Our Eternal Summer (MakoHaru)

Chapter 1

My first awareness of my – romantic, not brotherly – love for Haru was tainted by the sour bite of jealousy.

It was a warm autumn afternoon before Tokyo. Gou and I were sitting beside the then half-empty swimming pool that would be closed until the coming year. Leaves of fiery red and orange fluttered in the air and fell on our hair, our shoulders and the light ripples of the pool water. That spring, we had prepared a surprise for Rin, a pool blanketed by cherry blossoms, as pink as the blush of a maiden in love, and a promise of unending friendship. It was rowdy, brimming with the rosy colours of what the Japanese called seishun, or youth.

Gou's fingertips tried and failed to catch a falling leaf. "You know, I really like the way you look at Haru. I'm glad the two of you will still be together after graduation."

I pondered over her words. Together, she had said, as if we were a couple and not a pair of best friends. How had I looked at Haru, anyway?

Ah. 

Memories flooded into my mind, like pages of a book flipping in the wind, or a movie on 16x fast forward. I remembered the storyline, and realised how the plot of my life was really just about being with Haru.

Since forever, my eyes trailed after Haru, longed for Haru. Since we joined the swimming club together lo so many years ago, I was content, happy even, with my place by Haru's side. It seemed we were two parts of the same whole, cheesy as it might sound, and even as a kid, I was elated that this quiet, beautiful boy with azure eyes picked me to be his closest friend. 

But. But although we looked at the same world as if we shared the same eyes, there had always been a fundamental difference. I looked at Haru, and Haru looked at Rin. After Rin left, Haru became even more submerged in water, and stopped looking. I wish he'd look at me for once. I was shocked by the vehement force of that thought. The jealousy that suddenly sprang inside me, like an abrupt but vicious eruption of a volcano, seared me. For the first time, I resented Haru for looking at Rin. I turned to Gou, and saw my dumbfounded expression reflected in her wine-red eyes, Rin's eyes.

Gou smiled, not unkindly. She knew I understood. 

"Are you going to confess?"

Was I? I imagined telling Haru that I loved him. That I found him beautiful. And in the hundreds of possibilities I conjured in that brief moment, none of the Harus I confessed to smiled. He would be perplexed. Troubled. He won't be disgusted, because Haru simply wasn't someone like that, but then he wasn't someone who would be romantically involved in anything that wasn't blue and wet either. 

I couldn't imagine Haru being with anyone else but Rin, not even myself. 

"No. I guess I won't."

I remembered how Rin convinced Haru to swim competitively by bringing him to Australia. I remembered our quarrel, how I hurt Haru because I wasn't able to understand him like I should have.  

"Makoto's overthinking skills are spectacular."

And I couldn't help but muster a shaky laugh. The little girl who followed us around had grown into a shrewd and thoughtful young lady.

"To Haru, you are important too. He needs you. Stay together, and be happy."

...was what she said, but it wasn't true, not really.

Why else would we have ended up like this? Me in one corner of this large, bustling city and Haru in another? I understood we each had our own path to pursue, and I understood that it was unpractical to want to be together for the rest of our lives, even though we had spent many years being inseparable. But when I found out that we would both be going to Tokyo, I was relieved. We would have to separate one day, I had thought, but at least for the meantime, that day could wait.

Yet Haru thought otherwise.

"I think it'd be better to stay in school dorms." He said, by way of explanation.

He didn't need me. It shouldn't have come as a surprise, but it did. All these years I had been taking care of Haru, but deep down I'd always known that he didn't need a caretaker. He didn't really need me close – the needing one was me. I wanted to him close, not he me.

I needed Haru, and I loved him. Did I still? I found no straight answer.

How did Haru feel about me? About Rin?

Rin was training professionally in Australia, and Haru in Tokyo. Even though Rin broke off contact with us for years back then, his bond with Haru was never truly severed. And even now, I knew the bond was still there, as if time and distance were little more than a rusting, blunt blade, incapable of cutting anything. Adversaries and peers, there could never be space for me to wedge into.