The Shark and the Stingray

Chapter 4

"Achoo," I rubbed my nose, "I know what Mum'd say if she was here right now, she would've told me I'm sneezing because someone talking about me," I held my nose, "Here," Mako passes me a tissue, "Thanks Mako," I wiped my nose, Nagisa, Mako and I were all at Haru's house, "It must be Rin talking about you, after all, that night, he was only happy to see you, he frankly couldn't care less about the rest of us," Nagisa leans over the table, "Or it's possible that she's just sick, remember when Haru dragged you into the pool when you tried to stop him, you were fully clothed in a pool during April," Mako looks at me, "I'm not some baby that gets sick over some water, besides Haru- Achoo!" I used the tissue, "Hey guess what Gou told me, Rin decided to join the Samezuka swim team," Nagisa says, Haru's eyes widen and Mako flinches, "Then since he's joined, we'll probably see him in tournaments," I drank the green tea, "Then let's sign up already, we'll dominate in the relays," Nagisa says, "You know I only swim freestyle," Haru was eating his mackerel, "Just swim free in the relay," I drove my head into his back, "Besides we can't apply, we've only got three swimmers," Haru was flipping through his magazine, "Yeah you're right," Mako nods, "Does that mean we need to find another swimmer for the team!" Nagisa stands up and holds his head. 

"Woah, so we'd be swimming in this place during the off season it looks amazing!" Nagisa looks at the poster I was holding, "Right? Kou and I did some research on schools that don't have indoor pools train during the off season and we stumbled on this place," I grinned, "That's awesome Yuki and Gou, you two are great managers," Nagisa bunches up his fist, "Gou? The name is Kou!" She huffs, "Oh hey, what's up Haru?" Kou looks at him, "Who pays?" Haru grabbed the poster from my hands, "The club will, who else?" Kou smiles, "Oh yeah, the money," Nagisa nods, "Just looking at the poster I know the price of this place is gonna be pretty high, do you honestly think we can get that money together? Maybe we should give up," Mako looks at Haru, "No way," Haru looks the other way, "We'll be able to swim all year round!" Nagisa throws his hands in the air. "I'm sorry guys but I don't think that'll be possible," Miss A says to the five of us, "What? How come?" Nagisa droops, "Well frankly it won't be responsible for the school to provide that type of funding for a brand new club with no track record, this reminds me of a saying from the Bible, it says he who should not work none, none shall he eat," She wags her finger, "I don't really think that proverb applies to our situation," I sweatdrop, "Yeah how are you meant to eat a pool?" Nagisa cocks his head, "You're saying if we rack up some accomplishments you can get us some money?" Kou leans over, "That's right, the more accomplishments, the more money and the easier it'll be justifying forwarding the funds to your club," Miss nods, "Oh I get it," Haru mutters, "Do you think it'll be enough if our team placed in the Summer tournament?" Mako asks, "Pull that off and they might approve your funds at the profit meeting, but you'll need at least four swimmers just the three of you and you won't qualify for anything," Miss looks at them, "One more guy... and I can swim all I want..." Haru began to loosen his tie, "Haru, keep your shirt on," I retightened his tie, "Let's get to work," He suddenly says and gets off to work, "Haru?" We were all confused at his sudden outburst, we quickly followed after him, Haru went up to two guys, "You want this? Join the swim club," He held up the Little Iwatobi mascot he carved, "Um... no thanks," They walked off, "Ouch," Nagisa looks at him, Haru's just a little too intimidating," I snickered, "He's a lost cause if that's all he can do," Mako shakes his head.

"I finally found our last candidate!" Nagisa drags my wrist after him, Haru, Mako and Kou followed along, "On the track team?" Kou seemed confused, we all were, "Look, he's over there, this is his fate, it's written in the stars," Nagisa lit up, he pointed at a boy with blue hair, "Did he use to swim on some other team?" Haru looks at me, "Or set some kind of record?" I cock my head, "No it's because of his name, his name is Rei Ryugazaki, he's just like us. Check it out, he's a guy with a girly name," Nagisa points out we all deadpan, "WHAT?! Well... I guess... his deltoids are incredible," Kou blushes, "What?! You really think that's the reason he should be in our swim club?" Mako was shocked at Kou's reasoning, "Yes it's a great reason!" She nods, "Hey looks like he's about to jump," I point at him getting ready to do his pole vault, we all watched as he cleared the bar easily, "He'd be a great diver, I mean even his form on the pole vault was beautiful," Mako looked at him, "Yeah and the form of his biceps are beautiful too," Kou had an aura around her, "Is that all you see!?" Mako asks her, Nagisa seemed starstruck.

"It didn't work, it's like that guy hates the water," Nagisa sulks to Mako, Haru and I, "Then don't recruit him, don't let him in the pool," Haru says sternly, "Keep your voice down, you can't let anyone hear you talk like that that attitude is a real turn off for people who might want to join! Do you want to spend all Winter lifting weights and jogging?!" Nagisa whispers, just the thought seemed to make Haru sick, "No," He wheezes out, "We might need to go with our contingency plan and see if Yuki would be willing to strip down for us," Nagisa touches his chin, "That's never gonna happen," Mako says, "Thank you Mako," I cracked my knuckles and had a dark look on my face, "Then let's have a reverse, whoever joins can strip for Yuki!" Nagisa slammed his hands on Haru's table, I blushed bright red, "No!" I covered my eyes, "Stop, don't write that crap down," Mako stops Haru from writing it on our page of ideas.

"Are you guys ready for my amazing news! I managed to score us a training session with Samezuka!" I grinned, "Huh! For real!" Kou was shocked, "How'd you convince Rin to go for this?" Mako asks, "It's not that shocking that the Shark doesn't want to not listen to the Ray, after all," I smirked proudly "You're an amazing Manager Yuki!" Kou claps her hands, "Now that we've got the green light to go to Samezuka indoor pool we don't have to wait for Summer to start swimming," Mako grins, "There's a catch though, since it's an official joint practice, we have to show up with at least four members or they won't let us use the pool," I drooped, "So basically we've got to find another member by the end of the day we've got to make this happen, Yuki did some major flirting for this to happen," Nagisa says without skipping a beat, "I wasn't flirting!" I blushed, "What? You weren't?" Nagisa was shocked, "Oh course I wasn't!" I blush even harder.

"You can tell their champions just by looking at them," Kou and I were blushing, the entire pool deck was covered in half naked men, "Our team looks pretty good too!" I looked at our boys, "Hey thanks for coming out guys, cool, your name is Haruka Nanase right? Back in grade school you won quite a few district level medals," The Samezuka swim captain started rambling, I saw Rin from behind him, "Hey Shark," I hopped on his back, "I don't get it, what were you thinking bring them all here Ray," He smiles, "Hey Rin, after all these years we finally get to swim together again," Nagisa walks over to us, his smile fades away, "Swim together? This is a complete waste of time," Rin scoffs, I try to get off his back but he hooked his arms under my legs so I couldn't get off, "Let go of me Rin!" I shouted as he started leaving pool deck, "Rin?" Kou says after him, "Why are we up here?" I started tying Rin's hair into a small ponytail, "Hey look, Mako's up," I saw him dive off the blocks, "I guess you couldn't keep yourself away," I smirked, "That's not it!" He huffs, "Suree, say that all you want," I grinned and finally managed to get off his back, "Ready?" The whistle was blown and Nagisa was next, "Next swimmer up, let's keep this moving," The captain said, "Who's your captain?" I asked Rin, "Seijuro Mikoshiba," He says, I nodded and watched Rei went up, but the instant he dived in, he belly flopped, we all were shocked, he looked like he knew what he was doing, "Yep, we've got a drowner!" I shouted and I ran down to pool deck, Rin ran after me and Haru dove in and grabbed one of Rei's arms, I took my tracksuit jumper off and dived in after him grabbing Rei's other arm and both of us bringing him to the surface, "So Rei, we didn't know you can't swim..." Nagisa says, Rei had a towel on his head and hung his head down low, "Well I can't, it's not my fault, I tried to tell you I didn't want to swim today," Rei barks at Nagisa, "You said you didn't want to swim, not that you didn't know how to swim," Nagisa says sadly, "It would have meant admitting defeat, I'm not at debt to that, there's nothing beautiful about being inferior, I had to get a girl to come save me, she was even fully clothed and she jumped in," Rei looks down, Haru left to get ready for the next line up, "Hey it's fine, why wouldn't I jump in and save you?" I smiled, "Here," Rin dropped his tracksuit jumped on me, "Thanks," I smiled and pulled my arms through, "Ready?" Mikoshiba blows the whistle and Haru dove off the blocks, Rei watched, "Now that's beautiful," Nagisa watches, Rei stands up, "Something wrong?" Rin asks, "Well just look at him swim," Rei watches, "I tried to tell you didn't I?" Nagisa smiles.

The next day we watched Rei at training, after his vault, he fell, on purpose? He was walking towards us, "If I want to grow I have to be like you Nanase, I want the freedom you have," Rei looks at him, "It's not just freedom, it's freestyle," Haru says, "Right... freestyle, anyway I was hoping if you'd consider my offical request, may I join your swim club?" He bows deeply, we were all shocked, "No one here's gonna stop you from swimming," Haru looks away, "You heard him, you're swimming," I smiled, "Nice Haru," Nagisa nudged him, "Since you were the one who tried so hard to recruit me even though I was less than cooperative I'd prefer if you were the one who showed me the ropes will you do that Nagisa?" Rei averts his eyes, "Yeah! You can count on me!" Nagisa jumps up and links his arm around Rei's neck, we all laughed.