Chapter 22: Chapter 21: Swimming Pool and Tension – Part 2

The bell rang for the end of the school day.

As everyone got up to leave, Fujiharu-san made her way over to me.

"Are you excited to go to the pool?"

"I guess."

A few moments later, the two of us also began making out way down to the lockers. It was quite crowded so it was difficult to find the others who were going with us. As the hoard of students slowly dispersed out of the school, the two of us joined the group which had formed.

"Ah, Fujiharu-san! Do you have your swimsuit?" One of them asked.

"Oh um... I'll have to go grab mine," she then turned and looked at me, "how about you, Mizuhara-kun?" 

"I'll have to grab mine as well."

"We'll meet you guys there!" Fujiharu-san assured the group.

After a small discussion, the group agreed and headed off first.

"We can get yours first then we'll go and get mine," said Fujiharu-san.

"Alright."

The two of us made our way to the dormitory where I stayed. She followed me as I made my way to my room. I unlocked my room and grabbed my swimsuit from inside. Fujiharu-san also followed me inside and looked around.

"There's like nothing here~"

"That's just how I like it."

"Are you a minimalist?"

"Somewhat."

I grabbed my swimming shorts and towel and put them into my bag.

"Alright, let's go to yours now."

"Okay~"

We left the school and walked down the street to Fujiharu-san's place. After a few minutes, we arrived at her front door but she suddenly noticed something.

"Shoot, I forgot my keys."

Well, that wasn't good.

"What are going to do then?"

"I'll just use the spare key, close your eyes, Mizuhara-kun."

As she requested, I covered my eyes so I wouldn't see the hiding spot of her spare key. Now that I thought about it, I had a keycard for Kanako-san's place which is probably a bit weirder than I first realised. A few moments later, I heard a click on the door.

"Alright, come in!"

"Okay."

"You didn't peek when I was getting the spare key did you?"

"No."

"Hehe, anyways, I'll just be one second."

She grabbed her swimsuit from her room and the two of us were once again on our way. The leisure centre wasn't too far away from here so we decided to just walk over there. It was a relatively hot day so the walk was pretty relaxing.

"Ah, I can't wait to go in the pool."

*

We finally arrived at the entrance of the leisure centre and met up with the rest of the group.

"Jeez, took you guys long enough."

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"We didn't take that long did we~"

Now that the group had been reunited, we walked into the reception area and bought our tickets. There was quite a long line so we were forced to wait a little while before we could make our purchase. A little wristband was attached to each of our hands as we paid the $35 entry fee.

I guess money wasn't that big of an issue for me anymore—I've been getting transfers into my account by Kanako-san's father for the tutoring.

After we bought the tickets, the boys and girls split off to enter separate change rooms.

"You're Mizuahara-kun right?" One of the boys asked.

"Yeah."

"So, what's your relationship with Fujiharu-san?" 

I figured that this was coming.

"We're just friends."

"Are you sure? You guys spend so much time together."

"As friends do."

"Aha, alright then, well I'm Riku Okamoto, nice to meet you."

"Likewise."

He was a quite muscular boy with short black hair. From what I could see, he looked like someone who'd be quite popular. Between his sociability and supposed athleticism, it wasn't hard to see why he'd have lots of friends.

We made our way into the change rooms and I placed my bag into one of the lockers. 

We quickly got changed before making our way into the main leisure centre. It was an incredibly large facility with several pools, all with unique designs. There were some which were for proper swim training and others which were designed to be in cartoon-like shapes. The humid air filled my nostrils as we walked in, I could also smell a slight aroma of chlorine which was in the pools.

The entire area was heated so I felt like sweating the moment I walked in.

"Ah, looks like the girls aren't out yet." Sakamoto-kun looked at the three of us as we decided on what to do.

"Do you want to wait for them?" One of them asked.

"I'm going to have a quick dip, I can't wait anymore!" The other one answered.

Following him, the rest of us also jumped into a square pool which had some volleyball nets set up. The water immediately cooled me down as I splashed into the pool.

"Hey, Take-kun, go grab one of those volleyballs!" Shouted Okamoto-kun.

"Why don't you go grab it?" 

"You're closer so obviously you should grab it!"

After a rather pointless argument, the boy named Take-kun eventually swam over and grabbed a soft volleyball from the side of the pool. I recognised him as Takeuchi Kaito, the fifth-highest scorer on the midterm exams.

"Here, Mizuhara-kun!"

He lobbed the ball over and I caught it in my hands.

"Alright how about this, Hinata and I take Mizuhara-kun and Take-kun," proposed Okamoto-kun.

"Yeah, you're on!" Takeuchi-kun replied.

I started with the ball and hit it over with a standard volleyball overhand serve. I have never played water volleyball before but it wasn't too hard to adapt to the conditions. Having to tread water made it slightly more difficult than usual but it still wasn't too hard.

Okamoto-kun received the ball with a dig and lifted it up for his teammate. He launched himself up and spiked the ball over to our side. Water was splashing everywhere so it was hard to even see where the ball was. However, Takeuchi-kun was able to receive the ball and set it up for me. 

I swam forward and launched myself up, preparing for a spike, I noticed that Okamoto-kun was directly in front of me. In order to avoid his block, I delayed my spike when Okamoto-kun launched himself upwards, this way, I tapped the ball as he was going down and he was thus unable to stop it.

His teammate tried to get it but to no avail.

"Wow, you're good, Mizuahara-kun!"

It was the voice of Fujiharu-san.

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