A friend of the young girl insisted that she should try out for an athletic sport. They were in their junior year and aside from drowning themselves in books, that friend suggested a great interactive activity. What sport, you may wonder... Football.

"Soojin-ah, I can't throw or catch. I would only be making a fool out of myself." Lynn frowned, the creases on her forehead sinking deeper into her skin as her eyebrows furrowed. She looked down at her shoe laces... they were tied in such a beautiful and perfect knot.

"Come on, Lynn. You can do it!" Park Soojin (in no way is she related to Park Chanyeol) exclaimed optimistically. "You will never know how good you are if you don't try. Do it for me?" 

Lynn contemplated, weighing the pros and the cons of trying out for the football team. If she tries out, she will be working her body and get in shape, even if it is only a try out. If she doesn't agree to the idea her friend made, she would feel as if she betrayed her friends. So the latter chose the first option-she will do it.

"Fine." Soojin jumped in glee, surprised her friend actually agreed on trying out for the girl's flag football team. 

"If you didn't want to, you didn't have to." Soojin smiled in awe, shocked that Lynn would go near sports. Right when she finished talking, Lynn's head snapped up at her friend wanting to scowl at her. "But since you love me oh so much, you agreed to it. I'm so happy!" 

"Ugh I hate you, Park Soojin."

"I love you too, awesome friend!" 

∞∞∞

That was earlier last week. Lynn is not so much of a fan of sports and yet, here she is, one week later, in her freshman year gym uniform standing in her school's gym after school. She glanced around the gymnasium and gawked at the amount of girls that signed up. If she took the time to count, there were approximately 60-70 girls from ninth grade up until twelfth grade. That was a lot of people.

"On second thought, I'm going home." Lynn was afraid. She was afraid of embarrassing herself in front of all these people. Although she knew a few people, she was still incapable of being social without her best friends with her. After all, ever since high school began, Lynn hung out mostly with Chanyeol, Kai, and Amber. Three best friends were enough to keep Lynn in her comfort zone.

Soojin's reflex was much quicker than Lynn. Before Lynn could successfully make a one-eighty degree turn, Soojin gripped onto her friend's wrist, keeping her in place. "Not so fast, young lady. Since we're already here and changed, why not give this sport a try? It's not that bad. Trust me." 

And Lynn had no choice but to believe everything her friend said.

The first flag football try out was an hour and thirty minutes long. Everyone was divided into four teams, each with an uneven amount of girls on them, but the coaches didn't mind, nor did any of the girls complained. Lynn was separated from her friend, leaving her in team two whereas her friend was team four. All of the girls were told to take a belt filed with three flags and only half of them were told to wear a jersey. The first two teams who wore the sweaty jerseys were the predator and those without them were the prey. Lynn so happened to be wearing the jersey and one of the shorter girls in her team. 

"One... two... three... GO!" The coach blew the whistle. The predators were timed on how fast they could tackle their prey, and by the time there was only one prey left, even she was out. "One minute and fifteen seconds. Not bad."

Time passed by so slow in Lynn's opinion. After several drills, she noticed that it has only been forty-five minutes into the try out. There was another excruciating forty-five minutes left to go and Lynn already wants this game to be over.

The next command from the coaches was really simple. Lynn, who was feeling uncomfortable with the lack of water and nutrients being absorbed into her body, had come back from a water break. She was seeing double vision of everything and had difficulty walking in a straight line. I should have eaten more during lunch. I'm so hungry. She thought, catching her breath from the vigorous running during the earlier activity. 

"Okay, so what I need you girls to do is simple. I need everyone to divide themselves so that there would be two lines on each half of the court. You guys will be defense, meaning you and the other defender will be responsible in ripping off at least one flag on the one with the ball (the offense). Now, the offense players will have a football thrown at you. Once you catch it, make a run to the other side of the court and try to have your flags still intact. Pretend the wall of the other side of the court is the touch-down line. Does everyone understand what you have to do?!" 

"YES!" Everyone cheered loudly, enthusiasm drooling from their mouths, with the exception of Lynn. She was completely lost and didn't know where she needed to go. Sports weren't really her forte, she knew. But for the sake of her friend, she came as to not betray their friendship. 

And so the drill went. When it was Lynn's turn to catch the ball, she failed in doing so. The football went past her and almost hit the boys (they decided to watch the try out) in the face. Luckily enough, they caught the football and threw it back at Lynn. This time, she caught it in her arms. Ready to make a run to the other side of the gym where the coach was, she pivoted her foot left and right. Half way through the court was when she fell and scarped her left elbow. Lynn didn't feel the stinging sensation but only felt the many pairs of eyes staring right at her. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at her situation. She expected at least someone to come up and help her at the very least, or even someone to ask whether she was fine or not.

But nobody did. Not one person, including Soojin, comforted her.

Lynn felt very ashamed of herself for making a silly mistake. She slowly got up from the floor and glanced around. Some of the girls resumed their drill while some girls had an irritated expression on their face. They were waiting for Lynn to pass the ball back to the thrower; in this case it was one of their coaches. As she made way to the coach, she heard snickers and laughter behind her. She turned around in curiosity - what was so funny? 

Big mistake.

The boys were laughing so hard at her fall that they had to clutch their stomach to calm down the hilarious moment that kept replaying in their mind. It hasn't even been an hour and she already made herself a fool.

After handing the ball back to the coach, she stood in the defender's line. She wasn't much of a runner, but she was willing to try. When she was up to defend the offense, Lynn put in all her strength to chase after the flag on the offense player. Luck just didn't seem to be on her side for the day. Like earlier, she fell and felt a small sting coming from her elbow. This time, she felt the stinging sensation. It wasn't pleasant, nor was the light laughter that came again. For the second time, she made a fool out of herself. Five minutes later, she made another fall, this time she fell backwards and landed on her . She felt humiliated and ashamed of coming here and having to face all these athletic students, when she was not even fit. 

The entire time, Lynn looked around the gymnasium to find her friend, Park Soojin. She saw her friend talking to few girls in line and there were smiles on their faces. What could they be talking about? Was it my fall that seemed to have amused these heartless people? She thought in wonders, hoping everything that came to her mind was not true. The only reason why she came here was because of Soojin and their friendship. She didn't want to feel the pain of losing people again. Once was enough, she didn't want to go through it another time.

The fourth time that she made a mistake, it was accidental and she had no intentions of doing what she did. Instead of reaching for the flag of the offense player, Lynn accidentally pulled on the girl's bracelet. All the beads that were on the string have fallen to the floor, clanking and rolling its way away from the owner of the bracelet. Lynn apologized many times, only to be treated terribly. "." She had heard the mutter coming from the offense player when she bent down to pick up the fallen beads. Lynn snapped her head up and looked around the gym. Once again, all eyes were on her.

"Sorry." She apologized in guilt. She never meant for that to happen. And when she turned to look at her friend, Soojin did not make eye contact with her; rather that friend of hers was talking to some girl in line again. 

Lynn was disappointed. Is she ignoring me because I'm such a shame? I mean, I embarrassed myself in front of all these people in just one hour. What else can happen to me?

True to her words, it has only been a little over an hour. Twenty-five more dreadful minutes until the try out is over for the day. And nothing was helping Lynn calm down from the humiliation she felt. She felt that it was difficult to breathe, and even though the gymnasium was large enough to fit 1400 students, she was feeling super claustrophobic. Twenty-five more minutes. She cannot wait.

-

It was four-thirty-one and the try out was finally over. Lynn was eager to change back into her regular clothes and head home to sleep. She was exhausted from the intense work-out today. 

"Sports aren't my thing. I even made a fool out of myself today." she mumbled into her pillow when she finally made it back to her empty house. Her parents were out of town again and she was feeling all alone. It has always been that way for Lynn and there was nothing she could do to change that fact.

Her eyelids felt heavy and soon, they closed on their own without Lynn's realization. Four hours later, the young girl woke up in a daze. She checked her clock and noticed it was nine o'clock. The sky was dark and she heard pots and pans clanging against each other from down the stairs. 

Strange... Mom and dad aren't home. Unless it's Chanyeol since I did give him a spare key... but there is no way he'd be here this late. Maybe it's Tao ge or Lay ge? They have a spare key too... Lynn noticed she was still in her school clothes and silently made her way to her closet. Still sticking with the assumption that it could have been Tao or Lay, she went to wash up and do her business. The idea of a burglar who decided to invade her house (since all the lights were turned off at night) did not even cross her mind. She was still feeling half-asleep and wasn't thinking straight. When she walked out the bathroom after fifteen minutes, she made her way down to the kitchen.

The person standing at the kitchen shocked her. She would have never guessed it would be him. 

author's note; I did try out for flag football today and this actually did happen to me. The only thing that is purely fiction in this story that did not happen to me was when Soojin ignored Lynn and that offense player muttered the word "" to her. I think aside from that, everything else did happen - the laughing (a little exaggerated in this chapter) and humiliation. My elbow is actually stinging still ): 

Park Soojin is just a cameo character.

AND THE QUESTION IS: WHO IS THIS 'HIM' ? :D take your guesses! (I'm afraid to break it to you all but there will be no prize for guessing it right.)