#So if anyone butts in trying to manufacture drama over my attempt to match the shade of his arm to his fingers I WILL maul you

[amplexadversary]

stitch from G Gundam episode 19

[marigorbital]

Dumb Ducks in the Water: Part 14

IT’S FINALLY HERE. Three actual years later, but it’s here.

A lot has happened in my life for the past three years and, to make a long excuse short, I was doing a lot of life questioning and dealing with events. And once I got out of my dark cloud, I decided to return to this fic while returning with my own writing projects. So I’m here to finish this fic, though I’m not sure how long it will take (I hope within a year?)--I’m just promising not to go MIA again, is all.

Anyway, some notes on this chapter:

- Listen, I did NOT plan on returning when the 3rd season of Free! came. This is pure coincidence, honestly. That being said, SO MANY THINGS HAVE CHANGED. Side characters have personalities now... Isuzu exists (I’ll have to, at some point, change Yukiko’s name)... People are in college now... Anyway, I want to remind folks that I started this fic in 2014/2015 and I’m trying to stay true to that, so anything that doesn’t match up with the current season is kind of like oh well for me.

- This chapter features tweets. Yeah. I used some website that make them look like they were written in 2009, lol, but we’re just gonna go with it. Also, want to give a shoutout to my best friends, who spent like five hours coming up with the twitter handles.

- Speaking of which, trigger warning possibly: cyber bullying (?) and rumors. Now, I generally try to keep this fic lighthearted, so I am also touching the mentioned subjects in a lighthearted manner for the most part, but I also know that if what happens in this chapter ever happened to me in high school, I would have been mortified. So I tried to respect that and take it a little seriously, which also pertains to the rest of the plot--but this is still Dumb Ducks. No PSAs, just some self-awareness.

- I am a little worried the quality is not up to par with this chapter because it’s been a while and I just wanted to get this chapter over with because I’d rather write other scenes, so I’m super sorry if it’s only sort of funny/cute or too serious. It’ll be better next chapter! (Which hopefully comes out by December?)

Anyway.

Start from the beginning or go to the handy-dandy tag page and pick up where you left off.

Enjoy.

------

It was still Tuesday.

But worse yet, it was time for him to face the swim team.

And to be honest, if you asked Nitori, that was kind of bullshit.

There he stood, observing the pool of sharks in the distance just waiting for him to make a move. A whole lot of damage had been done in the past eight hours since Rin shouted a profound WHAT THE FUCK at Nitori and Momo’s dorm doorway, which immediately stirred up a banana telephone game of epic proportions throughout Samezuka Academy. Pair that with the fact that both of the dimwits were publicly announced to head to the principal’s office together and that something amiss had happened in the cafeteria last night—and boy, oh boy, were the rumors trending the social sphere like something straight out of Nitori’s nightmares. They had gone viral, top of the chart gossip among their peers, who were all too ready to roast the couple into infamy.

It all started with a tweet.

Some rando on the basketball team had overheard Rin catching Nitori and Momotarou getting caught in an explicit position at their dorm, and what with the rumors of Samezuka’s swim team having more tea than a J-drama now stirring, this caught the attention of several bored teenage boys before classes had even started.

The sports news network was simple. Basketball passed the rumors around to get some details. One teammate asked who found out about this and were replied to with the captain caught them. Another asked, which one’s the captain?? And another replied, the guy who cries all the time.

Once the rumors spread over to other sports teams at the academy, the Samezuka Swim Team Thot Conspiracy began. It was the volleyball team who mentioned that both Nitori and Mikoshiba were sent to the principal’s office that same day, as sourced by a classmate in Nitori’s homeroom. A peculiar detail because how did the school find out about what the couple was doing in their bedroom? Did someone rat them out?

Then someone on the tennis team who was also in the culinary club mentioned, I heard they got caught doing shit in the cafeteria.

Cue the controversy.

This made folks on the baseball team wonder just how many times the two had done it and bets were being taken about when the relationship started. Someone on the bicycle team hashtagged the gossip thread as #bombezuka, which set off a flurry of well-intentioned, damage control tweets from students who didn’t want the reputations of Aiichirou Nitori and Momotarou Mikoshiba to get tarnished.

Things like who cares if they’re banging and let them live in PEACE to they’re not gay and who are we even talking about flooded social media circles as the rumor spread outside of Samezuka’s sports clubs and into the general student body. Did things get out of control? Naturally. Details were being made up, people weren’t entirely sure who was involved in the cafeteria fucking, and lavish erotic assumptions about who had the biggest dick energy on the Samezuka swim team were battling it out for all of this side of Japan’s internet to see.

One person assumed the captain (Rin) was angry because he was in a secret love affair with “the silver twink” or something. Another person insisted, Mikoshiba-san has been bragging about being with Nitori-san since last weekend. Another student saw them nuzzling faces on the metro train, claimed they were on a date. Oh, definitely, said another, saw them on the beach making out.

Eventually someone had the nerve to try to confirm some things with the swim team by messaging Toru Iwashimizu, who only responded:

But because Iwashimizu had responded, the #bombezuka thread had popped up on the rest of the swimming team’s Twitter feeds, who righteously had mixed reactions of freaking out to defend their teammates’ honor and freaking out because their suspicions had finally been confirmed.

To no one’s surprise, Nagisa Hazuki caught wind of the frenzy, despite being from another school entirely.

And with Rin Matsuoka’s name mixed in with the rumors, it did not take long before six degrees reached his younger sister Gou, who could not believe what had unfurled throughout the day without any comment by her brother. In a desperate attempt to get him to notice the Twitter storm, she tweeted:

The only silver lining of the tweetastrophe was that at least no one was being inherently meanspirited about the potential lust blossoming between Nitori and Momotarou, which was partially due to the swimming team’s notoriety. On paper, sure, the swim team was the pride and joy of the Samezuka Academy, but that’s not why they were famous among their peers. They were famous because the rest of the school viewed the swim team as a group of guys obsessed with swimming. They did nothing but swim. The whole point of the indoor swimming pool was for the team to practice even during the winter—when they didn’t even have to swim—or whenever it rained.

Barely anyone knew anything about the students in the swim team, so many folks figured they had the stock personalities of a school of fish. All going for the same goal to be a professional athlete and not much else. They were untouchable; their schedules surrounding practices, training camps, and swim meets, with not much room for dating in between. The only other thing people knew about them was their annual tradition of hosting a maid café at their school’s cultural festival, which no one could reasonably explain.

That was it. Listen, people figured if there was ever going to be a scandal coming from the swim team, it was probably going to be about some guy shooting up steroids in the locker room or wearing unapproved swimsuits for better aerodynamics in competitions or maybe even something crazy like the students were all brainwashed and manufactured into disciples of Poseidon himself to carry on the legend of Samezuka forever. They weren’t known for actual drama, not even while people heard about Rin Matsuoka swimming for some other school’s team halfway through a competition for some reason last year (that was weird, but okay) or even this year when some folks whispered about Sousuke Yamazaki having a hurt shoulder and, like, that was sad, but he still swam in the championship, so other students figured it wasn’t so bad. Hell, if you even heard about those two so-called incidents, you had to be real close to the swim team—and the fact of the matter was, what happened in Samezuka’s swim team generally stayed with the swim team.

So, when rumors spread about last year’s swim team captain’s little brother possibly dating this year’s captain’s ex-roommate, who some said might be next year’s captain, too, things got a little bit juicy.

To the student body of the Samezuka Academy, this was like finding out the royals were having incestuous affairs behind the castle doors, which got people thinking: maybe the reason no one had ever heard of the Samezuka swim team dating anyone outside of school was because maybe the swim team was dating… each other.

Yet, while folks were reveling in the swim team’s supposed love triangle plot twists, it was all at the expense of Aiichirou Nitori’s dignity. People were quick to forget that. It was one thing to be teased by his teammates about possibly dating Momotarou, but to witness his reputation get warped into being the promiscuous sexpot darling of the swim team was a level of humiliation Nitori had never known. He read tweet after tweet, seeing his name become the butt of a thousand jokes by students who he had never heard of, let alone spoken to.

It was a wild exchange. There were positive messages at first that called him cute, saying no surprise he’s dating someone, remembering him as the second-year breaststroke swimmer, saying how quiet in school he was, saying how small he was, saying well, if he’s still on the swim team, he must be good, right? They said he must be flexible, then mentioned Momo and Rin and Sousuke and Seijuro and damn near any teammate people saw him with at some point during the school year. They got more invasive, calling him relay boy, and assumed he was experienced, assumed he was bottom, assumed he was easy.

He cried about this, locked his dorm room and wept at his desk as he used his laptop to delete his Twitter and turn all his other social media accounts private before the gossip switched platforms. And once it was done and he could finally use his phone again without notifications stalling the system, Nitori stared at his last text message, one from Sousuke that read, emergency meeting at the pool now.

There stood Aiichirou Nitori at the entrance of the indoor swimming pool, with eyes puffed red and swollen, just like his ego.

“I hate this,” he muttered, his voice hoarse.

No one wore their swimsuits, which was good because like hell was Nitori going to do some goddamn laps after all the bullshit he went through today. As he sauntered down the gym in his hoodie and sweatpants, he looked down at the tile floor and listed the day’s events in his head. He woke up at 5:30 in the morning, broke into the cafeteria to smuggle in paper cranes, got caught, kissed Momo, had a nice breakfast, kissed Momo again but in his underwear so Rin could catch them—and thus the downward spiral set off. Today was the first day he started his first relationship. He should have been happy. It should have been a good day, really. But all Nitori felt was tired.

He was so, so tired.

“Honestly, fuck ‘em,” said Toru Iwashimizu, who sat at the edge of the pool with his feet dipped in the water. “Summer break is coming up anyway. They’re going to forget all about this.”

Most of the swim team sat down on the floor as a huddled group, with a few teammates just off to the side by the pool edge or by the wall. Nitori couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with anyone, knowing what had been rumored, but he saw someone approaching him and stepped back.

“Nitori-senpai?” whispered Momotarou, still in his school uniform. Not because he couldn’t get into their dorm room to change clothes, but because he chose not to.

“Where were you?” asked Nitori. He looked up at Momo then, pointing an incredulous glance at his manic kouhai, and didn’t care if anyone noticed their confrontation.

There was no question that Nitori-senpai looked like a wreck. His eyes were bloodshot, his nose and lips cracked at the irritated dry patches he must have wiped too many times, and his skin dulled from exhaustion. Once he found out about all the rumors, Momo’s first reaction was to go straight to his dorm room and talk with Nitori, but when he heard his senpai’s sobbing and how obviously hurt he was, his next impulse was to stop the madness. For the past twenty minutes, Momotarou went to several sports teams and people whose names he recognized in the tweeting threads and made a small statement to each of them in person. He needed to come up with a better solution, he knew that, but it was all he could think of for now.

He told them, you have hurt someone I care about.

“I was trying to fix this,” he told Nitori, even though he also knew the concept of fixing their shattered reputations might have been impossible by now.

“How could you possibly fix this?”

“Oy, Ai,” interjected Rin, who like the rest of the swim team had been taking note of Nitori’s dejected state. “That’s what we’re all trying to do now. Come up with a way to fix this mess.”

Fix messes, huh, Nitori thought. It seemed like he was always caught in some mess that needed to be fixed, at least for the past four days. Eventually the escalation must stop and crash, that’s what he was learning. He just never thought it would crash on him.

Nitori looked up to evaluate the rest of the team, taking note of their worried yet puzzled expressions as they looked back at him. He saw Minami and Uozumi sitting up against the wall, their lips pursed as if holding back their own commentary until they felt safe to do so. Off to the side, where most of the team sat, lied Nakagawa on his back and yet he averted his attention up at Nitori, then began to sit up when he noticed Nitori staring down at him. Iwashimizu took his feet out of the water and turned toward Nitori, sitting cross-legged and cross-armed. They looked guilty, or maybe Nitori just wanted them to feel that way. He wanted to blame them for their casual teasing as some sort of fuel for the rumor fire, even if he couldn’t prove it as the catalyst to the day’s events.

There was a moment when he wanted to blame Rin for shouting so loud that morning, for getting involved, for being so known at school. It didn’t last long, though, because even with everything that had happened, Nitori couldn’t muster up the nerve to blame his senpai for caring about him and his reckless behavior. As he looked Rin directly in the eyes, Nitori noticed the accountability Rin felt for his part of the scandal, how much of a captain he looked during this crisis—if you could call it that, Nitori wondered, feeling dumb. God, he felt so dumb, standing dead center at an emergency swim team meeting—a meeting—over rumors about him fucking—fucking—Momo.

Over fucking Momo.

When it came to Momo, his anger was complicated. It wasn’t the rage of someone who felt betrayed or even the kind of frustration someone felt because of how stupid their friend was. His fury was much more personal, a fury that made him obsess over every bad mistake he made in the past few days because of Momo’s whims and how any sane person would have said no, would have said the line was being crossed, would have realized they were setting themselves up for a messy catastrophe, but not him. Truth was, as Nitori realized it after sobbing at his desk, that he was, in a way, having fun. And the reason he was mad was because it had been spoiled.

He looked back at Momo and weakly raised his hand with his fingers twitching in frustration, pulling the air as he pulled his thoughts together.

“Nitori-senpai,” said Momo, who stepped closer ready to accept any punishment he was about to be given. “I’ll do whatever it takes to fix this.”

Yeah, he got anxious. Yeah, what they were doing was stupid.

But it was fun.

Nitori got mad because he hated how everyone wanted to rewrite his memories. They weren’t there watching the sunset at the beach with Momo while eating ice cream after a day of dancing and shooting water guns. They weren’t there going into downtown to shop for origami paper and eating lunch while binge-watching anime in their dorm room, just hanging out together and enjoying each other’s company for like twelve hours straight. They weren’t there eating breakfast in a little kitchen shop, planning dates and dodging bashful glances on the morning of their first kiss. They had no idea how much of a big deal it was, how it felt, that first time. All they had was this idea of who they were—just a couple of zany kids, off to the side, doing nothing important, just messing around. Who were they to try to tell Nitori the story of (maybe) the first time he fell in love?

Momo and his big mouth, his stupid ideas, his dumb heart.

Nitori dropped his hand. He took one step forward and plopped his head onto Momo’s chest, letting out a deep sigh. First day of a relationship and he was mad. God, he felt so dumb.

“Is it worth all this?” he said to Momo. “How long are we going to hide this secret?”

This secret, of course, referred to the surprise party they were planning, which had clearly become the bane of their existence. What started out as a prank turned sentimental gesture had wildly spun out of a control as the basis of their public outing for all to jest—and there was still another half of the week to go through before it was even supposed to happen.

Yet, given the rumor situation, when the swim team heard “secret,” a slight misunderstanding prompted folks to speak up.

“Oh, well, you don’t have to hide anymore, Nitori-san,” said Minami from the back, a little preemptively. “We’re totally cool with it.”

“Uh,” Momo stuttered, looking down at Nitori, who merely closed his eyes and sighed further. “That’s not—”

“That’s right, Ai,” said Rin. “We’ll make sure this doesn’t get out of control.”

Sousuke also chimed in with a supportive, “You’re not alone.”

And while it was sweet how quickly the Samezuka Swim Team turned into the Momo-Ai Defense Squad, hearing the phrase you’re not alone had channeled the exact reason Nitori was furious in the first place. He wasn’t alone, was quite prophetically forced to not be alone—when that’s what he wanted. He gripped Momo’s shirt, tugged down at the neckline as his silent call for freedom, and whispered into Momo’s ear, “Fix this.”

As more teammates spoke up to lend their support, it dawned on Momotarou that despite the fact that there was no real plan on how to come out as a couple since they were originally just rolling with the team’s own suspicions, this was probably not it. This was not how anything was supposed to go. He wrapped his arms around Nitori, feeling his senpai give in the embrace and start to choke up. Things had gone too far over nothing and no amount of white lies could change the fact that Momo, frankly, messed up.

“Stop,” he announced, then groaned as he gave in to surrender. “We were just trying to plan a party.”

Huh?

Even Sousuke, who was helping plan the party, wondered why the flustered ginger had snapped out and revealed the party plans. Collectively, no one on the team could tie the connection between Momo and Ai’s relationship outing and a… party? Unless, maybe it was a coming out party? Were they gonna be that elaborate about announcing their relationship? Wouldn’t that be a little much? Was that even a thing?

“What are you talking about?” asked Rin.

But the truth had to come out, and so with Nitori still in his arms, Momo exasperatedly confessed, “It started with the bread, but then you saw the bread, so then we couldn’t use it anymore, but I didn’t want to give up on—well, see, I was trying to plan a surprise because, come on, look at this pool, it’s so big! Like, how am I supposed to be at this school and not put stuff in it, so then why not origami cranes? No one can get mad at origami cranes—because they’re beautiful—and it’s barely a prank if there’s 5000 origami cranes—I mean, that’s practically art—like, honestly, I think it’d even be a good idea for the summer festival, just putting it out there because I’ve been working really hard on making them, you can ask Yamazaki-senpai, who—actually—is the reason we started planning a party. Yeah, ugh, because it was just a really good idea and we couldn’t explain why we are on the beach on top of each other—but nothing happened! We weren’t even thinking about that yet! We were just having a good time and then Yamazaki-senpai was like oh, what are you doing, give me my radio back, you’re planning a party, right? And we were like, yeah, that’s a great idea because it was, so then we had to go through with it, which is why we were always together, but then everyone kept thinking we were together together because we took a shower together and like, yeah, okay, so I checked Nitori-senpai out, but who wouldn’t? Look me in the eyes and tell me you wouldn’t—no, you can’t, because Nitori-senpai is an amazing person who deserves to be checked out and, you know what? I’d do it again, honestly.”

Momo took a moment to breathe.

“Ugh, not that it matters,” Momo continued, his confession getting louder, “because then everybody was getting suspicious because of how much we hung out and Yamazaki-senpai couldn’t take the cranes to the cafeteria, so we had to, and the freaking cafeteria manager came in too early, so we had to run and run and it was sunrise and Nitori-senpai looked beautiful and, like, that was the moment—I couldn’t just not kiss him, especially after last night’s failure, so I did and it was great and today was supposed to be a great day because today—TODAY—was the first time I’ve ever kissed someone and today was supposed to be special because I asked Nitori-senpai out on a date and he said sure and I was,” Momo panted before he calmed down and finished, “I was really happy about that.”

Nitori looked up at Momo, then softly uttered, “Momo-kun…”

“I’m angry, too,” said Momo, meeting Nitori’s gaze. “I ruined our first day.”

The team stood there, stunned.

It was a lot to digest, particularly since Momo gave no context to anything he said, just spouted out a stream of consciousness that only select people could put together in a coherent timeline. But while some team members were trying to figure out the missing details, Rin—who felt he understood most of the Momo speak—hesitantly spoke up and said, “So, you two were planning a party here in the gym?”

Momo and Nitori nodded.

“And you knew about this?” Rin asked, turning around to Sousuke.

“Yup,” he said.

“But you two,” Rin turned back to the frazzled couple, “weren’t dating until… today?”

“Right,” confirmed Momo.

“But I saw… you both… this morning,” said Rin, trying to make sense of the lewd scene he walked in on earlier in the day. Who hooks up on the first morning they’re together?

“We were trying to distract you,” explained Nitori, who stood straight while still in Momo’s embrace and motioned his hands toward their intimate hug. “And it worked really well because we ended up distracting the whole school.”

“I can’t believe this.” Rin threw his head back, trying to be respectful toward his kouhais’ newfound relationship, but also absolutely using every fiber of his being to contain his frustration over the day’s events. “You guys literally test me every goddamn day.”

Sousuke chuckled, covering his mouth with his hand.

“What are you laughing at?” snapped Rin. “This is a disaster!”

“Yeah.”

Still waiting for an answer or a punchline, Rin bucked his shoulders for Sousuke to continue.

To which he shrugged and said, “Oh, nothing. I just think they’re funny.”

“Oh my god,” groaned Rin.

A sense of freedom washed over the two kouhais, who both took in a relieved breath about not having to keep up the lies anymore. They looked at each other then and sort of smirked at each other. Nothing was fixed by confessing about the party and, now that they confirmed they were interested in each other, the dating jokes were probably only just beginning, but it was their truth and they just wanted to live in it. For a moment, neither of them wanted to feel anxious about what was going on around them, even as the team shouted more questions about why were they throwing a party in the first place or why were they showering together if they didn’t like each other then or why would they go to these extremes, dear god, and why weren’t they answering?!

Toru Iwashimizu, who knew very well that today was the first day of their relationship, called out to the team, “Let them have a day, guys. We’ll rag on them later.”

All Momo and Ai wanted was a simple moment together.

-

They lied on Nitori’s bed together on top of the sheets, facing each other with a quiet acceptance. So much chaos in one day, but for a moment, it didn’t matter. They could just enjoy being near each other. Give them a chance to get used to each other. Be with each other.

“I’m sorry I ruined today,” said Momotarou.

Nitori reached his hand out to Momo, twiddling their fingers.

“You didn’t really,” he said, accepting that fact. “You didn’t start those rumors.”

They scooted closer to each other, enough to press their chests together and nuzzle their necks like swans. Let them feel each other’s heartbeats, that’s all they wanted. Just enough to hear that they were still excited about each other even with clothes on, that their breathing was still deep for each other because they were comfortable in each other’s arms, that when it got quiet it was intimate, not awkward. Maybe they couldn’t have a first day, but they could have a first night.

“Can we kiss again?” asked Momo, who gently tucked some fallen bangs away from Nitori’s face in case he said yes and who noticed the faint blush creeping up his senpai’s ears.

“Sure.”

Their noses bumped, as they realized they weren’t sure how to tilt their heads for a kiss in bed. A soft giggle slipped out as Nitori pointed his finger to the right, and they both adjusted their heads for a second try. A sweet kiss for an evening, involving parted lips and heated cheeks.

Just a moment to relive that morning, that’s all they wanted.

Another kiss.