Chapter Text
“Sooil,” Wooseok said, walking past the other man into the hallway behind him, “I hope you know that I hate you.”
He was awake at an ungodly hour in the morning (okay, it was nine a.m., but in every past summer Wooseok had made it his personal goal to not wake up before eleven) for the first day of Wooseok’s new job. And it was all Sooil’s fault.
He looked around him, taking in the less-than-appealing sight of the lifeguard hallway. Although Sooil had explained that when the guards weren’t on duty, they spent most of their time hanging out in Jinwook’s office — Jinwook being an assistant aquatic director and Sooil’s boyfriend — Wooseok did not look forward to having to walk through the grimy hall every day to clock in and grab his gear.
Sooil laughed and followed him in. “It’s not gonna be that bad, I promise,” he said. “Once you get used to it, you’ll see, it’s pretty easy. Just don’t let anyone drown and you’ll be fine!”
Wooseok turned around to glare at the other man. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
Sooil sighed, moving around Wooseok to clock in, punching in a four-digit code and pressing his thumb to the screen. “Look, I know that you just wanted to lay low this summer and sulk, but you can’t just live your life without interacting with other people. Everyone here is super friendly, and I know you’ll like them. You might even make friends!”
Wooseok wanted to protest, but he knew that he couldn’t. His parents were vacationing at some friends’ summer home, and had left the house to him for the summer. He’d only been planning on leaving the house for emergency grocery runs. But once Sooil, his longtime friend since childhood, found out he’d be staying in their hometown for the summer, all of his carefully laid plans were destroyed.
Sooil had been working as a lifeguard during the summer at their local pool ever since he was seventeen, and he was now one of the two head lifeguards during the summer before his senior year of college. Sooil and Wooseok had both swam for the swim team when they were younger, although Wooseok had quit before he could be recruited to work. But this year, Sooil had convinced Wooseok to get lifeguard certified and work with him over the summer, which Wooseok barely remembers actually agreeing to before Sooil had signed him up for a lifeguard class.
And now, here he was, his first week of freedom after his sophomore year of college, lathered in too much sunscreen and fully unprepared to spend an entire summer, six days a week and eight hours a day, working with a bunch of people he’d never met.
“You’ll have fun, I promise,” Sooil said, clapping Wooseok on the shoulder and pulling him towards the clock-in keypad. “And at the end of the summer, I’ll get to say ‘I told you so.’”
Wooseok was about to deny that he would ever be able to say that when he heard a soft cough behind him. He turned around, surprised to find another boy with dark hair hovering hesitantly in the doorway.
“Uh, hi?” He said, seeming more to be asking a question than introducing himself. “I’m Kim Yohan, I’m here for…”
Sooil’s eyes widened in recognition. “Yohan! Right!” He turned to Wooseok. “This is Yohan! He’s also a new lifeguard this summer.” He ushered Yohan into the hallway. “This is Wooseok; don’t mind him, he’s a little grumpy, but you’ll like him once he warms up to you,” he informed Yohan.
Sooil showed Wooseok and Yohan how to input their thumbprints into the system, then directed them towards the boxes of whistles and fanny packs.
“You have to wear these at all times, even off duty,” Sooil told them, handing them each a white and red lifeguard shirt along with the other gear. There’s a packet somewhere- oh, here- it has all the information for what to do for the opening and closing shifts and all the other stuff we’re supposed to do. No one ever actually reads it, but I’m supposed to give it to you guys anyway.”
He pushed Wooseok and Yohan outside towards the pool. “We have two lifeguard stands, one on the deep end and one on the shallow end. There’s a diving board in the deep end, but we need to have three guards on duty to open it. If the parents try to bully you into opening it, just send them over to me.” He motioned towards a table by the entrance, shaded by a silver umbrella. “We usually work in shifts of 20 minutes, so you start at the sign-in table, then go to the shallow end, then the deep end, and then if we have more than three guards, you can go on break.”
Wooseok blinked a few times. “Am I supposed to remember all of that?”
Sooil laughed. “You’ll get the hang of it, don’t worry.” He pointed over to a couple of white tents set up on the lawn next to the pool. “Those are for the camp kids,” he said. “They’re here from about ten to five, although they only have an hour of pool time, so you don’t need to worry about them too much. Seungyoun and Changhyun are our two full-time coaches, so they’ll be doing lessons with half the kids while the lifeguards watch the other half during their free time.”
He turned back to Wooseok and Yohan with a bright grin, clearly far more excited than Wooseok was feeling. “Alright, that’s pretty much everything. You guys ready?”
Yohan looked like he was about to say something, but Sooil cut him off before he had the chance to. “Great! Once people start coming in, I’ll take the first shift, and then you guys can start rotating in. We have two more guards coming today, Gyujin and Sooyoung, but they won’t be here until around noon because they’re taking the closing shift.”
With that, Sooil left Yohan and Wooseok to awkwardly avoid making eye contact, both of them obviously not pros at social interaction. Yohan cleared his throat, making the first move: “Uh, do you wanna…” he gestured vaguely in the direction of the office that Sooil had mentioned to them.
Wooseok shrugged, fighting back a yawn. Damn Sooil and his early mornings. “Sure,” he said. They both made their way to the office, sitting across from each other in squeaky swiveling chairs. Wooseok endured almost five minutes of the two of them glancing around in silence, looking intently at the same six swimming posters and two calendars (both current, and both still on February) before coming to the realization that he was not going to be able to stand this if this was how the rest of the summer would go.
“How old are you?” Wooseok asked awkwardly, not knowing what else he should say.
Yohan, for his part, just seemed relieved that the excruciating silence had come to an end. “I’m going to be a freshman in college in the fall,” he said. He bounced in his chair a bit and winced at the loud squeak that emanated from it. “What about you?”
“I’ll be a junior,” Wooseok said distractedly, searching for a fan because even though it was only 9 a.m., the heat had already begun to become oppressive.
“Oh,” Yohan said, before they lapsed into awkward silence again. “Do you um- you seemed to know Sooil pretty well?”
Wooseok nodded. “We’ve been friends for almost ten years, now,” he said. He looked out the window to find Sooil staging a battle with an umbrella, fighting to open it before realizing he was turning it the wrong way. “Don’t know why, though. He’s a dumbass.”
Yohan let out a shocked laugh, shifting from his previously restrained, shy demeanor. Wooseok huffed out a laugh at Yohan’s expression, the other finally seeming a bit more comfortable.
Maybe this wasn’t going to be so bad.
______________________________
Everything was going fine until the camp kids arrived; from then on, there were at least four and a half hideously embarrassing incidents Wooseok knew he would be replaying in shame in his head all night.
He was just about to begin his third deep end shift when the camp kids showed up, and by that point, he thought he pretty much had the whole thing down. (Aside from the fact that he nearly broke his ankle every time he jumped off the deep end lifeguard stand. He wasn’t short, but he also was definitely not the optimal height to be jumping off that death trap.)
The camp kids could be heard before they were seen, loudly making their way down from the tennis courts at around 2 p.m. with a group of at least seven counselors herding them. Wooseok watched in abject terror as all of the kids broke free and began sprinting down the pool deck. He shouted feebly after them: “Walk!” But either nobody heard or nobody cared. The girl in the front of the pack of counselors, with short, dark brown hair and a name tag reading Haseul- Director, smiled at him in sympathy.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “It would be a miracle if you could get them to listen. Even Gyujin can’t, and some of them are terrified of him.” Wooseok smiled back in relief, glad that he wasn’t about to get yelled at for failing to complete just about the only task his new job had required so far.
He eyed the rest of the counselors as he made his way to the deep end stand, hoping they would be assisting him in watching the kids and not just assuming that one brand-new lifeguard was capable of keeping over thirty uncontrollable kids from drowning. Apart from Haseul, he counted six more counselors; five girls and one tall, gangly boy. Luckily, they also seemed to realize that the kids would need constant supervision.
Sooil had explained to him on one of his breaks earlier that the swim coaches would give all the kids a swim test (if they could make it 25 yards without standing on the bottom or, well, drowning, they passed) and if they passed, they would be allowed to use the diving board in the deep end. After that, the younger kids would have their lesson while the older kids played for half an hour, and then they’d switch.
Just before he made it to the deep end stand, ready to replace Yohan who had gone a little pale at the sight of the campers, Sooyoung, another guard, caught up to him and pulled on his elbow. “Hey!” She said, pointing towards the side of the pool. “Could you help me move this lane line before you switch out so we can open up the diving board?”
Wooseok had never moved a lane line in his life, but it definitely beat Yohan’s current position, so he nodded quickly and knelt next to the end of the lane line, tactfully ignoring Yohan’s pleading stare. He tried to look down at Sooyoung at the other end to copy what she was doing, but it was too far to see what was going on. He stared down at the place where the lane line was hooked into the wall long enough for one of the older campers to notice and tell him “Um, mister, you have to loosen it first.”
Flushing red at having to have been told what to do by a kid who couldn’t have been older than ten, Wooseok began unscrewing the lane line from the wall, finally able to unhook it and pick it up. Sooyoung, on the other side, began to walk sideways as she moved the lane line over to connect with another on the right. Wooseok followed her, trying to stand exactly opposite of her.
And then it all went south. Sooyoung began to pull the lane line towards her so that the middle would line up with the two ends, but Wooseok was not expecting how hard the pull would be. He stumbled a bit, trying to pull the line towards him, but he leaned forwards too much and-
“Shi-!” He began, stopping himself just in time to not be a Bad Influence on the kids, and just moments before he toppled, head first, into the water.
He surfaced, wiping his eyes with one hand and still miraculously grasping onto the lane line in the other. He looked up, hoping that no one other than Sooyoung had seen his failure, but instead found what felt like every single person’s eyes on him. He kicked back to the wall in shame, finally hooking the lane line in its proper place and pulling himself- sopping wet clothes, fanny pack, and all- out onto the deck. He looked up, accidentally making eye contact with the one male counselor, who was very clearly unsuccessfully hiding his laughter. Wooseok glared daggers at him, the effect probably ruined by the fact that he was simultaneously wringing out his dripping shirt.
He walked around the side, stopping just next to the guard stand where Yohan was blinking at him, an expression somewhere in the range of concern, confusion, and amusement. Without saying a word, he replaced Yohan, settling in and accepting that this was going to be a very long, very humiliating twenty minutes.
And it only got worse.
Noting dimly that he was shivering, despite it being nearly eighty degrees, Wooseok realized that the umbrella above the stand was shading him and preventing him from drying off quickly.
I’m sure I can just close it a bit, he thought desperately.
He reached up, fumbling with the levers that he had no idea how to operate. He saw a promising one, close enough to reach without standing up. As he rotated it, he realized that it didn’t close the umbrella, but rather angled it forwards and backwards. That could work too, he reasoned, and cranked the lever until he felt the sun on his legs. Just a little more, he thought, and rotated it one more time-
- and watched in horror as it unlatched from its stand and dropped straight down with a dull splash into the pool.
He slowly tilted his head up to look at the sky. “Why is this happening to me?” He said out loud, past the point of caring who heard. He’s surprised to hear someone laugh, dropping his gaze to where the male counselor was crouching to fish the umbrella out of the pool. He avoided making eye contact as the other boy handed him the damn umbrella, mumbling a “thanks” and not daring to look at him until he heard his footsteps walking away.
“Why,” Wooseok whispered. “Why me?”
When Gyujin came to replace him, Wooseok tried to leave as soon as he could- that had been his last shift, and he was free to go home and suffer in the privacy of his room- but before he could, he ran straight into the counselor he had seen laughing at him. (And helping him, but that was not the important part.) The fact that Wooseok had to look up to actually look the other boy in the face did not help any of the negative feelings he already had.
The counselor— Jinhyuk, his nametag read — smiled slowly as he realized who he’d run into. “Are you always this clumsy?” He asked, in a teasing tone that only helped aggravate Wooseok more. “Or is it just me?”
Wooseok’s jaw dropped at the insinuation that Jinhyuk himself was the reason for Wooseok’s mishaps. Just because he was tall and had a cute smile and a nice laugh and floppy hair didn’t mean-
Wait, what?
“It- it’s my first day here,” Wooseok said instead, cursing himself for stumbling over his words. “Don’t be so full of yourself.”
Jinhyuk let out a surprised laugh, throwing his head back and flashing his teeth. Wooseok felt a strange tightness in his chest—probably annoyance.
“Does that mean you’ll be here lifeguarding from now on?” Jinhyuk asked. “I can’t wait to see what other entertaining rookie mistakes you make, then.” His cheeky grin indicated that he was clearly trying to get a rise out of Wooseok, but it was still working.
“No,” Wooseok said curtly. “You will not be seeing anything.”
With that, he continued past Jinhyuk, who called out after him, still laughing, “See you tomorrow!”
Wooseok ignored him.
He ran into the other assistant aquatic director, Han Seungwoo, as he gathered his stuff to leave.
“How was your first day?” Seungwoo asked him with a warm smile. Somehow, Wooseok felt his anger deflating. There was no way he would be able to tell Seungwoo that he never wanted to come back; not with that puppy-dog smile. Besides, up until those last twenty minutes… well, it wasn’t all bad.
“It was good,” Wooseok said. “But don’t tell Sooil I said that.”
Seungwoo laughed, patting him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he promised Wooseok. “I’d never give him the satisfaction.”
Wooseok packed up and headed out to leave, calling out a goodbye to Yohan as he made his way to his car.
As he drove home, reevaluating his life choices, he thought, Okay. It could have been worse.
Although, Jinhyuk… well, not everything could be perfect.
At least I won’t have to deal with him too much, he reasoned.
(He was wrong. He was very, very wrong.)