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The pool is completely empty save for the students lounging about on the benches and in the pool itself, brushing the ground with their brooms and sending dirty water swirling down the drain. Students walk in and out of the school in their PE uniforms, chattering amongst themselves as others race past them, engaged in a game of broom racing despite the slippery terrain.
Carefully, a stick is wriggled into the dirt behind the pool fence, flicking specks of it into the air every few seconds before retreating back inside, swiping against the water covered floor. Most students were mingling around the pool, drinking juice and laughing at some joke told to them by their friends, but he was much more interested at the chain link fence, wriggling his fingers through the holes to pick at the dirt with his bare nails instead. It gets underneath them as he digs a bigger hole, twisting his fingers to try and dig bigger. He was almost there, all he had to do was—
“Hey.”
Something kicks into his back, sends him hitting the fence with a muffled ‘ouch,’ leaving his lips and quickly, the boy pulls his hand free from the fence, fingers curling around the chain holes. His feet are getting wet. “What are you doing here all by yourself?” The voice behind him doesn’t have a name to put to it until the person crouches beside him, drinking peach and having a red wristband that dangled from their arm. He gives them a side glance, goes back to staring at the little hole he had been digging, and pushes his fingers through the fence again.
“Building a hole,” he responds softly, teeth digging into his lip as he manages to dig more dirt out by leaning forward, nearly pressing his whole body up against the fence. “I don’t like pool cleaning.” There isn’t much to like about getting your clothes soaked and struggling to breathe through the aftermath, there isn’t much to like about a world where the sun always shines and digging a hole seemed completely impossible the more he tried. “What are you doing here?”
What are they doing by his side, what are they doing at the pool, he wonders if they know how weird they look crouched down next to them, heels barely touching the wet floor. The pool is being cleaned behind them, there’s an empty bench to their right. They stare at him instead, blue eyes meeting gold, the sound of their juice being slurped being drowned out by loud laughter and someone screaming every curse the sailors could have come up with.
He almost doesn’t expect their response when they tilt their head and lean against the fence. “You seemed lonely.” They lick their lips and he muses that they must taste like peaches. “So I wanted to keep you company, did you finish digging your hole?” The inquiry makes him jump and he squints at the small hole dug within the soil from his fingers. Leaning so heavily on the fence was beginning to make their arms and legs hurt. He takes another glance, duly noting the earring that dangled from their ear, bright red with yellow kanji, it makes him want to reach over and yank it off.
He settles for talking instead.
“Where did you get that?” A finger points to their ear just in case his words weren’t clear, “that earring, what does it say?” Emotions flash across their face, mouth twisting and brows furrowing as they tug on the accessory and suddenly, both of them are sitting on the wet floor, legs outstretched in front of them as silence stretches on. Maybe he should have ripped it off instead, maybe he should have never asked in the first place. The chance to take back his question falls away when the other shrugs, twisting the earring between their fingers.
Their eyes look quiet, gazing at their lopsided reflection as he knocks his feet again. “Do you wanna see it closer?” The question is purely rhetorical at best and yet, he still looks over and pulls his knees up to his chest, changing position just enough to slide his legs on the floor and lean forward, grasping at the earring with curious eyes. It has yellow kanji sprawled on it, all 16 strokes pulsing underneath his skin as he squints and leans in further, as the scent of cherry blossoms and cinnamon invade his nose—
Lame ass safety traffic earring!
A loud noise makes him yelp, hand curling around the earring and pulling until he lets go and falls back to the floor with a thud. It’s a miracle, he thinks, that his head was only inches away from the brown bench behind him. “What did you say?” The blond boy looks at him with a mix of alarm and barely concealed regret, “when you were muttering the kanji on my earring, you said something.” Their brow raises, he feels a lump in his throat as he slides down until his back is soaked and only his head is being protected by the bench’s side.
“What I…said?” The words come out slower than intended and his brain is turning its gears like a snail in a race against a cheetah. Something pounds on the side of his head and he’s certain he’s gone and gave himself a concussion. “I….” His head lolls, neck suddenly flaring in pain before he pushes himself up, twists his body, and flops back down on the wet floor, only vaguely aware that his head had been saved from being cracked open. “I got a headache trying to read your stupid earring.” His fingers curl against his now soaked t-shirt, tugging relentlessly as he licks his lips. Something felt weird, something felt off, his skin feels like there’s bugs crawling underneath it and the sky looks like it’s from a storybook with still white clouds and a sun that exuded no heat.
Fingers brush through his hair, he feels a sense of wrong, wrong, wrong when he closes his eyes and opens them back again. The sky still looks like it’s from a storybook. “Aren’t you supposed to be cleaning the pool?” His voice sounds like it doesn’t belong to him, he holds up his hands to the sky and widens them, each finger a single gap apart. “Are you leaving all the work to your friends? That’s not very nice, you’re being so mean.” He rambles when the feeling doesn’t go, rambles when his hair is lightly tugged on in response to his words, and lets out a breath when he closes his hands into fists and drops them back to his chest.
His heart thumps underneath his hands as he splays them out, a quiet ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump reminiscent of a drum being played every two seconds, beating against his rib cage as he breathes in through his mouth and out through his nose. Somehow, this feels even worse. “I’d rather not risk getting smacked in the head with a broom.” He knows they’re likely pointing towards the laughing students up ahead, finger curling in the air before he sits up and sees his look-alike battling with someone using his broom, somehow their slip and sliding across the wet tiled floor only makes him feel like looking away so he flops back down and resists the urge to make a noise when fingers return to his hair again.
“Then what about them?”
Them is a boy cursing whoever was spraying him with water, soaked to the bone and hair undone, he looks livid, chasing after a laughing light brunette who keeps jumping over the puddles on the floor. He slips and falls on multiple occasions, smacking his face on the ground before angrily getting up and resuming the chase. It’s like a game of cat and mouse, the fingers in his hair scratch at his scalp until he feels himself struggling to keep his eyes open. “I’m not aligning myself with that mess.” Fair point, he figures, “I’ll be fought over like a game of tug of war and sorry to say but, my arms aren’t elastic rubber.” The joke falls flat but he still snickers anyways, squirming when something cold pressed up against his cheek.
It’s cold, the only thing that feels right as he rubs his eyes with a closed fist. Stop playing with my hair, are words he never says. Taking a glance at the sky, he sees white clouds and a blaring sun, squints until his vision goes wrong and his lips feel dry. “Are they done cleaning the pool already? I wanna swim!” He complains as best he can, rising from his position and dragging the other up with him. “Hey! Hey! Are you done yet?!” His gaze lands on the boy angrily sweeping the floor and he pouts when they look up, glaring.
“Does it look like we’re done? Honestly, Tsukasa-kun, if you want to swim so badly maybe you should help us!”
He considers the words, lips twitching as he lets go of the blond boy’s hand. “Why should I?” The other looks more infuriated than before, “you look like you’re doing things perfectly fine on your own,” smiling wide, he leans forward, arms behind his back, “ Mitsuba!” His skin is crawling with imaginary bugs, water splashes over his feet as he twirls about, laughing when Mitsuba angrily stomps on the wet floor. “Come on, come on, finish already!” Chirping out his sentence, Tsukasa watched as the majority of students glared and grumbled in his direction, sliding along the pool with the help of the water.
“ Tsukasa-kun !”
Maybe, he should have been paying more attention to his surroundings.
The world feels weightless underneath him when his foot pushes off the floor again and doesn’t return, loud shouts fill his ears when he twists and his fingers barely catch on the outstretched hand of Mitsuba, eyes as wide as plates as Tsukasa fell and fell and—
CRACK!
Pausing quietly, the uniform clad girl gently pushed her glasses up her nose, lips pressed into a thin line as she, ever so gently, began the drawing process once more.