After packing, Yunho gathered his bags and dropped by the cafeteria to see if Changmin would be there, but he wasn't; Changmin was probably on his run.

Yunho wouldn't be able to find Changmin if he was gone, so he decided to call Changmin instead. Changmin answered a few rings later, but he was definitely not in the middle of a run.

"Hello?"

"Hey."

"What?" Changmin sounded annoyed.

"You're not running," accused Yunho.

"I met some rowers in the cafeteria at breakfast and I'm making friends with them. It's actually kind of nice when you guys are gone, I get to meet new people. I gotta go now, they're going to think I'm rude."

Yunho narrowed his eyes because clearly, Changmin was lying.

Changmin wasn't at breakfast.

Yunho knew the rowing team (and basically every other water sport team, because… well, he knew everyone) and they weren't at breakfast right now.

Worry crept back into Yunho's mind. "Changmin, it's not too late to change your mind."

"Oh my God, hyung," said Changmin, and Yunho could practically see Changmin rolling his eyes. "Let me make friends. Don't call me, text me, or do anything to contact me this break. I'm not going to contact you either. Forget the team and enjoy your break, okay?"

Changmin hung up before Yunho could even draw in a breath.

Every time he went home to Gwangju, Yunho was absolutely pampered.

The never-ending hugs and kisses from his mother was one thing, his dad's proud smile and pats on the back were another.

Yunho had taken it all for granted until now – he only saw his parents a few days over the year after all.

This year, though, he felt a bit more appreciative as his mother served him a helping of homemade japchae – his favourite.

Yunho was shoving as much as he can he could as soon as his parents sat down. Once Yunho had eaten his fill and had slowed down a bit, they were finally able to start carrying on a conversation, much to his father's amusement. His father was usually quiet, so it was mostly Yunho and his mother talking, and his father listening. Eventually, the topic reached Changmin.

"Tell us about your new roommate, Yunho," said his mother. "We've read about him in the papers."

"He's … I don't know," said Yunho, struggling to find the right words. "He's…"

"You don't get along with him?" asked his mother worriedly. "He seemed like a nice boy from the interviews he's done."

Yunho shook his head. "No, no, we get along just fine. And he is a nice boy. He's a bit different from everyone else because… he's been through a lot, you know? He kind of… thinks differently. But I mean, it's understandable because he's had a pretty tough go at life. Like, he didn't have anywhere to go this break, so he's still at the athlete's village."

His mother clucked his tongue. "Oh, poor thing. Why didn't you bring him over for the break, Yunho?"

Yunho looked up at his mom, feeling a bit defensive. "I tried. He wouldn't come. He thought he would be an inconvenience."

"Oh, I wish he wouldn't have thought that," said his mother sadly. "Perhaps you could invite him over for dinner one night if he doesn't want to stay for the whole break."

Yunho nodded and picked at his food slowly.

I wonder what Changmin's doing all alone right now.

Yunho still trained when he was at home, but definitely not as hard.

He still ran, but he ran without weights on the treadmill at the local gym near his swimming club instead of going outside. He only did one swim a day instead of two, and he cut his resistance training to a minimum. Overall, instead of training for nine hours a day, he was only putting in four hours a day.

Seeing his old coach that first took him to Nationals and coached him to the Junior National Team was always a warm reminder that he was home as well. He had always coached Yunho in the most supportive way, pushing him to be better but always helping him remember that he should be enjoying his time in the pool.

Sometimes, he wished that his old coach had been tougher on him, because it took him quite a while to adjust to the training culture of the junior national team. When he first made the team, he thought about quitting swimming every day. Yunho trained hard, but because he was so scared. At the time, he prayed to God every day that he would have a good swim that day and that he would make it out of the pool alive.

Yunho was much taller and stronger now, and could easily overtake his old junior national team coach with brute strength, but he thought that he would still cower if he saw him again.

This pool where it all started though, was home.

He hadn't played in the water since he left this pool to train at the Village, or even seen anyone play in the pool.

But when he walked into the pool for the first time that break for training and saw the little kids splashing water on each other and laughing, he couldn't help but let out an empty laugh.

This was supposed to be what this was about.

He watched the kids, it only sinking in how this had become work – not just work, but really hard work instead of play.

He was just standing there blankly when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Yunho."

Yunho jumped and quickly turned to see the familiar face.

"Coach!"

Yunho fell into his old coach's hug, feeling like a kid again.

"God, I'm so proud of you," he said. "I watched you at Worlds on TV, Yunho, I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud to have coached you."

"Coach," Yunho whined with a smile. "You're the one who took me there. I could never have even been there without you."

"Rubbish," replied the coach, but Yunho buried his face into his old coach's shoulder.

God, when he came home, he felt like he became a child again.

The warm pats on his back were all he needed to make up for the hard training he went through for the past year.

"All right, Yunho, let's see you swim," he said with a proud smile on his face. "I want to see you swim."

Yunho probably swam harder that day than he did at Worlds.

As promised, Yunho didn't hear from Changmin when the break started.

At first, he was worried that Changmin might not be taking care of himself, but then he realized that he was being silly, because Changmin had taken care of himself so well all his life; now wasn't any different. And so, Yunho actually almost forgot about his teammate until two weeks into the break.

He had settled into the new easygoing routine of the break, and it wasn't until he returned from a workout at the gym in the evening and was curled up on the couch, watching TV, that his father approached him with his phone that he'd left at the kitchen table. His face looked so guilty that the immediate thought that Yunho had was that his dad had broken his phone somehow.

"I didn't mean to snoop, Yunho.  It just… rang and I happened to be next to it."

Well, at least he didn't break the thing.

"That's okay," said Yunho easily, taking the phone from his dad. "Thanks."

He wasn't quite ready for the text from Changmin.

Kinda miss you today.

Yunho swallowed.

God, he was so stupid for actually not ever contacting Changmin throughout the break.

He was frozen until his father put a hand on his shoulder.

"I think you should go and see if you can convince him to spend the rest of the break with us, Yunho."

Yunho was up and out the door within the minute.