Archive of Our Own ^beta

Before Jihoon joins the team, the word spreads like wildfire. 

There’s hushed talk about it before practice, between sets in the weight room and at the meals taken together at the cafeteria. There’s even a groupchat created just for the purpose of betting on whose place he’s going to take, which event he’ll get to compete in. 

“I’m good,” Chan says, when Minhyuk offers. It’s unfair betting on odds when he already knows the outcomes. 

He hasn’t mentioned it to anyone but he’d caught the coaches after his series in Bangkok, hiding in the changing rooms with his hair dripping on the floor, not finding what it takes to stand and rip off his swimsuit. Like somehow, if he refused to move on, he’d get to start the day all over again. 

Jiya wasn’t loud, but Chan still caught pieces of sentences, easy enough to puzzle back together. 

“We’ll have to reconsider,” she said, words muffled like something was in her mouth. Probably her thumb, skin around the nail fully chewed out. But it could have also been solid disappointment, for all Chan knew. “There’s no way we’re getting that subsidy now.” 

Back then, it felt awful. But it felt worse that Chan was allowing himself to feel something that wasn’t guilt. 

The countdown to Jihoon’s arrival has been reduced to one hand, and Chan is doing a decent job at hiding the quasi-permanent ache that lingers from his ribs to his stomach. And he is, for the most part. It must show on his face or in his performance though, because Chan feels the weight of the sympathetic side-eyes Yerim throws in his direction whenever the topic is brought up. It should feel better to be left off the hook than being cornered into talking about it, probably. But at that moment, it’s somehow worse.

He’d been told he’d be one of those athletes that bloom under pressure, able to replicate moves honed in practice with that extra edge of adrenalin, matching the stakes tied to a medalling chance at an international event. 

He could tell Yerim. Just say, “I’m off the team.” She’d understand; Bangkok was her first international competition too, or at least the first that meant something. But Chan doesn’t. Like not saying it out loud won’t force it into realisation. 

But that’s not how it works, and three days before Jihoon’s arrival, he gets called into the coaches’ office. 

“What’s it about?” Minhyuk asks when it’s just the three of them, with Yerim. 

Chan shrugs, waiting for Yerim’s ability to steer a conversation into the direction she deems suspicious, to kick in. Oddly, she makes a noncommittal noise, and pointedly shifts the conversation to the training program. Chan should feel thankful for that too, so it’s strange he doesn’t. 

It’s hard to know what he should be feeling these days, let alone what he feels.

Chan clears his tray and climbs the stairs to the office, alone. 

Yerim is waiting for him when he comes out, her light blush betraying a late run. She looks up from the furious typing on her phone, and makes the decision right away. “Stretching?” she suggests, with a little smile. 

They roll out mats on the deserted training rooms, starting out with some dynamic stretches and then pair up for some partner work. Yerim doesn’t ask, but Chan can tell she wants to. 

"I thought he was retired," Chan says when she’s pulling his arms in a straddle, face turned to the ground. It doesn’t make sense that there’s a reality where Chan is going to be allowed to stand in the same room as Lee Jihoon. He cringes at how it makes him sound, the dazed admiration soaking even through his inner voice.

They switch and Yerim starts groaning as the stretch gets deeper, one centimeter at a time. “Oh, my god. Wait, wasn’t he on that Red Bull tour last year though? Or was it two years—” she screams, high-pitched. Yerim is usually pretty dramatic about everything, but her hamstring mobility has always been terrible, no matter how hard she works at it. Or, as it’s been the case for the past few months, slacking at improving it. Chan pulls harder, but draws small circles on her hands with his thumbs, meaning to cheer her up without needing to say it at all. 

"Ow! Wait," Yerim screams in protest, before remembering to breathe through the stretch. "You would know if you used SNS," she hisses, in an impressively condescending tone. 

Chan rolls his eyes and resists the urge to press harder. He's never been interested in encouraging cliff divers' huge ego-trip, not even formatted in a world tour edition. Besides, he doesn't actually know any of the divers there. It's their loss if Korea is not considered good enough for their recruiting pool. Or he thought so. Lee Jihoon can hardly compare to an average national athlete, though. It feels wrong to even try to.

"Remind me to never do this with you ever again," Yerim whines in a pike position, bringing him back to the moment.

Chan laughs weakly, waiting for her to catch on. As if on cue, her ponytail slaps his face as she tilts her head up in interest. He would find it comedic, if he wasn't so busy feeling sorry for himself.

"Wait!" Yerim says, and then a lot quieter, hunting for the juicy part, "Whose place is he taking in the end? Hyunsuh's? Jiyeon's?"

Chan frowns. They've both been working very hard. Why would they be off the team?

"No one's. He's going to be my synchro partner." He's kind of proud of the way his voice doesn't falter. How his delivery makes the words almost fit together, like they haven't been rehearsed.

Yerim stays silent and Chan almost hopes she's letting him walk away from this. Something he's gotten really good at recently, apparently. Instead, she pushes Chan back on his butt, unexpectedly strong. She turns around and seethes through her teeth, her cheeks terrifyingly red and blotchy, "What the fuck."

The anger is a nice distraction from the usual self loathing. Chan lets it wash over him, lets it feel good. He's a little bit nauseous from the clear fussing over him that's about to occur, but deep down, it’s nice in a messed up kind of way. 

"But you're not a synchro diver!" Yerim exclaims definitely too loud, her mouth slowly morphing into the shape of her most indignant pout. "What’s your coach thinking?" Chan doesn’t know what Jiya thinks. They haven’t had one-on-one meetings since Bangkok. Until tonight. Still, it's easier to pretend to be above it all when she's so conspicuous in her displeasure, Chan notes with something close to relief. Not really, but close. "I am now, apparently."

"It's not fair, she can't do that just because of one time—" the unfairness of it all seizes her throat, so visible it looks almost painful. "Jiyeon fucked up her entire season and didn't even get through semi-finals at nationals, she can't—" She's shaking her head, looking for someone behind Chan's head, putting a knee to the ground, about to stand up.

"Yerim-ah. Please."

It stops her. Yerim sits back down, bringing her hands to her eyes, and smudging the liner she’d carefully applied. She takes a deep breath, the mix of emotions on her face too awful to even attempt to decipher.

"You should be the one upset about it,'' Yerim says and the naked honesty makes Chan flinch, too obvious to disguise.

"Yeah," Chan smiles, while finding newfound interest in the ground in front of her, instead of the red corners of her eyes. He's well aware that everything is miserable these days. But it's not what she means. And they both know it.

"Maybe it'll be good for me, you know," Chan adds. "Trying out something different." He cringes at the hollowness of the argument. It doesn't sound better in his mouth. 

It almost makes her stand up again, renewed fury oozing from every pore of her skin. "That's what they told you? And you didn't know any better? Lee Jihoon has zero synchro experience! He's always said he never wanted to even try!" 

"Did he?" Chan flinches. Before she can say something equally terrible back, he reaches for her hands, "Yerim-ah. I know."

She lets out a barely muffled scream. "Don't say that."

"Well," Chan says, because he's never been able to just shut up when it matters, "If it doesn't work, you'll at least get to tell me you told me so."

"But I don't want to have do that," her entire face twists in upset, "What's wrong with you—" 

"Please." Chan's voice shakes, this time. 

He doesn't even know what he's asking for. For her to stop? For her to actually go and find Jiya, tell her how fucking stupid this entire punishment actually is? For her to bring him back to the platform in Bangkok before he made a mess out of everything?

"Please."

Yerim swallows back what she was about to say. If the top of her face is still frozen in frustration, her chin is starting to wobble pathetically.

She's hurt, Chan realises. Because of him. That's, at last, what takes the air out of his chest.

"Fine," she says, in the same clipped, detached way Chan had used earlier. And crosses her arms resolutely. "Let's see how this pans out, shall we?"

"I'm sorry," Chan thinks of saying. It doesn't seem like the right thing to say, but he's kind of run out of those.

He sighs instead, and helps her to her feet so they can get dinner. 

It's the least he can do.

Yerim, 11.45 pm: link attached [Red Bull Cliff Diving World Tour Final Event, 2019]

Yerim, 11.46 pm: link attached [Red Bull Cliff Diving World Tour Final Event Interviews, 2019]

Chan, 11.50 pm: thank you ^^

Yerim, 11.51 pm: watch and decide if you still want to thank me 

Yerim, 11.53 pm: … good night

Yerim, 11.53 pm: see you at practice tomorrow. don’t stay up all night

Chan, 11.54 pm: sleep well!!!!

The event takes place under the calcareous cliffs of Polignano a Mare, a small crowd and scattered boats whistling when divers pierce the Mediterranean sea. It's a location that could be taken right out of a Bond movie and it makes Chan weirdly self-conscious about his shabby, messy dorm room. He switches off the lights and gets comfortable in bed, also ignoring the fact that it's already too late for him to get the rest he needs for tomorrow's practice.

There aren’t any subtitles for the MC's commentary so Chan skips around the first competitors' mandatory dives, half-expecting and half-resenting the instant where he'll get to see Jihoon. He forwards a little more and startles at the sudden roar of the crowd. The judges' placards all turn to reveal the number 10 and, of course, it's Jihoon that's punching the air, fingers pointing number one, barely recognisable with bleached drippy blond hair, but still reeling in the dominance, the perfection, the applause.

It's a different side to Jihoon that's got none of the humble confidence he used to radiate in his teens, and Chan would love to call that overkill and to believe he would have accepted it with more grace, but it's Jihoon that's scoring perfect tens on the cliff diving World Tour, and not Chan. So.

He skips to the free dive section where—from the little he understands—Jihoon is supposed to be debuting a new dive. The international notation is kind of confusing, but it sounds like he's going to be doing 3 front somersaults with 4½ twists free, which is just saying numbers at this point.

The camera zooms on Jihoon’s face at the top of the twenty-seven-metre platform, miniscule against the howling sea and looking faintly green. His arms are raised, perpendicular to his sides, and his eyes closed for visualisation. Or that's how Chan has to rationalise it, because the image reminds him too much of one of those ancient Greek demi-gods, tragic and beautiful in their demise. Chan groans out loud. How much more embarrassing can it get, really.

He hears the crowd gasp as Jihoon takes off, and already, he's spinning with implacable precision, betraying inhumane discipline and a hint of workaholic tendencies. It wouldn't normally matter. Chan even loves watching Yerim's handstands or Minhyuk's twists, reminders that perfection is within reach, envy tainted with admiration driving him forward at the sight of the line of their bodies, their splashless entries. 

On the other hand, and it's probably not intended, Jihoon's style might as well be putting him back in his place, shushing him with a 'you will never come close'. Chan’s throat tightens. Yerim's text makes more sense now; from tomorrow on, it's Chan's dayjob to come close. Or to try. 

He's feeling vaguely nauseous by the time he forces himself to close the tab and to open the other link Yerim sent. There’s a weird tinge of guilt when he skips out on the entire medals ceremony, but hey, self-care. 

“So, Jihoon,” the interviewer asks enthusiastically off-screen. “It’s been quite a year for you, hasn’t it? Could you tell us a bit what your first season as a wildcard was like?” 

Jihoon, waiting to perform his next dive below a tiny ladder, gets gently pushed back into the focus of the camera. He’s blushing furiously, grumpy and shy from the attention. Chan hears laughs coming from the right side, from what he’s assuming to be a group of divers waiting for their turn to be interviewed. 

“Hm, it’s been good,” Jihoon slurs through the English, sun-kissed and salty from the Mediterranean sea. “Different.” 

“Right!” the interviewer manages after missing a beat, clearly waiting for Jihoon to add something. He looks blankly back. “It must have been quite an achievement for a Korean diver! How did you train to transition to cliff diving?” 

Jihoon raises his eyebrows at the tactique change, and switches to Korean, tilting his chin in defiance, knowing they'll have to find a translator. Perhaps the aggression from earlier wasn’t as inconspicuous as Chan thought. Perhaps it was making a point. Jihoon looks like a little dog baring his teeth. “It was hard at first,” he shrugs, “and then it became easier.” 

“Right,” the interviewer says again, reconsidering career paths. It makes Chan laugh, almost despite himself. He ignores the notes of hysteria seeping through it. “Thank you for your time,” Jihoon bows and starts to climb to the platform 

"Well, that was Lee Jihoon, wildcard from Korea—," the interviewer fills in to keep the segments at equal length, but it's stuff Chan already knows. 

He skips forward again, but instead of another interview, it's a montage of senior divers complimenting Jihoon. Of course, he knows it's content supposed to portray how close the divers on tour are—he's done promotional content before for team Korea—so they're not about to start slandering him on Red Bull mandated interviews, but the "revelation of the season" and "fastest learner I’ve ever seen" on everyone's lips seem sincere. 

"Talent like I haven't seen in decades—" Orlando Duque grins and Chan turns his phone off. 

Great.

He lays awake until light filters through the blinds. 

Practice is early in the morning, but Jihoon is already stretching his shoulders with elastics. Chan catalogues it all in his mind despite himself; black fit, pool slides, hat. 

“Hello,” Chan says, and makes sure to stir clear. 

Jihoon simply nods, dismissing the greeting. Chan’s heat sinks. This is the worst case scenario. He’s had plenty of seniors who let the position get to their head, doubling down on the coaches’ programs by asking rookies to run extra kilometers when they thought they weren’t working hard enough. Chan did what he had to do to prove himself, but he doesn’t know if he can match Jihoon’s expectations. 

He waits to see if Jihoon’s going to talk to him directly, but his stare pierces the back of Chan’s mind and silence settles, suffocating, until the rest of the team and the coaches come in. 

“This is Lee Jihoon,” Jiya says, looking more relaxed than Chan has seen her in weeks. She must be convinced it’s going to work. She mustn’t have quite factored Chan in the equation then. The small audience turns around to look at Jihoon and he goes beetroot red. “It’s a chance for us to have someone with so much international experience, so learn from him as much as you can.” 

“He’s shorter than I expected,” Yerim whispers in Chan’s ears when they walk the stairs to the boards, and he tries to pull his face into a smile. Yerim looks at him, startled. 

Chan steps on the board, the familiar coarse sensation under the plan of his feet. He breathes, in and out, and does what he was born to do. He folds in the water, with the clarity that his opening was too late for a perfect entry. When he emerges, Jiya looks at him and dismisses the dive with a flick of her hands. 

“Do better,” Chan hears. 

The thing is. He’s trying. He’s trying so hard he doesn’t know what else to do.

Practice ends without so much as attempting synchro and it’s fine! Jihoon just came in, he’s probably getting up to speed. This probably has nothing to do with Chan and it’s presumptuous that he thinks it does. 

He lingers after practice just in case Jihoon decides to talk to him, but he plants himself in front of the vending machine and gets an ice cold Diet coke. The red can catches the light as Jihoon leaves, bright and distant, and Chan looks at him until he takes the first turn, and disappears from his sight completely. 

Well. So much for good first impressions. 

“Dude, did you see his reverse dives?” Minhyuk says at dinner, practically inhaling his soup. “That’s some crazy abs. You should ask him what he does.” 

“He’s pretty flexible for a guy that buff,” Yerim says, stealing radish from Chan’s plate in the open. “I guess there’s some meat behind all that talk.” 

Chan laughs, busy pushing food into his mouth because he knows it’s what his body needs, even if his mind doesn’t. It all feels like an act for his purpose, the easy back and forth, the efforts to include Chan in the conversation even if he’s barely said more than five words the whole time. He’s thankful, but he isn’t sure it’s helping. Again, he doesn’t know what could help. 

They eat slower than usual, but Jihoon still doesn’t join them. 

Eventually, they sort of do have to feel out the synchro. 

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Yerim drags out the last syllable, rolling her eyes at the breakfast table when she notices Chan fidgeting. “Hey, you’re both great divers. How bad can it be?”

Turns out, it’s pretty bad. 

Jihoon grunts when Jiya turns her phone for them to see. As far as entries and shapes go, it’s textbook. But everything else? Chan hasn’t even touched the surface that Jihoon’s already waist-deep in the water, mismatched from the lead-up throughout the air time. 

“Let’s say there’s room for improvement,” Jiya says, deadpan. The rest of the team laughs from the platforms, but Chan doesn’t. “Come on,” she slaps Chan’s shoulder. “Get back to it.” 

The climbing of the stairs back to the board is silent. Chan looks at Jihoon’s face and wonders if he already regrets coming back and being assigned as Chan’s partner to prove himself as a member of the national team. His stomach lurches. If he had one choice in this fuck-up—and he doesn’t—it’d be for his mistakes not to impact others. He slaps his shammy on his calf and it springs back some sense into him: it already has. His family back home, who were watching. The members of the national team. The coaching staff. Jiya, who vouched for him personally to make the team. Hell. Korea as a whole, maybe. 

Chan looks away from Jihoon’s face and catches sight of the single digits on the whiteboard counting down the days to nationals. How long is a diving career, realistically? Will Chan still be diving when he’s twenty-five, thirty? He can’t imagine what his life will be like after retirement, what it’ll feel like to lay awake at night and think about the opportunities he didn’t work hard enough to seize.

When the coaches call off practice, Chan stays behind for extra sets of leg raises with ankle weights. When the pain in his stomach is finally real, like he feels he’s earned the rest, he allows himself to let go. All evening, his hands remain claw-shaped, no matter how hard he tries to pry them open.

"Sorry," Chan says when he enters the weight room. The early morning slot is normally a sure way to have it all to himself, but Jihoon's already there. Chan walks close to the wall, the squelching of his slippers horrifyingly loud. He entertains the idea of switching to another of Jincheon centre's many weight rooms, before picking a rack at a normal distance from Jihoon. 

“Good morning," Jihoon grunts, equally hesitant. 

The team has monitored team conditioning several times a week, but coaches make it a point to also assign them individual exercise sheets to execute in a set amount of days. It got sent yesterday, but, judging from the colour-code, Jihoon is already somewhere through his second session. 

Chan tries not to pry, but still eyes him discreetly as Jihoon focuses his attention back on the diagram in front of him. He goes through his stretch routine while not quite managing to shake the distinct irony of it all, considering how many times he wished he could ask Lee Jihoon for advice during his career. The thought fills up his brain, until it’s in his mouth. 

"You're really consistent," Chan says, quietly. He's not seen him cheat his way through the hollow holds or the pull-ups, even though he knows from experience the pace takes some getting used-to. 

It’s not as if he’s counting the reps for Jihoon, really. Jihoon himself is audibly mumbling the numbers, expression hidden by the dark fabric of his cap. 

Jihoon startles and takes off his headphones. "Did you say something?"

Chan feels tempted to pretend he meant to talk to someone else, but the gym is completely empty. "You're—you're really consistent," he repeats. And because he never knows when to shut up, he fumbles, "Don't you ever find it tedious?" 

Jihoon shrugs through a series of leg raises. "It's not that hard." He drops on the ground and moves to the racks. "The conditioning is the easy part," he adds, sounding like the corny motivational videos Minhyuk watches in secret before competitions. 

"I see," Chan says. He doesn't. 

Jihoon starts to charge his bar before he realises Chan is still looking at him. 

"Oh," Jihoon says with blatant surprise, like it only occurred to him what Chan was seeking. He fidgets with his hands, rubbing the calluses away mechanically. "I just tell myself that a day is made up of sixteen hours." 

"Sixteen?" Chan frowns. 

Jihoon makes a non-concomitant noise while adding up to twice Chan's body weight for his squat reps. "I deduct the practice time." 

"Ah," Chan nods. 

Jihoon nods back, barely conveying the 'good talk' energy he seems to be going for, and firmly shoves his headphones back on. 

After that, the clinks of the weights and their breaths don't quite manage to pierce through the silence in the room. Chan finishes up quickly, eager to escape. It doesn't mean he stops thinking about it. The ease, the evidence that transpired in Jihoon's voice, is almost worse than the phrase itself. 

"I wish I was more like him," he admits later to Yerim. 

She stops blowing over her steamed egg to stare right at Chan. 

"You do that too," Yerim blinks in confusion. She's spinning the words in her head, trying to find meaning in it. "You don't slack off during conditioning."

Chan squirms in his chair, uneasy. He isn't fishing for compliments. "I guess." 

Chan doesn't slack off during conditioning because of the punishment looming over him, the weight of expectations threatening to crush him. Jihoon, though, performs the exercises for himself. Intrinsic motivation, he remembers his teachers calling it in middle school. How it could make the difference from a student to another, in their ability to succeed. 

'Hard work catches up to talent, if talent doesn't work hard,' his coach in Iksan also used to say. What if talent works hard, Chan wants to ask now, what are you supposed to fucking do?

Yerim tilts her head to the side, her loose pony tail reaches her shoulder. "Minhyuk asked if you were okay, yesterday."

Chan grimaces; Minhyuk is normally slow on the uptake. "What did you say?" he asks. 

Yerim puts her spoon down. "What should I have said?" 

"I don't know," Chan says and it sounds awfully like the truth.

They suck at nationals. 

They don’t just suck. They suck hard. 

“Focus on doing your own thing,” Jiya commands for their basic series with a tight smile, hands gripped white around her iPad. Which, as far as synchronised diving coaching goes, really shows the extent of the damage. 

Chan looks at Jihoon, traits stuck in the same unreadable expression that makes his stomach boil in a mix of irritation and, already, acidic nervousness. He’s staring now, waiting for something that doesn’t come. Jihoon shrugs awkwardly and slaps his shammy on his back to fill the silence.

Okay, then. Chan can mind his own business. He’s experienced enough, has made the national team four times in a row, he does not need – he doesn’t know what he needs. 

Chan brushes his arms energetically in an attempt to bring back some blood into his upper body. He knows it shouldn’t be like this though, that he knows. It should feel exciting, to be finally diving next to Lee Jihoon. It should feel easy, complementary. 

He indulges in the fantasy of imagining it, for a second. Jihoon reaching for his shoulder, encouraging and confident. Trusting. Sure of Chan. He shakes his head; droplets of sweat and water squatter on the ground. His hands shake, clammy against the metal bars of the 3-metre-springboard ladder. 

It goes fine, at first. As fine as two people diving next to each other in a synchronised event can go and it’s far from the perfection Chan is supposed to be able to reach, is expected to reach, but yeah. It’s fine . 

The rest of their dives aren't. Jihoon rotates too fast in the 407C for him to match and Chan doesn’t even need to look at the replay, hears it from the consecutive water impacts that fill his ears and fizzle out in i-told-you-so s. 

It was to be expected, Chan realises bitterly when he bows to the judges and the audience under the slightly scattered applause. It’s not catching him by surprise. 

What does, though, is how fucking infuriating it is. 

It’s not fair. To give it your all and to still feel like a failure. To still not be good enough. 

They tried. They really did. Blue strap stands out on Jihoon’s broad shoulders when he walks out and Chan’s blood and sweat drips on the white tile. And it doesn’t matter. 

It should. 

Somehow, Chan manages to drag himself to the jacuzzi where Jihoon is already plugging in his earbuds and sinking nose-deep into the bubbling water. He looks like a boiled urchin, Chan thinks meanly. 

To the untrained eye, Jihoon looks unfazed as ever, focused at worst, but—Chan can tell—there’s a slight rigidity in his movements, a tension lodged in his shoulders that doesn’t translate well. He’s marking the beat of a pop song barely filtering through gasps and claps of the crowd and the occasional detached announcements, but it feels rushed—frenzied almost. 

Chan breathes in and out, tries to take the song in, marking what he deducts to be the bass in his head, trying to catch up but he’s not used to it—it’s too hard when he can’t hear it properly. He’s half a beat late the entire time and he can feel something gross and squirming and acidic starting to eat his insides. 

There’s probably a metaphor there. Or something. 

“Did I engage the rotation too early?” Chan tries quietly, even though he knows he did, because he has to find something to say. He’s never been good at letting his bruises heal. 

Jihoon raises his head sharply, like he’s surprised Chan is talking to him at all. He takes one of his earphones out. “It was fine.” 

Chan chuckles, but he can tell there’s no humour to it. From the other side of the bathtub, Jihoon’s expression is slowly morphing from surprise to something looking awfully close to concern, mouth dropping open. “It wasn’t bad,” Jihoon repeats, brows furrowed. 

“Yeah,” Chan mutters, looking at the bubbles hiding his hands under the water. 

Jihoon’s mouth gapes open one more time, like there’s something else he wants to say. Instead, he snaps it close when the staff calls for both of their names. 

Probably for the last time, Chan thinks. 

“Let’s do this,” Jihoon says, his little face all twisted up in discomfort. The words look odd in his mouth, like he’s wearing somebody else’s clothes. Too baggy in all the weird places. 

“Don’t fuck up,” Jiya says with her eyes when they pass by her. 

Chan smiles back. 

“I’m paying for dinner,” Jihoon announces while Chan dries his hair. 

Chan looks at him in the mirror, surprised. Jihoon is bundled up in his tracksuit, about to change from the slides he wears inside the pool to the slides he wears outside the pool. His eyes have already disappeared, heavy with sleep and he’s overall kind of looking like he’s more than ready for the night. 

It’s not entirely unusual. Jihoon has offered the team to go out for drinks or food after afternoon training stretching into late-night training before, except the discomfort oozing out of his every pore made it more than clear he was looking forward to being alone at home more than anything. Chan hadn’t taken it personally though. It seemed normal that despite being one of the most relaxed seniors he had to team up with, the expectations that came with being the eldest athlete around caught up with him at times. 

Yerim had laughed, bright and sharp, when he hadn’t even remotely insisted. “Good night, Jihoon-oppa,” she had cackled and waved, after he sent a stiff nod of relief towards their group.

This time, though, his tone doesn’t call for fake politeness. 

“Sure,” Chan says, putting off the exhaustion for later.  

They go to one of the restaurants by the river where coloured plastic tables and chairs spill over from one slot to the next. It’s already kind of crowded with drinkers, but Jihoon manages to grab a seat in an alcove where the noise of the conversations nearby creates a dull murmur that stays below a level of discomfort. 

“What do you want?” Chan asks while squinting at the board so he can avoid looking at Jihoon. “They have, uh, drinks,” he says helpfully because he actually can’t read anything from that far. 

“I don’t drink,” Jihoon says behind Chan’s head. 

“It’s post-comp, though,” Chan says, surprised. “Jiya-noona isn’t going to care.” 

It’s not obvious under the harsh lighting oscillating above them, but Jihoon actually blushes a little. “I don’t like the taste,” he mumbles. 

“Ah,” Chan says. In his defence, Jihoon seemed like the kind of person who liked and handled alcohol well. But now that he says it, he can’t remember one instance where his cans weren’t anything but diet coke. He shakes his still humid hair, trying to chase the assumption off his head. 

He orders a bottle of soju and water and some actual food, because he’s gone past the point of hunger straight into stomach ache. 

They don’t talk much, but the night breeze is rising and gently brushes Chan’s ears. It’s not as awkward as he expected it to be. It’s actually nice to be outside after being cooped up and waiting from early morning at the pool. 

“It’s nice,” Chan says while Jihoon inhales his weight in rice side-dishes. “This is a nice place.”

Jihoon grunts back around a mouthful, but in an appreciative kind of way. He waves his hands above the plates, inviting Chan to eat more. 

Chan laughs and it feels easy. He tips his head back exaggeratedly when he takes another shot, and it makes Jihoon laugh too. 

He averts his eyes when he takes another one, also making sure Jihoon’s own shot glass is never empty. 

“It’s fine,” Jihoon fumbles, “you—you don’t have to.” 

“What?” Chan raises his head sharply, hovering with the plastic container. 

Jihoon’s expression is hard to read. He squirms in his chair for a few seconds before he can continue. “You can be comfortable.” 

Chan furrows his brows, trying really hard to understand what he means. It seems important to Jihoon. 

“What I mean is, you can be—you can be comfortable around me,” Jihoon says quietly. He swats away some mosquitoes for good measure. “You don’t have to,” he stops. “You don’t have to try so hard.” 

Chan’s forearm is starting to cramp; he puts the water container back down. “I am not uncomfortable,” Chan lies a little while he pretends to ignore the second part of what Jihoon said. He doesn’t let it sting. He’s going to think about it every day of the week before he falls asleep, probably. 

The taste of the soju turns sour on the back of his tongue. It’s hard to understand what Jihoon wants from him, honestly. He thought he was trying to make this entire pair thing somewhat functional. But apparently not. 

It must show on his face, because Jihoon attempts to salvage it almost immediately. “I mean,” he’s blushing furiously, looking physically ill as he tries to get the words out, “You’re more—you look happier when you’re around the others.” If Chan didn’t know better, Jihoon would look miserable. A dense rock on the other side of the table, trying not to budge. 

“Who?” 

“Yerim and the rest,” Jihoon shrugs. 

“Well yeah,” Chan says slowly, “They’re my friends.” They’re losers he’s known since he was ten, of course he’s going to treat them differently. Jihoon has gone to Worlds, has had a successful international career, never gives interviews—of course he’s not going to act the same way around him. 

Jihoon fidgets with his glass. “It’s fine,” he repeats. “You can treat me the same.” 

“Okay,” Chan pretends to understand, “I can do that.” 

He can be anything Jihoon wants him to be. 

Jihoon nods. He hesitates, and downs his water shot. Like a guy giving himself the courage to do something stupid. Jihoon opens his mouth and—“You did good today.” He reaches across on the side of the too small foldable table and intentionally squeezes Chan’s thigh. Twice. 

Chan’s entire face is burning when he retrieves his hand, and so is Jihoon’s. He shouldn’t have drunk. He feels the imprint of Jihoon’s every finger, the edges of the memory dulled out by the intoxication. 

“I know you were disappointed by our results today,” he continues while Chan tries to get over himself, “But you know. This is worth taking time for.” 

Disappointed is kind of a massive euphemism, but this is the most Jihoon has spoken, like, ever. So Chan just— he just nods back. It doesn’t erase the fact that he feels like they’re running out of time, that Jiya is going to convoke them first thing next morning to have a “talk” about their synchro pair, but he’ll take it. It’s better than nothing. 

You know, Jihoon said. But does he? Chan wishes Jihoon would just say it. Chan has never done easy though. And he’s not going to start tonight.

Jihoon chuckles on the other side of the table, brushing his hand through his spiky hair. “Man, if they had told me I would have to cheer someone up for getting fourth place at their first synchro nationals—“ 

He lets it hang in the air and it’s not really asking for additional commentary from Chan. 

“All of them have been training together for way more than two months, you know that right? We’re going to get there too,” Jihoon says, drawing circles with his glass and looking right into Chan’s eyes.

“Yeah,” Chan shrugs, not letting himself think about how this is the second time he’s ever scored below a six in an official competition. Today, and that one time in Bangkok.

After a bit, Jihoon pays and insists on accompanying Chan to the bus stop, even though his own line departs from a different one. 

It’s really sweet, Chan thinks as the bus departs and Jihoon timidly waves off. He can’t get used to it, he reminds himself before he dozes off on the window, still smelling the chlorine pervading Jihoon’s hair.  

It’s a good thing they only have dry training scheduled next afternoon because Chan miscalculated drinking with someone who doesn’t. He feels like shit as soon as he wakes up, but the headache only starts to grate the back of his eyes when he tries to stand, paired with stubborn soreness in his thighs he didn’t manage to roll-out. 

When he pushes the door of the training centre, Jihoon and Yerim are already stretching with elastic bands in the back of the room. Yerim bird laugh’s echoes when Chan flops on a mat and closes his eyes, not ready to form an articulate response or to ask for a first-hand recollection of her two podiums. 

Ten minutes before the start of the actual practice, Chan straps both of his knees, slathers tiger balm on his neck, congratulates both Yerim and Minhyuk on their wins, starts doing lunges, and feels overall kind of proud about how he’s not allowing himself to be miserable. 

The rest of the team and the coaches eventually come in and they start, all in all, a pretty standard post-comp session. It doesn't mean Chan—and Jihoon, from what he sees in the corner of his eyes—takes the warm up for granted. He relishes in the familiarity, and yet, makes sure not to take any repetition for granted. He imagines how an ab exercise will translate into twists, and makes the effort to carry out the mental training for each piked front tuck drill. 

“Good,” Jiya says when she passes next to his station. She writes something down on her iPad. Chan smiles. It’s easy gratification but, yeah, he’ll take it. Whatever, at this point. 

Even Jihoon scoffing doesn’t take away from it. Or maybe just a little bit. But not more than that. 

After the general warm-up, they break into smaller groups for the workshops. 

“Tramp?” Chan asks Jihoon, because everybody else is already paired up. He can already hear Minhyuk and Yerim arguing loudly in the back about what’s the best springboard resistance. He tries not to sigh. 

“Sounds good,” Jihoon shrugs back. Which is kind of a bullshit reaction for what everybody knows is the best workshop, but Chan has come to learn that Jihoon doesn’t really get excited for things like that. Mundane stuff. He’s probably seen better equipment abroad anyway, Chan tries to remind himself so he can shrug it off. 

They’re drilling their twist dives, so Chan grabs the harness with the metal circle around it that lets it rotate. 

“You can go first,” Chan offers while he hands it to Jihoon politely. 

“Yeah,” Jihoon says. And after a few deadbeats, “I’ll do that.” 

There’s disappointment laced in what would normally just be a frown of indifference. Like Jihoon was expecting something different to happen today. Chan frowns. Everybody has the schedule on their phones, Jihoon should have known they weren’t going to go into the pool and practise their synchro.

And then, it hits him. 

Would he have let Yerim or Minhyuk go first? Probably not without an argument or like, fair trade. Say, an extra serving bulgogi they serve at the canteen, but not the milk cardboard box that comes with it anyway. That would be good enough, Chan decides while he watches Jihoon struggle with the harness for a good couple of minutes. It was easier to promise under the soft lightning of the restaurant by the river, than to actually put it into action. Because Jihoon, really, is of a different calibre than any of them. That’s the one constant between his sober and inebriated mind. 

Even though it’s hard to see when Jihoon is really struggling to put on the harness. He’s making little frustrated sounds now, furrowed browns crumpling his entire face. 

“Let me,” Chan sighs. He unclasps one of the adjusting bands that’s stuck on Jihoon’s thigh so it can rise above his hips. He kneels in front of him and starts to shimmy it up, grabbing Jihoon’s torso with one hand.

He freezes, realising his fingers are cradling the edges of his bone—his pelvic?—while his other is still placed inside of Jihoon’s thigh, where his skin is so white he could probably see the veins underneath if he were to like trail his hand further and look and it’s kind of fucked up that it makes his pulse race like it does. Majorly fucked up, Chan realises as his entire body warms up and his brain goes into overheat.

“Hum,” Jihoon says, but it comes out a little muffled. Like it’s partially stuck in his throat. 

Chan doesn’t look up. 

He commits to the embarrassment and sets up the harness, so it fits right on Jihoon’s waist, and lets the bottom parts loose so they don’t chafe. 

If he’s completely honest with himself, Chan thought that Jihoon looked shorter in real life than on film when they first met. He would never say it to his face because, despite Jihoon’s best effort, it kind of does look like a sore spot and because it’s easy to forget when Jihoon carries himself like someone who isn’t, all fit and square and like he has to bow his head to get out of the train, even though he really doesn’t. That being said, there’s no hiding it when Chan is kneeling right before him and he circles out his waist—tiny waist—with just both of his hands. 

Chan and Yerim kissed, once. It was in one of the changing rooms, after practice. She looked at him with her hair still half wet, dripping on the plastic bench, and leaned in resolutely, so Chan did too. The kiss wasn’t good, but that Chan remembers he liked. The way she had curled up against him, the way he could feel her breathing and gasp because she was so close, how she had felt way smaller than him. 

She cried afterwards, and Chan apologised. “This isn’t about you,” she said angrily, and Chan left it at that. 

Chan has no idea why he’s thinking of that now (he kind of does), but it doesn’t take away the fact that he shouldn’t, even when the moment stretches, slow and dipped into molasses. 

Jihoon’s shirt has risen, so Chan pulls it down because then he doesn’t have to look at the patch of skin exposed under his ribs that he sees everyday at the pool, but that doesn’t look the same today. Vulnerable and soft. Like Chan could sink teeth into it. 

“All good,” Chan manages to get out forcefully.

“Thanks,” Jihoon croaks out, eyes still wide. 

This isn’t like a movie, and there’s no languorous fade-out that comes to relieve either of them out of their misery. Jihoon just stands up uncomfortably and starts to bounce on the trampoline, loud with the metallic clicks of the equipment. He gathers momentum, suspended in the air, before he starts throwing tucks and layouts – beautiful. So beautiful it’s infuriating. 

“I’m good to go,” Jihoon says stiffly, after a couple more series. “Shouldn’t we, like, call for a coach?” he asks when he realises Chan is detangling the ropes and working the karabiners himself. 

“Sure.” Chan waves to catch the attention of one of the coaches on the other side of the room. 

After that, he just waits for his turn on the mats scattered on the sides of the trampolines, morosely watching Jihoon do what he does best. It’s pretty much his first time drilling the beginning of a two ½ twists and two summersaults dive, but he’s still going from perfection to unreachable perfection within a couple of tries. The corrections show right away, smoothing over a slight timing approximation and barely noticeable bent legs. 

It’s not even infuriating anymore, just plain discouraging. The headache Chan had managed to chase away comes back with a vengeance, pulsating furiously at his temples. 

The thought comes to him as some kind of fucked up revenge, but hell, it’s what Jihoon has been asking for hasn’t he? Chan wouldn’t hesitate with somebody else. He stands, reaching for the rope at the same time as the coach, suspending Jihoon in the air. 

Jihoon swings his legs, surprised, when they’re not reaching the ground anymore. At the sight of Jihoon wiggling in the air, Chan does start to question how good of an idea it really was and dread starts to pour down his spine and — Jihoon starts to make amused creature sounds, small woahs in the midst of giggles as he kicks his legs to turn the harness into a giant swing.

Before Chan can hold it back, he hears his own laugh echoing around the room, merely registering Minhyuk running to them to lift Jihoon even higher. He catches Jihoon’s eyes, turned into upside-down Us and crinkled in obvious amusement and it’s really—it’s really fun, even when someone yells the cost of the equipment. 

They reluctantly let go and even when Chan meets Yerim’s frowning eyes, seeming to say, what the actual hell? and Chan doesn’t have the answer, he can’t shake the smile off his face as he takes Jihoon’s place on the trampoline. 

Strangely, the drill isn’t as hard as he thought. 

Neither is bearing the weight of Jihoon’s look on him. 

Chan has always loved the smell of the pool. 

Yerim pretends not to, ranting generously about the disastrous effects of chlorine on her skin and the inevitable muddy green streaks in her blond hair, but still, she never objects to an emergency meeting on the side of the deep end pool. Sprawled with their bags over the front row, Minhyuk and Yerim are watching the synchronised swimming team’s practice intently. Mimicking them, Chan puts his feet on the railway. 

Chan inhales the air, letting the artificial warmth slowly melt the tension knots in his shoulders. Almost despite himself, he snickers a little at their attempt to look like a coming of age kdrama poster, clearly feeling a lot cooler than they really look. 

“So,” Yerim intently shifts her attention towards him. “How are things with Jihoon?” 

“Hm,” Chan says, feeling the neck pain instantly lodge itself back in its place. 

“Wow, okay,” Yerim raises her eyebrows. 

“You’ve been looking tired these days,” Minhyuk says from Chan’s left side, making big eyes at Yerim. “Is what she means. Are you sleeping well?” 

Chan could laugh at the coddling attempt. “I’ve been sleeping better this week,” he says instead, which isn’t a real answer. 

“Nice,” Yerim says impatiently, putting her head on her hands and blowing on the stray strands of hair framing her face. Chan isn’t sure what it’s meant to do. “Now tell me. How is it?” 

Chan frows, thinking of this week’s practices. The improvement is tenuous, but it’s here. He can’t think of a way to put it into words for Yerim to comprehend, but nationals did in fact dissipate the heavy atmosphere. Or, to be exact, the practice the following day. 

It’s not even a particularly big realisation, least of all a helpful one. 

Jihoon, Chan has realised, has the uncanny ability to run a stupid joke into the ground. 

It’s like lifting him on the trampoline opened the path to a bunch of redundant inside gags between the two of them. It’s probably a bit of a stretch, but if Chan thinks hard about it, it almost reminds him of the wordless understanding he developed with his coaches. 

The constant buzz and background screaming that comes with training in a pool doesn't allow for vocal feedback, so it’s part of the job to develop an ability to read coaches’ feedback on a dive. Back in Iksan, his coach used his entire body, theatrically miming surprise, over rotation in big arm gestures. Jiya’s much more subdued, indicating parted legs with a flick of her wrist; a disappointed pout for an approximative angle. 

“It’s almost like you two had your own language,” his mum had said after driving him to a local competition. Chan was trying really hard not to doze off, comfortably sleepy in the warmth of the car, but the words stuck with him. 

This is a little different though. At first, Chan thought it was some kind of twisted pity, the way Jihoon’s face would instantly light up and crease in joy. Until he realised it really was that simple. That no matter how funny the actual gag was, it got him the same elated reaction. 

Now, every time Chan throws Jihoon’s shammy on the ground during warm-up, he tries to come up with a different variation, throwing finger hearts or whatever comes to him.

He sighs. The dives are still mediocre, but there’s that. 

“Chan?” Yerim says, while waving her hand in front of his eyes. Her eyes are still wrinkled in impatience, but there’s some genuine concern mixed in there.

“Uh,” Chan says while wondering how long he was out of it. He turns to his left, expecting support, but Minhyuk’s face matches Yerim’s. 

Chan thinks of Jihoon’s face, the smile mirroring his own. He doesn’t want that progress to be shut down with a problem-solving session on shitty plastic chairs. After all, he’s doing a decent job at figuring it out on his own. Involving more people just seems unnecessary. 

“It’s getting better,” Chan says firmly. In a way that doesn’t ask for questions. Hopefully. 

“Hm,” Yerim pouts petulantly. Before she can say something that will actually haunt Chan’s nights, Minhyuk interrupts with a, “Which one are you watching again?” 

It’s a bit big, but it actually works. Yerim blushes hard, avoiding the sight of the synchronised swimming team by staring in the distance. “She’s just a friend,” she says bristly. 

“That’s not what I asked,” Minhyuk sneaks in a wink to Chan, while Yerim still pretends to ignore them both. The splashes of the swimmers’ legs on the surface fill the arena as they deploy into a floral formation. One of them rises above the water, lifted by underwater bases. Yerim takes a breath as the flyer waves her long arms with sharp precision. 

"That one," Yerim says dreamily. "The prettiest one," she adds with something else. Something distant and sad.

Chan squints. They’re all wearing the same stern black hair cap, and matching nose clips. “Ah.” 

They keep on watching until their practice is about to start and they have to start gathering the spread of their stuff. “You guys should communicate more,” she repeats on the way to their practice room when neither Chan nor Minhyuk can come up with something to distract her with, “you have to tell him if you’re upset about something, you know. He can’t guess. Hey! Are you listening?” She hits him with her bags, gratuitously. 

Chan rolls his eyes while rubbing his arms. After all this talking, why does the solution have to be more talking? 

Somewhere in there, they get a day-off. 

Chan fidgets with his phone, debating on asking his dad to pick him up. The synchronised swimming team is warming up and the counts echo in the otherwise empty pool. It seems quite fun, at times. It makes him wish he’d stuck to dancing like his dad sometimes, in an intangible way. Chan has lived his entire life as a diver so it doesn’t make sense to imagine a childhood without diving. 

“Hey,” Jihoon grumbles, dropping himself on a plastic seat next to Chan. His hair’s still wet from the morning’s practice, Chan notices despite himself, with drops slowly rolling off his nape into his jacket. He nods back but he isn’t in the mood for conversation either so silence settles nicely.

Honestly, Chan doesn’t even mean to look. He turns his head to catch the time on the mural clock and it’s pure coincidence that he catches a glimpse of Jihoon’s navigation. “Going somewhere?”

Jihoon shrugs, tapping on the bus’ company website. “I guess.” 

“Nice,” Chan says. He opens the message app. 

“Actually,” Jihoon says, finger hovering above the ticket selection. “Did you have something planned?” 

Chan blinks, trying to convince himself this is real. “No,” he says quickly—which is pretty pathetic, he realises. Yerim has already ditched him to meet up with her middle school friends. “No,” he repeats, more assured. “It just fell through.” 

Jihoon hums. And books two tickets with return trips. 

The trip turns out to be a bus, a train, another bus that leans into the mountainous curbs like it’s auditioning for fast and furious, and a taxi. 

"Jihoon-hyung," Chan says, at some point in the second bus, watching the landscape turn increasingly callous with interest. 

"Yeah?" Jihoon sighs, looking out of the window. 

Chan's chest constricts. "Nevermind."

"It's fine," Jihoon says. "You can ask."

"Oh," Chan says, stupidly. It's like feeling Jihoon's breath on his arm melts his brain instantly. "Just. I thought you had grown up in Busan." It’s what his Wikipedia page said and Chan wasn’t exactly around for the class teaching about reliable sources. 

He can feel Jihoon doing that weird surprised face in his peripheral vision. Like it's not the question Jihoon was expecting at all. "I did."

"Ah," Chan says.

"But this isn’t home. I only stayed where we’re going temporarily. Just after," he squirms in his seat and Chan feels that too, "my parents stopped living together." He adds, in an exhale, "I didn't want to be in the way."

Chan doesn’t think of anything appropriate to say back, so he lets Jihoon add, "It's fine now, though. And they weren't super in favour of the whole flunking high school to be a diver plan". He shrugs. "I haven't seen them in a bit, actually."

“Wasn’t it lonely?” Chan says, cautious to gauge whether that’s too much already. His phone’s signal is flickering in and out with every turn the bus takes. 

“Hum, I did roller skates with my dad,” Jihoon supplies. “Sometimes.” 

Chan doesn’t know what to say back, so he lets Jihoon add, “Not the four-wheels kind. The ones with all the wheels in one line.” He’s vaguely miming the wheels with his hands. 

It’s hard for Chan to imagine. His parents don’t really understand why he’s—and Chan can understand how it looks from the outside — always trying to find more convoluted ways to perpetually hurt himself, but they still send a ‘fighting’ text before all his competitions. He takes his dinner in his room at least once a week so so he can eat with his grandma on facetime and every time she complains about him being too skinny and tries to pinch his cheeks through the screen because it makes Chan laugh, and his younger brother remembers his birthday correctly on bissextile years.

He imagines Jihoon coming back from school without anyone waiting for him. Stuck all alone between the hills and the fields. It hurts Chan’s chest, weirdly. 

“Wasn’t it hard to grow up here?” Chan asks because he wants to know. “Lonely, I mean?”

Jihoon’s face pinches in the centre and Chan wonders if this was a subject he should have dropped. That’s one of the (many) things Yerim complains about all the time. That he presses on even when people signal for him to let go. 

Jihoon passes his hand through his hair, trying to shy away from the attention. “It was fine? I watched a lot of shows.” He says it a little defiantly, like he’s daring Chan to make fun of him. 

“That’s good,” Chan says. “I’m glad.” 

He really is, though. It’s not people, but it’s nice Jihoon had something. 

There are no signs of civilization when the bus starts again and leaves them in its wake. Chan breathes in the fresh air, feeling pressure he hadn’t known was there leave his shoulders, as if he were taking off a backpack full of rocks. It’s a sunny day but the rays don’t feel harsh on his skin and between the hills and the trees, Chan catches a piece of the sea glittering under the sun like a shell. He leans out of the bus stop, far from the burning asphalt to see better but Jihoon pulls the back of his shirt, anchoring him back into the moment. 

“Come on,” Jihoon says and Chan follows in his imprints, pushing aside the same wild grass that brushes the hem of his shorts where the skin’s most tender. There’s grass under the sole of his feet, then rock, then sand. 

“Put your stuff here,” Jihoon says, waving a hand over. “You can leave your clothes too,” he says pointedly when Chan’s still looking while Jihoon has already stripped down to his underwear. Jihoon is weirdly comfortable being half-naked half the time, not in a show-off or intimidating way, but almost like he doesn’t recognise it could even be weird. He just strips off and immediately gets to organising his bag in his speedo with speed betraying habit.

Weirdly, it makes Chan feel better. How Jihoon doesn’t even spare a glance at him, like he trusts Chan not to feel self-conscious about it either. For Chan to just exist, somehow. Chan didn’t know there could be kindness in indifference. 

Jihoon starts climbing on the part of the cliff eroded by the sea and the wind, standing out against the striates of earthy tones. So Chan follows too, tuned to the sound of Jihoon’s voice pointing out a dislodged rock or a particularly tricky foot shift. When Chan’s forearms are about to give in, Jihoon hauls him to the highest point of the cliff, hands grabbing Chan’s skin directly, all embellishments left on the beach. 

“Whoa,” Chan says, bending down to see waves crashing against the bottom of the cliff and shattering in millions of foamy fragments. “The view’s crazy, hyung!”

Jihoon’s shoulders open with a little huff, like he’s taking the compliment for himself. “The first time is always tough.” He looks at Chan, critically. “But you should be fine, I think. Just remember to enter feet first.” 

First time? Chan almost asks and he looks down again, mentally superposing 3m platforms all the way to his feet. Surely, it can’t be—“We’re diving?” Chan croaks out. 

“Well, yeah,” Jihoon says, puzzled. “Why did you think I brought you here?” 

“I mean,” Chan says, feeling his heart lurch in his mouth. “Aren’t you supposed to have people to check on you when you land?” 

Jihoon waves an impatient hand around. “Cosmetics. I’ve been diving here by myself forever and nothing ever happened.” 

Why did Chan think Jihoon brought him there? Chan sees the sharp angles of the cliff, the sparse vegetation and the relentless crash of the waves that shake the rock under his feet. By myself, Jihoon said. And nothing else. Ah, Chan realises. This is a nonverbal deal. It’s as if Jihoon’s saying, look: here’s what made me. Here’s what I am, without having to really say it at all. 

Jihoon’s counts are barely audible in the wind. And then. What does Chan do? 

He jumps. 

Chan ruptures the surface like it’s a concrete slab, feet burning in white hot pain and breath knocked out of his chest. He kicks underwater but a wave slams into the back of his head, making him lose all sense of where’s up and down. He opens his mouth and water rushes in, salt infiltrating his tongue, his teeth. He can’t see his own limbs, like he’s sinking into oil, and suddenly a familiar arm pulling him above the surface. 

Air bursts in his lungs, washing away the salt. It’s like being born, Chan thinks.

“You’re good?” Jihoon asks anxiously, before swallowing a large cup of water. 

Chan’s arms are sore where he didn’t properly tuck them in, probably already turning an angry shade of red. He tipped a little bit too much forward and the water slapped him there too, so hard he tastes blood. 

“You did this every day?” he asks Jihoon, struggling to keep afloat against the current. Jihoon’s startled but slowly starts laughing. Surprise turning into something real, neck barred. And there too, Chan joins. 

They’re halfway to the bus stop when it starts to pour. Jihoon groans when he feels the first drops and they’re running, putting their backpacks on their heads like primary school students that didn’t think of grabbing an umbrella. 

Chan feels his breath shortening, trying to keep up with the vague vision of Jihoon sprinting in front of him as the distinct smell of summer rain rises, loud and heavy on the nose. Chan’s clothes are sticking to his body when he finally reaches the canopy, and by the look Jihoon throws in his direction, he’s pretty sure he’s rocking the drenched rat look. 

Not like he’s faring any better. Jihoon’s bangs have morphed into jellyfish filaments on his forehead and Chan has to suppress the irrational urge to brush them out. He shakes his own head like a dog instead, too shy to wring the water out of his shirt. 

They sit next to each other on the bench awkwardly instead; Chan looks down discretely to make sure their thighs are not touching. 

“Forty-five minutes,” Jihoon groans to no one in particular, while getting his phone out of his bag. He starts watching an anime Chan doesn’t recognise but makes no move to tilt it towards him. 

The waiting time displayed on the side glares back ominously, projecting a red halo on the road. It reads almost as ominous, weirdly out of place in their lush, wet surroundings. Chan shivers despite the persisting humid heat. 

He scoots closer to Jihoon in a way he hopes isn’t too noticeable, but probably kind of is. “What are you watching?” he asks, pretending his teeth aren’t chattering. 

Jihoon’s head rises, noticeably surprised. He turns his phone towards Chan this time, so he can watch what he assumes to be the Redbull cliff competition. 

“Wow,” Chan says when the diver makes his entry in the sea after falling for what feels a lot longer than normal. “Twenty-seven metres, right?” 

“Yeah,” Jihoon says, relieved that they have at least one topic to fall back on. “It was the Italian event yesterday.” 

Chan wonders if he misses it. The divers on the world tour seemed really friendly, always pulling a reluctant Jihoon in tight hugs in the behind-the-scenes content. And the freedom, the flight of it. 

“Why did you come back, hyung?” Chan hears himself say before he really understands what he meant to ask. 

“Here, you mean?” Jihoon gestures to show the deserted path around them. “You know that.” 

“No, not that. To Seoul, I mean.” 

Jihoon shrugs, pointedly looking in front of them. “Saw videos of your dives in Bangkok.” 

The sound of the rain almost drowns out the reply. Chan kind of wishes it did. It stings because he doesn’t expect it to, he tells himself. It’s fine if he flinches a little, that he finds the need to look at his soaked shoes. 

“It must have been really pathetic if it made you come back,” Chan says in a tight smile. He winces. Saying it out loud isn’t the same as mutual, tacit acknowledgement. 

The dive feels as vivid now as the moment he pierced the surface of the pool. Clearer even, since he spent a couple of hours reviewing it with Jiya and a good thousand more replaying the clip in slow motion, by himself. 

It was easy to see what went wrong once his blood was not pumping out adrenaline and burning in the urge to prove himself. 

It was little things really. Worse, things they’d gone over in practice. The angle of his arms, just a couple of degrees off. The rotation, spinning completely out of control. All sense of up and down, lost. Opening up for what he begged to be the proper angle and perforating the surface as a mass of limbs. 

He hears it now, despite the swarm of cicadas around the bus shelter. The horrified gasp of the crowd, slowly reduced to nothingness underwater. 

Chan’s eyes flick to the time board. The waiting sign flickers and switches to 27 minutes. He sighs. It might actually take less time to walk to the nearest train station and hope to catch a line for Seoul, and he turns to ask the local what he thinks. 

“That’s not why I came back.” 

The question fizzles in his throat. 

That’s the most emotion Chan has ever seen him express. A picture-perfect expression of surprise, mouth agape and eyebrows knitting his forehead in lines of worries.  

“It’s fine, hyung,” Chan smiles in a way that normally reads as reassuring. “I kind of knew Jiya-noona had to convince you to partner with me.” From the look in Jihoon’s eyes, he guesses it’s closer to the grimace of someone biting directly into a lemon.

Jihoon looks properly stunned now. “But she didn’t,” he says slowly. “I reached out first.” 

“Oh,” Chan says. He laughs a little as the back of his eyes starts to sting. Somehow the idea of Jihoon finding out the videos of the competition online and deciding Chan needed help feels even worse. He grabs his knees with his hands, trying really hard to hold back the hot tears rolling on his cheeks. 

He could blame it on the discomfort of his clothes heavy with rain, gone cold against his skin erupting in goose bumps or his pathetic attempts at reparative sleep last night, too unsettled to really find sleep in Jihoon’s grandma's silent house. But Chan knows himself. It’s been a long time coming.  

“Uh,” Jihoon says eloquently. 

“I’m sorry,” Chan sniffles, wiping them off angrily before they can reach his chin. Seeing the round drops on the asphalt would actually be a point of no return. “I did wrong,” he repeats.

Jihoon left his cliff diving career, at the epoxy of fame and success, because he took pity on him and instead of making the most out of this once in a lifetime second chance, Chan has been fucking up whatever potential they could have had as a synchro pair. 

Jihoon looks horrified now, half-way to committing to standing up and walking away from the most uncomfortable social situation of his life. He looks left and right in embarrassment and actually does so. 

Which is, just great, really. The last fifteen minutes have been a game of, well, this couldn’t possibly get worse, right? and Chan has been losing every time. 

“I’m sorry,” he hiccups pointlessly in his hands. Jihoon is probably too far to hear. 

The vending machine behind the shelter clings loudly in the summer heat. There’s a couple of quick steps and a very frazzled and sweaty Jihoon is holding a flashy blue bottle of pocari sweat in front of his eyes. He pushes it in Chan’s hands defiantly, as if he were daring him to refuse. 

“You were going to be dehydrated,” Jihoon explains awkwardly. “So.” 

His round face is crumpled in worry, but the determination in his eyes and the reversed baseball cap are more evocative of a pokemon trainer forcing someone into a duel in the wild. The burning red of his ears is the only thing taking away from the image and Chan doesn’t feel the laugh coming before it startles him.  

Condensation water rolls off the bottle and brushes Chan’s fingers. This, too, burns. He can’t even manage a thank you before pressing it on his forehead, numbing. 

Jihoon hovers awkwardly in front of him, clearly uncomfortable but committing to not doing anything to salvage it. 

“I wanted to dive with you,” Jihoon blurts out after a while.  

Chan is probably about to throw up. Or pass out. He can’t really tell. It’s like he’s floating above himself, stuck somewhere between the bus stop bench and the ads scrolling in the panels. It feels like a dream. It must be, because Chan can’t think of a single reason why someone would see him crash and die in Bangkok and think anything positively from it. 

Jihoon’s voice is coming from far away, even though he’s standing in front of him. 

“Your dives in Bangkok—” Jihoon starts, Chan’s mouth twists. “You were beautiful in Bangkok,” Jihoon says instead. A warm blush is spreading on his cheeks. It could be the heat, but Chan knows it isn’t. It wouldn't be fair to say so. 

Jihoon is many things, but one of them is an honest man. He may not go out of his way to expose his thoughts, but he’s not one to hide behind white lies. 

“I used to say I didn’t want to do synchro,” Jihoon says, fidgeting with the back of his cap. Chan wants to interject with a tired I know but that would lead him into admitting he has watched every interview Jihoon had reluctantly accepted to give in the past fifteen years, and maybe he, actually, can embarrass himself further. “But after seeing the way you dive, I thought it could be—” Jihoon actually manages to turn a shade darker. “I thought it could be good,” he settles on. 

“Uh,” Chan replies, a little stunned. Maybe he does have a heatstroke after all. He manages the semblance of a nod, somehow, because there’s frankly no way he can reply to anything articulate back. 

Jihoon nods back stiffly too, visibly relieved his point has been driven across, and sits down next to him. 

They climb in the bus when it comes, an eternity later, and shuffle to one of the climatized back seats. 

Chan drinks the pocari sweat and offers some to Jihoon. It’s not icy cold anymore, but the powdery taste still feels nice. Refreshing. The AC blows in the nape of his neck and it's a matter of time until the regular rumble of the bus pulls him under. 

When he wakes up an hour later, Jihoon is watching an anime Chan still doesn’t know of on his phone. This time, though, Jihoon orients it towards Chan so they can watch it together. It’s not as hard to understand as he thought, he realises. It’s not as hard to understand as he thought, he realises. It’s a shonen, with a driven protagonist like many others, in the process of flooring evil thanks to the power of friendship. Or something. 

"I couldn't have done it without you," the main protagonist with spiky hair says, as the arc concludes.

Chan exhales, worried for people he got introduced to fifteen minutes ago. "That was close," he whispers to Jihoon. He's still rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, but Jihoon doesn't seem to mind. There's even a faint smile hovering above his traits.

"Wait," Jihoon says. "The best bit is coming."

"Me neither," his companion with long, spiky hair replies. 

When they come back from leave, Jiya announces she’s throwing the whole synchro pair away. 

“She’s sending you to a training camp in Australia,” Yerim says, arms crossed. She’s been sour with jealousy since the announcement and has already sent Chan a long list of exclusive products to ‘make up for it’. “How are you even getting that conclusion?” 

Chan opens his mouth, but she starts rubbing circles into her temples and her stare is dangerous enough to deter Chan from voicing his concerns.

“Enjoy,” Minhyuk says Chan tells him, expecting the same reaction. “You two need a change of pace.” 

“It’s literally going to be a business trip,” Chan laughs. “We still have so much to refine. Our series isn’t even properly finalised yet.” 

“Still,” he shrugs. “International camps are fun. You should work seriously at that too.” 

Chan thinks about it, when the plane takes off. It’s the second time he’s ever been abroad and he hadn't considered that. To his family, his primary school friends, the opportunities he gets through diving are one in a lifetime experiences. In the plane, he circles some bits he wants to see in Sydney while Jihoon naps through the entire thing. He’d looked a little anxious at the gate and it’s easy to feel happy about being able to decipher that too. He catches glimpses of the sea, reflecting the sun back to him, through the gaps in the clouds. And he thinks of jumping off the airplane straight into the sea, of being cradled in its heavy palm again. Of the one time he truly understood Jihoon. 

“The weather is nice and clear,” the pilot says after they land, Jihoon still looking faintly green. “Have a nice stay in Sydney!” 

So it’s hard not to feel a little excited about it, after all. 

 Afterwards they get thrown in the unmoveable sequence of events: getting picked up from the airport, waiting in the Australian training centre for the rest of the synchro duos to arrive, too many welcome speeches from approximately the entire coaching staff. Jihoon’s eyes are hidden by his cap but Chan is half-convinced he’s been napping without interruption since the plane. 

“Hi guys,” the coach that’s been assigned to them says with a wide grin. She doesn’t seem to be bothering with the coach uniform like Team Korea, preferring to opt for large shorts and beaten up slides. So he’s too busy registering the cultural differences to realise she’s speaking to them in Korean. 

“Oh,” Chan says. “Nice to meet you.” 

“Don’t bother with honorifics,” she waves her hand, laughing. “I only speak with my family so I don’t understand if you use them. I’m Ashley, between.” Before Chan has time to interject, she moves on, quick like fire jumping from a dry bush to another. “So, what’s the goal here? I know Jihoon from back in the days, but I didn’t know if he had switched to synchro.” 

Chan smiles, a little taken aback by the sudden topic change. He darts anxious looks to his side, but Jihoon doesn’t exactly look like he intends on opening his mouth at all.

“We partnered up three months ago,” Chan finally says. “But neither of us come from a synchro background so the transition has been a little rough.” 

“Three months,” Ashleys says, eyes gone wide. “Yeah, okay sure. Isn’t that a crazy switch two years before the Olympics though?” 

Chan gets hit by an odd kind of relief. He’s pretty sure Jiya’s decision is regarded with similar sentiments within the Korean team, but besides Yerim, no one has been brave enough to voice it out loud. Or suicidal enough. 

“Yeah, it’s been—rough. We’ve been trying to settle on a dive list, but our specialties are kind of different.” 

“Okay, okay,” Ashley says, furiously writing down some notes. “We’ll have to check on your coaches for that, but that’s a nice goal! Usually official coaches come along to camps, but I’ll schedule a meeting with Jiya some time during the week, we should def have her contact somewhere. Do you have any injuries we should be careful of?” 

“Hm, my knee hasn’t been so good recently,” Chan says, resisting bending down and reaching for it. “But that might also just be the plane, I don’t know.” 

Jihoon looks at him with a mix of emotions Chan doesn’t recognise. He looks surprised, but somewhat resentful too. “I haven’t heard about that either.” 

Chan shrugs, surprised by Jihoon’s tone. “It’s kind of an old injury. It doesn’t really matter.” 

“Noted,” Ashley says. “We’ll book you some physio then. Do you guys want to swing by the pool? It’s always easier to see people in action. Especially if you’re a new duo.” 

They quickly change, somewhat eager to wash away the fatigue of the flight and test out the equipment. Chan doesn’t feel tired during the warm-up, but he hopes there’ll be time for a nap afterwards, knowing the exhaustion is eventually going to come crashing. 

“Let’s see it,” Ashley yells in the corner of her hands, waving her notebook encouragingly. 

“Wow,” Chan laughs. “The coaching style is different here.” 

“If anything, it’s the coaching back home that’s weird,” Jihoon says, adjusting the resistance with his foot. “They’d rather die than compliment you on a good dive. Honestly.” 

Chan doesn’t find something to say back, so they get ready for their first dive, looking far into the back of the pool. Jihoon’s counts are loud in the empty space, resonating against the walls. Chan sends the rotation without much thought and emerges with Jihoon a few moments later. The paddle back to the side, waiting for Ashley’s comments. 

Ashley whistles. “Well, that’s certainly something.” 

They do a couple more before Ashley decides she’s satisfied and lets them join the rest of the teams for the general dry preparation. Chan gets some questions from the Spanish and Polish feminine pairs, who coo at his stammering English. Minhyuk wasn’t lying though, the atmosphere is more relaxed than in normal training, the way Chan imagined the school field trips he never attended because of training. 

In the corner of his eyes, he sees Jihoon drilling pike flips, so he makes it a point to drill twists. He doesn’t know what he’s done to upset him, but he reasons it’s better to show he’s been training Jihoon’s specialties if they need to incorporate them into their chosen dives. 

As expected, exhaustion catches up with them at dinner and Chan struggles not to cross his arms and sleep right there, on the cafeteria table. They go up to their room and finally settle down with a much deserved nap. 

“Hey, do you know any nice places to visit?” Chan says from his bed a little later, when he’s mindlessly scrolling through travel blogs. They don’t travel often that far from Korea, except for competitions for which sight-seeing isn’t on the menu. Chan’s pretty sure the only places he’s seen in Thailand were the airport, the inside of his hotel room, and the pool. He stretches his neck out. He doesn’t particularly fancy a repeat of Bangkok. 

Jihoon grunts back noncommittally from under the covers, but Chan knows he’s been awake for a while too.

“Weren’t the Red Bull tour finals in Sydney last year?” Chan asks. He remembers Yerim sending the video of someone diving from a helicopter in front of the big white ship building with the caption omg!!!!!!! . 

“Yeah,” Jihoon says, still not lifting his eyes. “But I didn’t really do anything.” 

“What about restaurants?” Chan asks. “Didn’t you go out with Australian divers?” 

“Nah,” Jihoon says. “I don’t like Western food. I just went to a random Korean restaurant that had decent reviews.” 

“Oh, okay,” Chan says, feeling weirdly disappointed. 

Chan tries to think of what Yerim would say, but quickly dismisses addressing Jihoon like that. "Jihoon-oppa, no offence," she would preface an ostentatiously offensive statement, "but are you being a huge loser right now ?" 

Chan muffles a laugh. He really has to buy her a souvenir now. 

Jihoon makes a bemused little noise from his bed, probably wondering if Chan has lost it for good. 

"We can walk around the hotel after afternoon practice if you want?" Chan offers, a smile still tugging at his lips. He didn't have a very elaborate plan in the first place, he doesn't mind dragging Jihoon around. "I have to buy stuff for Yerim," he shakes the exhaustive list of exclusive Aussie products she sent him.

"Oh," Jihoon says. He hesitates for a bit in the comfort of the quilt, visibly weighting pros and cons in his mind. "Sure."

"Nice," Chan beams back. 

“Jihoon!” 

Chan startles on the way back to the room on the second day. His thighs are hurting from the constant practice, but the thought that they can’t find what’s holding them back is honestly more painful. Ashley sent them back early, forehead creased at the footage, and it’s hard not to think about everything she might be thinking. 

“Hey,” Jihoon says, a rare honest smile spreading on his face. Chan turns around, curious, and it’s a literal mountain of muscle that faces him. 

“Dude,” the guy says. “It’s been forever!” And it’s about all that Chan is able to pick up from the animated English and rolled r. There’s something about a visa and incompetent but Chan just smiles through it, unable to piece it into a coherent story. Jihoon laughs though, face split into an easy grin.

Chan tries his best to smile, though it’s bittersweet that Jihoon only seems uncomfortable around him. Would he have picked someone like that guy, chiseled and warm, if nationality hadn’t been an obstacle? Jihoon said he wanted to partner with Chan, but what reasons could there be besides convenience?

He retreats back to his room as quietly as possible.

Chan flops on his bed, trying really hard not to drown in the defeat washing over him. He gave it a nice try, he thinks as he buries his head in the cheap hotel sheets. It just wasn't meant to be. The exhaustion really hits now, deep aches—the pain slowly pulsating out of his fucking knee—multiplied exponentially. 

Before he can think of finding a better place to hide, the room lock beeps and opens to let an angry Jihoon in. 

Chan remembers what Jihoon had been like, frustrated when his dive didn't look the way he'd portrayed it in his mind, irritated when the training centre's vending machine was out of Coke after a long practice. It's a lot worse when directed towards him, Chan finds. Horrifyingly so.

"Why did you leave?" Jihoon asks roughly, swinging his arms to point at the door. "It was rude.” 

Chan's snort is startled out of him before it occurs to him how rude it actually is. "Yeah, right." The thought of posturing as a coy junior to diffuse the tension passes through his mind, but he throws it out the window. “Sure. Because you were on the verge of introducing me.” 

Jihoon recoils a bit, clearly taken aback. His eyes flick to Chan's face, "Of course I was going to?"

“I can pretend to not know you if you want,” Chan offers, which is generous of him. “If you’re that ashamed of me.” 

Jihoon inhales sharply at that, as if trying to repress the urge to punch Chan in the face right at that moment. Actually, not as if. Jihoon takes a couple of steps and grabs the front of Chan’s shirt, pulling him to the edge of the bed, Jihoon towering over him. 

The fabric pulls tight around his neck, and he can feel the strength in Jihoon’s grip, the solid weight right in front of him. Can feel Jihoon’s rib cage expanding and shrinking with every shaky breath he takes, the warmth radiating off him. 

Chan’s own breath comes off a little strangled. Do it, he almost says, get on with it, not really knowing what he truly means. Realisation of what he’s about to do is also dawning on Jihoon, who is now looking faintly light-headed. The grip on Chan’s shirt lessens and Chan misses it, like something he didn’t know he wanted before he lost it. 

He wonders if that’s how Jihoon feels too. 

“I don’t understand you at all,” Jihoon says quietly, tipping over the edge of frustration straight into bitterness. “I never know what you’re thinking.” That’s kind of rich coming from Jihoon, Chan thinks, who has never talked about something bothering him in his entire life. 

You have to tell him if you’re upset about something, you know. He can’t guess, Yerim’s voice echoes annoyingly in his mind like a Greek chorus, mocking and omen of woes. 

“I’m not ashamed of you,” Jihoon continues, deeply upset. “I told you I wanted to do synchro with you. I wouldn’t lie about that. David was a competitor on the tour and we became friends. But I would never dive with him.” 

Chan frowns, knowing that moving anything, but his face, would result in Jihoon moving his hands away from his chest. “Yerim said you didn’t want to do synchro,” Chan bites out, surprising himself a little. Like he hadn’t known what the uncertainty, the doubts had truly been about. “That you would never want to.” 

“How does she know—” Jihoon grimaces. “But that was ages ago.” 

Chan sucks in a breath. It was true, then. He was still hoping Yerim had thrown it in the midst of their argument, without truly meaning it. Jihoon’s hand is still resting on Chan’s chest, sprayed out as if to feel the heartbeats underneath, trying to find out what Chan truly feels. It’s a little overwhelming, a little raw. 

“It just doesn’t make sense,” Chan says. Jihoon opens his mouth, clearly ready to remind him of what he’d said at the bus stop. “I know you saw the videos. But like—” Chan passes his hands through his hair, frustrated at his inability to find words when it matters, even though he’s pre-played the conversation in his mind thousands of times. “You were on the Red Bull World Tour . I don’t know—Wouldn’t people kill for an opportunity like that?” 

“Well,” Jihoon lets out a highly out of character, slightly hysterical laugh. “I wasn’t technically on the tour. I was a wildcard.” 

Chan stares at him blankly. 

“So like,” Jihoon starts explaining, which would be perfect timing to yank his hands away from Chan. He weirdly doesn’t. “There are permanent divers, who do every single event. But you also have wildcards who are here for just some of them. Most of the permanent divers are wildcards who got offered a spot. It’s not a bad system. When you get the invitation to an event, it’s because they either want to test you out or they want you to spice up the competition, if it’s getting too predictable.” 

Chan nods along, doing his best to show he’s actively listening. He didn’t know such a strategy was deployed into a sport quite literally no one watches. 

“I did a couple last season,” Jihoon shrugs. “But it didn’t really mean anything.” Chan looks for traces of bitterness, regrets, and is surprised to find none. 

He didn’t watch the medals ceremony when Yerim had sent him the link, because there was no way Jihoon hadn’t won it all. Even though he hadn’t watched the other divers’ performance, he recalls embarrassingly.  

“Didn’t they offer you a spot?” Chan asks. “The other divers spoke really well of you,” he adds and immediately realises his mistake.

“How do you—Ah,” Jihoon says. Annoyance shows clearly on his face, much clearer than when Chan had been searching for it, all this time. Chan makes a note of his upside-down mouth, of the angle of his brows, for next occasions. That being said, it’s surprisingly kind when Jihoon says, “I would like it better if you just asked me for things you’re curious about.” 

“I’m sorry,” Chan says sincerely. His overreaction looks stupid in hindsight, when Jihoon is making it so simple. 

“Don’t worry,” Jihoon’s annoyed face intensifies, but it’s not directed at Chan. “I know I can be a difficult person to deal with.” 

“No, you’re right,” Chan says firmly. “I should have asked you directly.” He wants to object to Jihoon calling himself a difficult person, because honestly it was Chan making it all much more complicated than it really was, but the words sound borrowed, like they’ve been thrown at his face before. He doesn’t trust himself to handle it properly.

Jihoon nods in approval. “They contacted me before the start of the season, but I said there was something else I wanted to do.” He shrugs. “Something I wanted more.” 

"Wow," Chan says. It's somehow very intense, to be the subject of Jihoon's desires. 

"And it's okay if," Jihoon makes an obvious effort to press Chan's hands, the affection forced and awkward, "I ever have to tell you again. You can ask me as many times as you want.” 

It’s nice of him to say want instead of need, Chan notes, in the midst of horrible feelings he doesn’t want to think about ever again. Chan swallows, his throat going dry. He’s usually not that bad of a liar, could perform the confidence, could deny needing the reassurance but—

“Thanks,” he says in a small voice. He can’t really afford to lie. 

Practice starts early and Chan feels almost lucky to be running laps around the outside pool instead of having to stretch under the harsh ceiling light. He doesn’t really talk to Jihoon, still rubbed raw by their conversation yesterday, but wordlessly meets his eyes when it’s time to partner up for the warm-up drills. 

They watch the sunrise from the ten-metre-platform while they wait for water sprays to turn on, the horizon slowly turning in hues of orange behind the highway. Chan tries to see faces inside the cars stuck in traffic, and wonders about what their day is about to be like, if they can see them from the other side. He waves and laughs when a truck driver returns it enthusiastically. 

“Look,” he says to Jihoon so he doesn’t come off as a complete freak. “They’re watching.” 

Chan pays extra attention to his basic dives afterwards, making sure his entries are as splashless as they get. It’s going to be a good practice day, he realises quickly. It’s the perfect window between waiting for the soreness in his quads from the weight session to vanish, while benefiting from the extra energy. He flashes a smile to Jihoon after resurfacing from a nailed piked one and a half, doing a poor job at channelling that extra energy. Jihoon looks taken aback for a second, but smiles back from the 3-metre-springboard. 

“You’re good to go?” Jihoon asks, and they start on their synchro dives. 

“That was crazy good,” Ashley says, after Jihoon and Chan emerge dripping from the pool. She turns her phone towards them after quickly reducing the play speed to 0.5. “The set-up was really nice, it looks like it dissociated after the first rotation…” She trails off and frowns, concentrating hard on what could be affecting the synchro. 

It’s hard for Chan to tell whether her positive feedback is fake or not, with the enthusiastic inflections English speakers put on, but he agrees this time. Jihoon’s set up matched Chan’s perfectly, settling into a rhythm which wasn’t really each other’s, but a third one instead. He frowns, replaying the part where they hit the water, and the moment where they left the springboard. 

“Jihoon-hyung, do you think you could try extending your reach before the first rotation?” Chan asks, tapping back and forth on the screen. “I think you’re going into the spin too fast.” 

 “Ah, yeah,” Ashley snaps her fingers. “I think that might be it! Can you two try that again?”

Jihoon frowns and bends to see the screen better, his entire torso flexing. “Extending my reach?” 

“Yeah,” Chan says distractedly, “Not by much, just a little.” He turns around and Jihoon’s expression hasn’t lightened up with comprehension at all. 

“Actually,” Chan says and walks in Jihoon’s back. “Raise your arms.” Jihoon does so, surprisingly compliant. Chan grabs his shoulders and his triceps with his hands, forcing them into a shrug, then pulling Jihoon’s arms behind his head. “Is that your angle right now when you leave the springboard?” Chan asks when he feels resistance in  Jihoon’s shoulders. 

“Yeah,” Jihoon says, his voice muffled under the grip of his own arms. Chan laughs. “Try to spin when you reach that point instead,” he pulls on Jihoon’s shoulders harder, forcing his back and his waist to engage into the movement. “About five more degrees? But keep the same trajectory. We should be reaching it at the same time.” Chan taps on Jihoon’s shoulders, signalling that he can put his arms down. 

“It’s going to feel a little weird for the first reps, but that’s okay,” Ashley smiles. “You’re probably going to have to adjust the opening timing as well.” 

Jihoon acquiesces and repeats the correction a few times before they head out to the ladder, face tight with concentration. They wait for their turn behind what Chan deduces to be a pair of American divers based on the literal American flag printed on their speedos, which he is trying really hard not to make eye contact with right now. 

“Was it okay to show you?” Chan asks Jihoon who is still repeating the motion. “Sorry, I didn’t ask.” 

Jihoon tilts his head to the side. “Yeah? It made a lot more sense,” he replies with a light, careful tone. "You're a good teacher."

“Nice,” Chan replies with fake casualness. “It wasn’t, like, out of line or anything, right?” 

“It wasn’t.” 

“Nice,” Chan says, before realising he’d already said that. “Good, I mean.” 

“Yeah.”

They stand in silence for a bit, occasionally slapping their shammies on the back of their arms, but the pleasant heat is doing a better job at drying them off. 

When Chan used to coach back in Iksan—a literal kid coaching even younger kids, he thinks with amusement – he always found that making athletes feel the correction instead of explaining it provided better and faster results. It’s interesting to see Jihoon repeat the movement so many times, though. Chan wonders if his muscle memory requires a higher threshold of repetitions to actually manifest into his dives.

I would like it better if you just asked me for things you’re curious about.

Chan scowls interiorly. This is a diving, work-related question. He can do this. 

“Jihoon-hyung,” Chan asks in a mortifyingly shy voice. “How do you usually review your dives?” 

Jihoon lifts his head. “I watch videos of my dives. And then I try to correct mistakes.” 

“Hm,” Chan lets out. He wonders if there will be a day where they’ll be able to have a conversation that doesn’t feel like pulling teeth out of each other’s mouth. “Let me phrase that better. How do you correct your mistakes? Drills?” 

Jihoon thinks about it for an amount of time that’s just on the edge of becoming concerning. “I’m not sure,” he shrugs. “For a while I didn’t have a coach, so I would just try to work stuff out by myself.” 

“On tour?” 

“Even before that,” Jihoon shrugs. “They don’t let you go up the twenty-seven-metre platform in free water, in front of a crowd if you’ve never done it before. The closest pool with those is in China.” He winces. “The travelling fee was kind of a lot, so I didn’t have a coach.” 

“Oh,” Chan says with genuine surprise. Travelling around the world, jumping from cliffs in a sea stained by sunsets seemed like a glamorous life-style. He didn’t think about the cost of it at all. Or, well, he just assumed Jihoon could afford it. 

“Yeah,” Jihoon says. “That guy from yesterday, you remember? He’s performing on a cruise show to be able to hire one for next year’s season.” He slaps his shammy on his back like punctuation, loud in the echo of the metallic stairs. “It’s pretty bad from what I’ve heard though. Not worth the money.” 

Chan nods seriously. It must have been hard to transition from being completely alone to performing under the scrutiny of at least two simultaneous coaches, expecting you to pick up on corrections right away. “Does it feel very different to be training with one now? You know, the pressure.”

“It takes off some of the mental load, I’d say,” Jihoon shrugs, beads of water and sweat slowly rolling down his neck. Not that Chan is watching. “I don’t have to do it all myself. Especially registration forms and travel logistics. That took up a lot of training time.” 

“Nice,” Chan says while they fall back into silence. The other divers sure are taking their time. 

“Why?” Jihoon says sharply, leaning against the ladder. 

“Uh,” Chan says, startled out of visualising the dive in his mind. “What?”

“Is that how it feels to you?” Jihoon narrows in. “Pressure?” 

Chan gulps. He could lie, right now. Cover it all up. 

“Yeah,” he hears himself say. “Sometimes it does.” 

Jihoon nods encouragingly, a poorly concealed expression of surprise painted on his face. “All the time, actually,” Chan corrects, the words unravelling something all tangled up. 

The Americans bounce on the springboard; it’s their turn to go up the platform. 

Jihoon counts off the timing and from the first step Chan feels it, from the echoes of each other’s rhythm on the rugged surface, the comforting presence of another body in his peripheral vision. He doesn't even have to look at Ashley’s enthusiastic replay to know it's the best dive they've ever done. 

The word of an end-of-camp party taking place in a Spanish duo's room spreads around like wildfire on the last day, and by the time Chan manages to coax Jihoon out of his bed, it’s already in full swing. The noise of muffled conversations slowly increases as they reach the right corridor, shuffling on the carpet with their hotel slippers. The room is full with divers when they enter, condensation already fogging the windows. 

They serve each other drinks and Chan makes a beeline towards David, talking to one of the British girls in one of the corners. 

"Sorry for the other day," Chan apologises right away, faintly stumbling around the words he'd searched beforehand. "I was really tired."

David's looks stunned for a second, but his laugh soon resonates in the room. "It's no worries at all." A massive hand comes to hit Chan in the middle of his back, like he's said something hilarious.

"I'll be seeing you guys again at the Olympics, right?" He winks, which is really kind but also completely mad. 

"Yeah," Jihoon groans behind Chan's back, a cup of Coke clutched against his chest. "You’d better qualify," he smirks. 

David laughs again and hits Jihoon's back this time, who pretends not to fold under the impact. Chan and Jihoon share a sympathetic look. 

"Worry about yourself shrimpy," David says, taking a sip of a suspicious liquid out of an equally suspicious cup.

" Shrimpy ?" Chan lets out, wondering if he's misheard. "Like a shrimp? Was that your nickname, hyung?"

Jihoon grunts noncommittally, mortification creasing up his face as David pulls out his phone to show Chan pictures of Jihoon severely underestimating the Italian sun/sunscreen ratio. “But it was mostly because he was really short,” David whispers to Chan while darting anxious looks at Jihoon’s face when he stands up to refill his cup. Chan presses his lips really tight together. 

"Anyway, I'll be fine," Jihoon blushes, vividly reminiscent of a boiled mollusc. “I have this one with me,” he points his thumb at Chan without looking at him. 

“I see,” David says with evident amusement. They exchange contact on various apps and Chan makes the firm promise to check out David’s YouTube channel. 

“I’ll see you at the Olympics,” Ashley smiles smugly when she passes by them, face already flushed by alcohol and Chan wishes people expected just a little less out of them, sometimes. Still, he thinks, it’ll be nice to have a familiar face in the crowd, cheering for them precisely because she knows they’re capable of. 

Chan stares at her party trick involving her tongue piercing and a cigarette, fascinated. “That’s what happens when you quit diving. So don't,” she winks, hand lowering dangerously on some Chilean guy’s back. “Don’t be a stranger Channie.”

After talking to a couple of other synchro divers long enough to regret not paying more attention in his middle school English classes, Chan can feel Jihoon discreetly angling his body towards the door. Chan yawns ostensibly and excuses himself for the night, waving goodbyes around. It’s without surprise that Jihoon trails in his wake on the way back to their room. 

“I’m beat,” Chan groans after jumping on his bed. 

He closes his eyes, replaying the events of the day in his mind.  

Key-words of correction Ashley gave them floating back to the surface, the smile Jihoon shot back from the springboards piercing through the rising sun, echoed by muffled splashes of water in a sink. It’s close to the physical sensation of falling when he falls, deep, deeply asleep. 

He dreams about home—about Jihoon, about things that have happened and others that he fears will happen, and watches it all, only a vague feeling of dread and anxiety remaining as the essence of the dream slips away, out of his short time memory. Can’t give this stuff room to hold. Can’t get caught in memories, what could-have-beens. That fucks people up, is the lesson he retained from his few sessions with Jincheon’s psychiatrist before he decided he was, after all, doing much better. He was always too worried about them repeating everything to the coaches to be really honest anyway.

When the dream settles, it’s a much younger version of Jihoon that erupts out of the visions, not quite the age he was in the pictures at his grandma’s place, nor the age he was back on Tour. Chan’s age. 

Hi , Chan tries to say, but the words don’t make it out of his mouth. 

It’s unclear whether he’s really supposed to be there at all. Jihoon is talking to him, or rather the person that’s behind Chan that he can’t see, mouth set and hard like he used to talk to Chan months ago.

Assessing. 

“I guess,” Jihoon smiles, wide and curved and reaching beyond his face. “It’s not so bad.” 

What isn’t? Chan doesn’t say. Jihoon’s hands come to cup his face, warm and sure and pull him in. 

It’s not a first kiss. It’s slow, easy, and practiced. A long-term habit. Chan whines against the blur that is Jihoon’s face, pressing himself closer, closer, closer, inserting his hands greedily into Jihoon’s ribs, the cells that make out his body, his neck. Can you let me in? 

It’s warm, so warm. Chan gasps. 

Tell me, he begs against Jihoon’s skin. What do you have that I don’t?

When Chan wakes up, the lights are turned off. He shakes his head to clear his mind, the arousal from the dream sticking like sweat to his body. 

Chan rolls on himself, muscles stiff from being stuck in the same position, ready to fully ignore his skincare routine to slip under the covers, and gets tangled into a jacket thrown messily over him.

He cocks his head, staring into the other side of the room where he can make up the lump of a body in the bed. 

Full of surprising charms, indeed. 

He doesn’t dream again. 

“So,” Yerim asks, faking interest after barging in Chan’s bedroom. Girls aren’t allowed in the boys’ dorms, but he’s missed her, and it’s nicer not to say anything. She’s chewing on bright red cherry gummies, leaving a fine layer of sugar on her fingers as she mingles through the pile of lip balm and makeup lying on his bed. 

“How was Australia? Saw kangaroos?” she smirks, languidly applying her new lip gloss. 

He could tell her about the training with Ashley, feeling like all obstacles have been slowly dissolved with acid. He could tell her about the fight with Jihoon, and the attempts to meet each other half-way afterwards. That after all, she was right. 

He could tell her about that weird dream, that left him unsettled and bothered. 

There's nothing stopping him, really. “It was great,” Chan starts with. “You were right.” 

He does tell her about everything.

“Honestly the craziest part of all of this is that you thought Jihoon-oppa would do something he doesn’t want to do,” Yerim says when he’s finished. “Like, let’s be for real. He’s barely dragging himself out of his room as it is. He wouldn’t be diving with you if he thought you sucked.” 

“Oh,” Chan says, feeling very stupid when she puts it so plainly. 

She rolls her eyes. “Men,” she says, like that explains it all. “You shouldn’t bottle everything. I didn’t even know Bangkok still bothered you. That it had bothered you at all actually. It just looked like a missed dive.” 

Bangkok.

Chan stops spinning on his chair, goes very still. “After Bangkok, I was waiting to be cut off, honestly. Jiya-noona forbid me from doing that dive and I still did it, you know? When trust has been broken, you can’t get it back.” The bone breaks and heals in a different shape. 

“Yeah, but one dive? That seems a little extreme, no? They’ve invested too much in you to let you go like that.” 

“But what if they did? It’s not like there’s many paths I can take if I get dismissed from the national team. That etiquette’s still going to be there, no matter how many years into my career.” 

“I didn’t know you thought about that,” Yerim says, genuine surprise arching her perfectfly plucked brows. “For a guy who doesn’t care about SNS at all.” Yerim has been invited to host at least five T.V. shows this year and has been offered to MC several sport themed shows before. Chan feels proud about it, how much she worked at everything, even when the team made fun of her when she started growing her account and reaching out to people.

“Not liking it doesn’t mean I don’t think about it,” Chan shrugs. “If I want to coach one day, I have to stay on good terms with the people here.” 

Yerim snorts. “Unless you go abroad. Just like Jihoon-oppa did.” 

Chan smiles. “Are you suggesting I should ask him about that too?” 

“Honestly, though! Where’s the hurt in asking? You won’t get caught up in unrealistic scenarios if you do. And the sport is changing. That Red Bull tour is terrifying, but you can make a living diving without getting hired by a shady cruise.” Their noses crunch in unison at the thought. “I’m not saying it’ll be easy. But having options won’t make you feel as desperate.” 

“You’re right,” Chan says. 

“Tell me something I don’t know.” 

“And I should talk to Jiya-noona,” Chan realises as he says it. 

Her peach-coloured lips rearrange into a smile. “Attaboy.” 

They pose for the mandatory team picture by the side of the pool, bound to end up on some dusty-looking diving federation website, gums rubbed raw by the nerves and the building tension. Whenever Chan starts thinking that Asian games might be a big deal, Jihoon has taken upon himself the habit of bracing the back of his neck with a firm hand and it’s kind of embarrassing how efficient it is. Just now, Jihoon’s hand is on Chan’s shoulder blades, just in case he needs it, and just the thought is enough to settle him down. 

“Let me see,” Yerim says while zeroing in on her phone. She takes one look and her face crumples all at once. 

Chan is ready to argue that the light does not, in fact, make her seem like she’s been pulling all-nighters for the past five days, and that, yes, the picture will do its sad job; but she lets out a crow shriek instead. And starts to lose it in the middle of the officials, breathless and high-pitched. “Look,” she barely manages to get out, wiping imaginary tears with her fingers, “Look at it.” 

Chan takes the phone in his hands carefully and – it is bad. He tries to hold it in, he really does try. But as each member of the team gets to check it out, it induces a poor attempt at stifling a full blown laugh that sets them off again. 

“Jihoon-oppa,” Yerim hiccups, “What were you thinking?” 

“What did I even do?” Jihoon pretends to frown, like he wasn’t throwing himself on the white tiles five seconds ago, but still chuckles through the words. 

“Why would you—” Yerim croaks, before it sends her into another fit that makes her hold her ribs. 

"We are so sending this one," Minhyuk grins.

It's probably the pre-comp insanity taking shape, but there’s something about Jihoon posing a good metre away from the rest of the team in a clear display of coerced social media communication and what cannot be anything, but an awkward thumb-up, where the rest of them are throwing finger hearts to the camera, that stretches Chan’s mouth almost painfully. 

He looks at the three of them, trying to carve the sheer happiness of the moment into his memory. 

“Ugh,” Yerim rolls her eyes, ”Moving on, now . Chan is about to get all sappy on us.” 

“You’re so rude,” Chan says, smiling despite himself. But it’s kind of true. He maybe did have a small speech prepared in his note app for later. He is so not calculating the time that wouldn’t be obvious to send it in their group chat instead.

“But not wrong,” Yerim grins like a cat. 

Chan scrolls in his messages until it hits him that he can’t. They don’t have a group chat, Chan realises. They’ve been training together for months and they still don’t have a group chat. He could say it’s because Jihoon clearly gives out the vibe that he hasn’t logged on any messaging app in the past five years, but Chan also remembers the boy in a silent house who didn’t ask for things. And feels weirdly bad about it.

“Can you send the picture to all of us?” Chan tries to signal to Yerim with his brows. “In like, a group message?” 

It’s laying it on thick considering that if Chan and Minhyuk are on one end of the social cue spectrum, Yerim is definitely on the opposite one, but it does the job. Yerim’s eyes widen at once in understanding. 

“Yeah,” she says, her nails clicking furiously on the screen, faster than Chan has ever seen anyone type.

Chan feels his own phone buzz in his pocket and takes it out, his movement matching Jihoon's. 

Added to a new group chat: [ four otter emojis ]

joined file: [ picture ]

Yeri, 4.31 pm: :^)

"You didn't," Chan gasps.

She's chuckling, clearly very proud of herself for making the group chat's picture Jihoon's lonely thumb.

Obviously, it is hilarious. But the sight of it sends a weird prickly feeling in the back of Chan's skull, surely a manifestation of a lacklustre survival instinct. He throws a glance at Jihoon discreetly, suddenly worried they've gone overboard.

"It's fine," Jihoon says defensively before Chan can ask anything. "I like it."

He's gripping his phone really tight, as if Chan was going to take it away, hints of a shy smile still floating around his mouth.

Chan feels his phone buzz in his hand again, and smiles at the fakely angry umpangie sticker.

"Let's get going, team," Jiya yells, waving the passage order sheets in the distance.

They gather their bags and slowly prepare to join her on the warm-up side of the pool. Yerim is clearly trying to meet his eyes, apparently not impressed by the silent conversation that just happened, but Chan has gotten really good over the years at pretending not to see any of her attempts at making him discuss his feelings. After a few more tries, she rolls her eyes, and sets off on Jihoon's side, talking at lighting speed about something Chan can't really hear, while Jihoon does his best to listen attentively.

"What the hell dude," Minhyuk whispers on his left, eyes still slightly wide. "I had no idea Jihoon-hyung was this cute.” 

Chan tries to shrug, but he sees Jihoon discreetly look at the group chat again, the same shy smile from earlier warming his face. Yerim is laughing at something he's saying, hitting his shoulder. It's a nice image.

"Yeah," Chan tries to say without sounding too pleased. "He can be."

[four otter emojis]

Chan, 9.45 pm: Guys, good job at practice!!! It’ll be a tiring day tomorrow, but we’ve grown a lot during the last months of training, I know we can do this  >_<  There’s no other team like us so it’s time to really show the world how amazing Korean diving is and how we’ve come this far!!! No matter the results, let’s do our best to have some fun and to enjoy the competition (∩ꈍᴗꈍ∩) Hwaiting~~~~~

Yerim, 9.49: ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Yerim, 9.50 pm: like I said 

Minhyuk, 9.51 pm: ㅋㅋㅋ good luck chanhoon team ~~ sleep well 

Jihoon, 10.24 pm: We can do this.