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“I am not wearing those.”
Rei’s statement came with his usual strong, quiet fortitude and a pushing of his glasses frames higher up on his nose, which was Makoto’s strongest hint so far today that the lesson was going to end poorly.
In his defense, Nagisa’s cousin’s old swimmies, with the ducks in green and pink around the edges, were not what Makoto would have called the height of fashion, either. But he set his best calming smile in its usual position and held up his hands to soothe the freshman.
“Now, now, Ryuugazaki-kun, we’ve been over this. If you don’t wear them while you’re first learning, you’re going to sink like a stone.”
Again.
“I don’t care. They’re not beautiful at all, and I refuse to wear them.”
“But they’re all we’ve got, and we need to take advantage of this nice weather while it’s—Haru!” he cried in despair, as the sound of someone entering the water reached their ears.
Haruka surfaced, pinning their newest member with a thin, icy stare. “Get in the pool.”
“He can’t, Haru,” Makoto insisted, clamping a hand on Rei’s arm as he moved to comply. “Not until he learns—”
“I’m not teaching him unless we can be in the pool.” Haruka’s gaze was cracking under his own impatience. “Let him go.”
“I’ll get in the pool, sempai.”
“No!” shouted Makoto, Gou, and Nagisa at once, and the latter shuffled quickly to stand in Rei’s way. Sensing Haru’s seething gaze behind him, Nagisa blocked their newest member’s view as well as he could and smiled his cheeriest up at him to make up for the height difference. “We’ll get in the pool a little bit later, Rei-chan,” he promised, tugging his arm out of Mako’s grip and into his own. “First, though, why don’t I show you the basics?”
Rei’s eyes narrowed bemusedly behind his glasses. “Isn’t that what Haru-chan-sempai was going to do?”
Nagisa shook his head swiftly. “The basic basics! The ones that will help prepare you to get into the pool!” Makoto and Gou glanced at each other warily, but behind them, Haruka had already given into impatience and begun swimming laps. Rei watched him, the perfect pulls of his arms and kicks of his feet, the exact way his face broke the surface just long enough to draw just the right amount of breath into his lungs.
“The basics that will help prepare me to...” He sucked in a deep breath and tore his gaze away. Inches below him, Nagisa still offered his sunny smile. “Very well.”
“Yes!” the shorter boy cheered, raising his fists in the air to make up their height difference. “Okay, Rei-chan, follow me!” Nagisa took him by the hand and pulled him away from the pool, back towards the school buildings. Rei left one more lingering gaze on Haruka’s torpedoing form before allowing himself to be drawn away.
Rei found himself seated on a cheap plastic chair in front of a cheap plastic table, and Nagisa had been gone for over three minutes. The locker room was glaring under harsh yellow lights and smelled of cheap soap—not that he wasn’t used to it, but he was also sitting in his swim trunks, alone, waiting for Nagisa to come back with God-knew-what, and he was beginning to shiver.
There was nothing beautiful about being cold. Or being made to wait.
But after four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, finally, the shorter boy returned with that smile on his face and a deep, wide bowl of water balanced carefully in his hands. “Okay, Rei-chan,” he said, setting the bowl on the table between them. “This is the first thing anyone needs to learn before they start to swim.”
Rei pinned him with an impatient stare. “I know what water is.”
Nagisa blinked at him wide-eyed, and then laughed, his bright, amused smile wearing away at Rei’s expression as if it were a shadow. “Okay, okay,” he gasped, sitting down in the opposite chair to steady himself. “Okay, Rei-chan, the second thing!” He smiled up at the other boy’s face, which was turning some lovely shades of pink, and pulled the bowl towards him, slopping a bit over the sides.
“What is that, then?”
“Breathing.”
“Humans cannot breathe underwater, Nagisa-kun,” Rei stated, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Our lungs are not structured for—”
“Wrong!” exclaimed Nagisa. The other boy clamped his mouth shut, looking quite put out. “Well, half wrong. We can’t breathe in, but we can breathe out, Rei-chan. And under water, you have to make sure you do it properly. So watch...”
Rei observed through narrowed, disbelieving eyes as Nagisa took a deep breath, leaned forward to place his nose and mouth under the surface of the bowl’s water, and...
“Bbbbrrrrrrrbbbbbbrrbbbbb,” said Nagisa, and bubbles erupted out of his mouth and into the water like an unruly, floating beard.
Rei’s mouth fell open. It remained open until Nagisa ran out of air and raised his head, water dripping from his face as if his bubble beard had melted. Brightly, Nagisa pushed the bowl back across the table, dousing it with more water dribbling down the bowl’s sides. “Your turn, Rei-chan! The important thing to remember is to breathe only out of your mouth, not your—”
“No.”
Nagisa tilted his head to the side. “No?”
“No. I won’t.” Rei leaned back and folded his arms across his bare (cold) chest. “There is absolutely nothing beautiful about breathing like that.”
Nagisa’s eyebrows creased together. “It’s more beautiful than drowning,” he remarked. Rei narrowed his eyes skeptically. “It is!!”
“Regardless, I won’t do it.”
“Not even if I get you fresh water?”
“I-it has nothing to do with the water!” Rei insisted, though Nagisa still fixed him with a doubtful look. He had turned away when he said that. It probably had at least something to do with the water.
“Rei-chan, you’ll never get to swim with Haru-chan if you can’t breathe right!” he pleaded. “Come on, this is how we all learned!”
Rei paused, narrowing his eyes. “All of you...?”
“Yes, we all learned this way!” When they were five, but he didn’t mention that part.
Nagisa watched as Rei slowly processed this information, and as the taller boy straightened up in his chair, steeling himself to plunge his face into the bowl of water, Nagisa’s staring gaze grew wickedly sly. With one hand, Rei lifted the glasses from his face and folded them neatly in his lap.
“Only through the mouth,” Nagisa reminded him helpfully. Ignoring him, Rei filled his runner’s lungs with a long, deep breath and lowered his face into the bowl, taking care not to spill a drop.
Nagisa waited. So did Rei.
“Y-you have to breathe out, Rei-chan,” Nagisa reminded him helpfully. “Rei-chan.” The smaller boy’s face darkened. “Rei-chan!”
His face and throat were starting to itch with need. Rei released his held breath. In a great spurt, bubbles filled the bowl to its rim and drizzled over the edges as the taller boy quickly ran out of air. With a gasp, Rei lifted his head to fill his lungs back up with that sweet, perfect mixture of oxygen and nitrogen and—
“Well done, Rei-chan!” Nagisa managed to keep the relief out of his voice as he cheered, grinning over the wet lip of the bowl. “Now, next time don’t hesitate so long and—”
“There won’t be a next time,” Rei coughed, inelegantly wiping his dripping face off with the back of his hand.
“Ah, but—”
“There is no reason to repeat the exercise. I understand the concept perfectly.” Rei slipped his glasses back on, but the glare of the harsh lights in the locker room shielded his eyes from view. “Thank you, Nagisa-kun.”
“Y-you’re welcome…?” Nagisa watched silently from his chair as the taller boy strode from the room. He’d sounded way more embarrassed than thankful, Nagisa thought. But at least he had learned something.
“Look what I’ve found!”
Their manager’s voice reached them all the way across the pool yard. Haruka squinted thinly at the bright blue thing she was waving at them from the other side of the pool. “Are those...?”
“I think so.”
“Are they what?” Rei demanded, looking between the two upperclassmen with suspicion in his eyes. By now, they’d drawn closer, and the shape of the blue objects had become clearer.
Nagisa’s eyes brightened. “Kick boards!” he exclaimed, and raced to meet their pleased manager, clutching one of the little foam pads between his hands. “Haru-chan! Mako-chan! Look, they’re the ones from our old swim club! You can see the logo!”
“Ah!” Makoto turned one around in his hands, feeling the old white logo chipping away beneath his touch, the ragged, torn edge on one side. “So they are! I never thought I’d see these again!”
“Whatever gets him in the water,” Haruka muttered, but even his fingertips ran briefly, lightly, over the blue surface before he stripped to his trunks and dove into the pool.
Rei eyed the board in Nagisa’s hands warily as the smaller boy preened about their manager. “Good job, Gou-chan! You really pulled through!”
“It’s Kou! You can thank me by calling me Kou!” she snapped, but Nagisa danced away before she could make good on her threat to whack him in the back of the head with the board in her hands.
Rei took it from her, anyway, and inspected it, the way the logo’s ancient, yellowing paint was crumbling, leaving behind an unrecognizable shape—the way the pressure of a hundred young fingers had left dips and divots in the foam. “Gou-chan-san, are you certain this still functions as a proper floatation device?” he questioned.
“I said it’s Kou-ch—...sa—...augh! Hazuki-kun!”
Chuckling, Nagisa flung the board he held ahead of him before stripping down and following Haruka belatedly into the pool. “Come on, Rei-chan! Lesson one starts today!”
Makoto nudged the younger boy with a shoulder and a smile and sat himself in his trunks at the edge of the pool. “Slowly does it, Ryuugazaki-kun. The board will help keep you up while we practice your kicking.”
Glancing between the ratty old kickboard in his hand and Haruka, swimming crisp, clean lines through the water, Rei sighed, left his glasses atop a pile of clothes by the grass, and moved to join Makoto. Together, under Nagisa’s watchful eye, they slipped slowly into the pool.
Nagisa was a disorganized teacher at best, but Makoto knew how to translate him and Rei was a fast learner, quickly combining the breathing and kicking combinations the smaller boy demonstrated. Haruka watched hawk-eyed from the other side of the pool, barking with increasing frequency orders for Rei to straighten his back, bend his arms more, kick higher with his legs, and the next few days passed quickly.
By Tuesday’s end they barely needed the kickboards anymore; by the end of Wednesday, Haruka had taken over, coaching Rei on his form and the pull of his arms during the freestyle. Because Haruka could be impatient, Makoto stuck around to keep the peace, but Rei was just as impatient with himself, following through on a missed stroke over and over without having to be asked, until he satisfied them both.
Nagisa watched from the edge of the pool, resting his chin on the curved tip of one of the kickboards. When he’d caught Rei spending more time grimacing at the dull, ragged kickboards than he spent even watching Haruka swim, he’d taken the set of them home and mended them as best he could, repainting them with bright colors. Haruka had called them garish and Makoto had given him his usual bemused smile, but Rei had said they were, if loud, better than the alternative, and he paid more attention to his lessons, so Nagisa called them a success (to the heavy roll of Gou’s eyes). Even if their use was short-lived.
By Thursday Rei was transformed. Makoto sat with Nagisa now, watching their newest member struggle to keep up with Haruka’s orders. He still had a ways to go, but Nagisa was thrilled by his rapid progress and called and cheered every time Rei dove in expertly or executed another perfect kick turn. It was exciting, watching his training on the track translate under Haruka’s tutelage into a looseness in the water that Rei had once despised. By Friday he had quieted, and was content to just watch in silence, as together Haruka and Rei shot through the water together like dolphins playing in the ocean. Of course the older boy had lapped him several times, but Nagisa had eyes only for the way Rei pushed himself, corrected every last minute mistake, and struggled constantly with letting himself go.
When the sun had begun to dip behind the pink sakura trees in the distance, the two pulled themselves up out of the pool, panting lightly and shaking water from their ears. Gou, Makoto, and Nagisa were waiting there with dry towels and smiles and cold cans of juice. They unloaded an applause of carbonation when Gou popped the tops open and handed them out. Behind them on the table, Ama-sensei had begun to set out a pair of triple-tiered bento with a cheerful smile.
“You’ve come a long way in a week, Ryuugazaki-kun!” Gou exclaimed, grinning at his confusion. “But with this the Iwatobi swim team can finally begin competing in tournaments—and earning some prestige!”
“Kampai!” Nagisa’s orange juice spilled out of the top as he punched it high in the air, but he didn’t mind and neither did his teammates, as they echoed him—with varying degrees of excitement. They drank, and had a laugh when the bubbles went up Nagisa’s nose in his rush, and Ama-sensei called for them to come eat. Rei stayed quiet and listened as Gou, Nagisa, and Makoto reminisced over their food about their childhoods, nudging Haruka in turns to speak up and contribute. He found he enjoyed hearing the stories; even their star swimmer had memories to share, and he found the bright looks in their eyes and the fond, faraway tones in their voices beautiful.
But halfway through their celebration Rei’s ears began noting that little by little, one voice was fading into the background, far-off in a different way than temporally. In the middle of one of Makoto’s stories, Nagisa had risen to toss his empty can in the garbage, but instead of returning to the table, he wandered off to the side of the pool and sat down, letting his feet trail in the cool, darkening water. He excused himself, to no one’s notice, and seated himself down next to Nagisa, shifting the towel on his head down to wrap around his shoulders. For just a moment, before the smaller boy noticed him, the profile of his face looked soft and lost.
“Nagisa-kun?”
“Ah! Rei-chan!” His brief glimpse of Nagisa’s quiet repose vanished instantly; the smile he offered Rei now rivaled the setting sun in warmth. “What’s the matter? Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” Rei said, his cheeks reflecting the warmth Nagisa exuded. “It just got a little loud...” Ah, wait. “But what about—”
“You’ve worked so hard all week, Rei-chan,” the smaller boy said, voice filled with admiration as he gazed back out across the pool. “And you’ve improved so much.”
“Th-thank you,” said Rei, losing his grasp on the words he’d meant to say.
“You’re sure having no trouble taking after Haru-chan, huh? I think you’ve left me in the dust when it comes to making swimming look beautiful.”
Suddenly the coolness of the evening air didn’t seem so intense. Rei pulled his towel off his shoulders and dabbed at his face beneath his glasses, as if there were still water clinging to his skin. “That can’t be true,” he stated, trying to keep his voice as level as possible. “Nagisa-kun has been swimming for much longer than me, so it doesn’t make sense that...” He trailed off. Normally he’d just accept the compliment humbly—so why did that feel wrong, this time?
“It does,” Nagisa insisted, lips tipped with a quiet smile. “Rei-chan is a very beautiful person, no matter what he’s doing.”
“Ah...” Unable to get more than a stutter, Rei clamped his mouth shut, staring at Nagisa as a not-unpleasant prickly sensation began in his cheeks and worked its way all down his neck. When the smaller boy looked at him, he couldn’t bring himself to look away, even though the sad way his smile had tilted sent an unexpected shock of pain through Rei’s chest.
“I’m really glad you decided to join us, Rei-chan.”
“N-Nagisa-kun?” But that was all Rei could get out in the face of Nagisa’s widest, most brilliant smile, before the smaller boy seemed to bounce to his feet and back to the table for another bite of food.
Only now, out of the focus of Nagisa’s intense gaze, could Rei manage to look away from that smile that confused him and made his face burn and turned his legs into jelly. Rei sat heavily at the edge of the pool, watching the sunset lend its bands of color across the water’s surface. Drifting in and out of the purples and reds and pinks were the last of the season’s sakura petals, small and soft and lovely in the way they clung tenaciously to the living world for only a little while, but left their beauty behind long after they were gone.
Rei reached in and scooped his hand through the water, disrupting the colored reflections. A petal stuck to his fingertip, warm against his skin after the water evaporated, and he smiled at it, even as it fluttered away on a breeze.
Nagisa-kun…
“Well. That’s the end of that.” Makoto had stopped at the exit to the pool, mouth tipped in a wry line. Not only had the cooler spring weather returned, but it had brought with it buckets of rain that had fallen all weekend and into the next Monday, as if making up for lost time.
“Weights it is,” Nagisa groaned, flattening his forehead against the wall by the doorframe.
“Kou. Go ask Samezuka if we can use their pool again.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Haruka-sempai! We can’t just barge over there at the last minute!”
“Weights, weights, weights,” Nagisa droned, punctuating each iteration with a gentle bump of his head.
“It’s worth a shot, Kou-chan?” Makoto suggested, a bit desperately, as he clung to his friend’s arm. “Haru, there’s a tarp and it’s raining, please…”
“Weights, weights,” sighed Nagisa, “wei—oh!” He straightened. There had been a hand between his head and the wall that time. “Rei-chan…?”
“Nagisa-kun.” The taller boy slid his glasses up higher on his nose with two fingers and let his eyes wander in the vicinity of Gou’s ponytail. “If you don’t mind holding off on those weights for a while, I was wondering if you could help me out with something.”
“Oh?” Nagisa’s eyes brightened with curiosity, then dampened again in confusion. “What could you need my help with?”
“There’s something I’ve forgotten. This way.” Rei turned, leaving Gou and Makoto in charge of keeping Haruka out of the rain and headed back inside, making certain Nagisa was following behind—and he did, without fail, eyes wide as a puppy’s.
“In the locker room? Rei-cha—oh!” The room was empty, for all the indoor sports clubs were already in the middle of practice, and all the members of the outdoor clubs had already gone home. The scent of soap still lingered around a single table, dragged out into the middle of the floor, flanked by two chairs and topped with a deep, wide bowl of water. Touched, Nagisa melted his confusion down into a smile, which Rei forced himself not to look away from. “Okay, Rei-chan. Let’s take a seat.”
The water in the bowl shuddered lightly, making faint concentric ripples. Rei realized he was shaking and lifted his hands off the table.
“Ready?” Nagisa’s bright eyes glimmered mischievously. “You should have this down by now, so I’ll only do it once,” he warned with the shake of a finger.
“Please,” said Rei, motioning at the bowl.
“Remember. Mouth only.”
Rei watched, more intently than he’d ever watched a lecture or lesson in his life, as Nagisa drew in a deep breath, filled his swimmer’s lungs to their massive capacity, and dipped his face, more carefully this time, beneath the surface of the water. He watched beneath the ripples as Nagisa controlled his air, sending a spray of bubbles up and out from within the bowl’s depths—he watched even as Nagisa’s eyes opened and looked back up at him from under long, pale lashes. And when Nagisa began to raise his head, water dripping hopelessly from his face, Rei moved without a thought, without a single calculation, to the point where he knew—he just knew—their lips would meet.
Nagisa gasped into his mouth, but his surprise remained short-lived before he returned the kiss, pressing a palm against the table for balance. The other hand he drew up carefully, touching Rei’s that was cupping his cheek—
Rei broke away, and despite Nagisa’s steadying hand he nearly fell back into the water bowl. He planted both now on the table and stared at Rei, who was staring intently at the floor with his face wet and his hand stuck forever sliding his glasses back up his nose. Or maybe he was covering up a blush. Nagisa wished he wouldn’t.
“N-Nagisa-kun,” he murmured, narrowing his eyes. “I…”
“Shh. Look at me, Rei-chan.” He leaned forward, tilted his head so the taller boy could see him better, even at the angle he’d turned his head in. “Rei-chan.”
At his admonishing tone, Rei looked up almost out of habit alone. For his efforts, he was rewarded with another of Nagisa’s sunny smiles, warm and wide and full, and in his eyes Rei saw something that hadn’t been there before, in any of Nagisa’s other smiles, something special and fleeting and perfect and beautiful.
Nagisa leaned in to leave a kiss on his cheek, and by the time he stepped back and held out his hand to Rei, that thing, whatever it was, was gone.
“I think you’ve got the idea now. Come on. We should see where the others’ve got to.”
Rei sat a moment, reaching up to where he could still feel the touch of Nagisa’s lips against his cheek, but didn’t dare press his fingers to his skin lest he wear away the sensation. When he finally looked up, Nagisa was still waiting for him, his hand still outstretched, and Rei took it with a smile that was quieter, and maybe not as warm, but lasted much, much longer.