Free (ReiHaru One Shots: A Free! Iwatobi Swim Club Fanfic)

To Learn

Prompt: Free

*This story takes place during the first season, when Rei is learning how to swim*

Rei threw A Beginner's Guide to Swimming across the room, knocking one of his pillows off his bed.

"It's no use," he thought, "I'm never going to be able to swim at this rate! I can't believe I'm going to let them down, after everything they've done for me." He sunk deeper into his desk chair and sighed.

"I wish I could be like Haruka-Senpai. I wish I could swim free like him.." Rei shot up from his chair and slammed his fists on the desk. "WHY CAN'T I LET GO?" He thought, immensely frustrated.

He walked over to the other side of the room, back again, and then sat down in his chair once more. This process was repeated a few times before he gave up and lay down on his bed.

He thought back to earlier that day when Haruka had tried to teach him to swim, and how he had ultimately failed. Afterwards, he had sat with him in a comfortable silence, and although they didn't say anything, Rei had felt a kind of bond forming between them, something he couldn't describe. He felt connected to him somehow, and when he saw that butterfly, he could imagine Haruka swimming, how he looked as though he flew through the water, gracefully and beautifully.

"Wait a second." Rei thought suddenly. "Butterfly."

How had he forgotten about it? The last stroke that he hadn't tried! If he could master this, he could really join the swim team and be with Haruka on a regular basis, and watch him swim...without his shirt...exposing his glorious body... "Shit." Rei pushed aside the strange feelings that had begun to dig their way into his chest and went back to swimming.

Perhaps he could channel that butterfly and it's beauty while he swam this stroke and truly become free in the way that Haruka had tried to teach him... "Okay," he thought decidedly. "It's settled. I'm going to try out the butterfly stroke tomorrow before practice, so I don't let Haruka-Senpai down. I don't want to fail him, he's too beautiful to do that to-I mean, I can't fail anybody that tries so hard for me.

"I'm going to learn this stroke and be free. For Haruka-Senpai. I can't let him down. If I did, I would never forgive myself."

Rei got up from his bed and walked over to his bookshelf. He grabbed The Basics of Swimming Butterfly, and started to read, quickly pushing away the images of Haruka that kept popping up in his mind.