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Haruka has never felt more useless then when he pulls Makoto onto the sand.
He doesn't know what to do, what to even think, his entire mind is just a flurry of Makoto's name, over and over and over, uncertainty and panic overwhelming any logical thought he could come up with. He has to step back to breathe, take precious minutes to compose himself.
But every time he takes a breath he remembers that Makoto isn't really breathing and panics again, feeling useless until the memories push up to the front, the basic safety training that they'd gotten ages ago when they were still in the swim club.
He's shaking. He's shaking and so glad when Makoto wakes up on his own because he wasn't sure if he'd do it right, he was certain somewhere in the back of his mind he'd make it worse and Makoto would die and it'd be his fault, he rubs gentle circles onto Makoto's shoulders and hears how weak his voice is and hurts for him--
--That's what he feels until Makoto shouts Rei's name, and then there's a colder pit in his stomach, and he's a little too rough with Makoto when he tells him to calm down, Rei is fine, he's with Nagisa, they'll be okay.
Makoto's kindness is almost infuriating, in that moment. Haruka doesn't understand how Makoto comes back from near death with something other than his own safety in mind, it's unbelievable, the things that Makoto will forget in exchange for other people.
Makoto's habit of taking on responsibilities that he doesn't need has always been something that Haruka knows he shouldn't do, but doesn't know how to stop. Makoto has always been like that, has always tried to take what pressured others onto himself, he always, always has and Haruka wishes, just for this one time, he'd stop it and think about himself.
Haruka doesn't know how to worry well, he doesn't know how to handle it. That's always been Makoto's job.
Makoto, he thinks, gently pulling him close.
His words slam into him like a ton of bricks, like diving into a pool that's more shallow than it looks. I want to swim with you, he says. It's meaningless without you, Haru, he says, I need you, he doesn't say, but Haruka looks at him and knows.
Goldfish float before his eyes.
Makoto's feelings steal the breath out of him when he takes them in. The weight of his words, unwavering, no hesitation, remind him of years ago, the first time he'd drawn this confession out of Makoto, and he can't help but feel something protective swell in him. An instinct, an urge, a want.
Makoto has never asked him for much, and this one small wish, I want to swim with you(please let me swim with you), is something Haruka can give. He wants to. He almost feels like he needs to, with the way Makoto is trembling, their eyes lock, and he immerses himself in the wordless exchange, waiting for something--
--Nagisa breaks them out of their staring contest, and Makoto has the audacity to ask if Rei is all right and forgive him as if he hadn't caused this whole catastrophe.
I have to protect you, Haruka thinks in the back of his mind as he confronts Rei. His hand almost wanders into Makoto's like long ago, I have to protect you. Let me.
He's never felt more awful. He's never felt so completely useless as when Makoto laughs and then apologizes again for worrying everyone, he hides his clenched fist and pushes his feelings away because he can't do what he can't do. He can't make Makoto laugh, lift his mood, the most he can do is be there.
His reasons for lashing out at Rei are not as pure as he'd like them to be. They're tainted, despite what Makoto had told him, he wants to be able to help him more. He wants to do more than just be there, because Makoto has always settled for the very least that he needs and Haruka knows that being there is the very least he can do. But it isn't enough. It doesn't feel like enough.
When Makoto explains to them his fear, he only looks at his hands, and Haruka watches him carefully from the corner of his eye. When his voice gets tight, Haruka waits to stop him. He can't cut him off when he's trying so hard, even if he wants to, even if he can see the pain it causes.
He hurts for him, that's all he can do. He can only feel his pain and feel his heart, the passion in his gaze when he tells them, "When we swim together, I feel like we could go anywhere."
Makoto's stare is different when they walk off and into the ocean the next day. For a split second Haruka feels something waver in the air between them, but as quick as he feels it, it's gone. He brushes it off, unsure of what it was. He may have been imagining it, from the way it came and went, he's certainly tired enough.
He stands on the shore and watches them swim, just for a moment, watches Makoto's back to make sure he really is fine.
Then again, if he says he's fine, then Haruka can't trespass much further until Makoto takes a step towards him again. That's how they work, that's how it's always been, but this time...This time, bitter resignation almost sits on his tongue. A small sigh. Almost wistful that Makoto took two steps forward, then one step back.
A very small voice in the back of his mind suggests that maybe it's because Makoto doesn't want to leave him behind. Haruka quashes the thought.
There's something different as they go back home.
Makoto seems to be almost tranquil, quiet and thoughtful when he thinks no one is paying attention, except Haruka is paying attention, and even though he tries to stop himself, when they're alone he asks one more time.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, Haru-chan." Makoto says, and then there's that look again, that same look from before, but it disappears as quick as it came. He smiles his regular smile. "Don't worry about me."
Haruka frowns, thinks about saying, you nearly died, yet you're telling me 'don't worry'?
"Same here." He mutters shortly instead, and Makoto laughs.
"But Haru, if I don't worry about you, who knows what you'll do?"
There's a bit of a twinkle to his eye, and Haruka turns his head in another direction and pouts despite himself. Makoto laughs again.
As reassuring as the normalcy of the moment is, his stomach twists uncomfortably, as if something is wrong. He glances at the sunset, then down, looking at their hands.
They haven't held hands since middle school, where someone had claimed it was "weird that two guys still held hands!" After that, they'd stopped, since it was sort of weird and they weren't little kids and they could walk alone.
Not that they ever really did. Haruka would walk onward sometimes, but Makoto always caught up to his side, and on the rare occasion Makoto was ahead, he'd slow down until Haruka had reached him. It was an old habit of theirs.
A lot about them was old habits that died hard, or hadn't even attempted to die.
He's not sure what to think of that. Change is imminent, he knows. Eventually, they'll walk elsewhere, without each other, eventually, old habits will die.
He remembers the thought that popped up on the beach, and his stomach twists again.
"Haru?" Makoto touches his shoulder. "Haru-chan, we're here."
He blinks. The steps, they're at the steps, and Makoto starts to turn with a wave and a smile when Haruka reaches out and grabs the back of his shirt without meaning to.
"Haru?"
"Don't." He says. It's as if his body isn't his, his hand reaches out and his voice comes without his prompting.
"Don't...?" Makoto looks at him, confused. Haruka lets go and frowns hard at the ground, trying to find his usual expression.
"...Nevermind."
Something he can only describe as ugly swims through him, etching its way through his body, infecting his limbs like a black sludge. The feeling isn't unfamiliar, but it's not a friend, nor even a common occurrence, it's something he hates with what he can call a passion. It's that combination of uselessness and worry, that relentless struggle between doing all that he can and thinking that it's not ever enough.
Makoto says, "Haru."
He looks up.
"Don't worry. I'm fine."
There's that look, that one look that sends the air between them wavering, shimmering, and Haruka's vision is limited to Makoto.
"Thanks to you, I'm fine." He says, still with that look, and Haruka wants. He doesn't know what, but there's something that aches in him suddenly, cries out, and something else that holds him back.
Goldfish float before his eyes, swirling orange and speckled white and grey.
"Haru, thank you."
A sort of strange cracking sound echoes in Haruka's head, and the atmosphere from before dissolves, the rest of the world comes back into vision.
Makoto goes home. Haruka chooses to forget about the strange sensation of blurred space, where only he and Makoto exist.
Losing to Rin hurts.
It's not the loss, necessarily, but he can't figure out how to phrase why he feels the way he does, with the ache inside him, gnawing him raw. It's as if he's been disappointed, but that's not it either, not exactly.
It doesn't fade away completely when he watches Makoto, watches everyone swim. But something else comes and overlaps with it, a certain sense of pride, a shock, he can't place this feeling either. But he likes it more. It's better than the dull, empty ache that resounds through him when Rin's words come to mind.
When he comes home and finds Makoto sleeping against the doorway, he doesn't really know why it surprises him. But it does, and so does the message on his phone, clumsy and well intentioned.
Why?
It's meaningless without you.
I want to swim with you.
He trembles when the words echo in his head. Makoto's always been overpowering in the strangest ways, the ways that make everything, in the end, go his pace, with Haruka only needing to follow his current. He's never been able to go against him. He's never needed to.
Haruka looks at him, sleeping against the wall, imagines him waiting for hours, not moving, knowing that Haruka will come home.
He's never really wanted to.
When we swim together, I feel like we can go anywhere.
His fingers don't tremble when he reaches out to shake Makoto awake, but when Makoto sleeps over, they do. His hand trembles just barely, edges for Makoto's hand, fingertips shaking.
The goldfish swim before his eyes again.
He's not sure what he's scared of, or if that's even the reason he's trembling. He's...Overwhelmed by what he's feeling now, Makoto and everyone's words sink into him, causing shivers.
He never reaches Makoto's hand. He pulls away instead, turning his back to Makoto on the futon, lying on his bed and facing the wall. He thinks of the past, when they'd sleep on the same bed, still small enough to share, when they'd have sleepovers on the floor and wake up hand in hand, he thinks of the time when things were easy. When Rin wasn't as rough on the edges. When Makoto's hand still fit in his. When he didn't have to deal with two different things tugging on his heart, fondness and dejection tumbling around his rib cage.
Despite the restlessness, he sleeps well. Neither of them have nightmares when they sleep together. Never have.
It's when Makoto says his heart is still racing, that's when Haruka realizes his heart is racing too, not like when he was going against Rin, but like...Like something. He's felt it before, clutches his chest when it surfaces, feels unusual.
Uncertainty clouds his mind. What is he missing? What does he not know?
And because he's himself, he asks the water first, because that was where he felt such a feeling, but...It seems the water doesn't know either. He feels off kilter. As if someone had simply tilted his world a few degrees to the right, not enough to throw him completely off balance, but enough to confuse him, ruin his sense of what's right in the world.
It's bothersome, but not wholly unwanted, which just confuses him even more. The universe is at odds with him.
But, being with them, Makoto and Nagisa and Rei, being with them makes him think about it, take steps closer towards the answer. The uncertainty he feels is less and more, with them. And so Haruka lets the feeling wash over him, again and again, like a gentle wave, waiting for it to lead him to an answer.
The uncertainty disappears when Makoto says, "It made me happy to swim with you again", eyes bright, a smile so genuine that it almost hurts to look at.
There's a resounding crack, and Haruka is in that small pocket of space where Makoto is all there is. He understands himself completely. What he had forgotten for all this time.
Color. The world is colorful, Makoto's green eyes are the very first real step into a world that he'd forgotten had so many shades.
He wants to step into it, dive headfirst and experience it, wants to reach out and grasp what Makoto can put so succinctly, "When we swim together, I feel like we can go anywhere."
He wants to go anywhere with him, with the water, with them.
The new goldfish circle in the bag, swirls of color being held by an accidental painter. Haruka smiles.
Thank you.
The sky is clear, that night, and Makoto hugs him before the staircase, and Haruka hugs back. The goldfish seem to be watching from the bag, swimming slow circles, waiting for a slightly too long hug to end with gentle laughter and "I'll see you tomorrow"s.
Haruka trembles when Makoto lets go.
It's the sticky humidity that makes them sit further apart, that's what he tells himself. That's probably what it is for Makoto, but for him, it's not. For him, it's the hum in his heart when Makoto is too close, when they barely touch, the slithering sensation in his skin when the distance is thin enough that he could move a centimeter and their thighs would touch through shorts. For him, it's the way that he remembers Makoto's genuine smile, not the one that he gives out to anyone, not even the one that Haruka knows is reserved for his family and by extension, him, but the one that came from the core of his heart. The smile that pulled him from the deep and offered to show him the way. It's the look in his eyes that makes Haruka's world snap, distort the space around him until Makoto is all that's real.
The time when he lights his firework on Makoto's is slow, languid. As if the moment is trying to speak to him. Makoto's breath is gentle on the back of his neck, barely reaching the skin there, and Haruka focuses on the firework, how the spark sticks to Makoto's before it gives in, lights Haruka's as well.
The reason they sit so apart is the restlessness, the on-edge feeling that creeps up against the comfort and whispers that something should change between them, that he should take his hand. That their hands should be connected like before.
But it'd be different than before, different. His palms are sweaty, and a fleeting uncertainty says hello.
Reminiscing doesn't hurt as much as he anticipated it would.
Telling Rei what he deserves to know, going back in time, Haruka can feel what he felt back then, years ago, but the pain is less. There's more fondness for the memories, despite the frustrations, even when he remembers hurting Rin, it doesn't sting as much as it had then.
When they walk back, leaving Rei and Nagisa at the station, all is quiet, their shoulders an inch or so apart.
"...I didn't want to bother you."
Makoto says suddenly, quietly.
"I had a feeling something must have happened, but I...I figured you'd tell me if you wanted to, when you were ready." He laughs a little, just a quiet chuckle. "To be honest, I was a little scared to hear what the reason was."
Haruka waits.
"I'm glad you told us." He looks at the sea, not at Haruka. "I understand."
For the first time in a long time, he has to take a moment to understand Makoto's face. His expression is one he doesn't show often, Haruka looks a little closer and finds that Makoto's smile is faded, the kind he only shows when he feels something he doesn't think he should feel, when he needs to block something out.
That's not a face he should ever cause.
"I'm sorry." He watches Makoto watch the ocean, listens. "I'm sorry I worried you."
"No, it's not your fault." Makoto says, turning to him, that smile that's not quite real on his face. "I understand. It was between you and Rin."
He doesn't know what to say. It was between him and Rin, and Makoto never had to know about it, but he feels guilty despite himself, because it's only recently that he realizes he left Makoto in the dark. His fist clenches and unclenches slowly, a nervous little tick. He'd left him in the dark, hadn't protected him, hadn't realized what he was doing until Makoto had almost been ripped from him.
Makoto stares at the ocean again. It's a rather dark night.
Haruka almost reaches his hand, missing it at the last second.
Haruka laughs at dinner, because Rei's luck seems to always be at an indiscernible low, and he feels lighter than he has in a long time.
Rei's conviction has always been his selling point, Haruka considers it both a curse and a blessing. He's stubborn and rigid, but he does what he says and he says what he thinks.
So when he says that he's done worrying about Rin, and everything that he's been shouldering slides off his back, Haruka finds that he can breathe again. Now, everything is okay.
Well, almost everything.
The soft hum of Makoto's voice reminds Haruka there's still something to address, though he isn't sure how to say it, nor why such a simple thing makes his whole body taut.
They've always been communicating through silence. He's only realized it recently, how easy Makoto has always let it be, despite everything. Despite being left in the dark, despite having to learn Haruka through trial and error, despite being able to meet so many people, he's. He's been there, for everything and anything, and Haruka realizes it matters.
But saying so sends heat up in his cheeks, heart beating faster than when he's racing, his voice is quieter and shyer than he'd meant and he can't bear to stay in the room, flees before Makoto can say anything.
Through the door he hears Makoto's laugh, giddy, close to tears, and Haruka runs. His heart has never been so fast, he can't get away fast enough, and the more he runs the more he thinks about it and the more he thinks about it the more flushed he gets. It's only when Nagisa calls out to him that he's managed to calm himself down a little, and he reminds himself it's just a thank you. Simple and inelegant, and yet, he's unable to swallow down the nervous energy.
Makoto is all he can think about when he gets back to the hotel, quietly slipping into his own bed.
"Haru."
Like lightning, Haruka sits up and turns towards the sound. Makoto is leaning against the headboard of his own bed, smiling.
It's blinding. Haruka tries not to tremble at the sight of it.
It's different, it's warmer, it's like his smile when they were at the top of the cliff, watching the festival lights. He wants to bolt out of the room again.
"I'm glad you're with me, too."
His voice is soft, feels like sand that crumbles in Haruka's hands.
Haruka gets up, leaving the blanket behind.
"Haru?"
He reaches Makoto's bed in a few seconds, pace steady. He can feel the uneven breaths go in and out of his own chest as Makoto stares at him. He puts his hands on Makoto's shoulders, and the very last thing he sees is wide green eyes before diving in.
"Haru--"
He kisses him.
He kisses him while trembling, overwhelmed, everything is overwhelming. The sudden jump of his heart, like he's being brought back to life, emotions that rip through him like storms. His lips are dry. There's raw terror running through his veins, Makoto's stiff, still form only accentuates the fear.
He draws back and looks away, grateful for the dark. His grip on Makoto's shoulders is tighter than he'd meant.
"...Haru." Makoto whispers.
Makoto's hands are on his wrists.
"I," he starts, fails, starts again, "I. Since training camp, I've been-- This--" He grits his teeth and wishes words would come out of his mouth properly, but it's as if his throat is parched, and he wishes he could go to a pool and forget, but, "Makoto."
"Yes?"
He swallows his fear and looks at him, really looks, and Makoto stares back.
"...Really?"
He sounds full of wonder. The blood is pounding in his head.
"You." Haruka says. "It's always been you."
And it has, Haruka realizes. Nobody else could ever change him like Makoto.
The seconds pile up. The clock flashes. Makoto turns his head downwards, uncertainty floats in the air between them.
A minute passes by. Haruka doesn't breathe.
There's so much he hasn't said. That he's sorry he's such a tiresome friend. That he wants to watch Makoto swim more often. That he'll protect him. But nothing comes out of his mouth, he clings to Makoto's shoulders and hopes he hasn't botched everything up.
"...I'm the same." Makoto mumbles, face flushed. "It's always been you, Haru."
His grip on Haruka's wrists tighten, and he looks up, determination written on his face. "Always."
Haruka breathes.
.
.
.
Makoto isn't water. But nonetheless, Haruka feels free.