Chapter Text
Mitaka Middle School, three weeks earlier
“Yo, Makoto.” Yamazaki Sousuke’s voice (the depth and timbre and commanding sound of which Tachibana Makoto does not envy a bit, nope nope) booms from the rear door to class 3-3. Sousuke is in class 3-1 this year, but homeroom separation has no bearing on lunch plans. The school swim club, for all intents and purposes, meets both at lunchtime and after school without fail. Makoto picks his head up off his desk and retrieves his bento box before stumbling in his haste to join Sousuke. A few giddy giggles chirp in chorus as he makes his way across the room; Makoto has been slow to notice the girls, but they definitely notice him.
“Sorry, sorry.” Makoto holds up an awkward hand in front of him and bows slightly. His forehead has a crease in it from resting on his blazer sleeve and his plaid tie is all crooked. “I just finished my project survey and I pretty much bombed it.”
“...it wasn’t a test. Just filling out a bunch of questions, right?” Sousuke gestures with his head towards the roof stairwell and they fall into step. The tallest members of their friend group (and two of the tallest in year 3), their long strides match with little effort, taking the stairs two and sometimes three at a time. The persistent ache in Makoto’s legs says another burst of height is soon to come. Currently, Sousuke has four centimeters on him and Nagisa’s betting pool has them both topping 180 before next year’s opening ceremony.
“Yeah, but once I handed in my paper I realized just how stupid my answers were.” Makoto claps a hand over his face, his tenor voice stretching to a pathetic whine. “I said I liked kittens and chocolate, Sousuke~!”
“You do like kittens and chocolate.”
“Of course I do, but that’s not a very masculine first impression.” Makoto’s eyes get big in the dim of the stairwell and he grips Sousuke’s shoulder, shaking him slightly. “What sort of girl is going to like writing to a guy who openly admits he likes kittens and chocolate?”
“You’re hopeless,” Sousuke mutters under his breath, dark eyebrows pulled down in a frown. Makoto...is Makoto: overthinking, jumping to conclusions, utterly unaware of his surroundings. Sousuke can hear all the whispers in the halls about how dreamy ‘Tachibana-kun’ is even when he’s half-sleeping. “Just be yourself,” he says, wishing for about the twentieth time that day for Rin’s presence as he tugs Makoto’s wayward tie back into place.
“...I don’t think myself will be good enough,” Makoto replies in a quiet undertone, not enough volume for Sousuke to catch all his words. He sighs, shaking his head when Sousuke’s frown starts to deepen. “Ah, sorry, I’m being vague. Let’s go eat before Nagisa shows up.” Their second-year friend has an endearing but annoying habit of cherry-picking everyone else’s lunches to supplement his cafeteria-bread diet. Even though sharing is written in Makoto’s DNA, who wants to surrender the Tachibana octopus wieners? They’re practically a legend in Mitaka, and Makoto thinks his mother is a tad psychic; those little bits of sausage goodness always seem to crown the bento rice when he’s having a day of feeling inadequate. Even in a friend group as strong and close as his, one that for whatever reason seems to look to him for leadership, sometimes he feels he can’t keep up. That he’s not enough, an anemic candle against so many wildfires of personality and talent and belonging.
“...you know if you hold it over your head he can’t reach it, right?” Makoto doesn’t want to talk and thus Sousuke won’t press.
“Clearly you’ve never seen how fast Nagisa can scale a tree when it involves food.” They both laugh, the roof door creaking open with a groan and a flood of brightness to leave them squinting.
“Sousuke! Makoto-senpai!” Matsuoka Gou waves to them from where she is holding lunchtime court on a purple blanket with Nitori Aiichirou, his nose discreetly buried in an adult magazine. Perched on Gou’s other side in puppylike adoration is the newest first-year addition, Mikoshiba Momotarou. His older brother filled the role of swim team captain for two years before passing the torch to Makoto - a torch that sometimes leaves Makoto’s fingers feeling burned. Momo has adored Gou since first sight, but Seijuurou insisted he couldn’t pursue her until he was in middle school. The brothers have a good-natured rivalry over her affections, and now that Seijuurou has gone on to Mitaka High, Momo is determined to make his move, first-year or not. “Do I have to inspect your lunches today?”
“Not a chance,” Sousuke says. Makoto sits down crosslegged while Sousuke curls into a neat sprawl, where he can converse with Gou and at the same time glower intimidatingly at Momo. Gou is practically Sousuke’s little sister, too, especially with Rin overseas. Someone has to defend her from the constant Mikoshiba encroachment. “I don’t want your grabby fingers anywhere near my tonkatsu.”
“Mou, Sousuke is so mean!” Gou protests, flicking a kernel of rice at him. “I’ll tell Oniichan!”
“That threat hasn’t worked since first grade, pigtails,” Sousuke teases, leaning over and tugging at her hair. “Rin’s too much of a pretty boy to fight me.”
“You always let him win anyways, stupid,” she shoots back. Sousuke abruptly chokes on his tonkatsu, gasping and wheezing for breath while Makoto hurriedly pops the top on a canned tea and shoves it into Sousuke’s hand.
“That’s not kind, Gou-chan.” Makoto’s reproach is gentle as he pounds Sousuke’s back. “Sousuke just doesn’t like seeing Rin cry, and…” He trails off, too polite to complete the sentence.
“I do not let him win!” Sousuke spasms out, red-faced and heaving. “Your brother cheats at jan-ken-pon.” He gulps tea and coughs more, groaning in relief when his lungs finally calm.
“You being bad at it doesn’t equal Oniichan cheating!” Gou retorts with a defensive sniff. As far as substitute brothers go, the Mitaka swim team is pretty good overall, but even Sousuke can’t put Rin down in her presence.
“Enough.” Makoto’s big-brother voice is quiet but unmistakably firm. “We all miss Rin, don’t we? But none of us are showing it by fighting, even when we’re just teasing.” He holds their gazes in turn until both relent and mumble apologies, tiny spots of color on their faces. Satisfied, he bends to his bento, shoveling rice and vegetables and octopus wieners into his mouth. There’s only a small window of time before…
“Maaaa~koooo~chaaaaan!” With the grace of an elephant, Hazuki Nagisa lands on Makoto’s back, experience the only thing keeping his bento from launching sky-high in fright. “Oooh, it’s octopus day! Traaade!” Nagisa singsongs, one impossibly long arm stretching to drop a warm package of curry bread in Makoto’s lap before snagging two wieners. He promptly stuffs them between his teeth, leaving the tentacle portions protruding from his mouth. “Rei-chan!” Nagisa slurs around his mouthful, disengaging from Makoto and wiggling his fingers lewdly as he stalks towards his would-be victim. “Come be my fisherman’s wife and let me do naughty things to you~~!”
“That is inappropriate lunchtime behavior, Nagisa-kun!” Ryuugazaki Rei bellows as he primly adjusts his glasses, dodging Nagisa with a veteran’s grace. “Though at least it shows you were paying attention in classical literature, attempting to broach this sort of subject in front of Gou-san is…” He breaks off with an indignant sputter; he shouldn’t have to tell Nagisa why it’s in poor taste to make dirty jokes - even ones with a modicum of literary cleverness - around girls. Especially girls who manage the swim team and determine their workouts.
“Eh? Why?” Nagisa chews and swallows, blinking guileless eyes. “Gou-chan’s in our class, too, so it isn’t like we’re leaving her out.”
“Yeah, I totally get this joke, unlike some of the English ones you boys try to read out of Ai-kun’s Playboys.” Gou grins and pokes more of her own lunch in her mouth. “And who eating here didn’t already know Nagisa-kun was a relentless pervert and show-off?” Unsurprisingly, no hands go up, and Gou laughs her windchimes laugh. “See, Rei-kun, I’m not offended. But it’s sweet of you to worry whether I was.”
Her praise has Rei blushing to the roots of his hair and launching into some new diatribe, and despite the loss of the wieners Makoto smiles. He really has good friends. They’re going to be the subject of many letters, he already knows. But, he thinks as he tears open the curry bread, he may leave out all the sex jokes…
Two weeks earlier
Nonohara-sensei hands out the penpal surveys before lunch, but despite the class bustle and excitement around him Makoto folds his in half without reading it. Only the name at the top remains visible.
Nanase Haruka.
As the rest of the class disburses to eat and leaves the room all but empty, Makoto wonders if there’s any way to skip the group lunch and pour over his survey in private, to learn all about Haruka-chan from what she has written.
Haruka-chan. It really is a beautiful name….
“Makoto-senpai!” Aiichirou chirps from the doorway. “Are you ready to eat?”
“Ai…” Caught, Makoto searches the reaches of his mind for a proper excuse, one that won't smack of dismissal. For a while, he'd believed the shy, quiet boy Rin dragged into their friend group might be the one to be his special friend, but Momo slid neatly into that space first and despite their disparate personalities they...fit together. Makoto can't begrudge them that. He can’t begrudge any of them that. “Actually, I…”
Aiichirou’s blue eyes brighten with comprehension, illuminating his fey face. “Oh! Is that your partner’s survey, senpai?”
“...Sousuke has a really big mouth,” Makoto mutters to himself, nodding. “Did he tell everyone I was nervous about it?”
Aiichirou shakes his head and slips into the classroom, sliding into a seat next to Makoto’s. “Just me.” He glances down at the folded survey on Makoto’s desk with a wistful sigh. “I’m a little envious, to be honest. You’re going to get to talk to a girl, an actual girl.”
“You talk to Gou-chan every day?”
“That’s different. Gou-san isn’t an actual girl, she’s Rin-senpai’s precious sister and our manager.” He sighs, puffing silver bangs with his breath. “It’s hard to think ‘girl’ about someone who yells at you to make your times faster and your exchanges tighter. Not to mention criticizes your lunch...”
“True, true.”
“And, I don’t get nervous talking to her.” Aiichirou fiddles with the edge of the desk, tracing his finger in an old, well-worn groove left behind by years of Mitaka middle schoolers. “...do you know why I first started reading girlie magazines?” Makoto shakes his head, a little happy for the distraction. “It came out of something Rin-senpai suggested before he left for the US. I was so uncomfortable talking to people, girls especially, whether it was in class or one-on-one. He said the best way to get through it was to picture the other people either naked or in their underwear. It breaks the ice and relaxes you because how intimidating are other people if they’re naked?”
Aiichirou laughs, the sound no longer as self-conscious as when he first moved to Mitaka almost four years ago, skinny and undersized and afraid of his own shadow. Makoto doesn’t have the heart to tell him Rin’s advice probably had much more to do with public speaking than day-to-day interactions. “Except I don’t have that good an imagination and since I was a little old to bathe with my mom I couldn’t remember what girls looked like naked. I found my dad’s collection of these magazines in our attic and...it was like a light just went on in my head. I could look and then I’d know what to picture. And it worked!” he adds, drawing himself up with pride. “Then I figured out that, well, I like looking at them. Not just girls, though; Gou-chan’s muscle magazines have some great pictures, too.”
“Ai?”
“Hmm?”
“You’ve come a long way.” Makoto smiles his most senpai smile. “Rin would be really proud of you.”
Aiichirou lights up like a summer sparkler, every emotion in his face a supernova. “Thank you!” he exclaims, hero-worship shining strong once again. As it should be, Makoto thinks. “Ah, if you want to read your survey in private, I’ll go run interference. I think...I can get you five good minutes before Nagisa and Momo come looking for you. Maybe ten, I’m feeling super confident today.”
He gets up and gathers his bag and bento, gently touching Makoto’s shoulder before heading for the classroom’s door. Just before he crosses into the hallway Aiichirou pauses, turning around until his slight outline is framed by the doorway. “Senpai?”
“Yes?”
“I think Rin-senpai would be really proud of you, too.”
One week earlier
“No way!” Gou shouts when Makoto comes through the rooftop door for lunch.
“What?” Momo puts down his sandwich, both thrilled and alarmed by her sudden level of excitement.
“Can’t you see? He’s twitterpated!”
“Can we stop with the Disney references, Gou-chan?” Nagisa springs up to peer at Makoto, who’s busy trying to hide his enthralled face in his hands. “I think somebody got a letter~,” he singsongs, only Sousuke’s iron hand on his collar keeping him from scaling Makoto’s back. “Details, details!”
“Nagisa-kun! It’s horribly rude to demand information from Makoto-senpai.” Rei looks positively affronted at Nagisa’s lack of manners. “We should present to him logical, persuasive arguments as to why he should choose to share with us.”
“But that takes so long!” Nagisa protests. “Just read it out loud, Mako-chan!”
“Nagisa-kun!” This time the voice that cracks whiplike is Aiichirou’s. “This letter is not only Makoto-senpai’s schoolwork, it’s his private business. I’ll buy you a cream bread if you’ll stop pestering him about it.”
“How can you be simultaneously so generous and stingy, Ai-chan?” Nagisa pouts but wraps his snakelike arms around Aiichirou instead of Makoto. “I want two cream breads.”
This turn of events has Rei sputtering out a protest. “Aiichirou-kun, you know perfectly well it is I who buys cream bread for Nagisa-kun, despite its complete lack of nutrition. This is hardly the time to make such a radical change to our beautiful, harmonious routine…”
“Do you want a yogurt, Rei-kun?” The butterflier shrieks, which Aiichrou takes for a yes. “Gou-san, I think they have a protein drink that’s on our menu. Why don’t you come, too?”
“What about me, Ai-senpai?” Momo bounces from foot to foot, his mouth stuffed full of sandwich.
Aiichirou lays a hand on Momo’s shoulder, his grin softening into deep fondness. “We’ll just keep going until I run out of allowance.”
Momo radiates like a sunbeam and joins the underclassman herd leaving for the cafeteria. “That might not take long as much as Nagisa-senpai likes cream bread.”
“...then we raid Nagisa-kun’s allowance next.”
“Ehhhhh?”
“That’s quite logical, Aiichirou-kun. Nagisa-kun’s family is wealthier than any of ours.”
“So cruel, Rei-chan!!”
Aiichirou, the last to leave, peeks back over at Makoto, mouthing ‘good luck’ to him as he shuts the rooftop door.
“I didn’t think he had it in him to out-connive Nagisa, but...that was well-played.” Sousuke leans back against the railing, practically seeing hearts and flowers appearing around Makoto’s head. Twitterpated, indeed. “Was it what you expected, your letter?”
Makoto shakes his head, pulling the precious envelope from inside his blazer. “I’m...kind of overwhelmed. She’s so smart, her handwriting is beautiful.” He runs his fingers back and forth over the surface, gaze drifting somewhere far away. “I want to read it over and over, even though I don’t understand some of it.”
“How so?”
In answer, Makoto opens it and hands the page to Sousuke, giving him permission to read it. He handles it a bit awkwardly, feeling the weight of Makoto’s emotions in his hands. “What do you think?”
“Hmm.” Sousuke ponders for a moment as he reads the letter (shouldn’t it be longer for Makoto to be this happy?), frowning in that way he does when he’s weighing speaking up versus staying silent. Most of the time, Makoto appreciates his friend’s bluntness, but Sousuke can be abrasive without trying. It’s rare he sets out to hurt feelings, but...Makoto’s are so close to the surface that often they bruise. “You should use her,” he concludes, folding the single page and returning it to Makoto.
“What?” Makoto is aghast; how can he think of using Haruka-chan?
Sousuke rolls his eyes. “For English. This is a school project, right? We’re third years and Mitaka isn’t an elevator school. That means passing exams or we’ll be breaking our promise to Rin to be ready when he comes back and the three of us to win nationals. English is your worst subject...and even if she’s weird as hell, this girl knows a lot of it. Practice with her, pick her brain, leverage this into a better score.”
“Sousuke…” Part of Makoto knows his friend is right, that Haruka-chan is writing to him only because she has to in order to pass the project, to graduate and go on to high school just like him. Part of him wishes to be more like Sousuke, ready to take advantage of opportunities and not get bogged down in sentimental quicksand.
A larger part of him, though, would thrash himself if he were only to consider water- and music-loving Haruka-chan, who wrote ‘I can never be free’, as a means to an end, a path to trod in bolstering his shameful English score. People aren’t meant to be treated that way, he thinks as he tucks the letter away, and if it means living with being below average at English it’s how it has to be. “I understand what you mean, but I just can’t use someone.”
“Makoto...you know I’m not saying any of this to hurt you, right? But...this isn’t the dating game, this isn’t something out of a manga where you and she are going to fall in love or the like. This is reality and this is work, so don’t go getting all mushy and losing your head.” Sousuke breathes out a deep sigh, putting his hand on Makoto’s shoulder. “Right now it seems like we’ll have all the time in the world, but September is going to be here before we know it and we’ll be retiring from swim club and spending all our time at cram school. The exams are going to be harder than anything we’ve done before and February isn’t that far away. This girl is probably hoping to get something out of this project, so why shouldn’t you?”
“...all I really want to get is a friend.” The admission is out before Makoto can stop it, and he looks up at Sousuke with guilty eyes. “That...I didn’t put that quite right. I have all of you, and you’re the most wonderful friends anyone could ask for - more than I could ever deserve. But...each of you has someone who is their most important friend. Even though Rin’s gone, you’re his and he’s yours. I’m just borrowing you at best.”
“Makoto...I’m sorry.”
The captain shakes his head slowly. “Don’t apologize for having met Rin when you were three. I know I’ll meet that most important friend someday. But that means I can’t overlook them...or use them. If I want to get better at English, I’ll have to do it on my own. Besides,” he nudges Sousuke’s chest with his forearm, “aren’t you pretty bad at English, too?”
They descend into good-natured roughhousing and Makoto forgets about things like using people and the national exam and graduation and how he will ever manage to leave so many of his friends behind for a year or more..
But he doesn’t forget the letter warm against his chest, or Haruka-chan’s sincere ‘please take care of me.’ He will. Somehow, he will.
Four days earlier
Haruka-chan’s letter looks more creased all the time, and Makoto’s reply remains blank amidst all his other homework scattered on the dining table. He’s halfway watching the twins as they play Super Famicom together, but anxiety and doubt have tuned out their chatter. Haruka-chan’s letter is so amazing, Haruka-chan is so amazing. How can he possibly respond to something so concise and wonderful when all he wants to do is ramble on and on and on to her?
He has to turn this in tomorrow so it can join the other letters in the package Nonohara-sensei will send to faraway Iwatobi, to that seaside place he never knew existed until this project, until Haruka-chan. Iwatobi, he thinks of it on the map of the Tottori coast, nestled in the infinite arms of the ocean.
A strong chill runs down Makoto’s spine and he rubs his hands on his bare arms to hasten it away. Just be yourself, Sousuke had said, but Sousuke doesn’t know the truth. None of them do; in the absence of a most important friend to tell, Makoto has kept his secret barricaded deep inside his heart, locked away in chains of iron where it can do no harm to those he holds dear.
Swimming is what binds all of them together, and his fear has no place sullying the water for his friends. He doesn’t want their pity, their concern, anything that can disrupt the dynamic. He’s the captain. He has to lead them. He cannot let them down. He cannot fail them. He cannot do anything but swallow down his fear and swim on.
I can never be free. Makoto traces that snippet of English with his finger. Maybe, just maybe, Haruka-chan can understand, too. If she cannot be free, something has her locked up as well. But...does he have any right to burden her with his secret or potentially sully the water for her?
No… he decides, all of the love and passion for the water in her short letter had burst off the page in waves. Makoto is only a stranger, he isn’t someone with the power to change her feelings about it. They’re likely to never meet in person, and as oddly sad as that makes him feel, could the relative anonymity be a bit of an invitation to share this part of himself he’s never given to anyone else? If he can admit his fear to Haruka-chan, who loves the water so much, could she find some way to still like him anyways?
While Makoto debates back and forth with himself, he takes the cap off his new pen and starts writing. As soon as ink touches paper, the words start coming...slowly at first, but faster and faster still, until his thoughts have accumulated nearly three pages in length. Heaving a deep breath, he pushes the pages away after rereading them; it’s too honest, too needy, altogether as unmanly as his kittens-and-chocolate survey. It’s too much, Haruka-chan shouldn’t get this ugly part of him as her first introduction, but for some reason the idea of lying by omission with her stings deep inside.
“Oniichan!” Ren’s teary voice interrupts Makoto’s thoughts, his breath coming in desperate gasps as he wrings his hands near Makoto’s elbow. “R-Ran played my turn while I was in the bathroom and put her name on high score!”
“You didn’t pause it and you were going to die!” Ran shoots back defiantly. “You’d have been more madder if you died!”
“Just madder,” Makoto corrects, standing up and taking Ren into his arms. “Shh, it’s okay,” he soothes, forgetting his own worries as his little brother sniffles against his shoulder. “I know you’re upset now, and sometimes when you’re upset the best thing to do is cry until you stop feeling upset.” Ran, seeing Ren getting all of Makoto’s attention, starts tearing up as well, the controller forgotten as she sprints over and wraps her little arms around Makoto’s leg. “Some day, one or both of you are going to come to me with a problem I can’t fix, but this one is easy.” He bends down just enough to sweep Ran up as well, taking them to sit on the couch by the television. “The game hasn’t saved, so we can just push the reset button. It means starting over, but that way whoever gets high score earned it all the way...right?”
“Right!” they chorus in turn, no longer upset or angry. “Will you play with us?” Ran asks.
“When my homework is done, yes. I have to write a letter first.”
“To a girl? Yuck,” Ren adds, toggling the system’s button so they can play again.
“I wouldn’t want to write to a boy.” Ran sniffs with girlish derision, pigtails flipping as she tosses her head. “Unless it was Oniichan.”
“N-No fair! I want to write to Oniichan!”
“You can’t, because you’re a boy. You have first play, Ren.”
“I can so,” he mutters, button mashing away. Makoto smiles and returns to the table, always amazed at how quickly they forgive and forget with each other.
Reset button...huh…
He bends back over his precious letter, knowing what he has to say.
Three days earlier
Something smells like apples as Makoto slings his schoolbag over one shoulder, but Rei and Sousuke are waiting at the end of the block and he forgets about it until he gets to the classroom. He opens the bag to take out Haruka-chan’s letter, eyes wide with shock when the scent hits him. Ran and Ren! It had to be them, with their giggling at the breakfast table! Frantic, he glances at the clock, but there’s no time to copy the letter onto clean pages and still turn it in.
He pulls a hasty page out of his desk and starts jotting an apology, holding his breath against the onslaught of hiccups. Stupid nerves. Stupid malfunctioning diaphragm that they learned about in science. Makoto presses a hand under his ribs, hoping against hope that no one else notices his predicament.
“Again, Tachibana?” No such luck. The boisterous voice belongs to Iwao, the class rep. “Hey, listen up! Tachibana needs our help. We have to scare those hiccups out of him before Nonohara-sensei gets here!”
“...that’s not *hic* necessary, Iwao-kun.”
“Just relax and leave this to us, Tachibana.” In groups of twos and threes, class 3-3 tries its hardest to frighten away Makoto’s hiccups until he’s blue in the face with fear and trembling. Nonohara-sensei comes in, silencing their attempts with dark-eyed disapproval. “Are you all right, Makoto-kun?” He nods around a hiccup, doing his best to will them into submission, and the teacher neatly diverts attention away from him. He breathes out a sigh and looks down at his addendum to the letter.
I hope today is a beautiful day filled with lots of water and music for you.
Something in those words relaxes the tension away from his middle, the hiccups stopping for now. Makoto labels it page four at the top, folding it around the apple-scented sheets and stuffing all of them into the envelope. He writes a quick ‘to Nanase Haruka from Tachibana Makoto’ on the front, handing it over to Nonohara-sensei in turn with a quiet, fervent prayer in his mind.
Please like me. Even if you choose ‘reset’, please like me.