So, today was the day for the greco-roman finals. Our baby owl isn’t competing, but he did want to go and support a couple of friends he had made through his time competing. Jihyo was very sociable and the fact that he is unbelievably shy despite having no problems suplexing a bich when he had to, it was amusing and brought the boy a lot of connections in the field. He had friends on both teams, luckily nobody shared categories with the others, so he could cheer without feeling guilty towards any of them.

Today, despite being moring, we have Jihyo and Dahyun in casual suits (those that don’t really match but kind of do), being taken to Bangi-Dong by mr Bae for the national finals, this was the event where olympic scouts would approach the competidors, this was where Jihyo himself had been invited to the olympic team back in middle school as well. There would be competitions happening throughout the day, greco-roman was scheduled to be in the morning, and the (barely) taller boy wanted to watch, he did enjoy it.

Dahyun went along for the ride, and the chance to dress up, and to see his boyfriend dressed up (they still haven’t told anyone), Jihyo having promised a lunch date and to spend the rest of this saturday together was the cherry on top and they were off. Anyhow, both got their backstage passes at the door, Jihyo had pulled some strings to get them, and headed in to greet the people the taller boy came to see and, maybe, make some new friends. It went all fine and dandy, the boys found their seats easily, Jihyo shook some hands on their way there, and both got quite a lot of lunch invitations from what looked suspiciously like college scouts.

“You are still being scouted?” Dahyun couldn’t help himself.

“Well, I was among the top athletes. I guess the Zhen incident spread around and people still want to give me a chance.”

“And you really don’t have any intention on taking those sports scholarships?”

“You know I don’t. I’m keeping them open, in case I don’t get the academics scholarship, but I really don’t want to be a college jock.”

“But I love you being a jock and sportsy and all.” Dahyun flirts.

“Oh, I’m keeping the body. You know very well that I’m gonna be a trophy husband and you are the one paying for our lavish lifestyle.”

“Good, because we haven’t even started using your body properly.”

“We can get right into that as soon as we get home. Mom and dad are away for the weekend.” Jihyo purrs and the pale boy was thankful they were sitting because his knees buckled right away.

Before Dahyun could gather himself and speak, the announcer stepped into the ring and began his speech. Good thing too, because what do you even say to something like that! Sure, they had to sit through six different talks, and were given everything they could ever want for it, even things they never even knew existed, courtesy of papa Park and mama Bae, those two talked and decided to take the kids to a shop and got mama Son in it as well, who also dragged both her boys along. Chaeyoung, poor soul, was traumatized by the talk the couple who owned the shop gave them, he hadn’t even kissed anyone before.

Now, back to our secret couple, they enjoyed their time. Dahyun was just admiring how his boyfriend lit up whenever a contestant managed a difficult move, or how he flinched when someone took a nasty hit. Jihyo, in turn, was very much entertained, he had been here before, but down there, sweaty and too overwhelmed to pay attention to anything besides his opponent. Sitting in the crowd and being able to appreciate all the moves, speculate which one he would have done instead and just watch great fighters compete was much more fun than he had ever hoped for. It was an amazing experience.

Dahyun, not really a connoisseur of the fine greco-roman fighting, often got distracted with everything else around him, among one of his surveys he spots a very familiar crowd. It was coach Zhen and his main boys on the other side of the stadium, all the way to the back, but definitely looking like they are up to no good. He decides to warn Jihyo, as the boy is entranced with the competition and paying zero attention to much else besides making sure he is still holding Dahyun’s hand and kissing his temple every now and then. 

“Ji, can you focus on me right now?” The smaller boy asks once the referee stops the fight.

“I’m always focusing on you. But is there something wrong?” Jihyo gets honestly worried.

“There’s nothing wrong, calm down. I just noticed something and I think you should know about it right now.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Look over there.” Dahyun motions to the general direction but doesn’t point to not draw attention. “Across the gym, to the left, all the way to the top of the bleachers. Zhen and his main boys are here.”

“I don’t see them, but I’ll send some texts and see what I can find out, hold up.”

“Please do, they aren’t looking like they came to enjoy the fights at all.”

“Alright, just pretend you don’t see them and I’ll see what’s up.”

Jihyo fishes his phone and does a tremendous job in not letting it show he is texting, and that gets Dahyun thinking of the potential for cheating his tests if he wasn’t one of the biggest brains their school has. They go through another entire fight before Jihyo seems to have something about the situation, the baby owl just says they should leave before the next fight and meet someone backstage, whomever it is, this person seems to know what’s up.

Once down from the bleachers, Jihyo guides Dahyun through some maze-like corridors and they arrive at a locker room, the school’s colors seem to be classical blue and gold, opposed to their charcoal black and apple red, but everyone there was so friendly that it got our pale boy impressed by how real athletes are so much different from what he was used to seeing in their school. And, with that realization, he understood why his boyfriend was always so frustrated with their former wrestling team. A cheery woman waves them in and Jihyo pulls them to her.

“Jihyo, it’s always great to see you.”

“It’s a pleasure to see you too, ma’am. Thank you for receiving us.”

“No need to be so formal, when Choi told me you were sensing trouble I told her to call you back here so we could talk.”

“Yena is very nice like that.” Jihyo feels Dahyun’s grip tighten a little. “This is my boyfriend, Kim Dahyun. And without him, I wouldn’t have noticed.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am.” Dahyun greets and gets grabbed into a big hug from the coach. 

“You both are so cute and polite, I wish my kids were more like this.” The woman says aloud and there is a collective whine from the kids who heard her.

“Well, ma’am, I’m sure you heard about my school’s team being dissolved and all.” The woman nods but doesn’t interrupt. “I’m not here to badmouth anyone, but coach Zhen isn’t the most honorable guy out there, he was very fond of underhanded tactics as long as he got what he wanted.”

“I know.” The woman takes a deep breath. “He doesn’t exactly have the best reputation around coaches. We all really feel for those of you who just wanted to do good. And honestly, when you refused the olympic invitation, it was a hot topic. Us coaches wanted you there, but nobody really wanted Zhen to get the credit you would bring him.”

“Thankfully I’m aiming for an academics scholarship, then. But honestly, Hyun here told me Zhen and some of his boys are in the audience, and I just thought better to get the word around quickly.”

“I’m very glad you did, Jihyo. If you excuse me, I’ll go and have a talk with the other coaches. You both are more than welcome to stick around our locker room and mingle….” The woman pauses and gets a mischievous glint in her eyes. “I’d say don’t mingle with my girls too much, but in your case, do mingle with my girls.”

Jihyo chokes and Dahyun gets an unhealthy purplish shade of red, Yena, and two other girls, who had approached them in the middle of the conversation but decided to not interfere, cackle maniacally and hi-five their coach. The woman goes out to do whatever she decided was best, while the girls try to assure the boys it was alright and there was no need to be that flustered. They end up making good conversation, however long later, the coach comes back looking very much done with everything and beyond annoyed. 

Jihyo finds it better to just head back home, given the circumstances, so he asks Dahyun to text mrs Bae to pick them up, lucky them that the woman was fairly close by on a few errands, which they promptly agree to accompany her to. Later that afternoon, Yena would text Jihyo saying a fight broke out between Zhen and some other male coach, then some boys were found in another school’s locker room doing something with their water tumblr and everyone was on edge for the rest of the event. The couple had agreed to not mention the events to their parents because, first, they weren’t really involved in any of it, second, everything had been handled by the authorities already and there was no point in bringing it up.

Our secret couple does end up choosing Jihyo’s house for the weekend, they get up to date with their studies first thing, Nayeon does message their group chat at some point and says he will be visiting and expects dinner, the bad decision in this case, was for Nayeon to get there much earlier than he said he would. Mina was the first one to point out the suggestive noises coming from Jihyo’s bedroom, Nayeon, in true Nayeon’s fashion, thought he was going to uncover some great blackmail material, Tzuyu just rolled his eyes, Jeongyeon said it was a bad idea and Mina just giggled, but all followed anyways.

Sure, they did hear a lot of groaning, mostly Jihyo’s, and a lot of , mostly Dahyun’s, getting closer, they could hear some sloshing sounds and a slight creaking. Flinging the door open, Nayeon dove into the room, camera out and recording, only to stumble upon a massage session. Jihyo was giving Dahyun a back massage, the younger boy had been so tense in the morning that he got a stiff neck and started to develop a headache from the pain. The grunts and moans just naturally came up while the former wrestler tried to work out the knots, the bunny, as expected, started throwing a tantrum because he came out empty handed.