Rival Lover | Joy X Male OC (Reader)

Chapter 2: Nicknames

Months passed. Sooyoung challenged me almost every week and every time I beat her. She never won against me. 

I have the feeling, she hated me for being way better than her. It wasn't my intention, but I couldn't change her opinion. 

This weekend was our first competition against another school. We practiced a lot for this competition and I was ready. Sooyoung seemed ready too. 

She told me about a hundred times that she will beat my time, because we first can't compete against each other and second because we weren't in the same group because... She was a girl, I was a boy. You know? The typical gender separation, which I didn't understand. 

We stood at the side of the pool and waited for the first race to start. Sooyoung stood beside me and looked at me with her confidant look. 

"I will beat you, Sun Joo-Won. Just watch." She said and walked over to the starting block. 

I watched her very carefully, my sight never went away from her. She was good. Very good. She really improved over the past months. She finished her race in no time and got back to us, smiling brightly. I smiled too. I liked her smile, but she always looked so serious around me. She stopped in front of me and smirked. 

"So, how was I?" She asked cockily, but I just continued smiling. 

"You were great, Joy!" I said and her face grew red. 

"J-Joy?!" She asked and I nodded. 

"You look more beautiful when you smile. It's like you're the personification of Joy. So I nicknamed you like that." 

Her face grew even redder and I didn't know if it was from anger or if she was blushing. 

"Gotta go now, breaking your time record. See ya, Joy." I said, tapped her nose and walked towards the starting blocks. 

"D-Don't call me like that!" She shouted after me and I chuckled. I will never stop calling her like that.

A few days later. Of course I broke Joy's time record and she wasn't happy about it. She was salty. Like very salty. 

And I think, I made it even worse because I kept calling her Joy. Her face always had this tint of red when I called her like that. Sometimes I wished that I knew what she was thinking. 

I walked through my schools hallways and saw a group of boys standing around someone. 

"Come on, girly. Give us your lunch money!" One of them said. 

What? They threatened a girl? What losers. I heard the girl cry behind them. I had to do something. Yeah, I was a loner and normally quiet, but I couldn't let them get away with this. I walked to them and clenched my fists. 

"Hey, leave her alone!" I said and punched the first one who turned around. He held his bleeding nose and looked at me. 

"What do you think you're doing?" His friends now surrounded me and looked at me threatening. They cracked their knuckles and started hitting me. Well, better me than the girl. 

While I was lying on the floor I heard the girl scream something like "Leave him alone". But they continued kicking my stomach. After a while, they stopped. 

"Let's get away, I think he has enough!" And with that they left. 

Only the girl and I were there. I held my stomach and buried my face in the ground. 

"H-Hey, are you alright?" The girl asked and slightly patted my shoulder. I looked at her and my eyes grew wide in shock. 

"J-Joy?" Joy was also shocked, when she recognized it was my bloody face. 

"Joo-Won? Why... Why did you do this?" She asked and held her hands in front of her mouth as she slightly gasped. I coughed a bit, before I could answer her. 

"I couldn't let them threaten you. Even though I didn't know it was you. I heard you cry and..." 

I got interrupted by a giggle. Joy looked at me, for the first time she smiled at me and I saw in her eyes something, I never saw before. Well at least at her towards me. 

It was... Thankfulness? Love? I don't really know, but it was a warm and soft feeling. And I liked it. 

"Pabo Gisa... (Fool Knight) Come on, let's get to the nurse's office." She said with her soft voice as she helped me stand up.