So I went a little overboard on the "disappearing muse" prompt...
...My muse disappears and was announced dead, after a few months. But, five years later, they appear on your doorstep. What's your reaction?
[[Apparently I'm still learning to tumblr and wrote waaay too much for an ask box rp. I figured it'd be a waste to delete what I've got, so I put it here. I'm just going to go ahead and make this open to whichever Harukas feel interested XD;]]
They say time heals all wounds, but five years later, summer still carried with it an overwhelming despondence. Haruka was last seen standing alone by the seaside, in the middle of a school night. Days upon days passed after that and he never returned. The police organized search teams to scour the neighborhood and fishing vessels scanned the ocean to no avail. Pleas of return from the swim club and Haruka’s desperate parents went unanswered and after seven long months, the search was called off and Haruka was presumed dead. Makoto was one of the first to receive the news when his parents made the announcement official.
After all was said and done, the world carried on, but much differently for those Haruka knew. For Makoto, if he had kept swimming, he surely would have been able to make it into Tokyo University on a swimming scholarship, but after Haruka passed, he lacked both the courage and the will to continue competing. Instead, he took his fondness for animals and invested himself in a zoology degree, and had plans to start veterinary school in two years.
Now he spent his summers volunteering at a local animal hospital and tutoring the twins. They, too, were heartbroken to hear of Haruka’s disappearance; after all, they’d known him for all of their short lives. They had adjusted well, though, perhaps because they were younger, and had turned into bright junior-high students.
Said twins were currently out shopping for school supplies with his mother, so the house was empty when Makoto got home. Kicking off his shoes, he drifted through the lonely house to his bedroom and was just about to lie down when he heard a distant knocking. He half expected it to be a neighbor or a friend of his mother’s, but he answered the door anyway, and his heart stopped in his chest when he saw his visitor.
Makoto’s body froze as he stared wide-eyed at the boy on his doorstep. His raven hair and sea-colored eyes dug deep into his memories, pulling together all the pieces of someone impossibly familiar. Confusion gripped him and he couldn’t tear his eyes away from that face. I must be hallucinating… He thought as he felt his breath come quick and shallow. He remembered the endless wandering of streets and parks, pleading with police, nights of comforting Haruka’s forlorn parents and his mother solemnly pulling him aside when the bad news finally broke. It couldn’t be…
A second of hesitance was too long after five years. If this man turned out to be a stranger, he’d just have to forgive him, but that wouldn’t happen—couldn’t happen. This was Haru. This had to be Haru, he could tell in the way he held himself, the way his eyes shone…Even after all this time, here he shows up looking so stoic when Makoto can feel himself fraying at the edges.
“Haru!” Reaching out for him, he pulled him into a crushing embrace and put a hand on the back of Haru’s head to press him into the crook of his neck. His mind reeled as he wondered what the hell happened, but couldn’t ask yet for the sound of his own voice repeating like a watery broken record-Haru-Haru-Haru. Wait.
Breaking away from him with a hiss, he pushed Haruka back to hold him at arm’s length and shook him hard. “What’s wrong with you, Haru?!” How he could just show up like this, like he’d only been gone a day? On the one hand, he couldn’t give a damn how he appeared as long as he was alive, but on the other, he was livid. His face was red and his eyes were watery as he scowled at his long-lost friend. He surprised himself with his sudden roughness, but he really couldn’t be sorry, not after five years. “Where the hell have you been?!“
