“Breathe!” A voice yelled.

I could feel compressions hitting my chest, forcing the liquid in my lungs to spurge out of my mouth. Next the sensation of itchiness ached my throat and I let out a violent cough. My body shook to no ends as my eyes pried itself opened. I found it hard to breathe for a couple of seconds as I tried to catch my breath from coughing.

“She’s alive,” someone said in relief.
I blinked a few times before coming to terms that I was definitely not in heaven because the faces before me were too familiar. Coughing out a couple more times, I tried to make sense of what had just happened. The only thing that came to mind was that I had fell into the pool by stepping on a slippery tile and that was it. Who was it that had pulled me out of the pool?
“Jesus,” his voice cried and I was suddenly in someone’s embrace. “Watch where you’re stepping next time,”

Kyung, I thought to myself, finally recoginizinf the voice. I let out a couple more violent coughing before finding myself relentlessly sobbing.

After a while, I composed myself and excused myself from everyone so I could get clear understanding of what had happened. Walking towards another part of the big room, I sat onto a chair provided and placed my face into my hands. The memory of when I was younger played into my head. I had no memory of this yet it felt as if this had only happened yesterday. I guess this could explain why I was so afraid of large bodies of water. With a sigh, I shook my head and tried to clear everything away.
Footsteps sounded from before me.
I looked up and wasn’t exactly surprised to see Kyung walking towards me. He sat on the chair next to me and we stayed quiet for a moment or two before he spoke up.
“That… was something scary,”
“Mhm,” I mumbled.
“Are you scared of the water?”
My lips trembled, but I don’t let a word out.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed, “if I hadn’t come after you, would probably wouldn’t have slipped into the pool,”

I stayed quiet.

“I’m sorry for this whole day,” he lowered his head, “I shouldn’t have forced you to come when you didn’t even want to come,” he looked at me and waited for me to say something, but I don’t. We sat in another round silence; the only noise was the splashing of water made by the sea lion.
“Thanks… for saving me,” I forced out.
Kyung slightly lifted his head to look at me.
“And,” I exhaled, “I’m actually sorry for ruining the day for you.”
“Well, I guess we’re both sorry,”
“I guess,” I nodded in agreement.
Kyung cleared his throat, “So, are you really going to head back home?”
I shrugged, “I’m soaking wet,”
“I think I can fix that,” he nodded, “if you still want to stay of course,”
“Well,” I furrowed my brows, “I mean, since I’m already here…”
Kyung placed his hand on top of mine, “I’m sure they have dry clothes for you to borrow today,”
“I’m only agreeing to this because Hana looked sad when I told her I was going,” I explained, “It’s not because of you or Seohyun,”
Kyung laughed and nodded, “Okay,” he clenched his hand around mine and helped me up from the chair. At the moment, I swear that the only thing I could hear was the erratic pounding of my heart as Kyung led me back to where Seohyun and Hana was.

-

For the rest of the day, I got stuck wearing a blue polo and khaki pants which kept slipping down, so I had to keep pulling them up. But rather than my focus be on the pants, I was actually quite surprised that Kyung stuck to my side instead of Seohyun. When I decided to go look at another tank of fish, he followed and asked me what kind of fishes were inside. When we were walking through crowds of people, Kyung grabbed my hand and told me to not let go of his hand because he didn’t want to lose me like this morning. Questions bombarded my head as to why he was suddenly acting this way towards me. The way looked at me seemed to change also—or maybe it was just my imagination. Either way, his attitude towards me seemed to be softer than usual.

Soon, it started getting late and we finally decided to go back home. During the ride home, Hana fell asleep while me, Kyung, and Seohyun stared out the window. Thoughts were running my mind as I stared out the window, but the most prominent one was about the memory I had when I fell into the pool. The more that I thought about this, the more I began to remember about that day. Apparently, that day, I had begged my parents to take me to the pool because every one of my friends had gone there except me. They gave in and took me there, but the problem was that I didn't know how to swim. My mother offered to help, but I rejected and told her I could learn myself. However it took me more than thirty minutes to decide that I was going to go into the pool because my friends were pestering me. But not knowing how to swim, I hesitated to jump into the pool until…

Get in!

A familiar voice sounded and the next thing I knew I was sinking down to the bottom of the pool. It wasn’t after I came back to breathing that I made a vow to myself that I was never to get near a big body of water.
“Finally we’re back,” Kyung stretched. As soon as the car came to a total stop and the engine killed off, I opened my side of the door and got out, immediately greeted by fresh air. Just as I was about to close the door, Kyung shouted, “Wait!”
I stopped my hand from swinging the door and turned around, “Oh,”
Kyung opened the door wider and got out, “Didn’t you see me coming your way?”
“No,” I shook my head, “I thought you were going to exit Seohyun’s way,”
“I decided not to,” he smiled. I furrowed my brows and took a step back as Kyung closed the door. He turned to look at Seohyun and waved at her, “I think we’re going to get going,”
“Oh, okay,” she waved back, “I’ll see you guys at school then,”

“Come on,” Kyung said as he walked past me, “I’ll walk you home,”
I slightly took a step forward, unsure how to feel about this. What exactly was going through Kyung’s mind right now? I stood there for a couple of seconds before hearing Kyung call my name.
“Do you want to stand there the whole night or something?”
I shook my head and quickly walked towards him.
“Ah, I’m glad we ended the day nicely, despite what happened earlier,” he breathed out, “how did you feel about it?”
I shrugged, “It was fine,”
He chuckled, “I noticed you smiling a couple of times,” he commented, “it was nice,”
I frowned, “Are you saying I don’t smile?”
“Not around me,” he shook his head, “what would it take to have you smile at me like that, I wonder?”
“Smile like what?”
“Smiling happily and genuinely,” he answered and turned his head to look at me, “it was a warm and soft side of you that I’ve never seen before.”

I cleared my throat, “That’s only because you don’t know me well enough,”
“Oh yeah?” He exhaled, “Then how about I ask you some questions to get to know you then?”
“This again?"
He nodded, “Seeing that you’ve become a daily routine in my schedule, I might as well get to know you,”
“Fine,” I answered.
“Let’s see,” Kyung placed a finger on his lips, “what’s your favorite food?”
“Curry,”
“What do you do when you wake up in the morning?”
“Turn off my alarm,”
Kyung chuckled at my answer and asked another, “Do you like anyone right now?”
I stiffened at his question, “W-What kind of question is that?”
“I’m curious,” he answered.
I shook my head furiously, “I don’t,”
“Really?”
“No,”
“Ok,” he took my answer and proceeded to ask me another, “What are you scared of?”

“Water,” I mumbled, “large bodies of them,”
“Did you have a traumatic incident with one?”
“Obvious, is it not?”
“What happened?”
“Personal stuff,” I turned my head the other way.

Soon we reached my home. Before departing from Kyung, I cleared my throat, “K-Kyung,”
He shrugged his brows at me, “What is it?”
“Well,” I exhaled and found it so absurd that I would say this to him despite my conflicting emotions, “since you had saved me today, I… um, when we go back to school, I’ll try talking to Seohyun some and get to know her.”
“Really?” A smile lifted onto his lips in surprise.
“There’s no need to get all happy about it,”
He chuckled and suddenly embraced me, “Thanks,”
“S-Sure,” I answered and pulled away from him. “Well, bye,”
He nodded, “See you,” he turned around and began to walk home.

author's note: OTL I apologize for the late update!
@silverrinnie: so you had expected the twist?! well dang lol; and YO no i havent. i prolly should bc of kyungs tummy lolol thanks for reading! n__n