The Ghost of Iwatobi High (Free! iwatobi swim club variousxOC)

Super Best Friends

School seemed to pass by much faster than it normally did. I don't know if that had something to do with the movie we watched for Japanese History class because the teacher, Mr. Tsuda, called in sick. Or maybe the day seemed shorter because Nagisa had taken to passing me notes during the movie via Ryugazaki. (Which the taller boy had quickly grown frustrated with and ended up swapping seats with the blond just so he would stop being the go-between.) Whatever the reason, school was over before I knew it and I found myself, for the second time that day, getting dragged behind Nagisa as the three of us hurried to the footlockers in order to meet up with the rest of the swim club.

"So Haru-chan walks in, ya know, all starry-eyed and you can just tell he was about to do something. Then next thing we knew, he started shrugging off his jacket and kicking off his shoes and was in his swimsuit in two seconds flat. Mako-chan barely managed to grab him before he tired jumping into the tank!"

"He wears a swimsuit under his pants?" I wondered curiously.

Nagisa nodded. "Yeah."

"And he was going to get into a tank with lobsters?" I repeated.

"Yep."

I didn't know what to make of that story. Trying to picture the stoic boy from lunch doing something so ridiculous was just... How does that even happen?

"But Haru-chan's always been like that," Nagisa explained, "I think that if it were up to him, he'd never get out of the water."

"He must really like swimming," I said as we arrived at the lockers.

The blond nodded. "We all do, but no one as much as Haru-chan."

I guess when you stop to think about it are his actions really so unusual? Sure on the surface, maybe Haru was an eccentric; but if you were to look past that, you'd see that perhaps, it wasn't so much of an odd behavior as it was the fundamental wiring of his personality. One of my favorite quotes from the beloved classic, The Addams Family put it best: "What is normal for the spider, is chaos for the fly." To the third-party observer, Haru's thought process may have seemed chaotic; but to Haru, I'm sure, everything he did, he did with a clear and well-thought-out process.

Besides on some level I understood it, I think. At least, I mean, I had some idea what would entice him to have such strong feelings towards the water. (Although, I personally would never try to strip off all my clothes and submerge myself in the supermarket's lobster tank.) I understood how passions worked. When someone is passionate about something, all logical reasoning goes right out the window, you become entranced –almost obsessive –to the point that you cared little for anything else. My Dad, for example, was passionate about music; to the point that he would scarcely remember to eat, let alone sleep if he was busy composing. I've heard that Albert Einstein, himself, suffered from this affliction as well. Which is why I supposed, that many famous composers such as Chopin, Mozart, and Bach died young because they had more important things to do than to worry about trivial things such as keeping a healthy lifestyle.

And I'm guilty of this too.

I confess reluctantly that I had developed a habit of staying up until three or four or even five o'clock in the morning when my hands took over and my drawings took on a life of their own. It was almost like being possessed like I needed to draw more than I needed to anything else, and when that urge took over I could do nothing to fight it. And for Haru swimming probably did the same thing.

Since the lockers were arranged alphabetically by last name and our last names weren't anywhere close to one another, the three of us split up to go to our respective lockers; regrouping by the Ks.