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It's an April wedding, because of course Rin'd get married under cherry blossoms. Haru wouldn't give two shits about the cherry blossom theme, except that he's a groomsman, and Rin wants his groomsmen in petal pink suits with matching capes. It takes a full-blown shouting match between the two of them, and Sousuke's heavy hand pinning Rin to the nearest wall, to get him to back down, and another month of negotiations to get him to ease up on the flower motif.
"Your guests are gonna be sick of cherry blossoms by the end of this," Sousuke says, eyeing a sample sakura seat cover skeptically.
"I'm already sick of them," Haru adds.
"Well, Ayumi likes them," Rin says defiantly, "and it's her wedding, last time I checked, so you two can fuck right off."
"Last time I checked the bride's supposed to plan the wedding," Sousuke says. "Why are you doing so much?"
"Because we're planning it together, you sexist pig," Rin shoots back. "Marriage is about compromise, motherfuckers. And compromise is my middle name."
“Translation, you're her bitch,” Sousuke says dryly.
“Go ahead and put a hundred yen in my swear jar, you rude little shit.”
Sousuke raises his hands defensively. “I'll put a thousand yen in your imaginary swear jar if you admit you literally cannot say no to her, and also that you secretly wanna do all the planning for this wedding.”
“I like to be involved,” Rin sniffs, “so sue me. Also, I don't recall asking for your opinion on any of this. Didn't anyone ever tell you that groomsmen should be seen, and not heard?”
Haru has traditionally made a point of never siding with Sousuke on anything, ever, purely on principle, but when it comes to this wedding, he's pretty sure they're in tacit agreement that it can't be over soon enough. It's not just that they're both wasting away of secondhand embarrassment about the couple's unapologetic ardor for cherry blossoms. For one thing, Rin's a lovesick fool and the sooner he's a married man – and out of their hair on a month-long honeymoon – the better. For another:
"Whose profile is that?" Haru says, peering over Rin's shoulder at his laptop screen.
"Makoto's plus one," Rin says, scrolling through a sea of photos, "and damn, but she's got a rack."
"Makoto's... oh." Haru shrinks back a little.
"I seriously can't tell if they're dating or not," Rin mutters. "Like, they only have a few pictures together. But they look pretty cozy here, like see, this one? But then, they both have their relationship status as single. So... I dunno." He turns to Haru. "I don't suppose you'd know."
"No," Haru says quietly. "I wouldn't."
Rin squints at him. Shuts the laptop. "Haru."
Haru knows what's coming. And, just as he has every time this has come up in the past several years, he diligently ignores it. He can feel Rin giving him judge-y eyes are he crosses the bedroom, seats himself back at the makeshift work station on Rin's floor, and picks up an inkstick so he can get back to hand-lettering the place settings.
"Haru," Rin says, drifting over on his swivel chair. "C'mon."
"I'm working here," Haru says, sifting through a pile of brushes.
“You have to talk about it eventually,” Rin says.
No, I don't, Haru doesn't say.
“I mean it,” Rin growls, when Haru is silent. “I stopped asking about you two because I thought you needed space. But it's been – what, five years?”
“Six,” Haru says quietly.
“And you still won't talk to me?” Rin is indignant now. “It's some kind of issue you're clearly not over, Haru, all I want to do is help – ”
“This is why I never wanted to talk to you,” Haru snaps, knuckles clenched white around a wooden paintbrush.
“Because I want to help?” Rin says, bewildered. “How is that – ?”
“There's nothing to help,” Haru says coldly. “You have these stupid ideas about how, like, friendships should be, when in reality, sometimes it just doesn't work out. There's no deep meaning. There's nothing to talk about. The most helpful thing you could do would be to just stop bugging me about it. Forever.”
Rin apologizes, and then Haru apologizes, and then they go back to working on the wedding decorations Ayumi's assigned them. But Haru hears Rin and Sousuke talking about it a couple weeks later, at the pool, whispering in the locker room like a couple of teenagers.
“He's still really bitter about it,” Rin's saying, “but he won't admit it.”
Haru freezes midstep in the hallway, towel around his neck.
“Maybe Makoto really hurt him, then,” Sousuke suggests.
“But Makoto won't talk about it either! Slippery bastard. I don't get why they're both being so childish about this.”
“Maybe you shouldn't pry too much,” Sousuke says. “If they're not talking, it's none of your business.”
“Whatever,” Rin grumbles. “They'll see each other next month at the wedding anyway.”
What stands out to Haru of the ceremony is not so much cherry blossoms blowing in Ayumi's mouth during her vows, or Sousuke trying to pass off his sniffling as coughing, or the spectacle of Rin, having said “I do,” bawling and sucking face with his bride simultaneously. Rather, it's the moment, as he's walking down the aisle arm-in-arm with Gou, when he sees the back of Makoto's head, illuminated by warm afternoon sunlight and so tall above the other guests, and his breath comes shallow and his chest folds in on itself until he's clutching so hard at Gou's wrist that she hisses for him to cut it out.
“Sorry,” he murmurs, loosing his grip, and staring straight ahead.
He can feel Makoto turning, along with all the other guests, to watch the bridal procession, can feel Makoto's eyes following all of them, but especially him. He can feel himself stop breathing, from the moment he and Gou draw level with Makoto's row until the moment he's passed the altar. When he exhales, and lets himself look back into the sea of faces, Makoto's watching him, gaze clear, mouth pressed into a tight line. Haru gulps.
Because this is the first time he's seeing, really seeing Makoto, in years. There'd been one get-together with the old swim club that Nagisa had tricked Haru into attending, and despite the superb buffer zone that was Rei's flustered banter with Rin, it had still been exceedingly awkward. He and Makoto'd sat at opposite ends of the table (in a split-second, near-telepathic decision that was irritatingly familiar) and had hardly said two words to each other. Haru had spent most of that meal tuning out the cheerful conversation from the other side of the table and determinedly not making eye contact with anyone but Gou, who kept staring at him from directly across a shared platter of mackerel with a knowing look on her face.
(“Everything okay, Haruka-senpai?” she'd said after the meal, pulling him back for a hushed conference on the sidewalk.
“Not really,” Haru told her honestly.
“Wanna talk about it?” she asked carefully.
“No.” A brief pause, in which Gou pouted ever so slightly. “Thanks.”)
But there's no hiding now. No dodging Nagisa's phone calls, no ignoring Gou's emails, no embarking on impromptu trips to the coast to get out of well-planned reunions. He's seeing Makoto now, and it's terrifying, because he looks exactly the same, and every emotion Haru'd worked so hard to wall up threatens to spill forth all at once, and it becomes hard to think about anything but Makoto, and the way they were, and the way it feels like they still could be. Makoto's an easy read – his eyes, his mouth, the set of his shoulders, are all dead giveaways, and Haru burns with a sudden urge to relearn him, every inch of him – his eyes and his lips and his skin – to know him perfectly, to memorize him wholly. Already Haru knows – those desperate eyes, that determined mouth – that Makoto feels the same, and that they could fall back into each other so effortlessly. That he could plunge in blindly, head first and heart bare, and it would feel like coming home.
Makoto holds eye contact for a long second while Rin's sniffling through his vows, and Haru cocks his head slightly. An invitation, a question: This isn't all in my head, is it?
Makoto looks down, fiddles with the hem of his jacket. Looks back up with a furrow in his brow, apprehension in his eyes. A reply: We haven't changed, and that scares me.
It scares Haru, too, but it thrills him – but it agonizes him – but it excites him. It sends goosebumps down his spine to think that he's so different from the last time they spoke, yet not so different that Makoto can't still pick up on his every gesture, every mood, every thought. And now he's thinking every outrageous thought he hasn't allowed himself to think in seven years – that he should go up and talk to Makoto as though nothing ever happened, that he should kiss him, move in with him, wed him. And the next second he's thinking that of course he shouldn't do any of that, that it's not that simple. And then the little voice in the back of his head is whispering lightly, but it is that simple. It can be.And Makoto is still staring at him, and Haru thinks, as he stares back, that he can almost make out the exact same internal debate raging inside of him.
Ayumi starts coughing out pink flower petals just then, and the moment is broken. But later, for the reception, Haru sits down, looks at the place card of the empty seat next to him, and then reaches across Sousuke to grab Rin by the lapels.
“Why,” he grinds out in a monotone. “Why, Rin.”
“Why, what?” Rin says, gently unhooking Haru's fingers and batting his eyelashes innocently. “I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about.”
And Haru opens his mouth to say, Why are you sticking your nose in my business, why do you want me to go insane, why is it so hard for me to actually be mad at you, but before he even knows where to start, he's interrupted:
“Hi, Haru,” comes that voice, melodic and low and sweet, and then Makoto is sitting down at his right and smiling like a fucking angel, and Haru can't think, can hardly breathe, and his suit feels too tight, and he hears himself saying woodenly in a voice hardly his own:
“Makoto.” And he's looking up, but his eyes seem to fall just short of Makoto's eyes. He settles for focusing on a patch of tanned cheek.
(God, but Makoto has wonderful cheeks.)
“It's been too long,” Makoto murmurs. He folds his hands in his lap.
“Yeah,” Haru says.
“I...” Makoto trails off. “Haru, I...”
“I wanted to call you,” Haru blurts. He immediately wants to take it back, but his mouth freezes up, and now there's no taking it back, no following up, nothing.
But Makoto seems unfazed. He gives a soft smile. “I wanted to call you, too.”
And then their eyes meet, and Haru thinks: Maybe –
“Ahem,” the girl on Makoto's other side coughs.
“Oh gosh,” Makoto says, “I'm so rude... this is my friend Aya. Aya, this is Haru, that's Sousuke, Rin...”
“Good to meet you,” Rin and Sousuke chorus warmly.
“Friend...?” Haru says, almost under his breath.
“Daughter of my uncle's best friend,” Makoto replies easily, and just as quietly. “We're basically cousins.”
“Right,” Haru says. Aya grins at him. “Right, okay.”
They don't do much catching up over the course of the meal, mostly because Haru isn't a small-talk kind of guy. But that almost feels more normal – there are no forced ice breakers, no awkward long silences. It's as though they're picking up exactly where they left off, as though Haru can just let Makoto step in and fill the ragged-edged empty space he left at Haru's side.
Dinner ends, and dancing begins. Rin and Ayumi open it up with a sappy ballad, spinning slowly, cheek-to-cheek, leaning back occasionally to gaze into each other's eyes and then come together again for a lingering kiss. It's saccharine and drawn-out and entirely too emotional for Haru, so he takes this opportunity to slip away to the bathroom. With Rin preoccupied with his bride, Nagisa preoccupied with sugar, and Rei absent from the wedding entirely, none of the usual suspects are likely to drag him back to the party if he decides to just hang out in a stall playing cell phone games for a while, rather than stay out there next to Makoto.
Because it isn't that he doesn't enjoy being near Makoto – no, it might be that he enjoys it too much. It might be that he can feel himself being drawn into the old, familiar cadence of their relationship as it was before they became more than friends, full of smiles that were more than smiles and silences laden heavy with meaning that Haru himself couldn't always fully comprehend. It might be that with every word Makoto says, Haru becomes a little stupider, a little less able to coherently respond, a little more likely to abandon all common sense and just pounce on Makoto right then and there.
Which, as he has to remind himself, would be completely inappropriate not only for all the unsuspecting wedding guests, but also for the fact that despite his own uncontrollable feelings, he doesn't know exactly where he and Makoto stand right now. It feels as though they're back to normal, back to better than normal, but it wouldn't be right to presume that Makoto wants all the same things as Haru.
(Haru wants all of Makoto, all to himself, until probably the end of time.)
And it's the kind of thing that Haru knows they have to have a conversation about before he can initiate anything physical, but starting conversations has never been his forte. Hence, fleeing to the bathroom.
Of course, because it's Makoto, who knows Haru better than anyone, he follows, trots into the bathroom just seconds after Haru and lets the door swing shut behind him.
“Haru,” Makoto says, a little nervously, “I saw you walking over here, I... thought we could talk.”
“We can talk,” Haru says. He turns to face Makoto, stupidly handsome Makoto, who's biting his lip and looking, just, idiotically perfect. Being alone here together really isn't doing great things for Haru's famously poor impulse control.
“Okay.” Makoto takes a deep breath. “Haru, I...”
“Or we could... not talk,” Haru says, voice low and heartbeat loud, stepping forward, leaning in, breathing deep the smell of the same cologne Makoto's been wearing since high school.
“No, we should talk,” Makoto says breathily. But he doesn't make a move to get out of Haru's range. “I, Haru, you know I... I still...”
“I know,” Haru whispers, and he leans forward, lets his forehead rest against Makoto's shoulder. “Me, too.”
He feels Makoto's shoulders begin to shake. “I would always think of what I would say to you... how we would... I had this whole speech, and in my head we were always by the ocean, but...”
“It's fine,” Haru mumbles into Makoto's jacket. His hands come up to a tentative hold on Makoto's back.
“I know.” And then Makoto is surging forward, arms wrapping around him tight. “We were so stupid, weren't we?”
“I'm sorry,” Haru says, muffled.
“No, I'm sorry,” Makoto half-laughs.
“Don't be.”
“I won't be if you won't be.”
“Fine,” Haru says, pulling back to look at Makoto. And he can see the words on Makoto's lips, and he's determined to be the one to say it first, for a change, so he exclaims, hastily, “I'm not sorry, but I missed you so much and I still want you, if you still want me.”
Makoto blinks, a little shell-shocked. “I... yes? Haru, of course, I'll always want you, I...” A light blush warms his face. “I never stopped loving you.”
“Same,” Haru says, feeling his own face go red. “Also, I really am sorry.”
“It wasn't your fault,” Makoto says, brushing Haru's hair our of his eyes, “it wasn't anyone's fault, it just kind of... happened.”
That's kind of true, and kind of not. Haru knows it's really sort of his fault, though Makoto isn't totally blameless.
“It's in the past,” Makoto reminds him.
And that's the thing, really, because it is in the past and he knows the important thing is just to move forward, but Haru can't help but feel that the “past,” the “being away from Makoto” years, lasted longer than they should have and seeped into what should have been “being with Makoto” time. Haru's sorry, not that they broke up, but that he spent so long delaying this revelation: that yes, he still wants Makoto, and no, it's not just because they grew up together, or because they made promises as dumb teenagers. It's because when Haru thinks ten, twenty, fifty years down the line, it's Makoto he sees by his side: planting vegetable gardens and adopting stray cats and sleeping in too late on Saturdays and hoisting him out of too-long baths and every other little domestic thing they were made to do with each other. If he's being honest with himself, he's known that he wanted this since high school – hell, back then, it was maybe the only thing he knew he wanted. And maybe these past few years have been good for soul-searching, for having the space to establish his own life, independent of Makoto, but still. It feels like he's wasted too much time not being with Makoto to justify hesitating any longer.
So he presses into Makoto for a kiss, sighing into it for the ease with which they just fit together, and reaching up to run his hands through Makoto's hair, slowly, rhythmically, until Makoto tightens his grip on Haru and sort of pushes forward, until Haru can feel cold tile through his jacket and all of Makoto, flush against him, hot and hard. The impact knocks the breath out of him a little bit, and he pulls his head back to regard Makoto with an eyebrow-raise and a grin, and Makoto half-shrugs and grins back, eyes sparkling. Haru peers at him, at the wobble in the corners of his mouth.
“I'm not crying,” Makoto says, and then he is crying, ugly-crying, but Haru still wants to kiss him for it. He settles for wiping the tears away with his thumbs, caressing Makoto's damp cheeks softly.
“Don't cry,” he murmurs, “I love you.”
But that only makes Makoto cry harder.
“I don't,” he says between sobs, “think I knew – how much I needed you until – I saw you – today – Haru, you – you won't leave me now – ”
“Never,” Haru says fervently, then repeats it a few times because he likes the taste and sound of the word: “never, never, never.”
And it's only a word, and words mean nothing, but Haru means never, means it from his core, means it as a vow, and maybe that's what calms Makoto down in the end.
“Okay,” he gulps, wiping his face with a paper towel from the dispenser by the sink, “okay. Sorry. I'm okay.”
“Don't apologize,” Haru says. “You're perfect.”
Makoto blushes and pretends to hit him for that, and threatens to start crying again, but Haru cuts off his shrill admonishments with a quick chaste peck to the lips, which leads to a series of decidedly un-quick and un-chaste kisses that leave them both panting, with Haru somehow seated on the sink counter, his legs wrapped around Makoto's waist, and Makoto minus his jacket and tie. Distantly, the synth beat and shouty English of Rin's favorite Australian pop song drift into the bathroom, and Haru remembers, faintly, that he's supposed to be somewhere that's not here – that he has obligations outside of just making out with Makoto on a bathroom counter.
And he realizes that, honestly, he just doesn't care.
So when Makoto chews on his lip for a moment and goes, “When should we get back to the party, d'you think...?” Haru just curls his fingers around Makoto's nape, tugging him closer, and whispers:
“Never.”