Giving What I Once Got - Part 1

The lifeguard walked back over to the pool.

Now it was just me and the girl.

"You came with us, didn't you?" I asked.

She didn't respond.

She was again huddled on the ground, covering her face.

"How come you're sitting by yourself?"

She still didn't respond.

The old me would have just left her here.

However, something about this situation felt familiar. There was a slight burning in my heart that stopped me from leaving. This situation, this situation was oddly similar to the time I met her.

Ah, I guess no matter what, people do have an impact on me. Especially the girl I met all those years ago—she left a never-fading mark on my heart it seemed. If it wasn't for the girl I met all those years ago, I would still be completely without empathy.

I decided to take a seat next to this girl.

If she wasn't going to talk to me, I guess I'd just wait until she did.

I assumed the group were still waiting for their food so I had a decent amount of time.

I sat in silence for a few minutes beside her.

"...what do you want...?" She finally muttered to me.

"I want to know why you were sitting by yourself before?"

"...why do you care?"

"I'm just curious."

"...go away..."

It seemed she didn't find my reason too genuine.

"I'll leave if you tell me the reason."

"...why."

I waited for her to tell me her reason but she didn't budge.

"Come hang out with us at least, don't you want to have fun with your friends?"

All of a sudden, that seemed to have triggered something.

"...they're not my friends... well, I'm not theirs..."

"How come? You came with all of us didn't you?"

"...you don't understand."

I was getting closer to the real reason.

"If you don't want to hang out with them, do you want to hang out with me?"

"...huh?"

"We can do whatever you want."

"...but won't the others be looking for you?"

I took out my phone and sent a message to Fujiharu-san.

I've got a bit of a stomach ache, you guys can ride the slide without me.

Aw, you can meet back up with us if you feel better, she replied.

I then turned the phone around and showed the girl.

"Not for the time being at least."

She was surprised by what I did.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Chitose... Kinoshita."

"Alright Kinoshita-san, follow me."

She slowly got up and followed me as I made my way to the pool. The others were lining up in the long queue for the waterslide so I wasn't at risk of being seen. The two of us made our way into one of the smaller pools which was designed to look like a cat.

"Are you good at swimming?" I asked.

"N-not really..."

"Ah, so why did you come to the pool?"

The two of us sat in the pool whilst leaning against the edge.

"I just wanted to hang out with them."

"Then how come you're hanging by yourself?"

"They... don't like me very much."

Hm.

"They invited you didn't they?"

"Well... I was just there and I wasn't really invited..."

"Oh, but still you could hang out with them since you're already here."

"I mean they were basically ignoring me the entire time."

"Surely Fujiharu-san wasn't ignoring you?"

"She wasn't... but we didn't really talk much anyways... she's out of my league."

The water bubbled at my feet as I felt warm air being pushed up. There were various small heating holes around the ground which were pumping warm air into the pool.

"Do you still want to hang out with them?" I asked.

"N-not really..."

I didn't really know what to do at this point. It seemed she wasn't really enjoying her visit to the pool but I also had no way to incorporate her into the group. She didn't seem to want to be with them anyways.

After a moment, she looked up at me.

"You're Mizuhara-kun... right?"

"Yeah."

"How come you're talking to me instead of hanging out with them? I'm sure that I'm ruining your experience here, aren't I."

"It's a long story."

"What...?"

In fact, it was a story which goes back over 6 years.

"How about this, you should follow me and we'll meet back up with the group."

"Huh? But they won't accept me..."

"It doesn't matter, just stay by me if no one talks to you."

I was running out of things to do alone with her and I wanted to head back with the group as well. There was only so much support that I could provide one-on-one.

As I got back out of the pool, she begrudgingly followed behind me as I made my way back toward the group. I assumed that they were lined up for the water slide and sure enough, I managed to see them pretty close to the back of the line.

As we got closer, Fujiharu-san saw me and waved.

"Mizuhara-kun! Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

I felt a bit guilty joining the group while there were still people behind but it would've been more awkward to just move to the back of the line. The people behind didn't seem to care too much since they were also in a relatively large group.

"Ah, Chitose-san, where were you?" Asked Fujiharu-san.

"Um... I was..." She was struggling to come up with an excuse.

Eventually, Fujiharu-san stopped pushing and just let her be.

I noticed that the other girls seemed to be less than pleased to see Kinoshita back in the group but the boys didn't seem to care all that much. She was sticking quite close to me, subtly hiding behind me so that the other girls didn't look at her.

"Is your stomach ache better now?" Fujiharu-san asked.

"Yeah, it was just a mild pain."

"That's good, I would've been sad if you had to miss out on the waterslide."

Very slowly, we began moving along the line. It seemed that this waterslide was quite popular; there was a wait to get an inflatable raft and then there was a very steep climb up to the top of the slide.

"We'll need to decide the groups now," said Okamoto-kun.

"What raft sizes are there?" Asked one of the girls.

"Um... from what I can see there are single, double and four-person rafts."

The group allocations began.