The players are stretching on the court, Yerin is discussing with their coach at the side. The girl has her hair tied into a messy bun, that is one of the favourite looks that Eunbi has for her girl. Yerin looks so focus that she could not even see Eunbi and her group of friends walking into the audience stands. Well, could not blame her thought, today is the champion match for the year’s inter-school volleyball competition, Yerin and her team managed to secure a seat in the finals this year, and it is also Yerin’s last inter-school match, after this there will only be the elite tournament left before she quits the team and get prepared for the public exam.

Hwecheol waves at Eunbi and points at the bench that he saved for their group, Eunbi smiles and walks over to join the boy.

“Hey thanks for keeping the seats for us Jonnie, you came by yourself?”

“Nope, dad is parking in the lot along with mom, I came up first to deliver Noona’s tape for her, you know her forgetful brain did not bring the tapes with her this morning when she left home.” Hwecheol says.

“Ahh… so Mr Jung will be here as well?” Eunbi swallows without herself noticing, Yerin’s dad is not simply a classmate’s father or an uncle, Mr Jung is also their school’s vice principal. And what’s worse is Yerin’s family does not want their kids to be in a relationship during schooling ages. Although this is not the first relationship that Yerin has, but as in her parents knew nothing about her first love, this still counts as the first.

“Don’t worry Eunbi noona, you’ve met umma and appa for so many times already, and they like you so much. So take it easy and just don’t slip anything out, things will be alright.” Hwecheol pats the girl’s shoulders to reassure her.

Eunbi nods, yeah, things will be alright, right?

The whistle is blown, the 24 players bow at one another, after the captains shake hands to each other and the referee tosses the coin, the game begins. Yerin loses in the coin flipping so her team will be the ones receiving the serve first.

Watching the captain making her last briefing with the team, Eunbi asks Hwecheol who sits next to her. “Did she have good sleep last night?”

Hwecheol shakes his head, “Noona did not speak it out, but I know she is nervous about this one, I saw the lights her room were on for the whole night.”

Eunbi sighs to herself, she knows this championship means a lot to her girlfriend, Yerin has been practicing extra hard for the semester. Their team used to have after school trainings on every Tuesday and Fridays, but the whole team decided to come back earlier before school starts to have physical training sessions at 7AM every morning, which means Yerin has to wake up at 5 every day and no more breakfast dates with Eunbi. And they also sacrifice their lunch time to have extra practices. The team this year really has some chemistry that none of the years had before, and with the hard work they have devoted, they aimed for the championship this year. Yerin is the captain of the team, as well as the eldest since she is the only player in year 6, beyond doubt she carries most of the responsibility of the team and as well as the expectations.

“I will get that!” Yerin shouts and dashes to where the ball is flying to. The current score is 24:22, Yerin’s team is 2 marks ahead and in a volleyball game, a set ends with one reaches 25. The situation is that their opponent spikes super hard that the save digs by one of her teammates does not get the ball to pass right back on track, and the ball is now flying towards the side bench. Yerin is the setter in change for the team, and she is also the one with quickest reflexes, she gets on her feet almost at the same time when her teammate did the save. Not looking at where she is running at, Yerin only keeps her focus at the yellow-blue sphere, she jumps and dives onto the ground when the ball nearly touches the ground, she stretches out her right arm to the farthest at the last moment to dig the ball back into the court. Once again, the ball is saved, and her teammates managed to score that point for the team, now it is 25:23, Yerin’s team gets the first set. However, no one in her team is celebrating their victory over the first set, they all rush beside their captain after the whistle.

“Yerin unnie are you alright!” Jihyo is the first to approach her captain.

Yerin saved the ball just now, but as she wasn't looking at her surroundings, she bumped into the bench and flipped over, the girl could not get up after the save.

Yerin bites her teeth and nods, then she stretches out her left arm to Jihyo, Jihyo pulls the setter off the ground and Yerin tries to stand on her own feet. Ouch, it is worse than I’ve imagined.

“Is it your ankle Yerin?” The coach points at her right shoulder and checks her arm, just when he touches Yerin’s shoulders, the girl gasps.

“I am alright sir, I can still play.” Yerin holds her fists tight, trying hard to fight the pain away. It is the shoulder that she once dislocated when she was younger, the old wound was just recrudesced again.

“You can’t even raise your arm properly Yerin, how are you going to serve and spike.” The coach says and urges Yerin to sit down, he touches the girl’s shoulders and can feel the inner hear slowly rising up. He asks Jihyo to bring over the sports band aid tape and starts to wrap the tapes around the girl’s right shoulder.

When the coach is still working on the injury, the whistle is blown again, signaling the start of the 2^nd set.

“Tzuyu you’re up, you will play as setter in the second set. Jihyo you will be the sub captain for this set, go on court and stay calm girls, pull out your best, alright?” The coach orders the rest of the team.

“Arrasso sir, c’mon guys! We will play for you Yerin unnie, we will be waiting for you to come back.” Jihyo locks eyes with the injured girl, the younger girl nods firmly and walks out back into the court, the rest of the team following suit.

“Tzuyu?” Yerin calls for the junior, whom is now shivering. Tzuyu never once thought of having the chance to step up on court during the finals, as she is also in the setter position, there is always Yerin the great senior there. It is not that Tzuyu is bad, the young player is also a skillful setter, but just Yerin is the talented star setter, Tzuyu knows she will never stand a chance to play on court, not until the star has graduate.

“Trust yourself, I have faith in you too.” Yerin flashes her infamous eye smile at the girl despite enduring enormous pain deep down, mentally and physically. “You are their commander now, you’ve been training hard and now it is time to trust your instincts and let the game flow.”

“I… I understand Yerin unnie.” Tzuyu says after some seconds of silence. “I will try my best to buy some more minutes for you, we all will for you.” With that the younger girl steps into the court and joins the rest of the team.

Eunbi is sweating hard, but she could not care less, she is now running back to the gymnasium. She ran to the gym office to get the ice packs from the medical staff earlier when she saw Yerin tripped over the bench and hurt her shoulder. She arrives at the stadium when the game starts once again, she looks at the players in court, she could not find her girl, then she turns to the side bench, there she is, sitting on the bench with the coach treating her wounds. Eunbi runs over and passes the ice packs to the coach, the coach looks up at Eunbi and mouths her thanks. Eunbi then stands behind Yerin and places her hand onto the girl’s left shoulder. Yerin puts her hands on top of Eunbi’s and squeezes lightly, none of them speaks. After five minutes, the coach stands up and Eunbi helps Yerin to stretch her arms slowly.

“I can only wrap up the joint and the muscles, so it will not further dislocate, but I cannot lessen the pain you know Yerin.”

“Thanks coach, I am all good now and I am ready.” Yerin stands up with the help of Eunbi, and slowly warming up her arm. It still hurts as if millions of needles pinning into her bones, but her determination is now getting control over her pain, they are losing at 20:12 now, she cannot care less of the pain. Yerin looks at Eunbi, the latter gives her the brightest smile she could, Yerin nods and raises her hand, signaling the judges for a substitute.

Knowing that the leader is back, the team becomes more focus and united, they play really much better than the opening of the set. All of them pull out their best, they jump higher and spike the hardest that they could. Everything seems to fall back on track, the full team is back, their turbos are on, except Yerin’s.

The chief referee blows onto his whistle and gestures the teams to bow at one another. After nearly 2 hours, the intensive game finally comes to an end. Although Yerin has rejoined the squad, still, her injured shoulder keeps limiting her movements. She could not spike as sharp as she should, she could not block as hard as she should, she could not be the star setter as she should. Everyone understands the situation that it is not the captain’s fault, neither the coach nor the team are blaming her, but the responsibility-struck setter keeps blaming herself. After the match, as they still got the first runner up in the competition, their classmates and friends come over to congrats them. Yerin stays there with the team until the end of the photo taking sessions, but right after the last flash, she disappears without notifying any of her teammates. Even after all of the players have changed back to normal causal clothes, she does not appear. Hwecheol tries to contact his sister, but Yerin switches off her phone, no one could find the girl.

“Eunbi?”

Eunbi turns to the man who calls her. “Yes Mr. Jung?”

“We need to attend a family gathering later so we have to leave now, I know you are close with Yerin, could you help us to find her? And if you do, please let us know.”

“Sure Mr. Jung, I will tell Hwecheol once I found her.” Eunbi bows at her vice principal.

“Thanks Eunbi, please take care of my daughter.”

“No problem.”

After everyone has left the stadium, Eunbi sits at the side bench where Yerin was when the coach was patching up her ankle. Eunbi closes her eyes and starts to think, If I were Rinnie, where would I go now?

Rooftop.

Eunbi finds out that Yerin has a thing for rooftops after all these months of dating, not that the girl is suicidal or something, but whenever the girl wants to have some alone time to sort things out of her mind, she will go up to the school’s rooftop of in her own house’s rooftop, there are so many nights that Yerin facetimed Eunbi when she was sitting at the rooftop by herself. Eunbi rushes to the stairs and starts to make her way up, when she nearly reaches the top, she hears sobs.

“Why I always fail the others when they count on me most?”

 “Why I can never live up to the expectations?”

“Why am I always the one…”

Eunbi’s heart breaks into pieces upon hearing those rambles, she walks up and sees the girl she has been searching for sitting on the floor, leaning at the roof’s wall and hugging her knees crying. Eunbi takes out her phone to send Hwecheol the assuring message, then she goes over and sits down beside her girlfriend quietly. Eunbi wraps her arms on the shivering girl’s shoulders and brings her into her embrace. Yerin cries harder when she feels Eunbi’s presence, she buries her head onto the girl’s chest. Eunbi does not say anything, she just keeps patting her girlfriend’s back trying to comfort the girl.

After long shared silence and Yerin has calmed down, Eunbi asks. “Does it still hurt?”

Yerin nods and slowly takes off her top, showing Eunbi her shoulder. Her right shoulder now is appearing in purple, as if the vessels inside are all burning. Eunbi does not know how come Yerin could still bear with the pain without taking any painkillers. Eunbi knees down and helps Yerin to put back on her jersey. Then she stands up and outstretches her hand to Yerin. Yerin looks up from the ground at her girlfriend, Eunbi is smiling softly at her. After some seconds, Yerin takes the hand and stands up as well, then the two of them go to get changed in the washroom.

[Me: I am bringing her to the physical therapy center now.]

[Hwecheol Dongsaeng: Thanks god you found her, is noona alright?]

[Me: Better than the worst, but don’t worry I will look after her.]

[Hwecheol Dongsaeng: I trust you more than anyone Eunbi noona, please take care of noona.]

Eunbi switches from Telegram to the Uber app, making a reservation for the transportation.

“You will be there in 5 minutes? Sure, that will be great, thanks and see you later.”

As if on cue, the moment Eunbi hangs up on her phone, Yerin walks out from the changing room. Eunbi smiles and takes Yerin’s backpack from her, then she replaces her hands in the girl’s empty ones. They wait at the main entrance of the stadium for the Uber car, no one initiates to talk. Eunbi is busy keeping an eye on the road to check if their car has arrived, and suddenly she feels squeezes from their intertwined hands. She turns and looks at the girl of her life.

“Thanks for not leaving when I am in a mess Bi.” Yerin says softly, eyes staring right into Eunbi’s.

Eunbi smacks Yerin’s head lightly with her free hand. “Leaving you is not in my dictionary, pabo ah.”

Then she leans in to press a quick peck on Yerin’s forehead.

“I’ve already promised your dad to take care of you, so don’t you ever think about that. No matter how messy you are or how hurt you are, just lean onto me and I will always be there for you.”

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Hey there long time no see yeoreobun, sorry for the long hiatus, but my school is ending soon so I promise I will try to visit here more often :)

Comment below and tell me your thoughts toward the story! :D