A/N: MiChaeng | High School AU

Chaeyoung doesn’t like the water, she never did. Not when her mom would fuss and chase her around the house trying to get her to take a bath when she was four. Not when she was signed up for swimming classes at eight and eventually “kicked out” because she refused to even step foot into the pool. Instead, she stood there defiant with her arms crossed across her chest despite the floaties on her arms. 

Her mom sighed and gave up in trying to getting her daughter to learn how to swim and said that; “One day, this will bite you in the  and you can’t blame me for never trying to get you to learn.” Eight year old Chaeyoung remembers rolling her eyes and mumbling under her breath; “unlikely” and ignoring the defeated sigh that followed after from her mom.

She hates to admit it but her mom was right.

She was staring at her class schedule and there it was printed in black and white was swimming class for PT. Well, there was a class she was going to be skipping for the semester or at least until her family decides to uproot them somewhere else again. 

Whichever came first, Chaeyoung couldn’t care less.
 

Chaeyoung honestly thought her mom was joking when they first moved to some small town in the middle of nowhere and she had been pulled into her mother's side. Her mother hugging her firmly with a wide smile that felt so rare these days, said; “This time, it’s going to be different Chaeyoung.” 

She remembers rolling her eyes and as soon as her mother let her go, she shuffled off to pick out her bedroom and claim it as hers before her brother could. It was by her fortune that it also happened to be the furthest from her parent’s bedroom too.
 
It’s almost four months into the first semester and her parents unpacked all of the boxes, settled in and it’s bizarre. They’ve never fully unpacked in their lives and it’s why Chaeyoung is still living out her suitcases and moving boxes. Now that her family has settled and she hasn’t, it feels – unreal, like, yes, they really are staying in this small town this time, permanently.

This realization comes a bit too late, as the school calls and her mother happens to be the one that answers. Chaeyoung knows exactly what it’s about when she finds her mother shooting her a dark glare and she tries very hard not to sink into her seat wishing she was as invisible at home as she was at school.
 
They spend about two hours arguing and by that, she means her mom spends two hours yelling and Chaeyoung is just sulking in her seat, desperately trying to tune her mother out. It ends with her mom sighing, tells her that she better start going to swim class if she knows what’s good for her.
 

Chaeyoung manages to skip out of it for another week, spends her final hours until the late nights at the mines. If there’s something about this random small town, it’s the mines. It’s a nice area to hike, enough forestry to hide away from workers and people and there is a small lake which, Chaeyoung hates to admit is where she practices swimming. 

She practices in the –what she figures is the shallow part of the lake and attempts to at least just float. It doesn’t work out however, her nerv