Chapter 66 – In Which Luhan Tries Balcony Hopping
Deer Luhan,
I don’t think “I’m glad I’m not in your situation” works here because I kind of am in your situation.
Leigh
One of the problems of filling your lungs with air so that you can go underwater without drowning is that you float. Normally, this wouldn’t have been something that bothered me – in fact, in most cases, the science behind this would have – and, indeed, on past occasions, had – made me extremely happy. Not dying, after all, is kind of important if you want to stay alive. The problem here was that these intruders apparently wanted to talk to Luhan, and Luhan was on the pool edge more or less directly in line with where I had gone to ground… or water, and that meant that floating or moving meant that I would be visible, or at the very least attract unwanted attention. And that was not a good thing. For the first time in my life, I found myself clinging to the overhang from the pool ledge, not to help me haul myself out of the water, but to ensure I stayed under the surface.
Fortunately, one of the boys spotted my predicament, and before I’d spent thirty seconds like that with my eyes screwed shut and hoping nobody would look down into the pool, there was a body pressing me up against the pool wall and an arm around me, holding me firmly against a chest while the other arm presumably rested on the pool edge and whoever it was pretended to be interested in the conversation, conveniently hiding me from view.
To be honest, I couldn’t really work out what was going on beyond the fact that whatever it was was probably a big deal for one reason or another. Sound carried, of course, but it was distorted and muffled by the water and also somewhat muted by the fact that I had most of my face and one ear buried in somebody’s chest. I reckoned I could sort of make out Luhan’s voice, possibly Xiumin’s, and definitely a hysterical girl’s alongside the tones of the manager and some other guy. The fact that this was urgent was also pretty obvious by the twin facts that they had burst in during our free time when we were supposed to be left undisturbed and that they hadn’t solved whatever problem it was after two minutes and thirteen seconds. I knew it had taken them that long because that time was the longest I’d managed to hold my breath underwater and my lungs were really beginning to burn – and the blasted chest compressor was only making things worse. I squirmed a little against the person holding me, hoping to somehow convey the fact that I needed air.
The arm around me only tightened. I decided to attempt putting on a British stiff upper lip and flattened my nose against the chest muscles in front of me so that I couldn’t accidentally inhale water.
I lasted probably ten seconds before it really became unbearable and I had to push myself away. The arm circling me constricted again and this time I struggled against it, a stream of bubbles escaping my mouth. For a few seconds, he managed to hold me in place, but then my panic got the better of me and I started thrashing about. My throat felt like somebody was rubbing sandpaper over it; the air in my lungs was refusing to stay there and pushing itself relentlessly as a tank into my airpipe in an attempt to escape. The pressure in my mouth built up until I couldn’t take it anymore and the air burst out. A split second later, chlorinated water hit my tastebuds and I panicked even more. Some of it went down my windpipe and I started choking, hitting my fists desperately on his chest. I needed oxygen. I needed to surface and lie on the poolside like a beached whale and cough up all the water. I needed to get out.
He clearly didn’t get the message, because next thing I knew I was sandwich filling for him and the pool wall again, just with his arm having crept up a fair way so that he was able to pinch my nostrils shut. Distressed, I attempted to flail about. Why doesn’t he get that I need air?
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Deer Luhan, With Love
FanficA case of dyed pink hair, an argument with la madre, and a freak encounter with an EXO member in the park after being hit in the head by a plate find Leigh Lee on a plane to Seoul the next day, with little recollection of how she got there and EXO's...