Mackerel. It always smelled like mackarel, no matter how many hours he had been out of the water, no matter how many days passed from when he entered the locker rooms last, it always smelled like mackarel. Makoto glances around the changing room furitively. The other guys used to think it was because he had developed a sort of inferiority complex in their younger days and found himself continuing the habit into his teen years, despite his raging sixpack and massive pectoral muscles lunging out of his body now. Despite that, he still steals a quick look around the room. The other guys on the team know not to question this or snicker, save the wrath of the one and only Nagisa. 

Makoto ducks into his starched, white polo and quickly whips off his swimming trunks and pulls on his boxers in one swift movement, not missing a beat. With an almost satisfied, relieved look on his face, he starts to button up his shirt and pull on the rest of his uniform in peace. The thrashing of the showers against the cold tile and the exorbiant hollers and yells of boys still changing echoes in the mostly empty locker room, but that does nothing to stop Makoto's pace. In all honesty, he has one of the fastest swimming times for the backstroke as well as the fasting changing times in the locker room. The first being his pride, the second his shame. 

He slides his tie up to his neck when he hears the soft plop of footsteps, all too familiar, lazy and lethargic, but reverberating in the room, across the blue tile, and up the sole of Makoto's bare feet, into his very core. Casually, not wanting to cause a scene, he dips his head, still damp from practice, into his locker, as if to look for something. He rummages around his duffel, pretending to look for his deoderant while also looking peripherally through his wet bangs to his locker neighbor: Haru. 

Haru has his only towel draped around his head, much like he usually has right out of the swimming pool. Droplets of water fall from the tip of his nose down, and even more drops traverse the many curves and etchings of his musculature. Makoto's eye follows one particularly naughty droplet slowly dripping down Haru's now raised arm and into the trenches of his abdomen, still further into his V-line, until it hesitates and then plunges down sensuouly into...

Makoto snaps to attention and finishes looking in his locker for his body spray. Which he doesn't use. But specifically bought for moments like this when he needs his hands to do something. Almost as an afterthought, Makoto takes a step back from his locker and sprtizes the air around himself in a quick burst, holding his breath and walking through. He takes a massive breath and shakes his head a little, as if the breath holding had made him a little dazed. But no, he knows better. He knows just how to get away with watching Haru without getting caught. The held breath is something he realized he did if he looked at his best friend for too long a time; he was always in awe of Haru' movements and the sureity of how he held himself, like nothing in the world could take him down. The added bonus of spritzing also meant that it made sense for his face to be a little redder than normal. Rigorous practice helped hide the redness, the breath holding was another.

He smiles and looks over at Haru, who had stopped wiping himself down to stare at Makoto disapprovingly. Makoto his head to the side and smiles at him. His heart does a very ungraceful backflip. "Do you want some? I just got it. It says you'll smell like 'Timberwolf,' whatever that is."

"No," Haru says. "It doesn't smell like you," he adds after a beat, rubbing his towel into his hair and reaching his other hand to grab some underwear. Makoto blushes even further, and thanks the gods for the continuous fog that rolls in from the showers right around the corner. 

Not everybody can smell like a goddamn fish. But boy does that fish taste good, slowly smoked and crunchy, the skin crisp and taught against his teeth... "Yeah, you're right. I don't want to smell like chlorine too much though, y'know? We have to go to class after this, and sometimes the girls say I smell like I just got out of a pool. Which I did, but it makes it seem like I don't even shower when I do."

Haru continues to put his clothes on as Makoto rambles, checking up on his weird friend every now and then out of the corner of his eye. Makoto finishes tying his shoes and stands, much to Haru's chagrin. Makoto is so much taller than him, and they used to be the same height as kids. It doesn't really bother Haru, but one day he looked to Makoto and realized he could only see his broad shoulders effortlessly flexing beneath his shirt. 

Slightly irritated, Haru focuses on pulling his clothes on, making sure to pat dry his swimsuit as best as he can before slipping on his pants. It's not the best idea to wear a swimsuit under his clothes all the time, but it's basically summer time according to the cicadas singing outside the locker room, and it'll dry well enough, soon enough. He haphazardly wraps his tie around his neck, grabs his bookbag, and slams his locker closed, surprising Makoto in the middle of a sentence, coming down from a story Haru realizes he was not listening to. 

He turns full on to face his friend and shakes his head to dislodge the last drops of water clinging to his raven locks. Makoto smiles his lazy, puppy eyes smile yet again and closes his locker too, draping his messenger bag over his shoulder. "Shall we?"

Haru is silent but Makoto takes that as an affirmation and guides him and his friend out of the locker room, desperately trying not to touch him in any way, and cautiously keeping a distance of at least four inches from him.