I panted.

This is tiring. Playing football last evening was a bad idea.

I wiped the sweat off my chin with the back of my hand.

“Tae!” I look up and caught the ball before dribbling it towards the goal.

As I was about to shoot it into the goal, Tao appeared in front of me.

Ah man, really? Again? This freaking tall panda needs to take a chill pill for once. Every time I wanna shoot a goal, he always appears in front of me, no matter where he’s from. From the middle of the court, the other end of the court, from Seoul, from China, from Russia or maybe from the USA, Huang Zitao will appear in front of me in just a second.

He’s too fast!

I grumbled a curse. I tried to side track him with a knee dribble and managed to bypass him.

“Score!” I shouted and dunked the ball into the net.

The buzzer beats throughout the stadium.

78 to 61.

I, Lee Tae Min, the legendary small forward of Seungri High School’s basketball team have saved the day.

People from Seungri High School start screaming in joy. Some came down from the bleachers to hug and congratulates me. Minho and Key raised me onto their shoulders.

This is victory.

It feels great, like the feeling of satin against skin, like the taste of rich chocolate melting in your mouth, like the smell of sunshine right after the rain.

 After a round of congratulations from the strangers that I have seen and some who I don’t even know, I walked back towards the bench. I took the water bottle that our manager, Hana, gave me with a word of thanks.

Ah, water, they always taste sweeter after a hard day’s work.

“That was great there, Mushroom,” I choked on the water I was drinking.

I turned to the source of the voice.

“Ah it’s you, Cowboy,” I scowled. The person scowled back at me.

As much as he hates the nickname is as much as I hate it when people call me Mushroom. The nickname got stuck on me when I, who was an idiotic 14 years old at that time, tried a bowl shape haircut.

“Now, now, guys don’t fight. Congrats, Taemin. That was one hell’a intense friendly match,” Minseok appeared from behind the Cowboy guy.

Kim Minseok, formerly known as Xiumin or to Luhan-hyung, Baozi was our senior who is now studying at Seoul University with Luhan-hyung. Both of them came all the way back to Ulsan just to watch our annual friendly match with Hyundai Foreign High School.

“Thanks, hyung,” I grinned.

The Cowboy guy tsk-ed when he saw me grinned. “You’re never nice to me are you?” he asked Minseok.

“You played well too, Kris,” Minseok chuckled. I rolled my eyes.

Kevin Wu or what he likes to call himself, Kris, is the Hyundai Foreign High School basketball captain and also, Amber’s cousin. There’s nothing special about him so there’s nothing I can say much.

“Hey, Taemin-ssi. Congratulations!” a hand tapped my shoulder.

“Thanks Lay. That was a good game,” I smiled at the dimpled guy.

Zhang Yixing, also a Chinese like Kris was the center of Kris’ team. He’s nice and he’s funny though he can be clumsy sometimes.

“Oppa!”

At that voice, Kris’ face immediately turned red. I snickered. Now you know why I don’t like him.

“Min Ji!” I screamed back as Min Ji came crashing to me in a hug. I love my sister.

“You’re the best, oppa,” she snuggled to me. I laughed and hug her tighter.

Kris scoffed at me.

“Well, well. Dumber meets her twin, dumbest,” Amber was standing beside Kris.

What a great way to ruin my day. I rolled my eyes at Amber.

For having a boy’s name, Park Young Il is pretty much unreal despite how human she looks on the outside. Her long black shiny hair is just a cover for a bald shiny head. Her long eyelashes are fake. Her pink lips look unreal. Her pale white skin is just makeup. In conjunction to her being tall and flat chested, she is surely an alien in disguise.

“What do you want, Snow Queen?” I grumbled as I let Min Ji go. Min Ji slapped me at the chest for the nick name I used.

“What?” I whined.

“Be nice to her for once,” she mumbled before walking off to Amber’s side and I noticed that Kris had turned stiff. I rolled my eyes.

I don’t understand why Min Ji is even friends with her.

Amber raised an eyebrow at me.

“Didn’t know you could play basketball, Taeminnie,” she said. Kris snickered again. I glared at him. Min Ji giggled.

I hate that nickname too. To others, in between us two, they’ll think that Taemin is a girl because they say I look like one. Not to be harsh, but the public is pretty judgmental to not even think of Min Ji as beautiful. They’re blind. 

“I’m the vice-captain, what do you expect? Of course I can play,” I said while packing my stuff.

The problem with Young Il is not just about her being a plain weird and sarcastic, she rarely smiles and she’s never nice. To be honest, the aura she has creeps the hell out of me. There was once, during elementary school, I was paired up with her for a science project which was taking care of an ant farm.

I mean, it’s an ant farm, so there’s got to be hundreds of them right? And guess what? The Snow Queen had named them all in just two days and can recognize each of them specifically. Right after the science project, she told me she wants to experiment something with them and asked me for help. Being the idiot I was when I was ten, I helped her…helped her burn the whole ant farm.

I shivered at the memory.

“How’s Kai?” I asked Min Ji.

We left after Kris' royal troops said goodbye. Lay, Tao and Minseok-hyung went to hitch a ride back home in Kris’ car. Amber went with him too, to get free dinner she reason. Lay teasingly invites Min Ji to join them but I pulled her away saying that it’s not safe. 

Min Ji frowned at the question. Since things were tense between the two childhood friends, it always make Min Ji frowned since she’s a little girl with a soft heart. I smiled melancholically.

“He’s been staring off into space since he arrived at the stadium. He didn’t even do that weird dance whenever you scored. I don’t know oppa, what should we do?” she said quietly.

Since I can’t answer her question, I ruffled her hair, “Don’t worry, Minnie, everything’s gonna be alright, okay?” She nodded.

“Dude, what took you so long? It’s freezing out here!” Sehun muttered as he pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. Kyungsoo chuckled.

“Emperor Wu came to bless me with his visit, what do you think?” They laughed at that, even Min Ji joined it. But somebody did not.

“Come on, let’s go. Before we freeze to death,” Kyungsoo said.

“The curse of Emperor Wu,” Sehun made a movement with his hands as both Min Ji and Kyungsoo laughed.

“Come on, Jjong,” I pulled at Jong In’s sleeve. He was leaning against the stadium’s wall since I arrived, staring off into the distance, probably thinking about a certain girl with messy hair and short temper.

“Huh? Oh yeah,” his head snapped at me and he gave me a small smile. We walk behind the other three who were still busily joking about the Emperor Wu.

“Min Ji said that you’ve been off the planes of Earth since last evening. You’re alright?” I broke the silence as we walk past the school gates.

He kept quiet and stared at the ground as we walk home.

Jong In may be secretive and arrogant to some, but he’s just a kid inside. Insecure, scared, a newbie when it comes to certain things.

He may not seem like it, but Jjong really cares about his friends especially Jie. Despite them growing apart, Jong In always make sure that she goes to school on time by forcing Amber to go wake the girl up every morning. He makes sure that she scores in her exams by asking Suho to tutor her. He also makes sure that she goes home safely by going to the small café owned by Mrs. Jung near the junction of our house and asking her if Jie ever did pass by.

It’s weird to some why Jong in would ever do that if he wants to ignore Jie. But for me, for us who have known them since kindergarten, we know that their friendship is too strong to even be broken by a love confession.

“Bye, Taemin! Kai!” Sehun shouted as he and Kyungsoo took a right turn at the junction. They lived in a different street than us.

“Bye,” Min Ji said as I waved back. Jong In just stared at them.

We continued walking until we reached Jong In’s house.

“You sure you’re alright?” I asked as he opens the lock of the gate of his house. He gave me a nod.

I stared at him, begging for eye contact.

“I’ll go first, oppa,” Min Ji touches my shoulder. I gave a nod and heard her footsteps getting further.

“You need to talk, Jong In,” I said pulled at his hand.

He slaps my hand away gently before pushing the gates open.

As he pushed the gates open, the sound of a door opening and closing caught our attention. Both of us turned to the house in front of his.

A girl wearing a big sweater and jeans came out of the house. Her usually messy hair was tied into a bun. As she closed the gates of her house, she took a glance at us.

“Hey, Ji Eun,” I smiled.

She nodded at me before walking off. Probably to the convenient store near Mrs. Jung’s café, she has this habit of eating ice-cream when the season was nearing winter. Half the blame can be placed on Jong In for that odd habit of hers. When we were nine, he always buy her ice-cream after we got back from the arcade even though the temperature had dropped to a negative number.

I took a glance at Jong In to see him staring at Jie’s back.

“To be honest, I miss her. I want to go back in time if I can but it's impossible. I think I ed up more than I should have,” was what Jong In said to me that night.