~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Last lap!” The coach shouts from the sideline, keeping pace with those still in the water. The remaining team members on the deck and those few dedicated fans in the stands are watching, eyes focused specifically on two bodies that are side by side in lane three and four. The two men are in the lead. By a headshot. However, the difference between the two can’t be spotted by the untrained eyes. The coach’s attention is honing on them the closer they get to the finish.

A loud shrill of the coach’s whistle calls for an end and the crowd breaks into a cheer. Many of the members are running up to the two men who are busy looking at the scoreboard to check their times.

“.” The brunette with sharp features flings his swimming cap over the dividers.

“Yifan, language!” The coach’s voice comes out closer than he thought the man was. When he looks up, as expected, the coach is peering down at him with a disapproving look. However, his eyes soon soften and he addresses Yifan and his teammate. “I signed you two up for the meet. Starters. I’m adding more practice after classes though, don’t relax just because I picked you two.”

“Yes, sir.” Yifan hears the man next to him speak up, his deep voice vibrating over the water straight into Yifan’s ears.

“Chanyeol,” coach sticks his hand out to help the man out of the water, “make sure you stretch! Come to the bench if you need someone to help you.”

Yifan decides to take a moment to relax in the water before coming out. However, his eyes stay on Chanyeol’s body as the man tries to stretch to his best ability. Yifan, strangely, feels annoyed that the kid is not doing it right and has a sudden urge to go over there and help, or something. Fortunately, two other members of their swim team surround Chanyeol’s tall body to help the man as Yifan had wanted to. The brunette closes his eyes, leans back, and glides over the still water.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I would totally sleep with him.”

Yifan almost spits out his drink during lunch at their favorite restaurant when his dear friend decides to share his fine thoughts.

“Luhan! That’s nasty!” Yixing, another friend, throws a baby carrot at the blonde. Luhan dodges it quickly, already expecting the reaction, and attacks right back by flinging his sausage. Luckily, Yixing was as agile as Luhan.

“You would too! I heard some first years talking about Chanyeol and I couldn’t stop myself from eavesdropping. I mean,” he leans into Yifan’s personal space with an evil grin, “he is our precious member and as upperclassmen we should know everything that involves him.”

“Not really.” Yifan speaks up.

“Yes, really! What would you know? You’re aual.”

Yifan groans. Luhan, as always, was getting on his nerves. However, Yifan had hoped that Luhan wouldn’t start until he was done with his meal.

“Will you stop with that stupid rumor. I’m not aual.”

Yixing rolls his eyes this time.

“I believe it. What normal high schooler doesn’t get a hard on? I’ve never seen your wood and I’ve seen you in tight speedos more than in normal clothes. You can’t hide anything beneath speedos.”

“Why would you want to see that?” Yifan’s eyes widen in disgust. The nerve of his friends.

“I think I’ve seen all of our member’s during practice. Hard ones. Especially when we share the pool with the girls’ team. Everyone's,” Luhan points his thin finger at Yifan’s crotch, “except yours.”

“What were you saying about Chanyeol?” Yifan tries, hoping to take his friend’s attention away from his s. He has to sacrifice Chanyeol for that.

“Oh, yeah! Anyways, so these freshmen were talking about Chanyeol’s body while he’s in his jammers. Like, he technically doesn’t have that great of an compared to Byun or Oh, but like his legs though!”

“Legs?” Yixing points at his legs, looking as confused as ever.

“Yes, legs.” Luhan answers while bringing his own up and placing it over their table, much to Yifan’s annoyance. “I had the same reaction. What? His leg? But then, I started paying attention and man, they were right!”

“What’s y about a guy’s legs?” Yifan finds himself asking and regrets it right away. Luhan and Yixing both lean in to whisper in unison.

“Aual.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It wasn’t Yifan’s fault that the stupid rumor of his auality spread like a wildfire at the end of his first year. He made it into the varsity team as a freshman and, amazingly, won the national championship in both singles and team events. After the fact, his popularity skyrocketed with everyone wanting to be friends with him. Unfortunately for everyone else, Yifan was a very private person. Besides Luhan and Yixing, he did not have nor want any other friends.

Because of his distant attitude, everyone was craving to know more about him and some brave souls even had the nerve to confess to him. As expected, they were all rejected. However, the devil named Luhan had made a side comment to a girl with a broken heart about something to do with Yifan’s inability to find anyone ually attractive thus starting the stupid aual rumor.

Yifan knew that he was not aual. He, as Luhan had put it, was a very normal male high school student. His libido was same as anyone's. The only difference was that he had crazy control. Many years of practice and discipline to succeed as a swimmer had taught him skills that bled into his normal life. That being said, Yifan never cared much about dating so it didn’t matter if no one was brave enough to ask the aual one out anymore.

“Next!” Coach yells out as members step out of the water to have another group of males line up at the start line.

Yifan is stretching while Luhan’s pushing down on his back. Yixing is nowhere in sight but that doesn’t matter to his two friends. If he’s late to practice then it’s all on his own head, Yifan wouldn’t want to have anything to do with that.

He concentrates on breathing out and feeling the slow burn that builds up on the back of his thighs and hips; however, his concentration is broken with Luhan slapping his back. Even though he has a jersey on, the man’s hands are nothing like how they look, zero gentleness and only brute strength.

“What?” Yifan hisses at Luhan’s actions, feeling the slight sting seeping through his back.

“Two o’clock!” He shouts into Yifan’s ear.

Yifan has to pull back to save his poor ear from the abuser. He doesn’t want to look but he knows that if he doesn’t at least entertain Luhan, more pain will be inflicted. So, with a glare he looks at the “two o’clock” direction. He doesn’t see anyone in particular. The underclassmen just finished their lap around the gymnasium and was coming back in a massive group. They all look extra tired, Yifan can relate, and that’s as far as Yifan’s inspection goes.

Luhan seems to sense his friend’s inability to function as a human being and decides to help out, be generous.

“Park.”

Yifan makes a mental note, there are around seven members in their team that all have Park as their surnames. However, that was, unfortunately, enough for Yifan to know exactly who he needs to be looking at.

The Park, Park Chanyeol, is one of the few who looks too energized for a person who just ran laps around a gymnasium. His smile stretches out over his face in a strange way, it wasn’t bad but it wasn’t that good either. The kid was two years younger than Yifan and joined the swim team since day one. Yifan had a meet in China at the beginning of his third year and started classes a week late. When he came back, Chanyeol had already made a name for himself.

The kid was tall with long limbs, especially his arms, and solid form that was fit for a swimmer. Everyone seems to agree that he had a natural talent and it wasn’t long before Chanyeol made his way up the rosters until he, just like Yifan, joined the varsity team as a freshman. To Yifan’s annoyance, everyone kept putting Chanyeol up against him and comparing the two of them. If one could ask Yifan if he was threatened by the freshman, he would easily answer no. And it was the truth. He wanted to win the nationals for the third time in a row, something that was never done by their school, and he needed Chanyeol. Two seniors that helped Yifan win last two years graduated and now no one but Yifan and Chanyeol were left to uphold their school’s name. He didn’t want to belittle his teammates, Luhan would murder him for that, but the truth was that they didn’t reach the needed level to win the nationals.

However, with all that said, Yifan was having his own internal battles. He was happy that Chanyeol was doing well and actually beating him in some of their laps; but, Yifan’s personal time was not improving.

“Are you looking at them?!” Luhan, once again, rudely interrupts him from his thoughts.

“What?”

“His legs!”

Yifan’s beginning to get worried for his friend. How can one be so concerned over another males’ legs? It wasn’t like they haven’t seen plenty of males in jammers swimming and doing much more strange things, Luhan never commented about them before. It’s not like Chanyeol’s legs are any different... Well.

Yifan takes it all in. The younger man is no longer wearing his jersey jacket and is now bending down to take his sweatpants off. The right leg that is freed from the cloth is gently placed back on the ground, muscles tightening in right places to balance the man as he slips his other leg out. With the smallest of moves, Yifan sees the twitch, bend, stretch of each muscle, defining the length and strength of the male’s body.

Yifan’s eyes travel from the ankles all the way to the hips that are snuggled under the tight nylon material, doing nothing to hide the secrets inside. The brunette snaps out of his thoughts with a shake of his head. Luhan is looking at him with a knowing look.

Yifan doesn’t know what just happened to him but that was strange and definitely new.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Does looking at another male’s legs and finding them strangely attractive make that person gay? Luhan would probably say yes, Yixing would probably shrug, but Yifan would definitely say “what the are you asking?” However, that may have changed now that Yifan was experiencing it firsthand.

Chanyeol walks over to the coach with his body still dripping with water. His cap and goggles are dangling between his fingers, softly brushing over his tights. Yifan can’t hear what he’s talking about but it makes the coach smile and nod in approval. His hoobae looks happy as he turns around and begins walking, his pace little faster this time.

Yifan’s eyes are trained on the two lean limbs covered in full pant suits. The fabric of the suit stretches over the flesh, creasing and stretching with each step. The view gets clearer, every detail falling upon Yifan’s eyes like a prey to hungry eyes, until Yifan realizes that the man was actually walking towards him.

He abruptly rips his gaze off of the male, hoping that Chanyeol didn’t notice him, and finds Yixing snoring under the bleachers. His friend was going to get another lecture from the coach if the man sees him sleeping during practice. It was early, maybe little past six in the morning, but everyone else was awake. He should straighten up and practice with everyone. Slacker.

“Yifan-sunbaenim?”

Yifan’s head whips around to see Chanyeol standing in front of him, looking slightly uncomfortable, maybe unsure? Yifan can’t really tell.

“Yes?”

“Good morning,” the kid bows and Yifan is taken back but composes himself and returns the gesture, “could I bother you for a second?”

Yifan nods his head. He isn’t really doing anything important, plus, now he can be creep from up close. Man, he’s completely screwed. Chanyeol’s face lights up as he takes a step forward.

“Actually, sunbae, are you free after school today?”

Yifan did not expect that so he shakes his head, brain already erasing his promise to go get new shoes with Luhan and Yixing.

“Since coach said that we should practice outside of our morning meets, I just thought that we should work on it together?” Chanyeol smiles at his upperclassman. Yifan nods, nothing else coming out of him. Chanyeol looks slightly disappointed, but Yifan could be wrong, and walks away after saying that he would meet Yifan after three. Yifan nods, again, and once Chanyeol is away from an ear shot, he groans at his inability to speak like a normal person. Maybe Luhan was right, maybe he did have some problems.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yixing and Luhan were mad. They were about to yell and drag Yifan with them because he was an ungrateful friend who doesn’t understand how happy he should be that they want to be friends with his sorry until Yifan was able to get a word in between their rants.

Yixing and Luhan were not mad. They paused, in unison, to wait for Yifan to say he was just kidding and when he didn’t, they broke into smiles. Creepy smiles. They stood up, patted his shoulder and walked away with a, “have fun!” and, “don’t scare him off!”

That’s what Yifan had to go through to reach his final destination. He looks around the pool and finds that only few members of the swim team having fun with their friends. There are other students that Yifan doesn’t recognize running around and enjoying the water.

The swim team always had their practices in the mornings. Only during competition seasons, which was coming up in couple of months, the pool was strictly for swim team members. Until then everyone tried to enjoy the pool and Yifan was happy to see everyone happily playing around in the water. However, he doesn’t have time for others, he needs to practice to cut seconds from his time.

Chanyeol was nowhere in the locker rooms and Yifan doesn’t see him in the water as he walks around the pool. He decides to take a moment to stretch and gets comfortable at the back of the building with a great view of everything that’s going on around him and a direct line to whoever walks in and out through the doors.

In less than five minutes after Yifan began his stretches he sees a group of men walking into the building, one of them being Chanyeol, looking surprisingly very annoyed as his eyes are quickly scanning around the place. Once Chanyeol’s eyes land on Yifan, the younger man raises his hand to get Yifan’s attention with a bright smile. The three other students around him all turn to look at the brunette and their eyes widen in surprise.

Yifan continues to watch Chanyeol as he walks away from his friends with a smug smile and a wave before he reaches Yifan.

“Hello!” Chanyeol bows.

Yifan, not surprisingly, nods his head. When Chanyeol just stands there with his smile, Yifan gets up and sticks out his right hand. Chanyeol looks very surprised.

“Let’s work hard.”

His hoobae beams back at him and shakes his hand with enthusiasm. Yifan tells Chanyeol to stretch and goes to do some warm up laps around the pool. Once he is finished, he sees Chanyeol entering the water and their training starts.

Yifan made plans for their training and is pleasantly surprised to hear Chanyeol also presenting his thoughts. They work well together. He’s content with working with someone who’s as serious about swimming as him and the energy the younger man puts into his work is contagious.

A slight burn in his shoulders makes Yifan take a moment to check the time. No one is left in the pool and all of the lights are . With a shock, he discovers that it’s well past seven. Chanyeol walks over and starts laughing.

“It did not feel like four hours of practice.”

Yifan agrees and offers to help Chanyeol stretch. The words come out of his mouth before he can process the offer and Chanyeol is already accepting it with another of his giant smiles. Yifan finds himself pressing down on Chanyeol’s back with the soles of his hands kneading through the overworked muscles. The younger man groans in pain whenever he finds a knot but tells Yifan to not stop and that he can take it. The man is pliant and follows Yifan’s instructions to turn aro