Temptation of the Sea

Mermaid in the Ocean

So, this story has actually been finished for a while but I forgot that I was posting this on Wattpad, so I'm here to post the rest of the chapters!

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Chapter 2: Mermaid in the Ocean

June 1993

Michiru slept over at my house and I drove her to school the next morning. We agreed that we would have our race that day after school and I would pick her up and we would go to the sports center.

After school got out, I went back to Michiru's school to get her. I attracted a bit of attention as soon as I got there. Michiru wasn't kidding when she said that I was popular at her school. Finally, Michiru came out and strutted boldly up to me. She was most definitely relishing in the fact that all her other classmates were probably very jealous.

"Having fun?" I said as I gave her her helmet.

"You have no idea," she grabbed the helmet, put it on, and hopped on the back of my bike. "Let's go."

I silently laughed to myself before kicking off and leaving. Michiru laid her head on my back. She sure is getting used to me driving her around.

We got to the sports center, went to the locker room, got changed, and entered the pool. I was wearing a simple navy blue one piece. While I was waiting for Michiru, I was inspecting my suit for drag. When Michiru came out, she was wearing a light blue one piece with her school's name across the chest.

She was on the swim team? Well, that doesn't necessarily mean that she's good. More than likely she's probably just mediocre.

"Do you wanna choose the event?" she asked me while she was pulling her hair up. "Since I chose the sport?"

I thought about it for a second. "200 meter IM." Even if she is good, she's probably not good at all four strokes. I'm not really either, but this way I have more of a chance, just in case.

"Alright," she started walking over to the blocks and I followed her. We stepped up onto the blocks and prepared ourselves. "On your mark!" she yelled. "Get set! Go!" We dove into the water and started swimming butterfly.

I'm a pretty strong flyer, but out of the corner of my eye I could see that she was just about even with me. I got ahead for the last fifteen meters or so and touched the wall first. I pushed off and started backstroke.

Backstroke was always the stroke that I rested with. I let my arms rest from butterfly – it's pretty hard on your shoulders – and I just kick really fast. This is where being a fast runner comes in handy. I needed to stay ahead before we got to breaststroke because breaststroke is my worst stroke. I was pretty confident until I saw Michiru quickly catching up to me. Butterfly may not have been her strongest but she was pretty good at backstroke. We touched the wall at the same time and I pushed off to start breaststroke but out of the corner of my eye I saw Michiru do a bucket turn. Damn, I've never been able to master the bucket turn. She'll definitely get ahead of me.

She got ahead of me right away. She must have a killer power pull. Mine was probably really weak. The only thing I could do was keep my pace. I knew I wasn't going to be able to go faster, because like I said, breaststroke is my worst stroke, but maybe I could make up for it in the freestyle.

I touched the wall way after she did and did a quick turnover to start freestyle. I went my fastest but there was no catching up to Michiru. She had had too much of a head start and she was only going faster. She was almost half a lap in front of me when she finished. When I finally reached the wall, she was sitting on the wall and splashing water on herself. She wasn't even out of breath where as I could barely catch my breath.

"How are you this good?" I gasped. "You don't seem like the athletic type."

"You run to be with the wind, I swim to be with the ocean," she said as she let her hair down.

Why did I not think that she would have an affinity for the water like I did with the wind? Of course she'd used that to her advantage her entire life like I have.

"I guess this means you have to pose for me now," Michiru said, standing up and grabbing her towel that she had placed on another block.

"I guess it does," I said as I got out of the water.