AND IF YOU FEEL YOU’RE SINKING I WILL JUMP RIGHT OVER
Into cold, cold water for you~ (.❛ ᴗ ❛.)
pairing: swim club member! keonho x f! lifeguard!reader
As a swimmer keonho spends majority of his time at the pool, and as an elite competitive swimmer, who’s won multiple titles; he likes to think he’s pretty well known and loved at your local recreation centre. So when a new lifeguard gets hired that absolutely can’t stand him (That he also he thinks is oh so stunning!!) He pushes to (very) questionable measures to get your attention..
sfw, fluff, enemies to lovers (?) (mostly on readers part though) keonho is DOWNBAD , seonghyeon is also a swimmer in this, lots of vulgar language
a.n: HAI first fic kinda nervous hah.. if this does well I’ll write a part two. I think I’ll write a part two regardless.. please don’t hurt me 😅
“thank the fucking lords.”
Keonho can make out as he lifts his head up from the water, finally finishing his cooldown set approaching the edge of the pool. He thinks he needs to get his ears checked. With all of the swimming he had been doing, there was bound to be water accumulated in his there.
He tiredly pulls himself forward, and grabs onto the gutter. Breathing a few sighs of relief, before he registers what his fellow teammate beside him had said.
“what?” he questions with that causal teasing smile , pushing his hair back as he lifts his goggles to rest on his forehead.
“practices finally over. my bodies in so much pain, im practically numb everywhere.” He groans, throwing his head back, almost as if he were in actual agony.
He can’t argue with that. Through all of summer break Monday to Saturday, Keonho had been forced to run constant swim practices by his few coaches. And, as someone who swam for a competitive swim club, that meant tiring swim drills and exercises, prolonging from as early as 6 in the morning to as late as 5pm in the evening. Like most teenagers, he thinks he would much rather be doing things elsewhere, like a normal boy would in the summer. Playing video games, going out with his friends, maybe even take a vacation to somewhere nice! But alas, he knew how important he was to his swim club. He was their MVP afterall, and he knew he couldn’t let them down.
Not when 1st place was calling his name. Not when everyone was cheering for him on the bleachers, or when everyone had come to crowd him that one time. giving him pats on the back or even trying to throw him up into the air after making the shortest time for a 400m sprint. He thrived on the love he received. So naturally, he knew he had to work hard(or in this case swim hard ) despite the excruciating work he had to put into it.
Keonho sighs to himself, shaking his head, as he can’t help but follow with a tired faint chuckle, giving his friend a little elbow jab.
“Dude ow, I just said I’m hurting everywhere.”
“seonghyeon you’re such a pussy ass swimmer bro”
Keonho says poking fun at his friend
“always gotta be complaining about something. our competition is literally in two weeks. you don’t have time to be complaining.” earning a scowl from seonghyeon which he just laughs at
“well excuse me, maybe not all of us strive to be elite award winning national swimmers.” Seonghyeon retorts with a glare, but there’s no real bite in his tone.
He pushes himself out of the 5m deep pool first. Wincing in pain, as he struggles to lift himself up with his arms feeling jelly and his legs feeling numb. He sits himself up on the pool deck and grabs his water bottle , squirting it from afar as he tries to catch all of it in his mouth.
Keonho laughs at his weak performance, still in the pool looking up at him with a cheeky smile
“chill with the glaze. you know you want me.”
Seonghyeon pauses, mid stream coming from his water bottles as he looks down at keonho, who was now lazily floating on his back. Their eyes meet. And for a brief second nobody says anything.
“What? Cat got your to-! Hey! What the- Yo, stop!” Keonho yells, as seonghyeon takes his water bottle hovering it over the pool and squirts it onto keonhos face
“Never say that shit to me again.” Seonghyeon deadpans, not listening to his friends protests.
“My nose! You got water up my nose!” Keonho flails his arms up and down, looking almost as if he had been drowning. The transition from peacefully floating to almost drowning was surely a humerous sight to see.
He dunks his head in the water and furiously swims towards the edge once more,grabbing onto the gutter again before reaching a hand up to catch seonghyeons legs that were still dangling in the water in an attempt to pull him in Panicked, Seonghyeon hurriedly manages to free his leg from keonhos grip, but being too weak, he finds trouble standing up to make a run. Keonho, seeing this as an opportunity swift-fully pushes himself out the water and pounces on his friend.
Seonghyeon manages to stop him, as they struggled against each other, hands locking. Feet sliding behind them as the pool deck was obviously wet.
“Keonho , get off of me!” Seonghyeon yelps, his arms shaking as he tries pushing himself against keonho. It seemed liked they were both trying to shove each other back in the water. Despite the pain he feels in his upper arms, he can’t help but stifle a laugh
“You started it! My nose is on fire because of you and you’re going to- pay!”
“BRO GENUINLEY WHO ARE YOU? making me look like a fan! I promise nobody wants you” seonghyeon argues back louder, in attempt to humble his friend who very much needed a reality check.
“You don’t know that! Tell me you can’t look at this cute face and not fall in love-”
“Just what the hell do you boys think you’re doing?
Keonho pauses mid sentence, the high pitched sound of a whistle cutting him off, followed by a loud voice yelling at him from behind
Seonghyeon immediately drops his hands that were pushing against keonho, making him stumble forward a little
“Ah sorry we were-“ seonghyeon says immediately jumping into his apologetic friendly exterior once more, but keonho cuts him off.
He turns around, a bit too smugly
“Oh lighten up, we were just horseplaying around.”
He laughs, bringing his arms up to the back of his head, like he was so confident of who he was talking to. ah probably just another one of his lifeguard friends, here to jokingly remind him of how to behave. But as his eyes meet yours, his charming smile quickly drops, and his eyes widen a bit too hurriedly when he sees who he’s dealing with.
the music blaring from the speakers fade to a dull background hum, while the giggles and screams from the children seem to hush when he finds himself gawking at your presence. Even the commotion of the water, swaying and splashing all around appears to be mute.
He opens his mouth to say something, but the words die out somewhere in between , and his throat feels oddly dry now despite having swallowed tons of water earlier when being nearly water boarded by seonghyeon.
he thinks you’re beautiful. So beautiful his arms also drop back down to its sides, his knees buckling a little. He’s never seen you before. Surely he would’ve noticed if someone so breathtakingly gourgous worked at the same facility he swam at.
He realizes you’re a lifeguard. With your buoyant aid in one hand, and whistle around your arm. A lifeguard sent from above just for him! Totally not because you were just doing your job, when you caught him fooling around with Seonghyeon.
He watches the way you raise your eyebrows when he can’t answer, the way you swing your goggles around your fingers while your other arm rest on your hip, tapping impatiently. The red lifeguard uniform suits you as well, he thinks.
“Can’t find a liable excuse for your reckless behaviour?” You question with a mocking tone and a stingy glare that he thinks maybe he should piss you off even more because you look so attractive when you direct your anger on him
He tries to clear his throat. Hopefully trying to regain some dignity and aura he just lost.
“We were just- uh..” but he doenst manage to finish before he feels a weight on his back. Two hands to be exact, and he doesn’t even realize he’s been pushed back into the water, until he hits the surface face first.
Keonho sinks down into the deep water; realizing while he was stupidly infatuated by your beauty, seonghyeon had seized the opportunity to get his last jab in. That prick.
He resurfaces his head out quickly, only to be met with you directing your anger onto seonghyeon, who looks guilty, but not enough to hide the small smile he has on his face as he flickers his eyes between you and keonho.
“Now why would you do that? Did I not just make myself clear right now? You guys are acting like children! The rules of this pool state no horseplay! Here I thought you would’ve known better because you swim for a club.” You scoff crossing your arms as you turn your attention to keonho who was now staring at you dumbfounded, his head bobbing up and down in the water.
“Unbelievable. You guys are so immature.” You mutter to yourself
“Get out of the pool. It’s time for public swim.” You demand pointing at keonho, and then to the sign a little too far away for him to see. But he’s not here to argue with you. No. That’s not what he wants. What he really wants to do though, is ask for your number.
He pulls himself out of the pool for the last time, watching you huff in dissatisfaction at his childish behaviour.
Pushing himself off his knees, he can hear seonghyeon mutter another small apology to you, earning him another nasty glare, which he shys away from by turning his back , seemingly wanting to leave the pool vacinity
You turn your heel away, thinking you were done with the two. the slippers under your feet making a loud squeak sound as you shake your head in disbelief. It was your first day on the job, so obviously you were a bit uptight, wanting to set the rules and regulations straight. Though, just because you were new, didn’t mean you weren’t business.
Unfortunately though, you didn’t even make it three steps away, before you feel a hand grab onto your wrist, pining you in place. Not enough to hurt, but enough to feel the presence of the weight trying to hold you back.
You turn your head back, a bit stunned and confused as to who had suddenly stopped you. You’re met with the same boy you had just scolded. This time you managed to get a better look of him up close.
He was stocky, and mostly tall. His hair, which was a mix of wavy and straight, clung to his wet forehead, as he looked at you with shy and almost pleadful eyes, a big contrast as to how he looked so arrogant and cocky earlier. He was also well built too. He had long legs, as normal for someone as good as swimming as him, and oddly enough he had a small 4 pack that was barely visible.
“My eyes are up here” he says, his tone soft, but his mouth betrayed him with a slightly bold smile.
“Excuse me?” You inquire, in an attempt to save yourself after being caught, you can’t help but notice his friend behind him, looking at the two of you in a bewildered shock.
You turn your body fully around, facing him head on. You try and wriggle out of his grip, but he doesn’t budge. Yeah, that was one surefire way to approach a woman. You look down at your wrist, where he held on, and then looked at him straight in the eyes, confusion plastered all over your face
“when do you get off work?” he interrupts.
You can his friend burst out of laughter in the distance. Was this some kind of joke?
You blink at him, thinking you had misheard him. But he doesn’t bother repeating himself, letting you stare at him like he didn’t just ask you ( a stranger btw) the most random question
“.. like.. 8pm.” you say, slowly and hesitantly , gulping.
“perfect. let me take you out after then, yeah?”
Okay. This has to be some kind of prank
you think to yourself as you try and find the words to question his questionable statement.
you furrow your eyebrows and you bite the inside of your cheek, looking at him with a mix of disgust, disappointment and overall confusion.
He can’t help but feel his heart leap out of his chest upon looking at your unsatisfied face.
Just make some random excuse, I don’t have time for these public relations.
You glance back at the headguard room, where you see your supervisor idly chatting with your other new fellow coworkers. You remember you were assigned to go hose down the change rooms , and move the lane ropes out of the way for the public swim before all of this.
“It’s a school night.” You manage to make out, which wasn’t actually an excuse; it was very much true.
He doesn’t seem to be affected by this though, as he smiles even wider
“oh, me too! that’s okay, I’ll just drop you off home then!” He says with an ecstatic look like you had already said yes to his invitation
“Okay asshole,” you punctuate “first of all, get your hands off-“
“Keonho you’re actually such a fucking embarrassment.” A voice says calling out
the boy who had been holding your wrist was named keonho. And now he was seemingly being dragged away by the hair by the same friend, who had just been watching you two earlier.
His grip loosens around your wrist freeing you from his hold as he doesn’t want to pull you with him, despite wanting to talk to you more
“Bro, stop!” Keonho yells trying to untangle seonghyeons fingers out of his hair, as he tries to run away. The slippery pool deck wasn’t exactly helping him though.
Seonghyeon sighs to himself
“I can’t be seen with you in public.” He mutters to himself before they disappear into the crowd of the rest of the patrons.
You stand there for awhile, dumbfounded and overall, trying to process what the hell had just happened.
It’s not until a little girl approaches you to ask if you can move the lanes, so that her and her brother can swim, is when you realize you actually have to get back to work.
“Excuse me miss?” You look down at the voice calling you and see girl about the height of your knees, looking up at you with a curious face
“Could you take down the lane ropes so me and brother can swim?” She asks with a toothy grin
“A-ah yes of course! Here, I’ll do that right away.” You say composing yourself immediately with a friendly smile.
She turns away with a cheer, running somewhere off, before you have to shout and warn her to walk.
you sigh internally, as your flip flops creak behind you with each step. You sink down to your knees, leaning over the pool, as you slip your hands in the water to try and untangle the clip. In an attempt to attach the lane ropes to the wall, you can’t get his name out of your head.
you bit your lip, a bit too hard. Oh, how you loathed him.
annoying, is what he was.
little turd thinks he can just try and swoon me over when I put him in his place…asshole. a jerk too. he totally gives off jerk vibes. he better pray I never catch him outside of work or it’s going to be on sight. I swear to god if I see him again, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind! Infact, I hope he quits swimming so I never see him again!
----------------------------------------------------
your blissful and peaceful sleep is interrupted by the sound of your alarm, blaring loudly as you instantly jolt awake, that feeling of a small heart attack pounding against your chest.
lazily sitting up, you feel around your desk for your phone with your eyes still sleepily struggling to open, trying to turn off that irritating sound so early in the morning.
Your phone finally feels familiar in your hand as you pick it up to swipe off your alarm. The time reads “6:30 AM” and you can’t help but groan,again.
Today was your first day of school. Your first day of school at a new school. How exciting!
you sink back into your bed momentarily, telling yourself 5 more minutes. but you can’t fall back asleep. you can’t even relax. because you were nervous. more nervous than you should’ve.
You had recently moved cities in the summer due to your dad’s new job, meaning you essentially had to start a new life away from all of your old family and friends. You had never been alone. Not like this. And especially being in high-school, you found it quite intimidating walking into a new educational prowess with nobody familiar to lean onto. But that didn’t mean you would back down. No, you were a fighter. Hence why you decided to start piecing your life together slowly in this new city! Meaning obviously working as a lifeguard at the local pool near your house. It was natural. You loved the water, and grew up swimming constant, so what better way than to not put that love to use!
you cringed slightly, upon remembering how your first day of work had unfolded yesterday. Your mind drifted to keonho. you shook your head. No, now was not the time to curse at him. You had to get up.
You tried going through your routine. And it felt mostly normal. Sure you weren’t as excited, getting ready to see your friends on the first day of school like you normally were. Your old house had two bathrooms, so you could take all the time you wanted getting ready. Your new house only had one to share amongst you and both of your parents. You were halfway into doing your hair, when your dad hurriedly kicked you out because he needed to brush his teeth.
You frowned when you saw what your mom had made you for breakfast. Not because you weren’t appreciative, but because it just wasn’t the same. Back at your old house, your mom would run to the bakery every morning( first in line) to buy fresh baguettes for you to dip your eggs in. What was now left on the table was cereal a bit too soggy for you to eat.
Lady Luck wasn’t on your side either. Your parents had insisted you walk to school for the first day, and you almost got pooped on by a bird twice, along with nearly getting in trouble with a cop when jaywalking across the street.
You held your phone out, as you approached the big school looking down at your schedule, your homeroom was math. Okay.. not your favourite subject, but you shrug it off, making a run for it as you hear the bell going off.
You can’t help but stumble into your first class, somehow tripping on your own feet as you push the door open. Making a loud twack! as it hits the door.
“fuck..” you mutter a bit too loudly. You look up to realize , that the whole class was staring at you. The teacher giving you a look of concern before she opens her mouth to speak
“Ah, you.. must be the new student right?”
You clear your throat and straighten up, turning a bit red.
“oh yes, that’s me. I uh.. apologize for that.”
“And for being late.” You blurt out looking up at the clock to realize you’re 15 minutes late.
“That’s quite alright. This is your first day in this big building so it’s understandable.” She nods approaching you. Before she leans down with a smile.
“Ms. Gin.” She says bringing her hand out to shake. Who shakes hands with the new student?
you bring out your hand to shake, her grip a bit too hard, but whatever.
She turns her attention back to the class
“Alright everyone! This is…” she pauses to look over at me
“My name is y/n.. um it’s nice to meet all of you.. I hope we’ll all become friends.” You internally curse at yourself. shit! That was so cringe, I should’ve practiced this beforehand.
“Right! So let’s all give y/n a warm welcome!” The teacher cheers, the class awkwardly clapping. You wanted to sink down and let the ground swallow you hole.
“Alright so here’s the seating plan. You.. sit over there.” Ms. Gin says says pointing at an empty desk.
You squint your eyes in attempt to see where she was pointing. There were so many open seats, you couldn’t exactly tell which one she was pointing at
“sorry,” you try to chuckle “which one?” You ask turning to look at her
“Ah, infront of er… keonho.” She says in attempt to remember his name.
Keonho? Where have I heard that name?
“Keonho raise your hand so she can see you.” The teacher orders
You turn your head back to the classroom, looking for this said “Keonho” boy. You squint around for a bit, before you feel it. Somebody staring right at you. A heavy presence watching you. You see someone’s hand shoot up, so you instinctively look in that direction
Your eyes meet. And in that moment you truly wanted nothing more in that moment to jump off a cliff
he notices your expression, a shy smile escaping his lips as he hesitantly raises his hand.
Fuck. Of course. It was the same boy from the pool yesterday.
I just happened to have transferred to his school, and right into his homeroom class.
You wanted to argue, ask the teacher for any other spot. Plead her to move him. But you didn’t. You couldn’t. You weren’t even 5 minutes fresh into this school.
You, instead thank her, before begrudgingly moving; passing down the rows of students of which some were staring at you. You make it to your seat, and before you can turn your back on him to sit down. You make eye contact once more.
His cheeks are tinted with a slight pink, and he still wears that shy smile. He fiddles with his fingers.
“Hi” he whispers. Somebody snorts beside him, and you look over to realize his friend from the pool happend to be in your class. Just phenomenal.
you ignore his greeting, with a scoff and sit down . Scooting your chair foward against the floor so there would in no chance a way for him to grab onto you again like yesterday.
It’s fine. No really it’ll be fine. I’ll just focus on my work. How hard can it be?
Unbeknownst to you (or well maybe you did know) keonho was very much freaking out. The moment you had walked into class, his very breath had been stolen. The earth had stopped spinning and he truly thought it was a sign. A calling from the heavens for you to be his. Even when you stumbled into class, awkward and all, he thinks you’re cute. And effortlessly funny. A rare smile growing on his face.
This is my chance! I can finally talk to her now!
“bro, isn’t that the lifeguard who bitched at us yesterday..” seonghyeon asks with a whisper, leaning closer to talk to keonho.
“So how about we slow the fuck down…”
“Keonho raise your hand so she can see you.” The teacher calls out
He waits till you finally notice him, and can’t help the fact that his face feels like it’s burning when you slightly loose your composure. He thinks you two have to be destined
Now you’re sitting infront of him, as he’s tweaking behind you. Seonghyeon, the oh so good best friend tries to pull him back into reality.
“Dude you’ve been staring at the back of her head for like 15 minutes straight, lock in.” Seonghyeon deadpans
“am not,” he retorts “i just zoned out while Ms. Gin was talking. Her voice is uh.. relaxing like that”
“you’re a pathetic chud. we’re supposed to be working on the review package, she stopped talking to us like 20 minutes ago.”
“Oh, then I should try talking to her. She’s new right? Surely she has no friends. I can be her first!” Keonho happily exclaims , slapping his hands down on the table a bit too loudly. Students near by turn their heads to stare.. and glare.
You jump up at the sudden loud commotion behind you. It startles you. But, you knew better than to turn around. Clenching your teeth, the two boys sitting behind you have been whispering non stop since the moment you had sat down. Specifically, whispering about you.
You didn’t miss the way, you heard your name being thrown around. Or the way keonho would not so discreetly try and get your attention from behind. Sliding his book off his desk just so you could pick it up and look at him with that look of hatred love that he was a sucker for.
“Hey.” You hear an all too familiar voice, followed by a poke on your shoulder. You tighten your grip around your pen. Trying to ignore keonhos attempt at interaction.
There’s a pause, and then another tap
“Y/N, was it?” He questions
“What.” You growl. A few students turning to watch you now in curiosity.
“There she is, I was starting to think you were ignoring me!” Keonho laughs loudly making Ms Gin glances up from her book.
“you still up for my offer?”
“The one where I take you out, or you know walk you home after work. Well it doesn’t even need to be after work! It could be a weekend, or afterschool- or wait! How about afterschool? I’ll take you out afterschool today-“
“Keonho. Do your work.” Ms gin says sternly , cutting him off before she glances back down
“how about afterschool today?” He whispers with those same pleading eyes. He could care less about ms gins warnings.
“Because you’re immature, childish, weird, creepy, stupid looking-“
“Okay I get it. But that was yesterday! You just caught me at a bad moment! Besides it was seonghyeons fault!” Keonho whines pointing at his friend who was just trying to do his work
My eyes meet his. He offers me a shy wave before I roll my eyes. Ah so his friend was named seonghyeon. More reason to hate him.
“His fault how? I literally witnessed you pounce on him. If I hadent come over to separate you two, you both could’ve gotten seriously injured.”
“Ah, so caring. You’re so sweet y/n.”
You make a disgusted face at him, while seonghyeon brings his hands up to his face, genuinely getting icked out.
“leave me alone. I’m not interested.” You say, harshly turning back. But not before you catch his eyes. The way they had lit up , and then suddenly changed to frantic. His smile had dropped, into a small frown too, and he looked genuinely upset
ignore him y/n. don’t feel bad for him. he’s just messing with you.
you pick up your pen again, trying to trace back to what question you were working on before being rudely interrupted.
“are you fucking crying?”
you pause, and can’t help but slowly turn your head back.
behind you, keonho seemed to be.. tearing up?? elbows resting on the table as he runs his hands through his hair
“No” he mutters , but you can see a tear falling down onto the review package ms gin had handed out
What the hell was this guys problem?
You were genuinely astounded.
Seonghyeon tries to tug on keonhos elbow to get a better look , but he won’t budge. Keeping his head down, eyes glued to his paper like it was suddenly worth paying attention to
“Keonho? Is there a problem back there?” Ms gin asks, setting her book down on her table
“Nah, just solving this math problem.”
“you’re not fooling anybody” seonghyeon mutters. He shakes his head and goes back to doing his work aswell.
God was this going to be a long first day..
