Archive of Our Own ^beta

Haru wasn’t really a morning person. Right now, sunlight was streaming in through his cheap curtains, hitting him square on the face, and making it impossible to get back to sleep. He should be up, anyway. Sighing internally, he slowly wriggled out of the sheets and sat up. Makoto was gone already; he had early starts on Wednesdays, and Haru had a rest day.

He wasn’t really paying attention to his surroundings as he blearily pulled on his jammers (habit, mostly) and ran a bath. Settling into the water, he let out a barely audible groan. Yesterday’s training session had been pretty tough. To be honest, they were all pretty tough, but he could cope. He was so glad his room had a bath, and not just a shower.

As he sunk below the surface, looking up at the ceiling through the water, he noticed a weird patch of green up there. He gazed at it dispassionately, not really making any progress towards figuring out what it was or why it was there, just staring at this new development on his ceiling. When he came back up for air, he looked at it again, squinting up at it. Oh. It was a post-it note. The corners of his mouth twitched in a smile.

“Good morning, Haru! :)”

“Morning, Makoto.” He mumbled back at it. The post-it wavered a little, then fluttered down, weak glue undone by the moisture in the room. It hit him in the face. He snorted in quiet amusement, carefully picking it up at one edge with his damp fingers and setting it out of the way. He imagined Makoto perching precariously on the edge to stick the note up there, terrified of falling over and thus waking Haru. It was a good image.

He dragged himself out of the bath in a scant half an hour; a mere fleeting moment by his standards. If pressed, he’d deny that it was because he wanted to read the rest of the notes, but… It was absolutely because he wanted to read the rest of the notes.

As he opened his drawers to pull out some comfy clothes, he spotted another slip of green nestled in his shirts. Kind of on one of his shirts, really, and he pulled it out to get a better look at it.

“What about those matching shirts Nagisa got us? You never wear it out but nobody’ll see it today. I’m wearing mine. :P”

He pulled out the thing in question; a large white t-shirt with a bright graphic of a dolphin and his name underneath. On one of their first weekends in Tokyo, Nagisa and Rei had made the trip to go see them, and brought these shirts, one for each of them. Nagisa said it’d be cute, and hey, they could match even when they were apart, or something. (Haru didn’t really get it.) He’d then insisted they went out partying, despite all of them being under the legal drinking age, and somehow got them all into this club, this… Well, Haru wasn’t so keen on remembering that bit, and Makoto had been kind of weird around leather ever since.

It was remembering the club more than the shirt itself that put Haru off wearing it, but he shrugged it on anyway. Makoto liked the whole ‘matchy matchy’ thing. When fully dressed, he headed to the kitchen, fully expecting more notes on the fridge.

“Remember: eat more than mackerel! The diet’s important + there’s some salad left :)”

Haru rolled his eyes at the diet comment. “Like I don’t know that,” he muttered fondly, opening the fridge and reaching for the mackerel on autopilot. There was a note on that, too.

“Btw, I bought some fancy soy sauce - in the stuff cupboard. I know you eat it plain, but..?”

Haru pondered this for a second, then pulled out both the fish and the salad. Maybe Makoto couldn’t cook to save his life, but salads were a cooking-free item, and he was pretty good with them, to be honest. He knew what Haru liked, which was better, and put plenty of his favourites in. Haru wasn’t picky, per se, but he knew what he liked, and stuck to that religiously.

Frying up his mackerel, he noticed that Makoto’d left the rice cooker on to keep warm, with a thermos beside it, and another note. This one was pretty short.

“Riiiiiice and sooouuuup :D”

He smiled at that. Since living together and cooking together more, Makoto’d started fussing over how much he ate more, and was almost constantly trying to get him to eat rice. The Tachibana family was pretty traditional in their eating habits; rice and miso soup with every meal. Haru, used to living on his own, was less fussed, but literally every meal Makoto would present them to him, and Haru would largely ignore them. It developed into a running joke between them (along with “drop the -chan, still going strong after all this time.)

He sat down with his mackerel, token portions of rice and soup, half the leftover salad (the rest would go with lunch) and the fancy soy sauce. The sauce was good - he ate most stuff plain, but he did have a soft spot for soy sauce. Trust Makoto to know that. Having not a lot better to do, he took his time and savoured breakfast.

He and Makoto had been living together since they came to Tokyo three months ago, finding it cheaper to split than find separate places. Besides, neither of them could really bear the thought of living further than a couple of minutes from each other. Haru couldn’t live in Makoto’s university accommodation, and while there was some provision for the partners of swim team members, Haru preferred to live away from the team. So they found this place and moved in, and it suited them just fine.

It was nice to wake up together in the mornings, rather than having Makoto come round. Those extra few minutes were that much more precious. And when Makoto wasn’t there, there were the post-it notes. He’d only been doing this for a couple of weeks, and Haru had no idea where he got the idea, but he was grateful to whatever had sparked it. It took the edge off lonely mornings.

Haru wondered what to do with his day, and found the answer was pretty obvious. He headed upstairs to search through his stationery supplies with a smile.

“Haru, I’m home!” Makoto called out, toeing off his shoes at the door. He paused for a minute; the apartment smelled delicious. He took a deep, appreciative breath of the scent of cake (seriously, how was Haru this talented?) before heading into the kitchen, already smiling wide. Haru was sitting at their table, arms crossed over a transparent cake cover beneath which were sitting a plateful of gorgeous looking chocolate chip muffins. He was smiling in a slightly smug way. (And, Makoto noted, wearing the shirt. He smiled a little wider.)

“Oh, my God, Haru, those look amazing,” Makoto gushed, heading over to ruffle Haru’s hair gently and place a kiss on his forehead, before reaching towards the cakes.

“May I..?”

Haru leaned forward, putting more pressure on the cover.

“Nope.”

Before Makoto could pout at him too much, Haru added, “The price is five post-its. Blue ones.”

Makoto looked confused for a moment, straightening up to look at Haru properly, a question on his lips. Before he could say anything, he saw something blue stuck to the rice cooker. Suddenly getting what was going on, he flashed Haru a quick grin before dashing over to pluck it aloft with glee.

“Got one!” He crowed, before bringing his hand down to study it in more detail. He gasped. It was a sketch - a sketch of him, in fact, looking intensely at a saucepan of miso soup, willing it not to burn. He felt a rush of emotions, chiefly amusement (did he really pull that face?), affection (Haru really did pay attention - this was so lovingly rendered - Haru did this for him!) and a dash of pride (holy shit was Haru ever a good artist). He almost felt the sting of tears, and hastily wiped his eyes a little. He thought he heard a small chuckle from behind him.

“Haru… Oh my goodness, Haru..!” He turned, eyes shining, unable to express just what this meant to him.

“Four to go,” replied Haru, cooly, though Makoto could see the smile there, and knew Haru was ecstatic to see his boyfriend so overjoyed. Makoto rushed over to give him a quick hug (more a squeeze of the shoulders, given their relative positions), then resumed the hunt, holding his first post-it reverently so as not to damage it.

He checked the fridge next, and found another one on the empty salad bowl. He chuckled as he pulled the bowl out and set it on the counter, peeling off the post-it to look at it properly. It showed Makoto haplessly looking up at a nest of leaves in his hair, holding salad tongs awkwardly, the picture of defeat.

“That was one time!” He protested, turning back to Haru. Haru stuck his tongue out. Makoto shut the fridge and continued combing the apartment. He’d checked the obvious places in the kitchen, so decided to move on and check the bedroom. Haru watched him leave with an amused smirk.

Thinking back to where he’d left notes this morning, he headed over to the drawers. He initially pulled out Haru’s drawer, then tutted himself, figuring it’d make more sense for it to be in with his stuff. He pulled out his shirt drawer, and saw a note sitting sticky side up, with small, neat handwriting on.

“Wear this tomorrow. It looks the best.”

On the other side, there’s a sketch of Makoto wearing one particular shirt - the slim fitting forest green one Haru’d pointed him at when they first went shopping in Tokyo together - which Makoto had to agree was one of his favourites. He lingered over this one. If you asked Makoto if he thought he was attractive, he’d uhm and ah his way out of it, but seeing himself rendered through Haru’s gaze… Well, he was forced to admit it. Or maybe that was just how Haru saw him. Either way, it made him glow warmly inside.

After a cursory look round the rest of the room, he headed to the bathroom. Initially, he checked over the bath, but the ceiling was blank. The inside of the bath was clear too, and he was about to call to Haru for help, but saw it from the corner of his eye, nestled behind the taps. This one was from above. It took him a little while, but he finally recognised it as him reaching up from the edge of the bath, balanced precariously, concentrating intensely, sticking Haru’s first post-it up.

He headed back to the kitchen and asked, “Hey, why wasn’t this above the bath?” in a teasing tone of voice, waving the bathroom post-it.

“I didn’t want it to fall and get wet,” Haru replied like it was obvious. Which, on second thoughts, it kind of was. Makoto had the good grace to look a little bit bashful. He looked down at the four drawings in his hand. One to go, but he’d looked everywhere… Right?

“Hey, can I get a hint on this last one?” He pleaded, looking back to Haru beseechingly. Haru rolled his eyes fondly.

“Stuff that,” he said, enigmatically. Makoto frowned at that, then puzzled it over, and… Of course!

He threw open the door to the ‘stuff cupboard’, as they called the place where they kept all their sauces and miscellaneous kitchen things ‘and stuff’. There, on the soy sauce, was the last post-it. It showed Makoto smiling to himself as he carefully selected the soy sauce bottle from a supermarket shelf to place in his basket. He took a moment to marvel at the look on his face; he never really saw what he looked like when he thought about Haru, and there it was. He could almost feel himself blinking back tears again.

He turned back to Haru once more and approached the table, five blue post-its carefully fanned out before him. He laid them delicately on the table, then looked right into Haru's expectant eyes.

"Here, oh wonderful and perfect Haru-chan, are your five post-its. I love you." He leaned over the table to kiss Haru on the lips, and Haru smiled into it briefly before leaning back to uncover the muffins.

"Drop the -chan, and take a muffin, you goof," says Haru, looking pleased as punch at the effect his efforts had had on Makoto. Makoto just grinned back at him and took his reward, sitting down in the chair next to Haru, close enough so their knees touched.

"So," Makoto mumbled around a mouth of muffin, chewing and swallowing, a devious smile slowly spreading over his face, "What shall we have for dinner? How about... Rice and sooooup?"

Haru elbowed him.

(Then Haru kissed him some more.)