“Hey Minho!” I spun around to face the voice.

“Oh, hey coac-Mr Lee” My habits still haven’t broken. It had only been a week since the major decision.

“Minho, are you sure you want to quit? I mean, the team needs you” Mr Lee pleaded.

“I’m sorry. But I won’t.”

-

-

-

Choi Minho. I have attended Top High for since Year 7. I’ve dated almost the entire cheerleading squad and some others. But I never loved any. I’m an average height for a basketball player; 180 cm. I have brown hair and green eyes.

And recently, I have quit the basketball team.

-

-

-

“Son, you’re making a mistake.” My father told me.

“Captain, the team needs you.” My basketball team told me.

“We’re though.” My most recent ex-girlfriend told me.

“Why?!” My fans screamed.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.” The principal told me.

The entire school was in an uproar. I was, and still am, pestered constantly about my decision.

Even when I was young my father saw I had a talent for basketball. A talent that he would not go to waste. My mother was not so thrilled with the idea. She didn’t want me wasting all my time bouncing a ball up and down a court. Even after my parents divorced and I lived with my father, she still encouraged me to do something else in my life. When I called her and told her I was quitting she was overjoyed. She suggested that I should live with her down south, so I could ‘start again’ and make friends and have a normal life without basketball.

-

-

-

It was finally time for me to move. I was just packing the last few things I needed.

“Son?” I heard my father’s voice at the door.

“Come in” I saw my father walk in and look around at the bare room.

“Minho, are you s-”

I cut him off, “Dad, not this again.”

He sighed and leaned against the door. “I know, but Minho, you had stuff a bright future in basketball. I don’t get why you’re throwing it all always.”

“Dad” I picked up the tape, to close the last box. “I don’t want to play anymore. I don’t want people telling me how I should live my life. How I should play nationals. How I should become the greatest male basketball player that ever existed. How I should have friends and date people who only see the perfect basketball player. I don’t want that. It’s too much. The pressure. The expectations.”

“But son-”

“It’s my choice. I want to live my life the way I want to, before I have no life left.” I cut the sticky tape and placed scissors and tape on the floor. I sighed as I watched my dad struggling to understand what was happening. “I love you, dad. I’ll call when I’ve settled in.”

-

-

-

My mother had picked me up from my dad’s place in my step dad’s pickup truck, and drove me hundreds of kilometres to the Daeju area, from Seoul. Everything thing looked different. The city was larger. The amount of people was larger. The shops were larger. Everything just seems to have grown…larger.

“I hope you like this area, Minho.” My mother said as we past drove into a peaceful, suburb with lots of beautiful houses. “Welcome to Daeju.”  

Randal Hill was one of those places that looked like it came out of the ‘Stepford Wives’ movie. Minus the mechanical wives and the weird clothes.

“Here we are,” She pulled into the driveway in front of a massive estate, with a fountain in the front.

I was speechless.

Everything was so perfect. The house was a clean white, with a balcony at each bedroom on the top floor. The fountain was in the wall next to the freshly trimmed bushes.

“Welcome,” Out from the front door stepped out a man in his mid-forties and 2 children, a boy and a girl.

“Hello,” I waved slightly

“Honey, this Minho my son. Minho, this Yunho my husband, and his daughter, 6 year old Seohyun and our new baby boy, 6 months old Taemin.” My mother introduced, while picking up the baby boy.

I walked up to the man and shook his hand. “Nice to meet you,”

-

-

-

I came on the Thursday, so I rested and unpacked on the Friday and Saturday. They had given me the room that was on the second floor, at the front with a small balcony. The balcony alone was probably a third of the size of my old room.

On Monday, I would need to go to school again. But leaving Year 12 in the middle of term 1 isn’t the greatest thing. Luckily today was Sunday, and I was allowed to go and explore the new suburb I was in. I grabbed a few notes of money and my wallet, my phone and iPod, and went wherever my feet would take me.

I’m not sure if God was trying to tell me something or condemn me for something. But I had somehow ended up at a basketball area, and there were some school games happening. With nothing better to do I decided to watch the game. Even with all my years of playing the sport, I had never just sat down and watched a game of basketball, and I must admit it is exhilarating. I had found out that it was a girl’s match between JYP College and SME High, the school I would be attending.

I found that the match was well played and Rand High had a really good basketball team. They had won. But it wasn’t just the game that had me hooked…there was this girl.

-

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It was now Monday, and I had just entered the principal’s office. I was wearing the school uniform that my mother had brought me a day ago. The black shiny shoes annoyed me, and so did the grey pants, white button up shirt and the grey and black tie.

“Excuse me,” the receptionist looked up “My name is Lee Minho, and this is my first day at school.”

“My name is Ms White. One moment.” She typed into the computer a few words, and then started to mutter “Lee. Lee. Lee. Ah here.” She clicked a few buttons, and then the printer printed out a few sheets and picked up a book and lock.

“Here we go, Minho. This is your timetable. A school map. A lock for your locker, the locker number on the timetable. And a planner, for homework and whatever else you choose to write in it.” She placed them firmly in my hands “Have a good first day at school.”

I gave her my thanks and walked outside into the empty corridor. “Lockers? Where the hell are they?” I muttered to myself and then I looked down the corridor to find rows and rows of lockers. ‘Ah fun’ I thought sarcastically to myself. I looked at the timetable, it said ‘CHOI, MINHO. LOCKER 256.’ I looked to the lockers closest to me.

‘412…ahh ’

-

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-

After I finally found my locker and put away what I didn’t need. I checked the time.

“Well, today’s Monday, and it’s 9:20, right now…what do I have?”

I looked at the timetable again. “Well, I have different classes every day. 6 different classes with recess and lunch in between. School starts at 8:50. Homeroom until 9:10. PDHPE from 9:10 to 10:10.”

I stared at the acronym ‘PDHPE’.

‘What does that mean?!’

The room it said was ‘Field 1’. “They have more than one field?” 

‘Wait…field? Is this sport?! WHAT?! I didn’t want sport on my schedule! DAMNIT! …I knew I should have let my dad fill the forms!’

I took out the map from my pocket and folded my timetable and placed it into my pocket. “Oh the field is just through this pathway.” I followed the pathway to come to the sight, of a group of students running around the field doing laps with the teacher behind them telling them to hurry up.

“Mrs Kim!” I hear a voice yell from beside me “Someone’s here!” A boy around my age was sitting under the tree, with a cast around his left arm.

“Who is it, Josh?” I look to see the teacher, jogging towards us.

“Newbie…I guess…” he muttered and then went back to doing…whatever he was doing before.

“Hello, are you Lee Minho?”

“Yeah…I’m sorry I’m late, I got lost.” I said sheepishly.

“Well, it’s your first period of Personal Development, Health & Physical Education (PDHPE), so I’ll let you off this once. But next time you won’t be so lucky. Penalty for being late is 5 laps around the field.” She smiled and turned around to face the class who was still running. She blew her whistle before yelling “SHIM NIKKI! COME HERE!”

I winced, but quickly composed myself as a girl who was running from the front of the pack stopped and turned around to see Mrs Kim waving her arms, signalling her to come here.

“Okay Minho, Nikki is one of the best athletes I’ve got. She’ll see where you’re at.”

I nodded, and watched as the girl ran closer. ‘She looks familiar…’

“Yes, Mrs Kim.” The girl said as soon as she stopped running.

“Nikki, this is Choi Minho. He’s new. I want you to see where he’s at.”

“Okay. Follow me, Minho.” I nodded as followed Nikki to the storage shed. It had a range of many different sporting equipment. “So Minho…you know how to play anything?”

I shrugged “No, not really.” ‘Isn’t a total lie…I really don’t know any other sport than basketball’

“Oh okay…” She walked around the shed finding something to ‘test’ me with. “Here we go. Since you don’t have your sport shoes. I’ll do the harder test later.”

She pulled out a ball and 2 skipping ropes. “First up…basic throws.”

-

-

-

Basic throws wouldn’t have been bad…if I didn’t want to be noticed for sports.

Every time she threw the ball towards me, I dodged it, or I just got hit. But I regret getting hit because every time I did it hurt like hell. ‘She can sure throw a ball’

After about the first 10 throws, she said “Um…maybe we should stop…yeah, uh 5 minute rest.”

I nodded and nursed my arms. ‘They’re going to bruise,’

I sat down in the shade and just watched as Nikki dribbled the ball and played a bit of basketball. “I remember now,” I whispered. She was the girl at the game yesterday, I didn’t see her face, but the moves and her style was recognisable. ‘She is good.’

“Minho?” I was so into my own little world I didn’t notice I was staring at her.

“Huh?”

“Um…breaks over…time for skipping.”

“Skipping?” I questioned as I got up.

“Skipping will show me, how good your stamina is” She grabbed the ropes and handed one to me and kept one for herself. “I’ll join you.”

-

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-

For weeks, Nikki and I would have our own little sessions during PDHPE. The teacher wanted me to develop skills, and believe Nikki was the one to teach me.

“Yay! You finally caught the ball Minho!” Nikki gleamed, at my catch. “Now, let’s see if you can throw,”

I passed the ball to her…but it was a weak attempt and only left went half a metre forward. “Sorry,” I muttered,

“Nah, that’s okay,” she smiled and walked forward to pick up the ball. “Wanna take a break?”

“Sure,” We both walked under the tree and sat down, leaning our backs against the trunk.

“So how’s life?” She began, “I’ve heard a few things around school…”

I looked down at my arms, and unconsciously pulled on my sleeves. “Nothing too bad,” I lied, there were bruises on my arms. Due to the small amount of exercise, my muscles started to disappear, leaving quite a thin frame. I only exercised in moderate amounts in my room, just to keep my healthy.

I was also being bullied. Being the new kid, and getting close to the star female basketball player didn’t go over too well with the other guys.

“I heard Brian pushed you into the lockers, yesterday, I’m sorry about that. Ever since we broke up he’s been an to any guy close to me,” She grimaced.

BELL RINGS.

“Ahh, it’s the end of the period,” Nikki got up and dusted off her pants, and held out her hand to me.

I grabbed it, but I think she miscalculated my weight and fell forward into my body.

“Oww,” She lifted up her head, from my shoulder and then we were an inch away from each other’s lips.

Nikki was athletic, smart and drop-dead gorgeous.

I could only freeze at the contact and I could feel my heart quicken. She blinked before realising our position and she scrambled to get on her feet.

She turned away and I got up using the tree. “I’m sorry,” She muttered, I couldn’t see her face, but she sounded embarrassed.

“It’s okay,” I tried to say without stammering.

“Umm, I’m going to go now. See you later,” And without another word she moved away from me.

I didn’t see her for the rest of the week, except one day I was in the library and looked out the window. I could see Nikki playing basketball by herself, and I don’t know what possessed me...but I went down to the courts.

And the rest is history.

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A/N: This is the prequel to 'Let's Make A Bet!'

Hope it's okay...I thought I should actualy write one. :P

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