The Shark and the Stingray

Chapter 27

I was sitting on the grand stands of the North Sydney Olympic Pool getting some homework done from my lecture this morning, Rin's bag was next to me, he was in the change rooms chatting with some of the other swimmers, I hear a ping, I look at Rin's phone, I smiled.

Momo: Rin!
Momo: Pyunsuke!!!
Momo: Just woke up from hibernation! 😭😭👏🏼✨

I saw a picture of Momo holding Pyunsuke the stag beetle and Nitori in the background, I laughed, "Those goofballs never change." I giggled, I walked down to pool deck, "Rin!" I call into the boys change rooms, he walks out, I show him his phone and he chuckles, "They're still the same, haven't changed a bit," He laughs, we take a picture for them with the Harbour Bridge in the background and sent it off to them, "I'm going for a few more laps, I'll be done as soon as I can. I'll fix up dinner tonight, a reward for you sitting down for so long doing your homework like a good student." He kisses my head and dives in, purposely splashing me, "Rin!" I squealed, I saw him grinning in the water, "That boy never changes." I shake my head and smile, I pick up his tracksuit jacket from his lane block, and sit on it, watching Rin finish his laps, "Ah Yuki, you two still here." I turn around, "Oh hey coach," I stand up, "Good timing actually, can you get Rin out?" He asks, I nod, when he was about to turn, I grabbed his ankle, "Stupid shark, stop for a second." I say when he surfaced, "Oh, hi coach," He gets out of the water, "I wanted to introduce you to somebody, Rin, Yuki. This is my good friend Mikhail." He says and points at the man next to him, "Konnichiwa Rin-kun, Yuki-chan. Will has told me a great deal about you two." He raises his hand up, "Rin-kun?" Rin was confused, so was I, "He's lived in Japan," Coach explains, "You've got some impressive muscles there. Also glad to meet you, Mr Matsuoka." He winks, "U-uh yeah. Nice to meet you too." He nods, I furrow my brows, "Mikhail, Mikhail." I touch my chin, that name sounded too familiar, "Show me your finest stroke will you?" Mikhail asked, Rin gets up on the block, Will asked me to time so I grabbed a stopwatch, "Go." I say and start the time, Rin leapt off and swum freestyle, two laps, "Rin-kun, totemo yoi!" Mikhail watches him, "I'm sorry, what did you say?" Will asks, "He was saying how Rin is 'so very good'," I translate, Mikhail nods, Rin's hand slapped the wall, I stopped the time and showed Mikhail, "Very nice, very impressive." He touches his chin and nods, Rin hauled himself out of the pool, I look at lane five, the one next to Rin, I could've sworn I saw Haru, I rubbed my eyes thinking I'm just hallucinating. 

We were catching the ferry back home, I rest my head on Rin's shoulder, I hear a ping from my phone and I grab it, "Hey it's Nagisa!" I light up, Rin looks at my screen.

Nagisa: A lot of kids joined the Iwatobi Swim Club as provisional members but out of those...
Nagisa: Three stayed in the club! 😁

I smiled, and texted back.

Yuki: That's amazing Nagisa! You guys better make it to nationals again! 🥰

"Come closer," I pull Rin's head down a little, we took a picture for Nagisa of us on the ferry, I pulled the corners of Rin's mouth to force him to smile and I sent it to him, "He's going to love it," I shut my phone, I heard another ping and I look at the picture Nagisa sent, I smiled, "Look, this is our new team," I show Rin, my eyes squint, "Hang on." I look closer at the picture, "Shizuru!?" I look at the boy at the bottom right, "You know him?" Rin asks, "He's my cousin, mum's side. I'm pretty sure they're still by the ocean running that little seafood store. That's how he got so good at swimming because they go down to get the fish and shellfish." I zoom in on the boys face, I zoom back out and laughed, "Look at Rei, he must've moved when they took the picture," I point at him and snickered, Rin looks and chuckles, "That's our Rei." I laughed.

"I'm finished with dinner!" I hear Rin's voice, I hop off the couch and walk to our table, I take a sniff, "Smells heavenly." I sit down, he puts a bowl of Japanese curry with a pork cutlet, in front of me and one where he sits, "Dig in." He starts eating, "Yum~" I take a spoonful and droop down in relaxation, "I'll go run a bath after this, do you want a bath?" I ask, he groans as he rolls his shoulder, "What's wrong?" I look at it, "It's just a little tight is all." He ignores it and goes back to eating, "How about this, I already finished all my work I needed to get done today from my lecture so I'll go run a bath after dinner and I'll give you a massage, how does that sound." I put my spoon into my empty bowl, "You always know how to make me relax." He smiles and brings our bowls to the sink, while he washed up, I went to the bathroom and ran some warm water, I took my clothes off and sank into the warm water, I heard a knock, "Can I come in?" I hear Rin, I hum in agreement, he opens the door and takes his clothes off, sliding into the water, I lean back on his chest, "Are you tired?" I close my eyes, he sighs, "Yeah, I still have some uni work I need to get done by the end of the week too." He wraps his arms around me and leans his head back, "Sucks to be you. You're balancing swimming and school, look at you superstar." I giggled.

We drained the bath and headed to our bed, "Get on your tummy, I'll even let you use my nice oils." I dripped a few droplets onto his back, he flinched at the cold sensation, he started relaxing, "You need to know when to take a break Hun, seriously. You can't overwork and push yourself too hard." I kiss his shoulder then massage it, "I know, but I mean, knowing that the other guys back home are working just as hard like Haru. Who knows how much faster, stronger, better than me that son of a bitch might get if I don't stop," Rin closes his eyes, "You two are just drunk on competition and rivalry." I smiled, "The only think I'm drunk on is you." Rin pulls me down and kisses me, "That's enough, you get some rest too. I can't be the only one that gets to relax tonight. You have that group project coming up anyway." He kisses my forehead, I groan, he knows how much I hate group projects, "I better not get an shitty group like last time where I did all the work," I put my hand over my eye, "Whatever, maybe we'll be in the same group, after all, it is for our sports science class, not your physio major." Rin brushes my hair back, "Yeah, I hope so." I close my eyes, we both fell asleep before we knew it.

The next day was a Sunday, I woke up earlier than Rin, I stretched and got out of bed, giving him a quick peck on the cheek, I grabbed my phone and connected it to our speaker, I played our morning playlist on the lowest volume not to wake Rin up, I head to our bathroom and splash my face with cold water to wake me up, "Good morning darl." I hear a croaky voice behind me and arms around my waist, "Good morning baby. I'll go fix up breakfast, get yourself ready to head to the pool." I go on my tip toes and give him a quick kiss, he groans and grabs his tech suit. I play our music louder and hum with it, I fry some bacon and eggs, making a bacon egg sandwich and cut up two kiwis for us, "Rin! What have I said about drinking straight from the carton!" I whack him with the spatula, "Sorry, sorry." He chuckles and grabs a glass, I nod. I put the two plates at our table that overlooked the ocean, "Itadakimasu." We put our hands together and start eating, he bit down into the yolk and it spilled onto his thumb, I giggled and he licked it off his finger. We closed the door after us and started walking, I felt him unzip my front pocket and drop our keys into it. We started jogging to the wharf, a small corgi put his paws onto my knee, I stopped for a second and we pet its head and we thanked the owner, we scanned our opal cards and caught the 144 to Chatswood then the 533 all the way to Sydney Olympic Park. We took our headphones off and went into the aquatic centre.

"Will you swim today?" Rin asks as we were about to go separate ways to the change rooms, I think for a while and look at my bag of books and my laptop I brought along with me, "Um..." I look at the pool, "Why not, it's a hot day. I guess I'll train for a little bit but it's kinda embarrassing with your swim team watching." I saw his team go into the change rooms, "Who cares, you can beat them any day anyway. You're faster than all of them combined, faster than me if you want to." He grins, "You make it so difficult you know that." I grab my towel from his bag and whip his legs with it, he yelps and laughs as he walks into the men's change rooms.

I saw scrolling on my phone as waited for Rin to come out, I had my towel draped over my shoulder, "I'm done, thanks for waiting." Rin comes out, "Mmhm." I put my phone into my bag and we walked out towards the pool, "G'day you two." We turn around, "Hey David." Rin nods, "Good morning." I smile, "So how do you like Mikhail as a coach?" David asks, "He's great but..." Rin stops, "But what?" David asks, "He's... different." Rin touches his chin, David and I chuckle, "I guess he's eccentric and special in his own way but you're lucky Rin-kun he's really sought after. Doesn't really coach people one on one." I nudged Rin, "I don't need you of all people to call me that. But I guess yeah, I was really surprised that he wanted me." Rin nods, "Well, he must've seen something in you that he likes." David looks at Rin, "I'm not sure what though. But regardless, I'm grateful." Rin shrugs, "Hey Chris, what's wrong?" Rin asks as another one of his teammates runs past, "Oi, Rin, guess what. this random Japanese guy showed up out of no where and asked Mikhail to coach him, isn't that crazy!" He says, "Huh?" The two of us say, "Mikhail said no but then that guy said if I beat everyone where you have to coach me." Chris says, "Japanese guy? What's the bet that he's in our swimming circle, if it's either one of Haru or Mako's friends I honestly wouldn't be surprised." I say, we all run to pool deck.