collected across the years — some with truly elaborate works of detailed realism, and others depicting rudimentary circles that his three-year-old self might have meant to be fish.

It had always been one of his favorite surface things to do. So, often when he was younger, his grandmother would steal him away to visit the beach and draw pictures, which she would then stash away in a place he didn't know about to keep them dry and protected until she was able to archive them properly.

The Makoto was apparently taken by them all, even the scribbles, which it claimed were "cute" and far superior to what its own skill level had been at that age.

This was how they got into talking about their hobbies, and pet peeves, other little nuances like favorite colors and star signs, and what their childhood dreams and aspirations had been.

"You're going to laugh when I say it," the Makoto said with a fond smile, tracing one of Haru's drawings with its index finger.

"I don't think so," Haru said truthfully.

The Makoto's lips turned up even more and it met Haru's gaze again. "I wanted to be a mermaid."

Haru coughed, and it was definitely not an attempt to cover up his surprise or his amusement. It was, for whatever reason, entirely tempting to say something, but he didn't, and rather bit on his bottom lip and squinted as he listened to the Makoto while it continued speaking.

"Legitimately," it reiterated. "I used to play pretend in the pool all the time. In my head, I had the most beautiful glittering green, iridescent tail that all the other merpeople were disgustingly jealous of. And I could talk to fish, and breathe underwater, and swim for days and days on end. But one time I held my breath for far too long, and the lifeguard had to pull me out of the water, and that's when my mother decided to break the news that I could never be a mermaid, and I was devastated. I cried for days- You said you wouldn't laugh."

Haru held his hand up in front of his mouth and shook his head. "I'm not."

"You are too. I saw that. It was a smile," the Makoto accused, smiling itself. "Specifically, it was a 'how stupid could you possibly be' smile."

Haru continued to shake his head. "No. It wasn't that at all."

That was true. He had smiled — faintly — but it could have been described as more of a "that's too wholesomely cute for anyone to possibly take seriously" kind of smile, but he still refused to admit that the Makoto was cute, so he didn't elaborate.

"Anyway," the Makoto said, rolling its eyes away. "After I recovered from that, my new aspiration was to be a prince, which is much more sensible I think."

Haru nodded. "Arguably so."

"What about you?"

He pulled in a large and thoughtful breath, poking back in his memory for wild fantasies he'd had as a child that he would have given anything to come true. And he ended up shrugging. "All I ever wanted to do was stay with the sea, and I always have so … I dunno. I don't think I'm that interesting."

"Really." The Makoto made a face, as though that was the most ridiculous statement it had ever heard. "You have your own private cove where you source all your own food and get daily visits from dolphins. Also, you're an amazing cook, an insanely talented artist, and you live off of selling fish. I'd say you're exceptionally fascinating."

Haru gave it a flat look, and the Makoto smiled ever wider. "Also," it continued. "You now have one hell of a story to tell all the new friends you're going to make after I'm gone. All about that one time that you saved a guy's life when he washed up on your beach out of the blue."

"Mm," Haru hummed, leaning back against the couch where they were sitting. His eyes drifted out to the shore, because it had been getting harder and harder to directly meet the Makoto's green-eyed gaze without his stomach turning or his heart skipping off step. "I suppose you're right. I don't know what friends you're referring to though."

There was a long bit of silence, during which he could have sworn he felt the Makoto's gaze eating away at his silhouette. Then it very suddenly, and with all the confidence in the world said, "Will you come to Iwatobi with me tomorrow?"

Haru snapped his eyes back to it. The Makoto smiled shyly before looking away and brushing invisible lent off of its thighs — its massive and very sturdy-looking thighs. It shrugged.

"I just really want to do something to thank you, and I know my family will want to too. It doesn't have to be for long, just enough to maybe have you over for dinner or something — and I can pay you back for the clothes and everything."

It looked back up tentatively, the tops of its ears a rosy red. Haru willed himself not to fidget.

"I told you, you don't need to do that."

"You did, but I can't accept that. You've literally saved my life, Haru. I have to thank you somehow."

"And you have," Haru insisted. "Several times. That's enough for me. Honestly. Is it that hard to understand?"

"Yes," the Makoto said simply, lifting another smile that this time was unrelenting and resolute, and yet somehow still so soft and magnetizing.

Haru's lips pinched in the corner. He was going to continue arguing, but the longer the pause stretched on with their eyes locked between them, the more he knew it was useless and the will to fight just slipped quietly away like dissolving sea foam. He sighed.

"I don't get to argue with you, do I?"

"No."

"Fine." He turned his head away. "I guess I can come by for dinner. But I don't want any of your money," he added, throwing a peering glance back.

The Makoto smiled even more and nodded happily. "I'll take that."