Kyungsoo is a genius, both in sports and his studies. He’s good looking and attractive. His hair is dark; his skin is fair and he has a pair of intimidating dark blue eyes. He’s never one to express his thoughts and reflect them through his face—that explains why he always has a straight face on.

But maybe, maybe that’s what all the girls are swooning over him for.

“Will you accept my feelings?”

A girl—Kyungsoo can’t remember her name despite her having mentioned it before but she seems to be in the same class as him—holds out a pink envelope towards him. He looks down and back up to stare at the girl’s hung low head. After a few seconds of silence, the girl finally has the courage to look up at Kyungsoo’s face and notice a clear, obvious rejection in his eyes.

“I—I’m sorry,” she squeaks, bowing down, “I’ll be taking my leave now.”

Kyungsoo goes back to practice his serves, not even bother to at least say a word to hopefully comfort the girl who’s making her way out of the gym with sagged shoulders. He closes his eyes after he serves; the ball flies right over the net and hits the wall at the other side of the gym. He thinks what’s done is done and it’s too late to go after the girl and apologize. The girl will get over him eventually, right? Isn’t that what having a crush all about?

“Oy, Kyungsoo!”

A voice startles him back to reality. He turns around to find Jongin standing in the doorway, looking as ready as ever to practice. Well, at least that’s what the plain white shirt, black shorts and shoes are telling him. He has the feeling that what follows after that loud Oy, Kyungsoo! is going to be something he definitely despises to hear.

“What’s it about this time?” the tanned boy scrunches his nose, “I think she’s really upset,”

“Mind your own business.” he says with annoyance heavy in his voice.

Jongin gasps in disbelief. “Wha—you serious, dude? I was just asking, okay,”

If there’s anything Kyungsoo’s not good at doing, it’s probably making friends. He doesn’t know exactly when it started but he thinks it was when he graduated from elementary school. People started to badmouth him due to his intimidating and dark look. Not to mention, his bad temper. That’s why Kyungsoo never bothers to tell them the truth when they don’t even bother to get to know more about him.

But Jongin’s different.

And the thoughts always set the alarm inside Kyungsoo’s head off.

“Alright, listen folks!”

Kyungsoo doesn’t know when Coach Hyunkyun arrived but he turns around when he hears his voice and sees that everyone’s gathered around him, ready to listen to everything their coach has got to say. He makes his way over and sits on the floor beside Jongin—the empty space for him is always next to Jongin, it seems. It might be just his imagination but he feels like they’re sitting too close to each other that their knees touch.

Of course, Kyungsoo never shows that he notices everything the taller guy does around him. It seems that Jongin is still as oblivious as ever. Sometimes, it makes him want to rip his hair off.

“We’re going to have a practice match against Chungdam next week,” Coach Hyunkyun says, looking around to stare back at every one of them. He looks glad that this time, Jongin isn’t being too noisy and everyone is paying attention, even Jongdae.

Kyungsoo can’t help but feel curious as to how the others react to the seemingly good news. He looks around to see it himself. Sitting across from him is Minseok, looking as nervous as ever. He’ll surely bite his fingernails off if he keeps doing that. Beside him is Jongdae who shows no sign of anxiety—in fact, it’s the opposite. Yixing stares thoughtfully into the air and he’s never seen their captain looking so serious. Tao looks kind of startled and Sehun is still bored out of his mind.

It doesn’t take much effort to know that Jongin reacts pretty well to this. Kyungsoo doesn’t need to look at his face to know that the taller guy is all fired up upon hearing the news their coach has just broken. But something inside him keeps telling him to look, you have to look at him! But of course, Kyungsoo resists it at all cost. He won’t be easy to break. No, not when—

“Doesn’t that mean we’re going to go up against The Great King?!” Jongin yelps loudly, almost jumping in place.

Oh my god, Kyungsoo says to his poor self. Tell me I’m not staring.

“…soo?”

He vaguely hears the sound of his heart thundering in his ears before he snaps back into reality and sees that everyone’s getting ready for practice. He’s standing at the side of the court, he realizes after a while. Jongin is waving his hand in front of his face and he slaps it away. The taller guy retracts his hand like it’s been burned and yells at him for it. Of course, he’ll do that. It seems that they do nothing but argue for every chance they get.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

I don’