Rosa had been scared many times in her eighteen years of life.
She was scared of the monsters under her bed when she was five, she was scared of the old wooden floors of her aunt's house creaking during the night when she was eight, she was scared the day she slept over at Rin's house before the tournament and they watched The Conjuring when she was twelve, she was scared of her first regional tournament at Laguna Creek when she was fourteen, and she was scared of getting on a plane by herself and look for a fresh start in Japan when she was seventeen.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, was scarier than sitting in front of a laptop waiting for Joy Lance to answer her skype call to tell her that she had been dating someone for the past nine months and hadn't told her anything about it. She was practically shaking on her bed, the skype ringtone reverberating in her head.
Finally, the ringtone ceased and her best friend's face appeared on the screen. Her hair was tied into a ponytail, and it seemed she was sitting on the floor; Rosa could see some loose pieces of cloth scattered around the wooden boards.
"Woah, what happened to that room?" she questioned "You had a party or something?"
"With Miss Noli watching our every move? No way" her friend replied. Miss Noli was the housemother of the girls' dorm at Laguna Creek, and she was a hawk. The first day of meeting her, she gave them a whole list of the rules of the house, including the things they weren't allowed to do. Amongst them were parties, and have boys sleeping over.
'This is not a college dorm' is what she said. You'd think being teenagers and having that rebel streak would allow them to not listen to her, and they even tried once. Some girls brought over boys one evening to play spin the bottle (They were twelve, that was entertainment for them), but not even five minutes in, Miss Noli found out, sent the boys home, and made all the girls clean the bathroom for a week. The way she discovered them was so fast and unexpected, that some even wondered if there was a snitcher amongst them.
Needless to say, after that situation, nobody at Laguna Creek tried to break the rules again.
"I was sewing a dress" Joy explained "The tenth anniversary of the school is this weekend, and they're throwing a dance. All the students are obliged to attend"
"Oh, can I see?" she wondered excitedly.
"It's not done yet" her friend replied "When it is, I'll send a picture"
"Looking forward to it!" she said with a smile, trying to pretend she wasn't dying of nerves inside.
"How are things over there?" Joy asked, leaning back on her place.
"Good" she said, hating how high-pitched her voice sounded. She was definitely not cut out to lie to Joy. She cleared her voice, before continuing to speak "We had the reopening party for the Iwatobi Swim Club. The guys swam a medley against Rin and his team"
"Oh, yeah, Nate mentioned it to me" she replied, and Rosa's heartbeat quickened. Joy had talked to Nate? Had he told her about her relationship with Rin?
No, no, he wouldn't do that. He would wait for her to do it, right? After all, it wasn't his confession to make.
"Along with how surprised he was that Rin asked him to swim backstroke" she added "I still don't understand what his problem with my brother is" so she didn't know, that was good.
The problem was that Rin was quite insecure about himself, and he was prone to feel threatened if a guy was too close to her. But with Nathan those doubts went through the roof, because Rosa and Nate actually hanged out a lot and got along perfectly well, always teasing each other and joking around.
Did that mean she was going to stop being friends with him? No, obviously not. And Rin didn't want that either, so he'd have to find the way to get used to it. Rosa was very understanding of that, but it wasn't like she could do much to help him either. It was something he had to figure out himself. All she could was support him through all of it.
"Joy, there's something you need to know" she spoke up, taking a deep breath. This was killing her.
Her friend frowned, taking notice of her sudden change in tone. She looked kinda nervous too, and she was suddenly worried about what she would hear. She hoped it wasn't anything serious.
"I've been dating Rin for the past nine months"
There was silence for a few seconds, as Rosa tried to figure out what the best course of action was; close the laptop and run, close the laptop and avoid Joy's calls and messages for a week, or close the laptop, run and avoid Joy's calls and messages for a week.
"What?!" she practically yelled, and Rosa was glad her aunt wasn't home that day "How could you not tell me? For nine months?!"
"Nobody knew, it wasn't just you" she replied sheepishly "We only told the guys yesterday"
"You didn't even tell me first?" she was definitely offended, but Rosa had a good reasoning for her choice.
"It wasn't planned" she kept saying "Nagisa and Rei thought I was dating Nate, and they kept questioning him about it. So we just came out and said it"
"And you waited so long because…?"
"It wasn't serious at first" she began to explain her thought process "We just went out a couple times, sometimes during the day, sometimes during the night. Then we began texting almost every day, slept over at each other's house, but it was only in December that it became an official thing"
"And why didn't you say anything then?" she questioned sternly, folding her arms. Rosalya felt like a little girl being scolded by her mother.
"I…" she had no explanation for that. Joy sighed, and stayed silent for a while, almost glaring into her soul, but her expression then faltered.
"Are you happy?" she questioned silently, and Rosa didn't hesitate for a second when she said the next thing.
"Yes"
"Then, if you're happy, I can ignore how offended I feel that you didn't come to me first" Rosa smiled upon hearing those words, she didn't want Joy to be angry at her "But only if you answer one question"
"Anything"
She shouldn't have said that.
"Joy!" Rosa exclaimed as soon as the question left her lips.
"What? I'm just asking" she replied, shrugging nonchalantly "There's no rules preventing it"
"But there's a thing called decorum" she said sharply.
"Oh, please" her friend rolled her eyes dramatically "We shared a room for five years, we're past the sugar coating" while that was kinda true, it was still kind of awkward to talk about it. But this was also the only way Joy wouldn't be mad about her hiding her relationship.
"Okay, fine" she finally stated "We did" when she said 'slept over at each other's house', that was also included.
"And how was it?"
"I'm not gonna say anything without the presence of a lawyer" she stated firmly, folding her arms. She already answered what Joy wanted to hear.
"So it was that good, huh?"
"Can we please change the topic?"
"Okay, fine. Just one last question" Rosa braced herself when she said the next thing.
"What is it?"
"How many times?"
"Joy!"
"And now, it's time for the main event!" the voice of the announcer came out of the speakers in the school courtyard "Iwatobi's finest interclub relay!"
Iwatobi High School was throwing a culture festival called the Iwatobi Fest, and the swimming team, along with the other school clubs, were going to take part in a relay race meant to rope in new team members, if they succeeded. And they really needed more members, especially if they wanted the swimming club to continue the following year, when Mako, Haru and Rosa would no longer be part of it.
"Let's meet the competitors! The tennis, basketball, kendo, judo and swim clubs!"
There were four stations, and when the swim club sat down to organize who was going to race, with Gou and Miss A's help, the first thing they did was make everyone run 100 metres to see who were the fastest people. Everyone except Rei, because being an ex member of the track team left no room for debate: he was going last. Haru, Nagisa, Mako and Rosa had to compete for the other positions.
"But which will find victory in the end?"
Haru's running stance was perfect, but despite being one of the fastest people in the water, his speed on land was awful. He came in last, so he was sitting out on this one.
Nagisa had great stamina for running, and while he was fast, he wasn't as fast as Rosa and Makoto. He came in third so, therefore, he was going second. That way, the runner ahead of him would have time to catch up in case Nagisa wasn't fast enough.
Makoto and Rosa turned out to be the fastest after Rei, but Rosa beat Mako's time for ten seconds, so Mako was going third, and she was left starting the race.
Rosa was quite confident in their chances with Rei. If he ran like he did back when he was part of the track team, then they were surely going to win.
"Alright, here we go!" Rosa turned to look ahead, to find his teammates stretching in their respective positions. Gou and Haru were on the sidelines, ready to cheer for them with all they had.
"On your marks" the referee began the countdown "Get set"
And it began. Rosa was grateful she had convinced everyone on the team to wear appropriate sneakers for running, cause the dust of the track was definitely going to hurt their feet.
Granted, swimsuit, goggles, cap and sneakers were an awful combination, and Joy would flip if she found out. But right now, comfort was what matter. And she had to admit, running in a swimsuit made it a lot easier to stand the heat. She couldn't begin to imagine what the judo club felt while running in those annoyingly warm uniforms.
She reached Nagisa and stuck out the hand holding the kickboard as far as she could, not even looking back to see how far away their rivals were. What she did know was that there was nobody ahead of her, so they had the advantage for now.
But that advantage didn't last long, because Nagisa miscalculated the distance to grab the kickboard, and it fell down. In those five seconds it took for him to grab it and get going again while Rosa yelled at the top of her lungs for him to hurry, all the other teams passed him by.
"Go, Nagisa!" finally, he picked up the pace and reached Makoto, last, but still. The kickboard was passed to his hand smoothly as he kept running. They were still last, but Rosa still held hope, specially with Rei at the end.
And her hope was well placed, since as soon as Rei held the kickboard, he increased his speed like only he could do, leaving everyone behind, and taking the first place for the swim club. It was at times like these that Rosa was grateful they had an ex member of the track team on their side.
But, unfortunately, no amount of running managed to attract anyone new to the team, as they could see the next day, standing in the very empty lockers room of the pool.
"I thought for sure somebody would show up" Nagisa lamented. They had prepared a sign, and were wearing flowers on their heads, along with flower necklaces to welcome whoever showed up.
"Well, no matter how fast we are, at the end of the day we're still a swimming club" Rei commented logically, his arms folded in resignation.
"We did everything we could out there" Makoto encouraged, like the good captain he was "Now we just wait patiently"
"Look, guys" Rosalya spoke up, as everyone turned to look at her curiously "It doesn't matter if we don't get any new members, we're good with who we have for now" they could still compete, it wasn't like their entire purpose was ruined because there were only five swimmers "The pool opens today, and we have a lot of work to do, so let's stop drowning in self pity and get down to business"
"Yeah!"
"Let's forget the race and the recruiting, and switch gears to the upcoming tournament" Makoto stated later that day, once classes were done and everyone was standing by the pool, swimsuits and equipment on "Be careful warming up, the water is ice cold" they nodded in agreement as they listened to their captain's words "We still have a few days before we have to turn in our forms" the forms for the tournament he meant "In addition to individual races, we probably wanna sign for something else" Rosa spotted Haru heading straight for the pool, ignoring Makoto, but the olive haired noticed and held him back before he could get in "I wonder what it could be" he said playfully, as if the answer wasn't obvious.
"A medley relay!" a choir of voices immediately yelled.
"Right! That's it!" Makoto turned to look at Haru besides him "What do you say, Haru?"
"Uh…" he hesitated, as everyone looked at him with puppy eyes.
"You know, if you don't want to, I could always take your place" Rosa suggested, knowing very well that it was forbidden, and knowing that Haru was aware of that. She was taunting him.
"I only swim freestyle in relay" he resorted to say, as everyone chuckled, knowing he was in,
"Mm, pity" Rosalya commented, folding her arms "I'll just stick to torturing your poor bodies" she added.
They had agreed some time ago that, since Rosa couldn't actually swim a relay, she would be the one to train them for it, in that way, she could also observe Makoto's movements, since he couldn't see himself.
"Sounds good" Makoto smiled at her, and out of context it would've sounded very weird "Then it's decided, we'll enter the relay. Figure out your own individual races before the deadline"
"Way ahead of you" Rosa spoke up, and everyone turned to look at her with interest "I've been training breaststroke lately as well as butterfly, so I'll do those races"
"Really?" Nagisa questioned, his eyes shining at the fact that he now shared breaststroke with the girl.
"Yeah, it's good to have an open repertoire" she replied. It was good for competitions, which she would definitely have a lot of in her future.
"Since it's my last year, I'm thinking about entering the freestyle category, too" Makoto admitted, and everyone looked at him curiously.
"In that case, if you two have two strokes, I might think of swimming butterfly as well" Nagisa stated firmly.
"Isn't that your worst stroke?" Rosalya questioned, folding her arms, and he just smiled nervously.
"Yeah, but it gives me something to work on!" he replied confidently, and Rosa was not going to argue with that logic "Hey, Rei!" said boy looked at him upon hearing his name "Since we're branching out, you can try swimming breaststroke!"
"I don't wanna look stupid" Rei replied firmly "Butterfly is still the only stroke I can swim" and having someone like Rosa swimming alongside him really stomped on his confidence, though he would never admit that out loud, of course. He had too much pride for that.
"Aww, c'mon, buddy! Don't beat yourself up like that!" the younger boy begged, burying his head on his back in a comforting manner, before looking up at him "Besides, you're a completely different person now, remember?" while that held some truth, Rei still didn't look convinced "If you put your mind to it, you can swim anything you want"
"You think so?" Rei asked, looking at Nagisa out of the corner of his eye.
"He's right" Gou commented absentmindedly, before looking at them "Why not? You're learning something new everyday"
"Well…" Rei brought a thoughtful finger to his chin "I suppose with hard work, anything's possible, isn't it? Including doing the backstroke"
"If you put your mind to it, it's more than possible" Rosalya commented. She would have never gotten so far in her training without hard work and determination; those were two of the most important things someone needed to get ahead in life.
"I'm sure it will be more than an amazing thing to behold" Makoto assured with a warm smile.
"In that case, I'm in!" Rei exclaimed dramatically "I'll present my backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle to you all, and it will be breathtaking!"
But, unfortunately, it wasn't all that he cut it out to be. He sank a few times, and didn't move when he tried to swim; it was probably around this time that the previous year the five of them had once again been sitting at the pool, trying to teach Rei their respective strokes, and after a certain scene, Rosalya had finally done the impossible and taught him butterfly.
It was true tha since that day, Rei had come really far, and had improved all his stats considerably. Further proof that with hard work, anything's possible.
Rosa stared curiously as Haru approached Rei, and began talking to him. Based on both of their expressions, it was something serious, but she couldn't make it out, because she was too far away.
Half an hour later, training was done for the day. everyone went their separate ways, but Rosa was able to catch up with Rei before he disappeared on the corner.
"Rei, wait up!" she called out to him, and he turned around abruptly upon hearing her voice "Do you really want to swim all four strokes?" Rei thought about what Haru told him at the pool, about not needing more than one style, that one was enough, specially if he felt comfortable with it, but...His words didn't fully sink in. He wasn't sure he wanted to follow that advice.
"Yeah, but…" he wasn't sure of how to do it, since his team members coaching him clearly didn't work, and even after spending a year in the swim club, he apparently couldn't gather how exactly to do their strokes, when he saw and swam with them every single day.
"There's one person you haven't tried learning from yet" she stated, and he gave her a curious look. He was sure he had taken lessons from all five of them "Rin" he arched his eyebrows in surprise upon hearing his words.
Rin was an excellent swimmer, he was the one who decided Rosa was the best choice to train him and the guys all those years ago, and he was now the captain of a team composed of over twenty boys, who all looked up to him. He was definitely a good choice.
"I'm sure he'll be more than happy to help" she kept going "Why don't you give him a call?"
