I was at dance practice, on my break. Today was Myungsoo’s first day back on the soccer field and I wanted to see how he was doing. So I used my break time to take a peek.

            Myungsoo was doing a drill with Coach Choi and Taemin. He had to practice dribbling a ball around some cones.

            “Faster! FASTER!” Taemin was barking at him.

            Myungsoo picked up his dribbling pace and tripped over a cone, falling smack onto the grass. I gasped.

            “Taemin,” I heard Coach Choi say, “Myungsoo is already working his hardest. He’s still in pretty decent shape. We don’t need to rush his training.”

            “We do if we want to even make it to the semi-finals for championships. He’s our weakest link,” Taemin stated.

            Myungsoo got up from the grass and rubbed his back. I could see that he was in pain, that he was tolerating Taemin’s bossiness, that he was holding in his temper.

            “Myungsoo is not our weakest link,” Coach Choi clarified. “We have no weak links, we’re a team.”

            “Well I’m captain,” Taemin declared, “and I say that he needs more practice.”

            I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I couldn’t believe that Taemin would be so willing to push Myungsoo against his limits and push him harder, even while he was already doing so much. I was so used to Taemin’s good, nice side that seeing this entirely new, more evil side of him caught me off guard.

            Coach allowed Myungsoo to take a break. As he headed off the field he spotted me standing by the bleachers.

            “Came here for Taemin?” he asked me.

            I shook my head. “No. For you.”

            Myungsoo looked back at Taemin and Coach Choi, who seemed to be arguing with each other. Then he took my hand and said, “Let’s go before that prick sees you and takes you away from me.”

            I laughed. “So he’s a prick now?” I liked how he was practically holding my hand.

            He pulled me over to the water fountain, where he took a long drink of water.

            “Hey, Myungsoo,” I said.

            “Hm?” he said, still immersed in his water drinking.

            “Is this where…where we’d bumped into each other that one time? The time you told me about?” I asked.

            “When I thought you were pretty?”

            “Y-Yeah.” He was so blunt and straight-forward about it while I sounded like a nervous wreck.

            Myungsoo thought about it for a while, then nodded. “Yeah. It is. Why?”

            “Nothing,” I said. “Just wondering.” Then I decided to switch the subject. “Taemin seems pretty hard on you.”

            Myungsoo rolled his eyes at this. “Told you. He’s a prick. Hates my guts.”

            “Only because he sees you as a threat,” I said. “He knows you’re better than him so he’s using his title as captain to his advantage.”

            Myungsoo stared at me. Then his lips broke out into a smile.

            “W-What?” I asked. “Is there something on my face?”

            He shook his head, that smile still plastered on his face. “No it’s not that.”

            “Then what is it?”

            Myungsoo took a step closer. He grinned. “It’s just…really nice to see you on my side. You used to always defend Taemin no matter what it was.”

            “Well that was before I saw his true colors,” I said. Then I smiled back at him. “But, it also feels much better being on your side.”

            I had to get back to dance and Myungsoo had to get back to soccer. I hoped he was doing okay out there, under Taemin’s command.

            Soon, Myungsoo’s first game since returning to the team approached. He’s been practicing hard, practicing long hours before and after school. I knew that he wanted to help the team win, to help them reach their highest point before his high school career ended. But at the same time I knew that he wanted to show Taemin that he was still better than him.

            I took a seat on the bleachers with some other friends and prayed that nothing would go wrong.

            Taemin started out strong. He made a couple of goals, but Myungsoo made some also. The two were neck-and-neck, as if they were the opposing teams in the game.

            However, that isn’t to say that the other team was weak. They, too, were just as strong and soon the scores were tied. Myungsoo and Taemin both knew: whoever scored the winning point in this game, would be the true champion.

            Coach gave the team a timeout to discuss strategies. Myungsoo kept nodding, trying to get everything into his head.

            Then he looked up at the crowd, as if he was searching for someone. His eyes met mine. I stayed there, frozen.

            Then the whistle blew and he went back to the field. The game was back on.

            “Naeun,” Yookyung, who had been next to me, said, “it looked like Myungsoo was staring at you.”

            “Y-Yeah,” I said without thinking. “It looked like that to me too.”

            It was now or never, for both our school and for Taemin and Myungsoo’s pride. The opposing team had the ball. Taemin managed to steal it and was heading towards the goal. In my mind, I was praying my off that Myungsoo would make the winning goal.

            Then there he was, coming up right alongside Taemin. Taemin, distracted by how Myungsoo was catching up to his speed, stumbled on the ball and fell back-first onto the grass. The crowd gasped, the opponents behind him were quickly gaining speed. The ball was so close to the goal but could be kicked away any second.

            Myungsoo took control of the ball and ran as fast as his legs could take him. The remaining distance between him and the goal got smaller and smaller. Then, he kicked it.

            The ball seemed to fly through the air in slow motion as we all watched whether or not it would make it. The goalie reached for the ball, tried his best to smack it out, but to no avail.

            The ball hit the net. It made it.

            The crowd cheered. Myungsoo stood there, completely frozen, as if he himself couldn’t believe that he’d actually won the game for the team! I cheered loud and proud, screaming my lungs out. Myungsoo’s teammates all ran up and bombarded him with hugs and smiles. They carried him up and shouted his name for everybody to hear. He laughed, smiled. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him so genuinely happy. It made me genuinely happy.

            Amidst the cheers and chants, Myungsoo looked out into the crowd again. Then he smiled. Myungsoo rarely ever smiled, much less smiled genuinely, but when he did the entire universe seemed to light up.

            “Hey, Kim Myungpoop. Congratulations.”

Myungsoo closed his locker and ruffled my hair before saying, “Thank you, Son Napoop.” The two of us started to walk to the parking lot, where Myungsoo would drive the both of us home.

            “So I guess this means that you’ll no longer doubt yourself about being on the team?” I asked him.

            “And I guess this means that you’ll no longer consider Taemin as the best soccer player in school?”

I rolled my eyes. “Haha very funny. That was before I knew that you could play like that.”

            Myungsoo nodded, that twinkle evident in his eyes. He was still super happy about the win.

            A jealous figure however, had been waiting for us. Taemin, after Myungsoo’s winning shot, had basically been neglected from the festivities. He was more than pissed that’s for sure, and the evil that I was beginning to see in him grew even more after this event.

            He’d been waiting by his car in the parking lot, which had been coincidentally parked right next to Myungsoo’s car.

            “Naeun-ah,” he barked at me when he saw me. “What are you doing with Kim Myungsoo?

            .

            “I’m taking her home,” Myungsoo replied. “She told you that we live together now, did she not?”

            “No,” Taemin said. “She did. I just didn’t know that you two seemed so close.”

            “Why wouldn’t we be?”

            “Because you and Naeun come from two completely different worlds, duh,” Taemin said. “She’s rising in popularity by the second and you’re just that weird aloof dude who is going to go nowhere in life.”

            I hated how Taemin was talking to Myungsoo. I hated how he was practically telling Myungsoo that he was a complete loser, which is ironic since he just won the game for everyone.

            Myungsoo opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him. “You’re one hell of a jerk, you know that?” I told Taemin. “It’s one thing to mock his quiet nature. But it’s another to say that he will go nowhere in life. Everyone has potential. And some people lose their potential. If anything, you will be the guy going nowhere years from now. He shot the winning goal fair and square. You stumbled on the ball and fell because you were being careless. Myungsoo ran his heart out there and scored the goal because he trained hard and was dedicated.”

            “Naeun-ah.”

            “Don’t ‘Naeun-ah’ me,” I snapped. “I’ve been putting up with your bull lately but today is the last straw. Whatever we had, is done. We’re done.”

            “Don’t be like this,” Taemin pleaded. “Just get in my car, yeah?”

            I looked at him, at that face that I used to favor so much. Then I looked back at Myungsoo, the face that always makes me feel better no matter what.

            I took the step, I made the leap. I stepped over to Myungsoo’s car and got into the front passenger seat. Taemin stayed where he was, stunned.

            “Looks like she made up her mind,” Myungsoo sneered before getting into the driver’s seat. We turned up the music loud as we drove away, leaving Taemin in the parking lot by himself.

            When we got home, I noticed that my mother and Mr. Kim were sending out wedding invitations in the living room. Myungsoo noticed it too.

            “Mom,” I said.

            “Dad,” Myungsoo said.

            “Oh.” My mother got up, all smiles and whatnot, and handed me one of the wedding invitations.

            “We’re sending them all out this weekend! Don’t you think it looks pretty? Sanghyun let me use this font and the pink lace and everything. See?” she showed me what the invites looked like. “You know Naeun, your father and I never even got a proper wedding. I am so grateful that this is finally happening.”

            “Yeah,” I said. “It’s great.” Although I tried my best to show her that I was happy for her, I couldn’t help but show faint signs of discomfort.

            “Dad,” Myungsoo said to Mr. Kim. “It’s really happening?”

            “Yes,” Mr. Kim replied joyfully. “Our planned date is this June, a couple of days after your graduation. That way our wedding day will be full of sunshine and clear skies and it’ll be before you go away to college as well.”

            Myungsoo? Going away to college?

            I hadn’t thought of such things and it began to worry me.

            “Naeun? What’s wrong?” my mother asked, probably sensing my feelings of discomfort.

            “O-Oh. Nothing,” I said. “I think I’m just feeling tired from school, that’s all.”

            “Alright,” my mother replied. “Make sure to get some sleep tonight.”

            “Yeah I will.” I instinctively stood closer to Myungsoo, as if doing so would make him stay with me forever.

            He and I retreated back to our designated rooms, not saying a word to each other. I laid there on my bed, thinking about how we were really going to become related now, how everyone will find out eventually.

            I suddenly felt as if my time with Myungsoo was being numbered. I felt like he was going to slip away from me real, real soon, and that it will scar me for the rest of my life. I guess I had a premonition, you could say. And a bad one at that.