Yunho set aside his anger and managed to get a good night's sleep – something that he'd trained himself to do all these years for that perfect swim the next day.

Regardless, Yunho still continued to ignore Changmin the next morning. Changmin apparently didn't practice falling asleep the same way, because he got up from bed with dark circles under his eyes and his eyes half closed.

They had no training that morning until warm-ups for their heats later on in the afternoon; they'd done all of their morning training leading up to Nationals, and they were saving up their energy now for the rest of the meet.

Yunho made his way down to the cafeteria for breakfast without waiting for Changmin. Changmin followed soon afterwards, and sat a bit away from Yunho, at the next table. Instead of entertaining Changmin, though, Yunho turned his attention to his phone.

Nationals was probably one of the only times of the year that swimming actually made headlines as a sport, the other time being Worlds. Changmin certainly helped bring the sport into spotlight though; he saw that the biggest headline of the sports section of the online news was about Changmin being crowned the new national champion in swimming. It made it sound like there was only one national title in all of swimming, but that hardly mattered.

Yunho scooped a large spoonful of his yogurt into his mouth, then scrolled down again. Another headline bearing Changmin's name caught his eye – "Not Everyone Is Happy about Shim Changmin's Win" – obviously not a positive one. Yunho glanced at Changmin in worry, hoping that Changmin hadn't seen this and that this won't affect his swim. Changmin seemed to be focused on his food though, and also on not looking at Yunho – so Yunho turned back to his phone and opened the article.

Little did he know, the article wasn't about Changmin. It was about Yunho.

There was a video clip instead of there being a written article. Yunho wasn't about to play the video aloud at the cafeteria table, so he scrolled to the comments to get the gist of the article. He immediately regretted it.

Jung Yunho is really not the athlete that kids should be looking up to… there are so many athletes with better attitudes, tsk

Heavy is the head that wears the crown… good luck to Changmin, it's obvious Jung Yunho is trying to bully him, but Jung will never be able to change the fact that Changmin is a better swimmer than him

Yunho's rotten attitude really contrasts with Changmin's gracious one. A shame, because I used to really like Yunho

I heard there's a ton of bullying on these sports teams. Seems like Changmin's going through a lot and Yunho's taking the lead in bullying him. It's pathetic…

Yunho dropped his spoon with a frown.

Yunho wasn't one to focus too much about things other than his swimming, and he rarely cared about what other people thought about him, but just what was going on?

He couldn't help but to play the video attached to the article, even though he knew that everyone around him in the cafeteria would be able to hear.

Yunho wasn't sure that he wanted to see this, but the clip began to play mercilessly. Yunho squinted as he watched the clip.

It began with a part of the interview that he'd done just after the race yesterday.

"Do you hope to beat him in the 400-metre event tomorrow?"

"I hope whoever is better wins tomorrow," said Yunho.

"Would you hope that that's you?" asked the interviewer.

Yunho watched as in the video, he clearly held back a roll of his eyes. "Yes," the video-Yunho said. "I do. What athlete wouldn't want gold?"

The screen cut to Yunho stalking into the warm-up area, inadvertently getting caught in the shot with Changmin's interview, packing up his things in frustration. Changmin had called Yunho's name, which Yunho didn't realize until this moment – but the Yunho in the screen just grabbed his bag and stormed out of the gym in clear anger.

Yunho swallowed and put down his phone with his eyes closed, trying to make a sense of this.

Yunho didn't understand, because he'd done nothing to hurt anyone, he'd been there for Changmin when no one else had, and what exactly had he done to deserve this?

He opened his eyes, and saw Changmin a little bit away, watching him. Changmin looked away quickly when he realized that Yunho saw him looking.

Yunho sighed.

"So this is why you thought I wrote that note in your locker," said Yunho quietly, but just loud enough for Changmin to hear. "Because you thought I was jealous of you."

Changmin didn't say anything and just looked into Yunho's eyes in guilt.

"That whole year of building up trust and friendship didn't mean anything? It all crumbles with just a 30-second video clip?"

Changmin shifted in his chair.

"Hyung… I'm really sorry, I –"

"It's fine," said Yunho, cutting him off. Because honestly, it really was. It really was fine. Yunho just did not give a .

Except, he actually really did.

Yunho didn't have as much public recognition as Changmin did, but in the swimming community, he was revered as a national hero. Yunho still remained the only Korean swimmer with a gold from Worlds, which he got three years ago – and he had the most Worlds medal of any Korean athlete, and he was only five years into his senior swimming career. Anyone who knew anything about swimming knew that Yunho was certainly the Korean swimming team's best chance at an Olympic medal.

Yunho also had a little group of dedicated fans who traveled with him everywhere to cheer him on. They came for Nationals, Worlds, and that obscure little meet that he doubted his parents even knew about. He was used to seeing them waiting outside the entrance of the pool to get a glimpse of him, pass him good-luck notes and little gifts, then following him for as long as they could down to the warm-up gym. But they were nowhere to be seen today, and he was so hyper-aware of the disgusted looks that he was getting from small crowd greeting the team as they walked into the warm-up gym for the 400-metre freestyle heats that morning.

Even though he'd done nothing wrong, Yunho put his head down and looked at the ground as he walked on, just hoping that this walk would be done fast, and that the crowd would have mercy on him during the actual race and keep it bearable – but then finally, Yunho heard a bright voice call out his name.

"Good luck today, Yunho!" said a girl that he'd never seen before, holding out a bottle of juice.

Yunho thought he might cry.

"Thank you," he said genuinely, reaching out to take the drink from her.

All the way to the warm-up gym, he kept the juice in his hand, because he was just so grateful for her support right now, because it meant so much. Because even if it were just one person, because this was proof that there were still people who didn't believe that he was an awful human being.

And if only for her, he was going to swim his very best today.

The crowd was less than professional – for the first time ever, Yunho was actually booed as he took his place at his lane – but Yunho wasn't going to let that get to him.

Yunho qualified to finals first in his heat, and also first overall; Changmin qualified second overall, but he was behind by over a full second.

He felt proud of himself for doing this despite everything, and as he returned to the warm-up area, Changmin approached him carefully. "Good swim," he said timidly.

Yunho glanced at him. "You too," said Yunho.

There was still an air of uneasiness and awkwardness between them, so Yunho turned away pretty quickly.

Yunho reached for his bag, and saw the juice that his fan had given him earlier. He grabbed that instead of his water bottle. He opened the drink, distracted, only half listening to his coach, and gulped from the juice bottle hastily.

He was more than halfway through the juice bottle when he realized that it didn't taste quite right, and by the time he'd taken the bottle away from his mouth, he knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.

He dropped the bottle on the floor, doubled over and felt the drink come back up –

But then everything went black, and the last thing he remembered was someone yelling his name.