the practice room.

"The sound of the sea, the curve of a horizon, wind in leaves, the cry of a bird leave manifold impression in us. And suddenly, without our wishing it at all, one of these memories spills from us and finds expression in musical language... I want to sing my interior landscape with the simple artlessness of a child."

[stringendos]

sunaosa // we fall between

{haikyuu!!} → osamu/suna | wc: 14.8k t, aged up, post canon, canon divergence, uni au, exes who act like theyre married into lovers cw: language, some alcohol drinking

there comes a point when being best friends with your ex doesn't work anymore. it happens, osamu learns, after you try to kiss him.

He remembers Suna asking, three months back into his life, “Are you seeing anyone now?”

And Osamu had replied, tongue a little loose from the hour, “Nope,” with a small shake of his head and far too much honesty. “There’s only ever been you.”

→ read on ao3

[stringendos]

these hands of dust

{haikyuu!!} → atsumu/kita | wc: 1.8k t, aged up, post canon, ghost!kita au cw: mentioned death (pre fic), minor sports injury, heavy bruises/bones (?) imagery, dealing w grief/mourning

kita is a ghost. even now, atsumu's still in love with him.

Behind the curtain, Atsumu stops— —holds his breath in his chest, and closes his eyes. Without eyes and hands, they do not see or feel; but move in memory alone. Where bodies fail, minds fill - these gaps that are left behind in a trail of half steps. Together, they pretend they can feel the other, and their warmth through the veil.

→ read on ao3

[stringendos]

the road builds

{haikyuu!!} → kuroo/bokuto | wc: 1001 g, (pre) canon (high school) | cw: mentioned minor injury

a three year sprint, two captain jerseys, and a chase for the top

Palms snap together in thanks for first meals of the morning and no amount of fanfare. But this is a hunger that only volleyball can satisfy; with the ache that weaves into limbs after matches, the feeling of leather beneath fingertips; the tingle in palms after tosses well spiked.

Strange, this; how so many dreams can be stuffed into two handfuls. How between these two palms lies an entire universe and a lifetime of want.

→ read on ao3

[stringendos]

tape measures // ii

{haikyuu!!} → suna/osamu | wc: 4.7k t, part 2/3, 2nd year → post canon (au where osamu ends up playing for the deseo hornets)

in which it takes several measures for suna to realise that some feelings have long outgrown a 'fleeting, high school crush'.

It's always these, their usual words of parting. Of Osamu’s hands that come to close the gap, brushing Suna's hair from his face, readjusting his scarf. Suna’s hands that burrow into Osamu’s pockets, thumbing at his sleeves, stealing his warmth. All their ways to tie the ribbon neat on their offered goodbyes and finished off with any sort of variety.

But always coupled with this.

Osamu, holding the zipper of Suna’s windbreaker or his team jacket, pulling it to his chin. Fingers knotted into his wool coat, and the careful threading through button holes.

Suna, breath tight in his chest, returns the favour. Tugs the zip up to hide Suna’s jersey (definitely does not think of Osamu wearing his actual jersey) and steadies himself with a grip on his arms.

→ part two on ao3

[stringendos]

tape measures // i

{haikyuu!!} → suna/osamu | wc: 3.8k t, part 1/3, 2nd year → post canon (au where osamu ends up playing for the deseo hornets)

in which it takes several measures for suna to realise that some feelings have long outgrown a 'fleeting, high school crush'.

Distance, Suna supposes, can sometimes be measured against heartbeats.

Ten, from assigned seats at lunch, one side of the class to the other. The rubbered toes of their chair legs, blunt from repeated journeys, dragged across flooring, with the usual accompaniment - a groan, then a creak, of wood, decades old. Their knees knock underneath his desk, cramped and too close, like sharing a secret that even Suna hasn’t even heard himself.

Osamu, with his head pillowed on folded arms. Sometimes, he presses his forehead against them. And other times, he rolls his neck to press his cheek against them instead, to tilt his face towards Suna. Staring, almost, as if trying to memorise the cut of his chin, the slope of his nose.

→ part one on ao3

[stringendos]

to the riverside // i

{haikyuu!!} → kuroo!centric, kuroo/kenma | wc: 7898 t, part 1/5, uni au (uni students, vball player!kuroo, pro gamer!kenma) cw for (recovering) sports injury 

the quiet art of falling in love with your best friend, as told by kuroo tetsurou.

(and finding out that despite distances; mapped out by train lines and air miles and years between; some things never change.)

“Hey, Kenma. D'you wanna hear a secret?” he breathes out, when he’s certain that Kenma’s over waist deep in a dream and still sinking. “I think I was in love with you then.”

Would it be okay with you, if I were to say that I think I still am?

→ part one on ao3

[stringendos]

kinkage // starting over | i

{haikyuu!!} → kindaichi!centric, kindaichi/kageyama | wc: 949

in which a three year battle stretches far wider than kindaichi could have imagined

archiving ideas: 2016

au: aged up third years

Kindaichi picks at a loose thread at the hem of his jumper, one his mother will probably chide him about later, and keeps pulling even when the stitches unravel, like a flow of water he cannot stem. And when he sees the shadows spill heavy between them, arching their backs and stretching further, Kindaichi lets them. He lets the ocean between himself and Kageyama fall further into the deep black of ink, a sky void of a blanket of stars; void of even the most sparse of scatters and the faintest of flickers.

Because, he doesn’t dare admit out loud, it is far, far easier to hate. To hold a grudge up against Kageyama’s neck and let that burden alone cause the ground beneath their feet to collapse. It is easier to see Kageyama Tobio as nothing but the King of the Court, the one dimensional antagonist in a poorly written play that Kindaichi has put together with the edges of jigsaw pieces that don’t quite match up.

With this grudge, it becomes easier to push down that feeling that Iwaizumi causes to rise up inside him sometimes, unintentionally, when they’re packing away after a particularly tiring practice. When everything around him blurs into white noise, all he can feel is the ache that sits viscous around his tired limbs. What filters through, however, no matter how much Kindaichi tries to muffle it, is Iwaizumi’s voice, and a quiet remnant of a past that Kindaichi has been trying to smother. He says it as he’s dragging Oikawa out of the gymnasium by the collar of his shirt. That Kageyama was never a bad kid, that it was just easier to focus every bad feeling that overpowered Oikawa’s entire body on a pretend cause.

And of all the things that Kindaichi had expected; a whine right into Iwaizumi’s ear perhaps, a pout that he probably should've grown out of by now; a finger that drags the skin down beneath his eye paired with sticking his tongue out; Oikawa rolls his eyes but nods; he nods, even after everything. The constant comparisons; a looming shadow that grew with every waning moon; and the fear that Kageyama used to burn into the court, and into Oikawa’s dreams, where not even sprinting until his lungs are on fire works.

Even after everything, Oikawa nods and admits it.

(Kindaichi can see something flash behind Oikawa’s eyes, in just the briefest of moments, before Iwaizumi throws an arm around his neck and hauls him to the locker room. A reassurance almost, and Kindaichi is left staring at their backs and the points where their bodies meet, so easily, casually; naturally.

He’s left staring at their easy friendship, strengthened with the threads time and this trust, this silent bond murmured between hands clapped on backs and lingering looks. He could've had that. Perhaps not as seamless, because that bond would be impossible to replicate; but something mimicking that unbreakable bond that could tie entire universes together. A bond between him, Kunimi and Kageyama; one crafted in Kitagawa Daiichi and refined in Aoba Jousai and made to rule the court.

But, Kindaichi supposes, yelping out a reply after Iwaizumi tells him to pack up and start heading home, perhaps they were never meant to be like that. There are too many hypotheticals, too many what ifs and could've beens.

Some distances were never meant to be bridged.)

That is what he tells himself anyway. The constant reminders that follow him around, the thought that they could've been so close, all three of them; to play volleyball till the sun’s oranges are replaced with deep blues-

It’s all too much for Kindaichi to stomach.

(So, on his walk home, he draws up a list of reasons in his mind. Reasons to hate Kageyama Tobio, reasons to beat Kageyama Tobio. Reasons to not feel so bad, so damn guilty, for turning his back on Kageyama back in Kitagawa Daiichi.

Somewhere at the top of the list, a little under just because, is Destroying the joy for volleyball. Then again, Kindaichi thinks, as he climbs into bed that night, remembering the rush beneath his fingertips, the constant thrumming in his chest, watching the number 2 fall heavy on his old teammate’s back-

he didn’t really do that either.)

The guilt weighs him down. Iwaizumi isn’t the best person to talk to about this, mainly because he was the only one who was always kind enough to Kageyama and never failed to try his best with whatever friendship they managed to forge when all others’ threatened to falter (and in many cases, did); but Kindaichi is older now, and wiser too.

In his head, he doesn’t call Kageyama by The King anymore; drops the sneer paired with the -sama. It’s a little step forward, he supposes. But it’s easier to feel guilty now. It’s easier when he’s old enough to cringe at his past self and magnify everything that went wrong. The regret is louder at night, when he’s staring up at his bedroom ceiling, trying to distract himself from his test that he’s most certainly not ready for, that Future Plans form that is still in his bag, a little crumpled under the weight of his water bottle and the next volleyball matches that loom large on the horizon.

Everything seems worse in his memory.

He was so sure of himself and his hate, but now; now, at 18, he is second guessing himself if Kageyama really was such a villain.

(When he finally does roll over to sleep, he dreams of blue. Kitagawa Daichi blue. And a crown that hands, his hands, he thinks, force on a reluctant head.)

[stringendos]

i. as a thank you

{boku no hero academia} → tamaki!centric; mirio/tamaki | wc: 1793

the way you said ‘i love you’ | prompt #7

a series of ‘i love you’s throughout the years future fic: graduating third years

With spring looming into view, rushing headfirst towards him, Tamaki finds himself standing in a world that stretches too wide.

From the point where he is settled, he looks beyond the crowd and tries to search for a future that feels certain. When he fails, he breaks away, casting his gaze back down to his feet, and swallows the lump that threatens to form in his throat.

In his hand, the graduation scroll sits heavy, the only thing that seems to be weighing him down to this earth, this very moment in time, carving his heels deeper into this rocky ground beneath him. Everything he once knew and grew so comfortable with is being pushed further away with every slap he gets on the back from his classmates, every teacher that congratulates him, every misty eyed kouhai who greets him.

It feels like he’s trying to hold onto time, like he’s stuck between two freeze frames, and his grip is becoming more slack as the seconds tick by, as if a phantom timekeeper keeps wrenching it from his grasp. Like oceans are stretching out wide before him, sweeping up all the boats in one quick motion, to a land far away from the home soil that Tamaki has sunk his feet into.

There is that horrible feeling that begins to crawl up his torso, squeezing his ribcage until each breath rattles his very bones, his lungs wheezing, straining under the weight; that tightens each individual finger around his neck, the crook of each knuckle nestled against the bob of his adam’s apple.

But when it all becomes too much, when the world seems to crowd him, starts collapsing into one tiny spot, a singularity in the vast galaxy that spans Amajiki Tamaki’s entire universe, his heart slows, swells, as a body settles into the space beside him. Their shoulders brush for a snapshot of a second.

He feels his bones start to fall into place and the unease starts to bleed out of his shoulders, slowly, slowly, like the falling of sakura around him. Mirio, once again, manages to anchor him to this very spot and is a light through this darkness, guiding ships home.

Beyond the stretch of concrete, he can see Nejire, a walking heartbreaker, accepting flowers with a bright smile paired with that tilt of her head, and there’s a warmth that spreads through his chest like no other.

“Hadou is having fun,” Mirio laughs out, mirth dancing in his eyes, as a second greeting; his first in the momentary press of shoulders that speaks volumes in its silence. In return, Tamaki lets out one of his own, a barely there chuckle, with a glance to his left and lets the backs of their hands brush in just a slight skim of their knuckles.

Mirio sounds normal as he continues, chattering on about his day as if they had spent months apart and not a few hours where they were saying goodbyes to friends. After today, the time will grow longer to years, the distance stretched further to 458 kilometers, no matter how much Tamaki tries to deny it. (The reality still stands that he would rather not be anywhere but here, by Mirio’s side, but he pushes that thought down even further.)

Mirio sounds almost normal perhaps to everyone else, as he smiles brighter, and accepts gifts and flowers (‘flowers,’ Tamaki’s head supplies unhelpfully, ‘probably paired with confessions and second buttons’). But Tamaki has never been just anyone, not when it comes to Mirio anyway. Tamaki can hear it underneath it all. He knows better, has spent years having his body attune to the other’s. There is happiness in there, definitely; nothing but fondness for his friends and a pure relief that is twisted in amongst it all; relief that they’ve all made it through, a little battered, a little bruised, but there together at least.

But there’s that uncertainty, misplaced almost, now that Mirio is next to becoming the Number One Hero and is still running on the path forged for him that can lead to nothing but greatness.

It’s almost reassuring that Mirio, Toogata Mirio, the best of them all, who manages to gain the trust of almost anyone; who managed to break down Tamaki’s walls with one blinding smile, arm slung across his shoulders; reassurance more overwhelming than any other feeling; who kept a hand outstretched, waiting, kind but never forceful, with a disarming grin and a “so you like heroes?”

It’s almost reassuring that Mirio feels like him sometimes, how Tamaki feels so small, so tiny, in this vast world, when Mirio burns so bright.

Mirio, who could have retracted that hand as quickly as he outstretched it; Mirio who tells him to keep his head up.

Sometimes, he wonders what a life without Mirio would be like.

In his memory, a moving van comes into view.

Tamaki doesn’t remember it completely; can just about make out the stacks of boxes, that characteristic sandy shade with the lid dipped from when his older brother sat on it. But he remembers small random snippets, like a view obscured with a hand: two L shapes cutting out the storyboards and pulling the insignificant points into view. Like a sun too bright to look at, hand obscuring the view to the trees around it or the sea below it; a bicycle propped up outside a convenience store.

Like a movie with all the main characters cropped out, the camera panning out, only to focus on the drifting clouds, the flutter of the laundry lined up in the garden. Their muted voices pushed underwater and instead an amplified audio clip of the noise that lies beneath it all; the crunch of asphalt underneath tires, the rustle of paper with directions; the background pulled into focus.

He remembers the first walk to school, clutching onto the end of his mother’s skirt as she spoke to his first homeroom teacher in Musutafu, that swooping feeling in his stomach as he stood in front of a class of less than thirty, the way his words died on his tongue and shrivelled into nothing. He remembers his brother decked out in a new gakuran, a little tap on his forehead, flick of his nose, a promise that he’ll make friends here. (Tamaki will never forget that disappointment that seemed to loom, that fear that reared its ugly head when he worried about letting his brother down.)

And he remembers, with an ache in his chest, nostalgia bursting at the seams, Mirio, as the first light in this stretch of darkness.

It is Mirio who has stayed with him despite it all. He owes Mirio this.

And so much more.

So Tamaki forces his head up, looks up, beyond; instead of down at his feet and the ground that threatens to crumble beneath his soles.

‘Head up,’ he thinks.

He will say it now. He must. So he tilts his head up a little higher, tries to be a little braver. There is so much he wants to say to Mirio but it doesn’t sound right no matter how he words it in his mind.

Beside him, Mirio, ever patient, waits.

Breathes in, holds it, one, two, three and-

“Mirio,” Tamaki starts off, but falters when he sees the boy turn towards him. Threading his fingers into his pockets, he picks at the nonexistent lint lining them but keeps his chin up. Keeps looking, far, far beyond where his eyes can see. He follows with, “for these three years,” and tries to ignore the look that flickers across Mirio’s face. It’s a look that he doesn’t quite understand despite the years between them. The pause makes him stop, halting abruptly, so once again he thinks-

‘Head up.’

Swallows, shakes away the nervousness that thrums through his body.

And tries again,

“For these last three years.” A pause. Head up. “And those before that.”

For being there when no one else was. For reaching through the darkness, filling in the silences when I needed you to; and for being silent when I didn’t.

There are so many things that Tamaki wants to say; a whole lifetime’s worth of words pulled back, trapped in a cage, with the lock still closed shut, and the key tucked safely in a box that he pretends to have misplaced. Words that stretch past entire galaxies and spiral into distances approaching infinity.

But really, through all of that, there is one thing (just the one, always just that one) that he wishes he could voice.

That one thing that falls out so easily when he presses a water bottle to Mirio’s forehead, reassures him with a heavy palm to his back, resting in the space between his shoulderblades, the dip from where his wings would stretch wide. It slips out effortlessly before Tamaki can even think of reeling it back in, snatch up these words that spread so clumsily, when he pulls a blanket over Mirio’s shoulders, steps into place beside him on the walk home after school; filling in with easy laughter, like the quiet soundtrack that Tamaki has grown so used to.

It is said in his ‘good morning’s, his ‘go to sleep’s; his ‘I’m here’s and ‘you can do it’; in a presence that gives him enough space to breathe but one that never wanders too far.

How could he possibly put this into words?

So instead, Tamaki steels himself and hopes that Mirio can hear what he really means. Can hear what he has been trying to say for so long, what he’s trying to cram into words, what he couldn’t even begin to form in sentences; not when he wants to say so much.

(Head up, head up, head up.)

“For everything.”

One by one, the petals fall, like a flurry of snowflakes in slow motion over a scene ripped out of an old movie reel (one that never does make it into cinema: its only screening in a makeshift theatre from drawn curtains and a stuffy room, in amongst stacks of papers marked with the name of the director.

An unremarkable scene from an equally unremarkable story.)

But for Tamaki, who is standing, a little bit bolder than he used to, more confident than what he thinks he deserves; as Suneater (and more importantly, Toogata Mirio’s best friend), it’s one of the most memorable.

(He wishes, he wishes, that Mirio can hear it; can figure out what he’s trying to say.

After all, Mirio’s never failed him before.)

Around them, the world falls silent, muffled into a thin hum that hangs in the air. Tamaki lifts his head up, tilts it to his left, and smiles back when Mirio grins at him.

“Thank you.”

[mottainaiiii]

The way you said “I love you.“

Some fluffy, some angsty prompts

As a hello

With a hoarse voice, under the blankets

A scream

Over a cup of tea

Over a beer bottle

On a sunny Tuesday afternoon, the late sunlight glowing in your hair

As a thank you

As an apology

When baking chocolate chip cookies

Not said to me

With a shuddering gasp

When we lay together on the fresh spring grass

In a letter

A whisper in the ear

Loud, so everyone can hear

Over and over again, till it’s nothing but a senseless babble

When the broken grass litters the floor

From very far away

With no space left between us

As we huddle together, the storm raging outside

Over your shoulder

Muffled, from the other side of the door

Through a song

Without really meaning it

In a blissful sigh as you fall asleep

Broken, as you clutch the sleeve of my jacket and beg me not to leave

A taunt, with one eyebrow raised and a grin bubbling at your lips

When I am dead

Slowly, the words dripping from your tongue like honey

Too quick, mumbled into your scarf

In awe, the first time you realised it

In a way I can’t return

On a post-it note

Before we jump

As a goodbye

[lhazaar]

look…………….. write as much shitty fic as you want. nobody can stop you. you’re learning constantly and it’s better to write hackneyed implausible ridiculousness than it is to not write at all out of fear of fucking up. you’re good

[justapegacorn]

Real talk

[stringendos]

just out of curiosity, will you ever publish some of your rivetra fic? i remember you mentioning before that you used to write quite a bit of rivetra and i just need some good fic :( if you have any recs that would be nice too but no pressure at all

(sorry for the late reply!)

i’d like to tbh! i’ve been so busy with school and everything that i haven’t really had the chance to write but my wip wc is probably 60k+. i think it’d be a shame to just… idk delete it all, so one day i might finish them (or post the unfinished stuff depending on if i decide not to despise the fics that day)

i haven’t read rivetra fic in a while so i’ve been reading more recently when i’ve had time (on the way to school etc etc) to try and find more recs for you (which is another reason why this took forever.) i haven’t… actually… found any new ones but these are a couple that i read ages ago ~~

heartless | by sinemoras09

warnings: character death

dead reckoning | by Veto_power_over_clocks

warnings: character death

these two are mainly dealing with grief/character analysis but these two fics are ones that have stayed with me (tho the rivetra is probably more hinted at than anything else)

we flew too close to the sun | by cyndaquils

warnings: (mentioned) character death

reincarnation!au

this is a lot more lighthearted (esp compared with the first two)

i’m still reading around to find you more recs so sorry that this reply was kind of (really) useless ahaha ;;;

[jessdont]

iwaoi and forehead kisses  (　-̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥᷄◞ω◟-̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥̥᷅ )

[stringendos]

youknow that iwaoi fic that you wrote ? memorise every breath ? well I honest to god don't know why you don't have that much notes on it since it is one of the cutest fics I have ever read ~!

awww thats so cute I ;A;

im not too bothered by it tbh!! i’d be happy if one person even read it at all bc I get so embarrassed over things I write. (even if i try really hard on a fic, i still get so embarrassed if someone reads it.)

ah im rambling ;;;;;

also! its just a little drabble that I wrote and didnt put much effort into so its fine ahaha its not like its quality fic anyway so c:

but thank you !!! ♡

[kjunginger]

First half of the “extra prompts”—Mostly consisting of suckmylargeochinchin's and another anon's prompt of introducing baby!Furuya in the Parent AU as Tetsu's nephew!

I, of course, wouldn’t pass up the chance to add Furuya and complete my OT3!♥

I hope to finish the next half within the week or next weekend… And then I’d be back to working on the actual installments and have more of Ryou and Kuramochi, and of course Eijun and Haruichi!

More from this AU:

[1] | [2] | [3] | [x] | [5] | [6] | [more to come]

[stringendos]

ebb and flow

{free!} makoto!centric ; makoto/haru | wc; 3002

in which haru is a merboy and makoto… is not. (humans and merpeople were never supposed to mix.)

merman!au

Makoto drops his hat along the shore of Enoshima, on the third day of summer, when the sun still singes the sky and dips the ends of its rays into oceans. The late July skies that stretch over the small island are cloudless, with little speckles of seagulls caught in a small cocktail of rings, and fishing boats cut the streaks of blue with white and black and grey.

The hat was a present from his grandmother for his ninth birthday, handed to him on an afternoon in November after practice. His hair was still wet and his skin smelt of chlorine, a faint haze, as he thanked his grandmother with a grin and a warm hug. That birthday, like all the others before it, and the few that followed, was scorched with bright smiles and brighter laughter that filled the house. On the evening after his grandparents arrived in Iwatobi, his whole family had crowded around his birthday cake as the lights were turned off and the flames skittering across the cake flickered as small fireflies.

And on that birthday, like all the others before it, and the few that followed, Makoto had shut his eyes, counted to ten, and as the fireflies decayed, he wished for a best friend.

Makoto runs quickly across the plains of sand, chasing his hat and he yelps as the tide rushes towards him in jagged waves against his calves, cold and salty and shocking goosebumps across his skin. When the wind falls still, he pads over in the direction of his hat, sketching out light footprints into the sand. But as he reaches it, fingers outstretched and skimming across the cold, he finds the tide is high and his hat is being dragged away with it. It bobs along the surface of the waves, and when Makoto tries to fish it out, body weighed down with seawater, his sees fingers threaded through the material alongside bright blue eyes peeping at him through strands of dark hair.

This is when Tachibana Makoto meets Nanase Haruka.

-/-

The first thing Makoto learns about Haruka isn’t something that is painted out into the canvas with awkward introductions or stories of a memory too distant. It is something that is whispered between masses of water and trails of streamlined arms and strokes that cut through the oceans.

Haruka looks as if he is part of the ocean; looks like he was born to swim and when they fight the currents and move closer to the sand-

Makoto realises that he is.

-/-

The story of how a human boy meets a merboy; a merman, a mermaid; is something crafted out of a book of cheap fiction which was based on a typical fairytale of artificial smiles. And it is laced together with the happy endings that were fabricated by an author who tried to run away from reality and its bitter end.

Makoto has heard of those tall tales told at bedtimes under the glow of a nightlight; the tales of princes and princesses, knights in shining armour and the villains shielding their ugly faces and even uglier hearts. He’s heard them all, even hitting the point where he tells them too; hushed stories told to his younger siblings of dreams and wishes and the perfect happy ending.

He has heard all of these stories that run on naivety and true love and he knows that it’s all a lie.

There are no witches or wizards that grant wishes with sprinkles of stardust; no mermaids or talking cats that ride on the backs of broomsticks. There are no happily ever afters.

Makoto is too old to believe them now.

-/-

“I’m visiting my grandparents,” Makoto says, a week after their meeting.

The other boy widens his eyes, surprised at the answer that came before the question.

“Ah…” Makoto laughs a little awkwardly, scratching the back of his head. “I thought you were wondering why I’m here… seeing as I’m not from these parts…”

Haruka looks away. “No… you’re right. I…” he trails off.

Haruka doesn’t ask many questions through words. He asks them through his face, his arms; eyes flickering around Makoto’s face to his sand sprinkled legs. Makoto has an idea of the question chasing coattails in Haruka’s mind, but he doesn’t ask so Makoto doesn’t press.

“Don’t you go to school?” Haruka asks eventually, eyebrows only slightly furrowed.

“Of course I do! We’re the same age and all kids our ag-”

“I don’t.”

“Right… I forgot.” He smiles sheepishly. “Summer holiday,” Makoto continues quickly, slipping over the silence, as he ambles over to the rock pools and dips a finger into the water. He watches the ripples skitter across the surface. “For about a month between the end of July to the end of August.”

“So you’re going back after?”

The taller of the two nods. “A break for autumn, one for winter, then I graduate in March.”

Haruka sits silently and watches as Makoto reaches out for two rocks and straightens back up, leaving one hand outstretched in front of the other.

“Do you know how to skip stones, Haru-chan?”

Haruka can feel himself smiling as he shakes his head. “Teach me. And,” he pauses, fingers curling around one of the stones, “drop the -chan.”

-/-

Summer passes through in a steady stream of swimming under the burning sun scorched sky, laughter dug out of palms and Haruka, Haruka, Haruka.

Haruka and his wordless answers, his small smiles and the laughter that seeps into Makoto’s skin through the way Haruka speaks, moves; breathes.

Haruka is a boy of few words but when he swims, he tells Makoto stories of infinite with his arm pulling Makoto into the ocean, with the water that jumps into the boy’s mouth; salty and dry and full of sand that clogs his throat and mixes with laughter that ruptures in his chest.

Sometimes, Makoto thinks that Haruka looks just like any other boy that he has met, in school or in the swimming club. He looks at him, laughs with him and forgets that Haruka isn’t like any of his other friends. He forgets that Haruka is a boy who lives in the sea; breathes in water and breathes out swimming through the contours of his bones. That whilst men fear the depths of the oceans, the bottomless shades blues that fade into nothing and the pull of the currents that claw onto limbs and frantic shouts, Haruka fears the world beyond the sand. He fears the grass, the stretches of green and the roads; tarmac and fallen asphalt against the grooves of tires; and the buildings that crack the sky like lightning.

At all the other points, Makoto can’t help but feel the flames that crawl over his chest; can’t control the fire that flares to the tips of his fingers or the sparks that ignite in his irises whenever he sets his feet upon the sand and bounds over to where he knows that Haruka will be waiting for him. Makoto knows that Haruka is not like all the other kids. Makoto knows that it’s not only because Haruka is layered with coloured scales; he knows that it’s not because Haruka asks what it’s like to walk.

He knows that it’s because Haruka is the best friend that Makoto has always wanted, always needed; always begged to the skies that one day, he’d find someone who fills in all the quiet pauses with their laughter. Who speaks about hopes and dreams and shares the same love of the water. That one day his wish would be granted and he wouldn’t feel so alone.

It’s unfair, Makoto can’t help but think when he slings his bag over his shoulder and heads back towards his grandparents’ house. People beg for fame, money; liquid capital streaming into bank accounts and hard cash. They beg for love, for boys to sweep them off their feet, for girls to confess to them with shy smiles and honmei chocolate; for red threads to weave through their lives and bind them to their soulmates.

And sometimes, these wishes are granted.

These wishes are granted through bodies draped in stuffy business suits, commercial banks with cheques piled with stacked zeros and cliché shoujo manga.

He’s not asking for much. It’s only fair that he gets a best friend.

Even if they do come in forms of water and waves and a bright blue tail that sometimes catches the ridges of Makoto’s ribcage and slaps the backs of his knees.

-/-

The skies are shaded with charcoal greys; penciled outlines of clouds swallowing the sun’s escaped fireflies and their futile attempts to burst through the blankets. The weather forecast hadn’t predicted rain.

When Makoto habitually retraces his steps from all the previous days, he finds Haruka waist deep in water.

“It’s cold, Haru. You might get sick.”

Haruka doesn’t reply but he moves inaudibly, ducking underneath the streaks of blue and resurfaces, erupting speckles of water that gasp out patters onto Makoto’s leg.

And from their spot on the rocks and sand, they look at the sea together and watch the raindrops drum onto the surface of the ocean in a steady stream of diluted tears. Makoto can feel the lump forming in the back of his throat, rough and thick and so, so suffocating.

It’s stupid, this growing fear in the bottom of his stomach, the ache in his chest and Makoto knows. The year is split into 365 days, 12 months; four seasons. Seasons come and go. The days pass as the sun kisses the horizon too many times over. His whispers would be released on a day in autumn, underneath the rustle of reds and browns and laced with auburn; in winter, be breathed through the starbursts of snow, under frozen pavements and iced noses. They would wither under budding flowers through spring and die under summer’s burning heat.

The seconds stand still for no-one.

Eventually, the seconds, minutes and hours will collect and groan under the weight, leaving time to scab over the painful, bloody gauge that claws its way around Makoto’s throat.

Strangely enough, Makoto feels like crying.

"Makoto," Haruka whispers lightly, tracing the sand around the other boy’s hand with the tip of his finger; letting the wind catch the grains of sand and scatter them across the contours of their skin. "Are you oka-"

"I’m fine, Haru!" Makoto forces out, too happily and several beats too soon. He wonders why there is a huge lump forming in his throat, wringing his mouth dry. It’s hard to swallow.

Makoto wants to sling his arm over Haruka’s shoulder and rush head first while time stands frozen, seconds fossilised into minutes and minutes into hours.

They spend the rest of the afternoon in silence, eyes rarely leaving the raindrops pattering down in syncopated beats. It seeps in, bit by bit, one by one, as the rain does.

The slow fear that summer’s fireworks are fizzling out into autumn rain.

-/-

(Four months down the line, when sleep pulls him in as the tide pulls out, Makoto might convince himself that this is all a dream.

He might convince himself that he dreams of fading blue. Of blue charring into black and oceans circling him, stealing away his cries. Dreams where he’s surrounded by the ebb and flow of viscous waves that steal his yells and his calls.

But he promises that he won’t.

He promises that he won’t because when he plants his feet into the sand next to the other boy, when he laughs about swimming, and sunburn and Haruka’s love for mackerel, he knows that Haruka isn’t a dream. Haruka is far too bright to be a dream, far too real, far too vivid. The happiness that burns into the fibres of his bones is too real to be forgotten, too vivid to be mistaken, as a dream instead of a memory.

Haruka isn’t a dream. He’s more than a dream and there is a soft pulsing somewhere in the back of Makoto’s mind that laces together with the warm thrumming in his chest telling him that Haruka is so much more than that.

Nanase Haruka is so much more than anyone else that Makoto has ever met before.)

-/-

The story of how a human boy meets a merboy; a merman, a mermaid; is a lie crafted out of a book of cheap fiction which was based on a typical fairytale of artificial smiles. Of hearts handed to strangers on plates, the meaningless promises and the exchanged rings.

Instead, the true story is one of the friendship that was never really supposed to be.

They never really do tell you about the friendships that were forced to be abandoned. They never do tell you about the true bitter end.

-/-

They’re not allowed to take photographs; not allowed to let the shutter capture their faces, to let Makoto’s grin and Haruka’s look of indifference be plastered onto 135 negatives. They can’t have solid evidence to pass between hands that merpeople are real.

Haruka has somehow managed to make sure that Makoto knows where the line is, with his few stern looks and even fewer words and Makoto never presses too forcefully. On some days, Makoto fidgets with his fingers, hooking them around each other in a messy tangle and fights the words that try to force their way through his teeth. That summer is rushing through his skin, grazing his forearm and there will be nothing else to prove that Haruka had ever existed but the small hole in his hat and the pinky promise.

On all the other days, Makoto laughs through the silence with teasing jokes and complaints moulded into whines that he just wants to have a Haruka with a permanent smile.

It’s on an afternoon when the sky is split into two, a clear division marked out when dark cloud cover dampens the air just a little beyond the shoreline, leaving strikes of white and blue to fight against the wind when Haruka speaks up, his voice fighting the crash of the waves.

“The photo…”

“Hmm?”

Makoto tilts his head. Haruka bites his lip. The splash swallows his mumbles.

“The photo,” he repeats, ”take it if you want.”

“I thought you didn’t want photos,” Makoto replies, but he’s smiling; grinning ear to ear and he laughs into the air when his eyes fall upon Haruka’s red ears.

So Makoto fishes into his bag, stretches his left arm out in front of them, camera body balanced a little clumsily between his thumb and index and with his shoulder, nudges Haruka, who mumbles and looks down at the floor. His finger hovers over the shutter and,

“Promise me that you’ll smile, Haru-chan.”

“Drop the –chan.”

It starts to rain.

The photograph is one that Makoto is proud of, one that he keeps tucked into the eleventh volume of Slam Dunk. One that catches the start of the cloudburst; where the light catches the contours of their faces and shadows weave across their arms and legs and pull their bodies shoulder to shoulder. Water trickles along their temples and glisten in the strands of their hair and Haruka’s smile is soft around the edges and his eyes are laced with the same bliss that he has when he is swimming.

And on the back, in the bottom right hand corner, Makoto writes a string of letters underneath in controlled print.

Tachibana Makoto. Nanase Haruka.

Best friends.

He leaves it undated and instead, writes one word on the corner. Summer.

He doesn’t need a date. Haruka had laughed so softly, face a little shy, kissed with a gentle pink and had tried to swallow his smile when he caught Makoto looking for a second longer than usual.

He wouldn’t have been able to forget that day, even if he tried.

-/-

The sun dips low, far past the thin string of clouds, and sits in between the boundary where the sky and sea meet. The end of summer is coming thick and fast, running towards Makoto too suddenly, too quickly, clipping the days short as the sunlight fades into watery streams of sudden thunderclaps. August is being erased away while September is pulled into focus.

Makoto sits on the shoreline, watching as the tide pulls out and rushes in under his skin in a repeated murmur. The water is cold. Summer is washing away.

"School starts soon," Makoto starts off quietly, drawing little circles in the sand. "I’m going back home tomorrow, Haru."

"Yeah."

Makoto swallows thickly as seawater filters through the sand and pools in the circles etched out by the tip of his finger. The skin on his index is caked with a thick layer of sand, messy and rough against his pores.

I don’t know if I’ll see you again, Makoto doesn’t say. He’s sure that Haruka can hear it. He knows that they’re both ignoring it in a numb throb in the back of their minds, that they are both still latching onto the idea of forever; that naive belief that they can still be friends and they’ll swim around till the sun dips into the ocean alongside them.

Makoto doesn’t promise that he’ll be back

It’s a simple solution to come back every summer. But it never works out like that. Once summer comes and goes, there won’t ever be a summer similar to that again. Just a fond memory imprinted into minds.

There are no goodbyes to grace Makoto’s tongue. There are no good nights, no farewells, no ends of a fleeting dream to etch into eardrums.

Just-

"See you, Haru,” Makoto pauses, swallowing thickly and bites down onto his bottom lip to stop it from quivering, “chan!"

"Drop the -chan,” Haruka replies without missing a beat, but Makoto knows that he’s smiling, ever so softly. “Yeah. See you, Makoto."

And a string of whispers carved into hearts of knowing that nothing lasts forever.

[stringendos]

unconfident

{daiya no ace} haruichi!centric | wc; 384

in which haruichi needs to be a little more confident

note: old drabbles - purely for archiving purposes

It’s embarrassing, to say the least, when Haruichi stands over the plate, under the smouldering sun and the equally smouldering gazes.

For the most part, he is an unknown player; reserved to be pulled out as a pinch hitter; reserved as a hidden player in the first string team. Hidden as one of the secret weapons. The joker in the selection of cards spread out in a fan against the coach’s hand.

He’s too small, too weak, under their scrutiny. His small body appears to be too frail to pull a home run or even hit the ball at the pinpoint precision that he does, with all the power that he does have.

At the other, rarer points on the line, Haruichi is a force to be reckoned with; and he is recognised as such by unfortunate schools that were caught off guard by him. Him and his shy smile, but boisterous playing style. His name is being scribbled down into data books, thick lines connecting him with Kominato Ryosuke. A bolded sentence underneath ‘1st year’ and another under ‘potential cleanups’ connected to ‘future lineups.’

It’s embarrassing to be under so much scrutiny. It’s embarrassing that he is being analysed, on his body, his plays; the way the balls he hits breeze through the infielders. His height and weight and flexibility are all being weighted down onto his name.

In a way, he can deal with the numerous inspections; the heavy stares that burn onto the strands of his hair; onto the jersey number gracing the wings on his back. What is, however, too embarrassing to mention; too embarrassing to even think about for one minute, one second, is when he is praised by his fellow ichinen students; praised by his senpai; with their arms slung over his shoulders and hands ruffling his hair. His face flares up into bonfires of sunkissed cheeks and scalding blushes, the blood rushing to the surface of his skin.

Haruichi has never been good at taking compliments.

And, he thinks, when his brother pulls him into a tight hug, pushing his shoulders down to rest his chin on the top of Haruichi’s head and he mumbles over and over, words rolling off the top of his tongue-

“I’m so proud of you, otouto.”

He never will be.

[stringendos]

unspoken

{daiya no ace} ryosuke!centric ; brotp!ryosuke/haruichi | wc; 1103

in which ryosuke leaves many things unsaid but, even without words, haruichi still understands

old drabbles - purely for archiving purposes

There are so many things that Ryosuke can’t say.

The first is that he is sorry.

He's sorry for being so distant, for pushing Haruichi away; for marking out a clear division inked into the earth with the head of a paintbrush. He's sorry for not always being the aniki that Haruichi has always needed, has always wanted and has always deserved. He's sorry for forcing them through that; through those strained years of silence. That he forced a barrier between them just because he is an idiot; he is an idiot who lets his mind run on selfish decisions, just because he is incapable of letting go.

There is this dull feeling in the pit of his chest that he can't ignore; this dull feeling that is always reminding him that it's just because he's selfish sometimes; painfully so; when it comes to baseball because it's the team game that they both grew up with, together as kids. His childhood years are etched out with memories involving the sport; of memories that revolve around the sun on his back and a ball clasped in his gloved hand, with his fingernails caked in a powdered layer of dust. Something swells in his chest whenever he allows his mind to think about those years.

Baseball means almost everything to him. Almost.

The second is that he misses Haruichi.

He misses his little brother, misses running laps around the ballpark, with the sun washing down onto the surface of their skin; heads lifted up towards the clouds and the soles of their feet light against the dusty soil as Ryosuke chases Haruichi into the bullpen; their innocent hearts worn on sleeves, unbattered and unharmed; laughter burning loud in their ears. He misses them as they were as kids; when competition was nothing. The friendly competition between them was nothing, Koushien was nothing. They knew it as nothing but the dream of their senpai, those living in their neighbourhood, who came home from practice, long after the sun had kissed the horizon, with their bats resting on their shoulders, or their gloves thrown into bike baskets. They watched Koushien through wide eyes, watching as their senpai collapsed onto the field, heads in their hands and bodies hunched over. Heads hung low to hide their tears as they, like all their beaten opponents before them, faced heartbreak for falling short on winning.

There is a fine line between victory and defeat; a fine line between happiness and heartbreak.

Koushien was nothing but a distant dream passed down to them from their senpai and it was translated into entwined pinky fingers that solidified their promise. The promise to keep on growing and to keep on reaching for that dream, on behalf of their senpai who looked as if they had lost the world.

The third (and the most important) is that he's proud of him.

Ryosuke is proud of Haruichi, so so proud of Haruichi, and he believes in him. Of course he believes in him. He believes that he’ll go far, so far; running headfirst into dreams and wishes and soaring into victory. After all, when Haruichi is on the field, he does things that Ryosuke can’t even begin to think of doing.

And when Ryosuke is sitting in the dugout, feet fidgeting and fingers restless, watching as Haruichi, his little brother, the team's 2nd baseman; bows to the catcher of the opposing team before stepping next to the home plate, spikes of his shoes spreading his weight evenly over the dust; he can’t help but smile.

He can't help the warm feeling that swells in his chest, a lump forms in his throat, thick. dry and sore, and he wants to shout to him, “otoutou! We’re counting on you!”

He wants him to know. He needs him to know.

The words never do come.

But when Haruichi looks back over his shoulder towards the dugout, he beams, left fist thrown into the air as he balances the wooden bat in his right.

And in that moment, for just one minute, one second, Ryosuke can see that naive, little boy from all those years ago. The boy with the tear stained cheeks and the cry for help asking why Koushien was snatched away from the tips of their senpai's fingers and who silently sat next to Ryosuke, eyes begging to the skies that they would have their chance. The chance at a dream that looked so far away. He can still see the look in his eyes, the one that held onto and still holds onto the dream of their senpai.

He looks as if he belongs there, out there on the field, eyes grazing over the loaded bases, fingers gripped so naturally around the bat. Eyes staring scorch marks into the pitcher’s.

And when Haruichi steps out, swings, air rushing across the surfaces of the wood, through the crevices, through the space in front of him, through his lungs in a rush of adrenaline; the bat swings, pinpointed accuracy against the ball, causing it to rebound off and propel over the fence of the ballpark; the rush of the ball a swift shot of liquid grace past the outfielders. Haruichi hits a homerun collecting together 4 RBIs and Ryosuke doesn't think that he's ever been prouder.

Haruichi skims past first, second, third as if he’s flying; wings gracing his back, and skids across the home base and the crowd erupt in earsplitting cheers.

“Otoutou!” Ryosuke yells out, or maybe he whispers it, maybe he cries out under the pain of suppressed feelings weighed down on his heart. He can’t help but smile as the younger boy is being swept into bone breaking hugs and pats on his head.

“Aniki,” Haruichi breathes out, face burning and breath still a little shaky, still running on the thrill.

And when Haruichi propels himself into Ryosuke’s open arms, no long worried about the boundaries; no longer worried about their distance, with his hands clinging onto the shirt of his jersey, Ryosuke knows that it’s okay. He knows that he doesn’t need to waste words; with meaningless syllables falling between his lips as he attempts to sculpt what his heart breathes out, what his lungs beg to say to Haruichi, into simple mutters. Words are unnecessary between them, they always have been, ever since they have had the same thoughts running through their minds; that same pain that thrums in their eardrums and courses through their veins; that same dream burnt into their hearts.

There are so many things that Ryosuke does not say.

And that is okay because-

Haruichi understands.