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part two hundred and sixteen
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wc!au - team chanyeol; swimming anime au
(Anonymous) 2014-07-15 02:58 am (UTC)(link)+ team multiplier
inspired by
2538 words
(Anonymous) 2014-07-15 02:59 am (UTC)(link)collapse again
(Anonymous) 2014-07-15 02:59 am (UTC)(link)Re: collapse again
(Anonymous) 2014-07-15 02:59 am (UTC)(link)The granny gives him a double serving today, and Minseok didn’t have breakfast. The squid smells so good, but Minseok has kitten on his hands so he can’t eat just yet. He’ll just have to wait until he gets to Yixing’s house to ask to use his sink.
The doorbell doesn’t work, and Yixing doesn’t answer after the first time Minseok knocks on his front door.
Or the second.
Of the third.
“I swear to God, if he’s in the tub again,” Minseok mutters as he tries to call Yixing. As expected, he doesn’t answer. “God damn it, why do I even try with him?” he grumbles even more as he walks around the house and opens the back door that he knows he always unlocked (probably not the safest thing, but…)
“I’m coming in!” Minseok announces as he kicks his shoes off and doesn’t bother to put on slippers as he walks up the stairs to the full bathroom. The house is silent, and Minseok entertains the idea that maybe Yixing decided to go to school without him for once.
Except Minseok knows that isn’t right because the last time he had to miss a few days of school, he learned from their homeroom teacher that Yixing hadn’t showed up when she assumed that Yixing had gone to wherever Minseok had gone. From then, Minseok knew that he had to force Yixing to come to class or he’d soak in the tub until he turned into a giant human shaped raisin.
When he opens the door to the outer part of the bathroom, Minseok notices the clothes folded in the basket by the door and sighs. Of course Yixing would be in here.
“I’m coming in,” Minseok repeats before sighing, exasperated. On the other side of the door leading to the room with the bathroom, water sloshes and splashes around. Yixing must have dunked his head under the water thinking if Minseok couldn’t see him, he would leave and not bother him anymore. Minseok’s suspicious are proven correct when he opens the door to find a bathtub full of water and a vague tanned shadow underneath some lingering soap suds. “Just because you can’t see me does not mean I cannot see you, Yixing.”
Yixing comes up for air, almost theatrically, letting out a rather loud breath as his head surfaces. Some water spills over the edge of the tub, but for the most part, it doesn’t seem to be that disturbed. Yixing flips some of his wet bangs out of his face and flicks some water at Minseok, getting his white uniform shirt slightly wet.
“Ready for school,” Minseok asks as he extends a hand out to Yixing, who looks up at him and stares, “Xing ge?”
Yixing frowns slightly before saying, “Don’t call me that. You’re not even younger than me.” Minseok chuckles lightly as Yixing takes his hand anyway and stands up in the tub. He pretends not to notice how the water trickles down Yixing’s clavicles, down his chest to his…
Swimsuit.
“I don’t get why you insist on sitting in the tub with your trunks on when we’re literally right next to the ocean and it’s still warm enough to go swimming,” Minseok chides as Yixing towels himself off to dry.
“Water is calming,” Yixing states simply. “It doesn’t matter where it’s from.” Minseok gets this line about three times a week and just smirks at him instead.
“Come on, get dressed,” Minseok orders, half-serious, only to find Yixing putting on an apron over his swimsuit as opposed to his school uniform. “What are you doing?!”
“I’m making fish.” Yixing looks at Minseok as if he’s the weird one.
“Now?” Minseok asks, incredulous. They have about fifteen minutes to get to homeroom and it’s a ten minute walk. Minseok doesn’t have time for this nonsense.
“I didn’t have breakfast,” Yixing answers, still speaking as if this is a logical train of thought before Minseok unties the apron behind him and almost forces the white button up shirt onto Yixing.
“You can even keep your swimsuit on underneath. Just get dressed. We need to get to school.”
Yixing and Minseok have been in the same class since elementary school, when Yixing moved to this tiny seaport city from China, even though Yixing is actually more than a year younger than him. (“The curriculum is different,” Yixing had explained once. Back then, it had been a satisfying enough answer for Minseok, but nowadays he realizes that doesn’t actually explain that much at all.) That means that he can easily catch Yixing for lunch as he takes him to the rooftop to eat. He offers the fried squid he forgot to eat as a peace offering and apology for not letting Yixing fry his fish that morning. Yixing takes a piece without missing a beat and crunches on it, quite satisfied.
“Oh, I forgot to mention it this morning, but,” Minseok starts as they walk up the stairs, half finished with the squid (but Minseok packed an actual lunch as well), “I heard they were tearing down the old swim club.” Yixing is silent, expression not changing, but Minseok thinks he catches his eyes waver slightly for a moment.
“Minseok hyung! Yixing hyung!” a deep voice calls out from behind them, the telltale noise of sneakers skidding against the floor following quickly after. The pair turn around and see an unfamiliar, tall, gangly boy with huge ears and a wide, pearly white smile stretched across his face. “Wait up!” Both Minseok and Yixing squint to see whether or not they know this kid when it clicks in their minds at almost the same exact time.
“Chanyeol?!” they exclaim in unison. The boy winks in return.
“I can’t believe you go to the same high school as us now,” Minseok says as they walk up together.
“Yeah, the other one in the city closer to my house isn’t that great and this one’s only like two more stops off the subway anyway.” Chanyeol rubs the back of his head.
“And you’ve gotten a lot taller now!” The much hotter goes unsaid, though Minseok supposes it makes sense since the last time he even saw Chanyeol, he was in fifth grade and his older sister Yura was always really pretty. Good genes, etc.
“Growth spurt two summers ago.” More laughter.
“Do you still like ferrets?” Yixing asks suddenly, his face deceptively neutral, though Minseok recognizes the mischievous glint in his eyes.
“Hyung!” Chanyeol practically whines, gently head butting Yixing’s bicep. Yixing lets out a small laugh, and it’s the probably the first time Yixing’s actually smiled today (though Minseok likes to assume that Yixing is happy on the inside in his mind palace/sea castle/giant swimming pool).
It’s nice, just how easily they fall into the same routine from almost 6 years ago in only a few moments.
“Why did you guys never start a swim team or something?” Chanyeol asks as he bounces down the stairs and spins around to stare up at the two behind him. “You guys were so good when we were at the swim club back in elementary school!”
“We tried in middle school,” Minseok explains, “but then Yixing said he didn’t want to swim competitively anymore before we could even find a faculty advisor.”
“What?” Chanyeol exclaims. Minseok almost winces; Chanyeol isn’t any quieter than he was when they were kids, apparently. “Yixing hyung, why? You’re such a good swimmer!”
Minseok turns around, noticing that Yixing stopped walking for a few moments, expression blank once more.
“I only swim free,” Yixing answers cryptically.
Silence.
“Yeah, I know,” Chanyeol replies. “You only did the free style meets and the free style leg of the relay when we did it with Lu Han. Speaking of which, have you guys…”
Yixing starts walking down the stairs before Chanyeol can finish his sentence and passes the other two without a word.
Minseok and Chanyeol stare at Yixing’s retreating back before Chanyeol looks up at Minseok again.
“Did I say something wrong?” Chanyeol asks, brow furrowing in concern.
Minseok frowns.
“I don’t know.”
It goes almost without saying that Chanyeol is the one that brings in the half completed paperwork to start a new club to lunch the next day.
“Swim club?” Minseok asks.
“Yeah!” Chanyeol nods enthusiastically. “I don’t see why not! We might even get a membership to a private in-door pool or something since our school doesn’t have a pool that we can use.”
“Are you sure this is going to work?”
“Yeah! We just need one other member,” Chanyeol prattles on. “See, Minseok hyung will be captain and Yixing hyung will be vice-captain…”
“Why am I captain? Yixing is a much better swimmer than I am,” Minseok tries.
“Yeah, but can you imagine Yixing as the leader of a team?” Chanyeol asks, voice lowering even though Yixing is only sitting a few feet away from them. At least he doesn’t seem to be paying attention.
“…You make a valid point. But regardless, how are we going to get anyone to join the team?”
“Advertise?”
“No.”
“I’m already part of the track team.”
“Why would I want to swim in a pool when the ocean is right there?”
“So that was a bust,” Chanyeol groans as he slumps in the uncomfortable chair after school.
“I mean, I guess it is in the middle of the year. People already have their commitments.” Minseok sighs after saying this.
“What about we…” Chanyeol starts before he is cut off by someone singing the room across from the one that they are in.
Chanyeol isn’t sure why he stops or why he is so taken by the voice, but he finds himself pushing himself out of his seat to go peer through the window into the other classroom. Minseok and Yixing exchange confused looks before looking down at the random notes Yixing scribbled down for the recruitment song (“Maybe they’ll like us more if we sing to them!” “I don’t know how that’s supposed to work…” “Look, Yixing hyung’s already writing down ideas!”)
The boy singing is kind of short, with razor sharp cheekbones and a joyous grin on his face as he sings, going through impressive runs and adlibbing what Chanyeol assumes to be a few bars of whatever instrumental should be. Chanyeol waits with bated breath for a particularly long high note to finish, and when the boy finally finishes his song, Chanyeol starts clapping out of habit. The boy startles, looking up from his sheet music when he spots Chanyeol through the window. Their eyes lock, and out of instinct, Chanyeol runs back into the other room.
“I’ve found out fourth member!”
Deciding this mysterious singer boy will be their saving grace is much easier than convincing him to join the team, Chanyeol finds out really quickly. Chanyeol notices that he’s in his homeroom class when roll is called and he recognizes his voice, still lovely even when he’s only talking.
“Jongdae?” The boy looks up at Chanyeol hovering over his desk at lunch. “Kim Jongdae?”
“Yes…?” Jongdae asks uneasily (who wouldn’t if you had over one hundred eighty centimeters of stranger hovering over you? Especially a stranger who watched you practice without you noticing until the very end of the song…)
“So I was thinking…” Chanyeol begins.
“I’m not joining your swim club,” Jongdae states frankly, eyes narrowing behind his thick rimmed glasses, decidedly unimpressed.
“What?! How did you know?” Chanyeol whines.
“I mean, isn’t that the only reason you’ve been talking to anyone in our class recently?” Jongdae asks, and to be fair, he has a point.
“But…”
“Look, I’m really sorry, but I’m really not interested,” Jongdae cuts off, stopping any sort of persuasive argument Chanyeol has probably prepared. “I have a solo for choir and I’m one of the main…supporting…characters in the school musical. I don’t have time for anything else.”
“But…” Chanyeol tries to put on his best impression of a puppy that has been kicked and left outside in a thunderstorm as he pouts. Jongdae almost looks moved when…
“Yah! Jongdae!” another voice calls out from the door, and Jongdae gets up quickly and collects his lunch.
“I’m sure you’ll find someone,” Jongdae attempts to comfort Chanyeol as he pats his shoulder, reaching awkwardly above his own nose. As he walks to the door where his friends are waiting, he adds under breath, “but that someone isn’t me.”
Chanyeol is, of course, nothing but persistent, and after multiple attempts to woo Jongdae into the club, he finds himself waiting for a later train that usual when he hears from a classmate when the drama club usually lets out.
“Hey! I didn’t know we took the same train.” Chanyeol grins as he kicks at the ground.
“Yes, you do,” Jongdae deadpans. “We locked eyes on the train this morning.”
“Oh, so you noticed me!” Chanyeol brightens up, and Jongdae rolls his eyes.
“Chanyeol, I’m sorry, but…” Jongdae protests.
“Can I at least tell you why I’m trying so hard to get you to join?” Chanyeol almost pleads, standing up to face Jongdae. Jongdae is starting to get resent of how much taller he is than him. “You have to have noticed by now you’re the only one I’ve put this much effort into convincing.”
Jongdae presses his lips into a thin line before he finally decides, “Fine.”
“It’s just…when you were singing…that one time when I found you.” Yeah, that was still kind of creepy, Jongdae muses in his mind. “You were just so careful and beautiful and I wanted to see more of that…and I guess you’re really good a high notes so you can probably hold your breath for a long time under water.”
Jongdae absolutely does not flush (and absolutely does notice the flaw of logic Chanyeol is spewing about his lung capacity). “Beautiful?” he quietly murmurs before quickly correcting himself. “I mean, you could just come to the choir concerts.”
“There haven’t been any since then.”
“Oh yeah.
They stand on the eerily empty platform for about ten second of awkard silence.
“Okay, I’ll join,” Jongdae finally says.
“Wait, really?” Chanyeol looks up (less down because of that god damn height difference).
“Yes, but only as a trial member,” Jongdae continues. “No swimming!”
Chanyeol is too ecstatic that he doesn’t even question why someone would join the swim team with the intention not to swim.
Re: collapse again
(Anonymous) 2014-07-15 03:16 am (UTC)(link)Re: collapse again
(Anonymous) 2014-07-15 03:25 am (UTC)(link)Re: collapse again
(Anonymous) 2014-07-15 03:48 am (UTC)(link)^
(Anonymous) 2014-07-15 04:29 am (UTC)(link)