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“Come on, Mako-chan,” Nagisa’s bottom lip trembled as he grasped both her hands, “These are desperate times!”
“But I…”
“You’re our only hope! Our fighting chance! The goddess of victory! The lady of the lake! Am I right, Haru?!”
Haruka didn’t respond, too busy designing a new recruitment poster. Nagisa figured as much and paid it no mind.
“This is the last ditch attempt, Mako-chan! You know we need you! Captain Tachibana! Wouldn’t you do anything for the club? Don’t you want us to be all official?”
“I do! I… I just don’t know if I’m completely comfortable with the idea.”
“What’s there to be comfortable about? It’s not like you’ve never done it before!”
“Yeah, but…”
“It’s every man’s dream! Isn’t that right, Haru?”
“But Nagisa…”
“You there!” Nagisa shouted, pointing at a passing upperclassman, “Wouldn’t you pay good money to see the lovely Tachibana Makoto in a swimming suit?!”
The entire classroom paused at the declaration, all eyes on the trio. Makoto wished the ground would swallow her up whole.
“Nah,” the random classmate finally said, “Tachibana’s cute and all, but I’ll pass.”
Nagisa was agog. “You just said she was cute!”
“No offence, but I bet you Tachibana has really boring swimming suits. Like, a school-standard navy blue one-piece.”
“I thought school swimsuits were every man’s dream!”
“Well, yeah, I guess. But you have to either be totally busty or a complete flatty for that dream to come true, know’m sayin’? It’s about charm.”
“Mako-chan’s plenty charming! Haru, tell him!”
As they continued to argue over her ability to pull off a school swimsuit with ‘charm’ (and, indirectly, the size of her apparently average breasts), Makoto grabbed a textbook and covered the side of her face with it as she slowly sank in her chair.
* * *
“This is so embarrassing,” Makoto whispered, face in her hands.
“What’s there to be embarrassed about?” Haruka asked with a hint of a frown, “I wear my jammer every day.”
“That’s because you have no sense of what’s normal.”
Nagisa all but strong-armed her into her plain one-piece swimsuit, having given her the perviest look that had been accompanied by awful wriggly fingers. Haruka, as usual, was absolutely no help at all. (Nagisa reminded him that they needed that fourth member to make the club official, and what better way than to tempt men to their cause with Makoto’s body? He was suddenly enthusiastic about getting her into a swimsuit after that.) She’d had no choice in the end, but she pleaded and pleaded until Haruka finally relented and promised to stand by her side in his own swimsuit as Nagisa crowed about their toned bodies and hurled recruitment posters at passers-by. She was sure that they were violating a few hundred dress code and school regulations and that this could only lead to trouble.
Gou, who’d been passing by, approached them gingerly, a slightly piteous look on her face.
“You’ve gotten this desperate, huh?”
Makoto let out a quiet sob, nodding her head.
“Whoa, wait a sec!” The random classmate from before stopped in front of them, “That’s you, isn’t it, Tachibana?”
“It isn’t,” Makoto moaned. Haruka nudged her in the side and she dropped her hands from her face, blushing from head to toe.
“Aw, I guess since you’re not Tachibana, I don’t need to stick around anymore, do I?”
“No! Don’t go!” She cried, already resigned to being seen in her swimsuit, “Won’t you join the Iwatobi Swim Club?”
“I might consider it,” he said agreeably, “If you strike a pose or two.”
“A pose—”
“Sure thing, boss!” Nagisa chirped, quickly slipping behind a squawking Makoto and moving her arms until she had one arm bent forwards with a hand in her hair, and the other on her hip. He swivelled her quickly so that it appeared as though she was glancing at the senior past her shoulder. A few boys cheered and the senior let out a whistle.
Makoto was certain she was going to die of embarrassment.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Haruka said with an irate huff, arms crossed as he stepped in front of her, “She’s posed.”
“Come on, another one won’t hurt.”
“She’s posed,” he repeated flatly.
Nagisa quickly released Makoto and appeared by Haruka’s side, a bright grin on his face. He stuck a recruitment flyer out to the small crowd.
“If you join the Iwatobi Swim Club, you’ll get to see Mako in a swimsuit every day! And you’ll get to swim with her! And if you’re especially lucky, she might even give you swimming lessons herself!”
Makoto, who, despite her height, had been cowering behind Haruka, let out a small whimper. She hated how effective this tactic was. The boys in the corridor were loudly conferring among themselves, sounding more or less agreeable. Makoto tightened her fingers on Haruka’s shoulders, burying her face in the nape of his neck as she willed herself not to be seen. She missed the slightly guilty look in Haruka’s eyes when he glanced back, but it didn’t matter anyway.
“What. Have. We. Here.”
* * *
Afterwards, no one would admit to screaming the collectively girlish shriek when Miss Ama preyed on them.
She went on a tirade about ‘prostitution’ and ‘the exploitation of the femme’ (despite Haruka being half-naked at the time too) and how no one should join the swim club with ‘impure thoughts’. Although a handful of boys lingered after the earful, one look at the state of the school swimming pool sent them on their way.
Suffice to say, Makoto put on her swimsuit in public for nothing.
* * *
“D-D’you really mean it?”
“Yup! You need four members, right? I’ll help you manage the team!”
Makoto felt her eyes water. She dropped the paintbrush she had been using on the perimeter fence and threw her arms around Gou, letting out a squeal of happiness as she squeezed the girl.
“What’s going on over there?” Nagisa’s voice was muffled from inside the pool.
“Kou’s our fourth member!”
“WHOA, ARE YOU SERIOUS?!”
“Another girl on the team! I’m so happy!”
“THE SWIM CLUB IS OFFICIALLY OPEN FOR BUSINESS!”
Makoto pulled back, a wide smile on her face. If her swimming suit display lured in members through pity rather than perviness, she supposed she could live with that.