Clad in a gray hoodie, wet towel draping over her neck, Yujin had just taken a quick shower after training ended. Beads of water slip down the blue hair tied in a high bun, her round glasses partially fogged with steam. It’s only eight in the evening, but most of her teammates had left the locker room and returned to their respective dorms so they can collapse on their beds. As tournament season is nearing, their coach had decided to lengthen the duration of training sessions, so they were all exhausted by the end of the day. Yujin is the only one who stayed behind, she wants to avoid Wonyoung’s constant badgering about “taking action on her crush”.

Sitting cross-legged on the bench, Yujin’s thumb taps lazily on her phone while she views the various stories of her acquaintances on Instagram. She breaks a huge, slow yawn, but catches herself in the middle of it when she catches a glimpse of a familiar figure in her classmate’s video. She jerks up immediately and taps to rewind.

It’s Minju, squatting on the floor bent over, laughing loudly at some lame joke that someone said.

Yujin cracks a tiny smile, the corner of her lip pulling up unavoidably when she’s reminded of that Mulan reference the girl made out of nowhere. She hasn’t seen Minju in weeks after they submitted their assignment, she’ll have to wait till following Monday. The only class they have together is English Literature, but it is suspended temporarily because their lecturer is down with a case of Chickenpox. Yujin is glad it’s just an elective module, and honestly? Home-based learning isn’t much different from actual lectures because no one listens either way. They’re also in vastly different courses, not to mention the fact that they don’t actually know one another that well, so she has been keeping herself up to date through social media. For a girl as attractive as Minju, both personality and appearance-wise, it isn’t a surprise she’s well-liked among boys and girls in school despite being in one of the more unpopular clubs. She’s often invited to parties organized by seniors and has a reputation of being extremely kind and easy-going – those are the impressions Yujin has obtained from her extensive scrolling. She had purposefully followed a ton of her batchmates just to do so. She taps and holds again to get that perfect moment of Minju’s face of genuine laughter.

Oh man, if only I could have attended Eunbi unnie’s party last Friday… Stupid job…

As Yujin continues tapping on her phone, the same chuckles repeatedly echoing through the locker room, she can’t help but feel a sense of regret for placing her work shift on Friday nights for the double pay. Then it dawns upon her.

Damn it. It’s Friday. Any plans of a good night’s rest are ruined for Yujin due to her self-inflicted greed for some extra cash. She sighs in exhaustion just as a voice speaks out near her ear.

“You’ve been looking the same thing for the past twenty minutes.”

“Ah!” Yujin jerks backwards, grabbing her towel when she almost falls backwards off the bench. Whipping her head around to face the voice, she cries out. “Hyewon unnie! Since when were you here? And why are you looking at my phone!” She glares at her team manager and instinctively turns her phone away in the opposite direction.

Hyewon shrugs nonchalantly. “You didn’t move away, and I’ve been standing here for quite a while. I thought you didn’t mind.”

“Of course I mind! This is an invasion of privacy! I didn’t even know you were here.”

“And you’re a creep for stalking that girl. You need to stop doing…” Hyewon raises a brow and points at the phone, “…that.”

The younger girl scoffs, visibly offended. “Am not! I’m just… Looking.” Yujin crosses her arms, prompting with another question to direct Hyewon’s attention away after receiving a doubtful expression. “So, what’s up? Why are you still here?”

Ignoring the question, the older girl decides to quench her curiosity.

“Who’s that? She’s pretty.”

“Kim Minju. You don’t know her?”

“Am I supposed to?”

Yujin beats herself up internally. “Oh. Uh. No, I just assumed you would since… You’re kind of friends with everyone in school.”

Hyewon glances upwards and purses her lips, trying to recall. “Huh… Now that I think about it, I might have seen her at Eunbi unnie’s party last week.” She looks back towards the girl. “So why are you so obsessed with her?”

“I’m not obsessed!” Yujin groans, splaying her hands in emphasis.

“It’s either you’re a creep,” Hyewon bends to level their eyes, and squints, “or you like her.”

Met with silence and avoiding eyes, Hyewon straightens her back and gasps. “Oh my god, did I guess that correctly? You do like her?” Hands clasping over , she teases the blushing girl. “Our Yujinnie has someone she likes! That’s so cute!”

“I didn’t say anything!” Yujin whines, slapping away the pair of arms that tries to encircle her. “I don’t like her! Why are you and Wonyoung saying the exact same things?” She grumbles. “We’re just friends.”

“Oh, whatever you say, you’re too easy to read. Pure, innocent Yujinnie.” Hyewon coos, tickling Yujin’s chin as the girl backs herself away, shrinking in detest.

“I’m not a baby!”

“Yes you are~ Our precious baby~ Also, I can tell when you’re lying. No one does that unless they’ve got a crush, and you have it written all over your face.”

Sensing that Hyewon isn’t going to back down anytime soon, Yujin chomps down on the fingers that are wiggling in front of her.

“Ow!” Hyewon retracts her hand with a wince. “Okay! I was just joking!”

Yujin sticks her tongue out, feigning annoyance. She can never be angry at Hyewon for too long, and deep down, she knows she’s just irked at the fact that she was unable to admit to her own feelings.

“Anyway, I’m here because our Captain Rabbit wants me to tell you something.” As the jesting ends, Hyewon regains seriousness and sits next to Yujin, diving straight into her purpose of coming into the locker room.

Yujin nods, signaling for Hyewon to continue.

Gazing directly into Yujin’s eyes, Hyewon states. “Eunbi unnie’s intending to hand you the number 10 jersey to you next year, when she graduates.”

Yujin perks up immediately, obviously elated at the news, but as soon as the words register in her ears confusion and worry flash across her face, she realizes the weight that would bear down on her. “What? But… We’ll still have the 3rd years? Why me-”

“You’re the best we’ve got, Yujin. You’re going to be our ace, all of us can tell. We’ve discussed it beforehand, even coach thinks you’re our best bet.”

“But-”

“But it’s not certain. We’ll be looking at your performance this season and then make our final decision based on that.”

All of a sudden, gravity seems to pull at Yujin with all its might. Yujin loves soccer, and of course she’s happy to be considered for such an important position in the team, the reason why she chose to attend this school was because she has always looked up to the ace of the soccer team. She’s always dreamed of donning the jersey that bears the two-digit number, the one Eunbi has been wearing, but now she’s given the chance to prove herself, it feels so abrupt and she isn’t ready at all. She has so many things to improve on, but there’s only t