Episode 5: Stormy Samezuka

Something smells like mackerel.
When I was standing next to the training camp pool, I definitely sensed that smell.
Mikoshiba-bucho said it was probably the mackerel from the mackerel curry we were having for lunch but, when you seriously think about it, there’s no way the smell from the kitchen would reach all the way into the closed airspace of the indoor pool.
What I sensed was something else completely different. No, actually it wasn’t a smell, it was more like a presence. It was his presence. Haru’s presence…
Ah, It’s so irritating. When I think of Haru, my heart speeds up and I can’t keep calm.
But, there’s no way that Haru would be close by, here and now.
This isn’t Iwatobi city or Samezuka Academy. It’s a training camp on an island some kilometers away from Iwatobi. And yet I can feel his presence. I can smell him. Is it just my imagination? Am I that caught up in Haru?
I’ll see him at the prefectural tournament.
When I happened to run into him at the sports shop, I told him that.
“You will swim for me.”
You say you only swim free? That doesn’t matter. I won’t allow you to be free. You will swim for me. In order for me to become stronger, in order for me to get to the world level.
That’s why until the prefectural tournament, I must only focus on my training. So then why is this mackerel smell throwing me into disarray? I don’t get it. It’s just irritating me for no reason.
Since my nerves were going crazy at the poolside, a guy named Nitori carelessly talked to me.
“Matsuoka-senpai, do you like mackerel?”
“Shut up.”
I spat at him and jumped into the pool.
The lukewarm water of the indoor pool wrapped around my body.
It’s so tepid. It shouldn’t be like this. What I’m seeking is something… more… something much hotter. I need the roar of a soul so hot it would make the pool’s water boil. And then I will dry Haru out with it. I’ll leave him so there’s not even one drop of water left in him, I’ll leave him like dinosaur bones buried in the desert.

I definitely won’t lose to Haru. Dolphins eat Mackerel. And then sharks eat dolphins. It’s my destiny to tear him to shreds and eat him.

After afternoon practice was over, I went out for my free time.
I really wanted a cola ice cream bar, so I decided to head to a shop near the beach.
As soon as I left the camp, Nitori started following after me.
“Where are you going, Matsuoka-senpai?”
“It doesn’t matter where I’m going.”
“Mikoshiba-bucho asked me to go buy some things so I’m heading to the store……”
I clicked my tongue and reluctantly lined up to walk with Nitori.
“You’re going to come with me!?”
“No. It’s just because I was about to head there anyway.”
“Really? What a coincidence!”
Nitori speaking happily with sparkling eyes was just like a puppy dancing around my feet who wouldn’t leave me alone.
“Matsuoka-senpai, you surpassed your personal best time again today, didn’t you? You’re really amazing. It makes me feel like I should try harder!”
It seems that Nitori has also been swimming since elementary school. But his times are like “you’ve been doing it so long and that’s it?” So, I guess the only reason he doesn’t quit is that he’s just someone who likes swimming.
As I was thinking that while looking at the puppy like Nitori, it suddenly came to me.
Then what about me?
Do I like swimming? Or…..

The setting sun dyed the whole island orange.
The shop near the shore looked like it was dissolving into the orange.
I suddenly smelled mackerel once again.
I could hear the sound of waves along with a breeze warmed but the setting summer sun blowing from the ocean.
Mixed into the smell of the tide was the smell of mackerel.
Well, since it’s the ocean that’s only natural so this time I brushed it off and entered the store, where I then I saw cans of mackerel lined up on a shelf.
“You really do like mackerel don’t you Matsuoka-senpai?”
Nitori spoke up once again with sparkling eyes.
Just how much does this guy want to make me like mackerel?
I ignored him and went to look in the freezer next to the register.
There was just one cola ice cream bar left.
Right when I lifted up the lid of the case to pick it up, a little boy about elementary school age ran up and grabbed the last ice cream bar.
“Ah……!” I said without thinking.
The boy was surprised and pulled his hand away and looked up at me scared.
“It’s nothing. Go ahead and take it……”
I hurriedly smiled at him.
The boy said, “Thank you very much!” to me and headed to the register holding the ice cream bar.
It gave me a sense of deja vu. To the guy other than Haru. Sousuke, the other guy I once swam with, popped into my mind.
“You really are kind, Matsuoka-senpai.”
Said Nitori who had been watching from my side with sparkling eyes.
“Of course I am. I wouldn’t steal ice cream from a kid.”
The boy who bought the cola flavored ice cream took it outside to his friend said “there was only one left!” and broke it into two and held out part to his friend. Each one took half and I watched their back slowly disappear into the sunset from inside the store and it made me feel sort of sentimental. But that was probably because of the setting sun.
So, after missing out on buying the ice cream, I just ended up shopping with Nitori, and then as we were leaving the store, we ran into my little sister Gou.
My sense of smell was actually right. Though I wasn’t happy about it at all.
Since I ran into Gou, I sent Nitori back ahead of me, and Gou and I sat on a bench and talked by ourselves as siblings for the first time in forever.
Thinking of it now the Japanese word for “by ourselves” is “Mizu irazu” (meaning without water) and in that case, the water stands for other people. So, it’s to be without water aka other people. The water is other people huh? If Haru heard that I wonder what he’d think?
According to Gou, the Iwatobi swim club came to this island for a training camp.
It seems they wanted to use the training establishment we’re using, but Samezuka uses it every year at this time so it can’t be helped. If you come later saying you want to use it now, it’s impossible.
And so, because of that, they’re doing long distance swimming in the ocean.
“Is Makoto ok with that?”
I asked without really thinking about it and Gou happily said, “You really do care about them don’t you onii-chan?” No. It’s not like that.

While I was walking Gou back to the hotel that her and their advisor were staying at, Gou asked a whole bunch of questions.
“The person you were with before an underclassman in the swimming club, right?”
“Yeah”
“Fresh muscles!”
“Really? You know he’s the same age as you.”
Gou smiled like she was relieved and said.
“Oniichan, you’re going to make a new team at Samezuka aren’t you?”
“I’m not. I’m not going to swim in a relay.”
It’s the first time I’ve talked with Gou in a long time, so why do I feel this irritated. But couldn’t let Gou notice my irritation. I forced a smile onto my face. I heard a horrible grinding sound inside my head.

After dinner, a club member who is a second year same as me called out to me.”
“Matsuoka. We’re all going to go to the main room to hang out. You should come too.”
“No thanks, I’m not interested.”
I didn’t feel like it. Why would we hang out? Didn’t we come here to train for the upcoming tournament? We’d all just group together. I cursed at them in my head and while in the hallway on the way back to my room, when I saw the the indoor pool hall and noticed that the light was on.
Was someone training on their own?
I got closer to the room and peeked through the window and saw Nitori eagerly swimming on his own.
He was frantically swimming breast stroke. Not very quickly, but he had a serious expression.
It was the face of someone who was being resisted by something and was desperately trying to catch up to it.
But his technique was nowhere near the level of his seriousness. His form was awful. But at that moment I could just slightly, really just a little bit, feel some respect for that Nitori guy.
His difference in strength from the other club members was obvious. It was something that could be only be fixed with effort.
People who weren’t naturally gifted could only improve with effort. With effort, you could even surpass someone who’s naturally gifted. I didn’t want to respect him, but seeing Nitori struggling so desperately probably reminded me of my old self. Of course, there was a clear difference between Nitori’s and My speed and technique. But the feeling he has deep in his heart is probably the same as mine. I stood still outside the indoor pool room watching Nitori swim.

I went back to the room on my own.
Nitori hasn’t come back from training on his own.
The other rooms are completely silent. Everyone else is probably gathered in the main room.
I was laying on my bed with my eyes closed having left the room lights on.
But I couldn’t go to sleep so easily. Even though I should be tired from having trained since early in the morning. It wasn’t because I had a different pillow. It was all because of him. Haru.
While I was laying on the bed unable to sleep, I heard the wind blow.
I could hear the window rattling. It was rattling just like the worked-up feeling was rattling in my chest.
Before long, I started to hear large rain drops hitting the window.
Then, a far-off clap of thunder.

Suddenly the room light turned off.
Did the lightning cause a power outage somewhere? That would mean it’s out for the indoor pool too……
I became worried
That Nitori guy wasn’t panicking from the lights going out in the pool and drowning, was he?
I jumped out of bed, grabbed the emergency flashlight, and started running.
I ran through the pitch-black hallway towards the indoor pool, the light of the emergency flashlight wavering in front of me, when I heard a voice.
“Matsuoka-senpai, it’s terrible! Please come! This way!”
The voice belonged to the first year Uozumi.
“What’s wrong!?”
“It’s Mikoshiba-bucho…… Mikoshiba-bucho has……!”
“What has happened to him?”
“J-Just hurry, come to the indoor pool!”
What happened to Mikoshiba-bucho at the indoor pool? I’m pretty sure Nitori was alone there before. Did he go to watch Nitori practicing after that and get into some sort of trouble?
I ran full speed through the dark after Uozumi who no matter how many times I asked what happened, just said, ”just hurry!” When I exited into the hallway, there was a storm outside.
The wind and rain was strong, large drops of rain hit my face. The roof over the hallway was pretty much pointless, and the large drops of rain soaked my whole body while I charged into the indoor pool hall with Uozumi.
Inside the building was pitch black, the light from the emergency flashlight the only light.
Uozumi who had been running ahead of me up until now had suddenly disappeared, and I was now standing alone in front of the door to the changing room.
“Uozumi! Hey! Where did you go!?”
I yelled but there was no answer.
I ran out of the changing room and onto the poolside.
The rain was streaming down the glass window on the opposite wall like a waterfall.
There was a flash of lightning and it illuminated the room for a moment.
But there wasn’t anyone on the poolside or in the water.
A little bit later I heard a clap of thunder.
“Is anyone here!? Uozumi! Bucho! Nitori!”
I yelled but there was no answer.
The light from the small emergency flashlight couldn’t illuminate the whole room.
Shit! What’s going on!?
I muttered to myself while starting to head towards the starting blocks when the emergency flashlight went out. It was probably because it got wet when I ran through the passageway. No matter how much I hit and shook it the light didn’t turn back on. Just then there was another flash of lightning.
In the momentary flash of light, I saw the shadows of a few people moving.
Is someone there?
Had someone broken in? Then bring it on. I’d take them down.
In order to become more agile, I quickly tore off my soaking wet shirt.
Just then, the lights of the indoor pool turned on.
It was so bright for a second all I could see was white.
At that same time, I heard the sound of an explosion.
The sound of “bangs” on top of each other echoed through the room.
I could smell the faint scent of gunpowder.
I automatically laid down on the ground, when I realized.
All of the members of the swimming club were standing there lined up.
And they each had party crackers in their hands.
And there was a banner that said, “Welcome to the Samezuka Academy Swim Club.”

Huh!?
After throwing off my T shirt, I stood back up topless looking like an idiot.
A weird silence fell over the room.
Mikoshiba-bucho’s laugh broke through the silence.
“It seems we kind of surprised you, huh?!”
“What is this!?”
“It’s your welcome party, Matsuoka!”
“Welcome party?”
“That’s right! Because you joined a while after the other club members, Matsuoka. We didn’t really get a chance to have a welcome party, so it always bothered me. So, I thought we could surprise you during this training camp!”
“Surprise……?”
They certainly had surprised me.
“If we didn’t do this, you’d never be able to open up to us and become friends! But now it’ll be fine! It’s ok to open up to us without holding back!”
After saying something I didn’t really understand, Mikoshiba-bucho laughed heartily.
“Come on everyone, welcome Matsuoka!”
“Okay!”
They all answered in unison, and then all of the club members rushed at me, and threw me into the pool before I knew what was going on.
The same lukewarm water of the indoor pool from this afternoon enveloped my body.
But now it didn’t feel so bad. Outside it was still storming, I could hear the thunder, so I decided to just enjoy this shoddy welcome party.

After I got out of the pool they had tossed me into, they carried a table to the poolside with simple snacks and drinks lined up on it. Mikoshiba-bucho threw me a towel and I peeked into the icebox on the table while I dried myself and saw that it was packed full of cola flavored ice cream bars.
“I heard you like these, Matsuoka”
Mikoshiba-bucho said with a huge smile.
When I looked at Nitori, he had an embarrassed smile and was hanging his head among the club members.
“Nitori. You were planning this the whole time……”
“N-no! I didn’t know. When I went shopping with you earlier, I just went out to get more of the sports drink powder that ran out……”
That’s right.
That was the last cola ice cream bar at that store.
Mikoshiba-bucho quickly covered for Nitori.
“After that, I heard from Nitori about the ice cream. So, I quickly sent them to buy them at Iwashimizu!”
“Yeah. we ended up going to a store on the other side of the island.”
When it was confirmed that they went to Iwashimizu, Nitori once again hung his head slightly.
“By the way, Nitori. Weren’t you training by yourself earlier……”
“Why do you know that!?”
Nitori’s face broke into a huge smile.
Is he that happy about it?
“I saw you when I was on my way back to the room.”
“Really? You should have said something. After that mikoshiba-bucho came and said we were going to have a surprise party for you. ……Ah, could it be that you were worried about me Matsuoka-senpai!?
“I wasn’t worried at all.”
As I said that I grabbed a cola flavored ice cream bar.
“Well, thanks.”
“Yeah! Eat as much as you like! Eat all of them if you feel like it!”
“If I eat all of them it will give me a stomach ache.”
I took a bite out of it and tasted the nostalgic flavor.
That summer smile from back when I was still going to Sano Elementary before I went to Iwatobi.
I heard a few other swim club members also saying things like “it’s so nostalgic” or “it’s the first time I’ve eaten this in forever” while holding the ice cream in their hands and talking while eating.
“Hey, Matsuoka. Tell us about Australia.”
“Just what do you do when studying abroad for swimming?”
“Were there any cute girls? And were they all blonde?”
“Did you cross the golden gate bridge?”
“Is that bridge there?”
“Isn’t it the rainbow bridge?”
“It’s not a bridge it’s that, the opera whatever…”
I gave a strained smile. The correct answer was the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House, but it was too troublesome to answer all of them.
But watching everyone’s smiling faces while eating the ice cream made my chest tingle strangely.
I thought of my team from elementary school, my team from the swimming school, Haru and Makoto and Nagisa from back then.
But I quickly shook those thoughts from my mind.
No. Now is not like that. I don’t have time for getting involved in that sort of thing. The only thing important is winning. Against Haru. And myself. I can only think about winning. Just winning.
While I repeated that over and over in my head, I looked at my new companions… or rather people I didn’t know if I could call companions yet or not’s innocent smiling faces and started to feel like crying.
“Don’t cry, Rin”
I hear that guys voice in my head.
“I’m not crying!”
I responded back to it.