The Beaches are Closed (Rita/Sharaku)

Okay. Naomi loved the water. Blame the fact that she had been living on an island for the whole of her life. She was just born into it. Of course, no one would guess that since she was an average swimmer. She knew more about the emergency situations than she did the advanced techniques. Still, she loved swimming. Unfortunately, it was winter. Not that she disliked it, but it made the beaches cold. She was not going swimming just so she could freeze her butt off. She needed it to sit, after all. Thankfully, she lived in San Malarus where there were such things as indoor pools.


She was in her two piece and ready to take a swim. She was not going to cannonball into the pool as she would like, however. Instead, she used the ladder to climb into the shallow end. The one nice thing about indoor pools over the water at the beach: they were heated. She loved when the water didn’t freeze her skin. As soon as she was submerged, she flipped onto her back and started floating. Half her body was above the water while the other half was under. She seemed to have enough room that she could just float, and no one would suspect her of her true intentions. Before she left today, someone was going be be attacked. In the fun way, that is. He laughed to herself thinking about it.

Naomi’s eyes flashed to the side when she thought she saw a familiar face. Well, it was more like her brain went into danger awareness mode when she thought she saw a certain someone without his usual fancy attire. She was speechless. She rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn’t crazy (which was a bad idea given they had just been in chlorine filled water), but she needed to be sure. Sure enough, it really was Sharaku. She completely forgot about her plan to attack someone when she saw him dangle his feet in the water and instead decided to wade up to him. Her face was half submerged as she went up to him, as if she hid he wouldn’t notice. When she figured she was close enough, she would wave, “I don’t know why, but I didn’t think you swam.” She would examine that statement for a moment before fixing it, “Not that you’re swimming at the moment, but semantics aren’t my thing.” She would quickly dart under the water and stay there as she tried to think of something to say that didn’t make her sound like a fool. That was hard considering that ‘fool’ was her default setting. She seemed pretty content to stay there until she suddenly came up. She took a deep breath before sighing, “Man, I wish I was part fish. It’s hard to stay under water that long.” The last time she had done it was an emergency situation. She would look to the side with an embarrassed blush, “Can we pretend I’m not an idiot for five minutes?” She still had her moments where she was bad at speaking to people, even those she knew. This was one of those situations. Thank goodness it was Sharaku, who didn’t seem to hold that stuff against you. She looked around the pool one more time. There seemed to be people that were warming-up for something. She didn’t get competitive swimming. She would rather enjoy being in the water than working against it. But their thing was their thing.

She would tilt her head, but nod anyway, “I guess salt water is just something you either like or you don’t. Although, it’s supposed to be good for your skin and hair. Still, can’t vouch for its taste when you accidentally swallow some.” She knew that firsthand from all her years of swimming as a kid. Still, it was true that the water was good for people, “And of course I’m a swimmer. Well, casual at least. I could never do this professionally; too much work.” She flipped onto her back again and began floating, “I am a dead man most of the time.” That got a laugh out of her. She enjoyed this, “Chlorine isn’t that good for you though, so remember to wash off after this.” Naomi’s face would turn into one of confusion when Sharaku changed languages, “What in the world did you just say?” She only spoke English and every other language may as well have been from another planet, “Things I’m still learning about Sharaku: he’s worldly.”[/color] She couldn’t even identify what language he had switched to. It sounded Asian. So, she could guess Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese…. or something else. Still, his words seemed to catch the attention of a girl across the way. So she spoke that language too? She was quiet until the girl turned to her directly to speak. She would wave slightly, “I’m Naomi Epona. Nice to meet you.” She would introduce herself.

She would nod in agreement with Sharaku, “Great exercise, but I just enjoy the feeling of being in water. Though, I suppose being able to swim competitively would help since we’re surrounded on all sides by water. You could swim to one of the bigger countries for a weekend.” It was clear by her tone that she was mostly joking, “Personally, I’ll take a boat or a plane. Those put less stress on my poor body.” Also, she didn’t trust what was waiting for her out in the deep blue sea. She was actually taken aback when Sharaku said English wasn’t his native language, “Really? You’re so good at it that I just assumed you grew up speaking it. You really are more world than I ever thought.” She realized she should explain herself, “All I meant was that you know about more than one little section of the world. I figured that most people only know about where they live. You know more though, so you’re worldly.” It was as simple as that.

She had to think about that name when the girl introduced herself, “Rita Arisato? Rita... Rita is a friend of Sharaku then?” She was speaking to herself, trying to put everything together. She would laugh a little when Rita said she didn’t imagine Sharaku being here, “Seems like that’s the common consensuses today.” Did that mean Sharaku let off a certain aura? She wouldn’t put it past the guy. She would watch as the girl jumped into the water. So there was one of the people that actually tried to do this as a real sport. She could tell based simply on the way she entered the water, “You’re actually a really good swimmer. That’s so cool.” She was only average, so she was impressed with anyone that could manage to look as if this was easy.

Naomi’s cheeks would turn red from the embarrassment she felt when Sharaku said learning languages was easy if you worked at it, “I tried once to learn a second language. I wasn’t very good at it.” In fact, she couldn’t remember anything about it other than how to say hello. That, and how to count to three. She would nod in agreement as Rita spoke, but would raise an observation, “To do that though, you’d need to laminate your passport. I don’t think I could even open it if I did that. Or maybe swimming back across the water to escape the cops would be easier… Which do you think has a lighter jail sentence?” She had to think about that. Mostly, it felt as if they were having some abstract conversation for how to break into a country. She could already tell that she and Rita were going to get themselves arrested.

“Wouldn’t getting in the water actually make him cleaner?” She pointed out the contradiction in Rita’s statement about Sharaku seeming like that kind of person, “Personally, I just thought you didn’t do anything sporty. I just took you for more of the intellectual type than the sporty type. But… I guess that means I was only thinking in binaries. Although, I really should have known better.” She knew Sharaku could hold his own in a fight, so she shouldn’t have assumed he didn’t have an sports in his life. She must have been really out of it to be thinking so simply. Her attention would turn back to Rita quickly, “Don’t sell yourself short. I’m sure that all your training and hard work still makes you better than someone that just swims for fun.” She didn’t believe that would be so easily lost.