Hoop 8

"Good job on winning all three matches on the first day everyone," Namjoon congratulated as all of them crammed into a small cheap BBQ restaurant nearby.

However, no one was listening to him because everyone was already busy stuffing their faces with meat.

"Hey sunbae, are you going to finish that?" Jungkook asked while pointing at a piece of meat on Seokjin's plate with his chopsticks. He didn't even give a chance for the senior to answer, already stealing it off the plate and putting the meat into his mouth.

"Hey! I didn't even say you could have that you brat!" Seokjin scowled loudly.

"Then do you want it back?" The brunette asked in a monotone, opening his mouth teasingly.

"Ew! No! You're so disgusting!" Seokjin scrunched up his nose distastefully, causing the others to chuckle at the both of them.

"Hey Jimin, can you please put that teddy bear away, it’s starting to creep me out. I can't eat properly," Hoseok said while making a motion at Jimin's stuffed teddy bear that had a seat of its own next to its owner.

"I think Sir Bearcelot deserves to sit with us. It was because of him that we won today. He brought us good luck!" Jimin snorted.

"You named that thing?" Yoongi narrowed his eyes at the teddy bear. "Why would you name your teddy bear? What are you five?"

"Thankyousomeoneunderstandsme!" Taehyung exclaimed with his mouth full of food.

Jimin's Sir Bearcalot suddenly became the main subject of the boys conversation, earning them weird side glances from the other customers in the restaurant.

While they continue to bicker, Jennie wiped her lips and dropped her chopsticks into her bowl.

"I'm done," She said over all the noise.

"Really? You barely eaten," Jungkook pointed out. "Aren't you hungry?"

"I'm full," Jennie told him before noticing his eyes staring down at her leftovers like they would suddenly magically walk to his own plate.

His still so hungry? He ate like three rice bowls, 2 steaks, practically gobbled up most of the side dishes and stole food from his team mates plates. Well, I guess his still growing which explains his huge appetite.

Jennie then pushed her bowl of leftovers towards Jungkook who sat across from her.

"Here, you can have mine,"

Jungkook lifted his gaze from the bowl to her.

"You didn't spit in it did you, sunbae?"

Jennie glared at him in return.

"If you don't want it then I'll just give it to somebody else,"

The manager was about to take back the bowl when one of Jungkook's big hand suddenly laid on top of hers, halting her actions. She suddenly felt a tingling sensation where Jungkook was touching her. Thankfully the rest of the members were still too busy talking nonsense about Sir Bearcelot to noticed anything..

"No, I want it," Jungkook smirked lowly as he brushed a thumb over the back of her hand.

With narrowed eyes, Jennie quickly pulled her hand back forcefully to her side and abruptly got up from her seat, causing everyone to pause from their talk to look at her in surprise.

"Where are you going Manager-nim?" Jingoo asked as they watched their manager headed for the front entrance of the restaurant.

"I need some air, it's too smoky in here," Jennie answered. "Don't mind me, just continue having your dinner,"

Once she stepped foot outside and closed the door behind her, the manager let out a heavy sigh as she breathed in the cool evening fresh air.

"What a day," She muttered while giving her right shoulder a gentle squeeze to ease out the knot in her muscles. 

The next two match will be tomorrow and we're going to be playing against Cube and Starship. It's going to be way tougher than today since both schools have their own style of playing. I guess I gotta do more research tonight and--

A loud male voice drawled from a street basketball court from across the street suddenly interrupted her monologue. She looked up and saw three older high school kids playing in a match against three middle-schoolers. She found herself narrowing her eyes when she noticed just how unfair and one sided the game was.

What's that? Not only are they playing against middle schoolers but they're also using foul play to win. Tch, how disgusting.

Jennie gritted her teeth when she saw one of the older kids elbowed the younger player in the ribs, causing the poor boy to fall to his knees in pain. The older kid then scored the ball into the hoop before cheering proudly and giving his friends a round of high five.

"Excuse me, but I think you just committed a foul play so the score doesn't actually count,"

The bullies turned around and smirked at Jennie's petite figure.

"Ohh," One of them mused with a sly grin. "A girl?"

"Did you hear me?" Jennie asked dryly, glaring at them. "I said your score doesn't count because you did a play foul by pushing your opponent down,"

She pivoted her head towards the middle-schooler who was still on the ground with his friends kneeling by his side. They were all staring at Jennie with their mouths slightly agape, probably gawking at how brave and idiotic at the same time she was being right now.

"Huh, what does a girl know about basketball?" One of the older kids clicked his tongue in annoyance.

"Yeah, this is no place for someone like you to be wandering around, so get lost little girl," Another high school guy snorted, narrowing his sharp eyes at Jennie.

One of the bullies cackled as he took a step forward. He then walked in a circle around Jennie, examining her from head to toe while the brunette just glared at him. He was making her very very uncomfortable.

"Hmm...your measurements are quiet disappointing,"

Jennie's eyes widened a little when she realized what he meant by measurements.

Ugh! What a ert!

"Yo guys, look at her jacket, it has Bighit's High logo on it. I'm guessing she's the manager of their basketball team," He finally concluded to his friends when he finally stopped in front of her. 

The brunette glared up at the ert, not showing any signs that she was intimidated by him. If anything, she was even more pissed off now. This caused the bully to smirk in amusement. He then leaned forward until he was close enough to whisper into Jennie's ear.

"Listen little girl, every basketball team has their own style of playing basketball. So, if you don't like how we play, then that's your problem, do you understand?"

Jennie rolled her eyes and said, "So you're trying to tell me that your team's style of playing is by hurting the other team?"

"Hey, hey now, that's not right," The ert chuckled like it was so funny. "Our team style of playing focuses on strength, so it's not our fault if these kids were weaker and gets pushed around,"

"You guys didn't just pushed us around! You guys literally elbowed us in the guts and step on our feet the whole time we were playing!" One of the middle-schoolers, the one with the snapback, barked from where he was while pointing angrily at the older kids. "You guys played dirty!"

"What's that kid?" One of the ert's friend asked with a threatening tone as he cracked his knuckles. "That's a pretty bold accusation your making,"

"Soo-Soobin is right..." Another middle-schooler said though his voice was trembling. "You gu-guys played di-dirty..."

"Guys...stop it.. we're going to get into trouble," Their friend who was still on the ground warned while pulling onto the hem of his friends’ shirt to try to get them to stop provoking the bullies.

"Tch! Winning by foul play and calling yourselves basketball players! What a joke!" The snapback kid yelled, ignoring both his friend's plea and the warning look Jennie was trying to give him.

"Okay that's it!" The ert barked angrily. "Boys, I think we need to teach these little kids some manners!"

"Ha! Gladly!"

Jennie watched as one of the ert's friend roughly grabbed the snapback boy by the collar and easily lifted him of the ground.

Shoot! I have to do something!

"Oh no you don't" The ert hissed as he forcefully pulled Jennie back and wrapped an arm around her so she couldn't move.

"Let me go you ert!!" She growled while trying to break free from the ert's lock on her. 

"Just stay put and watch if you don't want the same thing that's happening to the kid happen to you."

"Let Soobin go!" Jennie heard one of the middle-schooler yelled, sounding like he was about to cry.

The other two younger boys were being held back by the third bully who was making a motion for his friend to get this over with before they get caught.

"Hurry up Peniel before someone comes!"

"His just a kid! Let him go!" Jennie hissed when she saw the bully, Peniel, holding Soobin raised his fist, ready to strike a punch at the struggling kid. But of course, it just fell on deaf ears.

"This oughta teach you kids a lesson for being disrespectful to your seniors!"

"I said let him go!"

Before anything else could happen, Jennie stomped on the foot of the ert who was holding her real hard and quickly ran across the court, headbutting into the bully that was holding Soobin.

Taken by surprise, Peniel let his grip on Soobin go and fell onto the ground on his with Jennie crushing on top of him from the impact.

"Get out of here and go get help right now!" She yelled at Soobin who quickly got up and shuffled his feet out of the court, looking all flustered and frightened.

"You little !" Peniel growled from underneath her. "You want to play it rough huh! I give you rough!"

He grabbed a handful of her Jennie's messed up pony tail and pulled her up to her feet roughly by her hair.

"Let go of me!" Jennie hissed in pain.

"Don't hurt noona!" Soobin's friends pleaded.

"Oh we're not gonna hurt her," The ert snorted as he took a few steps forward towards where Peniel was holding Jennie. "We're just gonna have a little fun with her,"

"You know, she's actually kinda cute," Peniel smirked as Jennie repeatedly hit hand that was pulling on her hair. 

"Hmm, perhaps I was wrong about her measurements. How about we see what's underneath that jacket of yours?" Minhyuk chuckled  before pulling down the zip of her sports jacket only to clicked his tongue annoyance when he saw that she was wearing a baggy white t-shirt underneath.

"What the hell is this? That's so not y at all!" 

"Go to hell," Jennie spit causing the bully to flare his nosetrils at her.

"Why you--"

"--You guys really have some nerve to ually harass a high school girl out in the open like this. That's not very smart of you guys is it?"

All of them snapped their head to the source of the voice and Jennie's eyes widened in surprise. It was the whole Bighit basketball team with Soobin standing among them.

"Oi what do you guys think you're doing to our manager?" Jimin asked, glaring at the bullies with his dark beady eyes.... while still holding onto Sir Bearcalot in his hands. Wow how scary.

"How dare you guys touch Manager-nim!" Taehyung barked, already cracking his knuckles

"Didn't your mothers teach you guys how to treat a girl?" Namjoon sighed, shaking his head in disapproval.

"Probably the reason why they don't have girlfriends," Seokjin snickered.

"Can we just beat them up and go home already?" Yoongi yawned.

"Oi Peniel, I think that's Bighit high basketball team!" One of the unamed bully who was holding the other two trapped middle-schoolers, hissed at his friends. "Let's get out of here. We can't possibly take them down with only three of us!"

He then let the two kids go and pushed them forward.

"Errr....Yeah, let's just bail," Minhyuk suddenly muttered, all his arrogance from before seem to have vanish all of a sudden.

Seeing as they were right, Peniel gave in reluctantly and let go of Jennie's hair. "Tch, fine!" 

"You may be lucky today since you have your bodyguards with you but this isn't over little girl. We'll play again next time," Peniel hissed lowly to Jennie before the three quickly left the place.

Jennie let out a sigh of relief as she zipped up her jacket again.

"What!? we're just going to let them go like that?!" Taehyung whined. "After what they did to our manager and the poor kids!"

"Yeah! We shouldn't let those cowards that easily!" Jingoo agreed.

"No, no, violence won't solve with violence guys. It will only get us and our school into trouble" Namjoon sighed. "And even worst, we can get dropped out of the tournament for fighting,"

 "Let's just be thankful that we got here in time before anything else could have happened to Manager-nim," Eunwoo said as well.

"Are you okay Jennie-ssi?" Jimin asked as he helped their manager back on her feet.

"Thanks guys," The manager thanked them, feeling bad that she had caused them trouble in the first place. "I'm sorry for causing trouble,"

"What were you thinking Manager-nim?! They could have really hurt you!" Hoseok exclaimed all of a sudden.

"I'm sorry, it's just that, I couldn’t just do nothing and watch them hurt those kids," She answered while making a motion at the three middle schoolers.

"We're sorry for almost getting you hurt!" The three of them apologized, bowing apologetically. "You can punish us if you like!"

Jennie found herself smiling as a thought suddenly crossed her mind.

"How about you play one game with those three hyungs of yours on a 3 on 3 game? They’ll show you how real basketball players should be playing.Then I guess we can call it even then," Jennie said while pointing at Taehyung, Jimin and Yoongi who were standing side by side with each other.

"Oh cool, I'm game!!" Taehyung yelled happily, already dribbling the ball towards the hoop. "I'll go easy on you kids!"

"Well, another game won't hurt. Please take care of Sir Bearcelot please Eunwoo," Jimin handed his teddy bear to Eunwoo who then stared down at the teddy bear with a pair of narrowed eyes and a tilt of his head.

"Come on Yoongi hyung!"

"Ughhhhh, why do I have to play?” Yoongi groaned as he got dragged to the court. “You guys are so annoying, I just wanna go home,”

The three middle schoolers looked at each other and grinned cheekily.

“Alright!!”

They then ran off to play the 3 on 3 with the older boys.

Good, at least their smiling now and playing a real game now.

"That's pretty reckless of you, Manager-nim," Namjoon suddenly said, making Jennie turned to look at him. "Who knew you had it in you?"

"Jisoo would kill me if you had gotten hurt or even a single scratch on you," Seokjin sighed in relief. "Be more careful next time alright,"

"Hey, does anyone know where Jungkook is?" Hoseok suddenly asked when he finally realized that their Power Forward wasn't with them. "Where did he go? I swore he was with us a second ago,"

Jennie felt herself stiffened.

Don't tell me....

Next Day

“Ahh, so we’re