Young Love || Closed RP
Makoto is ten years old. His best friends are Haru and Nagisa, and he likes cats and swimming— breaststroke usually, although his backstroke has been improving over the past few weeks— and books and lots of other things that would compile a list that would take forever to articulate. He’s in fifth grade at Iwatobi Elementary School— he likes it, his teachers are nice and he always gets to sit beside Haru— and he wants to get a cat more than anything in the world. But his father is allergic, so that evidently dampens that particular dream. But he understands, there are plenty of neighborhood cats that he can play with, anyway. He has two little siblings, Ren and Ran— he helped pick out the names, in fact— and everything about them is tiny. They were born a little over a year ago, and they’re learning to walk and talk, and he never thought such a thing would be so exciting, and yet it is.
Their swim coach brings up the upcoming competition. Makoto signs up for the 100 metre breaststroke and the 100 metre backstroke— he’s never raced backstroke in a competition before, he realizes with a flutter of excitement in the pit of his stomach— and then their coach brings up the relay. He brushes it off, the only people he’d want to swim a relay with are Haru and Nagisa, and they’d still be one person short. There’s another group on their team that seems quite excited about it, anyway.
The kids in his year talk about crushes. He doesn’t quite understand it at first, because he hasn’t felt anything like that before. He doesn’t think too much of it though, he has Haru and Nagisa, who needs crushes?
Makoto is eleven years old. His best friends are still Haru and Nagisa, he still likes cats and swimming— although he now thinks he prefers backstroke— and many other things. He’s in sixth grade at Iwatobi Elementary School— he thinks he likes it this year even more than he did last year— Ren and Ran are getting bigger and he’s immensely proud of how well they can walk and talk now, because he helped them. His mother thanks him for being so helpful with them, but Makoto couldn’t imagine not showing them how to do things, he can’t imagine not helping them see the world.
It’s about halfway through the school year when the teacher introduces a new student to their class. Matsuoka Rin, that’s how she introduces him, and Makoto’s eyes widen a bit. A feminine name, but he’s very evidently a he— as he enthusiastically explains with laughter laced in his voice— just like him and Haru and Nagisa— and that interests Makoto. They haven’t even met, and they already have something in common. That brings a smile to his face.
He feels subtle heat in his chest the longer he looks at the boy— at Rin— and he’s not quite sure why, he hasn’t even spoken a word to him, but he wants to get to know the boy with a girly name and hair like fire.
After the introduction, Makoto is surprised to see Rin at swim practice only a few days later. The heat grows in his chest when he realizes that they have yet another thing in common, they both like to swim. He learns more and more about Rin in the hour and a half of their practice. He swims butterfly— butterfly, Makoto thinks, the hardest stroke, of course he swims butterfly— as well as freestyle, and that Rin is just as energetic and cheery in the pool as he is out of it. But it’s not the same cheeriness as Nagisa, mind you, Rin seems to get everyone riled up, whether it be his unfamiliarity or his friendly competitiveness, Makoto isn’t sure, but he knows that he wants to race Rin.
Makoto is twelve. It’s been about a year since Rin came into his life. He tossed everything up into a whirlwind, sending everything that Makoto thought he knew up in the air. He brings out a streak of competitiveness in Haru that he has never seen before. Their races are one of Makoto’s favourite things to watch. There was a brief time of jealousy on Makoto’s part, thinking that he was trying to steal Haru away from him. But it ended up being a misunderstanding, and everything was resolved when Makoto brought it up one day after practice.
Rin is his friend now. In fact, this past season they swam the relay together; him Rin, Haru, and Nagisa— and they won— and he has never felt such a strong sense of belonging, of being part of a team before. He loves it, swimming with his friends like this. Rin has quickly become part of his life, one of his closest friends. He’s thankful for Rin, just like he’s thankful for Haru and Nagisa.
Although lately, that hasn’t been completely true.
Lately, he and Rin have been spending more and more time together, just the two of them, and Makoto has found out that the boy with hair like a fire has a soul to match— warming Makoto’s soul with his words, with his smiles, with his existence. His gratitude toward Rin changes as his feelings for Rin change. Into what, he’s not completely sure, all he knows is that now he wants to be close to Rin as often as he possibly can— he subconsciously proves that thought true as he shuffles closer to Rin once again, their thighs brushing this time, and Makoto suddenly feels much too warm to focus on the film that is playing right in front of them. He doesn’t know what his feelings are anymore, he can feel a blush creeping up his cheeks from that little bit of physical contact, he wants to hide it, he wants to look at Rin to see if by any chance he’s blushing too, he wants to bury his face into Rin’s hair and inhale his scent until it makes him dizzy—
He doesn’t know what he wants.
He wants to tell Rin how he feels, but how is he supposed to do that if he doesn’t know himself?
