✔fault ; choi yeonjun

two - scuffle

-

yeonjun returned to class and reached under his desk to grab the books that he would need to bring home for the day.

"huh?" instead of stacks of books, his hands landed on a bunch of envelopes and some boxes, all wrapped up prettily.

"let's go!" beomgyu spoke up, his hands full of gifts as well.

"why do you look so surprised all the time? its a weekly occurrence now isn't it?" hueningkai called back, his feet already out the door. 

"why are they wasting their precious training time?" he simply muttered to his friends as he dropped the gifts on a table after closing the door.

"any interesting ones today?" beomgyu spoke up, poking at the pile of gifts that they had all gotten.

"just keep the food." soobin leaned in to smell some wrapped gifts, trying to determine if they were worthy of opening.

"hang on," taehyun spoke up, "let's count our haul today."

as he looked at his gift pile, he felt his eyes start to sting a little from the pink wrapping paper and red hearts decorating most of them. he made a quick mental countbefore writing them down on a piece of paper beomgyu had handed to him.

taehyun took the lead and they sat in a circle.

"ready?" he taunted, a glint in his eyes.

"i'll admit defeat today, i only counted ten." hueningkai threw down his paper in defeat.

"ha! i counted thirteen for me!" beomgyu teased.

"i give up too, i have twelve." taehyun placed his paper with a '12' scrawled across it on the table.

"why is it always them both?" beomgyu asked as soobin smirked at yeonjun, his eyes gleaming.

yeonjun chose not to reply, and neither did soobin as the tension in the air thickened.

"c'mon guys! its just a game, stop taking it so seriously!" taehyun exclaimed, already having torn open one of his gifts.

"less that twenty, or more than that?" yeonjun simply asked, his voice low.

"enough to challenge yours." soobin replied, voice equally low.

"one, two, three!" he suddenly shouted as they slammed our papers down on the table at the same time.

"HOW DID BOTH OF YOU GET TWENTY-TWO?" hueningkai jumped up to check.

"must be the height." soobin pushed back his hair, basking in victory.

they laughed as beomgyu and taehyun pounced on soobin for his remark.

the door knob rattled and they immediately fell silent. the room they were currently in used to be a storage area, but with the upgrading done over the years, it had gradually been forgotten. that was when the boys found it, and soon turned it into one of their hideouts.

"its a ghost!" kai shouted as he ran towards taehyun.

"get off me y-" he was cut off by a head popping into the room.

"oh. i'm sorry, i didn't know this wasn't the storage room coach was talking about." she retreated.

"minyoung!" soobin shouted, "do you need help finding the correct one?"

a fading "it's okay!" and a clatter of footsteps indicated that she was gone.

"oh? does soobin have a little crush?" beomgyu teased him.

he didn't answer, only giving  a wistful smile in reply.

-

"i'm so excited for my first practice!" minyoung said to seulgi, clutching her racket excitedly.

"good morning ladies!" coach greeted them as they gathered around in a circle, "i would like to introduce a new member into our family, please welcome her warmly!"

there was some scattered, polite applause, with the exception of seulgi, who clapped loudly.

"now, we'll start with some simp-" the coach was cut off as a girl pushed past him to stand in front of minyoung.

"so you're the new transfer student huh? i find it suspicious how you managed to enter this school as a transfer student since its so rare, and i'm here to introduce myself to you." she folded her arms haughtily.

"i'm joohyun, captain of the tennis team. when i'm around, i call the shots." she smirked as she studied her from head to toe.

"show me your potential then," she continued, "go up against yerim, she's not that tough an opponent."

the girl called yerim grabbed her racket and went to the service line, waiting to start.

"ladies, it won't be a good id-" coach tried to speak up but shut up after a glare from joohyun before letting out a small sigh, "i want a clean, fair game, is that understood?"

minyoung took a deep breath, so badly wanting to prove joohyun wrong, that she indeed came in through her own merit.

she got the chance to serve first, as she bounced the ball on the court. the ball was soon released into the air, and she swung her racket with all her might, wanting to use a powerful serve right from the start.

"fault!" the coach who was acting as umpire yelled out.

she got ready for her second chance at service, and threw the ball up high again. her eyes followed the ball as she swung the racket, albeit slightly softer than before. the ball bounced cleanly outside of the lines.

"double fault! change of service. fifteen-love."

she clicked my tongue in annoyance, angry that her fatal flaw had been revealed this early. the ball hit by yerim was clean, aimed nicely near the middle and minyoung returned the ball effortlessly.

the match continued, and minyoung continuously lost easy points due to her constant faulting. being able to hear joohyun and the rest of the team whispering to each other did not help at all, and minyoung could picture the snide smiles on their faces.

in the end, yerim won the match.

"minyoung!" seulgi ran up, "it was your very first match here, don't be too disheartened."

"no, i'm not disheartened," she tried to sound positive, "this just means that i have to work harder in order to be able to get into the national team."

"clearly," joohyun swaggered up to the two girls, followed closely by yerim and another girl, "i guess my assumptions about you were right."

"i'll show you!" she could not contain herself, "i'll make sure i play against you in the finals for the selection match at the end of the year!"

joohyun just smirked before walking away.

+ah i'm quite proud of myself at my current progress. this will probably be a short story (as with all my others) so i hope i can finish it soon!

updated as of 31/12/20