Day two. As she walked through the gym doors for the second time in as many days, Seungwan couldn’t help the nervousness that coursed through her body. The only rational reasoning for this, she thought was that her anxiety was due to the second round of tryouts and not due to the extremely high chance she’d run into Joohyun again.

At least her emotional support human was with her. She knew that Seulgi would pass the tryouts without an issue and was glad to have at least one friendly face around.

“Here we go again,” Seulgi said, unable to keep the note of excitement from her voice. She bounced back and forth on the balls of her feet, looking around at the much smaller crowd that had gathered. “Wow, they cut a lot of people.”

Seungwan nodded. The previous morning the gym had been almost stiflingly crowded but today she noticed there were only about twenty or so girls warming up on the court. She looked around, automatically searching for Joohyun so she could avoid—ahem, keep an eye on her.

She found her warming up with her partner, the two of them already wearing their uniforms. Joohyun set a perfect pass to her partner, who leapt forward and spiked it over the net, easily breaking through the duo of girls defending on the other side. Seungwan’s mouth dropped open at the sheer power the taller girl projected. Sure, they were only warming up and not having to deal with other factors like opposing players but even so, their synergy was precise.

The taller girl cheered as the coach on the sidelines gave her a thumbs-up before ducking under the net to fetch her ball. Seungwan caught a glimpse of the number printed on the back of the girl’s jersey: 31.

A moment later another girl joined them for the next drill, this one with the number 17 on her back. They rallied back and forth with the three girls on the other side of the net, neither side giving in.

“Holy , they’re amazing,” Seungwan whispered, blown away by the skill level she was seeing. Sure, she and Seulgi weren’t amateurs but collegiate volleyball was a completely different kind of monster. And then of course there was Joohyun. Talk about a different tier.

“What are you muttering about this time?” Seulgi asked, looking over in the direction that Seungwan was currently staring at, just in time to see the setter tip the ball over the net with an unbothered expression on her face, successfully duping the opposing side who were busy preparing to block her partner from attacking again. “Damn! Joohyun is amazing.”

“Tell me about it…”

“Oh look, they’re rallying again.” Seulgi put down her gym bag to watch as both sides suddenly got serious.

All six of the girls playing were strong and fast, but Joohyun and her two partners seemed to have a tighter overall synergy. An observation that turned out to be correct when the two back-line players witnessed an extraordinary move.

After returning the hit from the other team, number 31 angled the pass to Joohyun, who jumped up like she was going to attack the ball and in an incredible feat of agility, bent the top half of her body slightly backwards to set not to number 31 like Seungwan was expecting but to number 17, who smacked the ball over the net with a cocky smile on her face.

The play itself was amazing but what really caught Seungwan’s eye was how Joohyun’s jersey rode up just enough for her stomach to be revealed and oh my god the woman had abs.  

“Let’s just get these tryouts over with,” Seungwan stuttered, averting her gaze and already feeling her cheeks coloring. Seulgi watched her friend put down her bag and walk over to the sign-in table to check in, wondering how on Earth Seungwan would be able to survive the season if she managed to make it onto the team.

“Holy , I can’t with her gay ,” Seulgi sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between two fingers. She’d noticed how Seungwan had honest to god almost started drooling when Joohyun flashed her abs. “This season is going to kill both of us if we make it in.”

XXX

It turned out neither one of them had anything to worry about and they walked out of the gym two hours later with their official positions and a massive pile of paperwork to sign. Seungwan was SMU’s new libero and Seulgi the new defensive specialist. The rest of the day had Seungwan rushing all over campus to file paperwork and put in her measurements for her new gear.

Unlike her high school team where she and her parents were expected to foot the bill for jerseys and protective equipment the college paid for everything in its entirety. Seungwan supposed it was probably thanks to her new team’s reputation as the best in the league. The sneakers alone would have set her back a good three hundred thousand won.

By the time Seungwan finally got back to her and Seulgi’s shared dorm room, it was almost midnight. It had been one hell of a day, meeting with both the coaches and her academic advisors and signing all the required paperwork to join the team. She had to call her parents in the morning to have them send over her most recent vaccination records so the school could properly log them. Collegiate volleyball was definitely different from her old high school varsity team.

She and Seulgi would get a solid three weeks of practice with the current team before their first match took place against the women’s team from YGU, and she hoped that would be enough time for her to get comfortable with the team dynamics and work through her hopelessly growing crush on her team captain.

Speaking of Seulgi, her roommate had gotten home first and she could hear her singing in the shower. Tossing her backpack onto her desk and her phone on the bedside table she knocked loudly on the door. “Seulgi-ah, hurry up in there I want to get ready for bed!”

“I’ll be out in ten!” was the cheerful reply. Grumbling under her breath about conserving water, Seungwan collapsed face first on her bed to wait for Seulgi to finish. Ten minutes in Seulgi-speak would end up being close to twenty in real life. Her phone buzzed, but Seungwan didn’t have the energy to even look at what her notification was.

Her thoughts wandered to Joohyun again and she growled, wrapping her pillow around her face. This was so stupid. Stupid Joohyun and her stupid pretty face and gorgeous body and adorable smile and…

This season was going to be awful. She didn’t even want to think about the basically guaranteed eventuality that she and Joohyun would be in the same changing room together.

Seungwan’s phone buzzed again and she sighed, rolling over and grabbing the offending device off her bedside table. To her surprise she had more than two hundred notifications on her social media.

“What the hell?” she muttered, scrolling through her feed. Her presence on social media wasn’t a big one, she followed a few of her favorite musicians and some of her old teammates. For her, social media was more of a way to keep up with some of the news around her rather than a means of communication with her friends. Unlike Seulgi, who had gathered a small army of dedicated fans after she began posting pictures of her artwork. Yet for some unknown reason she’d somehow gained over a hundred new followers. She didn’t recall posting anything, and the last thing she’d been tagged in was Seulgi’s congratulatory post for making it onto the team.

That must have been it. She quickly took a look at Seulgi’s post and noticed an entire thread of comments that weren’t there an hour ago.

@yerimiese: Welcome to the team! Let’s kick some this season!

@im_your_joy: We’re gonna be unbeatable this season with these two in our back line.

@renebaebae: Looking forward to our first practice together!

The comments alone were almost enough to send Seungwan into cardiac arrest, but it was the notification that followed that really had her fearing for her health.

Bae Joohyun, Park Sooyoung, Kim Yerim and 98 others are now following you.

Seungwan dropped her phone in shock, groaning in pain as it smacked her square in the middle of her forehead.

Ugh, I regret this already.

-END

Lemme know if the girls from YGU, JYPU or RBWU should be the stars of the next drabble series. Or if you want more SMU shenanigans that works too!