Chapter 23 Swimming Pool And Tension - Part 3

Standing by the side of the pool, was the group of girls, all in various different swimsuits. I could tell that the other boys were quite bewildered at the sight, especially at the sight of Fujiharu. Her swimsuit quite overtly emphasised the shape of her body, it was clear that she was pretty—the other boys would definitely agree.

They all jumped into the pool with us and swam to either side of the volleyball net.

"Now we can do a 4v4!" Exclaimed one of the girls.

The group had perfectly split itself into two teams of four.

"Alright, the current teams will do."

Okamoto passed the ball to me.

I guess I was serving first.

We took a few moments to get into some sort of formation before I overhanded the ball to the opposite side of the pool. With this many people, the game was quite a bit easier. The main struggle in water volleyball from what I could tell was just covering the court. Swimming is much slower than diving and running so it was quite difficult to receive a ball that didn't land near you.

Our group managed to play with a significant amount of order. There was plenty of passing between teams and some decent teamwork—it was quite different to the volleyball we played in PE class which involved a lot of smacking back and forth across the net.

As we were playing, I noticed something.

I remembered that there was a fifth girl, however, there were only four here.

I guess she might have gone home or something.

After around half an hour, we decided they decided that they'd had enough of volleyball and began discussing what to do next. I didn't really have anything specific I wanted to do so I just waited for them to make a decision. All of a sudden, Fujiharu swam over to me and grabbed my arm.

"Hey Mizuhara, what do you think of my swimsuit~"

"It's cute."

"Eh?!"

She appeared to be extremely surprised by what I said. Instantly, her face went red and she ducked under the water. I was met by the sight of bubbles on the surface of the water.

Ah, I didn't even mean it in a romantic way.

I waited until eventually, she popped her head back above the water.

"I didn't mean it in a weird way."

"Ah... it's just that, you're not the person to say that..."

Well, this was a little awkward.

However, a few moments later, she managed to regain her composure.

"So, Mizuhara, are you having fun?"

"Yeah, it's been pretty fun so far."

"Hehe, I guess inviting you along was a good idea after all."

"You made a situation where I didn't have an opportunity to refuse on purpose, didn't you?"

"Fufufu, I wouldn't do something like that~"

Everyone began getting out of the pool so Fujiharu and I followed suit. Water dripped all over the ground as all of us began walking around.

"Where are we going?" Asked Fujiharu.

"We're going to line up for the new water slide," replied Takeuchi.

We all walked over as a big group until some of the others wanted to get some food before lining up, there was a small cafe near the waterslides so some of the others went to buy some snacks first. I decided to have a quick walk around as I waited for them. There was a pretty long line so I assumed that it would take a while.

In the distance, I saw a girl sitting by herself in a corner. She was huddled up in a ball, holding her knees in her arms.

Was she injured or something?

I decided to just leave it for the time being.

As I waited for the others to finish buying their snacks, I noticed that there were some boys approaching the girl. They seemed to be talking for a little while before one of them grabbed her wrist. There was a little bit of resistance as the boys continuously tried to talk her into something.

What was this situation?

I guess I'd go check on her.

As I made my way over, the boys pulled her with a little more force and she was pulled to her feet. They began dragging her away as she reluctantly followed.

It probably wasn't an issue, they might've been her friends or something.

She might have been having a bad day and they were just trying to get involved, I couldn't really deduce the situation from over here.

I'll just check just in case.

I continued to tail them as they dragged the girl to a relatively secluded location. There weren't many people nearby since this area was pretty far away from the pools.

This was starting to seem a little suspicious.

"What's going on here."

"Huh?" The boys turned and looked at me.

"What do you want?" They asked.

I didn't really know what to say.

Suddenly, as I managed to get a closer view of the girl, I realised it; her long hair which partially covered one of her eyes—she was in our group, the fifth girl who was seemingly missing.

Well, that makes it significantly easier.

"She's one of my friends, I've just come to see what was going on."

"Huh? You're friends with her? What a lie."

Ah, what now?

"Did you come to play the hero? It's fine, she's happy with us, isn't that right?" One of the boys glared down at her.

She very reluctantly nodded her head.

"See? It's all good, we're just going to hang out with her for a little," he said.

I decided to walk a bit closer, pushing past the boys.

"Tell me, are you really fine with this," I asked her directly.

I looked down at the obviously distressed girl.

"Oi, what do you think you're doing!" I was grabbed in the shoulder by one of the boys.

I lifted his hand off of my shoulder.

"I'm just asking her a question."

I looked down at the girl.

She looked up at me and answered very weakly.

"...no."

"Alright well, that's her answer."

I was again grabbed by one of the boys.

"Who do you think you are?" He shouted.

Suddenly, a lifeguard began walking over as he witness the commotion.

The boys also noticed that the lifeguard was approaching.

"Damn! Guys we're going."

The group gave up and left, walking off to another area.

The lifeguard approached me.

"Is everything okay here?"

"Yes."

Now, what was actually going on with this girl?