Anna was entirely used to being stared at. She was a tall foreigner, not to mention she was the new kid – like that wasn't already enough. She stuck out like a sore thumb wherever she went: shopping, the post office, the station...

But as she looked down at her now soaked school uniform, her wet hair sticking to her face, she felt herself burn up underneath the gaze of the three guys watching her from the edge of the pool. Especially the one who had invited her there.

–

"Your Japanese is so good!" her classmates giggled as everyone began to settle in the class room. Anna had been attending Iwatobi High School for just one day and she'd already made friends. That was a personal best. She hadn't been great at that – she actually had a terrible track record. "How long have you been here?"

"Iwatobi?" She asked. "Oh, we moved here about a week ago from Sendai," she explained. "But I've been in Japan for... hmm. It's been two years since we left Australia?"

"Sendai?" the girl asked. Her name was Taya, and she'd stuck to Anna like glue since spotting her the day before. "Wow, it must be so weird moving here from such a big city."

Anna shook her head. "Not really. My father is an English professor. I'm used to moving."

"Well, your Japanese is perfect." Anna smiled at this as the teacher began to give the lesson. That was a lie. A well intended one, sure, but a lie. She could hold most conversations, sure. But her accent was nearly painful, and she struggled with kanji. In fact, if you asked her to read under pressure, she struggled with everything. Luckily for her, though. This was math class. At least that made sense, and now that it was time to work through their text books, it was clear sailing until lunch time...

Oh no.

She opened her textbook and her eyes widened. Whatever the book was asking her to do, it was asking her using a kanji she had never seen before, and there wasn't anything else to indicate what it meant, either. She quickly turned the page back. She hated asking for help reading. She was 16, and nothing made her more embarrassed than having someone read for her like a child. Maybe there'd be an instruction that she could go off, or an example, or... or...

"Do you have a pencil sharpener?"

She gave a little jump, so tense that the polite question from the guy on her right scared the hell out of her. She quickly reached into her pencil case, taking a sharpener and offering it to him, not actually looking up from her textbook as she did so.

"...Are you okay?" He asked, before carefully taking the sharpener out of his hand. His voice became lower. "You'll hurt your back with that kind of posture."

"Erm. Right." Anna shook her head, closing her eyes and sitting back up properly. She just had to focus. If she focused, she could remember where she'd seen that kanji before.

She stared at the page, listening to him sharpen his pencil before he placed the sharpener back on to her desk. "...Do you need help?"

"Help? No, I'm ok."

"You've been staring at the page for 3 minutes, 20 seconds," the voice pointed out, even quieter than before, as though he could sense her embarrassment. Had it really been that obvious? She felt her stomach tighten. Oh god, if she didn't work it out soon the entire class would figure it out, and then they'd all think she was dumb and...

Reluctantly, she pointed to the kanji responsible, turning to finally look at him with a pleading expression. Blue hair, glasses... she'd seen him before, but he was quiet and they'd never actually spoken. His eyes drifted to where her finger sat, fixated for a moment before he pushed his glasses back up his nose and tilted his work-paper towards her so she could see it. Oh. Oh that's what it was asking her to do! "Thanks," she whispered, looking around to check if anyone noticed. If they had, they weren't letting it on. With that, she returned to her own work.

It wasn't until the lunch bell rang that she so much as looked at him again, she was that embarrassed. He must have thought she was such an idiot. "Thanks for before..." she mumbled as she rose from her seat, not wanting to look him directly in the eye.

"If you are struggling, you should ask for help."

She paused, the firmness in his tone surprising her. Was he... was he telling her off? "Thanks, but I don't usually have a problem with-"

"I've seen you do it before," he interrupted, closing his book. "Yesterday, during literature. You skipped a word in a verse while reading aloud."

"You noticed?" Anna winced.

"If you'd asked for help, you wouldn't have had to skip it. Your Japanese is almost perfect, even with your accent." He paused. "Not that your accent is bad, but you don't sound like a native speaker. I mean. Uh." To her surprise, he followed this with a small smile, and she was a little taken aback by how nice it was. "Sorry."

"No... it's um. It's fine." She returned the smile, if not weakly. "Anna Welsh. Nice to meet you."

"Ryugazaki.. uh. Rei." People never seemed sure what order to give their names to her. It was almost as awkward as she was. "I'm Rei." He gave her another smile. "How do you like it here?"

"It's... um... nice," Anna shrugged, looking around. "Quieter than my old school, and everyone's been really friendly. ...Although I'm not sure if they're just doing that because they want me in their clubs." She brushed some of her hair back behind her ear.

He nodded, apparently understanding her predicament. "Transfer students are always popular with club recruiters. Do you know what club you'll join yet?"

"Well, the tennis club asked me to come and watch them train today... but I think they assume I'm good at tennis because I'm a foreigner. Apparently there's a swim club, but I don't even think there's a pool here... I mean it wasn't listed in the pamphlet they gave me when I enrolled."

Rei raised an eyebrow. "You swim?" He asked.

"Not professionally or anything," she shrugged, "but I did it for fun back home. And it gets so humid here in the summers... couldn't hurt to swim after school on those days."

As Rei opened his mouth to reply, a hand suddenly came to rest on his shoulder, silencing him – although through surprise, more than anything else. "The new transfer student is a swimmer?" asked a voice as her eyes moved to it's owner. "Rei-Chan! We have to invite her to practice!"

"Nagisa!" He snapped, his face going a little red if Anna wasn't mistaken. "You haven't even introduced-"

"Nagisa Hazuki!" The blond chimed, reaching out and taking her hand and shaking it with a little too much energy for her. "I'm a second year and I like strawberries and horror movies." He was still shaking her hand and practically leaning over Rei by this point, and Anna decided to carefully pull it away from him before he tore her arm off. "I'm the treasurer of the Iwatobi Swim Club and you should come to practice tonight! It'll be great!"

"Oh, um, wow," Anna gave a nervous laugh, glancing between Nagisa and the obviously embarrassed Rei, who was now rubbing his temple in frustration. "But surely you already have too many people for me to come on such short notice-"

"Nope!" Nagisa responded. "If anything, we don't have enough people as it is! Please come and watch? Just once? Please?"

She looked to Rei, who gave an exhale. "We do only have the minimum amount of members required. If you're free, it would be nice. Gou would appreciate the possibility of a new member."

"But... I only really said I can swim and... and..." she glanced around. This was awkward, and she guessed she kind of owed the guy for helping her. Or, well, not owed him. But... she gave a sigh. "I guess I was going to check it out anyway, so..."

"Perfect!" Nagisa pumped his fist in the air, grinning from ear to ear. "A girl on the team! How exciting!"

Rei gave yet another exhale. "She didn't say she's joining." Rei glanced up to her. "I can show you where the pool is when school's finished," he offered. "I mean, you might not know where it is yet, because you're new. Not to suggest that you don't know where anything is yet, or that-"

"That'd be great," she interrupted, a little amused by his babbling. She couldn't quite pin his personality. He seemed confident, sure, but then there were little slip ups. Like he couldn't stop himself from talking. "I'll meet you by the cafeteria?"

–-

"Thanks for showing me how to get to the pool," Anna said as they walked across the track field, watching the track club set up a high-jump as they passed. "I didn't even know Iwatobi High had a pool."

"There wasn't one for a long time. No one used it until recently, so it had fallen to disrepair," he explained as they found themselves approaching the building on the other side of the field. "The Swim club reformed repaired it last year, though."

"The swim club fixed an entire pool?" Anna asked, her eyes widening a little bit at the structure they were approaching. "That's amazing. You guys must be super dedicated, huh?"

Rei smiled, reaching up to bump his glasses back up his nose. "That was before I joined... but you're right. Their determination is inspiring."

"You... haven't always been a swimmer?" She raised an eyebrow at this. It's not like she'd seen him without a shirt yet, but he was definitely athletic under there, she could tell that much from his arms when he took his blazer off.

"I was part of the track club," he explained. "But Nagisa..." Rei smiled to himself as they reached the gate of the pool. "...Nagisa was persistent." He reached up and opened the gate, holding it open for her. As she stepped past, her heart stopped.

Before her were a group of three men, seemingly around her age, shirtless. Or, well, one of them was already in the pool, doing laps. But the others were just standing there. No shirts. Talking. Without shirts. She didn't consider this. She hadn't prepared herself for this. They were all hot. Any shred of charisma she might have had vanished, and all of a sudden she felt like every movement she was making was wrong.

"Rei-Chan!" Nagisa laughed when they reached the poolside group, waving enthusiastically. "You brought Anna-Chan!" It took a moment for Anna to realise that Nagisa was being a little more informal with her than she was entirely comfortable with, but by the time she did, she also realised he was stepping towards her. No. Advancing on her. With his arms open.

Oh god. She stepped back. He was trying to hug her. Without a shirt. Bare skin. Oh god she couldn't possibly... Anna stumbled back, bewildered, not noticing the Olive haired boy warn her about the pool-

Next thing she knew, she was cold. Her head was under and she kicked her legs, bringing herself to the surface. Anna grabbed the edge of the pool, gasping for breath, and when she collected herself she realised that everyone was staring at her in complete silence. Rei, Nagisa, the Olive haired boy, the red head girl who'd just arrived with towels, even the one who'd been doing laps had stopped.

Great.