THE TRANSFER STUDENT

The Silver Locket

Everything had happened so quickly.

The final groupings were complete:
Team 1: Taehyung, Byulyi, Jennie, Yoojung, Jimin, Doyeon
Team 2: Sejeong, Jackson, Hoseok, Chungha, Seokjin, Jisoo
Team 3: Jungkook, Jieun, Daniel, Heeyeon, Jisung, Yongsun
Team 4: Lisa, Seongwoo, Minhyun, Jaehwan, Sohye, Chaeyoung

"So now, we'll have Team 1 versus Team 2 and Team 3 versus Team 4. Let's begin!" Mr Bang shouted.

As they turned to face their opponents, there was a mix of reactions from the players. Byulyi looked up from the ground and lo and behold, her opponents were literally her worst nightmare.

Seokjin and Jisoo.

Byulyi looked at the ground again, avoiding eye contact.

On the other hand, Jieun was almost equally horrified to find out that she was up against Lisa. Despite her skinny frame, she was really good at sports. And she was competitive. And right now, she looked as if she was ready to eat Jieun alive.

Jieun couldn't understand why. Was she jealous that Jungkook had chosen her first? Or that he had chosen her at all? Why did she suddenly hate her overnight?

Beep! Mr Bang blew the whistle.

Lisa held the ball in her hands, tossing it between her hands. Then whoosh! She flung it at Jieun's team with all her might. Jieun felt like the ball was whizzing towards her at a billion metres per second.

A miss.

Back and forth, the ball was thrown. As the gane progressed, all the more aggressive both sides seemed to get, especially amongst the jocks who were now shouting at each other to pass the ball or throw harder. At this point, Jisung and Yongsun had already been eliminated from Jungkook's team, while jaehwan, Minhyun, Sohye and Chaeyoung had been eliminated from Lisa's team.

However, there was a pattern Jieun had been noticing.

Whenever the ball was in Lisa's hands, she seemed to be aiming at Jieun no matter what. Whether she was near the net, far away or even in an awkward corner of the court, Lisa would he aiming at her somehow. But Jungkook fended off the ball with his bare hands.

What happened next happened within a split second.

Jieun's shoelaces were undone, so she had put up her hand to pause the game, bending down to tie her shoelace. But as she was typing her shoelaces... wham!

Something hard hit her directly in the head, causing her to tumble over, twisting her leg in the process. Jieun felt a sharp pain suddenly shoot through her leg and winced, clutching her ankle immediately. It felt like she had just twisted her ankle.

"Oh my god, Jieun!" Yoojung stopped the game over on her court at once, running over towards Jieun, looking awfully concerned. She reached by Jieun's side quickly, holding her hand tight. "Are you okay? Is it very painful?"

"Mmgh." Jieun mumbled.

Yoojung's worry turned into anger almost immediately. She stood up, glaring at Lisa with the scariest expression Jieun had ever seen, pointing directly at her. "You... You did that on purpose, didn't you?!"

Jieun glanced up and saw Lisa, looking slightly apologetic, but more shocked at what had just happened. "I- No, I didn't!"

"Don't try to fool me right now, you hear me?! I saw you aiming the ball at her the whole time earlier, okay?" Yoojung looked really, really upset. The class watched on quietly. "What's your problem? You have something against Jieun, don't you?! Why don't you say it out loud right now for all of us to hear?"