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❧
That night, Rin goes straight to bed after dinner. He sees the disappointed look on his little sister's face when he gets up from the table and he knows what it means, but he pretends he doesn't; he's getting good at that.
He climbs into bed, pulls the covers up to tuck himself in, and closes his eyes, ready for this day to be over already.
But as done as he is with this day, it seems the day is not done with him: it won't let him sleep yet. He opens his eyes again, turning to look out the window. When he was a little kid, his dad would sometimes come and get him up before going out on the fishing boats. They'd go up on the roof together, just him and his dad, and look at the stars. Rin could point at almost any star in the night sky and his dad would tell him its name and show him the other stars it was connected to, even though the connections were invisible, and tell him stories about those constellations.
Like this one right here: this is Kujira, the legendary whale. At least that's what Rin's dad called him, although he told Rin that often Kujira is called "the dusky monster" and the area of the sky where he lives is known as "the chaos of the deep," which sounds about as good as it can get for a sea monster that lives in the sky. Rin doesn't think Kujira is really a monster, though; it's just that no one has looked at him properly and seen his real story.
He sits up, looking away from the night sky. After a moment, he gets out of bed, puts his clothes back on, and heads for the front door. "I'm going out," he says as he passes his mom and sister, watching television together. Kou says his name, somehow turning it into three syllables in that way she has sometimes, but he's already shoving his feet into his shoes. She starts to call him again but their mom tells her to leave him alone; just as he's shutting the door behind him, he catches the word "Australia."
This isn't about Australia, though. Or maybe it is. Rin doesn't know exactly why he's so anxious he can't sleep, but maybe Australia is part of it after all, somehow. He's pretty sure he'd still be anxious even if he weren't going there. If that were the case (which it's not), even if he still felt like this, at least he'd be here and he could—he doesn't know what he could do, but he'd be here, just in case...
As he wraps his hands around the handlebars of his bike, he notices they're kind of shaky, which is weird because he doesn't get shaky, ever; other people do for different reasons, but not Rin. He chews his lip, standing there a moment before deciding not to ride his bike. It'll take longer but he feels better relying on his own body anyhow, like he does in the water. If he could swim there he would; since he can't, he runs.
He runs past his bus stop, runs past the next one, and comes to a halt at the one after that. He looks up at the neighborhood at the top of the stairs: there are a lot of houses and he suddenly realizes he doesn't know exactly which one he's looking for.
He's come this far already, though, so he climbs the stairs one step at a time. He doesn't think it's very late yet, but some of the houses already have all their lights off, so he passes by those and stops at the first one that still has a light showing. He walks up the path, hesitating only a moment before ringing the doorbell.
Footsteps approach the door from inside and then a man opens it. Even in the dim lighting, Rin can see how weather-worn his skin is; a fisherman, he thinks, and already knows the answer even before he says, "I'm sorry for disturbing you, but does Makoto live here?"
The weathered fisherman tells him there's no one there by that name. Rin thanks him anyhow and offers a quick bow before walking to the next house where he see lights. It's fine; it would have been too lucky for Makoto to be at the first house he tried and Rin has never relied on luck. He walks up to the door and knocks without hesitation this time: it's a fat salaryman who answers, and still no Makoto.
Rin's hands curl into fists as he heads towards the next lit house. He steps back to bow when the door is opened by an older woman, probably someone's granny. "I'm sorry for disturbing you," he says, the words coming easier the more he says them, "but does Makoto live here?"
"I'm sorry, he doesn't," the old woman says as she shakes her head, then smiles kindly. "Is Makoto your friend?"
Rin nods.
"Do you know his last name?"
Again Rin nods. "Tachibana."
"Oh!" The old woman's eyebrows go up as she smiles this time. "The Tachibanas are just up the hill." She wraps her sweater around her as she steps outside and points. "Do you see that curve there? They're three houses in from that, on the right."
He follows her finger, counting houses to be sure he knows which one she's pointing at. "Thank you very much!" His bow is more hurried than it should be, but he catches a glimpse of the old woman's smile as he straightens up and turns away, and thinks she doesn't mind. He wonders if she used to go out looking for her friends at night when she was a kid herself or if she's used to kids coming to find Makoto; or if maybe she's just that kind of nice.
She calls something after him and he doesn't catch it, but she's waving when he turns to look, so he waves back as he starts running again.
It only takes a couple of minutes to get to the third house in from the curve and he's not winded just from that, but he stops to catch his breath anyhow. Now that he's here, he's not sure what he's going to say. Maybe he could just go up and look in the window, look for Makoto's smile—but Makoto also smiled on the bus this afternoon, so.
So he climbs up to the front door. He knocks and finds himself holding his breath as he listens for footsteps inside.
A man with glasses and a kind face opens the door. As Rin tilts his head to look up, he wonders if this is what Makoto will look like when he grows up, if he'll also wear glasses, if this is the grown up version of his smile.
"May I help you?" the man asks.
"Yes," Rin says, pushing on without the deep breath he wishes he could take: "Is Makoto home?"
The man's smile widens and Rin feels his breath come easier. "I'll call him for you. Please, come in."
Rin steps inside and hovers by the door, uncertain whether he should take his shoes off or not as Mr. Tachibana goes to get Makoto, balancing with the toes of one shoe on the heel of the other just in case. "Makoto!" he hears Mr. Tachibana call. "One of your friends from the swim club is here for you!" Rin is surprised, wondering how Mr. Tachibana knew who he was; maybe he recognized the smell of chlorine.
He doesn't have much time to think about it because moments later Makoto rounds the corner with a smile, which uncurves as his brow arches up. "Oh—hi, Rin!"
"Hi." Rin takes his toes away from his other foot, balancing with both feet on the floor. Now that Makoto's face has settled, he looks fine. But he looked fine on the bus... "I just." Makoto is still smiling at him and somehow that's making it harder for Rin to think of what to say. "I just wanted to make sure you were okay," he blurts out.
Makoto's mouth opens in a silent oh. He turns and the chill that's been coming and going ever since this afternoon closes in a fist in Rin's belly; if Makoto walks away, Rin knows the chill will slide up into his chest.
But Makoto only leans forward and calls out, "Mom, Dad—I'm going outside with Rin for a little while!"
"All right," a woman's voice calls back cheerfully. "Just don't stay out too late!"
"We won't!" Makoto doesn't look at Rin as he puts on his shoes and opens the door. As Rin follows, he wonders if Makoto has a special place he likes to go at night—but when they get outside, Makoto just sits down on the top step. Rin sits next to him, thinking that maybe Makoto's home is his special place; he glances over his shoulder as he settles, wondering what that must be like. Not better, he decides; just different.
When he looks at Makoto, Makoto is looking up at the stars. Rin looks up too. He finds Kujira again, swimming in the chaos of the deep, but not lost—shining in the inky ocean of the night sky, held together by invisible connections. Rin is old enough now to understand about the gravitational forces between stars but really he thinks it's something more, something that binds them to one another and makes each individual star part of the story.
The silence breaks when Makoto takes a deeper breath. "You saw me on the bus, huh?"
Rin looks over but Makoto is still looking at the stars. He nods, takes a breath of his own to speak, but he doesn't know what to say and lets it out to rejoin the night air.
Makoto sighs too. "Sorry, Rin."
Rin's brow furrows. He starts to reach for Makoto, to make Makoto turn to him, but only ends up closing his hand on the air and dropping his empty fist to his side. "What are you apologizing for?"
"I didn't want you to see me like that." Makoto looks down from the sky, smiling as he turns to Rin.
The cold anxiety that wouldn't let him sleep wraps around Rin's spine again and he realizes that's the thing that scares him: not the way Makoto sometimes shakes like he's falling apart inside but that he hides it; not that he tries to hide it but that he's good at it. The only reason he hadn't hidden it at the river was because he was so focused on Haru that he forgot all about himself. And maybe that's how he'd been able to take charge like that, to make things okay even while he was shaking apart inside, because he's used to behaving normally while feeling like that inside—
On the bus, when Rin asked him about the river, Makoto had seemed fine. But maybe he was already starting to shake inside again, even before Rin got off the bus; he just hid it until he thought he was alone. It was only by chance that Rin had looked back and seen him. The bus started up again before he could be sure what was happening, but he hasn't been able to stop thinking about it since then, and it seems he was right.
He doesn't know why Makoto's shaking scares him so much more than the ocean taking his father all those years ago, but it does. Maybe it's because there was nothing that could be done for his father: that was then and Rin wasn't there and anyhow, the ocean takes what it takes. Rin can't be happy about that, but he has to accept that it happened because nothing can change it. But this—
"I'm glad I saw you," Rin says. His jaw sets stubbornly as they look at each other, as if daring Makoto to say anything that could contradict Rin's feelings.
Makoto doesn't say anything at all. He looks away again, up into the night sky. Rin looks up too, wondering what Makoto is seeing up there. Somehow he has an idea that Makoto isn't looking at the stars but the space between them, not at the sea monster but into the chaos of the deep.
Rin shifts closer; closer, until their shoulders are touching. Stargazing has always given him a floating sensation but staring into the depths is better like this, he thinks, with something solid by your side. Makoto must think so too because he doesn't move away; he even leans into the touch, like he thinks Rin is the one who's solid.
Once, years ago, Rin was in an earthquake while visiting Tokyo. His mom sometimes still talks about the way the buildings swayed, but what Rin really remembers is the ground: the way it was solid beneath his feet one moment—and in the next it went oceanic, rolling and heaving, and Rin realized it never had been solid, not the way everyone thinks of it.
That's Makoto. Everyone looks to him, depends on him; Rin has done it too, relying on Makoto to persuade Haru to swim the relay because it seemed like something that was impossible, except that Makoto would be able to do it. You think he's the ground beneath your feet but inside—all that shaking: it's Makoto earthquaking.
Rin looks at him. Sensing the gaze, Makoto returns it, smiles when Rin shakes his head, looks back up at the stars. Rin lets his gaze linger a moment longer before he looks up again too. Even though he knows the earth's secret, he still feels safe walking on it. He leans into Makoto's side a little more as he stargazes.
He's never felt like this before, floating and anchored at the same time. He doesn't know if Makoto makes everyone feel this way or if it's just him; maybe once you see Makoto shaking, maybe that opens a crack that you can slip through and once you do, he's not the earth or the ocean and you float up and up, not away but up and up and up...
He floats back down to the sound of his own name: Makoto's voice calling his name from far away—
Rin blinks rapidly as he realizes he's been asleep, leaning into Makoto, head fallen to his shoulder. He sits up, rubbing his eyes. He doesn't know how that happened—it's not that late—and he starts to apologize: but when he looks at Makoto, nothing comes out.
"Do you want to sleep here tonight? My mom can call your mom to see if it's all right."
Rin nods and Makoto smiles, pats his shoulder and gets up. Rin gets up too and follows him back inside. When Makoto introduces him to his parents and asks if Rin can stay over, Mrs. Tachibana's eyebrows arch in a way that reminds Rin of Makoto. "Is everything all right?" she asks.
"Yes." Makoto nods decisively and his mom relaxes into a smile.
"In that case," she says, turning her smile to Rin, "you can use our phone to call your family, if you'd like." And then Rin sees part of where Makoto gets it from as she reads his face and offers smoothly, "Or you can give me the number and I'll do it?"
Rin nods and recites the number for her. It's not that he doesn't want to talk to his mom but he doesn't think he can explain to her why it's so important that he be here tonight.
"Come on." Makoto's smile is easy like his mom's and Rin feels himself breathing normally as he returns it. On the way to his room, Makoto softens his footsteps as they pass the room where his little twin brother and sister are already asleep, and Rin does the same.
There's only one bed in his room, of course, but Makoto pulls out a futon from under it. "Ran and Ren like to sleep in here with me sometimes," he explains with a grin as he unrolls it. "So I'm used to it. You can have the bed."
Makoto won't hear any protest. He digs out a pair of pajamas for Rin, which are only a little too big. Makoto apologizes but Rin doesn't mind, although he does wonder how much bigger than him Makoto is going to get. There's always a chance he'll hit a growth spurt and catch up, but somehow he doesn't think so.
As Rin stretches out in Makoto's bed, he thinks about the little brother and sister who like to sleep in this bed, the father who is not surprised to see friends show up at odd hours, the mother who needs just a single word to accept that things are all right, the boy who only swims freestyle but now will swim it in a relay. He knows Makoto likes it, that everyone sees him as so solid—but Rin hopes they see the other side too. Now that he's lying here in the dark again, he's afraid they don't, he's afraid that Makoto won't let them, that he'd rather drown on his own than reach out.
"Mako." Rin shifts, leaning over the side of the bed to peer down at the futon.
Their eyes meet as Makoto rolls over to face him, looking up. "Is anything wrong?"
"No." Rin hesitates. He hesitates for longer than he means to, the pause stretching, but Makoto doesn't break the silence, doesn't break the gaze.
"Just," Rin says at last. "I just want you to know that you can rely on me, if you ever need to." He means it; he really means it, even though he's going to Australia soon. "Even with an ocean between us—just reach out for me, and I'll reach back, no matter what."
There's a furrow on Makoto's brow and Rin wants to reach out right now to smooth it away. He knows it's a weird thing to say but he means it; if he has to swim the Pacific to be there when Makoto needs someone, he will. He knows Makoto doesn't know what it all means and he doesn't know how he'll explain it if Makoto asks what ocean he's talking about—
But then Makoto nods. "Thanks, Rin."
"I mean it," Rin says, somehow relieved that Makoto hasn't smiled, because Makoto smiled on the bus...
"I know you do," Makoto says, his face as serious as Rin's heart feels.
Rin feels there's already an ocean and he wants to reach across it, to show he can, he will...
They're still looking at each other. Even though it's dark, Makoto must see it in Rin's eyes. "Do you want to sleep on the futon with me?"
With a nod Rin slides himself forward, diving down onto the futon. Makoto lifts the covers for him and Rin slips inside. He knows he should turn onto his side, facing away, but he just wants to look at Makoto for another moment, to memorize his unsmiling and honest face.
Finally Rin turns onto his side. He feels the covers shift as Makoto does too—and then he feels Makoto's arm across him. He doesn't think about it, he just pushes back, fitting the curve of his body to the curve of Makoto's. He doesn't know how this feels for Makoto, but for him it's like nothing else, and he's floating again, and he can only hope Makoto is too: floating and secured, tethered by an invisible connection that lets him shine in the chaotic depths inside.