Chapter Text
🌲🌳🌲
On average, during the summer months, the drive up to Ikkoganaru Campfield from Roadside Station Kinanse-Iwatobi takes just a little over an hour. By the time Haruka is — finally, finally, finally — pulling into the campsite’s parking lot, though, the sun has already made its way directly overhead (and the back of his T-shirt is starting to cling uncomfortably to his skin, as well).
It’s a hot day.
A red-hot day, in fact.
Still, it looks like Haruka is far from the only one hitting the forest on the Eastern side of Mount Daisen today: the parking lot is nearing full capacity, courtesy of a handful of school buses and camper vans, and there’s a whole slew of bicycles blotting out the information office’s front porch and entrance.
Well.
Well.
‘Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.’, right...?
“Long time no see, Inoue-san,” Haruka — discreetly, with the bill of his baseball cap pulled as low as it can possibly go — greets the office’s seasoned governess, as soon as he spots her greying updo and near-toothless smile amongst a crowd of unfamiliar faces. “You wouldn’t happen to have a spot left for me, would you? I wasn’t planning on staying overnight, but if I can avoid having to get back into my furnace of a — ”
“Nanase-senshu!” Inoue-san loudly breaks in, there, forgetting herself for a moment (as she is rather prone to, these days). “For you, m’dear, there will always be a spot at Ikkoganaru Campfield! Go ahead and submit your hiking registration form, and I’ll see about securing you a nice little site near the river.”
Haruka flushes, bows a little deeper than is strictly required of him, and — to absolutely no avail whatsoever, of course — tries, “I’ve been retired for well over a year now, Inoue-san. Won’t you give in and call me ‘Haruka’, already...?”
🌲🌳🌲
A weather-beaten guidepost by the trailhead reads, Daisen Falls: 1.9km. Haruka begrudgingly agrees to pose for a couple of commemorative pictures with it (and sign his autograph in various stamp books, while he’s at it), before planting a — clammy, and a little off-centre — kiss down on one of Inoue-san’s sun-baked cheeks and bidding the crowd at Ikkoganaru Campfield goodbye.
The trail is well-kept and teeming with high-spirited elementary school students and avid hikers alike. Haruka keeps his head down, easily outpaces just about anyone he comes across along the way, and simply loses himself in the act of putting one foot in front of the other.
It’s nice.
The scenery is breathtakingly beautiful, as far as the eye can see. There’s a — very — welcome breeze, occasionally toying with Haruka’s sweat-dampened fringe. The age-old pines, beech, maple and Japanese rowan surrounding the trail block out the majority of the sun’s scorching rays. And the sound of the Kaseichi River, interminable birdsong, and an accompanying choir of frogs reverberates throughout the forest (filling Haruka’s ears like music, slipping into his bloodstream, and heading straight for his battered heart), as well.
Or it did, at least.
For a little while.
Until —
“Lost your way, huh...?”
“No,” Haruka disagrees, on little more than autopilot, as he comes to a grinding halt just a stone’s throw from the trail’s halfway point. He knows where he is. He’s been here before, countless times. With ——— “We’re right by Heaven’s Stairs, aren’t we? I could still make out Ayugaerino Falls, just a second ago. Its rumble is impossible to mistake, this time of year.”
The source of Haruka’s sudden hold-up — a devilishly handsome young man, presumably college-aged — smiles, all gums and startlingly sharp-looking teeth. “You are lost,” he insists, then, as he unfolds his legs from his perch on a nearby log to join Haruka on the trail proper. He’s wearing a rust-coloured yukata, with the sleeves rolled all the way up. His chest is showing, too. A lot of it, even. And his hair — red and glossy, like the specialty apples Haruka’s parents had sent him for his birthday — has been gathered into a low, messy little ponytail; a look that should clash with his traditional garb, but somehow doesn’t. “C’mon, I’ll show you the way.”
Haruka frowns, averts his eyes from the fine sheen of sweat glazing a milky-white sternum, and stays exactly where he is. “I haven’t even told you where I’m headed yet.”
The stranger’s geta make nary a sound as he walks — saunters, rather — right up to Haruka, swings a heavy arm across Haruka’s shoulders, and equally immovably repeats, “C’mon. I’ll show you — ”
“Oi! Don’t you think it’s a little too hot for that kind of — ”
“Honestly...? The heat only ever seems to crank up my appetite! Increased blood-flow, an’ all.”
When the realisation finally hits, Haruka belatedly rids himself of the unwelcome weight with a pointed little sidestep. “You’re propositioning me?”
“It’s in talks.”
Just like that, Haruka’s frown shifts into an outright scowl. This, too, he knows how to navigate. Much, much better than he’d like to. “If it’s an easy payday you’re after, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you: my NDAs are watertight, these days. Besides, nobody cares about a has-been. Least of all — ”
“‘A has-been’...?! Last I checked, you still had four individual WRs to your name! I highly doubt you’ve already reached your sell-by date, Nanase-san.” A pause. “Shotgun retirement or no.” And then another, slightly weightier one. “Front-page exposé or no.”
It — really — shouldn’t be such a relief to hear those words coming out of a complete and utter stranger’s mouth, especially in this particular context, but it very much is; Haruka subsequently releases the breath he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding, unclenches his jaw, and replies, “Flattery won’t get you anywhere, Casanova.”
A snort, offhand and utterly undaunted. “I prefer ‘Rin’, actually.”
“Just ‘Rin’...?”
“Mhmm,” the stranger — Rin, apparently — hums, low and guttural, as he steps right back into Haruka’s field of vision. This time, though, something in his winsome smile compels Haruka to allow him close enough to hook his fingers into a pair of Haruka’s belt loops. It is tempting, after all. The guy’s a total knockout, and Haruka is woefully overdue for a proper hookup. “Let’s just drop the formalities altogether, ‘kay...? And these, too.” A sharp tug later, he adds, “In return, I’ll sign the rest of my name on that dotted line of yours. That’ll at least get me down on my knees, won't it? My mouth’s been watering for a while now.” Another tug, to which Haruka very nearly succumbs on the spot. “C’mon, Champ. Just let me have a little taste, already! No strings. No catch, either. Only the best of intentions, I swear.”
Unsurprisingly, it takes Haruka a — long — moment to find his voice again. “There’s an arbitration clause now.”
“Late’s better than never, I suppose,” Rin half-agrees, half-admonishes, then; catching Haruka off guard — twice over, at that — by chancing another step forward himself. And, again, Haruka simply lets him do so. As a result, their knees collide. Their breaths intermingle. And ——— “Relax, would you? Unlike your sorry excuse of a coach, I’d never kiss and tell. ‘It’s an ill fox that fouls — ’”
“‘Bird’, that proverb goes,” Haruka corrects, by mere rote (courtesy of long-gone summers under Amakata-sensei’s supplementary tutelage, no doubt). “And it’s hardly a secret I did plenty to deserve — ”
“‘Better’,” Rin interjects, in turn, with enough conviction to leave Haruka feeling dazed and just a little bit dazzled. “It’s hardly a secret you did plenty to deserve better, Nanase-san. Shotgun retirement or no. Questionable chat log or no.”
Pretty, pretty words.
That’s all there — ever — is to it, Haruka knows. He has been here before, countless times. With ——— “Weren’t we dropping the formalities?”
Rin blinks, slow and staggered, as if caught in a daze of his own; and when his eyes open again, irises glowing like molten gold in the scattered sunlight, Haruka isn’t at all surprised to find them land squarely on his mouth. “How about I call you ‘Haru’, then...? I am being granted pretty exclusive access here, after all! How did that pull-quote in Sponichi go, again...? ‘In truth, I taught him far more than my job description entailed. Off-deck, if you follow my meaning.’...? Bit of a cradle-robber, I’d say. That old flame of yours.”
Haruka could take a — much-needed, frankly — step back, lie, and say, “I prefer ‘Haruka’, actually. And I was perfectly legal by the time that bigmouth finally managed to teach me anything. He might’ve been a lousy coach from the get-go, but I was hardly what you’d call a raw recruit. How old are you, anyway...?”
He should, rather.
That’s what he’s always done before, isn’t it...? The done thing. The safe thing.
Until ——— “Knock yourself out.”
Rin does, of course. He’s standing close enough, by now, for his — smiling, still — lips to graze Haruka’s as he goes on and on, in fact; each syllable a tempting, tantalising little kiss in its own right.
“Haru. Haru. Haru. Haru…”
Again, Haruka could put a stop to this momentum. He could draw back, shake his head to — futilely, most likely — try and clear it, and say, “Enough. Since you seem to have that asinine interview down pat, you can’t claim to be unaware of the way I conducted myself in its wake. There’s nothing ‘exclusive’ worth scraping together, anymore. Do us both a favour and ditch the starstruck act already, would you...?”
He could.
Maybe.
But.
He doesn’t.
He just doesn’t.
Instead, he simply strains his ears for the — imminent, surely — sound of approaching footsteps (or, shit, the telltale whirring and clicking of an accomplice’s DSLR capturing his latest humiliation in goddamn burst mode), and braces himself for impact.
But.
There’s — still — nothing.
No choir of frogs, chirping away. No birdsong. No Kaseichi River, even.
There’s only Haruka’s heartbeat, steadily pounding away. Haruka’s breath, coming in faster and faster (and faster, and faster). And Haruka’s — mulish, mutinous — mouth; heedlessly returning fire, as he says, “Go on, then. Show me the way already, Rin.”
🌲🌳🌲
Haruka startles awake just as the sun is starting to disappear behind Mount Iimori.
He’s alone.
And, aside from a fine layer of silt and the occasional pine needle sticking fast to large patches of his skin, he’s as naked as the day he was born.
His clothes, it turns out, have been stacked atop a nearby boulder; neatly folded, right down to his very socks. His shoulder-bag is there, too. His brogues. His water bottle. Even the sunblock he’d — liberally — applied to —
Fuck.
If it weren’t for the visceral memory of a breathless, broken, “Careful there, Champ. That stubborn little tremble in your hands has seriously got me questioning the quality of your ‘off-deck education’, y’know...? No matter, I’ll get you up to speed!”; coupled with the intoxicating heat and pressure of —
No.
No.
It was real.
It was.
Heatstroke or no, Haruka couldn’t possibly have imagined ——— “R-Rin...?”
There’s no response, of course. And just like before, the surrounding forest appears to be completely devoid of any noise whatsoever. No distant voices drifting in on a breeze. No discernable wildlife, anywhere. No Ayugaerino Falls, rumbling in the distance. No —
“Rin!”
Nothing, still.
Feeling increasingly ill at ease (and double as concerned about the rapidly dwindling daylight, as well), Haruka scrambles to collect his belongings. It isn’t until he’s buckling up his belt, though, that he notices the weather-worn rope encircling the boulder his clothing had been placed upon.
“A sacred rock, all the way out here...?”
It’s not even the only one around, Haruka — belatedly, again — realises, as he cautiously sets about exploring his surroundings. There are two more ‘seats of the gods’, just a little further up the mountain: a wedded pair, this time; barely joined together by an equally battered-looking shimenawa. And, right behind them, there’s —
“Oh.”
A traditional Japanese gate appears to be keeping watch over the rocks from behind a cluster of fledgling trees, its faded vermilion pillars and lightly curved lintels further asserting the nature of the ground Haruka’d — somehow — found himself treading.
This is sacred ground.
Shrine-ground.
Or it used to be, at least.
Once.
Considering its main gate is tall enough for its nemaki to — easily — dwarf the stone lanterns flanking it on either side (and Haruka, along with them), it hadn’t just been any random old shrine, either. It must’ve been pretty damn prosperous, at some point. In fact, clear evidence of its heyday still subsists all around: there’s a profusion of moss-topped altars just beyond the entrance, a massive tomb for its founder off to the side, and there doesn’t appear to be an end to the guardian statues surrounding the overgrown remains of a place for misogi, either.
Somewhat reassured by the sight of the ever-vigilant foxes, Haruka bows deeply and tells them, “Please forgive my intrusion. I’m only trying to find my bearings, I promise. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as possible.”
Again, there’s no response.
Haruka quickly passes through the gate, sealing his vow to O-Inari-san’s stony sentinels by skimming the moss on its nearest pillar with the very tips of his fingers. There’s no perceptible worshipper’s path left for him to follow, but the occasional stone lantern silently leads him further — and further, still — uphill in its stead. It’s a steep climb, however, with all manner of twists and turns; and by the time the forest finally thins out into a clearing, revealing the cluster of dilapidated wooden buildings sitting at its far edge, Haruka is short of breath and fanning himself with his baseball cap.
“Oh.”
Despite the — numerous — fallen trees caving in the shingled roofs of all but one of the buildings (to say nothing of the distinct lack of a pair of lion-dogs to protect them, or the pitiful state of the compound’s sacred fence), the sight Mizukue Inari-gu makes is still —
It’s still —
Unforgettable.
And Haruka hasn’t forgotten it, entirely. He knows that name, and the plate it’d been emblazoned on. He’s walked these flagstones before. He’d even shaken the haiden’s bell ropes, once, and made an offering; a wish.
Hadn’t he...?
Yes.
Yes.
He had.
Haruka is absolutely certain he had, all of a sudden. He’d paused in this exact same spot, fringe plastered to his forehead, to reach out a — tentative, trembling — hand to ———
“You might want to do up a couple more buttons before you go in and pay your respects, Haru-chan. Your neck’s kind of putting all the havoc you used to wreak on Azuma-sensei’s back to shame right now. Looks like you’ve finally met your match, huh...? Congratulations.”