Chapter Text
For the most part, Haruka tended to ignore his classmates in favor of staring out the window and daydreaming when they were between classes. He felt like he didn't have anything in common with them, and none of them ever actively engaged in conversation with him, which suited him just fine. The only person that ever went out of their way to talk to him was Makoto, and that was because they'd known each other forever. It made what might otherwise be a lonely existence -- if he were the type to get lonely, that is -- into one that was a little noisier.
But not exactly a bad noisy. Makoto was a good friend, after all. And regardless of how he acted toward him at times, Haruka liked and appreciated him.
However, there were some things that Haruka wasn't able to tune out in those short breaks between when one teacher left the room and another entered to begin a new class. Much of the time, it was inane chatter; the girls would talk about makeup and the latest male idol that everyone was swooning over, and the guys would talk about sports, which female upperclassman was the hottest and how many girls they'd gone out with. Haruka wasn't the least interested in those conversations. But sometimes, words whispered sotto voce and bawdy snickers would filter through his haze of indifference that would intrigue him.
"Could you believe how big they were?" One student said one afternoon, rousing Haruka from doodling in the margin of his notebook. Without moving his head he glanced over to a group of guys huddled around one desk. Makoto had been called out of the room by Nagisa for some reason or another, so he had an unimpeded view of the five or six boys clumped in the corner.
"I know!" the owner of the desk said, grinning like an idiot. "If you hadn't showed me, I never woulda believed it. And the way her mouth went around--"
"SHHHH," the rest of the group hissed, one boy slapping a hand over the owner of the desk's mouth. Haruka thought his name might have been Yukimura or Yukino or something like it.
"Are you trying to get us in trouble?" a different boy asked, looking around to see if the teacher had arrived yet. "You don't just say stuff like that out loud at school!"
Yukimura or Yukino or whatever peeled the hand from his mouth. "Sorry, didn't mean to," he said in a contrite voice. Haruka rolled his eyes, turning his head to look out the window once more. Clearly they were all idiots, and he'd exhausted the little attention he wanted to spend on them.
Apparently his temporary interest in the group had caught one of their attention, though, since the tallest one -- Haruka remembered his name was Moriyama -- looked straight at him and grinned.
"Hey Nanase-kun, you seem interested in what we're talking about," he said, walking over to Haruka's desk. Haruka tried to ignore him, glancing at the clock on the wall to see how long it was until school ended and he could go swim.
"Nanase-kun is interested?" the others said, following Moriyama over. Haruka sighed, resting his chin on his hand. What a pain in the ass. "He doesn't seem the type to be interested in that kind of thing." The four guys behind Moriyama were exchanging leering glances and elbowing each other, and Haruka wished that Makoto would come back so he could shoo them away for him.
"If you want," Moriyama said in a conspiratorial voice, leaning close, "I'll lend you the DVD we were watching last night." Haruka continued to stare out the window, wishing that he'd take a hint and leave. Adult videos didn't really interest him, even though it seemed like it was a male bonding activity. Maybe ESPECIALLY because it seemed like it was a male bonding activity. He didn't have many friend of which to speak besides Makoto and the rest of the swim club members. And while male bonding with Makoto didn't sound completely awful, somehow showing Nagisa pornography seemed wrong in too many ways for him to be comfortable with it. Kou couldn't come for obvious reasons, and Haruka didn't trust Rei, not after Nagisa speculated that he didn't like water.
"Or better yet," Moriyama continued, heedless of Haruka's utter dismissal of his existence, "my brother has this video you might like. You're into swimming and pools and stuff, right? You'd love it."
It was like a switch had been flipped. Once more, Haruka's interest had been piqued. His eyes slid from the window over to Moriyama, who was turning around to grin at his pack of idiot friends. If the video included a pool, then it couldn't be completely awful. "Do what you want," he said. The group of students leaning on Makoto's desk started snickering, but any other reply they may have added was cut short by the arrival of both the teacher and Makoto. They dispersed back to their seats as the English teacher told them to take out their textbooks.
"What was that about, Haru-chan?" Makoto asked in a soft voice as he sat and pulled out his book. Haruka flashed him an irritated look at the nickname.
"Nothing," he murmured. The two of them quieted as the lesson began, but not before Makoto mouthed a quick Okay, to him as he faced forward. Haruka sighed, glancing once more at the clock and counting the seconds until practice began.
The next day during the lunch hour, Haruka and Makoto were gathering their things to meet the rest of the swim club on the roof as they usually did. Haruka had all but forgotten the conversation from the day before.
"Hey Nanase-kun," a voice from behind them spoke, pausing both Haruka and Makoto as they exited the classroom. Haruka glanced behind him, and found Moriyama standing there with a grin on his face.
"Haru, I'll go on ahead and let the others know you'll be coming soon," Makoto said with a smile. Haruka nodded, and with a nod of his own toward Moriyama, Makoto left.
"Man, it's kind of surprising that a guy like Tachibana-kun is such good friends with you," Moriyama said as Haruka turned to face him. He must have had an annoyed expression on his face, since Moriyama raised his hands defensively. "I mean you're the cool, stoic type and he's... just more outgoing?"
Haruka gazed stonily at Moriyama as he spoke. He didn't tell him that their friendship was mostly Makoto's fault, even if he never said anything to Makoto to tell him that he was a little overbearing at times. It wasn't anyone else's business how their friendship functioned.
"Anyway! Here you go." A flustered Moriyama thrust a clear jewel case into Haruka's hands. "Like I said, it has a pool in it so you'll probably like it. It's my brother's DVD so if you could bring it back by next week...."
Haruka took the jewel case, and turned it over. On the front of one of the blank DVDs you could buy in electronic stores for cheap, someone had scrawled in messy katakana Pool Party 7. Well, the title at least had a pool in it; the rest remained to be seen.
As he looked at the DVD, he had been ignoring Moriyama, so when the other student raised his hand in a wave as he returned to his friends, Haruka had no idea what he had said, or if it had been important. Figuring it didn't matter, He walked the DVD over to his desk to slip it into the side pocket of his backpack. He grabbed his lunch and left the classroom, and as he left he could hear the snickers of Moriyama's friends following him out the door.
"Haru-chan!!" Nagisa's voice exuberantly greeted him as he opened the door to the roof. He dodged the oncoming tackle with a finesse born of doing it every day of the week for months, and walked over to sit in his usual spot next to Makoto.
"That didn't take long," he said, handing over a box of apple juice. Haruka took the juice, setting it next to him.
"It wasn't important," he said, opening his bento and beginning to eat. He wasn't sure what he was going to do with the DVD. He had almost zero interest in it himself, so he was tempted to just give it back the next day and lie about having seen it. But seeing the way the group had talked about their own experience with Adult Videos, he wondered if a friendly bonding evening wouldn't be a good idea. Or if not good, then not-terrible.
Haruka glanced over at Makoto, who was talking to Rei in an animated way about something, then looked down at his rice and tamagoyaki. Makoto was always the one who was initiating the friendly parts of their relationship, maybe it was his turn.
"Hey Makoto," he said after a lengthy internal debate.
"Hm? What is it, Haru? Oh, you've hardly touched your lunch. The break is almost over." Makoto gave him a concerned look. Haruka rolled his eyes and shoveled some rice into his mouth to make him happy.
"Want to come over tonight?" he asked when he swallowed. Makoto looked surprised at the invitation, before giving him one of those gentle, sunny smiles of his.
"Sure. I'll let my parents know."
"Ehhh, I want to go to Haru-chan's house!" Nagisa said, earning a punch in the arm from Rei. Haruka ignored the noise, concentrating on eating. He didn't want to go to swim practice that afternoon without having lunch; he would wear out too quickly. The entire time he ate, though, his thoughts were not consumed by thoughts of water and its cool embrace, but by curiosity over how Makoto would react to his planned bonding activity.
That at least would be interesting.