Free! does not belong to me. Neither does High Speed!.

Catastrophic

.

Gou could swear that the first time it definitely wasn't her fault.

It was the last day of summer, and it was already too cold to swim outside. Unless you were Haruka or someone stupid enough to follow him into the high school's pool, that's it.

(No, that person didn't just exist hypothetically. And yes, Gou was related to that idiot.)

She yawned, watching how his older brother and Haruka argued about who had won the seventh race of the day. After complaining and grumbling for some minutes, they both could agree that it had been a tie. Rin quickly demanded another race, much to his sister's despair. It might be funny for the two of them, but being a mere observer was quite boring.

Sighing, Gou exchanged a look with Makoto, who simply smiled at her before looking at Rei and pretending being listening to his monologue about the beauty of Haruka's stroke. Their friend didn't seem to realize that nobody was really paying any attention to him.

"God, they don't stop," Gou complained, almost growling.

"They're fine that way," Makoto replied quietly, shrugging. He seemed genuinely happy to see his friends getting along again. And it wasn't that Gou didn't want to see his brother that lively. It was just...

"They aren't fine," Gou stated at last. "I think we all know how my brother and Haruka-sempai would be better," she added, but just then she remembered something and stood up quickly. "I've got to go."

Rin's head appeared on the surface of the water. He looked at Gou suspiciously.

"Where are you going?"

Gou felt the sudden urge to strangle her older brother.

"It's none of your business," she snapped. She actually was just going to Chigusa's house to help her with homework, but Rin didn't have the right to interfere. He wouldn't have it even if Gou had planned to go out with some guy.

Glaring at Rin, Gou turned around and went into the changing room to take her bag.

She was surprised to find Nagisa there, sitting on a bench and staring at his phone, oddly silent. Gou realized then how calm the pool had been before, even with Rei's speech and Rin and Haruka's stupid arguments. Nagisa didn't look at her.

"Nagisa-kun," she called. "What happens?"

He looked up.

"Oh, nothing," he answered, suddenly smiling brightly. Gou raised a single brow. "Really."

Gou sat beside him, a little concern clouding her mind. "I don't believe you," she stated frankly.

"It's all right," Nagisa insisted, though his smile seemed about to vanish.

"Liar."

Nagisa narrowed his eyes. His smile widened.

"You're really annoying, Gou-chan."

Deep inside, Gou knew Nagisa was doing this for the sole purpose of distracting her. Nevertheless, in that moment she didn't mind.

"I told you to call me Kou!"

"Why? You have a nice name," Nagisa teased, smiling again. "Gou-chan."

Gou punched him in the shoulder. When she was going to take her arm down, however, Nagisa caught her wrist.

"Let go," she hissed.

Nagisa loosened his grip, but Gou found herself unable to move in the moment she looked at him in the eye. Nagisa's gaze seemed to be able to look right into her soul. She remembered then something Rin had told her once, years ago; he'd said Nagisa's eyes were uncomfortably clear.

Well, he'd never know how damn right he had been. Nagisa's eyes were as transparent as water, and because of that Gou couldn't see anything exact inside.

Outside, Haruka and Rin were having another argument.

Gou didn't hear it. She couldn't hear anything when Nagisa leaned closer and their lips met.

It was catastrophic, but neither Gou nor Nagisa disliked it.

.

The second time, it was obvious that Nagisa was to blame.

He hadn't said anything about what had happened in the changing room, and had kept treating Gou exactly the same way he did before.

Gou hadn't been alone with him since then, though. However, she couldn't tell if he was trying to avoid that situation, because it wasn't as if they'd had a lot of intimate moments before that... that... that thing.

It'd been Chigusa's idea to go to the festival Iwatobi was holding in October. Gou wasn't sure if she wanted to go; she knew his brother's friends would be there too, and that inevitably included Nagisa and his damn round, clear eyes.

Gou wasn't surprised when Nagisa spotted her and dragged everyone closer. She looked at him as he teased Rei, wondering what he felt about what had happened. And if he felt anything at all about it, in the first place. Gou didn't know what to think.

"Oh, God, not again," she heard Makoto say. Rin and Haruka had decided to have another ridiculous competition.

Nagisa laughed out loud. Gou barely noticed that he had stopped messing around, and instead he was a little apart, looking at her with what seemed nearly embarrassment.

"What's all of this about?" she asked then, grateful that everyone else was focused on Rin and Haruka.

Nagisa never answered. Instead, he kissed her again.

It wasn't less catastrophic, but at least this time Gou could grab Nagisa's shirt and get him closer, until he broke the kiss and stepped back, just a second before Chigusa looked briefly at them.

.

The third time... well, maybe it'd been Gou's fault. The fourth, fifth and sixth ones, she hardly could convinced herself it'd been because of Nagisa alone.

Nagisa kissed her when nobody was looking, and Gou ended up liking that game. It was fun to share a kiss in the brief seconds when Rei admired something beautiful enough for him to notice, behind Haruka's back while he was cooking. She learned not to blush and taught Nagisa to play next level, and she grabbed his hand until there were some risk they were caught, he hugged her and played with her hair, pretending to be just bothering her when Rin looked suspiciously at the two of them.

Not ever they talked about it. Gou never knew, in those weeks, what this game with Nagisa was about. And she found out it absolutely didn't matter. She felt delighted, contented for just being part of that. She didn't think often about other feelings apart from fun, although she knew she would have to, eventually.

It was funny that Rin, her obnoxious, tactless older brother, was the one who talked to her about it first, even if he didn't know exactly what was happening with his sister and one of his best friends. It was in December, when they went shopping together in order to get their mother a proper Christmas present.

"Are you dating someone?"

Gou felt her cheeks burning before she had the chance to think about the question. She bit her lip. Had Rin found out her-their game?

"No," she mumbled after a few seconds. And it hurt so much, realizing how true it was. As far as she knew, it was just a game for Nagisa. And Gou'd thought it was the same for her. Gou felt suddenly very little, very lost. "Why are you asking?" she managed to say.

Her brother ran a hand through his hair, clearly uncomfortable. It was obvious that Rin, although being a pretty good big brother, wasn't brilliant when it came to those topics. Well, Gou thought. At least he isn't kissing randomly some guy without knowing how to call their relationship.

"Haru told me…" Rin broke off. "He said you seemed kind of different, and asked me why."

Gou raised a single brow.

"So you didn't even realize on your own?"

"No!" Rin bit his lower lip. "It just made me realize I wasn't imagining things."

Gou frowned, and then something that had been running in her mind since her brother had mentioned Haruka took shape.

"Onii-chan, you don't happen to be dating Haruka-sempai, do you?" Words flowed from her mouth before she could stop them.

Rin blushed furiously, forgetting what he had planned to tell Gou. As she watched him babbling and stuttering and nearly choking while trying to deny what couldn't be more obvious, Gou smiled, glad for not having to talk about Nagisa and being able to forget how messed up her life was becoming.

.

It was Christmas Eve when Gou gathered all her courage and called Nagisa.

She'd expected not being able to utter a single word when she pressed the 'Call' button, but when she heard his voice, cheerful and light and warm, she felt strangely calm. "Do you have something to do this afternoon?" she asked quietly.

"Mom wants me to help her with dinner," Nagisa answered. "But I can convince my eldest sister to do it for me. She owes me a favor, so… where do you want me to go?"

As she walked out of her house, assuring her mother she would be back for dinner and promising Rin that she wasn't going to 'see some mysterious guy who probably wanted to kidnap her', Gou though it was kind of fitting, meeting Nagisa next to the pool, so close to the place he'd kissed her for the first time. While she approached, she spotted him leaning on the pool fence, looking at the clouded sky. Gou hid a smile behind her scarf. It was a beautiful sight.

"Hi," she said, stopping two meters away from Nagisa. He fixed his gaze on her.

"Hi," he replied, stepping away from the fence. He wasn't smiling, for once. "Why…?" he started, his voice hesitant.

"I- I was-" Gou took deep breaths, hoping for the words to come back at her. She'd been repeating what she wanted to say all the morning, now she couldn't just stutter. She raised a hand and played with a strand of her red hear. "You kissed me," she blurted out.

Nagisa frowned, confused.

"Yeah," he admitted. "You kissed me, too."

"But you started," Gou replied. She saw him blinking in bewilderment. "Anyway, that's not the point."

Nagisa bit his lip. "Then? What's the matter?"

"The matter is…" Gou let her hair and intertwined her fingers, realizing she had forgotten her gloves. Her fingers were red and they hurt from the cold. "I liked it," she started. "I still like it, in fact… But can't we…? I mean, I don't know even how to call this, how to call you. Boyfriend? Just friend? Friend whom I kiss when our friends aren't looking at us?" She caught air. She wished Nagisa said something, anything, because he was just standing there, looking at her with his wide eyes and without even the shadow of his usual smile. "I just…" She stopped when she heard the last sound she was expecting to hear.

Nagisa laughed.

Deep, loud laughter bubbled out from his mouth as he doubled over, as if what Gou had said was just a joke. For a moment it even seemed like he couldn't stand on his feet, as he leaned again on the fence. His cheeks were bright red, and there were tears on the corners of his big, round eyes.

Gou pressed her lips in a thin line.

"Is it funny?"

Nagisa stopped laughing when he heard her tone. He took a step towards her, but something in Gou's eyes told him it wasn't a good idea. He sighed, still smiling a bit.

"I wasn't laughing at you," he said, almost apologetically. "It's just that…" he scratched the back of his head. "Why didn't you say something?"

The sudden question caught Gou off guard.

"Because I… I thought…" She shook her head. "No, that isn't it. I didn' think at all. I just… didn't want to think, and it seemed to me that you weren't very interested, either."

Nagisa took another step towards Gou. This time, she didn't glared at him.

"This is ridiculous," he stated. "I thought more or less the same about you… That's why I didn't want to say anything. You were just kind of okay with that, so…"

"Do you like me?" Gou asked abruptly. She didn't want Nagisa to start rambling. She just wanted to make things clear.

Nagisa blinked twice before answering, more serious than Gou had ever seen him.

"Who wouldn't? You're beautiful." Gou felt her cheeks hot enough to melt the snow in the mountains. "Do you…?" started Nagisa, but he was cut off by her laugh.

"I'd have broken all your bones the second time you kissed me if I didn't like you, you know," she said, gladder than she'd been in weeks. She felt relieved and stupidly happy. Nagisa raised his brows at her statement, but smiled anyway.

Gou launched herself to him, kissing his lips and feeling his arms around her, for once not worrying about not being seen. She supposed Nagisa and her would have to hide when Rin found out about their relationship, but right now it didn't matter.

.

"By the way," Gou said later, while Nagisa took her hands in his to warm them up. They were at a coffee shop, talking about nothing in special. "The first time you… Maybe it's not my business, but what happened? I was worried."

"Oh," Nagisa laughed. "My middle sister. She'd broken up with her boyfriend. It's not a big deal," he added, seeing Gou's face. "Her boyfriends usually don't last much, and she's already dating another guy. But nobody can stand her when she gets her heart broken."

Gou leaned on him –Nagisa was just about her height, but he was always warm, always there– and felt his kiss on top on her head. "Will you do that to me?" she asked, half-joking.

It took a moment for Nagisa to answer.

"I'll try not to."

"I won't let you," Gou teased. "I'll tell my brother about us and he'll break your legs."

"You're so charming."

"Guess who I've learned from."

Nagisa just kissed her again, making Gou's life a bit more messed up.

It wasn't as if it was a problem.

Author's note: I've been writing and re-writing this for like three days. I was really excited to write a Nagisa/Gou. I haven't read much of them, and I think is a beautiful pairing (I watched the show without being influenced by tumblr and I was really surprised when I found out how much people shipped Nagisa and Rei because I didn't see it at all -or maybe I was too busy loving Rin and Haru's relationship, who knows-). So... yeah, I'm kind of happy.

Anyway, what do you think? Reviews are highly appreciated :)