Chapter Text
"I don't want anything to do with love."
— Yoo Jaeyi, 18 seconds before falling into it.
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The swim team had just finished a brutal evening practice, the air in the natatorium thick with chlorine and the echoes of Coach Kim's whistle still ringing in their ears.
Yoo Jaeyi was the last one out of the pool, as always. She didn't rush the cool-down. Water was the only place her thoughts didn't drown her.
She peeled off her cap, shaking out a jet-black curtain of hair that clung to her sharp, uninterested features.
Her teammates had already filtered toward the locker room, their chatter a distant hum.
Jaeyi preferred it that way.
Less noise.
Less expectation to pretend she cared about their weekend plans or which fraternity was throwing another regrettable party.
She was toweling off—already down to her sports bra and team-issued swim shorts, because she'd learned years ago that changing in the locker room meant small talk—when a new sound cut through the wet-tile silence. Not a splash. A clatter. Followed by a very controlled, very frustrated sigh.
Jaeyi turned.
And there, on the pool deck, stood Woo Seulgi.
The Woo Seulgi. The girl whose face had become the unofficial banner of the university's social media feed. Not because she posted thirst traps or party photos—she posted annotated bibliography guides, study vlogs with pastel thumbnails, and the occasional picture of her cat in a tiny knit sweater. Two months ago, someone had candidly snapped her in the library, hair in a messy bun, glasses sliding down her nose, highlighting a textbook. The caption had been half-ironic: "Nerds, the new hot girl archetype? Discuss."
It had gone viral within their campus ecosystem. Suddenly, every guy with a passing grade thought he had a chance. They'd hover around the engineering library, ask her for "help" with calculus they had no intention of learning, and try to slide into her DMs with pickup lines about correlation coefficients. Seulgi had become a project—a challenge. A sweet, unsuspecting nerd they could "ease into" things.
Jaeyi wanted nothing to do with any of it. Trends were exhausting. People were exhausting. Love was a chemical reaction she'd opted out of at birth.
But right now, Woo Seulgi was standing on the edge of the diving well, clutching a stack of flyers that had scattered across the damp floor. She was wearing an oversized cardigan—cardigan—in a building with ninety percent humidity, along with jeans that were definitely not made for getting wet. Her hair was in a perfect low ponytail, and her round, tortoiseshell glasses had fogged up the second she'd walked in.
She looked completely out of place. Like a watercolor painting left in the rain.
"You're not supposed to be here," Jaeyi said. Flat. Not rude, just factual.
Seulgi looked up, startled. Her eyes—wide, dark, and unfairly expressive—landed on Jaeyi's face, then dropped to the sports bra and the towel slung over her shoulder, then snapped back up to her face so fast it was almost comical. A flush crept up her neck.
"I—the swim team's charity car wash flyers. Advisor said to drop them off before the pool closed." Seulgi held up the damp, crumpled stack as evidence. "I didn't realize the door would lock behind me."
Jaeyi glanced at the door. Sure enough, the red "EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY—ALARM WILL SOUND" sign glared back. Someone had propped it open earlier for ventilation, and it had swung shut. Seulgi had walked into a trap of her own making.
"Great," Jaeyi said, without sympathy. "Wait for the night janitor. He comes at ten."
Seulgi checked her phone. "It's six fifteen."
"Then you'll wait three hours and forty-five minutes." Jaeyi turned back toward the locker room. Not her problem.
"Wait." Seulgi's voice was smaller now. Less controlled. "Isn't there another way out? A staff entrance? A window?"
Jaeyi paused. She didn't owe this girl anything. But something about the way Seulgi's fingers tightened around the flyers—like they were a lifeline—made her answer. "Pool's maintenance door is one-way. Locker room exit is keycard only. So no."
Seulgi exhaled slowly, the kind of breath someone takes before accepting a minor tragedy. Then she did something unexpected. She didn't cry. Didn't complain. She just nodded, crouched down, and started gathering her flyers with methodical precision, smoothing each one against her thigh.
"Okay," she said quietly. "Thanks anyway."
Jaeyi stared at her for three seconds too long. Then she muttered something under her breath—it might have been a curse, or it might have been her last shred of emotional distance crumbling—and walked back toward the pool.
"What are you doing?" Seulgi asked, watching her approach.
"There's a gap in the fence behind the pump house," Jaeyi said, not looking at her. "But you'd have to walk through the shallow end to get there. The deck route is blocked by the new lane line reels."
Seulgi looked down at her jeans. Her loafers. The cardigan that was already wilting in the humidity.
"Through the water," she repeated.
"You got a better idea?"
Seulgi bit her lip. It should not have been as distracting as it was. Jaeyi forced herself to look at the ceiling tiles instead.
"I can't swim," Seulgi said.
Jaeyi blinked. "You're a college student."
"I'm aware."
"In a swim facility."
"I'm aware, Yoo Jaeyi."
The use of her full name landed strangely. Like Seulgi had known it all along, which—given her reputation as the girl who remembered everyone's name within five minutes of meeting them—she probably did. Jaeyi wasn't sure how she felt about that.
"Fine," Jaeyi said, and before she could talk herself out of it, she dropped her towel on a bench and slid back into the water. It was still warm from practice. She waded to the edge where Seulgi stood frozen. "Give me your hand."
"I'll ruin my shoes."
"You'll ruin them anyway when the janitor finds you and you have to explain why an engineering nerd broke into the natatorium after hours."
Seulgi's eyes widened slightly at the correction. So Jaeyi did know who she was. Jaeyi immediately regretted revealing that.
"Hand," Jaeyi repeated, sharper this time.
Seulgi sighed—a real, theatrical, I-am-only-doing-this-because-I-have-no-choice sigh—and stepped off the edge.
She did not step gracefully. She stepped like a newborn giraffe on roller skates. Her loafer caught on the tile lip, and she pitched forward with a yelp, arms windmilling, flyers exploding into the air like academic confetti.
Jaeyi caught her.
One arm around her waist, the other bracing against the pool wall. Water splashed everywhere. Seulgi's cardigan absorbed it like a sponge, her glasses went askew, and her ponytail slapped Jaeyi across the face.
They stood there, chest to chest, for one suspended second. Seulgi's hands had clamped onto Jaeyi's shoulders. Her eyes were wide, glasses fogged and speckled with droplets. Her mouth formed a small, startled 'o'.
"You're heavy," Jaeyi said, because she didn't know what else to say.
Seulgi smacked her shoulder. Not hard. More like a wet cat batting at something. "You're rude."
"I'm honest."
"Same thing, different font."
Jaeyi almost smiled. Almost. She caught it at the last second and turned it into a scowl instead. "Can you walk, or do I have to carry you like a rescue dummy?"
"I can walk," Seulgi said, but her legs were shaking. The water was only waist-deep, but the shock of cold—or maybe the shock of her—had made her unsteady.
Jaeyi kept her hand on Seulgi's lower back as they waded toward the pump house. She told herself it was practical. Safety protocol. If Seulgi slipped and cracked her head open, the paperwork would be a nightmare.
The gap in the fence was exactly where she remembered it: a rusted, bent corner behind the pump house that led to the parking lot. Jaeyi pushed the chain-link aside just enough for Seulgi to squeeze through.
Seulgi turned back, dripping, flyer-less, loafers squelching. She looked like a drowned kitten wearing a very expensive sweater.
"Thank you," she said, and she meant it. Not the performative gratitude Jaeyi was used to hearing. Real. Soft. "I owe you."
"You don't."
"I do." Seulgi tilted her head, water dripping from her chin. "Hey. Do you have a towel in your locker? I can't exactly walk across campus like this. I'll give it back tomorrow."
Jaeyi should have said no. Should have pointed to the athletic center's lost and found and walked away.
Instead, she said, "Fine."
And that's how Yoo Jaeyi—who didn't do favors, who didn't make friends, who had built her entire personality around a carefully maintained distance—ended up leading Woo Seulgi into the women's locker room.
It was empty, as expected. The shower stalls were tiled and narrow, each with its own curtain. Jaeyi grabbed a clean towel from her locker and tossed it at Seulgi's face.
"Change in the stall. Leave your clothes on the bench. I'll find you something dry."
Seulgi caught the towel one-handed, which was honestly impressive. "You don't have to—"
"I'm not walking you home. But I'm also not letting you get hypothermia. The news headline would be embarrassing."
Seulgi laughed. Actually laughed. It was bright and unexpected, like finding a twenty-dollar bill in an old coat pocket. Jaeyi hated how much she wanted to hear it again.
They both turned toward the shower stalls at the same time. There were six. Only one had the hot water handle that didn't stick.
They both reached for it.
"I was here first," Seulgi said.
"I swim here every day."
"And yet you didn't bring a backup towel. Poor planning, Yoo Jaeyi."
Jaeyi glared. Seulgi glared back. There was no heat in it—just two stubborn idiots in wet clothes, shivering, pretending they weren't enjoying this.
"Fine," Jaeyi said through her teeth. "We share."
Seulgi blinked. "Share a shower stall?"
"Girls do that. It's not a big deal." Jaeyi said it like it was obvious. Like her heart wasn't doing something strange and irregular behind her ribs. "Unless you're weird about it."
"I'm not weird about it," Seulgi said quickly. Too quickly.
"Then get in."
The stall was just big enough for two people if those two people didn't mind standing close. They hung their towels on the hook outside, and Jaeyi turned the water on—hot, the way she liked it, steam rising immediately.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. The water plastered Seulgi's cardigan to her shoulders, her jeans to her legs. Her hair had escaped its ponytail and now stuck to her cheeks in dark, curling strands.
Jaeyi stared straight ahead at the tile wall. The grout needed bleaching.
"Well," Seulgi said quietly. "We can't shower like this."
"I know."
"Are you going to—"
"Yes." Jaeyi's voice was clipped. She turned her back to Seulgi—a deliberate, pointed turn—and pulled her sports bra over her head in one efficient motion. Then her swim shorts. She didn't look behind her. She heard the soft sounds of Seulgi doing the same: the damp weight of the cardigan hitting the floor, the zip of jeans, the quieter rustle of fabric being folded instead of dropped.
When they were both down to just underwear, the stall felt significantly smaller.
"So," Seulgi said, her voice bouncing off the tile. "You're the swimmer who never goes to parties."
"I go to practice."
"That's not a party."
"To me it is."
Seulgi laughed again. Jaeyi counted. That was two times. She was keeping track now, apparently. Great.
"And you're the nerd everyone keeps trying to date," Jaeyi said, because if Seulgi could make observations, so could she.
Seulgi's silhouette stiffened. "I don't know why they bother. They don't actually like me. They like the idea of me. The 'hot nerd girl' thing." She said the last part with air quotes, visible even in profile. "One guy showed up to the study lounge with a graphing calculator he didn't know how to turn on. Another asked me if I 'dirty talk in LaTeX.'"
Jaeyi snorted. She couldn't help it. "LaTeX?"
"Formulas, Jaeyi. He wanted me to whisper formulas."
"That's not even flirting. That's just sad."
"Welcome to my life." Seulgi tilted her head back, letting the water run over her face. "Everyone wants to 'ease into' me. Like I'm a hot tub they're testing with their toes."
Jaeyi turned around without thinking.
Seulgi's eyes flew open. They were standing face to face now, inches apart, hot water streaming between them. Seulgi's skin was flushed pink from the heat, her lips parted, droplets clinging to her eyelashes.
Jaeyi had seen beautiful people before. Swimmers were built like Greek statues, all shoulders and discipline. But Woo Seulgi was different. She wasn't striking or intimidating. She was warm. Soft in the way that invited touch, not the way that demanded admiration.
"What?" Seulgi whispered.
Jaeyi realized she'd turned around on purpose, even though she'd told herself she wouldn't. Her mouth opened. Closed. She should say something dismissive. Something cold. Something that rebuilt the distance she'd spent years perfecting.
Instead, she just stood there, frozen, caught.
Seulgi waited. She didn't push. Didn't repeat the question. She just looked at Jaeyi with those dark, noticing eyes, and waited.
And Jaeyi—who never cracked under pressure, who had won regional championships on sheer nerve—felt something in her chest splinter.
"They're not easing into you," she finally said, her voice lower than she intended. Rougher. "They're trying to climb you. Like a ladder. To get to some idea of status or coolness by association." She paused, swiped a hand over her face to clear the water. "That's not love. That's ambition with a pretty face."
Seulgi stared at her. The water drummed against the tile, filling the silence.
"And you?" Seulgi asked. Her voice was barely audible. "What do you want?"
Nothing, she should say. The word was right there, familiar, comfortable. She'd said it a thousand times. To teammates who asked why she never dated. To her mother, who worried she was lonely. To herself, in the mirror, on the bad nights.
But standing here, watching Woo Seulgi's gaze flicker down to her lips and back up again, the word got stuck.
Jaeyi's hand moved before her brain could stop it. Her fingers reached out—slowly, hesitantly, like approaching a stray cat—and tucked a wet strand of hair behind Seulgi's ear. Her knuckles brushed the shell of it, and Seulgi shivered, even under the hot water.
Jaeyi let her hand linger there for half a second. Then she dropped it. Stepped back until her shoulders hit the cold tile. The distance helped. A little.
"I don't want anything to do with love," she said. But her voice cracked on the last syllable, and they both heard it.
Seulgi looked at her for a long moment. Her expression shifted—from surprise to something softer. Something almost tender.
"You're such a liar," Seulgi said quietly.
Jaeyi opened her mouth to argue. Nothing came out.
"You pulled me into the water," Seulgi continued, stepping forward, closing the distance Jaeyi had tried to create. "You're sharing a shower with me. You just touched my hair." She reached up and brushed her own fingers over the spot Jaeyi had touched, like she was memorizing it. "You've done more to show you care in the last twenty minutes than any of those graphing-calculator losers have done in months."
"That's not—" Jaeyi started.
"It is."
"I don't—"
"Jaeyi."
The sound of her own name—just her name, no last name, no distance—landed like a stone in still water. Ripples spread through her chest.
Seulgi didn't move closer. She didn't have to. The space between them was already nothing. A few inches of steam and the smell of chlorine and the sound of two people breathing too fast.
"I'm not asking for anything," Seulgi said. "I'm just saying. You can tell yourself you want nothing. But you don't act like someone who wants nothing."
Jaeyi's jaw tightened. Her hands curled into fists at her sides. Every instinct told her to shut this down. To grab her towel and walk away. To be alone, the way she was always alone, the way she'd trained herself to be.
But Woo Seulgi was looking at her like she was already seen. Like the cold attitude was a coat Jaeyi could take off, if she wanted to.
And the terrifying part—the part that kept Jaeyi frozen against the tile instead of fleeing—was that she wasn't sure she wanted to keep wearing it.
The water was still running. Somewhere in the building, a boiler hummed. And in a cramped shower stall on the far end of the natatorium, Yoo Jaeyi stood dripping, undone, while Woo Seulgi reached past her to turn off the water.
She didn't step back.
They stood there in the sudden quiet, wet skin cooling, breath fogging the air between them.
"My place has a dryer," Seulgi said. "And ramen. If you want."
Jaeyi stared at her. The offer was simple. No pressure. No expectation. Just if you want.
She should say no.
"Fine," she said.
And when Seulgi's fingers brushed hers as they reached for the same towel hook, Jaeyi didn't pull away.