These are also the scenes where for a moment they're letting themselves be exposed and vulnerable.
The thing about Denji is that deep down he's a kid who made friends with a Devil by being vulnerable and letting it take his blood, because he recognized that they shared the same pain and desperation to live a normal life. That moment with Pochita is what gave him the heart that he currently has, and it's why he had complex relationships with other traumatized people.
While there's an important hint about this in the date with Makima and how they both cry at the same movie (which is the real life film Ballad of a Soldier), but they don't share the same reactions as the general public. This is also why Reze doesn't just kill Denji when she first meets him, but instead… the two of them fall for that part of one another underneath. Reze loves DENJI'S heart because she can tell that that's the part of her that he's drawn to… but it's also why the situation is so tense.
She's been trapped in the life Denji's been given for long enough to recognize how messed up it is and how it doesn't really even give him the basics that are guaranteed for someone in Japan. It's why they have these moments of just mutually pretending to be normal kids together. They're making each other impossible promises because that's what they need even if they know that doing that would just end in even worse tragedy.
It's why, after the pool, she tries to get Denji to run away with her, and after the beach she tells Denji she was using him — because he needs to learn to recognize when someone is after Chainsaw's Heart vs. when someone is actually after Denji's Heart (probably the most important lesson Denji ever learns).
That vulnerable naïevté is what allows him to be unguarded but is also dangerous and she's trying to teach him that survival tactic just like she's trying to teach him how to swim. She wants to save him just as much as he wants to save her, but that's a truth that's hidden away from everyone because Denji never gets to hear her answer to running away with him, and that's the key art for the film:
The Gerbera flower she's holding here is the same type Denji got for her, and in Japanese Flower Language it represents always moving forward and love at first sight. While the white one represents purity and hope, the red one Reze gets at the end is mysterious love and endless challenge, which is what she's facing as she goes back for him.
Their love is always bittersweet and the memory of that sticks with Denji just as strongly as his reaction to the first taste of coffee at the café with her, because the truly did get to share these little moments together where they had a dream of being kids and just escaping to the normalcy of being at school, teaching each other what the other didn't know, and taking care of the other person… but their circumstances just wouldn't allow for that to ever be anything more than a dream.
That's why the pool scene stands out SO strongly to everyone, because despite all of Denji's hormones and impulsiveness flooding through his brain all the time — which we visually see on screen in the film before he jumps in the pool — when they're together in the water, it's just safe, playful intimacy that neither of them has ever known.
That's why it's what Denji uses to disarm her and plunge them back into that place when they're fighting as Chainsaw & Bomb. He respected and cared about her and was ready to give everything up because she DID teach him how to swim and cared more about him surviving than killing him and taking Chainsaw's heart out. She just knew how impossible that would be with Makima watching… but she tried anyway, and her final words revealing that she'd never been to school either makes it clear.
The pool scene wasn't just her pretending for Denji… it was her dream, too. (Which then makes the lyrics of JANE DOE even more heart-wrenching during the credits).
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