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Hey, Mako! Did you hear it's supposed to rain soon?" Nagisa asked one day during the usual swim team lunch.
"Oh, I didn't realize. Since it's the summer, it makes sense." he replies back, smiling.
"Rain! How lovely! It's so fun to see the storms each year." Gou comments, smiling.
"Yes, monsoon season has become a fateful event in Iwatobi for each and every year." Rei declares.
Haruka heaves a deep sigh.
"Haru?" Makoto inquires.
"My knees hurt." Haruka says, eyes narrowing.
"Oh, no! Did you hurt yourself during practice?" Nagisa asks, concerned. Haruka shakes his head.
"This used to happen to my grandma, too. Whenever a big storm is coming, my knees always hurt." Haruka explains, earning a scoff from Rei.
"You're so superstitious. Besides, it isn't even monsoon season yet! Perhaps you've just been overworking yourself." Rei comments, waving his hand at Haruka as to dismiss him.
"I don't know, he's always been right about it before." Makoto comments, furrowing his eyebrows.
"Well, I guess that just means that it's umbrella season!" Nagisa cheers, and they all continue with their lunches.
Everything was normal.
Until that night.
Makoto, ever the light sleeper, awakens to the smallest things.
But it was no small thing that woke him up.
It was meowing. LOTS of it.
He groggily climbed out of bed to look out his window
where he could've sworn he was still dreaming.
There was cats. Everywhere.
From tabby to black, from large to petite, a bunch of cats were fleeing the streets, all running from the right of the street and to the left.
Makoto, unsure of what he was seeing, pulled out his phone to call Haruka.
The phone rings for a split second before Haruka answers.
"You're seeing this too, right?"
"I thought I was hallucinating. Why are all these cats running?"
"I don't know...gh!"
"Haru?"
"Sorry, it's my knees...I think there's going to be a big storm tonight."
"Yeah, that's probably why all these poor strays are fleeing the area. I'm gonna go get my supplies. Stay safe."
"You too. Bye."
All throughout Iwatobi, people were scrambling to lock up their houses and get their supplies.
Nagisa was preparing rainy day snacks.
Rei was locating his lantern.
Makoto was letting all the cats in so they wouldn't get rained out.
Gou was setting up her room so she could have a comfy self care night.
Haru was laying on the floor because his knees were hurting him so bad that he figured that he couldn't fight the inevitable.
And then it started.
"Woah, it's really coming down! Rei-", Nagisa begins, but his phone call with Rei is cut off as the electricity goes out.
Makoto hides in a pillow fort with his siblings as they all tell ghost stories and play with the cats.
Haru eats a can of mackerel on his kitchen floor, his knees in an indescribable pain.
Rei brews tea and sips it as he pours over his textbooks.
Gou does skincare and listens to the falling rain.
Nagisa reads manga and sorts his bookshelf in the faint light of his room.
The whole night, all the members of the Iwatobi Swim Club stay awake throughout the storm.
The next morning, they reconvene during lunch.
"I can't believe Haruka's joint pain truly did predict a storm." Rei says, astonished.
Haruka shrugs. "Told you so."
"Well, what matters is that we all had fun! I spent my whole night reading manga and redecorating my room." Nagisa says, releasing a satisfied sigh.
"I spent the night drinking chamomile and studying." Rei says.
"I stayed up doing some skincare and listening to music." Gou shares.
"And I got to play with all the stray cats that I took in." Makoto recalls, fondly smiling.
Haruka heaves a deep sigh. "Well, I'm SO GLAD that you four weren't going through excruciating knee pain all night."
They all laugh at Haruka's irritation, now knowing to never doubt his intuition.