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“Haruuuuuu!” Makoto’s voice floats easily on the humid air, and Haru raises his head above water level in the tub. It takes a fraction of a fraction of a second for Haru to categorise the tone of voice; no, Makoto is not in danger, or afraid, or stressed, or angry.
Sounds like a tinge of irritation and the barest hint of frustration. He’s good to stay in the water, because Makoto will come to him. That settled, Haru goes back to making little fish jump out of the tub and swim lazily around him. It’s a hot summer’s day, and feeling delicate little fins fins brush against his forehead and shoulders feels sublime.
On cue, almost, Makoto comes barrelling into the bathroom, holding the basket of dirty clothes they’ve accumulated over the past few days. “Haruuuuuu,” Makoto calls mournfully again, though he finds a smile right quick when Haru sends over a watery fish to swim circles around his head. “The washing machine’s broken again, but I have to get my nice dress shirt washed before my big presentation tomorrow!”
Makoto’s voice indicates that he’s edging closer to Distressed, so Haru sits up and pays attention. “What’s wrong with it?” He’s not a mechanic, but frankly ridiculous waterbending skills aside, Haru’s also generally very handy.
Makoto, however, is not. He frowns. “All the lights light up, and the water pours into the drum, but then it won’t move? It just shudders and makes really weird noises.” Makoto then spends some of his limited time on this Earth trying to create the groaning, whirring sound of a malfunctioning washing machine, and Haru’s besotted even though his face doesn’t show it.
He gets up and wicks the water away, so he can drag Makoto to their crappy washing machine and figure this out. It takes a little while; Haru tries tinkering with the motor, and then tries a hard reset. When neither works, his temper goes off and he makes Makoto just load the damned thing up.
“Go and work on your presentation. I’ll handle the washing.”
Haru knows Makoto’s besotted with him too, because times like this the affection’s mad obvious on his face. Makoto leans in for a quick kiss and a thank-you-Haru, and he’s off to stress out over the font and spacing of his slides (again). Left to his own devices, Haru takes his time to experiment, figuring out how to bend water in a way that mimics what the washing machine does. Getting the water to swirl first one way then another, keeping the cycle going to work out the stains and rinse the clothes proper, that doesn’t take long to work out. Nor does rinsing the load with clean water, and getting the water to flow down the drain is just a few minutes feeling for a way out.
In a fraction of the time it usually takes, because Haru is fully capable of ripping a building apart with water if he wanted to and dirty clothes don’t stand a chance, the clothes are drying in the sun. He’s already pulled out every bit of water out of them, but he knows Makoto likes it when their clothes are fresh, fluffy and sun-warmed, so.
He retreats back to his bath and drifts off again, working on the next painting commission he has lined up in his mind.
Haru gets pulled out of his daydreams almost an hour later when Makoto comes in to very affectionately display his thanks. “They’re all nice and clean, and it’s so much softer than it usually gets when I’m doing the washing. Haru-chan, you’re amazing!”
Objectively Haru knows he is capable of many amazing things. One of them is drawing the minerals out of the hard water that runs through their taps so that things wash better, pulling crystals out of liquid like it's the easiest thing in the world (it isn't, usually). Haru knows he’s very good at very many things, but really Makoto’s the most amazing one, for making a man who could summon a tsunami feel so damn pleased over a pile of laundry.
So strong is Makoto’s earnest charm that Haru finds himself volunteering to take over laundry duties for the duration of time it takes for them to get a new washing machine installed, and if he preens the slightest little bit every time Makoto looks extra pleased at how soft the sheets are, well.
Genius waterbender or no, he’s only human.
-
Their days go on mostly like normal; the new washing machine comes in and functions perfectly fine, and Haru gets his fix of spoiling Makoto without being overt about it by always being the one to bend-wash their futons so that they feel extra springy. His days of subbing in for a washing machine are behind him.
Or so he thought.
Makoto comes home from school one day looking pensive. Haru’s painting in their little living room, needing some good light to work on his latest landscape piece. He usually works in the spare bedroom, because the smell of paint thinner can get quite strong and painting can get quite messy, but Makoto wasn’t supposed to be back until quite late so Haru had thought he would have free reign of the space.
Makoto smiles at him once he’s put his things away and gotten himself a cup of tea, sitting on the sofa behind Haru to watch him work on drawing frothy seas, but he’s obviously distracted. Haru stops working, and turns to look at Makoto, head tilted to one side. He keeps his unwavering stare, until Makoto cracks.
“It’s just Kawauchi-san, that nice old lady that runs the laundromat with her son by the fruit store? I ran into her on the way back, and she says there was a burst pipe main for the block, so she’s had to close shop, and she doesn’t know how long it’ll take for it to be fixed.” Makoto sips his tea, obviously a little lost in thought. “Takeda from my Sports Science 101 class, well, his dad works for the district council, so I was thinking I should try and ask if he knows when they’ll reconnect the water main.”
Between typhoons battering the country and the heatwaves bludgeoning the people, Haru sincerely doubts that the district council has enough to spare for a malfunctioning water main to a block of buildings, but it’s clear that this is something that’s important for Makoto, so there’s nothing to it, really.
“Get up,” Haru tells Makoto as he pulls his smock off and starts getting out of his paint-splattered work shirt. “We’re going to check on your friend.”
One of Makoto’s friends, really, because Makoto’s actually friend to all of Mankind.
Haru can’t do much for the entire world, but he could probably control the flow of the mains for long enough to let all the shops in the area fill up their tanks and reservoirs.
… which is exactly what he ends up doing, as well as setting up a reflexive water bending cycle on every single one of Kawauchi-san’s 20 machines so that they can wash, rinse, and repeat, for as long they’ve got the water Haru bended into their tanks.
The shopping street comes out en force to show their gratitude, and while Haru’s tired and a little out of sorts from so much social interaction after standing in a hole in the road for a few hours controlling the water rushing through the pipes, he has to admit it’s worth it that he managed to help people with his powers.
The free fruit, meat, vegetables, art supplies, bed sheets, bicycle tyres and other assorted goods from the various merchants, those are just an added bonus.
-
The exploded pipes are fixed eventually, and once again Haru’s absolutely certain that he no longer has to play the part of a washing machine. Things are back to the easy, fuzzy domesticity, and the most pressing concern for Haru right now is whether or not he’ll be able to finish this portrait commission quickly enough that he doesn’t need to worry about it when he goes off on a short trip back to Iwatobi with Makoto.
He reckons he can get the varnish done so that it can cure in the spare room while they’re away; he doesn’t expect for an apologetic Makoto to come home accompanied by the spry, bright-eyed 80 year old Kawauchi-san.
Haru keeps his usual placid face while Makoto makes everyone tea and cracks out the Good Biscuits, the ones he usually indulges in only once a month or when school gets rough enough that it’s either soft-baked brownie biscuits or teeth-grinding. The biscuits indicate that this is Serious Business, though Haru already could see that from the grim set to Kawauchi-san’s jaw.
“I’ll just cut straight to it,” Kawauchi-san says, their oversized mug looking huge in her dainty hands. “Icchan, my son, is moving to Nagasaki for his work, and he’s asked me to come with him. I’m getting too old to run the shop by myself, but it doesn’t feel right to just close it. Mako-chan here,” she pauses, and looks like she’s restraining herself from pinching his cheek (relatable), “said that you mostly work from home, so I thought I’d ask if you’d like to take over the business?”
Haru’s first thought is, this seems like a lot of work, so no thank you.
Haru’s second thought is, but it’s a steady income, and how hard could running a laundromat be?
Haru’s third thought is interrupted by Makoto, who’s wringing his hands a little bit. “Kawauchi-san, that’s really generous of you, but this is a really big responsibility, and we can’t just say yes. I’m still just a student, and Haru-chan’s working full-time, and-”
And Makoto’s tentatively thinking about furthering his studies in childhood education (”Only if I can get a scholarship, Haru-chan!”), Haru wouldn’t mind finding a less crappy apartment and getting better art supplies, it sure would be nice to be able to afford a vacation every once in a while, and he could so easily monitor how the water’s doing in the shop without even being there.
“We’ll think about it,” Haru says, and that is that.
-
(They do think about it, for a good 2 weeks, and once Makoto is convinced that Haru won’t be running himself into the ground doing this, it is All Systems Go.
It’s a little absurd that Kawauchi-san is signing over the shop lot and all the equipment over to them free of charge, and had only begrudgingly accepted when Makoto insisted they send her a portion of their earnings so she would get a bit of a pension, but Haru's long since learned to just go with the flow.
3 months after Kawauchi-san has their best biscuits, Kawauchi Laundry is brought back to the world as Splash Free! Wash ‘n Dry. New customers often ask why the signboard now has a painting of a mermaid and a bird, and
“The mermaid does the washing,” Makoto tends to end up explaining, “and the bird does the drying.”
During these conversations, Haru is usually in the back, nodding along with pride at his handiwork.)
-
“Makoto, you need to stop bringing them home with you.”
Splash Free! is a runaway success. Turns out Makoto’s not the only person who enjoys how fluffy laundry gets when you wash them with soft water, and a couple of months into their venture Haru also started selling all the calcium he pulls out to a manufacturer of osteoporosis medicine. It’s a tidy income that got tidier, because it’s supremely easy for a waterbender to improve water use, and they usually have a queue for the machines whenever Makoto stops by to check in on things. Under Kawauchi-san it had been a simple coin-operated laundromat, but now Haru also accepts carpets, curtains, and futons once every other week. to wash by way of renting out one of the kids’ swimming pools at the local community centre and going buck wild with bending and non-toxic biodegradable detergent.
(It’s become a bit of a local attraction, and it’s a sight that many would travel for on the days that Makoto joins him in legskins, magnificent back on magnificent display.)
They’re in a nicer apartment now, and Makoto is even tentatively considering a master’s programme where he gets to study abroad for a bit. Haru meanwhile is almost alarmingly delighted in his stone-faced way that he gets to spend more time waterbending in a way that doesn’t have people pushing him to ‘do something worthwhile with your talent’.
It’s going good, it’s going swimmingly (ha!), and tonight Makoto has brought along yet another nice old lady to their home, and Haru can smell the detergent off of her from the doorway.
“Haru,” Makoto smiles helplessly, himself holding a mug of tea. “This is Terada-san, and she said she’s moving to Guam to stay with her sister, and she also has a laundromat that needs taking care of.”
Princess comes rubbing up against Haru’s leg, and Haru greets her distractedly and gives her a quick scratch under the chin “And you two met how?”
Terada-san is a quintessential Old Lady. She barely comes past Makoto’s waist, there’s a significant hunch to her back, and on someone with 20/20 vision her glasses could let you see further than Hubble, definitely. For all the evident frailty, though, Haru’s rarely heard a steadier voice. “I was bringing my favourite kimono to see if you do silk, and Mako-chan was there, and we started chatting. You see, my niece just had her 3rd baby, and my sister-”
2 hours later, Haru’s driving back after dropping Terada-san off at her house, they’ve somehow acquired a new branch of Splash Free! (and another lady now has a steady income), and Makoto’s Googling ‘How To Wash Silk’ because if they’re in for a penny, they may as well be in for a pound.
At a stoplight, jaw cracking from a yawn while he does accounts in his head, Haru comes to a stunning realisation that they are actually Adulting now, and they aren’t doing a half-bad job of it.
-
The business expands at the speed of The-Elderly-And-The-Troubled-Coming-Up-To-Makoto, which is about 7 stores a year, though the true number would be significantly higher if they decided to step out of the washing business and into (amongst others) fashion retail, pet stores, vegetable stands, and (this was the hardest one to turn down) a cat cafe.
Between supplying Golden Girls with a healthy side-income and starting up a training school for waterbenders (of any skill level!) from troubled backgrounds to learn a specialised trade and get a decent income, Haru and Makoto have been swept-off-their-feet busy since Splash Free! started. Makoto had gone off to Hawaii for 6 months as part of his graduate programme, and while Haru had missed him bitterly, he had been so very proud of Makoto deciding to go all in on learning about how to be good to kids. That had been a quiet period in their expansion, Haru choosing to spend a month in Hawaii with Makoto.
(It had been a little trying for all parties involved. Each branch manager had been told to dip a random item of clothing in the ocean off the Eastern Seaboard of Japan in tandem with Haru taking a dip in the waters near Oahu, and quality control was him lazily seeking one (1) pair of jeans from a zillion miles away. Still, though. Quality time with his most significant other will outweigh a booming laundry empire any day.)
When he graduated, Makoto had decided to get a job at the swim centre run by the district council, and he runs classes for beginners of every type. Whatever your needs, Coach Tachibana meets them. And when he isn’t there, he’s at the little office they’ve set up for Splash Free!, helping with training even if he’s a quite good earth bender awash in a sea of perpetually damp men and women.
Haru never expected to be making as much money as he is, and he isn’t sure what to do with all of it. Makoto had insisted that everything be in Haru’s name, since he hadn't helped much with the business while he was still studying, and he didn’t think it was fair for him to get anything.
This is, of course, stupid, so after Haru’s made sure that the little army of retired grandmas and grandpas have gotten their dues, wages have been paid and bills have been attended to, a big chunk of what’s left goes into a bank account that might as well be named the Tachibana Makoto Trust Fund.
He keeps a little for himself, what he would have made working a full-time office job, more or less. For a CEO of a corporation that’s bringing in a hell of a lot of money, Haru still has a lot of free time he refuses to give up. He’d started by treating Splash Free! as an entity that could maintain itself without much effort, and this leadership technique hasn’t changed (mainly because Haru himself hasn’t changed).
So unchanged is Haru, that when Japan Times calls him to try and schedule an interview with the founder of one of the fastest growing companies in the whole of Japan, he’d been so confident that it was a a prank call that he had hung up, and gone back to looking over the plans to open up a facility that could tackle the enormous demand for quality washing by hotels.
Makoto’s across from him in the office, wilting gently this late in the evening but still looking so unbearably sweet and dear with his glasses and mussed hair. “Haru-chan? It’s been a while since you hung up on somebody without saying anything. Everything okay?”
Haru shrugs, using a mechanical pencil to write little notes on how the drainage system could be improved from the point of view of a waterbender. “Must be some bored kids.”
It’s not much of an answer, but he doesn’t need more, so Makoto just nods and smiles, before going back to figuring out how to teach a bunch of teenaged ne’er-do-wells how to balance the books.
The phone keeps ringing insistently, and Haru ignores it with just as much vigour, before it gets too much for Makoto, who finally picks up the phone in full-on Big Brother Mode. “Hey, now, prank calling once or twice is one thing, but it’s really bad to keep spamming our-”
Whatever is being said on the other end of the line appears to be extremely persuasive, as Makoto falls silent, and then thoughtful, and then delighted. “Oh! Oh, I see! Thank you so much, that’s amazing! I’ll tell Ha-, uhm, Nanase-san, and he’ll get back to you soon!”
Haru groans. He had been certain that it was a prank, but in the event that it wasn’t, he had also been more than happy to just ignore it. But Makoto’s hung up now, looking at him with a wide, wide smile, and the odds of Haru not needing to do something extremely troublesome grow lower by the second.
“Makoto,” he says warningly. “I don’t want to talk to them.”
“But Haruuuu,” Makoto whines, lower lip stuck out the slightest bit. “They want to feature you in their business section! They say you’re a maverick, and your business strategy’s so new and exciting, and,” he sighs here, looking at Haru ruefully. “And you absolutely don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I’m just so proud of you, Haru-chan, that’s all.”
Haru didn’t stand a water drop’s chance in hell against the force of that.
This is how he finds himself in a badly fitting suit pinned in a thousand places to make it look less terrible, perching on a too-tall stool with his arms folded as the photographer tells him, “Give us your most charismatic grin!”
The photographer gets as much as the interviewer, which is to say he doesn’t get very much at all, but Makoto’s hovering in the back excitedly chatting to someone from the editorial team, so if the Mr. Camera Man is quick and very, very lucky, he may capture the slightest sliver of a smile on camera.
-
A week later, splashed on the front page of the business section of the Japan Times, Haru scowls at a picture of him smiling up from the paper. “This is horrible, don’t you dare let Nagisa and Rin see this.”
Makoto laughs, picking up a bunch of today’s daily at the newsagent. “Sorry, Haru-chan, it’s too late. If you avoid the group chat for a few days maybe they’ll calm down and tease you less?” He finds his wallet, and pays the kindly old lady for way too many papers.
“Makoto,” Haru says, voice full of suspicion. “What are you planning to do with all of those newspapers?”
His precious cargo safely bundled in his arms, Makoto turns to smile and lean in for a quick kiss. “A copy for my parents, a copy for yours, Ren said he wants one, and Ran asked me to send it to her internship address. Plus, uhm, some for me to keep, for posterity!”
Is this his life now, Haru wonders as he frowns a frown that doesn’t reach his eyes. A semi-celebrity on account of his business acumen? He’s not even sure what an acumen is, in all honesty.
At least, though, he’s got the very attractive and very wonderful trophy husband part down pat.
Wait, hang on, husband-
-
“Nanase-san, it must be such an exciting time for you! You made Forbes’ Asia 30 under 30, and you got married to your long-term partner! Tell me, what does it take to be so young and so successful?”
Haru blinks slowly, taking his time to think about what the interviewer lady’s just asked him. They’re having a whole section him on today’s NHK News at 8, he’s in his one (1) good suit that Rin bought for him after laughing himself sick over the monstrosity of Haru’s suit in his first paper feature, and apparently he’s a multi-millionaire that people actually turn to for advice now.
It’s so absurd a thought that a corner of his lip quirks up; he might as well be full on laughing. But Haru restrains himself, sitting back in the plush seat and trying not to mind the gelled-up, slightly unnatural set to his bangs. He wouldn’t have let the hairdresser mess with his hair under normal circumstances, but the fitted suit and the mussed bangs are a Look that Makoto has confessed to find really attractive, so it’s worth it (of course).
What does it take, to be young and successful?
The Splash Free! empire had such ridiculously humble beginnings. A malfunctioning washing machine the day before Makoto absolutely needed a clean shirt. A burst pipe, and Makoto wanting to help an old lady. Makoto wanting to help another old lady, and then a legion of old ladies. They started their training programmes when Makoto said that he found it odd that people focused on elemental bending for Big Things like wars and dealing with natural disasters, but nobody really thought about how bending could be a trade skill just like anything else. Recently expanding into dealing with industrial waste was a shared decision; Haru so that he could protect water, and Makoto so that he could protect other people.
There’s a common thread, and it links right up to the still-shiny gold band he’s got wrapped around his left ring finger.
To be young, it takes being born late, Haru supposes.
To be successful?
Haru smiles, without quiet meaning to. He clears his throat so that his voice is nice and clear, for the millions of people watching this live telecast.
“To be successful, you need a Makoto.”
It’s not possible to hear a person blush so heavily they turn glow-in-the-dark red, but nevertheless, Haru knows that out in the dark somewhere, his husband’s a spluttering red-faced mess.
It’s a nice feeling, but there’s also one more thing. “Makoto, and water,” Haru amends. “If you have those 2, you’ll succeed at whatever age.”
From across the studio, Haru hears a baleful “Haruuuuuuuuu!”, and he can’t help but join along when the interviewer bursts into surprised, amused laughter.
They left behind that little crappy apartment and their even worse washing machine years and years ago now, but in that moment, Haru swears he can almost smell the scent of the cheap fabric softener that Makoto had favoured way back when.
He’s a lucky, lucky man, and this might damn well be a smile that not the strongest waterbending could wash off.