Oho look at me trying to not write as much crack. And not Sourin. FINALLY WE HAVE MAKOHARU AYYYYOOO

I don't own Free!. To be perfectly honest, Free! owns me. And my sanity.

"Haru!"

Even though it was foggy and garbled beneath the waves of the pool, Haru would have recognized that voice anywhere. He looked up and saw a familiar tall, broad shouldered form, wavering with the ripples above Haru's eyes. The setting sunshine set a frame against the back of messy, ruffled hair, the brightness reflecting in the water and obscuring the face from view. But Haru knew the expression on that face without having to see it, because he had been seeing that expression every day for essentially his entire life. He hadn't tired of it yet.

Quite the opposite, really.

Haru surfaced and stood up in the pool, his lungs expanding gratefully with early evening air. After shaking excess droplets from his dark hair, he lifted his head to look up at the figure standing above him. Despite the shadows the sunset cast, emerald eyes shined brightly, warmly meeting Haru's blue. Haru could just barely make out his own form reflected in the gems, inky hair plastered to his forehead and bare shoulders and chest, framed by the turquoise water behind him.

"Haru, it's getting late," the amiable voice said, leaning forward slightly. Brown hair that looked bronze in the orange glow fluttered with the breeze as a hand extended out to Haru. "Time to get out, eh?"

Haru looked down at the hand facing him, larger and more tan than his own. He drew his hand out of the water and slid it into the dry hand, grazing against soft callouses that had often been a subject of complaint for their owner. Haru had never been able to find the words to convey that weren't anything to worry about. They didn't bother him in the slightest; they were a small part of a whole, and he cared about the whole more than a singular part. But even though it was a miniscule fraction of the whole, Haru felt that it might be the miniscule fractions that made the whole what it was. If the callouses were to disappear, he would miss them.

The strong arm attached to the hand in Haru's grip flexed as it began to pull him up out of the pool. Haru tightened his grip and helped to give some leverage to ease his parting from the water, stepping a foot onto the deck of pool. He stepped the other onto the deck as well, drips raining down from his body and splattering onto the paved floor. The hand lingered in his own until sure that he had found his footing, before gently releasing, fingers brushing against each other.

Haru's arm dropped to his side as he raised his gaze to meet green eyes again. Up closer, he could see the expression on that familiar face, and as he had predicted, it was kind and friendly, like it always was. He felt himself softening and his lips curving into the smallest of smiles as he looked up, feeling comfortable and content. A hot feeling formed in his chest and flared out like a firework, spreading to the rest of his body. He was warm despite the cool breeze against his soaked skin.

The head a couple of inches above his sightline tilted, eyes shutting as a smile spread across pink lips. "Let's go, Haru-chan," the voice called out as they began to make their way to where their towels were, looking over a shoulder at Haru.

Haru huffed and cast his eyes to the side. "Drop the -chan," he grumbled, although he didn't mind the childish nickname so much when it came off of that tongue.

A bubbly laugh met his ears, and he jolted in surprise as he felt a towel hit his chest, his hands quickly jumping up to catch it before it fell to the ground. He whipped his head forward to see a hint of a bemused smirk on that mouth and a mischievous glint in the midst of green.

"Makoto," he complained in a low voice, frowning.

Makoto's smiled widened, dropping the underlying layer of sneakiness and replacing it with innocence as he laughed at the grouchy expression on Haru's face. He draped his own towel around his shoulders and turned away, still laughing.

Haru sighed, putting the towel over his damp hair and rubbing his scalp to dry it before stepping forward and following after Makoto.

Unbeknownst to Haru and Makoto, there were three pairs of eyes watching them, hidden just a short distance away. Nagisa and Rei had both changed back into their uniforms, having exited the pool far sooner than had Makoto and, of course, Haru. Gou was resting her elbows on one of the wood planks hiding them from view, her chin in her hands. She sighed as Haru and Makoto left the pool and disappeared from view, exchanging light words. Lifting her head up, she turned to face Rei and Nagisa.

"This is killing me," she groaned, pressing the palms of her hands against her eyes.

Nagisa nodded fervently, a somber pout on his face. "I just want to-" He mimed a slapping motion. "-whack some sense into them!"

"It's so painfully obvious how much they care about each other!" Gou continued, sighing again. "Why can't they see that?"

"Because Haru-chan and Mako-chan are stupid," Nagisa whined, letting out a frustrated puff and ruffling his blond bangs. "They've loved each other since before I even knew them, so you think they'd have realized it by now but nooo, they're both the most clueless people I've ever met." He shook his head sadly and clasped his hands behind his back.

"And they're graduating this year," added Gou, furrowing her brow concernedly. "I can't let them leave without making sure they know what everyone else does."

Rei crossed his arms and pushed up his glasses. "But how do you know that they haven't confessed to each other already?" he asked. "It's entirely possible that they want to keep it quiet."

"I would know, Rei-chan!" Nagisa exclaimed emphatically, grabbing Rei's shoulder and shaking him. "A father always knows."

Rei looked down at Nagisa, quizzically raising an eyebrow. "Nagisa-kun, are you saying that you view Makoto-senpai and Haruka-senpai as your children?"

Nagisa beamed widely. "Yes," he answered confidently. He giggled and patted Rei's shoulder. "And you're their mother, Rei-chan."

"What?!"

"But to get back to the point," Gou quickly interjected, coughing over Rei's spluttering. "I think we need to do something. We can't let this go on."

Nagisa stopped cooing over Rei and turned to face Gou. "Mako-chan and Haru-chan aren't about to push things forward, so we need to push them ourselves!" He clenched his small hand into a fist, a determined look in his magenta eyes.

Rei frowned and clutched his chin, looking concerned. "I'm not sure it's quite appropriate," he said, pushing up the red frames surrounding his eyes. "It would be an intrusion of their privacy to the highest degree, and wouldn't you think it to be more beautiful if they slowly realized it themselves without the interference of others?"

"But at this rate, they aren't going to realize it until they're eighty-five!" Nagisa complained, flapping his arms spastically. "It has to be before they graduate!"

Rei sighed in defeat as he watched the smaller boy, his purple eyes half exasperated, half amused.

Gou nodded along with Nagisa's words, her jaw set in determination. "So how do we want to do this?" she questioned, clutching her chin in her fingers and looking deep in thought. "We'd have to do it without their knowledge, obviously. And I'm not sure what kind of methods would be most effective."

"Ooh, I am the best at working behind peoples' backs!" Nagisa offered excitedly. He struck a pose. "They call me... The Stealth." He winked.

Rei looked at him with confusion. "Who on earth that calls you that?! I've never even heard that before!"

"Oh Rei-chan, you wouldn't know them."

"What's that supposed to mean?!"

"Boys! Back to the task at hand, please!" Gou barked, putting her hands on her hips authoritatively. Nagisa and Rei immediately quieted and straightened up, looking mildly fearful. "We don't have much time to do this, so we need to not waste what little we have!"

Nagisa nodded and leaned over to elbow Rei in the side. "You heard her, Rei-chan," he said, a grin on his face.

"I didn't do anything!" Rei rebutted, a bead of sweat dripping down his forehead. Nagisa let out an impish giggle.

After a breath, Nagisa bit his lip. "Hm, how would we do this," he pondered, casting his eyes upwards. He suddenly brightened up, looking forward again and pointing his index finger. "I have a proposition!" He aimed his finger at Gou. "How about we make a little friendly competition out of it?"

Rei balked. "Nagisa-kun!"

Gou raised her eyebrows in surprise, looking intrigued. "How so?" she asked.

"Well, I think we both would have conflicting opinions on how to approach the mission," Nagisa admitted, and Gou nodded in agreement. "So let's say that the person who gets one of them to confess first wins!"

"Is there a prize?" Gou questioned, a mischievous glint in her maroon eyes.

"The satisfaction of knowing that you're the better friend," Nagisa said, raising an eyebrow and giving Gou a devilish smile.

"Nagisa-kun, Gou-cha-"

"I like your terms," Gou said, nodding sharply.

"This is highly inappropriate-"

"Good," Nagisa said quietly, looking confident. "We should shake on it, just so we seal the deal." He offered out his hand. "Rei-chan, you're our witness."

Rei huffed and placed a hand to his forehead. "This isn't really requiring of a witness…" he mumbled, Gou and Nagisa ignoring him.

Gou took Nagisa's hand and slowly shook it up and down. They both squeezed each others' hands so tightly that their knuckles turned white, and magenta and maroon locked intensely, competitive fire burning. After a long, drawn out moment, they released, resisting to shake away the pain from the tightness of the grip as their hands fell back to their sides.

Nagisa smiled broadly, and threw an arm over Rei's shoulder. "You know, Rei-chan, I think the results of this are already decided," he taunted. "I mean, I have known Haru-chan and Mako-chan for even longer than Rin-chan!"

Gou gave him a cold smile, one that didn't quite reach her eyes. "That may be true, Nagisa," she replied, "but you lack common sense and rationality."

Nagisa stuck out his bottom lip. "That's mean, Gou-kun!" he mewled as Rei tried to stifle his laughter.

"Don't call me Gou-kun!"

Nagisa didn't reply and instead grabbed Rei by the wrist. "Let's go home, Rei-chan." He began dragging Rei away, who offered an apologetic farewell to Gou, who laughed amiably and waved at them.

Nagisa turned to glance over his shoulder, looking Gou straight in the eye. The light smile slid off of her face and was replaced by a cruel sneer that Nagisa returned with a mischievous grin. They had started the day as friends and classmates, and were ending it as bitter rivals.

A/N:

Rei and Nagisa are my favorites to write, can you tell?

So I got the idea for this because I hate it when Gou is depicted as really shallow and vapid in fics and she's only used to initiate jealousy or break up Makoharu. I love Gou, she's a great character with depth and personality and I hate seeing her diminished to just the "other girl". I think she would totally ship Haru and Makoto and I definitely see her being one of the bros and trying to help them. The bromance is real.

Other than a couple of foggy ideas, I have really no idea where I'm going to go with this yet eheheh. I am trying to get past my overabundance of crack, but with Nagisa being an important character in this, there's no guarantees as to whether I'll slip into the land of trash or not.

I swear to god, all I could hear in my mind while writing Gou and Nagisa complaining about Haru and Makoto was Shia Labeouf yelling, "JUST. DO IT. MAKE. YOUR DREAMS. COME TRUE." My life is just one massive meme now.

And as I always do because I am a shameless self-exhibitor, I'm going to mention my other Makoharu fic that I'm cowriting with sexythroatbitchohyescats called The Flames of Heaven. ALL THE SELF-ADVERTISING! I only bring it up so much because The Flames of Heaven is my pride and joy, and sexythroatbitchohyescats's too. Check it out. -whispers- please -slides across a twenty dollar bill-