Yunho caught Changmin looking at his Worlds medals on his bed alone once he returned to his room for the night. Changmin was staring at the medals, turning them over in his hand.

"Let me see," said Yunho, sidling in next to Changmin on his bed. Changmin handed over the medals to Yunho with no hesitation.

Yunho took the heavy medals in his hand and examined them. He looked at the intricate designs and the engraving bearing Changmin's name, and he smoothed it over with his thumbs.

They were pretty.

They always were, these Worlds medals.

Yunho smiled and looked up at Changmin, who curled his knees into is chest in embarrassment. Yunho handed the medals back to their rightful owner, and as Changmin took them in his hands, Yunho ruffled Changmin's hair.

"See? I was right."

"What do you mean?" asked Changmin.

"I said you would be the future of Korean swimming. And I was right."

Changmin smiled shyly. "I'm not anything," he said, blushing with his head down.

Yunho laughed. God, Changmin was precious.

"You know, Changmin…" said Yunho, "I'm really, really happy for you. And I really mean that."

Changmin leaned into Yunho, and Yunho wrapped his arm around his younger teammate.

Yunho let out a long breath and winced in pain as he pushed open the door to leave the weight gym.

He was sore all over, and he wasn't sure if he could do another training session right now, after having pushed himself so much in weight training.

An arm wrapped around his waist from behind. Yunho turned and saw Changmin's smiling face.

"Finally done," he said. "Wanna go for a massage and then a snack?"

Yunho did.

"I can't," said Yunho with a sigh. "I want to, but I can't."

"Why?"

"I have some more training," muttered Yunho – he certainly had second thoughts about it now.

"Oh," said Changmin, looking a bit perplexed. "When is it starting?"

"Now," said Yunho. He glanced at the clock. It was a few minutes after seven. His coach was probably expecting him by now.

"Oh," said Changmin sadly. "Well… want me to bring you something?"

Yunho hesitated. He'd just done a hard day of training, and he deserved something.

"Actually, I'll just go down to the cafeteria with you."

Just for a couple granola bars and to refill his water bottle.

When Yunho reached his coach's office with his gym bag over his shoulders. He knocked, but there was no answer.

Yunho looked up at the clock; a few minutes after half past seven. God, he was probably already at the pool.

Yunho quickened his paces to the pool. It was unacceptable for an athlete to be later than the coach, and Yunho was regretting the trip to the cafeteria now.

He bypassed the dressing room and the shower, if only to show his face to the coach and to let him know that he was there as soon as he could. He pushed open the door to the pool, ignoring the soreness in his shoulder as he did so.

As Yunho had thought, his coach was there already, alone at the empty pool; he was sitting in a plastic chair on the deck with the long wooden stick – once the handle of a mop – that he used to punish his athletes with in his hand.

God, Yunho was in for it today.

"Coach," called Yunho timidly, awkwardly approaching him.

His coach turned his head to look at Yunho.

He regarded Yunho sharply as Yunho shrank away.

"Stand up straight, Jung," he said quietly.

Yunho dropped his bag beside him and straightened up, though he didn't dare look his angry coach in his eyes.

"'I'm desperate'," he repeated. "Is this what desperation looks like to you?"

Yunho bit down on the inside of his cheek.

"Late, and not even changed and ready to swim?"

Really, Yunho had no excuse.

"Get down, you piece of ."

Yunho complied with no hesitation, dropping onto the floor in a push-up position. Every muscle ached and complained, but Yunho didn't move.

Yunho clenched his teeth as he saw his coach's feet circling around him, and the end of the wooden stick lined up against the back of his thighs.

Yunho braced himself for the hard hits that came, and he barely managed not to let any sounds escape his lips.

"You think this is a joke, Jung?"

"No, sir," managed Yunho, eyes still clenched shut to deal with the pain.

"You're a waste of a National Team spot, you know that? You don't deserve to be here. I don't ing care what happened to you."

Yunho rolled his lips between his teeth, frowned, and tried to ignore it; his coach was putting him down to light that fire in him, and Yunho knew it. It was supposed to hurt. The words were supposed to make him feel like .

"Get ready to swim."

Yunho held in a grunt as he got to his feet and grabbed his bag. He started walking towards the change room, and then he heard a yell from behind him.

"Let's go, Jung! Hurry the up!"

Yunho ran.

The bruises were already formed by the time Yunho was changing, but he had ignored it all and focused on getting changed. He was now in pain on top of being sore and exhausted, so he knew he was going to swim like tonight – but in the end, it would all help him get to the Olympics.

When he ran back to the pool, finally changed, he saw that the scoreboards and the timing panels had been activated – his coach was evidently planning on timing him.

Okay, this was different.

Yunho assumed that they would be doing some laps to build up his endurance again, and maybe work on some dives, clean up his form and technique so that it would make up for his loss in brute strength. He didn't usually start on high-intensity training until weeks before a meet – but this was up to his coach, what did Yunho know?

"Get up there," said the coach without even giving Yunho time to stretch or to warm up, or even get wet before he went in.

Although, Yunho guessed, he'd been working out all day already so maybe he didn't need it.

Yunho took a couple seconds to splash some of the water on his chest before wordlessly climbing the steps up to the diving block. He placed his feet on the diving block for the push-off.

"Take your mark."

Yunho instinctively grabbed the end of the diving board, and as the words were said, he was now focused only on the silence in anticipation of the buzzer that would come.

He had spent years shaving time off the reaction time between the buzzer and his dive – the dive was so much more important than it would seem. The milliseconds between the buzzer and the dive into the water was the only time in the whole swim he would have without the resistance of water against him. For Yunho, the dive would set the pace and momentum that would carry him through the rest of the race.

He had a good dive this time around – probably one of the best he's had all week. He focused, and simultaneously pushed and paced himself; he had to take care not to run out of steam at the end of the race. He finished two lengths – two more to go – and his body was really complaining now, and Yunho just pushed through the pain and swam as hard as his body would let him.

The swim felt long – and even before he resurfaced after touching the panels at the end of the swim, he was breathing a sigh of relief.

He hung onto the wall of the pool and caught his breath for a few seconds before turning his head towards the scoreboard to check his time.

1:52:44

"Wow," whispered Yunho.

How.

He might not have been quite trying as hard as he did at Worlds, when he had the reigning World Champion in the lane beside him – but he didn't even break the 1:50 mark. Hell, he wasn't even close.

Yunho sighed and pulled himself out of the pool, trying to ignore his arms burning with pain.

His coach watched as Yunho came back up.

Yunho was shaking out his arms and legs, trying to dissipate the soreness, when he was surprised by a hard smack to his head.

He looked up at his coach in shock.

", stand still, Jung."

Yunho stopped moving and folded his hands behind his back.

"What's your personal best, Jung?"

"One forty-five twenty-three."

1:45:23.

At Worlds two years ago. It had been enough to get him a silver medal.

"How do you feel about that?"

Yunho didn't know what to say. It , obviously. He wasn't even close.

It was pathetic.

"How are you going to get up there again, Jung?" asked the coach. He leaned on the wooden stick closer to Yunho.

"I'm ready to work on it, sir," said Yunho to the floor.

"You are," agreed his coach. "You're going to work on it right now."

Yunho looked up.

"You are going to beat your personal best here, tonight, and you're not going to leave here until you do."

Yunho's mouth dropped open. "Coach."

"The faster you do it, the faster you'll get to go to bed."

Beating his personal best – it would be a feat to do it in the best of conditions, but now? When he was still recovering?

Would it even be possible?

The coach blew his whistle.

"Take your mark."

Yunho was still in disbelief, but he fixed his swimming cap and climbed up on the diving block.

He grabbed the end of the diving block, and he cleared his mind, and focused only on the sound of the buzzer that was to come.

The buzzer sounded, and he pushed off into the water.

He surfaced as soon as he touched the panels at the end of the swim. He clung on to the edge of the pool, leaned over, and threw up into the grates in pure exhaustion.

.

"Get out, Jung," said the coach mercilessly. "Get down."

Yunho's arms shook in pain and exhaustion as he pulled himself out of the pool.

Between that and getting down on his hands and feet for his punishment, he glanced at the board.

1:46:18

Yunho almost let out a yell frustration.

He also got a look at the time.

It was a little bit past midnight, he'd been swimming for five hours, nonstop –

His time was good, better than his time at this year's Nationals, couldn't his coach just let him go now?

The hits landed on the back of his thighs again, which were really becoming more numb than anything else – the sting was still there, but he didn't think that it would be possible to be in any more pain than he already was at this point.

"I'm tired too, Jung. Just ing do it."

Yunho could barely stand, his legs were shaking –

But the whistle blew mercilessly, and Yunho forced himself onto the block again.

"Take your mark."

Yunho reached down and gripped the end of the block.

Just do it.

Just ing do it.

The buzzer sounded, and Yunho was in the water.

Yunho knew right away.

.

The shrill sound of a whistle blew into the air.

"False start, Jung!" shouted the coach.

Yunho stopped swimming and surfaced – and he finally lost it, in all the frustration and exhaustion, and yelled out on the top of his lungs, "!"

There was a shocked silence between the two of them, and then the coach broke it.

"Jung Yunho, get the out of the pool!" screamed the coach.

It took a bit of time for Yunho to swim back to the blocks, but as soon as he swam back, his coach reached down towards him.

"Who the do you think you are?"

His coach's hand closed around Yunho's upper arm, and Yunho felt himself being hauled out of the water and onto the deck. God.

God, he couldn't do this.

"Get down!" screamed the coach.

Yunho closed his eyes.

I don't think I can even do that anymore. I don't think I can do it. I'm too tired.

But Yunho found himself forcing himself in position soon to allow his coach to beat him.

God.

"Get up, Jung. Just ing do it."

Yunho swallowed down the exhaustion and forced himself onto the block.

"Take your mark."

Yunho's shaking fingers gripped the end of the diving block.

The moment between the instruction and the buzzer felt like forever.

He had never been afraid of water before, but he was afraid of it now; he didn't think he would make it out of the water alive this time.

And he was truly convinced – I am going to die here today.

The buzzer sounded, and Yunho dived.

Yunho didn't even remember the swim.

He just remembered losing all feeling in his limbs, and just trying to stay alive.

But he didn't die, and he was going to collapse as soon as he finished his swim, and he couldn't do it anymore, he couldn't –

He pulled himself out of the pool and sat on the edge of the pool – he couldn't, he couldn't even stand anymore, it was even too much energy to sit –

Behind him, he heard the stick clatter to the ground. Then his coach spoke quietly.

"Get some sleep, Jung."

He heard his coach's footsteps move away from him, and soon, he heard the door open and close in the pool.

He was alone now here.

He finally raised his head and looked up at the scoreboard.

1:44:81

He'd just beaten his personal record.

But there was no sense of achievement, or fulfillment, or any other type of joy that he got with feats like this.

He felt empty.

He felt nothing.