Summary: Things go from bad to worse during Yoh and Anna's visit to the pool on a sweltering summer day. What happens when they're finally in the water together?
Written: The evening of 8/2/07.
Rating: T for strong suggestive themes and dialogue. Barely avoided the M rating in my opinion. You've been warned (or enticed, as the case may be)!
Author's note: Probably one of the more humorous stories I'll include in this collection, but there's still a healthy dose of romance here. Baka is written with the Chinese characters for "horse" and "deer," and means "stupid" in Japanese. Helvetica is a font; if you have it, you can see what it looks like yourself. If not, it looks almost exactly like Arial, which every computer must have by now. Bah, I'll shut up now, enjoy!
Poolside Panic
Kiss #2
Manta Oyamada slung his duffel bag over his shoulder, its bulging sides almost bigger than his entire body. Still dripping wet, and reeking of chlorine, he was eager to hit the showers and towel off. He was just about to set foot into the shower room, however, when he heard two voices speaking softly but with intensity:
"Come on, work it in there!" demanded the higher of the two voices.
"Alright," grunted the lower voice, "but now your back is all white and sticky and smells funny! Are you sure--"
"More! Squirt more on my back!" the other voice demanded.
"I think that's all I can give you," came the weary reply.
Embarrassment and curiosity battled each other in Manta's mind, but the curiosity won and he peeked around the corner to see the well-defined bare back of a black-haired young man leaning slightly over the figure of a blond girl on her knees. The young man shifted slightly and began pumping something furiously between his legs--
Manta gave a slight gasp--he recognized the two figures. He knew he probably should have turned around and left, but he blurted out, "Y-Yoh! Anna! I-I…"
Slightly startled, Yoh turned around, revealing the object that had been between his legs to be a thoroughly expended tube of sunscreen. Anna, meanwhile, looked up and gave Manta an ambivalent look of recognition.
"Manta! What brings you to the pool?" Yoh asked, tossing the empty tube aside and favoring his diminutive friend with a wave.
"The heat," answered Manta simply, returning Yoh's wave and giving Anna a polite nod. "You two here for some training or something?"
"What we do on our own time is our business," Anna began, smoothing out some uneven lumps of sunscreen on her arms, but her fiancée broke in, mortified.
"Anna, please! Manta, we came to the pool for the same reason as you. I'm just dripping with sweat, and Anna's really hot too." The words had barely left his lips before he realized the double-entendre he had just spoken. "Errr--that is, I mean, uh, we're both hot, dah I mean, that is to say, we needed a dip in the pool to cool off! Yeah."
Yoh grinned sheepishly, a distinct red tinge burning in his face; Manta gave a little chuckle. Anna took a single step backwards, crossed her arms, and parted her lips to utter one word.
"Smooth."
"Like sandpaper, really," babbled Yoh. He chanced a look at her, flaxen strands of hair tickling her bare shoulders, a nearly illegally tight bikini barely censoring her fleshy curves…Could you blame me for saying you're really hot? he thought, before he noticed her seething expression and turned to Manta. "Well uh, guess we'll be heading to the pool now. See ya later, Manta."
Yoh hadn't even gotten his toes wet before Anna rounded on him, grasping his slender yet surprisingly meaty shoulder in a slim-fingered death grip. He winced. "Owww--"
"What is the matter with you, embarrassing me like that in front of your friend?" the blonde demanded, releasing his shoulder only to wind up for a slap. She spat the word "friend" like a filthy slur.
The brunette brushed his shoulder off, briefly inspecting the white finger lines where all the blood had been squeezed from his flesh. So I accidentally let it slip that you're very pretty, Anna. What's the big deal? he wanted to reply, but instead lowered his head slightly. "You're right, it was pretty humiliating. I'm sorry." Without looking back to see Anna's response, he took several long strides towards the deep end of the pool, curled his toes upon the edge, tucked his head down slightly, extended his arms, and prepared to dive--
"You better be sorry! Baka!" she bellowed, and with a mighty body slam, sent Yoh's precariously balancing figure sprawling off the deck into the deep end. He freaked out, somehow executed a somersault in the air with his random flailing, and smacked the glassine surface of the water full force with his stomach. His abs were toned and firm, but the water was harder, and his gut stung sharply, as though she had, even now, standing on the deck and glaring at him with seemingly sadomasochistic glee, reached out with her hand and slapped him in the torso with an immense, sloppy hand.
Yoh gasped sharply at the sudden onslaught of pain, but as he did he began to sink, and he coughed as the water he had inhaled assaulted his nostrils and windpipe. Somewhere through the panic and the sinking it occurred to him that breathing would be a good idea. He jabbed at his watery prison with kicks and clawed hands and felt himself buoying, until it felt as though someone had cracked an egg upon his head, and he gulped in air.
His face red from asphyxiation, his entire front redder from his unexpected belly flop, he bobbed to the side of the pool, catching his breath. Anna gave him one last cold stare before she spread out her towel and perched herself on it.
Inwardly Yoh sighed. She was the one who wanted to go to the pool in the first place, and now she was just lying there, sunbathing on a towel. If she wants to get darker skin, maybe she should just do a belly flop like me, he thought bitterly.
The stinging and choking aside, however, Yoh felt the heat of the early afternoon wash away from him as he floated in the water. It was easy to forget Anna's anger towards him then, with his back supported by a refreshing blue wall that gently ebbed and flowed, licking at his ankles and toes, lapping over his outstretched arms.
It had been a long time since he last went swimming, but for him it was like riding a bicycle. He glided through the water easily with every move he picked up during his childhood. After several minutes of breaststrokes, backstrokes and dolphin kicks, Yoh's heart was racing, but he remained cool.
Anna was still lying upon her towel, but she kept glancing at the pool longingly, wondering if it was worth swallowing her pride in order to take a dip in its invigorating depths…
"Anna!" Yoh called, his body propped upon his arms, crossed onto the deck. "How can you stand that? It's sweltering!"
"I'm tough like that," she answered, the iciness in her response nearly making the temperature of the day bearable.
"Come on! You don't know what you're missing," Yoh wheedled, rippling the water near him with his index finger.
"I know what I'm missing," she hissed. "It's the peace and quiet I was enjoying up until a minute ago."
Yoh's shoulders sank, and he sighed quietly. "Please, Anna," he beseeched, and suddenly the water's temperature seemed colder and unwelcome against his skin. "I'm sorry for embarrassing you. Can't we still have a pleasant swim before we have to go?"
She said nothing, and continued staring with a noncommittal expression into his pleading eyes. A new heat began seeping up her spine and into her face, a heat that had nothing to do with the harsh sun but had everything to do with her equally sharp words to Yoh--
Abruptly she stood up, the guilt winning out over her pride, but there was no way she would give him any sign of the regret she was now beginning to feel. "Move over, 'tard, I'm coming in," she said flatly.
Yoh grinned childishly, as though Anna's sudden change of heart meant they'd be going out for ice cream and cotton candy. Not really thinking clearly through his sudden glee, he playfully cupped his hands upon the water's surface and squeezed, sending an arch of crystal water up out of the pool and onto Anna's hair…
"Gotcha!" Yoh cried exuberantly. He felt unspeakably giddy all of a sudden, and didn't care much that Anna now looked livid once more.
"You son of a…You do that one more time, and I swear I'll slap you like a pimp on crack!"
For some reason, Anna's comment caused his cup of giddiness to run over, and he began laughing uncontrollably. "Pimp on crack…you crack me up!"
It was a horrible pun, but Anna hesitated for a moment, and the faintest traces of a smile seemed to snatch the corners of her mouth. Yoh remained oblivious, however, and cupped his hands together again, launching more volleys of water upwards with precisely aimed squeezes…
"That's it! You're going down!" she swore after taking the last of the jets full in her face. Sputtering and squinting, she charged towards Yoh, her legs propelling her heroically towards him, her face now displaying an odd mixture of vengeance and the playful exuberance that was still overwhelming her fiancé. He dodged nimbly, propelling himself from the poolside by kicking off the wall and gliding on his back.
It was Anna's turn to scramble wildly in the air now; she kicked her feet like a cartoon character running out of cliff, hoping to defy physics and tread upon the water's surface, and it almost worked. But when her foot touched the cool water, she flipped forward abruptly, clashing against the pool's surface with a thundering smack!
Anna gave a little shriek and a gagging noise, drowned out by Yoh's laughter. He still didn't quite know what had made him so irreverently happy, as he knew she would probably strangle him two seconds after she swam over to him. He was safe for now, though; he could see nothing of Anna above the surface aside from her hair, which bobbed and pulsed with the currents and resembled a blond jellyfish.
It occurred to him that Anna was sure capable of holding her breath for a long stretch. He watched her drift slowly to the bottom of the pool, obscured and darkened by six feet of water, then seven, eight, nine…She sank slowly and with an utter lack of resistance or motion, almost as though she were dreaming, or unconscious…
Yoh snapped out of his jocund mood immediately. "Anna? Anna?!" he called out, before realizing she could neither hear nor reply to his cries even if she were fine. He took a deep breath, feeling shivers of fear and adrenaline squirm up and down his back as he did so, and plunged into the depths of the pool.
Yoh kicked and stroked his way lower, towards the figure that crouched oddly upon the gritty bottom of the pool. She looked disturbingly like a puppet gone slack: She was hunched over at a nearly impossible angle, her arms drifting mindlessly with the currents, her eyes vacuous, her skin pale.
He propped her limp figure against his front, securing her waist and neck with his arm and shoulder, and kicked off the floor of the pool as hard as he could. Yoh wondered why she felt so very heavy, considering her slender, delicate figure, and he felt a hungering in his lungs and chest, a constricting pressure, and his vision began to contract. He kicked harder, the burning in his lungs creeping to his limbs, up the tunnel of blue, holding Anna tightly before him like a shield, and he thought he saw the tunnel lightening to a radiant yellow as he gave one last heroic kick and everything burned white…
Somehow he found himself crouched before Anna's form, still dizzy and lightheaded, but breathing. Breathing. The word sent new torrents of panic through Yoh's brain, for as far as he could tell, Anna was not breathing. He clutched Anna's shoulders firmly, feeling the clamminess of her skin, and shook them vigorously. "Anna!"
She did not stir. Desperation pounded at the back of Yoh's head and he decided he would need to try his hand at performing artificial respiration. He drew closer to her pale face and inhaled sharply--
TWEEEEET!!! Yoh looked up, exhaling as sharply as he had just breathed in. "You two, cut it out! This is a public pool, not a love hotel sauna! Break it up or I'll break you up!" The whistle-blower ran closer, approaching Yoh, who read the bold Helvetica writing on his faded yellow shirt: LIFEGUARD.
"It's--it's not what it looks like, I swear! She nearly drowned and I--I thought maybe I should try CPR…"
The lifeguard sneered at Yoh, then squinted at Anna's unmoving figure. Suddenly he licked his lips, Anna's curvaceous, lifeless body reflecting off his beady pupils. "CPR, eh? Step aside, Junior, I'll tend to this young lass," he said lasciviously.
Yoh watched with commingled relief and apprehension as the lifeguard knelt before Anna's head. His aroused lips descended towards Anna's face, descending rapidly, until they nearly brushed--
"Yeow!!" The lifeguard sprawled backwards, stumbling from the force of Anna's sudden slap.
Yoh gasped audibly and gave a little leap into the air. "Anna!"
She sat bolt upright. "'Junior' here is my fiancée, Buster, so you'll get the hell out of here if you know what's good for you!" Anna yelled, but the lifeguard had already split.
He didn't know what possessed him to do it, but at that moment Yoh threw his arms wide and wrapped Anna in a tight hug. He braced himself to receive the same treatment the lifeguard had moments ago, but when her hand finally descended upon him, it was only to return his hug. Gradually Yoh felt the warmth return to Anna's skin, along with something else that seemed to radiate from her very pores, something as indescribable as it was certain to exist, something that quickened his pulse and enthralled him…
"Thanks," Anna whispered into Yoh's shoulder, "you know, for saving my life and all." And then he received a gift even rarer than her thanks, a gift as blinding white and pure as the afternoon sun but a hundred times as radiant: her smile.
"I…I had to do it anyway," Yoh replied, just as softly, and blushing just as delicately as Anna was. "I can't imagine my life…living without you right beside me anyway."
"Damn right, Asakura. If you let me die, my ghost will never let you hear the end of it." The words were less than kind but she was still grinning shamelessly at Yoh.
"Ah…Even in death, some things never change, huh?"
Rather than retaliating for this cheap shot, Anna merely drew slightly closer. "But one thing would definitely change in death. I couldn't give you one of these," she said.
Anna's hand found the crook of Yoh's neck and pulled his lips to hers. He gave a start, but then relaxed, feeling a gentle tongue asking for permission to pass between his lips, permission which he didn't deny. Anna's fingers shook droplets of water from his matted black hair; Yoh rubbed away the last few droplets on her luxurious back. He felt as though he were about to drown again, but this time in an ocean of emotion, of passion, of love…
"Yoh?" Anna asked once their lips had finally parted.
"Yes?"
She pointed to his swim trunks; he didn't have to look down to understand what her next joke was about.
"Is that a tube of sunscreen in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?"
