When some girls approached me to ask me if I had seen Naomi, I just shook my head. They went away with a smile. 

I tried to go back to the book I was reading with a fake cover that read "10 tips to better your swimming", but her smiles stung my mind. I sigued as I rested my back on my sit. I did remember them.

Sometime, last semester, I heard them yelling and laughing by the girls restroom. I saw them go out of the restroom without Naomi, and when she did, she was soaked. She saw me but just walked back to her classroom. Later that day I tried calling her. She didn´t pick up and I knew she was more of a written conversation. So when I hit send to a "are you ok?", I wasn´t expecting to wait twenty minutes for a short reply. 

"yes"

Soon enough the teacher for the first period came and I had to put my book down. We did the daily bow and started class. I always tried to pay my complete attention to the class, but that day something trivial bothered me. Tadashi was a very loud and amiable person. He would always come from his classroom to mine to say good morning and talk for the first few minutes before the bell rang. I loved our little chats. The first time he did it, though, it was a shocking surprise that he didn´t mention my dark skin. He asked me my name and instead of going "oh! you have a japanese name!" he went "nice to meet you, Shun!". 

That day however, he hadn´t come. 

"Is he ok?" I wondered as I went to search to his floor on break time. I didn´t find him, but when I was walking to ask Aiko, she was already trotting my way. "hey Aiko" I started before she took me to somewhere a bit quieter. "hey! what´s wrong?" I yelled at her as she pulled me from my wrist. When we were on the music classrom with the digital piano just besides the window, she closed the door behind me and sat me on a chair as she grabbed another. 

"Aiko?" I asked her concerned about the bandaids on her face and arms. 

"Shun, I... Tadashi told me you weren´t picking up" she said scratching her forehead. 

"eh? ah, is just that my phone drowned in the... toilet yesterday" I said noticing my cheeks going redder. She looked at me with a frown before bursting into laughter. "hey! don´t laugh! it was new!" I yelled at her.

"how did that happen? Oh my god" she said between laughs. 

"Shut up. But, Aiko, why was Tadashi calling me? and why do you have scratches all over you? did you fell on your bike yesterday?" Suddenly she inhaled deeply and looked at me with her eyebrows tied together. 

"He was on the hospital" she said almost in a whisper.

"What? what happened?" I felt a knot on my stomach as she strayed her eyes from me. 

"You don´t need to worry about him. He´s ok" her lips trembled wanting to say more "it´s about Naomi" she blasted out "she..."

"is she ok?" I was worried about her, but I was relieved Tadashi was alright. Her face however, told me something I possibly knew already. 

"She´s stable, but..." her eyes went glassy "Fuck!" she stood up cleaning the tears with the sleeve of her sweater. She put her hands on her hips and looked back at me before tangling them up on her chest "she swallowed so many pills, Shun. She... never told me she wanted to die!" she finally cried. It was a frustration cry. Irritated voice and visibly uncomfortable. I processed the words and the girls came to my mind. She had always been quite secretive about her feelings. But why didn´t she told us? Were they threatening her?

"Hey" I stood up and got closer to her "she´s gonna be alright ok? She´s really strong" I said. But I didn´t know if that was the correct thing to say. So I hugged her. She hugged back and screamed in my ear. 

When she was a bit calmer I sat her on a chair and I on the floor. 

"Shun, why? Why did she do that?" those questions pulled the knot in my stomach tighter. 

"I...I don´t know?" I lied to her. "The good thing is that she´s alive and we can go visit her right?"

"well, about that..." she told me about what had happened at the hospital with her mother and I listened silently. 

That was why I was so afraid. It certainly triggered some bad memories, but I tried to put it in the back of my head until she was finished. I tried to ignore some specific feeling too. That feeling of "This will happen to me if I try to say anything". 

"I didn´t expect you to go that far with her mother... what were you thinking?" I said to her as she looked away. "but... Kinda, thank you?" I told her looking at my crossed legs going numb. "she kinda deserved it...but that´s a little too..."

"aggresive?" I nodded as she sighed.

"I know. Is just, I couldn´t let her go like that. I´m stupid and I won´t be able to see her when she wakes up. I´m so stupid" she slapped her hand on her forehead. I looked down trying to find something to say. "Shun, you really don´t know?"

"I...well, I can imagine she felt something so heavy and difficult to explain that she felt like she couldn´t tell us" I said. 

"I always told her everything and wanted to make sure she was alright. I always asked her. But, she would always said she was alright" the room fell silent for a second "I want to see her and tell her she will be alright. I want her to wake up and tell her I love her" she curled into her arms "I want her to know I always think about her"

"...Aiko?" An idea popped out of my head when she said those words. Her head was slightly uncovered from her arms. Aiko´s eyes looking my way in expectation "ah, well, you won´t be able to meet her when she wakes up, but do you know about the zenbazaru?"

"there you go again with your group activities" is what a normal Aiko would say, but shockingly she looked at me straightening up. 

"what if we made her one? The three of us?" it was impossible to make so many in such a short time, but...

"Naomi loves those things" she finished my thoughts as I smiled. She smiled too "there you go with an actually cool group activity" she snarked. She was still Aiko anyways. 

"You will have to buy all the paper just because you laughed at my drowned phone" she opened her mouth in an theatrical way. "I´m kidding" we laughed. 

"You´re a nice person Shun" she went as she stood up "I´m glad we are friends" she told me with her eyes still red. I smiled on response. "Hope you win the tournment next week" she went close to the door as those words set heavy on my mind. "You´ve been practicing for it since you were nine right? to get to the olympics and all that" I nodded energyless. "what´s wrong?"

All of us have secrets that are difficult to share.

"it´s nothing. Thank you" I terminated her quickly "hey, Aiko, tell Tadashi that I can´t answer right now, but that I will go to the hospital later ok?" she slipped out a little ok before going away. 

I walked back to my classroom and saw the girls from before. Now, I am the captain of the swimming club. I´m a half japanese-half afro-american 17 year old that is 1.87 meters tall. I usually don´t use my body to scare people, I´ve scared them enough, but they had called it upon themselves when they picked on my friends. 

I walk so fast and heavily towards them that the four jumped back an step when I suddenly stopped in front of them. 

"Nakano senpai?" A girl asked me in a yelp. I bent down and whispered on her ear as people whistled.

"You will pay if you get near Takeda again, you hear me?" I murmured in a dry and grave voice. Then I walked on to my classroom as another friend came running to me. 

"what did you tell her, you scary prince charming?" he was a classmate in the swimming club too. So I just put on a fake smile "oh c´mon tell me!"

"I just invited her to fuck off" I said making the guy stopped in shock. I kept walking anyways. When I finally sat down in my classroom, I re-read the last page of my book. 

It wasn´t a guide to get better at swimming. 

It was a book about dinosaur fossils. 

After everybody else came in the room and the teacher passed assistence, I noticed it was probably the first time someone heard me saying insults. 

Maybe having Aiko´s swearing sailor tongue nearby wasn´t the best for my reputation...