[which is to say: no. but then, haru never asked so that's really not very helpful. he probably should have, in all honesty. and now they're down two familiar faces with growing disquiet about the 'reality' around them. one would think it'd have been as such from the get-go but no. having even a little of home to go on has been enough to keep the buffers in place. even now What He Knows works as a filter -- a distance. even looking for the familiar works. at least, for now.]
[ and an interim of five minutes ensues when he connects the dots. the implication that he might've missed something necessary. vital, somehow, in the fleeting conversations he'd held with kisumi that he should've paid attention to when he had the chance.
but rin is gone. kisumi's disappeared.
and they really are the only two left, in the end. ]
did kisumi ever mention anything about regionals to you anything at all
[haru's response this time takes longer than even five minutes; he doesn't especially want to reply to this one at all in fact, but it seems counterproductive to ignore the one other person remaining who he knows. and besides, it's makoto.
inevitably his answer comes in fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes wherein haru has gone by the gym again. but the guy shooting hoops isn't remotely kisumi, isn't remotely anyone haru recognizes period; and the pool is abysmally empty. when he texts his monosyllabic response, it's outside as he tugs at his scarf and exhales a small cloud of something like retreat and annoyance all in one.]
[ it's not like makoto's averted his attention that whole duration. in contrast, he's been deliberating in silence en route to yet another district (as if there's anything else he'd preoccupy his mind with, given half an option and enough reason to pursue what he's been running from, all this time).
it's hard admitting that much: how much he doesn't know, how everyone seems just beyond the span of his reach. this isn't someone they should be discussing so trivially. he needs to see haru, even distant and detached and retreating even as he answers.
but makoto, as always, succumbs to the selfsame compulsions. ]
[as far as he can tell, that's true, and he doesn't want to think about it or talk about regionals or nationals -- things that have happened, things that will happen or won't now if they are to believe what they've been told over and over. the world they knew is gone has gone will be always gone and with it many people they knew and cared for. lack of aspiration aside, home was still iwatobi. is. but makoto asks about the things haru was tangled up in before coming here and haru does what he did at that moment under glaring lights and graveled whispers of strangers, faceless and dangerous:
touches to the ground, and freezes.
if makoto feels distance while reaching out, haru is maybe that distance, amorphous to a fault, sometimes closer, and sometimes slipping right through one's fingers.
water incarnate. a shapechanger.
container, depending.
even as he feels the weird tension and strain of something like Upset in his jaw, in his temples, he doesn't want to respond to makoto like this...]
you're right. I'm asking this for myself but I'm asking this for you, too
[ his breath slows, fixated at one point.
if he's transfixed, it's only because now — at the crux of straining nerves and tension scribbled into his knotted fingers — that he fears with an intensity that could very well kill him. words scabbed over in fluent dispassion: an honest lie. deceit growing truer edges. and maybe that in itself is too impersonal, because he would give up the world for the safety of his friends, again and again, never learning better from it. his mouth thins as he drops his head.
makoto can realize uselessness even in himself, but he keeps pressing on like he can't comprehend limits beyond exponential decay. avowals bleeding open in a serrated fistful of good intentions. ]
can you tell me?
[ please, haru. i know it's selfish, but i want to understand, too.
[he isn't sure what that means. between the two of them, the one who has always been in the damnedest pursuit of the future is unquestionably rin. will probably always be rin assuming rin is even around anymore and that's the problem. the question -- the fact that it has even become the form of inquiry without answer. kisumi. rin. everyone else they know.
gone?
i'm asking this for you too makoto says and haru gets it.
he does.
but his own replies are honest too.
where he wanders now, he tugs more at his scarf and it unravels so long that it threatens to brush the backs of his knees, barely hanging onto a snag in his jacket. his chest hurts, feels heavy and sharp and smoked out again and again. he doesn't want this. any of this.
there aren't any real answers, it seems, to give.]
[ even if resignation is migratory, all too prone to faltering in the face of opportunity, he could see it on rin's face too. self-confidence, clear and bright — some kind of acceptance none of them had been capable of attaining in their lifetime, not when he'd never had a single fight with haru, when he'd avoided talking about home and the possibility that things would never return to the way they'd been before.
more than familial ties — more than gou and rei and nagisa, their teachers and their friends, all synonymous with omission.
all this time passes and makoto still finds himself entrenched in the habit of asking questions he already knows the answers to.
so: life in death. his oversight is its own acknowledgement. all the same, makoto ventures forward, making inquiries out of his trepidation. ]
are you happy? with what happened back home before all of this
[in the moment, the moment's end. in the end, the moment. either way, haru's answer is a non-answer. blame it on years of doing whatever he wanted, beholden to no one except the smallness of the town and the world protected within that. is he happy? an uncharacteristic tension feels like lashing out in him, whipcord smart and hard and full of other sharp misguided sentiments. not inclined towards things like fear or over-meditation on what he has no control over, the issue becomes not how to solve but what.
/are you happy?/
no, he thinks.
rin's voice seems far away and right in his ear when he thinks back to the locker room. his team seems far, far off.
okay, we'll meet up in the afternoon, just like we planned. let me know if anything comes up and i'll head your way as soon as I can
[ the avoidance stings.
on a conscious level, he knows better, but subconsciously he can't stand staring at the cerevice any longer, plagued with an exasperation that seeps fast into his bones, in the semantics of his fingers as he weighs the potential for his exasperation to go on indefinitely. he's patient, but he can't be forever. he isn't rin or kisumi — he can't make haru alight by force, can't make him do anything he would've done already, given enough time to make the choice of his own volition.
his chance to ask kisumi and rin what they saw has come and passed. likewise, haru's closed up just the same. a refusal of the same things.
just like that, makoto folds in surrender. ]
stay safe, haru.
[ in retrospect, turning off the device and heading off the subway train evokes a damning sense of finality.
but in some way, he's relieved.
makoto would rather ask him for the plain, unvarnished truth in person. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
text
kisumi is pink
what else?
text
maybe their habits?
it should make it easier for even strangers to identify them
text
basketball
usually together?
[ sparkling... ]
text
not the swimming and basketball
text
I think it'd be good to mention in passing
did kisumi tell you anything before he disappeared?
text
[which is to say: no. but then, haru never asked so that's really not very helpful. he probably should have, in all honesty. and now they're down two familiar faces with growing disquiet about the 'reality' around them. one would think it'd have been as such from the get-go but no. having even a little of home to go on has been enough to keep the buffers in place. even now What He Knows works as a filter -- a distance. even looking for the familiar works. at least, for now.]
text
[ and an interim of five minutes ensues when he connects the dots. the implication that he might've missed something necessary. vital, somehow, in the fleeting conversations he'd held with kisumi that he should've paid attention to when he had the chance.
but rin is gone. kisumi's disappeared.
and they really are the only two left, in the end. ]
did kisumi ever mention anything about regionals to you
anything at all
text
inevitably his answer comes in fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes wherein haru has gone by the gym again. but the guy shooting hoops isn't remotely kisumi, isn't remotely anyone haru recognizes period; and the pool is abysmally empty. when he texts his monosyllabic response, it's outside as he tugs at his scarf and exhales a small cloud of something like retreat and annoyance all in one.]
no
text
it's hard admitting that much: how much he doesn't know, how everyone seems just beyond the span of his reach. this isn't someone they should be discussing so trivially. he needs to see haru, even distant and detached and retreating even as he answers.
but makoto, as always, succumbs to the selfsame compulsions. ]
nationals, then
do you know anything about it?
text
[as far as he can tell, that's true, and he doesn't want to think about it or talk about regionals or nationals -- things that have happened, things that will happen or won't now if they are to believe what they've been told over and over. the world they knew is gone has gone will be always gone and with it many people they knew and cared for. lack of aspiration aside, home was still iwatobi. is. but makoto asks about the things haru was tangled up in before coming here and haru does what he did at that moment under glaring lights and graveled whispers of strangers, faceless and dangerous:
touches to the ground, and freezes.
if makoto feels distance while reaching out, haru is maybe that distance, amorphous to a fault, sometimes closer, and sometimes slipping right through one's fingers.
water incarnate. a shapechanger.
container, depending.
even as he feels the weird tension and strain of something like Upset in his jaw, in his temples, he doesn't want to respond to makoto like this...]
text
but I'm asking this for you, too
[ his breath slows, fixated at one point.
if he's transfixed, it's only because now — at the crux of straining nerves and tension scribbled into his knotted fingers — that he fears with an intensity that could very well kill him. words scabbed over in fluent dispassion: an honest lie. deceit growing truer edges. and maybe that in itself is too impersonal, because he would give up the world for the safety of his friends, again and again, never learning better from it. his mouth thins as he drops his head.
makoto can realize uselessness even in himself, but he keeps pressing on like he can't comprehend limits beyond exponential decay. avowals bleeding open in a serrated fistful of good intentions. ]
can you tell me?
[ please, haru. i know it's selfish, but i want to understand, too.
that sentiment goes unwritten. ]
text
we didn't talk.
but rin seemed happier.
[he isn't sure what that means. between the two of them, the one who has always been in the damnedest pursuit of the future is unquestionably rin. will probably always be rin assuming rin is even around anymore and that's the problem. the question -- the fact that it has even become the form of inquiry without answer. kisumi. rin. everyone else they know.
gone?
i'm asking this for you too makoto says and haru gets it.
he does.
but his own replies are honest too.
where he wanders now, he tugs more at his scarf and it unravels so long that it threatens to brush the backs of his knees, barely hanging onto a snag in his jacket. his chest hurts, feels heavy and sharp and smoked out again and again. he doesn't want this. any of this.
there aren't any real answers, it seems, to give.]
text
[ even if resignation is migratory, all too prone to faltering in the face of opportunity, he could see it on rin's face too. self-confidence, clear and bright — some kind of acceptance none of them had been capable of attaining in their lifetime, not when he'd never had a single fight with haru, when he'd avoided talking about home and the possibility that things would never return to the way they'd been before.
more than familial ties — more than gou and rei and nagisa, their teachers and their friends, all synonymous with omission.
all this time passes and makoto still finds himself entrenched in the habit of asking questions he already knows the answers to.
so: life in death. his oversight is its own acknowledgement. all the same, makoto ventures forward, making inquiries out of his trepidation. ]
are you happy?
with what happened back home before all of this
text
[in the moment, the moment's end. in the end, the moment. either way, haru's answer is a non-answer. blame it on years of doing whatever he wanted, beholden to no one except the smallness of the town and the world protected within that. is he happy? an uncharacteristic tension feels like lashing out in him, whipcord smart and hard and full of other sharp misguided sentiments. not inclined towards things like fear or over-meditation on what he has no control over, the issue becomes not how to solve but what.
/are you happy?/
no, he thinks.
rin's voice seems far away and right in his ear when he thinks back to the locker room. his team seems far, far off.
haru himself doesn't know what he is.
but he won't answer that question.]
text
let me know if anything comes up and i'll head your way as soon as I can
[ the avoidance stings.
on a conscious level, he knows better, but subconsciously he can't stand staring at the cerevice any longer, plagued with an exasperation that seeps fast into his bones, in the semantics of his fingers as he weighs the potential for his exasperation to go on indefinitely. he's patient, but he can't be forever. he isn't rin or kisumi — he can't make haru alight by force, can't make him do anything he would've done already, given enough time to make the choice of his own volition.
his chance to ask kisumi and rin what they saw has come and passed. likewise, haru's closed up just the same. a refusal of the same things.
just like that, makoto folds in surrender. ]
stay safe, haru.
[ in retrospect, turning off the device and heading off the subway train evokes a damning sense of finality.
but in some way, he's relieved.
makoto would rather ask him for the plain, unvarnished truth in person. ]