Silence ○ Lee Haechan

○ 34

Squeaks of trainers on polished wooden floors and yelling filled the schools sports centre as the junior sports class played basketball.

Because this was an elective, there were majority boys in the class, meaning Mari was one of FOUR girls.

Luckily she had her friends with her in the class but considering they were all like a head plus taller than her it made it extremely difficult to get the ball off of them.

Running back and forth, jumping as high as she could or standing on her tip-toes to just try and block them from shooting the ball, failing dismally each time.

Chest heaving up and down as a sharp pull from under her rib cage put her through agony.

"Common miss Jeong, pick up the pace," the coach yelled from off court and Mari's face screwed up in pain, taking a quick inhale before lightly jogging back to where the commotion was.

"Here, Ma," Jeno yelled out before throwing the ball towards her.

The ringing in her ears meant she didn't hear the boy and instead was met with the rude awakening of the ball bouncing off of her head.

A chorus of ooooo's filled the court and Mari's hand came up to her head.
"Ow," was all she said through puffs of air.

"Okay Miss Jeong, off court," coach said, placing a welcomed hand on her back and guiding her towards the bleachers.

"Oh my God Ma are you okay?" Jeno ran up to the girl worried, her head in her hands squinting from the pain.

"Mhmm, just great" she held up one of her thumbs before gripping at her head again.

"I'm so sorry, I thought you would've caught it," Jeno said worriedly, placing his hand on her back and checking to see if she was okay.

"I really don't think you should have that much confidence in my sporting abilities."

"Here," a voice said handing over a water bottle, Mari assuming it was Jeno through the ringing in her ears, accepted gratefully the already open water bottle.

Bringing to her lips and sipping at the liquid.
"Thanks," she said through a mouthful of water, finally looking up to see non other than Donghyuck.

Eyes shooting open, the water in her mouth got caught in her through making her double over in a coughing fit.

Jeno petting her back with furrowed eye brows, "hey are you okay?"

"Just fine," she said through coughs, smacking at her chest to free up her air way to get at least some oxygen into her before she falls on the floor passed out.

"Jeno, back to court. Haechan, take miss Jeong to the nurses office," the couch yelled out and Mari could hear Jeno sigh before hand.

"I'm sorry for hitting you. I'll come see you after class. Sorry-" Jeno said once more as he began to run off back to court feeling absolutely terrible that he hit his best friend in the head.

There was a brief silence before Donghyuck extended his hand out.

"Here, let's get you up," Mari looked up through the baby hairs stuck to her face and reluctantly placed her hand into his much larger one.

Long fingers wrapping around the soft expanse of her skin before pulling gently to help her up.

She began to walk towards the hallway and Donghyuck followed with a hovering hand to her upper back in case anything happened.

The two stayed silent as they walked through the hall. Mari was honestly kind of flustered at the fact that he appeared to help.

It reminded her of the time in year 7 where she had fallen over during the 100m sprints and sprained her ankle.