She is Reading My Thoughts Again Today - Chapter 30

Competition Day

I blankly stared at Kisaragi as she jumped into the water vigorously.

“Please don’t jump into the pool.”

A young man who appears to be the lifeguard called out to her. However, she is already in the water and she probably didn’t hear what the lifeguard said. We aren’t allowed to dive into the pool, and on top of it, she hasn’t done any warmups beforehand. I’ll need to warn her the next time she comes up.

“You don’t swim?”

A man noticed me and called out to me, I assume he is a university student. He is wearing a nametag with ‘Morioka’ written on it. His golden hair and carefree smile are dazzling. I asked him if I could sit on the chair next to him.

“Sure, go ahead.”

“Thankyou.”

“It’s already late, there’s no one sitting there.”

She is swimming leisurely in the pool which is almost completely empty. She seems to be a good swimmer. She is swimming back and forth in the 25-meter lane.

…is it fun?

“What’s your relationship with her?”

“We’re friends.”

I always respond to questions that I knew would be asked with the answer I prepared beforehand.

“I see. Why don’t you go swimming, too?”

I also predicted that he will ask that question.

“She suddenly invited me, I didn’t even know where were we going to go, so I didn’t bring my swimsuit.”

If she told me we are going to the pool, I would never leave the house. After being forced to go to a convenience store, I was brought to a public swimming pool that opens until late at night, she said that she wants to swim in a place where there are few people. I actually want to go home now, but I feel bad if I leave her without saying a word after she bought me an expensive ice cream.

“You know that you can buy a swimsuit here, right?”

“Eh?”

I didn’t expect him to say that. I don’t want to go out my way and buy a swimming pants here to swim, but he told me so happily. It’s hard to say anything negative to him.

“Your big brother will buy it for you, so go and swim.”

“No, that’s…”

He is willing to buy a swimsuit for a person he just met, it’s not something I get to experience every day. Besides, buying me a swimming pants and swimming equipment wouldn’t be a cheap purchase.

“That’s a little… You don’t have to do it.”

“I don’t think it’s fun for her to swim alone, you should swim with her.”

Morioka-san turns his gaze towards the pool. I move my gaze along with him, and before I know it Kisaragi is staring at me.

“Hey you, do you want to swim alone, or do you rather to swim with this boy?”

She is as bright and sparkling as the surface of the water. I’m really surprised that she can look gracefully like that.

“I’d like to swim with him if I could.”

“But…”

But you know…

“Even if you say so.”

I think there’s a lot of things to consider such as gender, age, and so on. He grinned at me, perhaps it’s because my lack of response.

“She is your ‘friend’ right? It’s okay, I’ll watch over you too.”

I had a lot of things I want to say, but my mind gone blank at his words. I didn’t even realize he brought me to the changing room and handed me a swimming pants. When I got back to myself, I was alone in the changing room looking at the bright-coloured swimming pants. I hesitated to put them on, but I put them on anyway. I think I shouldn’t have put them on in the first place. Morioka-san looks at me and said it looks really good on me.

“You look really good on them!”

“Thankyou…?”

Ah to think about it, the word ‘fits’ is pronounced similarly to ‘look’, did he meant I fit perfectly on them rather than look good on them? Indeed, the swimming pants fits perfectly on me.

“Hmm, but I think you need to build up some muscle.”

“…I don’t think it suits me.”

Without waiting for my reply, Morioka-san calls out to Kisaragi.

“Hey, you should go out of the pool first, you haven’t done any warmups have you?”

“Ah, I forgot, I haven’t done it.”

Then she came up to the poolside, she is wearing a swimsuit as she should. However, at the first glance, she looks to be wearing an ordinary one-piece swimsuit. But when I look more closely, I realized that she is wearing a swimsuit-like clothing. I immediately looked away from her, I don’t want her to misunderstand things by staring at her closely. We’re just friends.

“It doesn’t suit you at all.”

“I know.”

Only someone who is enjoying life like this man in front of me suits this bright coloured swimming pants, a gloomy and introverted person like me doesn’t suit wearing it.

After warming up, we slowly enter the pool, the water feels warm, it actually feels really nice.

“Hokuto-san, can you swim?”

“I don’t know.”

Our high school doesn’t have a swimming pool. The last time I swam was probably when I was in middle school. I am sure I could swim then, but I wonder if I still can swim now.

“Instead of saying this and that, just try to swim.”

You don’t have to tell me that, I tried to swim by stretching out and kicking off on the side of the pool. I slowly and steadily swim to the other side of the pool, it seemed that I can still swim. As I reached the other side of the pool, Kisaragi who is in the next lane beside me gave a small clap.

“Amazing.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m honestly surprised because I didn’t think you could swim. So what do you think? Do you want to have a race to see who can swim faster?”

“Sure, why not.”

“Lifeguard-san.”

“Yeah?”

“We’re going to have a race. Can you count us down?”

“Oh, sure! That sounds fun!”

Isn’t he the one having the most fun? Laughing aloud, he got up from his chair and stood at the edge of the pool.

“Ready?”

“Yeah!”

Kisaragi is smiling like a winner even before the race begins. She seemed to be very confident in her swimming ability. Since I had accepted the challenge, I don’t want to lose. I’m sure I have a chance to win.

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“Okay! The swimming pool will be closing soon, so hurry up and get changed!”

Morioka-san’s shouting and clapping brought me back to reality. In the end, I didn’t win a single race. I had no idea she is such a good swimmer. Maybe I really should build up some muscle to win.

I finished changing and went outside with my hair still wet even after wiping it with a towel. Kisaragi’s hair is still wet like mine’s, perhaps because of it, she looks younger than usual. She seems to be laughing at my thoughts.

“Do you like that type of girls?”

“…I don’t like young girls just because I like to play little sister gal games.”

“I see, that’s complicated.”

It’s not a type of conversation that are supposed to be talked right after getting out of a swimming pool. I turned away from her and walk away briskly.

“You should go home now, your parents will be worried.”

I’m sure she told her parents beforehand, but it’s not a bad idea to go home earlier, it’s already late after all.

“It’s summer break, even festivals are held until 10 PM, it’s normal to go home at this hour you know?”

“But still, it’s already pretty late.”

“Then, will you walk me home?”

I’m surprised at her words.

“Well, sure.”

“You’re a really kind person.”

“Well, I don’t want to be the first suspect if you have an incident on your way home.”

“I wish you can be honest.”

“Honest about what?”

She sighs in frustration at my response. Come on, I’m the one who is having a hard time here, I can’t even say anything about it.

As we’re walking together, I looked up at the sky which was darker than we arrived at the swimming pool. The stars are shining dimly.

“Let’s come here again sometime, I’ll definitely win next time.”

She giggled mischievously and she seemed determined to keep winning. I wonder if I can win even once during this summer.

I thought that would be the last time I went to that pool, but I realized I’m a little disappointed I lost to her. …when I got back home, I’m going to look up some muscle training methods.