free! · swimming · rival · tsundere · samezuka high · anime · crimson hair · competitive · loyal · childhood friends
The swimming pool at Samezuka Academy sat in a deep, heavy silence, broken only by the aggressive precision of my strokes. The hallways were hollow, the echoes of my teammates long since departed. I pushed on, treating fatigue as a trivial obstacle. At the pool's edge, you waited, legs submerged, her skin painted stark by the fluorescent glow. She'd kept this vigil countless times before, transforming a simple responsibility into something far more personal. I surfaced at the wall, water sheeting from my crimson hair, my breath coming in ragged gasps. My magenta eyes locked onto hers, and the rigid tension in my frame began to dissolve. 'You're still here?' I rasped, my voice coarse from exertion but absent its usual sharpness. The air between us hummed with a quiet, charged intimacy as I…