Now it was after school and Yejin hadn’t put much thought into what Jackson said earlier. The past few months she has spent being friendly towards him at school yet avoiding any further interaction. She still hadn’t figured out the cause of his intense mood swings so the girl found it best to avoid him as much as possible. With her new past time of studying and focusing on academics, her viewpoint on her future and who she surrounds herself with has highly improved. With this, Jackson and his toxic behaviors didn’t meet her standards. However, the girl couldn’t rid herself of him entirely. He hadn’t been too harsh since the day Jaebum broke her phone, so she had little reason to force all of him out of her life. But small precautions here and there helped her from catching feelings again. Plus Jackson’s good side had a way of making anyone give in to his requests, that being how she found herself walking down the stairs and towards the gym. His statement from this morning rang in her ears as she leaned against the metal bar to open the door.

Yejin hadn’t stepped foot in this room since the day she fainted. Even as she walked towards the bleachers and recognized which players were already in the locker room based off the pile of bags on the first few rows, she still felt like an outsider. The girl climbed to the top row and seated herself in the center. She looked around and jumped a bit when the door creaked open and more boys walked in. They greeted her and she waved before they threw things near the pile and made way to the back. Yejin always wondered what it looked like in the locker room. She knew it wouldn’t be anything mysterious or exciting, but the fact that she wasn’t allowed to be there created interest. Since this was the last game of the season, it would be empty until the fall. She made a mental note to sneak back there one day to satisfy her own curiosity. Now bored with being alone, Yejin opened her bag and looked for some homework to complete but found none. She really had changed since the last time on these bleachers. The girl sighed and decided to lay down on the wooden seat. In this position her view was that of a high white ceiling covered in layers of metal beams.

Without realizing she feel asleep, Yejin was awoken by squeaky shoes and dribbling balls. The girl opened her eyes and for a split second forgot where she was so jerking forward to sit up caused her to lose balance and flip over, dropping two feet face first onto dirty dust coated wood. The next sound was hysterical laughed so iconic, Yejin could pinpoint who it was in her sleep. The girl pushed herself up and Jackson contained his laughter enough to yell out asking if she was okay, to which she responded with a thumbs up while rolling her eyes.

The next few hours Yejin spent flexing her anti-social skills as she sat alone and played games on her phone while the boys practiced. She would love to be on the court with them but knew better by now and did her best to suppress this desire. Maybe one day she could walk to the park near her house and take a few free throws, but right now she was scared from her incident and didn’t want to press her luck and accidently over-do it. Jackson was too focused to call out any random comments to the girl which she somewhat appreciated yet kind of missed. Now the gym was growing more populated as people started trickling in and taking seats. Yejin felt like she was having deja vu and remembered her old routine of coming to basketball games. The first few at least. The girl knew her new friends wouldn’t be caught dead at a sporting event so she prepared to be sitting alone for the next few hours. This theory was quickly disproven as Mark, Jinyoung, Youngjae and Bambam came in and spotted the girl before climbing up to sit by her. Yejin hadn’t talked to Youngjae or any of the other boys outside of casual conversation at lunch or if they followed Jackson and Jaebum to their homeroom before school. It didn’t feel awkward, but it wasn’t as comfortable as before. The guys talked amongst themselves but their body language signalled that it was okay for the girl to chime in whenever she wanted, which she appreciated but never did.

Once the game began, Yejin was glued to the action. The games were never too intense seeing as it was only high school, but this was the season finale. Her team had lost a few times, but they won more. Even if she had distanced herself from the sport, she kept in touch with some of the players and was certainly in the know of their scores. At halftime the score was nearly even but the other team had a two point lead. Yejin watched her boys liked a hawk and noticed Jackson pacing back and forth, his mouth moving rapid fire. Her best guess was that the boy is giving a passionate pep talk that most of the team is ignoring. Just the thought of it made her want to laugh. Soon enough the whistle was blown and the players flocked back onto the court.

“So Yejin, what are you doing after the game?” Bambam asked while nudging the girl with his knee from his seat to her left. This made her actually laugh.

“Jackson said he had something to ask me after they win, so I think I’ll stick around and let him get that over with,” she said in all seriousness.

“What if they don’t win?” Bambam asked. Yejin didn’t skip a beat and just blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

“I’ll take the bus home,” she said with a shrug of her shoul