Disclaimer: I own nothing at all! If I owned LCDO I would make like another four seasons to promote the appreciation of classical music and I'd pair Kaho up with Hihara 3~ Um, anyway, enjoy! Don't forget to read and review!

"E-eto, it's really great that all of us can meet up like this, ne?"

"Indeed."

"Tch."

"Ahaha…" Hino let out a nervous, high-pitched laugh. Silence reigned supreme, save for the splashing of the other swimmers.

Tsukimori was freaking her out simply by staring blankly at her as though he expected her to say something, while Tsuchiura looked away uncomfortably. Damn, Hino. You're so high-strung you're making me nervous too. Obviously she was thinking too hard about the confession she would no doubt make in the hotel room later when it would be just the two violinists.

What was he doing here anyway?

Sigh. It was Hino's fault he was here in the first place. When Tsukimori invited his "student", ahem, love interest to Paris while he was there for a performance, she had begged and begged him with those earnest golden eyes of hers to come along "for moral support". Apparently she wasn't prepared to face the ice cube all by herself. And being the ever-supportive best friend he was, Tsuchiura reluctantly left the comforts of university in Japan for France and the annoying company of the aforementioned ice cube.

So there he was, soaking in the huge, but extremely cold pool of the posh five-star hotel they were staying at (for some reason the heater wasn't working. So much for five-star). Under normal circumstances Tsuchiura would have left to enjoy the other luxuries that came with all five-star hotels, but unfortunately, (1) Hino made him promise not to leave the two of them alone, and (2) only Tsukimori could speak English fluently, which meant they had to stick to him.

Which left the frustrated soccer player as the third wheel where the violin lovers would clearly prefer some privacy.

Tsuchiura sighed and went under, blowing bubbles, trying to ignore the odd tension that came with volunteering to chaperon an awkward, love-starved couple. Suddenly, he caught sight of a pair of slim, white legs… doing the breaststroke halfway across the pool. What he could see was the V of the lower region of her dark blue swimsuit and her legs, delightfully exposing her crotch region every time she kicked out. He continued to watch, underwater, as she bent her legs, kicked, and brought them together again and again… until he forgot to breathe.

He burst out of the water, gasping. Tsukimori shot him a strange look, which he responded to with a glare of his own. His green eyebrows knitted together in a frown. What the hell is wrong with me? Ugh... the hormones are finally catching up with me after all these years of decent behaviour... What if she's actually really old and ugly although she has nice legs? But she does have really nice legs… uh-oh, bad, bad…

The now-red-faced man subconsciously glanced at the spot where the girl… woman, was. She wasn't there.

Frowning, the green-haired man scanned the pool. Out of the corner of his eye he caught movement in the middle of the pool that quickly disappeared. He immediately plunged back into the water. Sure enough, her slender figure was struggling underwater, weakly kicking and trying to tread water. She was too far from either end of the pool and definitely too weak to make it. By the time I alert the lifeguard, she might be dead. Without a second thought, he knifed through the water in a fast, strong front crawl.

Within three strokes he had reached her. He dove deeper, then as he rose he carefully grabbed the floundering woman by the armpits and surfaced. A hand struck him in the neck and he went under again. My life-saving course did not prepare me to be attacked by the girl I'm supposed to be saving! Tsuchiura thought as he fought against the irrational panic engulfing his mind as water flooded his mouth. Struggling to hold on to her, he surfaced again, gasping for air. He pulled her above the water with him, kicking desperately.

This time, thankfully, she kept her hands away from his face. She clutched at his chest and shoulders, sputtering and coughing. They were close enough for him to support her weight, but far enough that their kicking legs didn't collide.

Although her long, brown hair completely obscured her face, Tsuchiura was fairly sure that she was, indeed, a girl, and not an old woman. In any case, he couldn't see her face properly, because to push the hair out of her face either one of them would have to let go of each other, which definitely meant sinking.

"Merci," She rasped, still coughing out water.

French? The only French words the piano player knew were performance directions for his pieces. Like, cedez, douce, en dehors. Those he knew.

"Um… Aru yuu OK?" he asked desperately, hoping his fairly high scores in English in school would get him through this. French people spoke English right?

"Ah… Yes, I'm fine," She mumbled, still not meeting his eyes. "Thank you so much."

Vaguely, he heard a voice call, "Mary!"

'Mary' heard it too, because she looked up, smiled, and said, "Thank you!" again before letting go of him and swimming off. Through the matted brown hair and her goggles he caught a glimpse of blue eyes. He watched her swim off, then swam back to the violin couple.

"Tsuchiura-kun!"

"What?"

"You're really the white knight type eh?" Hino teased. He glared at her.

"She was drowning."

"Could it be that you did something inappropriate? You were touching her, were you not?"

Hino giggled loudly at Tsukimori's 'joke'. Tsuchiura groaned. He swam to the other end of the pool to escape them. When he swam back to their end, he didn't even stop and instead did an upside down turn and continued swimming.

But he was running out of breath, so this time he came up to take a breather. His eyes widened in shock as he burst out of the water. A pair of smooth, white, inner thighs met his eyes, splayed apart nicely. The same ones he had been staring at earlier, except without the few metres of water in between. These were inches from his face (okay fine, more than that but still…).

Red spreading across his tanned cheeks, he averted his eyes from the thighs, moving up to their owner's face. It was her. Long caramel hair, which he now realized was a lighter shade than he had thought, damp and delightfully mussed, framed her face which was still pale from swimming in the cold water. She was so pale he could see barely noticeable moles lightly dotting her face, lending some charm to her already pretty face. Her turquoise eyes were huge, open and sincere. She was wearing a fluffy pink robe tied loosely at the waist over a white spaghetti strap top and tight dark blue shorts. And she was squatting by the edge of the pool (therefore the robe had slid off, exposing her legs), peering down at him.

"Hey. Are you swimming for much longer? Why don't you join me in the lounge later?"

He gaped at her, tearing his goggles off and pushing his fringe out of his eyes.

"Mori-san?"

"Tsuchiura-kun!"

to be continued...

AN: Just to clarify, she grew her fringe long. At least in my story anyway. After all, people can't keep the same hairstyle forever...

R&R please! Thank you!