Four Unexpected Fates

Second dive

"Hurts right? It's not easy to watch as your memories are destroyed. Well, you can't go against the times. It's just sad." – Goro Sasabe, coach to Iwatobi High School Swim Club team (Free! Iwatobi Swim Club)

For the next year, I trained my butt off. I didn't miss as many practices as I usually did the previous years and I actually started to ask my coach on how to improve my strokes and times. My diving got better as well, although I still did the occasional belly flops which normally happens when I'm stressed or if people are watching me, which is normally what happens since we didn't have any starting blocks at the pool we practiced at and had to jump from the side of the pool. Normally its really slippery so one wrong move and you'll go into the water and in my case, my swim cap and goggles end up flying off.

"So we're going to do it again this year, eh?" Risa murmured as she held up the sheet. The time had come for us to register for the yearly swimming competition and this time, we hoped to assemble a team that didn't shame us. This time, we managed to rope in someone from our grade that Risa knew from her time in a separate class but we had one more spot left to fill. "Just hope that this time, the member won't be like Yama," I muttered as I recalled how Yama had been last year and how she dragged us down.

"Worry about your individual events as well, Keisa. You don't want to get disqualified too early into the game, don't you?" Risa grinned as I gulped. I didn't want a repeat of what happened last year and I had two individual events this year to boot; the 50m freestyle and the 50m breaststroke. Last year, I hadn't had much hope in my individual timing for freestyle but with my improvement, the coach said I could try it out. "Our last primary school swim meet. Damn, the next time we compete, it's against all the big guns," I shuddered as Risa clapped me on the back. "Let's look forward now and not worry about the future." "Shut it wise girl."

...

About a month later, we stood at the entrance of the pool once more, the chlorine hitting my nose before I could even walk through the entrance. The place was swarming with swimmers, coaches and parents alike but I was glad I had my own personal cheer team. "Come on! You can do it!" my dad grinned as he rubbed me on the head. I was already coming up to his shoulder despite only being 12 years old and I had surpassed my mum in height last year so she looked miniature next to me. "Don't worry! You'll be fine," my mum smiled as she herded us to the changing rooms.

One thing I loved and was grateful for about my dad was that he introduced me to the three basic sports as a child; swimming because of my asthma and he already planned to let me learn anyway; running since we had a hill at the back of the house that was perfect for training and cycling, although I had scrapped my knees more times I could count and that made swimming very painful since the skin was open and all (please don't go into detail!). He used to be a swimmer himself but he never took part in competitions, although he held the record of swiping most of the gold medals for all the track and field events during his last year of secondary school.

"Come on, team! Let's warm up!" I shouted as we gathered in a small circle, starting to do our stretches. For some reason, I had become the unofficial team captain but if I had to say, Risa would be much better at rallying the troops than me since I had a face that normally gives off the vibes that I wanted to murder someone, which I would do if we flopped the relay the next day. I yawned a little as we stretched before going into the pool for warm-ups.

"The sun is shining so brightly but I feel so cold in the water!" Risa gasped as she shivered. "If it were an indoor pool, it would be a lot worse," Farah, the girl from the class next door murmured as she wiped herself with a towel. All of us had individual events today and Risa and I happened to be in the same heat for breaststroke, which was the first event of the day. "Hehe, can't wait to beat you later," she grinned as we went to the waiting room together. This year, my heart wasn't pounding as much as it was last year since this time, I had come better prepared.