Wins and Losses Paths: First Ending

Wins and Losses Answers: 1st End


Intro


    [Y/N] positioned herself on the board, feet planted and hands locked in front. Her back arched over and her vision was met with a clear blue sea. She pretended she was at the seashore, nobody existing but her and the water. The dark tint of her black goggles didn't even guard the beauty of the liquid.

    She shifted her weight to her feet and jump off the board, arms extended and hands meeting in a sharp point. [Y/N] felt the water circulate under her as she weaved her body after diving into the water. Her feet acted like a dolphin's tail and left a trail of white foam in a straight line down the lane.

    Her elbows bent in a ninety degree angle and her hands dipped into the water. She alternated arms, and lifted her head to the side when she needed to breathe. [Y/N]'s legs kicked up and down underwater, causing no disturbance at the surface.

    Even though her head remained in the water, she could still hear the dull cheering from the audience. There was clapping. There was cheering. There was support.

    [Y/N] didn't know if she was winning or not. The person in the lead didn't matter, and the person next to her didn't matter either. What mattered was the feel of the water beneath her and the sounds of splashing limbs.

    As she approached the wall, she slowed down and did a front flip. Her feet pressed against the wall and kicked out, and then [Y/N] resumed her previous stride.

   
    "Wow! That's girl's so far ahead!"

    "What's her name?"

    "Did she participate last year?"

    Haru weeded through the rows of people in the audience heading towards a small group that was waiting for him. They were small, yes, but packed the biggest loudspeaker in the entire stands: Gou, their manager. He was embarrassed on the inside, but didn't let the public onlookers figure this out. Haru just sat next to his captain, Makoto who saved a seat for him.

    "Go [Y/N]!" Gou exclaimed, throwing her arms into the air.

    "Who's [Y/N]?" Haru asked.

    Everyone blinked at him, but he ignored them.

    "She shares an apartment with me!" Gou tried to reach across three guys to strangle Haru, but obviously failed. "You even met her before!"

    "I did?"

    She suppressed an irritated sigh, "Yeah!"

    "Oh."

    Gou grumbled and turned back to watching [Y/N] shoot down the lane. She flipped against the wall and started her final stretch.

    Haru was just amazed, and he couldn't hide the fact that he was surprised by this swimmer's talent. His eyes only widened just a millimeter, but Makoto managed to notice-- in fact, he knows everything about his fellow club member.

    "I met her in the lobby you know," Makoto said, eyeing Haru suspiciously.

    "And she said, 'I just want to get in the water as soon as possible.'" Makoto just kept on talking.

    Haru started fidgeting with the end of his blue and white jacket.

    "Sounds similar to a certain person I know of," his swim captain let out a small smile.

    Haru just stared blankly as [Y/N] pulled up to the surface once she touched the wall. She finished in first by about ten seconds, as expected of her. She pulled herself out of the pool, and in that moment, Haru realized just how attractive she was. Maybe it was the water, he thought. After all, he was known about having a unique obsession with the substance.

    "You really want to swim, don't you?"

    He looked up at Makoto, irritated that he could read him so easily. "I could have been swimming now at the indoor pool."

    "You can do that later," the olive-haired swimmer lectured. "You know how important [Y/N] is to Gou, they're practically sisters."

    "But it was obvious who was going to win."


XXX


    Only Haru would go to the indoor pool during Makoto's event. It seemed like a normal occurrence by the way his club members took it. He simply excused himself, to where is obvious to them. All the swimming he was watching made him want to join in.

    Except, he would do it on his own.

    Haru practically memorized the route to the indoor pool. It certainly wasn't simple, but his motivation to swim around the clock relied on this memorization. His work finally was rewarded by a set of closed doors at the end of a distant hallway.
 
    He completely ignored the 'Do not Enter' sign on the metal door. At the sight of the pool, all of his clothes flew off, revealing his purple-trimmed swimming trunks. Haru didn't bother folding the articles of clothing and just threw them on a nearby bench against the wall.

    The pool was smaller than the one used for competitions, that was one obvious fact. It only had lines painted at the bottom of the pool to indicate lanes, but no bobbers at the surface.

    Despite the size and uncleanliness, Haru still wanted to swim. No matter what the conditions are, he would always want to feel the water and unite with it as one. He would only swim freely, unable to be held down by any rules or competition from others swimmers from different schools.

    Haru closed his eyes and sunk down into the water, the liquid enveloping him in its warmth. He hugged his knees as he touched the bottom of the pool and remained there silently. His heart beat was amplified and his lungs started deflating from the lack of oxygen. Haru kicked his body up towards the surface, the water pushing against his eyelids.

    His black hair crystalized when exposed to the air, droplets of water reflecting in the light. When he looked back at the bench that held his clothes, Haru noticed that they weren't tossed to the side like before, but folded neatly in a single stack.

    "Hey."

    [Y/N], the swimmer who won in the previous competition, sat at the side of the pool around five feet away from Haru. He noticed she was wearing the same swimsuit, the same goggles on the top of her head, and the same serious expression she wore earlier. Her legs dangled in the water and reached to her kneecap, and her small hand held out and skimmed the surface of the water.

    "Why are you here?" Haru asked.

    "The same reason as you."

    Haru, being a person who spoke only few words, just lowered himself back into the water. [Y/N] blinked and fingered a few of her damp strands of hair. He eventually went up to the surface for more air.

    "So, you like doing this?" Her questions were so tedious.

    "You make it sound like a hobby," was Haru's reply. He didn't seem to mind the presence of the girl. After all, she acted mysterious and swam freestyle like him.

    His answer didn't necessarily shake [Y/N] off easily. "Is swimming a hobby to you?"

    "Swimming in general isn't," Haru lowered himself again, "but competitively swimming is."

    That answer was more interesting to her.

    When he came back up again, Haru noticed [Y/N] joined him in the water and swam afloat near the edge.

    "I would have said the same thing," she said honestly, taking the goggles off her head and placing them on the tile outside the pool. "Why is it that everyone thinks we love the competitive part of swimming, when in reality, we actually just like the feel of the water?"

    "Their thoughts mean nothing to me."

    "Clearly my thoughts matter if you're still talking to me."

    Haru dipped into the water once again, but [Y/N] grabbed his wrist and tugged him up to the surface.

    His blue eyes stared at her dully, but [Y/N] could still see the desperation to swim behind the wall that covered his eyes. She loved the two orbs since she first saw them when Gou introduced her to the mysterious swimmer when school started. He didn't speak much, but [Y/N] noticed his love for swimming.

    Because he didn't swim to please others, he did it to just ride the water freely.

    Just like her.

    At that moment, [Y/N] smiled. Even though Haru was terribly confused, he didn't show anything in his facial features.

    "Whenever I start a race, I don't look back; I don't try and see what place I'm in or what the audience thinks. Why? Because racing is just a hobby and swimming in the water is my life. And I think I have just found someone with similar thoughts to mine."

    They both went underwater together, despite Haru's mind resisting it because this time and only this time, he listened to his heart. He knew wherever [Y/N] was, water would be there.

    Water allows beings to be pure; that's what they think.

    Water is the peace in one's mind; that's what they think.

    Water makes up most of life; that's what they think.

    And thus, Haru and [Y/N] experience purity--

    Together.