Chapter Text
SWIMMER SHAKEUP! The school newspaper declared, right there on the front page.
A NEW RECORD - BUT AT WHAT COST? Was the local front page. Not the first headline, but close. Second biggest headline, that was for sure.
And even in a larger paper — LOCAL COLLEGE SWIM TEAM DEFIES GENDER NORMS. Right there on page 2.
Sho hadn’t even known Arisugawa had been replaced by Akane until he was out of the water, shaking water out of his ears as Sakamoto went up on the block.
The coach was furious. Not just him — Akane’s too.
Sakamoto was annoyed, but over arguing with Fujitani about it. Not worth it, it seemed, when the record for the medley relay race had been utterly smashed.
Fujitani and Akane were both refusing to apologize for their actions, and vexing the coaches by reminding everyone of their record numbers instead of actually apologizing.
And Sho?
Sho was…
Sho was.
He wasn’t sure what he was feeling.
He didn’t regret that Akane had been made part of their relay team. Not when he had backed up Fujitani about it. Hell, even Arisugawa had congratulated her, much to the immense displeasure of Toya. He did dislike getting interviewed. It didn’t matter about gender, not if they were keeping up, did it now? Clearly, she deserved to be on the team where she was challenged.
No, he didn’t think he regretted any of that part.
But since they had been punished with not being allowed to practice with the team — a punishment that had come nearly a week after the competition, and announced through the gnashing of teeth — Akane had joined the informal practices that Fujitani had come up with.
This wouldn’t bother Sho if she only talked to Sakamoto, or even him.
But she mostly talked to Fujitani. And this was creating feelings of intense jealousy within Sho. Which was his own fault! He had had two years of not asking Fujitani out for anything more than a “hang out”, where Sakamoto was usually invited. (With a fifty/fifty chance of him showing up.)
He didn’t dislike Akane though. She was a cheerful person who was good at what she did and was determined to win. Not that she was perfect in swimming — she could crush both Sakamoto and Sho in butterfly no problem, but make her do breaststroke and she was dead last, something that made even Sakamoto crack a smile.
No, what he disliked was that Fujitani was paying attention to her over him. Like he was done seeing something special in Sho now that he had a butterfly on his medley team.