Chapter 10 – Resentment

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Past

Minho kept his eyes seriously on his teammate who was dribbling the ball forward, he smirked victoriously as he was given a signal to receive the ball in an exact time he found the great opportunity of an open shot in his position. Minho's attention now was on the goalkeeper and with the perfect aim, he swiftly shot the ball straight to the net in a way that perfectly put the goalkeeper at a disadvantage, the ball proudly flied across the air into the net. The crowd went wild as Minho kissed his fist and threw it in the air out of victory. The entire team barreling towards him and they hugged. The result they won and it was the decider game to see if they would make it into the Championships.

After finally getting the rest of the team off of him, Minho jogged over to his coach who had a huge smile on his face.

Coach slapped him on back and pulled him close enough to put his arm on his shoulder in a proud manner. "You did great Minho. Well done!"

Minho grinned from ear to ear. "Thanks coach."

The Coach grinned back at him broadly. "Come on, there's someone I want you to meet."

He led Minho over to the stands, towards a foreigner man in his late forties. The unknown man stood up as they approached him.

His coach stopped when they were finally standing in front of the mystery guy. He spoke in English, "Minho I would like you to meet an old friend of mine, Joseph. Joseph this is my star player, Minho."

Joseph smiled as he outstretched his hand to Minho. "Glad to finally meet the young man that Yun-kyum here always drones on and on about."

Minho politely took his hand, giving him a firm hand shake. "Nice to meet you too. Are you here for visiting?"

Joseph nodded. "I'm just here for a couple of weeks on business and your coach begged me to see one of his team's games. And I'm glad I did, you were great out there. I'm sure you will be more than professional if you could be trained in England. You remind me a lot of the best star players when they were just starting out."

Minho blushed slightly because of this guy put him in the same boat as the best players in the business. That's why Minho always spend his some free time and weekends watching those professional players play, wishing that one day he could play like that too.

"I'm nowhere near their abilities yet." Said Minho, smiling gently.

Joseph chuckled softly. "I like your modesty Minho and you're probably right but I'm sure with a bit of training you could definitely compete against them."

Minho's coach placed his hand on Joseph's shoulder. "Well, I think you might be embarrassing the poor boy Joseph." He joked and then he looked over at Minho. "Why don't you go joining the rest of the team Minho and get cleaned up, I'm taking you all out for pizza tonight."

Minho bowed politely and shook Joseph's hand one more time before he joined the rest of the guys. He grabbed the water bottle out of his sports bag, taking a grateful swig out of it while savoring the cool taste of the water as it ran down his throat.

Minho saw a flash out of the corner of his eye before he heard an oh-so-familiar giggle next to him and his heart began to beat in delightfulness.

"Now that photo is definitely a keeper."

Minho turned to find Jinri with her gorgeous smile as ever. He smiled back and said, "Oh but I think that one is the reason why the delete button was created for."

Jinri hugged her camera protectively. "No way! I like it."

Minho grinned as he approached her, pulling her in for a hug before he proceeded to tickle her like crazy.

Jinri tried to wriggle out of Minho's grasp as she laughed uncontrollably, "Oppa stop! Ewww you're all sweaty and gross! You need to take a shower."

Minho laughed a long as he pressed her closer against his body, rubbing sweat and dirt all over her nice clean shirt. "You know you love it." He joked.

Minho saw Jonghyun approach them as he snuck up behind Jinri with a smile on his face. When he was a step away he cleared his throat and quickly wrapped his arms around her as well.

"YEAH GROUP HUG!" He yelled.

And all Minho could do is laugh as Jonghyun mimicked his actions earlier, rubbing his sweaty body against Jinri.

"JONGHYUN OPPA! THAT'S DISGUSTING!" Screamed Jinri as she was trapped between them.

Both finally released her and Jinri glared at Jonghyun as the boy grinning.

"Can't a brother show his affection for his little sister?" Said Jonghyun, earning a smack from his sister.

"Not if that brother is all stinky." Said Jinri as she pouted.

Minho really wanted to kiss those pouty lips and he wondered if she try to tempt him.

Jonghyun laughed and ruffled her hair. "We are going for pizza. Would you like to go with us?"

Jinri looked from Jonghyun to Minho. They exchanged a secret message before she looked back to Jonghyun. "No I want to go home to process these photos first and then I'm off to Luna's place for the night."

Jonghyun's eyebrow rose as he stared at his sister suspiciously. "You seem to enjoy Luna's companion a lot lately."

Minho was sure his heart missed a beat or two there and he knew same as Jinri too. If only Jonghyun realized all those times he thought his little sister was with Luna all along turned out she was actually with his best friend.

"Make sure you don't give her a hard time okay?" Continued Jonghyun. Minho and Jinri released a silent sigh of relief. "Be careful on your way home and call me right away once you reach there."

Jinri nodded and the sibling hugged briefly. She turned to Minho and also offered him a hug that only both knew how it was different from the previous ones.

After bid each other goodbye, they watched Jinri run for the bus that she had to catch to go home.

Jonghyun slapped Minho on the back. "Looks like it's just you and me buddy, the fine ladies at the restaurant won't know what's hit them."

Minho chuckled as he shook his head. He then heard his mobile phone go off and he opened the message.

'Enjoy your pizza. See you at your place later. Love Riri <3'

Minho was grinning like a little kid who just got a big cone of the ice cream. For a moment he was even thinking about skipping the victory dinner and going straight home to be with his girl but he knew nobody would accept that decision.

Minho sensed Jonghyun is trying to catch a glimpse of his message. He quickly closed it and shoved the phone in his pocket, offering his best friend a causal grin. "Okay let's go eat!" Declared Minho.

Jonghyun smirked. "Not so fast dude. Who's the girl?"

Minho raised an eyebrow as he tried to play dumb. "Girl? What girl?"

Jonghyun rolled his eyes. "Yeah like playing dumb will work with me. I'm talking about the girl who sent you that message and caused that smile on your face."

Minho laughed, trying to deny what his friend had said, even if how much he wanted to confess everything in his face. "No girl, just a joke that my brother sent me." He lied.

Jonghyun paused for a moment as he watched Minho's face. The latter raised an eyebrow and then Jonghyun shrugged. "Yeah I believe that one then! But if you're going to tell me one day, you know that I won't keep going on about it. So now moving on to the next topic. You're one lucky, man!"

"What do you mean?" Asked Minho.

Jonghyun laughed. "You're kidding right?"

Minho shook his head.

"I saw you and Coach talking to Joseph."

"Yes and?"

"And?" Exclaimed Jonghyun and then his mouth dropped. "Yah are you telling me that you don't know who Joseph Anderson is?"

"Joseph Anderson?" Repeated Minho as he realized he had heard that name before. And then it hit him like a ton of bricks. Joseph Anderson was one of the most well- known soccer scouts in England. And he was here to watch him play one of the best games in his life.

Minho was speechless. His mind was running through everything he had just said to him. This was a huge shot for him, even he had said he was a good player. England teams scouting players from England wasn't an unusual occurrence and for Minho could become one of them was a very big thing of his dream.

Suddenly Jinri's face flashed through his mind and all his hopes were suddenly slashed. Even if Joseph Anderson was who he thought he was and even if he offered him a chance to join one of the soccer teams in England, how could he? How could he even dream about leaving Jinri behind?

Jonghyun slapped Minho on the back, bringing him back to reality. "You okay Minho?"

Minho turned and tried to give his best friend a reassuring smile. "Yeah I'm fine. Everyone must be waiting now. Let's go eat."

- - - -

Present Day

For the last half an hour, Minho had been sitting in his car outside Jinri's place, trying to psych himself up to swallow his pride and apologize for how he behaved yesterday. He knew that he had been way out of line with some of things that he said to her but he couldn't help himself, seeing Jinri standing there in a wedding gown just hit him too close to almost lost it.

Jinri had changed so much in five years and it was hard to realize that he didn't know any more about her. Before they were lovers, they were friends and now it changed. For Minho, it was just hard to see how much she had changed in t