Transmigrated as the Side Top used as an Emotional Trash Can

Everyone in the Swimming Club probably knew it would be difficult for our team to win anything at the competition, but for some reason, I felt like I wasn’t allowed to think that way. I wanted at least one of us to hold on to hope and work toward winning a medal. Because I liked our Swimming Club.

After leaving the hospital, I headed straight to the swimming pool. If I wanted to work hard starting now and shave even a single second off my time, I couldn’t afford to waste a moment.

Splash, splash-.

When I returned to the school swimming pool, I thought everyone would have gone to the hospital out of concern for the injured hyung, but someone had stayed behind and was swimming alone.

“Jihyeok-hyung.”

Jihyeok-hyung, who was responsible for the final freestyle leg of the medley relay, was churning his arms without rest. I waited until he completed a lap, then approached and spoke when he stopped.

“Hyung, you didn’t go to the hospital?”

“Sumin told me not to come.”

But that didn’t mean he had to actually stay behind and swim without even taking a break. Why hadn’t he gone to a sports high school in the first place? Why was he overworking himself while carrying everyone’s burdensome expectations on such a weak team?

“This is my last competition too. I want to prepare for it without any regrets.”

“…Hyung, are you quitting swimming?”

“I’m going to get a job. It’s just my grandmother and me.”

What a waste. It was such a terrible waste. He genuinely loved the sport, and he worked this hard.

It was deeply upsetting that the ace who arrived at the pool before anyone else and left later than everyone else had to quit swimming because he needed to find a job.

I immediately stripped off the gym uniform I was wearing. I had rushed out in the middle of practice, so I was still wearing my swimsuit underneath anyway. I pulled on a mostly dry swim cap and goggles that had been lying around, then entered the pool.

“Hyung, I’m filling in for breaststroke.”

“Right, so that’s what happened….”

Jihyeok-hyung replied a little bitterly, and I smiled even more brightly as I lightly punched him in the chest.

“I’m seriously going to train until my shoulders fall apart.”

I’ll show them the might of the Marine Corps. I practically had more lives than everyone else, so even if I died from overwork, I wouldn’t stay dead. It might actually be better if I died from overwork. That would mean I had reached my limit. If swimming became so exhausting that I died, I could revive, rest a little, then continue training until I died again. If I repeated that kind of brutal training, I could achieve a far better result than I could now.

This was also a situation where dying was necessary, so I could check my Karma while I was at it. I should start looking for a suitable place.

“…But Hanrim-ah.”

Just as I made up my mind and lowered my body, Jihyeok-hyung suddenly spoke, making me stop for a moment. I raised my head to look at him, but perhaps because of the droplets on my goggles, his expression seemed strangely distorted. I removed them so I could see more clearly.

When I looked again, he was wearing his usual expression. Had I imagined it?

“Hyung, if you called me, you have to say something-.”

He paused several more times before finally completing his sentence.

“Take care of yourself.”

“Hm?”

“You can’t do that.”

As though he had discovered some secret, the words he quietly and cautiously spoke were strange. Then he pressed that secret upon me once more with greater emphasis.

“Don’t do something like that.”

The same expression as always, the same tone as always, but his sentence lacked a subject and seemed to miss its mark. At times like this, it would have been wise to coax the topic out through leading questions before the other person avoided the conversation.

“What do you mean by ‘something like that’?”

But this time, I had no composure.

My five senses dulled until I couldn’t tell what expression I was making or even where I was standing. It felt as though all the blood had drained from my body.

“I think you know better than anyone.”

Jihyeok-hyung said nothing else after leaving me with those words, so I couldn’t uncover anything else. My submerged body felt entirely unreal inside the pool, where lukewarm water filled a space fifty meters long and one and a half meters deep, gently sloshing as it gave off the smell of disinfectant.