underwater | hwang hyunjin ✓

26 | almost ariel

Curse Hyunjin.

Curse him and his perfect self. Curse him and his bright eyes, curse him and his pink lips, curse him and everything he owns and wears proudly. Curse him and whatever his intention was at the start.

Because of all that, I completely forgot that an Olympic scout was coming today and all the time in the water, I was so distracted to the point where coach commented that if he knew that I'd be like this today, he wouldn't put me on the team.

Curse him and for everything he did.

I find myself huddled in the corner, watching everyone else while drawing little circles on the floor harshly with a twig. In the distance, I can see Seungmin's flaming red hair clearly and jumping up and down in his seat in an absolute euphoric state when Hyun ― he ― crosses the finish line first with perfect strokes. The rest of the guys tries to hide their faces behind their hands, pretending Seungmin is a stranger who didn't have connections with them at all.

At least the sight of Seungmin made me smile a bit, forgetting about my slowly shattering heart even for a little while.

Seungmin doesn't know, so I guess that's good. I can't stay away from Seungmin just because I want to steer clear of his way, that's a lame excuse. I can't tell him that's the reason why I'm going to stay away from him. I can pretend that we're slowly drifting apart and our fake marriage slowly coming to an end.

Someone takes a seat next to me, and I look my right, seeing Daehyun frowning.

"What's wrong?" I question him, dropping my twig.

Daehyun scoffs, "what's wrong? You, what's wrong?"

"Okay, you've never felt this down at a competition before," he continues, "so let me ask you one more time ― what is wrong, Song Yuri?"

I look up from the ground, shaking my head and offer him a smile. "Nothing!" I deny, "nothing's wrong. Everything's fine."

Daehyun rolls his eyes, "you're not."

"But, who am I to ask," he continues, shrugging it off then pauses, "you're going to talk to somebody about it, right? Don't bottle it up."

"I'm fine, Daehyun," I assure him, "there's nothing wrong. Trust me."

Daehyun gives up and stands before walking away to get a drink before his next race.

My events are all done today, so I just watch the rest of the competition with a sigh of defeat. How did last night affect what I did today? It's just not right. I blew my only chance to be spotted by an Olympic scout, who knows when I'll be able to be spotted again?

No, I can't be like this.

Just get up, stand tall and... smile. Force a grin if you have to.

Okay. Let's go.