The swimsuit in Blythe’s closet stared back at her.

  She wanted to go swimming today.

  She’d been excited when she saw the swimsuits in her walk-in closet while creating her packing list, deciding that she wanted to swim on her first weekend after moving in. She was getting used to waking at six to do her early morning exercises before breakfast, so she did the same again today.

  Somehow, this particular activity had turned out to the bane of Jessica’s and Sophie’s existence. She’d sent them a VocAvis earlier, asking if they were interested in visiting the indoor pool she knew from the game was part of the same building where the training hall was.

  Both of them had been swift to reply, the horror in their groggy voices telling her what they truly thought of the idea despite their politely worded rejection. It had honestly caught her off-guard, because she’d thought Jessica and Sophie would be up for whatever activity she suggested.

  Even though she had loved swimming as Mira, the only chances she’d gotten to swim was when her parents took her to the beach in the summers or when one of her relatives with a pool in their backyard hosted a family gathering.

  Now that she basically had unrestricted access to the school’s pool, this was her chance to swim to her heart’s content. Although she could’ve used it as a day student too, it was more convenient now that she could return to her dorm within minutes—she could offset it from the two 90-minute carriage rides she’d had to take daily.

  Besides, she hadn’t had the time before. She’d been too busy trying to get through each day with all the things on her plate. Of course, it wasn’t like she had all the time in the world now, what with the Hunting Race and Valentine’s Day coming up and just generally trying to cope with her coursework, but at least the pool was right there. She could take a quick dip whenever she wanted.

  After her nap yesterday, she’d worked on her homework and the handkerchief embroidery until it was time for dinner. After dinner, she’d fought off the food coma in favor of going over the past years’ material. She’d collapsed into bed at the end of the night, completely drained.

  Blythe liked to think that she deserved a small reward for all her hard work yesterday.

  So she packed her swimsuit and shower toiletries into a bag and went to the pool by herself. She didn’t get much time to herself these days, so doing this alone was a welcome change.

  As she climbed up the stairs to the highest floor of the white building, a few students overtook her with gym bags slung over their shoulders.The respective doors to the girls’ locker room and boys’ locker room were both on the right side of the pool. Student identification via the door access control was required before the door would unlock.

  After Blythe got changed and stuffed her bag into one of the vacant lockers, she exited and took a good look at the pool area awaiting her. There were two separate pools: a shallower one for learners or recreational use and a deeper one with lane lines for competitive training. A couple of the lanes in the deeper one were already occupied by swimmers who seemed to be taking it seriously, swimming continuously without stopping.

  Blythe did a double take when one of those swimmers heaved himself out of the pool and strode to a nearby deck chair where a gym bag sat. Even with his hair soaking wet, she recognized Jude. She’d almost forgotten he regularly swam in the mornings.

  In fact, the indoor pool was where Daisy first encountered him in the game. It happened to be a morning where it was only him and her in the competition pool. A leg cramp developed out of nowhere, causing her to sink in the deepest part of the pool. Although a lifeguard was present, Jude was much closer and he deemed it quicker to save her himself. He brought Daisy safely back out of the pool, earning himself her gratitude and chocolates for the upcoming Valentine’s Day event. Blythe always thought it was such a great meet-cute.

  Suddenly conscious of how she’d been watching him guzzling water from his water bottle for a few seconds now, Blythe whipped her head around.

  Conversely, the few people in the recreational pool chilled at the sides while chatting with each other, or swam lazily and often stopped in the middle of the pool.

  Deck chairs surrounded the pools, some of them with a towel or some belongings on it, but most of them were currently unoccupied. Blythe stared when she realized there was some kind of animal—it was stationery, but seemed to be breathing—on one of them. She walked past the other deck chairs, and a lifeguard chair, towards it.

  A raccoon, sitting on its rump and holding onto a small blue towel in its paws, stared at her as she neared it.

  There was something funny about the pool facility having a poster on the wall behind it to remind swimmers that bonded beasts were not allowed in the pool itself, although well-behaved ones were permitted to wait around outside for their tamers.

  She’d only seen one raccoon around so far, and it belonged to Titus. To confirm her guess, Blythe checked its profile information.

  “Hey, Gavin,” she said with a smile and wave.

  She’d read that bonded beasts were capable of understanding people even if they didn’t have the beast taming ability unique to their particular species. She’d eaten lunch at the same table with Titus for three days now. Gavin would probably recognize her, right?

  Gavin seemed to hold on tighter to the blue towel between his paws as he made a vague sound in response.

  She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, really. Even if he could understand her, she couldn’t understand him. She couldn’t even tell whether the noise he’d made was one of recognition or not.

  Since Gavin was here, Titus had to be in the vicinity as well. There was no way Titus would bring Gavin here just to ditch him and go somewhere else. She turned to check out the recreational pool Gavin was sitting in front of.

  It took her a while to spot him because his goggles obscured his face. He was floating on his back, casually moving his limbs every once in a while to propel himself forward. With his pink hair submerged in the water, it was less obvious to spot than usual.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Blythe was kind of jealous. She never learned how to swim like that.

  “Well, I’ll see you around,” she told Gavin, stepping backwards. He was probably waiting for his tamer to return. “Happy … uh … waiting.”

  Gavin looked back at the pool, twitching slightly as he hunched forward. Had Titus left him here with strict instructions not to get into the pool? She’d seen a video of a raccoon swimming in a body of water before. These animals seemed to like swimming well enough.

  Blythe did some body stretches before going into the recreational pool, figuring there was less pressure to make full use of her time in it than in the competition pool. She was here to relax after all. She’d save the real workout stress for her jog and weight training later. The water temperature was comfortable—not too warm, but not cold either.

  Determined to enjoy her time of tranquility, she kept to the side of the pool far away from where Titus was. She always loved how light her limbs felt in the water. She swam about freely, first using the breaststroke and then switching to freestyle after she tired of it.

  The water felt, looked, and even tasted—she’d accidentally swallowed a bit of it at some point—clean. Blythe wanted to stay here forever. Who cared that her fingers were starting to prune? She could shrivel up into a raisin for all that she cared. All she could hear was the sloshing of water around her and the faint voices of people several feet away from her, minding their own businesses.

  The atmosphere was so peaceful that it was beautiful.

  Eventually, she took a break from her aimless wandering around in the water, leaning against the side of the pool and watching ripples form on the surface as her hands moved around in it. When she got bored, she raised her head and fixed her eyes on Gavin. He remained seated on the deck chair, but he’d scooted to the edge of the seat. The blue towel in his grasp hung over it, one end of it nearly brushing against the floor.

  Gavin was staring in Titus’ direction. His owner seemed oblivious to the attention from afar, still idly relaxing on his back in the water. One girl swam closer and approached Titus, a hopeful smile on her face. She chatted with him for a few seconds before backing off with a disappointed look.

  Movement from the poolside caught Blythe’s eye. Daisy, in the one-piece standard swimsuit approved by the school for pool use, had just left the girls’ locker room and seemed to be heading towards the competition pool. She was fitting the swimming cap over her head as she walked. Blythe had originally planned to stay quiet, not wanting to interfere with her plans by calling out to her, but then Daisy happened to glance at her.

  Her face lit up. When Daisy scurried around the pool to get to the side where Blythe was resting at, Blythe offered her a smile.

  “Morning, Daisy,” she said as Daisy got within earshot. “Here to swim?”

  “Good morning, Blythe.” Daisy’s eagerness was evident even in her voice. “Yes, I was planning to use the competition pool. I don’t think I’ve seen you here much.”

  Jessica’s reply to Blythe’s invite had implied as much; the original Blythe didn’t like any kind of physical activity, swimming included.

  She gave a half-shrug. “I like swimming now. I didn’t mean to distract you from your workout.”

  “Oh, no, not at all!” Daisy swept a glance around their surroundings. “Um, are you alone here?”

  “Yeah.” Blythe paused. “Why?”

  The next sentence came out of Daisy’s mouth in a most hesitant way. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

  Her eyes nearly bugged out. “I thought you were going to use the competition pool.”

  “Well, it’s been a while since I’ve swum in this pool, and I’m just in the mood for it now.”

  Liar. You just want to swim with a friend.

  Not that Blythe could blame her. She knew what it was like.

  Before Riley transferred to their school in sixth grade, she’d had to do everything alone.

  “If that’s what you want, sure,” she said, nodding.

  She got a green notification light.

  Daisy beamed. She stepped back to place her water bottle down on one of the deck chairs nearby. As she did so, Jude came walking in her direction towards the locker room. Upon seeing him, she straightened up and smiled, giving him a quick wave. Jude waved back, exchanged a few words with her, and went on his way.

  When Daisy entered the water, Blythe took the opportunity to teasingly ask, “Is that your friend?”

  Daisy looked confused for a moment before saying, “Do you mean Jude?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s more my savior than a friend,” she replied after some thought. “I had a leg cramp while swimming in the pool last week, and he helped me out of the water. I’m really grateful to him.”

  She’d meant to use that question to lead into some girl talk with Daisy, but the latter’s response reminded her Daisy’s relationship status with all the boys were still effectively at the ‘strangers’ level at the end of the second week of school.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” she said, despite knowing Daisy’s safety that day was guaranteed by the game.

  “I learned my lesson not to overdo it,” Daisy said, cringing. “I was pushing myself too hard, I think. Leaving that aside, how has your day been? Or, well, I suppose it’s too early to ask that … How was your day yesterday?”

  Blythe grinned at her fumbling. “I moved into my dorm room yesterday morning, so it was a busy day. I’m getting used to my new room, but I managed to get some work done last night.”

  Daisy’s mouth fell open. “You were a day student! I was just thinking that I don’t recall seeing you around in Novalbus on weekends!”

  “Yeah, this is my first weekend in school. It’s really convenient to be able to walk over to the classroom block from the bedroom. I should’ve done this sooner.”

  “The convenience is unbeatable, but it’s also impossible for me to travel to and from home every day.”

  “Oh, yes, your father’s fiefdom is rather far from here, isn’t it?” Blythe asked, knowing full well that it would take Daisy four days by horse-drawn carriage to travel here.

  “We live in the countryside, so it takes four full days to travel to Novalbus,” Daisy agreed. “It’s the reason I stay in school on the weekends.”

  “That must be difficult, only returning home on school breaks.”

  Daisy smiled. “It’s alright. I’m used to it.”

  “Let’s swim to the other side,” Blythe suggested, feeling restless from standing around in the water for so long. “I’ll race you.”

  Daisy giggled. “Okay.”

  Truthfully, Blythe didn’t think she’d win, but a little friendly competition never killed anyone. Daisy was supposed to be a good swimmer, and Blythe didn’t get to practice often.

  They swam across the breadth of the pool to the other side, where Blythe could see that Gavin the raccoon was still sitting on its deck chair a few feet away. Daisy made it to their goal first, hanging around and waiting for Blythe to get there.

  “Guess you won,” Blythe said, grinning as she emerged from the water. “So how was your day yesterday?”

  Daisy shared that she’d done her homework and then studied for a large part of the day. When she came out of her room for dinner, there was some big drama happening in the hallway of her dorm floor. Because the boys stayed on the odd floors of the building while the girls stayed on the even floors, they rarely crossed paths unless one of them deliberately went to the other’s floor.

  One of the boys was furious at his sister, apparently because she’d somehow managed to sneak a couple of ginormous bugs into his room and he’d accidentally sat on one of them. While he brandished the seat cover with the squished remains of the bug in her face, she snapped at him about how now he understood what it was like to feel betrayed.

  Blythe was absolutely fascinated by this juicy bit of gossip.

  Daisy, facing her, was in the middle of describing the bug when Blythe caught a deft movement out of the corner of her eye.

  Gavin was scampering down from the deck chair, the blue towel in his little paws falling to the floor. There was a gleam in his eye as he dashed towards the pool on all fours. He had obviously failed at resisting the allure of the water.

  But he’s not allowed in here!

  If she hurried now, she’d be able to grab him in time. There was no time to warn anyone else.

  “Be right back,” she blurted out, barely registering Daisy’s startled expression as she splashed through the water in Gavin’s direction.

  She’d just gotten to the section of the pool where Gavin was gunning for when the raccoon dove into the water right in front of her. Because of his small body, the noise and radius of the splash was minimal.

  Daisy made a surprised noise from the side. The lifeguard had left his chair and was rushing over, calling out something in a stern tone. The buzzing in Blythe’s ears were too loud for her to decipher his words.

  As Blythe reached for Gavin, she heard Titus’ voice, dripping with exasperation, ring out.

  “Gavin!”