“Hey”, he sheepishly said, a shy smile forming in his lips.

“You’re back?!”, Jihyun tried to whisper without avail. She certainly wasn’t expecting to see him so soon and for that she wasn’t able to hide her surprise.

“Are you seriously talking right now?!”, Mingyu shrieked, making everyone flinch. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“I’m sorry!”, both Jihyun and Jaehwan – the boy who helped her picking her things – bowed multiple times.

“Just get back to your places.”, Mingyu gestured with his hand in an almost flamboyant way, just as he usually did – the swimmers didn’t call him “The Diva” for no reason.

The two bowed once again and, while Jaehwan disappeared into the first rows of swimmers, Jihyun dragged herself to the back, utterly flustered.

“As I was saying before being interrupted”, Mingyu cleared his throat and Jihyun breathed heavily, letting an inaudible “aish” escape her lips, “the Nationals will be held in November. Since most of you just started your summer vacations, let’s use this two month’s span to practice intensively. I want better results than last year!”, Mingyu raised his fist and everyone cheered. Jihyun couldn’t help but smile. Seocho’s club was one of the best clubs in South Korea and every year lots of swimmers won medals and honors – not to talk about endorsements. S.A.C was also the house for big Olympic names such as Jung Taekwoon, Cha Hakyeon, Kim Yujin, Kwon Yuri, among others. Jihyun herself had won her fair share of Olympic medals. S.A.C’s synchronized swimming team and water polo team were also among the world’s best and won several competitions, including at the Olympics.

“Don’t forget that your times are crucial for your presence at the World Championship and at the Olympics! Use this vacations wisely.”, Mingyu reminded them.

Jihyun nodded. Her college summer vacations had started mid June, as with most of the swimmers, and would end late August. Mentally checking, June would be ending in another week and her parents would start their vacations mid July.

“I probably won’t go.”, she mumbled to herself. Her parents usually went to Jeju or Busan, just to get away from Seoul, but it wouldn’t be the first time Jihyun – and Woohyun – would stay at home because of practice. To them, being at the Olympics was far more important than vacations, although Jihyun couldn’t deny the slight sadness she felt for not spending more time with her parents.

“I’ll schedule a reunion so we can discuss everything in detail later.”, Mingyu clapped once. He then smiled and the atmosphere seemed to become lighter.

“So, as you may have noticed, Lee Jaehwan decided to gift us with his presence again!”, Mingyu smiled and the boy in question stepped forward, bowing to the coaches and his fellow swimmers. Everyone cheered once again, but Jihyun felt weird doing it, so she just smiled and clapped.

She couldn’t deny the happiness she felt seeing him there and wondered if Namjoo had mentally made fun of her already.

“I’m really happy to be back. Those six months in Busan were the longest ever.”, the boy smiled and Jihyun couldn’t help to smile as well. Lee Jaehwan was a tall man with a handsome face, broad shoulders and really nice body. With light brown hair and bangs, he was one of the pretty boys who had “fans”, just like Woohyun. It helped that the boy was, by nature, sweet, fun and laid-back, always making jokes and smiling.

“Why did you come back hyung?”, a disembodied voice questioned in a rather mocking tone and Jihyun knew exactly who was asking – there was only one boy with that level of audacity that, truth to be told, always made the others laugh.

“Yes, thank you for that question Hyuk, I missed you too.”, Jaehwan laughed. “My mother decided to move back to Seoul, that’s why.”, he explained.

Someone was about to speak, but Mingyu interrupted the little commotion.

“People, we’re already 25 minutes late, it’s already past seven, let’s start practice!”, he clapped his hands. “For the morning practice, everyone will start with what’s on the white board”, Mingyu pointed to his left, “and then your coaches will reunite with you.”, he informed and left.

“Okay people, let’s go!”, Jihoon, the men’s coach yelled and everyone dispersed. They would start with 15 minutes of warm-ups as to prevent any injuries and then they would hit the water.

Jihyun headed to the benches where the swimmers usually left their things, but was stopped.

“So…”, she turned around when a hand grabbed her left arm.

“Mock me all you want Kim Namjoo.”, she sighed and laughed at her friend. “Come on, I don’t need another scolding, especially from Jihoon.”, Jihyun said, pulling her friend. Of all the coaches, Jihoon was the one that really scared Jihyun. Fortunately, he was the men’s coach and so she didn’t have to deal with him that much.

“Will you tell me what happened back there, or what?”, Namjoo, her friend asked as she followed her.

Namjoo was Jihyun’s friend since she could remember. The two, along with Han Sanghyuk – or Hyuk-, were the best friends. Jihyun wasn’t sure if she had first met the two at the pool or at school. The three were the same age, lived fairly close and had attended the same school since grade one. Their personalities complemented each other and the three formed a long lasting friendship.

“I was late and my things fell.”, Jihyun answered simply. After putting their things away, the two girls followed everyone else outside, where they would warm-up.

“And Lee Jaehwan is back…”, Namjoo lightly punched her friend’s right arm.

“Ouch! Be careful, that arm is sore.”, Jihyun laughed and looked at her friend. With brown, slightly wavy short hair and bangs, Kim Namjoo was shorter than Jihyun.

“Hyung is back!”, Hyuk passed by the girls, pulling Jaehwan, who was laughing and jumping.

“Go talk to him.”, Namjoo pushed her friend and wiggled her eyebrows.

“Don’t be weird woman!”, Jihyun gave her friend a weird look. “Let’s just warm-up.”, she scoffed.

During the warm-up, many chose to flood Jaehwan with questions instead of really warming-up. Jihyun could hear loud voices laughing and talking, but remained focused on what she was doing, mostly because she wanted to be careful, as she had suffered a minor injury in her shoulder in the beginning of the year.

“Go on, you’re dying to join the party.”, Jihyun mocked her friend. Namjoo, despite doing some warm-up exercises, was more focused on what was happening next to them.

“I just want to hear the gossips.”, she laughed.

“How boring.”, a toneless voice said and the girls looked back.

“Oppa, are you not happy for Jaehwan oppa’s return?”, Namjoo asked, faking a shocked look.

“I am.”, the man next to them simply stated. To say he was a man of few words was an understatement. Jung Taekwoon, the boy who had approached the two, was known for his quiet and reserved personality. But one shouldn’t be fooled by his calm and chic looks; Taekwoon was a competitive man who excelled at everything he did.

“They’re too noisy.”, he scoffed in a mutter.

“Don’t mind them, they’re just happy oppa is back.”, Jihyun said.

“Too noisy.”, Taekwoon stated and left, having ended his warm-up.

“I’m done as well. Are you coming?”, Jihyun asked her friend, who nodded.

As they returned to the deck, Dongwook approached them.

“Prepare to die.”, Namjoo tried to hold her laugh and Jihyun prepared mentally to extra laps.

“Jihyun, coach Mingyu told me to inform you that you’ll be teaching the three to seven class for two weeks, starting tomorrow.”, Dongwook informed.

“What? No! Can’t I do extra laps for a month or something?”, Jihyun asked. “I don’t want to teach children how to swim, I don’t know how they work.”, she stated, as if talking of another species.

“Coach Mingyu thought it would be a good punishment and I see he was right.”, Dongwook giggled. He was actually a nice person and Jihyun enjoyed having him as coach. “Teaching little kids isn’t that hard. I’m sure you’ll survive. You start tomorrow, don’t forget.”

“How about training?”, Jihyun inquired, hoping to be freed from her punishment for interfering with her practice schedule.

“Instead of three hours of lunch, you have thirty minutes. It won’t interfere with your training, don’t worry.”, he explained, and left.

“I don’t want to...”, Jihyun whined.

“Oh, come on, teaching kids is like the best punishment ever.”, Namjoo laughed and patted her friend’s back.

“Not for me, I don’t like kids, you know that. I don’t know how to talk to them. And instead of spending my lunch time resting, I’ll have to spend it at the other side of the building, inside a pool with small creatures.”, Jihyun ruffled her hair.

The club’s building was divided into two pool complexes: one – complex A - was for everyone who wanted to learn how to swim and just practice the sport for recreation or health reasons; the other – where Jihyun was, complex B - was for the club’s competition teams.

While the complex A had two side to side short course pools (25 meters long) and a kid’s pool, smaller in length, width and depth, the complex B had an long course pool (Olympic-size, with 50 meters) where the swimmers practiced, and another pool, smaller in both length and width, but with the same depth, where both the water polo team and the synchronized team practiced, alternating.

“You’ll probably be with someone else, don’t worry.”, Namjoo could only laugh at her friend, since, for her, that wasn’t even a punishment.

The girls headed to where they had left their belonging and prepared to hit the water. After tying their hair, they took their clothes off, staying in swimsuits. Since it was practice, everyone had different swimsuits and most swimmers took more than one swimsuit to change between practices, to prevent colds and getting their clothes wet.

Before entering the water, the girls went to check the practice schedule on the white board.

Jihyun saw the water polo team practicing in the water – as her brother had told her earlier – and, looking up at the gymnasium, she saw the girls from the synchronized team practicing.

After mentally checking what she had to do, she hit the water. As usually, she was sharing her lane with Namjoo, Hyuk, Naeun – Hyuk’s girlfriend – and other friends. Usually, during general practices, boys and girls would share the same lane without a problem.

The next two hours were spent swimming, with a few occasional brakes to rest or talk. The coaches wouldn’t allow them to stop for more than a minute or two though, so they were constantly swimming, trying to perfect their technique and, at the same time, their speed.

Jihyun felt happy in the water, she felt complete. No matter how tired she felt, she never felt sick of the water. When she was swimming, she had all the time in the world to think about whatever she wanted to and she felt free.

At 9 am, Jihoon blew his whistle. Most of the swimmers had already finished the obligatory laps and were simple practicing their styles. Everyone stopped, it was time to rest.

The water polo team was already out of the water, as the synchronized swimming team would be down in moments to practice.

Jihyun left the water and took her swimming cap, her wet hair falling from her shoulders and her messy bangs sticking to her forehead. She took her towel and dried her hair roughly. She then combed it with her fingers.

“You look y like that, have I told you that?”, Namjoo winked at her and Jihyun laughed. She fixed her friend’s bangs and Namjoo did the same to Jihyun’s.

“Why don’t you go talk to him?”, Namjoo asked, putting her shirt on. Jihyun did the same and her t-shirt got all wet immediately. It didn’t matter though, it happened to everyone.

“Should I?”, Jihyun wondered out loud.

“Of course you should!”, Namjoo pushed her friend in the direction of the boy they were talking about.

Lee Jaehwan was next to his good friends – among them Hyuk and Taekwoon – talking and laughing. His shirt was all wet and sticky to his body, making his abs noticeable.

“Come with me.”, Jihyun pulled Namjoo with her. “This is so weird.”

“No it isn’t you dummy! Naeun unnie is also there, if you want we can just join her.”, Namjoo pointed and chuckled. Jihyun nodded.

As the girls were approaching, though, a loud shriek was heard.

“Jaehwan oppa, you’re back!”

“Ugh, guess who’s here!”, Namjoo groaned and rolled her eyes.

A/N: Just to clarify, I don't really know when and where the South Korean Nationals take place, so I'm just going to adapt it to what better fits the story ahaha Also, about the "Olympic medalists" I listed, lets just pretend those names are big in the swimming world ahahah. After all, it is a fanfic :p (and Kim Yujin is After School's UEE)

I'm also thinking of updating the description with a picture of the most important characters after most of them are introduced (so, after the third or fourth chapter), but I don't know if that's really necessary. If you think it would better help you keep in mind who's who (also because I'll use their real names instead of their stage names), just tell me :)