Seungri decided to take a walk since he wake up early this morning. He headed to the lake.  From platform view he feels the freshness of the air and the peaceful of the sound seem to be the antidote for his souls. He’s exhale a heavy breath while lay down at the wood beneath him.

“Your early today.”

Seungri open his eyes. In front of him is Jiyong. Great!! Why he always popping in front of me? He’s only keeps the question inside his mind.

They sat side by side and nothing was uttered from Seungri’s mouth. Actually Seungri wanted to ask about what happen to Jiyong’s hand, but decided to keep quiet. Both of them have drowned into the black hole. Awkward. Jiyong notice that too.

“Is there anything you want to talk?” Jiyong suddenly ask.

Seungri knows what exactly the question mean. But he still doesn’t know how to deal with him yet. He admits nowadays they don’t talk much. Their conversation only consist few words. Jiyong is the “C” in the team, it’s not that he can just ignored him like that.

 “Nothing that interests you” he answers keeping his head down.

“Look, if...”

“Just mind your own business!” Seungri snapped at Jiyong’s word.

“What’s up with the ing attitude?!!” Jiyong saw Seungri go tense and wondered at the reaction. Jiyong knew he shouldn’t react that way but like always he always loose to his temper.

"Look I just want to help, are you in trouble?" Jiyong said with sad eyes. Jiyong watched as Seungri again lowered his head and his eyes could not be seen. Seungri clearly wasn't up to talking yet. He waited a long minute before Seungri reply weakly. “Sorry. It just things really got pretty messy lately.”

Jiyong had carefully watched and listened to Seungri. Something about him made him think that he wasn't in a stable mental shape. He was just so worried about what was happening to him and how long he might last, physically and emotionally.

Seungri’s heart beating faster, he suppressed the urge to back away. Forced his face to stay neutral, not give anything away.

"Seungri. We need to talk." He heard him say. A fresh wave of dread washed through him starting with the clenching of his heart and spreading out through his limbs making his whole body feel twice as heavy. Talking was never a good idea, the truth was even worse.

Those words though, they didn't seem like they were spoken to intimidate him or force anything out of him. Seungri know better, he definitely did, he would say they were spoken with concern.

Seungri knew Jiyong’s feeling was genuine. But all he knew was that he needed to get out of this somehow. “We better get going if we don’t wanna run another lap around the field and get kill by it...”

Seungri words were filled with groans of commiseration by Jiyong. “You just go ahead. I’ll follow soon.” Seungri gave him a weak smiled before walked away.  Jiyong watched until Seungri disappear from his sight. He'd got a strange feeling which made something in his chest catch, a feeling he didn't really understand.

(Flashback)

(Jiyong's POV)

I walked into the gym. The other players on the team all looked at me as I let the door close with a loud crash. I do like to make an entrance, especially on the first day. My entrance, however, did not have the effect that I would have liked.

A small grouping of the team stood together at one corner of the gym, speaking in hushed voices. A few ignored me altogether, and resumed shooting baskets after giving me a fleeting glance. One of them, a pleasant faced young boy, cast his eyes on me a few seconds longer than the others, but resumed shooting just the same. However, he now appeared tense and deeper in concentration. The last two were the most imposing figures.

The first player caught my eye initially by the virtue of his size. He was a hulking mass, and built like a house. Overgrown muscles adorned his bare arms, and even the uniform, which I believe was extra-large, seemed two-sizes still too small. It appeared that he had more muscle mass in just one of his arms than I had in my whole body. And he was tall. He was easily a head taller than I was, despite my spiky hair.

He played, however, with unbecoming quickness and control. He had great big hands that he used to haul in any post entry pass that came even remotely in his direction. It’s just how rare it was to find a big man with mobility and ball control. And behind his stoic exterior, I saw in his eyes cunning and passion with which he played the game.

The second man was much smaller in size but no less striking. He was shorter than I was but just as solidly built. His most notable feature, however, were his eyes. His eyebrows were slanted at a severe angle and the twin orbs beneath them shone with intensity. He was able to reign in the burning desire and focus it into a sharp concentration that threatened to pierce his opponents was remarkable in itself, but to have done so at such an early age was simply amazing.

Nor was he given to any undue displays of his abilities. He simply worked his way around the semi-circle, sinking shot repeatedly from every angle, seemingly unable to miss. A small smile played on his lips as he and the larger man exchanged jokes, but other than that, he was entirely focused on each and every shot.

My observations were interrupted by a gentle tap on my shoulder. It was same pleasant faced boy that had been practicing before. I turned to him and greeted him.

"Hello, my name is ......." I held out my hand.

"I know who you are, and so does the whole school. I’m Zelo by the way." He released my hand shortly thereafter and continued to speak. "The coach won't be here for a few more minutes so let me introduce the team to you."

He gestured to the mountain of a man that had caught my attention before. "That's Teacyeon. He was a highly touted center all through out middle school. The coach personally went to recruit him to get him to come to this school. Last season he tore through the league at 17 points and 11 rebounds per game. That's almost unheard of for a freshman. He's in his second year now.

"The guy standing next to him is Seungri. He's considered to be the number one point guard in the league. He'll do everything a point guard is supposed to do. He's a great passer, defender, leader and everything else, he'll score sneakily and just kill you. He only averaged 11 points a game last season, but if you looked carefully at the stats and the games, you'll find that he scored most of them in the last 5 minutes of a game. Some scouts say that if you were to put him at shooting guard, he'll score 25 a game easily."

The young boy took a quick breath and continued. "Even more amazing is that while he gets 6 or 7 assists a game, he only turns the ball over once, maybe twice a game."

Jiyong nodded slowly, taking all this in. The boy continued to introduce the players. "We don't exactly have a starting power forward, we have two swingmen. One of them is Wooyoung. He's the best defensive player on our team and has been named one of the top five defenders in our league. The other one is Nickhun. The other players call him the Rifleman. Anything within half court range is fair game for him. Legend has it that he once hit 25 shots in a row from all along the half court line. The only problem is that he's really not that good at anything else. But when he gets going, he can put up some serious numbers.

"And that's really it for the starters. I'm probably going to be backing you up at the 2 spot. There's Minho, who'll be the second point guard. He's supposed to be some sort of genius at making passes. And, there's Fukuda, who, although he only really started 2 months ago, has freakish athleticism. I'm pretty sure that's going to be the regular rotation."

Suddenly the door open and the coach walk in. The Coach was known as the best tactical coach in the game, he had a knack for developing plays that suited his team's style of play perfectly. He was adept at making changes according to the opposition, and he was famous for revolutionizing the high school game. That being said, he was really not much of an inspirational coach. His critics pointed out his lack of ability in motivating his players, failing to get them to produce 100 percent every game.

Coach proceeded to make a short speech about the goals for the team that season and how to achieve them. He talked uncomfortably about coming together as a team, working toward a common goal, and giving a "110 Percent" every game. While the speech itself wasn't terrible, because of the awkwardness with which it was delivered, it failed to carry the impact that coach wanted to make.

Once we began the drills, however, coach relaxed significantly. He made us run the three-man-weave as a warm up. Then we split into two lines, one shooting, the other non-shooting. We shot lay ups, jump shots, pull up jump shots, and pump fake and drive. Then, coach started getting creative.

Coach set up two equal lines, one on each ends of the court. The line on the far baseline started with the ball. The first person in that line had to throw the ball end to end - it couldn't, however, bounce more than once on the way - to the other line. The recipient of the ball had to dribble the ball past the half-court line in under 5 seconds. The defender had to stop him from getting over. If the passer failed to make the full-court pass in just one bounce, he had to run line-drills, end to end. If the ball handler failed to make it across the half court line, he had to run line-drills. If the initial passer, who now was the defender, failed to make the stop, he had to run line-drills. After the exchange, the passer now went to the receiving end and vice versa. Coach had us do this until everyone had a chance to handle the ball twice. Needless, almost, to say, Fukuda and Nickhun had to run suicides every single time. I only ran once, and as for Seungri; well, he didn't have to run suicides at all.

We got a 3-minute break, and we started again. This time, we played a full court one-on-one game. Everyone lined up in a single file, and the first one in line became the defender. The second player started with the ball. First to five won the game. The winner stayed on, the loser had to run 10 suicides. Out of 14 players on the team I was second to last. Nickhun had won three straight since he started, what with his long range shooting.

It wasn't long before Nickhun had to play Seungri, who stood seventh in line. Seungri was simply too quick for the flat-footed Nickhun. The game was over quickly, the score: 5 to 1. And Seungri likewise ripped through the rest of the players; the one that had given him the most trouble was Wooyoung with his long reach and uncanny defense. That game ended 5-3.

One more game was played and won for Seungri, and he finally came to face me. I'm pretty certain that he took no small pleasure in not having had to run the suicides. I, likewise, had no intention of running them either.

I got to start with the ball. As soon as I received it, I sprinted down-court. I'd seen Seungri lock up players in the backcourt, and they lost without even getting a single shot. To make sure that that'd not happen to me, I hauled over the half court line and stood at the top of the three-point arc.

I had a few centimeters over Seungri in height, and I sought to exploit that advantage as much as I could.

Turning my back to the basket, I edged my way to the right hand corner of the key. I kept the dribble in my right hand and put my left side against Seungri and started backing him down, pressuring him back to the basket.

When I felt that I was close enough to the basket, I picked up my dribble. I now turned my back completely to Seungri and felt his forearm against my back. I head-faked to my left and pivoted back to my right, and brought the ball up to shoot.

But before I could, Seungri had cleaned swiped the ball from my grasp. I grunted in frustration and turned to retrieve the ball, but in my moment of hesitation, Seungri had already picked up the ball and left for the other basket.

I'd always thought I was pretty fast when it came to running the length of the court, but I realized then that if I could be described as being fast, then there was no way to describe the speed with which Seungri moved. I had started from the three-point arc and by the time I'd reached half court, Seungri was already at the opposite free-throw line. I had no chance of even thinking about catching up to him. He easily scored with a lay-up and glanced back at me. He flashed a smile that was anything but friendly.

"You're Kwon Ji Yong, right?"

I gritted my teeth and tried to keep all emotion from my voice. "Yeah, I am."

"You'll soon learn that that title has no meaning here. From now on, you're just a rookie." he said in a bitterly mocking tone.

I glared at him, hard. "I'll prove you wrong, you just wait."

Seungri just scoffed and turned to walk away. He stopped at the half court line and lowered into a defensive crouch. "Well? I'm waiting."

In retrospect, Seungri was right. As soon as I had entered that gym, I was nothing more than a rookie. My reputation didn't describe who I was and what I could do. I had to prove it all over again, this time to my teammates, and in turn, they would prove to be the toughest critics to convince.

I learned two things that day; Seungri was the best basketball player that I'd ever seen before in my life and running ten suicides really is like suicide.

****

A week passed by and along with it, 4 more practices. I still found it hard to believe that I'd been so thoroughly embarrassed by Seungri every single practice match. I almost thought he had a personal grudge against me. It got so bad that I almost exploded in frustration and walked out of the gym. I had been so praised by everyone around but now I had been quickly turned into Seungri’s personal whipping boy. The only thing that kept me from going off on Seungri was stemmed in my own stubbornness; there was no way that I'd let him know that he'd gotten to me.

My parents were both so excited when they found the article about me, they even had it framed and posted on the wall in my room, but What that article fails to mention is how poorly I'm playing during practices. It's all just hype; Seungri tears me apart regularly during the practice games.

There are so many good, no, great players out there. The awards that I got and what the reporters are saying, none of them mean anything anymore. I chuckled as the thoughts of recent experiences, however, have put things into perspective for me.

It wasn't long before the others started showing up and for today's practice . Coach broke us up into two teams. Every one of us has something to prove, whether it's for playing time, or for respect. We won't go down quietly.

The game started with a jump ball. The game was played to 21, win by two, by ones and twos. Taecyeon easily won the tip and Seungri started with the ball. They had the basket going from left to right, and Seungri dribbled to the top of the three-point line.

He sneered at me nastily and spoke, "Time for school, rookie."

I ignored the remark and lowered into a defensive crouch in front of him. Before I could even think to react, Seungri exploded to his right and blew right by me for a lay up.

And so the game started. Seungri was playing with more lethality than before and Zelo played with a hunger and a viciousness that arose from only the most desperate of the players.

Zelo literally was all over the place. He chased the ball down end to end and was not afraid to dive after loose balls. I could not fathom where he got such an endless supply of energy. But in all honesty, I had really no time to worry about that. I had my hands full getting by ripped apart by Seungri. I could not touch him. He had never looked more focused than he did now.

Then it happened. Nickhun came off, rubbing off Zelo by the head of the key. He rose up for the shot just as Fukuda reached him. He released the ball, but it was tipped by Fukuda. The ball clanged off the rim and Taecyeon leaped to grab the rebound. Just as the carom reached Taecyeon’s hands, Zelo exploded out of nowhere and ripped the ball out of the sky. Bodies crashed and Zelo was violently tossed the ground. He didn't let go of the ball, though, and clutched at it desperately. He slowly got up and let out a crazed roar that rang throughout the gym.

Suddenly that roar triggered something primal within him. Something that said that there was no way in hell that he was going let Seungri take him again; that he would not allow that to happen. The frustration that had been welling up inside of him finally exploded and burned white hot with passion and hunger. Unable to control himself, he got the ball and immediately went to work on Seungri.

"Come on!" I bellowed the challenge at my foe.

"Show me something, rookie!"

His eyes burned with intensity as he felt adrenaline flood every fiber of his being. This is it; this is the stuff of legends. Now is when I make my mark.

He let the inferno in his heart explode out and let the energy fill his legs. He shot forward like a torpedo. Seungri reeled back to compensate. He crossed the ball hard from his right to left, and exploded, leaving Seungri in the dust. He hurled himself forward towards the wall that was Taecyeon. He had blocked him numerous times before, but he knew it'd not happen this time. He leaped into the air and went chest to chest against Taecyeon. He felt the impact but he willed himself forward, and before he knew it, the rim was there, and he forcefully slammed the ball into the hoop. The force of the collision threw him to the ground, but he refused to stay down and shot back up again, letting a great roar escape his throat.

Seungri, ever the player, quickly recovered and received the inbounds pass from Wooyoung. He accelerated towards the other hoop and he knew he was not done yet. I chased after him, not aware of anything but my target: HIM. A mere seconds later, he was at the basket and rose up for a lay up. Still a step behind him, I threw myself into the air recklessly. I could only imagine the look on Seungri’s face as my hand closed over the ball like a hawk. I snatched the ball out of the air, but I knew that was not enough. I gripped the ball firmly in two hands and pinned it against the backboard before pulling it down. In pure rush of adrenaline, I leaped high into the air again, and screamed as loudly as I could.

I looked over at Seungri. He had a smile on his face; it was different than before – it lacked the meanness –instead, this one was filled with approval and respect.

"Not bad, rookie, not bad at all."

This is loooooooooonggggggg....to loooooooong chapter. :(