"Again!" Gou ordered. "Try to not kick at all this time!"

Anna clenched her jaw. "I'm telling you, I can't swim freestyle without kicking my legs. I need to kick to stay aflo-"

"Excuses!" Gou blew her whistle. "Work those arms! Build those triceps!"

Rolling her eyes, Anna took a deep breath and decided the humour her coach, who had insisted they held this extra drill to 'address her lacking triceps.' Just her and Gou. Just what she needed. ...Not. She began to attempt to swim with just her arms and not her legs, but she ended up just kind of doggy paddling. It was a total mystery to her how anyone could even swim butterfly, really. Maybe Rei was right. Maybe she just needed stronger arms...

"...What are you doing?"

An unfamiliar voice rung through the splashes as Anna struggled to keep her ears above water. Gou gave a groan. "What are you doing here?" She asked. "This is Iwatobi Swim Club business."

"Delivery for you," the voice replied bluntly. "Who is that?"

"Anna Welsh!" Gou announced proudly, "Iwatobi Swim Club's secret weapon!" She was ignoring the fact Anna was floundering in the water right now, apparently.

"...Does she always swim like... that?" The voice paused. "...Is... is she okay?"

"Despite her unstoppable leg power, she has weak arms," Gou explained. "We're trying to fix that."

"...Hey. You. Stop."

While Anna didn't really need an excuse to stop, whoever was speaking wasn't asking her to stop, but more or less delivering an order. Needless to say, she ceased immediately. Glad to be free of what was quickly turning into a humiliating lap of the pool, she looked to her rescuer, even if he was a reluctant one.

He was tall, lean like Haru, if not a little more built. His hair was the same shade as Gou's. Was this the brother she kept hearing about? Probably, logic would suggest that...

"If you have weak arms, you need to do weight training," he explained. "Swimming like that doesn't do anything except make you look like an idiot." He turned to Gou. "Take her to a gym. You'll see a difference in two weeks."

"Gym?" Anna repeated. "I... I can't afford a gym."

"She's right!" Gou agreed, giving a nod and crossing her arms. "Gyms are expensive... and we don't exactly have a large budget. Unless you know somewhere she can use the weights for free, my method will have to do."

He eyed her for a moment in silence, and Anna felt a little nervous. It felt like he was sizing her up, like he was a shark and she was a seal, just flopping around in the water, waiting to be chomped on. "...I know a place."

–

"I cannot actually stress how much of a bad idea this is," Anna stuttered, her eyes darting around the room, feeling her palms sweat as they stood in the centre of the Samezuka Academy gym. "Am I even allowed to be here? I don't even go here. I should probably just-"

Gou grabbed her by the arm, shaking her head. "No you don't!" She laughed. "If Rin says it's okay, it's okay. He is the captain of the Swim Club here."

"But that doesn't make him the captain of the gym," Anna protested, clutching her bag to her chest as Gou pushed her towards what at first looked like a bench, but was actually some kind of equipment. Rin watched as Gou guided her – if not a little forcefully – to the extension machine, her chest pressing against the bench part.

"Okay," Rin explained. "Before you hurt yourself..." he leaned down, moving the pins in the machine to a lighter weight. "You take these handles..." he took her hands, placing them where they needed to be. "And pull up..." Anna took a breath and pulled the handles towards her, holding it for a moment before letting them back down. "Like that," he nodded. "30 more of those and then we'll move to your biceps."

Rin stepped back to observe as Anna began to follow the instructions, her face a little scrunched up in discomfort. Not physically. She was a little bit embarrassed. After all, she was in a gym at what appeared to be an all boy's school that she didn't even go to, using their weights. No wonder everyone was staring at her...

"Okay!" Gou exclaimed again, her face red as she rushed forward to stop Anna. Oh god. Oh god no. Anna knew exactly what that face meant! She looked down, and surely enough her chest was pressed against the bench, her cleavage poking right out of the top of her tank top. "Let's get you a T-shirt first!"

–

"Where in Australia are you from?" Rin asked Anna – now fitted with a spare Samezuka Academy Weightlifting Club T-shirt – as she did some admittedly light bicep curls.

"Melbourne," she replied, before doing a quick double take. "Wait... I think Gou said something about you studying abroad?"

Rin gave a nod. "But that was in Sydney." He gave a shrug, looking at her through his side-eye. "I only went to Melbourne once," he began, switching to English and taking Anna completely off guard. "Too cold."

She paused, staring at him, not finishing her rep. "S-sorry," she stuttered, taking a second to revert to her native language. "It's... nice to talk to someone in English. I mean, who aren't my parents. Or, like, asking me to help them study... sorry."

"Why do you live in Iwatobi?" He asked her. "There is not a lot for foreigners there."

She shrugged. "We moved to Japan a few years ago and eventually my dad took up a job as an English professor at one of the Universities nearby... I don't know why my parents chose Iwatobi, though. Maybe they just thought it was nice."

It was Rin's turn to shrug now. "I guess it is nice. Maybe if you have not lived around here for your whole life. Although... it's very different to Australia."

"Your English is so good," Anna said, a laugh in her voice. She couldn't help but smile. It was the first time in a long time someone had spoken to her in English without repeating lines from their English Language text books at her, or giggling nervously.

"Thank you," he nodded. Suddenly, though, he crossed his arms, switching back to Japanese. "Your Japanese needs work, but it is good for someone who didn't grow up here."

"Is it that obvious, Rin?" She asked, giving a final exhale as she placed down the weight. "Oh," she blinked. "Oh! I'm sorry, Rin-Senpai. That's correct, you're older than me, right?"

Suddenly, Gou piped up from across the gym. "Hey! Hey! Don't call him that!" She waved her finger at the two. "He's not in charge, he's just letting us use the gym." Unsure, Anna glanced between the two, waiting for Rin to say something.

"You don't have to call me that," he agreed, giving Anna a tiny, barely noticeable smile.

Anna gave another of her anxious laughs, placing the weight back in it's place and flexing her arms a little. "Well, it's getting a little late and my arms feel kind of like they're going to fall off..." she glanced at him. "But thanks for letting me use the gym today."

"Anything to stop you swimming like that," Rin teased, a smirk appearing across his mouth. Anna couldn't help but feel he looked a little bit like a shark when he did that, the same way he did when he was staring at her in the pool. "You're welcome to come back, though. You should make it regular."

"Really?" She asked. "Well, I can't come every day... but I have Tuesdays and Thursdays free after school."

"Works for me." Rin gave a grin when Anna delivered him a confused expression. "You think I was going to leave you to lift weights alone? You can hardly lift your own backpack without a spotter."

"Er..." she chewed her lip, wringing her hands a little at the hem of her oversized shirt. "You uh... you really don't have to do that." Anna couldn't help but feel a little bit suspicious, to be honest.

"Don't think I'm going out of my way for you," Rin dismissed. "I'm here those days anyway. Besides," he gave an exhale, tilting his head to Gou, who was admiring someone's triceps from a distance. "I owe her a favour or two."

Anna shifted a little where she sat, still unsure about this. "Well... if it's okay with you... thank you. I'll be here."

"You know," he began, his voice lowered a little, "when Gou told me a girl had joined the swim club, I thought you would have been there for the... same reasons she joined." He glanced at his sister, who was now distracted by deltoids. "What's your goal, then?" He asked.

"My goal?"

Rin gave a nod. "You're coming to the rival team's gym every week, alone – Gou probably won't make the trip here every time – to lift weights in a gym that's otherwise occupied by men." He looked to her from the corner of his eye. "Most girls would be uncomfortable with that. There must be something you want."

Anna frowned. A goal. She... well, she didn't know. She wasn't going to be an Olympic swimmer, she knew that much. Or at least she didn't think she would be. To be honest, she didn't even really want to be one. Really, if she were to be 100% honest with Rin right now, she'd tell him she joined because – although she was initially enticed by muscles – she felt too polite to back out now. But she couldn't say that. It didn't feel right. "I... I don't know yet," she lied. A little white lie, but still a lie. "I just... feel like I should be."

"That's your homework, then," Rin announced, standing from the bench. "Figure out your goal. You can't improve if you don't have anything to to work for."

–

"Good practice, guys!" Gou exclaimed as the team towelled off from another training session. "We finished early and Mako even beat his own record time!"

"How about we do something to celebrate?" Anna asked as she hung her towel around her shoulders. "We should go get ice cream or something. My shout."

Rei raised an eyebrow. "Your... shout?" He asked. Anna found herself burning up a little bit in the face. She'd done that thing where she'd translated an idiom again and it just didn't work.

"It um. Means I'll pay," she explained. "Sorry. Sometimes I forget..."

"Don't be sorry," Mako laughed. "It sounds like fun. But you don't need to 'shout' at the ice cream, I can pay, too. It'll be nice to go out." Anna didn't have the heart to correct him.

Nagisa grinned. "Yeah! Let's go! I haven't had ice cream in so long."

"It is a little bit hot..." Rei agreed. "I suppose it couldn't hurt, even if it does have high sugar content."

Gou gave a nod. "I know a really nice dessert place, too. I've been meaning to go back."

"It's settled then," Anna smiled, pleased to spend a little more time that didn't involve swimming with her new friends. "You coming, Haru?"

The smile Anna had on her face suddenly vanished when the response she received from Haru was less than she expected, even from him. When he spoke – which was after a period of awkward and strained silence – it was short, frank, and a little painful. "No." He turned and began to head to the change rooms. "I'm not interested."

"...Ah... o-okay..." she stammered, her face flushing again. She cleared her throat. Admittedly, she was a little bit hurt, and it didn't help when she felt Mako's hand on her shoulder.

"Don't worry about Haru," he assured her, "he takes a while to warm up to people." He removed his hand and followed his friend in to the change rooms. "Come on, let's get changed and go get that ice cream."

Nagisa almost sprinted in to the change rooms, apparently more excited than anyone about getting ice cream, which didn't really surprise Anna. Still, though, even though the rest of the team was excited about spending time together, Anna couldn't help but feel a little hurt as she head to the women's change rooms. She didn't expect everyone to like her. There were plenty of people who didn't like her at Iwatobi High. But this... this felt like something else.

–

"I've figured out my goal," Anna announced once the weights session was over the next week. Rin gave her a glance as she locked the cable pull back into the machine. He gave her a quizzical look, wiping off the machine he'd been using with a towel as she continued. "I want to swim as well as Haru."

Rin paused. Not just a little pause. A visible, physical pause. He didn't speak, only turning his gaze to her. There it was again. The shark. Sizing her up.

"I need to swim on his level," she added.

Rin gave an exhale, standing upright and crossing his arms. "If you're looking to beat Haru, you have a long road ahead of you."

"It's not about beating him," she corrected. For the first time since Rin had met her, his sister's friend wasn't bearing an uncomfortable or nervous expression. She was entirely confident, she believed what she was saying. "If I swim on his level, Haru will respect me." She looked downward for a flickering second, before locking eyes with Rei. "I don't want to beat him. I want to earn his respect." It felt like it was only them in that moment, despite the final few students clearing out of the gym and pool for the day.

There was a long silence between them, and for a fleeting moment she could have sworn she saw Rin's eyes widen, his face flinch, just a little bit. "...In the pool."

"...W-what?" She stuttered. That had taken her entirely off guard.

"You had swim practice before this, no?" He asked. "So you have your swimsuit. In the pool."

With that, Rei immediately began to make his way to the pool area, Anna standing in shock, still not entirely understanding what was happening. "I... sorry... can we just take a minute and slow down and-"

"You want to swim on Haru's level, right?" He asked, looking at her over his shoulder. "You can't do that unless you're in the water." The intensity of his eye contact was like a razor. It genuinely felt hot, like her eyes would burn if she held his gaze for too long.

Relieved that he hadn't laughed at her or dismissed her and feeling encouraged, Anna grabbed her backpack and followed Rin. "Let's do this, Rin-Senpai."

As long as he was willing to help her with her crazy goal, he could be in charge.