Coach called a timeout after Sapphire made a shot near the end of the game. I looked up at the scoreboard and saw that my team was down by two points. I then saw that there was 2 seconds left on the game clock.

"Coach, what do we do?" Kwangjin asked with his hands on his head.

"I want to shoot the last shot.." I said confidently.

Everybody stared at me with a blank expression.

"I'm going to go for the three pointer. I don't want to play in an overtime." I said once more.

Coach nodded while the rest of my teammates just stared at me as if I yelled out a bunch of curse words.

"Kwangjin, I want you to give the ball to Jonghyun because he's going to take the last shot."  Coach said.

Kwangjin nodded.

The buzzer that signified the end of the timeout went off. Coach walked up to me and placed his hand on my shoulder. "Just shoot it with confidence."

"Yes, sir." I said to him in response.

After receiving the final word of encouragement from Coach, I was on my way to the other side of the court.

"You think you can do this?" Kwangjin asked me.

"Of course. I have all the confidence in the world that I can make this shot."

"Well, that's a good thing." Kwangjin said with a smile.

I saw Kwangjin run off after he said that. He went to go stand out of bounds since he was the guy to inbound the ball.

The referee blew his whistle to signify that play has resumed. Kwangjin received the ball from the referee and was looking to pass the ball to me as he held the ball with two hands. I ran around here and there, slipped through a bunch of people, and found myself wide open as a result. Kwangjin passed me the ball and I caught the ball but I quickly realized that I wasn't behind the three point line. Maybe it was because I was too concentrated on getting open that I forgot to stand behind the three point line. But anyways, I remembered that I had two seconds left so I took two dribbles back and then rose up to take the shot that I hoped would win us the game.

Once I shot the ball, time stood still. The crowd was silent as the ball was on its path to the basket. After what seemed like forever, the ball bounced off the rim and the crowd erupted. Since the game was played at Sapphire's gym, the crowd celebrated over my missed shot.

I slowly walked back to the bench as Kwangjin and the rest of my teammates tried to cheer me up. I was having none of it. I felt like I let my team down and guilt started to overflow in me.

About halfway into the longest trip to the bench ever, I saw Yoona staring at me. It was an interesting sight. She was standing still as the rest of the Sapphire cheerleading squad was jumping up and down in excitement. I expected her to be giving me one of those smirks. A smirk that says, "Ha, you said that Ruby would beat Sapphire." But no. She had this facial expression full of pain as if she was the one who missed the shot, and not me. Something about the way she looked at me couldn't make me take my eyes off of her. I was curious to death what she was thinking through her mind. It was as if time stood still. Again.

Beep-beep!

Jonghyun turned the alarm off and tried desperately to go back to sleep. He wanted to re-enter the scenario he was in before the alarm clock woke him up but he gave up after a minute of trying to force himself to go back to sleep. In frustration, he kicked the blankets off of his body and punched his pillow. He wasted all of his little morning energy on punching his pillow.

He tried to regain that energy by eating his breakfast meal but Jonghyun was still lifeless by the time he was on his way to school.

__________

The school day seemed abnormally long for me. It was probably because today was the day that Ruby would play Sapphire. In the morning, I wanted time to speed up. But now as I was about to step into Sapphire's gym, I wanted time to slow down. School made me exhausted and I wanted some time to relax and regain some energy. I mentally prepared myself on the car ride from Ruby's school campus to Sapphire's school campus.

Today's game was the first of the season so I was a bit nervous as I walked in Sapphire's gym with my teammates. Upon making my first step, I looked around the gym and saw almost everyone staring at us. It was a bit intimidating, but I ignored that thought and continued to walk with my teammates. We were walking to the other side of the gym because Sapphire's team already had their stuff on the side of the court closest to the door. As we were walking, I took a quick glance at the Sapphire players warming up, just to see who we were going up against. Oddly, there was this one guy just staring at me with the coldest look in his eyes. He was pretty muscular too. I thought it was a bit weird but our schools were rivals anyway so I didn't think much of it and I just ignored his glare.

*Flashback to a few moments earlier*

"Ooooh." a group of girls went after seeing Ruby's basketball team.

Out of curiosity, the Sapphire cheerleading squad turned around to see what the group of students were oohing at. Ruby's team were walking in and Yoona noticed a specific somebody.

"Ruby's basketball team always has the good looking players." Yuri said as she looked at the 11 players walking. "Sapphire never has anyone handsome on their team." Yuri said with a pout.

"That Ok Taecyeon kid is pretty handsome." Sooyoung said as she glanced at Yoona.

Please Subscribe to read the full chapter