Translucent Waters (Nanase Haruka Love Story) (Free! Iwatobi Swimming Club)

Epilogue II: Part 3

Mizushima Kasumi's Point of View

After meeting with Nanase that day, we never exchanged words once, and I started to kind of regret it. It was obvious that I had hurt him, but I just couldn't bring myself to apologize. Days had past, and I still hadn't apologized. The days became weeks, then months, then a year. It would be too weird if I just apologized after such a long time, so I quit. I told myself it wasn't worth it anymore anyways. Every time I saw him on TV, I could see the hundreds of fangirls flocking him. I could see how hard he worked to achieve his dreams-- the water. I was truly happy for him. That was without a doubt.

After a while, I would realize that it wasn't too hard to forget him-- forget the good times we had, the laughs, the smiles . . . It was replaceable. Or so I thought.

One day, when I couldn't bring myself to study anymore, I randomly checked Instagram. I didn't use it much, due to the millions of random gadgets and buttons and 'favorite this, favorite that' sort of things so I didn't really get the memo, but I still had an account anyway . . . though mostly to stalk people. I had had it for ages, but just never really used it.

My account was private with just about ten people following me. I didn't post anything. My profile picture was just a distant picture of me about to dive into the water (oh, the good ol' days), and my bio was simply blank. It was nothing special. Yet, there were so many notifications. I was confused. I didn't post any photos-- the only photo being my profile picture. I had no bio. Only ten people followed me . . . Why did I have 2,000+ follow requests and twice as many messages?

Raising an eyebrow, I quickly pressed on notifications. What did all two thousand plus have in common?

Shaking my head, I then turned my attention to the messages before finally realizing the commotion.

He was still following me, and he was now famous.

A mental light-bulb popped. Ah, that made sense. But what didn't make sense was why he was still following me. We weren't together anymore.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I clicked on his profile. My eyes widened. His profile picture was a picture of him and me in a ferris wheel. The background was the sunset skies streaked with lavender, crème, and coral. It was a sight to remember. But why did he still keep it?

I slapped myself to try to stop myself from blushing but to no avail. I scrolled down his feed. He posted quite often-- several times a day. Most of which were sports promotions he probably got paid to post, but of the ones that weren't, he mostly posted pictures of water or food.

Food. That was an improvement from his water addiction.  At least he was expanding his horizons.

I eventually made my way to a picture posted about a year ago. If my eyes weren't wide enough, they got wider. It was a picture of us-- both of us in our swim attire. He, as always, had on his cold, nonchalant demeanor, and he was carrying me on his back-- tense. A blush was evident across his cheeks. On the other hand, I was smiling in the picture, showing two peace signs. My swim cap was suspensed middair. It was after one of swim practices, if I remember correctly, and right after that, we went back to his place to watch a movie.

I smiled ruminatively at the memory. It was so long ago.

Below the photo was no caption, but there were so many comments.

"Who is she?"

"Isn't that Mizushima Kasumi?"

"Yeah, she won a medal in some competition, right?"