The girl sat on the couch and thought and thought for who knows how long about her plan. She could go the beauty route and start wearing a full face of make-up everyday and raising her skirt, making it way too short like other girls did. But that would just make her fit in and she wanted to stand out. Becoming top of her class with grades and test scores was out of the question. That’s all that girls her age seemed to care about though, looks, grades and of course, boys.

What did boys care about, other than girls and food? Yejin sighed until the answered slapped her right across the face: sports. All of the few sports teams at her school were for boys, with just a few girls trying their hardest to find a spot. She could create a girl’s team of some sort. Even if she was captain, would people really care though? It was a surprise that people paid attention to the boys teams, seeing as how schools in the area were all focused solely on academic rankings and didn’t care much for the sports programs. Maybe it was the enthusiasm the crowd felt during the games that made them interested. Not to mention the unavoidable Wang Jackson who took it upon himself to be the unofficial head cheerleader of his one-man cheer squad. Yejin shook her head at this thought, annoyed with the image of Jackson’s grinning face in her mind. Now that he was injured, would he still go to the games? He obviously couldn’t play in any. Yejin threw herself back into the couch, frustrated that she still didn’t have a plan. Tomorrow was a new day and only the second day of the school week, she had time to figure it out.

After sleeping on a few half-baked ideas, Yejin was still unsure of what to do. She did decide on no more junk food. If she really wanted to try the sporty route, she would need to be lean and toned with a lot of energy to get physical and chips and cookies would not help that. Strawberry milk was still okay though, she thought as she left her house and walked to the bus stop, drink in hand. On the bus, kids wearing the same uniforms her gave her the silent treatment accompanied with cold glares but she didn’t mind.

Once she arrived at school thirty minutes early as usual, instead of going to the classroom, the girl headed to the gymnasium. She stopped to peek through the window inside of the door and saw a few clusters of students talking and a few boys playing basketball. Yejin’s heart started to pound and she took a deep breath as an idea formed. She would go inside and just make a couple of shots to pass the time. If anyone had a problem with it, well, she was screwed. The girl let out a breath and pushed the door open and entered the room. No one noticed as she walked around the court to grab a ball from the supply closet. She took off her bag and set it against the cleared wall behind the goal she decided to aim for. When she stepped onto the court and began to dribble is when the bubbly tone of chattering around her turned into crisp whispers.

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter