Our Eternal Summer (MakoHaru)

Chapter 2

"Haru! Over here!" I hollered, when I heard the ding! of the bell as the door swung open. As usual, the izakaya was packed with salarymen, the sleeves of their dress shirts folded, their carefully combed hair coming apart, their oily faces flushed with fatigue and alcohol as the day neared its end. Haru saw my waving hand and walked towards me. His unbuttoned plaid shirt stood out in all its red glory, and the white shirt he wore underneath invited imagination of the beautiful lines of his shoulders and chest. The neck of his shirt clung on to his collarbones, which rose and fell sexily with his breathing. Catching myself, I looked away.

"I ordered first, I hope you don't mind. I got you mackerel." I said when he sat down. The room was filled with the aroma of food, whiffs of karaage, yakitori and beer, but the moment Haru came near, I could smell the chlorine in his hair, on his skin. Sometimes I wondered if I smelled of chlorine too. I wondered if we shared the same scent, a scent that represented the similarity at the core of his dream and mine, a reminder that once, not very long ago, we were together nearly every waking moment of our lives.

A year after graduating from Iwatobi High, Haru and I now led very different lives. Other than school, I volunteered at our local swimming pool, teaching little kids how to swim. I made new friends with whom I discussed the tactics of catching the attention of kids and making them follow safety measures. Occasionally, we'd grumble about how difficult kids were and swore we'd never get children of our own. Haru continued competitive swimming, studying on scholarship, and I knew there were many teams who would have their doors wide open for him once he graduated. Over a year after we packed our uniforms - blue-collared white shirts and soap-green ties polka-dotted with white - into paper boxes and stuffed them into the storage closets, Haru and I only saw each other once a week now, as if the closeness we had once shared was put away too, behind guest futons and old books, gathering dust and waiting to be thrown out.

It wasn't that we didn't hang out anymore – we did, meeting over affordable good food (a.k.a mackerel) or hanging out in manga stores – but that when we met regularly but infrequently, my life could not help but untangle from his. And when I sunk deeper and deeper into a thought spiral that was infinite and would only get infinitely darker, I caught myself and said: STOP.

I would not make a tragedy out of this. I would not tarnish the shining memories of our childhood with a love that I couldn't even confess. If I didn't have the guts to call it love, I would not make a victim of myself over it. It was too pitiful, even for me.

And so we continued our weekend hang-outs. Like this one where we exchanged information, where I shared news willingly and Haru needs fishing, I would tell myself that this distance was just right. Today, in a room full of people talking loudly and throwing their heads back in laughter, Haru was his usual expressionless self. But he was fidgety, as if he has something he desperately wanted to share. I didn't say anything, but I sort of guessed. I kept in touch with Gou, after all.

The food arrived, my yakitori shiny from the teriyaki sauce and oil while Haru's mackerel...was, well, mackerel, crispy grey skin with white steam that smelled like the sea drifting upwards. I'm not a fan of mackerel, but I liked how it reminded us of our rosy seishun seaside days.

I chatted about random stuff, while Haru listened and occasionally shared snippets of his life. It wasn't until the foam in our half-full beer mugs have all but disappeared that he said: "Rin is having a long break. He's coming back next week and he'll be staying in Tokyo for a while before he goes home."

The excitement that lit up his eyes sliced through me. I chuckled. "Ah yes, Gou told me. I 'm actually looking up a hostel for him near your university  – you can sneak him into the swimming pool and have a match, just like old times." There was a hollowness in my laughter. I hated my pettiness. Stop. You were happy when Gou told you.

"Makoto? Are you alright?" Haru cocked his head in concern.

"Yeah, why?"

"Nothing." And he proceeded to attack the remains of his mackerel. He did not say anything else, but for the rest of the meal, I felt warmth spreading in my insides. It was a feeling I'd get whenever I was scared or surprised and Haru would let me hide behind his slender body, a habit I hadn't be able to let go since I was a kid and the tinier one of the two. It was moments like these, really, that made it impossible to completely give up. He understands me.

But as I walked home that day, I was happy of the decision I made when I first came to this foreign city. Every night, streetlamps along pavements and neon lights on buildings lit up the Tokyo sky, imbuing it with eternal liveliness. The trees were already budding with cherry blossoms that would be falling everywhere when Rin arrived. And Rin might not arrive alone - we had asked the Iwatobi gang to come too. Haru and I would meet again during the weekend, and we would set out the plans for Rin's arrival. We still had classes, Haru needed to practice and I needed to volunteer, so we had to shift our timetables to clear up the week as much as we could. It was exciting.

The months spent lamenting over my unrequited love had been both painstakingly, pettily boring and excruciatingly, guiltily heart-breaking. And as I stood beneath the purple grey Tokyo sky, imagining the stars I could not see, I was happy that I had decided to stop thinking about it, complaining about it, and that I would stop wishing.

For only then could I properly look forward to the arrival of my closest friends.