The smile widened into a broad sort of grin while looked at her. She thought he was looking somewhere above her eyes, actually. To her head. Aremu reached his hand out, which confirmed that she had, of course, managed to get something in her hair. Some kind of sea detritus, she was sure, and it had found her. "A bit of—? Oh, uhm, yes please."
She held herself still while Aremu untangled whatever it was from the damp strands of her hair. She also tried very hard not to think too much about it, whatever her mind tried to insist about the action. Like reminding her that he did this just as carefully as he did everything else, with a gentle kind of attentiveness. The whatever it was—some seaweed, dropped to the surface of the water to float away—was worked out of her hair. And then seemingly without paying it too much mind, he tucked her hair behind that ear.
An ear that felt rather suddenly warm as his hand dropped away. The whole rest of her face felt warm, in fact, and she knew that she had to be blushing rather furiously. Just once in her life, Aurelie would like for her every ridiculous thought to not show immediately on her face for all to see. This one in particular would have been an excellent time for it. As if the color in her cheeks wasn't bad enough, she could feel her mouth twisting into an odd, flustered kind of smile.
What had that been? Nothing, probably. She really shouldn't read into it. Maybe, he just. Just. No, she had nothing, she had no idea why he'd done that. She did try for a moment rather valiantly to come up with a reasonable answer to the question, but there didn't seem to be any to find. "S-so it is, yes. Uhm. Please do, That would be, ah, helpful."
Watching him swim was, genuinely, quite helpful. Not only did Aurelie not know how, but she had little reason to ever have seen anybody else do it either. She thought the way the motions of the arms and the kicking and everything fit together was somewhat intuitive, but it was instructional to have the demonstration. It was also a relief, because while he was swimming Aurelie was free to try and corral her thoughts into some kind of order. After a short while she found she was watching less for the instructional benefit and more because she liked watching him move.
Some degree of control had returned to her by the time he walked back over to her, at least. She thought that her smile had returned to a normal one; she was smiling, still, because despite the inauspicious beginning and her own silly train of thought she was having a good time. The sun was warm overhead, the sky blue, the water clear—what was there to complain about, really?
"Okay. Ah. Hmm. Right then. Here we go." Aurelie looked out to the waves, drawing her eyebrows together into a small, uncertain frown. They weren't large waves, really. And, she reminded herself, Aremu was right here. She waded forward, not letting herself look back or think about making a further fool of herself in front of witnesses. This was almost as pressing on her mind as the potential for drowning.
For a while, it actually went unexpectedly well. Aurelie found herself oddly uncoordinated, but she thought—after a little bit, it wasn't so hard. Ungainly, and she didn't think she was doing it well, but she was managing. Nothing practice wouldn't cure, at least she hoped not. She didn't go out too far, but tried for a few laps back and forth. Swimming was something she liked, she decided. Aurelie hadn't been sure, having never done it before. Now she thought, yes; she was glad Aremu had offered, and glad she had tried.
The trouble, of course, came in the end. Aurelie turned to look back at the shore—she had drifted a little further than she'd meant to. As she began to head back, a wave swelled up that she hadn't been expecting. Her feet, out of instinct, tried to find the sand; when there was only water, she panicked. Only a little, but enough that she turned the wrong way and inhaled instead of holding her breath. Aurelie coughed, and she spluttered, and under she went.