Yuka had texted her friends that she was getting tutored during lunch.

But I won't see you today! o(╥﹏╥)o Yue xx

Good luck! Or rather... good luck to the tutor ;) Shin.

With that done she headed up the million steps to get to the roof. Though when she got to the top there were only two people sat there, and neither were Rei. They glanced at her as the door banged open unceremoniously and she smiled sheepishly. The pair went back to unpacking their lunches. Yuka looked around wondering where to wait for Rei and then decided to sit on the floor so that she could unpack her lunch as well. She automatically glanced back at the pair once she was seated, and found that one of the guys was watching her again. She expected him to look away once she had caught him but he didn't. Which left her in an awkward predicament. The staring contest was a little unnerving but at the same time she wondered why he was staring so she stared back at him. Her eyes flicked to the other guy, who had just noticed what was happening, before she looked back to the staring guy.

Feeling a little braver, Yuka asked, "Can I help you?" She'd meant it to sound a little rude but it came out sounding genuine. Which irritated her. Why did she always respond so nicely to rude people. It just wasn't in her to get mean. Cocky and smartass was maybe in her reach, but not rude. Well... no, not really. But the boy just shrugged and bit into a forkful of food. Her eyes fell in annoyance and she leaned back against a wall. I really don't want to learn maths this lunch time. As if thinking about maths was enough to summon Rei, he appeared from the roof access. Yuka instinctively smiled and waited for him to notice her. She waved when he did. "Hey, Rei-kun," she said sweetly.

"Rei-kun?!" came an excited cry. "Has Rei-chan kept a secret relationship from us?!"

"Nagisa-!"

"Rei...chan...?" Yuka mumbled slowly, a grin forming on her lips from the girlish suffix. It did fit with his name, but it didn't quite fit with the Rei Yuka was used to. A short - in comparison to Rei - blonde guy bounced into view from behind Rei. He was cute and Yuka recognised him from her year, though they didn't share any classes together. Her eyes followed him as he bounded for her.

"Ehh! Rei-chan has such a pretty girlfriend," the boy said as he leaned over her. Yuka's grin widened at the hilarity though she was also blushing as she realised that the attractive stranger was complimenting her unabashedly. Said stranger half gasped, half exclaimed, "Cute!" as she did so. Yuka liked him already.

Rei seemed to catch up to speed and pulled the boy back, "Nagisa-kun! She's-!" Then he cleared his throat to compose himself, "Yuka-chan's not my girlfriend... I'm... tutoring her in math." He got quieter as he continued.

"So...boring!" Nagisa whined.

"I know, right?" Yuka spoke up.

Remembering she was there, Nagisa took her hand and pulled her up, saying, "Come sit with us. I don't want Rei-chan to have you all to himself!" As Yuka looked back and shrugged at Rei she noticed that he was blushing slightly. Although the situation was quite embarrassing, Yuka was enjoying herself. She was never normally complimented or made a fuss over, since her friendship group consisted of an existing couple. And Yuka liked this Nagisa already. She supposed that if Rei was friends with him then he might be more interesting than she'd thought. Then she realised they were sitting down with the only other two people on the roof. Her and the staring guy locked eyes again and her smile changed. She smiled politely as Nagisa announced, "This is Haruka-chan and Makoto-chan! We're all on the swim team together."

"Nice to meet you," said Yuka.

"Nice to meet you, too," echoed Makoto with an attractive smile. Yuka instantly liked him, much like she did with Nagisa. She suddenly felt like she needed a female friend who was single, like her. It wouldn't matter if she bragged to Yue about meeting three extremely attractive guys, since she was with Shin. Maybe she would tell her mother? She sat down where she was standing, which was next to Makoto, and slightly opposite Haruka. Rei sat down beside her and Nagisa next to Haruka. And thus was the circle they had created.

"Did you bring your math books?" Rei asked.

Yuka pouted slightly and nodded. Nagisa wailed again, "But maths is so boring! And Yuka-chan doesn't want to do it, right?" Nagisa looked at her and waited for her to sheepishly say, "Eh, right..." before grinning, "She'd rather ask us about our swim club!" He said it so proudly that the topic actually piqued her interest. More than maths, anyway.

"Oh. Um..." She trailed off. She was glad for the distraction from studying during lunch time but she didn't know much about their club. The other guys must have took her pause to mean she wasn't interested though as Haruka said, "She's not interested in that, either."

Yuka just frowned and asked, "How do you guys know what I like or not?" Her eyes had automatically found Haruka's, which held her gaze for a while until he shrugged and bit some ... mackerel from his fork. Dead-panning, Yuka said, "Actually I heard you guys were disqualified from the finals? ...That sounds interesting."

There was a pause between the group before Nagisa started laughing. Yuka noticed Makoto was grinning, too. Even Rei and Haruka were smirking slightly. Makoto rubbed the back of his neck as he said, "Rei swapped places with a swimmer from another academy and they saw it as cheating."

"But we came first!" Chimed Nagisa.

Rei shifted in his spot next to Yuka and she watched him adjust his glasses. "It was worth it, though. We had our reasons. And it was really quite beautiful to watch."

"So you didn't mind sitting out?" asked Yuka.

"Not at the time. I won't be offering to do it next time, though," Rei replied with a smile. Yuka nodded and took a bite of her lunch, glad that the tutoring lesson seemed to have been forgotten for now.

"I used to love swimming," Yuka stated. "I didn't swim competitively, though I guess there was always the desire to finish first." The boys watched her as she ate more of her lunch.

"Ehh! Yuka-chan loves swimming!" Nagisa grinned.

"I was training to be a lifeguard, actually," she explained. "I'd passed my rookie lifeguard exam and was certified, but I didn't take the course after that."

"How come?" asked Makoto. Yuka smiled at him and shrugged. It was after she'd received her certificate that her mum started feeling better, so she moved back to Japan and changed her mind about lifeguarding. Although that's what happened, Yuka wasn't sure why she'd changed her mind. So she forked more food in her mouth and said, "Dunno."

"We have swim practice later today if you'd like to watch us?" asked Rei.

Nagisa beamed, "Yuka-chan can be our pretty lifeguard in case we drown!"

Yuka laughed and held up her hands. "Wait, woah! Aren't you guys passed that stage? I doubt they'd let you enter swimming competitions if you couldn't swim!"

"You didn't see Rei when he first joined," said Makoto. "If he tries to swim anything other than butterfly he sinks."

Yuka snorted, however unattractive it was. "And here I thought he was good at everything." Rei blushed and Yuka snickered.

"But you are welcome to hang out with us later. Kou would probably like the company, too," Makoto offered.

"Kou? ... Matsuoka?"

"She's our manager," Makoto explained. Yuka nodded.

"Yeah, okay. If it's cool with everyone, I'll probably come by for a little. I haven't seen Gou in a while."

As Nagisa exclaimed happily, Yuka glanced at Haruka who had been quiet the whole time. He was watching her again. This time she just smiled at him and busied herself with packing away her lunch box.

As lunch ended Rei sighed and said, "Yuka-chan, we didn't look at a single question."

Yuka tried to suppress her smile. Good, she thought. "Guess I'll be struggling in maths tomorrow then, too."


The rest of the day was pretty uneventful as Yuka anticipated meeting Rei and his friends at the pool. She packed away her sketch book and art supplies as her last class of the day finished. She was proud of how her artwork was coming along, and was pleased that the teacher suggested that the class have their lesson outside next time. It was Summer after all.

Yuka walked to the pool in high spirits, removing her blazer when the sun was too hot on her back. She noticed that Haruka was the only one at the pool when she arrived, and that he was already in the pool. Yuka watched as Haruka cut through the water in record time, barely pausing at either end before he was darting off again. Yuka wasn't surprised that they came first in their competition if this was how they swam. "Wow," she murmured, leaving her backpack and blazer to the side then moving to the edge of the pool to watch Haruka. She stood like that for a while, though Haruka didn't seem to notice her. Yuka thought she was being a little creepy, watching him swim, but she was only doing what he'd been doing at lunchtime. Maybe staring at each other would soon be their thing? She was distracted when a loud cry and a body came pelting towards her.

"Yuka-chaaaan!~~" Cried Nagisa happily as he collided with her in a hug from behind.

"AHH!" She screamed, being propelled forwards. Nagisa's impact pushed them both into the water. Yuka kicked to the surface, gasping as she came up before wriggling in Nagisa's hold. "Nagisa-san! What was that for?!" She was annoyed that her arms were held to her sides since Nagisa was still wrapped around her in a hug.

"Aw! I'm sorry Yuka-chan! I knew you could swim and thought it would be fun," he said, his grin turning sheepish and adorable. Yuka wriggled more and pushed herself out of his grip. She kicked to the edge and gripped the ridges, pushing her hair from her face as she did so.

"But you have a swimsuit! I was going to wear these clothes tomorrow!" She snapped, watching her white shirt cling to her body. "I need a towel," she grumbled.

"Here you go, Yuka-san!" Kou said as she hurried into the scene. She smiled prettily and extended a large towel to Yuka, who smiled in appreciation.

"Thank you, Kou-san," she said as she pushed herself up over the edge of the pool. Kou placed the towel over her shoulders and Yuka pulled it around herself tighter. Yuka looked up to see the rest of the guys were there now, too. "Don't you guys go running up to me, too," Yuka warned them. Rei and Makoto just shook there heads, slightly scared, which made Kou giggle. Yuka spun around when she heard Nagisa chuckling as well. "I just realised-!" She gasped, glaring at the blonde boy. "You would have ruined my bag if I hadn't have taken it off!" That's right! Her electronics would have been ruined. She had her phone in there, and her music, and-! Her sketch book would have been completely destroyed, and that had taken her more hours than she would like to admit. "Don't laugh! I would have never forgiven you!"

Nagisa swam up to where she stood and apologised. "Yuka-chan, I'm very sorry. I'm really glad you weren't wearing your backpack. I just thought it would be fun!" Yuka huffed then crumbled. She was never really mad for too long. She didn't mind that she had gotten wet too much. Actually, it was rather nice after being so hot before. And nothing important got wet. "It was really nice hugging Yuka-chan in the water!" Nagisa grinned finally.

"Yeah well next time wait till I'm out of my uniform!" Yuka scolded, then flushed slightly at the suggestiveness. Then Yuka noticed that Haruka hadn't stopped swimming back and fore for the whole duration of her being in and out of the pool.

Nagisa actually bobbed up and down in the water. "Does that mean Yuka-chan is going to join us swimming?"

Yuka considered it. She missed swimming. But wasn't this supposedly their swimming practice? "I assumed this pool was for swim club only," she said.

"Speaking of which," said Kou, "I was going to time you guys on your 100 metres today. You can help me time them if you'd like, Yuka-san?"

Yuka smiled but shook her head, "Thank you, but I should probably go home and dry off. My clothes are too clingy for my liking."

"There are spare clothes in the changing rooms," said Makoto. "I could take you there and you could change so that you don't walk home wet?"

"Really? That would be great," Yuka beamed. "Is that okay?"

Makoto smiled warmly, "Sure, it's no problem."

Kou called after them, "Don't take too long, Makoto-kun!" and she received a wave from said swimmer as they walked off towards the changing rooms. Rei watched them go thinking that he should have been the one to take her. He was pulled back to the pool-side when Kou instructed him to dive in and start warming up.