3A/N Look who's back. I've been dragged back into the Free fandom after kind of falling out for nearly six months. But now I'm back, which hopefully means…more Makoharu! None of that matters now though, so let's just get into the chapter. This starts with Haru's perspective after he goes home.
Nothing felt real. The world was fuzzy, like standing up too fast and feeling everything go black for just a second before it realigns itself. But this wasn't for just a second, and things weren't getting any clearer. Haru couldn't do anything but stand, unsure of how he ended up at home, feeling his vision blur in and out. Nothing made sense anymore.
"Come on man, don't you get tired of him following you around all the time? He never leaves you alone! That's got to be rough. I bet it's hard to get a girlfriend when he's stalking you every day. It's like you're already taken!"
Those words shouldn't have mattered. And yet they did. Because it was Makoto. Makoto, who he's known since before he could speak. Makoto, who he would willingly spend every waking moment with. Makoto, who he thought would do the same. Until today. Haru felt his heart clench uncomfortably, and he grimaced, clutching his shirt tightly.
Everything has been confusing since that dumb waiter messed up his and Makoto's relationship—making Haru question everything he ever knew about friends. In the brief time he spent observing other pairs, it was obvious they were different somehow, and apparently everyone else noticed it too. At this point, he kind of understood why people thought they were a couple, because they weren't normal friends—even if it seemed normal to him. Because what else could they be if they weren't friends? He didn't know. But now he knew what friends weren't. He realized that friends weren't always attached at the hip; they had other people they could talk to. He realized that friends didn't make each other lunch every day, nor did they make sure to bring what the other would most likely forget. But most importantly, he realized that friends help each other—it went both ways. That was something Haruka thought he understood. Friendship was supposed to be mutually beneficial; it wasn't one sided. At least it shouldn't be. That's where Haru was stuck. Makoto did so much for him, going out of his way to make Haru's life easier, but what did Haru ever do for him? The only thing he's ever done is inconvenience him.
Throughout the years, Makoto has shown him nothing but kindness. When they were just starting preschool, Makoto was the only one to reach out to him—the lonely kid playing in the sandbox all by himself. Something about his crystalline emerald eyes drew him in. It was probably the genuine compassion he saw within them that made Haru want to return the gesture. Ever since then they've been inseparable. Eating together, playing together, walking together. It's always been together. And that was the problem. It always was.
"…don't you get tired of him following you around all the time?" Didn't he? He never left him alone, so how could he even have time for himself or people not named Haruka Nanase? Nothing felt right anymore. The relationship he thought he'd been building for seventeen years was falling apart, if there ever really was one.
Haru closed his eyes, rubbing his temples in an attempt to get rid of his pounding headache. That guy was right. He was just holding Makoto back. He needed to be more independent. He'd been living alone for years now, yet still relied on Makoto to get him to school on time. What part of that made sense?
He would start doing things himself—give Makoto a break from babysitting him. Makoto should have flocks of people surrounding him; his sunny attitude and smiling face had a gravitational pull like that of the sun. But if Makoto was the sun, then Haru was the moon—pushing people away as soon as he arrived. Thus, his classmates eventually gave up on getting close to Makoto. Maybe he could get himself a girlfriend, according to that guy, if Haru left him alone. For some reason, that thought didn't sit well with him. It felt heavy in his stomach and made his head hurt even more. But he didn't have time for stupid things like that—not when his "friendship" was on the line.
Haru's sigh was laden with regret. There was so much he should have done differently. That's why he needed to start now. He could ignore the pain in his chest for as long as he wanted—Makoto was the one that mattered.
The world had finally come back into focus, but seeing clearly didn't make anything better. It just made Haru realize what an awful friend he'd been, which honestly just made him feel worse. If he thought hearing Makoto agree with that guy was bad (the fact that he left too soon to actually hear Makoto's response didn't matter, he knew what he was going to say), then he was nowhere near prepared for the realizations and pain it would leave in its wake. He knew things had to change. He just hoped it wasn't too late to change them.
It took a good twenty-five minutes for Haru to pull himself up from the floor of his kitchen and drag himself into his room. He didn't even bother taking a bath; he just threw himself onto the bed and chucked his school bag across the room. It made a loud thunk as it hit the wall, books and papers spilling onto the floor. Haru grunted at the noise, burying his head into the pillow. He felt something tight press against his neck. His tie. He was still in his uniform. Groaning, Haru began to pull it off.
Makoto would kill me, or at least give me the disappointed mom look, if I came to school with a wrinkled uniform.
He paused, shirt halfway over his head, frowning. Instead of tossing the clothes on the floor like he was planning, Haru folded them—albeit messily due to lack of experience—and then tossed them on the floor. Huffing, Haru wrapped himself in the blankets and forced his eyes shut. Sleeping was the only thing he could think of doing at the moment; everything else just seemed like too much work. He would make things better tomorrow. Then Makoto would be free of him. It wasn't something Haruka liked to think about. Makoto was a stable presence in his life, someone he really cared for, but if he was hurting him, then he must be doing this whole friendship thing entirely wrong.
A/N Thank you so much for reading! I hope this chapter wasn't too angsty, it was basically just Haru getting upset for being a "bad" friend. He's not a bad friend, Makoto just likes doting on him—that's how they work. Also, I wanted to point something interesting out: I think Haruka and Makoto actually met sometime during elementary school (I didn't use this in my fic because I like the idea of them knowing each other since preschool or from when they were toddlers). I found this out like last week when I was watching Free with my cousin, but at the end of one of the episodes (season 2 maybe?) Makoto was doing the end credits thing, and he was gonna tell a story or something, and he starts with "Back in first grade, before Haru and I knew each other…" (idk if that's the exact wording but who cares), so I guess that's when they met. I don't know, I just thought it was interesting, but it doesn't really matter. Anyway, thank you so much for reading, feedback would be awesome! I'll see you in the next chapter!
