heavy spoilers for eternal summer ep 11!

this was brutal.

"When you're ten, they call you a prodigy. When you're fifteen, they call you a genius. Once you're twenty, you're just an ordinary person."

Haruka is seventeen; halfway between being a genius and ordinary.

Everyone else treats him like he's a genius, but he sees himself as ordinary.

It's disconcerting to see the stares people send him now as he walks through the halls of Iwatobi High. While he was never ignored per se, he was certainly content to fly under the radar as the weird kid with a water fetish who drew posters for events sometimes.

Now, he hears the whispers of isn't he the one who screwed up his race? and I thought he was supposed to be really great, wasn't he going to go pro? and he wants it all to go away.

Nagisa and Rei drink in the praise, and even Makoto manages to crack a smile every now and then, but Haruka wants none of it.

He wants everything to go back the way it was.

But it can't.

Even the water hasn't felt the same since prefecturals.

It's the same pool, same water source, same amount of chlorine, same temperature, but it doesn't feel right.

Haruka's limbs are labored, pulling up and kicking down in the same routine motions he's done for as long as he can remember, but he's not cutting through the water like he used to.

It's still fighting him and he's still fighting it and he wants to stop it but he doesn't know how.

Every day, he stays behind the at the pool after the others have packed up and left, letting the water take him how it may, but his heart is still uneasy as he stares up at the golden glow of the setting summer sun.

(He wonders if this is how Makoto feels when he swims – looking up at the sky, reminding him that there's still life outside the water, keeping his spirit grounded and his mind flying while his body suspends in the water's embrace.)

(This doesn't feel right either.)

He flips over, submerging himself again, eyes open even without goggles, his vision blurry. There's no one around, but the sound of the still water engulfing him is deafening, white noise in his ears, and he wants so badly to stay there, to stay and never have to think about anything again.

He walks home alone again that night; he hasn't walked home with Makoto in weeks, and the absence is agonizing – there's no shadow to keep his own company as the sky darkens, nothing to fill the silence that Haruka hates but can't bring himself to shatter, no one to remind Haruka that he really isn't so alone after all.

It's just Haruka, alone with his thoughts.

He's exhausted, shoulders weighted down with expectations and pretending that he doesn't notice how the others keep watching him, treating him like he's made of glass. He knows what they're all thinking, and he wants to tell them to stop.

But none of them understand.

There's no pressure on any of them, not like there is on him. No one's expecting greatness from any of them, because Haruka's the only one with everything to lose.

These days, though, he's not sure if he'd mind losing it all.

x

Practice has been cancelled today – Makoto had needed to do something, and as curious as Haruka is to what his best friend is up to, it's never been his style to pry.

So he swims on his own again for a couple of hours – it still doesn't feel right, and he exits the pool with an uneasy feeling in his stomach that won't go away.

Someone's waiting for him as he leaves the school that evening, but it's not Makoto.

"Yo, Nanase."

Deep voice, black and pink-collared shirt, red sneakers – it could only be Yamazaki.

Haruka doesn't know why he's come, but they relocate to the side of the school, neither wanting anyone else to overhear the conversation.

"What do you want?" Haruka says, terse. He wants to go home, and he gets the feeling that Yamazaki doesn't particularly want to be here either, but he's got nothing better to do for now.

"At the tournament, you stopped in the middle of a race."

As if Haruka needed the reminder; that's really all anyone's talking about, besides the team's win in the relay. "That's none of your concern."

"Maybe not, but it concerns Rin. If you stop, Rin could end up stopping, too."

"You've told me that before." Haruka tries very hard to stop himself from rolling his eyes.

"I still don't acknowledge you—" (as if Haruka ever cared about Yamazaki's acknowledgement in the first place) "—but you're important to Rin. You understand that, don't you?"

Haruka's not sure what Yamazaki's getting at, because all he's doing is telling him things he already knows.

"So what?"

"Swimming with you brings out Rin's potential. He needs you."

Annoyance twitches across Haruka's brow, and he wonders why Yamazaki always seems to make him pissed off, along with the fact that he's somehow managing to say all this with a straight face. "Why are you always so concerned about Rin?"

"I want him to stand on the international stage – the stage I couldn't stand on."

Haruka's eyes flicker to Yamazaki's shoulder, but he says nothing.

"You have incredible ability. So you need to stop wasting time. Take a step! Forward!"

Yamazaki's voice has risen louder than Haruka's particularly comfortable with, and he shifts back involuntarily.

"That's all I wanted to say. See ya."

It's unexpectedly anticlimactic, and Yamazaki turns and leaves, a wave thrown carelessly over his shoulder.

Haruka watches him go, a nearly imperceptibly clenched jaw the only tell of his irritation.

He knows that Rin wants to go pro, knows that he wants international fame, knows that Yamazaki will do anything to get him there, even at the cost of his own body—

But Haruka doesn't understand what he has to do with any of this – Rin is plenty driven on his own, and if Haruka does what Yamazaki asks for, who's to say it'll even turn out well? The last time he'd beaten Rin, it had very nearly come at the cost of Rin's swimming career and their entire friendship, flimsy as it was at the time.

So why does he need to go forward and do anything? He's not wasting anyone's time except his own, and that's his own choice to make.

"Huh? Haru?"

Makoto shows up a minute later, breaking Haruka out of his thoughts.

"Wasn't expecting to see you here," he says, scratching the back of his neck. "Wanna… walk back home together?"

There's hesitance in Makoto's voice, and the uneasy feeling in his stomach twists again, but he nods.

The two of them fall into step easily, practiced and honed over many years of the same routine, but there's tension between them now that never existed before.

"It's been a while since we've walked home together," Makoto notes, his voice casual, but Haruka detects a note of something else that he can't quite pinpoint. "You've been staying after practice to keep swimming on your own lately."

"What were you doing here?" Haruka asks, never one for small talk.

"I was…" Makoto pauses, trying to figure out what to say, and Haruka watches his expression carefully, wondering just what was up with him. "Just having a little talk with Ama-chan-sensei. That's why…"

"I see." Haruka's stomach twists uncomfortably again, his mind shooting to all the different reasons why Makoto would be talking to their homeroom teacher, ranging from the innocent homework question to the swim club to things that Haruka doesn't even want to contemplate at all.

"Y-yeah…"

They pass by cucumbers and eggplants on toothpicks placed on the ground – they're meant to represent horses and cows, and a wistful smile crosses Makoto's lips.

"It's almost time for the Obon festival."

"Yeah."

"Are your parents coming home?"

"At the end of summer." He hasn't seen them in a while, and he wonders how they'll take the news of his failure at regionals.

They reach their neighborhood notice board, and Makoto approaches the poster for the fireworks display as Haruka nears the one for the spirit boat procession, reading the bold text.

"They've always been such free spirits," he chuckles. "Oh, we should all go watch the fireworks together! We can go with Nagisa and Rei and everyone too."

For the first time in a long while, Haruka thinks that maybe things can go back to normal, even if it's just a little bit. "Yeah, we should."

They approach the shrine steps; Haruka turns to go his own way, tossing a "later" easily over his shoulder, but the moment the words leave his mouth, the corners turn down slightly – he's never been this flippant about leaving Makoto alone.

"Haru!" Makoto calls out, and he turns back, wondering if Makoto had noticed it too.

"I… wanted to talk to you about post-graduation plans…"

Haruka's expression immediately hardens. He should have known there was a reason behind Makoto's sudden eagerness to walk with him after leaving him alone for so long. "I'm done talking about that."

"No, wait, I didn't mean—"

Makoto trips over his words as he tries to find the right ones to say, but Haruka is saved from any longer conversation by Makoto's siblings running out of the house, eagerly gripping their older brother's clothes and welcoming him back home.

"You should come eat with us!" Ren invites, and as much as Haruka's annoyed with Makoto, he still cracks a smile at the young boy.

"I'll pass for today."

"Aww, come each with us next time, okay?"

"Sure," he acquiesces, but he's not even sure that there'll be a next time.

"Goodnight," they chorus after him, and he ascends the stone steps.

He can still feel Makoto's worried eyes on him as he goes.

x

Things don't get much better as the days pass on by. Haruka is still as lost as ever, and it's starting to show even more. It's never as bad as it was during the regionals match, but the water seems to not have made peace with him yet.

He wonders if it ever will.

"Your times are getting faster individually," Gou tells them in the locker room after practice, "but you're getting slower as a team!"

"But our exchanges are going well," is all Haruka can manage to say – what else can he say, really? They've practiced and practiced, but to what end?

"So we swim worse when we swim together?" Nagisa asks, worried.

"That can't be," Rei says, pushing up his glasses.

"This is a serious problem. Coach Sasabe is planning to adjust your training regimens, so until nationals, please do your best to figure out how to pull yourselves out of this!"

Haruka doesn't miss the disappointed look in Makoto's eyes.

He knows that the fault lies mostly, if not entirely with him – they're all concerned about him, and it's bringing them all down as a result.

But he doesn't know what to do.

(Perhaps, he thinks, as he sits by himself in the bath that night, it's because he knows that if they win the relay at nationals, it'll push him up where he doesn't want to be, and he's studiously trying to avoid it.)

(But that can't be, can it?)

x

Sooner than he's realized, Obon has come.

Haruka lies on the floor in his living room, career questionnaire held in front of his face.

Free, it says in the "future plans" section.

The four letters haunt him.

Instead of releasing him, they're holding him back, and he still can't figure out how to release their hold.

He wants to be free, but he doesn't even know what being free is.

"Haru!"

"Haruka-senpai!"

"Haru-chan! We're here!"

His friends' voices float through the open door, and Haruka sets the paper face-down on the ground beside him.

"Now that we're all together, let's go see the fireworks," Makoto says.

"Sure."

They walk together to a small alcove near the sea, where families and people of all ages have gathered to release small square paper boats out into the ocean. The candles inside them light the dark waters, creating a second sky of its own instead of merely reflecting the light.

"It's so beautiful," Rei murmurs, and Haruka has to agree.

They watch the boats sail out, swept by the wind and the tide through a rocky outcropping, and Haruka wishes he could go out with them too, out into the open where there's nary a care in the world.

"Hey, Haru-chan." Nagisa's voice is uncharacteristically serious, and it puts Haruka on guard.

"What is it?"

"Before we swim at nationals, there's something we want to say. Because I get the feeling that we can't swim as a real team unless we do."

Haruka knows exactly where this is going, but he lets them continue on

"Haruka-senpai, both Nagisa-kun and I have admired your swimming for a long time," Rei says. "Watching the way you swim so free and uninhibited… I found myself wishing I could swim that way as well. But now that you're no longer able to swim freestyle, your swimming just isn't like you anymore."

Rei looks out into the distance, but Haruka knows that they don't see the same thing.

"We want you to swim in front of the whole world. And then, if more and more people were able to see your swimming and be moved like us, and wish they could swim like you too… I couldn't imagine anything else more wonderful."

"Rei… Nagisa…" Makoto says, half impressed by Rei's passionate declaration and half worried for Haruka's reaction.

"I don't understand you," he says simply, turning and walking up the steep stone steps they came from, and he can hear their worried exclamations behind him, and they hurt, because they're expectations among expectations when all he wants to do is curl into a ball and pretend that nothing can get to him anymore.

Because Rei is wrong, he's so wrong – it's not about swimming freestyle, he doesn't give a damn about that.

It's about everything else.

x

"I thought you'd be here."

Haruka turns away from the calm sea as Makoto approaches, an easy smile on his face as he stands next to Haruka.

"Haru, I..." he says, and Haruka fights the urge to walk away right then and there. "I don't think you can go on this way either. Until now, I thought that if this was what you wanted, it was fine. Because no matter what Rin said, I wanted to respect your wishes."

Haruka's grateful for that, at least – he's always known that Makoto was the one friend he had that would respect his wishes above all else, an understanding that only the two of them could hold.

"But what you said to Rin at regionals… if you truly want to stay as you are, I won't say anything. But… if it's just that you can't find a dream for yourself, I… would want you to find one."

Haruka's expression darkens as he remembers the confrontation, and he wonders if he's lost the one person he thought would truly understand him.

He chuckles, cynical. "You want me to find one? Is that really something you can find just by looking for it?"

"Well…"

"Forget it. I'm done talking about this."

He walks past Makoto, but Makoto grabs his wrist before he can make his exit.

"Wait."

"Let go!" Haruka yells, twisting his arm up, but Makoto holds firm.

"Listen to me!"

"It doesn't matter how many times I listen, it's the same! You can't find a dream just by looking for one! I'm fine with the way things are!"

He's never blown up like this at Makoto before, and his rage scares even himself, but he's so sick and tired and if Makoto's going to be the one in the blasting zone when the fuse reaches the ignition, then so be it.

"You're lying!" Makoto's voice grows more frantic, his grip tightening, and Haruka can't break free, caged again by the others around him. "The truth is, you want to find a dream too! You should find that dream, and go flying into the outside world to follow it! You have the ability to do that—"

"Even you're talking like this? Where I swim, and who I swim for… I'm free to decide that for myself! And I'm saying I'm fine with the way things are now!"

What a joke it is, Haruka seethes, because of course Makoto would be the one who tells him to fly, to reach for places higher, because Makoto's afraid of the depths where Haruka's doomed to sink.

"But you're not fine! You're not fine!" Makoto's nearly hysterical now, thrashing his head to the side, just as lost as Haruka is. "That's why we're telling you all this! Nagisa, Rei, Rin, and me… it's because we all love you, Haru. Because we care about you. Why can't you understand that? We want you to find your dream, to look to the future…"

"All you ever do is meddle with everyone!" Haruka yells, pushing right back, "stop sticking your nose in everyone else's business! A dream? A future? Well, what about yours? Stop going on about other people's futures when you haven't even decided on your own!"

There is silence, and Haruka wonders if he's gone too far and pushed Makoto over the edge, finally dared Makoto to go against him when all he'd ever done was stay by Haruka's side.

The quiet sends tremors down Haruka's spine – he's not used to it, not with Makoto, and his heart quickens in his chest, faster than it's ever been.

"Well, say something," he urges, willing Makoto to say something, anything, to let him know that he hasn't messed up for the last time.

Makoto releases his hold on Haruka's wrist, and it feels like handcuffs have been unlocked – although instead of feeling relieved, Haruka only feels more confined.

"I have decided," he says, his voice overlaid with false calm, an octave higher than usual. "I'm… going to a university in Tokyo."

The first firework shoots off into the night sky, casting Makoto's face in specks of red and orange and white as the shadows under his eyes become more apparent, making him look so much older and so much more tired.

Makoto's grown up, Haruka realizes, as a second firework bursts behind him.

He's grown up and he's left Haruka behind and he wants Haruka to follow him for once, but Haruka hadn't been expecting that, and he feels so young and small and insignificant, seven years old again and Makoto's urging him to follow his passions and join the swim club because he doesn't want to join by himself.

Explosions rip through the night sky, but it's not enough to mask the pain ripping through his chest.

"I meant to tell you sooner, but I just couldn't find a way to say it. I…"

Haruka's had enough.

"Do whatever you want!" he shouts, turning away before he can see the hurt that he knows will cross Makoto's face, plain to see to anyone, unlike Haruka's own placid mask (broken as it is right now.)

And he runs.

"Haru!"

He runs and he runs, runs back home and tears off his clothes and wraps himself in his blankets, because his world is falling apart, and the last person in the world he'd ever expected to betray him just has.

And it hurts, feels like something's been ripped out of him, as his body trembles and he fights back the tears, finally succumbing to slumber when he's completely and utterly spent.

(He thinks he hears Makoto knocking at the door, but it has to be his imagination.)

(Makoto's left him, too.)

(There's nothing left for him.)

ending note, I guess: the Japanese term for "freestyle" is "フリースタイル/furiisutairu," which is often shortened to "フリー/furii," which I think Rei confuses with Haruka's interpretation, which is the literal English "free." the actual Japanese term for freedom or liberation is "自由/jiyuu" (which you probably have heard if you watch the show lol). this is just my guess as to why Rei seems so fixated on the swimming freestyle part of Haruka's issue, but Haruka wants to be actually free.

also, when Makoto tells Haruka to "fly into the world" to reach his dreams, he does use the literal term to fly, "飛ぶ/tobu," which is why I thought it was ironic.

again I could be wrong about this, although I've been studying Japanese for 4 years so I'm pretty sure I'm not totally off ^^;; I hope you liked this fic!

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