Love, Betray & Crash (Jeonghan)

𝔸𝕔𝕥 𝕆𝕟𝕖: 𝕊𝕔𝕖𝕟𝕖 𝟝

"Emily," Jackson called her out and Emily looked in his direction. 

"Don't worry. I'm sure you'll win," Jackson said, looking determined. If he is trying to comfort her, he failed miserably. 

Emily smiled forcefully and said, "Thanks."

"Do you want to go the coffee shop after this?" Jackson asked. 

"Thanks but I have practice," Emily declined, "Have a good day."

She walked out of the room without wasting another breath. This must have been the third hundredth time Jackson has tried to flirt with her. Besides, she is far too annoyed at him right now to be near him. It's one thing using the collegiate swim meet for fund raising, but it is another thing to stalk into her background and an another thing to add continued pressure on her to win. As if it isn't bad enough already. 

Emily just knows with all the advertising and marketing committee is going to do, there will be even more pressure on Emily to win. And frankly, Emily isn't sure she can beat Yejune, her main competitor. That one competition when she beat Mariko Enzo, a literal olympic medalist, was just pure luck. She hasn't even come close to Mariko Enzo's time since that day. 

Emily walks down the stairs in a calm yet hurried manner, eager to get back into the pool. It's been nearly a week since the last the time she was in the water and she honestly misses it. 

Being a swimmer, Emily once did the math, and figured our she has probably spent more time in the water than on the ground her entire life. 

The wind blows her hair back as she steps out of the building. For early April, the wind is unbelievably cold and harsh today and Emily grabs her jacket closer to her in an attempt to cover her chest before sneezing. It's pollen season and she has terribly bad allergies to pollen. It is a bit of bummer since the flower begin to bloom and are incredibly pretty during the season but the moment she sniffs a flower, Emily's system goes into haywire. 

"Emily," She heard the voice thought she didn't really process it and before she knows she is being turned around by the elbow. 

"Jackson," Emily breathed, not blinking twice. 

"I was calling out your name for a while," Jackson said, taking his hand off her. 

"You did?" Emily asked, surprised. She didn't notice. 

"Yeah," Jackson said, "You just suddenly left without even having a proper bye."

"I did say bye," Emily pointed out to him.

"I know," Jackson said, "I mean a proper bye. Anyways, I was saying, Coach Yoo wants the two of us to prepare for the next open house. He wants us to gather some other athletes from different sports and he wants us to film a three to five minute video about our life here and all that crap for the open house. I think they also want to update the university website."

Emily nodded slowly. 

"Apparently he wants to get it done by the end of April so..." Jackson continued, "I was wondering if you could gather two to three female athletes and I'll do the same by the end of this week. I think we need to just tell our schedule and provide a free time and the University's administration will film us."

"Alright," Emily nodded. It was an easy job. All she has to do is post a listing on the bulletin board in the sports department building and a few other places and she will get the messages from interested personas automatically.  

"I'm actually also heading over for practice," Jackson said, "I can hand you over some papers then."

Emily nodded. 

The two walk over to the training center with limited conversation. 

Emily has seen Jackson a few times at the National Training Center but she knows he isn't required to train there as much as she is. Sebong University already has an excellent fencing coach, who was once the member of the national team and has won gold medals. Sebong University's fencing team also has a very good track record of winning so the University provided them with ample funding that Jackson didn't really need to go to the National Training Center to receive a better training. In fact, after football and basketball, Fencing is the most popular sport here. 

Swimming on the other hand, does not receive the same funding. Even though they do have a very food swimming coach, she unfortunately does not receive the resources she needs to support their team. 

"I meant what I said earlier," Jackson says as they walk into the hallway of the training center. 

Emily looked at him in question. 

"About you winning. I mean it. I'm confident you will win. I doubt anyone can beat you," Jackson said. 

Emily supposes she is supposed to be touched and answered, "Thank you."

They reached the front of the door to the swimming pool and Emily and Jackson stop in front. 

"Uh-I'll just quickly go and get the papers," Jackson said. 

Emily nodded her head and instructed, "Just knock on the female locker room. No one else is here today so I know its you."

Jackson nods and walks away as Emily goes in. The pool is empty and quiet, just as Emily predicted, as the blue water glistens under the light. Since today is just the first day of classes, Emily knew there will be no practice and no one else using the pool today. She walks around the edges of the pool and goes into the locker room. 

There she puts away her bag and takes off her jacket before pulling off her sweater off of her and removing all other clothing articles. Since no one is around, Emily doesn't waste time with going inside one of the private changing rooms or the shower stalls and just quickly changes into a swimsuit and puts away her clothes in her locker. 

She reached for her hair to tie it when she heard a knock on the door. 

"Just a second," Emily said. That was quick. Jackson must have ran all the way there and back to reach this quickly. Emily debated wearing her sweater and jeans on top of her swimsuit but decided against it. She's sure Jackson can handle seeing her in swimwear. 

Walking over, she lets go off her hair, letting it all fall down over her left shoulder. 

Emily begins speaking as soon as she open the door, "Did you run here. That was really qui-"

She trails off when she sees who is actually standing in front of her. 

The shock and surprise take her aback so much that at first she doesn't even say anything. When the gears in her brain finally begin to move, Emily blinks a few times and manages to find her voice. 

"Jeonghan?"

You know, when I first became a carat, our fandom was much smaller and Seventeen was yet to become a million seller so obviously I wished for them to be super successful and famous. And now they are and our fandom grew so much but I feel that our fandom has also become toxic in some ways. I see so many more solo stans than before and so many fans who are just in it for the visuals and not appreciating Seventeen's talent. I get sad and frustrated when I see solo stans doing petty fights and demanding members to always do lives and come on weverse or do full updates even when they are on hiatus and it makes me miss the calmness we had before. It's so important for us to understand that although we stan and love Seventeen, they have a life outside of us and to them we are just strangers. They don't owe us anything from their private time and that they all clearly love each other. Sometimes I just miss how nice the fandom used to be.