Chapter 1 - First Hour

Makoto wiggled the door handle again, but it was no use. They were surely locked in. He raised his voice to call out, "Nagisa! Rei! Let us out, this is ridiculous!" His voice held exasperation but lacked any anger, even in such a predicament.

Giving up on the door, he turned to face Haru, his best friend. The more stoic boy was sitting on one of the benches, calmly fiddling with one of the straps on his bag laid next to him. His dark hair fell into his bright blue eyes although it didn't seem to bother him. Makoto could never understand how he put up with the tickling; he constantly had to push his hair back to avoid the weird sensation in his eyes. But then, Haru had always been better at controlling himself than Makoto had ever been. It was part of the reason Makoto admired him as much as he did.

He sighed wearily. It had already been such a long day, and now he was stuck in the swim club's changing room for twelve hours, if Nagisa and Rei were to be believed. Makoto had learned from experience not to take Nagisa too lightly, despite his cute and bubbly attitude - he was a force to be reckoned with. They hadn't even had a chance to do any swimming at club. As soon as Makoto and Haru had appeared, after their last class, the two second years had pushed them in here and ran off.

"You have twelve hours to declare your love for each other!" Nagisa shouted through the door, clearly trying to assume a hint of mock anger. Really it just sounded pretty silly to Makoto. Nagisa could rarely be serious in any given situation.

Rei had been in on it, too. "I'm sorry Haruka-senpai, Makoto-senpai, but it really is in your best interest to get these feelings out in the open. Your emotions are beginning to affect your swimming abilities, so the logical thing to do is talk about them and dismiss the negative ones as soon as possible." Trust Rei to make it about logic instead of his easily convinced nature when it came to Nagisa. Really, if anybody should be forced to consult their feelings it should be those two, Makoto thought. Their unrequited love for one another was obvious even to him, and Makoto knew full well he was pretty oblivious to a lot of things.

"Yeah," Nagisa had added. "So hurry up and get rid of those bad feelings you two, and get to the kissing and making out. You'll feel much better!"

Makoto gasped, shocked. How could Nagisa be so open? It was enough to make him blush. He looked to Haru who seemed unconcerned with the whole situation, simply staring at the door impassively.

Well he was not going to help them get out of here, was he? "Twelve hours? This is stupid, you two. It'll be, what, three a.m. by the time we get out of here if you do that?" Oh no, he couldn't be in here until three a.m. His mother would be so worried, and not to mention Ren and Ran. Who would read them their bedtime story? "Rei, if we're in here we can't do swim practice, and surely that will affect our performance more, right?"

Hary had looked around at that. "We're not going to swim today?" Makoto looked at him incredulously. Well of course that would get through to him.

"You didn't realise that before, Haru?"

Those bright blue eyes blinked once, then again, and then he was banging on the doors with more force and passion than Makoto could have managed. He smiled a little. There was no way that Rei, at least, would be able to stand up to Haru when he was denied the chance to swim.

"Let me out of here right now, Nagisa! Rei!" It always surprised Makoto how loud Haru could be when he wanted to be.

Makoto's green eyes brightened with anticipation as he heard murmurs on the other side of the door. Ha, alright, Haru! They're surely going to let us out now. Thank goodness. He really didn't want to be stuck in here for twelve hours.

That hope had made the crushing realisation that they really were stuck for twelve hours even more devastating when Nagisa had shouted through the doors that they were leaving.

Makoto threw his head into his hands in despair. He couldn't believe this! It wasn't that he minded spending so much time with Haru - quite the contrary really - but all he wanted to do was go home and have some dinner and spend some time with his siblings. Not sit in a, frankly, rather dingy changing room while his stomach rumbled hungrily, and a leaky shower head dripped incessantly. Sometimes, Makoto found Nagisa really quite an unbearable friend.

It was with a heavy sigh that he moved over to the bench and sat down next to Haru. The smaller boy looked up as he moved, and faced him, blue eyes unblinking. At times it seemed to Makoto that Haru held a warmth in his eyes that only he could see. Everyone described Haru as cold or uncaring, but Makoto had never seen him in that way. When he'd been too scared to join the Swimming Club by himself when he was younger, Haru had joined with him. When Rei had been inquiring into Makoto's fear of the ocean, Haru had defended him - not that Makoto had really minded Rei asking. But the sentiment behind it was cute.

"You shouldn't get so worked up, Makoto."

That was all Haru said to him before he went back to absently playing with the bag straps, but he instantly felt a lot calmer. He hadn't been too angry to begin with, or even worked up, but he was definitely tired. Tired of Nagisa's little pranks more than anything. They'd been getting more dramatic and more frequent recently.

Makoto looked to his friend again. Once the second years had gone, with assurances that they'd be back in twelve hours, Haru had seemingly given up on being angry about missing his swimming time for the day. Again, Makoto was amazed by his friend's restraint and serenity. It was truly breathtaking.

"I'm fine," he said finally. Apparently his comment deemed worthy of a raised eyebrow from Haru: not that he turned around to show it, but Makoto saw it anyway. "Really, I am. I'm just worried about how my family's going to react when I'm so late."

Haru tsked, a hint of annoyance in his tone. "You worry too much about other people."

Makoto nodded wordlessly. He'd been told that before. Not just by Haru, but Rin as well. Kisumi had said it once before too, which he'd found a little surprising. Not because Kisumi was ignorant or because they didn't talk much, but because usually Kisumi didn't say anything negative about anybody. Although, when Kisumi had said it it hadn't sounded too bad like when Haru and Rin had told him.

"Anyway," Haru continued, unaware of Makoto's nod, "they'll be back in an hour or two. They're not going to leave us in here for the full twelve hours."

Eyebrows furrowed a little over green eyes. Makoto wasn't so sure of that. It was Nagisa, after all.

A slightly awkward silence followed that, with Makoto unsure of what to say, and Haru being Haru. Truly, Makoto could understand why both Rei and Nagisa saw that there was tension between him and Haru, because... well, there was. Haru's utter refusal to decide solidly on a commitment to a University, or to a life of professional swimming, was driving Makoto a little insane. He hadn't told anyone, and refused to make it an issue of conflict with his best friend, but he wanted Haru to do something meaningful with his life, but all he would say was that he wanted to be 'free'. Which wasn't good enough in his books.

And he wanted to go to the same University as Haru, honestly, so he needed him to make a decision so he could. But he hadn't told that to Haru. He knew full well that Haru hated when someone was so dependent on someone else that they couldn't make their own conclusions. Makoto would rather anything else than for Haru to hate him.

Time passed slowly in the room in a silence that Makoto would describe as suffocating. He began to pace back and forth in the confined space, lost in thought. He barely noticed anything that Haru was doing until he made a sound of vexation.

"Stop pacing, Makoto!"

He stopped in his tracks right next to the door, and looked back over at his friend with an ashamed smile. "Sorry, Haru."

Haru tsked again and whipped his head to face away from his, a small pout on his lips. Makoto's smile became amused at the action. He wasn't sure if Haru realised he pouted so cutely whenever he was mad. Probably not. Haru didn't really appreciate cuteness in people.

He wandered over to Haru again, prodding him gently on the arm. "Hey, hey, Haru-chan, don't be mad." It was something he'd done when they were younger, but he knew it still had the desired effect: Haru turned to him, lips pursed together tightly in a restrained smile. Little did anybody else know that Haru was really ticklish in that one spot on his upper bicep. Only Makoto knew.

Pale hands swatted the finger away. "Don't call me Haru-chan."

"I won't call you it if you stop ignoring me!" Makoto teased.

Haru added a small frown to his facial expression. "I wasn't ignoring you. You were pacing. You want me to talk to you when you're being annoying?" He let out a puff of air from his nose, a small snort. "I won't do that, Makoto."

Makoto held out his hands in an open expression of apology. "I didn't know I was being annoying though, Haru," he whined. Hmm, that sounded irritating even to his own ears. Okay, time to diffuse the situation before it got worse: Haru's frown had deepened at his tone. "Hey, do you wanna play I-spy? There's nothing better to do right?"

Those eyes stared unblinkingly for a few seconds before they fluttered off to the side and right back again. That was when Makoto knew he'd managed to subdue the other. He did a small celebratory 'whoop' in his head.

"Okay," he said, thinking, "I'll go first. I spy with my little eye something beginning with... 'B'."

Haru peered around the room surreptitiously, trying not to look enthusiastic, Makoto thought. Well, he probably wasn't at all enthusiastic anyway - he more likely just didn't want to look like he was trying. Makoto didn't mind though; that was just Haru's way.

"Bench?" Makoto shook his head. "Bag?"

He clapped excitedly. "Yes! Well done, Haru-chan! It only took you two guesses!" Granted, there were only two things in the room that began with 'B', but it never hurt to applaud other people's successes.

Clearly Haru knew that he was being over the top as well though, from the scathing look he received, but he just smiled widely. "Your turn, Haru."

And that was how they spent the first hour: playing I-spy.