“So how do you feel about this new bar on your activities, Taeyeon ssi?” the reporter asked.

The said woman settled into the opposite sofa with her steaming coffee and looked across with a cantankerous frown. “What was your name did you say?” she asked before taking a lengthy sip of her drink.

“Er, Eonsook. Lee Eonsook. So, Taeyone ssi how do you—”

“Look here, Lee Eonsook,” the repeated question was interrupted. A glare was sent the reporter’s way, its intensity making her stiffen where she sat. “I’d prefer if your shave off the bull and cut to the chase. I don’t have any time or interest to play in circles with you. Ask me real a question,” Taeyeon ordered.

Eonsook gulped. She slowly placed her recorder on the table between them and pressed the button with the red circle. “So,” she began in a much more serious tone than the first time. “You’ve been barred from swimming at Nationals this year: something that’s come as a surprise to the whole country since they were betting on you to bring home an Olympic gold.” She paused and readied her pen against the small notepad she carried everywhere. “You’re disappointed, of course. But why did the Sports Committee set the restriction down?”

“Because they think I’ll drown myself,” Taeyeon flatly replied.

“Care to elaborate?”

“Not particularly.”

“…”

“Tch, fine,” the swimmer relented with exasperation. “So before the Japan Meet I was diagnosed with depression through… random health checks. Big ing surprise. But then the stupid head of the Committee, who by the way is dating a girl the age of his granddaughter, thinks I’m suicidal and will drown myself in the middle of a race. Which will bad for the country’s image apparently,” Taeyeon made an agitated lurch against the backrest. “What a load of .”

“You disagree with his decision?” Eonsook asked with eyes on her quickly scribbled notes.

“Of course I disagree with him! I don’t want to kill myself! That’s absolute conjecture from a man who can’t even tell his socks from his handkerchiefs!” she raged, hands gesturing in wild circles. “I’ve been swimming for over twenty years! If I wanted to die I’d have picked bungee jumping or sky diving or—”

“So you aren’t, in fact, suicidal?”

“I wear a swimsuit to work,” Taeyeon deadpanned, motioning along her front, the towel around her shoulders slipping off to reveal her trademark tidal wave tattoo. “If I were hurting myself, you and a million other people would know via national television. This is fact. Now ask me a real question!” she stressed once again.

“R-right…” Eonsook shifted in her place, flipping through scraps of preparation. When she found nothing after a few seconds she stared off to a side. “Why…” she began in a mumble. “Why do you think people are like that?” she slipped off into a casual, almost intimate tone of voice. “Why are they so presumptuous of people with disorders? Why are hell-bent on treating such people as lesser?”

“Hmm,” Taeyeon nodded wisely. “That, darling, is a real question.”

“Well?”

The swimmer took a deep breath and crossed her legs before she began to talk. “People run from depression, anxiety, bipolar behavior like… like running from danger,” she explained. “They act like it’s contagious. Like it’ll spread to them through prolonged contact or something, it’s… it is really sad the way they behave around us like we’re broken mutants or something.”

“But why do they have to be so unfair?”

“It makes them feel normal I guess?” Taeyeon shrugged. “My insecurities are my weakness, I agree. But they aren’t a certificate for untouchability. They don’t qualify me for ostracism. They don’t make me a leper. So I can’t deal with things sometimes, but isn’t that the case with every single person on this planet? It’s just that I get a lot more affected by my failures than most people.”

“And why do you feel that way, would you say?” Eonsook leaned forward like it would help her absorb the words better.

“I think that… there isn’t really a reason?” the swimmer raised an eyebrow in thought. “It could be triggered by anything really—a friend request that never came through, an invitation left unanswered, relationships that gradually faded into nothing like old ink. It could be anything, and sometimes nothing. Sometimes I could be watching TV and I suddenly feel alone and unhappy and generally not good about myself. There is no concrete reason why someone could get depressed.”

“And it’s not like a mood swing, it’s more… long-term?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm, and would you say that swimming helps you… heal? In a way?” Eonsook quizzed, forgetting that she had to take down extra notes and things the recorder didn’t pick up.

Taeyeon smiled and nodded lightly. “Yes. I would say that.”

“Is that why, despite the Committee’s decision, you’ve decided to show up at Nationals today?”

“You’ve hit the nail deep, Lee Eonsook, good work,” Taeyeon congratulated before shrugging away her towel altogether and standing up, stretching her arms as if in preparation. Outside the changing rooms, a crowd cheered loudly as her name was announced in the line-up for the fifty meters butterfly. “If this is a disability then I’ll compete at the Paralympics if they like. But I will never give up being in the water for unnecessary bureaucracy.”

Eonsook stood up as well and held her hand out. “Good luck out there, Taeyeon ssi. I hope this race more than heals you.”

The swimmer considered the statement for a bit, then grinned cheekily and swatted the reporter’s offering away before skipping out into the waiting stadium.