Grey (COTE Male Reader)

Chapter Six

While I sat with Yosuke and a ton of girls by the side oft the pool, something unexpected happened.

A student who had caught my eyes called Mei-Yu Wang asked me "Honō-kun, do you exercise?"

I turned to look at her and realised she was talking to me. "You can call me Ren. And kind of? Stretches for football is really the only thing"

"Then how exactly do you have a six pack of abs?"

I saw her peek nervously down to my abdomen and I laughed slightly.

"Good genes I guess? You don't have to be so respectful, what your name again? I want to get it right, it's Mei-Yu Wang right?"

She nodded furiously and blushed. "You can c-call me Mii-chan".

"Sure, Mii-chan"

My conversation with the cute Chinese pigtails girl was cut short by the swimming instructor.

"There are sixteen of you, huh? I thought there would've been more, but this is all right."

Clearly, some of the students in that count had ditched class, but it didn't appear to frustrate him.

"After you warm up, I want to see what you can really do. Swim for me," the coach said.

"Excuse me, sir. I can't really swim, though..."

A lone boy sheepishly raised his hand and spoke up.

"Since you have me as your teacher, you'll be swimming by summertime. Don't worry about a thing."

"Well, we don't really need to force ourselves to swim, do we? It's not like we're going to the beach or anything."

"No way. I don't mind at all if you're bad at swimming now, but I'll make sure you guys are winners in the end. Besides, being able to swim will definitely come in handy later in life. Definitely."

Swimming would definitely come in handy? Well, I suppose knowing how to swim would be convenient. However, hearing a teacher say something like that made me feel uncomfortable. Though, he probably just wanted to keep the students from sinking like rocks. That or it's involved with the school program.

Everyone started their warm-up exercises. Ike kept peeking at the girls. The teacher asked us to swim for about fifty meters. Students who could not swim were allowed to touch the bottom of the pool with their feet. I hadn't been in a pool since last summer.

The water must have been temperature-controlled, because I didn't feel chilled when I entered and adjusted right away. After getting in, I started to swim lightly. Staying roughly lower than average, I slowly adjusted to the water.

After fifty meters, I waited for everyone else to finish.

"He he he, that was an easy win for me. Did you all see my super swimming skills?" Ike crowed.

He'd swum mediocrely, and now got out of the pool with a smug, self-satisfied grin. No, Ike, your performance wasn't really that different from anyone else's.

"Well, it looks like everyone can swim, for the most part."

"Of course, sir. Back in junior high, people called me 'the flying fish,' you know."

"I see. In that case, I'll have you start competing against each other. We'll separate groups by gender. Fifty-meter freestyle."

"C-compete?! Are you serious?" Ike cried.

"I'll give out a special bonus to the first-place winner: 5000 points. The student who comes in last place, however, will have to take supplementary lessons. Get ready."