them • kakegurui x female reader

♪²¹

you feel someone's strong arms around your chest, and then a not-panic-driven entity dragging you up to where you were supposed to go.

as soon as you were distant from her, yumemi got her bearings and pulled her body together to swim upward along with whoever was behind you, pulling you up.

your head breaks the surface and you draw beloved oxygen from the atmosphere of the earth, then begin a series of shallow panting, clinging onto whoever your savior was as they lead you over to a wall.

you grab it, thankfully, and look up to see ririka. one of the braids had fallen out, probably in the dramatic dive to your rescue, but the real reason you knew it was ririka was because the look of concern clear on her face held more worried emotion then kirari could or would ever possess in her life.

"oh my god y/n- are you okay?" she blurts, letting go of your chest in awareness it would be awkward if she kept holding you like than and inside moving nerve-filled fingers to her back to feel the rhythm of your breathing.

as she presses her hand onto your back, water comes up from your throat and you cough, hard, turning your head so you don't cough on yumemi. you try to keep it in, and after a second your body's attempt at getting water out of your body implode in your chest because of the social issue of coughing near people.

"you need cpr? or like, a floaty? can you swim in general?" itsuki asks cautiously, leaning on you from the textured-stone tiles of the poolside.

you clear your throat, feeling the scratchiness of unsteady return to air and normal functions before answering. "i.. i'm fine. i can swim, just yumemi and i got tangled in the slide and we were both surprised from being pushed down abruptly and.. yeah. i'm all good though, aside from maybe some bruises- wait, did i hurt you, yumemi?"

"no, i'm all good- i mean, i can feel where you were struggling against me, but i think you could the worse end- your jaw.. kinda has a bruise now." the pink-haired idol winces, and she watches shamefully as you reach up to your face to feel it. as soon as your fingertips graze over the wound you wince.

"should i get healing cream? band-aids? a popsicle for pain or something? yumemi, you have any visible injuries?" sayaka hurries over, dropping her gun on the floor to rush over to the commotion, and midari seemingly also drained of attention for the previously violent fight as her opponent transitions from fury to fretful.

"not cool, blonde." itsuki stands to call up to mary, still perched on the slide, pretending to be uninterested.

"not my fault that one decided to join a water-gun fight without knowing how to swim." mary responded coldly, glaring down at you as if her being accused of malice was somehow also your fault.

"you pushed her down a slide!" itsuki said in disbelief, then watched in confusion as mary sits, then slides down. unlike you and yumemi's fall from grace, mary lands evenly- but then again, she was planning to go down, you weren't, and she also didn't have a struggling idol tangled into her personal space.

with a few strong strokes, mary surfaces, launching herself upward and over the edge of the pool gracefully before pausing the scorn written on her face.

"see? not hard. you all are just falling for her dumb game."

"you seriously think y/n almost drowning was for a sympathy play?" itsuki shot back, and mary shrugged, head held high and never falling.

"honestly, i'm not sure if it would change much. if anything, i'd want to stick around her even more!" yumeko chirped, surfacing next to you. and by that i mean next to you, as in practically on you.

"and if i'm not mistaken, the president would be more interested too, right? you like oddities, and y/n faking the genuine-seeming emotions of kindness and clarity would take some master level of manipulation skill. we could all be playing into her hands! and what powerful hands those would be." the addict continued, pushing on the wall next to you and spinning in a circle in the water with her arms extended for emphasis.