Meeting The Little Mermaid [Free! Iwatobi Swim Club Fan Fiction]

Chapter 1: Makoto Tachibana POV

That's when I saw her, beautiful and graceful as she entered the water. Her strokes were precise and moved naturally, it was as though I was watching a mermaid.

"Makoto, Makotooooooooo," yelled Nagisa throwing his hands in my face and I snapped out of my daydream.

"Uh, huh?" I said groggily, looking over Nagisa, his blonde hair flopping all over the place.

Nagisa then looked over to were I was staring off to, a young girl of about 10 years old with fiery red hair being helped out of the pool.

"Ohhhh, that's Ema Matsuoka, she's amazing!" he exclaimed excitedly.

"What do you mean?" I asked curiously.

"You don't know? She's a prodigy swimmer and so is her twin brother..uh..Rin!" Nagisa said even more excitedly!

I had heard of Rin and Ema Matsuoka before, they were sibling swimming prodigies in the same prefecture as myself but I had not be able to met them due to their popularity.

"That's so weird, I thought you ran into Ema earlier," Nagisa said rolling his eyes.

"What do you mean?" I asked, I did not remember meeting her.

"I guess you don't remember...oh, by the way, doesn't your race start soon?" Nagisa said quickly looking up at the time.

Shook the image of Ema out of my mind, I would never be able to meet her.

"Oh you're right! Can you find Haru for me? I want him to watch my race," I asked Nagisa as I ran over to the pool.

* * *

I clutched my third place medal feeling pretty satisfied with myself, as I wondered around the swim club looking for my friends I also kept an eye out for, Ema Matsuoka. The way she swam was so natural, I just needed to speak to her.

I felt someone come up behind me and gave me a slight fright, "What are you looking for?"

I dropped my medal as I swivelled around to only become face to face with Nagisa who had a huge smile on his face, "I couldn't find Haru-chan, but I saw your race!"

"Thanks," I replied still on the look out for Ema, not feeling totally disappointed that Haru had not watched my race, since he had aways been like that.

"Who you looking for?" Nagisa said still close to Makoto, it was if he was a magnet.

"Nothing in particular," Makoto replied.

Nagisa laughed, "You're a liar and terrible one at that! I bet you're looking for Ema, aren't you?"

Before I could respond, we heard a loud thump.

As we turned around, we saw Ema on the ground and her medals had fallen all over the place.

I could not explain my feelings at that moment in time, but it was if my legs moved on their own and I quickly helped Ema pick up her medals, as I handed them back to her she looked up at me.

"Thank you," she said in a timid voice.

As I looked at her, her aura was intoxicating, she seemed like a beautiful, delicate flower that had just bloomed, her eyes sparkled looking straight into mine. 

She was a purebred champion.

"No problem, are you ok?" I asked quickly hiding my embarrassment by looking at her scrapped knee instead.

She nodded.

"Did you want a bandaid or something?" I asked gesturing Nagisa to come over. Ema did not say a word and looked away. I proceeded to get a bandaid from Nagisa's little bag and placed it on her scrapped knee, "I saw you swim earlier, you're pretty amazing."

Ema continued to ignore me and stared at her bandaid.

However, before anything else could be said Nagisa screamed his head off in excitement.

"Makotoooooooo, look it's Haru-chan!!!" Nagisa jumped up and down in excitement, sure enough as I looked in the direction of Nagisa's enthusiasm, Haru was walking towards us.

"Hey, wanna go home now?" Haru said in his usual bored and aloof tone.

I did not want to leave her yet, the touch of her smooth skin, her piercing gaze, it felt to natural for the two of us, it was as if we had met before.

I looked back at Ema and then at Haru, "Yeah I think so, it was nice meeting you Ema."

However as we started to walk away, I noticed Ema was following us.

"What is it?" Haru asked.

"That is so rude Haru-chan! It's a girl, duh!" Nagisa pipped up.

"What does it want?" he then asked.

"I don't know, she tripped over, maybe she's lost?" I replied looking over at Ema who was standing there clutching her medals, I suddenly took her hand, "Are you lost?"

She nodded.

At that moment, I heard someone call out, "EMA, EMA!"

Two boys, obviously her brother and a friend ran over to her.

"Ema are you ok?" the boy said as he ran to her, "I looked for you everywhere after your race but you disappeared."

She replied, "Makoto."

"Huh? Oh, did you find my sister? Thank you so much, she's a bit of a trouble maker," Rin laughed taking Ema's hand.

"It was no trouble, she fell over but I think she's ok," I said letting go of Ema's hand.

"Oh, you're Makoto and Haruka right? I saw you both swim earlier, you're both kind of amazing," Rin said, "Oh, I'm Rin Matsuoka, this is my younger twin sister Ema and our friend Sousuke Yamasaki."

I had noticed that Sousuke had taken ahold of Ema's hand, the same hand I held.

"Yeah, I saw you guys too, you're both really talented," I replied politely as possible despite being a little annoyed at the hand holding.

"Well we gotta dash, my mum was really worried about Ema, but it was nice meeting you guys, can't wait until I see you again," Rin said as the three of them walked off.

Ema looked back at me and we made eye contact, "Bye Makoto," she said before turning her attention away.

That was the day I met her, at that point in time I did not realise how important she would become in my life, but now that I had met her, I never wanted her to leave.

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NEXT CHAPTER: EMA MATSUOKA POV