Clouded Distance

Chapter Seventeen

Hiding Out

Well, I guess there are worse places to hide out.

Haru opened the doors to Iwatobi SC Returns, the keys jangling together and making a sound that seemed all too loud in the quiet night air. They all filed quickly inside before a car could drive past and report the suspicious-looking behaviour.

At least no one would think to look for them here. It would be one of the last places a person would consider looking for them. Hopefully.

"I guess there's really nowhere else we could go," Makoto murmured, as he closed the door behind them.

"The school would've be a bad idea," Rei agreed.

"Good thing we were able to borrow the keys to this place."

Nagisa, who had been awfully quiet their entire trip here, bowed suddenly. "I'm sorry! I ended up dragging you guys into this."

"It's a little late now," Hana chuckled, though she was watching Nagisa with concern.

"We're already in for the ride," Makoto added.

"Yes. So let's think of a solution together!"

Nagisa straightened himself up and looked at them all. Something had kindled in his eyes - hope? Gratefulness? Probably a combination of the two. "Yeah," he agreed, bobbing his head.

"If we stay in the lobby, we might be seen," Haru pointed out.

"In that case, we should head to the locker room."

"Huh?!" Makoto glanced around the room, suddenly twitchy. "But look how dark it is back there. What if there's a ghost?"

Hana rolled her eyes, slapping her friend lightly on the arm. "There's no such thing, silly." She recalled how he had always been scared of the dark as kids, and she'd kept teasing and pulling pranks on him as a result.

"So you say, but they might be here!"

"Makoto, you're being too loud," Haru sighed.

"Sorry..."

"In any case, let's stay here for a while," Rei said.

They agreed, but ended up sitting down by the counter, which would hide them from view but also alert them should anyone else want to come in.

"I think the only solution is to get your grades back up to earn your parents' approval," Rei spoke, getting right down to the point.

"That'd be the most straightforward method."

"Nagisa-kun, just how bad were these grades that made your parents so angry?"

"Well, uh..." Nagisa fished out a few papers and handed them to Rei. He was unable to meet anyone's eyes as he did so. Hana peered over Rei's shoulder as he opened the papers and smoothed out a few creases.

Hana's eyes were instantly drawn to the striking red ink on the page, and they widened to see all the numerous crossings-out and corrections, pretty low scores written on top. Then, when they reached the first tests he had done that year...

Ninety-eight percent? How did he drop his grades so suddenly?

"That's a pretty extreme gap," Makoto muttered.

Rei sighed. "No wonder they got mad."

Makoto looked up. His eyebrows furrowed a little as he looked at his friend. "But Nagisa, didn't you go to a private middle school?"

The blonde nodded slightly. "Yeah. It was a prep school," he mumbled.

"And last year, your grades weren't this bad, right?" Rei noted. "So why?"

Nagisa paused, not answering straight away. After a semi-long period of silence, the blonde brought his knees to his chest, looking straight ahead as he murmured, "It's because I hate studying."

Hana grimaced. I definitely feel you there, Nagisa. She couldn't even begin to think how she was going to handle studying for her exams at the end of the year, as well as handling university afterwards.

Speaking of university, I wonder if that university has received my story yet... oh gosh, I wonder if they've read it. Her stomach filled with butterflies.

"You hate studying?" Rei repeated, drawing Hana back to the current situation. He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Aren't you sure you don't just lack the attention span?"

"It's not just that," Nagisa murmured. His gaze drifted down toward the pool. "It was really hard on me. It was my parents who picked my middle school for me. They wanted me to go to a good university and get hired by a good company. During middle school, I spent every say studying. There was nothing in my life that could be considered fun.

"Over time, I no longer understood what I was studying so hard for. From then on, studying started to become hard for me. My parents hated seeing me like that, so they allowed me to come to Iwatobi High." His gaze flicked back up and slowly, he got to his feet. The blonde turned around so he looked at them all. "That's why I could swim with you guys like is. I couldn't live up to my parent's expectations, but if I'd continued at that prep school, I'd never have been able to swim."

"Why Iwatobi?" Makoto asked after a pause. "If you just wanted to swim, you could have done it anywhere."

"That's obvious, isn't it?" Nagisa smiled. "It was because I wanted to swim with you and Mako-chan again. Then I met Hana-chan and Rei-chan too, and swimming got even more fun. Swimming with you guys makes me happier than I can say!" His smile faltered a little. "That's why, when they told me to quit the swim club, it was like everything I could see went dark. I thought it'd be like before, when there was nothing in my life that was any fun."

"That's why you ran away from home?" Rei asked.

Nagisa nodded. "Yeah."

"Did your parents know that you felt this way?"

Nagisa sighed. "I doubt it. Even if I tried to tell them, I don't think they'd listen."

The sudden light over their faces caused Hana to flinch and shut her eyes, the lights accompanied by the distant hum of an engine. She peeked through her lashes to find that a car had pulled into the parking lot. "Someone's coming late," she mumbled.

"Could it be a club member?" Rei inquired.

"Isn't this an odd time for someone to come?" Makoto muttered skeptically.

"Then, could it be Nagisa-kun's parents?"

"Anyway, let's hide!"

Hana scrambled up with the others, as they began to make their way deeper into the complex. All of them, that was, except Haru. He stood in the lobby, looking out the door where the person had just parked - and was now getting out of the car.

"Haru?" Hana called quietly. "Come on, quickly!"

Haru lingered for a moment longer, but soon followed them.

Since she'd only been there a few times, Hana didn't know her way through the swim club very well, so she stuck close to the boys and allowed them to guide her through to the locker room. They moved as quietly as possible, not wanting the person entering to hear them. That unknown person had already entered; they'd heard the door opening.

They soon entered the locker room, closing it as softly as possible behind them. They crouched in the dark, finding themselves huddled close together. They all faced the door, alert for any indication of the person coming nearer.

"They shouldn't find us in here, right?" Makoto asked quietly.

"Let's hope not," Hana hissed back. If it was Nagisa's parents and they found him now... the results wouldn't be pretty, she could tell that much.

"I wonder if it's my mother..." Nagisa murmured. His voice was a little shaky.

"Shh! Quiet!"

Rei's quiet hiss shut them all up instantly as they heard what he had: the faint echo of footsteps. The air around them suddenly became much more tense and still. Hana barely dared to breathe, should the slightest amount of noise alert the person to their presence.

The shadow of feet appeared in the crack under the door; someone had turned a light on. Hana bit her lip, barely breathing, as the person paused outside the door. She stiffened, doing her best not to move. Don't open the door, please don't open the door, please, please...

By some great miracle, the person walked off, leaving the locker room behind them. Everyone let out a collective breath, the tension in the room decreasing considerably, but they weren't out of the danger zone yet.

"Let's go further inside while we can, to the pool," Makoto murmured.

No one had a better idea, so they all followed suit. Hana glanced over her shoulder as Nagisa as they hurried along. Though he was still pale, he seemed to be holding up okay. I really hope we can come up with some sort of solution soon...

The smell of chlorine hit them hard as they entered. It was stuffy as well, what with it being a fairly warm day that day. Hana wrinkled her nose, her eyes landing on the pool. It does feel tempting to dive in it... She suppressed the urge and gathered with her friends.

"I'm sure they wouldn't come this far inside, right?" Makoto asked, glancing around the still, empty room.

"Hopefully not," Hana murmured, still unsure. She shifted uneasily from one foot to another.

"Rei, is something wrong?"

Hana glanced up at Makoto's voice, and saw he was looking at Rei. Rei was frowning; a crease had formed between his eyebrows.

Rei looked at Nagisa. "Nagisa-kun, there's one thing I want to ask you."

Nagisa's eyebrows furrowed. "Rei-chan?"

"You said that you haven't tried to talk to your parents, right?" Nagisa barely had time to nod before Rei continued in a harsher voice than before, "Doesn't that mean you'd given up on talking to them from the start? About your middle school, and about this... and about how you really feel. You gave up before you even tried, didn't you? Well?" he added sharply, when Nagisa gasped and hesitated before responding.

"Hey, Rei..." Makoto murmured, but was blatantly ignored

Nagisa looked stricken. "That's... not true..." he stammered, though he sounded uncertain.

"Then face forward and speak to them."

"Come on, you two..." Makoto tried reasoning once again, but Rei just continued to speak.

"Or are up going to go up this time, too?"

Something must have hit home for Nagisa then yeled, "Rei-chan, you could never understand! You could never -"

"I couldn't understand how things are at your house," Rei said loudly, cutting over the blonde. "But I do want all four - no, five - of us to swim together." Hana's cheeks flushed, grateful that he was including her. "In respect, I feel the same as you. Or are your feelings something you could give up on so easily?"

Nagisa glowered. "Of course not!"

"I believe that you're a person you never gives up. Because, despite all the times I refused you, you stubbornly kept after me until I joined the swim club."

"Rei-chan..." Nagisa stared at his friend, momentarily stunned. Then the weight of Rei's words sank in, and tears gathered in Nagisa's eyes. "I don't ant to give up, either!" he exclaimed. "I want to stay in the swim club and I want to decide all kinds of things for myself!"

"Then we'll all go now, together, to talk to your parents. We'll come up with a logical approach..."

Before he could speak anymore, a sound hit their ears, a sound none of them had made. Hana froze, her eyes darting around the area, trying to find it's source. Her heart rate increased slightly.

"What was that?" Makoto asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

They were all frozen still, so they could all hear any sound being made in the area nearby. Sure enough, the sound came again. Hana swallowed as she recognised it.

Footsteps.

A low sqeak passed her lips. "They followed us this far?" she exclaimed, doing her best to keep her voice low. She was shocked; she'd thought the person, whoever it was, might've given up by now.

"Wh-what do we do?" Rei exclaimed. "We haven't thought up a plan yet!" He was starting to panic, just like they all were. There was nothing much they could do! They hadn't thought of a proper solution, and there was barely anywhere for them to hide in the pool. And even if Nagisa managed to escape this person's notice... how were they going to explain why they were here at the pool after it had closed? Hana remembered being pulled up for trespassing last year when they'd visited this place - and it had been abandoned at that point, too!

We're all in so much trouble.

But that wasn't their main concern: what was was finding a way to keep Nagisa on the swim team, and they couldn't do that without a solution. The best they could do was hide Nagisa.

These thoughts flashed through Hana's mind very quickly. Upon reaching that conclusion, she pushed Nagisa in the direction of the door - not the one the footsteps were approaching, of course. "Go hide somewhere, Nagisa!" she hissed.

"Nagisa, hide behind me," Makoto said hurriedy, not having understood her gesture, and confusing Nagisa further as he stood there, unsure of what to do. "Hurry!"

"We'll take care of this somehow!" Haru said. 

There was a shadow at the door now, and Nagisa still hadn't moved. Hana bit her lip and siddled closer to Haru, trying to block as much of Nagisa out as possible.

"You guys, thank you," Nagisa murmured.

Hana gasped as she felt a light force push her aside. Looking to her right, she found Nagisa stalking forward

"Nagisa?" she murmured.

Nagisa pushed his way to the front, breaking their efforts to try and conceal him. Once he was standing in plain sight, he inhaled deeply and, to Hana's great surprise, launched into a speech.

"I've been holding back for a long time! I was never able to say everything I wanted to! I've always done what you told me to do, and I've never enjoyed any if it!" Hana blinked. She had never heard Nagisa speak like this before. "But that's because I was weak. I've just kept running away from fading you, Mum and Dad, because I'd given up before I even tried! That's why I don't want to run away anymore!" He stalked forward toward the door. "Haru-chan, Mako-chan, Hana-chan, and Rei-chan... I want to swim with my friends! That's why I want you to listen to what I -"

The door opened. Hana gasped as they all saw the figure in the doorway. For a moment, she was terrified it was Nagisa's mother, but as the figure stepped deeper into the room, her fear turned to surprise as she recognised the familar, welcome face.

"Miss Ama-chan!" Makoto exclaimed.

Miss Amakata stepped into the room, her arms folded across her chest. "Hazuki-kun!" she began, "There's a saying that goes, 'the child knows not the parent's heart.'"

There was a small pause, and then her face softened into a smile. "Your parents are very worried about you. Go home."

Nagisa's eyes widened a little, and tears started to creep into them. "Okay," he agreed.

Miss Amakata smiled and turned to the others. "Sorry. I couldn't find the right moment to come out."

"But why are you here, sensei?"

Haru stepped forward."I called her."

Before Hana could wheel around and ask if it was true, Miss Amakata confirmed, "Nanase-kun called me earlier to ask that I let you boys take care of Hazuki-kun."

They all turned on him. "Haru?" Makoto questioned.

Hana recalled how Haru had lingered in the foyer earlier. At least they had an explanation for that now.

Haru shrugged. "What? I still didn't know who it was that came in earlier." Hana smiled, but had to press her lips tightly together to stiffle laughter.

Miss Amakata chuckled softly too and turned to Nagisa. "Hazuki-kun, tell your partners how you feel honestly. If it still doesn't work, we'll all think of a plan together."

Nagisa's eyes were shining, both with joy and a few tears. He hastily wiped them away. "Okay! I will!"

Hana smiled as they headed out of the pool. Thank goodness that is resolved. She had hated seeing Nagisa like that, and seeing him smile like his old self was a big relief to her.

Talking to his parents had to work. She chuckled inwardly. Either it would work, or they'd make it work.

Either way, Nagisa was going to remain on the team. They'd make sure of it.

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oh my gosh, i am so so sorry about this chapter. i really struggle writing huge amounts of dialouge like this and the last page or so was really a struggle for me... sorry about the rubbish update everyone, the next one will be better!!