Chapter Text
It was raining. It always seemed to be raining, lately. Well, what did he expect? It was the rainy season. But it also felt a bit like some kind of pathetic fallacy. Thinking that seemed kind of pathetic in and of itself. He’d been feeling kind of pathetic lately.
He sighed, frustrated, and rubbed at his eyes with the heels of his palms. He was sick of feeling like this, thinking like this, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to stop. Something had to give.
Makoto rolled over onto his side and dragged himself into a sitting position, blankets rumpled around him. The clock on his bedside table said it was 11:24PM. He’d tried to get a reasonably early night, but he just couldn’t sleep. The thoughts wouldn’t leave him alone. He got up slowly, trying not to groan too much like an old man, and shuffled over to the kettle in the corner of his room. He picked it up, flicked on the light on the way to the sink, filled it, and set it to boil. He then sat down at his desk, habitually reaching for his phone.
No new messages. Of course.
Makoto resisted the urge to throw the damn thing against the wall. He knew, he knew so damn well that he needed to stop thinking like this. But it was so easy to keep going and so hard to stop.
He and Haru had moved to Tokyo a month and a bit ago, and things weren’t the same. Makoto never really expected they would be, but still, he hadn’t quite expected to drift apart quite like this. Of course not seeing each other every day would change things somewhat, and he thought he could cope with whatever happened. He thought he’d be fine with it. He was wrong.
To start, they saw each other a lot. They helped each other move in, they went round to each others for dinner, they explored the town together and hung out most days. But then Haru’s training started in full, and Makoto got busy with lectures and assignments and what have you, and they had less and less time to see each other. Their respective rooms weren’t too far apart but weren’t close either (a short-ish train ride or a long walk), so getting together became something that had to be planned rather than just happening.
They messaged most nights, which was kind of a new experience; it wasn’t something they’d really needed to do before. Makoto would initiate it, and they’d chat for a bit, and then they’d go to sleep. Sometimes they’d send each other things they saw in the day; Makoto would snap a pic of a cafe with grilled mackerel sandwiches, and Haru would send cats he saw out and about, that kind of thing. But somehow they just kept getting busier and the messages got shorter and less frequent.
Makoto worried. He’d always worried. He’d worried all the way back in elementary school when they first met Rin, when Haru nearly drowned, when he initially wouldn’t join the relay, when Rin moved away. He’d worried as Haru got less and less interested in swimming that time when Rin lost that race to him, he’d worried when Rin came back, he’d worried when Haru fell into that depression… He’d worried the most then, that time they exchanged harsh words in front of fireworks, when Haru had been whisked away to Australia. Even when he came back, Makoto worried something had changed, though everything went back to the way it was after.
Come to think of it, that was an awful lot of Rin. Much as he tried to deny it to himself, he’d always been a little envious of that connection Haru and Rin had. He’d long since accepted that the kind of friendship Haru had with him and the thing Haru had with Rin were different things that couldn’t be judged in the same way, but still… Haru and Rin were chasing the same dream now, while he was studying for a different future. He couldn’t help but feel left out, somehow.
Makoto realised he’d been in a trance for far too long and the kettle had long since boiled and switched itself off. He put a hand to the side, felt that it was still pretty warm and judged it good enough, so he made himself a cup of tea and let it brew.
Tonight, Makoto hadn’t messaged Haru, just to see if Haru would message him. He knew it was a childish test, but he did it anyway. Haru hadn’t messaged. Part of him suspected that Haru would always wait for Makoto to message first because that was just how their routine worked. Haru was probably wondering why Makoto didn’t want to talk to him tonight. Or was he? Before, Makoto wouldn’t doubt so much, trusting Haru to be Haru, but Tokyo was twisting his mind and making him worry like never before.
He fished the teabag out of his cup with a spoon and dumped it in the trash with a little more force than was strictly necessary. He hated this, hated that he was doing this, knew he should be above this, knew he should be a better person than this, but… But. He took a sip of tea and winced, finding it too hot. This wasn’t helping.
He just needed to see Haru. Then he could reassure himself that everything was fine, that nothing had changed, that he was worrying over nothing. He tapped out a text to send to Haru;
“Hey :) Sorry to text so late, but are you free this weekend? I wanna catch up in person. Let me know ^-^”
Pressing send was like a weight off his shoulders. His fears evaporated mere minutes later when Haru’s reply beeped in;
“dw sat 1pm mackerel cafe?”
Makoto grinned at his phone, shot back a “sounds great!” and leant back to drink his tea and listen to the rain. It was fine. Of course it was fine.
He went to sleep assured.