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Here is how it will play out – the plane will land in Japan, they will go through the hassle of customs, and Makoto will be there at the arrival lounge, waiting for his plane to get in, waiting for him to come home. Haru will apologise, and things will go back to the way they were between them, only now Haru will have a dream too, something to work towards. Everything will be fine.

It isn’t until the plane takes off that Haru realises Makoto hasn’t actually texted him to ask what time his flight is arriving; but that’s okay, because Makoto has probably already asked Rin.

It is somewhat of a setback when they get to the arrival lounge and Makoto is nowhere to be seen.

“Makoto?” Rin says when Haru asks where he is. “Does he even know what time our plane’s getting in?” At Haru’s blank look, Rin sighs. “Haru, did you tell Makoto what time our plane was getting in?” Haru shakes his head. “Then how would he know to be here?”

***

The train ride back to Iwatobi is silent, because Haru has never been one to fill the silence on public transport (or fill any sort of silence at all), and Rin is absolutely transfixed by his phone. Haru knows he’s not playing that bird game, because the last time he had played it in Haru’s presence he had offered Haru a turn and he’d utterly annihilated his score, and Rin hadn’t spoken to him for days afterwards. Sometimes when the train turns a corner and makes them rock slightly in their seats, Haru catches a glimpse of the text message screen, but he can never make out who Rin is texting.

Haru would check his own phone, but he’s not expecting anything. His parents hadn’t even known he’d left the country, and his friends have been maintaining a cautious distance all week – he knows this because he’s received precisely one text, from Nagisa, which had just said ‘Hope you’re having fun!’ and if the correct grammar and spelling wasn’t a giveaway that Nagisa had asked Rei to help him draft a message, then the lack of emoticons was.

“Gou says they’ve missed you,” Rin says nonchalantly just as the sea is coming into view. “Which probably means they’ve spent the whole week moping.” He pauses for effect. “Like you.”

“You’ve been texting Gou?” Haru asks, choosing to ignore the second remark. And the first. Choosing to ignore the entire statement apart from one tiny part of it, really.

“Not just her,” Rin amended, looking out of the window. “Unlike you, I don’t just text one person for hours on end, and someone had to let our mutual friends know we were back in the country safely, because you’d have probably forgotten until you went back to school on Monday.”

Haru considers arguing that point – he’d debated about texting them the minute he’d realised Makoto wasn’t going to show up at the airport, because then he’d have at least known when to show up at the train station, but every message he’d typed out had sounded stupid and had been deleted almost immediately. But the train driver is announcing that the next station is Iwatobi, and he can’t bring himself to start up an argument when they’re so close to home. Rin apparently feels the same way, because he turns around and grins at Haru, all teeth and raised cheeks.

When they get off the train, Haru is nearly barrelled over, and it’s only years of practice from Nagisa that his legs subconsciously ground themselves, allowing him to catch the Tachibana twins like he’d been anticipating their combined attack.

“Haru-chan,” Ran says indignantly, wiping her nose on his jeans (Haru can’t really bring himself to mind). “You left without saying goodbye!”

“I’m sorry,” Haru says honestly, patting her on the head. “The trip was… Sort of a surprise,” he says, looking at Rin over the twins’ heads – Rin shrugs unapologetically.

“Idiot,” Ren mumbles, clinging to Haru’s other leg like he used to do when he was a lot smaller.

“Ren!” Makoto’s mother admonishes, hands on her hips. Ren winces, but the fact that he doesn’t pull away from Haru’s leg means that he feels Haru will protect him, should his mother’s anger escalate. “Haru-chan, it’s good to see you. Did you enjoy Australia?” A lot of questions go unsaid in that one greeting, but she can’t hide the worry in her eyes, even as she fusses over the twins with handkerchiefs. So Haru tries to answer all her questions as succinctly as possible with -

“I did.” She looks up at him, relief shining on her face – he doesn’t know what it is about the Tachibana family that makes every emotion play out on their face like a short film, but it seems to be a genetic trait. Although Haru must have unanswered questions of his own in his expression, because she takes one look at him and smiles gently.

“Mako-chan’s still asleep,” she says. Haru glances over at the station clock – it was still pretty early, and he’d been an idiot to think Makoto would be awake and waiting for him – “The only reason we found out you’d be getting in at this time is because Rin text me to let me know.” Haru turns to look at Rin in surprise, but Rin is resolutely avoiding his gaze, so he turns back to Makoto's mother. “I said we’d come pick you up.”

“Thank you,” Haru says, before turning to Rin. “You too.” It’s a start at thanking Rin for everything he's done, but Rin seems to get the point – he pulls Haru into a quick, one armed hug, probably so Haru doesn’t have time to draw attention to the fact that Rin’s crying.

“Okay, go, I’ve spent too much time with you this past week,” Rin says, pushing Haru away. “Oh,” he says offhandedly as Haru follows the Tachibanas out of the station. “You know you’re allowed to text people first, right? Just a suggestion.”

***

Although Makoto’s mother had offered to make breakfast for him, Haru had declined – he really, really needed a bath, and not just for his usual reasons. The stink of hotel, airport and public transport was clinging to him, and he needed to feel like himself again before he started doing what needed to be done.

First, he decided, he would actually look at who had scouted him, because he’d put that off for long enough. The thought still sent a twinge of fear down his spine, but, he told himself, he didn’t have to accept any offers yet, he was just looking. Then he would look at universities, both nearby and further away, to see if they offered any courses that peaked his interests. And then, this knowledge in hand, he would finally seek out a career’s guidance meeting, to solidify something once and for all.

He was waiting for Makoto to come and retrieve him out of the bath so that he could tell him all of this, but just as the water temperature dipped down below uncomfortable he remembered that there was no reason for Makoto to come and get him out of the bath – not only did they not have school, but they were still fighting. Is that how this worked? This was Haru’s first fight with Makoto, was there a time limit on these kinds of things? Would Makoto turn up to get him out of the bath when they went back to school on Monday, the same as he always had? Or would they still be fighting then, even though by that time they’d have gone for more than a week without saying anything to each other?

“You know you’re allowed to text people first, right?” Rin said helpfully in his head, and the helpful Rin in his head was right, if not slightly unwelcome and smug. He could just text Makoto, test the waters, find out if they were still fighting. He clambers out of the (now cold) bath, shivers, and began digging through his luggage for his phone. It’s nestled under the third spare pair of jammers he’d packed (Rin had been livid when he’d found out Haru had packed more jammers than underwear but, as Haru had tried to explain, he only needed one pair of underwear per day), and he’s got a new text.

‘Haruka-senpai,’ it begins. ‘I am glad to hear you have arrived back in the country safely, and look forward to seeing you back at school. Best wishes, Rei’

Haru resolves to text Rei as soon as he’s done with this text to Makoto, and sets about typing up a message to his best friend.

Australia was amazing, we

I’ve finally found out what I

Makoto, are we still

He finally settles on ‘I’m home’ and hits send, hoping Makoto can interpret his conciseness over text as well as he can when Haru speaks. He looks at his phone expectantly.

Then he looks up at the clock.

He looks back down at his phone, frowning. Every other time he’s text Makoto, the reply has come back within minutes – although, and he’s checking back through his texts with increasing speed, that’s because Makoto had always been the one to start the conversation, and had been waiting for a response from Haru.

Haru has never sent a text first.

He stands up and paces up and down, staring at his phone screen. As if it’s mocking him, the screen fades to black due to inactivity, so he hits a random key and flops down on the floor, planning to text Rei to distract himself from the wait.

Thanks. Australia was great, but I’m happy to be back.

His phone buzzes a short while later, and there’s a swoop in his stomach that falls flat when Rei’s name flashes on the screen. He actively reminds himself that Rei is his friend too, and opens the message.

Haruka-senpai, I’ve heard that Australia is a beautiful country, and it’s wonderful that you got to experience it! Although, I must admit, we certainly felt your absence back home. Rei

Haru knows enough ‘Rei-speak’, as Nagisa calls it, to know that that means ‘We missed you’, so he texts back something similar. This seemed to have the effect of breaking Rei entirely, because his phone stays silent, reminding him that he is still waiting for a reply from Makoto.

Eventually it strikes him that this is ridiculous – why is he pacing up and down his house when Makoto lives just down a flight of stairs? Nodding to himself, Haru pulls on some clothes and heads down those same stairs.

He knocks on their door, fidgeting a little. He doesn’t know how he’ll explain himself if Makoto’s mother comes to the door, because he’d turned down her invitation to come over not an hour before, but it looks like he won’t have to deal with that – no one answers the door.

It’s understandable – the Tachibanas lead busy lives – but that doesn’t stop him from knocking again. And again. And ringing the doorbell insistently. A shadow shuffles behind the door just as Haru is considering breaking in through the back door, and then Makoto is there, blinking at him blearily.

“H-Haru!” He says, eyes widening against the crustiness of sleep still in the corners. “I didn’t even know you were home!” He pauses, looking as alarmed as Haru feels – Makoto knew everything about him, once, and now they were at a point when he didn’t even know they were in the same country.

“You didn’t answer my text,” Haru says quickly, and then he realises just how weird that sounds. ‘You didn’t answer my text’ so I came down here and contemplated breaking into your house?

This was why Haru didn’t text people.

“Oh, I… My phone’s off,” Makoto says, yawning. Apparently he hadn’t comprehended the bizarreness of Haru’s being here just because he hadn’t been texted back, because he steps aside to let Haru into his house. “How was Australia?”

“It was… Nice,” Haru says lamely, cursing his own inability with words. “How was it here?”

“As quiet as it usually is,” Makoto says with a grin, and Haru finds himself analysing that far more than he usually would. Does Makoto like the quietness of Iwatobi, or is he itching to get away? Does he resent the quietness, is that why he’s going as far away as Tokyo? Haru hadn’t even realised Makoto thought of Tokyo as anything other than the capital city of the country they happened to live in – how much else doesn’t he know about his best friend? “-and Rei told him not to eat before swimming, but you know what Nagisa’s like, Rei says not to do something and he’ll do it just so Rei fusses over him – Haru, are you okay?” Makoto’s peering at him worriedly, and then he laughs sheepishly. “Sorry, you probably want to talk more about Australia, but I got carried away.”

“No, I didn’t want to talk about Australia,” Haru says immediately, because this is the perfect opening into the conversation he actually wanted to have.

“You… Didn’t want to talk about Australia?” Makoto confirms. “But you came over to talk about something, right?”

“Are we still friends?” Haru blurts out, and now is not the time to consider finding a sea witch and trading his ability to swim for an ability to string a decent sentence together, because Makoto looks horrified.

“Of course we’re still friends!” He says hastily – they still haven’t moved out of the entrance hallway, and the narrow space just emphasises their height difference, because even though there is a respectable distance between them Makoto is towering over him. “Haru, I was too pushy, and tried to make you have a conversation you weren’t ready to have, that doesn’t make us not friends anymore.” And Haru’s happy they’re still friends, but Makoto has completely the wrong end of the stick if he thinks any of this is his fault, but before he can try to verbalise this Makoto’s front door rockets open.

“Haru-chan!” Nagisa runs at him, leaps into the air, and then attaches himself with the obvious intent of not letting go willingly for at least several days. He winds his arms around Haru’s neck and burrows his head into Haru’s shoulder.

“Haruka-senpai, I’m really sorry, I tried to tell him you might be tired from the flight back, but he insisted we come over,” Rei says, looking like he would fetch a crowbar or strawberry cakes if Haru asked him to remove Nagisa from him.

“How did you know I was here?” Haru croaks, because Nagisa is cutting off his air supply. Nagisa helpfully loosens his arms, but makes up for it by tightening his legs.

“You weren’t at your house,” Nagisa says into Haru’s shoulder. “So obviously you had to be at Mako-chan’s house.” He says this with the tone of someone discussing simple fact – it’s going to rain, so obviously you should bring an umbrella. It’s Golden Week, so obviously the airports are going to be busy. And Nanase Haruka is not in his house, so obviously he will be with Tachibana Makoto. “More importantly, tell us about Australia!” Haru can tell he’s not going to get away with an ‘it was nice’ here, so he tries to think of interesting things to talk about.

“Rin took me to the Sydney Aquatic Centre,” he settles on, because it segues into something else he’d wanted to tell them. “We swam with the Olympic athletes-”

“Oho, I know that look!” Nagisa says triumphantly, although how he’d distinguished a ‘look’ at all from where he’s still buried in Haru’s shoulder, Haru has no idea. Nagisa pulls his face away and looks at Haru, and then he nods.

“What look?” Haru says, because as far as he can tell his face always looks like this.

“It’s this look you get, where your face goes all-” He pulls a face, and Haru is horrified to think his face looks remotely like that without his permission. His fear is confirmed when Nagisa turns to Rei and says “It’s the face, yeah?”

“It’s the face,” Rei says – he looks apologetic, and he doesn’t attempt to do the face – whatever the face is – but it doesn’t matter, because Haru is so mortified he is already planning on leaving Japan forever.

“What Nagisa means is you get this… Intense look in your eye sometimes,” Makoto says kindly. “Usually when you think about swimming. Or Rin. Or swimming and Rin.”

“What happened?” Nagisa says eagerly, bouncing up and down so vigorously that Haru would have dropped him, had Nagisa not been clinging to him viciously.

“We swam with the athletes,” Haru repeats. “And I want to swim. In front of people. At competitions.” He can’t imagine Rin ever describing his Olympic dream so flatly, but his friends get his meaning – Nagisa gasps, and he thinks Rei might be about to cry.

He doesn’t look at Makoto. Not yet.

“Haru-chan, an Olympic athlete?” Nagisa squeals, down his ear, and Rei immediately starts talking about the dangers of perforated ear drums, how many more times must we talk about this Nagisa-kun, but Nagisa is ignoring him entirely. “I’ll come to all your matches, Haru-chan, even the ones in foreign countries! Especially the ones in foreign countries! Haru-chan, do you think you’d be able to get us really good seats at the Olympics? I’m sure Rin-chan would be able to get us seats too, but if both of you are Olympic athletes that’ll mean more seats, right?” He nuzzles Haru’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, Haru-chan.” His voice sounds suspiciously thick, so Haru leaves him to cry in his shoulder for a bit.

“Haruka-senpai, I’m so…” And what Rei is Haru supposes he’ll never find out, because his face crumples and then he’s crying into Haru’s other shoulder, and really, when did his shoulders become free-for-all crying mats? He pats them both vaguely on the head, and finally looks over at Makoto.

He’s… Smiling, and he doesn’t look like he’s going to start crying soon, which is fortunate because Haru only has so many shoulders. In fact, he doesn’t look like he’s going to start doing much of anything anytime soon. Makoto appears to be frozen to the spot, and for the first time Haru can’t tell what he’s thinking just by looking at his face. He can tell, however, that Makoto is putting a lot of effort into making sure Haru can’t tell what he’s thinking, because his hands are behind his back, which means he’s got his fists clenched so tight that his fingernails are digging into his palms, and he’s got his toes pointed inwards because it makes him feel smaller and less conspicuous, but these are just the basics of Makoto’s behaviour – he can’t tell what he’s thinking, and that scares him, a lot more than he’s been scared over the last few weeks.

***

It takes a lot to get Nagisa and Rei to agree to leave, but after firm promises to message them with every detail about his Australia trip –

“Don’t leave out the details, Haru-chan!” Nagisa had said firmly, poking a finger into his chest. “I want tooth-brushing times, meal plans, you name it.”

- they both finally leave, leaving him alone with Makoto, who smiles brightly.

“I’m so glad you’ve found-”

“No, you’re not,” Haru accuses, because if Makoto’s going to beat around the bush then Haru is going to march straight through that bush.

“What? Haru, of course I’m glad-”

“I know what you look like when you’re happy,” Haru reminds him, and Makoto looks alarmed; while Haru’s glad he can recognise the alarm on his face, he’s also worried about what’s put it there. “Something’s wrong, I don’t know what, but you’re trying to hide it from me.”

“It’s nothing,” Makoto says immediately, and the fact that he doesn’t stammer like he usually does when confronted lets Haru know that he has prepared for this, whatever ‘this’ is. He has planned for this conversation, has taken the time to prepare just what he is going to say, which means he’s been worrying about whatever it is for a while. “Honestly, Haru-chan, I am happy that you’ve found a dream to follow.”

“…You’re not lying,” Haru says, and he lets ‘about this’ hang in the air between them. Makoto winces, but then he nods. “What’s wrong?” Haru repeats desperately, because he’s never had to do this. He’s never had to pull what’s wrong with Makoto out like a rotten tooth, but whatever’s wrong with him now has been left to fester and grow roots, and now he doesn’t know what to do.

“I’m fine, Haru,” Makoto says firmly – and that’s definitely a lie. Makoto seems to know that he’s been caught lying really badly, because he looks away from Haru’s eyes guiltily. “I’ll be fine,” he repeats.

“But something is wrong with you now,” Haru says, trying to catch Makoto’s eye.

“We should talk about this later,” Makoto says, still avoiding Haru’s gaze. “My family will be home from the market soon, and you’re probably tired from the plane, and Nagisa and Rei are probably really looking forward to hearing about Australia-”

“If you wanted me to go, you could just say so,” Haru says blankly, finally looking away. That, of course, was when Makoto turned to face him.

“That’s not it, Haru-chan,” he says, so honestly that Haru sucks in a little breath. “Can you just trust me when I say I’ll be okay, and you don’t need to worry about it? I am happy for you, really.” Haru looked up at him sceptically, but when Makoto didn’t want to talk about something, there was no getting it out of him.

That wasn’t to say Haru couldn’t try to get it out of other people, though.

***

“Haru,” Rin says hoarsely over the phone. As soon as he’d got home Haru had run himself another bath, and now he was going through his contact list on his phone to find out just what was wrong with Makoto. “I was asleep.”

“Well, now you’re not,” Haru says simply, poking at the dolphin toy. “What’s bothering Makoto?”

“…Why the fuck are you asking me?” Rin says – there’s no malice to it, just sleepy confusion. “Ask him.”

“I tried that,” Haru says petulantly, flicking the toy. “He said he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“If he doesn’t want to talk about it to you, why would he tell me?” Rin says.

“You talk sometimes.”

“Yeah, about you or swimming. We don’t talk about our feelings, he has you for that, and I have –” Rin coughs, and Haru could hear him scratching his neck. “My point is, if Makoto doesn’t want to tell you, he’s not going to want to tell anyone.”

“But what if I’m the thing bothering him?” Haru says quietly. “He wouldn’t tell me, but he’d probably tell someone else.”

“Is this about the Tokyo thing again?” Rin says. He sighs when Haru doesn’t answer. “Haru, I mean this in the nicest way, but not everything Makoto does is about you. He’s going to Tokyo because it’s the best choice for him, not because he hates you.”

“I know that,” Haru mumbles, although it’s nice to hear someone say it out loud. “But he wasn’t like this before we had our fight.”

“You made up okay though?”

“Makoto says we’re still friends.”

Rin is silent for so long that Haru checks his phone, to make sure it hasn’t broken from too much water damage over the years. Eventually, Rin inhales very deeply. “Haru, what did you say when you fought?”

“I… Told him he stuck his nose in everyone’s business,” Haru says very quietly, and if it had sounded awful in the heat of the moment it sounds even worse muttered into the silence of his bathroom. Rin apparently thinks so too, because he swears in both English and Japanese, multiple times.

“You’re a dick,” Rin says eventually.

“Rin, I didn’t call you for you to tell me what I already know,” Haru says angrily, although he knows he doesn’t really have any right to be angry with Rin.

“Maybe not, but you’re gonna get it,” Rin replies just as heatedly. “Because I know what the next answer’s gonna be, but I’m gonna ask because I like to make myself mad, I guess – have you apologised?”

Ama-chan had once told them that somebody (and Haru always forgets the names, there are so many names) had once said ‘Silence is better than unmeaning words’ – that person probably hadn’t been referring to this particular sort of situation, but Rin is able to determine everything from his silence far quicker than if Haru had tried to say something. Rin’s sigh is long and suffering.

“So, to sum this up,” he says tiredly, and Haru knows he should be feeling the effects of a ten hour flight too but he’s just too wound up about whatever’s bothering Makoto. “You told Makoto to stop interfering in your shit, you haven’t apologised for that and now you’re… Interfering in his shit?” He laughed humourlessly. “Call me back when you’ve sorted this out, I’m going for a nap as deep as your obliviousness.” He hung up, leaving Haru to his next call.

***

“Haruka-senpai?” Rei’s voice is soothing, confused, and Haru honestly doesn’t know why he didn’t just ring Rei first. Rei is wise, and knowledgeable, and will definitely be able to help.

“What’s wrong with Makoto?” Haru says, foregoing a greeting.

“I – pardon?”

“Me and Makoto had a fight,” Haru explains. “And I haven’t apologised yet. But there’s something else bothering Makoto, and I want to know what it is.”

“Well, I’d help you if I could…” Rei says vaguely – Haru can hear someone whispering in the background. “But I’m afraid I know nothing about it! Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go… Feed my cat! Goodbye, Haruka-senpai!”

Rei does not have a cat.

Haru tries to ring back, and glares at his phone suspiciously when it immediately goes through to voicemail. When the tone sounds, he tries to convey ‘disapproving silence’ across to the voicemail, but it’s difficult to distinguish between his silences without facial cues, or Makoto helpfully describing each silence – which brings him back to the point at hand, so he rings Nagisa.

“Hello, Haru-chan! I was wondering when you’d call.” Nagisa sounds entirely too cheerful in the face of Haru’s irritation.

“How did you know I’d call?” He says, narrowing his eyes at the bathroom tiles.

“We all text each other, Haru-chan,” Nagisa says sweetly. “Rin-chan sent me a text that said you were in one of your ‘moods’.”

“You’re sitting next to Rei, aren’t you?” Haru says flatly – he must be on speaker, because Rei splutters in alarm. That, or Nagisa and Rei are sitting close enough to listen to the phone together. "You were telling him what to say to me when I rang him."

“Not important, Haru-chan,” Nagisa says patiently. “What is important is that I can help you with your questions.” He sounds so smug that Haru considers hanging up now, but Nagisa has proven, time and time again, to give good advice, so he grits his teeth.

“Why is Makoto being so weird?”

“Ask him,” Nagisa says promptly. Haru nearly throws his phone into the bath.

“I’ve tried that,” he hisses, because really, why is everyone assuming he hasn’t tried the most obvious course of action?

“Apologise first,” Nagisa says, and apparently Rin has filled him in, because Nagisa sounds irritated. “And then ask him.”

“Can’t you just tell me what’s wrong with him?” Haru tries.

“I think you know the answer to that, Haru-chan,” Nagisa says pleasantly, and then he deprives Haru of the pleasure of hanging up by hanging up on him first.

Haru briefly debates calling Gou, and then decides against it. If Rin had been disappointed in him, he’d at least coated it with anger – Haru wasn’t sure he could cope with Gou being disappointed in him. He sighed, running his fingers through the bath water.

“Haru-chan?” The bathroom door bursts open before he can warn Makoto that – “Rin just called, he said you’re acting strangely, are you…” Makoto drifts off, his ears going a very dark shade of red. “You’re not wearing jammers.”

“I’m sorry,” Haru says – he intends to elaborate on his apology, go on to say that he doesn’t think Makoto’s meddlesome, he’d just said the thing he knew would hurt the most (which is actually worse, he’d set out to actively hurt Makoto, but if he’s apologising then he’s going to do it properly), but Makoto turns away quickly.

“I should’ve knocked, it’s fine, my fault,” he squeaks, before running out of the bathroom.

“That’s not what I meant!” Haru says urgently, climbing out of the bath. At the last second he thinks to grab a towel, because he doesn’t think running after Makoto while completely naked is going to help his situation.

Makoto is standing in the kitchen, his face still red, as it always is on the rare occasions that he catches Haru bathing without a jammer on. He looks relieved to see that Haru has a towel on, but there’s definitely curiosity there – understandable, Haru had practically run out of the bath to catch up with him.

“I’m sorry,” Haru repeats. “About what I said the other night.”

“Haru, I already told you, that wasn’t your fault-”

“Please don’t – don’t do that,” Haru interrupts. “Don’t try and shift the blame from me, I shouted in your face.” Makoto looks stunned, so Haru presses on. “I didn’t mean any of it. I was just scared, and I took it out on you, and I shouldn’t have.”

“Haru, I know,” Makoto says. “I already said I forgave you, we’re okay.”

“Then what’s wrong?” Haru shouts; Makoto takes a step back. “You said the other day you were all worried about me, well now I’m worried about you! If it’s not something I’ve done, why can’t you tell me?” Makoto takes another step back, but this time Haru follows him.

“It’s not something you’ve done,” Makoto says – his face pales when he realises that Haru’s caught which word he’d inadvertently put the inflection on. “Haru-chan, please, just drop it-”

“I’ll stop, whatever it is,” Haru says, because something about him is upsetting Makoto so much that he’s actively putting as much space between them as he can, something he’s never done before. “But I need you to tell me, so I can fix it.”

“You can’t stop being you, Haru-chan!” Makoto shouts back.

“The thing that’s wrong is… Me? Just me?” Haru says dumbly, because Makoto’s right, he doesn’t know how to fix it if it’s him in his entirety – he’s willing to try, for Makoto’s sake, but he doesn’t even know how to begin fixing the problem –

“There’s nothing wrong with you!” Makoto says, shaking his head and grabbing at Haru’s wrist, as he’d done the other night. “It’s me.” He takes a deep, shaky breath, and then he looks at Haru. “I love you, Haru.”

Oh

***

Before she’d died, Haru’s grandmother had shown him a picture of the ocean, a great expanse of blue.

“Look at it closer, Haru-chan,” she’d said, holding it up for him. It had taken him a moment, but then

“It’s a boat!” He’d said, staring at the boat that had materialised out of the page. He stuck his hand out – the page was still there, but now he was looking at it differently he could see the boat, as clear as day.

***

And just like that, as clear as day, his feelings for Makoto were so laughably obvious.

“What’s wrong with being in love with me?” Haru questions, keeping his face blank. This was not the response Makoto had been expecting, judging by the questioning head tilt.

“You’re my best friend,” he says. “And you don’t feel the same way. It’s not because you’re a boy, I just know you don’t-” Haru marches over, holds Makoto’s face with both hands, and kisses him. He doesn’t technically have any experience with kissing (Nagisa had told him various CPR incidents ‘don’t count, Haru-chan!’), so he’s probably not very good, but he’s enthusiastic about it – and Makoto seems to approve, judging by his excited squeak and his hands moving down his –

“Haru-chan? We felt guilty about letting you fend for yourself, so we came over to give you advice-” Haru pulls away from Makoto very slowly as Nagisa stutters to a mortified halt. It takes a lot to embarrass Nagisa, but apparently his limit is watching his best friends kissing when one of those best friend’s towel has pooled around their feet.

It takes Makoto a little longer to realise his hands are on Haru’s bare ass, but he finally manages to catch up when Nagisa shouts down the hall,

“Rei-chan, we need to go, they don’t need our help, they’re about to have sex!”

***

“Rin,” Haru says tiredly. “For the last time, we weren’t having sex.” Makoto moans in embarrassment, but he’s grinning shyly every couple of seconds, so Haru doesn't feel too guilty.

“Nagisa threatened to send photos,” Rin gripes down the phone. “He wouldn’t threaten that if he couldn’t follow through.”

“Then he’s learnt to use a computer to edit photos,” Haru says. The flight is finally catching up with him, and he just wants a nap. Unfortunately, Rin seems determined to keep him on the phone after Nagisa had texted him ‘just seen mako-chan and haru-chan having sex!!! (==’o’==)’, which Rin had promptly forwarded to Haru with a lot of question marks added. “Because we weren’t having sex.”

“Well, whether or not you were having sex, and I really don’t need to know,” Rin says. “Have you two sorted yourselves out?”

“Yeah,” Haru says – he thinks he sounds perfectly normal, but Rin makes a ‘tsk’ noise down the phone.

“You’re doing that face, aren’t you? Sort of like,” He makes a dreamy, sighing noise to accompany whatever face he's pulling, and once again Haru is horrified to learn that his face is doing these sorts of things without his permission. “Oy, Makoto, he’s doing that face again, isn’t he?”

“What face?” Haru says, looking from the phone to Makoto. Makoto doesn’t seem to want to say anything, but he’s looking inordinately pleased with himself.

“It’s your ‘Makoto’s doing something and I love him’ face, you do it a lot,” Rin says, and if you could master the ability of an audible eye roll, Haru knows Rin would be first in line to learn.

“Oh. I guess I probably do.” And if Makoto had been smiling before, it’s nothing compared to the grin that lights up his face now – Haru would look at it forever, but right now he just wants to sleep. He yawns, trying to make it extra loud for Rin’s benefit.

“Yeah, it sucks when people ring you while you’re trying to sleep, doesn’t it?” Rin says, laughing at Haru’s misery.

Suddenly, Haru is hit with an epiphany. He takes his phone away from his ear, hangs up the phone, and turns the phone off.

“Haru-chan, that’s rude,” Makoto says, but he doesn’t sound too disapproving. He tilts his head. “You look tired. Go for a nap, I’ll be here when you wake up.” And that sounds lovely, but Haru has a better idea – he pulls Makoto along after him to the living room, sits him down on the sofa, and then lies down, his head in Makoto’s lap. It’s a position they’ve taken up many times before, but it’s never felt so intimate before – then again, Makoto’s never absentmindedly run his fingers through Haru’s hair before, although it feels as natural as though he’s been doing it for years.

Haru knows they’ve still got a lot to talk about. He doesn’t yet know where, exactly, he’ll be this time next year, or what he’ll be doing – he doesn’t know what he’ll be doing in ten, twenty years time, because ‘Professional Athlete’ isn’t a career he can have forever. But, with his head in Makoto’s lap and a dream sparked off by a visit to Australia, for the first time Haru feels ready for the future.