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The sultry air permeating the room feels too thick for his lungs, blocking his airways no matter how hard Haruka tries to inhale it; yet, it does nothing to stop his body from crashing down on top of Makoto’s heaving chest. Distantly, he registers the last jolts of Makoto’s powerful release spasming beneath and inside him. He probably should roll over and let his boyfriend breathe freely. But although his body feels weightless, his own orgasm seems to have melted all of his insides completely, turning him into a boneless heap of skin, sweat, and sore muscles.
So Haruka stops trying to half-heartedly will his body to move, submitting to the sweet ache of pure exhaustion. It doesn’t seem to matter anyway as Makoto relaxes his grip on Haruka’s hips, wrapping one of his arms loosely around Haruka’s waist and gently tracing the fingers of his other hand up the slope of Haruka's spine. Despite feeling overheated, Haruka shivers from the feather-light caress, and when Makoto starts combing his fingers through Haruka’s damp hair and placing sloppy absent-minded kisses to the top of his head, Haruka can only press his face harder against his boyfriend’s chest, indulging himself in the strong musky scent of Makoto’s sweat and mouthing at the salty skin with trembling parched lips.
Their bedroom window is cracked open, letting in a soothingly cool breeze and the muted sounds of the big city. As the pounding rush of blood in his ears finally starts to slow down, Haruka becomes more aware of all the noises assaulting his overwhelmed senses. He listens to the unrelenting buzz of traffic occasionally interrupted by impatient honking, the rambunctious laughter of tipsy office workers dragging themselves home after a long night of bar hopping, the shrill barking from a nearby dog park, the soft voices of their upstairs neighbors' trying and failing to spot the stars from their balcony. Tokyo is never quiet, not even at night, unlike Iwatobi where Haruka could hear the distant splash of ocean waves even in his sleep. And yet, even Tokyo’s constant hum has grown on him, already become a routine part of his life, a harmonic accompaniment to the central melody of Haruka’s life—the steady beating of Makoto’s heart against his own.
The curtains rustle as a stronger gust of breeze makes its way inside the bedroom. Even though Haruka has already started to cool off a bit, the contrast between the coolness of the wind against his back and the heat of Makoto’s body below him makes Haruka shiver and his skin break out in goosebumps. Makoto stirs beneath him, always able to sense even the mildest discomfort in Haruka’s body language, and carefully turns on his side, shifting Haruka off himself so that his back is against the wall. Haruka grunts in protest, already missing the rise and fall of Makoto’s chest against his and the gentle fullness of his soft cock inside him, and swings his leg back over Makoto’s torso. His boyfriend laughs breathlessly and moves his hand to the back of Haruka’s thigh, hitching his knee higher over his own hip.
“Don't you wanna take a shower?” Makoto’s voice is raspy, but the kiss he presses in between Haruka’s brows is so tender that Haruka’s toes curl involuntarily.
It almost takes him no time to decide. “No, not yet,” Haruka says against Makoto’s collarbone.
“Are you sure?” Makoto sounds taken aback, and not without a reason. “If we fall asleep now, we’ll wake up all sticky, and you always hate it. It’s already pretty late for a bath, and we have so much to do tomorrow…”
“I know,” Haruka interrupts him gently, resting his head on Makoto’s shoulder and burying his face in the crook of Makoto’s neck. “Just a couple of minutes.”
He feels Makoto’s sigh ruffle his hair while his lips press another small kiss against Haruka’s forehead in reluctant agreement. Satisfied, Haruka leaves a grateful kiss of his own on Makoto’s neck and closes his eyes.
He knows that Makoto is right. Tomorrow is Saturday, the only day of the week they both are free from work. Makoto's other day off is on Tuesday while Haruka is bound to a standard Monday–Friday work week. They need to get groceries, meal prep, do laundry, deep clean the kitchen and the bathroom, and finish a myriad of other small chores they always forget about during the week.
Haruka lets a small smile grace his lips. Sex on Friday night, errands and chores on Saturday… How many other couples in Tokyo are lying just like them right now, too warm and lazy to move, thinking about all the mundane things they have to do tomorrow? Or across Japan? The entire world? The number is probably too big for Haruka to really wrap his head around, but he knows for sure that he and Makoto are a part of this enormous group of tired but happy people. Ordinary, even.
When you're ten, they call you a prodigy. When you're fifteen, they call you a genius. Once you hit twenty, you're just an ordinary person.
Not for the first time, Haruka mulls his grandmother’s words over in his head. Ordinary. Something he used to crave so much when he was a teen, convinced that his gift, his swimming, was ruining his friends’ lives. Then, when he finally found his dream, it started haunting him, threatening to take away his future, his friends, his worth. He started fearing it, ready to do anything, give up everything he was if it meant he could put off becoming ordinary for another couple of years.
It was a dark time in his life, and Haruka doesn’t think he would have made it out relatively unscathed if it hadn’t been for his friends. Even after his rehab, after Makoto sat him down and finally got him to talk, it was hard to let go of the tingling panic the simple prospect of no longer being someone in this world evoked in him.
But as time went by and his irrational fear slowly disappeared, he started to really think about what it meant to be ordinary. What exactly made him so different from other, "more ordinary" people? Was it his swimming, the attention of millions of people all over the world glued to their screens to see his front crawl? The thought made him nauseous, and he would often catch himself thinking about his non-swimmer friends: Akane, bright and ambitious, ordering them around when they came to help her prepare for the opening of another Marron; Kou, confident and spirited, engaged in a heated debate with Nao over the pros and cons of using protein powder in everyday cooking; even Kisumi, as lively as ever, playing basketball with neighborhood kids and laughing good-naturedly as they beg him to teach them new maneuvers. It occurred to him that while they were probably ordinary in the eyes of the whole world, they were actually unabashedly unique in their own special way.
And Haruka is no different. Sure, there is something about him—his swimming, to be exact—that somehow constantly managed to attract the attention of other people. But in the end, he’s always been ordinary. Just like his friends, he’s had dreams and fears, joys and disappointments, smiles and tears. And whatever the general public might have heard about Nanase Haruka, the swimming prodigy, was nowhere near to the real Haruka who is lying stark naked in the arms of the love of his life, savoring the feelings of loving and being loved in return, which might not be anything special in comparison to the grand history of humankind, but is something incredible, something belonging only to him and Makoto, simple yet absolutely extraordinary.
His grandmother’s voice rings through his mind once again, and he tries to remember the face she made when he first heard her recite the old saying. She had watched him swim and win first place at one of his earlier competitions, then listened to his coach sing her grandson’s praises while he was in the changing room. Afterward, as they slowly made their way home, she watched him play with a gold-colored medal hanging around his neck. That was when Haruka first learned that he would one day grow up to become ordinary.
Haruka thinks about her smile, the crinkles around her eyes and mouth, and the slightly teasing lilt of her voice. It’s strange how much her words stuck to him, still so fresh in his memory as if he'd first heard them mere minutes ago; how much he secretly feared them. And yet, now that he’s finally stepped away from competitive swimming, letting the slow currents of ordinary life take him further and further away from the world of fame and glory, he starts to think that, maybe, his grandmother’s words weren’t an admonishment, a warning not to let the constant praises go to his head. Perhaps, it was a promise.
She must have noticed how uncomfortable and rigid he looked during the short award ceremony, scrutinized by the crowd of frowning, disappointed parents, or saw how tightly he gripped Makoto’s hand when his best friend helped him out of the pool. He never liked the attention his swimming brought to him from other people, and she must have seen it, must have wanted to reassure him that one day, he would finally be free from the expectations of others, just like he is now.
Some part of Haruka wishes he’d realized sooner that it was his own mind that tried desperately to think of being ordinary as a punishment, as if trying to justify the discomfort competitive swimming used to make him feel. It would have saved him so much heartache. But what’s past is in the past now, and he’s proud of what he’s achieved, even if it wasn’t always smooth sailing.
Sighing, he opens his eyes and lets the bittersweet thoughts and memories disappear as he focuses on the sight of Makoto’s neck in front of him. Haruka smiles once again and nuzzles at the small patch of rough stubble Makoto always misses when he shaves.
“Mhmm, Haru?” Makoto’s sleepy murmur is so sweet that Haruka can’t keep himself from pressing his mouth to the column of his neck to feel the gentle rumble reverberate through the soft skin. “Shower?”
Haruka hums noncommittally, moving his lips to the underside of Makoto’s chin, then—to the corner of his mouth. “Just one kiss,” he promises, cupping Makoto’s cheek in his palm.
Surprisingly (but not really), Makoto answers with a quiet all right, pressing a small peck to Haruka’s wrist, and Haruka wastes no time capturing his boyfriend’s lips in a slow tender kiss. It’s over too quickly, and Haruka is about to beg for another one when Makoto licks his lips and whispers, “One more wouldn't hurt, I don't think.”
As Haruka opens his mouth to let Makoto’s tongue slide inside and tangle with his own, he already knows there’s much more than one kiss to come after this one. And, when he feels Makoto’s hand on his thigh slowly climb up to knead at his ass while Haruka himself slides his hands down Makoto’s chest to caress his nipples, he realizes they will not go to bed any time soon.
Tomorrow, they will sleep in until late morning and then cuddle until noon. They will start their day late again and will probably have to put off some of the chores for another week. (Not laundry, though. They already skipped it last week, and Haruka is certainly not going to let Makoto borrow anything from the collection of clothes Haruka has stolen from him over the years.)
But it doesn’t matter because they will still spend another painfully ordinary Saturday together, making each other laugh and bickering over what to make for dinner, loving and living just like it was always meant to be. And isn’t that what true freedom really is?