"You sure you'll be alright?" Rin assured as he had his luggage in hand as Kiyoko chuckled softly.

"I'll be fine Rinny, you're only gone for a week and I'll be with my parents and have Pieter, make sure you get me a souvenir when you can," she played with cheeks as he chuckled adjusting his black cap.

It wasn't a surprise that Rin was worried about Kiyoko while he and the Australian Swim Club were in the Gold Coast in the upper state for a swim meet, Kiyoko had a knack for getting distracted easily without Rin's supervision.

"Okay, I love you. I'll text you when I get there," he pecked her forehead.

"Watch Mikhail as well, keep him away from the beach, he might run up to random surfers who are half-naked," she sighed.

"Don't worry," he reassured as Mikhail called for him as the large bus pulled up with some of his teammates already seated, "Okay, I love you stay away from the chocolates, I'm serious,"

"Yeah, yeah," she waved off.

"Bye!" as he walked off, putting his luggage in the storage area then walking up the stairs.

"See ya," she mumbled.

---

Walking to the diving block plastered with the bold number seven she placed her cobalt teal goggles around her eyes simply matched her aquamarine ones bejewelled on the pearly white surface.

Stretching out her limbs into her diving position she breathed out nervously. She had done this a million different times, varying to many races that lead her to gold and silver trophies and medals to which she was adorned with.

Pieter Hauer, the ex legendary olympian dressed in matching sweatpants and jacket had blown the whistle but something utterly peculiar unfolded. Kiyoko was still positioned at the starting block. Blowing the silver whistle once more Kiyoko was still there.

Kiyoko waited, she looked to the side to see Pieter blowing the whistle again yet only she barely heard the whistle.

"Koko Go!" he yelled as her eyes widened as she dived into the water.

The Dutch coach furrowed his eyebrows, never in Kiyoko's life both competitively and in practice never had a false start.

She must be half asleep, or maybe there's water in her ear Pieter thought as he sighed watching Kiyoko turn and return to the wall as she pushed up her goggles. Walking to her and crouching down Kiyoko looked into her coach's eyes.

"You okay Koko?" he asked as Kiyoko panted.

Why is his voice so faint?

"Pardon?"

"Koko, I said are you alright?" he repeated louder.

"yeah," she replied, "I'm fine,"

Pieter inspecting the swimmer only came to an assumption.

"Okay, will end things today, you seem tired, come on," he smiled offering a hand helping her up.

"Really? We've got an hour left," she pointed at the clock.

"You should rest, not to mention mid exams are coming up for you," he explained as they walked.

"Come on, go get changed, I'm coming over anyway for dinner," he ruffled her hair as she smiled.

---

"I'm home~," Kiyoko yawned as she entered the house with her partner's golden retriever barking with joy.

"Hey Kita," she cooed as she picked him up as her mother came down the stairs.

"Hi, Koko! How was swimming?" her mother hugged her taking her bag as Kiyoko didn't respond, "Koko?"

"Yeah?" she said

"I said how was #wimming?" she repeated as Kiyoko only furrowed her eyebrows.

"You mean sss-swimming?" she corrected not hearing her mother saying the 's' in swimming.

"I said it correctly, didn't I?" Kate chuckled perplexed as she looked to Pieter who only shrugged.

"#he's a little tired, we ended training early. #he missed a dive," he said as Kiyoko was trying to processing what he was saying.

now Pieter is saying it too, is everyone not saying s right? she thought I'm going nuts

"Oh dear, well you can go lie down in your room or on the couch, your father will come a little later," she smiled as Kiyoko nodded.

"Make #ure to lie down on the side so the water comes out!"

"Sure," she replied tiredly as she slumped her way to the white couch lying on her stomach as she sluggishly reached for the remote as she flicked through the channels finally finding one to her amusement as she turned up the volume.

Watching her daughter from the kitchen counter she saw the volume soar to a high volume.

"#weety! Can you turn it down a notch? It's a bit loud!" Kate called out but Kiyoko didn't do so.

"Koko," Kate repeated a little more firmly as she was shocked that her daughter didn't respond as she then walked over to the couch and tapped Kiyoko.

"Yeah?" Kiyoko asked a little shocked

"I've been calling you, can you please turn down the tv please,"

"But I can't hear anything," Kiyoko blinked

"It's on seventy," Kate baffled as Kiyoko raised a brow turning down the volume as she returned to the kitchen looking at the dutchman.

"The water in her ears should have come out by now," Kate claimed as Pieter took a bite of the cold Swedish style pancakes.

"She's just tired from exams soon maybe," Pieter shrugged.

"Yeah, but...," before the blonde's mother could finish the door opened as Kiyoko's father walked down with his work bag in one hand, his wrinkled white dress shirt resulting in the recent with a client meeting.

"Koko!" Louis smiled as he kissed his wife and gave a wave at his friend who was leaning on the marble counter as he looked at Koko who didn't flinch, "Koko?" he repeated as he looked at Kate's violet eyes.

"She's been like that since she got home," Kate informed raising his eyebrows.

"Koko," Louis hugged her from behind which made her jump.

"Papa! Don't scare me!" she shrieked

"I've been calling you," he said as Kiyoko furrowed her eyebrows.

"I'm sorry can you say that again," she asked politely triggering Louis.

"I said I've been calling you," he repeated slower as his words still sounded muffled in her head.

"Oh, ok," she said confusingly her face also expressing the same thing as she returned to watching as Louis walked back to the counter watching his daughter still as he got a cup and filling it up with water.

"She missed a whistle today," Pieter notified as the male widened his eyebrows.

"I thought she's never missed a dive whistle,"

"That's what I thought too," Pieter nodded.

"I told her to turn down the volume on the television, she said she couldn't hear anything before and she told me I was saying 'swimming' wrong without the 's', was I?" she. turned to the grey-haired man who only shook his head.

"Mum, did you check the mail?" Kiyoko got up as Kate shook her head as Kiyoko walked down the hallway to the door to check the mail.

The blonde reaching for the white little box on its white stick saw the fluid orange sky sink down being pressured by the dark navy quilt in the sky. Suddenly sirens could be heard as Kiyoko looked to the side as an ambulance raced passed and down the street.

But something felt terribly wrong after the vehicle's sirens blast. A loud ringing could be heard in her ears as yelled covering her hands over her ears.

Louis, Pieter and Kate raced down seeing Kiyoko on her knees with tears rolling down her eyes.

Louis widened his eyes on realisation.

"Kate, Pieter we need to take Koko to the hospital. Now!" he demanded getting Kiyoko.

"It hurts," as she could only see her dad speaking inaudible, "what?"

Some neighbours who had heard the yell came out as they watched with Pieter telling them it was under control whilst they rushed to the hospital.

---

Rin Matsuoka's fourth day at the swim meet met many other talented swimmers in the competitions. Some he didn't come on the podium he quite dominated the 100m butterfly event coming in first and sometimes second place.

"That was a good swim Rin-kun," Mikhail walked with the Japanese swimmer down the hallway to his dorm as he was drying his hair with a black towel.

"Good swim mate, see you at dinner," a fellow swimmer from a prestigious Queensland swimming club said.

"Yeah, same to you, see you," Rin greeted as they walked passed each other as Rin got out his phone frowning at the empty texts, "She should be back by now," he mumbled.

"Relax Rin-kun, she's just tired maybe, you know not only she is juggling swimming and Olympic training she has to focus on exams too," The Russian coach reasoned as Rin sighed.

"You're probably right," Rin smiled as Mikhail waited for Rin outside his room as Rin put his towel down as Mikhail picked up his phone.

"Mikhail?" Rin said

"You go ahead, I have to take this call," insisted the blonde man as Rin nodded heading to the dining hall. Picking up his tray he sat down with the swimmer from earlier, an auburn-haired swimmer.

"Hey," he smiled

"Hey Callan," he smiled as he picked up his fork and life as he sliced the piece of chicken.

"Great swim today Rin, your freestyle is getting better, did you change your body roll position?" he asked

"Yeah, my coach wanted me to adjust it to fifty-eight to just below sixty," Rin responded.

"That's quite ambitions," he chuckled.

"Well whatever the coach says," Rin smiled.

"So did you grow up here?" Callan asked

"No, I haven't," Rin shook his head.

"Wow, really you sound like a local,"

"When I was younger I grew up in Japan, in Iwatobi," he nonchalantly said.

"Never heard of the place," he blinked

"Well, it's quite remote but it was by the ocean," Rin mentioned, "I moved to Australia when I was thirteen down in Sydney for an elite swimming program, they offered a lot of top junior swimmers around the world and I managed to get in. I went to school there as well and lived my homestay parents. Stayed for two years then left," he explained.

"Ah, cool, I'm kinda the same except I moved up here when I was younger," Callan said, "Lived here from then on,"

"Wow,"

"Yeah, I was quite ambitious at the time," he laughed reminiscing on his childhood, "I wanted to get better in freestyle so why not move to the place that invented the front crawl itself?"

"Sweet man, so wait where were you originally from then if you moved here?"

"Sweden," he answered

"That's quite far, your name is Scandanavian," Rin pointed out.

"Yeah, there were some good times back in Sweden... there was this friend of mine who just completely inspired me to swim; he was a little older than me, man I wanted to consider him my rival but I'm nowhere near that level," he recalled.

"Rin," the Japanese swimmer turned to see Mikhail with a stern face plastered, unbefitting considering his usual personality.

"Hey, Mikhail what's wrong?" Rin questioned confusingly.

"It's Koko,"

---

"From the information given she was born deaf correct?" the doctor tapped his checkboard as Louis nodded.

"Koko was born deaf?" Rin asked Louis still processing what was going on. The maroon-head male flew down quickly as possible after hearing about his girlfriend's sudden surgery.

"Yes, she was but at the time it wasn't as bad. We waited till she was three for the surgery, they always told us about the risk of her ears becoming deaf again to sudden hearing loss due to being still sensitive but they said it was less than a ten per cent that it would happen again," Louis explained.

"Well, we've tried everything we could, really with all the given information. Though she has had her history of deafness we've putten her under the category of sudden hearing loss, usually it will last for a couple of days but sadly the bacteria swelling has been reduced but still permanent in both ears. We've managed to decrease her hypersensitiveness to loud noises such as alarms, sirens and such. Hearing aids will be necessary for given the fact that she's lived a majority of her time until now with hearing," he stated.

"What about her swimming career?" Rin asked worryingly.

"Well, normal hearing aids aren't designed to be underwater due it damaging the piece itself, waterproof hearing aids have been in use for bathing but they aren't supported to be fully immersed in the water itself, and given the fact of the level of her skills the hearing aids will most likely come off during a race anyways or practice,"

"And besides its too late for Kiyoko participate in deaf swimming races, the contract has been settled for over six months that clearly states her partaking in competitive races against normal Olympic swimmers. She would have to drop out of the national team completely to renew what type of events she would partake," Pieter pushing his silver locks back frustrated, "Any other pieces besides her cap, swimsuit and goggles are strictly banded from her events,"

"Alright that's enough," Kate demanded, "Can we please stop worrying about her career as a swimmer for a second and worry about Kiyoko's normal life. Anything else, side effects, medication?"

"well no, she can continue the academic life she just has to put a hearing aid, personal-daily life such is fine, she can invest in learning sign language if wanted, it would be a good skill. Kiyoko will need to stay for the night just so she can rest, she won't be able to hear you of course and we can go over other things later," as he then gestured the way to female's room.

The small room with ivory white specked walls, teal curtains sheltering the female in the bed as she laid on her side asleep. Rin with mixed feelings of relief, worries and etc sat on the chair next to her as he intertwined his hands with hers.

Sniffing he caressed his hand on her cheek as he moved a strand of her hair from her face.

"I'm here Koko,"

comment and vote!

DOUBLE UPDATE YOU GUYS!

SO YEAH I'VE BEEN RESEARCHING AND I THING 1: WE NEED SOME DRAMA, 2: WE SHOULD REALLY GIVE SOME PRAISE TO THOSE SWIMMERS WHO HAVE A DISABILITY, I MEAN DEAF PEOPLE CAN DO ANYTHING THEY SET THEIR MINDS TOO -EXCEPT HEAR WITHOUT GEAR- AND THEY SHOULD GET SOME RECOGNITION.

Also, I'VE ONLY RESEARCHED OVER A COUPLE OF DAYS SO I CAN'T FULLY SAY THAT I'VE WRITTEN WHAT THE IMPACTS AND SUCH ARE LIKE FOR SUDDEN HEARING LOSS SO DONT' COME AT ME!