One minute never feels like a long time unless there is time pressure.

And in the last minute of the final game of the season, Park Jihoon was definitely feeling this pressure. He kept a careful eye on his teammate, Woojin, weave through enemy defenders, preparing to receive the pass they had planned to do earlier during a time out. Overhead, the scoreboard read the lowest scores either team had seen throughout the season. Of course, this was the championship game. They had spent the past few weeks dedicating every spare minute into strengthening their defense and polishing their offense to perfection. By now, both teams had defenses that were nearly impossible to break through.

Once Woojin leaves the defenders in his dust, he changes course and passes straight to Jihoon who breaks into a run towards the half-way point. Immediately, the other players started to close in on Jihoon, cornering him to slow down. Three players surrounded him, covering every direction he could possibly pass in. He had to shoot or pass; passing came with a high risk of turning over the ball. Shifting to his right, he began dribbling, only to get cut off by another defense. Jihoon grit his teeth, brows furrowing in frustration.

The determined faces of his teammates flashed through his eyes. He remembered his teammates’ conversations in the locker room about how their dreams all lay in soccer. They wanted to be scouted by the best teams, hoping that it would help them on their path to become great soccer players. Even his teammates who had never seen a single second of game had said they wanted to work hard to one day be good enough to play on first string. If he were to turnover now, they would lose the championship. Lila would lose everything they had worked so hard towards.

From the corner of his eye, Jihoon caught a lanky figure move up in the distance. With a closer look, he realized it was Jinyoung. Jinyoung was completely unguarded. Jinyoung – though he had been in for most of the game – never held the ball long enough to draw much attention to him. His passes were quick touch-and-go’s. The other team must have considered him a non-factor at this point. Maybe they hadn’t even noticed him on the field. With a bit of fancy footwork, Jihoon was able to distract the defenders’ attention into the following the ball, and ran past them. After making eye contact with Jinyoung, he kicked the ball, praying to the almighty forces that Jinyoung would catch it.

A war cry ripped from Jihoon’s throat as he yelled Jinyoung’s name. With that last kick, he fell to his knees, exhausted. The rest of his teammates followed, screaming ‘go’ to one of their youngest players. Jinyoung’s ears soon filled with white noise; muting out everything around him. In front of him, he could no longer see anything else but the goal and the goalie. His heart raced like crazy and his legs felt like they were on their last string. Though he didn’t notice it, the audience rose from the bleachers, a collective gasp filling the air as he drew his leg back and punted with all the energy he had left in his body. Jinyoung couldn’t remember anything after that; everything was a blur. Before he knew it, the high-pitched tweet of the whistle sounded and he was raised about four feet from the ground.

Lila Academy had won the championships.

When his teammates returned Jinyoung to the ground, they crowded around him – sweat and all – to hug him and congratulate him on making the winning goal. Jinyoung held onto another teammate, stabilizing himself so that his legs wouldn’t give out from under him; a giant smile causing his eyes to narrow into little half-moons. However, his plan of standing up didn’t last very long when Jihoon pushed his way through the center of the crowd, pouncing onto the taller boy excitedly. Jinyoung and Jihoon tumbled onto the ground just as Miyoung jogged over to them, her pom-poms rustling loudly with every step. Kneeling beside the tangled mess of limbs, she joined Jihoon in congratulating their winning-goal shooter.

After Jihoon finally pushed himself off, the three of them rushed to the center of the circle to grab their medals and take pictures with the trophy. Jinyoung; however, skipped the pictures and jogged to the bleachers. Squinting, he scanned over the familiar faces of the Lila students and their families that were slowly making their way down the bleachers to go home. Though he knew it would be too good to be true, he still tried looking for that person. He was about to start climbing the bleachers when he felt something heavy weighing against his shoulders.

“You did it, Jinyoung!” Sooji cheered, lisp more prominent because she was too excited to try and monitor it, “I knew you could do it! I never doubted you!”

As if by second nature, he hooked arms under her legs so that she wouldn’t slide off his back. Chuckling, he turned his head around to look at her, “Don’t tell me you cancelled tutoring to be here right now?”

“So what if I did?” Sooji smiled down at him; it wasn’t often she got to smile from this height. Usually it was the other way around with her practically breaking her neck to look up at him. “Are you my mother now too?”

Sooji hopped off his back and went around to face him. She was now looking at him the way she normally did; about a head shorter than him and with that carefree smile of hers. There was a light tugging in his stomach, but it quickly passed. Without a word, Jinyoung placed a hand on her shoulder, hesitated for a second, and pulled her into a hug. He rested his chin atop her head when she returned his hug, “I appreciate that a lot. I know that I shouldn’t encourage you to cancel tutoring, but I’m really happy you came to support me today.”

Before Sooji could answer, a gagging sound came from the side causing the two to immediately push away from each other. Jinyoung’s eye twitched in annoyance when he saw it was only his younger brother, Jinhwan, being immature again. Jinyoung’s mom and younger sister, Heejin, hurried over, gasping when they saw Jinyoung was in the company of a girl. Much to Jinyoung’s embarrassment, she takes Sooji’s hands in hers, “Hello, dear! Are you the Kim Miyoung that Jinyoung’s always talking about? I had imagined you quite differently from what he’s told us.”

“A-ah, n-no, sorry. I’m Hwang Sooji,” the younger girl laughed awkwardly, forcing a smile onto her face nonetheless. Jinyoung wanted to die.

“Oh, that’s right – you ride the bus together!” His mom still hadn’t let go of Sooji’s hands, “Thank you for always making sure Jinyoung gets home safely.

“Oh, no, I should be thanking Jinyoung!” Sooji peeked up at Jinyoung whose color was slowly starting to drain from his face. She tried not to laugh; empathizing with him. “After all, he’s the one that makes sure I get home safely when he doesn’t have to.”

When his mom finally lets her hands free, Sooji tells Jinyoung that if he wants to celebrate dinner with the team, he should go now because the players were already heading out. She found it curious – though, not surprising – when he explained he was going to skip celebrating with the team to eat dinner out with his family. A day before the game, his parents insisted they eat at his favorite restaurant that evening whether Lila won or lost. Jinyoung zipped his jacket up the rest of the way so that the only ped portion was his collar, “Have you eaten dinner yet? If you want, you can join us.”

“That’s a thoughtful and kind offer, Jinyoung, but I don’t think I should,” Sooji rubbed her hands together shyly, “I wouldn’t want to intrude-”

“Oh no, Sooji! Don’t feel that way. You’d be doing us a favor actually,” his mom cut his classmate off, causing Jinyoung to feel like shrinking and running away. He knew his mom was persistent, but around the presence of female friends or classmates of his, she was always so friendly. “Jinyoung’s father was supposed to come with us, but he was called in last minute to work the night shift, so you could substitute for him. We’ve already made the reservation anyway. You can sit with Jinyoung if you’d like!”

“I’m so sorry for my mom,” Jinyoung whispered under his breath loud enough so only Sooji could hear. Luckily for him, she was sitting across the table from him. She shook her head, smiling to reassure him that it was okay. This eased his buzzing worries, but he continued with his explanation for his mom’s eager behavior nonetheless, “It’s not every day she gets to see me talking to females. In fact, she didn’t even believe me when I said I had one.”

As they waited for their waiter to come by and take their orders, Sooji’s gaze wanders over to his two siblings that were also sitting across from each other in the seats beside them. Their mom who was seated at the end of the table was nagging the two to put their things away while being seated at the table. Jinhwan was tapping away at the buttons of his console as he played a game and Heejin was reading what looked like a romance manhwa. Jinhwan was telling his mom that he jus