Warnings: Unbeta'd, implied (and eventually) crossdressing

When Makoto was fourteen, he realised he loved Haruka.

It was somewhere between Spring and Summer during Makoto's second year of middle school when his growing popularity with the girls in his year resulted in rejecting many of their offers to go out with them. Makoto himself had very little clue as to what caused the sudden emergence of his very own fan club (or that's at least what they called themselves), the never seen before pile of chocolates addressed to him on Valentine's Day and daily offers to walk home with him, which he politely declined. He was pretty certain that none of these girls actually loved him or even liked him enough, considering the fact that he barely talked to any of them prior to them asking him out. It wasn't that Makoto refused to acknowledge love at first sight, he just refused to believing in asking someone you scarcely knew personally on a date. Maybe that's why he felt little to no remorse whenever he turned them down, knowing that their feelings cannot possible by hurt for too long, no relationship was much better than a false one.

He never told Haruka about any of this, unsure what his friend would made of it or if he would even care at all. It just felt like something that shouldn't be shared, which Makoto absolutely hated. There was something disgusting about purposefully not telling Haruka things, like a strange sensation of nausea that emerged from the pit of your stomach and reached the back of your throat. If guilt had a taste, Makoto thought it would be not too dissimilar from stomach acid, but he guessed he would just have to get used to ignoring that acidic burn while addressing Haruka with his signature smile.

Makoto did have reasons for his unwillingness, it was hardly just him being difficult and embarrassed - although having such a thing as a fan club was embarrassing, considering he was only fourteen and quite ordinary in comparison to the pretty-boy heroes out of shoujo manga. He was quite convinced that having a fan club for a fellow student was simply just a thing out of a shoujo manga until he met Kisumi and his fan club. Kisumi is someone Makoto could blame for many things, including his hesitance to telling Haruka about his raising popularity (and even his raise in popularity itself). Haruka certainly didn't like Kisumi, even before he 'met' the strawberry-haired boy, Makoto could easily sense the dislike towards his new middle school friend as he told otherworldly boy about him for the first time.

It was almost uncomfortable to watch, Haruka's sudden distantness, the light furrowing of his eyebrows and defensive crossing of his arms - there was a passive-aggressive vibe to his repulse, it was cold, like a blizzard that they would be split apart and lost in. Haruka was completely different to how he reacted when Makoto first told him about Rin from elementary school. His arms were still crossed, eyebrows slightly furrowed, but there was something light-hearted and playful about how Haruka commented on how troublesome Rin must be. As weird as it was to say considering Haruka never actually met Rin, Haruka seemed almost fond of him, it made Makoto felt very sorry that Haruka couldn't met and get to know Rin.

But there was an ever-present scowl in the room as Haruka vanished into the dwindling light of the afternoon, the strawberry-haired boy barged into Makoto's room unannounced with snacks from Mrs. Tachibana on a tray. Makoto acted as jittery and awkward as a child who desperately needed to relieve their bladder yet haven't had the opportunity and lived in fear of it coming undone any second now. He could only relax after a good twenty minutes after there was no evidence of Kisumi seeing Haruka or suspecting anything. The afternoon bleed into the evening and Kisumi eventually left, to Haruka's delight. However, the otherworldly boy's mood reminded unchanged as he expressed his distaste to Makoto in the form of a silent treatment, despite both of them knowing that was little that could have been done about the strawberry-haired menace.

Makoto was unsure what Haruka disliked about Kisumi. In ways Kisumi did have a personality many could find annoying. He was more of clingy than loud, yet had an in-your-face demeanour and could be quite cumbersome to deal with all the same. He was quite like Rin in that respect, which was a funny coincidence, since the two of them used to attend the same elementary school. Both boys had at some point convinced him to join some extracurricular activity, which Makoto honestly didn't mind doing - in fact, he found it to be rather enjoyable and pleasant - besides returning home late to Haruka. That was probably another reason why Haruka hated Kisumi: Makoto joined the basketball team because of Kisumi and basketball practice lasted for an hour on most days, which meant Makoto would return home an hour later than usual. It was the same when Rin made Makoto join his relay team, but that was about swimming and Haruka strangely liked all things water-related, it seemed; Makoto doubted the otherworldly boy saw the point in basketball or even remotely had any interest for it.

Luckily, basketball practice was cancelled this week and likely the next due to their borderline-decrepit gymnasium in dire need of refurbishment. It seemed the school had managed to rise funds off of whatever unspecified means the school committee used to resolve the state of financial failure it was in. Makoto assumed the increase in cakes sales for 'charity' had some relevance to it, although he supposed he couldn't complain as the cakes were quite delicious and the word 'charity' seemed to evoke false sense of sympathy within him, even though the money raised would only ever be used to benefit the school, not some poor, starving children in third world countries.

A strange fantasy had wormed its way into the mind of Makoto Tachibana over the course of a few weeks - one that would leave him unbelievably guilty if he ever acted upon it - but he couldn't ignore it all the same. Said fantasy had first emerged somewhere within his shameful subconscious and manipulated its way through his conscious mind. The tantalisingly gorgeous image played on even the most innocent thoughts throughout his everyday routine, it was almost irritating. Feelings that he had held for Haruka, feelings that he would consider to be completely platonic and typical of such close friends, were being muddled and affected to the point of confusion. But that was the least of Makoto's worries, the image itself was perverted and sick, he felt unbelievably filthy for thinking such a thing about his otherworldly friend, let alone actually acting out the strange fantasy.

Something amusing happened when Haruka wore clothes or held onto inanimate objects. They would turn the same chlorinated water colour as the surface of Haruka and they would become translucent and shimmer in the same way, too. It was ridiculously endearing in the weirdest of ways, watching Haruka cuddle his favourite orca plushie as the black and white coat of the cuddly toy tingled with the same blue and almost became a part of Haruka's being. But the magic would come to an end when the otherworldly boy placed the orca back onto the bed, all traces of Haruka disappeared from the toy and it returned to its original pigmentation, to his utter disappointment. Somehow, if his plushie bared the bluish tinge of his beloved Haruka, Makoto would only come to love the stuffed animal all the more. Haruka didn't smell of anything, but Makoto assumed that what he felt was similar to how others felt when they embrace clothes with the scent of their loved ones.

The key components of his plan consisted of the nurse costume his sister bought that was all but too big for her six-year-old self. While he wasn't too sure if it would actually fit a ten-year-old, Haruka was a little shorter than what he considered to be average height and it was worth a shot. Okay, maybe the idea wasn't so devious as Makoto initially made it out to be, but it was still just as perverted all the same. It felt like such a struggle not to cave into that guilt and abort the plan all together - Makoto only clung to the hope that it might straighten out (no pun intended) his confused feelings.

After arriving home, earlier than what Haruka would expect, Makoto avoided the staircase to the upstairs and his room and walked straight on to the living room, or rather the playroom that the twins had rendered it to. He received strange looks from his mother as he rummaged through the twins' - who were thankfully asleep - toy box, and gently pulled out the light pink (not that the colour would matter, anyway) dress. Makoto stuttered and awkwardly mumbled his fabricated excuse that he needed the nurse costume for Art homework, when Mrs. Tachibana asked him what he was doing. It had been a while since he had last lied to his mother, which again made him question his plan. There would only be more to get Haruka into the costume, Makoto was nowhere near the a good liar, largely because he considered himself to be an honest and moral person, secondly because of his guilty-conscience didn't allow many opportunities for lies to slip by.

He sprinted off, almost excitedly, up the stairs with the nurse costume safely tucked under his arm. When he reached the door to his bedroom, he took a moment to compose his heavily beating heart and near erratic breathing. Haruka was awfully sensitive to the emotions of others for someone who had spent his life with such little social contact, and the last thing Makoto wanted to do was to startle the other boy - that could potentially give the whole game away.

Typical to his usual afterschool behaviour, Makoto opened the door and whispered a "Tadaima." The curtains were already half-drawn, allowing the side of the room that contained the desk and Makoto's unorganised and toppling stack of school books to well-lit and side with the bed and Haruka, sitting cross-legged on said bed with his signature neutral expression, was partially obscured by shadows and whatever dim light managed to travel through from the other side.

Instead of replying the 'welcome back' that Makoto anticipated and almost hoped for, Haruka asked, "What is that you're holding?" A slender arm reached out to point at the very noticeable bundle of pink that made Makoto wish that he had enough common sense to have at least concealed the dress away from the immediate view of his otherworldly friend.

But, sadly, the taller boy's mind wasn't accustomed to functioning in such a devious manner, so he simply scratched his head with his unoccupied hand for a while before he gave his friend his weak and unsatisfactory response. "This is, well- It's something I thought we could play with," Haruka quizzically raised an eyebrow and did nothing more, his unwavering gaze was fixated on Makoto's awkward posture and questionable fidgeting, which only increased with the otherworldly boy's prolonged staring.

Finally, a mature sigh, uncharacteristic of a child his size, escaped Haruka's lips and his gaze relaxed but still didn't leave Makoto. A translucent blue hand patted an empty space on the bed beside him, as he motioned for Makoto to sit down next to him. After the taller boy had sat down, smiling as he always would, albeit a tad more nervous, Haruka took his chance to pose yet another question. "Makoto, you're acting weirdly. What actually is that thing and what do you really want to do with it?" Haruka leaned in a little closer, hoping to not exactly intimidate his friend - that was kind of difficult with their height difference - but to at least pressurise the other into giving him some proper answers.

Haruka's technique seemingly somewhat worked as Makoto caved into the tension. There was even more stuttering as Makoto tried to explain his intentions with a very focused- (and ridiculously cute) looking Haruka under his nose. "This is going to sound, well... I suppose it's a bit strange, I guess. But, hear me out, Haru. This," he paused to hold out the dress to Haruka, "is something I want you to wear for me. I-Is that okay?" Somewhere along his speech, a light blush had appeared on his cheeks, and it seemed to dwindle there for a while as Haruka examined the pink fabric with curiosity.

"Makoto, you realise this is a dress, don't you? Why do you want me to wear a dress?" Haruka remarked, clearly puzzled. Makoto didn't normally ask Haruka to wear particular clothes, in fact he didn't normally ask Haruka to do anything, really. The asking had grown out of favour after their first two years of being acquainted with each other, nowadays Makoto would usually just suggest or imply, never ask. All of this was strange and quit unfamiliar to the otherworldly boy, he looked over to his friend, who still seemed hesitant and unwilling to talk. "What I mean to say is, I'll do it. But, why do you want me to wear it?"

Something lit up on Makoto's face after Haruka said he agreed to wear the nurse costume, although the realisation that he would have to make up some half-assed excuse to cover up his true intentions from the curious mind of Haruka. "Well, I guess it's something that's pretty hard to explain," even after he said those words, the otherworldly boy's gaze never faltered from Makoto's face, like he was with the answer his friend gave him. "I... I want to see what the dress would look like, can you just put the dress on and maybe it might be easier for me to explain."

That could have been a sigh that escaped Haruka's mouth, but Makoto didn't notice, nor did he care a great deal. The ridiculous grin that appeared on his face just wouldn't fade away.

This took forever to post, I know. School and my own procrastination was basically the reason for this taking so long to post. Sorry about that.