Just Swim !

Prefecturals - Day 1 (Part 1)

Fast forward, it's already the day for the prefecturals ! This day is very important for the Iwatobi Club members as this is the first ever competition that they're going to participate. Not only that, they might be able to get some money from the school if they get national recognition. Right now they only depend on their own savings and at some point, they might face shortages. Nonetheless, the big day has arrived and all of them are pumped up for their events.

Currently they're lining up at the registration counter to know their lane number and confirming their events. In Iwatobi, Sakurai was the last one lining up but somehow, she felt something was not right. When the lady called her name, she was confirming her lane and events until,

"Akashi Sakurai, 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly stroke"

Sakurai couldn't believe what she just heard, did the person just said 100m butterfly ? Or is it her imagination ?

"Miss Akashi, your stroke is 100m freestyle and 100m butterfly"

"Ano, is my name really in the 100m butterfly event ?"

"Yes. Is there a problem with it ? If not you may proceed to the pool"

"It's just...You know what nevermind. Thank you anyways"

She left the counter with the will of bombarding Gou with lots of questions. Well, fly is her best stroke but she did mention to them that she will continue swimming as long as it's not butterfly. Yes, she did mentioned to signed her up to any events that she's good at. But, she didn't mean it this way. However, she seems to ignore that part for a bit because her event is right next after Haru, as the rotation in the competition is from boys to girls for every event. On the other hand, Gou was busy briefing about how the day would be and Sakurai doesn't have the intention to disturb that briefing just to talk about her unexpected event. So, Sakurai just let Gou be for the time being.

Nonetheless, for the briefing, it seems that Haru was the only one being quiet and by the looks of it, he was waiting for the someone's arrival. She looked at where Haru's eyes went and she saw a group of students wearing black jackets walking towards the pool. Then, one of them with orange-brownish hair waved his hand at them which made Sakurai realise that the guy was actually Samezuka's captain. Speaking of Samezuka, Sakurai tried to look out for Rin in that Samezuka swimmers group, but it seemed like he wasn't there. He's not ditching the prefecturals right ?, Sakurai thought. At the same time, Makoto told Haru that he didn't see Rin which answered Sakurai's curiosity about Haru's silent treatment. So, he was looking for Rin.

The first event for the day is 100m individual freestyle, Haru's event. Both Haru and Rin were going to swim in the lane, side by side. Most Iwatobi members thought that both of them were equally match as their lane is located beside one another. However, the truth is that Rin purposely kept his qualifying time low just to be able to swim together with Haru. Moments after, you could see both of them, standing on the starting board, getting ready to plunge. Once the pistol blew, all of the swimmers immediately dive in and the audience started to cheer with all their might.

There's lots of other swimmers competing for that particular event but for the Iwatobi members, they specifically focus their gaze and cheers for both Haru and Rin. They thought Haru was way faster than Rin but for a matter of fact, Rin was the first one who did the turn between the two of them. Something felt not quite about that event. It seems that the race was not like what people expected it to be. Thus, at the end, Rin took the win and he qualified for the next level, unlike Haru. All of the Iwatobi members were still shocked at the fact that Haru didn't manage to even surpass the time limit but for Sakurai, she was being observant with the sight between Haru and Rin. From what she saw, Rin somehow said something to Haru which made him ended up looking down even after going out of the pool.