Hey guys! Just wanted to remind ya'll that an * means the speaker is speaking in English!

CHAPTER 3

For the next two weeks, Kou and Hana became unlikely friends with the girl who was known as 'Lace-Panties-chan.' And they didn't mind the reputation they might get from hanging out with her. Not only because they could care less, but because she was one of the funniest people they had ever met. In Gou's life, there were few people she actually cared for. There was Hana, obviously. There was her brother, also obviously. Her mother. Her deceased father. And, of course, all members of the Iwatobi Swim Club. There was only four members, so it's not like they were popular or anything. But they were friends of her brother, and she was their manager, so they worked out a friendship that Gou would never want to give up, not even for all the abs in the world.

Then there was this new girl. This girl she had the pleasure of knowing these past couple of weeks, and she was so happy that such a person would attend Iwatobi High, of all places. Iwatobi was a boring suburban town that had the same people; the same beach; the same freaking water Gou had the displeasure of staring at everyday, whether she liked to or not. And there was this interesting person who had so much to tell about America, and all of its inhabitants.

"EH?! You don't think American boys are cute?!," Hana asked for the hundreth time, disbelieving Randy everytime she said she was glad boys in Japan were "at least cute, UGH, unlike the nasty-ass boys in fucking New Jersey!"

"Um, NO? I mean, why the frick do you always freak out when I say that?! You're always so freaking shocked! I mean, come ON, Hana! Do you not think Japanese boys are cuter than American boys?!"

Kou also had to get used to the fact that her new gal pal was a huge cusser.

"EH?! Have you not SEEN Leonardo DiCaprio and his ocean blue eyes?! And what about Harry Styles?! His hair is so fluffy! Japanese boys don't have fluffy hair! OR blue eyes!"

"Oh, PLEASE! Leonardo DiCaprio?! Girl, have you seen a recent picture of him?! He's old as heck now! And besides, Harry Styles isn't even from America, he's from freaking England! Oh, and he's waiting for me, so BACK OFF."

"Fuck you!"

"Fuck YOU!"

Kou groaned as she put her head against the desk. The two ALWAYS argued like this during lunch. Gou and Hana didn't eat lunch on the rooftop anymore, not since Randy joined them everyday. They didn't want to make her uncomfertable. But of course, Hana had to open her big fat mouth the moment their incessant aruging died down.

"So, Randy…"

"Hm?"

"Did Kou not tell you what her extra-curricular activies were?"

Quick as a blink, Gou whipped her head toward Hana's direction, silently pleading that her friend would shut up. But, no, she didn't listen to Gou's silent pleads. She heard them, she just didn't care.

Gou didn't want Randy to know about the swim club. This may seem like a shock, but it was true. Even though others knew about her being the manager of the swim club, Randy didn't seem to care or understand that there was such a club. In fact, Randy didn't sign up for any clubs. She could if she wanted to. After all, there were no deadlines for joining clubs. But she didn't seem interested.

Gou wasn't trying to be mean. In fact, she was trying to be everyone's savior. See, in the past couple of days that Gou got to know Randy, she got to know a LOT about the girl. Like how she was mixed, and that's why she was pale but not white, not exactly. And how the girl was Italian, black, and Hispanic. And how New Jersey didn't always smell like a dump like everyone says it does, but it smells like trash in some areas, and like forest in others. And how….well, the point is, Gou knew enough about Randy. And Randy liked boys. ALOT.

Gou tried to keep her boy obsession in tact. Heck, she didn't even like boys! She just liked their glorious, hunky, rippled chests….the kind that glittered like a sparkling sunset against the ocean blue…

But Randy was a different species altogether.

She openly stared at some of the boys in the school. Everytime she passed Haruka and the boys in the hallway, Gou would quickly avert Randy's attention from the boy, or else she knew that he would be her next target. Randy had a new target everyday. Today, it was the boy at the front of the room who looked average, at least to Gou. But to Randy, his hair looked as beautiful as tree bark, and he apparently smelled of Old Spice. Gou didn't know what these terms meant exactly. They sounded like crazy talk, but she would ask her brother later. He knew more about these perverted things than anyone else. There was also Nagisa-kun...Gou shuddered at the thought of asking him anything. He was by far THE most perverted person in all of Japan, and that was saying something.

So Gou decided not to let Randy know about the swim club. It didn't make sense to cause trouble for the members. She was their manager, and she couldn't let anything or anyone get in the way of their success. Not even her new friend.

"Hm, what does Kou-chan do?," Randy asked, turning around to face Gou.

The redhead gulped, looking around frantically. She sent a glare in Hana's direction, but the girl began whistling some old Japanese folk tune. Sighing, Gou looked down at her desk as she gave the best explanation she could.

"Um...I manage things."

With as little words as possible.

"Manage what?"

"...The swim club."

There was silence. Hana looked from Kou to Randy to Kou. She knew mentioning Kou's activity would make her angry, but she very badly wanted Randy's reaction to the news.

"EH?!," Randy shouted, causing everyone to glance in their direction. People turned away soon enough when they realized who was doing the shouting.

"Oh, it's just Rocker(it's Racquel)."

"UGH, she's so annoying."

"Geez, she's so not cute."

"Her nose is kinda big, neh?," one girl beside them asked her friends, and they all laughed and whispered not so quietly about how Randy didn't have a nose that fit Japanese standards of beauty.

Hana and Kou glared at the girls, but Randy was either too excited about Gou's news to hear them, or she pretended not to care.

"KOU MATSUOKA-!"

"-It's Gou Matsuoka, actually."

"-MATSUOKA GOU! YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT YOU'VE BEEN KEEPING A SECRET AS BIG AS THIS FROM ME ALL THIS TIME?! WHY THE HECK DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS UNTIL NOW?!"

"Geez, Randy, calm down!," Gou snapped, getting REAL annoyed with Randy's loud voice.

"Excuse me?!"

Gou noted to never tell Randy to calm down again(no promises, though).

"Well, excuse me for not wanting you to distract every member of my swim team!"

"And WHY would I be a distraction?!"

"Because you're really pretty and we have a lot of meets coming up and you can't seduce them during swim season! They're all gay anyway so you might as well save yourself from disappointment!"

At this, both girls realized just how loudly they had been shouting. Gazing around the room, they saw that every single person was paying attention to their quarral. Some even gaped at them. No one had ever witnessed anything quite like it, and it wasn't even a big fight or anything. Iwatobi High is just that boring.

"CATFIGHT! CATFIGHT! CATFIGHT!," some boys in the back began chanting. Everyone immediatly began to gossip about what had just occured, aware, but not caring, that the people they were talking about were clearly in earshot.

"Can you believe them?"

"Disrupting a classroom, honestly!"

"I've never seen Kou-san like that before!"

"She was so angry!"

"And that new girl is vicious!"

"Yeah, she's such a wild animal!"

As the gossip continued, both girls stared at each other before sitting down in their respected seats. They looked at their laps, each filled with feelings of shame, anger, and sadness. They weren't even really mad at each other. They were just mad that, no matter what they did, things always turned out like this.

Hana was regretting mentioning the swim club. She didn't mean for anything to go THIS far. Her friends were upset, and it was all her fault. Maybe Kou would never talk to her again. She knew that probably wasn't true, but she didn't want one of the only people she liked to stop talking to her.

The bell rang, and lunch period was over. Everyone cleared their food and sat back at their desks, preparing for the upcoming double period.

During the class, as the teacher droned on and on about some people dying from some war, a paper mysteriously appeared on Gou's desk. Looking at Hana, the girl nodded towards Randy, and Gou held her breath as she opened the note from her-well, she didn't know what they were at the moment.

'I'm Sorry'

A smile appeared on Kou's face, relief flooding through her. She knew what they were, and at the moment that was enough.

They were friends.

Once school was over, Kou grabbed Randy's arm before the girl bolted off to who knows where like she does everyday after school.

"Wait, Randy!"

Randy slowly turned her head back to Gou.

Her eyes were dark.

"Yeah?"

Kou stiffened at the uncharacteristically cold attitude Randy displayed. She was usually so full of life. But she was human, like Gou, so Gou knew that Randy wasn't always happy-go-lucky. She could get sad too.

"I'm sorry!," Gou shrieked, bowing to Randy.

Hana took this as her cue to leave. She knew in her heart that they would patch up whatever the fuck that 'fight' was, and besides...she needed to go to art club.

Even though Gou couldn't see her face, Randy's eyes bulged out of her head, and her jaw nearly hit the floor.

"Wha-?"

"I shouldn't have kept it from you! The swim club! You're just really pretty and I feel like all the boys would be distracted by you since your pretty and new and foreign! Besides, they might not even be gay! They're, like, queer and bisexual! I think Makoto might be straight, even! And Haru...he has a crush on water…"

"You know someone who's in love with water?"

"Haha, yeah, it's really messed up! A-anyway! I shouldn't have yelled at you, and, and-"

"Gou."

"-it's kOU!," Gou resumed to standing, and she shouted this in Randy's face.

Randy's eyebrows shot up, and Gou felt like shit all over again.

"I'm sor-"

"Okay. Number one," Randy held up a single finger, shutting Gou up. "Don't fucking apologize."

"What? Why not? You apologized!"

"Yeah, and I only did it to ease whatever tension came up between us! But it's not like I wanted to or anything," Randy flipped it off, as if everything that had happened between them was gone, just like that.

Gou felt anger boiling up inside of her.

"EH?! That means you AREN'T sorry?"

"No, I'm not!"

"Why not?! Don't you care?"

"Yes, and that's exactly WHY I'm not apologizing!," she sighed exasperately, as if she was explaining some simple concept to a curious toddler.

This made Gou angrier. "Wha-well why not?!"

"Kou. Don't you understand that our argument wasn't even an argument to begin with?"

"Eh?"

"We weren't even angry about anything. We were just talking. But," Randy dramatically held up a finger. Gou rolled her eyes, "don't you know why we got upset?"

"Um...because we were fighting?"

"UGH. GOU."

"WHAT?!"

"I'm trying to TELL you that it's not that you were mad or I was mad or that we were mad, dang it! It's everyone else who made us mad!"

Slowly, Randy's words hit Gou all over again, and she felt angrier than ever. And she wasn't angry for some useless argument crap or anything. She was angry at the realization of how she couldn't even have a fucking argument or discussion or whatever with her friends without everyone in the whole class making her and her friends feel like crap.

She remembered the snarks. The comments. How the boys chanted, confusing her that their fight was an actual fight. The words cut beneath her skin. They hated her, they hated Hana, and they hated Randy. They didn't even know Randy's name was Randy! They keep calling her Racquel! Gou's eyes flashed with sadness when she saw a crack of despair in Randy's eyes. Maybe Randy felt was she was feeling. Maybe she felt even worse. It dawned on Gou that maybe her latter thought was correct.

It was proven when Randy tore her eyes from Gou's. She looked weakly the ground, ready to fall apart.

"Ne," Gou soothed, reaching for Randy. Her arms were not strong like her swimmer friends, but they held Randy as tight as they could. Randy squeezed back, feeling like this was what comfort must feel like.

They stood like that for a few moments, relishing in each other's warmth.

Gou pulled back, smiling sadly. Randy smiled back, mirroring Gou's small one.

"I have to go. I have swim practice, remember?"

"Ha, yeah. I have to go too."

Randy turned on her heel, her hand gripping her backpack strap, ready to exit the room.

"Randy."

Randy turned to the girl who called her name.

"Um. I was wondering if you would like to come to a swim club meeting? It can get kind of lonely being the only girl there…"

Gou's hopeful smile fell when she saw Randy bite her lip.

"Um, I'm not sure Kou. I don't swim very well."

"Oh! I don't swim in the club! I'm just their manager!"

"...so you just sit there?"

"Well, I cheer them on and make sure they improve their technique. And, well, it's two hours after school everyday, and it's just me and the boys...OH! I KNOW!," Gou hopped up and down excitedly, trying her best to get Randy to come with her. "Why don't you join the club?!"

"Huh?"

"Yeah! You could be...my assistant! Yeah! And it looks great on college applications!," Gou added in, seeing the light in Randy's eyes shine.

"Well. That DOES sound appealing."

"So you can come, ne?!"

"Um…," Randy wanted to say no. She didn't know if she even had the time for it, but if that meant satisfying one of her only friends in this whole dang country, then heck! She was gonna do it!

"I'll try."

"EEK!," Gou squelaed into her hands, hopping up and down. Randy had to chuckle at that.

"You can come to tomorrow's meeting! It's a joint meeting, and we're taking a bus and everything~!"

"Hm? Where are we going?"

"It's a joint meeting, so it's our brother school, Samezuka Academy! Anyway, be ready RIGHT after school!"

"...But tomorrow's Saturday?"

"Eh? So?"

All color drained from Randy's face. Gou didn't have any clue why.

"Eh? What's wrong?"

"N-nothing! Oh, nothing, haha! I just...I thought we had Saturdays off…"

"EH?! Why would we do that?! Is that why you've been absent these past two Saturdays?!"

"Haha...yeah…"

"EH?!"

"Aw, whatever," Randy waved it off, like she did with whatever else bothered her, "I'll make to school tomorrow. But…I still don't think I can make it."

Gou deflated instantly.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Silence crossed the room, and Randy didn't want to leave things as they were, but she had to GO.

"Um, I gotta go now. Bye," she said before she ran off.

Gou stood alone in the middle of the classroom, feeling as empty as the room felt.

"...Bye."