3rd person’s POV

“Although I really want to know, but before I compete, please don’t tell me unnie. I’m trying to practice for the gold medal unnie, I don’t want to be distracted.”

That’s the message Yena just received from “Spoiled Puppy”. She was about to tell Yujin what she witnessed this morning, there were two things related to Minju and Chaewon. Yena felt those are important enough to be a problem that Yujin will have to care. But seeing Yujin suddenly become so serious, Yena thought things might get messed up if she kept bothering her on purpose. “If Yujin’s results aren’t good, maybe I’ll be blamed again”, Yena shakes her head.

“Hey!”, Chaewon’s voice close to her ear startles her.

“OMG!”, Yena pants, “Ya! Suddenly ...”

“What are you thinking? It’s time to fight! Let’s go!”, Chaewon gestures.

“OK! Let’s go!”, Yena instantly transforms back into an energetic duck.

The two of them quickly head to the challenge location, the gymnasium. Yena, Chaewon and their comrades, Yuqi, Shuhua, Yeji, Lia gather, with fiery eyes, they seem to want to burn the opponent on the other side of the field. And in the opposite direction, the sharp arrow-shaped eyes are also flying straight at them, as if wanting to end their reign with a life-and-death battle right here and now.

Class 2-2 today dares to challenge the champions, class 2-1. That’s right, the newly arrived transfer student quickly proved herself and greatly increased their power. Yena and Chaewon also wanted to see her abilities today, Kang Hyewon, who is standing in the center on the opposite side of the field. To the left of Hyewon are her new best friend - Lee Chaeyeon and her twin sister - Lee Chaeryeong. On the right is the destroyer trio (only for the other students, of course, except for class 2-1) – 3Jinz: Ryujin, Heejin and Hyunjin.

“1! 2! 3! Fighting!”, both sides make high fives and immediately form a line up.

Whistle!

The whistle of the physical education teacher Shingdong, who is the referee in today’s match, sounds.

“Yena-ah! Fighting!”, the loud shout of a random fangirl in the stands makes Yuri a little uncomfortable. She also has to scream with all her might in response: “Yena unnie! Hwai-ting!”. And the that girl must cross her arms in frustration when at that moment Yena blushes and just looks in Yuri’s direction and smiles.

Yena serves the ball. The ball flies quickly to the opposite court, comes just close to the edge and lightly touches the net, a dangerous underhand. Yena smirks as she thought she’d just scored an ace. But in a split second, Hyewon leans over to save the ball before it hit the ground and makes Yena wince. The ball flies up in front of Chaeryeong, she makes the setting and Chaeyeon jumps and spikes the ball. The spiking hits hard and the ball goes to an unexpected direction that Yuqi and Yeji couldn’t block, the other 4 couldn’t touch the ball and let it hit the floor.

“In", Mr. Shindong blows his whistle and points at Hyewon’s team. 1 – 0, the first score of the first set and also the first point of the match have been scored.

This volleyball match promises a lot of interesting things here, the spectators watching in the gymnasium begin to think. This is just a friendly, the classes will really compete when the school sports festival opens next month. It’s great that the last class of this afternoon is canceled so that this match can be played with all the players and so that those who love to watch them play can come freely without having to run away in the middle of classes. It seems that the new element of class 2-2 has greatly improved them, the situation just now showed that they can also become a formidable team. Class 2-1 has dominated this sport since they first entered the school, playing on top of the 3rd grade seniors, and now they are in danger of being usurped the championship.

“To be interesting, it must have a little challenge”, Chaewon sarcastically smiles.

“It’s not fun to be too easy, right?” Lia replies.

“Don’t be subjective, losing is humiliating”, Shuhua reminds them.

Hyewon’s team siding out and she serves the ball, it’s a strong hit and flies straight towards Yena at high speed.

“In”, the referee points again at Hyewon’s team. 2 – 0.

“Isn’t she good at playing, Yuri?”, Minju points to Hyewon and comments but Yuri just watches and doesn’t say anything.

Yena clenches her fists, she starts to heat up after she missed the ball just now.

This time it is Ryujin serving the ball. The balloon isn’t too strong and Lia easily defenses it. The ball is bumped and rises gently once more from Yeji’s hand, a perfect pass. “Here it is”, thought Chaewon and jumps up to spike. 2 – 1.

The audience claps and cheers after the beautiful ball, confidence returned to the faces of class 2-1. This is their usual look.

Chaewon is the next server. The ball is strong but Hyunjin catches it, Chaeryeong sets the ball and Heejin is the one preparing to finish. “Come here”, Yena whispers. The ball lands exactly where Yena had predicted, she quickly catches the ball and directs it towards Chaewon. “Chaewon”, she exclaims and Chaewon nods, returning a perfect setting. Chaeyeon and Hyewon jumps to block the ball, preparing to receive a strong spiking. But all Yena does is a drop shot, the ball goes very light but extremely dangerous, completely beyond the expectation of the other team. And none of them saves the ball. It is a good coordination of the aces duo. 2 – 2. Class 2-2 smirks, these are the ones who deserve their challenge, the first 2 points are just drafts. In fact, they never even thought that they would be able to win easily.

The match continued to be tense between the two teams, the dramatic chase took place. Hyewon’s class 2-2 struggled to win the first set with a score of 25 – 23 and made Yena’s team boil. They returned to destroy the opponent in the second set and the class 2-1 won with a score of 25 – 9. The match returned to the balance 1 - 1 after two sets. But now the score of the third set, also the final deciding set, is 25-25 after Chaeyeon’s successful block, the point just now belongs to Hyewon’s team. The situation is as tight as a string, the team that makes two mistakes in a row will be defeated.

Whistle!

Heejin serves the ball and Yuqi easily catches it, she passes it to Lia and Lia sets the ball for Yeji. This time, instead of spiking, Yeji decided to make a drop shot. A ball that surprises Ryujin and Chaeryeong, they thought they would lose the point when they missed the momentum to jump high, while the ball is being dropped low in the near corner. But Hyewon manages to slide to the floor to save the ball before it hit the ground, Hyunjin quickly made a second pass and Chaeyeon shot it back. A ball flies towards the corner of the field and there is not a single player from the class 2-1 standing near, they can only watch the ball hít the floor and bounces outside the pit.

“In”, the point belongs to Hyewon’s team. 26 – 25. Another point is that Yena’s team will lose this match.

Yena regrets a bit because she have failed in 2 match-points. When the score is 22 – 24 in favor of her team. Yena was able to finish the match without letting the 3rd set go past 25 points (normally a team will win the set when they get 25 points ahead of the opponent, but with the mandatory condition that there is a gap 2 points or more), but she spiked the ball out and soon after class 2-2 was able to get another 1 point back. And after Chaewon finished successfully, the score was 24-25, Yena had a chance to make a victory with a score of 24 - 26, but her ball was blocked by Chaeyeon and class 2-1 couldn’t block Heejin’s counterattack.

Ryujin is the server for this match-point. The ball flies close to the net very dangerously but Chaewon catches it and directes it towards Yena, she makes the second pass to Yuqi and Yuqi spikes the ball. The shot is very strong but Hyunjin saves it. The ball flies up in front of Hyewon and she passes it to Chaeyeon to finish, the coordination of the new best friends is full of precision. The ball flies to a far corner and goes very unpredictable, it seems that the outcome of the match had been decided, but Lia is able to reach the ball before it touches the floor. The ball comes back and Chaewon sets up Yeji for the spiking. This time, Chaeryeong and Heejin successfully blocks the ball, it bounces back to Yena’s team court and she catches, directing it towards Yeji. Yeji passes the ball high, creating a nice situation for Chaewon to attack. But Chaewon’s spiking isn’t strong enough and lacks sharpness, so Ryujin easily defenses it. She passes the ball to Chaeryeong and Chaeryeong performs a second pass that is just within Chaeyeon’s jumping range, a perfect connection of twins. And Chaeyeon does not miss this opportunity, but spikes a powerful and dangerous ball towards the corner of the field, near Yena’s position. The ball flies very quickly, but Yena still has time to react and save narrowly, the ball is still in play. Lia quickly takes it and makes a setting, Chaewon drops shot but Hyunjin saves the ball once again. Next, Heejin receives the ball and raises it high for Hyewon to finish. Chance to end this game. Hyewon bounces high and smashed the ball very hard. It flies straight in the middle of the field and is not at all unpredictable. But at this moment, Lia, Shuhua, Chaewon and Yena all react very quickly and rush to catch the ball, creating a rather confusing situation on the field. When all four of them are about to collide, Lia and Shuahua promptly brake and almost fall but are still fine. Particularly, the fire of enthusiasm in Yena and Chaewon’s hearts is burning too big, they both don’t want to lose this match, so they doesn’t have time to see their teammates to dodge after being in the momentum. There is a loud bang on the head, the two of them are so fast that they both fall before the ball hits Yena’s feet and bounces on the floor. 27 – 25.

“OHHH!” a rather loud uproar resounds throughout the stands. But just a second later, laughter begins to spread everywhere. Everyone is laughing because of Yena and Chaewon, they are fierce but also funny.

Whistle! Whistle! Whistle!

Mr. Shindong blows the whistle to end the set and points at Hyewon’s team with his finger. Class 2-2 won the last game with a score of 2 – 1. All the audience applauds the winning team, but most of all, applauds for a good, dramatic and exciting match two teams just brought. Especially in the final ball phase, the match-point was very intense and the ending couldn’t be funnier.

That’s for everyone, but not for the duo.

“OUCH!” Yena and Chaewon shouts in unison. They lay on the floor and rub their heads with their hands to ease the pain, hoping that the impact will not leave any serious injuries. Both of them turn to look at each other and laugh. But it’s that they’re laughing at their own stupidity and because they’ve become a clown together for everyone to see, they’re not really having fun. Their team had just lost a humiliating match, against people who had never won them even a set, and against a newcomer, Kang Hyewon. Both of their expressions suddenly turn into an annoyed scowl.

“Get up!”, a hand reaches out in front of Yena and freezes her for a moment. After blinking once, Yena recognizes the face and looks away, not bothering to catch the hand of the waiting person.

“Let’s go eat together. My treat”, the words immediately affect Yena, she pretends to be still uncomfortable, her eyes still looking away, but accepts to hold the hand of the standing person, letting her pull up. Then, Yena quickly withdraws her hand, and at the same time took a step back.

“Aww! Hyewon, you’re so kind! I thank you in advance”, Chaewon’s cheerful voice sounds, causing Yena to turn to look. Didn’t expect Chaewon to change her attitude so quickly. She is just lifted up by Chaeyeon who is also smiling at Yena.

Yena blushes embarrassed because of her momentary pettiness, she lost her inherent friendliness because of losing a match. While all the people around are laughing and talking to each other, on the field they are rivals, fighting hard, no mercy, but before the whistle starts blowing and after the whistle ends resounded, they are still friends. That’s the spirit of sportsmanship, Yena thinks.

“Okay. Thanks. Nice to meet you”, Yena smiles shyly. She walks over and extends her hand to Hyewon, offering a handshake.

Hyewon happily shakes her hand, a bright smile on her lips. Only then, Yena realizes that Hyewon looks really beautiful, Yena is dumbfounded for another second.

“I think we will match well”, Hyewon winks mischievously and makes Yena turn her face away and cough.

“Let’s go!”, Chaeyeon speaks up and pulls Chaewon’s hand ahead, as if they are planning to become closer as well. The others quickly catch up with them and all laughs happily.

When both teams had left the gymnasium to go to the school cafeteria to have a meal before going home, somewhere in the stands there are still a few people sitting discussing the match that had just happened.

“They play so well! Who do you think is the best?”, Minju asks. Although she was completely captivated by the performance of them, she still couldn’t stop imagining in her mind: "How it would be like if Yujinie played volleyball?”

“Of course it’s Yena unnie!”, Yuri affirms and Nako subconsciously nods as well.

“I see that Chaewon unnie plays really well, right?”, Hitomi replies, her eyes shining with admiration as she recalled Chaewon’s spiking earlier, her mochi cheeks suddenly turning color pink. But that expression of Hitomi makes the person sitting next to her feel a little sad inside: “I wish I was a little taller so I could play that game too.”

“Hyewon unnie plays well too”, Yuri adds and Minju looks up at her with wide eyes wide in surprise.

While Hitomi and Nako still don’t understand what Minju’s expression means, Yuri asks for them: “What’s wrong? Is there something?”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing”, Minju replies hastily. But actually yes, Yuri just complimented Hyewon, even though she was Yena’s rival, this seems a bit weird.

“Do you guys want to go get ice cream?”, Nako suddenly asks. And then Hitomi smiles, looks over at her and nods. This immediately makes Nako feel a little warm just returned to her heart, she is happy to have said that. Although Nako loves ice cream, ice cream is the best in the world, but somehow it seems like there is someone who makes her love more, more than ice cream.

“Let's go!”, Minju and Yuri also agree. The four of them leaves together, rushing towards the ice cream shop waiting at the end of the slope in front of their school gate.

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Next chapter we will be Yujin and the things that Yena accidentally saw. JinJoo will be right back!