Chapter Text
“Hazuki-san, yes?”
“Yup, you got that right, that's me. What did you need me for, Ryugazaki-kun?”
“...We need to talk.”
As we walk down the hallway, I am acutely aware of the young man beside me, swinging his arms around without a care in the world. His name is Nagisa Hazuki, a blond-haired, bright-eyed, hyper energetic classmate of mine who I unfortunately have the bad luck of having to talk to.
The things I do for my sanity.
“Ryugazaki-kun, we've been walking for such a long time.” Hazuki drawls, pouting. Such a kicked-puppy-dog face would have worked on other people - especially on his one known associate, Tachibana-senpai - but no, it's not going to work on me. “Aren't we there yet?”
“Almost,” I say, pushing up my glasses with one hand. I had intended to bring Hazuki to a place that more-or-less had privacy - like the grounds out back, or an empty hallway - but, judging from the actions of the person I am about to talk to, it would be in my best interest for me to choose a place which had people in it.
Maybe I'm overreacting, but....It could never hurt to have a witness.
The rooftop, then. I'm skipping lunch for the sake of this hooligan, surely everyone else won't be following suit? There are usually some fellow freshmen who take their lunches up there, as well...
As we arrive at the top of the stairs, I throw the door open with a swing I'd prefer to descrivbe as 'graceful'. And, because I am obviously nothing if not a gentleman, I throw Hazuki a hopefully-emotionless glance and tell him, “After you.”
It's just my luck that there seem to be a couple of girls our age having lunch on the rooftop as well. Nice. Maybe if Hazuki eventually chucks me down the rooftop, there'd be someone there to confirm my source of death...I think.
“So thoughtful.” Hazuki says in reply, raising his eyebrow - coyly, I guess, would be the adverb best suited to describe it. As he passes me his posture shifts and the smile on his face grows less playful, more pensive, which is. Actually not quite a bad look on him. But I'm not here to comment on that arbitrary thing. “What did you wanna talk about?”
I push up my glasses with a hand, again. I am aware that this is a nervous tic, something I have to train myself out of quickly, because one cannot be enigmatic if they have fairly obvious tells. That shall be a concern I will have to deal with later. As for now...
As for now, Hazuki's been humming some kind of inane tune. If I don't get this over with soon, I have the sinking feeling that I might get that tune stuck in my head for the better part fof a week.
“Hazuki-san.”
“Hmm?”
“Whatever it is you're doing, please stop.”
“Which thing?” Hazuki asks, somewhat carelessly for someone who had looked so silly - and so serious. “This, humming to myself, or this, looking at you?”
He says the last part out loud, so plainly, that I have to reach for my glasses again, if only to mask how my cheeks are set aflame. How dare he drive me to feel so...embarrassed, that must be it, that definitely must be what I'm feeling, because if I ever have to say “flattered” and “Hazuki” in the same sentence I don't know what I should be doing with myself.
“That...I was actually going to talk to you about that last part.” I say, berating myself because where is your reputed coolness now, Ryugazaki? Skipping lunch really does have a bad effect on me. Zero points, shall never try it again. “I had heard you always went to watch the track club practice.”
“Yeah, so?”
“I had also heard that you had only ever paid attention whenever it was my turn to jump.” “Heard”, nothing. What use would my peripheral vision be to me, if I didn't go forth and use it? And besides, it's not as if there was anyone who was going to care too much as to tell me anything about what people think of me. “It is not at all a bad thing to do, but when you combine that with the fact that you always follow me around in school and how you always keep hounding me to talk to you on the train...the pattern that forms really is distressing. So please just stop.”
Hazuki's face falls, and at that moment he looked like some inhuman cross of a kicked puppy and a child barely on the verge on crying. It is not a good look on him at all, and I am about to scramble to do something, anything, to get that look off his face, which my subconscious apparently thinks to be its first priority.
But that would be contrary to my entire stance about the Hazuki situation in the first place, so it's almost a relief when Hazuki schools his face into the same pensive one he had been wearing earlier. I say “almost”, because there is still the sinking feeling in my gut that I've failed...at something, somehow.
“So you're saying that the stuff I'm doing aren't wrong when done separately, but it creeps you out because I'm doing them all at the same time?”
I wouldn't go as far as to say it so crassly, and he hasn't understood it, not really, but his assumption is pretty close to what I am thinking. So I nod, once, because for once I fear I might just end up saying the wrong thing.
“Hmm,” Hazuki says, stroking his chin like men tend to do ‘thoughtfully’ in too many cheesy movies. “If I set back on watching you practice, and bugging you all the time, you would like it, won't you?”
I nod again, before my subconscious - my apparently guilty subconscious, why did his devastated expression have to be so damned effective - can begin second-guessing myself.
“So...if I did that, you won't mind as much, if I said I wanted to run with you tomorrow?”
I'm nodding on reflex before Hazuki squeals, actually squeals, and it is only then that I realize what he had been saying in the first place.
“Then I'll be looking forward to it, Ryugazaki-kun!”
Had I accomplished anything out of this? I think, groaning, as I make my way down the staircase. But for some reason, I can't get myself to be actually annoyed, much less disappointed.
“This brings back memories,” Hazuki says, his footfalls gradually growing brisker as he tries to keep up with me. “I used to be an athlete too, y'know.”
I snort at the mental image that creates, internally. Or at least I had intended that to be a purely mental response, and had failed, because now Hazuki is shoulder to shoulder with me and is looking up at me with those big bright eyes of his.
“Hey, I really was an athlete, okay? A swimmer. You can talk to Mako-chan if you wanna, he's got my back on this.”
“You're referring to…Tachibana-senpai?”
“Yup, he's the one. He obviously wouldn't be lying, because he's a lousy liar. But that's beside the point.”
Was there even a point to be made in the first place, I think, but do not say. It would do me no good to waste breath on frivolities. “Go on, then.” I say, quickening my pace and resigning myself to spending the next...ten minutes, apparently...not listening.
“We used to jog like this, you know.” Hazuki says, sounding...not happy, for once. “Haru-chan used to say cool things like 'I won't wait for you if you can't keep up'. He always waited for me, though! He's a nice guy, deep down.” He finishes, fixing me with what seems to be a pointed Look.
Well, I don't care who this Haruchan may be, but I'm not him, that's for sure, so I sprint a careful three steps forward. It won't do well for Hazuki to think I'd be content with sharing his slow pace. “Shouldn't you be running with this Haruchan-san of yours then, if he's so amazing?”
“Ufufu~” Hazuki giggles, grinning. How can he giggle like that, between the high voice and the predilection for pink, it's no wonder he'd always be mistaken for a girl! “‘Haruchan-san’, you said. Why are you so adorable? ...also, Rei-chan, you do get jealous, so quickly.”
I'm telling myself to not stoop down to his level, by any and all means, but - but my mouth works on its own as it says “Do not,” and Hazuki's giggling reaches borderline-movie-psychopathic levels.
I don’t notice the sudden form of address as soon as I would have liked, but when I do, I slow to a stop. “Wait. ‘Rei-chan’?”
“Yup. It’s your name, isn’t it? I’m sure I didn’t get it wrong, I checked.” Hazuki insists. There is a big grin on his face, and his hands are at his sides. If I were the type to appreciate it – which I am – he’d make a very pretty picture right now, looking like that. “You can call me ‘Nagisa’, if you wanna.”
“I – I don’t see why I should.” I say, pushing up my glasses with one hand as I turn away from this – this impossible boy, back to my regimen. “First and foremost, we’re not that close.”
“Of course we aren’t right now; we’ve only just had class for a few weeks!” Hazuki replies. “But we can be closer, when we become friends!”
This guy never gives up, doesn’t he? I roll my eyes. I don’t know if I should find this trait of his admirable or pathetic. “Here you are again, with ‘wanting to become friends’ with me. Won’t you ever stop that?”
“Nope,” Hazuki says, popping his ‘p’ sound. It somehow sounds cataclysmic, though probably not for the reasons I’m used to. “I’m pretty sure I’ll get to be friends with you sooner or later, Rei-chan.”
“Please don’t use ‘-chan’ with my name,” I say, while realizing that my protests have definitely fallen onto deaf ears.
We go on another few kilometers – Hazuki’s humming that damned tune again, and as it is I’m too caught up in my thoughts to shush him – before I speak up again.
“Why does it have to be me?”
“Rei-chan?”
“You want to be friends with me, you said.” I say, hoping that the close proximity doesn’t make me subconsciously mimic Hazuki’s tone of speaking, as I am usually apparently prone to doing. “There are a lot of people in Iwatobi High, so, why does it have to be me?”
Because, if you give people a choice, they don’t usually feel the need to choose me – it’s expected, really, seeing as I’m not particularly fond of socialization, and I don’t have such a winning personality, either. I prioritize beauty and skill above all other things, not teamwork, or friendship. That’s not what people usually want from a friend, and even if they did need me for my athletics or my intelligence, having to deal with my idiosyncrasies isn’t worth the initial gain.
“Hmm,” Hazuki hums, his footfalls coming slower. “I’d say that it felt like fate when I saw you, but you’re a logical kinda guy, so I doubt you’d believe me.”
Lucky guess, because I really don’t.
“So maybe…it’s because, like me, you have a girly name?”
Okay, so I can’t help myself, and I stop in the middle of my stride. I somehow manage to not land on my backside, as I turn to look back at him. “That’s it?!”
“Well, it’s one of the reasons, at least.” Hazuki replies, coming to a stop right in front of me, as well. “But it’s mainly because, when I first saw you, you looked beautiful.”
Wait wait wait I did not just hear what I think I heard. “Huh?”
“When I first saw you pole vaulting, I mean.” Hazuki says, the faintest hints of red dusting his cheeks. Maybe it was just the cold, or the exertion, I tell myself, even though I know that’s not quite true. “When you jumped – your pole vaulting was beautiful! You looked so beautiful, Rei-chan!”
“I – I.” I mutter, looking away and pushing up my glasses so he doesn’t see the look I throw him and his ruddy cheeks. On the other hand, my own cheeks feel like they’ve been set ablaze. “I was just. It was just the application of the relevant theories and calculations. It’s nothing special.”
It was in fact something that, our coach said, did not set me apart and only bogged me down. Don’t be so stiff, he had said, move a bit more freely, can you? Well, sure, fine, I would, if only ‘moving freely’ is just as easy for me to do as it seems to be for everyone else.
Which it isn’t, but nobody cares.
“Who told you that? They’re wrong. What you do is something special, Rei-chan.” Hazuki says, his smile still present and his cheeks still flushed. “I suck at that stuff, and Mako-chan says I should care about that more, but I don’t. But when I saw you – when I saw you execute that perfect jump, I just knew I wanted to be friends with you.”
His last words hang in the silence between us, and I don’t know what I should say to that, not really. But we have classes in thirty minutes, and we still have to close these last few meters separating us from the school, still have to get changed out of our tracksuits and climb up the stairwells…
“Make sure you don’t regret that, then.” I say, surprising both Hazuki and my own self as I run further away.
So it goes rather downhill from there. Or uphill, depending on who you’re asking.
“Hey, Ryugazaki, I never thought you batted for the other team.” one of my track team fellows tells me, sniggering to himself as he probably thinks he’s being clever. I roll my eyes – people and their one-track minds, honestly.
“I don’t.” This probably isn’t the exact truth – to further expound on the trite term of phrase, I never really cared much to think about which ‘team’ I would be interested in batting for – but that’s what I say, and if I slam my locker with a bit more force than necessary, well, that’s nobody else’s business but mine. Got him startled, didn’t I? “Why would you ever think so?”
“Stop denying it – it’s shamelessly obvious. You and Hazuki, right?” pipes up another one of them, probably a strong believer in the phrase there is strength in numbers. I’m pretty sure I can take them all in a fist fight, but that’s not a gentlemanly way of thinking about things. “We’re glad you finally got that stick up your ass out just enough to finally start joining the rest of society, but honestly, sometimes you’re just too sickening to watch.”
I cross my arms over my chest. Nagisa always said I looked more intimidating when I was in my track clothes – it makes sense, what with my height and these muscles on my arms on display – and so I hope I look properly intimidating now. “First of all, nobody said you had to watch, so if your life is so boring that you have to resort to watching a couple of friends being nothing more than friendly to entertain yourselves, I cannot help but feel sorry for you.” I say, sighing. The thing with not being someone who talks as much is that when you do talk, it’s anomalous enough to make people stand at attention – I’m pretty sure you can hear a pin drop in the locker room.
“And if you see two boys being friends and immediately think such crass thoughts, then it just makes the whole thing much worse. I’d feel properly sorry for you, I really would, but I don’t have time for that – we don’t have time for that. After all, we didn’t come here for idle gossip – no, we’re here to practice, and if you could kindly focus on that, then it would be lovely.” I say, throwing them a smile that does not look sorry at all.
That day, I make all my high jumps without breaking a sweat.
Nobody says a word about me and Nagisa again.
If I were to be more precise, nobody says a word about me and Nagisa again, because aside from the initial hullaballoo about a guy like me finally having a friend, it doesn’t take quite a while for Iwatobi to get used to it. So Nagisa always gets himself stuck to me, and it’s a fact of life, just like how there’s a guy in class 3 who always brings lunch to the track club manager, and there’s a girl in class 2 who always likes talking about muscles. It should be weird but it isn’t, and as it becomes normal nobody thinks it special enough to comment about anymore.
Which is a relief, because I don’t think I can keep on intimidating people in my sleeveless track clothes during the winter months.
“Hey, Rei-chan, let’s eat lunch on the rooftop today!” Nagisa grins, pulling me by the hand as I sigh indulgently and manage to grab my bento along the way. “I wonder if Mako-chan would let me snatch off some of his bacon today?”
“Nagisa-kun, if you really did like to have bacon for lunch, you should’ve made your lunch yourself, you know.” I say.
I never really did remember when I started calling Nagisa Nagisa – it just slipped past my lips one day, and aside from the slight glimmer in his eyes there had been no adverse reaction, so I just never really turned back. Guess he was right about me in more ways than I thought he would, but it’s not like I’ll go and tell him that.
“And risk the opportunity of getting you to fuss and suddenly offer me that other compartment of your bento I know you’re saving up for me, Rei-chan?” Nagisa grins, raising an eyebrow defiantly. “Never.”
“You are aware that it stops being sudden when you anticipate it, yes?”
“Oh, you’re a better cook than I am, Rei-chan. Of course I’d anticipate it.”
I click my tongue, once. “You’re hopeless and Makoto-senpai must really be a saint to put up with you for all these years.” I say, as I open the door leading up to the rooftop.
It seems that the third member of our party had heard that, however, because he laughs. “Don’t go so far as to call me a saint, Rei, because I’m not one.” Makoto-senpai says, his green eyes filled with mirth. “I’m just your regular, run-of-the-mill big brother. Guess that works wonders for my patience.”
“Well, I’m a younger brother, and between me and my own big brother I’m the one most known for his patience, and still I find it difficult to put up with Nagisa-kun.” I say, sitting down beside Makoto-senpai. “Good day, Makoto-senpai.”
“Good day, Rei.” Makoto-senpai greets in turn. “Nagisa, what did I tell you about tiring out your friends?”
“That it is ‘unbecoming’ and that I shouldn’t depend on you to bring me food all the time.” Nagisa replies, sitting down in front of us both. “Can you blame me, though? The Tachibana and Ryugazaki households have better food than the Hazuki one does. Don’t tell mum.”
“And we won’t, because the one in charge of cooking for the Hazuki household is actually you, Nagisa.” Makoto-senpai says, and my ears perk up with interest because that isn’t something I’ve heard of before.
“Nagisa-kun cooks?” I say. “Color me surprised.”
Nagisa only cards a hand through his wavy hair as he sighs. “That’s why I didn’t want Rei-chan to know that, Mako-chan! It’s embarrassing.”
“Being known as someone who knows how to cook simple things is infinitely less embarrassing than being known as someone who doesn’t know how to cook, Nagisa-kun.” I tell him, and I don’t know if it’s supposed to be comforting but maybe it is, because he smirks. “Don’t let your sappy light novels fool you.”
“Excuse me, Rei-chan, they happen to not be sappy, only…mainstream.” Nagisa says, grinning at me. “Or maybe they’re just too mainstream for you?”
“I just do not find the appeal in your preferred genre, don’t presume.” I reply. “But you’re avoiding the topic – if you do know how to cook, why don’t you make your own lunch, instead of buying that…that creamy monstrosity?”
“It’s not a creamy monstrosity, it’s a delicious one, and I happen to like it.” Nagisa huffs, biting into his Iwatobikkuri bread. “It just so happens that, after making three boxed lunches, it’s kind of hard to continue on making a fourth, especially when there are three grown women who are prone to swiping the fried chicken off said fourth bento at any given moment.” He sighs, and waves around the sweet bun in his hands. “It’s infinitely easier to just buy lunch.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’ve been sounding more like Rei these days, Nagisa?”
“Why, thank you, Mako-chan. Rei-chan’s a genius, so that flatters me.”
“Proximity tends to do that, sometimes.” I say, trying to brush off Nagisa’s compliment as idle words, only I’m not used to receiving compliments, so no one could blame me if my knees feel a bit like jelly all of a sudden. “I sure do hope that doesn’t mean I’ll get as…hehh, ‘energetic’ as you are, Nagisa-kun.”
“Aww, but you’re already energetic on your own, Rei-chan!” Nagisa says, nuzzling into my side like an overly-attached kitten. “Remember that time with the butterfly-print pajamas? I had to physically restrain you to not actually go and buy that, but you did anyway.”
“I don’t care what you think, Nagisa-kun, but butterflies are beautiful.” I say. “More so than penguins, I must say.” At that, Nagisa makes a sound of protest, nuzzling harder, and I make an embarrassing sound that must be a yelp, and Makoto-senpai laughs at the silly picture we must be making right now.
See, I don’t know when it started being so, but for some reason – I really like the concept of a butterfly. They start off as larvae, small things, insignificant things, as caterpillars, and even though they have to enshroud themselves in darkness they still manage to emerge looking beautiful.
Maybe it’s pure aesthetics, maybe it’s my subconscious wishing I would follow the same path as well, and maybe it’s both reasons at the same time, but either way, I like butterflies. Full stop.
“How did we get to talking about this? Weren’t we talking about how Nagisa-kun cooks but doesn’t make his own meals?”
Makoto-senpai laughs. “Yes, but it’s you and Nagisa we’re talking about, Rei, and between the two of you your conversations have more detour signs than a road undergoing construction.”
Makoto-senpai’s the same as Nagisa, in that they’re always smiling all the time, but he’s a whole different person entirely.
He’s deathly scared of a lot of things, for one, especially the things Nagisa thrives on – horror films, gore, haunted houses, thunderstorms. Having me around for those times is apparently life-affirming for Nagisa, because “I spent all these years with Mako-chan, who’s highly scared of everything – it’s nice to have someone who gets scared in moderation, and that’s you, Rei-chan!”
Another thing is that sometimes we’d walk by the ocean or Nagisa would go off on another tangent about ‘Haruchan’, about their swimmer past, and Makoto-senpai would have this dazed look in his eyes, like he’s gone off somewhere far away. It’d be easy for us to chalk it off as him spacing out because we’re talking about something he’s scared of – because he told me he was scared of the ocean, like he was of gore and blood and horror – but a gut feeling I can’t ignore tells me that no, that’s a different kind of scared all together.
Because that’s not the kind of look someone has when they’re scared of an arbitrary concept. It’s the kind of look someone has when they’re scared because they’ve lost someone.
We’re doing homework in my apartment one night – Makoto-senpai was supposed to come with us, only he’s at home looking after the twins and really shouldn’t be going on sleepovers – when I finally muster up the courage to ask.
“Nagisa-kun?”
“What is it, Rei-chan?” Nagisa looks up at me, eyes bright and earnest as per usual.
“I just wanted to ask,” I start, looking down at my work, making a show of penciling in things so I don’t have to look at him. “Did something happen to Makoto-senpai when you were younger?”
Nagisa’s fingers on his pen still, and he swallows audibly. “Oh,” he murmurs. “Why’d you ask?”
“There’s just – something I can’t put my finger on. Something vague, but I know it’s there.” I say. “Probably something related to your old swimmer days, I’m guessing.”
That gets a laugh out of Nagisa, only it’s such a forced rendition of his usual laugh that it chills me, somehow. “You guessed right! I’ll show you something – wait, just let me get it out.”
Nagisa rifles through his satchel – it looks deceptively thin from the outside, but somehow manages to be properly messy on the inside – and fishes out a single photograph. It looks like it had been developed in the days when film was still used in cameras. He hands me the picture; I hold it up for further inspection.
There are four boys in the picture – one alarmingly similar to Makoto-senpai on one far side, with brown hair and one hand forming the peace sign, and another one on the other far side with blond hair and bright eyes who can be nobody else but Nagisa. In between are two other boys, one a sullen brunette, who is the only one not smiling and is instead looking away from the camera, and the other a grinning red head with his arm slung merrily around the former.
“That’s a picture from our last elementary relay,” Nagisa says, a fond smile on his face. “I was in fifth grade, and Mako-chan, Haru-chan, and Rin-chan were, of course, a year ahead of me.”
“‘Rinchan’? You’ve never mentioned him before.”
“I haven’t? Well, maybe not by name. Rin-chan’s the guy who Mako-chan always Skypes with every few weeks. They’re total bros.” Nagisa says, and I remember – oh, right, the guy in…Australia, was it? “And, of course, you know Haru-chan.”
“Freestyle prodigy, swims ‘like a dolphin’, used to take you running, really likes mackerel. Am I right?”
“Of course you are,” Nagisa says, giving my ego another pat on its hypothetical back. “I didn’t want to tell you about this – Mako-chan would insist that he be the one to do it – but I don’t want to force his hand, and I also do want to tell you.”
“See, when we were little, I was a crybaby. Add that in to the cute eyes, small frame, and girly name, and we’ve pretty much got the formula down for an odd man out. I was bullied, a lot.” Nagisa goes on, and this alone is hard for me to digest – there exist people who intentionally want to make Nagisa’s life hell? “So dad wanted me to grow stronger, and he had me take up swimming. And I took to it, I really did.”
“When I joined the Iwatobi Elementary Swim Club, I heard about Haru-chan, and when I met him – oh, Rei-chan, he was everything I ever heard about, only better. I idolized him, and I worked harder on my strokes, wanted to be at my best so I can be at least half as good as him. If you had only saw him – it would make you wanna swim. I know you said you don’t want to, but I swear, Rei-chan, if you had only seen – if you had only seen.”
“So when I heard that Rin-chan was recruiting him and Mako-chan for the medley relay – I just knew I had to jump on that chance! They needed a fourth member, and I made a bet with Rin-chan that he’d have to choose me if I won in my heat during the breaststroke competition. That I did, so yeah.” He says, gesturing to the picture in my hands. “That’s how I became friends with all of them. We practiced, and I know Rin-chan thought me a bother but he grew to get used to me, and Mako-chan’s kind as always, looking after me and all of us, and – and Haru-chan says he doesn’t care about a lot of things, but when we won that relay I hugged him and he smiled at me. We were a team, Rei-chan – we won, and we were friends, and I was so happy I thought my heart was going to burst.”
“After that, Rin-chan moved to study swimming in Australia, and Haru-chan and Mako-chan moved up to a middle school in Iwatobi, and it was kind of understood that I was gonna follow them there, join their swim club as well.” Nagisa says, and pauses. There it is again, that pensive look on his face. “That is, until the unexpected happened.”
I gulp, somehow hating the way Nagisa’s story makes my voice sound like right now. “What happened?”
“Haru-chan’s dad got a job overseas, and Haru-chan’s mum decided to go with him. Haru-chan’s grandma had already died, so they decided to take Haru-chan with them.” Nagisa looks away, his expression grim. “Mako-chan…didn’t take it very well.”
“You see, I told you that me and Mako-chan and the others, we knew each other in elementary, right? Well, Haru-chan and Mako-chan – they go further back than that. Their mums were besties – sort of like what you and I have – so it’s a conservative guess that Haru-chan and Mako-chan knew each other from pre-school. I think they might’ve literally known each other since birth.” Nagisa says. “They’re almost like brothers – even closer than the actual brotherly relationships I’ve seen, and I’ve seen a lot of ‘em – what with their synchronized minds and how Mako-chan can read Haru-chan like an open book, even when Haru-chan doesn’t say anything. So when Haru-chan had to leave…”
“It would be like getting a part of you ripped off,” I say, stuck on some of the word choices Nagisa had used – Makoto-senpai and ‘Haruchan’’s mothers were apparently best friends ‘sort of like what you and I have’. Well, granted, Nagisa’s the closest friend I’ve ever had, and I can only imagine what I would feel if I were suddenly deprived of our friendship, so I know Makoto-senpai’s gone through much worse.
“Yeah, Mako-chan was devastated.” Nagisa nods, drawing circles on his scratch paper. “Rin-chan phoned in frequently, tried to help as much as he could – but he can’t help as much as he wanted to, not if he was as far away from Mako-chan as Haru-chan now also was. So I went on and enrolled in Iwatobi anyway. Sure, it’s a long train ride home, and I didn’t join the swim club, either, but at least Mako-chan isn’t really as alone as he feels.”
“For all your silliness,” I say, looking away so Nagisa doesn’t see my expression, which has grown to be a tad more fond than my usual. “you’re a good friend. You know that, right?”
“Coming from you, Rei-chan,” Nagisa says, and there’s some meaning to that, I’m guessing, but I can’t put my finger on it, either. “That’s the best compliment I can ever receive.”