Thank you, God, for seating arrangements, Sehun thought, which led to this Oh Sehun sitting directly across the aisle from Kwon Yuri. English was officially his favorite class.

The teacher, Ms Hoffman, started doing the what's-expected-of-you-this-year speech. She explained what percentage of your grade came from homework or from tests or from class participation, she went through the reading list, she told them the number of papers and when they were due, and so on and so on.

Sehun knew he should be paying attention; English wasn't exactly his best subject. But the thing was, Yuri was so close he could smell her perfume - a mix of green apple and vanilla and the ocean. Tangy-sweet and yet somehow also mysterious.

'Oh Sehun.'

The sound of his name jerked Sehun out of his trance. The way Ms Hoffman was looking at him made it clear that she'd just ask him a question. Everyone in the room had turned to stare at him in his moment of embarrassment, an assortment of smirks and grins on their faces. He felt a flush creep up the back of his neck, and it only got worse when he saw Yuri watching him.

'Uh, can you repeat that?' he asked. 'I'm a flyover and everyone knows we're kinda backward.'

'You're from a flyover,' Yuri corrected him, but she was grinning.

He winced. 'See? Backward.'

A few other kids chuckled and Ms Hoffmann smiled. 'I asked if you've already studied Macbeth,' she said. 'That's what we'll be starting with.'

Bonus. Sehun had!

He managed to keep his focus on Ms Hoffmann for the rest of English. He noticed she had a pair of Peoples sunglasses hooked over her white T-shirt, just like Luna and half the other girl he'd seen today. Clearly, being tragically underpaid was not a problem for teachers at DeVere. Either that, or Ms Hoffmann skipped meals in order to keep herself in eyewear. He wondered if even the janitors here wore designer shades.

When the bell rang, Sehun joined the throng of students in the hallway. Soon he realized that Yuri was also walking directly to the door of his next class. Another bonus!

His physics teacher wasn't into the seating arrangements thing, so Sehun took a seat by the window. Physics was one of his strong subjects, so the distracting view of the surfers riding the curls wouldn't hurt his grade too badly.

After watching them for a few minutes, Sehun couldn't wait to hit the water - even if it was just the pool. Thank god physics was his last class of the day. He'd already put his name on the list for swim team tryouts right after school that evening. The second the bell rang to end class, Sehun bolted from his seat and took off toward the pool. He found the locker room - the only one he'd ever been in that didn't smell of sneakers and feet - and suited up.

'I hope you've been practicing over break,' Sehun heard someone in the next row of lockers say with a laugh. 'With the electronic plates installed, you're not going to be able to cheat your way into beating me.'

'You've got electronic plates?' Sehun asked in surprise. He knew that for Olympic competitions they had timing plates in the starting blocks and contact plates installed underwater. That's because in relays, it was all about tagging. The relay team member wasn't allowed to leave the starting block until he'd been tagged, and contact plates left no room for error. If a swimmer left the block before his team-mate hit the underwater plate, an alarm was sent to the meet official's headphones and the team would be disqualified. It was pretty hardcore.

This has to be the only high school in the country with an Olympic level system, Sehun thought with a grin.

A guy from Sehun's calc class, Luhan, appeared around the corner, carrying his goggles. 'We've also got high-speed cameras now,' he told Sehun. 'Absolutely nothing is left to human error.' He sat down on one of the polished wooden benches and looped his towel around his neck.
 

Sehun remembered that Chanyeol had put Luhan in the DeVere Heights 'rock stars' category, and he could see why. The guy had brown hair and brown eyes - nothing remarkable there - but there was something compelling about him that Sehun couldn't quite put his finger on.

'From what I hear, you're going to give us some much-needed aid in the relay,' Luhan continued.

Do they give out files on all the new kids, or what? Sehun wondered.

'Small school,' Luhan said, reading Sehun's expression. 'And Coach Middleton has a big mouth.' He stood up. 'Come on, I'll take you out there.'

'Cool.' Sehun grabbed his towel and followed Luhan toward the pool door. he was struck by the fact that Luhan seemed pretty friendly. He's gotten the impression from Chanyeol that the DeVere Heights kids didn't let outsiders in too easily.

But I'm from DeVere Heights, too, he realized suddenly. Sehun was so used to thinking of himself as ordinary that he'd forgotten his new status as a semi-wealthy dude. Maybe that was why Luhan was acting as if they were already friends. Was Chanyeol right about DeVere Heights? Did living behind that gate - a gate, incidentally, that looked like it should be in a museum as a piece of sculpture - mean that much to everyone out here?

'There you have it,' Luhan said.

Sehun's mouth actually dropped open when he saw the pool. He estimated it to be fifty meters by ten lanes, with movable bulkheads so that courses could be set up for twenty-five yards, twenty-five meters or thirty meters for water polo. It looked like it had a movable floor to change the depth, too. And the water was so blue it left an after-image when he blinked.

'Nice, huh?' Luhan asked.

'Yeah, sure, but where are the inner tubes? A pool isn't a pool without inner tubes,' Sehun joked.

'And a few girls in bikinis,' Luhan agreed.

'Get in there and do some warm-up laps,' Coach Middleton called from the bleachers.

Sehun was underwater almost before the last word was out of the coach's mouth.

Oh, yeah, I could do this forever, he thought. It was like listening to music to the point where you're gone, not in your head anymore, not exactly anywhere - more like everywhere. Sehun lost himself in the moment. he could feel nothing but his muscles working, the water pressing against him, the feel of it flowing over his skin. Perfection.

Too soon, the coach blew his whistle and waved everyone over to the side of the pool. 'Okay, everybody who's trying out for the team, Assistant Coach Simkins will take you through your paces.' He gestured to a twenty-something guy with a face tanned almost the same color as his freckles.

'Let's head to the other side,' Simkins called, starting around the pool toward the far side. Sehun began to swim over with the other newbies.

'Not you, Sehun. I want you with me,' Coach Middleton said. 'We lost a key man on our two hundred-meter medley team and I need to get you in place asap. From what I hear, you're up to the challenge.'

'Great!' Sehun replied. He was up to anything that involved water. And he was starting to get used to the idea that everybody here seemed to know everything about him already.

'Let's try you with Luhan, Kai, and Chen.' Coach stated.

Sehun recognised Kai from English. He didn't think Chen was in any of his classes.

'I'll take anchor - the freestyle leg,' Kai said.

'You sure you're up to it? You don't look like you're feeling so-' Luhan began.

'Don't be trying to nab my spot!' Kai joked. 'You need me as anchor, even though it pains me to have to do the last leg because it means I have to watch you clowns burn up the seconds on your laps - seconds I then have to make up.' Kai turned to Sehun. 'I hope you can keep up.'

Sehun hoped so too. All three of the guys, but especially Luhan and Kai, looked like serious athletes, at least judging by how ripped they were.

Although, Sehun could see why Luhan was concerned about Kai. His face was quite pale, death pale, the kind of pale that often precedes a massive puke. Especially how you could see that his normal skin color was a golden tan.

'I'll start us out with the backstroke,' Luhan said. 'You can swim stroke, Sehun. then Chen with fly. then we'll see if Kai can stay afloat as anchor.'

Sehun and Chen nodded. Somehow it felt natural for Luhan to call the line-up. Sehun walked over to his block and got into position with his feet at the back. He liked to do a single step to launch himself. He was glad he's been assigned the stroke leg. His freestyle wasn't bad - he'd taken the anchor slot a few times back at his old school - and his butterfly was decent, but his backstroke could use improvement, to put it kindly.

Sehun watched as Luhan got into the pool at the other end.

'Swimmers, take your mark!' Coach Middleton yelled.

Luhan compressed himself into a ball. The coach gave them a signal, and Luhan exploded out of the blocks, using his legs to push free. Man, he was fast. Eyes narrowed, Sehun watched Luhan closely. He couldn't start before Luhan touched the plate in the wall, but he didn't want to waste one tenth of a second of his leg of the relay by starting late. He only had fifty meters to show his stuff. Then it would be over to Chen, who would swim butterfly back to this end where Kai would be waiting to dive in and take the final, freestyle leg.

Luhan touched the plate. Now! Sehun ordered himself. He took a step and flew into the air, then hit the water swimming the stroke. Go through the smallest hole in the water, Sehun coached himself. Don't pull your arms back. Just scull, scull.

And then he was done.

Chen flew over Sehun's head and plunged into the water, as Sehun climbed out of the pool and watched him swim down to Kai. These guys are good, he thought, as Kai made a low, clean entry at the start of his leg.

But then Kai sank! Like his body had turned to lead, that's how fast he went down. Straight to the bottom of the pool.

*Note - Introducing some of the guys in the swimming team~ Luhan, Kai & Chen. What's your impressions of these guys? Sehun seems so perfect right? A cool guy that is into swimming and is quite a chill guy. Good at physics too~ haha. :)
Oh no!!! Kai!!! What's happening?