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The Christmas tree has been up for a while now.
The Christmas tree has been up since November, because Makoto had gotten a look in his eyes when he saw the train station decorations flip the switch from Halloween to Christmas bright and early on November first, and while Haru always strongly asserts that he hates troublesome things, what he's willing to go through is a sliding scale that goes all the way to 'ain't no mountain high enough' when it's Makoto's birthday, or there's a special occasion, or Makoto's feeling scared/stressed/worried/upset.
This is their final year of university, and while Haru's thesis is basically him putting his training regiment to words and jotting down his times in the 'Results' section, Makoto's supervisor demands a 100 pages of deep insight into childhood education and 100 hours logged at the swimming centre in the last 3 months of the year.
On the one hand, the swimming centre has started paying Makoto like he's a full-timer, because they, unlike Makoto's supervisor, know quality when they see it.
On the other hand, this is the first year that they aren't going back to Iwatobi for winter break so they have time to work on their projects, it's Makoto's-birthday-Christmas-New-Year with no way of celebrating it properly, and Makoto's so stressed that he keeps booking appointments with the optician because he's sure all the squinting and frowning is making him turn blind.
It's the Holy Trifecta of Reasons To Spoil Makoto, so Haru had bought a Christmas tree early in November, set it up with ornaments he's carved and crocheted over the years, and made Makoto take his birthday night off to just take a breather.
December came, which is actual Christmas season, so the tree had stood stalwartly in the corner of their room, and Makoto kept insisting he could smell that fresh pine smell, Haru-chan! even though there's no reasonable way the little tree could be emitting anything other than fatigue at this point, and it's fine.
Now it's the middle of January, the tree should by all accounts have died a long time ago, and Haru just keeps using his magic to keep it going because this is the real Crunch Time and Makoto has about a week left to his thesis hand-in and needs all the morale-boosting he can get.
Haru sits at the low table in the living room and looks at the tree, now free from ornaments but still clad in fairy lights, green and glossy and healthy despite it being Month Three since it was introduced to their apartment. It's still in its pot, and it gets watered every day, and Haru pumps so much power into it while he waters it that at this point it's a miracle that the tree isn't also a sentient magician.
Is this going to be how Makoto ends up finding out that Haru has magical powers?, is the real question. Is a lifetime of secrecy and laying low to avoid catching unwarranted attention worth blowing over the non-existent scent of questionably-fresh pine?
Haru looks at the tree, the tree looks at Haru. Haru looks away first, and sighs.
Obviously, the answer is yes.
Makoto's spending another late night at the library; Haru in the meanwhile is going to try to appeal to a (probably) higher power.
-
A prodigy at 10, a genius at 15, an average man at 20.
Except it went more like low-level magics at 10, mid-level enchantment at 15, and full-blown sorcerer at 20. Haru has always known he had a way in water, and then it became a way with water, and then it became the ability to harness and control water in its many, many ways.
To this day, Haru tries really, really hard not to remember if Makoto's heart had actually stopped when he'd drowned during training all those years ago, and if his panic and terror and sheer determination not to let go had brought Makoto back, had fought against the ocean on that cold, horrible night and won.
Haru is used to being powerful, but he doesn't want that power.
(What if the next time it doesn't work, what if next time he isn't strong enough-)
While it's no problem at all to keep flowers fresh for longer than reasonable, to call up rain after a dry spell, or to keep the flat comfortably humid even in the driest of winters, Haru generally stays away from too much magic. It's something that should be handled responsibly, and by his count not using it too much for personal gain is about as responsible as he gets.
That's why for things like this, when he needs some back-up, Haru walks down the path millions of Japanese people have in times of great need;
He visits the big shrine three train stops over, and tries to find an omamori to weather his boyfriend through this academic storm.
January is a pretty popular time for people to turn to their gods; there's a line for the charms, even though Haru can spot 3 priestesses hustling about at the counter, cheeks ruddy red from the cold open air and the mildest of exertions. There are a lot of students, and parents with their children. Haru thinks the girl with the brown bob 4 people ahead of him might be from his university, and he spends a moment wondering what omamori she might need, when all their exams and hand-ins have already passed.
Buying omamoris for Makoto is a yearly never-missed event, and Haru always, always gets at least 2. One is to address whatever challenge the year ahead brings, so this time it's going to be an 'Academic Success' one. The other is inevitably 'Traffic Safety', and this is because that's the closest Shintoism has come to making a 'Stop My Boyfriend From Wilfully Throwing Himself Into Open Ocean Mid-Storm To Save A Friend' charm. Haru's pretty sure Makoto doesn't know why Haru always forces Traffic Safety into his hand, but it's Makoto's way to just appreciate it regardless.
(It's been almost 5 years now and no Almost Drowning Incident since, so why stop a good thing?)
The line shuffles along, and Haru keeps half a mind on following in the steps of the guy in front of him in the line, and the other half on what he's going to make for dinner.
It's a really cold day, so maybe some mackerel fritters? Or should he be adventurous, and try to make croquettes? Makoto likes those, and Haru's not picky about the format his fish comes in. Oh, he should tell Makoto he's at the temple right now, to avoid a repeat of that time they'd bought each other charms without discussing it, and ended up with 4 each.
Words are a pain the ass, even typed ones, so Haru just sends Makoto his location, and an emoji of an omamori. He puts his phone away to replace his glove, and idly anticipates what cute-ass stamp Makoto will reply with.
Distracted by heavy, silly thoughts, Haru doesn't notice it until the crowd notifies him with Oh!s and Wow!s.
He tilts his head back, looks up, and-
catches some of the first snow of the New Year in his eyelashes.
Snow is inferior to water, obviously, but he's still a big fan of it anyways. Maybe he'll get some hot sake after he's done shopping. If the sweet sake's particularly sweet, he'll bring some home with him. There's nothing in folklore that says snow brings good luck or anything, but somehow a snow day in Tokyo feels special, feels good and right anyways.
He pulls his hood up, because there is no handling Makoto's panicked mother-henning mode when he's desperately trying to distract himself from real-life responsibilities. No point getting charms to pray for success if Makoto worries himself sick over Haru actually getting sick anyways.
The snow picks up a little; the shrine's going to look really beautiful in a half hour, Haru would bet.
Pity he'll be on his way home by then, to make trial croquettes and barter for longevity with a pine tree.
-
Pity, Haru thinks with dripping viciousness, that he's enough of an adult to know that throwing a tantrum and liquefying all the snow around him is not a wise decision.
He's soaking wet, and so are the other 20 or so people that had been herded into the Head Priest's house when the gentle pitter-patter of snow had transformed into an all-out almighty snowstorm. The sky is a miserable gray, and the snow falls so heavily that it's become harder and harder to remember what the world looked like without endless flecks of white. The steep stairs that led away from the temple and through the woods had become a death trap about 10 minutes after it began snowing in earnest, and the priests and priestesses had been instructed to herd everybody in to take shelter in the house. They were so kind and worried about it that Haru couldn't really ignore their pleading glances and just make his way home anyways; it would feel like batting away a bunch of earnest kittens.
It wouldn't have helped anyway; 45 minutes after the first flakes, trains are rolling to a halt across Tokyo. The subway lines are still running for now, the TV in the living room tells the huddled masses, but as the city gets buried under the worst snowstorm in 30 years, even that's only a matter of time.
Helpfully, the news even shows a map of all the train lines running in Tokyo, glowing green for Up And Running, yellow for Reduced Service, and red for You Might As Well Walk If We're Being Entirely Honest. The Saikyo line Makoto needs to take to get home is blinking bright yellow, and that more than his damp, squelching socks gets on Haru's nerves. Natural disasters are a sure-fire way to guarantee Makoto dropping everything and rushing home; the man wants to make sure his nearest and dearest are safe and within sight, and can't really be stopped until that happens. Since Makoto most definitely has reason to worry that bad things happen to his friends and family when the weather turns, everyone takes it in good humour.
Haru usually would, too, except the snow is now almost knee high in parts, and there is a 100% chance that Makoto would wade through all of that in his blind determination to get to Haru.
Knee high snow-wading isn't an activity recommended for a man who needs to stay hearty and hale so he can keep working on his dissertation. The temple doesn't sell a 'Good Weather For My Panicking Boyfriend' charm, so this is something Haru needs to take into his own hands.
He slinks towards the back of the crowded living room, and a woman in a business suit so sodden it's gone from gray to black happily takes up Haru's place close to the heater. It's hard for him to see the TV from this spot, but the route from Makoto's university to their shared apartment is so familiar that it doesn't take much effort for him to sink and then float, through to that plane of existence where magic's all around him like a sun-warmed sea in June, and everything just needs a little push.
Tokyo spreads out at his feet, hazy through all the magic sloshing around, and Haru looks and then sees, Saikyo line and the snow that keeps piling on. Weather and nature is fluid magic, is all the same magic, really. People, as people always are, are difficult. He can't spot Makoto, not even when he tries really, really hard, but it doesn't take much to gently nudge a few clouds this way and that, offload extra snow away from the tracks Makoto's train will take. It's not enough to look like there's been some supernatural intervention; Haru is the wind and the littlest exhale sends clouds scurrying.
He takes a moment to take another look and make sure that the path is clear between school and home, and then just relaxes and floats in this Place. The room he's physically in is starting to smell like almost-mouldy laundry, and the Place is a lot nicer than a broken-down laundromat.
Haru's body is leaned against the back wall of a priest's living room while the TV keeps rattling on about how, sorry, our mistake, this may well be the worst snow day of the past 50 years.
Haru's Haru-ness, meanwhile, does a little flutter kick as magic surrounds him on all sides.
(Later on, Haru will despair the slightest bit that magic can in fact be worse than a smart phone. If he'd immersed himself in his phone instead of his magic, for example, he would have seen that Makoto's LINE stamp of a saluting killer whale, and the "On my way Haru-chan!".)
(Later on, a lot of things will happen.)
-
It starts with a ripple, something hitting the surface and sinking under on the periphery of Haru's perception in the Place. It's not the first time it's ever happened; the world is full of people with varying degrees of connectedness to magic, and the world is full of magical beings with varying degrees of connectedness to humans. The woman who busses the table at their favourite ramen restaurant, for example, is round-cheeked and so full of raw, untapped power that it's a literal miracle that she hasn't accidentally set the place on fire.
And then there's the Kappa family living in the river near Haru's university, that he had steadfastly pretended not to notice when they'd crawled into the school pool to escape the vicious summer heat during the heatwave a couple of years ago.
The head priest and 2 of the priestesses have power too, so Haru assumes that one of them's wandering around the premises, maybe.
He would have just gone back to lazy floating, if that blip! had passed through, just like that. Instead, the presence seemed to be homing in right on them, and the ripples have grown to waves.
More annoyed than worried, Haru pushes back, trying to dump a load of snow down their necks for interrupting his relaxing time.
If anything, that somehow seems to motivate them even more, and Haru's never felt a steam train bulldozing through an ocean, but this is what it feels like, all power and flurry and waves.
Distantly, he hears his body hearing people going Oh! Wow!, and with half a mind on whatever it is that's stomping towards them, Haru comes back into himself and gears up for an Encounter with another magic-user. He doesn't sense any evil intentions, so it's probably not one of those monsters that like to eat children, which is fortunate. Haru has never had to use magic in a fight, and trying to do it in the name of protecting random children is not his idea of a fun afternoon.
A fun afternoon is not being stuck in a tiny room with a bunch of people, trying to figure out how likely he is to be able to walk 4 miles through what looks to be waist-high snow at this point.
A fun afternoon would be hanging the 'Good Health' omamori he's just bought on their Christmas tree, while Makoto takes more pictures than the action really deserves.
Hell, a fun afternoon would be being snowed in at their apartment, because the fun of any fun afternoon comes from being with-
Cracking like a whip, the front door slams open, and snow, slurry and wind come rushing in like they're looking for some warmth too.
Haru blinks.
"Makoto?"
"Haru-chan!" Makoto smiles, and through the storm the heavens crack open and the sun comes shining through, lighting this boy right up as snow melts at his feet.
Literally.
-
The Head Priest is immediately, inevitably charmed by Makoto, despite property damage and the shoes of all the sheltered temple visitors now being covered in snow. "You're so lucky you didn't get stuck in the snow! What were you thinking, walking all the way over here, young kid like you," says the ancient man who barely comes up to Haru's chest as he chastises 6 foot something wall of good humour and what Haru can now identify as honest-to-god Sun magic.
"Sorry, sorry," Makoto says earnestly from under a blanket someone found for him, pressed up in the prime location by the heater because the priest wasn't the only one charmed. All women and some men above a certain age cluck their tongues, and Haru spots 2 grandfather-types that appear to be absently patting their pockets to look for sweets (for the sweet boy). "Haru-chan didn't answer his phone, and I saw on TV that this part of Tokyo's snowed under, and I was just really worried! And the trains were running all the way up until Ikebukuro anyways, so I didn't have to walk that much. Thank you for worrying, Yamamoto-san!"
Of course Makoto's already familiar enough to be using names even though it's been, what, 3 and a half minutes? Of course he's already wormed his way into everybody's affections. Of course he's a shining bright boy that's brought them respite from the cold and a slash of blue skies.
Of course, because Tachibana Makoto is an elemental sun magician, and the only thing that burns more sweetly than his trait is all of the rest of him.
Haru's almost disgusted with himself for never having noticed. Feeling inexplicably warm whenever your boyfriend is around? Makes sense, he's used up a lifetime of luck to find Makoto. Fair weather whenever they're on dates outdoors? Statistically, sunny days aren't a rarity in this part of Japan.
Literally melting a path through waist-deep snow on his solemn march to get to Haru?
The worst, absolute worst part of it all, Haru thinks, is that if he hadn't been in the other Place in time to sense Makoto's magic, he probably wouldn't have thought too deeply about how Makoto managed to come for him even in the worst of weather.
It's just what Makoto does. And in all honesty, that's probably even more of a rarity, even more of a miracle than some elemental trait.
Around the time when Haru starts wondering if Makoto takes after the sun or if it's the other way around, he thinks enough is enough. The storm outside is still raging, but more than anything he wants to be home, cooking them dinner, giving their Christmas tree its little magical pick-me-up, and having a Serious Adult Conversation with Makoto about what it means that they're both magic-users.
Haru mostly wants to know if Makoto can keep their apartment warm even in winter; so much of their savings go into buying him protein powder that it would be good if they could save on their heating.
While Makoto continues getting fussed over, Haru slips quietly back to the Place.
Makoto's presence over Here is vague, since he wasn't actively pulling on his power. Instead Haru just feels a great big fuzzy ball of warmth and affection, the spirit of a golden retriever made from a thousand stars, making the Place feel like that feeling of climbing under a heated blanket after running across a too-cold bedroom in winter.
They definitely should come Here together, Haru thinks. It feels wrong to feel this good because of Makoto but not even get to kiss him.
Ignoring the distraction of an actual sun, Haru concentrates. He's pretty sure he could stop the snow across 4 or 5 wards of Tokyo if he put his mind to it, but weather magic is wild and prone to doing whatever the hell it wanted, so he settles on stopping the snow for a couple of miles radiating from the temple. Enough for everyone to get to 2 train stations and a subway, enough for him and Makoto to beg off and make their way home. It takes a bit of huffing and puffing, and Setagaya ward may get a foot of extra snow, but he feels when the magic takes, feels when the clouds roll over to go rain down white vengeance somewhere else.
When he comes back to himself, he finds Makoto looking at him, wonder in his eyes. "Haru-chan," Makoto says, very loudly and very fondly, and everyone in the room turns to look at Haru too.
Embarrassing, Haru thinks as he looks away. His cheeks are not red, he's not feeling a little proud and pleased, and if anyone says otherwise they better be prepared to get snowed on in summer.
-
They make their way out along with the other temple-goers once somebody notices the snow has stopped. Sunset's in an hour or so, and while Yamamoto-san said that all were welcome to stay, nobody really wanted to do a sleepover in the cramped, damp home of the nice priest. Haru also suspects that Makoto's presence has made all the parents and grandparents in the crowd keenly homesick and more determined to go back to their own sons and daughters and grandchildren, which is understandable.
Everybody leaves with a borrowed raincoat, or umbrella, or jacket, or blanket to ward off the cold, and plans have already been made to come back on Sunday to return everything and have hotpot together. Who says people in Tokyo don't have community spirit? You just need to dig it out of them with terrible weather and forge camaraderie through suffering and arranging a schedule for how long you get to stand by the heater for.
Makoto has an umbrella on him, and he holds it over the both of them even though there isn't any snow falling for now. They've always tended to walk close together even before things got romantic; now they're pressed as closely together as they can without tripping each other up.
Makoto radiates heat, literally radiates so much heat, and not for the first time Haru's ashamed of himself for not having figured it out sooner. The snow around Makoto's feet sizzle a little as they melt, and the hem of his jeans hiss as they dry out. Even the sun has come back to make an appearance, brilliantly lighting up the temple grounds and their path to the train station-
Haru elbows Makoto in the side. "Show-off," he complains.
Instead of being affronted or even just pouting, Makoto laughs. "Haru-chan, it just feels really, really nice to not have to hide this from you anymore." He smiles, and it's hard to look at straight-on. "I wanted to tell you about what I could do since we were kids, but my parents were worried you wouldn't want to play with me anymore if you found out." In their little patch of sunlight in the middle of the desolation of winter, Makoto ignores his usual shyness about physical displays of affection and leans down to grab Haru's hand. "I think I never stopped being scared that you wouldn't want me anymore if you knew."
It's not often that Haru is rendered speechless, absolutely gobsmacked, but this is one such time. He worms his hand away from Makoto's to smack the back of that dumb, beautiful head, before going right back to hand-holding. "Makoto, you're an idiot." He calls ice to Makoto's foot so that the man would slip a little and Haru can imperiously catch him around the waist. "Such an idiot. What was I going to be scared of? Good weather? Sunny days?" Haru rolls his eyes so hard he almost sees the other Place.
Makoto rubs the back of his head with his free hand. "Ouch, Haruuuuu~," he whines, absolutely not meaning it. "And it's not just nice things! I could cause heat waves, you know, or even droughts-!"
"Have you?"
That stops Makoto mid-rant. "What?"
"Have you caused heat waves, or droughts, or made things harder for anyone because you could do magic?"
You could almost hear the gears whirring in his head. "Well, no, I don't actually use the sun stuff that much, but, oh!" Makoto lights up, presumably at the thought of the way he's messed up.
It's a little worrying how quick someone so good becomes so sure they've done something bad, but that might also be how they stay so, so good. Haru waits, already sure that it's not going to be anything close to bad.
"Remember when we decided to go visit Lake Kawaguchi? And it was hot and kept getting hotter? You even got sunburned when we went out on the paddle boat." Makoto laughs, but it mostly sounds like he's laughing at himself. "I was so excited to go on a trip away with you that I.... got a little out of control."
There's a lot of heavy, compacted snow on the stairs heading up to the station. Half here and half There, Haru gets them to turn back to water and flow away, neatly parting the path for them. One thing's for sure, it really does feel good to be able to flex and maybe show off a little bit, at least in front of Makoto. "It was June," Haru replies. "You took me there for my birthday, it was the hottest summer in years and you didn't cause global warming, and my nose got a little burned. That's your worst case scenario?"
The trains are running in theory, though god only knows up until where. Haru waits at the ticket gate for Makoto to knock stray snow off of his umbrella, and Haru waits for Makoto to respond. He's got his thinking face on, where he looks a little stressed and almost distressed. It's not a good look on him, and it's why Haru occasionally gets enraged when he sees Makoto's Introduction To Advanced Statistics textbook.
They pass through the barrier and head to their platform. The wind's picking up again now that Haru's not actively pushing the clouds back, and it's a crapshoot as to whether their train or the snow will come first.
As always, Makoto stands facing the wind, a physical barrier on one side and a personal radiator on the other, and it's going to give Haru a headache, it really will, that Makoto who does all this in the face of all the misery Haru's trait can cause truly believes that a sunburn is where Haru would draw the line.
(The damn ocean had wanted to take Makoto and Haru wouldn't give; what the hell's a little bit of skin off his nose?)
When Makoto does speak up, finally, it's so sudden in the quiet that it startles Haru a little. "You really don't mind? That I'm not.... normal, and I make everything all hot and sticky when I get too excited over something, and I might be worse with controlling it now that I know you know?"
Before he bothers answering, Haru slumps against Makoto's side, snuggling under an arm that immediately makes space for him, happy to press his face close against Makoto's coat. It smells like the tangerines Makoto keeps in his pockets to snack on, and it smells like sunshine, and it smells like the definition of comfort. "When we were in middle school and Kisumi kept trying to get you to play basketball with him, I'm the one that got so annoyed the pipes exploded and flooded the court." He thunks his head against Makoto's chest, and steadfastly tries not to think about how he's imitating Nagisa. "The only thing not normal about you is how much of a pushover you are. The magic is fine. You're fine. Just start packing sun cream when we go out, that's all we need." Haru doesn't bother asking if Makoto think he's abnormal or dangerous for having the powers that he has. He's pretty sure he could pop a second head right out his chest and after a bit of screaming Makoto would start wishing both head-head and chest-head "Good morning, Haru-chans!" by the next morning.
It's nice to hear Makoto laugh, and feel it reverberate right through his chest. Feels nice to have Makoto lean over to press the sweetest little kiss to the top of Haru's head too. "Nothing ever shocks you does it, Haru-chan?"
Every day Haru's shocked by how unflappably accepting Makoto is, how all-encompassing he is. Finding out that his boyfriend's part-sun is the least of it, so Haru doesn't bother to reply.
He does, however, wrestle the 'Traffic Safety' omamori out of his pocket into Makoto's. While it's mostly meant to protect against swimming accidents, no time like the present to receive divine (but also Haru's) protection.
The train comes, and they go.
-
It comes full circle when they finally stumble into their apartment, soaked up to their knees, Makoto steaming gently already as he helps get Haru's coat off. "Go and put everything in the washing machine Haru-chan, and I can do the drying later. Now that you know and all, I need to-" he cuts himself off, and heads over to their Christmas tree.
(It's a white belated-Christmas in January, hah!)
Curious, Haru ignores laundry instructions and follows along, wondering what Makoto is up to.
Makoto doesn't notice Haru's presence, instead gently pulling the fairy lights off their little tree, and carefully picking it up and bringing it out to their balcony. He kneels next to it, hands still on the pot, and faces the sky. Makoto fuzzes around the edges a little before he sharpens back into clarity, and just like that the sky cracks open and they get a strong, warm sunbeam aimed right.....at......their Christmas tree.
It could be a scene out of the Lion King, and it's so absurd and so sweet Haru's not sure if he wants to laugh or scowl. Luckily, his body's smarter than the rest of him, and he's taken a picture of this ridiculous scene before his brain's caught up with him. The ka-chak of the camera gets Makoto's attention, who turns to look over at him extremely sheepishly.
"You looked like you were enjoying having a houseplant, Haru, so I thought I should try my best to keep it healthy."
Between Haru jacking it up with magic blessed water and Makoto communing with a star a hundred million kilometers away, it is a literal miracle that the tree isn't 3 storeys tall with stars and icicles instead of pine needles.
It's a lot of miracles for one day, to be honest. Haru almost wants to pretend he doesn't notice when Makoto perks up again, something occurring to him. There's only so much he can handle, and he hasn't even taken the mackerel out to be defrosted.
"And one more thing, Haru-chan! I didn't want to tell you in case it didn't end up happening, but I finished my thesis! I went to university today just to hand it in. Tomorrow I have a meeting with my study group, but otherwise-"
Haru stopped listening past 'finished.....thesis'. He usually listens, even when he doesn't look like he is, but the spectre that has been hanging over Makoto's head for months has finally been vanquished, and while Haru's fine with supporting Makoto and seeing him off to his long, long days at the library with a hot breakfast and a kiss, it's been an eternity since he's had his boyfriend to himself.
The heavens have aligned, and all that.
He doesn't know what expression he's got on his face, but it makes Makoto smile back, if a little uncertainly. "Haru-chan?"
"Makoto, put the tree back."
Makoto hastens to obey, still taking the time to put the lights back on, before coming to stand in front of Haru. His head's cocked to one side, like a curious puppy, and Haru just wants to bite.
"You deserve a treat," Haru says as he grabs Makoto's hand and drags him to their bedroom. "A treat for getting all your work done, and for sharing your secrets with me."
Outside, the snow starts up again, gentle as a tonne of feathers.
Makoto licks his lips, and squeezes Haru's hand. "Are you going to spoil me, Haru?" he asks, voice pre-emptively hoarse.
"You don't even know how much, Makoto."
-
Tokyo mysteriously ends up snowed under for a full week, and by the time Makoto's university finally reopens, there's a skip to his step, metaphorically.
There's a limp to his step, literally, and Haru's never felt so accomplished in his life.
January 2019, and we are off to a good start.