Chapter 1: The Stolen Bathing Suit
The concrete was still warm from the day’s sun, even through the thin soles of my sandals. Mayu’s hand was a vise around my wrist, her giggles swallowed by the hum of the city twelve stories below.
“This is a terrible idea,” I whispered, my voice sounding thin in the vast, dark roofscape.
“It’s a fantastic idea,” she hissed back, her grin visible in the glow of the single, flickering bulb mounted above the pool’s maintenance door. “It’s the last week of senior year. Live a little. Besides, I hot-wired the lock last semester.”
“Of course you did.”
The door gave way with a soft metallic shriek that made us both freeze. No alarms sounded. Just the ripple of water from the pool ahead.
The rooftop was a forgotten place, all mechanical units and echoing emptiness, except for the rectangle of shimmering black water. The air was thick, smelling of chlorine and distant rain. The pool light was broken, leaving the water ink-black, reflecting only the sickly yellow of that one buzzing bulb. It was less a swimming pool and more a secret, liquid hole in the world.
Mayu nudged me forward. “Go on. I’ll stand guard. Sort of.”
I took a few steps toward the edge, peering into the dark water. That’s when I saw him. A shape cutting through the black, a steady, powerful rhythm of arms and a rolling kick. I’d know that stroke anywhere. Yuki.
He reached the far wall, executed a flawless flip turn, and pushed off, heading straight for me.
I took a stumbling step back. “Mayu,” I whispered, panicked.
“Oh, would you look at that,” she said, her voice dripping with theatrical surprise. “My brother’s here. What a crazy coincidence. I totally didn’t know he came up here to swim at night. Gotta go!” And with that, she slipped back through the door, leaving it slightly ajar. The traitor.
I was rooted to the spot, caught between fleeing and pretending I belonged there. He was already at the near wall. With one smooth, effortless motion, he planted his hands on the wet concrete and hauled himself out of the water.
The sound of the water sluicing off him was obscenely loud in the quiet. He stood up, running a hand through his dark, soaked hair, pushing it back from his forehead. Droplets traced paths down his neck, over the defined plains of his chest, following the ridges of his stomach. The flickering light caught the water on his skin, making him look like he was carved from something living and damp.
He’d filled out since high school. The lanky frame of his sister’s older brother was gone, replaced by the solid, powerful build of a team captain. He was tall, shoulders broad from years of spikes and blocks. He grabbed a white towel from a nearby chair and rubbed it over his face and hair, his dark eyes finding me in the shadowy light.
“Hey,” he said, his voice a low rumble after the silence.
“Hey. I, um. Mayu dared me.” It came out like an apology.
A small, almost imperceptible smile touched his lips. “Figures. I heard you two clomping up the service stairs like a pair of excited goats.”
“We were not clomping.”
“You were.” He walked toward me, the towel slung around his neck. He moved with the grounded grace of an athlete, even barefoot on rough concrete. He stopped a few feet away. The scent of chlorine and something uniquely him—clean sweat, maybe soap—cut through the humid air. “You swimming?”
“I didn’t bring a suit.”
“Could have fooled me.”
It was then I remembered I was wearing the oversized vintage t-shirt and cotton shorts I’d thrown on after my late studio session. My swimsuit was underneath, a simple black one-piece I’d put on in a fit of optimistic rebellion back in my dorm. How did he know?
He must have seen the confusion on my face. He gestured vaguely with his chin, his eyes not leaving mine. “The strap. Peeking out.”
My hand flew to my left shoulder, under the frayed neckline of my shirt. My fingers brushed the narrow strap of my suit. I’d been in such a rush with Mayu banging on my door that I hadn’t tucked it in properly. A hot, familiar blush crept up my neck.
“Oh.”
He took another step closer. The space between us collapsed from impersonal to intensely personal. I could see the tiny, familiar spot just beneath his right eye, the one he’d had since childhood. I could see the individual droplets clinging to his dark eyelashes.
“It’s twisted,” he said quietly.
“What is?”
“The strap. It’s gonna dig in. Here.”
Before I could process a protest, his fingers were there. He didn’t fumble. His touch was deliberate, but gentle. The backs of his knuckles grazed the bare skin of my shoulder as he hooked a finger under the twisted strap. His skin was cool from the water, but the contact sent a jolt of pure, undiluted heat straight through me. He smoothed the strap flat against my skin, his thumb brushing the place where my shoulder met my neck.
Time didn’t stop. It did something else—it thickened, slowed, like the air before a storm. The city hum faded. All I could hear was my own heartbeat in my ears and the soft, wet sound of his breathing. His gaze was locked on his task, his brows slightly drawn in concentration, as if fixing this strap was the most important thing he’d done all day.
His fingers lingered for a half-second too long after the strap was flat. A pause full of static. Then he slowly withdrew his hand, letting it fall back to his side.
“There,” he said. His voice was rough.
I couldn’t speak. My skin where he’d touched me was branded. I just stared up at him, my mind a blank, white noise. He was looking down at me, his dark eyes no longer just soft, but searching, intense. The usual clumsy, careful distance he kept was gone. In its place was a quiet, terrifying directness.
The flickering bulb buzzed overhead. A car alarm warbled somewhere in the grid of streets below.
He opened his mouth to say something else, then closed it. He cleared his throat, looked away for a second toward the dark water, then back at me. The confidence he wore on the court, the commanding presence, was gone. In its place was the Yuki I sometimes glimpsed when he thought no one was looking—a little uncertain, entirely too sincere.
“Do you…” he began, then tried again. “The water’s actually perfect. Not too cold. If you wanted to.”
The door creaked again. Mayu’s head popped back in, her mischievous grin wider than ever. “Everything okay in here? You two look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
The spell shattered. Yuki took a full step back, putting respectful distance between us once more. The moment slipped underwater, but the ripples of it were everywhere, distorting everything.
“Fine,” Yuki said, his voice returning to its normal, guarded tone, but his eyes stayed on me.
“Great!” Mayu bounded over, linking her arm through mine. “I got bored. And paranoid. Let’s all swim. Brother, turn around. We’re getting in.”
Yuki gave a slow, quiet nod, a silent agreement to the old rules of our shared history. He turned his back, facing the city skyline. But as I shimmied out of my clothes, my fingers fumbling with the shorts drawstring, my skin still humming where he’d touched it, I knew the rules had changed.
The water, when I slipped in, was indeed perfect. But all I could feel was the ghost of his cool, damp fingers on my burning shoulder, and the weight of a question he hadn’t quite asked, hanging in the thick, chlorinated air between us.