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It’s a Thursday and Haruka is submerged in his bathtub, watching the blue.
Haruka relates the blue of the water to the blue in his dreams. Dreams of water. Water so blue, their shades a million and forever that he sees in his own eyes, which are the part of himself he likes the most.
He likes the most because it feels like carrying a small piece of what he loves the most; something distinctively his, instinctively his, not always and that’s fine.
That’s fine, because Haruka’s used to it.
Used to things that are a little fickle; things that flows, sometimes far and away, in velocities (his parents, Rin), and things that come filling up the empty spaces in all the way it matters the most (liquid that fills the void, swimming. Makoto).
So when Haru startles awake in his bathtub, coming up for air he often so wishes he could breathe under the surface, it’s still a Thursday, and despite being in a whole different universe, the blue, the water, the watery blue of his eyes don’t change.
That’s really comforting on some grounding level. Because right now apparently Haru has boobs.
He’s shirtless and sprawled open, one leg thrown over the edge of the tub and arms too, so they’re pretty obvious, protruding mutinously, and he really thinks he should be a little more alarmed about this situation but he can’t seem to gather enough bearings or maybe it’s just the way Haru rolls. (He doesn’t.)
Haru tries to remember reading somewhere that dreaming about water probably means that he’s feeling horny and doesn’t notice it. Haru wouldn’t be surprised.
If he’s already dreaming of growing boobs, he should be waking up to damp sticky sheets that are going to be awkward to explain when Makoto comes around, instead of a half-full bathtub.
Maybe it’s because the water itself that hasn’t changed; the temperament of it never betrays him, clinging to his now softer, curvier form the same way. Having boobs doesn’t disturb the delicate balance of Haru’s blue, aquatic universe so Haru thinks for now he’s at peace with it. Them. Semantics.
Haru himself doesn’t have disagreement with breasts nor is he offended in anyway; they see eye-to-below-the-eye for the most parts. Health classes were once upon a time mandatory and Rin was once upon a time compulsorily juvenile. Some things you just can’t unsee.
(Makoto is the only one who insisted to be continuously discomforted by all manners of female anatomy.
Haru himself is unfettered.)
So understandably Haru feels no particular reason or embarrassment to go out of his way to avoid them either like Haru feels no particular reason or embarrassment to anything barring some of Makoto’s more public coddling.
(Now that it reminds him, Makoto seems to take the extra mile of avoiding them completely.)
But seeing them protruding from his own body certainly lends a sort of clarity in perspective.
He spends a goodly amount of time staring. Waiting. For something to explode perhaps.
He makes a decision: he touches them.
…
Nothing happens.
The world doesn’t stop, doesn’t shatter. Nor does it tilt out of its supposed axis. No explosion. Not even a bell toll in the distance.
It’s almost disappointingly anticlimactic.
The flesh there feels like the flesh on any other part of his body; their weights reasonably proportional to their approximate sizes, his left breast being just a teeniest bit fuller than his right.
Haru tries to remember anything he’d seen in Rin’s picture books and decides that he’s not grotesquely big or eye-tearingly flat. Haru thinks they’re quite attractive.
(They’re bigger than his hands, but his hands seem smaller than usual, infinitely daintier, so it’s not like he could compare them now.)
He pokes. They bounce, almost mutinously before stilling.
He rubs his thumb across one areola. It peaks slightly, like his own nipple would when it’s too cold out to swim and he’s swimming anyway.
Haru spends a few more minutes squeezing and mapping and poking and prodding, like Dora, and this is how Makoto will find him later.
“Haru-san, are you still in the bathtub—”
There is a girl Haru has never seen, but one he immediately knows with bone deep familiarity, standing in Haru’s doorway.
And there should really be a kind of social cue he could take to know when to react appropriately, but Haru has boobs now and even that he’s decently handled. (Ha, ha, handled. Ha.)
“W-What are you doing?!” The girl squeaks, face a shade of traffic-stopping red. She smacks her palms over her eyes; it sounds painful. “For god’s sake, Haru-san, put on some clothes already! We were supposed to be heading for school ten minutes ago!”
In a different world, the water remains the same, the blue too.
And, apparently, so does Makoto.
His name in this world is Nanase Haruse.
The teacher accidentally calls him Nanase-kun in class during roll call and Haru was always that boy with a girl’s name (he’s still a boy with a girl’s name), so that in itself is a moving experience.
Haru is moved.
Haru is also noticing that things don’t stop being different outside of his mortal existence.
It’s a bit presumptuous to think that Haru having boobs have any dire consequences to the way of the universe, but Haru thinks it must have some relevance (he must be the cause or the effect, it’s one or the other) since some of his classmates remain as they were, some of them not so much.
Some of them seem incredibly so; two guys Haru knew were dating girls are now dating because one of them is a girl. The girl who was always the last pick during PE is the star of the volley club, still a girl. His math teacher was a social studies teacher and is now heavily pregnant.
It’s a strange stranger’s land. But obviously some things are to remain the same.
Haru still swims, still blue-eyed and wearing magenta stripes and is entirely unsurprised by his own predictability.
(He’d thought he’d be a one-piece type though. He’s not.)
Makoto is a Masato, which is arguably the weirdest thing so far because who would name their daughter Masato?
But Masato being Makoto accepts it with unparalleled grace and remains unoffended.
Haru distantly wonders if his parents are the same like Makoto, if they’re different like Masato, and if he’d get to see them before he go back.
Then he wonders why he wonders at all.
Wearing a girl’s uniform is an entirely out-of-body experience (he is incredibly hilarious today, very punny). His body knows it and it translates to his brain.
He thinks he should feel either greatly disturbed by the amount of skin he’s barring. Or at least be mildly hysterical that he feels nothing in between when he rubs his thighs together.
(He’s slightly worried if this would interfere with swimming because his structure is different now: he has breasts, wider hips, with narrower plains and altered gravity distributions, bone construction, body fat composition, everything that might affect his kinetic motion in the water.)
A sea breeze from the east blows directly against the skin of his legs, uncovered by the pleated skirt and crew socks, sending shivers through him.
It also threatens to lift the whole thing up.
Haru is cold.
Masato is gently – very gently – scolding him, “Haru-san, you’re going to catch a cold. Here. Wear a jacket.”
A full-sized cardigan materialised from inside her bag. Her very, very small bag. It’s like magic.
Masato bundles her in the cardigan jacket that is somehow exactly Haru’s size and of course Masato would have a cardigan jacket Haru’s size inside her small bag and repeats the magic she did when she pulls out a scarf in soft blue wool.
The scarf is water-coloured blue that would clash terribly with Masato’s hair and eyes, but matches Haru in every way.
Haru thinks, as Masato knots the scarf, take away his penis, his parents, the world and everything in it. His socks and Thursdays. His bathtub.
But they could never ever take away his water.
This world’s Makoto – Masato – is very tall. Not quite Makoto-tall, but still very tall, very curvy. She is toned like a model and fills out her uniform better than most girls in their year.
She is also incredibly self-conscious about it.
Masato’s features are plain; rounded doe eyes, rounded cheekbones, slightly hunched shoulders. No makeup except for sheer pink lip balm that accents the flush in her cheeks when she laughs or reacts mildly embarrassed to everything the way Makoto would.
Her skirt is short but it’s not because she made it that way like Nagisa – who is just Nagi – obviously did, but because her legs are too long and she has to wear knee-high socks and flat, sensible shoes to make up for it.
Haru calls her name—”Ma—sato,”—and Masato would tilt her head to Haru, as if pleasantly surprised, smiles and listens intently like she doesn’t notice how Haru, for once, is out of depth (ridiculous, Haru is never out of depth, he loves the depth) and calls Haru’s name and smiles at him the same way.
She talks, moves, even breathes the same way.
It’s – peaceful, Haru thinks. He waits for the utterly emotional breakdown that never comes.
The water is the same.
Makoto is the same.
It doesn’t matter. The world has not turned a total stranger on him yet.
Nagi of this world apparently isn’t that much different from the Nagisa he knew.
Which is good and also bad.
Her hair is still the same shade of blinding canary yellow, curly and at shoulder-length, pulled into a side ponytail with multitude of hair clips.
She has a shade of pink on everything she owns, now less jarring on principle but more obnoxious in general.
Her skirt is scandalously tiny and she has stacks upon stacks of glittering bangles on both arms, neon coloured nails with stickers on them, and scrunched socks.
She is both a serial cuddler and virtually unreadable; erratic good intentions but haphazard in their executions, bouts of clinginess that strikes at occasionally inappropriate setting. Being female seems to make it easier for her to get away with them.
It also makes her moodier, doesn’t make her any less alarmingly perceptive about the most random things at the most random times and just thinking about it makes Haru feels almost sorry for Rei having to parry with her on alarming regularity.
“Hey, look, look! She’s gonna jump!” Nagi exclaims, eyes shining and pointing exuberantly with her bright pink nails at the wired fence facing the track-and-field club. “It’s still so pretty whenever I see it! Her form, her form!”
Haru stops, seeing a heart-stoppingly familiar form from far away – lean, immaculate, with long, blue, swinging ponytail – vaulting cleanly over the pole.
A bird of flight.
“… It’s Rei…”
“Huh? Rei?” Nagi frowns, confused. Unrecognizing. Something in Haru sinks at that look; which is ridiculous. Nothing of Haru’s ever sinks. “Oh. Oh! You mean Kei. Kei. It’s Ryuugazaki Kei!”
It’s out before he can stop himself, “Why is she still with the track club?”
Nagi tilts her head to the side, curious like a cat in the pantry. “She’s their ace. Why wouldn’t she still be with the track club?”
Why would she still be with the track club?
Because he’s your best friend? Because he wanted to learn how to swim beautifully?
Because he is one of us?
Haru watches as the coach sighs, shaking his head. He approaches Rei – Kei – and says something to her. Kei looks tense. Crestfallen. Head lowered, utterly defeated.
Haru remembers it: textbook, the coach says. You’re not meant for this, the coach says. Fix it.
She doesn’t know how to. Of course, because she’s not meant for that. She’s meant for this: swimming, rallies. Rei was sort of terrible at it honestly, but he tried.
He tried so, so hard.
And this should be the point where Nagisa – Nagi, it’s Nagi here, somehow that distinction becomes unbearably crucial now – would come in, should come, barrels in, unheeding, unwanted but so very much needed—
“Haru-san?”
Masato’s voice from behind him is soft, uncertain.
“… It’s nothing.”
Masato gives her a worried look. “You’re weird today, Haru-san.”
Yeah, he thinks so too.
(It would come to him later, much later, that Masato is weird too.
She never once touches him through it all.)
Here’s another situation: Matsuoka Ren never left for Australia.
Because she never left, it makes perfect sense that she enrolled in the same school as the rest of them.
She’s in different class but drops by every break and drags them to the roof, which is apparently their spot that the whole school knows about.
Ren is irreverent, and loud, and talks like a boy.
She casually uses ore-sama to address herself sometimes and ties her blazer around the waist, unbuttons two buttons too low to be entirely unintentional about it, wears sheer black thigh-length tights and sits with her knees spread wide open.
She still says the most harmlessly selfish things, carelessly, unthinkingly, grins like a shark, with too many teeth, but her cocksureness is different than the Rin he knows. This Rin, this Ren, isn’t as broken. Edges softer. Sharp, not bitter.
Never left, never gone.
Never tried to abandon the swimming she loves the most.
Instead, she chews with her mouth open and makes an ungodly amount of dick jokes and Masato’s face and ears are dyed a permanent shade of red around her; Haru imagines a nightmare of a childhood for Yamazaki-san.
She tosses her arm around Haru’s neck – doesn’t notice or is surprisingly tactful not to notice out loud how Haru stiffens slightly when she does that – and mushes their cheeks together, cooing how adorable he is (and still weird, perhaps weirder still) today.
She fits in with them seamlessly, perfectly, like Rin would be if he had never left.
No adoring Niitori who trails after her.
Something niggles in the back of Haru’s mind, but he can’t place it.
The swim club in this universe is infinitely different than the one he knows.
They were formed last year when Haru, Masato, and Ren were freshmen, partly because of Ren’s forceful insistence, the other due to Nagi’s masterful blackmail slash evil manipulation of the teaching staff.
Masato is captain of course, because even in alternate universes where Haru is apparently deathly allergic to seafood (oh, the horror of it all) must run on common sense, but their advisor teacher isn’t Amakata-sensei and Gou isn’t their manager.
Haru doesn’t think he’s conceited in any way – Rin was, Ren is – but he’s always been sort of studiously unflappable. It made for very difficult birthday surprises.
So Haru is not really surprised with the JSF record sheet pinned in the locker room.
Not surprised that it has his name on it.
Haruse’s name.
100m, 200m, 400m. All freestyle because of course it is.
4.53 seconds over the title runner-up.
1.3 seconds short of FINA.
Haru feels strangely like a proud mother. Or father.
(Just the slightest bit envious, perhaps. But swimming he does because it is what he does, not for anything else.)
He’s also not surprised that Ren has the most flawless butterfly form in her age group – in the whole Kantou, in the whole Japan – because Ren is many things, and of that many things, what she’s best at is swimming.
And between Haru and Ren, they bagged enough trophies to get the school to build them a temperature-adjusted natatorium that could make a Samezuka cry, with a very nice locker room and communal baths (with legit hot water!), has extra budget for summer gym memberships, a former gold-medalist coach instructor, and there are at least hundred other members.
Haru takes one look at the neat, sparkling rows of room-temperature Olympic-sized pools, and promptly strips out of her uniform and dives into the water.
Apparently, there’s nothing strange about that because Masato is gently chiding her for “not warming up again, you wear your swimwear under your uniform again, why don’t you ever listen? Haru-san, listen to me.”
Ren is snickering and remains unhelpful because she’s still a dick even when she doesn’t have one and Nagi is still a hazard when attempting to enforce good habits.
The world is not as similar as Haru thought.
Nagi never talks to Kei. Only watches from afar.
Ren never left.
Haru never finds anything wrong about the outdoor pool they have back in his world. Water is water; he’d swim either way.
But the club house is rather fantastic.
There is a fan club.
It’s probably the one thing that Haru doesn’t know how to handle the most after the whole “these are boobs, they will sway when you run” thing. Which he did handle. With considerable aplomb as he went through his first PE (and the dreaded changing room) experience as a girl.
Which was a particularly revealing first experience because that was when Haru first noticed it.
The fan club.
Haru has a fan club.
Haru has a fan club which is violently protective and three separate websites dedicated to following everything she does. The cheer club actually has a separate fund for her solo competitions.
The seniors address her as Haruse-san and her peers and juniors call her Nanase-shi.
Girls unfold their legs when Haru sits and never sit when Haru stands and clear out the changing room when Haru walks in.
Someone drops an eraser, he picks it up. The girl swoons when he returns it.
Haru really doesn’t know what to think about that.
Nagi laughs at her when Haru makes a non-face at a group of boys who actually binned away half of their lunch so Haru and Nagi could sit at the cafeteria table.
Nagi shamelessly sits down.
If Haruse is the apparent reigning queen of Iwatobi, Nagi is like the Iwatobi version of a teen idol; her phones beeps all the time and she has about two million subscribers on her vlog and everyone calls her Nagi-chan and they can’t go on five minutes without being stopped by someone who has something to say to Nagi.
It’s probably the most unsurprising that Ren is the lovable school bicycle who gets along with the jocks like a house on fire. Haru’s seen them roughhousing it via basketball games during breaks and doing it’s-not-a-kiss it’s-an-incredibly-continental-way-of-saying-hi exchange in the middle of the hallway.
Haru doesn’t know what to think about that, too.
Then, there’s Masato.
Who is, right now, standing behind the school yard like a scene straight out of a shoujo manga pretending an abundance of privacy despite being pretty much in the open for half the school to see them.
“Masa-chan is, like, suuuuuuper popular, isn’t she?” Nagi says around the loli in her mouth, lips a deep shade of red from all the cherry syrup. A few third year girls stopped by to fluff Nagi’s hair and give her sugar. Haru wishes they wouldn’t do that. “That’s like the third guy this month. You’d think they should’ve known better by now.”
They watch Masato bows apologetically to a third year, who is amiably waving it off.
Perhaps it’s because Haru’s a boy – or at least, he thinks he should be one, in a certain reality, he is – he sort of understands why people like confessing to Masato.
In the world he came from, Makoto is very sweet, very gentle. He likes everyone and likes to take care of them and everyone in return likes him back.
Masato is of course very sweet, very gentle too. She also takes care of everyone and everyone likes her too.
But especially the boys.
Masato gets more love letters than most people get bank statements to the point where they made love booth during school festivals for Tachibana Masato.
It’s hilarious.
The only one who doesn’t find that hilarious is Masato herself.
The thing about Masato is that she doesn’t feel bothered even when she actually does and is somehow even more gut-wrenchingly heart-broken than anyone whose heart she is supposedly breaking.
Nagi – who once dated four guys at the same time and managed to get them to sit together affably at one table at a waffle house – loves to gossip and has a lot of trashy girl magazines.
Citating said trashy girl magazines, Nagi with all the surety of a teenage girl having psychoanalyzed every possible element of this issue, has come to the conclusion that while Haru’s blankness and physical appearance is as unassailable as her cool competence, it places her a little too high in a high school social food chain.
Ren is kind of mean but also kind of easy and so disconnected from the concept of shame that it’s a literal non-issue when boys wants to hang or bang her (Nagi means it in the nicest, most loving way possible).
Masato in comparison is startlingly normal; the kind of girl you grew up with next door and one that your mom would love to see you bring home because she would offer to wash the dishes after dinner.
There’s also that desperately sincere belly button bow she does, where she bends over in a certain way and you could see right down the curve of her front and the outline of her chest that you wouldn’t otherwise see because Masato is very properly buttoned up on most days.
Masato, sweetly flustered, tucks a lock of long hair behind her ear. Saying no. Saying sorry.
Haru thinks this is taking too long. So he stands and crosses the cafeteria, miraculously unobstructed by even the lunch crowd.
He comes from behind Masato, brushing his fingers against her shoulder.
The third year sees him, stilling under Haru’s cool, flat gaze, blushes furiously and stammers before excusing himself.
Masato looks confused but sheepishly grins at him and says she hasn’t had her lunch.
From their table and on her last candy, Nagi stares at Haru like she’s figuring out a math trick question that she’s surprisingly very good at figuring out.
At this point, Haru really, really doesn’t give a fuck anymore.
After school, Haru slings the bag over his shoulder, says, “Masato, let’s go.”
Three heads whip around to him, Masato being particularly wide-eyedly, and immediately he thinks: what did he do wrong now?
“We’re—” Ren, who is straddling Nagi’s chair backwards, scowls, fingers tightening around her juice box, “We’re not going together?”
She looks hurt. She probably is hurt and Haru should probably say something because even though this Ren and that Rin are different, they’re still the same and ridiculous and she is probably even easier to offend with how terribly soft she is compared to Rin and what little things Rin feel hurt about Ren probably—
“I need to go to the bookstore today to pick up some reference texts,” Haru says, amazingly level. “If you want to come—”
Ren scrunches her nose, but at least she’s not hurt looking anymore. “Oh, okay. Ewww. Sorry I asked. Sheesh.”
Haru raises an eyebrow. “No, Ren, if you want to come, in fact I think you should come—”
“No way,” Ren says, slurping obnoxiously through the straw. “I’ll just go the arcade with Nagi to hit on some college boys and maybe trick them into paying for the karaoke.”
“You two are horrible,” Masato says mildly, resignedly.
Ren’s answering grin is completely unrepentant.
Yes, Haru thinks, definitely feels sorry for Yamazaki-san.
“… Haru?”
“Hmm?”
“We… don’t have a plan to go to the book store, do we?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
Silence.
“We’re not picking up any reference text, are we?”
“No.”
“… Oh.”
Masato fidgets on her feet and giggles, cheeks pinking and hands twisting the strap of her bag. She glances at Haru, looks down, almost vibrating in place.
Haru stops and, because Haru is Haru whenever, tells her point blank, “You’re being creepy, Masato.”
Masato blinks rapidly, a motion of flutters.
“Oh. Oh, sorry,” Masato giggles sweetly. “It’s just that… It’s just that usually you’d be off with Ren somewhere by now so this is kind of unexpected.”
Haru stares at her.
“I-It’s not that I mind terribly, mind you,” Masato flusters, looking down on her feet and tugging that stubborn lock of hair behind her ear. She looks like she minds. “I know that you and Ren connect on a different level and I… Well, I guess I don’t feel like I should to get between you.”
(She definitely minds.)
What?
“What?”
“I mean, things were… rough for a while back and now I’m just glad Ren’s calm again.”
Ah, so something did happen.
Which didn’t quite blow over, but apparently enough that Masato is very delicately threading this.
“So I really, really understand,” Masato says, as if she thinks she’s convincing anyone (but maybe she does think that), plucking at the strap. “I just… miss us sometimes. You know.” She waves between them, this meaningless distance of an arm that feels longer than some of the miles in Haru’s life. “Just… Just the two of us.”
“Masato, I—”
He should say something. Anything.
He can’t.
Suddenly, Haru feels like he’s an intruder in his own body. There’s no saying he’s not; because Haru is not Haruse and this is not his place to act, not his choice to make.
So Haru can only say the one thing he knows will convey Haruse’s sentiment correctly, because he cannot think of a version of himself out there that doesn’t feel the same.
“… I miss you, too.”
Masato blinks again; she does that a lot. Then, she grins brightly and tentatively touches Haru’s hand before holding it between her larger one.
Haru thinks he should tell her that he’s not a child and she’s not his mother and being led around like this is really rather embarrassing.
He doesn’t.
They walk home together holding hands.
Haru remains waking up with boobs for a week.
He doesn’t cry, but on the sixth day, he refuses to go to school and spends the whole day curling under the comforter.
Masato thinks he got a cold and makes her soup. Haru doesn’t correct her.
Aside from the toilet and the changing room and the ominous knowing looks Nagi is shooting his way, he thinks he’s faring okay.
He even manages to hook the bra without having to turn it to the front.
Haru is so owning this being a girl thing.
Haru gets a complimentary muffin when she buys coffee and complimentary coffee when she buys cupcakes.
It takes him a while (and a tirade from Ren who is eternally full of complaints) to figure out that it’s not at all complimentary.
The cafe owner just thinks she’s cute.
Huh. There’s that, he supposes.
(Haru and Masato walk home holding hands sometimes, wordless and peaceful, and somehow end up mutually agreeing, without speaking, to keep it a secret from Ren.)
Tampons are…
Well.
There is a drawer in her room that’s filled with things that belongs very obviously to someone else.
She accepts, naturally, that it is Makoto’s.
(It’s not.)
(It’s Ren’s.)
Haru misses the fish.
It’s a Thursday when Masato smiles (a Makoto-like smile) and says yes.
Yes.
Suddenly, she has a boyfriend.
Nagi and Ren are surprised, but their surprise is strangely irrelevant and disconnected to Haru.
Nagi thinks it’s cute when they shyly hold hands in the corridors, ducking their heads and blushing. She snaps what could be hundreds of future blackmail photos with her pink, frilly phone, all the while complaining “it’s not even blackmail worthy”.
Ren thinks it’s stupid because the guy can’t even swim he looks stupid he likes curling he is the curling club captain what the fuck do we even have a curling club.
Masato blushes furiously, but otherwise is miraculously unoffended.
She tells them they’d met at the library when she had free time on her own – those time when Haruse left with Ren, never a look back – and just keep meeting after that.
She tells them that he’s sweet, that they like the same books and the same movies, that they feel comfortable with one another as if they’d known each other for years – they don’t, they don’t, Haru is the one who does - and that she really, really likes him so please don’t tease him until he cries Ren.
He’s the reason for all Masato’s no-I’m-sorrys. Masato’s been waiting for him for ages.
Masato, who is positively radiant, gazes up – up – at him, who is not very impressive or handsome or witty, who is terrified of Ren, most terrified of Nagi, and trips when he sees Haru, but smiles when he sees Masato, smiles even when he knows she doesn’t see him, who looks disbelievingly grateful for her to be there.
(Which he should be. Which Haru feels like he himself should be, too.)
Masato looks… happy.
(She doesn’t look to Haru.)
Then, there’s Haru. Haru who understands now.
They have a club here. They have Ren.
Kei is still miserable in the track club because they do not need her, and Haru, for the first time, feels frustrated by herself because she doesn’t know how to be like Nagi, gets up to Kei’s face, and tell her it’s okay, come with us anyway.
You’re one of us anyway.
But Nagi doesn’t know Kei. She just watches her from across the fence sometimes, all those wires between them. She watches her vaults and thinks that her form is beautiful, but never thinks to approach her.
Because they have everything for the perfect relay; adding someone else, a stranger someone, is just unthinkable.
There had never been to that training camp, when they threaded islands like a bunch of suicidal dumbasses, when Rei recklessly jumped into the sea at storm in a fit of desperation to fit in.
Masato had never nearly died for Haruse and Haru doesn’t doubt that she would, but the fact is she hadn’t.
Masato calls her Haru-san. It’s a mean of distance, not affection.
Ren is her best friend.
The water is still the same. The blue in Haru’s eyes remains.
But this Masato. This Makoto.
Is not.
Masato doesn’t need Haruse to need her.
Masato is the one who… drifted away.
Perhaps not accidentally, too – they’re all swimmers, they don’t drift – so it’s by her choice, her motion, because Masato doesn’t understand the concept of punishment, no matter how unconsciously so maybe—
There’s a tug in his stomach, and it has nothing to do with the horribly timed cramps he’s been suffering these last two days.
Maybe it’s by Haruse’s choice.
Haru goes home without telling anyone.
He’s skipping practice so people are probably going to file a missing person report later, and Ren is going to be unbearably sulky and Masato will probably cry or something, but Haru is hurting.
It hurts inexplicably, his stomach most definitely, and his head, in the cavity of his chest, between the ribs and under the flesh.
So he honestly couldn’t give a fuck right now.
Which is strange because Makoto crying has always been his fatal flaw.
Haru’s.
Not Haruse’s apparently, because this body mechanically remembers her tears and is right now confused trying to translate everything clogging up his chest and lungs where there is only cool, learned indifference.
This is as close to drowning as Haru would get.
It’s as unfamiliar as Masato of this world apparently.
Haru dumps her bag on the bed, strips off her shoes and uniform blazer, and runs the bathtub. Sinks herself in the water; shirt and skirt and socks.
The water envelopes her, like a pulsing womb. It feels like rebirth, the same sound they heard in a mother’s womb.
In the end, it’s the only thing that hasn’t betrayed her.
(Him.)
“Haru?”
It’s a Thursday and Haruka is submerged in his bathtub, watching the blue.
Haruka relates the blue of the water to the blue in his dreams. Dreams of water. Water so blue, their shades a million and forever that he sees in his own eyes, which are the part of himself he likes the most.
He likes the most because it feels like carrying a small piece of what he loves the most; something distinctively his, instinctively his, not always and that’s fine.
…
No, it’s not fine at all but it has to be.
Because in this world, apparently, it’s all he has left.
“—ru. Haru!”
Haruka’s eyes snap open and he surfaces with a startle.
Makoto’s – short haired, slack-faced Makoto, Makoto, his Makoto – worried face hover directly above him.
Haruka suddenly feels impossibly sluggish, like he’s just had a long, long, impossible dream.
(A dream where he was drowning.)
“Oh thank god, I was yelling the house down and you didn’t answer. I-I thought you drowned or—or something and I left my phone so I couldn’t call the ambulance and—” Makoto babbles, “Stupid, I know. Haha. Ha. W-Why are you in your uniform?”
Haruka stares.
Makoto promptly stops talking, clearly embarrassed.
“W-Well,” He clears his throat. “Well. Come on then. You need to change or you’re going to be late. Again. And Ama-chan-sensei is going to—”
Splash. Thunk.
“Oww!”
Makoto rubs the back of his head with one hand, his elbow keeping him from lying flat on the floor with Haruka on top of him.
“H-Haru?”
He squeaks, jerking when wet hands suddenly went under the front of his shirt and pawing at his chest.
“Haru! What are you doing?” Makoto shrieks, stumbling back and crossing both arms in front of his chest like a girl.
Which he isn’t, Haruka decides as he stares at his own hand that was on Makoto’s astoundingly flat chest.
He isn’t.
“Makoto, you’re not a girl,” Haruka informs him minutely and very seriously, eyes narrowed as he looks into Makoto’s red, bewildered face. “You’re not a girl. That is very good.”
He gives a curt nod and saunters to the kitchen; the water trailing faithfully after him, following his motion, amiable to his shaping them. Still his best companion.
It’s Thursday; he has breakfast to make.
Since it’s Thursday, saba it is.
“Haru, I don’t get you sometimes!”
Haruka goes to school, sees Nagisa gleefully shoving ice cubes down the back of Rei’s shirt, who appears to be severely harassed.
Rin is still a brooding tsundere who occasionally come calling.
They swim.
Haruka thinks when he’s in the water.
Haruka thinks somewhere, Haruse is not bearing witness to this.
He wonders: if Haruse, who Haruka thinks is him in all the way it matters the most yet not really, ever does (or did), would she have chosen differently?
Makoto’s gentle touch is on his elbow, an afterimage of Masato, overlapped by that of Ren who wears her blazer around the waist and has a drawer of spare underwear in Haruse’s room, and Haruka knows he wouldn’t have chosen differently.
Boobs or no boobs.
Haruse blinks up to the ceiling of her bathroom. She pushes back the hair clinging to her face and closes her eyes, the susurrus of water threatening to drag her under in a haze of cobalt fog.
She sees a dream world in shades of blues, that which are unfettered remain unrivalled, but Haruse has long learned to love red.
Red in the fire, a fighting element. Red that is angry passion and never subdued like water.
Red that is in Ren’s hair that floats above the water.
Ren’s head is pillowed by the rounded edge of the bathtub; legs sprawled on the tiled floor. She is snoring, comfortable even when she’s obviously not, like she falls asleep watching Haruse sleep all the time.
Ren snuffles, mumbles something that Haruse thinks must be either food or alien magical girl attack. She smacks her lips together and burps obnoxiously loudly.
Haruse thinks about her long, long dream; dreams of Masato who is even taller and doesn’t call her Haru–san, of Nagi who publicly dotes on Ryuugazaki Kei who swims instead of vaults, of Ren who left, of which the feeling upon her finding out is something very close to drowning; thinks this is all of it. This is my choice.
There is the sound of the front door clicking open.
“Haru-san,” Masato’s timid, trembling baby bird voice carries over almost mutely, “are you home?”
Haruse doesn’t remember how to smile for a long time, but the body does as she touches Ren’s head, fire which doesn’t burn.
It’s like gliding under the surface.
“In here, Masato-san.”