Jessica brought her tray of food to the table where all the other girls from the basketball team were chatting, “Have you seen the new transfer on the soccer team? She doesn’t look like anything special. I heard because she has connections to some higher ups that she was brought here.”

“Impossible. Even if you have connections, you need the right blood type to take the pills.”

“Still! You have to be good at sports too. The pills only do so much.”

Yuri sat next to Jessica, “Girls girls don’t go around spreading rumors.”

“You love gossip Yuri. What is gotten with you today?”

Yuri waved it off as she took a huge bite of her sandwich, “The soccer team has investors coming for an exhibition match before the tournament. We can all go and watch then.”

“Don’t we have one of those too?”

“Yea but we are first so we can kick some and then go watch the soccer game. Our dear Jessica was going to go watch anyway.”

Jessica glared at Yuri to shut up about her little crush.

“You girls are coming to our match?”

Jessica nearly jumped out of her skin with the sound of Taeyeon’s voice right behind her, “T-Taeyeon.”

Taeyeon gave Jessica a huge dimpled smile, “I would love to see all of you in the stands. I wish we could come to your match but we need to get ready for ours.”

Yuri got up and put her arm around Taeyeon to purposely piss off Jessica, “No worries. We would do the same in your situation.“

Taeyeon slowly backed away so Yuri would release her, “Great! See you there. Good luck on your game!”

“Bye Taeyeon!” The team bid the girl a farewell before the gossip started again.

“Wow…that girl could turn me gay.”

“I know right! She is so sweet and hot.”

“Very hot,” Yuri smirked as she looked at Jessica, “What do you think of Taeyeon? Isn’t she hot?”

“She is okay.” Jessica tried to brush it off.

“Only okay? Wow Jessica you must have high standards. No one here is hotter than Taeyeon.”

“Except Yoona!” Yuri had to interject and protect her woman.

The girls giggled, “The fact that we know you called dibs on her, we don’t even dare to think about getting with her, but Taeyeon is free to hit on.”

Suddenly the sound of a chair squeaking backwards startled the girls, “I am not very hungry.” Jessica took her tray and left.

The girls looked at Yuri who shrugged, “She must be on her you know what.”

That comment seemed to satisfy the girls enough that they went onto their usual gossip, but Yuri was worried for her friend and gobbled up the rest of her sandwich, “I should get going too. I am falling behind on math.”

Not minding their captain’s sudden departure, Yuri slipped out of the cafeteria to find Jessica walking around the hallways eating her food, “Why don’t you just confess or something. Then everyone will stop hitting on Taeyeon.”

Jessica crumpled up her garbage and shot it into the garbage like a pro, “No thanks.”

“Why not? I don’t think Taeyeon would reject you. You both would make a cute pair.”

“It isn’t rejection that I am afraid of…” Jessica trailed off as she leaned against the wall, “I just don’t want to be that couple everyone talks about. Taeyeon is popular and I am popular…being the it couple would be a distraction.”

Yuri rolled her eyes, “I think you and Taeyeon both need a distraction. There is more to this place than just sports.”

“Basketball is everything. It is all I have.”

“There is a lot more to you than basketball.” Yuri sighed, “So what if we don’t win the tournament? What would really change for us? You would still be the ace and this academy will still be going strong. I guess…what I want to know is what drives to work so hard to the point that you won’t even enjoy your life a little.”

Jessica looked down at her shoes, not daring to look at Yuri and admit she might be right, “Maybe after the tournament. Taeyeon doesn’t need a distraction right now.”

“You make it sound like all she does is soccer. Taeyeon has a break during lunch, dinner and breakfast. Not to mention she has a study break after lunch and I saw her goofing off in the dorms several hours before bed. That girl isn’t playing soccer 24/7 like you seem to think.” Yuri walked up to her friend and patted her on the back, “If you want to wait, then confess after the exhibition games. The investors are the guys that actually matter to keep the school afloat. I promise you though, that no matter when you decide to confess, Taeyeon will say yes.”

“How do you know that? There are a ton of reasons to reject me.”

Yuri wanted to burst out laughing but she just shook her head, “My intuition says you will be just fine. Anyway, I have a math exam to prepare for. Catch you at practice!”

Jessica watched as Yuri walked away and smiled. Yuri was probably right. Taeyeon did seem to look at her differently than some of the other girls. She couldn’t wait until the exhibition games started.

Or so Jessica thought.

The game was brutal. For the nth time tonight, Jessica was pushed to the floor trying to defend.

The whistle blew when Jessica had a difficult time getting up, “Jung are you okay?”

Jessica’s legs felt like Jello but she wobbled to her feet anyway, “Why are they so strong? It is like I am blocking a stone wall that comes crashing down on me.”

Yuri was also out of breath, “And fast. We beat them by like 50 points the last time…I don’t know what happened since then. Anyway let’s stick to our strategy.”

The ref handed Jessica the ball and blew the whistle. Jessica looked around and passed the ball to her teammate to start the game again. She looked where there could be an opening but the girl guarding her followed her like a shadow. It was hard to get free to score.

Yuri saw this and went in to screen Jessica’s defender so she could go for a three-pointer, luckily it went in.

“Threeeeee!” The crowd cheered as Jessica sighed in relief that she was probably still more skilled than these players. They may be faster and stronger, but she had accuracy and Yuri had the wits to still get them points. The other team can defend all they want and charge but the ball kept going back to Jessica to score.

The game was close but Jessica and her teammates knew they had the win when they were 9 points ahead with the ball and the buzzer was 5 seconds away from going off. In a normal situation, the other team would admit defeat and not try anything rash to get the ball back because the last few seconds were not enough to make them win, however, Jessica saw something different in the eyes of these girls. Suddenly, one of the players started to charge Yuri, who had the ball and ran into her full force.

Immediately the ref blew the whistle and Jessica rallied with her girls to shove the player off Yuri, “What the hell!”

The ref was quick to get in between, “That is it, you are out of the game!”

The girl snickered, “Game is already over.”

Jessica quickly turned to Yuri who was in a ton of pain, “Medic!”

The team doctor ran over quickly to aid Yuri, “Yuri what hurts?”

Yuri was holding her shoulder, “I think it is dislocated. What the was that? We had the game.”

The doctor held Yuri’s shoulder, “I need to place it. Breath in and out.” Yuri screamed as her shoulder was realigned, “We need to take you to the hospital to get this scanned.

Jessica glared at the other team wondering why a friendly exhibition game turned out this way. Also why were they so good? Even though Jessica lead her team to victory, looking at Yuri and her teammates who were exhausted and banged up, she wondered if they really won at all?