Leaning her body against the handrail on the second floor of the gymnasium, Hyewon stood and watched the Court 1 in excitement. There were many empty seats in the bleachers, but she wanted to have a clear view of the match, so she preferred to stand as close as possible.

Jungkook and the others had done well to win the previous matches. It’s now Hyewon’s turn to support them with the loudest cheer she could muster. Fortunately, the coach’s friends were able to come and record the matches in the three other courts, so she was free from the task and she could watch today’s matches.

With a big smile on her face, Hyewon watched Hana High’s team stretching their bodies while waiting for their opponent’s arrival. The first floor and the second floor of the gymnasium weren’t that far apart, so she could still see them clearly.

At one point, Jungkook turned around and his eyes met hers. Mirroring her smile, he waved cheerfully at her. She mouthed good luck as her response. He grinned and lifted his clenched fist in her direction as if giving her a fist bump.

When Jungkook went back to continue his stretching routine, Hyewon’s phone vibrated inside her tracksuit pocket. She took out her phone and frowned as she saw the name on her screen.

“Sehun?” Hyewon unintentionally raised her tone in bewilderment. It was roughly five minutes to eight – the schedule of the third round on the second day. There were only eight teams left in each block, so with four matches on four courts, all of them would start simultaneously at eight. Which meant, Sehun would also had his first match on the second day five minutes from now. “Why are you calling? Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your match?”

Ignoring her question, Sehun asked excitedly, “Did you see me on TV yesterday?”

“What?” Hyewon barely held herself back from shouting. “You’re calling me right before your match only for this? I’m hanging up.”

“Did you see me on TV yesterday?” Sehun repeated, his voice serious.

Hyewon, thinking that he might have something important to say, answered, “Yeah, why?”

She recalled his brief appearance on TV and remembered what he had talked about in the short interview: asking the girl he liked out on a date. She’d had her suspicion that the girl he’d meant might be her. But she’d shaken the thought away, not wanting to assume things. And more overly, she wanted to avoid the subject of Sehun’s love interest.

However, she could no longer evade the matter.

Sehun took a deep breath, loud enough to be audible through the phone call. “We’ll definitely win the tournament and I’ll ask you out on a date to confess my feelings properly. Wait for me.”

Hyewon’s heart skipped a beat. It’s hard to not be touched when he spoke that earnestly, especially about his determination to tell her his feelings. She could tell how sincere he was.

But if Hansung High won, it meant that Hana High would lose, and obviously she didn’t want that. Watching the team practicing very hard for the tournament, she just couldn’t bear to see them lose.

Opening , she wanted to say we won’t lose, but something caught in . No matter what, Sehun was her friend and she would be lying if she didn’t want him to win, too.

Why can’t they both win? she thought helplessly.

Having no idea what to say, Hyewon gulped nervously and responded in an awkward tone, “Uh, o-okay.”

Sehun whistled so cheerfully that Hyewon could almost see his bright expression in her mind only from the sound of it. “Well, now that I let it all out, I’m finally at ease. Can I ask you a favor?”

Exhaling inaudibly, Hyewon was relieved that his heavy talk was over. She just couldn’t get used to dealing with serious Sehun. “Is there a need to ask? You’ll make me do things for you regardless of what I say.”

“Relay this message to Jungkook: don’t lose until we meet in the court.”

“Of course we won’t,” Feeling offended, Hyewon muttered bluntly. Fortunately, Sehun was distracted with something else and didn’t hear her.

“See you tomorrow, then.” His voice was overlapped with the sound of the whistle, indicating his official pre-game warm-up time had started.

By tomorrow, Sehun meant the semifinal, when Hansung High faced Hana High on the court in an official game, if the two teams made it through today’s matches and tomorrow’s quarterfinals.

“Good luck,” Hyewon said before hanging up.

Shortly after, the other team entered the venue, wearing bright yellow jersey. Hyewon remembered seeing them in a video Coach Bang had given her yesterday to analyze. If there was one word to describe their attacking style, it was misleading. Every time they attacked, all the players approached the net and jumped, and with the setter’s perfect form of tossing, there was no way to tell which player he would toss to.

This team – Anyang High – was terribly skilled in using decoys.

“Whew! I made it in time!”

Taken aback, Hyewon snapped her head in the direction of the voice and found that Jungkook’s brother – Wonwoo – was standing right next to her, leaning against the railing to see the court. He didn’t seem to realize that she was there since his eyes were focused on the first floor. Panting heavily, he searched the court – she assumed he was looking for Jungkook.

“Hello, Wonwoo,” Hyewon greeted to get his attention, slightly bowing her head.

She’d only met him once before on the day of his baseball tournament, so she actually didn’t know him that well. And she was worried she would make things awkward while watching the game with him.

“Oh!” Wonwoo exclaimed, pointing his forefinger at her. “Hyewon, right? Jungkook’s girlfriend! Hey, long time no see!”

Blushing madly, Hyewon thought, I’m not Jungkook’s girlfriend. But she doubted arguing with Wonwoo wouldn’t be pointless. And she also wanted to say, it’s only been a week since we last met. Though, this guy might think a week was a long time.

Hyewon forgot that this guy next to her was expert in making things awkward.

Forcing a light laugh, Hyewon said, “You don’t have classes today?”

“I do. But they’re cancelled.” Wonwoo huffed in irritation. “I only found out about it when I already arrived at the university. I ran all the way here afterwards. Why can’t they inform the students earlier? What a pain.”

By that time, the referee blowed the whistle, signaling that it’s Anyang High’s turn to use the court for warming up. As usual, Hana High players went back to the sidelines to discuss about their stategy. That’s when Jungkook looked in Hyewon and Wonwoo’s direction.

Waving his hands wildly, Wonwoo yelled, “Jungkook! Your big brother is here to watch you! Don’t embarrass me, alright?”

Hyewon automatically looked down, her face hot with embarrassment. Wonwoo’s voice was really loud that everyone was staring at them, particularly at him. Now Hyewon knew what Jungkook had felt back at the baseball stadium when Wonwoo had his match. Either consciously or unconsciously, Wonwoo always attracted people’s attention.

Jungkook quickly turned his back and avoided Wonwoo’s gaze. He joined the others, gathering around the coach, pretending he didn’t hear his brother’s voice.

Wonwoo clicked his tongue. “I just told him to not embarrass me and he just did by not answering me.”

Hyewon held herself back from loudly saying, You’re the one who’s embarrassing him.

Even after the game had started, Wonwoo didn’t stop being embarrassing. Every time Jungkook received a hard ball, he would brag to the other spectators behind him by shouting, “That libero is my brother! He’s awesome, right?” And he would also yelled to Jungkook on the court, “Nice receive! I love you, Jungkook!”

But the most shameless thing Wonwoo did was when he realized there’s a banner tied to the railings.

“Oh! There’s a banner here!” Wonwoo dangerously slid his body out over the railing, trying to read the words written on the banner. “Keep… Keep…”

Many people who saw Wonwoo started to gasp and muttered about it. To other people’s eyes, what Wonwoo’s doing was extremely eye-catching and terribly dangerous. And they might think he’s crazy if they knew the thing he’s trying to do was read the words on the banner.

Pulling his body away from the railing as hard as she could, Hyewon whisper-shouted, “Please stop it, Wonwoo! The words written are keep the play going!”

Spare me, please, Hyewon thought desperately.

Anyang High 16-10 Hana High

Hana High called for its first time-out in the first set when the gap didn’t seem to be getting smaller. Coach Bang rushed them to gather at the bench and told his plan when they were drinking and wiping their sweat.

Jungkook was getting frustrated because the ball kept dropping to their side of the court. Their blocks didn’t work. And Wonwoo’s yelling certainly didn’t help him to calm down. Somehow, knowing that he’s here, he felt burdened. He kept thinking that he had to play better to make his brother proud.

“Just like what Hyewon wrote.” Coach Bang lifted Hyewon’s clipboard, showing her writing to them. “Anyang High is specialized in using decoys. Everyone run to the net as if they’re going to hit the ball and the setter’s posture is too perfect that you can’t predict where he’s going to send the ball to. Then, there’s only one thing you can do.”

“What is it?” Seokjin asked eagerly. Frustration could be heard clearly from his voice. Jungkook thought that middle blockers must have been pissed off the most between all of them.

“Use read block instead of commit block.”

Having no idea what the coach was talking about, Jungkook turned to Jimin, who was standing next to him. “What’s the difference?”

Jimin, eyes still focusing on the coach, explained, “Commit block is when you predict who’s going to hit the ball and jump to block him. Read block is when you watch the ball and follow where it goes to block. Of course they have their own weaknesses. Commit block is very effective against predictable teams, like a one-man team or a team which has a predictable setter. But it’s not effective against unpredictable teams, such as Anyang High. Because