Minah had expected Jihoon to be late for their first "date" due to his guitar practice in the afternoon, but once again she had underestimated her friend. Doing warm-ups by the field alone, Jihoon gave her a mock scowl as he stepped forward to help her with her belongings. 
 

"You're early," Minah muttered, still surprised with the punctuality of Jihoon. The boy was already setting her belongings by the bleachers and heading out to set up obstacles for her training course. Waving a nonchalent hand, he simply replied casually, "someone needs to set up this track if they want to have a successful training. We're aiming to have our Minah beat those snobs." 

Minah paused momentarily in tightening her laces, looking up into the distance to watch Jihoon jog down the stretch to set up cones for her to do running exercises. Perhaps it was the deafening sounds of the cicada in the silent summer night of Seoul, or perhaps it was the words Jihoon had uttered, or simply the fact that amidst her exhaustion and frustrations with Wonwoo, Jihood had actually remembered her woes with her teammate; but Minah felt her heart warming up a bit.

She could use this feeling to run better. She was certain of it. 

Although what actually happened was that Jihoon, their former middle school baseball captain, had turned out to be a devil of a sports leader. He was absolutely ruthless in his regimental training for Minah, and she later found out that what she had thought were his musical scores poking out of his guitare case had turned out to be training notes he had planned for their night sessions. To her utter horror and dismay, Jihoon had planned several sessions ahead, all the way till her track meet of the season. It dawned on her after the shocking streak of jump squats, leg presses, sprints and standing-broad jumps that she was doing, Jihoon was the hell coach that every single student athlete feared, including myself. She wasn't sure her doubts were about overtaking her teammates anymore - it was more about whether she would be able to walk the next day. 

The frustrating thing was that she couldn't complain because she had asked for it, and Jihoon was actually doing every single exercise alongside herself without any objection to this ridiculous plan he had conjured. Eventually the griping pain of stitches overtook her sides and she begged Jihoon to stop with what she thought would be puppy eyes, but Jihoon seemed irked by her attempt and said, "stop staring at me weirdly and continue." 

Jihoon had a weird way of encouraging people. And that was to push them during the exercises. Literally. Minah had no choice but to complete the exercise. 

When they finally cleared out the place to return to the bleachers, Minah was torn between thanking Jihoon for forcing this training regime down throat, or strangling him to death so that I could terminate this practice session. 

"Perfect date, wasn't it," Jihoon flashed her a rare goofy grin that would only ever appear if he won a competition, or the dork in him came out when he got his favourite computer game as a gift. 

She gulped down the water that she brought for the training. His grin was actually making her urge to curse subside.

Then a random ball was flung in her direction, and if it wasn't for her quick instincts she was sure it was would have hit her face. 

"Hey!"

Then she realised what it was. 

"Giant rice ball with extra fillings for the girl who hates bento box food! I'm the best, aren't I?" 

Oh, that brat! Begging for compliments all the time. 

"Jihoon, you're a vain lil b*tch, you know that?" Minah couldn't suppress her beaming grin. 

He winked. 

"I know."

She wolfed down her supper. 

-----

Minah was unfortunatley sorely mistaken when she thought that her night training session with Jihoon was the worst thing that she would be facing that week. 

As of now she had a list, which comprised that one lunch with her brother and Wonwoo, that meal with Seungcheol, the trainings she had with her team this week and the night before. Yet right now her brother was wrecking this list. He had suddenly dragged her and Jihoon to the cafe that they had frequented to plan all the recent happenings, and Minah was fighting to not let her expressions show that she was absolutely terrified that she would be byusted for good. Thankfully Jihoo