“You nervous?”

Sooyoung scoffed. Taeyeon asked this question before every game and her response was always the same.

“Naw,” and then she chuckled before sitting up from bed. “We’ll destroy them tonight, like always.”

“I don’t know,” Taeyeon sighed, scratching her chin in thought, “I have a strange feeling something bad is going to happen tonight.”

Sooyoung helped pull Taeyeon up from her side of the bed before patting the older girl on the back.

“You’re just saying that cause we saw Sunny earlier,” she laughed, shaking her head, “She always gives you goosebumps when she suddenly pops up.”

“Didn’t you hear what she said though?” Taeyeon asked as she quickly changed into her team uniform, “That we had to be careful tonight.”

“She always says stuff like that,” Sooyoung almost yelled, her voice coming from the opposite side of their shared room. She was looking for a clean uniform.

Taeyeon smiled, her sister’s words helping ease her mind, “Yeah, you’re right. Just being paranoid again.”

Once the two finished dressing up and getting a quick drink of water, they ran out of their house, not previously realizing how late it already was. And to nobody’s surprise, their precious fans were waiting outside their house, screaming, cheering and demanding autographs.

“Go Zanarkand Abes!” a group of fan girls screeched, waving their signs around. Sooyoung had to duck down to avoid getting hit by one of the signs but was pulled back when one of the girls grabbed Taeyeon’s hand and thus bring her with her.

“Please give us an autograph!” the group demanded in unison.

Taeyeon looked over at her younger sister and the girl just shrugged. Didn’t look like they’d take no for an answer anyway. And so, the duo put on their most charming smiles and quickly signed the girls’ posters.

“Thank you so much,” a girl almost at the brink of tears sniffled, holding her hand out for a shake.

“No problem,” Taeyeon replied with a wide smile, “After all, it’s you fans that help us play at our best.”

Sooyoung nodded enthusiastically before making a rather elaborate hand gesture; so elaborate and ridiculous that she almost knocked over Taeyeon in the process. But no one except for the small girl had noticed, unfortunately.

“When I do that ladies,” Sooyoung started, winking at the girls and almost knocking the wind out of them, “That means it’s for you.”

But before the girls’ screams could get even louder, Taeyeon grabbed Sooyoung’s hand and made a run for it.

As the two continued to run, they were relieved to find that more often than not, people would move out of the way.

“In a city full of machina, you would think they’d have a decent form of public transportation,” Taeyeon huffed, glancing at the giant billboards to see what the time was. Although running wasn’t really a problem, they were running out of time.

And then a group of boys stood in front of the duo, holding their hands out in a stopping motion.

“Stop!” they declared in unison, causing the two girls to halt their movement.

“Sorry guys, we’re kind of in a hurry,” Taeyeon blurted out, jogging on the spot.

“Teach us how to blitz!” the boys continued, determined to get their request across.

Taeyeon and Sooyoung looked at each other again before sighing. Taeyeon was the first to put on her show smile, placing a hand on one of the boy’s shoulders.

“How about after the game?”

The boys looked at each other, somewhat satisfied with the answer.

“Okay!” they were much easier to please than the girls. And with a bow and a wish of good luck, the boys happily ran away to get to their seats for the game.

“Are we really teaching those kids?” Sooyoung asked, glaring at her older sister, “You promised we could get some ramen after this.”

“You won’t have time for either activity once it starts,” a voice said, startling the two girls.

They looked around for the source of the voice, but to their disappointment it was just a bunch of fans still lined up on the streets.

“Weird,” Taeyeon mumbled as the two began to run towards the stadium again.

“I bet it was Sunny trying to freak us out before our game,” Sooyoung laughed, shaking her head, “Come on Taengoo we’re almost there!”

An energy drink and a pep talk from their captain later, Sooyoung and Taeyeon had finished rinsing themselves. It was routine to take a quick douse in the shower before playing, just like anyone would before stepping into a pool. Except this pool was a stadium and reached much more surface area than any pool could.

They sat in their launching chambers, watching at the Blitzball stadium filled with water. Taeyeon placed a hand over her chest, still not having shaken that strange feeling off from earlier. She wasn't sure if it was paranoia that developed after their dad disappeared, or some motherly instinct acquired after their mom passed away, but Taeyeon's instinct was almost never wrong.

Sooyoung noticed this and placed her hand on Taeyeon’s shoulder before giving it an encouraging squeeze, “Hey unnie, we got this.”

Whether it was about the game or not remained open for interpretation.

The light alerting them of game time flashed and the two girls dove into the water quickly, trying to get to their places as soon as possible. This was their semi-finals so they really had to focus. Sooyoung rushed to her place at the centre, turning her head to the right to see if Taeyeon was settled. The two were always starters, being the star players of their team. If Sooyoung had to be honest, she was nervous and she always would be before any big game. That was, until she got into position, where she belonged.

“We got this game in the- whoa!” Sooyoung had whispered to herself before suddenly yelling. She always felt the most comfortable in the water, but at that moment she felt unusually uneasy. The entire stadium was shaking and it appeared that something had caused a leak in the dome. People were screaming and running away, the entire place starting to crumble down.

Suddenly, someone grabbed her hand and Sooyoung almost screamed. Had she not noticed Taeyeon, she would have thrashed in place, confusion and fear filling her entire body.

“What’s happening?” Sooyoung asked with her eyes, but Taeyeon could only respond with a shrug.

The stadium as always one of the safest places in their home city, Zanarkand. Although the city was so huge, with tall buildings and grand monuments, nothing could surpass the blitzball stadium. After all, it was the number one source of revenue and entertainment in the city. And so it filled the two with panic, knowing that someone, something had attacked it and was destroying it successfully. 

As the screams got louder, the two girls swam as fast as they could towards the emergency exit. However, within a few more seconds that exit disappeared and whatever was attacking the stadium had created another one. Unfortunately, this one was anything but safe.

The two girls were flung into the air. Taeyeon tried her best to reach out and grab some sort of ledge, not wanting to fall to her death. To their luck, Taeyeon had managed to grab the edge of some stadium rubble, one hand clutching onto the monument tightly while the other hand held tightly to her younger sister.

And as if on cue, Sunny appeared. The lower part of her face was covered in her usual scarf and the two sisters could barely tell the expression on her face.

“It’s time for us to go, ladies.”