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Nagisa
It’s been a long day. One of the longest he’s had in years. And somehow he still has hours and hours left of it. The math of the day just isn’t adding up but he honestly can’t be bothered to figure out just how the last two hours have actually managed to last approximately fifteen years. Or maybe it’s the last fifteen years that have actually lasted two hours. He’s not even sure which way it should go.
Not much makes sense today.
He’s pressing his fingertips against his eyes, glasses abandoned on the table about twenty minutes past half a year ago, when he hears soft footsteps padding down the hallway towards him.
“Oh, Rei-chan,” Nagisa breathes out.
Then there’s cool fingers running through his hair and a warm body settling into his lap and the smell of Nagisa’s apple scented body wash filling the air between them and it really says something about his day that he doesn’t even attempt to flail, flounder, or protest Nagisa invading his space in any way, shape, or form.
He tips his head forward, nose resting against Nagisa’s collarbone, and wraps his arms around Nagisa’s waist.
Sometime between a half hour and nine years later he relaxes with a shuddering breath and Nagisa hums softly.
“Next time call me before it gets this bad,” Nagisa murmurs.
Rei nods in agreement even though they both know he’s far too stubborn and sometime in the next seventy-whatever month-hours Nagisa will pad down the hallway and spot Rei bent over the table, too tired to function anything remotely close to properly. But that’s okay. Because when he does Nagisa will pull him apart so gently and help put him back together with gentle fingers and bright smiles.
Rin
“Hey.” A warm body drops into the booth next to him.
“Hello, Rin,” he replies politely.
“What’s eating you?”
He glances over and meets Rin’s curious gaze for only a moment before he goes back to staring blankly at the menu sitting on the table in front of him.
“Nothing.”
Rin scoffs. “Forgive me if I don’t believe that,” he says. He snatches the menu and grumbles about the ridiculous prices and the silly names and other stuff that Rei barely listens to. He listens to the rise and fall of Rin’s voice. He catches the easy shrugs and hand gestures as he rambles. He feels the way Rin leans against him to half-whisper something to him and then just never quite sits all the way back up.
He simply exists for a little while and lets Rin pull him along in his wake.
By the time the others join him he feels less untethered, less ready to float away at a moment’s notice, and he presses his shoulder against Rin’s in silent thanks. Rin grins a ‘you’re welcome’ in return.
Makoto
Sometimes he just gets so incredibly, unreasonably, unfairly cold. When it’s the middle of winter and there’s snow on the ground he can understand it. But in the tail end of summer when the sun is high in the sky and the ground itself seems to throw off heat it’s a little ridiculous.
But ridiculous or not here he is, sitting on the beach and watching his friends chase each other around and laugh and have fun while he sits in the sun and shivers.
A shadow looms over him and Rei leans his head back. Makoto smiles down at him and gestures to the ground next to him.
“May I?” Rei nods with a slight smile of his own. Leave it to Makoto to ask permission before sitting next to him on the beach when they had been squished together in Sousuke’s frightening excuse for a vehicle less than an hour ago.
They sit shoulder to shoulder and watch as Rin and Momo attempt to pull Haru under the water while Gou and Seijuurou egg them on. He’s not entirely sure where Ai and Nagisa have gotten off to but the last he saw of them they had their heads bent together, laughing as they clearly planned something.
A shudder runs through him and he huffs in irritation.
“You know,” Makoto says suddenly. “It still takes me awhile sometimes.” Rei makes a questioning noise. “To get in the water. To be comfortable enough to remember that especially with everyone else here I’m safe.”
“It’s not really that,” Rei says. “I just get so cold sometimes.”
Makoto shrugs. “The water isn’t the only thing they keep me safe from,” he says as Haru dramatically pops up in the water, sending Rin and Momo swimming away from him as fast as possible.
Rei scoots a little bit closer until Makoto laughs and wraps his arm around Rei’s shoulder, pulling him tight against his side and Rei sinks into the warmth and refuses to move even when Rin stumbles up to them a few minutes later and flops across them, soaking them both.
Gou
“For someone so smart,” Gou says as she tucks the blankets up around his shoulders, “you’re pretty stupid sometimes.”
Rei does his best to pout at her. Not that it really does much. He doesn’t have Nagisa or Ai’s puppy dog eyes and even if he did he’s pretty sure Gou wouldn’t be swayed by them.
“Not like I was trying to catch Haru’s cold,” he mumbles. At least that’s what he tries to say. He’s not sure how much of it comes out the way it’s supposed to. The fond look Gou gives him really doesn’t help him figure out if the words all came out in the right order or not.
His everything hurts.
“You’re lucky you’re adorable. And my mom loves you so she sent over soup and gave me a list of stuff to buy for you. Even though I’m pretty sure by now I know how to handle a stupid boy getting a stupid cold.”
“I am lucky,” he rasps out.
Gou smiles and brushes some of his sweaty hair from his clammy forehead.
“Yeah. But I suppose we’re lucky to have someone like you too. So we’re all pretty even in the end.”
Sousuke
Logically he knows that he’s lucky they caught it this soon. That he’s here mostly for prevention and not for rehab. It still doesn’t stop his hands from shaking ever so much as he makes his way into the clinic for his third appointment for his shoulder.
“Rei?” Somehow the thought never occurred to him that this might be the same clinic that Sousuke visits for his own shoulder.
His hands shake even more and he curls his fingers until they’re clenched fists hanging at his sides. He tenses his jaw and refuses to let himself give in to the tears that suddenly try to overwhelm him.
Sousuke glances over his shoulder. “Hey Ayame,” he calls out. “Ryuugazaki is here for his appointment but we’re gonna go for a quick walk beforehand okay?”
He doesn’t look at the receptionist, a lady who has the kindest eyes Rei has ever seen in his life, doesn’t listen to whatever she says to Sousuke in reply. He just lets Sousuke settle his hand in the middle of Rei’s shoulders and guide him carefully outside.
“I get it,” Sousuke says eventually. They’re about three blocks from the clinic and Sousuke’s hand is warm where it’s still resting between Rei’s shoulder blades. “It’s a lot and it’s kinda frightening. Especially since we’re, you know, not creaky old men. We’ve still got a lot ahead of us. People like you and me we’ve gotta be careful.”
He could be talking about their shoulders. But Rei is pretty sure Sousuke is talking about something far more internal. Something far easier to bust and something that is much, much harder to repair when it does. He nods and takes one last deep breath before they turn and head back to the clinic.
He’s not even remotely surprised when Sousuke is sprawled in the waiting room flipping through a magazine when Rei finally finishes his appointment.
Momotarou
Some days you just can’t win. His bag strap broke this morning. He stepped in a puddle less than five minutes after leaving. He dropped his glasses and scratched the lenses. He forgot his lunch on the counter and he’s pretty sure his stomach is trying to eat itself even though it is physically impossible to do so. And now he’s sitting up with a wince and glaring down at the rather impressive scrape he now has on his arm. Because of course his shoes came untied without him noticing until he literally tipped over his own feet.
A hand appears in front of his face and he tilts his head up until he sees a familiar face.
“Come on,” Momotarou says with a friendly smile. “My place is just a few blocks away. We’ll get you cleaned up.”
He can do it himself. His own place is only a few blocks in the other direction. But he lets Momotarou pull him up by his uninjured hand and tug him down the block and lead him to his apartment and push him into the bathroom. The first aid kit Momotarou pulls out is extremely well stocked and Momotarou laughs when he sees the look on Rei’s face.
“Yeah. I’m not the most graceful of people out of the water,” he explains as he wets a cloth and gently wipes at Rei’s arm. “So when I moved out on my own my parents bought me a good first aid kit and then my brother and sister both bought me extra supplies.”
Rei simply nods and lets Momotarou clean his arm and carefully apply antibiotic to it.
“Something wrong?” Momotarou is staring at his arm with a frown.
“No. I just don’t know if I have a bandage big enough to cover the whole thing and I don’t want you to rub it on something on accident.”
Rei glances down at the scrape. “Then give me two bandages,” he says. “Or wrap it in some gauze. It shouldn’t take long to start scabbing up a bit.” Momotarou’s eyes dart from the scrape to the first aid kit to Rei’s face and back again. “If it’ll make you feel better I’ll even stay here a bit before going back outside.”
Momotarou scrunches his face and then nods. “I think that sounds okay.”
“Thank you, by the way,” Rei remembers to say as Momotarou loosely wraps a piece of gauze around his arm. Momotarou grins at him, accepting the thanks with a wink.
Seijuurou
“You’re never going to be perfect. None of us are.” The words are surprisingly comforting. Or maybe it’s Seijuurou’s hand warm on his knee as he talks Rei back from the edge of a potentially epic meltdown. “You’re never going to be Tachibana but that’s okay.”
The captaincy had been weighing heavy on his mind and even heavier on his shoulders and instead of giving into the temptation of letting it boil over into frustration and irritation and taking it out on the others Rei had cut practice short and started walking. He’s not quite sure where he is or why the former Samezuka captain was there but he was thankful just the same because Seijuurou had taken one look at him and led him down a sidewalk to a bench, sat him down, and started talking.
About his own blunders as captain. About his rambunctious teammates. About not only training and going to school with his teammates but living with them as well. About how he learned the hard way that he could count on his team to support him.
“You have a good team and, more importantly, good friends. Let them help you. Lean on them if you need to. Hell you have my number still right?” Rei nods absently. “Give me a call if you need. Or call Tachibana. I know I’d be more than happy to help and I’m sure he would too. Just remember. They’re your team now. You’ve gotta figure out what works for you.”
He sits there and lets Seijuurou talk and talk and talk. He does wonder, briefly, when he started being acquaintances with so many talkative people and then promptly pushes the thought aside because he knows exactly when. It was when he joined the swim team.
It was when he made the choice to change his entire life by stepping out of his comfort zone without looking for a net to catch him should he stumble.
Aiichirou
They’ve exhausted all their usual topics — classes, their teams, their last meets, their current training regimens — and are simply listening to each other breathe through the phone. He hadn’t expected to find such a close friend in Aiichirou when they had exchanged numbers. Though he probably should have. They both had such big shoes to fill, such amazing captains to follow with their own captaincy, it’s not really that much of a surprise in the end.
“I just don’t know for sure,” he finds himself admitting, breaking the silence.
“About what?”
“Anything,” he says before he can talk himself out of it. “University. Getting a job. Even graduating high school feels a little bit daunting right now if I’m being honest.”
Aiichirou laughs tiredly. “I hear you on that. I’m still not sure if I want to keep swimming competitively in university. I love swimming but, yeah. I just don’t know.”
It’s refreshing to hear it from someone else. Someone who has been dealing with a lot of the same responsibilities and pressure as he has. Trying to balance being a captain on top of school work on top of maintaining friendships.
“But,” Aiichirou interrupts his thoughts before they can wind him up they way he was before he called. “But. It’s okay. Because we’ve got everyone. And it’s okay if we don’t know what we’re doing yet so long as we keep on moving.”
Rei lets the words rattle around in his head for a few minutes, once again listening to Aiichirou breathing, before the words really sink in.
“Have you been reading Nagisa’s inspirational quote of the day texts again?”
Aiichirou laughs and starts talking about the quote Nagisa sent him last week and Rei smiles.
They’ll all figure it out in the end. Because they’ll get there together.
+1 Haruka
It’s not unusual to open Haru’s door and find all the lights out and a general feeling of almost abandoned floating through the air. Haru has lived in the same place for years and years but it just always has a semi-permanent feel to it. Like he’s just waiting to pack up and leave it all behind.
Rei has never really been able to understand it. Heck he’s lived in a dozen different places in the last five years and even the shittiest, most temporary apartment felt more lived in than Haru’s place.
Maybe it’s just the dust accumulating on every flat surface because Haru hates cleaning that gives it that feeling. But Rei really doesn’t think that’s it.
Haru lets out a huffy little noise when Rei prods at him with his foot; he’s never understood how Haru manages to fall asleep in the middle of the floor without even a blanket or pillow.
“You know,” Rei says, “it’s okay to stay. To make this place yours.”
“It is mine,” Haru mutters.
“Then get rid of your parents’ ugly tapestry on the wall and put up one of your paintings and stop simply existing here.”
It’s harsh, harsher than he’d usually be with any of his friends, but Haru has always brought out something in him — something a little more raw and fierce and possessive — than any of the rest of them.
Haru scoffs softly but he also reaches out and wraps a cool hand around Rei’s ankle, thumb rubbing gently over the skin, as he considers Rei’s words.
“You’re right,” Haru says eventually, voice tiny in the darkness.
“I usually am,” Rei replies.
“I don’t want to pick the painting though.”
“We’ll pick one for you. It’s what friends are for.”