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You’d gotten used to the hot water at Tsuru-no-yu over time. Not enough to sit in it up to your neck for more than ten minutes—it’s a relief to know that not even Haiji’s crazy enough for that—but enough that using the showerheads is manageable, enough that you don’t yelp when the water hits your back and give Joji and Jota enough ammo to cackle about it like a pair of jackals for a damn week and a half.
You don’t know that you’ve ever felt a soreness as pervasive as the one you feel after running, like your whole body is locking up, one muscle at a time tapping out for the night. Haiji tells you, with a smile, that this is normal, the body’s way of coping with stress—passing along the work to someone else, another muscle group, to prevent collapse—and there’s something about that explanation that, despite your best efforts, you can’t bring yourself to resent. And at the end of the day, nothing helps like hot water.
“You’re gonna use up all the water in Japan at this rate,” Nico teases you on his way out, and you flip him off without lifting your head from between your knees.
The twins pass you next, their aimless argument receding across the tile, and then Kakeru and Prince, in the usual companionable silence. Then Shindou and Musa, chatting about novels, then King, trying to sound like he reads novels. Then, quiet.
For a second.
“Nico-chan-senpai’s right, you know. It’s wasteful to run the shower that long.”
From your right, there’s the sound of someone getting out of the bath—water sloshing, disrupted; bare feet slapping faintly onto the cool floor. You don’t need to look up to know it’s Haiji. He’s always the last to get here and the last to leave.
“You’re lasting longer than usual,” you say instead of addressing the comment.
“You think?” Haiji replies innocently. “Hm. Maybe this place is good for endurance.”
“If you want to train yourself to endure the fires of hell, maybe. Hakone’s not an active volcano anymore, you know. The last eruption was—”
“In the thirteenth century,” Haiji says with a note of cheer. “I know. I’m not worried.”
“Well, I’m glad someone isn’t.”
It comes out of you so fast, like it had been waiting for an opening.
Your arms are too sore to lift above your shoulders; the shampoo sits in your palm, a faint green disc. It’s like kendo all over again, like your third year all over again: no reward for your hard work but pain.
Haiji’s silence carries so much weight. It always has, but it’s more evident to you now, with your bare back to him and water two degrees short of scalding streaming down it. People talk about hearing gears turning, but it’s different with Haiji—more like ligaments stretching, bones settling, easing into position for a sprint, waiting for the gun to go off.
“Here,” he says, close enough that it doesn’t echo. “Let me do that.”
You’ve got no reason to—what reason do you ever have, with Haiji—but you do. He pulls up a bucket next to you and crouches down on it, and the click of the shampoo bottle cap opening seems louder than it ought to be.
At this, finally, you turn to him, twisting your torso and craning your neck.
“You can’t be serious,” you say to his completely open face, blinking back.
“Why wouldn’t I be serious?”
“Haiji—”
“It’s nice to let people help us,” Haiji says, like he’s reciting from a children’s book. “Remember?”
And you grumble at the memory of an ungainly resolution in a half-lit kitchen, a bowl of untouched oranges between you on the table, a cold compress on Haiji’s forehead. The smile he’s giving you now is so different from the expression burdening his face then—and while Haiji might be difficult to comprehend, he’s even more difficult to say no to—and your arms are tired.
You turn back around, a silent assent. Haiji’s hands land carefully on your scalp at first, then settle, moving rhythmically in circles until the shampoo’s worked into a lather, and a part of you wants to examine this, wants to address the obvious—but somewhere there’s a disconnect. You close your eyes and let the water fill the silence.
“I haven’t been completely honest with you,” Haiji says, fingers stalling for a moment at the back of your head.
“Oh, no?” you say as sarcastically as you can manage, and his laugh comes out a puff of air, vanishing in the space between your bodies.
“No,” he says, moving to your temples. “The truth is, I am worried.”
Of course, you’d known that already. You almost laugh, hearing him say it like it’s some horrible secret he’s been keeping from you, the wedge that will split you on impact.
You wait to reply. Haiji tends only to reveal things when given a wide berth, as though needing tacit reassurance that there is room for them to exist. He reaches over your shoulder for the showerhead, detaches it, tips your head forward.
“Keep your eyes closed,” he says, and the water hits the crown of your head, goosebumps following it. His other hand is on your shoulder, holding you in place. “I can’t stop listing all the things that could go wrong. Every morning it’s like I’m going out to buy groceries—what if Prince collapses? What if Nico can’t breathe? What if Kakeru—”
“Kakeru’s not going anywhere,” you say, with an edge that’s too revealing. You can pretend Haiji doesn’t notice it, but it would be just that: pretending. “Prince has stayed upright this long. And Senpai stops when he needs to. Besides, if his lungs give out he’ll be getting his just reward.”
“Heartless,” Haiji says, with affection disguised as amusement. “Arguing with you is exhausting, you know. You always know exactly what to say.”
“That’s how I get them,” you mutter, smirking, tilting your head when he nudges it. “Make it more trouble than it’s worth.”
Before you can give it permission, a part of you accepts a certain truth: that letting Haiji do this every time wouldn’t be so bad. That your body feels right in his hands, that the touch you can’t see might be a cure for something.
“If you’re going to worry,” you tell him, “don’t waste your time doing it over the things you can imagine. Do it over the things you can see. The things that are in front of you.”
“The things that are in front of me, huh.”
Haiji’s voice is soft, contemplative, bearing some secluded meaning. He reaches past you again, his chest nudging briefly against your back, and turns off the water.
In the humid hush of the empty bathhouse, Haiji sits with you a while longer. Out of the corner of your eye, you can see the mural of snow-capped Fuji, proud and lonely among the clouds. Your scalp is still tingling, wanting.
“Maybe I’m just being foolish,” Haiji murmurs.
With a sigh, you reach for your glasses, wiping the steam off on your towel. It comes back anyway the moment you put them on, but habits are hard to break.
“You’re foolish anyway,” you tell him, bracing your hands on your crooked knees and turning to look at him.
A single drop of water hangs from his chin, on the verge of falling, and he’s giving the blue tile one of his faraway looks, as though there’s a road there that only he can see. You reach for his shoulder, pull him back—and the road is forgotten. He looks at you instead.
“Finish what you started,” you say, “and worry about the rest later.”
His skin is still heat-flushed, unbelievably warm under your palm. His towel covers the scar, but you don’t have to see it to know that it’s there. You wonder if it will be nearly gone, someday—nothing more than a spidery white line, a ghost of an angry reminder.
“That’s very…” Haiji says, and then softens, his mouth assembling a smile that still has the power to twist your stomach, in spite of everything. “You.”
“Forward,” you say firmly, without letting go of him. “Right?”
Haiji pats your hand, twice, and lets that be his answer. The smell of your shampoo lingers on it. In the quiet unfolding between you, you wonder which muscle will take on the responsibility when the time comes for you to stand.