Almost time for practice. Makoto looks up to see where the sun is at and frowns at its lazy descent towards the horizon. The glowing orange orb is dipping closer and closer to an ending of a day Makoto wishes could only end sooner. But there's still practice. Two hours to slap on the spandex and slog into the water. Slice through the flurry of man-made waves to make 100-meters, 200-meters, over and over, back and forth, diving, splashing, trying to PR, one last PR before the third years officially graduate.

Technically, he and Haru shouldn't be in the pool, taking up space from the other members who will carry on the Iwatobi Swim Club's legacy, but Haru got that look in his eye. It's something like when you see a light at the end of the fabled tunnel when death comes knocking: darkness penetrated by that flash of light, intimidating, inviting, waiting to envelop you. At least, that's what Makoto thought. 

Haru tends to take up most of his thoughts anyways. But today was especially annoying. No, not really annoying, that slanders Haru's name because he isn't annoying, no, he's just impossible to read and something of an oddity in their friend group.

So maybe that was why Makoto couldn't stop thinking of him? He uncharacteristically grimaced at the disappearing horizon and dragged his feet over to their locker rooms, squat buildings barring the entrance to the pool.

Just as Makoto is about to round the corner for the locker rooms, Gou comes around carrying a stack of neatly folded towels and almost bumps into him.

"Geez! Watch where you're going!" she fumes from behind the pile of towels.

"Sorry, Gou," Makoto says, rubbing the back of his head in that affectionate anime way. "I didn't see you there."

"Didn't see me? How could you have not seen me?? I'm a literal walking pile of swim blankets don't tell me you didn't see me."

"I-I'm sorry haha you came around the corner so fast, and I didn't see you until-"

"Oh so it's my fault now?"

"What? No- it's-" Makoto stutters.

"You're lucky your muscles make you so much more appealing, otherwise I'd have a thing or two to say to you, Senpai," Gou says, edging around Makoto to the storage area connected just adjacently to the locker rooms. "Go and get changed, practice is starting soon. And I better see an extra couple laps out of you for the trouble you've caused."

Makoto laughs and smiles awkwardly at her retreating form and turns to enter the locker room only to come face to face with Haru.

"Oh hey Haru," Makoto blushes. "I was waiting for you near the school's exit. I guess you passed me though."

Haru stares at Makoto, then walks past him, not saying a word. Makoto watches Haru walk away, his back muscles still cleanly defined from all his years working in the pools and his legs chiseled from stone. Haru's swim cap catching the few golden rays of the sun that peak over the silhouette of the trees. Soon the blaze of their pool lights will be on. Soon the heavy buzz of the cicadas mixing with the buzz from the lights will be drowned out by the thick silence of the water.

Makoto turns in to change, squinting slightly at his watch. It's taking him a little longer to focus, but it is getting darker and the heat wave from last week is still radiating from the pavement and the dark buildings.

Haru turns back only slightly to see his best friend slide into the darkness of the locker rooms before he slips his goggles over his eyes and dives straight into the water, the first splash of many to announce the commencement of swim club's practice.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's hot. Not really. Actually, yes, it's really hot. The heat from the pool lights and the throbbing in his head is not being helped by the artificial glare on the turbulent waters. Makoto squints and tries to steady himself on his platform marked No. 4. Most of the other members have tired out by now, gasping and spent at the sides of the pool, while Makoto and three other of the more energetic of the backstroke group line up to wait for the coach's whistle. He sees them in his peripherary. Their forms are all imperfect, arched in the wrong places, shaking from exhaustion, a second of hesitation waiting to happen. Makoto takes a quick note in his bleary mind to correct their forms at the end of this relay. 

They need to have more confidence in themselves. Any hesitation, any at all could be the difference between first and second place, winning and losing. Not that Makoto cares too much about competing for a prize. He was and is a slave to Haru's ideal of freedom and fun. So long as those two things are in place, it doesn't matter the time or what place but—

FWHHHHTT.

There it is. A painfully shrill sound Makoto's body has been conditioned to for years. Without hesitation, with the grace of a harpoon launched from the shifting, shaking, shuddering deck of Captain Ahab's Pequod, he launches himself off his platform with little more than a wobble as muscle memory takes over his blinding headache and forces his body to drop into the water like a pencil.

Everything slips by him as if he is moving through honey. He sees himself detached, a moving form more than a few seconds ahead of his competitors angling into the water. His hands split the water and allow him to slip straight in, inertia splashing around his open body and dunking his head fully into its warm and watery embrace.

He dives below the surface and into his consciousness. Milky darkness plays at the edge of his vision and he hears his name, warbled out through the many, many layers of liquid separating him from the real world, and he hopes, just a little bit, that it's Haru's voice.

And then blackness.