The Twelfth Lane

A/N: Thank you for all the good feedback so far! A few of you were concerned about how Gou would be able to wear the swimsuit for practice without everyone knowing that she was a girl, but luckily the show fixed that issue for me when they stuck Makoto and Rei in those full-body suits in episode four. Thank you, canon! As for the update schedule, look for a new chapter every Friday unless something prevents me from updating. ;) Happy reading!
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Chapter Two

Gou breathed heavily as she ran up to the classroom printed on the papers in her hands. She was already late due to the people at the office moving a little slow when they gave her the key to her dorm room and explained everything she needed to know. She was hoping that she could slip in unnoticed, but standing here now, she knew it was inevitable for her to stand out in class. It didn't help that she was wearing the swim team's tracksuit without actually being on the team. Taking a deep breath, she knocked on the classroom door before stepping in, thirty curious eyes turning to stare at her.

"Excuse me," she said with a bow. "Sorry I'm late. I got lost."

"Ah, you must be the new student then," the female teacher said. She seemed nice enough with bobbed brown hair and a kind smile. She reminded Gou a bit of her literary teacher back at Iwatobi. "My name is Ms. Nakamura. Would you mind introducing yourself to the class?"

Gou nodded hesitantly and turned to face her classmates. Already, she could see a number of them whispering between each other. "Um, well, my name is Gou Matsuoka," she said, making sure to lower her voice some. "I'm a second year transfer from Iwatobi High School and I came to Samezuka to join the swim team."

"Obviously," someone coughed in the back. The student beside him elbowed him to be silent. Gou tried not to react. She wasn't here to make best friends or have a rose-colored high school experience. She was here to swim.

The teacher coughed slightly. "Well, then. How about you take a seat in the back next to Nitori? Nitori, please raise your hand."

A boy with bowl-cut light purple hair next to the window raised his hand with a smile and Gou started heading his way. Along the way, she noticed two familiar faces trying desperately to avoid her eyes. Her eyebrows came down in an angry scowl and she couldn't resist kicking at Ryuu's chair slightly as she walked by. She sat down in a huff beside the curious purple-haired Nitori, who seemed excited on his own that somebody was finally taking up the space beside him.

"Hi," he said quietly, shifting slightly to move his textbook in the space between their desks. "My name is Aiichirou Nitori. I'm also trying out for the swim team this year."

"Really?" Gou asked. "But aren't you a second year?"

Nitori gave a quiet laugh and rubbed the back of head. "Well, I didn't make it last year. But I want to try again this year. I made it to the second round this time around, but I'm just hoping I won't choke when the actual try outs start tomorrow."

"You'll do great," Gou said firmly. "You'll definitely make it this time around."

Nitori blinked, honestly surprised by her words. "Wow. Nobody's encouraged me like that since middle school."

"Well, that's stupid," Gou responded, looking him in the eyes. "If you want something bad enough then you can definitely get there. People underestimate determination, and it's unfair of them not to give you a chance just because you're not quite as good as them. I know you'll make it this time."

Nitori looked down at his folded hands, a smile turning up on his face. "Thanks, Matsuoka-kun. You're a good person."

Gou glanced over at him and felt a small bubble of warmth grow inside her. "You're welcome."

She paid attention for the better part of the morning taking notes but realizing quickly that a lot of the information they were covering had already been covered at her old school. Gou was a naturally quick learner so studying for class wasn't going to be one of her issues while she was at the school. Luckily, the morning ended quickly and lunch came around, friends in the class pushing their desks together and pulling out their bentos to eat. Gou's stomach grumbled but when she reached for her bag, she remembered that she hadn't packed anything to eat.

"Dang it," she groaned quietly, laying her head on the table. "I don't even know where the vending machines are…"

"Did you not bring anything to eat?" Nitori asked. Gou looked over at him as he slid a homemade wrapped rice ball onto her table. "You can have one of mine. I made too many anyway."

Gou sat up and took the rice ball in her hands, looking at the other boy with tearfully happy eyes. "Nitori-kun…"

"It's the least I could do," he said with a smile.

Gou decided that he was by far the greatest person she had ever met and took a big, grateful bite out of the ball. "Mm! Thish ish amehshing!" she exclaimed through a mouthful. Swallowing thickly, she looked over at Nitori with wide-sparkling eyes. "Did you make this?"

Nitori blushed a little and rubbed the back of his head. "Um, yeah. My mom taught me how to cook in middle school."

"Then she did a great job," Gou admitted, taking another bite.

"You don't think it's too… feminine?" the other boy asked with a slight note of hesitation. "Cooking, I mean."

Gou furrowed her brow. "No?"

"Ah," Nitori said quietly, a smile pulling at his lips. "Well, that's good to hear."

Gou nodded a little absentmindedly, looking forward to where Ryuu and Takeshi were starting to get up out of their chairs and escape somewhere. Gou swiftly got out of her own chair to intercept their escape route, putting her hands on her hips and glaring at both of them.

"You left me in the locker room," she said lowly.

Ryuu flinched slightly, backing up into Takeshi who just shoved him away. "Sorry, okay? I kinda panicked when Captain Mikoshiba walked in."

"I thought you said you were friends with him!" Gou said back.

"Friends in the very… limited sense of the word," Ryuu admitted.

"Did you get in trouble?" Takeshi asked, popping an octopus shaped sausage in his mouth as he leaned over Ryuu's shoulder.

"Yes," Gou said, folding her arms. "But luckily I talked him into giving me a chance to try out for the team anyway." Ryuu's eyes widened slightly and he glanced over his shoulder at Takeshi. Gou frowned. "What?"

"It's just… You might have had a better chance of getting on the team if you tried out with some of the senpais," Ryuu admitted. "They're a little more forgiving of newcomers than the Captain is. He tends to judge people with a competitive lens and only picks the people he thinks will better the team. And, no offense, but you're a little scrawny. I didn't even realize you were a second year when I bumped into you. What do you even lift? Like ten pounds?" He reached out to grab Gou's arm to feel for her muscle. She bat him away with a glare.

"How much I can lift shouldn't matter," she said. "I'm a strong swimmer and I'm going to prove to him that I can make the team, no matter what anyone says."

She caught Takeshi's look from over Ryuu's shoulder as he sipped his juice box. "What's the deal with you needing to make the swim team anyway?" he asked after a moment. "It's true that our school is known to have a strong swim team, but you're acting like you have to make the team." His eyes met hers and she felt her stomach drop slightly from the way his eyes seemed to look straight through her. "What's your real reason for joining?"

Gou looked between them, feeling her heart rate increase from all the eyes looking at her. "I have to beat them," she said quietly. "I have to beat Iwatobi. I have to prove to them that they were wrong about everything they said about me and that I am good enough to swim with you guys. I am a good enough swimmer to join your team and beat them at their own game. I will beat them."

People were staring at her now, but Takeshi looked satisfied. He took another long drag of his juice box until it made the loud crackling sound that it was empty before reaching out a hand to pat Gou's shoulder. "Good luck."

Gou felt a smile curl up at her lips despite herself.

"Good luck?" Ryuu repeated in disbelief. "He just spouted all this nonsense about getting good enough to swim at the competition against Iwatobi and all you have to say is 'good luck'?"

"Yeah," Takeshi responded, crunching up his empty juice box. "I think he can do it. He's got that look in his eye."

Ryuu looked back at Gou suspiciously. "What look?"

"The one that says he's willing to do anything to achieve his goal," Takeshi explained, his dark eyes meeting with Gou's. "Isn't that right?"

If his words held a second meaning, Gou didn't give it any heed. "Absolutely."

The rest of the afternoon passed quickly, to Gou's relief. But the quicker the clock ran down, the more she was aware that her swimming test was coming up. She only had one shot to impress him or that was the end of everything. No pressure. The bell rang at the end of class and Gou was up like a lightning bolt, headed in a beeline for the dorms. From behind her, she heard Nitori shout a "good luck!" her way. She made it back to the dorms in what she considered record speed, tumbling through the door to her room with a lack of grace. Luckily, her roommate still wasn't there and she had enough time to change into her swimsuit before she had to deal with changing in front of somebody else.

Unlike her roommate, her stuff was still packed in her bags and haphazardly thrown atop the top bunk bed. She had planned to do the whole unpacking thing later that night when all the important moments were over, unless of course, she didn't make the team, but that a situation that she refused to consider. She crawled up the side of the bunk to flop on her bed and dig through her bag to find her newly purchased swimsuit. She wasn't a particular fan of the way brand-new swimsuits felt, but given the situation, she had no choice. Wadding it up, she chucked it across the room to land in front of the door of the private bathroom next to the closet. When she had seen the bathroom that morning when she dropped off her stuff, she almost cried from happiness. It was already hard enough acting like a boy without having to deal with public baths, and she was more than happy that she wasn't also going to repulse people away from her by how bad she smelled. There was only the locker room after swim practice to still find a solution around.

Jumping off the bed, she skidded her way into the tiny bathroom and shed her clothes so that she could pull her swimsuit on. She was lucky that some of the newer speed-oriented swimsuits were a full-body kind that had straps over the shoulders and covered all the way from the chest to the ankles. If it wasn't for this particular swimsuit style, she wouldn't have even been there. Pulling the straps over her shoulders, she looked at herself in the mirror. It was almost frightening how much she looked like her brother then. A scrawnier version with shorter hair, of course, but her brother none the less. She used to hate how boyish her figure looked and made it a point to pray to the Shinto gods for bigger boobs and a curvier body every time she went to shrines throughout the year. But now she was ironically glad that those assets didn't exist. Adjusting the straps a bit more, she studied herself for a long moment to be sure she didn't look particularly feminine. Even without much boob to claim as hers, she still slipped a sports bra under her suit to ensure that there wasn't any curviness to see.

"Well, here goes nothing," she breathed to herself and reached down to pull the tracksuit on over her swimsuit and head out for the pool.

When she arrived at the indoor training facility, she could already see people practicing at the pool. She assumed that they were the third years running drills with the new recruits in preparation for the second part of the try outs the following day. She desperately hoped that she would be joining them. As she walked into pool area, she found the captain easily with how bright red his hair was. He stood near the collaboration of new recruits in a tracksuit of his own, running drills with a whistle in his mouth, a timer in his hand and a clipboard tucked under his arm. She waited patiently for him to nice her, which he did after about three more repetitions. He gave a couple instructions to the third years around him and handed his clipboard off to someone else before coming over to meet her.

"Gou-kun," he greeted with a polite smile. "Ready to swim?"

Gou felt a small curl of nervous excitement twist in her stomach. "Yeah, I am."

"Great," he said. "You can put your tracksuit over by the windows and swim a few warm up laps, if you'd like. I'll be testing you on the four basic relay styles and your speed on whichever you consider your strongest."

Gou nodded and moved to the window to unzip her tracksuit. She felt nervous as she made her way back, entirely aware of all the eyes on her. Luckily, she wasn't the only one who had on a full-body suit, but it didn't make her feel much better about the way people were looking at her. The captain had his eyes on her, but his expression wasn't any different than it was before. She gave a quiet breath of relief as she pulled on her swim cap.

Just breathe, she thought to herself. Remember your training. Remember what Rin taught you.

She walked to the side of the pool and looked down at the water, watching it move slowly, waiting for her to dive in and feel it's presence around her. "I'll start now, if you don't mind," she said to Seijuurou, pulling her goggles down over her eyes.

"You're not going to warm up?" he asked. She shook her head as she climbed on the starting block. Seijuurou seemed intrigued by her choice, judging from the wide grin on his face. "Fair enough," he said. "We'll start with the relay forms. Do one lap per style, transitioning between them while still in the water. Start with breast, then back, butterfly and finally freestyle. Which do you want me to time you on?"

She gave it a little thought as she positioned herself. She was really quick with freestyle, but the one her brother taught her would always be her best. "Butterfly."

Seijuurou nodded once and raised his whistle to his mouth. Gou took up her position and closed her eyes, taking one deep breath. The tension in her body start to relax, the stiffness of her shoulders and the nervous shake of her fingers slipping out of her mind as she zoned in to the lane right before her. She knew this feeling. The thrill of racing and the feeling of the water waiting for her. This is what she lived for. The whistle sounded, sharp and shrill and her body moved on its own, contracting and shooting off from the starting block with the sharpness and fluidity of somebody who had done this a million times. The water took her in a familiar embrace, swirling around her as she slid her way down the lane. With the first pull of her arm and breath, she couldn't even feel her nerves anymore. Her mind was only focused on how it felt to finally be swimming again.

She easily fell into the rhythm of the breast stroke, eating away the lane with every powerful push of her legs. She could feel the familiar burn in her muscles and the swirl of water against her skin. Before she knew it, she was already transitioning into the backstroke, focusing on her breath and the consistency of her strokes. As she returned, she could see eyes on her again. Some of the other swimmers had paused in their routine to watch her swim and Seijuurou had an inching grin pulling at his lips. She tucked herself under the water again and transitioned into the stroke that she loved the most.

The butterfly was a challenging to stroke to master at first. She struggled for many summers trying to get it right. She was never really good at it and preferred to swim freestyle since it was the fastest, and it wasn't until Rin had come back from Australia for a month that she really saw how beautiful it could be. Watching Rin swim the butterfly was like seeing a bird fly for the first time and she was instantly entranced by it. They spent that whole summer working on her technique until she could do it correctly and she would never forget the first moment that she really nailed it. It literally felt like she was flying.

But the lap ended before she could completely lose herself in the stroke and she easily transitioned to what was the easiest and fastest of the four. She regulated her breathing and put all her effort into pushing forward as fast as possible, sliding through the water like a knife. As she twisted and shot herself backwards, just a few meters left, she felt excitement bubble up deep inside her. It didn't matter what her time was when she finished. This was the feeling that she lived for. The finish came up on her fast and she touched the wall with all of her momentum, popping out of the water to look up at Seijuurou. His eyebrows were raised and his lips were curled in a smile she wasn't sure how to read.

"Well?" she asked, breathing heavy. "What's the time?"

"A minute and three seconds," he responded.

Gou frowned. "Dammit," she cursed. "I've done better. Let me take another shot at it. Please."

"Are you kidding?" one of the boys standing nearby exclaimed. "I've never even seen a butterfly that fast before!"

The other boys standing nearby said similar things in an excited manner.

"That was amazing!"

"It was so fast!"

"And he says he can do better?!"

"With that kind of fly time we'll be snatching championships without even trying!"

"Captain, you have to take him. We'll be unstoppable!"

Gou felt a surprised blush rise on her cheeks and an uncontrollable bubble of excitement pool in her stomach. She looked back over at the redhead captain, hoping that maybe he would have a similar response. He gave a slight shake of his head and perched his hands on his hips.

"I'm not saying it's perfect," he said. "But I would be stupid to cut you now. I'm giving you a second shot. Come back tomorrow for the second round of tryouts."

Gou let a wide smile split across her face. "YES! Thank you, thank you, thank you!" She paused when she saw the strange expressions on everyone's face. She coughed slightly, lowering her voice. "I mean… Thank you for this opportunity. I won't let you down."

The other guys gave awkward looks at each other but Seijuurou laughed, loud and amused. "No," he said with a wide grin. "I don't think you will."
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Practice continued for another hour, Gou joining in with the rest of the new recruits for repetitions to get a few more warm up laps under her belt. She hadn't got the chance to swim a lot before she made the snap decision to transfer to Samezuka as a boy, so her skills were still a little rusty. She felt good about how her first run went and judging from the response she got, she had a really good chance of being on the team. She only had to work on her times now so that she could snag a place on the first string relay. But the hour left of practice went by really fast and she didn't get nearly as much practice in as she wanted before one of the seniors blew his whistle loud.

"Alright! That's it! You guys can hit the showers and get out of here now!"

Words that might have usually made her feel indifferent, if not a little disappointed, stabbed Gou in the gut then with a sharp smack of reality. The showers. Nobody left the pool area without drying off and changing into dry clothes again. But as the rest of the prospective team got out of the water and joked around as they headed for the locker room, Gou hesitated, panicking internally about what to do.

"What's wrong, Matsuoka?" one of the seniors asked as he walked by. "Why aren't you getting out?"

"Um… I just wanted to swim a little bit longer…" she said quickly.

He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

She sighed in relief as he walked off and ducked her head under the water for a while. She practically had no options. The boy's locker room was completely off limits and the girl's locker room was locked because it was a boy's only practice. She figured that there wouldn't be much of a chance that both teams would be practicing at the same time, judging from the amount of people, and that wasn't even counting the returning members that didn't come that day. If she had more time, she could probably find a way into the girl's locker room, but that was something she'd have to research later. For now, she was stuck with absolutely no solution.

Popping her head out of the water again, she saw that most of the people were already gone, leaving just a few stragglers cleaning things up behind. She gave a quiet sigh and turned on her back to casually backstroke her way to the edge of the pool. When she got there, everyone was cleared out and she hefted herself out of the water to quickly run to where her clothes were still folded by the window. She hated having to do this, but she hadn't thought ahead and didn't have a towel, so she threw her tracksuit on over her suit and ran out the doors as fast as possible, jogging all the way bag to the dorms.

A couple of people gave her strange looks as she ran by them with a wet tracksuit sticking to her body and dripping hair, but she gave them no heed. She breathed a sigh of impatient relief as she turned the corner of her hallway and her room came into view. She was already sighing in relief, so ready to take a warm shower and get out of her warm clothes. She put her key in the lock and turned the knob, already reaching up to unzip her tracksuit. She took two steps into the room before she realize something was different.

There was somebody else in the room.

Somebody she recognized immediately.

Seijuurou was focused on the books splayed out on the top of his desk, writing notes on the notebook placed on top of them. He looked up when he heard the door open, his gold eyes going a little wider when he realized who it was. "Gou-kun! What are you doing here?"

"What am I…" Gou felt her heart freeze in her chest as her logical mind started to catch up with her. This was bad. This was really bad. "This is my room…"

"Your room?" Seijuurou repeated in surprise. He gave a half look at the haphazardly splayed out bags on the top bunk. He turned back and gave her a half-smile, one that she was sure was going to haunt her dreams and her nightmares for the rest of her stay as he spoke his next words. "Ah… Well, I guess that makes us roommates, then."
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A/N: Thank you for reading! Please consider leaving a review! It's very much appreciated :3