บท 46: Hurting
With So-young not bothering me anymore, A-yeong satisfied with her meal and the rest of the girls done talking to me,mi start wasting my time while scrolling on the internet.
'...Oy Feelie. I really don't have any quests for the qualifying right? Not even a "win the qualifying" quest?'
[yes. For the last time, you DON'T HAVE a quest for this. Stop being so greedy, you lower tax bracket muppet]
'L-lower tax bracket? Is there higher?!?!'
Hearing his insult really scared me. He said that 25% tax was low?!?! 25%!!! What is considered high tax then?
[yeah. You haven't even reached the tip of the iceberg, little one. Just keep swimming and the coins will come to you]
'Uhhh...I'll hope so'
Finishing my little chat with Feelie, I start looking through my phone in boredom. For some reason, I keep doing this. It's like when you check your fridge for no reason.
It's weird...
While watching the continuing 100 meter freestyle qualifying from my chair, I look up at the screen that shows the scores for the people who will and who won't qualify to the A leagues.
——————
A League Qualifiers (Provisional) 100M FREE
1st: Kim Min-chul (RF 3RD YEAR) - 1:13.54
2nd: Lee Beom-sok (TYM 3RD YEAR) - 1:18.64
3rd: Seung Jae-ho (SST 2ND YEAR) - 1:19.43
Sang Jae-hyun (SM 3RD YEAR) - 1:19.96
Roh Man-shik (RF 3RD YEAR) - 1:21.43
Owen Yang (SM 2ND YEAR) - 1:23.22
...
...
...
...
——————
While smiling at the leaderboard, I move my smug face to look at Beom-sok, who is trying to beat my time in the pool.
As he was swimming and almost touching the end of his lap, I see that he was at least going to get 1:19 as a time. To add insult to injury, this is his second and final try to improve his time.
'Ahhh, it is funny looking at him'
When he got out of the pool and went to the referee to ask his time, you could see his stone-like face turn from calmly excited to twitchy eyed and a bit irritated.
After the 100 meter qualifying ends, I go up to the referee man and take my little Q medal. With a sour face, he watches me shake hands with the referee.
Hell, even A-yeong, who I assume he likes, is cheering for me. I got to apologize for literally stealing this man's everything.
And so, the 200 meter freestyle qualifying finally starts. With the shot of a loud, fake gun, the official qualifying session is in motion and everybody on the diving boards jump into the water.
Since the boards were full, I decided to wait. Again, against the orders of Uncle Seung-ri.
"Why don't you swim already? You aren't tired right?"
"Well yeah, but I don't feel like waiting in a line"
With my banter with uncle Seung-ri being interrupted by a free lane, I tell him what he wants to hear and go on my way.
When I stood up to the diving board, some of the scouts looked quite surprised to see me swim again. After all, I went from wearing dry clothes, to swimwear, to dry clothes, to swimwear again.
It is odd, but hey, BBQ is BBQ. Can't say no to that.
While preparing myself with light jumping, stretching and joint cracking, the girls went wild when I was stretching. Again, why the hell are they so enthusiastic about the qualifying?
I was stretching and touching my toes, not showing off my body- oh I see now. Never mind. They aren't at fault.
I'd better bring some swimming trunks instead of these tights. It's too distracting for the females.
Jumping into the pool, I start swimming quite conservatively considering that this is a 4 lap thing. This isn't the 100 meter where you can dash from start to finish.
You need to conserve most of your energy in the first lap, use more on the second, use a little less on the third and finally, use it all on the fourth lap.
Obviously, the third lap can be an all-out lap if you are confident you can get ahead of your peers, but I'm not too excited to get that far ahead.
After seeing Beom-sok, it really showed that even with my system, I'm not as perfect as I might seem. It is a preposterous line of thinking for someone as perfect as myself, I know.
However! To improve, you need to acknowledge your own faults and improve from there. Wise words from me.
As I reach the start/finishing point of the swimming lane, I feel my waist producing a sharp pain for no reason. Maybe it because I ate before?
Well, I had time to digest it, so no. Whatever the reason, I have no choice but to power through it.
The current fastest time was made by a guy named Seung Jae-ho and he got 3:03.65. To put that into perspective, he was swimming at a speed that could had qualified him for the 100 meter freestyle, the entire run.
That is insanely fast for a middle schooler. Now, I don't have to beat him, but I do have to qualifying, so being quick is definitely better than being slower.
Even with my powering through the pain, it still hurt. Like Mi-young or another girl was pinching my sides until I got a bruise and they kept on poking the bruise they made.
While swimming, you unintentionally stretch when you reach your arms out to touch the wall quicker and sadly for me, it just intensified the pain.
When I was about to start the 3rd out of 4 laps for the qualifying, I was already jerking my hips and waist back and forth without my mind telling it to do anything.
I'm sure that with the clear water, some of the scouts and maybe some watching swimmers would have noticed that something was wrong with me.
'Damn it, this hurts...'
By now, as I'm swimming, I'm screaming into the water hoping that nobody can hear me. Ughhh, this is one of the worst things that could be happening.
As I finally reach the end of the qualifying, I don't even bother to check the time with the referee and I start holding my waist and lightly limp to the chair I sat at.
"Hey Min-chul? How are you doing? Where does it hurt?"
Looking up, I see Seung-ri's concerned face scanning over me. If this was any other scenario, he'd probably be taken away for excessive staring of a minor.
"Ughhhh...whats my time? Did I qualify?"
"Wait hold on...uhhhhhh, yeah. Ahahaha, this kid; you got a safe 4th with a time of 3:09.21 which should leave you in at least top 10"
Hearing the good news and that my perseverance paid off, I wryly smile before he helps me to the infirmary so that we can check to see if anything is actually wrong with me.
With Seung-ri's support on my hurting waist, the left side, we enter the infirmary while some referees are chatting with the nurse and the doctor.
Seriously, I hope I didn't mess myself up...
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(A.N) yo! Another chapter for you beautiful and lovely readers and I hope you enjoyed this one! I hope you had or are having a good day since I had one! It was an amazing day!
So, as usual, if you really enjoyed this chapter, do consider voting for this novel with your powerstones, commenting on this chapter, reviewing this book with your thoughts and such.
Love ya and peace ✌️! Thanks!
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