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The plan was to go into effect this evening.
They didn’t have the most solid grasp on how it was going to go down just yet, but everyone knew the jist of it.
It was Nagisa’s job, alongside Karma, Nakamura, Sugino, and Kayano to recon underwater for good spots for the big finish.
Except Nagisa wasn’t sure he knew what he was doing.
At first, it was going really well! He had been in some sort of focus-mode, only able to think about the plan and the part he played in it.
Then, he started drifting away from his friends.
It wasn’t his fault, he didn’t swim away from them, the current just naturally took him in a different direction. Plus, he wasn’t sure if they were using the snorkels right in the first place.
It was only a matter of time before the panic set in.
First, he realized his friends weren’t nearly as close as he thought. Then, he started being able to feel every single inch of his body in the water, every molecule that was wet (which was everything) seemed to be apparent to him.
Then, he gasped.
(Mistake.)
Immediately he started choking on the water that rushed in, desperately trying to remember what the instructor had said about immediately blowing out of the tube. It barely worked, for when he blew out, of course he had to find a way to get the air back in to his lungs. All in all, a terrible situation.
By some grace of God, he felt someone grabbing at him, pulling him up. Nagisa let himself get pulled and tried, really tried, to calm down a little, as he knew that panicking more would only lead to him thrashing and make it harder for whoever was pulling him to get him to safety.
But, wow, that was hard.
Finally, finally, his head breached the water. He began flailing a little, trying to find the pier that he knew he was near. All his hands seemed to find was warm skin, though.
“Nagisa! Nagisa!”
Finally, his hands crashed into something solid, something more solid than the body that had been holding him up. He pulled himself up with what little strength he had left.
He let himself just breathe for a moment, relishing in the feeling of air entering his lungs.
“Nagisa!” Finally, he recognized the voice of Sugino. “Are you okay?” He asked.
Nagisa couldn’t bring himself to speak, yet, so he just nodded. His eyes were still closed, so he couldn’t see Sugino’s expression. He knew his friend well enough to vividly picture the worry etched in his features, though.
“I’m fine,” Nagisa said after a while of silence, only broken by his rasping breaths. “Thanks,” he added. He needed to find a better way to thank Sugino for literally saving his life other than a one syllable response, but he’d think of one when he properly caught his breath.
Now that all the water was out of his system along with his adrenalin, he was starting to feel the aches in his muscles.
“I think…” Nagisa groaned. “I think I’m done… snorkeling for today. Sorry… Can you guys do the rest… of recon?”
Finally, Nagisa opened his eyes (after shielding them with his hand, first), just in time to catch Sugino nodding.
“Yeah, sure! It’s alright, man, rest up!”
“Nagisa! Sugino!” Kayano called. “Is everything okay?!”
She was panting, she must have ran all the way over from her spot on the shoreline.
Kayano had never snorkeled before, and she had no plans of starting. She said the one time she tried anything involving going underwater, she immediately panicked and almost drowned (like Nagisa). So, she decided to not join them in underwater recon, instead opting to stay above the water and recon the surrounding land area.
Nagisa nodded, not wanting her to worry.
“Nagisa almost drown—”
“Sugino!”
“What?!!!” She shrieked, “Nagisa!”
“I’m fine now! Sugino saved me.”
Sugino seemed to go a bit red, and he scratched a bit at the back of his head, trying to hide a smile. “I mean,” Sugino began, “I’m just glad you’re okay, Nagisa.”
Kayano helped Nagisa stand, to which Nagisa’s legs felt a bit like jello that’s been left in the heat too long, but he ignored it and just pushed through the odd feeling.
“Here…” Kayano held onto Nagisa’s arm, partially supporting his weight. Nagsia was eternally grateful. “I finished my recon a while ago, there wasn’t much to note on the surface, so I just decided to sit in the sand for a bit and wait for you guys. I have a decent shell pile going on now. Nagisa, you can help me find more shells.”
“But—”
“Nah, bro, you are not getting back in the water. Take a break.”
Nagisa wanted to argue more, but a larger part of him actually really didn’t want to get back into the water anyway, he felt all tired out. Not only from the regular strenuous activity that swimming is, but also from all the thrashing and panicking.
Plus, he needed a chance to spend time with Kayano, anyway.
“...Fine,” Nagisa said eventually.
Kayano made a little ‘yay’ sound and Sugino nodded, donning his snorkeling mask again and diving back into the water.
Sugino was really in his element when he was in the water. As soon as he got to the beach, he made it a point to spend nearly half of his time in the water. In fact, he was the first to volunteer for the snorkeling recon, not wanting to waste the opportunity.
Nagisa had no idea how.
It wasn’t like he didn’t like the water, hell, 75% of his name practically just referenced ‘water’ in one form or another, but he preferred other beach activities, like the arcades on the boardwalks.
Or, picking seashells was also fun.
“Wow,” Nagisa breathed.
‘Decent’ was really carrying that descriptor of her shell pile. The shell pile that Kayano had going on was massive.
Sure, they were just shells, so it wasn’t actually that big, no more than a quarter of a meter in diameter, but still. For shells, it was huge.
“How… how long have you been collecting shells?”
“Well, I actually finished the recon a while ago. You had been in the water for nearly half an hour! So, I didn’t have anything much better to do.” Kayano placed her hands on her hips, proud of her pile. Half an hour? Nagisa was surprised. It felt like just moments he spent in the water.
She continued, “Honestly, I could have just walked away and found something else to do, but I felt like that would’ve been kinda rude and I had no idea when you guys would be done.”
“Do you think they'll be out there for much longer?” Nagisa asked.
Kayano only shrugged. “No idea. I mean, how much is there to see in the water. I thought you guys were just looking for areas clear of rocks and coral?”
Nagisa blushed a little. “I… got distracted by the fishes… there was a really cool red one that kinda shined in the light!”
Kayano’s face lit up and she nodded. “Understandable… Anyway, help me find more shells. I’m thinking I’m gonna organize the pile afterwards!”
How many more does she even need, Nagisa thought.
Nevertheless, he helped her search anyway. It was nice being on the land again, with solid ground beneath his feet. Parts of him still felt like he was in the water, where his legs would wobble in odd ways as if they were trying to swim again.
He didn’t miss the way that the sand stuck to his wet legs. In fact, he absolutely hated it. So, he moved to where the waves met the sand on the beach and began wading in it. The sand washed off immediately, and Nagisa felt better. He knew this would be an endless cycle until he got dry, but at least he could relish in the feeling of the cool water again.
“Don’t go off drowning again!” Kayano called out.
Nagisa rolled his eyes, but there was no malice in it. He chuckled slightly.
Nagisa was grateful to be wearing swim trunks with pockets, as he had a very convenient place to store all of his shells. Of which he was collecting many. He sort of understands how Kayano grew to have such a huge pile.
So many shells just looked… so cool!
There were ones that were sort of iridescent, and others that looked a bit like an oil spill. Then, some of them were just really pretty colors or Nagisa thought they’d look good on a necklace, especially with the small hole bored into them.
Kayano must have gotten bored of the shells in the dry sand, because suddenly she was next to him.
“You barely have any shells!” She gasped.
Nagisa pulled a couple out of his pocket.
“Ohh…”
After a few more minutes of looking by the waterside, Kayano arbitrarily decided that they had enough, and she tugged Nagisa back towards her pile.
(Which was on the dry sand that stuck to Nagisa’s legs uncomfortably. But no matter.)
She created an incredibly detailed sorting system, which she must have been contemplating as she collected the shells in the first place.
Not only did she want to separate them by size, but by whether they had a hole or not: how large the hole was, where the hole was placed… She also wanted to organize it by color (of course) but also by the amount of lines on the shell, and if it had any spikes or not.
All in all, they ended up having about seventeen piles of shells, which looked much more manageable in comparison to the large pile from before.
“Nagisa,” Kayano mumbled, still staring at her pile.
“Hm?” Nagisa hummed in response, turning towards her.
“I—”
“Yo!” Nagisa heard Karma call in the distance.
Kayano must have heard it too.
“Thanks for collecting shells with me!” She smiled, and she looked radiant.
Nagisa smiled back, and gave a short nod, just as Karma barreled into him.
“Nagisa, I heard you almost drowned!”
“I’m fine!” Karma had Nagisa’s head in some sort of headlock, almost like he was about to give Nagisa a noogie. Nagisa’s heart fluttered a little.
“Woah.” Karma suddenly stopped and released Nagisa. “Nice pile.”
“It was all Kayano.”
Kayano beamed.
“Are you going to take any home?”
“Maybe just these.” She swept her hand over an eighteenth pile that Nagisa hadn’t noticed before. There were only a couple shells in it, and Nagisa honestly assumed that it was just a discarded pile of some sort. “These are my favorites.”
Really, Nagisa should have realized that those weren’t to be discarded, because they were absolutely the coolest in the whole pile. Cool iridescent ones (some of which Nagisa collected. Actually… most of which Nagisa collected.)
“Nice.” Karma whistled.
Sugino and Nakamura then finally caught up to the group.
“Hey!” Nakamura called. “I heard that there was a super cool arcade on the boardwalk, we should go!”
Nagisa beamed.
He loved arcades.