Krystal's POV

At school the next day when I was caught up in the hype from the newly printed posters I nearly broke my leg trying to climb the staircase because so many people rushed down to see them. I waved it away and only watched my friends at lunch stare at a ripped poster which apparently Tess had fought for so that my friends could have a copy.

It was the poster for the basketball matches for the top schools and frankly and luckily for our school our match was today and in our school. The hype today had pretty much made people forget about my incident with the grape juice yesterday as they were all obviously talking about the match. I felt relieved but annoyed at the same time; this was way too loud for a normal day in school.

It was mostly the girls. Weird huh? Well it was nothing to mistake, there were boys playing and I heard rumours from last year’s competition that the players would lift their shirts off and display their abs for the girls at the end so, the girls had definitely saved seats  through the will of wanting to see abs.

 I on the other hand couldn’t think of a way to get home faster. I needed to get my work done and on top of that I wanted to try out this new chocolate cake recipe I had salivated the whole day for. I was up for a treat or a disaster but anyway I knew I was going to have fun baking that cake.

I turned to the active side of this table, towards my friends and came back into listening to their conversation which was still about the basketball game. ‘’Kai is going to be there.’’ ‘’No way, I thought that his school kicked him out.’’ ‘’No, apparently all the girls signed a petition for him to stay and the principle had no choice.’’ The girls laughed and kept reading at the names on the list for the players until I heard Zico’s name.

That’s when all of them stopped and looked somewhere near my direction. ‘’What?’’ I asked. ‘’Just wanting to see your reaction’’ Summer said as an excuse for all the staring in my direction and I lifted a brow very slightly, she gave Lesley a look and both smiled at each other. They must be telepathically talking about an opportunity with Zico at the match.

 ‘’I’m not going, you guys go and have fun, I have better things to do instead of waste my precious time on a  bunch of guys tossing a ball around and then blaming the half- cheerleaders for distraction when losing a point.’’ I said and heard them chuckle at me.

‘’Typical Krystal’’ Clara blew a raspberry in my direction and I frowned. ‘’Agree to disagree on this guys but I’m not going’’ I said and I felt the tap of Lesley’s arm on my shoulder which pulled me closer to her. ‘’Come on Krystal, come with us so you’d get some of the action. Have some fun and hang around with us. We can make bets on who wins and do dares and you get to watch us.’’ She said trying to get me to come. I thought about it and then shook my head once again. Lesley released my shoulder and placed her head down on the table looking rather depressed. ‘’I’ve tried my best guys I can’t make her come. I have failed!’’ she sulked and I smiled. I patted her back. ‘’It’s okay, maybe next time’’ I said.

I went to my last lesson with a smile and came back out an hour after that with a smile still on my face happy about the fact that I was going to catch an empty bus as everyone was headed for the basketball match. When I set foot out of the classroom I went for the exit only to be pulled back by my bag and dragged in the opposite direction with fear and shock written all over my face.

I struggled and finally turned around to see who was pulling me. A guy who I had the feeling I saw before. ‘’You can’t leave, he’s asked for you.’’ He said and grabbed my jacket and pulled me again. ‘’Wait, who did? I don’t know you so let go of me!’’ I kept struggling and struggling but he only pulled harder onto me every single time, the corridors had emptied out to the basketball court so I was alone on this. We got to that dead end corridor again and then I knew who had called for me. The moment when that guy released my jacket I ran for it in the way that we came but only to crash into a chest and hit my nose.

‘’Oumpf’’ I grumbled and covered my face as the impact had hurt. Zico was standing there in his black and red basketball outfit.

‘’Are you insane? You can’t order people to kidnap other people for you, you insane man! Stop kidnapping me! Leave me alone!’’ I kept screaming at him and checked my hand to see if I had been bleeding from the impact. I looked up at him and watched his smirk grow bigger and bigger as the guy who brought me here had left.

‘’Where did you think you were going?’’ he asked referring to earlier.

‘’Home.’’ I stated and detoured around him to leave but he only shoved me back into my place and I ended up in front of him again. ‘’Leave me alone’’ I said. I knew I had to stay away from him. Sehun told me that, my sister and mother but also some of my friends. I could only take their advice seriously now. ‘’But I’m playing today, you can’t possibly miss it’’ he skipped past my wish earlier and waited for my answer. ‘’No, thank you.’’ I grabbed onto the straps of my bag and waited for the ‘oh, such a shame’ comment with a twist on my lips.

‘’I’m not having that’’ he said and I looked taken aback. ‘’Well, tough. I am.’’ I said and failed at leaving from there again. I was in fact taken by surprise, the basketball in his hand had dropped on the floor and he attacked me. I was pinned to that wall again. ‘’Krystal’’ he said my name once and softly as he leant in.  Instead of standing any more of the torture and his hot breath at the side of my neck I pushed my face into his neck to end it all and felt him react surprised in his body language.

 It was silent now. Maybe I shouldn’t have done that, I swore I could smell his cologne in definition straight from his skin.

‘’You like that?’’ he suddenly asked and I opened my eyes. I tried to push him away but he only resisted and pushed back into the space to close the gap.

 ‘’ If you stay for the match I’ll stop bothering you’’ he said and I looked up by accident in surprise of the deal. Our faces were extremely close. ‘’Deal’’ I said. He smiled and let go of me and took three steps backwards with a smile on his face. ‘’Find your friends; I’m sure every girl in this school is here to watch me.’’ He said and smirked as he picked up the ball from the floor and twisted it on the tip of his finger. It spun without falling to the side.

‘’Every girl but one’’ I said. He stopped the ball and came closer. ‘’Oh, trust me, you’ll keep your eyes on me the whole time.’’ he said as he came forth. ‘’I’ll try my best not to’’ I said and smiled. I was happy. After all of this time he was going to leave me. Who knew it’d take a basketball game to lose this guy off my tail.

‘’But there’s a condition to this deal’’ he said. I placed my eyebrow up. ‘’Wait after the match for me, I’ll meet you on the court.’’ he said. I couldn’t agree any less, if that’s what it took to get rid of him then so be it. I’ll congratulate or tell him to do better next time depending on the results and then I’ll go home with a smile on my face.

He motioned me to go towards the court outside and I moved into its direction. ‘’See you there’’ he said as I turned my back towards him and began walking ahead. ‘’Yeah, I hope you lose’’ I said with a smile on my face and waited for his reaction. ‘’What did you say?’’ he asked. ‘’I said, I hope you-‘’ he suddenly appeared in front of me and I shut up. Maybe I’m taking my jokes out too far with him. ‘’Are you testing me?’’ he asked. I shook my head in fear. ‘’I’m sorry.  A thousand apologies, I swear I didn’t mean it. I hope you do your best and win a gold medal out there.’’ I placed my hands together and closed my eyes. I heard him laugh in a distance. I turned around and saw him walking off and laughing still. ‘’You rude jerk!’’ I screamed and ran off in fear he’d come after me again.

On my way to the court outside which was by the way huge I saw a mixture of people, ones which I recognised and ones which I didn’t which I figured were the supporters for the other team. I got into the court outside which was no joke in size and went searching the benches which  laying in increasing heights and looked for my friends. It took me to go all the way around the court until I found them; there were too many girls to scan here. Obviously here in time to save the best seats to get a picture of the abs I guess.

Clara gave me a bone crushing hug when she saw me. I was then supplied with bags of sweets, popcorn, and a drink whilst I was being squeezed in between my friends, I was thinking of backing out of this before I was killed but obviously they won’t let me go. I tried to make myself adjust to the new setting but the more I tried the more I was annoyed. They were all talking at once, screaming, chanting and playing music out loud.

Over there some were dancing, in the back there was a group of teenagers singing popular songs on the radio, on the other side of the basketball court they were filming a fight which was getting bigger and bigger, next to that there was a person looking like he was telling jokes because all they did was laugh and finally the girls I sat next to were doing dares.  My brain went mush mush.

Laughter from people around made me aware of the fact that I don’t consider everything at once to be normal or okay. I like to take things step by step, having all of these things happen around me at once is confusing and rather exasperating. I almost felt buried and suffocated for being inserted in such an overpowering environment. I was definitely out of my comfort zone. I didn’t know how to act or how to feel.

We were halfway up the benches and so I felt uncomfortable at the amount of people behind us watching. I just wanted to have this over and done with; I didn’t even know how long this was. Everyone here had been very excited and we had already witnessed a few outbreaks in between the different supporters and I couldn’t possibly make myself smaller at this, I’ve been in the middle of the action before and I couldn’t stress out how scared I was to my friends as they knew the story.

When the players came out an explosion of cheers triggered me into panic. Clara soothed me with a smile but then she shouted at Kai to ‘take his shirt off already’. I smiled at the wildness from my friends and went with the flow. It wasn’t soon until he came out as well. I’m sure that him searching the crowds was so that he could find me and he was having trouble finding me up to the point where one of my friends, Tess, decided to make a scene and have a fight with a guy and so screaming out to him.

 Zico must have heard Tess and had seen me. Hi