It was a beautiful Saturday, one of the warmest this year, a kind of day where most kids packed their bags and left for the lake. Chanyeol had followed Baekhyun to the pond instead. It had become their thing over the summer. Baekhyun didn’t like it too much by the big lake. By the pond, he could patiently wait in the shadow, rest his back on the trunk of one of the white birches while his goofy friend splashed around in the water. No one asked questions or for not jumping in.

His mother always told them to be careful, and to stay away from the pond. Yet, the pond was where they ran.

They ran past their twisted climbing tree, under low hanging branches of pines, not having enough time for the longer way, until they finally could see the familiar pattern of white lilies scattered out on the shiny surface of the pond.

As always, Chanyeol pulled off his shorts and shirt, kicked away his shoes and let himself fall backwards into the black water. It might be sludgy, but it felt like silk on his too warm and sticky body.

While Chanyeol splashed around between green reed and white lilies, ducked under just to pop back up another place, hair and skin covered in tiny drops of mud, Baekhyun just watched. He watched out for him, as he used to word it.

Chanyeol didn’t believe in the stories, he didn’t tease Baekhyun about it either. If his best friend was afraid of water, then let him be. Chanyeol never pushed it.

The stories Baekhyun referred too were the ones his grandma used to tell. On snowy days when they had stumbled into her warm kitchen after chasing a fox, or each other, she tucked them in warm blankets in front of the fireplace. While socks and shirts were spread out on warm bricks, and their fingers curled around mugs of steaming tea, she told them all the familiar stories. Some of them cute, some really creepy.

She was right about the pond looking bottomless, it was too black too see anything down there. Chanyeol had tried, but never been able to dive deep enough to reach the bottom. He still knew it was there. How could anything be bottomless anyway? And he understood it was possible to tangle your feet into the lilies strong stems. But that they could drag you under? That the lilies could hold you until the nøkk or a wood nymph would find you? Not possible.

They were just fairy tales. Therefore, he jumped in.

It was not like the lake. There he could be swimming around for a long time, until his feet turned numb from how chilled the water was. The pond was warmer, but also muddy. Spending time on land next to Baekhyun was the fun part of their expeditions anyway.

Chanyeol crawled back up and spread himself out on the soft moss to let his body dry in the sun.  Baekhyun moved closer, close enough to reach out to touch. Using one finger, he painted silly figures and patterns in the faint layer of mud covering Chanyeol’s long upper body. Chanyeol tried his best not to laugh too much from the tickling sensation. Chewing on his lip he tried his best to focus on the single finger and to guess what it was Baekhyun was drawing.

It felt like tiny hearts.

“What do you think love is?”  Baekhyun sounded lost in thoughts, his voice soft and dreamy.

“My mother tells me ‘you won’t know until you’ve kissed and lost your heart in it’

“So you have to kiss to know it is love?”

Chanyeol had to think for a moment, he had never thought much about it, not until resently. “I don’t know. It’s just something my mother used to tell me.” Chanyeol rolled over on his side, rested his head on his arm so he could look at his friend.

“My mom says lots of stupid stuff, like ‘don’t kiss a hulder, then you’ll never get your heart back.’, so you can’t really listen to her talking about love. She never answers properly to those questions anyway.”

This had both of them laughing. Mrs. Park was a kind woman, but she joked around a lot, told the kids funny stories. For many years, Chanyeol was afraid of eating berries because his mom once told him the tiny seeds in them could start growing in his stomach.

“But how do you know if something is love? Is it possible to love someone when you are just a kid?”

“Of course it is! I love my brother” Sehun might be a pain in the , but Chanyeol never doubted that he loved his stupid brother.

“You don’t want to kiss your brother.”

Chanyeol dropped his head to the ground and groaned, clearly annoyed with his friends stupidity. “Of course not and I don’t know, I love you. You are my very best friend.”

“You’d like to kiss me again?”
 

How dared he? Baekhyun had promised never to mention it again. Chanyeol didn’t know what he wanted or not. After that day, something had changed in him and he felt so much closer to his friend. It was scary as hell and he was never going to admit it, and most important, never letting it happen again.

“No! I mean, not love you like that”

Chanyeol’s gaze was strong and angry enough to make the other chuckle shyly and utter as weak “Sorry”.

None of them had it in them to stay quiet for very long though. Slowly the conversation turned to safer places, like school and how much work they had to do. Parents never seemed to be happy enough and just why did one have to work on warm summer’s days? All the important questions being discussed while the sun travelled from south to west on the sky.

Chanyeol had jumped into the pond once more to cool down and was happily splashing around. Baekhyun had kicked off his shoes too and for once he pushed his body closer to the edge. Carefully, tentatively, he let his toes breach the surface.

It didn’t take long until he had both his feet dipped in water, tapping the surface with them, making tiny swirls that made the water even muddier than it already was.

Baekhyun looked so incredible pretty sitting close to the water. Chanyeol probably let his gaze linger on his friend for too long, at least long enough for him to feel the need to duck under to cool down his ears. Soft, messy, blonde hair framed his tiny face and rays of warm evening sun painted his skin in golden tones. Reflection from the water made all of him sparkle, as if he was covered in tiny crystals, all of him. Baekhyun didn’t even look human.

Chanyeol ducked under once more, had to focus and shake away those thoughts. Still under water, he swam closer to his friend, popped his head up just in front of him, surprice!

When Chanyeol thought of it later, he knew he had been wrong. He had been the worst friend. Of course he knew that Baekhyun didn’t know how to swim, how could he know when he never tried. Chanyeol had forced him into the water anyway.

He remembered every second of it.

With a firm grip on both of Baekhyun’s ankles, he pulled his friend into the lily-covered pond. Close to land, they had their feet safely tucked in soft mud, but as Chanyeol jumped backwards and pulled Baekhyun with him, there were no longer any ground for their feet to rest on.

It was not funny for many seconds. His friend’s desperate cry behind his back was going to haunt him for years.

Tall trees were making shadows on the surface that made it even more hopeless to see anything. Chanyeol in as much air he could in his lungs and rubbed his eyes before he ducked under again, and again. He yelled his name so loud it had nesting birds flee the area. He crawled up on the grass on the other side, the scary side with all the lilies, and dived back in.

Baekhyun had to be somewhere. The pond was not that big and he had not pulled him that far from the edge. No one just disappear in thin air, or black water.

How long does it take for swirling water to turn completely still?

Chanyeol had been sitting under a tree for longer than that. Alone, with his knees bent up against his chest and arms tightly wrapped around them. His limbs were stiff from swimming, lungs exhausted from holding the breath for too long, eyes red and itchy from being forced open in the sludgy water. It had been to no use.

Chanyeol knew he had to run home, to gather as many people as possible, to tell, to run back, to search all night. He just needed a moment to rest because right now the claws he felt in his chest, were close to ripping his heart apart.

He tightened his grip around his legs a notch more, stared out over the shiny surface with an empty gaze and focused on getting air into his bruised lungs. All he could see was waterlilies. Those damn waterlilies.