The Swim Team Cometh [Open]

Water has always been a mysterious sort of thing to people throughout the ages. Whether it be the unique nature of bodies of liquid compared to how solids and gasses work or the unknowns of the ocean and its depths, it tends to pull people towards it... or push them away.

For one particular living anime figure, the water has always pulled her towards water. So long as the water looks clean, Chitose loves spending time in the water. However, she doesn't really like doing most things alone - the only thing she can always do all by herself is working with the art she has such a passion for. As such, Chitose has never really been able to enjoy a good swim or anything ever since arriving in Manta Carlos.

Today at the pool, Chitose wanted to try using any part of the pool that wasn't being used by the swim team at the time. She had come in a snow white jacket with and a pair of pale lime green knee-low shorts and a pair of sandals. The jacket was plain, but the shorts had the drawing of a fluffy white kitten curled up in a ball on the side printed on the left upper thigh. She was also wearing a straw hat to help with the sun glare.

Due to the way Chitose walked, it was obvious she was very shy at the moment. Firstly, she was walking awkwardly, as if deliberately trying not to show off her legs, and then the second bit was that she just stood by the edge of the pool, holding her jacket while staring at the water. Chitose had a black one-piece swimming suit under her jacket and shorts, but she hasn't ever shown so much of her body to people ever since becoming, well, Chitose. Chitose even knew it was a bit ludicrous to be so shy when she's only six inches tall, but she couldn't help herself. She was always big on controlling how she looked, and this new body was way out of her control.

Chitose found a way to postpone throwing her shorts and jacket off by realizing that she may not even be allowed to use the pool now. Taking a peek around the area, she managed to see the obvious teacher in the area. The anime figure couldn't help but be a little flustered with how well he dressed himself when she got a better look,
I never thought very hard on my, um... sexual orientation. I cannot be into guys, surely...

Chitose never actually cared about preferences in the past, but now that she was a figure of a video game character she was trying to differentiate herself from the character that she represented. Yasui Chitose was notably straight, so Chitose herself was doing everything in her power to try and convince herself that a guy wasn't hot to her. It wasn't working very well, but he was a teacher anyway! How much older was he, really? Chitose quickly got her composure and spoke in a very clear voice up to the teacher, adjusting her hat so that it did not fall off while she looked up to Jacob,

"Hello! Are you the coach here, sir?" She said, speaking in a gentle, proper manner. For being mildly infatuated by his finely trimmed looks and being so shy when approaching the pool, Chitose did a great job at hiding her actual emotions by sounding clear, confident and energized.

Whereas Mr. Cunningham had problems being the hot teacher, Chitose had problems being six inches tall. People having trouble noticing her was one of her least pressing concerns regarding that problem, though. In fact, when the popular teacher ended up looking several feet above where Chitose actually was, she nearly let out a light laugh instead of get angry. She couldn't expect people to notice her all the time, and that was nothing some nudging in the form of speech couldn't fix.

Chitose was, furthermore, unphased by the surprise that the coach was giving her. Instead, she was smiling warmly and had a very collected appearance about her; she might be a bit shy about her body at the moment, but once she was talking with someone she always felt a lot better... so long as the talking didn't involve stress itself. Meeting new people was hardly stressful to Chitose, and it was helping that she was trying her darndest to convince herself that she wasn't into guys which helped get rid of some of her anxiety,
I bet he's wearing whitey tidies or something... hehe, yeah...

It was a very juvenile thing to even consider embarrassing, but Chitose had to think of something to keep her mind from losing her composure to stare at Jacob with a dreamy look. If someone ended up calling her out on that, she'd die right on the spot. These thoughts of hers didn't translate into her speech at all though, "Oh! I apologize, I try to introduce myself first but I was a bit distracted. My name is Chitose, freshman in the university program here. I came here to look at the pool and maybe swim a bit and, well, hopefully meet new people," Chitose explained, putting a bit of emphasis on the latter part of her sentence. She seemed to explain why only a moment afterwards, "I am very new here and the weather is especially nice today, so it seems this was a good idea at first. Is the whole pool off-limits for anyone other than the swim team at this minute?"

Chitose turned to look towards the pool for a second, before then saying, "I would look into joining a swimming club myself, I really enjoy the water. But, I doubt anyone would want someone like me in a competition. Hahah," Chitose laughed gently - for someone trying to talk to someone several times their size towering over them, the confidence she showed may have been surprising! Things weren't always as they seemed, though, as the laugh she made was more to keep herself calm than anything else. She felt genuinely miffed that she likely couldn't compete or really contribute in any kind of athletic club; she was never particularly good in the past, but now that she was essentially a toy she was many times worse at all things physical.

Chitose was not certain that she was in the right place for everything she wanted to do. If the pool was offl-imits then swimming would be out of the question for who knows how long, but she agreed that he could probably get everything else she was looking for in the area. This caused the resin girl to nod up towards the coach. For being someone that was so lost with what he should do, he was expressing himself relatively calmly as far as Chitose could tell; so she hardly noticed his unease with the situation at large. It also helped that he towered far above her, too, so it wasn't as easy to get a close-up inspection of facial expressions.

The anime figure was loathe to admit it, but she was getting a little used to being so small. She was feeling more and more comfortable with solving day-to-day problems regarding height; normally she would be a bit scared just standing on the floor in a busy area, under the fear that someone may step on her. The alternative was to use her powers to get something to help her move around more safely, such as methods of flight or vehicles in general. These took up a good deal of mental energy, though, so instead Chitose has been learning how to anticipate the possibilities of someone walking and possibly kicking or stepping on her. That was how she was able to keep a conversation going without freaking out whenever someone drew near - though it definitively helped that being smaller made her senses more acute to the comparatively loud and ponderous movements of normal humans.

It figured that the pool was reserved at the moment, so she simply waved a hand over to Jacob with a smile, "Oh it is fine, I could tell as much - but its always best to check on the off chance that I'm lucky." Chitose chimed. Then, as the swim coach knelt towards the ground rather than continue standing, the resin girl couldn't help but nod with some appreciation towards the older man. He was still notably big, but it did feel a lot better to talk to someone who tried to get down to her level a little.

Hearing the man's warning did little to deter her from wanting to swim in a social sort of environment, at least not as far as health went. Without the necessity to breathe anything the water has gotten a lot less dangerous, but... there were still very legitimate reasons why she couldn't join. So, Chitose nodded to Jacob, "Thank you for the offer, buuut I would not make the cut. Even though I do not, well... breathe, being this small doesn't do good for sports or anything athletic. Maybe I could just spectate or something, huh?"

Listening closely to what other people had to say was always an important talent to have, as small little changes of phrase mean a lot. Even Chitose herself had called the swimming team a 'club' just as an absent minded phrase uttered on accident. So, when the coach had mentioned the difference between the team and a club the young girl rubbed her neck with a slight show of embarrassment - she hadn't even known there was an actual club of it to begin with! Still, this reaction was short-lived as she smiled to Jacob in response to his clarification, "Oh! Well, if that's the case, then you make a good point."

Chitose would have preferred to try to compete with others, but she knew that wasn't really much of a possibility with her current state of affairs. So, she'd just settle for the next best thing if at all possible. Once the lane that was not currently being used was pointed out by the swim coach, the resin girl started walking towards the edge of it while he simultaneously climbed in. Chitose had to dodge a few nearby people walking through the area as she walked, but such evasive maneuvers were starting to become second nature to her so she got to the pool without much trouble. When Chitose saw Jacob flourish in the pool, however, she couldn't help but stare with a bit of an airy look in her face,

Wow... he looks even better when... ack, focus! Stop that Chitose! the young woman thought to herself, shaking her head as she got a hold of herself after just a second or so. Then, Chitose nodded to Jacob, "Okay, I'm up for giving this a go! Just, um... give me a moment, please," the small teenager said with a tad bit of hesitation.

While anyone with a very logical sort of mind might know that being six inches with a body that looks as if it is made from plastic was likely unappealing to everyone since ever, that didn't mean much to Chitose. Being a girl, even a figurine of one, would take some getting used to. Regardless, it only took her a few brief seconds to get up the courage to drop off her jacket and her shorts, revealing her black one-piece swim suit. Then, she dived into the pool lane and into the water. No part of her body besides her clothes absorbed the water, but she loved the feeling of generally clean water on her skin and in her 'hair'. Somewhat strangely there was a barely discernible haze of white and black color washing from her body into the water, but it was so minute that it fully dissolved only scant millimeters away from her body.

Without the complex makeup of muscle, fat bone and the like of a human, the only thing that would determine her buoyancy was the density of her body compared to the density of the water. The density of plastics can vary widely even for things made of the same composite, but for Chitose it was actually very close to that of water. This meant that water didn't push her to the surface readily and her body didn't necessarily sink either. This afforded her a ton of control that a human wouldn't normally have, plus her body was truly hairless and smooth enough that it produced minimal friction with the water. So, when Chitose started swimming over towards Jacob, she moved surprisingly fast even though she was using an untrained and very inefficient method of swimming that was her just copying what she saw other swimmers do from afar. Of course, she was only surprisingly fast for a six inch figurine; she would never get up to the speed of a proper swimmer as her tiny arms and legs could only displace so much water at once. Even so, with proper training she might be able to out-swim untrained people many times her size, or maybe even more if she learned some kind of amazing trick to swimming.

Now treading water near Jacob, Chitose smiled up to him, "What should I do to prove myself? I have never been in a swim club or team or anything water related!" She said with a notably increased amount of energy than before. She was practically beaming! The waves from the other swimmers pushed her about noticeably while she was on the surface of the water, but she just continually compensated to deal with the waves while she spoek to the coach.

Without much hope of being considered good at anything athletic ever again, Chitose was fully expecting the coach to say that she 'did well' but with some amount of falseness behind its tone. Once the figurine swam up to Jacob, however, she was very pleasantly surprised to her him be so positive about what he saw! If Chitose were a pessimist, she could have probably just chalked up his enthused praise as the coach's expectations being low to begin with due to her size, but so were her own expectations. Just the mere fact that she was able to impress someone made her very happy, and it was readily shown on her face.

She was so happy, in fact, that she lost herself a bit in the praise. She impressed the really hot teacher, and definitively not the type of hot due to the slightly cool weather either! This caused her to actually flush with a light red tinge at her cheeks; her face did not feel any warmer, but at the very least her body was capable of mimicking the tone based on her emotion. Chitose beamed up to the teacher, "O-oh, thank you very much sir! I'm really glad, swimming is my favorite thing to do throughout the year," Chitose said; for being a tad bit infatuated by the teacher's looks and under an emotional high, she actually kept herself very well under control save for the blush and an initial brief stutter.

Chitose was not afraid of losing track of herself in the water; she had already tested whether she needs to stay in the air or not awhile ago, and the answer was a firm 'never.' She did get to learn how it felt to sleep underwater as a result of that experiment, and it was actually a bit nice. Not something she would want to do every day, mind you, but she'd never have to worry about drowning again. Even with this in mind, though, Chitose didn't mind using Jacob's hand as a support to stand on; it made not getting girl-handled by the waves on the surface of the water considerably easier.

With the blush gone, Chitose nodded to Jacob as he mentioned some polishing of her form, "That would not be a bad idea... the only swimming lessons I have ever received were just by watching other swimmers do it. Is there some sort of secret trick to swimming? Especially underwater, I very much so want to learn how to swim underwater," Chitose explained.