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

Let's go to the Mall

By the time I arrived home, it was already a quarter to six in the evening. I don't know how so much time had passed, but after Nagisa and I met up again with the others we ended up hanging out for at least another forty-five minutes before I decided I had to head home. Walking up the footpath to the house, I found myself feeling a combination of excited and worn out, even though I hadn't done any swimming. I guess I just wasn't used to the high energy of a large group of people and being an introvert, I wanted nothing more than to throw on my comfy sweatpants and curl up in bed with some coffee, instant-ramen, and Netflix.

The house that my dad owned was really more of a cottage than a house. Small but homey. He had bought as a vacation home in order to get away from the fast-paced city life of Tokyo. Because he was a musician, a fairly well-known musician and frontman of a popular Japanese heavy metal band, his home base was in downtown Tokyo near the recording studio. But Dad wanted away from all of that, away from work, from the noise—a place where he could write and compose new music in peace. An oasis if you will, which he just so happened to find in the little seaside town of Iwatobi. It was an old place, built on a hill overlooking the ocean, but he had made several renovations over the years adding a third bedroom/recording studio and updating all the appliances. Last spring our neighbor, Mrs. Koyanagi, had given us a bunch of tulip bulbs to plant in the flower bed by the front stoop and the green stalks had already sprung up again this year blooming in beautiful golden yellow.

I stopped to admire one, taking one of its green leaves in my hand and examining it. Because of the recent rain this week, they weren't looking as limp as before. That was good. Means I don't have to worry about watering them in the afternoon. Standing up, I continued my way up to the front door. Finding my house keys was a lot easier now since I had attached that mini Iwa-chan keychain to my keyring and I easily pulled them out of my bag and unlocked the front door, pushing it open.

I barely even cracked the door before a loud siren wailed in my ears. Covering my ears, I rushed into the entryway stumbling over a pair of sneakers.

"Dad? Dad? What is that?" I dropped my school bag by the door as I looked around wildly for the source of the noise. Dad came round the corner from the kitchen with a broom in hand, wielding it much like a baseball bat. "Oh god—" I yelled out startled ducking instinctively.

He saw me and his expression changed from alarmed to chiding, dropping the broom down to his side. "You're late," he yelled.

"I got held up with a school thing!"

"And you lost your phone?"

"No—"

"Because you must've if you didn't call!"

"Are we seriously discussing this during the air raid?" I screamed.

"You're right!" He pushed past me to a white box on the wall that I hadn't noticed before, flipping up the lid cover, punching in numbered sequence on the keypad. The siren immediately cut out like the volume being muted on the TV.

"Oh thank god," I said dropping my hands to my side. "What is that?"

"It's the alarm."

"What alarm?"

"Our alarm."

"Since when do we have an alarm?" I asked.

"Since I installed it this morning," he said.

"And why do you have a broom? What were you going to shoo away a burglar like a common field mouse?"

He turned to me with a deadpan expression that was typical of my Dad and said, "If I had to."